Book Review: Murder as a Fine Art by David Morrell

Murder As A Fine Art

Author: David Morrell

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication: May 7, 2013

Pages: 358

     David Morrell has written a fantastic historical novel set in London in 1854.  The two main characters are Thomas and Emily De Quincey.  Thomas was a famous essayist, best known for his 1822 publication "Confessions of an English Opium Eater".  Emily was Thomas' youngest and only surviving child who helped care for the "Opium Eater" in his later years.  Although born into an aristocratic family, Thomas was never adept at finances and spent his younger years living on the streets of London.  In his later years, Thomas was almost always in steep debt, frequently running and hiding from creditors.  Emily was quite the non-comformist, refusing to wear the prescribed corsets and hoop skirts of the day in favor of more comfortable (and risque) "bloomers".  In a later and even more controversial essay,  "On Murder Considered as One of the Fine Arts", De Quincey wrote a detailed account of the factual Ratcliffe Highway murders which terrorized London in the early 1800s.  This essay as well as other of De Quincey's writings have been said to have had a profound influence on Edgar Allan Poe as well as British writers such as George Orwell.  With this historical background, let's talk about this book!

     De Quincey and his daughter are invited to London, ostensibly to promote a new collection of essays.  Shortly after their return, a vicious multiple homicide occurs near the scene of the now decades old Ratcliffe Highway murders.  The circumstances and details are almost identical to the original crime.  Enter Detective Sean Ryan of Scotland Yard aided by a young, ambitious Constable Becker.  They become acutely aware of De Quincey's familiarity with the case.  Lacking a credible alibi Thomas De Quincey becomes Suspect #1.

     The plot leads the police as well as "the Opium Eater" and his daughter through all of London.  The city is described in graphic detail, including the homeless and destitute living on the streets and under bridges and the coal dust which covers the entire city including the more prestigious neighborhoods.  Like the more contemporary novel The Word is Murder by Anthony Horowitz, the city of London itself becomes a major part of the novel.  It was fun to read these books back to back (especially just after a trip to London) as it describes many of the same areas nearly a century and a half apart!

     The minor characters are all well developed as well, especially Emily De Quincey and the young Irish detective Sean Ryan.  There seems to be a real chemistry between the two which never really goes anywhere.  Maybe this will progress in the two sequels, Inspector of the Dead and Ruler of the Night.  

     A note of caution to the faint of heart: the violent scenes in this novel are very graphic and disturbing.  No details are left to the imagination!
Detective Inspector Sean Ryan and constable Becker
Detective Inspector Sean Ryan and constable Becker
Detective Inspector Sean Ryan and constable Becker

     Murder as a Fine Art is a well plotted, fast moving and entertaining mystery novel with excellent writing and engaging characters.  It was a fantastic series debut and I can't wait to read the next two installments!

Thomas De Quincey

Book Review: Queenpin by Megan Abbott

Queenpin

Author: Megan Abbott

Publisher: Simon and Schuster

Date of Publication: June 5, 2007

Pages: 196

     This is a stellar crime novel by multi-faceted author Megan Abbott.  This is classic crime noir with a familiar "good girl gone bad" plot.  What sets this book apart is that the central characters are both women.  It is told in the first person by an unnamed young woman longing to escape her meager background.  She is recruited by Gloria Denton, a notorious mobster who acts as a mentor of all things corrupt.  The young woman's educations is moving right along as she transports cash, betting slips and information between race tracks, betting parlors and offices.  She makes a critical error by falling for Vic Riordan, a slick lady's man and perpetual loser.  Major complications ensue as Vic uses our femme fatale for his own nefarious purpose.  

  

  This book is written in a compact, no words wasted style which evokes the best of James M Cain and Mickey Spillnae.  There is graphic violence here as well as a constant undertone of sexual tension.  The writing itself is spectacular, conjuring the styles and fashions of the times.  An example from an early exchange between Gloria and her protege:

     

    "She looked at me in that icy way of hers.  Then in a flash of the hand, she tugged open her crepe de chine jacket, buttons poppping.  There, on her pale, filmy skin, skeined over with thready wrinkles, I saw the burn marks, long, jagged, slipping behind her bra clasp, slithering down her sternum."  

     This is writing strong enough to earn this author a Best Paperback Original Edgar Award in 2008.  Megan Abbott has also been nominated for the Steel Dagger, The L.A. Times Book Award and The Pushcart Prize.  The lady can write.  If you are a crime fiction fan, especially the classics, you will surely enjoy Queenpin.

Book Review: The Gods of Guilt by Michael Connelly

The Gods of Guilt

Author: Michael Connelly

Publisher: Little, Brown and Company

Date of Publication:  December 2, 2013

Pages: 400 

     Michael Connelly has produced another intriguing legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller, "The Lincoln Lawyer".   This one reprises characters from the first book in the series (this is #5).  The strengths of all of Connelly's novels are in evidence here.  First the plot is intricate and complicated but not to the point of being improbable.  The characters are well drawn and there are plenty of conflicts to keep them in a stew.  The pace is fast and driven by crisp dialogue, especially when the story hits the courtroom.  You would think that his novels would become formulaic, but they don't.  

   In this story Haller defends a despicable but innocent man in a murder trial.  The defendant incriminated himself during the investigation and Haller has to circumvent that and establish an alternate theory for the murder.  His team of investigators (now including his driver, Earl) and a new partner stay one step ahead of the prosecutors and the police as evidence is developed pre-trial.  Haller uses courtroom maneuverings and theatrics to convince the jury ("The Gods of Guilt") of his version of the crime.

     One of the methods that Connelly uses to keep his series fresh is to introduce new characters.  This has happened several times in the long running Harry Bosch series (The Concrete Blonde, Trunk Music, The Black Box, etc...) and in The Gods of Guilt he introduces Jennifer Aronson, a young attorney Mickey hired to manage his foreclosure practice.  Jennifer wants to become more involved in criminal defense work and in this book she does.  It will be interesting to see where the author takes this new character in subsequent novels.  The core supporting characters are all here including Lorna, Mickey's ex-wife who answers his phones and arranges his schedule, Cisco Wojciechowski, Lorna's current husband and Mickey's new investigator and Earl, who drives Mickey's Lincoln Town Car.  Harry Bosch (who we learned several books ago is Mickey's half-brother) makes a cameo appearance as well.  There are humorous allusions to The Lincoln Lawyer movie and Mickey Haller copy cats in Los Angeles.  At one point Mickey leaves court in a hurry and hops in the wrong Town Car.

     The star of this and every book in "The Lincoln Lawyer" series continues to be Mickey Haller.  In this installment Mickey is a more sympathetic character.  He anguishes over his current estrangement from his sixteen year old daughter and has multiple pangs of conscience.  He still has his slick tactics and unorthodox approaches, but all of this seems more well intended this time around.

    

     This is an entertaining, fast-paced and well written novel.  As the Mickey Haller character evolves during this series the stories become better and better.  I can't wait for the next one.

Book Review: Live By Night by Dennis Lehane

Live By Night

Author: Dennis Lehane

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Date of Publication: October 2, 2012

Pages: 416 (Hardcover Edition)

     This Edgar winning novel is superb.  It transcends the mystery genre and succeeds on many levels.  First and foremost, it is a great story, expertly told.  The main character, Joe Coughlin is the youngest son of a prominent police captain.  The first part of the book is set in Boston during the 1920s as young Joe slips into a life of petty crime which escalates as he enters young adulthood.  After a two year prison stay, Joe moves on and the story shifts to Tampa, Florida.  Joe forms an alliance with Cubans, Spaniards and African-Americans to forge a crime network based on the importation of rum during Prohibition.   The final segment of the book is set in Cuba in the 1930s as American organized crime invades that island country.  Joe Coughlin is a complex character.  His many shortcomings seem to arise, in part, from his difficult relationship with his father.  There are numerous contradictions between Joe's principles and philosophy and his criminal actions.  The story weaves these conflicts and inconsistencies into a mosaic of ethical and moral conundrums.  The secondary characters are all well developed and are equally intriguing.  They include Joe's love interests, his partners in crime and his enemies.  There are many historically real characters as well. 

     The settings for this story are unique and interesting.  The descriptions of the 1920s port of Tampa and the segregated living areas are well done, as are the sketches of urban Havana and rural Cuba.  The multiple settings add another layer of interest to an already compelling story.  The women in Joe Coughlin's life also make the story sparkle.  His entanglement with a "mob moll" early on and his long term relationship with a mixed race Cuban revolutionary spice up the story immeasurably. 

      The real element that makes this novel compulsively readable, however, is the constant moral deliberations and ethical compromises which Joe and, to some extent, the secondary characters continue to confront. On many occasions he defines himself as an "outlaw" as opposed to a criminal, preferring to think of himself as "living by night, by my own rules."  

     This novel has it all: compelling and sympathetic characters, lush descriptions of unique locales, femmes fatales, action, crime, revenge and vindication.  This was one of those books I hated to finish, it was that good.  Read it and savor every page.

Lady, Go Die

Author: Max Allan Collins and Mickey Spillane

Publisher: Titan

Publication Date: May 8, 2012

Pages: 272 (Ebook Edition)

     Mickey Spillane introduced iconic private investigator Mike Hammer in 1947's I, the Jury.  Spillane passed away in 2006 after a long and illustrious career and appointed Max Allan Collins, a noted writer in his own right (The Road to Perdition), as his literary executor.  Collins has completed many unfinished Spillane works including this novel which is, in fact, the long lost sequel to I, The Jury.  

     Collins has done a masterful job of maintaining the traditions of Spillane and Mike Hammer.  This reads as the logical and artful follow up story.  The basic plot is familiar.  Trouble finds Hammer who is on vacation with his secretary Velda in a seaside resort town north of Manhattan.  A missing person investigation turns into a murder case and leads Hammer on a wild ride through high stakes gambling, local police corruption and, eventually, to an unlikely villain.

     The trademark Spillane tough-guy dialogue is here and the male chauvinism remains intact.   The sex scenes are a bit more explicit (possibly representing Collins' contributions) but the rampant racial prejudice in I, The Jury is absent.   I think the plot here is a bit tighter which is interesting given that this is a collaborative writing effort.  All in all, this is a very readable and entertaining story which is well worthy of being the sequel to I, The Jury.

Book Review: Defending Jacob by William Landay

Defending Jacob

By William Landay

     William Landay is a former Assistant District Attorney and Defending Jacob is his third novel.  The main character and narrator of the story is Andy Barber, a Senior Assistant District Attorney living and working in a small town near Boston.  He is happily married to a school teacher named Laurie, the girl of his dreams who he met in college.  Andy considers himself lucky to have swept Laurie off of her feet and that she agreed to marry him.  (He married “up.”)  The family is completed by Jacob, a typically non-communicative eighth grader who is somewhat of a polar opposite from his gregarious, overachieving father.  Jacob is very average – average grades, few close friends and fascinated with technology and the internet. 

     

      Murder happens infrequently in the small town of Newton, Massachusetts and so Andy is called when the body of a young man is found one morning in the wooded area of a park near the middle school.    Andy is involved in the investigation from the very beginning, working closely with his long-time friend (and Jacob’s godfather) Detective Paul Duffy.  The victim’s name is Ben Rifkin and he is a popular classmate of Jacob’s. There are few clues as to the perpetrator and the investigation moves slowly.  The students are not immediately interviewed because of “political correctness” and there is little physical evidence.  Ben was killed by three stab wounds from a small serrated knife.  There were no signs of a struggle and there are no eyewitnesses. The murder weapon is never found.  A data search reveals that there is a registered pedophile living in the neighborhood and Paul and Andy focus the investigation on this man.  Several turn of events then occur which change the complexion of the case.  A Facebook friend of Jacob’s accuses him of the murder in a status update and reveals that Jacob owns a knife which he often carried to school.  Once the students are interviewed it becomes apparent that Ben had selected Jacob as an object of verbal abuse, bullying him and making fun of his eccentricities.  The students are also fingerprinted.

    

       Andy is abruptly called into the District Attorney’s office and told that a fingerprint found on the victim’s clothing matched his son and that Jacob is now the primary suspect.  Andy is placed on administrative leave, a search warrant is executed at his home and Jacob is arrested and formally charged with the murder of Ben Rifkin.

      

      Jacob pleads total innocence and his parents steadfastly believe him, even as more and more details emerge which cast doubt on this.    What follows are a complex family saga, an intense character study, a legal machination and dilemmas of monstrous proportions.  Andy Barber has a family history which he has kept hidden, even from his high society wife, for all of his life.  His father and grandfather were notoriously violent men.   His father, in fact, is in prison for life without parole following a conviction for murder.  One of the most heart rending scenes involves Andy finally revealing this to his distraught wife.  This breach of trust opens the door for further marital discord as the pressure of Jacob’s impending trial mounts.  A geneticist is consulted by Jacob’s defense attorney to investigate the possibility of a “murder gene” which may predispose its owners to violence.  While Andy never wavers in his belief in his son’s innocence, Laurie has genuine moments of doubt.  The reader is carried on waves of emotion through the trial as the prosecutor lays out the increasingly damning evidence against Jacob.  You find yourself compulsively turning to the next chapter, at one point feeling that Jacob is the victim of a witch hunt and a rush to judgement and then abruptly feeling that he is a cold-blooded killer.  The author does a masterful job of making the reader feel what Laurie feels as she hears Jacob’s best friend testify in court that her son has a terrible temper and that he frequently talked of making Ben Rifkin pay for his bullying.  You also desperately want to believe with Andy that this is a misunderstanding and that no jury in the world could find Jacob guilty of murder in the first degree.

    

      Towards the end of the trial, Andy describes his family’s condition:

    

        “We Barbers were left in complete isolation.  If we had been shot out into space, we could not have felt more alone.  We ordered Chinese food, as we had a thousand times the last few months, because China City delivers and the driver speaks so little English that we did not have to feel self-conscious opening the door for him.  We ate our boneless spare ribs and General Gao’s chicken in near silence, then slunk off to opposite corners of the house for the evening.  We were too sick of the case to talk about it anymore but too obsessed with it to talk about anything else.  We were too gloomy for the idiocies of TV – suddenly our lives seemed finite, and much too short to waste – and too distracted to read.”

     

     There will be no spoilers in this review.  I can’t in good conscience reveal the spectacular and totally unpredictable ending to this saga.  The reader is exhausted and emotionally drained at the conclusion, though, just as Andy and Laurie Barber are.  I have read a lot of novels in this genre, but never have I been as thoroughly fooled as I was by William Landay.

     

     This book succeeds on so many levels.  It is a character study of the first degree.  Andy, Laurie and Jacob feel like friends or neighbors by the time you finish this.  This novel also provides some interesting social commentary (much like the novels of Jodi Picoult) touching on such contemporary issues as bullying, media exploitation of high profile crimes and genetic influence on behavior.  The pace, although a bit slow occasionally (the legal shenanigans, although necessary, always seem a little over the top) is always driven forward by the tension created between the characters.  This tension shifts from chapter to chapter: between Andy and Laurie, between the Barbers and their neighbors, between Jacob and his friends, between Jacob and his parents.  The tension is always there, though, and it becomes almost unbearable at times. 

    

      Defending Jacob by William Landay is an excellent book and I recommend it highly.

2012 Edgar Nominee: Book Review: The Ranger by Ace Atkins

The Ranger

By Ace Atkins

     The Ranger is an interesting snapshot of rural Southern life: a life with little hope of escape and crime as the main alternative to a mundane meager existence.  The basic plot line involves Quinn Colson, an Army Ranger home on leave after several tours of duty in Iraq and Afghanistan.  He returns to Tibbehah County, Mississippi to attend the funeral of his uncle, Hampton Beckett.  This uncle was a father figure to Quinn, his own absentee father chasing a dream as a stunt man in Hollywood.  His uncle had been the respected county sheriff for years and his death was ruled a suicide.  Quinn immediately suspects foul play and begins his own investigation which involves bending many laws and stepping on a lot of toes.

     Quinn quickly recruits an ally, a female deputy sheriff named Lillie Virgil who shares his doubts about the official investigation and its conclusions.  Together they gather information that points towards a larger conspiracy regarding Quinn’s uncle’s death.  Complicating matters, a local councilman threatens to take the farm Quinn has inherited from his uncle to pay off some nebulous and poorly documented debts, possibly related to a bad gambling habit. 

     There are other interesting characters in this novel, all of whom demonstrate some despondency related their social plight.  There is a pregnant teen who we meet early in the story who is searching for the baby's father.  She plays a huge role in the story's conclusion.  Quinn’s Mom is raising a mixed race grand-child, left on her doorstep by Quinn’s wild sister Caddy.  There is also a high school buddy of Quinn’s, a large black man who also served several tours of duty in the Global War on Terror.  This fellow did not escape unscathed, however, and lost an arm in an encounter with a roadside bomb in Fallujah.

     There is also Anna Lee Stevens, Quinn’s high school sweetheart who dumped him while he was on duty in Iraq and is now married to the local doctor.  There seems to some old fires still burning, at least for Anna Lee, although Quinn seems immune to her interests.  There are actually two opportunities for a romantic angle in this novel which are never quite developed (in the sequel, perhaps?).  One is with Anna Lee and the other is with Lillie the deputy.  Quinn is so focused on solving the mystery of his uncle’s death and ridding his home county of crime and corruption that he seems oblivious to these women.

     This rag-tag cast of characters scrapes off the layers of respectability in the county and reveals a large scale methamphetamine production system which encompasses a good number of the local citizenry.  The meth labs are managed by a ruthless group of separatists who live in the abandoned fields of the county.  The whole scheme is fueled by a Memphis based syndicate which is pulling the strings, managing the corruption and payoffs from up-river.

     The setting of North-Eastern Mississippi is very well described by the author, the rural farm roads, creeks and abandoned barns all playing roles in a rapidly evolving story.  This sense of loneliness and seperateness adds to the credibility of the entire narrative.  Atkins describes one ride Quinn took with the new Sheriff Wesley:

“He found a country music station, and they blared some good outlaw stuff from back in the day, zipping down all those hidden country roads, passing forgotten cemeteries and crumbling gas stations, nothing but gravel and dirt.  Quinn switched with Wesley, and Wesley took the car bumping up and over the road into an overgrown field, crashing through a rotting fence and spinning out in the mud and dust, nearly getting stuck in a a ravine, but then redlining her again and mashing that pedal till they were back onto the country road leading to the farm.:”

     I enjoyed reading this novel, even though I wouldn’t classify it as a “mystery” in the sense that I would expect from an Edgar nominee.  It, like Field Gray is more of a classic thriller.  The plot is a bit predictable and formulaic, but the overall novel succeeds because of the strength of the characters and the evocative descriptions of the setting in rural Mississippi.  I would recommend The Ranger to readers who enjoy action packed (read “violent”) novels with excellent characters, set in a unique and well-described location.

2011 Edgar Nominee: Book Review: I'd Know You Anywhere by Laura Lippman

I’d Know You Anywhere

By Laura Lippman

     Laura Lippman is a former Edgar Award winner. She was a reporter for 20 years including 12 years at “The Baltimore Sun.”  She began writing novels while working full time before leaving daily journalism in 2001. Most of her crime novels feature a female private investigator named Tess Monaghan.  I’d Know You Anywhere is a “stand alone” novel and, according to the book jacket, is based on a very well-disguised true story.

     The story opens with main character Eliza Benedict re-adjusting to life in America after living in London for several years with her financier husband and two children.  Her seemingly bucolic existence is shattered one morning when she receives a letter from Walter Bowman, a Virginia death row in-mate who recognized her picture in the Society section of “Washingtonian Magazine.”  This man, sentenced to die for a capital murder, has been on death row for close to twenty years and an execution date has finally been set.  Walter wants to see Eliza, whom he kidnapped and raped when she was 15.  Unlike other victims in Walter’s crime spree, Eliza’s life was spared.  The mystery of why she was the only victim to survive has haunted her and been fuel for tabloid speculation during all of these intervening years. 

     The plot alternates between Eliza’s present day terror and indecision about confronting her previous captor and the actual months she spent as Walter’s prisoner.  During the present day Eliza agonizes over how to continue to shelter her children from her horrible history, how to avoid the journalistic spotlight which searches for her as Walter’s execution nears and how to justify her morbid curiosity and search for answers to her life-long questions regarding her experience as a sexual crime victim.  The account of her abduction and imprisonment includes a serious psychological look at the criminal mind and “The Stockholm Syndrome”. 

     The setting of this book ambles from suburban Baltimore, West Virginia and parts of the Shenandoah Valley and Northern Virginia.  There is one critical scene which occurs at Luray Caverns.  Walter takes Eliza there and she comes very close to escaping with a group of school children who are on a field trip.  There is a flash point in the story where Eliza contemplates escape and Walter, watching her from a distance, understands what she is thinking and decides to let her go should she so decide.  Fearing for her family’s safety (Walter has threatened to kill all of her family members if she ever leaves him) Eliza elects to stay with Walter.

     This is an interesting book with intriguing character studies.   The plots are intricate, but at times a bit slow moving.  I expected more of a surprise ending.  The ending is basically fairly predictable and almost anticlimactic.  There are interesting statements regarding capital punishment woven into the fabric of the story which are a plus.  All in all, this was a very enjoyable read, more of a "building tension" type of novel and not a "hang on to your hat" kind of mystery.

Book Review: 2005 Edgar Award Winner: California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker

California Girl

 T. Jefferson Parker

  

     California Girl is a fantastic crime novel set in Southern California, the locale for all of T. Jefferson Parker's many entertaining novels.  This author has been nominated three times for the Best Novel Edgar Award.  This is his second winner, the first being Silent Joe.  If you have never read one of Parker’s books before, you don’t know what you are missing.  He transcends the genre of mystery novel, as his books have great depth and are not pure crime novels or mysteries.  Like Silent Joe, this book is a tremendous character study.  Actually, there are multiple character studies which intertwine and interact.  California Girl is also a re-creation of an era and a place: late 1960s Orange County, California.  While this is not a historical novel, the appearance of many non-fictional characters makes this an even more interesting read.  These include such disparate characters as Richard Nixon, Timothy Leary and a hyperactive and wild rock and roll drummer named Charles Manson.

  

     The story is set up in the 1950s.  Two families feud after their sons are involved in a rumble outside of the California Girl orange packing plant.  The Becker family (four sons) is respectable, church-going and hardworking.  The Vonns (three boys, one girl) on the other hand, are from “the other side of the tracks”, literally and figuratively.  They are more interested in motorcycles, alcohol and drugs than more mainstream pursuits.  The one daughter involved, Janelle Vonn, grows up to win regional beauty contests and rises above her sordid upbringing.  The eldest Becker son is killed in Viet Nam and the remaining three mature into a minister, a newspaper reporter and a police officer.  The Vonn brothers remain outside the law, engaged in everything from illicit drugs to stolen goods.  The two family stories intersect again in 1968 when the decapitated body of Janelle Vonn is found in the now deserted orange packing plant.  Each of the three Beckers investigates Janelle’s killing from his own perspective.   Further clashes with the surviving Vonns are inevitable.  A conviction is finally secured and the alleged perpetrator is incarcerated.  The Beckers are never really satisfied with this and thirty years later the case is brought to a startling and unexpected conclusion.  Dirty politics (a Parker staple) play a major role in the resolution of the story.

     This book has it all: great characters which are well developed, a twisting but plausible plot with unexpected turns, a spectacular Southern California setting which the author obviously knows and loves and interesting historical tidbits thrown in for good measure.  I enjoyed California Girl by T. Jefferson Parker immensely and recommend it highly.  This novel is more than worthy of the 2005 Edgar Award which it received.

Book Review: What It Was by George Pelecanos

What It Was

George Pelecanos

     George Pelecanos has crafted another superb crime noir novel set in Washignton, D.C.  The main character is again Derek Strange, an African-American former metropolitan police officer who left the force after the infamous 1968 riots following the King assassination.  Strange is now a private investigator and is hired by a young woman to find a stolen ring.  The ring was stolen during the contract murder of her boyfriend, a small time drug dealer.   The murderer was Robert Lee Jones, nicknamed “Red” because of his hair color.  Jones’ street name is “Red Fury” since he is frequently driving his girlfriend’s automobile, a red-over-white Plymouth Fury GT Sport.

      Strange’s ex-partner Frank “Hound Dog” Vaughan is the investigating officer in the boyfriend’s murder.  Frank, an ex-Marine who fought at Okinawa, earned his nickname because of his facial features as well as his reputation for dogged pursuit of criminals.  Strange and Vaughan’s investigations overlap and they co-operate with each other in an attempt to capture Red Jones whose life of crime goes into hyperdrive.  Vaughan is under increasing pressure from the city government to put Jones behind bars and turns to a varied group of informants including cross-dressing prostitutes.  Complicating matters, there are two mafia connected fellows from New Jersey in town who are also looking for Red to collect on a bad debt. The story comes to a shattering conclusion as all parties converge on a house in suburban Maryland being used by Red and his partner as a hide-out. 

      Pelecanos infuses this novel with gritty realism, sometimes illuminating some unimaginable habits of the druggies and prostitutes who comprise most of the secondary characters.  All of his characters are memorable.  He also vividly brings the story to life by including many details of the automobiles of the era (1972) as well as the popular music of the time.  You can listen to all of the music he mentions in a George Pelecanos playlist on Spotify.    What It Was is a very entertaining read and anyone who enjoys police procedurals and realistic crime fiction would enjoy this book.

2007 Edgar Nominee: The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard

The Pale Blue Eye

By Louis Bayard

 

     The Pale Blue Eye was a nominee for the 2007 Edgar for best mystery novel as selected by The Mystery Writers of America.  Louis Bayard has constructed a magnificent tribute to the master himself, Edgar Allan Poe, the great American author who is regarded as the inventor of the detective story. 

    This novel is set in 1831 at the United States Military Academy at West Point.  A cadet is found suspended from a tree by a noose.  It appears to be a suicide, but some of the circumstances don’t add up.  Shortly after the body is brought to the hospital for autopsy it is desecrated.  Someone brutally removes the heart from the corpse.  The purpose of this act is as baffling to the authorities as the death itself and puts the suicide hypothesis in severe doubt.  The commandant calls in retired New York City detective Augustus Landor to investigate.  Confidentiality is stressed as Landor accepts the challenge of solving the crime.  An odd, older cadet comes to Landor’s attention and he enlists this cadet as a spy of sorts, a mole to acquire inside information from within the Academy.  The older cadet is none other than Edgar Allen Poe.  Poe is an eccentric, sleeping little, disobeying rules at every opportunity and channeling poetry from his dead mother.  He is convinced that these poems hold clues to the identity of the killer.  The sense of urgency to solve the crime is heightened when yet another cadet dies and his heart is stolen as well.  The investigation focuses on the family Dr. Marquis, the Academy physician.  The doctor’s son Artemus is an upper classman and a close friend of the first victim.  Mrs. Marquis is a peculiar woman prone to disabling headaches and inappropriate bizarre behavior.  The centerpiece of this dysfunctional family is Miss Lea Marquis, a not quite beautiful spinster.  At the age of 23 she no longer is viewed as a potential spouse for the younger cadets, but she does catch the eye of Cadet Poe.  Poe has a habit of including poetry with the reports he prepares on his clandestine research for Landor.  One of these works speaks of “the pale blue eye” which happens to match the eye color of Miss Lea.   The motive for these crimes remains as much a mystery as the identity of the killer, but the removal of the hearts makes Landor assume that there may be a Satanic cult at work.  Indeed, some of Poe’s information supports that hypothesis.  The book moves along through this interplay between Landor and Poe, the case against the Marquis building with each page.  Suspicion shifts from one Marquis family member to another and eventually falls even on Cadet Poe.  The ending is totally unanticipated and surprising, although in retrospect, completely believable.  There are clues to the mystery’s solution, although there are an equal number of distracters from the actual perpetrator as well.  The construction of this story is very clever indeed and I, for one, never saw the true ending coming.

     The Pale Blue Eye is a monument to Edgar Allen Poe.  Not only is he a key character in the plot, but the story itself pays homage to the greatest Poe traditions.  It is told in the first person by Detective Landor.  This is the same perspective which Poe uses in most of his stories.  The story is very dark with a lot of the action occurring at night, much like Poe’s.  Louis Bayard uses the same sorts of imagery as Poe to set tone.   The drum beats of the morning cadet assembly casts a sense of foreboding and is reminiscent of the heartbeat in “The Tell Tale Heart”.  There is a scene towards the end of the book where the author creates a fatal cascade of ice which evokes the final fiery scene from “The Fall of the House of Usher”.  Poe uses dangerous and frightening water in stories such as “Silence – A Fable” or in the novel The Narrative of Arthur Gordon Pym and Bayard uses the turbulent Hudson River in the climactic gripping conclusion to this novel.   Indeed the subject matter here, ruthless and barbaric murders without clear motive, is reminiscent of “The Murders in the Rue Morgue”.  Imbibing of excess alcohol is a problem for Mr. Landor, as it was for this fictional and the real-life Edgar Allan Poe.    

     This is a historical novel of the first order.   The writing is comparable to the best prose of Poe himself.  The descriptions and details are meticulous and create vivid visual images for the reader.  The first person perspective makes the reader become almost part of the story.  Landor addresses the reader directly in several passages.  You are led from one area of suspicion to another and yet the resolution of the plot at the end is as shocking and surprising as it is tragic.   

     The author has carefully researched the history of West Point.  The characters, including Colonel Thayer and Commandant Hitchcock, are historically correct.  Edgar Allan Poe was, indeed, a cadet at West Point in 1831.  He enlisted there shortly after his foster mother passed away and was dismissed after only one year.  The murders are pure fiction.

Book Review: Red Cat by Peter Spiegelman

Red Cat

By Peter Spiegelman

     The Huffington Post (www.thehuffingtonpost.com) recently posted an article listing mystery novels which transcend the genre and are actually quite literary.  This novel was included.  The skeleton of the plot of Red Cat is actually fairly pedestrian.  A wealthy banker hires his private investigator brother to find out who the woman is that he met on the internet.  Their casual affair took a wrong turn when the woman, who the banker knows only by her internet name, starts phoning his work and home in an effort to set up further trysts.  The brother, John March, follows a long and winding route through the art world of New York, finally identifying the mysterious Wren as a failed actress and writer.  This is where the story takes a particularly nasty and different angle.  “Wren” has created video art by secretly filming her liaisons.  During the final scenes of her videos, which she sells discreetly for large sums of money, she turns the tables on her paramours and berates them for their infidelity and stupidity.

     The plot takes another wicked turn when a “Jane Doe” is found in the water, the only identifying feature on the body being a red cat tattoo which is all too familiar to her film subjects, John March’s brother included. The cast of characters who may have been involved in “Wren’s” demise is large, including the video subjects, former boyfriends and co-workers.  The author leads us down several circuitous paths before revealing the culprit, one unsuspected by this reader, in the next to last chapter.

     This is a very well written mystery, but whether it rises to the level of literature is up to each reader to decide.  The author’s prose is very descriptive, the characters are all very well developed (even the elusive “Wren”) and the pacing is perfect.  The author leaves you hanging at the end of chapters and then changes gears with the opening paragraphs of the next chapter, making the reader want to race through the book.  New York in this book is reminiscent of the New York in the best of Ed McBain’s  57^th  Precinct novels.  I enjoyed Red Cat very much and would recommend it highly. 

The Millennium Trilogy, Part 2 - The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest by Stieg Larsson

The Millennium Trilogy

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

The Girl Who Played With Fire

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest

By Stieg Larsson

           

(Blogger Note: This review was published in the October, 2010 edition of "LAMLight," the phyician newsletter of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine and completes my review of the The Millennium Trilogy begun in the previous blog post.)

In my last blog post I began a review of Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy.  As you may recall, these books have sold over 27 million copies in forty countries over the past five years.  The author, Stieg Larsson, was a Swedish political activist and journalist who died at age 50 from coronary disease shortly after turning the books into his publisher.  Again, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was reviewed in my last blog post and I will conclude in this post with a review of the final two books of the trilogy, The Girl who Played with Fire and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest. 

             The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces the two main characters who dominate all three books.  They are Lisbeth Salander, a mysterious and socially awkward young woman in her twenties and Mikael Blomqvist, a discredited journalist.  In Dragon Tattoo the two team up to investigate a decades old missing person case which eventually discloses a serial killer and sexual predator.  Lisbeth uses her skills as a computer hacker to help with the investigation.  As Dragon Tattoo concludes, Lisbeth also provides the information which vindicates Blomqvist.  Her new information (obtained by illegal computer investigation) overturns Mikael’s previous libel conviction and puts him back in good standing with the journalism community.  Using her abilities as a computer genius,  Lisbeth also steals all of the industrialist’s money (billions of dollars).  Lisbeth proceeds to leave the country in a jealous rage when she sees Mikael back with his part-time lover and editor of the magazine he works for.       

              Played with Fire opens with Michael hard at work as a publisher of “Millennium” magazine.  He is working with two free-lance reporters on a story to expose sex trafficking in Sweden.  The research that these two free lancers have produced implicates some police as well as high placed Swedish politicians and security officers.  One mysterious character keeps turning up in the investigation, identified only by the letter “Z”.  Meanwhile, Lisbeth has returned to Sweden, mainly because of boredom, but also to reconnect with her lesbian lover Miriam Wu.  As the article on sex trafficking is near completion, the two free lance writers are found shot in their apartment by none other than Mikael Blomqvist.  On the same evening that the two writers are murdered, Lisbeth’s previous legal custodian is murdered as well.  Circumstantial evidence links Lisbeth to the crimes and a nationwide search is begun.  The only person in Sweden who is convinced of Lisbeth’s innocence is Mikael Blomqvist.  The book then follows a chase to find Lisbeth – by the police who are convinced she is a mad serial killer, by Mikael Blomqvist who loyally wants to prove that she is not guilty of these  crimes and, finally, by members of the Swedish security community who have much more sinister motives.  The reader eventually discovers that the mysterious “Z” character is actually a Russian spy named Zalachenko who defected to the Swedes during the Cold War.  He was “handled” and protected by a small cadre of special security agents within the Swedish secret police.  Zalachenko also turns out to be Lisbeth Salander’s father.  He has a record of physical violence, including beating Lisbeth’s mother into a coma.  He also is the mastermind behind the ring of criminals responsible for the trafficking of young Eastern European girls for the purpose of prostitution.  The plot of this second book is nothing if not tortuous.   Following the trails of Lisbeth Salander as she eludes the police, Zalachenko’s various compatriots as they try to cover up his crimes and the actual police who are clueless as to the complexity of the situation, is difficult.  The many Swedish names are similar and therefore difficult to remember.  The fact that two main characters are named Nieminen (a biker dude who tries to destroy evidence and find Salander under the direction of Zalachenko) and Niedermann (Zalachenko’s son and Salander’s half-brother who operates as a bodyguard and hit-man) makes the whole thing difficult to decipher.  The conclusion of Played with Fire is really just a “page break” and resolves few of the issues raised in the plot:  The relationship between Salander and Zalachenko is well-defined, but their fates are literally hanging.  Both of these characters are critically injured in a final confrontation on an isolated farm.

            This is the way that Kicked the Hornet’s Nest begins:  Salander is in the operating room for a gun shot wound to her head.  Zalachenko has a severe ax wound to his face and other less critical injuries.  Niedermann is on the loose, having killed a policeman during his escape from the final confrontation in Played with Fire.  During most of Hornet’s Nest  Salander is in the hospital recovering from her injury.  Zalachenko is assassinated in his hospital bed (by whom is a critical plot line).  It has become clear by now that Lisbeth was not responsible for the murders in the Played with Fire, but she is being charged with the attempted murder of her father.  Blomqvist is even more determined to prove Lisbeth’s innocence and find out who has been protecting Zalachenko all of these years and why.  Blomqvist also discovers the identities of the security agents who controlled Zalachenko over the decades and unravels all of their misdeeds.  These injustices included falsifying psychiatric evaluations of the teenaged Salander, thus committing her to years in a mental institution to keep her from exposing her infamous father (Zalachenko).  Blomqvist (with the aid of a recovering Salander and her computer skills) finally figures out the whole mess, writes a huge expose and Salander is finally vindicated.  During all this, Blomqvist also falls in love with one of the female police investigators, but does manage to reconcile with Salander by the end of the Trilogy.

            Upon completing The Millennium Trilogy I am reminded of a quote attributed to  Sir Winston Churchill.  When asked about a colleague Churchill is reported to have said:  "He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."  These novels have many “virtues”.  They have fast-pace action sequences with explicitly detailed violence and sex (often together).  The three volume plot is very sinister and complex; by the mid-point of Played with Fire the plot is complex to the point of being almost impossible to follow.  There is an almost obligatory court scene at the conclusion of Hornet’s Nest which, while wrapping up some plot-line “loose ends”, seems anti-climactic.   The “vices” which I relish in a good novel include these:  First and foremost, I prefer likable characters.  The author, while developing his characters well and giving us plenty of back-story to really get to know them, never makes any of his characters very sympathetic.  When a story concerns a tragic victim, especially one of such epic proportions as Lisbeth Salander, I want to like the character.  It’s hard to really like Lisbeth Salander.  The reader can’t help but feel sorry for her, but like her?  I think not.  Mikael Blomqvist, who represents the hero of these stories, is ethically sound as an investigative journalist but has the sexual mores of an alley cat.  Blomqvist’s own sister, an attorney who represents Salander, even describes her brother as someone who “screws his way through life without regard to the consequences”.  This represents a contradiction which was hard for me to resolve.  The cabal of government security people, psychiatrists and lawyers who conspire to imprison Lisbeth and protect her despicable father are not flawed characters with mis-guided good intentions.  They are egotistical, delusional and (for the most part) sex driven maniacs.  What’s to like or relate to in these characters?  Not much.   I also enjoy and appreciate thorough description of place and setting, which the author did a great job of in the first book but abandons in the last two. 

            In summary, The Millennium Trilogy, including The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, is an international publishing phenomenon.  These books are well written, fast paced and intriguing.  The subject matter contains details which are not for the faint of heart. The characters are multi-dimensional and (at least Lisbeth Salander) unusual but not particularly likable.  The story is complex, but, in the end, complete.  Apparently there is a nearly finished fourth book that has been found in Mr. Larsson’s laptop.  Who knows where this will lead?

The Millennium Trilogy, Part 1 - The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Millennium Trilogy

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo

By Stieg Larsson

(Blogger Note: This review was originally published in September, 2010 in "The LAMLight", the physician newsletter of the Lynchburg Academy of Medicine.  It is posted here in anticipation of the new American movie based on this book to be released December, 2011.)

            Stieg Larsson’s Millennium Trilogy has become an international publishing phenomenon over the past five years.  The author’s tragic story adds a dimension to these novels which has played a part in generating enormous public interest.  Stieg Larsson was a political activist and the editor of a Swedish Trotskyist journal.  He exposed racist and extremist groups in his role as editor and journalist.  He was also an avid science fiction fan.  He was an admirer of such authors as Val McDermid, Sara Paretsky and Carol O’Connell and first entertained the idea of writing his own crime novels in the late 1990s.  He proceeded to write outlines for ten books.  He had the first two written and the third nearly complete before seeking a publisher.  After initial rejections he received a publishing contract in Sweden for three books.  In 2004, shortly after finishing the third novel in what has become known as The Millennium Trilogy, and before the first book was published, Larsson died of a heart attack at age 50.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo was published posthumously in 2005 and by 2008 he was the second most read international author (behind only Khalid Hosseini).  By 2010, after publication of The Girl who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, his novels have sold over 27 million copies in forty countries.  Stieg Larsson is also the first author to sell one million e-books on Amazon.com.  In the September 5, 2010 edition of the “Lynchburg News and Advance” Larsson owned the top spot on the hard-back fiction list with Hornet’s Nest and the top two spots on the paperback fiction list with the first two installments.  His novels have won too many awards to list and continue to fascinate an international audience.  So, what’s all the fuss about?

            The trilogy really is one moderately long story (contained in Dragon Tattoo) and a second really long story divided between Played with Fire and Hornet’s Nest.  I decided to review them that way as well and so in this blog post I’ll discuss the first book and in the next post I’ll conclude with the last two.

            The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo introduces the two main characters who dominate all three books.  The first is Lisbeth Salander, a mysterious and socially awkward young woman in her twenties.  She intermittently plays bass in an all girl alternative rock band and works for a security company doing free-lance work.  Her main skill in this arena is her ability to hack into any computer or server with record speed.  She has very little affect, reacts inappropriately to social cues and, generally, is a misfit.  Although the diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome is never used in any of the books, it is apparent that she probably has a variant of that disorder.  Interestingly, the author created the character after a conversation with some of his colleagues regarding what characters in children’s literature would be like as grown-ups.  Lisbeth, apparently, is based on a grown-up Pippi Longstocking as imagined by Stieg Larsson. 

It is in her capacity as a computer hacker that Salander meets Mikael Blomqvist.  Blomqvist is a journalist and co-editor of a monthly political journal (named “Millennium”) who is investigating a Swedish industrialist.  An article regarding this industrialist’s misappropriation of funds and involvement in international illegal arms trafficking is eventually published by “Millennium”.  Blomqvist is sued for libel and loses his court case, owing the industrialist reparations and sentenced to three months in jail.  While awaiting incarceration, Blomqvist is hired by Henrik Vanger, the patriarch of one of Sweden’s wealthiest families.  Henrik wants the journalist to investigate the disappearance of his favorite niece Harriett.  Harriett Vanger disappeared during a family meeting forty years earlier and was presumed murdered, although her body was never found.  Blomqvist takes residence on the isolated Vanger estate and enlists Lisbeth Salander’s aid in researching the family.  Quickly the two discover closets full of Vanger family secrets, including Nazi collaborators, religious zealots and general family dysfunction.  What follows is a very complicated investigation with unexpected twists and turns.  Various family members come under suspicion regarding Harriett’s disappearance.  Sinister attempts are made to thwart Blomqvist and Salander’s investigation.  The conclusion of this book reveals a serial killer who abducted and sexually molested immigrant girls over the course of many decades.  The complicity of members of the Vanger family and the reasons (and the culprit) for Harriett’s disappearance are revealed.  Some of the gory details of the killer’s actions were a little graphic for my taste.

During the investigation Mikael and Lisbeth become lovers and we learn a lot about both characters.  These details play key roles in the plot lines of the second two novels.  We learn that Lisbeth was confined to a mental institution between the ages of twelve and fifteen and still must report to a case worker because she is considered mentally incompetent by the state.  Lisbeth is also revealed as bisexual and completely unpredictable.  Mikael has a complicated love life himself, carrying on a long-term affair with his married co-publisher while having other lovers (including Lisbeth) at the same time. 

This novel is more than just the introduction of the two main characters.  The plot is fast-moving missing person tale, is surprising and holds the reader’s interest.  The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is the only novel of the three which has a plot which “stands alone” and can be read without reading the other two.  The supporting characters are well developed also and are all interesting.  The descriptions of Swedish cityscapes and the more rural settings of the Vander estate are rich and reminiscent of the work of another Scandinavian author, Norwegian Per Petterson (Out Stealing Horses). 

There are some troublesome aspects to this book, in my opinion.  I have talked to several people who have read The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and steadfastly refuse to even consider reading the follow-ups.  First is the amount of graphic violent and sexual detail which I mentioned earlier.  I think that the most difficult feature, however, is the general disregard for the female characters in the book.   Ironically, Larsson’s original title for this manuscript was Men Who Hate Women.  Just as you wouldn’t judge English culture only on the writings of Ian Fleming, or American culture on the writings of say, Tom Clancy, then I don’t think you can judge Swedish culture based only on the writings of Stieg Larsson.  However, in this novel anyway, women seem to be held in low regard, viewed mainly as sexual objects and somewhat interchangeable and disposable.  The most extreme example of this is the serial killer who is identified at the conclusion, but some of the other characters (including Mikael Blomqvist) are guilty of the same tendencies. 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is an intriguing read with a plot that holds interest and unique characters.  The setting in Sweden is a plus and the writing is excellent.  Twenty seven million readers tend to agree.  If you are only going to read one of the trilogy, this is the one, but be prepared for a wild ride.

There is an excellent Swedish movie with the same title based on this book.  The movie follows the plot of the book fairly accurately, although they simplify Michael Blomqvist’s love life and confine his list of paramours to Lisbeth Salander.  This makes Blomqvist a bit more of a sympathetic character than in the book.  The movie also alludes to Lisbeth’s early mental illness issues, but the reasons for this are not well laid out and I think would be difficult to understand without having read the book.  Cinematically, the movie is stunning.  The movie brings the images from the novel of modern Stockholm as well as the rural countryside vividly to life.  The Vanger estate, in the movie, is particularly beautiful, filmed during the winter and spring seasons.  This story has also been optioned by one of the Hollywood studios.  It will be interesting to see if the American movie is nearly as good as the Swedish one. 

(Next post I’ll conclude with a review of The Girl Who Played with Fire and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest.)