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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.