When Will There Be Good News? by Kate Atkinson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Protagonists: Mariam and Laila
Setting: Kabul
Rating: 4.3

This, the second book by Hosseini, follows the fate of two Afghan women. First, we meet Mariam, who is married off after her mother dies. Her father, who has legitimate wives and children, refuses to take in Mariam, daughter of a house maid. Mariam has an unhappy, abusive marriage after she continually gets pregnant, only to miscarry and then suffer beatings by husband Rasheed. We meet Laila, a teenage girl, in Part 2. Her childhood friend and lover, Tariq, begs Laila to marry him and leave Kabul with him and his family as violence escalates. But Laila stays with her parents. Shortly after, a rocket hits their home, killing both parents. Laila is taken in by neighbors Mariam and Rasheed. Yet for Rasheed, it is not an act of kindness; he wants her for his second wife. When she’s told that Tariq and his parents have died in a bombing, Laila, pregnant with Tariq’s child, finds herself with no choice but to marry Rasheed. This book tells the bleak story of women in Afghanistan – from being forced to wear burqas to not being able to leave the house without a man. The book’s bleakness does not abate until the end.

Hosseini’s first book was the huge bestseller The Kite Runner, which focused on the relationship between sons and father, and on atonement. Both books have their camps – those who think one book is better than the other. Personally, I prefer The Kite Runner, although Splendid Suns is still a strong book with a powerful message.

Death in a Strange Country by Donna Leon

Protagonist: Commissario Guido Brunetti
Setting: Venice
Rating: 4.2
This is only the second in the Brunetti series (now at 18 books), but Leon was already writing terrific police procedurals early on. In this one, Brunetti investigates the drowning of a young American soldier from the nearby base of Vicenza. Although his superior wants the case wrapped up soon – as a mugging gone wrong – Brunetti keeps at it, uncovering a conspiracy involving the dumping of toxic waste. He’s pulled from the case to investigate an art heist from a Grand Canal palazzo, but that turns out to have a connection to the murder, as well. With his superior caring more about politics, Brunetti’s hands are tied in dealing out justice – but there is a certain justice dealt out. Just as interesting are the characters and their interactions, especially those involving Brunetti’s family. His family life is described in loving, yet realistic, details, and we get to know a bit more about his father-in-law, a count with powerful ties.

Also looks interesting: I have not read this entirely, just perused: Brunetti's Venice by Toni Sepeda, with an introduction by Donna Leon. This newly released book is a tour guide of sorts. Sepeda gives authorized tours of sites mentioned in Leon's books, and this is an extension of those tours, complete with maps. I'll save this book for some future trip to Venice!

Tours for mystery readers

Two of my most memorable trips ever were to England and Scotland, through Smithsonian Journeys (an arm of the Smithsonian Institution). It's something I've written about in the Smithsonian Journeys blog this week.

Smithsonian Journeys has two tours: the Classic Mystery Lovers Tour, which takes you from London to Torquay (where Agatha Christie lived) to the Cotswolds and Oxford. We also spend an afternoon in Wales. The other tour, Mystery Lovers England and Scotland, takes a different route, from the Yorkshire Dales to Edinburgh. Both tours are led by three wonderful women: Rosalind Hutchison, tour guide; Carol Fleisher Kent, study leader; and Moira Black, tour manager. All three are incredibly knowledgeable and main reasons for my returning for a second trip.

Another reason: These trips don't just take you to sites where books are set, but we meet with current-day big-name authors, including Ian Rankin, Colin Dexter (creator of Inspector Morse), Ann Cleeves and Andrew Taylor, among others. Author Robert Barnard, shown above, gave us a personal tour of the Bronte Parsonage during one trip.

These trips are on the pricey side, but worth it. We stay at luxury hotels and the groups are never very large. There's a relaxed atmosphere to the tours -- not the usual mad dash, no-time-for-the-restroom tours that I've experienced before. In fact, the bus has even stopped at times so we can get out and snap photos of the countryside. These are trips I would recommend to anyone who loves mysteries. I'm awaiting the day when the Smithsonian adds a third mystery tour!

Interview with L.J. Sellers

L.J. Sellers has written an intriguing book in The Sex Club (review below) and I'm happy to report that this is the first in a series of Det. Wade Jackson books. Below, Sellers talks about her books:

Q: Your first mystery book, The Sex Club, is about middle-school teens involved in sexual situations. You weave in issues such as lack of sex education in the schools and parents who cloak themselves in religion rather than talk to their kids. Are these issues you’ve seen in real life, and why address them in a crime novel?

A: I was seeing the lack of sex education in schools begin to permeate our culture, most of it as a result of the policies of the last administration. My concern, when I was writing the story, was that teenagers would suffer through higher pregnancy rates and more exposure to STDs. And of course that is what’s happened now. I also have seen firsthand how religious suppression of sex and sexuality is unhealthy and often backfires, pushing individuals into risky behavior. I consider all of this to be a crime against humanity. So why not write it as a crime novel? Especially since that’s what I love to do.

Q: How has the reception been to this book?

A: Readers and reviewers have raved about it. I get e-mails all the time from people who have just finished it and feel compelled to tell me how much they liked it and to ask when my next book is coming out. I’ve only seen two brief reviews from individuals who didn’t care for it. Honestly, I expected more. When you write about sex and religion, you’re guaranteed to get some people worked up. That was one of the points I was trying to make.

Q: So, have you gotten any funny looks when mentioning the title of this book?

A: Surprisingly few. Most people respond favorably, saying something like, “That will get people’s attention.” Although some readers in the mystery community have commented that they didn’t care for the title. And one book group, who liked the story so much they asked me to join them for a discussion, said they were embarrassed to ask for it at the bookstore or library. On the other hand, one NY reader who posted on Goodreads said she loved carrying THE SEX CLUB around the subways. So the title has had mixed results.

Q: You’ve created a very likable character in Det. Wade Jackson, a separated father trying to balance raising a teenage daughter with his profession. I’m glad to see he’ll be back in a second book, Secrets to Die For. What can you tell us about the second book?

A: I’m so glad you like Jackson. I wanted him to be likable and respectable. I didn’t want to write a hard-drinking, bitter, morally questionable cop character. He’s not perfect, but his issues are the same as everyone’s: family, money, and health.

Here’s the pitch for STDF: A social worker visits the home of a young boy she has been assigned to and is brutally murdered shortly after. To Detective Jackson, it looks like an open-and-shut case against the ex-con father of the young boy. Then complications develop when new evidence points to a serial rapist whose violence is escalating. Meanwhile, the murder victim’s lover knows something about the rape victims but has secrets of her own that she’s afraid to reveal. Soon she is kidnapped and held captive, and Jackson must uncover the truth in time to save her.
SECRETS TO DIE FOR will be out in September from Echelon Press. Any everyone will be hearing more from me about it as the release date gets closer.

Q: Is Wade Jackson going to become a series?

A: It is a series. I’m working on the final draft of the third book now. And I have standalone thriller, THE BABY THIEF, in which Jackson appears as a minor character. I hope to have this book on the market soon too. I’m also outlining the fourth Jackson story. So by the end of 2010, I should have five Jackson novels available.

As background information: When I wrote THE SEX CLUB, it was story I felt very passionate about and had to tell. It also happened to have a detective in it, so I wrote the Jackson character as someone I liked well enough that I could bring him back in future stories if I wanted to. I didn’t set out to write a series. But readers loved the characters so much, I decided to write a few more Jackson stories and see how it went.

Q: You started out as a journalist, working many years in editor positions in pharmaceutical magazines. How did you make the jump to writing books, and was this something you had wanted to do for a long time? And did your experience as a journalist help in writing these books?

A: I started writing novels rather early in my journalism career. My first novel was a challenge to myself, after reading a particularly bad novel and thinking ‘I could do better than that.’ So I brainstormed a storyline, outlined it, then wrote the novel. It was so much fun, I wrote another one. Then I started thinking about getting published. BTW: It took a long time. My journalism experience is what led me to outline my first novel before I started writing — and every novel since. I believe this is tremendously helpful. Journalism also gives me the discipline and confidence to sit down and write every day whether I feel inspired or not.

Q: Is being a published mystery author what you thought it would be? Can you relate some of the more unexpected, or even stranger, things that have happened to you since you published The Sex Club?

A: Online social networking has drastically changed how writers interact with readers and with other writers. It’s not a scenario I imagined when I first fantasized about the life of a novelist. Ultimately, I have more friends and fun than I thought I would, but considerably less money.

One of the strangest things that happened was discovering that the name of the antagonist in THE SEX CLUB is the name of real person who’s involved in a mystery community we both belong to. I was horrified and hoped she wouldn’t find out. But she did and she contacted me, and fortunately I managed to smooth things out with her. But it made me realize that my fiction can have repercussions in the real world. Another interesting by-product is that now I get requests to read, review, blurb, and edit sexually explicit books. I don’t write sex scenes or read them as a general rule, so it’s funny to have people think that’s who I am because my novel has the word sex in the title.

Q: Which are the authors you read?
A: This is hard because some of my favorite authors from the past, I no longer read. And some new authors I like, I’ve read only one of his/her novels so far. So this list will be a mix. Favorite authors from the past: Lawrence Sanders, Steven King, Leslie Glass, Margaret Atwood, Sue Grafton, John MacDonald, Rex Stout. Favorite current authors: John Sanford, John Grisham, John Hart, Laura Lippman. Potential new favorites: Harlan Coben, Victor Gischler, Duane Swierczynski, Gillian Flynn, Karen Olson.

The Sex Club by L.J. Sellers

Protagonist: Det. Wade Jackson
Setting: Eugene, Oregon
Rating: 4.0

From the title, you might expect some tawdry book, but this is a crime novel with some important points to make. The "sex club" refers to a group of middle-school kids, 13 to 15 years old, who get caught up in sex games that turn deadly when the body of one girl is found naked in a dumpster. Det. Jackson knew the girl -- she was a friend of his daughter (Sellers paints a nice portrait of him as a separated dad trying to raise a teenage daughter). He's helped by Kera Kollmorgan, a nurse at a Planned Parenthood clinic, who has begun to notice trends among the teen patients and formed her theories -- but patient confidentiality prevents her from telling Jackson everything.

To add to the tension, the clinic is bombed by a religious fundamentalist, also the mother of one of the sex club members. Soon, the mother is targeting Kera herself -- for death. There's a somewhat predictable ending, but before she gets there Sellers weaves in some issues to think about, such as the importance of sex education in schools. And that high school may already be too late to start discussing these issues with kids. This is Sellers' debut book, and I very much look forward to reading her next one.

Bitter Recoil by Steven Havill

Protagonists: Bill Gastner and Estelle Reyes-Guzman
Setting: Northern New Mexico
Rating: 3.7

In this second book of the series, Gastner, just out of bypass surgery, drives across the state to visit former deputy Guzman, now newly married. But he soon finds himself helping her on a nonstop 24-hour case: first, a young pregnant woman is killed, seemingly thrown from a moving car. Then, young men are being killed, possibly the ones who were in the pickup truck with the girl. The bad guy becomes obvious pretty quickly, but Havill still maintains our interest with some interesting twists and the growing characters of Gastner and Guzman, and the book moves quickly to its resolution.

Echoes from the Dead by Johan Theorin

Protagonist: Julia Davidsson
Setting: Oland, Sweden
Rating: 5.0
Twenty years ago, Julia's 5-year-old son slipped out of his grandparents' garden and vanished into the fog of this Swedish island, his body never found. But now, his grandfather Gerlof, who lives at a home for the elderly, has received one of the boy's sandals in the mail. He calls his daughter, and together they begin to try to solve the mystery. Their main suspect is the notorious murderer Nils Kant, a man who killed three people (or four, if you count his own brother's accidental drowning) before leaving Sweden. But Gerlof believes Kant returned and still lives on Oland. These two very unlikely heroes -- Gerlof, wracked by a disease that sometimes leaves him unable to walk, and Julia, alcoholic and still embittered after 20 years -- become stronger the more they delve into the case, with the help of Oland's lone policeman, Lennart Henriksson. This story moves slowly, and cuts between present-day and Nil's own story. But by the end, you've come to really care for these characters. The ending, therefore, is even more heart-wrenching. This is a story that will stay with me for a while.

A Rule Against Murder by Louise Penny

Protagonist: Chief Insp. Armand Gamache
Setting: Manoir Bellechasse, Canada
Rating: 5.0
Armand Gamache and his wife, Reine-Marie, are celebrating their wedding anniversary at the isolated Manoir Bellechasse, an old hunting lodge built by the robber barons. Also visiting for a family reunion is the insufferable Finney family, except for two of their members -- Peter and Clara Morrow, the Gamaches' friends from Three Pines. The Finneys are Peter's family, and in this fourth book we finally come to understand Peter's dark side, which we've only peeked at previously. This may be Penny's best novel yet. She strips it down to just the essential characters and gives us a Golden Age murder mystery -- the old country house, a list of suspects and a baffling murder. And Penny doesn't waste a word; even the description of the roofline earlier in the book has a significance. Oh, but one warning. Don't read on an empty stomach. Her descriptions of food will have you salivating!

The Comforts of a Muddy Saturday by Alexander McCall Smith

Protagonist: Isabel Dalhousie
Setting: Edinburgh
Rating: 3.5
Isabel is really not meddling this time; she's asked by a doctor's wife to clear his name, after a patient dies having taken a new antibiotic that the doctor pronounced safe in clinical trials. Isabel doesn't exactly solve the case, although there is a resolution. Better yet, is the book's focus on Isabel's growing relationship with Jamie, the father of her son. It's nice to see a smart, strong woman who also has some very realistic insecurities when it comes to matters of the heart. Like the rest of the series, this fifth book is a nice comfort read.

Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow

Play With Fire by Dana Stabenow (audio, fifth in series)
Protagonist: Kate Shugak
Setting: Alaska
Rating: 3.7

As I’ve said before, these early Stabenow books are light on mystery, but big on descriptions and characterization. In Play With Fire, it’s summer, and hot, for once. Kate is picking mushrooms, suddenly a big cash crop following a forest fire that provided the right conditions. She’s helping her paraplegic friend Bobby and his new lover, Dinah. In the forest, she stumbles across a much-decomposed body. She figures out soon enough who he is, but not why his disappearance hasn’t been reported for 10 months. There’s a lot of digression in this novel about religious fundamentalists (who are a major part of the plot) and the education of native Alaskan children (the victim was a teacher). While I agree with Shugak’s (or Stabenow’s?) views on both topics, she does come across as preachy. There is, however, a touching scene where we learn more about Kate’s early years in college – and we gain greater insight into the culture clash that many young Alaskans must experience. At times like this, Stabenow is at her best. It’s a series I’ll keep reading.

Down River by John Hart

Down River by John Hart
Protagonist: Adam Chase
Setting: Rowan County, North Carolina
Rating: 3.5

In this novel about family secrets and family dysfunctions, prodigal son Adam Chase returns to the family’s Red Water Farm, five years after being acquitted for a murder he never committed (and which was never solved). Adam was jailed on the strength of one eyewitness – his stepmother, and his father turned him out of the house. Few believe him innocent. There’s good reason for him to stay away, but he returns when childhood friend Danny Faith calls in need. But on his return, Danny is mysteriously missing. And soon after his arrival, a young woman who grew up on the farm (and is in love with Adam) is assaulted – and then there’s another murder. Adam is again a suspect. In his corner, he does have old flame Robin, a police officer who still has a photo of Adam on her bedside table, even after five years (ah, male writers…). Hart has been compared to John Grisham and Scott Turow. If you like those authors, you’ll probably love Hart. If you don’t, well, this book is still readable enough, although a little overblown, both in plot and writing. Most of the twists in this thriller were easy to figure out before the reveal. Even though it won the Edgar award and has gotten much acclaim, I hesitate to strongly recommend it.

Heartshot by Steven F. Havill

Heartshot by Steven F. Havill (first in the series)
Protagonist: Undersheriff Bill Gastner
Setting: Posadas County, New Mexico
Rating: 3.7
This series is refreshing in that it features overweight, cigarette-puffing, retirement-age undersheriff Bill Gastner (the sheriff is mostly a political job; the undersheriff does all the work in fictional Posadas County) and a young Latina detective, Estelle Reyes, as his sidekick. In this debut, the sheriff’s office finds itself dealing with a major drug problem, one that has killed several teens. Gastner ends up in the hospital – not because he’s shot at, stabbed or otherwise hurt in the line of work. It’s his heart. His bad heart becomes key at another pivotal point later on – you can see it coming, but the author pulls it out with a nice scene. This book had its faults – one being that the bad guy is easy to spot, early on. Still, it’s a series I’ll continue.

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman

To the Power of Three by Laura Lippman (audio)
Protagonist: Homicide Sgt. Harold Lenhardt
Setting: Glendale High School, Maryland
Rating: 3.5

To the Power of Three tells the story of three teenagers – Kat, Josie and Perry – best friends since third grade. But something happens the summer after their junior year, and Kat and Perry become estranged their senior year. Then, on the last day of school, Kat is shot dead in a high school bathroom. Perry, the suspect, is critical after shooting herself. And Josie is apparently the only witness, but she’s sticking to a story that has huge holes in it. She’s pressed by Sgt. Lenhardt, who (unfortunately) does not have a greater role in this story. The novel unravels slowly, going back in time to third grade, showing us the bonds that held these girls together. Lippman captures the essence of the teenage years spot-on. But this book, which I’ve heard highly praised, fell flat for me. There were too many peripheral stories that detracted from the main story and, worse of all, the resolution was anticlimatic. In the end, I was disappointed.

The Minotaur by Barbara Vine

The Minotaur by Barbara Vine (Ruth Rendell)
Protagonist: Kerstin Kvist
Setting: Essex, England
Rating: 5.0
Vine has written a modern gothic novel, complete with its own House of Usher -- Lydstep Old Hall, where Mrs. Cosway lives with her four daughters and a son. Kerstin, originally from Sweden and hoping to find a job near London, comes to live at Lydstep to care for son John, who she is told is schizophrenic. With its old house, covered in Virginia creeper, locked rooms, a mad relative and a highly dysfunctional house, Vine slowly plays out this very gothic tale. There isn't much action in this book, but Vine does keep up the tension. We know something will happen -- to whom and how, we don't know until the end.

This book has reminded me how much I enjoy gothics. Edgar Allen Poe is credited with transforming the genre, bringing us “The Fall of the House of Usher.” But modern gothics -- with their gloomy, foggy atmospheres, families mysteries and even ghosts -- are still being written. Here's a sampling of some (if you know of any others, please let me know!):

The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. The narrator, Margaret Lea, is hired by famed author Vida Winter to write her biography. But while she may be famous, nobody really knows Winter – or her many secrets. Lea moves into Winter’s stately Gothic home in the English countryside, and visits the author’s crumbling family mansion, where she feels the ghosts of the past watching her. A tale of twins, ghosts and family madness, this is modern gothic at its best.

Ghostwalk by Rebecca Stott. Writer Lydia Brooke is asked to finish a manuscript on Newton and his ties to alchemy, a book begun by Cambridge historian Elizabeth Vogelsang, who died in mysterious circumstances -– drowned and clutching a glass prism. Brooke moves into Vogelsang’s studio, where pools of light move in strange ways across the walls. Soon, Brooke is convinced that deaths in Newton’s time are somehow linked to current deaths. This has been called an intellectual thriller, but it is undeniably a ghost story as well.

The Sister by Poppy Adams. This is the tale of sisters Ginny and Vivi. After nearly 50 years apart, Vivi returns to the rambling family mansion where Ginny has lived alone. While there are no hauntings or supernatural activity, the novel maintains a taut tension by going back in time to reveal the family’s dynamics, raising questions about central events. The novel also employs another gothic trait, a mentally ill family member, in an interesting way.

Heart-Shaped Box by Joe Hill. Judas Coyne, a rock star, collects strange objects. On an online auction site, he buys a suit that’s advertised as being haunted by the owner’s ghost. It arrives in a heart-shaped box and, soon enough, Coyne is being haunted by a ghost -– as it turns out, the stepfather of a groupie that Coyne slept with. This debut novel by Hill (Stephen King’s son) is a gothic ghost tale with some nice twists.

Duma Key by Stephen King. While King’s fiction usually falls into the horror genre, this book veers more into the gothic, with family secrets, twins (another gothic element), ghosts and other supernatural happenings. In fact, when main character Edgar Freemantle moves to Duma Key in Florida, he makes a reference to his rental house being like the House of Usher (for its creaking sounds). It’s on Duma Key that Freemantle, who owned a construction company and who lost an arm in a horrific crane accident, develops his artistic talent –- except that another hand seems to be guiding his paintings. King goes light on the horror in this book, and the result is a terrific gothic novel.

A Cold-Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow

A Cold-Blooded Business by Dana Stabenow (audio, fourth in series)
Protagonist: Kate Shugak
Setting: Prudhoe Bay, Alaska
Rating: 4.0

Kate Shugak is hired by a large oil company to investigate who is bringing drugs into the camp. She goes undercover as a "roustabout," quickly finding out that drug use is indeed rampant among the employees. She stumbles onto the bad guys partly by detection work and partly by luck. While the plot is thin on the detecting, we forgive Stabenow. I read her books mostly for the descriptions of Alaska and the native culture.

This is a series I recommend reading in order. The first one, A Cold Day for Murder, begins Kate's career, when a park ranger and an Anchorage investigator, goes missing. In the second, A Fatal Thaw, a mass murderer shoots up eight bodies. But a ninth person appears to be killed by a different rifle. In the third, Dead in the Water, Kate goes undercover on a crabber ship, to find out what happened to two deckhands that disappeared. Each book, so far, has been set in a different locale. Whether it's a large national park or the confines of a crabber, Stabenow succeeds in showing us another part of her state each time.

Stabenow herself sums up her 16-book series in this cute YouTube video. Be forewarned, though -- there is one spoiler.

R.I.P. John Updike

John Updike passed away today. I discovered Updike in high school -- an assignment had me writing about a contemporary American author. I don't remember the librarian's name, but I'm forever in her debt for introducing me to Updike.

Duma Key by Stephen King

Duma Key by Stephen King (audio)
Protagonist: Edgar Freemantle
Setting: Duma Key, Florida
Rating: 5.0

I was wary of horror master Stephen King’s latest book, and sought out opinions before deciding whether to even read it (after all, it is a long book, and I’d grown tired of King’s books, which all seemed to have the same voice). But this, muchachos (as Edgar’s friend Wireman would say), is one great book. Yes, there are elements of the supernatural, but they don’t overwhelm the story, which is really about Edgar, redemption, and good and evil.

Owner of a construction company, Edgar loses an arm and suffers brain injury in a horrific crane accident. He sells his business. His wife, unable to put up with his bouts of anger, divorces him. So Edgar takes his psychologist's advice and moves far from Minneapolis – to the fictional Duma Key island off Florida’s West coast. Here, he astounds the Florida art scene with his Dali-like paintings. But his hand is guided, in part, by some other force and his works are more than paintings – they are a window into the future and the past. His life and his experiences are intertwined with the only other residents of Duma Key – the elderly Elizabeth Eastlake and her caretaker, Wireman, both of whom have also experienced the island’s eerie power. A battle of good versus evil eventually ensues.

This book unravels slowly, and wonderfully. Much of the first part is gothic, but then King starts ratcheting up the suspense – and the terror. This is undeniably a King book, but a different kind of King. It also may be one of his finest works. I’m glad I didn’t miss out on it.

Other recent reads:

The Demon of Dakar by Kjell Eriksson
Protagonist: Ann Lindell
Setting: Uppsala, Sweden
Rating: 3.0
Although this is billed as an Ann Lindell mystery, there is little to be seen of the detective or her colleagues. The book focuses more on the victims and killers (yes, plural – there are several bad guys). The first murder is that of restaurateur and drug smuggler Armas, killed by the brother of a Mexican man who was caught and jailed for smuggling drugs for Armas. There are several characters and several stories in this book, and they do intersect at some point. While the stories are interesting, and the book was readable, it was very light on the police procedural aspects. This could have been a stronger book with more of an emphasis on the detective work. It also could have been a better-edited book. If typos annoy you, this book will have you gritting your teeth.

Lamb to the Slaughter by Aline Templeton
Protagonist: Det. Insp. Marjory Fleming
Setting: Kirkluce, Scotland
Rating: 4.7
Now this is the way to write a police procedural. Strong detectives with interesting family lives, and a good mystery, of course. A sheep is killed, then an elderly but influential man in town, and finally a young thug. They don’t seem to have anything in common, yet the detectives are convinced there is only one killer. Meanwhile, town residents are divided over a big grocery chain that wants to move in, which would force out the craft center. Elderly residents are being terrorized by motorcycle-riding teens. And Fleming’s own teenage daughter is caught up in the lure of these bad boys. Templeton writes about these small towns with wonderful details (even if they aren’t real) and creates just-as-interesting characters.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: A book I'd recommend
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad

Edgar Nominees and More

The Edgars have been announced. A partial list is below and the full list is here. This means much more reading for me -- I've not read any of the Best Novel or Best First Novel nominees. But also exciting for me is that favorite author Andrew Taylor (see post below) has won the 2009 Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers' Association for sustained excellence in crime writing. Taylor is not as well known here in the U.S., and that's a great pity.

Best Novel
• Missing, by Karin Alvtegen (Felony & Mayhem Press)
• Blue Heaven, by C.J. Box (St. Martin’s Minotaur)
• Sins of the Assassin, by Robert Ferrigno (Scribner)
• The Price of Blood, by Declan Hughes (Morrow)
• The Night Following, by Morag Joss (Delacorte Press)
• Curse of the Spellmans, by Lisa Lutz (Simon & Schuster)

Best First Novel by an American Author
• The Kind One, by Tom Epperson (Five Star)
• Sweetsmoke, by David Fuller (Hyperion)
• The Foreigner, by Francie Lin (Picador)
• Calumet City, by Charlie Newton (Touchstone)
• A Cure for Night, by Justin Peacock (Doubleday)

Best Paperback Original
• The Prince of Bagram Prison, by Alex Carr (Random House Trade)
• Money Shot, by Christa Faust (Hard Case Crime)
• Enemy Combatant, by Ed Gaffney (Dell)
• China Lake, by Meg Gardiner (Obsidian Mysteries)
• The Cold Spot, by Tom Piccirilli (Bantam)

Best Fact Crime
• For the Thrill of It: Leopold, Loeb, and the Murder that Shocked Chicago, by Simon Baatz (HarperCollins)
• American Lightning: Terror, Mystery, the Birth of Hollywood, and the Crime of the Century, by Howard Blum (Crown)--one of January Magazine’s favorite books of 2008
• Havana Nocturne: How the Mob Owned Cuba and Then Lost It to the Revolution, by T.J. English (Morrow)
• The Man Who Made Vermeers: Unvarnishing the Legend of Master Forger Hans van Meegeren, by Jonathan Lopez (Harcourt)
• The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, by Kate Summerscale (Walker & Company)

Best Critical/Biographical
• African American Mystery Writers: A Historical and Thematic Study, by Frankie Y. Bailey (McFarland & Company)
• Hard-boiled Sentimentality: The Secret History of American Crime Stories, by Leonard Cassuto (Columbia University Press)
• Scene of the Crime: The Importance of Place in Crime and Mystery Fiction, by David Geherin (McFarland & Company)
• The Rise of True Crime, by Jean Murley (Praeger)
• Edgar Allan Poe: An Illustrated Companion to His Tell-Tale Stories, by Dr. Harry Lee Poe (Metro Books)

Best Short Story
• “A Sleep Not Unlike Death,” by Sean Chercover (from Hardcore Hardboiled, edited by Todd Robinson; Kensington Publishing)
• “Skin and Bones,” by David Edgerley Gate (Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, October 2008)
• “Scratch of a Woman,” by Laura Lippman (from Hardly Knew Her; Morrow)
• “La Vie en Rose,” by Dominique Mainard (from Paris Noir; edited by Aurelien Masson; Akashic Books)
• “Skinhead Central,” by T. Jefferson Parker (from The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly; Little, Brown)

Best Juvenile
• The Postcard, by Tony Abbott (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)
• Enigma: A Magical Mystery, by Graeme Base (Abrams Books for Young Readers)
• Eleven, by Patricia Reilly Giff (Random House/Wendy Lamb Books)
• The Witches of Dredmoore Hollow, by Riford McKenzie (Marshall Cavendish Children’s Books)
• Cemetery Street, by Brenda Seabrooke (Holiday House)

Best Young Adult
• Bog Child, by Siobhan Dowd (Random House/David Fickling Books)
• The Big Splash, by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Amulet Books)
• Paper Towns, by John Green (Dutton Children’s Books)
• Getting the Girl, by Susan Juby (HarperTeen)
• Torn to Pieces, by Margo McDonnell (Delacorte Books for Young Readers)

Caroline Minuscule by Andrew Taylor

Caroline Minuscule by Andrew Taylor
Protagonist: William Dougal
Setting: England
Rating: 4.5
I hate for a year to go by without having read a Taylor novel, so I went back to his first book, published in 1982. Dougal is a graduate student, the type of person who, upon finding his tutor murdered, walks away without alerting anyone; he doesn't want to spoil his dinner plans with girlfriend Amanda. But soon enough, he's enmeshed in the puzzle that killed his professor; it involves Caroline Minuscule (the name of a Medieval script). The payoff involves diamonds, but Dougal and Amanda have an adversary who will stop at nothing.

By the end of the book, Dougal has undergone quite a transformation. He’s also not the usual detective. As Taylor writes, “in a sense William Dougal is a modified Tom Ripley transposed into a British key.”

It's amazing what Taylor packed into a small novel (234 pages in paperback). This novel, in fact, won the John Creasey Award of the Crime Writers' Association and was shortlisted for an Edgar by the Mystery Writers of America. Taylor went on to write seven more novels in the Dougal series. So while I wait for Taylor’s next book in his Lydmouth series, I will continue to dip into the Dougal books. Taylor has written an interesting essay on his first book here.

2008 Tops

This was a good year for books, with some favorite authors again providing solid books, as well as some new-to-me authors, at least one of whom surprised me (I didn’t expect to like his books that much!). Here were my favorites this year:

Two favorites delivered, as always – Ann Cleeves, with White Nights, the second in her Shetland quartet, and Louise Penny with The Cruelest Month, her third in a seasonal quartet. These two rank highest for me. Not surprisingly, there are similarities between the two – beautifully drawn descriptions of the land, the villages and the people. Also, Cleeves and Penny write very much in the vein of traditional mysteries. I will read anything in the crime fiction genre – thrillers, spy novels, noir – but these traditional whodunits satisfy me the most.

The Pure in Heart and The Risk of Darkness, by Susan Hill, both part of the Serrailler series. These two character-driven books barely touched on crime, instead focusing on Simon Serrailler and his family. Not traditional, yet that was fine with me.

Another character-driven series is the one by Scottish author Aline Templeton. Her first three books on DI Marjory Fleming – Cold in the Earth, The Darkness and the Deep, and Lying Dead – were all among my tops. Fleming’s family life, with all its heartbreaks, is a large part of the books, but they also are strong police procedurals. This was a new author, but now is a favorite.

Another series – the surprise one – was Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series, set in Wyoming. A surprise because I thought it would be too cowboyish. But Johnson’s The Cold Dish, Death Without Company and Kindness Goes Unpunished has great characters (no stereotypes) and witty dialogue that reminds me of Robert Parker’s Spenser series. This is a series I now recommend without pause.

My other tops this year included:

The Redbreast by Jo Nesbo, set in Norway. This is a long, complex novel, but still a fast, gripping read.

Slip of the Knife by Denise Mina, the third in her Paddy Meehan series, which will run to five books. Paddy has grown up, and is a well-known Scottish journalist and a mom. The series deals with family relationships and justice. A series that definitely needs to be read in order (no. 1 and no. 2 are The Field of Blood and The Dead Hour).

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson. There was a lot of buzz about this book, the first in a series in the Millennium trilogy (Larsson died after writing the third book). The buzz was on target, this time. This Swedish novel, which features the unlikely team of a magazine journalist and a young computer hacker, is long – yet you’ll want to read it in one sitting.

The Writing Class by Jincy Willette is a light, fast, fun read – with murder, to boot! Amy Gallup is a writing teacher at an extension course. For once, she has a great class. But there’s a fly in the ointment – a murderer in the class. Since the police aren’t investigating, the whole class decides to find out which one of them is the killer. A great read!

The Secret History by Donna Tartt was published in 1992, and has become a semi-classic in the genre. It’s another big book that I couldn’t put down, even though you know in the opening pages who the killers are. This is a whodunit in reverse, as the book unveils why and how the murder took place, and then the consequences.

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming is the latest in her Millers Kill series. This is a series that must be read in order, as the relationship between the Rev. Clare Fergusson and Chief Russ Van Alstyne is pivotal in the books. I love the series, but it does have a romance aspect that not everyone likes.

Finally, two books in which I recommend the audiobook version, because the narrator does such a good job of bringing these characters alive:

Gentlemen and Players by Joanne Harris has wonderful plotting that revolves around a boy’s school and an outsider that pretends to be a student (and later a teacher), hoping to exact revenge. Another teacher, though, stands in the way. The plot unfolds like a chess game, although it’s the author who is always a move ahead of you.

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay takes an unlikely event – teenager Cynthia Bigge’s entire family disappears from her home overnight – and gives us a readable, likely plot. Twenty-five years, after a television show about the old mystery, strange events threaten Cynthia and her family. I’m not a huge fan of thrillers, but this one had me sitting in the car long after I had pulled into the driveway.

Pick of the Month: The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny

The Cruelest Month by Louise Penny
Protagonist: Chief Insp. Armand Gamache
Setting: Three Pines, Canada
Rating: 5.0

If a book of crime fiction can be a comfort read, this is it. Despite the murder, and all the other small cruelties and jealousies in this story, I still want to live in Three Pines. There's a warmth that resides there, at Olivier's Bistro, where you can have cafe au lait and fresh-baked croissants. In the woods, the village green, the shops. At the homes, where books, beautiful art and food welcome visitors.

Well, most homes. Not at the old Hadley House, where the familiar group of Three Pines residents decides on a lark to hold a seance. One of the group, though, is literally scared to death. Gamache and his team move temporary headquarters into Three Pines. While investigating the murder, Gamache finds himself threatened by his enemies at the Sûreté, more than ever.

Throughout the book, Penny lays small clues along the way, much as the villagers in the opening scene carefully hid Easter eggs. When the murderer is revealed, in a traditional Poirot-like scene, everything clicks into place. Mysteries are puzzles, and Penny has beautifully laid out each piece, but we don't see the big picture until that final piece is in place.

This is the third in the series, and there is some resolution regarding Gamache and his future at the Sûreté. But there are some threads left hanging at the end of the book, and so we look forward to book 4 (A Rule Against Murder, being published Jan. 20th in the U.S.). I suspect some of those threads will begin to unravel.

December Reads

The Silver Swan by Benjamin Black (audio)
Protagonist: Gannet Quirke
Setting: Dublin, 1950s
Rating: 4.5
This is the second in the series by Black (author John Banville, who uses a pseudonym for his crime fiction) about a pathologist investigator. Quirke is asked by former school acquaintance Billy Hunt to forego a postmortem on his wife, the attractive Deirdre Hunt, owner of The Silver Swan beauty parlor. Of course, Quirke is now curious, and a look at the body reveals a needle mark. Deirdre, pulled from a river, was thought to have been a suicide. The scenes of Quirke’s investigation are interwoven with flashbacks of Deirdre’s life. Quirke’s daughter also becomes entangled in the investigation when she starts a relationship with Deirdre’s lover. In this series, it really pays to have read the first book, since the second has more resonance if you know the history. While I liked Black’s first book, Christine Falls, for its lush prose, I found The Silver Swan an even better book. In addition to that wonderful prose, there is a very good mystery here.

A Christmas Beginning by Anne Perry
Protatonist: Superintendent Runcorn
Setting: Island of Anglesey off the north coast of Wales
Rating: 4.0
Superintendent Runcorn of Scotland Yard is on vacation in Wales when he comes across a young woman’s body in the village churchyard. Although a chief constable is called in from the mainland, it soon becomes clear that someone more experienced is needed, and so Runcorn steps in. Runcorn, a lifelong bachelor at 50, also finds himself falling in love. Runcorn is also a central character in the William Monk series, but nonreaders of the series (such as I) can still enjoy this novella.


Legally Dead by Edna Buchanan
Protagonist: Michael Venturi
Setting: South Florida
Rating: 3.5
This is the first in a new series in which Venturi, a deputy U.S. marshal in the Federal Witness Protection Program, takes matters into his own hands when he finds out that a mobster they’ve been protecting has been sexually assaulting and killing young girls. This, of course, gets him fired. Venturi moves to Florida, where he (with some help from friends) start staging fake deaths for people they feel are deserving – who’ve been falsely accused of something, for instance, but still are villified. Declared “legally dead,” they can begin their new lives in another country under new names. One after another, “clients” start appearing. The number of clients is a bit of a stretch, but I did like these individual stories. But soon, something goes wrong. Someone is killing those whom Venturi protected as a U.S. marshal -– and then someone kills one of his innocent clients. While the book has some faults, such as some thinly-drawn characters and a plot that goes overboard at times –- it was a fun, fast read for me.

Strange Affair by Peter Robinson (audio)
Protagonist: Insp. Alan Banks
Setting: London
Rating: 4.0
This is the 15th in the series, but this is not a problem if you haven't read the rest (or just read one other, like myself). Banks is on a leave of absence, dealing already with personal problems, when his somewhat estranged brother leaves a message on his answering machine, asking for help. Unable to reach him, Banks drives to London, only to find his brother's door unlocked -- and no sign of his brother. Meanwhile, a woman driver is killed on the highway. And Banks' address is in her back pocket. As partner Annie Cabbot investigates the death, it soon becomes clear that there's a link between the two incidents. A police procedural, this is also a heart-wrenching novel. It makes me want to go back and start the series in order.


Caught Out in Cornwall by Janie Bolitho
Protagonist: Rose Trevelyan
Setting: Penzance, Cornwall, England
Rating: 3.5
Rose Trevelyan almost always seems to be in the right place (or maybe the wrong place) at the right time. Here, she witnesses a man scoop up a little girl at the beach, and minutes later realizes she's seen a kidnapping, when a little girl goes missing. Rose, who is dating Det. Insp. Jack Pearce, is soon nosing around. This was not a book that grabbed me and made me want to read more in the series, but it was still pleasurable enough. The characters were barely sketched and the mystery was easily solved beforehand, but Bolitho's descriptions of Cornwall made up for that. This is the seventh in the series, and the last, as Bolitho has passed away.

The Church of Dead Girls by Stephen Dobyns
Setting: Town of Aurelius, upstate New York
Rating: 4.3
This is not a crime novel in the usual sense, although several crimes are committed. It's about how a small town reacts when three girls, one after another, are abducted. The three girls are never found alive -- but we know that from the opening pages -- so this is really not about them. It's about the rest of the town. Residents begin to turn on each other, suspect each other, and even attack each other. Although Dobyns has written a mystery series, this falls more into the category of psychological thriller.

The Tales of Beedle the Bard by J.K. Rowling
Rating: 3.3
This is a slim children's book (can be read in an hour or less), and I'd only recommend it for the die-hard Potter fan. These fairy tales, especially the last one ("The Tale of the Three Brothers") plays a part in the last Potter book. As such, it's a nice edition to the Potter folklore.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: A book I'd recommend
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad

The best of the year

It's that time of the year. Lists of best crime fiction books of the year are appearing all over (my own top 10 pick will come in a few weeks; I still need to mull, and maybe read a book or two).

At The New York Times, Marilyn Stasio’s picks make me realize that I’m far behind in all the books I wanted to read this year; she names several on my list. Sarah Weinman, writing for the Los Angeles Times, has an entirely different list of top books.

NPR’s Maureen Corrigan picks five (only five!) crime fiction books for her list. From the Brits, Marcel Berlins at The Times offers a list, as well.

And, finally, if you like your holidays with a little crime, then Tom Nolan at The Wall Street Journal offers Christmas-themed mysteries.

Around the blogs

Books to the Ceiling has a great post on The New York Times' 100 notable books for 2008, which include only four crime fiction books. Writes blogger Roberta Rood: "I cheerfully acknowledge that most of the fiction I read is crime fiction. IMHO, that’s where you’ll find great writing, great characters, terrific stories - and blessedly little self-conscious, hyper-literary posturing."

There are all sorts of blog challenges. Here's one I may or may not officially join for 2009: Read your own books. The truth is that was my own personal challenge this year. I have at least 200 unread books (OK, closer to 300). I had thought to make a dent in them, but I kept adding books faster than I read them. And I kept hearing about books that I had to check out of the library. Considering I only read between 60-70 books a year, it's going to take a while to winnow down that pile. Plus, there's also a 2009 Support Your Local Library challenge. What's a reader to do?!

Finally, I came across the literature map quite by accident, but it's a fun little spot. You type in the name of an author and suddenly all these names will float across your screen, with the most closely related near your original name. It's fun to play with, even if you don't agree with all the choices.

Pick of the Month: The Writing Class by Jincy Willett

The Writing Class by Jincy Willett
Protagonist: Amy Gallup
Setting: Southern California
Rating: 5.0

Every once in a while comes a book that I drag from room to room, because it literally is hard to put down. The Writing Class is that book. Willett takes a conventional murder mystery format (the closed community), but gives it a fresh, dark humor twist. Amy Gallup is a fiction writing teacher at an extension college. She's also, as Willett writes, a "bitter, peculiar person" who lives alone with her dog and hasn't written herself for years. But, for once, Amy finds that she has a writing class that really clicks -- 13 people of varying degrees of talent. Yet almost immediately class members and Amy start receiving poison pen letters, then prank calls. It spirals out of control, until one class member is seemingly murdered. The police won't investigate, thinking it's an accident. So it's up to the class members, which include the killer, to figure out the mystery.

Willett has drawn each character so well that you really don't want any of them to be the murderer. Throughout the book, Amy draws up lists for her blog. So I, pen in hand, was soon making a list of each class member, trying to figure out the whodunnit (I never did). A few pages later, Amy herself has drawn up the same list (still no help).

The book also works on another level, for whoever has ever wanted to be a writer or just loves language. Willett includes parts of students' stories, some very good, some so bad they make you laugh. The critiques and Amy's lessons make you feel part of the class, as well as providing clues about each character.

The Writing Class hasn't gotten much buzz, which is unfortunate. This is a funny, well-crafted mystery, very worthy of reading.

November reads

No Time for Goodbye by Linwood Barclay (audio)
Protagonist: Cynthia and Terry Archer
Setting: Milford, Connecticut
Rating: 5.0
One morning, 14-year-old Cynthia wakes up and her entire family has vanished from their suburban home – no note, no bodies. For 25 years, she wonders and waits. But after a television show does a story on the disappearance for the 25th anniversary, strange occurrences begin to happen. Cynthia’s husband doesn’t know whether to believe his wife – or believe she’s making things happen. To say anything else about the plot would be unfair. But this thriller is a grabber – from beginning to end, even when you figure out what’s really happening. This will make my top 10 reads for the year.

A Death in Vienna by Daniel Silva (audio)
Protagonist: Gabriel Allon
Setting: Vienna and Venice
Rating: 4.5
After an explosion at the Wartimes Claims and Inquiry office, spy and art restorer Allon is sent to Vienna – a bit unwillingly, as this is where his wife and son were victims of a car bomb. There are also other reasons why Allon is not welcome in Vienna. Those reasons intensify when Allon begins hunting down a Nazi official. Amid all this, we learn Allon’s mother was a Holocaust survivor. Silva does wonderfully in weaving all the threads together, in a powerful, moving spy thriller. Although this is the last of three interconnected novels, it stands very well alone.

A Carrion Death by Michael Stanley
Protagonist: Assistant Police Superintendent David “Kubu” Bengu
Setting: Botswana
Rating: 3.7
This is the debut novel by authors Michael Sears and Stanley Trollip, and introduces Kubu, whose nickname means “hippo,” appropriate to the detective, who is always thinking of his next meal. But Kubu is also a thinking detective, and watching him connect the dots is a delight in this novel that opens with a body found in a remote gaming area, hyenas grazing on it. The case keeps returning to the influential Botswana Cattle and Mining, and the bodies keep piling up. Although I thought the pace lagged at some points, overall I found it an entertaining read – and the setting of Botswana add to the pleasure.

Rating system:
5.0: Wow!
4.0: A book I'd recommend
3.0: Mediocre to good
2.0: Pretty Bad