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.

Dark, Twisted, and Clever, in JEWISH NOIR, ed. Kenneth Wishnia

Kenneth Wishnia's been touring a lot this fall, and there are still some significant appearances ahead on his calendar, from Holbrook NY (Long Island) to the Poisoned Pen (Arizona) to City Lights (San Francisco). (Check his website, here.) It would be fun to catch up with him at any of those locations -- but it's even more fun to read his new anthology, JEWISH NOIR.

The range of authors here is stunning: Jonathan Santlofer, Moe Prager (aka Reed Farrel Coleman), Wishniak himself, S. J. Rozan, Wendy Hornsby, Robert Lopresti, even Marge Piercy. And among the 30+ tales, there's even one from 1912, making its first appearance in English (in 1912 it was in Yiddish). I enjoyed the finale from the extraordinary Harlan Ellison. A special pleasure was a clever tale from Dave Zeltserman, whose writing is often quintessential in this area. Zeltserman's narrator, an embittered writer who's broken through into being well published in spite of an early and very nasty rejection letter, pauses to talk about noir itself, and I really like his summary:

... there are no heroes or happy endings in noir. And there's certainly no hope. True noir is about the alienated, the hapless, the broken.Things start off bad in noir fiction and only get worse. Moral lines are crossed that can't be uncrossed and characters fight a losing battle to keep from tumbling into the abyss.

Zeltserman's crime-pondering protagonist in this tale is borderline psychotic, too, which will give you a good taste of where his dark fiction tends to roam!

But Prager's tale "Feeding the Crocodile" is at least as dark, with a cameo for an SS lieutenant. And then there's the diversity -- Michael J. Cooper takes us to Jerusalem in 1948; B. K. Stevens opens with a faculty meeting; S. J. Rozan delighted me with Jews in Shanghai; and there's a midnight-dark tale of adoption form Travis Richardson that is probably going to sit malignantly in my brain forever.

More than 400 pages of malice, despair, conceit, sometimes heroic actions, and yes, alienation -- JEWISH NOIR should probably be read in very small doses, with a warning label. (Grim grin here.) But oh, what a collection!

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.

Brief Mention: Dave Zelterserman, THE BOY WHO KILLED DEMONS; Graham Masterton, BROKEN ANGELS

Dave Zeltserman is a master of dark fiction -- the "noir" -- and his mysteries have powerful ties to Boston's underworld of mobsters and contract killers. His horror fantasy novels, though, come in distinctly different forms. I still haven't shaken the mingled chill and pity that I felt as I finished reading his The Caretaker of Lorne Field in 2010; every time I tangle with an overgrown section of my garden, I feel the nightmare of that story all over again.

This season, Zeltserman's new offering, THE BOY WHO KILLED DEMONS, looks like it might become the first in a series, judging by few threads at the finale. Narrated by 13-year-old Henry Dudlow, it's an investigation of how demons have invaded the world, with ominous intent. And this struggling teen, half smothered by his thoroughly unlikeable parents but lifted out of the mess via friends and his first girlfriend, has a terrible gift and responsibility that have arrived with puberty: He alone, among the people he talks with, can see the demons in their real and menacing form. They're after him, of course. And when he realizes what their goals are, not to mention how they pursue them, he knows he has to stop them.

If you know a teen who's already read a lot of Stephen King, and laps up horror and funky sex as if these were breakfast cereal, you might want to share this book with that teen. Otherwise, keep it for yourself (provided you, too, are a horror fan!) and enjoy the journey back to your own teens, as you keep Henry company.

Because I'm intrigued by the stream of Irish noir flowing across the Atlantic, I tackled the newly released US paperback version of Graham Masterton's BROKEN ANGELS. [This is the second in the series that began with A Terrible Beauty, later retitled White Bones.] Here too, terror and the grotesque are lined up, as Detective Superintendent Katie Maguire in County Cork heads up an investigation into the murder of a priest. The mutilation of the corpse -- well, actually it happened before death -- convinces almost all the detectives that the killing is revenge for child abuse inflicted by the priest, who'd been a target of unpleasant accusations. But as the death count and mutilations mount, Katie becomes convinced there's a larger and even more unpleasant reason for the string of murders.

I won't go into more detail -- partly to avoid spoilers, and partly because there's a lot of mixing of sex and sadistic violence here, some of which is truly horrifying (but no surprise to readers who may already have tracked Masterton's powerful but frightening narratives; he's a well-established author in Europe). This one's not for traditional mystery fans, but only for those who don't suffer nightmares or PTSD or loss of appetite among such horrors. Count on a fast pace, believable twists, and an investigator worth admiring. But also, consider yourself warned.

An Evening of 40 Authors, 2 Publishers, 1 Editor, 1 Agent -- and Dozens of Mystery Lovers

Gala Mystery Night, New England Mobile Book Fair

[all photos by Dave Kanell]

Last night (Thurs. Dec. 6), the New England Mobile Book Fair in Newton Highlands, Mass., hosted its first Gala Mystery Night, featuring 40 mystery authors and all the great people who come along with them (publishing teammates, spouses, volunteer photographers, you name it) -- and dozens of people eager to talk about mysteries, meet the authors, and purchase books signed right there in front of them by the hands that wrote them. It was a resounding success, thanks to owner Tom Lyons (read his story here), organizer David Ambler, and all the happy readers and writers on hand. If you've ever attended one of the famous holiday parties held at (now sadly closed) Kate's Mysteries in Cambridge, Mass., you'd recognize this gathering as a direct descendant with some great changes: more space, hourly changes of featured authors, and the largest independent bookstore in New England to explore whenever you need a break from the merry crowd.

I was excited to be there with COLD MIDNIGHT -- I may have brought the only "young adult" mystery, unless you count the books Jennifer McMahon (also of Vermont) is spinning out, which often involve teen characters but aren't usually called YA (these are dark, fierce, wonderful books -- and I'll be talking about her January release in a couple of weeks).

Linda Barnes, James Benn, McMahon, Steve Ulfelder, and Katherine Hall Page all signed their books for us; Dave got a chance to visit with Dave Zeltserman, as well as talking for quite a while with Benn, and briefly with Michael Palmer, Hallie Ephron, and Hank Phillippi Ryan, whose blockbuster thriller THE OTHER WOMAN is doing so well. (See review here!) Dave also enjoyed time with William Landay and William Martin, and caught some great photos of Joan Parker, widow of mystery Grandmaster Robert B. Parker, receiving a special award from the bookstore and giving, in return, a wonderful reading of a letter from her late husband.

BIG NEWS! Ellen Larson, the editor of the new YA imprint of Poisoned Pen Press -- titled, with charm, the Poisoned Pencil -- chatted with a number of authors at the event, and (ta-DAH!) has finished her initial readings of submissions for the imprint, choosing three manuscripts to go forward as an initial publication round. Larson, a seasoned "substantive editor" and writer herself, is looking forward to this next stage of helping authors get their books ready for publication. I can hardly wait to find out whose work she's picked and what the mysteries are! For more about Poisoned Pencil, check out the press announcement here.

Yours truly, with COLD MIDNIGHT

Dave Zeltserman

James Benn

Joan Parker receives award from Tom Lyons

Joan Parker reading letter from her husband Robert B. Parker

Dracula, Frankenstein, and Other Reasons to Engage the Edge of the Mysteries Field: Books by Stephen Seitz and Dave Zeltserman

There are at least two dozen authors who are on my "automatic" list: I know that I enjoy their mysteries and/or crime fiction reliably, and I mark my calendar for when the next book by one of these is coming out. When I look over the list, I realize I've become a fan of, umm, character-driven dark mysteries in which someone has to dig deep into inner resources in order to solve the crime -- or even just to survive.

But I do read outside this core quite a bit, and that includes urban spoof/caper mysteries, cooking mysteries (I check the recipes first), plenty of espionage, lots of thrillers that start on university campuses, almost anything with a strong female lead, and probably way too many books that involve threats and death. (By the way, I've discovered that when life serves up the "real thing," I stay away from the book version. Shudder.)

Thanks to some bold authors who say "Hey! Read this!," I also find some gems that don't fit into any of my usual areas. For instance, Dave Zeltserman writes some of my favorite -- although very dark! -- crime fiction, mostly set in the Boston area. But sometimes he zigzags off into horror, a genre I normally don't endure. Still, if it's by Dave Z, I get curious. So, a while back, I read and really, really enjoyed his horror parable (yep, really) The Caretaker of Lorne Field. And that led me to his newest title: MONSTER: A NOVEL OF FRANKENSTEIN.

Set firmly in 19th-century Germany, complete with religious twists, extremes of poverty and wealth, and curious rituals of friendship and courtship. MONSTER spins out from the mind and heart of Herr Friedrich Hoffmann, broken on the "wheel" as an accused murderer of his own fiancée and soon patched together in Dr. Victor Frankenstein's obscene experiment. Yes, in case you've forgotten, "Frankenstein" wasn't the inventor's monster -- it was the name of the inventor, in the old tale. In Zeltserman's adept narrative, the Monster becomes a distraught and terrified individual coming to grips with how his soul has been installed in a terrible body, and the evil perversions of his "creator" threaten to turn him into a true monstrosity. Grief at such horrors spurs him to action:

I bellowed again in rage, and stopped only when I realized that the leather strap that had been tied around my chest had broken. The slow trickle of strength that had been ever so slowly ebbing back into my body must have turned into a raging torrent over the last few days, for in my rage I broke that strap, which was something not even a wild beast could have done. I sat up with ease and tore apart the strap that bound my legs to the table as easily as a child might have torn a paper ribbon.


I was free.

But what is the true nature of this reborn Friedrich Hoffman? May he assert the compassion of his former self? Or must the evil of his re-creator stain him and turn him into perversions that mock his best efforts?

Zeltserman kept me turning pages, aching for resolution.

MONSTER came out this spring through the audacity and continued courage of The Overlook Press, which continues to prove there are still publishers who value diversity and outrageous creativity. The press even presents P.G. Wodehouse books. Diverse!

Another such press, which I only discovered through agreeing to read its newest book, is MX Publishing. This firm is based in the United Kingdom and specializes in "NLP, Sherlock Holmes, Property, and Children's books." Turns out that NLP is neuro linguistic programming. I don't think it's connected in any way with the line of Sherlock Holmes books -- but I can't be sure.

At any rate, MX Publishing boasts "a large stable of the best modern Holmes writers with traditional stories and short fiction through to fantasy and other unusual adaptations." And its newest is SHERLOCK HOLMES AND THE PLAGUE OF DRACULA by Vermont author Stephen Seitz. If that title makes you shake with uncertainty or despair, you're not alone. I wasn't sure I wanted to open this one ... Dracula has never been a passion of mine. Vampires are great in Charlaine Harris's "True Blood" series, but the original Vlad the Impaler? Hmm.

Well, the first chapter hooked me. Who can resist prying into how Dr. Watson's relationship with Sherlock Holmes stressed his marriage -- when the take is spun at least 90 percent convincingly in that voice so familiar from A. Conan Doyle's classic detective fiction? And for the sake of more Watson-and-Holmes intrigue, I was willing to admit that Mina Murray -- the protagonist of the Dracula novel -- could actually have brought to Holmes the case of her vanished fiancé, Jonathan Harker.

Seitz stays closer to Conan Doyle's "no spiritualist solutions" than the Holmes creator ultimately did, for Dr. John Watson tracks Holmes's insistence that the "vampire" effects must be explained scientifically. It's a great twist, and the team's journey to the hazards of Dracula's castle is well told, a great tale in classic form. Did it match 100 percent with an original Holmes story? Well, not quite. But it's so close that I could brush aside the occasional dissonance and revel instead in the adventure and solving the puzzles provided.

October 2, 1890

It is a bitter, dark day for justice.

We took photographs of the poor girl's desecration. Holmes measured every square inch of the tomb and collected several samples. We had Van Helsing in our very palms, and Lestrade despatched constables to bring him in.

Yet we have been frustrated again.

Oh yes, for those who are Holmes afficionados: Seitz has a brand new take on what actually happened at the Reichenbach Falls.

So, that's a pair of quirky new novels to try out, if you're in the mood for something very different. Let us know which parts you enjoy most -- or whether one book or the other is creepy enough to keep you checking the door and pulling out the garlic and such. It's all in good fun, I think.

Top Mysteries: What's on Your Latest List?

When Maureen Corrigan gave her short list of the top five crime and mystery novels of 2008, Dave and I jumped in delight -- because Dave Zeltserman's SMALL CRIMES, set in Vermont, made the list! Corrigan gave it first place, saying Zeltserman's version of crime noir belongs right up there with James M. Cain. My husband agrees, saying, "When you buy this one, buy at least two copies, because Zeltserman is the modern master of noir." Here's Corrigan's full list:

Dave Zeltserman, SMALL CRIMES Stieg Larson, THE GIRL WITH THE DRAGON TATTOO Friedrich Glauser, THE CHINAMAN Richard Stevenson, DEATH VOWS Judith Freeman, THE LONG EMBRACE: RAYMOND CHANDLER AND THE WOMAN HE LOVED

You might notice that the last one isn't a mystery novel, but an homage instead to America's foundational writer of detective fiction. If you don't have time to read all five right away, make sure to tuck SMALL CRIMES into your schedule -- because Zeltserman is coming to Kingdom Books this summer, and you'll want to absorb the story, pull together some friendly questions, and come soak up the gift of time with this gifted writer. *** I'll toss another list here tomorrow. But Corrigan's list points out the immense change in how Americans are selecting mysteries to read: We've gone global. Some are older treasures just reaching us through long-delayed translation, while others are hot and new. I've already mentioned (and recommended) Leighton Gage's dark passage into Brazil's urban and rain-forest crime waves, BURIED STRANGERS. Just out this month, it's the second in Gage's Chief Inspector Mario de Silva series. His third is well on its way toward publication. Soho Crime brings Gage's work to us, along with Eliot Pattison's Chinese-occupied Tibet series and, as it has for years, the French detective series by Cara Black, featuring Aimée Leduc. Scheduled for release in March 2009 by Black is MURDER IN THE LATIN QUARTER. It's a gem that gives not just Paris and its personalities, but also the hazards and complications of politically based immigration into the city. If the mention of Haiti gives you a shiver of foreboding, you're ready to grab this one.

Guilt stirred her. "I had Papa, a childhood, food on the table." She stared at René. "But maybe she didn't. I need to know." "You're reading too much into this, Aimée." He meant she wanted to believe. Maybe a big part of her did. But she had to see proof.

Threat, disorientation, and sudden entanglements drag Leduc through the worst side of detective work. Pre-orders are available. During the holiday break I dipped into my first acquaintance with the Dutch writer who's so well known by his surname that that's exactly what's on the cover of his books now: not A. C. Baantjer, but simply BAANTJER. The February release of DeKOK AND THE DEAD HARLEQUIN is the latest in a long string of relatively old-fashioned, but also quite dark, police procedurals set in the lowlands among the dikes and windmills. Inspector DeKok, like many of today's silver foxes, hasn't yet grasped how to do a thorough Internet search -- but he knows how to delegate that labor, and he's patient enough to dig under the surface, find the motivations of the criminals around him, and make sure that when he catches them, something worth prosecuting will be documented. I found Smittenaar's translation to be mildly awkward, but sometimes that actually gives a better sense of cultural difference, marking this book as quintessentially European.

Somewhere in the maelstrom of his memories, DeKok searched for a handhold on this reality. He often prided himself on his inability to think in a straight line. He knew he was able to jump from one subject to another. He also knew he reached conclusions based on instinct and intuition as much as logic. He had confidence and reason, backed by an enormous amount of experience. His eyes followed the little girl's outstretched finger.

And the plot is a clever twist on the old "locked room" paradigm: here, an unlocked one, in which a battered body is cleverly arranged to suggest a macabre take on the wooden marionettes known as harlequins. Ironically, before the first death is discovered, DeKok and his partner Vledder receive a visit from an accountant who announces the murder -- but has an alibi that DeKok can't possibly deny. Of course, I can't do a binge of "foreign" mysteries without plunging into the British ones. Later this week I'll survey a good one by John Harvey and the newest John Le Carré. And yes, I've got opinions about SCARPETTA, and have we talked about Peter Spiegelman? His books are irresistible during a "deep recession." But that's enough for today.