A New Glasgow Crime Fiction Voice: Malcolm Mackay

Denise Mina. Tana French. William McIlvanney. Stuart Neville. Whether the setting is Ireland or urban Scotland, these authors authors bring us dark crime fiction that confronts the "other side" of British dominion: the long shadow of war and domination, whether invited or not, that seems to justify a bitter and violent response from a conquered culture.

On a recent trip "across the border" to Canada, Dave and I prowled the shelves at Brome Lake Books, looking for authors we might not have come across here in the States. The book I brought home was THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER by Malcolm Mackay. It's "Glasgow noir," told from the point of view of the criminal underworld -- but it's also a wonderful sort of "Heart of Darkness," tugging at the results of one "necessary" murder. There's an insistent intimacy to the way the characters show their lives, even told in the third person; who'd have guessed that sociopaths could seem so honorable and likeable? Ooops, it's fiction, right? (But think Whitey Bulger and you won't be far off.)

Mackay's books are spinning across the Atlantic, and at least the three that make up his Glasgow Trilogy are pretty easy to order; his fourth, The Night the Rich Men Burned, is harder to find at this point. But that's okay -- I devoured THE NECESSARY DEATH OF LEWIS WINTER and I'm glad to take my time adding the others to my shelf. Check out the author's website if you have a moment.

MARY: THE SUMMONING, YA Horror from Hillary Monahan

Campfire season lingers here in Vermont, through the crisp fall evenings. But the summer is over, and most of the sleepovers are, too.

But aren't those great memories? I still relish the story of the girl with the green ribbon around her neck, learned at an overnight with neighborhood kids. And there's the one with the voice that calls out, "Mary, I'm on the second step ..." Ooooh!

I wish I'd had a copy of MARY: THE SUMMONING at the start of the summer (or back in the days of those teen get-togethers). It took me a couple of days to shake off the shivers from this deftly written and quick-paced horror story featuring four teenage girls and a mirror -- and a malevolent spirit who won't leave them alone. And then, of course, I wanted to tell the story to anyone else who wanted to feel really scared.

This is Hillary Monahan's debut, but you wouldn't know from the writing, which is tight and exciting. It's based in part on the folklore of "Bloody Mary" -- which I looked up and found is every bit as shivery as this book (click here for the folklore). If you have a teen you'd like to impress or delight with a blood-curdling tale where determination and inner strength matter, pick up a copy.

Just make sure to leave time to read it yourself, first!

***

A glimpse of what Shauna discovers:

I wished Jess had known what could happen so she could have prepared us, so we would have known to run long and run far to get away from Bloody Mary.

Then it hit me. Maybe Jess had known. The pictures on the wall. She'd taken the pictures down. Why would she suspect Mary could be anywhere other than a proper mirror? She'd said safety, but that was a bizarre leap to make.

"Oh no. Come on," I whispered. "No."

And later:

Scree. Scree.

THUD!

I shot up in bed, the cuts on my back screaming. My vanity trembled. My plastic bucket of makeup tumbled over ... There was no way I could sleep in this house if she was in the mirror. I counted down from three and jerked the robe aside. There was no face there, but written backward in sludgy black tar was a single word that sent me falling to the floor and sobbing.

MINE.

New on This Week's Bookshelf: Neggers, Child, French, Turner, and Briefly, Penny

I purchased these and they came by mail this week, so count on reviews over the next few weeks -- I'm also working on a stack of advance review copies of other titles, and I'll probably interleave the two categories. But I wanted to let you know what I picked up most recently:

HARBOR ISLAND by Carla Neggers. Few realize this gifted author of romantic suspense is a Vermonter ... her multiple series span several police forces and take place on two continents. This one features Sharpe and Donovan. I always know a new Carla Neggers mystery means a deft plot twist, likeable sleuths, and a satisfying ending. I buy these "for me."

But I also can't resist Lee Child's Jack Reacher series -- where the pace drives me into staying up half the night, and Reacher has just enough honor and vulnerability to keep me wanting to know more. So I've picked up PERSONAL. Can hardly wait. (US cover on left, UK on right.)

The most depth and provocative ideas are sure to come in the Tana French book in my stack, THE SECRET PLACE. French rotates protagonists in her Dublin Murder Squad series and makes it clear how directly the crimes and sins of the past impact the present.

Which leads me to my fourth acquisiton: from poet and Iraq war veteran Brian Turner, the new memoir, MY LIFE AS A FOREIGN COUNTRY. Dave and I are already gently competing on who gets to read this one first -- we're passionate about Turner's writing, and the way he shows us both war and the human heart. No, it's not a mystery ... unless you count the enjoyable investigation of how Turner carries revelation and suspense and meaning into his pages.

Now, back to those other books I've already savored and want to mention -- oh yes, one more quick tidbit. I've changed my mind about something I mentioned a couple of weeks ago: I'm not going to review Louise Penny's new Armand Gamache mystery, THE LONG WAY HOME, in any detail. I think Penny dropped a lot of items in this one that should have been woven more effectively into the book, and I'm not happy with the way she tipped a crime into a book that otherwise reads as a series of personal investigations into art and creativity. Fans of the series -- and I am definitely a fan! -- will want this anyway for the sake of the Three Pines characters, but I think it's best viewed as a draft of a better book she could have written. Those who explore her website or follow her newsletters know she's had a hard year personally, and I tip my hat to her for completing her work within the yearly publishing schedule that her fame now demands. Everyone deserves a "pass" at least once in a writing career, and I'll let this book slide without further comment.

SHADOWS ON A MAINE CHRISTMAS, Lee Wait: Death, Deception, and Delightful Mystery

This is Lee Wait's seventh "Shadows" mystery featuring Maggie Summer, a dealer in antique prints whose New England escapades have included falling hard for another antique dealer -- but Will now lives in Maine, and Maggie in New Jersey, and both of them have reasons to think they won't be working the circuit of antique shows together in the future.

So Maggie's arrival in Waymouth, Maine, to join Will and his frail but indomitable Aunt Nettie, looks like trouble even before there's a hint of criminal activity creeping into the Christmas season. Maggie's implementing plans to adopt a daughter (maybe even two sisters!), and Will's made it clear he doesn't want any part of fatherhood. Despite the frictions the two had around personal secrets in the previous book (Shadows on a Cape Cod Wedding), Maggie hasn't been candid with Will about how steadily she's moving toward being an adoptive mom.

And Will's surprise for Maggie is the oversized house he's considering buying, one where he can open an antiques mall of sorts, and which will tie him down even further. It only takes a few pages to prove there's no ready solution to the complications in front of the twosome.

Still, Aunt Nettie and her friends have the kind of hard-earned life wisdom that Maggie needs. And when one of the circle turns up dead on Christmas morning, Maggie's own stubbornness and determination to help the elderly friends turns out to be what the small-town residents need most.

The Maine descriptions in SHADOWS ON A MAINE CHRISTMAS are a delight, from the details of the holiday with Aunt Nettie, to the tourist-style trip Will creates in downtown Portland for Maggie. Lee Wait's own passion for her adopted state comes through beautifully, along with Will's intent to show Maggie a wonderful, magical time for her holiday.

But a death on Christmas day? Just as Maggie had declared to Aunt Nettie that the day had been perfect? It's Will who breaks the news of caregiver Carrie Folk's death to the two women after taking a phone call from his police officer friend:

"Was there an accident?" Aunt Nettie asked. "She seemed well last night."

"No. Worse than that. She was murdered. Nick's calling everyone who was [the friends'] party yesterday, in case someone noticed anything he should know about. Anything unusual."

Aunt Nettie nodded slowly. "Will, would you call Nicky back? I know it's Christmas Day, but I think he should come over here. I have something he needs to see."

When Aunt Nettie reveals that the victim, Carrie, attempted recently to blackmail her, and that the caregiver may have had other targets as well, Maggie's curiosity is quickly fired up -- even as the police take over. After all, one woman listening to another, well, that's a powerful exchange. Soon Maggie suspects that the blackmail story isn't quite the whole truth of what's in Aunt Nettie's past.

I loved discovering what Aunt Nettie and her friends were really hiding, along with Maggie as she persuades the ladies to reveal the twists of their past, involving even the Bath Iron Works and effects of the Second World War. And Maggie's thinking fast on her feet: "How would Carrie Folk have known what you did so long ago?"

Even as she starts to work with the circle of older ladies, Maggie's under pressure to "behave" as a proper out-of-town girlfriend on the scene, rather than the experienced amateur sleuth she has become, as Nick orders her, "And don't do anything dangerous. Anything which might be even remotely hazardous to anyone else's life. All right?"

Right. That's not going to solve the case very quickly, is it? Still, some undercover sleuthing may keep Maggie's mind of what she suspects is going to be a painful collapse of her tender romance with Will. Ouch.

And what she discovers -- well, I think it's one of the best and most intriguing plot twists that Wait has created for this plucky and outspoken newcomer to the fiercely protective community of Waymouth, Maine. In fact, I think I'll put my copy of Wait's book on the shelf near the holiday books, so I can read it a second time as December arrives. And of course I'll keep an eye on the author's website at www.leawait.com, as there's a new Maine series coming from this author in January.

What a great way to fill the bookshelf! And let's see, who's on my holiday list to get a copy of this quick-paced and charming mystery ... naughty and nice, that's SHADOWS ON A MAINE CHRISTMAS, for sure!

The BIG Questions of Our Lives: SUMMER OF THE DEAD, Julia Keller

It's publication day for Julia Keller's newest West Virginia mystery featuring scrappy county prosecutor Bell Elkins and her team -- especially Sheriff Nick Fogelsong. And I have two copies arriving in today's mail, because another Bell Elkins book means another hard look at the tragic forms that love and passion can take, the ones that lead to crime.

Keller, who was born in West Virginia, offers us the hardscrabble town of Akers Gap and its surrounding mountains, where coal is not just a resource but a lifeline and also crippling. In this third in the series (after A Killing in the Hills and Bitter River), Bell Elkins is faced with what looks like a serial killer in her territory, someone making the nights terminally unsafe. That's high pressure on her and the sheriff. And as the public pressure rises to find the killer and stop the murders, Bell's badly handicapped by her commitment to house her sister Shirley, still on probation after release from a prison term for the death of the sisters' father many years ago.

And Shirley's making things really tough on Bell's professional standing: Swept up in an investigation of a low-life bar knifing, Shirley makes a point of having a "get out of jail free" card in her relationship to Bell. Cut the tie? No -- there are reasons Bell feels like she owes more than she can pay, to her dodgy, emotionally broken, and unpleasant sis.

So in addition to investigating the murders -- yes, of course there will be connections to the drug trade in the region, which Keller has already painted so vividly during Bell's two previous investigations -- Bell is chasing her sister and reliving the early trauma of her own life. And she's got to do it without her usual anchor of taking care of her teenaged daughter.

Keller spins the risks and dangers at a ferocious pace. We're inside some other characters too, including Lindy Crabree, a coal miner's daughter doing the best she can to keep her failing father comfortable in a very bizarre way. As clues and twists pull Bell back toward Lindy and this outwardly different father-daughter relationship, personal risk to Bell rises drastically.

But Keller also pulls the reader firmly onto Lindy's side. And her descriptions of mountain life braid a love for the region with an understanding of what we all sacrifice for the people and places we love -- even when those people and places may kill us. Keller's deft touch allows her to insert startlingly vivid chunks of description, even while Bell races toward a confrontation with the killer or killers involved:

Freddie's long white Silverado truck was still parked in front of the house. He always parked it there, leaving the driveway free as a a workspace for his loving labors on the Thunderbird, which he kept at the upper end of the concrete slab, next to the house. The high polish on the Thunderbird's tubular flanks gave it a sleek, missile-like look. You could tell how much Freddie Arnett loved this car, how much he'd fussed over it, gushed over it, pampered it; it had been unconditionally adored. Same was true for his grandson, Bell guessed. She knew how tempting it was to give everything to a beloved child, to make any sacrifice. It wasn't always the right thing to do -- it was almost never the right thing to do -- but you did it, anyway. Couldn't help yourself.

"Okay, old man," Bell murmured. Even if someone had been standing right next to her, they couldn't have made out the words; her voice was soft and filled with grim wonder. "What happened here? Who the hell did this to you -- and why?"

It took her a moment to realize that she was talking to the dead. And another moment to realize that it didn't bother her one bit.

Keller's mysteries earn high praise from crime fiction pro Michael Connelly, and it's well deserved. Deeply conflicted characters that are worth caring about; hard lives that lead some to crime, and some (like Lindy) to powerful self-sacrifice; a region of West Virginia that's been left behind in many ways but that suffers from the same pressures of our cities and suburbs; all of this, Keller puts on the table.

And she reminds us that whether in crime or in our own lives, scars are rarely a sign of a closed door on our past. Sometimes they cover shrapnel that has to emerge in its own time, as painful and dangerous in its removal as in the original explosions that lodge it within us.

Intriguing Radio Interviews with Louise Penny: "There Is No Peace Without Courage"

If you'd like to hear Louise Penny discussing her new August 26 release, The Long Way Home, here are two links:

-- The NPR interview that aired this morning: click here.

-- The CBC interview that aired Saturday morning: click here. (My favorite quote from Louise: "There is no peace without courage.")

And of course, we hope you'll enjoy our notes from Saturday afternoon's pre-release launch party in Brome Lake, Quebec: here.

Brava, Louise!

Louise Penny and Brome Lake Books, A Rare Partnership

Yesterday Dave and I drove eagerly north, across the border into Canada, for the pre-release book party for Louise Penny's new Armand Gamache investigation, A LONG WAY HOME. I'll write about the book later -- today I'll share some of the event instead, hosted in Louise Penny's home neighborhood by Danny McAuley and Lucy Hoblyn of Brome Lake Books.

There can't be many partnerships of author and local bookshop as close as the one that Louise and Danny and Lucy share. Louise tucks bits of description of the shop into her Three Pines books; Danny and Lucy provide a special section of their shop in honor of this author, complete with a pair of comfortable reading chairs and an inscribed book table, as well as the cozy wall decor shown here.

And the respect and intelligent understanding between Louise Penny and Danny McAuley was especially evident in yesterday's on-stage conversation, where Danny asked the questions and Louise provided thoughtful responses that kept us riveted. Here are some examples:

[Danny recalled listening on the radio on the day when Louise announced her departure from a 20-year career at CBC, the Canadian national radio broadcasting firm.] Louise, smiling: "I don't think it's a complete coincidence that I spent 20 years at CBC and went on to write about murder. I also think the more screwed up you are, the better writer you are -- again, the CBC came in handy." She then turned serious and spoke of the "amazing acts of forgiveness" that she also witnessed in that job.

[Danny probed her time and efforts with research.] "A lot of it is good luck, I have to say, or grace." But it also involves following chains of interesting information. For example, the mention of the "Balm in Gilead" in Penny's new book was originally based on her visceral reaction to a long prayer expressed by a father in Marilynne Robinson's literary novel Gilead. But then she heard the hymn "There Is a Balm in Gilead" chanted, and it moved her in a new way. "I heard it when I needed to hear it, and I made note of it." The results are in the pages.

[Danny noted the use of a Canadian artist's work for the book jacket and asked about her connections to art and her research in that area.] Penny immediately confessed that her own upbringing focused on books, not art -- which instead comes into her life through her husband Michael, who is both an artist and a well-educated art appreciator. She watches her husband look at art, and listens hard to how he speaks of what he sees. "And that's what I write about -- I write about the emotions that art invokes, not about art itself."

[Likewise, Penny borrows her cooking expertise through both book research and the people around her.] "I don't cook -- at all, as Michael will tell you -- but I love eating, and I love food." So she writes with cookbooks around her, as well as poetry. "I want the books to be sensuous."

[What about the wonderful way in which significant bits of earlier books in her series come up in later titles and turn out to be related to the underlying plot?] "There are bits in Still Life [the first Armand Gamache investigation] and others that don't come to fruition until much later." But it isn't always because Penny planned it that way -- she also goes back to earlier books looking for details that she notes with "Oh, I could use this!"

[Danny's pursuit of what lies under this newest book led to Louise's reflections:] "The Long Way Home is really inspired initially by Homer's The Odyssey." She went back to re-read it, contemplating "the hero's journey" in it, as well as in her own high school love for Conrad's Heart of Darkness. In the newest book, Clara the artist persuades Gamache to help her try to find her missing husband Peter, and, says Penny, "the search for Peter is most of all the search for ourselves."

Many thanks to Danny, Lucy, and their team, as well as author Louise Penny, for an amazing afternoon. (Looking for a signed copy of the new book? Watch our ABE listings (link in right-hand column); Dave will be adding some this evening, and more on Monday and Tuesday, with the book's official release on August 26. Or, of course, you could treat yourself to a trip to Canada to visit Brome Lake Books -- where, Danny admits, lost wanderers sometimes arrive, looking for Penny's fictional town of Three Pines. They are pretty close together!)

Espionage in Turkey: A COLDER WAR by Charles Cumming

Charles Cumming brings back Thomas Kell for a second time in A COLDER WAR, the sequel to A Foreign Country  -- and it's a solid work of espionage suspense, playing off the secret forces of Britain, the United States, and Russia, in an irresistible setting, modern Turkey, especially Istanbul.

The death of Paul Wallinger, head of the MI6 operation in Turkey, opens a puzzle that begins to focus on a possible double agent (mole) in the British secret service. Under the micromanaging aegis of the agency's head, Amelia -- code-named C, and unfortunately, one of Wallinger's lovers -- Tom Kell gets a chance to resume his duties by investigating Wallinger's death. It's a dodgy assignment: If he succeeds, he may also topple a number of operations and individuals. And anything that goes wrong will be hung on his badly tarnished reputation, which has held him out of active service for too long already.

Cumming's work is often compared with that of John Le Carré, but other than sharing the same Service, MI6, there are few parallels. Tom Kell is much younger and less wounded, as well as less skilled, than George Smiley. Cumming offers him not just a chance to re-enter his career, but also a jump-start of the heart, as Kell fears his work has hardened him and has mixed feelings about the recent end of his marriage. Cumming also weaves in far more male-female interaction, from lust to love, than the older fictional spymasters have done. Meanwhile the work has none of the despair underlying Alan Furst's approach to the European conflicts, for example, or the sense of history's burden that Furst and similarly dark authors like Stuart Neville connect so potently to their plots.

Still, A COLDER WAR is a good read, with a plausible villain, several surprising twists, and a protagonist who is more likable than many a fictional spy and mole-chaser has been in the past. This won't linger on my read-it-again shelf, but I enjoyed it -- and perhaps most of all, the unexpectedly ominous foreshadowing of its ending.

Amateur Sleuth with Synesthesia: MURDER WITH A TWIST, Allyson K. Abbott

The second book in Allyson Abbott's "Mack's Bar" series is out! And there's still a chunk of summer left for reading it. That's double-good news, because MURDER WITH A TWIST is a well-written, neatly plotted, and thoroughly enjoyable addition to the hammock-or-chaise-lounge reading list. Abbott is a pseudonym of Wisconsin emergency-room nurse Beth Amos, a confessed adrenaline junkie who brings the quick pace and logical consequences of her double careers into spinning a tale.

Gender clarification first: Mack's Bar is owned by Mackenzie Dalton, whose father brought her into the business in downtown Milwaukee. Since her dad's death, she's sole owner, and doing well enough to expand her floor space, making room for a crowd of local crimesolvers who gather to solve test cases, pose crimes for each other to consider, and incidentally help out the local police force. Mack herself is a "secret weapon" for Detective Duncan Albright, who -- as detailed in the previous title, Murder on the Rocks -- has come to believe in Mack's special abilities, and wants to try using them to sort out criminals and their crimes. Mack can be, he proposes, a sort of human lie detector.

And she'll do this with her special perceptions formed by synesthesia. It's a neurological condition that makes a person's senses get tangled up: Sounds become colors, people become music and smells, and more. Because Mack picks up different sounds when someone's lying, for instance, she could be helpful on the latest case -- if she can handle the gruesome death of a mom, and the residual sense of pain and fear of her kidnapped toddler. Mack lays out the problem when Duncan takes her on a test case before that one, a possible suicide ... or not:

I had thought our little crime games, along with all the preparations I'd been making with Duncan over the past six weeks, would make a real crime scene easier to take. But that wasn't the case ... the hanging man before me that morning was real, frightening, and all too dead. 

While Mack focuses on narrowing the cascade of sounds and smells coming at her, the corpse overwhelms other evidence:

The sight of that bloated, purple face kept triggering a veritable locust plague of reactions. I shook my head, sighed, and looked down at the floor.

Eventually she sorts out impressions and turns out highly valuable to the investigation -- which ought to make the next case simpler, right? Except between the gruesome bloody killing and the child at risk, nothing's simple. Neither is the chemistry between Mack and the detective. And there are perils ahead, neatly layered with action at Mack's Bar.

This is the second synesthesia-based sleuth I've run into this year, so I paused to check on whether synesthesia is more common than I realized. From the Boston-based Synesthia Project, I found this:

How common is synesthesia? The short answer is that no one really knows. The long answer is anywhere from one in every 100,000 people to one in every 5,000 people, but it's difficult to get a good count because of the nature of synesthesia.

Well, that's good enough for me -- I may never have (knowingly) met a synesthete, but I'm willing to have them among the sleuths and especially to buy into the confusing and sometimes debilitating version of it that Abbott, aka Nurse Amos, portrays.

It turns out that a bar full of amateur sleuths is a great device, too, and I'm looking forward to reading more in this series. Amos also writes under a second pseudonym, Annelise Ryan, a forensics pro; I'll be watching for those also. Just goes to show what Dave and I rediscover every month: You think you know a lot of mystery authors and titles, right? But there's always a new good one to discover. Or, in the case of Beth Amos, two of them!

"Slasher Film" Plus Courage = WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE

Okay, 'fess up: Don't you sometimes feel just a little nervous when you get home alone to a dark house and something feels "funny" about the door, or the streetlight being out, or the light you thought you'd left on for yourself that isn't ... Or maybe for you it's when thieves hit the neighbor's house and you see it in the paper the next day and realize it was the same night you thought something was scratching outside your downstairs window but you couldn't wake up enough to check. Or -- you in the suburbs, maybe that 2 a.m. walk back home on a street you know well, but that suddenly has an eerie side to it?

Now go back 15 years (or 30, or 45), to when you were a teen and had your own particular nightmare, one that lingered maybe from when you'd been little. Something involving the closet, or your parents disappearing? I hope you don't have the real-life horror that Ivy Jensen has lived through as WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE (by Laurie Faria Stolarz) opens: the murder of her parents, in which she actually met the murderer, who called her "Princess" and who could be searching for her or even watching her now.

Ivy's stepping into a reality-show-in-the-making, hosted by horror film director Justin Blake and his creepy Nightmare Elf. Her motive for taking part: She thinks the e-mails she received about the adventure out in the country have promised she'll finally be free of her nightmares. But it turns out all seven of the teens called to the very creepy film set have earned themselves a place through their graphic descriptions of their own nightmares, and ... they are each about to face what they fear most. Alone.

WELCOME TO THE DARK HOUSE is the first book in a horror series for teens, one that repeatedly refers to slasher films (yep, gratuitous violence, from knife to ax to flesh-eating creatures) and that tilts from one character's point of view to the next, including screenplay segments from would-be filmmaker Parker Bradley, and lustful cheer from Shayla Belmont, not to mention the goofy but dangerous exploits of Garth Vader (care to guess what his dad liked?). And more.

I'm no fan of slasher films, but ... hey, I like this book! Every voice is distinct, every teen suffers from both a "nightmare" and a deep misunderstanding of what the world is going to do for her or him, and there are as many kinds of courage and folly as there are characters. The only down side is, this is the start of a series, and the ending is absolutely a hanging one ... How long do I have to wait for the next book from the amazing Laurie Faria Stolarz? (If you're a teen or purchasing books for teens, check out her website here: http://www.lauriestolarz.com.)

The adventures in this book are NOT what you want in your "how I spent my summer vacation" essay. On the other hand, reading this lively and fast-paced horror mystery is sure to give you fresh perspective on what really happened (or might have)!

Timothy Hallinan's Junior Bender Series: A Thief Who Solves Crimes

I ran across Timothy Hallinan's mysteries in his Poke Rafferty series, set in Thailand -- a series that includes all the best of international crime fiction, from exotic setting to eccentric characters to humor and affection. And it's a great series to collect, read, and enjoy.

But if I could take only one Hallinan series to a desert island, it's the Junior Bender series that I'd pack.

In this era of "everybody is writing some YA if they can," the series name and covers spark some confusion -- this is NOT a series for "young adults." "Junior" happens to be the name (and his real first name, thanks to his long-gone father) of Bender himself, initiated into the world of elegantly committed theft at the age of 17, by legendary southern California burglar Herbie Mott. Bender's immaculately conceived crimes involve careful scoping of a high-end Los Angeles-area home, meticulous timing (never staying too long inside), and following Herbie's advice: Never take something away that the owner can't afford, emotionally, to give up.

As an expert thief of fine items, Junior Bender also cultivates knowledge of the art world and its values, and of course a very specialized set of fences where he's known for bringing top material and being a savvy negotiator.

But Junior's career has two peculiar quirks to it. First, he has an ex-wife and a teenage daughter, both of whom he loves and respects, and he takes care to not embarrass them with his work. And second, he's burdened with a second career: Private investigator on behalf of crooks in his area.

It's in some ways an accidental second career. His friends need his help, is what it boils down to. But when Irwin Dressler, most powerful and wealthy criminal leader in California, takes an interest in Junior's (nonexistent) business plan, this "help out the criminals" line threatens to take over Junior's life, no matter his own disagreement with the notion. Dressler is not one of those people you can safely say "no" to. "

"Junior, I'm disappointed in you."

If Dressler had said that to me the first time I'd been hauled up to his Bel Air estate for a command appearance, I'd have dropped to my knees and begged for a painless death. He is, after all, the Dark Lord in the flesh. But now I'd survived him once ...

That's the start of the third in the series, THE FAME THIEF. And Irwin Dressler's point is, Junior is the only person in this line of work -- he has a solo franchise: "That whole thing you go going? Solving crimes for crooks? And living through it?" Dressler is sure Junior should capitalize on this monopoly, and expand.

Of course, it's inevitable that Dressler himself has a task he wants Junior to tackle: restoring the reputation of a once-glamourous Hollywood actress who lost her own career in a sting operation during decades ago. Why is Dressler so concerned about Dolores La Marr? Don't ask. By the time you realize Dressler's motive, it's way too late for Junior to get out of this complicated situation where it seems like a lot of people want to kill him. Such a "nice burglar boy" -- how come he's in so much trouble (again)?

Soho Crime cast aside all current publishing expectations, to pull all four of the books in this series into the market within a mere 18 months -- so when you finish devouring the fun and cleverness of THE FAME THIEF, you can backtrack to Crashed  and Little Elvises. Or just jet straight ahead to book 4, which hit the shelves a couple of weeks ago: HERBIE'S GAME.

You know how John Le Carré captured the longing of British spies to respect themselves and have a country worth being loyal to? (It's okay, not everyone's mystery reading ranges into espionage ... mine does, though.) How Tony Hillerman wove his Western Indian detectives in a blanket of hungry friendships, loyalties, and spiritual search? Or Michael Connelly put onto the pages the detective whose roots involve self-sacrifice but who can't bend enough to stay on good terms with his employer? How about Louise Penny's Chief Inspector Gamache, who insists that there's goodness worth honoring and fighting for, even as his own police force and his retreat in the almost perfect village of Three Pines are repeatedly undermined by the forces of evil, in ways we recognize from our own efforts to make something good from our lives?

Heavens, don't assume from that long paragraph that Hallinan is writing "literary stuff." He's definitely not -- his mysteries focus on crime capers in the spirit of Donald Westlake and even Janet Evanovich (although there's more love than lust in Hallinan's books, actually).

But here's the startling part. HERBIE'S GAME, the fourth (and for the moment final) in the Junior Bender series, takes the best darned path I've read in years into struggling with what our fathers want for us, how we sometimes lose the connection with them on the surface, how we almost never lose the important ties to them, and why it's all worthwhile in the long run.

Of course, it's not his dad that Junior's having to exhume and explore here -- it's Herbie Mott, the man to brought him into his life of crime, nurtured his skills, taught him his values, and who ... oddly ... seems to have done that with a number of other fatherless young men. He taught Junior to be like Robin Hood. Sort of. Showed him why it's important to wear booties while burglarizing ("they have that DNA now"). And helped him to deal with his own past:

"Let me tell you something. ... Don't think you know everything about your father. You loved him at one point, I can tell, because you wouldn't be so angry now if you hadn't. Well, the father you hate now is the same person as the one you loved. Just don't -- put people in boxes like that. You have know idea whether you really know someone."

Turns out, Herbie himself is one of the people that Junior didn't know as well as he thought he did. And suddenly, Junior Bender is tangled up with a team of professional killers for hire, female and male, as he struggles to discover what Herbie's final scheme had been, and how it got the master of the trade murdered. There's some time pressure, too: If Junior can't solve this really quickly, it seems likely he'll either be killed himself or end up in jail. Or both.

I know I'll be re-reading the series. But most of all, HERBIE'S GAME is the book I'll be going back to. It's a great ride as crime fiction, as entertaining capers in Los Angeles, as insight into professional theft (I am definitely upgrading the house locks!). And it's one level more. Thanks, Tim Hallinan (and Soho Crime). Good one.

In or Near Vermont This Weekend? Come Meet Eliot Pattison!

Edgar Award-winning mystery author Eliot Pattison will again visit Kingdom Books for conversation about his research and writing, which range from Chinese-occupied Tibet (in his Inspector Shan series) to colonial America and Native Americans (the Bone Rattler series). We hope you can join us this Sunday Aug. 3 at 7 pm, to welcome Eliot back to Vermont and enjoy his insight and discoveries.

We'll have many of the Pattison books on hand (call Dave to reserve one if you like, at 802-751-8374), but no purchase is needed; it's your conversation we want!

A Little "Longmire" News

This is pretty far in advance to say so, but ... we are planning to have signed copies of a number of Craig Johnson's "Longmire" mysteries available in mid November. We've been preparing for months, and can hardly wait to meet this Western author whose books have now become a popular television series.

And Dave found a fun article recently on the changes that TV fame has brought to the author and his Wyoming locale. Check it out, here.

Top Summer Suspense: THE GOOD GIRL, Mary Kubica

THE GOOD GIRL is a debut thriller from Mary Kubica, a married mom of two who lives outside Chicago and has a degree in history and American literature. Now, forget the author details and focus on the book -- because this is one of the summer's big winners.

When wealthy but unhappy Chicago socialite Eve Dennett gets a phone call from one of her daughter's colleagues at an inner-city school, she brushes off the caller's concern about Mia Dennett not showing up for work. As far as Eve and her judge husband are concerned, Mia is a disappointing daughter, confused about her role in the world, unwilling to meet her parents' expectations, and a bit of a flake. If she's not at her art-teaching do-gooder job, well, maybe she forgot.

Detective Gabe Hoffman's main concern at first is meeting his sergeant's demands on a maybe-missing-person report that involves such powerful people; "Don't f** this one up," was the order from above. Not that Gabe would do so deliberately. But balancing the unpleasant emotions of the two Dennett parents with their reluctant and partial information is a challenge, for sure.

And then there's Mia herself: We meet her early in the book, through her mother's eyes, in a jump of the timeline as the two of them head out of a post-trauma psych appointment, with Mia's impatient and abrasive father ready to drive them home. Clearly, Mia's badly damaged by whatever it was, and whoever it was, who caused her abduction. Where has she been? How did she get there? Who is responsible for this?

Kubica uses a highly unusual framework to pry open the story in all its emotions and facts, alternating not only the narrators and points of view, but also the time at which they are communicating: "Before" Mia's return, and "After." Each chapter is neatly labeled with speaker and time zone -- and tightly packed with tension, shock, anger, and mixed motives. It's clear that only discovering what really happened is likely to free up Mia, whose amnesia includes a new name for herself, as well as multiple levels of fear, even to as small a thing as the radio being too loud.

But getting to the truth requires opening the layers of Mia and her life, and Kubica holds these layers tightly in suspense, even as winter's ravages push the urgency of the discovery process. It isn't until the final chapters that all of the details so painstakingly assembled build to "what happened."

There are two minor drawbacks to the book -- the sometimes challenging before/after framing (you have to pay close attention), and the present-tense narration, which is coupled with each character missing a lot of information that the others have. Yet those become gradually part of its power as a narrative. And the book's positives -- its relentless pace, its flawless peeling back of the psyche, its sometimes shocking but always acutely portrayed versions of what love is and what love does -- make this an amazing debut, and a mystery I expect that I'll always remember and compare others to.

The publication release date is July 29 (two days from when I'm writing this); that's enough time to place your own pre-order, or, if you want to think about things a bit further first, to explore the author's website, here. THE GOOD GIRL reveals a lot of pain, and a comparable amount of love and loyalty. Definitely worth reading, whether you get to it within the summer reading season or let it linger on the shelf until the long evenings of autumn or even the fierce windy winter in which its memorable chain of actions is set. Published by Harlequin's mystery arm, MIRA -- another example of how this imprint is bring out some of today's best mysteries.

Washington, DC, Mysteries: Max Allan Collins and Andy Straka

Last fall my mystery-collecting husband Dave and I took advantage of a national mystery conference being almost in our area, as Bouchercon was held in Albany, New York. Spending four days with 1200 mystery fans was amazing. And so were the authors we met there, including the prolific Max Allan Collins and his genial researcher and co-conspirator, Matthew (Matt) Clemens.

So I picked up a copy of this team's 2014 political suspense thriller, SUPREME JUSTICE, to relax with on a few summer evenings. In some ways the book is set in an uncertain future: The nation has its second African-American president; the court case protecting first-trimester abortion, Roe v. Wade, has been overturned; and with a right-wing-dominated Supreme Court, search and seizure provision of the USA PATRIOT Act thrive, overrunning traditional Constitutional protections.

Plunging into this situation is Joseph Reeder, an uncertain hero for sure. Reeder's action as a Secret Service agent in the past, taking a bullet to protect his President, made him nationally acclaimed -- but the public and especially his colleagues turned against him when he later quit his job, letting it be known that he couldn't keep supporting an administration that he felt obliged to criticize.

But a few people still believe in Reeder's skills, especially the set he has honed as a private consultant: his people-reading skills, which he now teaches as part of the field of "kinesics," noticing how people move and speak, and reaching conclusions about their intentions and actions. DC homicide detective Carl Bishop tags Reeder for a task force when a conservative Supreme Court Justice dies in a bar robbery gone bad. And Reeder's urgent task becomes convincing the layers of DC law enforcement that robbery was never the point of the crime -- changing the balance of the Supreme Court, though, was premeditated and intentional.

Reeder concluded: "You may say that hanging our entire investigation on my take on Judge Venter's body language is an incredibly foolish tack to take. And I would agree. ... But I will stake my reputation ... which isn't much of a bet in this company ... on being right."

A new law enforcement partner, risk to Reeder's family, and enemies around him on the urgent task force ramp the tensions up quickly, and Collins's trademark pacing and dialogue (built effectively and cleverly over a story treatment he credits to Clemens) makes SUPREME JUSTICE a compelling and intriguing read, raising tough questions about our national government while knotting all the threads of plot and character into a classic action investigation.

Just before picking up the new Collins book, I received a copy of Andy Straka's THE K STREET HUNTING SOCIETY from Cedar Creek Publishing. This was a new author to me, although Straka has 10 novels to his credit and has won a Shamus Award for his Frank Pavlicek mystery series. Pavlicek, like the author, is a licensed falconer living not far from Washington, DC, and he's a former police officer from New York City. But as a private investigator, he and his daughter Nicole team ip to help their friend Jake Toronto provide private security to a multimillionaire software entrepreneur. When the scene goes wrong, with two of the protection team wounded and a software developer dead, Frank and Jake tackle the hunt for a killer who's been known to law enforcement in the region already -- a serious professional with the skills to murder and hide.

Forget the falconry aspect of the protagonists -- Straka brings it in more as metaphor than anything else, although I gather his earlier books have used the bird skills a bit more. Instead, this is a traditional political thriller with good twists, especially in terms of motives and targets. It's a shorter book, closing at page 200, and is built mostly on dialogue, as well as the swift action pace. I found it a good read, and I'll be keeping an eye out for Straka's other titles. (This is book 6.) Straka also has an intriguing blog, which is easy to find from his author website (click here). Two small final details: I was impressed with the quality of editing for this book, especially considering it's from a small publisher, where my expectations are lower; and second, ignore the title -- it's a total misfit. Let me know what you think when you have a chance to read this one.

Amateur Sleuth in the Deli: TO KILL A MATZO BALL, Delia Rosen

I get a kick out of the amateur sleuth mysteries that Kensington provides as paperback original. These are generally light-hearted, quickly paced, with likeable protagonists and no gruesome nightmares.

TO KILL A MATZO BALL, the new "Deadly Deli" series title from Delia Rosen, fits all those descriptors -- except, as amateur sleuth and relatively new delicatessen owner Gwen Katz notes several times, the threats here are directed at her personally. That's quite a change from what Gwen has experienced so far in her Nashville, Tennessee, restaurant and catering operation. In earlier titles (like A Brisket, A Casket and A Killer in the Rye), Gwen's helped out others around her whose lives tilted from some form of murderous attack. This time, she's in danger from the very first chapter.

Rosen (who is actually Jeff Rovin) keeps the action rapid and questions multiply: What's the Chinese underworld doing around Gwen's deli? Why is the deli a safer place for her to sleep than her own home? Is there a leak in the police force, where her former boyfriend Detective Grant Daniels (who is no longer "into her") works? And will business ever get back to normal, after all the gunshots fired around Gwen?

If you love Nashville, cozy mysteries, and heroines with pluck who also need a hug (sometimes a passionate one), grab a copy for summer fun. The Yiddish expressions are a bit over the top this time, I think, and the author's "real" gender seems to leak through in more places than I expected. But as always, for a Delia Rosen mystery, the clues are well scattered, the motive-means-opportunity makes sense eventually (if a bit eccentric!), and the twinned environments of Southern city and Jewish deli create a unique atmosphere. Available as both paperback and audio version, like the others Rosen/Rovin has written (author/publisher website here).

THE ARSONIST, Sue Miller

A Boston author, a New Hampshire setting, a crime in progress (serial arson), and potential insight into how communities react to multiple fires -- how could I not read THE ARSONIST by Sue Miller? Plus, I've had the pleasure of listening to Miller in person (her earlier novel The Good Mother may be the most well known of her work). And summer reading should expand to more than one genre, right?

Best to say it right away: THE ARSONIST is not, in spite of its name, crime fiction. Nor does it provide insight into the criminal mind, or even the crime. The title is a masterpiece of misdirection. Still, the novel is vivid and intriguing, and I enjoyed all of it except the ending (if you find you like the ending, please DO place a comment here and explain your reaction, would you?).

Frankie Rowley is home from her aid work in East Africa, for what her family expects is her usual short breathing-space visit -- in this case, to the family summer home in a small New Hampshire village, where her aging parents have just settled to become year-round residents. But Frankie already knows she may never return to Africa. In the midst of an early midlife crisis, questioning her easy-loving lifestyle, her relationship with the ex-pat community abroad, and even the value of her humanitarian efforts, Frankie is more than jet-lagged. She's life-lagged.

On her first, mostly sleepless, night "home," Frankie's out walking when a whiff of smoke hints at the first of the summer housefires. She tunes in gradually to what's going on, as she simultaneously (and with many levels of doubt) begins an affair with the editor of the local paper. And the final strand of tension comes from what's happening to her parents, as her father's "forgetfulness" races toward an inability to recognize his family and himself. Is Frankie supposed to walk away from her own complicated life to become the family caregiver?

I loved the questions raised in THE ARSONIST, about self, about our parents and our communities, about the symbiosis and sometimes the painful clash of "summer people" and year-rounders. (It's not really an issue where I live in Vermont, but there are similar frictions that root in social status and education and power and other life choices.) And the writing kept me enraptured until, as I mentioned, the final few pages, when I felt that Miller tossed out the "show don't tell" rule and hurried to complete the book in a "glimpse of the future" that felt awkward as well as sad.

I'm really interested in other opinions on this one. Yes, get the book -- but don't expect a mystery, right? I can't say much more than that without throwing spoilers into this write-up. Let me know what you think, and whether you've enjoyed this. I certainly did.

New Nonfiction on Spy Kim Philby: Two Lively Reviews and an Interview

The espionage novels of John Le Carré, for me, are more than classic spy fiction -- they are the material I go to repeatedly when I want to analyze for myself how a gifted storyteller can deepen a sentence or passage, open a character, revel in rich description without slowing the action.

So I listened eagerly to this morning's National Public Radio interview with author Ben Macintyre, whose new book is A SPY AMONG FRIENDS: KIM PHILBY AND THE GREAT BETRAYAL. And it's a sign of how fiction can become part of us that I thought, "Amazing! The way Macintyre described him, Kim Philby was enormously like Le Carré's character Bill Haydon!"

And that's almost exactly backwards. Le Carré built Bill Haydon, nemesis of his loyal British spymaster George Smiley, after considerable research into Kim Philby. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (1974) was the result, ten years after the end of Philby's espionage career.

The review of A SPY AMONG FRIENDS in today's New York Times book review section uses a quote from Le Carré at the end of the review, in a very satisfying way. In fact, the novelist adds an afterword to Macintyre's new book, sharing notes from his 1986 interview with Nicholas Elliot, a fellow spy (loyal in this case to the British) who hero-worshipped Kim Philby until Philby's shocking life as a double agent, working for the Soviets, was revealed.

What makes Macintyre's book especially appealing to me is his willingness to dive into Philby's psychology -- as well as Macintyre's established record of portraying the English with nine previous books that unearth and vividly capture betrayal and crime among the "well-dresssed British men in danger" (Boston Globe reviewer Matthew Price's phrase).

For a delicious set of view of the book, check out today's review and the interview (which will be available as an audio file after noon today). As NY Times reviewer Walter Isaacson wrote, "I had to keep reminding myself that it was not a novel." This book will be a great treat for fans of espionage fiction, and for those who love a classic British mystery.

The New York Times review is here.

The Boston Globe review is here.

And for the NPR review, click here.

New Today from Taylor Stevens: THE CATCH

About twice a year I wish I lived near Texas ... and now is one of those times. Not for the climate, or the urban traffic, but for the presence of Taylor Stevens, talking with readers at her release events this week for THE CATCH, the fourth in the grimly satisfying suspense series that features Vanessa Michael Munroe -- better known simply as Munroe, for good reasons.

Lacking the Texas journey, I'll settle for re-reading THE CATCH. An advance copy arrived here a couple of months ago, and it was really hard to wait until the release month, so I gave in and devoured the book early ... and it's stayed with me ever since.

Munroe became an iconic character as of book 1 in the series, The Informationist. A multilingual expert in digesting information at a level that's of value to big corporations and syndicates, Munroe is also the product of an extremely abusive childhood, one that's given her good reason to prefer the anonymity of dressing like a slender young man, and made her -- for survival's sake -- highly proficient in martial arts and out-thinking very smart criminals and syndicates.

But books 2 and 3, The Innocent and The Doll, have further wounded, even crippled, Munroe emotionally, and at the opening of THE CATCH she's hiding in male guise, working for a small maritime security company in Djibouti, Africa, with a relatively simple commercial job to do. If she'd applied her brilliance to her own life -- granted, hard for any of us to do -- she might have realized the respite would be temporary. Events quickly overwhelm her best intentions, as her boss forces her into armed guard work on a ship bound for Kenya ... via the Somalian coast.

Following Taylor Stevens into the dark and violent menace of Somalian high-seas piracy is an exhilarating journey into today's "darkest Africa," where poverty and greed and vast chasms of opportunity create the ultimate criminal wonderland. Munroe's quick conclusion that a highjacking of the ship she's guarding isn't what it seems leads her to escape with a hostage, the ship's putative captain. But she's seriously wounded, unable to defend herself and her hostage with her usual skills, and even her quick linguistic gifts send her into increasing danger.

When Munroe finds an information broker who may be able to help her crack the multiple shells of criminal plans surrounding her ship's highjacking, she's inwardly elated but must stay in grim persona, driving a bargain for what she needs with this Somali hawaladar, broker of information and money:

"Not CIA?" he said.

She shook her head.

"What agency then?"

"None," she said. "Just an individual."

"With money to spare, and you speak my language."

She nodded.

"There's no way to guarantee you're telling the truth?"

"None," she said. "But I don't want anything from you that might incriminate you."

He shifted forward again, deeper against the desk than he had before, so that his face was closer to hers, his expression clouded with mistrust and accusation. "If there are no demands for ransom and the ship disappeared, where does your information come from? How do you know a ship was hijacked?"

"I was on it," she said. ... "If the hijacking was paid for by Somali money, then tell me nothing, return me half the money, and I'll be on my way. If it was foreign investment, then I only ask that you give me whatever rumors are passing through on the wind, and the payment is yours."

It's not that simple, of course, and Munroe's adaptations to being wounded and ill make her in some ways more like "the rest of us" for this adventure -- more vulnerable, more at risk, more dependent on friendship. Except ... her emotional wounds have cut her off from the very people she most trusts and needs, the ones who've worked with her and care about her, even if they don't always understand her. And in the midst of trying to stay alive and resolve the crimes and free up the people for whom she has taken responsibility, Munroe also needs to resolve her relationship with her past -- and future.

I'm grateful that I could stay in the cool green safety of the Vermont hills to read this one, even though I'd love to hear Stevens talk about her research in person (she often does so online; best bet is her Facebook feed, where she shares links to some of her appearances). Today's Somalian piracy and the intricacies of Muslim life in Africa also intrigue me, so I like finding them in THE CATCH. Most of all, though, it's Munroe I enjoy and want more of: a wounded superhero of a woman, caught up in international intrigue, struggling for breathing space and for the capacity to trust.

Australian Noir Gets Complicated: HELL TO PAY, Garry Disher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Worth the Wait: MURDERED SLEEP, A Dade Wyatt Mystery, R. A. Harold

R. A. (Roberta, a.k.a. Robbie) Harold's first Dade Wyatt mystery, set on Vermont's Lake Champlain, came out to great reviews in 2010 -- and it's been a long wait for the second book (life can get in the way of writing). But I settled in with her new release, MURDERED SLEEP, over the past week, and found a lot to enjoy in this 1906 political and historical mystery in the days of the "first" President Roosevelt ... Teddy Roosevelt, a heroic figure for his leadership in the decisive Battle of San Juan Hill in Cuba, when Dade Wyatt followed him.

Now Wyatt's living a quieter life, but performing with a Shakespearean troupe brings him to President Roosevelt's own city, Washington, DC. Harold has deliberately positioned the story in what she says is the decade that best fits the Rayford W. Logan label "the nadir of American race relations." She uses the plight of Black Americans -- their vote taken away from them, lynchings routine, and even unable even to go to the theater in DC where Wyatt performs -- as a backdrop to ramp up the tension among her potential villains. And in true Shakespearean fashion, there are plenty of choices.

Wyatt's past experience in keeping a political disaster from exploding is why his old friend Congressman Dodge summons him to investigate the death of a legislator who's been trying -- without much diplomacy -- to improve living conditions for African Americans in the District. Is it Congressman Nielsen's verbal assault on a colleague that's brought his murder? What other stakes are there? Money? Power? Women??

Judas. Wyatt was struck by the comparison. Usually you thought of him as the betrayer, the false friend, but in that gospel passage Judas was the purist, the zealot offended by money spent on luxury instead of ministry. That sounded like Robert Nielsen. Or was there someone, some cause, that Nielsen had betrayed -- or threatened to betray? His wounds -- some had not bled, made after he was already dead -- suggested some extraordinary eruption of emotion.

Wyatt's in no position to be critical of any peccadilloes he may find as he investigates. He's having a back-stage affair with a married actress. Nor is he immune to American racism, as he discovers to him shame.

Harold's portrait of this little-discussed segment of American history is a pleasure to read, smooth and well paced. Readers won't spend many pages in fear or suspense -- the tale is more mellow, and the stakes for Wyatt are personal and mostly private, not life-and-death. But the clever insertions of bits Shakespearean metaphors, clever details of stage life (Harold has been both performer and playwright), and tidbits from Alice in Wonderland add to the enjoyment of a class historical mystery that provokes fresh insight about American heritage, as well as human honor.

Worth the wait! Thanks, Robbie Harold, for taking another book to press. Catch up with Harold's career through assorted online tracks, but not an author website at this point ... still, there's a hint of book 3 in the wings, with a Civil War widow at center stage. I'll let  you know when the author shares more details. Meanwhile, to check out the first Wyatt book, click here.

Speaking of Independence ... Hattie Davish Turns Sleuth in Victorian Newport, Rhode Island

Anna Loan-Wilsey's third Hattie Davish mystery is in print! A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT follows A Lack of Temperance and Anything But Civil, and we connect with Hattie in her role as a "social secretary" in the town where so many wealthy American families established "cottages" the size of mansions, and mansions the size of housing developments. Hattie wears her role in town with independence yet some unease: She's accustomed to being treated with appreciation and dignity by her employer, but when Sir Arthur abruptly must leave the summer resort, trusting Hattie to complete typing his manuscript and then take some well-deserved vacation (for her first time ever), Sir Arthur's less kindly wife turns the tables on Hattie, shopping her out as an upper-level servant to the extremely wealthy Mrs. Charlotte Mayhew. Scratch the vacation. Forget being held in esteem. Suddenly Hattie's hard-won independent lifestyle is gone, and Lady Phillippa has the power to enforce the change.

"Yes, spoiled," Lady Phillippa asserts of how Hattie has treated Sir Arthur's writing career. She continues, "Why else do you think he hired you back after that fiasco in Arkansas? ... And you're lucky he did too or your reputation would've been sullied by the scandal. And then again in Galena? What kind of ill luck do you have, girl? Obviously, Mrs. Mayhew knows nothing about your dealings with the murders and we're going to keep it that way, right?"

And that's the stick: Lady Phillippa can ruin Hattie's reputation and toss her out if she so chooses, so Hattie takes the new (if demeaning) assignment. But it's not ill luck that brings Hattie into murder investigations: It's her capable intelligence and calm trustworthiness, and soon she's applying her investigative skills on behalf of her new employer, Mrs. Mayhew, with another murder investigation underway.

Loan-Wilsey is a gifted storyteller and careful historian (her background before writing involved being a librarian and information specialist), and in A SENSE OF ENTITLEMENT she provides a rattling good traditional "amateur detective" mystery with a wonderfully authentic set of "women's issues" from the years not so long ago when women couldn't even cast their votes. Softer in tone than the war-era mysteries of Jacqueline Winspear, Loan-Wilsey's series shows the same adept ear for dialogue and dilemma, with a plenty of adventure and an American sense of justice. A very good series to collect and enjoy, especially for summer reading!

Brief Mentions: Alan Furst, Åsa Larsson, Joelle Charbonneau

Summer schedules can be downright challenging, but the graduations, birthday, and family weddings are over for now, and I have a great stack of mysteries that kept me calm on the inside while dancing through June's gentle chaos. Reviews will roll ...

But here are three titles I won't be reviewing at length this time:

1. Alan Furst, MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE. Furst's pre-World-War-II noir brings Europe in its potent darkness alive, and although technically his books are mysteries (thrillers), they separate from the crowd in two ways: First, we know the upcoming world events that will  follow the action of each book (war will break out, yeah), so the suspense resides in the smaller, personal details of lives and goodness at risk. This time the protagonist is Christián Ferrar, whose efforts in the Spanish Civil War threaten to give him the ultimate reward, as in, "No good deed goes unpunished." (I was eager to get more details of the Spanish Civil War myself ... I'd always been a bit fuzzy about it.) Second, Furst writes with the lush deliberation of a deep literary novel. The drawback for MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE is that this leads to an ending that's hesitant, sweet, but also distant from the press of the plot. Consider it a tease, perhaps, for the sequels we know are en route. Note: Furst's "sequels" are not a series in the traditional sense -- some characters occur in multiple books, but there is no need to read his others before opening up MIDNIGHT IN EUROPE. And yet ... I want each of them on my shelf.

2. Reading Scandinavian noir? You may still not know the name Åsa Larsson; she isn't at the top of the PR lists. But oh my, her books have gripped me this summer. I'm catching up -- I read Sun Storm and The Blood Spilt, and devoured The Black Path, then cruised into the most recent, Until Thy Wrath Be Past. I'm fully committed to the protagonist, lawyer and crime victim and now dogged sleuth Rebecka Martinsson. The fifth book comes to the United States in August, and I've pre-ordered my copy of The Second Deadly Sin. Most intriguing aspect (besides the character of Martinsson): discovering Swedish prejudices and ethnic groups. Mmm.

3. Joelle Charbonneau's widely awaited final book in her YA dystopian series "The Testing" is here -- GRADUATION DAY. It's a fitting finale to Malecia "Cia" Vale's investigation of the powers running her post-apocalyptic world, and distinguishes the series emphatically from its "older sister" in "The Hunger Games." I wasn't entirely happy with the percent of the book that takes place through Cia's thoughts, present tense, but I think that's more a personal taste -- and I suspect the frame is on target for many "young adult" readers who live in the intense present themselves. No major issues of sex or religion in this series -- it's all about power, personal and governmental. Cia is a reluctant leader, but once she accepts the role, the action is nonstop. More about the books at the author website: http://www.joellecharbonneau.com

Henry Chang, DEATH MONEY: NYC Chinatown Series, Jack Yu

Henry Chang's Chinatown series, set mostly in New York City's Chinatown, is maturing and becoming very strong indeed. In the fourth Detective Jack Yu investigation, DEATH MONEY, Chang keeps the action focused in New York's five boroughs -- and if that seems larger than you're picturing the Chinatown influence, think again. Chang paints vividly the action of the 1990s, with its self-help and legal defense movements on one side, the dark criminality of gambling and prostitution and bribery on the other, and Jack Yu as token Chinese police detective, sent to deal with any Asian deaths that look suspicious. (The book's time period gives Chang space from his own life and from his sources, who sometimes were on the "dark side" thirty years ago but are aging retirees now.)

This time, Yu pairs the evidence, including a corpse in the river -- neatly executed with a precise cut to the heart -- with his own understanding of how the Chinese groups rub against each other and raise big money from people's urges to play, whether with numbers or games or sex. I especially appreciate the way Yu's perceptions highlight the separate factions among "the Chinese": immigrants from parts of "one country" that might as well be multiple nations, with different dialects, habits, expectations. I'm starting to tune in to my own time and place, asking, "Chinese from where?" when I meet someone new.

Chang takes a classic noir approach to his form, posing short, tight chapters that follow through on one of Jack Yu's actions or guesses. Action, threat, and the wages of curiosity push the pace. And then there's a breath, a pause, and Chang deepens the background detail, the way Yu sees the crowd at the notorious nightclub Fay Lo's:

The betting was moderate, mostly Chinese men chain-smoking around the tables. They looked like the workers he'd seen in the Golden City and China Village and in Chinatown, throwing down their tip money, the hustle pay of sweaty dollar bills, looking for the long odds -- twenty, thirty, a hundred to one.

The gang boys stood out from the civilian players. ... Swagger. Willing to fight and die for the gang family. Though it all aided law enforcement in identifying members by their gang tats and nicknames.

Yu's usual Chinese companion (on the other side, but able to keep their friendship) is still in a coma, so DEATH MONEY sees Yu tackle his assignment alone, barely accepted among the police, and taking a stand against people who connections make them powerful and strong. His only chance is to cut one out of the crowd at a time, and force the play.

Chang is clearly set for a long series at this point, well beyond the Chinatown trilogy he started with. That's good news for mystery readers, collectors, and armchair explorers alike. Oh yes, it's from Soho Crime -- thanks again, S.C. team!