Sherlock Holmes is a dick. And I don’t mean that as a reference to the character being a private detective.
Sure, he may be brilliant, but he’s also aSherlock Holmes is a dick. And I don’t mean that as a reference to the character being a private detective.
Sure, he may be brilliant, but he’s also arrogant, condescending, cold, rude, self-absorbed and generally an insufferable douche bag. If Watson wasn’t such a brown-noser, he’d have snapped and pimp slapped the shit out of Holmes about five minutes after meeting him.
It’d been a long time since I’d read any of the stories, and I thought I’d check some out after watching Robert Downey Jr. play Holmes. And while RDJ’s version was an action hero that made Holmes purists bleed from the eyes and ears, at least he was a likeable rogue. Where as reading original recipe Holmes makes you want to jump into the book and strangle him just for being such a prick.
But I guess that’s part of the mythos around the character as the cool analytical logic junkie. I may have liked him better if this was one of the stories where he was freebasing cocaine out of boredom because at least he would have come across as more human then.
Holmes may be a key character in crime fiction, and while I actually found the mystery and detailed background of the motives in this pretty interesting, I was cringing every time Sherlock opened his mouth. ...more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
This is a real good news/bad news situation. The good news is that this is probably tI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
This is a real good news/bad news situation. The good news is that this is probably the best Spenser book that Ace Atkins has written yet. The bad news is that it’s the last one he’s doing. *sigh* Let’s focus on the good news for the moment.
Carolina Garcia-Ramirez won a stunning upset in a Congressional race, but while her outspoken support of progressive policies has made her a new hero for the left, the right wingers hate her guts and aren’t shy about saying so. When some of the threats seem to be more serious than the typical social media bile, Spenser is hired to provide protection and do some sleuthing to see if someone in CGR’s inner circle might be a mole. It doesn’t take long before Spenser finds clues indicating that a white supremacy group is plotting against CGR. As usual, Spenser turns to Hawk for help, but this time Hawk has a favor to ask in return. He wants Spenser to track down a woman he hasn’t heard from in years.
So obviously this one was inspired by a real person and the reactions to her, and that’s a little tricky because Spenser has always been extremely apolitical. That hasn’t changed with Atkins writing it so while Spenser admires CGR for several reasons, that’s on a human level, not a political one. Spenser also won’t abide racism so making the bad guys a bunch of white power assholes means that this is still a straightforward good guy vs. bad guys story with a few ripped-from-the-headlines elements instead of the book feeling like a political manifesto even as Atkins uses the opportunity to highlight how the worst of the worst have felt free to really be themselves these days.
All of that made for a compelling plot, but where this one really crackles is with the very Spenser-ness of it all. The dialogue and banter is quick, clever, and frequently funny. The action is sharp, especially in a climatic scene. Some Spenser history comes up. A lot of delicious sounding food is eaten, and some booze gets drank. There are still dates with Susan, work-outs with Hawk, and a dog named Pearl.
The Hawk sub-plot of him asking Spenser to find a woman was an interesting wrinkle in all this. Atkins had cracked the door open a little on Hawk. Not so much that it gave away too much about a character, who is cool precisely because of the mystery about him, but just enough that it made him feel fresh and even a little more dangerous. What comes out of that is another piece of a great book.
Maybe it’s because I knew that this was the last Spenser that Atkins is doing, but it all seemed extra sharp to me this time. I hated to finish this one because it meant that something I’ve very much enjoyed for ten years now is coming to an end. As swan songs go, this is a great one, and hopefully whoever takes over Spenser next can do half as well....more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley.
Spenser tries to bring down a rich pedophile who has been protected for years by his wealth and I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley.
Spenser tries to bring down a rich pedophile who has been protected for years by his wealth and influence. This guy also has a partner in a woman who helps him lure the girls in, and they are often taken to a private island where other powerful men come to party.
That’s just such a disturbing and creepy premise that I’m glad this is a work of fiction and that nothing like that could happen in real life….
In the first Spenser book that Ace Atkins wrote the detective helped a fourteen-year-old girl named Mattie find her mother’s killer. Now Mattie is old enough to legally drink, and she’s been working for Spenser and training as a junior PI. It’s Mattie who is asked by a young girl from her neighborhood for help after she had an icky encounter with a rich pervert at an exclusive club. It soon becomes apparent that there’s some very twisted and rotten stuff going on, and that the guy behind it all will use all of his wealth and power to do anything possible to stop any of his victims from going public.
There are several interesting things going on in this one. The main plot was obviously inspired by a true story although Atkins changes things up so that just because we know what happened in real life doesn’t mean you know how this book will end. The idea of a guy like this with a private island and a stunning list of powerful friends who are involved would probably seem too over-the-top to work in a Spenser novel if it hadn’t happened. So you’ve got Spenser going up against people that you really want to see get kicked in the teeth which makes it satisfying when the detective starts rattling their cages.
Another satisfying thing is that we get a lot of Hawk in this one. Atkins has been judicious in his use of everybody’s favorite bad ass best friend character so that he could explore and expand the roles of other supporting players in recent books, and he’s done a great job of it. Still, it’s always comforting to know that Hawk is around, and it was nice to get a little insight into what Hawk does when he isn’t saving Spenser’s ass in Boston.
Bringing back Mattie was another nice touch. Spenser has taken in other people like his surrogate son Paul and his former PI apprentice Z. Sixkill so this follows a pattern. However, Mattie is an incredibly independent woman who doesn’t always see things the way Spenser does, and while the two have a real bond, she also isn’t afraid to start finding her own way versus just following in Spenser’s footsteps.
The one thing I wasn’t crazy about was the subplot of Spenser getting a new puppy after his dog Pearl has passed away. As the series has done in the past, Spenser gets another dog of the same exact breed and again names her Pearl. This always seemed like a cheat by Robert B. Parker to keep Spenser in a timeless limbo, but Atkins does explore why Spenser does this as a coping mechanism. It makes some sense, but at this point Spenser is essentially ageless so why not just make it the same Pearl vs. periodically killing one off and getting another one?
Aside from that minor nitpicking, I enjoyed this one from start to finish. Mattie’s part of the plot gave it the kind of freshness that Ace Atkins has been bringing to the series from the start while the stuff with Spenser and Hawk felt very old school, like some of the earliest RBP books. It was a nice combination that appealed to me as a long time Spenser fan while still feeling new and modern....more
First comes the review, and then if you keep reading you’ll get the funny story of how I crossed paths with the author of this one. How’s that for a tFirst comes the review, and then if you keep reading you’ll get the funny story of how I crossed paths with the author of this one. How’s that for a teaser?
Dayna Anderson had 15 minutes of fame thanks to starring in a string of TV commercials for a fast-food chicken place. However, after losing that gig she’s now struggling to get by, and she’s desperate to make some quick cash to prevent the bank from foreclosing on her parents’ house. Inspiration comes after Dayna sees a billboard offering a large cash reward for tips on the hit-and-run death of a young woman, and Dayna realizes that she and some friends had almost been struck by a reckless car that was most likely the same one that killed the girl.
At first Dayna is just hoping that finding out the details of the crime will help jog her memory so that she can give the cops a clue and claim the reward, but soon she finds herself drawn into the mystery. Once Dayna sets out to find the killer not even the quickly dwindling minutes on her phone plan can stop her investigation.
Amateur sleuths usually aren’t my favorite sub-genre of mysteries, but I had a really good time with this one. Kellye Garrett has a great sense of comedic timing in her writing, and there was many a laugh-out-loud moment. (I listened to the audio version, and narrator Bahni Turpin helped the jokes land as well.) The celebrity obsessed culture of Hollywood is used to great effect with Dayna’s humorous observations about it. It’s also a nice touch that Dayna isn’t just pointing and mocking. She is part of that world so while she may poke gentle fun at her best friend’s relentless seeking of fame, it’s done with affection.
I also enjoyed Dayna because after reading about a ton of super-macho tough guy detectives it was refreshing to have someone who doesn’t really know what they’re doing as a lead character. Not that Dayna comes across as stupid, just inexperienced, and enthusiasm often gets the better of her common sense. That helps add to the comedic elements, but her pure determination and a wealth of knowledge from watching true crime shows keep Dayna hot on the trail of the killer even as she’s clueless about her own love life. She’s a classic underdog that you can’t help but root for.
Overall, it’s a funny and entertaining mystery with a great lead character that has some very witty observations about Hollywood.
And now for the bonus story…
I was at Bouchercon in Dallas last fall, and in addition to seeing some of my favorite writers I watched several interesting people I had never read before on panels so I made a point out of buying a copy of their books and trying to meet them at some point. That’s already paid off with in my recent reading of books by authors like Eryk Pruitt, Jennifer Hillier, and SA (Shawn) Cosby.
Unfortunately, none of those authors was Kellye Garrett.
In fact, I had never heard of her or seen her on any panels. So I probably sounded completely rude and ignorant when I happened to meet her in the hotel bar one night and asked her what kind of stuff she wrote. The extra embarrassing thing for me is that although I didn’t know it at the time she had just come from the Anthony Awards where she had been nominated for Best Novel. She politely told me about this series and game me a promotional card for one of the books.
Afterwards, I started following several of the other authors on Twitter, and Kellye’s name kept coming up. That’s where I saw that her books were about to be released on Audible so I had this on deck when I read My Darkest Prayer. I noted in in my review that that Shawn Cosby had been a huge presence at Bouchercon.
And who should just so happen to comment on that review? That’s right. Kellye Garrett. She was shocked to hear that we had met at that Bouchercon. (I was relived that she didn’t say, “Oh, you were THAT asshole?!?) Then it was my turn to be shocked when she complimented me on some of the reviews I’d done on the Spenser series she’d read before.
After all that I felt like I was destined to read this book, and I'm glad I did....more
If you want to know where the bodies are buried in a small town, ask the local undertaker. You can take that literally or figuratively.
Nathan WaymakerIf you want to know where the bodies are buried in a small town, ask the local undertaker. You can take that literally or figuratively.
Nathan Waymaker is a former Marine, an ex-cop, and he currently lives and works at the funeral home owned by his cousin. Despite being a generally good guy he also has a temper that would make the Hulk nervous, and his anger problems weren’t helped by the corrupt sheriff’s department he used to work for letting the man who killed his parents go free. When the leader of a local church was shot to death it seems like the cops may be tanking the case so some of the parishioners ask Nathan to check up on the police. Soon Nathan finds himself on the bad side of the cops as well as a dangerous gangster, but on the good side of the church leader’s estranged daughter who is a gorgeous porn star.
You win some, you lose some…
SA Cosby is another author I learned about at last year’s Bouchercon. He caught my attention with his reading of a short story at the Noir-At-The-Bar event. Then he impressed me even more with his participation on a panel about modern noir, and he was in the audience of other panels where he asked great questions so I made a point out of meeting him at one of the signings. Every time I was around him it was obvious that not only was he a dedicated and intelligent fan of crime fiction, but that he was living his dream by being there as an author and loving every second of it. His enthusiasm was contagious, and I’d say he deserved a MVP award for the conference as well as the Anthony Award he won for best short story.
As for the book, it’s gritty, violent, funny, and almost as entertaining as its author. It follows some of the tropes of crime fiction with a well-intentioned detective of sorts taking what seems like a simple job and getting in over his heard. There’s even the obligatory bad ass friend in the form of Nathan’s buddy Skunk. If a good friend helps you move, and a great friend helps you move a body, then Skunk qualifies as a great friend. There’s also some humor along with it that reminded me of how Joe Lansdale mixes violence, profanity, depth, and laughs. Some angles of the story also reminded of Mosley’s Easy Rawlins series.
Yet Cosby has his own voice that firmly establishes the small town Virginia setting, and then he built an intriguing lead character to guide us through it. Nathan’s history as the biracial son of a white man dedicated to a life of peaceful non-violence and a more pragmatic black woman makes him conflicted in that he feels like he’s constantly failing his late father in some ways. Yet deep down he’s just not the kind of guy who thinks that turning the other cheek is the correct response to a cruel and unfair world.
While Cosby’s personality may have sold me on reading this book, his writing is what will get me to buy his next one....more
I received a free copy of this from the publisher for review.
I knew I was in for a good time when I saw this warning at the start of the book:
“PublishI received a free copy of this from the publisher for review.
I knew I was in for a good time when I saw this warning at the start of the book:
“Publishers note: This book was originally published in 1974 and reflects the cultural and sexual attitudes, language, and politics of the period.”
That’s right, baby! It’s 1974 so let's get sleazy!
Jim Hardman is an ex-cop who now makes his living in Atlanta as an off-the-books private investigator, and he supplements his income by occasionally transporting narcotics. Hardman is doing what seems to be a simple job of following a young college girl for her father, but a thorough beating from some thugs get him to drop the case.
Unfortunately the girl is then murdered and a black gangster known only as The Man hires Hardman to find the killer. This is a little odd since it was The Man who had Hardman scared off the case originally. Investigating her death results in increasing carnage all around him, but fortunately Hardman can count on his best friend, a former NFL player named Hump Evans, to back him up and let him sleep on his couch when Hardman is afraid to go home.
I got interested in checking out this series after attending last year’s Bouchercon and hearing author/publisher Lee Goldberg talk about how he had become obsessed with this mostly forgotten series and had made it a mission to reprint the books in order to make sure that Ralph Dennis wasn’t forgotten. You can read all about that here.
After finishing the book, I’m very glad that Goldberg got these out here. Dennis was a far better writer than the original publication of these as ‘men’s action adventure paperbacks’ would indicate. In his introduction of this edition, Joe R. Lansdale credits these books as being an influence on his creation of Hap & Leonard so I think it's fair to say that the Hardman & Hump partnership was one of the pioneers of the whole detective-character-with-bad-ass-friend dynamic that a lot of modern PI novels use.
The morally flexible Hardman becomes a fairly complex character over the course of the book. He isn’t operating on some kind of strict moral code like a Marlowe or a Spenser, and he lacks the polish of a Sam Spade. Overall, Hardman comes across as a good guy who once got a raw deal and is now just doing the best he can.
The ‘70s factor might be a plus or a minus depending on each reader’s own preferences. I loved the whole grimy atmosphere of the book in which Hardman and Hump think splitting a pint of booze in the car while tailing someone is just standard operating procedure. If this book was scratch & sniff the odor would be of an old shag carpet filled with cigarette ash and spilled Pabst Blue Ribbon.
There are some things that come across as cringe-worthy in terms of race and sexism, but overall Dennis’ writing isn’t nearly as dated as you’d expect from a book of this genre written in this era.
I had a lotta throwback fun with this, and I’ll be checking out more of the series....more
This is why I don’t do favors for people at work. First, it’s just loaning them a pen, and the next thing you know you’re trying to find somebody’s miThis is why I don’t do favors for people at work. First, it’s just loaning them a pen, and the next thing you know you’re trying to find somebody’s missing daughter which pisses off a mysterious killer.
Pete Fernandez is a guy who once had a lot of promise, but he’s been on the skids since the death of his father. His drinking is out of control, his wife left him, and he’s barely clinging to his job on the sports page of the Miami newspaper. That’s when a coworker asks him to look for his missing daughter, Kate. She also works for the paper and is an acquaintance of Pete’s so he agrees to take a look to see if Kate may be in trouble or if she is just ignoring her estranged father. However, after finding her apartment ransacked and learning that Kate was researching a story about a legendary hit man nicknamed The Silent Death, Pete has plenty of reasons to regret that decision.
This first book in the Pete Fernandez series is enough to get me hooked. Alex Segura is a writer who has been on my radar for a while, and after seeing him at Bouchercon I made a point of moving up my to-read list. He had a lot of interesting things to say, and I thought it was cool that he splits time between writing crime novels and working on Archie comics.
I’m particularly impressed with the way that Pete is depicted. This is a character who is a flat out mess. In the wrong hands Pete could be an insufferable loser who wallows in self-pity, but Segura makes him a tragedy. He knows he’s screwing up, but he can’t figure out a way to change his circumstances so he just goes to the bar every night without realizing that’s a big part of his problems. He’s not the kind of character you hate, he’s the kind you root for even as you want to tell him to get his shit together.
The plotting does some zigging and zagging so that it doesn’t play out in typical fashion. Another nice aspect is how it manages to keep Pete in the midst of this mess without coming across as him being overly stupid or seeming contrived. What seems like a simple favor becomes quicksand that Pete can’t escape from once he dips a toe in even though he is not trying to play the hero.
Overall, it reminded me a lot of the ‘90s crime novels I loved, and it was no surprise to see Segura credit writers like Pelecanos, Lehand, and Ellroy in the acknowledgements because you can see the influence even as he is finding his own voice. It’s a great start to a promising series....more
Spenser goes Hollywood, and I’m not talking about that upcoming Netflix movie.
A young woman originally from Boston has gone missing after moving to LoSpenser goes Hollywood, and I’m not talking about that upcoming Netflix movie.
A young woman originally from Boston has gone missing after moving to Los Angeles, and her mother has hired Spenser to find her so he heads west. Tracking down the young lady puts Spenser at odds with a powerful Hollywood producer, a self-help group that seems more like a cult, and a dangerous Aremenian gang.
Fortunately, despite being far from home Spenser has plenty of friends around to help out like his former protege Z. Sixkill who has started his own private detective business. There’s also Spenser’s thug buddies Chollo and Bobby Horse that work for the local crime boss who Spenser is on good terms with thanks to their previous encounters. LAPD Captain Sameulson is still around although he’s less thrilled to see Spenser back in town causing trouble again.
Ace Atkins has become one of the those writers that I file under R for Reliable at this point. For several years now he’s been producing both Spenser and Quinn Colson books like clockwork, and every time I start one of his I know that I’m in for a good time. For both these series he’s also been walking the tricky tightrope that balance familiarity with mixing things up so that neither start to seem formulaic or stale.
This is a prime example of that with Atkins again drawing on the long history of Spenser as written by the late Robert B. Parker so that it still seems like the same character, but then using that as a jumping off point to move in new directions. This isn’t the first time Spenser has gone out to LA so he’s dealing with a bunch of familiar characters and situations, but this never feels like we’re just going over the same old ground. Atkins also has a knack for putting a slightly different spin on some of these old supporting characters so that they seem to have more going on than just being props in Spenser’s world. For example, I loved how Samuelson, who has plenty of reasons to dread seeing the detective come to town, gets thoroughly pissed off when he once again finds himself knee-deep in a Spenser related mess.
There’s also a nice ripped-from-the-headlines vibe to this story although it doesn’t go in the direction that I initially thought it would. I also appreciate how Atkins has managed to update Spenser by using more tech and things like social media while still keeping his old school nature. There’s also a fun tip of the cap to another crime series when Spenser briefly crosses paths with another fictional detective. Long time fans also know that LA is the spot of one of Spenser’s biggest regrets, and there’s a nicely done acknowledgement of that, too. Another sly Easter egg appeared to be a reference to the upcoming movie.
Through it all we’ve got all the staples of a good Spenser story. Funny banter, good action, descriptions of food guaranteed to make you hungry, and a twisty mystery that Spenser unravels by being a pain in the ass to anyone he comes across who is standing in the way....more
The Continental Op is brought in after some diamonds go missing, but instead of solving a simple case of theft he ends up embroiled in the on-going trThe Continental Op is brought in after some diamonds go missing, but instead of solving a simple case of theft he ends up embroiled in the on-going troubles of a disturbed young woman who believes herself to be the victim of a family curse.
This certainly isn’t the best Hammett you can read, but it’s not bad. The plot is all over the place and doesn’t make much sense, but the main appeal is the attitude of the Op who still shines as the cynical private detective who has seen it all. ...more
I received a free advance copy from the publisher for review.
Lee Crowe is the kind of private investigator who isn’t above taking a shady job from a dI received a free advance copy from the publisher for review.
Lee Crowe is the kind of private investigator who isn’t above taking a shady job from a defense attorney as part of an effort to intimidate a federal witness. While working on that project he comes across the body of a wealthy young Claire Gravesend who fell from a roof and smashed into a Rolls Royce.
Damn, but the rich even get to die in luxury.
Claire had been acting oddly before dropping out of sight. The police are calling it a suicide, but her mother isn’t convinced and hires Lee to find out the truth. Investigating Claire quickly proves to be dangerous business, and when Lee makes a shocking discovery things really start getting weird.
One of the things I loved about this one is that we start with what seems to be a gritty neo-noir tale about a morally ambiguous private detective, and that’s the thread that’s maintained even when the story starts shifting into other territory. While there are elements of other genres brought in, the style and themes are constant throughout the book.
That really works because the main draw here is the character of Crowe who we eventually learn is a disgraced former lawyer who was once on the doorstep of real wealth and power, but he lost it all once his well-connected wife got bored with him. Now Crowe seems to have few lines he won’t cross like after discovering Claire’s body he takes a picture and sells it to a tabloid for a nice payday.
Despite apparently having no moral code we see throughout the book that Crowe is more complex than a guy willing to do any dirty job for money. Having once had a glimpse behind the curtain of privilege to see how rigged the game is he has no compunction about cheating himself. Even as he’s willing to work for the benefit of the wealthy there’s also resentment simmering in the background, and once he starts learning the truth about Claire Gravesend he’s capable of outrage and wanting to see some justice done.
Jonathan Moore has very quickly become one of my favorite writers, and I think this is his best one yet. There’s some very slick genre fusion going on here along with good character work, and the plot makes it a compulsive page turner. But I think the most impressive thing is how he creates an almost dreamlike atmosphere at times, and yet also blend that with much more grounded elements. This is most definitely a hard boiled crime novel in tone, but there are also scenes that would be right at home in a David Lynch or Stanley Kubrick movie. It’s an intriguing mix.
This is one of the best books I’ve read this year, and I’d also highly recommend all these other ones by Moore:
I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
A former Mafia hit man turned private detective hunts down a serial killer who also used to mI received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
A former Mafia hit man turned private detective hunts down a serial killer who also used to moonlight as a mob hit man? Man, I really wanted to love this book. Sadly, I didn’t.
Isaiah Coleridge was introduced to us in Blood Standard, and to say that his backstory is complex is an understatement. He used to make his home in Alaska where he worked as a top notch killer for the Outfit, but after he had a bloody falling out with one of the bosses Isaiah was exiled to in upstate New York. Determined to leave his old ways behind Isaiah has become a private detective, but he also doesn’t mind jobs where his skills as an enforcer might come in handy. He also has to maintain a delicate relationship with the local mobsters so when one of them comes to him with an ugly job Isaiah is in no position to refuse.
Two of the local thugs have been murdered in gruesome ways, and the boss wants to know if they’re connected and who might be behind it. Isaiah reluctantly begins to check out it out and quickly learns that a legendary hit man long thought retired or dead might be behind it. It also turns out that this guy’s hobby when not killing people for money was killing people for fun. If the mob connections weren’t bad enough it also seems like this man might have ties to the military and there’s some very rich people in the mix as well. Despite his plate being pretty full Isaiah also has taken on a gig trying to protect a local woman from a family of thugs because she's dating the ex of one of them.
Sounds like a lot, doesn’t it? And it is. Frankly, it’s too much. This was my problem with the first book, too. There’s a great idea in there with the idea of an ex-mob hit man trying to kinda go straight but getting tangled up in bloody messes. However, everything has to get so complicated that it all gets bogged down as Isaiah just pinballs from one thing to the next. The core story of an ex-hit man hunting a legendary ex-hit man is great, but the bad guy can’t just be an insane serial killer too. He also has to be wrapped up in a vast conspiracy that is pretty ridiculous so I guess mob killer/serial killer just wasn’t enough.
And that’s kind of the problem to all of it. Barron has good ideas and is a capable writer, but he just never knows when to stop adding layers to the cake and focus on shaping the elements he already has into something edible. Eventually it just collapses on itself from it's own weight. For example, the big subplot in this book is dumped to the back burner and is pretty much resolved with a couple of sentences late in the book as action that we don't see. So it was just a distraction in an already overstuffed book.
There’s the core of a really cool character and series here, but it took too much effort for me to dig it out. More bloody violence and less plot, please....more
If I ever get kidnapped I want Joe Pike looking for me.
Private detective Elvis Cole gets hired to find a young woman because she dropped out of sight If I ever get kidnapped I want Joe Pike looking for me.
Private detective Elvis Cole gets hired to find a young woman because she dropped out of sight for a few days. The mother suspects that her daughter is with a boyfriend that she disapproves of, and that this is a case of college aged kids just off having some irresponsible fun. However, Elvis quickly figures out that the couple were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and were swept up as part of scheme in which illegal immigrants crossing into the US are kidnapped and held for whatever ransom their loved ones can scrape together. Cole enlists the help of his partner Joe Pike and has a plan to locate the missing kids, but things go sideways and Cole ends up being held, too. With the help of a fellow mercenary Pike begins a methodical hunt for his friend.
This one has all the hallmarks of your typical Cole & Pike novel. Elvis runs around doing some clever detective work while Pike shows up at opportune moments to unleash hell, and Crais has mastered using that formula with these characters to deliver exciting crime/action novels. Unfortunately, I think Crais fell into a trap of his own making here that hurts the story.
It’s clear from the title and book jacket summary that Elvis is going to get kidnapped and that Pike will have to find him. I saw Crais in an interview at Bouchercon back in 2011 in which he mentioned that the book he was writing at that time involved Elvis being taken and Pike getting him back. So that’s obviously the hook he started with and built the novel around. It’s a good idea for a story so I understand why Crais committed to it early on.
However, to really do that idea then Elvis should probably get snatched by the end of the first act, and that means that rest of the story would be on Pike’s shoulders with Elvis being a supporting player. Crais has done that before in a couple of Pike-centric book so it shouldn’t be a problem, but for some reason he wanted Elvis to be a big part of this one doing his usual detective thing. So to keep the core idea of Elvis being kidnapped in place while still making him an active figure in the plot Crais structured the book so that it flash forwards to the point after Elvis has been taken with Pike on the hunt along with the parallel story of Elvis trying to find the woman.
The problem is that by telling us that Cole is going be kidnapped from the jump it just makes his story a foregone conclusion which robs it of its drama. At the same time even with the flash-forwards he doesn’t get the Pike on the hunt piece really moving until the third act. Since that’s the story I was told this book was about and because the structure keeps reminding me that it’s coming, I was kind of tapping my foot the entire time I was reading and just wishing that we’d get to the fireworks factory already.
I probably would have liked this better if Crais had just fully committed to Cole kidnapping plot and had it happen much sooner and told the story in a linear fashion. Or he could have sold this book as it just being another Cole/Pike case about them looking for a kidnapped woman and saved the Cole kidnapping as a plot turn at the end of the second act. Crais is pretty good at throwing unexpected twists in at times, and that could have been a real doozy. Then the third act could have been Pike’s relentless hunt to find his friend, and it would have been a lot tenser.
As it is, it felt like Crais really fell in love with that elevator pitch of “Cole gets taken. Pike has to find him.” But then he couldn’t bear to just let Cole play that role. So he tried to have his cake and eat it, too.
It’s still a pretty solid book in an entertaining series, but I still feel a little disappointed in the way it played out....more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I’ve read several interviews with Lawrence Block where he’s talked about how there weI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I’ve read several interviews with Lawrence Block where he’s talked about how there were multiple times in his career when he thought he would never do another story about private detective Matt Scudder, but then something would happen that would make Block bring him back. So I guess fans shouldn’t be surprised that Block had one more story to tell years after we thought Scudder was done.
Matt is retired and living happily with his wife Elaine. Even though Elaine left prostitution many years ago she joins a support group of women who have quit the life, and she’s become a kind of sponsor to a young lady who has a problem with a client that flatly refuses to accept that she’s no longer in business and begins aggressively stalking her. The problem is that he used a fake name so she has no clue who he is. Matt agrees to help, but even if he can find the guy the law isn’t very good about protecting women from obsessive men so stopping him is another problem.
Like many crime/mystery readers I’m a huge fan of Lawrence Block and consider him one of the legends of the genre, and Matt Scudder is the bar by which I judge all other detective fiction with very few being close to the same level. So I was beyond excited to get the news about this new novelette being published. However, I was just a touch disappointed in this.
It’s still Block writing Scudder and much of what I love about the series is here. There’s some solid detective work to be done, and then Matt has to come up with a creative solution to a problem when he knows that there’s no way that the system will help this young lady. The core story and how it’s solved is Block doing what he does best without missing a beat.
Part of the appeal is Matt roaming around New York and getting into fun conversations with various folks that often have nothing at all to do with the case he’s working on. That’s here once again although with a bum knee now Matt doesn’t walk quite as much as he used to, many of his old haunts are gone now, and most of the people he knew in those stories are retired or dead.
That’s been a factor creeping into the last Scudder stories much like how life itself creeps up on all of us, and Matt’s aging in real time as New York has changed around him over the years is one of the points I enjoy about the series. However, a chunk of this book is reminding us of the people Matt used to know, and it’s kind of a bummer at this point. I was especially sad when conversation between Matt and Elaine reveals that they’ve fallen out of touch with TJ, the street kid who became a kind of surrogate son for them at one point in the series. And yeah, that’s life, but I always liked to think it was going to be TJ helping them out in their old age so it kind of hurts that he’s just drifted away from them apparently.
I also wasn’t thrilled with the ending to this after the central problem has been resolved. Back in 2011 Block released a new Scudder novel A Drop of the Hard Stuff as well as short story collection The Night & the Music that felt like the perfect goodbye. The story written just for that collection One Last Night at Grogan’s was especially fitting as Matt's swan song. Frankly, I found the conclusion here odd and off-putting, and it kinda spoiled that classy ending for me.
Still, it’s a new Matt Scudder story when I never thought I’d get another, and I am grateful to Lawrence Block for having him work one more case for us. I think in future rereads I’ll shift this around to still read One Last Night at Grogan’s as the last word from Matt....more
If you can’t stop to put air in your tires without having to prevent some thugs from beating up somebody then you just might be the hero of an action/If you can’t stop to put air in your tires without having to prevent some thugs from beating up somebody then you just might be the hero of an action/crime novel.
Professional bad-ass Joe Pike keeps a sandwich shop owner from getting pummeled by some local gangsters running a protection racket, and as a bonus he meets the owner’s good looking niece, Dru, who seems interested in him. Unfortunately, the punks seem intent on getting revenge, and when Joe can’t locate Dru or her uncle following some gruesome vandalism at the restaurant he fears the worst. Joe enlists the help of his detective partner Elvis Cole to help him find the missing people. What looks to be a simple case of payback by a street gang soon turns out to be a tangled mess involving murder, the FBI, and a psychotic hitman whose deadly skills are more than a match for Pike’s.
This series started out with Elvis as the main character who was your pretty typical smart-ass private detective with Joe as the trusty violent friend who always wore sunglasses and rarely spoke. Elvis got better when Robert Crais toned down his smart mouth and gave him some feelings, and by switching Pike to the lead character in some of the later novels we learned that he’s actually more a tragic and damaged figure than the typical ‘80s macho action type he seemed at the start. That shift continues to pay off in this book, and one of the selling points for me is the odd couple friendship the two men share with the outgoing and friendly Cole completely understanding the closed off Pike to the point where almost no conversation is necessary between the two.
While the set-up sounds like a straight ahead action thriller there’s also a lot of solid twists and turns to the plot that constantly subvert expectations and make some detective work necessary. So we get Pike in full hunter mode as he keeps pushing to find the missing people. That keeps the story momentum going while Cole does some of the leg work that uncovers that Pike’s potential new snuggle bunny isn’t quite who she said she was. Which also adds some emotion to the Pike part of the equation while Cole has to worry about how his friend is dealing with all of it. So it’s a nice blend of tension with enough character stuff to make it feel like it has some emotional stakes to it.
The only thing I found lacking was the sadistic killer. He’s genuinely scary at times as well as a former mercenary like Pike so that gives us a worthy foe. However, he’s just a little too crazy town banana pants to be believable. It’s hard to accept that a guy who actually hears voices in his head and believes that zombies are real can be operating at such a high level and also capable of staying ahead of the law for years.
Still, that’s a minor complaint, and overall I really enjoyed this one as another solid piece of work from Crais....more
A long time ago when I was in high school and dinosaurs still roamed the earth I read a whole bunch of Agatha Christie novAll aboard the murder train!
A long time ago when I was in high school and dinosaurs still roamed the earth I read a whole bunch of Agatha Christie novels. The weird thing is that I was never that big of a fan of hers. I was getting into mystery novels, she’s one of the best known writer in the genre, and the local library had a whole bunch of her stuff. At some point I realized that I prefer my murders to be a bit less civilized, and I moved onto other styles of the genre without giving much thought to ole Agatha after that. However, I recently watched the latest film adaptation done by Kenneth Branagh and even though it’s just OK that gave me the urge to check this out again. And it reminded me that classics are very often classics for a reason.
Belgian detective Hercule Poirot is on-board the Orient Express along with an assortment of travelers and their servants. An American named Ratchett is stabbed to death in his compartment just as the train is stopped by snow. Circumstances make it seem that whoever killed Ratchett is probably still among the people in the first class car that night. As Poirot sorts through the evidence and questions suspects he finds contradictions that make solving the murder a very complex task.
One of my reasons I stopped reading Christie was the impression that she didn’t play fair in her whodunits. (And since I’m going off very old memories I could certainly be wrong about that.) By that I mean that it seemed like the solution depended on some kind of in-story background information that a reader couldn’t possible know. There’s a touch of that here with a big piece of the plot involving a link to a famous fictional crime. (Although it’s obviously inspired by a famous real one.)
Yet, that’s set up as background info that’s pretty much given to us as soon as it’s revealed so it doesn’t feel like Christie was just cheating by springing the unknown on a reader as a way to hide the killer. In fact, since the murder took place in a confined space where people were coming and going that everything you need to know is given to us as Poirot builds a timeline and uses a diagram to place the location of people in the train car at various times. One of the great things about this book is the way that Christie uses the logistics of this to actually give you all the clues while also obscuring the solution in the details.
I’d also had the idea that her writing was very dry and boring. There’s actually a lot of touches of humor that I missed as a young idiot. Even though there’s a lot of dated things in terms of race, sex, and class it also felt like she was often making some sly commentary on attitudes of her time. For example, the guy working for the railroad is positive that an Italian passenger must have killed Ratchett since it was done with a knife, and while Poirot often seems to agree with him that circumstances make him a good suspect you also note that he begins outright mocking the guy for sticking with this theory as things evolve.
I also very much liked the ending which again goes against my idea that these were very proper books that believe in strict law and order when the resolution here is a lot more interesting and complex.
I may have to try some more of these books to see exactly what else I was wrong about....more
I received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like books by Ace Atkins.
Spenser iI received a free advance copy from NetGalley for review.
I don’t know much about art, but I know what I like. And I like books by Ace Atkins.
Spenser is asked to look into a famous unsolved art heist, but since it occurred twenty years ago the trail is very cold and the museum people he’d be working for are couple of overbearing snobs guaranteed to be a pain in the ass. The only reasons to take the case are a five million dollar reward for the return of one particular painting and that Spenser has been asked to finish the job by another private investigator who is dying from cancer. Spenser greatly respects this detective who spent years trying to track down the lost art, and if you know anything about Spenser you can probably guess that he cares a lot more about fulfilling this guy’s last request than the money.
While the heist was successful it was the work of clumsy smash-and-grab thieves, not a highly skilled Ocean’s 11 kind of crew, and there are rumors that the painting has been floating around Boston’s organized crime underworld for two decades. As Spenser looks for the long lost Gentlemen in Black he’ll find that the painting has left a bloody trail in its wake since it was taken off a museum wall. He’s also got competition in the form of another unscrupulous investigator trying to get the reward.
This is the seventh Spenser novel that Ace Atkins has done since taking over the series after the death of Robert B. Parker, and Atkins has long since proven that the he was the right writer for the job. He still has Spenser behaving very much like the guy fans have known and loved for years with the detective trying to solve the case while cracking wise as well as cracking heads, and there is plenty of eating and drinking and general banter along the way. Atkins has kept all those familiar elements while subtly refreshing the series by not being afraid to incorporate some changes in the lives of Spenser and his supporting cast.
Most of that updating this time comes in the form of Vinnie Morris. Vinnie has long been one of Spenser’s ‘good’ criminals who is an occasional ally, and as he’s done for others in the series Atkins adds some depth and personality that makes Vinnie more of a unique character than just another version of Spenser with a few differing surface traits. While Hawk is off in South America on one of his secret missions (And I really want a spin-off series about Hawk’s adventures.) Vinnie more than fills the role of Spenser’s back-up buddy here. Atkins also now has the confidence to add some Southern touches with Spenser making his versions of a few country style dishes as well as taking a trip to Memphis where he gets some barbecue and works in a few Elvis references along the way.
The story was obviously inspired by the real heist of Boston’s Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990, and it’s a juicy concept of a case with plenty of good twists and turns. We also get a lot of fun interactions of Spenser irritating all kinds of unpleasant people from an angry police captain to a murderous mobster to a snooty stuffed shirt on the museum board. Overall, it’s another remarkably solid outing that most fans of Spenser and PI novels in general would enjoy....more
What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. At least that’s the general rule, but unfortunately if you cross a Chinese triad it may not apply.
Isaiah QuintabWhat happens in Vegas stays in Vegas. At least that’s the general rule, but unfortunately if you cross a Chinese triad it may not apply.
Isaiah Quintabe (a/k/a IQ) is a brilliant young man who acts as an informal private detective and problem solver which has earned him a lot of respect from the people of his neighborhood in East Long Beach, but he’s haunted by the death of his big brother Marcus who was killed by a hit-and-run driver who was never caught. Marcus’ old girlfriend contacts Isaiah looking for help in trying to get her gambling addicted younger sister out of a jam with a loan shark in Las Vegas. Isaiah asks his old partner Dodson to help him out, but the two of them quickly learn that the little sister and her idiot boyfriend have also made the enormous mistake of trying to blackmail a Chinese triad with some business records they’ve obtained. All of this is happening as Isaiah is trying to deal with a new lead that indicates that his brother was murdered and not just the victim of a careless accident.
I very much enjoyed the first novel IQ in this new series from author Joe Ide, but this doesn’t meet the highs of that one. I won’t go so far as to call it a sophomore slump, but it didn’t seem as fresh or fun this time out.
One of the bigger problems is IQ himself. The whole concept here is a modern take on Sherlock Holmes with an African-American detective living in a poor area instead of white sleuth in upscale Victorian London, and that worked really well in the first book. However, here Isaiah comes across as more of a naïve jerk rather than the more sympathetic portrayal of a person isolated by his brilliance and lack of patience with social skills. I also liked that rather than have Dodson just be his ass-kissing sidekick like Watson is to Holmes that his relationship with Isaiah is much more contentious, and that Dodson is continually frustrated by Isaiah’s methods. Again, that’s a lot less fun this time, and the constant bickering between the two got on my nerves.
The ending of this with Isaiah finally uncovering the circumstances of his brother’s death is also a whole lot of convoluted nonsense with an ending that feels less than satisfying. (view spoiler)[The way that Isaiah handles it seems especially irresponsible. Marcus was murdered by a dangerous man who had been obsessed with his girlfriend for years as part of a crazy scheme to get Marcus out of the way. Then Isaiah gets his revenge by telling this guy that he told the woman what he did and that she will never be interested in him. Only we learn that Isaiah actually doesn’t tell her any of it. So this supposedly great student of human nature thinks that the best way to deal with an obsessive stalker with a history of murder is to destroy his fantasy of being with this woman, and then Isaiah doesn’t even warn her that this guy is around and killed her old boyfriend? This seems like a terrible plan on every level. (hide spoiler)]
I also had some problems with the time hopping between Isaiah in Vegas vs. Isaiah at home investigating his brother’s death. I was listening to the audio version, and there weren’t any indications of this so that I actually thought I’d screwed up and was listening to the wrong part a couple of times. It eventually all comes together, but it was fairly confusing for a chunk of the book.
Despite these problems I still liked this overall. Isaiah is still interesting even if he bordered on seeming like a complete jerk for much of the book, and I found Dodson even more entertaining this time. The other characters are also well developed, and the whole plot about the triads was a lot better than the stuff about finding who killed his brother. The ending also seemed to set things up for Isaiah to grow as a person as well as maybe move on to bigger and better cases so hopefully that’s what we’ll get more of in the future....more
This one collects the final issues of Marvel’s MAX version of Jessica Jones adventures and while I’m sad it didn’t last longer I also realize that allThis one collects the final issues of Marvel’s MAX version of Jessica Jones adventures and while I’m sad it didn’t last longer I also realize that all good things must come to an end. Or in superhero comic books it’s more accurate to say that one good version of the title has to come to an end and then start up again in another version.
Brian Michael Bendis saved the best for last in which he concludes the character arc for Jessica as well as giving us her origin story via flashbacks, and we also learn what was behind her decision to turn away from being a costumed superhero and drove her self-destructive behavior. It’s a remarkably deft piece of storytelling that manages to mix in bits of Marvel history like Jessica going to high school with Peter Parker with the raw and gritty portrayal of a hard-drinking self-loathing private detective. I also loved how the art was done in this with the flashbacks to Jessica’s superhero days done in the bright clean style of a more typical Marvel book back in the day which contrasts with the darker grittier tone of a MAX comic with plenty of profanity and sex.
We get the revelation of Zebediah Killgrave a/k/a The Purple Man as the main cause of Jessica’s pain. One of the most impressive things that Bendis has ever done is to take a B-list minor supervillain and turn him into one of the most dangerous and repulsive Marvel bad guys I’ve ever read without any major retconning. By digging into the full scope of what mind control powers could be used to do by a complete sociopath we get a chilling portrait of pure evil.
Bendis also does a nice bit of metafiction here with Killgrave taunting Jessica with the idea that she’s a character in a comic book. That also works with the other tricks like changing the art styles to put a sly level of self-awareness and commentary about the whole thing.
Overall, Alias was a great title that blended the realistic adult themes of the modern PI genre with Marvel characters and history to give us a fresh perspective on that universe as well as an intriguing character story....more
I received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I usually spend some time in my reviews of the new Spenser books from Ace Atkins talkI received a free advance copy of this from NetGalley for review.
I usually spend some time in my reviews of the new Spenser books from Ace Atkins talking about how well he’s done with the tricky job of taking over the series from the late Robert B. Parker. I’m not going to do that anymore because at this point this is entirely Atkins’ series, and Spenser is as good as he’s ever been.
Connie Kelley was swindled out of several hundred thousand dollars by her boyfriend, M. Brooks Welles, who has since vanished, and Connie would like Spenser to track him down and get her money back. Welles claimed to be a military veteran and spy whose experience made him a regular fixture on the cable news as an expert in those matters. What Spenser quickly finds is that Welles is a con man who has left a trail of broken promises and unpaid bills in his wake including a land scam that involved a shady gun dealer.
One of the best parts of this one is the character of Welles because he makes for an infuriating bad guy for Spenser to chase. He’s a compulsive liar who absolutely will never admit that he’s fibbing even when he’s confronted with direct evidence of it. What’s really amazing is how many people he’s burned who continue to fall for it and keep putting their faith in him. I mean, what kind of rubes continue to believe a guy who has been conclusively proven over and over again to be completely full of shit?
As usual we get a lot of twists and turns that find Spenser eventually making a trip down South where even more shenanigans are going on. Along the way he’ll have to deal with cranky cops, angry ATF agents, a wavering client, professional mercenaries, and more scams than you can shake a stick at. We also get the reappearance of a supporting character we haven’t seen in a while as well as plenty of great stuff with Hawk, too. Atkins also continues to rehab Susan so that I actually now enjoy her interactions with Spenser rather than just cringing at the sight of her name on the page.
Of course the heart of it all is Spenser who is his usual hard-punching, straight-shooting, smart-mouthed, gourmet-cooking self, but he still continues to show signs of growth in these newer books including a refreshingly pragmatic streak of how far he’s willing to take a case. Overall, it’s pretty much a book that most fans of Spenser or modern PI novels in general would enjoy reading....more
I’ve got to make a shameful confession here. Even though I consider myself someone who is fairly well versed in the crime/mystery genre I’d never readI’ve got to make a shameful confession here. Even though I consider myself someone who is fairly well versed in the crime/mystery genre I’d never read any of Ross Macdonald’s work until now. I know, I know. I’m disappointed in me, too.
It’s a weird oversight because it’s not like I haven’t been aware of the Lew Archer series since I started picking up PI novels, and I’d even seen and enjoyed the two film adaptations Harper and The Drowning Pool that starred Paul Newman. (Why did they change the character name from Archer to Harper? I dunno. You can try asking Hollywood.) It just doesn’t seem like any of the Macdonald books ever fell into my orbit for some reason. Anyhow, I was long overdue to get to this series and a little prodding from Anthony finally got me motivated.
Lew Archer is a private detective in post war Los Angeles who gets hired by a rich woman to find her drunk husband who she fears has gone off on another bender that might result in him giving away large sums of money. Archer starts investigating and quickly determines that the man has probably been kidnapped, and he’s soon following up leads that take him from mansions to seedy bars to bogus religious retreats. There’s a twisted web of double crosses going on, and Archer follows a whole lot of shady people around and gets knocked out a lot. (Old school PIs seem more at risk for CTE than football players.)
All of this sounds like standard stuff for a detective novel from it’s SoCal setting to the dialogue, but like the best writers of the genre it’s all done well and with a style that makes the most of the tropes of it. Archer as a character is also set up fairly well, if typically. He’s smart, tough, cynical, and has a commitment to his own moral code that sometimes puts him conflict with the legal niceties of the case so again we’re using the basic PI template, but there’s a reason this particular form is still used today.
Overall, it was good, not great, but you can see the elements in the writing that I assume will be built up for the rest of the series to earn it’s reputation as one of the best of its kind....more
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