Book Review: The Liar's Girl by Catherine Ryan Howard (2019 Best Novel Edgar Award Nominee)

The Liar's Girl

Author: Catherine Ryan Howard

Publisher: Blackstone Publishing

Date of Publication: February 27, 2018

Pages: 332

     The Liar's Girl is one of six novels nominated for the 2019 Best Novel Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.  It is the first of the six which I have read.  The author was born in Cork, Ireland in 1982 and graduated from Trinity College in Dublin.  This novel is set both in Cork and Dublin and the descriptions and settings ring with a clear authenticity.

     Howard is able to weave a very intricate and fast moving plot, telling the story in the present day as well as 10 years previous.  This is a serial killer story, but one that keeps you guessing until the very end.  The perpetrator was dubbed "The Canal Killer" because all of the young women were found drowned in the Grand Canal near elite St. John's College in Dublin.    Will Hurley was a St. John's student who is now serving life imprisonment in a psychiatric hospital after admitting to the murders.  His girlfriend at the time, a freshman from Cork named Allison Smith, has tried to build a new life in Amsterdam in the 10 years since the murders.

    The book opens with two new murders which closely resemble the original those of the original Canal Killer.  It is truly creepy and scary the way the new (?) Canal Killer uses social media to select and stalk his victims.The police try to enlist Will to help in the investigation, but he will only talk to Allison, who at first is reluctant to get involved.  Is this a copy cat at work, or is the wrong man in jail?  The author goes back and forth between the present day investigation and the time of the original killings.  The plot moves forward at a brisk pace and the author throws enough curve balls to keep the reader guessing.  The characters are very likable and the reader can't help but hope that Will is innocent.  Allison plays a pivotal role in the investigation of the contemporary crimes.  There is a very nice twist of plot at the end (although I did see it coming).

     I really enjoyed the author's descriptions of Dublin and Cork, two places I have never been but would love to visit.  They added a lot to what is a very enjoyable and entertaining mystery.  This is a worthy nominee for the 2019 Best Novel Edgar.   

Book Review: Idaho by Emily Ruskovich

Idaho

Author: Emily Ruskovich

Publisher: Gale Group

Date of Publication: November 7, 2017

Pages: 336

  I am honestly not completely sure how I feel about this book.  I read it because it was nominated for the Best First Novel by an American Author Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America (it eventually lost that honor to She Rides Shotgun by Jordan Harper).  Also, one of the main characters suffers from hereditary pre-senile dementia.  My mother died of complications of Alzheimer's disease, so memory loss and literary depictions of it interest me.  Then, reading little bits of this I realized that Emily Ruskovich is a very talented writer and her lyrical writing style drew me in.  So, it was with great anticipation that I began reading Idaho.

   For starters, the writing does not disappoint.  The author maintains a very high level of interesting and eloquent descriptions, especially of the harsh life in the Montana mountains.  Her characters are complex and intriguing, even mysterious at times.  The main two characters, Wade (who spirals downward with dementia) and his second wife Ann, are unforgettable.  The author deftly reveals tragedy after tragedy in each of their lives.  It is obvious early on that something horrible happened between Wade and his first wife Jenny.  The central theme is Ann trying to decipher exactly what happened and how.  The cause of death of one of Wade and Jenny's daughters and the disappearance of the other are the central mysteries of Idaho.

     The book succeeds magnificently in its depiction of dementia, not only in how the sufferer feels and copes but in how the disease devastates the lives of those who care about them.  The angst Wade feels as he realizes he is losing his grip on reality and the terror Ann experiences as Wade becomes violent and dangerous are gripping.

     My only gripe about Idaho, but it is a major one, is that there is a very open ending to the story.  Maybe the author is leaving room for a sequel or maybe she wants us to use our own imagination to finish the story.  I was a bit angry at the end that there were so many loose ends.  But maybe that's just me.  This book is very valuable in its depiction of a desperate dementia patient and the devastating impact on his family and community.  For those who have not lived with this first-hand, Idaho gives very empathetic insights into what is becoming a very common crisis.

The 2017 Best Novel Edgar Award - My Choice

The 2017 Best Novel Edgar Award - My Choice

Five novels published in 2016 have been nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award by the Mystery Writers of America.  The winner will be announced on April 27, 2017.  I have read and reviewed the five novels on this blog and now will pick my winner.  I will up date this blog on the 28th and we will see if I agree with the experts!

These are the five nominees, hyperlinked to my reviews:

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

The Ex by Alafair Burke

Where It Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman

What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin

Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

The reality is that I liked all of these books.  There was not a single dud in the bunch.  I would recommend them all.  But, somebody has to win and somebody has to lose this award, so here are my rankings:

#5:

     This book was really good.  I appreciated the way the author incorporated a lot of modern technology into the story.  The characters were well developed but not very likable.  The plot was a bit convoluted for me, but the ending made sense.  All in all, a worthy nominee, but not my winner.

#4: 

     What Remains of Me was clever with interesting characters but I thought suffered from a bit of a convoluted plot.  The resolution of the story was surprising.  Again, a worthy nominee, but not my winner

#3:

     This book pretty much had it all: interesting and sympathetic characters, a well paced and believable plot and a satisfying conclusion.  My only gripe here was that the ending was a bit predictable.  I also thought that the media types presented here were a bit stereotypical.  Nit-picky complaints, though, given the great quality of this book.

#2:

     This book had great characters but could have had maybe a little tighter plot.  I thought that it dragged in sections.  That said,  I probably would have picked this as my Edgar winner in most years.

My Winner:

     If you had asked me before I had read any of these books, I would undoubtedly ranked this book last.  I had no expectations for this and thought that I would hate it.  Boy, was I wrong.  The writing is superb.  The plot moves along and the characters are all incredibly well developed.  I enjoyed every page of this book and was genuinely sad when I finished it.  This is not your typical "mystery novel", but is my winner by a long shot.  We'll see what the Mystery Writers of America have to say later tonight!

Update:  The Mystery Writers of American announced that Noah Hawley's Before the Fall won the Best Novel Edgar for 2017.  I can't argue with that at all.  Again, I thought all five books were  excellent and would recommend them all!  T.C.

Book Review: 2017 Edgar Nominee: Where it Hurts by Reed Farrel Coleman

Where It Hurts

Author: Reed Farrel Coleman

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Date of Publication: January 26, 2016

Pages: 368

    Reed Farrel Coleman is a veteran writer with many accolades.  He has twenty three previous novels.  Where It Hurts is the beginning of a new series featuring ex-cop Gus Murphy.  This author knows how to tell a story.  The dialogue here is crisp and moves the story along.  The author is very familiar with the Long Island setting and this gives the book authenticity.  This novel is character driven and the main character is very sympathetic.  You can't help rooting for Gus Murphy.

    While most ex-cops in these types of novels are alcoholics, Gus is not.  He is mired in grief over the loss of his only son.  His marriage disintegrates, his daughter goes off the deep end and his career is over.  He is pathetically sleep walking through a mindless job as a van driver for an airport hotel.   Gus is approached by a career criminal who asks for his help in solving the murder of his son.  Gus agrees to help this fellow, mainly because he is sympathetic over the situation.  Gus is gradually sucked into a serpentine investigation, crossing swords with his former co-workers in the police department as well as annoying members of organized crime, drug dealers and assorted other ne'er-do-wells.  

     This was an entertaining and well written novel.  My only complaint is that the action kind of comes and goes.   There are very slow sections where the author explores the characters more than moving the plot along.  Frankly, I got lost a few times.  All in all, though, this was a very good read and I would suspect that future installments will be even better.

Book Review - 2017 Edgar Nominee - Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

Jane Steele

Author: Lyndsay Faye

Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group

Date of Publication: March 22, 2016

Pages: 432  

     I try to read the novels nominated each year for the Best Novel Edgar before the winner is announced by the Mystery Writers of America.  I pick my own winner and see how it stacks up against the Mystery Writers.  Each year there is one book which I dread reading;  usually that book is something way off of my usual reading path.  This year Jane Steele was that book.  Likewise, there is always one book each year which totally surprises me and makes me glad I read it.  Jane Steele was that book this year as well!

     This is not the classic "who-done-it" or police procedural.  This book reinvents Jane Eyre.  The reader follows the life of Jane Steele, the daughter of a British gentleman and a French lady.  Orphaned young, Jane leaves the family home for boarding school and, finally, to life in Victorian London.  The book comes full circle when, as a young adult, Jane is hired as a governess by the new owners of her childhood estate.  Each stop along the way Jane is involved in a mishap whereupon someone is killed.  Just as this book is not the usual mystery novel, Jane is certainly not the usual serial killer.

     The plot is almost incidental to the writing.  The author excuisitely describes mid-1800s life in  various locales in Britain.  The sections focused on London were particularly entertaining.  The various secondary characters are all vibrantly brought to life and add many dimensions to the story. The hero, though, is Jane herself, who ventures into self-discovery and survives devastating circumstances time and again.

     Here is an example of the author's ability to draw her characters.  Jane is in London, having abandoned the private school to which she had been sent after her mother's death.  She encounters a man selling newspapers:

     "Then I heard a strange voice calling out.

     'Most 'orrible and beastly murder done!  Most haudacious and black crime committed!'

     A man of middle age stood with a sheaf of yellow papers, crying out the latest atrocities.  He was bent over - I hesitated to call him hunchbacked, but he flirted with the appellation - a heavy, downward-leaning human whom I could imagine tracking rabbits like a bloodhound.  He owned a bloodhound's jaw too, a great slab on either side of his face framing his crooked teeth with fleshy drapery.  His hair was russet and his eyes a hard yellowish hazel like petrified wood.

     'Murder most'einous!' he cried.  'Murder most hunnatural!  Penny a page, miss.'" 

     So, this book succeeds on many levels.  I thoroughly enjoyed it and was genuinely sad when I had finished it.  I would not be surprised if Jane Steel was the Mystery Writers' pick for the Best Novel Edgar!

Book Review (2017 Edgar Nominee): What Remains of Me by Alison Gaylin

What Remains of Me

(2017 Edgar Award Nominee)

Author: Alison Gaylin

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers

Date of Publication:  February 23, 2016

Pages:  384

     What Remains of Me is a clever and very well written mystery which also explores the unseemly side of growing up in Hollywood.  Kelly Michelle Lund is the daughter of a stunt man and a make-up artist who is sucked up into the wild social life of movie star children.  When an Academy Award winning director is shot in his home Kelly is arrested, tried and convicted of his murder.  A motive for the murder was never established.  Thirty years later Kelly is out of prison, married and working as a writer.  Kelly's father-in-law, a famous but aging Hollywood star, is murdered and Kelly immediately becomes suspect number one.

     Through a series of flashbacks we learn more of Kelly's family life and more of the history of her two parents.  The plot becomes more entangled when connections between Kelly's parents, Kelly's older sister (who committed suicide as a teen) and the two murder victims are revealed.

     I found this book entertaining but at times hard to follow.  Some of the relationships are curious and many of the characters (including Kelly) are difficult to like.  Some of this seemed to be straight out of "National Enquirer" but all in all it was an interesting read which does keep you guessing until the very end.  A worthy Edgar nominee, but probably not the winner (in my humble opinion).

 

Book Review (2017 Edgar Nominee): Before the Fall by Noah Hawley

Before the Fall

Author: Noah Hawley

Publisher: Grand Central Publishing

Date of Publication: May 31,2016

Pages: 400

     OK, thriller and mystery fans, this is the real deal.  Nominated for the 2017 Edgar Award for best mystery novel, Noah Hawley has crafted a book which keeps the reader turning pages all of the way to the end.  The set-up is fantastic:  Eleven people board a private charter plane leaving Martha's Vineyard for New York.  Sixteen minutes later the plane crashes into the Atlantic without explanation.  There were two survivors: a middle aged alcoholic artist and a small child.  

     The author expertly alternates chapters giving the backstories of each of the people on the plane with chapters telling the story of the search for the missing plane and investigation into the crash.  The backstories of the passengers are excellent character sketches.  In addition to the artist, there is an investment banker about to be indicted for laundering monies from countries such as Iran and North Korea.  There is a right wing media mogul who has created many enemies with his attack style journalism as well as his wife and two young children.  There is a former Israeli operative who is a hired security guard for the media mogul.  The crew includes a career pilot with an unblemished record, a playboy co-pilot who is the nephew of an influential U.S. Senator and a hostess who may be involved with the co-pilot.

     There are motives for the murder of most of the passengers and crew.  Until the downed plane is found there are multiple conspiracy theories as to who may have caused the crash;  or was the crash a mechanical failure or pilot error?  The media fans the flames of conspiracy and tarnishes the  reputations of all involved.  The artist/painter who survived becomes suspect number one (at least in the media) when it is discovered that his most recent paintings all depict tragic disasters: train wrecks, natural disasters and, yes, plane crashes.

     The author deftly brings all of these multiple story threads to a satisfying and surprising conclusion.  Noah Hawley is also a noted screenwriter and producer of hit TV shows such as "Fargo".  He has won an Emmy, a Peabody and a Golden Globe award in his career.  He has a gift for creating tension and suspense which moves the book along rapidly.  He has taken an intricate story with multiple moving parts (eleven people on the plane!) and woven a very intriguing story.  

     This is a great one and I recommend it highly!

Book Review (2017 Edgar Nominee): The Ex by Alafair Burke

The Ex

Author: Alafair Burke

Publisher: HarperCollins 

Date of Publication: January 16, 2016

Pages: 304

     This is a topsy-turvy roller coaster ride of a book which keeps you guessing until the last pages.  Olivia Randall is an experienced criminal defense lawyer in New York City who is hired by her ex-husband.  Jack Harrison, the "Ex", is now a widower and single Dad.  His second wife Molly was tragically killed in a mass shooting three years prior.  Three seemingly random people are murdered in a park in Manhattan and Jack is first a "person of interest" and then is charged with the murders.   Jack has motive:  one of the murder victims is the father of his wife's shooter.  Jack was also in the area of the shooting and physical evidence links him to the shooting.  Jack's explanation for being nearby is a shaky story about a woman he met on the internet inviting him to meet there.   The police see this as a slam-dunk conviction.  Olivia sees this as a set-up.

     Olivia culls miles of surveillance tapes, boxes of phone records and internet data to ferret out the details of a complex hoax.  The police, on the other hand, use the same data to build a more formidable case against Jack.

     This is a very contemporary murder mystery - well written with characters who are very believable, if not all that likable.  The conclusion was a surprise to me and wrapped up all of the numerous loose ends in a complex plot.  All in all, this was an entertaining read which kept me guessing until the very end.  The plot was a bit convoluted but made sense in the end.  This is a very worthy nominee for the Edgar Award.

  

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.

Book Review: The Lost Ones by Ace Atkins

The Lost Ones

Author: Ace Atkins

Publisher: Penguin Group (USA) Inc.

Date of Publication: December 4, 2012

Pages: 368 (Trade Paperback Edition)

     Ace Atkins is a former Pulitzer Prize nominated reporter for The Tampa Tribune who has now written eleven novels.  The Lost Ones is the second to feature Mississippi sheriff Quinn Colson, following The Ranger, published in 2011.  Both of the Quinn Colson novels have been nominated for The Mystery Writers of America's prestigious Edgar Award for best mystery novel of the year in successive years.

     Quinn Colson is a complex character.  He is a former Army Ranger and veteran of deployments in Iraq.  He returned to his hometown and became the sheriff.  In The Ranger, Colson discovers a group of extremists living in Tibbehah County, Mississippi who are running a lucrative methamphetamine production facility.  In The Lost Ones he finds an even more insidious group.  They are emissaries from a Mexican drug cartel posing as the operators of a travelling county fair.  They have infiltrated rural areas in the South and Southwest in order to procure guns and munitions for their compatriots back home.  They are also behind an appalling operation to smuggle in babies for sale.

    The Quinn Colson character is much more developed in this novel.  Through flashbacks we learn of his run-ins with the law prior to his enlistment in the Army and also the complex relationship with his younger sister Caddy.  In this book Caddy has returned home as the single Mom of a mixed race child.  She has also come home sober but with a new found religious zeal which is a bit over the top.  

     I found this book very entertaining and well written.  I think the characters are even better developed here than in the first book.  Mr. Atkins continues to describe rural Mississippi in interesting and evocative detail.  The secondary characters in this story, including an attractive female ATF agent, a corrupt former sheriff of Tibbehah and several other returned veterans of the Global War on Terror are all very compelling.  The Lost Ones is certainly a worthy nominee for the Edgar Award and I wouldn't be surprised if it is indeed the winner!  I am looking forward to The Broken Places, the third Quinn Colson novel, to be published at the end of May, 2013.

Book Review: Gone by Mo Hayder

Gone

Author: Mo Hayder

Publisher: Grove/Atlantic, Inc.

Pages: 416 (NOOK Edition: 396)) 

Publication Date: February 1, 2011 

      Mo Hayder is a British mystery and thriller author who has written eight novels to much acclaim.  Gone is the fifth in a series featuring Detective Jack Caffery and was selected by the Mystery Writers of America as the 2012 Edgar Award Winner for best mystery novel.  I usually tend to agree with the Mystery Writers, but not in this case.

     Gone follows Detective Caffery's investigation of several car-jackings.  These are far from routine auto thefts, however, because in each case a young girl is in the car when it is stolen.  The need to find these children as quickly as possible adds another dimension of tension to an already nerve-wracking story.  There are several sub-plots working here as well which make the plot a bit more involved than it need be.  

     The story is told from Jack Caffery's perspective as he chases down false leads and tries to find connections between the seemingly unrelated crimes.  There are many other characters involved, including other police, parents of the abducted children, witnesses and persons of interest.  Caffery is portrayed as a tortured, lonely soul who labors under the weight of unsolved crimes and feelings of inadequacy.  There isn't much back story to substantiate these feelings except for one unsolved missing celebrity case which he suspects may involve one of his co-workers.  (I haven't read the other four books in this series, so maybe the reasons for Caffery's angst is in those.)  With each new crime in the series the tension is ratcheted up, but a whole new set of players are introduced.  I think the plot is weighted down by too many minor characters.

     The author does a tremendous job of using setting as a method of creating atmosphere and tension.  There is a creepy abandoned wharehouse, a railroad tunnel and lots of lonely English countrysides searched which add a lot to the menacing tone of the entire novel.  Here is one paragraph as an example of this.  A female detective is inspecting an area near where one of the stolen cars had been abandoned:

     "She went to the old water tank where she had been standing and switched off the torch.  She waited for a few quiet moments, surrounded by the monster shapes of the winter trees, beyond them the ploughed fields stretching away, dull, immense and dead.   From somewhere in the distance to her right came the giant sound of a train racing along the Great Western Union Railway, flying through the darkness."

     The strength of this book is the descriptions of setting and place.  The weaknesses, in my opinion, come from too many characters which aren't developed to any great degree, a plot which becomes weighted down by all of these characters and has too many unresolved secondary stories and, finally, a criminal whose motivation doesn't really fit the magnitude of his crimes.  Gone is very worth reading for mystery fans and is much better than more hyped mystery fiction (e.g, Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn).  I just don't agree with the Mystery Writers of America that this was the best mystery novel published in 2011.

2011 Edgar Nominee: Book Review: The Queen of Patpong by Timothy Hallinan

The Queen of Patpong

By Timothy Hallinan

     Timothy Halllinan has written nine thrillers, including a series featuring travel writer Poke Rafferty.  This novel is the fourth in the Poke Rafferty series.  The novel is set in Bangkok.  Poke is married to a former dancer from the notorious red-light district of Bangkok, Patpong Road.  They have an adopted daughter, a street child who is now a teenager.  This is all back story which evolved over the first three books. 

     This novel starts with Rose now running an employment agency which helps former exotic dancers and prostitutes transition to a more traditional and socially acceptable lifestyle.  Poke continues to write and their daughter Miaow is starring as Ariel in her school’s presentation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.  Life for this family has settled into somewhat of a routine when an ugly reminder of Rose’s past resurfaces.  Howard Horner is an independent defense contractor working in Afghanistan who likes to take breaks in Thailand.  He had become quite possessive of Rose early in her career and had dubbed her The Queen of Patpong.  He resurfaces in Bangkok and seems bound and determined to make life miserable for the Rafferty family, following and harassing them daily.  Rose, in particular seems terrified of this man.

       The middle third of the book tells the story of Kwan, a beautiful tall girl from a small impoverished village in northern Thailand.  The girl is the oldest of five children and her father attempts to sell her in to prostitution in Bangkok in order to make ends meet.  Kwan is then lured away from this situation by a former town girl who promises her that if Kwan follows her back to Bangkok, she will just have  to work as a bar girl and “not do anything she doesn’t want to do.”   Kwan travels to Bangkok and is then immediately swept up into the exotic dancing and prostitution of Patpong Road despite promises to the contrary.  There she remains until she is selected by Howard Horner who renames her “Rose”.  Their relationship turns violent and a brutal confrontation occurs on a boat near the resort city of Phuket.  Rose escapes, hides for several years and then reinvents herself in Bangkok with her employment agency and new family.

        The concluding third of the book is an investigation by Poke into Howard Horner and the realization that Rose is just one of many girls Howard has taken and then killed.  As the lone survivor, Rose is a threat to his freedom.  There is an ultra-violent conclusion to this story which involves car chases, knives and multiple automatic weapons.  Leave it said that justice is served.

      This book was interesting on several levels.  It seems to be a thoroughly researched book and the descriptions of the Patpong Road environment are lurid.  As a sociologic statement on the treatment of young girls and women in Southeast Asia it is damning.  As a serial killer story it is fairly mundane and the characters of Howard Horner and his accomplice are pretty standard.  The Rafferty family is interesting and these are the strongest characters in the story.  I enjoyed reading this book, but I doubt that I will go back and read any of the others. 

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 Award Nominee: Book Review: Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin

Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter

By Tom Franklin

     Tom Franklin lives in Oxford, Mississippi and teaches in the MFA program at The University of Mississippi.  This novel is set in small town Mississippi in contemporary times.  “Crazy Larry” Ott lives a reclusive life on a small farm.  His increasingly demented mother lives in a nearby nursing home.  Larry works at his father’s old service station and garage, an establishment that the locals avoid like the plague.  Larry is the town pariah because he is considered to be the murderer of a young girl in the 1970s.  The body of the missing girl was never found and no trial was ever held, but Larry was convicted by the court of public opinion because he was the last person to have seen her alive.  Interest in Larry escalates when twenty years later another local girl is missing.  The investigator, Silas Jones, is a childhood friend of Larry’s, a black man who grew up in a wooden shack on Larry’s father’s farm.  Silas is also known as “32”, the number he wore as a star baseball player in high school and at the University of Mississippi.  The relationship between Silas and Larry is hazy in the beginning.  In flashbacks we see them growing up in the 1970s, a time when racial tensions ran high in the deep South.  The relationship grows more distant in high school when Silas becomes renowned as an athlete and Larry becomes more reclusive.  The relationship is severed when Larry takes a girl from the next farm on a date to a drive-in movie and she is never seen again.   

     Twenty years later another girl is missing, Larry becomes the obvious person of interest and Silas, now a local police officer, has to reconnect with his former childhood friend because of the investigation.  Without ruining any surprises, suffice it to say that the relationship between Larry and Silas is revealed to be much more complex than the reader first imagines, the murders of the two girls (a generation apart) are linked, but not in the way you would first suspect and the complex story comes to a fairly solid, complete resolution. 

     The strengths of this book are many.  The characters are vivid and are drawn with an economy of words.  The setting in Mississippi (much like the early novels of John Grisham) plays an integral role in the plot line and again, is very keenly described by the author.  The inclusion of descriptions of local foods is a nice touch as well.  The whole story is told with the underlying presence of racial tension.  The author doesn’t bludgeon you with this; it just lurks in the background adding intensity to an already suspenseful tale.  I greatly enjoyed this book and Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter by Tom Franklin was a very worthy Edgar nominee and I thought was every bit as good as the eventual winner, The Lock Artist by Steve Hamilton.  I look forward to more novels from this author.

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.

2011 Edgar Nominee (Book Review): Faithful Place by Tana French

Faithful Place

By Tana French

    Forty pages into this book I assumed this would be my favorite of the 2011 Edgar nominees.  The book is set in Dublin and features the mother of all dysfunctional Irish families.  The main character is an undercover detective named Frank Mackey.  His father is an alcoholic (surprise!) and abusive.  His mother is the typical Irish mother who is a master at sending her children on guilt trips.  Frank has an older and younger brother and sister.  The story opens with nineteen year old Frank waiting for his girlfriend Rosie Daly.  Their plan is to escape their lower class life and neighborhood by running away to London.  The only problem is that Rosie never shows up.  Frank finds part of a note Rosie wrote implying that she was taking off for London on her own.  Young Frank leaves Faithful Place behind also, relocating in Dublin and becoming a well-respected undercover police officer.  He marries, has a daughter, becomes divorced and never attempts to contact his parents or is siblings.

     Twenty two years later Rosie’s suitcase is found in an abandoned home on Faithful Place.  A search of the basement finds the remains of a young woman which is eventually identified as those of Rosie Daly.  The ultimate “cold case” becomes Frank’s obsession, despite being warned by superiors to stay away from the investigation. 

     The plot segues from the present day as Frank reluctantly reacquaints himself with his estranged family back to the events leading up to Frank and Rosie’s ill-fated rendezvous twenty two years previous.  The list of suspects begins to narrow when Frank’s younger brother Kevin apparently jumps from an upper story window in the same abandoned house where Rosie’s body was found.  The police find a tidy explanation for both deaths:  Kevin was her killer and took his own life in remorse.  Frank, however, is not buying any of it. 

     As Frank digs into his past, he finds even more “skeletons”.  He narrows the field of suspects down to the unthinkable – other members of his own family. 

     This book is extremely well written.  It could, however, have used a bit of editing.  There is one whole chapter where Frank tries to explain death to his nine year old daughter which seemed unnecessary.   The perpetrator of the crimes is fairly obvious early on, but the way the plot resolves at the conclusion is very clever.  I thoroughly enjoyed Faithful Place.