Book Review: The Weight of Blood by Laura McHugh

The Weight of Blood
Laura McHugh
Spiegel & Grau, March 2014
ISBN 978-0-8129-9520-6
Hardcover

Seventeen-year-old Lucy Dane lives in the tiny rural town of Henbane, in the Ozark Mountains. Lucy is an appealing narrator: smart, practical, empathetic, pretty, and resourceful, she is not judgmental and tends to take the side of the underdog. Lucy seems to have a lot going for her, as she looks forward to finishing up high school. Her father, Carl, is protective and loving, a hard worker who supports the goal of getting Lucy away to college. Her uncle, Crete, owns the restaurant and store in town, as well as much of the surrounding land, and his prosperity makes him an important figure in Henbane. Birdie, the savvy old woman who is Carl and Lucy’s closest neighbour, is like a grandmother to Lucy, teaching her important skills about cooking and gardening. All of these relatives and friends have done their best to support Lucy through a significant loss in her life:  Lucy’s mother, Lila, died when Lucy was just a year old, under mysterious circumstances. Lila’s body has never been found, and there are rumours that she committed suicide in one of the old mineshafts in the area.

Although Lila’s death has left a permanent mark on Lucy, and grief and loss are always with her, she still manages to be a typical teenager in many ways.  She enjoys giggling with her best friend, Bess, about Daniel, a boy Lucy likes who is also smart and college-bound. Even in the Ozark Mountains, Lucy has a cell phone, and she and Bess get up to no good at parties held by the riverbank.

Henbane may be beautiful in many ways, but it is seedy and dark in others. Drug dealing is prevalent, and just a few months before the story begins, the town has been shocked by the murder of a mentally challenged girl named Cherie, who had been particularly close to Lucy. It is Cherie’s brutal death that really galvanizes Lucy into action and forces her to begin looking more closely at the people around her, as she tries to discover who killed Cherie. Are the people Lucy has grown up with who she really thought they were? She begins to pay keener attention to the rumours about other girls who have gone missing, and of course she can’t help but connect this with Lila, her own young mother who disappeared so many years ago.

The Weight of Blood has a strong sense of immediacy. The novel begins with first-person alternating narratives between Lucy and Lila. While Lucy relates what is happening in the present, the reader is shown, in Lila’s words, what has happened in the past, so that the stories of mother and daughter unfold together. Then, as the book goes on, more characters begin to pick up the threads, and chapters are written from Carl’s point of view, from Crete’s, from Birdie’s, and from others who know Lucy and who had known Lila.

Unfortunately for Lucy, it begins to seem more and more obvious that it may be someone very close to Lucy who is responsible for the horrible crimes she learns about. Henbane seems to become creepier and more sordid, and Lucy faces danger both for herself and for those around her.

The Weight of Blood is a perfectly titled novel. While the plot revolves around Lucy gradually solving the questions she has about Cherie’s death and Lila’s disappearance, the book is also very much about what Lucy will do with this information once she has uncovered it. The Dane family has lived in the Ozark Mountains for generations; Lucy can’t divide herself from her own ancestors, no matter what they might have done. Lila was an outsider, so Lucy struggles with her sense of herself as someone who is, like her mother, quite different from many of the people around her. At the same time, Lucy is entrenched in the town’s ways, as her Dane grandparents were before her. McHugh has done a very successful job of writing a creepy, oppressive-feeling thriller, while at the same time exploring how someone can accept themselves when they discover harsh truths about the people they love the best.

Reviewed by Andrea Thompson, July 2016.

Book Review: Hard Latitudes by Baron R. Birtcher

Hard Latitudes
Mike Tavis #4
Baron R. Birtcher
Permanent Press, May 2015
ISBN: 978-1-57962-390-6
Hardcover

The fourth entry on the Mike Travis series is just as good as the earlier books, and that is high praise indeed.  The novel begins with the protagonist looking back at incidents that began eleven years prior, and an intricate and fascinating tale it is.  It starts in Macau in 1994, with an act of violence whose repercussions are felt in different far-flung parts of the world and do not, initially, involve Mike in any way.

Mike, 6’2” and a retired LAPD homicide detective, since leaving LA has been living in Hawaii, where he runs a chartering service for private scuba and luxury cruises out of Kona, on his 72’ sailing yacht, the Kehau, after running a similar operation off the Southern California coast.  Mike is the son of a very wealthy man, which he tries to forget, mostly with success, nor make others aware of it.  When his brother, heavily involved in the family business, calls from LA and tells Mike that his “indiscretions” have come back to haunt him in a big – and very public – – way, Mike makes immediate arrangements to return to LA to help him out (making his relationship with his significant other, Lani, even more problematical).

Along the way the author reflects on the history of both South Central LA in late April 1992, during the time of the riots, when he was still on the police force, as well as descriptions of the natural beauty of Hawaii, about which he says, e.g., “Twilight is my favorite time of day to walk the Kona waterfront.  The flickering lights of the village begin to cycle on, piercing the encroaching darkness, the heat of the day leeching from the concrete and up through the soles of your sandals while cool wind drifts in off the water.”  He pays tribute to LA as well, describing the sunrise as presenting a sky that is “a purple so deep that it appeared to bruise the sky.”  At the same time, he also says “Every time I come back to this town, it slithers back inside me.  I had never intended to be a cynic, never imagined I would feel such contempt, and especially had never wanted to lose hope.  I wanted to believe in greater things, like grace, like justice, like integrity; I wanted to believe in heroes or a higher purpose.”

The narrative is interspersed from time to time with the events set into motion in Macau over a decade ago.

Mike’s efforts on behalf of his brother as a “reluctant pi” have repercussions that place both him and his brother in jeopardy, as well as Mike’s former partner on the LAPD, Hans Yamaguchi, who assists him in his efforts, which have unexpected and serious consequences.  In addition to this story line, this is a tale of sexual slavery and human trafficking, not for the faint of heart I might add, with fairly frequent violence (happily, for the most part not graphic.)  It is a gripping story, beautifully written, and highly recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, March 2016.

Book Reviews: January Jinx by Juliet Kincaid and The Beige Man by Helene Tursten

January Jinx
The Calendar Mysteries #1
Juliet Kincaid
AzureSky Press, January 2015
ISBN 978-0-9899504-9-7
Trade Paperback

Arminta (Misty) Wilcox watches a soldier fall off a landing near the train depot in Kansas City, and a man claiming to be a sheriff from a nearby Kansas town accuses her of pushing the man. This is in 1899. The West Bottoms is a dirty, dusty area filled with railroad tracks, shanties, and manufacturing plants. Nineteen-year-old Minty lives some blocks away on Quality Hill and is out seeking employment after attending business college.

We follow Minty through hilarious misadventures as the spunky young lady goes to great lengths to clear her name and find out what happened to the soldier. In the process, she experiences a budding romance with a young private investigator. At the same time, we learn what Kansas City was like at the turn of the century, its layout and people. The author did extensive research in order to authentically portray the dress, manners, occupations, and mores of the various social strata as well as descriptions of the buildings and businesses.

In the first book of this new cozy mystery series, bullheaded Minty’s humorous escapades keep us engaged. The characters and setting jump off the pages and pull us into Kansas City as it was in 1900.

Reviewed by Joyce Ann Brown, November 2015.
http://www.joyceannbrown.com
Author of cozy mysteries: Catastrophic Connections and Furtive Investigation, the first two Psycho Cat and the Landlady Mysteries.

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The Beige Man
An Irene Huss Investigation Set in Sweden #7
Helene Tursten
Translated from the Swedish by Marlaine Delargy
Soho, February 2015
ISBN: 978-1-61695-400-0
Hardcover

This is the 7^th and newest in the series featuring Inspector Irene Huss, head of the Violent Crimes Unit of the Goteborg police in the west of Sweden and former jujitsu champion more than 20 years ago (now past 40).  It is February, and they have been enduring a very harsh winter (not unexpectedly).  As the story opens, the police are in hot pursuit of a BMW automobile which had been reported stolen.  As the policemen are chasing  the car, they witness that same car as it hits a pedestrian, sending him crashing into the ground before it continues to speed along the roadway, leaving its victim lying where he landed.  Ultimately, the ensuing investigation reveals that the dead man was a retired police officer known to most of the cops looking for the killers.  And things only get worse from there:  Shortly after this episode, the body of a young girl, perhaps twelve or thirteen years old, is discovered in a root cellar a short distance away, the body apparently having been there for several months.

Her colleagues are still Superintendent Sven Andersson [62 and seriously overweight, with high blood pressure and asthma, now something of a lame duck, as he was about to move to the Cold Case Squad], and Tommy Persson, and Hanna Rauhala, with whom she was frequently partnered.

The story lines alternate between the crime-solving and Irene’s personal life, itself very interesting.  Her home life centers around her gourmet chef husband and her twin daughters, now 19 years old and about to begin independent lives (always a challenge for the about-to-be empty-nest parents), and her mother, Gerd (77 years old and becoming more frail) and her 82-year-old significant other, Sture.

As the investigation proceeds, there are indications that sex slavery is involved, and the Human Trafficking Unit joins the hunt.  The head of that unit offers “The fact is that human trafficking today turns over more money than the narcotics trade.”  The investigation takes Irene to Tenerife, where the body count rises precipitously.  She is told “the demand from the clients rules the market. . . If they’re ready to pay, then everything is for sale, and I mean everything.”

I loved the tip-of-the-hat given to the late Ed McBain and his 87^th Precinct tales.  The plot is somewhat complex, but no less interesting for that, and the writing is very good.

Recommended.

Reviewed by Gloria Feit, October 2015.

Book Review: Nobody’s Child by Libby Fischer Hellmann

Nobody’s Child
A Georgia Davis Novel of Suspense #4
Libby Fischer Hellmann
The Red Herrings Press, August 2014
ISBN 978-1-938733-46-8
Trade Paperback

Private investigator Georgia Davis expects a routine case of employee revenge when she meets with Shelly and Reggie Field, owners of a discount designer store in Evanston, Illinois. A flash mob boldly struck their store, making off with over five thousand dollars in merchandise and hurting Reggie so badly he ended up in the hospital. Reggie suspects a former employee of the store, a suburban kid he hired as a favor to his parents, who was fired for dealing drugs. Positive that this was payback for firing the kid, Reggie wants Georgia to investigate.

While working on the case, Georgia receives a hand delivered message—the contents rock her world. It’s scrawled on a sandwich wrapper and has traces of what appears to be blood. It says: “Georgia, I am your half-sister Savannah. I’m in Chicago and I’m pregnant. I need your help. Please find me.”

Georgia discovers a man is following her, but before she can discover his identity he is gunned down before her eyes. Soon she is swept into an underground network of human trafficking, black market adoptions, and murder.

The book is told from both the viewpoints of Georgia and Savannah. Readers who enjoy a gritty story with a hardworking detective who keeps one step ahead of the bad guys will find this a satisfying read.

Reviewed by Susan Belsky, September 2015.

Book Reviews: G.I. Bones by Martin Limon, The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino, and Stolen Lives by Jassy MacKenzie

G.I. Bones
Martin Limon
Soho Crime, 2010
ISBN: 978-1-56947-863-9
Trade Paperback

Seoul, South Korea, is one of the more exotic locales for a murder mystery, and the C.I.D operatives, Sgts. Sueno and Bascom, are two of the more different protagonists around.  This is the sixth entry in the series, but the first this reader has undertaken.

The setting is not only Seoul, but Itaewon, the red-light district, ruled by the Seven Dragons, a mafia-like group born during the Korean Conflict and following the truce in 1953, where they ran all the night clubs, prostitution and other enticements for the 50,000 American troops stationed there.  The heart of the plot is a simple one:  Sueno and Bascom undertake to find the bones of a “sainted” soldier who played a key role in rebuilding the district after the war before he was murdered, presumably by the Seven Dragons.

All other side issues seem irrelevant, but take up space and time, as the dynamic duo wander around, from time to time attempting to accomplish their main purpose.  It is a perfectly acceptable “police procedural,” however it seems at times to drag on and on.  That said, much of the writing and observations about military life are pungent, oft-times witty, and the novel is recommended.

Reviewed by Ted Feit, February 2011.

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The Devotion of Suspect X
Keigo Higashino
Minotaur Books, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-312-37506-5
Hardcover

Cleverly pitting the logic of a mathematician against that of a physicist, and then the physicist vs. an intuition-leaning detective, this Japanese novelist has written a clever murder mystery with an innovative ending.

There is no mystery as to the murderer:  A single mother, aided by her daughter, strangles her abusive ex-husband.  What then follows provides us with a chess match between her next door neighbor, a mathematician, who undertakes to create a scenario to provide the two women with iron-clad alibis, and a detective and his logic-leaning physicist friend, who analyzes each possible clue.  It is an interesting technique, and one that works well.

This is the author’s first major English publication (he is a big seller in Japan, where more than 2 million copies of the book have been sold), and the translation seems to have been made with the formality of the original language in mind.  “Devotion” won the Naoki Prize for Best Novel, the Japanese equivalent of the National Book Award.  Deservedly.  And it is, here, heartily recommended.

Reviewed by Ted Feit, May 2011.

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Stolen Lives
Jassy Mackenzie
Soho Press, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-56947-909-4
Hardcover

Four subplots coalesce in this second novel featuring Jade de Jong, the South African PI who makes her home in Jo’burg, where it all comes together.  However, the story begins in Great Britain, where a Scotland Yard raid on a brothel finds six victims of kidnapping later forced into prostitution. Unfortunately, the brothel owner is not present as expected, and remains at large, and the manager escapes as well, setting off a manhunt for the two.

At the same time, Jade is retained by the wife of the proprietor of an “upscale” strip joint called Heads and Tails as a bodyguard when her spouse goes missing.  And the woman also wants Jade to protect her daughter, who manages one of the clubs.  This draws Jade into a series of situations involving the human trafficking scheme.

There is some violence in the novel, especially with Jade’s predilection for committing murder, but it is relatively unobtrusive. The writing is vivid, and the character development solid.  The plot moves forward at a steady and interesting pace, so that the novel is an excellent follow-up to Random Violence, its predecessor in the series.  Recommended.

Reviewed by Ted Feit, August 2011.