“I don’t think so, but I promised a guy I’d turn myself in. I haven’t got much to sell but a body that’s ready for scrap, a brain that doesn’t work half the time, and my word. I can’t count on the body and brain, but my word has held up pretty well.”

That classically hard-boiled line comes from another of Stuart M. Kaminsky’s comic noirs, You Bet Your Life, in which Toby Peters, threadbare private eye to the stars, does a job for Chico Marx and tangles with Al Capone and Frank Nitti. A certain suave Englishman also shows up, but I’ll just leave him for a surprise.

It’s February, 1941, and Toby Peters has traveled to Florida to ask a favor of Al Capone. A Chicago gangster is threatening to kill Chico Marx, whom he claims owes him a big gambling debt. That’s not unbelievable in Chico’s case, but he swears this isn’t one of his. Capone, only intermittently sane, sends him to Chicago with a recommendation that may or may not do him any good, and before Toby even finishes his train ride, a guy is dead.

Fighting a bad cold all the way, Toby runs down leads through a frigid Windy City, dodging machine gun bullets and encountering mobsters, crooked cops, and a pretty girl who takes him in like a stray dog. Eventually the Marx Brothers show up, and act pretty much like you’d expect them to.

It’s all great fun, especially for lovers of movies and detective stories. I’ve never met a Toby Peters book I didn’t like, and this one was a great time.

The usual cautions for language and adult situations apply. Recommended.

I’ve told you often that, for me at least, Dr. Boli’s Celebrated Magazine is one of the internet’s great pleasures. What should I expect, I wondered, from a novel by Dr. Boli? The result, not really surprisingly, is… a very odd reading experience. Amusing, enigmatic, possibly profound, and even – sometimes – moving, The Crimes of Galahad is a book like no other you will read this year. I’m pretty sure I can say that without fear of contradiction.

The Crimes of Galahad purports to be the memoirs of Galahad Newman Bousted, “the wickedest man in the world.” This is his own account of the misdeeds which brought him to conspicuous wealth and social prominence without anyone, even his wife or his most intimate friends, suspecting his evil machinations.

Galahad Bousted starts out as the son of a humble stationer in 19th Century Allegheny, Pennsylvania. Frustrated in his desire to motivate his father to agree to his plans for expanding the business, he falls under the influence of a French book (not actually the book itself, but a magazine review of it) which convinces him that the only way to achieve success is to devote himself to ruthless evil. In pursuit of this goal, he works long hours, finds ways to please his customers, and makes himself agreeable, even to people he doesn’t like much.

I’m tempted to describe The Crimes of Galahad as a parody, but it’s a parody of a very subtle kind. If I were to try to explain the joke to you, I’d not only spoil it, I’m not sure I’d truly convey the point (I’m not even sure I really figured it out). In a way, the best comment on this book might be to simply read Luke 16:1-9.

This is a book that will be appreciated by extremely intelligent readers (it will help if they’re smarter than me). That recommendation might be bad for sales, I fear, but nevertheless I recommend The Crimes of Galahad.

I read a book about the Shetland Islands quite a few years back, in the ‘80s. I’m interested in the old, remote Viking outposts, and Shetland seemed like the kind of end-of-the world place where a loner like me would be right at home. To judge by Death on a Longship, things have changed since then, mostly because of North Sea oil. The islands are rich now, their inhabitants snug in new houses, with satellite TV and the internet.

The appeal of a story about a murder on a replica Viking ship, against a Shetland backdrop, was irresistible to me, in spite of my old prejudices against women writers (their male characters are often pretty weak), and the fact that this is a story about a woman in a traditional male job – in this case skipper of the Viking ship.

But I was pleasantly surprised. Death On a Longship was a very engaging mystery story, not top drawer but extremely good.

Cass Lynch is the main character and narrator. A native of Shetland, she defied the wishes of her businessman father and (French) opera singer mother to become a sailor. The death of her lover in an accident at sea some years back left her traumatized, but she’s now landed the great opportunity of her life. An American film company wants to make a movie about Gudrid the Far-traveled, an Icelandic saga heroine, in Shetland, and she’s landed the job of captaining the ship. It’s the first time she’s been back in Shetland since she ran away to sea, and there’s some awkwardness in reacquainting herself with old friends, and with her father, who is seeing a young American woman from the film company (her mother returned to France years ago). Continue reading Death on a Longship, by Marsali Taylor →