2018-2020 Reviews

2020 Reviews

Our reviews section examines the latest mystery offerings, covering books, anthologies, audio books, and DVDs.

THE MISADVENTURES OF NERO WOLFE: PARODIES AND PASTICHES FEATURING THE GREAT DETECTIVE OF WEST 35TH STREET

 

Edited by Josh Pachter

New York: MysteriousPress.com/Open Road, 2020. $17.99

The surest sign that something has become a genuine part of the popular culture is when it can be parodied. The Misadventures of Nero Wolfe: Parodies and Pastiches Featuring the Great Detective of West 35th Street is a collection of short stories and sketches that are takeoffs on Rex Stout’s characters and their universe. Both the legendary detective Nero Wolfe and his assistant, Archie Goodwin, are larger than life and so beloved that the parodists’ fondness of the fictional world Stout created for the unlikely duo comes shining through, making it clear that the lampooning is either a tribute or simply all in good fun.

A couple of pieces were written specifically for this anthology, but most were produced much earlier, some while the original tales were still being published. (Thomas Narcejac’s “The Red Orchid,” is the earliest, from 1947.) The book is divided into three parts: Pastiches, which are set in the actual Wolfe universe and feature the actual characters; Parodies, which involve characters who are very similar to the originals or are clearly inspired by them; and Potpourri, a collection of writings that are connected in some other way to Stout’s mysteries. Some of the stories straddle more than one category.

There’s a bit of a bell curve when it comes to these stories. Some are great, most are pretty good, and there are a couple of clunkers. Many of the authors do a fine job of mimicking Archie’s voice, while others never quite capture Stout’s wit and magic.

In the Pastiches section, a chapter from Marion Mainwaring’s classic Murder in Pastiche (1955) depicts an investigation led by Trajan Beare. Another clever tale, Jon L. Breen’s “The Archie Hunters” (1968), features Mack Himmler, a brutal parody of Mike Hammer, who decides that he should take Goodwin’s place as Wolfe’s assistant. Robert Goldsborough, who took on the mantel of writing new Wolfe novels, depicts what happened to the residents of the brownstone a couple of years after the shocking ending of Stout’s last novel, A Family Affair (1975). (Goldsborough’s contribution here is a chapter from his first Wolfe effort, Murder in E Minor, from 1986.) The section closes with one of Marvin Kaye’s short stories featuring Wolfe, “The Purloined Platypus” (2017).

Moving on to Parodies, Mack Reynolds’s dystopian tale “The Case of the Disposable Jalopy” (from 1979 and heavily edited to fit into the book) sees the now-elderly characters in a society where good food is scarce, inflation is ridiculous, and eyebrow-raising inventions are at the heart of a twisty mystery. In another piece, children named after detectives try to live up to their namesakes. Loren D. Estleman has Claudius Lyon investigate a publishing mystery in 2008’s “Who’s Afraid of Nero Wolfe?” Dave Zeltserman’s “Julius Katz and the Case of Exploding Wine” (2015) features a kung fu fighting detective whose narrator and assistant, Archie, is actually a piece of artificial intelligence, with riffs on Stout’s In the Best Families (1950) and A Family Affair, among others. Many of the parodies offered here show that the authors knew Wolfe’s world really well and had a deep affection for it.

In the final Potpourri section there is a chapter from John Lescroart’s 1987 novel Rasputin’s Revenge, which imagines that Wolfe was the son of Sherlock Holmes and shows a glimmer of a relationship between them. Joseph Goodrich has dramatized some of Stout’s novels, and the opening scene from his stage version of Might as Well Be Dead (2017, based on Stout’s 1956 novel) is included, with Archie addressing the audience and a gender swap for the client. One particularly amiable tale, “The Woman Who Read Rex Stout” (1966), involving a crime at a carnival sideshow, is from William Brittain’s The Man Who Read series, a collection of stories inspired by the great mystery writers.

Many stories in the Wolfean canon are referenced, but the last, A Family Affair, has its solution spoiled more than once, though sometimes in an oblique manner. Readers should be forewarned.

This is an anthology written by fans for fans. The more you know and love the original Wolfe and Goodwin, the more you’ll enjoy this collection of stories, full of wit, good humor, and tons of Easter eggs for devotees.

 

—Chris Chan

 

 

 

QUIZ

Montreal: Image Entertainment, 2020. $13.95 DVD, $14.95 Blu-ray

Quiz is a three-episode miniseries based on the true story of a game show scandal that occurred in connection with the UK version of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? in 2001. While this story and its aftermath are common knowledge in the United Kingdom, Americans are largely unaware of it, due to the fact that it happened right around 9/11 and got lost in the resulting news cycle.

While the game show is supposed to be light entertainment, it soon becomes an obsession for many people, as untold numbers of fans start devoting an amazing amount of energy and ingenuity to getting into the hot seat. Army Major Charles Ingram (Matthew MacFadyen) finds trivia quizzes rather pointless, but his wife, Diana (Sian Clifford), and brother-in-law, Adrian (Trystan Gravelle), soon make it their life’s mission to play for a million pounds. Both get on the show, but neither of them reaches the pinnacle they so desperately desire. Charles is drafted to go on the show, and despite his reluctance, he finds himself climbing up the ladder over the course of two nights, much to everybody’s amazement. With a head-scratching strategy, he answers fifteen questions and wins the million.

Unfortunately for the Ingrams, they never get the chance to enjoy their windfall. Within hours, the network starts to challenge the victory, claiming that Ingram cheated. They come up with a number of different ways the fraud could have been committed, ranging from vibrating cell phones strapped to his extremities to a confederate in the audience coughing at opportune moments. This leads to a media circus and a trial in which the Ingrams and their alleged partner, Tecwen Whittock (Michael Jibson), become reviled and derided figures as everybody assumes their guilt, despite the fact that the Ingrams and Whittock have never met. It’s up to their defense barrister, Sonia Woodley (the terrific Helen McCrory), to point out that the evidence is not nearly as compelling as everybody believes. Despite fantastic performances by the cast, the MVP of the series is arguably Michael Sheen, whose sparkling performance as the game show host, Chris Tarrant, manages to provide a ray of good humor in every one of his scenes.

For viewers familiar with the trial’s outcome, Quiz is still likely to reveal aspects of the story that went largely overlooked by the anti-Ingram press. The series writers do a remarkable job of remaining impartial, presenting both a damning case against the Ingrams and a powerful defense.

Over the course of three episodes, the show highlights how Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? became more than just harmless fun. Viewers are introduced to a subculture of people who have developed vast stores of trivia knowledge in order to help themselves and others profit from the show. For untold numbers of people, it became an opportunity to realize their dreams. The series does a great job of showing how any seemingly innocent pleasure can take a dark turn by showing the extreme lengths some people were willing to go to in order to win the game. However, and more important, Quiz highlights something far more disturbing: how swiftly people are willing to condemn others after a public accusation.

The Ingrams bore the brunt of an incredible media circus. Was it deserved, or did a network desperate for ratings and relevance allow an innocent couple to be railroaded? Based on the story presented in Quiz, there’s no way to know for certain whether the Ingrams did it or not. All the viewer can know for sure is that Quiz is terrifically entertaining and stands as a serious warning against the prospect of trial by media circus.

 

—Chris Chan

 

SOMETHING TO DIE FOR

(RYAN DRAKE BOOK 9)

By Will Jordan

London: Canelo Action, 2020. $17.99

In Something to Die For, Will Jordan demonstrates two important yet rare attributes: his deep love and enthusiasm for the genre in which he writes and his ability to avoid the pitfalls that so many other genre authors fall into.

These abilities should not surprise anyone who is aware of Jordan’s YouTube persona, The Critical Drinker. The Drinker is a hard-partying alcoholic whose profane and vulgar demeanor masks a surprisingly perceptive and often hilarious understanding of entertainment, particularly what works and what fails miserably. Within two years, Jordan has built up a substantial following on his channels The Critical Drinker and The Critical Drinker after Hours. On the first, the Drinker provides pithy opinions on movies, television shows, and other cultural issues. Some of his most popular topics (and, frequently, targets of ire) are Star Wars, Game of Thrones, Marvel movies, and many more franchises that he feels have fallen off the rails. On his After Hours series, the Drinker offers shorter reviews, usually recommendations of overlooked movies, and long-form discussions of works with fellow YouTube critics.

Not all of his reviews are negative. One of the most enjoyable features on the channel is “The Drinker Recommends,” where he praises worthy productions. Other recurring features of note are “The Drinker Fixes,” where he provides an outline for how to fix seriously flawed films, and “Production Hell,” which is composed of mini-documentaries on movies where the behind-the scenes conflict was more intense and twisted than anything a Hollywood screenwriter could create. In all his videos, the Drinker offers his unique blend of insight and over-the-top raucousness.

The maxim “Those who can’t do teach” is often a fallacy, but the companion maxim “Those who can’t write criticize” has a bit more truth to it. The latter definitely does not apply to Jordan. While the lion’s share of the works reviewed by the Drinker fall into the sci-fi/fantasy genre, loyal viewers will note that there are plenty of glowing recommendations of war and action movies as well.

It’s therefore not surprising that when Jordan turned his hand to writing fiction, he created a series centered around an ex-British soldier turned CIA agent. Over the course of nine books, Ryan Drake and his colleagues engage in international adventures that not only might affect the geopolitical future of the world but are also connected to Drake’s own troubled family past.

Something to Die For is the last book in the series, though I should stress that simply because the series is ending, that doesn’t necessarily mean that one should jump to conclusions about the ultimate fate of the central character. Something to Die For actually works fairly well as a standalone, though if this is your first foray into the Ryan Drake saga (as it was for me), you may wind up missing some of the character development and nuance that filled earlier installments. That said, Jordan manages to provide concise background details throughout Something to Die For that provide new readers with what they need to know in a sentence or two, without falling into the common trap of “exposition-itis,” which tends to bog down other authors’ works. Still, I would probably recommend that readers start at the beginning of the series, so as not to have crucial plot points and character fates spoiled.

Something to Die For is very cinematic—it reads like a screenplay that has been edited into prose, which keeps the action fast-paced and the narrative quickly moving forward. The novel opens with Ryan Drake on the run, nearly devoid of allies except for his sister Jessica. From this book alone, it’s easy to see that this is the best character relationship in the series. The two siblings have an excellent working partnership while still maintaining the lovingly abrasive and frustrating connection that forms the basis of many sibling bonds. As the book progresses, Drake has to escape the reach of both Marcus Cain, who is the sinister director of the CIA, and the Circle, one of those incredibly powerful cabals so popular in thrillers. Meanwhile, some of Drake’s former colleagues are battling their own problems, and a final message from Drake and Jessica’s mysterious mother will lead the siblings into danger and, if they’re very lucky, triumphant vindication.

Even if I hadn’t known that Jordan and the Critical Drinker were the same person, I would have guessed it, as many of the Drinker’s common complaints are addressed and rectified here. For example, the Drinker never tires of rolling his eyes at the trope that has exploded in use since the days of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, where ninety-pound female leads are portrayed as being able to beat up “very accommodating stuntmen” twice their height and weight without breaking a sweat. In Something to Die For, one tough, highly trained woman reflects on how despite all her training, she has no chance of defeating a man much larger than her in hand-to-hand combat. Another common Drinker refrain is his appreciation for emotionally complex villains whose motives readers and viewers can at least understand. And in this novel, Jordan deftly creates nuanced antagonists by exploring their worldviews and the ways in which they justify their actions.

Something to Die For is an enjoyable read. Jordan knew what kind of story he wanted to tell and how to tell it in the most effective way possible. When a plot is full of adrenaline, its intelligence often gets overlooked and downplayed. Jordan knows how to write a book that’s both smart and fun, and in an age where most of our entertainment is bland and predictable, that’s remarkable.

 

—Chris Chan

 

BEAUTIFUL BAD

By Annie Ward

New York: Park Row Books, 2019. $26.99

Ever since Gillian Flynn’s Gone Girl (2012), the subgenre of psychological thriller focusing on domestic issues has proliferated. The spate of titles includes Liane Moriarty’s Big Little Lies (2014), Paula Hawkins’s The Girl on the Train (2015), Sarah Pinborough’s Behind Her Eyes (2017), A. J. Finn’s The Woman in the Window (2018), and Louise Candlish’s Our House (2018), among many others. Now Annie Ward’s blockbuster Beautiful Bad can be added to that burgeoning catalog of crime.

After a while, these stories begin to run together with a familiar formula: Woman in distress, or is she? Man who threatens woman in distress, or does he? Who is lying and why? Whom should the reader trust, if anyone? Who is going to get murdered and by whom?

It’s hard to stand out from the pack, but Ward manages to hold her own and separate herself from the crowded field with a distinctive approach to the material. Ward admits that the novel started its life as a memoir based on her experiences as a journalist and travel writer in Bulgaria. She completed a manuscript, but her editor rejected it, suggesting she turn it into fiction. Thus was born Beautiful Bad.

The novel opens with a woman calling 911 and the police arriving at her home to find the scene of a crime. Ward wisely chooses an intricate narrative structure that differentiates several time periods and perspectives: the past (when Maddie is teaching and writing in the Balkans and first meets Ian); about ten weeks before the key event of the novel; and then the story line that presents the grim details of that climactic event (which opened the book), “The Day of the Killing.”

In 2001, Maddie Brandt, teaching in Sofia, Bulgaria, and Ian Wilson, part of the British ambassador’s protection team, meet at a charity function in Macedonia. Maddie has been invited there by her good friend, Joanna Jasinski, whom she met in Spain years ago, when they were high school students in a summer exchange program.

Maddie is instantly, madly smitten with the forty-three-year-old British bad boy. They bond over typos on the menu. But the tension escalates quickly when Maddie realizes that Joanna is also interested in Ian and that he is reciprocating Joanna’s attention. Complicating matters even further, Ian’s ex-girlfriend, a violent, self-destructive sex addict, is stalking him, threatening homicide.

Over several years, the action moves from Bulgaria to England to New York, until Maddie and Ian (after several breakups) marry and settle in Sweet Water Creek, a suburban subdivision in the sleepy backwater of Meadowlark, Kansas. They mistakenly believe they will lead a quiet life along with their three-year-old son, Charlie. However, Maddie gets bored with domesticity, and Ian gets bored with the lack of the kind of adventure he experienced in his previous life. Both are also haunted by traumatic incidents from the distant and the near past.

The action gets a heart-pumping start when Maddie visits a psychotherapist to help her with her anxiety, which has increased since she had a camping accident. She finds Dr. Camilla Jones (Cami J), who wears clothes—including a rhinestone-studded baseball cap—that make her look like a Zumba instructor. It is hard for Maddie to take her seriously, but when she suggests writing therapy, Maddie agrees.

Writing therapy as a plot device distinguishes Beautiful Bad from other thrillers in the genre. The various triggers that cause Maddie’s panic attacks range from ISIS and Ian’s PTSD to the flu and drowning. But examining these panic triggers eventually leads to traumatic flashbacks. The first involves a boating accident that happened when Maddie was ten. As she’s waterskiing with her grandfather, he puts the boat in reverse, sucking Maddie into the blades, leaving her with a brain injury that may relate to why it is her nature to turn everything into a catastrophe. The second incident occurred during a camping trip in Colorado with Ian and Charlie. Drunk, stumbling out of their tent after an argument, Maddie hits the ground. But did she fall, or was she pushed?

The novel swerves back to “The Day of the Killing,” the harrowing 911 call, and the final shattering events.

Readers acquainted with the template for this subset of domestic suspense may stay one step ahead of Ward’s high-tension high-wire act with its obligatory revelations. Nevertheless, Beautiful Bad is worth the read if only to add to that sagging shelf of mysteries. The number of amoral characters in this novel is enough to make Patricia Highsmith proud.

 

—Robert Allen Papinchak

 

THE BEST BAD THINGS

By Katrina Carrasco

New York: MCD/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2018. $27.00

Katrina Carrasco’s debut novel, The Best Bad Things, follows two weeks in the life of twenty-nine-year-old Alma Rosales/Jack Camp. Alma is a detective who works best in drag. As a former member of the defunct Women’s Bureau of the Pinkerton agency, she discovered her passion in a Chicago saloon. She cross-dresses and passes as male, specifically as a man called Jack Camp, and infiltrates environments not open to women.

The novel is set in 1887 in Port Townsend, Washington, where Alma (aka Jack) is hired by a former lover to sniff out a possible opium-smuggling scam. Alma dressed as Jack Camp can be anything—a gambler, a thief, or a fighter—and she immerses herself in the seamy underbelly of the docks. Over the course of the investigation, “Jack” comes across numerous characters, including barmen, entrepreneurs, sailors, and traffickers of Chinese immigrants, as he drifts in and out of saloons, boarding houses, brothels, canneries, boxing arenas, and dance halls.

One of the few people who knows Alma’s true identity is Nathaniel Wheeler, a warehouse owner and also Alma’s prime suspect in the case. As Alma works within both genders, using her varying identities, she is a willing participant in a series of double and triple crosses that result in a very satisfying read.

The Best Bad Things puts Carrasco on the shelf with Joseph Hansen, Dan Kavanagh, Patricia Highsmith, Sarah Waters, and Val McDermid. And Alma Rosales—whether in petticoat or in pants—is a vital force to be reckoned with. The Best Bad Things is gender-bending historical drama, atmospheric regional mystery, and pure, thrilling, hard-boiled entertainment all wrapped into one.

—Robert Allen Papinchak

 

BLUFF

By Jane Stanton Hitchcock

Scottsdale: Poisoned Pen Press, 2019. $26.99

New York Times best-selling author Jane Stanton Hitchcock is a novelist and playwright whose works explore crime and controversy in high society. Her debut, Trick of the Eye (1992), was nominated for both the Hammett Prize and the Edgar Award, and in the next seventeen years, she went on to write four additional novels. Now, after a decade-long absence, she returns with Bluff, a book inspired by the two things that largely occupied her during those years when she’d stopped writing: pursuing a lawsuit against the accountant who defrauded her mother (and other wealthy celebrity clients) and developing a passion for poker, which she now plays competitively.

As the story opens, readers are introduced to onetime socialite-turned-poker enthusiast Maud Warner, who resurfaces from relative obscurity on an October afternoon when she walks into a luxury hotel, shoots and kills financier Sun Sunderland while he is having lunch, and then exits the restaurant in the melee that follows, and fades into the crowd. This is just the opening salvo in a high-stakes game of retribution, and while Maud holds most of the cards, it’ll be her ability to bluff that determines whether she comes out a winner.

In the aftermath of the shooting, the authorities and news media come to believe that “Mad Maud” actually meant to kill celebrity accountant Burt Sklar—Sunderland’s lunch companion that afternoon. After all, she’d previously accused him of stealing her now-deceased mother’s fortune (and enabling her brother’s drug addiction) despite the lack of evidence to warrant an arrest. But Sunderland’s death, whether or not intended, sheds light on his own misdeeds, including his secret life as a bigamist. This results in the unlikely heralding of Maud as a folk heroine of sorts, and as satisfying as this public affirmation is, there’s a deeper, darker truth that must be revealed, no matter the consequences.

The narrative unfolds through multiple perspectives in addition to Maud’s, including those of her upper-crust friends, the two Mrs. Sunderlands, Sklar, and the authorities tasked with investigating and prosecuting the crime(s). These characters represent a multitude of motives, and each has a hand to play and an endgame in mind. But who will blink, and who will bluff? Using the rules of poker as a framework, the author deftly explores power and privilege and the predilections and proclivities that often mire those who take advantage of their position.

Bluff is a triumphant and thrilling return. Not only can Hitchcock stage a murder mystery that’s as comedic as it is clever, but she also skewers the social elite—a world in which she grew up—with a satirical touch that’s both razor-sharp and subtly sympathetic. Drawing on the very things that led to her ten-year hiatus, Hitchcock brings it all to the table here, reminding readers that she’s pretty much a sure bet when it comes to storytelling mastery.

 

—John B. Valeri

 

CRUEL ACTS

By Jane Casey

New York: HarperCollins, 2019. £7.99

Cruel Acts is the eighth book in Jane Casey’s increasingly popular Maeve Kerrigan series. Casey has combined gripping, ongoing story arcs with mystery narratives that become the central focus for each book. The mystery narratives work in tandem with the main story of Kerrigan’s troubled personal life; her love/hate relationship with her immediate boss, DI Josh Derwent; the development of Maeve’s career; and continuing office politics.

Leo Stone was convicted of murdering two women. When the verdict is overturned on a technicality, the defense team, led by charismatic Seth Taylor, goes all out to discredit the evidence the police have. The case against Stone is not as strong as it could be, and Maeve and Josh are given the task of reinvestigating the murders.

Maeve has a reputation for going out on an intuitive limb, while Josh believes in traditional methods of detection. Maeve is convinced that missing woman Rachel Healy is Stone’s third victim. Her body was never found, and little, if any, evidence existed to link Stone to this killing, if she is, indeed, dead. Josh rejects the idea of a link and thinks they will be wasting their time if they try to investigate it

Their boss, Una Burt, takes the opportunity to split up the Derwent-Kerrigan team and leaves Maeve to investigate the cold case of the missing Rachel Healy on her own. Maeve begins to find flaws in the original investigation, which cause her to doubt its findings. What seemed to be a case of brutal murder and nothing more, has become something far more complex and dark. Was Stone guilty of the crimes for which he was convicted, is he guilty of other crimes, or is he an innocent man? The family of one of his victims certainly believes he is innocent, and Stone’s son, Kelly Lambert, is campaigning hard to have his father released.

Maeve, though she detests Stone, finds herself drawn to his lawyer, Taylor, and is sympathetic toward Stone’s son. Could the police have gotten the original investigation so wrong, or are her personal sympathies getting in the way of her judgment? As more bodies turn up, members of the team realize they have stumbled onto something much bigger than they’d expected.

Casey weaves the strands of a complex plot along with the story arcs readers have come to expect from the Maeve Kerrigan series. The ambitious young detective constable Georgia Shaw, who in in previous books has allowed her envy of Maeve to compromise her work, is now willing to go a long way to do her a bad turn. None of this is helped by the relationship between Maeve and her boss, Una Burt, who, while admiring Maeve’s abilities, does not like her and wants her off the team. There is also further development in Maeve’s relationship with her ex-boyfriend Rob—a fellow officer. And finally, there are the interesting ambiguities in her relationship with Josh. All of this forms the background to a compelling mystery.

 

Casey skilfully handles the intricate narrative, building up tension and creating a cast of convincing characters and sometimes chilling settings. The lonely grassland of a nature reserve, a decaying house on an abandoned farm, a neglected back garden and the terrible secrets it hides are all presented with visceral intensity. The plot itself is fast-moving and gripping and builds up to a climax involving a race against time and a rooftop chase that is guaranteed to keep readers on the edge of their seats. And the book’s ending is satisfactorily surprising and convincing, arising as it does from the trail the author has carefully laid. It becomes apparent by the end of the book that Casey has all her ducks in an interesting formation for the next novel in the series.

If there are any weaknesses here, they lie in the delicate balance of the Kerrigan-Derwent relationship. In previous books, this has moved from intense dislike to an edgy but caring friendship and a mutual, if much denied, attraction. In this book, however, the balance of their relationship is in danger as Casey veers too closely to Mills and Boon territory at one point, then manages to swerve before she gets too close, albeit in a way that does not fully convince. It’s a tricky business keeping two attractive characters apart while maintaining the frisson between them, and it will be interesting to see how Casey continues to develop this relationship as the series continues.

This, however, is a minor quibble about a book that is a real page-turner and delivers a fast-moving plot with interesting, realistic characters—especially Maeve herself, a vivid central character who is a strong addition to the list of much-loved female sleuths. All in all, Cruel Acts is vintage Maeve Kerrigan, and those who are avidly following the series will not be disappointed.

 

—Danuta Reah

 

 

HALLOWEEN:

THE OFFICIAL MOVIE NOVELIZATION

By John Passarella

London: Titan Books, 2018. $7.99

 

If David Gordon Green’s 2018 film Halloween is a throwback to John Carpenter’s classic 1978 slasher film, then John Passarella’s official novelization of the 2018 film is also a throwback to the media tie-ins that once accompanied such theatrical releases.

 

Both Green’s film and Passarella’s novelization open forty years after the events of Carpenter’s Halloween and serve as a direct continuation of that plot, erasing the entire canon established within the franchise’s seven sequels and two remakes. In the aftermath of a killing spree that left four people and two dogs dead, Michael Myers was captured and remanded to Smith’s Grove State Hospital, where he has remained under the watchful eye of the late Dr. Sam Loomis’s protégée, Dr. Ranbir Sartain.

Meanwhile, a tragically traumatized Laurie Strode has become reclusive, stockpiling an arsenal of weapons at her house in the woods, where she awaits the inevitable: Myers’s return. Following two failed marriages and her daughter Karen’s removal from her care, Laurie took to alcohol to dull the painful memories of her past. Her granddaughter, Allyson, a student at Haddonfield (Illinois) High School, is intent on establishing a relationship with her grandmother despite strong parental interference. This familial drama plays out against Myers’s transfer to a new facility (and the efforts of two podcasters looking to shed new light on earlier events). When Laurie hears that the bus transporting Myers has crashed and that he has escaped, she knows her time of reckoning has come. Haddonfield, too, is once again made a fertile killing ground, as Myers cuts a savage path through the town’s streets. The final showdown between the two combatants is appropriately epic and pits three generations of Strode women against the “pure evil” that lurks behind a frightfully familiar mask.

Passarella’s writing is solid, and his work benefits from the luxury of having space to tell a fuller story. He based the book on the actual screenplay written for the 2018 movie by Green, Danny McBride, and Jeff Fradley, and scenes that were cut from the film have been worked into the novel, allowing for greater character development and a more cohesive, fleshed-out narrative. Not surprisingly, the book does lack some of the visceral thrills of the film, as well as a few of its memorable moments (“Happy Halloween, Michael”), which may not have been scripted prior to shooting.

Given that Passarella’s novel is based on the screenplay, it falls outside the lines of the book-versus-movie debate. Rather, the two are largely complementary and provide a unique multisensory experience for enthusiasts. The overall story itself is terrifying yet timely in the days of #MeToo. Laurie has become part Loomis and part bogeyman while still maintaining the core of strength and humanity that rendered her a survivor that fateful Halloween night.

 

—John B. Valeri

 

THE LIAR’S ROOM

By Simon Lelic

New York: Berkley, 2019. $16.00

 

The Liar’s Room is a claustrophobic, tension-filled psychological thriller that traps the reader with two distraught characters in a mews house turned office space for five heart-stopping hours while pasts are revealed, secrets are acknowledged, and the consequences of guilt and grief are examined. Simon Lelic cleverly manipulates facts and memories to expose the truths of shared responsibility in long-ago tragic events.

It’s three o’clock on a Friday afternoon, and psychotherapist Susanna Fenton, the dentist with whom she shares the office space (Ruth), and a receptionist (Alina) are wrapping up a busy workweek. When Adam Geraghty, a handsome young man around eighteen years old with a lopsided smile, walks in as a new client, Ruth and Alina head off to the pub, leaving Susanna alone with her patient.

Susanna is certain she recognizes something in Adam’s demeanor, and over the next several hours, she slowly realizes that he knows almost everything about her past and that he may have kidnapped her fourteen-year-old daughter, Emily, holding her hostage while he threatens the therapist with violence.

Adam insists on revisiting a life-changing incident from Susanna’s past involving her rebellious teenage son, Jake. The resulting scandal had prompted her to leave her husband, change her identity (Susanna is a new name), and struggle with the shame of an uncomfortably awkward truth.

The author deftly interweaves the characters’ perspectives on past events, both shared and personal, until the shocking truth is ultimately revealed. Adam forces Susanna to recount episodes of vandalism committed by Jake and letters that detailed Jake’s adolescent crush on a teacher, and he fills in the gaps about his own personal history.

Meanwhile, Emily attempts to understand where she is and why she’s been kidnapped.

Lelic keeps his readers guessing as they try to grasp the reasons for everyone’s lies and false lives, until a significant twist reveals several brutal events that shattered each character’s world. He holds the high-wire tension from beginning to end in this fantastic novel that closely examines the destructive nature of lies, both those we tell to the world and those we tell to ourselves.

 

—Robert Allen Papinchak

 

 

MY SISTER, THE SERIAL KILLER

By Oyinkan Braithwaite

New York: Doubleday, 2018. $22.95

 

Nigeria’s Oyinkan Braithwaite may be a new name to American readers, but her star has been steadily on the rise in her homeland ever since she was short-listed as a top-ten spoken-word artist in the Eko Poetry Slam in 2014 and two years after that was a finalist for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize. A graduate in creative writing and law at Kingston University, Braithwaite worked as an assistant editor for a publisher before pursuing full-time freelance work as a writer and editor. My Sister, the Serial Killer is her debut novel, first released in Nigeria as an e-book titled Thicker Than Water (2017).

“Ayoola summons me with these words—Korede, I killed him. I had hoped I would never hear those words again.” So begins the tale of two sisters, one a murderess and the other a reluctant accomplice in the subsequent clean-ups and cover-ups. The latest victim, a boyfriend of Ayoola’s called Femi, is the third man to die by Ayoola’s hands, and Korede doesn’t hesitate to point out that this third notch on her sister’s belt bumps her firmly into serial-killer territory. Korede, a respectable nurse who knows the power of bleach, has always been on hand to help eradicate all evidence of her sister’s crimes—even using her car to transport the latest victim’s body to its final destination. However, this latest murder, combined with Ayoola’s subsequent actions, might be what finally pushes Korede over the edge.=

Sisterhood is complicated enough without murder thrown into the mix, and Ayoola’s nonchalance regarding her homicides coupled with a general immaturity leads Korede to rethink her role as clean-up crew for her sister’s misdeeds. Despite the string of dead boyfriends in her wake, Ayoola can barely tear herself away from Instagram or her designer clothes and enthusiastic suitors, to even briefly act the part of the bereaved girlfriend. And when the cops show up and demand to inspect Korede’s car as part of their investigation into Femi’s disappearance, Korede realizes that she needs to start thinking in terms of self-preservation. The final affront comes when Korede’s coworker—the doctor with whom she’s secretly in love—begins to pursue Ayoola, unwittingly putting himself in harm’s way and simultaneously unleashing a side of Korede that’s as devious as it is dangerous.

Braithwaite’s writing is lean and lithe, perhaps the result of her roots as a poet. The novel is punctuated by short chapters that maintain the narrative urgency. She offsets the horrors of the murders with humor and wit, while subtly revealing the women’s backstory in a way that gives meaning to the madness. But the very heart of the book is the dynamic between Korede and Ayoola, which exemplifies the often unspoken competitiveness between siblings whose impulses sometimes vacillate between protecting and prevailing. The ultimate question is, which will win out in the end?

My Sister, the Serial Killer is a stylish and suspenseful work that announces the arrival of a vibrant new voice. While the story itself is one of crime and consequence, it’s also a meditation on love, loyalty, and the ties that bind. This author is going to be around for a good, long time.

—John B. Valeri

 

THE NIGHT AGENT

By Matthew Quirk

New York: William Morrow, 2019. $26.99

 

Today’s most incendiary headlines combine with the best of the old-school spy thrillers in this riveting new standalone from Matthew Quirk. The Night Agent’s titular character is Peter Sutherland, a likable, ambitious FBI analyst whose career has been stymied by allegations of treason against his late father. The elder Sutherland was branded a traitor after a list of Russian double agents he was running for the CIA made its way into Moscow’s hands, resulting in every one of the agents being killed by Kremlin operatives. Before the facts could be conclusively established, Peter’s dad killed himself amid the public shaming and scorn. His name tainted before he even began his career, Peter is careful to toe every line and follow every rule in an attempt to distance himself from the alleged sins of his father. He finds himself on an overnight shift manning a phone that virtually never rings in the White House Situation Room, but his world is quickly turned upside down one night when it does ring, leading Peter to do the unthinkable: break the rules. What follows is an action-packed romp through the nation’s capital, rife with timely topics such as Russian influence in the upper ranks of the American government and filled with the sort of one-man-against-the-world old-school intrigue and spy craft that made the early work of David Baldacci and Brad Meltzer standout hits.

 

Peter’s significant character arc is portended from the onset, with the first two chapters showing two very different mindsets and physical conditions. The second chapter is set six days earlier and immediately entices the reader to figure out not only what was happening in that opening chapter but also how straitlaced Peter came to be breaking into a home with an ax. He also brings some potent abilities to the table: his prior experience working surveillance gives him an intimate knowledge of how to spot and lose a tail—or, conversely, how to follow without being spotted—while his six foot, six inch frame and basketball skills give him some physical advantages that come in handy in many of the book’s action scenes.

 

While there are a number of POV characters, as is customary with this sort of cross-cutting high-concept thriller, Peter is the main one and the most dynamic. What with his being haunted by the purported sins of his father, dealing with the innate distrust of his colleagues, and his graveyard-shift hours that have served to further isolate him, Peter is a very sympathetic character—a good guy trying to make the best of the rotten hand he’s been dealt. Watching him wrestle with his family history, with his beliefs about right and wrong, and with trusting those he thought were closest to him is an engrossing experience, one that will have readers hanging on every step of his journey.

 

Two other prominent characters are Rose Larkin and Dimitri Sokolov. Rose is on the other end of that fateful call to Peter, the niece of two supposedly retired master spies who are investigating the Russian plot. When they are gunned down for a red ledger that could bring down the whole treasonous house of cards, Rose finds herself being grilled by White House officials and followed by shadowy pursuers. But she proves herself more than adept at doing what is necessary to finish what her aunt and uncle started, and the chemistry between her and Peter is believable.

 

Dimitri, meanwhile, is an elite Russian operative who has been given carte blanche by Moscow’s top spy in the United States to secure the red ledger and kill anyone who may pose a threat to the Kremlin’s plot. He is a formidable antagonist, especially when aided by the might of Moscow and at least one high-powered traitor in the U.S. government. The cast of characters also includes a semiretired Russian forger, Peter’s estranged godfather, Peter’s White House colleagues and bosses, and the president himself. The introductions to new players who may be more than what they seem helps to keep things fresh and mostly suspenseful.

 

There are three major twists spread fairly evenly throughout the book, but all of them may be telegraphed a bit too much for veteran readers of the genre actively looking for them. The revelations are shocking and personal for Peter, but from a reader’s perspective, you’ll probably guess each person’s true identity several chapters before it’s actually revealed.

 

Though he started working on the book before the 2016 election, inspired initially by the 2015 death of Mikhail Lesin in the Dupont Circle Hotel, Quirk has done a masterful job of balancing both current events and speculation, and integrating them into his fictional world without getting overtly political. While some loose parallels to real-world events and people exist in the book, Quirk makes this fictional world his own, which is a far more powerful and authentic-feeling approach than if he had tried to make things hew too closely to real life.

Beyond that, the story offers some deep and sobering insights into Washington, the nature of power, and the tendency for notions of right and wrong to slowly bleed into shades of gray. It’s compelling stuff, and these insights, inextricably tied to Peter’s own character arc, will stick with readers long after the book is over.

 

The entirety of the book takes place in the DC metro area, but the story takes the reader to many fascinating locales off the typical tourist track, such as the expansive Rock Creek Park, the shuttered DC General Hospital, and the White House Situation Room. This not only gives the book some fresh and interesting scenery, but it also lends credence to Peter’s living in the district and knowing it more intimately than most.

 

One main disappointment in the book is its climax. With a pair of protagonists who have to this point proved themselves worthy underdog adversaries to the antagonists, the story relies on a deus ex machina to ultimately save the day. While the climax may be more realistic and grounded than those of many high-stakes thrillers, the top-level international conspiracy, Metro terror attack, and murder spree across Washington that lead to it definitely seed expectations of something bigger and more explosive. Nevertheless, the ending is handled well and provides a satisfying resolution to the adventure.

This complaint stands out because, overall, the book is just so darn good. And while the climax and final revelations were somewhat disappointing in light of what had come before, they weren’t bad by any stretch. Furthermore, grounding the final moments the way Quirk does makes the story’s real-world messages feel more poignant and powerful than if they had been drowned out by an action-packed finale. And the truth of what really seems to be going on with Russia makes the book all the more terrifying.

 

Quirk has created an excellent thriller with a compelling protagonist, an insider’s eye for Washington, an action-filled narrative that keeps things moving at a brisk pace, and an underlying message as thought-provoking as it is frightening. The Night Agent is a terrific read.

 

—Jeremy Burns

 

NO EXIT

By Taylor Adams

New York: William Morrow, 2019. $26.99

Strains of early Stephen King permeate this tense thriller from Taylor Adams. No Exit takes place entirely in one night at a remote rest area high in the Rockies. Unsuccessful in her attempt to beat a blizzard through a mountain pass, Darby Thorne becomes stranded at the rest stop with four strangers. While her somewhat estranged mother is about to undergo surgery for late-stage cancer on the other side of the mountain, unable to be reached via non-existent cell-phone coverage, Darby is wrenched from her internal conflicts by a chance sighting of a little girl, imprisoned in a dog kennel in the back of a van. One of the four strangers at the rest area is a kidnapper, and it quickly becomes clear that if she wants to survive the night and save the little girl, Darby will have to use every tool at her disposal.

The initial premise—a group of strangers stranded together overnight in an isolated snowbound outpost—echoes that of Quentin Tarantino’s 2015 film The Hateful Eight, albeit in a more grounded fashion. However, while Tarantino’s movie focuses on guessing who can and can’t be trusted in the ensemble cast, No Exit quickly reveals its antagonist (though whether he is working alone is another mystery) and instead focuses on the plight of Darby as she figures out how to achieve her seemingly mutually exclusive goals: saving the kidnapped girl and surviving the night so she can make amends with her dying mother.

Darby is cast as an outsider, a young, petite art student, abandoned by her father, never living up to her eccentric mother’s expectations, always in the shadow of her perfect older sister. Her background, personality, hopes, and fears are doled out strategically throughout the story, which not only allows readers to get to know her more organically but also opens up her character as a stand-in for the reader. As the primary POV character (others have a handful of brief POV sections, but some 90 percent of the narrative is told through Darby’s eyes), she is the only one we feel we can truly trust, providing an interesting spin on the unreliable-narrator formula: the narrator is the only character whom we know isn’t a potential antagonist. It’s also edifying to see her grow, becoming more resourceful and formidable against increasingly desperate odds as the night goes on.

The small cast of characters and the limited setting allow readers to get to know them intimately, much as Darby herself does. While mysteries about the characters continue to be revealed until the final act, Adams makes great use of the small environment, with unique and memorable features enhancing the seemingly run-of-the-mill rest area. This tighter focus also allows Adams to tease out crucial details without sacrificing a modicum of pacing.

When an easily anticipated twist brings the kidnapping plot into focus about a third of the way in, Adams may appear to have shown his cards too soon, leaving the reader wondering where he would take the suspense from there. But there is no need to worry. Despite its small setting and tight timetable, Darby’s story quickly turns into a tightly plotted chess match, a nonstop, twist-laden tug-of-war between protagonist and antagonist that constantly keeps the characters—and readers—on their toes. A word of warning for the squeamish, though: the tense action can be both raw and visceral, though it always serves the story and is not gratuitous.

A clever final twist in the book’s closing moments is executed well and will surprise readers, but I felt it robbed the book of a more poignant non-twist ending. Not only that, but the twist is so significant and comes so late that it may leave readers feeling cast adrift, as this paradigm shift is handled in such an offhand way. This is a minor gripe in the grand scheme of things, but its placement at the end of the book means that it sticks out more than it would have if it had been introduced earlier.

No Exit is an excellent read from a talented young voice in the thriller genre. While this book doesn’t really lend itself to a sequel, Adams’s masterful use of the intentionally small-scale setting will make readers eagerly anticipate what high-stakes scenario he will conjure up for his next novel. An easy recommendation.

—Jeremy Burns

SHELL GAME

By Sara Paretsky

New York: William Morrow/HarperCollins, 2018. $27.99

Sarah Paretsky’s V.I. Warshawski series has always been firmly situated in twenty-first-century America. Paretsky’s explorations of social injustice can be visceral in their impact, making the books a tough but compelling read. Shell Game, the latest addition to the series, is no different, exploring the issues and social problems that arise from events on the world stage brought about by politicians and corporations fighting for power and wealth.

With the backdrop of an America in turmoil as it navigates its great political divides, Paretsky turns her forensic gaze on the antiquities market in the wake of wars in the Middle East; the excesses of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE); and the immoral behavior of companies that get rich by offering loans to the poor at exorbitant interest, exploiting both their customers and their staffs.

V.I. is drawn into this world when her longtime close friend Lotty Herschel asks for her help. Lotty’s relative Felix is accused of murder when police find a piece of paper with his phone number on the body of an unidentified man. Meanwhile, another character from V.I.’s past arrives on her doorstep: Harmony Seale, her ex-husband Richard’s niece. Harmony is trying to find her sister, Reno. Reno has been missing for some time, and no one will help Harmony find her, not even her uncle.

Reno worked for an unscrupulous payday-loan company and was conned into attending a luxury weekend for high-paying executives, where she might have been expected to provide sex for their entertainment. As V.I. digs deeper, it begins to look as though her weak and venal, but not previously criminal, ex may be deeply involved.

Meanwhile, V.I.’s investigation into Felix Herschel begins to reveal unnerving links to Reno’s disappearance. Add to the mix the theft of a priceless antiquity, a pair of gigantic and obdurate heavies who keep popping out of the woodwork to attack V.I., and financial fraud, and the stage is set for the kind of fast-moving thriller at which Paretsky excels.

The book includes the always enjoyable cast of characters that inhabit V.I.’s world—Mr. Contreras, her elderly neighbor; her dogs, Peppy and Mitch; and the police, whom she has previously both cooperated with and opposed. In other words, all the ingredients are here for a vintage Warshawski story, and that’s what Shell Game is. It is a complex, gripping, and fast-moving novel that ticks all the boxes for V.I. fans.

If there is a weakness, it is the ending. Paretsky opts for drawing things together with a public denouncement of the perpetrators, a type of ending she has used before. It smacks of an updated version of Hercule Poirot gathering his suspects into the drawing room to explain his findings, and, as one police officer involved in the case wryly notes, it offers a potential way out to the accused.

Despite its labyrinthine plot, Shell Game is a real page-turner, and Paretsky keeps firm control of the various strands. It’s an excellent addition to an acclaimed series.

—Danuta Reah

 

TOMBLAND

By C. J. Sansom

New York: Hachette Audio, 2019. $26.98

37 hours, 40 minutes

Tombland is C. J. Sansom’s seventh offering in his hugely popular Shardlake series. The series is moving into the turbulent period after the reign of Henry VIII. Henry’s son, the child Edward VI, is on the throne. Catherine Parr is dead. And Matthew Shardlake has, he hopes, distanced himself from the dangerous waters into which he was drawn by his political activities. He is now involved in legal work for Henry’s younger daughter, Elizabeth. Estranged from his former assistant, Jack Barak, Shardlake is starting to find his new, safe life a bit dull.

There is unrest in the country over the imposition of a new prayer book by Edward Seymour, Duke of Somerset, who has established himself as Protector. The Protector is also pursuing a pointless and increasingly costly war against Scotland, the coinage is being devalued, and the people are being pushed deeper into poverty and deprived of their land, which results in the Norfolk rebellion led by Robert Kett—all in a day’s work in Tudor England.

Against this background, Shardlake is instructed by Elizabeth to investigate a murder charge that has been brought against one of her Boleyn relatives, so he travels to Norwich accompanied by his assistant, Nicholas, to do her bidding. Barak is involved with the courts there and soon gets drawn into Shardlake’s mission, which becomes complex, political, and dangerous. Furthermore, Shardlake’s investigation and his later involvement with the rebellion bring chaos and disaster in their wake. And soon the scene is set for a Tudor investigation replete with killings, tortures, political and social machinations, and the panoply that readers have come to expect from the Shardlake novels.

Sansom does a good job of presenting the minutiae of Tudor life, along with more obscure aspects of history, meticulously researched and convincingly presented. The narrative is set firmly in the time period with only subtle tweaks of the language. He uses southern British standard for his narration, but period details, occasional slight over-formality, and words that are less common today, such as “afoot,” give the sense of a different time, without ever wandering into parody. He also does not step back from the darker aspects of Tudor life; the audiobook has scenes of execution, rape, and cruel violence.

Steven Crossley’s reading interprets Sansom’s prose well. Crossley keeps narrative sections low-key, allowing Shardlake’s voice to carry the story. In the dialogue, Crossley realistically renders the accents of people from different areas and classes, and he does an excellent job of interpreting characters’ voices—Richard Rich speaks with a high-pitched sneer; William Cecil has low, modulated tones. It’s important to remember that this book is set in a period when the standard language and the standard English accent were not yet fully established, but the audiobook is for people who have twenty-first-century expectations for how spoken language differs according to people’s social status.

The one flaw in this work is that at times, the crime and Shardlake’s investigation get lost in the very complicated story of Kett’s rebellion. Nevertheless, it is a gripping narrative of the Tudor world. The pageantry is rich, the murder is macabre, and the deaths portrayed are often brutal and violent. Tombland is an engrossing audiobook.

—Danuta Reah

 

DOWN THE RIVER UNTO THE SEA

By Walter Mosley

New York: Mulholland, 2018. $27.00

A man seeking justice after he’s been wrongly accused and imprisoned is a time-honored story line, with revenge savored deeply in classics such as The Count of Monte Cristo (1844) and other novels. In Walter Mosley’s new stand-alone, Down the River unto the Sea, the damage done to the protagonist, Detective First Class Joe King Oliver, is nearly as horrifying as what happens to Edmond Dantès at Château d’If.

King is a shrewd and resourceful investigator with the NYPD, but he isn’t perfect—and someone knows it all too well. Playing on his weakness for women, a trap is set, and after a fling with a “modern-day Tallulah Bankhead, with the husky voice, quick wit and that certain something,” the married King is arrested for assault. In his first thirty-nine hours in the Rikers Island jail, King is attacked by four convicts, but that’s just a warm-up for what the guards have in store for him.

The charges are dropped, but King’s marriage and career are over. He’s a broken man who needs years to build himself back up to the point where he’s strong enough to become a private investigator, with his loyal teenage daughter running the front office. To King’s shock, a letter arrives in the mail one day from “Tallulah,” now a born-again Christian living in Minnesota. She admits, “I was forced to entrap you,” and asks for forgiveness. At about the same time, King gets a new case to investigate: a radical black journalist accused of killing two corrupt off-duty cops. As these two threads intertwine, King finds himself threatened and hunted by those willing to kill to keep their secrets hidden. No matter the danger, though, he’s driven forward.

Hidden enemies emerge from King’s past, but so do allies, none more memorable than Melquarth Frost, “the most dangerous criminal I had ever come across,” a man who is determined to help King in his hour of need. In Mosley’s skillful hands, Frost is a ruthless murderer, yes, but the harrowing pain that formed his pathology is made clear, and Frost’s every moment in the novel is vivid. Throughout the book, those who have been abused and broken are described with clear-eyed compassion. Theirs is a gritty and sad world, but Mosley’s poetic descriptions of New York City and his characters’ deepest souls elevate the story to beauty. Although the characters, major and minor, are all compelling, in the end it is King’s story to tell, as he struggles to decide how much he’s willing to risk to get the truth. As Mosley writes: “A man can live his whole life following the rules set down by happenstance and the cash-coated bait of security-cossetted morality; an entire lifetime and in the end he wouldn’t have done one thing to be proud of.”

—Nancy Bilyeau

 

I’ll BE GONE IN THE DARK:

ONE WOMAN’S OBSESSIVE SEARCH

FOR THE GOLDEN STATE KILLER

By Michelle McNamara

New York: HarperCollins, 2018. $27.99

If ever there was a case to prove the old adage that truth is stranger than fiction, this would be it: Investigative reporter Michelle McNamara, creator of the popular website TrueCrimeDiary, would relentlessly pursue an unidentified murderer and rapist known as the Golden State Killer for years, only to die in her sleep before concluding her investigation. Her partially written manuscript chronicling this obsessive search for answers would be completed by fellow researchers and ultimately ushered into the world under the watchful eye of her husband, comedian Patton Oswalt. A little more than one month after the book’s publication, police would make an arrest based on DNA evidence—and due largely in part to the renewed interest that McNamara’s work sparked.

You’ll get only the first half of that story in I’ll Be Gone in the Dark, but it’s well worth reading. McNamara, who earned an MFA in fiction writing from the University of Minnesota and later sold television pilots and a screenplay and also consulted on NBC’s Dateline, developed a fascination with true crime as the result of a traumatic childhood experience: the brutal unsolved murder of a twenty-something woman in McNamara’s Oak Park, Illinois neighborhood. Her curious mind coupled with her training as a writer resulted in a uniquely compelling voice that captured the imagination of readers—and eventually led to her work on a lengthy piece (“In the Footsteps of a Killer”) for Los Angeles magazine, which would ultimately serve as the catalyst for her book.

The Golden State Killer—previously known as the East Area Rapist—committed some fifty sexual assaults in Northern California over the course of a decade before moving south and perpetrating at least ten murders, mostly of suburban couples. Then, in 1986, he inexplicably went underground. Despite the efforts of multiple police forces and decorated detectives, no arrest was made, nor was any suspect named. Nearly three decades later, McNamara spent several years interviewing victims and witnesses, reviewing police reports, cultivating like-minded collaborators, and developing the hard-won trust of investigators, who would share privileged information with her. She firmly believed that the Golden State Killer’s identity would be revealed and that advancements in technology meant it would be only a matter of time.

It appears that supposition was correct. And while McNamara didn’t live to see the Golden State Killer unmasked, she brought him viscerally to life through her chilling rendering in this book—his taunting voice, his use of masks and blinding flashlights, his tendency to commit petty theft, the athleticism that allowed him to elude capture, the clinical stalking of his prey. Indeed, the book’s powerful epilogue (“Letter to an Old Man”) is a testament to McNamara’s absolute faith in his impending capture. Excerpts from the Los Angeles magazine feature and chapters pieced together from McNamara’s notes bring a relative cohesion to the narrative. A bit of disjointedness is inevitable given the circumstances of the book’s completion but, curiously, this has the effect of further illuminating McNamara’s storytelling prowess rather than detracting from it.

I’ll Be Gone in the Dark is destined to become a true-crime classic, and not simply because of the extraordinary nature of the case. It’s the doggedness of McNamara’s reporting and the resiliency of her conviction that justice would eventually prevail that really shine through here.

 

—John B. Valeri

 

JACKRABBIT SMILE

By Joe R. Lansdale. Read by Christopher Ryan Grant

New York: Hachette Audio, 2018. $25.95. 6 hours/download

Ashland: Blackstone Audio, 2018. $29.00. 5 CDs

A new Hap and Leonard book by Joe R. Lansdale is always a cause for celebration, and his latest, Jackrabbit Smile, lives up to expectations, even though the series has been running for a long, long time. This latest offering is book 13 in the series. Those familiar with Hap and Leonard will know what to expect; those coming to them for the first time are in for a treat. The book is full of the usual wisecracking wit, narrative-integrated humor (no bolted-on gags here), dark themes, and, on occasion, eye-watering violence.

Longtime partners Hap and Brett have just gotten married when the celebrations are interrupted by the arrival of a couple of far-right white supremacists—a mother and son—who seek the help of Brett’s detective agency. They are looking for their close relative, Jackie Mulhaney, known as Jackrabbit, who vanished months earlier.

Despite their reservations about the pair, Hap and Leonard, who work as PIs for Brett’s agency, take on the case. Hap, always the softer touch (relatively speaking), feels sorry for the Mulhaneys. The investigation takes them to Marvel Creek, the small town where Hap grew up and which is now firmly in the hands of white-supremacy segregationists. Hap and Leonard are not welcome. And after being threatened, jailed, and run out of town, they realize the only way they can face down their tormentors is by giving them a dose of their own medicine—and worse.

This raises the question of where Lansdale might be taking the books. Hap is always the more liberal-minded of the pair. Leonard, a gay black man, learned to deal with prejudice early. He is always the more aggressive one and more likely to resort to violence when dealing with problems. There is a developing darkness in Leonard that could take the series in a new direction.

The novel is short, but the plot is complex. Nothing is as it seems, and what looks like a fairly simple case of a missing person quickly becomes anything but. Details have been hidden, people are dying, and the corrupt “Professor,” who is on his way to owning the town, doesn’t want Hap and Leonard to succeed with their quest, and takes firm action to ensure that they don’t.

In the course of the narrative, Lansdale explores issues that are front and center in the United States today: racism, the exclusion of minorities, the extremes of the religious right, abuse of power, and the effects of social exclusion and poverty. However, there is nothing didactic here—it’s all part of the world that Hap and Leonard inhabit.

The audiobook, read by Christopher Ryan Grant, recreates the world of the novel to great effect. A first-person narrative allows the actor reading the text to adopt a persona that can draw the listeners in—or exclude them completely. Grant gives Hap a voice that fits the fictional world Lansdale has created—both laid-back and fastidious. He imbues Hap not only with the dark humor that is a trademark of the books but also with a disgust for the things he experiences—the white supremacists, the corruption that is bringing his old hometown to its knees, the force for evil that is religious extremism.

If you are fans of Hap and Leonard, this is a must-read. If you haven’t come across them before, then you could do worse than start here.

Highly recommended.

—Danuta Reah

 

MURDER, SHE WROTE: A DATE WITH MURDER

By Jessica Fletcher, Donald Bain & Jon Land

New York: Berkley, 2018. $24.00

With the recent death of legendary scribe Donald Bain—who was predeceased by his wife and longtime collaborator, Renée Paley-Bain, in 2016—the future of the Murder, She Wrote books seemed up in the air.

After all, Bain had coauthored the entirety of the series (forty-six titles), from the publication of Gin and Daggers in 1989 to 2016’s Hook, Line, and Murder. Fortunately, veteran thriller writer Jon Land has stepped in, donning the cozy cap to ensure that this beloved series continues in its grand tradition.

As the newest installment opens, Jessica—a crime-fiction novelist with an uncanny knack for stumbling upon real-life conundrums—is enjoying a Labor Day party at the Cabot Cove home of friends Barbara (“Babs”) and Hal Wirth. The festivities come to an unceremonious end when Jessica discovers Hal’s body sprawled out on the kitchen floor. Dr. Seth Hazlitt, also on scene for the occasion, suspects that a heart attack felled Hal, who is pronounced dead on arrival at the hospital. Despite the seemingly straightforward cause of death, Jessica can’t help but suspect there may be more to the story—a theory that gains traction when she learns her wealthy friend had become inexplicably insolvent.

A widow herself, Jessica vows to be there for Babs and her daughter, Alyssa, during their time of mourning. While helping Babs straighten out Hal’s office, she discovers a partially written memoir among his papers. In it, Hal admits to a single marital transgression: he’d gone on a date set up through an online service called LOVEISYOURS. When Jessica and Sheriff Mort Metzger fail to make headway with the website’s president, Jessica calls on Alyssa’s boyfriend, Chad, to do some cyber-sleuthing. It’s a risky proposition, but she feels justified, given the apparent link between Hal’s date, his demise, and his missing millions.

Jessica’s “unofficial” investigation reveals that Hal was not the first person to be bilked out of money after joining such a site; in fact, a string of deaths under similar circumstances indicates a pattern of perfectly executed murders disguised as natural causes. But when Jessica’s inquiries begin to attract attention, she herself becomes the target of a ruthless killer—and multiple attempts on her life prove that somebody is serious about silencing her for good. If she’s going to unmask Hal’s assassin, she’ll have to set the perfect trap.

Though Land writes in the spirit of the earlier Murder, She Wrote novels, he also draws on his own repertoire to embellish the narrative. This is most apparent in both the technological aspects of the plot and a few scenes (such as a cat-and-mouse chase in the local library) that seem more thriller in tone than cozy. But the close-knit cast of characters (and their animated banter), the charming backdrop of Cabot Cove (its disproportionate body count notwithstanding), and the publishing-industry intel, along with Jessica’s overriding passion for truth and justice, all conspire to create an appealing mash-up of the fresh with the familiar.

A Date with Murder—which Land graciously dedicates to Bain—“A great writer and an even better man”—is a respectful nod to the venerable series and its loyal readership that indicates a future bright with promise. Manuscript for Murder will follow in November.

—John B. Valeri

 

A NOISE DOWNSTAIRS

By Linwood Barclay

New York: William Morrow, 2018. $26.99

Linwood Barclay’s latest novel, A Noise Downstairs, further cements his position as a master of the small-town thriller, which he’s held since 2007’s No Time for Goodbye. Not only is the narrative taut throughout, but the brilliant use of a likable but unreliable narrator ratchets the tension through the roof.

Paul Davis, a professor at a coastal Connecticut college, is struggling to move past an experience in which he was nearly murdered by his mentor and colleague eight months earlier. The head trauma he endured from that life-altering event will have long-term neurological and psychological effects. In an attempt to find some closure, Paul decides to write about his would-be killer. Strangely, while researching his former friend, he begins to experience hallucinations, forgetfulness, and all sorts of issues that make him and the reader wonder what is really going on. Adding even more layers of mystery to the tale is an antique typewriter with a mysterious past that seems to be typing messages from the dead. Despite his best efforts, Paul quickly realizes that the demons from his past will not be easily exorcised, and the typewriter becomes a totem for his seeming descent into madness.

While Paul is himself an excellent protagonist, the varied cast of supporting characters further enhances the action. His wife, Charlotte, is trying to support and reconnect with Paul after having drifted away prior to the attack. Paul’s therapist, Dr. Anna White, wrestles with professional dilemmas as one patient may have become a danger to her other patients, all the while struggling to help her father who suffers from dementia. Paul runs afoul of a particularly chilling character: Gavin Hitchens, a psychopathic prankster who may or may not be behind some of the mysterious goings-on that plague the protagonist. Paul’s ex-wife, his would-be killer’s son, and a number of other characters also might have a hand in the typewriter’s nocturnal activities.

Barclay’s writing is tight and skillful, and the dialogue is sharp and believable. He manages to turn mundane, everyday settings into places of immense tension. The twists in the narrative are surprising and satisfying. Readers hoping to ferret out the secrets ahead of time will likely be disappointed, as Barclay hides the truth in a wilderness of mirrors until the final double-punch reveal, made all the more dizzying by the increasingly confused mind of the chief narrator. A major twist toward the end shifts the narrative in a surprising way for the final hundred pages, and just when you think you know how the final confrontation will go down, Barclay throws in a wholly unexpected series of revelations that make for a spectacular and unforgettable finale.

With compelling characters, taut writing, and a fast-driving and multilayered mystery, Barclay’s latest is an incredible read. If you like Harlan Coben, Lisa Gardner, Gillian Flynn, or just tightly plotted thrillers in general, put A Noise Downstairs at the top of your summer reading list.

—Jeremy Burns

 

WICKED RIVER

By Jenny Milchman

Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks Landmark, 2018. $19.00

In just about every thriller, the question of survival comes to the fore. However, Jenny Milchman shakes things up with Wicked River, in which her protagonist, Natalie Larson, must use her survival skills not only to stay alive out in the wild but also to escape from a formidable adversary who could teach a master class about the subject.

Near the beginning of the novel, Natalie marries Doug Larson, but there is little that is lighthearted about the big day, with tensions and unresolved questions undermining any sense of joy. Somewhat reluctantly, Natalie has agreed to an outdoor-adventure honeymoon of canoeing and camping in the Adirondack Mountains. It’s an extraordinary decision for a young woman who doesn’t know the meaning of the word portage.

It turns out there is much more to Doug’s canoe trip than Natalie realized. She faces increasingly terrifying developments on two fronts: one involving the handsome husband she married against the advice of her closest friends and the other involving Kurt, who comes to the rescue when the couple’s canoe adventure goes very wrong.

Milchman makes skillful use of third-person point of view, rotating among Natalie; her teenage niece Mia, who takes action when the couple goes missing; and, most effectively, the profoundly disturbed yet highly intelligent Kurt. The suspense ratchets up steadily, as all parties converge on a vast, underpopulated swath of the Adirondacks called the Turtle Ridge Wilderness Area, which Milchman imbues with sinister qualities. In this author’s hands, a lovely babbling brook can become a deliverer of death, as those who turn murderous in the forest do so by making use of “peaceful” surroundings, an interesting flip on Thoreau’s principles.

Another strong point of the book is the character development of Natalie, a protagonist worth rooting for. In some movies and books, women turn from helpless to heroic in an unconvincing flash. Natalie’s unfolding capabilities are convincing and fully earned, making this a highly satisfying summer read.

—Nancy Bilyeau

 

WIDOWS

By Lynda La Plante

New York: Zaffre, 2018. $16.00

Widows, Lynda La Plante’s breezy, cinematic 1983 debut novel which also served as the basis for a successful U.K. TV series, has now been published as a paperback in the US. The novel has also been adapted into a feature film, with an updated setting, directed by Steve McQueen (12 Years a Slave, 2013).

La Plante is best known for Prime Suspect, the Emmy-award-winning series that starred Helen Mirren as Detective Chief Inspector Jane Tennison. In Widows, La Plante displays the roots of her police procedurals with an intricately calibrated plot carried forward by a group of full-bodied characters. The crime caper is a daring, elaborate heist story that explores friendships, betrayals, and revenge.

Widows hits the ground running with a firestorm of a prologue set in 1984 London. A gang of four attempts an armed robbery of a security van. When the job is botched, three men go up in flames, leaving the three widows of the title: Dolly Rawlins, Shirley Miller, and Linda Pirelli.

 

They seem an unlikely trio. Forty-six-year-old Dolly is a convent volunteer; mid-twenty-ish Shirley imagines herself as an aspiring model; and twenty-six-year-old Linda works the change booth at a shooting arcade. Together in grief, they resolve to deal with the aftermath, repercussions, and consequences of the botched job. Their solution is to recreate the job—and get it right this time—even if it means adding a fourth member to the crew, stripper-prostitute Bella O’Reilly.

 

It’s Dolly’s husband, Harry, who was the leader of the initial group. He had a long-standing rap sheet with London law—particularly with Detective Inspector George Resnick, who had pursued a personal vendetta against Harry since the latter incriminated him in what looked like a bribery and payoff scheme. Resnick is also dealing with his own enemies within the police force—Detective Sergeant Fuller and Detective Constable Andrews—each out to prevent Resnick from getting any promotions.

A third element of the novel is a rival gang headed by the Fisher brothers, Arnie and Tony.

The widows, the cops, and the brothers all want one thing: Harry’s ledgers. The widows want them so they can redo the job. The cops want them so they can charge Harry with a slew of past crimes. And the brothers want them in order to take over Harry’s turf.

 

The information in the ledgers is valuable because it contains all the relevant details about the armored-car robbery, all the particulars of Harry’s previous jobs, and a list of future contacts the rivals can utilize.

Dolly has a step up on all the others. Harry left her instructions about where to find the ledgers. With them, she will have the names of informants, gun merchants, and banks. There are also entries on money in and cash paid out, with everything logged and dated. Resnick and the Fishers are aware that Dolly knows the location of the ledgers, but they don’t know how much else she knows or how she will use that information to her advantage.

 

The women develop a deeply satisfying friendship as they set up, rehearse, and move toward completing their goal. The cops proceed in an orderly fashion to uncover interweaving relationships among all the participants involved. And the rival gang watches bodies add up as they attempt to sort out the nefarious associations along the way.

 

An astute, experienced reader of police procedurals may be suspicious from the start of certain specific clues that are dropped. Nevertheless, La Plante keeps most readers guessing about whether the widows might make it to Rio—and if they do, what might happen next.

 

Widows generates enough interest and enthusiasm in the chase to encourage seeking out other titles in the Dolly Rawlins series, such as Widows: No. 2 (1985) and She’s Out (1995).

 

—Robert Allen Papinchak

 

THE ANOMALY

By Michael Rutger

New York: Grand Central Publishing, 2018. $26.00

The standalone adventures of early James Rollins meet The X-Files in this blockbuster thriller starring an Indiana Jones-style adventurer for the YouTube era.

While The Anomaly is the first book written by “Michael Rutger,” it isn’t actually a debut novel. In fact, Rutger is the latest of several pen names used by Michael Marshall Smith, whose first book was published in 1994. There’s even a clever reference near the end of this book to The Straw Men, his first novel published under the name “Michael Marshall,” back in 2002. But although his track record is already long and established, his debut as Rutger represents a bold new direction, one that is sure to win him legions of fans.

Amateur adventurer Nolan Moore is the star of a new webcast, The Anomaly Files, a truth-seeking show somewhere between Digging for the Truth and Ancient Aliens. After a failed career as a Hollywood screenwriter and a failed marriage, Nolan has fashioned himself as a hunter of the secret truths the establishment doesn’t want people to know. The show has enjoyed some decent success for a webcast, but a new sponsor has given The Anomaly Files a slot on cable TV, and the stakes for this first episode are huge.

Nolan and his production team set out for the Grand Canyon in pursuit of a mysterious cave reportedly discovered on a 1909 expedition sponsored and then disavowed by the Smithsonian. The alleged discoverer of the cave, G. E. Kincaid, claimed it was filled with Egyptian artifacts, hieroglyphics, and a host of other evidence that pointed to a theory that settlers from “the Orient” had arrived in the region thousands of years before. In the century since, a single newspaper has reported on Kincaid’s discovery, and no trace of the cave has been found. Nolan, by integrating the theories of previous searchers and allowing for the likelihood that Kincaid had changed some details to throw others off the scent, manages to find the cave. But with each strange discovery as the team moves deeper into Kincaid’s cavern, it becomes clear that the explorer had good reason to cover his trail. The cave contains a horrifying secret beyond imagination, one that could spell doom for them all.

As the first-person narrator of the tale, Nolan shows not only humorous self-deprecation but also real emotional insights that ring true and range from guilt to hope. And those who join him on his adventure—the young, self-assured production assistant and “mom” of the group, Molly; the “annoyingly unannoying” cameraman, Pierre; the skeptical journalist tagalong, Gemma; the perky millennial, Feather; and the boat captain with a hero complex, Dylan—are far deeper than they appear. But even among that high-caliber troupe, the team’s foul-mouthed, hard-drinking, wisecracking, decidedly British producer Ken steals the show. In particular, his quasi-avuncular relationship with Nolan, complete with biting faux-insults on both sides, is simultaneously hilarious and heartwarming. While Nolan is an excellent protagonist, his interactions with his team members are what really bring him to life.

The narrative starts with a bit of a slow burn for the first hundred or so pages, but the momentum never drags. The journey to the cavern helps establish the characters’ dynamic personalities and relationships. Once the book gets going, it really gets going, and the quest for Kincaid’s cavern becomes so much more by the book’s end. Michael Rutger incorporates a host of myths, legends, and religious beliefs along with cryptozoology, science, pseudoscience, history, and conspiracy theory into a narrative that is far bigger and bolder than anyone could have anticipated. The mounting reveals that lead to the final shocking revelation upend the characters’ established beliefs in fascinating and unexpected ways. And the hits just keep coming, not only in the dangers they encounter but also in the ways those dangers fit in with the brilliant conceit Rutger has created.

Rutger leaves enough narrative threads dangling that a sequel would be natural and welcome, but as monumental as The Anomaly’s final reveals are, they could limit the arenas into which a sequel could go. However, there are plenty of mysterious phenomena and ancient mysteries out there ripe for the picking, and Rutger has already proved adept at finding relatively obscure pieces of history, science, mythology, and strange phenomena, and stitching them together in magnificent fashion.

For fans of Indiana Jones, James Rollins, Douglas Preston, Lincoln Child, Jeremy Robinson, Michael Crichton, Matthew Reilly, The X-Files, most of the History Channel’s offerings, conspiracy theories, Fortean phenomena, cryptozoology, mythology, or . . . You know what? Just go buy this book. It’s really that good, even if it saves its most dazzling reveals for last. With a humorous and insightful voice, an organic cast of sympathetic characters, and a central mystery that is both terrifying and astoundingly deep, The Anomaly is one of the best “debut” novels in years. Like Kincaid’s cavern itself, The Anomaly is far deeper and more mind-blowing than it first seems, and it deserves your attention. The next adventure of Nolan Moore can’t come soon enough.

 

—Jeremy Burns

 

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