Review of Land of Shadows by Rachel Howzell Hall (2014, Titan Books)

The body of a 17 year old black girl is found in an under-construction development. Homicide detective Elouise Norton and her new partner are assigned to the case. For Lou there are strong echoes with the disappearance on her sister, Tori, thirty years previously; not least the age and race of the victim and that the development is owned by Napoleon Crase, who owned the stored Tori was last seen hanging around. As they investigate, Lou tries to stay impartial but there are too many similarities between the two cases. She has never given up hope of discovering what happened to her sister, but that baggage might jeopardise the current investigation into an active killer.

Land of Shadows is the first book in the Detective Elouise Norton series set in Los Angeles. Lou grew up in a poor black neighbourhood and has worked her way out into a new life, though she is deeply scarred by the disappearance of her elder sister when she was a teenager. Her new investigation has echoes of Tori’s case involving the death of a young black girl and the chief suspect from thirty years ago. Along with her new white partner, Lou starts to follow leads, though she’s convinced she knows who the perpetrator is. To add to her stress, her husband is away in Japan on business and is conducting an affair. The tale then is a police procedural that is thoroughly personal to the detective. At one level this adds spice and tension, and on another feels like one massive coincidental plot device for that purpose. Consequently, while it’s an engaging read with an interesting lead character, there were some odd quirks that rang hollow – for example, it was a mystery to me as to why she’s allowed to investigate it at all, why there was a suggestion of suicide in Monie’s death, and why the original investigation into Tori’s death was so lackadaisical. While it builds to a tense denouement, the reveal felt a bit too contrived. Other than that, there’s a decent sense of place, it’s nicely paced becoming somewhat of a page-turner.  

Review of A Game of Ghosts by John Connolly (2017, Hodder & Stoughton)

Charlie Parker is spending a lot of time talking to his lawyer. Rachel his ex-partner wants to restrict access to his daughter. Ross, a federal agent, has persuaded him to sign a contract to undertake work for the government. The first case is to track down Jaycob Eklund who has disappeared. Eklund was a private investigator obsessed with the paranormal, and in particular, The Brethren, a group of ghosts whose ancestors maintain their sect. The trail leads Parker, and his two friends Angel and Louis, to ‘Mother’, the custodian of a criminal empire, and her disturbed son, Philip, who also want Eklund found. As Parker follows the trail, his own ghost, The Collector, is also seeking out The Brethren. What evolves is a complex game of ghosts. 

Connolly spins a multi-layered story. The plot is fairly complex, and is heavily contextualised by previous instalments of the series that might make it a tricky read if read as a standalone. But that is also its strength, in that it builds on and ties off some of threads of the longer arc of the series. As usual, the prose and storytelling is engaging, the plot is compelling and entertaining with a strong sense of mystery and tension throughout, and Parker is put through the usual wringer with respect to both his personal and professional life. A chilling, page-turning read.

Review of Your House Will Pay by Steph Cha (2019, Faber and Faber)

1991, two weeks after the Rodney King beating ignites race riots in Los Angeles, 16 year old Ava Matthews is shot dead in a Korean convenience store after tussling with the pregnant owner who thought she was trying to steal a quart of milk. Jung-Ja Han is subsequently cleared of murder and freed, but by then war has been declared on Korean communities by African-Americans, who loot and burn down their stores. 27 years later, the city is dealing with another unarmed, young black man shot dead by police, and Ava’s cousin, Ray, leaves prison after a ten year sentence for attempted armed robbery. Shawn, Ava’s brother, and his family are waiting for him hoping he can go straight this time. Grace Park is disturbed by the continued racial tensions in the city, but lives a quiet life, residing with her parents and working as a pharmacist in their store. Her world though is about to be turned upside down. When leaving the store together one evening, her mother is shot, and while she is in surgery Grace learns about her past. As the police investigate the shooting, Shawn finds himself grappling with a crime that still haunts his family, and Grace with the attempt on her mother’s life and a past crime she knew nothing about.

Your House Will Pay follows two families still living with the after-effects of a crime committed in the shadow of the Rodney King riots in Los Angeles. The two main characters are Grace Park, who wasn’t yet born at the time teenager Ava Matthews was shot dead by Jung-Ja Han for seemingly stealing a quart of milk, and Shawn Matthews, Ava’s young brother, who was in the store at the time. Shawn was already hanging round the fringes of a gang and his sister’s death tipped him into that life and prison until he found his feet and went straight. Grace grew up not knowing about her mother’s crime and how she walked free from court. Now her mother has been shot and Shawn and Grace find themselves grappling with the consequences. Cha sympathetically charts the pain, hurt and confusion in both families, while nicely contextualising the story in relation to the race riots and police brutality in 1991 and tensions between the African American and Korean communities, and the continued systemic institutional racism and Black Lives Matter in the present day. The character development is excellent, as is the portrayal of both families and their internal tensions and struggles. The plot is well-paced and balanced, with a well-judged thread of tension and intrigue running throughout. The only thing that seemed a little off was the ending, which felt curtailed and somewhat open-ended. Nonetheless, it is a powerful, thoughtful and thought-provoking read about racial tension, policing and justice in contemporary America.

Review of Silent City by Alex Segura (2016, Polis Books)

Dumped by his fiancée and his newspaper career on the skids, each day Pete Fernandez drinks himself into a stupor. When a writer for the paper asks him to look into the disappearance of his daughter, a reporter, Pete reluctantly agrees. It pretty quickly becomes clear that something is awry, though the police don’t seem to want to know. The journalist had been investigating a series of underworld murders committed by a mysterious hitman known as The Silent Death and it seems she might have been on the cusp of revealing his identity. He might be a mess, but Pete used to be a bloodhound reporter, and he’s soon ruffling feathers as he tries to track down the missing journalist. And as he digs deeper, he’s drawn into the world of his father, a homicide detective who’s recently died, and the body count of The Silent Death rises.

Silent City is a journalist turned PI tale set in Miami, following the attempt of a drunken, washed up reporter trying to track down a colleague who’d been working on a big story for the crime desk. It’s one of those tales where just about every character, regardless of their role, is already a part of the lead character’s life, the trajectory and mystery of the story is telegraphed from a very long way out, and the tale is driven forward by plot devices. And the characters were a little too typeset and one-dimensional. The result is a derivative crime thriller, told through workman-like prose, which has a decent pace, intrigue and tension, but is wholly unbelievable yet predictable. It passed the time, but sparked little else. 

Review of Bluebird, Bluebird by Attica Locke (2017, Mulholland)

Darren Mathews’ career as a Texas Ranger looks like it could be over, as well as his marriage. While both are in hiatus, an old friend points him to a pair of murders in the tiny settlement of Lark, which is little more than a pit stop on Highway 59. The first murder was a black lawyer from Chicago, the second a couple of days later, a local white woman. The local sheriff doesn’t want a Texas Ranger looking over his shoulder, especially a black one, and the locals are not happy he’s there either, especially those who attend a local bar where members of the Aryan Brotherhood hang out. Undeterred and determined to discover the truth before he loses his badge, Mathews starts to poke around, annoying just about everyone he encounters, including the wife of the dead lawyer. There are secrets in Lark, however, that nobody on either side of the racial divide wants revealed.

Bluebird, Bluebird is a police procedural set in East Texas centered on the investigation of a pair of murders by Texas Ranger, Darren Mathews. Race, family and community are its central hooks, explored through the killing of a black lawyer and a white woman in a small, rural settlement, and the turmoil in Mathews own life. Mathews is battling a number of issues at work and home – a career being derailed, a marriage on the rocks, a guardian pushing for a career change, a dysfunctional mother, an obstructionist local sheriff, and drink. The murders in Lark are a chance to redeem his career, and also to potentially contribute to the ongoing investigation to Aryan Brotherhood operating in the state. But little goes well after his arrival in Lark. Racial tension is high, and a black ranger is unwelcome. Locke nicely balances Mathew’s personal life with the investigation of an intriguing mystery, using both to provide an insightful social commentary on institutionalised racism in the Deep South. The story is well paced, the prose evocative, and the there’s a couple of nice twists. A strong start to the series.

Review of Infinite Detail by Tim Maughan (2019, FSG)

In reaction to the ever-growing dependency on digital technologies and the tyranny of surveillance capitalism, the predictive state and autonomous systems, a small enclave in Bristol has cut itself off from mainstream networked life, setting up an alternative counter-culture, the Croft. It’s not popular with everyone, creating inconveniences for those living in or nearby who do not aspire to its ideals, but it does demonstrate that an alternative digital life is possible. But then a radical anarchist group takes down the global internet and every connected device. Global capitalism is halted in its tracks and every production, logistical and consumption system descends into chaos. Instead of creating a better society, the world seems to implode, people scrambling to survive.  The Croft’s is targeted, it’s inhabitants battling to protect their turf and scattering. Years later, Anika – one of its former leaders – is making her way back attracted by stories of a girl who can see ghosts. At the same time, the architect of the Croft’s alternative network is making his way to Brooklyn to track down his lover. 

Infinite Detail tracks life before and after a catastrophic cyberattack that takes down the global internet and permanently disables every digital technology and system, following two threads, one set in Bristol, the other New York. In the time before and during the crash, the excesses of the global capitalism and technocratic governance in Bristol and New York is contrasted to the idealism of the Croft, a community that disconnects from the global internet, building its own communitarian network. In the time after, the folly of imploding the global system with no plan or bridge to maintain social systems is exposed, with the focus mostly on Bristol and the lives of a handful of the Croft’s inhabitants. Maughan nicely juxtaposes life before and after the crash, raising thoughtful questions and observations about a world becoming increasingly dependent on digital technologies to drive and control the global economy and state practices (and all the tech and systems discussed currently exist and are deployed rather than being speculative, though some are more embedded in the story than at present) and what happens if they are suddenly and permanently switched off. At the same time, the story relating to the Croft’s current and former inhabitants, and their own trials and memories, remains centre stage. The result is an engaging tale about our digital and surveillance present and future.

 

Review of One For The Money by Janet Evanovich (1994, Penguin)

Jersey girl Stephanie Plum has been let go from her job as a department store lingerie buyer. She can’t find another job, her car has been repossessed, and she can’t afford the rent. In desperation, she turns to her cousin Vinny and blackmails her way into becoming a bounty hunter. If she can bring in Detective Joe Morelli, out on bail for murder, she’ll be able to stave off homelessness. However, Morelli is a seasoned detective who doesn’t want to be caught and he’s also Stephanie’s weak spot – the man who took her virginity, broadcast the details to the neighbourhood, then disappeared. She’s also clueless about the bounty hunter business and she’s about to tangle with a lot more than Morelli – a psychotic boxer with a shot at a title who gets his kicks hurting women. She’s soon well out of her depth, but pride, bloody mindedness and the chance of revenge mean she’s determined to get her man. 

One for the Money was the first book in the Stephanie Plum series, now at book 27. I first read it in 1996. It was a breath of fresh air at time – a tale that was breezy and humorous, laced with a dark streak, crossing a rom-com sensibility with violent crime. The juxtaposition of the fish-out-of-water former lingerie buyer working as a bounty hunter, the sparky relationship between Plum and Morelli as she chases him as he seeks to clear his name chasing witnesses and someone else chases them both, work well to produce an entertaining caper. Added to the mix is Stephanie’s exasperated family. Reading it again it’s still a good read, but it’s not quite as a I remember it, partly clouded by an expectation to spend more time with characters that are developed further in subsequent books (I got to about book 12 before giving up on the series, which at that point seemed to be rehashing the same story and had lost its spark). Nonetheless, it retains its freshness and sassiness. A fun read.

Review of Garden of Beasts by Jeffery Deaver (2004, Hodder)

1936, Paul Schumann is a German-American hitman in New York. He’s set up and captured and given a stark choice: work for a secret government plot and a handsome payoff or face the death penalty. The plot is to travel to Germany and kill Reinhard Ernst, who's in charge of rearmament, in the week leading up to the Olympics. Even before his boat has docked things start to go wrong. They quickly unravel when he reaches Berlin. It seems that he is expected and he quickly gets into scrapes by acting the plucky hero. He’s determined to fulfil his mission however now that he’s seen the Nazi regime up close.

Garden of Beasts is a kind of boy’s own adventure for adults as Paul Schumann – professional hitman, amateur boxer, and former soldier – tries to assassinate a senior Nazi in the week prior to the 1936 Olympics when Berlin is teeming with additional security. Not only does he have avoid the various Nazi security factions, but also a determined Kripo detective who has little time for the new regime. The story barrels along at quick pace, with plenty of spills, crosses and tension points, and with a bit of romance thrown in. However, it all feels staged and a bit clunky. The story just didn’t seem credible at any point, and scenes seem to exist to showcase aspects of Nazi rule and bits of Nazi trivia, or drop in real characters from the period, rather than simply being part of the story. And the ending felt flat and didn’t ring true. While Schumann had the potential to be an interesting character he felt a bit too much of a caricature, as did most of the other characters. The result was I struggled through the story, which was a pity as the premise and setting around the Berlin Olympics held much promise.

Review of The Concrete Blonde by Michael Connelly (1994, St Martin’s Paperbacks)

It’s four years after Harry Bosch shot dead Norman Church, a serial killer named The Dollmaker. Now he’s on trial for his unlawful death, Church’s wife seeking compensation from the LAPD. On the opening day of proceedings a new body is discovered under the floor in a building burned out in the Rodney King riots. It appears to be another victim of The Dollmaker, but the time of death is seemingly two years ago. It’s not just Honey Chandler, the widow’s savvy lawyer, who is trying to sink Bosch. As the trial unfolds, Bosch investigates the new murder, aware that there are probably more victims out there and the second killer will strike again, and unsure who to trust given whoever the new murderer is must be in or close to the original investigative team.

The Concrete Blonde is the third book in the long running Harry Bosch series. I first read over twenty years ago and it's as good as I remember it to be. Connelly weaves together a well plotted police procedural with a feisty courtroom drama. Bosch is on trial for shooting dead an unarmed man, Norman Church, believed to be the serial killer, The Dollmaker. On the opening day of the trial another body is discovered that appears to be a victim of The Dollmaker, but was murdered after Church’s death. The new body is clearly designed to muddy waters, sink Bosch, and sow distrust in the police, who know that the new killer must have had insider knowledge and might be one of their colleagues. The pressure mounting on Bosch is also placing his current relationship under severe strain. Connelly draws on his experience as a veteran police and courts reporter for the LA Times to produce a highly compelling, tense, and expertly plotted tale. There isn’t a single element out of place and the twists and turns keep coming. Interestingly, given present protests against policing culture and methods, there is a strong critical analysis of the police running through the book, written not long after the Rodney King riots; Connelly describing the force as a paramilitary organization infected with political bacteria. Bosch is part of that culture, while he also wages war on the worst of crimes.

Review of Black Cross by Greg Iles (1995, Harper)

January 1944. The Allies are preparing for to cross the Channel but there are rumours that the Nazis have a deadly surprise for them – Sarin and Soman gases, both much more deadly than anything the Allies have in their armoury. It is being developed and tested in Totenhausen, a Nazi camp that conducts medical experiments to test and develop the toxic gases. Churchill and the head of SOE, Duff Smith, hatch a plan to halt the use of the gases by bluffing the Germans into thinking that the Allies have the capability to exact revenge at scale. It involves smuggling their own experimental, unstable supply of Sarin into Germany and releasing it at Totenhausen. It will, however, kill both the concentration camp inmates as well as their captors. Churchill reasons that the inmates will die anyway and their sacrifice will save tens of thousands of lives. Eisenhower is set against the mission, but Churchill is convinced it is necessary. One of the men picked for the secret job, Jonas Stern, a Zionist guerilla fighter from Palestine, is prepared to sacrifice his own people for the greater good; the other Mark McConnell, an American pacifist and poisonous gas expert, is much more reluctant to participate in mass murder. They are flown into Northern Germany, where from the start their mission runs into trouble, leaving the two men to improvise, their moral dilemmas multiplying as they seek a way to destroy the camp, save as many inmates as possible, and steal secrets, knowing that the chances of success and escape are diminishing with each hour they are there.

Black Cross is a thriller set at the start of 1944 involving a secret Allied mission into Germany to destroy a camp that is producing and testing deadly poisonous gases. The action adventure of infiltrating Nazi Germany to perform a mission is given a twist through a series of moral dilemmas and Sophie’s choices and the selection of the two men selected to undertake the task. Mark McConnell is a pacifist and conscientious objector who is asked to perform mass murder for the greater good. Jonas Stern is a German Zionist who has no qualms using violence for political ends, but is formerly local to the area and may know people in the camp they are to destroy. Their inside agent is a nurse dedicated to saving lives, not taking them. The three of them are persuaded that since all the inmates are to die in medical experiments anyway, hastening their demise for liberation of the continent is the right thing to do. But executing the plan in practice, especially when you’re in situ and things are not going as hoped, is fraught. Iles spends the first part of the book patiently setting the scene, lining up the characters, building their relationships, and creating empathy for the camp inmates. Once McConnell and Stern are in Germany the pace shifts gears and he quickly ratchets up the tension. It all seems a little far-fetched but the story hook, dilemmas, characters, and twist and turns keep the pages turning with no let up. The result is a thought provoking action thriller, though the moral aspect seemed to get a little lost towards the end, with none of the characters reflecting in any depth on whether they’d pursued the right course of action and its consequences.

Review of Black Betty by Walter Mosley (1994, Pan)

Black Betty is the fifth book in the Easy Rawlins series and it’s a doozey. It’s now 1961. Easy has fallen on hard times; his property business has been hustled out from under him and he’s living in rented accommodation with his mute son and young daughter. To add to his woes his murderous friend, Mouse, has just been released from prison and wants revenge on the man who put him there, and he’s been asked by a white PI to find Black Betty, famed for twisting men’s necks and wrapping them around her fingers. Easy was in awe of Betty back in Houston when he was a kid, now she’s disappeared from a Beverley Hills mansion shortly after the owner died. Easy agrees to find the aging siren, but it quickly leads him into deadly trouble. Between trying to unravel mystery and stay alive, he also works to stop Mouse from murdering innocent men, and turn the tables on the woman who hustled him. It’s inevitable that some folk are going to die, but he’s determined it’s not going to be him. As well as a compelling mystery, with a couple of nice sub-plots, Mosley does an excellent job at charting the social relations and geography of being black in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. Kennedy might have been elected, but racism and the race divide is as deep as ever. Easy is smart and canny, he’s managed to build a property business, but he’s still struggling to get by and is often the victim of institutionalised abuse. Mosley nicely portrays these tensions and injustices through a hardboiled style with a tender underbelly, populating the book with a nice mix of conflicted characters. The subplots were perhaps wrapped up a little too quickly, but Black Betty is a wonderful, noir read.

Review of Finnegan’s Week by Joseph Wambaugh (1993, Bantam)

Forty five, three divorces under his belt, and still searching for his big acting break, Fin Finnegan is half-hearted in life and his work as San Diego cop. His life though is about to get a bit more interesting – there’s a television show shooting in town and he knows he’ll be perfect as the hitman, and a case comes his way that sees him partnering with a Navy detective, Bobbie, and an environmental crimes cop, Nell, neither of whom think he’s a total loser. The crime involves the theft of some shoes by two truck drivers who were picking up hazardous waste from the Navy yard. They take the truck south to Mexico to offload their haul, dumping the waste and selling the truck. After two kids prize open one of the drums their perfect plan starts to unravel. As does the plan of the waste company boss who’d falsified the manifest, omitting the inclusion of Guthion, a lethal chemical. Fin will be pleased to solve the case; landing a part in the television show and one of the women would be the icing on the cake. Wambaugh spins the tale as a darkly comic caper, with plenty of humour, banter dialogue, and dashes of violence, though with few twists or turns. The truck drivers’ mismatched double act, and the Fin, Bobbie, Nell triangle provide strong character dynamics, and there’s a good sense of place and juxtaposition of San Diego and Tijuana. An engaging, often amusing procedural.

Review of Spook Country by William Gibson (2007, Putnam)

Former band singer turned journalist, Hollis Henry, is on an assignment in Los Angeles for soon-to-be-launched Node magazine. Her task is to write about the new phenomena of locative virtual art and track down Bobby Chombo, a genius with locative technologies, who has a side-line troubleshooting navigation issues for government bodies, and is a fan of Hollis’ band, Curfew. Tito is a member of a shadowy, Cuban-Chinese mafia-style family with Russian connections, who is passing information along a chain in New York. He’s pursued by Brown, a hardnosed operative for an unnamed government agency, and Milgram, a junkie held on a short-lease by Brown who can interpret Tito’s messages. Pawns in a larger game that has Chombo and a shipping container at its core, Hollis, Tito and Milgram find themselves centre stage while barely aware of what is really going-on as they operate in spook country.

The second book in the Blue Ant trilogy, Spook Country can be read as a standalone. Whereas the Sprawl and Bridge trilogies explored possible near futures, this tale exposes realities already unfolding focusing on locative virtual art and emerging neo-geographies and connecting them into a shadow world of corrupt government post 9/11. At the same time, it still retains a sense of other-worldliness, with the three main characters being drawn into a world that seems to operate alongside or behind-the-scenes; of government secrets and unnamed organizations working and battling covertly yet in plain sight. Gibson spins an engaging, sometimes elliptical tale, told in his characteristic style, charting the three strands that follow the principal characters of Hollis, Tito and Milgram. These strands gradually converge, leading to a nice denouement. An interesting, understated thriller.

Review of Money to Burn by Katy Munger (1999, Avon)

Casey Jones is a sassy, take-no-crap female PI who operates without a license for Bobby D., a hugely overweight lothario who charms his middle-aged clients. The third book in the series set in North Carolina, Casey’s new case is to protect a scientist, Thomas Nash, who’s been receiving threats while pursuing his quest to create a safer cigarette. Not long after she takes on the bodyguard role, Nash and his lab are burned to the ground. Investigating his death is not job Casey is going to leave to the cops. She starts to hunt for clues among Nash’s business venture and Durham’s wealthy tobacco elite and the family of the Nash’s financee. There’s plenty of intrigue to keep the gossip magazines in business, but it proves more difficult to spot the murderer.

I read books 1-5 pretty much when published, enjoying the combination of light-hearted humour, good mystery plots and engaging lead character. Casey lives in the moment and is happy to roll with the punches and between the sheets, determined to get her man and the criminal. In this outing, she’s out of her comfort zone mixing with high society, who seem to live by different rules. She’s not going to let a little inferiority complex hinder her though as she moves between down-at-heel bars, tobacco farms, and fancy parties and debutante balls. Munger spins out an engaging plot with plenty of potential suspects, intrigue, chases, dangerous encounters, and romantic interest, building to a nice denouement. And there’s a good sense of place and nicely spun social observation. Which leads me to wonder why I never completed the series; I might see if I can track down copies of books 6 and 7.

Review of The Eye of the Cricket by James Sallis (1997, Oldcastle Books)

Lew Griffin is a some-time English literature academic, some-time detective, and always melancholy with a self-destructive streak, scraping by in New Orleans. The fourth book in the series, Lew is now in his 50s and finds himself looking for three missing children: a teenager who has started to hang around with a wayward cousin; the troubled son of a cop friend; and his own son, David, who disappeared years before. The neighbours also want him to bring the reign of terror of teenage thieves to an end. Lew takes his usual meandering path through bars, restaurants, back streets, shelters, and philosophical reflections, meeting a new love on the way. But as usual he finds it difficult to keep everything on track as he wanders amongst the broken and lost, knowing that he too struggles to stay on a path. Sallis spins out the tale at a sedate, reflective pace, pausing to dwell on the nature and meaning of life and the social realities of being poor in the Deep South. Indeed, along with the exquisite prose, this is the real strength of the storytelling, blending philosophical asides and reflections on people and place with the long arc of Lew’s life and his quest to resolve his detection. I was captivated for the entire story.

Review of Dixie City Jam by James Lee Burke (1994, Phoenix)

Dixie City Jam is the seventh novel in the Dave Robicheaux series following the cases of a maverick cop who revels in the underbelly of New Orleans and Louisiana. In this outing, he becomes entangled in a race between a local Jewish businessman and a group of neo-Nazis to salvage a submarine that was sunk off the America coast in the Second World War, as well as getting caught in the middle of a battle between his ex-cop partner, Irish and Italian mobsters, and between local cops. It’s fair to say there’s a lot of moving parts, with never a dull moment, as Burke keeps the story hurtling along its dark and violent path. Pretty much all the characters are battle-hardened and used to getting their way, which leads to a fairly testosterone-saturated tale, with a female cop taking on the same kind of persona, while the other women are either black widows or victims. That’s all to be expected given it’s a hallmark of the series, along with its engaging, vivid prose. However, what shifted me out of the story was Robicheaux, who is supposedly obsessed with catching the man who is stalking and sexually assaulted his wife, taking out his frustration by raping her while she sleeps. Robicheaux breaks rules and skirts the law to administer justice, and he’s complex and conflicted, but he’s supposedly driven by a need to protect his family from darkness, and sexually assaulting a woman who has suffered sexual assault felt out of character with a significant line crossed that was never once revisited. After that, my faith in Robicheaux waived and as the tale became more convoluted and less believable as it unfolded my enjoyment of the story tailed away. As it reached the end, the denouement felt somewhat flat, being well telegraphed and linear. Overall, a dark, gritty, tense and fast moving tale that keeps the reader hooked, yet felt too overloaded with contrived plot threads.

Review of Mucho Mojo by Joe Lansdale (1994, Indigo)

When Charlie Pine dies, his nephew Leonard Pine, a black manual labourer in East Texas, inherits his house and estate. Leonard moves into the property, asking his white best friend, Hap Collins, to join him. The neighbourhood has gone to seed and the next door property is a crack house. Leonard and Hap get off to a rocky start, tangling with drug dealers, but worse is to come when they discover the skeleton of a boy and child porn under the floorboards. Over the years a number of children have gone missing and the police have Charlie pegged as their abductor and killer. Leonard and Hap are not convinced. They think that Charlie had fulfilled his lifelong ambition to play detective, but had died before he could pin the crimes on the real perpetrator. They start to investigate, swapping information with a black detective who sees an opportunity to put a feather in his cap by apprehending a serial killer. But catching the real killer is not straightforward. And it’s a good job that Leonard and Hap can take care of themselves as this case might otherwise be the death of them.

I first read Mucho Mojo in 1996. I picked it up in a bookshop in Carryduff in Northern Ireland. I read it in a couple of sittings, captivated by the tale of Hap and Leonard turning detectives in an East Texas town, and by Lansdale’s storytelling style. The tale is told from the perspective of Hap Collins, a middle aged, white field worker, who is best friends with Leonard Pine, a tough, queer black man. The style is as a reminiscence, a kind of porch-told recounting of a mystery adventure. The story is infused with dark humour, with a nicely spun plot that has a mix of detection, romance and lost love, violent confrontations, and social commentary on race, religion, family and poverty in the Deep South. Reading it again more than twenty years later it has lost none of it vitality or social relevance, the storytelling and plot are still captivating, and Hap and Leonard are alive on the page; in my view one of the best double acts in contemporary fiction. A wonderful, entertaining read.

Review of Growing Up Dead in Texas by Stephen Graham Jones (2012, MP Publishing)

Rural West Texas in the 1980s; generations of farmers making a living from cotton. One harvest the small community smells smoke, over twenty hoppers burning slowly, with no means to put them out. Rushing to one of the sources, Rob King finds the local high school basketball star and beats him half-to-death. The fire had been burning several hours and it was unlikely he was the culprit. Over the next few weeks a series of tragedies unfold, a boy shot on a school bus, a girl aquaplaning to her death. The police struggle to identify who is responsible. The author, a young teenager at the time, revisits the community a quarter of a century later and using his own memories and interviews with others tries to piece together what actually happened, its place in familial and local history, and who was responsible.

Growing Up Dead in Texas casts the author in the role of a detective about an event in his own life. Cast as part memoir, part mystery, the author revisits the place where he grew up to investigate events over a few months in the 1980s that have haunted him, and the rest of the community, ever since. The crux is who started the fires that destroyed the cotton crop, and who is responsible for a subsequent shooting, and the death of a girl. Drawing on memories and conversations with key actors, the author tries to piece together what the police failed to do, though they did secure a conviction, and to place events in historical context. Jones provides a hesitant account with hints of an unreliable witness, sometimes talking directly to the reader. If it is entirely fiction, then the troubled memoir is very nicely constructed; if it is actually partially a real memoir, then it has an air of authenticity. The author reveals secrets, while also protecting others; drags up history without sensationalising it, and paints characters as they are. It’s a fresh, literary take on telling a mystery tale. At times it is tricky to follow and occasionally raises questions that are not answered, but it maintains intrigue and attention.
 

Review of Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway by Sara Gran (2013, Faber and Faber)

Claire DeWitt is a PI working in San Francisco. When Paul Casablancas, a guitarist and Claire’s ex-boyfriend, is found dead in his home she decides to investigate. The police think that it’s a robbery gone wrong. Claire suspects that there is more to it. Grounded in the philosophy and teachings of French detective, Jacques Silette, Claire’s detective technique can be a little unusual, but it gets results. The problem is the answers can be somewhat unpalatable and like many Silettians she has a host of quirks and personal problems. Paul’s death has hit her hard and she’s also having flashbacks to another personal case from her teens when a friend disappeared in New York. To cope she’s taking increasing amounts of cocaine and whatever prescription pills she can lift other peoples’ medicine cabinets. Sometimes barely functioning she relies on her assistant, Claude, to chase clues and look after other cases, but she doesn’t give up on finding the truth.

Claire DeWitt and the Bohemian Highway is the second book in the DeWitt series following the cases of a messed up but brilliant detective. In this outing, Claire is investigating the murder of an ex-boyfriend – the one that was meant to be but she let get away. Half debilitated by drugs, grief, and the memories of a past case, she slowly seeks clues over the following months, while also dealing with a couple of other cases and personal issues. As with all detectives trained in the Silettian tradition, her pursuit is truth rather than justice, though the truth can be painful and burdensome. In DeWitt, Gran has created a wonderful, flawed, complex, anti-hero character with a self-destructive streak. While the first book in the series was a good read, I thought the second instalment was excellent, with a nice mix of philosophy, dead-pan and dark humour, and two interesting mysteries (the death of the ex-boyfriend and the disappearance of a friend many years earlier). I was hooked from the get-go and my interest never waned as Claire stumbled through her investigation. In my opinion, this multifaceted, engaging and quirky tale would be perfect for a movie treatment, or better still a TV series.

Review of The Winter of Her Discontent by Kathryn Miller Haines (2008, William Morrow)

1943, New York. Rosie Winter is an aspiring actress looking for her big break. When a minor star who used to live in the same boarding house in which Rosie now resides is found murdered and her mob friend, Al, claims responsibility she decides to investigate. Convinced that Al is innocent and is taking the rap for other reasons, she auditions for dance chorus with her room-mate, Jayne, in the play the actress had been cast in a leading role. She quickly discovers that the play is backed by a mobster, there is something shady going on in the theatre, and the play is a flop in-waiting. To make matters worse her fellow actresses are on edge and seem obsessed with a Broadway dance hall for service men, and her boyfriend is missing in action. Along with Jayne, Rosie pokes her nose in where it isn’t wanted, trying to discover who killed the actress, whether it’s linked to the strange events at the theatre, and why Al is taking the fall for a crime he didn’t commit.

The Winter of Her Discontent is the second book in the Rosie Winter mystery series set in World War Two. Rosie is an actress with Mob connections who used to work for a detective agency and turns her hand to solving murders. In this outing, set in 1943, her Mob-friend Al has confessed to a murder he didn’t commit and she’s determined to find the real killer. The victim is an actress who was set to star in a Broadway play. Rosie and her roommate, Jayne, audition for the dance chorus so they can investigate. It quickly becomes clear that the play is being set up to fail and someone has a vendetta against the lead actresses. Taking the form of a cosy mystery, Miller Haines spins out Rosie’s investigation, which soon splits into a couple of strands and also deals with tensions in Rosie’s boarding house and her attempt to find out more about her boyfriend’s missing in action status. There’s plenty going on, though it’s a little slow at times, all pretty staged (perhaps no surprise given its theatre theme) and reasonably well telegraphed. I never really warmed to Rosie, the story often teetered on the edge of credibility, and Al’s confession made very little sense given the lack of evidence and he could have just gone to ground instead. Nonetheless, it’s engaging and entertaining enough read.