My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It includes short reviews of:
Laura Lippman - Another Thing to Fall
Michael Connelly (ed.) - The Blue Religion
Libby Fischer Hellmann - Easy Innocence
Jesse Kellerman - The Genius
Richard Stark - Dirty Money
The last book, for whatever reason, is listed in the article as being by Donald Westlake, but it's actually by his alter ego, Stark. Not my doing, I assure you.
"Scooby-Doo-meets-The Sopranos."
From Entertainment Weekly's review of Lisa Scottoline's Lady Killer.
At long last, my new mystery/thriller roundup ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times.
It contains:
T. Jefferson Parker - L.A. Outlaws
Robert Ferrigno - Sins of the Assassin
Christa Faust - Money Shot
William Bernhardt - Capitol Conspiracy
Alex Berenson - The Ghost War
I originally wrote this as a comment on a message board, but decided to steal it back and post it here. The topic was how do authors deal with negative reviews.
The best reviews are those that teach us something about the book, that have insight we didn't, that help us refine our own understanding or that make us think about things we might not have thought about on our own. (The worst reviews, generally, are those that only teach us something about the reviewer.) So thoughtful, intelligent reviews -- whether positive or negative -- are useful, even if we don't agree with them.
I don't often get to that goal in my own reviews; much of the time I just don't have the space. But it's what I strive for in my own writing and what I look for in the work of other critics.
If a review can make us think more deeply about a book, that's a good review.
No new reviews from me this morning -- probably won't be for a while -- so in the meantime head over to the L.A. Times and check out Richard Schickel's take on Joseph Weisberg's An Ordinary Spy.
I haven't read the book (the publisher never sent me a copy, even though I asked for one), but Schickel's critique is both thought-provoking and intelligent. He has a bit of a haughty sniff in his tone regarding genre fiction, but it's an interesting piece.
(Tip o'.)
After too long of an absence, my work returns to the pages of the Chicago Sun-Times, where I review Stephen King's excellent Duma Key.
I don't ordinarily care for long books, but I enjoyed this one a lot.
My review of Kevin Wignall's smart new thriller, Who Is Conrad Hirst?, appears this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. I made this my Book of the Week pick last week and here you can see more of why I liked it so much.
My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It contained reviews of:
Dean Koontz: The Darkest Evening of the Year
Meg Cabot: Big Boned
Robert Harris: Ghost
Karen E. Olson: Dead of the Day
Jonathan Hayes: Precious Blood
Enjoy!
As you can see, I've been busy...
My review of Joyce Carol Oates' short story collection, The Museum of Dr. Moses, runs this morning in the Washington Post.
Over in the Philadelphia Inquirer, I ruminate on Walter Mosley's latest (and possibly last) Easy Rawlins novel, Blonde Faith.
And, finally, my latest round-up column is in the Chicago Sun-Times. It features reviews of:
If you can't find something out of all of those to read... Well, you can't say I didn't try.
My latest review in the Chicago Sun-Times is of The Chopin Manuscript, the audio-only serial novel put together by ITW and featuring a slew of top thriller writers.
It's an interesting idea, but it didn't really work for me.
My latest roundup column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It includes reviews of the following books:
There should be something in there for practically everyone. Enjoy!
My latest review for the Philadelphia Inquirer looks at William Lashner's legal thriller A Killer's Kiss.
This was the first book of Lashner's that I'd read and I enjoyed it.
My review of M.J. Rose's The Reincarnationist is in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times. This is one of my favorite books of the summer; a rousing, fun and romantic adventure story. Give it a try!
One of my favorite thrillers of the year so far, Joseph Finder's Power Play, is the subject of my latest review in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Although my name doesn't appear to be on it, the round-up column that ran in this morning's Chicago Sun-Times is mine. It includes reviews of:
Daniel Silva - The Secret Servant
Karin Slaughter - Beyond Reach
David Ellis - Eye of the Beholder
Harley Jane Kozak - Dead Ex
Ellen Crosby - The Chardonnay Charade
Enjoyable books, all of them, with the Silva probably being my favorite of the bunch.
Dick Adler has returned to reviewing (and blogging) with The Knowledgeable Blogger, a site for his reviews of crime novels. Dick is one of the best critics in the business, so it's wonderful to have him back in the trenches.
In Monday's Washington Post, Patrick Anderson had a laudatory review of Richard Aleas' new hardboiled detective novel, Songs of Innocence. Aleas is the, um, alias of Hard Case Crime founder Charles Ardai, a man as dedicated to noir fiction as I am to free food and beer.
Anderson's review is quite enthusiastic, and much of the praise is well deserved. Ardai is an excellent writer, although I found myself not especially enjoying the book. There was something about it that kept me at arm's length, preventing me from feeling an emotional connection with the characters. But I was still able to appreciate what Ardai was doing.
Whether you've read the book or not, Anderson's critique is worth taking a look at.
My latest review runs this morning in the Philadelphia Inquirer: C.J. Box's Free Fire.
Good stuff. Check it out.
My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It contains reviews of the following books:
Dean Koontz - The Good Guy
Jeffery Deaver - The Sleeping Doll
Mary Higgins Clark - I Heard That Song Before
Kate White - Lethally Blond
Barry Eisler - Requiem for an Assassin
My latest standalone review ran in the Chicago Sun-Times today. The book is Stephen King's Blaze, written under the pseudonym Richard Bachman.
I've never read any of the other Bachman books, but I enjoyed this one.
Patrick Anderson reviewed Martin Cruz Smith's new Arkady Renko novel, Stalin's Ghost, in yesterday's Washington Post. It's an interesting review, and the book sounds interesting as well, although I don't feel motivated to pick it up and read it.
The only part of the review I found curious was the last graf:
All ends more or less well, but not before Smith, as well as entertaining us, has raised interesting questions. Renko can be seen as a father to Michael Connelly's equally honest and stubborn Harry Bosch, but Connelly's Los Angeles is never the madhouse that Smith's Russia has become. Thus the question: Is today's America all that less mad than Russia? Or is madness simply funnier when it's half a world away?
To answer Anderson's question: Yes, today's America is far less mad than Russia.
Still, a nice review.
My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It contains reviews of the following books:
Harlan Coben: The Woods
Lee Child: Bad Luck and Trouble
John Sandford: Invisible Prey
David Ignatius: Body of Lies
David Baldacci: Simple Genius
I liked the first four, didn't like the last one.
My latest review ran this morning in the Washington Post: John Sandford's Invisible Prey.
The seventeenth book in the series and still going strong!
In the Washington Post last week, Adrian McKinty, author of the fine crime novel Dead I Way May Be (among other books), reviewed David Ignatius' Body of Lies.
I read Ignatius' book as well, and was quite impressed with it. It's a very entertaining and well researched thriller, reminiscent of the word of Frederick Forsyth and Daniel Silva.
I think I liked it a little more than McKinty did, but his critique is insightful, well written and informative. (I also agree with the minor negative critique that he makes of a few aspects of the book.)
Since I might not be reviewing the book myself, I refer you to McKinty's piece. It's well worth a read, as is Body of Lies.
My latest column ran in the Chicago Sun-Times on Sunday. (I missed it until now because initially they didn't put it up on the website, which is where I read it.)
The round-up included reviews of:
I don't often link to other people's reviews (since Sarah pretty much has that corner covered), but I do like to bring it to your attention when good work catches my eye.
Patrick Anderson reviewed Jonathan Santlofer's Anatomy of Fear yesterday in the Washington Post and it's an fine review that expresses very closely my own thoughts about the book. Since I won't be reviewing it, I recommend you read Anderson's take. (I also suggest you check out the book. Although I had some problems with it, what Santlofer did in Anatomy of Fear is fascinating and definitely of interest.)
The column also gives a brief mention of the ITW Thriller Awards, which was nice to see. The "Thrillies" (as I like to call them) don't seem to be getting a lot of play. A consequence, no doubt, of the abundance of awards in the crime community.
My full-length review of Laura Lippman's excellent What the Dead Know ran this morning in the Philadelphia Inquirer. I've raved about this book before on here (and also in the Chicago Sun-Times), so you know how much I liked it.
Here's a recent review of mine that I missed: Lisa Scottoline's Daddy's Girl, which ran in the Philadelphia City Paper.
I'd forgotten about that one, but fortunately Sarah Weinman remembered.
My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It includes reviews of:
The Lippman, Crais and Hawley books are all excellent. The Jeff Parker is pretty good. The Robert Parker is pretty mediocre.
Seamlessly interweaving humor into a crime novel is no easy trick. Few authors can pull it off, and fewer still can do it successfully with their first novel. Marc Lecard has done it, however, with Vinnie's Head, as darkly humorous and entertaining a novel as you'll likely read this year.
Johnnie LoDuco tries his best, but he isn't a very successful criminal. He's been accused of a robbery he didn't even commit, and has been forced to go on the lam. That's when his luck really turns bad. While fishing on Long Island Sound, he inadvertently catches the severed head of Vinnie McCloskey-Schmidt, his best friend and partner in crime.
That discovery sets off a madcap series of adventures, which have Johnnie being chased by a motley crew of mobsters, bent cops and a serial killer who really loves his Mommy. The whole thing would be ridiculous if it weren't so well done and so damn hilarious.
Vinnie's Head is not for every taste, but it's definitely for people who like their crime funny, brutal and over-the-top. Lecard is a true find.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
I had an economics professor in college who always had a bit of larceny in his heart, and one of his favorite sayings was: You've gotta love a good con. Well, I've always applied that principle to books as well: You've gotta love a good con man novel. And Con Ed is a good one.
Kip Largo made a fortune selling "diet decks" (cards with pictures of food on them; deal yourself a hand and you get to eat whatever turns up) on late-night infomercials. The business was going great and the dough was rolling in. But he just couldn't help himself. Kip, you see, is a con man. And he'd rather steal one dollar than make two legitimately. Thus, he lost it all and wound up in prison.
Now Kip's free and he's determined to walk the straight and narrow. Then his good-for-nothing son shows up, in hock to the Russian Mob for some serious cash. The only way Kip can raise the money and pay the debt is to run a con -- and to come up with this kind of money, it's going to have to be a doozy.
Novels like Con Ed are fun because they not only entertain us with their stories of larceny and greed, they also educate us in the ways of the grifter. Kip demonstrates how to read a mark and how to reel him in. He teaches us how to set up a phony business and create a new persona out of whole cloth.
Some of the plotting in Con Ed is a little clunky, and the characters other than Kip can't match him for interest, but first novel hiccups like those are as forgivable as they are common. More importantly, author Matthew Klein knows how to tell a story -- and a good story at that -- and that's no con.
How Klein learned all of this stuff is not revealed. Hopefully he's just really good at doing research, or else maybe he's a very creative guy. Either way, I'm damn sure not going to be buying any diet aids from his any time soon.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
New authors come and go, with few of them having the staying power to make a lasting career in this crazy business. It's impossible to predict who is going to make it and who is not. Judging by Marcus Sakey's debut novel, The Blade Itself, however, it seems likely that he's going to be around for quite a while.
Danny Carter, the book's protagonist, is just a regular guy living an ordinary life. He's got a good job, a nice condo in the city and a girlfriend he loves. But he also has a secret. Seven years before, he was involved in a robbery where a man was shot and nearly killed.
Danny's partner went to prison, but Danny went free. Now the partner has been released, and has come looking for Danny, eager to resume their life of crime. Danny wants no part of that, however. He's determined to stay on the straight and narrow. Unfortunately, for him, his former partner isn't willing to take no for an answer.
Marcus Sakey writes like he's been doing this for a lifetime. Reading The Blade Itself one can make guesses about the authors who may have influenced him, people like Elmore Leonard, George Pelecanos and Dennis Lehane. What's most impressive, however, is that rather than resembling the work of those other authors, Sakey's writing reads as if it were all his own.
His prose is so polished, his eyes and ears so keenly attuned, that it's hard to believe that this is his first novel. The Blade Itself has its flaws – it can be too sentimental at times, and the plot requires a little too much suspension of disbelief – but it is nevertheless a remarkable debut, one of the best to come along in some time.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
First up, my latest Chicago Sun-Times column, featuring:
James Patterson - Step on a Crack
Lisa Gardner - Hide
John Lescroart - The Suspect
Steve Berry - The Alexandria Link
Bob Morris - Bermuda Schwartz
Next, over in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Steve Berry's book gets the full-length treatment.
Hopefully you'll be seeing my work run a little more frequently in the future, so expect more of the same.
The private eye novel has been pronounced dead so many times that Mutual of Omaha refuses to return its calls. As long as there are writers like Sean Chercover around, however, the genre will be alive and kicking for a long time.
Big City, Bad Blood introduces Chicago PI Ray Dudgeon, a hardboiled former reporter who has taken a job protecting a Hollywood location manager who saw something he shouldn’t have.
Dudgeon expects the job will be an easy one – after all, his contacts in The Outfit (i.e., the Chicago mob) say they have no interest in the producer. But then the bodies start to fall and Dudgeon finds himself risking his own life to discover the truth.
Big City, Bad Blood doesn’t try to reinvent the detective novel. Instead, it is a respectful homage to the form, a solid example of a fine tradition practiced by such authors as Ross Macdonald and Robert B. Parker. Chercover is a promising talent who bears watching, hopefully for a long time to come.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
San Francisco comes alive in Tim Maleeny's engaging and confident debut thriller, Stealing the Dragon, a dark but witty book that showcases a new talent that is likely to please many readers.
When a container ship filled with illegal Chinese immigrants runs aground on Alcatraz Island, the crew slaughtered like cattle, private investigator Cape Weathers decides to find out what happened. His motives aren’t mercenary, but personal. He’s afraid that his friend Sally, a woman with a shadowy, hidden past, might have been the killer.
Weathers’ investigation takes him into Chinatown where he runs up against the Triads, a local leader with his eyes on the mayors’ office and an exiled mob boss improbably named One-Eyed Dong. The colorful characters are just part of the fun in this fast-paced story. Even better are the flashbacks to Sally’s life growing up in a Hong Kong school for assassins.
Stealing the Dragon is an entertaining story that combines a gumshoe mystery in the tradition of Dashiell Hammett with the exotic action of Trevanian. If the detective story isn’t as interesting as the other aspects of the plot, it is still refreshing to see an author trying to do something different in the PI genre.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
My latest standalone review ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times: Joe Hill's Heart-Shaped Box.
The pseudonymous Hill is the son of Stephen King, so there will doubtless be a lot of interest in this book. (Also, the publisher is hyping it up pretty good.)
For the most part, it matches up to the hype. Check it out.
For some reason, my last Chicago Sun-Times column (which ran 1/21) never showed up on the Books page of the paper's website. This morning I was checking around, though, and found it in the archives. (Good thing, too, or else I'd never know that it ran. It was already wayyy behind schedule, thus the older books it contains.)
In order to save you from having to hunt it down -- in case you're interested -- I'll copy it in below.
------
Latest thrillers place intrigue all over the
map
Publication: Chicago Sun-Times
Date: January 21, 2007
Author: David J. Montgomery Special to The Chicago
Sun-Times
Section: Books
Page: B8
One of the things that makes the crime fiction genre so rich and vibrant is the wide variety of stories, characters and settings that it includes. From thriller to mystery, cops to crooks and Chinatown to Omaha, there's a book out there for every reader.
No one demonstrates that better than I.J. Parker, a writer who has flown
under the radar the past several years with her excellent series set in ancient
Japan. Her detective is a true original, a nobleman in the emperor's court with
a penchant for solving mysteries.
In Black Arrow (Penguin, 368 pages, $14), Sugawara Akitada has been sent
to the north of Japan to serve as governor of a rebellious province. He
encounters resistance and outright contempt from the locals who are used to
doing things their own way.
Sugawara is used to difficult situations, however, and with a deft combination
of intelligence, cunning and bravery, he and his men are able to overcome that
resistance and bring order to the troubled province -- and solve a series of
murders in the process.
In Parker's hands, 11th century Japan comes alive in radiant fashion. Black
Arrow is an exquisite book, suspenseful and action-packed, but also beautiful in
its evocative descriptions and loving rendering of its subject.
Henry Chang's Chinatown Beat (Soho Crime, 204 pages, $22) is another
Asian-themed crime novel, a worthy debut that introduces Chinese-American
Detective Jack Yu. Hopefully we'll be seeing more of him in the future.
Yu works Chinatown for the NYPD, protecting and policing the people he's known
all his life. Although he was born and raised in Chinatown, he's an outsider
now; isolated to the fringes of the community by the gun and badge he carries.
Chang writes with stark power and authority, covering the territory as only an
insider can. He evokes the spirit, sights, smells and language of his setting in
compelling and original fashion. Although there is little action or suspense in
Chinatown Beat, there is still much that thrills.
Sean Doolittle, today's finest writer of Midwestern noir, returns with The
Cleanup (Dell, 336 pages, $6.99), another standout effort from this
relatively unknown author.
Matt Worth is just an ordinary schlub, an average guy working as a cop in Omaha.
He's smart enough, but he doesn't use very good judgment. His rash actions have
seen him busted down to the lowest post on the force: guarding an all-night
supermarket.
There he meets an attractive woman with an abusive boyfriend. He likes her, but
he tries not to get involved. That changes when she calls to tell him that she's
just killed her boyfriend and needs help disposing of the body.
Doolittle doesn't get the attention that many of the bigger names in the crime
genre do, but he should. His understated novels are real gems, fine examples of
timeless crime writing that hold up the rich traditions of the genre while also
breaking new ground.
Mark Arsenault's Gravewriter (St. Martin's Minotaur, 288 pages, $23.95)
is another mystery with a noir edge, but also a touch of dark humor. Billy
Povich used to be a hotshot reporter on the crime beat in Providence, R.I.,
until his ex-wife died and he found himself up to his ears in debt to the local
shylocks.
Now he's been busted down to writing obituaries. He's still gambling and
regularly gets beat up for not paying his debts. But when Billy is called to
serve on the jury in a murder case, his old investigative instincts are awoken,
and he can't help but poke around in the case.
Gravewriter is a little slow-moving at times, but the well-drawn
characters and the touching relationship between Billy and his son overcome the
limited suspense. The off-the-beaten path setting of Rhode Island is also used
to good effect.
Barbara Parker takes a break from her popular series to bring readers a mostly
satisfying stand-alone thriller, The Perfect Fake (Dutton, 352 pages,
$25.95). Tom Fairchild, an ex-con trying to get his life back together (aren't
they all?), is hired to duplicate a rare old map that was destroyed when its
owner was murdered.
It seems unlikely that Fairchild would be able to pull off this feat, but Parker
does a halfway convincing job of explaining how he might. Along the way,
Fairchild rushes from Miami to London and on to Florence, usually in the company
of the alluring daughter of the man who hired him.
Although the characters and the story's improbable twists seem more like fodder
from a daytime soap opera than a thriller novel, The Perfect Fake still
does a reasonable job of keeping the reader's interest, due mostly to the
subplot involving cartography.
THRILLERS WRITERS CONTEST
International Thriller Writers is giving one lucky winner autographed copies of
150 novels by some of the biggest and best thriller authors in the business,
including Joseph Finder, Tess Gerritsen, John Lescroart, Gayle Lynds and David
Baldacci.
To enter the contest, visit
www.150Thrillers.com before Feb. 15 and sign up to get the free ITW
newsletter. Apparently, that's all there is to it.
David J. Montgomery is the editor of Mystery Ink (www.mysteryinkonline.com).
As regular readers of this blog know, I'm a compulsive list keeper. So here are my collected stats for 2006.
Books read: 150
Most books by 1 author (Lawrence Block): 7
Second-most books by 1 author (Rex Stout): 5
Book reviews written (including multi-book columns): 26
Books reviewed: 59
Books reviewed more than once: 7
Total books reviewed: 66
(Note: The above stats include only my print work, not online-only.)
Newspapers reviewed for: 5
Chicago Sun-Times reviews (including columns): 12
Philadelphia Inquirer reviews: 8
Boston Globe reviews: 2
South Florida Sun-Sentinel reviews: 2
Philadelphia City Paper reviews: 2
I can do the breakdown by publisher, too, in case anyone's interested.
Not bad output overall. It appears that this year my review output will increase substantially, too. By the end of 2007, you're going to be sick of me!
My latest review ran this morning in the Philadelphia Inquirer: John Lescroart's The Suspect.
Good book. I enjoyed this the most out of Lescroart's recent work.
Meg Cabot is best-known for her wildly popular young adult books, including The Princess Diaries. But she also writes books for adults, the latest of which is the charming chick-lit mystery Size 14 Is Not Fat Either.
Heather Wells is a washed-up pop star whose mother stole all her money and fled to Argentina. Now she’s working as an assistant dorm director at a New York City college. When one of the students is murdered – a cheerleader’s head is found boiling away on the stove in the cafeteria – Wells is determined to find the killer.
Size 14 Is Not Fat Either is never believable, but it doesn’t have to be. Wells is a real winner, as are the rest of the characters, and Cabot’s writing style is bright, breezy and funny. This isn’t high art, but it’s damn fun to read.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
My review of Joseph Wambaugh's excellent Hollywood Station ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times.
This was one of my favorite books of the year, so I highly recommend it.
By the way, if you read the review, you'll notice that I quote a piece of dialogue from the book that includes the word "shit." I wondered if the paper would allow that, but apparently they did.
Good for them.
My latest review ran in the Philadelphia Inquirer this morning: Michael Crichton's pop science potboiler Next. I enjoy everything Crichton writes, and this one is no different. Fun read.
I know I haven't posted much lately... Life has been very busy, as you might imagine. I'll see if I can write more often.
Oh, and apparently Guyot is blogging again. The guy's like a freakin' crack addict.
A couple weeks ago, I wrote about how a review of Christopher Buckley's in the New York Times prompted me to immediately buy the book in question.
Well, I finished Chris Miller's The Real Animal House last night and it was everything that Buckley said it was: funny, crude, tasteless, probably apocryphal and a lot of fun to read.
So chalk one up for the reviewers! If you enjoyed the gross-out humor and antics of the film Animal House you'll probably enjoy this book as well. Juvenile that I am, I loved it.
My latest column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It includes reviews of:
If you're thinking that those books aren't exactly new releases... Well, I wrote the column a while ago.
The latest writer to cash in on the craze for all things poker is Canadian author Rick Gadziola. Drawing Dead features ex-Boston cop Jake Morgan, who now lives in Las Vegas where he makes a living dealing cards.
After he’s convinced by his boss at the casino to "escort" a rich female gambler, his evening goes from bad to worse when an assassin wipes out the woman before his eyes. Despite knowing better, Jake can’t help but get involved – a decision which, of course, soon has him in a whole heap of trouble.
Gadziola has a winning way with his characters and he uses the Vegas setting for his story quite well. Drawing Dead is a fast-paced and entertaining mystery that will appeal to readers even if they don’t know the different between a flush and a full house.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
Last night I read the Sunday edition of the New York Times Book Review. This was something of a rarity for me, as I don't read many book reviews. I like book reviews, but I have a lot of demands on my time, so I usually spending my free time reading books instead of reviews.
But Marilyn Stasio had reviews of some books that I'd also reviewed, so I wanted to check those out. She had an interesting column in which she actually made it obvious that she liked some books (Michael Connelly's and Robert Ward's, especially).
Then I saw that Christopher Buckley, one of my favorite writers, had a review of a book called The Real Animal House.
It turns out that one of the screenwriters of the classic film wrote a memoir about his real-life experiences in a frat at Dartmouth that helped inspire the movie. Buckley says the book is hilarious, and he's a guy whose comedy judgment I trust. After all, he's written plenty of hilarious things himself (especially Thank You for Smoking*) so he ought to know.
So I clicked over to Amazon and bought it. Before reading the review, I'd never heard of the book and even if I had, I wouldn't have bought it. But a reviewer I trust said it was good, so I thought I'd give it a try.
Hopefully, that's what all book reviews can do.
*It appears that Thank You for Smoking is out of print. How is that possible? Didn't the publisher even reissue a tie-in copy for the movie?
Edit: Thank You for Smoking is in print. You can find it on Amazon here. Thanks to Mark in the comments section for pointing that out!
Reed Farrel Coleman wrote one of the best crime novels of the past few years, The James Deans, which was nominated for virtually every mystery award there is, and won quite a few of them. Now Coleman is wearing a slightly different hat: that of a man called Tony Spinosa.
Regardless of what name he's using, though, you know that Coleman/Spinosa is going to produce quality, literate fiction that probes the depths of the human soul in the form of an outstanding mystery plot. Hose Monkey, his latest, is no exception.
Joe Serpe was an NYPD detective, an honest copy, but one who covered too often for those who were less than pure, especially his drug-involved partner. Serpe lost his job with the PD, then tragically he lost his brother, a hero fireman who died on 9/11. After that, Serpe lost most of his reasons for trying, and now he just muddles through life, existing from day to day, but not really caring. He can't even bring himself to remove his brother's voice from his answering machine.
That starts to change, however, when a mentally retarded young man whom Serpe works with -- he's a fuel oil deliveryman, hence the book's title -- is murdered, and Serpe blames himself. He decides to investigate the murder, and finds an unlikely ally in the form of a retired Internal Affairs detective -- the very same cop who ran Serpe off the force several years before.
The plot of Hose Monkey is violent and suspenseful, but at its heart it is a quieter story, both sad and touching, and exquisitely written. Coleman has the ability to create characters who feel much realer than those we usually encounter in mystery stories, and as a result, their lives and their plights are much more moving. We care about them, because he has made them matter to us.
It is that aspect of Coleman's work (and now Spinosa's) that makes it rise to the top. Despite his excellence as a crime novelist, deep down Coleman is still a poet, and his work sings with a love of language and a keen understanding of the human psyche. He is a true credit to our genre, one of the finest writers we have.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
Michael Connelly's latest superb Harry Bosch novel, Echo Park, gets the full-length treatment from me over at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Here's the money shot, for those who don't want to read the whole thing: "Among contemporary crime writers, Connelly is, quite simply, the best of the best."
For folks in the U.S., don't forget to set your clocks back one hour!
My review of Stephen King's latest, Lisey's Story, ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times.
Good book -- check it out!
Private investigator Bubba Mabry is having coffee with a prospective client when a man in a gorilla suit walks into the restaurant and shoots the client in the head. These are the kinds of things that only happen to Bubba.
Monkey Man is Steve Brewer's seventh book featuring the lovable galoot of a PI, and it's another winner. This time out, Bubba finds himself up to his ankles in alligators, figuratively speaking, when he investigates a series of unexplained deaths at the Albuquerque Zoo.
Part of the charm of this series is that Bubba doesn't take himself too seriously -- but the author takes the stories seriously, making sure that they're well-crafted and entertaining. It's hard work, blending comedy and mystery together into a seamless plot, but Brewer is one of the best at doing it.
If you're looking for light and fast-paced entertainment, this book is a perfect choice -- and that's no monkey business.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
James Grady helped to define the modern espionage novel with his classic book, Six Days of the Condor. Now, with his first novel in nearly a decade, he has created a twenty-first-century counterpart, a fascinating, frustrating acid trip of a story that is likely to be one of the most-talked about thrillers of the year.
Mad Dogs is a journey into madness and back again through the minds of five former CIA agents who are now all certifiably insane. Haunted and wrecked by the horrific events in their pasts, these lethal lunatics are stashed away in a closely-guarded, top-secret government institution in Maine.
When their psychiatrist is murdered, chaos ensues, loosing the five onto an unsuspecting world. Free at last, they head for DC to prove their innocence, using the black ops skills the government worked so hard to give them. Unless, of course, they descend completely into madness first.
Mad Dogs is a novel with mad energy, a fast and frenzied narrative that flashes back and forth in time between the main plot and the backstories of its five players. It’s an interesting device and most of the time it works, especially when the lead character, Victor, is in command. His story is by far the most interesting; the other four tend to be less distinctive, to the point where sometimes it’s hard to be sure which is which.
Another frustrating aspect of Mad Dogs is that the reader is never quite sure what is real and what is simply part of the delusion – fine fodder for a head trip, but not so much for a thriller novel. This is amplified by the book’s overly-stylized style, which only contributes to the confusion.
Still, those shortcomings, although worth mentioning, are not enough to spoil what is otherwise an enjoyable and always interesting story. If it weren’t for the fact that the bulk of the book is so original and so compelling, those limitations would simply be par for the course. As it stands, however, they make what might have been a great novel only a very good one.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
The Philadelphia City Paper published their Fall Book Quarterly today and among the reviews included was one by me. I wrote about Robert Ward's excellent noir novel, Four Kinds of Rain.
It's a fine book and I highly recommend it.
From David Dodge, the author of To Catch a Thief (famously filmed by Alfred Hitchcock, starring Cary Grant and Grace Kelly) comes this previously unpublished work, written just before the writer's death in 1974.
The Last Match is the story of a con man on the French Riviera with the unlikely moniker of Curly. He didn't start out trying to be a con man; he just fell into it when it seemed easier than actually working for a living.
Curly gets involved with some rough characters, conning French noblemen and smuggling cigarettes from Morocco, and finds himself throw in the hoosegow a time or two. All the while, he keeps his raffish charm and determined outlook.
Somewhat surprisingly, The Last Match also takes a romantic and sentimental turn, with Curly getting caught up in the affairs of British heiress Regina Forbes-Jones. She despises Curly and is determined to ruin his life -- or so he believes -- but he can't help falling for her anyway.
The book is probably a little longer than it needs to be, and Curly pulls a few more cons than are strictly necessary, but overall it is an entertaining and fun read. This isn't the best we've seen from Hard Case Crime, but The Last Match is still a worthy find.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
Tough-talking New Haven reporter Annie Seymour returns for her second go-around in Karen E. Olson’s winning Secondhand Smoke (Mysterious Press, 272 pages, $22.99), a book even better than last year’s excellent debut, Sacred Cows (which was nominated for the Gumshoe Award).
When a popular local eatery burns down across the street from Annie’s home, she’s right there in the thick of things, covering the story with her usual deadpan cynicism. The crime starts to cut a little close to home, however, when it turns out that her own father might be involved.
Olson writes in a similar corner of the genre as Janet Evanovich, but her plots and her heroine are grounded much firmer in reality. Secondhand Smoke combines a nice sense of humor, deft use of setting and a solid collection of characters all together in one charming mystery. This book proves that Olson is no flash in the pan. She’s here to stay.
For more reviews like this one, please visit Mystery Ink.
My latest column ran today (finally) in the Chicago Sun-Times. It contained reviews of the following books:
The paper has, unfortunately, cut back the frequency of my column to only once every six weeks, rather than once a month. So I won't be writing about as many books as I have been. I will try to post more reviews on here, though, and on Mystery Ink.
Who says cozy mysteries -- and cat mysteries no less -- don't get reviews? Well, they do around here. My latest piece for the Boston Globe is a review of Clea Simon's pleasing feline crime novel Cattery Row.
It's no great surprise that this isn't exactly the kind of book that I'm drawn to. I know that a lot of readers are, though, and I try to be an equal opportunity critic. Besides, I enjoy Simon's writing, even if the cat stuff does get a little old.
My latest review in the Philadelphia Inquirer is of Karin Slaughter's outstanding new novel Triptych. I wrote about this one briefly already in my Chicago Sun-Times column, and now it gets the full-length treatment.
My August column ran this morning in the Chicago Sun-Times. It contains reviews of the following books:
George Pelecanos - The Night Gardener
Karin Slaughter - Triptych
James Rollins - Black Order
Ken Bruen - Calibre
P.J. Tracy - Snowblind
They all have something to recommend them, but the Pelecanos and Slaughter books were real standouts for me. Truly fine, powerful novels. Check 'em out!
Longtime Chicago Tribune mystery columnist Dick Adler is the dean of crime fiction reviewing, the Anthony Boucher of our time. He is a critic of impeccable taste and a fine writer, demonstrating a true dedication to and love of mysteries and thrillers.
He is also, apparently, a machine.
Dick has a column in the Tribune every two weeks, with more column inches than anyone else I know of. (Yes, size does matter.) He also contributes reviews to Publishers Weekly. As if that weren't enough, he recently started two blogs in order to have an outlet for the reviews he doesn't have space for in print: Paperback Mysteries and Paperback Thrillers.
Is he trying to make the rest of us look bad or what?
I'm reasonably prolific as a critic. I've read approximately 85 books so far this year (a rate that has slowed since the baby came). I've reviewed 44 books of those books, spread over 5 different newspapers. I also occasionally mention a book on here or over at Mystery Ink.
But that's nothing for Dick! He reviews that many books before breakfast. And these aren't those bullshit Harriet Klausner-type "reviews" either, but legitimate, thoughtful, insightful critiques.
I'd offer Dick my praise and congratulations, but I'm sure he's too busy reading to accept them.
Daniel Silva has been writing some of the best thrillers in the business for the last several years. His latest, The Messenger, is no different.
My review of it is in this morning's Philadelphia Inquirer.
I recommend it very highly.
My latest column in the Chicago Sun-Times ran last Sunday, when I was otherwise occupied.
It contained reviews of:
Laura Lippman -- No Good Deeds
Janet Evanovich -- Twelve Sharp
Lawrence Block -- Hit Parade
M.J. Rose -- The Venus Fix
Sandra Scoppettone -- Too Darn Hot
I struggled a bit writing this one, mostly because I wasn't quite sure what to say about Laura Lippman's new book. It's frustrating trying to explain a complex reaction to a book when I've got so few words, as is always the case when writing in the column format.
I am such a great admirer of Lippman's work -- I think she's one of the very best mystery writers working today. This book didn't quite work for me, though.
I found that the changes in POV distracted me from the real power of the story. I also didn't care for the secondary characters nearly as much as I do for Tess Monaghan. Consequently, I missed her whenever she was off-screen.
I was put off by the fact that we were viewing Tess through the eyes of characters who didn't particularly like her, nor did they respect her. That gave the effect of showing the heroine of the story -- a character I enjoy immensely -- in an oftentimes negative light.
I have seen many positive reviews of the book since I wrote mine, so clearly my hesitations were a minority opinion. On balance, I did enjoy reading the book, and I could recommend it. I think Lippman is such a great talent, though, that I really expect something extraordinary each time out.
The burden of high expectations is a challenging one to carry.
My June review for the Philadelphia Inquirer is of Barry Eisler's outstanding The Last Assassin. Eisler is one of the best writers working in the genre today, providing a one-two punch of entertaining plots and beautiful writing. If you haven't read him yet, you should.
My latest column ran in the Chicago Sun-Times this morning. All thrillers. (It's been a very good year for thrillers already.)
Enjoy!
In the June 1st edition of the New York Times, the Arts section had a page dominated by ads for 4 books. Two of the ads -- one for Lee Child's The Hard Way, one for Joseph Finder's Killer Instinct -- led off with pull-quotes from my reviews.
(Click on the image to see the larger version.)
You'd think that this would mean the publishers are falling over themselves to send me books. Strangely, that's not the case. Lately in particular, I've been having a terrible time getting copies of books that I'm trying to review.
What a strange business.
My latest article ran in the Boston Globe this morning, a rave review of Joseph Finder's Killer Instinct. Finder's last few books have all be superb, so he should definitely move to the top of your reading list. His thrillers are among the best being written today.
I hit the trifecta today, with 3 reviews all running this morning in different newspapers.
Philadelphia Inquirer -- Review of Lee Child's The Hard Way
South Florida Sun-Sentinel -- Review of Jonathon King's Eye of Vengeance
Chicago Sun-Times -- May column
Contains:
Lee Child's The Hard Way
Ken Bruen and Jason Starr's Bust
Shane Gericke's Blown Away
Naomi Hirahara's Snakeskin Shamisen
Laura Lippman's (ed.) Baltimore Noir
Busy day! I think I can retire as a critic now.
My April 2nd mystery column for the Chicago Sun-Times never made it onto their website (although it did run in the newspaper), so I'm including it here for those of you who might want to read it.
Welcome, old friend
By David J. Montgomery
It has been six years since Myron Bolitar last made an appearance in a Harlan Coben novel, and his return in Promise Me (Dutton, 384 pages, $26.95) is welcome news for his legions of fans.
For Bolitar, a former pro basketball star turned sports-and-entertainment agent, the intervening years have been dull. He gave up his avocation as a righter of wrongs and