It’s a Mystery: The Bone Bed, by Patricia Cornwell

Tags

books, crime, mystery, New England, reading, thriller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Kay Scarpetta’s having a hell of a day. She arrives at her office and opens an email containing a photo of a severed ear. She’s due in court after lunch, and wouldn’t you know, gets called out to recover a body floating in Boston Harbor. Strangely, the corpse, which appears mummified, is tied up in such a way that it’s likely to be pulled to pieces during recovery, so Kay must dive in and figure out how to prevent that from happening. When she arrives late to court, the judge reads her the riot act in front of the jury. When she finally gets back to her lab, it’s to find that the FBI has horned into her case.

Over the course of thirty six hours, Kay and her team (Lucy, Marino, and Benton) discover and scramble to solve a string of interconnected murders. Kay and her cohorts are brilliant people all, but talk about emotional baggage! While struggling with their personal problems, which are heavy, it becomes evident that the killer is taunting Kay. Rarely has she felt more vulnerable or alone.

What is refreshing about this, the twentieth Scarpetta novel, is watching four pros who care very much about each other pool their first rate clinical specialties to resolve some nasty crimes; while it’s disconcerting and often aggravating to see them at odds with one another, it is this that makes them truly real, truly human. Unlike the characters in some long running series, they do grow older, and along the way, act and react and evolve over time. They stand by each other nevertheless. Sometimes, they’re a bit paranoid, but then again, who isn’t?

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Modern Lit: Indigo, by Graham Joyce

Tags

books, Italy, literature, mystery, paranormal

Indigo by Graham Joyce

Rich, eccentric Tim Chambers, resident of Chicago and Rome, has died, and his estranged son Jack has been named executor of the estate. Chambers was a master of manipulation, and has left a manuscript with instructions for its publication. Entitled Indigo, A Manual of Light, it is nothing less than a set of instructions for teaching oneself to assume the aura of invisibility. Jack has inherited nothing of his father’s fortune, which goes to half-sister Louise and to a protege named Natalie, but he’s been designated the estate executor. Resentful and perplexed, he sets out to accomplish his assignment as quickly as possible. Traveling to Rome with Louise, Jack is greatly disconcerted to find himself powerfully attracted to her. When he meets Natalie, an artist, he is equally drawn to her. His time in Rome grows increasingly surreal, as Natalie encourages him to follow the bizarre process set out in the Manual of Light.

Beautifully written, author Joyce imbues his tale with the imagery of light and color, which works especially well in the Roman setting. The deceased Tim Chambers is very much a presence, though not in the ghostly sense. The narrative is interrupted by both a series of flashbacks and chapters from the manual, and at times, like Jack, the reader wonders what is real and what is illusion. He gradually arrives to the realization that his father is still manipulating him and others from the grave, which creates a sort of mild paranoia. Compelling on the psychological and metaphysical levels, the novel ends with a final conundrum that does not quite dispel all its mysteries.

It’s a Mystery: A Crack in Everything, by Angela Gerst

Tags

books, crime, fiction, Massachusetts, mystery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Susan Callisto is a Boston attorney/election consultant, disappointed in love, and coping by throwing herself into her work. She is lured into taking on a last minute candidate for mayor, in the person of Chaz Renfrow, biotech specialist, despite some misgivings about his character. Within a few days, he and his assistant are dead. On the personal front, Susan’s surrogate grandpa lands in the hospital, badly beaten. Could this incident be connected to his lease dispute? The case is assigned to her ex boyfriend, Detective Michael Benedict, and together, they try to puzzle out what’s going on.

A Crack in Everything is tautly composed, only 250+ pages, but crammed with characters, clues, and action. There is no shortage of suspects with motive, or of loose ends that need to be tied together. Angela Gerst is up to the job. She knows lawyering, politics, Boston, and competent writing, and her characters are intelligent, lively, and credible. My only complaint is that I kept getting a couple of them confused, but otherwise, this is a terrific first novel that promises to develop into a fine series.

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It’s a Mystery: The Art Forger, by B. A. Shapiro

Tags

19th century, art, crime, historical fiction, Massachusetts, mystery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

The New York Times estimated “that forty percent of all the artworks presented for sale in any given year are forgeries.” The Art Forger provides some intriguing glimpses into this world, from the complicated mechanics of painting both originals and forgeries, to the meticulous process of authentication, to the hidden agendas and secrets of the great museums. The now infamous Gardner Museum art heist has been much in the news lately, and Barbara Shapiro has crafted an intriguing novel around it.

Clair Roth is a talented painter, eking out a living in Boston by painting reproductions of masterpieces commissioned by an internet company. Before his death, Clair’s ex-boyfriend gained his fame by passing off one of her paintings as his own; when she attempted to take credit, she was thoroughly and publicly discredited, and is now something of a pariah. Imagine her shock when Boston’s premier art dealer, Aiden Markel, approaches her with a tempting proposition – to make a copy of one of the missing Gardner paintings, a Degas that is now, somehow, in Markel’s possession. In return, she’ll receive a substantial payment and a show of her own at his high end gallery.

The plot is inventive, the first half following Clair at work, and the second her relationship with Markel, the marketing of the painting, and the hooplah that follows. Inserted between Clair’s chapters are fictional “letters” written by Isabella Stewart Gardner, telling how she acquired the Degas. She was an original, a true eccentric, and her story is as fascinating as Clair’s. It’s a ripping good story, built upon questions of ethics, and building to a satisfying revelation at the end.

It’s a Mystery: Watching the Dark, by Peter Robinson

Tags

crime, England, fiction, mystery, reading

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Yorkshire DCI Alan Banks (a favorite of mine) is assigned to the case of a fellow detective, Bill Quinn, who was bizarrely shot to death with an arrow from a crossbow. Among his effects are a series of compromising photos, which prompt the higher-ups to call in a professional standards officer, the “icy blonde” Joanna Passero. Banks resents having to work with one of the “rats”. When a second body turns up, that of a freelance reporter from Talinn, the case leads this undynamic duo to Estonia. Along the way, Joanna learns something about the detective business, while Banks unearths a myriad of shady characters involved in human trafficking, and resolves a six year old cold case. Corruption and greed are rampant, and as is true in many other recent suspense novels, the spotlight shines on post-Soviet Eastern Europe and organized crime. More police procedural than thriller, Watching the Dark also follows the efforts of Banks’s usual partner, DI Annie Cabot, who ties up several important loose ends that are crucial to cinching the net around the perpetrators. What the book lacks in excitement it more than makes up for in timely, contemporary detail.

Thriller: Bombs and Believers, by Ken Sonenclar

Tags

books, crime, fiction, mystery, thriller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

An art theft investigator and member of the President’s Council on arts and culture, Zander Blake heads to London to give a convention speech. Times are tense, as there’s just been a terrorist bombing in Turkey. The tension is ramped up when another conference presenter is murdered, his room ransacked. It isn’t long before his assistant, doctoral student Penny Theobald, is kidnapped, and Zander’s badly roughed up when he tries to stop her abductors. Zander has suspicions about who’s behind all the vicious mayhem, and as soon as he’s physically able, he’s on the trail to Istanbul.

Bombs and Believers owes its basic set of premises to The DaVinci Code, but it’s no mere clone. It careens along at break-neck speed, drawing into its path a host of colorful characters with agendas of their own. There’s the museum curator from New York’s Met, the shady ex-con of an LA art dealer, the Scotland Yard bird dog, an American foreign service officer whose brief is not quite clear, and the pair of brothers who run Turkey’s government and cultural scene. Even the US President plays a cameo role. The center around which this cyclone whirls is nothing less than one of the ancient wonders of the world. Following the chase resembles participating in an online adventure game, full of puzzles to solve and ciphers to decode.

Bombs and Believers is not great lit, but it is a breathless ride, loaded with hairpin turns, booby traps, and surprises galore. Great fun to be had as the pages whiz by.

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It’s a Mystery: The Black Box, by Michael Connelly

Tags

books, crime, fiction, mystery, thriller

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

On the cusp of retirement – yet again – Harry Bosch has been assigned to the cold case unit. This time, the team is trying to solve cases that occurred during the bedlam of the LA/Rodney King riots two decades ago. One of the unsolved murders that he’s never forgotten is that of an attractive Danish journalist, Anneke Jesperson, who was shot at point blank range in dark alley. His superiors don’t want him to reopen that one for racial and political reasons – Anneke (dubbed “Snow White” by some of the cops) was the single white death among a sea of African American ones, and they don’t want to create the impression that her case is being given preferential treatment. But, Harry being Harry, he grabs onto it like a German shepherd with a soup bone, starting from square one using techie tools that were never available at the time.

As a police procedural, The Black Box is engrossing. For readers who have followed Harry’s exploits through seventeen previous novels, what is equally interesting is learning where he is personally, through his relationships with his teenaged daughter and the woman in his life, and ethically, now that he’s lived long enough to exert some control over that impulsiveness that always lands him in hot water. He’s a man whose credo is “Everybody counts or nobody counts”, which is what makes him such a good detective. But he’s sick of the injustice that pervades the system, and is mightily tempted to take justice into his own hands. The author is a master at putting us inside Harry’s head, and that’s what makes these books worthwhile.

It’s a Mystery: A Dying Fall, by Elly Griffiths

Tags

books, crime, England, fiction, mystery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

“People everywhere need ritual and make believe to get them through their lives.” So muses a cop during Ruth Galloway’s latest predicament. And there’s plenty of both in A Dying Fall. Archaeologist Dan Golding, college classmate of Ruth’s twenty years ago, dies horribly in a house fire near the seaside resort of Blackpool. Ruth is notified, and the very next day, receives a letter from Dan, asking her to collaborate on his latest discovery, which promises to be a blockbuster. Could he have found the grave of King Arthur? She decides to take a holiday to look into matters, traveling with her toddler daughter and fellow archaeologist and good friend Cathbad. As is the nature of things in such novels, there is someone who very much wants to keep the great discovery a secret as dark as the grave. And there is no dearth of suspects.

Druids, police, and academics populate these pages, attempting to ascertain who murdered Dan, while Ruth attempts to pin down exactly what he excavated at Ribchester, site of an ancient Roman fort. The waters are muddied by the hovering presence of a clandestine secret society, with a racist agenda and a deep fascination with King Arthur. Into the mix, Ms. Griffiths inserts several love triangles and midlife emotional issues. A Dying Fall is a tightly crafted, engrossing mystery with several sequences of gripping tension and a bittersweet ending that leaves the reader wondering what’s in store for Ruth and company.

It’s a Mystery: The Girl in the Green Raincoat, by Laura Lippman

Tags

books, fiction, mystery

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A good plot is worth revisiting from time to time, which is what Laura Lippman has done in The Girl in the Green Raincoat. Ms. Lippman pays homage to two classics, the film “Rear Window” and the novel The Daughter of Time. Tess Monaghan, PI, is confined to bed for the last two months of her pregnancy, and has her own rear window.  Bored and restless, she takes to watching passersby in the park outside that window. The girl in the green raincoat who always walks her greyhound fails to show one day. But Tess sees the dog tearing through the park alone, and Tess becomes obsessed with the thought that something dire has happened to its owner. She begins an investigation from her laptop, while her best friend, Whitney, does the leg work. The greyhound also plays a key role. Murder has occurred, but in a way Tess never foresaw. In the process, she becomes a mother and learns abruptly about how perilous parenthood can be. Girl is a brief, engaging novel, easy to breeze through, but it also manages to deliver some truths about emotions and relationships.

It’s a Mystery: The Sound of Broken Glass, by Deborah Crombie

Tags

20th century, crime, England, fiction, mystery

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Deborah Crombie is one of those writers who reliably comes through with an engrossing, fast moving mystery, especially if Duncan Kincaid and Gemma James are the detectives on the case. The Sound of Broken Glass is no exception. Newly married, Duncan and Gemma are working out child care arrangements for their blended family, and Duncan’s being house husband for a while. Gemma lands the case of a London barrister who was murdered in a seedy hotel. A few days later, another death occurs, seemingly with the same MO. She expects a relatively straightforward crime, once she can pin down a motive, but both of these crimes have roots dug firmly into events that occurred more than fifteen years ago. With the assistance of her new partner, DS Melody Talbott, Gemma tries to untangle a very twisted knot indeed. And some of the entanglements are only just beginning.

Ms Crombie deftly manages the narration and interweaving of present and past by using a series of flashbacks, which recount the memories of one of the prime suspects in the current murders. There is no dearth of possible killers, all of whom have interesting back stories that lead to credible motives. The setting, a hot London summer in the down-at-the heel Crystal Palace neighborhood, lends a fitting ambience to the investigation. Written so smoothly and intelligently that the pages just fly by, Broken Glass is an outstanding police procedural, so much more than a mere whodunit.