The Lost Ones
Ace Atkins
Putnam, June 2012
ISBN: 978-0-399-15876-6
Hardcover
Quinn Colson first appeared in The Ranger, and now, in this follow-up novel, faces a couple of situations that really put him to the test. As sheriff in a northern Mississippi county, he has to apply not only the skills he learned in the army, but a lot of common sense and a certain amount of diplomatic talent.
First, a high school friend recently returned from Iraq and Afghanistan now runs a local gun shop and shooting range. Colson suspects him to be the source of U.S. Army rifles which turn up in the hands of a Mexican gang. Meanwhile, a case involving an abused child leads Colson to discovering a bootleg baby racket. While raiding the place where the babies are being kept before they’re sold, Colson and his deputy, Lillie Virgil, discover that the two cases somehow converge.
As the investigation progresses, lots of action takes place, sometimes reminding the reader of an actual military operation, led by General Colson, rather than sheriff Colson. The characters are colorfully drawn, and the dialogue is vibrant. The novel is sort of a cross between an old-fashioned western and a modern day crime novel and reads well, and is recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, November 2012.
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Good Bait
John Harvey
Pegasus, January 2013
ISBN 978-1-605-98378-3
Hardcover
There are two main story lines, and two cases for the cops to pursue, in this newest novel from John Harvey. The first is the murder in Hampstead Heath of a 17-year-old Moldovan boy, assigned to DCI Karen Shields and the Homicide & Serious Crime team. The second falls to DI Trevor Cordon of the Devon and Cornwall Police in Exeter, when a woman he’d known is killed under the wheels of an oncoming train, whether suicide, accident or murder is unknown. Though not strictly his problem, he takes time off the job to investigate it, as the woman in question was known to him from years back and is the mother of a girl who, though many years his junior, he knew and by whom he was intrigued all those years before. There is the tantalizing question of whether or not these two events are connected.
This is, of course, at least nominally, a police procedural, and quite a good one, although the multitude of characters, both ‘bad guys’ and good, were often difficult for me to keep track of. But of course, being a John Harvey novel, it is much more than that. That title, for one instance, is, typically of a Harvey protagonist, the title of a jazz tune of which Cordon collects every known recording, from Miles Davis to Nina Simone to Dexter Gordon. It is also a character study of the lead cops, entirely different from one another: Karen, a black woman from Jamaica, and Trevor, fifty-ish, with an ex-wife and a grown son from whom he’s been estranged but who he believes is now living somewhere in Australia. The author philosophizes about what makes these cops tick: if it’s “the mystery, the need to see things through to their conclusion, find out how they’d been put together, how they ticked. Wasn’t that one of the reasons people became detectives?” and about “missed chances. Roads not taken. Relationships allowed to drift. Always that nagging question, what if, what if?” Another terrific Harvey novel, and recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, December 2012.
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Watching the Dark
Peter Robinson
Morrow, January 2013
ISBN: 978-0-06-200480-2
Hardcover
The 20th entry in the wonderful Inspector Banks series by Peter Robinson opens with the shocking killing of one of Banks’ colleagues, a decorated detective inspector, on the grounds of St. Peter’s Police Convalescence and Treatment Center, where he was a patient. The Major Crimes Unit, or Homicide and Major Inquiry Team, as it was now known, operating out of Eastvale, is assigned, the investigative team once again including DS Winsome Jackman (“all six feet something of her”), DC Gerry Masterson, and DI Annie Cabbot, Banks’ close friend, who is just returning from a convalescence after having survived her own brutal wounds and subsequent convalescence in events described in a prior entry in the series.
Because there had recently been a hint of police corruption, Inspector Joanna Passero, of Professional Standards [the equivalent of the American IAB], is assigned to work with Banks. Their working relationship, perhaps understandably, is an ambivalent one, at least initially. Very shortly, another murder takes place, and there are indications that the two killings may be related. Another angle that comes into play is a six-year-old cold case involving Rachel Hewitt, a 19-year-old English girl who seemingly “disappeared off the face of the earth” in Tallinn, Estonia, a case that had haunted the dead inspector for the intervening years, having been involved in the investigation at its inception in Tallinn.
The author expertly juxtaposes the lines of investigation, with Annie and her colleagues handling the Eastvale aspect of the case, and Banks the second killing, which appears to involve illegal migrant labor activities, ultimately taking him to Estonia, though he is warned not to get diverted by the Hewitt case. Following his instincts, as always, Banks is determined to do his best to bring closure to the girl’s parents if at all possible. A complex plot, carried off in smooth fashion, in a book that is highly recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, December 2012.
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A Cup Full of Midnight
Jaden Terrell
Permanent Press, August 2012
ISBN: 978-1-57962-225-1
Hardcover
Jared McKean, 36 years of age and now a private detective after seven years with the Nashville Metro Police Department, has gone, as he describes it, from “uniformed patrol officer to undercover vice officer to homicide detective to outsider.” Now he has his most important client ever: his nephew, Josh. Josh and his sister, 14-year-old Caitlin, are as close to him as anyone in his life, the boy feeling closer to him than to his own father. Lately Josh’s life has been in a state of upheaval, having not long ago come out of the closet and left home to live with Sebastian Parker, known as “Razor,” the sociopath who’d seduced him [a man in his late 20’s to Josh’s 16]. After the latter’s murder a few days before, Josh had attempted suicide, and now ‘hires’ Jared to find out who killed Razor. No simple task, since he seems to have engendered hatred in most everyone whose path he crossed. In what appears to be a ritual killing, he had been slashed to death, emasculated, eviscerated, and his body placed on a pentagram, surrounded by occult symbols.
The novel is a cautionary tale of disenchanted youth and the Goth sub-culture, “vampire wannabees.” I was initially – but only initially – unsure whether this was a book for me, agreeing with the protagonist when he says “I didn’t believe in magic spells or voodoo curses. I didn’t believe in vampires or witches or things that go bump in the night. The only monsters I had ever seen were human.”
This is the second in the Jared McKean series, following the terrific Racing the Devil, and it doesn’t disappoint. Jared’s “ex” hits the nail on the head in explaining why she couldn’t stay married to him, citing his career choice: “It’s not what you do; it’s who you are. You’re a hero waiting for something to die for.” Jared is a fascinating protagonist. Still on good terms with his ex-wife [now re-married and in her ninth month of pregnancy], they are both devoted to their eight-year-old Down Syndrome son, Paulie. He shares a ranch with his best childhood friend, Jay, now battling AIDS, and his three horses: Dakota, the rescued Arabian; Crockett, the Tennessee Walker; and Tex, the palomino gelding Quarter Horse. As the investigation continues, several suspects emerge, and Jared’s investigation puts his life, and that of his nephew, at risk, and he becomes even more relentless. Well-plotted, the book has more than one heart-stopping moment. It was a very good read, and is recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, January 2013.
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Chance of a Ghost
E.J. Copperman
Berkley Prime Crime, February 2013
ISBN: 978-0-425-25168-3
Mass Market Paperback
Alison Kerby returns in the fourth Haunted Guesthouse Mystery series by E.J. Copperman. Alison, a single mother in her late thirties, runs a guesthouse in her childhood hometown of Harbor Haven, on the Jersey Shore, inhabited by her and her precocious ten-year-old daughter, as well as Maxie Malone, Alison’s resident Internet expert, and Paul, an English/Canadian professor turned detective, both of whom have lived there since before their deaths. It would seem that Alison and her daughter, as well as her mother, are the only ones who can see the ghosts.
At Paul’s urging, Alison had obtained a private-investigator’s license, and her services as such are sought by her mother’s own ghostly friend, who wants Alison to find out who killed him. While his death six months previously was deemed to have been of natural causes, he is convinced he was murdered. The investigation morphs into a search for the ghost of Alison’s father, who died five years ago, but whose ghost has been strangely absent of late. She is aided in her efforts by her mother, her daughter, her best friend Jeannie, and her present [living] houseguest, who is a retired cop and delighted at the opportunity to do what he did best, and misses a lot, as well as by Paul and Maxie [who Alison refers to as her two “non-breathing squatters”].
As with every book in the series, this newest entry contains the same unbeatable combination: a terrific plot and great if quirky humor [if you like that sort of thing – and I do!!]. I particularly loved the line about the heating system in Alison’s ancient Volvo, which was “roughly as efficient as the United States Congress, which is to say it made a lot of noise but got very little done.” The protagonist’s slightly bemused attitude toward the apparent fact that ghosts actually exist, and that some people could see/hear them, seems perfectly reasonable. This book, as were the earlier entries in the series, is thoroughly delightful, and highly recommended.
Reviewed by Gloria Feit, February 2013.
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