Fickle
by Peter Manus
Virgin Books, September 2008, $15.95

Fickle begins with a terse entry on the “Life is Pulp” website, as its moderator, L.G. Fickel, blogs, “Strange end to a strange evening tonight—at around 8:30 a man committed suicide by jumping in front of the inbound at the Mass Avenue T station.” The entry creates much excitement among the site’s fans, all devotees of noir. The excitement increases as Fickel reveals that the suicide occurred right before her eyes, and escalates as she describes how the police focus on her as their prime suspect. These revelations in turn provoke Fickel’s readers to offer advice and counsel, and to speculate on the nature of the jumper’s demise—was it suicide, or homicide?

A modern example of the epistolary (e-pistolary?) novel, Fickle is told entirely through the blogs of L.G. Fickel and the brash blogger Full Frontal, who also claims to have witnessed the jumper’s death. Manus does a credible job of juggling and evoking the multiple personalities involved, and of creating a sense of immediacy, as new facts and theories are revealed. It is the nature of these revelations that will make or break this book for readers. Some may grow tired of the constant kibitzing, while others might be elated by the constantly shifting terrain. In addition, the possibility that one or more narrators are unreliable will either make the book more perplexing or all the more intriguing, depending on your temperament. Either way, Fickle will keep you turning pages, if only to see what Manus comes up with next.—Hank Wagner

The Resurrection of the Body
by Maggie Hamand
Maia Press, July 15, 2008, $17.59

This is a remarkable book on two counts. First, it was originally written in 24 hours and won the first World One-Day Novel Cup in 1995 (it has since been fleshed out and edited a bit for this 2008 publication). Second, it has one of the most unusual endings I have ever read.

The story begins in a church in east London where vicar Richard Page is conducting Good Friday services. During the silent meditation time, an anguished scream is heard in the vestibule and a man who has just been brutally stabbed in the chest comes crashing through the rear door into the church. Rushed to the hospital, the man soon succumbs to his wound without regaining consciousness. No one knows who he is, where he came from, or who stabbed him.

Several days after his autopsy, the body goes missing from the morgue. Both the police and Page are at a loss to explain how this could have happened, or why. Then, when a parishioner tells Page that she has since seen the same man working as a gardener not far away, the vicar decides to investigate. Noting the parallels between the disappearance of the body and the Resurrection of Christ, a miracle which Page has always believed was symbolic rather than real, he struggles with his faith while trying to make sense of what is happening.

This is a very quick read, not so much because of the length of the book (just over 200 pages), but because of the very short chapters and Maggie Hamand’s crisp prose. The author is a London journalist, short story writer and teacher of creative writing.—Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

The Salisbury Manuscripts
by Philip Gooden
Soho, July 2008, $24.95

Philip Gooden, currently the chair of the Crime Writers Association in the UK, is author of several Elizabethan mysteries. In The Salisbury Manuscripts he turns to the 19th century. The story is set in 1873 on Salisbury Plain, in the cathedral with its canons, vergers, and sextons, and in the town itself. The tale is reminiscent of Dickens with its shades of Nicholas Nickleby.

Lawyer Todd Ansell is sent from London to visit a client in Salisbury who wishes to entrust a memoir written by his father to the safe keeping of the law firm. When the client, a residentiary canon named Felix Slater, is murdered, the plot thickens. The pace is deliberate, but never dull. The settings are described in enough detail to create images of the time and place. The characters are convincing Victorians—servants, squires, and clergy, who are connected by complex family relationships, and many well-kept secrets. It is a treat for fans of historical mysteries.—Mary Helen Becker

Hi everyone,

In addition to running the excellent Mystery Company, Indiana bookseller Jim Huang is a small press publisher, chair of the 2009 Bouchercon, a consulting editor for Mystery Scene, and an all-around champion of the mystery community.

And apparently, he is also having a very bad business day.

Read Jim’s note below and then take a jaunt to The Mystery Company website for that vacation reading you’ve been meaning to buy. You can look through recent reviews in our Mystery Scene Review Database or get ideas from selected articles on the website.”

Jim’s a great guy who deserves support from the mystery community, if you can please help him out. — Kate Stine, Mystery Scene

JIM HUANG, THE MYSTERY COMPANY:

“The power’s out in our building; looks like it’s going to be out for a little while now. We’re closed at the moment; will re-open as soon as we possibly can. The phones are also down.

“A pole behind us snapped, crashing down on the roof of the building behind us, wires, transformers and all. Duke Energy crews are working as I write this. (I’m out of the building myself right now; I left to find an internet connection so that I could send this message.)

“I’ll continue to monitor the situation, and let you know as soon as we re-open.

“In the meantime, we are of course open online at www.themysterycompany.com. I hope you’ll browse our inventory there. You can make purchases using our shopping cart and secure server. As always, there’s free standard shipping on all orders placed over the website to all US addresses. We can really use your orders, being forced to closed like this; we need to find some dollars somewhere today! We’ll offer 20% off ALL website orders of 2 or more in-stock books for the next 24 hours, ’til 3 pm tomorrow.

I’d intended to write you all today to tell you about how much we enjoyed all our events last week, including the overtime victory of Austin Lugar’s Shameless Shamuses team in our 100 Favorite Mysteries gameshow at Glendale on Saturday. And I planned to encourage you to attend our send-off party for Austin, this Sunday evening, August 17, at 5:30 at the store (for dinner). But I’m kind of frazzled by the disruption here.

Hope to be back in touch with you all soon with the news that we’re open again.

Yours in the dark,

Jim Huang
The Mystery Company
233 2nd Ave SW
Carmel, Indiana 46032
Phone: 317-705-9711
Tollfree: 800-643-6737
Fax: 317-705-1402

The Fifth Floor
by Michael Harvey
Alfred A. Knopf, August 28, 2008, $23.95

Classic PI novels follow a formula: A beautiful woman comes to the PI for help, he takes the case and finds himself deep in intrigue and murder. Michael Harvey’s The Fifth Floor, is a superb example of why the formula works. In his talented hands we have a first rate PI mystery that doesn’t stray from the formula, but uses it so effectively that it seems new and exciting.

The PI is Chicago’s Michael Kelly and the beautiful woman is his former lover whose husband, Johnny Woods, periodically beats her up and whose daughter begs Kelly to kill her stepfather. Woods is a “fixer” on the fifth floor of City Hall, the Mayor’s office, and since this is Chicago, politics rule supreme. A murder occurs and Kelly learns that it revolves around a missing book about the great 1871 Chicago fire, and a question over whether the fire was started by Mrs. O’Leary’s cow or by the Mayor’s great grandfather in a land grab plot. The Mayor wants Kelly off the case and applies “fifth floor” pressure, but you can’t keep a good PI down.

Yes, it is formulaic, but the dialogue sparkles, the pace never lets up, the characters come alive (the city itself an intricate character), and the plot twists and turns enough to maintain high suspense. The Fifth Floor is a follow-up to Harvey’s smash debut novel, The Chicago Way. This is an author who knows his city, his criminals, his politicians and, best of all, how to put them on the page for our enjoyment. Highly recommended.—Robert Smith

It Only Takes a Moment
by Mary Jane Clark
William Morrow, July 29, 2008, $24.95

Eliza Blake is a well-known TV news host whose life has become an open book. She’s acquired lots of adoring fans, but also a few detractors who criticize her for not spending more time with her seven-year-old daughter, Janie. As a widowed single parent, Eliza is sensitive to criticism about her mothering; and as such, she is wracked with self-recrimination when Janie is abducted from summer day camp. Two good friends from work, her producer Annabelle and cameraman B.J., come to her aid to solve a crime that will chill all parents to the bone.

Mary Jane Clark’s extensive background as a writer and producer for CBS News gives her insider knowledge about the broadcast news business. This is the second in Clark’s Sunrise Suspense Society series, following When Day Breaks (2007), in which Eliza Blake and her coworkers use the tools of their trade to solve mysteries that touch their lives. It Only Takes a Moment takes only a moment to read, and has the depth of the nightly news, but it still manages unexpected twists that confound conclusions that once seemed obvious.—Verna Suit