As Robert Parker created him, Paradise, Massachusetts police chief Jesse Stone is a character considerably more complex than the author’s more famous Boston private eye, Spenser, whose backstory is so slim it doesn’t even include the sleuth’s first name. Jesse, on the other hand, is all but over his head in backstory. There’s the injury that ended his promising career in baseball, the alcoholism that cost him his Los Angeles PD badge. And, oh yes, there’s his painfully truncated marriage to the self-centered, beautiful Jenn, who continues to phone him whenever she’s feeling unloved or unappreciated. Bottom line: Jesse is unhappy enough to see a therapist, while Spenser blissfully sleeps with one. I’m guessing the potential of Jesse’s background was influential in Coleman, a writer with a strong suit in character development, being tapped to continue the series after Parker’s demise. In any case, Stone’s new chronicler is successfully turning him into a man in full, while simultaneously adding key touches to the other members of his team. This time, it’s Jesse’s closest associate, officer Molly Crane, who’s given special attention. A nor’easter has revealed, along with the recent corpse of an unidentified murdered man, the remains of two teenage girls who disappeared 25 years ago. One of the girls had been Molly’s best friend, and the stirring of memories carries the sting of imagined guilt and fills in unexplored elements in the policewoman’s past, not the least of which is a tragic romance. Jesse, meanwhile, has to solve the three murders in the week allotted him by the town council, as well as an additional killing only he thinks is homicide, all while dodging the gathering media hoard, showing his concern for Molly’s uncontrollable sadness, slowly coming to grips with his paternal feeling for his young, recently wounded associate, officer Luther “Suitcase” Simpson, and starting a romance with the new medical examiner, Tamara Elkin. That’s a lot of baggage for a series hero to tote, but Coleman is a writer who can make the heavy lifting seem both graceful and compelling. And Naughton has been narrating Jesse’s progress in Paradise long enough to be able to smoothly go with the flow of the author’s penchant for emotional depth. The scenes in which Jesse and Tamara do their awkward dance toward intimacy are both beautifully written and performed. And when one of those dances is interrupted by a phone call from Jesse’s ex, the flat, dry quality of his response is audio acting at its best.
Featuring a volatile married couple as sleuths, this new series is set right in the sweet spot of the Golden Age of Mystery—England in the 1930s.
Ashley Weaver’s Murder at the Brightwell was published in 2014 to critical acclaim and received an Edgar nomination for Best First Novel. Set in a seaside resort hotel in 1930s England, Murder at the Brightwell introduced readers to Amory Ames and her husband Milo. Both of them are young, intelligent and well-to-do, and Amory’s life should be as peaceful and untroubled as a sunlit field. But the raffish Milo is the thundercloud that darkens her days; his roving eye and wandering ways push Amory’s trust to the limit. When former beau Gil Trent asks Amory to visit the Brightwell Hotel to help him with a family problem, she encounters mayhem, murder—and Milo. His unexpected appearance at the Brightwell throws Amory for a loop, complicating her investigation.
Amory’s sleuthing digs up the secrets of her fellow guests and brings her face-to-face with a killer. It also shows the fault lines that run through her marriage. Will Amory leave her charming but unreliable husband for the stolid Gil? Weaver mixes a delightful cocktail of menace and manners with a dash of bitter romance.
This fall Amory returns in Death Wears a Mask. Two months after the events at the Brightwell Hotel, she and Milo have achieved a fragile détente. Amory’s sworn off detective work, but she can’t resist a friend’s request for help. The clever Mrs. Ames finds herself embroiled in high-society shenanigans that start with jewel theft and end in homicide. While searching for the murderer, Amory is pursued by the amorous Viscount Dunmore, whose colorful past and less-than-savory reputation precede him.
Death Wears a Mask is a worthy follow-up to Brightwell, offering lavish upper-crust locales for low-down activities. Amory Ames is a charmer, and her on-again/off-again relationship with Milo provides an underpinning of real sorrow to the stylish proceedings. Ashley Weaver lives in Oakdale, Louisiana, where she is the Technical Services Coordinator for the Allen Parish Libraries. Earlier this year, Ashley and I had a chance to talk about books, libraries, her taste for the past, and her plans for the future.
Joseph Goodrich for Mystery Scene: When did you start writing? And why did you choose the mystery genre? Or did it choose you?
Ashley Weaver: For as long as I’ve been a reader, I’ve always loved mysteries, so I naturally gravitated toward them when I started writing. I like the idea of all the little pieces of the puzzle that make up the whole picture. I wrote my first “book” in elementary school, complete with my own illustrations. I believe it was a mystery, though I can’t remember the plot now. I wrote my first full-length novel in high school, a murder mystery with a romantic subplot set in Prohibition-era Chicago. I’ve ventured into other genres, but, no matter what I write, a mystery always manages to work its way into my plots. There’s no escaping it!
Mystery Scene: What prompted you to set your books in 1930s England?
Weaver: I’ve always claimed that I was born in the wrong era. I love the sophistication and elegance of the early decades of the 20th century. England in the 1930s kind of represents the Golden Age of mysteries to me. When I got the idea for Murder at the Brightwell, it seemed like the time and place were already predetermined.
Mystery Scene: It’s clear that you’re a fan of the classic mystery pioneered by writers such as Agatha Christie.
Weaver: I absolutely love her! The very first of her books that I read was The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, and it still ranks among my favorites. I also loved The Hollow and Five Little Pigs.
Mystery Scene: Other mystery favorites?
Weaver: I'm a big fan of the Sherlock Holmes stories, and I’ve really enjoyed some of the hardboiled noir writers like Dashiell Hammett and James M. Cain.
Mystery Scene: What kind of research did you do for Brightwell and Mask?
Weaver: Having enjoyed the novels and films of this era for many years, I feel I have a base knowledge of at least some elements of the era. At the start of each book, I usually gather enough information to set the scene, then I do additional research as the story develops. Being a librarian is very useful when it comes to research. I have a world of information at my fingertips.
Mystery Scene: Libraries have played a big role in your life.
Weaver: As a child, the library was always one of my favorite places to visit. I absolutely loved browsing the shelves and carefully selecting an armful of books that I could bring home—for free! When I was a freshman in high school, an after-school job became available at my local li- brary, and I decided to apply for it. At the time, I thought it would be a good way to make some spending money doing something I enjoyed. Little did I know that it would blossom into a career.
Mystery Scene: What’s next for Amory and Milo?
Weaver: I just finished the third book in the series, and the plans for book number four are beginning to take shape. I’m really enjoying exploring the way Amory and Milo’s relationship is developing as they solve mysteries in their high-society setting.
Mystery Scene: Ross Macdonald once said that he wasn’t his series character Lew Archer, but Lew Archer was definitely him. Along those lines, do you see any similarities between yourself and Amory Ames?
Weaver: I suppose there must be a little of me in Amory, but I don’t think we’re exceptionally similar in terms of personality. I do feel like I understand her very well, and I seldom feel conflicted about her motivations and behavior because I know instinctively how she responds to situations. We both enjoy mysteries, of course, but I wouldn’t be quite as reckless as she sometimes is when searching for clues. She’s a bit bolder and more decisive than I am. Perhaps she’s who I would be if I knew I could write myself out of dangerous situations.
Mystery Scene: Murder at the Brightwell was nominated for a Best First Novel Edgar. How did you learn about the nomination?
Weaver: I belong to a group of mystery writers called Sleuths in Time, and they were actually the first ones to tell me that I had been nominated. I was at work the morning of the nominations—I had no idea. It was a huge surprise, and I was, of course, ecstatic.
Mystery Scene: You came to New York City for the awards ceremony. Did you have a good time?
Weaver: I had a fabulous time! It was great to have the opportunity to interact with so many members of the mystery community. Everyone I met was absolutely lovely. And, as an avid mystery reader and librarian, it was an incredible experience to be in a room full of authors whose books I’ve read and seen on the library shelves for years.
Mystery Scene: One final question: Will Milo ever settle down?
Weaver: Milo will probably always have a bit of a wild streak, but he’s also starting to understand what’s required of him in order to make his marriage work. I doubt he’ll ever be perfectly well behaved—he wouldn’t be as entertaining if he was—but he’s growing as a person and as a husband, and readers can expect to see a different side of him in the future.
Joseph Goodrich is an Edgar-Award-winning playwright and the editor of Blood Relations: The Selected Letters of Ellery Queen, 1947-1950.
by Oline H. Cogdill
During the past two years, James Patterson has been donating much-needed money to libraries and independent bookstores across the country.
As a mega-bestseller, Patterson knows the value of libraries and independent bookstores in promoting books and literacy, another one of his pet projects.
This holiday season, Patterson has a special thank-you gift of $2 million in grants and bonuses for independent bookstore employees and school libraries.
Earlier this year, Patterson pledged $1.75 million in grants to school libraries in partnership with Scholastic Reading Club. Almost immediately the project was flooded with 27,924 grant requests. Today—December 15—Patterson announced 340 more grant recipients, bringing the total to 467 school libraries that have received from $1,000 to $10,000. The full list is available at scholastic.com/pattersonpartnership.
According to the press release from his publisher, Little, Brown, Patterson launched in October a $250,000 holiday bonus program for independent bookstore employees in partnership with the American Booksellers Association. The ABA received 2,848 nominations, and Patterson personally selected the recipients. The names of the 87 independent bookstore employees who will receive bonuses ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 is available at bookweb.org/bonus.
Encouraging reading habits among children is a project that Patterson promotes year-round. He recently launched a children’s book imprint called Jimmy Patterson, and in 2014 he gave more than $1 million in grants to 178 independent bookstores.
According to the press release, Patterson “believes that independent bookstores and school libraries are saving literature and that their work is critical for building a more literate America. In 2016, he will continue to support the work of school libraries and independent bookstores in new ways.”
During the past decade, Patterson has given away more than a million books to students all over the United States.
His new children’s book imprint, Jimmy Patterson, has a simple mission: “We want every kid who finishes a JImmy book to say, ‘Please give me another book.’” Patterson will devote his proceeds from the sales of Jimmy Patterson Books to funding pro-reading initiatives like the school library grants and independent bookseller bonus program, according to Little, Brown.
Patterson, of course, is the author of the highly successful Alex Cross series as well as a multitude of other thrillers written with co-authors.
by Oline H. Cogdill
I know the reason that so many wonderful mysteries don’t make it as movies is because so often there is a disconnect between what the printed book is and what the movie studio’s vision is.
And then, of course, there are so many people involved in a movie who demand their voice be heard, it almost is a miracle that any film is made.
Just watch the 1992 movie The Player with Tim Robbins.
Yes, there are exceptions: Michael Connelly’s Bosch on Amazon and Lincoln Lawyer; Laura Lippman’s Every Secret Thing (2015) and several of Dennis Lehane’s novels, including The Drop (2015), Gone Baby Gone (2007) and Mystic River (2003).
I also liked the 1996 film Heaven’s Prisoners based on James Lee Burke’s novel. I know that it got mixed reviews when it came out, but I totally bought Alex Baldwin as New Orleans police detective Dave Robicheaux. (I have yet to see 2009’s In the Electric Mist with Tommy Lee Jones as Robicheaux.)
Burke’s work is now back on the screen—though it's not from one of his novels.
Winter Light, an adaptation of one of Burke’s stories, has made the final 10 list for the 2015 Academy Award for live action short films.
The five nominees will be announced January 14.
The film was directed by Julian Higgins and shot on film in the Missoula, Montana area in winter 2014.
Raymond J. Berry, left, (Justified and Born on the Fourth of July) stars as an isolated and stubborn college professor who is drawn into an escalating conflict with two hunters, played by Vincent Kartheiser (Pete Campbell on Mad Men) and Josh Pence (Revenge), who is one of the film’s producers.
Details about the film and the trials of filming during the Montana winter are on the Winter Light Facebook page.
In Denise Grover Swank’s Twenty-Eight and a Half Wishes, protagonist Rose Gardner has memories of being abused by her awful mother. Rose has been gifted—or cursed—with second sight, and at odd times sees visions of a future that always comes true. Her “gift” has made her a pariah in the religiously fundamentalist Arkansas town where she lives, especially at the local DMV, where she works as a clerk. One day she envisions her own murder. Certain she has only days left to live, 24-year-old Rose—who has been raised amidst all that fundamentalism—makes a bucket list of everything she wants to do before that fatal day. Included on the list are such everyday luxuries as owning a cellphone, getting cable TV, dancing, wearing makeup, and being kissed. Right on time, new neighbor Joe McAllister offers his lip service, and the naive Rose promptly falls in love. Watching the possibly doomed young woman emerge from her shell is both humorous and heart-warming. Everything changes, though, when Rose’s mother is found murdered and Rose become a suspect. The tension is real here, but is too often damaged by Rose’s tendency to cry—and cry. No matter what happens, our heroine’s fall-back response is always tears, which after a while can be irritating.
I have a story in the massive, three-volume MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories, an anthology edited by David Marcum and billed as the “world’s largest collection of new Sherlock Holmes stories.” Proceeds from the volumes go toward a worthy cause: the restoration of Undershaw, the house where Sir Arthur Conan Doyle wrote The Hound of the Baskervilles.
Causes don’t come much worthier than the one that benefits from Protectors 2: Heroes, edited by Thomas Pluck and containing 55 stories by some of the biggest names in the field, including Joe R. Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, David Morrell, Andrew Vachss, Harlan Ellison, S.J. Rozan, Gary Phillips, and the list goes on and on. In his foreword, Pluck explains that the proceeds from the book go to the support of PROTECT, “a nonpartisan anticrime lobby whose sole focus is making the protection of children from physical, sexual, and emotional abuse a top political priority at the national, state, and local levels.” Do yourself and the children a favor. Pick up nearly 600 pages of fine stories and support a great cause.
Jean Flowers’ “inaugural” mystery, Death Takes Priority, is a priority read. Despite the nom de plume, the prolific Camille Minichino cannot disguise her talent and expertise in this excellent “first in a brand-new series,” a mystery that has her name written all over it. Flowers/Minichino has concocted an original hook in this first “Postmistress Mystery.” Cassie Miller relinquishes her important job in Boston’s main post office in order to return to her small-town home in the Berkshires and assume a position as the town’s postmistress. This seemingly innocuous existence is challenged when a mysterious theft and murder draw Cassie into a new avocation: sleuthing. Cassie has also found a new love interest, but it becomes apparent that he is operating under an assumed name and has a mysterious past. Is he a murderer or can she follow her gut instinct and trust him? Death Takes Priority puts an entirely new, and positively welcome, spin on “going postal.”
The third novel in Shelley Coriell’s “Apostles” series, The Blind tells the story of bombs and weapons specialist Evie Jiminez, and her efforts to bring a serial killer who uses explosives to advance his “art” to justice. Known as the “Angel Bomber” because his carefully orchestrated killings all involve innocent female victims, he so far has managed to elude capture. Clues to his identity are scarce until billionaire philanthropist Jack Elliott recognizes that some of the bomber’s staging resembles scenes depicted in a collection of paintings in his private collection. His realization jump-starts the investigation, giving both Evie and the bomber new inspiration—her, to solve the crime, him, to create a final masterpiece of mayhem.
Mixing a race against time with a smoldering romance, Coriell delivers a winning, realistic blend of thriller and police procedural, as Evie and Jack exploit the slimmest of leads to track down their killer. Although she concentrates on the couple’s efforts for the most part, she also gives due time to her supporting cast, who, despite their limited time on stage, still manage to make quite an impression on readers. The laughs that characters such as freelance photographer (and unlucky gambler) Freddy Ortiz provide are welcome comic relief from the generally grim mood prevailing throughout.
One of several unusual productions devoted to Holmes, released under Brilliance Audiobooks’ Classic Collection, this little-known, to me at least, satiric novelette by Twain begins seriously enough—with an ugly, degrading crime committed against a young wife by her brutish husband. Years later, the woman sends her clever son, Archie Stillman, on a quest to find his father and inform his friends and associates of his earlier disgraceful behavior. Complications ensue and eventually, at a miners’ camp where a murder has been committed, Archie is forced into a face-off in deduction with none other than the great detective, there on a visit to his nephew Hemlock. Since this version of Doyle’s sleuth is not merely vain and supercilious but something of a fraud, while Archie is the real deal, it’s no contest. Narrator Thomas Becker assumes the role of an old-fashioned yarn-spinner, giving the oddly engrossing material a lively and fast-paced delivery and going all-in when it comes to accents, British and western American.
There are several biographies of Dashiell Hammett, but there’s room for another, especially one that stresses his background as a Pinkerton detective. Ward credits the writing of closely edited reports for the firm’s clients with helping to develop Hammett’s spare but eloquent style. The first part describes his detective career, discussing many of the cases he was or may have been involved in and including some history of the agency and its founder Allan Pinkerton. The second recounts his literary career, finishing with the essential end of his creative life in the 1930s. A common thread between the two parts is the way his Pinkerton experiences were reflected in his fiction. The extent of his involvement in the Fatty Arbuckle case and other real-life investigations is virtually impossible to pin down with any certainty, and his own accounts were affected both by his own impulse to make a better story and by the secrecy that the agency demanded of its employees, but Ward sifts the evidence in a well-written and carefully researched account that inevitably includes quite a bit of speculation. The book’s main achievement: prodding the reader to discover or rediscover those wonderful novels and stories.
Reviewed from an advance reading copy—index not seen.
The Winemaker Detective is actually an omnibus of three novellas featuring wine critic Benjamin Cooker and his assistant, Virgile Lanssien. They were written in 2004, and translated in 2014, and it must be said straight off that readers won’t get full enjoyment out of these stories without a hardcore love of wine.
Benjamin is the author of Cooker’s Guide, a guide to wine and vineyards throughout France, and the three stories take place in different regions: Bordeaux, the Loire Valley, and Burgundy, all with different qualities and subtleties, just like the wines Cooker is fond of describing in great detail.
In the first volume, Benjamin hires Virgile, and his training includes uncovering how the wine barrels of a well-known winemaker have become tainted; in the second, Benjamin suffers a carjacking (of his beloved Mercedes) and the trauma leads him to the Loire Valley for recovery, where he solves the case of some heisted Grand Cru; and in the final outing, he and Virgile are on a tour of Burgundy, working on the Guide, when a series of disturbing graffiti writings in Latin result in some tragic killings.
The first volume is the most technical, to its detriment, though again, if you love wine and winemaking you’ll enjoy it. Benjamin and Virgile’s analysis of the tainted vats was a bit too on the scientific side for me. The second story was the most successful, striking the right balance of crime (not a terrible one), wine, food, cigars, and character. And the third, while clever, didn’t manage to treat the truly awful murders that frame the story with enough gravity.
In general, Benjamin loves the finer things in life—wine, food, tea, cigars, cars, music, writing—and he makes no apologies for enjoying them. His wife Elisabeth, much like Madame Maigret, keeps her husband well supplied with delicious stews, but she’s not on canvas much. These books are really about Benjamin and Virgile, a young, handsome ladies’ man and a budding wine expert on a par with Benjamin himself.
The settings are part of the fun and you’ll definitely want a glass of wine (maybe two or three) as you read along, though the wine I was drinking would probably be thought of by Benjamin as “plonk.” Wherever you stand on wine, these stories should cure you of ever drinking a glass of “two-buck chuck” again. Though sometimes ponderous, they are, overall, light and enjoyable stories. If you feel like taking an armchair tour of France, they hit just the right note.
We are all aware that politics can be a dirty business, but in Matthew FitzSimmons’ stunning debut novel, the dirt reaches new heights when hacker Gibson Vaughn is asked to look into the long-unsolved disappearance of 14-year-old Suzanne Lombard, daughter of US Vice President Benjamin Lombard. Gibson, whose childhood was tainted by the case when his own father became a suspect (the families lived next door to each other), agrees to use his computer skills to find out what happened to the young girl he knew as “Bear.” Attempting to navigate Lombard's political ambitions for the presidency and a slew of the VP’s secretive aides, Gibson begins having trouble separating the truth from lies. When a hacker with the handle WR8TH contacts him, the waters are muddied even further. Is WR8TH the boyfriend Suzanne Vaughn was rumored to have found on the Internet just before she disappeared? Just as Gibson steels himself to open the door to the past, he is taken prisoner and tortured by the horrific method that gives the book its title.
It’s exciting stuff, no doubt, but what makes The Short Drop a standout is author FitzSimmons’ firm grasp on human psychology. “An eternal truth of the human condition was that no one ever thought they were evil. No matter how reprehensible their actions, people always convinced themselves they were justified.” In other words, the end justifies the means, no matter how vile those means. When Gibson discovers that some of the people he trusts most live by that ruthless credo, he comes close to despair. That despair deepens when he's told, “Hope is a cancer. One of two things happens. Either you never learn the truth, in which case it gnaws down to the bone until there’s nothing left, or worse, you do, and you go through the windshield at ninety because hope told you it was okay to make the drive without a seat belt.”
Through it all, though, in this superbly crafted thriller, Gibson never gives up the hope that Suzanne Lombard might still be alive somewhere, living a new and happy existence free from the smears of the dirtiest of dirty politics.
The vagaries of politics and history combine for a solid psychological thriller from British author David Thomas, known for the Samuel Carver assassin thrillers under the pseudonym Tom Cain.
Wealthy English architect Peter Crookham arrives home to find his German-born wife Mariana covered in blood and his journalist brother Andy stabbed to death.
Peter loves his wife and believes her incapable of killing her brother-in-law, but is troubled to discover that Andy was investigating Mariana's past in East Berlin. While Mariana awaits trail, Peter travels to Germany determined to find out the truth behind his brother's murder—and his wife’s past. His search leads him to the dark history of the former communist country and the Stasi, but Peter is undeterred by threats, even when they escalate into assaults.
Blood Relative alternates between the present day and East Berlin of the 1970s and '80s. Thomas’ research on this dark period of East German history is intense, making for a chilling read and leading to a frightening finale.
Tenacity is both the name of a British naval submarine on which this story takes place, and the most notable quality of Lieutenant Danielle “Dan” Lewis, a member of the Special Investigation Branch’s Kill Team looking into a suicide onboard the sub. Despite the fact that the Tenacity’s commanding officer requested her for the assignment, his crew members go out of their way to stall her investigation, and make her time onboard miserable.
The cramped, claustrophobic atmosphere of the sub lends a lot to this story, as Dan fights to make headway among the all-male crew. There are many times during the investigation that Dan, and the reader, want to come up for air—an impossibility when the action is happening 200 meters below the ocean’s surface. Even in her own quarters, Dan isn’t safe from those who want to harm her. Her inability to ask others for help, and the fact that she is hiding her own horrible secret, isolate her even more from her shipmates. When more deaths occur, tension builds as Dan realizes that she is trapped on the sub with a murderer.
J.S. Law, a former senior nuclear engineer in the Royal Navy Submarine Service, does a good job of educating the reader about life on a submarine without getting too technical. He ably conveys the loneliness, and at times, terror, of his female protagonist working in the sub’s testosterone-laden setting, and within the Navy’s old boy’s culture, both offshore and on. Tenacity is an impressive debut novel that will leave the reader rooting for Dan and her next case.
While I wasn’t expecting to love Danny Cleary, a former athlete, amateur fighter, and crack addict, I cannot get enough of this character—luckily for me, Cracked is the first book in a trilogy. When the reader first meets Danny, she is in the middle of a drug binge, which is interrupted by a call telling her that her twin sister, Ginger, is dead. Carrying two grams of powdered cocaine and half an eight ball of crack across the Canadian border, she heads to California to avenge her sister’s death.
There are so many things to like about this story, especially Danny. Not only is she a kick-ass vigilante, she’s funny and extremely loyal to the people whom she loves. When she finds out that her two young nephews have been kidnapped by the people who killed her sister, all bets are off as she and her rock musician brother take to the streets to find the guilty parties and make them pay.
There’s a good bit of violence in this story, as can be expected when you’ve got drug addicts chasing murderers, and despite having some fighting skills, Danny doesn’t emerge unscathed. She deals with her pain, both physical and emotional, by getting high. It is a coping method that led to her addiction in the first place. While the reader wants her to put the crack pipe down, addiction, just like in real life, isn't that simple—and neither is Danny, which is what makes her such a memorable character. She has a lot of flaws, but she also has many good qualities, which makes her quest for redemption all the more worthy of the journey.
If Barbra Leslie’s goal was to create an addictive character, she definitely succeeded. This book was like crack to me, and I want more.
It’s 1919, and the women's suffrage movement in the US is in full bloom. One of its most ardent supporters is Charlotte Brody, a young, single woman from Yonkers, New York. She’s outspoken and fearless, and has just arrived in Cordova, Alaska to spend time with her brother Michael, the village doctor, and to recover from a bad breakup with her boyfriend. She plans to write essays on the lives of women on this last frontier for The Modern Woman Review.
Among Michael’s rounds is the biweekly checkup of the working girls at the local house of prostitution. When one of the girls shows up dead, Charlotte jumps at the chance to find her murderer with the less-than-enthusiastic acceptance of Deputy Marshall James Eddington (whom she finds herself unwillingly drawn to). As she digs into the case, she uncovers plenty of dark secrets simmering just below the surface of this small town, but the more resistance her investigation meets, the more determined Charlotte is to expose Cordova’s underbelly.
Cathy Pegau gives readers a look, through Charlotte's eyes, at the controversial topics of abortion, prostitution, and mercy killings during the early 20th century. Pegau, who lives in Alaska, does a credible job of showing readers the landscape and weather, as well as immersing readers in her 1919 frontier setting. All in all, an excellent start to her promising new Charlotte Brody series.
The Man on the Washing Machine is a fun romp through a fictional neighborhood in San Francisco called Fabian Gardens. Newcomer Theophania Bogart is a displaced Brit with a bucketful of secrets. She’s settled down, bought a building, established a business, and generally wiped away all aspects of her previous life—except for her unusual first name.
The plot gets off to a fast start when Theo witnesses handyman Tim Callahan tumble out a third-story window. She barely recovers from witnessing the gruesome murder before another strange thing happens: she returns to her apartment after walking her dog to find an odd man in a navy business suit standing on top of her washing machine. Theo manages to throw a pot of oregano at the prowler before he escapes into the night, but what he was looking for, she can only guess.
Quirky San Francisco characters populate Theo’s world: Nicole, her opinionated partner in the bath accessories store (who goes missing); constantly fighting neighbors Derek and Nat; garden designer and computer hacker Haruto Miazaki; and a weird old man who wanders around in the evening killing slugs and snails. A little romance sneaks into the story as well in the handsome form of new neighbor and tenant Ben Turlough, who has a few secrets of his own.
English born Author Susan Cox never lets up on the action. Between the parties and murders, it’s a wonder anyone in Fabian Gardens survives to get anything done. A First Crime Novel Award winner from Minotaur Books and Mystery Writers of America, this quick-paced story will keep you guessing right up to the end.
“I need two people who are utterly without fear. Only two. Two people who are willing to explore the impossible.” So says government operative Reese Clawson, while on the very unorthodox recruiting mission that serves as the attention grabbing opening scene of Trial Run. Written by Davis Bunn under his Thomas Locke pseudonym, that scene is only the first of many gripping set pieces in this unique novel about three groups with wildly different objectives exploring the outer limits of human consciousness. It’s a long, very strange trip, one with myriad disorienting and dangerous detours, but one which could very well represent the next giant leap forward for mankind.
While certainly owing a debt to films like Inception and The Matrix, Trial Run exploits some very original and exciting ideas, as Locke appears to be equally comfortable in wrestling with intellectual concepts as he is at writing stunning action sequences. He’s also as adept at portraying his villains as he is his heroes—you might not agree with their mission, but you fully understand their motivations. Finally, he creates a believable, high-stakes scenario, a literal race against time, which he milks for every drop of tension available. Lives hang in the balance throughout, creating nail-biting tension that does not let up until the book’s final scene. Judging by that scene, a sequel is in the offing, which should be welcome news for thriller readers everywhere.
It’s been suggested that Chandler’s The Big Sleep was essentially the tale of private eye Phillip Marlowe’s fall from grace, from his early identification with a dragon-slaying knight, to the rueful admission that he was no longer playing a “game for knights” and that he was now “part of the nastiness.” Soulmayne “Solo” Camara, the son of a white Parisian mother and an African father, has no such illusions— he knows he’s part of the nastiness. He’s damned and doomed, and he doesn’t much care. Not anymore. So pour another drink. Do a line of coke. Get a whore.
A former drug squad cop in Lyon, France, he’s pretty much lost everything he ever gave a damn about: his wife, his son, his job, his ideals. Burnt out and disgraced, he retreats to his late father’s hometown in a fiercely rendered city of Bamako in Mali and “its poverty-stricken people of varying colors, the stench of sewers and the incessant clamor,” intent on rebooting his life. But what he settles for is work as a cut-rate private eye, willing to cut corners and utilize, if not fully embrace, the local corruption.
Which is what a French lawyer counts on, when she hires him to help facilitate the release of her kid sister, charged with drug trafficking, from prison. She figures a well-placed bribe, delivered by Camara, ought to do the trick. But things go horribly wrong, and the nastiness rises, in a bruising, sordid tale of violence, vengeance, drugs and desperation.
This is award-winning French crime writer Laurent Guillaume’s English language debut (original title: Black Cocaine), and it’s an eye-popping, nuanced look at modern-day Africa—a far cry from the sharp but mostly genteel domesticity of Alexander McCall Smith, and an even further cry from the dismissive stereotypes we’re usually presented with on the nightly news. These are real people here, living, breathing and dying; they’re Muslim and Christian, white and black, good, bad, and yes, sometimes ugly. Caught up in the middle of it all is Camara, dubbed the “White Leopard” by the local press due to his café au lait skin (he notes with a touch of bitter irony that in France he was considered black). He sports a tagelmust, traditional African headgear, not a fedora, and suffers from occasional bouts of malaria as well as the usual hangovers and hard-bitten world weariness, but once you get your head wrapped around the setting, he’s a compelling and convincing narrator, offering a street-level view of a world that is both foreign and yet somehow disturbingly familiar. There’s a world out there calling, and this solid private-eye thriller, one of the most engaging I’ve read in a while, is on the line. You’d best answer.
Two years ago, Tess Devlin, Nick Devlin, Frank Lindbergh, Lilandra Pillai, and Audrey Pang excavated a sinkhole covered in occult symbols located in the basement of Boston’s historic Otis Harrison House. They unearthed several withered corpses and a host of other objects, but very few answers. Now the group has started seeing doubles of themselves all over town—and the encounters haven’t been friendly. How do you defeat an evil doppelgänger who is trying to steal your life and negate your existence? That’s the question at the heart of this new supernatural thriller by Christopher Golden (Tin Men).
Dead Ringers is a slow burn; Golden sets his hook with chapter one and then takes his time reeling you in, ratcheting tension scene by scene until the sense of dread is so acute it nearly suffocates. As a result, when the book does finally tip into full-blown horror, the shift is as sudden and unexpected as it is terrifying. And lest you think Golden’s latest is all style and no substance, this dark and twisty tale does more than merely entertain—it also provides a thoughtful meditation on the concept of self and the importance of living life to the fullest.
The book’s points of view are numerous and it’s initially a tad difficult to keep the characters straight. The artful way in which Golden weaves together their narratives provides a worthy payoff, though, and while the constantly shifting narrative voice can be jarring, the members of Golden’s cast are marvelously well drawn—composed of flesh, bone, fortitude, and regret.
Dead Ringers’ only real weakness is its climax, which is action-packed yet somehow still fails to thrill. Golden finishes strong, though, and not only will the book’s final scene chill to you to the core in the moment, it will continue to haunt you for long after you’ve closed the cover.
Max Wirestone has written the first in a planned series about a young woman unexpectedly thrust into the detective business. In The Unfortunate Decisions of Dahlia Moss, Dahlia is unemployed and depressed after breaking up with her boyfriend. Failing a string of job interviews and feeling alienated from her friends, Dahlia feels like a loser. Then one day, a strange man hires her to find a stolen item from a MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing game). Dahlia questions his motives, but takes the job anyway. Things take a serious turn when her client is murdered, and the killing is thought to be connected to Kingdoms of Zoth, an MMORPG the man played. Soon, Dahlia finds herself with all kinds of quirky suspects both online and in the real world.
Dahlia Moss is a fun novel for mystery and MMO game lovers, both. The plotline centers primarily on Dahlia’s investigation in the online fantasy world of Zoth, where she has gone undercover in the guise of a friend planning an online funeral for the murder victim. It is an entertaining concept for a mystery, although people unfamiliar with MMO games may at times find the plot hard to follow. Still, Dahlia’s journey through the fascinating fantasy world of Zoth is entertaining, as she meets virtual friends and foes, battles monsters, and grills everyone with her insistent questions.
Dahlia carries the story with her funny attitude, snarky comments, and entertaining newbie PI bumbling. From her eccentric housemate Charice to Detective Shuler, who is also investigating the murder, the supporting characters all have their own possible motives and secrets.
It would have been interesting to learn more about Dahlia’s past. The book offers some bits here and there, some funny, some not, and I look forward to getting to know her more. For people who like fun, humorous mysteries, as well as those of us who are a little bit of a geek at heart, this book promises to be the start of a very entertaining series.
When women’s advocate Jasmine Burton is found dead by an apparent suicide, it’s assumed the Internet trolls who’ve been targeting her finally got their way. Psychologist Tony Hill isn’t convinced Jasmine willingly took her own life, though, particularly since she’s not the first outspoken feminist to have died unexpectedly in recent months. Tony lacks the resources to investigate Jasmine’s death on his own, let alone prevent any future victims from suffering a similar fate, but if he’s to get any assistance from former police detective Carol Jordan, he must first find a way to save her from her own self-destruction.
Splinter the Silence, Val McDermid’s ninth Tony Hill and Carol Jordan novel, is a book so powerful it’s daunting to review. The pace is at once driving and methodical. McDermid’s prose is pure pleasure to read, crisp yet stylish and splashed with cheek. The plot is tight, the story is thrilling, the ending is as satisfying as they come, and because Splinter the Silence marks a fresh start for Tony, Carol, and their team, the tale not only gives longstanding fans of the series plenty to love, but also makes a great on-ramp for the uninitiated.
McDermid’s characters feel more real than some actual people I’ve known. Tony’s one of the least stereotypical thriller heroes I’ve encountered; thoughtful, careful, and compassionate, he provides the book’s beating heart as well as its conscience. Carol Jordan is the sort of heroine readers hunger for—courageous, brilliant, and yes, damaged, but all the stronger for it—and she’s not the only indomitable woman in Splinter the Silence; the cast is replete with them.
The book’s villains are equally remarkable. McDermid takes on cyberbullying and the men’s rights movement with the fury of an avenging angel, and yet somehow manages to give her misogynistic killer an origin story that allows readers to understand his motivations—a feat I didn’t think possible; in her capable hands, even villainy has nuance. To read Splinter the Silence is to experience a master operating at the height of her considerable powers. Prepare to be swept away.
Your first instinct might be to run when you hear all the high-minded praise for this “brilliantly structured labyrinth of a novel—postmodernist in its experimental bravado,” as Joyce Carol Oates calls it.
But relax. Gordon McAlpine doesn’t just write for the tweed jacket crowd—he writes for all of us. He gave us the equally head-spinning Hammett Unwritten a few years ago, and now he’s done it again, proving he’s not just a master of the post-modern, metafictional blues, but also no slouch when it comes to telling a ripping good yarn.
So, sure, your noggin may gyrate a bit, but there’s so much pulpy goodness in this slim, fast-paced volume, even us meat-and-potato readers won’t mind a bit.
Things kick off with an excerpt from “The Revised,” an unpublished novel by one Tukumi Sato. It’s December 6, 1941, and bookish Japanese-American professor Sam Sumida, still reeling from the recent murder of his wife, is sitting in a theater catching the just-released The Maltese Falcon, hoping to pick up a few pointers from Bogie. Seems the LAPD doesn’t give a damn about nailing his wife’s killer, so Sam figures he may have to do it himself.
It’s a promising start, hinting of a great period piece noir to come, full of nuance and melancholy. And then things get weird. The film breaks and the narrative is interrupted by a rejection letter from Maxine Wakefield, an editor at Metropolitan Modern Mysteries, Inc., suggesting that “in light of last Sunday’s tragic events” the publication of the book is “impossible.” She tosses Sato a bone, though, suggesting that maybe—with major revisions—the book might still be salvaged.
That’s followed by another excerpt, this time from another book entirely. It’s from The Orchid and the Secret Agent, by one William Thorne, and it’s all rah-rah red, white, and blue patriotism and testosterone, as Korean-American private eye turned super-duper secret agent Jimmy Park wages war against “those dirty Japs” in post-Pearl Harbor America. It’s so over-boiled and over-blown it’s laughable; a prime piece of race-baiting, wartime cheese.
Which is followed by another excerpt from Sam, sitting in that darkened theater, waiting for the show to start up again, unaware his world is about to slip into an alternate reality worthy of a Philip K. Dick novel.
Which, in turn, is followed by another missive from Maxine, who thanks Sato for all his hard work on the now-retitled book he’s writing under the more American-sounding pen name of Thorne.
But Sam is still alive and well, somewhere out there in literary limbo, thrust into a book and a world he no longer understands. The rest of Woman With a Blue Pencil jumps from narrative to narrative, and from letter to letter, the distinctions starting to blur as one reality bleeds into another and the novels begin to overlap with reality, particularly when the author himself is placed in an internment camp.
Woman With a Blue Pencil could be a pompous, pretentious mess, but McAlpine is a master of style and tone, jumping from piece to piece, building up an evocative, highly readable, and timely literary tour de force that confronts historic events with audacity and true grit. It’s a literary jigsaw puzzle that entertains even as it raises hard questions about racial and cultural identity, paranoia and repression—tough topics that are all too often blue-penciled to make the past taste better. Or the present.
After only a few pages of this new thriller at sea by Claude Berube, it is obvious that the author knows what he’s talking about. A former teacher at the United States Naval Academy and a Naval Reserve officer, Berube's knowledge of ships and the people who work on them is wide-ranging.
Syren’s Song features Connor Stark, a former Naval officer and Olympic pentathlon athlete now working for a private security company, Highland Maritime Defense.
When a catastrophic attack on the Sri Lanka Navy by rebel Tamil Tigers troops leaves the country’s harbor defenseless, Stark’s company is hired to shore up coastal security. The insurgent Tamil forces have developed a new type of weapon, an electromagnetic pulse bomb that knocks out electronic equipment—computers, engines, radar—leaving planes crashing and boats drifting defenseless in hostile waters. Adding to the chaos is Damien Golzari, a cold-blooded Diplomatic Security Special Agent, who is searching for the murderer of a US agent. He and Stark have a history together, and its not a pleasant one. So where is the bloody trail taking Golzari? You guessed it, right to Sri Lanka.
All of author Berube’s characters are well-drawn: Melanie Arden, the American photojournalist caught up in the Sri Lanka civil war conflict; Gunny, a retired Marine, helping to train Stark’s crew; Vanni, the leader of the rebels, who has overcome terrible challenges on his rise to power, climbing to the top over the corpses of enemy and friend alike. The politics of the region are carefully explained from both sides and points of view, which adds to the complexity of the stakes. The twists of the plot and the authenticity of the conflict make this a recommended read.
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