Two Memorable Crime Novels for Winter Reading: Con Lehane's THE RED SCARE and Cara Black's HUGUETTE (December Releases)

New York City in 1950 held neighborhoods far more separate than they are today: From Hell's Kitchen, where Mick Mulligan is starting his new chapter as a private investigator (PI), to the neighborhood where a black cab driver's family lives, means Mick's white Irish self steps into danger, threat, and abuse. But this isn't just his first case—it's his only case, dangled in front of him by organized labor leaders, which Mick's already aware means just a doorway away from organized crime. 

Besides, Mick can't work his own trade any longer, thanks to the anti-Communist rage sweeping the nation:

This was the reasoning—I went to meetings with Communists, I ate lunch with Communists, I agreed with Communists on certain things—that got me fired from my job as a cartoonist (we liked to call ourselves animators) at the Disney studio, won me a place on the Hollywood blacklist, and brought me back to New York City, where I hung out my shingle as a private investigator.

Mick's investigation and his own safety are tangled with union politics and high-powered maneuvering by men ready for serious power. He's not a serious "Red" himself, although he believes every working person should get a fair deal. But that's enough to paint a label on him, leading into what author Con Lehane calls THE RED SCARE MURDERS (release delayed to Dec. 16). 

And the label can swipe in all directions, as his taxi driver, an old friend of the man on death row that Mick's trying to exonerate, makes clear:

"You one of them fellas who go out and save the guy the cops thought done it? ... That's what Harold needs. Harold didn't kill no one. ... Maybe it was them Communists he got himself mixed up with."

Lehane's language is perfect for this page-turner crime novel, with phrases like "his tone as sincere as a priest in a pulpit," and plenty of Irish immigrant heritage tossed in.  One of Mick's helpful allies even mentions Hollywood detective fiction author Dashiell Hammett, in an effort to encourage the would-be PI: "I guess he told me this because Hammett had been Red-baited too."

Swing along for the smart and sometimes devious women, the men puzzling out the politics of the time, the darkness of urban angers and the gentle efforts of friendship. THE RED SCARE is a classic of the urban noir genre, with plenty of quick twists and not much gore. Besides, there are such strong parallels in the social politics of Lehane's 1950s and our own 2025 that you could imagine this feisty crime novel was just written last month. Great fun and good reading.

THE RED SCARE is one of the November releases from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, and definitely has a place on the winter to-be-read (TBR) stack, for both nostalgia and good feelings.

Another December release from Soho Crime, HUGUETTE by Cara Black (Dec. 2), might qualify for some "trigger warnings." Set in Paris at the end of World War II, it's jammed with rape, everyday sexual and physical abuse, and messy violent deaths of nice people. 

But for any reader of Black's excellent Aimée Leduc Paris PI series, this is a must-read. The first few chapters flip back and forth between 1947 and 1945, not always smoothly. About a third of the way into this 300-page historical police and crime novel, the name Leduc comes up, and Cara Black fans know we're on our way into a significant "back-story" to the popular series. How much trust can Huguette Faure place in the "flic" (cop) who offers to help her? Who murdered her father and stole the family business? What are the secrets behind the grown children who now surround her, and who don't know what was stolen -- or, more poignantly, WHO was stolen -- from this attractive, determined, and impoverished young woman who'd been given such a bad hand by history and crime as a pair?

"These cocky soldiers needed to be shown they couldn't treat her like a kid," Huguette thinks as she puts herself in fresh danger with more questions. "Establish authority, her father would say, when dealing with black marketers."

But Black's double epigraph to the book includes a quote from Benito Mussolini's foreign minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, and it's one Huguette should keep in mind: "Victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan."

If you can keep reading, with hope, through Huguette's grievous losses, Black's portrait of postwar Paris and her backstory to Aimée Leduc will be a gift to your mystery-loving soul. Buy two copies: one for a friend's holiday gift, and one to treat yourself to some willing Parisian distraction as you keep checking your lists. 

From Larry Beinhart ("Wag the Dog"), THE DEAL GOES DOWN

Tony Casella's dream life may be a lot more satisfying than the awake part. He's just been pitched a job as a hit man, while riding a train to a funeral. It's got him confused, but also tempted, because his finances have never been worse. But his thinking is pretty messed up, even in a dream about someone he's sure is dead:

I meanwhile had an ordinary, pleasant, live person's conversation with Owen. He said business was good, but not as good as it had been, big companies largely created through national security money were moving in and everything was going digital. By then, some of my own ghosts were sneaking in, some to taunt, some to make me mourn ... my wife and my son ... to tear my heart out if I'd still had one.

Part New York noir, part unexpected hero, and a big part dark caper novel, this satirical thriller is a lively return to publication for both Larry Beinhart (his previous book was in 2013) and his long-time private eye, Tony Casella. Despite a solid series of detective fiction, Beinhart's probably best known for the film adaptation of his book Wag the Dog (with an all-star cast). So it's good to see THE DEAL GOES DOWN as a solid book-on-paper, with an August 9 release date (time to pre-order it).

This will especially suit Donald Westlake and Walter Moseley fans, as well as readers who've discovered Rory Flynn. Restoring Manhattan Noir is well worth the effort! Brace for a quirky ending ... but then again, why not?

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

New V.I. Warshawski Sleuthing from Sara Paretsky, OVERBOARD

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort: Max comments, ‘If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.’”

No good deed goes unpunished. Detective V.I. (Vic, or Victoria) Warshawski may have only let her dogs out for a short run, but they take off by the waterfront and find a half-dead young woman lying among the rocks. Of course Vic calls for emergency services, and by the time the fragile teen is getting help at the hospital, the private investigator has got trouble with the police, the hospital, and, most importantly, someone from the Chicago underworld who thinks the immigrant teen was carrying a vital small item and must have slipped it to V.I. during the rescue. Not so—but is anyone going to believe Vic, or is her life going to be repeatedly in jeopardy at every move she makes?

Of course, her life is never simple enough to just have one crisis underway: She’s also trying to provide protection for some aging Jewish friends whose synagogue is under attack. Oddly, there’s a big-money real estate deal offered for the old building. Is the vandalism connected, as a form of pressure? As she gradually begins to also see parallels between the two ongoing crises, Vic also suspects someone on the police force is involved with the mob and its money.

That’s enough to concern her friends, especially after one particular officer with a reputation for torture and menace targets Vic maliciously, with both language and force.

Her trusted advisor Lotty puts it bluntly: “It’s shocking, and deplorable, that you and this young man were molested,” Lotty said. “But, Victoria, please be realistic. If the police really are covering up a major crime, you can get yourself seriously wounded physically, on top of the degradation of a strip search.” When Lotty asks Vic to back off, for the sake of the friends who love her, it seems important to do so.

Yet other forces are in action: The rescued teen vanishes from the hospital; when Vic tracks down the youth’s Hungarian grandmother, she finds collusion between a nursing home and the black-ops police officers. More assaults on the synagogue distress Vic’s elderly friends to almost the breaking point. She clearly can’t help being pulled back into this dangerous mess, can she?

One of the pleasures of reading Sara Paretsky’s Warshawski novels is that despite the threats and pressure, there’s relatively little gore spread around, so the focus can stay on the perpetrators and their motives. Even the bent police pressure on Vic amounts to little more than battering her (although, granted, much worse gets threatened). Series readers will recognize the steady build-up of Vic’s insistence on justice at any cost, a reliable characteristic of these books. New to V.I. Warshawski? Relax and enjoy the well-plotted story and don’t worry about earlier titles—Parestsky doesn’t embed anything that calls for reading the other books, and her highly professional narrative makes it easy to catch Warshawski’s motivations and maneuvers. The quirks of the Chicago waterfront add to the book’s drama, and to the factors stacked up against this lone detective. But don’t take the “lone” notion too seriously: Vic’s willingness to be a friend, with all her heart, gains an equal return, and she’s well supported.

One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort, despite its risks and her often wounded body: Max comments, “If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.”

For Vic, that’s not going to be a problem.

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

Traditional Sleuthing with Jewish Touches, from Andy Weinberger

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books] 

“This fine traditional LA crime novel with its Jewish tang and its quandaries of the elderly provides enjoyable entertainment.”

Amos Parisman is feeling his age—he needs naps, he misses his wife (she’s in a care home with dementia), he has to be careful about remembering his keys. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to quit the private eye work he’s done all his life. So when a “homeless lady” in is neighborhood is murdered and his police buddy Lieutenant Bill Malloy is open to his help, Andy’s eager to contribute. Anything that will dispel the fog of aimlessness and sorrow in his life is more than welcome.

The lieutenant half apologizes for the collaboration, and hopes Amos doesn’t mind. He’s blunt: “Mind? Are you kidding? This is exactly the kind of case I need.” He admits, “It’s a police matter. Only I happen to know a little bit about her. And besides, Bill—this retirement thing?—between you and me, I’d rather be dead.”

Although Amos is not religious, he’s 100 percent Jewish in heritage and outlook, and his thoughts and conversations are sprinkled with scraps of Yiddish and wry comments about his mixed neighborhood in Los Angeles.

And that’s the fun half of this old-fashioned PI tale, because the other half, getting acquainted with a lot of homeless people and the not always pure-minded folks who “help” them takes a lot of Amos’s energy. That energy drain is also part of why his gentle romance on the side with a wealthy Jewish woman is pretty low key, mostly holding hands, kissing, and sharing a bottle of wine (much more for her). Amos has a moral code and he’s still in love with his wife, absent though her mind has become—and yet this new “girlfriend,” Mara, wants him to move in with her, to save money and be less lonely.

This might not be great for Mara’s granddaughter, Amos considers: “She’s a smart girl and has figured out that I’m quietly shtupping her grandma. His effort to hold Mara back isn’t exactly working, since she can point to his efforts to assist the police as being unpaid, so somehow worth less. Amos, on the other hand, says “The pool old woman in the dumpster? The throwaway?” Mara is blunt: “She’s not going anywhere.”

Maybe his PI work soothes his conscience, which is not exactly happy with the situation. Or maybe he’s just stubborn and doesn’t want to let go, the way he hasn’t let go of his wife. But isn’t that a good think?

This fine traditional LA crime novel with its Jewish tang and its quandaries of the elderly provides enjoyable entertainment, and is the third in Andy Weinberger’s own late-life second career (he’s a bookseller first of all). By the time Amos figures out what’s actually going on in the crescendo of deaths of the homeless, he’s got himself into a risky situation that someone his age should have known better about.

Then again, who should be better at making moral choices than an old Jewish PI who wishes he could always figure out what’s right? When the case finally ends, Amos says, “It’s not a good thing. The only good thing is that it’s over."

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

Soho Press/Syndicate Brings Joseph Hansen's Dave Brandstetter PI Series Back Into Print -- All 12 Titles! (First 3 NOW)

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

Fadeout marks the debut of one of the twentieth century’s most memorable investigators. With this re-issue, a new generation will experience both Hansen’s rich writing and taut plotting, and a compelling view of how life may have, in many ways, changed for the better.

The Syndicate Books re-issue of Joseph Hansen’s 12 Dave Brandstetter crime novels begins with three titles at once, an excellent idea—because cracking open the first one, Fadeout, is an immediate reminder of why Hansen’s writing was startling and delectable in 1970. The Californian “death investigator” for an insurance company has much of the authority of a police officer to nose into questionable deaths, without having to focus on the law so intently. And he is, as publisher Paul Oliver says, “Tall, handsome, smart and successful.”

But author Michael Nava in his introduction to the re-issue nails the remarkable aspect of this neglected series: “Hansen is not only one of America’s best mystery writers, he is a great American writer. Period.” Nava asserts that the reason crime fiction readers don’t know Hansen’s books is their focus on the lives of gay men. Hansen’s investigator struggles with his committed relationship to another man, and all the cases he focuses on in this series involve men loving men.

They also include the brassy reality of gay nightclubs, paid sex, and vulgar drooling that objectifies both young men and older ones. But in each of the books, the motives for crime (and the pain Brandstetter feels) are always linked to love. A direction of love that was, at the time of writing, downright illegal and considered immoral and “sickening” by many.

Hansen’s writing steps away from those harsh edges through elegant description as well as page-turning plot and action. It also provides gorgeous examples of the Golden Age of American detective fiction, like this:

“In twenty years you could say and do a lot you wish you hadn’t. In twenty years you could store up a lot of regrets. And then, when it was too late, when there was no one left to say ‘I’m sorry’ to, you could stop sleeping for regret, stop eating, talking, working, for regret. You could stop wanting to live. You could want to die for regret.”

Or, of course, you could decide that killing someone else would ease your pain.

Fadeout opens with Brandstetter’s arrival in a box canyon above a California ranch town. An insured man’s car has been found in a dangerously flooded river, apparently accidentally landing there from a slick and risky wooden bridge. But no body has turned up. Should Brandstetter’s company pay out the life insurance benefit? Not if the man hasn’t died. And that’s what Dave Brandstetter must determine, through tracking down family, friends, recent activities, and yes, the course of love. All this, while he’s eye-deep in grief himself at the death (from cancer) of his 20-year partner, and blaming himself for the small things he could have done better, the added love he could have displayed, across years of tenderness and loyalty.

This kind of portrait of homosexual love turned preconceptions upside down when the books came out, of course, and for many, it still may.

When the break in the investigation arrives, it comes wrapped in the moody film ambience of the time: “A smoldering Valentino in white riding breeches ought to have been waiting in the motel office. It was a silent-movie set. Slot windows in deep white walls, guarded by grilles of black iron. Black carved beams, black chandelier. Floors of square red tiles. Tapestry-backed chairs with brass studs and gold fringe. But it wasn’t Valentino. It was Ito in a tidy white jacket.”

When this motel clerk pulls out a registration card and shares the information, Brandstetter is on his way to solving the case, although more risk and death follow. Neatly twisted and elegantly resolved, Fadeout marks the debut of one of the twentieth century’s most memorable investigators. With this re-issue, a new generation will experience both Hansen’s rich writing and taut plotting, and a compelling view of how life may have, in many ways, changed for the better.

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

NOTE:  Books 2 and 3 are also out now -- and reviewed at the New York Journal of Books: DEATH CLAIMS and TROUBLEMAKER.

Crime Fiction from Canada: RUNNING FROM THE DEAD, Mike Knowles

Other than Louise Penney's work, books by Canadian authors are often slow to reach the US. I was glad to receive (from ECW Press) a copy of the eighth book by Mike Knowles, RUNNING FROM THE DEAD, for review this season. The book came out in June, and it's well worth tracking down via bookstore order on an online retailer.

Private investigator Sam Jones has spent six years searching for an abducted 8-year-old. He's taken plenty of other cases during that time but hunting for Ruth Verne's child never left his priority list, and he regularly reports in to the grieving but ever-hopeful mom.

What he certainly never expected was losing his own tight control upon discovering what had happened to the child and confronting the perpetrator. As Jones starts to face his own shattering reaction, he believes he has only a short time—maybe days—before he'll have to answer for what he's done, to the police and the justice system.

So when he finds a cryptic pair of scrawls in a coffee-shop bathroom that sound like they're from a girl or young woman being held captive, his inner clock starts ticking: If he couldn't save Ruth Verne's son, can he at least rescue someone else's daughter?

Of course it's more complicated than that, and more horrifying, too, as Jones digs into the worst corners of his city on the hunt for the young victim who's asked for help. 

And he can't get away from what the young women's former foster mom says to him:

Norah wiped away her tears with the back of her hand. "You're not here for her. You're here for you."

"Yes," Jones said.

"You're here for hope."

Jones nodded.

Norah took two fists of his coat. "I don't care if you're not here for her. I don't care, because you think you can bring her back. She's still out there and you think you can bring her back. Please—please bring her back to me."

"I'll try."

"Do better than that. Promise me."

Jones gently took hold of Norah's hands and pulled her fists away from his chest. "This world hates promises. All I can do is try."

Knowles leavens the plot by including some unforgettable characters, from the barista willing to pitch in, to an aging reprobate doing his best to cast off his daughter's efforts to make him go straight. RUNNING FROM THE DEAD swerves back and forth between emotion and action, with tight twists of plot and highly satisfying surprises. 

It may have taken a while to get hold of a Mike Knowles crime novel—but now I'll be watching hard for more. And by the way, if you need a comparable to think about ... think Travis McGee, but even better.

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

Walter Mosley's Newest, TROUBLE IS WHAT I DO: Swift Tight Plot, Great Language

[originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“Beyond the usual detective/PI action, Mosley creates a model for writing that moves off the ‘race card’ and back to true descriptions.”

When Walter Mosley writes a detective novel that’s short, it’s because every word counts, with no padding. Trouble Is What I Do (Mulholland Books) plunges into the important details on the first page, as Leonid McGill explains why Mardi Bitterman works at the front desk of his office: “She’s the detective agency’s secretary-receptionist and also the human barometer that helps maintain my moral bearings in a world where sin is reflex and kindness a quick death.” She and Leonid have a word code that specifies her assessment of a client’s potential threat to Leonid. And this time she’s about to bring the folks back to him, so she’s saying they seem all right and Leonid should treat them as such.

However, the seasoned detective still pockets his handgun while the clients are on their way: “Mardi’s intuition of human nature and potential was better than mine—but she wasn’t infallible.”

As it turns out, Mardi’s on the money this time, but the clients are bringing both trouble and life-threatening danger with them: All Philip “Catfish” Worry, who’s probably almost 100 years old, wants McGill to do is deliver a letter … to Catfish’s own granddaughter, who has no idea that he exists. Or, more importantly, of the color of his skin.

That ought to be routine, but the generation in between Catfish and the young lady, who’s about to get married, definitely doesn’t want the connection to take place. In fact, the young lady’s father has a contract out on Catfish, with one of the most deadly paid assassins that Leonid McGill has ever known about. And Leonid will have to place his own life on the line if he gets involved.

Walter Mosley spins a swift and sweet tale of friendship, family, clever twists, and what it means to be a moral person, even though, as Catfish describes Leonid, he’s “the kind’a brothah-man been on both sides’a the line.” Most of the other characters show their true selves quickly, like the man who took out the contract: “In an interview, he’d called Nigeria a shithole and its president a nigger in a hat. When there were protests, he simply stated, ‘In America, we believe in free speech.’” (Why does that sound familiar?)

Threats and revelations make this slim book—166 pages long as a hardcover, but in a format that will fit in a large pocket—one that’s hard to put down. But beyond the usual detective/PI action, Mosley creates a model for writing that moves off the “race card” and back to true descriptions. Here’s an example from the first appearance of his new client, complete with great-grandson in tow: “Behind the youth, a senior citizen trundled lightly. The young man had chocolate-brown skin. His elder was what they called redbone back in the day. … It described a light-skinned Negro. They both wore new blue jeans, checkered blue work shirts, and hard leather shoes that had counted more miles than a Fitbit could imagine.” Mosley extends this color-detail descriptive mode to others in the tale as well, like the dope dealer Patrice Sandoval, who has “fair skin and hair the color of finished maple wood,” and the massive Wolfman Chord: “Wolfman’s skin was a deep brass brown, and his face was that of an intelligent, inquisitive child.”

These stirring descriptions move Trouble Is What I Do from casual PI fiction to a statement of what Mosley’s been known to assert, ponder, and sometimes say from another direction: that we may be in a “postracial” society in America. If that means moving to characters who come in marvelous varieties of skin color and appearance—instead of tagged as “white” or “black”—many a reader and future writer may benefit greatly from this soon-to-be-classic crime investigation. 

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

Turning a Thriller into a PI Investigation: I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP from Alan Orloff

There's a problem with reading in bed, if you're reading a lot of crime fiction: Sooner or later, you'll scare yourself out of a good night's sleep. The solution to those moments will also leave you short of sleep, but at least you'll have hope -- that is, you just keep reading until the plot twists finally tidy up and the character you're hoping will survive somehow makes it through ... or at least has a meaningful death. At 4 a.m. Right?

Actually I'd rather not have to white-knuckle a book like that. So when the cover for I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP, new from established thriller author Alan Orloff, started me checking that I'd locked the doors ... I worked out a way to read it in the daytime.

Turns out the cover was a bit more creepy than the book. And -- the book's well worth savoring. Anderson West, running his own investigation firm, gets shoved into accepting a case for, well, free actually, when his sort of messed-up sister Carrie connects right away with Jessica, a client being stalked:

"I don't have much money," Jessica said.

Before I could respond, Carrie jumped in. "Don't worry about that either. The State of Virginia Professional Investigator Oversight Department requires us to provide a certain amount of pro bono services every year. I'm happy to say your case qualifies."

I raised an eyebrow at Carrie. There was no such department, no such requirement. My sister just had a soft spot for innocent people getting terrorized.

In fact, Anderson West may sound tough, but he'd just as ready to tackle the case of the horrible threats landing in Jessica's life. And from here on, the book's a classic PI detection tale -- checking out all of Jessica's exes (is there a significant reason she's bouncing from one guy to another?) and getting glimpses of the criminal mind behind the torment.

The plot ramps up to terror when a "gift" for Jessica arrives where she works: a locket containing a photo of her in a wedding dress, with a bloody streak down the front.

Anderson West and Carrie make an intriguing team. I KNOW WHERE YOU SLEEP spins them into a nicely twisted investigation. Orloff could have gone further, putting his investigators at risk in new ways ... if readers are fortunate, he'll follow this with a more intense sequel (as one might often expect from publisher Down & Out Books!). Meanwhile, here's a good read that won't require you to pre-dial 911 when you hear the house creaking.

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

Joseph Finder's #4 for PI Nick Heller: HOUSE ON FIRE

[originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“. . . [this is] the charm of a Joseph Finder novel, tugging readers into identifying with the PI, even without ever carrying a weapon or sneaking up on a suspect themselves.”

In book 4 of his Nick Heller series, House on Fire, Joseph Finder merges the traditional private investigator role of his PI protagonist with a dangerous form of industrial espionage: prying into the family secrets of the corporation behind a powerfully addictive opioid. The enormous wealth of the Kimball family, built on their share of the drug economy, is rooted in family guilt as well. And the minute Nick starts prying, he’s a target for those willing to protect their secrets and fortunes by any means possible.

You’d think Nick would realize this and decline the case. But as Finder demonstrates so deftly, Nick’s heartstrings are vulnerable to old loyalties. In this case, the funeral of his army buddy Sean, who saved Nick’s life in the service, summons Nick to support the grieving widow and kids—and sets him up as a target:

“One woman stood out from the other mourners. She was a hippieish woman in her thirties, wearing a busily colored fringed, crochet-knit shawl over a black dress. I’d noticed her before, at the church, sitting off by herself. . . . She didn’t look like she came from here. I couldn’t figure her out. My first thought was that she was a journalist, but then I ruled that out—she was dressed too nicely. I also had the strong feeling she’d been looking at me.”

Susan Kimball, it turns out, is there to recruit Nick to infiltrate her family’s compound and extract an important file of results: ones that showed how addictive the Kimball fortune-making drug would be, well before it gained approval for the marketplace. Susan, or Sukie, wants justice for the drug-related deaths, and is willing to help Nick expose the research hanky-panky.

In the big crowd of guests at the grand estate, unexpectedly Nick finds his his former colleague and lover Maggie. The two can still trust each other, and swap some details, discovering they’ve got parallel assignments to pursue. Good thing to have some companionship, because nothing among the Kimball crowd is as direct or honest as it may look, and by a third of the way through this investigation, Nick and Maggie are dodging murderous plots right and left. Even Sukie might not be playing straight, despite what she’s got to gain from Nick’s potential success.

Finder provides a straightforward suspense thriller in House on Fire, turning up the action and tension with each scene. When Nick tracks down the original whistle-blower for the pharmaceutical scam, the tension goes global, too, with connections to Eastern Europe. Soon one of the other Kimball family members suggests that Nick will need to tackle a necessary murder in order to get through the case: “‘Every document of civilization in also a document of barbarism. The son wants to redeem the sins of the father but at the same time he’s necessarily implicated in them, right?’”

Talk high philosophy to Nick, and you provoke him into questioning everything else he’s getting told—which is the charm of a Joseph Finder novel, tugging readers into identifying with the PI, even without ever carrying a weapon or sneaking up on a suspect themselves.

For those who follow the latest scandals of real-life pharma companies, some of the revelations in House on Fire will seem straight from the news. But fear not, Finder always has another twist ready, and the best of them involve loyalty, friendship, and compassion. Buckle up for a good read.

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

Autumn Mysteries to Catch Up With: Archer Mayor's BOMBER'S MOON, and THE RANSOM by Nancy Boyarsky

November's a perfect month for shopping for mystery books, because there are two equally valid choices: buy them as gifts (the gifting holidays are racing toward us), or stack them for the dark days that linger from now til February, at least in the northern hemisphere.

So here are a pair to consider. THE RANSOM from former political author Nancy Boyarsky is the fourth in the Nicole Graves series:

1. The Swap
2. The Bequest
3. Liar Liar
4. The Ransom

This time, Nicole has a proper private investigator's license, which makes investigating in Los Angeles much safer. Or at least, it should. But while she investigates an apparent home invasion-turned-kidnapping, she discovers an unexpected deposit of more than $2 million to her own checking account. Tracking down the source isn't hard—but the sudden wealth makes Nicole herself a target, and soon she's trying to investigate multiple crimes with a very clever twist.

Boyarsky deserves to be better known: Her plotting is fast-paced, tight, and surprising, and she walks the line between dark and smart in an enjoyable mode that leaves room for some laughter, some flirtation, and a lot of hard-core investigation:

Nicole took the box, went into her office and closed the door. She'd just finished locking the money in the cupboard where she kept her purse and jacket, when she thought of something. Why had the kidnappers failed to show up at the first two drops? ... the police took extra care on the second drop, when they'd used the drone to keep watch. Somehow the kidnappers still found out the cops were involved.  ... She thought of her conversation with Kevin that morning, his nonplussed attitude ... It was as if he'd been expecting her call.

I enjoyed racing along with Nicole, and savored the careful plotting that allowed me to get a handle on the crime just in time to feel that I could have solved it -- but not so soon that the suspense would be crushed. Nice work! And worth picking this up, especially if you have a shelf for women investigators.

Another must-buy from the autumn releases is Archer Mayor's 30th Joe Gunther mystery, BOMBER'S MOON. Fans of the series will be especially pleased to savor a full house of the favorite characters from this Vermont-based investigation team: Joe Gunther as an investigator resisting retirement, the puzzling relationship of Sammie Martens and Willy Kunkle, return appearances by other investigators and even one of the criminals from an earlier book. It also features Mayor's trademark "rough talk" as he crossed police conversation with a hint of military:

In fact, Gunther's present ranking was as statewide field commander of all VBI investigations. However, instead of flying a desk at headquarters in Waterbury, alongside the agency's director, he'd insisted on also being agent in charge of the southeast office, one of five aceross Vermont. An unusual setup, it had been his only requirement to transferring to the VBI from the Brattleboro PD, where he'd been chief of detectives. He was among the longest-serving and most respected cops in Vermont.

What makes the book stand out the most is the way Mayor plays two characters against each other and then perhaps in tandem: investigative reporter Rachel Reiling, and private investigator (PI) Sally Kravitz.

The book also has some frustrating aspects that may irk obsessive readers: papers that seem significant but never quite materialize, the absence of resolution on at least three characters and their conflict, threads left incomplete for Willy and Sammie. But go for the ride and don't be too fussy! Add this one to a Vermont shelf ... or PI shelf ... or police procedurals. Or place it in the center of your TBR stack, for a delicious winter reward.

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

It's a Tough World, but PI Willa Pennington Steps Up, in DARK STREETS, COLD SUBURBS from Aimee Hix

About the only thing I didn't like about the second Willa Pennington investigation, DARK STREETS, COLD SUBURBS, was the title -- for all the rest, from the conflicted protagonist to the neatly twisted and well-paced plotting, I couldn't put the book down.

Willa Pennington is a former law enforcement officer, and in her own thinking, she's wimped out of the job. Now studying -- both on paper and in practice drills -- to pass the exams for a private investigator (PI) license, to work in her dad's business. It's home based, which means that if the bad guys catch on to where the Penningtons live, violence and threat can easily come home with them.

Not that Willa's mom would let "bad guys" get very far. Defensive of her family and wickedly insightful, she's Willa's other mentor in a deep sense. And Willa needs all the back-up she can find: At the mixed martial arts dojo where she's working past her (very reasonable) fear load, there's a teenager who's in extreme danger. A classic "poor little rich girl," the teen, Aja, is struggling to navigate death and destruction while her parents leave her alone in a house where the locks and alarms aren't enough to keep out the crazies. The thing is, they're not acting like the presumed teenaged druggies or house thieves Willa had in mind:

Instead of deflating like expected, like any scared, stupid kid would he kicked back hard and caught me on the jaw. He nailed me in just the right spot and I saw the proverbial stars.

I heard him scrambling up and running off while I shook my head like a cartoon and tried to remember how to count all my teeth, especially the back ones. When I was finally back in the land of the fully cognizant with a wet ass, ripped jeans, and scuffed Chucks, I listened for the sound of a vehicle. The only thing I heard was a very optimistic mourning dove cooing and the chirp of a text alert.

I NEED YOU AT A SCENE.

Either Jan's cold case had just gotten super-hot or she had a second case for me. That made three I was juggling, in case anyone was counting.

The rain began coming down in earnest as I limped back to my truck, my knee competing with my pride to see which smarted more.

Most of us don't work out as intensely as Willa, or plan our attacks and defenses in her ways -- but otherwise, this all-too-believable crime novel of suburban danger could be taking place practically next door, and the risks Willa decides to take make sense ... but only good teamwork will get her through.

This one's a keeper, and that means the entire series -- the preceding title (What Doesn't Kill You) and the ones we can expect in the future from Aimee Hix, a northern Virginia author -- need space on the shelves, ASAP. A good pick from Midnight Ink.

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

California Noir in Fresh Memes, from Jonathan Lethem, THE FERAL DETECTIVE

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

When Arabella, an Oregon college student, vanishes into a Southern California desert cult, it’s Phoebe Siegler’s call to action—because Arabella is the daughter of her best friend and somebody needs to do something, right? A referral near a mountain retreat connected with both Buddhist monks and Leonard Cohen leads Phoebe to a highly eccentric local detective who may be able to help. So The Feral Detective, one of the strangest and deepest mysteries of this year, begins as a missing-teenager case, only to morph into looking at what’s missing in Phoebe herself.

Of course, she doesn’t see herself as having issues, other than her tremendous rage and grief surrounding the 2016 presidential elections. (Somebody needs to do something!) Obviously, private eye Charles Heist, with a live opossum in his desk drawer and a wild young woman burrowing into the blankets on the office couch, is a prime candidate for Phoebe’s judging and labeling. In fact, she tags him as “the feral detective,” using a term that most of us only attach to starving and flea-bitten cats that won’t accept affection. Is it the investigator who fits the term? Or is it Phoebe herself, with her abrupt sexual approach and immediate aggression toward the people she meets?

To get a hint at where the missing Arabella may be, PI Charles Heist opts first to assist a group of “homeless” people (really quite at home in their scrap of vulnerable land) to evacuate from a massive gully—a “wash”—before the oncoming rain sweeps them away. They may already know Arabella. Phoebe accepts the role of sidekick for the effort, doing something that’s more productive than her usual routine of watching and hating the politics of the moment. Then suddenly Heist leaves her at her hotel and takes off with some of the rescued outdoor folks:

Then came a strange time. In the hours before Charles Heist reappeared and took me away in his truck again, I entered a kind of spell or pall as if the small hotel room were a kind of tunnel too, and I’d been left behind instead of rescued. I stripped off my soaked clothes and took a hot shower, and while one part of my mind urgently wished to scrub off the mud of the Wash, the rank smell of the tunnel and of my homeless companions in the cab of Heist’s pickup, another part mourned some loss I couldn’t specify. I felt I’d been allowed to taste Heist’s world, teamed with him in pursuit of abjectly hopeless tasks in a pit in the rain. And then I’d been expelled.

But Heist does return, with a hint of where to look for Arabella: amid the often dangerous vagabonds, hippies, and outcasts who make up a pair of opposing cults out in the desert east of Los Angeles. Is Arabella caught up unwillingly in a massive feud between two groups known as the Rabbits and the Bears, or is she about to take part in a ceremony that will turn her into a desert queen? If Phoebe and Charles do extract her, will Arabella consent to go home with them?

Jonathan Lethem’s writing weaves together the surreal and the heart-wrenching, and Phoebe’s strong dark voice speaks with the same alcohol-soaked despair as in the earlier Los Angeles noir. At times, she sounds like one of the PIs of the 1930s, harsh, unlovable, able only to attack the world that refuses to accommodate her.

Readers of classic noir will recognize and bond to Phoebe’s gruff assessments of her case and her life (post-election trauma, anyone?); imagine Raymond Chandler and James M. Cain crushed in the latter-day typewriters of Lisa Brackmann and Taylor Stevens, then dried out under a desert sun. Complex, tragic and comic at once, and utterly memorable, Phoebe and her “hired gun” become memes for all of us trapped in political quagmire and questions.

But going deep isn’t the only way to read The Feral Detective: It’s also one of the most unusual, unlikely, and un-put-downable PI novels ever.

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

Heart-Wrenching Norwegian Sleuth Mystery, BIG SISTER (Varg Veum Series), by Gunnar Staalesen

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

Norwegian author GunnarStaalesen just entered his seventies, and his crime novels date back to when he was 22. Still, he’s not well known in the US because of the lag in translation. Fortunately, for his best-selling series featuring Bergen private investigator Varg Veum, that’s changing. BIG SISTER (originally published in 2016) is the sixth in this series that Don Bartlett has translated, with an easy-to-enjoy casual feel to the writing, and just enough “foreignness” on the tongue to appreciate the Scandinavian backdrop.

Big Sister is not a standard Nordic noir—Varg Veum’s darkest years are done, and he’s settled happily into a long-term relationship with stable lady friend, and a caring if somewhat distant one with his son. He’s not hitting the bottle or any other form of mind-numbing substance. But the opening of the book proves he still has secrets in his own past, or more precisely that of his family, to cope with:  The woman arriving at his office, Norma Johanne Bakkevik, introduces herself as the elderly half-sister he’s never met (she was adopted long before his birth), and wants to be his client in the disappearance of a college student.

Veum’s baffled by the presentation of the case: Nineteen-year-old Emma Hagland, a good student and quiet person, and Norma’s goddaughter, walked out of the apartment she shared with two other young women, and simply vanished. Nobody’s heard from her since. And the police, understandably, decline to take action, since college students are all too likely to move in with boyfriends, relocate due to quarrels, quit school and go on extended vacations, you name it.

Varg’s inclined to that opinion at first, too. But there are a lot of missing or damaged parents in this set-up, including young Emma’s estranged dad, who turns out to be part of a not very pleasant motorcycle club closer to Varg’s own locale. He can’t help noticing the pattern of upheaval and hurt as he investigates (he’s a PI with pretty good police connections).

Most disturbing of all is Veum’s visit to a woman named simply Veslemøy—no surname in use—who’s grown up well cared for in a mental institution and remains almost catatonic, and certainly speechless. This condition followed a long-ago sexual assault on Veslemøy—an assault blamed on the missing teen’s long-gone father, who still associates with a pair of brutal men from those years, leaders of the dangerous motorcycle club.

There’s no big payday likely for Veum in solving this case, if in fact Emma is truly missing. Even worse, the cold case around Veslemøy becomes an obsession for him. Somehow, he’s sure, Emma’s disappearance must connect to this profound disturbance in her family’s past. Veum considers the landscape around Emma herself to be distressingly vague:

I stared into space. I still didn’t have a distinct picture of Emma, but it was beginning to resemble a kind of profile, a bit blurred at the edges, but clear enough for me to see a vulnerable young woman, someone it might be easy to lead astray, someone who was open to approaches, whether well meant or malevolent, someone who could easily become a victim.

This worried me and created a sense of urgency. Perhaps I would have to resort to a few short-cuts, however brutal they might seem to outsiders—or to those concerned.

Veum’s short-cuts take him into confronting a brutality that threatens his life, repeatedly, but that’s not a new experience. Staalesen solves those moments with some “deus ex machina” moves that detract from the emotional power of Veum’s hunt for Emma and his dark plunge into the deadly side of social media. But this minor flaw doesn’t stop the force of the book, and the search for both Veum’s truth and Emma’s makes a fiercely good crime novel, with an unexpected but satisfying final twist.

Despite the Norwegian PI slant, BIG SISTER is far from the darkness of Henning Mankell or Karin Fossom. Consider it a traditional sleuth mystery, with plenty of nontraditional options added. Well worth reading, with the rest of Staalesen’s award-winning series.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.
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San Juan Islands Mystery #2, AGAINST THE UNDERTOW, Bethany Maines

Bethany Maines admits she cares a lot about the entertainment tucked into the mysteries she writes -- she weaves clever grins into her plots as easily as the suspense. In the second book of her San Juan Islands Murder Mystery series, AGAINST THE UNDERTOW, displaced actress Tish (never Patricia!) Yearly hopes to get her wedding venue established at last, so she can start earning some money. Jobs on the rainy islands off the coast of Washington State are scarce and don't pay terribly well. But she's scraped up just enough funding to create a professional kitchen in a small house with  gorgeous surroundings, and why shouldn't it work out?

Well, one thing making it tough is Tish's role as junior partner (a way of making her caregiving more acceptable) to her aging grandfather Tobias Yearly, an ex-CIA agent determined to turn Tish and himself into official private investigators. Of course at his age, he's not exactly "up" on all the technology that "snoops" now use -- good thing Tish can handle that end. Meanwhile he's prudently made up business cards that should do for both of them: T. Yearly, plus Tish's cell number.

I chuckled my way through the first book in this series, An Unseen Current -- well, to be honest, I chortled and belly-laughed enough to disturb my spouse's TV watching -- and Maines's earlier series, the Carrie Mae espionage adventures, were also side-splitting. So the mild chaos at the opening of AGAINST THE UNDERTOW seemed promising to me: Tish's not-quite-boyfriend (she's officially seeing someone else, but the chemistry can't be mistaken), Sheriff's Deputy Emmett Nash, needs a quick escape and alibi from accusation of murder, and the next thing you know, Tish is quietly letting her grandfather know she's got the deputy tucked into the trunk of their car, as they exit the ferry, the main route to the islands.

Count on quick twists, as Tish's BFF from the mainland arrives in "cute" overalls to help with the rehab, and a mess of messed-up hippies turns threatening (yep, plenty of gasps of amusement in there), while Tish is trying to take crime-solving seriously for the sake of Deputy Nash (and so she can get back to her construction work). She tells her feisty grandpa that she's concerned:

"I feel like we should be further along in solving Tyler's murder. Or have more suspects. Or something."

"It's the suspects that trouble me," said Tobias leaning back. "I'm not saying women can't kill -- they're perfectly capable. I just don't particularly see these ones doing it."

"Well, apparently anyone can be a killer," said Tish. "If Detective Spring is to be believed."

"No, not really," said Tobias. "What he means is that evil people can be perfectly normal. You know why the rate of PTSD went up so much in Vietnam?"

"Clearer reporting, destigmatization, and a better understanding of the problem?"

"Thank you, Miss Social Sciences. No. Well, probably those had an effect. But also, there was better training. They trained soldiers to shoot a human targets, made it more instinctual, got better guns and made it easier for kids to shoot people."

Grandpa Tobias's point is that their suspects so far -- Clover, who's probably insane, and Nora, who stinks as even an ex-spouse to the accused deputy -- don't feel like they're motivated by the usual killing causes: love, money, or rage.

Of course, Tobias has candidates for the killer role, based on his secret files that he's compiled on just about everyone on the islands. But Tish isn't supposed to leak word of those files ... a difficult position to be in, considering other people already suspect they exist.

My money's on the hippies. Take their leader, Mars, for instance, who tells Tish, "Death is just the next stage."

Trust me, Tish can't leave that performance note alone -- she's on it. Rain or shine. No, wait a minute, this is the Pacific Northwest -- rain or more rain, really.

If you're looking for a summer mystery that's likely to get you cheered up, in spite of murder and risk, and will find a way to have the forces of good triumph (or at least get kissed?), pick up AGAINST THE UNDERTOW. Published by one of several businesses that Maines plays with, Blue Zephyr Press, and available at online retailers in softcover or ebook. You don't need to read the books in sequence -- let me know if you find yourself lured to get more Bethany Maines capers.

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