Edgar Award Nominee: Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

 

Razorblade Tears

Author: S.A. Cosby

Publisher: Flatiron Books

Date of Publication: July 6, 2021

Pages: 336

     The five nominees for the 2022 Edgar Award for Best Mystery Novel are: Razorblade Tears by S.A. Cosby, The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen, Five Decembers by James Kestrel, How Lucky by Will Leitch, and No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield.  This is the first of my reviews for this list of books.

     I immediately became engrossed in this book since it is set in my new (and old) hometown of Richmond, Virginia.  One scene even takes place in a strip mall about two miles from my new home!  There are references to many Richmond landmarks including the recently removed Civil War statues on Monument Avenue.  Even if you are not familiar with our area, the descriptions of the city and surrounding counties are vivid and add to the depth of this story.

     The story itself is intriguing.  Two fathers, one black and one white, dissatisfied with the lack of progress of a police investigation, join forces to find the killer of their married, gay sons.  Both fathers are ex-cons and each had rejected their sons for their lifestyle.  Poking around their sons' workplaces and acquaintances they become entangled with a large biker gang.  Violence and mayhem ensue.  

     The writing in this book is very good.  The characters are well developed and the dialogue is superb.  The exchanges between the two main characters are particularly crisp.   The action moves the story along at a brisk pace.  The brutal encounters with the bikers are not for the faint-hearted!  The story is a good one and gives the author a platform to examine contemporary aspects of race relations as well as LGBTQ issues.  In many regards this novel evokes favorable comparisons to Joe R. Lansdale's Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novels.  

   Razorblade Tears is a worthy nominee for the Edgar Award.  I enjoyed it very much.

Book Review: The Room of White Fire by T. Jefferson Parker

The Room of White Fire

Author: T. Jefferson Parker

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Date of Publication: August 22, 2017 (Hardcover)

July 3, 2018 (Paperback)

Pages: 352

     T. Jefferson Parker is an accomplished author who has won 3 Edgar Awards: Best Mystery Novel Edgars in 2002 (Silent Joe) and 2005 (California Girl) and a 2009 Best Short Story Edgar for Skinhead Central.   I have read and enjoyed a number of his earlier books, including the two award winners, but have not read any of his recent work.  That will change after reading The Room of White Fire.

     This book starts a new series featuring former Marine, former boxer, former sheriff and current private investigator Roland Ford.  Ford is hired to find a young Air Force veteran who has escaped from a private Southern California psychiatric facility.  Clay Hickman is the escapee from a facility named simply Arcadia.  He is also the son of a prominent local builder and a veteran of war in the Middle East.  He harbors dark secrets from his time in the service.

     As Ford begins his investigation he encounters a wide cast of characters, including Hickman's psychiatrist, fellow patients at Arcadia and some shady security people at the facility.  He finds out that Arcadia is owned and operated by Briggs Spencer, a former military psychologist who literally wrote the book on enhanced interrogation techniques (water boarding, etc...).  Spencer worked as an independent contractor during the war on terror.  Ford eventually pieces together that Hickman did not spend his time in the service in Iraq as everyone, including his family, believed, but was in Romania at a secret prison and interrogation facility working for Briggs. 

     What follows is a three dimensional cat and mouse game between Ford, Hickman and Briggs and his security forces.  Fearing what Hickman knows and is willing to expose, Briggs is willing to go to any lengths to silence him.  Ford is the proverbial man in the middle.  The truly anguishing part of The Room of White Fire is the descriptions of the tortures inflicted in Romania and the long lasting effects it has had on the perpetrators.  This is an uncomfortable fact that the author boldly confronts.

     Like in his award winners, Parker uses Southern California as his canvas.  His descriptions of San Diego and the county lend a steady realism to this fast paced story.  His characters are all complex and well developed.  They each have their own set of demons.  Since this is the first installment for Roland Ford, the author tells us a lot of his backstory, all of which is interesting and adds dimension to this otherwise prototypical "tough guy" investigator.

     I'm glad that I re-discovered T. Jefferson Parker.  While The Room of White Fire doesn't really approach Silent Joe or California Girl (or Laguna Heat for that matter) it is a splendidly written story with an important social message to boot!

Book Review: Heart of Ice by Gregg Olsen

Heart of Ice

Author: Gregg Olsen

Publisher: Kensington

Date of Publication: March 1, 2009 (Hardcover)

March 28, 2017 (Mass Market Paperback)

Pages: 480

     Gregg Olsen has written many wonderful books, both fiction and non-fiction.  Unfortunately, Heart of Ice isn't one of his better efforts.  This novel is really two stories which seem totally unrelated until the very conclusion.  

      

     The first story is about a missing pregnant wife with an irascible and totally unlikable husband (who quickly becomes the solitary person of interest).  The investigation into the disappearance is led by small town sheriff Emily Kenyon.  Sheriff Kenyon is dealing with several personal issues, including a recently college graduated daughter who is traveling the country as a national representative of a sorority, an ex-boyfriend who happens to be a local defense attorney and all-around cad, and a new love interest that despite his obvious perfection, she just can't commit to. 

     The second story is a serial killer tale regarding a young man with a seemingly perfect life (wife, kids, steady job, etc...) who preys on sorority girls.  A lot of this story is told in flashbacks of the killer's tumultuous childhood in foster homes where he suffered countless acts of cruelty and abuse.  The motive for the killings (which don't seem to make much sense throughout the book) is not revealed until very late.  The modus operandi of the killer is described in graphic and gory detail.

     The book does have its strengths.  The settings are the Pacific Northwest, areas in and around San Diego, California and a few chapters in Tennessee.  The author aptly uses descriptions of locales to create mood and (often) a sense of dread.  He has done his research regarding the effects on adults of childhood abuse.  The sections dealing with the killer's and his sister's abandonment by their mother at Disney Land are particularly heart breaking.  

     The weakness are several.  First, I found the characters fairly stereotypical and in the case of the many minor characters, very quickly and inadequately developed.  Second, the two disparate plots are disconnected throughout most of the book creating a disjointed story line.  Just as the reader gets drawn in to one story line, the next few chapters will jump back to the other.  I found that distracting and frustrating to say the least.  Finally, the love entanglements of Sheriff Kenyon made this seem like a romance novel in spots, which is not my cup of tea.

     In summary, this book had its high points but all in all was disappointing to me.

Book Review: Her Every Fear by Peter Swanson

Her Every Fear

Author: Peter Swanson

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Date of Publication: January 10, 2017

Pages: 352

     Peter Swanson is rapidly climbing my favorite author list.  He's not quite up there with Michael Connelley but he's getting there!  I first read The Girl with a Clock for a Heart about a year ago,then devoured The Kind Worth Killing and now Her Every Fear.  Each of these books shares common traits.  All three have intricate, twisting and unpredictable plots.  The author was educated in Mssachusetts and now lives in Somerset.  Each of these stories is mainly set in Boston, a town the author obviously knows very well..  The characters in all of the novels are flawed "everymen and everywomen" who can be identified with.They each have a different but very unique premise.  This book has the most despicable villains.  Another cool feature is that the author pays homage to previous thriller and mystery writers by having his characters read time-honored novels.  Peter Swanson also has a great respect for all things Alfred Hitchcock.  Her Every Fear pays tribute to Hitchcock's classic "Rear Window".

    Kate Priddy is a young British woman recovering from a trauma inflicted by an ex-boyfriend  After months of therapy she agrees to trade apartments for six months with a distant male cousin from Boston whom she has never met.  The day Kate moves into his Beacon Hill apartment a dead woman named Audrey Marshall is found in the adjacent apartment.  The ensemble cast of characters includes a creepy man who has been stalking the now dead woman, some quite eccentric older apartment residents and the cousin who may have been involved romantically with the murdered neighbor.  The cousin's former college roommate surfaces from time to time as well.  The murky plot moves along at a slow but steady pace and has plenty of unanticipated twists and turns.  Just when you think you have everything figured out something unravels and you have to rethink things.  So, who killed Audrey Marshall?  You have to read the whole book to find out!

     Go get a book by Peter Swanson and read it.  It doesn't matter which one.  They are totally independent stories (albeit with some common structural features) and they are all equally good.

Book Review: The Life We Bury by Allen Eskens

The Life We Bury

Author: Allen Eskens

Publisher: Prometheus Books

Date of Publication: October 14, 2014

Pages: 303 

   This is an outstanding first novel from Allen Eskens.  The  author has been a practicing defense attorney for twenty years and he uses that experience to craft an intricate plot.  The Life We Bury involves a decades old crime and a potentially innocent man in jail. 

     The story starts with Joe Talbert, a college student at the University of Minnesota who needs to write a biography for an English class.  He interviews Carl Iverson, a resident of a local nursing home.  Carl was convicted for a brutal rape and murder and had just been paroled from prison because of his illness.  As Joe (and the reader) gets to know Iverson the certainty that he committed the crime comes into doubt.

    Joe's life is more complicated than the usual college student.  He has an alcoholic mother and an autistic younger brother who both cause multiple problems and distractions for Joe.  Add to the mix of characters Joe's reclusive (but beautiful) coed neighbor and there is a full and entertaining cast of players.

  The character development, plot and pacing are all excellent.  This novel keeps you guessing.  The author uses just enough descriptions to help the reader visualize settings and his dialogue is very direct.  The only flaw that I see is the actual premise of the story.  That is, I don't know how many college students would become so involved in an English project that they would be consumed with the story and risk life and limb to find the truth.  The two "kids" playing detective kind of has a "Hardy Boys" air about it.  Get past that though, and the reader has an engaging and compelling read.  I look forward to reading the author's next effort: The Guise of Another.

Book Review: Broken Monsters by Lauren Beukes

Broken Monsters

Author: Lauren Beukes

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: September 16, 2014

Pages: 448

     If Thomas Harris and William Peter Blatty got together and wrote a book, it would be Lauren Beukes' Broken Monsters.  Most of this well-paced thriller is the story of a particularly twisted serial killer preying on diverse victims in Detroit.  The ending changes the tone of the book into a hallucinogenic, paranormal freak show.  

     Set in contemporary Detroit, Detective Gabriella Versado investigates a series of horrific murders involving seemingly arbitrary victims.  The crime scenes are particularly gruesome because the killer engages in post-mortem mutilation of the bodies.  Versado searches for connections or similarities in the victims while also single parenting her teenage daughter Layla.  Distracted on both the professional and domestic fronts, the detective can't seem to get a handle on either role.  Layla's story is one of an unsupervised teen who, left to her own devices, finds all kinds of trouble on her own while trolling internet chat sites.

     The author is a native of South Africa but nonetheless paints a terrific portrait of a decaying and troubled American city.  The violence is disturbing but so is the despair and gloom of an abandoned urban landscape.  The author seems to be making a statement that the blighted environment played a major role in the development of this particularly sick criminal.  There is an eventual link to the art scene in Detroit and the author includes interesting depictions of contemporary urban art and culture.  

   
     Broken Monsters also makes a valid statement regarding the media and its ability to be part of the story instead of a detached, unbiased information source.  One of the main characters is an attention seeking video blogger who feeds into the killer's need for publicity which incites the criminal and hinders the police investigation.

     This author's writing is very vivid and Broken Monsters is fast-paced, entertaining and thought provoking.  It's not for everybody, however, as the crime scene descriptions leave little to the imagination and are horrific.  The strengths of the book are the depictions of urban chaos and the Detroit art scene and the overall quality of the writing.  Layla's story is an interesting diversion and a cautionary tale for parents of teens.  The ending  was for me, well, weird, but did wrap up all of the subplots into a satisfying conclusion.  Broken Monsters is a very good contemporary crime novel and is well worth the effort to read.  

Book Review: Flee by J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Petereson

Flee

Authors: J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson

Publisher: Thomas and Mercer

Date of Publication: October 10, 2012

Pages: 241 (Kindle Edition)

         To say that this book is awful does disservice to awful.  I rated it one star on Goodreads.com because that's the lowest rating a reader can give a book.  If I could have given it negative stars I would have.  This came as somewhat of a surprise since I have read several of J. A. Konrath's "Jack Daniels" series and enjoyed them.  They had a semblance of a plot and some character development as well as some humor, none of which shows up here.

     This book has a preposterous premise and the plot line is a giant chase scene through and around Chicago.  There are multiple clones of the main character (all of whom are female and named after male mystery writers: Chandler,  Hammett, Clancy, etc...).  There is violence galore and one explicit random sex scene.  What is missing is a plot, character development and humor.  Did I mention that the writing sounds like it came from a drop out from an on-line creative writing course?  Every page, it seems, has the main character noticing at least three smells ("Creative Writing 101: Have your characters use all of their senses").  The only real mystery here is why I read this whole book.  I guess that I somehow thought it would get better.  Maybe, like watching the TV news coverage of a natural disaster, you get sort of numb to how bad it is.  I don't know.  I've probably read worse books but I don't remember when.

Book Review: Inferno by Dan Brown

Inferno

Author: Dan Brown

Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Date of Publication: May 14, 2013

Pages: 558 (NOOK Edition)

   About two pages into Dan Brown's Inferno I had an incredible feeling of deja vu.  I felt like I had read this before.  This author wrote a blockbuster, The Da Vinci Code, in 2003.  He created a unique character in Robert Langdon, an art historian and "symbologist" who deciphered a code painted into "The Last Supper" by Leonardo da Vinci.  A sudden act of violence triggered a hectic race against an international conspiracy.  Landon was aided by a female counterpart, a brilliant and beautiful cryptologist, who became more than a colleague.  The Da Vinci Code dashed through Paris, London and New York before it concluded back at The Louvre in Paris.  Substitute Dante for da Vinci, The Divine Comedy for "The Last Supper", a brilliant and beautiful physician for the cryptologist and Florence, Venice and Istanbul for the three cities and you have this novel.  The conspiracy is different here and the stakes are higher, but it's the same formula.

   The author certainly does his research, however.  The descriptions of the locales are superb and I am ready to sign up for an "Inferno tour" of Florence.  The lavish explanations and expositions regarding the artworks encountered are well done also.  My quibble with these, however, is that they tend to interrupt the action.  It's like getting an art appreciation lecture in the middle of watching "Die Hard".  I would also recommend that if they make a movie of this that they replace Tom Hanks with Usain Bolt as Robert Langdon since the character spends most of the story running helter-skelter from police, museum guards, the World Health Organization as well as his own claustrophobia and paranoia.  

     This was an interesting and informative read but, in my opinion, a repetitive one.