Coming to Kingdom Books: Eliot Pattison -- and Congratulations!

Warm congratulations to Eliot Pattison, whose third book in his Colonial mystery series, ORIGINAL DEATH, was just awarded a starred review from Publishers Weekly! We are looking forward to reading the book, which will be released July 25 -- just in time for us to have copies here at Kingdom Books for Pattison's visit!

That's right, this outstanding Edgar Award-wining crime-fiction author (of three series -- the other two are set in Chinese-occupied Tibet, and in a postapocalyptic America) is again coming to talk with readers and collectors in a rare public appearance. Mark your calendar for Sunday July 28 at 7 pm, and be sure to ask Dave to reserve you a copy of the new book to be signed -- we will have only a limited number. We'll also have copies of Pattison's 2012 Inspector Shan (Tibet) book,  Mandarin Gate, and limited numbers of earlier books (again, make sure to reserve with Dave): dknel at charter.net or 802-751-8374.

HOUR OF THE RAT, Lisa Brackmann: Suspense and Danger in the Real China

RELEASED TODAY!

So, you're reading international crime fiction, right? And you definitely can picture the art, canals, and food (even almost smell it) in Donna Leon's Venice mysteries; you're getting worried about gray-sky days because in the Scandinavian mysteries they mean more killings and more depression; and you can't decide which African crime fiction you like better, the almost cozy ones by Alexander McCall Smith or the edgy and dangerous ones by Jassy Mackenzie.

So, what are you going to do about China?

I promise, I don't usually talk or write like that -- but Ellie McEnroe, age 27 and a long-term injured Iraq War veteran living in China, definitely does. Lisa Brackmann's adventurous American in Beijing keeps getting into controversy, though, and in modern China, mouthy Americans are mostly not welcome. Americans who support, hide, and have contact with anti-government artists are even more not welcome. Even with her connections, and now her mom living with her, Ellie is in trouble.

Readers who caught Brackmann's first Ellie McEnroe title, ROCK PAPER TIGER (2010), already know Ellie's war wound has left her vulnerable to pain-easing drugs, and her refusal to play things safe has set her against the Chinese government when it chases after her artist friends. Especially intriguing is the way Ellie finds herself caught up simultaneously in an online gaming world that has odd connections to who she's seeking and who's chasing her. (Shades of William Gibson, really.)

HOUR OF THE RAT takes Ellie out of Beijing -- she's burning out in a lot of ways, and it's time to get to other locations. The opening scene, an art opening event, captures her situation:

Guests and artists mill around, drinking Yanjing beer and eating yangrouchuanr, which normally I'd be all over, but the meat on these is so small and gristly that I wonder if it's actually mutton and not dog instead. Or rat.

I was born in the Year of the Rat, and eating my birth animal seems like it would be bad luck. So I stick to the beer.

"Why are we here, again?" I ask.

"I'd heard good things about the painter," Harrison says, flicking his hazel eyes at one of hte giat canvases, one where a fat naked guy whose face is done up in Peking Opera makeup lies sprawled across a red Ferrari, his guts spilling out of his sliced-open stomach. ... "I agree with you, it's disappointing."

... He's my boss, sort of.

I manage the work of a Chinese artist. An important one. Which is pretty funny, considering that I know f***-all about art. Which is why, I guess, Harrison keeps trying to get me to learn.

In addition to this sense of burnout, two nearly irresistible forces are on Ellie's case: (1) Somebody keeps trying to purchase her client's art, which oddly enough is not a good thing because he's in danger with the government and any sale will bring people after him right now; and (2) Ellie's mom, who seems to have run away from her American life, is trying to direct Ellie's life instead (while bringing her own Chinese boyfriend into the mix).

But when Ellie goes on the run -- with her mother and said BF in tow -- a third and maybe even a fourth factor (both political/police related) press into her life. And the places she ends up running to and through are some of the scariest in modern China, because they are the most heavily polluted and poisoned and -- you knew this was coming -- doggedly made invisible by the government.

Brackmann, musing on how she developed HOUR OF THE RAT, says, "Many in the West tend to think of Chinese as passive and uninvolved when it comes to politics, and while it’s true that the CCP does not look kindly upon activities that threaten its monopoly on power, Chinese people have been very vocal when it comes to environmental issues. Many of the approximately 180,000 “mass incidents” in China last year were provoked by pollution or other environmental concerns. Tens of thousands of people have protested polluting factories in places like Ningbo and Xiamen. These are issues that unite poor peasant farmers and well-to-do urban dwellers alike."

In terms of Ellie's life, that means there are people who may give her some support and information as she tries to escape whoever is chasing and threatening her and the ties to these polluted places. But it also means nobody around her can afford to go on the record.

Brackmann's crime fiction is exhilarating and compelling, and I had no regrets about trading in my preconceptions about China, to absorb both the current issues and the clear passion that Ellie has for the place and its diversity. Readers don't need to read Rock Paper Tiger first, but -- why not get both books for double enjoyment? Brackmann is definitely sustaining the strong narrative voice and deft weaving of plot and character that brought her huge praise for the first Ellie McEnroe adventure, and I hope she's planning more. I'm in for this.

More from Brackmann, here: http://www.lisabrackmann.com/books/hour-of-the-rat

Our review of Rock Paper Tiger, here: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2010/07/when-global-gets-dangerous-lisa.html

And if you've been reading this while also trying to remember whether you were born in a year of the rat, or dragon, or horse ... check here: http://www.ofesite.com/spirit/chinese/animal2.htm

With Sorrow, News of Joan Parker's Passing

Alerted by Hank Phillipi Ryan, we have news today that Joan Parker, loyal and loving wife, partner, and teammate of author Robert B. Parker, has died. An obituary from the Boston Globe announced that her death took place Tuesday, and recognizes Joan for her philanthropy. We are thinking of Joan's family and the many friends of this wonderful couple, in this time of loss.

We're also thinking of when we last saw Joan: at the New England Mobile Book Fair, as she initiated the Robert B. Parker Award there. Here are a couple of our photos.

Joan and NEMBF owner Tom Lyons.

Joan reading from a letter written by Robert B. Parker.

Do look at the Boston Globe's online obituary, for a particularly lovely photo of Joan Parker.

Strong, Savvy, Sensitive, and Yes, Very Scary: Vanessa Michael Munroe Returns in THE DOLL by Taylor Stevens

I'm one of the gazillions of female readers who look forward to a new thriller from Lee Child, or an intense espionage investigation from Olen Steinauer or Alan Furst, and of course a regional police procedural from Archer Mayor or Craig Johnson ... and in fact, it wasn't until a few years ago that I realized that all the characters I identified with for years in the Lord of the Rings trilogy were guys. Honestly, I think it's easy for most of us to connect with a protagonist who makes emotional sense for us, no matter the gender.

And there's something about Vanessa Michael Munroe -- better known just as Michael to her friends -- that catches me at the heart level and makes me enormously proud of her. She's an information specialist (Taylor Stevens's earlier books in the series are The Informationist and The Innocent), a born linguist, and a wealthy business co-owner. Her work takes her all over the world, and as a single and slender woman in the realms of power, she's got to be able to defend herself with more than just words. She knows how.

But along with Munroe's strength, defensive skills, and fancy knife work come the weight and horror of a past rife with abuse, where she learned to fight off abusers in order to survive. Keep her busy and she's tops in her field; let things slow down, and the darkness of the past can knock her into deep and crippling depression. (Can you relate?)

THE DOLL opens with a shockingly impossible moment: Michael's partner Miles Bradford, watching from the office window, witnesses the highly unlikely -- and therefore impeccably choreographed -- kidnapping of Munroe right in front of him. Horrified and at first scrambling against a glassy surface of lack of information, Bradford has little chance of racing to Munroe's rescue; only if she finds a way to contact him will he know what to do.

Meanwhile, the kidnap team is having second thoughts, and the thoughts are that whoever lined this up has a bunch of ridiculous rules about Vanessa Michael Munroe:

Do not let her hear your language, the source had said, she will use language as a weapon. Keep the area around her free of objects, everything will be used as a weapon. Stay clear of her reach, she doesn't need a weapon to kill you. Don't use restraints, she will find a way out of them, and they will only give a false sense of safety. Do not touch her, the source said. Leave her in peace, and treat her respectfully, only then will the violence stay muted. Disrespect these and make no mistake, she will kill you.

It's easy to assume Munroe's fragile and frightenable; she's female and small and pretty. But that's not who she is on the inside. Inside, she's a tornado, an earthquake, an irresistible force with brilliance of mind and a compulsion to solve problems.

Soon enough, Munroe meets the depraved but highly intelligent and well-informed person behind her capture: the Doll Man, a merchant who feeds the hunger of collectors of real women, through turning them into dolls who can then be abused, abased, kept in captivity. Can he keep Munroe? It doesn't seem likely, but he's come up with carrots and sticks that involve the people she loves -- and soon she'll take his orders, in order to save her friends and family. Wouldn't you?

And there is the catch, the hook, the way that Taylor Stevens binds us to this protagonist unforgettably. What we value most -- our commitment to the people we care about -- is what Vanessa Michael Munroe can't escape. How hard can she fight, and how much can she risk, in order to bring the global criminals around her to justice?

I'm not always comfortable with Munroe -- just the way I stop to ask myself whether I'd let Lee Child's Jack Reacher into the house. Stevens twists this intense thriller so effectively that Munroe's questions become the ones the reader faces, too.

Oh, you don't need to read the two preceding books in the series before reading THE DOLL. But I'd recommend it, because then you'll notice how Munroe is growing, in the hands of a powerful novelist. Be sure to check out the author's website, but not until you've read at least one of the books: http://www.taylorstevensbooks.com/index.php.  Or, if you've got to peek first, remember Leonard Nimoy telling Star Trek fans, "I am not Spock." Taylor Stevens is not the same as her protagonist; if you have a moment, add your comments here, and give this author the gift of seeing her fiction as creative work, far beyond the pain of her own past. Come to think of it ... that's what she asks us to believe of Vanessa Michael Munroe, too.

CROSSING JACK BROOK: Love and Death in the Woods, by Paul Lefebvre

[A particular note to readers beyond Vermont: This book may be exactly right for you, in spite of being set in a very small place. Read all the way through the review, and you may see possibilities.]

There are places whose names evoke powerful images and memories: San Francisco, or the route of the Circle Line Ferry around Manhattan, or the coast of Alaska. As the locations narrow, they call up more specific reactions: the weather station at the top of Mount Washington in New Hampshire, or a waterfall hidden in the woods of childhood. Even a kitchen chair.

Paul Lefebvre's third book, CROSSING JACK BROOK: LOVE AND DEATH IN THE WOODS, is set almost entirely in Vermont's Northeast Kingdom, a rural and in many ways isolated region where there's room for people to be themselves, as kindly and generously and sometimes "brokenly" as they wish. (Yes, this is the second review in the past week to talk about the Northeast Kingdom; the other is at http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2013/06/vermonts-northeast-kingdom-suspense.html.)

And Lefebvre narrows the focus further, to the "Upper Kingdom," the section of Orleans and Essex counties -- mostly Essex in this book -- where the Interstate isn't part of daily life, the mail carrier knows your family, and your management skills can be measured by the amount of dry wood you've split, stacked, and covered for the next heating season.

Time also narrows here: Lefebvre's weekly column in the Chronicle, an award-winning neighborly newspaper in the area, can ramble in a mellow way through an episode on a farm, in a forest, or leaning on the counter at the general store. But as he explains at the start of the book, "When the woman I lived with became ill with cancer in 2005, I began writing about it in [that] column." Through the nine months that followed, which led to the death of that woman, artist Elin K. Paulson, the column made it possible for a wide community to treasure the connection to Elin, as well as to Paul himself. And then, in the way that loss can capture life, it also captured the column, living onward after Elin's death, commenting on what the couple's shared lives had been and how Elin's absence continued to affect the writer and the widening circles of friends.

Stained glass by Elin K. Paulson

For CROSSING JACK BROOK, Lefebvre took segments of his published columns from August 1994 to May 2010, and enfolded them in commentary and reflection. In some ways it's a journal within a journal -- love on the inside, with the struggles that it takes to craft and honor a working relationship, and love/loss, a different garment, on the outside. Lefebvre makes it work well, coupled with another pairing: a time that was (including the early idealistic years of the area's most noted communal group), and a time that is and that continues. In that sense the book is a poem, and also a place of its own, a brook of moments that flash in the sunlight, then shatter.

The couple also inhabited two homes: their shared one that is still Lefebvre's, and a cabin in an area now mostly uninhabited but once a busy logging village: Lost Nation. The cabin was Elin's, not just her home for many years before joining Lefebvre, but also her work of art and a display place for paintings, sculpture, and collections of stone, metal, wood. Jack Brook lay between the working world and the cabin.

To cross Jack Brook was to enter a world that had been shaped or colored by an imagination nearly always in gear. "This is where we find the essence of Elin," I said to one of the boys from Island Pond who had come with me to Lost Nation a few days after her death to see what had to be done in preparation for the [planned life-celebrating] tribute. No doubt the loggers who had once inhabited the space wouldn't have recognized the grounds or the cabin. Never locked, the screen door to the cabin was fastened shut with a simple hook and eye screw, while the inner door, homemade and somewhat crude, held a geometric painting in pastel colors and a pad of paper on a string.

Lefebvre's "now" commentary, framing the earlier columns, suggests that the twosome had to "mature and become more of ourselves" before they could settle into living together. The commitment that they forged saw them to a harder crossing than the one over the brook.

In both layers of the book are conversations, the small exchanges of questions and responses that make up a relationship. To see Elin through Paul Lefebvre's eyes is to see an artist who pushed the edges of vision and color, while remaining practical and matter-of-fact about herself and her life. It is, in a sense, to travel the road that fortunate lovers walk, discovering what makes the beloved so irresistible, so "meant" to be there.

Reading CROSSING JACK BROOK conveys several gifts: a reassurance of how direct love and art can be, a caring terrain of grief, an admission of how much we all don't know about how to handle the later years of life, as lovers and friends die and the world changes around us.

Lefebvre writes near his conclusion, "Writing is the only strength I have; I have no idea how my words might strike those who read them. But a friend, who is also a writer, told me that wasn't important. What is important, he said, is for a writer to open his heart."

So if your bookshelf has few items that focus so tightly on a small segment of Vermont, but you have savored the writing of, say, Gretel Ehrlich or Edward Hoagland or Terry Tempest Williams, CROSSING JACK BROOK could be your delight this season. Copies can be found at northern Vermont bookstores (including Green Mountain Books in Lyndonville, Vermont, where there's a reading and signing on June 14; 802-626-5051 and greenmountainbooksmyfairpoint.net) and through the Vermont Historical Society (http://vermonthistory.org/shop/all-store-items/product/878-crossing-jack-brook-love-and-death-in-the-woods; ignore the rather lame book description there). I wish you time to enjoy this one. Maybe it's a good idea to purchase two copies -- so you have one to give to a friend who'll share the experience. It's worth the investment of the heart.

Victoria Houston's New Loon Lake Mystery: DEAD INSIDER

Rain clouds are moving across the valley as I write; we are in for another drenched afternoon, and it's becoming "ordinary" to see flood warnings ticking across the TV screen in the evening. What a great season to dip into the newest in Victoria Houston's Loon Lake mystery series, though: DEAD INSIDER, where a catastrophic August rainstorm in northern Wisconsin includes the revelation that, neatly wrapped like butchered meat, parts of a human are floating through the Loon Lake run-off.

Loon Lake Police Chief Lewellyn Ferris knows how to recruit her friends and colleagues to assist her crew in coping with the threat to health, tourism, and safety -- but the media circus that erupts when the victim's identity is revealed goes way beyond her expectations. After all, not only was the murdered woman running for the U.S. Senate, but someone is going to inherit her fortune. Along with the money comes a family heritage that's darker than most, and the possibility of multiple motives.

"Lew" makes a good choice pulling into the case retired dentist "Doc" Osborne. In many ways he's already involved -- much of the action unfolds from his own point of view -- and he's a low-key Watson to her investigation:

During Osborne's first stint as the deputy coroner for the Loon Lake Police Department, Lew had discovered he could be an unexpected asset during the questioning of suspects. The reason? Men and women hear differently. Depending on the listener -- emotions, facts, even words can have ambiguous meanings.

More than once each had surprised the other with an interpretation of a response that changed the direction of the investigation.

Stakes are high, financial, political, powerful, and by pushing into the flood of events and desires around her, Lew raises the risk level as well.

Houston weaves a neat traditional mystery with up-to-the-minute recognition of how small-town life has changed in an era of global politics. This one goes on the "keep it" stack for summer reading (flyfishing! suspense!), regional interest (northern Wisconsin), and well-crafted female police chief (still a rarity). I can already see I'll be watching for the earlier books in the series, which is:

Dead Angler
Dead Creek
Dead Water
Dead Frenzy
Dead Hot Mama
Dead Jitterbug
Dead Boogie
Dead Madonna
Dead Hot Shot
Dead Renegade
Dead Deceiver
Dead Tease
Dead Insider 

The official release date for DEAD INSIDER is June 18. Luckily, there's no need to read the other titles beforehand ... but, like me, you may decide you'd like to gather a few more for the shelf.

Scottish Noir: William McIlvanney's LAIDLAW Is Back in Print

The Canongate re-issue.

A number of blog reviews are showing up this year for William McIlvanney's LAIDLAW, first of his three noted Glasgow (Scotland) crime novels: Laidlaw (1977), The Papers of Tony Veitch (1983), and Strange Loyalties (1991). The fresh attention is due to reprinting of the first (and presumably the others will follow) as a paperback, by Canongate, in Edinburgh, Scotland. A few copies are floating across the Atlantic, and I hope there will be more.

For newcomers to this pivotal work credited as the launch of today's "Scottish noir," here's a thorough article by Beth Dickson at the Association for Scottish Literary Studies (don't let the organization name put you off, as she provides a good summary of the three books): http://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/scotlit/asls/Laverock-McIlvanney-2.html

And last Thursday the noted blog The Rap Sheet gave us part of a new interview with McIlvanney: http://therapsheet.blogspot.com/2013/06/mcilvanney-calls-it-as-he-sees-it.html

If you're already a fan of the crime fiction by Quentin Jardine or Denise Mina, here's a good chance to check out the roots of their work. And if all these names are new to you, Kingdom Books provides an oveview here: http://kingdombks.blogspot.com/2008/06/scottish-mysteries-mcilvanney-mina.html

Hurrah for summer -- the season that justifies making a reading list and indulging!

Vermont's Northeast Kingdom: Suspense Thriller from John Vibber, KINGDOM COME

The northeastern wedge of Vermont that wings away from the north-south thrust of the state is called the Northeast Kingdom -- specifically, three counties that add up to about 65,000 people and a lot of second-growth forest. The region has a gentler landscape than the rest of the state; the Green Mountains fade away here, and though the rivers brought early trade and industry (along the same byways that the Abenaki tribe and its forebears traveled), towns formed late and even today are small, where neighbors know you by name. And a neighbor may live four or five miles away.

The most rural part of this landscape, the town of Canaan, Vermont, hosts the action of John Vibber's second mystery, KINGDOM COME. The first printing of the book ran last summer, but two corrected versions knocked me off schedule for a review. So here we go: Now's a good time to consider picking up a copy for the summer-cabin bookshelf, or as a gift to your hosts where you're spending some vacation time. Though there are some rough edges (as expected for a self-published mystery), Vibber knows a good tale and spins a complex one here -- one that involves a militia, violent plots to overthrow the local peace, and casual murder by psychopaths who enlist each other in a tightening net of threat and danger.

Cleverly, Vibber sets the book a few years back, instead of forward -- 1997, at the time when the approaching Millennium, the year 2000, brought global concerns that involved computer networks crashing, power grids failing, and political chaos, thanks to presumed issues with software and the change from the 1990s dates. Investigating a rogue group that seems to be operating out of a printing business just across the river in the wildest part of New Hampshire is Reilly Bostwick, familiar from Vibber's first mystery. Settled harmoniously with Adele Clayton (the couple has knitted well together, after the murder that put them at such risk in Shadow on Cant-Dog Hill, Vibber's first book), Bostwick has no intention of putting his family in danger again.

But his daughter and Adele's, Amy Bostwick and Lottie Clayton, aged 19, need summer jobs after their freshman year of college "away." When their former babysitter, Nicole, is murdered, they have no clue there's a link to the print shop where they're seeking work. And terms like "Tribulation" and "the Rapture" don't sound dangerous, even when they're part of some odd documents that the print shop issues.

"But what do these Miller Press pamphlets mean?" asked Amy. "Are they trying to make the chaos happen or trying to take advantage of it?"

"I think that there'll always be huge world problems and some people trying to profit by scaring others," said Reilly [Amy's dad]. ... "I think that Miller Press is trying to stir up fear and profit from it. I don't know if this is dangerous or just ugly."

Turns out it's both. Vibber's deft twisting of strands and the narrative's swift dodging from investigator to criminal and back again keep the action lively. And once the FBI gets involved, the risk actually rises for Lottie and Amy.

Clear some summer hours for this adventurous local read -- John Vibber's retirement career as mystery author is providing a lively local thriller with lots of connections to what could really be happening at the next cabin up the lake's shore. Available as both softcover and e-book through that big online retailer, but you'll have more fun (and get more into the spirit of local authors!) if you ask your independent bookstore to order in a copy or two. One to keep, one to share with a summer friend.

Becky Masterman, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING: Intense Investigative Thriller, Emotionally Gripping

I picked up a copy of Becky Masterman's debut thriller, RAGE AGAINST THE DYING, thanks to a review by another author. From the first chapter, this one never let go of me.

Brigid Quinn, age 59 and noticeably white-haired, is reluctantly retired from her FBI position where she hunted sexual predators. Haunted by what she's seen over the years, she's trying to fit into a new role: wife to the gentle and unquestioning Carlo, a former priest who hasn't asked her to go beyond her usual reply to people who ask what she used to do: investigate "copyright infringements," she'll tell them, ready for their baffled blink and a change of topic.

But Quinn's long-time psychologist friend David Weiss, nicknamed Sigmund, isn't afraid to analyze Quinn and her choice to settle in Tucson, Arizona, where her effort to catch a Route 66 predator went very wrong. It's the case she never quite solved and can't let go. And it's rotting something inside her in a way that doesn't bode well for marriage or even for retirement.

So when Floyd Lynch confesses to the string of crimes, and Quinn becomes persuaded that the confession is flawed, she's suddenly investigating -- without badge or authority, and with some truly awful judgment calls.

Who knows how they all thought I'd react? His mission accomplished, [police investigator] Max relaxed his spine and let himself get sucked a little into the overstuffed couch. "Don't worry.  We're waiting for verification before we do that, but it was time to let you know. Your involvement in the case, I mean."

But Max has also alerted David Weiss, and nothing is as it seems -- not even Quinn's homelife.

A gripping thriller, well paced and worth the read. I wasn't totally convinced by the very last details of Quinn's path here (a slightly incongruous note compared to the rest of the book, I thought), but I am totally ready for sequels. Becky Masterman has the right stuff.

Margaret Maron, THE BUZZARD TABLE: Crafted by a Grand Master

THE BUZZARD TABLE is the 18th of Margaret Maron's Judge Deborah Knott mysteries, and a crackling good one. Series followers will grab and gobble; for me, the book was a reliable treat, waiting for a calm moment when I could just keep on reading . . . I knew I wouldn't want to put this down very often.

And that's what it is for a writer to become a Grand Master. There are a goodly number of these strong, steady authors who know pace and character the way they know breakfast, and who braid unexpected strands and glittering red herrings like extra courses of dinner. But Maron's writing is more than this -- she is a recognized Grand Master, thanks to her 2013 Edgar Award, as well as recognized in her home state of North Carolina, where she sets much of her writing. And she has the patience to work with a story until its layers are satisfying and rich. Without carrying the metaphor too far, I could say Maron knows her workroom and insists on making the dish come out right.

In this case, Deborah Knott, judge in Colleton County and married for a long time to Sheriff's Deputy Dwight Bryant, isn't as young or adventurous as she once was. Her life balance is now heavier on wisdom and experience. But there are still things that take her into new terrain, like the unexpected reactions she's getting from her young stepson, Cal -- whose mother is dead. She's also puzzled by a visitor to the area, a long-lost cousin of the dying Mrs. Lattimore (that scent in the air is money, plus jewels). Cousin Martin Crawford is an ornithologist. Prickly and defensive, he's set up a "feeding table" for buzzards. Just for photographs -- or for other reasons?

And there is the disturbing core of what's going on in Colleton County: Who's waiting to feed off what corpses, and why?

Deborah's interest in the situation is supplemented by that of her husband Dwight, and by Sigrid Harald, an investigative lieutenant from New York and the granddaughter of the soon-to-be-late Mrs. Lattimore. Dwight and Sigrid get their own chances to narrate the action, but most of the insight and control are in Deborah's voice and view. Maron readers will recognize Sigrid from her own series, btu this book is great as a stand-alone -- you don't need to be caught up on any of Maron's long-standing narrative strands to enjoy THE BUZZARD'S TABLE.

Maron writes traditional mysteries -- death happens, but there are no interludes inside the minds of deviants, and the solution, when it comes, is the result of skilled people working hard to uncover the disturbing secrets around them that may have led to violence. I found the conclusion well crafted and appropriate -- then was haunted afterward by a few provocative strands of moral doubt that Maron leaves dangling.

I'm shelving this one on the "read it again" shelf, and look forward to working back through some of the earlier Maron titles, as well as the ones yet to come.

Bite into a Locavore Mystery: Edith Maxwell, A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE

Think quickly, which of your gardening implements could make a murder weapon? Yep, that one, too ... Edith Maxwell, no stranger to shopping at farmers markets and caring for organic veggie plots, picked the vicious multi-tined pitchfork (think American Gothic, but stronger), for her first "Local Foods Mystery," A TINE TO LIVE, A TINE TO DIE.

Cam Flaherty is a new farmer -- her great-uncle Albert St. Pierre has turned over the operation to her, and she's hoping the cachet of organic, fresh, and local will help her make a good living from her new country life, quite a change from Cambridge, Mass. But it's always the people that complicate life, right? And the whole point of a CSA -- that is, community-supported agriculture, or farm shares -- is people being regular purchasers of everything you grow. Among Cam's group of purchasers is Alexandra, "a Viking princess. If princesses wore cutoff overalls and hiking boots with red socks." And there's Felicity, whose long gray braid hangs down her back; the also gray-haired Wes, the silent type; and perhaps most importantly, Brazilian immigrant Lucinda DaSilva, president of the Westbury Locavore Club but otherwise mysterious and not exactly the sharing type.

But Cam's plans for orderly operations are brought swiftly to catastrophe when the hired man she's just fired (for almost destroying her organic operation!) turns up dead in a greenhouse structure, lying bloodily between the trays of seedlings.

Even worse (can there be worse?), someone else is sabotaging the gardens, even with Mike already dead. And the eye of the Press is on Cam:

The reporter stood ten yards away in Tully's meadow, what passed for her neighbor's quarter-mile-long front yard. Cam doubted if Tully had given the woman permission. She looked uncomfortable standing in weedy grass up to the knees of her expensive-looking black pants. Her cameraperson appeared to be focusing on Cam. How long had they been there? And now the poisoned rhubarb was going to be on television.

"We want to hear your side of the murder in the greenhouse." The drama in the woman's voice could have landed her on Masterpiece Theater. She walked toward Cam, extending a microphone attached to a black shoulder bag.

Maxwell paints the trials and tribulations -- and rewards -- of a small farm in bright detail, based on her own experience as part owner of a certified-organic farm herself years ago. Most important for this cozy-with-dark-edges mystery, she tags the motivations that take Cam Flaherty into investigating the crime, when it would be safe (and easier) to leave the detection to the police. Even in the countryside, the blackest dangers are those provided by criminals who don't care what or who they damage.

Whether Cam can catch the murderer is one pressing question. The other one is, will she still have a working community-focused farm and a group of willing locavores by the time the crime is solved?

This is Maxwell's first detective fiction under her own name, but she also recently started a series under her pen name, Tace Baker. I don't expect she'll have much time for weeding this summer, with two series to write and a lot of twists and turns ahead! I look forward to getting to know Cam Flaherty better as Maxwell's Local Foods Mystery series continues.

BLACK IRISH by Stephan Talty: Fantastic Thriller Debut

There is nothing in BLACK IRISH that "tastes" of debut author, although it's the first thriller from Miami/New York/Dublin writer Stephan Talty. He's also written five "true" adventure under his own name and was the ghostwriter (I hope with a contract that allows him to say so!) for A Captain's Duty by Richard Phillips.

Still, the sustained pace of an Irish-linked suspense novel set in Talty's hometown of Buffalo, New York, takes a different set of skills than biographies of tumult and danger. As Detective Absalom ("Abbie") Kearney tackles police work in her own hometown of Buffalo, after a prolonged absence from the Irish district in which she's grown up, there's a lot of doubt about whether she can handle the job. It's not her background that's lacking -- other police officers are lining up to work with her, as she has that special grit and insight that bring top results. But in the County? That part of Buffalo that has no tolerance or kindness for outsiders? She may have been raised on location, but heck, she was adopted, and she left for Harvard, and ... she's clearly not one of the boys, is she?

If you've kept up with recent Irish detective fiction by, say, Tana French or Stuart Neville, BLACK IRISH will fit your collection -- even though the action takes place in the States, its ties to the IRA and "the Troubles" increase, along with the violence and stubbornness of the people around Detective Kearney. Her own struggles with inside/outside status mirror the joy and the darkness of Irish history and heritage. And along with strong drink, Abbie finds connections and clues at the local Gaelic Club. Her partner Z, short for Frank Zangara, already knows her tendency to overcommit and to plunge into true Irish depression. But will Z still believe in her when all the evidence is against her?

I couldn't put this one down. The pace is brisk and relentless, the action highly believable, and the layers of Abby Kearney make a detective that I want to read again. Although the book ends softly, without hinting at a sequel, the cover blurbs say "thriller series" and I'm sure Talty has more in the hopper.

Which, by the way, is an excellent reason to read his first thriller right away ... to be ready for the next one. It's a pleasure to settle into the hands of a pro and realize there will be twists, tension, and police risk ahead -- American Irish style.

Mark Pryor: Two Hugo Marston Novels -- Paris and Crime!

Lucky, lucky me ... I picked up Mark Pryor's new book THE CRYPT THIEF, the second Hugo Marston detective novel -- and I hadn't known about the first one! So as soon as I finished one, I devoured the other, also. You know how a really good meal gives you a calm sense of goodwill? So does a pair of good books, one after the other. Ah .... I might just read poetry for the rest of the week (well, maybe not, but it feels that good).

Hugo Marston is a delightful investigator, intense, highly skilled, and very believable. A former FBI profiler, he's switched careers to provide security to the US Ambassador in Paris, a much less risky, less dark endeavor. Moreover, his Ambassador is smart, sane, supportive -- life could be simple and honorable and ... clean. Even if not always fortunate in terms of love.

But in The Bookseller, a shabby strreet-level bookseller who has shared many a good book (at good prices) with Hugo over the years gets kidnapped at gun point. And Hugo Marston may be the only witness, and one unable to do anything about it.

The Paris police won't buy into the case; somehow there are Nazi hunters involved; old books play a role; and so does Hugo's new relationship with a beautiful and savvy reporter. It's a classic detection novel, played out in France, and worth every turn of the page.

Then comes THE CRYPT THIEF, where Marston's profiling skills are called into play as someone incidentally kills two tourists in the famous Pere Lachaise cemetery -- while stealing bones. Marston's former FBI buddy Tom Green, an intense and somewhat damaged CIA operative and consultant but a good friend (who also appeared in The Bookseller), arrives for a long visit and assumes Hugo will put up with his drinking, his despair, and his bad decisions. As Marston's investigation picks up pace and focuses on a clever and powerful serial killer, will Tom's rash behavior capsize the operation? And what are the risks of allowing Claudia, the reporter who's backed away from Marston, back into the press of events?

Tightly written, quick-paced, and redolant of French life and Parisian complexity, this is a pair of books well worth reading. And it's clear there will be more Hugo Marston mysteries ahead. Oh, I am indeed a very lucky reader ...

By the way, here's author Mark Pryor's website. Have fun -- and if you've already enjoyed one or both of these, do add your thoughts on the series as a comment here, s'il vous plait.

The Law Versus Love, Life: Liz Rosenberg, THE LAWS OF GRAVITY

In a perfect world, the law of the land would echo what our hearts tell us: Love and peace, and friendship above all, would determine what's right to do and how to give.

But as Liz Rosenberg makes clear in THE LAWS OF GRAVITY, even the most caring and tender judge must wrestle with what's been written down. And for Nicole and her adored older cousin Ari Wiesenthal, the weight of the law may fracture the family bonds that have kept them close into adulthood, into the years when each is a parent.

Nicole, worrying about a lump in her neck as she talks with her best friend Mimi (very pregnant), is already having a tough time seeing her daughter Daisy enter kindergarten. She mentions to Mimi an overheard conversation about yet another woman who'd received a cancer diagnosis when her child entered school:

She knit faster, as if she could push the story away with the clicking speed of the needles. "That mother died before her daughter even reached third grade."

"There's nothing scarier than having kids," Mimi said, her dark eyes wide. "Halloween can't touch it."

"I know. But just think --," Nicole began.

"I can't," Mimi said. "I won't. And you shouldn't either. Everything to do with having children is terrifying. You can't afford to sweat the details."

But for Nicole, the details are suddenly front and center, as the lump turns out to be an aggressive cancer, and treatments don't work well. Luckily, her cousin Ari stored the cord blood -- that special blend of magically fertile stem cells that hesitates in the umbilical cord at birth -- of one of his children, deep frozen for emergencies, should that kind of crisis ever arrive. And the cord blood could help Mimi survive after all.

But Ari, at first glad to contribute, confronts an emergency for one of his own children and suddenly realizes he needs to keep that cord blood for them, just in case.

Mimi actually has a contract of sorts that Ari provided, saying he'd donate the blood. What will it cost her at the level of her soul, if she takes that document to court to sue for the cord blood?

Liz Rosenberg is known as a poet and a thoughtful reviewer of young-adult novels. Here she spins a lush novel of women's friendships that tackles the legal and medical issues usually found in the high-stakes thrillers written by, say, Jodi Picoult. But Rosenberg shifts the pace as well as the setting -- to Long Island, where she grew up, and to the cultural frame of modern Jewish life -- in order to deepen the issues and test their costs.

Readers with some experience in terms of Jewish thought will already have pricked up their ears at the surname Wiesenthal for Nicole's cousin Ari. Even more pressing is the name of the judge who accepts the case that Nicole brings: Judge Solomon Richter. "Richter" is German for judge, based on the word that means what is right; Solomon, of course, is often remembered for his wisdom in deciding which of two claimants was actually the mother of a baby being fought over. And Rosenberg is a poet -- not only the names, but each word in this powerful novel has been selected by eye and ear. To reach the eventual resolution, not only the characters but also the reader will test what justice means -- and also love.

RIPPED: Jack the Ripper Made New, by Shelly Dickson Carr

"Shelly Dickson Carr"

Although this book came out last December, there hasn't been a lot of talk about it, so I thought I'd mention it as a potential cross-genre mystery for the summer reading stack. "Shelly Dickson Carr" is the pen name of Michelle Karol, a Boston-area theatre lover, and this is her first book. But if you've been reading mysteries for a while, or tend to read mid 20th century authors, you're already wondering how this author came to claim her nom de plume -- because John Dickson Carr (1906-1977) was one of the fine and very productive mystery writers of the so-called Golden Age of the genre. And the answer is: Shelly Dickson Carr is his granddaughter.

RIPPED, her first book, involves time travel and Jack the Ripper's London. It's a thriller, with gory murders, risk, suspense, and a fifteen-year-old protagonist: Katie Lennox, whose parents are dead, whose sister is a rock performer and not around, and who's living in teen misery with her London grandmother. Things look up a bit when she meets "seriously hot" Toby, who teaches her Cockney rhyming slang while they wait to enter Madame Tussaud's wax museum to see the grotesque Chamber of Horrors -- a restaging of Jack the Ripper's murders of young women in the 19th century.

When a Katie finds herself tossed abruptly into the days of the Ripper, she's bold, committed, and smart. But can she handle time travel, a vastly different way of life, and psychopathic threats, all while working out her own life and trying to save (in a strange way) her sister??

Pull this one onto your list if you collect Jack the Ripper; if you adored John Dickson Carr and his mysteries; or if you're in a parent-daughter reading group. At a chunky 500 pages, there may be a few sections you speed-read to get to the next tangle -- and by the end, you'll know a lot of Cockney slang! (In fact, the author provides a primer on her website.) As Katie discover in the second chapter, it turns what you know inside out: "I'm no one's lamb to the slaughter, Katie thought, because my parents are brown bread ..." Need a hint? The last word in "lamb to the slaughter" rhymes with daughter -- now, do you know what rhymes with the latter word in brown bread?

Entertaining Mystery: LITTLE ELVISES by Timothy Hallinan (Soho Crime)

Making a list, or better yet, a stack, for summer reading? If you enjoy a mystery that's layered with complex clues and twists, and at the same time makes you chuckle out loud, I can recommend the three-book series by Timothy Hallinan (yes, the same Timothy Hallinan who writes the Poke Rafferty mysteries): the Junior Bender mysteries, Crashed, Little Elvises, and The Fame Thief.

We already reviewed Crashed here, with the recommendation that it was good enough to pre-order (yes!). So here's a bit about Little Elvises. Junior Bender, a clever career thief with a reputation to maintain,  often works for hire, so to speak -- someone wants a particular high-end item, like a fine painting, and Junior targets, removes, and markets the item in a smooth sequence. His tricks for entering unoccupied homes are diverse and well timed. He isn't wild about his career choice when it comes to trying to get back into his daughter's good graces, not to mention his ex-wife's ... but he takes pride in his skills.

So as this volume of his exploits opens in Southern California, Hollywood area, it's partcularly galliing to Bender that a police officer is creating a case against him for a theft he didn't do, and wouldn't have -- because there was a gun involved. Junior Bender doesn't use guns. Everyone knows.

What everyone doesn't know, though, its that DiGaudio, who is putting the screws onto Bender in a police station cell, has relatives who are ... shall we say, mobbed up? Well, DiGaudio won't say that. But Junior Bender is getting the message: DiGaudio wants Bender's skills for a job to salvage some reputations. Bender's even being pushed about his 13-year-old daughter and what she'll think of him if DiGaudio tags him with a much nastier crime than he'd ever actually commit.

Interestingly, Bender's daughter already knows something about what the complications are -- that is, what "little Elvises" are. She's written a paper for school on "the way American pop culture imitates itself, the way it stamps out little tin copies of anything original that makes money. The example she chose was all the little Elvises from Philly who were churned to the surface in the wake of Elvis Presley."

Hallinan's deft plotting soon tangles Bender into the saddest and most dangerous parts of the studio music scene, as well as -- could it be? -- mob connections from multiple locations. And all this, while Bender's daughter is getting involved in the actual detection, because, of course, she's so much better than her dad at all the Internet stuff that suddenly turns out to be necessary knowledge for him to survive DiGaudio's quickly closing net. If that's even possible.

Well, you know it must be possible -- I've already said there's a third book. The Fame Thief comes out at the beginning of July, just in time for vacation reading. But play fair: Read the first two books first, if you can! If you enjoy the best of Lawrence Block or the capers that Donald Westlake wrote (or, not to be gendered about it, Bethany Maines!); get a kick out of Los Angeles crime fiction like Raymond Chandler's; and appreciate a well-played hand of characters whose mistakes feel very, very believable, even though they're criminals and you're not (I hope!) ... then this is a series you'll enjoy.

One quick mention: For some reason, the ribbon of text on the cover saying "A Junior Bender Mystery" has made a few people this this features a teen detective and belongs on the "young adult" shelf. Banish the thought! Gently raunchy, always amusing, and a page-turner that will keep you going even when the summer sun's heating up, Little Elvises is a heck of a lot of fun. For grown-ups.

Joanne Fluke, RED VELVET CUPCAKE MURDER (Cozy with Recipes)

Amateur sleuth Hannah Swensen is part owner of a bakery. Whether it's consoling a (living) victim, trying reassure her two boyfriends, or creating an alluring day at the shop so that local sources of information find themselves hovering over the desserts and leaking a few clues, Swensen is sure to stir up some yummy recipes while sampling the murder mystery laid into her life.

Unlike many of the cozy-with-recipes books, though, this one doesn't group the baking directions at the rear of the book -- they are cleverly interspersed in the text, and even foreshadowed! From the Easy Fruit Pie to the Raspberry Bar Cookies to a killer guacamole, there's a lot to drool over. And that doesn't even count the condos Hannah Swensen is eyeing with envy, when sudden death interrupts her catered party. Even her coveted Red Velvet Cupcakes aren't an unmixed blessing -- in fact, they may be drawing more suspicion to her, something she could have avoided if she ever walked away from a crisis -- but that's just not Hannah!

Tuck this one in the beach bag this summer; just make sure you have reservations for supper after your day at the beach, because your tastebuds will only accept a certain degree of teasing before they insist on satisfaction ... something in common with this sweetly tangled murder plot, which Hannah needs to resolve before people she cares about are thrust into danger.

PS -- Cook's note -- If you're more into organic veggies, breads baked from scratch, and even gluten-free recipes, skip this one and wait for Edith Maxwell's locavore mystery, A Tine to Live, A Tine to Die (end of May release; review soon-ish). Fluke's recipes are more dependent on mixes and other staples of the 1960s kitchen -- yummy though they can be!

Michelle Hodkin, THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER (Young Adult Mystery)

I picked up this book for the same reason that I picked up the first in the Twilight series -- because a YA expert (librarian this time; bookseller last time) said she'd loved it and so did the teens (AND their mothers, said one of them!). The funny coincidence is, there turns out to be something paranormal involved in THE UNBECOMING OF MARA DYER, which is normally something I'd avoid. But with my earlier experience, I dipped into Twilight before I quite realized how much it depends on vampires, and the plot kept me reading anyway.

With Hodkin's book, though, it was the character of Mara Dyer that compelled me to stick with it after I realized the creepy aspect. Dyer's doubts about what she's experiencing make the creepiness much deeper. And the powerful resonance of Mara's version of courage and her stubborn refusal to give in to bullying drew me into the story. I've found very few books this year that struck me as so accurate about human nature and the emotions of newly forming independence -- not to mention that first uncertain taste of the perils of sexuality.

Mara Dyer wakes up in a hospital bed with no idea why she's there -- and when her parents yield to her frantic insistence and tell her all three of the friends with her on an adventure three nights ago are dead, her waking nightmare has just begun. A swift move to Florida, the agonies of a new school, an adorable boy who persists in courting her (not a great idea when he's ruined a lot of reputations already), and the threat that she's losing her mind: Mara's coping skills are only human, so how can she endure so much? And what will collapse first? Is it Mara's own self?

This is book one of a trilogy, and when I turned the last page, I knew I wanted to read the next one, and the final one. I exerted enormous adult self-control and waited 20 hours before ordering a copy (!!) of The Evolution of Mara Dyer. The third book, The Retribution of Mara Dyer, won't be available until October 2013. (Here's the author's website: http://www.michellehodkin.com/p/books.html.)

No, this doesn't have the long-term resonance of the Harry Potter series; on the other hand, it has way more depth than Twilight (no offense, Twilight can be good beach reading, but it's not going to pull me into re-reading that first volume, reading the others, or reviewing them). But it's a true mystery, with layers of revelation, agonized searching for the truth, and a dogged insistence on facing reality, no matter how strange that reality may become. Many thanks to the Maine librarian (nameless in the blog post) who wrote this list last fall -- I've consumed four of the titles this week, and will draw on the experience further, I'm sure.

But this above all: It's character that makes a book unforgettable. Michelle Hodkin knows how to craft character. I'm hoping (fingers crossed) that she can pull it off in all three books. I'll let you know later.

Jodi Picoult Book THE STORYTELLER Stirs Controversy

Controversy is not new for the novels of Jodi Picoult, a northern New England author whose medical/legal thrillers often target current moral quandaries. Her 2013 book, THE STORYTELLER, takes her onto Nazi/Holocaust territory, where history is in constant flux and opinions flare hot.

Today The Tablet provides an intriguing view of the issues for this book: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-culture/books/130344/jodi-picoult-holocaust-vampires -- well worth reading.

New England Mysteries: Lea Wait, Steve Ulfelder, J.P. Choquette

Maine author Lea Wait's newest title, SHADOWS ON A CAPE COD WEDDING, slipped into print a week or so ago while I was navigating through major editing deadlines ... but the workload here made me all the more pleased to have read this neatly constructed Cape Cod autumn small-town mystery. It was the perfect antidote, keeping me interested, intrigued, and cheerful.

Wait's "Shadows" series has mostly been set in Maine (this is the sixth; http://www.leawait.com), but this time Maggie Summer, a dealer in antique prints, has an October wedding to attend on the Cape. She's the maid of honor for her dear friend Gussie, owner of local antique shop Aunt Augusta's Attic. And it would all be perfect -- except that before Maggie even has a chance to find Gussie, she finds a dead body on the beach. That's rough news all around: Maggie's record of stumbling over violent death is long enough to work against her by now, complications could affect the wedding plans, and Maggie's own sweetheart, Will, is definitely not going to appreciate Maggie's instant commitment to helping solve the crime.

Stormy weather and threats of violence lead to a far-from-cozy situation -- and if Maggie can actually solve the issues for her friends and for the family of the dead man, there's no guarantee it will solve her own. A good read, sweet with a smoky edge of intrigue and suspense.

I was very excited to latch onto an advance copy of Steve Ulfelder's third Conway Sax thriller, SHOTGUN LULLABY. Ulfelder is making the most of the socioeconomic fracture lines of the rest of Massachusetts (off the Cape) -- wealthy industrialists and hard-hitting criminals practically next door to blue-collar clusters of folks to scrape by on hard work and sometimes hard drinking. But Conway Sax is done with the drinking part, and done with getting in trouble with the law: An "oldtimer" in the local Alcoholics Anonymous group, he's trying to figure out ordinary domestic life (the kind that comes with rocky finances and confused stepdaughters) while also committing to straightening out the newly sober when they need a mature hand (or a boot in the seat) to get their lives back on track.

Sax even has a friend on the police force, as well as his AA buddies. But "sponsoring" young Gus Biletnikov has complications that the 12-step program doesn't address: the strong likeness between Gus and Sax's much-loved son who won't speak to him anymore, and Gus's own mixed-up family where money and love get misdirected, time after time. Before he's had time to say the Serenity Prayer, Sax is dodging hard-core criminals and psychopaths, while trying to redeem Gus's short life and make sense of his own family's needs. Taut, believable, layered, SHOTGUN LULLABY bears witness to life on life's terms: sometimes sweet, more often hard to handle, and occasionally downright dangerous.

Ulfelder's earlier work -- Purgatory Chasm and The Whole Lie -- brought him an Edgar Award nomination and a lot of fans. This third Conway Sax crime and detection novel is going to win more acclaim, more readers ... and earn a heck of a lot of appreciation. Release date is May 14; visit Ulfelder's website, http://www.ulfelder.com.

Add a second New England state to this crime fiction list with a debut thriller from J. P. Choquette of Vermont -- EPIDEMIC is a medical thriller set in the hardscrabble town of St. Albans, less than an hour away from urban Burlington. Choquette forms her own take on the medical thriller style of Michael Crichton and pulls it home to small-town life, where people's connections both complicate and comfort.  Ava Morely, a relatively new nurse confronting a rapidly spreading deadly virus, finds her life moving into reverse as she runs into journalist Everett James. He's not just a prying reporter -- he's also someone she last saw next to the altar on her wedding day. The two quickly align in both a medical battle to save lives, and a web of threats that connect to the epidemic around them. Self-published by its "Vermont independent" author, the book's small flaws (alas for the lack of a pro editor) are easy to overlook, and the pace and deft characterizations convince me that Choquette's second thriller -- already in process -- will be at least as good.


A great chance to catch a fine debut while Choquette's still less well known than she deserves! Order online, and visit the author's enjoyable website: http://www.scaredecat.com.

Diversion: Poet Martín Espada on Moyers and Company

photo by Bryce Richter

Although the snow and ice outside the window dare me to say "April" again, it really is still National Poetry Month -- and a cluster of stubborn daffodil stems are protesting the weather. It's great to keep hearing and reading good poetry all month ... Every month, of course, should be poetry month (and is better when poetry is added).

One of our favorite poets, especially for his powerful performances, is Martín Espada. Most of his upcoming readings -- schedule HERE -- are in upstate New York and New England. If you can't be there, check out this interview with him on Moyers and Company. FYI, his newest collection is THE TROUBLE BALL. More on the book, HERE.

Next post ... back to mysteries. Although, come to think of it, one of the best mysteries is the way a good poem can slice apart the cloudy sky over the soul.

Crime Fiction, Venice, the Commissario -- Yes, Donna Leon

Donna Leon's 2013 crime novel THE GOLDEN EGG features Commissario Guido Brunetti and takes us again to the canals and back streets of Venice -- a multilayered city whose layout is so complicated that even this life resident and seasoned police detective reaches again and again for his copy of the guidebook Calli, Campielli e Canali. Dark, damp doorways at the water side of structures echo for the Commissario the complicated families around him, some with pedigrees nearly as long at the city's.

THE GOLDEN EGG is far from a standard crime novel, however. Leon opens at the Brunetti home, where one of the most endearing of crime fiction couples, Guido and his wife Paola, are enjoying an evening meal and conversation with their two teenaged children. The family plays a word game in the conversation: One offers and ending, the next provides a sentence or two that preceded the end of a story, and so on, back to someone proposing the first sentence of the "story written in air."

The game quickly becomes a metaphor for detective work, as Guido receives a phone call at work from his distressed wife. Paola's abrupt question to him -- "You know the boy who doesn't talk? At the dry cleaner's?" -- is a lead-in to letting her husband know the "boy" is dead. Actually it's a young man who's died, and the assumption has been that he is deaf, and perhaps also "dumb," not just in the sense of unable to speak, but also in terms of mental capacity.

Yet both Guido and Paola find the abrupt and probably suicidal (surely not criminal) ending to this nameless young man's life tragic, and both feel guilty that in all the years they've used the cleaning service where the "boy" has done simple tasks, they never asked his name. Guido, mired at work in a highly political assignment for his reliably self-centered boss, begins to probe the death.

Seasoned mystery readers will expect murder to emerge from Guido's investigations. Be assured that Donna Leon's skilled and evocative tale does involve crime -- but you'll have to wait for it with Guido, as he pushes backward through the story of the young man he'd barely noticed before death.

James Salter: A Brief Note

I love the research access that the Internet provides. At the time when Dave and I found an elegant copy of James Salter's book FORGOTTEN KINGS: THE DAYS OF IRWIN SHAW, we were already experts in mysteries and gaining rapidly in poetry -- but literary reflections like this one were not our passion (and still we don't often "go there"). We purchased the book and added it to our Kingdom Books shelves for the sake of its physical beauty. It's a gem, and was created at the noted Stinehour Press to be issued by the Bookman Press.

This morning, however, I noticed a review by John Freeman in the Boston Globe, of Salter's newest novel, All That Is. So before reading the book, I pulled out our Salter item and enjoyed it again, then skipped through several archived pieces on Salter, found on the 'Net. I was particularly intrigued to discover that he'd been born Horowitz, in New Jersey, and had a strong military career before the success of his first novel took him away from the U.S. Air Force.

Then, at last, I settled into Freeman's review of the new Salter novel, and found it a mix of thumbs up and down, but always rich: There's Freeman's own evocative writing (he begins the review with "Desire is one of memory's most potent accelerants"), and a comment on Salter's writing that intrigued me: "No one in American letters moves a story along through dialogue as naturally as he does," Freeman comments. "One moment we're in Bowman's head, the next in his lover's, and at the start of new chapters we're briefly in the mind of someone entirely new."

That's a skill that I want to witness and explore, so I'll be watching for a Salter novel as we begin our spring purchasing binge (it is such fun to be married to Dave, as we share enjoyment of acquisition, reading, reviewing -- each in our way -- and introducing readers to more good books).  And I hope that FORGOTTEN KINGS soon reaches the shelf of the person who is passionate about literary reflections, and who's developing a Salter collection to enjoy.

Brought to TV: Alan Furst, THE SPIES OF WARSAW

We're planning a 9 pm Wednesday date with "BBC America" television, for the start of a mini-series based on Alan Furst's pre-war novel, THE SPIES OF WARSAW. Dave and I are both committed fans of Furst's writing, enjoying the way these espionage novels evoke the 1930s and the looming Nazi machinations with depth and all senses -- as well as a touch of love or lust.

Here's one review on the TV series. And click here for a list of what Kingdom Books has on the shelf right now from Alan Furst, including some signed copies.

Clea Simon, PARROTS PROVE DEADLY: Pet Noir #3

Clea Simon's companion feline is named Musetta -- and there's a photo on Simon's blog of this canny cat, staring into the computer screen. Whether Musetta can guide Simon in plotting, who knows? But the years of companionship show up wonderfully in Simon's newest mystery, PARROTS PROVE DEADLY.

Cat mysteries have a long and honorable tradition, with the most recognizable being the series by Lilian Jackson Braun: the "Cat Who" books center around the life of former newspaper reporter James Qwilleran, and his two Siamese cats KoKo and Yum-Yum. But Braun's series was relatively light-hearted, and Simon's is ... well, you've got the message about "pet noir," right? And "deadly"? There are dangers and risks for animal behaviorist Pru Marlowe, and most of them come from the owners, not their pets.

More than dark and deadly, the Marlowe mysteries wrestle with what humans believe about other species, and why they could be dead wrong. For instance, the African grey parrot that's causing an emergency call from the local senior complex keeps repeating a frightening sequence of sounds. Is it a replay of the death of the parrot's "person," aging and infirm Polly Larkin? An accident being voiced over and over, due to the bird's own trauma? Or could there be a hint from the parrot that murder took place right in front of the bird?

Pru Marlowe isn't sure -- and that's one of the most enjoyable aspects of this hard-working and determined sleuth: Pru questions just about everything. She has to. Her very bright cat Wallis turns out to be able to "speak" to Pru through a sort of interspecies telepathy, and Wallis has scornfully made it clear to Pru that all creatures do something of the same. But not as well as Wallis can! A lot of cats are fluffy-minded, dogs are obsessed by their noses announce, the ferret that Pru sometimes consults is more bite than bright, and don't start on what squirrels and pigeons have in mind. If she's not going to consider herself crazy, then Pru's got to pay close attention to grasp this strange world of messages around her.

The thing is, parrots live a long, long time -- but they're not bright the way Pru's tabby is. So ... what exactly did the bird witness, and what does it mean about operations at the LiveWell complex, and between Polly Larkin's rather unusual grown children? Also worrying is the relative silence of guide dog that's been living next door to the deceased  -- and who seems traumatized. Pru's worrying about it all while taking time for one of her regular assignments, walking a tough little dog whose self-chosen name is Growler:

He lifted his leg and then with a sigh that carried a wave of resignation, he plowed ahead toward his inhospitable home. "Women." That I got, loud and clear. "Don't see what's right in front of them."

"What, Growler?" I stopped, and since I held the other end of the leash, he had to, as well. He turned and eyed me, his button eyes cold.

"The guide dog -- the one you call 'Buster'?" he broke his silence. "She's more concerned with her person than with anyone else -- and with good reason. People die there. She smells it, and I can smell it on her."

 I nodded, grateful for that damp black nose. ... It was an old folks' home, no matter what anyone called it. Death's waiting room.  Did he -- or did Buster -- mean there were suspicious deaths? Deaths that shouldn't have happened -- what the coroner would cal misadventure? Or even murder?

"Watch what happens to that bird," Growler said, barking once as we came up to his door. "Nobody likes a blabbermouth."

Nobody likes a snoop, either, but that's what Pru becomes, unable to let the circumstances rest until she knows the truth. In Simon's quick-paced narrative, there's plenty of suspense and a very real sense of struggle to translate what's important in the "speech" of companion animals into something Pru can make sense of.

I enjoyed the first two of Simon's pet noir series, Cat's Can't Shoot and Dogs Don't Lie; this one is at least as good, and a great diversion from the gritty urban thrillers I've also been considering this month.  You don't need to have read the others in order to enjoy PARROTS PROVE DEADLY, although they build nicely in terms of Pru's discovery of her ability to receive animal voices and the stresses and fractures in her life. Great series -- thanks, Clea Simon, for this third title!

PS -- Okay, if you've read your mystery classics, you already see the coincidence of Pru's surname in a book of noir: Marlowe, right? Now, can you place Wallis? Hint: Don't let the spelling trap you. And think about a noted Boston writer, one who shared the Bay State with Clea Simon until his passing, just a couple of years back. Come on, you can do it!

Go Global: Colin Cotterill's Laos Mysteries -- Dr. Siri #9

Chatting at a gathering last week about mysteries, I happily rambled from the States to Britain to Ireland and the others in the conversation jumped to Scandinavian crime fiction, then asked what else to read for enjoyment. I mentioned Donna Leon's Venetian series, where I believe the warm, smart, engaged relationship between Commissariao Guido Brunetti and his professor wife Paola creates series-long fans. To the nodding half smiles across the table, I then added, "Just like Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri mysteries set in Laos."

The blank and then panicky looks back at me told me I was way, way wrong -- that not everyone knows about this enchanting crime series, and most of the people "my age" who first hear about a series set in Laos rummage desperately through their rusty memories of the 1960s and 1970s, trying to recall where Laos was in relation to the Vietnam war, and whether the conflict demolished Laos, and how guilty they should feel.

Stop right there! Yes, Laos and Cambodia are the west-side neighbors of Vietnam. But Colin Cotterill's series begins in 1975, when the Communists have taken over the country and 72-year-old surgeon Dr. Siri Paiboun is abruptly appointed national coroner. His adventures have little to do with wars and invasions, other than the very political ones often aimed at his impromptu morgue. And they have everything to do with the small group of people who gather around him, work with him, hold him in high esteem, love him ... including Nurse Dtui, and the woman who becomes Siri's wife, Madame Deng. The eight books THE WOMAN WHO WOULDN'T DIE have celebrated the small triumphs of humor and integrity in a corrupt city, and the willingness of friends to help each other. As they resolve crimes that have brushed against the morgue operations, Dr. Siri and his friends also make the most of Lao life and food and tradition. And if Dr. Siri appears in some sense haunted by many of the spirits whose bodies have crossed paths with him, it's mostly an amused and tender sort of haunting.

Book nine, THE WOMAN WHO WOULDN'T DIE (Soho Press), takes a startling new direction. Dr. Siri's official career is ending: He must accept retirement, which suddenly looks like a mixed blessing after all. Still he has a final assignment, one that includes a highly successful witch/fortuneteller. A bit unmoored by his life changes, he determinedly takes his wife, Madame Daeng, along with him to investigate the circumstances of the ba dong's supposed death and resurrection and the problems she is stirring up within the political leadership, some distance up river.

But there's another surprise coming. Early in the book, we learn this:

Madame Daeng was also owed a great deal by the old men in power. She had been in Vietiane only one year. In that time she had pursued and wed Dr. Siri, established the most popular noodle shop in the capital, and helped to solve a number of mysteries that had baffled many. The sixty-seven-year-old had skills far more reaching than the perfect combining of a few spices and herbs. Hers was a secret past that few in the capital knew of.

During the course of Dr. Siri's investigative work, his wife records her own memoir, opening up the secrets of the years before her marriage. And just in time -- because a long-running threat from her own past is catching up with her. At issue: Will Dr. Siri be too consumed by his fascination for the witch, the "woman who wouldn't die," to notice the danger to his own wife?

Sweet, funny, and with a delightful quick pace and quirky details, this ninth Dr. Siri mystery captures the affections and loyalty that make life worthwhile -- in the Lao countryside and cities, or elsewhere. Series fans will enjoy appearances and disappearances by tranvestite Auntie Bpoo and Crazy Rajid, as well as the detective assistance of Siri's friend Comrade Civilai.

Will there be tenth Dr. Siri book? Hard to say -- the ending of this one doesn't make a sequel mandatory. And while exploring Colin Cotterill's blog is a fantastic adventure, there are no promises on it. But whether or not another appears, readers who haven't yet found their way to this series are in for a treat -- and the rest of us can always start reading the Dr. Siri books again from the beginning. It's one of the most enjoyable items on my list of things to do next winter!