Mysterious Matters: Mystery Publishing Demystified

My Kingdom for a Voice

Sometimes I forget what I really love until I see it.

Most devotees of crime fiction read for story (plot) and character. That's the baseline. If you don't have that, you don't have anything.

But there are plenty of (choose one: good - likable - interesting - conflicted - complicated) characters out there, and at the end of the day, there are only so many plots. You can find lists all over the Internet of the six or seven plots, and some distill this list to two: "Someone goes on a journey" and "A stranger comes to town."

So that leads us to those other factors that make for a fine read. There's that all-important "good writing," so easy to require but so hard to define (though I've tried here on Mysterious Matters). Pacing is important, too; and I am always drawn to manuscripts that seek to do something new, different, brave, innovative. 

And to that list let me add something that always makes me stand up and take notice: VOICE. And there's nothing that knocks my socks off like a voice that jumps off the page and punches me in the face. Such books are rare; sadly, we're not seeing many really fresh voices in our genre these days, but that doesn't mean they aren't out there. (In fact, I just ordered a few recently published books that have a lot of potential in this area, or at least it seems to me based on the Amazon previews.)

And I just finished a book - Liza Cody's MONKEY WRENCH - whose voice made me gasp with pleasure. If someone had tied me up and forced me to make my Top 10 list of breathtaking narrative voices, Liza Cody would have been on my list. There was a time when I regularly gushed about Cody's first Eva Wylie book, BUCKET NUT - the first of a trilogy starring Eva Wylie, the professional wrestler who goes by the name "The London Lassassin."  But it had been a while since I thought consciously of Liza Cody. Then, I was talking with my wife, who recounted a tale in which someone "threw a monkey wrench into the works." That got me thinking. "Monkey wrench, monkey wrench, great title for a book... wait, there's already a book with that title... a book that I love..." And then I remembered that while I've read BUCKET NUT a dozen times (and often recommend it to aspiring writers), I realized that I haven't reread the other two books in the triology (MONKEY WRENCH and MUSCLEBOUND). And so... I opened MONKEY WRENCH again and found myself immediately drawn into its vast pleasures of language.

For those of you who don't know Eva Wylie, she is the adult daughter of a former prostitute who is bound and determined to take the world of wrestling by storm. And she's a mystery. Is she a person of low functioning intelligence, or a person of high intelligence with some sort of personality disturbance or learning disability? These books were published, I think, at a time when the world wasn't quite aware of Asperger's Syndrome (if, indeed, that's how Eva would be classified today). Eva narrates these books in first person. She just wants to be left alone (like Romulus Ledbetter in George Dawes Green's The Caveman's Valentine, another triumph of voice), but she's forever getting sucked into the problems of others. Watching Eva muscle her way through these books - simultaneously spot-on AND clueless in her perceptions - is a marvel to behold. On every page of MONKEY WRENCH I found a delight: whether a word, a sentence, a scene, or an insight. This is fabulous and brave writing with a voice to bring down the house. 

As I finished the book and prepare myself to read the third of the trilogy, I find myself sad that there are no more. Cody stopped her series after the third book; and I wonder if this is one of the reasons that Eva remains as fresh today as she was in the early 1990s. Cody didn't stretch Eva Wylie to death; my guess is that she realized that the perfect conception of Eva made her a credible heroine for three books, and that more than that might have taken a marvelous creation and turned her into a joke. So, for all who have not met Eva Wylie -- run, run to the nearest bookseller and treat yourself.

And a publishing aside: I was reminded that Cody was published in these glory days by Mysterious Press. What a publishing house! I would have given my eye teeth to work there back in the day. That legacy inspires what I do every day.

Rest In Peace, Maxine Clarke (1954 - 2012)

Today I was deeply saddened to learn that Maxine Clarke, one of the world's most voracious readers of crime fiction, as well as one of its best critics, has passed away.  

Mystery lovers on both sides of the pond are well acquainted with Maxine's alter-ego, Petrona, under which she blogged. In trying to think of an appropriate title for this tribute to her, I experimented with several. "The Angel of Mystery" - too sappy. "Mystery's Best Emissary" - not bad, because I'd be hard pressed to identify any critic who loved and supported the genre more. The best I can come up with is "The Conscience of the Mystery" - because she kept everyone honest: writers, publishers, editors, critics, other reviewers.  When she loved something, she told us why and made us go to Amazon to buy the book immediately; when she hated something, she skewered it efficiently, intellectually, devastatingly. In the end, I decided to file this blog entry under "The Best of Mystery" and "The Best of Books" because Maxine belongs in both categories.

I did not know Maxine well, or personally. We corresponded a bit over the years, and she was kind enough to do a guest blog for Mysterious Matters. She was a tireless advocate for crime fiction in translation and, through her blog, introduced me to writers who have since become favorites. What an editor of crime fiction she would have been, if she had chosen that career path instead of scientific publishing, on which she made a mark that was just as deep and important.

Maxine's writing and criticism were a unique mix of intellectual honesty and passion. She said what she thought, directly and openly; let's not forget, this is the woman who, not too long ago, suggested that Otto Penzler is an idiot. (Just typing that sentence makes me nervous.) She wasn't afraid to disagree openly, and she did so often; but what disagreement it was!  It was never of the you're-a-stupid-jerk-for-thinking-that-way, god-what-a-ignorant-fool-you-are variety. It was "You liked that? I didn't; and we'll just have to agree to disagree on this one."  Which, for me, is the epitome of what civilized discourse should be about.

Maxine, all of us who publish, edit, write, publicize, read, and love mysteries will miss you.  Rest in peace.

 

Bill Pronzini: An Appreciation

Bill Pronzini:
An Appreciation

 

I always knew, but was recently reminded, that the longest-running series in mystery fiction is Bill Pronzini's Nameless series. It began in 1971 and continues through today. The most recent title is BETRAYERS, and I understand that the next installment, HELLBOX, will be published this summer.

Over the years, we've watched Nameless age and take on partners in his San Francisco-based detective agency, including the stoic Jake Runyon, the enterprising Alex Chavez, and the sassy computer expert, Tamara. While I haven't read every book in the series over the past 40 or so years, I have ready many of them, and I can't remember a clunker in the bunch.

How do I like Pronzini? Let me count the ways.

First, Pronzini makes everything look so effortless. The books, which sometimes have a hardboiled element to them, are as smooth as cream. Pronzini knows how to pack meaning into each and every word, so readers never find themselves wading through endless verbiage to get to the point.

Pronzini also keeps in mind what so many other seem to have forgotten: Longer isn't better. He's like the writers for the old Crime Club, who told their story, turned their characters upside down, and threw in a twist every couple of chapters for 180 tight pages. As a result, the books are extremely fast reading, made all the more enjoyable by the multiple plot strands Pronzini tends to weave, especially in later books. 

I think crime fiction, especially first novels, tend to suffer from the "anxiety of influence" that Harold Bloom talked about. Many writers (admittedly, not all of them, but those who are more serious about their careers and success) ask themselves how they are going to make their mark. A lot of them think it's going to happen with some wacky character or a series of punning titles. As a result the books can get loopy and forced - or, on the other side of the coin, pretentious and ponderous. Pronzini has never been a show-off; he does what he does with consummate skill, even when he's pulling off some really twisted plot turns (I particularly like FEVER in this regard).

I think I've said in the past that I like to see themes explored in crime fiction, but not in a heavy-handed way. For me at least, this is the sign of someone who thinks a lot about his or her writing. I'm all for escapism, and I publish plenty of it, proudly. But I like when books make you think just a little bit beyond the last page. And Pronzini's themes are there, proudly and overtly, in his one-word titles. In FEVER, for example, he explores different types of fever, including gambling, series of extramarital affairs, and others. In CAMOUFLAGE, his theme is the unseen camouflage people wear to hide their true motives or personalities. SCHEMERS and BETRAYERS are pretty self-explanatory...and I can't wait to see what HELLBOX is all about. 

Finally, I like that Pronzini has written books outside the Nameless series - books like THE OTHER SIDE OF SILENCE, which are just as good as the Nameless books.

I think the new generation of aspiring writers can learn a lot from Pronzini - about jumping into a story immediately, about making characters tough but real, about plotting, about not writing the same book a dozen times. He's a passage from FEVER:

The big hype is that cell phones are one of the wonders of the modern age. Bells and whistles galor. You can talk to others, receive voice and text messages, send text messages, take photographs, play music and games, access your e-mail, and, for all I know, track the progress of herds of elephants on the African veldt. All in one self-contained little unit that fits in your shirt pocket and the palm of your hand. Some people seem to worship the things; they're the ones you see every day on streets and highways and sidewalks and in public buildings with cells guled to their ears and rapt, satisifed expressions on their faces. Instant telecommunication orgasms delivered by your choice of jaunty, sappy tunes and other fun electronic noises... A phone, in my old-fashioned world, is an instrument that provides necessary--emphasis on the word necessary--access to another person for a definite purpose. IT is not a toy. It is not a source of public auditory (or visual) masturbation. Above all, it should not be, but too often is, an annoying, attention-distracting, accident-causing, self-indulgent plaything used at others' expense... [But] once you give people a fancy new toy, you'd better not try to take it away from them; it produces tantrums, and in adults tantrums can sometimes be accompanied by guns, knives, and other deadly weapons. (pp. 182-185).

Right on, Bill.  If, someday, this blog goes blank, you will know it is because I have been killed by someone who is texting while driving. I see that every single day of my life.

A Tribute to the Grand Masters

To do my job, I feel that I have to keep one foot planted in the past and one planted in the future, with the rest of my body in that ill-defined space called "the present."

So, while I do my best to keep up with what's being published and what's succeeding (as well as what isn't), I like to revisit the greats. 

The first Grand Master award for lifetime achievement was bestowed by the Mystery Writers of America on Agatha Christie in 1955. The three most recent recipients have been Dorothy Gilman (2010), Sara Paretsky (2011), and Martha Grimes (2012).

Something I really like and respect about the Grand Master award is that it has been earned. Unlike so many other awards in the various industries (film, publishing, etc.), the Grand Master award is bestowed with care - or at least it has always seemed to me. Reading over the entire list of recipients, it's hard to see anyone who doesn't seem worthy, though there are a few whose links to mystery seem more tenuous (Graham Greene in 1976, John Le Carre in 1984, Daphne du Maurier in 1978, Stephen King in 2007).

More sad, for me at least, is the number of writers on the Grand Masters list who are out of print or receive very little "press" or chatter. I've waxed rhapsodic about Margaret Millar (1983's Grand Master) in the past and tried via Mysterious Matters to get at least a few more people to look for her books. 

I haven't read ALL of the Grand Masters yet, but I plan to do, sometime between now and the time I die. Here are a few books I've read recently by the Grand Masters (with some Agathovian observations). The full list of Grand Masters can be found on Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mystery_Writers_of_America.

1. GEORGE HARMON COXE (1964 Grand Master), Moment of Violence.

When I first picked up this book, the title seemed very Dell Shannonesque, and I was expecting a police procedural. Truthfully, I did not know much about Coxe; he seemed to be quite respected in his time, but I believe all of his books are out of print. Moment of Violence is what I call a straight-out mystery. The attorney protag, David Payne, flies down to Barbados to help out his former mentor, who is about to be cheated out of a valuable property. Upon arrival, he finds a body - and the investigation proceeds from there, in a very tight 190 pages. Coxe isn't a stylist, but he does make good use of the femme fatale who was so essential to the earliest detective stories. There's very little fat here: Just a solid mystery, good detection, and minimalist description. I enjoyed the book but would have to read more Coxe to formulate an opinion. 

2. DOROTHY B. HUGHES (1978 Grand Master), A Fine and Private Place.

Hughes was very respected in her day, and her talent is on display in A Fine and Private Place. (I also like The Davidian Report, but am less of a fan of Ride the Pink Horse, which I find very s-l-o-w.)  Crazed psychos have become a fairly large part of the modern mystery/thriller population, but I don't think the earlier practitioners of the craft had the vocabulary we have to describe a certain type of person. But in In a Lonely Place (1947) Hughes wrote a very fine portrait of a sociopath and the forces of the law closing in on him. The books holds up very well, and I hope some readers of Mysterious Matters will consider going to Amazon or the local library and finding a Hughes to curl up with.

3. STANLEY ELLIN (1981 Grand Master), House of Cards.

A one-time president of MWA, Ellin was also a strong writer in his own right. Some of my favorites of his include House of Cards, Very Old Money, and Mirror, Mirror on the Wall.  Like Margaret Millar, Ellin never wrote the same book twice; the books can be long and expansive (House of Cards) or short and disturbing (Mirror, Mirror). 

Truthfully, there are some names on the Grand Master list with which I have zero acquaintance: Vincent Starrett (1958), Baynard Kendrick (1967), Aaron Marc Stein (1979), Edward D. Hoch (2001 - I believe he is more known for his short stories than for novels; and short stories are not my strong suit). Sometime between now and death, I'll find something of theirs to read.

Looking at the list, though, one can't help but notice some really glaring omissions. For example, where is Charlotte Armstrong? Elisabeth Sanxay Holding? Margery Allingham? Henry Holt? Leslie Charteris? Celia Fremlin? If practitioners of the Gothic are included (Phyllis Whitney and Daphne du Maurier are on the list), then shouldn't Mary Stewart also be honored? How about Cornell Woolrich, Andrew Vachss? Doubtless we all have favorites with prodigious output whom we'd like to see honored. 

 

 

 

 

Viva Mystery Scene!

One of the nice things about blogging is the ability to share thoughts on great books, organizations, and talented folks within our industry. I generally am not open to writers using Mysterious Matters as a publicity device; there are plenty of other places to engage in self-promotion. When I recommend something here on MM, it's because I have personally read or experienced it, and I feel that I can testify to its quality.

This week I have to put in a plug for one of my favorite magazines, Mystery Scene. (This month's issue is pictured at left.) I've mentioned my enjoyment of the magazine before, but - in an era in which the magazine industry is experiencing many of the same challenges that book publishers are facing - I thought a really good magazine deserves mention.

One of the really lovely things about MS is the fact that it is written (mostly) by mystery lovers, readers, and writers for other devotees of the genre. So, while the magazine itself is quite fun and packed with many features, at its core it shows great respect for our genre and its practitioners. It's fun when it needs to be, and serious when appropriate. It's one of those magazines, like The New Yorker, that makes me feel that I am missing something good if I skim it too quickly.

Also, as an editor at an independent press, I feel grateful to the editors at MS for reviewing small-press books in each and every issue. We face prejudice from a lot of media; it's nice to feel as welcome in the pages of Mystery Scene as the big, corporate publishers.

Here's a sampling of what you'll find in the issue pictured above:

• "The Docket": a listing of upcoming mystery/crime fiction conferences, with dates and locales
• "Mystery Scene Miscellany": interesting tidbits
• "Our Readers Recommend": Books suggested by subscribers - one of my favorite features of the magazine
• Author profiles: in this issue, Stephen Hunter, Livia J. Washburn, Marcia Muller
• "The 2011 Mystery Scene Gift Guide" - selected books, goodies, DVDs, games, and book-related gifts for everyone on your holiday list
• "The Hook": Intriguing first lines from various novels 
• "Building Your Book Collection": Tips for those who are serious about collecting and preserving their books
• Reviews: A thorough, inclusive list of recently published books, from small-press books to paperback originals,to audiobooks and reference books, to, well, "regular books"

Another interesting point: The magazine, long black-and-white, is now published in glorious color.

You can check out Mystery Scene on the Web at www.mysteryscenemag.com.  Subscription rates for the magazine are $32 per year, $60 for a 2-year subscription. Add the mag to your must-read list, and/or give a subscription to a mystery lover for the holidays. 

Time Capsule: The First Deadly Sin, by Lawrence Sanders

For me, the cooler weather corresponds to the time when I'm more likely to pick up a nice, big, heavy book and hunker down with it. The first book of fall for me was Lawrence Sanders' breakthrough, THE FIRST DEADLY SIN, copyright 1973.

A little background: I had generally liked Sanders but found his work uneven. Some of the stand-alones were interesting and creepy, but I could not stand the foppish McNally, on whom Sanders focused later in his career and prior to his death.

I am, however, a big fan of Captain Edward X. Delaney of Manhattan's 251st Precinct. I rarely read every book by any given author, but my wife and I stopped at a diner a month or so ago, and we were served two massive and sloppy sandwiches that were delicious but not easy to eat. This put Delaney back into my mind, with his penchant for eating sloppy sandwiches over the sink. I looked over the shelves for a book in the Delaney series I hadn't read, then found a nice first edition hardcover for 5 bucks.

Reading the book 38 years after its publication, I found myself asking a lot of questions. 

1. Would this book be published today? That's the $64,000 question. At 566 pages, it is much, much too long. Nothing happens for the first hundred pages, the plot doesn't kick into gear until page 200, and the pace doesn't pick up until page 400. If this manuscript crossed my desk today, I would send it back to agent or editor with a note saying, "Trim 250-300 pages and send it back to me." True, Sanders does spend the first couple of hundred pages leisurely exploring/building character, but I don't think readers have the time, or the patience, for that any longer. For this reason, and a few others I'll get into below, I don't think the book has aged well.

2. Am I a prude?  I don't think I am. I like hardboiled and can handle some rough stuff. But this book contains two scenes that are so objectionable and perverted that I almost had to put the book down. I exclaimed on both occasions to my wife, "What the hell is Sanders doing?" The scenes are not only upsetting, they are also completely gratuitous and add nothing to the plot. I could have suggested one simple change to the author what would have made the inclusion on the borderline of acceptability.  I look back and think, "Well, this was the early 1970s, and the sexual revolution was in full swing," so maybe I'm being hypersensitive? But I don't think I am, and I think that if the manuscript had come across my desk in 1972, I think I would have gotten to the aforementioned scenes, then perhaps called the police.

3. What makes a book timeless vs. time-specific?  This isn't a question I pondered in detail; it's really more a way of pointing out that reading The First Deadly Sin is like going back to New York City, frozen in time in the early 1970s. Those who visit the city (or live there) today may not remember the incredible cesspool of filth and danger it was at that time, when 5 homicides were committed per day within city limits. Sanders really captures the Manhattan of that time, when people were home by dark and rarely walked down a street, even in the best neighborhoods, without looking over their shoulders. It was also a time when a police chief could afford to own a four- or five-story brownstone on the east side on an officer's salary. I thought Sanders also captured the Bohemian aspects of the City well; those are as much in evidence today as they were then. But the New York of The First Deadly Sin is an ugly place. Today, New York City has gay marriage; in this book, cops rattle off the list of undesirables who come out at night: "rapists, murders, flashers, voyeurs, pedophiles, homosexuals." Needless to say, there are almost no women on the force, except those who work undercover to catch prostitutes or serve as proxies when women decoys are needed.

To my surprise and disappointment, Captain Delaney doesn't eat sandwiches over the sink in this earliest installment, though he does enjoy a good sandwich fairly regularly - as well as good amounts of booze, even on the job. 

It's also a dark book, not really shocking given the book's title. But this one is much darker than the others I remember reading. Also, interestingly, I found myself having to consult various lists of the deadly sins. One list had "Lust" as the first one - and that fits quite a bit with the book, especially the first two thirds. But it turns out that the sin in question is actually "Pride," in the sense of arrogance. In that way, Sanders has Delaney match wits with a criminal who is, perhaps, the dark side of Delaney himself, and I found that interesting, if a bit heavy-handed.

Next on my list, I'm going back even further, to Erle Stanley Gardner. I've decided I need to get back to the greats, because too much of what I've been reading lately has been so disappointing. Perhaps, though, with NaNoWriMo looming, I can look forward to the next Janet Evanovich or Mary Higgins Clark crossing my desk in the new year. 

The Joys of the Locked Room

Lately I've been on a Golden Age kick.  I think it's because so many of the manuscripts coming in have been so weak on plot and detection, and I've been hankering for a truly mysterious mystery. In a lot of the older/Golden Age books, the reader is put in the position of needing to be smarter than, or just as smart as, the detective. I like that sort of contest - the type of book in which clues are planted and the killer is fingered through good, old-fashioned thinking, logic, and deduction.

One of the "classic" mystery plots, which I think most ambitious writers have tried their hands at once or twice, is the locked-room mystery. All the greats have done them. Why?  I'm guessing here, but it seems to me that the locked-room puzzle is a particular challenge for writers who want to push themselves. After all, how do you write a locked-room puzzle without doing what someone else has already done?  On the face of it, it doesn't look like there are too many ways to deal with a dead body in a locked room. At the same time, a locked room is often a treat for readers, who get to sit back and scratch their heads wondering: Is there a secret passage? A trap door under the carpet? A hidden window? If we're talking about mysteries as opposed to crime fiction, I can't think of anything more mysterious than a corpse in a room that nobody was able to get into or out of (the room, not the corpse, that is).

I was fortunate enough to read two terrific locked-room mysteries in the last couple of weeks, one by an old pro and one by a newbie, and I'm happy to recommend them here.

 

Schemers

Bill Pronzini

Pronzini probably needs no introduction. He's a Grand Master of the genre with more than 30 books to his credit, almost all of them with one-word titles. (He also happens to be married to Marcia Muller.) His Nameless detective was ground-breaking, though in the later books we do hear his name once or twice (for those who don't know it, I won't ruin the surprise). The books have evolved over the years, yet each stands alone - no mean feat for a series that's been running for decades. What I particularly like about Pronzini is the fact that he doesn't rest on his laurels and doesn't write the same book over and over again. The cast has changed, grown, and evolved over the years; but the joy of reading a Pronzini book is the sense that you know these characters even if you've not read a Pronzini before, because the author so deftly characterizes them.

I also love the spareness of Pronzini's prose. Not a word is wasted; he wrings the maximum meaning out of sentences and paragraphs. But he's never dense or turgid - I usually finish his books in two sittings because the pacing is breakneck and perfect. 

In Schemers, Pronzini juggles several plots and narratives. The first, investigated and narrated by Nameless himself, revolves around the theft of several precious first editions of classic mysteries, such as Christie's And Then There Were None. That's a treat for mystery lovers, of course, but it evolves into an even bigger treat as it leads to a locked-room mystery with a clever solution.  If I personally had to be murdered, I couldn't think of a better place for it to happen than in a library filled with valuable first editions of mystery classics.  The second plot, told in third person, follows Nameless' associate, Jake Runyon, as he investigates the stalker who is trying to wreck the lives of two brothers for reasons known only to the perp. The third plot revolves around "sex and the single girl" and is a bit of a cautionary tale.

If you haven't read Pronzini - if you like a locked-room mystery - or if you're just looking for a great read with strong plot and strong characters, pick up Schemers (or any Pronzini book) - I know you will thank me!

Nine Man's Murder

Eric Keith

Given that one of the rare books stolen in Schemers is an inscribed first edition of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None (also known as Ten Little Indians), it was quite a treat to read this homage to that very work. I can't think of too many books that all mystery lovers have read, but I'd venture a guess that And Then There Were None is one of them.

Like Christie, Keith gathers a group of people in a remote location and begins knocking them off one by one. All are graduates of a detective-training school, and they have clearly pissed someone off badly. But motives seem hard to come by, and the murders continue. Because the cast is composed of people with detective training, they bring all their skills of logic and deduction to figure out what is going on - and they are still unable to stop the killer.  

Suspense aside (and this is a book that will keep you reading, simply because it is so puzzling that you must know what happens next), Nine Man's Murder is one of the strongest locked-room books I've read in a long time. I once heard someone describe Europe as a region of "peninsulas on peninsulas" - I would describe this book as locked-room mysteries inside locked-room mysteries, so there's triple or quadruple the pleasure for those who love these types of plots. There's a fairly large cast to keep track of - efforts in that regard are helped out by the Characters list in the frontmatter - all with secrets and grudges, and somehow you never know what's going to happen next or who will be the next victim. Like Christie and the Golden Age writers, Keith plants clues throughout - I was able to figure out one of the major plot points, but the explanations of all of the locked-room murders took me by surprise, which delighted me, as I enjoy an author who is several steps ahead of me. This is an old-fashioned mystery in the best sense of the phrase.

 

 

Small Press Raves: Devil-Devil, Death Line

This week I'm pleased to recommend two fairly new indie books published by terrific small presses.

  DEVIL-DEVIL

  By Grame Kent

  SoHo Crime 

 

I admit to being a huge fan of SoHo Crime, which I think consistently publishes some of the most genre-pushing books published today.  I also love how they take chances on stories that may not seem "mainstream" but are worthy for many other reasons.

Ironically, I'd say that Graeme Kent's Devil-Devil is fairly mainstream (and that is meant as a compliment, because it deserves to have a wide readership).  The first in a new series set in the South Pacific (Solomon Islands) of the 1960s, the book features native police sergeant Ben Kella and Sister Conchita, an American missionary.  With its colonial setting and its respect for native cultures, it reminds me quite a bit of Upfield's Napoleon Bonaparte series.  Devil-Devil, though, has the decided advantage of being written recently and therefore being much easier to read!  

I always feel that writers who set their books in little-known places have a fine line to walk.  There is so much to explore and so much description to be done that the book can feel more like a travelogue or cultural guidebook than a novel. That's not the case here; native religion, local description, colonial politics, and good solid mystery/plot all intermingle here in a seamless way that keeps the story moving right along.  Kent has also left a bit of mystery about the outspoken Sister Conchita, a wise choice for first book in a series.  Perhaps Kent was the recipient of one of my favorite pieces of editorial advice: "Don't satisfy the reader fully - Hold back just a little so that s/he has reason to come back."

 

DEATH LINE

By Maureen Carter

Creme de la Crime

 

Now, here is one of my favorite topics: The dilemma of the "likable" protagonist.  As an editor I get so tired of seeing these protags who are the embodiment of all that is funny, virtuous, and intrepid.  Yes, those are all elements of good genre fiction, and yes, we do want a best friend who fits that bill - but I always find those who are somewhat, moderately, or even heavily unlikable much more interest.  And Maureen Carter has no illusions that any reader will want to become best friends with her detective, Bev Morriss - a foul-tempered, vindictive, Birmingham detective who couldn't care less if you love her or hate her.  She's brimming over with tempest, and a surfeit of emotions that will make many readers uncomfortable.  But I like feeling uncomfortable with a character - it only makes me want to watch her more closely.

Readers of Mysterious Matters may know that I'm a fan of Stuart MacBride and his Aberdeen series; his D.I. Roberta Steele, I had thought, was the most profane and over-the-top police in modern crime fiction.  And then I met Bev and realized that Steele is Louise Penny in comparison.  This book goes right for the gut, dealing with child abduction and child abuse - and the knife attack that almost killed Morriss but did succeed in killing her unborn twins.  It's not for the weak or sensitive, but if you like Vachss, Macbride, Ellroy, or any of the other toughies - you need to make Maureen Carter's acquaintance.

Appreciations: Final Approach, Hounds

I've been getting some email asking me to do more book reviews.  What stops me from doing them is I feel that once I start, I would be unable to stop.  Mysterious Matters isn't meant to be a review site per se, but I do realize that I can further my mission of making the world aware of fabulous small-press/independent publisher books by reviewing some of the best of them.  So, I'm thinking, for the next few weeks, I'll blog about such titles.

 

FINAL APPROACH
Rachel Brady

Poisoned Pen Press

A debut I quite enjoyed was Rachel Brady's Final Approach.  Certainly the skydiving theme is one that I haven't seen explored before, and it is always pleasant to enter a new milieu and learn something about it and the characters who inhabit it.  (And lest anyone believe that skydivers are any less fanatical than, say, rock climbers or bungee jumpers, Final Approach will prove you wrong.)  One problem I often find in debut novels is pacing; they can be slow to start or burdened in the early chapters by backstory.  Final Approach takes off like a shot and features a likable heroine, Emily Locke, who lost her husband and child to a mysterious accident four years earlier.  She's recruited by a disgraced former detective, now a P.I., for her help in another missing-child case.  The plot moves along nicely, and the dialogue is enjoyable; Emily trades barbs with her best friend, Jeannie, while finding several possible love interests not only in the P.I. but also in a  - yes - cowboy.  Of course we know that people can't just drop their lives and fly to Houston to skydive and help solve the disappearances of children, but somehow Brady makes it all work.  I thoroughly enjoyed the book and have the recently published sequel, Dead Lift, on my TBR pile. 

 

 

HOUND

Vincent McCaffrey

Small Beer Press

A very different book is Vincent McCaffrey's Hound, one of those P.D. James-type mystery-cum-literary fiction books.  By that I mean, the writing is so assured, and the observations so crystalline, that it really did not need to be a "mystery" to work. Yet I'm glad the book is positioned as a mystery, because that gives it a much larger potential market and readership, which it so richly deserves.

     Our hero is Henry Sullivan, a Boston bookseller.  The mystery comes in as he searches for the killer of an old girlfriend.  There's a lot of thought put into the book business in Hound; Sullivan bewails what's become of the book business, in which the ghostwritten books of airheaded Hollywood celebs reach the heights of the bestseller lists while quality books by writers who toil in obscurity find themselves remaindered and pulped, or not even reviewed.  But Sullivan's not just an effete, bookish type; he knows how to hold his own, which makes him a thinking man's hero with just the right amount of macho.  One might see Hound as the male version of Diane Satterfield's The Thirteenth Tale - but Hound is the better book.  Both McCaffrey's and Satterfield's protagonists are intense bibliophiles, but while Satterfield's is mopey and sometimes unsympathetic, McCaffrey's is more balanced and functional.  The pace of Hound is slower than one would want in a traditional "mystery," but somehow that doesn't matter--I'm reminded of another book that made me feel this way, Ashna Graves' Death Pans Out.  Hound's tone is nostalgic and sometimes sad, but this is a great read for book lovers, and indeed for all of us who look back to the "good old days" when life seemed simpler and where the fantasy reigned supreme that "merit" was the only criterion for publication (or any other type of success).  My only fear is that the "book" theme will peg the book as for "book lovers" only; the book deserves a wider readership than that (and a better cover, too).

 

Stepping into the Past with Henry Holt and the Sinister Shadow

Most of my reading is a futile attempt to keep up with everything going on today, so I don't always get to go back into the archives as much as I'd like to.  And yet, every time I do go back to the Golden Age, I find the reason that I have been attracted to this genre my entire life.  (Well, post-grammar school, at least, but even back then I was reading about Boy Detectives and feeling sure I could handle their cases better than they could.)  

Late least year I found myself in one of those wonderful old New England bookstores, where musty old books sit alongside the recently published.  What I love about that experience is the complete lack of dustjackets on those books.  Without a dustjacket, one cannot judge a book by its cover; one must flip through, read the first few pages, and so forth - though, of course, one could often find the plot summary on the first leaf.  

I chose a very nicely preserved 1934 work by Henry Holt titled THE SINISTER SHADOW (originally titled CALLING ALL CARS in England; I much prefer the U.S. title), having no idea what I was in for, but quite liking the first page, which begins "Goggle-eyed tourists may safely pass along the Rue Bistre, in the heights of Montmartre, during the day-time, but if they will go into such places after dark many things may happen."  

Our heroine, Margot, is down in the depths of Montmartre at a seedy bar called The Brown Rat (not exactly inviting, is it?), trying to find the lowlife who framed her brother for murder.  She saves an English visitor who's flashing too much money around from getting mugged and maybe killed, and before we know it, the two have teamed up to get to the bottom of things.  In the meantime, a sinister villain who calls himself "The Shadow" has accomplished a series of daring heists - including the theft of jewels from a visiting Arabian prince - and somehow, somehow, he fits into all of this.

How do I love this book?  Let me count the ways.

First, these are thoroughly likable characters.  They are the good guys.  Margot's looking for justice, and her new partner, Owen McCloud, is suffering from post-war PTSD; helping her with the case actually helps HIM too.  The inspector in charge, Inspector Silver, is competent, clever, confident without being cocky.  He has a quite hilarious rivalry with a friend (though he'd never use such a term), the local crime reporter with whom he has a timeless rivalry for dominance.  The friendships here feel real and have true warmth; and the burgeoning romance between Owen and Margot is touching.  The reader WANTS these two to get together, not because they've been fighting or keeping each other at bay and playing hard to get, but rather because their chemistry and connection is so clear.  

And as for The Shadow--I know, it all sounds so 1930s, some supervillain running around pulling heists, while also playing cat-and-mouse with the police.  But it's fun, great fun watching the villain square off against the good guys, without torture, or intense violence, or serial killing, or any of the other staples of today's fiction.  (This is not a swipe at modern crime fiction, but rather an appreciation for a different aspect of the genre.)  

Add to all of these elements some really good suspense - I didn't want to put the book down - as well as a solid mystery and one of those surprise endings that I adore, and you have yourself a book that should not have found itself in the dustbin of history.  I can't say that all the Golden Age books that I read hold up to a modern read (for example, I know Elisabeth Sanxay Holding has her adherents, but they always seem to me to be Women in a Time Warp), but Henry Holt does.  If your local library has any of them, do give them a try.