October 2006

It's October—our favorite month here at the Morgue!  Because you know what October brings: the scariest, most suspenseful and terrifying event of the year.  That's right: the World Series!

But for those who aren't baseball fans, there's plenty to occupy your time here at the Morgue. Besides a plethora of reviews (there are 25 in a plethora, assuming you count both reviews of Julia Spencer-Fleming's All Mortal Flesh), you'll find books from favorites like Kathy Brandt, Walter Mosley, Harry Hunsicker and Steve Brewer.

There's also a very entertaining interview with Ms. Spencer-Fleming herself, dispelling the incorrect rumors that All Mortal Flesh is the last in the Millers Kill series—there will be more, she says. And she says a lot more than that.

Also, to start things off, you'll find a terrific "How I Write" essay by Julie Goodson-Lawes, who with her sister writes mysteries under the name Hailey Lind. She explains how two people become one person, and how it's just like sculpting. No, really. Read on.

So pick up your bat and ball, play the National Anthem, and get reading!

In this month's issue:

How I Write: Sculpting Sloth, Or, A Reflection on Art, Sisterhood, and Writing, by Julie Goodson-Lawes
The Mystery Morgue Interview: Julia Spencer-Fleming

Reviews:

The Rainaldi Quartet, by Paul Adam
Capitol Murder, by William Bernhardt
The Mortician's Daughter, by Elizabeth Bloom
Dangerous Depths, by Kathy Brandt
Monkey Man, by Steve Brewer
Calibre, by Ken Bruen
A Mammoth Murder, by Bill Crider
Shark Island, by Joan Druett
The Doctor Rocks the Boat, by Robin Hathaway
The Next Time You Die: A Lee Henry Oswald Mystery, by Harry Hunsicker
Copper River, by William Kent Krueger
Extraordinary People, by Peter May
Fear of the Dark, by Walter Mosley
Days of Rage, by Kris Nelscott
Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple, by Tempa Pagel
Calculated Loss, by Linda L. Richards
SPQR X: A Point of Law, by John Maddox Roberts
The Delilah Complex, by M. J. Rose
All Mortal Flesh, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (1)
All Mortal Flesh, by Julia Spencer-Fleming (2)
Blindfold Game, by Dana Stabenow
Parting Shot, by Jonathan Stone
Wiley's Refrain, by Lono Waiwaiole
Rhapsody in Blood, by John Morgan Wilson
The Hidden Assassins, by Robert Wilson

Link to Archives

 

How I Write: Sculpting Sloth, Or, A Reflection on Art, Sisterhood, and Writing
by Julie Goodson-Lawes (one-half of Hailey Lind)

As she explains, Julie Goodson-Lawes is one half of the sister team that writes under the name Hailey Lind. She is a skilled muralist and portrait painter who has run her own faux finishing and design business in the San Francisco Bay Area for nearly a decade. Before pursuing art full-time she worked as a waitress, an anthropologist, and a social worker.

Hailey's other half is Carolyn J. Lawes, a historian who has taught in France and all over the U.S. She has published extensively on American women's history, and currently lives in Virginia with a motley menagerie of rescued dogs and cats.

The other day I was sculpting a figure meant to represent one of the seven deadly sins, namely Sloth—who in this incarnation is a beautiful sleeping woman because my client really likes lovely women, asleep or awake—and I was thinking about how the act of sculpting seemed a fitting metaphor for writing.  For one thing, my hands, arms, and legs are now covered with little nicks and cuts, and in my experience writing involves a certain level of (psychic) bloodshed.  For another, every time I got one unsightly bump taken care of another arose elsewhere to take its place—this reminded me of editing and re-writing. But I suppose the most obvious metaphor was that after a lot of pain and frustration, the final sculpture will be a beauty meant to nestle amongst the ferns of a bucolic landscape.  I like to think of books lined up on a shelf, amongst their peers, just like flowers in a garden of fiction.

Have I pushed the metaphor too far?

I share my writing with my art as well as with my sister, Carolyn, a historian—together she and I consitute the author, Hailey Lind. Our Art Lover's Mystery Series would not have come about without both of these influences: art and sisterhood. 

My art informs my writing continuously.  As a faux finisher I have access to some of the wealthiest homes in San Francisco, and never run out of quirky characters that set my fiction juices flowing. I also collect ideas for art forgery scams and interesting thefts from the daily art news—believe me, no one could make all this stuff up! But on a more esoteric level, the creative space that one must be in to paint and sculpt is a respite, a rejuvenation, that feeds into and spurs on the writing process. The number of plot ideas I have while standing in front of a canvas is rivaled only by those that arise while I'm in the shower.

Swapping ideas with my co-writer (my sister, Carolyn) is the other spur to my writing. During our frequent telephonic brainstorming sessions, one sister's ideas tend to spark the other sister's imagination, and the story is the better for it. And there's nothing quite like reading over a chapter I sent off as a really, really rough draft that comes back to me with beefed-up dialogue, intriguing new descriptions, and, perhaps, a new plot twist I hadn't noticed before. Over the next weeks or months the text will go back and forth so many times that neither of us remembers who wrote what. Our goal is to speak with one voice—hence the single author's name.

Though we live on opposite coasts—I'm in Oakland, California, while  Carolyn resides in Norfolk, Virginia—modern technology makes this relationship possible. Even the most committed Luddite has to admit that e-mail is about the best invention since the 24-hour convenience store.

Together we chisel, shape and carve the words until they do our bidding—except, of course, when characters decide to follow their own path, which happens with frequency. But over the course of the months this sculpture of words takes shape thanks to our distinct temperaments and interests. When one of us gets bogged down and discouraged, more often than not the other is raring to go and energetic.  There are head-butting moments (this would be the psychic bloodshed I mentioned above), but by and large we're both surprised at how much we enjoy and are spurred on by each other's additions to the story. 

A great deal has been written about the process of writing, and much of it focuses on writing as a solitary endeavor. But just as in sculpture, where there is no one ideal point of view from which the entire figure can be seen, having more than one perspective on a piece of writing can give an author a better appreciation for all of its angles. By writing about what I love—art—with someone I respect and adore—my sister—the writing process has been mostly fun, only occasionally frustrating, and ultimately fulfilling. 

Still, it's best to keep the Band-Aids close at hand for those nicks and cuts.

 

The Mystery Morgue Interview: Julia Spencer-Fleming

Julia Spencer-Fleming's first novel, In the Bleak Midwinter, won just about every award for a mystery debut, more than any other and more than we are going to mention here, out of sheer envy. It was clearly the introduction of a great talent, and her four subsequent novels have not diminished that impression at all.

The five (with the release this month of All Mortal Flesh) Millers Kill novels detail the lives and adventures of Clare Fergusson, a military helicopter pilot-turned-Episcopal-priest, and Russ Van Alstyne, chief of police in the upstate New York town of Millers Kill. While their relationship began innocently enough, it soon blossomed into something more than mutual attraction, complicated by Russ' long-standing marriage and Clare's struggles in becoming accepted in the small, insular town.

All that comes to a head in All Mortal Flesh, as Russ and his wife are separated, and their neighbor finds a body horribly murdered in their kitchen. It isn't long before news of the murder of Russ' wife is news in Millers Kill, and Russ finds himself plunged into grief and being treated as a suspect as he and Clare have to determine how this event will change their lives, as well.

In this interview, Spencer-Fleming gives a few extremely teasing hints about the series, which she intends to continue for two more installments. She also talks about the power of religion in writing what is essentially a secular series, inspiration, how awards change the writing process (or not) and what she might write outside the Clare/Russ series.

Interview by Jeffrey Cohen

All Mortal Flesh is the fifth book in the Clare Fergusson/Russ Van Alstyne Millers Kill series.  But there's been some speculation that it's the last, as well.  It's not, is it?  Why do you think people are making that error?

No, it's not the last in the series—I intend to wrap things up in seven books, not five. I'm working on the (as-yet-unnamed) sixth book right now. Well, not right now. Now, I'm answering this question, but you get the idea.

I suspect the advance readers who have been worried All Mortal Flesh is the last Clare and Russ mystery conflated the events in the book—which are dramatic and life-changing for the characters—with my announced intention to make this a "limited run" series. In some ways, getting anxious emails wondering if this is it confirms I made the right decision not to let the story linger on for as long as possible. My readers are really, really focused on what happens, because they know that anything could happen.

This is the most personal of the books in the series so far. The mystery is really close to home—in fact, for Russ, it's IN his home.  Did that present unusual problems in writing the book for you?

It was a challenge hitting the right notes for Russ. Like a lot of men, he's all about being in control, and in this book, that's taken away from him. He loses control of his life, his emotions, his privacy, his police department—and the challenge for me was to portray that faithfully without completely overwriting it and making him look like a whiney little girl.

Clare is an Episcopal priest, a former military helicopter pilot. That is an unusual background. What gave you the idea to make her a seeming contradiction?  How has that flavored the series for you?

It's not as much of a contradiction as I thought it was when I cleverly thought it up. Since the publication of In the Bleak Midwinter, the first book in the series, I've met several women who went from the armed forces to the ministry, including a former Marine Sergeant-turned-Lutheran pastor. Now that's a stretch.

In Clare's case, her ministry came first, as it were—I knew I wanted her to be a priest. But I also wanted her to have a certain physical fearlessness and competence, to wear the mantle of leadership comfortably. Those two aspects of her personality are what get her involved in the crimes that occur throughout the series. If she wasn't driven to help others, to seek justice and healing, she'd still be in the army. And if she wasn't an adrenaline junkie, she'd stay in the church office and the rectory, where she belongs.

The ending of the new book really packs a wallop, in a number of ways. Do you see it as a cliffhanger, a hint of where the series is going, or a natural development of the characters' situations?

Yes. (Julia cackles fiendishly.)

How has your own background contributed to the series?  You're not a priest, nor a helicopter pilot.

Now, really, do I need to be? This is my thinking about "write what you know": you have to write what you know about being human. All the rest of it are just details you can find out with a little research. In my case, like Clare, I'm a lifelong Episcopalian. Like Russ, I've lived in a small town where I was related to nearly everyone to some degree or another. And, like Nancy Mitford, I understand love in a cold climate. All the rest is just stuff I made up.

When the book opens, Clare and Russ' relationship has been "outed," and he's living at his mother's house while his wife stays in their home. Each book in the series has explored their relationship just a little bit more deeply. Do you feel that retaining that tension is central to the series?

Absolutely. I give talks, and does anyone want to know how I craft my sense of place, or how I construct twisty plots? Does anyone question my language choices or the social issues I highlight? They do not. They stand up and ask, "Will Russ and Clare get together?"

There will be a resolution to their story. I'm not promising a happily ever after, but I will get to the point where I answer that question—in the seventh book. And that will be the end of the series. Whether they're together, like in Moonlighting, or apart, as in Gone With the Wind, that's the end of the story. Because as we know from the above mentioned examples, everything that takes place after "they get together" or "they part" is third rate. It may sell a lot—Alexandra Ripley probably bought a second home on what Scarlett brought her—but it's still third rate.

The setting of your series is a character in the books. Millers Kill, an upstate New York town, has a distinctive feel.  You don't live in New York, but you have that area down pat. What kind of research do you have to do for the books?

I used to live in the part of New York that the fictional Millers Kill is based in, and I still have family and friends in that area. I go back for visits, I drive around pointlessly just to look at things, I try to sit quietly (this is very hard for me) and listen to what people say and how they say it. I'm fortunate in that the climate in Maine, where I live, is very much like that in the Adirondacks. I get to experience snow, sub-zero temperatures, ice storms, white-outs and "Call AAA, the battery's frozen" every year.

Do you have plans to write outside the series?  Outside the mystery genre entirely?

Outside, the series, yes, as I said above. Isn't it funny that in the mystery genre, authors are often expected to spend their entire career with the same characters?  I have lots and lots of stories I want to write, and I'd love to step outside the genre boundaries now and again. Although I suspect anything I write will have a mystery at its core—that seems to be the way my mind works. I would love to be like Charlaine Harris, who has done several mystery series and who now is making up her own gumbo of crime fiction-paranormal-romance-southern literature. Her work isn't like anyone else's. That's what I aspire to.

You're very generous with other authors, recommending books on your web site and such. Is it part of the job to point out authors whose work you enjoy?

Before I was an author, I was a reader. I've always loved to recommend good books to friends and strangers, from way back when I was badgering the kids on the bus to read the Freddy the Pig stories and The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet. Which, if you haven't read, you should. The only difference is, now I can suggest good reads on my website or in my e-newsletter. I think it's more effective and less creepy than hanging around in the mystery section of my local bookstore waiting to accost other patrons with my opinions.

In the Bleak Midwinter, the first book in your series, won every award short of an Oscar.  How hard is it to follow up after a debut like that?

Well, you know. With the sheer, raw force of nature that is my genius, it's not so bad.

Oh. What? I'm sorry, the medication was kicking in. No, it was scary when the second book came out. Because I didn't know exactly what I had done in the first book that warranted the awards. I was afraid A Fountain Filled With Blood would pancake and I'd have to go back to being a lawyer. But it did okay—not as well as my debut, but my agent and editor warned me that was usual. And then the third in the series, Out of the Deep I Cry, was nominated for an Edgar and an Anthony for Best Novel, and I thought, "Oh, thank God, I'm not a one-hit wonder."

The best and most lasting effect of winning a bucketful of awards the first time out is that now I'm inoculated. It's wonderful to be nominated—I think that's the biggest thrill right there—but I really, truly don't feel bad when I lose. Because I've already been a winner, and you know what? When you come home from the award banquet with your cool trophy clutched in your hand, you still have the dirty laundry waiting to be done.

Do you feel that religion is central to the series? Are these stories meant to test Clare's faith, or her resolve in helping others?

Religion is central to the series in that it's central to Clare's personality. It's her moving force, the reason she gets up in the morning and does what she does. One of the reasons I made her a priest to begin with was to give her a different, yet believable, motivation for getting involved in people's lives. She's not looking to catch bad guys or bring justice to the wronged. She's there to minister to everyone who is broken. Which, of course, has the side effect of getting her into trouble as she tries to help the folks Russ wants to cuff and put away.

I never, ever want my stories to proselytize, but I do want anyone reading them to come to a better understanding of what it's like for a person to live and act from a deeply rooted faith. Of course, I also want them to come to a better understanding of what it's like to live in a small town, of what it's like to be 50 and falling in love with an unattainable woman, of what it's like to discover your livelihood's disappearing through economic changes you have no control over. In other words, I want my books to serve the purpose of all good fiction: to bring us into lives not our own.

You've chosen to write the books with a third person narrator.  What led to that choice? 

I knew I wanted the freedom and flexibility to write from multiple viewpoints—Clare's, Russ's, other people. I keep a very close third person POV, so that when we're in Russ's head, for example, we not only stick to what he sees and feels and knows, but the narration itself is tinged with Russ's speech patterns and vocabulary. Readers comment on the distinctive voices of the characters in my novels, and I think this is one of the reasons why.

What kind of a writer would you say you are?  What do you know now that you wish you'd known then?

I'm a lazy writer. I do as little research as possible and I'm always getting sidetracked by kids and tours and publicity and volunteer projects and blurbing and bright shiny objects—ooo, look!—so I inevitably end up writing half of the current book over six months and the other half in six weeks. I don't outline. Things don't work out when I outline, so I've learned to just close my eyes and dive in. Which is more or less how I get through life.

I wish I had known that I could trust my own voice and use my own techniques for telling the story. I used to agonize of italics. Can I use them for thinking? When? How? I used to have characters repeating their "tag" signals (playing with hair, polishing glasses, etc.) by some mathematical formula which I had gotten out of a how-to-write book. Now I write what I want how I want it, and I'm much happier and more relaxed.

 

Reviews

The Rainaldi Quartet
by Paul Adam
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 310 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 031235004
Reviewed by Kerry Hammond

Gianni Castiglione is a luthier (violin maker) living in the town of Cremona, Italy.  As a widower he divides his time between his work and his music, playing regularly in a Quartet with three close friends.  His quiet life is shattered one evening when a fellow quartet member and luthier, Rainaldi, is found murdered in his shop. Gustafeste, a policeman and friend to both, asks for his help in finding the killer.  Gianni is devastated by the loss of a close friend and agrees to help.

Their investigation into Rainaldi's murder leads Gianni and Gustafeste through the world of priceless violins and the violin collectors who would pay and do anything to own these masterpieces.  When the tale of a missing Stradavari violin surfaces, the story takes an interesting turn.  Gianni and Gustafeste travel to England and Venice in their search to find out if such an instrument exists and, if so, where it has been for over a century.

Adam brings the world and history of violins to life in this very suspenseful tale.  The reader has to pay close attention to follow the details, but it is well worth it. The book is narrated in the calm and soothing voice of Gianni, making you feel as if you are hearing a story told to you by an uncle.  The details of the story are intriguing and the author brings you into them with the ease of a great storyteller.  The Italian backdrop and scenery changes make this a page turner that you will have a hard time putting down.  The ending was not only satisfying, but well thought out and executed.

 

Capitol Murder
by William Bernhardt
Ballantine Books
Hardcover, 365 pages, $25.95
ISBN: 034545149X
Reviewed by Mary Mitchell

Bernhardt's series star, defense attorney Ben Kincaid, is a habitual champion of the underdog (to his partner Christina McCall's financial chagrin but romantic enthrallment.)  A powerful politician makes an unlikely candidate for underdog status, but when Senator Todd Glancy is charged with homicide he suddenly qualifies, and when he summons Ben to Washington to aid in his defense, Ben can refuse neither the plea for help nor the potential boost to his humble practice.

The senator's motives for choosing Ben are political—Ben is from Glancy's home state of Oklahoma, and being defended by a member of the home team could send an influential message to both constituents and jurors.  But Ben is most concerned with the motive for murdering beautiful senate aide Veronica Cooper, and unfortunately Glancy appears to have one—the recent release of a potentially career-ending video featuring Glancy and Cooper in positions both limber and compromising.  But is the senator's undeniable guilt in the one scandalous act sufficient to convict him of the other?

The plot coagulates when the search for alternate suspects leads Ben's team through Washington's Goth subculture and beyond, into an underworld populated by "Vampyre" wannabe's. Given their professions, neither Ben nor his client is a stranger to the epithet "Bloodsucker," but now Ben has cause to believe the genuine article may be acting among them. 

Bernhardt takes us on an insider's voyage through elements of society most of us rarely see, from the heights of power and behind-the-scenes political machinations to a dark and secretive world of twisted cultists.  While perhaps not coming into its own until chapter three, the story is well researched and presents fascinating and believable secondary characters who at times outshine the series' mainstays.  Bernhardt's construction of the courtroom drama is his greatest strength, leading to a surprise conclusion that is nonetheless there to be drawn if only the reader were as clever as Ben Kincaid at interpreting the supplied facts.  A fun and unusual read.

The Mortician's Daughter
by Elizabeth Bloom
Mysterious Press
Hardcover, 304 pages, $24
ISBN: 0892967862
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Apparently you can go home again, despite what Thomas Wolfe wrote.  At least, that's what Virginia Lavoie discovers when she receives a telephone call from her best friend in Western Massachusetts to come back to the small town she grew up in and find out who murdered her son.

Ginny at the time is a suspended New York detective (internal affairs was investigating dirty cops, Ginny included; she wasn't on the take but was taken in by a lover).  So Ginny drives up north to find out what happened to the 19-year-old boy and along the way reignites a teen-age romance.  All she remembers when she gets there are her negative memories.  She finds changes she hardly recognizes in the town, but the insular attitudes of the long-time residents are unchanged.  There's even a Starbuck's-like coffee establishment with the fancy name of Café des Artistes.

The first homicide she investigates leads to a second, and then a third.  Are they related?  And Ginny almost becomes a fourth—twice. She uncovers the skeleton of her friend's 19-year-old runaway older sister who supposedly left town 16 years earlier.  A promiscuous teenager who apparently slept with at least half the town's males was carrying a three-month old fetus at the time of her death.  Was the father the murderer?

And was it related to the recent crimes?

The intricate plot and excellent writing carry the tale forward with suspense.  The twists and turns (including Ginny's amorous adventures with her now-grown boyfriend) keep the reader on the edge of the seat.  And Ginny has two tasks: solve the mysteries of the murders as well as what she wants to do with the rest of her life, 

Dangerous Depths
by Kathy Brandt
Signet
Paperback, 262 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 0451214935
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

Detective Hannah Sampson is back in her third adventure and this time dealing with what she believes was an attempted homicide.  It is Sampson who is first on the scene when her friend Elyse Henry is thrown into the burning sea by an explosion aboard the boat "Caribbe." Despite her injuries due to the flames, she is able to rescue Elyse who now lies in the hospital in a coma.

Hannah Sampson believes that the explosion and resulting fire were caused by foul play.  Everyone else, including Chief Dun of the Tortola Police Department, believes it was just an accident.  Elyse Henry, advent environmentalist especially in regards to the sea turtles and the coral reef, annoyed some of the natives in the British Virgin Islands and appealed to others.  With no real evidence other than a gut feeling on Hannah's part, Dun wants her to move on to more serious and obvious matters such as who is breaking into charter boats and stealing stuff. Hannah is not about to let anything go.

What follows is a rather simplistic but enjoyable read.  The second storyline of the break-ins on the charters is rather obvious as is the author's feelings on environmental issues.  Frequently the narrative read stops completely as the groups are portrayed as either for or against the environment. 

The main plot line is enjoyable and holds a couple of minor surprises.  Obviously, the author loves the area she writes about and that comes through clearly to the reader when she concentrates on her main plot and the beauty of the area. When that is in play, the story moves forward at a steady pace.

Monkey Man 
by Steve Brewer
Intrigue Press
Hardcover, 232 pages, $24
ISBN: 1890768731
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

"Nothing interrupts a nice chat like the arrival of a gorilla"—the opening line of Monkey Man is an indication of the slightly wacky and offbeat (in a good way, mind you) novel to follow.  The circumstances of the "chat" in question?  A meeting in a café between Bubba Mabry, of Bubba Mabry Investigations, with a potential client seeking to hire him with regard to suspected malfeasance leading to the death of an inordinately large number of animals of the zoo in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where he is employed.  (The suspected plot kinda gives "endangered species" a whole new meaning.)  But the meeting is interrupted when the aforementioned man in the gorilla suit pulls a gun and shoots the whistleblower dead. 

Having decided he has no further obligation in the matter, Bubba is forced to change his mind when the dead man's fiancée hires Bubba to investigate, reasoning that if they find out what secret's being covered up, they'll find out who the killer is.  Despite his reluctance, Bubba agrees, and that resolve is only bolstered when, shortly thereafter, someone else who had just been speaking to Bubba is killed - Bubba, feeling guilty, becomes determined to find the perp, if only for his own peace of mind, all coercion and threats if he pursues that course notwithstanding.

Bubba, who is self-described as suffering from "genetic gullibility," nonetheless asks enough questions of enough people to flush out the culprit(s).  Along the way he gives the reader a fast and enjoyable read.  Monkey Man is the latest in the Bubba Mabry series, one I'm glad to have been introduced to. 

Steve Brewer is also the author of the Drew Gavin series, in addition to the recent standalone Whipsaw, much enjoyed by this reviewer.

Calibre
by Ken Bruen
St. Martin's Minotaur
Paperback, 183 pages, $12.95
ISBN: 031234144X
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

How often have you seen someone behaving in a truly despicable way in public and just wished that someone would teach him a lesson? Well, in Bruen's Calibre, a serial killer takes it one step further. He is killing people who have exhibited poor manners in public. First there was the man who berated his girlfriend in a restaurant only to end up under a train. Then there was the woman who screams obscenities at a cab driver and later takes a sudden plunge out a window. The killer sends the police a letter telling them that he has decided to help them clean up the streets of South London by eliminating one rude person at a time.

The serial killer is not the only "character" in the book. Each and every constable in the Met has some serious personal issues.  First there is Brandt the sergeant, as crooked a cop as ever was. Then there is Roberts, who is trying to become a fashionable dresser but makes hideous choices, and Constable Falls who is trying to live down a lesbian liaison and a case gone bad that has landed her literally in the basement. Add PC McDonald who is trying to hold on to his job after being shot, and last of all there is Porter who struggles with being both gay and diabetic.

Interestingly, Bruen has both the serial killer and the Brandt attempting to write crime novels based on the American Noir. Throughout the book are quotes from various American crime writers. Brandt makes many references to and is modeling his book after Ed McBain's 87th Precinct series. The killer is a huge fan of Jim Thompson and dreams of coming to America someday, buying a pickup and driving around the country with his hound dog, Hank Williams playing on the radio.

This is a dark book not for the faint of heart or those that are easily offended by rough language or violence. Fans of Ken Bruen will love Calibre, featuring the ever so corrupt Sergeant Brandt last seen in Vixen. If readers have only tried Bruen's Jack Taylor series set in Galway and found them to be too gritty, they might want to give the Brandt books a try. Although Brandt is as dirty of a cop as there is, the language salty, and the streets filled with hostile criminals, the overall tone of the Brandt books is not quite so bleak. Possibly it's because Brandt, corrupt as he may be, is still sort of a likeable guy.

 

A Mammoth Murder
by Bill Crider
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 263 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312323875
Reviewed by Mary Mitchell

A place the locals customarily avoid for fear of snakes, feral hogs and, just possibly, Bigfoot, the woods of Blacklin County, Texas, have suddenly become a hub of activity.  A current murder, an old disappearance and an unearthed cache of even older bones—twelve thousand years older, to be exact—all in the same area, have paleontologists, Bigfoot hunters and the press converging on the site. 

Quiet unassuming Sheriff Dan Rhodes would prefer they stayed away.  They're in danger of trampling his crime scene.  They're in danger, period.  Not knowing who—or what—is responsible for the recent killing, he doesn't want to end up with another body on his hands. 

Inevitably, he does.

Amid the daily routine of dealing with stray goats, road kill, UFO abductees and the occasional mooning joyrider, Rhodes patiently uncovers the connections between the seemingly unrelated events that have brought the world to his small corner of it.

Author Bill Crider is a master of the telling details that bring characters and settings to life, and his thirteenth visit to Blacklin County provides no exception.  His deceptively casual-sounding descriptive style homes in on a scene's defining elements.  And his astute observation of the nuances of human behavior brings credibility to the interaction among the county's engaging and sometimes quirky inhabitants.  Blending humor, sensitivity and methodical detective work, A Mammoth Murder is a thoughtful and entertaining read. 

 

Shark Island
by Joan Druett
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 292 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312334567
Reviewed by Janet Koch

In 1838, the United States began to officially pursue an ages-old question: what's out there? Finding out is the mission of the U.S. South Seas Exploring Expedition, a six-ship force that will endure years of trials and tribulations as it charts massive expanses of ocean and explores the Antarctic coast.

Walking the decks of a seventh fictional ship is Wiki Coffin, hired ostensibly as a translator of Native languages. Wiki, however, has another capacity—that of sheriff's deputy. Though credited with bringing a murderer to justice, Wiki has no desire to be embroiled in another investigation. But when his ship encounters a foundering sealing ship off Shark Island, a man is killed. Wiki knows where his duty lies.

Soon he is tangled in a morass of conflicting tales, some told by the sealers, some by his fellow crewmen, and some, disturbingly, by the dead man's seagoing wife, a beauty to whom Wiki is powerfully attracted. It will take all of Wiki's considerable talents to uncover a truth that could be as dangerous as it is devastating.

Shark Island immerses the reader in maritime life of the early 1800s. Smell, sounds, food, drink—enough details are used to give an honest flavor without bogging down the narrative with unnecessary particulars. While a diagram of a ship might be useful for the uninitiated, as would a glossary of nautical terms, such knowledge is in no way necessary to thoroughly enjoy the book.

In Wiki Coffin, author Joan Druett has created a complex and interesting character. The ultimate outsider, Wiki is the illegitimate son of a Massachusetts sea captain and a New Zealand Maori woman. He was raised by his mother until the age of 12, then whisked to New England by his otherwise childless father. Now in his twenties, Wiki calls upon both heritages to make his way through a world that doesn't take kindly to half-breeds.

With any luck, Druett will let us follow Wiki through many more adventures, for he and his friends seem to have many more tales to tell.

The Doctor Rocks the Boat
by Robin Hathaway
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 207 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312349939
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

Robin Hathaway has created every patient's perfect doctor in her Doctor Fenimore series.  He practices alone, makes house calls, has Saturday hours and he takes troubled teens under his wing. He also has a knack for finding murders.  It doesn't start out that way. Things nearly always start with an ordinary event, but somehow, when Doctor Fenimore is involved, a murder surely follows.

In The Doctor Rocks the Boat, the fifth book in Robin Hathaway's series, the reader steps inside the world of rowing in old Philadelphia. Doctor Fenimore decides to resume rowing for exercise. His father had been a rower and he had rowed while in medical school, but over the years, he had fallen away from the sport. Now, glancing out of his window, he sees the singles shells gliding on the Schuylkill River, and decides to rejoin his old rowing club.  As is often the case when a person returns to an activity or club after a period of time, old friends return too. And so it happened with Fenimore.  While rejoining his club, he meets an old college friend Charles Ashburn. Ashburn had been quite a good rower in his day, but had to quit the sport due to a heart problem. Now Ashburn's son Chuck has taken up the sport and both father and son hope Chuck will have a chance to compete in the big regatta at Hensley, England. But did the son inherit the heart problem that ended his father's rowing?  When that simple thought passes through Dr. Fenimore's mind, it set in motion events that would lead to murder.

Fans of the series will be well pleased with this latest entry.  Back for this adventure are the regular characters-the office assistant Mrs. Doyle, "Rat" the troubled teen that Fenimore took under his wing in an earlier adventure, the policeman Rafferty and Jennifer, Fenimore's love interest. Added to the mix in this outing is Tanya, a homeless friend of Rat's. I wouldn't be a bit surprised to see Tanya return in future books.

New readers to the series will find that there are few references to past adventures so that lost feeling of not knowing what is going on with the characters that happens with some series is not a problem with Hathaway's books.

The book moves smoothly along with all of the loose ends tied up neatly in the end. This book, as well as the whole series, would be categorized as cozy. 

 

The Next Time You Die: A Lee Henry Oswald Mystery
by Harry Hunsicker
A Thomas Dunne Book
Hardcover, 304 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312348509
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

Named such by a bull-headed father, Lee Henry Oswald has a name that would stick out anywhere.  This is especially true in Dallas, where Lee Henry works as a private investigator.  Lee Henry knows the other side of Dallas.  The side the Chamber of Commerce doesn't want shown, and in the two years since the events depicted in Still River, things haven't improved.

His latest case, as have many others, begins in a bar.  The bar is located just a few blocks from the new Dallas Police Headquarters. The air conditioning, the dim lighting, and the beer make it a welcome refuge from the cloying mid-September heat.  He meets with a Baptist preacher named Lucas Linville who drinks like a fish and runs a small ministry nearby for the street people.  He tells Lee Henry that a file from his office is missing and the info inside could be embarrassing for a local prominent family.  In addition, his office assistant is missing. Are the two things related? The preacher doesn't want to think so but for Lee Henry it is pretty obvious.

Before he can find out too much more, a couple of thugs walk into the bar looking for his client as well as Lee Henry by name.  They mean to payback Lee Henry for something that he was involved with that cost a good friend of his, Billy Barganier, his life.  The past is the past and he knows it can't be changed and that Billy is long in the grave, no matter what the thugs say.  But the thugs are the first two of several promising payback. 

As he works Linville's case, the second storyline involving Billy and their shared past becomes more and more prominent.  Not only does the case go off in unexpected ways but there are links between the two.  And while this is going on, his partner Nolan has romance problems and they are supposed to be keeping alive a certain young lady that has her own prominent connections.

The result is a sequel stronger than the original book, which can't be said that often.  Gone is the writing workshop feel of the first book as is a lot of the sarcastic humor.  This book is darker due to that loss of humor as well as the fact that Lee Henry is not as naive as he was in the first book. This Lee Henry is more of a bitter man, seeing deep flaws in enemies and friends alike and not very happy with anyone.

The novel is another enjoyable read that will be very familiar to residents regarding the dark side of the city as well as the moneyed elite.  Such concepts almost become a character into themselves as the mystery unravels through the interplay of complex characters, multiple storylines, and plenty of action.  Like Still River, author Harry Hunsicker has provided readers another strong novel that is well worth your time and investment and one that can be read as a stand-alone if one so desired.

Copper River
by William Kent Krueger
Atria Books
Hardcover, 309 pages, $24
ISBN: 0743278402
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Copper River is the site where body of a 14-year-old girl is found, an apparent suicide.  Copper River is primarily her story, horrifying, harrowing and all too "ripped-from-the-headlines" real—by a weird coincidence the book was released the same week that a story broke in the news about an 18-year-old girl who'd just escaped after having been kidnapped and held captive for several years.  The book presents, to quote from the flyleaf, "...the grim reality of children lost and abandoned, who become easy prey for the perverted appetites of human predators."  Strong stuff.

Cork O'Connor, the protagonist of this wonderful series by William Kent Krueger, finds himself endangered from the outset of the book, having been wounded when shot by contract killers out to murder him.  He takes refuge with his cousin, Jewell DuBois.  When Jewell's young son, Renoir ("Ren"), discovers the father of his best friend, Charlene ("Charlie") Miller, beaten to death, and Charlie nowhere to be found, Cork becomes caught up in the investigation of the man's, as well as the death of the young girl which apparently took place that same night, despite trying to evade those seeking his death.

The author's love of and appreciation for the "natural world" is evident from the first page.  To cite one example: "The sky was a flawless blue, the air dead still, the late morning only just now crawling out from under the chill of the night before.  The hardwoods were in full autumn glory and the Huron Mountains were like a stormy sea caught fire."  The lyrical prose and wonderful descriptions make the Upper Peninsula of Michigan come alive.  The signature Native American backdrop is, as always, fascinating.  The suspense is well-sustained throughout, and this powerful novel is as riveting as are all the previous books in this series, and is highly recommended.

 

Extraordinary People
by Peter May
Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 321 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 1590583353
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

Author Peter May, the lively Scot, lives now in France, and has traveled widely, including to the Far East.  He wrote a fine series sometimes referred to as the China Thrillers.  This novel is not part of that series.  It is the first in a new series the author has developed, set in France.  It is a dandy work.

Enzo MacLeod is an expat biologist living in Tolouse where he teaches.  He has largely foregone his earlier career as a top forensic biologist in Scotland.  Things seem settled for MacLeod.  But a more or less casual wager sets him on a different path.

Ten years earlier a brilliant and celebrated teacher, Jacques Gaillard, disappeared.  As to reasons or motives, the slate is blank.  In Paris, disappearances are not all that uncommon but Galliard was a federal employee who taught in the national school of administration for aspiring French diplomats, premiers and even presidential possibles.  For ten years the case has been unsolved.  Can this Scot solve the crime, if indeed there is one?

Enzo goes to Paris to meet a journalist who has written about several celebrated murders.  Enzo figures, rightly, that the journalist's notes may prove invaluable help in Enzo's quest.  Thus begins an odd, sometimes barbed, collaboration between two uneasy egos. It is a collaboration that informs and escalates the tone of the novel.

The task takes Enzo to some of the most fascinating sites one is unlikely to visit in Paris and elsewhere in France.  As more and more clues are unearthed, MacLeod must not only confront his own attitudes toward his family, past and present, but he has to explore themes that set intellectuals against ordinary society and the consequences that devolve from there.  As much an examination of French intellectual culture as a thrilling and tension-filled mystery, the novel is filled with multi-dimensional flawed individuals.  The author's examination of society and the human condition is fascinating and enthralling.  The conclusion is as exciting and entertaining as one could ask for.  A dynamite novel and a fine beginning to what promises to be an outstanding crime fiction series.

Fear of the Dark 
by Walter Mosley
Little, Brown and Co.
Hardcover, 320 pages, $25.99
ISBN: 0316734586
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Walter Mosley seamlessly recreates, in his customary fashion, the Watts/South Central area of LA circa 1956.  This is the third book by Mr. Mosley to feature Paris Minton and his "associate" and best friend, Fearless Jones, the latter described as "tall and thin, jet of color, unafraid of death or love, threat or imprisonment."  When Paris' cousin, Ulysses S. Grant IV, called Useless by one and all, "a petty thief, a liar, a malingerer, and just plain bad luck," shows up at the door of Paris' bookstore one day, Paris knows he's in trouble.  When Paris turns down his cousin's plea for help and sends him away, it's only a matter of time before Paris' aunt, Three Hearts, Useless' mother, comes looking for her son, and Paris has to try to find him.  In so doing, he finds more than he bargained for: blackmail, cheating business partners, jealous boyfriends, and murder.  One incident in particular, brought about by Paris' sexual propensities and appetites, gives him good reason for the phobia of the title, among other fears that plague him. 

As in this author's prior books, Fear of the Dark is fast-moving and well-plotted.  The racism that was such a taken-for-granted part of the era is clearly depicted, e.g., "You know we always on the edge, brother.  You don't have to do sumpin' wrong for the cops to get ya and the judge to throw you ovah.  All you got to do is be walkin' down the street at the wrong minute.  Shoot, Paris.  You always got to be ready to run."  As Paris says at one point, "I sat there thinking how the life I was living would be better in the remembering than it was while it was going on."

Recommended.

Days of Rage
by Kris Nelscott
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcove, 336 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312325290
Reviewed by Jack Quick

Because Nelscott's protagonist is black, as is Walter Mosley's, and both write about the same general time period, there is a logical inclination to compare the two.  To me, the ethnicity of Mosley's Easy Rawlins is a central aspect of his character.  Through much of this book, I found that whether Smokey Dalton was black or Polish, or any other ethnic group or nationality really wasn't central to the story.  While the issues of race and opposition to the Vietnam War are intertwined with events in the book, it just doesn't play that prominent a role other than as a backdrop for what is, in fact, a well plotted mystery story of the caliber and type produced by Jeffery Deaver among others.

The time is fall 1969, and Smokey and his adopted son have fled Memphis for Chicago. Dalton is an African-American private investigator on Chicago's South Side, maintaining a low profile because of his knowledge of the Martin Luther King, Jr. assassination which threatens his life and that of his adopted son, Jimmy.  Dalton is working for on again off again girlfriend Laura Hathaway.  Laura has inherited her father's business empire only to learn that it was built on less than firm moral ground.  She is trying to right past wrongs with Smokey's help, while also making sure she doesn't push so hard that the entire structure tumbles.

In this environment, Smokey is contributing by inspecting rental property's for Laura's company, Sturdy Investments, when he discovers three corpses in the basement of one of the buildings.  This gruesome find quickly becomes worse as more bodies are found. On the one hand, Dalton and Hathaway know this needs to be taken to the authorities and the families of the victims are entitled to some kind of closure.  On the other hand, the Chicago Police have not proven themselves to be beyond reproach and if the discovery can be tied to Laura's father, she may lose everything.

All the action occurs against the backdrop of the Weathermen sponsored "Days of Rage" demonstrations in Chicago after the earlier Democratic convention and its high profile confrontations.

Over all, a well-written book as Nelscott, skillfully interweaves "headline news" and its impact on the lives of ordinary people as they try to live their normal lives.

Here's the Church, Here's the Steeple
by Tempa Pagel
Five Star Publishing
Hardcover, 310 pages, $25.95
ISBN: 1594143749
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

Andy Gammon grew up in Detroit.  That's in Michigan.  Now she's living in Newburyport, Massachusetts because she married a hard-shell Yankee and he wanted to return to his roots.  Newburyport is not very large and like a lot of New England, is extremely proud of its long heritage.  What's more, current citizens, including the movers and shakers in town, take a dim view of outsiders poking into dusty cupboards and rooting out stories of the old days that may or may not reveal unfortunate truths.  It's bad enough when such probes are conducted by native daughters or sons.  But when an outsider is the catalyst, look out.  That attitude infuses the novel and the writing.

In spite of an awkward title, this debut novel is first rate.  Andy Gammon takes on the town and the local cops when a freak windstorm shifts the old steeple at the First Parish Church.  What's revealed is a skeleton and a silver tankard that last was known to be in the possession of the church in 1811.  The discovery of these two items together sets off an inquiry that leads our intrepid amateur detective to a fresher corpse and a fire designed to warn her away from her mission.  The solutions to both the old and the new crimes may not surprise you, but this clever well-written novel will certainly satisfy lovers of the traditional mystery.  There is just enough tension and menace to keep readers turning the pages.

The blending of the historical thread with the modern-day investigation is nicely handled and shows that the author has done her research.  Readers will not be mired in dusty reams of historical research.  Indeed, the mix is just right.  This is an eminently pleasant, well-paced story with several clever characters.  Look for more stories from this author.

Calculated Loss 
by Linda L. Richards
Mira Books
Paperback, 409 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 0778323455
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Coincidence?  Art imitating, or triggered by, life?  Here we have a case where the author's ex-husband's death apparently gave rise to the theme of this, the third in the Madeline Carter series, in which the protagonist's ex-husband also dies.  She learns of his death, officially ruled a suicide, when her ex-sister-in-law (the couple had divorced ten years earlier) calls asking her to attend the funeral in Vancouver.

Madeline is a former New York stockbroker turned day trader, now living in Malibu.  When she turns up in Vancouver she is brought to visit her ex-mother-in-law, who begs her to look into the business her former husband has built.  The family thinks something is amiss, and Madeline's analytical expertise is needed.

This turn of events leads to all kinds of suspicions, including the possibility that her former husband's death was not a suicide, and financial shenanigans have been taking place at the company. Needless to say, Madeline unravels the mysteries.  However, it is strange that at the conclusion she just leaves Canada, rather than report back her findings to the family.  Of course, logic says it'll all come out after the various investigations by authorities take place.

The only fault we found with the author's usual financial expertise was an over-simplification used to substantiate the story—the basis for a delisting from the New York Stock Exchange and what the Pink Sheets are.  Nonetheless, the plot is well-drawn, and the writing up to the standard of the previous novels in the series.  The descriptive material is excellent and the characters realistic. 

SPQR X: A Point of Law
by John Maddox Roberts
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 253 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312337256
Reviewed by Terri M. Tumlin

"Rome at election time!  Can there be any prospect more pleasant?" So begins A Point of Law, the tenth book in the SPQR series of mysteries set in the time of ancient Rome. 

Decius Caecilius Metellus the Younger has returned from his overseas adventures and is slated to become the praetor in the upcoming election. Unfortunately, Marcus Fulvius has other ideas, blocking Decius' election with charges of malfeasance and crimes against Roman citizens during his time in Cyprus.  With only a few days before the election, the matter must be settled quickly.  It is, but not in a way that is helpful for Decius.  Fulvius is discovered murdered on the steps of the Forum.  The obvious suspect—the one with the most to gain by Fulvius' death is Decius.

The story is marvelously set in a world very different from the modern one.  Candidates for election wear togas so whitened with chalk that a friendly pat on the back is apt to raise a cloud of chalk dust.  Trials are held before juries, sometimes composed of several hundred Romans.  The large number is considered to be a safeguard against bribery.  Evidence is not important; rather the trial is based on the rhetorical skills of the opposing sides, with the man most capable of stirring the passions of the jurors most apt to win the day.  Into this fray comes Decius, with his analytical mind and his desire to find out the facts of the murder and evidence to prove it.  Even his family thinks he is crazy to try to defend himself with facts, and urges him to leave Rome if he won't use the traditional techniques.

Roberts spins is story in a world peopled by Julius Caesar, the uncle of Decius' wife, Julia, Pompey and Cato.  There is just enough Roman history to make the reader feel that this is world is real, even with its band of bodyguards escorting Senators around Rome and the slave janitors chained to the front doors of some wealthy homes.  There is a wealth of detail embellishing the plot.  The reader can almost feel what it would have been like to move with Hermes, Decius' freed personal slave, through the streets of ancient Rome. 

A Point of Law is an enjoyable read, both as a mystery and as a voyage into a well researched past.  I recommend it.

 

The Delilah Complex 
by M.J. Rose
Mira Publishing
Paperback, 416 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 0778322157
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

This is Rose's sixth erotic thriller.  No mistake, it is very thrilling and it is very erotic.  Imagine, if you will, women who are at or almost at the top of their game, professionally.  Their careers are going well; they are recognized, looked up to, well paid.  They have families.  We all know them, don't we? 

We also know something about the men in the world, the ones we label movers and shakers, the ones with power and money, authority. There's something sexy about all that power, that influence. Some men take advantage of that, but in our society, women aren't allowed to do that.  At least, not openly.

Now imagine a group of powerful successful women, sexually adventurous women who still see their lives as proscribed, who are unable to openly pursue all of their appetites.  Suppose some of these women gradually get together and form a secret Scarlet Society, a group in which the women are totally in charge, in which, unlike those dancing classes you may have taken where the boys hesitatingly chose a female partner with whom to practice, here, in this Scarlet Society, the women choose and the men do their bidding, right down to the fulfillment of naked, sometimes demeaning, base, animal desires. 

Sworn to an oath of absolute secrecy, in orgiastic and private sessions of complete role reversal, the women rule absolutely and the men perform precisely as the women direct.  Then a prominent reporter at the New York Times receives a shocking photograph of one of the male members recruited to the society. 

The photograph moves the lead detective in this powerful series, Noah Jourdain, to once again connect with Butterfield Institute sex therapist, Dr. Morgan Snow.  In a sometimes adversarial, sometimes passionate dance, the two work to solve the mystery and identify and locate the missing man.  Morgan Snow wrestles not only with attempts to help members of the Scarlet Society come to terms with the loss of one of their male members, and fears of more possible murders, but also with the demands of her daughter, and the distraction of her own growing attraction to Detective Jourdain.

This novel is powerfully and carefully written.  The language is direct and frank without ever descending into prurience.  Stunning, jolting revelations are judiciously placed throughout the book.  Growing frustration by the detectives trying to solve the case, and the mounting horror of members of the society are relieved by the counterpoint of more ordinary daily stresses of a divorced woman raising a teen-aged diva.  The novel ends with a fine twist that is logical, surprising and satisfying.

All Mortal Flesh
By Julia Spencer-Fleming
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover, 336 pp; $22.95
ISBN: 10312312644
Reviewed by Jeffrey Cohen

Even for those who haven't read the first four installments in the Millers Kill series, in which Episcopal priest (and helicopter pilot!) Clare Fergusson and police chief Russ Van Alstyne solve crimes more or less together while fighting their mutual attraction, this book is a jolt of adrenaline.

In a series that has already won a slew of mystery awards, this is most likely the crowning achievement to date. The crime is much more personal, the stakes higher and the emotions closer to the surface than ever before.

With Russ and Clare's romantic but platonic (so far) relationship "outed," Russ has moved out of the home he shares with his wife Linda, so when her body is discovered brutally murdered there, he feels even more guilty than he might otherwise. Stripped of his authority to investigate, he broods.

Clare, meanwhile, has been trying to sort out her feelings about Russ, has vowed never to see him again, and is immediately thrust into the small-town gossip that goes along with a situation like the one depicted here. She's considered a suspect by everyone except the investigating officers.

Even as huge changes occur among the characters—and you won't see some of them coming—Spencer-Fleming never resorts to melodrama. Her characters are three-dimensional, adult and real. The crime is investigated professionally, the solution makes sense and the reader is engrossed on every page.

The ending is a knockout, with twists that will change the series from this point, but it is defiantly not the end of the story. And that is good news to anyone who likes a good mystery.

All Mortal Flesh
By Julia Spencer-Fleming
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover, 336 pp; $22.95
ISBN: 10312312644
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

All Mortal Flesh, the newest in the Clare Ferguson/Russ Van Alstyne series, finds Clare, the parish priest in the small Adirondack, upstate NY town of Millers Kill, and Russ, the local police chief and married man she loves, having just wrenchingly ended their relationship.  The following day, an even more devastating event occurs:  Russ is told that his wife, from whom he had recently separated when he told her of his love for Clare, has been brutally murdered.  Loving Clare, yet still loving his wife, matters are only compounded when both Clare and Russ are considered prime suspects, not only by the police but by the local gossip-loving town residents.

With her usual adroit skill, Ms. Spencer-Fleming has written another wonderful tale of these very human protagonists in this, their sixth appearance.  The sense of place is vivid, and the wintry weather graphically evoked.  There is a slam-bang ending with a final unexpected and stunning turn as this suspense-filled tale concludes.  An excellent and fast-paced read, and it is recommended.

Blindfold Game
by Dana Stabenow
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 260 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 031234323X
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

In a departure from her Kate Shugak and Liam Campbell series, Stabenow's first standalone, Blindfold Game, is a fast paced read that takes readers hopping around the world at a breakneck pace. Written in a style that has each chapter telling a different character's part of the story, the reader follows Hugh Rincon, a CIA analyst; his wife, Sara Lange, second in command on the Coast Guard cutter Sojourner Truth; Noortman and Fang who are pirates; and "Smith" and "Jones," two terrorists. While globe-hopping to pick up various parts of the characters' story, it takes the reader a little bit to get drawn into the substance of the plot. However, once past the initial jumping around, the book is very hard to put down.

The book opens with a bombing in Thailand. A former reporter that is now on the payroll of the CIA happens to be there and sees two men acting in an unusual way. She photographs the two, watches and then follows them from Thailand to London and then loses them but manages to determine they are on their way to Moscow. She reports this to Rincon. Because of other information that has come across his desk, he surmises the pair probably went on to Odessa.  Rincon starts gathering information and tries to get his superiors interested to no avail. Meanwhile, his wife Sara is aboard the Coast Guard cutter patrolling the Berling Sea and the Maritime Boundry Line unaware that her boat is in the path of a terrorist attack.

While much of the plot development is a bit predictable, Blindfold Game is highly entertaining and an edge of your seat thriller to read.  This book should expand Stabenow's readership considerably.

 

Parting Shot
by Jonathan Stone
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 282 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 031235410X
Reviewed by Mary Mitchell

Publicly, Sam Stevens has everything—a stunning wife, an adored ten-year-old-son, an isolated cabin retreat away from the expensive home in an exclusive neighborhood—most of which, including to an increasing degree the wife, are courtesy of Sam's high profile career as a television crime reporter.

Sam has his professional sights trained on the national networks and, with increased exposure from his coverage of a local serial sniper and a feature interview series with imprisoned multiple murderer Darryl Jenkins, he may finally have a clear shot at his target. However, in an industry where image is everything, if word leaks that his personal life isn't what it seems, more than just his marriage will crumble.

His wife has been using that uncomfortable fact to leverage whatever she wants out of Sam, from the material perks his salary enables to his tacit tolerance of her extramarital liaisons. But worse in Sam's eyes than her virtual blackmail is the effect her increasing distance and erratic behavior are having on their son.

Sheriff Billy Wyatt's press briefings have told Sam everything he could want to know about the elusive sniper holding the city hostage and about the unsuccessful efforts to apprehend him. The body count is rising. What if Sam's wife could be numbered among the victims?

Through his prison interview series "Inside the Mind of a Serial Killer," Sam has gazed into the abyss. Now the abyss is gazing back, and a national anchor spot may not be the only thing in Sam's crosshairs. But at stake for Billy Wyatt are his city, his career, his integrity—and more.

I fully expected to see "psychologist" rather than a career in advertising in Stone's biography. He journeys through Sam's devolving psyche with such compelling immediacy that even the reader who, through sheer exercise of will, refrains from rooting for Sam will be unable to keep from empathizing. And when the surprise climax appears on the horizon, there's another twist yet to come—and then another...

An intense psychological thriller.

Wiley's Refrain
by Lono Waiwaiole
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 287 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 031234092
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

Third in Waiwaiole's dark series about a Portland detective and his many friends and acquaintances, most of whom are on the fringes of society.  That doesn't make them any less interesting, however.  There's a lot of the author in this protagonist and that's all to the benefit of the novel.

A young talented blues musician is brutally and abruptly removed from life's stage just as his career is beginning to peak.  Because of his history in Portland and because of his connections, Wiley is the logical choice to solve the mystery of the musician's disappearance, but he is both hampered and supported by the friends and greatly expanded family that surrounds him.

On the one hand are several women with whom he has and has had emotional entanglements at various levels.  The shifting sands of Wiley's underpinnings with these females are an almost constant source of danger and even some amusement, to Wiley and thus to the reader.  One of the most interesting and dangerous characters in the book is Leon, Wiley's life-long friend.  Leon is a man whom almost anyone would want at his back going into any unlit urban alley.  Leon seems to know everything that Wiley, who is somewhat passive until the last third of this novel, doesn't.

The language is superb, the rhythms and the pace rock one along at an ever increasing level of tension.  Wiley not only brings things to a most satisfactory conclusion, but in the process he finds a piece of himself that leads to an inner contemplation that fit the context of the story to a T.  One caution: shifting points of view in the novel are sometimes confusing.  This is not a casual book, though it certainly is entertaining.

 

Rhapsody in Blood
by John Morgan Wilson
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 278 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312341474
Reviewed by Kimberly Studstill

This sixth entry into Wilson's Edgar and Lambda award winning series takes his hero out of his Los Angeles home but into trouble.  Benjamin Justice, disgraced former journalist, is at loose ends after finishing his memoirs.  His best friend, LA Times reporter Alexandra Templeton, thinks a trip to a town called Haunted Springs is just what he needs.  She is going to work but promises Justice he can relax. 

On the long drive to Haunted Springs, Templeton fills Justice in on the story she is chasing: The town used to be called Eternal Springs and in its heyday was a glamorous resort on warm springs with supposed healing powers.  The resort was also the site in 1956 of a famous murder involving a starlet named Rebecca Fox.  A black man was lynched in what was the last known lynching in California.  Twenty-five years later, Rebecca Fox's daughter killed herself at the same resort. 

These tragic events are the basis of a true crime book and a movie being filmed at the resort.  It is the filming that interests Templeton.  The film crew, actors, director and producer are part of the large cast of characters in the novel.  The author of the book is there, as is the resort owner who found Rebecca Fox's body as a seventeen-year-old.  A troubled child star looking to graduate to serious roles and her meddling stage mother immediately catch Justice's interest.

Into the mix of location romances and rumors of trouble on the movie set comes feared gossip columnist Toni Pebbles.  Her appearance strikes fear into the film's publicist.  Pebbles is famous for "outing" famous closeted gay celebrities.  Before she can do any harm, she is brutally murdered—in the same room as Rebecca Fox and on the fiftieth anniversary of the death.

Wilson's large cast is never confusing because everyone is well drawn and believable.  The hotel is beautifully pictured, as is the town itself.  The deaths are resolved in unexpected ways.  Wilson includes a scene with all the suspects that seems like a twist on the classic scenes from Agatha Christie.  This novel addresses serious topics of memory, grieving and hiding the true self in a way that is thought provoking but never heavy handed. 

The Hidden Assassins 
by Robert Wilson
Harcourt, Inc.
Hardcover, 464 pages, $25
ISBN: 0151012393 
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

What begins as a faceless, mutilated murder victim facing Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon in Seville, develops into a full-fledged terrorist conspiracy on multiple levels.  An explosion in a mosque located in the basement of an apartment building destroys the block with multiple deaths and maiming, including four children in a nearby pre-teen school.  The two events appeared to be unrelated until Falcon gains insight into the various plots, both Catholic and Muslim.

The plot is so detailed and inventive that the reader is swept along as Falcon and the intelligence services piece together little bits of information from Morocco to France and Great Britain.  The writing is well-honed and the characters real and vivid.  This is a must read.