Lost in Books

The Singing Sands by Josephine Tey

2011-12-26T16:12:00.001-05:00

Protagonist: Insp. Alan Grant
Setting: Scotland Highlands, Hebrides Islands and London
Rating: 4.7

Insp. Alan Grant is on sick leave from Scotland Yard and on a train to the Scottish Highlands when a man is found dead. No concern of his -- he is on vacation -- so Grant goes on his way. But he has unwittingly picked up and taken the man’s newspaper with him. He finds a scrawled verse --"the singing sands, that guard the way to paradise" -- on a newspaper page, and those mysterious words draw him into the man’s death. Police claim he is a Frenchman who died accidentally, but Grant can’t help but believe that he is an Englishman -- because of the scratched verse -- and that his death may not have been accidental, even though he has no proof of such a thing.

This is a very introspective novel with Grant at the center, and with the mystery not even taking hold until halfway through the book. But I love Tey, and I especially loved this novel, with its slow unrevealing of the mystery. In a little over 200 pages, Grant moves from the Scottish Highlands to the Hebrides Islands to London, and we get a greater sense of who he is. Sadly, Tey died young, in her early 50s, and this is the last of her mysteries.

Elizabeth Zelvin and her mantras

2011-11-13T13:46:00.000-05:00

The Long Island chapter of Sisters in Crime recently hosted New York mystery author Elizabeth Zelvin (Death Will Get You Sober and Death Will Help You Leave Him). Zelvin, at left above, with LISINC president Marilyn Levinson, had great writing tips for other authors. Her mantras:

Just keep telling the story. Keep writing until you've finished the first draft, edit later.

Talent, Persistence and Luck help -- and sometimes you just have to do with persistence, persistence and persistence. You have to be persistent through every stage -- writing, revising, even networking.

Don't quit 5 minutes before the miracle. Zelvin said she wanted to quit many times, but she continued -- and eventually succeeded in getting her first novel published.

Nothing is wasted. Either the mistakes will teach you something or you'll be able to use the discarded material in another way.

I'm writing the best I can. Someone else may write better, or differently, but write to your ability.

More will be revealed. "I continue to see things that need fixing, that I didn't see three months ago," Zelvin said.

Zelvin has more on the writing process at Poe's Deadly Daughters, the blog she shares with five other authors.

The Vices by Lawrence Douglas

2011-08-12T12:07:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Oliver Vice
Setting: New England
Rating: 4.0
On a trip aboard the Queen Mary 2 with his mother, Oliver Vice, 41, disappears. Did he jump overboard, was it an accident, or was it murder? An unnamed narrator who says he was Vice’s closest friend exams his life for clues. Outwardly, Vice, a philosophy professor at Harkness College in New England, was doing well, with a successful career and a string of girlfriends. Yet he had sent the narrator a two-word email from the ship: “Desperately depressed.”

The Vices is no conventional mystery, as the narrator unwinds Oliver’s life, and we are pulled deeper into his story and that of his eccentric, enigmatic family: Francizka Nagy, a former model who can be ruthless, who never quite tells the truth, and who wears her two sons’ Phi Beta Kappa keys on a necklace; Vice’s twin brother, Bartholomew, a gluttonous, slightly unhinged man; and his two fathers -- his “BF,” or biological father, and the Jewish stepfather who raised him. The Vices are well-off, a wealth that is tied to distant crimes, possibly having to do with stolen Nazi art.

Told through wry humor, The Vices is as much a philosophical look at identity. For the Vice family, not everything is as it seems. Oliver, inspired by the Austrian philosopher Wittgenstein, almost mimics parts of his life. Meanwhile, the narrator has an unhealthy obsession with the Vices, to the point of dressing like Oliver; his life, too, comes to be shaped by this family. Ultimately, he does reveal many of the Vices’ secrets. And while not all our questions are answered, it almost doesn’t matter -- we’ve come to know the Vices, and that is enough.

Faithful Place by Tana French

2011-08-04T10:48:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Det. Sgt. Frank Mackey
Setting: Dublin
Rating: 5.0
Estranged from most of his family, Frank Mackey returns to his old neighborhood of Faithful Place after a suitcase is found in an abandoned flat -- a suitcase that belonged to his first sweetheart, Rosie Daly. Twenty-two years earlier, Frank and Rosie had secretly plotted to run away to England, but Rosie never showed at the meeting spot. Now, Frank tries to find out what happened, with an underlying fear that his family may be at the root of it.

As much as a mystery novel, Faithful Place is a novel about family -- a very dysfunctional one. Or as Frank describes them: “the bubbling cauldron of crazy that is the Mackeys at their finest.”

His abusive father, an alcoholic, is battling illness, and his mother is as abrasive as ever. His four siblings have never strayed far from their parents -- only Frank, who hasn’t even wanted to introduce his daughter to his family. With an unerring eye, the book also describes Frank’s relationship with his ex-wife and his 9-year-old daughter.

This book was so perfect, so captivating, that my only disappointment is that we might not see Frank Mackey again, since French uses a new protagonist in each book, usually someone who was a secondary character in a previous book (as Frank was in “The Likeness”). I’ll miss Frank, but I look forward to what French will bring us in her next book.

To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey

2011-08-04T10:23:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Alan Grant
Setting: London
Rating: 4.0
Taken from a Francis Bacon quote -- It is impossible to love and to be wise -- Tey spins a story about love and its consequences. Scotland Yard’s Insp. Grant is called in when American photographer Leslie Searle goes missing and is presumed drowned.

Grant is asked to quietly question those with whom Searle had been spending time in the English countryside, among them radio commentator Walter Whitmore, who had been on a camping/boating trip with Searle when he went missing. Searle also had been spending quite a lot of time with Whitmore’s fiancee, and the two were seen arguing just before Searle’s disappearance. Grant doesn’t think Whitmore capable of killing Searle, but he also finds it difficult to call it an accidental drowning.

This is not the strongest Tey book, but it was still very enjoyable, with a twist ending I liked.

Blood Harvest by S.J. Bolton

2011-06-06T22:24:00.000-04:00

Protagonists: Rev. Harry Laycock and psychiatrist Evi Oliver
Setting: Heptonclough, England
Rating: 4.7
Alice and Gareth Fletcher have moved into a new home on the crest of a moor with their children, Tom, 10, Joe, 6, and Millie, 2. The house is snuggled in between an old church and the even older, crumbling church, with a graveyard in their backyard. Bolton writes gothic thrillers like no one else, and from the beginning she ratchets up the tension, just by describing the moors surrounding the house: “Sometimes, when clouds were moving fast in the sky and their shadows were racing across the ground, it seemed to Tom that the moors were rippling, the way water does when there’s something beneath the surface; or stirring, like a sleeping monster about to wake up. And just occasionally, when the sun went down across the valley and the darkness was coming, Tom couldn’t help thinking that the moors around them had moved closer.”

The tension increases when we learn two girl toddlers have died in mysterious circumstances in recent years, and that Millie may now be in danger. There’s also what appears to be a female ghost (or monster?) haunting the graveyard. The Fletcher children aren’t the only one seeing and hearing things; Harry, the village’s new vicar, hears voices in the locked church -- and later, even worse occurs. Like the Fletchers, he’s having a hard time adjusting to the insular town, which still holds on to old traditions, such as the blood harvest, in which animals are slaughtered. He finds a friend, and possibly romance, in Dr. Evi Oliver, a psychiatrist with a disability. Together, they try to unravel what’s going on -- and try to prevent the Fletcher children from coming to harm.

As in previous books, Bolton starts with seriously creepy happenings -- but the story evolves and changes midstream, into more of a psychological thriller. This makes the book even more compelling. And with its short chapters, riveting plot and engaging (and sometimes sinister) characters, the story will keep you hooked. Bolton is one of my favorite thriller writers, and Blood Harvest is one of her best, so far.

Interview with Douglas Corleone

2011-06-05T12:12:00.000-04:00

Douglas Corleone has written two successful legal thrillers (his debut book won the 2009 Minotaur Book/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel Award). My review of his second book, Night on Fire, is at Reviewingtheevidence.

Below is my interview with Corleone:

Q. Your protagonist, Kevin Corvelli, is a former New York defense attorney now living in Hawaii – not unlike yourself. How much of your own experience did you use in forming him?

A. More than I’d like to admit, though not as much as readers might think. Fortunately, unlike Kevin, my legal career in New York didn’t end in disgrace. But Kevin and I both picked up and moved to Hawaii sight-unseen, so we each experienced the islands through fresh eyes, and I think I captured that experience fairly well in my debut novel, One Man’s Paradise. Kevin was imbued with many of my own flaws, including some of my insecurities, internal conflicts, and a taste for strong drink. But he’s also a talented lawyer, unafraid to use unconventional tactics and questionable courtroom techniques. Kevin practices law in a way many lawyers would if there were no consequences like ethics inquiries and contempt citations.

Q. At what point did you decide to stop practicing law and become a writer, and how difficult was it to leave behind a lucrative job for the unknown that is writing?

A. I began winding down my law practice in 2005, and first moved to Hawaii in September of that year. At the time it seemed like a fairly simple decision, but looking back I realize it was a life-changer in so many ways. I’ve since returned to the law in a different capacity; my current practice, the Corleone Law Firm, is limited to U.S. immigration law. It’s not quite as thrilling as criminal law, but on a personal level, it can be very rewarding.

Q. Were there other legal thriller or crime fiction writers who inspired you?

A. I began reading legal thrillers in high school. Some of my favorite authors were John Lescroart, Steve Martini, John Grisham, William Lashner, and Scott Turow. These writers inspired me not only to write but to go to law school. Later, I discovered the works of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammet, and I knew how I wanted to distinguish myself from other legal thriller authors – by making my novels darker and creating a lawyer-protagonist who had the capacity to become a hard-boiled investigator.

Q. And would you describe your books just as legal thrillers? I see a bit of noir or hard-boiled in them, with endings that are not all tied up happily-ever-after.

A. I think of my books as crime novels, which covers the spectrum. I was somewhat surprised - though not disappointed - when I first saw that the cover for Night on Fire read “A Kevin Corvelli mystery.” Not because my books aren’t mysteries; they are. But they’re not your typical whodunits. I’d like to think my stories are driven more by character than by plot, and that the twists and turns in Act III are simply the olives at the bottom of a dirty martini. It’s difficult to escape the label “legal thriller” when your protagonist is a criminal defense attorney and your books culminate with a trial, but again, I think of the courtroom scenes as a way to showcase the talents and flaws of Kevin Corvelli, not as a way to dig for the truth and expose a killer.

Q. Your first novel, One Man’s Paradise, won the MWA/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Award. How did that impact your writing? Did it make it easier to continue writing?

A. I found that it’s definitely easier (and much more fun) to write when you have a contract in place. Shortly before the release of One Man’s Paradise, I signed a contract with St. Martin’s Press for the next two Kevin Corvelli novels, and knowing that they’d be read by at least a few thousand people pushed me in ways writing on spec never could.

Q. Hawaii, to anyone who’s visited, is paradise. But you show a different side – even when he’s at a tourist resort, Corvelli is getting his head bashed in. What has the reaction been by locals to your books?

A. The reaction here in Hawaii has been very favorable. My latest novel received a glowing review from Hawaii’s only major newspaper, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, and both books received acclaim from Honolulu Weekly and Hawaii Book Blog. Last year, Midweek featured me and my family in an article titled “Ex-Lawyer Writes Own ‘Paradise’ After Move to Kapolei.” More recently I appeared on ABC affiliate KITV’s morning news show and KZOO’s “Thinking Out Loud” radio program, sponsored by the University of Hawaii and the Japanese Cultural Center. For the past two years I’ve given hour-long presentations at the annual Hawaii Book & Music Festival, and I’ve spoken to local book clubs and given readings at local libraries. The response at all these events has been overwhelmingly positive, and my works received favorable comparisons to the new Hawaii Five-O, which also takes a look at the seedier side of paradise.

Q. Are you working on a third Corvelli book? If so, what is it about?

A. The third Kevin Corvelli manuscript is currently with my extraordinary editor, Kelley Ragland. In the third novel, the governor of Hawaii is suspected by the FBI of hiring an international assassin known as The Pharmacist to murder his pregnant mistress. Kevin is retained not only to conduct an independent investigation, but to handle the national news media and ensure that the FBI’s suspicions do not interfere with the governor’s bid for reelection. Meanwhile, Kevin’s most loyal client, Turi Ahina, is accused of gunning down an off-duty cop on a dark street in Pearl City days after he agrees to provide the DEA information on a ruthless drug kingpin known as Orlando Masonet. The question becomes not whether Turi shot and killed the off-duty cop, but whether he did so in self-defense. In order to discover the truth, Kevin is forced to plumb the depths of police corruption and ultimately unearth some of the city’s deepest, darkest, and dirtiest secrets.

Q. Finally, what authors do you like to read?

A. I’m currently reading (and loving) Lawrence Block’s A Drop of the Hard Stuff. My taste in novels varies; in addition to the authors I mentioned above, I read everything written by Bret Easton Ellis, Irvine Welsh, Joe Hill, David Ellis, David Rosenfelt, Stefanie Pintoff, and Todd Ritter. I also love the works of Charles Bukowski and Hunter S. Thompson. Bukowski’s alter ego, Henry Chinaski, is probably my favorite character in all of fiction.

One Was a Soldier by Julia Spencer-Fleming

2011-05-29T11:42:00.001-04:00

Protagonists: Rev. Clare Fergusson and Chief Russ Van Alstyne
Setting: Millers Kill, New York
Rating: 4.8

In what may be her best book to date, Spencer-Fleming writes about the soldiers who return from war, and the scars they carry, emotional as well as physical. Clare Fergusson is among those -- she has returned from an 18-month tour in Iraq and is suffering from flashbacks; she can't function without taking uppers, downers and painkillers, mixed with alcohol, a secret she hides from everyone. She join a veteran's support group where she finds four others in similar situations: police officer Eric McCrea, who was an MP and who is unable to control violent tendencies; Will Ellis, a young man who returned as a double amputee; doctor Trip Stillman, who has suffered a brain injury and is hiding his memory issues from patients and family; and bookkeeper Tally McNabb, who had an affair with a fellow soldier. One of these people will die.

When Russ rules the death a suicide, Clare and her fellow vets disagree, and begin an investigation of their own. While there's some friction between Clare and Russ, most of the will-they or won't-they aspect of previous books is missing -- which is a good thing. Spencer-Fleming concentrates more on the mystery plot and presents us with a gripping character study of returning vets. There's still some romance, of course, and series readers will appreciate this book, too.

Talking With the Tough Guys

2011-05-14T22:44:00.000-04:00

When it comes to noir, a long-practiced form of fiction, both in book and film, how do modern-day authors put their stamp on it? That was part of a panel today at Mayhem at Bookhampton, an event at several of the bookseller's Hamptons stores. On the panel (and in photo above), from left: Reed Farrel Coleman, Justin Evans, Wallace Stroby, Ken Wishnia and Michael Atkinson (not pictured).

Coleman, who writes the popular Moe Prager series, said noir was fresh when Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett were writing, and that today's writers "work with the same themes, but we can't get away with writing those books...The themes remain the same, how they play out is different."

Atkinson, who has written two books starring author Ernest Hemingway, said the way to keep these books fresh is to focus on the characters. His Hemingway is not only the larger-than-life author, but a more nuanced character.

The authors themselves don't think of themselves as tough guys. Said Evans, who second book has just been released: "I am ever so not tough. My characters can't even change a tire." For most, being tough meant "getting through the day ... it's more like emotional toughness," said Wishnia, author of four books. For Coleman, who used to be a heating oil delivery man, "tough is when you have to go out in the freezing rain."

And tough is writing, they all agreed. There's no magic bullet, said Coleman. "This is our job. You can't just sit there," he said, making the gesture for twiddling your thumbs.

A Shilling for Candles by Josephine Tey

2011-04-24T12:43:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Insp. Alan Grant
Setting: London
Rating: 4.6
When actress Christine Clay is found dead on the beach, suspicion immediately falls on the young man whom she had been hosting at her house in the English countryside -- Robin Tisdall. Insp. Grant and the police force have enough evidence, and even a motive -- the actress had recently written a codicil to her will, leaving her California house to Tisdall, whom she had just met. But no investigation -- at least, fictional investigation -- is ever that easy. And just what did Clay mean by leaving “a shilling for candles” to her brother?

Tey’s novels have a lot of wit and charm in them. In one passage, a police sergeant assesses Tisdall, emotional one moment, composed the next: “Light-weights, these moderns. No real emotion about anything. Just hysteria. What they called love was just a barn-yard exercise; they thought anything else “sentimental.” No discipline. No putting up with things. Every time something got difficult, they ran away. Not slapped enough in their youth. All this modern idea about giving children their own way. Look what it led to. Howling on the beach one minute and then cool as cucumber the next.”

Tey doesn't exactly play fair with the reader -- we can't figure out the killer because a vital clue is withheld from us -- but I'm OK with that. When reading Tey, it's more about the journey than the arrival.

Bruno, Chief of Police by Martin Walker

2011-04-24T12:23:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Bruno Courrèges
Setting: St. Denis, Dordogne region, France
Rating: 4.4
An old man, who is a war hero and an Algerian immigrant, is killed, a swastika cut into this chest. His war medal is missing and, inexplicably, a photo from his youth, when he was on a soccer team. The death sparks racial tensions in the quiet French village of St. Denis, where Bruno Courrèges is police chief. The national police are called in to investigate, but Bruno plays a large part in the investigation.

Walker, who has lived in France, draws an idyllic French setting -- with its farmers market, its famous caves with centuries-old drawings, and patriotic parades. Bruno whips up wonderful meals, whether for a picnic or a dinner at home. But there's also a dark underside in St. Denis, and Walker brings this to life. The resolution bothered me a bit, but this was still an enjoyable book.

The Interpretation of Murder by Jed Rubenfeld

2011-04-13T11:19:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Dr. Stratham Younger
Setting: New York City, 1909
Rating: 4.6
In the book’s beginning, the author tells us the story is loosely based on Sigmund Freud’s real-life visit to the United States, where he was invited to speak at Clark University. The author says something traumatic happened to Freud during his visit; afterward, he referred to Americans as savages and blamed them for his lifelong ailments, many of which he had before his trip. Using that, the author spins a fictional murder case.

A young heiress is found bound and strangled in a New York City penthouse; the next day, a 17-year-old girl from another well-to-do family survives a similar attempt on her life. The girl, Nora Acton, has lost her ability to speak and doesn’t remember what happened to her. Dr. Younger, a fictional psychoanalyst, is asked to work with Nora to retrieve her memories. He’s also been shepherding Freud around New York City, and seeks advice from the famed psychoanalyst. Younger’s involvement deepens from the initial therapy sessions, and he joins Detective Jimmy Littlemore in unraveling the many threads of this complicated case.

Overall, I liked this book, especially the vibrant scenes portraying New York City in the early 1900s, and the historical detail. But the book had some major flaws: the story switches from third person to first person, sometimes abruptly. It was so jarring that it cut into my enjoyment of the book. Also, we’re given to believe in the beginning that Freud is a major character in the book. But as the story progresses, he’s seen less and less often. Lastly, the early parts of the book read at times like a thesis on Freud and Jung; there’s so much detail on the psychoanalysts (some of it interesting, granted) that it bogs down the main mystery.

And yet, I did like this book. And I will probably pick up Rubenfeld’s second book, the recently released The Death Instinct, which has some characters returning. I’m interested in seeing where the author takes them.

Frozen Sun by Stan Jones

2011-04-03T11:29:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Nathan Active
Setting: Anchorage and Chukchi, Alaska
Rating: 4.5
Alaska State Trooper Nathan Jones is asked by the Chukchi high school principal, Jason Palmer, to find his missing daughter, Grace, who left home 10 years ago and was last seen on The Junction, a seedy strip of bars in Anchorage. A former Miss North World, the photos of Grace show a stunning teenager. So Nathan, although not officially on the case, begins to do some digging when he's sent to Anchorage for a computer class. This causes a rift between Nathan and his girlfriend Lucy, who is jealous of Grace. But can there be something behind Lucy's jealousy? Is there another reason Nathan is going beyond the obligations of his job? In this, the third book, Jones has hit his stride. His descriptions of Alaska and the culture made books one and two very readable, but here he complements that with a strong, compelling storyline and well-drawn characters. If you like Dana Stabenow's books, I'd recommend Stan Jones.

Below are descriptions of books one and two:

White Sky, Black Ice
Nathan Active has been posted to Chukchi, not Anchorage, where he’d like to be, but he makes the best of it. In this small town, with its persistent harsh west wind, despair sometimes takes hold; suicides are not uncommon. But when two men, George Clinton and Aaron Stone, who both worked at the Gray Wolf Mine, commit what seems like suicide, Active believes that they were killed -- even though one of them, Clinton, is under a family curse, city residents say. Two other Clinton sons have committed suicide. This, the first in a series, is a nice study of small-town Alaska.

Shaman Pass
First, “Uncle Frosty” -- a native mummy that the Smithsonian has returned to the Inupiat museum in Chukchi -- is stolen, along with a harpoon and an owl amulet that had been with the body. Then a tribal elder is found dead, the harpoon impaled in his chest and the amulet in his mouth. As Nathan investigates, he finds that the death, as well as the theft, has roots in events that occurred generations ago. More than the plot, I loved this book, the second in the series, for its descriptions of the Inupiat and of Alaska, especially the isolated hunting and whaling camps and a remote mountain pass (where Jones writes a seat-gripping plane scene).

The Man in the Queue by Josephine Tey

2011-03-19T17:00:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Insp. Alan Grant
Setting: London
Rating: 4.1

When a friend sent me a box full of books late last year, I knew what my series read would be this year: Josephine Tey, who many consider one of the best crime novelists, although her books are not as popular as others Golden Age writers, such as Agatha Christie or Dorothy L. Sayers.

To that end, I started with The Man in the Queue, her first, published in 1929. In the novel, a man is stabbed and killed in a line of people waiting to get into a popular show. No one saw him stabbed and, at first, no one claims to have even noticed the man waiting in line. Scotland Yard's Alan Grant painstakingly puts together a case, going from London to Scotland in pursuit of his suspect. But this not the usual whodunnit, or even a police procedural (although it reads like one). In fact, Tey disregarded the mystery conventions, according to mystery novelist Robert Barnard. "They all have crime at their heart," he notes, "but they are as far as possible from the 'body in the library' formula." That's so with this book, which gives us a nice surprise at the end.

This is Tey's first book, but the writing is already magnificent, such as this description of late-night London: “The midnight streets of London -- always so much more beautiful than the choppy crowded ones of the daytime -- fascinated him. At noon London made you a present of an entertainment, rich and varied and amusing. But at midnight she made you a present of herself; at midnight you could hear her breathe.” Or there's this phrase describing a waiter: “A new arrival took the table opposite, and Marcel, the geniality gone from his face like snowflakes on a wet pavement, went to listen to his needs with that mixture of tolerant superciliousness and godlike abstraction which he used to all but his five favourites.”

With writing like this, I can't wait to dip back into my Tey stash!

Brooklyn by Colm Toibin

2011-03-17T09:12:00.000-04:00

Protagonist:: Eilis Lacey
Setting: Enniscorthy, Ireland, and Brooklyn, N.Y.
Rating: 4.0
This is one of those novels that sneak up on you. Eilis Lacey, a young girl from Ireland, is sent to the United States by her mom and older sister. After suffering a long, hard ship journey, and homesickness in Brooklyn, she begins to adapt and finds some happiness, working at a department store, going to night classes for accounting and finding a beau. But when a relative dies and she’s called back to Ireland, she has a choice to make: does she stay in her hometown, or return to Brooklyn. The novel is slow at first, but by the end, you are struggling along with Eilis as she tries to make a decision.

Under the Dome by Stephen King (audio)

2011-03-06T11:24:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Dale Barbara (and others)
Setting: Chester’s Mill, Maine
Rating: 4.3
At 11:44 a.m. on a beautiful Autumn day, an invisible dome clamps down over the town of Chester’s Mill, cutting it off from the rest of the country. Law and order in the small town rapidly deteriorates, with police and town officials being the first lawbreakers. And we know something -- just not what -- is going to happen on or near Halloween. Diner chef Dale Barbara, who has a shadowy past with the military, is put in charge by the “outside” -- the president and military officials. But town officials aren’t going to give up control that easily, and Dale’s very life is in danger.

This is vintage King, with great characters, including the out-of-his-mind killer and children with premonitions. In essence, it's a novel about good versus evil. And the things that spring from King’s mind -- well, no one else can write like him. It is a massive piece of work (30 audio CDs), and I do think this could have been cut down -- very much so. But King keeps us hooked, as we wonder who will survive and who won’t. On audiobook, Raul Esparza narrates wonderfully, really creeping us out at times. A tip for audiobook users: there’s a map in the print book; you can get it online at amazon.com.

The Mysterious Affair at Styles by Agatha Christie

2011-03-06T11:15:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Poirot
Setting: Village of Styles St. Mary, Essex, England
Rating: 4.5

This is the first book written by Agatha Christie (published 1920). Hastings is visiting an old friend, John Inglethorpe, at their home in Styles when his stepmother, who has recently remarried a man 20 years younger than herself, is found murdered, in her locked bedroom. While suspicion immediately falls on the new husband, Poirot believes otherwise.

I was surprised by several things: first, how Poirot is already so well-developed in this first book, as is Hastings (our narrator) and Insp. Japp. Second, although published 90 years ago, this book was written in a way that is still accessible to today’s readers. Let’s be truthful: some of the classics are not exactly pleasure reads. But Christie’s books still are. While critics might put her down for her simple characterization, these are still popular, well-loved books with enduring characters. And The Mysterious Affair at Styles was filled with enough red herrings and plot twists to leave us unsure of the killer. A good start to the challenge.

The Baker Street Letters by Michael Robertson

2011-02-25T17:05:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Reggie and Nigel Heath
Setting: London and Los Angeles
Rating: 4.6
Reggie Heath and his law firm have moved into a building on Baker Street. In the lease comes a stipulation that they answer all letters written to 221b Baker Street -- the fictional address of the fictional Sherlock Holmes. His brother Nigel, suspended from practicing law, is supposed to answer the letters, sending a form reply. But Nigel becomes too caught up in a set of letters -- the first one dating back 20 years, when an 8-year-old girl from Los Angeles wrote to Sherlock, asking for help in finding her missing father.

Soon, Nigel is on a plane to Los Angeles. Reggie follows him, but seems to always be two steps behind Nigel. Death also seems to follow Nigel -- he’s accused of a murder in London and then another in L.A. Can Reggie find him before he gets in even deeper?

It's always tricky writing a book about Sherlock, but Robertson gives it a neat twist. This is an engaging debut about two brothers, often at odds, who come together to solve a crime (or two, or three). The book has already been optioned by Warner Bros. for a television series, and the second in the series, The Brothers of Baker Street, is due to be released soon.

Crossing by Andrew Xia Fukuda

2011-02-25T16:43:00.001-05:00

Protagonist: Xing Xu
Setting: Ashland, New York
Rating: 4.0
Xing Xu is a loner in his high school, Chinese-born and shy. His only friend is Naomi Lee, beautiful and more popular. When high school kids start disappearing, Xing first tries to investigate, then becomes a suspect. Usually invisible or bullied among the mostly-white school, Xing starts coming out of his shell when a teacher notices his singing voice. Later, he's tapped to star in a school play when the lead becomes one of the disappeared students. More than a murder mystery, this is also the story of an immigrant.

The writing is spare and haunting, and the narrator -- Xing -- tugs at your heartstrings. After fleeing from China, his family settles in upstate New York, but his father dies in an accident. This is how Xing describes his life: "I went to a school where students were well bred, immaculately groomed, suave, and hip; whose parents were CEOs and doctors and partners of law firms. Not Chinatown hawkers. Not Charlie Chan kow-tow specialists who spoke in choppy, sloppy Chinglish, who took in with grubby hands crumpled dollar bills, who were told to keep the change and invariably did."

Crossing is billed as a young adult/crossover-into-adult book. It does have an unresolved ending that might leave you unsatisfied -- although, in keeping with the book, it makes a strong statement. I'd recommend this for YA readers over 13.

Review: The Vows of Silence by Susan Hill

2011-02-06T22:53:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Simon Serrailler
Setting: Lafferton, England
Rating: 5.0
A serial killer is shooting and killing young women, most of them newly married. We know the why -- chapters from the killer’s point of view show us he was spurned once by his fiancee for another man -- but not the who. In the meantime, Lafferton plans for a big fair and a bigger wedding (the royals Charles and Camilla are supposed to show). Will the serial killer strike then?

In previous books (and this series must be read in order; Vow is the fourth), Hill has been light on the crime aspect. But in this novel, she delivers a solid police procedural.

As always, there’s also a lot going on with the Serrailler family: their newly widowed father, Richard, is seeing a new woman. And Cat, back from Australia, is dealing with a serious illness in her family. There’s a new character, Helen, a widow who has begun dating a man; her fundamentalist son doesn’t approve of him. A couple of characters from previous books make an appearance, Karin McCafferty, a friend of Cat’s, and Jane Fitzroy, much more than a friend to Simon.

Hill's themes are about death, but not always the death that comes with serial killers or other crimes. She writes gracefully about families, love and life, and that makes her series, for me, a standout.

The Likeness by Tana French

2011-01-26T12:10:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Cassie Maddox
Setting: Glenskehy, a village on the outskirts of Dublin
Rating: 5.0

From the opening line (“Some nights, if I’m sleeping on my own, I still dream about Whitethorn House”) reminiscent of du Maurier’s Rebecca ("Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again"), I was enthralled with this book, part gothic, part psychological thriller and part police procedural.

Four years after Det. Cassie Maddox has left undercover work -- and her role as college student Lexie Madison -- a woman is murdered. Not only is she Cassie's exact double, but her I.D. says she is Lexie Madison. And so easily is Cassie swept into a twisted, deadly mystery -- who killed the new Lexie? Was it someone tied to an old undercover case? Or someone in the new Lexie's life? Cassie's old boss in undercover, Frank Mackey, talks her into becoming Lexie one more time -- going into Whitethorn House, a crumbling old manor where Lexie lived with four other college students.

Cassie knows it won't be easy, and it may even irreparably harm her relationship with boyfriend Sam. But the pull is strong. As Cassie says: “I don’t tell people this, it’s nobody’s business, but the job is the nearest thing I’ve got to a religion. The detective’s god is the truth, and you don’t get much higher or much more ruthless than that. The sacrifice, at least in Murder and Undercover -- and those were always the ones I wanted, why go chasing diluted versions when you could have the breathtaking full-on thing? -- is anything or everything you’ve got, your time, your dreams, your marriage, your sanity, your life. Those are the coldest and most capricious gods of the lot, and if they accept you into their service they take not what you want to offer but what they choose.”

Once entrenched as Lexie, Cassie finds that the villagers of Glenskehy have a longstanding dislike, even hatred, of Whitethorn House and its inhabitants. The house has been inherited by one of the students, and their outsider status doesn't endear them to the village. French interweaves the history of Ireland's landlord and tenant system into the plot.

French has hit all the right notes in this book: taut pacing, complicated characters and wonderful writing. Her debut novel, In the Woods, won the 2007 Edgar award for first best novel (although it had a controversial ending that I, for one, didn't like). The Likeness is far better.

Detective Fiction: From Victorian Sleuths to the Present

2011-01-07T15:45:00.001-05:00

Narrated by Prof. M. Lee Alexander of the College of William and Mary
Produced by The Modern Scholar (2010)
Rating: 4.5

In a series of lectures, Alexander presents a history of detective fiction, covering all the subgenres, from amateur (Simon Brett, Diane Mott Davidson) to hard-boiled (Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler), and from espionage (Eric Ambler, John LeCarre, Tom Clancy) and legal (John Mortimer, John Grisham) to medical and forensic (Robin Cook, Patricia Cornwell, Kathy Reichs). She also talks about historical detective fiction (Josephine Tey, Bruce Alexander), women detectives (P.D. James, Sue Grafton, Sara Paretsky), police procedurals (Ed McBain, Elizabeth George), as well as international and ethnic detectives.

In addition to all these and more authors, Alexander discusses the role detective fiction plays, as it provides commentary and criticism on the society, times and culture it reflects. A scholar who has talked about this subject before, she makes the connections between Sherlock Holmes and one of her favorite programs, House, M.D. We also get a look at current trends: detectives with disabilities (such as TV’s Monk), ecomysteries and irresolution (not only is the resolution unclear, but there’s confusion as to what justice might be in the case).

In short, Alexander covers a lot of territory. If you want an in-depth look at one genre, this is not it -- this is an overall, somewhat quick, look at detective fiction. But for an overview, it is very good, both entertaining and instructional.

Red Star Rising by Brian Freemantle

2011-01-06T15:44:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Charlie Muffin
Setting: Russia
Rating: 4.0

Charlie Muffin, an MI5 agent, is sent to the British embassy in Russia when a dead Russian is found murdered on the grounds. The dead man’s fingertips have been scorched with acid, so there’s no easy way of learning his identity. And the Russian government is insisting they retain control of the investigation. Once there, Muffin finds the British investigation has been slipshod, with the Russians taking away the body before much forensic work could be done. He also discovers that the embassy has been bugged. To complicate matters, the last time Charlie was in Russia (this is the 14th book in a series) he secretly married a KGB agent, Natalia. Together, they had a daughter, Sasha. Now, years later, Charlie tries to salvage that relationship and convince Natalia to return with him to England.

Although billed on the cover as a thriller, this is not the usual spy novel filled with car chases and dangerous undercover missions. Much of the spycraft involves a war of words and subtle techniques such as press conferences (and who attends). While the Cold War has ended, there is still much mistrust and dissembling among the Brits, Americans and Russians. Freeman has been compared to John le Carré, and this novel is very much like le Carré’s classic works, more intellectual intrigue than action -- and that’s just fine with me.

Damnation Falls by Edward Wright

2011-01-06T11:39:00.000-05:00

Protagonist: Randall Wilkes
Setting: Pilgrim’s Rest, Tennessee
Rating: 4.5

Randall Wilkes has returned to his small hometown of Pilgrim's Rest after journalistic disgrace in Chicago. With no job, he agrees to write a biography for his friend, the former Gov. Sonny McMahan. But those plans soon go awry after Sonny's mother, Faye, and her caretaker are found dead by Randall -- Faye at Damnation Falls.

Before her death, Faye, who had dementia, had uttered what seemed gibberish to Sonny about her husband, Blue, who disappeared years ago, and the bones of Civil War soldiers recently found nearby. But when the gibberish starts to make some sense, Randall abandons the book project for his own investigation.

Wright's novel falls into the "Southern gothic" heading, with plenty of family secrets, damaged father-son relationships and a small town with a local legend that may or may not be true. It's a well-told tale about the nature of truth, trust and redemption. As my first read of 2011, it's set a high standard. I hope all my other books this year are as compelling.

The Private Patient by P.D James

2011-01-05T15:18:00.001-05:00

Protagonist: Cmdr. Adam Dalgliesh
Setting: London and Dorset
Rating: 4.5
The first line says it all: "On November the twenty-first, the day of her forty-seventh birthday, and three weeks and two days before she was murdered, Rhoda Gradwyn went to Harley Street to keep a first appointment with her plastic surgeon, and there in a consulting room designed, so it appeared, to inspire confidence and allay apprehension, made the decision which would lead inexorably to her death."

With that beautifully-crafted sentence, P.D. James takes us to Cheverell Manor, a private clinic in Dorset where Gradwyn, a well-known investigative journalist, checks in to have a lifelong facial scar removed. As we know, she's murdered. In typical Jamesian manner, that's followed by another murder at the clinic.

I could never be totally dissatisfied with a James novel -- she is one of my favorite novelists, after all -- but I expected more of a wrap-up in this final novel, the 14th in the series. James, now 90, has said this will likely be her last Dalgliesh novel. And while Dalgliesh, of New Scotland Yard, does finally marry Emma Lavenham, it comes at the very end of the novel and is dealt with almost as an afterthought (three pages). James always kept Dalgliesh an enigma, and he remains so at the end of this series. While James fleshed out some of his underlings -- Det. Insp. Kate Miskin especially -- Dalgliesh always remained somewhat at a distance. And maybe that's for the best -- it's always good for some mystery to remain.

2011 Reading Challenges

2010-12-10T12:55:00.000-05:00

As if I didn't have enough to read, I've decided to join two reading challenges next year.

The first is the Agatha Christie Reading Challenge. I've been thinking about it for a year, as I follow my friend Kerrie's reading of Christie novels. I figure it will take me years to read all of Christie's novels, but I have to start somewhere, right? You can join the challenge, too, at Kerrie's site.

The second is the Ireland reading challenge. My family and I hope to make a visit next summer, so this is perfect. I'm going for the Kiss the Blarney Stone level (6 books). I'm thinking about Ian Sansom's Mobile Library series and Tana French's The Likeness, already on my TBR pile. Any ideas for me? Leave a comment, please. For more about that challenge, see here.

20 Favorite Fictional Detectives

2010-12-10T11:28:00.000-05:00

Recently, someone asked me who my favorite fictional characters have been. Many of them were detectives, mysteries being my main source of entertainment. So below is my very subjective listing of favorite fictional detectives:

1 and 2. The Bobbsey Twins and Encyclopedia Brown. These were among the first books I remember reading, and they’ve influenced many a mystery lover.
3. Sherlock Holmes. Created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in 1887, this detective is timeless. He still captures our imaginations, as can be seen by the current-day reincarnations (Robert Downey Jr. on the big screen and Benedict Cumberbatch in the current PBS series) and inspirations (the TV series House). There are many Holmes purists, but I like to see even the modern-day adaptations.
4. Inspector Morse. Colin Dexter wrote 13 novels, but mostly we know Morse through the TV series, and the late actor John Thaw. Even Colin Dexter admits that Thaw became, for him, Morse. Intellectually snobbish, pig-headed, often sharp with underling Lewis, and always unlucky in love, Morse was redeemed by his great intellect, humor and moments of vulnerability.
5. Inspector Robbie Lewis and DS James Hathaway. A spinoff from Morse, Insp. Lewis is more down-to-earth, working-class, but with a sharper edge in the new series, following the murder of his wife. Hathaway, tall and good-looking, is the intellectual here, but without the snobbery. It’s become one of my favorite PBS shows.
6. Insp. John Rebus. Ian Rankin’s creation is smart -- and smart-alecky. His demons are alcohol and women (divorced, and also often unlucky in love). Like Morse, he’s unorthodox and always battling his bosses. And like Morse, he’s also a loner and strangely vulnerable. Rankin retired him after 17 books in Exit Music. He’s been portrayed by John Hannah and Ken Stott on TV, but neither really seemed like Rebus to me. In this case, the books are definitely better.
7. Insp. Adam Dalgliesh. Ah, the poet-detective from New Scotland Yard, the silent but sensitive man. P.D. James created him in 1962 with Cover Her Face. In 2008, James, now 90, wrote what may be her last Dalgliesh novel, The Private Patient. The slowly-aging Dalgliesh is now facing retirement and married. Originally portrayed by Roy Marsden on TV, Martin Shaw took over the role later -- and, to my mind, is Dalgliesh.
8 and 9. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple. Some may criticize Agatha Christie for weak characterization, but she did give us two of the most well-known and well-loved detectives: private investigator Poirot, a retired Belgian police officer living in London (first seen in The Mysterious Affair at Styles, 1920) , and amateur detective Jane Marple, the elderly spinster of St. Mary Mead (first seen in The Murder at the Vicarage, 1930). David Suchet has long portrayed Poirot on TV, and now it’s hard to picture anyone else. Miss Marple has been played by many actresses, most notably Joan Hickson, Geraldine McEwan and Julia McKenzie.
10. DCI Jane Tennison. This ITV production (Prime Suspect) featured Helen Mirren portraying a tough-as-nails detective who often put work before family, and who slid into alcoholism as the series progressed. So well acted by Mirren, Tennison almost doesn’t seem fictional. The series is said to have served as inspiration for The Closer in the U.S.
11. Adrian Monk. Portrayed by Tony Shalhoub on the USA Network, this obsessive-compulsive private eye was funny -- and also heart-breaking, as a lonely former San Francisco police detective who now worked on his own. His two aims in life: find out who killed his wife and return to the police force. A wonderful cast backed Shalhoub: assistants Sharona Fleming (Bitty Schram) and Natalie Teeger (Traylor Howard), Capt. Leland Stottlemeyer (Ted Levine) and Lt. Randy Disher (Jason Gray-Stanford). I still miss this show.
12. Spenser. The character created by Robert B. Parker in his books came to TV with Robert Urich. I liked the books, but I really loved the TV series. Spenser is the detective you would want to date: tough and good-looking, but a gourmet cook who can quote poetry. Alas, he already had a girlfriend.
13. V.I. Warshawski. This Chicago private detective, created by Sara Paretsky, is tough, independent and no-nonsense. A little grittier than some other female detectives, and maybe a little harder to love.
14. Kinsey Milhone. In some ways, a cousin to Warshawski, although not as tough. The California detective is smart, athletic, principled -- and only owns one good dress, a black number she can scrunch up in her purse and still wear. At least Kinsey (written by Sue Grafton) has stopped giving herself haircuts.
15. Kate Shugak. Another tough woman, she’s a native Alaskan (Aleut) created by Dana Stabenow. Shugak, once an investigator for the Anchorage District Attorney’s Office, now works alone and finds herself in all sorts of situations, going undercover on a fishing boat and posing as an old field worker.
16. Samantha Kinsey. Ok, this TV detective is really light-weight, but I was hooked on the show (Mystery Woman on Hallmark) nonetheless. I could see myself as Samantha (though she was probably better portrayed by Kellie Martin): a murder mystery buff who owns a bookstore and whose hobby is photography. And, of course, always happening upon a situation where she could sleuth. Nothing that good ever happens to me. Maybe if I owned a bookstore?
17. Lt. Columbo. There were no whodunits in these TV shows -- as viewers, we knew who the killer was -- but it was still great to see the seemingly-bumbling but really-brilliant Columbo (Peter Falk) solve the case.
18. Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin. I saw the TV series (Maury Chaykin and Timothy Hutton) before every picking up one of Rex Stout’s books, and it was a case of a TV series influencing me to later read some of the books. Nero is an overweight gourmand who pays more attention to his orchids than to people, but can solve a case without even leaving his brownstone. He has his assistant, Archie, for all the legwork. The A&E series is said to have closely followed the books.
19. Aimée Leduc. Now here’s a female P.I. quite different from the others I’ve mentioned. For one thing, she lives in Paris and dresses in vintage Channel and Dior, even wearing high heels while chasing bad guys (or being chased). But she’s tough in her own right. Created by Cara Black, Leduc is half-American, half-French (there’s also a mystery surrounding her mother). She has a great sidekick in René Friant, a dwarf and computer expert.
20. Leroy Jethro Gibbs and the rest of the NCIS cast. One of the best TV shows today -- underrated, in my opinion. Great characters, great mystery story lines, a dark undercurrent, yet with lots of humor. This really is an ensemble cast, although Gibbs (Mark Harmon) is at the heart of it.

Who are your favorite fictional detectives?

Priceless: How I went Undercover to Rescue the World's Stolen Treasures by Robert K. Wittman

2010-11-13T11:05:00.002-05:00

I love to read fictional mysteries, but everyone once in a while comes a true-story book that is as good as any fiction.

Former undercover FBI agent Robert K. Wittman, writing with Philadelphia journalist John Shiffman, takes us case by case through his real-life stories: recovering a headdress belonging to Geronimo, going after well-known TV appraisers who were conning people into turning over valuables for a pittance, and working to recover a Rembrandt and Vermeer stolen in 1990 from the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston -- amid much turf squabbling and bureaucratic bungling within the FBI.

The stories are compelling, with equal doses of art history and suspense -- will he be able to fool the suspects, and pull a sting off? Is he going to be able to recover priceless paintings after missteps by a supervisor? Well, you'll have to read the book to find out.

Halloween's tricks and treats

2010-10-30T17:37:00.000-04:00

Yes, little kids dressed up in costumes are cute. But Halloween's real thrills, those are reserved for those of us who love to read about things that go bump in the night.

To that end, I have some recent treats -- and one that was a real howler.

Two recent historical fiction mysteries delve into old legends. Unholy Awakening by Michael Gregorio takes us into Napoleonic Prussia in the early 1800s, when people truly believed in the undead. When a woman is found dead with bite marks on her neck, vampire fear sweeps through the town. See my full review here.

The Demon's Parchment by Jeri Westerson is another historical novel, based on a true story. It's 1384 in London, and someone has hired Crispin Guest to retrieve a stolen Hebrew parchment -- one they believe has the power to summon a golem -- a devil. Young street urchins are also being killed -- by this same monster or someone more human?
See the full review here. Westerson writes with such detail that I want to go back and read the earlier ones in the series now.

Some things should not be resurrected. Unfortunately, that's what Dracula, The Un-dead tries to do. This sequel, written by Bram Stoker's great-grandnephew, Dacre Stoker, and screenwriter Ian Holt, is a huge disappointment. They bring back not only the characters from the classic, but also make the author, Bram Stoker, into a character as well. It's a mess. Pass on this one.

For more chilling reads, check out the special Halloween issue at Reviewing the Evidence, as well as Mystery Fanfare's list and LJ Robert's picks.

Bury Your Dead by Louise Penny

2010-10-30T02:46:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Armand Gamache
Setting: Quebec
Rating: 5.0

I love Autumn for several reasons: the beautiful, rich colors on trees, the smell of wood smoke in the air, and a new Armand Gamache novel. Reading one of Louise Penny's books has become a Fall ritual for me - and this one I've been eagerly awaiting for a year.

A year ago, The Brutal Telling ended in a bit of a cliffhanger. Could our heroic, intelligent, honorable Gamache gotten it wrong, sending an innocent man to jail? Well, Penny answers that question in this book. But that's only one of three story lines. And it is Gamache's second-in-command, Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir, who goes to Three Pines to unofficially ask questions.

Gamache, meanwhile, is in Quebec, visiting his mentor and recuperating, physically and emotionally, from a police operation that went horribly wrong, killing several agents and wounding Gamache. But when a man's body is found inside the city's Literary and Historical Society's library, where Gamache has been spending time, the Sûreté's chief inspector is pulled into the investigation.

The third story line, an emotionally wrenching look into the operation gone wrong, is revealed to us slowly. Gamache is haunted by the losses, and unable to forgive himself. Penny makes these characters seem so real that you want to be there by their side, consoling them. This is a powerful story, a bit unlike Penny's previous novels, and maybe her best to date.

Devices and Desires by P.D. James

2010-09-29T13:14:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Adam Dalgliesh
Setting: East Anglia
Rating: 4.4
Dalgliesh's aunt Jane has died, leaving him a windmill on the remote windswept headlands of Larksoken, also home to a nuclear plant. On a visit to the mill to settle her estate, he checks in with local police, who are hunting a serial killer named "The Whistler," a man preying on young women in Norfolk. When the nuclear plant's acting administrator, Hilary Robarts, is killed, in a murder made to look like the Whistler's, Dalgliesh finds himself pulled into the investigation. Robarts was reviled both within and outside the nuclear plant, so there are plenty of suspects.

This is, however, not entirely a Dalgliesh novel (although it is 8th in the series). Chief Insp. Terry Rickards of Norfolk CID is the main investigator, although he does rely on Dalgliesh, with whom he used to work, for advice. There's domestic drama going on in Rickard's life, as well, which makes him even more interesting -- but takes away from any storyline we might have had with Dalgliesh. And when the real killer is revealed, it is neither Rickards nor Dalgliesh who uncovers the truth. This is a well-written, well-plotted whodunnit -- but if you're looking for the usual Dalgliesh investigation, this one isn't it.

A Nail Through the Heart by Timothy Hallinan

2010-09-09T11:55:00.004-04:00

Protagonist: Poke Rafferty
Setting: Bangkok
Rating: 5.0

Poke Rafferty is not a private investigator. He's a travel writer who has written a "Looking for Trouble" series, mainly for men (on everything from how to bribe a cop to where the best bars are). So it's not surprising that trouble is what he finds when Rafferty takes on a P.I. job for an Australian woman, agreeing to search for her missing uncle. The man's live-in housekeeper is also gone, and this leads Rafferty to a rich, domineering woman. She, in turns, throws a lot of money at Rafferty so he can find someone else -- a man who has stolen from her.

What started as a simple investigation eventually leads Rafferty into the dark world of child pornography and a dark period in Cambodia's history, when the Khmer Rouge tortured thousands. This could have been a very bleak story, but it is just the opposite, balanced by Rafferty's personal life.

In this, the first book in the series, we meet Rafferty's girlfriend Rose, a former bar girl/prostitute who is trying to start her own cleaning business, and the street orphan Rafferty hopes to adopt, spunky 8-year-old Miaow. For a while, another street urchin, the troubled Superman, also makes an appearance in their lives.

While the different elements might not seem appealing -- child porn, a prostitute-turned girlfriend, street children with strange names -- it all works somehow. And it works wonderfully. Hallinan is a gifted writer, and his series is one I will definitely continue.

Interview with Joanna Challis

2010-08-31T11:07:00.000-04:00

If you like cozies, especially those with a gothic twist, then Joanna Challis' new series is for you. With an appealing protagonist -- the author Daphne du Maurier as a young woman -- it's sure to gain a following. Here's an interview with Challis about why she likes gothics so much:

Q. In your new series, the protagonist is Daphne du Maurier, the author of Rebecca and other novels. How did you decide on her, and how much of what you’ve written is taken from her real life?

A. Because of my love for du Maurier, Victoria Holt, and the Brontes, my agent came up with the idea of using Daphne du Maurier as a heroine in a new mystery series. Daphne appealed to me instantly -- she came from an upper-class family with good connections - an ideal starting point to build plots upon and the era -- late 1920s -- I grew to love with Agatha Cristie's Hercule Poirot. Combining the two together was an exciting concept.

Q. How do you take an iconic novel like Rebecca, and work backward, in a way, crafting a story that could have been the inspiration for Rebecca?

A. I've read Rebecca so many times I feel I know it backwards. In MURDER ON THE CLIFFS I started with a murder and built the story form there. Often, the characters determine the direction of the story and it was easy to weave the REBECCA theme into MURDER ON THE CLIFFS. The location and the setting, a grand mansion by the sea, also helped!

Q. For me, Murder on the Cliffs led me to reading Rebecca, which I had never done (although I love gothics!). What has the reaction been from other readers to your use of this wonderful gothic novel?

A. I've heard from many readers who love the connection. REBECCA is an all-time favorite with many, however, like with every book, there are critics. As a reader, I adore the old gothics and here was a chance to re-create those classic elements into new mystery with a great heroine and a great setting - beautiful Cornwall.

Q. At least one of your other books has been described as a romance. How would you describe your books -- are they gothics, mysteries, historical fiction, all of the above?

A. Historical mystery with a touch of gothic.

Q. You obviously love gothic novels. What about them appeals to you?

A. Location, location. Setting an entire novel around a grand old house. An intriguing mystery. Interesting characters. A happy ending.

Q. Your website says you started writing at 15. When did you begin achieving success as a writer, and how has your work evolved over the years?

A. I was 20 when SILVERTHORN, my first book, was published. I wrote two others (they were all e-published). SILVERTHORN became a quick favorite and was short-listed for Romantic Book of the Year in Australia. EYE OF THE SERPENT came out next (Robert Hale, UK), my first hard-cover, and also was loved by readers. For an attempt to hit the commerical market, however, my agent and I worked on the Daphne series. We knew it was a great concept and St Martin's thought so too. I have a wonderful and supportive editor at SMP. Together I hope to continue the series.

Q. Your second Daphne du Maurier book is coming out soon. Can you tell us a little about this book, and will this series continue?

A. PERIL AT SOMNER HOUSE will hit bookstores from the 26th October. I'm very excited about it. I love any book set on an island -- this one is an island off the coast of Cornwall in England. It's also set in Winter -- a house party murder-mystery.

Q. And the question I ask everyone -- who are the authors you like to read?

A. Agatha Cristie. Victoria Holt. Jane Austen. The Brontes. Any mystery really. And, of course, Daphne du Maurier!

Murder on the Cliffs by Joanna Challis

2010-08-25T15:27:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Daphne du Maurier
Setting: Cornwall
Rating: 4.0

Sometimes you're in the mood for an old-fashioned mystery. This is it -- with a twist. The protagonist is a young Daphne du Maurier, the real-life gothic author. And the events in this novel form the inspiration for her masterpiece, Rebecca. Daphne -- or the fictional version, at least -- is 21 and not interested in finding a husband, despite the pleas of her parents. Instead, she wants to go to Cornwall and explore the old abbey, the manors and the medieval inns. Her family insists she stay with Ewe Sinclaire, her mother's old nanny. But even safely ensconced, murder finds Daphne as she walks the cliffs of Cornwall.

She hears screams, and comes across the body of a young woman, who turns out to be the fiancee of Lord Hartley of Padthaway, a gothic mansion full of secret passageways and closed rooms (think Manderlay). Is the killer Lord David Hartley himself, his strange sister Lianne or their icy-cold mother? And what about that creepy housekeeper? As the person who found the body (and a person of society), Daphne is welcomed to Padthaway, becoming friendly with Lianne and catching the eye of the brooding Lord Hartley. But what interests Daphne the most is solving the mystery. Rather than being afraid of the gothic mansion, she eagerly embraces the secrets of the old house -- and the family. She's fearless, outspoken and confident -- quite unlike the main character in Rebecca.

You don't need to have read Rebecca to enjoy Murder on the Cliffs, although there are a few lines that will resonate if you've read the classic. This is a modern gothic, with an engaging heroine. Challis' second book, Peril at Somner House, will be out in October. It's one I eagerly await.

Interview with Barbara Fister

2010-08-22T13:13:00.003-04:00

Barbara Fister is the author of three crime fiction books: On Edge, In the Wind and the recently-released Through the Cracks. Below is what she has to say on writing:

Q. In addition to being an author, you’re a librarian at a liberal arts college. Why did you choose that field and have you always had ambitions to be a writer?

A. “Choose” implies actual planning was involved. In fact, I sort of fall into things. I went to library school after enjoying part-time work in the university library when I was an undergraduate and not particularly enjoying the other graduate program I was enrolled in. I applied for a job at a school that I’d never heard of and had to quiz everyone who interviewed me for the job on what is distinctive about liberal arts colleges, since my education had been at research universities. I didn’t really expect to become a professional writer, though I impressed myself in the fifth grade by writing a story about a horse that was a whole eight pages long; when I was an undergraduate I wrote a novel to see if I could do it (a whole 300 pages long!) but I was wise enough to know it wasn’t any good. I didn’t write fiction again for years, until I reached a point in my life when I needed a creative outlet to balance the rest of my life. Making up imaginary worlds is fulfilling in a way that other kinds of writing is not. I’m sure I was also influenced by my father, who was a journalist, and my mother, a self-taught polymath who read mysteries constantly.

Q. How did you come up with the character of Anni Koskinen? She seems far removed from a university librarian.

A. That’s why I like hanging out with her - though oddly enough I’ve had some librarian friends say “she’s such a librarian!” I think that’s because she has an orientation toward politics and civil liberties that maps more closely to the average librarian than the average cop. And she’s a bit of a geek. At one point in Through the Cracks, when she’s looking for connections among cases, she inputs data to create a relational tag cloud - total librarian geekery. She also has a background that provides her with street smarts from early years in the child welfare system, but with a foot in a world that looks more like mine, having been adopted by a college professor.

Q. Much of your first book in the Anni Koskinen series, In the Wind, concerns civil liberties, especially those of underrepresented groups. Why did you address those issues?

A. When I was writing In the Wind I was angry about the ways our government was responding to the 9/11 terrorist attacks, including the passage of a law that in many of its sections is an insult to the Constitution. I was struck by the way that law enforcement practices that were exposed by the Church Committee in the 1970s and repudiated by Congress were suddenly being made legal, or as legal as a law that is in conflict with the Constitution can be. And just as the civil rights movement became the target of illegal surveillance and suppression in the 1960s, even though “communism” was the supposed enemy, the fear of foreign “others” has been expanded to include immigrants of all kinds, both legal and undocumented.

Crime fiction deals with issues of justice, but often it’s justice in the abstract, a duel of wits between a clever hero and an evil antagonist, with victims scattered here and there to create tension. I’m more interested in the ways crime fiction can take a four-inch news story in the paper and imagine the world around it, and I’m fascinated by the ways anxiety (the engine for crime stories) shapes our priorities as a society.

Q. The American Indian Movement, which is a big part of that book, is a real-life group. Why focus on AIM, and were any of the events that occurred in the novel taken from real events?

A. The seed that grew into this story was planted when FBI agents arrested Sarah Jane Olsen, a completely ordinary middle-class woman in St. Paul, and charged her with being an accomplice in crimes committed by a bizarre radical group, the Symbionese Liberation Army, which she had joined decades ago. I wondered what it would have been like to lead a dual life like that, living quietly after being involved in violent radicalism. When I started mulling over a storyline, though, I didn’t want to focus on a group as peculiar as the Symbionese Liberation Army, which was stranger than fiction. Instead, I invented a radical offshoot of the American Indian Movement. AIM was formed close to where I now live and was targeted by the FBI, which made every effort to dismantle and discredit the movement.

I may also have been influenced by the fact that my house is on Dakota land taken from them in the treaty of Traverse des Sioux. Conditions got so desperately bad for the tribe a few years later, they rebelled and there was a terrible slaughter on both sides. On December 27, 1862, 38 Dakota men were hanged in the largest mass execution in the nation’s history just twelve miles from where I live.

Q. In addition to writing characters who are people of color, you have characters who are autistic and bipolar. What drives you to create these types of characters?

A. I’ve always wanted to write something about the experience families have with mental illness, partly to offer an alternative to the fairly common depiction of mental illness in crime fiction as a convenient label applied to monstrous villains who commit extravagantly nasty crimes. My brother Paul was bipolar and, like most people in his situation, was not violent but had frequent run-ins with the law. I know a lot of people with serious mental illnesses, and the problems they and their families have while dealing with any chronic illness are exacerbated by the social stigma involved. Bipolar disorder usually presents during late adolescence or early adulthood, just as people are forming their adult identities, and it can make it very difficult to get an education, develop a career, and form attachments. It’s also frustrating for families, because getting help during a crisis is often impossible. So I invented a heroine whose job in part involves dealing with such crises. Wish fulfillment? I’m not sure.

Anni’s brother is autistic, and I’m not sure where he came from. In the first draft of the book, I never used the word and didn’t really have a “diagnosis” for him. That very messy first draft had a lot of things that needed fixing, and one of the recommendations my agent made was to cut back on the number of characters. I tried to write him out of the story, but I couldn’t make sense of Anni’s character without her brother, so he stayed and I’m glad, because I like him. I think her ability to understand his perspective even though he’s mostly non-verbal has helped make her a good detective and a compassionate person.

Q. You also set your books in neighborhoods that aren’t usually seen by the tourist. What about these settings appeals to you as a writer?

A. Man, I love Chicago, and the city is all about its neighborhoods. As a quintessentially American city, it offers the kinds of contrasts that give you lots to work with, including vibrant African-American and Latino communities as well as the lingering imprint of waves of immigration, particularly from Eastern Europe. The busiest retail areas in Chicago apart from the better-known Magnificent Mile are 26th Street in Little Village, a Mexican neighborhood, and Devon Avenue on the far north side, which is primarily Indian/Pakistani but with smatterings of Russian, Georgian, and Hassidic Jewish businesses. How cool is that? And of course there’s enormous economic diversity. Many of the city blocks in parts of the South and West Sides would be right at home in the third world. Anni lives in a neighborhood that’s traditionally Puerto Rican, but also has lots of black and Mexican residents. It’s right in the path of gentrification but is also home to some pretty violent gang disputes. If fiction needs conflict, there’s plenty of it right at her front door.

Q. You now have two books in the Anni Koskinen series. Are you working on a third, and any ideas on where this series will head?

A. Yes, I am, but no, I have no idea where it might go, though at this point it involves two stories, those of a young schizophrenic client accused of murder and an outsider artist whose rather unsettling work may provide clues in a case Anni investigated years ago. I am one of those writers who works with a concept and sometimes an idea of how the crimes will be solved in the end, but otherwise no outline or plan. I’ve never been able to plot a story in advance of writing; I have to be writing to discover the story. Don’t try this at home.

Q. You’ve been active in the mystery reading community for years, especially as a moderator with the online group 4Mystery Addicts. Any surprises in going from being a reader to being a writer?

A. I think at heart I’m more a reader than a writer. When I’m making up a story, I’m thinking like a reader. What’s going to happen next? How will this character respond? I was completely ignorant of the book business, and while it has been a good education for me as a librarian to see the sausage factory up close, particularly at a time when so much is in flux, I have been surprised at how much time and energy the business angle of writing occupies writers and how much of the creative energies of writers gets sapped by anxieties surrounding publication, particularly when so little is under their control. While I enjoy the craft aspect of writing, I’m not as interested in the business end, especially sales and self-promotion. Fortunately, I like my day job.

Q. You’ve written both male (On Edge, your first book) and female protagonists. Which do you like writing the best?

A. I actually found it harder to write from a female perspective. Readers tolerate a certain intensity and edgy behavior in men that would seem obnoxious, unrealistic, or simply disturbing in women characters. Men can drink too much, but not women. Men can get obsessed and neglect relationships, but women who do that are selfish and overly ambitious. When you put a female character at risk, it’s easy to fall into that annoying “be very afraid” kind of suspense that I find oppressive. I had fun with Slovo in my first book, and I’d like to bring him back and see how he’s doing after all the high-tension drama and his slightly unhinged state of mind, but I also have enjoyed trying to develop a female character who can be the kind of hero Chandler wrote about – honorable, not afraid, fit for adventure while remaining solidly human and rooted in reality. I think with Anni I’m trying to figure out what a hero should be when the hero is a woman in the 21st century.

Q. Finally, the question I ask all authors -- which authors do you like to read?

A. My favorite question! I have been enjoying Scandinavian writers lately – Arnaldur Indridason, Johan Theorin, Jo Nesbo, Karin Fossum among them. I also love Denise Mina (Scotland), Timothy Hallinan (Thailand), John McFetridge (Canada), and Deon Meyer (South Africa). For great writing I can always turn to David Corbett, Jess Walter, and John Harvey. Oh, and Sam Reaves and Sean Doolittle and Don Winslow and Minette Walters and Alex Carr and Adrian Hyland and . . . it’s impossible to know where to stop. Whatever you think of the future of publishing, there is no shortage of great books.

In the Wind by Barbara Fister

2010-08-22T12:13:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Anni Koskinen
Setting: Chicago
Rating: 4.6
In this first book in a new series, we meet Anni Koskinen, a former Chicago cop who left the force after she testified against a fellow officer who beat a kid, leaving him brain-damaged. While she may have done the right thing, other officers made her life difficult, so Anni's gone the private investigator route. She's not been at it long when a neighborhood priest asks Anni for help. Within a matter of hours, she's involved in a high-profile case, helping defend a woman, Rosa Saenz, a grandmotherly church worker the FBI says killed a federal agent in 1977. Saenz is really Verna Basswood, a former radical with an offshoot of the American Indian Movement and a fugitive since she was accused of the crime. But her lawyer, Anni and most of the community -- with the exception of law enforcement -- believe Basswood is innocent. To complicate matters, the man she's accused of killing, Arne Tilquist, was the father of one of Anni's closest friends.

Fister has been compared to another Chicago author, Sara Paretsky (V.I. Warshawsky). This is not overblown hype. Both have tough female P.I. characters, gripping writing and use the city to great effect, exploring the neighborhoods of the working class. In the Wind also tackles the subject of civil liberties, especially those of underrepresented groups, deftly. And Fister deals with issues of autism and bipolar disorder with sensitivity -- Anni's brother is autistic and another main character is a teenager with bipolar disorder. There's a lot, in fact, packed into this novel, but it doesn't slow down the plot.

The second in the series, Through the Cracks, was released this year. Hopefully, Fister will become another Paretsky -- with a long-running series to her name.

The Devil's Star by Jo Nesbo

2010-08-03T15:36:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Harry Hole
Setting: Oslo
Rating: 4.9

Following the events in The Redbreast and Nemesis (and I highly recommend you read at least The Redbreast first), police detective Harry Hole has slipped into alcoholism. He hardly appears at work and is about to be dismissed when the department is faced with a big case -- a serial killer who is leaving pentagrams and red diamonds at each scene.

Amid his alcoholic haze, Hole has also been trying to prove that colleague Tom Waaler is corrupt. Not surprisingly, no one will listen to him. The only reason they haven’t fired Hole yet is because he’s so good at solving complicated crimes. And this is one complicated crime – what is the killer trying to tell police with the clues he leaves behind? They don’t seem to be sex crimes and there’s no link between the victims, so what is the motive?

The more Hole investigates, the more suspects there seem to be. In the end, the pieces fall together rather well, although Nesbo has weaved a complicated plot. It’s a pleasure to read crime fiction like this – with well-developed characters, a not-always-likable but intriguing detective, and a plot filled with twists and turns. In fact, if I were to recommend a Scandinavian author, it wouldn't be the flavor of the month (The Girl Who books), but Jo Nesbo.

Blue Lightning by Ann Cleeves

2010-07-05T19:02:00.000-04:00

Protagonist: Det. Jimmy Perez
Setting: Fair Isle
Rating: 5.0

Engaged now, Det. Jimmy Perez takes his fiancée, Fran Hunter, back home to Fair Isles to meet his parents, just as a fall storm starts brewing. Jimmy's parents have organized a party at North Light Field Centre, a bird observatory. The party is a success, but the next morning Jimmy is awoken early -- there's been a murder at the observatory. North Field's warden, Angela Moore, has been killed; the killer has woven white bird feathers though her dark long hair. With the storm now raging, it'll be days before other detectives and the forensics team can reach the island, so it's left to Jimmy to investigate.

Since the center was locked, it's obvious the killer is either a family member, one of the staff or one of the visitors, “twitchers” pursuing rare birds. Less obvious is who -- there are plenty of people who had reason to dislike Angela. In the midst of all this, one of the bird-watchers spots the first trumpeter swan seen in Britain. “I’d kill to find a bird like this,” one of the suspects proclaims. Yet another motive for murder!

This closed environment, with plenty of suspects, is a traditional mystery device. Cleeves even makes a nod to old-fashioned whodunits, with one of the characters contemplating, "There was an Agatha Christie book she'd read when she was a kid. A bunch of people on an island. Dying, one by one.”

But this is no Christie cozy. Amid the stark beauty of this isolated island, there’s a dark undercurrent. In fact, in the last of a quartet set in the Shetland Islands, Cleeves brings us a very dark book. (The quartet began with Raven Black, followed by White Nights and Red Bones, and I recommend reading them in order.) This atmospheric novel builds the tension slowly until its stunning denouement. I expected a good read, having liked the previous books. Blue Lightning delivers with a thunderous intensity.

The Case of the Missing Servant by Tarquin Hall

2010-06-28T10:59:00.006-04:00

Protagonist: Vish Puri
Setting: Delhi, India
Rating: 4.7
Vish Puri, a 51-year-old detective, owns Most Private Investigators, an agency that deals mostly with matrimonial issues. In this modern age, in which aunties no longer set up as many arranged marriages, parents seek out Most Private Investigators to screen prospective marriage partners. The work keeps Puri busy, along with his undercover operatives, who he's nicknamed: Tubelight, Flush, Hand Brake (his driver) and Facecream.

But his life is about to get even busier. A public litigator asks Puri for help -- he's been accused of murdering his maidservant. The servant has gone missing; a woman is found dead in town, but she may or may not be the servant (Puri only has a first name, Mary, as a clue to finding her). Also, Brigadier Kapoor, an important man, wants Puri to discredit the man engaged to his granddaughter, even though the groom seems squeaky-clean. Finally, someone is trying to kill Puri, shooting at him as he tends his rooftop chili plants. But he's so busy that he doesn't spend much time on his own murder attempt. Instead, to his utter frustration, his mother starts sleuthing, leading Puri to chastise her with: "It's not a mummy's role, actually."

This was a quirky book, filled with much humor. But it also had great detective stories and a great character in Puri, who, for all his faults, has a mind equal to Sherlock Holmes or Poirot.

Hall, who has lived in India, has a great ear for the Indian way of phrasing sentences, and wonderfully describes the sights and tastes (especially!) of India. Fortunately, the second book in the series, The Case of the Man Who Died Laughing, has just been published. I think I'll be visiting India, via Puri, soon.

Mortal Causes by Ian Rankin

2010-06-06T19:45:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Det. Insp. John Rebus
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 4.5

In this, the sixth novel in the Rebus series, Rankin really gets things humming along. Rankin, who has said before that he’s tried to show the Jekyll and Hyde nature of Edinburgh, gives us the touristy Edinburgh Festival – and a murder right underneath the noses of festivalgoers. Literally. A young man’s body is found in the underground St. Mary’s King Close, tortured and shot six times.

When it seems that Scottish nationalists and extreme hardline Irish groups are involved, Rebus is seconded to the elite Scottish Crime Squad, since he’s had previous army experience in Belfast. This suits Rebus just fine – he can travel between the two offices without his superiors knowing what he’s really up to. In the meantime, Rebus, as a favor to a priest, has also ventured into the Gar-B, a notorious housing project in Edinburgh. These two threads tie eventually. Also making an appearance is Rebus’ nemesis, “Big Ger” Cafferty, an effective alter ego for Rebus.

Along the way, there are a few more murders and Rebus serves as a punching bag for almost everyone – the bad guys, the good guys (a fellow police officer) and a lawyer with whom he’s unwisely flirted, even though he’s living with Dr. Patience Aitken.

A very good entry in a great series.

The Man From Beijing by Henning Mankell

2010-06-03T11:38:00.007-04:00

Protagonist: Birgitta Roslin
Setting: Sweden and China
Rating: 4.0
A photographer is traveling through rural Sweden when he stops at a small scenic village. But something is off: no smoke is coming out of the chimneys even though it's a cold winter day. Soon enough, he starts to stumble on dead bodies. When police arrive, they find 18 dead, one of the biggest mass slayings in Sweden. But this is not the usual police procedural. In fact, it's not the police who solve the mystery -- they arrest the wrong man -- but a judge, Birgitta Roslin, who is connected to some of the victims.

I had mixed feelings about this book. I really, really wanted to like it. It is, after all, written by the great Henning Mankell, who writes the popular Kurt Wallander series.

And this is by no means a bad book. There's much I did like: the main characters are, for the most part, strong and intelligent women. I very much liked them. The story, up to a point, held my attention. However, about two-thirds of the way through, the action switches from Sweden to China. It jarred, taking me out of the Swedish story and into a more political story involving China and Africa.

Then there was the whole premise for the murders. The killer is avenging a family wrong committed 138 years ago, but taking his revenge out on innocents. And while we get to know the killer quiet well, it was still hard to believe he'd kill for that purpose. Lastly, the translation seemed clunky. I'm sure Mankell is a wonderful writing, but it read stilted in English.

Would I recommend this book? Yes, but warily, not enthusiastically.

At Risk by Stella Rimington

2010-05-17T23:46:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Liz Carlyle
Setting: London and East Anglia
Rating: 4.5

Going into this novel, all I knew was that author Stella Rimington was former director-general of Britain's MI5 Security Service, the first woman to head the agency. I didn't expect much in the way of writing. Fortunately, I was wrong.

In her first book (she's now written five) Rimington has crafted a taut, well-written spy thriller with a strong female protagonist, Liz Carlyle, a 34-year-old agent-runner for MI5. Liz is a no-nonsense type of person, who puts personal relationships second to her work.

In this first book, post-Sept. 11, Liz and her colleagues are on the hunt for an "invisible" -- "the ultimate intelligence nightmare: the terrorist who, because he or she is an ethnic native of the target country, can cross its borders unchecked, move around that country unquestioned, and infiltrate its institutions with ease." There are actually two terrorists who have teamed up. For what purposes, we don't know immediately. What helps elevate this beyond a typical spy thriller are the well-drawn characters, including the two terrorists. In alternating chapters, we get their viewpoint, and a glimpse into what drives them.

Most of the procedural aspects also ring true and, except for a slightly over-the-top denouement, the story seems a realistic one. If you're looking for a smart spy thriller, stop right here.

Mayhem in the Hamptons

2010-05-15T20:55:00.010-04:00

For the second year in a row, the BookHampton stores in the Hamptons have sponsored some of the most notable mystery authors from New York City and Long Island at a series of talks at their three stores.

One of the most interesting of those this weekend was entitled, "What Did I Do: Choosing a Victim," with authors Nelson DeMille, S.J. Rozan (in photo), Alafair Burke, Linda Fairstein, Tasha Alexander and Andrew Gross speaking on how they pick their victims, as well as the villian. The authors acknowledged that, these days, their victims are often sympathetic people. Burke explained that, as a reader, she was tired of the victim just being "victim number 7 -- and they had no tie to the life that was lost. It was always important to me that the loss of life would be depicted."

Linda Fairstein, a former prosecutor, said she hated "flat stick characters."
"I want the flesh and blood of characters, and what that had to do with the killing," she said. "Juries don't like 'bad' victims," such as prostitutes, so as a lawyer, it was her job to "learn their life." In fiction, she does the same: "It's always important for me to create that character fully."

Even when the victim is not a good person, the authors agreed that character had to be fleshed out. Said Rozan: "You don't need to have great sympathy for the victim. You just need to understand who he is, you have to establish humanity."

In the British tradition, DeMille said, you had a murder in the library and "38 people wanted the victim dead....But if someone like a drug dealer is killed, no one else cares about him, but the detective does. That's his job."

Villians are just as important.

For Alexander, in writing the villian it's "more interesting to have a villain who's been pushed and pushed. You get a reader not to sympathize, but to understand."

Said Gross: "Good guys are static. They provide the moral lens you look through. Bad guys are the ones who create the energy of the book. That's the character the readers will be turning the page for."

And, the authors agreed, God help the writer who picks an animal as a victim. DeMille spoke about a novel in which his hero killed three dogs. "I had so much bad reaction," he said. "But all the murder and mayhem in the book -- no one noticed."

Books set in the Hamptons

2010-05-08T20:00:00.003-04:00

Lately, it seems the Hamptons has been attracting more than celebrities and Wall Street types. Crime fiction authors, too, find these East End towns of Long Island attractive. And so murder comes to the Hamptons.

Chris Knopf brings us wise-cracking, former boxer and former engineer Sam Acquillo in The Last Refuge (see review here), Two Time, Head Wounds and Hard Stop, with a spinoff series featuring Acquillo friend and lawyer Jackie Swaitkowski in Short Squeeze. Knopf, who has a home in Southampton, creates lovely images of Little Peconic Bay. But that natural beauty is in opposition to the thugs and killers who also populate the books. Knopf's Hamptons is not that of the rich and famous who crowd it during the summer, but of the blue-collar worker who lives there year-round.

In that vein, but much darker, are Daniel Judson's noir thrillers (not a series, but all set in the Hamptons): The Bone Orchard, The Poisoned Rose, The Darkest Place, The Water's Edge and The Violet Hour (see review here). His Hamptons are almost unrecognizable: deserted, dark streets late at night, haunted characters and bad guys galore -- the body count can get quite high in a Judson book.

Amagansett by Mark Mills, published in 2004, also focuses on the working-class, especially the fishermen of Long Island. This standalone is set in the summer of 1947, and much of it deals with fishing traditions and the hard life of these men, who must also battle those wanting to place restrictions on their livelihood. There is, of course, a mystery here. The book opens with two fishermen pulling in a net, only to find a beautiful -- and dead -- woman tangled in the net.

Each author writes in a very different style, but they all capture the Hamptons in a real-life way.

Dark Mirror by Barry Maitland

2010-05-03T12:32:00.005-04:00

Protagonists: DCI David Brock and DI Kathy Kolla
Setting: London
Rating: 4.6

A beautiful graduate student, Marion Summers, suddenly suffers a seizure in the reading room of London Library, and dies. The cause: arsenic. While arsenic is no longer readily available, a few of the suspects do have access to it. Even stranger: Marion had been studying the pre-Raphaelite painters, who did use arsenic in their paints and for medicinal purposes.

Did Marion kill herself? Although it seems to be a suicide, Kathy Kolla thinks not, and she continues investigating the many suspects: Marion's research tutor, her stepfather, her lover and a strange stalker. This is a strong modern police procedural, but also a good British traditional story, with echoes of the Golden Age mysteries.

We also get strong characters in Brock, who has insecurities about his current relationship with Suzanne, who has a personal interest in the case, and in Kathy, as we watch her first tentative steps in a new relationship. This is the 10th book in the series, but the first I've read. There's enough backstory that I never felt lost.
I'm only wondering why it took me long to read a book in this series. If you like British traditional mysteries (and I love them), I highly recommend this book.

The Black Book by Ian Rankin

2010-04-26T00:10:00.005-04:00

Protagonist: John Rebus
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 4.6

How can you not like a book in which the first line of Chapter 1 is: "It all happened because John Rebus was in his favourite massage parlour reading the Bible."

Much happens to Rebus in this book, the least of which is a nice relaxing massage. He's thrown out by his live-in girlfriend, Dr. Patience Aitken, so he moves back into his own flat. But because he's been renting it to students, Rebus ends up on the couch. Even a small storage room is being used -- his brother, a former drug dealer, has just moved into the apartment, as well.

Professionally, one of his detectives, Brian Holmes, is beaten up badly while he's unofficially investigating a 5-year-old murder and fire at the Central Hotel. Rebus gets hold of Holmes' black book, filled with notes of the investigation, and starts to look into it himself, bringing more problems his way. Not only is Rebus dealing with the bad guys on the outside, but within his own department there are those who are out to discredit and thwart him.

This fifth book in the series also introduces Detective Constable Siobhan Clarke, an important character in the series. And Morris Gerald Cafferty, a major antagonist throughout the books, plays a big part in the book. I've liked the previous books, but with this one, the Rebus series seriously starts to ramp up.

The Swan Thieves by Elizabeth Kostova

2010-03-29T11:45:00.007-04:00

Protagonist: Andrew Marlow
Setting: Washington, D.C.
Rating: 3.5

While the story revolves around painter Robert Oliver, his voice is mute during much of the book, and the story is told through three narrators -- principally, Marlow, his psychiatrist; Kate, his ex-wife; and Mary, his former girlfriend. Marlow is a detective of sorts: Oliver has tried to destroy a painting of Leda and the Swan in the National Gallery. Shortly after, he was taken to a psychiatric hospital, where, after a few words, he doesn't speak to Marlow again. In trying to find out why Oliver attacked the painting, Marlow learns Oliver is obsessed with a female painter from the Impressionism era -- Beatrice de Clerval (we learn more about Beatrice in old letters written between her and a relative, interspersed between the narratives).

Kostova, who wrote the bestseller The Historian, gives us a more subtle, and unfortunately less interesting, story. For hundreds of pages, we get the story of Kate and Robert (how they met, how they married, how the marriage dissolved). Then we get hundreds of pages about Mary and Robert and their romance. While the author is establishing Robert's pattern of obsession, we unfortunately get very little of the mystery. The real story is suspended until the last hundred pages.

While The Historian captivated me, The Swan Thieves suffers from the curse of the second book -- it just doesn't live up to its promise.

A Finer End by Deborah Crombie

2010-03-25T14:18:00.004-04:00

Protagonists: Det. Supt. Duncan Kincaid and Sgt. Gemma James
Setting: Glastonbury
Rating: 4.0
This seventh book in the series is quite a departure for Crombie, as it includes a lot of woo-woo. It opens with a different type of mystery -- why is Duncan's cousin, Jack Montfort, going into trance-like states during which he writes in Latin? Is the spirit of a dead Glastonbury monk possessing him? Is it related to a lost monks' chant? Monfort enlists the help of a group of people to solve this puzzle. But when one of them is attacked, he calls in Duncan, who travels to Glastonbury with Gemma.
Glastonbury is one of those places that attracts those who believe in everything from New Age to the old gods. This is true, in real life, as well. Glastonbury Abbey is where legend has it King Arthur and Queen Guinevere are buried. And Glastonbury Tor, which plays a big part in the book, is known for being home to the King of the Fairies. Crombie does paint a very vivid picture of Glastonbury, and uses those beliefs to give us characters connected to the paranormal -- a teenaged pregnant girl whose baby may be special, and a painter who is taken over by some sort of spirit when painting.

As far as Duncan and Gemma's personal lives, there is much going on, and it's always a pleasure to see where Crombie takes this storyline. I enjoyed that part of the book, but deducted points for all the use of woo-woo, which just became a bit too beyond belief after awhile.

Interview with Steve Hamilton

2010-03-22T13:19:00.003-04:00

Steve Hamilton's latest book, The Lock Artist, just blew me away. Below, he answers my questions on what it was like writing this book:

Although you've written crime fiction before, including a 7-book series, The Lock Artist seems to have gained you a whole new set of fans. Did you expect this, and what drove you to step away from a series to write this standalone?

Well, I’d actually already taken a break from the series (with Night Work in 2007), so any normal and sane person would have gone back to the series for the next book. But I just had this other idea in my head that wouldn’t go away. And for me the only way to get past that was to dive right in and find out where the story would lead. If I had known it would be two solid years of really being lost, I might have thought twice about it! (But it all worked out, I guess!)

I know why I loved The Lock Artist – it was Michael’s voice, and the fact I really came to root for him, even while he was breaking into homes and safes. How did you come up with this character, a criminal that people would love?

All I knew about him at the beginning was that he had a trauma in his past, that he couldn’t speak, and that he had this special talent for opening locks. As I got into the story, though, I realized that he was really a lot more like a young me than I could have ever imagined. I mean, not with the muteness or the locks, but just the general feeling of being an alien who doesn’t even know why he was put on this earth. When he’s digging that hole and he’s looking up at Amelia, he can’t communicate with her. In Michael’s case, he literally can’t say the words, but believe me, I couldn’t have said the words either. Not when I was that age. So I hope I was able to make him feel like somebody you should root for, because he was just a kid trying to fit in.

Do you always write in first person, and why?

For fiction, it just seems to work out that way. I like to sort of pretend to be the main character and tell the story like I’m sitting down with you over a drink. Whenever I’ve tried third person, I just feel disconnected from it. On the few screenplays I’ve worked on, however, it feels totally natural to be outside everything, looking down on the characters. So that’s how it seems to break down for me now. Prose fiction is first person, screenplays are third person.

In The Lock Artist, you alternate chapters, going back and forth between the past and the present. Why did you use this device?

I did more rework on this book than maybe all the others combined, so it’s hard to go back and remember exactly what I was thinking, but I believe it was originally a worry I had that after finally becoming a safecracker, Michael would spend the rest of the book just going from one heist to another – and that that would become sort of repetitive. That’s why I split the timeline, but as it turned out, the heists were more about the different crews he was working with, and those were so different I really didn’t have to worry about the repetition. But by then I was seeing how the split timeline was working in other ways I had never anticipated – going from becoming a safecracker at home to being a safecracker out on the road, then back again. That back and forth leading to both the middle and the end… And it’s all sounding kind of complicated now, I know. But it’s really not! I mean, I hope it’s not. I hope you just pick up the book and start reading, and it just goes.

The character Michael makes it look easy to pick locks. Is it really that easy? And how much research did you do into lock-picking and safecracking while writing this book?

Cheap locks are easy to pick, good locks are very hard. I got to learn so much from a great lock guy, and then eventually I got to work with one of the best safecrackers in the world. He’s not a criminal, mind you. He’s a totally legal safecracker and that’s all he does. He keeps flying off to new places around the world to open up safes. He was so generous and he really helped me understand what it feels like to open up a safe with nothing but your sense of touch. It’s an incredibly hard thing to do, and only a few people in the world can even come close.

For those of us who haven't read the McKnight series, can you tell us a bit about that series and those characters?

Alex McKnight is a retired Detroit police officer, living in a cabin in a town called Paradise, Michigan. It’s way up at the top of the Upper Peninsula, on the shores of Lake Superior, one of loneliest places I’ve ever seen. He’s a very solitary character, but he’s also a very loyal friend and total sucker for somebody in need, so he’s constantly finding himself right in the middle of other people’s troubles.

You’ve said that you plan to continue the McKnight series, but will you continue to write more standalones? And do you have a working idea right now for one?

I’m working on the next McKnight book now – I think I’ll always want to go back and see what he’s up to next. But at the same time I know I’ll want to keep trying new things, too. It’s all about that next thing that comes into your head. You’ve got to find out where it goes because it won’t leave you alone until you do.

Finally, what authors do you like to read?

I’ve always loved crime fiction and there are so many great authors in the field right now. I can name a few dozen of the usual suspects (Michael Connelly, Lee Child, Lawrence Block, Dennis Lehane, George Pelecanos, Laura Lippman, Harlan Coben, please stop me), but some other authors who don’t get the recognition they deserve would include Ken Bruen, Denise Mina, Steven Sidor, and Tom Piccirilli. It’s amazing to me how you can do work that’s so different and so original and still be on the same crime fiction shelf!

Shroud for a Nightingale by P.D. James

2010-03-13T18:52:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Chief Supt. Adam Dalgliesh
Setting: Heatheringfield, England
Rating: 4.1
Scotland Yard is called in after two nurses are horribly poisoned at Nightingale House, a nursing school. There are lots of motives and several suspects, although not much to connect the two deaths. Then Dalgliesh learns that one of their patients also recently died, and his instinct tells him that this death, too, is connected. In this fourth book in the series, we see James begin to flesh out her characters (including Dalgliesh, finally!) and we see a plotline that ties back to something in the past, a device we are to see James use over and over in subsequent novels.

This story also takes place in a hospital setting, something James knew very well as a hospital administrator for years. In fact, some of the hospital descriptions can get a bit tedious. But then there are other great descriptions like this that make you appreciate James so much: "On another wall was a smaller shelf holding an assortment of china cats of different sizes and breeds. There was one particularly repulsive specimen in spotted blue, bulging of eye and adorned with a bow of blue ribbon; and propped beside it was a greetings card. It showed a female robin, the sex donated by a frilly apron and flowered bonnet, perched on a twig. At her feet, a male robin was spelling out the words 'Good luck' in worms. Dalgliesh hastily averted his eyes from this abomination and continued his tactful examination of the room."

The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton

2010-03-10T01:28:00.002-05:00

Protagonist: Michael
Setting: Michigan, New York and Los Angeles
Rating: 5.0
Teenager Michael is a good kid basically, with a few quirks -- he hasn't talked since a childhood incident left him traumatized (and we don't find out what that is until the last 50 pages of the book) and he has two special skills. First, he's a very good artist. Second, he can pick any lock, a self-taught skill. This second skill lands him in trouble when he agrees to help high school buddies with a prank -- and that one bad decision leads him further and further into a life of crime, as he becomes an invaluable "boxman," someone who can open any safe. But even as his options narrow, Michael hopes for an escape from his life of crime. Although Michael doesn't speak, it's his voice that tells the story, in a compelling first-person narration. If you read this book, give yourself a few hours. You won't want to put it down.

Kissed a Sad Goodbye by Deborah Crombie

2010-03-05T16:48:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Gemma James and Duncaid Kincaid
Setting: Isle of Dogs, East End of London
Rating: 4.6
The body of Annabelle Hammond, director of an old family firm of tea merchants, is found on the Isle of Dogs in the Docklands area. Aggressive in business and in her personal life, she had, as one character says of her, "a talent for getting what she wanted, sometimes ruthlessly so." Engaged, Annabelle nevertheless had an intimate affair with street musician Gordon Finch, and she may also have had a relationship with his father, Lewis, a well-known developer. In turn, Lewis Finch and Annabelle's father, William, were once childhood friends, but no longer speak to each other.

Amid this web, Crombie also interweaves the history of the Docklands, and flashbacks to when William Hammond and Lewis Finch were evacuated during World War II as children. At the heart of these books is the continuing relationship between Gemma James and Duncan Kincaid. In this one, Gemma finds herself attracted to another man, as Duncan comes to terms with being a father to 11-year-old Kit. This is the sixth in the series, and my favorite so far (although I do have another seven in the series to read).

Magic City by James W. Hall

2010-03-05T16:42:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Thorn
Setting: Miami, Fla.
Rating: 4.0
The reclusive Thorn leaves his home in Key Largo to visit Miami for a few days in this novel. He's prepared to show his commitment to girlfriend Alexandra, taking care of her father Lawton, who has dementia, while she's in police training for a few days. But on the first day, two men try to break into Lawton's house, looking for a photo taken in 1964, during the Cassius Clay-Sonny Liston fight. The photo is important enough for several people to lose their lives, and Thorn is caught in the middle as he tries to find out why.

Hall can write evocatively, especially when depicting Miami, both 1960s and present-day. Every once in a while, he throws in a description of a neighborhood, and not the ubiquitous South Beach we get in every TV depiction of South Florida, but the real neighborhoods in which people live. Writing about the mostly Hispanic Hialeah, he says: "The farther north they traveled, the more congested the neighborhoods grew. Every store sign and billboard was in Spanish, tobacco shops and Latin supermarkets and cafeterias with serving windows that opened onto the sidewalks, drawing groups of leathery men in guayaberas with their paper cups of cafe cubano. Thorn recalled that Hialeah was a Seminole phrase meaning "high prairie." Though as far as he could see, the only spaces that might qualify as prairies were the vast asphalt parking lots."

But where Hall falls short is in his over-the-top plotting and even more over-the-top characters. In the end, these were drawbacks for me, especially when one of those OTT characters is the main protagonist. A shame, because I really liked spending time in Hall's South Florida.

The Help by Kathryn Stockett

2010-02-25T01:17:00.004-05:00

Protagonists: Skeeter, Aibileen, Minny
Setting: Jackson, Miss., 1962
Rating: 5.0
During one of the most turbulent years in Mississippi during the Civil Rights struggle, 22-year-old Skeeter returns home and, wanting to be a writer, strikes on an idea: write about the lives of black maids, "the help." She does this with the aid of maids Aibileen and Minny. They have to do it furtively, though, since such a project could turn dangerous. Everyone who had read this book before me told me it was great -- and everyone was right. The dialogue, the story, the tension, the history -- all were done wonderfully.

I don't want to say much, so as not to spoil the book, but one note of caution -- if you listen to it on audiobook (as I did) be careful when driving. It's hard to see the road through the tears.

(Audiobook narrated by Jenna Lamia, Bahni Turpin, Octavia Spencer and Cassandra Campbell)

Unnatural Causes by P.D. James

2010-02-25T01:08:00.002-05:00

Protagonist: Supt. Adam Dalgliesh
Setting: Monksmere, England
Rating: 4.0
No, this is not a new book. This is the third in a series (I'm reading those P.D. James books I haven't read yet). In this novel, there's no rest for Dalgliesh, even on vacation in Monksmere (Suffolk). While Dalgliesh is visiting his aunt Jane, writer Maurice Seton's body is found floating nearby in a dinghy, his hands cut off. Not only is this gruesome, but the death mimics what would have been the opening chapter of Seton's new book -- suggested by another writer who lives in the community. Then the postmortem shows that Seton's death was of natural causes, despite the chopped-off hands. Dalgliesh, of course, still suspects murder. James gives us a clever plot, but what's most interesting about this early book is that James begins to develop Dalgliesh. We see Dalgliesh, a widower, struggle as to whether he should give up the single life he enjoys for marriage to Deborah Riscoe (who we met in the first book), and we get a snatch of his poetry.

Keeping it Short

2010-02-21T10:21:00.009-05:00

As part of a reading challenge for February, I tackled two books of short stories this month. Now, short stories are not my favorite -- I usually feel as if they leave something wanting, a sort of reading lite.

The challenge didn't entirely convert me, but I did read some wonderful short stories. The best of writers do know how to write short while also fleshing out plot, characterization and setting in just a few pages.

Mysterious Pleasures, edited by Martin Edwards
Rating: 4.4
In honor of the 50th anniversary of the Crime Writers' Association in 2003, the group put out this collection, including some original short stories written just for this anthology. While I didn't enjoy every single story (some just fell flat), I'm very glad to have read this book. It introduced me to some writers who I've now added to my TBR list. And there were some excellent short stories in this anthology. In "One Morning They'll Hang Us," Margery Allingham's Albert Campion solves a case before even visiting the crime scene. Reginald Hill, in "The Game of Dog," has Peter Pascoe and his dog joining a group of dog-walking men at the pub -- and wondering whether a pub game led to murder. Ruth Rendell's "When the Wedding Was Over" sees Michael Burden get married, while Chief Insp. Wexford solves a minor mystery. There's also an offering by the late Dick Francis, "The Gift," which revolves around an alcoholic sports writer who might have the story of his life. Editor Martin Edwards (himself a mystery writer) has assembled a collection that offers us some of the very best mystery writers. If, like me, you want a taste of short stories, this is a good place to start.

A Good Hanging by Ian Rankin
Protagonist: Det. Insp. John Rebus
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 4.8
I could read Rankin's short stories all day -- he's that good. What I also like about this collection is that they add to Rebus' characterization and that, taken together, they read as one story -- just a story of one Rebus case after another. The title story is about a student hanging during the Edinburgh Festival. In order to solve the crime, Rebus must attend a Shakespeare play which holds a vital clue. In "Not Provan," it seems a guilty man will go free at trial -- unless Rebus can break his alibi. And in "Sunday," we see Rebus on a free Sunday, a seemingly ordinary Sunday, as he does laundry, makes coffee, cooks a steak ... then we learn it's not just any other Sunday. If you've somehow skipped the Rebus short stories (and there's another collection of them in Rankin's The Complete Short Stories), I highly recommend them.

Mistress of the Art of Death by Ariana Franklin

2010-02-07T19:50:00.005-05:00

Protagonist: Vesuvia Adelia Rachel Ortese Aguilar
Setting: Cambridge, England, 12th century
Rating: 5.0
It’s hard to combine history with a mystery thriller – and, in fact, some people have taken issue with some of the historical details of this novel – but for my part, this was a gripping, entertaining read. It’s the year 1170, and the King of England has asked his cousin, the King of Sicily for help. Children are being murdered in Cambridge, and the populace has blamed the Jews, shutting them in a castle. But Henry Plantagenet is anxious to clear the Jews, for they are the money lenders, and therefore very valuable in raising tax revenue. The King of Sicily sends a team of three to help – Simon of Naples, a highly skilled investigator, Adelia Aguilar, a sort of coroner, or “mistress of the art of death,” and Mansur, a Saracen and eunuch sent to protect Adelia. When a young boy Adelia has befriended is kidnapped, the hunt becomes even more frantic.

Into this mix throw in a bit of romance (which could get dicey, but adds to the novel’s enjoyment here as Adelia debates with herself marriage versus her career as physician) and a substory involving the Crusades. There are also several plot twists, even after the killer is found out. All in all, a highly enjoyable Medieval mystery.

The Complaints by Ian Rankin

2010-02-07T10:19:00.007-05:00

Protagonist: Malcolm Fox
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 4.7
Insp. John Rebus has retired, so from Rankin we now get a different type of cop: Malcolm Fox, who works for The Complaints and Conduct, the cops who investigate other cops. He and his team have just finished a case involving veteran officer Glen Heaton, meaning The Complaints has stirred up some more anger. Fox is also dealing with his sister, who is being physically abused by her live-in boyfriend, when he's asked to start investigating another cop who worked with Heaton, this time as part of an online child pornography group. Before Fox can even begin, he gets a call from that same officer, Jamie Breck, with news that his sister's boyfriend has been killed. Although Breck is one of the main investigators and this might appear a conflict of interest, Fox's boss tells him to continue investigating Breck. He does -- and finds Breck to be intelligent, charming, very likable. Can he really be a pedophile? And what about all the coincidences starting to build up?

The novel is all about rights and wrongs, as we try to figure out just which cop is bent -- and which is honest. As Fox mulls:

He wondered: did it bother him that the world wasn't entirely fair? That justice was seldom sufficient? There would always be people ready to pocket a wad of banknotes in exchange for a favour. There would always be people who played the system and wrung out every penny. Some people -- lots of people -- would keep getting away with it.

'But you're not one of them,' he told himself.

Rankin gives us a great story, a great protagonist and more than enough reason to believe there's life after Rebus.

There's a good interview with Rankin about this book and future plans at macleans.ca.

Red Bones by Ann Cleeves

2010-01-31T14:27:00.003-05:00

Protagonist: Jimmy Perez
Setting: Shetland Islands
Rating: 5.0

This has one of the best opening scenes ever (but to tell you more would be to spoil it). Insp. Jimmy Perez is back. This time his sidekick is Sandy Wilson, a young detective and not the sharpest knife in the block. But Sandy is instrumental, as much of the story revolves around his family. An archaeological dig in Whalsay, on land owned by his family, becomes the site of two deaths -- maybe murder? -- after a set of bones is uncovered by the archaeological team.

Cleeves writes a well-plotted mystery, but I like her books as much for the setting -- the Shetland islands, remote and beautiful -- and characters that feel like real people. This is the third in a quartet, and like the other books, it deals with long-hidden secrets and the insularity of the islands. One of the young archaeologists captures it well when she says: "Once the fog rolls in you feel as if the world outside doesn't matter at all. People here lose any sense of proportion. Tiny incidents that happened years ago fester and take over their lives."

13 Steps Down by Ruth Rendell

2010-01-27T00:14:00.002-05:00

Protagonist: Mix Cellini
Setting: Notting Hill, London
Rating: 4.8
In this psychological thriller, Rendell gives us Mix Cellini, a troubled young man who is obsessed with a beautiful model, Nerissa Nash, to the point of becoming a stalker. He's also obsessed with Reginald Christie, a serial killer from the 1940s and '50s. He reads all he can about the notorious doctor and, one late night, even believes he sees Christie's ghost outside his flat. Cellini is also deeply superstitious, especially when it comes to the number 13, which also happens to be the number of steps leading to his flat, the attic room of an old ramshackle Victorian. Cellini's landlady, Gwendolen Chawcer, is an elderly spinster who spends her days and nights immersed in books and who has her own obsession, a doctor she once had a "relationship" with -- even if it was 50 years ago and the relationship didn't extend beyond tea and cakes at her house. Then there is the beautiful Nerissa, who has fallen in love with her family's neighbor, a young man she doesn't even know that well and who doesn't seem to notice her. As the novel progresses, Cellini becomes even more and more unhinged. As a reader, you know it'll all end badly -- but we don't know how or why. It's a story that unwinds slowly, continuing to surprise us, even on the last page.

Devil's Trill by Gerald Elias

2010-01-24T10:16:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Daniel Jacobus
Setting: Berkshires and New York City
Rating: 3.7
At the Grimsley Competition for young violinists at Carnegie Hall, a rare and valuable Stradivarius violin is stolen, even though it had been in a locked room and guarded by two security guards. Daniel Jacobus, a blind, reclusive and crotchety former violinist who now teaches, is a suspect -- he dislikes the competition and the group that hosts it, the Musical Arts Project Group. As he tries to help solve the theft -- with Nathaniel Williams, the investigator for the company that had insured the violin, and Yumi Shinagawa, a 19-year-old student fresh from Japan -- a MAP member is murdered, and Jacobus is a suspect in the murder, as well. The story is written by someone who has been a violinist, composer, conductor and teacher -- so there's much insight into the world of music, and the fierce competition that is sometimes seen. And Jacobus, for unlikable as he can be, is a compelling protagonist. For a debut novel, Devil's Trill is good. But there are still some annoying quirks. For example, the author tries to be too cutesy with puns. It's not just one character who loves musical puns -- but just about every character. After awhile, it grates, and actually lowers the enjoyment of what otherwise is a good mystery.

Trivia: The Devil's Trill is indeed a real-life sonata, by Giuseppe Tartini. There are various versions on YouTube -- all the more enjoyable for having read the book. Here's one performed by Elias himself.

Talking About Detective Fiction by P.D. James

2010-01-17T13:17:00.003-05:00

P.D. James, one of the greats of modern mystery novels, give a concise history of the detective genre (mostly British) in this slim volume, and you can tell she knows her stuff, from Wilkie Collin's "The Moonstone" to contemporary crime fiction such as Ian Rankin's Rebus series. While others have written histories of mysteries, with James we get her viewpoint -- and she's certainly not shy about expressing her own opinions.

Of Agatha Christie, she writes that "perhaps her greatest strength was that she never overstepped the limits of her talent" -- but she's also generous to Christie, saying she produced mysteries of "extraordinarily imaginative cunning" and writing that Christie brilliantly broke the rules, as in "The Mousetrap" and "The Murder of Roger Ackroyd." Describing Golden Age mysteries, James writes that readers like them because "Whatever our secret terrors, we are not the body on the library floor. And in the end, by the grace of Poirot's little grey cells, all will be well -- except of course with the murderer, but he deserves all that's coming to him. All the mysteries will be explained, all the problems solved and peace and order will return to that mythical village which, despite its above-average homicide rate, never really loses its tranquillity or its innocence."

This is a fast read -- a couple of hours. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in British mysteries and definitely for fans of P.D. James.

The Second Midnight by Andrew Taylor

2010-01-17T13:02:00.003-05:00

Protagonists: Hugh Kendall and Michael Stanhope-Smith
Setting: London and Prague, WW II
Rating: 5.0

This is a spy, yet not a spy, story. In 1939, before the war, a minor spy is killed in Prague. Agent Michael Stanhope-Smith sends businessman Alfred Kendall as a courier, but the situation becomes more complicated, and Kendall ends up leaving his young son, Hugh, in Prague, as a promise that he'll return. But he never does, as Prague is taken over by the Nazis. Hugh does what he needs to survive, ending up, finally, as a gardener for a good-hearted German officer and his family. He lives above the stables where, every night, he experiences two midnights -- there are two clocks that chime the midnight hour, but one is slower than the other. Hugh falls in love with the German's daughter, Magda, but is hated by the son, Heinz. As the war ends, he must try to make his way back to England as the family flees. The books spans from 1939 to 1963, and in a way is an epic, the story of the Kendalls, as well as Stanhope-Smith, whose life becomes intertwined with the family.

This is very loosely part of the Blaines trilogy, but Blaines himself only has a very small part (a few pages) in this book. As Andrew Taylor says on his website: "This is a trilogy only in an informal and retrospective sense. The links between the books are unobtrusive and developed almost without my noticing. These are espionage novels, but with a difference - the private lives of the spies and their families are more important than their public actions. Indeed, the former tend to influence the latter, often in unexpected ways."

As always in Taylor's books, the characterization is excellent and the book is well worth reading.

Pope Joan by Donna Woolfolk Cross

2010-01-10T14:05:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Joan Anglicus
Setting: Ingelheim, Frankland, and Vatican City, Dark Ages
Rating: 4.4
The author takes the sketchiest of legends -- that for two years a woman disguised as a man sat on the papal throne -- and fleshes out a full novel of what it would have been like to have lived such a life. Born in A.D. 814 to an English canon and a Saxon woman, Joan grows up with a desire to study, fueled by an older brother. Although only her brothers are allowed to study, her father grudging consents to letting her brother's tutor also teach Joan. Impressed by her bright mind, the tutor arranges for her to continue at a palace school -- the only girl there. As Joan grows into womanhood, she falls in love with the knight Gerold. But she is soon parted from him after a Viking attack kills most of the villagers. She escapes, disguised as a man, and enters a monastery, where she learns the art of healing. Forced to flee there, as well, before her gender is uncovered, she ends up at the Vatican as the pope's personal physician. It's here that her life intersects again with Gerold -- at the moment that she's offered the papacy herself.

While Cross makes a good argument that a female pope could have existed, she also notes that the work is entirely fictional. In a conversation with our book club, Cross said she wrote Joan not as a woman of great faith, but as a woman who had only one option to fulfill her desire to learn -- to live her life as a man. The book has now been made into a movie, although it is still waiting for a U.S. distributor to pick it up. Whether one believes that a female pope existed or not, this book vividly portrays what life must have been like in the Dark Ages, especially for a woman like Joan.

Dorothy Sayers and a January challenge

2010-01-10T13:36:00.005-05:00

As part of a reading challenge for January (read books with numbers in the title), I picked up two Dorothy L. Sayers books I've been meaning to read for several years now. My favorite Sayers books are those with Harriet Vane in them, but I still enjoyed these two. One of the Golden Age era dames, Sayers is till much loved, for the wit and humanity her novels bring. These two, for the most part, are very much in the vein of puzzle books:

Five Red Herrings
Protagonist: Lord Peter Wimsey
Setting: Galloway, Scotland
Rating: 4.2
An unlikable painter is killed, and his murder made to look like an accident. But Wimsey detects right away it is murder. There are six fellow painters who had reason to kill him -- and most of them don't have a good alibi. Working with local police, Wimsey figures out who the five red herrings are -- and who the killer is. There were many names to keep track of (I had to keep a cheat sheet) and much of the plot revolved around train schedules (I didn't even try to keep track of those!). In the end, the vital clue is a pretty simple one, although Wimsey's solution also needs to make sense of those train tables.

The Nine Tailors
Protagonist: Lord Peter Wimsey
Setting: East Anglia, England
Rating: 5.0
One of Sayers' most renowned works, The Nine Tailors is not about nine people who mend clothes, but about church bells -- the title signifying the nine teller strokes that mark the passing of a man. Wimsey, in addition to solving crimes, has practiced change-ringing. So a few months after enjoying the hospitality of the Rev. Venables, rector of Fenchurch St. Paul, and helping with an all-night bell toiling, Wimsey receives a call for help from the minister -- someone has buried the body of a stranger in the parish graveyard. An emerald necklace stolen years ago and never recovered also comes into play. Sayers draws a beautiful portrait of a country church in the fens with her descriptions of bell toiling (See here for a quick YouTube explanation) and of a country life that revolves around the church: "The congregation streamed out from the porch, their lanterns and torches flitting away into the whirling storm like sparks tossed from a bonfire." This is one of Sayers' best regarded novels, and for good reason: the ending is still one of the best written in crime fiction.

Best 2009 Reads

2009-12-23T18:51:00.003-05:00

It's that time of the year: when we begin to reflect on the past year. For reviewers and other readers, that means their best reads of the year. Janet Rudolph has an impressive collection of best mystery lists at her blog. Of course, these lists often serve to remind us of the many books we did not get around to reading! But, given that constraint, I offer my own list of books I most enjoyed reading this year (some were published this year, but not all). They are:

Shatter, Michael Robotham
A Rule Against Murder, Louise Penny
The Brutal Telling, Louise Penny
A Darker Domain, Val McDermid
Echoes From the Dead, Johan Theorin
The Shanghai Moon, S.J. Rozan
Bleeding Heart Square, Andrew Taylor
The Last Refuge, Chris Knopf
River of Darkness, Rennie Airth
The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie, Alan Bradley
The Coroner’s Lunch, Colin Cotterill

With best wishes for many good reads in 2010!

The Shanghai Moon by S.J. Rozan

2009-12-23T17:56:00.003-05:00

Protagonists: Lydia Chin and Bill Smith
Setting: New York City
Rating: 5.0

It is very rare that I fall in love with a story on the first page. Yet The Shanghai Moon pulled me in immediately, spinning a yarn that was as alluring as the Shanghai Moon itself -- a legendary piece of jewelry at the center of the story. Private eye Lydia Chin is hired to help track stolen jewels dating back to World War II, when Jews fleeing the Nazis went to Shanghai. The story is told in flashback through a series of letters from the jewels' original owner, Rosalie Gilder, and by her surviving family. But someone is not telling the truth, and even after being fired from the case, Chin, with partner Bill Smith, can't let go.

Now, mysteries with jewels are nothing new (Wilkie Collin's The Moonstone is considered the first detective novel). But Rozan spins her story around two independent women -- Rosalie, a young woman sent alone to Shanghai with her younger brother (and this part is based on the very-real Jewish settlement in Shanghai during World War II) and Lydia, whose ringtone is the theme to "Wonder Woman" but who is also very rooted in the Chinese traditions. Set in New York City, Rozan very much brings the sights, smells and yes, even tastes, of Chinatown to life.

The Shanghai Moon is part of an award-winning series, but this novel can be read on its own (in fact, I haven't read any of the other novels -- yet -- and had no trouble following the characters). It's been seven years since Rozan has written a Chin/Smith novel. All I can say is, welcome back!

A Darker Domain by Val McDermid

2009-12-19T17:53:00.003-05:00

Protagonist: Det. Insp. Karen Pirie
Setting: Fife, Scotland
Rating: 4.7

In 1984, a miner goes missing during a strike. His family believes that he's joined strikebreakers in another part of Scotland. But, more than 20 years later, Mick Prentice's daughter is trying to find him -- and she can't. Her son needs a bone marrow transplant to survive, and her father is the last hope for a match. Seemingly unrelated, a year later, Catriona MacLennan Grant, daughter of a powerful businessman, and her baby son are kidnapped. Catriona is killed, but the baby disappears. Now, a journalist vacationing in Italy has found a clue that may lead to the kidnappers. Both cold cases land in DI Pirie's lap, and both, unsurprisingly, are related. McDermid does a wonderful job of switching back and forth not only between time and place, but also between characters. Pirie is so well-drawn, in fact, that it's a shame this is a standalone novel, and not a series. The book is gripping, and moves at a quick pace. I would have given it a perfect rating except that some of the revelations were easy to figure out. Still, even when I thought I had it all figured out, McDermid had a few more curveballs to throw.

Bleeding Heart Square by Andrew Taylor

2009-12-06T11:39:00.003-05:00

Protagonists: Lydia Langstone and Rory Wentwood
Setting: Bleeding Heart Square, London, 1934
Rating: 5.0

Lydia Langstone is an upper-class woman used to the finer things. But when her husband strikes her, she leaves her comfortable life to share a gritty apartment with her estranged father in the somewhat seedy Bleeding Heart Square. Rory Wentwood, a journalist who has spent years in India and is now unemployed, also finds himself renting an apartment there. The legend of the square has it that the devil, disguised during a party, danced away with a lady, leaving her body on the square, her bleeding heart on the cobblestones. Now, someone is sending apartment owner Serridge hearts and skulls. Could it have something to do with Miss Penhow, the middle-aged spinster who owned the apartments before she fell in love with Serridge? Miss Penhow mysteriously disappeared a few years ago, and now Rory, acting on behalf of his one-time fiancee Fenella, is trying to find out what happened. Lydia soon becomes involved in the mystery, as well.

While Bleeding Heart Square is most assuredly a mystery, Taylor's books are so much more, this one being a Dicksensian tour of the have's and have not's, of a politically-torn England pre-World War II and of the options open to women at that time. Taylor is a master of the atmospheric, and he paints bleakness beautifully. I've read some criticism that the book moves too slowly, but that is what I like about Taylor -- he writes psychological suspense like no one else. He pulls you into the characters' stories so completely and then -- surprise -- wraps up the mystery you almost forgot about.

Starvation Lake by Bryan Gruley

2009-12-06T10:55:00.004-05:00

Protagonist: Gus Carpenter
Setting: Starvation Lake, Michigan
Rating: 4.5

In this debut novel, journalist Gus Carpenter returns to his hometown in northern Michigan, having been fired from a large Detroit newspaper. Now he's working for a small daily that fills the pages with light-hearted features. That's until police find a snowmobile that belonged to the town's legendary hockey coach in Starvation Lake, miles from where he disappeared years ago. Suddenly, Gus and rookie reporter Joanie are on to a big story. Warning: There's a lot of hockey in this novel -- Gus is forever remembered by townspeople as the goalie who lost the team their state ice-hockey championship and he still plays in an adult league. The amount of hockey detail does bog the book down sometimes. Still, there's a very good mystery here, great characters and wonderful descriptions of the snowy small town of Starvation Lake. This is a stellar debut and I look forward to more from Gruley.

Second books

2009-11-29T18:38:00.008-05:00

Lately, I've been experiencing second book-itis, and it is not a good thing. I love, love, love the first book -- recommend it to other book lovers, even. Then a funny thing happens. The author comes out with a second book, which I snatch up. Only to be bitterly disappointed. Just the opposite happens, I dislike the second book intensenly. I first noticed this with Carlos Ruiz Zafon's The Shadow of the Wind (loved it) and The Angel's Game (really disliked it).

This month it has happened twice. Years ago, I read and loved Audrey Niffenegger's The Time Traveler's Wife. So when she published her second novel, Her Fearful Symmetry, I looked forward to another great story. Symmetry is a gothic novel (one of my favorite genres), replete with a scary cemetery, ghost and two sets of twins. When Elspeth Noblin dies, she leaves her London apartment to her twin sister's own twin daughters, Valentina and Julia, with the stipulation that the American-raised girls live in the apartment for a year, an apartment that borders the real Highgate Cemetery. The story is one of obsessive love, in effect the opposite of the first novel, which was more of a pure love story.

The other books are The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larrson, a gripping mystery that had me up in the wee hours of the morning reading, and The Girl Who Played With Fire, which (you guessed it) I didn't like. Both books are set in Sweden and feature journalist Mikael Blomkvist and computer hacker/investigator Lisbeth Salander. The first book featured Blomkvist primarily and revolved around a closed community-type of mystery. In the second of a trilogy, Salander is front and center in a more thriller-type of novel. The problem: I didn't really ever like Salander, the plot rambled too much and there were so many characters that I had trouble keeping track of who was who. So, for me, another book in the dislike column.

Has this ever happened to you? I'd love to hear other people's experience. Do we love the first book too much to ever like anything else by the author?

A Deadly Month

2009-10-31T11:56:00.009-04:00

As part of a challenge for 4 Mystery Addicts, my online book discussion group, I concentrated this month on books that had "die, dead(ly) or death" in the title. What I found were some gems, including:

Mourn Not Your Dead by Deborah Crombie. Scotland Yard Supt. Duncan Kincaid and Sgt. Gemma James are called to investigate the death of Alastair Gilbert, a top-ranking police official who was widely disliked, both within the force and in his village. This, of course, makes for lots of suspects. Much of this series, so far, revolves around the growing relationship between Kincaid and James. Generally, I would recommend reading a series on its own, but this book could be read as a standalone. It's the fourth in the series, and much stronger than the three that came before.

Death of a Perfect Mother by Robert Barnard. Two sons are planning their mother's murder -- but she's killed the day before they
can put their plan into place. Again, we have a victim who is highly reviled in the village, so anyone could have done it. I expected this one to be light, knowing Barnard's touch with humor. However, the humor here is very dark. A good book, but not one I would recommend to those who haven't read Barnard before.

Dead as a Dodo by Jane Langton. After Barnard's dark, dark humor, I needed this. I had never heard of Langton; I had gotten her book for free and it might have stayed in storage if not for the October challenge. Now I must look for the rest in this series. Visiting Harvard Professor Homer Kelly and his wife are in Oxford, where they start to sleuth after a murder at a college museum of science. The plot involves some specimens of Darwin and the book throws in a dash of Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland (much of that book is said to be influenced by the author's days in Oxford). The book is full of whimsy, as well as serious scientific and theological debate. Somehow, Langton pulls it all together.

Dead Run by P.J. Tracy. Somehow the women of Monkeewrench and Wisconsin deputy Sharon Mueller end up in the ghost town of Four Corners, Wisconsin, where the entire town has been killed by nerve gas, set off by homegrown militiamen. More of a thriller, which I'm not usually into, but this book had me hooked.

Death Will Help You Leave Him by Elizabeth Zelvin (see review and interview below).

Interview with Elizabeth Zelvin

2009-10-08T01:31:00.006-04:00

Elizabeth Zelvin has written Death Will Get You Sober, followed by Death Will Help You Leave Him, out this month (see review below). She talks a bit about her latest book:

Q. First, thanks for agreeing to answer my questions. I want to start off with the protagonist, Bruce Kohler, who narrates the books. Many mystery writers have protagonists who struggle with alcoholism, but you have one who is a recovering alcoholic. Why did you approach the character from this point?

A. Apart from being a writer for my whole life and loving mysteries, my primary reason for writing these books was and is that I have something to say about recovery, which is a remarkable process of transformation that takes great courage and honesty on the part of those who recover. The first book, Death Will Get You Sober, is dedicated to them.

Q. You are a psychotherapist in addition to being a writer. How much do you draw upon your experiences for the books while still maintaining client confidences?

A. Besides being a psychotherapist, I spent fifteen years working in and then directing alcoholism treatment programs. My private practice, both in a conventional therapy office (more than fifteen years) and now as an online therapist (almost ten years), has included many clients who have been affected by addictions, codependency, and compulsive behaviors such as eating disorders and compulsive spending, either in themselves or people they love, as well as adult children of alcoholics, sexual abuse survivors, and survivors of other kinds of family dysfunction. My characters are fictional. I would never write about a real particular client. But a lot of recovering people have written to say how much they appreciate my getting it right. Recovery is my briar patch—if you remember Brer Rabbit, that’s the place where I feel most at home.

Q. In Death Will Help You Leave Him, you also write about co-dependency and bad relationships. Why write about these issues in a mystery book?

A. I have worked with a lot of couples—those who just need a little fine-tuning and those whose marriage or committed relationship is a war zone — as well as people whose capacity for intimacy has been damaged by domestic violence and sexual trauma. And they say that 96 percent of Americans are codependent. It’s not a genuine statistic, but it makes a point about how our culture encourages us to seek our identity and self-worth outside ourselves. Too often, codependents turn to abusive, addicted, or unavailable partners, the very people who can’t meet their needs. In fact, I’m more of an “expert” in codependency than in addictions: I’ve been writing and lecturing about it professionally for more than twenty years. Bad relationships are universal — almost everybody has had at least one, and I hope that draws them to Death Will Help You Leave Him. As for writing about relationships, isn’t that what novels are all about? And therapy, and poetry, and songs, my other creative areas. The mystery is the sturdy coathanger on which I hang my characters and their relationships. I love a character-driven mystery — my own or someone else’s — and to me, relationships are the most interesting thing in the world.

Q. Your books have true laugh-out loud moments. Where does the humor come from, especially when dealing with issues of addiction?

A. The humor is built into recovery. There’s a lot of laughter in AA meetings. It comes from the perspective of people who look honestly and thoroughly at their past behavior and have a sense of humor about how royally they screwed up. I tried to show some of that in the fictional AA meetings in the books. I’m so glad you laughed out loud. I think my books are hilarious, myself. And Bruce’s wisecracking voice is one of those gifts from the Muse or a Higher Power or whatever you want to call it. I have nothing to do with it except to be a channel.

Q. The first things that one notices about your books are the titles, of course. They are longer than the norm and a bit off the wall, with a touch of humor. Can you tell me how you came up with the titles? Was it a marketing idea?

A. On the contrary. When I started, all I knew was that I wanted to write a mystery about recovery, and that the title was Death Will Get You Sober. In fact, I told so many people about it that it’s a miracle I ever wrote the book. Once Bruce gets sober, the first thing he has to deal with is relationships. And I wanted the murder to involve an abusive relationship, so Death Will Help You Leave Him was the right title. I didn’t even know it would be the boyfriend who got killed. I had some cases in mind where the codependent girlfriend minimized the danger and then got killed — but when I sat down to write it, it didn’t come out that way. Until the publisher accepted my title, I was very nervous, because by that time I had come up with a string of Death Will titles, each one with that twist of making what death does sound positive, and each associated with an addictive or compulsive disorder I could write about. I knew publishers often change titles, and I would have been sunk if they hadn’t gone for mine.

Q. It seems you’ve gotten a lot of positive reaction, beginning with your first book. Have you gotten any unexpected or strange reactions from your books?

A. A few people, including agents, editors, and reviewers as well as readers, have found my novels dark and depressing. I’m not exactly surprised, but I suspect they’re missing the humor — and even more important, the hope — because they bring their own experiences with alcoholism or addiction to what they read. For example, someone whose spouse or parent died of alcoholism without ever finding recovery — and who has not sought help for his or her own pain — might have trouble connecting with the tone, which is lighthearted in spite of the serious issues I write about.

Q. How has the experience of writing mysteries been different from your other writing: the nonfiction and the poetry?

A. I’ve written several mystery short stories in addition to the novels, and I’ve found writing novels very different from the shorter forms I’ve done: the stories, poetry, songs (which are quite different from the poems in language, meter, and tone, though they may cover the same subjects), and a variety of nonfiction pieces including my blog posts on Poe’s Deadly Daughters — which make me feel like a journalist and are great fun to do — and professional articles and chapters, which also use a very different language. Writing a novel is the hardest kind of writing for me. For every day when the words flow, there are several when I’m slogging along with grim determination, finding it hard to believe I’ll ever make my way to the end, no less be able to fix the bad parts and make the good parts hang together. Writing itself comes easy to me. Storytelling, especially the complex story a mystery novel tells, is a challenge.

Q. You have two strong books in the series. Can you tell us a bit about your next Kohler book?

A. In the next one, Bruce and his friends Barbara and Jimmy take shares in a lethal clean and sober group house in the Hamptons. I had a lot of fun doing the research: picking strawberries, fishing for blues from a small boat, and talking with the local cops — who told me group houses are illegal in the Hamptons.

Q. Are you going to continue with the Kohler series, or do you have ideas for other mystery books?

A. I hope I can keep the series going. If I can’t, the idea that’s knocking loudest on the inside of my brain is a young adult novel. The protagonist already exists, in a historical short story that will appear some time in 2010 in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. A couple of other characters and a story line are rattling around in my head. My protagonist is a young Marrano sailor on Columbus’s first voyage. He couldn’t be more different from Bruce, but he has his own distinctive voice. I think a strong voice is one of those gifts you can’t possibly refuse when it comes to you.

Q. Who are your favorite mystery authors, and what book are you reading now?

A. I love character-driven traditional mysteries with depth and complexity. Unlike Bruce, most of their protagonists are cops or PIs, often women, but they are my role models. Among my favorites are Margaret Maron, Marcia Muller, Nevada Barr, Dana Stabenow, Julie Smith, Reginald Hill, Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, and Janet Neel, whose first mystery, Death’s Bright Angel, is one of my all-time favorites. And if I can claim a couple of eminent foremothers, they’d be Dorothy L. Sayers and Josephine Tey.

Right now, I’m taking a break from mystery and rereading all of Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander novels, in anticipation of reading the new one that’s just come out. What brilliant books, and on so many levels. I’ve read them all several times before, but I’m going slowly this time—and bringing my added experiences as a writer — and I marvel at how she manages a huge canvas of time, place, memorable characters, accurate and minutely observed detail — from battles to sex to domestic concerns — and an immense sweep of satisfying plot, conflict, and action. She’s a great storyteller who’s also a marvelous writer.

Death Will Help You Leave Him by Elizabeth Zelvin

2009-10-08T01:26:00.004-04:00

Protagonist: Bruce Kohler
Setting: New York City
Rating: 4.5

There’s always been a long tradition of detectives with alcohol and other substance abuse issues (even Sherlock Holmes!), but Zelvin serves up something completely different: an amateur sleuth who is a recovering alcoholic.

In her second Kohler book (the first was Death Will Get You Sober), Bruce Kohler gets swept up in a murder investigation, pulled in by friends Jimmy (also a recovering alcoholic) and Jimmy’s girlfriend Barbara, an addictions counselor. One of Barbara’s clients, Luz, is suspected by police of killing her boyfriend, the married Frankie, a one-time drug dealer. The foursome team up to find the real killer. Their first stop: the wake at the funeral home, a scene so funny it’s worth the price of the book alone. From there, it’s subways and taxis across Manhattan and Brooklyn, and a few other escapades.

The book does have its dark side. While the first book dealt with alcoholism, this one turns the focus on unhealthy relationships. Even Kohler struggles with this, yo-yoing back and forth whenever he gets a call from his ex-wife, who is bipolar, unmedicated and in an abusive relationship. Some scenes are so wrenching you want to reach out and slap the ex – or Bruce himself.

Zelvin is a psychotherapist, so she knows what she writes about. But her ability to bring us both tragedy and humor, sometimes in the same sentence, shows she’s a talented writer as well. Zelvin already has a third book in the works. Will I be reading it? Oh yes, you can say I’ve become a bit addicted to the series.

The Brutal Telling by Louise Penny

2009-10-04T13:10:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Chief Insp. Armand Gamache
Setting: Three Pines, Canada
Rating: 4.7

Three Pines must be the most pleasant place to live – with its cozy bistro, its bakery and used book store, tight-knit friends and wonderful views. Perfect, except for the murders. After yet another one in Three Pines, even the residents notice, joking: “Every Quebec village has a vocation. Some make cheese, some wine, some pots. We produce bodies.”

With that out of the way early in the book, we readers suspend disbelief and continue on with the story: a man who lived as a hermit deep in the woods has been murdered. Even stranger, his body has been found in the bistro owned by Gabri and Olivier. And even stranger than that, the hermit’s log cabin was filled with treasures: tapestries, first edition books, a priceless violin.

Who would want to kill this man? Could it have been the new owners of the Hadley House, who have turned the old, haunted house into a beautiful new hotel and spa (and whose property holds the log cabin)? Could it have been someone in the Czech community, since the hermit was thought to be Czech? Or even someone closer to home?

While all of Penny’s books are beautifully written and take us to this heart-wrenchingly lovely town, this book also has an undercurrent of fear and suspicion running through it. And it is heart-wrenching in a way not expected. As usual in a Penny book, we still have questions unanswered in the end. And maybe even a seed of doubt.

This is the fifth in the Gamache series. Up to now, I’ve rated all her books near-perfect. This one slips a few points for two reasons: her previous book (A Rule Against Murder) was perfection. Comparing the two, this one falls short. Second, much of the book is repetitive – series readers already know a lot about the village and the characters. While the characters have always made the books come alive, here they detract from the mysteries – because much of what we’re told has already been revealed in earlier books. But those are small quibbles in a series that has become my favorite.

This is a series that needs to be read in order, and it is:
Still Life
A Fatal Grace
The Cruelest Month
A Rule Against Murder
The Brutal Telling

Arctic Chill by Arnaldur Indridason

2009-10-04T12:35:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Insp. Erlendur
Setting: Reykjavik, Iceland
Rating: 4.5

The fifth in the Erlendur series to be translated into English, this book opens with the murder of a young Thai boy – stabbed and left to die in the snow. His half-brother, meanwhile, is missing. A straight police procedural, the novel delves into anti-immigrant feelings in Iceland. Indridason also introduces another case into the novel: a missing woman, newly married. And the boy’s death also unveils part of Erlendur’s past: as a boy, he and brother were stuck in his blizzard. While Erlendur was saved, his brother was never found. While his brother's death is always close to his thoughts during this investigation, Erlendur is loath to speak about it to his children – who are very interested in their father’s past.

Scandinavian novels have a reputation of being bleak. Arctic Chill doesn’t disappoint in that regard. The prose, stripped down and spare, adds to this – there is no sense of warmth, even when the cases are solved. Arctic Chill isn’t the best book in the series – Jar City and Silence of the Grave were far better – but this is still a very good book.

Company of Liars by Karen Maitland

2009-09-28T23:33:00.003-04:00

Setting: England, 1348
Protagonist: Camelot
Rating: 4.8
(Audiobook narrated by Maxwell Caulfield)

As the black plague sweeps across Medieval England, a band of travelers thrown together by circumstance sets out toward the north, trying to escape the pestilence. They do escape the plague, but not death, as they are killed, one by one. But by whom – or what?

This is a mystery wrapped in the supernatural. The travelers love to tell stories, especially of witches, vampires and werewolves – and at one point believe they are being hunted by a wolf. What they don’t tell are their own stories – each person carries a secret, hence the “liars” of the novel’s title. Led (and narrated) by Camelot, an old, hideously scarred peddler of religious relics, the band includes a Venetian musician and his apprentice, an albino child who reads runes, a magician who travels with a merbaby (not quite grown mermaid), a young couple expecting their first child, a midwife and healer, and a man who claims to be half-swan, and has a wing in place of one arm.

This is a book to be savored; it is not a light read, by any means. The constant rain, the travelers’ troubles and the superstitions of the era weigh the novel down. It is, however, educational – the author’s notes at the end give you an idea of the research done. And it does keep you engrossed to the very end, where one last twist awaits.

The Coroner's Lunch by Colin Cotterill

2009-09-28T23:04:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Dr. Siri Paiboun
Setting: People's Democratic Republic of Laos, 1976
Rating: 5.0

Dr. Siri is set to retire, should retire, deserves retirement. At 72, he’s given years of service to the Communist cause. But his superiors need a national coroner – “from each according to ability, to each according to need,” a top government official lectures Siri – and so the doctor reluctantly becomes a coroner, learning from dusty books. Well, it turns out Siri has a knack for this. First, a government official’s wife is brought to his morgue, ostensibly a natural death, but Siri suspects not. Then two Vietnamese men are found drowned, possibly tortured, a finding that could endanger international relations. And Siri is flown to a northern army base in the jungle where commanders have mysteriously been dying.

The first in this series has plenty to keep you riveted. But what’s really special about this book is the witty writing and richly drawn characters. Oh, and the good doctor also sees dead people – those who come to him in his morgue also come to him in visions.

Every once in a while comes a book that surprises you because it is so unlike anything else in the genre you've read -- The Coroner's Lunch is that book. The rest in the series (which you can be sure I'll be reading) are:

Thirty-Three Teeth
Disco For the Departed
Anarchy and Old Dogs
Curse of the Pogo Stick
The Merry Misogynist

In the Shadow of Gotham by Stefanie Pintoff

2009-09-09T00:46:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Det. Simon Ziele
Setting: New York City and upstate Dobson, 1905
Rating: 3.7

In the Shadow of Gotham won St. Martin’s Minotaur First Crime Novel Award last year, and comes with great promise: an atmospheric novel set just after the turn of the century, when psychology was beginning to delve into the criminal mind.

Amid all this, we meet Ziele, who has transferred to a small upstate town from New York City after his fiancée dies in the General Slocum ferry disaster. But this quiet existence is not to last. A young woman is brutally murdered and the crime sends him back to the city to investigate. There, a noted Columbia University criminologist, Alistair Sinclair, believes that a patient he has been treating, Michael Fromley, is behind the murder. But Fromley has disappeared. So Ziele, with the help of Sinclair and those in his office, sets out to find Fromley, who always seems to be two steps ahead of them – as if he had inside knowledge of the investigation itself.

The book gets high marks for atmosphere and historical detail – I felt I was right there with the characters. And the characters are very engaging, especially Ziele, who despite his tragedy is not mired in melancholy. But when it came to the plot itself, which is critical in a mystery, of course, the book fell short. Much of the time is spent chasing shadows around Gotham. There is a nice twist in the story, but it comes too soon in the book, and the rest of the story drags after that. The ending, when it comes, is anticlimatic.

Yet given all that, I’m still curious about Pintoff’s next book (she reportedly has at least two more planned in the series). I like the characters and the time period, and am interested in seeing what happens next -- both to the characters and to Pintoff, as a writer. The series has promise.

Havana Twist by Lia Matera

2009-08-17T12:08:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Willa Jansson
Setting: Cuba and Mexico City
Rating: 4.5
When attorney Willa Jansson's "superlefty" mom disappears in Cuba, Jansson sets out to find her, traveling back and forth between Havana and Mexico City. After several murders, former flame Homicide Lt. Don Surgelato joins her. I liked this book for several reasons: there's quite a bit of humor among the plot twists and turns (sort of like a Kinsey Millhone abroad) and because she depicts the Cuba of the 1990s with harsh accuracy. The hotel Willa stays at could have been the same one I once stayed at: one with a small, drab hotel room that reeked of mildew. Says Willa about a second trip to Havana: "I dreaded returning to Cuba, not because America had demonized it for forty years, but because of the scarcity and sadness hanging over it, swallowing up residents and tourists alike." This is the seventh and, as far as I can tell, the final Willa Jansson book in the series. It's a shame, because I would have liked to have read much more about Willa.

The Angel's Game by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

2009-08-15T16:38:00.005-04:00

Protagonist: David Martin
Setting: Barcelona
Rating: 4.0

When The Shadow of the Wind came out a few years ago, I devoured the novel, discussed it with friends, recommended it to other book lovers. I was smitten. Comes now the sequel, The Angel's Game, the story of a writer (David Martin) who sells his soul -- quite literally -- for immortality. He's writing pulp fiction for a magazine and living in poverty when a publisher comes calling with a deal: write a book creating a new religion and David will no longer have to worry about money - or his terminal illness. This publisher, Andreas Corelli, wears a lapel pin of an angel, but it turns out he is quite the opposite.

The story had several elements that should have enthralled me: it is high gothic, as lyrical as The Shadow and featured the Semperes and the Cemetery of Lost Books from the first book. However, the story failed to capture me. I put it down several times to read other books -- always a bad sign that I'm bored with a book. I did, however, stick with it -- this is the writer of one of my favorite books, after all. And the book does pick up in the second half. Still, the story is far darker than The Shadow and relies on a great amount of "woo-woo," some of it just too hard to believe.

Yet, given the many faults I found with it, the story did eventually ensnare me. No, it's not a great book; it's one that lives in the shadow of Ruiz Zafon's first book. Still, a good read.

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie by Alan Bradley

2009-08-13T01:03:00.001-04:00

Protagonist: Flavia de Luce
Setting: Bishop’s Lacey, England, 1950s
Rating: 5.0

Flavia de Luce is a precocious 11-year-old chemist whiz who turns to detecting when her father is jailed for the murder of a man found in their garden. She was also the only one around when the man uttered his one dying word: “Vale.” This sets Flavia on a hunt for the truth, pigtails flying behind her as she zips through town on Gladys (her bicycle). The best part of this book are the eccentric characters which populate Bradley’s book (which includes Flavia’s two older sisters, who she is always tormenting – when they are not tormenting her). But there’s also a fine plot – involving a rare stamp stolen years ago and another death. And it turns out the man found dead in their garden was once a close school friend of her father’s, before they had a falling out. And so the plot thickens. This book utterly charmed me – and apparently others. At least two more books featuring Flavia are in the works.

River of Darkness by Rennie Airth

2009-08-03T12:19:00.004-04:00

Protagonist: Scotland Yard Det. Insp. John Madden
Setting: English countryside
Rating: 5.0

This is the first of a trilogy, set in the years immediately after World War I, where both police and criminal have been affected by the war. Madden, whose wife and child died of influenza, carries the scars of wars, physically and emotionally. The criminal, a serial killer, also carries scars from long ago. Someone is killing entire families, but especially targeting the women, it seems. Madden and his team -- which includes Chief Inspector Angus Sinclair, young Detective Constable Billy Styles and, eventually, village bobby Will Stackpole -- methodically work to discover the identity of the killer and find him. This is as well done a police procedural as I've ever read, with the added layers of psychological mystery, wartime horrors and even romance for Madden. Before I'd ever finished it, I already had book two in hand.

Dying to Sin by Stephen Booth

2009-08-03T12:01:00.004-04:00

Protagonists: Ben Cooper and Diane Fry
Setting: Pity Wood Farm, Peak District
Rating: 3.5

When construction workers uncover a skeleton at Pity Wood Farm, police are brought into the muddy, dilapidated farm to uncover the mystery of who this person is, as well. One of the farm's owners is dead, the other is an elderly man in a home, suffering from dementia. And the town, closed-mouthed to outsiders, isn't likely to offer up clues. Booth's series (this is the eighth) is very atmospheric, and this book doesn't disappoint in that regard. You can almost feel yourself mired in the mud along with police, or lost in the fog with Ben and Diane in one pivotal scene. However, I found the main characters' lives to have become, well, a bit dull in this book. Hopefully, that'll change in the next book.

The Last Refuge by Chris Knopf

2009-07-21T14:48:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Sam Acquillo
Setting: Southampton, N.Y.
Rating: 4.4
The last refuge refers to Sam Acquillo’s nine-tenths of an acre next to the Little Peconic Bay, where he’s retreated after suddenly (and violently) quitting his engineering job, and following his divorce. There he lives peacefully with his dog Eddie (named after Eddie van Halen), until his elderly next-door neighbor is found dead in a bathtub filled with water. No one seems to find it suspicious, except for Acquillo, who knew she didn’t like to take baths – only showers. He gets himself named as administrator of her estate, only to uncover shady real estate deals and possibly other past murders. Acquillo writes about the real Hamptons – not the glittery, celeb-filled one, but the one in which the have-nots struggle to make a living. This is an author I will continue reading (this is the first in a four-book series). Not only can Knopf write a great mystery, but he had great, oddball characters; sharp, witty dialogue; and a portrayal of the Hamptons as it really is.

Frank McCourt dies

2009-07-19T19:56:00.005-04:00

A few years ago, shortly after Angela's Ashes was published, I went to a standing-room only event to hear Frank McCourt read from his book. I hadn't read the book yet and came away feeling he was a lovely man -- down-to-earth, warm and funny. Then I read the book, and it was one of the most moving stories I've read -- all the more powerful for being real. I'm saddened by his death, yet also heartened that late in life he was able to share a story, one that was embraced by so many people. While it revolved around an Irish family, the themes that ran through this story were universal. In fact, if I were asked to name 10 modern classics, Angela's Ashes would be at the top.

Murder in the Rue de Paradis by Cara Black

2009-07-19T12:31:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Aimee Leduc
Setting: Paris
Rating: 3.7

A reviewer once compared the Leduc series to Kinsey Millhone, and it's not too far off. While Aimee is much, much more fashionable (this being Paris, after all) and she has a sidekick to get her out of trouble, fans of Kinsey will probably also enjoy this series, which gets better with each book. In Murder in the Rue de Paradis, the eighth in the series, Aimee's on-and-off-again lover, Yves, returns to Paris and asks Aimee to marry him. She says yes, but after one night together, Yves is murdered. Although police are investigating, they're also hiding something from Aimee. As Aimee investigates, this becomes a story about Kurdish and Turkish politics, and a sleeper jihadist sleeper cell that is scheming an assassination. Black manages to pull all this off, along with a surprise twist at the end.

The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

2009-07-12T13:30:00.004-04:00

Protagonist: Sherlock Holmes
Setting: English countryside
Rating: 3.3

If you are expecting another neat Sherlock Holmes story, you may be very disappointed in this tale, which has very little detecting in it. We meet the great detective (always unnamed, just “the old man,” but undeniably Holmes) at the end of his life. Living alone in the English countryside and tending to his beehives, Holmes is lured out of his retirement after he meets a young boy, a survivor of the Nazi camps, and his parrot, who seems to have learned (and retained) some German codes. Soon, the parrot is missing and someone from the household in which they boy lives is dead. Holmes is more concerned with the parrot than the murder, promising the boy he’ll find his pet bird. But the story meanders, with Holmes just about stumbling on the one clue that leads him to the bird thief. He's not so much a great detective in this story, as another old man suffering from dizzy spells and heart problems. As wonderful as Chabon’s writing is -– and his prose is beautiful -– I hated to see the great detective portrayed this way, and the plot was just flat. My recommendation: read an original Arthur Conan Doyle story.

American Wife, The Senator's Wife

2009-07-09T01:18:00.006-04:00

Two recent books have made me glad to not be married to a man in politics:

American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld (audiobook)
Protagonist: Alice Lindgren
Setting: Wisconsin
Rating: 2.5

This was an audiobook I plodded through for a book club meeting, but I found myself gnashing my teeth through most of it. Loosely based on First Lady Laura Bush’s life, it tries to give us a glimpse into the feelings and motivations of a fictional first lady. Yet, it’s hard as a reader to get the image of Laura Bush (or George Bush, for that matter) out of one’s mind. I was too distracted by the attempt to fictionalize the life of a real-life person to enjoy the story. There were also too many parts that just dragged for me, and the ending disintegrated into a piece about the Iraq war. Even for those of us who aren’t right-wingers, this book was a big miss.

The Senator’s Wife by Sue Miller (audiobook)
Protagonists: Delia Naughton and Meri Fowler
Setting: New England
Rating: 4.0
Here, in the hands of a master storyteller, is a more compelling story, or set of stories – that of Delia, an older woman, and the younger Meri, her neighbor. The book alternates between their stories, and we see how each struggles with marriage and independence. But the book’s focus really is on Delia Naughton, the more interesting of the characters. Married to Sen. Tom Naughton, she has been separated from him for years – Tom is unable to be faithful to his wife (and that reminds us of another real-life president). While she remains married to Tom, Delia lives in their family home and he lives in Washington. She and Tom have their occasional fling, but keep these secret from even their own children. When Tom has a stroke and is unable to care for himself, Delia brings him back to the family home to care for him. Finally, Delia has him to herself. But here the characters’ stories intersect for a powerful climax. Weeks after listening to this book, I'm still thinking of the characters -- always a sign of a good book.

Dancing With the Virgins by Stephen Booth

2009-05-23T10:07:00.005-04:00

Protagonists: Ben Cooper and Diane Fry
Setting: Peak District, England
Rating: 4.0

In this second book in the series, Cooper and Fry investigate the death of a woman, and attacks on others, in a national park area, near the Stonehenge-like stones called the Nine Virgins. The book revolves around the investigation, of course, but much of it is also about the water-and-oil relationship between Cooper and Fry. While the book is a bit slow in some parts, the mystery does unravel in rather surprising ways. Booth is an underappreciated mystery writer, which is a shame, because he is really great at bringing his characters to life. He also writes about the haunting moors, the farms and even the slaughterhouses in the area with compelling details. This is a series I'd highly recommend.

Havana Bay by Martin Cruz Smith

2009-05-15T10:38:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Arkady Renko
Setting: Havana
Rating: 4.3
In this fourth book in the series, Moscow investigator Arkady Renko finds himself in a post-Soviet Havana, investigating the death of Russian spy Sergei Pribluda, found floating on an inner tube in Havana Bay. The Cubans insist it was a natural death; Renko, of course, disagrees. Renko has another reason to be in Cuba, one driven by personal reasons. Still reeling from a great tragedy, he tries suicide. But in the midst of killing himself, someone breaks into his apartment and tries to kill Renko. Instead, Renko kills the intruder with the needle he was going to use on himself. This doesn’t endear him any more to Cuban police, who really don’t want him there. But one policewoman, Det. Osorio, eventually comes to believe in Renko. Both are outsiders, in different ways, and make a perfect team. Not only does Cruz Smith deliver a powerful plot, but he captures the Cuban psyche and life under Communism in the “Special Period” perfectly.

When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

2009-05-15T09:58:00.003-04:00

Protagonist: Jackson Brodie
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 3.5
When Will There Be Good News? is not your usual crime fiction book, and this seems to arouse strong feelings about it – whether you like it or not. Although the book is billed as one in the series starring Jackson Brodie, our supposed hero is this hapless person, amnesiac part of the time, who has a small role in solving the crime. Rather, the main crime solvers are Det. Chief Insp. Louise Monroe and teenaged orphan Reggie Chase. The characters are strong ones, but the story meanders and doesn’t pick up until halfway through the book. The other important character is Dr. Joanna Hunter. As a child, her mother and two siblings were killed; the killer is released from jail at about the same time that Hunter disappears. This is where our trio of protagonists, whose stories have been told separately, finally converge. Atkinson’s writing, and her wit, are wonderful. But if you want a linear, more traditional mystery, then you may be one of those readers who fall on the side of disliking it.

Interview with S.J. Bolton

2009-04-27T23:03:00.004-04:00

Recently, I reviewed "Awakening," the second book by British author S.J. Bolton (see review two posts below). This book so intrigued me that I had to know more about the author.

Q. You’ve had interesting careers before this, as an actress and in PR. What drew you to writing novels?

A. Looking back, I realize I had all the ingredients that make up a writer, I just didn’t recognize them for what they were. I’ve always loved books and read avidly, the part of my job I enjoyed the most was the writing and I’ve always been one of those people who have a fantasy life running in parallel to the real one. It wasn’t until I was married with a baby on the way that I realized I might have a work of fiction in me. Once I started, it was like falling off a log! I loved it and knew that, published or not, it was what I wanted to do for the rest of my working life.

Q. Elsewhere, you’ve written that you wanted to write “spooky crime.” The supernatural does pop up in some mysteries, but you’ve really embraced it. What is it about the spooky that draws you?

A. Its very darkness; the sense that no rules apply; the expectation of a journey into the complete unknown from which there may be no return; complete escapism from the real world. All these things and many more. I’ve always loved stories of the supernatural but because I write in a very strict genre, I have two editors, one on either side of the Atlantic, who work very hard to keep me grounded in reality. Ultimately, there is nothing supernatural in my books; it just looks that way for a while.

Q. Your first book, Sacrifice, has been short-listed for several prizes. Writing this novel, did you have any idea of the impact it would have?

A. All the time I was writing Sacrifice I had no idea it would even get published. Technically, I felt the book was shaping up well but I knew the story might prove too fantastic, in the old-fashioned sense of the word, to be taken seriously by the publishing world. Luckily for me, it was, but even now that it’s been published in several countries, the reaction has been mixed and extreme. For every person who’s loved it, another has hated it.

Q. You’ve written two books with a third one almost finished. They all have very different settings and plots. How do you come up with the ideas for them?

A. My ideas come from the people and places around me. Sacrifice was born out of my own experience of wanting to have a child and finding it difficult to conceive. Awakening was inspired by the village I live in now and by its residents – both human and reptilian. My third book is set in a remote town in the Pennine hills in the north of England, the place were I grew up. I find myself inspired by landscapes frequently. For a small island, Great Britain has a remarkably diverse and beautiful topography and I love to imagine the dark undercurrent beneath the idyllic surface.

Q. I’m always interested in how writers create characters. Are any of them based on people you know?

A. All of them. That’s not to say people will necessarily recognize themselves. Sometimes it’s just a hairstyle or a mannerism that makes it into print. I don’t worry too much about developing characters at the outset. I have a very vague idea about them – age, appearance, occupation. Then I concentrate on telling the story and let the characters develop themselves through their behaviour and their reaction to events.

Q. In Awakening, you’ve created a damaged yet strong protagonist, Clara. Long after I put the book down, I kept thinking of her – and wondering what would happen next to her. Any chance you’ll ever bring her back, or are you done with the characters once you finish a book?

A. I’d love to see Clara again. She is easily my favourite heroine so far. Her job, though, is very specific, so I will need to come up with a mystery that, somehow, revolves around wild animals. Nothing immediately springs to mind but maybe one day.

Q. Can you give us a peek into your third book – what is it about?

A. Folklore meets forensics on the bleak and remote Pennine Moors. A charismatic young Anglican priest is on the verge of falling in love with a beautiful children’s psychiatrist, when the remains of several young children are found on land close to the church. The resulting events test his faith to its limits and threaten everyone he cares about.

Q. Who are your favorite current authors?

A. Stephen King is, and probably will remain, my favourite contemporary author. He combines the most formidable imagination with a real gift for language. So many books can wind me up for so many reasons but when I open a King novel, I feel myself breathing a deep sigh of relief. I know I’m in the presence of a master. Other authors I love include Joanne Harris, JK Rowling, Thomas Harris, Dan Brown and Tess Gerritsen. New writers that I think have immense talent include Ariana Franklin, Simon Beckett, Nick Stone and Tom Cain.

Shatter by Michael Robotham

2009-04-23T20:12:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Joe O’Loughlin
Setting: West Country
Rating: 5.0

There is a moment when all hope disappears, all pride is gone, all expectation, all faith, all desire. I own that moment. It belongs to me. That’s when I hear the sound. The sound of a mind breaking.

It’s not a loud crack like when bones shatter or a spine fractures or a skull collapses. And it’s not something soft and wet like a heart breaking. It’s a sound that makes you wonder how much pain a person can endure; a sound that shatters memories and lets the past leak into the present; a sound so high that only the hounds of hell can hear it.

Can you hear it? Someone is curled up in a tiny ball crying softly into an endless night.

Joe O’Loughlin, who we met in Robotham’s first book, The Suspect, is back, this time teaching college psychology as his Parkinson’s disease gains on him. He’s asked by police to help talk down a woman who is perched on the Clifton Suspension Bridge, naked except for her Jimmy Choo shoes and with the word “slut” written across her stomach in lipstick. Even stranger, she’s talking into a cell phone. O’Loughlin is unable to save her; she jumps to her death. A few days later, her business partner is found dead, also naked, hanging from a tree in a park.

Why would these women kill themselves, seemingly on the orders of a person on the other end of their cell phones? With police, and the help of friend Vincent Ruiz, a retired chief inspector, O’Loughlin figures out the how, then the why and finally the who. From there, it’s a cat-and-mouse game with one of the most chilling villains I’ve come across lately. This is a man who has come mentally unhinged, and there’s no reasoning with him. The book’s title refers to the killer’s M.O.: he “shatters” the psyche of his victims. After O’Loughlin is able to prevent a third murder, the villain strikes close to home. At this point, the tension is so high that, as a reader, I wasn’t able to come up for breath until the end.

I knew Robotham was a good writer, but after his last book, The Night Ferry, I was a bit disappointed. This book has put him back on my list of must-read crime writers. Shatter is far and away his best. If you listen to audiobooks, then I further recommend “reading” it in that form. The narrator, Sean Barrett, only enhances the story. There’s one point where O’Loughlin and the villain are having a rapid-fire conversation; Barrett modulates the voices enough that you always know who is speaking.

This book gets a perfect score from me. In fact, it’s the best book I’ve read so far this year.

Awakening by S.J. Bolton

2009-04-14T18:40:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Clara Benning
Setting: Dorset
Rating: 3.5
Clara, a 30-year-old veterinarian, has become a reclusive in a quiet, rural town. Half of her face has been disfigured (although how and to what extent remains a mystery for awhile), and so Clara tries to have minimal contact with the world – the human world, at least. All that changes when snakes, some deadly, start showing up in villagers’ homes, killing one man. Clara is the only expert on snakes in the village, and she’s soon thrust into the middle of the crisis. When she becomes a suspect after several other deaths, Clara has to prove she’s innocent. Normally, a book about snakes would not have attracted me at all, but I found this a compelling read. I was drawn to Clara, so much that I kept wondering how her life would turn out after I finished the book (from what I gather, unfortunately, this appears to be a standalone). Awakening is due out in bookstores in June.

The Black Tower by P.D. James

2009-04-14T17:48:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Cmdr. Adam Dalgliesh
Setting: Toynton Grange, Dorset
Rating: 3.5
Recovering from an illness, Dalgliesh receives a letter from a family friend, Father Baddeley, imploring him to visit. By the time Dalgliesh is able to travel to Toynton Grange, a home for those with physical disabilities, Baddeley has died. But there’s been another suspicious death, so Dalgliesh lingers for a few days. There follows more deaths, an attempt on the life of Toynton Grange’s owner and questions about Father Baddeley’s death. This is a classic closed community mystery – not James’ best, but certainly not disappointing. It is the fifth in her series.

Strip Jack by Ian Rankin

2009-04-14T17:43:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Insp. John Rebus
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 3.3
When MP Gregor Jack is caught in a brothel, Rebus is sympathetic, suspecting the government official was set up. When he visits Jack’s home, he finds a nervous man – and not only because of the press coverage. Jack’s wife, who likes to indulge in sex and drug parties, is missing. Soon after, she’s found dead – and there are plenty of suspects. This is the fourth in the Rebus series. As always, Rankin brings us memorable characters and sharp dialogue.

The Colorado Kid by Stephen King

2009-04-01T16:49:00.004-04:00

Protagonists: Vince Teague, Dave Bowie and Stephanie McCann
Setting: Maine island of Moose-Lookit
Rating: 3.5

(Warning: Contains a spoiler). Stephanie McCann is a young intern at The Weekly Islander, run by Vince Teague and Dave Bowie, who have been at the newspaper forever. One day, they share the story about the Colorado Kid with her – a man, at first unknown, is found on the beach without identification. He is eventually identified (he was from Colorado), but his abrupt disappearance from work, only to show up later that day in Maine, is a mystery. Teague and Bowie have taught McCann that a good feature story always has “a beginning, a middle and an end.” This novel, however, only gives the reader a beginning and a middle – no end at all, since the mystery is never solved.

While I enjoyed the story during its telling (narrator Jeffrey DeMunn did a great job of capturing the Maine accents and Stephen King can tell a story), the ending left me feeling frustrated, a bit cheated. I’d recommend this only on audiobook, which is how I experienced it, and only after warning people that this book, billed as a mystery and the first entry in the Hard Case Crime series, is not a traditional whodunnit by any stretch. Also, this is most definitely a case of not judging a book by its cover -- this is a most deceiving cover.

The Book of Murder by Guillermo Martinez

2009-04-01T16:45:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Luciana
Setting: Buenos Aires
Rating: 3.5
Luciana, who worked as a transcriber for two authors as a young woman, calls one of them up 10 years later (our unnamed narrator) with a tale of how the other author, Kloster, is slowly killing off her family and friends. She feels he is doing it as revenge for the death of his daughter, of which he somehow blames Luciana. But the deaths all seem accidental or unrelated to Kloster. Is Luciana going mad, or is there something behind her story? Book kept me hooked, but fell flat -- very flat -- with the ending.

The Savage Garden by Mark Mills

2009-03-29T11:46:00.002-04:00

Protagonist: Adam Strickland
Setting: Tuscany, 1958
Rating: 4.7

Young art scholar Adam Strickland is sent to Italy by his thesis adviser to study a Renaissance garden built by a Florentine banker in memory of his wife, who died in 1548 under mysterious circumstances. The garden, filled with statues, a temple and grotto, is indeed interesting as art. But it becomes even more interesting when Adam hits upon the key to deciphering it: Dante’s The Divine Comedy – the nine-tiered garden is modeled on the nine circles of hell. Following the clues, he suspects that the banker, Federico Docci, may have killed his own wife, Flora, for having an affair. But this is not the only mystery.

At the Villa Docci estate, Adam begins to suspect that one of Signora Docci’s sons may have murdered his brother. Although the family has always said that Emilio Docci was killed by German occupiers at the end of World War II, the stories don’t add up. The third floor of the house, where Emilio was killed, has been locked since the murder. Eventually, Adam unravels this mystery, as well, although we get a little twist at the end.

Also recommended: Mill’s first book Amagansett, a mystery set on Long Island just after WWII.