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.