It’s a pleasure to read a first novel and enjoy it. Doesn’t happen as often as one would wish. I can’t claim Thomas Benigno’s The Good Lawyer as any kind of personal discovery, though. It’s already an Amazon bestseller.

The book shows some of the distinctive marks of a first novel. Author Benigno is sometimes a tad awkward in terms of style, but I’ve seen far, far worse in recent years. Generally the editing’s pretty good. The plot doesn’t really offer a lot of surprises, and contains a fair number of common tropes. But then tropes exist for a reason. A novel entirely without tropes would lack credibility.

The hero and narrator is Nick Mannino, a young Legal Aid lawyer (a job the author knows from experience) doing defense work in the Bronx. For a change, he finds himself with two defendants he thinks might actually be innocent, one a teacher accused of molesting little boys, the other an accused serial rapist. But if he thinks that’s surprising, he has no idea what very nasty shocks are coming his way.

The best thing about this book is the characters. Nick is very likeable, and the friends, family, co-workers, and enemies who show up in the story are easy to believe in. His devout, loving mother, his wealthy girlfriend, and his sympathetic mobster uncle (a little too much Godfather here, but he’s still a good character) draw the reader in. And the villain is so vile and contemptible that we’re all on Nick’s side when, having earlier declared his opposition to capital punishment, he sets out to essentially perform an execution himself.

The politics of the story are hard to discern. Nick seems to be a decent liberal, but the story (it appears to me) has conservative implications, at least in terms of the justice system. I suppose that’s how bestselling authors square the circle and please a large audience. I need to try that.

Christianity comes out pretty well in this story, and I’m happy to report that the author avoided one trope in particular – the pedophile priest. (I don’t think he’s ever been inside a Baptist church, though, judging by his descriptions.)

All in all, pretty good. I enjoyed it. Recommended, with cautions for strong language and mature subject matter.

The late great Stuart M. Kaminsky’s series of comic mysteries starring small-time private eye Toby Peters have pleased me for some time. Toby makes a marginal living solving problems for a cast of clients who tend to be the greatest celebrities of the thirties and forties, yet he can’t afford a better office than a converted closet inside the offices of Dr. Sheldon Mink, the world’s most unsanitary dentist. Their building is owned by a former professional wrestler who writes poetry. Toby lives in a small apartment in a boarding house owned by the elderly Mrs. Plaut, who is convinced he’s either an exterminator or a book editor. His neighbor and best friend is Gunther Wherthman, a Swiss-born former munchkin who works as a translator. He has a brother who’s a Los Angeles police detective, and generally has to be physically restrained from punching him.

In other words, Toby Peter’s world is surreal. So who could be a more perfect client for him than the artist Salvadore Dali, who has had three paintings and three antique clocks stolen from him, and hires Toby to decipher the thieves’ cryptic clues in order to recover the property?

What’s hilarious about The Melting Clocks is that Dali fits into Toby’s world more easily than Toby himself does. Through the eyes of Dali, Toby discovers things about his own friends he never realized before.

Don’t look for fresh scandals in a Toby Peters novel. The celebrities in these stories are generally treated as decent folks with flaws like you and me. Pure entertainment here. Recommended.

I’ve read some Peter Lovesey novels in the past that I liked very much, particularly Rough Cider, which was troubling but unforgettable. He’s had a very successful career, and among his detective series is the Peter Diamond mysteries, about a police inspector in the city of Bath. So I tried Cop to Corpse.

Three policeman walking beats have been sniper victims in the Bath and Wells area in a short time. Someone is lying in wait for them with an assault rifle. At the third scene, a detective who discovered the shooter’s hiding place is knocked unconscious while waiting for forensic technicians.

Detective Peter Diamond has to pick his way carefully through puzzling and sometimes contradictory clues while trying to cooperate with competitive fellow cops and rival squads, as he tries to discover the murderer – or murderers – before another policeman is killed.

It is often complained of police procedurals that they fail to convey the full tedium of police work. I think the Peter Diamond books must be more realistic than most, because to be honest I found this one kind of dreary reading. The puzzle was interesting enough, and some opinions were expressed that didn’t entirely offend me. But Peter Diamond is not a charismatic guy, and I didn’t finish the book eager to read more about him.

I’m not saying it’s a bad book. As I mentioned, the low key might just be a touch of realism. You may like it better than I did. Cautions for the usual.