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Alphabetical list of all Killer Book Reviews

 		  Killer Book Reviews, Volumes 1 and 2 (2004 - 2005)

Issue2.12

December  2005

Kate Mattes

Kate’s Mystery Books Cambridge, MA, editor

 

IN A TEAPOT by Terence Faherty, (The Mystery Company $18.) October Release.  Recommended by Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ.   I love the resurgence of noir, though this is a soft-boiled version set in the Hollywood of 1948 when the film industry was changing and the British colony could feel the shift (worldwide as Empire dissolved). WWII veteran Scott Elliott, top op of Hollywood Security, draws an odd assignment, protecting a pending project by quelling rumors about one of the British stars and a burlesque queen. Scott is right to think there's something decidedly off..

    The movie lore is terrific, the ticking-clock here is the wedding of Scott to the lovely Ella Englehart, a game girl with a real mouth on her, and best of all, this novella is admirably brief, much like the almost instant noir classic DRIVE (Poisoned Pen) by James Sallis, published in Sept. In an age of bloat, lean is both mean and marvelous.


THREE STRIKES YOU'RE DEAD by Robert Goldsborough (Echelon Press, $12.99).  Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery, Mission, KS. The year is 1938, the place is Chicago .  Crime boss Al Capone is in prison and pitching great Dizzy Dean-admittedly past his prime-has just been traded to the Cubs. When a reform candidate for mayor is gunned down, the police are happy to pin the murder on the mob, but crime reporter Steve "Snap" Malek isn't so sure.  For one thing, Capone's minions have delivered a message to Snap:  the organization had nothing to do with the politician's death.  On the way to identifying the murderer, Snap encounters lots of real life characters, including actress Helen Hayes, future Chicago mayor Richard Daley, Al Capone and of course Dizzy Dean, in an appealing sub-plot.  In Three Strikes You're Dead, Goldsborough (who authored seven Nero Wolfe mysteries with the permission of the Rex Stout estate) has created an atmospheric story full of historic details that make you feel like you just stepped onto Clark Street in pre-war Chicago .  This is one that almost got away.

 

WAY PAST LEGAL by Norman Green (Harper $6.99). August release. Recommended by Barbara Tom, Murder by the Book (Portland , OR). Norman Green specializes in criminals with heart.  While his protagonists are victims of their environment, they are also active participants, until a singular event pushes them to lift themselves out. So here, Manny Williams must save his young son, to whom he's mostly been a stranger, from growing up in the same dysfunctional way he had. He also finds he has to flee a two-timing partner in crime --and the Russian mafia as well. Toss in Manny's hobby: bird-watching! Green brings together these disparate elements without losing sight of what makes his story human: a father and a son getting to know each other. Manny and Nicky flee to rural Maine, an area that is as far from the noisy, anonymous street-life of New York City as one can imagine. A multitude of strangers help and shield the pair.
 

    Green has the ability to make his people real and understandable -- even his minor ones are three-dimensional - though he also uses the stereotyped and conventional Maine traits of recalcitrance and sobriety. The brutality and tough talk of his work (which includes the much-praised Shooting Dr. Jack) place it in the "noir" genre, but the inherent sweetness of his characters and their continuing search for redemption give it nobler dimension than many of Green's contemporaries in the field.  

 

MADONNA OF THE APES by Nicholas Kilmer, (Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95).  October Release. Recommended by Kate Mattes, Kate's Mystery Books, Cambridge , MA . I have been a big fan of Nicholas Kilmer's Fred Taylor mysteries since the first one Harmony in Black and White (Poisoned Pen, PRICE) was published.  Kilmer, has spent most of his life teaching art, both history and design, and now spends his non-writing time as an art dealer and painter.  So rest assured, he is very knowledgeable.  His books are a great gift for art lovers.


   Each book in this series centers on a well-known artist and we learns lots of great little tidbits about each of their lives and loves; as well as hallmarks to some of their best work.  Often we learn about the best forgers of a particular artist as well brilliant swindles-not to mention, all the shady characters so finely and lovingly drawn that populate the art world.

   Cambridge-based Fred Taylor works for Clay Reed who is an art dealer and philanthropist. Fred is an art restorer, scout and jack of all trades.  We have never known how their relationship started until Madonna of the Apes was published.  It is a prequel to the series.  They meet as Reed acquires what he believes is a DaVinci...but needs to establish provenance.  A chest with a painting on the inside lid was purchased legally from a con artist who was trying to sell Clay a fake Cezanne.  Fred is his witness and they form an uneasy bond since they can't discuss the chest with anyone else and they are both driven to find out if it is a DaVinci, and if so, how it wound up in the apartment on Charles Street where they discovered it.

Kilmer writes with an enthusiasm and finesse rarely found in combination.  The excitement and energy, even passion, for great art permeates the plot and is certainly as good as a trip to a museum.  In addition, Kilmer writes with a fluidity and ease that make his books a pleasure to read.

 

 

Deadgame by Kirk Russell (Chronicle Books, $23.95). September release. Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue, Lyons, Colorado:  Fiction can raise your consciousness as well as educate you, but unless it fulfills its primary goal of entertaining the reader we’re talking about trees falling in an empty forest. Kirk Russell’s third John Marquez mystery novel delivers on all three levels as the former DEA agent, now working undercover for the California Game and Fish Department, goes after sturgeon poachers.

            

   Admittedly we were never big caviar fans, but after learning how the eggs are harvested, we’re definitely sticking with peanut butter on our crackers from here on out. When you think caviar, you think Russians, and Marquez’s overworked team suddenly finds itself caught up in a crime ripe with international repercussions. Fans of Nevada Barr’s national park series will find much to enjoy in Deadgame, especially in its complicated and very human hero. Marquez wants nothing more than to put the bad guys away but he knows that sometimes a law officer can keep a kid from becoming a felon by looking the other way—once.

 

Issue 2.11

 

November 2005

 

Barbara Peters, editor. Poisoned Pen

Scottsdale, AZ

 

Spectres in the Smoke, Tony Broadbent: St. Martin 's $23.95. October Release. Recommended by Tom and Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue, Boulder, CO.

      In 1948 London, postwar austerity is in full swing, fascism is on the rise again in certain circles, and MI5 once again calls upon the resourceful Cockney cat burglar Jethro to deal with the nastiness, which if unchecked could undo the brave new order the Labour Party dreams of. With his leftist leanings and quiet patriotism, Jethro—a former merchant seaman turned stagehand whose burgling skills are legendary—has proved to be the perfect spy, able to go undercover in a variety of personas and, best of all, actually willing to be of service to his government. 

     Sir Oswald Mosley has been recruiting members for his New Order of Britain, and MI5 wants Jethro to penetrate their headquarters and seize certain vital documents. The history of fascism in Britain , including the Duke of Windsor’s pro-Nazi sympathies, is brought into play, as are the Satanism, kinky sex and vicious anti-Semitism certain members of the group indulge in. Cameo appearances by David Niven and Ian Fleming and Jethro’s daring rescue of a lissome virgin slated for human sacrifice by the bad guys add to the fun. As cheeky and endearing as ever, Jethro—“a gifted irregular” in the words of MI5—gets the job done with the same aplomb he demonstrated in his first case, Smoke, now available in trade paperback from Felony & Mayhem ($14.95).

 

A Grave Mistake, Stella Cameron: Mira $16.95. November Release.  Recommended by Fran Fuller, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle , WA . If you haven't met the good folks of Toussaint , LA , who inhabit Stella Cameron's novels, you've been missing out! These complex and intriguing characters will become people you know, and you'll find yourself speaking in their patois, while you wish you were eating beignets in Jilly's restaurant, All Tarted Up. And trouble has come again to Toussaint, out of New Orleans, twisting its evil tendrils around Jilly Gable, who is coming to terms with the mother who abandoned her, and around Guy Gautreaux, whose police past is coming back to haunt him and whose heart Jilly has stolen.  The heated passions build in the sultry Louisiana air, and all of them, good and bad, will leave you breathless. Stella Cameron's writing will make you ache for the  New Orleans  we just lost, and will fill you with the knowledge that this is a city that nothing can truly destroy.

 

The Cipher Garden , Martin Edwards: Poisoned Pen Press $24.95. November Release.  Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery, Mission , KS . Daniel Kind was an Oxford academic and famous historian until his reporter girlfriend, Miranda, persuaded him to give up everything to move—in spite of his misgivings—to a cottage in the Lake District . To his amazement, life in a small village suits him, much better than it does Miranda, who seems to be drawn back to London . Also to his amazement, historian Kind finds that he has an affinity for detection. Of course he comes by his talent naturally, since his late estranged father was a detective in Brackdale, Kind’s new home. In The Cipher Garden, Kind and DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of the local cold case review team, both take an interest when an anonymous note accuses Tina Howe of her husband’s murder with his own scythe ten years earlier. Tina has an alibi, but the victim’s family is dead set against re-opening the investigation, even though suspects abound.  Kind and DCI Scarlett, who was his father’s protégée, share more than an interest in the cold case; they also share a growing—but unacknowledged—attraction to each other. Start with The Coffin Trail ($14.95). 

 

Grave Sight, Charlaine Harris: Berkley Prime Crime $23.95. October Release. Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha's, Ann Arbor , MI . This unusual and sparky novel by the multi talented Charlaine Harris is about a woman named Harper Connelly who was struck by lightening in adolescence and can now find dead bodies. When she finds them, she can tell how they died, a skill which is frequently useful to the police. It lands her in some hot water when she hits the tiny town of Sarne in the Ozarks. Harris sets the scene like a master, filling in the background of her story with a group of characters who may or may not be sinister—she's   such a good writer, she's able to keep the reader guessing. Another unusual touch is that Harper travels with her brother Tolliver. The siblings have a bond forged during a difficult childhood endured together, and difficult childhoods are in fact the theme of the novel. Driving the whole story, of course, is Harper's unusual ability; it creeps lots of people out, but Harper often feels she's releasing the spirits of the dead and giving their families closure.  Harris often writes in what might be interpreted as a cozy style, but her books are actually far from cozy. She seems to enjoy shaking things up, and for the reader, that's a delightful journey.

 

The Price of Silence, Kate Wilhelm: Mira $23.95. October Release.

Recommended by Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, CA: The Price of Silence is a great contemporary gothic novel, complete with a light touch of the supernatural. Oregon journalist Todd Fielding needs employment that will both provide an income and allow her scholar husband to continue his studies. When she is asked to work at the local independent newspaper in the small town of Brindle , she accepts the job, never anticipating it will lead to jeopardy for her job, her marriage, and her life. In a town where everyone supposedly knows everyone else's business, no one seems to know what has become of a missing girl—or her predecessors. More importantly, no one seems to want to know, and Todd's compulsion to investigate has made her both a pariah and a target. Wilhelm is always a wonderful writer, and has a comprehensive back list available in both mystery and science fiction.

 

 

 

Issue 2.10

October  2005

 

Robin Agnew

Aunt Agatha's

Ann Arbor, MI

Editor

The Devil’s Own Rag Doll, Mitchell Bartoy: St. Martin’s, $25.00.  Recommended by Barbara Peters, Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, Arizona.  The Devil’s Own Rag Doll “captures the tension of an industrial city - the engine behind the Arsenal of Democracy - with the accuracy of an eyewitness and the terror of a victim, yet never abandons it’s faith in heroes.  He belongs in the first rank of artists working in the subgenre of the Detroit thriller.” - so says Loren D. Estleman, himself a master of the Detroit thriller.  In Bartoy’s first novel, a vivacious white heiress is murdered in the black part of town, and the city threatens to erupt into mob violence, bringing the factories to a grinding halt and imperiling Allied forces around the world.  Newly minted Detective Pete Caudill is charged with covering up the crime in the interests of civic peace and finding some kind of justice for the dead girl.  Odds are the girl was killed by her black boyfriend, but some whisper of an Axis plot to hamper America’s war effort.  Or is Detroit’s shadowy political machine manipulating events to it’s own ruthless ends? October release.
The Iron Girl, Ellen Hart: St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95.  Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s, Ann Arbor, Michigan.  Ellen Hart has been quietly plugging away for years - honing her craft, getting better and better at what she does, and not enough people are noticing.  When customers complain to me that no one writes a book full of fair clues and a tricky solution anymore, I tell them Ellen Hart is still a member of this wonderful tradition.  She’s just slightly updated it by putting her stories in a contemporary setting, having a main character who is a lesbian, and providing the emotional richness mystery readers have come to expect.  If there are three crucial threads to a novel - plot, character, and prose - Hart is more than able to provide all three.   This novel, like many, many of my favorite mysteries, has a story set both in the past and in the present, with the story from the past informing the one in the present.  Jane, a Minneapolis restaurant owner, had a love of her life who died; in this novel, we as readers get to hear about this woman’s life and death, which - luckily for us - is tied to a gruesome and fascinating murder story, the details of which Hart teases out over many chapters.  (It worked, too - I couldn’t put the book down.)  It’s emotional full circle for Jane as she works through her feelings for her dead partner, Christine, as she anticipates a relationship with a new partner. 
   This is an odd comparison but much like the old Andy Griffith Show - where Andy was a sane voice surrounded by lunatics - Jane Lawless is the calm center of these novels.  The crisis can swirl around her, but Jane never loses her head or her clear sighted view of any situation.  It’s refreshing - and enviable.  It also keeps the reader’s path through the puzzle a straightforward one.  Like another writer I admire very much, Margaret Maron, Hart is very good at fleshing out all her sidebar characters.  When you get to the end of the novel and find out who did it, you aren’t flipping back to figure out who that person was - you’re simply horrified (and frequently surprised).  So to anyone who is a fan of the locked room mystery, but who also enjoys the emotional depth of well drawn characters, I can’t recommend Ellen Hart more highly. August release.

The Baby Game, Randall Hicks: Wordslinger Press, $22.95. Recommended by Maggie Mason, Lookin’ for Books, San Diego, CA.  Toby Dillon comes from a long line of attorneys, and he’s found his niche in adoption law, even helping his childhood friends Brogan Barlow and Rita MacGilroy in their search for a child to adopt.  Brogan and Rita are major movie stars, but haven’t lost their small town roots and values - they even keep a sheep in the backyard of their ritzy home in Los Angeles.  Toby gets more involved when he takes Brogan and Rita’s birth mother, Sammy, to the hospital, but Sammy disappears.  When she’s found, nearly perfect child in tow (only a slight thyroid problem), the movie star couple are ecstatic and celebrate being a family at last, only to discover that Sammy has actually delivered twins.  Though the new parents and their attorney realize the adoption rules have changed, they desperately want to find the missing twin, who may share a similar health problem to the baby they already have.  Old secrets are revealed in the course of the search as their quest takes them into very awkward territory.

 
Billed as a humorous novel, this is not an exaggeration; the manic drive to the hospital with Sammy about to give birth being especially funny, but the book also has a serious side with problems in adoptions and adoption law addressed as well.  The author is a highly regarded adoption attorney, and he uses his skills to entertain and educate. August release.
                             
The Stranger House, Reginald Hill: Harper Collins, $24.95.  Recommended by Joanne Sinchuk, Murder on the Beach Mystery Bookstore, Delray Beach, FL.  A small village in rural England where time has apparently stood still, a cast of quirky characters who live more in the past than in the present, and a shameful secret everyone seems to know, but no one ever admits.  This is the setting of Reginald Hill’s new novel, The Stranger House.  Samantha Flood is a young Australian woman tracking her roots back to her grandmother in the small village of Illthwaite in Cumbria, England.  Around 1960, an incredible scandal occurred where an estimated 150,000 children, mostly orphaned or unwanted, were shipped from Britain to the furthermost corners of the Empire.  These children sometimes found better lives for themselves, but more often were used and abused as slaves in the families that took them in. Samantha Flood’s grandmother was one of these children, shipped to Australia.
    

    At the same time a young man studying for the priesthood arrives in Illthwaite, ostensibly researching the life of a saint and martyr for a book he is writing, but in reality searching for a connection to his own family.  Since the village is very small, and these events occurred around 1960, the reader feels there must be some connection between the two.  Of course there is, but the stories are so complex and multilayered that the reader is kept guessing until the very end.  Everyone except the two strangers and the reader seems to know what’s going on - and are keeping it from the three of us.  Hill weaves an intense but diverse story line among complex and sometimes twisted characters with a powerful sense of place.  This is the kind of novel where you can’t stop thinking about the story, or worrying about the characters, long after the book has ended.  Hill is truly a master of his craft. October release.
                           

First Drop, Zoe Sharp: St. Martin’s, $23.95.  Recommended by Sue Wilder, Murder on the Beach Mystery Bookstore, Delray Beach, FL.  .Charlie Fox’s first American assignment brings her to Ft. Lauderdale to act as bodyguard to Trey Pelzner, a 15 year old spoiled brat and son of Keith Pelzner, genius computer programmer.  Charlie has minimal background information on the case and is puzzled over the need for the security assignment.  Initially she feels like a babysitter, but the action unfolds quickly when Keith Pelzner and his entourage, including Charlie’s boss and occasional lover Sean Mayer disappear, leaving Charlie with Trey.  They are pursued and on the run, making their way to Daytona, narrowly avoiding capture several times.  Charlie is a tough, ex-Army special forces, motorcycle riding, self-defense expert.  She’s unafraid to use her skills while she’s trying to figure out why she and Trey are targets for murder.

    The action never stops and the story of why begins to unfold.  Charlie is one of the toughest female protagonists in modern crime, as well as being smart and likeable.  Although Ms. Sharp is British, her Florida scenes are accurate and reflect a good deal of observation.  The dialogue is well written and smoothly delivered; and from the very first chapter, the pace is unrelenting.

 

Issue2.9

September  2005

 

Maryelizabeth Hart Mysterious Galaxy

San Diego, CA

Editor

 

 

 

  

 

Uncommon Grounds by Sandra Balzo: ISBN 1594141959, Five Star, $25.95; ISBN: 1410402363, Simultaneous Five Star trade paperback, $13.95. Recommended by Linda Erickson, Mysterious Galaxy, San Diego, CA: This is the first in a new mystery series starring Maggie Thorsen, part owner of a brand new gourmet coffeehouse. On opening day, when she and another owner, Caron Egan, arrive to start prepping, they find the third owner, Patricia Harper, dead on the floor. It appears as if Patricia was in the middle of making a latte for herself. Maggie tries CPR and manages to get the stunned Caron to finally call 911. The police arrive, in the person of police chief Gary Donovan, and the EMTs arrive right after him. When a scorch mark on the counter and a burn on Patricia’s hand are seen, suspicions of foul play are raised. County sheriff Jake Pavlik runs the ensuing investigation. Chief Gary Donovan seems to dislike the sheriff and, since Maggie is Gary’s good friend, she dislikes Pavlik as well. Whenever she learns something that she thinks is related to the murder, she tells Gary and lets him inform Pavlik. Maggie discovers some interesting facts about the Harpers and about other people in town. She also learns some interesting things about the new sheriff, Jake Pavlik. Another suspicious death occurs before the truth is revealed. This is a very enjoyable character-driven debut with an appealing and funny heroine.

See Isabelle Run by Elizabeth Bloom  ISBN: 0892967854,  $22.95, Mysterious Press; Recommended by Deb Andolino, Aliens & Alibis Books, Columbia, SC: I loved the Alex Bernier series from Beth Saulnier. The writing was good -- I really cared about what happened to the characters. I was very disappointed when I didn't see any more from Beth after Ecstasy, which was published in 2003. Then I happened to read a review of See Isabelle Run, which said that Beth Saulnier and Elizabeth Bloom are one and the same.

Isabelle Leonard is one feisty lady. After her fiancé dumps her at the altar, she goes to work for decorating maven, Becky Belden. As Belden's employees start dying one by one, Isabelle becomes curious and starts investigating.  This is a book where the characters are stronger than the mystery. I had figured out most of the mystery by three-quarters of the way through the book but I didn't care. By that time I was hooked on finding out what Isabelle was going to do. The author's site says that this is a stand-alone but I hope she changes her mind. I'd like to find out what else Isabelle gets into. And, by the way, the author's site also said that she is working on another Alex Bernier book. Yay!

After the Armistice Ball by Catriona McPherson: ISBN 0786716088, Carroll & Graf, $25.00; Recommended by Dean James, Murder by the Book, Houston, TX: The time is 1922, and the place is Perthshire, Scotland. Dandy Gilver’s husband is back from the Front, her children are away at school, and she’s bored. So what is an upper-class woman to do to while away the time?  When her friend Daisy Esslemont asks her to help out with a little problem, Dandy jumps at the chance. The Esslemonts host an annual Armistice Day ball, and at the most recent one, Lena Duffy brought along the famous Duffy diamonds to wear. But the diamonds have gone missing, and now Lena is expecting the Esslemonts to cough up for them, to compensate her for her loss. Dandy (short for Dandelion) soon begins to scent something rotten in Perthshire, and it’s not long before tragedy strikes. Lena Duffy’s beautiful younger daughter, Cara, engaged to the handsome Alec Osborne, dies in a mysterious fire at a remote cottage. Highly suspicious now because of what they know about the missing diamonds, Dandy and Alec team up to get at the truth of what really happened.

Slowly, Dandy and Alec peel away the layers of a very complex case. There are twists and turns throughout the story, with the last little twist coming on the final page. McPherson has penned a stunningly good first novel, strong on period atmosphere and detail without being in the least heavy-handed. Dandy Gilver is a crackerjack heroine, and I’m looking forward to many more adventures with her. Fans of Jacqueline Winspear and Kerry Greenwood should not miss this one – my pick so far for Best First Novel of the year.

Restless Waters by Jessica Speart : ISBN: 0060559551, Avon Books, $6.99 ; Recommended by Joanne Sinchuk, Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach, FL: The thing I love best about Jessica Speart’s series about Fish and Wildlife Agent Rachel Porter is that I always learn something about the species featured in that particular book, and the area in which the book is set. In Restless Waters, Rachel is stationed in Hawaii (tough duty, I know) and takes on the shark fin industry, which is decimating the population of sharks.

I thought this was a pretty tough task, since most people would not feel a great deal of sympathy toward the average shark. Especially with all the shark attacks at Florida beaches we have been hearing about lately, this was a formidable task. But Speart does a great job, as usual, and I found myself very sympathetic to the cause.

Rachel is finding Hawaii a difficult place to work. The Fish and Wildlife Agency seems to take the attitude that what they don’t know about won’t hurt anyone. Knowing Rachel, we can predict that telling her not to rock the boat is tantamount to waving a red flag in front of a bull. The more her obnoxious boss (and Rachel is the record holder for having obnoxious bosses) tells her to keep her nose out of a problem, the more she digs in.

Her investigation turns up fishing boats who catch the sharks, hack off the fins while the sharks are still alive, and then dump the still living fish back into the ocean. Having no fins, the shark cannot swim and sinks to the bottom, where a predator can easily feast on the bloody carcass. Along the way, there is a side plot about breeders of exotic animals who dump their livestock into the wilds of Hawaii, let them feed on the local animals, and then pick them up when they are grown. This saves the breeders money, but is wreaking havoc with the ecological balance on the islands.

Speart writes excellent description: memorable characters, atmospheric scenery and an evocative plot. The scene between the gecko and cockroach in the middle of the night was mesmerizing. I hope Rachel Porter has a good long run.

Deadly Slipper by Michelle Wan :  ISBN 0385514573, Doubleday, $23.95 ; Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue, Lyons, CO : In 1984, Bedie Dunn, a Canadian wild-orchid hunter, disappeared without a trace while hiking through the Dordogne region of southwestern France. Mara Dunn, her identical twin, eventually settled in the Dordogne herself, desperate for information on her sister’s fate. The discovery at a junk shop of the dead woman’s camera has given Mara new hope of learning what happened, and when its fragile film is developed, yielding images of the wild orchids and a distinctive pigeonnier, or dovecote, along Bedie’s path, Mara consults English expatriate Julian Wood, an expert on the region’s wild orchids.

Julian, who innately dislikes pushy women, is at first taken aback by Mara’s intensity, but he eventually falls in with her insistence that he help her locate the markers along Bedie’s route. Of course, he’s really hoping to discover for himself one particularly rare species she photographed. And while the local police are reluctant to reopen a 19-year-old case with such tenuous evidence, they do take an interest in the investigation.

The story is a perfect showcase for credible amateur detection, and its appeal is heightened by quirky but believable characters (including their dogs) and an absolutely mesmerizing sense of place. The Dordogne, a less-traveled region of France than Provence (although expatriates and Parisians are rapidly making inroads there), offers as much in the way of landscape, cuisine, and tradition, and it’s so lovingly rendered that even confirmed Francophobes like ourselves were delighted to spend an armchair vacation there.

 

Issue 2.8

 

August  2005

 

Deb Andolino

Aliens and Alibis, Columbia, SC

Editor

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

  

 

A CLEAN KILL, by Leslie Glass.  ISBN: 0451411897, Onyx, $7.99  Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha's, Ann Arbor , MI: There are few authors who make me squeal with delight when a new installment appears, but Leslie Glass is one of them.  Her April Woo series is one of the best police procedural series around, not only because the main character is one of the most memorable in contemporary mystery fiction, but because the plots are also top notch.  April Woo is a rising star in the New York City police department, who struggles with both racial prejudice (she's Chinese) and with the fact that she's a woman in a very male dominated department.  All through the series, this has been a wonderful background; in A CLEAN KILL, she's finally married to Mike Sanchez, a fellow cop.  The story here concerns an ultra wealthy Manhattan matron found dead in her private/spa gym (attached to her very swanky house).  April is quickly folded into the task force on what becomes a very high profile murder; Glass is able to deftly skewer several levels of Manhattan society in tracing the murders - from wealthy housewives to disinterested husbands to a culture where the children are raised by nannies and their houses are cleaned by housekeepers, leaving their parents to act out in various unacceptable ways.  April has also moved into a new house where her mother, the "Skinny Dragon" still manages to track her down so she can help April get pregnant (all she achieves is nausea).  This series is not to be missed for many reasons, and April Woo is one of my favorite characters in all of mystery fiction. May 2005.

 

DEAD AS A SCONE, by Ron and Janet Benry. Barbour Publications, ISBN: 159310197X $13 Recommended by Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale , AZ: Who would imagine a tea museum as a hot bed of crime? Certainly not Nigel Owen, its acting Director. Truth is, Nigel is really a coffee man, but he needed a job when made redundant at his cushy insurance management post. He doesn't much like annoying (read, pushy) American tea curator Flick Adams who seems to be an expert on forensic chemistry and fearless in defense of the Royal Tunbridge Wells Tea Museum 's treasures (astonishingly pricey and dating back over the centuries since the Hawkers founded their tea company). Too bad the Hawkers didn't deed over the collection properly. Too bad some clever criminal sits on the museum's board. Too bad Dame Elspeth Hawker is poisoned at the trustees' meeting before she can reveal what's brewing, though no one accepts she's been murdered. A reluctant Nigel is prodded by Flick into using his considerable skills in defense of the museum. This is a little gem for you who relish detail (modern and historical), cleverly plotted and brimming with Kent native Janet's eye for Tunbridge Wells. Carry on with The Final Crumpet ($13) where the remains of England 's long missing "Tea Sage" radio personality are discovered hastily buried beneath two Assam bushes in the museum's garden. This is one that almost got away. November 2004.

 

Headcase, by Peter Helton Carroll & Graf, ISBN: 0786715294,252 pages, $25.00 Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue, Boulder CO : Readers who remember with fondness Jonathan Gash’s early Lovejoy books should adore this good-humored debut mystery featuring painter and sometime private eye Chris Honeysett, who lives in the country outside the beautiful city of Bath . His neighbor’s black-faced sheep mow his meadow for him, he shares his spacious but dilapidated house and studio with another artist, Annis, he drives a 30-year-old rust-bucket of a classic Citroen, and his best friend is a semi-reformed safe cracker. Annis helps him with his detective work, which he resorts to only when funds are low. This time it’s a case involving stolen paintings, mostly nudes, which fetch ungodly prices on the Saudi black market. There’s also the little matter of the murder of one of his friends, a sunny young woman who runs a group home for mentally ill patients, where Chris, a gourmet cook, frequently helps out in the kitchen. Chris doesn’t have an ounce of angst in his makeup and he’s more often the target of wisecracks than their originator. The kindest, most endearing soul you could imagine, he’s like other fictional private eyes only in his capacity for getting knocked about by bad guys and drinking copious quantities of ice-cold beer when he’s not too concussed to do so. As a detective, it takes him a while to get the job done, but that just allows the reader more time to be entertained by one bemused aside after another and a highly unorthodox love triangle. August 2005.

 

 

JUDGMENT OF THE GRAVE, by Sarah Stewart Taylor, ISBN 0312337396, St. Martin 's Minotaur, $24.95  Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha's, Ann Arbor , MI and Deb Andolino, Aliens & Alibis Books, Columbia , SC : Sarah Stewart Taylor's first two Sweeney St. George mysteries were wonderful reads, and this one, the third in her series, might be the best one yet.  Sweeney is an art historian with an interest in gravestone art, and in all three novels her academic knowledge has paralleled a police case in a believable way.  Because she can go all over the east coast looking at old gravestones (she's based in Boston ), she's always got a reason to roam, and in this novel she ends up in Concord , a spot more than swimming in revolutionary war history.  When a war re-enactor (Revolutionary of course, not Civil) is found dead in the woods with Sweeney close at hand, things begin to heat up.  Sweeney strikes up a friendship with a cancer stricken 12 year old boy at the start of the novel - he's the one who actually finds the body - and the 12 year old is the emotional tie between many of the characters in the novel, Sweeney included.  On hand from the last book is Lt. Quinn, a new widower with a 10 month old baby who he can't quite figure out how to get to day care, a familiar enough dilemma to anyone with a job and a baby.   The writing in this series is lively and atmospheric, the characters are crisp and memorable, and the stories are compelling.  The dose of Revolutionary War history is so painlessly applied you won't even know it, and you'll be wishing there was a photo gallery of the gravestones Sweeney talks about. July 2005.

 

SHOCK WAVE, James O. Born, ISBN: 0399152636, Putnam, $24.95  Recommended by Sue Wilder, Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach , FL : A week after FDLE agent Bill Tasker narrowly escaped being killed in a case involving the FBI, he is involved in a search for a missing Stinger missile.  The new case is resolved quickly, but Tasker is not satisfied.  He investigates some loose ends and finds himself in the middle of another case that puts him at odds with the FBI, the ATF and a bomber who may make Tasker his first victim. With the humor, solid plotting, quirky characters, and realistic dialog that Mr. Born delivered in his debut, Walking Money, Bill Tasker is both the pursuer and the pursued.  The plot unfolds in South Florida , with Tasker seeking the bomber.  The plot is full of well-drawn characters, including various agency officials and criminals.  The reader also gets to see Tasker’s personal side via his ex-wife. This reader thoroughly enjoyed Walking Money, published last year to much acclaim from the reading public.  The book was a great addition to the Florida mystery scene.  Mr. Born’s career in law enforcement combined with a finely honed writing style produced a wonderful read.  Shock Wave is an equally good story with a wonderful cast of characters.  In fact, the plotting and story line is tighter in Mr. Born’s second novel, delivering a fast moving story appropriate to the chase.  The descriptions of place and police activities are excellent. This is a thoroughly enjoyable read, at times hilarious, and makes this reader anxious to read the next installment in the series. April 2005.

 

 

Issue 2.7

July  2005, 

Tom & Enid Schantz

The Rue Morgue

Boulder, CO

editors

 

  

 

Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders By Alicia Gaspar de Alba. Arte Publico Press, 1558854460, $23.95. (Recommended by Stephanie Saxon Levine, (Murder on the Beach, (Del Ray Beach, Florida) :  When Ivon Villa returns to her hometown of El Paso, Texas, to adopt a baby, she has no indication of the trouble that awaits her.  We, the readers, do, because Desert Blood: The Juarez Murders, opens with a gripping chapter describing the murder of a pregnant woman, and it doesn’t take us long to figure out who she was. This reader was hooked from the start.   Every detail included thereafter serves to heighten the suspense, as Ivon is drawn into an investigation of the more than 100 murders that have occurred since 1993. Having learned of these murders, Ivon is astounded that so little information is available about them.  She suspects that a conspiracy covers up the crimes that implicate everyone from the Maquiladora Association to the Border Patrol. When her sister is kidnapped in Juarez, Ivon must find her. In attempting to find her. Ivon faces great peril.  I found this book compelling from page one. This is one book that is truly hard to put down.  Alicia Gaspar de Alba is gifted with a special ability to weave truth and fiction.  In addition, she has the talent to create multifaceted, intriguing characters who almost seem to rise off the page. What’s more, Alicia Gaspar de Alba makes the setting into an additional character.  The reader can actually see the streets of Juarez and picture the desert where the women’s bodies were found.  More than once, I rose from my reading chair just long enough to check that the doors were locked and the alarm was activated. That’s testimony to Alicia Gaspar de Alba’s powers of description.  Though I had never heard of the murders, it’s easy to understand why the author has been researching the crimes since 1998. She does a terrific job of bringing this situation to live for her reader. April 2005

 

 

 Locked Rooms by Laurie R. King. Bantam, 055380197X $24.00. (Recommended by Dean James, Murder by the Book, Houston.): Right after their adventures in India, chronicled in The Game (Bantam; $6.99), Mary Russell and Sherlock Holmes are en route to California. Mary has been plagued by dreams, dreams of locked rooms, and she is dreading reaching California. As readers of the series will remember, Mary’s family was killed in a car accident in California when she was very young, and Mary has always held herself to blame for the accident. Pressing matters of business, relating to the Russell estate, will wait no longer, however, and Mary and Holmes go to San Francisco to deal with it all. As Mary struggles to come to terms with everything, including the family home, kept locked all these years until a member of the family should return to it, she begins to probe beneath the surface of her memories and to discover the true history of her family. There are some shocking discoveries to be made, but Mary faces up to them. The plot in this entry in the series is sometimes a bit more slow-moving than readers usually expect with a Russell/ Holmes novel, but the story overall is a richly textured and emotionally deep one. Mary, in finally confronting the truth about her past, reaches a new level of maturity, and King has made her already splendid heroine even more remarkable. Laurie R. King is truly one of the finest writers of the crime novel at work today, and Locked Rooms is ample proof of her skill. June 2005

Dearly Devoted Dexter by Jeff Lindsay. Doubleday, 0385511248, $22.95.  (Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery, Mission, KS.):   The phrase “dark comedy” does not begin to do justice to this masterful and disturbing follow-up to last year’s Dilys award winning Darkly Dreaming Dexter.  This time, Dexter (darling, demented monster that he is) resorts to domesticity to throw his nemesis, Sergeant Drake—who is determined to catch Dexter committing a heinous crime—off the trail.  Unfortunately, Dexter’s new life of thrice-weekly visits to his girlfriend/disguise, Rita, and her two children (where he plays kick-the-can and hangman, learns to drink beer and engages in passionate kisses with Rita for Sergeant Drake’s benefit) is disrupted by a serial killer whose unspeakable crimes are shocking even to Dexter.   Against his better judgment, Dexter is drawn into the case by his sister, a Miami detective, who has a personal stake in the case.  In spite of the fact that he is a self-proclaimed monster, Dexter is so endearing and so funny that he will win your heart if you give him a chance.  A macabre masterpiece.  (Warning:  the crimes in Dearly Devoted Dexter --not Dexter’s doing this time-- are so unspeakable and disturbing that the book should not be undertaken lightly.) July 2005.

To Kingdom Come by Will Thomas. Touchstone, $22.95, ISBN 0743256220). (Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue, Boulder, CO):  Colorful London private enquiry agent Cyrus Barker and his diminutive young Welsh assistant, Thomas Llewelyn, make a welcome return in this sequel to last year’s Some Danger Involved (Touchstone, trade paperback, $9.95). Here they’ve made a deal with Scotland Yard to infiltrate a murderous cell of the Irish Republican Brotherhood in 1884 to keep London from being blown to bits by dynamiters.  Barker poses as an irascible German explosives expert and Llewelyn as his hot-headed protégé. The Invisibles, as the secretive cell members are known, quickly take them in on the strength of their newly acquired ability to make nitroglycerine and manufacture infernal devices. Thomas even has a rare opportunity to visit Paris with the lovely sister of one of the rebels, where they travel as honeymooners while he purchases the necessary materials to destroy most of London and topple the monarchy.  The story is lively, full of convincing historical detail, and reveals a few more tantalizing facts from Barker’s mysterious past. Real-life persons of the period, such as Israel Zangwill, Charles Parnell and William Butler Yeats, have supporting roles, but mostly it’s the wonderful chemistry between Barker and Llewelyn that makes the book, like its predecessor, a thorough delight. June 2005

 The Power of the Dog by Don Winslow. (Knopf, 25.95, 0375405380) (Recommended by JB Dickey, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle.) :  An epic novel of crime, love, revenge, and honor, Winslow's long awaited new book traces the failed war on drugs from the 70's through the lives of the narcowarriors on both sides of the battle and border, brilliantly delineating its horror and corruption as countries cynically use the trade to move arms for political ends, accept narcodollars to stay in power, all the while condemning the drugs that they help to spread. A heartbreaking story told with style and power. May 2005

 

Issue 2.6

 

June  2005 

 

Karen Spengler

I Love a Mystery

Mission, KS

Editor

 

  

 

A Confidential Source by Jan Brogan,  Mysterious Press, $24.95, ISBN 0892960078 (Recommended by Jim Huang, The Mystery Company, Carmel, IN): What Jan Brogan does so well in A Confidential Source is show us how her protagonist, reporter Hallie Ahearn, screws up, while still making us believe in her.

Ahearn is new to Providence, Rhode Island, back in the newspaper business after a hiatus that followed a difficult experience at a Boston newspaper (chronicled in Brogan's first novel, Final Copy -- same protagonist, same personal and professional situation but, oddly enough, a different name). Ahearn is a witness to a murder, an apparent supermarket robbery gone wrong. Then she gets a promising tip connecting the murder victim, the store owner, to gambling and loan sharks. The tip comes from a source who asks to remain nameless -- and Ahearn has good reasons of her own for keeping the source confidential.

 Despite conduct that stops short of flawless, we trust Ahearn.  Brogan does a great job in stepping us through Ahearn's job, conducting interviews, checking facts and putting together stories.  Every detail is both believable and fascinating, and when Ahearn's story blows up on her, it's hard to fault her -- not that her employer doesn't try, putting added pressure on her to bring in a story. When the signs point to shenanigans at the state lottery, Ahearn doggedly pursues leads into the worlds of gambling and Rhode Island politics.

 A Confidential Source is convincing and compelling, an intelligent and thoughtful examination of how reporters get it wrong and how they get it right.

Confessions of a Teen Sleuth by Chelsea Cain, Bloomsbury USA, $15.95, ISBN 1582345112 (Recommended by Jean Utley,  Book'em Mysteries,  S. Pasadena, CA):  For those of us who grew up with Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, Trixie Belden, Judy Bolton, and the rest of the cadre of fictional teenage detectives, have I got a book for you! This is on top of my list of the best books of 2005 so far, and it'll take an unbelievable book to knock it off.   I'm speaking of the incredible parody of Nancy Drew (she's 75 this year, you know) called Confessions of a Teen Sleuth, by Chelsea Cain.  Here's the premise:

Nancy has left behind a manuscript of the true autobiography of her life. Her old college roommate, Carolyn Keene, wrote some books about Nancy's purported adventures, but they were not the truth. Nancy married Ned Nickerson but she was never really in love with him, since the love of her life was really Frank Hardy (you know, Joe's brother).

In this book, Nancy sets us straight about her titian locks, her roadster, her friends Bess and George. She updates us on her adventures since the books, including her World War II duties, her time in Haight Ashbury during the sixties, and her family and friends.

What I haven't told you is how absolutely hysterically funny this book reads. I laughed out loud at something in each chapter, and the characters behave exactly as they should. The writing style replicates the early stories so well, and the drawings are dead ringers for the old illustrations in the series books.  I can tell you already that everyone who read our family set of Hardy Boys books is getting a copy of this book for Christmas. If I can wait that long.

The Right Madness by James Crumley, Viking, $24.95, ISBN 0670034061 (Recommended by Patrick Millikin, Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale, AZ):   First introduced in the modern classic The Last Good Kiss, C.W. Sughrue takes the stage in The Right Madness, Crumley’s most satisfying effort in years. After spending the last few years dodging the contrabandistas who’d nearly killed him in Bordersnakes, Sughrue is back in Missoula, enjoying the good life with his young wife, playing in the local ‘old farts’ softball league, taking the occasional missing kid case to pay the bills, sipping cocktails in the bars downtown. His domestic tranquility quickly slips away when he reluctantly agrees to help his close friend, psychiatrist Will MacKinderick, track down some stolen confidential case files. MacKinderick suspects that one of his patients is the culprit, and when they start dying in bizarre, violent ways, Sughrue begins to question his own sanity and rues the day he ever decided to take the job. Beautifully written, and with enough heart to make a grown man shed a tear into his pint glass, The Right Madness is yet another reminder to all wannabe hardboiled crime writers: this is how it’s done. My only complaint about Crumley is that he doesn’t write enough.

A Killing Night by Jonathon King, Dutton, $23.95, ISBN 0525948651. (Recommended by Sue Wilder, Murder on the Beach, Delray Beach, FL):  Max Freeman, ready to emerge from the isolation of his shack in the Everglades, responds to a call from his ex-girlfriend Detective Sherry Richards.  She asks him to help her prove that an ex-cop is abusing and killing young women in South Florida.  There’s one big glitch: the suspect, Colin O’Shea saved Max’s life when they were both cops in Philadelphia.  Max is hesitant to take on the investigation.  He questions O’Shea’s morals, but does not want to see a potentially innocent man accused of these crimes.  Max’s loyalty is tested on many fronts:  O’Shea as a brother-in-blue and the man who saved his life, Detective Richards’ need for support in the honest pursuit of a murderer.  While investigating O’Shea’s questionable past in Philadelphia, Max is also forced to confront his own unresolved past history. 

Although the book is not gritty, Max has several brushes with danger, making the story very suspenseful.  The plot is well-structured, propelled by the characters’ realistic actions.  Mr. King’s ability to use just enough words keeps the momentum at a high level without sacrificing any details.   A Killing Night is the fourth book in the Max Freeman series.  This is a series that seems to get better with each book, a big statement considering that the first book in the series, Blue Edge of Midnight, won the Edgar Award.  Mr. King continues to develop Max Freeman’s character, and it is safe to say that Max has become a permanent member of the famous private investigators’ club.

RESURRECTION ROAD by Kathryn Wall, St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95, ISBN 0312337930 (Recommended by Deb Andolino, Aliens & Alibis Books, Columbia, SC):   I’ve been a fan of Kathy Wall’s ever since her first book – In For A Penny – so I am delighted to see her Bay Tanner series continuing.   This is the fifth in the series. 

The books are set in Hilton Head, South Carolina and the surrounding low country where Bay has lived all her life.  Being well-known in a community can be either a curse or a blessing depending on what’s happening.  Bay finds both as she becomes the suspect in the disappearance of a young man, Carter Anderson.  Bay’s father, a retired lawyer, tries to assist in her quest to determine why she is being investigated.  As the web of evidence points more and more to Bay’s guilt, it becomes clear that the answers lie in her past.

This is the best of the series so far.  Kathy’s writing gets stronger with each book   This book -- and the entire series – are HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!

 

Issue 2.5

May 2005, 

 

Terri Bischoff

Booked for Murder, Madison, Wisconsin

Editor

 

  

Trip Wire: A Cook County Mystery by Charlotte Carter  Ballantine (Striver’s Row) $12.95, ISBN 0345447697  (Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue, Boulder, CO):  Cassandra Lisle was once a meek, well-behaved black college student living with her well-connected great-uncle Woody and his wife Ivy in a nice apartment in Hyde Park. Then in 1968 Martin Luther King and Bobby Kennedy were murdered, and violence erupted at the Democratic National Convention and in Cassandra’s own life. Now Cass (Sandy to her new friends) is living in an interracial hippie commune in Chicago’s North Side, all of them blissed out on love, sharing, rock music, anti-war politics, and recreational drugs.

But the good times quickly come to an end when two of her roommates are murdered, including Wilton, a young black man with whom Cass shares a special bond. Angry and afraid, Cass isn’t entirely dismayed when Uncle Woody, who still loves her fiercely although he’s mightily displeased with her new lifestyle, leans on a cop who owes him a favor to keep an eye on the investigation.

The politics and culture of the late sixties define the story and shape the characters of the young people who are at its heart, especially blunt, defiant, vulnerable Cass, who loses not only her dearest friend but most of her dreams when Wilton dies and she finds out who he truly was. Luckily, she also takes one more step toward finding out who she truly is.  April 2005 release.

The Poet’s Funeral by John M. Daniel  Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95, ISBN 159058144X (Recommended by Maggie Mason, Looking for Books, San Diego, CA):  Guy Mallon may be diminutive in size, but he is a very smart man. He left a job in a bookstore in Northern California and packed up his belongings which included a vast poetry collection. His goal was Los Angeles, but fate stepped in when he had car trouble in Santa Barbara. The result was Guy's purchase of a used book store, the reason for the purchase might make a book scout have nightmares. In a history section was an inscribed copy of Jack Kerouac's first book. Guy expanded his business to include publishing poetry. Heidi Yamada was his first poet, and her skill is debated. All do seem to agree she was unique.

The book takes place at the ABA in Las Vegas in 1990. The American Bookseller Association's trade show is THE big event in the publishing industry. Guy has taken a booth to promote his line, and his partner in life and business, Carol, is there to help with the duties. Heidi is there to promote a new book, as are many other players in the book trade.

When Heidi is found dead at a private party, the police seem to want to treat it as an accident. Guy gets involved in the investigation, and also gets involved, against his and Carol's will, with a photographer who flaunts her Publisher's Weekly business card. Guy solves the murder, and gives a good insight into the world of publishing as seen by a small press owner.

My first ABA was in Las Vegas, so this was especially interesting to me. I was overwhelmed by the convention, and Daniel has captured the feel of the show. (He neglected to mention Clive Cussler having some of his vintage cars on display, but hey, Guy was working and probably missed it. I'm not a fan of poetry, but I still enjoyed this book. Daniel did make a disclaimer that he used the Rock Bottom Remainders before they were formed, but they fit in well with the flavor of the novel. Thanks to Poisoned Pen Press for discovering this gem.   May 2005 release.

In the Company of Liars by David Ellis, Putnam, $24.95  ISBN 0399152474  (Recommended by Carolyn Lane, Murder by the Book, Portland, OR)  Already in the fast lane of legal thrillers, Ellis' work is approaching the coveted "diamond lane," where every novel is a bestseller and every plot a winner. Company of Liars breaks ground for plotting, in that the first chapter presents the story's conclusion and each succeeding chapter unveils preceding action. It's also beautifully crafted to conceal unexpected clues, thus revising the reader's understanding of "what happened" many
times over.

Three lines of events--at first seemingly disparate--become intertwined as the reader moves backward in time: mystery writer Allison Pagone is on trial for murdering her alleged lover, Sam Dillon, a lobbyist; Pagone's ex-husband is under scrutiny for allegedly influencing legislation to expedite the availability of a new drug; and a terrorist group is conducting a covert operation to kill millions of innocents.

I liked this book quite a lot, although I initially had questions about its final, breathtaking revelation. But when I made a remark to that effect in our newsletter, I immediately heard from author Ellis himself, who assured me I can trust all of his words, last to first.  April 2005 release.

The Inside Ring by Michael Lawson  Doubleday, $24.95, ISBN 0385515316  (Recommended by JB Dickey, Seattle Mystery Bookshop, Seattle, WA)  The main character is a trouble-shooter for the Speaker of the House of Representatives. He's "loaned out" to the Director of Homeland Security after an attempt on the President leaves some questions about the Secret Service detail - the Inside Ring. Besides having a lively writing style ("Now the bedrooms were empty and the only thing in the upper story of DeMarco's home was a punching bag, a fifty pounder that hung black and lumpy from a ceiling rafter like a short, fat man who had hung himself."), the book has a terrifically cynical view of how the world really works. Debut thriller by a Seattle author.  May 2005 release.

Dead Run, by P. J. Tracy  Putnam, $23.95, ISBN: 0399152466  (Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery, Mission, KS):  This third book in the “Monkeewrench” series by mother-daughter writing team P.J. Tracy is short on the snappy dialogue that characterized the first two books, but chock full of suspense. The action focuses on the women of the Monkeewrench team: capable, tightly-wound Grace McBride and queen-sized fashion-plate, Annie Berlinsky, who are traveling to Green Bay with the Monkeewrench computerized detective software—and FBI agent Sharon Mueller--to help with a serial killer case. An unplanned side trip and some inconvenient car trouble lead the group to the town of Four Corners—a town which is eerily quiet and oddly deserted, even for rural Wisconsin. Before long, Grace, Annie and Sharon find themselves the prey in a deadly cat-and-mouse game.  April 2005 release.

Deception, by Denise Mina Little, Brown, $13.95 ISBN 0316058572 (Recommended by Jill Hinckley, Murder by the Book, Portland, OR): Susie Harriott gets a phone call one day, tells her husband Lachlan that she’s going out for a pack of cigarettes, and isn’t heard from again till the police call the next day to say she’s been arrested for the murder of a serial killer whom she, as prison psychiatrist, had seen prior to his release. The evidence is damning, and she refuses to deny the suggestion that they had been lovers. Her husband is determined to prove her innocent in spite of herself, and, with this justification, begins to read the private diaries and papers Susie had kept hidden from him. The mystery is a corker, but it is Lachlan’s personal evolution that ratchets up the suspense and produces the better of the two gasp-producing twists at the end. Mina writes electrifying prose, shot through with flashes of dark humor. At a time in my life when I’ve become a bit of a jaded reader, a book like this reminds me why I love mysteries - and why mysteries from Scotland are increasingly elbowing their way to the vanguard of the field.  May 2005 paperback release.

 

Issue 2.4

 

April 2005

 

Barbara Peters

Poisoned Pen

Scotsdale, Arizona

Editor

 

  

 

Die a Little, by Megan Abbott. Simon & Schuster, $23.95. ISBN: 0-7432-6170-4. (Recommended by Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen, Scottsdale , Arizona). Oh boy, a stylish and sensuous trawl through 1954 Hollywood where the studio glamour, which I well remember being hyped in endless pulpy magazines as well as by the columnists like Hedda Hopper, overlay its seedy flip-side. Spin was the name of the game. Abbott has a great voice for the story of two orphans: a devoted schoolteacher sister of a stalwart junior investigator with the DA. Lora is suspicious of Bill's new bride. Is pretty, fluffy seamstress Alice a good girl and good for Bill? Or is she a femme fatale from the studio costume department masquerading as a perfect housewife? A Feb. 2005 release.

 

The Year of the Hyenas by Brad Geagley. Simon & Schuster $23. ISBN: 0-7432-5080-X. (Recommended by Wendy Law, Sleuth of Baker Street (Toronto , Canada ). This is the first, I hope, in an Ancient Egypt series featuring Semerket, the Clerk of Investigations and Secrets. Semerket is a heavy drinker, burdened by a great sorrow in his life, and in a society where kowtowing is a virtue, he speaks the truth no matter what or to whom. He is hired to investigate the death of an elderly Theban priestess. He discovers the death to be a murder with much wider ramifications that he could possibly have imagined. Set during the reign of Ramses III, this mystery combines historical fact, speculation and crime. It's a fascinating look at a culture filled with ritual, protocol and, at times, unspeakable cruelty. February 2005 release. A February 2004 release.

Swing, by Rupert Holmes. Random House, $24.95. ISBN: 1-4000-6158-X. (Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery, Mission, Kansas). This book about murder and intrigue at the 1940 Golden Gate International Exposition—the World’s Fair of the West—takes place in the heart of the Big Band era and includes an original CD of songs that are featured in the story. For ten years, Ray Sherwood has been touring as a jazz saxophonist and arranger with the Jack Donovan orchestra, while he hides from his own tragic past. When the tour takes the orchestra to the Hotel Claremont in San Francisco, twenty years after Ray first played there as a teenager, the musician is intrigued by the Golden Gate Exposition, rising like an apparition on Treasure Island in the bay, where no island had been before. Soon Ray meets beautiful Berkeley music student, Gail Prentice, and he feels like his life is turning around. Then he witnesses a young woman plunge to her death from the Exposition’s Tower of the Sun, and before long Ray is caught up in a web of espionage and murder. I was fascinated by the musical background and the period details of this story, and—as a World’s Fair buff—I especially loved the postcard views of the Exposition and the San Francisco area that serve as headings for some of the chapters. March 2005 release.

Dating Is Murder, by Harley Jane Kozak. Doubleday $19.95. ISBN: 0-385-51034-9. (Recommended by McKenna Jordan, Murder by the Book, Houston, Texas): I'm pleased to say Dating Is Murder, the follow-up to last year's debut, Dating Dead Men, is just as much fun (if not more) than the first. Wollie Shelley is asked to look into the disappearance of a friend of hers, foreign exchange student Annika Gluck. But when designer drugs enter the picture, so do a lot of not-so-pleasant characters. Add into the mix Wollie's participation in a dating reality TV show called Biological Clock in which viewer's worldwide can vote on which contestants would not only make good couples, but also the best children. Wollie starts getting threats from drug dealers and criminals, but also from her TV co-stars. A fun-filled mystery at its best. A March 2005 release.

 Mr. Lucky, by James Swain. Ballantine, $19.95. ISBN: 0-345-47544-5. (Recommended by Tom and Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue, Lyons, Colorado): Tony Valentine is a widowed ex-cop who makes his lonely living spotting gambling scams and cheaters for the casinos. Most of the time he works long-distance, using videotapes provided by his clients and e-mailing his findings back to them. But sometimes he has to get up close and personal to see what’s going on, as in the case of Ricky Smith, a good ol’ boy from Slippery Rock, North Carolina, who in one memorable night in Las Vegas cheated death by jumping from a burning hotel into a swimming pool, borrowed twenty bucks from a retired bookkeeper, and won over two hundred thousand at blackjack. He went on to win equally impressive amounts at roulette and craps, and capped off the evening by cleaning the clock of legendary poker champion Tex “All In” Snyder. Tony knows that Ricky has to be cheating, but how? He goes to Slippery Rock and sends his screw-up son Gerry to Gulfport, Mississippi, to talk to Tex. Gerry’s valiant efforts to stay straight and make his dad proud are both hilarious and touching, and the relationship between father and son defines the book as much as the central story. It doesn’t hurt that it’s also fast, funny, hugely entertaining, and of course absolutely accurate about the crooked gambling, a subject on which the author is a recognized authority. A March 2005 release. 

 And an April bonus, a book for kids (little ones and big) from this month's 
Killer Books editor Barbara Peters).

Down the Rabbit Hole by Peter Abraham (Harper $16 ISBN 006-073701-8) welcomes you to Echo Falls where Ingrid Levin-Hill, sometimes dreamy, never knows what will happen next. Trying to get to soccer practice, she elects to walk, wanders into a forbidden part of town, is invited into Cracked-Up Katie’s house to call a cab. Looks like Ingrid gets clean away. Next day Cracked-Up Katie is found murdered. Where are Ingrid’s red soccer shoes? Getting them back means a late night B&E at Katie’s, secrets—makes it hard to emulate her idol, Sherlock Holmes. Maybe she’ll settle for being Alice in the Prescott Players production of Alice in Wonderland. But much as in Alice's adventures, things in Ingrid's small town keep getting curiouser and curiouser. Did her trip back to Katie’s pop Ingrid down a rabbit hole? Or was her small town always less safe than it seemed? An April 2005 release.

 

 

ISSUE 2.3

 

MARCH  2005

  

 

The Burning of Rachel Hayes by Doug Allyn, Five Star, $25.95, ISBN: 1410402029.  Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s (Ann Arbor, Mich): The take-no-prisoners style of Doug Allyn has returned in a tight, waste-no-words novel set in Michigan and drawing heavily on Michigan history and geography.  It’s far from dull though - I don’t think Allyn is capable of being dull - and the geography lesson is nicely incorporated when the central character, Dr. David Westbrook, hears a cry, and upon investigating finds an hysterical mother whose child has fallen down a long neglected and abandoned well.  The resulting rescue sequence is practically a primer on how to write action - the overlay of emotion is almost a bonus. Think Nevada Barr on steroids.  The plot centers around the doubt authorities have when dealing with David - he is a recently released prisoner, as well as a veterinarian - and his growing ties to the community in the form of both his landlady and a local newspaper reporter who is writing about Rachel Hayes, whose skeleton was discovered in the abandoned well after the rescue,  and whose land David is renting.  Her spirit haunts the book, but in a very low key (though sometimes creepy) way.  Don’t read this book if you are expecting Allyn to shield you from any kind of violence that, based on well built characters on his part, becomes all the more disturbing.  This is not the work of a sentimental author - regardless of the fact that the book made me cry - but rather the work of a writer who can tell an interesting and compelling story in a very straightforward manner. This belongs in “the one that got away” category.  (November 2004 release)

                   

File M for Murder by India Edghill, Five Star, $25.95, ISBN: 1594141908. Recommended by Maggie Mason, Lookin’ for Books, (San Diego , California): Cornelia Upshaw is a young southern widow who leaves the south to start a new life in NYC.  She and her daughter, Heather, move in with her sister Lizard in a glorious apartment Lizard inherited from her grandmother, along with a mean cat and her true name.  Because of the lack of rent payments and an insurance policy left by her husband, Cornelia is able to work as a temp for an agency that offers medical insurance and free day care.  Her boss is J. Abercrombie Davis, who excels at waiting to the last minute to have urgent projects done.  When Davis is found dead at his desk, Cornelia is drawn into the investigation and almost accidentally solves the murder.  One interesting thing about the narrative is when Cornelia calls the reader’s attention to the fact that the murderer should be evident, and why she doesn’t catch it right away.  I enjoyed this book, especially Cornelia’s attitude - she hates to look ridiculous, but has learned it won’t kill her.  Another thing I liked is that Cornelia is a mystery fan, and includes some mystery authors in the narrative in a very natural way.  (December 2004 release) 

                    

Unlucky for Some by Jill McGown, Ballantine Books, $22.95, ISBN: 0345476557. Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery(Mission, Kansas): I am thrilled to see that this thirteenth book in the series about Detective Chief Inspectors Lloyd and Hill (now married, with a two year old) has received a starred review in Publisher’s Weekly.  I think McGown is second only to Reginald Hill in writing intelligent, intricately plotted mysteries, but she is still not well known in the U.S.   In Unlucky for Some, Lloyd and Hill are investigating a series of seemingly motiveless murders, beginning with what appears to be the mugging death of Wilma Denton in the alley outside her flat.  What doesn’t make sense to the team is that the murderer left Wilma’s winnings from her best-ever night at the betting parlor neatly fanned out across her body.  As murder follows murder, a surfeit of witnesses, suspects and false leads confound the police as well as the reader. In this story, Hill has passed up her mentor/husband to become Acting Superintendent on the investigation.  I particularly liked the mutual respect and comraderie that bind Hill, Lloyd and the rest of the team - in contrast to several other recent police procedurals that have focused on conflict among the detectives - as well as the emerging family relationship between Lloyd, Hill, their two year old daughter and Lloyd’s live in mother-in-law.  (January 2005 release)

                                   

The Couple Next Door - Collected Short Mysteries by Margaret Millar; Tom Nolan, Editor; Crippin & Landru.  Cloth, $29.00, trade paper, $19.00, ISBN: 1932009299. Recommended by Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy, ( San Diego , California): The fifteenth entry in Crippen & Landru’s “Lost Classics” series is a stellar collection of short suspense by Margaret Millar, expertly assembled by Tom Nolan (who was also responsible for the fine Ross MacDonald collection, Strangers in Town).  The Couple Next Door includes a great retrospective of Millar’s work in Nolan’s introduction, several classic mystery stories that have enthralled mystery readers for decades as they have been reprinted time and time again, and other worthy stories that haven’t seen the light of day in far too long.  (December 2004 release)

 

Cavalcade by Walter Sattherthwait, St. Martin ’s Minotaur, $23.95, ISBN: 0312339747. Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue (Lyons , Colorado): In 1923, Pinkerton agents Phil Beaumont and Jane Turner are assigned to investigate an assassination attempt on a rising young politician who’s taken control of the German Nationalist Socialist Worker’s Party.  From Berlin to Bayreuth to Munich , they interview witnesses and suspects and finally the Fuhrer himself, gradually revealing a sinister new order that they little realized existed.  Through the observant eyes of Phil and Jane, this chilling time and place in history are brought into sharp focus for the reader.  Particularly memorable are the scenes set in Berlin , a grotesquely decadent city where everything is for sale, and Bayreuth , where Jane and Phil dine with Richard Wagner’s widow and son, listening in silent horror as their hosts casually utter the most poisonous anti-Semitic remarks during an appallingly bad meal.  The story is told partly from Phil’s point of view and partly from Jane’s.  Phil is laconic, cynical, and realistic; Jane is girlish, naive, and surprisingly unshockable.  Satterthwait uses these contrasting viewpoints masterfully to paint a picture the reader won’t soon forget of a world beginning to go horribly wrong.  (February 2005 release)

ISSUE 2.2

 

FEBRUARY  2005

  

The James Deans by Reed Farrel Coleman (Plume, trade paperback, $12.00, ISBN:  0452286506).  Recommended by Wick Rowland, Murder by the Book (Houston , Texas) : It was with great anticipation that I began to read this third installment in the wonderful Moe Prager series. Coleman does not disappoint. Moe is a New York City cop who was forced to retire at an early age due to injury. He and his brother now own several successful wine shops but Moe has never given up his dream of being a detective, a rank he did not achieve while on active duty. In The James Deans he looks into the disappearance of a young woman who worked for a local politician. The politico is taking a lot of heat and Moe is hired by a wealthy man who wants him cleared of any wrongdoing so that he can be groomed for much higher office. Moe does a beautiful job of investigating and ostensibly solves the case. At this point some really great things happen to Moe which makes him suspicious that there is more to this story. He is right. I loved this book and its characters. Moe is a great one, beautifully rendered and very believable. Even the minor characters have weight and substance. His plotting is superb and never leaves the reader wanting. January 2005 release.

 

                       

The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson (Viking, hardcover, $23.95, ISBN: 0670033693) Recommended by Cynthia Nye, High Crimes ( Boulder , Colorado ) : Johnson offers up an eccentric but non-stereotyped cast of characters as well as a nice sense of place in this debut. Walt Longmire is the middle-aged sheriff of Absaroka County , Wyoming . His best friend is a Cheyenne Indian named Henry Standingbear whom he refers to, tongue in cheek, as Tonto. Walt, a recent widower, is feeling as if life has gotten the better of him and that there is little to look forward to other than a six-pack of Rainier at the end of the day and a call from his grown daughter. Then he is called out on what he suspects is a “sheepocide” only to find a young man who  has been killed by a rare Buffalo rifle. Wyoming may seem exotic to anyone living east of the Mississippi but to those of us living in the Rocky Mountain region, an author has to work a bit harder to bring such a landscape to life. Only so much can be said about dirt and sagebrush. Johnson excels at showing us the beauty and violence of a snowstorm and the isolation one can feel just a few miles outside of town. Mysticism plays a small but important role as well but is applied with a very light hand. It serves as yet one more layer in what is already a multi-layered mystery. December 29, 2004 , release.


                    

At Risk by Stella Rimington (Knopf, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN: 1400042700). Recommended by Maryelizabeth Hart, Mysterious Galaxy ( San Diego , California) : The author has crafted a tense thriller, paying particular attention to the details and minutiae that can determine who succeeds in the deadly conflict between terrorists and intelligence agencies like Britain ’s MI5. At Risk benefits both from her extensive knowledge of the intelligence field (she is the former head of MI5), and from a highly readable writing style. Two women are at the center of her conflict: Intelligence officer Liz Carlyle and her counterpart, an “invisible” Englishwoman by birth who has given her allegiance to a group dedicated to exacting a bloody revenge for British transgressions against their homeland. A broad array of characters and viewpoints draws readers deep into the story, as the two women touch others’ lives in the process of accomplishing their diametrically opposed tasks. Highly recommended to fans of Grey Rucka’s Queen and Country.  January 2005 release.

                              

Dark Fire by C.J. Sansom (Viking, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN: 0670033723). Recommended by Marian Misters, Sleuth of Baker Street ( Toronto , Ontario ) : This is the second book to feature 16th century hunchback lawyer Matthew Shardlake. The first, Dissolution (Penguin, trade paperback, $14.00, ISBN: 0142004308) is set in 1537 and has Matthew investigating a murder at one of the monasteries that Henry VIII is dissolving. Full of great historical references and names that you will recognize, it is an excellent read. Dark Fire is even better. It is now 1540 and Shardlake is in Lincoln ’s Inn , London , trying to help a young woman who will be pressed to death if she does not plead innocent or guilty to murder. While he is the middle of this case he is summoned by Thomas Cromwell to search for the secret of Greek Fire, the lost, legendary substance with which the Byzantines destroyed the Arab navies. Both books have wonderful characters, great plots, and some neat history tidbits. January 2005 release.

                                        

The White League by Thomas Zigal (The Toby Press, hardcover, $19.95, ISBN: 1592641156). Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery (Mission , Kansas ) : When a former fraternity brother threatens to reveal a dark secret from the past, coffee magnate Paul Blanchard knows that he’s in danger of losing not just his reputation and his comfortable lifestyle, but also his family. What does Mark Morvant want from Blanchard? Just this: Blanchard is to secure the endorsement of the White League—a powerful New Orleans secret society—for Morvant in his run for governor. Blanchard, who cannot convince his blackmailer that he has never heard of the White League, must go on a desperate quest to uncover the truth about the dangerous organization before his own shameful secret is exposed. I was fascinated by this well-written and engrossing story of the dark side of New Orleans society. February 2005 release

 

ISSUE 2.1

 

JANUARY  2005

  

Speak Now by Margaret Dumas (Poisoned Pen, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN: 1590581210). Recommended by Bob Spear, M is for Mystery (San Mateo, CA) : Wealthy and fanatically dedicated to non-commitment, heiress Charley Van Leeuwen surprisingly returns from a year studying repertory theater in England with a handsome retired US Naval officer husband of three days in tow.  Entering their hotel suite's bathroom, Charley discovers the body of a dead, naked woman in the tub. Although her new husband claims that he was a weather officer, Charley wonders whether there was really much more to his past.  Is the dead body a warning to Charley or maybe to her new husband? Will it have an impact on Charley's own repertory theater's survival?

      Although set in modern San Francisco, this book really has the feel of a 1930's noir in which everyone is rich, cultured, and beautiful. The protagonist is not only likeable, but funny too. I found myself chortling along as the plot unfolded. The author brings just the right touch of sophistication and earthiness to her characters. A very enjoyable read; think of it as a rich, artsy girl comparison to Janet Evanovich's mysteries. We rated it five hearts.  (October 2004 Release)  

 

Thumbprint by Friedrich Glauser (Bitter Lemon Press, trade paperback, $13.95, ISBN:1904738001)  Recommended by Martha Farrington, Murder By The Book (Houston, TX) : Sergeant Studer has the ideal murder case—open and shut. The body of a traveling salesman found in the forest of Gergenstein pointed to an obvious suspect who also confessed. Some things just don’t ring true, however, and Studer pursues the discrepancies into the dangerous worlds of power and money. Often compared to George Simenon, Glauser is a cult figure in Europe,  and his work is reflective of his own dark years of drug addiction and institutionalization. Beautifully written and translated, this is his first English publication.  This European crime classic was originally published in 1936.  (September 2004 release).

The Famous Flower of Serving Men by Deborah Grabien (St. Martin’s Minotaur, $22.95, ISBN: 0312333870) Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue (Lyons, CO)

     When British director-producer Penny Wintercroft-Hawkes is bequeathed a London theater by a French aunt she scarcely knew, as well as the funds to renovate it, she’s elated, as it will give her acting company a permanent base and a chance to branch out a bit. Of course, there turns out to be a catch: the theater is inhabited by a vengeful ghost from medieval times determined to right some ancient wrongs. Penny and her boyfriend, folksinger Ringan Laine, realize they have to lay this desperate spirit to rest before they can get on with their lives, and they set out to learn exactly who their ghost is and what her sad history might have been.  The history that Penny turns up goes back to the Peasants’ Rebellion of 1381, an event that predated the Victorian-era theater by centuries—but the building stands on the former site of a prison in which inmates were burned alive during the fire set by the peasants, and not only the theater but the whole neighborhood is still haunted by that terrible event. The story is nicely creepy, with the darkness balanced by its cheery portrait of bright, talented young urbanites enjoying their lives to the full. (November 2004 release)  

Innocence by Karen Novak (Bloomsbury, USA, trade paperback, $14.95, ISBN: 1582344353).  Recommended by Jill Hinckley, Murder By The Book, (Portland, OR).  After all the years I’ve been reading mysteries, it’s not often that I still experience that frisson of surprise that is their special thrill.  Innocence does the trick by puzzling the reader about what has happened, more than whodunit.   Investigator Leslie Stone (who also appeared in Five Mile House) is still haunted – literally - by the events surrounding the disappearance of some girls in her town when she was a teenager.  Her obsession with finding missing girls, who appear to her in hallucinatory visions, has lead to an estrangement from her husband and daughters, from whom she is living separately while struggling for mental equilibrium. Then her thirteen-year-old daughter Molly says she wants to hire Leslie to find Molly’s friend Lydia, who has disappeared under ominous circumstances.  But the juxtaposition of Leslie’s narrative with Molly’s and then Lydia’s narratives soon raises questions about what really happened to Lydia, and what Molly has to do with it--and creates a driving suspense as we try to sort out the truth from the dramatically different viewpoints.  Each time a layer of confusion or deception is peeled away, the reader thinks she is beginning to glimpse the answer – only to find a different story revealed behind the next layer.   The ultimate solution offers the reader the delicious pleasure of mentally reviewing the ways it has been alternately hinted at and hidden along each step of the novel’s elegant plot structure.  A complex, powerful, and artful exploration of bruised innocence.  Originally released in hardcover in 2003, this reprint belongs in the “one that almost got away” category.  (December 2004 release).

Wiley’s Shuffle by Lono Waiwaiole (St. Martin's Minotaur, $23.95, ISBN: 031230384X)  Recommended by Sue Wilder, Murder on the Beach (Delray Beach, FL)

     Wiley is an unemployed, occasional poker player who lives on the edge of survival.  When a wicked pimp kidnaps Miriam, a call girl of Wiley's acquaintance, Wiley and his good friend Leon give chase through Las Vegas and Los Angeles, and ultimately to Portland, Oregon, in their attempt to rescue Miriam.  In Wiley’s Shuffle, Lono Waiwaiole establishes a plot that explores good vs. evil via a cast of characters that varies in shades of bad.

     There is plenty of action in the story, but the real strong suits are the characters and dialog.  Navigating a bleak sub-culture of violence and revenge, Wiley’s actions evolve from a code of loyalty and, ultimately, the hope of redemption.   Wiley’s Shuffle, second in the Wiley series, is gritty and black.  Last year, Mr. Waiwaiole expertly introduced Wiley in Wiley’s Lament, a tale that had Wiley chasing the murderer of his estranged daughter.  This reader looks forward to more Wiley books, with the hope of learning more about Wiley’s past and tracking his uncertain future.  Both books are a must read for fans of noir.  Another one that almost got away.  (June 2004 release)

 

ISSUE 1.3

 

DECEMBER  2004

  

Queer Street by Curt Colbert (Uglytown hardcover, $24.95, ISBN: 0972441298) Recommended by Bill Farley, Seattle Mystery Bookshop (Seattle, WA)
     Uglytown is a small publisher of mostly-noir, mostly- excellent crime fiction. In the manner of a bygone era, each book is prefaced by a notice of WHAT THIS MYSTERY IS ABOUT. The one for Queer Street is too good to paraphrase or describe, so I quote: “WHAT THIS MYSTERY IS
ABOUT… A murdered female impersonator caught with her skirt up…Seattle’s most exclusive gay cabaret… love and deceit… a suave and patient spider… the tangled web we weave… a missing 12th Century Saracen dagger… dungeons and secret passages… a butler in the wings…missing fingers and diamond rings… hinky hoodlums and star-crossed lovers… what money can’t buy you… bent genders on a twisted street…racy photographs… mirrors and illusions… near-naked nymphs… big game hunters… J. Edgar Hoover… fighting commies and other undesirables…blackmail and payoffs… flying fists and velvet gloves… hypocrites and heroes… too much – too soon – too late… the third degree… coming clean…and ain’t love strange?”
    This is the third adventure for wisecracking Seattle P.I. Jake Rossiter and his secretary (in the first book, Rat City), understudy (in the second, Sayonaraville), and now full-fledged assistant, the redoubtable Miss Jenkins. The year is 1949, the dialog is suitably snappy, and the material is somewhat stronger than you might expect for that era if you weren’t around then, and maybe even if you were. (November 2004 release)
  

The Coroner’s Lunch by Colin Cotterill (Soho; $24; ISBN: 1569473765) Recommended by Dean James, Murder by the Book (Houston, TX)
     This wonderfully quirky first novel is set in a location sure to sound exotic to American readers: Laos in the mid-1970s after the Pathet Lao have taken over. Most members of the educated class fled Laos after the Communist takeover, but Dr. Siri Paiboun remained. The French-trained physician is one of the few remaining in Laos, and he is appointed
coroner over his objections that he is ill-trained for such a job. The bureaucrats who chose him, of course, probably did so because they thought he would do very little of import in his job, but they soon learn, to their cost, that Dr. Siri has an independent spirit and a most inquisitive mind. He also has little tolerance for fools, a trait that is likely to get him into trouble as well.
      Dr. Siri has several odd cases on his plate in his debut, and he is determined to find the truth in all of them. He is unable to let the cases go unsolved, because he has begun to have visions connected with each of the deaths. He is visited by the shades of those whose deaths he is investigating, and each of these visions tells him something
about the case.
     The Coroner’s Lunch is perhaps not to everyone’s taste, because of its unusual mix of mysticism, violent death, and gently satiric humor, but I found this book utterly charming. Dr. Siri Paiboun is one of the most delightful characters I’ve encountered in mystery fiction in recent years, along with Maisie Dobbs and Precious Ramotswe. If you enjoy the truly original, don’t miss this one! (December 2004 Release)

 
 Last Seen in Aberdeen by M.G. Kincaid (Pocket, $6.50, ISBN: 0743467574) Recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha’s (Ann Arbor, MI)
     M.G. Kincaid embroiders on her successful first effort, The Last Victim in Glen Ross, to write an even more compelling and disturbing narrative this time around.  Set in Scotland, these are police procedurals of the first order - her main character, Seth Mornay, is an ex-Marine, who has
some demons in his past, many of which are explored in this fine book. But like the best practitioners of this particular subgenre, this isn't a writer who messes around.  There may be an emotional subtext but the police investigation is the thing.  In this novel, the story opens around the disappearance of a ten year old boy, but the plot also involves smuggling, an 18 year old Lady of the Manor who wants to raise her exotic sheep in peace, and the turmoil of a woman Seth may or may not have impregnated who lies in the hospital, deathly ill.  This novel is emotionally richer, more ruthless, and more believable than the first.  If you are a fan of the British police novel, don't miss this one. (November 2004 release)

The Surrogate Thief by Archer Mayor (Mysterious Press, $24.95, ISBN: 089296815X) Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery (Mission, KS)
     Veteran Vermont cop Joe Gunther returns in the 16th book in this classic crime  series. When the gun used in a deadly standoff turns out to be the missing murder weapon from a thirty year old cold case, Gunther is forced to revisit his own past and re-open some old wounds. As a young detective, he had been assigned  to investigate the beating and robbery of Klaus Oberfeldt, an unpopular local grocery store owner. When Oberfeldt died  six months later, never having regained consciousness, no  one except his wife really mourned his passing. Distracted  by his own wife’s losing battle with cancer, Gunther never solved the case. Now Gunther’s desire to seek justice for the Oberfeldts is tempered by his reluctance to relive the  devastating
death of his young wife. (October 2004 release)

 Death by Discount by Mary Vermillion (Alyson Books $13.95, ISBN: 1555838634) Recommended by Terri Bischoff, Booked for Murder (Madison, WI)
     Death by Discount is a traditional mystery that has social issues woven throughout - corporations vs. small business, the death of small communities in the midwest and hate crimes.  Vermillion presents all sides very well and refrains from becoming preachy.
      Mara returns to her small hometown in Iowa to bury her Aunt Zee's lifelong partner, Glad.  While the police are ready to write off the murder as a hate crime, Mara doesn't believe it.  Zee and Glad owned and ran the only radio station in town and were leading the charge opposing the potential opening of a Wal-Mart in town.  Will a Wal-Mart provide jobs for all the out of work mothers and fathers?  Or will it force the downtown, family-owned stores out of business?  Everyone seems to have a personal stake in the outcome and secrets to hide.  Was Glad killed because of her opposition to a superstore?  Is Zee in danger as well?  Could it be someone Mara grew up with?  Can Mara solve this mystery without stepping on too many toes?  When someone else is murdered, Mara realizes she needs to come up with some answers fast. Good thing she has a beautiful rookie cop to help her. (October 2004 release)

 

ISSUE 1.2

 

NOVEMBER  2004

  

Bitch Creek (Lyons hardcover, 23.95, ISBN:   1592284353) by William Tapply.  Recommended by Kate Mattes, Kate's Mystery Books (Cambridge, MA)
    Tapply, a frequent contributor to fishing and hunting magazines, has also written several books on these topics.  I've long been a fan of Tapply's Boston-based Brady Coyne series featuring a lawyer whose clients are Brahmins who don't want the police involved in their problems. In Bitch Creek, Tapply has combined his gift for strong plotting and character development with his love for the outdoors and fly fishing.  His lean, poetic prose communicates a strong sense of small town life in Maine .  Thankfully, this is the beginning of a series, each installment of which will be named for a fly tie.       
      Stoney Calhoun has recently settled in Maine , starting a new life in his middle age.  He has a steady income, although he isn't sure why.  His past is not clear since he was struck by lightening and remembers very little since waking from a coma.  He does know the government knows his past and doesn't want him to remember it.  As a result, he tries to keep any memories to himself (and us, thankfully).  His own identity is a mystery I suspect we shall learn more about as the series develops.
      Stoney has taken a job working for Kate, the owner of a fish and bait shop where he ties flies and takes tourists fishing.  He has found a nice little house with a creek running through his back yard and has a dog named Ralph. When a man from Florida comes into the store wanting a fishing guide to help him find an old fishing site, Stoney takes a dislike to him and gets his best friend to go with him.  When neither return, Stoney and the police start searching for them.  We learn how to "read" the land as they walk through wilderness (how to tell what a fence was built for, how to read a topographical map, very cool things).  Eventually they find the guide.  It looks like the guy from Florida killed him but where did he go?  And who was he?  As Stoney begins asking questions, we prowl the backwoods like pros and meet some members of their small community who would make Maine proud.

     One of my favorite books this year. A great gift for the landlocked  fisherman or armchair detective in your life.  (September 2004 release)

 

Bye, Bye Love (Harper Collins Hardcover, $25:  ISBN  0060543310 ) by Virginia Swift  Recommended by Barbara Peters, The Poisoned Pen ( Phoenix , AZ. ): I've loved history professor Swift's smart and sassy folk singer/professor/sleuth   Sally Alder since Brown Eyed Girl ($6.99).
Raised in the state, Sally spent years at UCLA before returning to the U of Wyoming to direct its Dunwoodie Center for Women's History...and find a poetic murder. The NY Times discovered her in Bad Company ($6.99). Bye, Bye Love  is a craftily-plotted tale fusing "Mustang"-it's her car, but also her temperament-Sally's joy in the music of her youth and of the gorgeous southern Wyoming countryside with her relentless need to scratch the detection itch. Sally's never shaken her worship for Thomas "Stone" Jackson , an indestructible music star despite his bad-boy years. And now he sits in her office, asking her to bring the Millionaires and open a benefit concert in Laramie being organized by his fabled ex, Angelina Cruz (think Joan Baez). Stone, next to Harrison Ford Wyoming 's major Hollywood rancher, has bought the Busted Heart spread while Nina, retired from LA, owns the more modest Shady Grove near Albany . So Sally, who likes Nina, heads to Shady Grove in the face of the season's first killer blizzard to find that a killer has struck. But it's deer season, so maybe Nina's shooting was an accident. Then again, Nina's household is under high stress, quarrelsome, and features not just a kind of rat pack but members of Wild West, a do-gooder group of animal rights activists. Altruism and greed, what a combination, just the kind of thing to excite Sally and make her live-in lover Hawk worry.  (October 2004 release)

 

The Castlemaine Murders by Kerry Greenwood (Poisoned Pen, hardcover, $24.95, ISBN 1590581172 ).  Recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, Rue Morgue (Lyons, CO): Phryne Fisher is the free-spirited daughter of a baronet who early on fled her domineering father to strike out on her own, with a healthy trust fund to smooth over life's rough edges and enable her to indulge her tastes for elegance and luxury. After many adventures, including a stint as an ambulance driver in World War I, she's settled in St. Kilda , Australia , with her two adopted daughters, a faithful maid, and her lover Lin Chung. Now her younger sister Eliza has joined the household to escape an unwelcome arranged marriage.
  But Eliza is not the sweet girl that Phryne remembers from their childhood. She's aloof, condescending, and terribly unhappy, with two great secrets that eventually come out in the open. Phryne has little time to deal with any of this, however, after she discovers a mummified corpse while they are at an amusement park and her investigations into its history put her and her whole family into unexpected danger.
    Meanwhile Lin has been charged by his family with settling a blood feud going back to the Australian gold rush of the 1850s, and both he and Phryne end up in Castlemaine, once the site of the great gold fields that drew fortune hunters from the world over. The two story lines converge neatly, each hinging on the general lawlessness of that colorful period in Australia 's history. The history and treatment of  Chinese immigrants in the 1850s and 1920s is especially well detailed.
      This is the thirteenth book in an exceptional series that has been very popular in Australia and is now being made available to American readers by this enterprising small press. The success of Jacqueline Winspear's Maisie Dobbs books may help pave the way for Phryne Fisher, who is an equally unforgettable character, with a heart as big as her pocketbook, a fine disregard for convention, and an insatiable appetite for life. (September  2004 release)

Good Morning, Midnight (Harper Collins hardcover, $24.95) by Reginald Hill.  Recommended by Karen Spengler, I Love a Mystery (Mission, KS): For those literary snobs who disdain detective fiction, I quote Reginald Hill's fictional Detective Superintendent Andy Dalziel, "Don't be daft!"   Deservedly called the "sorcerer of style" by the New York Times Book Review, Hill writes with an intelligence and wit that make him, in my opinion, possibly the best crime writer of our day.  Only fellow British author Jill McGown comes close to Reginald Hill's ability to keep a series fresh by varying the plot structure with each book. 

        Good Morning, Midnight is based on the classic locked-room mystery convention, with a twist.  D. I.  Peter Pascoe finds himself investigating the apparent suicide of Pal McGiver, found dead in a locked room in his family's Yorkshire estate.  The death is an exact re-enactment of the suicide of Pal's father, the elder Pal McGiver, ten years before, right down to the book of Emily Dickinson poems found at the scene.  Can there be any doubt that the gunshot wound was self-inflicted?  Superintendent Dalziel, who investigated the earlier death, is satisfied.   Pascoe, however, is concerned about his superior officer's objectivity, especially given the cozy relationship that Dalziel seems to enjoy with the elder Pal's widow.   (September 2004 release)

Hot Plastic (Hyperion trade paper, $13:  ISBN:  1401300448) by Peter Craig.  Recommended by Carolyn Lane, Murder By the Book ( Portland , Ore.): A wonderful, 21st-century noir novel whose characters meet their fate in time-honored fashion - but not exactly - Hot Plastic is tailor-made for lazy-day reading.  Old-fashioned hustler Jerry and his teenage son Kevin run various con games across the country, but when they partner up with smart, sexy Collette, the scams become more elaborate and more reminiscent of Robin Hood.  Craig's writing is beautiful, with characters who are funny and quirky and with a plot that leaves you smiling-even while you check on your wallet.  (March 2004 release)

 

ISSUE 1.1

 

OCTOBER 2004

  

The Alto Wore Tweed: A Liturgical Mystery by Mark Schweizer  (St. James Music Press, trade paperback, $10.00, 0972121129) recommended by Kate Birkel, The Mystery Bookstore (Omaha, Nebraska) : Haydon Konig's day job is as a police detective in the town of St. Germaine in the mountains of North Carolina. By avocation, he is the organist and choir master of St. Barnabas Episcopal Church. Haydon's dearest desire, though, is to become a great pulp mystery writer like Raymond Chandler, which is why he buys Raymond Chandler's typewriter at an on-line auction, figuring that there's enough magic left in the typewriter to inspire his own writing. Haydon's two lives cross when Willie Boyd, the sexton of St. Barnabas is found dead in the choir loft and the church priest Loraine "Mother" Ryan becomes one of the main suspects.  In between the lines of that rather dry description lies one of the funniest books I've ever read. A feminist Episcopalian priest. Blow up sex dolls. A Christmas pageant.  A fourteen-year-old wine snob. And an absolutely hysterical send-up of pulp noir mysteries that makes the Bulwer-Lytton winners read like great prose. A 2002 release, this belongs to the one that nearly got  away category. A sequel, The Baritone Wore Chiffon (0972121137, $10.00) was released in February 2004.

Blitz, by Ken Bruen (St. Martin’s Press, trade paperback, $12.95, 0312327269), recommended by Tom & Enid Schantz, The Rue Morgue (Lyons, Colorado) : If your idea of a British mystery involves country house parties, errant butlers or meddling spinsters, you haven’t been paying attention to the new breed of Brits who have literally taken the genre by the throat in recent years. Irish writer Ken Bruen just might be the toughest and grittiest of them all. He strips his sentences of most adverbs and adjectives, eschews transitional phrases, and punches up his short, declarative sentences with vulgarities that would make Richard Pryor blush. Yet, there’s an almost lyrical quality to his
prose. The title refers to the nickname of a psychopath who worships serial killers and decides to put himself in the history books by murdering eight cops. His final target is Brandt, a cop who once roughed him up. Brandt is crude and cruel and despised by his fellow. If there’s a good side to Brandt—and you have to dig deep—it’s that he supports his fellow cops, including a "nancy" and a black female officer, although he’s a self-proclaimed bigot. Near burnout, he’s teetering on an edge from which even he doesn’t dare glance down. But in a world where retribution often has to take the place of justice, Brandt is a necessary evil, a fact that his fellow cops eventually come to not only accept but to appreciate and perhaps even emulate. June 2004 release.

Cosmic Clues by Manjiri Prahbu (Dell, 6.99 paperback 0440241723), recommended by Kathy Harig, Mystery Loves Company (Baltimore, MD): I am completely captivated by this debut mystery featuring Sonia Samarth, a newbie female private eye from Pune, India, who uses Vedic astrological techniques as well as traditional methods. The sights and sounds and smells of exotic India are savored in each chapter as Sonia solves several mind boggling cases. The secondary characters such as her techie young partner Jatin and Inspector Divekar are particularly well drawn. I predict a wonderful future for this series. September 2004 release.
 

Confession of a Deathmaiden, by Ruth Francisco (Warner Books, paperback, $6.99, 0446614394), recommended by Jim Huang, The Mystery Company (Carmel, Indiana): A riveting, challenging and utterly original first novel about a "deathmaiden," a woman who helps ease a person into death. After she attends the death of a Mexican boy, Frances Oliver raises questions. Her quest for answers takes her on a surreal journey through a Mexico driven by poverty and revolutionaries. This mystery novel reads like no other, and it's striking for both its emotional and its intellectual weight. First published in 2003 in hardcover, this September 2004 reprint belongs to the one that almost got away category.

The Damascend Blade, Barbara Cleverly (Carroll & Graf, hardback, $25.00, 078671333X), recommended by Robin Agnew, Aunt Agatha's (Ann Arbor, Michigan): This is the third and strongest novel in Barbara Cleverly’s delightful Joe Sandilands series, set in 1922 India. Joe investigates a murder which takes him off the British military base at the Afghanistan border and into the hills. The feeling of tension, racial and otherwise, of two different cultures colliding, paired with the descriptions of both the beauty and the desolation of the Afghan countryside make this book hard to put down, especially as it’s also a fiendishly clever whodunit. The strength of the characters, the setting, and a very specific time and place show off the gifts of this almost overly talented author. 

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