Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Reviews

Sue Grafton doesn’t need my review of her latest mystery to propel her to the top of the best-sellers’ list.  She’s been on top of the heap since her first mystery, A Is For Alibi, was published in 1982.  But it’s nice to report that this novel is as appealing as any of her others and gives us a deeper look into Kinsey than we have glimpsed before.

U Is For Undertow is somewhat of a departure from Grafton’s previous novels.  This is as much a book about families and relationships as it is a mystery. Those who have followed Kinsey’s backstory know that her parents were killed in a car crash when Kinsey was five, that she was raised by one of her mother’s sisters, and that she had no contact with and wasn’t even aware that she had other living relatives until midway through the series.  At that point she’s contacted by cousins who’ve known about her and now want to meet her.  Over the following novels she has kept this family at arms’ length, rebuffing their attempts to include her in their circle.

Even though Kinsey doesn’t age at the same rate as the rest of us do (she’s apparently going to remain in her thirties throughout the series), her maturity has increased as the series has moved on, and at this point she is wavering between her loyalty to her late aunt and a pull toward finding out the complete story of her mother’s expulsion by her family.  This backstory of familial relationships connects with several others in the novel.

Kinsey is approached by Michael Sutton, a young man who believes that more than twenty years ago he was witness to the burial of a little girl who was kidnapped. His story is nearly unbelievable, but Kinsey decides to work for him for a day to see what she can discover.  Michael, it turns out, has a bizarre history that includes repressed memories of sexual abuse by his parents, later proven false, and estrangement from his sister and brothers.  His history is connected to that of two other men in the fictional town of Santa Teresa where Kinsey lives.

All of these families–Kinsey’s, Michael’s, and the two men who now are respectable citizens of Santa Teresa–have skeletons, both metaphorical and literal, in their backgrounds.  The more deeply Kinsey delves into Michael’s family background, the more she’s pulled into her own.  And the two men have their own family issues that must be explored before the book is over.

Undertow shows us a Kinsey who is more introspective than the one we’ve known before.  She has come to the understanding that seeing things in black and white is not always seeing them clearly, that many shades of gray show up in every family relationship.  Even though she’s not getting older, she is getting wiser.

You can also learn more at Sue Grafton’s web site.

The second novel featuring Joe Pike is a winner, just like the first.  To my mind, Robert Crais has never written a book that wasn’t terrific, and apparently he’s not about to start with The First Rule.

Frank Meyers, a member of Joe’s former contract military team, is gunned down in his house, along with his wife and two young sons. The only survivor is a nanny, who is in a coma.  The police connect Pike to Meyers through a photo in the deceased’s house, but when they tell Pike that Frank must have been dirty like all the other victims of recent home invasions in the city, he refuses to believe it.  At a hospital visit to see the nanny, Pike meets her sister.  The nanny dies, and the sister hires Pike to recover a baby she says is hers; the nanny was hiding the boy at the Meyers’ home from his father, a Serbian mob boss.  So Pike has two goals:  to prove that Meyers was clean and to find the missing baby.  What could the killers want with a ten-month-old child?  Was killing Meyers the reason for the invasion or was he collateral damage?

The title of the book comes from the thieves’ code in the former Soviet Union, the Vorovskoy Zakon.  It’s made up of eighteen written rules, the first one being:

A thief must forsake his mother, father, brothers, and sisters.

He must not have a family–no wife, no children.

We are his family.

If any of the eighteen rules are broken, the punishment is death.

Halfway through the book, Pike calls on Elvis Cole, his close (and possibly only) friend and business partner to help him with this case. Pike also calls on a few others, a couple of whom were also members of his contract team.  But feeling that Meyers was clean and being able to prove it is something else, something that Pike needs to do for his own sake.

Following The Watchman, The First Rule shows a more developed, more human side of Pike, although the reader must wait until the end of the book to discover it.  It’s a surprising discovery, but it’s worth the wait.

You can also learn more at Robert Crais’s web site.

If you’re looking for a mystery featuring a trash-talking Puerto Rican babe from the streets of the tough Brooklyn Brownsville neighborhood, The Last Gig is for you.

Alessandra Martillo grew up on her own after the death of her mother and the desertion of her father.  Before he left, however, her father taught her that she had to protect herself and showed her how to do it, and that’s a lesson she learned well.  At twelve she ran away from an uncaring, unloving aunt and slept in a neighborhood pool hall when she was lucky and on the streets of Brownsville when she wasn’t. The shrink’s report on her noted that she had a “personality disorder, attachment disorder, and borderline sociopathic tendencies.”   He didn’t mention she’s afraid of almost nothing and once started can’t be stopped.

Alex is working for a former cop, ostensibly as an office assistant but in reality doing the tough, often dirty jobs he can no longer handle.

This debut novel begins with a gangster who comes to the agency to find out who’s skimming from his various businesses.  Is there a connection between that and the recent death of his musician son, a death that has been ruled a drug-related suicide although nothing much seems to confirm that.

As Alex gets deeper into the case, she’s threatened, beaten, almost raped, attracted to one of the musicians in the band the gangster’s son played in, deals with the upcoming death of her beloved “tio Roberto,” and reconnects with the father who has reentered her life.   All of this while trying to figure out who the traitor is in the  mob boss’ operation and retrieving a tape showing steamy sex between the mobster’s dead son and a top female rocker nicknamed “God.”  This girl is busy!

The Last Gig has a handful of interesting characters:  Marty Stiles, Alex’s boss, a man who’ll do pretty much anything for a dollar and who’s past his prime but won’t admit it; Anthony, her tio Roberto’s lover; and her Aunt Magdalena who barely fed and clothed her after Alex’s mother’s death.  If there are to be future novels in this series, I hope they’ll still be around.

This novel has a lot going for it–an interesting heroine, lots of action, and family dynamics that should continue to play out in any future books.  Here’s hoping we haven’t seen the last of Alex Martillo-she’s a chica to watch.

Norman Green needs to have his own web site.  If you’re reading this, Mr. Green, why not contact www.flyte.biz–the best in the web design business.

The clever graphic on the cover of  Something Missing lets you know at once that this is an offbeat mystery; the graphic spells the second word as Mis ing.

Martin Railsback, Jr. is an unusual type of career criminal. He’s a thief who has OCD, obsessive-compulsive disorder, while also having perhaps a place on the Asperger’s scale.  He enters houses, first making certain the homeowners are absent, and steals items he thinks they won’t miss–canned foods, tubes of toothpaste, towels, etc.

After he’s made numerous trips, he may begin to take items of more value, perhaps some silver tableware or diamond earrings. He uses a digital camera to make sure he leaves a room exactly as he found it, has a timer on his watch to make sure he doesn’t stay too long in the house, and probably knows more about the homeowners and their habits than they do about themselves.

He learns the latter through the items we all scatter around our homes–computers left on with no password needed, bank passbooks and passports in dresser drawers, charge card bills on desks, and extra keys in those hiding places that are all too obvious–under the doormat, inside the flower pot, inside the toilet tank, etc.  And what about all the party invitations on the refrigerator–they’re like a newspaper announcement telling the world when we’ll be away from home.

Martin comes prepared for all emergencies, locating two or three emergency exits in each house; he wears a hairnet and latex gloves to make sure he leaves no DNA traces behind.

These precautions almost always work…if they were foolproof, there’d be no book.

This book isn’t a true mystery, I must confess, because you know from the outset who’s committing the crimes.  You’re privy to Martin’s thoughts, although I did wish the author had explained Martin’s motive a bit more.  Why does he steal such inexpensive items?  If he’s going to break into someone’s house, why not go for the big stuff at once without the need to come back and put himself at risk?  There’s a deep psychological reason somewhere, but I wasn’t able to find it.

However, to make up for that lack, it’s wonderful to follow Martin’s thinking and methodology.  He is so socially awkward that he’s unable, at the beginning of the novel, to say more than hello without practicing his side of the conversation beforehand.  It’s painful to see him try to interact in any social setting.  He wants to be comfortable with others but doesn’t know how.  That’s the Asperger’s aspect of him.

But as the story progresses, so does Martin.  He does things and takes risks that would have seemed impossible to him at the outset of the novel, and by doing so he becomes a more fully-formed person.  He has our sympathy from the outset, even though he’s committing illegal acts, but he has our admiration at the end.

Twice during the course of the novel Martin changes his routine to benefit his “clients,” as he refers to them, putting himself in danger of discovery.  But by changing the routine that he has perfected to keep himself safe and undiscovered, he also changes into a mature man, more capable of interacting with others and finding a happier place for himself in the world.  It’s a novel of discovery, and it’s wonderful to go along with Martin for the ride.  I’m hoping that Matthew Dicks will invite us along for another ride with Martin Railsback, Jr. soon.

Matthew Dicks needs to have his own web page.  If you’re reading this, Mr. Dicks, why not contact www.flyte.biz–the best in the web design business.