Publicity for this novel describes Detective Superintendent Evert Backstrom of Sweden’s National Murder Squad as an “irascible, obdurate...persistently repulsive yet undeniably brilliant comic creation...winding his way through the black comedy of a crime scene and managing to upset nearly everyone in the process.” This is a spot-on description of the Americanized version of the character Rainn Wilson plays in the witty, woefully underrated Fox TV series based on Leif G.W. Persson’s fiction. Judging by He Who Kills the Dragon, book two in the series, the literary Backstrom comes up a bit short on the comedy scale, and maybe a bit too long on the repulsive chart. The plot finds the boorish homicide expert investigating the murder of an elderly, generally disliked alcoholic. The unknown killer used the victim’s tie to strangle him, this after having clubbed him with a fry pan lid and a hammer. Backstrom, under doctor’s orders to give up rich food and booze, pauses long enough from complaining about his despised rehab to survey the crime scene and begin his investigation. His progress struck me as both familiar and plodding. He eventually solves the crime—at the cost of a broken nose—but his dreary railings against contemporary mores and minorities (racial, sexual and/or combinations thereof) seem waaay too heavy-handed and sour to qualify as even Archie Bunker-like, so-dumb-it’s-funny amusing. Since Persson, a criminologist as well as an author, has been writing popular crime novels for over 30 years, amassing dozens of awards in his native Sweden, I suppose the prose may have lost something in Neil Smith’s translation. And though reader Erik Davies effectively provides a slew of proper-sounding Scandinavian accents, his gruff, croaky rendition of the constantly complaining Backstrom is particularly charmless and joyless. By contrast, Wilson’s TV version (seeking justice in a perennially rainy Portland, Oregon) may have a more abrasive, sharply nasal voice, but there’s a vulnerability to the character missing in this audio, along with an upbeat energy that somehow makes his arrogant, frequently obnoxious statements seem actually funny. The TV cases have been interesting and, perhaps most important, Backstrom’s teammates offer strong support. Like his associates in the novel, they are crimefighters who’ve suffered career setbacks. Unlike those in the novel, they’re smartly developed and distinctive, with personalities that more than compensate for Backstrom’s dark cynicism and arrogance.

Annette Dashofy’s Bridges Burned brings back the gritty but compassionate paramedic Zoe Chambers, a woman who never flinches when she has to pull mangled victims out of car wrecks. In this recent installment (after Lost Legacy and Circle of Influence), her heart is touched by the suffering of ten-year-old Maddie Farabee, whose mother died in a fiery house explosion. Maddie’s father Holt had dropped the girl off at a babysitter’s just before the inferno. Thanks to this coincidence and rumors of her parents’ marital discord, Maddie is now in danger of losing both her parents—one to death, the other to prison. Convinced that Maddie’s father is innocent of arson, Zoe sets out to find the real criminal. This initial setup is enough to drive any mystery, but author Dashofy adds a twist. Zoe is so filled with pity towards Maddie’s plight that she invites the girl and her penniless father to move into her own home. This arrangement doesn’t sit well with her boyfriend, Police Chief Pete Adams. Jealousy isn’t the only problem here—Adams is as convinced of Holt’s guilt as Zoe is of his innocence. Adams’ own investigation uncovers the unsettling fact that technically, the Farabee family were squatters. They had been evicted from their home, only to move back in under cover of darkness. Threading everything together in this morally complicated mystery is the recurring question: What happens when decent, intelligent people—using both heart and brains— arrive at different conclusions? Bridges Burned is first and foremost a top-flight mystery, but what makes it truly shine is that it’s also an astute exploration of the human psyche.

Janet Dawson’s Cold Trail brings Northern California’s wine country so alive you’ll want to pack up and move there. The book’s chilling first chapter finds PI Jeri Howard standing in a cold morgue, checking to see if the body of a man found murdered is her brother, Brian. When the dead man turns out to be a stranger, Jeri is only slightly relieved. Two weeks earlier, Brian failed to return from a hike, and his wife Sheila, and the rest of the family, are distraught. Following Brian’s now-cold trail leads Jeri from a dilapidated harbor, across scenic Sonoma County, and into the wild forest of a large state park. Jeri discovers that her brother’s life held many secrets: a crumbling marriage, a mysterious job change, and the possible cover-up of a student’s attempted suicide at the school where Brian taught. As Jeri’s investigation continues, she begins to suspect that his disappearance just might be connected to the proposed sale of a coastal tract being fought over by conservationists and a less-than-ethical marina owner eager to expand. Personal problems always make delicious fodder for mysteries, but in this intriguing book, the Northern California land issues sometimes eclipse them. Dawson informs us that former apple orchards have been replaced by vineyards, and the additional water required to grow grapes has caused an alarming drop in the water table. In addition, numerous illegal pot plantations springing up in the area are siphoning off even more water at the rate of 15 gallons per plant, per day, on plantations that can each contain thousands of plants. In lesser hands, so much factual information could be overwhelming. Not here. Dawson knows how to blend real history and real crime into an intriguing mystery about a missing man and the people, and the land, he loves. Some advice: don’t neglect to read the author’s afterword at the end of the book.

Poe’s poems, essays, and stories are treated alphabetically by title, each entry of a page or more including a description of the work and wide-ranging, often surprising observations about its later influence, not only visual and musical as the subtitle proclaims, but literary as well. Echoes of Poe in the writings of Arthur Conan Doyle, Oscar Wilde, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H.P. Lovecraft, and others are remarked upon. The very first entry, “The Angel of the Odd,” is seen as foreshadowing the silent-film slapstick of Harold Lloyd and Buster Keaton. The most faithful film adaptation of “The Raven” is credited to an episode of The Simpsons. “Thou Art the Man,” though never given any screen adaptation, is cited as the inspiration for films of psychological suspense like Alfred Hitchcock’s Rope. Various Poe works have been used in progressive rock music, the 1975 album Tales of Mystery and Imagination by the Alan Parsons Project, and a 2003 stage musical by Eric Woolfson. The Roger Corman/Vincent Price films of the 1960s first drew author Huckvale, a British critic and researcher, to delve into Poe’s work.

The detective stories about C. Auguste Dupin have rarely shined in film adaptations. “The Murders in the Rue Morgue,” despite the visual attraction of the homicidal ape, has not been faithfully adapted to the big screen: an atmospheric 1932 version with Bela Lugosi essentially leaves out Dupin, though there is a much different character of that surname; and a 1971 version is more like a remake of Phantom of the Opera. The most faithful was a 1986 TV version with George C. Scott as a much-altered Dupin. “The Mystery of Marie Roget,” considered the least of the three Dupin tales, became a 1942 Universal horror film significantly changed from the original. “The Purloined Letter” became a British TV case for Sherlock Holmes (!) that threw out the central plot point.

This learned and entertaining work of scholarship is bound to delight Poe buffs.

A Hunter College literature professor, whose work is highly familiar to readers of mystery journals and reference books, considers the influences on the creation of Sherlock Holmes, including the Dupin stories of Edgar Allan Poe, whose pattern Arthur Conan Doyle followed and also extended; the real-life analytical feats of Doyle’s mentor, Dr. Joseph Bell; and Doyle’s own crime investigations, apparently many more than generally believed. B.J. Rahn includes extensive accounts of Doyle’s best-known detective triumphs, the George Edalji and Oscar Slater cases. The book’s second section traces the history of the London Metropolitan Police and the new tools of scientific detection developed in the time of Holmes, though he employed them surprisingly rarely in his investigations. The familiar material is given a fresh slant, agreeably written, and full of surprising facts, observations, and insights. Holmes’ cocaine and opium use, for example, is mentioned only in five stories, and Rahn argues it is hardly fair to call him an addict. Add this engaging volume to the permanent Holmesian shelf.

Update: The paperback edition (Amberley, $16) adds many more illustrations plus a new 47-page chapter on “Sherlock Holmes and the Fair Sex,” which rebuts the charges of misogyny and heartlessness sometimes leveled at the Baker Street sleuth, finding many examples of his sensitive treatment of women and the depth of his feeling for Watson. Also surveyed are the real-life roles of women in the Victorian/Edwardian period when Holmes was active. The original edition has a sturdy hardcover binding and larger print than the revision. Absolute Sherlockian completists will undoubtedly want to keep both editions, but for the rest of us, the trade paperback revision is to be preferred.

A kidnapping is at the heart of Kylie Brant’s 11, but, as the story commences, heroine Mia Deleon is five years past her three year ordeal. Sadly, few people accept her story of the time she spent under the control of the sadist she calls The Collector. Most think it’s a tale she concocted, to explain away the time she left home against her family’s wishes. Old fears are roused when The Collector decides he wants her back, sending his minions to reacquire her.

Fast, furious, and intense, 11 is the quintessential “girl on the run” novel, as Mia is forced to abandon the new life she has created is she wants a chance to survive. It also delivers a credible romance between her and security expert Jude Bishop, who reluctantly agrees to assist her, only to find himself falling in love with his client. Brant delivers several action scenes that scream to be depicted on film, so, hopefully, a movie deal is not out of the question.

Just in time for spring, Kate Collins (Linda Tsoutsouris) delivers A Root Awakening, 16th in her wildly popular Flower Shop Mystery series starring Abby Knight, law school washout and successful Indiana flower shop owner. Newly married to Marco, PI and bar/restaurant owner, Abby is house-hunting: Marco’s apartment is too cramped for the happy couple and Abby’s three-legged rescue dog, Seedy. Abby, Marco, and Seedy just happen to be visiting a house with their realtor, when a roofer cries for help and falls backward, landing hard underneath his heavy ladder. The accident isn’t the most puzzling aspect of their visit, however. Rather, Abby is haunted by her encounter with the tenants of the house, a woman with two children who seems strangely unconcerned about the seriously injured roofer. The woman hustles the children away, but not before the little girl, Daisy, observes that Seedy reminds her of her dog, while her mother suggests that Daisy has an overactive imagination and has never owned a dog. Abby cannot shake the idea that something is awry in the household, and this idea is confirmed when she returns to the house the next day, only to discover that the family has abruptly moved. Meanwhile, the roofer’s wife, Rosa, is convinced that someone deliberately pushed her husband’s ladder, and hires Marco and Abby to investigate. Author Collins masterfully pulls together radically different plot strands in a way that readers will enjoy and admire. A Root Awakening is a rewarding and refreshing entry in a mystery series that merits attention. Wake up and smell the flowers!