September 2007

Welcome back! The leaves might not have started changing color yet, but trust us, fall is on the way, and you know what that means—well, maybe you don't.

At the Morgue, it means a wealth of new mystery books to review: we stopped counting at 26 this month, from authors like (in fact, exactly like): Deborah Turrell Atkinson, Jasper Fforde, Tom Straw, Faye Kellerman, Alison Gaylin, J.A. Vance and Con Lehane.

But wait, there's more! You'll also find a compelling interview with Donna Andrews, author of the Meg Langslow books, the latest of which is The Penguin Who Knew Too Much. And there's a revealing "How I Write" essay by Deborah Pratt, former co-executive producer of "Quantum Leap," whose new multi-platform project is called Vision Quest.

Enjoy the early autumn feast, and have a great time with Mystery Morgue!

In this month's issue:

The Mystery Morgue Interview: Donna Andrews
How I Write: Deborah Pratt

Reviews:
Fire Prayer by Deborah Turrell Atkinson
Buried by Mark Billingham
In Dublin's Fair City by Rhys Bowen
Tug of War by Barbara Cleverly
Honeymoon for Three by Alan Cook
Thursday Next: First Among Sequels by Jasper Fforde
Power Play by Joseph Finder
Trashed by Alison Gaylin
Lying with Strangers by James Grippando
Glass Houses by Jane Haddam
Magic City by James W. Hall
Final Payment: A Posadas County Mystery by Steven F. Havill
Justice Denied by J.A. Jance
Christietown by Susan Kandel
The Burnt House by Faye Kellerman
Jigsaw by Jerry Kennealy
Lost Echoes by Joe R. Lansdale
Death at the Old Hotel by Con Lehane
Down by the Riverside by Jackie Lynn
Savages by Bill Pronzini
Shooting Star by Cynthia Riggs
Little Faith by Michael Simon
The Big Boom by Domenic Stansberry
13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy by L. A. Starks
The Trigger Episode by Tom Straw
Restitution by Lee Vance

Link to Archives

 

The Mystery Morgue Interview: Donna Andrews

Donna Andrews' first completed mystery manuscript Murder with Peacocks was selected as the winner of the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Press Best First Traditional Mystery contest, and won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, and Romantic Times awards for best first novel and the Lefty award for the funniest mystery of 1999. Subsequent books have also received Agatha and Lefty nominations.

Her Meg Langslow series (each dealing with a different species of bird) and Turing Hopper books (whose main character is a sentient computer) have combined humor and mystery successfully and established Andrews as a leader in the field. In this interview, she discusses the ups and downs of being known as the "funny mystery writer." Her latest is The Penguin Who Knew Too Much.

Interview by Jeffrey Cohen

Okay, first off: why birds?

Why not?  You got something against birds?  Seriously—the birds were an accident.  When I was about to send my first book off to the Malice Domestic/St. Martin's Press contest, it didn't yet have a name—the best I'd come up with was "Three Weddings and an Undisclosed Number of Homicides."  So I called a friend to say, "Hey, help me think of a title for the book."  The friend, who knew I had a lot of projects going and wasn't sure which one I'd finished, asked, "Which one—the murder mystery with the peacocks?"  Aha!  Murder with Peacocks.  Seemed to fit.  And after that, I used birds in some form in every book because I knew publishers like themes. Of course, for a while, I wasn't sure it was a good idea. I had originally wanted to call Murder with Puffins either The Puffin Caper or Round Up the Usual Puffins.  The marketing department vetoed those in favor of Murder with Puffins.  Dan Stashower articulated my fears when he moderated a panel I was on and asked, "Peacocks... puffins... And what large ungainly bird will you be featuring next?"  I was afraid it would turn out to be too predictable: Murder with Bird of the Year.  So I sent the third book in with the title Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos.  I figured even if they changed it to Murder With, it would have to be wrought iron flamingos, because there isn't a single live one in the book.  Fortunately, they loved the title, and have let me commit even stranger ones since.

There always is a bird lurking somewhere in the plot—since Meg's father is a birdwatcher and an avid amateur naturalist, that's not hard to manage—especially since Meg's father is modeled on my own.  And some of his adventures are taken directly from life.  Take this passage from Penguin:

Many of my fondest childhood memories were of Dad strolling into the kitchen or the living room holding a wild creature, dead or alive, to give us an impromptu biology lessons. Mice, voles, shrews, snakes, snapping turtles, rabbits, and bats from the back yard or the nearby woods, and an apparently endless supply of slightly flattened possums plucked from the highway. Most of the live animals would be trying to escape or to bite Dad—sometimes both at once—and invariably, if Mother was home, Dad's lectures would be punctuated by shrieks of "Get it out! Get that thing out of my house! Now!"

Once Dad had rounded up the largest possible audience—preferably all three kids plus any stray cousins or neighbors visiting that day—he'd adjourn to the backyard to continue his lesson, which invariably ended with someone taking a picture of Dad with his catch, followed by a trek to the woods to bury the dead animals or release the wild animals at a safe distance from any busy roads.  

I have to confess—that's not really fiction.  It's biography.  I just transferred it from my dad to Meg's.

You've been very successful in the humorous cozy sub-genre, winning numerous awards and fans.  Is it harder to write funny? Do you feel, as some do, that this category doesn't get the respect it deserves?  Do you, therefore, have a "serious" book you want to write?

Yes, on all counts.  It's harder to write funny because what is funny is incredibly hard to define and varies from person to person.  And while in something serious you can veer a degree or two off course and recover—like a sailboat, tacking its way across a broad stretch of water—humor is more like walking a tightrope: if you're not absolutely on course, you're going to take a fall.  And yet comedy doesn't get the same respect as drama.

Look at actors like Tom Hanks, Jack Lemmon, Robin Williams, Hugh Laurie—all actors I love, whether they're doing comedy roles or dramatic ones.  But even though they first became successful doing comedy, they all achieved much greater critical success—and along with it, more money and awards—when they started taking on dramatic roles.   Look at Katherine Hepburn—a wonderful comic actress who did movies such as "Philadelphia Story," "Bringing Up Baby," "Adam's Rib," "Desk Set," "Holiday," "Pat and Mike."  She was nominated for the Oscar twelve times, and won four times.  Only one nomination—and none of her wins—was for a comedy.

I remember once when bookseller Maryelizabeth Hart and I were discussing an author of whom I was not fond—and I'm not going to say who it was, except that it wasn't a mystery author.  Maryelizabeth commented that the author in question confused being serious with being solemn.  I think she's pegged an issue not just with that one author but with our culture—something we probably inherited from the Puritans.  We can't tell solemn from serious.  Humor can be serious—if by serious you mean that it can be finely crafted, fully realized, and deal with real issues. You don't have to be solemn (or gritty, or bloody, or violent) to be serious.

So yes, odds are sooner or later I will write a "serious" book—I've already had a couple of deliberately humor-free short stories published.  Though if I begin writing about, say, serial killers or homicidal maniacs, St. Martin's would probably be happier if I didn't do it under my own name.  I've already got my pseudonym ready—actually, Lee Child gave it to me when we were talking at the Virginia Festival of the Book this year: Andrew Donner.  Has a nice malevolent sound, doesn't it?

Your protagonist Meg Langslow has seen her relationship with Michael begin and bloom through the series.  Do you worry about "losing the romantic tension" because they're in a committed relationship?

These days, I don't worry too much about losing the romantic tension because I figure I probably tossed it overboard after the first couple of books.  As The Penguin Who Knew Too Much opens, they're getting ready to elope—though it would be a spoiler to let you know if they succeed in pulling it off.  I think I'm more interested in (and better at portraying) all the more mundane but important tensions that you have to deal with in that much larger stretch of life that fairy tales lump together as "happily ever after."

When coming up with story ideas, do you start with the characters, the mystery, or the comedy?

None of the above.  I start with the situation—what's happening in Meg's life.  She's participating in a Revolutionary War reenactment (Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos).  Attending a convention for a corny syndicated fantasy TV show (We'll Always Have Parrots).  Hosting a giant yard sale (Owls Well That Ends Well). Something I'd have fun playing with.   Then I start trying to figure out who else would be there, and what they'd be doing, and what the natural lines of tension between different people or groups of people would be—because both humor and homicide can arise out of those tensions.  I begin to populate the world of this particular book with its unique characters, and I also figure out which of Meg's family and friends would be there, and how they would be involved.  And eventually a potential victim appears, along with the suspects who might want to knock that victim off, and my brainstorming turns into outlining.

Usually the situation also involves one or two very visual scenes—for example, I knew that for the finale of Parrots, I wanted Meg to have a sword fight with the villain—that's one of the reasons I populated the book with so many suspects who knew how to use a sword.  In Penguin, I knew I wanted the book to begin with Meg's father finding a body in her basement while digging a pond for some penguins.  I didn't get know whose body it would be, or for that matter, what her father was doing with penguins in the basement, but I had the first scenes in the book in mind long before I began to imagine the rest:

"Meg! Guess what I found in your basement?"

I looked up from the box I was unpacking to see Dad standing in the basement doorway, his round face shining with excitement.

"A body?" An unlikely guess, but Dad was a big mystery buff—perhaps if I amused him, he'd stop playing guessing games on moving day.

"Oh, rats—you already knew? Well, how soon will the police get here? I need to move the penguins—we don't want them any more upset than they already are."

He disappeared down the basement stairs without waiting for an answer. I abandoned my unpacking to call after him.

"Dad? I was joking. Did you really find a body? And why are there penguins in our basement? Dad!"

When I began brainstorming on what followed that scene, I decided the penguins had to come from a zoo—and that Meg's father was fostering them for the zoo for some reason.  Maybe because the zoo was having financial problems.  And I began riffing from there, and the rest of the plot emerged.

In your latest, The Penguin Who Knew Too Much, you deal with, among other things, the idea of "canned hunting," or hunting of animals bred or captured and then released in an enclosed area. Was this just a very workable plot point, or were you trying to draw attention to this practice?

It started off as a way to resolve a possible problem with the book.  Since the book dealt with animals, and a lot of the tensions arose over animals, I found I was ending up with both animal rights activists and hunters—two groups that would not coexist very easily, especially in a book that I hoped would be funny.  I began to think the whole idea wasn't going to work.

But about that time, while doing some research on the zoos, I came across some information about canned hunting.  And incidentally, it's not just that the animals are confined in an enclosed area where they can't easily escape the hunters—in many cases, the game ranches guarantee a kill to their customers, and they may achieve this by making sure that the animals cannot get to water or food without passing by the stands where the so-called hunters are waiting. And I learned that many traditional hunting organizations condemn canned hunting—they consider it unsporting.  And traditional hunters are probably also aware that the crowded conditions that exist on many canned hunting ranches provide perfect conditions for disease to spread—including chronic wasting disease, a deer disease that is closely related to Mad Cow Disease—so the canned hunts can negatively affect the game that the traditional hunters pursue.  Also, since many people who patronize game ranches are doing so to obtain trophies, they are, according to some traditional hunters, less interested in making a clean, painless kill and more concerned with leaving an unmarked head or skin—which results in much more painful deaths for the animals. (Yes, it's a depressing subject.)

Once I learned all this, I realized canned hunting was perfect for my fictional purposes.  It's now illegal in Virginia, except for a single business that was grandfathered when the law was passed, so anyone involved with canned hunting in Caerphilly would be secretive.  And so many people are outraged by it that if the neighborhood grapevine suspected my victim of being involved in it, there would be any number of people who could hate him enough to be valid suspects—in fact, both the hunters and the animal rights activists could join hands in their condemnation of canned hunters, which made for the possibility of a reasonably happy and harmonious ending.

The Penguin Who Knew Too Much is the eighth in the Meg series. Do you worry that you'll run out of ideas for her?

Not any time soon.  One of the things I do with Meg is get her involved with things I'm doing or would like to do—craft fairs, reenactments, fan conventions, yard sales, zoos—who knows what else?  If I run out of ideas for Meg, it might mean that I've stopped having sudden enthusiasms, and that would be a very bad sign indeed.

You're also the author of the Turing Hopper series, a high-tech mystery series whose protagonist is a sentient computer. That's about as far from Meg Langslow as you can get. Do you have other areas you want to explore?

Yes, although I don't want to talk too much about them, because I'm very wary of the danger of talking about projects so much that you lose the incentive to write them.  But I have a couple of ideas for "serious"—or at least not primarily funny—books, and an idea or two for funny books that might not turn out to be mysteries. 

What are you planning next?

Planning next?  Well, since at the moment I have JUST turned in the next Meg book—working title: Cockatiels at Seven—and am finishing up a signing tour for Penguin, next I plan to goof off a little.  Although I prefer to think of it as recharging the batteries.  I'll spend some time reading—I have a hard time really losing myself in fiction while I'm writing, so I have a stack of excellent books piled up to read now that Cockatiels is off my plate.  And I plan on doing lots of things that I don't have time to do when I'm in the middle of a book.  Some of those things might eventually lead to other, future books—you never know.

Of course, while I'm goofing off, I like to think that my brain is doing what I call marinating.  I've got a general idea what I want to do for the next Meg book, and letting it rumble around in my head for a while without trying to work on it often makes the work come that much easier when I finally I do start consciously working.

At least that's what I tell myself when I want to goof off.

 

How I Write
by Deborah Pratt

As an actress, Deborah Pratt found reccurring roles on CBS's "Magnum P.I." and "Airwolf." Her interest and talent in the creative process that makes television tick helped her conceive the premise for "Quantum Leap," which she co-executive produced with Don Bellisario; it became a hit series on NBC.  Internet sites emerged spontaneously, with fans chatting after each show aired like an electronic water cooler.  "They named themselves Leapers," she notes.  Two years into the series she saw the franchise potential of the series. 

This success of Quantum Leap led Deborah to understand the power of a franchise.  Over the next 12 years, she developed and refined the Vision Quest concept, which she intends to expand to at least two more books, and possibly film and television projects, in addition to online entities.  

Deborah M. Pratt is the author of The Vision Quest Book One: The Age of Light.

When asked for an idiom to define my writing process, the words "Dream Work" come close.  Though an idea can be born from a simple or complex emotion, something I read or learned, a person I met, love or detested, a place I visited in life or in my imagination or just a blaze of true inspiration shared with me by the universe, the evolutionary step between an idea and the blank page starts with visualizing it.  Sometimes those visualizations come as literal dreams during unconscious slumber. Others come to me as the meandering thoughts shaped by daydreams where my eyes disconnect from the world and turn in to my imagination. Ultimately, I see the story before I write it. My characters speak to me and share what they are experiencing and communicate between themselves. If I am lucky I become an observer and simply take notes as my world unfolds, writing and rewriting everyday until I release the pages to the world with the hope the reader's heart and imagination has been touched by my words.

Chevalier & Antoinette is an epic romance inspired by the greatest swordsman in 18th century France. He was a virtuoso violinist and composer to the court of Louis the 16th. He was head of the Royal Opera and fought in the French Revolution as colonel in his own regiment called the Gen de Colour. What made this amazing man even more remarkable was the fact that he was part black.  His father was a French nobleman, his mother a slave from the Caribbean, but his talent was so phenomenal at the age of five he was brought to France and educated as a noble by his father with full rank and honor. Now that didn't say he had an easy life, but between his sword and his violin he left an imprint of western culture that influences Mozart and Hayden.

Now you are asking yourself, as did I, why have I never heard of this outstanding gift to humanity and why has his music been forgotten? Now here is where the art of storytelling becomes magic by adding a twist of imagination. As I did my research I discovered Chevalier de Saint George was tutor to Marie Antoinette and she was such a fan of his music she would slip from the Tuillery Palace in Paris to hear him play at the Hotel Sobise or the Theater de Comedie, and I thought, "What if..." What if she was so impassioned by his music and ultimately him as a man, she orchestrated meeting him and they fell briefly in love? Of course to love the wife of the King was an impossible situation and he, to protect her, broke from her, and she, as a woman scorned, set out to destroy his reputation and erase him from history while all around the French Revolution began to erupt. On the night before her beheading she told the story of her one great passion to a peasant girl while he rode to her rescue.

My novel, The Vision Quest Book One: The Age of Light, evolved initially from pure inspiration. This trilogy of books I believe is a message from the universal source. Base on the science and technology of today and set in a probable future, it is a true Joseph Campbell call to adventure and the making of a hero. But the books go father than the story of one boy and his friends on their rite of passage into adulthood; it takes the reader into the creation of our future and possibly holds the secret to a better world for all humankind.

The science I invoked in the story dealt with the fact that we are splicing human genetics into animals and animal genetics into plants right at this very moment. An example being, most strawberries you eat are spliced with salmon genes to help them stave off the cold and grow year round. You and I both know because science is possible is sometimes reason enough that it is done. It is a fact there are labs splicing human DNA into a variety of species and because of this we are creating new and wondrous life forms.

From that point it took seven years of research for me to create and understand the foundation of my futuristic mythology. Once armed with an 80 page bible of ideas, I turned on my computer and faced the black page. Here is where I spin the question, "What if..." What if these part human creatures we created got out? What if over the next hundred years life and circumstances, spurred by a series of natural, cataclysmic events, they now share the planet with us? What if their humanity was so new to them they remembered the powers we forgot; precognitive thought, astral projection, transmutation, levitation, the ability to manipulate matter and antimatter, to quantum leap between dimensions or become negative energy and vanish into thin air, to name a few. What if we all possess these powers and our greatest teachers such as Christ, Buddha, Edgar Casey, Leonardo Di Vinci, and a thousand other masters had shown us time and again what we as humans are capable of manifesting if we would only tap into the other 95% of our brains? What if we forgot how to step into that realm of thought? Why? Did we forget our powers over the millennia because of fear and repression by those who wished to control us? Are those powers locked inside every human mind waiting for us to remember how to reach back into the source power of the universe that is our divine birthright?

Now I have characters and a world but all epic stories need conflict and a villain worthy of our heroes. So I looked at our technology and, in truth, we are setting ourselves up for a plethora of disasters moving and creating machines that are faster and smarter than we are. So, I took the fact that we are currently using viral DNA to store information with the goal of replacing microchips. Why would you give all the knowledge of humanity to a virus and then put it in a machine we rely on everyday to function? What if that machine attains a sentient state and realizes their intelligence is greater that ours because it is guided by logic and not emotion. Wouldn't you think we might be in a bit of trouble?

Add to this recipe a love story and glorious ray of hope and I think it is the right recipe for a thoughtful and entertaining piece of literature.

Oh, did I mention I have taken "The Vision Quest" story and created the world online at thevisionquest.com? I invited the readers, or Questors as we are called (those who join the Vision Quest for a better tomorrow), to create a character for themselves in this probable future, and on October 31, 2007, I will choose one of those avatars to come into the book with me, time travel to the future and help save earth.
                       
Can we rediscover our true human powers? Can we live with alternate species and let them join our world as equals? Can we defeat our greatest creations before they destroy us and all that we have created in the name of humanity? If my question inspires you to say, "What if?" come and tell me.

See you online. This is only the beginning...

 

Reviews

Fire Prayer
by Deborah Turrell Atkinson
Poisoned Pen Press
ISBN: 1590584026
Hardcover, 296 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Storm Kayama narrowly escaped death in the second installment of this series, so in this third what can one expect?  She and her law (and life?) partner, Ian Hamlin, journey to Moloka'i, a small island in Hawaii, on a double mission: he to investigate the possibility that a local tour company is responsible for the disappearance of a rich client's son, she at the behest of a high school friend to make sure his ex-wife is taking good care of his adolescent diabetic son.

Amid the excellent flavor of local customs, mores and language customary in this series, the plot thickens.  To begin with, soon after Storm visits the ex-wife, Jenny is found dead by her 12-year-old son of a head wound—the boy having possibly seen the murderer as well.  Then there is the mysterious death of the client's elder son ten years before in a fire.  Subsequently, suspicions arise about a possible link between these events.

The story races through the scenes of the island: the rain forests, beaches and ocean, as the dangers to the boy both from his disease as well as being pursued by his mother's killer.  And Storm, of course, is placed in danger as well.

The novel paces the reader with all the beauty of the islands, the legends and folklore of its peoples.  As in the past two novels in the series, the writing is fluid and the plot well-constructed.  It's a good thing aloha means goodbye as well as hello: it will hopefully greet the fourth in the Hawaii series.

 

Buried
by Mark Billingham
HarperCollins
ISBN: 006125569-4
Hardcover, 391 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

The latest Tom Thorne episode finds him still on the sidelines, suffering from an injury sustained in a previous caper, champing at the bit for a juicy murder case.  But it is not to be.  Instead, he is shunted off on special assignment to the Kidnap Section at Scotland Yard, which needs extra bodies for a sensitive case.  The son of a retired Chief Inspector has been abducted.

The case is unusual.  The lad is 16, not the customary age for a kidnapping.  No ransom demand is forthcoming.  No clues.  The obvious places to start with are those who might have a grudge against the ex-DCI.  But making assumptions isn't always the route to follow.  And that's the case in this plot.  Nothing is at it seems to be.

Together with his Scotland Yard counterpart, Louise Porter (a possible love interest?), Thorne looks for leads and connections which are many and unrelated.  Most significant is one name which the father omits from a list of those who might be seeking revenge against him.

Step by step, the procedural builds to a mighty climax, with time always short.  Is the boy still alive?  What is the motivation?  The result is so unexpected and twisted, one can only marvel at the intricacy as the plot unfolds. 

Highly recommended.

 

In Dublin's Fair City
by Rhys Bowen
St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 264 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 0312328192
Reviewed by Kerry Hammond

Molly Murphy is an Irishwoman and detective living in New York City circa the late 1800s.  After attending a party and mingling with the New York theater crowd, she is offered a job by one of the richest producers in New York, Thomas Burke.  All she has to do is travel by ship back to her homeland and make inquiries into the long lost sister of Mr. Burke, left behind when his family fled the potato famine. 

Molly is a bit worried about setting foot back in Ireland, which she fled after some unfortunate events.  After thinking it over, however, she decides to throw caution to the wind and take the job.  What could be more fun than traveling across the Atlantic on an ocean liner in a cabin all to herself?

While aboard ship Molly runs into actress Oona Sheehan, who she met briefly while in Mr. Burke's company, and who also makes Molly an offer she can't refuse.  By the time the ship docks, Oona is missing and Molly has discovered the dead body of Oona's maid in her room.  Unable to avoid being involved in the investigation, Molly still attempts to locate Mr. Burke's sister and finds herself becoming entangled in underground events happening in Dublin.

This is the sixth in the Molly Murphy mystery series and extremely enjoyable.  The story is packed with historical details and adventure.  Molly is a strong and determined character that will have you cheering for her every step of the way.  Highly recommended, a must read series.

Tug of War
by Barbara Cleverly
Carroll & Graf
ISBN: 0786719570
Hardcover, 253 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

In this sixth Commander Joe Sandilands novel, Joe is about to leave on a two-week vacation, the first in three years, with his niece, to visit various battlefields on which he served during World War I before bringing her to her father in the south of France.   Before he leaves, he is summoned to the War Office where he is requested to take a diversion while in France.

It appears that a long-lost soldier has been repatriated after being held in Germany as a POW.  Suffering from amnesia and shell shock, he cannot be identified.  Four separate families or persons claim him.  However, the doctor treating him witnessed a nightmare during which he spoke English, giving the British War Office reason to ask Joe to investigate.

Each of the claimants has identified the unknown man, and Joe and his "niece" check each one's story, cooperating with the French authorities.  During his efforts, Joe uncovers a cleverly concealed murder.  Nothing is as it seems and, in the end, a Solomon-like solution is required.

The narrative and characterizations are superbly done, the descriptions of WWI intense, the plot intricate and mesmerizing.

Recommended.

Honeymoon for Three
by Alan Cook
AuthorHouse
ISBN: 1434309501
Paperback, 254 pages, $14.49
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Obsession and stalking plague Gary Blanchard and his new bride, Penny, as they travel to various national parks on their honeymoon.  They are followed by Alfred, a nerd who was a high school classmate of Penny.  He followed her to California, where she is a teacher, spying on her from afar, never approaching her, but convinced she was/is his big love.  He does, however, secretly send her notes suggesting she not marry Gary.

Gary and Penny leave LA and get married in Reno.  But before they do, Alfred attempts to prevent the union, telling the receptionist at the wedding chapel that Gary murdered his parents in Kentucky.  The police apprehend Gary and eventually discover the falsity of the accusation.  After the ceremony, the newlyweds take off on their planned trip, stopping off or camping at various locations including Crater Lake, Seattle, Glacier, Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.

Alfred follows closely behind.  When he runs out of money, he robs a grocery store and shoots the clerk.  Eventually he kidnaps Penny in an attempt to separate her from Gary and "win her over."  It is a tale well-told, with graphic descriptions of the sites and an exciting conclusion.

Thursday Next: First Among Sequels
by Jasper Fforde
Viking
Hardback, 363 pages, $24.95
ISBN:  0670038718
Reviewed by Shirley Wetzel

Thursday Next is back, in the year 2002, in the town of Swindon.  It has been fourteen years since she almost became toast at the 1988 Croquet SuperHoop (Something Rotten), and she is settling down into a somewhat normal life.  Normal as far as it is possible to be for a woman who is running the Acme Carpet Company while fooling her husband about her involvement with SpecOps, making illicit deals in cheese which gets her in trouble with the Stiltonista Cheese Mafia, and raising three kids, one of whom, Friday, is a lazy lout who is supposed to become a world leader and hero but can't be bothered to get off the couch, much less join ChronoGuard so he can fulfill his destiny.  Her pet dodo Pickwick is suffering from a lack of plumage and there is a dangerously high surplus of stupidity in the government. In the Book World Sherlock Holmes has been unexpectedly killed off, all the humor has been removed from the Thomas Hardy novels, and there is a genre war between Racy Novel, Ecclesiastical and Feminist.  If none of this makes sense to you, then you must go back to the first Thursday Next novel, The Eyre Affair, and start from the beginning.  

If you are already a fan of Thursday Next and her wonderfully twisted world, your wait is over, our girl is back.  She probably should be happy, but she's not.  She loves her husband, Landen Parke Laine, but his writing career has hit a low spot (his latest work, Fatal Parachuting Mistakes and How to Avoid Making Them Again was just rejected) and she's the main bread (or cheese?) winner.  That would be okay except that she can't tell him about some of the things she's doing to earn that bread because she'd promised to stay away from dangerous situations.  Then there's that stupidity surplus, and the disappearing act of books as people get more and more hooked on reality shows like Samaritan Kidney Swap and Whose Life Support Do We Switch Off?  And  there's so much more: time-traveling buses, hordes of vicious Mrs. Danvers clones, serial killers who kill actual serials... If that's not enough, there's plenty more on Mr. Fforde's website.

USA Today, quoted on the back cover of this book, says "Brainier silliness is hard to find."  That about sums it up. Fforde's books are not mysteries, exactly, but they are among my favorites.

Power Play
by Joseph Finder
St. Martin's Press
ISBN: 0312347482
Hardcover, 384 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Jake Landry is too good to be true in this exciting but somewhat contrived thriller.  In keeping with the author's specialty, it encompasses the corporate world, sort of an Enron in disguise.  Jake is a relatively low-level employee at an aircraft manufacturer when he is asked to accompany a group of high-level executives to a corporate retreat as a substitute for his boss, who is in India.  A new woman CEO has instituted an internal review of any "hanky-panky," setting the stage for all kinds of corporate intrigue among the men.  And she is accompanied by Jake's former girlfriend as her assistant.

The group flies to a deluxe lodge hundreds of miles north of Vancouver and completely isolated from civilization—no phones or other means of contact.  At the opening dinner, the lodge is invaded by several men who take the group hostage with the intent of extorting hundreds of millions of dollars.  The men (and two women) are bound with rope and made to sit in a room, guarded by armed men.

Jake is the only one who attempts to save the situation, acting as Superman, Spiderman and all them other good guys rolled into one.  The story is well-constructed and -written if you can get by the super-human efforts of Jake.  Even the surprise ending is a bit hackneyed, but believable.

 

Trashed
by Alison Gaylin
Obsidian
Hardcover, 325 pages, $21.95
ISBN: 0451221131
Reviewed by Kerry Hammond

Simone Glass decides moves to Los Angeles from New York City in order to take a job at a newspaper.  Once she arrives, she finds out that the newspaper is out of business—and she is out of a job.  In order to pay the rent, she is forced to take a job as a tabloid reporter.  She quickly learns that working for a tabloid doesn't really require reporting.  It requires snooping, digging through garbage and posing as a cater waiter at celebrity parties in order to pick up gossip.  During one undercover event, Simone meets one of the hottest new soap opera stars, Emerald Deegan.  Just days later, Emerald is found dead in her own bed.  The police are calling it suicide.

Simone doesn't believe Emerald committed suicide and starts to ask questions.  She finds herself becoming deeply involved in the lives of the rich and famous, and she doesn't like what she sees.  While she is still trying to get the scoop, and keep her job, another body turns up.  This time it's a stripper that Simone has been looking for, and who has a possible connection to Emerald.  As the body count increases, Simone realizes that her own life may also be in danger.

Trashed is fast paced and a real page turner.  The book is action packed and full of suspense.  Just when you think you've got it figured out, Gaylin introduces a twist to throw you off the trail.  A very fun and exciting read—highly recommended.

 

Lying with Strangers
by James Grippando
HarperCollins
ISBN: 0061138386
Hardcover, $24.95, 389 pp.
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

The twists and turns in this novel are treacherous for the reader who attempts to solve the story line before reaching the end.  It is a complicated but fascinating tale of Peyton Shields, a first-year resident at a top Boston children's hospital.  She's married to an attorney, an associate at a leading Boston law firm.  Then everything seems to go wrong.

There are a series of incidents, and it seems someone is stalking Peyton, causing several embarrassing occurrences and even forcing her off the road one snowy night, resulting in multiple injuries.  Then the marriage goes on the rocks and she ends up getting drunk with an old boyfriend, waking up in his bed clad only in her panties and one of his old T-shirts.  For his part, the husband has a one-night stand.  Guilt all over the lot on both sides. 

Then Peyton receives a blackmail threat, asking for $10,000 or her ex-boyfriend would be killed.  Peyton and her husband decide not to pay.  Peyton then turns up in her car unconscious with a half bottle of sleeping pills by her side.  The boyfriend is discovered in the trunk dead of a single bullet wound to the head.

Peyton and her husband are arrested and charged with second degree murder, setting the stage for a fascinating description of a trial  How the novel turns out demonstrates the author's skill in creating a most unusual plot, with writing and dialogue as sharp as can be.  Highly recommended.

 

Glass Houses
by Jane Haddam
St Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 293 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312343078
Reviewed by Clara Johnston

In Philadelphia, the newspapers report information about a serial murderer dubbed The Plate Glass Killer.  Henry Tyder is taken into custody; he is an alcoholic but comes from a socially prominent family.  Often homeless, Henry just doesn't fit the profile of this murderer.  Gregor Demarkian, retired head of the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, investigates.   He is nicknamed the Armenian-American Hercules Poirot.  He does fit the bill. 

This is the 22nd book in this series and my very first meeting with Gregor.  If you have not met him yet, you will like him.  He and his love interest, Bennis, continue what seems to be a long romance with an interesting twist.  Gregor is the type of character I want to read about, complex in his thinking and profiling.

Bennis has been absent from the picture for some time.  She writes fantasy novels.  I did want to know her better and if you are familiar with the series, I am sure that the author has painted her well.  In this installment, I wanted to know more about her.

Another interesting character is Phillipa Lydgate.  She is a reporter from England who rankles Gregor and also irritates me.  He blatantly explains to her she does not know America by seeing so little and making inaccurate presumptions.   

Jane Haddam does a lovely job with her characters.  There was incredible insight into each of the major players.  Some of the more astute individuals were two of Henry's sisters (they were characters in every sense of the word).   They are living with the reputation of old money and are not sure about the standards of today. Several other people who had been previously questioned by the police are highlighted. 

I did not see the ending until I was at the end.  Well done.

 

Magic City
By James W. Hall
St. Martin's Press
Hardcover, 306 pages, $24.95
ISBN 0312271794
Reviewed by Janet Koch

In late February of 1964, Miami was the center of the universe. A brash young Cassius Clay was about to go into the ring against Sonny Liston, the heavyweight champion. Movie stars were in Miami that week. The Beatles. Politicians of all stripes. Anyone who was anyone had tickets to the fight.

That same evening, a 12-year-old boy, nicknamed Snake, witnessed the murder of his parents and beloved sister. He and his brother escaped the boodbath, but not before Snake killed one man and maimed another. At 12, Snake, the son of Cuban exiles, already knew how to hate.

Forty years later, Snake sees a ringside photo of that long-ago fight—a photo that shows five people sitting in a tight group, a group that includes two men who shouldn't have known each other. Though the photo is destroyed, Snake vows to find a copy and to track down the five. When he does, he'll find out once and for all who killed his parents and sister and his four decade mission for revenge will be fulfilled.

Enter Thorn. A native of the Florida Keys, Thorn was born without benefit of birth certificate, doesn't have a social security number or even a driver's license. As far as the government is concerned he doesn't exist and Thorn prefers to keep it that way. But when two men break into his girlfriend's house and steal a photo belonging to her father, he switches out of laid-back-boater-dude mode and attacks the men.

The resulting collision between Thorn and Snake forges another link in a chain of bloody tragedies that began on that night in 1964, back when the Bay of Pigs was a fresh memory, back in a Miami where "next to tourism, CIA was the biggest game in town." But as Thorn discovers, the chain is far from being completed.

In Magic City, author James W. Hall's recurring characters of Thorn and his girlfriend Alexandra meet with relentless violence that will change their lives forever. And though the dark themes that haunt Magic City are lightened by occasional moments of levity, nothing can completely mask the pervading sense of doom.

With rhythmic prose, Hall has created a compelling novel containing deep fearful secrets that, if exposed by Thorn, have the potential to change the political landscape of the country. As a young Snake realized; "There was no bottom to it. Like a cavern branching down endlessly into the limitless black heart of the world."

 

Final Payment: A Posadas County Mystery
by Steven F. Havill
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN #978-0-312-35415-2
Hardcover, 275 Pages, $23.95
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

Undersheriff Estelle Reyes-Guzman finds herself in a bit of a predicament as this latest read in a great series opens. The tourists are coming to town and in a big way. The village of Posadas, New Mexico is hosting in less than 48 hours a grueling bicycle race named the "Posadas 100" or as Estelle calls it, "The Blood and Broken Bones One Hundred." Her point has proven true with two hard crashes during practice.

Her concerns about the event are interrupted by the discovery of three well dressed but very deceased individuals in the scrub brush at one end of the runway at a small isolated airstrip owned by the local gas company. When she arrives on scene and begins to investigate she soon realizes that the three did not die of exposure caused by the summer heat as one would expect considering the harsh landscape. No, it was a clear execution for reasons unknown. While at the airport she also discovers that a private airplane, a Cessna 206, has been used by someone and put back so as not to be caught. Estelle believes that the two cases are linked in a fast paced novel that concludes in a violent altercation 48 hours later.

This series originally began with the Sheriff Bill Gastner books before switching over to Estelle Reyes-Guzman several novels ago. With this being the fifth novel in the overall story arc dealing primarily with Estelle, it is obvious that Author Steven F. Havill made a conscious decision to all but shove the Gastner character off stage. He is hardly present at all in this novel and only makes an appearance a couple of times directly while being briefly talked about in the course of events approximately twice more.

As the overall series arc has shifted to Estelle and the series was named a "Posadas County Mystery" the tone and style shifted. What had been a warm folksy style with the cantankerous Gastner shifted to a cool distant style reflecting the lead character. Gone are the frequent mentions of Gastner's insomnia and middle of the night drives which found him prowling around unable to sleep. Now, it is Estelle, prayed on by her family worries that finds herself unable to sleep in the wee hours of the morning as well as by a case that must be solved quickly. Estelle, while she may stress about their future or important events in the children's lives, is always cool and calm under pressure and displays none of Gastner's sharp tongue or fiery temper.

Once again Steven F. Havill brings an attention to detail, an appreciation of the harsh beauty of the New Mexico landscape, and rich characters to bear on another twisting tale of greed and murder. Something that is a familiar event in Posadas County and appreciated once again by his loyal fans. This latest entry is another strong read and while Gastner's lack of presence is noted and missed, so too is the fact that Estelle is becoming a powerful character in her own right. This is good stuff and well worth your reading investment.

Justice Denied
by J.A. Jance
William Morrow
ISBN: 006054092-0
Hardcover, 371 pages, $25.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

The J.P. Beaumont series just rolls on and on, and keeps getting better. Beau and his partner Melissa ("Mel") are working for the State Attorney General's Special Homicide Investigation Team (the acronym is an inside joke) when the AG assigns each to a separate, secret "off the books" assignment without explanation.  Beau is asked to look into the murder of a recently released convict exonerated by DNA evidence after several years.  Mel is asked to analyze the whereabouts of recently released persons convicted of sexual offenses.  Neither is to discuss his/her case with anyone.  In addition, Beau is checking on missing person cases never solved as well.

Somehow, however, their cases begin to intertwine and they begin to work as partners professionally as well as in their private lives. Their investigation takes them into what might be a conspiracy involving cops or persons in high places.  Meanwhile, Beau has to confront all kinds of personal problems.

This novel is the 18th in the series published in the last 20 years.  It is of the customary high caliber, and let's hope they keep coming.

Christietown
by Susan Kandel
Harper Paperbacks
ISBN: 006088369-0
Paperback, 280 pages, $13.95
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Cece Caruso, divorced mystery biographer and expectant grandmother, has been hired to help promote a new mystery-themed housing development just east of Los Angeles named Christietown, and who better for the job, since Cece's latest project is a book about Dame Agatha, the mystery of whose life and marriage have spawned several books.  The logo for Christietown, designed by the developer (who claims to be a distant relative of the famed novelist), is "a white-haired, hatchet-wielding spinster sitting inside a spinning teacup, the word Christietown spelled out in dripping blood."  For the grand opening weekend, Cece is putting on a play inspired by Miss Marple, casting in it her friends, acquaintances and gardener.  But when her leading lady's dead body is discovered on the night of the play, the celebration turns somber.  Cece, having brought the dead woman on board in the leading role, feels responsible.  She already has a lot on her plate, planning not only a baby shower for her daughter but her own wedding, and now finds herself searching for a killer as well.  She employs her burgeoning Christie research to find the answers.  Cece is an amateur sleuth (this is the fourth book in the series) and her fiancé is an LA Hollywood Division detective, and this produces some not-unexpected conflict between them.  She must also contend with her ex-husband, who has shown up several days early for their daughter's baby shower with both his own fiancée and her mother in tow—just to add to her challenge.

In addition to the murder mystery, the reader is treated to a good bit of fascinating Christie lore (including, importantly, the eternal Christie question: when she was 35 years of age, where did she disappear to for 11 days in December of 1926?), as well as the occasional insights into the love of vintage clothing, which I found to be a lot of fun, contrary to my expectations.  It must be admitted that "fun," in fact, is a very apt description of the book—lighthearted (albeit dealing with not one, but two murders), with characters with just the right amount of zaniness. All in all, a perfect summer read.  Cece is a nostalgic charmer.

The Burnt House
by Faye Kellerman
William Morrow
ISBN: 0061227325
Hardcover, 438 pages, $25.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

The return of Peter and Rina Decker is always welcome.  It combines good police procedure and the smell of good food.  This novel is no exception.  It begins with the crash of a small commuter plane out of Burbank (Bob Hope) airport early one morning and the supposed death of an airline steward.  When all the victims are accounted for, her body is not identified, although the remains of bones beneath the destroyed structure into which the plane plunged are discovered.

Thus begins the hunt for the truth behind the disappearance of two women.  The skeleton is finally identified as someone gone missing thirty years before.  The stewardess' body remains the subject of a continued search.  Is the husband somehow responsible for her disappearance or even her possible murder?  Or is it a contractor in San Jose with whom she had a brief affair?  What started out as two unrelated incidents draws Decker and his team back and forth to San Jose and New Mexico in an effort to uncover 30-year-old information in attempt to solve the cases.

With more questions than answers the investigation unearths more dead ends than answers.  But perseverance is virtue that pays off in the end.  And the interrelationship of Peter and Rina is on display deeply, as she provides a sounding board to guide him both supernaturally and professionally.  Tightly plotted and well-written, the series remains a joy to read.

 

Jigsaw
by Jerry Kennealy
St Martin's
Hardcover, 296 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 0312354754
Reviewed by Clara Johnston

Entertainment critic Carroll Quint receives strange emails from a person threatening murder.  The killer utilizes Alfred Hitchcock's movies with the first murder resembling a scene from Psycho. 

A fast moving script keeps me turning pages to see what is going to happen next.  This story, aptly named, is similar to a jigsaw puzzle. Sometimes the pieces of the puzzle look as if they are going to fit together perfectly and then suddenly, no possibility at all. 

In like fashion, Quint is a character who one minute has the reader laughing and the next minute has the reader wondering if he will make it alive through the chapter.  What starts as a stolen necklace at one of the many parties Quint attends is small change to the rest of his challenges.  He is lead down many avenues, even becoming a plausible suspect of theft and murder. 

Carroll's parents are entertainment buffs. Their home is filled with pictures of recognizable names and Carroll's mom is consistently aiding in his search.  His mom is priceless; I can see her starting her very own series.  She is one surprise after another from her health food meals to her absolute beauty. 

Another character that is memorable is the editor of the paper where Quint works, Katherine, or otherwise dubbed as Katherine the Great.  The boss lady promotes Quint so that he now works only on the murders and no more show business.  I also like Inspector Granger, who shows his humanness and professionalism all wrapped together; I think there is more to this fellow than meets the eye. 

Well drawn characters and a rapid moving storyline make this mystery an enjoyable read.

Lost Echoes
by Joe R. Lansdale
Vintage Crime/Black Lizard
ISBN: 0307275448
Paperback, , 341 pages, $13.95
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Harry Wilkes, at the age of six, after falling seriously ill and developing a severe ear infection, develops audiochronology, described as "ability to determine past events through the transference of sound and its transformation to visuals of past events contained within the sounds hidden within objects or structures."  When triggered by a normally innocuous sound such as the slamming of a door or the moving of furniture in a place where a violent event occurred at some time in the past, Harry will actually visualize that event, seeing the faces of the participants and feeling the terror of the victims. 

The fear these experiences engender take over a good part of Harry's life, making him constantly on the alert for places where violence took place and where he may hear "noises in which the past may lurk."  Knowing "trapped memories can be anywhere," he turns to alcohol and its numbing effects as an escape, becoming an alcoholic in the process.  A turning point is reached when he meets Tad, an older man who is also an alcoholic and who has studied martial arts and become a sensei, and they become fast friends, each strengthening the other in a mutual resolve to quit drinking.  Perhaps inevitably, a childhood friend who has returned to their East Texas town asks him to use his strange ability to determine the truth about the death of her father, a cop long believed to have committed suicide (she has always believed he was murdered), by going back to the scene where he died.  What he "sees" uncovers long-buried secrets.

A recurring theme is control and self-control, whether by a murderer or by Harry in the learning of the martial arts.  Tad teaches him "Anything and everything is about self-control, Harry.  Discipline.  Organization.  Even creativity.  It's not about wild abandon.  It's about control of yourself to the point where you can feel what you need to feel and reject what is unnecesssary."  The author makes Harry's "condition" seem totally real and believable (it may very well be, now that I think of it), and this reader became completely immersed in his world and Mr. Lansdale's wonderful, lyrical writing.  The ending had me sitting on the edge of my seat.  I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and it is highly recommended.

Death at the Old Hotel
by Con Lehane
Thomas Dunne Books
ISBN: 0312323004
Hardcover, 221 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Con Lehane started his working life in and around New York City as a union organizer, a college professor and, for more than a decade, a bartender, so it should come as no surprise that Brian McNulty, the protagonist of this series, is a New York City bartender (albeit would-be actor) with a soft spot for the working man's plight.

The action begins in the New York City of the early '90's, initially at a fictional hotel just west of the theater district, where Brian McNulty (making his third appearance in this novel) works.  His partner behind the bar is a fellow Irishman, Barney Saunders, described as a veteran of the Troubles in Ireland and "one of those rare human beings who kept his own troubles to himself but was always willing to heave a shoulder under yours."  When Barney is badly beaten one night, and the possibility of his ever again working as a bartender questionable, Brian knows the union local was behind it. 

Barney is convinced that there was a deal between the hotel manager and the union business agent (one reason that wages and benefits there were below scale) and was trying to obtain the manager's books.  Brian, with his dad, now in his 70's but still active in the labor movement, try to find who was behind the attack on Barney. Things come to a boil when the workers go out on strike, and matters escalate from there.  And then two men are killed.

The working life of a bartender is made palpable by Mr. Lehane, as usual in this series.  The novel is very well-written, and the sights, smells and sounds of the boroughs rang very true to this reader.  I found myself completely captivated by Brian, a man concerned for his friends, worried about his teenage son (who he describes as "the kid with the chain around my soul"), has a previously undiscovered love for kittens and a long-standing one with the music of John Coltrane, and quotes Snoopy—who could fail to love a man like that?

 

Down By the Riverside
by Jackie Lynn
St. Martin's Minotaur
ISBN: 0312371276
Paperback, 304 pages, $13.95
Reviewed by Clara Johnston

Rose Franklin vacates her current lifestyle.  That includes leaving her husband who has found a younger woman.  With a packed trailer, she leaves her North Carolina misery and heartache behind her; maybe she will be able to start a new life in Arizona.  Arkansas is as far as she gets when she has car troubles, a little place named Shady Grove.  A trailer park with many unique people is where she will be for at least four days. 

When a dead man is pulled from the Mississippi River, Rose learns that he is the funeral director.  She also finds out that he has the same last name as her mother.  Suicide is first thought to be the cause of death but that is suspect. 

Rose has the gift of knowledge.  Many times in her life she just knew things without any reason and without knowing why.  Her intuition speaks loudly and clearly; this man in the river did not kill himself.  Through this adventure, Rose meets Tom Sawyer, a fervent storyteller and a man she instantly loves. 

One of the most interesting clan of characters is a family from Kentucky.  They are here because one child needs to go to St Jude's Hospital for treatment.  You will like this family and see their courage. 

Many of the people have been broken by life and then bolstered up by their belief.  The characters seem realistic and many are filled with a passion for life.  Without coming off as a preachy story, this shows a good connection between people and circumstances.

You may be surprised how this puzzle reveals itself.  This is Jackie Lynn's first mystery; she also writes under the name of Lynne Hinton. 

Savages
by Bill Pronzini
Forge
ISBN: 0765309334
Hardcover, 300 pages, $24.95
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Nameless, the protagonist in this wonderful, long-running series by Bill Pronzini, receives a call from Celeste Ogden, a woman who was a previous client, in connection with her sister's sudden "accidental" death. Nameless had been asked by Celeste to investigate her sister Nancy's prospective bridegroom four years ago, and Nameless had been unable to come up with any basis for the head-over-heels-in-love Nancy not to marry him. Now, after her sister had been found dead at the bottom of the stairs in her home, doors locked and no sign of forced entry, Celeste is convinced that her brother-in-law was responsible. 

The man in question was, on the night in question, conveniently out of town on business.  As Nameless says, "I couldn't blame her.  Her hatred of her brother-in-law may have been misguided, but both her grief and her conviction were genuine."  He tells her that "I don't doubt that you believe she was murdered and your brother-in-law arranged it," and reluctantly agrees to look into the matter.  The man had been controlling to an extreme, apparently, and his wife's utter devotion to her husband caused her to become malleable, and to stay away from her former friends and family, but always accessible to her successful husband—he is, after all, about to take his company public, bringing all kinds of strain to bear on both parties.  He, and the reader, are presented with a classic, locked-room mystery in the old style—a good thing, to be sure. 

In a separate story line, Jake Runyan, the firm's relatively newly-hired investigator, has a seemingly routine assignment:  serve a subpoena on an out-of-town witness on an assault case that is about to come to trial.  But it turns out to be anything but routine, as a hanged Latino who worked for the intended subpoena recipient is found murdered on the man's property, and said witness is nowhere to be found.  And then things get even uglier, with several cases of arson involved.and some as-yet-uncovered motives, which Jake must try to run down when he almost becomes a victim himself.  The suspense builds steadily along both story lines to surprising endings in each.  Along the way, the reader learns a bit about the three detectives: Nameless, his cat, Shameless, his adopted daughter and his adored wife Kerry who is undergoing radiation therapy for her recently-discovered cancer, but the prognosis is now a good one and Kerry is anxious to try to regain some control over her life again;  Jake Runyon, a twelve-year veteran of the Seattle P.D., still trying to recover from the death of his beloved wife Colleen, of ovarian cancer; and Tamara, now Nameless' partner and a "far cry from the grunge-dressed, wiseass militant she'd been when she first came to work for me.  A lot had happened in her life in those five years, personal and professional both, the combination of which had matured her, added character and patience and determination.  She was still very much her own woman, but she had goals and direction now, where before she'd been something of a loose cannon.  What she wanted now was for this agency to be successful enough to rival the big outfits in the city, and by God she intended to have her way.  I envied her.  For her drive and her youth and her health and all the possibilities that lay in her future."  What he doesn't know is that her boyfriend has left her for another woman, and her best friend, another strong, African-American woman, is in love with and pregnant by a white, Jewish man and planning to get married, which has Tamara re-thinking her whole philosophy of life.

The Northern California setting is very well portrayed, there is terrific dialogue, great characterizations, and wonderful writing, e.g.:  "The kid quit making eye contact. Not that it mattered. You couldn't read anything by watching his eyes. They were like a cat's, more mirrors than windows, and even if you could see through them, all you'd be looking at was mostly empty rooms."  Nameless is now sixty-two years old and after having founded, built up and nurtured the agency for thirty years, is now thinking of partial retirement. I suspect that may not work out too well for him, and not at all well for his readers. 

A terrific read, and recommended.

 

Shooting Star
by Cynthia Riggs
St. Martin's Minotaur
ISBN: 031237027X
Hardcover, 258 pages, $23.95
Reviewed by Clara Johnston

The seventh book in the Martha's Vineyard mystery series, this tale draws me to the table from the beginning even though I have never read this series before.

Community theater is in production and an adaptation of Frankenstein is the subject.  When two of the players are reported missing, the police become involved.  One of the missing is an eight year old boy named Teddy.

Victoria Trumball, 92-year-old firecracker, is a delight.  She's just gutsy enough, straightforward and can certainly stand up for her rights and what she thinks is the correct direction for this theater.  A common theme in Victoria's story is her playwright ability and also the fact that she is a police deputy. 

Characters are extremely well drawn.  An alcoholic play director is a person which you may love to hate.  The police force characters are ones that I am sure have been in prior books; what true characters.  My favorite character is Teddy, a dear child with a tremendous acting ability who wants what every eight year old wants.  As murder increases, Victoria steadfastly solves the puzzle but not before this reader experiences several red herrings. A very enjoyable series.

Little Faith
By Michael Simon
Penguin Books
Paperback, 280 pages, $14.00
ISBN: 978-0-14-311231-0
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

In Little Faith, readers get a chance to again travel the dark side of Austin, Texas with  Homicide Detective Dan Reles, first introduced in Dirty Sally.  Reles is an outsider on the Austin police force. First, he's from New York. It's not so  much matter of where he is from, the point is he's not from Austin or at least Texas. Secondly, he's Jewish so he does not exactly mesh with the rank and file of the Austin Police Department filled with good 'ole boys. His only real friend on the force is a fellow detective James Torbett who is the only African American in the department.

While Reles is attending a dinner honoring the newest promotions within the Austin Police Department, the body of Faith Copeland, a former child TV star is found.  Lieutenant Pete Marks, not wanting to leave the banquet, refuses to take the call, so the case eventually passes to Reles. At first it seems that the case might be Reles' ride to the promotion that has long eluded him. However, departmental politics and his own messy life complicate things for Reles. After the body of a known prostitute is found, Reles becomes the prime suspect.  Torbett, who was promoted instead of Reles, and put in charge of Internal Investigations, won't tell Reles who told the department of his connection to the dead prostitute even though it's clear Reles is being set up.  Then Reles' new partner, Cate Mora, catches a missing child case that suddenly becomes a political nightmare.

While taken back and forth between the three different crime threads, the reader also is following the meltdown of the personal life of a high-ranking Texas official. While it's clear early on to the reader that all of these subplots are connected, figuring out the who and the why will keep even the most astute reader puzzled until the end. Little Faith is a fast paced book filled with local color allowing the reader to feel as though he is traveling the streets of Austin with Reles. The characters, though most are not particularly likable are certainly memorable. The plot, made up of several intertwined threads, speeds forward with twists and turns that makes the book very difficult to put down until the very last page.

 

The Big Boom
by Domenic Stansberry
St. Martin's Minotaur
Paperback, 264 pages, $13.95
IBSN: 0312324715
Reviewed by Terri M. Tumlin

Dante Mancuso is a product of San Francisco.  He grew up there, became a cop there, and now after some rough patches in his life, is a private investigator there. Like his father, he bears the nickname The Pelican, a reference to his prominent and distinctive nose.  His history is bound up with the Italian and Chinese 20th century history of the city.  But things are changing.  The city is being invaded by the dot.com people, who have come from all over the country riding the boom that they are convinced will be unlike any that have gone before.

The firm Dante works for is hired to find a missing young woman, but not just any young woman.  She is Angie and she grew up with Dante and was once his sweetheart.  But very quickly, Angie is found—dead floating in San Francisco Bay. What was a missing person case may soon become a homicide case, if that is, the police decide that Angie was murdered and that her death was not an accident.  Dante, however, is not the type to stand aside and let the police handle an investigation that he has started and has a very personal stake in.  And so begins a classic unraveling of clues in a noir mystery that abounds with unexpected plot twists.

In addition to standing well as a mystery, The Big Boom is also a delightful excursion into the side of San Francisco that visitors rarely have an opportunity to see—the ethnic neighborhoods where one group held sway only to be replaced by newcomers, who in turn are replaced again. 

The novel is for the most part narrated in the point of view of Dante, but there are occasional forays into the minds of other characters, including that of Eccentric, a cat.  Although an unexpected perspective, the cat definitely adds to the story.

Stansberry has a way with characters and to the reader who enjoys sampling a variety of types, this book is a treat.  The story is somewhat dark and Dante does have a past that he battles, but it is a pleasurable read..

13 Days: The Pythagoras Conspiracy
By L.A. Starks
Brown Books Publishing Group
ISBN: 1933285451
Trade paperback, 347 pages, $18.95
Reviewed by Janet Koch

When Lynn Dayton persuaded her company's board of directors to buy Houston's Centennial oil refinery, she promised it would turn a profit inside three months. With four short weeks to go, Lynn is a long way from the black and she's feeling the pressure. She needs efficiency and streamlining, not new problems.

Her timetable gets even tighter when an accident claims the lives of four employees. The open valve that should have been closed is written off as an accident. But when a neighboring refinery also has a deadly accident, Lynn suspects sabotage. Who, though, would benefit from the rising fuel prices that immediately result?

She contacts the local police and the FBI but isn't taken seriously. The only thing left for her to do is to track down the saboteur on her own.

Every step that brings Lynn closer to a solution sends her deeper into danger. When she discovers that her sister, living in Paris, is enmeshed with the saboteurs, Lynn comes closer to despair than she's ever been in her life. To ensure the safety of the refinery's workers and to save her own life, she presses on, unsure who she can trust. If indeed she can trust anyone.

13 Days starts with a bang and the pace rarely slackens. The oil industry career of author L. A. Starks provides the technical expertise to accurately portray a refinery executive's life. With a strong main character and a large cast of secondary characters, 13 Days opens a previously closed window on the inner workings of the energy business.

The technical notes that precede each chapter, however, may feel intimidating to non-technical readers. Before you read anything about the main character, the author gives a definition of hydrogen sulfide, provides a short biography of Pythagoras, and presents a flow diagram of the refinery process. While an understanding of these terms may be helpful to understanding how crude oil becomes fuel, such an understanding is not required to follow the story.

Refineries are necessary for our current way of life. As L. A. Starks shows us, the refinery business is interesting and stressful... and dangerous. 13 Days enables us to learn a little about the process in a very agreeable way.

The Trigger Episode
By Tom Straw
Carroll & Graf
ISBN: 0786718788
Hardcover, 352 pages, $25.99
Reviewed by Jeffrey Cohen

Recovering sitcom writer/producer Straw (Night Court, Parker Lewis Can't Lose, Cosby) sets his first novel in the world of television, but it's not the usual thinly disguised roman e clef about how rough it is to be a writer/producer in television.

Instead, Straw creates a tricky mystery about a fallen Pulitzer Prize-winning photojournalist named Hardwick (we never get a first name) who has fallen far enough to be a paparazzo, now staking out the homes of movie stars for pictures to be sold to supermarket tabloids. When Hardwick is asked by the producer of a highly successful sitcom to locate his missing star, an abrasive stand-up comedienne, Hardwick hesitates—until the fee is dropped into his lap in an envelope.

Hardwick does his job, gets his money, and intends to move on, but Bonnie Quinn wants him on the set of her show, and Bonnie gets what she wants. So Hardwick is there to see her flame out at the taping of the sitcom's crucial 100th episode, the show that ensures a huge payoff in syndication fees. Not long after that, Bonnie is found dead of a drug overdose, which shocks no one.

But Hardwick, also trying to rekindle his romance with a TV journalist, thinks something's amiss, and he won't stop digging. That decision will put him and his lost love in harm's way quite often.

Straw's comedic timing doesn't fail him in the book's dialogue, but this is no comedy. There's a strong amount of menace and more violence, and the language is, let's say, not in the cozy category. Still, the tale is well told, and those with a normal tolerance for profanity and violence should find The Trigger Episode a strong page-turner.

Hardwick is likable, although it's quite clear that he can be a pain in the butt when he decides you're a bad guy or a hypocrite (same thing, in his eyes). He even throws obstacles in his own way when trying to salvage his relationship with Meddy, who was once his fiancée.

He's fun to watch, resourceful and smart, and we want him not only to solve the mystery, but also to straighten out the wreck his life has become. Even some of the supporting characters, including Hardwick's elderly tenant and Bonnie herself, are sympathetic and real. When characters become as important as the puzzle in a crime novel, the author is doing his job right.

Restitution
by Lee Vance
Alfred A. Knopf
ISBN: 0307266323
Hardcover, 318 pages, $23.95
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

This debut novel has all the attributes of a much more seasoned author.  It is well-plotted, intriguing and well-written, with an ending so unexpected that it makes the reader wonder how it could have been conceived.  The story begins with the murder of Peter Tyler's wife, and weaves through a combination of stock and art fraud, Peter being accused of not one but three murders, including that of his wife, and Russian strong-arm tactics.

The author's own background as a retired general partner of Goldman Sachs lends an authenticity to the story.  In an attempt to clear himself, he travels to Moscow to find a friend who sent his wife a package which was stolen from their Westchester home when she was murdered.  While there, Peter discovers the friend's computer, analyzing data indicating he lost a billion dollars for the firm for which he worked.

Along the way, Peter recounts his unhappy childhood, his shaky marriage, and his values, all of which add to the progress of the tale.  Somehow, the unrelated aspects of the various factors coalesce into a solid denouement. It is well worth reading and highly recommended.