mystery

Oct 3 2011

Little Elvises (The Junior Bender Series) by Timothy Hallinan

As anyone who has trolled for cheap e-books knows, you often get what you pay for. There is a reason there are thousands of $.99 books on Amazon and other sites. They have to be priced low or no one will read them. Are there some gems amongst them? Sure, and there is always the occasional promotional offer from publishers that means a favorite author at a low price. But let’s be honest, even in this new world of publishing many self-published books just aren’t that good.

But what if a best-selling and award-winning novelist decides to write and sell a series on his own? That is another kettle of fish entirely.  Which brings us to Timothy Hallinan‘s Junior Bender series.

I am a huge fan of his Poke Rafferty series and so was interested to see how he handled this new series available only in the electronic format.  The first book, Crashed, was great fun so I was hoping the second would cement that reaction and mean another series to enjoy.

Well, Little Elvises didn’t let me down. It was another enjoyable romp through Los Angeles with a memorable cast of characters, Hallinan’s dry and wry sense of humor, and a twisting plot that leaves you rushing to figure out the mystery at the heart of the story.

Hallinan descirbes the story this way:

[A] Los Angeles thriller-with-a-laugh-track about old-time rock-and-roll, the Philly mob, missing persons, the world’s oldest still-dangerous gangster, and a terrifying if somewhat hapless hit man named Fronts.  And a whole bunch of other stuff.

Keep Reading

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , , , , ,

Jul 5 2011

Betrayal of Trust

Betrayal of Trust: A J. P. Beaumont Novel

 

By Kevin Holtsberry • Asides • 0 • Tags: , ,

Apr 22 2011

In the Mail: The Body in the Gazebo

The Body in the Gazebo: A Faith Fairchild Mystery

From Publishers Weekly

Two puzzles tax Faith Fairchild in Agatha-winner Page’s genial 19th mystery featuring the Aleford, Mass., caterer and amateur sleuth (after 2009′s The Body in the Sleigh). When an audit finds more than ,000 missing from the minister’s discretionary fund at Aleford’s First Parish Church, suspicion falls on Faith’s husband, the Rev. Thomas Fairchild, the only person with access to the account. To complicate matters, Ursula Rowe, Faith’s friend Pix Miller’s elderly and ailing mother, asks Faith’s help in dealing with the disquieting letters she’s recently received. Secrets, the kind that fester and can make even strong people ill, reach back to the 1920s. Faith juggles her many roles of wife, mother, businesswoman, and confidant with steadfast assurance as she looks into the missing church funds and provides relief for Ursula. Series fans will relish the descriptions of tempting culinary offerings. Recipes round out the volume.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

Feb 11 2011

First-rate detectives are like good lovers and good novelists

Tara McKelvey makes me want to read Jonathan Rabb’s The Second Son (Berlin Trilogy) based on the last two paragraphs of her review:

“The Second Son” lacks the concentrated energy of its pred­ecessors, which are both set in Hoffner’s native country. As a sweaty German ex-cop in Zaragoza, he doesn’t have the same allure that he mustered during his heyday in Berlin. Yet Rabb still steers him into some sharp scenes and snappy dialogue. “You shoot well with your left hand,” Hoffner tells an anarchist who has managed to kill the two Nazis who’d been torturing him. “Close range,” the anarchist answers. “Not that difficult.”

People don’t really talk this way, but Rabb makes you wish they did. He also captures the seedy appeal of some of the ­places where Hoffner conducts his investigations: “The bar was down in the Raval section of town, near the water and the docks, a good place for pimps and drunks and journalists. . . . Now, at 4 in the afternoon, it was primarily journalists.” Although its prose occasionally ventures into Danielle Steel territory (at one point, Hoffner, staring at Mila, “let himself believe in all things possible”), the narrative never flags. It proves that first-rate detectives are like good lovers and good novelists: keenly observant, intuitive and tough as nails.

Love the line: “People don’t really talk this way, but Rabb makes you wish they did.”  And of the course the final sentence is classic.

By Kevin Holtsberry • Reviews • 0 • Tags: , , , ,

Feb 5 2011

In the Mail: Known To Evil

Cover of "Known to Evil (A Leonid McGill ...

Cover of Known to Evil (A Leonid McGill Mystery)

Known to Evil: A Leonid McGill Mystery by Walter Mosley

From Booklist

Leonid McGill, Mosley’s newest hero (The Long Fall, 2009), is haunted by the bad things he used to do to people—or so he keeps telling us. At first, the plot seems to support that claim: as McGill works his case, tracking a young woman for a powerful fixer, he is also consumed with helping a former victim, rescuing his son’s girlfriend from her pimp, and remaining respectful in his loveless marriage. But those plotlines are decoys because the supporting characters aren’t fully developed. Each exists to demonstrate something about McGill—his remorse, violence, loyalty—and then is quickly whisked offstage. Mosley has written some classic crime novels, and he has a devoted following, but the strikingly different setting of this series doesn’t hide a glaring flaw: from start to finish, McGill and his supporting cast don’t change. This is a very interior, solipsistic crime novel, and McGill’s first-person narration may feel oppressive to some readers. Others may wonder how such a self-centered sleuth could possibly become a good judge of other people’s characters. In marked contrast to Mosley’s threadbare L.A. settings, McGill’s world is lush and wealthy. But it’s also cartoonish in its absolutes: McGill knows no fear but constructs spy-worthy escape hatches. He has an extensive network of criminals and stone-cold killers. He’s short and ugly, but women throw themselves at him. All writing requires some degree of world-building, but the world Mosley has built here shows the marks of its invention.

By Kevin Holtsberry • In The Mail • 0 • Tags: , ,

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