My father was a huge fan of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason series, and one day when I was a young lad of about twelve years old, I stumbled acrossMy father was a huge fan of Erle Stanley Gardner's Perry Mason series, and one day when I was a young lad of about twelve years old, I stumbled across this novel in his collection. My father's edition, which I still have, was published by Pocket Books in 1959 and sold for thirty-five cents. I confess that in that moment and at that age, I cared very little about the publisher or the price, but I was very intrigued by the cover of his edition, which shows a sexy young blonde in a negligee. In the illustration, the right strap of the flimsy garment has slipped off her shoulder to the point where things are beginning to get very exciting.
In short, at that tender age, I thought this looked like it might be a very interesting book!
I'm sorry to report that it wasn't nearly as interesting as I had hoped, at least in some regards, but I recall it being the first Perry Mason novel that I ever read, and it started me on a life-long quest to collect and read all of the Mason novels, which turned out to be eighty-two in all. And of all of them, this one remains my favorite, if only for sentimental reasons.
As the book opens, a wealthy department store owner named John Addison picks up a very attractive young hitchhiker named Veronica Dale. The woman says that she is eighteen years old and has been hitchhiking across the country. She is practically down to her last dollar and so Addison, feeling sorry for the virginal young thing, gets her a hotel room. Later that night, Veronica is arrested for vagrancy outside of the hotel, and Addison quickly hires Perry Mason to get the poor girl off the hook.
I would like to think that even at the age of twelve, I was smart enough to realize that Addison was an idiot. And sure enough, before long a blackmailer has moved in, threatening to expose Addison's "relationship" with the nubile hitchhiker. Addison pleads with Perry to somehow get him out of the mess, which, (naturally) is only about to get worse when someone is murdered and Addison becomes the prime suspect.
What follows is a story with a lot of exciting twists and turns. The book was first published in 1948, which means that Perry can still skirt the law in defending Addison in ways that he wouldn't dare do later and that no attorney would ever countenance in this day and age. It's a fun read with a great courtroom payoff and, in addition to inducting me into the world of crime fiction,it taught me a very valuable lesson in life about the dangers of picking up hitchhikers.
Five stars, if only for sentimental reasons, and thanks a lot, Dad......more
This is another very entertaining novel from the great Ross Thomas, who blended just the right amount of cynicism, wry humor, and intelligence into viThis is another very entertaining novel from the great Ross Thomas, who blended just the right amount of cynicism, wry humor, and intelligence into virtually everything that he wrote. Published in 1979, before the term commonly ascribed to people suffering from dwarfism became politically incorrect, The Eighth Dwarf is a standalone novel that takes place in Germany in 1946. The war has just ended; the victorious powers are competing to divide the country, at least temporarily, and scrambling for every advantage they can get. It's an ideal setting for corruption, double-dealing, and for those who wish to get rich quickly, most often illegally.
Enter Minor Jackson, a former officer of the OSS, and a Romanian named Nicolae Ploscaru, who, at three and a half feet tall, is a person of short stature. The two of them meet by chance, and Ploscaru offers Jackson the opportunity to make a quick ten thousand dollars--not an inconsiderable sum in 1946.
In the wake of the war, a German Jew named Kurt Oppenheimer has become a highly skilled assassin, targeting former Nazi party officials and others who supported the party. Oppenheimer's family believes that he is mentally unstable and the family wants to get him into a sanitarium so that he can get the help he apparently needs. Oppenheimer's sister promises to pay Jackson and Ploscaru handsomely if they can find her brother and return him safely to the bosom of his family.
Inevitably, this will be easier said than done. Given the assassin's level of skill, several other parties, including the British, the Soviets, the Germans and the United States would all like to capture Oppenheimer and utilize his skills for their own purposes. Thus a devious cast of characters, including Jackson and the tiny but powerful Ploscaru, find themselves scrambling through post-war Germany, crossing and double-crossing each other, in an attempt to grab the prize for themselves.
The result is a very entertaining story that still holds up very well forty-five years after its original publication. Ross Thomas had a very rare gift as an author, and The Eighth Dwarf is a further testimony to his talents....more
Published in 1991, this is the second novel in what would become a long-running series by John Lescroart featuring San Francisco lawyer Dismas Hardy. Published in 1991, this is the second novel in what would become a long-running series by John Lescroart featuring San Francisco lawyer Dismas Hardy. Named for the Good Thief who died next to Christ, Hardy has had a varied career up to this point and is still settling into the life and the role he will ultimately enjoy in this series.
Hardy served in the Marines in the Vietnam War. He came home and ultimately became a cop and an assistant D.A. in San Francisco. But then his life went off the rails in the wake of a devastating personal tragedy and in his late thirties Hardy was basically lost and drifting from day-to-day. He took a job working as a bartender at the Shamrock bar for his long-time friend Moses McGuire, whose life Hardy had saved in the war. As a consequence of events in the first novel in the series, Dead Irish, Hardy now owns twenty-five percent of the bar and continues to work a daily shift there.
Hardy's life is upended one afternoon when Rusty Ingraham, an associate of Hardy's from the D.A.'s office, comes into the Shamrock to inform Hardy that a convict named Louis Baker is being released from prison. Hardy and Ingraham were responsible for sending Baker to the pen and on his way out the door, Baker threatened to kill both of them the moment he was free.
Ingraham believes that Baker was serious and urges Hardy to take precautions. The two men agree to check in with each other a couple of times a day but then almost immediately, Ingraham fails to do so. Hardy goes down to the barge where Ingraham lives on San Francisco Bay, to discover a woman who has been shot to death. A trail of blood, identified as Ingraham's, trails off the barge, leading into the water, and it appears that Ingraham too was shot and then either crawled or was dragged into the water.
Whe Louis Baker's fingerprints are discovered at the scene, the case appears to be open and shut. Hardy is now in panic mode believing that Baker is hot on his trail as well. But even Abe Glitsky, a police detective who is Hardy's closest friend, refuses to take the threat as seriously as Hardy does. Since Ingraham's body has not yet surfaced, the police won't even concede that he is a murder victim and that Baker could be gunning for Hardy as well.
Having no other alternative, Hardy will have to take the initiative himself. The result is a quest involving a lot of very interesting characters and a plot with many intriguing twists and turns. Dismas Hardy is a very bright and sympathetic character and from these first two novels would rapidly become on of my favorite series characters. All in all, The Vig is a very entertaining read....more
If there's any redeeming value in a Spenser novel where his girlfriend Susan Silverman makes repeated appearances, it lies in the fact that as soon asIf there's any redeeming value in a Spenser novel where his girlfriend Susan Silverman makes repeated appearances, it lies in the fact that as soon as she shows up you can immediately skim the next ten pages or so while she and Spenser moon over each other like a couple of sex-addled high school kids, breaking the tension that's been building in the story and doing virtually nothing to advance the plot.
Such is the case here for much of the novel. Published in 1987, this is the fourteenth novel in the series and we've already reached the point where some are much better than others. In my view, this is not one of the better ones.
Rumors abound that the small town of Wheaton, Massachusetts is a major distribution point for cocaine coming up from Columbia. A newspaper sends a reporter to investigate and the young man is almost immediately murdered. The local cops seem to have no interest in solving the crime and so the newspaper editor hires the Boston detective to track down the reporter's killer.
Spenser arrives in Wheaton and begins poking around, annoying almost everyone he meets, including the local police. He's warned repeatedly to stay away from this nest of corruption, but naturally he will ignore the warning and soon trouble is looming on all sides.
(view spoiler)[ In a very annoying plot development, Spenser is missing Susan so badly that he has her come up to stay with him in Wheaton, exposing her to all kinds of danger just because he is lonely. And she is dumb enough to come. No sensible person would put a woman he allegedly loves in that kind of peril and no lover with an ounce of sense would agree to be put in that position. But both of them are so busy coo-cooing over each other that they don't even acknowledge the potential danger. (hide spoiler)]
This is one of those Spensers that's especially hard take seriously. The character spends even more than the usual amount of time wisecracking, ultimately annoying the reader as much as anyone else. The plot develops very slowly; one never senses that Spenser, Silverman or Spenser's sidekick Hawk are ever in any real danger, and the whole story just seems flat, as if the author simply decided to phone this one in. By the time the climax arrives (and, admittedly, the solution does demand some assistance from Susan Silverman), I really just didn't care what happened.
I know there are a lot of better Spenser novels in my future as I make my way back through the series again, but this is one that I won't ever have to read for a third time....more
In an earlier entry in this series, Ceremony, Spenser, the Boston detective, rescued a young woman named April Kyle who was bound and determined to maIn an earlier entry in this series, Ceremony, Spenser, the Boston detective, rescued a young woman named April Kyle who was bound and determined to make her living as a prostitute. Making what appeared to be the best of a bad situation, Spenser introduced April to a woman named Patricia Utley who runs a very high-class house of prostitution in New York City. Now, Utley reaches out to Spenser because April has left her operation. It appears that she has made the worst mistake a woman in her profession can make by falling in love with a pimp who has convinced April that he loves her above all else.
Only April is unable to recognize what Utley, Spenser, and anyone else with an ounce of common sense can realize: the pimp will exploit her to the fullest and then when she is essentially used up, he will sell her on down the line to someone who will use her even more badly.
Utley hires Spenser to ride to the rescue. She doesn't necessarily want April back in her own stable, but she doesn't want the young woman's life to be ruined by this greedy pimp. The search for April will take Spenser into the darkest corners of the city, filled with amoral characters who are happy to commit all sorts of crimes to satify their own desires, sexual and otherwise.
When people begin dying and Spenser himself becomes a target, he will call on his buddy Hawk to assist in the search and things, inevitably, will get down and dirty. This is among the best of the early Spenser novels, in no small part because Spenser's relationship with Susan Silverman does not intrude into the story to the extent that it does in a lot of the other books in this series. A very good reread....more
Poor Neal Carey just wants to finish his graduate degree. After a somewhat less-than-succesful first mission for his employers at a Very Important BanPoor Neal Carey just wants to finish his graduate degree. After a somewhat less-than-succesful first mission for his employers at a Very Important Bank in Providence Rhode Island (see A Cool Breeze on the Underground), the amateur investigator is hiding out in a cottage on the Yorkshire moors, working on this thesis and reveling in the solitude. But the Real World sadly intrudes when his mentor and surrogate father, Joe Graham, comes knocking on the door with a new assignment for Neal that has nothing to do with Carey's passion for 18th century literature.
The bank that employs both Graham and Carey has invested a large sum of money in AgriTech, a company in Raleigh, North Carolina. Several weeks earlier, Dr. Robert Pendleton, one of the company's most important researchers, disappeared from a conference in San Francisco. Pendleton apparently became enamored of a beautiful Chinese woman that he met at the conference and has decided to throw over the traces, leave his job, and go to China with his new-found love. Both AgriTech and the bank want Pendleton to come to his senses and return to his very important research. Carey is assigned to find Pendleton and bring him back to his senses and to his job in North Carolina.
It won't be easy, and the chase almost immediately takes Carey first to Hong Kong and then to the People's Repbulic of China. It's the 1970s; China is in turmoil, and it quickly becomes apparent that a lot of other people have staked an interest in the good Dr. Pendleton. Carey will have to risk life and limb combatting a variety of sinister forces in an effort to find Pendleton and the woman that they both have fallen in love with.
I like the Neal Carey character, but this story did not work as well for me as virtually all of the author's other work. One problem lies in the fact that the story is frequently interrupted by long information dumps, describing the history and culture of China, particularly since the Second World War. This breaks the momentum of the story and drains out a lot of the tension that has been building.
In part, the book also reads like a tour guide, describing in great detail everything that Carey sees along the way in this adventure. This is Winslow's second book, and it reads like an early novel in which an author has done an enormous amount of research and is determined to somehow get it all into the book whether it's essential to the story or not. Beyond that, the plot is at times confusing and the story requires more than the usual suspension of disbelief. I yield to no one in my admiration for Don Winslow's novels, but to my mind, The Trail to Buddhah's Mirror is not among his better efforts....more
Sooner or later, every author who writes a lot of books inevitably produces one that isn't up to his usual standards and, to my mind at least, this stSooner or later, every author who writes a lot of books inevitably produces one that isn't up to his usual standards and, to my mind at least, this stand-alone novel from Ross Thomas is not among his best efforts. The book, published in 1976, is serviceable enough, but it lacks a lot of the wit and sparkle that one normally associates with a Ross Thomas story. Additionally, the characters, though well-drawn, are not as engaging as most of Thomas's protagonists, especially his series characters.
The main character, Harvey Longmire, is a political operative with a great track record, but he has left the game and is now living in semi-retirement on a small Virginia farm with his wife and a menagerie of animals. As the book opens, two of his old associates appear, asking Harvey to listen to a proposition.
Several years earlier, Harvey and the two associates had been involved in a campaign to elect the national president of the Public Employees Union. Twelve years down the road, the man who won that election has disappeared and is probably dead. Sinister forces are now working within the union in ways that will discredit the union and will almost certainly impact the upcoming election for president of the United States. Longmire reluctantly agrees to help try to determine what happened to the missing union official and who is behind the resulting skullduggery.
As always in a Ross Thomas novel, the plot will take a lot of twists and turns en route to something of an explosive climax, but I found that I just could not get invested in either Harvey Longmire or in this plot. Normally, Thomas is one of those authors who sucks me in immediately on the first page with an interesting setup and compelling characters. As a result, I usually race through one of his books as fast as I can. I felt no such compulsion here. Again, this is not a bad book, but those who have not yet discovered this truly talented author would be well advised to start with almost any of his other novels....more
Following the murder of his wife, Rakel, Norwegian detective Harry Hole is on a serious downward slide. He has left the police force, left Norway, andFollowing the murder of his wife, Rakel, Norwegian detective Harry Hole is on a serious downward slide. He has left the police force, left Norway, and has lost himself in Los Angeles, apparently intent on drinking himself to death. But then, due to a very improbable and highly implausible set of circumstances, he finds himself back in Norway investigating the murders of two young women by an apparent serial killer.
This time, though, Harry is working as a private citizen rather than as a member of the police force. A very wealthy businessman who has more than a few sordid secrets that he would like to protect is suspected of complicity in the two murders, since both of the young victims had attended a drug-fueled party at one of his homes before they were murdered. The suspicion is making it difficult for the man to do business and so he hires Harry to find the Real Killer, thus proving the man's innocence.
This proves somewhat embarassing for the police force and other agencies because Norway's most famous and successful detective is on the case working privately, and the relationship between Harry's investigation and the official investigation is delicate to say the least.
Harry assembles a team of his own to investigate the killings and it soon becomes apparent that the killer is an especially sick and twisted individual. There are some very gruesome and unsettling scenes in this book, which is definitely not for the faint of heart. If you prefer cozy mysteries with lots of cats and recipes, you will doubtless want to take a pass on this one.
I've really enjoyed this series through the years, but this one did not work as well for me as most of the earlier books. There are a lot of twists and turns and red herrings in this novel--perhaps a few too many--and I had trouble suspending disbelief to an extent sufficient enough to get seriously invested in the story. As always, I really enjoyed watching Harry Hole work the case, I only wish that it had been in service of one with a bit better plot....more
The thirtieth entry in this long-running series is pretty par for the course. Perry Mason has an unreliable client who will lie to him all along the wThe thirtieth entry in this long-running series is pretty par for the course. Perry Mason has an unreliable client who will lie to him all along the way, digging herself deeper and deeper into trouble, until only Perry Mason himself could manage to extricate her from the mess.
It's a foregone conclusion that the client will not be guilty and that Mason will ultimately prove her innocence by producing the Real Killer at the end. In eighty-two novels and a number of short stories, none of Mason's clients were ever ultimately convicted and sent to prison, and this will be no exception. The joy of these stories lies in watching Mason doggedly tease out the real solution to the crime at hand, which is almost always murder.
As the book opens, Mason receives, with no explanation, two checks for $2500.00 each, from a woman named Lola Allred. Mason has never heard of the woman and quickly determines that one of the checks is a forgery. Still, he feels an obligation to defend her interests and sets about doing so.
Allred is married to a wealthy mining promoter and appears to have run off with her husband's right-hand man. Inevitably someone will be murdered; inevitabley the evidence will show that Mason's client is almost certainly guilty, and it will take all of Mason's energy and intelligence to prove that she's not.
This plot is not quite as convoluted as a lot of the other Masons, and in this case, Garadner actually plants a huge clue that allows the reader to identify the Real Killer long before Perry ever gets around to it himself. This is very rare, and one wonders if Gardner did it deliberately.
All in all, a fairly typical Mason and an enjoyable way to waste an afternoon reading a book down by the lake....more
This is another very entertaining novel from Elmore Leonard, set in Detroit. As the book opens, a very wealthy, retired, eighty-five-year-old lawyer nThis is another very entertaining novel from Elmore Leonard, set in Detroit. As the book opens, a very wealthy, retired, eighty-five-year-old lawyer named Anthony Paradiso ("Mr. Paradise" to his household staff) is watching reruns of Michigan football games. He's hired a hooker and her friend, a catalogue model, to serve as the cheerleaders in his living room, with their own special chants.
The two women, Chloe and Kelly, are roommates. They are approximately the same age and look so much alike that it's hard to tell them apart. One has appeared in Playboy; the other can be found modeling lingere in the Victoria's Secret catalog. Needless to say, they are both very sexy.
It's a great party until two thugs appear in the living room to find Mr. Paradise in his favorite chair, with Chloe in his lap. Wasting no time, the thugs shoot both of them, grab a bottle of expensive vodka, and flee the scene. At the time of the shooting, Kelly is upstairs with Montez Taylor, a black man who serves as Paradiso's general factotum. In the moments after the shooting, Taylor's principal concern is that, for the time being, Kelly insist that she is Chloe, and that the dead woman in the living room is Kelly. And with that, we're off and running.
Like most of Elmore Leonard's novels, the attraction here lies in the characters and in the dialogue, both of which are excellent. Additional characters include a widowed police detective named Frank Desla and a few assorted drug dealers and other such low lifes. The plot is really secondary, but nobody reads Leonard for plot. There's a great deal of intelligent humor in the book and a few laugh-out-loud moments. It's great fun watching these characters play off of one another, each attempting to advance his or her own adgenda. All in all, a very good read.
This is the seventh novel to feature Mickey Haller, the "Lincoln Lawyer" who works out of the back seat of his Lincoln rather than having an office liThis is the seventh novel to feature Mickey Haller, the "Lincoln Lawyer" who works out of the back seat of his Lincoln rather than having an office like virtually every other attorney. Haller is a criminal defense attorney with a great record of securing acquittals for his clients.
Earlier, Haller had a case in which he secured the release from prison of a man who had been wrongfully convicted of a crime. In the wake of that case, scores of imprisoned men and women have been pestering Haller, claiming that they too are innocent of the crimes for which they were convicted and begging him to get them out of prison as well.
The deluge of these requests has become so great that Haller hires his half-brother, retired LAPD homicide detective Harry Bosch, to sort through the appeals to see if any of them might have merit. But the principal reason for hiring Harry is that the aging former detective has a rare form of cancer. Working for Haller gives him health insurance. Even more important, Haller uses his connections to get Bosch into a clinical trial that may slow if not eliminate altogether the progress of his cancer.
Digging through the convicts' requests, Bosch finds the case of Lucinda Sanz, a woman who pleaded no contest to the charge of murdering her husband, a sheriff's deputy. Sanz claims that she did not shoot her husband to death and only took the plea deal because her attorney warned her that if she went to trial, she would almost certainly be convicted and her sentence would likely be much worse.
Digging into the case, Bosch notes some troubling irregularities in the investigation--enough to convince him that Haller should meet with Sanz at the prison to judge her argument in person. Haller agrees; the two meet with Sanz, and Haller decides to take her case.
As soon as he does, it becomes clear that his action has upset some very dangerous and powerful people. Both he and Bosch will receive thinly veiled warnings, and the attempt to secure Sanz's release will be fought fiercely, both in and out of court.
This is an entertaining story and the legal aspects are very interesting, but I didn't find it to be as compelling as most of the earlier Haller books. There doesn't seem to be as much tension, and the courtroom scenes didn't seem as dramatic as those in some of the other novels.
My real concern, though--and I confess that this may not be a fair criticism--is the character of Harry Bosch. Ever since I read the first Bosch novel, The Black Echo, thirty years ago now, I have loved this character and have eagerly awaited every novel in which he is featured. For most of that time, Bosch has been one of the best-imagined and most compelling figures in crime fiction.
Bosch first appeared as a veteran of the Vietnam War and early on, Michael Connelly decided to age the character in real time. This meant that he would ultimately reach mandatory retirement age and have to leave the LAPD. Connelly finessed this for a while by having Bosch become a PI and by then having him brought back to the department to work cold cases. But this could only go on so long, and instead of letting go of the character and giving him a proper sendoff, Connelly decided to let him hang around working as an advisor to another, younger detective named Renee Ballard or, occasionally for Haller.
While this tactic has worked to keep Bosch somewhat "in the game," for me, at least, it's been very hard to stomach. Watching a character that I've loved for all these years as an elderly man playing second fiddle to someone like Ballard or even Haller just doesn't seem right. I miss the real Harry Bosch, and at this point I can only be grateful for the fact that I still have a shelf full of novels featuring the character that are much better than this one. 3.5 stars, rounded up to four....more
First published in 1976, The Highbinders is the fourth installment of Ross Thomas's light-hearted series featuring Philip St. Ives. The series of fiveFirst published in 1976, The Highbinders is the fourth installment of Ross Thomas's light-hearted series featuring Philip St. Ives. The series of five novels was written under the pen name of Oliver Bleeck, and St. Ives is a professional go-between. He mediates between those who have had something or someone taken from them and those who have done the taking. His job is to deliver the ransom and recover the goods that have been stolen or the person who has been kidnapped. Inevitably, of course, things always go off the rails.
This case finds St. Ives in London. An extremely valuable eight-hundred year-old sword that once belonged to a crusading king has been stolen and the robbers are asking a small fortune for its return. As is always the case in these books, there's a colorful cast of characters including con artists, forgers, and others, none of whom can be trusted. There are double crosses, one after another to the point where it's impossible to keep them all straight.
The plot, such as it is, is wildly implausible, but that hardly matters. There's a great deal of humor in the book and it's always fun watching St. Ives interact with the other characters and attempt to weave his way through this entangled mess. This is certainly not one of the great crime novels ever written, and it is also certainly not one of the author's best novels. It will probably appeal only to those readers determined to track down and read every one of Thomas's books, but for such readers, both the hunt and the read are enjoyable....more
A Catskill Eagle is almost certainly the most controversial novel in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. At the time the book was released, professionaA Catskill Eagle is almost certainly the most controversial novel in Robert B. Parker's Spenser series. At the time the book was released, professional reviewers were divided in their opinions about the book; some called it the best Spenser yet, while others called it the worst. That division has also been reflected in the reviews on sites like GR.
As almost everyone who follows this series knows, Parker's relationship with his own wife, Joan, was complicated to say the least. Others have noted that their relationship was in a particularly difficult place when he wrote this novel. I have no way of knowing if that is true or not, but the book certainly reads as it it were. This is by far the darkest of the Spenser novels and it certainly reads as if the author was sorting through some fairly serious personal problems.
In the couple of novels before this one, Spenser's relationship with Susan Silverman, his seriously obnoxious One True Love, had gone off the rails. Susan had moved away, first to do graduate work and then to "find herself" in San Francisco. Along the way, she fell in love with another man named Russell Costigan and wound up living with him. Costigan's father, Jerry, is a seriously rich and powerful gun dealer and a very bad man.
Ultimately, Susan decides that she wants to leave Costigan. It's not clear whether she wants to come back to Spenser, but it appears that she is unable to leave Costigan. It's also unclear whether he is physically preventing her from leaving or if she is so conflicted psychologically that she can't bring herself to do so of her own initiative. She has been seeing a therapist, trying to sort out her feelings, but it's clear that this is a woman with some serious psychological problems.
Rather then reach out to Spenser, Susan contacts Spenser's buddy, Hawk, for help. Hawk arrives on the scene and is promptly arrested for murdering one of Costigan's henchmen. With no other alternative, Susan sends a cryptic note to Spenser, telling him that Hawk is in jail and that she needs help as well. Spenser drops everything, races out to California, and breaks Hawk out of jail. They will then spend the rest of the novel trying to "rescue" Susan.
As my rating would suggest, I believe that this is the worst novel in the Spenser series. The plot is totally and completely implausible and the action is totally preposterous. The attempts at snappy dialog fall completely flat, and in the quest to recover Susan, Spenser turns into an amoral killing machine who runs amok, committing one serious felony after another, including cold-blooded murder. He justifies all of this by insisting that the only thing that matters is saving Silverman, and that the collateral damage is just tough luck.
If only Susan Silverman were worth saving. For my money at least, the woman has always been a serious pain in the neck, but here she's portrayed as a total psychological mess--a woman who has no idea who she is or what she ultimately wants. She's left Spenser; she's betrayed him with another man, and she still insists that she loves Costigan, the man she left Spenser for. And yet Spenser is so wound up with this woman that he will do anything and risk everything, just for the chance that he might be able to win her back. It just makes no frigging sense.
If the rest of the plot were not questionable enough, the climax is off-the-charts in the unbelievable category. Given that there are another forty or so novels in this series, it gives nothing away to say that Spenser and Hawk will live to fight another day and will somehow escape being called to account for the very long list of crimes they have committed here. And how that happens is even more mind-boggling than the fact that Spenser will continue to hang out with Susan Silverman.
The only good thing to say about this novel, at least for me, is that I've gotten through it in my re-read of the series and I know that there are much better entries in the offing. 2.3 stars, rounded down to 2....more
I read this collection of short stories years ago when it first came out and before I had joined GR, and I really enjoyed reading them again. The storI read this collection of short stories years ago when it first came out and before I had joined GR, and I really enjoyed reading them again. The stories are all excellent, which you would naturally expect from Elmore Leonard, and, as the title would suggest, the stories all have very interesting women at their center.
Back in the Olden Days of crime fiction, authors like Raymond Chandler, Erle Stanley Gardner, et al., wrote short stories for the pulp magazines and then later expanded the stories into novels or borrowed characters from the stories to populate their later novels. Something of the same occurs here.
Probably the best-known story in this collection is "Fire in the Hole," which features Marshal Raylan Givens and the outlaw Boyd Crowder. The story would become the basis for the popular TV series, "Justified," but in this telling, it's really Boyd Crowder's sister-in-law, Ava, who is at the center of the story, propelling the action forward.
Another federal marshal, Karen Sisco from the novel Out of Sight, appears here in "Karen Makes Out," and in the title story a woman gets an unhappy surprise when she colludes with the wrong person to get rid of her husband.
As in all of Leonard's work, the dialogue is punchy, the plots are great and the characters are uniformly good. Any fan of the author will certainly want to look for this collection.
Over the course of a career that spanned some fifty years, Gil Brewer wrote several dozen pulp novels for publishers like Gold Medal. He specialized iOver the course of a career that spanned some fifty years, Gil Brewer wrote several dozen pulp novels for publishers like Gold Medal. He specialized in stories that featured normal, average, every day men who were seduced into behaving badly by unbelievably evil, sexy, and beautiful women. His first novel was titled Satan Is a Woman, but the title could have just as easily served for at least half of the books he wrote, including Little Tramp, The Vengeful Virgin, Nude on Thin Ice, and many others.
In this case, the poor sap is Alex Bland. The name says it all, and Bland describes himself as "colorless and common with a conscience that would keep five people treading the straight and narrow. Nose-to-the-grindstone Bland."
Bland is an archaeologist who is starting a museum in Chicago. He's engaged to a lovely, straight-laced young woman named Madge, and his life is just about perfect, at least until he decides to spend a week visiting an old army buddy who lives just outside of a small town named Allayne. Bland apparently doesn't think it at all odd that he actually hasn't heard from his old army buddy, Verne Lawrence, in about three years, which is when Verne's wife, Petra, took over the correspondence. Since then, Petra has been writing Alex on a regular basis, sending him perfume-scented letters, urging him to come visit.
When he finally does, he realizes that he's in trouble even before his cab has disappeared around the corner. He's greeted at the door by Petra and is immediately under her spell. "She was tall, slimly provocative. All in black. Black hair, worn long, tumbling around her shoulders. Black eyes, all pupil, or all iris. Her skin was very white. Her black eyebrows arched slightly, making her eyes seem bolder than ever, and her smile had shock value. Long-legged, full-breasted, and the neckline of her dress reached down, Down. She was a bold, beautiful woman."
Alex is a goner.
It turns out that his old army buddy is a shadow of his former self, worn down by work, drink, and worry. And it's clear that he's no longer able to meet Petra's many needs. They live in a house with Verne's mother, an old crone who keeps a very close eye on Petra. Then, practically the moment Alex arrives, Verne has to go away for a week to deal with a problem at one of his construction sites in another city. He thus leave Alex alone in the house with Petra and Mom. Petra has plans of her own for the week. She fires both the maid and the cook to clear her way, and while Alex knows that he should be an honorable man, faithful to Madge and to his friend, Verne, it's clear that the irresistible Petra is not going to let that happen...
13 French Street is an excellent example of Brewer's work and of the pulp genre of which he was so central a part. Over seventy years after its original publication, it still has the ability to draw in a reader just as Petra draws in her hapless and helpless prey....more
Published in April, 2023, Standing in the Shadows is the twenty-eighth and final entry in Peter Robinson's long-running series featuring DCI Alan BankPublished in April, 2023, Standing in the Shadows is the twenty-eighth and final entry in Peter Robinson's long-running series featuring DCI Alan Banks, a police detective who lived and worked in the village of Eastvale in rural England. The book does not read as if it were designed to bring an end to the series, but Robinson died several months before the book was published and it's hard to know where the series might have gone had he lived.
The series began with Gallows View, published in 1987, and over the space of thirty-six years and twenty-eight books Alan Banks evolved in significant ways, both in his personal and professional lives. Initially, he was a detective left to work his cases virtually by himself, but by the end of the series, his responsibilities had increased and he found himself leading a team of detectives, often investigating two or more cases in the same novel.
As this happened, the cast of characters grew in number; members of the supporting cast got increased time on the page, and Banks often receded into the background for several chapters at a time. Personally, even though most of the books were still entertaining, I began to miss the Banks of the earlier novels. Like a number of other readers, I was also disappointed by the last couple of books prior to this one, which went off in a very strange direction and which, to my mind at least, did not live up to the standards of the better books in the series.
Happily, the plot points and the character that frustrated many readers in those books do not appear here. This is a much more traditional Alan Banks novel which begins with the murder in 1980 of a young woman named Alice Poole. The opening of the book is narrated by a young man named Nick Hartley who had recently been rejected by Alice who left him for another man. Hartley describes the developments immediately surrounding the murder, including the fact that he briefly becomes the focus of suspicion.
The story then jumps forward to the fall of 2019, when archaeologists working near Eastvale discover a skeleton buried in a field. They are looking for evidence of the Roman occupation of the area centuries earlier, but it quickly becomes apparent that this skeleton is only a few years old and that the person was the victim of a homicide. The case falls to Banks and his team who must somehow identify the skeleton and then figure out who might have killed him or her. It's going to be a tall task.
The novel then moves back and forth between Nick Hartley's account of the developments of the 1980s and the investigation of the murder in 2019. The reader quickly realizes that the crime from 1980 must somehow be related to the murder some thirty-five years later, but the question remains how.
Like most of the books in this series, the story moves along at a fairly languid pace as we watch Banks and his team slowly move to a solution of the murder and as we follow Hartley's earlier account of the Alice Poole investigation. This is certainly not a "thriller" by any stretch of the imagination, but the enjoyment lies in watching Banks and his subordinates work and interact with each other.
As is often the case in a series like this, I find that I generally enjoyed the earlier books in the series more than the later ones, but with a couple of exceptions, I genuinely enjoyed all of the Banks novels and it's sad to think that this will be the last one. All in all, an appropriate final entry for a very solid series....more
The Procane Chronicle is the third novel written by Ross Thomas under the pseudonym, Oliver Bleeck. Unlike the grittier novels he wrote under his own The Procane Chronicle is the third novel written by Ross Thomas under the pseudonym, Oliver Bleeck. Unlike the grittier novels he wrote under his own name, the Bleeck novels are light, breezy entertainments featuring a character named Philip St. Ives. St. Ives was once a newspaperman, but now he works as a professional go-between, mediating between people who have had something or someone taken from them and the thieves or kidndappers who want to be compensated for whatever they have taken.
In this case, someone has stolen the diaries of a professional thief named Procane. Procane has been foolish enough to record the details of all his successful heists in the diaries, as well as his foolproof plan for an upcoming theft of one million dollars.
The thief offers to sell the diaries back to Procane for $100,000, and Procane hires St. Ives to serve as the middle man. He will collect the diaries, give the thief his payoff, and keep $10,000 for his trouble. It seems simple enough, but of course the grand plan will immediately disintegrate when St. Ives goes to the place designated for the exchange. Instead of finding the diaries, he will discover one very dead burglar, and, as they say, the game is on.
The plot, of course, is completely unbelievable, but it's great fun watching St. Ives attempt to maneuver through the thicket of intrigue and double-dealing that commences with his discovery of the body. No one will ever argue that the St. Ives novels rank among the best of crime fiction, but they are quick reads that constitute a fun way to while away an evening when you just want to relax with a large whiskey and an entertaining read....more
Published in 1986, this is the last novel from John D. MacDonald who was one of the most prolific writers of the second half of the Twentieth century.Published in 1986, this is the last novel from John D. MacDonald who was one of the most prolific writers of the second half of the Twentieth century. MacDonald is probably best remembered for his series featuring Florida "recovery artist" Travis Magee, but he wrote a large number of standalones as well, and those novels have generally held up much better than the Magee series.
This book is set along the gulf coast of Mississippi and reflects the author's concern about the destruction of the environment in that part of the country as well as his outrage against the developers, bankers, and others who are out to line their own pockets with no regard for the ultimate consequences of their actions, either for their fellow citizens or for the earth itself.
These are familiar themes for MacDonald but, as is almost always the case, he bundles them into a terrific story that engages the reader from the beginning and keeps him or her steadily turning the pages.
In this case, an ambitious developer named Tucker Loomis sees a chance to cheat the federal government out of an enormous sum of money. The government is gradually condemning and buying up a number of barrier islands along the Mississippi coast because the islands serve as a critical shield for the coastline and for the communities beyond it. Before the government can get to it, Loomis buys one of those islands, Bernard Island, claiming that he intends to build on the island a very upscale and private enclave that will appeal to very wealthy people.
In spite of the fact that the island is miles from shore, that it is periodically ravaged by hurricanes and other storms, that construction costs would be prohibitive, and that it would be virtually impossible to get the permits required to build such a development, Loomis draws up grand plans, builds scale models, and begins selling lots.
It's perfectly clear that Loomis never intends to build this development; he's simply setting the stage for when the government condemns the island and is forced to buy it from him. He will then claim that the government's action will cause him to lose a potential fortune and that he needs to be reimbursed accordingly. The net result will be to win him a huge profit for a relatively small amount of money invested. And to protect the scheme, he begins bribing selected officials to ensure that the government's decision goes his way.
Loomis is using the real estate firm of Rowley/Gibbs to facilitate the sales. One of the partners, Bern Gibbs, doesn't object to Loomis's shady dealings because the fees are bulking up the income of Rowley/Gibbs. His partner, Wade Rowley, is more of a straight shooter and is becoming increasingly concerned about the possibility that his firm is becoming too entangled with Loomis. Rowley fears Gibbs may be putting the firm in legal jeopardy, and when Rowley begins to investigate the scheme more closely, Loomis will feel compelled to take whatever steps are necessary to protect his grand scheme.
Even though this book was written in the 1980s, it sounds very much like the novels that MacDonald wrote in the 1950s, which is not necessarily a bad thing. But the relationships between men and women, and their respective roles in particular, are much more of the 1950s than the 1980s. The men are the bread winners and the wheeler-dealers. The wives stay at home, and with only one real exception, the women who are employed work as secretaries or nurses or in other such roles, and often serve as sexual diversions for the married men who employ them. It's as though the feminist revolution of the 1960s and '70's never reached the coast of Mississippi.
The book is much more "modern" in its concern for the environment, but this is largely because MacDonald was really in the front wave of the environmental movement and was raising these kinds of concerns even in the 1950s, before a lot of other people had expressed concern. All in all, I enjoyed this book and I'm thankful for the fact that MacDonald left such a great body of work that readers can continue to enjoy nearly forty years after his death....more
This is another (mostly) very good early Spenser novel. While many of the later books in the series have very thin plots, not much action, big marginsThis is another (mostly) very good early Spenser novel. While many of the later books in the series have very thin plots, not much action, big margins, lots of white space on the page, and consist mostly of (supposedly) witty dialog, this book is taut and spare. The margins are small; there's very little white space on any page; it has a good plot; there's ample action, and the dialog is genuinely witty.
Spenser is brooding in his office and drinking Irish whiskey straight from the bottle one afternoon when he is approached by representatives of Meade Alexander, a very conservative and very religious congressional candidate. Alexander has received some threats and would like Spenser to come on board as his chief of security. Spenser obviously has nothing else to do at the moment, save for brooding and drinking Irish whiskey straight from the bottle, and so he hires on.
It soon turns out that Alexander has other, private, motives for wanting Spenser on the team. One of his family members has been indiscreet and Alexander is being blackmailed. His opponent, a sitting congressman, has mob ties, and both the mob and the congressman want the challenger to drop out of the race. Otherwise, they will play their hole card. Alexander would like Spenser to squash the blackmailers, retrieve the evidence, save his candidacy and, above all, save him and his family from being seriously embarrassed.
As Spenser proceeds to investigate, the action gets hot and heavy. As I noted above, the plot is solid and the story is very entertaining, up to a point. Sadly, at least to my mind, there is a subplot in the book involving Spenser's relationship with the love of his life, Susan Silverman. Silverman has moved to Washington, D.C. to pursue an internship in psychology and, along the way, to establish herself as a strong, independent woman. (This in spite of the fact that Silverman is a shopaholic who never wears the same outfit twice and who finances her shopping sprees with the alimony that she is bleeding out of her ex-husband.)
I assume that the ex-husband is more than happy to spend the money in the service of having Silverman out of his life. Spenser, though, is besotted with the woman, for reasons that I have never been able to understand, and he misses her terribly. Hence he spends a lot of time brooding and drinking Irish Whiskey straight from the bottle.
The case he's working takes Spenser to D.C. where he and Susan spend time together, trying to sort out their relationship. There's an awful lot of naval gazing and psychological self-analysis here. Susan wants to be her own person; Spenser just wants her to love him unconditionally as he loves her. And, for me at least, it's painful to read.
The real problem, though, is that every time the two get together in this book, the plot loses all the momentum that has been building to that point. I understand that these scenes are supposed to more fully develop the characters and that they may also be a way for the author to work through the marital problems that he may have been having with his own wife at the time he wrote the novel. But the ultimate effect, at least for me, is to break up the action of what is otherwise an excellent hard-boiled novel, and I cringe at the fact that I'm going to have to endure this sappy relationship as I continue to reread the other fifty or so novels in this series.
Four stars for what could have been a really great book, reduced to three for the Susan Silverman effect....more
Following City on Fire and City of Dreams, City in Ruins is an excellent conclusion to Don Winslow's Danny Ryan trilogy and a fitting capstone for theFollowing City on Fire and City of Dreams, City in Ruins is an excellent conclusion to Don Winslow's Danny Ryan trilogy and a fitting capstone for the career of one of the greatest crime writers of his generation. Theoretically, one could read this book without reading the first two volumes, but the first two books are very good as well, and City in Ruins is infinitely richer for understanding Danny Ryan's story as it has unfolded thus far.
Very simply, and without giving anything away, Ryan was born and raised in the mob culture of Providence, Rhode Island which was dominated by Italian and Irish crime families. Through a series of complicated developments he then finds himself in Los Angeles and, ultimately, in Las Vegas, which is where this story takes place.
As the book opens, Ryan has left his past behind and has become a hugely successful Las Vegas mogul. He and his partners own a number of important properties on the strip and are working actively to expand their empire. Danny loves the work; he has a son he adores and a woman he loves, even if the relationship is somewhat unconventional.
Danny is living his dream when he makes the mistake of overreaching. His plan to build a new, sensational hotel and casino complex brings him into direct conflict with his most serious rival. In short order, all hell breaks loose and Danny suddenly finds himself under fire not only from his Las Vegas rivals, but also from other enemies as well, including an FBI agent who is still determined to bring him down for an incident that happened years earlier.
As the vise slowly closes on him, Ryan will have to use all his wits and will have to fall back on tactics he had long hoped to lay to rest if he's going to survive. Meanwhile, back in Rhode Island, the dust still has not completely settled from the upheaval that occurred years earlier and in an interesting subplot, the chickens are still coming home to roost.
This is a beautifully-imagined, complex novel with great characters and a plot that scarcely gives the reader a chance to draw a breath. I loved this book from the opening page to the last and put it aside quite confident that it will be the best book I'll read this year.
Winslow says that he is retiring to pursue other interests and to leave the stage for younger up and coming writers. It's a noble and selfless gesture. The only problem is that ninety-five percent of those younger writers are not and never will be on a par with Don Winslow. But as he leaves the arena, I can console myself with the fact that I have a large shelf of his novels that I will continue to reread and enjoy for the rest of my life....more
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