Crime Fiction Alphabet: T is for Charles Todd

I was reminded of how much I enjoy this "author" when I read that a member of the 4MA is moderating a panel at Malice Domestic where Charles Todd is participating. (Since writing that I have had the pleasure of hearing Caroline, half of the Todd duo, at CrimeFest in Bristol)

From Fantastic Fiction:
Charles Todd is a pen name used by the American authors Caroline and Charles Todd. This mother-and-son writing team lives in the eastern United States, in North Carolina and Delaware, respectively. The pseudonymous mystery authors are best known for a series of novels, set in post World War I England. These intelligent and literate books deal with the cases of Inspector Ian Rutledge, a veteran of the European campaigns who is attempting to pick up the pieces of his Scotland Yard career. However, he must keep his greatest burden a secret. Suffering from shell shock, he lives with the constant cynical, taunting voice of Hamish MacLeod, a young Scots soldier he was forced to execute on the battlefield for refusing an order.

Reviews on MiP
SEARCH THE DARK
A PALE HORSE
A TEST OF WILLS
A DUTY TO THE DEAD

Unfortunately I have a lot of reading to catch up with the series.
Ian Rutledge
1. A Test of Wills (1996)
2. Wings of Fire (1998)
3. Search the Dark (1999)
4. Legacy of the Dead (2000)
5. Watchers of Time (2001)
6. A Fearsome Doubt (2002)
7. A Cold Treachery (2005)
8. A Long Shadow (2006)
9. A False Mirror (2007)
10. A Pale Horse (2008)
11. A Matter of Justice (2009)
12. The Red Door (2010)
13. A Lonely Death (2011)

Bess Crawford Mystery
1. A Duty to the Dead (2009)
2. An Impartial Witness (2010)
3. A Bitter Truth (2011)

Check other contributions to the Crime Fiction Alphabet

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter T - week begins 30 May 2011

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

It is never too late to join in on this meme and you don't have to post each week if reading (or life) gets in the way. And it is so easy!

The books and authors being suggested are a great way of learning about books you haven't read, or authors you haven't yet met.
We have participants from all over the globe too. Do take the time to check the entries towards the end of the week. Like me, you'll find yourself adding "must read" titles to your TBR.

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M N  O P Q R S

This week's letter is the letter T

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
[Those who intend to participate regularly have signed up here.]

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, or even maybe cover a crime fiction "topic", so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)

Please link your post for the week back to this page. (a letter image is supplied that you can use in your post as well as the meme icon if you wish).

After your post is published, put a link to your actual blog post in the Mr Linky that appears below.
(leave a comment if Mr Linky has disappeared)

Then come back at the end of the week to check to see who else has posted and visit their blog (and leave a comment if you can).

Please check each Monday for the letter of the week

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O P Q R S

Thanks for participating.

---

Forgotten Book: HUYSMAN'S PETS, Kate Wilhelm

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books appears in my records for 1993.

I am fascinated when I come across records like this one, because it shows how twenty years ago I was reading books I very likely wouldn't even consider today. In 1993 I read three Kate Wilhelm titles,  a mere drop in the ocean when you consider what a prolific writer she has been.

Publisher's blurb
Stanley Huysman was a Nobel laureate whose visionary theories of his later years, bridging biology and physics, came to be labeled crackpot ideas. The true genius of these experiments becomes clear only when Huysman's widow calls on Drew Lancaster to write the scientist's biography. As Drew deciphers the man's notes, to crack the code of government-funded projects and the secrecy of Huysman's unscrupulous assistant, Claude Dohemy, it is revealed that the great man actually achieved what he set out to do. By genetic manipulation, he induced telepathy in his subjects. But Dohemy is now holding those subjects children prisoner, and it is only their extraordinary powers that free them. This lively thriller is made especially appealing by its instantly engaging characters and its deftly dovetailed plot.

Kate Wilhelm's novels seem to have been in tune with what I call my science fiction reading phase. Many of them seem to have been aimed at a YA audience, and as i was teaching high school English at the time perhaps it explains why I was reading them. She was inducted into the Science Fiction Hall of Fame (2003) for her lifetime contribution to the genre.

Kate Wilhelm has a website.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: S is for Vanda Symon

Let me take the opportunity of this Crime Fiction Alphabet post for the letter S to point you to a New Zealand crime fiction author that you really must read.

The photo of Vanda, to the right, was taken recently during New Zealand Book Month, reading from her latest novel BOUND. 

I've read all of Vanda Symon's published novels and can recommend them highly.
Check the reviews on my blog:
OVERKILL
THE RINGMASTER
CONTAINMENT
BOUND

Vanda blogs at Overkill

Like Agatha Christie, Vanda has a background in pharmacy.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter S - week begins 23 May 2011

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

It is never too late to join in on this meme and you don't have to post each week if reading (or life) gets in the way. And it is so easy!

The books and authors being suggested are a great way of learning about books you haven't read, or authors you haven't yet met.
We have participants from all over the globe too. Do take the time to check the entries towards the end of the week. Like me, you'll find yourself adding "must read" titles to your TBR.

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M N  O P Q R

This week's letter is the letter S

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
[Those who intend to participate regularly have signed up here.]

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, or even maybe cover a crime fiction "topic", so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)

Please link your post for the week back to this page. (a letter image is supplied that you can use in your post as well as the meme icon if you wish).

After your post is published, put a link to your actual blog post in the Mr Linky that appears below.
(leave a comment if Mr Linky has disappeared)

Then come back at the end of the week to check to see who else has posted and visit their blog (and leave a comment if you can).

Please check each Monday for the letter of the week

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O P Q R

Thanks for participating.

---

Forgotten Books: UNGUARDED HOURS, Rendell and Simpson

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books appears in my records for 1993.

THE STRAWBERRY TREE (Ruth Rendell) and FLESH AND GRASS (Helen Simpson) were two novellas published in one cover, UNGUARDED HOURS in 1990. It was the first volume in a series of suspense novellas published under the general title Unguarded Hours

THE STRAWBERRY TREE is a short novel about Petra Summers, an attractive middle-aged woman with a past which is beginning to come back to haunt her. The events of The Strawberry Tree happen in Majorca, during a long cloudless summer, some forty years ago, before the coming of the souvenir shops and tourist agencies. It is a place and time experienced intensely by four children who explore...  more » the island and the Casita de Golondro, the little haunted house, and whose lives are utterly changed by the happenings of the summer.

FLESH AND GRASS is a gourmand's suspense story set deep in middle England where George Thurkle, chef proprietor of Chez Thurkle, and Felix Growcott, village doctor, salivate together over an astonishing variety of flesh. Meanwhile the doctor's daughter, Bryony, puts a brick through the shop window of the village's gentle butcher, Thomas Farewell.

While Ruth Rendell, already an established author, has gone on to be a very prolific writer, Helen Simpson has continued to produced occasional collections of short stories. This was Helen Simpson's first publication.   

Attending CrimeFest

You may think this blog has been a bit quiet for the last 10 days or so.
The reason - we've been travelling - Abu Dhabi, London and more.

The internet connections haven't been the best and even email has been problematic.
The reading has been happening but reviews have been a bit difficult to write - the drafting is getting done but the blog write up not. The Kindle is proving to be a real boon too. I didn't end up bringing any made-from-paper books with me.

For the last 5 days we have been in Ireland on an excellent tour through the south and south west.
The final day was in Bunratty and I was reminded a couple of times of a book, historical crime fiction, I read set in mediaeval Ireland in this district. MY LADY JUDGE by Cora Harrison

But today we arrive in Bristol

 

Blogging won't improve but the focus on crime fiction will!

Crime Fiction Alphabet: R is for Ruth and Reginald

Among my favourite British authors are Reginald Hill and Ruth Rendell, so what I've decided to do for the letter inthe Crime Fiction Alphabet is to point to some of the reviews on my blog of their books.

Between them they have made an incredible contribution to the genre.

They have both written under pseudonyms too: Reginald Hill as Dick Morland, Patrick Ruell, Charles Underhill and Ruth Rendell as Barbara Vine.

Hill, Reginald:
A CURE FOR ALL DISEASES
ASKING FOR THE MOON
4.5, CHILD'S PLAY
DEATH OF A DORMOUSE
MIDNIGHT FUGUE
THE SPY'S WIFE
THE ROAR OF THE BUTTERFLIES
THERE ARE NO GHOSTS IN THE SOVIET UNION
4.8, THE WOODCUTTER (2009)

Rendell, Ruth:
FROM DOON WITH DEATH
PORTOBELLO
4.7, THE MONSTER IN THE BOX (2009)
4.5, A NEW LEASE OF DEATH

There are a couple of Ruth Rendell recent stand alones that I keep thinking I must make time to read:
Tigerlily's Orchids (2010)
The Vault (2011)

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter R - week begins 16 May 2011

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

It is never too late to join in on this meme and you don't have to post each week if reading (or life) gets in the way. And it is so easy!

The books and authors being suggested are a great way of learning about books you haven't read, or authors you haven't yet met.
We have participants from all over the globe too. Do take the time to check the entries towards the end of the week. Like me, you'll find yourself adding "must read" titles to your TBR.

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M N  O P Q

This week's letter is the letter R

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
[Those who intend to participate regularly have signed up here.]

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, or even maybe cover a crime fiction "topic", so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)

Please link your post for the week back to this page. (a letter image is supplied that you can use in your post as well as the meme icon if you wish).

After your post is published, put a link to your actual blog post in the Mr Linky that appears below.
(leave a comment if Mr Linky has disappeared)

Then come back at the end of the week to check to see who else has posted and visit their blog (and leave a comment if you can).

Please check each Monday for the letter of the week

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O P Q

Thanks for participating.

---

Review: WHAT WAS LOST, Catherine O'Flynn - audio

Audio book
Narrated by Colleen Prendergast
Available from Audible.com 
Source: I bought it
Length:  6 hours 33 mins
Originally published 2008

Publisher's Blurb
A lost little girl with her notebook and toy monkey appears on the CCTV screens of the Green Oaks shopping centre, evoking memories of junior detective Kate Meaney, missing for 20 years.
Kurt, a security guard with a sleep disorder, and Lisa, a disenchanted deputy manager at Your Music, follow her through the centre's endless corridors - welcome relief from the tedium of their lives.
But as this after-hours friendship grows in intensity, it brings new loss and new longing to light. This is 21st-century Britain with its addiction to consumerism, absurdity, and loneliness, unspoken guilt and hidden lives.

My take:
My reaction to this book may be a bit low key because of the fragmented way in which I listened to it. I also found the narrator a little hard to understand and was sometimes left wondering what she had actually said. And while you are wondering, the problem compounds as you miss the next few sentences. Not a good recipe for reading enjoyment.

In the opening section of the book, Kate Meaney, a 10 year old, is conducting her own "detective agency". The action mainly consists of Kate watching people at the local shopping centre, and then noting down her observations. This becomes the substance of the novel, and to be frank, it becomes a little tedious.

Then the setting changed  - what happened? Did I doze off? - I'm not sure but Kate is no longer the narrator. In fact, she's disappeared and it is 20 years on. And the remainder of the story works towards revealing what happened to Kate.

Not a captivating book for me, I'm afraid.

My rating: 3.5

I didn't enjoy this nearly as much as Bernadette on Reactions to Reading - she said it will probably be her book of the year.

Review: LIQUORICE TWISTS: DJ's Daim Stories Vol II, Dorte Hummelskoj Jakobsen

Ebook Description

DJ´s Daim Stories volume II (Daim is a Scandinavian candy bar) A collection of 20 flash fiction stories (from 100 to 2500 words). While the first volume was crime for fun, these ones may be called ´her darker materials´. Cover art: Elisabeth & Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen.

Available from Smashwords as an ebook in a variety of formats
Source: a review copy sent to me by the author

My take:
This collection of twenty flash fiction snippets is available only as an e-book.
They range from very short to some that could almost be described as short stories.
In some the action is virtually resolved while in others it has been barely set in motion.

The stories I liked best:
In a Flash:
This is the opening story that illustrates the dangers of insecurity combined with an overwrought imagination.
Catastrophe:
Never allow your cats to multiply!
Cutbacks:
Beware of pushing your husband too far with your extravagant spending!

My rating: 4.1

Jakobsen's first flash fiction collection CANDIED CRIME was published on Smashwords earlier this year. 

About the author:
Dorte Hummelshøj Jakobsen was born in Denmark in 1961. She works as a teacher of English, but in her spare time she reads, writes and reviews crime fiction.   One of her stories appeared in "Discount Noir", a collection of flash fiction stories, in 2010 (editors Steve Weddle & Patricia Abbott).  See my post Published Friends.
Catch up with Dorte's blog:  DJ´s Krimiblog 

Review: WHITE SKY, BLACK ICE, Stan Jones

• Format: Kindle Edition
• Print Length: 284 pages
• Publisher: Soho Crime (July 1, 2003)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B001TK3AD4
• Source: I bought it 

Product Description (Amazon)
The hero of Jones's promising first novel is Nathan Active, an Alaska state trooper. He is an Inupiat, but was given away by his mother when he was a baby, and raised by a white couple in Anchorage. Now he knows little of his background, and feels torn between two worlds. Nathan's bafflement hasn't been helped by his work assignment in Chukchi, the town in the rural northwestern corner of Alaska where he was born and where his birth mother still lives. The Inupiat townsfolk there have welcomed the opening of the Gray Wolf copper mine, as it provides jobs for young people. The number of wife-beatings and liquor-related offenses has declined dramatically. But now two local men have died in the same week, each of a gunshot wound in the throat. Locals assume that the deaths were suicides, especially as one of the young men belonged to a family whose members are subject to a curse. Nathan is not convinced that even in suicide-prone Chukchi, men don't usually shoot themselves in the Adam's apple. While this tough, gritty mystery generates only modest suspense, its exotic setting will hold readers throughout. Jones has a real knack for depicting the daily life of a small Inupiat community, and the toll that alcoholism has taken on it.

My take

The issues that surface in this crime fiction will strike chords with Australian readers, particularly those who have read Adrian Hyland's novels (DIAMOND DOVE and GUNSHOT ROAD)

Young men committing suicide is a big problem in the Alaskan Inupiat community.
The Clinton family believes it has been cursed and so, to some extent, the death of their fourth son George, by his own hand, is no surprise. But when a second body is discovered, that of Aaron, alarm bells ring. Because Aaron is in his 50s and had everything to live for. Even more oddly he has killed himself in just the same way George did, a shotgun to the Adam's apple.

The issues Stan Jones weaves into this tale - alcoholism in the Inupiat community, issues with mining as the community's economic salvation, environmental impacts, and the corruption of a local politician - al all strongly described.
A very readable novel, worth trying to find.

My rating 4.7

Nathan Active Mysteries
1. White Sky, Black Ice (1999)
2. Shaman Pass (2003)
3. Frozen Sun (2008)
4. Village of the Ghost Bears (2009)

I am going to count WHITE SKY, BLACK ICE among my books for 2011 Global Reading Challenge (#17/21), #21 in the e-book challenge and among my new-to-me authors, and for the  Canadian Book Challenge 2010-2011

Forgotten Book: B is for BURGLAR, Sue Grafton

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books appears in my records for 1993.

Sue Grafton began her "alphabet" series featuring Kinsey Millhone with A is for Alibi in 1983, and in 1993 I caught up with B is for BURGLAR that had been published in 1985.

Publisher's blurb (from the author's website)

Beverly Danziger looked like an expensive, carefully wrapped package from a good but conservative shop. Only her compulsive chatter hinted at the nervousness beneath her cool surface. It was a nervousness out of all proportion to the problem she placed before Kinsey Millhone. There was an absent sister. A will to be settled -- a matter of only a few thousand dollars. Mrs. Danziger did not look as if she needed a few thousand dollars. And she didn't seem like someone longing for a family reunion. Still, business was slow, and even a private investigator has bills to pay. Millhone took the job. It looked routine.

Elaine Boldt's wrappings were a good deal flashier than her sisters, but they signaled the same thing: The lady had money. A rich widow in her early forties, she owned a condo in Boca Raton and another in Santa Teresa. According to the manager of the California building, she was last seen draped in her $12,000 lynx coat heading for Boca Raton. According to the manager of the Florida building, she never got there. But someone else had and she was camping out illegally in Mrs. Boldt's apartment. The job was beginning to seem a bit less routine. It turned tricky when Beverly Danziger ordered Millhone to drop the case and it took on an ominous quality when Aubrey Danziger surfaced, making all kinds of wild accusations about his wife. But it only became sinister when Millhone learned that just days before Elaine Boldt went missing, her next-door neighbor and bridge partner had been murdered and the killer was still at large.

A house destroyed by arson. A brutally murdered woman. A missing lynx coat. An apartment burgled of valueless papers, another ransacked in a melee of mindless destruction. And more murder. As Millhone digs deeper into the case, she finds herself in a nightmarish hall of mirrors in which reality is distorted by illusion and nothing -- except danger -- is quite what it seems.

In 2011 #22 in the Kinsey Millhone, V is for VENGEANCE is due to be published at the end of the year.
The List (courtesy Fantastic Fiction)
1. A is for Alibi (1982)
2. B Is for Burglar (1985)
3. C Is for Corpse (1986)
4. D Is for Deadbeat (1987)
5. E Is for Evidence (1988)
6. F Is for Fugitive (1989)
7. G Is for Gumshoe (1990)
8. H Is for Homicide (1991)
9. I Is for Innocent (1992)
10. J Is for Judgement (1993)
11. K Is for Killer (1994)
12. L Is for Lawless (1995)
13. M Is for Malice (1996)
14. N Is for Noose (1998)
15. O Is for Outlaw (1999)
16. P Is for Peril (2000)
17. Q Is For Quarry (2002)
18. R Is for Ricochet (2004)
19. S Is for Silence (2005)
20. T Is for Trespass (2007)
21. U Is for Undertow (2009)
22. V Is For Vengeance (2011)

Awards (courtesy Wikipedia)
Grafton's "B" Is for Burglar and "C" Is for Corpse won the first two Anthony Awards, which are selected by the attendees of the annual Bouchercon World Mystery Convention, ever awarded.
She has won the Anthony Award once more and has been the recipient of three Shamus Awards.
On June 13, 2000, Sue Grafton was the recipient of the 2000 YWCA of Lexington Smith-Breckinridge Distinguished Woman of Achievement Award.
In 2004, Grafton received the Ross Macdonald Literary Award, which is given to "a California writer whose work raises the standard of literary excellence."
In 2008 Grafton was awarded the Cartier Dagger by the British Crime Writers' Association, honoring a lifetime's achievement in the field.
In 2009 Grafton received the Grand Master Award from the Mystery Writers of America.

Crime Fiction Alphabet: Q is for QUARRY, Sue Grafton

Let me take this Crime Fiction Alphabet
 opportunity to remind you what a good writer Sue Grafton is.

Q is for QUARRY is #17 in Grafton's alphabet series. This year will see the publication of V is for VENGEANCE. For some years we talked about whether she would ever get to Z is for.. but I have high hopes that she will. Grafton is only 71.

My mini-review
Con Dolan and Stacey Oliphant are reaching the end of long careers in law enforcement and are keen to solve a case of a "Jane Doe" that has gone unsolved for 18 years. Stacey is fighting cancer and Con has a dodgy heart and both friends think the other needs something to focus on. They were the two men who found the body of a young girl, bound, stabbed and dumped. No-one ever claimed the body even after months of investigation. Con approaches Kinsey Millhone to work freelance with them on the investigation. Con belives the guilty party is one Frankie Miracle, already convicted for the murder of his girl friend. This is #17 Sue Grafton's "Alphabet" series. This is quite a long book and I must confess that, towards the end, I was in danger of losing track of what the original investigation was about, especially after the murder of one of those Kinsey had interviewed. Sue Grafton based this on the real unsolved homicide case that happened in Santa Barbara in 1969. My rating: 4.2

The series
1. A is for Alibi (1982)
2. B Is for Burglar (1985)
3. C Is for Corpse (1986)
4. D Is for Deadbeat (1987)
5. E Is for Evidence (1988)
6. F Is for Fugitive (1989)
7. G Is for Gumshoe (1990)
8. H Is for Homicide (1991)
9. I Is for Innocent (1992)
10. J Is for Judgement (1993)
11. K Is for Killer (1994)
12. L Is for Lawless (1995)
13. M Is for Malice (1996)
14. N Is for Noose (1998)
15. O Is for Outlaw (1999)
16. P Is for Peril (2000)
17. Q Is For Quarry (2002)
18. R Is for Ricochet (2004)
19. S Is for Silence (2005)
20. T Is for Trespass (2007)
21. U Is for Undertow (2009)
22. V Is For Vengeance (2011)

Sue Grafton's website is worth a look.

Crime Fiction Alphabet 2011 - Letter Q - week begins 9 May 2011

The Alphabet in Crime Fiction - a Community Meme.

It is never too late to join in on this meme and you don't have to post each week if reading (or life) gets in the way. And it is so easy!

The books and authors being suggested are a great way of learning about books you haven't read, or authors you haven't yet met.
We have participants from all over the globe too. Do take the time to check the entries towards the end of the week. Like me, you'll find yourself adding "must read" titles to your TBR.

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M N  O P

This week's letter is the letter Q

Here are the rules

By Friday of each week you have to write a blog post about crime fiction related to the letter of the week.
[Those who intend to participate regularly have signed up here.]

Your post MUST be related to either the first letter of a book's title, the first letter of an author's first name, or the first letter of the author's surname.
So you see you have lots of choice.
You could write a review, or a bio of an author, or even maybe cover a crime fiction "topic", so long as it fits the rules somehow.
(It is ok too to skip a week.)

Please link your post for the week back to this page. (a letter image is supplied that you can use in your post as well as the meme icon if you wish).

After your post is published, put a link to your actual blog post in the Mr Linky that appears below.
(leave a comment if Mr Linky has disappeared)

Then come back at the end of the week to check to see who else has posted and visit their blog (and leave a comment if you can).

Please check each Monday for the letter of the week

Letters already covered: A B C  D  E F G  H  I  J  K  L  M  N  O P

Thanks for participating.

---

e-challenge completed - new level set

e-book challenge hosted at The Lady Bug Reads

I was aiming for obsessed: 20 books - completed


My Kindle rivals made-from-paper books at present and so perhaps aiming for 20 books wasn't a real challenge for me.
Over on the site  at e-book challenge I have just discovered more levels and have decided to aim higher:
Monomaniacal – Read 100 e-books.
That should stretch me

1. 4.8, KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, Jussi Adler-Olsen 
2. 4.5, VENGEANCE ROAD, Rick Mofina
3. 4.0, MURDER AT LOST DOG LAKE, Vicki Delany
4. 4.8, THE LEOPARD, Jo Nesbo 
5. 4.6, RELICS OF THE DEAD, Ariana Franklin
6. 4.6, THE JANUS STONE, Elly Griffiths 
7. 4.3, THE SERPENT AND THE SCORPION, Clare Langley-Hawthorne 
8. 4.2, DARK WATER, Georgia Blain
9. 4.2, THE POCKET ESSENTIAL AGATHA CHRISTIE, Mark Campbell
10. 4.3, MURDER IS EASY, Agatha Christie
11. 4.8, THE SWEETNESS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE PIE, Alan Bradley
12. 4.7, DYING GASP, Leighton Gage
13. 4.1, THE ROAD TO HELL, Paul Levine
14. 4.3, FLASH FICTION FOR THE COCKTAIL HOUR, Cathryn Grant
15. 4.2, DARK BLOOMS, Melissa F. Miller
16. 4.5, OPERATION NAPOLEON, Arnaldur Indridason
17. 4.4, CANDIED CRIME, Dorte Jakobsen
18. 4.7, THE MAN WHO WENT UP IN SMOKE, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo
19. 4.9, BAD INTENTIONS, Karin Fossum 
20. 4.7, PRIME CUT, Alan Carter 

Review: THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES, Jussi Adler-Olsen

Translated by Tiina Nunnally
Published Penguin Group (USA Aug 2011)
My copy: an Advance Uncorrected Proof from NetGalley

Marketing copy provided by the publisher
Jussi Adler-Olsen is Denmark's premier crime writer. His books routinely top the bestseller lists in northern Europe, and he's won just about every Nordic crime-writing award, including the prestigious Glass Key Award-also won by Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, and Jo Nesbo. Now, Dutton is thrilled to introduce him to America.

The Keeper of Lost Causes, the first installment of Adler-Olsen's Department Q series, features the deeply flawed chief detective Carl MØrck, who used to be a good homicide detective-one of Copenhagen's best. Then a bullet almost took his life. Two of his colleagues weren't so lucky, and Carl, who didn't draw his weapon, blames himself.

So a promotion is the last thing Carl expects.

But it all becomes clear when he sees his new office in the basement. Carl's been selected to run Department Q, a new special investigations division that turns out to be a department of one. With a stack of Copenhagen's coldest cases to keep him company, Carl's been put out to pasture. So he's as surprised as anyone when a case actually captures his interest. A missing politician vanished without a trace five years earlier. The world assumes she's dead. His colleagues snicker about the time he's wasting. But Carl may have the last laugh, and redeem himself in the process.

My take

By 2007 Carl Morck had been in the Danish police force for 25 years. He was once an experienced criminal investigator who lived and breathed for his work. He used to be an elegant man whom people noticed. But all that changed the day he and his team were sent to a murder investigation where hidden snipers killed one them, paralysed a second, and took away Morck's fire.

Six months on, Morck is back at work but a bit of an embarrassment that his superiors don't how to handle. The answer comes in the shape of a new section, Department Q, that Morck will head, that will deal only with unsolved crimes designated as cases "deserving special scrutiny."

The first case Morck decides to deal with is a high profile one of popular politician Merete Lynggaard who vanished from a ferry from Germany docking in Copenhagen Harbour in 2002. Successfully solving this case will be a big feather in the cap for Department Q.

Department Q consists of Carl Morck and his assistant, a political refugee from Syria, a civilian called Hafez el-Assad. Assad is primarily meant to do clerical and cleaning duties but as Morck increasingly involves him in the investigation, it becomes obvious that Assad has experience and talents no-one knows about. They make an unlikely but strangely complementary detective duo.

Their investigation into Merete Lynggaard's disappearance reveals elementary pathways that the original team missed and sloppy methodology. As they begin to make progress, the investigation into the shooting of Morck's team six months before ramps up, and Morck himself has panic attacks over what it will reveal.

Book website

This was a great read. My rating 4.8

I certainly hope to read a sequel.

I am counting THE KEEPER OF LOST CAUSES in e-book challenge, Nordic Challenge 2011, translated, and new-to-me authors.

Forgotten Book: GUARDIAN ANGEL, Sara Paretsky

This week's Friday's Forgotten book for the meme hosted by Patti Abbott on Pattinase's Friday's Forgotten Books appears in my records for 1993.

GUARDIAN ANGEL, published in 1992, is  the seventh in Sara Paretsky’s  V I Warshawski series (now 14 books). I had already read a number of the earlier books and was already hooked.

Publisher's blurb (from author's website)

Racine Avenue is going upscale—bad news for hand-to-mouth residents like V I Warshawski. As tax bills skyrocket, newcomers pressure old inhabitants into fixing up their homes or moving out. To the yuppies on the block the worst eyesore belongs to old Hattie Frizell, whose yard is “returning to native prairie, complete with hubcaps.” Their block club wants her and her five dogs gone.

V I and Hattie have a relationship of sorts: one of those five dogs gave V I’s dog Peppy an unwelcome litter. When Hattie slips in her bath and is rushed unconscious to the hospital, V I feels compelled to get involved. But neighboring lawyer Todd Pichea and his wife, Chrissie, act swiftly to get the courts to make them Hattie’s legal guardians. V I returns from a business trip to find they’ve put the old woman’s dogs to sleep. Furious, V I starts poking around in the Picheas’ affairs, hoping to turn up something scandalous enough to make them lose their guardianship.

Hattie isn’t the detective’s only worry. When her downstairs neighbor’s oldest friend disappears, Mr. Contreras persuades V I to investigate. As she probes both problems, V I uncovers a scandal linking one of Chicago’s oldest industrial families to union fraud and a politically connected bank. Her investigation takes her into the depths of the steamy Sanitary Canal and brings her eyeball-to-eyeball with her ex-husband, Dick Yarborough. When her dear friend Lotty Herschel and her own lawyer turn against her, V I is left alone to struggle with the most serious case of her career.

Grand Master:  On 28 April 2011 the Mystery Writers of America named Sara Paretsky its Grand Master at the Edgar's Banquet.

Travelling again

Posts on this blog may be a little erratic for the next 6 weeks!

We leave for Abu Dhabi today.

Review: VENGEANCE ROAD, Rick Mofina

• Format: Kindle Edition
• File Size: 316 KB
• Print Length: 496 pages
• Publisher: Mira (September 1, 2009)
• Sold by: Amazon Digital Services
• Language: English
• ASIN: B002HJ1XLW
• Source: I bought it.

Blurb from author's website:
The International Thriller Writers (ITW) named Vengeance Road a finalist for a 2010 THRILLER AWARD in the category of Best Paperback Original and The Private Eye Writers of America named it a finalist for a 2010 SHAMUS Award for Best Paperback Original.
The murder of a broken-hearted woman and and the chilling disappearance of her friend raise questions about their ties to a respected detective and lead to one journalist’s obsession to find the truth!
The body of Bernice Hogan, a troubled young ex-nursing student with a tragic past, is found in a shallow grave near a forest creek.
Jolene Peller, a single mom struggling to build a new life with her little boy, vanishes the night she tried to find Bernice. Hero cop, Karl Styebeck is beloved by his community but privately police are uneasy with the answers he gives to protect the life — and the lie — he’s lived.
The case haunts Jack Gannon a gritty, blue-collar reporter whose sister run away from their family years ago. Gannon risks more than his job to pursue the story behind Styebeck's dark secret, his link to the women, and the mysterious big rig roaming America's loneliest highways on its descent into eternal darkness.

My take:
This is actually #1 in Rick Mofina's Jack Gannon series. I have already reviewed #2 THE PANIC ZONE.
Jack Gannon, a reporter on the Buffalo Sentinel feels he has reached a sort of impasse in his life, and is living in a rut that he must break free from.

Wheeling out, with Springsteen in his head, Gannon questioned where he was going with his life. He was thirty-four, single and had spent the last ten years at the Buffalo Sentinel. He looked out at the city, his city. And there was no escaping it. Ever since he was a kid, all he wanted to be was a reporter, a reporter in New York City. And it almost happened a while back after he broke a huge story behind a jetliner’s crash into Lake Erie. It earned him a Pulitzer nomination and job offers in Manhattan. But he didn’t win the prize and the offers evaporated.

There's something about Rick Mofina's style that draws the reader in. It is deceptively simple, and gives Mofina the ability to build tension. By the last 20% of the book (in Kindle terms) you are positively racing to get to the end.

I found my stance on the "guilty or not?" status of the decorated detective who is the focus of Gannon's investigation constantly shifting, as Gannon revealed more. As in THE PANIC ZONE there is the feeling of a race against time, that is, if Gannon doesn't get a move on, more lives will be lost. When Gannon refuses to reveal his sources for his initial disclosure for the Buffalo Sentinel he loses his job at the paper, and continues as an independent whom everybody treats as a pariah. But he doggedly continues his investigation, just ahead of the pack, and in the long run, putting his own life on the line.

At the very end the author comments in crafting this story, I have taken great fictional liberties with geography, police jurisdiction, procedure and other aspects. Earlier he talks about how parts of the story are loosely based on an old story that occurred nearly half a century before.

VENGEANCE ROAD is certainly worth a read, and I'm looking forward to reading #3, In Desperation, sometime. I have a review copy on my Kindle.

My rating: 4.5

Rick Mofina's website where you can read excerpts and find out more about the author.

I am counting VENGEANCE ROAD in the e-book challenge and the Canadian Book Challenge

Crime Fiction Alphabet: P is for PRIME CUT, Alan Carter

I'd like to take the opportunity of this week's Crime Fiction Alphabet which is the letter P to remind you of an Australian novel published earlier this year, particularly since it has now been listed on this year's Ned Kelly Awards nominations for Best First Fiction.

Publisher: Fremantle Press, 2011

Awards:  Shortlisted, Crime Writers’ Association Debut Dagger Award, 2010 (as Chinese Whispers)

ISBN13: 9781921696503

HB/PB: Paperback

Pages: 320

Source: e-copy of the (Proof Read version) on my Kindle, supplied by the publisher for review purposes.

Sample Chapter: PRIME CUT extract.pdf

Book Club Notes:  View Book Club Notes

 

Publication date: February 2011

Publisher's blurb

Meet Cato Kwong — disgraced cop and ex-poster boy for the police force. Banished to the stock squad after the fallout from a police frame-up, Cato is brought in from the cold to solve the case of a torso washed up on the wild shores of the Great Southern Ocean. But Cato faces powerful opposition when his investigation lifts the lid on the exploitation of migrant workers and disturbs an even darker criminal mind.

My take:

This really is a remarkable novel. Two main stories are told in tandem. The first begins in the Prologue with the murder of a woman and her son in Sunderland, England in 1973, the day of the FA Cup. What Detective Sergeant Stuart Miller sees at the scene of the crime will stay with him for the rest of his working life and in fact contributes to him emigrating to Busselton in Western Australia. 35 years later he still has nightmares.

The second story begins in Western Australia in October 2008. Detective Senior Constable Cato Kwong and Detective Sergeant Jim Buckley are part of Western Australia's Stock Squad and are also at a crime scene. In Cato's view they are "washed-up has-beens recycled as detectives.... The Laughing Stock Squad." And then they are called to a murder scene, at HopeToun: a headless torso in the shallows on the beach. The local policewoman is Senior Sergeant Tess Maguire, recovering from sick leave after being beaten up. HopeToun is a laid-back holiday or retirement spot for wheatbelt farmers, not a place where you expect murders to happen. In recent times though HopeToun has become a mining town.

What makes this novel remarkable is the way the author forwards these plot strands in tandem. It took a bit of getting used to at first. There is little to tell the reader that you've changed from one plot to another, just a change of characters. Often, but not always, the plots are basically at the same point, like the interviewing of a suspect.

But there's much more than that to keep the reader involved. There are prior links between some of the characters which are gradually teased out for us. There are genuine murder mysteries with lots of attendant red herrings. There's a good feel for the climate in Western Australia, both physical and economic. And there is some excellent characterisation.

My rating: 4.7

I'm already looking forward to Alan Carter's second novel - I hope there is one!

PRIME CUT will be available from Fremantle Press

About the author:
Alan Carter was born in Sunderland, UK, in 1959. He holds a degree in Communications Studies from Sunderland Polytechnic and immigrated to Australia in 1991. Alan lives in Fremantle with his wife Kath and son Liam. He works as a television documentary director. In his spare time he follows a black line up and down the Fremantle pool. Prime Cut is Alan Carter’s first novel. He wrote it while he was living in Hopetoun as a kept man.

Review - EYE OF THE RED TSAR, Sam Eastland - audio

• UNABRIDGED
• Narrated by Steven Pacey
• Length:9 hrs and 47 mins
• Release Date:12-06-10
• Audible.com
• Source: I bought it
• Published 2010

Publisher's blurb (author's site)

It is the time of the Great Terror.

Inspector Pekkala - known as the Emerald Eye - was once the most famous detective in all Russia, the favourite of the Tsar. Now he is the prisoner of the men he once hunted.
Like millions of others, he has been sent to the gulags in Siberia and, as far as the rest of the world is concerned, he is as good as dead. But a reprieve comes when he is summoned by Stalin himself to investigate a crime. His mission - to uncover the men who really killed the Tsar and his family, and to locate the Tsar's treasure. The reward for success will be his freedom and the chance to re-unite with the woman he would have married if the Revolution had not torn them apart. The price of failure - death.
In a land of uneasy alliances and deadly treachery, pursuing clues that have eluded everyone, Pekkala is thrust into the past where he once reigned. There he will meet the man who betrayed him and the woman he loved and lost in the fires of rebellion—and uncover a secret so shocking that it will shake to its core the land he loves.
Set against the backdrop of the paranoid and brutal country that Russia became under the rule of Stalin, Eye of the Red Tsar introduces a compelling new figure to readers of crime fiction

My take:
One of the problems with historically based fiction is always how reliable the depiction of characters and events is. And how does the ordinary reader know? Can you judge authenticity in subjective ways like how the supposed "facts" feel?

I guess I have an advantage over most readers in that I have done specialised studies in the Russian Revolution at tertiary level, and taught the Russian Revolution for a number of years to senior high school students.

The fate of the Romanovs has always been a topic of great debate. There were of course "sightings" of members of the family well after their deaths had been affirmed, and even women who claimed to be Anastasia. Sam Eastland (a pseudonym of Paul Watkins) has taken much of that into account in the supplementary information at the end of the novel, where he gives a timeline of events and claims.

The action in the novel flutters from pre-1917, into 1917 itself, and then backwards and forwards into 1929. It does build up a strong picture of the time, and really brings Inspector "Emerald Eye" Pekkala's search for the truth to life. Pekkala is torn between his loyalty to the Tsar and his family, particularly to the boy Alexei,  and the real reason why Stalin has released him, the search for the treasure the Romanovs were supposed to be carrying with them. There are those who will not like this picture of the Tsar as a benevolent father and kindly gent, but unfortunately it is often only fictionalisations, not the dry notes notes of historical tomes, that reconstruct personalities.

The next title in the series THE RED COFFIN was published earlier this year.

My rating: 4.4


Check Sam Eastland's impressive website: Inspector Pekkala.

Another review to check

I am counting EYE OF THE RED TSAR in the Historical Fiction Challenge