Ah, Sweet Mysteries...
A Review By Charles King
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Ah, Sweet Mysteries...
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Disregarding all market logic, the market for series mysteries keeps booming along, supporting a wide variety of authorial styles, regional spices, historical twists, and more characters than any single reader can reasonably keep up with. Even better, past masters continue to publish excellent work, while the list of fine new authors grows on. Here are a few new mysteries well worth taking a peek at. |
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Multiple Florida mystery authors have tried
(consciously or not) to take up the mantle of the late John D. MacDonald’s
classic Travis McGee novels. Many including Carl Hiassen and James W. Hall
share MacDonald’s love of the land (though they view their paramour through
a blackly humorous lens). Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford novels have achieved
partial success, but Doc’s background as a clandestine NSA operative is a
bit much, as are the quasi-psychedelic musings of Doc’s buddy Tomlinson, a
tie-dyed version of McGee’s pal Meyer. Relative newcomer (with three books
under his belt) Jonathan King come close to matching Mac Donald’s
psychological insight and wry cynicism, and King’s Max Freeman novels
exhibit an understanding of Florida and its history that MacDonald would
have approved of. King’s newest novel, Shadow Men (Dutton, $23.95)
begins with a violent historical flashback to a swamp-bound father and his
two sons trying to escape a murderous pursuer. Some eighty years later,
Max’s friend and attorney Billy Manchester hires him to look into the
disappearance of the three. Max is a reluctant detective at the best of
times. A former Philadelphia cop with some truly ugly memories, Max largely
wishes to be left alone in his shack at the edge of the Everglades, but
events and the realities of modern life intrude. After Max begins what
should be a routine investigation, it becomes obvious that there are some
who will do all they can to stop him. Shadow Men is a solid read
overall, though it suffers a few weak spots. King relies so heavily on
secondary characters and the background of his two previous Freeman novels
that those interrelationships sometimes undermine his newest story. This was
a trap MacDonald avoided by regularly moving McGee into new places and among
new characters, a lesson King would do well to consider. Overall, Shadow
Men is a fine novel that fans of Florida mysteries, as well as MacDonald
and McGee, are likely to enjoy.
Buy this book at:
Michael Connelly’s mysteries following the exploits of
LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch have fleshed out a world all their own.
Drawing from traditional police procedurals and classic noir, with a soupcon
of morality play thrown in for good measure, Connelly’s novels achieve their
power through his masterful depiction of modern Los Angeles and his
sensitive portrayal of Bosch, a complex character who struggles with the
ambiguities that permeate his work and world. Connelly has written mysteries
besides the Bosch series, including three that featured FBI serial crime
profiler Terry McCaleb. Blood Work (made into a film starring Clint
Eastwood) is probably the best known of these, but two others, The Poet
and A Darkness More Than Night featured Bosch as a critical secondary
character. The author’s latest novel, The Narrows (Little, Brown,
$25.95) offers readers something of a full circle. McCaleb’s widow
approaches Bosch, who is retired from the LAPD, and asks him to investigate
her husband’s curious death. In a parallel narrative, FBI colleagues who
believe The Poet is back at his bloody serial killer work enlist McCaleb’s
former partner in the hunt. If this sounds a bit complex, it is, and is
complicated further by Connelly’s decision to mix the novel’s narrative
voices; Bosch’s sections are written in first person while the FBI
investigations are followed in third person. The real question is how well
it works, and overall it does very well. While The Narrows offers a
fine conclusion to events originally launched in The Poet and moves
along events begun in the last Bosch novel, Lost Light, Connelly
offers enough well-crafted backfill to allow the book to stand on its own.
Along with gleaning resonance from relationships featured in the earlier
books, he also pokes a bit of fun at the Hollywood script writers who
fundamentally altered key characters and scenes in Blood Work. At the
end of the day, a mystery series lives or dies on an author’s ability to
keep central characters growing and evolving. From that standpoint, The
Narrows succeeds admirably, closing one chapter in Harry Bosch’s
continuing story and opening another in the process.
Donald E. Westlake has explored a wide range of genres
and characters over thirty five years as a writer, from the edgiest of noir
in his Richard Stark novels, to lighter, even comic turns both in stand
alone set pieces and in his series featuring unlucky thief John Dortmunder.
It’s not that Dortmunder is a bad thief. Indeed, he seems to enjoy a
relatively successful if not particularly flashy career on his own. But
Dortmunder is plagued with a cadre of friends whose reach continually
exceeds their grasp, and who continually elicit his assistance in their
loony efforts. Westlake’s latest Dortmunder adventure, The Road to Ruin
(Mysterious, $25.00), begins with another of the crook’s pals’ “can’t miss”
schemes; to go to work for Monroe Hall, the world’s most reviled corporate
weasel (think Enron’s Ken Lay to the nth degree) and steal him blind. The
deal begins well, with Dortmunder’s gang ensconced at Hall’s country estate
in a trice (the corporate crook is so lonely for companionship that he pays
scant attention to their fictional references), and the plan begins ticking
down toward its happy conclusion. But problems, of course, crop up in the
most curious places. The crew neglects to consider the larger ramifications
of associating with someone so reviled, and after Hall mysteriously
disappears, Dortmunder and his cronies become the chief suspects in a
kidnapping they had nothing to do with (instead of the one they are working
away at). As in every Dortmunder novel, the crosses and double crosses mount
up until it becomes difficult to keep track without a scorecard. In a way,
Westlake’s works are meditations on a world where everyone is contemplating
something nasty, and moral absolutes are replaced by degrees of guilt.
The Road to Ruin follows this same tradition, and while Dortmunder does
not have the innate smarts or charm of Lawrence Block’s comic burglar Bernie
Rhodenbarr, his world of small time crooks with big time problems is well
worth visiting.
Through fifteen mysteries featuring ancient Roman
“informer” (i.e. detective) Marcus Didius Falco, Lindsey Davis has typified
the best of historical mysteries. Indeed, Davis was one of the first of the
newest generation of this genre’s practitioners, and set the bar for
historical accuracy and cultural acumen so high that she has become an
exemplar of the craft. Davis’ latest novel, The Accusers (Mysterious,
$25.00) finds Falco and his family back in Rome after a two book respite in
the chilly reaches of Londinium. Out of the loop and hungry for work, Falco
takes what he thinks will be a quick job of fabricating evidence for a pair
of shyster lawyers, Paccius Africanus and Silius Italicus, concerning a loan
to a wealthy and corrupt senator, Rubirius Metellus.
But a month after the case is successfully prosecuted Metellus dies before
he settles the debt, leaving Falco considerably out of pocket. If his death
was a suicide, Metellus’ greedy heirs do not have to pay his debts, but if
he was murdered his estate is forfeit. Falco begins an investigation to
prove the senator’s murder, but financial necessity blinds him to the fact
that failure will leave him liable for enormous damages. As usual, The
Accusers finds Davis and Falco both in fine form, equally comfortable in
both the shining marble halls of the Basilica or in Rome’s grimiest back
alleys. In addition, this newest work provides the author a rich opportunity
for examining the labyrinthine Roman legal system, which fascinatingly
diverges from and parallels our own. The Falco mysteries work because of the
hard work Davis does in mining the similarities and dissimilarities between
ancient and modern western culture, along with the human emotions and drives
that dominate interactions regardless of time and place. Any number of
historical mystery series have stumbled when their authors forgot this
essential lesson, or lost the taste for the hunt for new the telling detail
that deepens their readers’ knowledge and enjoyment. At the end of the day,
The Accusers succeeds brilliantly, good news for Davis’ myriad
readers and fans of historical mysteries yet to make Marcus Didius Falco’s
memorable acquaintance. Forward to Next Series of Reviews
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