July 2008

Welcome to the Super-Patriotic edition of Mystery Morgue! Yes, now that Independence Day is upon us (or just passed, depending on when you're reading this), we're waving flags and playing fifes all over the morgue.

And it's not just the 232nd birthday of the United States that has us excited: We're practically busting with mystery book reviews and features this month. For example:

There are reviews of 23 mystery and thriller books, including titles by Reed Farrel Coleman, Robert Fate, Libby Fischer Hellmann, S.L. Linnea, David Skibbins, Elaine Viets, Elizabeth Zelvin and your humble Mystery Morgue editor, Jeffrey Cohen.

But that's just the beginning: there's also a fascinating essay by Ellen Byerrum about learning to write and write on deadline, through practicing journalism and writing stage plays, and how those disciplines have influenced her work. It's instructive and insightful, and should not be missed.

We've also tried a little something new this month that we think you'll enjoy. A number of new mysteries that aim for the funny bone are publishing this month, or published very recently, so we've decided to bring together a group of authors whose mysteries make us laugh as they puzzle our brains. You'll see a roundtable discussion with Donna Andrews (Cockatiels at Seven), Jeffrey Cohen (It Happened One Knife), Chris Grabenstein (Hell Hole) and Elaine Viets (Clubbed to Death), offering insights into how, sometimes, murder can be funny.

If that's not enough for you... well then, you're pretty tough to please. Go watch some fireworks, cook something on the grill, watch some baseball and go for a swim. Come back next month. We'll have more.

In this month's issue:

The Mystery Morgue Roundtable: Donna Andrews, Jeffrey Cohen, Chris Grabenstein and Elaine Viets
How I Write, by Ellen Byerrum

Reviews:
Delusion by Peter Abrahams
The Lighthouse Keeper: A Beckoning Death by Luisa Buehler
It Happened One Knife by Jeffrey Cohen
Empty Ever After by Reed Farrel Coleman
The Blue Religion, edited by Michael Connelly
The Unraveling of Violeta Bell by C.R. Corwin
Chasing Cans by Laura Crum
Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption by Robert Fate
In The Woods by Tana French
The Unkindest Cut by Honor Hartman
Easy Innocence by Libby Fischer Hellmann
Preaching to the Corpse by Roberta Isleib
Double Dog Dare by Linda O. Johnston
Still Shot by Jerry Kennealy
Fatal Encryption by Debra Purdy Kong
Beyond Eden by S.L. Linnea
The Hanged Man by David Skibbins
Dirty Money by Richard Stark
Assassins at Ospreys by R.T. Raichev
Holy Moly by Ben Rehder
Murder on Bank Street by Victoria Thompson
Murder with Reservations by Elaine Viets
Death Will Get You Sober by Elizabeth Zelvin

Link to Archives

 

The Mystery Morgue Roundtable: Humor in Mysteries

Murder is at the core of most mystery books. But belly laughs? Not so much.

Mystery books that make us laugh make up a subgenre that mixes crime with comedy to produce a very special feeling. And sometimes, it seems those books, no matter how well-written or ingenious, don't seem to attract the same attention or respect as their more dour counterparts.

To examine the humorous mystery, Mystery Morgue invited four of its most laughed-at (in a good way) participants to a roundtable discussion that was meant to examine the form, its conception, and its reception.

In alphabetical order: Donna Andrews is the author of the Meg Langslow and Turing Hooper series. The latest in the Langslow series, Cockatiels at Seven, is being published this month. Andrews has won the Agatha, Anthony, Barry, Romantic Times and Lefty awards.

Jeffrey Cohen writes the Double Feature Mystery series, featuring a New Jersey man who owns an all-comedy movie theatre. The latest in that series, It Happened One Knife, is being published this month (and is reviewed in this month's Mystery Morgue, below). Cohen also writes the Aaron Tucker series about a freelance writer and work-at-home dad, most recently with As Dog Is My Witness.

Chris Grabenstein debuted The Crossroads, his first book for young readers, in May, and is also the author of the John Ceepak mystery series, featuring an ex-military-policeman-turned-Jersey-shore-cop who lives by the West Point code: he will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do. The newest Ceepak novel, Hell Hole, is being published this month.

Elaine Viets, winner of this year's Lefty Award for funniest mystery of the year, writes both the Mystery Shopper series and the Dead-End Job mystery series. The latest Dead-End Job book, Clubbed To Death, was published in May, and Marilyn Stasio of the New York Times said in her review that "the real satisfaction is in observing the club members at their worst, bullying the help with the imperious demand "Do you know who I am?" To which the only honest, if unspoken, response must be: "Yes, ma'am. ... You are another rude rich person."

Here's what happened when they discussed comedy in mysteries:

Jeffrey Cohen: A number of people (well, two is a number) have asked me: What's so funny about murder? I always answer, "nothing. It's the situation AROUND the murder that can be funny." But let me ask this: What the heck is wrong with us that we choose to find the funny side of one person killing another?

Elaine Viets: What's wrong with us? We're looking for an escape, and there is none. We're all going to die, and it will probably be under embarrassing circumstances—naked in bed, hit by a beer truck while crossing against a red light, in the bathtub.

That's not funny. But laughing about the graveyard we know is looming ahead of us can ease the tension and allow us to kid ourselves that death happens to other people.

I took the Death Investigators course at St. Louis University, which was offered mostly for professionals—homicide detectives, funeral directors, coroners, etc. It was a grim week, but there were some funny moments. Like the "Born to Lose" tattoo on a dead career criminal. There was only one time when no one dared laugh: the session on child murder. Instead, I heard the rustling of candy wrappers. Even seasoned police officers had problems with the murder of children, and the candy gave a little bit of sweetness during a dreadful time.

I quit making jokes about cops and doughnuts after that session.

Chris Grabenstein: I remember when my father was dying.  There we were, me and my three brothers, gathered around his death bed, listening to his mucus-y chest rattle.  Somebody made a booger joke.  We laughed.   "That's gallows humor," my big brother explained to his daughter who was cracking up, too.   My dad probably would've laughed too if, you know, he wasn't so busy dying.

I think Gallows Humor is a device we humans have developed to cope with the horrors of life and death.  It's why so many cops, firefighters, and emergency room doctors are always cracking wise.   

In my books, I think it's the attitudes of those dealing with the grim realities that are humorous.  I might also weave in a "comic relief" scene (something Shakespeare even did in his darkest tragedies) to relieve the tension because nobody could stand a story that was tension, tension, tension—unless they were an Excedrin salesperson or something.  

I don't think I actually show what's funny about murder (maybe what's absurd—the embarrassing way death can leave us looking, sprawled out on a carnival ride or sitting on top of a toilet in a public restroom) but I try not to trivialize the loss of life, itself.  The humor is for the living.  Gallows humor is for those of us still standing on the ground watching the person swinging from the noose, realizing—"there but for the grace of god...."

To paraphrase Jimmy Buffett:  If we couldn't laugh, we'd all go insane.

Donna Andrews: What the heck is wrong with us? I think we're fine, but we live in a culture that thinks if something is serious we have to be solemn about it. Yeah, death is serious. So are sex, religion, politics... and if you outlaw them as topics for humor, you've just cut the world's joke supply in half.

I think humor comes from pushing boundaries—of good taste, of sanity, of reality. Some funny writers sneak up and tickle the boundaries, some give them a hard shove, and some just kick their way through and make faces at us from the other side—like George Carlin, who just died, dammit. Talk about someone who could be scathingly funny without losing sight of the serious underlying issues. I'll miss him.

JC: Wow, you guys are downers! <g>

I think we're looking more for the humor in the way people treat death—the ritual, the over-the-top emotion, and in some cases, even the matter-of-fact acceptance of it. Are we whistling past the graveyard? Heaven knows, I am. As someone once said, "an atheist is someone with no invisible means of support."

But let's consider this: murder isn't just death. It's a hideous crime, about as awful a thing as a person could do. I'm going to assert that we go out of our way to make fun of it because it is that serious, and serious things offend our sensibilities. If I were to write about a real murder, I'd be paralyzed. But a silly one—that I can write.

EV: Well, as someone who once killed off a person (in a book) with a pink plastic flamingo, and smothered the mother of the bride with her own fancy dress, I'd have to say I don't always take my murders seriously.

Also, I cheat and kill mostly dislikable people. Not that anyone deserves to be murdered, but I avoid the cute and the helpless, such as puppies and little children, and stick with rather nasty adults.

I don't want my readers distracted by mourning the victim. I prefer the old Southern notion that some people just need killing. In print, of course.

DA: By coincidence, I've also committed murder with a flamingo—a wrought iron one. And I bet I'm the only one here who has strangled one of her victims with a computer's mouse cord. Yes, it's easier if you pick an unpopular victim. But I think along with their tendency to wisecrack in moments of stress and danger, our protagonists all share the passionate conviction that it's not okay to kill even the most dislikable people—that justice must be done, even if they have to put themselves at risk. That lends our books a degree of humanity that you won't find in a lot of solemn books with high body counts of cardboard people.

CG: had no idea that the first Ceepak mystery was going to be funny.  Up to that point, I had written three (still unpublished) manuscripts, all in a very dark vein.  I call it my early Stephen King period mixed with somebody else who also wasn't me. When I hit upon the character of John Ceepak—the rigid, straight arrow former MP who lives life By The Book—I knew HE couldn't be the first person narrator or no one would read more than a few pages. So, I created my Watson—his polar opposite. Where Ceepak was nearly Joe Friday with Just The Facts, Danny had to crack wise. In fact, Danny's voice is really where the comedy comes. Once I had that voice, I went ahead and added in a few larger than life comedic set pieces so he could really mouth off—such as chasing a suspect through a car wash, geriatric dogs with gas problems, and all sorts of infuriating by funny characters. 

So, I'd say, I do mysteries with laughs, not comedies with murder.

JC: When you started writing your first mystery novel, was it a conscious decision to be funny, or did it just happen naturally? I sort of fell into it by accident, trying to write a funny book that ended up having a mystery structure.

EV: This is a variation on a question I get asked a lot at speeches: Have you always been funny?

I've always been a smart-aleck, but now I get paid for it. As a kid, I was always in trouble for smarting off. My grandmother, a fanatic cleaner, once said, "My kitchen floor is so clean, you can eat off it."

"We have a table," I said.

I wasn't being rude. I have a literal side that makes some of my statements sound a little weird.

DA: I started writing humor about as soon as I started writing. For example, in Girl Scouts I was working on a good citizenship badge, and one way to complete the final "demonstrate your knowledge" requirement was to write or act in a play about good citizenship. I thought getting the chance to write a play was exceedingly cool. And since I was alone in that feeling—the rest of the troop realized they could meet their badge requirement by taking bit parts in my play—I was both the Chekhov and the Stanislavsky of our troop. "Gangsters and Girl Scouts," told how a young Girl Scout grew up to be the first woman president while her three friends who made fun of Scouting became gangsters and died in a final melodramatic bank robbery scene. The gangsters, needless to say, were not only wicked but funny, and my script was designed to let them steal the show. I'll never forget the mixture of anxiety and anticipation I felt waiting for the show to start, and then the exhilaration when the audience erupted into laughter at lines I'd written. I'd made them laugh!

And after that, I was hooked. Especially after I began to read humorous mysteries by Joan Hess, Charlotte MacLeod, and Sharyn McCrumb and realized that you could combine murder and laughter and maybe a little social consciousness. So yes, when I first started writing Murder with Peacocks, I was trying to be funny and hoped it would succeed.

JC: Let's throw all the cards over and go to Kitty Carlisle: I'm going to bring up my favorite point of contention, the "Rodney Dangerfield" theory, that we who work with some humor don't get no respect (most measurably in awards not geared directly toward humor).  Do you think this is so, and why or why not?

CG: Ah, Kitty, Kitty, Kitty.
I like Orson Bean, doodling on his answers.
I suppose it's true. Humorous mysteries are seldom considered for the big awards in the mystery or thriller field.  I don't think Carl Hiaasen has ever won anything. Dave Barry either. They both write thrillers.  

I suppose it's that old "it's got to taste bad to be good for you" theory of Literature with the capital L. It has to be hard work to be great art. So, if you're chuckling away, having a gay old time, you are not reading an award-winning book. That said, the same theory applies to movies. Very rarely does a funny movie win an Oscar.  It's all that serious stuff about English Patients Sweeping Up The Remains Of The Day In A Room With A View that typically wins. Many of these movies, because they turn out the lights in the theatre, make for quite nice afternoon matinee nap opportunities. I don't believe a funny movie has won the Oscar since the screwball comedy "It Happened One Night" back in 1934. No Marx Brothers, no Three Stooges, no Laurel and Hardy, no "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" or "Best In Show." All too pedestrian and plebian and those other P words that mean "too easy to get."  

Now the Left Coast Crime con goes out of its way to honor "funny" mysteries, thrillers told with a sense of humor. They realize how hard it is make it look so easy to get someone to laugh. Especially someone holding a book. The book will jiggle with every giggle, making reading that much harder. And, if you're in a library, prepare to be shooshed!

So, we'll just have to content ourselves with the oodles of money we rake in, instead of the awards.  Wait a second. We don't get that either.
Rodney Dangerfield was right!

DA: What Chris said. And if I can add two favorite examples of how comedy don't get no respect: the illustrious career of Katharine Hepburn. Nominated for the Oscar twelve times. Won four times. But only one of her nominations—and none of her wins—was for a comedy. And Cary Grant, one of the all time great romantic comedy actors. Nominated twice—for two of his serious roles. Never won.

EV: Woody Allen said that doing comedy meant sitting at the children's table. Unfortunately, in Mr. Allen's case, he sat there too long and took one home.

No, we humorists don't get respect. But we do get readers, and I want readers even more than respect. Respect doesn't pay the bills. I prefer to laugh all the way to the bank.

 

How I Write: In Praise of Other Writing Disciplines
by Ellen Byerrum

Ellen Byerrum is a Washington, D.C., news reporter, novelist and playwright. She also holds a Virginia private investigator's registration.
Her Crime of Fashion mysteries star a savvy sleuth with a keen sense of style: Lacey Smithsonian. Lacey is a reluctant fashion reporter in Washington, "The City Fashion Forgot." She'd rather be working "hard news," but a nose for nuance, an eye for a great story, and a talent for getting into trouble make her uniquely qualified to tackle the Crimes of Fashion beat. In her vintage suits and killer heels, Lacey trips over fashion clues and fabulous shoes, dangerous women and drop-dead men. And of course the odd corpse (who wouldn't have been caught dead dressed like that). Lacey has appeared in Killer Hair, Designer Knockoff, Hostile Makeover, Raiders of the Lost Corset, Grave Apparel, and now Armed and Glamorous.
Lacey and her creator Ellen Byerrum share a fondness for beautiful vintage clothes, a balcony overlooking the Potomac River, and a humorous view of life, love, fashion and the wild and wacky world of Our Nation's Capital.

It's always helpful to look at the world in more than one way, and so it is with writing novels. So when I write my mysteries, I call on what I've learned through other writing endeavors. A compelling mystery is more than just a death and a puzzle and a solution. It offers the opportunity to explore a story in a multitude of ways; through character, setting, mood, theme and plot. Mysteries can be funny or serious, hard or soft-boiled. But when you face the first blank page, getting from there to the finished book may be the biggest mystery of all. I've been able to do it because I had already worked as a reporter and a playwright.

That background was the best preparation for me to advance to writing books. Here's why.

Journalism (along with Catholic schools, in my early impressionable years) taught me the discipline to be able to sit down and write on deadline. Whether you have a headache, or lack the inspiration, adequate interest or even any expertise in the subject matter, in journalism you learn to write a story with a clock ticking over your head and an editor's impatient fingers strumming on the desk.  When you have an hour to deadline, there is only enough time to focus on the story, not on the various voices telling you that you can't do it.

Journalism can teach you things about writing that nothing else can.

How to write a lede. (Lede is the traditional spelling for the lead paragraph in a news story.) The lede is the most important information to impart to the reader. I always think of the beginning of my book as my lede.  I want to start with a great lede, something that will grab the readers' attention and keep them reading. 

The five Ws: Who, what, where, when, and why. (And how, if necessary.) These are the questions a reporter answers in a news story, traditionally in the lede. While it is not necessary to answer these questions at the top of the novel, those are the questions you want to the reader to ask. Who are these characters, what are they doing, where are they, and why are they doing it here and now?

How to listen for the good quote. Good reporters are always listening for that great quote, which means they develop their listening skills, which in turn sharpens their ability to pick up the most important or interesting information from an encounter. When you develop your ear, you gain a larger appreciation for characters, how they speak and present themselves, and what makes them different from anybody else.

The Play's the Thing.

Playwriting is a form of writing like no other. There is no feeling quite so wonderful as hearing an audience respond to your work with rapt attention, applause, tears or laughter. It feels like warm honey raining down on you. On the other hand, nothing can be as miserable as seeing your fragile play destroyed at the hands of a director with "a concept." ("I think we'll paint everybody's faces green and we'll set it on Mars. It'll be fun!") Or actors who cannot learn their lines, don't understand their characters or the story, hate the play, and well, can't act. 

But playwriting is a valuable discipline. It teaches:

How to use dialog. To advance the action and not delay it with mindless chitchat. To reveal characters, their motivations and fears, their background and education, their personality. To use subtext to make a character say one thing and mean another. The more you write dialog, the more at ease you become, and the more natural it sounds.

The importance of hearing your work read aloud. You can listen to critiques of your work and have audience "talk backs," but I find that nothing is as valuable as actually hearing your work read aloud, whether by professionals or amateurs or your friends. That's where you hear the pauses and repetition and unnecessary wording, the clumsy things that people write but don't actually say. Remember, wincing at your work at this stage is so much better than wincing on opening night.

Recognizing when your audience is bored. When people in the audience are squirming, snickering in the wrong places, whispering to each other, and flashing the blue dial on their Timex watch every five minutes, that's a sure sign something is wrong with your play (or the actors or direction). The play may be boring, overwritten, confusing, or just plain bad. The audience might not know what's wrong, but their bottoms know there's a problem.

The ability to smile and nod and say nothing when someone in the audience tells you what you should do with your play, which is really what he would do with his play. You will also find if a production is brilliant, some theatre critic will inevitably credit the director. But if the production is bad, who does he blame? The playwright.

Ultimately, combining some experience in journalism and the theatre will help you write with speed and an educated ear for what real people say and a healthy dose of humility. I recommend it.

 

Reviews

Delusion
by Peter Abrahams
Wm. Morrow
Hardcover, 297 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-06-113799-0
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Friendship can lead to all kinds of situations, as this suspense novel proves.  Moreover, the consequences can be not only unanticipated, but lead to more complications than the human mind can conceive.  But this author does a pretty good job of conjuring up as many as he can think of.

In a prologue about 20 years before the main story takes place, Nell Jarreau is strolling along the bayou with her boyfriend when they are attacked by a masked man demanding money.  The boyfriend is knifed and murdered.  Nell kicks the attacker and the mask falls for a moment, giving her a glimpse of the man's face.  Based on her ID, a man is convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment.  A year later, she marries one of the detectives, who, as the story is told, is now the Chief of Police, both apparently living happily until a telephone call changes everything.

As a result of hurricane damage, a tape is found exonerating the apparently falsely incarcerated convict.  Nell feels guilty about having sent an innocent man to prison, but her memory of the attack is at best hazy, and she goes about attempting to investigate the matter.  She meets with the released man, tries hypnosis and attempts to find the truth.  Before the reader can reach the end of this well-paced novel, there is a surplus of clues pointing one to a logical conclusion.  Yet the ending is consistent with the single earlier clue, and the characterizations are finely tuned. A well-written tale, and one which is recommended.

 

The Lighthouse Keeper: A Beckoning Death
by Luisa Buehler
Echelon Press
Paperback, 285 pages, $13.99   
IBSN:  978-1-59080-564-0
Reviewed by Terri M. Tumlin

Take the classic situation of a group of people gathered on an island with a winter storm blocking travel to the mainland and then the murders start.  In Luisa Buehler's fifth novel, this familiar setting is fresh and new with Canadian First People, ancient treasure, and what may or may not be the ghost of a long dead lighthouse keeper intertwined in an engaging story.  Grace Marsden is the intriguing protagonist, fighting her Obsessive Compulsive Disorder while she tries to unravel a stunningly complex plot that appears to span several centuries. 

Grace and her brother, Marty, have joined Grace's grade school friend for a last vacation at a cottage on Christian Island.  The cottage is soon to be sold and even though it is winter and the other vacationers are long gone to warmer climes, Joan and her husband have invited a group of friends for a final fling on the island.  They go exploring in the ruins of the old lighthouse only to find an oilskin packet and a filleting knife.  Their lighthearted speculations grow more serious as strange events start happening—ghostly fogs and unexplained light beams. 

And then the murders start. Two of the native year round inhabitants of the island are killed and several of the visitors have harrowing escapes from serious injury or possibly death. Multiple questions come to the fore-questions of inheritances, big money schemes to develop the island, and a myth of buried golden treasure, hidden when the Jesuits were on the island in the dim past.

The Lighthouse Keeper has a larger cast than many books of the mystery genre, which is both an asset and a hindrance.  The five couples (counting Grace and Marty as a couple) interact with local law enforcement and various other natives of the island.  In addition we have a number of characters from the past, whose letters stir up all sorts of questions.  While so many people are, at times, hard to keep straight, their presence offers many delicious leads and clues to what is happening.  Just when the reader is convinced that the solution is apparent, there is a new twist, and the story goes on.  In the end, a believable and satisfying conclusion is reached.   

This fifth book of the Grace Marsden series is a fun read, although not one to undertake when there are multiple distractions around you.

 

It Happened One Knife
by Jeffrey Cohen
Berkley Prime Crime
Paperback, 296 pages, $7.99
ISBN: 978-0-425-22256-0
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

Comedy Tonight is a movie theatre that shows only comedies. Yet as It Happened One Knife, the second Elliot Freed mystery, opens, a blood-filled western is playing. 
An unfortunate incident (see Some Like It Hot Buttered, the series debut) caused the theater to close for repairs. Just before the grand reopening, Elliot agrees to let his employee Anthony hold a private screening of his first film Killin' Time  at the theater. Everyone except Elliot seems to think it's brilliant, including Vic Testalone, a film distributor's sales rep, who thinks he can get Anthony a distribution deal. However, before the evening is over, the only copy of the film disappears.

Meanwhile, when Elliot discovers that former film star Harry Lillis is living in a retirement home nearby, Elliot asks him to come to the official grand reopening of Comedy Tonight. When Lillis takes the stage, a heckler yells rude comments.  The heckler turns out to be Lillis's former partner, Les Townes, and the two take the stage together, bringing down the house. But when Lillis turns up dead, and Les disappears, Elliot feels responsible.

With this second book, this series really starts to gel. Cohen gives readers both a puzzle and a mystery to solve. Who stole Anthony's film is a straightforward puzzle, while the murder is a complex crime with roots decades old.  Both are well thought out.

The more readers see of Elliot the more there is to love. A bike is his only means of transportation, as he doesn't own a car. He's on good terms with his ex, respects his dad, and he has a phenomenal knowledge of movies. He's the kind of guy you can't help but wish lived next door. While all of the supporting characters are interesting, Sophie, the snack bar queen, is laugh out loud funny as she turns feminist.

While the book is a "theme" mystery, one does not need to know, or care anything at all about comedy movies to enjoy the books in the series. However, if a reader happens to have any interest at all in film, the books are a gold mine of interesting film facts. Plus, the movie pairings, one classic and one recent, sprinkled throughout the book, make for a great list of titles to be rented.

 

Empty Ever After
by Reed Farrel Coleman
Bleak House Books
Hardcover, 272 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-932557-64-0
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Moe Prager is a complex man, and Empty Ever After, the newest book in his series, is a complex novel.  Moe is an ex-cop and currently a P.I. as well as co-owner of four wine shops in and around New York City.  He adores his teenage daughter, Sarah, and has a more or less amicable relationship with his ex-wife, Katy. 

Moe's marriage fell apart when the truth of Katy's brother's death years earlier—and the fact that Moe had kept that truth a secret for all that time—became known to her. Moe is called to the grave of Katy's brother, Patrick Michael Maloney, when it is found to have been desecrated, and subsequent events make it apparent that someone is out to hurt, if not destroy, Moe's family. 

Secrets, and the harm that they can do which can far outlive the events that gave rise to them, are a big part of this tale.  Moe finds it necessary to search back over the last few decades of his life, and has to "focus on closing chapters in my life." He tries to comfort his daughter, distraught at the awful way unfolding events have affected her mother. In the past he had always been able to provide that comfort, but now wonders "Had she finally outgrown the magic... or was it that the magic wouldn't work if the magician no longer believed in his powers?"

Coleman has written a book that is much more than a suspenseful novel—it is a beautifully written work imparting some universal truths.  About truth itself, the author says "...the truth doesn't conform to the rules of Sunday school or sermons, to clichés or adages.  The truth doesn't always come out in the wash or in the end and it's frequently not for the best.  The truth often makes things worse, much worse."  It's often moving, and it resonated with me as much as I did partially because I, as Moe, grew up as a Jew living in Brooklyn, with the Belt Parkway part of the backdrop of my life and Shea Stadium part of its fabric, but also because of the very human and well-drawn characterizations. 

The book, simultaneously issued in hardcover and paperback, is highly recommended.

 

The Blue Religion
Edited By Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company
Hardcover, 384 pages, $24.99
ISBN: 978-0-316-01251-5
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Presented under the auspices of the Mystery Writers of America, this novel contains 19 intriguing short stories, with a common theme: cops.  There are police procedurals and mysteries, but more important, the stories reflect on the live of cops—as persons, on their jobs, how they perform their duties, their sense of right and wrong, and, of course, as Michael Connelly says in a short introduction, "How are we to weigh the burden of the badge if we do not carry the badge?"

The stories range from T. Jefferson Parker's story about a retired cop and how he handles a juvenile delinquent to Alafair Burke's take on a policewoman and how her husband reacts to a gruesome event while she's on the job, to Connelly's telling of how Harry Bosch conducts an investigation into the death of a baby.

Each of the stories is well-written and absorbing.  Each, of course, stands on its own.  And each is worth reading.  All told, the volume makes for fascinating reading.  Recommended.

(The book has had a simultaneous release in hardcover and paperback format.)

 

The Unraveling of Violeta Bell
by C.R. Corwin
Poisoned Pen Press
Hardcover, 240 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-59058-501-6
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Morgue Mama—Maddy Sprowls—returns in this, the third entry in the series.  In the previous mysteries, Maddy, the librarian for a daily Ohio newspaper, did not give the editors an idea for a story—she just archived them.  In this installment, however, she steps out of character, suggesting a story about four elderly women she observed getting out of a taxi one Saturday at a garage sale.  She assumed it was part of a weekly routine and would make for an interesting feature story.

Shortly after publication, one of the women, a retired antiques dealer, is found murdered and once again Morgue Mama gets involved in another murder investigation.  The victim was known for insisting she was the Queen of Romania.  Could it be true?  And the reason for the murder?  Or is there some other reason?

Just as well-written and "cute" (intended as a compliment) as the initial two novels in the series were, this effort continues to amuse the reader.  The plot moves along quickly.  The characterizations are well-done, and Maddy, as ever, remains the zany but crafty protagonist.  Recommended.

 

Chasing Cans
by Laura Crum
Perseverance Press
Paperback, 192 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 978-1-880284-94-0
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

In the tenth book in her Gail McCarthy series (only the second which I have read), Laura Crum's protagonist has, at least for the moment, and with only a bit of ambivalence, left her profession as a horse vet to be a full-time mom.

Now at the age of forty, married for two years, Gail has found domestic life with her husband and year-old little boy to be more fulfilling than she could have guessed. 

As the book opens, Gail is confronted by her querulous neighbor, a horse trainer, where strong feelings, all of them negative, abound.  When shortly thereafter the woman dies in what seems to be a freak accident while training a "horse wreck," Gail cannot ignore the feeling that something about the incident seemed wrong.

But when another woman dies soon after in another horse wreck, under different but similarly "off" circumstances, Gail cannot ignore the fact that someone may have caused these events.  When her friend Jeri, the detective assigned to the case, asks for Gail's help, since Gail knows all of the people involved and who could be considered suspects, Gail feels duty bound to help.

The aforementioned work/amateur sleuth/full-time mother conflict is portrayed very realistically by the author, as Gail alternately pursues the investigation and then returns home to the magnetic pull of the incredible joys of bonding with her baby. The gorgeous descriptions of San Francisco's Monterey Bay area and the equine (and other assorted) animal population that abound there are wonderfully evocative of the place. 

The author is a fourth-generation Santa Cruz County resident who has owned and trained horses for over thirty years, and that knowledge is made evident in her writing.  An enjoyable read.

 

Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption
by Robert Fate
Capital Crime Press
Paperback, 288 pages, $14.95
ISBN: 978-0-9799960-2-3
Reviewed by Jeffrey Cohen

Kristin "Baby Shark" Van Dijk has come a long way since the beginning of the first book in this series (the current volume is the third). Now an established P.I. in the 1950s, Kristin and her partner Otis Millett are involved in "rescuing" a young woman of questionable mental ability taken from her family in Oklahoma.

In the course of taking Savannah Smike back from her captors, Kristin and Otis do their best to annoy Travis Horner, who is responsible for her being lured away. And annoying Travis can be a bad idea, given that he tends to have the people he doesn't care for killed without thinking twice about it.

As with the rest of the series, what ensues is a series of action scenes, often involving Kristin defending herself or Otis against very nasty foes, and usually coming out ahead. Car chases, gun battles, fistfights and more play into the mix.

It's a fast-paced ride with just enough character development to keep the series from getting stale. Baby Shark, having earned her name by hustling pool from the time she was a child, even manages to get Travis into a serious game of nine-ball.

The series continues to be entertaining without being trivial. Kristin feels like a real person, and we care about her and the people she likes. That's no small accomplishment. Readers might want to start with the first in the series, simply titled Baby Shark, but it isn't a must. Fate manages to get us up to speed—literally—with a minimum of fuss.

 

In The Woods
by Tana French
Penguin Books
Paperback, 414 pages, $14
ISBN: 978-0-1431134-9-2
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

French has created a stunning novel with great depth and complicated emotional upheavals. The characterizations are similarly complex, carefully arranged and laid out step-by-step for the reader.

The crushingly ordinary lives of most of the victims and their families are played against exploding moments of terror and violence. When a family loses a child and become unable to cope, their apparent inability to aid the detectives in their search for a heinous murderer layer the tone of the novel with a turgid heaviness that sometimes threatens to drag down the narrative.

Yet French's careful laying out of the facts of the case, laid against a history of the area where the murder takes place, and against a much older archeological history, provide vibrant narrative threads that entangle our interest and refuse to let us loose until the very end.

The novel is deeply embedded in the places where these events occur. Some of them are special—the woods of the title, for example—and some are the everyday venues of offices and conference rooms and parlors and bedrooms, often squalid and commonplace. They lend texture and rhythm in ways that inform and catch us up.

The citizens of the story are disrupted by the events described and by the struggle to correct the course of their lives, just as the detectives—the Murder Squad—in Ireland follow their own routines while almost constantly thinking outside normal procedures, in their attempts to solve the case and deal with problems in their careers, their personal connections and the bureaucracy. All of it takes a toll and adds a heavy burden to the detective's lives and their abilities to cope with the ordinary events of their lives.

On the face of it is a simple murder of a young girl, laid out on an ancient altar in an archeological excavation. The site is adjacent to a thick grove of trees at the edge of a suburban development. It's an area with a tragic connection to one of the detectives in the squad. That connection adds a dimension to the story that both informs and complicates the narrative.

This is a dark, subtly nuanced work, worthy of its recognition by the literary community. It will be interesting to see what next this author produces.

 

The Unkindest Cut
by Honor Hartman
Obsidian
Paperback, 244 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 978-0-451-22436-1
Reviewed by Caryn St.Clair

Emma Diamond is back in Hartman's second Bridge Club Mystery, The Unkindest Cut.    Emma and her neighbors, Sophie and Marylou are talked into attending a bridge retreat at a resort in the Hill Country of Texas by Paula, a friend of Marylou's. Since they are all avid bridge players, it doesn't take much to convince the three friends to go especially since Basil Dumont, a well-known bridge guru, is offering private lessons during the retreat.  While the three friends are eager to spend the retreat playing the game they all love, it soon becomes evident that Paula has more of an agenda.

Emma and Sophie are surprised to learn that Paula, who is currently married to Avery Trowbridge, something of a superstar as there is in the bridge world, was formerly married to Basil Dumont. The three friends are even more surprised when Avery shows up at the retreat being run by Basil. And then Avery turns up dead.

Besides Paula, there is no shortage of other suspects in this murder. While Avery was not a nice person, he was surrounded by equally unpleasant people including his former wife and son who are also present at the retreat and a recently fired, but also present, business manager. Motives for the murder were just as plentiful including the usual ones of sex, marriages gone wrong and money.

Anyone who loves bridge would enjoy this series. At the end of the book there are bridge tips as well as references for further reading on the game. Players will enjoy the references to master points, tournament play and the general atmosphere of the bridge retreat. For those readers with only a fleeting interest in the game, this book is a big improvement over the first in the series, On the Slam, which was heavy on the actual playing of hands.  

 

Easy Innocence
by Libby Fischer Hellmann
Bleak House Books
Hardcover, 396 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-1-9325576-6-4
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Georgia Davis is the protagonist of what appears to be a new series by Libby Fischer Hellmann.  A cop for ten years on the North Shore of Chicago, she has been suspended from the force and is now working as a p.i.  She has been hired to investigate the death of a 17-year-old girl, a high school student who was murdered in what appears to have started as a hazing, clubbed to death with a baseball bat in a forest preserve. 

It seems to be a pretty cut and dried affair, with all the evidence pointing to a 35-year-old registered sex offender.  The latter's sister, fifteen years his senior, is convinced that despite his history, her brother is incapable of violence.

Although the case is described as a slam dunk, even the dead girl's mother has some doubts, telling Georgia: "Things started moving so fast it made my head spin.  Everything all tied up in three or four days.  With a big, shiny ribbon on top."  Georgia's investigation uncovers up all kinds of unexpected discoveries, all to do with "families and friendships and secrets," some of which put Georgia's life in jeopardy. 

Georgia is not without conflict on this case:  Her former partner on the police force is in charge of the investigation into the teen's death, and his animosity towards her is palpable.  Then her path crosses that of her former lover, with whom she broke up two years earlier.

This was a book I could not put down, reading it cover to cover during the course of one day.  The reader is drawn into the story immediately, and the wonderful writing makes the characters come alive.  The startling turn of events as the book goes on is, on reflection, not all that shocking, but it certainly seems that way at first. 

I loved that Ellie Foreman, the protag in Ms. Hellmann's prior series, makes a cameo appearance, and that a character is named after Ruth Jordan, she of Crimespree Magazine renown.  The suspense is sustained throughout as the search for the real killer goes on, and some unexpected twists as the books races to a conclusion will keep readers off balance to the end.  Highly recommended.

The book had a simultaneous release in hardcover and in paperback format.

 

Preaching to the Corpse                  
by Roberta Isleib
Berkley Prime Crime
Paperback 238 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 978-0-4252183-7-2
Reviewed by Carl Brookins

Dr. Butterman is a church-going psychologist who writes an advice column, although that part of her work doesn't really come into play in this book.  This is her second outing from the experienced and sure hand of her creator.  Isleib is an accomplished and gifted writer.  It shows in this novel. 

The story takes readers behind the scenes in a small New England church seeking a new assistant pastor.  In some churches such a decision is made elsewhere at a higher level of the church hierarchy, but not here.  Church members are sitting as a small search committee to interview and recommend the hiring of a new assistant pastor.  They'd like to get it done since the holiday season looms and the previous assistant pastor resigned rather abruptly.

Late one night, Butterman gets a call that the chair of the search committee has suddenly died among suspicions she may have had help meeting her maker.  Among the possible suspects is the pastor of Shoreline Congregational Church in Guilford, Connecticut.  Pastor Wesley Sandifer is acting strangely and the death of Lucy Bales has thrown things into an uproar.  Butterman is pressed into service as a reluctant replacement for the dead woman.  As the book progresses, the author judiciously releases information, almost always in an organic and controlled manner that will keep readers on their mystery-solving toes.

Meanwhile, Butterman has personal difficulties inside her family.  Her father abandoned the family many years ago but Rebecca wants to reestablish a connection. The coming Christmas season seems an appropriate time to reach out.  Her sister, however, has major objections and their occasional flare-ups over the subject imbue several scenes with familiar emotions.

Isleib, a clinical psychologist by training, handles all this with a sure and steady hand.  Her protagonist is invested with a wide range of emotional baggage and surrounding characters that flesh out her circumstances and make the novel an interesting and enjoyable experience.  I recommend the book and look forward to a long acquaintance with Dr. Rebecca Butterman.

 

Double Dog Dare
by Linda O. Johnston
Berkley Prime Crime
Paperback, 272 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 978-0-4252223-2-4
Reviewed by Patricia E. Reid

Just when Kendra Ballantyne makes the decision to move in with Jeff Hubbard, P.I., he disappears.  His car turns up in a canal but Jeff is no place to be found.  Kendra is busy with her law practice and her pet sitting and now she has Jeff's Akita to care for full time as well as her Cavalier King Charles Spaniel.  In her spare time she is trying to track down Jeff.  The police are unable to give her much help and Jeff's employees are in the dark as well.

Although Kendra hasn't met Jeff's mom she finally breaks down and calls her and finds that Jeff has been helping out his Aunt Lois.  Kendra is finding that she knows even less about Jeff than she thought.

That doesn't stop Kendra and she is determined to leave no stone unturned until she discovers what has happened to Jeff.

Kendra is soon deeply involved in an investigation into a company that clones animals.  She is also trying to keep some of her clients who train dogs out of court.  Double Dog Dare gives you a peek into the world of pets, one that most of us aren't familiar with.  Lawsuits, murder, and adorable animals fill the pages of Double Dog Dare.  A good, fast read.

 

Still Shot
by Jerry Kennealy
Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Minotaur
Hardcover, 304 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-312-37091-6
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Can a movie and theater critic succeed in solving mysteries?  Well, if it is Carroll Quint, the glib movie-dialog-quoting employee of the San Francisco Examiner, he can.  After all, with the training of Bogie and the rest of filmdom's private eyes, he has all the background he needs to follow his nose, after his mother, a former starlet, calls him to find the murderer of an old friend.  What makes it difficult is that the death was ruled a suicide.

But in a complicated although ingenious plot, Carroll not only plows ahead, but has to tackle the job while attempting to save his job (and those of his co-workers) when one of his suspects is near to purchasing the paper.  And there are numerous other suspects to deal with as well.  He story is peppered with all kinds of Hollywood tales, some of which are outlandish but amusing enough to lighten the mood.  The author provides an entertaining parody of the silver screen industry and exaggerates the elements of the noir genre at the same time.

The plot moves ahead at a measured pace, with well-developed characters who contribute to the over-all thrust regarding the California culture during the heyday of Clifton Webb, William Powell, Myrna Loy, and even their Thin Man dog, Asta, among many others.  Highly recommended. 

 

Fatal Encryption
By Debra Purdy Kong
Gypsy Moon Press
Paperback, 370 pages, $19.95
ISBN: 978-0-9699211-1-0
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

Alex Bellamy, 28-year-old Chartered Accountant and computer geek who had been working as a temp, decides against his better judgment to accept a job as systems analyst for the family-owned McKinleys' Department Stores.  Three successive men had left the position or been fired, and the stores' computers have been the target of pranks.  Alex decides that virtual vandalism is a worthy objective for his talents and in fact, since normally he merely sets up systems and gets rid of viruses for his clients, thinks it might be an "intriguing challenge."

No sooner does he accept the job than the family receives threats which escalate from huge ransom demands to promises of retaliation ranging from a fatal encryption of the entire computer system used by all stores in the chain (the main store plus 21 satellite stores), to the burning down of the main store.  The stakes are raised when the brother of a man who had been fired from the store is murdered.  Could the killer and the hacker be one and the same?  The suspects are, among others, "a disgruntled systems analyst, an employer close to bankruptcy, and a controller who couldn't keep his mouth shut."

The book is all about family dysfunction, from the McKinleys themselves to Alex (who had always been made to feel like the family failure because he rejected joining the Bellamy family's successful hotel empire) and various others around whom the plot revolves.

The clues point first to one suspect as the most likely, then to another, then to another, and so on.  After a while this began to feel repetitious, and the book might have benefited from some judicious editing.  But the suspense builds to an exciting conclusion.

Among other unknown-to-me facts I picked up from the novel were the distinction between a "hack" and a "cracker," the former being someone who just wants to learn, the latter someone who wants to harm, and the definition of "encryption," i.e., converting data into code which makes it inaccessible.

 

Beyond Eden
by S.L. Linnea
St. Martin's
Paperback, 387 pages, $6.99
ISBN: 978-0-3129421-5-1
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

Three years ago (in this series' first novel), Chaplain Major Jamie Richards disappeared into the Iraqi desert.  On Thursday, February 23, 2006, she made her first appearance back when she flagged down a small U. S. Military convoy in Iraq.  She soon is passed up the chain of command, her way eased along the way by various parties for reasons unspecified as she returns to military life in far better shape than when she vanished.

Jamie has been in Eden the last three years, and that has helped her in many ways with just one of them being her improved health.  Now, she has returned to our world among regular people on a mission for Eden: Children of those from Eden living among us are being kidnapped and Jamie is back to find out why and recover the missing. The trail will take her all over the globe while she reconnects with old friends, makes new friends, and desperately attempts to save the victims before it is too late.

While Chasing Eden combined the themes of history and religion to serve as a backdrop for the novel, Beyond Eden is primarily religious in tone.  Jamie, who was always portrayed as religious, has become more so, and quotes and discusses the bible at length with various characters. Both friends and foes freely quote scripture verses and bible passages to support their positions. Immortality is a theme of the work and religion plays a heavy part in that as the authors attempt to address what it would mean to live forever.

The frequent religious discussions nearly bring the novel to a halt, though they are interesting and primarily used to show Jamie's evolving understanding of the world, Eden, and her place.  Jamie has also, apparently because of her training though that is not always specified, gained considerable skills and there is now nothing she can't do. The action hero antics along with the deep philosophical discussions make the book rather chaotic as one doesn't know whether to take it seriously or not.  Then too, there is a cast of a thousand-plus style to the book with numerous characters dropped in and out doing little to build story but helping with the page count.

All that being said, in the end the authors manage to keep one wanting to turn the pages.  Buried in the noise and clutter of multiple storylines told through the point of view of far too many characters, there is an engaging story here worth reading. A tale that when finally found deep within the book does not rise to the level expected in the thriller genre with a heroine never in real danger, but does provide action, intrigue and deceit.

 

The Hanged Man
by David Skibbins
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 228 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 978-0-312-37783-0
Reviewed by Jeffrey Cohen

Warren Ritter, Skibbins' tarot card-reading former member of the Weather Underground, now a grandfather with a wheelchair-bound girlfriend, an adopted daughter (of sorts), a commitment to staying in one place and a continuing battle with bipolar disorder, returns in his fourth outing, and it's a pleasure to say he's back and just as much fun as ever.

Warren isn't as much the single focus of this novel as he has been in previous entries. He shares the spotlight now, mostly with Sally, the paraplegic woman with whom Warren is forging a relationship, and Heather, the focus of Skibbins' debut novel, Eight of Swords, who now is a late teenager and living with Sally.

The plot, which revolves around a dominatrix falsely accused of murder (Skibbins' depiction of the all-accepting Berkeley, CA lifestyle is as vivid and non-judgmental as always), isn't as linear as in some mystery novels, but the draw here isn't so much the puzzle as the characters, and that is a good thing.

Skibbins understands that character drives plot, and that we are more involved with Warren & Co. than we are with the particulars of the case they're investigating. When one (or all, as it turns out) of them is placed in harm's way, we are riveted until the situation is resolved.

That's not to say the plot doesn't work—it does. Sally gets involved in the investigation because the dominatrix in question is a friend of hers who helped Sally through the awful incident that confined her to a wheelchair. Warren takes a little convincing, as always, to commit himself to the quest, but once he's on board, he is introduced to a world of S&M that would be a little queasy if Skibbins were not so skilled in hinting and restraining the more lurid impulses other writers might indulge.

All of the characters are excellent company, the dialogue often sparkles, and the reader is left hoping for more visits with Warren and his extended family. What more is there to ask for, really?

 

Dirty Money
by Richard Stark
Grand Central Publishing
Hardcover, 276 pages, $23.99
ISBN: 978-0-446-17858-7
Reviewed by Theodore Feit

Parker—he of one name—spends his time in this novel correcting one snafu after another.  If something can go wrong, it does, in keeping with his (and his partners') experience in the earlier novel, Nobody Runs Forever.  In that adventure, they stole $2.5 million from a Massachusetts bank.  There were only two problems: (1) They couldn't take the money with them and had to hide it nearby; and (2) the serial numbers were recorded and the money can't be spent—thus the title of this follow-up.

The plot is simple: how to escape capture, recover the money from the hiding place and convert it somehow to spendable cash.  Each step along the way another impediment crops up for Parker to overcome.  And he is inventive in each instance.

Fast reading and amusing, the novel progresses effortlessly.  Like its predecessor, the writing is excellent and the tale smoothly told and underplayed.  Highly recommended.

 

Assassins at Ospreys
by R.T. Raichev
Soho Crime
ISBN: 978-1-56947-505-8
Hardcover, 224 pp., $24.95
Reviewed by Gloria Feit

In this, the third Country House mysteries, one finds oneself in Christie territory, literally and figuratively.  The tale begins at Hay-on-Wye, where the protagonist, author Antonia Darcy, is appearing on a panel of crime writers, being gushed over by an apparently devoted fan, one Beatrice ("Bee") Ardleigh.  In short order Antonia and her husband, Major Hugh Payne, become embroiled in Bee's complicated life.

Bee appears to be an invalid, being confined to a wheelchair, but is she really?  She has as a companion, Ingrid, a decidedly strange woman with whom she has lived for decades, who appears to loathe Bee's new husband (calling him "the interloper)."  And she appears on the brink of being the sole heir of a very wealthy man she hasn't seen or heard from in many decades, one Ralph Renshawe, owner of the eponymous Ospreys, a "bleak Gothic mansion on the border between Oxfordshire and Berkshire" (now fallen into disrepair).

The reader is aware of the identity of the intended murder victim, but there is no dead body until more than halfway through the novel, something which startled me when I became aware of it.  So much for the perpetual argument as to how soon in a book a body should first be discovered.  Here there is no sense of the author having waited too long for that plot development—the journey has been too much fun to even notice.  And just when a murder appears to take place, the author provides a twist sure to have the reader puzzled, but only for a little while.

The book is full of drollery and literary quotes, references and allusion, as well as bits of Latin and French.  Ingrid thinks of Antonia's books as each being "a mere commercially motivated replica of its predecessor.  Variations on a tried, if tired, lucrative theme.  Well-bred characters sitting beside cosy fires, drinking tea, deliberating whodunit ad nauseam." Ospreys is referred to as a "house of death," characters as "devilishly devious," the case as a whole "marked by a pervading sense of strangeness." And all around Ospreys are the ever-present rooks, giving to the whole an ominous feel reminiscent of Hitchcock.

A subtle, clever and altogether delightful read, and recommended.

 

Holy Moly
by Ben Rehder
St. Martin's Paperbacks
Hardcover, 352 pages, $24.95
ISBN: 978-0-3123575-4-2
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

The death of backhoe operator Hollis Farley appears at first glance to be a tragic accident. Found underneath his overturned rig on land he was clearing to make way for a mega church near the Pedernales River, Hollis Farley died on the job. But, this is Blanco County where weird things happen and this one is another: Instead of being killed when the backhoe hit a boulder and flipped as first theorized, it turns out that he was shot in the back with an arrow capped with a broadhead hunting point.

As the case unfolds and Game Warden John Marlin's involvement increases, the facts and the people involved get stranger and stranger. Finding a dinosaur bone on the property of the planned mega church didn't get Hollis Farley killed. What he did afterwards just might have done the trick. With so many having a motive for doing the deed, it is up to John Marlin and Sheriff Bobby Garza to flush the real killer out before he or she strikes again.

Much like he did with Gun Shy Austin, Texas writer Ben Rehder has penned another often funny novel that lets everyone in sight have it. This time his main target is the religious hypocrisy often found in the mega churches. It is tempting to speculate a bit as to which church served as inspiration but unnecessary.

In the meantime what we have here is yet another often funny novel sent in Blanco County, Texas featuring a strange murder, a ton of offbeat characters, and the resulting twisted and often funny search for justice. The book is another tale of the weird, funny and often absurd that packs a punch to the mind and the gut. Beyond the continuing romance involving John Marlin there is no real character development to speak of regarding the returning characters. That romance is a minor factor in the book with most of the focus on the murder case and the cast of offbeat characters who are involved at various levels. The result is a good piece of work with plenty of comedy and mystery guaranteed to keep readers entertained to the very last page.

 

Murder on Bank Street: A Gaslight Mystery
by Victoria Thompson
Berkley Prime Crime
Hardcover, 324 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 978-0-425-22151-8
Reviewed by Janet Koch

New York City in the late 1800s was a vastly difference place than it is today. There were no cars and no antibiotics. There was no electricity and there was a police force that gave the utmost attention only to cases greased with cash.

When Sarah Brandt's doctor husband was murdered, she didn't have the money or the knowledge to find his killer. But four years later, Sara, now a midwife, has a friend in Detective Sergeant Frank Malloy. The difference in their social class—Sarah comes from a wealthy family and Malloy is an Irish Catholic cop—precludes anything but friendship, but despite the vast gulf that lies between them, Malloy takes on the job of the unsolved murder.

Malloy finds that just before Brandt was killed he was treating a number of patients with similar symptoms. All were women and all had a syndrome called Old Maid's Disease, a condition better known in the 21st century as stalking. The problem was, some of the women transferred their affections to Dr. Brandt.

Each of the women came from well-to-do families, and each had fathers who could have killed for the sake of his daughter's virtue. Malloy has to battle gossip, prejudice, and the power of the wealthy to find justice for Sarah. He hopes that finding the truth will bring an end to her pain, but he soon becomes afraid that her pain is only beginning.

Through the occasional telling detail—"Just living in this city is dangerous. I could get run over by a wagon tomorrow"—author Victoria Thompson creates a vivid background for a story that transcends time. For who hasn't felt the sharp stab of betrayal? Who hasn't felt a doubt that, if left alone, could fester and damage a love forever?

Readers of the Gaslight Mystery series will feel instantly at home with the familiar characters and their histories. Newcomers to the series might take a few chapters to settle in, but Thompson's storytelling skills push readers forward at a steadily increasing pace that ends with a shocking, yet ultimately satisfying, conclusion.

Murder on Bank Street is the tenth in the Gaslight Mystery series.

 

Murder with Reservations
by Elaine Viets
New American Library/Penguin Group
Hardcover, 263 pages, $21.95
ISBN: 978-0-451-22111-7
Reviewed by Kevin R. Tipple

Room 323 is a problem room at Sybil's Full Moon Hotel in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Guests frequently trash it and Helen Hawthorne is usually part of the group that has to clean it.  Helen is working at the Full Moon Hotel as a maid and has been for sometime while she hides out from her ex-husband Rob. Worked over by the court system, she isn't about to let him have a penny of her money.  She lives a cash-only existence and the folks in room 323 don't tip.  Tips are few and far between, which is why the staff, except for Helen, is  searching for the loot left behind after a botched bank robbery. The dead bank robber stayed in that room and with 100K at stake the money is worth searching for.

In the meantime, there are three floors of a hotel to clean.  The staff works hard, the guests are often rude and yet, employee turnover is surprisingly low.  When Rhonda, who also worked as a maid, suddenly disappears everyone else assumes that she ran off with her often talked about but never seen rich boyfriend.  Helen isn't so sure.  She has a history of finding dead bodies on other jobs and she wonders if something bad has happened to Rhonda. Her history is hammered home by a local police detective soon after Helen finds Rhonda's body in the dumpster.  Unfortunately, not only does she have to deal with the fact that Rob is coming closer and closer to finding her, Rhonda won't be the last body at The Full Moon, bringing Helen unwanted scrutiny by the local police.

Several earlier books are referred to in sufficient detail in this novel to make reading them rather pointless.  That is always a risk when one starts reading a series out of order and that is the case here with several detailed references to earlier books.

Since the series is new to me, this novel being the first I have read, I can't address the overall consideration of the story arc across novels or development regarding the main character. Despite those issues as well as the ease that Helen seemingly moves through life with no identity and living a cash only existence, the novel itself is a comfortable enjoyable read. It moves fairly quickly and provides a case that will keep most readers guessing until the end.  As it entertains it also reminds readers of something very important—don't lie on the bedspread.

 

Death Will Get You Sober
by Elizabeth Zelvin
Thomas Dunne Books
Hardcover, 257 pages, $23.95
ISBN: 978-0-312-37589-8
Reviewed by Shirley Wetzel

As detox facilities go, the one in New York City's Bowery ranks pretty close to the bottom. When Bruce Kohler wakes up there on Christmas Day, he's pretty much hit bottom as well.  He spends his first day in and out of consciousness, watching a parade of other down-and-outers in the beds surrounding his.  When he finally joins the world of the living, he finds a surprisingly well-dressed, highly articulate man puking his guts out.  Well, he didn't know the man was articulate until he quit heaving, but he was well-dressed and reasonably well groomed.  He told Bruce "My name is God..."

Bruce wonders for a moment if he is in a detox facility or a nuthouse.  "God," obviously used to this reaction, explains that his name is Godfrey Brandon Kettleworth the 3rd, "Guff" to his friends. Not that he has any friends. The two bond over smuggled cigarettes, and share their stories. Guff is far from the comfortable home he grew up in, alienated from most of his family.  Until recently, one sister still cared what happened to him, until he did one atrocious thing too many and even she gave up. His behavior in the rehab facility does not endear him to the staff or the other patients either, but Bruce stands by him.

Bruce is doing his best to stay sober, and his friends, Jimmy, an alcoholic with many years of sobriety, and his mate Barbara, a self-confessed co-dependant addictions counselor, do their best to help him.  When two suspicious deaths occur in the facility, Bruce takes it personally, believing at least one of the men, maybe both, was murdered.  He makes it his mission to find out what happened, and tries to enlist Jimmy and Barbara in his cause.  Barbara jumps in with both feet; Jimmy is more reluctant, having little faith that Bruce will be able to stay sober, much less solve a murder, but he does what he can. Both he and Barbara hope that maybe this time, with something to give meaning to his life, their friend might just stay sober.

Zelvin directed an alcohol program in the Bowery for several years, and the details of the story ring true. This is the first in her new series, with three more in the works.