Comparison: Garry Disher's WYATT Series, and the Parker Series by Richard Stark (Donald E. Westlake)

A reflection from Dave:

A number of years ago I started reading Donald E. Westlake’s Richard Stark series where the dark protagonist was Parker. At that time I had an infected foot and was told by my very caring doctor that my foot had to be elevated. I started reading the Richard Stark series and after ten days in bed I started to run out of the titles that I had in my collection. So bibliomania took over and I started obtaining

more titles and within a couple of weeks the books were not arriving as quickly as I was devouring them. 

At one point I ordered a Richard Stark title from a paperback dealer who said, "If you like the Richard Stark series so much, you should read an Australian author by the name of Garry Disher and his Wyatt

series." At that point I have never heard of Garry Disher so I ordered two of the titles from the paperback dealer. Garry Disher’s Wyatt series was published and available only in Australia  and they were paperback originals.  

I started reading the Wyatt series and again I was devouring the series faster than I could obtain the titles I was missing. After a few years I rounded up a complete collection of the Wyatt series titles and also some other Disher titles. 

First edition, first printing copies of the Wyatt series are very uncommon in very good to fine condition and  the prices of some of the copies have reached $85.00 and up . There are very few signed copies of the Wyatt series. So if you have been enjoying the Richard Stark series, now is the time to collect the

Australian Wyatt series, so you'll have the books around to enjoy.

The Wyatt novels are:

Kickback (1991)

Paydirt (1992)

Deathdeal (1993)

Crosskill (1994)

Port Vila Blues (1995)

The Fallout (1997)

Wyatt (2010) (the only title published in the U.S.)

Garry Disher

As a footnote, we were very pleased to meet Garry Disher in Boston a few years ago at an event hosted by Kate’s Mystery Bookstore, featuring several Soho Press authors.  Garry Disher signed more than forty titles for us that evening, so we also have signed copies of his Challis & Destry series of police procedurals set in Australia.

Garry Disher, WHISPERING DEATH: Police Procedural with Depth

Australian Garry Disher writes two series of mysteries that I follow closely: his very dark and violent Wyatt group, where the protagonist is a sociopath that Wyatt manages to present in ways that let readers sympathize with (what does that say about our inner selves?); and the Hal Challis/Ellen Destry series, in which WHISPERING DEATH is title six.  I look forward to each Challis/Destry mystery, both for the Australian police procedural aspects (Disher usually include cross-jurisdiction conflict and challenges within the police force, such as sexual discrimination and political pressure), and for the warmth of Challis as a conflicted yet committed person of "good heart."

Reading WHISPERING DEATH will be a spoiler for some of the earlier books, so if you haven't yet read them, I strongly recommend starting at the beginning, with Dragon Man, which Soho Crime brought to the US in 2005. But if you're headed directly into this newest book instead, you'll find plenty of background to let you enjoy it directly. The only part seriously missing is Challis's lover Ellen Destry herself, as she's headed away on a European training in her newly embraced field of solving sex crimes. But her role as investigator of this aspect is quickly assumed by the edgy and sharp sergeant Jeannie Schiff, on hand to help deal with the crime that Challis's team needs to rapidly resolve.

"Thanks for coming down," Challis said. "As I said on the phone, our sexual offences team isn't in place yet, so we could do with some help."

"Well, yeah," drawled Schiff. "Abduction and rape? A bit different from some sad bloke waving his penis at schoolgirls." Her voice was raspy, low, not unpleasant, but sharp underneath.

Disher sets up, at the same time, a different sort of serial criminal in action in the same terrain: a career burglar with an eye for high-value items, including artwork. Grace -- clearly a pseudonym for some of her crimes, but still significant as a name -- is a highly trained pro, with rules for her operations, and plenty of financial success from them. But on the inside, she's desperate for the connections that her career forbids, and she's also close to being a sociopath herself: isolated, with feelings cut away, and a past that speaks of abuse and loss. Because she tend to rob empty houses in carefully planned heists, she isn't as violent as Wyatt, the grim criminal in Disher's other series. Yet I kept hearing Wyatt's voice in Grace's. So the two series are echoing in each other.

If you explore the series in sequence, you'll have the delight of seeing Disher's writing become ever tighter, every more impeccably paced. Even the dialogue, inner and between characters, ascends in skill, to the point where conversations in WHISPERING DEATH have clearly been fine-tuned, one word at a time, for maximum impact and elegant revelation of character. Disher is now being called a grand master in the field, and I agree.

One last note on this book: Sure, there's violent crime in it. But what drew me through the pages, turning me antisocial for the weekend, was the affection, comradeship, and commitment that Disher's characters exhibit. And that's what I'll remember most about WHISPERING DEATH: the goodness in the ordinary police detectives, that positions them in true opposition to the forces of evil.

PS -- Click here for other Kingdom Books reviews of Disher's books.

Soho Crime Fest Last Night in Mass.: Garry Disher, Cara Black, Henry Chang

We left home at about 11 a.m.; we got back about 12 hours later. All this, in order to attend an author event with all of the above, plus James Benn as MC and Kate's Mystery Books as bookseller of the night, at Stellina's Restaurant in Watertown, Mass.

Was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY.

I took notes like mad while the authors answered questions, panel style. Baseline info: Garry Disher, born in 1949, here thanks in part to a travel grant from the Australia Council for the Arts to Soho Books, to bring him to this side of the globe. Cara Black, born in 1951, is at home in San Francisco but flies to Paris for research for each of her Aimee LeDuc mysteries -- and recreates Paris in her mind when she's writing. Henry Chang, born in 1951 also, native to New York's Chinatown, three-quarters through the first draft for his third Jack Yu investigation. All three are among the Soho Crime authors carving out a new role for global fiction and cultural exploration, within their suspenseful mysteries.

And now, back to Garry, whose photo is above.

Garry Disher's police procedurals feature Inspector Hal Challis and his fellow investigator Sergeant Ellen Destry. Set in the Mornington Peninsula of Australia, about an hour and a half from Melbourne, they center in a region that's lush, has plenty of rain (trash that old Australia image you carry), lots of pine trees, a beautiful coastline, and wineries -- but also, said Disher last night, the doubling in size of some of the old towns of the peninsula combined with global economic issues has created social distress -- and this is what he mines as he writes. Admitting with a laugh that he inflates the murder rate in order to make better fiction -- Australia is nominally gun-free, and he says most of its murders are domestic, with either a knife or the handiest blunt object -- Disher sees his task as partly one of teasing the reader into prolonged suspense, over each book and over the series.

Writing from eight in the morning to "lunchtime" is his regular routine, and he spends the afternoons converting his longhand to typing (doing a "first edit" at the same time) and/or doing research. Usually working from a plan for each book, he places absolute trust in his instincts. And if the instincts lead him off the plan, he follows.

My favorite tidbit: He cites an Irish author as declaring each book, to be written, must have a character, a situation, and a promise.

More tomorrow on Cara Black; then Henry Chang; then I'm going to indulge in a long piece on James Benn, who held back last night in order to be a great MC, but whose new book, coming in September, features Northern Ireland and his latest insights into a long stretch of significant history.

Australian Noir Gets Complicated: HELL TO PAY, Garry Disher

Garry Disher's mysteries have come in two basic flavors: crime with a dash of satisfaction in the investigation (try his Hall Challis/Ellen Destry series), and crime from the point of view of sociopaths who make it their lifestyle -- and then find themselves puzzling out some humanity around the edges (that's the Wyatt series). I'd be willing to call them bittersweet chocolate and unsweetened dark.

But with HELL TO PAY, Disher begins what looks like a new series from Soho Crime, featuring Constable Paul Hirschhausen, known to himself and others as Hirsch. The stakes are far different, and the emotions more complex, as Hirsch buckles down to his new assignment as a local constable in a stretch of barren back-country, on the Barrier Highway, under the thumb of the malevolent Sergeant Kropp, his superior officer. Everything appears bitter and painful as the book opens (especially the situation with Kropp and his associated bullies). And it gets worse, as Hirsch's own past becomes clear: He's in disgrace, assumed to have been the whistle-blower who informed on his own "boys in blue" allies in the metropolis of Adelaide, Australia.

That's the reason Hirsch is isolated, despised, tormented by the local police and by Sergeant Kropp: no loyalty to his own kind.

So when Kropp sends Hirsch to respond to a report of "shots fired," Kropp's tone is nasty from the start, even though the call is probably related to some sheep farmers taking pot shots at rabbits or something similar: "No dropkicks on my watch, and no smartarses," Kropp warns Hirsch. An air of unease out at "the scene" turns dangerous as shots fly at Hirsch himself, nearly killing him. But nothing's as it seems -- not the shooters, or their reasoning. And almost before this opening foray into back-country life has resolved, Hirsh is on call again from Kropp, for a body next to the road, possibly from a hit-and-run. When he finds the body, all his instincts and experience go on alert.

So he ran crime scene tape around the area and sat down to wait.

Late afternoon before the accident investigators arrived. Hirsch wanted to hang around, he wanted to propose his theories, but they ignored him, two men and one woman conscious of the dwindling light, the sun smearing itself across the horizon, long shadows playing visual tricks. They took their phtos measured distances, crouched and poked and grid-searched and marked up their diagrams.

"You're blocking the light," the female offices said, her tone indicating she knew exactly who Hirsch was.

His reputation means his efforts are consistently misread, but Hirsch soon has reason to probe this death of a 16-year-old girl more deeply.  Like everything else Hirsch connects with, this isn't what is seems, and his efforts to uncover the truth put him repeatedly into danger, both physical and at the level of soul and self-esteem, as word spreads of who Hirsch is and what he's done in the past.

All of that spells darkness, "Australian noir," and Disher makes us work for insights into Hirsch's character: not a man defend himself fruitlessly, or to lay his grief and fears out in public. But unlike Disher's iconic character Wyatt, Hirsch is readily touched by the pathos and stress of the communities and families around him -- their confusion and sorrow and anger harmonize with his own -- and small details in the way he treats people and the way, despite himself, he falls under the back-country spell of sere beauty win us to his side.

Disher makes a feast out of this layered complexity where personal reserve and the careful distance of career policing mean that the heart is often silenced. There's no gratuitous gore here, no horror show -- but plenty of insight into simple and more intentional evils, and into what it takes to bring goodness back into the light, among those long twisted shadows.

I'm already hungry for the next "Hirsch" book from Disher. I can even let go of the other two series for a while, to fall in with the power and potential redemption ahead in this (presumed) series.

If you're collecting Disher already, buying HELL TO PAY is an easy decision; if you're new to this author, HELL TO PAY is probably his most accessible and rewarding book yet, and a great place to start getting to know his work.

PS: Disher's author site often isn't up to date, but it's still of interest, with extra tidbits giving insight into this well-established author: http://www.garrydisher.com.

Australian Mysteries, Part I: Garry Disher

One of the newest arrivals at Kingdom Books is a fantastic reference on Arthur Upfield and his Napoleon Bonaparte ("Bony") mysteries, and I'm working my way toward discussing all of that -- but first let me step into the field of Australian writing through a current author, Garry Disher.

Disher's books are so highly valued in the US among the few who know them, that it's been a challenge for us to get a good set of them. But as soon as we pulled together a well-stocked shelf, a collector arrived and literally cleaned out all except one title. Heartbreak! (Browse our holdings by going to our web site, www.kingdombks.com, and use the Search function, which takes you directly into our ABE listings). Soho Crime has been a lifesaver in getting these into the US market.

In Australia, Disher is referred to as a "novelist" rather than as a mystery or crime fiction writer. He's been known to refer to himself, though, as wearing three hats at once, for the three genres in which he's won acclaim: young adult fiction (especially the award-winning The Bamboo Flute), literary novels, and crime fiction. But he also says that for him there's no huge division among the forms of writing -- they are all equally part of him.

Within the crime fiction area, Disher's work comes in two forms: the Wyatt series, which are thrillers, and the Hal Challis series of police procedurals. His work is strongly rooted in the northern region of South Australia (that's a province there), where his family has lived for generations.

I've just read my first of the Hal Challis series -- I chose SNAPSHOT. It turned out to be a gripping page-turner, where the emotional struggles of Challis and his police colleagues are as compelling as the plot twists. The title captures the complications raised by a set of sneaky photographs at a sex party, and the deaths that ensue. But it's also a good description for Disher's ability to seize a moment or situation in a person's life and spell out the physical and emotional intensity of it. Rarely have I read such a clear description of the complexity of modern life between and across genders in the workplace, for instance, as well as stresses among levels of authority. Here's a sample from the book:

Is McQuarrie simply waiting to be told the worst? wondered Challis, or does he know something that we don't? 'Whatever it is, we'll find it,' Challis said. You had to say things like that to your boss and a fearful public. He meant it, but he was saying it to shut McQuarrie up. Anxious to get going, he finished the conversation and returned to his office in CIU and a backlog of paperwork that owed plenty to the superintendent's cost-cutting measures. The budget destroys resources, Challis thought, the paperwork destroys time, and the jargon destroys reason.

SNAPSHOT maintained a jagged, relentless tension throughout, although I didn't feel any urge to make sure the doors and windows were locked, or to turn on more lights. Instead, I wanted, very much indeed, to know how each of the investigators would sort out the life issues that were being jacked up into pain and threat through the kind of work they did, the hours, the tragedies. Well worth reading, and I'll be fitting another Disher novel into my reading schedule as soon as possible.

Here's a list, for reference:

The Wyatt Series
Kickback 1991
Paydirt 1992
Deathdeal 1993
Crosskill 1994
Port Vila Blues 1996
The Fallout 1997

The Detective Inspector Hal Challis Series
The Dragon Man 1999
Kitty Hawk Down 2003
Snapshot 2005
Chain of Evidence 2007

Dave cautions that the Wyatt series has not been issued in the US; he's placing one Australian copy online tonight, and hopes to soon restock our shelf of the Challis series, though.

Australian Crime Fiction: Garry Disher, Again

Dave and I have both written about Australian author Garry Disher's books. There are two crime series to follow, among Disher's more than 40 books; both series have been available in Australia for quite a while. Here they are:

The Wyatt Series
Kickback 1991
Paydirt 1992
Deathdeal 1993
Crosskill 1994
Port Vila Blues 1996
The Fallout 1997
Wyatt 2010

The Detective Inspector Hal Challis Series
The Dragon Man 1999
Kitty Hawk Down 2003
Snapshot 2005
Chain of Evidence 2007
Blood Moon 2009
Whispering Death 2011

In some ways it's a bit strange that the books have taken so long to reach the US market, but there are two factors to note: the gaps of years in the series (especially the 13-year gap in the Wyatt books), and the relative youth of international crime fiction imprint Soho Crime. It's hard for a publisher to make good progress when releasing more than one book per year by a given author (although see the recent blog post on Timothy Hallinan's "Junior Bender" series -- NOT a young adult series in spite of the word "Junior"). When the Wyatt series took flame again in 2010, Soho Crime began bringing the rest of Disher's books here.

Most recently, in August 2012, Soho Crime brought us PORT VILA BLUES. It's a fascinating look into Wyatt's life, a life that's remained mostly mysterious through the series. And we don't get details of his childhood or any other normal "sheet" on a criminal. What we see, though, through the quiet consistent narrative from Wyatt's point of view, is how the world can make sense to a psychopath. Wyatt knows his emotions are not "normal" but they are normal for him and he has no choice -- he operates on a basis of well-planned criminal activities, spread apart by stretches of a mostly uninteresting and anonymous life. Without family, without close friends, he's almost safe from long-term identification, other than the scary rumors about him that circulate in the underworld.

At the opening of PORT VILA BLUES, Wyatt is neatly conducting a technologically savvy, methodically planned burglary, based on a tip from a  dying colleague. In an almost compassionate move, Wyatt's linked himself to Jardine, who still has the capacity to connect Wyatt with a good fence. Or so the two men think.

Wyatt watched Jardine carefully. Jardine's face had grown more elastic in the past few minutes, as if his mind worked well if he had something to stimulate it. Wyatt even recognized an old expression on Jardine's face, a mixture of alertness and absorption as he calculated the odds of a problem.

"Fine."

But the burglary wasn't as simple as it should have been, and the fence turns out to be a "sheila," Liz Redding, who's also not what she appears. Eventually, despite the opposition that will rise between Redding and Wyatt, there's also realization of a similarity: Redding's drive may oppose Wyatt's, but it comes from an interior that's nearly as emotionally stripped. When someone on the side of law enforcement verges on being a psychopath, do we name that tendency, or do we label it an asset instead?

I'll be reading this again. Disher's steady-fingered probing of Wyatt's psyche and of his reluctant connections to others creates a back-music to the books that stays fresh even during a second or third reading, and continues to raise questions about the criminals among us today.

There's a "new" book from Disher releasing in the US on December 18, in the other crime series, the one featuring Hal Challis and Ellen Destry. It's called Whispering Death and I'm about to order a couple of copies for Kingdom Books. I started out more deeply drawn to the Challis and Destry series -- it probes a warmer, more "human" part of the psyche -- but by now, after comparing Wyatt favorably with Donald Westlake's darker books and also Lee Child's Jack Reacher, I'd say I want both Disher crime series on my shelf. And my desert island.

Backstory #2: Criminal Masterminds Cut Loose in SIGNAL LOSS, by Australian Author Garry Disher

Garry Disher lives on Australia's Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne, and his Challis and Destry police procedural series often takes place right there. The seventh book in the series, SIGNAL LOSS, came out in late 2016 in Australia, reaching American readers via Soho Crime in late November. Now that the holiday season is wrapping up, it's a great time to treat yourself to a copy of this well-written and lively traditional crime investigation -- with the wry, dark twists of humor that are particularly Disher's own.

The book opens with an intro that could have come from that classic wisecracking mystery master, Donald E. Westlake himself:

Lovelock and Pym. They sounded like some kind of show-business duo -- magicians, maybe; folk singers.

In fact they worked for Hector Kaye, who used to run the Finks out of Kings Cross. That was before he set up as a legitimate businessman and started importing crystal meth from China. They didn't come cheap, Lovelock and Pym. Kaye paid them well and he'd bought them each a house and a car in the past year.

When the pair tackle a murder-for-hire and get overly ambitious, though, their fumbles turn deadly for more than just the intended victim. Add to this chaos the more dangerous threat of an Australian bush fire, and "mistakes are made." The kinds of mistakes that, for investigating Inspector Hal Challis, crack open the past conflicts of a crime ring and turn a small case into major impact.

Meanwhile, Challis's lover Sergeant Ellen Destry -- recently made the head of her department's sex crime unit -- realizes her own investigations are revealing a serial rapist with more skills than most. She and her team tug at each loose thread, working the details until they develop into solid leads. But Destry's distracted at times by another ambitious woman in the force, Sergeant Coolidge (Destry names her Sergeant Cleavage at one point!), who's trying to lure Hal out of Ellen's circuit.

They looked at each other, faintly challenging, bringing back old academy memories to Ellen but probably nothing at all to Coolidge.

"Haven't seen you for ages. You're sex crimes now," Coolidge said, as if that were a side path to nowhere in policing terms.

"And you're drugs," Ellen said.

Coolidge gave her a slow-burning smile and Ellen wondered at the intent: to tease me, unsettle me. She returned the smile, a quick hard nastiness in it, and opened the door of the car. "Good luck," she said and got in and drove out of there. Not much of a victory -- not much of anything -- but why get bogged down fighting the woman? 

As it turns out, Hal is the one who'll get bogged down by Coolidge's interference, but that's jumping a ahead some. Pick up this fast-paced investigation and you'll get the details quickly, because even though it would be great to have a Disher crime novel last a long time, the tension pushed the page turning. In fact, clear the schedule if you can -- here's your winter vacation between the covers in a 345-page "Down Under" romp through twinned cases that are hard to control, and incredibly satisfying to solve.

This is Disher's more accessible, easy-to-enjoy series (read chapter 1 here if you like); his other is the Wyatt series, darkly reminiscent of the Dexter mysteries yet somehow likeable (but, please note, very very dark). He also offers occasional stand-alones and "young adult" (YA) books, which Soho Crime doesn't yet bring across. Check the Soho website for the American releases of Disher's books. So far, I've appreciated all of them (Disher reviews here).

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Garry Disher's Fifth Australian Crime Novel: BLOOD MOON

What are the standards for the best crime fiction? Push that one degree further: the best international crime fiction.

Garry Disher's series unfolds on Australia's Mornington Peninsula. BLOOD MOON, released this month, is the fifth volume in the sequence, brought to US readers by Soho Crime. The jacket offers a subtitle of "An Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry Investigation." And that's the underlying issue for BLOOD MOON: how will Challis and Destry, who have paid an enormous cost before at last falling into each other's arms (two divorces and some nasty deaths), sort out their romance while working together during the high-stress vacation period when their region is overrun with partying teens, as well as the usual human conundrums of greed, envy, and lust that spark crime around them?

Disher ramps the tension very high, very quickly, with an assault on a priest, and an abused wife, and dark remnants of a previous vacation's crimes creeping out of the shadows. Inspector Challis -- Hal -- is hard-working, thoughtful, and willing to express affection. He's been through a lot, but he hasn't let it freeze his feelings. Disher paints the sweetness of the newly evident love that Hal and Ellen have, as well as the effort that Constable Scobie Sutton puts into trying to reclaim his wife from the talons of a twisted religious group that's taking her away from him and their young daughter. Scobie doesn't have Hal's instinctive grasp of how to handle things, though, and his fumbling will cost the investigative team in time and clarity.

He'd tried his hardest but she wouldn't listen. Scobie felt aggrieved, stuck between two uncomfortable forces: his boss and his wife. Neither one wanted or needed him, it seemed, yet they both held sway over him. ... He boiled inside.

Not as vivid in this volume is the sense of Australia as locale, although the battered wife is an environmental enforcement agent. Nor is there much human cost to the investigators from the violence they witness. I wish Disher had drawn out both these aspects. On the other hand, avoiding excessive gore has become one of the aspects many readers like about this series. Disher's challenge is to sustain and deepen the tensions of the volume without gore or terror. That means the pace is nuanced, the characters change quietly in small ways, and fidelity and acceptance become tools for redemption.

The political pressures and the lab delays in BLOOD MOON ring true; so does anti-women bias within the police department. The book is a good read, compelling and smoothly knit -- and if the good and bad sort out a bit more clearly than has been fashionable, the satisfactions of sleuthing and the sense of justice provide sustained appeal.

Garry Disher: WYATT and the Challis & Destry Series

We've seen a flurry of orders recently for books by Garry Disher, particularly the signed ones on our shelves. It's good to see -- Soho Crime's US publication of Disher's crime novels has delighted us, and we've been stacking them up.

The most recent Disher novel to come from Australia to America is WYATT (US pub date was August 2011), a "thriller" that involves the return of solo criminal Wyatt Warren (known to most simply as Wyatt) to his former territory around Melbourne. In an unsual mode of operation, Wyatt is recruited by one of his routine information sources, into what ought to be a simple and elegant heist. But there are too many people involved (including two women), and things go awry. Wyatt had a sense of things slipping out of control early:

Wyatt went still. He'd come to value the quality of Eddie's information, but was wary of the people who supplied it. Wyatt preferred to work alone; he trusted only his own plans. But the big scores always involved others: those he could rely on, those he'd never met before, those who could finger him, those who might cross him.

And all of those are ahead, making this a dark and dangerous episode in Wyatt's career.

There's a great write-up of the book by Glenn Harper at the International Noir Fiction site, and I can't say much more than Harper has already -- except that I think Disher's Wyatt is several shades darker than Donald Westlake's Richard Stark and Tucker Coe books (and WAY darker than the standard Westlake caper novels), with emphasis on how a sociopath functions. Yet I found a bit more emotion tucked into WYATT than Harper did, because I suspected that Wyatt's tangling with a woman in the story who sees things the way he does is going to lead to more interactions in the books to come.

Maybe that's partly because I'm a huge fan of the softer Challis and Destry series that Soho has also brought around the globe for Disher -- with their Australian dates of publication, they are:

The Dragon Man (1999)
Kittyhawk Down (2003)
Snapshot (2005)
Chain of Evidence (2007)
Blood Moon (2009)
Whispering Death (2011)

In fact, Whispering Death hasn't made it to the US yet -- Soho, do you have it scheduled? I hope so! But I've read the others and enjoyed the crawling, challenging progress that Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry have made toward understanding and appreciating each other while tackling gruesome crimes. There's enough darkness and despair in both their personal and professional lives to keep this series away from anything actually sweet -- yet there's a tenderness between the two investigators that somehow speaks of hope, despite their careers.

And I think that same tenderness peeks through in a few tiny chinks in WYATT. I'm looking forward to discovering whether I'm on track in my forecast of upcoming books in this series. By the way, the Wyatt series isn't particularly available in the US, but here are the titles, again with Australian publication dates:

Kickback (1991)
Paydirt (1992)
Deathdeal (1993)
Crosskill (1994)
Port Vila Blues (1995)
The Fallout (1997)

Wyatt (2010)

The Wyatt Butterfly (2010: omnibus edition comprising Port Vila Blues and The Fallout)

Now if there were a way to preorder a book that hadn't yet been announced here for publication, believe me, I'd be signing up for Whispering Death already.

Strong Stand-Alone from Garry Disher, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS (Australia)

Australian author Garry Disher now has more than 50 books to his credit, but is not yet well known in America. Thanks to Soho Crime, his two crime series—the gritty yet often tender Hal Challis books and very very dark "noir" of the Wyatt series—have mostly traveled to the United States. In July, Soho Crime (the crime fiction imprint of Soho Press) brought out a stand-alone from this author: UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS.

The book's closer in tone to the Hal Challis series than to the Wyatt books. Detective Alan Auhl, now an acting sergeant, is much older than most of the force and has been pulled back into action to tackle the cold cases. He is clearly wounded, himself. His former wife sometimes visits, but not always to share affection with him; in addition, Auhl owns a boarding house that caters to people with hard-luck stories yet decent hearts, among them an abused woman named Neve and her young daughter Pia, still being emotionally strangled by their ties to Pia's father. While Auhl struggles to help Neve and Pia find a position of strength, he's also tangled up in the cold case of John Elphick, whose daughters insist he was murdered, and with a newly discovered body that clearly dates back to a much earlier death, as well as a murderous doctor—and maybe it's just as well he's so busy. Otherwise he'd drown in the grief and angst of his boarders.

The delight of Disher's investigation novels is the depth he unfolds in his investigators, and UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS is a great example -- and also, for that reason, a good starter if you haven't yet read any of this Down-Under author. Here's a sample:

As the evening deepened, Auhl brooded. Men like Kelso, Fanning—Alec Neill. Their assumptions,  cronyism, power, sense of entitlement. Pre-emptive strike kinds of men: they seized the advantage while the rest of the world was thinking things through. Like Neill with his accusations against his wife,  thought Auhl. And as soon as we move against him he'll surround himself with lawyers and colleagues. ... Quite suddenly, a deeper unease settled into Auhl. Saturday morning. Janine Neill, pale, dizzy, uncoordinated. She had speculated blithely that Neill might shoot her or push her off a rock, but what if he'd poisoned her? Surely he couldn't be that arrogant? But he'd succeeded three times before Maybe he thought he was untouchable. ... [Auhl] dressed in dark clothing, backed his elderly Saab out of the garage and headed across to East Melbourne, heart jumpy and mouth dry.

Like Karen Slaughter, Tucker Coe (a Westlake nom de plume), or Louise Penny, Disher gives us an investigator whose sense of his own belonging to the world depends on taking action against the cruel, malicious, and criminal. Thanks to his deep experience and careful craft, UNDER THE COLD BRIGHT LIGHTS is one of the most satisfying mysteries of 2019.

[More Disher reviews here.]

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Hurrah! Garry Disher Scoops a Crime Fiction Award -- and Oh Drat!

Great news: Garry Disher's newest book of crime fiction, WYATT, won the prestigious Ned Kelly award in Australian fiction at the Melbourne Writers Festival this past weekend. Check out an interesting take on the book and award at Craig Sisterson's New Zealand "Crime Watch" blog.

And oh, drat, and double drat -- the book just isn't available (at any reasonable price) in the US at this point! Good moment to go back and read some of the others, like Blood Moon.

Summer Reading: Intense Mysteries from Established Authors

Here are some terrific releases for this summer, to put into the beach bag or suitcase.

David Downing, JACK OF SPIES. First in a new series, espionage and an unforgettable protagonist, Jack McColl, in the threatening season as the Great War becomes inevitable. Reviewed already: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2014/05/world-war-i-espionage-from-david.html ... Full set of Downing reviews, here.http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/search?q=David+downing

Henry Chang, DEATH MONEY. Fourth in the Jack Yu series, set in Chinatown, best yet. Review over the weekend, if I can make time. Missed out on the earlier ones? Reviews here.

Garry Disher, HELL TO PAY. Let's hope this is the start of a new series .... yes, it's that good. Review to follow soon. If you haven't yet read Disher's Australian police procedurals and very dark crime fiction, here's a great place to start. We keep mentioning Disher and Dave and I fight (gently) over who gets which ones first; see why, here.

Anna Loan-Wilsey, A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT. Third in the Hattie Davish historical mysteries, well plotted and paced, again showing that this author can take her material outside the soft "historical" stereotype with her assertive and intriguing sleuth. June 24 pub date, review soon. Loan-Wilsey's first book was amazing: review for that one, here.

Taylor Stevens, THE CATCH. Exceeds even the high bar already set by Stevens for the androgenous and tough Vanessa Munroe, in another global thriller. July 15 pub date; review in early July. I wait all year for the next one, on edge (really). See why, here.

Julia Keller SUMMER OF THE DEAD. West Virginia, third to feature prosecutor Bell Elkins, full of action, suspense, and bitter questions. Pub date is August, and review will run sooner, as it's worth pre-ordering (and lucky you, if you can attend an author event). Get ready with a look at her earlier work here.

From Europe to Texas, Mark Pryor Moves for HOLLOW MAN

I'm a huge fan of Mark Pryor's Hugo Marston series, set in Europe (mostly circling around Paris) where Marston, a retired FBI profiler, provides security for the U.S. Embassy. (Reviews here!)  The Reluctant Matador was the 2015 title in this series, so it's intriguing to have an extra Mark Pryor book in the same year, and this one's billed as a standalone: HOLLOW MAN.

You don't need to know the T. S. Eliot poem that provides the title -- it's clear right away that Domenic, the narrator, is a psychopath, making his way as a Texas prosecutor with a performed set of emotions that he doesn't really feel. Or at least, his versions of them are very different. He's interested, intrigued, annoyed, even angry, but kindness, for him, is a matter of calculating what's in his best interest. A job transfer to a less compelling and less profitable division distresses him. But in the process, the possibility of creating a "perfect crime" arises, and of course, he can't walk away from the challenge.

But I did resist. I had to. It's one thing being unable to get off the slide once you begin; it's quite another to step onto that slippery slope with your eyes wide open. I'd trained myself that being a functional human being meant, for me, recognizing dangerous situations and steering around them. Not resisting the temptations, but avoiding them in the first place. I was the serial adulterer hiring an ugly secretary, or the booze-hound driving the long way home to avoid his local liquor store.

"Prosecutors don't steal cars," I said. "Not this one, anyway."

"It's not stealing," she said, "if you give it back. It's not even borrowing. It's teaching him a lesson."

I've got very mixed reactions to this one. Pryor's writing is compelling and convincing, and the plot he provides is neatly twisted and well paced. But I found I was uneasy "identifying" with this narrator. Maybe I should be used to it -- the Wyatt books from Garry Disher are equally disturbing in terms of being inside a psychopath's mind. But Disher's Wyatt has weak spots in his personal defenses, and takes some risks for others at odd but significant moments, and I find myself on his side. For Domenic, a cautious emotional distance fits much better. I wanted to like him, but all in all, I didn't -- and I wouldn't necessarily prioritize reading another book from his point of view. (Good thing for me it's a standalone, then.)

What did intrigue me mightily was seeing author Mark Pryor make the shift to the Texas setting, where he is himself a transplanted Englishman and an assistant district attorney. I appreciated his know-how on both the legal career and the effect of changing countries. (He has a family and does not appear to be a psychopath himself, I'm glad to note.)

After the already-mentioned Australian Wyatt series and of course the Dexter books, plus Dave Zeltersman's series, I found Pryor's psychopath approach less than satisfying, the the plot was more predictable than I like. But other readers have found the ending surprising. If you like really dark noir and the tension of crossing a legal career into crime, check out HOLLOW MAN. From Seventh Street Books, a publisher that keeps on impressing me with its reach and range.

Soho Crime Fest 2: Cara Black Brings Paris (and Aimée Leduc!) With Her

Dave and I love what Soho Crime has done for the international mystery scene: publishing series by authors who live or write from experience of international cultures. Meeting four of the Soho authors at once last week -- well, we couldn't pass it up, even though it called for a lot of driving.

Actually, we'd already met James Benn briefly at Kate's Mysteries (Cambridge, Mass.) last December. Trim, elegant, the exact opposite of the cartoon version of a librarian (his "day job"), Jim ensured that the panel of authors could relax and enjoy the questions, conversation, and capacity crowd. (I'll offer a longer piece on James Benn's novels later in the month; I've enjoyed them enormously.)

We'd seen photos of Garry Disher (Australia) and Henry Chang (New York's Chinatown) that matched pretty closely the authors as they strolled in. Reading all of Disher's Inspector Hal Challis investigations has been a huge treat; watching Henry Chang's career expand from his debut with CHINATOWN BEAT to last fall's YEAR OF THE DOG is a pleasure, and we shared the excitement as he told us he was about three-quarters done with the first draft of "book three."

So Cara Black, creator of Aimée Leduc in an award-winning series of Paris mysteries, was the author we were most curious to meet in person. How French would she look? What kind of accent would she have?

Coming in through the back door of Stellina's (a smashing Italian restaurant in Watertown, Mass.), Black instantly brought that sense of Paris into the room. If those weren't French jeans she was wearing, I'll eat my page -- and Dave instantly fastened his gaze on her French sailor's scarf in bold stripes of black and white. And yes, when she speaks, even though she lives in California, her voice has the lilt and gentle hesitations of someone to whom French is a second linguistic home.

"I think Paris chose me," Black reflected. "I grew up in a Francophile family where food and discussion over dinner was very important." In the 1970s when she first went to Paris, she got the sense of a collection of villages -- "not the Paris of the berets and the baguettes," she quipped, and not Hemingway's Moveable Feast (which of course she's read). But 20 neighborhoods that saw themselves as complete and particular. "I'm trying to find the flavor and the uniqueness of each part of Paris." And in each one, she's placing a mystery. So far, that's:

Murder in the Marais (1998)
Murder in Belleville (2000)
Murder in the Sentier (2002)
Murder in the Bastille (2003)
Murder in Clichy (2004)
Murder in Montmartre (2005)
Murder on the Ile Saint-Louis (2007)
Murder in the Rue de Paradis (2008)
Murder in the Latin Quarter (2009)

For each one, Black travels again to Paris (often bunking on a friend's couch) and re-immerses herself in the feel of the neighborhood, while working out the plot. She does much of her writing in Paris too, but also in California, where she carries the scenes with her -- images on the wall, maps, more. Getting up in the morning, she writes, and she commented that if she doesn't check her e-mail, she gets a lot done! She said, "Once I've got to page 100, I've got my place [Paris neighborhood], and then I timeline it and I finish it and then I rewrite."

One plus of listening to Black within the multiple-author event was the range of questions people asked, especially those who know this author well. Prompted by someone excitedly asking her to retell it, she revealed how her research led her to firing a gun with the Delta Force in Paris. Wow! Here's a link to that story in her own words.

Most of all, I enjoyed hearing Black talk about Aimée Leduc and how the series is shaped around this computer security pro turned accidental detective. "Aimée is flawed, vulnerable," Black explains. "It makes a better story that way." And, she finds, this sets Aimée into the great tradition of the "lone detective."

Of course, the effect can be a bit different on the other authors: After listening to how pleased Cara Black is that she has a framework of Paris locales that promises 20 Leduc detective novels (based on those 20 "villages" of the city), Henry Chang suddenly suggested, "I'll have to go to each of the fifty or sixty Chinatowns throughout the world!"

More on Henry Chang and his writing, later this week.

Australian Crime Fiction: Cato Kwong Series, Alan Carter

There are two significant anchors for Australian crime fiction, and they couldn't be more different: At one pole are the "Bony" investigations by Arthur Upfield, published from 1928 to 1963, taking the "puzzle mystery" into serious terrain with half-caste Aborigine Detective Inspector Napoleon Bonaparte. If you pride yourself on knowing your Agatha Christie and think you'd enjoy a more  gritty terrain of both landscape and character conflict, look for one of the Upfield paperbacks that still rattle around. (Caution: They're engrossing. You may want them all.)

At the other pole, much more darkly, are two series from today's grand master of Australian mystery, Garry Disher. His Wyatt books work from inspiration in the Richard Stark (Donald Westlake) character of Parker and endow Wyatt himself with more bitterness, fewer emotions, and a single vulnerability -- and a career as a jewel thief, loner, and sociopath. In extreme contract, Disher's other series, featuring Hugh Challis and Ellen Destry, fingers the social fabric of Australia's Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne, through the emotional tension of being police investigators who fall into a complex love affair that becomes serious and committed -- and a challenge for two workaholics.

Now add a third significant author to the Australia crime fiction shelf: Alan Carter.

Born in 1959 in the United Kingdom, Carter emigrated to Australia in 1991 and worked as a TV documentary director. With 2011 publication of his first crime novel, GETTING WARMER, Carter shot onto the award lists, and his second in the Cato Kwong series is PRIME CUT. Both were released in the United States in 2014; the third book is due this year (Bad Seed) but seems to have hung up in the publication process, as it's now past due.

And what a series. Detective Senior Constable Philip Kwong -- nicknamed Cato, a dig at his Chinese heritage (after the Chinese character in The Pink Panther) -- has sunk so low in the opinion of the police administration that his assignment at the opening of PRIME CUT is to the Stock Squad: the team that investigates dead cows among the ranches. It's dull and demanding at the same time, and it's utterly humiliating. So when Cato has a chance to fill in on a real investigation, he's quickly engaged in the only part of a mining-town crisis that nobody else seems to care about: the discovery on the shore of a headless, armless, legless human torso that nonetheless suggests Asian origin.

Even though he's clearly destined to be shipped back to his tedious assignments, Cato clings to the case day by day, and finds motive, means, and opportunity among the hardscrabble workers and bosses at the booming and brutal mining operation. When he starts to pry into the Chinese workers and their situation, he sets off a cascade of further brutality.

Cato's a complex investigator, hungry for his work and career but caught up in both the social stratification that pushes Asians downward, and his own mistakes in rushing both evidence and accusations. Half the pleasure of reading PRIME CUT is seeing him fall, rise, fall, and possibly move forward.

So it's a delight to have the second book in the series already on hand. GETTING WARMER takes Cato Kwong back to an urban policing slot, where he has a chance of resuming parenthood with his young son. This time, though, he's too ready to jump into a case, risking his own child's safety as well as his own. Politics in the police squad turn as dangerous as the urban criminals. And the endless summer heat and fire danger add to the tension. Soon he's assigned to work with his superior and a very unpleasant prisoner, Gordon Wellard, trying to find out where a young kidnapped girl's being held -- or been buried. It's confusing, even afterward:

The heat bounced off the prison car park. The sky was painfully blue. Cato zapped the locks of the Commodore and they drove off with the air con up to full. The fires were on again: two columns of smoke over the southern hills of the Darling Scarp out Karagullen way, and one close by in bushland near Success. Whoever chose that name for a suburb needed to be strung from a lamppost. ...

"Wellard seems to think he's in charge."

"And?"

"You and him go back a long way. Aren't you meant to be the one in charge?"

"You saying I'm not?"

"Again, you tell me."

Cato's suspicion of his fellow officer turns out to be well founded. But it's all more complicated than that, and soon the summer fires will make it worse.

These books slide along the line of gritty and grim, but with plenty of emotion -- Cato may sometimes wish he doesn't feel pain or loss, but the truth is, he's involved as both an investigator and a dad. His struggles against department politics and pervasive racism add to the tension and interest, and author Alan Carter spins a taut, engaging plot that's so closely bound to the landscape, you can almost feel the grit in your teeth in some of the chapters.

No extraordinary gruesomeness, but a steady surge of urban violence here -- and a very masculine world of crime-fighting and challenge. I enjoyed both books (although I needed to get outside and walk afterward, to reassure myself that I live in an easier, calmer place). It's good to know the third one, Bad Seed, is on its way from Down Under to the American market sometime this year.

Brief Mention: DOMINIC, sequel to Hollow Man, by Mark Pryor

Mark Pryor is British by birth and bucked the author trend by moving to Austin, Texas, to become an assistant district attorney. His Hugo Marston series, apparently now on long pause, is set in Europe and delves into human love and loyalties, with a whiff of the paranormal that evil can call forth.

I found his stand-alone crime novel Hollow Man to be interesting -- it's in the Dexter line, and also similar to Garry Disher's Wyatt series, as the protagonist is a psychopath. Unlike Disher's Wyatt, however, Pryor's charming criminal Dominic -- himself an Englishman and prosecutor -- shows no inner sense of longing for an emotional life. Love leaves him cold ... well, not physically, but he won't be making any genuine self-sacrifice for the lady who attracts him. And again unlike the Marston series, this one is set in Texas. Dark, dark Texas.

Pryor then created a sequel after all, which was released last week: DOMINIC. This time, to add to the puzzle of Dominic's criminality and manipulations, there's a lady of interest involved who is nearly as chilly-hearted as the psychopath protagonist ... a lady in a lime green dress that shows off all her physical allure. Is it her beauty, or her own manipulative psyche, that attracts Dominic?

Making the book yet more challenging is Pryor's device of alternating voices between these two dangerous personas. And each time he does so, it's up the reader to catch up, because on the page each one speaks as "I." So it pays to note the character name at the opening of each numbered chapter.

Although the manipulations and interrupted interior monologues are compelling and even haunting, they are also deeply disturbing. I do hope there aren't many people like Dominic in the real world. I came away from the book reluctant to face another in this series, and hope that it's not the career of dealing with American courtrooms that is pulling this kind of writing from the author!

If you're a Wyatt or Dexter fan, or a reader of Dave Zeltserman, you need Hollow Man and DOMINIC on your shelf, for comparison and to better grasp the choices of these noir crime-fiction creations. Do expect to get up and check that the double locks are in place on the doors, and that all your other means of self-protection are ready and close at hand. Published by Seventh Street Books, where crime fiction thrives.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Mystery Reviews Coming Up ...

[Michelle Gagnon]
April is National Poetry Month, and recent reviews here have done justice to the genre -- but I do have some mysteries to mention, and tomorrow's review will be for Michelle Gagnon's July 2008 release, BONEYARD -- which is a sequel to her FBI special agent's first appearance last year in THE TUNNELS.

Next on the list: a sample of Australian mystery pro Garry Disher, then a look at two imports from Europa. I'm also hoping to get to the new Jesse Kellerman.

Poetry reviews coming up: Charles Simic's SIXTY POEMS, and the newest Adrienne Rich collection, TELEPHONE RINGING IN THE LABYRINTH.

And then there's some fine press work to mention. I need more hours in each day!

Reviews This Week, and Dilys Celebration

Coming up: Much pleasure in reading a delightful debut mystery from Anna Loan-Wilsey, A Lack of Temperance. Also a discussion of the newest in the Billy Boyle series from James R. Benn, Death's Door, and a much-mulled-over  consideration of Port Villa Blues from Garry Disher.

Also, during Oct. 13-20 we're celebrating the Dilys Award, given since 1992 by the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association -- check in for review of titles and authors that earned the award in the past, as well as the most recent one, Ghost Hero by S. J. Rozan.

Grand finale for the Dilys week: Meet Archer Mayor here at Kingdom Books at 2 pm on Saturday October 20. Mayor's new book Paradise City is the 23rd Joe Gunther investigation. At the end of the event, we'll give away two signed trade paperback copies of Ghost Hero courtesy of the publisher; we first met its author through Archer Mayor, so it all fits together!

Coming in April: A Supernatural Mystery Set in Inida -- Shilpa Agarwal's HAUNTING BOMBAY

Soho Crime is a favorite here at Kingdom Books, for its steady commitment to publishing both new and classic mysteries written is settings outside America. That includes Leighton Gage's police procedurals set in Brazil; Eliot Pattison's Inspector Shan series in Chinese-occupied Tibet; Garry Disher's Australian crime novels; the French detective series by Cara Black; and books set in Laos, Thailand, Korea, and more. It also includes Henry Chang's Chinatown (New York) mysteries.

This April, Soho Press -- not the crime group, but the enfolding larger organization -- brings out a thick and satisfying first novel from Shilpa Agarwal, set in Bombay, India, in 1960. Is HAUNTING BOMBAY a mystery? It's certainly a ghost story, and it includes deaths, disappearances, dramatic moments of courage and shame. Thirteen-year-old Pinky, growing up in her grandmother's home after the death of her mother, lacks control or power over most aspects of her life. In some ways, she's content to leave decisions and choices in the hands of her beloved Maji, who embraces and adores her, telling her stories of India, teaching her to pray to the gods, feeding and cosseting her. But there are shadows in this paradise within the upper-class bungalow: jealousy from her aunt and cousins, a dark remnant of a missing child, tensions among the live-in servants that reflect terrifying mistakes that have been firmly put away without discussion. Pinky's insecurity and the pivotal space she occupies in the three-generation household lead to a Garden-of-Eden style struggle toward knowledge. And then there is the Fall, the ejection from Eden, the fierce hauntings that try to steal the very breath from her small body on the verge of womanhood.

Sustained tension and risk alternate with the freshness of exploring another culture, from food to toilet to clothing and then to family structures and loyalty. At moments in the book, when Pinky and her sensitive cousin Dheer caught the scent of fenugreek or other spices symbolic in the Bombay household, I swore I could savor a whiff of that haunting myself. And some of the aromas are not so welcome. Here is the sensory moment that announces one of the more ominous moments in the early part of the book, when a parade of hermaphrodites threatens to curse and offers to bless babies along its route:

The double-decker bus, reeking of stale urine and undigested fried lunch, now contemplated a full shutdown in front of the Empress Café while the enraged driver coaxed it back to life, with a solid beating by a rusted pipe. After the engine finally sputtered to ignite, the driver blared the bulb horn and veered onto the road, where he overtook a contingent of Fiats and narrowly missed three lunching cows.

Although nearly every character in Pinky's snug world grows and changes in this novel, their moments of bravery are mostly small ones, quick sharp efforts to exert themselves in the face of the ghosts in their lives. I enjoyed especially the way Agarwal paints the values of the Bombay family and the attitudes around love in its varied forms. I wish the book's ending were a bit richer in terms of Pinky's ability to seize and savor the life she carves out -- but that's a small quibble for a book of wide sweeping imagery and unforgettable characters. Pinky in particular is the child in most of us: not quite ready to leave home or the arms of the one person she's sure really loves her.

So yes, this is a literary novel, not a conventional mystery -- but in its parallels to the hauntings of Poe's stories and to the hot pulse of today's vampire narratives, HAUNTING BOMBAY earns a place within the genre, and I'm glad to have it appearing on our shelves. Watch for copies in April.

So it vanished.
Along with a million other stories that haunt Bombay in its darkest, deepest, more naked core.

Checking the List: Harlan Coben, CAUGHT

I love discovering great new authors of crime fiction and mystery, and that includes noticing the ones just starting out and getting better in leaps and bounds. There are authors who've been around longer, though, and who make my "must read" list as soon as a new book comes out -- like Michael Connelly, Laurie R. King, Garry Disher, Martin Limón, Charles Todd. Sure, some of their books won't suit my taste, but most have, in some way. Newly added to the list for me: Walter Mosley, Karin Fossum, John Harvey. Others I know I'll catch up with, like S. J. Rozan -- I just enjoyed finally getting to her Shanghai Moon, although I happened to read it in the British trade paperback form, which uses the title Trail of Blood. (Honestly, I liked the American title better on this one; it's a good Lydia Chin Chinatown detective novel. Collectors will also want it in their Judaica/Holocaust sections.)

Typing up the New York Times popular mysteries list the other day pushed me to get around to the new Harlan Coben, CAUGHT. Odds are always in favor of Coben's work being first-rate. And this one, his seventeenth novel, takes the world of catch-them-at-it television, and pairs it with the two-way life ruins surrounding sexual predation (it sometimes seems close to impossible to protect our kids; it's also close to impossible to protect the innocent from innuendo, or to make sense out of sentencing regulations). The ensuing plot is so swiftly tangled that sometimes TV reporter Wendy Tynes isn't sure whether she's a good person or a bad one. Funny thing is, her co-workers aren't sure, either.

I couldn't put it down. Each time I thought I had the threads sorted out, bang, another door would slam open or shut. Check the red door on the cover -- highly significant. It's a great read, and Coben again earns his place on the popular list. Warning: If you have teens at home, you might want to wait a few years before you let this one into your brain.