Review: Trigger City, Sean Chercover

William Morrow, 2008, 978-0-06-112869-1, 295 p.

I knew within the first dozen pages of Big City, Bad Blood that I liked the character of private detective Ray Dudgeon. That liking followed me to the end of the book and through short stories in Chicago Blues and Killer Year. I waited for the publication of Trigger City with high anticipation and wasn't disappointed.

Trigger City opens some ten months after the events in Big City, Bad Blood. Ray is still suffering physical and emotional injuries. He needs an operation on his shoulder and he misses Jill, the girlfriend and love of his life who couldn't accept his occupation.

He is hired by Isaac Richmond to find out why his daughter Joan died at the hands of an employee Steven Zhang. Zhang apparently manifested signs of schizophrenia prior to killing Joan and then himself, leaving a note claiming Joan was a threat to American democracy. Richmond doesn't doubt the police report but wants to know what caused Zhang to do what he did.

Ray discovers that Joan, an accountant, previously worked for Hawk River, a military contractor, as did Steven Zhang. Very soon the case goes from a fairly straight forward investigation that might take a couple of days to something a lot more complicated.

Chercover was himself a private investigator and I believe that must have influenced the way he wrote the character Ray Dudgeon. Ray makes mistakes but he isn't stupid. His actions are those you would expect a reasonable person to do within the context of the exaggerated action of a detective story. There is none of the "I know something but I won't tell anyone until I'm sure" or "I'll put this crucial piece of evidence in my desk and leave for the night" or "I should call someone before going into this building but I won't and gosh aren't I surprised that someone was waiting for me" silliness that has annoyed me in other books. Instead we have a solid investigation that moves the story along with any "what did he do that" moments.

Looking at the cover of Trigger City your impression is that it refers to gun play within the story. Very early in the book Chercover establishes that, for Ray, "Chicago was full of triggers. Chicago was Trigger City." These are triggers to memories that wake Ray up in a cold sweat and help explain his mental state and developing awareness of why he does what he does. This is handled very well, helps the reader appreciate Dudgeon as a person and why he couldn't continue his previous career as an investigative reporter.

The story is told in first person by Ray. I know the arguments against first person narrative in favor of the omniscient observer but it is one I enjoy. there is something about being in the head of the narrator and knowing only what he or she knows that appeals to me. Chercover also comes up with those good punchy sentences that you like in a hard-boiled detective such as

The wall was blue, a dark enough shade to keep the blood stains from showing through.

and

...left me sitting there with half a pint of stout and a knot in my gut.

There are other smaller details that make this book work for me, like music. Music is important to Ray and the references to the music he likes, listens to in the story, help round him out as a person.

Trigger City is a really good read, a solid, interesting story with a character you care about.

I recommend it highly but you need to read Big City, Bad Blood first.

More Rules for Writing Detective Fiction

Kerrie at Mysteries in Paradise recently posted S. S. Van Dines Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories.

The post reminded me that I have been collecting rules and essays on writing detective/mystery/crime fiction for a while and thought I would contribute these links:

Monsignor Ronald A. Knox (1888-1957) was a British clergyman who also wrote detective fiction. He included Father Knox's Decalogue: the Ten Rules (of Golden Age) Detective Fiction in Best Detective Stories of 1928-29. The author of the web site thinks he was mostly joking and they are amusing now.

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story, but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.

2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.

3. Not more than one secret room or passage is allowable.

4. No hitherto undiscovered poisons may be used, nor any appliance which will need a long scientific explanation at the end.

5. No Chinaman must figure in the story.

6. No accident must ever help the detective, nor must he ever have an unaccountable intuition which proves to be right.

7. The detective must not himself commit the crime.

8. The detective must not light on any clues which are not instantly produced for the inspection of the reader.

9. The stupid friend of the detective, the Watson, must not conceal any thoughts which pass through his mind; his intelligence must be slightly, but very slightly, below that of the average reader.

10. Twin brothers, and doubles generally, must not appear unless we have been duly prepared for them.


A serious list of rules is Raymond Chandler's Ten Commandments for the Detective Novel. I think they hold up well. The rules of Van Dine and Chandler overlap in several places.

1. It must be credibly motivated, both as to the original situation and the dénouement.

2. It must be technically sound as to the methods of murder and detection.

3. It must be realistic in character, setting and atmosphere. It must be about real people in a real world.

4. It must have a sound story value apart from the mystery element: i.e., the investigation itself must be an adventure worth reading.

5. It must have enough essential simplicity to be explained easily when the time comes.

6. It must baffle a reasonably intelligent reader.

7. The solution must seem inevitable once revealed.

8. It must not try to do everything at once. If it is a puzzle story operating in a rather cool, reasonable atmosphere, it cannot also be a violent adventure or a passionate romance.

9. It must punish the criminal in one way or another, not necessarily by operation of the law....If the detective fails to resolve the consequences of the crime, the story is an unresolved chord and leaves irritation behind it.

10.It must be honest with the reader.

Chandler also wrote The Simple Art of Murder, a still interesting essay on writing detective fiction. In it Chandler refers to A. A. Milne's one mystery, The Red House Mystery which I discussed on my old blog. I provide a link to Milne's introduction where he discusses his criteria for mysteries.

I enjoy investigating the antecedents to our modern crime stories.

Seven Random Things, a meme

Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise was tagged to post seven random things about herself and invites others to do so as well.

1. I lived in Pretoria, South Africa for four years (1952 - 1956) and came back with an accent my Virginia grandmother had a difficult time following. This is me as a schoolboy.

2. I was in the U.S. Army for 4.5 years and and spent ten months in Vietnam. I was a flight operation clerk and made coffee and read a lot.

3. I once had Joe DiMaggio's autograph but I only got it because everyone around me was excited at seeing him. I didn't have a clue who he was.

4. I've always like books. I mean really always. My mother says that I would grab for Golden books in the grocery store as soon as I was able to reach the shelf where other children went for the candy.

5. I hate the texture of large chunks of cooked tomatoes.

6. I think that Guinness is good food.

7. I like ABBA.

Kerrie's suggestion is to post your own Seven random things, link to her post (Mysteries in Paradise/Seven Random Things, a meme), then go to her blog and add a comment about your post.

Rusty Nail/J.A. Konrath

This is the third in the Jacqueline (Jack) Daniels crime series. All of the titles are names of drinks which figure into the story but not always as the drink.

This is the last book in the series that I will read for reasons described below.

As the book opens, Jack and her partner Herb are exchanging their customary gross-out humor when she receives an envelope containing a videocassette. When they play it they get a shock from the past. A murder that looks exactly like it was carried out by the serial killer Gingerbread Man (see Whiskey Sour) plays on the screen. But the Gingerbread Man is dead.

As they begin to assemble clues, it becomes clear that killer has a knowledge of the Gingerbread Man that wouldn't be available to a copy-cat. Jack has to look at the origins of the Gingerbread Man and what she finds horrible beyond belief.

As with the previous books, the story alternates between the first person narrative by Jack and third person present tense descriptions mostly from the view of the killer. The killer seems to be several steps ahead of the police and even playing with them.

Jack's personal life continues to be a mess. Her mother is still in a coma. Latham and Jack have split up. Mr. Friskers the cat is still psychotic.

Why am I giving up after the third in a series? I'm having a more difficult time articulating my reasons in print than I thought I would if you consider that I wouldn't have a hard time saying nice things -- Konrath writes well, the stories are imaginative, the action is fast paced, and provide good escapism.

I admit that I may be applying unreasonable standards to what is entertainment. I often overlook instances of the examples I give below in other books but when they accumulate they become a barrier to my enjoyment.

It comes down to my expectations for a type of book. The Jack Daniels series are police procedural thrillers and I apply a "reasonable person standard." It X situation, how would a big city detective with 20 years experience act. There are far too many "you got to be kidding, why would you do Y" moments. Several time I thought that, had I been Jack's boss, I would have fired her or busted her back to uniform.

Rusty Nail annoyed me from the start with Jack's partner, Herb, dreading his colonoscopy. He tells Jack that she should be happy she's not a man and doesn't have to deal with this stuff. Jack agrees. Umm, a colonoscopy is not a procedure limited to men and isn't related to the prostate which, I guess, is what they are supposed to be thinking. It is reasonable to assume that Jack and Herb would know that. Yea, it sounds picky, but remember, these are my expectations. Herb should have said something along the lines "Laugh now, but you'll get yours in the end" which would have been worth a chuckle.

I'm not shy about violence in books. Adrian McKinty's dead series is a favorite of mine. And very violent. And includes scenes of torture. With the Jack Daniels series, each book seems to be trying to outdo the previous ones in describing the depravity and cackling insanity of the killers. It's a bit much after a while.

So far, in each book, the killer has a personal interest and is specifically targeting Jack. It is not a problem for the detective investigating the case to be a target. But every time? Give someone else a chance.

I also realized that I don't like Jack. I don't mind sarcasm, enjoy it even. But Jack's vitriolic, condescending, sarcasm toward the two FBI agents is tiresome. I want to slap her upside the head and tell her to shut up and listen for a change. The only characters I do like are Mr. Friskers the the psycho cat and Phen (Pheneas), the ex-con, Jack's pool partner, and occasional informant.

There are other things such telegraphing events - if Jack does "this" you know that "that" is going to happen. Some readers like this, it gives then a delicious sense of anticipation. I don't mind it in small doses but too much and it become predictable.

Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption

Capital Crime Press, 2008, 978-0-9799960-2-3, 287 p.

Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption takes place in May, 1957, about eight months after the events in Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues. The previous Baby Shark novels are reviewed earlier.

Kristin Van Dijk (aka Baby Shark) and her partner, Otis Millett, are hired by Texas businessman Travis Horner to act as bagmen, exchanging a bag of money for his girlfriend Savannah who hasn't exactly been kidnapped but is held against her will in Oklahoma.

What should have been a straightforward exchange takes an unexpected turn when Kristin arrives late at the exchange point to find Otis being beaten by three men. Kristin rescues Otis in her usual direct fashion only to have someone else appear and take Savannah away from them.

On the way back to Texas, Kirsten sees the car Savannah and the stranger took off in, driven off the road and two other men trying to force Savannah into their car. The stranger has been shot to death. Violence ensues and Savannah is rescued again. Otis and Kristin learn that the man who took Savannah the first time is actually a relative, Lester.

Otis and Kristin still have no idea what is going on but feel that Horner must have been behind it. Instead of returning Savannah to Horner, they take her to her family headed by Oklahoma bootlegger Bull Smike. Alliances are formed and Otis and Kristen work at figuring out what is really at stake.

The story is told in first person by Kristin. She's young, in her twenties, living in Texas in the 1950s where she runs counter to the usual roles expected for women. A female private detective is not what people expect when they come to the Millet Agency. Kristin is from the same mold as Mike Hammer - she has a cold calculating courage, the ability to act quickly and violently and frequently fatally, and sees no problem delivering extra-legal justice. She isn't someone you want to cross. She is also extremely loyal to the few people she lets into her life.

The Baby Shark books fall into the hard-boiled genre of detective fiction. As such, you can expect tough characters, action, and violence. Within the framework of the hard-boiled genre, Fate has well developed, intriguing characters, good plots that pull the reader along, and excellent action. They are a great way to spend a couple of hours, lost in a story.

Fate is often asked why he set these book in the 1950s. He explains

My novel begins in the 1950s because I wanted my young female protagonist challenged by a world formed by late nineteenth and early twentieth century attitudes toward women that Rosie the Riveter had just knocked silly. Women of the Eisenhower era were much more restless than Ozzie & Harriet would have had people believe, and I wanted to tap into that with a strong, young female protagonist who could represent that unconventional spirit.

He succeeds in his portrayal of Kristin and Baby Shark, Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues, and Baby Shark's High Plains Redemption all get a hard-boiled thumbs up from me.

Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues

Capital Crime Press, 2007, 978-0-9776276-2-2, 269 pages.

The second book in a series is probably hard on an author. The first book establishes the characters and readers decide if they care enough to stick with the author. With subsequent books, the author has to develop the characters and find new plots without losing what attracted readers in the first place. I've stopped reading books that had interesting plots because I didn't care about the characters so it isn't a matter of character driven vs plot driven story, it take both. for me.

I loved Baby Shark. Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues sucked me in right away and the only reason I didn't finish it in one day is because I had to sleep.

Beaumont Blues takes place about two years after the events in Baby Shark. Kristin Van Dijk has become a licensed private investigator and Otis Millett's partner in the Millet Agency. Together they are a destructive and often lethal team. Though Kristin is not yet twenty-one, Otis doesn't treat her as anything less than a partner he trusts to watch his back. There is no "watch out for the girl" attitude on the part of Otis. He trusts Kristin to shoot when shooting is necessary.

This time they are trying to protect a Texas oil heiress and make sure she is available when her father's will is read. She has to be present or the bulk of the estate goes to a televangelist. What seems like a straight forward assignment gets complicated very quickly. Kristin and Otis are not sure who is doing what to whom all the way to the end of the book. I found the ending very satisfying. The very bad people are part of a near-by crime lord's crew and if you have read Baby Shark you can predict their fate.

Baby Shark gets a love interest in this story. Has she healed enough to be able to trust? Fate does a nice job showing that healing can take a long time.

If you like a strong female character - ready with a gun or knife - and plenty of hard-boiled action then you'll enjoy this book. If you are likely to be troubled by characters who don't see anything wrong with dispatching someone who needs to be dispatched without benefit of a trial then you might want to look for a cozy to read.

My only criticism is that Fate doesn't tell how the aftermath of the messy conclusion to Baby Shark was handled. Otis, Kristin, and Henry had a powerful lot of tracks to cover to keep from going to jail.

Baby Shark

Capital Crime Press, 2006, 978-0-9776276-9-1, 270 pages.

Baby Shark is a revenge and recovery story set in Texas in the 1950s and a terrific story in the hard-boiled school. I first read about it on The Gumshoe Review. When it didn't show up in local book stores I ordered it. I also ordered the sequel, Baby Shark's Beaumont Blues and glad I did since it saved me time getting it.

At seventeen, Kristin Van Dijk sees her father murdered in a Texas bar by a motor cycle gang and is then brutally beaten and raped. The owner of the bar, a Chinese-American named Henry Chin is shot and left for dead. He pulls Kristin from a fire set to cover-up the crime. Henry's son was also killed by the bikers. When Henry finds that someone with influence has managed to get the investigation closed, he and Kristen begin planning their private war against the bikers. Along the way they find help from: an ex-cop private eye named Otis who keeps his .45 handy and isn't adverse to taking preemptive action; a psychotic Korean War veteran and small arms expert; and a former military close-quarters combat instructor. You also get really nasty bad guys, a corrupt cop, and a waitress with a heart of gold.

The story and characters are well developed and the pacing pulls you along. I appreciated the care Fate took to set up the action. The narration is written in the first person from Kristin's point of view and has terrific hard-boiled dialog like

Bear took that stunned look of recognition directly to hell – along with two slugs in his heart.

If you like hard-boiled stories, you can't help but go "Yea!" when you read a line like that.

I recommend this book to anyone who doesn't mind a lethal teenager with a grudge and much (justifable) extra-legal bloodshed.

A Hell of a Woman: An Anthology of Female Noir

I was in a independent bookstore looking for Megan Abbott's novels but they were sold out. I did find this gem edited by Megan and am glad I picked it up.

Val McDermid wrote the foreword and provides an interesting perspective on the role of women in hardboiled stories

I blame Raymond Chandler. I blame him for writing too well.
Here's the thing with Chandler. He had a problem with women. Vamps, victims, and vixens are the only roles provided for us. And his perennial popularity has guaranteed that his twisted view of women would remain the template whenever the hard-boiled boys hatched a new tale of the mean streets. For years we've been stuck in this gruesome girlie grove because of one man's screwed-up sexuality.

Megan has collected 24 stories terrific stories. What you won't find among the female characters are private detectives and police officers.

The stories in A hell of a Woman invite us into the world, and minds, of both kinds of female characters who do frequent noir--the girl-Friday secretary the moll--but are seldom given center stage, and the kinds of women who more commonly occupy only the fringes of noir or do not appear at all.

The stories are grouped under five categories with attention grabbing labels:

Minxes, Shapeshifters and Hothouse Flowers
Housewives, Madonnas and Girls Next door
Gold-diggers, Hustlers and B Girls
Working girls, Tomboys and Girls Friday
Hellcats, Madwomen and Outlaws

Some of the authors I was familiar with: Zoe Sharp, Sandra Scoppettone, Ken Bruen, and Christa Faust. But one of the joys of an anthology like this is the discovery of new authors. There isn't a single author in this collection of whose works I wouldn't want to read more.

I don't want to highlight some authors because it means excluding others so I am going to mention the first and last stories. Annette Meyers leads off with It's Too Late, Baby. Susie Rae is a hustler, scanner, and thief looking for the ultimate meal ticket. From her high school summer job we follow her scheming and scamming to California. The final sentence should remind you of something that happened in 2002.

SJ Rozen's Undocumented has a very different character. It is a story of determination and sacrifice to preserve family. Wei An-Lin is an undocumented Chinese woman smuggled into California by one of the Tongs, working off her passage in a sweatshop. By the end of the slow-paced, non-violent, story the reader has to look at Wei An-Lei as a hell of a woman. I get goose-bumps.

If McDermid's foreword and the stories themselves were not enough, Abbott added an appendix, Women in the Dark, where an array of authors, booksellers, critics, and film aficionados pay homage to favorite noir writers, characters and performers. These 36 short sections are a terrific resource about women in noir. If you like this theme, you will be able to add to your Netflix and reading list. In particular I want to find Dorothy B. Hughes' Ride the Pink Horse described by James Agnew as "one of the most hardboiled books ever--charbroiled really ..." and In a Lonely Place.

Busted Flush Press has another anthology that I have to add to my noir library -- Damn Near Dead: An Anthology of Geezer Noir.

Cypress Grove

Cypress Grove has a murder to be solved but the crime is almost incidental. It is a story about character, acceptance, reconciling with the past, and perhaps redemption.

Turner (no first name) was on his way to a scholarly life when the Vietnam War intervened. When he returned from war he joined the Memphis, Tennessee police department rather than restarting his education. He quickly rises to detective, enjoys the success of a high clearance rate, but never fits in, an outsider. During a domestic disturbance call he makes a split second reaction to an event and shoots and kills his partner.

He is sent to prison for three years for the killing. There he resumes his education, earns a master's degree. Just before his release, he kills another inmate in self-defense, serves more time, and earns a master's in psychology.

Out of prison he becomes a psychotherapist, mostly seeing the acutely troubled ones -- those at the edge of violence. One day Turner looks into a mirror and

I saw something I'd not seen before. It didn't last, but for the moment it was there, I recognized it for what it was. Grace, of a sort. Wherever it was I had been heading all these years, I'd arrived. I had simply to off-load cargo now.

He moves to a cabin on a lake with his books and begins a quiet, contemplative life.

One day Sheriff Bates shows up with a bottle of Wild Turkey. How Lonnie and Turner begin their relationship is a wonderful piece of writing that captures the essence of small town South:

Folks around here don't move fast. They grow up respecting other folks' homes, their land and privacy, whatever lines have been drawn, some of them invisible. Respecting the history of the place, too. They sidle up, as they say; ease into things. Maybe that's why I was there.

A body has been found, ritualistically posed. The sheriff admits that he is out of his depth with this kind of case and asks Turner to help. Turner joins the sheriff and his deputy Don Lee as a consultant and two things happen: they begin the investigation and Turner begins to integrate himself back into society.

There is much to like about this book. There is Sallis' writing. Nearly every page has a phrase, sentence, paragraph that is a gem of concise writing. Crime Scene NI says this of Ken Bruen as well which accounts for Sallis and Bruen being two of my favorite authors.

Then there is what the book doesn't contain. There isn't the testosterone laden conflict and threats between the law and the ex-con; the resentment of the deputy; the reluctance of Turner to get involved. Turner is open about his life and, in turn, the sheriff and deputy and townspeople see the kind of man he is and accept him.

The case itself is interesting and the search for background on the victim and motive for his murder well developed and intriguing but it is the development of the characters that makes this one of my favorite reads.

Highly recommended.

Bloody Mary, J.A. Konrath

This is the second in Konrath's Jack Daniels series. The first is Whiskey Sour, reviewed in an earlier post.

Once again Chicago is menaced by a serial killer and once again the killer has a personal interest in Jack (Jacqueline) Daniels. This case begins when an extra set of arms appear in the morgue. That in itself is unusual but these are also attached to a set of Jack's handcuffs.

The story told from the point of view of Jack and the killer. This approach is appealing because we get to see the actions of the police from the outside. As with Whiskey Sour, the killer feels superior to the police and unstoppable. Jack's investigation has a logical flow and you feel that the killer could have been unmasked following the clues uncovered.

Midway, the story makes a turn that the reader might not expect but allows for new characters and story elements to be introduced. To say more would be to reveal spoilers.

Bloody Mary adds more detail to Jack's personal life which is, for the most part, chaotic and a complete mess. Mr Friskers, the cat of a victim from Whiskey Sour, now lives with Jack. Despite the friendly sounding name, Mr. Friskers hasn't mellowed, still has the personality of a feral, and seems to really dislike men. I like the cat.

Jack's aging mother shows up to move in with Jack. She has Jack's ex-husband Allen in tow, both hoping Jack will reconcile with Allen. This is awkward since Jack is still dating Latham whom she met in Whiskey Sour.

Experienced mystery readers may find procedural details in the second half of the book annoying. Jack and the assistant district attorney would benefit from a visit by the Law and Order characters.

Konrath has produced another fast-paced, often gruesome, violent, hardboiled detective. He uses Jack's family and her partner Herb Benedict to provide some humor to the story.

I listened to this book rather than read it. It is from Audible and is superbly narrated by Dick Hill and Susie Breck.

Whisky Sour, J.A. Konrath

This review was originally published on Mack Pitches Up. I will be posting a review of the next in the series shortly.

I listened to rather than read this book. This audio version from Audible.com is an excellent production. Susie Breck and Dick Hill expertly provide the voices of multiple characters.

Whisky Sour is the first in JA Konrath's Jack Daniels series, now up to five and all using drinks as titles. Jacqueline (known to everyone as Jack) Daniels is a lieutenant in violent crimes in the Chicago Police Department. With her partner Herb Benedict, Jack is called to the scene of a homicide. The mutilated body of a woman was found in a trash can outside a convenience store. She had been tortured before dying. More bodies are found and the police find that they have a serial killer who calls himself The Gingerbread Man on their hands. The killer becomes fixated on Jack, leaving her letters and targeting her as one of his victims. Mixed in with the fast-paced search to catch a killer before another life is lost is Jack's personal life which is a shambles. Her live-in boyfriend left her for a personal trainer and Jack finds herself considering a dating service to achieve some semblance of a normal life.

The story moves along briskly with the appropriate sense of urgency. The search for the link between the victims is well done and interesting. Nothing suddenly appears to reveal all. The reader develops a feeling for Jack's character and the inclusion of her personal life makes her more human. The killer is seriously demented and creepy. Konrath has a flair for writing scenes of action, gore, and violence.

I started this book when it first came out. At the time I was so annoyed by what I considered inconsistencies in character and some other elements that I stopped reading after a couple of chapters. This time around the inconsistencies are less important and certainly not serious enough cast the book aside.

There is only one aspect of Whiskey Sour that still seriously annoys me, the treatment of the FBI. It is a common theme in crime fiction for local law enforcement to be hostile to FBI and call them the "feebs" or "feebies." That mostly isn't the case in real life I gather - I asked Lee Lofland, a retired detective who did work with the FBI on cases. What I didn't like in the story was making the FBI agents buffoons and using profiling and the VICAP system as a source of humor. The profiles go beyond unlikely, they are absurd. Still, this is a minor aspect of the story, used for comic relief, and I acknowledge this as a personal pet peeve that other readers might not share.

I did enjoy Whiskey Sour and recommend it to readers of police procedurals and serial killer stories. After listening to this book I downloaded the other four in the series from Audible.

Reading in Progress

I find that I've caught up on the books that I've finished. So, not having any other fully formed thoughts at this time, here are the books that I've started in the order they are stacked next to me:

• A Rage in Harlem - Chester Himes
• Bone Yard - Michelle Gagnon
• A Hell of a Woman - Megan Abbott (editor)
• The Slippery Art of Book Reviewing - Mayra Calvani & Anne K. Edwards
• Cypress Grove - James Sallis
• Living Agelessly - Linda Altoonian
• A Good Day to Die - Simon Kernick
• Bloody Mary - J.A. Konrath (audio)

Blonde faith - Walter Mosley

This is the first Easy Rawlins novel I've read and Mosley says it is the last he will write. While I sorry there will be no more, it will be interesting to start at the beginning and see how Easy got to this point in his life.

Easy is an African-American and Walter Mosley himself is bi-racial. His father was an African-American school librarian and his wife white and Jewish. He is identified as an African-American author, something that plays a significant part in the Easy Rawlins stories.

Blonde Faith is the 11th Easy Rawlins novel and I wonder why it took me so long to discover Mosley. I'm fortunate that it was selected for a book discussion which prompted me to buy it. This is easily one of the best reads I've experienced. I put Mosley alongside classic detective writers such as Raymond Chandler. Like Chandler, his writing, his descriptions, are first rate. Also like Chandler, his books are set in L.A. and like Philip Marlowe, Rawlins is basically a good guy in a corrupt society who sometimes has to compromise himself to do the right thing. His descriptions are really vivid and, as far as I can tell, pretty accurate of post-war Los Angeles.

There are spoilers ahead though nothing that would keep someone from enjoying the book (my opinion but your mileage might vary). It also a longish discussion.

The first Easy Rawlins novel is Devil in a Blue Dress. It is set in 1948 and Rawlins is 28 and a combat veternan of WWII. In Blonde Faith, it is 1967, 2 years after the Watts riots. Rawlins is now middle-aged, 47, with two adopted children, one a grown man married with a child, and an 11 year old girl, Feather.

His state of mind - lethargy, weariness - is set from the first page. In the previous book, Cinnamon Kiss, Rawlins kicked the love of his life, Bonnie, out of the house after she slept with another man. The fact that it was in the course of getting his daughter life-saving medical treatment at a Swiss clinic didn't matter.

Where I came from -- fifth Ward, Houston, Texas -- another man sleeping with your woman was more than reason enough for justifiable double homicide.

Rawlins wants her back, misses her terribly, knows he should call her but can't. He can't escape thinking about her.

The introductory case, rescuing a 16 yr. old from a pimp, is covered in only 6 pages but in those pages you get a feel for the the man Rawlins, his character, as well as the shadow (the absence of Bonnie) that has settled over his soul.

He see that he is capable of extreme violence including murder - I was ready to kill him [Porky the pimp]. I wanted to kill him.

Before Rawlins takes the girl, Chevette, back to her father, Rawlins inserts himself into their relationship. Easy works to make the father understand that he had to change his attitude about his daughter. This is an interesting window into Rawlins' character. It could be coming from him being a father himself or it could be who he is or both.

Without having read the previous books (any references to previous books come from Wikipedia and other reviews), my sense is that Rawlins doesn't like people being used and exploited, particularly children. While Easy counts a career criminal and stone cold killer (Raymond "Mouse" Alexander) as one of his closest friends, the pimp is outside acceptable society.

When he gets home the main story with several interwoven plot lines begins.

Easter Dawn, the adopted Vietnamese daughter of Christmas Black, an African-American ex-special forces major, is at his house, having been dropped off by Black with no explanation. Black makes his appearance in the previous book. Black was responsible for wiping out the village where Easter's parents were killed. I figure the name is symbolic.

Easter tells Rawlins that a blond lady was with her father (the title character, Faith Morel).

At this point we get several story lines going:

• Where is Black? What kind of danger could he be in that he needed to get his daughter to safety?
• Rawlins calls Mouse who is a friend of Christmas. Mouse's whereabouts are unknown and the police are after him for the murder of Pericles Tarr. Where is Mouse? Did he kill Tarr? If he didn't, where is Tarr? Etta, Mouse's girl friend, hires Easy to find Mouse before the police kill him.

Rawlins begins his parallel investigation - looking for Black and for Mouse/Pericles. Along the way he finds that several Army MPs (supposedly) are looking for Black and he finds the blond woman who was with Christmas, Faith Morel. Faith is an ex nun, now married to someone in the military, who convinced Black to adopt Easter. Black massacred 17 civilians, Easter's parents among them.

His approach to his investigations is very well done though I have a minor quibble. In 1967, before the Internet, could he really get the current status of military personnel from the public library even if it is a government depository. The information is needed to advance the story so I put that aside. Besides, I thought the librarian's willingness to take money under the table to do research an interesting twist. Is it corruption or just the way business in done in Easy's world?

So, Blonde Faith is a first rate detective story. Is that all?

Of the book, the leader of the discussion said

I thought the tone and topics were spot-on. I'm usually more interested in the thoughts and feelings of the PI (and I guess I like my PI's to be a little vulnerable and reticent about things) than in the "mystery" and its solution.

Bookslut wrote

Blonde Faith's plot is stellar as usual but it is the substance of of Mosley's language that never fails to move me. While Easy is rarely beaten, he understands to his very core the losses of life, big and small, and never fails to clench a fist or grit his teeth at the shocking injustices of life on the streets.

I gather from other reviews that this is a different Easy - he is experiencing middle-age regret, he is heavy hearted, more contemplative even for someone normally philosophical. Possibly suicidal. Resumes drinking. I also gather there there is often a high body count and lots of sex but not so much here.

What pulled me in was the way Mosley is able to weave social commentary and race into the story without being heavy handed about it. It is an emotional experience.

The way Mosley is able to have Rawlins express his feelings and the observations he makes along the way are exceptionally well done.

When confronting a redneck

Somewhere inside the machinery of my mind I found the will and the recklessness to kill the man who had commandeered my people's reformation of his language to threaten me.

When meeting a man who might have information

Thomas Hight was the quintessential white man ...I felt gratitude toward him while at the same time feeling that he was everything that stood in the way of my freedom, my manhood, and my people's ultimate deliverance. If these conflicting sentiments were meteorological, they would have conjured a tornado in that small apartment. Added to my already ambivalent feelings was the deep desire in me to respect and admire this man., not because of who Thomas Hight was or what he'd done but because he was the hero of all the movies, books, TV shows, newspapers, classes, and elections I had witnessed in my forty-seven hears. I had been conditioned to esteem this man and I hated that fact.... I owed him respect and admiration. It was a bitter debt.

Mosley includes two other interesting white characters. There is Peter Rhone who lost the love of his life in the Watts riots, gave up on the white race, and became the personal manservant to Mouse's girlfriend. Others are men Easy helped in the past - Hans Green, restaurant owner

I'm a white man, he said, an Aryan. I golf, belong to a men's club. My parents came to America in order to be free and to share in democracy, but in ten minutes with you and I've had arguments with four people about their bigotry. If that's what I face in ten minutes, what must life be like for you twenty-four hours a day.

Ten years ago I didn't have it so bad, I said. "Things have gotten worse?" In a way. Ten years ago you wouldn't have been able to seat me. Ten years ago I wouldn't have been in this neighborhood. Slavery and what came after are deep wounds, Hans. Any, you know, healing hurts like hell."

Are Rhone and Green extremes?

Rawlins doesn't have formal education but he is well read, intelligent, and deeply philosophical. It is interesting to see how Mosley adjusts Rawlins speech depending on who he is talking to. Talikng to Hans he is one person. Talking to other African -Americans on the street he is someone else. This isn't an unusual technique, I suppose, but I haven't read a book that used it in a while nor with the skill Mosley Mosley uses in his dialog.

Mosley is an important author in the field of crime fiction (and writing in general, I'd say) and I recommend Blonde Faith without reservations.

Sweetheart - Chelsea Cain

A friend sent me Chelsea Cain's Heartsick after she read it and it is one of the best crime thrillers I've read. I took myself and my discount coupon down to Borders as soon as Sweetheart was on the shelf.

This novel pick up after the events in Heartsick and keeps the same main cast of characters Detective Archie Sheridan, his partner Henry Sobol, reporter Susan Ward, and the dark force that is serial killer Gretchen Lowell, the Beauty Killer, still exerting her power over Archie from prison. Archie is now living with his ex-wife Debbie and children, trying to resume a normal family life.

Sweetheart opens with the discovery of the body of a young woman in Forest Park, the location where Gretchen's first victim was found but this time Gretchen is not involved. Later, Susan identifies the victim who was a source for the biggest story in Susan's career.

Gretchen manages what should have been impossible, her escape. This complicates the investigation since Archie and his family are potential victims at the hands of Gretchen.

Sweetheart is a fast paced crime thriller that is difficult to put down. It is also one where I was able to suspend belief because I found it so enjoyable. Gretchen could give Hannibal Lector serious competition and her powers of manipulation seem almost supernatural at times. The relationship between Archie and Gretchen gets a much deeper treatment this time and the reasons for Archie's almost psychic ties start to become better understood.

Cain handles the several story threads expertly - the murder investigation, Susan's story, Gretchen Lowell's omnipresent influence. The effects of Archie's obsession with Gretchen on those who love him are agonizing to read.

I think there is one more good story possible out of the Archie & Gretchen relationship and I'd rather not see the story end where it does. You can see several directions Cain could take the next installment but I know I'm not sure which I would prefer. All could work.

I wouldn't mind if Cain put off writing another in this series and worked on a different project instead, coming back later with a fresh take.

Die Twice - Simon Kernick

This is another book I owe to an independent bookstore. In this case, I credit Partners & Crime and the readers' advisory skills of the staff.

Kernick is an English crime writer.Die Twice is two of his novels in one volume -- The Business of Dying and The Murder Exchange.

The Business of Dying

Detective Sergeant Dennis Milne tells us that he isn't a bad man but is idealism has turned to cynicism over the years and he now has a certain moral flexibility. Some drugs might go missing from evidence, some information get exchanged. And then there are the executions. The mysterious Raymond hires him to take out people not likely to be punished through legal channels. His latest commission to kill three drug dealers goes very wrong when Milne is seen doing the deed and later he discovers that the three men were not drug dealers but two customs agents and an accountant.

Milne is faced with trying to keep himself and his partner clear, finding out why Raymond wanted them killed, and investigating the murder/mutilation of a young prostitute.

Part procedural, part thriller, The Business of Dying is a smartly paced, engrossing story with excellent dialog and various story lines crossing and finally coming together. Not to neglect Kernick's skill with describing action and violence. It is told in first person so the reader is privy to Milne's feelings, observations, and self-doubts. U.S. readers will also learn new slang words. For example, I was unaware that prostitutes are referred to as Toms.

The Murder Exchange

The Murder Exchange takes place two years after the events of The Business of Dying. The shadow of Dennis Milne still hangs over the North London station where he worked. DI John Gallan is transferred here with a shadow of his own having been involved in covering up an incident of prisoner abuse. He also finds himself reminded of a case that was never solved, the murder of a young boy.

The novel is told from two view points, John Gallan and Max Iversson, an ex-mercenary and now a security consultant. It starts nineteen days is the past working its way to the Now that starts the book. Iversson and his team are hired by nightclub owner Roy Fowler to handle an exchange that goes wrong and very bloody. At the same time, Gallan is investigating the strange (as in cause of) death of one of Fowler's doormen.

Murder Exchange has a very good story with side plots and character relationships to move it along. The first person, alternating viewpoint style is effective and lets bits of the story to be revealed form different angles. As with The Business of Dying you get great dialog, action, violence, and some memorably nasty characters.

Lee Child provides the Foreword and he sees the third Age of of English crime fiction drawing to a close and writers like Simon Kernick leading the way into the Fourth Age. The First Age was Arthur Conan doyle and Sherlock Holmes. The Second Age covered the span between Agatha Christie and Dorothy Sayers (sometimes referred to as the Golden Age). "The Third Age took over with Ruth Rendell and P. d. James."

Child see the Fourth Ages as reflecting the changes in England, and importantly London, itself. Ethnic diversity is now the norm and class less important. The time when "Lord Peter Whimsey could quell a street riot with his accent alone" is past. People of color and non-English can't be relegated to curiosities and villains - "The casts of characters are as instinctively multicultural as the London phone book" and "Fourth Age writers are past all that."

The Max

Ken Bruen and Jason Starr are remarkable authors individually and their combined talents are a real treat. The Max is the third book in the Max Fischer/Angela Petrakos series and it is as darkly humorous as Bust and Slide. Is noir humor a category of crime fiction? If not it should be. The Max picks up where Slide left off. Max Fischer has been convicted of drug trafficking and is on his way to Attica and Angela has fled to Greece only to find herself in jail on the island of Lesbos. Max's deluded perception of himself as a drug kingpin is even more inflated and, against all odds, he thrives in prison. wherever Max goes, chaos and violence follow.

This is a wonderfully dark, humorous, and often violent novel and characters without any redeeming value to society and I love them. I'm not sure how long Starr and Bruen can keep it up but I hope that there will be a next installment. The Max knows no limits.

Don't start this series with The Max. You need to see the growth (or is it fall) of Max Fischer from the beginning.

Whiskey Sour, JA Konrath

This was a listen rather than a read. It is an excellent production with Susie Breck and Dick Hill providing the voices.

Whisky Sour is the first in JA Konrath's Jack Daniels series, now up to five and all using drinks as titles. Jacqueline (known to everyone as Jack) Daniels is a lieutenant in violent crimes in the Chicago Police Department. With her partner Herb, Jack is called to the scene of a homicide. The mutilated body of a woman was found in a trash can outside a convenience store. She had been tortured before dying. More bodies are found and the police find that they have a serial killer who calls himself The Gingerbread Man on their hands. The killer becomes fixated on Jack, leaving her letters and targeting her as one of his victims. Mixed in with the fast-paced search to catch a killer before another life is lost is Jack's personal life which is a shambles. Her live-in boyfriend left her for a personal trainer and Jack finds herself considering a dating service to achieve some semblance of a normal life.

The story moves along briskly with the appropriate sense of urgency. The search for the link between the victims is well done and interesting. Nothing suddenly appears to reveal all. The reader develops a feeling for Jack's character and the inclusion of her personal life makes her more human. The killer is seriously demented and creepy. Konrath has a flair for writing scenes of action, gore, and violence.

I started this book when it first came out. At the time I was annoyed by what I considered inconsistencies in character and some other elements that I stopped reading after a couple of chapters. This time around the inconsistencies are less important and certainly not serious enough cast the book aside.

There is only one aspect of Whiskey Sour that still seriously annoys me, the treatment of the FBI. It is a common theme in crime fiction for local law enforcement to be hostile to FBI and call them the "feebs" or "feebies." That mostly isn't the case in real life I gather - I asked Lee Lofland, a retired detective who did work with the FBI on cases. What I didn't like in the story was making the FBI agents buffoons and using profiling and the VICAP system as a source of humor. The profiles go beyond unlikely, they are absurd. Still, this is a minor aspect of the story, used for comic relief, and I acknowledge this as a personal pet peeve that other readers might not share.

I did enjoy Whiskey Sour and recommend it to readers of police procedurals and serial killer stories. After listening to this book I downloaded the other four in the series from Audible.

Killer Year

It has only been in the past 10 months or so that I've started seeking out short stories. In the introduction to Killer Year, Lee Child likens the collection to sampler LPs that came out in the late sixties with twelve tracks by different bands perhaps two of which you might have heard of. I had a similar thought that a book of short stories is like buying a CD. You base it on one or two tracks you've heard and hope that the other are as good. I know the reason I bought Chicago Blues; it had a story by Sean Chercover, "The Non Compos Mentis Blues."

When I read about Killer Year I was primed to get it.

The concept behind the collection is unique. The International Thriller Writers (ITW) was formed in 2004 to

... celebrate the thriller, enhance the prestige and raise the profile of thrillers, create a community that together could do more, much more than any one author--or even any one publisher.

A group of debut authors collectively banded together to achieve "creativity in numbers" by supporting each other. The ITW provided mentors to the Class of 2007 and Killer Year is the result of this initiative.

The other reason I picked up my copy as soon as it hit the shelves are the names involved. The mentors include Ken Bruen, Lee Child, Tess Gerritsen, Jeffery Deaver, and Duane Swierczynski. Three of the mentors also contributed stories: Ken Bruen, Allison Brennan, and Duane Swiercznski.

I was also familiar with several of the Class of '07 before I read it. Sean Chercover is here with a story featuring Ray Dudgeon who first appeared in his novel Big City, Bad Blood. Brett Battles is included and now has two successful books in his Cleaner series. Marcus Sakey also has a story in Chicago Blues and his first novel, The Blade Itself is an award winner.

There are a wide variety of stories - hard-boiled detectives, a con man, a couple that are actually rather poignant, one I don't know how to classify, and one I won't because it would give away the story. I read Killer Year from cover to cover and enjoyed all of it. So buy this book or, at least, talk your library into buying it. If you like crime fiction you won't be disappointed.

Consider also the versatility of the short story. Each story is self-contained which means you can finish a story without feeling compelled read the next chapter to see what happens and then the next chapter .... So short stories actually facilitate good sleeping habits.

Many of the writers have accounts on CrimeSpace, "a place for readers and writers of crime fiction to meet." It gives you an opportunity to communicate with authors and participate in discussions. Check it out.

The Red House Mystery

Kerrie over at Mysteries in Paradise regularly posts reviews of Forgotten Books and I'm borrowing that idea today.

A. A. Milne is well known as the author of the Winnie the Pooh stories but modern readers might not know that he also wrote a mystery, The Red House Mystery published in 1922. I read it many years ago then found a copy in a used book store earlier this year and snapped it up.

This is an English country house with guests locked room cozy. It is miles away from my normal taste in crime stories but I enjoy reading it for its style. Milne writes with a flowing elegance, precise use of words, and understated humor that makes it a pleasure to read - for me, your mileage might vary. My edition has an introduction by Milne in which he describes how he came to write a mystery and what he likes in a mystery. You can read it here. It was well received and remained popular for many years. Raymond Chandler, in The Simple Art of Murder, described it as "... an agreeable book, light, amusing in the Punch style, written with a deceptive smoothness that is not as easy as it looks." Chandler then proceeds to dissect the book.

Antony Gillingham is our amateur detective. At 21, he inherited 400 pounds a year from his mother's estate and, not having to worry about money, decided to see the world. 400 pounds might not seem like much to live on but today it might be worth $20,000 -$30,000 in current U.S. dollars. (see How Much is That?")

Antony, however, had no intention of going further away than London. His idea of seeing the world was to see, not countries, but people; and to see them from as many angles as possible.

Now thirty, Antony is taking a holiday between jobs and discovers that he is staying near the Red House where his friend Bill Beverly is a guest. He decides to pay him a visit and arrives just in time to assist when the owner of Red House, Mark Ablett, is found shot dead in his study which is locked from the inside. Not long before his murder, Ablett's estranged brother Robert appeared at the house to see Mark. He has disappeared without a trace. Tony, with Bill as his Watson decide to investigate. Tony has been previously established as an observer of people and adjusts his theories as new facts appear which seems to confuse Bill and the police who would prefer Tony stick to something.

The Red House Mystery is a very pleasant, classic, cozy that actually holds up quite well. Read Chandler's essay for an excellent analysis of Milne's approach to detection.

Technical Note
I wanted to make Milne's introduction and Chandler's essay available but didn't a server on which to store the documents. Google Docs doesn't permit PDFs to be publicly available at this time. A colleague suggested I look at Dropbox. It is pretty nifty and only took a few minutes to set up. It looks like they will go to a pay model eventually but for now it is free.