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Devil’s Trill by Gerald Elias

Publisher:  Minotaur Books ISBN:  978-0-312-54181-1

Reviewed by Anne K. Edwards, New Mystery Reader

If you are a violin music fan, a musical mystery buff, or just enjoy tales out of the ordinary, Devil’s Trill by talented author Gerald Elias is one book you won’t want to miss.  A violin with a dark history is stolen at a concert where it is supposed to be played by a child who has won a violin playing competition.

Blind violin teacher Jacobus is in attendance of the concert for motives of his own when the violin is stolen.  His old friend Nathaniel who is hired to recover the violin asks his help. 

Jacobus’ sarcastic and caustic style of speaking soon has his enemies naming him as the thief. People say they are afraid of him and the policeman charged with investigating the theft seems to believe they have good cause when another teacher he was the last to see is found murdered with a string from his own violin.

This is a tale that pulls the reader along, giving insights into the world of musical competitions and just how unpleasant they can be when there are people who will do anything to win.  A tale that also introduces the reader to classical music and the time and effort required to master the violin. 

I’m pleased to highly recommend this tale as an interesting read with lifelike characters whose personal motives drive the story.  A very worthwhile read with lots of action.  Enjoy. I sure did.

Blindman’s Bluff by Faye Kellerman 

Publisher: Publisher: William Morrow ISBN-10: 0061702323

Reviewed by Karen Treanor, New Mystery Reader

Who is the smart-dressing young man with the sunglasses, and who is he staring at so intently from behind those dark lenses?  Lt Pete Decker’s wife Rina is on jury duty this week, and she can’t help but be intrigued by the good-looking young man.

As usual with a Faye Kellerman novel, nothing is what it seems on the surface. The young man is a court interpreter, and he’s blind.  He becomes an unwitting ear-witness to a criminal conversation and doesn’t know what to do next—so of course he turns up on Rina’s front porch, as many a lame duck has done before him.  This time the lame duck is more of a vulture, bringing a lot of really bad men in his wake, bad men who are tied in with a family mass-murder that Pete Decker and his crew are investigating.  The trouble is that one by one the murder suspects are turning up dead or missing, which makes solving the crime a lot harder than usual.  Moreover, the apparent reason for the killings just doesn’t sit right with Decker; he doesn’t buy in to the ‘robbery gone wrong’ scenario.  When he finds out that the only reason the sole survivor isn’t dead is because one of the shooters ran out of bullets, his antennae start twitching seriously.   This massacre is a puzzling combination of meticulous planning and clumsy execution (forgive the pun).

Complicating Decker’s attempts to keep his wife safe is their teenage daughter Hannah, who doesn’t take well to being made to stay at Grandma’s house while Pete sorts out the murderers from the merely dumb and dangerous gangbangers of the Bodega XII Boys.  Any reader who’s ever tried to get a teenage daughter to do anything anytime will sympathize.  Even when Decker sorts out the players, it’s obvious that the brain behind the gun is still on the loose and still a threat to the survivor of the massacre, as well as to Rina and the interpreter.

All the usual gang is here in this latest outing of California’s  West Valley police division: reliable Marge Dunn, snappy dresser and ladies’ man Oliver, Willy Brubeck , Wanda and the rest.    Kellerman does her usual excellent job of dangling the obvious suspects under our noses, then whisking them away in a misleading dust-storm of alibis and cross purposes.  

Ivory Tower Cop by George Kirkham & Leonard Territo

Publisher:  Carolina Academic Press  ISBN:  978-1-59460-656-4

Reviewed by Anne K. Edwards, New Mystery Reader

For those readers who enjoy tales based on true crime and who have wondered how a college professor teaching criminology would react to the violence that his courses was about, Ivory Tower Cop by talented authors George Kirkham and Leonard Territo is a must read.  This book will answer many of your questions and provide a fun read.

Professor David Roth is challenged by his friend Detective Frank Bailey of the Miami PD to go through the police academy so he could get a first hand look at how violent crimes are investigated.  At first David dismisses the idea, but others get behind it and he enrolls.  His course is sped up so he can get through faster and actually have time left in his year off to be part of the police force. 

His new boss Maria Sosa is anything but thrilled to have a professor assigned to her section, but as they work together things fall into place and admits he seems to understand the mind of their current serial killer.  After his year of time off, David returns to the classroom with an enlarged perspective of what police work is all about.

I’m pleased to recommend this tale highly to any reader who enjoys suspense, mystery, and a study of both the criminal mind and police work.  Well worth the time, a tale with well drawn characters who you will enjoy getting to know.  A story told from a different vantage point with lots of action.  Enjoy. I sure did.

Grace Hammer by Sara Stockbridge

Publisher: WW Norton & Co  ISBN-10: 0393067181

Reviewed by Bonnye Busbice Good, New Mystery Reader

Grace Hammer’s life has been defined by one thing—the exquisite ruby necklace she stole from a thief when she was a young woman on the run.  As a result of this rare red gem that spreads sparkles on her face when she holds it up to the sun, she has lost her entire family and spends years disappearing in London’s notoriously seedy East End.  Now that Grace has four children, three failed marriages and a well-practiced pickpocket scheme, she encounters charming and shifty Jack Tallis, a womanizing jack-of-all-trades in the crime world, who is drawn to Grace and her family.  All at the same time, women have to figure out how to continue supporting themselves through prostitution and other nighttime activities while avoiding the serial murders in their neighborhood by a faceless shadow dubbed Jack the Ripper.

In Grace Hammer, her past finally confronts her when the thief, the large and well-named Mr. Blunt, tracks her down in London.  Her little familiar niche disappears quickly in a world where loyalty is only sometimes earned, and at other times, bought and sold.  No one other than Grace and Mr. Blunt know why he’s so keen to find her, but his interest sparks that of other dangerous criminal minds and Grace becomes the intended subject of revenge and thievery by experts in the field.

In this version of the Victorian underworld, London’s streets are filled with teeth-deprived prostitutes and smelly criminals who retain their humanity without glossing over their comfortable attitudes towards breaking the law and throw away their ill-gotten gains in the area’s many pubs.  Stockbridge takes care to treat her criminals the way that they would have been treated in reality: long, happy lives are not guaranteed in this gritty world.  Stockbridge’s substantial character development while maintaining sufficient mystery about each criminal leads to a hope that this will become only the beginning of the story of Grace Hammer and her eminently enterprising young children.

The Silent Hour by Michael Koryta

Publisher: Minotaur Books  ISBN-10: 0312361572

Reviewed by Dana King, New Mystery Reader

The Silent Hour, Michael Koryta’s newest Lincoln Perry mystery, serves a dual purpose. Those who are already Koryta fans will not be disappointed; those who are reading him for the first time will become fans. A win-win for all concerned.

Private investigator Perry knows better than to take Parker Harrison’s case. Harrison sends letters; Perry throws them out. Even when Harrison drops in uninvited, Perry almost gets away clean. Harrison’s a convicted murderer, but the case isn’t about that. He wants Perry to find the husband and wife who sponsored his parole and let him live with them. Their unique home has been deserted for twelve years and Harrison wants closure.

Perry looks at the house and is as intrigued as Harrison expected. He’s about to jump in with both feet when he learns Harrison omitted certain critical facts. The rest of the book is a contest to see how deeply Perry will become involved as events coerce him, or well he can stay away. It’s an interesting way of building tension, watching Perry move away and back again as what he learns interacts with previous experience, almost Hamlet-like in his indecision. It could become tedious in the hands of a lesser writer. Koryta makes it a strength.

Koryta is a no frills storyteller, whose prose is lean, not sparse. Descriptions are used as necessary, never more than is needed, and always spot on. The plot builds in layers, each twist or piece of new information adding complexity, never so much that tracking the story becomes a chore. Surprises are unexpected, never unprepared, and everything makes sense eventually. Facts find Perry without haste, and rarely when he needs them most; the reader will hang on every word, looking with him for the key that makes sense of it all.

The characters are diverse and complete as the plot. Parker Harrison tells what he wants and no more. He alone decides how much to parcel out using his own code; no point in arguing. How much to trust him while knowing he’s holding back is key to the suspense.

Pittsburgh private eye Ken Merriman re-engages Perry into the case. His story makes sense, but is still vague enough to welcome scrutiny. Pennsylvania cop Graham is, gently put, an arrogant ass who throws facts around like they were manhole covers. He has his reasons. How valid they are, and how potentially damaging, also ties the threads of the story closer together.

If there’s anything about The Silent Hour that isn’t just right, it’s the dialog. It reads a little stiffly in places, but not so much to take you out of the story, and probably not noticeable to anyone but a dialog fanatic. (This dialog fanatic is also from Pittsburgh, and finds it hard to believe Clevelanders speak with such consistently impeccable grammar.)

Fictional PIs are the natural evolution of the classic Western loner. Their stories have been the mainstay of American crime fiction for over seventy years. From Hammett and Chandler through Macdonald, Spillane, Robert Parker, Crais, and Lehane, private eye stories have been the perfect vehicle for weaving crime stories and social commentary. Some argue it’s a dying genre. They probably haven’t read any Michael Koryta.

Vanished by Joseph Finder

Publisher: St. Martin’s Press ISBN: 978-0-312-37908-7

Reviewed by Ray Palen, New Mystery Reader  

Joseph Finder has consistently been putting out fast-paced, intelligent thrillers for several years and his latest effort - “Vanished” - is another excellent novel.

“Vanished” opens with the sudden abduction of financier, Roger Heller. Immediately on the case is his brother, Nick Heller, a former Special Forces member and high-powered intelligence investigator. Nick quickly realizes there are two vanishings - the abduction of his brother and the disappearance of 9 Billion Dollars from a cargo plane bound for Baghdad. Could these two vanishings be related?

As Nick delves deeper, an unflattering picture of his brother, Roger, is formed. He finds out that Roger was on the Homeland Security DO NOT FLY list and that he may have also been blackmailing one of the world’s largest military contractors, Paladin Worldwide.

Using high-tech gadgets and relying on his close confidants as well as his prior Special Forces training, Nick Heller gets out of one precarious situation after another. However, what he uncovers may turn everything he knew about his brother and his own personal family history on its’ ear.

“Vanished” is filled with engaging and interesting characters and the nail-biting situations keep rolling along throughout this novel. I love the fact that Nick Heller is referred to as a “private spy” (as opposed to Private Eye) for he is truly a unique character. Joseph Finder knows how to develop a plot and keep the pace going - while never “dumbing-down” the material. Nick Heller is reminiscent of Ludlum’s Bourne character and I hope we see him again!

The Siege by Stephen White

Publisher: Dutton Adult  ISBN-10: 0525951229

Reviewed by Stephanie Padilla, New Mystery Reader

In this latest, White takes quite a bit of a departure from his Boulder, CO series featuring psychologist Alan Gregory and detective Sam Purdy, the successful team of crime fighters that fans are used to seeing battling serial killers and other above-averaged intelligent killers whose crimes are more often committed a bit closer to home.  But have no fear, while Gregory may be kicking up his heals in Boulder, Sam Purdy takes up the slack when he dives head-first into the kidnapping of his girlfriend’s daughter during her weekend engagement celebration in Miami with the wealthy in-laws. 

With his partner too pregnant to travel, Sam is representing his soon-to-be family in Miami in a trip that soon turns deadly when he’s discreetly approached by the groom’s wealthy mother who desperately needs Sam’s help after hearing of her daughter-in-law’s abduction miles away. So Sam heads out to the ivy-covered campus of Yale University where a group of young, high-profiled students are being held by an unknown assailant in the tomb of one of Yale’s secret societies. 

And as one by one the students exit the tomb and are either killed or released, the pressure is sky high to figure out what the kidnappers want, and why.  But with the kidnappers’ continuing silence to authorities, their only contact being with the powerful parents of the kidnapped students who, under threat, refuse to share the communications, securing the release of the slowly dwindling number of students seems near impossible.  And so as each moment ticks by, and with the death toll rising, it will be up to Sam and a couple of unconventional U.S. agents to figure out how to save those who remain. 

Usually when coming across a book that in any way shape or form relates to terrorism, I’m quick to put it in the “this will only be read if all else somehow burns in a fire and this is all that’s left” pile.  But, as a great fan of Stephen White, I decided to open my mind a bit and see what kind of tale he could spin within this setting. 

I’m glad I did.  Admittedly, as already confessed, I have little to compare this to, but I’ve certainly read enough books of any sort to know when good is good, and this is good.  Actually, quite often, it’s even better than good.  The motivations and planning behind this brilliant kidnapping plot are revealed at the perfect pace, each detail exposed with perfect timing.  There’s even an unexpectedly sweet romance between the war-torn agents thrown in that actually pulls the many plot devices even closer together.  And then, best of all, there’s the final denouement, one that has been well-thought out, and one that deserves to be thought about long after the book is finished.  Never thought I’d like such a book, so when this comes with my wholehearted recommendation, you can believe it’s got to be great.   

Panic Attack by Jason Starr

Publisher: Minotaur Books  ISBN-10: 0312387067

Reviewed by Dana King, New Mystery Reader

No one will confuse the Bloom family of Jason Starr’s Panic Attack with the Cleavers. Husband Adam is a controlling, egotistical shrink who even thinks in psychobabble and analyzes everything everyone says or does, including himself. His wife, Dana, is a classic bored upper class housewife, having an affair with her health club trainer. Daughter Marissa is a spoiled, not too bright slacker living a home after graduating with an art history degree from Vassar. All three are self-centered and selfish and any other pejorative that begins with “self.” Their first, and often only, impulse is “how does this affect me?”

The story hits the ground running when Adam shoots a burglar in the middle of the night. Ten times. A second intruder gets away clean. Dana and Marissa are appalled; Dana whines at length how she never wanted to have the damn gun in the house in the first place. Why couldn’t you wait? The police were on the way.

Adam thinks he’s going to be a hero. Talks to the media assembled on his lawn. Imagines a book, possibly even a movie. Life is good until the New York media portray him as the next Bernie Goetz, a vigilante in his own home. Bloom’s an ass, but the papers spin and misquote his story beyond conscience. The effect on his practice is dire, and immediate. (Why Fox News didn’t make him a hero is not explored.)

Those are the least of the Blooms’ problems; the other burglar has sworn vengeance. The dead man was a friend from the group home they grew up in, and he’s going to get even with Adam by destroying the whole family. Johnny Long is even more delusional that Adam Bloom. His primary occupation is seducing women so he can rob them. He imagines books and movies produced to recount his exploits as a lover and thief. His plan to get even with Bloom is so complex it makes the Normandy invasion look like Eisenhower wrote it on the back of a cocktail napkin.

There’s no one to root for in Panic Attack. Worse, there’s no one to care much about. Adam is a first-class jerk; Dana a selfish shrew. Marissa is so dumb she can’t use her art degree to recognize Long isn’t the budding artist he claims to be even after Googling the fake name he gives her and seeing his “work,” which consists of blotches of paint he threw on a canvas because he heard Pollock worked that way, or finished pieces he bought at thrift stores. (Don’t painters sign their work anymore?)

Panic Attack evolves into a too-long slog to see who survives and how they manage it. Between Long’s over the top psychopathy and the Bloom’s stupidity and unlikability, the ultimate question becomes, “who cares?”

Bad Things Happen by Harry Dolan

Publisher: Putnam Adult  ISBN-10: 0399155635

Reviewed by Dana King, New Mystery Reader 

David Loogan is a man of mystery. No one really knows where he came from, or what he does. He rents the home of a university professor away on sabbatical and walks the streets of Ann Arbor, keeping to himself. Writes a short story and drops it at the office of Gray Streets magazine without any identification. Does the same with an improved draft. And another. Finally he happens along while editor Tom Kristoll is there and they meet. Kristoll likes Loogan’s work, an editorial job is offered, and a sincere, if somewhat awkward, friendship springs up.

This friendship isn’t strong enough keep the otherwise circumspect Loogan from sleeping with Tom’s wife, Laura. It is sufficiently hardy for Loogan to respond without question when Tom calls one night to ask for a favor. Oh, and bring a shovel. Loogan trusts Tom enough to follow his plan, even though Tom’s story about interrupting a thief doesn’t hold up. Loogan eventually responds to his conscience and halts the affair, but the ethical question of sleeping with his best friend’s wife is rendered moot when Tom goes out a sixth story window. He could have jumped or fallen or been pushed; investigation shows an anomalous bump on the head that says he was knocked unconscious, then thrown out the window.

Harry Dolan sets up the pieces of Bad Things Happen well. Loogan is a cipher, so the reader is never quite sure how to interpret what he does or says. The police, brought in after Tom’s death, are effective in their medium-sized town way. They lack the resources of a Chicago or New York, but are no one’s fools. The circle of potential suspects and incriminating circumstances grows bit by bit until it reaches a delicious busyness. The first half of the book is tight, ratcheting up the tension and interest in small but undeniable increments.

That the second half doesn’t quite live up to the promise is more a question of overambitiousness on Dolan’s part than any lack of skill or talent. Not content to stop building when he reaches critical mass, character actions become less organic to their actor than they are authorial connivances to advance the plot. What begins as a story as tightly written and plotted as Law and Order at its best hires Agatha Christie as showrunner halfway through. The end result is mixed, as the writing stays tight throughout, but the plot becomes more convoluted with every chapter. Each resolution and revelation is topped by another and another until the whole resembles a late night TV ad: But wait! There’s more!

A lot of people will like that, and they should read this book sooner rather than later. Spinning surprises well into the denouement is a tried and true technique, and Dolan almost gets away with it, even to the eye of a skeptic. The first half of the book leads to expectations of a powerful yet understated climax; the second half delivers ever less plausible twists and turns.

Bad Things Happen is an earnest attempt to meld a traditional puzzle mystery with a more hard-boiled style. How well it works will depend on which type of story the reader prefers, but Dolan’s effort—and the reader’s time—is certainly not wasted. He’s an author well worth keeping an eye on.

Breathing Water by Timothy Hallinan

Publisher: William Morrow  ISBN-10: 0061672238

Reviewed by Dana King, New Mystery Reader 

No less an authority than Raymond Chandler once wrote: “Any approach to perfection…demands a combination of qualities not found in the same mind. The coolheaded constructionist does not come across with lively characters, sharp dialogue, a sense of pace, and an acute sense of observed detail….The fellow who can write you a vivid and colorful prose simply will not be bothered with the coolie labor of breaking down unbreakable alibis.” Chandler was as qualified to comment on his trade as anyone ever was, but he never read Timothy Hallinan. The third book in Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty series, Breathing Water, comes as close to capturing all of Chandler’s demands as anything you’re likely to read this year.

Hallinan weaves two unrelated stories—and one smaller, but no less important subplot—into a fabric strong enough to support a diverse cast in an unfamiliar environment. The book opens with the story of Da, a peasant girl whose village was destroyed for a golf course. She escapes to Bangkok, where she falls under the influence of a man who is essentially a pimp for beggars, doling out street corners to his stable and collecting his take. He essentially owns them, and their props: Da is given an infant to raise her appeal for the foreign tourists.

In the larger story, Rafferty is involved in a card game set up by a casino to learn how to catch card cheats. No one expects Khun Pan to show up. Pan is a powerful figure in Thailand, a former dirt poor peasant who worked his way up through protection rackets and brothels to become a “respectable” businessman, at least on the surface. He taunts Rafferty, who unwisely rises to the bait. A showdown results in Rafferty winning the right to write Pan’s biography. Within twenty-four hours, he has been threatened with death both by parties who want him to write it, and those who don’t.

Hallinan links the plots through strong character development. All of the characters—good, bad, and uncertain—are fully realized, which makes their actions more flexible because each character can have multiple, sometimes conflicting, motivations. Pan is an enigma. Champion of the poor, or their ruthless exploiter? Depends on the context, or on who’s talking. His actions can be interpreted either way.

Too many thrillers neglect what Hallinan seems to know intuitively: It’s the characters, stupid. He never makes you care about them; you just do. The love and affection among the members of Rafferty’s little family is obvious, despite their sometimes sharp tone. This makes his task more urgent than the power struggle he has set off in the Thai ruling class, because everyone can relate to it. Governments come and go, but families are irreplaceable.

Poke’s friend Arthit is back, squeezed between his police superiors and advance of his wife’s multiple sclerosis. Their scenes are beautifully realized and heartbreaking without ever becoming maudlin. Hallinan pays his readers the ultimate tribute by trusting in their ability to understand what they see without explanation. Watching Arthit struggle between what he wants to do and what Noi needs him to do is painful.

Hallinan’s love for the Thai people and distaste for their economic and political systems form an uneasy co-existence. Each defines the other through their close juxtaposition, again allowing him to generate emotion without resorting to melodrama. His writing is well past describing rain storms; he is a master at evoking the feeling of being rained upon.

A Nail Through the Heart was a revelation, yet The Fourth Watcher was a leap forward. Breathing Water takes another step. It’s a book you’d be sorry to finish if you weren’t so emotionally exhausted by the end. Look for it on award lists at the end of the year.

Criminal Karma by Stephen M. Thomas

Publisher: Ballantine Books  ISBN-10: 034549783X

Reviewed by Joseph Obermaier, New Mystery Reader

Burglars make irresistible heroes.  From Raffles to Dortmunder to Bernie Rhodenbarr, we seem to have a soft spot for the charismatic, honorable thief whose best-laid plans inevitably come crashing down around him.  We admire the rogue who has forsaken our mundane lives for one of danger and excitement, but is still somehow loyal, honest and principled in his own way.  We know, even as he breaks the law, he will right the bigger wrong and with any luck, still get the goods or the girl.  So it is with Criminal Karma, the follow-up to Steven M. Thomas’s first novel, Criminal Paradise. 

Small-time thief Robert “Rob” Rivers and his dim, beefy partner Reggie England are back in action.  The target this time is a stunning necklace of pink diamonds worth a quarter million dollars that graced the neck of a Southern Californian socialite, Evelyn Evermore.  Though their first attempt to steal it goes spectacularly awry, our heroes discover another way in through the socialite’s dubious spiritual guru, Baba Raba, who has his eyes on the necklace as well.  Something (else) shady is going on. 

Rob works his way into the lives of Evelyn and Baba Raba against a wonderfully detailed backdrop of an often seamy southern California coast.  Along the way, he enters a darkly comic world filled with the homeless and nearly homeless, missing children, wayward women, spiritual drifters, corrupt councilmen, angry mobsters and even a fortune teller.  Many of these people are hurting, and Rob can’t let it go.  Against his better judgment, and at the risk of distracting himself from his quest for the necklace, he gets deeply involved.

Criminal Karma is not a whodunit, but a “howdunit.”  How can Rob make all these pieces fit together?  How is he going to save his friends, both old and new, and himself?  And how is he going get his hands on that necklace without getting caught?

Rob is grittier and rougher around the edges than the gentleman-thieves I mentioned earlier.  And most readers will likely have already figured out the ‘mysteries’ involved before reaching the final chapters, but that’s not really why we read a caper-story like this.  We want to admire the cunning and courage that goes into planning the heist.  We want the suspense and uncertainty of the chase.  We want the really bad guys to pay.  And we want the charming thief to still be standing in the end.  On that score, Criminal Karma delivers.

Dying for Mercy by Mary Jane Clark

Publisher: William Morrow  ISBN-10: 0061286117

Reviewed by Stephanie Padilla, New Mystery Reader

Clark brings back NYC morning TV anchorwoman Eliza Blake in a new mystery that should satisfy her established fans. This time out, Eliza is brought into solving a mystery that has murderous roots far into the past, but one that will prove even deadlier as its secrets are slowly revealed.

It all begins when Eliza attends a party in Tuxedo Park, a highly exclusive enclave for New York’s rich and famous.  Being a new resident herself, she’s naturally drawn to the secrets that seem to beckon behind its impenetrable gates.  And when her host draws her aside and hints at a mystery that has long been hidden that he now wants revealed, its repercussions echoing with a current deadly fury and more deaths, Eliza feels she has no choice but to follow the puzzle pieces he left behind that will lead to the answers, especially when her host commits suicide by stigmata.   And as more people begin to die as each clue is revealed, Eliza will find herself too in danger of losing it all once again.

If you’re the type that likes a good puzzle, this one might do the trick.  However, be forewarned that Clark’s layout of the puzzle pieces could have been better arranged with the reader in mind, as most are connected to unrevealed clues that simply can’t be followed without more information.  And so one can’t help but wish that Clark would have gone down a more interactive road providing more involvement for the reader.   Nonetheless, it’s an entertaining enough read that easily maintains the reader’s interest for the duration, and one that should please fans of the series.