Category Archives: Reviews

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Missing Nurse,’ by Roger Silverwood

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The Inspector Morse template seems to be a big success in the world of publishing. You have your older Inspector, supervising one or more younger subordinates. He is grumpy and occasionally insulting, but his heart is of gold, and once his co-workers get used to him, they learn to appreciate that he’s partly joking, partly pushing them to improved effectiveness.

Roger Silverwood’s Yorkshire Mystery Series appears to be constructed on that template, judging by the first book in the series, The Missing Nurse.

The setting is the town of Bromersley. Inspector Michael Angel of the Bromersley police is tall and fat and irascible. He is married without children, and fond of cats. He hates hot weather. Which is unfortunate, because it’s August in the hottest year on record, and on top of that his wife has gone away to visit her sick mother. This leaves him to run the house alone, a challenge that seems beyond him (he delegates much of the work to a rookie subordinate). Also, his favorite sergeant is out of town taking a course.

When Miriam Thomas, a middle-aged nurse from Wales, comes to his office to report her sister missing, Angel is not greatly concerned. The woman had been visiting in town, and such disappearances usually turn out to be simple failures of communication. He tells Miriam not to worry.

But he realizes there’s reason to worry, when a body shows up in a park and matches the sister’s description. Even more sinister, Miriam herself has now disappeared. Angel puts his team on the hunt for her, for her own protection and to try to find an explanation for the murder. The explanation, as it turns out, will take them to an old unsolved case.

Meanwhile a couple thugs hold up a service station and pistol whip the young girl who was working there. Such behavior offends Angel deeply, and he puts his team on the hunt for them too.

I think we’re intended to find Inspector Michael Angel amusing, in the Morse manner. It didn’t really work that way for me. Being intentionally unpleasant to people under your authority is a game to be played with a light hand, in my opinion. Angel lays it on thick. He has his virtues – he cares deeply about crime victims – but he annoyed me.

Such things are subjective. The book might work better for you. The usual cautions apply.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Depth of Winter,’ by Craig Johnson

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Sometimes titles are misleading. When you pick up a book called Depth of Winter, starring Wyoming sheriff Walt Longmire, you assume you’ll get a story set in the Wyoming winter.

That’s not what this entry in Craig Johnson’s Longmire saga is, at all (the title’s from a quotation from Camus). It’s a quest story, in which old Walt heads down to Mexico (where it’s hot), all alone, to rescue his daughter Cady, who’s been kidnapped by a vengeful Mexican cartel boss. Instead of his usual cast of supporting characters, we have here a new group of people to help him out, and they’re pretty bizarre – a blind, legless humpback called “The Seer,” a young man with a pink Cadillac, a rancher, a mute Indian sniper. When a fictional series brings in a previously unknown supporting cast, you can be fairly sure those characters will suffer a high mortality rate, and that’s true in this case.

If I remember the first Longmire novel correctly (it’s been a while since I read it), Longmire was originally an overweight county sheriff who made a lot of jokes and was smarter than he appeared when it came to solving crimes. Now (probably under the influence of the TV series), he’s become a larger than life action hero, enduring and inflicting suffering beyond what’s plausible for a guy his age.

Depth of Winter was readable and rousing, with lots of action. But I had trouble believing in it. The final showdown was cinematic and completely unbelievable.

I bridled at a slighting comment on religious faith, though that comment was made in the context of Longmire giving thanks to… Somebody.

I want to read some of the earlier books, to verify my impressions about the evolution of the character, but for some reason I’ve only been able to find the more recent books available from my public library for KIndle. I find the Longmire books readable, but I’m not in love with them. This book struck me as uncharacteristic enough to qualify as extra-canonical.

Cautions for language and intense violence.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Depraved Difference,’ by J. Robert Kennedy

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If you like your thrillers equipped with major plot twists, Depraved Difference by J. Robert Kennedy may be just what you’re looking for.

Me, I’m still thinking it over.

Aynslee Kai, an ambitious young TV journalist in Manhattan, starts receiving videos by e-mail, videos that might make her career. A year ago a couple thugs beat and kicked a young woman to death on the subway. Two more low-lifes videoed the murder and shared it on the net, where it went viral.

Now someone has started identifying the onlookers, the people caught on the video watching but doing nothing to help. Each onlooker is being hunted down and murdered, and each murder is filmed and sent to Aynslee. She is shocked, but also energized by this big career break.

She feels a little guilty, though, about not cooperating more with Detective Hayden Eldridge, a cop who’s asked to see the videos before they’re broadcast. She assists him to an extent, but her boss’s priorities come first. This bothers her a bit, because she’s developed a crush on the hunky Eldridge.

Author Kennedy is very good at surprising his readers, and there are several shockers in this story up until the very climax. There he blindsides you (unless you’re a lot smarter than me) with a twist so bizarre I’m still trying to decide whether he played fair with his readers or not.

Oddly, this book is labeled Number One in the “Detective Shakespeare” series. Justin Shakespeare is Eldridge’s partner, and he doesn’t even show up in the book until the 40% point (on my Kindle). Shakespeare is mentioned often before that, but only as a fat, lazy time-server just putting in his time until retirement. We will gradually learn that there’s more to him than that.

Depraved Difference was a compelling read, and one you won’t soon forget. I’m still not sure whether I approve of the final twist, though. I also thought the character psychology kind of implausible.

Cautions for lots of violence and disturbing situations, plus strong language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Perilous Cove,’ by Rich Bullock

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If you like Christian romances and Christian mysteries, Perilous Cove by Rich Bullock might be just your kind of book.

It’s not my kind of book, but I don’t know everything.

Natalie Clayton is a recent widow living in Missouri, contending with a hostile mother-in-law. When her house is torched by an arsonist and someone dies, she begins to suspect that somebody is out to get her. She doesn’t know the half of it.

Detective Addison Conner is a recent widower, trying to raise a teenaged daughter. When he investigates the arson at Natalie’s house, there’s a spark of electricity between them. Natalie has nowhere to go when her house is gone, so he takes her in to live with him and his daughter, temporarily. When a second murder attempt is made on Natalie, “temporarily” begins to look pretty brief.

Natalie knows what she has to do – disappear and relocate to California. But she and Addison are not out of each other’s lives yet.

Perilous Cove was an exciting read, and I’ll admit it caught my emotions.

But it was clumsily written, and heavy on romance novel stuff; the villains were over the top, the conflicts improbable (or so it seemed to me). I found the explosive climax less than credible.

If this is your kind of book, you’ve probably figured that out by now. You’ll probably love Perilous Cove. But I found it disappointing. Fortunately I got it on an Amazon deal.

No bad language, and no cautions except for garden-variety fictional violence.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Long Gone,’ by Paul Pilkington

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A good race with a poor finish. That’s my reaction to Paul Pilkington’s Long Gone, the first in a series of mysteries about Chief Inspector Paul Cullen of the London Transport Police. (People tend not to take the Transport Police seriously, which is a running theme in the book. But lots of serious crime goes on on the buses and in the Underground.)

Inspector Cullen is riding the Underground on his way to work when he notices a young man apparently assaulting a young woman. He follows (pausing on the way to get the girl’s assurance that there was an assault), and chases the young man through the streets – until the fugitive comes to a sudden, ugly end.

Paul is placed on administrative leave, as is standard procedure when an officer is involved in a death. He’s heading home when he gets diverted by a call from his daughter Amy. Amy is his only family since the recent death of his wife, and she suffers from anxiety attacks, so he’s protective of her. She tells him she’s worried about her friend Natalie. Natalie had been selected for a major job opportunity – a reality show-style competition between six candidates for a job with a high profile new company. But she sent Amy a disturbing text message on her way home from the event, and then vanished completely.

Paul isn’t supposed to be doing any investigation while he’s on leave, but he’s willing to bend the rules for Amy. As we follow his inquiries, we also follow in flashbacks Natalie’s course through a very bizarre experience in corporate culture, one where she soon realizes that something is very wrong.

Long Gone engaged me and kept my interest all the way through. I was interested in the characters and curious what would happen to them. Unfortunately the plot lost all credibility at the climax. The final action was highly contrived and extremely implausible.

The theme of the book was “Me Too,” which might have put me off a little. However, the main offender was a hypocritical male feminist, so I didn’t mind. But that final “showdown” lost me completely.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘Strange Tales of Scotland,’ by Jack Strange

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Broichan may have been put out by this blatant display of Christian power in his own back yard, so he predicted that a storm would batter the saint on his return to his west. The prediction was proved correct, but as Columba lived on a Hebridean island he was used to foul weather and returned home safely. Anyway it was a pretty safe bet to predict stormy weather in western Scotland; it would have been more impressive had Broichan said there would be a lasting spell of fair weather.

There are ancient ties between Scotland and Norway, which are next-door neighbors in maritime terms. That may explain why I’ve always had an interest in old Albion. Or not. In any case, Jack Strange’s book Strange Tales of Scotland caught my eye. I remember reading books of legend and folklore with great interest in my younger years.

Broadly speaking (though other kinds of tales pop up) the stories in this book deal with monsters like the Loch Ness monster (which is not the only one of its kind), supernatural beings like various kinds of elves or fairies, and ghosts. Ghosts are often associated with the histories of ancient castles, so you get the stories of the castles too.

I didn’t enjoy Strange Tales of Scotland as much as I hoped to. That may be partly the author’s part – I thought the book could have been organized better; it’s kind of a hodgepodge, jumping around the map at random. But more than that, all the stories seemed sadly familiar to me – folk tales tend to be repetitive. You have an infinite loop of abused and cast-off mistresses, innocent women convicted of witchcraft and guilty witches who escaped punishment, murdered babies, and bloodthirsty local Bluebeards. It all kind of depressed me after a while.

However, if you’re not familiar with the field, and appreciate the glamour of Scotland, you might enjoy this book more than I did. One could do worse.

Oh yes, he mentions the Fairy Flag of the McLeods (reputed to be Harald Hardrada’s banner). I appreciated that.

Fiction, Reviews

‘An Obvious Fact,’ by Craig Johnson

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I read the first Longmire novel, The Cold Dish by Craig Johnson, and reviewed it a while back. I wasn’t overwhelmed, partly because outdoorsy mysteries aren’t my favorite fare, and (probably) partly because it was so different from the TV series. But I’m borrowing more books from the library these days, and I figured I’d take a chance on another volume. This one is An Obvious Fact, a much more recent entry in the series. And it was pretty good.

In An Obvious Fact (the title is a reference to Sherlock Holmes, and there are Holmes references all through it), Sheriff Walt Longmire and his friend Henry Standing Bear are off to Sturgis, South Dakota and environs for the annual biker rally. Henry is a biker, and has been going back every year since his youth, trying to break a record he set in a dirt bike hill climbing competition.

It’s meant to be a vacation, but they get drawn into the investigation of an accident that sent a young biker to the hospital. Police suspect that the young man was smuggling drugs, but no traces of drugs have been found. The situation is aggravated by the fact that they run into the biker’s mother, who was once Henry’s lover. And – just possibly – her son might be Henry’s. Walt’s suspicions – along with those of his undersheriff “Vic” Moretti, who also shows up – turn toward a reclusive local tycoon who lives in a fortified compound.

It takes some adjustment to get used to the original literary version of this series. Walt is fatter and less handsome than the actor on TV, and also funnier. He does not suffer from existential angst. In fact these books are quite lighthearted, until they get to the violence part (and even some of that is rendered comical by Vic’s gung-ho aggressiveness). The characters are very well drawn, making one wonder why the TV writers felt it necessary to alter them. I enjoyed An Obvious Fact, and recommend it with only the usual cautions.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Saga,’ by Jeff Janoda

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“It is good that you have industry, son,” Gudrid said severely. “But do not lower yourself like that. Your men will lose respect for you.”

“This is not Norway, mother,” he had said, patting her face gently. “All men must work here.”

Eyrbyggja Saga is not one of the very best Icelandic sagas, in the eyes of critics, but it’s definitely one of the top second-rankers. Aside from other points of interest, it intersects in several ways with Laxdaela Saga, helping to paint one of the broader narrative panoramas in the genre. It largely concerns itself with a long-running conflict between the two chieftain-priests (called gothis here), Snorri and Arnkel. You may recall Snorri the Chieftain as a character in my novel West Oversea.

Author Jeff Janoda has done a creditable job of turning one portion of Eyrbyggja Saga into a modern novel in Saga. By and large I’d say he’s made an artistic success of it, though he messes up his historical details now and then.

The story begins with Ulfar, a freedman (former slave) under the protection of the sons of Thorbrand, who are rather hostile neighbors to the gothi Arnkel (they are Thingmen of Snorri’s). Ulfar’s best friend Thorgils is one of Arnkel’s chief men (author Janoda does a good job showing how relationships and loyalties get entangled). It is Ulfar’s misfortune to own a farm that Arnkel wants, and to have a wife that every man wants.

After Ulfar goes out of the story (as the saga would say), the focus moves to his friend Thorgils, whose relationship with Arnkel is threatened by his own conscience – though trying to transfer his loyalty to Snorri only makes things worse.

It’s all quite tragic, in the saga style. The characters are complex and hard to categorize morally. I was particularly impressed with the way author Janoda made the heathens’ belief in the elves comprehensible – the supernatural saga elements are presented in a modern way, but with plausibility and no condescension.

Nitpicker that I am, I was annoyed by some failures in research. The author has trouble spelling Norse names – Hauk becomes Hawk, Haflidi becomes Hafildi. He speaks of Iceland as the Island – which is right but wrong. It’s spelled Island in Scandinavian languages, but that still means Ice-Land.

I suspect the author has read Daniel Serra’s An Early Meal (I’ve met Serra, by the way, though I’ve never sprung for his book, which I do want). But he doesn’t know much about Viking fighting – he thinks swords were stabbing weapons. And he makes the common movie mistake of giving them lots of leather clothing. With pockets, which (I say it sadly as a reenactor) they never had. He also doesn’t know how a Viking tent was constructed.

Still l found Saga a successful novel, all in all, though grim. It started a little slow but had me riveted by the end.

Recommended, with cautions for language and disturbing scenes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bloody Christmas,’ by Caimh McDonnell

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Caimh McDonnell’s series of comic Irish mysteries, most featuring big, drunken detective Bunny McGarry, has been one of the delights of my recent reading life. Bloody Christmas, which fits into the series, is a special edition novella, available only until Christmas. Its sales support an Irish charity for the homeless.

Bloody Christmas is set way back near the start, just after the end of A Man With One of Those Faces. Bunny has been undergoing psychological evaluation after throwing a senior officer off a building, something he finds annoying and unreasonable. But now he’s managed to get his sanity officially verified, and is celebrating in his favorite pub, when a man tries to assassinate him in the men’s room.

Instead of beating the man bloody, however, Bunny listens to his tale of woe. The man (who’s there with his pregnant wife, named Mary [very subtle]), is the victim of criminals who’ve kidnapped their son. Well, it’s Christmas, a time for good works. Bunny has a few ideas on how to find the boy, and he puts a plan into motion.

It’s all completely implausible, and completely hilarious. Bunny is at his profane, selectively brutal best, and I laughed out loud more than once as he cuts a swathe through the underworld he understands so well. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler to tell you that it all turns out more perfectly than anything has a right to in this naughty world.

Highly recommended, with cautions for adult themes and profanity.

Non-fiction, Reviews

‘The Rescue Artist,’ by Edward Dolnick

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“The big-picture thefts are all motivated by bragging and stupidity. The crooks just move the things around until some sap gets landed with them, like the last guy with a chain letter. The paintings will always have great intrinsic value, so the saps will always dream on.”

In the early morning of February 12, 1994, while an excited Norway prepared for the opening of the Lillehammer Winter Olympics, two burglars climbed a ladder to the second floor of the Munch Museum in Oslo, broke a window, crawled in and took Edvard Munch’s The Scream, one of most iconic paintings in the world, out into the night (falling off the ladder twice in the process). The window was not alarmed, and though the thieves were caught on a security camera, the sole guard on duty was engrossed in paperwork and didn’t notice.

It was a moment of national embarrassment. The Norwegian police searched for clues, but there was little they could do except wait for a ransom demand. Weeks passed and none came.

All this caught the attention of Charlie Hill, star detective on Scotland Yard’s art theft squad. Unfortunately the case was not in their jurisdiction. But Charlie Hill was not a man to be put off by technicalities like that. Half American, half English, a former seminarian and sniper in Vietnam, he’d been a loose cannon in the police service until he found his niche – doing undercover work for the art squad. A natural actor and thrill-seeker, he lived for challenges like this.

So he found a pretext, and the Norwegians requested help, and he plunged in, traveling to Oslo to pose as an American representative of the Getty Museum of Modern Art. What followed was, apparently, more Keystone Kops than Thomas Crown Affair. The great danger in retrieving stolen art, we learn, is not from sophisticated criminal masterminds, but from stupid thugs who are easily spooked and might break something. Abetted, sometimes, by equally stupid policemen.

That’s what The Rescue Artist by Edward Dolnick is about. I have to admit I enjoyed it less than I hoped. It’s true crime, after all, and that’s always less entertaining than the fictional variety. And I’m afraid that (although there are hints that he might be some kind of Christian) I got kind of tired of Charlie Hill. Hyperactive and mercurial, a man who favors instinct over logic, he’s not my kind of detective.

But it’s an educational book for anyone interested in the (apparently) booming industry of art theft. And it has an ironic coda.

Moderately recommended for those inclined. Cautions for language.