The following reviews are exclusive to our Web site, and most (if not all) will not appear in the printed version of Mystery News. We hope you enjoy them, and we thank our contributors for allowing us to share them with you on www.blackravenpress.com. Click here to return to the Mystery News home page. If you enjoy reading these, you probably would enjoy reading Mystery News each month. Click here for subscription information or click here for information on back issue/single issue purchases. (Most recent update: 7 September 2003)

Dr. Nightingale Follows a Canine Clue by Lydia Adamson - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Aunt Dimity: Detective by Nancy Atherton - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
Hunting Season by Nevada Barr - reviewed by Diana Vickery
The Janus Deception by John F. Bayer - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Hot Dog by Laurien Berenson - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
A Short Life on a Sunny Isle by Hannah I. Blank - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
Fit to Die edited by Joan Boswell and Sue Pike - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Red Dream by Victoria Brooks - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Queen of Ambition by Fiona Buckley - reviewed by Sally Fellows
He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
The Killing Kind by John Connolly - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Hostage by Robert Crais - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Death of the Party by Catherine Dain - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Black Sunshine by S.V. Date - reviewed by Gayle Wedgwood
One Virgin Too Many by Lindsey Davis - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Dying for a Change by Kathleen Delaney - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Corpse Candle by P.C. Doherty- reviewed by Sally Fellows
The Mask of Ra by P.C. Doherty - reviewed by Virginia R. Knight
Safe Beginnings by Christine Duncan - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
A Sunset Touch by Marjorie Eccles - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
The Company by Arabella Edge - reviewed by Dick Saxe
At Risk By Kit Ehrman - reviewed by Diana Vickery
Killing Paparazzi by Robert M. Eversz - reviewed by Angie Hogencamp
Sketches with Wolves by Jacqueline Fiedler - reviewed by Angie Hogencamp
Separation of Power by Vince Flynn - reviewed by John Leech
Fish, Blood and Bone by Leslie Forbes - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Fury by G.M. Ford - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Garden View by Mary Freeman - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner - reviewed by John Leech
Death of a Songbird by Christine Goff - reviewed by Leslie Doran
Save the Last Dance for Me by Ed Gorman - reviewed by Gary Warren Niebuhr
The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton - reviewed by Virginia R. Knight
An Eye for Murder by Libby Fischer Hellmann - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Death's Jest-book (A Dalziel and Pascoe Novel) by Reginald Hill - reviewed by John Leech
The Dead of Midnight by Catherine Hunter - reviewed by Diana Vickery
The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Green Girls by Michael Kimball - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Dig Deep for Murder by Kate Kingsbury - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Blood Diamonds by Jon Land - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Dead Men Die by E. L. Larkin - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Black Out by John Lawton - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Bad Connection by Michael Ledwidge - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette - reviewed by John Leech
Overkill by Susan McBride - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
The Case of the Ripper's Revenge by Sam McCarver - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Atonement by Ian McEwan - reviewed by John Leech
Peaches and Screams by G. A. McKevett - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance by Larry Millett - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Death of a Mermaid by Wendy Howell Mills - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Angel Fire by Lisa Miscione - reviewed by Gary Warren Niebuhr
Sea-Born Women by B.J. Mountford - reviewed by Sally Fellows
A Valley to Die For by Radine Trees Nehring - reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Thin Walls by Kris Nelscott - reviewed by Gary Warren Niebuhr
A Study in Lilac by Maria-Antonia Oliver - reviewed by James Clar
Advent of Dying by Carol Anne O'Marie - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
Four Blind Mice by James Patterson - reviewed by Dick Saxe
The Truth Hurts by Nancy Pickard - reviewed by Lisa Lundquist
Resurrection Men: An Inspector Rebus Novel by Ian Rankin OBE - reviewed by John Leech
The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern - reviewed by Virginia R. Knight
The President's Weekend by David D. Reed - reviewed by Sally Fellows
The Cross-Legged Knight by Candace Robb - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Murder In Hollywood by Helen Rose - reviewed by Thomas McNulty
Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan - reviewed by Gary Warren Niebuhr
Private Justice by Richard Sand - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Death in the Dordogne by Louis Sanders - reviewed by Dick Saxe
The Valley of Jewels by Mary Saums - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Sound Tracks by Marcia Simpson - reviewed by Leslie Doran
Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Dead Ringer by Charles Smithdeal - reviewed by John Leech
Dying to Meet You by Amy Talford - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Foreign Body by Kathleen Taylor - reviewed by Angie Hogencamp
A Tax Deductible Death by Malinda Terreri - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks
The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor - reviewed by Dick Saxe
Pilikia Is My Business by Mark Troy - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Food, Drink, and the Female Sleuth by The Sisters Wells - reviewed by Beth Fedyn
Eclipse by Richard S. Wheeler - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Who Was the Man in the Iron Mask and other Historical Mysteries by Hugh Ross Williamson - reviewed by Sally Fellows
Sleep with the Fishes by Brian M.Wiprud - reviewed by Reed Andrus
Rex by Fred Yager - reviewed by Brenda Weeaks

 

Dr. Nightingale Follows a Canine Clue by Lydia Adamson
Signet Mystery $5.99
ISBN 0-451-20366-6 Paperback
July 2001
Amateur Sleuth

Dr. Deirdre Nightingale is surprised when her best friend Rose Vigdor leaves town without a word to anyone. Although she is surprised, she is not alarmed as Rose has always been very free-spirited. It is only when one of Deirdre's employees spots Rose's dog all alone in the area, does she get worried. Rose would never leave her dog, especially without food or water. As soon as Deirdre gets off work, she goes hunting to find the dog. When she finds the dog, that is not all she finds. The dog turns out to be guarding Rose's dead body. The police are brought in to investigate the matter but Deirdre isn't sure they know what they are talking about. The first thing they were able to tell Deirdre is that her best friend had more than one identity and the other identity that Rose had was on the run from the law. Deirdre can't believe this about the woman who she thought was her best friend. Deciding to look into the matter herself, Deirdre becomes embroiled in arson, murder and just plain evil.

Dr. Nightingale Follows a Canine Clue is rumored to be the last in the series. It certainly read as if it was the last one. While the characters were enjoyable, it felt as if the end was hastily thrown together. This is the first Deirdre book that I have read and I enjoyed it. I plan on looking for the ones earlier in the series because of the wonderful secondary characters. They were well developed and funny. This is a fun, light read.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Aunt Dimity: Detective by Nancy Atherton
Viking Press, $22.95
ISBN 067003021X Hardcover
September 2001
Cozy

Nancy Atherton's Aunt Dimity: Detective is lucky number seven in a winning series known for its tradition of blending the conventional with the unconventional.

Lori is a wife, mother, and amateur sleuth. Her husband, Bill, is a lawyer who takes care of the European part of his family's law firm. They've just returned from a 3-month stay with Bill's family in Boston, and they are soooo happy to be back. Home in a honey-colored cottage in Cotswolds, England, in the small village of Finch is just where they want to be. Lori's twins can keep her busy, but she has the luxury of a nanny and is able to come and go as she pleases, which is vital if you sleuth as regularly as she does. Lori also has a little help from the woman who once owned the cottage, Dimity. The late Aunt Dimity communicates through a leather bound journal with blue pages. Her beautiful scrolled handwriting inspires Lori's directions and offers up some motivating deductions. When alone, Lori also leans on her pink flannel bunny, Reginald, who has been with her since birth-hence his proud place on every Aunt Dimity book cover.

Since they arrived home, the Vicar's wife has shown up asking Lori to entertain her nephew, Nicolas, while she and the Vicar go to the inquest of a recent murder case. This is surprising news to Lori because the last person murdered in Finch was in 1872 when one shepherd bashed another over the head with the hook of his crook! It seems a newcomer to Finch has been given the same treatment, only with a flowerpot. Prunella "Pruneface" Hooper was a troublemaking connoisseur, and no one regrets she's passed on. In fact, there seems to be a village effort in keeping the details of whodunit hush-hush. Could her love of gossip have been her downfall? What secrets could this newcomer have learned about any of the villagers that she died for them? And what kind of secret could any of these simple villagers have that would lead them to murder? Well, these are just the questions Lori plans to answer. As it turns out, the Vicar's nephew isn't a child, but a grownup, and he takes an interest in the murder and Lori when he discovers her interest is mysteries. Their close teamwork has the village buzzing.

Aunt Dimity is a delightful series full of likeable characters who make the plot more engaging as it moves along. Lori is far from flawless; in fact, it's a good thing the villagers are there to keep an eye on her marriage. Oh, sure, you have to suspend your disbelief when she communicates with the aunt, but it's all part of the charm of the series.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 4 quills

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Hunting Season by Nevada Barr
Berkley $6.99
ISBN 0-425-18878-7 Paperback
February 2003
Police Procedural

Anna Pigeon is a park ranger on the Natchez Trace Parkway in Mississippi. When the "death do us part" vows at a wedding she's attending bring back memories of her husband's death years earlier, she's not all that unhappy to be beeped about a bizarre discovery. The nude body of Doyce Barnette has been found on park grounds in the restored plantation home, specifically on the bed in Grandma Polly's room. At the outset, it appears he's been involved in some kind of sexual activity that went awry, strangling him.

In addition to working with County Sheriff Clintus Jones to solve the murder, Ranger Pigeon has lots more on her plate: poachers for one. One of her deputies is distracted by his efforts to properly identify the bodies in the plantation's slave cemetery; another deputy is just plain hostile, unhappy working for a woman. And Ranger Pigeon is wondering where her relationship with a married Episcopal priest/law enforcement officer is headed. In addition, Doyce Burnette's brother Raymond is running for county sheriff against Jones and both Raymond and his rifle-toting mother are being evasive when questioned about the victim's activities, as are the Doyce's poker buddies.

Some mystery reading friends are big fans of Nevada Barr, but I had never read any of her books before Hunting Season. I really liked the character of Anna Pigeon-she seemed very realistic, as did her dialogue. The narrative seemed a bit wordy-Ms. Barr managed to use the words lugubrious and avuncular in one sentence-and at times that wordiness was a bit tedious.

Although the book was a pleasant enough read, but I didn't enjoy it enough to run out and buy all the earlier Anna Pigeon books. Not having read any others, I can't evaluate whether this was better or worse than others in the series.

Reviewed by: Diana Vickery
Rating: 3.5 quills

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The Janus Deception by John F. Bayer
Broadman & Holman, Publishers $12.99
ISBN 0-8054-2439-3 Paperback
July 2001
Thriller

Lt. Commander Jake Madsen, M.D. takes sick call during his two-week tour as a reservist at a Naval Support Base in Tennessee. When Jake discovers a mysterious implant in a soldier's chest he starts a chain of events that ultimately explains the obliteration of a village in Mexico and the mysterious deaths of soldiers around the world. The patient with the implant was one of a few in a secret file, the X File. When this patient is later murdered, Jake attends the autopsy where he and Naval Criminal Investigative Service agent Kaci Callihan find the implanted device has been stolen. As they attempt to discover why the soldier had to die, others also die, violently, and Jake and Kaci narrowly escape teams of skilled assassins. Finally, they find that the monster behind the murders is not a person but a technology created years before for a sinister purpose and now functioning on its own, with no regard for human emotions or actions.

The preceding information is not a spoiler. Everything is available on the book jacket copy. This does not diminish the suspense which begins with a gripping prologue and continues right on through an epilogue with an ominous surprise. The idea of machines taking over is frequently addressed in science fiction. (Remember the computer Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey?) Their sinister purpose in this story is a disappointment, and anyone who is looking for a plausible plot is unlikely to finish the story. The devil is in the details and the details are not addressed in The Janus Deception.

The Janus Deception opens with the destruction of a chemical plant and the annihilation of an entire village in Mexico. Other disasters around the world are described from time to time so that readers are well informed that something really evil is at work. The technique is similar to Clive Cussler's stories. It works so long as it is not over done. The characters are familiar, the dialogue is adequate, but plot is the heart of this story, the malevolent computer gone berserk. The attempt to attach some religious significance to several incidents doesn't work, nor does a quasi-philosophical argument that the lethargy of a self-absorbed people is responsible for the disasters.

This most recent fantasy of the ascendance of machines will interest die-hard science fiction fans. It has its flaws. but the notion is so intriguing that readers will forgive them and wait eagerly for another author to entertain them with a similar frightening tale of the dangers of technology. Frankenstein's monster will live again.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Hot Dog by Laurien Berenson
Kensington $22.00
ISBN: 1575667819 Hardcover
September 2002
Cozy

Hot Dog is the ninth installment in the Melanie Travis series. Melanie has lots going on in her life. Raising her son and showing her prized poodles fills her days, but her aunt, ex-husband and boyfriend have tendency to add to her list of commitments.

Aunt Peg, a former nun shows up with Dox, a pure breed dachshund. The pup was donated to their charity auction. Melanie is put in charge of the dog, but doesn't want to see it up for auction. She investigates and discovers Dox is the result of a bitter divorce battle. The owner's reasoning for putting his pup up for auction instead of returning it to his ex-wife is pathetic and he blames the "dog shows" -- not the dogs -- for his cold emotions. Well, the ladies go to scheming with confidence, but to quote the narrator on page 84: "Overconfidence; it will get you every time." Dox disappears.

Overconfidence in her plan is just what Miss Cable News suffers from as well. She takes to stalking Melanie because she is positive that being there when Melanie stumbles on another body and solves another a mystery will make her career.

Sam's overconfidence comes in the way of a diamond ring and BMW SUV when he returns to re-ask Melanie to marry him. Still upset at his sudden departure and lack of explanation for it, Melanie's reaction was a sound no and changing the locks. In this installment Sam works the "You need to trust me" game in hopes of winning Melanie back.

Berenson's series is well developed. The author leaves no stone unturned in presenting her characters or explaining the dog show experience. Hot Dog is a your typical dog mystery, except that the dogs sit, heel and walk, but don't talk. I enjoyed the storyline as a whole, but what kept the pages turning was the unwelcome guest gaining access to Melanie's house and turning things on to let her know someone had been there.

I haven't followed the Melanie Travis series as much as I would have liked, so Melanie's personal life was a bit of a catch up for me. Readers can expect some series spoilers, but not necessarily past mystery spoilers. After reading Hot Dog I am confident in saying that it's one cozy mystery readers would benefit in trying.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3 quills

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A Short Life on a Sunny Isle by Hannah I. Blank
Prism Corporation $24.95
ISBN: 0965277844 Hardcover
September 2002
Historical, 1955 - Spain

Inspector Alphonse Dantan of the Paris Police Judiciare just finished an intense case. After being away from his American wife Judy too much, he is looking forward to spending time with her. That is until she makes plans to visit her friend, Miri Winters, in Ibiza, Spain. The Dantans know Miri from a former case. Miri telegraphs Judy and asks her to bring Alphonse along to help solve a murder. A fourteen year-old girl has been murdered and Miri is positive that Thomas, the police's suspect, will not get a fair trial. The couple heads to Ibiza to solve the mystery.

Once there, Dantan finds support in the local artists who frequent a café called Lazy Liberto's, but help from Spain's legal system will not be possible. The Guardia Civil would not appreciate someone from Paris doing their job. Dantan quizzes Miri's friends and the islanders. He also investigates the site, the truck, the body and the circumstances. It isn't long till Dantan and others discover who the murderer is, but Dantan is limited on what he can do.

The sunny island mystery that takes place in the 1950s - a time when artists nurtured their crafts in inexpensive foreign places. It was during one of these relaxing, inspirational moments of food, drink, gossip, and carousing at Liberto that that murder was announced. As it turns out anyone at the café could be a suspect as well as any islander because the murder happened long before they gathered at the café.

The island atmosphere is laid back, but the path to solving this stand-alone type mystery is swift. The characters are well explained and the mystery is well developed, but, for me, both seem to lack life, energy.

A Short Life on A Sunny Isle falls between amateur sleuth and cozy. It has the simple, unencumbered writing style of a cozy and the subject matter of an amateur sleuth or mild police procedural. Spoilers in the book are used to update readers by way of asterisks and footnotes. There is a table of contents listing each chapter and a Cast of Characters, listed by the characters' nationalities. Readers will appreciate the list because of the many new characters.

If you are looking for a mystery to take you to Spain and the mid 1950s in a subtle way, in the company of a perfect couple then A Short Life on A Sunny Isle just might be what you are looking for.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 2.5

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Fit to Die edited by Joan Boswell and Sue Pike
Rendezvous Press $12.95
ISBN 0929141873 Trade Paperback
October 2001
Mystery Anthology

The Ladies Killing Circle has joined together to create this new anthology, Fit to Die. Twenty-one authors have created stories (and poems) that will cause you to think twice about staying healthy and fit. One theme that runs through the book is help backfiring. In "Fit to Live" by Audrey Jessup, all Eileen wanted to do was keep everyone at the senior center in shape. She figured Tai Chi would be perfect for that and fun at the same time. Her innocent planning turns dangerous for her, as someone decides that they are sick of working out. Victoria Maffini's "Down in the Plumps" (great title!) features an overweight woman, trying to live her life only to be stalked by a weight-obsessed fanatic.

Lea Tassie writes one of the best-plotted stories. "Grand Slam" centers around three bridge players that want to get rid of their fourth. They way they manage to do it, while unoriginal, works out better than they ever could have hoped. My favorite story is "Sign of the Times" by Mary Jane Maffini. There is no hiding her quick wit and finely tuned writing. In this story graffiti is used to help a good cause. All throughout this anthology are great poems by Joy Hewitt Mann that are worth the price of the book alone.

This whole book is filled with talented authors and wonderful stories. This book does not have a bad story in the bunch and I just wish I had room to mention them all. One last story that stuck in my mind was "Tee'd Off" by Mary Keenan. This story is written with the perfect pace and ending. Any type of mystery reader should have no problem finding a story that fits their mood and taste.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 4.5 quills

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Red Dream by Victoria Brooks
Greatest Escapes Publishing $15.00
ISBN 0968613721 Trade Paperback
July 2002
Suspense

Victoria Brooks is a travel writer who is trying her hand at a novel. Perhaps she would be happiest sticking to travel writing for the strongest parts of this novel are the descriptions of Saigon and, to a lesser extent, France. She attempts to tell the story of modern Vietnam but falls short. Her main characters are a lovely, self-centered Vietnamese woman, Jade Minh, who works in Paris from 1955; her French lover, Jacques; her husband, Van Minh, who remains behind in Vietnam; and her illegitimate daughter, Suzette. The only sympathetic character of the bunch is Suzette. Jade is elegant and striking, but has no thought of anyone but herself. Her only concern about her daughter is whether anyone will find out. Jacques is a drunk who blames Jade for all his troubles. Van is blind, working on his scientific experiments while the world around him collapses.

This does give a view of modern Vietnam from a different perspective than we usually get. The Americans are almost marginal to the story, important only because they prop up a corrupt and repellent regime. The travel writer frequently discontinues the story entirely in order to fill in the background and give us a view of what Vietnam was like in the late fifties and early sixties. Chou Hang-shu is symbolic of so many residents of South Vietnam. He outwardly supports the Diem regime while secretly working for Ho Chi Minh. Certain the quagmire that was Vietnam comes through plainly to the reader.

The story, however, is not so engrossing or so well told. It is, in fact, almost cartoonish and motives are obscure and actions confused. As I was reading, I never really believed in the story. I could not willingly suspend my disbelief. The characters were too single-faceted with little or no complexity or intricacies. The larger more vivid character was Vietnam and the human beings were puppets manipulated to show what the author was hoping for us to see.

This is labeled an exotic novel, with which I do not necessarily disagree. However a better label might have been erotic. There is explicit and gratuitous sexual content. There is nothing wrong with this, but I think it is good to be forewarned. Perhaps we are still too close to Vietnam to truly do it justice from a Vietnamese point of view. This book certainly does not succeed.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2 quills

Queen of Ambition by Fiona Buckley
Scribner $ 23.00
ISBN 0-7432-0264-3 Hardcover
December 2001
Historical, 16th Century England

Ursula Blanchard, one time member of the Queen Elizabeth's court but now married to a French Catholic opponent of the Queen, is back in England. Plague is rife in France so Ursula and her daughter returned to England to live at Withysham, the manor the Queen gave her. In return the Queen and Cecil expect Ursula to perform services, in this case to go to Cambridge which the Queen intends to visit as one of the harbingers and also as a spy.

There is apprehension about a playlet that some students wish to perform for the Queen. The students planning the event often congregate at the pie shop of Roland Jester. Jester1s brother-in-law, Dr. Giles Woodforde, is a tutor at King's College and had been found in an compromising situation by Lady Lennox at court. Ursula goes under cover and gets a job at the pie shop. One of the students tells her he is worried about the playlet and wants to meet her the next day. Before this can happen he is dead apparently the result of a fall from his horse. This really piques Ursula's curiosity.

The story is well-told and diverting to read. You get a sense of what it was like to live in fifteenth century England, especially if you were not a member of the privileged classes. The politics of the court are certainly in evidence, but not as prominently as in earlier books in the series. One of the disappointments for me is that we do not see as much of the Queen and her courtiers as usual. But the book is pleasing and we do get a peak inside the colleges at Cambridge. It is also entertaining to note what was involved when the Queen visited a part of her kingdom.

Ursula perhaps is not a typical Elizabethan woman. The fact that she married her bitter enemy was always a bit bothersome for me and, for the purposes of the story, the author has to bring her to England away from her marriage and this tangles the storyline. Probably she is more independent than most women were. Certainly one of her erstwhile good friends resents her showing him up and arriving at the solution to some of the mysteries.

The puzzle is provocative and the solution clever, but I have to say I expected more. The ending of the book is rather like the musket that misfired, to my mind.

I have always enjoyed the books is this series, but I have to say this one was less entertaining than some of the earlier ones. Nonetheless I enjoyed reading it.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3 quills

He Sees You When You're Sleeping by Mary Higgins Clark and Carol Higgins Clark
Simon & Schuster $20.00
ISBN 0743230051Hardcover
December 2001
Christmas Mystery

Sterling Brooks has been in the waiting room to Heaven for forty-six years. He has seen thousands of people coast into Heaven and yet he is still waiting. The last straw was seeing Annie Mansfield, his former fiancée, float past without him. It is almost Christmas and Sterling would love to be with Annie for Christmas. As soon as Sterling makes a silent plea stating that he would do anything to get into heaven, he is granted a meeting with The Heavenly Council. Since Sterling was extraordinarily self-centered while living, the council requires him to go back to earth and find someone who needs help. Sterling sets his sights on an eight-year-old girl named Marissa. All she wants for Christmas is for her father and grandmother to come home. What she doesn't know is that they are being hidden away because there is a hit out on them, for witnessing something they shouldn't have. Sterling is determined to make everything work and tries to make it better, with a little help from above.

This is the second book the Higgins family has teamed up to write. Both books are Christmas novels with a mystery involved. Although this is a readable book and the first few pages are really funny, that is the best thing I can say about this book. I am sure there are many who will find this to be a very cute book, but for me, it was very bland and too much on the cutesy side. This book left me feeling very ambivalent and it's hard to write a review to reflect that. He Sees You When You're Sleeping is a book that many of the fans of the Higgins family will instantly devour and love. Unfortunately, that just wasn't the case for me.

Reviewed by Robyn Glazer
Rating: 2 quills

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The Killing Kind by John Connolly
Hodder & Stoughton (London) L25
ISBN: 0-340-77120-8 Hardcover
May 2001
Private Eye

In the opening pages of The Killing Kind, a Minneapolis pro-choice abortion doctor is murdered in one of the most gruesome and unique methods I've ever encountered -- made me all squirmy and itchy while reading. The doctor is immobilized in her own car, in her own garage, strapped firmly with duct tape. The car is filled with brown recluse spiders. Connolly's description of her discovery by a cautious police officer is a thing of beauty:

"When he looked down, he saw a small brown spider making its way across the concrete floor toward his right foot. It was a recluse, about half an inch in length, with a dark groove running down the center of its back. Instinctively, Ames raised his steel-capped shoe and stamped down on it. For a brief moment he wondered if his action constituted a destruction of evidence, until he looked into the interior of the car and realized that, for all its effect, he might just as easily have stolen a grain of sand from the seashore or pilfered a single drop of water from the ocean."

It gets worse, friends - or better, if your tastes are similar to mine. I've thoroughly enjoyed John Connolly's near-poetic portrayal of damage done by evil forces at work in our world over the course of three superior novels, and cheer for the retribution visited on that evil by private investigator Charlie "Bird" Parker, who speaks both for and to the innocent dead.

After three books, I've figured out the author's formula. He opens with a compelling hook - in The Killing Kind, the doctor's death is coupled with the discovery of a mass grave in the far north of Maine. Then he assigns Charlie Parker to a seemingly-innocuous case - in this book, an investigation into the apparent suicide of young woman Charlie once knew. After that, complications ensue (or shit happens, depending on your lexicon). And of course, metaphysical foundations are firmly established, built carefully in earlier stories. Charlie not only sees, but speaks to and touches the form of a young boy whose corporeal form might reside in that mass grave. The boy is accompanied by "The Summer Lady," a gentle euphemism given to the spirit of Charlie's dead wife who now guides the wronged dead to her living husband so that reparations can be made. Connolly also peoples his books with over-the-top rivals to those villains who once graced the pages of Modesty Blaise and James Bond thrillers. Shortly after finding a box of brown recluse spiders in his mailbox, Charlie is visited by a singular monster known as...

"Permit me to introduce myself," he said. "My name is Pudd. Mr. Pudd. At your service, sir." He extended his right hand in greeting, but I didn't reach out to take it. I couldn't. It revolted me. A friend of my grandfather's had once kept a wolf spider in a glass case and one day, on a dare from the man's son, I touched its leg. The spider shot away almost instantly, but not before I had felt the hairy, jointed nature of the thing. It was not an experience I wanted to repeat."

Other strange and wonderful characters move in and out of the story - an independent Jewish assassin known as Der Golem; two or three members of the Boston Mafia; and, as recounted in pages of the suicidal girl's doctoral thesis, all 20 members of a fundamentalist cult known as the Aroostook Baptists, gone missing since 1963. The latter motif brought up memories of another writer, John Blackburn, whose wonderful Children of the Night (Putnam Red Mask pb, 1970) also dealt with the disappearance of a similar group.

Body count and violence quotient is high in all three Charlie Parker books. But as if to compensate, Connolly avoids gratuitous sex and excessive dirty language. His goal is establishment of overwhelming menace, an aura of evil that hovers and surrounds our daily lives. He calls the result "our honeycomb world."

"There are people whose eyes you must avoid, whose attention you must not draw to yourself. They are strange, parasitic creatures, lost souls seeking to stretch across the abyss and make fatal contact with the warm, constant flow of humanity... sometimes it is better to keep your eyes on the gutter for fear that, by looking up, you might catch a glimpse of them, black shapes against the sun, and be blinded forever."

Ted Bundy, John Wayne Gacy, Jeffery Dahmer - all of those monsters and others are real-life analogues of Connolly's environment. He has created the symbolic Charlie Parker to use as a force against them. It would be nice to think that Charlie Parker analogues exist in our reality. Of the author's three books to date, I'm hard-pressed to make a favorite call, but I'll go out on a limb and nominate The Killing Kind for its stunning recapitulation of themes first introduced in Every Dead Thing. I'm cheating a bit when I select it as a partner to Dennis Lehane's Mystic River for Best Novel of the year- but The Killing Kind is certainly the best novel that's been produced on the UK side of the Atlantic.

(Editor's Note: John Connolly was interviewed by Reed Andrus in the August/September 2001 issue of Mystery News)

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 5 quills

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Hostage by Robert Crais
Doubleday $24.95
ISBN: 0-385-49585-4Hardcover
August 2001
Police Procedural

When Robert Crais pushed Elvis Cole to a higher level in LA Requiem, I silently agreed with many other fans that there didn't appear to be much more he could do with the series, and applauded his willingness to attempt standalone novels. Demolition Angel was first to break the pattern, and while a fine reading experience, that book arguably extended the author's range laterally rather than vertically. Fortunately, there was a surprise waiting in the wings for patient followers. In Hostage, Robert Crais has once again raised the bar, set a new standard of excellence that will be difficult to supplant. He's also produced a worthy contender for Best Novel of 2001.

Hostage introduces Jeff Talley, former LAPD SWAT hostage negotiator who's refusing to deal with past psychological trauma in his new role as small-town Chief of Police in sleepy rural California. As the book opens, Talley's most dangerous confrontation has been against shoplifters. Then three moronic punks botch a convenience store robbery, try to escape through an upscale subdivision, and wind up barricaded inside a house with the owner and his two kids. A straightforward, well-drawn beginning. Then the author proceeds to twist his scenario, not once but many times, each spin depositing another layer of pressure on the protagonist. No one is exactly who they appear to be at first blush, and by the time this reader chewed through two-thirds of the prose, additional right-angle turns were expected and somewhat predictable. But by then it didn't matter.

Crais provides a near-perfect mixture of action, suspense, and depth of character. Supporting roles are invested with as much power and dignity as the principal players, enriching the latter by proxy. Listen to Talley's wife defend her estranged husband to their hurt and angry teen-age daughter:

"I am scared to death that your father is finally going to give up and call it quits. I could see it in him tonight. Your father, he knows what this is doing to us, he's not stupid. We talk, Amanda; he says he's empty, I don't know how to fill him; he says he's dead, I don't know how to bring him to life. You think I don't try? Here we are, split apart, time passing, him wallowing in his goddamned depression; your father will just end it to spare us. Well, little miss, let me tell you something: I don't want to be spared. I choose not to be spared. Your father used to filled with life and strength, and I fell in love with that special man more deeply than you can know. You don't want to hear about the job, fine, but only a man as good as your father could be hurt the way that job hurt him. If that's me making excuses for him, fine. If you think I'm a loser by waiting for him, tough. I could have other men; I don't want them. I don't even know if he still loves me, but let me tell you something: I love him, I want this marriage, and I goddamned fucking well care whether or not he likes my hair."

Superior novels demand an emotional investment from the reader. Hostage speaks loudly and clearly through the words of Robert Crais; it will pick you up and shake you. I honestly don't know how the author can top this production, but by God, I plan to be around to make the assessment.

(Editor's Note: Robert Crais was interviewed by Gary Warren Niebuhr in the April/May 2000 issue of Mystery News)

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 5 quills

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Death of the Party by Catherine Dain
Worldwide Mystery $6.99
ISBN 0-373-26415-1 Paperback
March 2002
Amateur Sleuth

Faith Cassidy's neighborhood in Los Angeles has deteriorated rapidly, culminating in a burglary of Faith's bungalow. Faith feels violated and as a therapist, she is not one to ignore or hide her feelings. To make herself feel better, she starts a neighborhood watch. What she did not count on was being elected captain! Unfortunately, no one is watching when a young Hispanic boy is killed in the middle of the block. As Faith gets a closer look at the body, she notices that the corpse is wearing her stolen jacket. The police make a quick arrest. The arrested person turns out to be someone from the neighborhood watch. The arrested boy's mother believes him to be innocent and asks Faith to look into it for her. Faith agrees, largely in part, because the guilt of saying no is something she does not want to deal with. Then she hears Jorge's side of the story and agrees with his mother that he is innocent. What started out as a simple leadership role turns out to be a job for the professionals but Faith wants to give it her best shot before turning the case over to the police. Now Faith just has to hope no one takes his or her best shot at her!

Death of the Party is the first Faith Cassidy book. While I found the writing to be stylish and tight, I was disappointed with the characters. I felt that Faith was constantly making poor and unwise decisions. One such decision she made was to do drugs even though she knew she had responsibilities in the morning and she had tried so hard in the past to get over this addiction. I also thought for a therapist, she was remarkably unstable. The one character that I did enjoy was Richard, who breathes sensibility into Faith and the book. What kept me reading this book until the end was the descriptions of the inside acting world that Faith once belonged to. These assessments were really interesting and would have preferred Faith to be an actress over a therapist. I will probably pick up the next book just because I want to see where Dain takes Richard from here.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 3 quills

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Black Sunshine by S.V. Date
Putnam $24.95
ISBN 0-399-14946-5 Hardcover
October, 2002
Satire/Suspense

This is a caricature of political evil so outrageous and barbed that it may actually be offensive to some. As a satirical suspense, however, it is both witty and action packed. One can only hope that real-life politics do not go as far as they do in this novel.

When the front-runner for governor of Florida is suddenly out of the picture, the new candidate is one of two sons of a former governor. A charismatic under-achiever, "Bub" Billings is sure to win in the polls, but brother Percy doesn't understand why. As the campaign draws to a close, it seems apparent that although Bub can win, he might not be willing to play the game that the party leaders want. Maybe Percy would have been the best choice after all.

Murphy Moran has always worked for the opposing party, but then he suddenly runs into Bub. Now he finds himself helping the hapless candidate in a race not only in the political arena, but to stay alive as well.

This is irreverent, funny, and sometimes downright scary. It is not a book for everyone, but if you are not too sensitive about politics and want a definite change of pace with lots of action that takes place mainly on the water, then this book might just appeal to you

Reviewed by: Gayle Wedgwood
Rating: 3 quills

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One Virgin Too Many by Lindsey Davis
Mysterious Press $12.95
ISBN 0-89296-716-1 Trade Paperback
July 2001
Historical (Roman Empire)

The Rome of Marcus Didius Falco is the Rome of the Flavian Emperors, A.D. 74, not long after the republic surrendered to Augustus and his new empire. There are still those who fool themselves into believing that they live in a republic and those, like Falco, who act as though they do. His Rome is one of back alleys, underground tunnels, the Aventine which has never been very salubrious, and of men who would just as soon cheat you as not. It is also, however, the Rome of Vespasian, the majestic buildings that make up the Forum, and the huge amphitheater that Vespasian is currently building. The people of this Rome are not any more decorous, but they dress nicer.

If you have been following the adventures of Falco, you do not need me to describe him to you. He is a modern-day London cockney transported to imperial Rome. He is delightfully cynical, totally distrustful, and yet, at his core, he still believes in love and courage and honor. What he does best is to ridicule the traditional Roman gravitas which he sees as hypocritical and a way to keep those in power always in power. He is outrageous and often bawdy and you cannot help but love him. His voice is distinctive.

As always the plot is complex and multi-faceted. Falco, his paramour Helene who, for those of you who are new to the books, is a Senator's daughter and outrageously radical, and their child have just returned to Rome from Africa. Falco has been one of the Census collectors and has done well for himself. For once he is not hard up for money. Vespasian has awarded him equestrian status, to Falco's disgust because that means he is now a member of the middle class and must act respectably. Not that he allows that to get in his way. He has also been appointed to a newly created ceremonial post, Procurator of Poultry for the Senate and People of Rome. This makes him part of the religious establishment.

He arrives home to find a six year old girl insisting she must see him. She is the granddaughter of the former Flamen Dialis, the chief priest of Jupiter. She claims that someone in her family is trying to kill her. Falco and Helene send her home assuming there is nothing to her story. They then learn that she is the leading candidate to become the newest Vestal Virgin. Later, when she disappears, they wish they had taken her seriously. Helene's brother Aelianus in his quest for membership in an ancient priesthood stumbles over a dead body of one of the Brothers and begs for Falco's help in finding what happened. These two problems absorb Falco and Helene for the rest of the book.

As you can no doubt tell, religion is the main focus of this book. Falco does not think much of the organized state religion and he belittles it every chance he gets. As irreverent as always, he finds a great deal about religion to be highly amusing even when it nearly costs him is life. Falco is always ready to poke holes in official beliefs.

As a leitmotif, Falco roasts the contractors. Everyone, it seems, even Falco, is having work done on their homes. Everywhere he goes there is evidence of the work, but no workmen. They start a job, get part way finished and then vanish, presumably to start someone else's job. Even the Emperor cannot control them. I am sure these men have worked for me several times in the past.

This book has all the elements of a great story. It has endearing and intriguing characters who will take you to parts of Rome that textbooks never visit. It has a beguiling and captivating plot that will keep you guessing until the very end. It has mystery, it has suspense, it has love and hate and madness. And it has Falco. It really needs no more.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 4 quills

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Dying for a Change by Kathleen Delaney
Publish America $19.95
ISBN 1-59129-216-6 Trade Paperback
June 2002
Amateur Sleuth

This is a conventional little (182 pages) novel with very little to distinguish it from hundreds of others. Ellen McKenzie has returned home, divorced with a daughter in college, to live in her parents' home while they relocate to Arizona and earn a living as a real estate salesperson. Her first house showing leads to a dead body in an upstairs closet. The chief of police turns out to be her best friend from youth, the next door neighbor with whom she did everything. Naturally a relationship develops and she helps him solve the crime.

The one thing that surprises her, but probably will not surprise the reader, is how much this small town has changed and become homogenized. Where the ice cream parlor once stood is now a commercial frozen yogurt stand. A luncheonette that once sold delicious homemade meals now dispenses stale sandwiches wrapped in plastic. The people have changed as well, but not as much.

The characters in this book are two-dimensional and not especially well developed. They do act consistently however. The small town is adequately described but exactly where it is located was more difficult to ascertain. There is a predictable romance and a rather predictable plot. With a little effort, I think I would have figured out the villain.

This book was the runner-up in the St. Martins/Malice Domestic contest. It is published by a small publisher and I am all in favor of more books being published and the field not being dominated by a few huge publishers. I wish this book had been a bit more complex or original or at least had a novel hook. And I think the price is way too high for a trade paperback. It is a pleasant enough book and certainly neither a difficult or a complex read. There is nothing wrong with the book; it simply does not set itself apart from all its competition.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2 quills

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Corpse Candle by P.C. Doherty
St. Martin's Minotaur $24.95
ISBN 0-312-30087-5 Hardcover
December 2002
Historical, England, 1303

At the dawn of the fourteenth century wealth was burgeoning in England centered mainly in the huge monasteries that dotted the countryside. Those men (and women) who might be CEOs of corporations today found their power in those religious houses. Anything that would forward the reputation and renown of their house was probably admissible.

St. Martin's-in-the-Marsh was no exception. Prior Cuthbert and the rest of the Concilium dreamed of building a large new guesthouse in Bloody Meadow outside the gates of the monastery and, in the process, digging into the burial mound in the center of the meadow which they hoped contained a holy relic. Abbot Stephen was opposed and, in fact, said it would happen over his dead body. Not long after he was indeed dead inside a locked room. Because he was a personal friend of King Edward I, Sir Hugh Corbett, Keeper of the King's Secret Seal, was sent to discovery who had killed him. Soon more members of the Concilium were murdered and it began to look like the abbey would be destroyed.

The corpse candles (mirages in the marshes) burned and it seemed the ghost of Sir Geoffrey Mandeville, a robber baron, roamed the forest. Ghostly horns sounded at night and the lights danced over the tumulus. This was a time when the line between the natural world and the supernatural was very subtle and easily broached. Men believed in ghosts and other unearthly creatures.

Doherty sets the scene very well. It is easy to put one's self in the forest surrounding the abbey where fires flickered as the snow fell and the cold was intense enough to keep honest men at home at night. The historical scene is also well described. The sense at the beginning of the century of both the limitless possibilities of wealth and the terror of both God and the devil is excellently conveyed. The reader can easily immerse herself in the medieval life and vicariously enjoy the fears and dreads that haunted men.

The puzzle is well developed except for what is supposed to be the great secret of the story. That is telegraphed from the very first pages of the book. But the mystery is well done and the Nero Wolfe-like denouement, where the survivors are gathered together and the guilty person is identified, is fascinating. The characters seem a bit stiff and not quite lifelike to me. Corbett is clearly fleshed out but the others are harder to believe.

This is an intriguing book. I am going to allow the author to have the last word about it: "In the end, of course, this novel is about murder which, like charity, can be found in any community in any era where men and women gather together."

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3.5 quills

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The Mask of Ra by P.C. Doherty
Berkley Prime Crime Books $6.50
ISBN 0-425-18093-X Paperback
July 2001
Historical (Egypt,1479 B.C.)

The Mask of Ra represents a fourth mystery series for P.C. Doherty. Set in ancient Egypt, the book deals with the mystery surrounding the death of Pharaoh Tuthmosis II upon his victorious return from war in the Nile Delta.

With trumpets sounding his return, the Pharaoh falls dead before the statue of the sun god, Amun-Ra, while wounded doves circle overhead. His last words to his queen, Hatusu, are "It's only a mask!" Whatever is only a mask, the death of the Pharaoh brings the rivalries for power and rule through the control of his young heir, Tuthmosis II's seven-year-old son borne by a concubine, to a head.

Even before his death, Tuthmosis II's tomb had been desecrated, assassins roamed and his queen anonymously threatened. Despite the threats or perhaps because of them, Hatusu demands an investigation into the death of the Pharaoh, headed by Amerotke, chief judge of Thebes.

The captain of the Pharaoh's guard has been arrested for negligence in the care of his Pharaoh's security. A viper's bite was found on the royal heel and a dead viper found curled up under the dais of the royal barge. For every argument presented by Sethos, the Pharaoh's eyes and ears, the royal prosecutor and a high priest of Amun-Ra, the accused presents an equal argument. Amerotke, dedicated to the pursuit of truth, defers judgment for a day. Events proceed from there, with more deaths, more threats and an even greater need for truth.

Doherty's knowledge of ancient Egypt and his experience in writing mysteries makes the book flow. His characters are far from cardboard figures moved on a chessboard of plot. Some of them are frightening in their drive and conniving. All are grounded in true human nature and human need.

The facts of early Egyptian life ground the reader in a rather harsh, literally gritty reality and tend to make one appreciate 21st century existence and conveniences. Still, tasting the life of Thebes and all it entails beguiles the reader as much as the answers to the various mysteries and trials heard and resolved by Amerokte. Not to mention that Hatusu proves fascinating.

Reviewed by: Virginia R. Knight
Rating: 3 quills

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Safe Beginnings by Christine Duncan
Treble Heart Books $13.99
ISBN 1-93174285-5 Trade Paperback
May 2002
Cozy

Safe Beginnings is a mystery about Kaye Atchinson, soon to be Berreano after her divorce. Kaye is the night counselor at Beginnings, a battered women's shelter. She is also going through a divorce with a shallow, selfish husband. While she takes care of battered women and their families at night and her husband is tucked away with Bambi - I mean Brenna - their kids, RJ and Hannah, are home alone behaving like typical kids, fighting and calling mom on the phone, complaining. As you can tell, Safe Beginnings carries a realistic tone of the kind of lives we hear about on the news.

The mystery begins immediately when Kaye shows up for a night's work, ends up pulling Mary Ellen, a battered wife out of a room full of flames. The fire is suspicious so the women are moved to the Red Cross then to other shelters. A Lt. Farrell of the Denver Police and officer Wiloski from the fire department are assigned to investigate the fire.

As the women of the shelter discuss the fire and Mary Ellen, Kaye begins to have her own suspicions. Is it possible a gang member got word that his wife was coming to Beginnings? Was Mary Ellen as mean as the women claimed -- mean enough to make a deadly enemy in the shelter? Is it possible that someone in the neighborhood wanted the shelter closed down? Could it be Kaye's husband? After getting everything in the divorce and leaving her with an old car and the kids, was he out to destroy her and take the kids? Kaye takes on the case.

Safe Beginnings is a quick read with a realistic theme of divorce and abuse. Although the mystery has some entertainment elements to it, like a police drama, the subject matter is a strong reminder of what is really happens to innocent women and children everyday. It's not a violent read like most mysteries dealing with abuse, nor is there a lot of profanity, which is common with this subject theme, so I guess it, could be considered a cozy mystery. I do know readers can expect plenty of suspects and false leads.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3 quills

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A Sunset Touch by Marjorie Eccles
St. Martin's Minotaur $ 22.95
ISBN: 0-312-28353-9 Hardcover
January 2002
British Police Procedural

A house fire keeps superintendent Gil Mayo from dinner and his ladylove, Alex. A neighbor woman fears the two children did not make it out. When Mayo, Abigail Moon, and Sergeant Carmody inspect the house, they find one body, and it's not a child. Everyone fears it is their father but where are the children? Mayo also learns there are suspicious circumstances surrounding the fire and the death.

Cicely lives in the vicarage down the street from the burned house. Mayo learns she is in critical condition after a surprise visitor attacked her in her home. Inspector Martin Kite is holding a grudge towards Moon so Mayo puts him on the vicarage case to separate the two. Also near the burned house is Pitor Kaminsky. He served in the Free Polish Air Force during the war. He is unable to get around on his own and he too gets a surprise visit….

Superintendent Mayo feels the stress as the three cases surface at once. One by one bodies and clues begin turning up, along with the discovery of a misnamed, amnesiac man, and the knowledge of a missing art treasure dating back to wartime England.

The storyline follows the lives of all the characters, the reoccurring and the new, in order to surface the mystery. Because there are so many characters, the reader will have a lot to keep track of. A Sunset Touch is a bit milder than most police procedurals I've read. It moves at a clip pace, barely taking the time to describe surroundings. The conversation is extensive, keeping the reader in the midst of the mystery, though he or she may not be aware of it until the final page is turned.

Although I had to back track a time or two to keep things straight, I thoroughly enjoyed the mystery. I was impressed with the way the cases were laid out and brought to their conclusions. And I also liked he no-nonsense, get-to-the-point way the story was written. Superintendent Gil Mayo series is a British police procedural series I would recommend to any mystery buff who prefers his or her mysteries straightforward.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 4 quills

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The Company by Arabella Edge
Simon and Schuster $23.00
ISBN 0-7432-1342-4 Hardcover
July 2001
Historical

The Company is based on the disastrous wreck of the Dutch East India Company flagship Batavia off the coast of western Australia in 1629. The story is told in the voice of Jeronimus Cornelisz, the psychopathic apothecary who was responsible for the shipwreck and the reign of terror among the survivors. Cornelisz boarded the Batavia in Amsterdam to escape prosecution for several poisonings and the practice of black magic. In a bizarre scheme he persuaded the ship's captain to leave the protection of the convoy, planning to poison almost everyone on board and share the riches in the cargo. Before Cornelisz could implement his plan of mass murder, the ship ran aground on a coral reef near the inhospitable Abrollas Islands. Once ashore, Cornelisz gained control of the survivors and methodically murdered them to save water and food for himself and his minions, a group of young men and boys he manipulated with opium and deceit. Cornelisz saw himself as the savior of the survivors and, for a time, everyone else shared this perception. Cornelisz became ever more brutal in his treatment of his "subjects", even, finally, terrorizing and humiliating an aristocratic young wife he chose as his concubine.

There is no mystery in The Company. The only suspense is wondering how long it will be before the survivors finally revolt and execute Cornelisz. The ordeal lasted 40 days of violence, starvation, rape and murder. Since the story is told by Cornelisz, he is the only character fully described. The author succeeds in using Cornelisz's own words, in showing how her rationalizes the most depraved behavior, making it seem necessary and proper. Many terms will be strange to readers, but most can be understood in context. The Company will be compared to Lord of the Flies, but the evil in Company is not created by the situation; it is present in the creepy, monstrous apothecary. If the author's version of this historical event is accurate, then truth is indeed stranger than fiction, much stranger.

The Company is well-researched, especially the difficulty of the long ocean voyage. Readers with an interest in the history of the period should perhaps read this book. But, they probably will not enjoy it.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2.5 quills

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At Risk By Kit Ehrman
Poisoned Pen Press $24.95
ISBN 1-59058-036-2 Hardcover
October 2002
Amateur Sleuth

Steve Cline had a privileged upbringing, and was on track for following in his physician father's footsteps, Ivy League college and all. Steve, however, had different ideas. After dropping out of college, he finds himself cut loose from his family and working as barn manager for Foxdale Farm in rural Maryland, living in a converted barn loft.

When he walks in on horse thieves early one morning, he is kidnapped along with the horses and almost murdered before he escapes. When he returns to Foxdale, he has a very personal interest in finding his tormenters. But as he steps up his own investigation, Foxdale Farm and Steve both seem to be targets of a very sick person. It soon becomes apparent that Steve's life is very much at risk.

If Steve Cline is not the youngest amateur sleuth in crime fiction, at age 21, he's certainly the youngest in any mystery I've ever read (except Nancy Drew). I wasn't certain in the first few pages whether his age would be a plus or a minus for the book. I've nothing against young people, having been one myself, but I've never found them all that interesting to read about. Another negative for me was that the story involves animals -- horses. That said, I enjoyed the story and the main character and thought the plotting was top-notch. Horse lovers would probably rate it a "must read" and, according to the book's promotional materials, the author is already being compared to Dick Francis.

Kit Ehrman is especially good at creating a sense of place. Her mastery of sensory detail made the Maryland countryside, the barns, Steve's apartment so real that they become important elements of the story. I know nothing about horses and horse barns, but Kit Ehrman sounded very authoritative to me, and her background would indicate she knows what she’s writing about.

Readers should know that At Risk contains a sprinkling of profanity, not excessive, but a put-off to some readers. There is also fairly explicit description of some sexual interludes. I typically dislike sex and/or romance mixed in with my mysteries, but in At Risk, the sexual encounters were not a huge part of the story. Overall, I enjoyed it much more than I ever expected.

Reviewed by: Diana Vickery
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Killing Paparazzi by Robert M. Eversz
St. Martin's Minotaur $23.95
ISBN 0-312-28902-2 Hardcover
January 2002
Amateur Sleuth

The very first sentence tells you a lot about the book. "The horn sounds before dawn when you're paroled, as it does every morning." (At least, that's the opening sentence in the advanced uncorrected proofs.)

Nina Zero is out on parole after five years inside prison. One of the first things she does when she gets out is to meet and marry a man. The marriage is to Gabriel Burns, a British paparazzo who had a work visa and his own reasons to become a citizen. Nina needed the promised $2000. Although they both went in with their eyes open, they found themselves attracted to each other. After a short and sweet honeymoon, they both went their own ways in LA. Being an ex-con, Nina was finding it difficult to get a job. While scrounging a meal, she met a tabloid writer named Frank who recognized her from her checkered past. Over lunch he suggests she use her old photography skills to take pictures for the tabloids.

One thing leads to another and she finds herself a paparazza. On an assignment to take pictures of a dead man found in a lake, she realizes the victim is, or was, her husband. As an ex-con and the wife of the deceased, she is prime suspect material, especially when drugs were found on the body. Nina is pretty sure Gabe wasn't a druggie. She needs to find out what happened. Her need is strengthened when other paparazzi are murdered, and she might be next.

This is the second book in the series, the first being Shooting Elvis, which I'll have to track down and read. The few references to the crime spree in the first book pique my curiosity. I liked this book. Despite her rough side, she's a likable character with her own integrity. It's also a view of our justice system and of LA, that I've never had before.The characters are interesting and there is a lot of humor in the book.

(Editor's Note: Robert M. Eversz was interviewed by Reed Andrus in the February/March 2002 issue of Mystery News)

Reviewed by: Angie Hogencamp
Rating: 4 quills

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Sketches With Wolves by Jacqueline Fiedler
Pocket Books, $6.99
ISBN 0-671-01560-5 Paperback
July 2001
Amateur Sleuth, Artist

Caroline Canfield is a wildlife artist in the Chicago area. She's a member of an Internet mailing list Wolf Prairie Digest. If you've ever been on any mailing list, you'll enjoy the opening flurry of email messages before the group's visit to a new sanctuary. Fielder has captured many of the "types" you find on any mailing list, regardless of topic.

Caroline hasn't met any of the subscribers, only knowing them by their email names. They're spending the weekend together to learn about the wolf behavior research. Friday afternoon Caroline is already trying to put faces together with online names and waiting to meet the one woman she's become email friends with, Kaila Windwalker.

Saturday morning after drinking orange juice meant for another, Caroline went for an early morning walk. She started to feel ill, but kept on walking. She followed boot prints in the snow which lead her to a cave. She found a body in the cave just before she passed out. When she came to, she had been discovered by the others. No one believed her claims that Rebecca was dead, as the body wasn't there. Not much investigating can be done because the group is cut off from the rest of the world for a few days by a blizzard. The general impression of the group is that Caroline has been drinking too heavily. Naturally, she is compelled to investigate.

This is the second book in this series, the first being Tiger's Palette. I liked that the protagonist has a realistic reaction to the murder in the first book. She had walled herself off from people for a while, using a modem and computer to keep her distance. I like wolves, so the topic appealed. I did think it took Caroline too long to understand she was being drugged, but then I suppose the drugs were affecting her thinking. I liked the first book and its plot a bit better, but this is still a good read.

Reviewed by: Angie Hogencamp
Rating: 4 quills

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Separation of Power by Vince Flynn
Pocket Books $25.00
ISBN 0-671-04733-7 Hardcover
October 2001

Honey, I'm home. How was my day? Well, I can't tell you. It's a matter of national security. Oh, by the way, I brought someone with me. Yes, we were lovers, but. This is work. Really.

Would that fly at your house? Sure it would. But Anna and Mitch's situation is a little complicated. Anna is NBC White House correspondent, and she feels a need-to-know. Mitch is an extra-legal CIA assassin, and feels a corresponding lack of want-to-tell. Maybe his bosses can give him a little help. After all, he works for the deputy director of the CIA and, indirectly, the president of the United States.

They have problems of their own, Bud. Irene Kennedy faces confirmation hearings as new agency director, and Bob Hayes has just gotten big news from the head of Israel's Mossad. Saddam has three nuclear warheads abuilding, in a bunker under a hospital.

Luckily, Mitch is just the guy to clean house for them. He's ready to get out of his own house for a while. Anna is steamed over the catty kind of colleague he drags home. So it is time once more for him to summon his special-ops skills, saddle up, and lead Special Forces into hostile territory.

All this is told straightforwardly, within the conventions of political thrillers. The narrative is mostly chronological, and sticks with the simple past tense most of the time. Not as compelling as Tom Clancy, but just as believable and certainly entertaining. Remember the words of John Rambo: "Sir, do we get to win this time?"

Priors: The Third Option, Term Limits, Transfer of Power.

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Fish, Blood and Bone by Leslie Forbes
Bantam $13.95
ISBN 0-553-38163-6 Trade Paperback
June 2002
Suspense

This book commences with a murder, a foul murder of a vulnerable young woman, Sally Rivers. Claire Fleetwood witnessed the murder and is prepared to testify. Sally is a thoroughly empathetic character but her murder quickly becomes incidental to the story, interesting only in the effects it had on Claire.

Meanwhile Claire has inherited a giant white elephant of a house with a number of cottages attached to it, smack in the middle of London's East End. She had grown up in the United States knowing nothing about her father's relatives in England and she makes her ancestry a quest. To that end she joins an expedition to India with the nephew of the woman who left her the house. That expedition is seeking a fabled green poppy with properties that may cure cancer. Others may be seeking the poppy for a more mundane reason.

The stories that we learn span three generations of the Ironstone family from Magda who purchased the East End estate through her daughter Alexandra who bequeathed it and a nephew, Jack Ironstone who seems to feel the estate should have been his. Somehow Claire's father was related to Alexandra. Magda's husband had been murdered in 1888, the year of Jack the Ripper, and the body had disappeared. So there are questions enough to go around.

Distinct images at first convey the precise setting, the lush garden of the estate, the surreal Calcutta cemetery, the snowy passes of the Himalayan mountains. Always throughout the story the color green predominates. From the green poppy to the properties of chlorophyll to the ancient yew tree in the garden, green seems to be the basic building block of life. As we move further along the story, the events appear almost like those of a dream, overrun with vegetation, images blurring and melding together. It is as though we were in an opium induced trance. Then the images turn grotesque and the characters become bizarre and freakish.

Again at first the characters seem believable, but as we move through the book they also acquire a dreamlike quality. Among other things their motivations seem very murky. Why Claire would leave her job to go to India makes no sense to me at all. Why did this little band take the risks they did to journey through the most dangerous of terrain? It was difficult for me to keep track of Claire's traveling companions especially amid all the shades of green.

There are echoes as you read of the British Raj and the Great Game as it was played in the nineteenth century in the area where Russia, China and India come together. (And where we are once again playing it.) But that background was not enough to salvage the book for me. Others have liked it, but it was just too indistinct and vaporous for me.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Fury by G.M. Ford
Morrow $24.00
ISBN: 0-380-97724-9 Hardcover
May 2001
Professional

G.M. Ford, whose Leo Waterman PI series now stands at six books, I believe (the first of which carries my strong nomination for Best Title of All Time: Who in Hell is Wanda Fuca?), is one of several recommended authors that I've just not found time to read. Until now. Fury is the first episode in Ford's new series featuring disgraced investigative reporter Frank Corso. I freely admit to being a sucker for journalistic protagonists, even when their investigations lean to thematic overlap. Fury's plot resonates with other worthy sub-genre contributions such as Andrew Klavan's True Crime, John Katzenbach's Just Cause, Mary Willis Walker's The Red Scream, and possibly Martin J. Smith's Straw Men. That's pretty good company, and Fury acquits itself well.

Frank Corso is pulled out of semi-retirement by Natalie Van Der Haven, owner and publisher of the Seattle Sun, a second-tier newspaper whose own sun dimmed when Corso's printed defense of serial killer Walter Lee Himes generated highly negative public sentiment. Execution of the aforementioned criminal is rapidly approaching, and the prosecution's principal witness has just called the paper to recant her testimony. The police are stone-walling, possibly covering up their own investigation of additional crimes as work of a "copy-cat." And it doesn't help that Himes is his own worst enemy, railing against his conviction in the courtroom at the worst possible moment:

"Said there's always gonna be somebody out there killin' bitches. Bitches and mo' bitches is gonna be dyin' all over the damn place, till you-all up to your damn ass in dead bitches."

As you might expect, the possibility of someone like Himes being freed at the last moment creates a highly emotional, politically-sensitive situation. But Frank Corso has always believed that this scumbag had been railroaded, and in company of Meg Dougherty, a highly competent freelance photographer with a sad story of her own, begins a re-investigation intended on stopping the execution clock.

The author complements his standard-but-acceptable story with a very gritty attitude towards the Seattle PD. Although his characters are fictional, he seems to be using them to make political statements regarding the effectiveness of local law enforcement in dealing with real serial killer situations, i.e. the Green River Killer and other Pacific Northwest murderers who have never been caught. Ford also creates memorable secondary characters. Meg Dougherty, for example, is a pariah in her own light, has come to be known as "the tattoo girl."

"Corso remembered the story well. She'd been a successful young photo artist. Already had a couple of very hot local shows and beginning to attract national attention. Dating a trendy Seattle tattoo artist. Guy who kinda looked like Billy Idol. You'd see them all the time in the alternative press. Unfortunately, while she's developing photos, he's developing a cocaine habit. She tells him she wants to break it off. He seems to take it well. They agree to have a farewell dinner together. She drinks a glass of wine and - bam - the lights go out. She wakes up thirty-six hours later in Providence Hospital. In shock. Nearly without vital signs. Tattooed from head to toe with what was rumored to be some pretty weird stuff. A Maori swirl design on her face. The boyfriend nowhere to be found."

If Fury produced a downside for this reviewer, it occurred when my credibility was severely strained in a couple of places - once in the middle of the book, and once at the finale. The author seemed to forsake logic in favor of pacing, maintaining suspense with continued references to the ticking of the execution clock at each chapter heading. But the tone and style presented by Ford outweighed these minor grievances. Fury is a fine, fun reading experience, filled with interesting people and imbued with a cynical, gritty mindset. I'll be watching for the next Frank Corso byline, and I also plan to tap into Leo Waterman's caseload sometime in the near future.

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Garden View by Mary Freeman
Berkley Prime Crime $6.50
ISBN 0-425-18454-4 Paperback
May 2002
Amateur Sleuth

Rachel O'Connor is back in her fourth gardening mystery. She still owns and runs Rain Country Landscaping and is now engaged to Jeff Price, the chief of police. In Gardening View, Rachel has the job of landscaping the Garden View Retirement Village. It's a prime job that promises to secure some free advertising but may also bring her some added problems - at least that's what an anonymous caller tries to tell her:

"'I've been watching you.' The sibilant whisper on the tape might belong to either a man or a woman. 'You're a nice girl. You be careful working out there, now. You make sure you get paid. And you be careful. I don't want to see you get hurt, not in any way. Because you are a nice girl. So you be careful, hear? Because I think maybe people are dying.'"

After she gets the call, Rachel turns to Jeff and former detective Harris, who works at the retirement home. Also, Rachel continues to deal with her wedding plans, and her mother's health problems. Changes in her business take place, and she welcomes back a past character named Spider. Spider and Rachel's landlady, Mrs. Frey, strike up an odd relationship, which reveals more of Spider's past before and after he worked for her in the last mystery.

The retirement village isn't the only place experiencing a bit of mayhem. The town of Blossom is changing from an orchard town to a tourist center, and not everyone approves. Someone is breaking windows and spray-painting businesses and the newspaper editor adds to the problems by using his newspaper to air his vendettas and personal opinions. The police chief is doing his best to protect the town from the recent vandalism, muggings, and dirty politics. A new officer nipping at Jeff's heels adds to the pressure to his job.

Rachel and Jeff are likable characters. They seem to be easygoing, rarely disagree, and respect each other's careers. There is nothing I hate more in a storyline then when a character is set up to date or marry a police officer, only to be followed by, "I hate your job. I can't take the stress. I want you to quit." Thankfully Freeman is wise enough to avoid such stereotypical silliness. Another sign that Freeman keeps her characters grounded is in the name of Rachel's cat. Instead dubbing the finicky feline after a plant, the precious pet is called simply, Peter.

Between the suspects and the well-hidden clues, the mystery is able to give the reader enough doubt until the end. Because it is a gardening mystery, readers can expect to learn a bit more about landscaping, sprinkler systems, and plants, but don't expect to be overwhelmed by the subject.

I've read prior gardening mysteries and found the series as a whole, very appealing. I think it's one of those well worth backtracking and reading from the start. Jumping into the middle of this series might be a bit confusing when it comes to the characters' personal lives, but if solving a mystery is all one wants, Garden View is a wise choice.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3.5 quills

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The Survivors Club by Lisa Gardner
Bantam $23.95
ISBN 0-553-80251-8 Hardcover
May 2002
Thriller

Rape - its survivors, its victims, its perpetrators, its investigators - is the sad theme underlying this story. Jillian Hayes, who came too late to rescue her sister, Carol Rosen, who suffered waiting waiting waiting for her husband to come home, and Meg Pesaturo, who doesn't remember a thing, have formed the Survivors Club, proclaiming their support for each other and their determination that the man who ruined their lives will be brought to justice.

Pedophilia, the crime Sergeant Griffin fought eighteen months ago, has left its ugly reminders in his life. His wife died of cancer just weeks before he discovered that their cherubic next-door neighbor was the Candy Man, perpetrator of a heinous series of abductions, maimings, and murders. Since then, he's hid out, pressed weights, and jogged himself into physical shape.

On his first day back on the job, the squared-jawed sergeant answers a call that puts him in the center of the lives still afloat on the Survivors Club life raft. A military-trained sniper took out Eddie Como, the College Hill Rapist, as he arrives for trial. The client pays him off with a car bomb in his rental car.

Interviewing the Survivors Club, instant suspects in their tormentor's murder, the sergeant finds himself drawn in by their unraveling indomitability. And soon he discovers the case isn't closed at all; that night the real College Hill Rapist takes his fourth victim. And the long, hard trek to a real solution to the crimes, crimes that have haunted all these lives, must begin.

From obligatory prologue to race-to-the-finish dénouement, The Survivors Club is a compelling, disturbing, absorbing entry in the suspense marketplace. Characters illuminated by interior monologue and shifting point-of-view narration gain weight otherwise missing from the thriller formula.

Suspense novels, unlike mysteries per se, often reveal clues first to the reader and only after many more pages to the characters. Here clue number 1 happens in that compulsory preface; other vital factors in the solution come to light well before a bulb lights above the head of anyone in the story. This can build anticipation-(When will they find out?)-or simply annoy.

Stories like this, built around pedophilia, abuse, and murder, are a bit like the therapy play psychologists use with damaged children. Because it is make-believe, the violence "pretend", we can sometimes look at social realities-in the guise of fiction-from which we would otherwise turn aside in despair. At their best, such stories can help us deal with the realities of existence, rather than simply disturb our dreams.

Reviwed by: John Leech
Rating: 3 quills

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Death Of A Songbird by Christine Goff
Berkley $5.99
ISBN 0-425-18044-1 Paperback
July 2001
Amateur Sleuth

Native Coloradoan Christine Goff has found herself a nicely feathered niche in mystery fiction by focusing on the burgeoning world of birding. Colorado already boasts Diane Mott Davidson's Goldie the Caterer, Margaret Coel's Jesuit Father John O'Malley and now there is the Elk Park Ornithological Chapter of birders. Breaking new ground by focusing on a group of people in her series, Goff plans that each book will focus on one character in the enthusiastic and devoted band of birders in Elk Park, a fictitious area fashioned after Estes Park, the Gateway to the Rocky Mountains.

In Rant of Ravens, Goff's debut novel in the series, the heroine was Rachel Stanhope. In Death of a Songbird, Lark Drummond takes center stage. The action unfolds at the historic Drummond Hotel, a luxurious lodge brimming over with expectant guests and owned by Lark. The annual conference of the Migration Alliance has Lark's employees hopping, especially her fussbudget manager, Stephen Velof. He's just informed Lark that the crisis de jour includes the fact that the hotel is almost out of coffee, and not just ordinary coffee, but Chipe Coffee, the gourmet coffee that Lark silently co-owns with friend Esther Mills. It is this same friend whose violent murder Lark witnesses through her spotting scope, thus sending into motion this gripping tale.

Goff adds to this heady brew by folding in fascinating facts about the $10 billion coffee industry. Learning that the United States alone imbibes one third of the world's production of coffee beans is an eye opener. An especially profitable area of the business is the organic and gourmet specialties. The growing of coffee beans is relevant to birding since the manner of production of coffee in South America, especially Mexico, can heavily impact the habitat needed by migratory birds to survive. Goff deftly and subtly weaves these facts into the story without neglecting the all-important action.

As for characters, there are plenty. The story includes a suspected covert military man, a beautiful runaway Chiapas songbird, a dilettante heiress, a Zapatista revolutionary, and a Fortune 500 career woman, not to mention the divergent, slightly zany local characters from Lark's birding group. As in most small towns, Elk Park has its share of local color, given off not by feathered friends but by the human element. Being able to identify characters resembling personal real-life acquaintances adds to the sleuthing fun as strong wills collide.

Goff draws on her life-long knowledge of Colorado to create a wonderful sense of place. Using the surrounding countryside as a complicating character, Mother Nature throws quite a punch into the middle of the birding convention leaving several members in dire straights, but not high and dry.

This book is not the run of the mill plodding police procedural. Even though Lark's amateur sleuthing is sporadic and untrained, she has good instincts that may be inherited from her father, the honorable Senator Nathan Drummond from Connecticut. The clues don't appear tidily to her; rather they appear randomly with great effort. When Lark finally connects all the dots, she realizes the danger is not just to her, but also to all of her birding friends. They are all at grave risk. Goff weaves in several sub-stories that add to the action. Most involve the basic human emotions of love, lust for power, and greed.

Goff has fashioned a tale and a group of characters that will draw readers like bees to honey. Of interest to fans, a little bird sings a tune that says that the next book will feature hunky, tall and Norwegian park ranger Eric Lineger. So stay tuned.

Reviewed by: Leslie Doran
Rating: 4 quills

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Save the Last Dance for Me by Ed Gorman
Carroll & Graf $24.
ISBN 0-7867-0968-5
February 2002
Private Investigator

The Reverend John Muldaur has hired Black River Falls, Iowa, private investigator Sam McCain because the preacher believes someone is going to murder him. Muldaur proves prophetic when he has a fit and dies during one of his services. Author Ed Gorman opens the book with this tragic event and the chapter proves terrifying because of one fact: Muldaur is a snake handler.

This series has an established tone which combines a young adult voice, a small town setting and the unique period quirks of late 1950s America. The opening chapter aside, it all works here again. Richard Nixon is coming to this small town, and Judge Whitney, Sam's steady employer, orders her investigator to find out who murdered the Reverend before his death embarrasses the town on the national scene. When a second pastor is killed, Sam searches for the clues through the ranks of weird parishioners and some very unhappy women.

The theme of the book deals with the sanctity of marriage, an especially powerful message when it is mixed with the religious politics of intolerance. Sam himself is put to the test when he is attracted to a local reporter trapped in a messy relationship. Everything will work out in the end as is the nature of a cozy P.I. series like this, especially when it is handled with the skill that Gorman brings to this whole series.

Reviewed by: Gary Warren Niebuhr
Rating: 4 quills

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The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton
Scribner $24.00
ISBN 0-7432-1269-X Hardcover
July 2001
Suspense

The Jasmine Trade by Denise Hamilton is subtitled as a novel of suspense, introducing Eve Diamond. Indeed there is suspense, as well as mystery, violence, insight into and an examination of events not generally explored outside of the news media, if ever covered.

A reporter for the Los Angeles Times, Eve Diamond works out of its suburban San Gabriel Valley office. Denise Hamilton's 10 years as a reporter for the LA Times shows in her mystery. She knows the territory, not only of LA and its suburban sprawl, but that of a journalist.

Eve is awakened by a call from her editor, a man she likes and respects. He "was oblivious to, or else ignoring, my sleep-logged voice at ten in the morning, a time when most reporters were already at their desks, rustling through the daily paper and midway through a second cup of coffee." When she finally is able to tune into the assignment through her Chardonnay excesses of the night before, he's describing the crime: "slumped in her new Lexus, blood all over the place, right there in the parking lot of Fabric World in San Gabriel. Guess the bridesmaids won't be wearing those dresses any time soon."

The cops on the scene account for the death of seventeen-year-old Marina Lu as an attempted carjacking gone bad. Built in a Spanish Mission style, the shopping area at Valley Boulevard and Del Mar caters exclusively to the exploding Chinese immigrant community.

As Eve observes after writing the story to 12 inches of copy, for reporters and cops alike, a kind of battle fatigue had set in. Los Angles averaged more than one murder each hour on a prickly summer day. They had lost their ability to be shocked. However, as she continues to work on that story and others, Eve manages to regain that ability.

During an interview for an education story, Eve gets an insight into another aspect of the Pacific Rim immigrant life in L.A. A counselor for troubled teens explains that he recently has seen a lot more straight-A-earning, clean-cut, preppy Asian kids living a double life in gangs. In an interview with two of Marina Lu's friends, Eve learns that the girl was a "parachute kid:" one of the wealthy, underage students attending expensive schools and living in expensive homes in the States while their parents remained in Asia, tending to the deal-making. This is only the tip of what Eve learns as she determinedly pursues scoops on the stories of the Marina's murder and the lives of parachute kids.

The pursuit quickly educates her on many levels about the Asian cultures taking over the formerly WASP San Gabriel Valley and, indeed, more of the country than most realize. Eve even learns what The Jasmine Trade is, to her regret.

Denise Hamilton writes well and compellingly. Eve is a satisfying character, intelligent, opinionated, vulnerable and professional. She is also having doubts about some of the requirements of her profession, even as she performs it. Eve Diamond is complicated and interesting. Hamilton's experiences have shaped both her and her novel. Read and enjoy it, despite the possibility that it might make you think beyond the curiosity about the story's next twist in this "escapist" genre.

Reviewed by: Virginia R. Knight
Rating: 3.5 quills

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An Eye for Murder by Libby Fischer Hellmann
Berkley Prime Crime $6.50
ISBN 0-425-18739-X Paperback
December 2002
Amateur sleuth

Ellie Foreman is a single mother trying to make it in Chicago by producing videos on consignment. Her ex-husband is not much help. Her father, a Jew who grew up in Chicago, is now in an assisted living facility. An old man, Ben Sinclair, dies and his landlady finds Ellie's name in his coat pocket. She calls hoping that Ellie is a relative or close friend. But Ellie has never heard of him. Despite that her curiosity takes her the boarding house where she examines his possessions, takes two boxes of them to donate to Jewish charities, and finds an old Zippo lighter that may be worth something. Her father recognizes the Zippo lighter as belonging to a man he knew before World War II. The story then takes us through what I felt was an unnecessarily complex labyrinth dealing with events before and during the war reflected in the present.

Ellie is an intriguing heroine. She is creative, enthusiastic, and her curiosity bump is overly developed. With very little reason she begins to poke her nose into Sinclair's life. She keeps seeing the same two men in the same car everywhere she goes and people she talks to die or are injured. It takes her an unconscionable long time to figure out that her inquisitive activities may be accounting for these deaths and injuries. She foolishly puts both her father and herself in danger, going with people she barely knows late at night to a suspicious location. Of course there would have been no story had she not taken risks, but it was easy at times to get very annoyed with her.

The rest of the characters are two-dimensional and none stands out in my mind. At one point Ellie overhears someone talking about getting rid of her and when she reveals the character I could not remember who it was. Perhaps a "cast of characters" might have helped, Perhaps a somewhat simplified story might have helped more.

The romance I found to be a little forced. It did not grow naturally between two people, but exploded and then imploded without rhyme or reason. Had the male character been better developed, the romance might have been more believable.

Finally I questioned the use of the prologue. It really did nothing for the story but introduce confusion. It did not pique my interest or give us bridge to the plot. I thought the book would have been better without it.

Despite all these caveats I kept reading. It was a breezy, intriguing story in spite of the complexities with a protagonist who was most appealing if sometimes rather annoying. I will be interested in seeing the next book from this first time author.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Death's Jest-book (A Dalziel and Pascoe Novel) by Reginald Hill
Collins Crime £10.00
ISBN 0007123396 Hardcover
May 2002
British Police Procedural

In Dialogues of the Dead, the Yorkshire detectives seemed to have it all swinging their way. Young "Bowler" Hat even got himself a girlfriend (prospect). All that was so carefully sewn up bleeds afresh in this disturbing novel, where every comic turn serves to heighten the tragedy.

Beneath a road bridge lies the corpse of a roadside assistance man. A youthful rider smashes his motorcycle into a tree. Clues come to Rye, the comely librarian, and her colorful supervisor. Among the entries for a literary prize they discover dialogues tied to the deaths. And so the killer is dubbed The Wordman.

Pascoe is obsessing with Roote (again), an ever-so-polite sociopath who has turned from small crime to literary criticism. He seems to be mixed up in an elaborate armed robbery, its target a treasure-hoard of Danish silver. While Roote digs around in the literary detritus of a suicidal Romantic poet, Pascoe leaves no stone unturned in his effort to lay the blame at Roote's feet.

Andy, besotted with his paramour, is bekilted for a party, and more than one comic turn, on the dance floor and off. Yet he is the one who observes all, and knows the truth of the tragedy better than its key players.

Altogether a baffling and disturbing and complicated book, Death's Jest-Book is available from amazon.co.uk in hardback, and at the same price from airport booksellers in a handsome "Fat-Andy"-sized paperback.

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 5 quills

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The Dead of Midnight by Catherine Hunter
St. Martin's Minotaur $24.95
ISBN 0-312-30838-8 Hardcover
September 2002
Thriller, Canadian

Billed as a literary mystery, The Dead of Midnight's focal point is a book club that meets weekly in Winnipeg's Mystery Au Lait Café. As the story opens, the group is reading Bloody Midnight by Walter White, a particularly mysterious writer who years ago wrote five mysteries, all featuring the word "midnight" in their titles. In a deviation from its usual practice of reading a variety of authors, the group is reading all five of the Walter White mysteries in sequence.

The Dead of Midnight's main character is book club member Sarah Petursson, who early in the book is injured in her home during a crime she and the police believe was carried out by her estranged husband. That's just the first in a string of crimes in which several members of the book club's circle wind up dead-murders that seem to be similar to those carried out in the Walter White mysteries.

Sarah's injuries give her a forced vacation from her accounting practice. She decides to use the time reading her late mother's journals, which came into her possession (in Sarah's role as her mother's literary executor) when she turned twenty-five. Her mother was a famous poet who died when their house on Persephone Island burned down when Sarah was just six years old. She has a few memories of her mother, and knows nothing about who her father was. No one seems to know. Sarah's investigation of her mother's journals and her curiosity about her father send her to the island -- the perfect place, she believes, to read and contemplate what her mother wrote.

I liked so many things about The Dead of Midnight, it's hard to figure out where to start. The plot was satisfyingly complex, with a delightful cast of characters, some quirky, some cliched, but all interesting. I thought the main character, Sarah, particularly likeable: straightforward, not a drama queen and quite believable. Although there were scary situations, they weren't TOO scary -- no bad dreams from The Dead of Midnight. That may disappoint some readers. The murders were not of the super-bloody variety. The Dead of Midnight was a book I looked forward to getting back to.

Reviewed by: Diana Vickery
Rating: 3.5 quills

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The Murder Book by Jonathan Kellerman
Ballantine Publishing Group $26.95
ISBN 0-345-45253-4 Hardcover
October 2002
Suspense

Jonathan Kellerman has written 15 previous novels featuring Alex Delaware, a psychiatrist in Los Angeles, and he shows no sign of retiring Alex. In The Murder Book, Alex receives a notebook exactly like a police murder book with what seem to be crime-scene photos of 43 different cases, only one marked NS, not solved. When he shows the book to his best friend, gay detective Milo Sturgis, Milo realizes that the book is intended for him and that someone wants Milo to reopen one of the cases. A photo of a young woman, tortured, strangled, and dumped on the roadside was from one of Milo's first cases as a rookie cop twenty years ago. This crime had been covered up and Milo was taken off the case. Alex joins Milo trying to find out what happened and who was behind the cover up. Their investigation gets the attention of powerful and ruthless men who will stop at nothing to keep their secrets.

What seems to be a routine story of an unsolved murder becomes a study of human emotions and big-city politics. Alex and Milo meet unusual characters, even unusual for Los Angeles. Painstaking police work and assistance from a mysterious tipster lead them to a deadly confrontation with a group of vicious killers. Kellerman builds carefully to the climax which comes quickly and abruptly after a series of incidents that made the killers seem omnipotent, The resolution is simple--the villains are all disposed of in a one-night blood bath! During all of this Alex has been agonizing over his deteriorating relationship with Robin, his long-time lover. For a psychiatrist, Alex seems remarkably stupid in his personal life.

Chapters from Alex's point of view are in the first person, those from Milo's perspectives are in the third person. The action never stops and the writing style is clear and uncluttered. The accounts of both Alex's and Milo's love lives are skillfully woven into the crime story. Perhaps when Alex returns in a seventeenth saga, he will have learned from his mistakes. Of course, without the mistakes, the stories would be lacking an important element that intrigues readers and signals another probable best-seller.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Green Girls by Michael Kimball
William Morrow $24.95
ISBN 0-06-008737-4 Hardcover
December, 2002
Suspense

Jacob William Winter is a writer who has received critical but not commercial success. When he arrives at home one night, he finds his wife and his former therapist, Price Ashworth, sharing a meal. Certain that they have been intimate he goes berserk, trashing his house and attacking Ashworth. The next day he is bailed out of jail by Alix Callahan, a woman he had known casually in college. Not understanding why she has paid his bail, he goes to visit her and meets a very unusual woman, July, who is hiding from her husband Sereno. Then Alix jumps or is pushed from a bridge and Winter is in more trouble with the law.

This is billed as a suspense novel, but I really did not find much suspense. The events unfolded in an expected and anticipated manner, and I found it difficult to suspend my disbelief long enough to get very excited about what might happen next. Winter was a fully developed character, but the others, including Alix, his wife, and July all seemed figments of his imagination. They were shadowy figures who lived in the murky light of the greenhouse run by Alix.

Sereno was a shaman with supernatural powers which he used to track his wife. I was not sold on the existence of these powers or on the authenticity of this character. And I found I did not really care enough about any of the characters to want to know what was going to happen to them next.

The bridge in Maine over the Piscataqua was clearly a metaphor for all the action in the book. People jumped from it and it provided a link between characters and setting. The sense of place was acute and made up for some of the other problems with the book.

Kimball wrote in past tense, but described Sereno's quest in present tense. But then every so often when telling Winter's story he also switched to present tense and each time it pulled me out of the story and made me wonder why I should care about any of these things. The story simply did not speak to me or involve me in any significant way.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Dig Deep for Murder by Kate Kingsbury
Berkley Prime Crime $5.99
ISBN 0-425-18886-8 Paperback
December 2002
Historical, England, World War II

Elizabeth Hartleigh Compton is the lady of the manor in Sitting Marsh, England. Her parents were both killed in a bomb blast and she is left to carry out the responsibilities associated with the aristocracy. She has divorced a spendthrift and gambling husband and so has little money to maintain the manor. She also feels a profound obligation to care for the villagers and to ensure that all is well in a world that is making her increasingly irrelevant. An American air base is located near Sitting Marsh and officers are quartered in the east wing of the mansion. She has fallen in love with Major Earl Monroe who has a wife and children back in the United States.

This is the fourth in Kingsbury's new series. In this one, Lady Elizabeth has turned over land to villagers for Victory Gardens. One of the gardeners has died and she agrees to give his plot to the mother of her assistant Polly. When Polly, her sister, and mother go to dig up the plot they find, along with the weeds, a dead body, face all battered so that he is unidentifiable. Lady Elizabeth simply must pursue the murder because the two constables are old and unreliable and do as little as possible to get by.

This is a lighthearted rather frothy story. A traditional mystery - violence takes place off stage and sex is only intimated. The characters, who are mostly stereotypical, form a closed society in the village and the murderer must be one of them. The plot is not too transparent and is intriguing enough to keep the reader's interest. It is, however, the picture of the village and the villagers, at war, it is true, but gallantly trying to preserve the past as they worry about the future that is the most engaging part of this novel. It depicts a world that is dying and, however much we might not want to live in that world, it is a still an attractive one.

The war is not too evident. True, there is rationing, but no one is starving. Most of the adult men are gone, but no wounded have returned and if villagers have died, it is not part of this story. There is antagonism between the American flyers (over paid, over sexed, and over here) and the villagers, but even that is somewhat muted.

Very likely this way of life never really existed except perhaps in the imagination of writers such as Agatha Christie but it is certainly enjoyable to spend a couple of hours in this village. And there are certain truths to be gained from the story, sugarcoated as they may be. If you like traditional mysteries, you will enjoy this one.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3 quills

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Blood Diamonds by Jon Land
Forge $25.95
ISBN 0-765-30226-8 Hardcover
April 2002
Thriller

It's the return of the odd couple. Ben Kamal is a Palestinian-American detective and Danielle Barnea is an Israeli Chief Inspector and former special forces agent. They worked together and loved together in four previous novels, but have become estranged. They are reunited when Danielle is assigned to investigate illegal arms shipments through Israel. Diamonds from Sierra Leone in Africa are being smuggled into Israel where they are exchanged for weapons stolen from Russia. After Danielle is framed and jailed for the murder of an Israeli commander, Ben breaks her out of prison and together they attempt to solve the conspiracy and stop the shipments of arms.

The Revolutionary United Front (RUF) in Sierra Leone wants weapons to take control of that country and ultimately attack the United States as well. The RUF is led by the Dragon, a ruthless woman with an urgent need for revenge on her enemies. The Dragon, working with the Russian Mafia, has a secret weapon that can effectively eliminate all opposition.

Ben and Danielle must combat corrupt Israeli and Palestinian forces as they attempt to thwart the Dragon and an indestructible American assassin who pursues them everywhere. Danielle goes to Sierra Leone, the source of the diamonds, and Ben goes to Russia, source of the weapons. Their chances of completing their mission and surviving seem as unlikely as achieving peace between their two countries.

Blood Diamonds is about action, heroic, rapid-fire action that never stops. Both Ben and Danielle are impossibly heroic and skilled. Their exploits are told in short chapters, alternating between Ben's adventures and Danielle's. Each chapter ends with its own kind of cliff-hanger and this structure interferes with the flow of the story. The characters are unreal and their actions often impossible. If conditions in the middle east are anything like they are described here, there can be little hope for an end to the bloodshed and suffering. Sierra Leone, if possible, seems even worse off.

Because of the format and the constant action, Blood Diamonds may be a good choice to read after you have cleared security and are waiting for your flight, providing you are not headed for Israel, Palestine, or Sierra Leone.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Dead Men Die by E. L. Larkin
Worldwide Mystery $ 5.99
ISBN 0-373-26406-2 Paperback
December 2001
Private Investigator

As a private investigator and researcher, Demary Jones is usually on the fringes of each case, looking in. Not this time. As Demary is coming home late from work one night, she trips over something. Sounds normal so far, right? The last thing she expected it to be is a dead body but that is exactly what it is. Although Demary does not recognize who the dead man is, it seems the police officer in charge of the case has set his sights on her as a suspect. Also troubling Demary is the question of the killer. Did the killer see her that night and even more important, does the killer think Demary saw him? If so, Demary's life could be in serious danger. While all of this is going on, Demary does not have the luxury of letting her other cases linger around. One of her cases is to find a long lost relative who does not or cannot be found. These two cases will collide together in a most fatal way.

Dead Men Die is a book that starts off fast but towards the middle, slows down. It was a disappointment to me that the book lost it's pace because up until then I had really been enjoying it. I felt there were too many coincidences involved that connected the two cases. On the other hand, Demary is a very real character who jumps right off of the page. She has a very vibrant personality and I will read another one of Larkin's book, just to keep up with Demary's life.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Black Out by John Lawton
Penguin Books $6.99
ISBN 0-14-200276-3 Hardcover
January 2003
Historical - London 1944

Britain has been at war with Germany for six years. It has endured the defeat of its armies on the continent, the Blitz, and the slow turning of the tide with the entry of the United States into the war. Now the invasion of Europe is close at hand, England is swarming with Yanks, and a mini-Blitz is driving people underground once more. London is a city of ruins, of bombed-out buildings and blackouts, of danger in the night.

A group of boys are playing in a bombed-out area when a dog deposits a human arm at the feet of one of them. The police, in the person of Sergeant Troy, come to the East End and using the boys as scouts find what is left of the rest of the body, bones only. The medical examiner identifies the sleeve of the coat on the body as German and the ring on one finger as German as well. Troy then makes the connection with an unidentified body some months before and a missing Pole from the same neighborhood. This begins an investigation that takes him across bombed out London to, finally, the postwar Berlin of the airlift.

It is an intriguing story and Troy is an intriguing cop. His boss kept him out of the army because he was too good a policeman. He is a cynic, believing in little or nothing. His family is émigré Russian although he was born in England. His older brother was interned briefly at the beginning of the war. He knows nothing except the hunt, He lives for police work and he has a sort of intuition that helps him leap to conclusions lesser men could not. His love life is limited to one-night stands which sometimes last just a bit longer. He absorbs a great deal of punishment and usually rises to absorb more. He is single-minded and sometimes foolish in his pursuit of the killer.

Obviously Troy was well-characterized, an authentic human being except perhaps for his ability to absorb violence. His constable was also three-dimensional, but the other characters did not seem as believable to me. Especially the women who were superhuman, super-sexy, and a little too good to be true. The other characters, including the shady murderer, were little more than caricatures.

The story is a complicated one with events occurring at a rapid pace and sometimes it is not clear precisely what did happen. It is absorbing to read but sometimes confusing as well. Murder turns to spying turns to double agents and then back again. I suppose wartime London was a good place to spot all these circumstances. Nothing is what it seems and many of the people are not as well.

The setting and the historical background are both highly accurate and very well done. The reader finds herself fumbling about the streets of London mostly in the dark while planes drone overhead and explosions light the skies. By day the scarcity of almost everything is quite obvious and even a policeman cannot find good coffee.

I was less than satisfied with the ending which took us into the slightly unbelievable realm of the double and triple cross and the inky world of spies and counterspies. But the book does a wonderful job of recreating wartime London and I found that part of it most intriguing.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Bad Connection by Michael Ledwidge
Pocket Books, $23.95
ISBN 0-7434-0593-5 Hardcover
April 2001
Thriller

I passed on Michael Ledwidge's hardcover debut (The Narrowback, 1999) for some reason. Good thing there's usually an opportunity for a rebound. Based on my enjoyment of the author's sophomore effort, I managed to score a first edition of his former novel via the trusty amazon.com on-line ordering mechanism (and yes, I also support independent booksellers). Both books are stand-alone crime novels.Bad Connection is also an old-fashioned morality play that begins as a caper story, moves into surprisingly noir territory by the finale. I wouldn't recommend the book to cozy lovers, or those readers who flinch at profanity, violence and bloodshed. Needless to say, I thought the story was pretty good.

Sean Macklin is a telephone repairman for Empire Tel -- read: the Nynex segment of what is now Verizon (I wonder why he didn't opt for verisimilitude? Legal reasons?) -- working in and under the mean streets of New York City. In an attempt to break free from financial constraints incurred by his wife's mounting medical bills, Sean takes to eavesdropping on phone conversations of selected financial advisors using illegal wiretaps. Through this secretive insider trading method he's parlayed an insignificant savings account into nearly one hundred large, seeks one more score that will provide him and his spouse with a Florida relocation package.He gets more than he wishes when he stumbles into the cover-up of a South American massacre, the news of which will ruin a multi-billion dollar corporate merger.Now the morality play begins -- should he alert authorities, or let the information ride and reap the stock benefits necessary for his Florida dream?

Ledwidge tells his tale through multiple viewpoints. The author quickly introduces Sean's brother, Ray, a tough-but-crooked cop with conflicting streaks of gambling and compassion; Robert Brent, corporate CEO, whose tough business decisions rationalize the loss of many lives; and Jimmy Scully, local boy who missed his chance for fame, and turned to booze and rip-offs:

"Scully, Ray thought. Local boy done good, done horrible. Played ball for a split-second with the Orioles. Whole neighborhood went over to the stadium to watch him choke. Fireman for a while. My, how the mighty have fallen. Poor fucking sap. He could empathize. Scullboy's luck seemed about as good as his own. Maybe it was the neighborhood, electromagnetic field from the El or something."

Ledwidge's prose is nothing out of the ordinary, but is workmanlike and serviceable, resulting in a very fast read. I was reminded somewhat of Anthony Bruno's early novels.
The author's use of a telephone guy as key character is quite unique; as a double-decade member of that industry, I can attest to the accuracy of his details (though I was somewhat surprised at the omission of the terms "goat" or "buttinski" for Sean's hand-held telephone access device). His corporate CEO, on the other hand, came off as too wimpy for that management position, not as attuned to the ebb and flow of power as he should have been; and the redemptive epiphany of another character was somewhat contrived. Still, I enjoyed the blue-collar New York ambience, and was pleased and surprised when the author didn't hesitate to present dire consequences that were in direct proportion to actions taken. Bad Connection is good, solid noir fiction. I plan to open The Narrowback at the first available opportunity, and I'll be watching for the next book from this author.

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Three to Kill by Jean-Patrick Manchette (1942-1995)
Translated from the French edition of 1976 by Donald Nicholson-Smith
City Lights Noir $11.95
ISBN 0-87286-395-6 Paperback
January 2002
Noir

Georges killed Alonso. That we know. He also killed the dog. From there, things get - noir.

Georges was driving down the road at night when he noticed a motorist in distress on the verge of the highway. Muttering to himself, he reversed and rendered assistance, coaxing the man into his car and taking him to the nearest emergency room. There he paused, and - the imbecile - slipped away.

The taillights of a red Lancia had disappeared into the night as Georges stopped to aid the stranger. Its headlights appear in his mirror, so to speak, later when he is gassing up his car. The Lancia's crew tries to kill him. He resists; fuel explodes and one man dies. He takes off through a field, and hops a freight. Next a hobo airmails him from the boxcar into a grove of larches. He limps downhill, and finds succor from a village medicine man. He does not go home.

He rests up, gets well, poaches game, and then poaches the medicine man's granddaughter. They laugh as they walk up a mountain trail. Months have gone by, but the surviving hit man and his employer have not forgotten him. So, there are still two to kill.

We discover much about Alonso by the end, and Georges discovers - what? resiliency? - about himself.

Dated - pleasantly - to a mid-70s of LPs of West Coast Jazz, no cell phones, few identity cards, an openness of society now forgotten. Three to Kill grows into a strange thriller of one man's struggles against fatal forces he finds inexplicable-but not inexorable.

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 5 quills

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Overkill by Susan McBride
Mayhaven Publishing $14.95
ISBN 1-878044-87-7 Trade Paperback
October 2001
Police Procedural

Although school was once thought of as a safe place, recent events have proved otherwise. In her new book, Overkill, Susan McBride takes that fear one step further and creates a massacre that will make you think twice before allowing your child to take the school bus. On the day that Candy Thomas sent her daughter, Pauletta, off to school, she never expected to be met with the worst news of her life. Later in the day, two detectives come to Candy Thomas's job to tell her that Pauletta is dead, shot on her school bus by an unknown assailant. Because Pauletta went to a special school for the mentally disabled, Detective Maggie Ryan wasn't sure if this was a random act or an attack on the handicapped.

As Maggie gets more involved with the case and learns more about what a great person Pauletta was, the more determined she becomes to find out who is behind everything. Unfortunately, certain elements from the case bring forth memories in Maggie's childhood that she would rather not deal with. Between battling her own demons and working Pauletta's case on virtually no sleep, Maggie knows things must be resolved- before they escalate to a level that Maggie would not be able to control.

Overkill is a book that I will remember in ten years. The writing and action resonated through me, leaving a lasting impression of wonderful technique and a shocking ending. Susan McBride legitimately wraps the case up with a total shock but not at the expense of making the reader feel tricked.

While this is McBride's second book, it reads as if it were much later in her career. Maggie handles herself with grace, even in the worst of times and is decidedly complex character that will make you want to read anything written about her. Although there is violence, please don't miss out on this wonderful book, due to a necessary part that makes this book what it is. I highly recommend this book to not only mystery lovers but to anyone who likes to read.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 5 quills

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The Case of the Ripper's Revenge by Sam McCarver
Signet $5.99
ISBN: 0-451-20458-1 Paperback Original
November 2001
John Darnell #4

August, 1917. A prostitute is savagely mutilated while plying her trade in London's seamy Whitechapel-Spitalfields district. Her colleagues claim to have seen a man dressed in cape and top hat fade into the darkness like "a ghost." The use of that term constitutes sufficient motivation for aging Chief Inspector Bruce Howard -- he calls in his friend, paranormal detective John Darnell. It takes no time at all for Darnell to make a quantum leap of logic, conclude that a Jack the Ripper copycat is loose in the area, and dismiss any supernatural overtones. He does so based on the date of the crime, and the fact that the recent victim's initials are the same as Mary Ann "Polly" Nichols, first "canonical" subject of the original 1888 killer. The rest of Ripper proceeds according to Darnell's early supposition, effectively minimizing suspense in favor of historically-tinged formula.

Paranormal and/or occult detectives were a staple crop in early pulp fiction publications such as Weird Tales, Strange Stories, and Unknown. This unique motif combined the deductive analysis of Sherlock Holmes with outre cases suited to slavering readers of raunchy, scary, low-budget magazines (c'est moi; copies of those treasures still reside in my personal collection). Of particular interest to, and influence on, this reviewer were stories written by Seabury Quinn (Jules de Grandin), and Manly Wade Wellman (John Thunstone), William Hope Hodgson (Carnacki), Joseph Payne Brennan (Lucius Leffing), Algernon Blackwood (John Silence), and Sax Rohmer (Moris Klaw). While written to strict formula, these adventures were highly entertaining, and varied considerably in their development of supernatural plot lines -- in other words, some of the stories, while bearing paranormal trappings, resulted in rationalist, Ann Radcliffe-style conclusions. Much of the fun came from guessing which variant was being employed.

Sam McCarver uses a bait and switch method. Although purported to be a colleague of those worthies listed above, John Darnell is merely a skeptic, a professional debunker. His credentials thus established, readers know in advance that the solution to any of Darnell's given cases will fall squarely into the Ann Radcliffe school (I say this without reading the first three volumes in this series; if any of those storylines run counter to my presumption, I will stand corrected, and apologize to the author). Further, Darnell isn't a very interesting character -- he makes sweeping generalizations based on hunches and minimal evidence; and his wife Penny -- the Watson-figure, per formula -- is downright irritating; I was sincerely hoping she'd turn out to be a Ripper victim. From a historical standpoint, Ripper runs again to the light side, paying slight lip service to nastiest year of World War I, bringing little of that horrifying ambience to the story. The author's writing is workmanlike, but his dialogue is clunky, and vocabulary is decidedly twenty-first century American.

On the flip side, McCarver's Ripper information is ultimately solid. He begins rather weakly, speaking only about the five "official" murders attributed to Saucy Jack, but builds more detail onto the framework as he proceeds -- he mentions two of the eight other "possibles" in the caseload, and his descriptions are surprisingly graphic. Ripper's resolution, while unsubstantiated by facts or the misguided attempt at Freudian analysis, carries enough logic to sustain a fictional verdict. I also liked the author's inclusion of George Bernard Shaw, the "reverse Elias" investigative technique, and the fact that McCarver eschews use of the cretinous term "woo-woo" to connotate paranormal activity.

Since the author seems to be writing to formula and specific page count, I doubt if any of my concerns will be addressed in future episodes, and so I also doubt I will be reading more about John Darnell. Your mileage may differ depending on year and model.

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Atonement by Ian McEwan
Nan A. Talese $26.00
ISBN 0-385-50395-4 Hardcover
April 2002
Novel

Rape - its aftermath, its accusations, its implications - is the impetus behind this novel as well. Unatoned crimes are at its heart. The real center is the false witness, Briony, who at age 13 accuses her sister's lover of raping her cousin. It is not true; and she comes to know it.

On a hot summer night in 1935, at a country house in Surrey, Briony looks down from her virginal height at her older sister, Cecilia, who is engaged in a strange struggle with the charwoman's son Robbie. What she perceives as a fight they experience as the stirrings of love.

Later that evening, while everyone is out looking for two lost boys, Briony comes upon Lola, age 15, sobbing in the dark. As she arrives, the stealth form of a man slips away. What her eyes tell her she rejects; her emotions "know" it is Robbie. She bears false witness, and betrays love. This time, the "candy man" gets away.

Five years later Robbie, now an ex-convict, trudges toward Dunkirk with the defeated Tommies. Cecilia has become a nurse. In Briony's telling, the two survive and are reunited. Is Briony telling the truth even now? This most reliable of unreliable narrators gets every nuance right. It could have ended that way. Or not.

Finally the novel is about imagination and its tyranny. The only atonement is the novelist's, who has the power to manipulate and recast the story in the light she chooses. (Remember the two endings of The French Lieutenant's Woman?) And that is really no atonement at all.

What may be lost beneath these literary concerns is the sordid realism of a crime. Abstract questions, however gravely faced, about what is in reality a harsh and dreadful thing may seem to its victims a repugnant parlor game. Non-fiction, such as Pedophiles and Priests (Oxford University Press), or even the French film L'amour Violé, deals with sexual violence as a hard fact.

Here, though, the crime at the center of the story functions much as it would in a mystery novel, a P.D. James perhaps; the sad fact is carefully skirted and delicately inspected. What was never meant to be seen, what was never mean to be, is exposed as cautiously as a nurse's raising of a wounded man's bandages. When they are brought to light, are these wounds closer to healing? Or do we expose them without the skill to do more than freshen the pain?

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 5 quills

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Peaches and Screams by G. A. McKevett
Kensington $22.00
ISBN 1-57566-711-8 Hardcover
January 2002
Cozy

Former cop, now PI, Savannah Reid is back, and this time the case is a little too close to home. Savannah runs her own Detective Agency called Moonlight Magnolia. At the beginning of the mystery, the reader is reminded that Savannah is a small town girl living in San Carmelita, CA., but the first scene shows her attitude is far from small town or girly. Savannah and Detective Dirk Coulter are on a stake out waiting for the appearance of a kiddy porn sleaze bag. Savannah turns the camera on the pervert and once again proves she can handle a situation in the most unusual way.

Savannah is single, living with two miniature black panthers named Diamante and Cleopatra. Those who work with her agency off and on are a gay couple Ryan and John and a close friend, Tammy. She leaves the agency work in the capable hands of Tammy as she leaves for Georgia and her sister's wedding. Playing the bridesmaid again, Savannah finds her peach bridesmaid dress is one definite screamer.

In arriving at granny's house, Savannah learns her brother has been arrested for the murder of a local judge. She heads to the Jailhouse and comes face to face with her past - deputy Tom. They may have been an item at one time but Tom goes by the book. Investigating her brother's case is going to take some quick talking and imagination and Savannah does that pretty well on her own, but the case and the storyline really pick up when Tammy and Dirk arrive. There are the occasional conflicts between Tammy and Dirk that read as humorous and then there are one or two that seem immature and out of place for two professionals, but it's not a big deal because they are strong
secondary characters.

The trip home, the wedding chaos, and the murder have Savannah looking inward personally. Together she and the two men she emotionally feels for work out the mystery and come to a mutual conclusion in their lives. Through the chaotic scenes with humor adeptly placed and a mystery in need of some creative sleuthing, the characters are able to productively evolve, making the series a continuing interest. G. A. McKevett offers up a wonderful southern small town, large family feel that will have readers shaking their heads as they read.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3 quills

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Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance by Larry Millett
Penguin Books $6.99
ISBN 0-14-200155-4 Paperback
October 2002
Historical - 19th century

The old adage: "Don't judge a book by its cover" certainly applies to Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance. "Sherlock Holmes" is in type several points larger than the rest of the title, yet, in the book, Sherlock plays a minor role. He and Watson are not even on the scene until very late in the story. Most chapters begin with a brief diary entry by Watson about Holmes' reaction to correspondence from Shadwell Rafferty, a saloon owner-amateur detective in Minneapolis. This device to involve Sherlock actually disrupts the flow of the story. A more descriptive title would be: Shadwell Rafferty and the Anarchists.

In 1899 President McKinley is scheduled to visit Minneapolis, a wide-open city dominated by a corrupt mayor and a secret alliance of business men. Shortly before the presidential visit, the body of a young union activist is hanged from a tree in front of a deserted old mansion. A sign around the neck of the victim reads: "The Secret Alliance Has Spoken." When Rafferty is asked to investigate the murder, he corresponds with his old friend Sherlock Holmes who is in New York on a case for John Jacob Astor, and together they attempt to solve the murder and prevent a disaster.

Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance is rich in detail about Minneapolis and St. Paul at the turn of the century. Even though a great amount of information is written into the story, there are extensive notes for each chapter. These notes will surely be of interest to those interested in the history of the cities, but may be ignored by others without missing any of the plot. Author Larry Millett introduces several interesting characters, most of whom are believable, except for Holmes and Watson who are on the wrong side of the Atlantic. Events and places are taken from the actual history of the Twin Cities. The research and documentation are top-notch, although the story is longer than it needs to be. Clearly, they are the strengths of this author, along with his obvious love for the places he describes. Sherlock Holmes and the Secret Alliance is recommended for history buffs and residents of the area. Fans of Sherlock may wish to give this fourth pastiche by Millett a pass.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2 quills

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Death of a Mermaid by Wendy Howell Mills
Coastal Carolina Books $7.99
ISBN 1-9285-5638-8 Paperback
October 2002
Amateur Sleuth

In the middle of an extremely busy shift, Callie McKinley's best waitress breaks down in tears. This behavior is so unlike Margie that Callie pushes aside irritation and asks what is wrong. Margie gives an incoherent answer, saying something about "him" following her. Just as suddenly as her tears, Margie pulls herself together and rushes back to work. Callie promises herself that she will talk to Margie as soon as things settle down, but by the time they do, Margie's shift is over and she is gone.

The opportunity is past and what Callie doesn't know is that she won't be getting another one. She finds a note from Margie stating that she is sorry but she has to leave. Something is wrong, but Callie can't get anyone to listen to her. She begins to look for clues into Margie's life but finds nothing except more trouble. Then Callie makes a connection between Margie and a woman who was murdered five years ago. Life begins to get more complicated and with it comes the danger that Callie thought she left behind in her past years.

Death of a Mermaid starts off with a bang and ends with an explosion. I loved the dynamics of this book. There is constantly something going on and every thread of this story kept me hooked. I sympathized with Callie and by the end of the book I was rooting for her to make everything work out in her best interests. Mills has a wonderful handle on her characters and is great with switching from the past and present. This is a book that I will highly recommend to anyone looking for a wonderful read.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 4 quills

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Angel Fire by Lisa Miscione
St. Martin's Minotaur $23.95
ISBN 0-312-28304-0 Hardcover
February 2002
Amateur and Private Investigator Team

Lydia Strong is hiding from her life in Angel Fire, New Mexico, having just completed another of her nationally recognized true crime books. Still suffering deeply from the death of her mother, an event that occurred fifteen years prior to this year, she becomes intrigued by the case of a mutilated dog left in the Church of the Holy Name's courtyard. As her investigation draws her to Juno Alonzo, the blind nephew of the Church's priest, she calls upon her friend, New York P. I. Jeffrey Marks, for help.

Because this book is told in third person, the reader is also aware that a sexually perverse deviant is stalking Lydia, and that Santa Fe has at least three missing persons that may mean the stalker is a serial killer. What could become a rather well developed psychological thriller is hurt by the contrivances of the plot. Lydia and Jeffrey take over the police investigation, giving orders to the local police chief. Then the climax of the plot is dependent on one character doing something really stupid so they can be the next victim, and eventually the power of the characters and theme are lost in the incredulous disbelief of the reader. Enough promise is shown here that one can only hope that next outing the author will write a better plot.

Reviewed by: Gary Warren Niebuhr
Rating: 2 quills

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Sea-Born Women by B.J. Mountford
John F. Blair $14.95
ISBN 0-89587-265-X Trade Paperback
June 2002
Suspense

The legend of the sea-born women is that they can talk to the denizens of the sea and guide them to sailors in trouble. Bert Lenehan was a sea-born woman, born on a ship as her mother raced back to the United States to give birth. Jerusha Spriggs O'Hagan, born in the eighteenth century, was another. This book tells their stories which touch on some levels.

Bert is the volunteer summer caretaker at Portsmouth Village on Cape Lookout Island in the North Carolina Outer Banks. She is a middle-aged woman at loose ends needing something to do for the summer, but she gets more than she bargains for. Her first night is filled with strange events: someone plays the church organ, the generator goes off and on, and there is a plague of mosquitoes. The park authorities insist that she leave but before she can do so, an old woman, a lessee, is found dead, perhaps murdered, and then a hurricane makes departure impossible. It is then that it is important that she is a sea-born woman.

Her companion is Ranger Hunter O'Hagan who tells Bert the story of his distant ancestor, Jerusha, who was housekeeper for a former pirate who lived on the island. The pirate was found murdered and his body was buried in a vault. Jerusha's story intrigues Bert. But then so does Hunter.

The best part of this book is the sense of place. The author lovingly and meticulously describes the island and the Village and puts the reader right into the environment. Everything is sharper than life. Much is beautiful, the water, the wind, the woods. Much is puzzling and perhaps frightening, such as the swarming of the nutria, the jellyfish, the mosquitoes. Layered on that is the historical aspect which is nicely described as well. And the climaxing storm is powerful and mighty and the reader can experience it full force.

I had trouble with the main character, Bert. She seemed inconsistent and vacillating to me. First she was an independent woman who made her own decisions. Then she deferred to the men who felt she could not handle herself. She took risks that I thought were stupid and then cowered in fear in her cabin. At the height of the storm she went searching for ruins. I had trouble believing in her.

The story was rather simplistic and not very layered even though the conclusion was decidedly convoluted. The introduction of the historical story could have been intriguing, but for some reason was not. There was a hint of supernatural which seemed unnecessary to me, but the reader could ignore it and still understand the story. I finished this book with very mixed feelings.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2.5 quills

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A Valley to Die For by Radine Trees Nehring
St. Kitt's Press $ 14.00
ISBN 0966187997 Trade Paperback
April 2002
Amateur Sleuth

Moving to the Ozark Mountains had been a dream of Carrie McCrite and her husband, Amos. After Amos is killed in a hunting accident, Carrie wants to prove to herself and everyone else that she can take care of herself so she moves to the Ozarks by herself. As she suspected, she falls in love with the environment and lives, happily, for the next few years before her peace is disrupted. When her best friend, JoAnne Harrington, tells Carrie that there is a plan to rip down the valley to make room for a stone quarry, she is horribly upset and ready to step up to the plate and take action. Just when Carrie and the group of people working with her seem to be making progress, JoAnne disappears. When JoAnne is found dead, Carrie decides to find out what happened to her. Could this death have to do with the stone quarry or a secret from her personal life? As Carrie gets closer to the truth, she also gets closer to losing something more important than the valley - her life.

A Valley to Die For was a pleasing reading experience but I had one problem with it. Carrie did not seem that interested in the quarry problem. It seemed more like she was pushed into it by JoAnne and went along with her. While she did not want her valley ruined, it came across, as she would have done nothing about without that push from JoAnne. Otherwise, this was a book with wonderful descriptions and appealing characters. I will definitely read the next book in this series.

Reviewed by: Robyn Glazer
Rating: 3 quills

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Thin Walls by Kris Nelscott
St. Martin's Minotaur $24.95
ISBN 0-312-28783-6 Hardcover
September 2002
Private Investigator

Louis Foster, an African-American dentist in the Bronzeville section of 1968 Chicago, leaves his office at noon one cold day the week before Thanksgiving and is discovered the next day, dead, in Washington Park. The police dismiss it as a mugging, but his widow hires the unlicensed African-American detective Smokey Dalton (now using the name Bill Grimshaw) to find out the real reason why.

While working that case, Smokey must also provide Laura Hathaway, his white girlfriend, guidance and protection as she tries to take control of her father's company. A third problem arises when Smokey finds his ward, Jimmy, threatened at school by the Blackstone Rangers. Foster's death seems to be connected to the severe beating of a racial-mixed couple whose personal stories pulls Smokey in a fourth direction.

If I have any criticism of this effort, it is that the many concerns not only pull Smokey in many directions, but the reader as well. However, Nelscott has managed to create a sense of suspense through out this whole series regarding Smokey's status within American society that continues to drive the narrative. This one, the third book in this series, is recommended to series readers but I would suggest that other readers should read the earlier works first to get a better grounding in the history of the characters.

Reviewed by: Gary Warren Niebuhr
Rating: 3 quills

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A Study in Lilac by Maria-Antonia Oliver
(Translated by Kathleen McNerney)
A WorldKrime Mystery by Intrigue Press $23.95
ISBN 1-890768-39-1 Hardcover
October 2001
Private Investigator

From the posh estates overlooking the ocean on the outskirts of the city to the teeming, crime-ridden docks and warehouses of the waterfront itself, P.I. Loñia Guiu works the mean streets of Barcelona. That's right, Barcelona… as in Spain. A Study in Lilac is the premier title in the new WorldKrime series put out by Intrigue Press. Translated from Catalan, this is an impressive novel that should appeal to mystery lovers in general and, most especially, to those looking for something in the genre that is just a little bit out of the ordinary and that at the same time has something significant to say.

Private Investigator and sometime journalist, Loñia Guiu, has had it up to her pretty little eyeballs tracking down runaways. Nevertheless, as a favor for an old friend from her native Majorca, she agrees to find a young girl from that island who has run away and disappeared amid the crowds and not so hospitable streets of Barcelona. Guiu finds the girl in short order-pregnant and the victim of a rape-and, much to her dismay, the detective also finds herself in the role of nursemaid and confidant. Meanwhile, the mysterious Ms. GaudÌ, a dealer in upscale antiques, hires Loñia to find three men she claims defrauded her in a recent business deal. Guiu has little trouble locating the three men -- each a prominent local business personality -- but when they subsequently begin to turn up dead she suspects that Ms. GaudÌ's interest in them stems from something far more personal than merely an antique deal gone sour. In addition to a small arms and chemical weapons smuggling operation, Guiu's tenacious investigation ultimately uncovers a crime as heinous as it is shocking. The two independent threads of this taut narrative intertwine in a powerful way when Loñia realizes that her young charge, Sebastiana, and the ultra-sophisticated Ms. GaudÌ, have a whole lot more in common than might at first meet the eye.

Loñia Guiu is a fully developed and sympathetic character. She is every bit the tough-talking, wisecracking hardboiled detective. At the same time, she is conscious of the fact that she is a woman (hell, Guiu even collects lipsticks and unique lipstick cases!) working in a field-not to mention a culture-that is decidedly patriarchal. In that vein, A Study in Lilac is told from what is obviously a feminist perspective. In particular, the novel raises all kinds of questions about the issue of violence against women and the rather cavalier manner in which such matters are often treated in even modern Western societies. At the same time, author Oliver avoids the common pitfall of allowing the proverbial tail to wag the dog by becoming "preachy" or pedantic. Her polemical or political concerns, that is to say, emerge naturally as a necessary and logical result of the story she is telling. And an exciting and skillfully plotted story it is!

What problems there are with this book stem from the fact that, for those of us who don't speak Catalan, we must regrettably read A Study in Lilac in translation. At times, the story is rather difficult to follow and the dialogue comes off as somewhat wooden or stilted. Undoubtedly what is happening here is that the translator, Kathleen McNerney, is attempting to balance the demands of rendering the various idiomatic phrases as literally as possible with those of being faithful at the same time to the stylistic conventions of the classic "private eye" novel. That she manages as well as she does is a tribute both to her linguistic and to her literary talents.

It is one thing to write a book that causes the reader to think about weighty moral and social issues. It is quite another to produce a coherent and thoroughly engaging mystery with a believable and intriguing main character. To do both between the same covers is a no mean feat. A Study in Lilac is just such a novel. This one is worth looking for.

Reviewed by: James Clar
Rating: 4 quills

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Advent of Dying by Carol Anne O'Marie
Minotaur Books $5.99
ISBN 0312978677 Paperback
November 2001
Amateur Sleuth

It's been two years since Sister Mary Helen had been sent to Mount St. Francis College for Women to retire. She's done anything but retire since she arrived, though. Inspector Kate Murphy can attest to that. Sister Mary Helen loves a mystery. She's been known to disguise a good mystery novel behind her plastic prayer book cover from time to time. For the Advent, Sister Eileen reminds Mary Helen of her promise to refrain from reading mysteries, but it doesn't stop her from solving a real one-one too close to home.

Suzanne Barnes is Sister Mary Helen's secretary. She has yet to reveal anything about herself, but then again Mary Helen is not the most patient listener. Suzanne finally speaks up and invites Mary Helen, Eileen, and Anne to hear her sing at the Sea Wench, a bar. More than singing takes place and this worries Mary Helen. She goes to speak with Suzanne about it the next day, only to find her efficient, singing secretary dead. Who would be cruel enough to snuff out the life of a young, modest woman? One of the young men ogling her at the bar? A jealous woman? And who can they tell about Suzanne's death? There is no knowledge of family members. It's a complicated mystery for Mary Helen, indeed. Inspector Kate Murphy is assigned the case. She speaks freely with Mary Helen knowing the Sister will do a bit of detecting on her own. Kate is a series regular. Her personal and professional life takes up a generous portion of the storyline.

Sister Carol Anne O'Marie's smooth writing style makes reading her mysteries effortless. In Advent of Dying, the mystery, which is told in the third person, is set up immediately. Once the scene is set, clues are offered up. The author can be pretty generous with her clues. Pay close attention, use your sleuthing skills, and you'll have it solved right along with Mary Helen. The author's characters read as credible, and Mary Helen and Eileen come across as down right spunky in their own way. I found it to be a simple, entertaining read and a great addition to a charming series.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating; 3 quills

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Four Blind Mice by James Patterson
Little Brown and Co. $27.95
ISBN 0-316-69300-6 Hardcover
November 2002
Suspense

Alex Cross is back. Readers of the series will find all the elements they expect in an Alex Cross story: Alex and his family, his current lover, his partner John Sampson, and a team of sociopathic killers, all former professional assassins for the US Army. The familiar writing style that makes for a fast, easy read is back as well. The vocabulary is not challenging, the paragraphs are short, chapters are only two or three pages long and there is a lot of white space. Even Alex's old nemesis, the Mastermind, is back for a cameo appearance. If all this seems confusing and unfamiliar, it might be better to begin by reading an earlier book in the series rather than Four Blind Mice.

In this story Alex has decided to resign from the Washington Police Force when he is persuaded to take on one last case for his partner and best friend, John Sampson. An old friend of Sampson's, a decorated army sergeant, has been framed for murdering three women and will be executed in two weeks. Alex and Sampson try to find the real killer and save the sergeant, but they fail. They discover several other cases of innocent veterans being convicted and executed. A team of assassins have been framing the victims, but Alex cannot find proof or even the motive. The army bureaucracy is uncooperative with the detectives and it seems that the assassins are directed by an unknown killer, perhaps a new Mastermind.

Four Blind Mice is clearly derivative of other stories about the aftermath of the Viet Nam conflict, but with a twist that identifies three sets of villains. Alex's tactics are, as usual, unorthodox and dangerous. He confronts his most powerful adversary with no back-up and no plan. He and Sampson seem able to go anywhere at any time, making their own agenda without regard for their superiors in the police department. These idiosyncrasies are part of the appeal of this series along with the familiar cast of characters. Patterson seems to be signaling Alex's retirement and, although readers will miss him, it does seem time. Patterson's recent novels, like First to Die, Second Chance, and Beach House, all have done well without Alex Cross. Three Blind Mice is another action-packed, easy read for fans of the series.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 3.5 quills

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The Truth Hurts by Nancy Pickard
Atria Books/Simon & Schuster $24.00
ISBN 0-7434-1203-6 Hardcover
July 2002
Thriller

I was delighted when I saw Lynn had sent The Truth Hurts for me to review as I had recently read Ring of Truth and absolutely loved it. I grabbed this one thinking that it would have to be superior to even come close to the quality of its predecessor, and although a very tall order, it was one this book had no trouble fulfilling.

Marie Lightfoot is a best-selling author of true crime books. She is accustomed to being in the public eye, but she's never experienced publicity like the story that confronts her on the cover of the tabloid in the grocery store. Its headline, "Best-selling Author Hides her Racist Past," while chilling, is not entirely accurate. It is not Marie, but her parents, Michael and Lyda Folletino, who deserve the epithet of racist. Marie's parents began Hostel, a group of white liberals who operated a modern-day underground railroad in the inferno of the civil rights movement in Sebastion, Alabama. The group provided safe accommodations to endangered black activists and transported them to safety. Hostel operated in secret for years, until a fateful night in 1963 when the Folletinos betrayed the group, abandoning the infant Marie and disappearing forever.

The source of the story isn't a mystery; Marie receives an e-mail from someone calling himself Paulie Barnes who claims credit. He refers to the book The Executioners in the message, and compares himself to Max Cady, the terrifying villain of the book. The next day, a copy of The Executioners arrives in the mail with a letter from Barnes. He has an idea for Marie's next true crime book: he will be the killer and Marie herself will be the victim. She is to write the first chapter and e-mail it to him or people close to her will suffer. He assures her it will be a best seller. Barnes recommends that Marie begin with that night in 1963, and to help her get started, he includes details of what happened that night -- details that no one knows.

This is an exciting, fast-paced story. Chapters of the book Marie writes about her own history are alternated with the present-day investigation into who Paulie Barnes is and what he could possibly want. Both mysteries, past and present, are intriguing and the reader is enthralled. Pickard uses the present tense and first person narrator to tell the story which lends a sense of urgency and immediacy to the tale. Anyone who has either read The Executioners or seen the movie "Cape Fear" -- either the old or new version -- will understand Marie's terror as she deals with Paulie Barnes and his assignment.

I was fond of Jenny Cain, Nancy Pickard's first series character, who has been fictionally alive since 1984, but I definitely prefer the Marie Lightfoot series. Marie's world is darker than Jenny's, and in my opinion, that makes for better books. I heartily recommend these books. Begin with The Whole Truth, progress to Ring of Truth, and you'll be ready for The Truth Hurts. You won't be disappointed, truthfully!

Reviewed by: Lisa Lundquist
Rating: 4.5 quills

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Resurrection Men: An Inspector Rebus Novel by Ian Rankin OBE
Little Brown & Company $23.95
ISBN 0316766844 Hardcover
February 2003
British Police Procedural

After The Falls, comes this masterpiece, the 13th novel in the Inspector Rebus series. The iconic inspector throws a coffee at Gill Templar and gets himself sent off for "retraining". At the Police College he's put among a class of ne'er-do-wells, men taking this last chance at bringing their police careers back to life. They are set a problem, a real but cold case left unsolved. It happens to be one Rebus worked on. Coincidence or? He has kept some details to himself. Between pub and snack bar visits, these guys are bound to bring some things to light that Rebus, and others, would just as soon stay hid. In the meantime Siobhan Clarke is handed the hot case Rebus left unsolved: the death of an art dealer. And the Crime Squad asks Rebus to help with a contact that may bring down Big Ger Cafferty. Wouldn't you know it, in Rebus' mind, all these cases become connected?

Edinburgh is entirely suited for the "dark, dark fiction" of the Rebus series. The close alleyways and cobbled streets of the Old Town serve a mood familiar from Jekyll & Hyde. And the New Town bars are particularly well described.

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 5 quills

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The Music of the Spheres by Elizabeth Redfern
G.P. Putnam's Sons $24.95
ISBN 0-399-14763-2 Hardback
July 2001
Historical (British/French 1795)

The Music of the Spheres's promotional material honestly markets Elizabeth Redfern's first mystery novel as "The brightest stars. The deepest mysteries. The darkest hearts." The note about the blackest hearts is especially accurate. Martha Grimes' cover blurb describes it as "Intricately plotted, beautifully paced…an elegant historical novel, rich in detail, at times Dickensian in its description of London."

The Music of the Spheres takes place in Britain and France in 1795. The exiled French Royalists in Britain want to overthrow the French Republic. The British government, reeling from its defeat in Holland, fears the threat of invasion by the victorious French Republic and is always in search of spies, especially among the French exiles. These aspects could lead the reader to expect the ghost of Dickens' Sydney Carton to declaim "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times." Then again, the reader might decide that "It was the worst of times," was the most accurate depiction of the scene.

Redfern focuses on the lives of exiled French aristocrat brother and sister, Guy and Auguste de Montpellier, their friend and fellow exile, Dr. Pierre Raultier, and the other men of their establishment, all interested in a search for a "missing" star in a famed mathematical theory.

Above all, she explores the obsession of experienced Home Office clerk Jonathan Absey to not only find French spies but, more importantly to him, to find the murderer of his daughter and of a string of other red-haired young prostitutes throughout London. The death of his daughter has so obsessed Absey that it has estranged his wife and remaining child and put his career at risk.

This obsession takes him out of his drunken grief but also causes him to draw into his search his scorned, older half-brother, Alexander Wilmot. A former navigator forced to retire due to his occupationally impaired vision, Wilmot is a church organist, a music teacher and an amateur astronomer. He also owes Absey a deep debt for a sad secret.

Redfern delves into the time's science of astronomy, espionage, cryptography, mythology, medicine, politics and government. She makes the reader feel the harshness and depth of the poverty, the beauty of the music and the stars, and the machinations of the various opposing political forces.

Her people are complex and most certainly flawed. She does go into the blackest of hearts. She also makes the reader care for the fates of those flawed and obsessed characters. The book is not for sissies nor those bored by historical settings. It is for those who can handle a visit to a challenging, emotional and rather devastating, dark period in history. This time there's nothing funny about murder, only tragedy.

Reviewed by: Virginia R. Knight
Rating: 3 quills

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The President's Weekend by David D. Reed
Vivisphere Publishing $18.00,
ISBN 1-58776-110-6 Trade Paperback
August 2001
Historical Mystery, US in 1904

If ever a book was crying for an editor, this book was it. The premise was intriguing, the "woo woo" stuff was acceptable, the characters were memorable, but to get all this, the reader had to wade through page after page of undigested verbiage. Someone once said authors should leave out what people do not read, and that would be about half of this novel. Reed, apparently, could not diminish his own child.

The premise was that a man and his lover in 1993 were spending a weekend at the upper New York State resort of Mohonk when there was a slippage in time and the man became the head of the Secret Service detail (such as it was. . . it consisted of five men) protecting newly reelected President Theodore Roosevelt who was spending a few days here celebrating his 1904 electoral victory. This only lasted for twenty four hours, but they were supremely important ones because not only was there a plot to assassinate Roosevelt, but also a scheme to steal and sell to a foreign country some highly secret detonators. It was the job of the secret service man, Joseph Sommers, to thwart both plots and Jamie Stanner became Sommers and did just that.

There is a very fine sense of place, always remembering that far more is described than needs be. This huge hotel with the mountains around it, nature in all its glory everywhere one looked, the endless corridors inside the hotel, all of these become very real. (Do a "google search" and you can see the hotel building. It is truly fabulous.) Roosevelt was staying there in November of 1904 and the weather was still fairly salubrious. Jamie was there in February when there was snow and ice.

The writing, aside from the lack of editing, was sometimes a bit awkward. Occasionally there was awkward phrasing, there were whole chunks of information that had nothing to do with advancing the plot, and there was more history than was needed. (I never thought I would be saying that.) Often Sommers made leaps in logic that did not seem to be warranted and, in the denouement of the book, so did Jamie. And the plot relies from time to time on coincidences.

Sommers and Reed were well drawn characters (as long as you accept that they are really one and the same person), Sommers wife and Reed's lover were slightly less well drawn, Teddy Roosevelt was typical, and the other guests and staff were there to be manipulated.

It is hard to know if the history is accurate. We do know that Roosevelt visited Mohonk on the dates given. Perhaps there were two dead bodies in a ravine. Perhaps there was an assassination attempt. I would have appreciated an author's note explaining what was fact and what was fancy.

Despite all of this, I could not quit reading. I had no problem skipping or skimming great chunks of the book, but the story was compelling and the suspense taut enough to engage and retain my interest. What a pity Reed did not have a good editor.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating 3 quills

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The Cross-Legged Knight by Candace Robb
Warner Books $23.95
ISBN 0-89296-772-2 Hardcover
December 2002
Historical, 14th century England

Owen Archer commanded the guards of Thoresby, Archbishop of York. Owen's wife, Lucie, was an apothecary, although she was suffering from a bad fall which had led to a miscarriage. William of Wykeham, the Bishop of Winchester, was visiting Thoresby. In 1371 Wykeham had been removed from his position as Chancellor of England and was very much afraid that the Duke of Lancaster, John of Gaunt, wanted him dead. He had another enemy as well. Sir Ranulf Pagnelle had gone to France as a secret agent for the King. There he had been captured and Wykeham had attempted to ransom him. He had died before he could be ransomed and then it was discovered that some of the ransom money provided by his family was missing. Sir Ranulf's family, who lived in York, were very angry with William of Wykeham.

Under these circumstances a piece of tile nearly hitting the Bishop and then a fire in a house he owned, but rented to a local merchant, seemed very suspicious. Even more suspicious was the woman's body in the houses, murdered before the fire was started. Archer was charged not only with guarding Wykeham but also with finding the murderer so that William could make some sort of an agreement with Sir Ranulf's family.

If this seems quite confusing, that is because it is. The first hundred pages or so are required to set the scene and many readers will not stay with the story that long. Paradoxically the author both presumes a knowledge of the history of the fourteenth century and provides too many details which tend to bewilder the reader who is not familiar with the period. She also assumes that the reader has read the previous books in the series as earlier events are alluded to but not explained. Once through this part, however, the story becomes quite interesting and is well-worth the time spent reading it.

I especially enjoy the setting. The characters wander through the central part of the city of York, pushing through the Shambles, going to Whipmewhopmegate, stopping at the King's Fishpond, and watching the building of the Lady Chapel at the minster. The author does a good job of establishing place and taking the reader there.

The characters, once through the initial introductions, are well-drawn and believable, just enough different from us to be living in another century. We see the human side of the bishop and the archbishop and meet denizens of York who show us the incipient growth of capitalism. Among other things we learn much about medieval use of herbs to cure and to soothe.

On balance this series is intriguing and enjoyable enough to read, if quite slow starting.

Reviewed by Sally Fellows
Rating: 3 quills

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Murder In Hollywood by Helen Rose
Hats Off Books $13.95
ISBN: 1-58736-117-5 Trade Paperback
July 2002
Short Story collection

Murder In Hollywood is a thin collection of ten short stories featuring stars from Hollywood's Golden Age. It has become fashionable of late to include real people in works of fiction, especially when those people are Hollywood legends. Fortunately, Helen Rose offers a little better than the usual fare. In fact, each story concludes with an historical note outlining those story elements that were factual.

I scanned the list of stars and read the Buster Keaton story first. I expected to find nothing of interest and was generally resigned to writing what they call a "bad review." But the Keaton story was ok. So I picked Alan Ladd next, which happened to be the longest story. The Ladd story was set in 1946, a particularly fascinating time in Hollywood history. I wanted to see if Rose could capture the flavor of a time and a place that was extraordinarily unique. She didn't, but she did write a nice little mystery.

The Keaton and Ladd stories happened to be the best, but I also liked the Veronica Lake story. By 1959, Lake was washed up as an actress and in this story she is making a living tending bar in northern California. Imagine the scene: She is going by her real name -- Constance -- and one rainy night she tells a story about a murder on a movie set. The set-up is good, but the story lacked any real punch. This is the problem with the stories in general. Too often the set-up left me wishing for a knockout ending that never came. Murder In Hollywood isn't bad, mind you, it just could have been a tad better.

The other stars featured here are Talluhah Bankhead, Dorothy Dandridge, Marlene Dietrich, Busby Berkley, Betty Grable, George "Gabby" Hayes, and Myrna Loy.

Reviewed by: Thomas McNulty
Rating: 3 quills

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Winter and Night by S. J. Rozan
St. Martin's Minotaur $24.95
ISBN 0-312-24555-6 Hardcover
February 2002
Private Investigator

Rozan continues to produce quality works with her unique series narrated in the odd books by the female Chinese-American private eye named Lydia Chin, while the even numbered books are narrated by the white male named Bill Smith. In this work, Bill is summoned to a police station to bail out his fifteen-year-old nephew Gary Russell. Gary is the son of Bill's estranged sister Helen, whom Bill has not seen since she ran away from the family when they were both teenagers. Gary will not tell Bill what he is up to, and disappears that night from Bill's apartment. Feeling some guilt and a twinge of familial responsibility, Bill travels to the small New Jersey community of Warrenstown, where Gary had tried to make the high school football team. Discovering a parents-are-away party leads to the police finding the body of Tory Wesley, a girl desperate to make it into the "in" crowd and Gary's former girlfriend. With Gary now a murder suspect, Bill begins a desperate and frustrating search through New Jersey and New York to try and locate his nephew before the police do. This contemporary case echoes a previous scandal in Warrenstown, and some of the football players who lied to avoid the consequences of the previous crime are now the parents of the boys involved in the present scandal. The past haunts this town, as it haunts Bill. This book's theme comes from the difficulties of administering justice in a closed society, and what brings this society together is their obsession with their champion football team. Bill is traumatized by this contemporary crime because it reveals a deeply held secret about his own past that has forged the way he thinks about himself, his relationship to others, and to the meaning of his life. Lydia acts as Bill's conscience in this work, and this case may serve as proof that although these two can work together, they may never be able to be anything more than partners. (Please note: this book was special for this reviewer because the missing boy is named Gary Russell, he is from the town of Warrenstown, and his friend is named Paul Niebuhr. How did that happen?)

Reviewed by: Gary Warren Niebuhr
Rating: 4 quills

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Private Justice by Richard Sand
Durban House Publishing Company, Inc. $15.95
ISBN 1-930754-16-7 Paperback
November 2001
Police Procedural

When NYPD detective Lucas Rook's twin brother is murdered, Rook avenges his death and leaves the force. He plans to become a P.I. and assist others seeking their own kind of justice, somewhat like Paladin in the old TV series Have Gun Will Travel. His first client is mobster Harry Raimondo who wants Rook to find the killer of his young daughter so he can personally see that justice is done. When Rook takes on the assignment, it brings him head-to-head with Jimmy Salerno, the detective who worked the Raimondo case, and his precinct commander, Joe Zinn. They do not welcome Rook's involvement any more than the FBI, who claim jurisdiction in the case. Other little girls are murdered in a similar manner as the diffent law enforcement agencies only pretend to cooperate in the search for a serial killer.

Although this is the second Rook novel, his character is not fully realized. Cops are portrayed as foul-mouthed, sadistic thugs, and the FBI as publicity-hungry "college boys." The three major suspects are familiar stereotypes; a piano teacher with "monstrous" fingers, a kinky dwarf medical examiner, and a cat lady. The surprise ending surprises because there is no foundation for it, no real explanation of the killer's motivation. The story is told in uncomplicated declarative sentences. Although Rook is the protagonist, he loses center stage to the several cops. There are no likeable characters for readers to identify with.

Private Justice is easy to read and has an attractive cover.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 1.5 quills

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Death in the Dordogne by Louis Sanders
Serpent's Tail $13.00
ISBN 1-85242-673-X Paperback
July 2002
Suspense

Death in the Dordogne is a short (154 pages) novel intended to be the first in a series about British expatriates living in rural France. The hero, one of the ex-pats known as the Englishman from La Berthonie, has bought a house in the Dordogne. He becomes convinced that the death of a young man was not an accident, but murder. With nothing else to occupy his mind, he tries to discover which of his strange neighbors is the killer. It could be the old Dutch woman, who is not Dutch; her mad son; the mad Englishman from over the hill, who is not English; the doctor; perhaps even Martine who comes to share his bed. Members of a neighboring family continue to die in mysterious circumstances. The motive for the killings lies in old hatreds and betrayals of WWII.

Death in the Dordogne is the antithesis of charming tales of ex-pats in friendly France like A Year in Provence. The author creates a somber, ominous mood very like Poe. The text is rich in descriptions of people and place, both are portrayed as dour and unpleasant. The translation from the French by Adriana Hunter is excellent, although strangely the hero's transportation remains in the French, a mobylette. The mystery is secondary to characters and place. It is difficult to imagine where the series will go next if the author uses the same cast and setting. Contrary to the copy on the book jacket, this is definitely not the book for travelers to the Dordogne; they would probably opt for Nice or anyplace else in France.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2 quills

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The Valley of Jewels by Mary Saums
Silver Dagger Mystery
ISBN 1-57072-188-2 $23.95 (Hardcover)
ISBN 1-57072-189-0 $13.95 (Trade Paperback)
July 2001
Private Eye

Willi Taft is a musician who is teaching some music courses at a university in Tuscumbia, Alabama this semester. She also has her private investigator's license, and on weekends pursues cases. This story begins at a Civil War reenactment in which she is participating with history professor Dr. Jada Winston. When the dust of the battle settles, Winston is dead with a knife in his stomach. While Willi is poking around this murder, she meets legendary black opera singer Althea Preston who has been getting threatening notes with racist overtones. Willi agrees to investigate quietly. Somehow the time of the Civil War is involved with both cases.

There is some interesting information about how the Civil War affected this little corner of Alabama, some coming from published interviews and diarists. The fictional historical characters, however, do not come alive for the reader or seem especially believable, even through the letters they supposedly wrote. Willi is fairly well developed as is Althea Preston, but none of the other characters are more than two-dimensional. They do not come alive on the page nor do they seem like people we might meet sometime. Perhaps the most believable of them is the dead Dr. Winston, a Civil War fanatic, but even then the reader is not given enough information to explain why Willi was so devastated by his death. There is, however, a great dog!

The writing is quite adequate if somewhat pedestrian, as is the plot. The denouement is a little obvious and, for a change, I think the book should have ended faster. Some of the descriptions are quite well done although I could do without the sermonizing with which the book ends. I would like to have had an author's afterward, explaining which of the historical events were true and which were made up. The Civil War and certainly race relations were prettied up quite a bit in the course of the story.

This is a credible and competent second book and I will undoubtedly read subsequent ones to see if the author grows as I believe she can.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Catilina's Riddle by Steven Saylor
St. Martin's Paperback $6.99
ISBN 0-312-98211-9 Paperback
February 2002 (reprint)
Historical: Rome, First Century B.C.

This book is the fourth in the Rome Sub Rosa series featuring Gordianus the Finder. It takes place in the tumultuous year (63 B.C.) when Catilina apparently attempted to overthrow the Roman Republic. But was Catilina a villain desperate to destroy the institutions and customs of Rome to attain power or was he simply the spokesmen for the disenfranchised and the downtrodden who sought power and position? This is a question even Gordianus has trouble answering.

Gordianus has moved his family to the country following a bequest from a dear friend, Lucius Claudius. His farm is surrounded by land belonging to the Claudii all of whom believe he is an interloper with no right to be there. He won his lawsuit against them because Cicero was his advocate and now Cicero has a favor to ask of him. Reluctantly, because he wants no part in politics, he agrees. The favor, which still makes little sense to me, was to play host to Catilina, Cicero's bitterest foe, as necessary during the time Catilina is running for consul. Relative to this, perhaps, or to something else, Gordianus finds first one then another headless corpse on his land.

As with all of Saylor's books, this one is heavy with history. If you are not as completely fascinated with well-told Roman history as I am, you may not rate this book as highly as I do. This was a time of crisis and decision for Rome as the Republic slid seemingly irresistibly into the Empire. In this consular campaign precedents were established, for seemingly good short-term reasons, which would permit the permanent seizure of power by an Emperor and limit the rights of Roman citizens.

Saylor explains at the end of the book that as always the victors have written the histories and Catilina, known to us primarily through Cicero's speeches, has been depicted as an evil villain, anxious for power and depraved as well. Cicero accused him of all this and more, of plotting to murder Cicero and seize power illegally. And Cicero used these supposed plans as an excuse to illegally execute many of Catilina's followers and to chase him from Rome and eventually kill him. The argument was that the danger is so great, we cannot afford to follow the law. But was Cicero creating or exacerbating the crisis to give himself more power or was Catilina truly a genuine threat to Rome? Does anybody else see some parallels with modern history?

But enough of the history although I found it fascinating. The story was well told. The sense of place as well as time is fantastic. Rome comes alive, the bricks and stones, the past, the sense of culture. The reader is immersed in it. As an example of noteworthy descriptions, I offer the following:

Yet how could the world sleep, when the moon was so bright? The Cassian Way was a ribbon of purest alabaster
skirting the base of the mountain. The roof of the house seemed to be made of tiles that glowed with a pale blue
light. And when the zephyr sighed through the olive orchard below us, the rustling leaves shimmered black and silver.

The characters are authentic and three dimensional. Gordianus has the gravitas we associate with the Roman Republic, but he also is loving to his son and kind to his slaves. And the whole question of slavery forms another subplot. The horror of mining slaves is amply illustrated by the mound of skeletons found in an old mine. Gordianus and his son Meto, who is reaching his majority at 16, have the usual rocky relationship of adolescents and adults. Both Cicero and Catilina are believable as are the minor characters.

There is so much in this book, so much history, such depth, so many elusive and intriguing characters, such a wealth of description and information, it is hard to sum it up in a short space. While I was reading the book, I truly felt I lived in ancient Rome and it was startling to me when I surfaced and found I was in the twenty-first century instead.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating : 4.5 quills

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Sound Tracks by Marcia Simpson
Poisoned Pen Press $24.95
ISBN 1-890208-72-8 Hardcover
May 2001
Amateur Sleuth

Marcia Simpson hit a bull's eye with her first book, Crow in Stolen Colors, and has followed up with her second, Sound Tracks. This proves that she isn't a one-book wonder. After learning that Crow in Stolen Colors (a title I could never remember) had been nominated for an Edgar, I felt elated since others thought the book was terrific too.

I'm happy to report that the adventure continues and that Liza Romero's life is as eventful and complicated as ever. Liza is a transplant from Washington State who came to Wrangell, Alaska to escape her past. She lost her husband Efren, a cop, to a drug bust gone bad and has been trying in her own way to get over the loss. A librarian by training, Liza lasted only a year at the local library before buying an old halibut schooner and starting her own freight service. She also takes books for loan to the isolated communities of the Inland Passage. It is this service that prompts the locals to call her boat, the Salmon Eye, the "book-mo-boat."

This time Liza's new escapade starts with the discovery of a dead body but it wasn't Sam (Liza's lab/hound dog) that found it. However Sam has an uncanny ability to lead Liza to unpleasant discoveries. The authorities, represented by Lieutenant Paul Howard of the Wrangell Police Department, try to identify the body and cause of death. The Lieutenant and Liza have a little history together, but their relationship is uncertain at best. She is determined not to become involved with another law enforcement officer especially one who is, in Paul's words, elderly, overweight and Native American.

Meanwhile, there are strange happenings going on with the resident whales in Sumner Strait. The orcas and humpbacks are displaying bizarre behavior including running into boats and beaching themselves. Henry Sizemore, from Alaska State Wildlife Protection Agency, is trying to solve the mystery before any more die. Liza has some hydrophonic equipment to deliver to him but before she can deliver it, her boat is ransacked and the equipment is only one of several goods stolen.

Not to be left out of the action, the resident and visiting citizens start behaving badly as well. At the heart of the human exploits is one of Alaska's truly unique individuals. This is saying a lot since the state is embarrassingly loaded with unusual, quirky and memorable characters. Tango is a refuge from the Viet Nam war who was found wandering on the beach some ten years ago by Mink, a Tlingit woman, who cleaned him up and married him. He is a fixture in the bar and grill that Mink owns in Kashevarof, where he sits glued to his short wave radio spouting gibberish from his days as a radio operator in the war. When Mink is injured while breaking up a bar fight, Tango is beside himself. Acting as a rescue boat, Liza delivers Mink to the hospital and while there she learns that the body count is starting to rise. Again.

Without giving away any more of the action, Liza's life is again in turmoil, both professionally and personally. Simpson again uses the wiles of the harsh, Alaskan surroundings to place lives in jeopardy. Nothing is taken for granted in this environment where life hangs on a thread at any given minute and help is too far away for most unlucky souls.

Simpson uses all the usual motivations to propel her characters, but she utilizes them in delightful ways, always keeping the pressure on and the suspense high. Simpson complicates everyone's lives, good guys and bad. The cast of regular characters (if one can say that after only two installments) is wonderfully developed with interesting flaws and warm humor. So Simpson has another hit with her new adventure, which unfolds mostly in the cold, artic water of the Northwest. The trail might get cold, but the reading is hot.

Reviewed by: Leslie Doran
Rating: 5 quills

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Morality for Beautiful Girls by Alexander McCall Smith
Polygon $12.95
ISBN 0748662979 Paperback
September 2001
Detective Mystery

Morality for Beautiful Girls is the third in the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency series. It takes place in Africa. Mma Precious Ramotswe runs the only detective agency around her part of Africa. Her father was a popular man in his time and this shows in her attitude. Precious is planning to marry. Her fiance, Mr. J.L.B. Matekoni, is letting her move the agency to a spare office in his business, which is a garage. She is relieved about this because although work is plentiful, people can't afford to pay them for their work. Precious is also in the red because she promoted her secretary, Mma Makutsi, to assistant detective to help her with the cases. Her fiance has given her advice on how to deal with this, but the reader will see that Precious's superior attitude falls short when it comes to Mma Makutsi.

Mma Ramotswe and Mma Makutsi have a lot going on in this mystery. The first is Precious's fiance. He has been leaving work early and neglecting his business. To take care of his garage, Mma Makutsi is again promoted and given a raise. She attempts to take control of the girl-chasing mechanics while Precious carefully investigates her fiance.

Another case is about a boy who was found out in the wild. Those who found him swear he smells of lion. She meets the boy and sees that he is indeed wild, but not yet lost to them. This is only a small part of the mystery, but the outcome is sweet nonetheless.

Another case is a Government man (Precious's name for him) who believes his new sister-in-law is out to murder his brother. The case takes Precious out of town. She stays with the family while investigating and this puts her in danger.

And the last case, not to mention the best paying one, is the Beauty Contestant Man. Most of the beauty pageant girls have been bad and cost him product sponsors. He wants Mma Makutsi to investigate four of them. She gets a little help from one of the girl-chasing mechanics on this one.

Morality for Beautiful Girls may be the third in the series, but the author gives enough repeated detail about his lead characters so that someone, like me, who jumps into the middle of the series, will not feel lost. Precious can be grating at times, but it makes her character. It's obvious social class customs are important, although some people are more relaxed about them than Precious. As the mystery moves forward, the characters do stray off topic from time to time. The author does a wonderful job of bringing Africa to the reader. It's an intriguing series written totally in the essence of Africa and worth trying.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3.5 quills

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December 6 by Martin Cruz Smith
Simon & Schuster $26.00
ISBN 0-684-87253-6 Hardcover
October 2002
Historical Suspense, Tokyo, 1941

In the days before Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Tokyo was a hotbed of nationalist and radical sentiments. Liberals and pacifists were liable to be arrested and, in some cases, summarily executed. Prime Ministers had been assassinated for questioning Japan's divine mission in Asia. The leaders of the nation speaking in the name of the Emperor assured the people that the United States and Great Britain would fall easily to the imperial forces and Japan would fulfill her destiny by making all of East Asia her sphere of influence. A time, in other words, not totally unlike our own.

Harry Niles was a gaijin, a foreigner, an American. He was by definition inferior, untrustworthy, unacceptable. He had been a young boy in 1922, running with a Japanese street gang, always the foil, the butt of their actions, desperate to be Japanese. His missionary parents had taken him back to the United States but as an adult he had returned, a con man, a shyster, the operator of a Western-style club, the lover of a Japanese woman who probably had been a geisha. For some reason a Japanese officer, Ishigami, was his personal enemy. In this atmosphere he must walk a narrow and frightening line. Was he a spy for the United States? Was he a shill for the Japanese leadership? Who knows?

As the action moved toward what the reader knows is the inevitable moment of attack on PearL Harbor life got more frenetic. There was one last airplane out and Harry hoped to be on it. His paramour, Michiko, threatened to kill him if he left her. Ishigami was stalking him. Admiral Yamamoto was demanding answers from him. Was he trapped or was there still a way out?

This is suspense of the highest order. Smith takes us into a completely unfamiliar situation and makes us understand events from the Japanese point of view, attitudes Americans have never managed to understand. He makes us identify with Harry Niles, a slippery man if ever there was one, and then run with him as he searches for some way out. . . out of Japan, out of war. Harry is an intensely believable character, a man with little to admire and yet, from time to time, one who does things which show us a completely different side. His is a complex, labyrinthine personality who is believable and plausible. The Japanese characters are equally multifaceted and authentic.

The writing is outstanding. This book will grab the reader and make her involve herself completely in the events of the story. The descriptions are intense and pellucid. As a brief example I offer:

The advantage of a great city was its labyrinth of streets and alleys. Especially at night,
when drab housefronts turned to the fanciful silhouettes of Chinese eaves and ghostly shirts
hung on rods to dry. . . . Even the meanest alley might have a shrine, candles and coins set
before a pair of stone fox gods with eyes of green glass. Foxes could change into women, it
was well known, so any encounter with a fox at night had an element of danger for a man.

And finally for the reader there is the supreme irony of knowing what will happen to Tokyo, to Japan, to the Japanese fleet flying its banners of victory, and to the world these people knew and loved.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 4 quills

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Dead Ringer by Charles Smithdeal
Onyx $5.99
ISBN 0-451-41051-3 Paperback
September 2002
Thriller

Friends of Sarah Connor will recognize a kindred spirit in Sarah Hall, IT consultant & heroine of this serial-killer thriller. Five years after, she sees an executed man walking the streets of Austin – a man she helped send to Death Row. She’s spotted him, and she panics, racing through a red light. A motor cop pulls her over.

“Scott Corbin,” she said, still breathing hard. “The Chameleon. He’s right back there and he has murdered six women. He’s a convicted serial killer.”

Officer, would she lie? She thinks she saw him – was it a doppelganger?

Action proceeds quickly in this story, and the cardboard-cutout life of Sarah Hill turns into a plot point. After she is kidnapped by the man she saw, as she gradually comes around to his point of view, believing his story, choosing to help him, believing that until now her life was empty, drab, and meaningless.

Plenty happens. The disgustingly gruesome, sexually perverted acts of the serial killer may put off readers.

The stalwart but suspicious cops sound familiar, and Sarah takes the essential step (familiar to friends of Sarah Connor) of not trusting them at a key moment. Instead, she puts her life in the hands of a stranger – a strangely attractive stranger. They link hands, and run: what’s after them is not exactly The Terminator, but it’s scary and final enough.

Lots of sex, some of it marital. Predictable resolution.

Reviewed by: John Leech
Rating: 2 quills

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Dying to Meet You by Amy Talford
Silver Dagger Mysteries $ 23.95
ISBN 1-57072-194-7 Hardcover
December, 2001
Serial Killer

The book opens with a familiar and probably overused gambit, a prologue in which we enter the mind of the serial killer through a journal entry as he contemplates his third kill. Then we meet the two protagonists, Detective Mike Mitchell of the Nashville police and Dr. Lori Patrick, profiler for the Chasm Academy for Serial Homicide. They immediately strike sparks off each other as Mitchell has no use for profiling and ridicules it every chance he gets. Patrick retaliates with equal acerbity. It is quite clear to the astute reader that these two will eventually develop a love relationship.

The characters really have no great depth although Mitchell and Patrick have tragedies in their pasts which define them somewhat more comprehensively. Others of the police are stereotypes. The third murder and the one with which the book opens takes place in the parking garage of the new Nashville NBA franchise, the Jaguars, and this brings the basketball players into the story. They are mostly stereotypes as well. And the author might have been well advised to pick a different team name since there is a NFL team named the Jaguars (the Jacksonville team) and I kept thinking of them when the term was used.

The story is realistic, sometimes painfully so. It seems as though the author feels the need to prove something by making sure that every sordid detail of the murders and the murder scene are graphically obvious. The writing seems a little clunky at times and there are spelling and punctuation errors. Granted this is an Advanced Readers Copy and presumably these will be corrected in the actual text. But egregious errors like "I want the souvenir aspect censured" and "Tabitha is just going through a faze" are very annoying (and I hope they are errors).

Another aspect that bothered me was that the police were really careless of the crime scene. One of the cops first flicked ashes on the floor by the body and then tosses his cigarette down. I don't know if this was designed to show bad police work or whether the author did not understand the importance of preserving a crime scene.

On the positive side the suspense toward the end is handled very well and got me absorbed in the book for the first time. There are moments of poignancy and tenderness as we learn the back stories of the two main characters. The premise of the book works and there are aspects which show promise, but much tighter editing would have helped.

Oh, and by the way, do not read the blurb on the cover. It gives away much too much of the plot.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 2 quills

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Foreign Body by Kathleen Taylor
Avon Mystery $6.99
ISBN 0-380-81205-3 Paperback
July 2001
Amateur Sleuth, South Dakota

In earlier books, Tory Bauer was a waitress at the Delphi Cafe. Now she is a co-owner with Alanna Luna, an ex-stripper from Oklahoma. Tory is having a rough day. It is cold in the cafe due to a malfunctioning furnace. The floor is crowded with members of the European Traveling Lutheran Youth Choir, few with much command of the English language. Their local liaison is Tory's cousin Junior, who is struggling to cope with the teenagers and with her eighth month of pregnancy. The choir's chaperon, a condescending third runner-up for Miss America, is nowhere to be seen.

Initially, no one notices one of the students is sleeping in a booth. Eventually the staff realizes she is unconscious and someone calls the ambulance squad. The other students are herded over to the church to get them out of the way.

Tory finds a suicide note accusing Junior's husband, the local reverend, of sexual assault. She cannot believe the reverend would assault the young woman, but why write such a note? Why aren't the other students upset? Did they all dislike the now very ill student? Where is the missing furnace repairman? Tory investigates because she doesn't want to see the reverend's life destroyed.

Taylor writes funny books. If you don't want to read this one, at least pick it up and read the opening paragraphs of any of the chapters. You might find yourself wanting to read passages to someone else. Taylor has her own style and voice. It's fun to get a mid-westerner's views on out-of-towners, Canada (one of the students is Canadian) and east and west coast citizens, referred to as "coasties" at one point. She is also clear about the disadvantages of living in a small town where everyone knows your every mistake.

Reviewed by: Angie Hogencamp
Rating: 4.5 quills

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A Tax Deductible Death by Malinda Terreri
Prime Crime $5.99
ISBN 0425181839 Paperback
September 5, 2001
Amateur Sleuth

A Tax Deductible Death is the first in a new series. I found the mystery to be a bit satirical as far as amateur sleuth mysteries go, and with the titillating situations and language included, I would not consider it a cozy. Like I said, it's a bit satirical, at least that's how it starts. In the first two chapters, I got the impression it was one unhappy mystery. All the characters lashed out at each other. There was not a friendly soul or word to be had anywhere! It was depressing. As I read further, I began to comprehend the set up and see the humor of it all. The harsh beginning was needed to set the mystery up. Even though readers will have to endure more spiteful, miserable people throughout the storyline, the mystery does perk up, and the main characters, Maggie and Tim, become more entertaining. You know, I was sure I wouldn't care for this mystery when it started out, but the plot, Maggie, and Tim won me over.

The lead character is Maggie Connors, a stockbroker long on attitude and short on ethics. It's her job as a stockbroker desperately trying to make her quota to show up her tiny terror of a boss, Arthur, that leads her into trouble. Maggie has always been aware of her boss's dislike for her, but it' s the readers who get the first "absolute" real glimpse of how much, and it's enough to keep the pages turning!

Maggie's proverbial plate is already full of chaos when a prospective client gives her some bad news, then her richest client calls, giving her even more bad news. It just happens that her richest client is Arthur's father-in-law, Cleon. Cleon hates Arthur. Although that part works for Maggie, who hates Arthur too, his request to cash in all his investments so he can shred the cash doesn't. It seems an IRS agent has been investigating him for sometime and now with some devastating news from his doctor, he would rather shred the money then let the IRS or Arthur have it. When Cleon and Maggie agree to deal with it in another way, Maggie's honesty is tested when the cash comes up for grabs after Cleon is murdered. For Maggie, it seems when it rains it pours, but being the tough career gal she is, she will not bend, she will not cry uncle -- instead she gets greedy.

IRS agent Tim Gallen is an honest man who lives by the book, and he always gets his man. He has been working on the Cleon Cummings case for a very long time. Like Maggie, his day isn't going well either when a homeless person pees on his car and puts him in the news, but it won't detour him from following up on and catching Cleon for tax evasion. He has gone all out on this case with mail monitoring, phone call documenting and out right spying. The case leads him to Maggie, and their first meeting isn't pretty. It also gains him an outrageous bribe from Cleon. In dealing with Maggie and Cleon, Tim's luck gets worse, and lucky for us, adds to the pursuit.

Maggie and Tim are perfectly written for the predicaments they get into. The mystery is far from typical and well plotted. Readers are lead down a path and given just enough clues without giving it all way. And something else readers should know when picking up a copy of A Tax Deductible Death is that twenty percent of the author's proceeds go to Make a Wish foundation. A great new series and a generous author -- mystery readers can't go wrong in picking this one up.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 4 quills

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The Lions of Lucerne by Brad Thor
Pocket Books $25.00
ISBN 0-7434-3673-3 Hardcover
January 2002
Thriller

Possibly Brad Thor wishes he could have foreseen the events of 11 September. His protagonist, Scott Horvath, a veteran Secret Service agent, is confident that the terrorists who kidnapped the president could not possibly be from an Arab country. He knows they could not have the skills to pull it off. Of course, in the story, the hero is quite correct. The terrorists, with one exception, come from the least likely country in the world. This is only one incredible element in The Lions of Lucerne. Readers must suspend disbelief, everything is fantastic in this story. The hero accomplishes more than Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt on his best day, and he does it all without technical gadgets.

All of the elements of the action thriller are here, some all too predictable, and all larger than life. Scott Horvath is a Secret Service agent with an in-your-face attitude. The villains are, as usual, tough and ruthless, but miserable marksmen who fire thousands of rounds at Horvath scoring only one token flesh wound. The conspiracy to kidnap the president involves the highest officials in the country and Horvath is betrayed by a trusted mentor. It's "deja vu all over again."

The story begins with Horvath and his Secret Service unit trying to protect the president and his young daughter on a ski trip to Utah. When the terrorists strike, Horvath manages to save the daughter, but all 30 agents are killed and the president kidnapped. As Horvath tries to find the president, he is framed by the conspirators. He follows a clue to Switzerland where he teams up with Claudia Mueller of the Swiss Federal Attorney's Office. Readers will not be surprised to learn that Claudia is the most beautiful woman in the world. Together Claudia and Horvath must scale a mountain in sub-zero temperature to enter the den of the Lions of Lucerne and attempt to save the president.

Brad Thor is a writer and host of the Public Television series, Traveling Lite. This is his first novel, but it seems as though we have read it before, often. It is a formulaic thriller with nothing to distinguish it from dozens of others. That being said, the formula works and readers who are looking for an entertaining page-turner will not be disappointed in The Lions of Lucerne.

Reviewed by: Dick Saxe
Rating: 2.5 quills

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Pilikia Is My Business by Mark Troy
LTD Publications $14.95
ISBN: 1-55316-533-0 Trade Paperback
July 2001
Private Eye

This is my first foray into reviewing product obtained from the emerging world of alternative publishing, but I doubt it will be my last. For one thing, the growing proliferation of small genre presses - be they vanity/self published, Print-On-Demand, e-books, or traditional print run houses - suggests they ain't gonna fold up their tents and slink off softly into the good night. For another thing, genre fiction published by a small press doesn't necessarily equate to inferior writing and storytelling. The mental image I call forth is analogous to a scene in Jurassic Park III - sometimes you just gotta stick your hand into a pile of dinosaur dung in order to find a working cell phone. Pilikia..., the first full-length novel featuring distaff Hawaiian private eye Val Lyon, is a case in point - it's a highly-polished working cell phone. The novel was first published as an e-book earlier this year, and has now been issued in a trade paperback format. Does that mean this is a paperback reprint? Damned if I know.

Some of you might already know that Val Lyon was introduced to mystery fans through half a dozen short stories published in various locations (Murderous Intent, Mystery Buff, Plots With Guns, Nefarious, Futures) beginning in 1998. She'll also show up in a forthcoming hard-boiled anthology from Wildside Press. Val is a nicely-developed character (and I don't say that in a sleazy manner), a former member of the SFPD who played professional basketball in Italy, and now works for a private agency in Honolulu. Pilikia (pronounced pee-LEE-kee-uh per the author; the accent is my own assumption) presents Val with a complicated case that involves child abuse, resurrection of a gay and/or feminist rights underground, the Catholic church, Hawaiian real estate, and murder. Mark Troy is an accomplished wordsmith, does an exceptional job writing in a female voice, and providing a powerful sense of place. Val's investigative techniques are logical and well-thought for the most part. The author exhibits a solid grounding in the private eye sub-genre, and though character language is quite salty, the violence level is low and for the most part, off-stage. If Pilikia was a movie, I'd assign a PG rating (despite the eff words).

Interested readers should know more about Pilikia's distribution and packaging if they want to find a copy. LTD Books is a small publishing house specializing in electronic and Print-On-Demand formats. For those who frequent electronic venues, LTD Books has won a few IPPY and EPPIE awards for their work in that field. According to the publisher's web site, www.ltdbooks.com, there are two ways to purchase Pilikia - order directly from them, or order on-line using a search engine through Amazon.com or maybe Barnes and Noble (the author receives a larger profit percentage if you order direct). I recently accessed the site and couldn't find a link to Mark's book, but the HTML format was bouncing all over the place and my search may have fallen victim to hit and miss clicking. Amazon might be the quickest method of access. From a packaging point of view, LTD produces a fairly nice, well-bound trade paperback that doesn't crack or separate during reading. A minor point is that the book bears no cover price, and the only reference to private eye fiction (or mystery, or even novel) is given on the back cover blurb. Clearly, you have to know exactly what you want in order to obtain a copy of the novel.

But those caveats aside, Pilikia provides evidence that a strong new voice has been added to the private eye sub-genre, and is well worth exercising your own investigative abilities to locate. Despite vagaries of small press distribution, I plan to follow the adventures of Val Lyon now that I've gotten to know her.

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 3 quills

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Food, Drink, and the Female Sleuth by The Sisters Wells
Authors Choice Press, iUniverse.com, $20.95
ISBN 0-595-17976-2 Trade Paperback
July 2001
Reference

Patricia Wells Lunneborg is a retired psychology professor, Roberta Wells Ryan a retired editor. The sisters have pooled their talents and mutual love of food and mysteries to come up with this overview of women writers who make our mouths water as the gray cells work overtime.

This kind of work is always subjective. I notice most of the books cited were written in the 1990s. One need only look at the references at the end to get a feel for personal preferences.

They've tried to narrow the focus to lady writers with female sleuths. The detectives can be amateurs, P.I.s, or cops. There's even a nod to Janice Weber's lady spy. The Sisters Wells tend to avoid the obvious, such as Diane Mott Davidson, Lou Jane Temple, and authors with heroines whose occupations involve food. The chapters highlight the role of eating and drinking habits in relationships, plot, motive, and method.

This isn't very satisfying for a reader looking to feast vicariously, given the short scenes from the books. Conversely, it can steer one in the right direction for a luscious, fat-free read. I'd forgotten how Janet Evanovich's world truly revolves around food; Stephanie Plum's a sucker for a greasy bag of fries or a home-baked pineapple upside down cake. Susan Dunlap's calorie-laden prose was another surprise.

The Sisters Wells generously provide website particulars for follow-up and acknowledge all authors kind enough to permit use of their work. But they leave the reader hanging, neglecting to supply the answers to chapter end pop quizzes. I guess the terminally curious can reach them by E-mail.

This is an interesting book, but not a "must-have" reference work. Food, Drink, and the Female Sleuth is simply a labor of love.

Reviewed by: Beth Fedyn
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Eclipse by Richard S. Wheeler
Tom Doherty Associates $27.95
ISBN 0-312-87846-X Hardcover
June 2002
Historical Fiction

I must point out at the very outset that this is not a mystery per se. It is historical fiction that does attempt to answer an historical mystery, however. Wheeler tells the story of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark, the leaders of the Corps of Discovery that went from St. Louis all the way to the Pacific Ocean and back, but it is their story after they had returned. This is a chronicle that is not very well known except for the single fact of Lewis's suicide or murder along the Natchez Trace in October 1809. This means, of course, that Wheeler can expand upon the known facts and speculate.

Clark, steady, solid, down-to-earth, and honorable, always considered himself the lieutenant to the more mercurial, percipient, arrogant, and rather vain Lewis. Clark was awarded the Indian Superintendency in St. Louis, married his childhood sweetheart, and raised a family always remaining a friend to Lewis. Lewis, feeling it his due, accepted congratulations from Jefferson, from Congress, from the American Philosophical Society in Philadelphia. He undertook to prepare the Journals for publication. Yet he had trouble working, his temper escaped his control often, and he felt besieged by the requests for explanations of his expenses. His health spiraled downward and he dosed himself with opium and alcohol. He was a tragic figure and sometimes a pathetic one.

Wheeler has accepted the postulate of Dr. Reimert Thorolf Ravenholt, a Seattle epidemiologist, who believes that Lewis contracted syphilis among the Shoshone Indians and the result was mental deterioration and paresis which led him to take his own life, believing that the best way to preserve his good name. You will have to read the book to determine whether you find this hypothesis a credible one.

The story is fascinating and told very well. We see both men through their own eyes as the chapters alternate between a first person account of Lewis and then a first person account of Clark. Of course we also see them through each other's eyes. The characters of the men are carefully presented and seem quite accurate to me. Once into this book I was enthralled and the story will stay with me long after I finished the book. When you stop and think of it, here were two men who have remained the quintessential heroes who would never in their lifetimes be able to equal what they had done between 1804 and 1806. That is a daunting thought. Clark handled it well; Lewis, perhaps because of his disease, did not.

This is, of course a particularly timely book because the nation is getting ready to celebrate the bicentennial of the Lewis and Clark Expedition. Many activities are being planned and people are enthusiastic about learning more about the two men. This is certainly a provocative glimpse of them.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3.5 quills

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Who Was the Man in the Iron Mask and other Historical Mysteries by Hugh Ross Williamson
Classic Penguin $15.00
ISBN 0-141-39097-2 Trade Paperback
Nonfiction

This is a reprint of two books written nearly fifty years ago originally as radio scripts. Incidentally the title page titles the book Historical Enigmas rather than Historical Mysteries which makes me wonder about the accuracy of the rest of the reprint. Williamson is an unorthodox historian who has developed what he thinks are accurate answers to a number of historical mysteries primarily in English history. In his first chapter he explains how he deviates from standard academic historians which he accuses of starting with a thesis and then selecting the facts the fit the thesis. He argues that we can never know all the facts nor can we adequately interpret which ones have been omitted. Therefore he offers his means of interpreting history by dissecting the character of those involved and then extrapolation based on character. This is the Great Man interpretation of history and academic historians will, in many cases, argue with it.

He includes a number of mysteries, many of which will probably be obscure to most American readers. Some of them nonetheless are fascinating. One enigma in which readers will be particularly interested is the problem of the two Princes in the Tower about which he says the question is not who executed them, but rather when Henry VII ordered the execution. There are several intriguing mysteries questioning the guilt of Richard III in the murders as well as the standard version giving the case against Richard to be found in the Shakespearean play. The other one with which most readers will be familiar is the murder of Amy Robsart, wife of Elizabeth's favorite Lord Robert Dudley. Williamson is convinced that Elizabeth knew of the murder in advance.

Other intriguing questions, to me at least, deal with the death of William Rufus in 1100 which Williamson says is the result of a pagan cult which required the death of the King for history to continue; the Gunpowder Plot, which he sees as engineered by Cecil to keep James I in power: and the trial of Queen Caroline, wife of George IV, which leads to a question of the paternity of several children.

The historical facts have been selected, of course, to best demonstrate Williamson's beliefs. Since these books were originally written, more information has been uncovered. Nonetheless he presents logical and often credible reasoning to demonstrate why our traditional interpretations of history should, at the very least, be carefully examined. There are ample opportunities for historical mystery writers in these cases and fascinations for the aficionado of history.

Reviewed by: Sally Fellows
Rating: 3 quills

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Sleep With the Fishes by Brian M. Wiprud
Xlibris $16 (also available in Hardcover as ISBN 0-7388-4456-X $30.99)
ISBN 0-7388-4457-8 Trade Paperback
April 2001
Crime Novel

New authors don't get many breaks. New York publishing houses have reduced their stable of writers. Alternative publishing methods charge for printing, packaging, and graphic design that is sometimes produced off-shore, for obtaining ISBN numbers. Many of the small houses don't pay much attention to distribution methods, forcing authors to handle their own promotional costs. And Laura Bush keeps encouraging those damned kids to read!

A great deal of information pertaining to alternative publishing sources has come to light since Brian Wiprud's enjoyable first novel emerged from POD purgatory earlier this year. As a reviewer who's managed to overcome several personal prejudices about non-traditional genre productions -- got lucky, I guess; read three novels from three different sources that were as good, or nearly so, as comparable offerings from New York's Big Four -- I feel obligated to approach Brian's debut from several angles. Let's talk about his publisher first.

Xlibris is one of those POD houses that's stepped on their air hose out of sheer greed. That statement is backed by two actions, the first of which is following other, smaller POD houses in raising prices without enlarging page count. As you can see, it's gonna cost $16 for Brian's book, which clocks in at a trim 178 pages. If I understand the publisher's profit motive correctly and I think I do, that pricetag is going, or has already gone, up. Xlibris decided that a trade paperback should command a $20.99 price ($30.99 if you want a hardcover; geez, that's Stephen King and Dean Koontz territory, but their books are F-A-T!) with no other changes made to the copy. Then just last week, a news bulletin in Locus Magazine revealed that Xlibris had been caught trying to work deals with major publishers for a list of the latter's rejected slushpile authors-and would pay the larger houses 10-20% of the packaging fee charged to those authors for the privilege of being published. Fortunately, literary agents and other savvy industry folks raised a stink, and the Xlibris CEO backpedaled. With friends like these, what more could a new author ask for?

Well… maybe a decent package for the money they pay out? I gotta say that the graphic design of Brian's novel Sleep With The Fishes looks pretty good -- the stock photos suggest that someone actually read the book because they do match up with key points of the story -- there is water involved, and a magpie. I'll also applaud the lack of typos and formatting errors that I've seen from similar publishers -- but I suspect copyediting and proofreading skills most likely came from Mr. Wiprud rather than any internal house talent. Like other POD productions I've encountered, Fishes didn't put a price anywhere on the book -- perhaps for obvious reasons. But my major grinch with the packaging aspect is by the time I completed my reading, the back cover and spine were separating from the text -- the glue had dried to the point where it didn't hold. All in all, I give Xlibris a C+ or, gracious as I am, a B- grade for packaging.

That leaves the story itself, which is the highlight of this encounter. The author has generated a black-humored crime novel that can sit comfortably on the same shelf with works of Carl Hiaasen, Elmore Leonard, and other politically-incorrect genre icons. His protagonist is Sid Bifulco, mob hitman-turned-snitch, who's made use of his prison time by learning how to fly-fish. Out of the slammer and into the Witness Protection Program, Sid's found a nice hiding place in Hellbender Eddy, Pennsylvania, just a few hours north of his former stomping grounds. While he attempts to master this arcane sport -- learning how to breathe underwater in the process -- a member of the nasty bunch he ratted out escapes from jail and comes looking for revenge. While I personally wished for more mayhem, less comedy, and perhaps some less-intricate naming conventions, Fishes kept my interest level up and running on all cylinders. The author's strength lies in the creation of unique, oddball characters. I particularly liked Debbie Price, wife of a local police officer, who participates in amateur porno films out of boredom.

Sleep With the Fishes is a fast, fun dip into the Crime-Fiction-With-An-Attitude sub-sub-genre. I'd certainly read the author's next offering, but only if I received an ARC, or freebie review copy. Based on the obstacles put in front of the author by this particular publisher, perhaps we'll see this author's name associated with a different firm for his next book.

Reviewed by: Reed Andrus
Rating: 3 quills

Brian Wiprud asked us to let you know that Sleep With the Fishes is available not only from Xlibris, but from these additional sources: Brian M. Wiprud website (signed copy) www.wiprud.com $13; Partners & Crime (signed copy) www.crimepays.com (212) 243-0440 $14; Barnes&Noble.com $16

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Rex by Fred Yager
Hannacroix Creek Books, Inc. $ 15.95
ISBN: 1-889262-81-1 Trade Paperback
October 2001
Juvenile

Sam and Margaret Ross are paleontologists stuck on the side of Mt. Kilimanjaro in search of a dinosaur graveyard. Margaret works for the Natural History Museum of New York. Their son Davy is in New York with his grandmother. He is about to celebrate his eleventh birthday without them. Margaret wants to go home, but Sam spots an anomaly, a valley shrouded in white mists. He's sure the fossilized bones they seek will be there. He does make a discovery in the Valley, but it costs them both dearly.

Davy learns of his parents' disappearance, but he doesn't quite understand what it really means. Later his emotions come to the surface when his grandmother opens the chest shipped back after they disappeared. When she gives him his mother's music box, he discovers something wedged in it, something that will affect everyone in his family. Davy and his new friend Gretchen soon learn someone else wants this new discovery and is willing to do anything to get it. They have to find a way to protect it. And so the adventure begins.

Rex has all the right ingredients for an imaginative juvenile read - kids, secrets, dinosaur bones, bad guys, scary moments and close calls. It's simple written, easily understood, and reads more like an adventure story than a mystery. Although the kids in the story are eleven, I'm quite sure if a parent is willing suspend his or her disbelief for one evening to read Rex aloud, everyone in the family will enjoy a exciting dinosaur adventure.

Reviewed by: Brenda Weeaks
Rating: 3.5 quills

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