Not too long ago, it wasn’t uncommon for authors and publishers to occasionally add “gimmicks” to the packages of books sent to reviewers.

I well remember the time when I opened a box containing a mystery set around the Fourth of July only to have large pieces of glitter spray from the package. I was not a happy camper as the glitter landed on my dress, in my hair, and all over my desk. I was still finding glitter hidden on my desk on the day I left the newspaper.

And then there was the time I was at the newspaper around 10 at night, finishing up the weekly entertainment section. A box containing a book was rigged so that when it was opened fake spiders and netting made to resemble a web sprang out. I was even less thrilled.

So I thought the days of gimmicks were—fortunately—over.

But leave it to James Patterson to come up with a new idea.

If you have $300,000, you can buy his new novel Private Vegas and have quite an experience, too.

OK, to be fair, it won’t cost you $300,000—only $294,038.

For that, a reader—and, yes, only one reader—will get a copy of Private Vegas that will self-destruct 24 hours after the buyer begins to read it.

So better read fast!

The price tag, according to the website, also comes with a first-class flight to an undisclosed location, two nights’ stay in a luxury hotel, “a splendid reading space including perfectly chilled Champagne,” a pair of “gold, not golden” binoculars inside a fine-leather case engraved with Patterson's initials, and a five-course dinner with Patterson.

The buyer also will receive the autographed Alex Cross book series.

And if you prefer mixed drinks to Champagne, apparently that can be arranged. I would hope so. That much money would buy a lot of Grey Goose.

Details of how the book will be exploded are secret but it will involve a bomb squad. The video is pretty funny as it explains what may happen.

Only one “James Patterson Self-Destructing Book Experience” will be sold on “a first-come, first-served basis” and it is only for one person, according to the website.

The website also makes this statement: “We will use reasonable efforts to ensure the Experience is a happy and memorable one for you and your fellow guests for all the right reasons, however we cannot be liable for distress caused by circumstances beyond our control (including but not limited to the weather conditions).” There also are a lot of other terms and conditions.

So who would pay that much money for this experience?

Who knows.

Representatives of Little, Brown, his publisher, have stated that Patterson has friends who would not bat an eye at that price. And of course, what a conversation starter that “experience” would be.

OK, this is an interesting idea, but since it was announced on January 20, no one has bid on this book.

And for those of us who don’t have that kind of cash lying around the house, a regular old non-destructive copy of Private Vegas, which lists Maxine Paetro as co-writer, is available for under $30 in hardcover and as an e-book.

Patterson will be the guest speaker during Sleuthfest, the annual writers’ conference sponsored by the Florida chapter of the Mystery Writers of America.

Sleuthfest is February 26 to March 1 in Deerfield Beach, Florida, just a little north of Fort Lauderdale.

And remember, Sleuthfest is in Florida and it is February.

First, if you have not watched Breaking Bad—and really, what are you waiting for?—get yourself to Netflix or On Demand or whatever and start binge-watching now.

Only after you’ve seen the entire five seasons of Walter White going from high school chemistry teacher to meth kingpin should you read this column, or, more importantly, watch the new AMC series Better Call Saul.

Better Call Saul isn’t a sequel to Breaking Bad but a prequel, taking place six years before Saul Goodman signed on to represent Albuquerque’s most notorious criminal.

Walter White and Jesse Pinkerman are nowhere near the new series; Jesse would still have been in high school, wondering, no doubt, how that lame chemistry class taught by Mr. White would ever be useful.

Six years before, Saul Goodman didn’t exist yet. Instead, the lawyer who would be known as Saul Goodman was still called by his birth name, Jimmy McGill, a small-time attorney with a bleak future and almost no clients.

Breaking Bad was about how a man loses his soul as he builds a drug empire. Better Call Saul shows a man at odds with the intersection of morals and ambition.

At the end of Breaking Bad—spoiler alert—Saul Goodman predicted that “the best-case scenario” for his tenuous future would be as manager at a Cinnabon in Omaha, Nebraska.

And in a black-and-white prologue, that is exactly what Saul is doing—rolling out the dough, putting out the Cinnabon sign in the mall, sweeping up, and constantly looking over his shoulder, worried that somehow, someday, the criminals from Arizona will find him.

At night, Saul drinks alone in his apartment and, for fun, watches the cheesy television commercials he made for his law practice back in the day.

The series then begins to show the maturation of Jimmy McGill, whose practice is so low-rent that his office is in the back of a nail salon, next to the utility room. It’s also where he sleeps.

While the first episode of Better Call Saul sets up the premise, it is the second episode that kicks into high gear and shows that Jimmy McGill really was a good lawyer.

No, make that an excellent lawyer. His negotiation on behalf of two “clients” during a tense standoff in that second episode is sheer brilliance.

Jimmy also has a brother, Chuck, who is forced to leave his job at his high-powered law firm, Hamlin, Hamlin & McGill, due to the sudden onset of what Chuck describes as electromagnetic hypersensitivity.

No one respects Jimmy, not the woman who owns the nail salon and not even his brother for whom he is the only lifeline to the outside world. Jimmy, of course, hasn’t quite learned to respect himself.

Is Better Call Saul as brilliant as Breaking Bad?

No.

Breaking Bad set a standard that comes just under The Wire.

But Better Call Saul is good—darned good—and it has the potential to develop into a great series.

That quality is due to the fact that Better Call Saul is created by Vince Gilligan and Peter Gould, the team behind Breaking Bad.

But more importantly, Better Call Saul has Bob Odenkirk reprising his role.

Odenkirk has always been a brilliant actor as well as a comedian. He has been able to immerse himself into his roles so that he often is unrecognizable, as in last year’s TV series Fargo. Odenkirk makes us care about the man who will be Saul, sad over Jimmy’s current state and cheering him when he shows his mettle.

Odenkirk has been a longtime personal favorite, going back to the days of the HBO sketch comedy series Mr. Show With Bob and David.

While Saul often was the comic relief in Breaking Bad, Better Call Saul is definitely a drama with bits of gallows humor here and there. Odenkirk shows how hungry Jimmy is for that one break, yet how he tries to do the right thing.

But Jimmy knows that ambition will win over in the end.

Better Call Saul also will show how Jimmy met Mike Ehrmantraut (Jonathan Banks), the ex-Philadelphia cop who would become Saul’s private investigator.

There also is one other returning character from Breaking Bad, but that person’s arrival is a wonderful surprise, and I don’t want to spoil that for you. At this point, no one else from Breaking Bad has been signed up to appear in Better Call Saul, though there is talk that a couple of characters may make cameos. Albuquerque can be a small city!

The first season of Better Call Saul is off to a great start and a second season already is in the works.

Better Call Saul? Yes, you should.

Better Call Saul airs at 10 p.m. Mondays on AMC.

Photos: Bob Odenkirk in Better Call Saul. AMC photos

Hi Everyone,

Some people are just overachievers. Take, for example, Tess Gerritsen, who is our cover interview. First she became a doctor, then a bestselling novelist. Her popular series of novels featuring Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli and medical examiner Maura Isles inspired the hit TNT television series Rizzoli & Isles starring Angie Harmon and Sasha Alexander.

Michael Sears had two careers before moving on to writing novels—first as an actor and then as a Wall Street trader. His financial thrillers—Black Fridays, Mortal Bonds, and the new Long Way Down—offer a tour of New York’s financial district with a distinctly dramatic flair.

Speaking of drama, in this issue, Oline Cogdill reviews the new Amazon streaming series Bosch, based on Michael Connelly’s bestselling novels. There are a lot of interesting new shows popping up on the various streaming services such as Amazon, Netflix, Hulu, and Acorn. In some cases, these new venues are rescuing beloved shows that aren’t commercially successful enough for network or cable television. For instance, late last year Netflix stepped in to save Mystery Scene readers’ favorite Longmire when it was cancelled by A&E. Shooting for a 10-episode fourth season is now underway and the western crime drama will return in the latter half of 2015. Also, we’re delighted to report that Acorn TV will be offering a new season of the excellent Foyle’s War.

In the next issue we’ll have a round-up of interesting new and rescued crime shows and where to find them. Stay tuned!

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief

In 1982, 11-year-old Evie Jones’ best friend Lianne Gagnon abruptly disappeared. Several weeks later, her body was discovered lying face down in the mud in a local park. Her death was deemed a homicide, but her alleged killer, who police publicly identified as local Robert Cameron, was never apprehended.

Cut to 1993. Evie now works as a rookie crime beat reporter for a major Toronto newspaper. Assigned to gather background material on a new series of sex crimes, she uses the paper’s resources (including a newfangled news service called LexisNexis) to obsessively pursue a private investigation into her friend’s cold case. Doing so, the likable and endearing heroine discovers some disturbing new facts concerning Lianne’s case, which lead her to believe that the killer may still be living nearby. Unfortunately, it also appears as if her investigations have caught the killer’s attention, as she senses a stalker dogging her footsteps.

The fact that this is Elisabeth de Mariaffi’s first novel is remarkable. She writes with great assurance and style, creating a sense of menace and paranoia so pervasive it virtually demands that you read “just one more chapter” before reluctantly turning in for the night. One chapter leads to another, and, before you realize it, you’ve raced to the end of this engaging and edgy thriller.

South Florida often is the locale of choice for mystery writers. And indeed the east coast of Florida seems to have a large number of published mystery writers.
 
Of course, Randy Wayne White owns the Gulf Coast of Florida, especially the Sanibel/Captiva area, and P.J. Parrish has given us a peek at the Fort Myers region.

But this month boasts two novels set in the Tampa environs, and this is good news for mystery readers.

Florida—the state I have called home for a long time—is more like several states, with each part of the Sunshine State different from the other. Sometimes I think all we share are the heat and the eccentric criminals.

Brian Freeman’s Season of Fear is set in Tampa, around the Florida gubernatorial race. The action takes us from Tampa to Clearwater to Lake Wales, a place I have never seen in a mystery.

Season of Fear nails the Tampa area, taking us to some of its landmarks, neighborhoods, and breathtaking vistas.

Freeman's hero in Season of Fear is Cab Bolton, who is on a brief leave from his job as a police detective in Naples, Florida. Naples is a great little town, full of lovely restaurants and good shopping.

When my friend Toni is down, we always head to Naples to spend the day. It’s only 90 miles away from Fort Lauderdale and we make it a day trip. I would love to see a mystery set in Naples.

Dennis Lehane wraps up his trilogy about crime in the early part of the 20th century with World Gone By, set in the Tampa of the early 1940s.

Lehane perfectly illustrates how Florida was during the 1940s, when urban sprawl was a fantasy and Ybor City was the district for Tampa’s Latin population.

World Gone By takes the reader to the city’s docks, its various underworlds, and its politics.

World Gone By concludes Lehane’s trilogy that began with The Given Day (2008). The novel picks up the story of Joe Coughlin in 1942, a decade after the events in Lehane’s Edgar Award-winning Live by Night (2012).

Florida has few landmarks that last through the decades. One of the jokes down here is that while there are some things that are more than a hundred years old, most of our “historical” sites seem to have sprung up during the 1940s.

But Freeman and Lehane both show a few places in common, despite the decades separately the stories.

Both novels make a trip to the terrific Columbia Restaurant that is still going strong in Tampa’s Ybor City. Often called Florida’s oldest restaurant, the Columbia was established in 1905.

Of course Freeman and Lehane aren’t the only ones to have written about Tampa.

Ace Atkins delved into Tampa history with his White Shadow (2006) about the death of mob boss Charlie Wall during 1955.

In my review of White Shadow, I said: “It’s 1955 and corruption seeps through the streets of Tampa. Sicilian and Cuban criminals vie for control of the city while leaders of each group also have plans for casinos in Havana. The strong community of Ybor City is fragrant with its cigar factories, but also marred by gangsters. It’s a toss up over which group is worse – the criminals or the crooked police force. Everyone – whether upstanding citizen or crook – has his eye on a young Cuban revolutionary named Fidel.


Then the retired bootlegger and gambler Charlie Wall is bludgeoned in his home. The old kingpin nicknamed White Shadow once ruled Tampa and tales of his underground tunnels where shipments of rum were unloaded are still discussed.”

White Shadow also features a side trip to Gibsonton, a town where those who worked in carnival side shows settled, adding an intriguing glimpse into one of Florida’s secret enclaves.

Atkins had a string of excellent historical novels with various settings before he began his series about Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson and his continuation of the Robert B. Parker Spencer novels.

And yes, the Columbia restaurant is in White Shadow.

Now, I can’t wait for a trip to Tampa…and dining at the Columbia.

Unable to resist the entreaties of an attractive young man, freshman honors student Sarie Holland agrees to give him a ride to a local food joint and, on the way, to the house of a local drug dealer, so that the boy can restock the goods he peddles to fellow students. Nothing will happen, she tells herself, and besides, the boy is cute.

Little does Sarie know that ambitious Philadelphia narcotics cop Doug Wildey has chosen that night to stake out the rundown home from which the dealer currently operates. Unable to corral the boy, Wildey does manage to snag Sarie, transforming her, in the matter of a few hours, from mousey college student to Confidential Informant 137. As such, she is plunged into a dangerous world she needs to understand quickly, or perhaps forfeit her life.

Swierczynski’s writing is sharp, and his plotting is topnotch, but it’s his feel for his characters, and Sarie in particular, that sets Canary apart from other thrillers. Sarie’s transformation from teenager to capable adult is entirely believable, and she evolves in surprising ways as she ventures ever deeper into a surreal rabbit hole where nothing is as it seems. Her very normality makes her relatable from the instant we meet her, but it’s her heretofore hidden talent for thinking on her feet that will keep readers heavily invested in her adventures until they see how things play out.

In Joakim Zander’s thrilling debut, a former CIA spy, a Swedish PhD student (who happens to be Muslim), and a plucky EU parliament aide all race to prevent sensitive information about America’s “enhanced interrogation tactics” in Afghanistan from reaching the wrong hands.

Of course, enhanced interrogation tactics is a fancy way of saying torture, a practice that the former spy—whose checkered career the reader glimpses throughout the narrative—both abhors and is commanded to use in the field. Scarred from a tragic event 33 years earlier in Damascus, it’s obvious that he no longer sees eye to eye with the agency.

Across the Atlantic in Sweden at Uppsala University, Mammoud Shammosh is deep into his graduate work on the privatization of war and the use of torture as an interrogation technique on detainees when he’s contacted by a mysterious source who promises him a big scoop if Mammoud agrees to meet in Brussels following an upcoming academic conference. Soon Mammoud and his ex-girlfriend Klara Walldéen, an aide in Brussels with the European Union, are plunged into a chase across Europe when it becomes clear that powerful people will do anything to make sure the leaked information stays classified.

Zander devotes more attention to writing a compelling shoot-’em-up scene than he does to fleshing out his impressive roster of main and supporting characters, but the international intrigue and the compelling subject matter—particularly given the recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report—make this a genuinely gripping read.