A few days back I reviewed Micheal Maxwell’s novel Diamonds and Cole, which I liked very much. I liked it so much that I went on to purchase the next three books in the series, Cellar Full of Cole, Helix of Cole, and Cole Dust, and read them all at speed. Though I have quibbles, I recommend the series highly.

First, the quibbles. The titles, as you can see from the previous paragraph, are a little silly.

Secondly, there are weaknesses in plotting. Occasionally our hero Cole Sage makes an improbable deductive leaap (always correctly, of course). And the stories tend to be episodic, a sin to which I too am prone in my own books.

And there are word problems. Author Maxwell is prone to homophone confusions, like “waste” for “waist.” At one point he describes Cole’s granddaughter’s hair, well established as dark and curly, as “flaxen.” Maybe he doesn’t know what flaxen means. Who sees flax these days?

But I easily forgive these minor sins, and I think you will too. Cole Sage is a fresh kind of mystery hero. He’s essentially optimistic, and he enjoys making life better for the people he meets. No cynical, hard-boiled attitude here. Cole likes life, and he likes people.

In the second book, Cellar Full of Cole, we find our newspaper reporter hero, newly relocated from Chicago to San Francisco, facing off against a serial killer who targets little girls. His investigation is motivated in part by his fears for his own granddaughter, who he never knew existed until the previous year.

In Helix of Cole he is singled out by an old ‘60s radical, on the basis of a news story he wrote decades ago. This radical has a nuclear device, and a god delusion, and he won’t let anybody but Cole near him.

Finally, Cole Dust is an entire narrative departure. Cole learns a relative he barely knew has died, leaving him a house in Oklahoma. In that house he finds the journal of his grandfather, a man he barely remembers. Spending a month in residence, he gets the chance to get to know a remarkable, courageous, deeply flawed man with a dramatic, tragic story. He also gets acquainted with the inhabitants of a nice little town, portrayed more sympathetically than such people would be portrayed in most mysteries.

Another book by Maxwell, a flawed but interesting non –Cole novella called Three Nails, provides some insight into the author. It would appear he’s a Christian of some sort. Probably more liberal than I am, but emphatically Christian, even evangelical. Which means he’s doing what so many of us talk about but rarely do – writing novels that aren’t evangelistic tracts, but straight stories in which Christianity is implicit rather than preached. For which I laud him.

There must have been some rough language, but I don’t recall much. There are a couple homosexual recurring characters, one of whom is what you’d call “flamboyant.” But there’s no preaching on the subject, pro or con.

All in all, I endorse the Cole Sage novels highly, though your mileage may vary. E-book only, and not expensive.