Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Sophie and Emmett Kohl started out as a typical young couple in 1991.  Fresh from Harvard, they married and decided to spend their honeymoon in Europe, avoiding the usual tourist places and going “where history’s happening,” as Emmett described it to his wife.

Emmett’s career took him to various embassies, and Sophie went with him.  Slightly bored but not knowing what she really wanted from life, it was an easy path to take.  And so in 2001, sitting in a Budapest restaurant with Emmett, Sophie is shocked when Emmett confronts her with two startling statements. 

First is the accusation that she had an affair in Cairo with a colleague of his, Stan Bertolli, and that Stan had called Emmett to tell him about it.  Sophie reluctantly admits the affair, telling Emmett that one of the reasons she did this was because he had changed so much in their time in Cairo, emotionally removing himself from their marriage.  “I was lonely, Emmett,”  she said.  “Simple as that.”

The Cairo Affair is a multi-layered story of espionage, love, and betrayal.  The novel opens in the present day, during the “Arab Spring,” but its roots go back to 1991 and Yugoslavia.  When the couple was in in that country two decades ago, they met a woman named Zora Balasevic.  Now Emmett tells a startled Sophie that two years ago Zora, working at the Serbian embassy in Cairo, had tried to enlist him to spy for her country.  Shock number two.

Emmett tells Sophie that he naturally refused but never reported the incident because he wasn’t sure who at the embassy could be trusted.  Eventually his superiors at the embassy realized that information was getting out; Emmett was among those who came under scrutiny because he had been seen with Zora. 

But before the conversation between Emmett and Sophie can go much further, a man walks into the restaurant and shoots and kills Emmett. 

The novel is told from the point of view of several different people, each one telling his/her own version of what happened in the past and what is happening now.  Jibril Aziz is a CIA employee of Libyan descent.  For years he’s been involved in a mysterious project called Stumbler, a project which he believes involves United States government officials’ secret involvement in the Libyan efforts to unseat Muammar Gadhafi.  Unable to convince the powers in charge of his version of events, he takes off for the Mideast to try to control the situation.

Stan Bertolli also has come under scrutiny from his embassy superiors who are trying to plug the information leak.  But while that should be his major concern, he is preoccupied with his longing for Sophie.  And when she contacts him after Emmett is murdered, he tells her to come to Cairo at once and he will help her.

Sophie is now on her own for the first time in her life.  Not knowing whom to trust in Hungary and fearful of any investigation, she returns to Egypt and Stan, although she’s not certain that that’s the best place for her either.

Sophie and Emmett’s lives are filled with secrets and lies, impacting both on Emmett’s career and their relationship with each other.  The Cairo Affair gives readers a look at the price people pay, in both professional and personal terms, when truth gives way to falsehoods and evasions.

You can read more about Olen Steinhauer at this web site.

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

Serial killers are not common in Sweden, certainly not in small towns such as Fjällbacka.  But although the idea of such a killer is slow to take hold in the police department, eventually the detectives come to that conclusion when a series of apparently unrelated murders are seen to have a common thread.

The Stranger opens with a new hire for the town’s police department, Hanna Kruse, its first female detective.  She has arrived just in time to join veteran detective Patrik Hedström in investigating a fatal car crash.  At first glance it looks cut-and-dried; the driver smells strongly of alcohol and there’s an empty vodka bottle on the floor.  But there’s something about the scene and the victim’s body that bothers Patrik.

Upon further investigation, Patrik discovers the semi-hidden life of the victim, Marit Kaspersen.  Marit had been living with Kerstin, ostensibly as a roommate, with Kerstin pushing for coming out in the open as lesbians while Marit insisted that it would do irreparable harm to her daughter Sofie.  The two women had fought about this many times, and to Kerstin’s distress, the last words that she and Marit had had the night before the accident ended with Kerstin saying to Marit, “Go ahead and run away….And this time don’t bother coming back!”

Fjällbacka is opening its doors to the filming of a reality television show, with all the attendant publicity and chaos that such filming involves.  The self-involved twenty-somethings in the cast know how the game is played–do the most outrageous things and you get the most airtime.  Chosen from previous reality show contestants, the group includes a girl who cuts herself, a wealthy playboy, a surgically enhanced bombshell, and a Turkish emigree, among others. 

Then one of them disappears, and the already busy police department becomes overwhelmed by the pressure from the national media.   Interestingly, the missing cast member doesn’t seem to have left behind grieving mates; the overwhelming feeling is “sorry she’s gone missing, but look at all the extra publicity we’re getting.”

Several other threads run through the novel, bringing the town and its inhabitants into greater focus.   Patrik’s wife Erica is dealing with her sister Anna, who is deeply depressed by a horrific event that occurred in the previous novel, while caring for Anna’s two children.  Bertil Mellberg, the inept head of homicide, is starting a romantic relationship that will turn his life around.  Erling Larson, a wealthy, self-satisfied businessman, is responsible for bringing the reality show to his town and cares only for the onrush of tourists he expects as a result.  And Hanna, the new detective, appears overly eager to close the book on the automobile crash that claimed Marit’s life.

The Stranger is Camilla Läckberg’s seventh book that has been translated into English.  The novels should ideally be read in sequence, as the characters and stories continue from one to the other.  But even if you start with The Stranger, I promise you’ll want to go back and read the others to get the full story of life in Fjällbacka.

You can read more about Camilla Läckberg at this web site.

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

“The glory that was Greece, and the grandeur that was Rome” are the lines that Edgar Allan Poe wrote in 1845.  There is grandeur in Lindsey Davis’ The Ides of April, and there are also appealing characters, great writing, and a terrific plot.

Flavia Albia, the heroine of the story, is a private informer, what today we would call a private eye.  She is the adopted daughter of the well-known Roman informer Marcus Didius Falco.  Abandoned as an infant, Flavia knows nothing of her biological family.  Marcus and his wife Helena Justina found her wandering the streets of Londinium, Britannia, and brought her to civilization, to Rome.  Flavia is now twenty-nine, a full Roman citizen, a widow, and following in her father’s business.

What brings Flavia into the case at the center of the book is the tragic death of a three-year-old boy who was run over by a builder’s cart.  Flavia is hired by the owner of the building company to thwart the boy’s mother’s demand for compensatory payment.  Although unsympathetic to the owner Salvidia, a female informer can’t be too choosy when it comes to jobs, so Flavia takes the case. 

After doing so, she reads a notice asking any witnesses to the accident to come forward.  Intrigued, Flavia goes to the Temple of Ceres, the headquarters of Manlius Faustus, the aedile (magistrate) for this area of Rome, to get more information.  Not having any luck at the Temple, she goes to his office where she meets Andronicus, the aedile’s clerk, and sexual sparks fly between them.  Andronicus tells her the aedile won’t assist her, but he lets her know that he’ll keep his eyes open to try to help.

Not having gained any insight into the case and disliking her client more and more, Flavia returns to the construction company to tell Salvidia that she is quitting.  When she gets there, she is told by the woman’s servant that Salvidia is dead, having come home from the market, gone to bed, and then stopped breathing.  Looking at the corpse, the only unusual thing the informer can see is a slight scratch on one of her arms, certainly nothing to cause death.

At Salvidia’s funeral the next day, Flavia meets the deceased’s neighbor, an elderly woman who concludes their conversation by saying, “You do what you can for her, dearie,” a statement Flavia interprets as the neighbor thinking that Savlidia died under suspicious circumstances.  And the following day, the neighbor is dead.

The writing in The Ides of April is excellent, always told in Flavia’s voice.  She can be empathic, as when she meets the family of another possible murder victim.  “Lupus the oyster-shucker would not easily be forgotten; I thought never,” she says to herself as she sees the family’s grief.  She can also be wry.  “…and (the man) could only come if his son was not using the false leg that day.  Assume I’m joking, if that comforts you.”

The Ides of April is the first in the Flavia Albia series.  The Marcus Falco series by this author is twenty novels long, and I’m hoping for at least that many for Flavia.  She’s a delight.  Hopefully, she’ll keep poking her nose into Rome’s secrets.

You can read more about Lindsey Davis at this web site.

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

Scott Turow’s latest novel, Identical, is as exciting a thriller as his debut mystery Presumed Innocent, and that’s saying a good deal.

Identical opens in an unidentified midwestern city with a substantial Greek-American population.  The year is 1982, and multimillionaire Zeus Kronon is holding his annual picnic on the vast grounds of his home.  Virtually the entire congregation of St. Demetrios Greek Orthodox Church is there to celebrate the ecclesiastical New Year, including twin brothers Cass and Paul Gianis; their mother Lidia; Zeus and his wife Hermione; their daughter Dita; their son Hal; Zeus’s sister Teri, who is Lidia’s best friend; Paul’s girlfriend Georgia; and Sophia, a neighborhood girl now in medical school.  It’s quite a cast of characters.

Like a Greek tragedy, strands are woven and woven again, until it’s hard to tell where relationships begin and end.  Cass and Paul seem almost to inhabit one mind, they are so close.  Dita, Cass’s girlfriend, is disliked by all of his family, particularly his mother.  Lidia hasn’t spoken to Zeus in more than twenty years, leaving her sons to wonder why she has agreed to attend this party.  And Paul, whom everyone thought was going to get engaged to Georgia, is suddenly smitten by Sophia.

After the party ends and the guests disperse, Dita is in her room waiting for Cass.  When morning comes, Dita’s bloodied body is discovered by her parents.  Cass admits to the murder, never giving a motive for the slaying, and spends the next twenty-five years in prison.

Twenty-five years later, Cass is applying for early release from prison.  Hal, who as Zeus’s only surviving child has inherited his father’s corporate empire, is appearing before the parole board to prevent this.  When the board approves Cass’ release, Hal orchestrates a crusade against Paul and his recently launched mayoral campaign, saying that Paul had lied under oath at the trial about his twin’s whereabouts the night of the murder and therefore doesn’t deserve to be mayor.

Using his vast wealth and his undying anger at both Cass and Paul, Hal orders his security chief and a former city detective to investigate what really happened the night of his sister’s murder.  He’s never had any doubt that Cass is guilty, but now he’s determined to discover Paul’s involvement as well.  With the unlimited resources at his command, he sets out to find what the Gianis twins have been hiding for over two decades.

Not only are all the characters extremely well drawn, the picture of the close-knit Greek-American community is compelling.  Like many other first or second generation ethnic groups, the Greek-Americans in Identical have formed their own community within the larger city.  Disputes brought over from the old country still resonate within families, sometimes even without the children or grandchildren of the immigrants knowing the reason for the original disagreement.  And the transliterated Greek comments that Turow has inserted at various point in the novel somehow bring the reader closer to the people in the book.

As expected of the author of eleven previous books, including Presumed Innocent and Reversible Errors, Identical is a page-turner, a mystery that will keep you engrossed until the last page.

You can read more about Scott Turow at this web site.

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

Alec Wynn is a very wealthy man with a very big problem. His young wife is missing, leaving behind only a note saying “Don’t look for me. C.” Alec knows there have been problems in their marriage–the difference in their ages, her infidelities–but he doesn’t understand why she left and doesn’t want to be found. So he hires private investigator Amos Walker to find the missing Cecelia in Don’t Look For Me.

Alec tells Amos that Cecelia was a serial adulterer, the last affair being with an employee of Alec’s, Lloyd Debner. “I fired him , naturally. ….gave him excellent references,” says Alec. So Amos’ first visit is to Lloyd, who reluctantly admits that Cecelia broke off their relationship because she told him he couldn’t satisfy her sexually.

His next visit is to Cecelia’s best friend, Patti Lochner. According to Alec, “If anyone was born to cause trouble in a happy marriage, her name is Patti Lochner.” After hearing only negative comments about Cecelia’s marriage and affairs from Patti, Amos asks her why she dislikes Cecelia so much. Surprised at Amos’ question, she responds, “Cecelia? She’s my best friend.” With friends like this….

The search continues, with stops at a natural health foods/vitamin store that might be a front for something more dangerous, a studio shooting pornographic videos with Cecilia’s former maid as a performer, and a gambling casino where Amos can talk things over with his friend Barry Stackpole. Cecelia was into some dangerous stuff, or at least sniffing around the edges of some of it, but Amos isn’t really getting anywhere. And then Cecelia calls him.

This is, I believe, the twenty-third novel that features Amos Walker, Detroit’s best-known private eye. Amos hasn’t lost a bit of his quick wit, although that doesn’t go over so well with his present client. When asked how big his agency is, Amos responds, “About six-one and one-eighty….I lied about my weight.” Alec’s response–“The humor I can take or let alone.” But the snarky remarks and quick comebacks are part of the Walker persona. He’s been in the business long enough not to be cowed by his clients, no matter how wealthy or powerful they are. After all, they came to him, didn’t they?

Don’t Look For Me brings back two men who form the basis of Amos’ “family.” One is John Alderdyce, now an inspector with the Detroit Police Department, a big bear of a man with a sense of fashion. The other is Barry Stackpole, an investigative journalist wounded a few books back by the Mob, who now has a bad leg and a steel plate in his head. John and Barry might not always agree with Amos or with what he’s doing, but they always have his back.

Loren D. Estleman recently received the Eye, the lifetime achievement award given by the Private Eye Writers of America. That should come as no surprise, as Amos Walker is surely one of the best known and best loved private eyes in America.

You can read more about Loren D. Estleman at this web site.

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

Times are tough in Little Rhody, one of the nicknames for the smallest state in the United States. The economy is down, Liam Mulligan’s job at the Providence Dispatch is threatened by the possible sale of the newspaper, and there’s a killer in the capital city.

There’s no apparent motive for the murders of a young single mother and her daughter although the killer left behind plenty of clues, including a smear of blood and a print of his forehead on a window. Then, two years later, another woman is found murdered along with her two young daughters. This time the killer left his prints on a windowsill and on the medicine cabinet. In both cases the victims had been slashed repeatedly with a knife. The prints in both cases match each other, but they don’t match anything in the system.

The pattern of entrance and murders in both cases is nearly identical, and FBI profiler Peter Schutter has decided that the killer is a white male in his twenties. But Liam becomes suspicious of a black teenager, Kwame Diggs, who lives close to where the victims lived. When he shares his thoughts with the profiler, Schutter tells him to forget it. “No way this kid’s your killer. Don’t waste your time on him,” Schutter says to Liam. The federal agent is convinced that the official profile is accurate.

But Liam is not so sure. Another reason Schutter dismisses Kwame is because he was only thirteen when the first murder was committed, but to Liam this is another factor in favor of Kwame’s guilt. The shoe size prints in the first murder were size eleven and in the second murder were size twelve. To Liam this means that the killer was still growing, thus adding to the possibility of a young, still developing, male rather than a fully-grown twenty-someone. When he revisits Kwame and questions him, Kwame says that he takes a size ten shoe, but Liam can see for himself that that’s false, as the teenager’s shoe is slightly larger than Liam’s own size eleven. The police arrest Kwame for the murders, and he’s convicted. But the law has given Kwame a way out of what would ordinarily be a life sentence.

The action that propels the book is a law that was on the Rhode Island books that if a juvenile commits a crime, regardless of the severity of the crime, he must be released from custody upon reaching the age of twenty-one. Although the authorities have been able to hold Kwame in prison for several more years due to some possibly illegal actions on the state’s part, he is now about to be released, causing protests from frightened citizens that are leading up to the governor’s door. And the governor is a long-time friend of Liam’s with her own popularity at stake.

The supporting characters in Providence Rag are vivid and compelling. There’s Kwame’s widowed mother, Esther Diggs, who cannot bring herself to believe that her son is guilty despite his confession; Iggy Rock, a right-wing radio personality who is leading marchers to protest Kwame’s upcoming release; Gloria Costa, Liam’s colleague on the Dispatch, trying to overcome her fears after fleeing from an attempted rape; Edward Anthony Mason III, also called Thanks-Dad by Liam, sixth generation of the publishing family that owns the Dispatch; and Felicia Fryer, Kwame’s new attorney who is convinced that the authorities have kept her client in jail for years after his original release date by perjured testimony from prison guards.

This novel is the third in the Liam Mulligan series; the first one, Rogue Island, won the Edgar and Macavity awards. Look for more kudos for Providence Rag.

Bruce DeSilva has been a journalist, a writing coach, and a college professor, all roads leading to the Liam Mulligan books. You can read more about him at this web site.

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

Now a teacher at a public school in Manhattan, Raymond Donne was formerly a New York City policeman who changed careers following a tragic accident.  When one of his former students, now a student at a prestigious private school, is stabbed to death under the Williamsburg Bridge, Ray gets a phone call from the boy’s mother and becomes drawn into the case.

Douglas Lee was the perfect student for Upper West Academy in Manhattan to feature in its brochures in order to increase its number of minority students:  a bright African-American teenager with a slight learning disability being raised by a single mother.  Dougie was popular and well-liked, both in his neighborhood and at his school, but somehow he ended up murdered.  And when the police see that he’s wearing the colors of a local street gang and has bags of marijuana in his socks, they’re sure this is a drug-related death.  It seems as if there will be little official follow-up to this crime, so Mrs. Lee contacts Ray to see if he has any clout, as a former cop and Dougie’s former teacher, to try to keep the investigation open.

Crooked Numbers follows Ray as he meets with Allison Rogers, a journalist he met several months earlier when he was on the police force and who is covering Dougie’s death for her newspaper.  Also involved in the investigation is Dennis Mercer, a detective who graduated from the police academy with Ray and was formerly romantically involved with Ray’s sister.  Dennis wants to believe the investigation is over, minimal as it was, but Allison and Ray persuade him to keep it open a few more days by talking about negative publicity for the police force if nothing more is seen to be done.  “We both know how they love a good cops-screwed-up piece next to a picture of the victim’s grieving mother,” Ray tells Dennis.

There is a terrific sense of place in Crooked Numbers.  The differences between Williamsburg, the section of Brooklyn where Dougie and his mother lived, and the Upper West Side of Manhattan are brilliantly portrayed.  As the author says, the distance is slight.  “Five miles.  Geographically.  Demographically, the Upper West Side might as well be on the other side of the world.”

Tim O’Mara also writes some memorable characters.  In addition to the ones mentioned above, there is Tito, head of the Brooklyn gang the Royal Family, and he doesn’t like the fact that someone put those “gang” beads around Dougie’s neck; no way was that kid a member of his gang.  There’s Elliot Henry Finch, a classmate of Dougie’s at the Academy who’s also a serious birdwatcher and computer nerd.  There are the two friends of Dougie’s from the Academy, Jack Quinn and Paulie Sherman.  And then there are Angel Rodriguez, a student at Ray’s public middle school who is being harassed and bullied by some older kids at his bus stop, and Angel’s father, who takes steps to stop it.

Crooked Numbers is the second in the Raymond Donne series, and I’m going back to read the first book, Sacrifice Fly.  I have no doubt it is as engrossing and well-written as its successor.

You can read more about Tim O’Mara at this web site.

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

February 1, 2014

As I celebrate the beginning of my fifth year writing this blog, I feel overwhelmed by the embarrassment of riches it has brought me.

As I mentioned in an earlier post, the idea of writing to the authors of the books I reviewed had never occurred to me.  When my husband first proposed it, about a year or so after I started blogging, I told him there was no way an author would be interested in hearing from me, an unknown woman writing her opinion of his/her book.  But Bob persisted with his idea, saying that if I didn’t try it I’d never know, so I finally gave in and started letting authors know that I had written a review of their most recent book.

Sure enough, I began getting responses.  I’ve never tabulated it, but I probably hear from at least seventy-five percent of the authors to whom I write.  Some write a quick ‘thank you so much for your kind review,’ while others write longer notes.  I notice that first-time authors usually take the time to write, which of course isn’t surprising.  At the beginning of their careers they have received fewer reviews than established authors and are eager to have their books reviewed.  That said, I have truly been surprised and gratified by the “big names” who have taken the time to express their appreciation of my posts, even those authors who regularly appear on the best seller lists.

Recently something else has been happening.  A few authors have written to me saying that they’ve asked their publishers to send me a copy of their latest book to review.  The first time this happened I was absolutely amazed, overwhelmed, and “gobsmacked” (as the British say).  And even though it’s been occurring more often now, I am still delighted and somewhat surprised when an advance reading copy or a newly published novel arrives in my mailbox for my reviewing pleasure.  As I write this, there are five such mysteries waiting for me to read and review–heaven!

Can you tell how much I enjoy writing this weekly column?  It’s been four years of writing posts for Mystery Reviews, Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and About Marilyn.  I’m looking forward to another exciting year starting right now.

Marilyn

V. I. (Vic) Warshawski’s friend Lottie Herschel was rescued from the Holocaust, transported to England on the Kindertransport with another young girl, Kathe Saginor.  That was more than seventy years ago, but the long arm of history has reached into present-day Chicago, bringing with it lies, betrayals, and murder.

Lottie was a child of the upper middle class in Vienna before the war.  Her playmate Kathe was the granddaughter of the Herschels’ seamstress.  Kathe’s own mother, Martina, was too involved in her scientific career to care for her daughter.

The two girls were separated upon their arrival in England and didn’t see each other for years afterward.  They led very different lives until Kathe, now renamed Kitty, ended up in Chicago, the city where Lotte resides and has a medical practice.  Lotte never married, but Kitty married an American serviceman and has a daughter, Judy, who became a drug addict and dealer.  It is Judy whose story precipitates Vic’s involvement in Lotte and Kitty’s tangled histories.

Searching for Judy, Vic finds an abandoned crystal meth-making house, a starved dog, and a man’s corpse.  When Vic tells Kitty what she has found, Kitty lets Vic know in no uncertain terms that she has no interest in where her daughter is or what trouble she is in now.

But Kitty is very concerned about Judy’s son Martin, who left their home and his job ten days ago and hasn’t been seen or heard from since.  Cordell Breen, the president of the company where Martin works as a computer programmer, wasn’t told that Martin hasn’t been at work for more than a week, and he is now concerned that the young man may have taken some important confidential information with him.

Critical Mass goes back and forth between the present in Chicago and the late thirties and early forties in Vienna.  Martin’s great-grandmother, Martina, was a brilliant physicist who lost her research and teaching jobs because she was Jewish.  She continued as best she could, reading scientific journals and making copious equations about heavy water and atomic molecules, often disagreeing with the conventional wisdom of the time.  Her research was ignored due to her religion and gender, but she persevered.  Sent to a concentration camp during the war, Martina was never heard from again.

Despite opposition from Kitty and Lotte, Vic decides to look for Judy and eventually for Martin.  This involves her with the family of Benjamin Dzornen, Martina’s mentor in Vienna and winner of the Nobel Prize for physics.  The remaining Dzornens, his two daughters and a son, have only contempt for Kitty, her daughter, and her grandson.  There’s a secret connecting these families–the Herschels, the Saginors, and the Dzornens–and Vic is determined to find out what it is, in addition to locating Martin and Judy.

V. I. is, as always, tough, determined, and willing to put herself in dangerous situations to get at the truth.  Warned off by friends and foes alike, she continues her search in order to ferret out the story of Kitty’s family.  Critical Mass is a powerful novel with fascinating characters, and the plot resonates with historical truths many people would prefer to forget.

You can read more about Sara Paretsky at her web site.

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

Rivers and mountains, trees and trails.  That’s what most people think of when they think of Montana, the Big Sky country.  But even beside the beautiful Papoose Mountains, there is murder.

Sheriff Martha Ettinger is looking for Nanika (Nicki) Martinelli, the fly fishing guide/dude ranch naturalist who is missing from the Culpepper ranch.  Nicki had gone out with a group of tourists and another guide from the ranch, said she would take the long road back alone, and never returned.

As part of the search party, Martha is riding up a mountain trail when she sees a body in the snow.  Closer examination shows that it’s not Nicki but one of the Culpepper wranglers who had started searching for her before the sheriff was called in.  And the wrangler has an elk’s antlers piercing his midsection.

The missing Martinelli woman had cast a spell over nearly all the men in the Madison River Valley.  Before she joined the staff at the Culpepper spread, she worked as a river guide at Sam Meslik’s place, a job that led to a brief sexual relationship between the two.  And just two nights before she went missing, Sam and the now dead wrangler got into a fist fight over Nicki.

The issue of wolves in Montana runs through the novel.  The reintroduction of wolves into the state in the mid 1990s was, and still is, controversial.  Most ranchers and farmers oppose it, claiming that the wolves would devastate animal herds, while environmentalists and tourism groups claim the wolves could be contained and bring in much needed revenue from outside the state.  In Dead Man’s Fancy, the anti-wolf group believes that Nicki was killed by a marauding pack of wolves, and after she has not been found following a search of several days, their point of view gains adherents.

Knowing that Sam is Sean Stranahan’s close friend, Martha calls Sean back from a fishing trip to talk to Sam and get the full story about his relationship with Nicki.  Sean, also a fishing guide, has a private investigator’s license and has helped Martha out in previous cases.  After speaking with Sam, he starts looking more deeply into the life of the missing Nicki.

His search takes him to the county where she had lived with her father, to a sheriff whose county has been poisoned by asbestos, to Martha’s cousin who is getting ready to marry a wealthy widow despite the opposition of her family.

The characters in Keith McCafferty’s series have grown and matured over the three novels in the series.  Sean is still a man searching for his place in the world, or at least his place in Montana, but he seems closer to finding it.  And Martha Ettinger has become more self-confident and assured in her role as sheriff.  They both have baggage from their pasts, but they seem to be more at ease with themselves and each other now.

Keith McCafferty brings the Treasure State to life.  His love for the outdoors is obvious and not surprising given his position as Survival and Outdoor Skills editor of Field & Stream.  Just as impressive as his ability to bring his home state alive is his ability to make his characters real.  Both recurring characters and new ones are vibrant, believable, and make us care about them.  I’m already eager to read the next book in the series.

You can read more about Keith McCafferty at this web site.

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

There aren’t many mysteries that leave you with a smile on your face.  But that’s what Tatiana by Martin Cruz Smith did for me.

It’s not that this novel isn’t frightening.  It definitely is.  It’s simply that it’s so well written, its characters so well drawn, that when the book ends the way you hope it will, you’re totally satisfied. 

There are four main threads that tie the novel together, although at first they seem to be separate, unrelated strands.  First we are introduced to Joseph, a multilingual translator working in the Russian city of Kaliningrad, far from the capital.  He has transcribed notes for the conference at which he was translating, notes not in shorthand but in a secret code that only he is able to read.

The second thread takes us to the Moscow funeral of Mafia boss Grisha Grigorenko, his empire left up for grabs.  Who will be able to claim it and hold it:  his son Alexi, not considered to be the equal of his late father; Ape Beledon and his two sons, all three rival mobsters of the Grigorenkos; or the Shagelmans, a husband and wife specializing in banking and building schemes?

The third is the eponymous Tatiana, an investigative journalist in Moscow.  According to the newspapers and the police, she jumped to her death from her apartment window.  But those who knew her, or knew her simply by reputation, don’t believe that.  They say she was fearless and totally committed to uncovering the corruption rampant in the “new Russia” and would never have killed herself because she valued the importance of her work too much.  There has been no further investigation and no body available, so naturally police detective Arkady Renko gets involved.

And the fourth is Arkady’s semi-official foster son Zhenya, now seventeen and determined to join the Russian Army.  Because he’s still a minor, he needs Arkady’s signed permission to enlist, something that Arkady refuses to give him.  So Zhenya takes matters into his own hands with a bit of extortion.

The four threads eventually combine, tangle, and knot.  Arkady investigates the case, although his superiors tell him numerous times that there is no case; and there’s no body because, either accidentally or deliberately and in spite of written directions to the contrary, Tatiana’s body was cremated.  Still, Arkady plugs on.

Having read nearly all the previous Arkady Renko novels, I’m still in awe of his survival powers, first in the Communist Soviet Union and now in the “new Russia.”  The police are just as corrupt as they were decades earlier, and now Arkady must contend with the forces of the newly mega-rich Russians who have their own agenda.  Their luxury cars, their expensive jewels, their elegant dachas–these Russians don’t want to give them up and will use any means necessary to hold on to them.  How Arkady manages to survive in this world of government ineptitude and corruption and billionaire oligarchs is nothing short of miraculous.

I’ve been a fan of Martin Cruz Smith ever since his short-lived series, Gypsy in Amber and Canto for a Gypsy, appeared in the early 1970s.  I really enjoyed those novels and wish the series had continued.  But I find every Arkady Renko novel a thrilling read, so I can’t complain.

You can read more about Martin Cruz Smith at this web site.

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

Terry Shames has written a second novel about former police chief Samuel Craddock, and it’s just as good as her first, A Killing at Cotton Hill. 

Jarrett Creek, Texas, is a small town obsessed with its high school football team.  As the story opens, Samuel is on his way to the Town Cafe, where the locals meet daily, usually to discuss the fortunes of the team.  One of the regulars is Jack Harbin, a local man who was blinded and lost a leg while he was serving in the Gulf War.  Never married, Jack has been confined to a wheelchair since his return home and has been taken care of by his father, Bob.  When Samuel arrives at the Cafe, the Harbins are not there and they don’t answer their phone when Samuel calls.  Bothered by this departure from the Harbins’ regular routine, Samuel drives to their house and finds Bob lying unmoving on the grass and Jack on the sidewalk near his overturned wheelchair.

Bob is dead, apparently of a heart attack, and Jack’s fellow veterans rally around him to help him get on with his life.   When Jack’s younger brother Curtis arrives, the bad feeling between the siblings is evident.  Curtis wants Jack to sell the house and live in a veterans’ hospital, something Jack definitely doesn’t want to do.

When the preliminary autopsy results come back, they show that Bob had a large amount of Benadryl in his system.  Jack says that can’t be right, his father never  took any drug that would cause him to sleep so soundly that he wouldn’t hear if Jack called him during the night.  Curtis dismisses Jack’s statement out of hand, but it makes Samuel decide to look more closely into Bob’s death.

When Jack was in high school, his best friend was Woody Patterson, a teammate on the football team that Jack quarterbacked.  Both boys volunteered for the army upon graduation, but a previously unknown medical problem kept Woody home while Jack was sent to the Middle East where he was so grievously wounded.  After his return, Jack cut off contract with Woody; in fact, the two haven’t spoken in twenty years.  But now, after Bob’s death, Woody wants Jack to come to live with him, his wife, and their two children.  Then Jack is murdered, opening another criminal investigation.

Samuel is asked by the Texas Rangers to take over the investigation, as the Jarrett Creek’s sheriff is out of commission (read drying out) and the deputy isn’t deemed capable enough to replace him.  Samuel agrees, determined to find out the truth about Bob Harbin’s death and all that followed.

Terry Shames brings small-town Texas to life again, with its secrets and feuds going back decades.  The present-day economic crisis hasn’t improved lives or tempers either, and Samuel keeps coming across figurative locked doors and high walls in his attempt to solve the crime.  Samuel Craddock is as wise and compassionate as he was in the first novel.  The Last Death of Jack Harbin is a wonderful successor to A Killing at Cotton Hill.

You can read more about Terry Shames at this web site.

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

“Mr. Holmes, they were the footprints of a gigantic hound!”

Can anyone who has ever read those words forget them?  More than a century and a quarter have passed since The Hound of the Baskervilles was published, but the shock and horror of those nights on the moor outside Sir Henry Baskerville’s estate live on in the minds of all its readers.

I don’t know why I haven’t written an appreciation of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle before this.  To me, he is the father of the modern mystery story (apologies to Edgar Allan Poe, but that’s my opinion).

When you consider that Sir Arthur was born in 1859 and created Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson in 1886, the freshness and modernity of his writing is nearly incredible.  More than 125 years after his “birth,” Sherlock Holmes is still read throughout the world.

He has been portrayed on the stage (William Gillette), in the movies (Basil Rathbone), and the PBS series starring Benedict Cumberbatch is returning to television in January (the less said about Jeremy Brett’s portrayal of Holmes, the better).  Anna Katharine Green and Catherine Louisa Perkis were roughly Doyle’s contemporaries, as were Israel Zangwill and Arthur Morrison; seen any television programs or movies about their protagonists lately?

The cleverness of the plots and the charisma of Holmes are what has kept this series alive.  The Hound of the Baskervilles is my favorite of the four novels Doyle wrote, but it is his short stories that show the author at his best.  Who can forget the trickery behind “The Red-headed League,” the snake slowly uncoiling from the ceiling in “The Adventure of the Speckled Band,” the greed of the stepfather in “A Case of Identity”?  And consider the allure of Irene Adler, the woman in “A Scandal in Bohemia.”

That is not to say that all Holmes stories are equally good.  The last ones suffer from comparison to the first, and a careful reader can see where Doyle seemed to run out of ideas for his hero.  The plot of “The Adventure of the Three Garridebs” is uncannily similar to that of “The Red-headed League,” and “The Adventure of the Six Napoleons” and “The Adventure of the Blue Carbuncle” definitely share the same idea.  But readers forgave Doyle his self-plagiarism, a concept that probably didn’t even exist when he wrote; they were simply too happy to have another Sherlock Holmes story.

Much of Doyle’s biography is well known.  He grew up in a poor Scottish home, was sent to medical school by a wealthy uncle, and during slack times in his opthalmic office started writing detective stories.  In addition to these two occupations, Doyle was, at various times, a whaler, a speculator, and a war correspondent.  A Study in Scarlet was the first Holmes story, and it was an immediate success.  Although Doyle wrote several historical novels and volumes of poetry as well, it is of course for the Holmes oeuvre that he is remembered today.

It may be that Arthur Conan Doyle was disappointed that his mystery novels and short stories were to be his legacy rather than the more serious works he wrote.  But we, his readers, can be forgiven for choosing the unforgettable Holmes and Watson above all of Dr. Doyle’s other literary creations.  There is something in them that resonates with us, that once read cannot be forgotten.

You can read more about Sir Arthur Conan Doyle and his creations at this web site.

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

A honeymoon spent in a one room log cabin, on a frozen lake, locked in by the perfect storm.  That’s where Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne find themselves in this eighth novel in Julia Spencer-Fleming’s clerical/police series.

Clare Fergusson is the minister at St. Albans Episcopal Church and is newly married to Police Chief Russ Van Alstyne.   Actually, she’s a little too newly married for some of the parishioners and the church board, being five months pregnant after only three months of marriage.  There are those who think this is a blot on the church and its ministers, and Clare has been offered the option of resigning from St. Albans rather than facing a disciplinary panel.  If she resigns she would be free to lead another church in the diocese; if she’s fired, she won’t be allowed to do so.  She is given a week to make her decision.

At the same time, Russ is informed that the Millers Kill police force may be disbanded in an effort to save the town money and its duties taken over by the New York State Police.

Each keeping her/his secret from the other, Clare and Russ are determined to have their honeymoon as planned.  But three factors complicate this, and the three combine to make the plot of Through the Evil Days.

First is the disappearance of young Mikayla Johnson.  The foster home she was living in was set on fire, killing the girl’s foster parents, but Mikayla’s body wasn’t found.  Her situation is desperate because she is on life-saving drugs following a liver transplant, and how would the person who abducted her know that or be able to obtain the medication Mikayla needs?

The second strand involves the Young Mothers Program run by St. Albans.  Amber, one of the young women in the group, asks Clare for a ride up to the lake cabin near where Clare and Russ will be honeymooning and where Amber and her baby are supposed to meet her boyfriend.  Clare and Russ duly deposit the mother and child there, but when they return to check on her, she and her child are no longer at the cabin.

The third part of the plot is the romantic involvement between Kevin Flynn and Hadley Knox, two members of the Millers Kill police force.  Their relationship has been a difficult one, and just when it appears to be going well, Hadley’s former husband comes to town with a devastating ultimatum that could wreck not only her plans with Kevin but her job as well.

Through the Evil Days is wonderful, as is every other book in this series.  Clare and Russ are strong, believable, and anxious to have a happy marriage, but life keeps throwing them curveballs.  And the relationship between Kevin and Hadley, in love but facing hurdles neither one knows how to handle, asks the question:  is love enough?

You can read more about Julia Spencer-Fleming at this web site.

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

Navajo Nation Police Officer Bernadette Manuelito is enjoying a quiet staff breakfast at a small restaurant near Window Rock, Arizona.  As Bernadette and retired police lieutenant Joe Leaphorn leave the breakfast and walk to their vehicles a shot rings out and Leaphorn falls to the pavement, critically wounded.

Anne Hillerman’s first novel follows the path paved by her late father, the greatly admired mystery author Tony Hillerman.  The characters will be familiar to those who have read the previous Joe Leaphorn and Jim Chee novels, but in Spider Woman’s Daughter it’s Bernie Manuelito who takes the lead role.

It’s hard for the police to find any motive for the shooting.  Leaphorn was well-respected by all members of the community, including those he apprehended.  Bilaganna, or revenge, is not a part of traditional Navajo culture, but it’s possible that whoever attempted to kill Leaphorn is either a white person or else an Indian who has fallen far from the values of the Navajo.

Although she has been taken off the case because she is a witness to the shooting, as is police procedure, Bernie cannot leave the shooting alone.  She continues to ask questions in her search for the shooter.  She tells Captain Largo, “This case is personal.  I promised I’d find whoever shot him.”  Largo responds, “I don’t want to have to fire you.  But I will if you can’t take orders.”

So instead of investigating the crime, Bernie is sent off to find Louisa Bourebonette, the woman Leaphorn lives with, and any relatives Leaphorn may have.  But Louisa isn’t at home or at work, and Bernie can’t find any relatives, so she decides to look for Leaphorn’s killer despite Largo’s orders.

The only possibly pertinent thing Bernie finds at Leaphorn’s house is a large envelope addressed to a Dr. John Collingsworth at the AIRC, a museum and gallery in Santa Fe.  She drives to Santa Fe to give Collingsworth the envelope, but he is disappointed when he opens it.  It’s Leaphorn’s bill, not the report he expected.  The AIRC is anticipating a huge donation of Indian works.  Given Leaphorn’s investigative background plus his knowledge of Indian pottery and rugs, Collingsworth had hired him to look over the valuations of the items donated to see if they were realistic.  But Leaphorn’s report is missing.

In addition to her unauthorized police work, Bernie is dealing with her own family issues.  Her sister Darleen and their mother are living together, an arrangement that sounds good on paper but isn’t working well.   Their mother is showing early signs of dementia and shouldn’t be left alone, but Darleen can’t be trusted to stay with her and resents her role as a caretaker.  She views Bernie as having it all–a loving husband in Jim Chee, an exciting job, and no real responsibility for their mother.

It’s a pleasure to read Ms. Hillerman’s debut novel.  Her characters are real, and her knowledge of the lore of the Diné (Navajo) people is profound.  She seamlessly weaves this information into the plot, and the reader feels as if she/he is taking a tour of the Navajo Nation (Naabeehó Bináhásdzo), a fascinating place to be.  Anne Hillerman has written what I hope will be the first in a long series about the continuing adventures of the Navajo police in general and Bernadette Manuelito in particular.

You can read more about Anne Hillerman at this web site.

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