Spring Issue #154
Teri Duerr
2018-04-17 17:03:01
The Cost of Living
Betty Webb

Rachel Ward’s The Cost of Living dumps the British castles and high-toned village teas and instead heads to a place where cozies normally fear to tread— the pink-collar world of the supermarket. After a series of attacks on Costsave Supermarket’s customers, 21-year-old protagonist Bea exchanges her checkout clerk’s smock for a deerstalker (figuratively speaking), and with the help of Ant, a 19-year-old stock boy, joins the hunt for a killer. It’s not as if she has plenty of free time—just the opposite. Bea’s widowed mother suffers from agoraphobia, forcing Bea to parent her own parent. Her checkout job is demanding, too. Besides ringing up groceries, Bea has set up a fundraiser for a toddler with leukemia, organized a Halloween costume party, and is helping Ant overcome a lifelong guilty secret. In this enormously enjoyable mystery, Bea’s supermarket proves a perfect stand-in for a cozy English village: Costsave is populated by good people, bad people, smart people, and downright crazy people—all working, playing, and messing up together. In short, the denizens of Costsave are like a big dysfunctional family, a member of whom may be a killer. Author Ward’s descriptions of a checkout clerk’s duties are eye-openers. She points out that a grocery clerk is often the first outsider to notice when an elderly customer is losing weight due to poverty, or when a stressed wife and mother is enduring domestic abuse. Bea is a standout character in a book filled with fabulous characters, such as semi-criminal stock boys, a middle-aged sexpot, a suspiciously blood-stained butcher, and a two-timing police officer. There is also plenty of spice to be found here, and one sexual encounter in particular furnishes laugh-out-loud humor. In the end, though, the book’s mighty heart centers around the lovable Bea, a checkout clerk who is wise beyond her years, and courageous despite her shortcomings.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:04:04
Tango Down
Betty Webb

One of the great satisfactions of reading a Sam Acquillo mystery is in watching him uncover the many injustices in society. In Chris Knopf’s latest offering, Tango Down, Acquillo is dumped headfirst in a murder investigation that promises no happy ending for anyone. The misery starts when Ernesto Mazzotti, a Colombian friend of Acquillo’s, is charged with the murder of Victor Bolling, a wealthy international business consultant whose body is found at a Long Island construction site. Eager to help his friend, Acquillo begins questioning people who knew the victim, only to be shut down by the local police, then by shadowy US government officials. Rightly suspecting that Ernesto might have been more than a simple carpenter—and Bolling more than a business consultant—Acquillo travels to Colombia to find out more about the two men. He does, and the information shakes him. But although Acquillo’s cases can be dark (and this is one of the darkest yet), they are never without humor. In one of the book’s funniest scenes, Acquillo goes undercover as a hatseller at a Cartagena kiosk while spying on a kinky US diplomat. His adventures in Colombia aside, all the familiar trappings of Acquillo’s Long Island life are still here: his faithful dog, Eddy Van Halen; his longtime love, Amanda; and the soothing tides of Little Peconic Bay. But these comforts are now cast against a larger, more disturbing canvas. At one point, the weary PI notes, “It wasn’t just a world of shadows, it was a world without light, distinguished only by subtle shades of dark grey.” Author Knopf has always been expert at exploring those shades, but never more so than in Tango Down.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:08:15
Holy Ceremony
Betty Webb

Every serious mystery reader knows that Nordic writers specialize in bleak noirs (it probably has something to do with those long winters) but Harri Nykänen’s Holy Ceremony manages to shovel a mordant wit onto those deep snowdrifts. Detective Ariel Kafka is puzzled when the same corpse keeps getting stolen from the Helsinki morgue, only to reappear in various places around town. His investigation into this case of corpse recycling leads Kafka to the former members of The Sacred Vault, a prep school group with cultish trappings and an eye out for Biblical vengeance. He believes the group might have been responsible for the religious writing on the dead woman’s back, but they all pass off the inscriptions as mere coincidence. The Case of the Movable Corpse isn’t Kafka’s only problem. Being a nice Jewish boy, his bother Eli is always nagging him to hurry up and marry a nice Jewish girl. His brother doesn’t know about the cozy relationship Kafka has formed with a nice Russian woman, who at “150 euros a pop” is quite the bargain. If only the rest of his life could be so uncomplicated. But one of Kafka’s subordinates, a car-racing anti-Semite, is suspected of using his police connections to obtain forbidden discounts on race-car parts. In one of the funniest police standoffs ever, Kafka has to talk the drunk copper out of his barricaded house while being constantly interrupted by the blaring music of the Doors. As more bodies pile up in the Helsinki morgue, Kafka wonders if he shouldn’t just chuck it all and move to a sunnier climate. Being a glutton for punishment, he doesn’t. And that’s a great thing for mystery lovers, because Ariel Kafka’s existential woes are perfect fodder for a mystery series.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:12:21
I Bring Sorrow
Betty Webb

As a fan of long reads, I normally prefer a big, fat novel to a short story, but every now and then a short-story anthology piques my interest. Such is the case with Patricia Abbott’s excellent collection, I Bring Sorrow. Most of these are deliciously grim, especially the title story, in which a man knows he should back away from a relationship with an obsessed cellist, but can’t bring himself to. The cello itself plays the villain in this fantastical story, and by the end, you’ll be unable to listen to Bach’s Cello Suite Suite No. 1 without a frisson of dread. Less Twilight Zone-ish but even more tragic is “On Pacific Beach,” where a woman searches for her mentally ill mother, who has disappeared into San Diego’s homeless population. This story just plain breaks your heart. The fantastical makes another appearance in “We Are All Special Cases,” a character study of an American tourist in Paris, who believes she sees a pair of wings in the apartment across from hers. The fact that she suffers from a fear of flying adds a layer of fear to what could have been an angelic experience. Abbott is the author of the Edgar and Anthony-nominated Shot in Detroit, and Concrete Angel, two highly rated novels that offer a peek into society’s underclass. In each of these short stories, she displays the same unsettling talent for detailing her characters’ tenuous grasp on reality. It may take courage for a reader to follow those extraordinary characters into their murky twilight, but the trip is well worth it.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:16:00
Killing in C Sharp
Betty Webb

Alexia Gordon’s Killing in C Sharp takes us to Ireland for a bit of ghost hunting with Gethsemane Brown. This time (after Death in D Minor), the music professor/conductor must deal with a team of “ghost hunters” who want to put Eamon, the ghost who
 haunts Gethsemane’s cottage, on 
their television program. Eamon isn’t
 crazy about the
 idea, but his own 
negativity is
 eclipsed by that of
 Father Tim Keating, who believes
 that proving ghosts 
exist would harm
 the teachings of the
 church. The TV 
people don’t care. In fact, once they discover there might be more than one ghost in the vicinity—not to mention instances of demonic activity—they become more gung ho than ever. Killing in C Sharp is a fun read, with many fine examples of Irish blarney between humans and ghosts, and it’s always enjoyable to see hauntings treated as everyday occurrences. But there is one problem that gets in the way of the fun. Author Gordon’s constant allusions to events that happened in previous books will be confusing for anyone who hasn’t read them. For that reason I suggest fan of ghosts and ghoulies start with Murder in G Major, then work their way up to this one.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:21:48
Shallow Grave
Hank Wagner

Shallow Grave, the fourth book in Karen Harper’s South Shores series, finds its heroine, forensic psychologist Claire Britten, happily decompressing after the stressful events chronicled in the previous installments of the series, tending to her young daughter, her lover (criminal lawyer Nick Marwood), and her unborn child. Her idyll is interrupted by a tragedy involving family friend Ben Hoffman, owner of the Comfort Zone, a Florida animal sanctuary. Ben dies horribly, mauled by a tiger for which he is caring. Although seemingly accidental, his death is highly suspicious, as he was clearly aware of the protocols in dealing with the beast. Claire and Nick come to the aid of his family, uncovering a surprisingly long list of viable suspects.

A seasoned pro, Harper demands her reader’s attention early on, and never relinquishes her hold. Claire Britten is a winning protagonist, anything but helpless, but facing other dilemmas besides the murder, such as her struggle with narcolepsy. Her supporting cast is diverse, providing several unique points of view. Harper also uses her setting, South Florida, to great advantage, dealing with current issues there, such as the presence of invasive species in the Everglades, illegal hunting of big game, and the strange penchant some folks have for adopting wild animals as pets.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:24:38
Dead Girls
Hank Wagner

One can find a strong, if damaged, heroine in Graeme Cameron’s second novel, Dead Girls. That heroine, police detective Ali Greene, emerged from a confrontation with killer Tom Reed with multiple physical issues, and a huge void in her memory, such that she is constantly writing notes to herself to remember even the simplest of things, like her lover’s first name. The book is set two months after the events which changed the course of her life, as the case, involving the still-at-large killer, heats up with the discovery of the bodies of two of her missing comrades. Ali throws herself into the investigation, dealing with the strange facts of the case, even as she struggles to find some normalcy in her everyday life.

Cameron delivers an engaging, fast-paced thriller, following Ali as she wends her way down the dim corridors of memory and a challenging police investigation. The mystery at its core is complex and multifaceted, allowing Cameron to delve into the far-reaching effects of the killings on the public, the investigators, and the families of all involved. It all builds to a satisfying, bloody crescendo, with no actor emerging unscathed.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:31:09
Forsaken
Hank Wagner

Michael McBride’s second Unit 51 novel, Forsaken, the successor to 2017’s Subhuman, picks up six months after the harrowing events chronicled there. The team, comprised of dedicated researchers and paramilitary operatives, continues to deal with the appearance of a new, hostile life form they first encountered in Antarctica, as they come to discover that the parasitic threat is only a small part of a macabre global puzzle that may very well augur the end of life on Earth as we know it. It’s a terrific sequel, brimming with menace, action, and suspense, which brings to mind such disparate works of fiction as Michael Crichton’s The Andromeda Strain, John W. Campbell’s classic sci-fi story “Who Goes There?” and H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Colour Out of Space,” as well as films such as The Thing (two versions, both inspired by Campbell’s novella) and the Alien franchise. Along the way, the team learns the hard way that it is better to let sleeping gods lie.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:38:58
The Broken Angel / Backfire and Other Stories
Ben Boulden

The Broken Angel / Backfire and Other Stories by Floyd Mahannah is a bit of a cheat for this column since The Broken Angel is a novel. A novel you’ll enjoy if your reading taste leans toward those stylistically streamlined and hardboiled crime novels written during the 1950s. But since this column is about the short form, I’ll confine my criticism to the second book in the omnibus, Backfire and Other Stories, which is a collection of six tales published between 1949 and 1955. The five best stories enlivened the pages of Manhunt and the other, Mahannah’s first published story, “Ask Maria”—a whodunit in a Southwestern desert town—was published in Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine.

“Prognosis Negative” is a hardboiled private eye tale with a shamus, Jim Makin, under a medical death sentence—or as his doctor puts it, prognosis negative. The diagnosis leaves Makin
 with nothing to lose, and for the first
 time he stands firm against the local
 crime syndicate in a manner befitting Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer. “Where’s the Money” is a clever and fast-moving tale about a reformed criminal and the missing loot from his last job. The police and his former partners both think he knows where the money is hiding and each party, in their own way, will do nearly anything to find it.

“Backfire,” the title story and the best in the collection, has enough twists and surprises for any self-respecting novel, all condensed into 20,000 words of nonstop hardboiled bliss. Pete, engaged to be married, gets caught in the web of the sultry Bernice, a troubled girl with an innocent question—“Suppose you wanted to disappear?” Pete thinks it’s a game, but when the newspaper reports Bernice’s suspected murder, no body found at the crime scene, he realizes the game is very real.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:42:15
Ten Year Stretch
Ben Boulden

Ten Year Stretch, edited by Martin Edwards and Adrian Muller, is an impressive anthology marking ten years of CrimeFest—a crime festival in the United Kingdom—and featuring 20 original stories by an international cadre of mystery writers. The tales range from hardboiled to traditional—Simon Brett’s “The Last Locked Room” is a satisfying study of life imitating art with an unsolvable crime at its center—to procedural to thriller.

“Shorty and the Briefcase” by Lee Child is a tricky (in all the right ways) story featuring a detective named Shorty, who is shot in the first paragraph and solves the case of the year, from his hospital bed, by the last paragraph. James Sallis’ “Freezer Burn” is my favorite story in the anthology. Its simple construction leaves the details to the reader’s imagination when “Daddy,” freshly unfrozen from his cryogenic dreams, wakes up believing himself to be a hit man rather than the vacuum salesman he was. There are also tales from Jeffery Deaver, Mick Herron, John Harvey, and Ian Rankin.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:47:23
Bloody Scotland
Ben Boulden

Bloody Scotland, edited by James Crawford, is an eclectic and uneven crime anthology featuring 12 stories by Scottish writers “inspired by...[Scotland’s] most iconic buildings.” Its stories range from a prehistoric Viking whodunit to a darkly engrossing adventure yarn to a clever thriller. Its best tales are original and provocative with a satisfying and often moody sense of place. Its lesser stories read more like travel brochures than fiction, but every tale in the anthology is entertaining and readable—if for no other reason than their exotic and often bleak locales. The contributors read like a who’s who of Scottish writers: Val McDermid, Stuart MacBride, Gordon Brown, Denise Mina, Ann Cleeves.

“Stevenson’s Candle” is Stuart MacBride’s take on his fellow Scotsman, Alistair MacLean’s duplicitous adventure tale where the protagonist is thrown into an overwhelming situation with too little information, no way to contact the outside world, a string of murders with a long list of suspects, and a high level of adventure. Denise Mina’s “Nemo Me Impune Lacessit” is a brilliantly executed tale of suburban noir. When a family, along with their troubled 11-year-old boy Jake, visits Edinburgh Castle an odd thing happens. Jake’s behavior shifts from his normal extremes—violent, angry, uncontrollable—to that of a normal preteen, but Jake’s transformation is as disturbing as was his bad behavior. My favorite tale in the anthology is Ann Cleeves’ tight, clever, and completely entertaining “The Return.” While vacationing, a woman meets her intellectual idol and like a dream they get on well, at least until everything changes. A perfectly told psychological mystery, it has a similar vibe to those brilliant stories by Patricia Highsmith, with more than a little irony and a smile-inducing climactic twist.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 18:53:52
Righteous
Dick Lochte

When Ide’s first novel about Isaiah (“IQ”) Quintabe, arrived late in 2016, it received the kind of reviews usually reserved for authors’ daydreams. Eventually the book won the Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity Awards, all well-earned. Its young African American hero is a street-shrewd high school dropout who literally is too cool for school—when it comes to solving problems and crimes. His powers of observation challenge the great Sherlock’s and his solutions to difficult situations aren’t merely outside the box, they’re on a 3-D chess level. When dealing with emotional entanglements like friendship and romance, however, he’s on a par with the average shy fringe kid. He’s been living alone in a downtrodden section of Long Beach, California, ever since the hit-and-run death of his older brother Marcus, eight years before. Though he may evoke memories of other fictional crime-fighters—the aforementioned Sherlock, Walter Mosley’s self-styled PI Easy Rawlins, and Steven Franks’ hyper-observant (fake) Psych-ic Shawn Spencer—Isaiah is refreshingly original, a detecting prodigy possessing all the self-doubt, bluntness, and impatience of young adulthood. In his debut novel, he’s hired to find the culprit who sicced a vicious pit bull on chart-topping rapper Calvin Wright, aka Black the Knife. Simultaneously, he’s searching for the driver who killed Marcus, an investigation that carries over into the current sequel, Righteous. Taking place a few years later, book two finds Isaiah just as his relentless pursuit of the hit-and-run driver has started to pay off. He’s sidetracked by the beautiful Sarita Van, once Marcus’ girlfriend, who begs him to help her sister Janine, a DJ in Vegas drowning in gambling debt. Isaiah, smitten, agrees. Abetted by his loose-cannon associate from book one, Dodson—the opposite of Mosley’s Mouse in every aspect except that of fear-inspiring—he takes on Sin City, a cadre of vicious Chinese gangsters, and an unstoppable, death-dealing seven-foot-tall loan collector. Judging by reader Jones’ successful rendering of both books, one would hope him to be permanently linked to this sterling series. His vocal interpretations of the main characters are spot on. Isaiah isn’t merely soft-spoken. He’s as unwavering in describing his plans of action as he is halting in social situations, including a sweetly painful almost-dinner with Sarita. Dodson is all bluster, his approach mainly negative unless involving food or money. But, as we discover in Righteous, approaching fatherhood brings changes to the brute. Jones shows a fair amount of versatility with the other characters, too, male and female, narrating these stylishly written crime novels with such skill and perfect pacing that several sequences sound as if they’re being performed by a full cast.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:00:24
The Wanted
Dick Lochte

In Crais’ 17th Elvis Cole novel, the sharp-witted sleuth is hired by single mom Devon Connor, who wants to know what her teenage son Tyson is doing to earn a secret cash flow. She’s worried he’s dealing drugs. But it’s not that. I’d have suspected he’d been trading cryptocurrency, but it’s not that either. Tyson, his girlfriend, and a pal are robbing the homes of the rich and absent. That’s the good news. The bad is that they’ve lifted something that has motivated its owner to hire two hit men to retrieve it and silence the thieves. It’s a serviceable plot, but the series’ popularity is based less on story than on the charming, empathic Elvis, his pragmatic, efficient partner, Joe Pike, and their abiding friendship. That’s a skosh lacking here, with narrator Elvis displaying an unusual seriousness and Joe arriving almost half a book late for the action. This time the male bonding emphasis is on the two killers, Harvey and Stemms, whose objectively described search for the kids occupies every third or fourth chapter. They’re as fascinating as they are ruthless, a contemporary extension perhaps of Ernest Hemingway’s duo in his short story “The Killers” or, nearer the mark, Sam Peckinpah’s amusing hit men in Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia. Reader Daniels, no stranger to the series, has polished his glib Elvis and taciturn Joe to perfection. He provides the ill-tempered, negative Harvey with a harsh, growly voice, while endowing the much chattier Stemms with a higher-pitched breeziness. Vocally, they’re fun-house mirror images of Joe and Elvis.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:11:41
The Wife Between Us
Dick Lochte

I don’t know about you, but I’ve had it with psychological thrillers told by unreliable narrators. In possibly the first and arguably best example of its kind, The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, Agatha Christie managed to deliver the gut-punch ending and push the boundaries of detective fiction without twisting and bending the plot into something resembling the hopelessly knotted cords hanging from the rear of my computer. In her wisdom, Dame Agatha also provided, in Hercule Poirot, at least one character whom the reader would find appealing and honorably motivated. For some unknown reason, today’s unreliably narrated thrillers are populated by people not merely shy on positive traits, they’re actually unlikable. Who does one root for in Gone Girl or The Girl on a Train? Or, to the point, The Wife Between Us? A paper-thin case may be made for protagonist-narrator Vanessa Thompson, who may be sincere in what she’s doing but who, as enacted by reader Whelan following the lead of authors Hendricks and Pekkanen, displays all the charm of a boozy divorcee frantically stalking the young woman who’s about to waltz down the aisle with her ex. Young preschool teacher Nellie blows off her best pal rather than face the criticism of her husband-to-be. As for the “perfect husband” in question, he’s a well-heeled hedge fund manager, who, no surprise considering his occupation, turns out to be a micromanaging lout. His arrogant sister is, well, a bit too fond of her sibling. Then there are a couple of other women secretly operating with revenge in their hearts. In addition to the chapters devoted to Vanessa’s lack of candor, the authors use disguised flashbacks, fake character names, and withheld information to pull off a series of shocking twists. Actress Whelan manages to vocally distinguish the various women and even clarify the strained story line enough for it to make some kind of sense. But the takeaway is: a novel should be more than just a bunch of deceptive literary gimmicks.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:15:50
70 Years by Gas Lamp: The Illustrious Clients’ Sixth Casebook
Jon L. Breen

The Illustrious Clients of Indianapolis, founded in 1946 by precocious teenager Jerry Neal (later J.N.) Williamson, was one of the early scion societies of American Sherlock Holmes devotees. The founder’s decision to require a piece of Sherlockian writing from potential members led to its also getting into the publishing business, with the first Casebook appearing two years later in 1948. This anniversary volume begins with material on the organization’s founding and on Williamson, later a prominent author of horror fiction. There follows the customary Sherlockian mix of real and mock scholarship and personal remembrances of prominent fans, e.g. an account of the late John Bennett Shaw by his son Patrick Bennett Shaw. The title to Steven Doyle’s “The Strange and Convoluted History of the Worst Tale in the Canon,” which turns out to be “The Mazarin Stone,” promises more than it delivers but is bound to intrigue readers. Of particular interest is the transcript of a 1990 broadcast of a local radio program, Singular Point, hosted by John Barron, a retired Butler University journalism professor and including two eminent Sherlockians, Edward S. Lauterbach and Donald E. Curtis. The host’s spotty research is exposed (politely) by his knowledgeable guests. The introduction to the piece excoriates Barron’s “self-aggrandizing gasbaggery,” lively if perhaps excessive invective.

Given that the Baker Street Irregulars and Holmesian writings seemed for years the pursuit of an old boys’ club, it is interesting to note how many women have joined the game, including all three editors of this volume and three of the contributing writers.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:21:21
Charlie Chan’s Poppa: Earl Derr Biggers
Jon L. Breen

This is the most detailed and thorough biography of Biggers I’ve seen, fleshing out without contradicting the picture of Charlie Chan’s creator one would imagine from his work and earlier accounts of his life: kind, humorous, honest, responsible, gently iconoclastic, family-centered, and dogged by ill health. Gregorich, who like her subject grew up in Warren, Ohio, and who has been one of the leading defenders of the Chan character against the excesses of political correctness, is the ideal biographer of his creator. Her account is enriched by quotes from Biggers’ writings and professional correspondence, from his farewell editorial for his Warren, Ohio high school literary magazine, The Cauldron, to his late-life pressures from Fox Studios, Bobbs-Merrill, and The Saturday Evening Post to turn out more Charlie Chan ever faster. It appears here was an author who literally wrote himself to death, but a quoted letter from his widow, Eleanor Ladd Biggers, to his publisher noted, “His health was so poor that I know he hadn’t the strength to write another book and with him, not to write would be not to really live.”

The first half of the book is the narrative biography, which includes considerations of the subject’s early life and pre-Chan writings as well as the Honolulu detective’s meteoric career; the second half comprises a selection of posts on detective fiction and the Chan novels from Gregorich’s blog. While they cover much of the same material as the biography, including a post or two on each of the novels, they include the biographer’s personal experiences with multiple readings of the books and view the books from different angles (e.g. a detailed outline of The Black Camel’s plot followed by a discussion of its clue-planting and misdirection).

The emphasis is the literary Chan, with rare references to the films. Mrs. Biggers declined overtures to have another writer take up the Charlie Chan character in books, but she had no problem with original screenplays, expressing approval of at least some of the movies, including 1935’s Charlie Chan in Paris, written by prominent detective novelist Philip MacDonald, whose Chan remained “dignified, humorous, skillful, and gallant.” This book should be read by every admirer of Biggers and his immortal creation.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:29:42
Baker Street Reveries: Sherlockian Writings 2006-2016
Jon L. Breen

Eminent Holmes scholar Klinger begins his latest volume with a sure-fire grabber: “A Checklist of Sherlockian Pornography,” which delivers exactly what it promises. The other contents include book reviews and essays on a wide variety of Holmes-related topics, many previously published in The Baker Street Journal, including the final piece, “On Annotating Sherlock Homes,” an account of his own emergence as a Sherlockian and his eventual compilation of a successor to W.S. Baring-Gould’s The Annotated Sherlock Holmes. He enumerates eight steps he followed in annotating the Canon, which he later applied to similar works on Dracula, Frankenstein, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:34:48
The Misadventures of Ellery Queen (Reference)
Jon L. Breen

Many fiction anthologies have some reference value, often by the nature of their subject. One such was the The Misadventures of Sherlock Holmes (1944), edited by Ellery Queen. Few fictional characters or their authors have been imitated in pastiche, parody, or homage enough to fill a comparable volume, but Ellery Queen (in both roles) has. Editor Pachter suggested such a volume (inevitably titled The Misadventures of Ellery Queen) to Fred Dannay, editorial half of the Queen team, in the early 1970s, but it was not until 2012 that a Japanese-language publication of that title was published. Pachter and fellow editor Andrews, both included in that volume, were inspired to get an English-language equivalent into print. The editors’ introduction distinguishes between parody (generally comic imitation) and pastiche (more serious imitation), and they selected several examples of both. Sons of both Queen collaborators (Fred Dannay and Manfred Lee) express their approval of the project in individual introductions. The leadoff story, French author Thomas Narcejac’s “The Mystery of the Red Balloons,” was probably the first Ellery Queen pastiche and has never before appeared in English translation. Among other authors represented, in direct imitation or homage, are Frances M. Nevins (whose “Open Letter to Survivors” is to Queen pastiches as Vincent Starrett’s “The Unique Hamlet” is to Holmes pastiches), Edward D. Hoch, Arthur Porges, William Brittain, James Holding, Patricia McGerr, Lawrence Block, and both editors, Andrews in collaboration with Belgian Queen scholar Kurt Sercu. (Truth in reviewing: I am also proud to be represented.)

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:40:12
“Elisabeth Sanxay Holding: The Revamped Introduction,” in Widow’s Mite/Who’s Afraid
Jon L. Breen

Of the many mystery writers who have gone through repeated cycles of neglect and rediscovery, Elisabeth Sanxay Holding, pioneer of domestic noir and favorite suspense writer of Raymond Chandler, may be the greatest. In 2003, Gregory Shepard, the publisher of Stark House Press, wrote an introduction to the pairing of Lady Killer and Miasma, first published in 1942 and 1929 respectively. He followed that volume with a half dozen more two-to-a-volume pairings. Now with the eighth volume of Stark’s Holding revival, he has revised, expanded, and improved that original introduction, discussing her pre-Depression mainstream novels (which may also be worthy of rediscovery) and her criminous output, in six, close-packed pages.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:46:23
Weeping Waters
Ben Boulden

Weeping Waters, South African journalist Karin Brynard’s first novel, is an atmospheric procedural set in an isolated farming community in South Africa, at the edge of the Kalahari Desert. Inspector Albertus Beeslaar, a 20-year veteran of the South African Police Service, is newly transferred from Johannesburg to the rural Northern Cape posting. Upon his arrival, Beeslaar is greeted with the grisly murder of an eccentric artist, Freddie Swarts, and her adopted daughter in their remote farmhouse.

The killings appear to be a “farm murder,” one of many attacks on white Afrikaner farmers who are robbed and sometimes brutally murdered. But Freddie’s toxicology results reveal that she had been drugged before her throat was cut, making Beeslaar suspect she knew her killer. Freddie’s sister Sara, a journalist living in Cape Town, arrives back at her childhood home carrying grief over her sister and niece, and guilt over abandoning Freddie at the farm to care for their dying father.

Weeping Waters is a deeply moving detective story. Its stark setting is defined as much by South Africa’s troubled racial relationships—white, black, and Bushmen alike—as by its landscape. The tension between Beeslaar, a white cop trained in pre-Nelson Mandela South Africa, and his two sergeants, both native blacks, is a microcosm of the larger issue: white landowning farmers in conflict with native tribes with ancestral claims to that land. The story is unhurried, at times downright slow, as the tapestry of people and culture is woven, a weakness overcome by the tale’s rich characterization, particularly that of Beeslaar, and the mystery’s satisfying conclusion.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 19:57:46
Dodging and Burning
Erica Ruth Neubauer

In this captivating story set in 1945 rural Virginia, Robbie Bliss has gone off to war, never to return. His family is reeling from the loss and so is his best friend, Jay Preston, who did return home, but with a serious leg injury. Jay has befriended Robbie’s little sister Ceola, and the two spend time poring over the detective stories and penny rags that Robbie loved.

One day, Jay tells Ceola and Bunny Prescott—a young woman in love with Jay—that he found a dead body in the woods. He took a picture of the body, but he was frightened that the killer might still be there, so he ran. The three head back, but find no body, only a pair of high heels with blood on them. Ceola believes Jay wholeheartedly, but Bunny is skeptical and presses him for answers. Jay admits that the body is that of Lily Vellum, a girl he was supposed to meet in the woods for a photography session and who was reported missing from her nearby mountain town.

The three start looking into Lily’s disappearance and murder, but Bunny suspects there is something wrong with Jay’s story and can’t understand his obsession with the girl—or why Jay doesn’t seem to be attracted to her.

But Jay and Robbie were both hiding secrets—secrets contained in the journal Robbie left behind. And when those secrets come to light, they lead everyone down a path to tragedy.

Told alternately from Ceola’s and Bunny’s viewpoints, and interspersed with a pulp story written by Robbie and published anonymously, Dodging and Burning is a tragic and sensitive, but beautifully told story. Ceola’s perspective gives us the story of a preteen girl coming of age as her family grieves the loss of their son, even while remaining unable to accept him for who he was. And Bunny’s perspective offers a look at a young woman grappling with unrequited love when she realizes the man she loves is gay and her eyes are opened to newly seeing people she has been raised to believe are “deviants.”

The mystery seems less important to any of the three main characters than their relationships with one another. Their friendship seems to give each of them something—a sense of importance, a feeling of belonging, a chance to be close to someone in the face of shared loss. John Copenhaver beautifully addresses the difficulties faced by two gay men in this time period, and the dangers of such a love, a story that will break readers’ hearts.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 20:01:57
A Necessary Evil
Erica Ruth Neubauer

Captain Sam Wyndham of the Imperial Police Force and Sergeant “Surrender-not’” Banerjee find themselves embroiled in palace politics in the second of this series set in 1920 Calcutta, India. A meeting of regional royalty has assembled royal members from all over the country in an attempt to start a Chamber of Princes—like an Indian House of Lords—and give the natives the appearance of home rule, despite the British occupation. Wyndham and Surrender-not meet with Prince Adhir from the small kingdom of Sambalpore, as the prince wants to talk with Surrender-not—a former college chum—about some threatening letters he has received. But on the way back to his hotel, the Adhir is assassinated right in front of them by a robed priest.

Wyndham and Surrender-not run the assassin to ground, but he immediately kills himself. The higher-ups want to close the case, but Wyndham manages to finagle a deal to accompany the prince’s body home to the kingdom of Sambalpore. Once there, Wyndham and Surrender-not are given permission to conduct an investigation into Adhir’s death by the maharaja himself, but meet with difficulties at every turn. Political machinations, a full roster of people with motives, and a refusal to allow interviews of a harem of women are only a few of the problems that impede the investigation. Not to mention that Wyndham finds himself distracted by his opium addiction, and the withdrawal symptoms he is now suffering away from Calcutta. He is also troubled by his infatuation with Annie Grant, who is also in Sambalpore to pay her respects, and is suddenly being courted by the next prince in line for the throne.

Laced with dry humor and fascinating insight into the India of the 1920s under British rule, Abir Mukherjee does an excellent job of demonstrating the hierarchies and caste systems of a complicated country and the difficulties of a people under British imperial rule. Captain Wyndham is flawed, but still somehow sympathetic, and his partner Surrender-not offers a charming counterbalance to the cynical Wyndham. The twists and turns of the story offer genuine surprises, and the sights, sounds, and smells of this compelling novel are utterly transporting.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 20:07:18
The High Tide Club
Sarah Prindle

The High Tide Club from Mary Kay Andrews (aka Kathy Hogan Trocheck, writer of the Callahan Garrity mysteries) is a fascinating blend of mystery, romance, friendship, and history woven into a tale about female friendship. Brooke Trappnell does not have an easy life. A struggling lawyer and single mother of a young son, she’s intrigued when a wealthy landowner
named Josephine Warrick asks
for her expertise. Elderly
 Josephine is spending her final
 days in her mansion on a Georgia barrier island and wants to
 make amends with her oldest 
friends before she dies—by giving
 their descendants shares in a
 trust fund.

As a teenager, Josephine was
 a member of the High Tide
 Club, a group of girls who met 
at high tide to skinny-dip. Aside 
from prickly Josephine, there 
was spunky Ruth, sweet and gentle Millie, and Varina, the “little sister” of the group. When Brooke tracks down their descendants and convinces them to meet Josephine, long-buried secrets between the friends and an unsolved murder are exposed. These include land-ownership disputes, questions about adoption and paternity, and the mysterious disappearance of Millie’s fiancé decades ago.

When Josephine dies, it’s left to Brooke and her new friends—Varina’s niece Felicia, and Ruth’s granddaughter Lizzie—to unravel the secrets between the four friends. The High Tide Club goes back and forth between the present day and flashbacks from the 1940s, from Brooke’s struggle to raise her son in a busy world to the lives and memories of the club members from a time long past.

Andrews skillfully contrasts deception, betrayal, and murder with the scenic beauty of her Southern setting. Readers will enjoy the many twists and turns the novel takes as it moves toward its surprising and heartwarming conclusion. Ultimately a tale about redemption and enduring friendship, The High Tide Club links mysteries from the past and present to create a compelling story.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 20:11:39
The Silent Companions
Ariell Cacciola

When Rupert Bainbridge dies only a handful of weeks after his wedding day, Elsie Bainbridge, widowed and pregnant, is sent to The Bridge, her late husband’s ancestral home in the English countryside. The dilapidated estate is populated by Rupert’s cousin Sarah, a small staff, and a collection of wooden dolls referred to as the companions—one of which looks inexplicably like Elsie. The villagers are scared of the house, believing it to be cursed and not daring to step foot on the property. Not inclined to being superstitious, Elsie can’t help but be slowly unnerved by the estate’s phantom hisses and unexplained noises. And then she notices the eyes of the silent companions, eyes that seem to follow her, watching.

The Silent Companions is a horror tale of classic Gothic tropes—a young woman alone among hostiles, an isolated Victorian setting, a spooky old house—but it is original in its telling. Laura Purcell uses three alternating timelines to build the story: Elsie when she first arrives at The Bridge, Elsie locked away in an insane asylum as a madwoman scarred by burns, and The Bridge two hundred years before Elsie, when it was home to 17th century tenants dipping into magic and the dark arts.

Like any gothic novel worth its salt, the three alternating timelines reveal tragedies, horrors, and ghosts that haunt any who dare venture into the crumbling ancestral home. Purcell, who also pens the Georgian Queens historic novels, has written a most effective love letter to the gothic horror genre.

Teri Duerr
2018-04-20 20:14:56