A better than average novel by an author new to me. Always nice to find. Tonight’s book is Murder Board, by Brian Shea.
For Michael Kelly, Boston police detective, family comes
before everything. For the Rakowskis, a Polish-American crime family, the same rule
goes. But they mean very different things by it.
Michael Kelly is a Boston Homicide cop. He’s the rookie on
the squad, though he’s been a cop for years. Trouble has followed him, causing
him to restart his career more than once. But he thinks he’s where he belongs
now.
When a 13-year-old girl’s body is discovered in a shallow grave in a blighted neighborhood, Michael takes a personal interest. He grew up in this neighborhood himself, and still has friends here, on both sides of the law. But the dead girl came from an upscale suburb. How did she end up here? Who killed her, and why?
Searching for answers, Michael, assisted by a (beautiful, of course) female detective from the Sexual Crimes squad, begins a dangerous investigation into the human trafficking industry. Gangsters will threaten them, and politicians will pressure them. But Michael Kelly does not let go.
I found Murder Board an exciting and compelling read. The writing is a little under the top rank – author Shea has a problem with word choice sometimes – but the story itself grabbed me. I’d describe Shea as somewhere between Michael Connelly and Joseph Wambaugh in themes and tone.
Recommended. Cautions for disturbing scenes, but I didn’t notice
any obscene language.
The Peters family is more dysfunctional in sum than any of its individual member knows.
Carley Bleak Peters, the central character in Bleak Harbor, is a descendant of the man who founded the upscale town of Bleak Harbor, Michigan. She is estranged, however, from her widowed mother, and has been cut out of her will. She was working in Chicago before her husband moved them back to Bleak Harbor, and she does not like commuting. It limits her time with her beloved son Danny, born of a fling with a drug dealer 15 years ago. But she has a plan. She will use documents she’s stolen to blackmail her boss, who pressured her into sex. This will allow her to flee Bleak Harbor with Danny.
Her husband, Danny’s stepfather, Pete Peters, is a nice guy,
but not one of life’s winners. Formerly a successful commodities trader in
Chicago, his career languished when he had to switch to online trading. Fired
from his job, he moved to Bleak Harbor to open a medical marijuana shop – a sure-fire
goldmine, he thought. Only he’s found that the only way to compete wtih the
illicit market is to buy his stock from very bad people.
Fifteen-year-old Danny Peters is “on the autism scale.” He is handsome and intelligent, but does not relate well to people. His passions are dragonflies, perch (the fish), and one particular poem by Wallace Stevens. Neither of his parents is sure how much he understands about their situation.
When Danny is kidnapped, and cryptic text messages come to
his parents demanding an odd ransom amount, Carley and Pete each believe it has
to do with their own sins coming home to roost. They will be pushed to their
personal limits, sometimes cooperating with the police and sometimes going
behind their backs, to satisfy the demands of a bizarre kidnapper who seems
determined to bring some of the Bleak family’s old skeletons to light.
Bleak Harbor was a departure for me, a different kind of thriller. I think it will be surprising to a lot of readers. The plot seems to me (I may just be uninformed) a pretty original one. I did guess the kidnapper’s identity a little ahead of schedule, but it was pretty surprising, and the surprise was well set up.
I’m not entirely sure what the theme of Bleak Harbor was, to be honest, but it kept my interest and kept me turning pages. Recommended, with minor cautions for language.
West Uist, the fictional Hebrides island that provides the setting for Keith Moray’s Torquil McKinnon mysteries, suffers from Midsommer Syndrome. It’s a remote and bucolic place, filled with a population divided among the inoffensive and the eccentric, and yet it keeps throwing up murders. The latest involves the age-old tradition of illegal whisky distillation on the island.
As Deadly Still begins, Police Sergeant Morag Driscoll is off for a morning jog when she discovers a local teenager wandering blind in the heather. She and two friends had been celebrating completing their final tests with peatreek (the Scottish equivalent of moonshine) in an abandoned World War II bunker. Now she can’t see, one of her friends is unresponsive, and the other has disappeared entirely.
At about the same time, a local businessman is found dead.
It looks like the result of a drunken fall, but laboratory analysis will show
that he’s been imbibing the bad peatreek as well.
Except that the level of methyl alcohol in this stuff is way
higher than is probable in ordinary home distilling. Someone has a grudge and an
agenda, and Inspector Torquil McKinnon (who already had his hands full with his
wedding plans) will need to stop that person before anyone else dies. And what
happened to the missing girl?
I always come back to the Torquil McKinnon books with pleasure. I like the setting, I like the characters. I don’t rank Deadly Still as the best in the series – I had trouble keeping the characters straight in this one, but maybe that’s just because I’m getting old.
In 1965, an English/American film called TheHeroes of Telemark was released. It starred Kirk Douglas and Richard Harris as Norwegian saboteurs attacking the German “heavy water” (deuterium oxide) production facility at Rjukan in Telemark during World War II. Heavy water was a necessary buffering agent in the German program to split the atom, presumably to produce an atomic bomb.
The film took a highly cinematic approach to the story, compressing all the action into a couple weeks and replacing the actual participants with fictionalized and combined characters. It found a mixed response in Norway, where people who’d been through the war complained that it took Kirk Douglas two weeks to do by himself what it took a whole team two years to accomplish in real life.
I kept thinking of that film as I read The Saboteur, Andrew Gross’s similarly (though not so thoroughly) fictionalized account of the same clandestine operations.
Kurt Nordstrum is a Norwegian engineer who leaves his career to join the Resistance – with tragic consequences in his personal life. When an engineer at the Norsk Hydro facility in Rjukan tells him and a comrade that they need to get some microfilm to the English immediately, they hijack a coastal steamer and – just barely – manage to escape to Scotland. Then he and his friend join Company Linge, the Norwegian commando unit, and are eventually airdropped back in Norway. Their mission, from which they do not expect to return alive, is to destroy the Heavy Water production facility. Kurt’s father used to tell him, “A true man goes on until he can go no further… and then he goes twice as far.” And that’s precisely what he and his team will be called on to do before it’s over.
Honestly, I found this a hard book to read, but I’m not sure it’s the book’s fault. I knew this story pretty well already, and so was preparing myself emotionally for the unpleasant parts. Author Gross anticipates those expectations to an extent by making small changes in the story. Kurt Nordstrum (who is essentially standing in for real saboteur Knut Haukelid but has a very different back story), is enabled by his imaginary status to do stuff, and get into dilemmas, that Haukelid never did. I found some of those stuff and dilemmas somewhat implausible, but I can’t deny I was moved by the entirely imaginary heroics at the end.
I was bothered all through by the fictional changes, especially the handling of the characters. Several of the saboteurs here are real people, others are fictional (including an entirely imaginary Norwegian-American). I understand the narrative freedom that gave the author (as mentioned above), but it kind of nagged at me.
I suppose I shouldn’t complain too much about the spelling
of Norwegian names and places. It’s pretty hit and miss, but I probably should
be thankful for the effort.
What it comes down to, I guess, is that I can recommend The Saboteur to those who aren’t already familiar with the Heavy Water mission. But after you read it, you’ll want to read Neal Bascomb’s The Winter Fortress or something like that to get the actual facts.
‘We did a project on it when I was at primary school. The Vicious Vikings. Although most of the settlements’ names are quite innocuous. Applethwaite, Brackenthwaite, Crosthwaite – quite often you can work it out.’
DS Leyton looks rather bemused.
‘So, what – did they speak English?’
DS Jones giggles as though she thinks he must be joking. But then she responds. ‘No – we speak Old Norse.’
It’s one of the charms of Bruce Beckham’s Inspector Skelgill novels (for me) that there are occasional allusions to the history of the Cumberland region where Skelgill operates. In the passage above, our detectives, Skelgill, DS Jones (female) and DS Leyton (male) are talking about local farm names, which often contain the element “thwaite,” which is related to the Norwegian word “tvedt.” Both mean “field.”
But that’s not what Murder at the Meet, the latest Skelgill novel, is mainly about. More than 20 years ago, a young wife and mother named Mary Wilson disappeared during the annual Shepherd’s Meet. As it happens, that was the same year a teenager named Dan Skelgill won the Fell Runners’ race, setting a long-standing record. At the time, the police employed brand-new technology, DNA testing, matching it to the one discovered piece of evidence, to try to identify her attacker or abductor (assuming she didn’t just run off). But without success.
Now Mary’s bones have been found, by archaeologists in a local cave. Skelgill and his team start interviewing surviving witnesses and family members, and discover – as you would expect – a number of old secrets and personal grudges. And all the while Skelgill does his own eccentric thing – applying his knowledge of local geography, biology and weather, along with the sensibilities of a fisherman.
It’s all enjoyable and familiar for the Skelgill fan. I did
think this effort was a little unfair to the reader, as we were denied the information
that finally unlocks the puzzle until after the climax – and so we didn’t know
what all the urgency was about. That reduced the suspense for me.
But that aside, Murder at the Meet was an enjoyable read, and is recommended.
There’s a lot of good to be said about Christ Collett’s new stand-alone mystery, The Truth About Murder. But I also found it somewhat aggravating.
First of all, full marks for originality in giving us a new
kind of investigative hero – Stefan Greaves is a lawyer in the (fictional, I
presume) middle English town of Charnford. From the beginning, it’s clear that
Stefan suffers from some kind of disability, but author Collett (annoyingly, in
my view) puts off naming it until nearly half-way through the book. I’ll risk spoiling
it by telling you that he has cerebral palsy. To reduce associated muscle
tension, he smokes pot regularly. Because social interactions are difficult (he
has trouble being understood when he talks) he sees an “escort” regularly.
Stefan gets a visit from a local nurse, who is concerned
about mortality rates in the neonatal ward where she works. Not long afterward
she disappears, and when her body is found in the river, the verdict is suicide
– though her daughter insists she was a Catholic and would never do that.
Investigating the disappearance and death is Mick Fraser, a local cop. Mick is concerned about his partner, whose time has been monopolized by their commander lately. He’s been secretive, and Mick begins to suspect him of corruption. In fact, it’s far worse than that…
As the plot thickens (rather slowly I thought, and with too
much reliance on coincidence) Stefan and Mick are drawn together to uncover a
sinister and heinous plot that threatens the whole country.
I never fell in love with The Truth About Murder, or with Stefan Greaves as a character. (He shares, with many fictional detectives, a gift for having attractive women throw themselves at him constantly, in spite of his disability. I complain of this trope often in my reviews, and if you think that means I’m jealous… well, I am.)
However, the book’s themes pleased me greatly. Without spoiling
it for the reader, I’ll just say that it involved controversial issues of
medical ethics. Author Collett seems to be unaware of (or is avoiding) the fact
that the evil in view here is more associated with the Left than the Right in
our time. But that may be a strategic choice intended not to alienate readers.
I don’t know Collett’s politics, but if he’s conservative I salute his
strategy, and if he’s liberal I salute his moral sense.
I can’t give The Truth About Murder my highest recommendation, but it’s worth reading. There’s a suggestion that this might be the start of a new series. I’m not wholly enthusiastic about that prospect.
Jonathan Quinn and his team of international agents return in The Unknown, the 14th book in the series. Regular readers will know what to expect, and author Brett Battles delivers.
On a winter night in Austria, a very important scientist named Brunner is traveling under the protection of bodyguards provided by the Office, the private security firm our heroes work for. It should be a routine mission, but they are attacked, there is loss of life, and Brunner is expertly extracted by kidnappers. This is bad news for the Office, which has only recently reconstituted itself as a business, so their operational chief contacts Jonathan Quinn. Though ostensibly a Cleaner, a wiper of evidence after “wet” operations, Quinn has a well-earned reputation for effective and efficient field work. He summons his regular team, including his wife Orlando, his old partner Nate, and a couple East Asian friends. As a concession, they allow Kincaid, the failed bodyguard, to come along. He has something to prove.
They face well-organized, efficient, and well-financed
opponents, but Quinn always finds a way. This time out they are assisted in
particular by Jar, a minor character in previous books. Jar is a Thai computer
genius, a woman. She is obviously autistic, but is learning to deal with
illogical normals. She provides a surprisingly charming addition to the cast.
They also get unexpected – and suspicious – help from a source they neither understand nor trust, though it seems to be leading them in the right direction.
Like all the Jonathan Quinn books, The Unknown was fun. It wasn’t deathless literature, but it offered interesting interactions and a fast pace. Recommended.
It seems to me one of the tragedies of our current literary situation (which I pray is transitional) that authors who have something to say and good author’s instincts often lack the “school of hard knocks” experience and editorial hoop-jumping that forced us old guys to learn our craft. John Sturgeon, author of Crimes of the Levee, strikes me as having that problem.
Crimes of the Levee is set in Chicago in 1905. “The Levee” is a vice district, where prostitution, gambling, and drug use are endemic (some of these things, like prostitution, are actually legal). Patrick Moses is a police detective who works there. He is a practicing Catholic, but embittered by the deaths of his wife and children. His chief friends are the prostitute he dates; his partner, a German-American named Gunter; and the priest who was his father figure when he was growing up in an orphanage. But he keeps them at a distance. When the pain gets too great, he drinks or uses opium.
He and Gunter are public heroes as the book starts. They arrested
Simon Kluge, a serial killer who has just been executed. Now they are asked to
hunt for a missing woman – the niece of the Italian ambassador, who is rumored
to have been kidnapped by white slavers and put to work in the Levee. At about
the same time, fabled merchant Marshall Field summons Patrick personally,
asking him to investigate the death of his son. Supposedly, Marshall Field, Jr.
shot himself while cleaning his gun, but the father doubts that story. To his
puzzlement, Patrick finds that the old man himself seems to have organized the
cover-up.
To top it all off, women are being murdered again, in the
very same way Simon Kluge killed his victims. Was the wrong man executed? Or did
Kluge have an accomplice?
Crimes of the Levee, taken as a story, is a pretty good “mean streets” sort of tale. There’s a good sense of place and atmosphere. However, I had trouble figuring out the story’s final resolution – I think I may have puzzled it out, but it seemed to me too subtle by half.
But my big problem with the book was the writing itself. Author Sturgeon has problems with basic spelling and punctuation – he has trouble with verb tenses. He uses question marks where they’re not wanted and leaves them out where they are. He employs redundancies, as in this passage: “This Sunday, I had hoped for rest, peace, and quiet. What I got was conflict, and this took away from everything else.” He confuses homophones, such as “vial” for “vile.” At one point the hero breaks an arm, but the author barely considers the problems that would create for a man living alone – such as in tying a necktie.
The author seems to have done a fair amount of research for
this book, but some subtleties pass him by – for instance, he doesn’t seem to
know that, up until the 1970s, unmarried women were addressed as Miss and
married women as Mrs. He uses “Ms.,” which in those days was nothing more than
a regional mispronunciation. And the diction was generally was too modern, something
that diminished the atmosphere for me.
Still, this was a pretty non-objectionable book considering
its subject matter, and there are no digs at Christianity. I recommend it
conditionally, with my criticisms in mind. I probably won’t read the next book
in the series, though I’ll admit I am mildly curious.
I got a free deal on Todd Borg’s Tahoe Deep, Book 17 in the Owen McKenna series. Not a bad read, though I have quibbles.
Back in 1940, a legally blind teenager named Danny Callahan
overheard and saw enough to know that his beloved sister murdered her
boyfriend, leaving his body on the SS Tahoe, a lake steamer about to be
scuttled and sunk. Today he is a curmudgeonly old man, surviving in his own
home with the help of a kindly neighbor, Mae O’Sullivan. When Danny is attacked
in his home and beaten up, Mae goes (against Danny’s wishes) to private eye
Owen McKenna. She hopes he can somehow fight through Danny’s misanthropic
shyness to identify and stop the people trying to extort information from him.
When the same criminals try to murder Mae, Danny starts cooperating. He has a
strange story to tell, but he still doesn’t understand what he has that the
criminals want.
Lake Tahoe detective Owen McKenna makes a pretty good hero, in the cheerful Spenser tradition. Owen is healthy and positive-minded, and has good relationships with his entomologist girlfriend and his gigantic Great Dane dog. His investigation stirs up conflict and danger, but he will not be intimidated until the mystery is solved and the criminals are stopped.
I liked the characters in Tahoe Deep, and the plotting was pretty good. But I saw again the problem that shows up over and over in contemporary novels – sloppy proofreading, enabled (I assume) by self-publishing. In particular, misspellings and homophone confusion. Also author Borg can be weak with his dialogue. When his characters go into exposition, they often drop into Encyclopedia Mode, talking like a (fairly dry) book.
Also, there seems to be an anti-gun thing going on here. McKenna
never carries a gun, he proudly proclaims, and the author’s attempts to invent
exciting non-gun action leads to occasionally far-fetched scenarios.
But not bad, all in all. No notable cautions that I can
recall.
I have enjoyed the Jack Stratton series by Christopher Greyson, well-written and well-conceived mystery/thrillers suitable for a Christian audience, but better in quality than the average Christian fare. An admirable hero you can root for. Good values.
Jack of Diamonds marks a milestone in the series – it’s about Jack’s wedding to his girlfriend, Alice. Something he’s been working up to for a while.
But of course, in the world of fiction, such an event can’t
go off smoothly. Jack, who is operating as a bounty hunter since losing his
police job, catches a distress call from a cop at a rural location. Being
closer to the spot than the real cops, he drives in to help. He finds the
policeman suffering from a head injury, and inside the house he finds a room
decorated with drawings of women. Among them is a picture of Alice – plus a
wedding invitation.
Obviously the wedding needs to be postponed. But explain
that to Alice, who’s being nearly driven to distraction by the pressures of
preparation. She and Jack had wanted a simple ceremony, but a wealthy former
client whose life they saved insisted on paying for a production worthy of the
Kardashians, complete with a relentless wedding planner.
Meanwhile, seemingly random women are disappearing, and Jack is convinced their vanishings are connected to the wedding stalker. And when an abandoned church is found filled with corpses, the weirdness goes off the scale.
I liked Jack of Diamonds, as I’ve liked all the books in the series. But I have to admit I found the premise of this one pretty implausible. It spoiled it somewhat for me.
Still, it’s a fun read. Recommended, but on a lower level than the previous Jack Stratton books.
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