Fadeout

Joseph Hansen
University of Wisconsin Press
Reviewed by Nancy
4 out of 5 stars

Summary

Fadeout is the first of Joseph Hansen's twelve classic mysteries featuring rugged Dave Brandstetter, an insurance investigator who is contentedly gay. When entertainer Fox Olson's car plunges off a bridge in a storm, a death claim is filed, but where is Olson's body? As Brandstetter questions family, fans, and detractors, he grows certain Olson is still alive and that Dave must find him before the would-be killer does. Suspenseful and wry, shrewd and deeply felt, Fadeout remains as fresh today as when it startled readers more than thirty years ago.

My Review

“Do you know these lines, Madge? The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction, the weight, the weight we carry is love…”

It was a real pleasure getting to know Dave Brandstetter. Though this series has been on my radar for a while, knowing this first book was published in 1970 put me off reading. Many of the stories I’ve read from the 70’s and 80’s featuring gay characters have ended tragically or portrayed their lives unfairly.

Dave Brandstetter is an insurance investigator working for his father’s company and investigating the death of entertainer Fox Olson. He’s also grieving the loss of his longtime partner, Rod, who died of cancer.

As the case unfolds, we also get a glimpse of Dave’s life with Rod, his relationship with his father, and his dedication to his job as he attempts to solve a complicated case. Unfortunately, an insurance claim cannot be paid out until a body is found. As Dave spends time interviewing the Olson family members and gathering evidence, he comes to the conclusion that Fox is still alive.

Joseph Hansen’s writing is terse and to the point. Though it’s not a style that will appeal to every reader, it works well with this story, giving it a realistic and unsentimental feel. The short sentences helped move the story along at a brisk pace, yet there was enough substance to make me feel very deeply for the characters. There is an undercurrent of sadness throughout that didn’t move me to tears, but left me with a very heavy, depressed feeling.

“It was only remembering the good times that kept you from taking the knife from the kitchen drawer and, holding it so, tightly in your fist, on the bed, naked to no purpose except that that was how you came into the world and how your best moments in the world had been spent – holding it so, roll onto the blade, slowly, so that it slid like love between your ribs and into that stupidly pumping muscle in your chest that kept you regretting.”

Dave Brandstetter is a wonderfully refreshing character. I very much look forward to accompanying him on new cases and hope he finds love again.

The Last Place You Look

Kristen Lepionka
Minotaur Books
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Sarah Cook, a beautiful blonde teenager disappeared fifteen years ago, the same night her parents were brutally murdered in their suburban Ohio home. Her boyfriend Brad Stockton - black and from the wrong side of the tracks - was convicted of the murders and sits on death row, though he always maintained his innocence. With his execution only weeks away, his devoted sister, insisting she has spotted Sarah at a local gas station, hires PI Roxane Weary to look again at the case.

Reeling from the recent death of her cop father, Roxane finds herself drawn to the story of Sarah's vanishing act, especially when she thinks she's linked Sarah's disappearance to one of her father's unsolved murder cases involving another teen girl. Despite her self-destructive tendencies, Roxane starts to hope that maybe she can save Brad's life and her own.

With echoes of Sue Grafton, Dennis Lehane and the hit podcast Serial, The Last Place You Look is the gripping debut of both a bold new voice and character.

My Review

Thanks to karen for bringing this to my attention and making it possible for me to get a copy from NetGalley. Because I forgot my password and took too long to get a new one, I decided to grab it from the library instead. Amazingly, I was the first to get my hands on a brand-new copy. Curses to Trump and others who want to defund our public libraries!

Despite the high ratings for this story, I expected a conventional crime novel with a badass PI who could do no wrong. Roxane Weary is nowhere near that perfect. Though she’s smart and competent at her job, she drinks way too much and has difficulty with relationships. She’s also grieving the death of her cop father, a man Roxane had a stormy relationship with despite their likeness in character.

Roxane takes on a difficult case involving a missing teenager and her black boyfriend, Brad Stockton, whose time on death row is fast running out. What seems like a cut and dried case turns out to be far more complex and connected to an earlier case her father was involved in.

This story explores racism, small-town secrecy, and family relationships that are not so harmonious. It was easy to pick up and difficult to put down. I was ready to be disappointed at figuring out the villain so soon and instead encountered more twists and surprises. The tension and excitement became so overwhelming at times that I forgot to breathe!

I liked that Roxane was in a relationship with Tom, her deceased father’s former partner, and Catherine, a woman who drifts in and out of her life. Her bisexuality was very positively and realistically portrayed. It was organic, treated as one of many aspects of her life and not just added in for titillation. Roxane is not promiscuous, indecisive, or just going through a phase. Kudos to Kristen Lepionka for helping to dispel ugly myths about bisexuality and creating such a fascinating character.

Can’t wait to see where Roxane’s life will take her next.

Fair Game

Josh Lanyon
Carina Press
5 out of 5 stars
Reviewed by Nancy

Summary

A crippling knee injury forced Elliot Mills to trade in his FBI badge for dusty chalkboards and bored college students. Now a history professor at Puget Sound university, the former agent has put his old life behind him—but it seems his old life isn't finished with him.

A young man has gone missing from campus—and as a favor to a family friend, Elliot agrees to do a little sniffing around. His investigations bring him face-to-face with his former lover, Tucker Lance, the special agent handling the case.

Things ended badly with Tucker, and neither man is ready to back down on the fight that drove them apart. But they have to figure out a way to move beyond their past and work together as more men go missing and Elliot becomes the target in a killer's obsessive game...

My Review

"Surrounded by glistening pine trees, enveloped by rain and fog, for the first time it occurred to Elliot that his extended period of solitude just might be turning to loneliness."

I abandoned the Adrien English mysteries after the second book because I tired of Jake’s assholery.

Now that I’ve finished Fair Game in just one sitting, I’m starting to regret that decision. I’d forgotten how good a writer Josh Lanyon is and how much fun it is to read a light mystery with two seemingly incompatible men whose feelings run deep and passionate. Even though I figured out the villain early on, it was still satisfying watch Elliot Mills and Tucker Lance work together to stop more male college students from being killed, hashing out the problems that ended their relationship disastrously, and kissing and making up.

I loved this story and can’t wait to read the next two sequels.

Blood and Dirt

Lloyd A. Meeker
Wilde City Press
Reviewed by Nancy
5 out of 5 stars

Summary

Family squabbles can be murder.

Psychic PI Russ Morgan investigates a vandalized marijuana grow in Mesa County Colorado, landing in the middle of a ferocious family feud that’s escalating in a hurry. Five siblings fight over the family ranch as it staggers on the brink of bankruptcy, marijuana its only salvation. Not everyone agrees, but only one of them is willing to kill to make a point.

Russ also has a personal puzzle to solve as he questions his deepening relationship with Colin Stewart, a man half his age. His rational mind says being with Colin is the fast track to heartbreak, but it feels grounding, sane, and good. Now, that’s really dangerous…

My Review

Even though I was assured this story was a standalone, I’m a stickler for order. So I purchased and read Enigma, the first Russ Morgan mystery, and was even more excited to read the second in what I hope is going to be an ongoing series.

Ellis Landry hires Russ Morgan to find out who vandalized his sister’s marijuana grow. What starts out as a simple investigation of a vandalism incident turns out to be much more complicated as Morgan assesses the dynamics of the Ellis/Landry clans using his empathic abilities and, as other facts and feelings begin to emerge, he decides to carry a firearm.

When Russ is not unraveling a tangled web of lies and deception, he is scared of his developing relationship with Colin Stewart, a paralegal he met during his first case, and a man nearly half his age. Russ has achieved sobriety, but still deals with pain from his past. Fortunately, Colin is very patient and mature for his years.

This was a clever, engaging, and thoughtful mystery that deals with toxic families and the fragility of new relationships. I loved the first-person narration of this story that allowed me to connect with Russ on a deeper level and I enjoyed alternating glimpses of his professional and personal life. He’s a very likable, well-rounded character who is easy to spend time with.

I very much look forward to more Russ Morgan stories.

Midnight Riot

Ben Aaronovitch
Random House Ballantine
Reviewed by Nancy
3 out of 5 stars

Summary

Probationary Constable Peter Grant dreams of being a detective in London's Metropolitan Police. Too bad his superior plans to assign him to the Case Progression Unit, where the biggest threat he'll face is a paper cut. But Peter's prospects change in the aftermath of a puzzling murder, when he gains exclusive information from an eyewitness who happens to be a ghost. Peter's ability to speak with the lingering dead brings him to the attention of Detective Chief Inspector Thomas Nightingale, who investigates crimes involving magic and other manifestations of the uncanny. Now, as a wave of brutal and bizarre murders engulfs the city, Peter is plunged into a world where gods and goddesses mingle with mortals and long-dead evil is making a comeback on a rising tide of magic.

My Review

I’m a fan of Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files series, even though I got tired and stopped reading after #9. After a while the stories became too repetitive and I didn’t see any significant growth in Harry’s character. His smart-ass comments that were amusing in the earlier books started getting annoying towards the end.

In the hopes I would find a fun read similar to the Dresden books, I picked up Midnight Riot. It wasn’t a bad book, but it wasn’t a great one either. Peter Grant was an interesting character. He is a constable in London’s Metropolitan Police who wants to be a detective, but his superior thinks he is better suited for pushing paper. Finding a headless corpse in The Actors’ Church in Covent Garden and talking with a ghost who witnessed the crime draws him to Thomas Nightingale, the force’s investigator of supernatural crimes. Under Nightingale’s patient tutelage, Peter learns how magic works and how to hone his investigative skills. He is kept very busy as the body count increases and his negotiation skills are called upon to help resolve the differences between the magical rulers of the Thames River. This is when the story seemed to lose focus for me. There were two stories in one, and neither was compelling enough to keep my interest. I found my attention wandering numerous times and took breaks to read other stories.

I loved that Peter is mixed race, his father a failed jazz musician and his mother a cleaning woman from Sierra Leone. While I enjoyed how the ethnic and racial diversity of London was portrayed, I couldn’t really get a feel for the city. I need more than street names, mention of famous landmarks, and references to TV shows or movies I haven’t seen or heard of. Too many acronyms became confusing and I found myself going back in the story to find out what they stand for.

Overall, the story was fast-paced, but not especially gripping. I liked Peter’s voice, his witty sense of humor and his scientific approach to magic. But like Harry Dresden, his sexual maturity never exceeds the level of a teenage boy, even though he is attracted to his colleague, Leslie, and Beverly Brook, daughter of Mother Thames. I’m not sure if I’ll continue with the series.

We aren't in London Anymore

FOXGLOVE SUMMER
Ben Aaronovitch
Gollancz 2014

reviewed by carol

★    ★    ★    ★    1/2

I haven’t yet been able to review a Peter Grant book immediately after finishing. I suppose I’m basking in book afterglow. Once again, Aaronovitch writes an engrossing, unpredictable urban fantasy, perhaps his best yet.
A good story, a generous sprinkling of dark police humor, decent police procedural all combine for a read that fully occupied my Sunday afternoon. 

Chuckles as I started:

Sarcasm about family:
“I sighed–policing would be so much easier if people didn’t have concerned relatives. The murder rate would be much lower, for one thing.”

About procedure:
“‘I’m fairly certain you’re violating our human rights here,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said with the absolute certainty of a man who’d taken a moment to look up the relevant legislation before leaving home.”

About official-speak:
“I made a mental note to wheedle the list of old codgers out of Nightengale and get it properly sorted into a database. Hugh’s ‘grapevine’ might be a useful source of information. If I’d been about four ranks higher up the heirarchy I’d have regarded it as an opportunity to realise additional intelligence assets through enhanced stakeholder engagement. But I’m just a constable so I didn’t.”

Okay, maybe that’s not that funny. I thought so, but then I’m the sort to read the corporate bulletins, marveling at the abuse of language.

What I really love about Aaronovich–srsly, now–is that he brings a much looked for but seldom found level of social commentary to his urban fantasy. Grant has dark skin, and is painfully obvious out in the posh suburbs. At one point, there’s a nice little aside when he notes the casual joking racism from an officer he’s just met. He considers his normal snide comment, half laughing, half calling it out but then decides to let it go with the assumption that the officer wouldn’t even recognize the rebuke. I’m always impressed the way Aaronovich weaves multiculturalism into his tales, in the most ideal of ways: acknowledging a different cultural experience, but not fetishizing it or diminutizing the truth of the experience. Grant understands the because he is a dark-skinned copper he will end up being ‘poster boy’ for the investigation. There’s a world of cynicism, weariness and acceptance in the role he plays for the suburban police. 

Grant has his own prejudices about the country, partly because he feels so out of his element, only going into the country when required on school trips.
“The air was still fresh but the sun was already sucking up the moisture from the fields and you didn’t need to be chewing on a straw to know it was going to be another hot day.”

There’s also writing that is nicely balanced between description and action, occasionally even making a foray into lyricism:
“The pack [of reporters] has swept back into the village less than ten minutes after they’d left, and come boiling up the cul-de-sac like the return of a tide, licking at my heels as I ran up the path and only stopping at the hedge line because it was held by a special constable called Sally Donnahyde who was a primary school teacher in her other job and so wasn’t going to take any lip from a bunch of journalists. The kitchen was at the back of the house, but I could still here them as a restless murmur, like surf on a pebble beach.”

Oh yes, I liked the mystery, one of the most coherent storylines yet. The supernatural take is interesting, even if it comes to a somewhat familiar ending, but I appreciate the modern twist. It did trouble me somewhat that this might be a plot point that comes back to bite Peter in the butt, which led to unpleasant echoes of Dresden. But again, that’s what fairy tales and mythology is about, putting the storyteller’s spin on a cultural archetype.

Characterization is decent, with the majority of time spent on Peter. I don’t mind; he’s an interesting, thoughtful lead. I came to like his country partner. This time, Beverly Brook’s role seemed appropriate and a little more fleshed out, if still slightly incoherent (must she always speak in riddles? must we have weird watery dalliances?) 

In a rare moment for me, I would have liked a little more punctuation; at times it takes a minute to figure out the inflection (see above quote). But that’s a stylistic quibble.

The ending, perhaps, was almost the least satisfying part of the story. Oh, don’t worry; everything wraps up nicely with no nasty cliffhangers, except that giant multi-book arc that’s going on. No, it is that the ending seemed a little too cinematic, and meant to appeal to the current UF reader, instead of being more character consistent. But that’s me, and I’d be happy to discuss below with spoiler tags.
Still, Peter Grant remains one of the most consistently satisfying UF series out there, and I remain committed to reading whatever Aaronovitch releases.

Four and a half country stars

from my blog at  https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/12/17/foxglove-summer-by-ben-aaronovich/

Junkyard Dogs by Craig Johnson

JUNKYARD DOGS
Craig Johnson
Viking Adult 2010

Reviewed by carol
★    ★    ★    ★


The sixth book in the series featuring Sheriff Walt Longmire is a lot of fun, and brings life back into the Longmire series. It has to be hard being a mystery writer, immersing your characters in the dark side of human nature.  Junkyard Dogs goes back to the roots of the Longmire mysteries by focusing on the characters in small town in Wyoming, bringing their quirks and lifestyles to life. 

The story begins with a strong hook:

“I tried to get a straight answer from his grandson and granddaughter-in-law as to why their grandfather had been tied with a hundred feet of nylon rope to the rear bumper of the 1968 Oldsmobile Toronado.”

We begin with the misadventures of the Stewart clan, managers of the Municipal Solid Waste facility, aka Town Dump. As Walt is sorting through their latest mishap that ends at the emergency room, Doc discovers one of the Stewarts recently found a finger at the dump. Meanwhile Santiago Saizarbitoria, one of Walt’s deputies, is considering quitting after events in the prior book. Walt decides the missing appendage is the perfect way to ease Santiago back into action while giving him time to reconsider. As Walt gives a hand (har, har) to the Stewart clan, he discovers old man Geo is having a secret romance, and when tempers flare at the junkyard, Walt’s sure it is because the secret is out. It isn’t, but it won’t be long before it is.


The characterization brings a much-needed humor back to the series. I actually laughed out loud in chapter one, because the situation was so absurd–and yet plausible the way it developed, bad decision by bad decision. While amusing, the characters remained quite human, with their own logic, seriousness and tragedy in their lives that took them beyond mere comedic appearances (I’m looking at you, Stephanie Plum, Mooner and Sally Sweet).  I wish the same could be said of the relationship between Vic and Walt. Although tension between them continues to simmer, at this point it feels more forced, neither progressing organically nor cooling off. Flirtation between them often feels more awkward than entertaining, with the exception of some delightful police banter that’s prelude to an illegal but informative search. Luckily, those occasions aren’t the primary focus of Walt’s life right now, so it didn’t distract overmuch. Despite the comedy, Johnson still manages a respectful balance of character:


“There was an Indian air about Geo, or maybe it was a mountain man quality. Some people live on the high plains because they can’t live anywhere else, their antennae fixed to a frequency that is preset to offense. Once in a long while they venture into town and drink and argue too much. Like fine instruments of delicate temperament rarely played, they become untuned and discordant.”

Plotting is interesting. It’s a methodical pace with the beginning of the story focused more on character build and day-to-day policing, but eventually all the pieces come together and the action rockets forward. The ending felt a bit contrived and done to a Hollywood scale that didn’t quite match the Andy Griffith down-home beginning.  A final nod to the quality of the setting, which gives a hint of what those fierce mountain winters must be like.

Overall, enjoyable and a solid entry into the Longmire canon that’s renewed my inspiration to continue the series.

The Last Policeman
Ben H. Winters
2012 Quirk Books

reviewed by carol
 ★    ★    ★    ★   
 

Imagine Spin (my review) crossed with The Manual of Detection (my review) and a suicide investigation. As interpreted by Kant.  What do I mean? Consider:

An asteroid is heading toward Earth. Fast and large, the power of its collision with Earth will cause an explosion “equaling the blast force of a thousand Hiroshimas,”  and the shock waves will cause tsunamis and earthquakes worldwide. Even worse, the resulting environmental destruction will cast a cloud cover over the world, obscuring the sun for years. After prolonged speculation, scientists discover the exact doomsday will be in six months, eleven days. Suddenly, humanity has an expiration date–if not from the disasters, then from starvation.  “Answer this, in your blue books, Professor Palace: what effect does it have on motive, all this information, all this unbearable imminence?”  What will your partner do? Children? Neighbors? The clerks at your grocery store? The plumbers? Doctors?


“‘What about you, Dr. Fenton?’
‘Excuse me?’ She stops at the door, looks back.
‘Why haven’t you left, gone off to do whatever it is you’ve always wanted to do?’
Fenton tilts her head, looks at me like she’s not exactly sure she understands the question. ‘This is what I’ve always wanted to do.’“

A number of people quit their current lives to chase their dreams, so many in fact, that its become known as ‘going Bucket List.’ Another portion of the population commits suicide. Henry Palace has been working for the Concord Police Department as a patrolman for sixteen months when he is unexpectedly promoted to Detective. Like Fenton, he is doing what he always wanted to do; although unlike Fenton, he’s woefully unprepared. When an apparent suicide is found at the local ‘pirate’ McDonalds (the franchise has disbanded), the rest of the department is ready to dismiss it as another doomsday suicide. Palace notices something odd about the scene, and doggedly persists in investigating as a homicide, even as the rest of the department dismisses his suspicions. 

Characterization is excellent.  Palace is interesting character but hardly exciting; methodical, stalwart, imperturbable–and young. He prefers to play a quiet, background role: “So I haven’t mentioned [my history] to a new person in years–don’t mention it as a rule–I am not a fan of people having opinions about the whole thing–not a fan, generally, of people having opinions about me at all.” What is fascinating about the characterization is how Palace accounts for the end-of-world mentality in investigating motive and action. Winters has hit upon the myriad of responses humanity will offer at both personal and international levels.  The plot is methodical, building on the investigation and the characters’ reactions.  It’s not a fast-moving mystery with large-scale, implausible drama; this is small-scale, human reaction of relatively normal people under extreme circumstances. 

Technically part of a trilogy, the mystery thankfully has a resolution, although questions remain in the larger arcs of the meteor and Palace’s future. The writing captures Palace’s thought process in rather straightforward, but appropriate, language. It is a nice compliment to the complicated philosophy surrounding each person’s actions. But the writing is not all doom-and-gloom and ethical conundrums. Palace has the dry humor of many police officers confronting humanity’s bizarre behavior:

“He doesn’t remember. I stare at him, standing there, still smirking. It’s such a fine line with some people, whether they’re playing dumb or being dumb.“

At the end, I wondered “was it worth it?” I’m not sure Palace answered–nor asked–that question, although I certainly did. And I wonder what I would do with only six months. This is the kind of book that asks questions without presenting clear-cut answers. I found I was vaguely unsettled once I realized where Winters was going–or not going–but I respect an author that encourages such complicated thinking. I’m curious to where the story goes next, so I’ll be looking for the next book.


cross posted from its permanent home at my blog:  https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2015/01/04/the-last-policeman-by-ben-h-winters/

Blanche on the Lam

Blanche on the Lam
Barbara Neely
1992 Penguin Books

reviewed by carol

3/5 stars

Remember how I said I grew up on Christie? It took college to really open my eyes to the insight that I had read very few books by authors who were not white. It became a personal project to increase the diversity of my reading (while still hanging in my favorite genres of mystery, sci-fi and fantasy). I was scanning through my college’s small bookstore, looking for my books for the semester when I saw the Penguin paperback edition of Blanche, no doubt on the list for some literature class. I quickly grabbed it and settled down for a read. Blanche on the Lam held my attention, but even more than that, it shares and affirms an experience seldom portrayed in literature. 

Blanche is an African-American domestic worker, recently moved to North Carolina after unsettling events in NYC. She’s barely making ends meet, living with her opinionated mother and taking care of her deceased sister’s two children. When called into court for a bounced check, nerves and claustrophobia get the best of her and she makes a run for it before she can be taken into jail for a multiple-month sentence. Needing someplace to stay, she decides to show up at a temporary agency job she had already refused, claiming to be her replacement. It turns out a couple, their elderly aunt and disabled cousin will be traveling to their country retreat for a week, giving the normal servants a week off. As she tries to mitigate the idiosyncrasies of her new employers and come up with a strategy to deal with being a fugitive, she realizes her employers are acting extremely strange, even for white people. When an elderly black gardener shares his own concerns with Blanche, she starts to fear for her safety.


Once I got past my struggle with the idea that Blanche would become a fugitive over a check-cashing case, I enjoyed the plot. It begins more like literary fiction, with Blanche primarily focused on solving her current problem, as well as developing a strategy for caring for herself and the children. Tempted to go AWOL from her life, the story is about her as much as the mystery. In fact, while she notes the oddness in her employer’s household, she isn’t really drawn into their troubles until the black gardener is found dead.  Unlike many amateur sleuths, Blanche is a reluctant investigator, adding a more realistic angle to the story. 

“Blanche had learned long ago that signs of pleasant stupidity in household help made some employers feel more comfortable, as though their wallets, their car keys, and their ideas about themselves were all safe. Putting on a dumb act was something many black people considered unacceptable, but she sometimes found it a useful place to hide.”

Characterization is interesting, and clearly a strong point of the mystery. Blanche is a practical, straight-forward person that has realized that sometimes the best way to get along is to keep her mouth shut, but she’s only able to do that for so long. Despite her own relative poverty, Blanche has had a wealth of experiences providing insight into human nature. Neely stated in an interview that she started the Blanche story as a way to deal with writer’s block on another project and was surprised by the enthusiastic reception Blanche received. As a lifelong activist, she was interested in presenting “political fiction” as she wrote from the perspective of the underrepresented, that of a “poor black woman (a nice interview with Ms. here). 

There’s aspects that do make this feel like a first book. Although the plotting and characterization are quite good, the tone can be a bit didactic, with Blanche doing a great deal of ‘telling’ through her inner voice. While insightful, it could have been less heavy-handed, done through memories or experiences. During my second read, I found myself far less tolerant of it; not that I minded the message, but that it could have been so much meaningfully relayed through action. Otherwise, the writing style is sophisticated, with nice variety. Blanche’s observations give a nice sense of the opulent homes and the Carolina setting.


A number of the reviews I’ve seen mentioned that they found this book through criticism of The Help, and I’d definitely encourage reading about Blanche over the moviefied version. I recommend the series it if you are a mystery fan interested in broadening your reading experience. Won Agatha, Macavity and Anthony Awards for best first novel 1992.


cross posted at my blog at https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/12/22/blanche-on-the-lam-by-barbara-neely/

The Neon Rain by James Lee Burke

The Neon Rain
James Lee Burke
1987
First in the Dave Robicheaux series

Reviewed by Carol
★  ★  ★  ★




One of the movies on endless repeat with my best high school friend and I was The Big Easy with Dennis Quaid and Ellen Barkin. That and a couple trips to New Orleans are the sum of my Louisiana experience, and yet, when I read Neon Rain I feel as if I’m there, ghosting alongside Dave Robicheaux as he investigates. Burke’s writing is extremely evocative, in the very best way for the detective-centered mystery. A strong since of place, of the cultural gumbo of New Orleans and the surrounding rural area clinging to its heritage by fingertips.




It also has an equally strong sense of a narrator in turmoil. It’s a powerful book that begins with a New Orleans Police Department detective, Dave Robicheaux, visiting an former informant on death row, only to learn about a death threat against himself. Coincidentally, he recently discovered the body of a young black woman while he was fishing in the swamp. Something about the needle-tracks down her arm and her death doesn’t feel right to his instincts, and he starts hounding the rural sheriff’s department to follow through with investigating the death.


Characterization in this book is riveting. Robicheaux is the cop with his own code who slowly learns no one else shares, that he’s holding to values from another time. It’s interesting to watch his gradual realization; he believes he’s so cynical, so dialed in in the beginning, and he’s a bit right. Early on, when he meets with the parish sheriff to request an autopsy for the drowned girl, he ends up in a contest of wills that nearly becomes disastrous. Back in New Orleans, he harasses a porno theater owner, looking for the word on who wants to kill him. Both times, he’s so sure of his stance and the way to manipulate the situation for results–but then is surprised when it comes back at him. Slowly, it dawns that everyone is working their own angle. He suspects that, he halfway knows it, but he can’t quite conceive the absolute depth of the dishonesty.

Robicheaux also struggles with memories from the Vietnam war, and many of his coping strategies seem to stem from wartime experience. Its interesting being reminded of the psychological impact of a war that hasn’t been on our cultural consciousness for twenty-five years, overshadowed by more recent ones in sand and desert. My dad was in Vietnam, and I remember that period in the 1980s when I kept bugging him to talk about his experiences, first because of Platoon and then later Born on the Fourth of July. That’s the kind of book Burke has written, far-ranging and capable of recapturing a lost cultural time, and conjuring up memories of one’s own.


The lush descriptions of the setting are beautiful, and Burke does more with light and smells than any other mystery writer I can think of, immersing the reader in the scene. Yet when the action comes, it’s powerful and direct, even if it takes place in flashbacks. His first sentence guaranteed I would keep reading: “The evening sky was streaked with purple, the color of torn plums, and a light rain had started to fall when I came to the end of the blacktop road that cut through twenty miles of thick, almost impenetrable scrub oak and pine and stopped at the front gate of Angola penitentiary.”

The ultimate connections between the unknown woman’s drowning, [spoiler follows break]

Foxglove Summer. Read even if its winter.

Foxglove Summer
Ben Aaronovitch
2014 Gollancz

Reviewed by Carol

Recommended for fans of supernatural mysteries

 ★    ★    ★    ★    1/2

 

I haven’t yet been able to review a Peter Grant book immediately after finishing. I suppose I’m basking in book afterglow. Once again, Aaronovitch writes an engrossing, unpredictable urban fantasy, perhaps his best yet. A good story, a generous sprinkling of dark police humor, decent police procedural all combine for a read that fully occupied my Sunday afternoon. 
 
Chuckles as I started:

Sarcasm about family:
“I sighed–policing would be so much easier if people didn’t have concerned relatives. The murder rate would be much lower, for one thing.”

About procedure:
“‘I’m fairly certain you’re violating our human rights here,’ she said.
‘No,’ I said with the absolute certainty of a man who’d taken a moment to look up the relevant legislation before leaving home.”

About official-speak:
“I made a mental note to wheedle the list of old codgers out of Nightengale and get it properly sorted into a database. Hugh’s ‘grapevine’ might be a useful source of information. If I’d been about four ranks higher up the heirarchy I’d have regarded it as an opportunity to realise additional intelligence assets through enhanced stakeholder engagement. But I’m just a constable so I didn’t.”

Okay, maybe that’s not that funny. I thought so, but then I’m the sort to read the corporate bulletins, marveling at the abuse of language and meaning.

What I really love about Aaronovich–srsly, now–is that he brings a much looked for but seldom found level of social commentary to his urban fantasy. Grant has dark skin, and is painfully obvious out in the posh suburbs. At one point, there’s a nice little aside when he notes the casual joking racism from an officer he’s just met. He considers his normal snide comment, half laughing, half calling it out but then decides to let it go with the assumption that the officer wouldn’t even recognize the rebuke. I’m always impressed the way Aaronovich weaves multiculturalism into his tales, in the most ideal of ways: acknowledging a different cultural experience, but not fetishizing it or diminutizing the truth of the experience. Grant understands the because he is a dark-skinned copper he will end up being ‘poster boy’ for the investigation. There’s a world of cynicism, weariness and acceptance in the role he plays for the suburban police. 

Grant has his own prejudices about the country, partly because he feels so out of his element, only going into the country when required on school trips.
“The air was still fresh but the sun was already sucking up the moisture from the fields and you didn’t need to be chewing on a straw to know it was going to be another hot day.”

There’s also writing that is nicely balanced between description and action, occasionally even making a foray into lyricism:
“The pack [of reporters] has swept back into the village less than ten minutes after they’d left, and come boiling up the cul-de-sac like the return of a tide, licking at my heels as I ran up the path and only stopping at the hedge line because it was held by a special constable called Sally Donnahyde who was a primary school teacher in her other job and so wasn’t going to take any lip from a bunch of journalists. The kitchen was at the back of the house, but I could still here them as a restless murmur, like surf on a pebble beach.”

Oh yes, I liked the mystery, one of the most coherent storylines yet. The supernatural take is interesting, even if it comes to a somewhat familiar ending, but I appreciate the modern twist. It did trouble me somewhat that this might be a plot point that comes back to bite Peter in the butt, which led to unpleasant echoes of Dresden. But again, that’s what fairy tales and mythology is about, putting the storyteller’s spin on a cultural archetype. 

Characterization is decent, with the majority of time spent on Peter. I don’t mind; he’s an interesting, thoughtful lead. I came to like his country partner. This time, Beverly Brook’s role seemed appropriate and a little more fleshed out, if still slightly incoherent (must she always speak in riddles? must we have weird watery dalliances?) 

In a rare moment for me, I would have liked a little more punctuation; at times it takes a minute to figure out the inflection (see above quote). But that’s a stylistic quibble.

The ending, perhaps, was almost the least satisfying part of the story. Oh, don’t worry; everything wraps up nicely with no nasty cliffhangers, except that giant multi-book arc that’s going on. No, it is that the ending seemed a little too cinematic, and meant to appeal to the current UF reader, instead of being more character consistent. But that’s me, and I’d be happy to discuss below with spoiler tags.
Still, Peter Grant remains one of the most consistently satisfying UF series out there, and I remain committed to reading whatever Aaronovitch releases.

Four and a half country stars

 

What's a Girl Gotta Do? Laugh.

What's a Girl Gotta Do?
Sparkle Hayter
2014 Open Road Media/ 1994 Penguin

reviewed by carol
4.5/5


Before there was Stephanie Plum and Isabel Spellman (a review of mine), there was Robin Hudson. I discovered Robin long before Plum came around, and for those who became disenchanted with Evanovich’s kooky series, there’s a lot more to love here. With her ingenious poison-ivy window defense system and her homemade personal defense system (“I still had two backup systems in my purse, a bottle of cheap spray cologne spiked with cayenne pepper to approximate Mace and a battery-operated Epilady, which I realized after one use was a better offensive weapon than feminine aid“), she’s ready for any eventuality.


Hudson works at a 24-hour news agency, the All News Network (ANN), but has recently been demoted to the Special Reports unit after a series of journalistic mishaps. Her misogynistic boss Jerry Spurdle has assigned her to an undercover sperm bank investigation and has decided to involve himself by acting as her husband.  Unfortunately, while she’s suffering to get back into management’s good graces, she’s also navigating a divorce from her reporter husband after his affair with a younger woman. When a blackmailer threatens her with highly personal information, she isn’t sure who to suspect. She offers to meet the blackmailer at ANN’s annual’ Halloween party and “as one of my New Year’s resolutions was to try and offend fewer people in the next decade and thereby escape from the century with my life. I decided to go as Ginny Foat, a prominent feminist tried for murder and acquitted in 1983.” When the blackmailer is found dead, everyone at ANN is on the suspect list.

New York City plays a enjoyable role as backdrop, with references that have more to do with local culture than landmarks. Hudson lives in a dicey section of the East Village, which justifies her safety-conscious routine: “The sidewalks beneath me were black and buckled and there were little groups of junkies on every corner. There must be a lot of good, cheap smack around, I thought, because the junkies were friendlier than usual.”  Besides having to navigate her physical safety, she has more than her share of misunderstandings with the other tenants, particularly one that is convinced Robin works as a prostitute.


There’s a definite late 80s feel to this one; given that Robin works in television journalism, many of her references and snide remarks reference major news stories and television in general: “I’m only thirty-seven, but that’s a lot in TV years, which are rather like dog years.” I found them amusing, but then again, I was old enough to live through them. In fact, it’s rather interesting reading this again after so many years because it is so period (I think I found the series in the early 90s). Hayter is often coy about her background, but I was able to dig up one interview where she admits her first book was taken from experiences at CNN.


I love Hayter’s writing; the pace snaps along, with a great balance of reflection, dialogue and action. Narrated in first person by Robin, her voice is highly entertaining. Robin is a smart, eccentric and funny woman–just the kind of person I’d love to call a friend: “Because living well is not the best revenge, Bob. The best revenge, in my opinion, is huge crates of Depend undergarments delivered to his apartment door.” 

The mystery is quite clever, with unexpected turns in how it effects Robin. A usual mystery trope is played out quickly, and I found myself surprised at the plotting. Despite quirky characters and events, Hayter is able to bring tension to the plotting, just enough for the reader to not be entirely sure Robin will be safe, elevating it above a madcap adventure. Shoot. My re-read has reminded me how much I enjoy Robin. I’m going to have to make time for my favorite in the series, The Chelsea Girl Murders.



Originally released in 1994, it’s being re-released in ebook in 2014. Although I have this one in hardcover, thanks to NetGalley and Open Road Integrated Media for providing an e-book to review and prompting a re-read of an old favorite.

Cross posted from:  https://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/11/03/whats-a-girl-gotta-do-by-sparkle-hayter/

Midnight Riot by Ben Aaronovitch

 

 MIDNIGHT RIOT

Ben Aaronovitch

Recommended for Urban Fantasy/Supernatural detective fans

Reviewed by Carol

★ ★ ★ ★  1/2

 

 

I enjoyed this book so much that I didn’t want to immediately review it because I wanted to remain immersed in Peter Grant’s London. It’s the urban fantasy take on the detective novel, a police procedural that gives a close-up view of a modern London with undercurrents of magic and magical beings. I love the tone of this book–wry and humorous, but doesn’t let the humor take over the scene.  It’s one thing to be ready with a quick line, another entirely to go through one’s entire life wisecracking, especially in times of great danger. Aaronovitch walks that delicate line like a pro.

Peter is a probationary constable who is about to be shifted into a paperwork division.  He and his co-probationary officer and friend are guarding the perimeter of a murder scene when he sees a ghost.  Peter is a very likeable hero, wry, intelligent, loyal, aware of class and race issues around him, and while he has family issues that include a heroin-dependent father, he doesn’t spend every moment agonizing and reliving the past.  We are told he did well in the sciences in school, just not well enough to get him to the next levels. It’s magic’s gain, as he sets his analytical skills to understanding the magical world, using his free time for experiments. I love those little experiments, because it breaks up the action and makes Peter’s experience seem all the more real–who wouldn’t be asking a lot of questions if they discover there are magical beings and magic in the world? Many people would be asking the ‘hows’ and ‘whys;’ Peter attempts to answer some of the questions himself through the scientific method, to the surprise of his technologically-challenged boss.

There are few wizards left, and I liked that Aaronovitch didn’t make magic easy. It takes Peter hours of study and practice to advance, and we get a sense of the effort and thought Peter puts into it. It isn’t until a third into the book when he finally raises his own werelight, and we are ready to cheer with him when he does:  “Fuck me, I thought. I can do magic.” It’s a refreshing change from the all-powerful heroes of other books.  Similarly, he’s aware that even though he has two years on the force, he still makes mistakes, such as when he and Leslie “obtrusively” piled out of the car during surveillance.

Aaronovitch has a gift for bringing life to his characters, even the most bit parts. Molly doesn’t talk at all, and we still get a very good sense of her, her dedication and her potential.  Seawoll, an initially scary superior, and Leslie’s immediate boss, gets imbued with humanity when Peter watches him question witnesses. We’re also given a good look at the subtleties of the police department, when Seawoll “interrogates” Peter after a shooting.  “Then we continued lying through our teeth while telling nothing but the truth.”  It’s a perfect tone that conveys so much about the officers’ loyalty, the bureaucracy of the department, and the unspoken understanding to follow the letter of the law without coming close to the spirit.

I loved it, and the re-read was even better than the first time through. There are a lot of British-isms, but most of them can be puzzled out from the surrounding sentence(s). A great read, and I’ll be looking for a hardcover to add to my own library.

Great lines:

“I left in a hurry before he could change his mind, but I want to make it clear that at no point did I break into a skip.”

“Number two was a magical library where all the direct treatises on spells, forma and alchemy were kept, all of them written in Latin and so all Greek to me.”

Four and half investigative stars.


Cross posted from my blog, along with many other reviews:  http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2012/12/21/midnight-riot-by-ben-aaronovich/

The Cold Dish. Delicious.

THE COLD DISH
CRAIG JOHNSON
Viking 2004


reviewed by carol
4 out of 5 stars


I knew in the first four pages that I was going to enjoy this book. 

It begins with Sheriff Walt Longmire of Absaroka County, Wyoming, sitting in his office, watching the geese fly south. Ruby, dispatcher/receptionist, interrupts his musings to tell him he has a call from Bob Barnes,  who wants to report a dead body he discovered when he and his son went to collect their sheep.
“She leaned against the doorjamb and went to shorthand, ‘Bob Barnes, dead body, line one.’
I looked at the blinking red light on my desk and wondered vaguely if there was a way I could get out of this.
‘Did he sound drunk?’
‘I am not aware that I’ve ever heard him sound sober….‘
‘Hey Bob. What’s up?’
‘Hey, Walt. You ain’t gonna believe this shit…’ He didn’t sound particularly drunk, but Bob’s a professional, so you never can tell.“

He takes the report from Bob, verifies the information on the phone with Billy, Bob’s equally drunk son, and just as he’s about to hang up,
“‘Yes sir… Hey, Shuuriff?’ I waited. ‘Dad says for you to bring beer, we’re almost out.’“

Walt tells Ruby “that if anybody else called about dead bodies, we had already filled the quota for a Friday and they should call back next week,” and heads to his car. He swings by the drive-through liquor store, and on his way out of town, passes by one of his deputies who is seriously irritated with traffic detail and delegates the job to her instead.

This is no ordinary sheriff, and this is no ordinary gunslinger book. Sheriff Walt has lived a hard fifty years, most of it in the immediate area, unless you count college in California and those years in Vietnam. His best friend is another Vietnam vet, a local Cheyenne Indian, Henry Standing Bear. Walt’s voice is dry, humorous, self-depreciating, and more than a little depressed.  He’s also more than a little obsessed with the rape of a Cheyenne girl, a case that has been bothering him for the last three years. Unlike the typical detective haunted by an unsolved case, Walt caught the guilty parties, but justice wasn’t handed out for a variety of social and political reasons. When the body Bob finds turns out to be one of the lead defendants, Walt suspects someone is out for revenge, possibly even Henry. 

Like many mystery investigators, Walt is emotionally wounded, carrying grief from his wife’s death three years earlier.  Henry has had enough and believes its time to encourage–or kick–Walt out of his rut, and Walt finds personal motivation when a beautiful local woman, Vonnie, flirts with him. As much as it is a story about a murder, it is also a story about Walt and his friendship with Henry, as well as small town dynamics and the complex relationships that hold people together. 

The characters feel human, and even brief appearances feel nicely developed. I enjoyed the acidic, opinionated Ruby, Walt’s two deputies, Vic and Turk, each going through their own challenges. The idiotic over-confident twins were enough to make Walt and me long to shoot them. The lingering sadness of the Cheyenne girl’s father, Lonnie, and his admittance of human frailty along with his laughable speech patterns made him one of the more moving characters. The prior sheriff, Lucian, comes out of retirement from assisted living to give Walt a hand, and while he adds some politically incorrect spice, he’s somewhat redeemed through his honesty and honor. I also appreciate that women appear in many different roles in this book, as friends, fellow professionals, love interests. It’s a nice change from the mysteries where women show up only as victim/love interest.


There’s nice moments of humor threaded through this book. Most of it comes from Walt’s dry law enforcement humor, the kind that is meant to keep the devils at bay more than mock others. He reflects at the death scene, where the dead body has been lying, examined and nibbled by a flock of sheep,


“Yea, verily, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will live forever. If I don’t, I sure as hell won’t become an unattended death in the state of Wyoming with sheep shit all over me.”  

 Then there’s Al, providing some much-needed comic relief for the reader–and for Walt–at a particularly tense moment:


“There was a halfhearted attempt at a Tiki theme with native paintings of naked women and carved wooden sculptures as decoration. The most amazing stacks of magazines and catalogs towered against the walls; National Geographic and American Rifleman made up the visible majority. It was like being in the dead letter office on Fiji.”“

Writing is pleasantly sophisticated for the genre, and nice mix of dialogue and description. While Walt and Henry may make Lone Range references, they also reference Steinbeck, Shakespeare and even throw in a little French. For those who enjoy it, there’s also a fair bit of local history mixed in, particularly relating to General Custer and the Sharps gun. Most of the violence occurs off-scene, and is not particularly gory. Thriller elements come late in the story. There’s some semi-mystical elements that I found interesting, creating a strange parallel to my most recent read, Harbinger of the Storm, about a priest and his search for killers, both corporeal and supernatural. It cemented my feeling that this case was about Walt more than Melisaa; his need for resolution, his need to move on; his need for trustworthy friends. The spiritualism added moments of moving imagery to an already emotionally complex book.

  I’m looking forward to checking out the next book and seeing where Walt is headed.


cross posted at my blog: http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/09/06/the-cold-dish-by-craig-johnson/

The Secret Place by Tana French

The Secret Place
Tana French
Viking Adult, 2014


Reviewed by carol

★    ★    ★    ★    ★



Here’s how I imagine it went down:

French and her besties are at their high school reunion weekend. They’re sitting around drinking wine and reminiscing when someone decides to pull out the old ouija board from the attic storage. Much to their surprise, they channel Agatha Christie’s voice from Cat Among the Pigeons. Flush with success, they try again, and discover Ray Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes (review here). 

Alright; maybe I just have my own upcoming reunion on my mind. But I was captivated by the way The Secret Place integrated the turbulent days of youth at a girls’ boarding school with a murder investigation by Dublin’s finest, proving again that French has talent in spades. If there is one thing her prior four books in the Murder Squad series have made clear, French is great at character creation. And atmosphere. Oh, and dialogue. Okay, fine; she’s good at all the components that make a book enjoyable. This time she’s also nailed the police procedural aspects of the case. 

The story begins with Holly and her three friends hanging at a playground, musing on the end of summer and their upcoming year together at boarding school. Fast forward to Detective Stephen Moran at the Cold Cases Unit. Holly appears at the police station requesting a meeting with him, six years after when they last met in events covered by The Faithful Place. The exclusive boarding school she resides at has a noticeboard where students can put up anonymous confessions. Holly has found a postcard with an old picture of murder victim Chris Harper.  The words “I know who killed him” are pasted across in cut-out letters. Moran seizes the opportunity to wedge his foot in the door of the Murder Squad, and personally takes the note to the case’s lead detective, Antoinette Conway. As she is currently without a partner, he offers her the benefit of his disarming interview skills when she returns to the school to re-interview the students. What follows is an exploration of what led to the death and how the detectives retroactively piece the story together.


The plot timeline is unusual, as it combines the current investigation with viewpoints from the girls and from Chris during the prior year. The investigation takes place within one incredibly busy day, while the events in the girls’ lives cover the entire previous year at school. It’s an interesting kind of time shifting for a murder mystery, but I came to enjoy it. Instead of learning about the prior relationships and circumstances through flashbacks, we live it with four of the girls and the victim, bringing a heightened sense of doom to their daily lives.


Characterization is stellar. The introduction to Murder Squad Detective Conway:

“Antoinette Conway came in with a handful of paper, slammed the door with her elbow. Headed for her desk. Still that stride, keep up or fuck off… Just crossing that squad room, she said You want to make something of it? half a dozen ways.“

Or the (re-) introduction of Detective Frank Mackey:
“I know Holly’s da, a bit. Frank Mackey, Undercover. You go at him straight, he’ll dodge and come in sideways; you go at him sideways, he’ll charge head down.“

Marvelous, really; contrast that with the books that focus on the appearance of the character first, or contain long soliloquies where the character helpfully identifies their history and preferences. In the prior examples, French distills two very different personalities into brief thoughts, so that when we finally meet them, dialogue can be focused and snappy, but still shaded with the layers of meaning from knowing the character. It is a beautiful technique that mirrors real life; if you follow me through my day, I don’t muse on each person interact with; rather, our interactions are defined partially by our history and word choice describing it would reflect it. French’s writing captures that shading without huge, potentially distracting expository swathes. 

One of the aspects I enjoyed most was the delicate balance between Moran and Conway. As her fierce personality is evident from the start, I was fascinated by Conway’s attempt to develop a working relationship with her. Initially, Moran is ingratiating himself out of expedience, but it becomes clear Conway understands his intentions. French does a nice job of keeping both Moran and the reader off-balance, guessing at what Conway thinks while having a sense of where it is going.
The setting is immersive, bringing back memories of adolescence in all its insecurities:


“Two years on, though, Becca still hates the Court. She hates the way you’re watched every second from every angle, eyes swarming over you like bugs, digging and gnawing, always a clutch of girls checking out your top or a huddle of guys checking out your whatever. No one ever stays still, at the Court, everyone’s constantly twisting and head-flicking, watching for the watchers, trying for the coolest pose.“

and glories:

“Darkness, and a million stars, and silence. The silence is too big for any of them to burst, so they don’t talk. They lie on the grass and feel their own moving breath and blood… Selena was right: this is nothing like the thrill of necking vodka or taking the piss out of Sister Ignatius… This is nothing to do with what anyone else in all the world would approve or forbid. This is all their own.“

It is worth noting for those who are new to French that while The Dublin Murder Squad is nominally a series, the connection is through the web of relationships in the police department. Each story tends to focus on a particular member of the squad and their emotional entanglement to the case at hand. Although they may reference events in a prior story, they usually aren’t spoilerish, nor is reading them in order needful. In this case, French seems to draw back from a detective’s emotional dissolution and instead focus on a more positive resolution.


I found The Secret Place to be a complex, satisfying story, delicately balanced between mystery and character story. There was no part that I was even considered skimming, as the flashbacks held as much interest as the police procedural. In fact, reviewing was a challenge, as I kept thumbing through my notes, tempted by my saved passages to re-read. Though I read an advance copy, I suspect this is one I’ll have to add to the paper library.


Many thanks to NetGalley and Viking for providing me an advance copy to review. Quotes are taken from a galley copy and are subject to change in the published edition. Still, I think it gives a flavor of the excellent writing.

Inspector Hobbes and the Blood

INSPECTOR HOBBES AND THE BLOOD
Wilkie Martin
2013 Witcherly Book Company

reviewed by Carol

Recommended for fans of pulp, puns, supernatural detectives

★    ★    ★    1/2 

Don’t you have those days when your brain just needs a break? I’ve been swamped this summer by the seriously un-fun Understanding Pathophysiology. After reading four or five chapters a week, there’s times when my brain craves a bit of shut-off, but my body isn’t ready to sleep.  That’s what television is for, right? And sports? But honestly, I’d rather read about silly people and needless danger than watch it, and that’s where Martin’s Unhuman series with Inspector Hobbes fits in. Well, Inspector Hobbes isn’t senseless so much as Andy Caplet is, the diffident reporter assigned to follow Hobbes. Think Sherlock Holmes with slightly more bestial tendencies and Lou Costello as Watson. Think modern English town with supernatural beings just trying to live their lives without harassment, whether its chomping on old bones or standing in a field thinking trollish thoughts. Think–dare I say it–puns. 

Andy Caplet is a struggling reporter unexpectedly assigned to follow Inspector Hobbes, one of the fearsome successes of the local police force. The assignment is surprising as Andy’s most notable story to date was his unsuccessful attempt to do a piece on a show-winning hamster, resulting in nasty bite and an unflattering bit of press. Hobbes is focused an unlikely series of events relating to Mr. Roman, whose house was burgled, a violin stolen, and Mr. Roman subsequently found dead, apparently a suicide. When Andy follows Hobbes to the cemetery where Mr. Roman was found, he discovers a newly-opened grave and is almost victim to a ghoulish cover-up. It is the beginning of Andy’s introduction to the unhumans around him, and he decides to stick with Hobbes in hopes of an award-winning story. Perhaps even a book! 

The basic premise of Inspector Hobbes is done well. The unfortunate Andy contrasts nicely to the enigmatic, powerful and intelligent Hobbes. Plotting moves quickly from event to event, establishing interesting characters along the way. Particularly entertaining was Mrs. Goodfellow, Hobbes’ live-in cook, housekeeper and friend, with her dental obsession and her tendency to tread quietly. I appreciated the the way Martin hints to the reader and Andy that something about certain characters may not be quite human, a much more enjoyable type of character development than the long-winded info-dump. Hobbes, of course, is the biggest mystery of all–what is he, exactly? And does it matter? 

“In truth, and in his own way, he’d looked after me. He was an enigma. He was a monster. He was a policeman. He was someone I out to be writing about.“

Andy, being more of the anti-hero type, frequently leaps to the wrong conclusion, misleading himself and the reader. Although bumbling, he isn’t quite incompetent, and is sincere, so I found him more tolerable than in the second book, Inspector Hobbes and the Curse.


One of the few problems I had with the writing was what appears to me as a tendency to run-on sentences and excessive commas. It could just be my personal fondness for semi-colons and colons showing, but I did find it initially distracting. I think as the action picks up, the commas diminish–or else my mental filter blotted them out. An early example:

“As I landed and turned around, the magazine fluttering to the carpet like a dying pigeon, the blood pounding through my skull, my shin bruised from a sharp encounter with the table, the old lady, standing by the sofa, gave me a gummy smile. Though I coulgh have sworn she did not have a single tooth left in her head, I thought a positive response was appropriate.“

As a side note, although I love paper books, this might be one to read on e-reader. Martin has a tendency to sprinkle a number of English idioms–and by English, I mean country-cultural specific words. And, speaking of abuse of the English language, there’s a story about Hobbes’ stuffed grizzly bear: 

“The bus knocked him into a music shop, where his muzzle became entangled in an antique stringed instrument that suffocated him. And so my sad tale ends, with a bear-faced lyre.“


It was fun and entertaining–and didn’t mention molecular biology once. A perfect beach read, if you should be so lucky as to have time at the beach.



Thanks to Julia at The Witcherly Book Company for providing me a copy to review.

cross posted at  http://clsiewert.wordpress.com/2014/08/06/inspector-hobbes-and-the-blood-by-wilkie-martin/

In the Woods by Tana French

IN THE WOODS
 Tana French
 Viking Adult 2007


Reviewed by carol
 ★ ★ ★ ★



I started this series out of chronological order, which only increased my appreciation for French. By some odd chance, I happened upon a new copy of her second book, The Likeness, in the library just waiting to be checked out, while In the Woods had a wait list of at least 100 people. I followed with Faithful Place, immersed myself in Ireland of forty years ago and promptly forgot to get on the waiting list for Woods.

For a first book, Woods is impressive, not only because French takes risks with her narrative. It’s a psychological mystery, an exploration of friendship and a slow disintegration of personality. I loved it, even as I dreaded the direction of the story. In brief, Rob Ryan is a detective on Dublin’s Murder Squad. One day, the squad gets its first woman detective, Cassie Maddox. The two have an instant attraction and immediately begin a deep friendship. They happen to catch a case in which a 12 year-old girl is found murdered at an archeological dig, right where a highway exchange is supposed to be built (shades of Arthur Dent that I half-heartedly tried to ignore). Perhaps completely coincidentally, it is in the same small suburb that Ryan’s two childhood friends disappeared when they were twelve. Ryan himself has no memory of the incident, and very few memories of the times after, but the case brings bits flashing back.

What a challenge! Ryan tells us from the start: “What I am telling you, before you begin my story, is this–two things: I crave truth. And I lie.” Is our narrator unreliable? Or not? The outright acknowledgement that he might not be kept me guessing. At first, I loved his narrative voice. Descriptions of himself and his two twelve-year-old friends, ‘Jamie,’ and Peter, reminded me indelibly of Bradbury’s Something Wicked This Way Comes and the gold-edged memories of summer days and best friends. Ryan captures some of that lost intimacy with Cassie, and it seems almost the first time since then that he has re-connected with another person. His voice had me chuckling with humor and sighing at his cynicism (see my numerous updates while I was getting my car’s oil changed). Then oh-so-slowly the voice changed, subtly, distractedly. I won’t say too much more except that it was extremely well done (view spoiler)

I love French’s writing; the vivid descriptions, the integration of memories into narrative and her character development of her primary characters. Perhaps it fell apart a little at the end, and the red herrings weren’t developed enough to be seriously considered. It felt a little more hurried after the slow pace of the beginning, but these are minor quibbles.

The finish was stunning, if my ‘stunning,’ you mean a slap to the face right after someone answers your questions. Although I never deliberately avoid spoilers, for some reason I had not read any reviews before starting Woods that discussed various issues with the ending. Somewhat discombobulated, I went looking around for insight into French’s process, and why she choose to do what she did. Interesting interview: http://www.dreamindemon.com/2009/01/0…

Yep, definitely kept me thinking after I closed the pages. But also while I read them. Highly recommended.

A Morning for Flamingos by James Lee Burke

A Morning for Flamingos
James Lee Burke 


Reviewed by Carol

Recommended for fans of PI mystery

★    ★    ★      1/2

 

With some series, you fall in love with the main characters. Watch with interest as they confront their problems, admire their decisions, root for them during lows, and celebrate the victories. Dave Robicheaux is the protagonist in James Lee Burke’s series of the same name, and I’m not particularly sure I like him (Robicheaux, that is, not Burke). I do know one thing, however–I’m in love with Burke’s ability to bring a setting to life. In fact, if Burke ever leaves the mystery gig and heads into travel writing, I’ll be there in a hot minute:

“It has stopped raining now, and the air was clear and cool, the sky dark except for a lighted band of purple clouds low on the western horizon. I drove through the parking lot to the back of the building, the flattened beer cans and wet oyster shells crunching under my tires, and through the big fan humming in the back wall I could hear the zydeco band pounding it out.” 

In the fourth installment, Robicheaux has returned to a detective position on the New Iberia, Louisiana police force. Unfortunately, soon after his return, he’s wounded in an incident at work. A hospital stay and prolonged recovery causes a resurgence of post-traumatic stress disorder and he finds memories from Vietnam are invading his thoughts. Even after returning to light duty, he continues to struggle with depression until a friend with the DEA suggests going undercover in a drug sting. Robicheaux takes the job despite misgivings, lured by the opportunity for revenge more than any concern about the federal War on Drugs. The job also gives him a chance to work with his former partner, Cletus Purcel, now running a club in New Orleans. Even more challenging, it means infiltrating the mob and getting information on Tony Cardo, aka Tony the Cutter, a rising wiseguy in the Gulf drug trade.


It’s hard to sum up a plot of a mystery without giving too much away, but suffice to say that this is relatively straightforward. In general, Burke’s plots aren’t particularly formulaic, but there does seem to be a particular pattern of conflict within each book. Robicheaux is largely reactive, driven by his demons and his emotion, and alternates between a more idyllic conflict-free existence in the bayou, periods of active self-destruction and periods of depression. Progress and action on the mystery is driven by either his mood or external forces acting on him. Meanwhile, in his personal life, he eventually finds a woman who represents everything he’s missing and then crashes into disappointment when she fails to live up to his expectations. This particular story isn’t as casually violent as others in the series, although there remain a couple of nicely tense action scenes and one gratuitous Godfather moment. There are a couple of plot points that cause wrinkled brow or stretched credulity, and a B story that isn’t integrated as well as it could have been, so it is slightly less satisfying.


Characterization is stellar. I believe Robicheaux exists somewhere out there, although I’m not sure I’d like to spend significant amounts of time with him. I remain especially disappointed that he is so quick to leave his adopted daughter Alafair with friends or family when he’s following one of his cases. Alafair has had extensive loss–her father likely killed by Contras, her mother dead in a plane accident, her ‘adopted’ mother killed. While Dave recognizes this, he still is driven enough by his obsessions to ignore the consequences to leaving her. It is precisely due to Burke’s skill in characterization that I feel such sympathy, and such frustration. It is also interesting witnessing Robicheaux’s dealings with the black people in the book, as there is a degree of emotional complexity that doesn’t easily boil down to categories. While he has some sympathy for a black prisoner, Tee Beau, and his grandmother, later in the story he is very disrespectful of their belief in a black witch-woman. However, Tee Beau is comfortable calling him out on it, which says something for the quality of their relationship: “In one way you like most white folks, Mr. Dave. You don’t hear what a black man saying to you.” Ultimately, it can be sad and tiring to bear witness for Robicheaux; although he is very human with moments of generosity and kindness, I get the exhausted sense I’ve done this before. Burke doesn’t write mysteries quite as much as he writes an exploration of the human spirit in all its contradictions.


Overall, a solid installment in a detective series exploring inner conflict. I’ve already planned for the next, A Stained White Radiance.