Category Archives: detective fiction

Thicker Than Water, by GM Ford *****

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There are a number of masters of the mystery genre that I read faithfully. There are about a dozen, if we count those no longer among us (such as Ed McBain, Donald Westlake, and Tony Hillerman) whose novels I would read simply on the basis of their authorship.

GM Ford is among my dozen. In fact, he’s toward the top of the heap. I can’t objectively say whether the latter is because he sets his mysteries here in my own stomping grounds–so that while James Lee Burke can give me a really great travelogue, when Ford hooks a left on Madison and heads to Madison Park, I am looking out the front of the car windshield with him, since we’re less than twenty minutes from my home.

But the one thing I can say with objective certainty is that he is one fine writer. He can take a premise that is as old as the hills and in the hands of a lesser writer would cause me to moan, “Oh, come ON, not THIS again!” and give it a twist to turn it into something else, so NOT really ‘this again’, and then write it with such amazing deftness, word-smithery, pacing, and wry humor that I almost can’t put it down.

But I do. I put it down at bedtime, because I’m going to read SOMETHING after I take my sleeping aid for the night, and whatever it is, I may not remember it very well. My very favorite reading material only gets read while my brain is in fully active mode. I doled this out to myself in bits and pieces, like Mary Ingalls hoarding her Christmas candy. Ohhh, don’t let it be over yet!

But I don’t delay gratification all that well, and as the weekend hazes to a close, the last page of the book terminated, and now I must wait for the one that will be out in a few months.

I had half a dozen sticky-noted quotes to toss your way, poignant moments with “the boys”, as the first-person protagonist fondly refers to his late father’s crowd, some of whom are truly as down-and-out as people can be, living beneath freeways, in doorways, and under trees in city parks. His trenchant observation that “the line between middle class and out on your ass is thinner than a piece of Denny’s bacon” is most painfully clear in pricey metropolises such as Seattle, where the annual take-home pay of a waitress or clerical worker would not even pay the rent for an studio apartment in the city, let alone allow for other costs of daily living like food, transportation, medical premiums, and clothing.

And for me, this recognition is one of the key grooves that turns my mental tumblers into place and permits me to feel empathy toward an author. It’s a hard world out there, and even in a glorious place like Seattle, poverty’s knife edge is closer to most of us than we care to even acknowledge.

Leo Waterman, our intrepid detective, has inherited enough to live off of, having come of age at a middling forty-five, but life has already taught him what down-and-out looks like. He feels the bumps on the head and the shock that strikes his skeleton when he climbs a fence and jumps to the concrete on the other side, but if there’s a good enough reason, he does it anyway. He doesn’t have a death wish, but he has the character and integrity to go out and butt heads with bad people when the city’s cops settle in more comfortably behind their desks and wait for retirement to edge ever closer. Leo’s an easy hero to bond with.

As for the rest of the little bookmarks and sticky notes I have reluctantly pulled from my still-new book’s pages…why ruin it for you? It doesn’t get much better than this. Find the quotes for yourself. You can order that book and it will be at your gates inside the week. But you can’t have my copy. It’s been claimed by another family member, even as I typed this review.

The Neon Rain, by James Lee Burke *****

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This book is the first in a twenty-book series. Brilliantly written, it introduces the reader to Lieutenant Dave Robicheaux, a complex, flawed, fascinating character. Other reviewers say that what is not said is as important as what is. The deft skill exemplified here is a real pleasure to witness, and I kept disturbing my husband, who reads almost exclusively nonfiction and was reading an IT printout, to tell him things I noticed. I could NOT keep it to myself, I was so impressed. (If you have seen any of my other reviews,you know that this is no small thing.)

The protagonist/narrator frustrates us again and again with his compulsions. We may even say right out loud, “NO! Don’t go into the bar!” but he trots right on in. We want to say, Go get the girlfriend and say you are sorry. But instead, he goes and does something else that will get him into trouble.

I generally have no patience at all for the suspense that is similar to the slasher movies we saw as teens, where you sat on the edge of the theatre seat and cried, “Don’t go in the old, dark house!” and the sweet little couple said, “Oh, maybe we can get out of the rain! Doesn’t look as if anyone has lived here in a long time.” And in they go.

So what makes this so good? Why do I still care about this character, after he screws things up twenty different ways? Why do I even like him?

I think I like the dignity the writer bestows upon his protagonist, and I also like the fact that he is flawed and torn, as real people are. I suspect that the writer either struggles with alcoholic urges himself, or is very, very close to someone else who does. Again, I have read so many novels in which alcoholism is a key plot point that I swore off them, quitting alcohol stories forever, but this writer makes it seem as brand new as every individual person you meet is.

We have to like this protagonist, not for what he thinks, but for what he does. He cannot afford something very important, (trying to avoid a spoiler), but ends up borrowing money from the bank to avoid having someone close to him carry his debt when they voluntarily pony up. There are NO ADVERBS in this book. None are needed. The writer lets us know how things are said and done in more skillful ways.

It is the ways that the protagonist responds to real people, and who he chooses to help, that ultimately make me really, really like him.

I will admit I also appreciate the palpable taste of the setting. I like local authors (USA, Pacific NW) for the familiarity, but I like Burke for the sense of a place I have never been, and may never go. I have always been leery of traveling in the deep south. My family is multi-racial, and even today, I am not sure I could drive comfortably through the backwaters of Louisiana and Mississippi with my African-American son, my Japanese husband, and our biracial daughter. With Burke there, I don’t really need to; I feel as if I am in the Gulf Coast part of Louisiana (and for awhile, Mississippi) as he describes them.

My first taste of this writer’s work came out of sequence, when my daughter came home with a freebie from the shelf at school, a much later book in the series. I was sufficiently impressed to put his first books on my wish list. Now that I have read this remarkable novel, my next task is to go back and get the rest of them, a little at a time.

Edgy, brutal, and painful in places; not for the faint of heart, but unmatchable in quality; a fascinating read.

The Lost Get-Back Boogie, by James Lee Burke *****

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Whoa. Okay. I can’t BELIEVE what it says in the preface, that this novel was REJECTED 111 times…and then nominated for the Pulitzer. It’s raw, it’s vivid, and in places so painful that I had to read it in small jags at a time to break it up. That’s okay; it made this excellent novel last longer.

This is not a recent publication, but it’s one that has stood the test of time. It is also one of the first novels I read by this writer, and I became such a fan that I went back and read his entire Dave Robicheaux detective series in order. Sooner or later I will enter those books here, but for now, this stand-alone story is one of the best I have ever read, and it gives me an easy way to make sure this outstanding writer is on my blog somewhere.

Here it is clear that the protagonist (and likely the writer) has ABSOLUTELY NO use for the American prison system or cops in general, though he is careful to avoid stereotyping his characters, and even his bad guys have their better moments as well. Since I agree with his perspective, I found myself nodding in synch with the bald, raw statements made by the narrator as well as multiple characters within the story line.

But the guy is no bleeding heart; he also recognizes that people sometimes make some terrible choices to get inside those walls, and that those newly emerged often wreak a lot of damage to themselves and sometimes to others before they hit their stride, supposing that they do.

This is brilliantly written, and I don’t know what more to add to those who say that it is as much fun to read what he leaves unsaid as what he says outright. This early work shows a real gift, and it’s fun to go back and find out where he started.

Chump Change, by GM Ford *****

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chumpchangeFrom within the crowded field of mystery, crime thriller, and detective fiction writers, there are three still living who can make me laugh out loud without missing a beat or slowing the pace of a damn fine novel. GM Ford is one of them. (For the curious: James Lee Burke and Sue Grafton are the others.)

I celebrate whenever one of his novels, which had become something of a rarity in recent years, is published, and because of their whimsical yet biting nature, I prefer the Leo Waterman series to the excellent but not funny Frank Corso series.

Had this one not come up like a gift waiting to be unwrapped on Net Galley, it would have been on my Mother’s Day wish list.

When in Seattle, what should one do when a crime is being committed—whether property related or violent—within one’s view, or even to oneself? The knee jerk reaction is to call the cops; as Ford reminds us, we grew up expecting “Officer Friendly” to turn up with his big muscles and righteous justice, brimming with yearning to help the oppressed and exact justice. But that’s a myth. And right now, when SPD is in such hot water for its gratuitous use of violence that the FBI is monitoring its cops and the Justice Department is telling the new mayor that it’s not okay to substitute additional training in place of discipline, this novel could not have been better timed. Waterman falls for the 911 plea for assistance gambit twice, though he is old enough to know better. Chaos ensues both times, of course. When justice comes, it is because of the protagonist’s smarts and his excellent connections in other places.

Much of this novel is set on the Eastern side of the Cascades, out in wheat country near the Idaho border. And there, his fictional cops are about the same as those everywhere in the US of A: easily greased by the squeaky wheels that have the most resources. The gloves are off; the veneer of political correctness that sometimes hides the scruffier side of law enforcement in the state’s alpha city is nowhere to be seen way out there in good ol’ boy country.

Once again, Ford uses what would ordinarily be considered a trite device toward the story’s climax, but stews it in enough crazy juice to make it absolutely brand new. The only mitigation of my joy was in noting how few pages of the story remained.

I also appreciated what he does with his side kick character, who has done a really bad thing, but who is young enough to redeem himself in a fresh situation. The measures of forgiveness and caution are well played.

I hope this marvelous book will receive enough publicity and promotion for Ford’s work to be appreciated by a wider audience than local folk. He deserves it. Just as I enjoy a journey to Louisiana or Montana through the pages of Burke’s literature, or to Southern California through Grafton’s, so should everyone, including those who read the New York Times, be treated to a taste of Leo Waterman and the misty yet gritty city he calls home.

Maxwell Street Blues, by Marc Krulewitch ****

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Maxwell Street Blues is an entertaining first of a series by Marc Krulewitch. Set primarily in present-day Chicago, it has a noir flavor that takes the reader back about 60 years, despite the presence of meth as a key storyline component. Picture it all in black and white, the fog, the halo of the street light, the only thing missing are the fedora and the trench coat. We even have a mystery woman; no, make it two. And pay attention or you will lose track of which is which.

A brief change of setting, from Chicago to Los Angeles and suddenly the noir feeling evaporates and all is neon. Back to Chicago again; black and white, shadows and light.

The ghost of organized crime has come to call. Were it contemporary organized crime, it would be scurrilous, but it is from long ago in protagonist Landrau’s past. This struck a note for me; I have family mobsters two generations back. It’s rendered innocuous by the distance of time.

I very much enjoyed this read, which came to me free courtesy of Net Galley. There were a couple of moments that verged on the trite, and unfortunately they showed themselves in the climax. But as for me, I will cheerfully continue to read the rest of the series as it appears and becomes available. This is only the beginning, and it’s a very good one.