Category Archives: detective fiction

Gold Coast Blues: A Jules Landau Mystery, by Marc Krulewitch****

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goldcoastblues“Tanya Maggio’s a missing person, and I got a feeling she’s missing on purpose.” This third entry of the Jules Landau series finds Landau searching for Eddie’s missing girlfriend. There’s a faded noir feeling in its pages as Landau bounces between Chicago and New Jersey trying to trace back the thread. Though confusing at times, a trifle overburdened by excess characters, it’s a fun, original story. Thank you once and thank you twice to Net Galley and Random House Alibi for the DRC. This title is available for purchase September 22.

The search for Tanya leads Landau to the mean streets of Irvington, New Jersey, where a crooked cop named Cooper explains that in their town, they don’t try stamp out crime…they manage it. So anyone that is hooked up to the criminal world is fair game; the idea, at least ostensibly, is that bystanders should not be caught in the crossfire.

Right.

Turns out the New Jersey people are running a scam. Those among the one percent that have more time and money than good sense invest in fine wine, wine that is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars for a case of a dozen bottles. Hey, its value appreciates, and some liken it to gold or silver. If a bottle gets busted, then that’s what insurance is for.

With a bizarre scenario such as this one, it’s only to be expected that someone would come up with the idea of counterfeiting labels and brewing up some fake stuff. After all, no one is going to drink it anyway, right? Who’s to know?

The plot twists, and it turns sometimes enough to confuse me. Hold up…are we in Illinois, or are we still in Jersey? But when push comes to shove, this romp is too enjoyable to walk away from. “That little shit Spike”, an heir to the Irvington mob, is one character that shines bright enough to keep those pages turning. Another, of course, is Landau’s ridiculous cat Punim, for whom he sits down to compose a legal trust fund when he is depressed and in danger. His own life may be on the line, but by god someone has to be paid to feed Punim his chicken hearts every day. And then there is Amy. Is she an enemy? A spy? She sure as hell isn’t really a psychic, but she knows enough that she has to be something. Maybe she has Tanya tied up in her closet. You never can tell.

The originality of the plot is assisted by Krulewitch’s affinity for figurative language. I loved his description of the “horror hotel” and the “stunningly verdant” house located on…wait for it…Bunnybrush Lane.

September is a good time to curl up under the quilts with a good book, or for those in warmer climes, it’s not too late to stretch out on the beach with one. Either way, if you need an escapist beach read, or a good noir mystery, this might be the book for you.

X, by Sue Grafton *****

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xBefore I review this title, I have a plea: can we just make the alphabet a teensy bit longer? Because I don’t think I am ready for this series to end, and it’s getting perilously close. But meanwhile, thank you to Net Galley and Putnam-Penguin Publishers for the free DRC, an unexpected treat, especially since it was such a clean galley. The title goes up for sale August 25, but you can order it in advance, too.

As often happens, our story isn’t just about one mystery. There’s an official investigation that goes bad; an unofficial investigation that goes worse; and then there’s a big pile of trouble that drops itself into the neighborhood where Kinsey and Henry (who is ten percent Kinsey’s landlord and ninety percent her surrogate father) live. As always, taut suspense is intermingled brilliantly with silly, naughty, impulsive things that Kinsey Millhone, our intrepid but mischievous detective, dreams up.

This past year saw Grafton inducted as a Grand Master by her fellow mystery writers, and it really should have happened sooner. The level of writing she practices spills over the standard detective story genre and at times approaches literary fiction.

In this story, Kinsey is concerned about the drought in California, and the issue is deftly interwoven into the plot without ever becoming preachy or slowing the pace. Like everything else Grafton writes, it’s well executed.

And here’s my own confession: I love this book so hard that I deliberately slowed down how much of it I read each day. I could have had this review to you last week, but every time I noted that I’d gone 10 or 15 percent further in, I took it away from myself and forced myself to go read a different galley for awhile, sort of like Mary Ingalls making her Christmas candy last as long as possible. But now it’s finished, and the only thing left to do is tell you that it’s every bit as good as what you have come to expect. And if you are new to the series…well okay, I guess if you are new to the series, you are either really young, or you’ve been in a coma for the last twenty years. Welcome to the world of the living; here is your book. And although it can stand on its own just fine if you read it without reading the A-W mysteries, it’s even better if you read them in order.

I can remember my first Kinsey Millhone story. I found C is for Corpse in a train station shop, and soon afterward found myself in bed, recovering from whiplash. (People really do get whiplash; mine was from a car wreck, not a train wreck.) I was mostly okay as long as I kept my head on the pillow and did not try to move my neck—so ideal for reading a paperback. Once I was up and at ‘em, I hunted down the A and B titles, and from then forward, I read the series in order. And over the years and many installments, Kinsey has evolved from the super-hardboiled detective she was in the first book (which was already really strong) to a more developed character. Because when you have a longstanding series, you really can’t have one episode after another in which your protagonist gets whacked over the head or grabbed from behind, hogtied and tossed into the trunk of a car. People start to roll their eyes if you do too much of that shit, but then you have to find another way to maintain their interest level. Grafton does this by combining some really tricky, interesting problems (and yes, some danger) with a lot of character development.

I don’t know about you, but I tend to assign faces of people I know or have seen to characters in books. It helps me run the book as a mental movie if they have a face and a voice. Since Grafton has said in interviews that she sees Kinsey as a sort of younger, skinnier alter ego, I have created an imaginary Kinsey who looks like a cross between younger-Grafton and Stephanie Zimbalist (actor who played a TV detective many years ago). But when she opens her mouth to crack wise, I hear the voice of Roseanne Barr. So go figure!

So here we are. I am more than twenty years older than when I first met Kinsey; since then, I’ve gone back to school, had a career, had another child and raised her, adopted another child and raised him, and retired from teaching. Through it all, Kinsey has remained a wonderful constant, perhaps the adult version of having Grandma come to visit. Oh boy, she’s here! Or, oh boy, she’s coming back! And frankly, I am just not ready to let go. If you’ve been following the series for a long time too, you may feel the same.

The good news is the present. Right now, there’s this wonderful detective novel that you can order up, and you can float away to Santa Teresa. What an awesome vacation read. Even if it rains wherever you are going, you could have a terrific time curled up on a bed just reading this. In fact, you don’t really even have to go anywhere. Turn your phone off; get your favorite beverage and maybe some munchies; and reserve a time to just wallow and enjoy. Because when it comes to a riveting novel that is also, at times, laugh-out-loud funny, I just don’t see where you will find anything better.

Brush Back, by Sara Paretsky *****

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brushbackA good mystery writer engages the writer at the beginning, and gets the adrenaline pumping by the 75% point in the story arc. A great mystery writer grabs us by the shirt right from the get-go, ramps us up into overdrive during the first quarter of the story, and doesn’t let us go till we turn the last page, exhausted, feeling both satisfied and bereaved because the story is over. And Sara Paretsky is a great writer, every single time. She’s only gotten better with this 17th installment of the Vic Warshawski series. Thank you and thank you again (and again, and again) to Putnam-Penguin Publishers and Net Galley for the DRC. You can buy this book July 28 if you want to. And you know you do!

Vic is a working class hero, but she’s left the mean streets of the south part of Chicago behind, and when she goes back to visit, nobody who knew her when she was younger will let her forget it. But she does go back, because an old flame approaches her with a serious problem. His mother Stella is out of prison, finally. She pulled the full twenty years for murdering her daughter Annie. But now there is a possibility she really didn’t do it, and Frank wants Vic to search for the truth. Vic doesn’t like it one bit, but agrees to give him a single hour off the clock; after that, it’s the standard fee. She has bills to pay just like he does.

Things turn ugly very quickly, of course. Of course they do! But just as she is ready to wash her hands of the whole unpleasant business, the evening news picks the story up, along with insinuations that smear her own family’s legacy. Now it’s a matter of family honor; Vic is in it for keeps. Her attorney tells her to keep out of it; Lotty, who is like a second mother to Vic, tells her the same thing. Steer clear; let it go. But our detective is like a dog with a bone, and together with her family pride and reckless nature, she’s in it up to her neck again in no time.

In this installment of the Warshawski series, Paretsky has eighty-sixed young relative Petra, who visited a recent installment, and I was glad to see her go. I found her abrasive. However, young cousin Bernie, a high school student checking out colleges, is visiting, and every inch of my being understood Warshawski’s annoyance at the lack of privacy a teen in one’s home creates, and the irritation of having a young person who’s awake half the night and sleeping in the living room all damn day. I have five grown children and endless others have accepted my hospitality over various summers, and so this tidbit hit home. But Bernie is a much more agreeable sidekick than Petra was, and I hope Paretsky will find cause to bring her back in some future installment.

Another of my favorite moments was the lecture Warshawski’s mechanic treated her to when her car was stripped right down to the nub after she left in parked in a South Chicago hot spot under emergency circumstances. He recites the litany of every bad thing she has ever permitted to happen to every single car she’s owned and brought to him, and I laughed out loud as I read it. I would quote it here, but for that I am supposed to wait for the published copy to be sure it hasn’t been altered, and that won’t happen, since you need to know to order your copy right now.

In closing, there are four things you need to remember. First, don’t just pack your gun; pack enough ammunition to get you through your misadventures. Second, technology is a great boon to those that collect threatening evidence against bad guys; scan your pictures, your receipts, your photos and damning letters and put them in the Cloud where bad guys can’t get to them. Third, try to stay away from the cement mafia if at all possible. The things they do to their enemies just aren’t pretty. And fourth, in an unfair scrap when they’re bigger than you are, go for the ankles!

Oh, there’s so much more, but hey, that’s what the book itself is for. It’s not due out till the end of the month, but you can reserve your copy now. Do it!

Monica’s Sister, by Earl Emerson *****

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monicassisterAh, it’s good to be reading a Thomas Black story again. Black is back with his lovely wife, Kathy, a good-hearted woman who makes some interesting friends. One of them is Angela Bassman, a woman who shows up all the time like a bad penny, making ridiculous charges against anyone and everyone, and bragging about having so many friends in high places, having done such fantastic things, that one is left rolling one’s eyes. And so when Thomas hears Angela’s voice approaching his office, he does what any thinking human being would do: he leaps into the closet and shuts the door. Anything to avoid that woman!

The wheels of the story start moving, and things get more complicated. Angela, whose famous sister is the actress, Monica Pennington, hires Black to help her with what is supposed to be a simple task, but isn’t. He would like to back out, but he smells a rat. Despite the crazy nature of Angela’s claims, she is obviously being followed by someone. Strange things happen, and too many coincidences occur. Whether Angela is crazy or whether she isn’t, his detective’s intuition starts to quiver, and he becomes more entangled in her affairs than he had anticipated, especially when she falls to her death, and he sees it happen. Later, Pennington hires Black to find out why Angela killed herself. Because of course, that’s what happened…isn’t it?

Emerson, a Shamus winning author who sets his stories here in the misty Pacific Northwest, usually right here in Seattle, is one fine writer. Hundreds of interesting, free galleys come my way in a given year, but I wanted to read his story badly enough to put it on my wish list, and luckily, my spouse snapped it up and gave it to me for Mother’s Day. What a fantastic gift!

The overall tenor of the story begins as gut-bustingly funny, and then gradually darkens and becomes more suspenseful. By the story’s end, I was literally (yes, I do mean literally) sitting on the edge of my seat, putting off the family members that wanted my attention with a robotic “…just a sec. Just a sec. Yeah I know. Give me just a minute.”

Emerson also uses the occasion to talk a little bit about bipolar disorder, and the ways it can turn a person’s life upside down, but he does it in a way that prevents the book’s pace from hitching. It’s masterfully done!

If you like strong detective fiction, or fiction set in the Pacific Northwest, or both, you just can’t do any better than this book. Seriously recommended for just about everyone.

The Missing and the Dead, by Jack Lynch *****

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themissingandthedeadJerry Lind is missing, which is especially strange, given that he knows he is about to inherit a small fortune. It seems unlikely that he would take off for a long time without letting someone know about it. He ought to be back by now. Moreover, the next people in line to inherit his share are also wondering if he is okay. Not that they hope he isn’t. Of course not! And at this point I have to break my narrative to let you know that I was fortunate enough to get this DRC free, courtesy of Net Galley and Brash Books. It was previously published in the 1980’s and is just now being released digitally.

Back to Jerry. No, never mind, forget him for a minute. Let’s talk about our assassin.

Our assassin is not getting any younger, and his wife is exhausted from all the moves. Every time he carries out a contract, they have to either abandon their stuff or get a truck, and over years and years of professional killing, it wears a woman down. She wants a garden. From now on, he needs to either make do with the significant amount he’s squirreled away from his successful if messy business, or he’s going to have to goddamn hide the bodies.

It’s the least he can do for her.

Peter Bragg is our man. Jerry’s sister hires him to go to Barracks Cove, where Jerry was supposed to be running a professional errand, and see if he can’t track him down. And Bragg goes in prepared. If you are sick of reading wussy narratives that give flimsy reasons for the intrepid sleuth not to carry a gun and make sure he has bullets, this is your guy, and this is your story. Has he ever fired that thing? Oh yes. But not just for practice…in the line of duty? Again, oh hell yes.

And it’s a good thing, as it turns out.

By the time the thing is over, a great deal of action has taken place, and though I am a six-to-eight book-at-a-time reader, the urgent, taut narrative (reminiscent somewhat of the Richard Stark detective novels from about the same period) grabbed me by the front of my shirt and held me there until the last page was turned.

It was nominated for an Edgar, and the clever juggling of setting and character development, along with a plot line that is unbelievably lean and compelling, will probably leave you wondering, as it did me, why he was denied and just who exactly did get it.

The consolation? If you have a kindle, you can read this book right now. Change the window on your screen and order it up. You’ll have an excellent weekend…if you can wait that long!

Betrayal of Trust, by J.A. Jance *****

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betrayaloftrust Jance’s JP Beaumont detective series is one of my all-time favorites. Set (usually) in my own home town, it carries a gritty yet human, thoroughly believable flavor that I just can’t find anywhere else.

In this case, Beaumont is roped into a scandal unfolding at the governor’s mansion; it turns out he knows the governor. She was the girl who was too important to talk to him in high school, but now she wants his skill in discreetly looking into some things she’d rather not see on the front page.

It doesn’t work out that way.

This title has been re-released, and so I accidentally read this twice, but even once I had realized my error, I decided to plow through and finish it a second time. It wasn’t that I had no other books; but this series is on my very short list of things I don’t mind seeing a second time around.

Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys good detective fiction.

Burning Angel, by James Lee Burke *****

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I’ve enjoyed and reviewed the whole Robicheaux series over the course of the last year and a half, burningangeland began with a much more recent one that I read out of sequence because it found its way into my home. So now that I’ve commented multiple times upon the brilliance and eloquence of this writer, I just have to get this off my chest:

Does this protagonist EVER eat VEGETABLES? (Onions on a sandwich don’t count!)

We move through the plot lines with a steady series of meals, & this makes it realistic. Some crime/mystery writers have protagonists who appear to never eat or sleep, & at some point one starts to notice. This writer uses food to evoke a sense of setting, constantly parading before us his begniets, his boudin, his po’ boy sandwiches. He fries fish and gobbles that up, too.

In one of his novels his narrative mentions a bad guy as being among those who let their bodies get vastly overweight because they eat wrong and don’t care what they look like, and I want to say, maybe they didn’t get your excellent DNA, pal, because even though you jog and work out, your diet is a walking heart attack. Coffee, Dr. Pepper, fried fish, dairy, and starch. Holy crap.

Okay, I just had to rant this once about that, because I’ve been thinking about it awhile.

The story line itself is like others, except that it isn’t; by this time he has established a following, and the series is consistent in its approach and has characters we see again, and others that are hauntingly real, but that we probably won’t see. As always, Burke uses his characters to show us the ambiguity in humanity, and that sometimes the people you expect to be good guys aren’t all that good, and that sometimes the archetypical bad guy has some good in him, too. In this story, a gangster gives his life to save Dave’s. This also gives him one more dead person to talk to and dream about. But it isn’t stale; it makes me snuggle a bit more deeply under the comforter at night and think, “Ah yes! Here we go!”

If you are a reader of Burke’s who fancies Clete Purcel, as my spouse and I do (and my guy, who is almost always strictly a nonfiction reader, is completely hooked on this series and is reading ahead of me now, chuckling happily whenever he runs across Cletus), be assured he is an integral part of this particular story, and he’s in fine form.

The constant struggle Robicheaux finds throughout his career is that when you are a cop, you have a decent paycheck, the authority to do things that a private citizen cannot, and a certain amount of personal protection, especially in dealing with mobsters. But the problem with being a cop is that you’re working for an apparatus that is not set up to defend those who need it most:

“The big trade-off is one’s humanity…you start your career with the moral clarity of the youthful altruist, then gradually you begin to feel betrayed by those you supposedly protect and serve. You’re not welcome in their part of town…the most venal bondsman can walk with immunity through neighborhoods where you’ll be shot at by snipers. You begin to believe that there are those in our midst who are not part of the same gene pool. You think of them as subhuman…whom you treat in custody as you would humorous circus animals.”

From there, he describes the quick, slippery slope in which a cop may shoot a suspect who held something out that glinted in the very dark night and which the cop thought to be a weapon. After shooting the man with the screwdriver or car keys in his hand, a weapon with a filed serial number gets wrapped in the guy’s hand, then dropped nearby. And cops stand by one another in these cases. The corruption has solidified, and you are no longer on the side of the angels.

He does a nice job with character development here. His wife Bootsie is not the frightened and easily horrified woman she once was; when he launches himself out into the darkness to do something dangerous, she sends him off with the reminder: “Watch your ass, kiddo.”

Alafair, an enchanting toddler when the series started, has begun dating. She won’t let him call her ‘little guy’ anymore. And she learns how to use a gun, because it seems as if bad guys are always lurking around, waiting to exact revenge either on her father, or against him by harming her family. She wants to be ready.

He’s on the force; he’s off it. The bait shop/cafe doesn’t make more than 15K a year; the family can’t live off that. The private detective business Clete recruits him into doesn’t make good money either. The only takers are the bad guys they don’t want to deal with.

At one point, someone reminds him that having his badge means he gets to walk on the curb instead of in the gutter. But he is ambivalent, because being the enforcement arm of the US government isn’t pretty, and there’s no way to turn that around. Being a rural deputy rather than a city cop is the compromise he has made at this point, but it’s still a nasty business, and as usual, the ending is bittersweet.

I wouldn’t have it any other way.

The Bum’s Rush, by GM Ford *****

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thebumsrushI have read every speck of fiction written by the man who calls himself GM Ford. Part of it is that he sets a good deal of his work in Seattle, and I was stunned to find him (in one or another of the Leo Waterman books) chasing a villain into my neighborhood, down my street, and when he turned and I read the description of the house in which the body was found, I thought…MY STARS! I KNOW WHICH HOUSE HE MEANS!

Okay. That won’t happen for most of you. But if you can track down the old Leo Waterman books (Ford’s earliest series), they are both riveting in their own right, and absolutely hysterical in places. I have always liked books that feature working class heroes. Some of Waterman’s friends are homeless men, and when he gets money, he takes them things. It’s sort of sweet, at the same time that the mystery is compelling, at the same time that it is, in a wry, clever way, very VERY funny!

I was heartbroken when he ended this series, and overjoyed to see him come back with Chump Change, his most recent release (see review). Consider this a generic endorsement of all of the Waterman books. His other series, with Frank Corso as protagonist, is well written, but not meant to be funny. It was good too, but ultimately, my heart belongs to Leo.

Droll, witty, and brilliantly written. If you can, get them all and read them in order!

Serpents Rising, by David A. Poulsen ****

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serpents risingWhat fun to get in on the first mystery novel of a planned series! Poulsen is an experienced writer, and he knows how to set the hook to reel readers in. I was immediately engaged as I read the initial chapters.

Thank you, Net Galley and Dundurn Press, for the advance peek!

I’d classify this as a cozy mystery, and it’s the first such book I’ve read that was written by a man. I enjoy a limited number of this sub-genre. I dislike seeing everyday people (housewives, caterers, hoteliers) “outsmart” the professionals, and I avoid like the plague any cozy mystery with (*shudder!*) recipes! For those, I use a cookbook. And Poulsen doesn’t do either of those annoying things listed above; so far so good.

His reason for wanting to get to the bottom of his wife’s death by arson is a strong one, not all that new, (the cops suspected him for a long time, and he misses his wife), but old devices like these can still work if the writer is skillful enough to make them seem new. In the beginning, it worked for me.

Equally if not even more engaging is the help he provides his friend Cobb, a private detective being paid to search for a missing teenager with a history of drug abuse. The characters of Jay and Zoe were almost tangible. I used to teach kids of this age, and Poulsen made them so believable that I felt as if I knew them.

That said, the first half of the book is better than the second half. Some of the details in the resolution strained credibility, and the second half also saw a couple of seen-it-many-times plot devices that didn’t look new; they made me groan and mutter, “Oh come on, not that again!”

But you’ll note there are four stars there. It’s a good book, despite the occasional momentary mutter on my part. When the second Cullen and Cobb mystery comes out, it will be on my to-read list.

I was pleased that the author did not add a sickening amount of gore, or add elements that would leave me with a leaden gut for the next two days. Some authors feel that in order to gain the attention of an increasingly easily distracted audience, they have to dig up every horrible possibility and traumatize us. Not so here (or in anything I would label “cozy”). If your “ick” factor keeps you away from Stephen King, you can read this one.

For a fun, relatively quick read to curl up with over the weekend or take to the beach, get a copy of this book. If you are a mystery fan, I think you’ll like it!

Beware Beware, by Steph Cha *****

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Bewarebeware

Steph Cha’s new thriller, Beware Beware, starts out like a sassy beach read and ends with muscle and authority. It’s gritty, urban,edgy, and ultimately deals with a burning real life issue in a way that is not preachy, but instead is integral to the plot. Her character development and pacing are handled as expertly as a champion driver at the Indy 500. Buckle up and be ready!
Daphne Freamon, a renowned painter, contacts PI Juniper Song, the first Korean-American to join the formidable array of female sleuths marketed in contemporary detective fiction, for what appears to be a routine domestic investigation case. In the end, it is far more. There are more twists and turns than you can possibly imagine, and the pages turn so rapidly that by the end of the weekend, I was done, yet still thinking about what I had read, which for me is significant; usually I mow through one book, reflect long enough to spin a review, and then move on.
Freamon hires Song, a hard-drinking, hard-working PI with a past that haunts her daily, to follow her boyfriend around. Is he having an affair? Is he back on drugs?
The answer is obviously “yes” to at least one of these, and yet Freamon still wants Song on the case. Two weeks have gone by and she’s still doing this work after she has more than enough information; something feels off about it, but hey, it’s Daphne’s dime. Daphne Freamon wants her to continue, and Song follows through. Oh boy, does she follow through!
A distraction that becomes urgent, then menacing, is the ugly man who has taken an unmistakable yet unwelcome interest in Song’s roommate, whom she considers her little sister. Why can’t Lori lose this guy? When Lori’s boyfriend, the one she loves, is beaten so badly that he requires hospitalization, the facts come out, and they aren’t pretty. Now Song has two problems instead of one. How can she protect Lori from this thug, a man with a thousand tentacles that reach everywhere?
Freamon, who has become not only a client but a friend as well, sees the problem too. She has a quick word with Lori at a nightclub. From there, things speed up. You may find yourself leaning forward as you read!
One small thing that twitched at the back of my brain all the way through the book, being a practical-minded gal, was whether Freamon pays up for Song’s sweat and hard work. I keep waiting for Song to send an invoice or cash a check. She spends so much time on this case and does so much for this woman, and I just want to know that Song can pay her bills at the end of the day. It shouldn’t bother me, given the immediacy of the story line, and yet it does.
This picky detail shouldn’t keep you away from fresh, original writing by a new talent who is sure to be a huge hit. Cha writes with confidence and authority, and if you take this book to the beach, you won’t notice the sand or the sea. Carve out some time, because you won’t want to do anything else till you have turned the very last page!