Neal Griffin, a 25-year veteran of law enforcement, may have delayed his true calling when he went into police work instead of novel writing. His first book, Benefit of the Doubt, is a very impressive debut that holds the reader rapt from the very first page.

Ben Sawyer, his wife Alex, and his son Jake, have moved to small-town Newburg, Wisconsin, after Ben, a policeman, almost kills a suspect in front of dozens of witnesses. Hired by his father-in-law, who was the town’s police chief until suffering a stroke, Ben is just trying to fit in and do his job, despite a lack of support from other members of the force. When his wife is arrested for murder and he loses his badge, he ends up not only taking on a number of corrupt cops, but also a newly released convict out for vengeance.

While Ben is a flawed character, you can’t help but root for the underdog in this novel. It’s also easy to like his only ally, Tia Suarez, a Latina rookie cop who knows that she is not ever going to fit into the old boy’s network—despite being tougher than all of them. While Harlan Lee, a convict who kills without remorse, is a very scary character, the boys in blue and their sadistic game of cat-and-mouse with Ben and his family are far more terrifying.

Do not start this book if you need to go to bed early—I couldn’t put it down, and ended up reading it all in one sitting. If it had been a TV movie, I would have been yelling at the screen as the story reached its climax. I wouldn’t be surprised to someday see it show up on the big screen. While Neal Griffin has obviously been quite successful in law enforcement, if this book is any indication, he may soon be embarking on a second career.

In this final installment of the Camille Verhoeven trilogy, French police commandant Verhoeven, still reeling from the murder of his wife Irène, confronts another personal tragedy when his new lover is brutally attacked in the course of a robbery. Apparently in the wrong place at the wrong time, Anne Forestier is beaten and shot at when three men ambush the Galerie Monier. Subverting numerous regulations, exploiting friendships, and lying shamelessly when necessary, Verhoeven guarantees his team will be assigned to the case, enabling him to keep a close, personal eye on Anne. She manages to identify two of her attackers, but even with a gendarme guarding her room, she feels vulnerable and sneaks out of the hospital. However, in fleeing, Anne only puts herself in greater danger.

His relationship with the case’s victim a secret, Verhoeven is in a race against time. Not only does he have to find the man who tried to kill Anne before the killer finds her, he needs to solve the crime in order to salvage his career. Divided into three parts, representing the three days from Anne’s assault until the case is closed, the narrative unfolds at a dizzying pace, with the reader struggling to keep up with Verhoeven’s brilliant discoveries. At a diminutive 4’ 11”, Verhoeven is an unlikely hero, but he seduces with his intellect and devotion to those few he cares about—even those who do not deserve his loyalty.

Verhoeven’s Paris is not the City of Lights, but rather a noir underworld full of prostitutes, corrupt cops, and vengeful Serbs. The memorable setting is an ideal backdrop to Pierre Lemaitre’s fast-paced novel. Although Camille is the third of the trilogy, it functions well as a standalone novel—but lovers of suspense will not want to miss the first two books.

After the harrowing events depicted in Fatal Harbor (2013), Lewis Cole, a retired Department of Defense analyst, is concentrating on healing, and on rebuilding his “half burnt” house. Unfortunately, a major storm system is bearing down on his hometown of Tyler Beach, threatening to decimate what remains of his home. Life becomes further complicated when his former lover, journalist Paula Quinn, asks for his help in locating her missing fiancé.

Cole agrees to look into the matter, but the story behind Mark Spencer’s disappearance is far more complex than Cole originally assumed. The stakes are frightfully high, with Cole the only one standing between Spencer and a dangerous miscreant seeking to even an old score with the attorney.

I’ve been reading in the genre for decades, so it comes as a very pleasant surprise for me to encounter the work of someone as accomplished as Brendan DuBois, a two-time winner of the Shamus Award for Best Short Story of the Year. Having been held rapt by the adventures of Lewis Cole and company in Blood Foam, I can only chuckle with delight knowing that the book has eight predecessors, and that DuBois (of whom no less a personage than Otto Penzler has said that it was “impossible to overpraise”) has also penned several critically acclaimed standalone novels, as well as enough short stories to fill several collections. Blood Foam has made me very happy, charging me up in a way that has become all too rare lately, and I eagerly look forward to sampling more of Mr. DuBois’ wares.

Matt Venne has built a reputation of writing film scripts that veer on horror—Masters of Horror, Fear Itself, and the miniseries adaptation of Stephen King’s Bag of Bones.

Now he has been tapped for a script that is a bit more realistic, yet just as terrifying.

Venne has written an adaptation of Carla Norton’s debut novel, The Edge of Normal.

The Edge of Normal, about a young woman rebuilding her life after being held by a kidnapper for years, offers more than a ripped-from-the-headlines pastiche, as I said in my review of Norton’s 2013 fiction debut.

My review also stated that Norton “delivers an emotional story of a woman fighting to regain her sense of self, to reach, at least, an edge of normal without falling. Reeve LeClaire, who was kidnaped when she was 12 and held for four years, doesn’t want people to see her only as a victim but as a survivor.

“Now 22 and living on her own in San Francisco, Reeve forces herself to deal with traumatic stress that will always linger because of her ordeal. She maintains a precise routine and sessions with a compassionate therapist who is an authority on ‘captivity syndrome,’” I added.

In 1988, Norton co-wrote the true crime book Perfect Victim about Colleen Stan, a young hitchhiker who was picked up in California by a couple who kept her captive as a sex slave for seven years.

Norton’s novel The Edge of Normal won the Royal Palm Literary Award and was a finalist for the Thriller Award.

According to Variety.com and a couple of other sources, Bold Films is developing the thriller as a movie after outbidding several other potential buyers for Venne’s script.

One of the things that made The Edge of Normal so intriguing was Norton’s compassionate view of victims and their recovery.

Hopefully, the film version can hold on to that aspect of The Edge of Normal.

  Click the letters to reveal the title of this mystery novel!

A  B  C  D  E  F  G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O  P  Q  R  S  T  U  V  W  X  Y  Z 


(Start a new game.)

Characters in long-running mystery series become more than something on a page—they become as familiar to us as friends.

It’s almost as if we want to read that annual novel to check with these characters, to see what they are up to, what changes have occurred in their lives, and, of course, go with them on their latest adventure.

And when those series end, we miss those characters and what they meant to us when we first became acquainted with them. I, for one, will miss Kinsey Millhone when Sue Grafton finally reaches Z Is for (whatever). And that won’t be long as X, just X, came out this month.

So Margaret Maron’s announcement that her latest novel, Long Upon the Land, will be the last Deborah Knott outing gave me pause.

I will miss this North Carolina district judge, her large, extended family, and their rural lifestyle.

But I will especially miss Deborah Knott, who made her first appearance in 1992 with Bootlegger’s Daughter, which went on to win the Edgar, Anthony, Agatha, and Macavity awards.

Bootlegger's Daughter also is listed among the 100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century as selected by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association.

From that first novel, I found a real kinship with Deborah, and I could relate to her closeness with her father, who was a farmer much like mine, though mine grew soybeans, wheat, and corn instead of tobacco. Nor was my dad a bootlegger, though I can’t vouch for his father or grandfather, or for what was grown in those backwoods.

I well remember a passage in Bootlegger’s Daughter in which Deborah talks about how quiet it could sometimes be in the country, where, if you listened carefully, you could hear corn grow.

A 23-year run is a good stretch for any series. But those years have flown by, and for fans, 23 years isn’t enough.

So why is Maron, who was named a Grand Master in 2013 by the Mystery Writers of America, ending the Deborah Knott series?

In a statement, Maron said: “Bootlegger's Daughter, the first in my Judge Deborah Knott series, was published in 1992. In it, Deborah mentions a Zippo lighter that her mother always carried. When her mother died, all 11 of her brothers wanted it and almost came to blows over it even though she was only sibling who knew the lighter’s history.

“Over the years, readers have asked me about the lighter's significance and I had to admit that neither Deborah nor I knew the whole truth. Another ongoing puzzle was how Susan Stephenson, the educated daughter of a socially prominent attorney, wound up married to Kezzie Knott, a semi-illiterate bootlegger. As one book followed another, those two questions were always in the back of my mind. Long Upon the Land, the 20th—and last—Deborah Knott novel, answers both questions so completely that another book would be anticlimactic.”

And there was another reason, Maron stated: “Several years ago, two close friends and I made a pact. We had watched other authors keep writing about the same character over and over, hashing and rehashing the same material until they debased some of the reputation they had forged with their earlier books. ‘If that happens to me,’ each of us told the others, ‘promise that one of you will come and kill me.’”

She promises “to keep writing, but I can say absolutely, positively, and with no equivocation that there will never be a 21st Deborah Knott novel. My two friends take their promises very seriously.”

Since the word has gotten out that Long Upon the Land is the last of Deborah Knott, hundreds of people have left comments on Maron’s Facebook page.

“Some of which have moved me to tears,” Maron said in an email. “Almost all of them bemoan the fact that the series has ended, but even more thank me for the years of pleasure. Some feel as if Deborah and her kin are part of their own extended family and they feel as if there's been a death in the family.”

So long, Deborah Knott. Keep bringing justice to North Carolina communities.

For long-time readers, this is a perfect time to go back and re-read the series.

As for new readers to this series, what are you waiting for?

By OLINE H. COGDILL


On Tuesday—Sept. 1, 2015, for those of you reading this later—Lisbeth Salander, that much tattooed “girl,” and journalist Mikael Blomkvist make their return in a new novel with a most long-winded title.

The Girl in the Spider's Web: A Lisbeth Salander Novel, Continuing Stieg Larsson's Millennium Series by David Lagercrantz practically deserves its own sentence.

The author of this novel, which continues what most of us call The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo series, is, of course, not Stieg Larsson, who died of a heart attack in 2004 at age 50.

Larsson, a Swedish journalist and writer, didn’t live to see the publication of his first novel. The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, as well as the other two novels in the trilogy, The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, were published posthumously.

Like Larsson, Lagercrantz is a Swedish journalist and author who has worked as a crime reporter. He has several novels to his credit, and has won awards for his work in Sweden.

My first question is for Mystery Scene readers: Will you be buying and/or reading this new continuation of the story? My second question is why?

I don’t plan to read or review The Girl in the Spider's Web.

I don’t understand the need to continue this series after Larsson’s death. Larsson gave us three intriguing, though overwritten novels, and an unusual and compelling character in Lisbeth. Unfortunately, he died before he could continue the novels, so let’s be content with what he left.

I loved the Larsson’s novels, though I thought each needed heavy editing and were too long. But the creation of Lisbeth overcame any problems and made me want to read all three novels.

I can understand readers’ interest in more stories from the likes of Robert Ludlum, Robert B. Parker, and Ian Fleming because those authors’ works were in the public eye for a longer time. But publishers and readers should be looking for new stories and new authors, and there certainly are enough around.

Instead of this new book, I think we should celebrate what Larsson’s original trilogy meant to readers.

First, it showed the world what mystery readers have long known: This community of readers is among the most highly educated and discerning of readers. They will accept any character, even one outside of their comfort level, if the stories are engaging enough. Lisbeth certainly falls into this area—an antisocial hacker with mad computer skills given to violence and heavily tattooed. And we wanted to know more and more about her.

Second, it reaffirmed that international settings are big with mystery readers. Publishers such as Soho Crime have long known this and delivered provocative crime stories set in countries other than Great Britain.

Larsson’s novels didn’t start the trend of more crime fiction set abroad and published in America. But his novels made publishers realize this was an untapped market that continues to grow.

So if you are looking for a few authors with novels with an international setting, here are a few to consider, in no particular order. I also wrote about other international writers on a previous blog. Find it here.

And please feel free to add your favorites. I am sure I missed some:

Elizabeth Hand, Available Dark, set in Finland and Iceland

Cara Black, Paris

Arnaldur Indridason, Iceland

Martin Limon, Korea

Barry Lancet, Japan (and San Francisco)
 
Qiu Xiaolong, Shanghai

Nele Neuhaus, Germany  

Scandinavian

Jussi Adler-Olsen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Karin Alvtegen, Sweden

Sara Blaedel, Copenhagen, Denmark

K.O. Dahl, Oslo, Norway

Ake Edwardson, Gotesborg, Sweden

Kjell Eriksson, Libro, Sweden

Karin Fossum, Norway

Anne Holt, Oslo, Norway

Matti Joensuu, Helsinki, Finland

Lene Kaaberbol, Copenhagen Denmark

Mons Kallentoft, Fjallbacka, Sweden

Lars Kepler, Tumba, Sweden

Camilla Läckberg, Sweden

Asa Larsson, Sweden

Henning Mankell, Sweden, among other locales

Liza Marklund, Sweden

Jo Nesbo, Oslo, Norway

Hakan Nesser, a country much like Sweden

Kristina Ohlsson, Stockholm, Sweden

Hakan Ostlundh, The Intruder, Fårö, off Gotland, Sweden

Anders Roslund, Stockholm, Sweden

Yrsa Sigurdardottir, Reykjavik, Iceland

James Thompson, Finland

Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo, Sweden

Helene Tursten, Gothenburg, Sweden

Jan Costin Wagner, Turku, Finland

I have my favorites, authors in the genre whose books I look forward to with great anticipation because I know their work will transport me. You will know their names: Daniel Woodrell, Megan Abbott, Philip Kerr, Don Winslow, Ken Bruen, SJ Rozan, Dennis Lehane. The list is longer, but not very much longer.

Writers, especially those of us committed to doing two books a year, live inside our own heads much of the time—too much of the time—and are hungry for escape. But one of the unfortunate occupational hazards of my career has been the loss of my reading innocence. It is difficult, if not utterly impossible, for me to simply let myself go, to read without analyzing or dissecting. I can’t help but see the writing on the wall, the author’s tricks and short hand, the gun on the piano in chapter one that the protagonist will use to save herself during the denouement.

So when I find an author whose work can make me leave my own career worries, routines, and deadlines behind, I hold them close, closer even than my enemies. But not all of my favorites are household names and I suppose I’m arguing for readers to scratch a little more deeply below the surface for writers they may never have heard of or whose names or titles they may have heard only in passing.

Here are some names of authors who might deserve some of your attention, authors whose work I admire and believe should garner more notice from readers and critics.

First on the list is Peter Spiegelman, whose book Red Cat, the third novel in his John March series, is, in my estimation, one of the finest PI novels ever written. How this book stayed below the radar is beyond my comprehension. Anything Peter has written is worth your attention.

Dennis Tafoya writes beautifully about unbeautiful things, inglorious characters, and ugly events much in the same vein as Lehane and Pelecanos. Read The Poor Boy’s Game.

Don’t look past writers like newspaperman cum author Wallace Stroby who trolls some of the territory as the late great Elmore Leonard.

Space permitting, I could go on. There are hundreds, if not thousands of worthy reads out there just this side of the best seller list and the splashy ads. Find them and hold them close.

Reed Farrel Coleman is a New York Times bestselling author of novels, including including Robert B. Parker’s Jesse Stone series, the acclaimed Moe Prager series, short stories, and poetry. Reed is a three-time Edgar Award nominee in three different categories—Best Novel, Best Paperback Original, Best Short Story—and a three-time recipient of the Shamus Award for Best PI Novel of the Year. He has also won the Audie, Macavity, Barry, and Anthony Awards.

This “Writers on Reading” essay was originally published in “At the Scene” eNews September 2015 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.