Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Theophania Bogart has fled England, where her aristocratic father hanged himself in his cell while awaiting trial for murder.  She’s taken a new last name, moved to San Francisco, found an apartment, and opened a gift shop featuring luxury items for bed and bath.  She’s content in her new home, fervently trying to guard her privacy.  Then a death that occurs literally before her eyes changes everything.

Tim Callahan, Theo remarks in the opening sentence of The Man on the Washing Machine, was a petty thief, a cheat, and a bully.  He was also the neighborhood handyman, so going in and out of the various apartments gave him lots of opportunity for pilfering.  In fact, he stole a pair of earrings that belonged to Theo’s late mother, and even though she had gotten them back she never allowed him in her apartment again.

The San Francisco police department immediately suspects that someone pushed Callahan out of the third story window directly opposite Theo’s apartment, and Inspector Lichlyter starts to interrogate everyone in the immediate vicinity.  Since Theo is the only one who saw Callahan fall, she becomes the main object of the police inquiry, making her wonder just how much longer her background and her secret will be safe.

Distracted by the divisiveness of her neighborhood association’s meeting following Callahan’s death, Theo’s antenna for self-preservation slips a little, and when she returns from walking her dog Lucy she’s not paying as much attention as usual to her surroundings.  As she climbs up the back stairs to her apartment and opens the door to the utility room, her thoughts are wandering.  In the room’s bright overhead light she sees, to her complete astonishment, a man in a business suit standing on top of her washing machine.

Theo Bogart is a feisty heroine with a fascinating background.  Daughter of a wealthy English family, she was a well-known paparazza and had photographed celebrities around the world.  But she changed her life when she arrived in the United States, giving away her Christian Louboutin heels and Chanel handbags to charity and clothing herself in long-sleeved T-shirts and jeans.  She’s determined to stick to these changes and to her new name, but a second murder makes that even more difficult.

The Man on the Washing Machine won the 2015 Minatour Books/Mystery Writers of America prize for First Crime Novel.  It’s easy to see why.  Heroine Theo is delightful, smart, and determined to succeed in her new life.  And the mix of neighbors–her Japanese-American gardener, her gay best friend who is having romantic problems with his partner, her own business partner who seems to be more and more removed from the business–all add to the quirkiness around her.  And when a new neighbor enters the picture, with the possibility of a romance that Theo would like to avoid, things get really interesting.  All the characters and the author’s familiarity with the San Francisco scene make this debut novel stand out.

You can read more about Susan Cox at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Claire Talbot is the youngest prosecutor in the state of Florida, only a few months into her new job.  She’s working long hours with no time for a personal life, but she’s convinced herself she doesn’t need or want one.

The day following a successful trial, her secretary hands her a package that she says was given to her by a man who wouldn’t leave his name.  Inside the envelope Claire finds newspaper clippings related to eight missing persons cases that took place three decades earlier.  In little more than a year, eight women from Central Florida had disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.  With one exception, all were in their twenties and brunette, the only exception being a blonde woman about a decade older than the others.  And even though the articles were written in a formal, factual manner, Claire becomes violently upset after reading them.

This brings up a familiar feeling for Claire, one she has had all her life.  It’s a sense that something unexpected is about to happen, and it manifests itself in a tightening in her stomach, a strange vibration in her body, an increased pulse.  But nothing ever happens, or at least has never happened so far, so why is she  feeling this way again?  Shaking it off, she leaves her office and gets into her car only to have the front passenger door flung open by a man holding a knife.  Before Claire can obey his order to drive, the passenger’s door is opened again and the assailant is pulled out.  A couple of quick punches to his face leave him flat on the cement, those punches coming from a middle-aged man whom Claire had noticed attending the trial she won the day earlier.

The man identifies himself as Mark Hastings, a former police officer and the person who had left Claire the envelope of newspaper clippings.  He tells her that the missing persons cases date to the time he was on the force and that he’s never been able to forget them.  Claire tells him to make an appointment to discuss this with her, but before he can do so there is a break in the cold case.  It appears that the body of one of the women has just been found.

Time of Departure is a mystery novel with fantasy overtones.  Or is it a fantasy novel with mystery overtones?  Either way, it’s a great read.  Claire Talbot is an engaging heroine, trying to come up with answers to the chilling series of crimes that took place when she was a child but also trying to understand the strange feeling that she has whenever she’s around Mark Hastings.  And Mark, a wounded soul, knows more about Claire than he can let on without alienating her completely.  Each one is engaged in a delicate maneuver, trying to come at a past truth while still maintaining a hold on a present reality.

You can read more about Douglas Schofield at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

It’s interesting how language changes over time.  Take the words Philadelphia lawyer, a term I read years ago.  I remember it as a compliment, expressing approval of an attorney’s ability.  In fact, that’s how the expression came about, an acknowledgement of the outstanding reputation of lawyers from that Pennsylvania city in the early days of the colonies.

But now it apparently has a pejorative meaning, that of an attorney who uses the technicalities of the legal system to win, ignoring the spirit of the law.

If we stick to the original meaning then Bennie Rosario is definitely a Philadelphia lawyer, which in fact she is.  Head of the small, successful firm of Rosario and DiNunzio, she’s in the office when she receives a call from a man being held for murder at the Philadelphia Police Department, or the Roundhouse as it’s known to locals.

Thirteen years have gone by since Bennie last saw Jason Lefkavick.  He was twelve at the time, and Bennie had been called by Jason’s father to get his son out of jail.  Matthew Lefkavick tells Bennie that Jason was taken out of school after a brief fight in the lunchroom and brought to the town’s holding cell.  The presiding judge, known as Judge Zero Tolerance, sentenced both Jason and the boy he fought with, a bully named Richie Grusini who had been tormenting Jason for years, to prison time.

But due to a variety of circumstances and against her will, Bennie soon is removed from the case by Matthew and forbidden to see the boy again.  She has not forgotten him, and when she sees Jason now, again in jail and again protesting his innocence, she’s determined that this time justice will prevail and she’ll get her client freed.

Jason tells her that he saw Richie again, this time in a neighborhood bar, and how he became upset watching Richie having a good time with a friend while downing a few drinks.  Jason went up to him, the two started to fight and were thrown out of the bar.  Jason followed Richie down an adjacent alley to “have it out with him,” as he admits to Bennie, and the next thing he remembers is passing out and, when he awakes, seeing Grusini lying on the ground, covered in blood.  The police arrived and arrested Jason, who had blood on him and a knife in his hand.  A pretty damaging scene, Bennie thinks.

Corrupted tells the story of Jason, past and present, but also tells the reader the story of the failed juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania from which the novel gets its name.  It’s a moving and extremely upsetting account of how venal judges worked with for-profit prisons; instead of sending juvenile offenders to some sort of rehabilitation, the judges were paid for each youth they sent to jail.  It became known as the “Kids for Cash” scandal, and two sitting state judges were sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

Lisa Scottoline’s excellent novel retells this dramatic story, bringing to life how everyone in the case was impacted.  It also gives readers of Ms. Scottoline’s previous books a closer look into Bennie’s earlier life and the reasons she’s so consumed by her profession.

You can read more about Lisa Scottline at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

William Fletcher, formerly a professional boxer and currently a private eye, isn’t finding life easy.  Fletcher was working in New York City in the early 1920s after the end of his boxing career led him to become “muscle” for Bill Storm, a low-level gangster.  Storm had become desperate in seeking ways to make money after his unpredictable behavior led other criminals to avoid giving him jobs, so he kidnapped the son of a wealthy family and was holding him for ransom.

When he called on Fletcher to watch the boy while he left them to obtain the ransom, Fletcher freed the boy and waited for Storm’s return.  A fight ensued with Fletcher being badly beaten, but both men were able to escape before the police arrived.

Fifteen years later, Fletcher has relocated to New Orleans, earning a precarious living as the only licensed black investigator in the city.  He hasn’t been in touch with Storm during all those years, but now Storm has tracked him down and is looking for a favor.  He tells Fletcher he has a daughter whom he hasn’t seen since she was an infant, more than twenty years earlier.  Now he’s dying and wants to meet with her before his death.  He’s been told that his former wife is now living in New Orleans, and he has convinced himself that if his wife is found, their daughter will be with her.

Fletcher reluctantly agrees to look for Storm’s wife, Frieda Rae.  Armed only with a photograph of the woman that was taken years before, Fletcher locates a woman who recognizes the woman in the photo.  She tells the detective that Frieda Rae died just a few months earlier, but she’s heard that the woman’s daughter is singing at some low-down blues joint on Bourbon Street.  So Fletcher heads that way to locate her.

He finds the young woman, as he was told, singing in a club that is really more of a brothel.  But she’s simply a vocalist, not a prostitute, and goes by the name Lady Storm.  When she’s told that her father wants to see her, she tells Fletcher she’ll have to think about it.  Feeling he’s done his job, Fletcher leaves, only to get a call a few hours later from his friend Brawley, a detective on the city’s police force.

The police have discovered Bill Storm’s body with a bullet hole in the back of his head on a street in the French Quarter.  In his pocket there’s a note saying “Meet me in Congo Square at 11:30 tonight.–Zella.”  That’s Storm’s daughter’s real name.

The Red Storm is a great read, due in part to its terrific characters and its sense of place.  The Crescent City of the 1930s is alive with jazz, blues, ladies of easy virtue, corrupt cops, and more.  William Fletcher is a flawed hero but a real man.

You can read more about Grant Bywaters at various sites on the Internet.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Is Fat Bob Dead Yet? is a crime caper par excellence.  It involves quarreling police detectives, con artists, gangsters, beautiful women, and more name changes than one would have thought possible.  It’s a terrific read.

New London, Connecticut police detectives Manny Streeter and Benny Vikström are partners who can hardly bear to be in the same room or the same police car.  They’re called to an accident on the city’s Bank Street involving a dump truck and a motorcycle that ended with the cyclist’s death.  The truck backed up in an alley and rode over the Harley and its driver, separating the driver’s head from his body.

Benny and Manny investigate, but it seems to have been simply a tragic accident.  The truck driver, Leon Pappalardo, says it was his first time driving the truck and he mistakenly hit the gas instead of the brake, crashing into a nearby car and then driving over the motorcyclist.  Benny, the more dogged of the two detectives, feels there’s something strange about how the accident happened, but he can’t put his finger on it.  “I’m not saying the accident was premeditated…but neither am I saying it wasn’t premeditated.”  So Manny reluctantly agrees with his partner that they should look more closely into the accident.

Connor Raposo is an almost-witness to the crash.  He was inside a cobbler’s shop, picking up the Bruno Magli shoes his older brother passed down to him.  When he goes onto the street to see the crash’s aftermath, he makes the acquaintance of Sal Nicoletti, another almost-witness.  Sal’s car’s battery died during the wait for the accident scene to be cleared, so Connor offers him a ride home.  Connor is almost certain that he’s seen Sal before, but Sal denies knowing him.  Connor, who is almost never completely certain of anything, seems to acquiesce, but the thought keeps nagging at him.

Connor has recently moved from the west coast to New London to be a part of a family business.  Well, sort of a family business.  Now called Bounty, Inc., in its previous incarnations it was known as Step Up, Inc. and A Shot in the Arm, Inc.  Whatever it’s called, it’s phony, preying on credulous people to contribute to the most outrageous charities:  e.g., Childhood Victims of Hoof-and-Mouth Disease and Organ Grinder Monkey Retirement Ranch.  And no, I’m not making these names up; I don’t have the imagination.

Besides the terrific plot and interesting/bizarre characters, another delight of the novel is the narrator’s voice.  Every once in a while the narrator showed up with a pertinent comment, making me laugh out loud.  He’s kind of shadowing the action, urging it to move along when he feels it’s too slow or explaining something that’s not quite clear from the dialog.  It’s a truly clever device.

And if you’re wondering about Fat Bob and his possible death, like many other things in the novel it involves two names:  Fat Bob is the nickname of the man who owns the motorcycle that was involved in the accident, and it’s also the name of the cycle.

Stephen Dobyns is the author of many novels, works of non-fiction, and award-winning poetry.  You can read more about him at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Department Q has another cold case.  That’s unfortunate from Detective Carl Mørck’s point of view; he’d much rather sit at his desk with his feet up, letting other sections of the Copenhagen police force deal with any problems that occur.  So when Carl gets a phone call from a colleague in Bornholm, Christian Habersaat, he tells Habersaat that the case the latter wants to refer isn’t appropriate for Department Q and hangs up.

But that’s not the end of the story.  A few minutes later Carl’s assistant Rose comes into his office with an e-mail message from the Bornholm officer:  Department Q was my final hope.  I can’t take any more.  C. Habersaat.  And Rose’s five attempts to reach Christian end in failure.

The following morning Rose greets Carl with the news that Christian Habersaat had committed suicide at his retirement party the previous night.  When Carl, Rose, and the third member of their team, Assad, arrive at the remote Danish island of Bornholm that afternoon, the situation is explained.  Habersaat was a regular police officer, not a detective, but he became so obsessed with a hit-and-run case almost twenty years earlier that it cost him his marriage, his son, and the respect of his fellow officers.

Nearly two decades ago, the body of a teenage girl, Alberte Goldschmid, was found early one morning.  Forensics showed that she had been hit by a car with such force that she was thrown onto a tree limb and bled to death over a period of hours.  A horrible death, to be sure, but the investigation concluded that there was no reason to suspect foul play, that it was simply a driver who panicked and fled the scene, not even bothering to call for medical help.  All the usual steps were taken to find the car but to no avail, and eventually the case was closed.

Except, that is, by Habersaat, who was convinced that it was murder, not a hit-and-run.  He began a long and ultimately fruitless search for the driver of the car, and when he finally concluded that he would never find him he tried without success to interest the Copenhagen cold cases office.  When that failed, he killed himself.

Carl Mørck may not be an especially admirable person, but he’s definitely a good detective.  Even on this case, which he took against his will and which he can’t wait to be rid of, he keeps investigating, digging further and further into the hundred of files that Habersaat left behind and discovering things that the small town policeman had been unable to find.  Rose and Assad are terrific characters, with their own foibles, and they are even more determined than Carl to find out the truth about Alberte Goldschmid’s death.

You can read more about Jussi Adler-Olsen at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site https://www.marilynsmysteryreads.com

I’ve come to the conclusion that when writing talent was handed out, Robert Galbraith/aka J. K. Rowling stood in line twice.  That’s the only explanation I can come up with to explain how the gifted author of the Harry Potter series can also be the gifted author of the Cormoran Strike series.

As Career of Evil begins, Strike and Robin are riding high professionally.  Their two previous cases have garnered them great publicity, especially since they captured the killers ahead of Scotland Yard.  Personally, too, things are going well for them.  Strike is dating now that his on-again, off-again romance with Charlotte is definitely off.  And Robin’s wedding is only a few months away.

All this success comes to a quick halt, however, when Robin opens a package addressed to her at work and finds a woman’s leg inside.  She and Strike are obviously horrified.  Strike immediately contacts Detective Wardle of the Yard to help them find the messenger who delivered the box to Robin.

The resultant publicity has the effect of clients terminating their contacts with Strike and Robin; who would want to work with a firm involved in such a distressing situation?  Besides, all the newspaper photos and television shots have made their undercover work impossible.

Strike mentions four people to Wardle as possibilities for wanting to hurt him by targeting Robin, but he tells Robin that in his mind he has already eliminated one of them, a gangster who was sent to jail on Strike’s testimony.  The remaining three, to his mind, are much more dangerous:  Donald Laing, a convicted sociopath; Noel Brockbank, a child abuser and rapist; and Jeff Whittaker, Strike’s mother’s second husband and thus Strike’s stepfather, an abusive drug user who preys on women.

Needing to investigate all three men, Strike reluctantly agrees to let Robin do surveillance on one of them.  Robin is eager to do more detective work than Strike has previously given her, and she’s ready to prove her worth.  But this assignment has to be kept from her fiancé Matt, who has been vehemently against her employment with Strike from the beginning.  Indeed, the tensions between Robin and Matt have been increasing steadily over the past few months as their wedding approaches.

Career of Evil delivers everything that makes an excellent novel:  a gripping plot, believable characters, and a pace that doesn’t stop.  In this mystery we learn more about Strike’s and Robin’s backgrounds, information that helps us understand what motivates them to do the things they do.  In addition to the two protagonists, the secondary characters are wonderfully drawn:  Matt, who loves Robin deeply but made a devastating mistake in his past that has come back to threaten their relationship; Robin’s mother, wanting her daughter’s happiness but fearful of the dangers she puts herself in; and the three men whom Strike and Robin are investigating.

Robert Galbraith has written the third in a series that grows better with each book, something that given the perfection of The Cuckoo’s Calling would seem impossible.  Robert Galbraith/J. K.Rowling has done it again.

You can read more about Robert Galbraith at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Charles Lenox is one of the most charming protagonists around.  The younger son of a baronet, Charles has recently returned to his first love, detecting, after spending several years in the House of Lords.  Although it’s considered not quite “the thing” for a member of the nobility to be “in trade,” Charles has decided that this is what he wants to do with his life and so is now the senior partner of Lenox, Strickland, and Dallington, private enquiry agents in London.

The novel opens with all of the city, and indeed the entire country, in upheaval following the disappearance of Muller, the renowned German pianist.  Muller got up from the piano bench at the end of a concert, walked into his dressing room, and hasn’t been seen since.  The entire concert hall was searched, as was his hotel room and all the various sites around London that the musician was known to frequent, but without result.  To coin a cliché, apparently the man disappeared into thin air.

Charles offers his services to Scotland Yard; instead, the firm of his former business partner Lemaire is chosen to find the missing man.  Naturally, this has made Charles and his partners, Polly Strickland and Lord John Dallington, even more determined to solve the case, score against Lemaire, and gain the publicity that would go with locating Muller.

At the same time, Charles is trying to help his older brother, Edmund, who is dealing with the unexpected death of his beloved wife.  Molly died suddenly after the onset of a fever, and Edmund is deep in mourning.  Making the situation even more unbearable is the fact that both their grown sons are away, one in Kenya and the other in the navy, so the ordeal of informing them of their mother’s death still hangs over Edmund.

Some of the most enjoyable aspects of Home By Nightfall are the clever asides that place the reader firmly in 19th-century England.  Did you know that at that time it was possible to rent, rather than subscribe to, the daily editions of The Times; a year’s subscription cost nine pounds, “not an inconsiderable sum.”  Instead, most readers rented the paper for a hour a day, which cost about a pound per year, while renting the previous day’s paper cost a quarter of a pound per year!  And at the time the novel takes place, there were six daily mail deliveries a day in London, four in the countryside.  No wonder no one thought to invent e-mail!

Home Before Nightfall is the ninth Charles Lenox adventure, so there’s a lot of catching up to do if this is your first look at the series.  Although this book can certainly be read on its own, it’s much more enjoyable when you know the backstory of Charles, his aristocratic wife Lady Jane, and his partners in the firm.  But if you’re too impatient to start at the beginning of the series with A Beautiful Blue Death, you can start with Home Before Nightfall.  It’s a terrific read, with believable characters and an engrossing plot.

You can read more about Charles Finch at various sites on the web.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Detective Inspector Roy Grace is getting married in ten days.  He’s hoping that his caseload will remain quiet until then and for a few days afterwards, when he and Cleo are scheduled to head to Venice for their honeymoon.  Everything looks good until he gets a phone call telling him that a burned corpse has been found on the grounds of the Haywards Heath Golf Club.

The body is that of Karl Murphy, a local physician.  At first it looks like an open-and-shut case of suicide, Karl having left a clear, concise note on the seat of his nearby car.  The note says that his life has lost its meaning since the death of his wife two years earlier and that he hopes his two young sons will someday be able to understand his action.  Roy Grace is finding it difficult to believe that a doctor would kill himself in this horrific way, with pills so easily available to him, but there doesn’t seem to be any other explanation.

At the same time that Karl’s body is being examined by the police, Red Cameron is in her apartment, waiting for him to appear for their dinner date.  At first she’s annoyed by his lateness, then she begins to worry–in the several months they’ve been dating, Karl has never disappointed her.  Phone calls and texts to him go unanswered; when she finally goes to bed, annoyance has reasserted itself, and she’s beginning to have second thoughts about their future together.

Before meeting Karl, Red was in a relationship with Bryce Laurent.  At first, Bryce had been wonderful to her.  Kind, warm, very generous with gifts, he made her feel really special.  But after a few months, a darker side to his personality came through.

As her parents and friends had told her shortly after the two met, he was controlling and violent, traits Red refused to acknowledge at the time.  By the time Bryce turned to physical and sexual violence in order, as he told her, to prove his love and convince her that they truly belonged together, Red finally admitted to herself that he was a dangerous man.

Despite a restraining order that she got against Bryce, Red is always looking over her shoulder.  And with good reason, because the reader finds out almost at once that the murder of Karl Murphy is only the first step in Bryce’s plan to revenge himself on the woman who left him.

Want You Dead is a thriller up to and including the last page.  Told from several vantage points, it allows us into the minds of the police detective, the psychopathic killer, and the fearful yet resourceful woman who is determined to correct the mistakes she’s made and now live life on her own terms.

You can read more about Peter James at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Jane Lawless is busy running the Lyme House restaurant in Minneapolis, so busy that her first impulse is to decline a case brought to her by her friend and former employee Guthrie Hewitt.  Jane has put a hold on her private investigations practice, but Guthrie has come to Jane because he’s worried about his girlfriend, Kira Adler.  He wants to propose to her on Christmas Eve, but a long-ago tragedy in her family has recently been giving her nightmares.

Nearly twenty years ago, when Kira was five, her mother fell to her death from the family porch.  After an investigation, the death was ruled an accident.  Now, on the eve of a visit to her grandmother’s home for the Thanksgiving holiday, Kira has another horrific dream.  She tells Guthrie that in all of them she is watching her mother being strangled; although she is a witness, she can never stop it.  The murder happens in various places with different murderers, but every one contains the same elements–her mother is strangled, she sees what’s happening, and she cannot prevent it.

Guthrie and Kira arrive at her grandmother’s house, with Guthrie trying to uncover the reason for Kira’s nightmares and fears.  He questions the various family members–her grandmother, father, two uncles and their wives–subtly, he thinks, but after his return home he receives a package with a note saying that what happened to Delia Adler will happen to him if he continues bothering the family.  In addition to the written message, there are several photos showing the splayed body of Delia lying at the edge of a deep, snow-filled ravine.

The Adlers are a rather odd family.  Kira’s widowed grandmother Evangeline is the matriarch, an elegant woman who seems to rule with an iron fist in a velvet glove.  Her two sons, Kevin and Douglas, still live near her.  Kevin, Kira’s father, never remarried after the death of his wife, and Douglas, who obviously has a drinking problem, lives a bitter, meager existence with his wife Laurie.  The only successful sibling appears to be their sister Hannah Adler, a physician who has chosen to remain single and, perhaps most importantly, to move away from her mother and brothers in New Dresden.

Guthrie again turns to Jane for help after his trip to Kira’s hometown, but once more she pleads her hectic schedule and tries to find another detective to investigate the Adlers.  When that fails, she reluctantly agrees to look into the matter, but only for a limited time, two days being all she’s able/willing to spend away from her restaurant.  A grateful Guthrie accepts that, and danger ensues.

The Grave Soul is, by my count, number twenty-three in the Jane Lawless series.  Obviously there’s a lot of backstory here, but you can easily start with this novel and then read the earlier books.  Ellen Hart has won the Lambda Award, called Lammys, five times for books that celebrate LGBT themes, but there is no lesbian theme in this book, and only a brief hint of gay relationships.  The Grave Soul is simply a well-written mystery, featuring a clever and resourceful heroine who happens to be gay, a compelling plot, and interesting supporting characters who add flavor to the novel.

You can read more about Ellen Hart at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

October 17, 2015

A few months ago I took a week-long seminar at Brandeis University on the subject of Hollywood westerns.  During one session we had a discussion about writing screenplays and novels.  The class leader mentioned that there was an on-line list of ten rules for writing fiction, so naturally after reading that list I checked the internet for ten rules for writing detective fiction.

I found many lists on this topic, including Raymond Chandler’s “Ten Commandments for Writing a Detective Novel,” S. S. Van Dine’s “Twenty Rules for Writing Detective Stories,” Niall Leonard’s “How to Write the Perfect Crime Story.”  You get the idea–there are numerous tips for creating the perfect mystery novel.  Some are still in vogue today, many years after they were created, while others are not.  Here’s a look at three of them:

1. The criminal must be someone mentioned in the early part of the story but must not be anyone whose thoughts the reader has been allowed to follow.  This precept has been violated countless times in detective fiction, most notably (spoiler alerts) more than half a century ago in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd and today in Gone Girl.
2. All supernatural or preternatural agencies are ruled out as a matter of course.  Given the popularity of vampires and spirits on mystery shelves today, I’d say this is another rule that has gone by the wayside.
3. If you get bogged down, just kill somebody.  Unfortunately, this rule is followed way too often.  Apparently some authors think that there cannot be a pause in the action or they will lose the reader, so another body is thrown into the mix.

Obviously, what is apparent is that there really aren’t rules or tips that automatically will create a riveting detective/crime novel.  The beauty of the genre is that a talented author may subscribe to all of these rules or none at all when writing.  Whether the author chooses plot over character development (Christie) or makes “place” central to the story  (P. D. James) or barely mentions it is of less significance than her/his skill in creating a mystery that will hold the reader’s interest.  We readers are very fortunate that there are so many writers, past and present, who are able to do this.

Marilyn

A first for my blog–two mysteries by the same author reviewed at one time.  I read Murder At The Brightwell a few weeks ago and planned to blog about it; then I read Death Wears A Mask, the second novel in the series, last week.  I have a policy of not writing about two books by the same author within a year, since I want to introduce readers to as many authors as possible, but this time it seems only logical to feature these two books in a single post.

Murder At The Brightwell is a delightful romp through 1930s upper class London society via the person of Amory Ames.  As the novel opens, Amory’s husband, Milo, whom she loves and hates in equal measure, has just returned from two months away with nary a word of explanation.  Unfortunately Amory is used to this behavior, as well as being used to seeing his photo appear with disheartening regularity in the society columns of various tabloids.

Minutes after Milo’s return, the Ames’ butler announces a visitor.  It’s Gil Trent, Amory’s former fiancé. The two had been engaged for a month when Amory met Milo, broke off the engagement, and married Milo.  She hasn’t seen Gil in the five succeeding years, but he has come to ask a favor.

He tells Amory that his younger sister, Emmeline, has gotten engaged to Rupert Howe, whom Gil is certain is no good.  He wants Amory to go to the Brightwell hotel with him and try to convince his sister that her fiancé is not the right man for her.  Amory has met Rupert and knows that his good looks and charm are uncannily similar to Milo’s; perhaps, indeed, she will be able to persuade Emmeline that the man is all surface, no substance.

Deciding that what is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander, Amory refuses to tell Milo where she is going, only that she is leaving the next day on a trip.  Correctly deducing that this somehow involves Gil, Milo offers some advice.  “Leave me if you must, darling.  But don’t go crawling back to Trent, of all people.  Surely you must have some pride.”  And Amory’s sad answer is, “I have been married to you for five years, Milo.  How much pride can I possibly have left?”  So off she goes to do what she can to help her former boyfriend, never thinking that this trip will end with a murder.

In Death Wears A Mask, Serena Barrington, a friend of Amory’s parents, comes to her for help in finding out who has stolen several of her valuable jewels.  A dinner party is arranged for Amory to meet the suspects, but no one there seems likely to be the thief.  A masked ball at the home of one the dinner guests, Viscount Dunmore, a few days later will include these same guests as well as many others members of London society, so a trap is laid by Serena and Amory in an attempt to catch the thief there.  However, everything goes awry when one of the guests at the ball, who was also at the Barrington dinner, is found murdered.

I would use the word frothy to describe Ashley Weaver’s books, but that would be doing them a disservice.  Although they are far from hard core mysteries, each one has a believable plot, witty dialog, and a delightful heroine.  Indeed, I found myself wishing I could be Amory Ames for a while, or at least visit her in one of the three beautiful homes that she and Milo have.  Murder At The Brightwell and Death Wears A Mask are two terrific introductions into a beguiling new series.

You can read more about Ashley Weaver at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

In the small English county of Derbyshire in 1978, two young girls are abducted on their way to school.  Rachel Jones is either released or escapes, she can’t remember which; she’s found a few hours later on a road outside a forest, close to her home.  But Sophie Jenkins is never heard from again, and her body, if she is dead, has never been recovered.

Now, on the anniversary date of her daughter’s disappearance, Sophie’s mother, Yvonne, is found dead, a suicide.  What made her kill herself now, more than three decades later?

There’s a new team of investigators, but they are convinced, as were the police thirty years ago, that Rachel doesn’t remember any more about the kidnapping now than she has already told them.  In all the intervening years, she had never seen or spoken to Yvonne, and Rachel and her late mother never discussed the abduction.  Rachel has tried to put the past behind her, not talking to the press or to anyone else about it.  But now, the police warn her, the file on Sophie Jenkins is going to be reopened, and Rachel realizes that everything will be examined all over again.

For someone who has always professed to have no memories of what happened after she and Sophie got into the car with the woman who offered them a ride, Rachel’s job is filled with memories–other people’s.  She has become a genealogist, making family trees for clients interested in knowing as much as possible about their ancestors.  Rachel’s only living relative is her grandmother Nancy, an indomitable woman now in a nursing home, whose advice about Rachel’s past has always been the same:  “These things are best forgotten.”

In Bitter Chill is a taut, exciting thriller.  The weather is cold and the town is cold too–people keeping secrets from their families and their neighbors.  Yvonne Jenkins, a devoted mother by all accounts, had withdrawn from the world after Sophie’s disappearance.  When asked by a policewoman to describe Yvonne, the neighbor says, “Frozen.  She was frozen.”  There are no photos or memorabilia of Sophie in the Jenkins’ home, almost as if the child had never lived there.  And yet Yvonne chose the anniversary of Sophie’s abduction to take her own life.

Sarah Ward’s first novel is filled with fear and surprises, right up to the last page.  It’s also filled with tenderness and caring.  Actually, it’s filled with all those things because they are what make up our lives.

You can read more about Sarah Ward at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

New Year’s Eve, London.  A night of celebration, fireworks, and noise–lots of noise.  So much that the horrific murders of four family members in an upscale gated community go unnoticed by neighbors.  Brad and Mary Wood and their two teenage children are dead.

Detective Max Wolfe is a member of the team of investigators, and he is the one who notices that there are photos of three children, the two dead teenagers and a young child, in the house.  But the family’s four-year-old son Bradley is nowhere to be found despite a desperate search of the house, the grounds, and an abutting cemetery.

The killings are eerily reminiscent of murders committed more than twenty years earlier, the weapon being a stun gun that is used on cattle.  A young Gypsy man, Peter Nawkins, was convicted of murdering a father and his three adult sons because they had opposed his engagement to the daughter of the family; he was recently released from prison after twenty years.  Terrible as the crimes were for which he went to jail, they were personal in nature.  Would he have committed such a crime against the Wood family, people whom he tells police he didn’t even know?

Further investigation shows that Mary Wood was the former Mary Gatling, the “Ice Virgin” of the 1994 Winter Olympics in Norway.  Her two siblings, Charlotte and Nils Gatling, go to the media, begging for someone to come forward with information about their young nephew.  Max can’t decide if this is helpful or not.  Will it make people more observant, looking for Bradley Wood in every possible place, or will it overwhelm the police with a thousand calls, well-meaning or not, that will only serve to interfere with the hunt for the child?

In the photos in the house, the Woods look like the perfect family.  They were all good-looking and photogenic, even the dog.  There were pictures of the teenagers playing hockey and football, smiling on the family’s boat, vacationing in Norway.  But did that kind of life breed jealousy and anger in people looking at the Woods’ videos on You Tube?  The police think so.  As one of Max’s colleagues puts it, “Look at how much the world hates the beautiful people, the rich ones….Look how the world hates the happy ones.  Can’t you see it, Max?  Somebody killed the Wood family because they were happy.”

In addition to his search for Bradley, Max is dealing with his interest in Charlotte, Mary Wood’s sister.  He knows better than to get involved with a member of the deceased’s family, but Charlotte’s beauty and her intense devotion toward her missing nephew make her particularly appealing.

The Slaughter Man is a mystery that will hold your interest from the beginning to the end.  Its topics, ranging from child abuse to racial stereotypes, are all too familiar in today’s world.  Tony Parsons has written a taut, exciting novel with characters, both major and minor, that will keep you on the edge of your seat.

You can see Tony Parsons talking about The Slaughter Man on this You Tube video.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Two strangers meet in a bar, talk while having a couple of drinks, and get on the same plane from England to Massachusetts.  It happens all the time.  Rarely does it end in murder. 

There is something, however, called Airport Rules.  That’s a variation of What Happens in Vegas Stays in Vegas, so what you say or do on an airplane doesn’t go any further than the plane.  Unless….

Ted Severson is a very successful businessman, a man with so much money that even the crash of 2008-09 didn’t touch him.  Lily Kinter is an archivist at a small college outside Boston, just striking up a conversation with a stranger to while away time before their flight takes off.  Perhaps it’s the result of the two martinis Ted has already drunk, and the third one he’s about to consume, but he tells Lily the story of his marriage to Miranda.  They met, they married, they live in Boston, and they’re in the process of building a second home in Maine.  Miranda has been overseeing every decision regarding the house, staying in Kennewick for days at a time to work with Brad Daggett, the contractor who is building the seven-bedroom house overlooking the Atlantic.

Planning to surprise his wife, Ted drives up to Kennewick, but it turns out that he is the one surprised.  Looking in one of the windows as he approaches the house, he sees Miranda and Brad sharing a moment that appears so intimate that it immediately makes him suspicious.  Then, pretending he has driven up merely for the afternoon, he leaves the construction site only to return later and, from a hiding place across the beach and aided by binoculars, witnesses the two having sex.

Lily has listened without comment to Ted’s story, the two of them now on the plane heading for Boston.  She asks him what he plans to do about the adultery he has seen.  “What I really want to do is to kill her,” Ted replies.  Without a pause, Lily responds, “I think you should.”

The Kind Worth Killing is told from several points of view–Ted’s, Lily’s, Miranda’s, and Henry Kimball’s, the Boston police detective who gets involved after the first murder.  In alternating sections, each narrator tells his/her story in the first person.  The characters are totally believable, their motives clear, and the very complex plot doesn’t have a single wrong note.  There are surprises on top of surprises, but not one feels false.

The final resolution comes on the book’s last page, and it’s perfection.  There’s not a moment’s letdown in this novel.

Peter Swanson has written a worthy successor to his debut novel, The Girl with a Clock for a Heart, which I reviewed in May 2014.  Mr. Swanson displays his talent by making us aware of his characters’ many flaws, yet somehow a bit of sympathy for them sneaks in almost against our will.  The three main characters, Ted, Lily, and Miranda, are all deviant in some way, but the author’s skill allows us to understand the reasons why.  The Kind Worth Killing is an outstanding novel in every way.

You can read more about Peter Swanson at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.