January 2007

Welcome to 2007!  Did the hangover go away yet? Well, maybe we can help.  Here at the Morgue, we know what it means to feel like death warmed over.

This month, you'll find a wealth of distractions from that pounding headache. There are 16 mystery book reviews, from authors like Scott Turow, Anne Perry, Linda Fairstein and Richard North Patterson. But there's much more than that.

This month's "How I Write" essay is by Gwen Freeman, attorney-turned-author whose first novel Murder... Suicide... Whatever is about to be published. She provides insight into the process of creating, but also into why sarcastic, verbally adept smart-asses are her favorite kind of people.

This month's interview is with Sheila Lowe, an expert in forensic handwriting analysis whose novel Poison Pen features an expert in handwriting analysis. We'll find out how much of Sheila is in Claudia Rose.

And after an unplanned absence, "Murder By Committee," our impossibly tangled serial mystery, is back, this month with a chapter from Barbara Colley, author of the Charlotte Larue series. But there's not a lot of cleaning up that goes on in this installment.  Read on...

In this month's issue:

How I Write, by Gwen Freeman
The Mystery Morgue Interview: Sheila Lowe

Reviews:
Feet of Clay by Ruth Birmingham
Big City, Bad Blood by Sean Chercover
turnpike flameout by Eric Dezenhall
Sinners and Saints by Eileen Dreyer
Run Afoul by Joan Druett
Bad Blood by Linda Fairstein
Dead Weight by John Francome
Stripped by Brian Freeman
A Good Day to Die by Simon Kernick
No Trace by Barry Maitland
Cross by James Patterson
Exile by Richard North Patterson
A Christmas Secret by Anne Perry
Dead Game: A John Marquez Novel by Kirk Russell
The Crimson Portrait by Jody Shields
Limitations by Scott Turow

Ongoing Story:
"Murder By Committee," Chapter 29, by Barbara Colley

Link to Archives

 

How I Write
by Gwen Freeman

Gwen Freeman is an attorney and a partner at Knapp, Petersen & Clarke, and lives with her husband and law partner in an historic property in the Mt. Washington area where she has her studio. She paints, once had an internship at the CIA, and is now a mystery book author.

Gwen is the author of Murder... Suicide... Whatever, the first book in the Fifi Cutter mystery series. She lives in Los Angeles.

The first part of writing is listening. A lot of people don't listen. For example, after twenty years of practicing law, I can swear to you that judges don't listen. My kids don't listen. My husband... oh, come on, you know he doesn't listen.

But I listen.

I listen for nuances of feeling reflected in a particular word unconsciously selected. I listen for resentful asides, and recognize them for what they are. I listen for the person who is saying "yes" but meaning "no." I am a collector of the back-handed complement. Then, I steal all those good put-downs, mocking comments, telling phrases, and snappy comebacks, and write them down.

In fact, if you are a sarcastic, verbally adept, smart ass, there is a good chance that we could be friends. 

I also listen—a lot—to the constant chatter of the rude people who live in my head. An unbelievably large number of people live in my head. It's like Calcutta, only funny.

Of course, since I only write murder mysteries, the plot has to involve somebody dying, Well, to be accurate,  more than one person has to die to keep the action moving. I would say two to four people dying per book is the right number, but it's not always easy being funny and frightening. I believe it takes a certain kind of protagonist to come out with a caustic quip when the dude next to her just took one in the hat. 

That's why I chose Fifi Cutter, out of all the people who live in my head, to be my protagonist. It was quite an interview process but, to tell you the truth, she had me at "Hello."

When I have enough material, I outline the plot, and rough out a few chapters,  in a ratty old notebook with a cheap ball point pen. I can do this anywhere.

Then I sit down at my computer. It's go time, and I don't stop to correct grammar or spelling. I don't have writers block because courts have deadlines and attorneys don't get to have writer's block.

After a while, I realize that the plot makes no sense. I change my mind about who the murderer is, and why the murders were committed. Then I edit out everything that doesn't fit.

When I think I'm done, I edit. This is another skill that transfers from the practice of law, since there are page limits to all briefs that get filed. Judges—the same judges who don't listen—don't want to read either.  Although, in fairness to judges, I will admit that if there were no page limits, some lawyers would file briefs that never ended at all, but would be supplemented weekly with new installments, and be filled with phrases like "cut to the chase" which the lawyer would not even intend to be ironic.  

Editing out the blather is very satisfying, in the same way that getting your hair cut is satisfying, especially when you've let it go for, say, three to four months and it's really shaggy and the ends are all dry.

At this point, other people get to read what I have written and offer criticisms. Hard? Not really. After so many years of being yelled at by judges and arguing with opposing counsel, criticism just doesn't bother me like it used to. 

So there I am again, listening.

 

The Mystery Morgue Interview: Sheila Lowe

Sheila Lowe is a court-qualified handwriting expert who testifies in forensic cases. She has more than thirty years experience in the field of handwriting analysis and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology. The author of Handwriting of the Famous & Infamous, and The Complete Idiot's Guide to Handwriting Analysis, her analyses of celebrity handwritings have appeared in Time, Teen People, and Mademoiselle. Her articles on Personality Profiling and Handwriting Analysis for the Attorney have been published in several bar association magazines.

Sheila's clientele includes a wide spectrum of corporate clients, mental health professionals, attorneys, private investigators and staffing agencies, among others. Her award-winning Handwriting Analyzer software is used around the world and her profiles help uncover important information in background checks and pre-employment screening. She enjoys analyzing handwriting for individuals, too, helping them understand themselves and others better.

Naturally, this has all led to her writing her first novel, Poison Pen, which is published by Capital Crimes Press.

You're a handwriting analysis expert, and so is your protagonist, Claudia Rose. The obvious question is: How much of Claudia is Sheila, and how much is imagination? 

When I started writing Poison Pen, I suppose quite a bit of me came through as I wrote in a very limited third person POV. However, as I learned the craft of fiction writing, which I discovered is completely different from non-fiction, I got a bit more daring (and, hopefully, creative), and allowed Claudia to develop her own style and voice. Still, I like to joke that the big difference between us is that Claudia loves air travel and coffee. I don't. She's a helluva lot braver than me, too.

How did you get involved in handwriting analysis? What can it do in a criminal investigation, and how do you apply it? 

I began my study of handwriting in 1967 when my high school boyfriend's mom analyzed my handwriting. I immediately got hooked and began to study everything I could for the next ten years. Then I took formal courses, became certified, and eventually qualified in the court system as a handwriting expert. As for criminal investigations, most of my involvement is when there's a suspected forgery. However, I do get other interesting assignments. I was contacted by an Australian police department concerned about postcards a convicted serial killer was receiving in prison. They wanted my assessment of the writer's handwriting to see whether he was potentially dangerous or just a wannabe. Like that.

After a number of non-fiction books, what made you decide to write your first mystery novel? 

I've wanted to write fiction since I was about fourteen, but it's taken me more than forty years to get there (yikes, the time went fast!). My junior high school friends tell me they still remember the stories I wrote starring The Beatles (I arrived in the US from England just before they did). I always married Ringo. Anyway, around 1990, a woman I knew died mysteriously, and though it was ruled a suicide, the circumstances surrounding her death, as well as her life, were more than strange, and not everyone believed the verdict. Her story percolated in my head for a long time until one day, I was sitting in a dentist's chair, trying to distract myself from the sound of the drill, when Poison Pen finally bubbled to the surface. When I got home, I began to write "Lindsey"'s story.

There's a second Claudia Rose book in the works. Is the series going to be open-ended, or do you see it as a finite cycle?  

Written in Blood is already finished. A young girl and her school principal go missing, with Claudia involved up to her eyebrows, and I'm currently outlining book three, Dead Write, which involves Claudia with a high-priced introduction service. If readers like these three, I have plenty more story ideas in the file. Coming up with the "write" titles is more challenging. Any ideas?

You testify on the subject of handwriting analysis, you speak on the subject, you write non-fiction and you offer advice and instruction on the science of handwriting analysis. How do you find time to write novels? 

I have no life. You think I'm kidding? Seriously, I park myself in this chair around 8:30 in the morning and pretty much stay here til around midnight or so, with semiregular trips across the room to the refrigerator to break things up. I do walk outside to the mailbox and around the block most afternoons. But I'm doing what I love, so it's usually not burdensome.

Do you have plans outside the Claudia Rose series? 

Plans for other mysteries? Once in a while I think about writing something with a metaphysical bent. After losing my daughter in a murder/suicide in 2000 I've thought that I'd like to write about her life and what I've learned from her death. I haven't been able to do it yet, but the day is coming. I even have the title—Growing From the Ashes.

What kind of mystery books do you like to read? Who are some of your favored authors?  

Character driven stories appeal to me more than action thrillers. It just has to be a good story that draws me in. My favorite authors include Tami Hoag, Tess Gerritsen, Michael Connelly, John Sandord, Jonathan Kellerman. I've recently discovered Greg Iles and Deborah Crombie and am going through their lists. And, most assuredly, my fellow Capital Crime authors, whose work I really admire—Robert Fate, Gwen Freeman, Bruce Cook, Troy Cook and Lori Lacefield.

Can a signature on its own provide a decent sample for a forensic analysis?  

One of the things Claudia frequently complains about is when people ask that question. The thing about analyzing just a signature is that it's rather like looking at the cover on a book and saying, "tell me the story." Or viewing a photo of somebody's nose and asking what they look like. Or... well, I think you get the picture. A signature reveals only what you want others to know about them. It's your public image. Whether or not that jives with the real you depends very much on how your signature compares to the rest of your writing.

When you do book signings, do you ever analyze your own signature? 

Signing a book puts your arm in a pretty awkward position, and I admit to feeling a bit self-conscious about it. Of course I notice things about the way I write, but analyzing your own handwriting is kind of like doing brain surgery on yourself. It's hard to be really objective.

 

Reviews

Feet of Clay
by Ruth Birmingham
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 250 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312284241
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

P.I. Sunny Childs is back for her sixth case in Feet of Clay. This case takes Sunny away from Atlanta to rural Georgia Flournoy County while she helps her cousin Lee-Lee film a documentary on a death penalty case.

Soon-to-be-executed Dale Weedlow originally confessed to the brutal murder of two girls six years ago, but later claimed he had been beaten into confessing. He recanted his confession, but was convicted and sentenced to death. At first Sunny doubts Weedlow's story, but after checking into some of the details, she becomes convinced he was railroaded to cover up what was really going on in the county at the time.  Some readers may find the prologue a bit gruesome, but they should keep reading as the rest of the book is not graphically violent at all.

Birmingham has given readers two wonderful characters to root for in this book.

Sunny Childs is one tough cookie. She's smart and sassy, and thinks fast on her feet. When Lee-Lee gets into legal trouble, its Sunny's quick wits that saves her. Her cousin Lee-Lee is a ditzy sorority dropout turned Goth want to be that flitters from one "great idea" to another.

Figuring into the story is the unique Georgia clay known as kaolin. Both of the victims were found with their feet covered in a white dust from the clay, hence the book title. Birmingham does and excellent job of weaving the geological information about kaolin, its uses and its mining into the plot.

Readers unfamiliar with the series will have no trouble jumping into Sunny's casebook with this adventure. Be aware though that reading about Sunny Childs, lead investigator for Peachtree Investigations, is addictive.

Big City, Bad Blood
by Sean Chercover
Wm. Morrow
Hardcover, $29.95, 288 pages
ISBN: 0061128678
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Ray Dudgeon is a 38-year-old Chicago P.I. hired to protect a witness in a building scam, the last of four potential witnesses at an impending fraud trial left alive to testify.  It seems that the Mob is involved (or the Outfit, as it is apparently called in Chicago), not atypical for that city, it seems.  Corruption caused Ray to lose his idealism as well as his job as a journalist, only to now see it rear its ugly head again as he tries to keep his client alive. 

One more scandal would be nothing unusual: "Chicago politics: another day, another scandal.  I suppose that shows some progress.  They've always pulled the same crap, but in the good old days, they never got caught.  Now at least some people were trying to keep things on the level.  Noble, if naïve." 

In his personal life, Ray has fallen in love with a nurse who would rather Ray be anything other than a man who has to carry a gun, and is struggling to find a solution to that.  And she also needs him to ‘open up' a little, which is even more of a struggle for Ray.

The dialogue, characterizations and settings—both Chicago and LA, where a side trip takes Ray—are all well rendered, and the protagonist clever and genuinely, eminently likable, despite his tendency to break the law when circumstances demand it, in sometimes violent ways.  And the man has excellent taste in music.

Early in the book, Ray muses: "In a different life I'd have been a musician.  But in this life I was utterly without talent.  I'd proved that to myself and to a succession of tolerant music teachers in my younger years.  Eventually I learned to be content with listening.  One must accept one's limitations."  Unspectacular but typical of the solid writing that often put a smile on my face while engrossed in this book.  On second thought, perhaps spectacular is just the word for this wonderful debut novel.

turnpike flameout
by Eric Dezenhall
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 324 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312340613
Reviewed by Terri M. Tumlin

"Dude," as he refers to himself, was Mega Boy once.  That was before he became the rock star Turnpike Bobby Chim and long before his private plane crashed, killing all aboard. Thus begins the latest adventures of Johan Eastman, the grandson of a mobster, who supports himself, his wife, Edie, and their two children in Atlantic City by doing public relations polls.  When Cindi, Jonah's lifelong friend and public relations practitioner, calls to enlist Jonah in the entourage of Turnpike Bobby, who isn't dead after all, Jonah cannot refuse.  Of course, it would help of Bobby really wanted a pollster instead of an upholsterer, but that is a small problem that doesn't long stand in the way of Jonah being hired.

Jonah is not immediately sure what his job is supposed to be, but that becomes clear when a sculptor hired to do a statue of Turnpike Bobby disappears under mysterious circumstances.  It then becomes Jonah's job to come up with a P.A.S. (Plausible Alternate Scenario) to keep Bobby out of jail if and when he is put on trial for murder, a job that would be somewhat easier if he didn't keep getting kidnapped.

The story continues with an unending series of improbable and hilarious goings on including murders, kidnappings, water balloon bombings, a kooky religious cult, and a search for a missing woman that keeps taking the public's focus away from Bobby.  Involved in these various goings on are an ingenious and outrageous cast of characters including Stubie Cohn, better known as the Cohn of Silence, Kadaborah, once a proctologist, but now Bobby's business manager and the head of the Ong's Hat Flagellants, and ex-wrestler Chief Willie Thundercloud, whose current profession is that of "boomerang," ensuring that money that leaves the Atlantic City casinos under suspicious circumstances comes back.

Dezenhall's novel combines mystery, farce and a multitude of right-on jabs at society in general and pop culture in particular. It is a fast paced and enjoyable read, even if one has to stop occasionally to wonder if the writer really did say what one thinks he said.  It is a unique and fascinating mystery romp.

 

Sinners and Saints
by Eileen Dreyer
St. Martin's
Paperback, 384 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 0312998740
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

In what can only be described as prescience, Eileen Dreyer's Sinners and Saints takes place in a New Orleans that is bracing for a hurricane.  The book was published days before New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina, a devastating event from which it is still trying to recover, and it was obviously written much earlier than that.  Reading it now is an eerie experience. 

Chastity Byrnes is a 26-year-old former trauma nurse in St. Louis, now "one of two new forensic nurse liaisons at St. Michael's, her job being not only to save patients, but preserve any viable forensic evidence that might prove a possible criminal or civil case.  She made sure abuse victims didn't fall through the cracks, rape victims got better treatment from the hospital than they did from their attackers, and unknown patients were identified.  She helped police and hospital personnel work more efficiently together." 

She needs to call upon all of those skills when she receives a call one day from a brother-in-law she didn't even know she had, the husband of a sister she had had no contact with for ten years.  She is told her sister is missing, and five days later finds herself in New Orleans, having agreed to try to help in the search for her sister, Faith. (The third sister was called "Hope.")  Chastity is the survivor of an unspeakably horrendous abusive childhood [her accusations against her father having resulted in his incarceration], the effects of which have barely diminished over the years.  She finds she has to "protect herself from old sins and older secrets."  Each time she thinks she knows all of the secrets, she finds more are yet to be unearthed.

The writing is wonderfully evocative, most strikingly in its descriptions of New Orleans. The ominous presence of the impending storm is a living, breathing thing—one cannot help but feel the winds and the lashing waters that surround Chastity throughout the novel, embodying her worst nightmare from the scarred days of her nightmare-filled world from her earliest memories.  The suspense builds as Chastity continues her search.  People to whom she speaks are killed, and her own life is in danger.  Chastity and her friends, Kareena, a New Orleans nurse who helps her, and Kareena's cousin, James, a survivor himself although of entirely different circumstances, are terrific creations.  Recommended.   

Run Afoul
by Joan Druett
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 280 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312353367
Reviewed by Janet Koch

Wiki Coffin is twenty-something, half-Maori, half-American, a linguist, and sheriff's deputy for the U.S. South Seas Exploring Expedition of 1838. All that, plus an eye for the ladies, is bound to get him into trouble.

When one of the scientists aboard the expedition dies in a horrifying manner, poison is suspected and an innocent Wiki is arrested for murder and tossed into a Rio de Janeiro jail. Though he is soon cleared of any wrong-doing, questions linger and he mounts a sub-rosa investigation into the true cause of death.

Then Wiki's father, captain of a merchant ship, also turns up in Rio and runs afoul of one of the expedition's ships—and Wiki's troubles truly begin.

Run Afoul is chock full of the details that give life to historical fiction. It is made horrifyingly clear, for instance, why so many seamen never learned to swim. And the rat problem might be drawn all too vividly for the squeamish.

Joan Druett also writes of the complicated relationships that proliferate aboard ships, relationships that are both negative and positive—and some that are secret.

Third in the Wiki Coffin series, Run Afoul is a fine addition to the nautical genre. While the plot tends to wander, and events are occasionally summed up in paragraph form rather than letting the reader experience the event, the characters of Wiki and his shipmates are more than strong enough to keep the pages turning.

Bad Blood
by Linda Fairstein
Scribner
Hardcover, 416 pages, $26
ISBN: 0743287487
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Alex Cooper and her sidekicks, detectives Mike Chapman and Mercer Wallace, have been with us now for several excellent novels.  In Bad Blood, they are fine-tuned to the nth degree.  Combining a fast-paced mystery with little-known facts about underground New York City, the author has created perhaps her best work to date.

The story starts off with Alex trying a murder case that is beginning to look hopeless, with the defendant likely to get off.  However, as in previous novels, the investigation is ongoing even as the trial progresses.  The defendant, accused of murdering, or arranging the strangulation of, his wife, a few days into the trial overpowers the officer guarding him and grabs her pistol, shooting her in the head, harming two other court officers and escaping custody.

Meanwhile, Chapman and Wallace uncover facts relating to a prior strangulation many years before following a blast in Water Tunnel #3, in which three workers were killed, one of whom was the defendant's brother.  The body of the earlier victim is exhumed, allowing the author to discuss the latest forensic breakthroughs involving DNA evidence.  Needless to say complications abound, especially with a blood feud between two families of tunnel workers.

An exciting finish to this narrative takes place in a little-known subway station—the original—but abandoned—City Hall stop of the city's first rapid transit system, still probably the most elegant ever constructed in the Big Apple, to which nobody has access anymore.  This time there's less courtroom drama, but more legwork to tell the story.  But the reader races along never tiring right down to the final page.  Highly recommended.

 

Dead Weight
by John Francome
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 279 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312329814
Reviewed by Suzanne Epstein

It is no surprise that every review of Francome's books mentions the he is following in the footsteps of Dick Francis. Like Francis, Francome was a very successful jockey. He is also a popular UK racing commentator, and he has written more than twenty novels set in the world of horse racing.

This book is a bit slow out of the gate, as Francome introduces various sets of characters and establishes their roles in the racing world. We meet Phil Nicholas, a star jockey, and his lovely wife Julia, a beautiful and sensitive "horse whisperer." We are also introduced to the villain quite early, a man with a troubled past who likes to bet on the horses. A number of different story lines are interwoven, but it is more than eighty pages into the book before the plot picks up some excitement and speed. A series of crimes occur, each more serious than the last. DCI Charlie Lynch coordinates the investigation. He is nearing retirement and wants a satisfactory conclusion to his career.

The world of British horse racing, including hurdles and steeplechases, is richly drawn. We learn about training routines, entering horses in certain races, and the instructions given to jockeys for handling different horses. The characters are not fleshed out quite as much. Perhaps there are just too many characters to really give them full personalities. The plot moves along to an exciting conclusion, but I was left wanting more information about many of the characters in the book.

I'm sure that Francis fans, and anyone who enjoys the world of horse racing, will find much to enjoy in this book. But for fans of solid crime and detection novels, it fell a bit short of the mark.

Stripped
by Brian Freeman
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 340 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 1312340443
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

Detective Jonathan Stride has left his longtime Minnesota home to follow his new girlfriend, Detective Serena Dial, to Las Vegas.  The first case Stride catches is the shooting of celebrity MJ Lane. Meanwhile, Dial is working the hit and run murder of a young boy, Peter Hale. Soon their investigations will be intertwined. When Stride discovers that his victim was nosing around the 1967 murder of an exotic dancer, he realizes that these two cases could also connect to that old but not forgotten case.  Was the mob involved in either the 1967 murder or either of the current cases? Could it be coincidence that so many people connected to the dancer are surfacing in the current investigations?

While the story told is a gritty one filled with raw graphic violence and sexual encounters of both hetero- and homosexual nature that would normally leave this reader cold, the characters in this book are so fascinating and the plot so well developed that I found myself riveted to the book.

Because the book is a fast paced thriller, readers may be tempted to whip through the book at a breakneck pace. This would be a mistake. The plot is very involved with many parts having a back story that plays an important part in the ultimate solution. A quick reading of Stripped will miss some of these points.

Stripped is Freeman's second book featuring Detectives Jonathon Stride and Serena Dial. I would recommend this book to fans of Connelly's Harry Bosch books, Harlan Coben's thrillers and readers of Robert Crais.

A Good Day to Die
by Simon Kernick
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 329 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312349955
Reviewed by Kim Reis

Ex-cop and hitman Dennis Milne returns in this sequel to The Business of Dying.  When Dennis learns his latest hit is the man who killed a cop friend back on London, he is determined to find out who is behind it.  The London police aren't getting anywhere on the case.

Dennis assumes the alias of a private investigator working for the cop's family and, aided by a pretty reporter who is also investigating the case, returns to the country that still wants him in prison.

But the man he hunts knows Dennis is there and continually sets roadblocks in his way.  Dennis uses all his skills to find the reason his friend was killed and to bring the guilty party to justice.  This book is action packed and the body count is high.

Though this book stands well on its own, there were just enough references to the first book in this series to make me wish I had read that one first.  I would have liked to know Dennis the cop, before his troubles and his flight from justice.  He is an extremely likable antihero.  We can be conflicted about his noble cause and his ruthless means, and like him all the more for both.

 

No Trace
by Barry Maitland
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 312 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 031235892X
Reviewed by Kim Reis

When the six-year-old daughter of a famous artist is taken from her room in the middle of the night, police have little in the way of evidence.  They believe she is the latest in a string of missing children they have been unable to locate.

While the police follow all possible connections, the girl's father uses his grief to inspire a major body of art work related to the abduction.  He did the same thing five years ago when his wife committed suicide.  There are those who think it is a bit too coincidental, including his in-laws.

Chief Inspector David Brock and Detective Sergeant Kathy Kolla return in this eighth entry in the series. Brock, however, is a bit tied up with a committee looking into restructuring the department and could be in danger of losing his job.

Police procedurals are among my favorites and this is a good one.  The clues unfold at a steady pace though their significance is neatly hidden.  Just when you think you have it figured out, it takes a new turn.

I didn't feel the characters were easy to get to know but perhaps that is because this is the first book I have read in this series. Fans with character history may not mind the brief glimpses into Brock and Kolla's personal lives.  I'm definitely going back to start at the beginning.

 

Cross
By James Patterson
Little, Brown
Hardcover, 393 pages, $27.99
ISBN: 0316159794
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Alex Cross, the protagonist in this very popular series by James Patterson, after three years of private practice as a psychologist, became a full-time Washington, DC homicide detective before joining the FBI, working primarily as a profiler. Michael Sullivan is a serial killer/rapist/mob hitman, nicknamed The Butcher. The book opens with the murder in 1993 of Alex' wife, Maria, as she greeted him when he came to pick her up after work—she died in his arms, and he has never stopped grieving for her.  Since her death, he has continued to work for the FBI, raising his three children with the help of "Nana Mama," Alex' grandmother.

Fast forward to 2005.  In order to devote more time to his family, Alex quits the FBI, returning to private practice, but remains available as a consultant.  Things change when the police are told by a mob guy that he can give them information on Alex' wife's murderer, but the man is killed while in jail before he can divulge that long-sought information.  Alex feels he may finally be able to catch the man who has managed to elude capture for over a decade, and he and Sampson go on the hunt. 

Clichés abound—the psychopath who was abused as a child, who feels nothing but a rush as he adds victims to an ever-growing list.  The acts themselves will bring a grimace, at least, to the reader's face.  Michael Sullivan is a man who enjoys his work.

Cross has already topped the bestseller list, and it is a fast and pretty enjoyable read.  Nonetheless it felt somewhat bloated to this reader and I thought the book could have been edited a bit more.

 

Exile
by Richard North Patterson
Henry Holt and Company
Hardcover, 592 pages, $26
ISBN: 0805079475
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

A graduate of Harvard Law, David Wolfe since graduation has led a charmed life.  Successful prosecutor, outstanding criminal defense attorney, engaged to a socially and politically active woman who is the daughter of a holocaust survivor, to be married in seven months, now groomed to seek and probably win a Congressional seat.  A careful, well-planned life.  Then his world is turned upside down.

During his final weeks at Harvard, David, a Jew, had an intense but brief love affair with another student, Hana, a Palestinian.  Throwing caution to the winds, something he had never done before or since, he proposed marriage.  She turned him down, citing cultural differences, and left him to marry the man chosen by her parents.  Now, 13 years later, she is in San Francisco and calls him; they meet for a few minutes.

The next day, the Prime Minister of Israel is assassinated by a suicide bomber.  Hana, arrested as the bomber's "handler," asks David to represent her.  A Jew acting as attorney for a Palestinian "terrorist":  It is the makings—or unmaking—of a career.  In David's case it is the opposite of all his plans, the end of his engagement and his political career.  But it gives the author license to deeply explore the divisions between Israelis and Palestinians as David seeks proof that Hana is innocent.

In a three-week visit to Israel, David visits various representatives and factions, learning about terrorist activities and Palestinian grievances, giving the author the wherewithal to write in depth of various facets of the differences and attitudes of both, powerfully and at length.  Along the way two possible participants in the assassination conspiracy are met and in turn killed after David meets them, ending promising lines of inquiry.  The evidence against Hana is problematical, but no alternatives other than that she was framed are available.  Her trial as depicted is well drawn and the denouement, while somewhat predictable in its conclusion, cannot be anticipated as it turns out.  This very interesting and well-presented novel is a study in international relations and history—of the past grievances and lack of progress in finding a solution, if indeed there is one.  It is disheartening in all aspects, but informative and rewarding.

A Christmas Secret
by Anne Perry
Ballantine Books
Hardcover, 198 pages, $16.95
ISBN: 0345485815
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

There is a multitude of Christmas books published each year leaving readers with the hard decision of which ones to buy. Perry's Christmas series should be on the top of everyone's shopping list. A Christmas Secret is the fourth of her Christmas mysteries.

Dominic and Clarice Corde, characters that have appeared in the Thomas and Charlotte Pitt series, are sent by the Bishop, to Cottisham. Dominic is to fill in over the Christmas holidays for the vacationing Reverend Wynter. As soon as they enter the rectory, Clarice falls in love with the community and dreams of being able to stay on permanently. The village folks are welcoming and helpful; the entire village seems perfect. Dominic too feels the magical draw of the community and wants to make a good impression with his sermons.  However, it soon becomes apparent that all is not right in Cottisham. Because of some personal items left behind, Clarice begins to suspect that the Vicar is not vacationing at all and wonders where he really is.  Clarice and Dominic soon discover that there are many secrets among the residents, and some of those secrets prove to be deadly.

While Clarice helps Dominic prepare for his first sermon by asking him, "What is the best thing about Christmas? What does Christmas really mean to us?"  Perry is asking the readers to ponder the same questions. In this short, compact book, Perry gives readers the gift of a tale about guilt, responsibility and redemption. She has captured the spirit of the season and wrapped it up nicely in A Christmas Secret.

 

Dead Game: A John Marquez Novel
by Kirk Russell
Chronicle Books
Hardcover, 320 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0811850781
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

California Fish & Game Warden John Marquez and his shrinking team of investigators are once again on the hunt for illegal activity. This time it's the taking of caviar by killing sturgeon. The fact that he has a confidential informant feeding him information should help him build his case as he has an idea of several people who are involved. The fact that while on the way to meet Marquez, she goes elsewhere and after a panic phone call to him, vanishes without a trace, does not. In fact, her disappearance could scuttle the case.

With his informant missing and most likely dead, his case crumbling, bureaucratic pressures which now include more budget cuts which will eliminate his team and quite possibly their very jobs, as well as an always present and interfering FBI, Marquez remains determined to solve the case and all of its various ramifications. His case is just the tip of a gradually appearing iceberg and with Marquez at odds with almost everyone, he is determined that if this is to be the end, he will get results his way one final time.

While this is clearly the slowest moving read of the series and does become bogged down in lectures about sturgeon and caviar, Russell once again provides a detailed and extensive look into the shadowy world of illegal harvesting. As he has done before, the author details extensively the ongoing problem which rarely makes the nightly news and what it will take to stop human greed by some who look to exploit the environment. At the same time, he provides another complex mystery with characters who are very familiar at this point which results in yet another enjoyable read.

 

The Crimson Portrait
by Jody Shields
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover, 296 pages, $23.99
ISBN: 0316785288
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Detail piled on detail characterizes this unusual story set in England during World War I.  When Catherine's husband Charles leaves to join his regiment in France he stipulates that their mansion and estate be used as a military hospital.  The transformation in the home and Catherine's life is momentous, soon made even more so with the news that Charles has been killed at the front.

A hospital for surgery on soldiers with grotesquely wounded or destroyed faces is established. At the time, little is known about the procedures for reconstructing destroyed faces.  The surgeons improvise and pioneer many new methods.   Meanwhile an artist is transferred from the front to assist the surgeons in their efforts.

One of the artist's tasks is to make a mask for one patient to hide his face, since further surgery is not considered possible.  He bears some resemblance to Charles, and Catherine in an effort to bring her husband back substitutes his photograph for that of the patient.

The novel explores the medical staff's difficulties, along with the psychological traumas of the wounded, as well as Catherine's attempt to create a loving relationship.  It is a deep study of human nature and individual identity.  It is well-written and the characters are excellently drawn, as nature takes its course.

 

Limitations
by Scott Turow
Picador
Paperback, 197 pages, $13
ISBN: 0312426453
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Originally published serially in the Sunday New York Times Magazine, some additional material has been added to this slender volume to flesh it out.  Like Turow himself, the novel has a legal background.

George Mason is an appellate judge sitting on a three-member panel hearing an appeal by four defendants convicted of raping a 15-year-old girl many years before.  There are apparently three possible decisions: affirmation, backed by one judge, reversal based on inadmissible evidence favored by a second, or reversal because of the statute of limitations, to which Mason leans.

Mason is the swing vote; he can decide to affirm or go with one of the other two choices.  While he wrestles with his decision, he confronts his past.  While a young man he participated in a similar incident and he has to face his guilty conscience.  Meanwhile, he has been getting threatening e-mails and text messages and his wife is being treated with nuclear medicine for a thyroid condition.  Life is complicated, as are the decision-making process and his need to file papers for reelection.

It all comes together in the end, with Mason writing the decision.  One would have expected a soaring writing worthy of a Brandeis or Holmes.  Instead, we read a somewhat disjointed draft.  At least the discovery of the person issuing the various threats is an unexpected surprise.  Despite these objections, the novel reads well and the tale is well-told.

 

Murder by Committee

Read past installments and find out more about Murder By Committee

Chapter 29
by Barbara Colley

Barbara Colley is the author of the Charlotte Larue series, now six books strong, and a number of romances from Harlequin. Colley also loves "meeting and talking to my readers at booksignings, I love shopping at the malls, and watching and playing tennis. Sailing is fun too, but it's not often I have the time or opportunity to do that any more. The most fun thing of all, though, is playing with my sweet grandchildren. So far I have six: three boys and three girls, all ranging in ages from three to thirteen."

Her latest Charlotte Larue novel, Rub-A-Dub Dead, is available this month from Kensington, and Rachel's War is now in paperback from Harlequin.

He should never have left her alone, should never have taken a nap.  Greer cursed as he grabbed the binoculars from the galley and climbed topside.  Because of his carelessness, Otto and Guthrie were dead, the chips were missing, and his boat had been rendered almost inoperable.  There would be hell to pay.  Of that he had no doubt.  If he didn't retrieve those damned chips, he was as good as dead.

On the deck Greer raised the binoculars and searched the sea around him.  She had to be out there somewhere.  Surely she couldn't have gone all that far.  Of course that was assuming that she had taken the lifeboat and the chips.  But what other explanation could there be?

"There you are!"  He adjusted the binoculars.  The lifeboat was just barely a speck on the horizon, but since it was the only speck on the horizon, it had to be her. 

A grim smile pulled at his mouth.  She was smart.  He'd give her that.  But he was smarter.  She'd screwed up the steering, the radio, and the main sail, but he still had the jib.  With any luck and a good wind, he'd still be able to catch her.

***

She hadn't meant to kill him. 

Squinting against the blazing sun, Harper peered over her shoulder.  Behind her, the sun's rays glittered over the open sea like scattered diamonds.  The Bertha Mae was only a tiny shadow on the shimmering horizon, proof of how far she'd rowed the yacht's small lifeboat over the past three hours.

Harper shuddered.  No, she hadn't meant to kill Otto, but when she'd seen him with his hands wrapped around the knife protruding from Guthrie's bleeding body, her training had kicked in, and she'd kicked him.  It had been a headshot, an automatic reaction, meant to stun.  She had only wanted to subdue him and let Greer take care of him.  After all, he was Greer's chef, therefore, his responsibility.  Too bad the chef had landed wrong, impaling himself on a gaffing hook.

Greer.

Harper blinked back tears.   He would come after her, if she could believe what Otto had whispered with his dying breath.  Yes, Greer would come after her when he discovered that his precious chips were gone. But he wouldn't come after her right away. 

A grim smile pulled at her lips.  Once she'd found the chips and stowed them away on the lifeboat, she'd pulled some wires and messed with the steering mechanisms of the yacht as well as the sails, and then she'd disabled his radio.

She should have killed Greer.  She'd had to kill before in self-defense.  Harper shuddered.  Yes, she should have, but she just couldn't do it, not this time, not to Greer and not in cold blood. 

Weak.  You're weak!

Harper ruthlessly ignored the nagging voice in her head.  She'd been a fool to trust Greer in the first place and an even bigger fool for falling in bed and in lust with the swine.  All he'd wanted from her was what everyone else wanted.  The chips.  The only reason she was still alive was because he'd needed her, needed her to show him how to use the chips.  Coming to that realization had been a heart-wrenching blow.

Forget it!  Forget him!

With a wince of pain, Harper gritted her teeth, and using the last of the gauze she'd found in the First Aid kit on the lifeboat, she carefully wrapped her raw, blistered hands—yet more proof of her rowing efforts.

As if to punish herself for being so weak when it came to Greer, she picked up the small paddles.  Ignoring the searing pain in her hands, she began rowing again, heading due east away from the sinking sun and the yacht, away from Greer, and hopefully back toward land and her Harpy before the charges Greer had set went off and blew it to kingdom come.   

***

Even as the water swallowed up the sun in the west, Harper could tell that she was in trouble.  The dark clouds in the distance meant that there would be no stars or moon, and meant that she was in for a long night. 

She quickly lashed down the oars and secured the chips in her bra.  Within minutes of tightening her lifejacket, the whole world went black. 

Harper sighed and shivered as the wind picked up.   Hunkering down in the lifeboat, all she could do was pray that the storm would pass swiftly and wouldn't swamp the tiny boat.   

When the first drops of rain hit her and the boat began rocking, she groaned.  Then, a streak of lightning split the darkness, and her stomach knotted with fear.  But it was the distant roar buzzing in her ears that sent terror streaking through her veins.  She was fairly confident that she could survive a small storm, but a big one would swamp the tiny lifeboat for sure.

When the sound steadily grew louder, she let loose a string of curses that would have curled her grandmother's toes.  "Well, come on then!" she shouted into the wind.  "Let's get this over with."  If she had to die, she prayed it would be quick.