Spring Diversion: Poetry for Those Who Rise (Kevin Goodan, Kimberly Burwick, Martín Espada)

"Well, there’s always the search for things beyond the world. Often times I feel that maybe God is here, he’s just put down in shorthand and we have to capture little pieces of him or his language, which is the natural world." Kevin Goodan to Kimberly Burwick, in an interview in Rain Taxi, 2008

If neither Easter nor Passover can drive us at this time of year to the big questions -- life, love, loss, justice, grief, heaven, hell -- the season for us northerners (Global North, or American North) should do so: Green blades of grass sneak forward under the brown thatch of last year's winter-dulled fields, old crusts of snow glitter with ice crystals and are speckled with "snow fleas" hopping, and the miracle of daffodils is something that's already old in New Jersey but still uncertain here in the mountains.

When I want to remember that G-d is much stranger and larger than a worship service, I can walk the ridges of land -- or I can pick up any work of poetry by Kevin Goodan. His latest collection, UPPER LEVEL DISTURBANCES, reached publication long after he'd left New England and found a new home in Idaho. Within driving distance of the Montana of his birth and childhood, and nestled within the landscape where he fought forest fires for a decade, he writes in these poems of fire, barrenness, and the greasy, strenuous effort of work in a slaughterhouse, as well as the sheep farm he tended while in New England. He opens these darknesses to reveal the songs of lightning and of prairie fires, of aching muscles and of grief.

Yet Goodan is our Gerald Manley Hopkins, bound in a call-and-response with the higher power and the rituals, traditions, and passions of the Church. In my favorite sequence in this collection, "Showings," Goodan begins with, "I open my eyes and taste God. / A sky blue through bare trees / Then birds. The spirit moves /Surely but not upwards. / I make a fire but no words come --" and resolves this passage with, "As I am my own offering / When the unsayable is lodged in the throat."

Much later in the collection, in "Sacerdotes Domini," he couples fire, barn, and hawk, building toward "The black earth without mercy. / I wipe ash from my mouth, squint as if / I know exactly where I'm going." Within the lines, and under the impact of the poems accumulating, the disciplined questioning by this powerful poet draws me into his vision of "the redemptive dark."

I marvel at the interview of Goodan that Kimberly Burwick provided in Rain Taxi, as excerpted at the head of this post. Not only is Burwick an award-winning poet herself -- she, like Goodan, has drawn strength and illumination for her writing while living in vastly different parts of America: Wisconsin, Los Angeles, New England, and now Idaho. She is married to Goodan, which makes the hunt for multiple meanings in her poems -- and his -- especially fascinating in terms of pronouns. When Goodan writes "you," about 85 percent of the time I think he's talking to that Higher Power, and maybe 5 percent of the time he's overlapping or pointing toward Burwick within the "you." In Burwick's work, I read the "you" as being often directed toward Goodan, or toward the body of attentiveness that he carries.

Yet this is only a result of the knowledge that the two are connected -- clearly, Burwick's poems speak an investigative voice far different from his, and with less obvious losses and darknesses. In HORSES IN THE CATHEDRAL she enfolds the quintessential Western partner to human life, the horse, within her identification of a separate pathway into the quest, the search, the long walk where flowers and cardinals splash bright, aggressive hope. In "The Anxious Ones," she confesses, "I want to be alone, and not." As she moves the short yet rich poem through the question of one's "place in the world," she weaves back to her own core: "I breath for a long time / with pasture in my breath, / my voice weeds and undergrowth, / I am not for vineyards." And in "Desire for Collapse," where the juniper of the opening could be either in New England or in Montana, I find the necessary contrast of breaking and bending, followed by, "I touch birds mid-breath to know the motion / of the instant as deer know sighting. / Dusty roots and the law of falling bodies / appear suddenly as flesh without path."

For a more story-driven and justice-demanding read, I recommend highly the collection THE TROUBLE BALL by Martín Espada. (Apologies to the poet and publisher; I meant to review this in early September, when it was released, but life got in the way.) "The Trouble Ball" is a reference to a baseball pitch by Satchel Paige, who'd already demonstrated fantastic action and theory while playing in Puerto Rico. Espada's father Frank as a child went to a ball game at Ebbets Field in Brooklyn, expecting to see this magnificent player, and after waiting and waiting for Satchel Page, says the poem: "Dónde están los negros? asked the boy. Where are the Negro players? / No los dejan, his father softly said. They don't let them play here." Although Frank Espada would himself become a ballplayer, this piercing awareness of the color line threw a "trouble ball" into the American life of the family. Martín Espada, a father himself, takes the material as more of the rich clay from which he shapes his challenges to America today.

The collection is elegiac in the most exhilarating of ways, probing the lives of "truth-tellers" who make a difference; in the poem "Blessed Be the Truth-Tellers," for Jack Agüeros, Espada recounts being a child headed for a tonsillectomy, bragging about all the ice cream he's be given, like that provided by "Johnny the ice-cream man, / who allegedly sold heroin the color of vanilla / from the same window" of his truck. But when "Jack the Truth-Teller" (which is, indeed, a kind of Giant Killer) visits the projects, herding real camels and writing "sonnets of the jail cell / and the racetrack and the boxing ring," and pushing change into place, Jack tells the small boy what will really happen: "Ay bendito cachifrito Puerto Rico. / That's gonna hurt." And of course -- it does. "Blessed be the Truth-Tellers," Espada concludes, "for they shall have all the ice cream they want."

Another of my favorites in this collection is "The Day We Buried You in the Park," for Sandy Taylor. A conspiracy of family and friends to deposit Taylor's remains in the Poets' Park becomes a tangle of grief and risk, concluded with three remaining scoops of ashes that, the poem asserts, the poet took home in "a coffee can: Chock full o' Nuts, the Heavenly Coffee," on the container. "At your desk there was bad coffee and good poetry, / but no heaven, so I will look for you under my bootsoles, / walking through the world, soaking up the ghosts wherever I may go."

For more insight into this complex and articulate story-teller poet, there's a well-appointed website here: http://www.martinespada.net. Most of all, though, as before, I recommend attending one of Espada's readings -- he brings with him a vigor, music, and assertion on the part of both goodness and justice that makes our losses and pain worth remembering and honoring.

Good Mysteries for Keeping or Giving: 2 -- Sara J. Henry, Charles Todd

This weekend the snow is vanishing rapidly, quite a feat considering how long it's been in place on this northern ridge. Where the sunshine heats the ground, mud lingers -- because under it is a still-frozen boundary. But this too shall pass; no regrets about seeing the end of winter.

Still, I was glad it was snowing while I read Sara J. Henry's 2013 mystery, A COLD AND LONELY PLACE. Set in the Adirondacks in midwinter -- at the time of the Winter Carnival, when an ice palace is erected and athletic competions and merry parties enliven the area around Saranac Lake.

Here, freelance writer Troy Chance, reporting for the local paper, is on the scene when a body is found in the ice of the lake. It's a man she knows, and the quick conclusion is that he must have fallen through the ice when it was still fragile, and drowned in the muscle-numbing water just under the surface. That's a grim and gruesome way to die, and of course, it could have been an accident, perhaps with some malice setting it into motion.

Yet Troy keeps discovering puzzles about prep-school grad Troy Winslow, and his death becomes an increasing obsession for her. Fortunately, her editor at the paper gives her leeway to dig into the life story of this elegant young man. Not so good, though, is the tangle of relationships and attitudes that first drags one of her housemates into police attention, then opens up the social fractures in the town, and finally takes Troy herself into danger.

This is Henry's second mystery, a sequel to Learning to Swim. Although the emotions that enmesh Troy are less compelling than in the first book, they come across as realistic and deeply felt -- and position this unwilling but skillful sleuth for further adventures. I'll be reading more.

Another winter treat I gave to myself was the time to snuggle up around hot tea and buttered biscuits with the 2011 offering from "Charles Todd," A BITTER TRUTH. Todd, which is the pen name of a son-and-mother writing team, provides two engrossing series -- one set after World War I yet rooted in its disasters and pain, and the other, this series, set during the war and featuring battlefield nurse  Bess Crawford. A BITTER TRUTH is, I think, the best yet in this series (it's the third): The authors have escaped from the sometimes stilted feminine voice they started with, and Bess's reactions now are savvy, shrewd, and courageous. Yes, her life is shaped by being a woman at a time when even nursing could be seen as a betrayal of the role of the upper-class young woman. But her reactions to discovering a stranded and perhaps abused young woman huddled on the London doorstep of the house where Bess rents a room, and her determination in straightening out the woman's convoluted family drama tinged with wartime paranoia, are crisply courageous. Bess doesn't fumble or flinch; she probes, prods, and processes the information and actions around her. A top-notch sleuth, she is compelled to investigate by the same urge that takes her back to the battlefield: People need her insight, her skills, and her decisiveness.

The Todds endow the book with solid research and a multilayered, rich view of both the English social structure and the forces at play in the Great War. A great read, and worth keeping on the shelf for next winter as well.

Ellen Larson Creates Epic Mystery: IN RETROSPECT

Unless you've carefully sorted through both the awards lists (her story "When the Apricots Bloom" was a Barry Award finalist) and the publishing news (she's the editor for the new "young adult" imprint from Poisoned Pen Press, the Poisoned Pencil), or been edited by her already (25 years of substantive editing!), you may not have crossed paths with Ellen Larson.

We'll all have the chance to enjoy her work later this year, when her own mystery IN RETROSPECT reaches publication from Five Star in November. But Larson goes well beyond crafting a mystery -- a time-travel murder mystery! -- by drawing from powerful science fiction traditions and breaking ground under conditions firmly her own. We're excited to welcome her here for a thoughtful journey into her world. (Make sure you read all the way to the end, for more news and a way to participate!)

Me, Myself, and the Other

I first heard about the Other as a character type in fiction as a kid in college, studying comparative literature and learning how to write. At first I thought it was strange that characters who were by definition alienated from society would work in a medium that depends so much on reader identification. Until, of course, I realized how many readers identify with the sense of alienation. Me included.

At thirty-three, my sense of Otherness in combination with my love of science fiction led me to the conclusion that I should live on Mars, where clearly I would feel more at home. The urge turned out to be surprisingly inescapable, so I left my beloved upstate New York home, eventually landing in Cairo, Egypt. Which was as close as I could get to Mars.

In Cairo I was, of course, still the Other. With my clothing, my culture, my experiences, my eye color, my goals in life I was never going to be confused as an average member of Egyptian society. Which turned out to be unexpectedly liberating, because no one even bothered to try to get me to conform (a main source of conflict for fictional and real Others). I was a different type of Other, and it was wonderful. The society I had been so at odds with was far away, so the sense of alienation disappeared. Fifteen invaluable years in Egypt (shokran, Misreen) allowed me to develop a life-long passion for differences, for Otherness, because it allowed me to understand that underneath our differences, we are all the Same.

Because of my real-life experiences, my writing often features societies that are not my own. Writing science fiction allows me to imagine a society that is out of my own time, one that provides the background I need to tell the story I want to tell. My personal approach as a writer involves getting rid of whatever prejudices and limitations present my own society that I don’t want to be bothered by, so that I can free up my protagonist to battle what I perceive to be those underlying and universal challenges of being human. Which is why I’m not so interested in writing the kind of science fiction that focuses on alien beings and intergalactic conflicts.

My upcoming science fiction murder mystery, IN RETROSPECT (Nov. 2013 Five Star - Gale Cengage), is set in post-apocalyptic Turkey far in the future. For this book I not only changed societal norms, but I literally sank North America and twisted Europe into a pretzel. I intermingled such races and cultures that remained and built a new one. I changed the climate. Thus the literary decks are clear to say anything about any topic I wish, without the need to bow to history or transient social conventions. So I built a world with a simple set of political norms; where science is advanced beyond our 21st century experience; and where certain young women of petite stature can time travel.

Merit, my protagonist, is a 30th century Other. With her working-class roots, she feels inferior and out-of-place when, as a child, she is chosen to be attuned for time travel. Even though she succeeds in becoming an elite Retrospector, she overcompensates for her underlying sense of inadequacy and becomes arrogance. As the book begins, Merit is most assuredly alienated—from her enemies, the Rasakans, for whom she is forced to work, and from her own people, the Oku, who, exhausted by the war they lost, just want to find a way to peacefully reconstruct their lives. But Merit cannot forget and she will not conform. So she exists, ghost-like on the fringes of society—until she is faced with the dilemma of having to investigate the murder of the Oku general who surrendered to the Rasakans; a murder she would gladly have committed herself. 

Temporary cover image

Beth adds: I am already haunted by Merit, from an advance read of Ellen Larson's book. Her choice of concept artist Mike Sissons for the book trailer ... well, you've got to see it. And you can!  Larson is currently running a Kickstarter project to fund the making of the book trailer for IN RETROSPECT. Take a look at this exciting project -- there's still time to take part, too.

Arthur Upfield and THE SPIRIT OF AUSTRALIA

I have a generous stack of recent and upcoming mysteries/crime fiction read, about to get reviewed -- but before I launch into those, here's a quick mention of Arthur Upfield. Dave and I have always been a little surprised at how few mystery fans know the name of this Australian author whose series featuring the Bush-wise Napoleon Bonaparte reached publication during the time when Agatha Christie's books were also being published. But ... that may be changing. We've noticed four orders in the past two weeks for Arthur Upfield books from the Kingdom Books shelves.

So, here's a link to a piece we provided on Upfield's mysteries, as well as a handful of other authors we think you'll enjoy if you're already reading the "Bony" books: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/search?q=Upfield

And we do still have two copies of THE SPIRIT OF AUSTRALIA, the ultimate bibliographer's compilation on Upfield and his books—click here.

Let us know what you think as you dig into this intriguing series.

Brazilian Detection: Leighton Gage, PERFECT HATRED

It's been a bitter cold day here in northern Vermont, with the temperature lingering between 9 and 12 degrees F, and a stiff wind generating subzero wind chill effects. Good thing we've got plenty of books here, for an indoor day ... especially one with Leighton Gage's newest Brazilian police procedural, PERFECT HATRED.

Gage's sixth title to feature Chief Inspector Mario Silva also includes Silva's nephew Hector Costa, who partners with Israeli-trained Danusa Marcus to investigate what's clearly a terrorist bombing during an enormous political demonstration of some three hundred thousand people. Well planned, executed almost perfectly, the bombing would be a lot harder to crack if a local policeman hadn't needed to purchase a "sorry" gift for his wife, ducking into a shop just after seeing the about-to-be perpetrator and observing some odd details. "One of those headscarf things" is the expected garb of the bomber -- but the baby involved, with skin of a different color compared to the adult in the headscarf, sends the investigation into high gear.

When the Chief Inspector arrives to help with the needed task force, he's only able to spend a matter of minutes at the Federal Police building with Hector -- an assassination becomes a high-profile case when the Chief Inspector's politically agile boss puts it at top priority. It's frustrating for both teams -- but as Silva soon discovers, the assassination in fact is anything but ordinary:

"Go back to the beginning of the tape," Silva said. ... "This time, pay attention to the expressions on [the shooter] Cataldo's face."

"Why? What am I going to see?"

"When he approaches [the victiom] Plínio," Silva said, "Cataldo looks nervous, but determined. He's grim, but his jaw is set. After he shoots, his expression turns to one of horror."

"That doesn't make sense."

"No, it doesn't. He drops his gun hand to his side and stares."

It gets even more complicated and surprising. Silva's caught the scent of something peculiar behind the face of this crime, and the politics of the victim's widow, Stella Saldana, leap into view quickly. Soon there's a cresting wave of money and inheritance to motivate the crime, too.

Readers who already know Gage's series won't be surprised when the two investigations begin to connect in odd ways. Gage also moves the action to a border setting where new forms of crime flower. Intense action, swift changes of direction, and Chief Inspector Silva's determinedly anti-political team make A PERFECT HATRED a page-turner with fascinating revelations of place and politics, not to mention modern terrorism and its manipulations. One particular pleasure of following Silva and his nephew is that advances in the detection here are rarely accidents; they are instead the satisfying results of pushing for more data and more connections. And the Author's Notes at the finale are almost as startling as the plot twists in terms of revelations.

A quick side note: Gage's series has often dipped into the human stew of Brazil's favelas, the ridge-top city slums of Rio De Janeiro where crime foments and housing is so substandard that there aren't even addresses for mail delivery. It's been fascinating over the past few months to learn of the changes in the favelas, perhaps propelled by Brazil's preparations for hosting the 2014 Olympics. Look here for an overview -- and, knowing how Gage's crime fiction accentuates Brazil's reality, I'm bracing for a return to that earlier setting, wondering how Chief Inspector Mario Silva and his team will adapt.

Helene Tursten, THE GOLDEN CALF: Financials Can Bring Murder

Inspector Irene Huss is already well known in Sweden, where there are films and DVDs of the detective fiction in which she stars. THE GOLDEN CALF is the fifth in the series translated, this time by Laura A. Wideberg, and brought to the United States by Soho Crime.

This time Huss is not being held back by her department's often anti-female biases -- she's partnered with old friend and colleague Tommy Persson to investigate the shooting of a king of finance, although the victim's wife seems able to resist Tommy's trademark coaxing technique that has most women spilling their information. Huss's tougher stance doesn't do much good either. Fortunately, there isn't much time for the case to stall, despite the silence of wealthy widow Sanna Kaegler-Ceder. Because another team's report at "morning prayers" in the police staff room rings loud bells for Huss -- two more deaths with a similar firearm, in a similar pattern, and of a financial expert and an unknown victim who is quickly identified as Philip Bergman, a.k.a. the Golden Calf:

Last night's headlines had been huge: Two well-known financiers killed! and Golden Calf murdered!

Kajsa had mention to [Huss] that the press often called Philip Bergman "the Golden Calf." His name came from his phenomenal ability to attract investors without needing to lift a finger. Everyone had fought to have the chance to dance around the Golden Calf.

Thanks to Irene Huss's "experience, intuition, and stubbornness," the investigation quickly grows to include another financier, this one simply missing, and a Paris location that may play a role in whatever dotcom financial fiddling is being covered up by killings. When Huss gets a chance to go to the City of Lights, violence travels with her.

Several online references mention that Tursten -- a dentist turned crime novelist in midlife -- could be called a Swedish version of P.D. James. If that's what it takes to start you on this intriguing series, go for it. But a better comparison is to Donna Leon, whose Venice series features Commissario Guido Brunetti tests his intuition against that of his wife Paola, as well as the office assistant Signorina Elettra. The steady good sense and straightforward attentiveness of the couple, and their sturdy mutual affection (decorated with mouth-watering description of their meals), give enduring charm to Leon's series.

In the same way, Tursten crafts a balance, sane image of Huss's marriage to Krister, a chef who cooks wonderful meals for her and their twin daughters. In each of Tursten's crime novels, there's a thread that involves this "normal" family -- from daily stress, to teen angst of the daughters and the risks they sometimes take. In THE GOLDEN CALF, the twist is Huss's growing awareness of the signs of aging in herself (a bad knee, for instance), coupled with the slowly growing awareness that something's going wrong in her work partner Tommy's life.

Though Tursten's series doesn't explore the gore and darkness of some other Scandinavian series recently translated to English, Huss confronts the ugliness of violence as she "follows the money" to unravel the crimes. The caring comfort of her family balances the book, and makes it clearer that even the "clean" crimes of financial cheating lead to deadly disasters -- made all the more graphic by comparison with how ordinary people are blessed with family and home.

There's no need to read the other four translated Tursten books before this one (Detective Inspector Huss, The Torso, The Glass Devil, Night Rounds); the series is satisfying, though, and the fact that there are six more still coming through translation is even better to contemplate.

One last note: I'm not wild about the translation on this one -- the dialogue is stiff, and the sentence rhythms often awkward. But in some ways, this just accentuates the "foreignness" of the setting, and doesn't interfere with enjoying a great character and intriguing plot twists.

Dogs, Cats, Murder, Detection -- Mixing It Up with Sparkle Abbey and Clea Simon

Looking for dark, intense, hard-boiled thriller reviews? Or complex political suspense laced with social commentary and poison?

This is not your pair of reviews. Click on a different post (see the search box at the top left of this page? type in Olen Steinhauer or Taylor Stevens or Lee Child or even S.J. Rozan, who skirts the darkest areas while laying out a complicated detection plot in New York's Chinatown and ... wait a minute, you're distracting me).

Let's talk pets and plots.

In an unusual twist, Sparkle Abbey (pen name for two authors and their rescued pets), bringing out a fourth mystery in the Pampered Pets Mystery Series, sent a review copy of Book 1 here recently.  DESPERATE HOUSEDOGS scared me off at first -- what if the dark parts involved dead dogs or cats? This could be a heartbreak (and gross). Well, I was wrong to wait so long. The entirely normal dogs in this first Sparkle Abbey murder mystery do not get stalked or wounded. On the other hand, when pet therapist Caro Lamont pays a call on one of her California clients in posh Laguna Beach, the two German shepherds on hand are majorly acting out. It's actually the second day they've spent barking nonstop at the patio doors, even though there's nobody out in the yard, and Kevin, their owner, is understandably upset. Caro's intervention, showing Kevin how to increase his dogs' silent times through carefully timed rewards, lowers the volume some.

But when Kevin is murdered soon after, it takes Caro a long time to realize the dogs' behavior might have been an understandable response to a threat.

Admittedly, there are distractions, like Detective Judd Malone, on the case. Let Caro fill you in: "He hadn't offered a badge or an ID and though I truly didn't think serial killers looked like Brad Pitt's brother and stalked pet therapists, you can't be too careful." Then there's wealthy Sam, who's offering the kind of dating experience that will get Caro's nagging mother off her back for a good long time. But none of that prevents Caro from nosing around the scene of the crime ... and getting herself into trouble with the already mentioned "hot" Judd Malone.

Caro's persistent nosing around eventually tips the case wide open, and DESPERATE HOUSEDOGS is a brisk, lively read, full of socially climbing merriment, suspicious characters, and unexpected discoveries. I enjoyed it; the sequels are GET FLUFFY; KITTY KITTY BANG BANG; and coming this summer, YIP/TUCK (dare I guess it features plastic surgery?). If you're already a fan of Southern California mysteries, social entanglements, and gutsy but cute women, put the Sparkle Abbey Pampered Pet Series on your shelf.

Now we segue into a mystery that really couldn't be more different: TRUE GREY by Clea Simon, fifth in Simon's Dulcie Schwartz series (after Shades of Grey, Grey Matters, Grey Zone, and Grey Expectations). Here's a spooky and often danger-filled exploration of the murderously manic jealousies among scholars seeking their reputations at a college campus. The book opens with a nightmare: a murder of a scholar who's trespassing on Dulcie's terrain, where new discoveries around an early Gothic novel are about to make Dulcie's academic reputation, not to mention her first published book.

Except that the mysterious arrival of Melinda Sloane Harquist turns everything upside down. This new scholar on campus has some unexplained power over the Dean that actually cuts Dulcie off from her own research material, and more. So when Dulcie dreams Harquist has been brutally murdered, it's a nightmare that's far too real. And she soon discovers that the dream is only a taste of what's really happened. Here's a murder that looks like it could easily hang the intrepid investigator.

Fortunately for Dulcie, she's got backup. (If you haven't indulged in paranormal mysteries, here's your chance to slide into one, from the pet side ...) Her cat Esmé is being coached by the ghost of Dulcie's earlier pet, Mr. Grey. And the two felines will do everything they can, from telling Dulcie to run, to encouraging her in her investigations. But first she's got to pay attention:

Dulcie gasped, unable to breathe. The pounding in her head threatened to take over, the noise of the fly a deafening roar as Dulcie released the statue and it crashed, once again, to the carpet with a deep, dull thud. Dulcie didn't hear it, though. Didn't register the voices below her either. The last words she'd heard echoed through her mind -- warned, she'd heard. Three times warned.

Mr. Grey had been trying to help her.

Simon is currently offering three series of mysteries, and I'm definitely a fan of her pet noir books involving animal psychic Pru Marlowe (and looking forward to the upcoming third in that series,  Parrots Prove Deadly) -- Pru wrestles with the discomfort of realizing that the animals she helps take care of have actual voices (some of them not at all sensible, and all of them distinctively geared to animal hungers and instincts) and I can identify. Simon paces her action tautly, and her protagonists are feisty, intelligent, and skeptical. I like them!

That said, I'm more resistant to buying into the voice of a ghost cat, talking to another cat, talking to a person ... but if anybody can get me into this form of "pet paranormal," it's Clea Simon, and I'll keep on reading her books. If you've always suspected your cat really knew more than she or he was letting on, you'll savor these, too.

Lee Child, A WANTED MAN: Jack Reacher #17

US cover, left; UK cover, right.

Last weekend's New York Times Magazine interview with medical suspense writer Jodi Picoult showed the author giving a tough set of responses to questions about gendered fiction. Challenged by the term "chick lit," she didn't just say it's not what she writes -- she reminded the interviewer that 47% of her readers are male.

It may not be well known that a huge proportion of Lee Child's readers of his Jack Reacher series (called "manbooks" in one recent review) are women. But it's true. In fact, the most spirited discussions I've had of Jack Reacher's personality, physical appearance, and actions -- especially in the context of the recently released film that placed Tom Cruise in Jack Reacher's shoes -- have been with a woman reader who lives about ten miles from here. Petite, immaculately groomed, highly educated, she latches onto, enjoys, and reconsiders every one of Lee Child's thrillers that feature the big tough former MP as he interferes in malicious crime and asserts his own form of justice.

Why do women connect with Jack Reacher so intensely? I hope a few of you will consider commenting to share your own view. Mine is: Jack Reacher is the "me" that I'll never become, but would like to think lives at the core of me: competent, independent, reluctant to hurt others if it's not necessary but ready to do so (in the most effective way) if it's necessary to defend the people I care about.

And that is the conundrum of Reacher, one vividly portrayed in A WANTED MAN (US release Sept. 2012): He's the last person you'd want to pick up when he's hitchhiking, especially as this book opens -- he's got a broken nose, swollen grotesquely and patched temporarily with a makeshift bandage of silvery duct tape. In fact, you've got to wonder why a car with three passenger already -- two guys and, in the back seat, a nearly silent woman -- would stop to give him a ride in the middle of the night, at an interstate highway cloverleaf.

Except, of course, that as readers, we already suspect the people in the car have something to do with a vicious killing we've already "heard about." But Reacher doesn't know that ... and as he starts to tune in to how dangerous the two men are who've taken him into their car, he's also wondering what Karen Delfuesco is doing in that back seat, and gradually realizing her courage and initiative.

There we are, back in the classic Reacher grab-your-heart situation: He's a walking weapon of mass destruction, even when unarmed. But he's also quick to perceive and appreciate the different forms of courage around him, even when they come in petite female packaging. No wonder we women readers treasure him. It's not just that he can even the odds in a fight with evil; it's that he values "our" contribution to that fight, whether or not we know and use martial arts.

A WANTED MAN is a nonstop action thriller, and Reacher's stats add up rapidly, once he asserts control of his own actions. At the book's opening, he's hitchhiking toward "a woman in Virginia" -- and those who've read Reacher 15, Worth Dying For, know something about her and why Reacher believes she's someone he needs to meet, as he fights for independence and justice. Although he'll tangle with possibly corrupt -- and definitely dangerous and annoying -- federal agents, and with a threat so large and international that it's worth the attention of the Department of Homeland Security, every moment that Reacher invests in the situation that's enmeshed Karen Delfuesco is a moment of deferring his larger goal: getting to that woman in Virginia. Loyalty: that's another reason Jack Reacher calls us to bond with him, at least in the pages of a Lee Child thriller.

I couldn't put this one down for long, even though there were long thoughtful passages mixed into the consuming pace of action. The way that each connection with an old friend puts that friend's life, as well as your own, into perspective, A WANTED MAN adds to our connections with Reacher and his quest. Thank goodness, we know there's another book coming.

NOTE: Watch for more reviews this week, as I catch up during a (very slightly) slower few days of the "day job." I expect to compare several of this week's books with A WANTED MAN. You have 24 hours to grab your copy and think about it, or pick one up if you don't yet have it.

FOR REFERENCE: There's a downloadable list of Lee Child's books here: http://leechild.com/books. Reacher #16, The Affair, was a prequel.

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.

Margaret Yorke, British Mystery Author

Margaret Yorke, photo by Jerry Bauer

In all the sweet chaos of the holiday season (which increasingly seems to stretch from the week before Halloween, to the week after New Year's Day), we neglected to mark the November 2012 passing of one of the grande dames of British mystery, Margaret Yorke. Author of more than 40 crime novels, and 1999 winner of the Crime Writers' Association (CWA) Cartier Diamond Dagger for outstanding lifetime contribution to the field, she rarely won as much acclaim as she deserved. Here is a link to her obituary: http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2012/dec/03/margaret-yorke. One of my gifts to myself when life slows down a bit will be a list of her work, and the time to read and re-read all of it.

Intense, Suspenseful, and a Cleverly Twisted Plot: Jennifer McMahon, THE ONE I LEFT BEHIND

The best part of January can be the new books coming out to greet 2013 -- and since the holidays are done, most likely the next book purchase is for oneself, not for someone else!

Jennifer McMahon crafts powerful suspense, and THE ONE I LEFT BEHIND is her sixth novel. It's terrifying. And unforgettable. And absolutely worth reading.

With taut pacing, and all too believably, McMahon takes us into the complicated and painful results of small, devastating decisions that force their way into the next generation. Today's TV series that feature serial murders, real or not, and the many true-crime books and volumes of "based-on-the-truth" crime fiction have taught us all: The nastiest crimes come from people who've grown up twisted, often as a result of terrible abuse in childhood. But sometimes the serial killer doesn't seem to have those childhood roots of trauma; instead, a small vulnerability exists, and an adult decision or event triggers a violent pattern.

For Reggie Dufrane, daughter of one of the most beautiful -- and flirtatious -- women in Brighton, Connecticut, childhood meant being fussed over by aunt, watching her mother perform the role of "I was a famous model," and savoring a close (too close?) friendship with Tara, whose games always involve risk and sacrifice. "Imagine that your house is on fire," Tara challenges -- "you have exactly one minute to grab what you can. What do you choose?"

We meet Reggie in Vermont, though, in 2010 -- long after the 1976 events that turned her into an orphan and placed her with her increasingly odd aunt Louise. She's an architect with a following, and a gift for bringing the outside in, something that echoes the old treehouse where she and Tara and a boy, Charlie, bonded in those early years.

And oddly, she still wears around her neck the tiny hourglass filled with pink sand that Tara used to turn, to time those long-ago dares.

In many other ways, the past hasn't let go of Reggie. Though she lives in a sparsely furnished, elegant home that reflects her design passions, she is also somehow bound to the series of unsolved "slayings" that took place in Brighton Falls, and the reporter who turned the news into a "true crime" book called Neptune's Hands, Martha Paquette. This reporter is the first of McMahon's characters that shows her dark side, and her insistence on dragging Reggie into the crimes suggests she's against Reggie all the time. I was ready to slap her, myself -- that's how quickly McMahon's multilevel psychological thriller took me onto Reggie's side, ready to defend her against any more pain.

But the reporter's short excerpts also give us a resonant level at which to feel the results of what's happened to Reggie, then and now. Here's one of the supposed excerpts from that "true crime" report:

"I think, in so many ways, that before the murders we were living in an age of innocence," says Reverend Higgins of the Brighton Falls First Congregational Church. "We thought nothing bad could happen here. Neptune took something from us, beyond the lives of those poor women. He took away our safety and showed us the true face of evil. It's hard to imagine going back to the way things were before. I don't think Brighton Falls, or any of its residents, will ever be the same."

As Reggie staggers under the weight of that evil, and its resurgence -- for the kidnappings and hand amputations and killings in her hometown seem to have resumed -- she's entangled in the unresolved relationships, events, and connections from a generation earlier. Can she escape another round of violence? Can she protect the people she loves?

And most pressing, McMahon forces us to wonder: Can our innocence ever be reclaimed?

One caution, and it comes up with all of McMahon's books for me: The covers of her suspense novels feature young women's faces, often from childhood or the teen years, and THE ONE I LEFT BEHIND (like Promise Not to Tell and Don't Breathe a Word) looks almost like a young adult novel. (See the Kingdom Books review of Island of the Lost Girls for this aspect, too.) If there's a young adult in your life who's already handling Stephen King, then McMahon's frightening twists can create an atmospheric and compelling read for that teen. But if you know teens who are still innocent, keep this book for yourself instead. Adult readers know something about evil -- and how to seek redemption.

Newest Scottish Noir: T. Frank Muir, HAND FOR A HAND

US cover

Scottish noir? Crime fiction fans know it's been around for a while; from William McIlvanney to Ian Rankin to Denise Mina to Quintin Jardine, this grim and often deeply satisfying group of authors and their books belongs on the shelves for savoring and re-reading. More established than Scandinavian noir, the tight geography and urban flavor of much of the group also means it's common to notice the connections among the authors, adding an extra level of intrigue to these books.

This year, 2012, is the first for a conference dedicated to Scottish noir: The BLOODY SCOTLAND conference was held in September, and I wish I'd been there -- what a range of authors and topics! Check it out here.

A few weeks ago, the first U.S. edition of HAND FOR A HAND by T. Frank Muir arrived, thank to Soho Crime bringing this author across the Atlantic. Muir already has three investigations in print in the United Kingdom, so we can expect to see the American versions arrive quickly.

UK cover

HAND FOR A HAND is Muir's debut crime novel, but well seasoned in writing style. How the author got there is hard to figure, as his website leaves his past well shrouded in mystery. That's fine with me, as long as the books keep coming! As this one opens, a frightening discovery on a golf course demands the attention of DCI Andy Gilchrist. There is, literally, an amputated hand in the sand bunker, clutching a note addressed to the investigator by name, and saying: Murder.

Against some views of protocol, Andy seems likely to become the senior investigating officer for this defacement of Scotland's golf-course reputation. But that slot turns out to stay with the Chief Superintendent after all. And what the Chief Superintendent decides, is not available for argument. That includes the infuriating, appalling assignment of Gilchrist's long-time enemy Ronnie Watts to the police team. "In this Division I don't want anyone to harbour past grievances," explains the Chief to Gilchrist. Bygones should be bygones.

But they really can't be, considering what's happened between the two men in the past. And as it turns out, most of Gilchrist's past and present life is at stake with a criminal who's determined to hurt him as much as possible -- over and over and over again.

With the intensity and pace of a Lee Child ticking-clock thriller, added to the insight and detailed police procedural style that Scottish noir so often features, Muir provides an action-packed investigation that will ruin your plans for the weekend. So change those plans -- it's urgent to read this one now, because there are at least two more lined up. Good reading ahead.

Alert for collectors: Muir's crime fiction covers include three forms of his name -- you can see see here, on the US and UK covers, both T. Frank Muir and Frank Muir; another UK one (see his website) reads T. F. Muir. As I said earlier: This is an author of mystery, in himself as well as his books.

2012 Mysteries to Give to People You Like/Love -- 1

Why isn't Barbara Cleverly more famous? She's a top-notch writer with meticulous pacing and a deep and likeable detective Joe Sandilands; each time I pick up a new one in this series (2012 brought us number 10), I make time as soon as possible to read it -- because I know I'll be engrossed in the story, intrigued with the details, determined to solve the mystery/crime, and step out the far end of the book more relaxed and pleased with life.

On the other hand, there are three things that weigh against the books climbing the charts, at least in the United States: (1) The author is a former British teacher. (2) The books are set in the 1920s and 1930s. (3) In this Internet-conscious time, Cleverly appears to have no "official" author website. (Her Wikipedia page, here, notes her awards but even so is pretty sparse.)

OK, fine. She's not going to get famous. But her 2012 book, NOT MY BLOOD, gave me a very good couple of days last summer, and I'm recommending it as a gift to mystery readers this season, whether those readers are your friends/family, or -- just you!

It's 1933 in England and mid-winter as NOT MY BLOOD opens. One of the boys at a Sussex boarding school, Jackie Drummond, is contemplating running away. He has a list of resources that his mother, back in India, gave him, and on it is the name of Joe Sandilands -- who has settled back into postwar English life as a Scotland Yard detective, and in chapter 2 gets one of the strangest calls in his life, to come rescue his "nephew." What the boy discloses involves, blood, probably a murder, and a complicated and sinister situation that reveals that the school has been "losing" boys -- they've been going missing -- for years. That means there are jurisdiction issues, of course. Here's Sandilands trying to enlist the local police:

Sensing that the inspector was beginning to flounder, Joe took over. "I agree, it's a possibility which we must consider. And I concede that, sadly, it is a perversion that plagues the capital. Children are harvested, Martin -- scooped up off the streets and railway platforms. Bought and sold like apples. Sometimes by their own families. Our Vice Squad closes down one of their ghastly scenes of operation one day, to find it's sprung up the next in a neighboring street. But I expect you see as clearly as I do the essential difference between these operations and the potential horrors we could have to deal with here?"

"Oh, yes. Class. Wealth. These aren't kids off the street."

The strength of character that's made Sandilands a compelling character ever since The Last Kashmiri Rose  introduced him in 2001 overlaps with revelations from Joe's private life, and the involvement of small boys makes the risks and costs escalate in this mystery. A stunning historical puzzle emerges, and the finale is deeply satisfying.

Soho Press brought this out under the Soho Crime label; you might want to order two copies, so you can keep one for your own holiday pleasure.

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

Reading the Recipes First? DEATH OF A COUNTRY-FRIED REDNECK by Lee Hollis

Joanne Fluke has neatly tied up the major market in "cozy" mysteries with a cooking twist -- her Hannah Swenson series includes a bakery in the plot, so cookie, cake, and other dessert recipes about in the volumes. I believe it's thanks to Fluke that I now thumb through the recipes first, when one of these mysteries arrives at Kingdom Books!

It's not a new approach -- Virginia  Rich (with eventual collaboration from not-yet-famous Nancy Pickard) gave us The Nantucket Diet Murders and The Baked-Bean Supper Murders. And in Rex Stout's Nero Wolfe series, although there aren't recipes in the actual books (they are given later in a cookbook), cooking and kitchen maneuvers make up a large part of the background to gourmand Nero Wolfe's part-time labor as a crime solver.

But there's always a new twist, and Lee Hollis -- actually the brother-and-sister team of Rick Copp and Holly Simason -- brings us the "Hayley Powell Food and Cocktails" mystery series, set in coastal Maine, where Hayley's job as food columnist at the Island Times gives her a chance to jump desks and join the hunt for a killer. In DEATH OF A COUNTRY-FRIED REDNECK, Hayley fits the classic role of an "amateur sleuth" (the best definition of what are often called cozy mysteries) by stumbling into a crime when she tags along after her favorite country music star, Southerner Wade Springer. Inspired to seek a catering slot in order to meet the legendary performer (who is comfortably single!), she brushes off her country-fried chicken recipe, among others. And each time the narrative pauses to give one of Hayley's columns, there are recipes -- not just for cooking but also for refreshingly different cocktails.

Hollis focuses on plot twists and recipes, and not much on depth of character -- Hayley's eventual solution of the murder mystery in her lap depends mostly on trying out every possible combination of blame and suspicion until she stumbles onto the actual killer and motive. But it's a cute ride, with an unusual combination of New England atmosphere and displaced dishes, as well as some entertaining friction between Holly and her teenaged daughter Gemma. For a light read, stack this one on the bedside table or even in the kitchen.

But -- no, no, no -- clipping out the recipes from a real book is absolutely not allowed. Either work on them directly from the book pages, or copy them out somehow. And if you need a few more, especially for the outrageous cocktails, check out the author's very relaxed blog at www.leehollismysteries.com.

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.

Carla Neggers, THE WATERFALL: Vermont Suspense With a Glimmer of Romance

Life gets complicated. And tough. And challenging.

So, thank goodness for Carla Neggers. In her three or four active suspense series, I can depend on an adventurous, savvy protagonist who'll make smart choices in her world, take risks but not for the sake of risk alone, and see the community around her as worthwhile, for its friendships, beauty, creativity, and intelligence. (I'm thinking particularly of Heron's Cove and Saint's Gate among her recent titles.)

This season, Neggers and Harlequin have collaborated to bring back into print THE WATERFALL, her 2000 title set mostly in Vermont, featuring young widow Lucy Blacker Swift and her two children, as well as international security expert Sebastian Redwing. In explaining the decision to re-issue the book, Neggers mentioned earlier this year that it was, for many of her readers, the book that first drew them into the special form of suspense novel that she crafts.

Lucy's situation is complicated, of course: In the three years since her young husband's unexpected death, she's left behind the political rush of Washington, DC; established her own adventure travel company; and now is trying to help her restless daughter adjust to rural life, when her father-in-law keeps offering to host a return for the teen to the posh world of the city. Her son is younger, and more willing to enjoy country pleasures. Things are almost going well for all of them, though, when a string of violent attacks on their home banishes the sense of security Lucy has worked so hard to craft. That's what takes her in search of Sebastian, a man her late husband had told her to consult if danger ever arose. But -- sigh -- Sebastian is complicated, too, enmeshed in something from his past that's dark and unforgiven and, oddly, seems to be connecting to whoever is attacking Lucy and her family.

Sorting out the threats and dealing with them will take forms of courage that Lucy and her family don't expect to have -- but, when challenged, prove able to summon. And when the best people work together in the best ways, it's not surprising that Carla Neggers shows how their actions lead to a highly satisfying conclusion.

Highly satisfying after such complicated, tough, and challenging plot moments -- and a huge relief from those same real-life stresses. Count on Neggers for an ending that puts life back into proportion, even as winter arrives, the holidays are steaming toward us, and everyone's expectations tangle up with the slow recovery from the Great Recession.

Oh, yes -- thank goodness for Carla Neggers. And THE WATERFALL.

Steve Liskow, CHERRY BOMB: Detection and Danger in Urban Connecticut

Steve Liskow's 2012 thriller CHERRY BOMB gave me some uneasy moments in a nice little motel in Virginia in October, as I devoured the book, unable to leave it behind in my room. Thanks to its provocative cover -- suggesting sex with teenaged girls (or younger) -- I kept hiding the book against my sweater or under my newspaper. And as I read, I leaned forward over the pages, not wanting to suggest what this "Yankee grandmother" found so compelling in its pages.

Private investigator Zach Barnes is understandable skeptical when an insurance-company CEO with a broken marriage shows up in his office, insisting his daughter's missing. Michael Kendall might drive any daughter into running to the other parent -- domineering, unfriendly, even callous. His idea of asking for help for his daughter Stacy sounds more like a command to clean the yard: "She's disappeared. I want her back."

When Barnes finds out the 15-year-old has been missing for three days and her boarding school has ignored her absence, he has even more reason to dread what he'll find. Neither of her separated parents has tuned in on this girl; even her roommate at school isn't close to her. And three days ... if she's been abducted, three days means there's little hope of finding her alive. And all the signs do indeed point to abduction, including the girl's unused cellphone and abandoned life.

Despite his reluctance, Barnes has a personal reason to take the case: Stacy Kimball looks like Barnes's dead wife, enough so to be scary. That's a loss he's nowhere near over. He's got to take the case, even knowing it will burn and damage him.

Liskow brings to uncomfortable but very real life the scummy district on the edge of every urban region where the "pussy palaces" stand and twisted adult men go looking for cruel satisfactions from women trapped in terror and pain. This district really exists near Hartford, Connecticut, but it's recognizable in other places, too (I'm thinking New Jersey near the Lincoln Tunnel, for instance, and just outside Camden and Philadelphia.) The near-porn cover turns out to tag the situation that Stacy, if she's still alive, has fallen into.

But the truly creepy part of this well-spun thriller is: Why Stacy? It turns out there's a reason, and it's far from accidental.

Liskow is turning out more thrillers rapidly, having reached a "sweet spot" in his writing, and Run Straight Down is already on hand as a second 2012 offering. Before you go to that one, snag a copy of CHERRY BOMB. This writer keeps getting better, and it's a shame that his books are being self-published -- some savvy mainstream publisher should already have snagged him. Maybe one of them soon will.

Coming in January: Stuart Neville, RATLINES

UK cover on left; US cover on right.

The first three Irish crime novels from Stuart Neville -- The Ghost of Belfast, Collusion, and Stolen Souls -- drew me into the dark compulsions of Irish history. Liberally threaded with belief in the paranormal, these three make up the "Belfast  Trilogy" and convinced me that escaping the presence and pressures of history is rare, unusual, and maybe even impossible. The darker that history has been, the more the souls of its descendants have been scorched and warped by it. It's hard to picture a form of reparation that can atone for the horrors of oppression and poverty that Irish generations have sustained.

In Neville's newest thriller, RATLINES (Soho Crime, Jan. 2013), a different darkness emerges to drench the Irish in guilt and terror: that of Nazi collaborators and even Nazi leaders, welcomed into the island nation after the war, if they'll leave their past behind and contribute generously to the wealth of the communities around them. The book opens in 1963, with the Emerald Isle planning to welcome U.S. President John Fitzgerald Kennedy to the land of his roots. Thus, when the third murder of a foreign national occurs within a short time in Ireland, just as it's vital to present the country as civilized and safe, Lieutenant Albert Ryan of the Directorate of Intelligence gets the call to investigate and quickly put to rest the crimes.

But there is no simple route for Ryan as he uncovers an intense, even incestuous, network of collaborators, still living the personal habits forged by Nazism  and Fascism in pre-war Germany. Ryan's obligations to his superiors and his assignment force him to protect German Colonel Otto Skorzeny, a task that turns his stomach. More pointedly, Ryan's personal life, from his aging parents to his wartime record to his accidentally acquired girlfriend, become hostages to his performance of his duty. Skorzeny is a terrible enemy, and even a treacherous and dangerous ally, as one informant tells Ryan:

Papers scattered as she slapped the tabletop with her palm. "If Otto Skorzeny desires a man's death, or a woman's, then death will come. Don't you know this? He plucked Mussolini from a mountaintop. He f**ed Evita right under Perón's nose. Then he robbed the fascist bastard blind and was thanked for it. This is his power. Not an office, not a title. No law will stop him."

But when duty leads to the preservation of evil people and works, and the repression of justice -- where does personal loyalty lie?

I highly recommend this book, to the point of suggesting a pre-order for it, so you'll have an early copy when January arrives.  I found myself arguing with only one page out of 352 -- and even so, I realize that page may be intended to launch a sequel, a thought so exciting that I can forgive one soft page after all. The rest of this book is tense, taut, and terribly insistent: Evil exists. What can we do but make our choices and strive to protect our lives and loves?

Hank Phillippi Ryan, THE OTHER WOMAN: Great Suspense for a Political Year!

I was a bit late getting around to reading THE OTHER WOMAN, which came out at the start of September. But what a great read this book is! Ryan's sense of pace and plot is clearly carefully tuned, and I enjoyed the riveting suspense of following Jane Ryland's career twist, as she tackles newspaper journalism instead of the TV stardom she's accustomed to. She's lost her camera face thanks to not revealing a source and thus getting blamed for a "wrong" story that she knows, really knows, wasn't wrong at all ... so a second-rate newspaper is the best she can find for a new employer.

Still, Jane's sense of news is right on target, and the hunt for a politician's possible playboy lifestyle takes her into the middle of a threatening and confusing tangle of sinister intentions, not to mention situations that test the courage and integrity of the women around her (as well as her own).

Hank  Phillippi Ryan's own career is a double one: an award-winning investigative TV reporter herself, but also a suspense author who's crafted the start of a strong new series. Here's a bit from her bio:

Agatha, Anthony and Macavity award-winning investigative reporter Hank Phillippi Ryan is on the air at Boston's NBC affiliate. Her work has resulted in new laws, people sent to prison, homes removed from foreclosure, and millions of dollars in restitution.

Along with her 28 EMMYs, Hank's won dozens of other journalism honors. She's been a radio reporter, a legislative aide in the United States Senate and an editorial assistant at Rolling Stone Magazine working with Hunter S. Thompson.

And here's an example of the speedy insight and action that make Jane Ryland an exciting new protagonist:

Floor four. Jane thought back. "Hardly. I mean, who knows. It was pitch dark. He was in the middle of the ballroom floor, doing his meet and greet thing, rent-a-cops around him, people pushing to get close and -- damn." Kenna Wilkes. Gone again.

"What?" Alex said. "Jane, you sure you're okay? You'll be able to get us info and file a story, right? There's no one else there to cover it."

"Yeah, yeah, of course," Jane said. Kenna Wilkes is still in this hotel. She can't just disappear. "I'm fine. Thanks. I'm -- listen. Do me a favor. Look up the name Kenna Wilkes, okay? K-e-n-n-a. Wilkes with an e. There can't be many people with that name. She'd be like, age twenty-five-ish. Curly hair, blue eyes. Just see." ...

Third floor. As Jane swung around the corner to the concrete landing, the stairwell door flew open. She jumped back, barely missed getting slammed by the metal door and run over by the man racing through.

Now that the Presidential election is over, there's time to indulge in some good political suspense. I've already been suggesting to a lot of Kingdom Books that THE OTHER WOMAN may be one of their pleasures for the wintry reading season in front of us all.

Congrats to Archer Mayor, Reviewed in Today's New York Times

It's a delight to see New York Times crime fiction reviewer Marilyn Stasio select Archer Mayor's newest book -- again! -- to be among the very small number she can fit into her every-second-Sunday column in the Book Review section of the paper. Tackling PARADISE CITY lets Stasio describe Mayor's protagonist Joe Gunther as "raw-boned," which gave me a chuckle and is probably right on target.

This is Joe Gunther #23, and it's a Vermont detection series well worth collecting.

Photos here are from Archer Mayor's most recent visit to Kingdom Books last month; we have plenty of signed copies of PARADISE CITY available at cover price, as well as most of the earlier Joe Gunthers, signed. Click here to browse the list.

Timothy Hallinan, CRASHED: So Good, It's Worth Pre-Ordering

We had a moment of confusion here at Kingdom Books the other evening, as I made ecstatic sounds on the couch while reading CRASHED, the new book from Timothy Hallinan (of Poke Rafferty fame) and told Dave he was going to love it -- and he looked up in puzzlement from his iPad grazing in the armchair across the room and said, "But isn't it a young adult book?"

No, it's not -- emphatically not, since much of the plot turns on the making of a Hollywood "adult movie"! Turns out the reason Dave thought it was for the teen crowd was the name of the book's burglar-protagonist, Junior Bender. The cover design subtitles the book "A Junior Bender Mystery" and Dave, reading it as a tad old-fashioned, assumed "Junior" must be a kid detective.

That said, this is one of those books you long for, wait for, and find once or twice a year -- with an innovative plot (one of those fictional situations where the reader like me says "OMG, of course there had to be a mystery based on this"), an action-packed pace (lots of short chapters, seven or eight pages; if this bugs you, steer clear -- I was surprised at how quickly I adapted, though, and loved the wry chapter titles); and best of all, a burglar protagonist (stand back, Lawrence Block and the late Donald E. Westlake) whose occasional bunglings don't take away from his overall skills and smarts, and whose people-wisdom and inner tenderness drive the action and the solution.

Gotta love it.

Short summary: Junior Bender is a pro burglar, and accepts contract work for others. While attempting (successfully) to steal a Paul Klee painting, he lingers too long and gets trapped by very nasty Rottweiler guard dogs. Through a clever twist of plot, this results in Bender becoming the advocate for a child-actor-grown-up who's about to earn her way into her next round of drug use by acting in a porn flick, under organized crime pressure.

Here's a taste of the writing, from the moment when Bender's buddy Louie (the Lost) shows him an old TV show where the child actor performed (Bender is not a TV watcher himself, despite hiding out in crummy motel rooms where the TV is the "second largest" item of furniture):

She came in, but walking as though she was heading into a ninety-mile an hour wind. It seemed to take every muscle in her body to travel four steps. I could almost see her hair blowing behind her.

"How does she do that?" I asked.

"She did that or better every week," Louise said, without taking his eyes from the screen, "for eight years."

... "What happened?"

Louise got up and went to the window, using one finger to part the curtain. "They're still out there." He turned back to me. "She grew up, I guess. And no show lasts forever ... She was worth it. She'd been working since she was little, carrying the thole thing, and she probably got fed up." He looked with some longing at the dark screen. "She was something, though."

I've already decided I'll re-read this book at least once a year for the rest of my reading life, for the sake of trying to figure out how Hallinan packs so much human hope into a crime novel packed with violent episodes, betrayal, crashes, and more. I hope mobs of people pre-order this book (due out Nov. 13), whether at bookstores or online. Hallinan's Poke Rafferty series was/is terrific -- and this is even better.

Oh yeah, it's going to have a sequel. Two! The second book, Little Elvises, will come out in January, and the third, The Fame Thief, in June 2013. (Who knows why?) (NOTE: Paul Oliver at Soho tells why, in the first comment that follows this post -- do read onward!) One more quick item of very good news: Hallinan gives credit to Soho Crime editor Juliet Grames for helping bring out the best of CRASHED. Grames is rapidly creating a room (much more than a shelf!) of some of today's best crime fiction. Count on more to come.