Paraic O’Donnell inserts touches of humor and insight without lessening the tension in his breathtaking gothic historical mystery, The Naming of the Birds.
Paraic O’Donnell inserts touches of humor and insight without lessening the tension in his breathtaking gothic historical mystery, The Naming of the Birds.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
A. Rae Dunlap’s The Resurrectionist is a heartfelt yet gruesome historical thriller following two body snatchers as they fall in love and evade Burke and Hare.
In Quicksilver, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens combine intrigue with an impressive extrapolation of the state of the art in orbital weapons. What begins as a project to increase the country’s surveillance satellite capabilities suddenly emerges as a weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Most of the action takes place in the Pentagon, one of the nation’s most secure buildings. The new National Infrastructure Agency is located well below the basement. The physical security of this latest command node is as great as the secrecy surrounding its activities protection that includes placing blast doors throughout the building and making efforts to root out terrorists. This is the situation faced by the President when well-armed terrorists take over the Pentagon. Their infiltration takes advantage of a ceremony celebrating Russia’s entry into NATO. Bureaucratic reflexes among the President’s advisors frustrate his ability to deal with the crisis. Quicksilver demonstrates the authors’ grasp of scientific theory and security measures surrounding the country’s military space program. Beyond the ingenuity that allows the terrorists to penetrate the Pentagon’s most secret project is the awesome power they demonstrate by destroying the center directing the nation’s military satellites, including Quicksilver. The tension builds as the President directs the country’s most powerful weapons to hone in on the terrorists’ headquarters. The result is a spell-binding tale and a new standard for techno-thrillers. John Messer once served in the Pentagon.
In Quicksilver, Judith and Garfield Reeves-Stevens combine intrigue with an impressive extrapolation of the state of the art in orbital weapons. What begins as a project to increase the country's surveillance satellite capabilities suddenly emerges as a weapon of unprecedented destructive power. Most of the…
Jordan Manning is a crime reporter at the top of her game, but staying there is proving increasingly exhausting. When she moved to Chicago from her home state of Texas, she hit the ground running in four-inch stiletto heels—which didn’t deter her from being first on the scene of a steady stream of crimes in the Windy City. As a Black woman, Jordan is the only woman of color at News Channel 8, and she’s the only reporter in her newsroom with journalism and forensic science degrees. Her experience and savvy serve her well, as does her empathy—a trait that isn’t always present in the highly competitive news business.
Because of Jordan’s empathy, plus her finely tuned intuition, the disturbing case of Masey James—a smart, well-liked Black teenager found dead in a park—just won’t let Jordan go. She had already been frustrated by the police’s unwillingness to declare Masey missing, and now authorities are in a rush to arrest someone instead of conducting a thorough investigation. Jordan is determined to not only ethically and comprehensively report on the case but also help solve it.
As the Wicked Watch is a compellingly realistic and timely first entry in Tamron Hall’s new mystery series starring the ambitious and fabulous Jordan, a woman not unlike her creator. Hall was an award-winning anchor on NBC and MSNBC, was the first Black woman to host “TODAY” and now hosts the Emmy-winning “Tamron Hall Show.” Her fiction takes on racism, sexism, media ethics and institutional bias, offering a fascinating inside look at the intricate ballet that is a live newscast.
Readers spend much of the story inside Jordan’s very busy head. The naturalistic narrative reveals her investigative strategies, conflicting emotions and minimonologues about everything from Chicago restaurants to her quest for a healthy personal life as she works to earn the trust of Masey’s family and neighbors, and edges ever closer to the truth about the killer she believes might strike again. It’s a dangerous pursuit, but to Jordan it’s just part of “a calling and a purpose larger than myself.” As the Wicked Watch is a promising start to a series sure to appeal to fans of badass women with mysteries to solve and something to prove.
Tamron Hall’s debut is a promising start to a series sure to appeal to fans of badass women with mysteries to solve and something to prove.
On a sultry Los Angeles summer night, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington should have been having the time of his life. The boat was spirited, the ocean calm, the lights of Catalina twinkling in the distance. He had $25,000 in found money and a steamy redhead awaiting him back on shore. Perfect, but for the fact that he was bound hand and foot, his mouth duct-taped shut, and his allergies to L.
A. smog blocking most of his breathing through his nose. Sublime, but for two thugs named Vinnie and Manny, who are currently chaining him to an anchor and manhandling him to the stern. Compliments of Onofrio Ippolito, Manny says maliciously, planting his foot in the small of Stone’s back and kicking him overboard.
The balance of Swimming to Catalina is told in flashback: it seems that Stone’s one-time girlfriend, Arrington, has gotten married to screen idol Vance Calder. (If she had married Stone, she would have been Arrington Barrington, which is too painful to contemplate.) Now Arrington has gone missing, and Vance Calder summons Stone to help find her. Oh, and one more small detail: Arrington is pregnant, perhaps with Stone’s child. Reluctantly Stone leaves his digs in the Big Apple and catches the redeye to the Big Orange. Stone’s inquiries into Arrington’s disappearance do not go unnoticed by the criminal element of Los Angeles. It seems that wherever he goes a silver Lincoln Town Car follows. He changes hotels, changes cars, to no avail. The Town Car is registered to Onofrio Ippolito, a shady investment banker suspected to be linked to organized crime. The plot thickens . . . On the verge of a breakthrough, Stone receives a call from an excited Vance Calder: Arrington has returned, and Stone’s services will no longer be required. (If this sounds a bit fishy to you, imagine how it sounds to Stone.) Stone decides to stay in L.
A. a few more days, albeit incognito, to sniff around and see what he can turn up. Before he’s through a movie studio will be in turmoil, a criminal operation will be revealed, a mystery or two will be solved, and several people will wind up deceased.
In Swimming to Catalina, Stuart Woods has delivered another in a series of well-crafted, tightly plotted novels of suspense.
Bruce Tierney lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
On a sultry Los Angeles summer night, cop-turned-lawyer Stone Barrington should have been having the time of his life. The boat was spirited, the ocean calm, the lights of Catalina twinkling in the distance. He had $25,000 in found money and a steamy redhead awaiting…
Tamron Hall has long been a household name. She’s reported on and anchored major news stories for NBC and MSNBC, she became the first Black woman to host “TODAY” in 2014 and her Emmy-winning “Tamron Hall Show” is in its third season. Now she makes her debut as an author with As the Wicked Watch, which introduces readers to Jordan Manning. A savvy and dedicated crime reporter, Jordan is determined to find justice for two young Black girls found murdered in Chicago, despite pushback from the police and ever-increasing danger as she gets closer to the truth. Hall talked to BookPage about life on the crime beat, her transition from TV to the page and why Chicago is close to her heart.
Congratulations on becoming an author! Will you introduce us to the intrepid Jordan Manning? We follow Jordan, a young woman from Texas, now in Chicago, who becomes obsessed with a case that comes in through a call to her hotline number. Jordan is a complicated and very interesting woman. She’s at a critical point in her career where a national network job is looming over her head as an option, but her ties to Chicago and the people there keep her grounded. She started out believing her path would involve forensic science. Through life and her journey, she realized being a reporter and investigating was more for her than being in a lab and analyzing information.
Did going from telling stories on TV to crafting them on the page feel like a natural transition? What was the hardest, easiest or most fun thing about embracing your inner author? The most interesting part of this journey for me was piecing together the case in my book and how it would be solved. It was inspired by two cases I covered years ago in which children were not given the justice or care they should have received, whether it was the victims or the children who were accused of a heinous crime. For me, it was a natural transition. I wanted the book to read like a newscast. I wanted it to feel urgent, with the tone and the experience of a reporter. I was able to reflect on personal experience instead of having to interview reporters and get their take on what it’s like.
You’ve had and are having quite the impressive career, complete with major TV network jobs, talk show syndication, an Emmy win and more. What made you want to add author to your resume? I’ve thought about the two cases that inspired this novel—one in Texas and one in Chicago—since the late 1990s, when I covered them. I’ve always wanted to write a novel, but I didn’t know exactly what Jordan’s journey would be. In the middle of the night, it started to flood my mind. Perhaps being home more [during the COVID-19 pandemic] and needing a creative outlet in addition to the “Tamron Hall Show” was how this book was born. My experiences as a reporter on “Deadline: Crime” to reporting on the streets of Bryan, Texas, Chicago and New York City are all part of this journey.
“I wanted the book to read like a newscast.”
You’ve worked in morning television for some 25 years and must have that early riser routine down! Did that play a role in setting up your writing routine? Do you have a preferred writing spot, snack, music, etc.? Morning TV absolutely helped my routine. I wake up naturally at 4:30 a.m., and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we were taping my show later in the day. Every morning I would wake up early, grab a cup of coffee and just start writing. Twenty-five years of this early morning routine definitely allowed me the space to be creative when writing.
As Tam Fam members will note, there are many similarities between you and Jordan Manning, from the cities you’ve worked in to a particularly fabulous haircut. What are some ways Jordan is different from you? Jordan is a lot more anxious than I am. Of course, I am eager to do things and I get excited. But I don’t think that I have the same level of anxiety as she does. She’s also much more noncommittal than I was when I was dating. She is very much about moving past each guy quickly. Not that that’s a bad thing, that just wasn’t my particular journey in dating.
Anyone who’s seen you on TV knows you have an eye for fashion, and Jordan’s also a snappy dresser—including her trademark stiletto heels. Do you have any fashion talismans that help you feel at home no matter where work takes you? I think for me, it’s my hoop earrings. No matter where I am, my hoop earrings ground me professionally and personally.
Chicago is the vibrant and dramatic backdrop for Jordan’s story. What about the city made you decide to choose it as the setting for As the Wicked Watch? Chicago was a transformational part of my career. It was my first major market; Chicago was the last building block before going to the national news. I also felt the dynamic of policing and community all fit into the landscape. The politics, the policing issues, the fact that the city is so segregated according to those who live there and reported on it—it was a setting that made sense for Jordan’s journey.
“No matter where I am, my hoop earrings ground me professionally and personally.”
Jordan contends with racism and sexism on a daily basis. Although she’s developed coping strategies, it still takes a major toll. What do you hope readers take away from your book in terms of what it’s like to be a woman of color in the newsroom? I hope that people take away the reality of being in a newsroom. It is ironic that many of the stories about these issues are reported by reporters who are also experiencing them. Imagine being a reporter discussing a company that’s gotten in trouble because of a discrimination case, and you are facing that same type of discrimination within your workplace. It was only recently that we started talking about these things within the news industry. That’s the challenge for female reporters and reporters of color.
Jordan has never understood why college journalism courses are lumped in with marketing and advertising courses. “The disposition my job requires is more akin to a surgeon’s or a psychiatrist’s,” she says. Will you elaborate on that a bit for us? I think what she means by that and why she compares it to being a surgeon is because it is so precise and so strategic. It is a very focused and fine line, and I think that people underestimate that. You can’t be off the cuff, you can’t go in without a plan. As a psychiatrist, you have to, for lack of a better description, get into someone’s mind. For Jordan, being on the investigative team, she has to think like a police officer, she has to think like someone who has done something nefarious, she has to think like a victim and then ask, “How did this happen?”
Your book shines a light on the differences in how criminal cases are treated by the police, the press, politicians, etc., depending on the race, gender, age and other attributes of the victims. Do you think there’s hope for improvement or change? I believe that there is hope, but if I’m honest, there are days when I think there isn’t. Whether it’s George Floyd, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice or Breonna Taylor, for every example of progress, you are given the gut-punch realities of injustice. I think this book shows us both.
This is your first Jordan Manning mystery. Do you already have another one in the works? (No pressure!) Is there anything else you want to share in terms of what’s coming up next for you? I’m already four chapters into the next part of her journey. It takes her a little outside of Chicago, and we’re already starting to see more reckless behavior from her to show how committed she truly is to solving cases. Is she willing to put her own livelihood and safety on the line?
Is there anyone more qualified to write a mystery starring a crime reporter than journalist and TV host Tamron Hall?
Calcutta, 1923: Then, as now, the state of Muslim-Hindu relations evoked an image of a short-fused powder keg, awaiting only the striking of a convenient match. The murder of a prominent Hindu theologian provides said spark, setting the stage for Abir Mukherjee’s fifth novel, The Shadows of Men. Police Captain Sam Wyndham and Sergeant Surendranath Banerjee are tasked with unraveling the circumstances of the homicide before holy war breaks out in the streets and alleyways of West Bengal’s most populous city, Calcutta. Things take a complicated turn almost immediately, as Banerjee finds himself framed for the aforementioned murder and thus removed from the state of play, at least in any official capacity. But he and Wyndham have never been what you’d call sticklers for the rules, and this time will prove to be no exception. Their investigation, at times in tandem but more often in parallel, will carry them to Bombay, which is unfamiliar turf to both of them. There they will discover that there is more afoot than just age-old cultural and religious enmity, and that certain third parties may harbor a keen—albeit covert—interest in fanning the flames of mutual intolerance. The narrative is first-person throughout, switching from Wyndham’s perspective to Banerjee’s in alternating chapters, an unusual and clever approach that keeps readers dead center in the melee, while at the same time poised on the edges of their seats.
All Her Little Secrets
Wanda M. Morris’ debut novel, All Her Little Secrets, is a multilayered, atmospheric thriller with subplot atop subplot. In a 200-odd-word review, I can barely scratch the surface. The main characters are Atlanta corporate attorney Ellice Littlejohn, a Black woman who is the lead counsel for a thriving transport company; her brother Sam, a ne’er-do-well who skates very close to the edge of legality, and sometimes over the edge; her auntie Vera, once a ball of fire, now laid low by advancing episodes of dementia; and CEO Nate Ashe, a Southern gentleman who might be looking out for Ellice’s interests but who also might be a corrupt businessman attuned to the optics of displaying a minority woman in a position of power. Then there is a murder, and another, and it becomes next to impossible for Ellice to determine who is in her corner. Examinations of racism, sexism, ageism and classism (and probably other -isms I have forgotten about) abound, making All Her Little Secrets a very timely read, in addition to being one heck of a debut.
Psycho by the Sea
A handful of pages into Lynne Truss’ hilarious new installment in her Constable Twitten series, Psycho by the Sea, I found myself imagining it as a BBC TV series with an eccentric “Fawlty Towers” sort of vibe, perhaps with a screenplay penned by Graham Greene. The characters are delightfully overblown, the storyline whimsical (well, if a cop killer who boils his victims’ severed heads fits your notion of whimsy).The novel is set in 1957 in the English seaside town of Brighton, which is not the sort of place that jumps to mind as crime central. Still, a number of locals make a good living pushing the boundaries of the law, including Mrs. Groynes, the lady who makes the tea at the Brighton police station. Privy as she is to the daily departmental goings-on, she ensures that the constables will be conveniently far from wherever her crimes are set to take place. When the severed-head-boiling killer escapes from the psychiatric detention facility he has called home for several years, perhaps aided in that getaway by a staff psychotherapist, all manner of ghoulish things begin to take place in the otherwise somnolent resort. While Psycho by the Sea is not the most suspenseful story on offer this month, it is easily the funniest, the quirkiest and the most entertaining read of the bunch.
★ Silverview
When John le Carré passed away in December 2020, he left a gift behind for his readers: Silverview, one last novel from the master of espionage. The story goes that le Carré began work on the book nearly a decade ago, but it was held for publication as the author “tinkered” with it (a sly nod to his 1974 book Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy?). The tinkering paid off. Silverview is one of his best works, an intricate cat-and-mouse tale in which just who is the feline and who is the rodent is up in the air until the final pages. When bookshop owner Julian Lawndsley meets Edward Avon, he is virtually bowled over by the larger-than-life demeanor of the elderly white-haired gentleman. Together they hatch a plan to expand Julian’s bookstore. Meanwhile, British intelligence has launched an investigation into a long-ago incident in Edward’s life, one that suggests he may still be in the spy game. If this is true, it’s anybody’s guess who his employer might be, for it is certainly not the home team. Not that the home team could even remotely be considered the good guys, mind you. But I suppose treason is treason, irrespective of the morality of the players. Perhaps even more world-weary in tone than the le Carré books that preceded it, Silverview will make readers look askance at the sort of things their countries do on the world stage.
The Shadows of Men
Calcutta, 1923: Then, as now, the state of Muslim-Hindu relations evoked an image of a short-fused powder keg, awaiting only the striking of a convenient match. The murder of a prominent Hindu…
Something nasty in the woodshed Sometimes when I read mysteries by British women writers, which is as often as I can, a phrase from Stella Gibbons’s Cold Comfort Farm comes to mind: the something nasty in the woodshed once seen by Aunt Ada Doom.
An odd connection to make, you may think, considering that Gibbons’s brilliant parody is not a mystery and that a woodshed is not a common element in mysteries. But for me the connection is real and, given the odd workings of my mind and the principle of six degrees of separation, easily made. Usually there is something indefinably nasty lurking in the background of such British mysteries, something shudderingly different from the garden-variety sex, violence, and betrayal of American crime novels. Just as we never quite learn what it was in the woodshed that frightened Aunt Ada Doom, so are we often uncertain of the source of the nastiness in the mysteries. Sometimes even after we’ve read the last page.
So it is in Frances Fyfield’s latest suspense novel, Blind Date. In it, the kernel of the mystery as well as the wellsprings of the nastiness might lie in the sentiment, How do you make people love you? Variations on the enigmatic phrase are planted throughout, either as a thought of one of the characters or as the unseen narrator’s comment.
Caroline Smythe thinks it early in the novel. Caroline is spending, as she has for years, a two-week holiday at the bed-and-breakfast of an old acquaintance, Diana Kennedy. To say that Diana’s family are old friends would be false, as Caroline bitterly knows; what Diana has offered over the years is merely a pretense of friendship, laced with insults and rejection. Caroline has more than a passing interest in love in at least one of its forms. She runs an introduction service, a dating agency. The phrase arises again, twice, when Patsy, one of a quartet of young women friends, signs up with her agency.
Another of the quartet is Elisabeth, Diana’s daughter and a former policewoman who is recovering from severe wounds inflicted by an attacker. The wounds pain her less than the memory of her sister, Emma, slain by an attacker. Even more painful is her belief that she had caught the attacker, but he was freed by a judge who ruled her pursuit entrapment. The man subsequently killed himself, leaving behind the horrifying suspicion that he was not the killer after all. How, Elisabeth wonders, had she made the suspect love her? Even young Matthew, Emma’s son being raised partly by Diana, is affected. Stubbornly independent, reclusive, and besotted with gems as his late jeweler grandfather was, Matthew thinks, You are only as good as the people who love you. . . . How do you make people love you? Perhaps there can be too much of love, if it’s of the wrong kind, such as the smothering love of Caroline for her mama’s-boy son, Michael. He is, to return to that word, a nasty piece of work, just like his mother. He emulated her gleeful messing up of other lives, but he took it to extremes. Patsy is injured by an attacker and yet another of the quartet, Angela, is murdered by one. Are all of the attacks and murders being committed by the same person? Other questions arise, as they often do in mysteries. Did Matthew witness the murder of his mother and the attack on his Aunt Elisabeth? Who is Joe Maxell, besides being an acquaintance of Michael’s, and why is he sharing Elisabeth’s flat in the tower of a London church, a place so eccentric it defied belief? Why do all of these people seem to know each other? If there is any noticeable weakness in the novel, it rises out of that last question. The stew of personalities and murky motivations can be frustrating to deal with. On the other hand, it could be said that muddle is not a flaw but a hallmark of the mystery novel, so many of which have trouble keeping up with the dead bodies and how and why they got that way.
Fyfield’s mystery finally answers most of the questions it raises. It doesn’t open wide the door to the identity of the killer, but we know who’s behind it, and we’ve been led to the doorstep fairly early. The central, repeated question, however, goes unanswered. As to that, Joe and Elisabeth could tell us, you don’t make it happen, it just does.
Roger Miller is a freelance writer. He can be reached at roger_miller@bookpage.com
Something nasty in the woodshed Sometimes when I read mysteries by British women writers, which is as often as I can, a phrase from Stella Gibbons's Cold Comfort Farm comes to mind: the something nasty in the woodshed once seen by Aunt Ada Doom. …
Kinky Friedman, author, raconteur, country music singer ( They Ain’t Makin’ Jews Like Jesus Anymore ), and private eye is back for his 11th investigative outing in Blast from the Past. In flashback, Kinky explains the series of events that ushered in his gumshoe career, a quirky and convoluted tale involving the usual cast of characters/suspects, as well as fellow country contra Chinga Chavin and Yippie leader Abbie Hoffman, one of the inventors of the sixties. Shortly after having been convicted of complicity in the bombing of a Chicago bank, Abbie Hoffman went underground, where he remained for many years a fugitive from justice, always looking over his shoulder. Some of this time was spent in Kinky Friedman’s apartment or so Kinky tells it. Abbie and Kinky bore more than a passing resemblance to one another, so when someone took a potshot at Kinky, the immediate assumption was that Abbie was the intended target. But, as we all know, in a mystery novel nothing is ever quite that simple (particularly in a Kinky Friedman novel).
There is, of course, a girl. To protect the innocent, Kinky chooses to call her Judy. Judy is the proverbial bird with the broken wing; Kinky harbors no illusions, however, Once the wing heals good and strong, they beat you to death with it. To complicate matters, she may be sleeping with Kinky’s best friend, and she’s convinced she has seen the ghost of her flyer husband, killed in a plane crash in Vietnam.
Perhaps the best part of any Kinky Friedman novel is the barrage of topical one-liners and observations on subjects as varied as love and politics, death and cats. On the hippies and Yippies, The way I saw it, they hadn’t been wildly successful. When you start a revolution and you wind up with Nixon, it’s time to go back to the drawing board. On a little girl he met outside a Jane Street bakery, She had a spectacularly beautiful American face upon the planes of which intelligence and innocence fought a pitched battle that looked like it might last a lifetime. On his work, I felt particularly Christ-like as I cruised down Christopher Street, my cowboy drag drawing more than the usual number of stares from patrons of a leather bar just across the way. Like Jesus, I was without a home, without a wife, without a job. Also like Jesus, I was a skinny Jew who traveled around the countryside irritating people. It was good work if you could get it. Kinky Friedman is in a class by himself, some might say a world by himself, but from his little green trailer in Texas come some of the weirdest, darkest, and funniest mysteries of the decade.
Bruce Tierney lives in Nashville, Tennessee.
Kinky Friedman, author, raconteur, country music singer ( They Ain't Makin' Jews Like Jesus Anymore ), and private eye is back for his 11th investigative outing in Blast from the Past. In flashback, Kinky explains the series of events that ushered in his gumshoe career,…
Normally, when I read a book I either like it or I don’t like it. I don’t usually feel like inviting its author over for a pajama party. But this one had that effect on me. I’d never read anything by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith before, I’m sorry to say, but I think I’ve got a crush on her.
An American Killing is a murder mystery/thriller, narrated by a true-crime writer clearly based on the real-life crime writer Ann Rule (who, I bet, never figured she’d turn up as the protagonist of a novel). Rule, like the heroine of An American Killing, was a journalist whose longtime office buddy was arrested for a mass murder. In Rule’s case the friend and murder suspect was Ted Bundy; in the novel his name is different, but the details of the murders are pretty much the same. The arrest changed Rule’s life: at first convinced that a tragic error had been made, she decided to look into the case, and was deeply shaken to discover there’d been no mistake. She became fascinated by the idea that there are people who are evil inside, but who look and act just like you and me. She wrote a book about the Bundy case kind of a true-crime version of Hannah Arrendt’s book The Banality of Evil about the trial of Adolph Eichman. Rule’s book was a bestseller and led to a series of true-crime books that explored the same ground one about a mother who shoots her own children; another about a poisoner. Denise Burke’s career, in An American Killing, has been identical, up until now. This case is different: this one investigates a triple murder for which an innocent man is framed. In addition to her professional life, Denise is also married to a key member of the Clinton administration. (Hillary Clinton calls her occasionally to ask stuff like, what do regular mothers wear to school on Parents’ Day?) She’s got a complicated history, two teenage kids, a dog, a large house with a dining room in dire need of redecorating, and a summer place in Rhode Island. She manages this female I-can-have-everything-and-do-it-brilliantly prototype with humor, a heartwarming lack of efficiency, and exactly the right amount of cynicism. At one point it’s got to be either the dining room or the affair with the Rhode Island congressman, and she chooses the congressman probably, in retrospect, a bad choice. Still, that choice sets in motion the series of events that frame this book.
Plot aside (and I don’t mean to downplay it the plot is good), there is a sensibility at work here that is clear-eyed, contemporary, and incredibly charismatic. Tirone Smith has written four other novels. Prepare, as I will, to hunt them up and read them. And, Mary-Ann, if you’re ever in New Jersey, definitely call.
Nan Goldberg is a freelance writer in Hackensack, New Jersey.
Normally, when I read a book I either like it or I don't like it. I don't usually feel like inviting its author over for a pajama party. But this one had that effect on me. I'd never read anything by Mary-Ann Tirone Smith before,…
Michael Dibdin’s latest Aurelio Zen mystery, A Long Finish (the title refers to the lingering aftertaste of a fine wine), combines an education in wine making and truffle hunting with a witty, wacky, suspenseful plot, a satisfying set of gory murders, and a solution that keeps the reader guessing up to the last paragraph. For those who have not yet met Aurelio Zen, he is an arrogant, bumbling Italian police detective, who, despite his seeming incompetence, manages to solve mysteries that baffle lesser minds. His subordinates view him with awe. As the story opens, Aldo Vincenzo, one of the greatest vintners in Italy’s piedmont country, has been brutally killed. His son is being held for the murder. A wine connoisseur, collector, and world-famous film and opera director (and friend of police higher-ups), summons Zen. Now he’s dead and his son is in prison, all on the eve of what promises to be one of the great vintages of the century! he says. I want Manlio Vincenzo [the son] released from prison in time to make the wine this year. He tells Zen, Unless we act now, the grapes will either be sold off to some competitor or crudely vinified into a parody of what a Vincenzo wine could and should be. Zen is given a choice. Either get Manlio released from prison, or plan on becoming part of an elite corps of police officers who are being sent to Sicily to wipe out the mob. This, Aurelio Zen does not want, and we are launched into an absorbing (and funny) tale. Dibdin brings the Italian piedmont setting to life: russet and golden foliage sprouting from ancient stumps ; vines heavy with fat blood-red grapes ; the vast, cold damp cellar, its vaulted roof encrusted with a white mesh of saltpetre. He also brings its characters to life, describing three aging partisans, as interchangeable as pieces on a board in their dark, durable patched clothes, each garment a manuscript in palimpsest of tales that would never be told. A Long Finish is Michael Dibdin’s 12th book, and after reading this skillful writer’s latest tale, you’re sure to want to read the entire series.
Cynthia Riggs is a freelance writer on Martha’s Vineyard where she runs a B&andB for poets and writers.
Michael Dibdin's latest Aurelio Zen mystery, A Long Finish (the title refers to the lingering aftertaste of a fine wine), combines an education in wine making and truffle hunting with a witty, wacky, suspenseful plot, a satisfying set of gory murders, and a solution that…
Who knows how it happens. One day you pick up the 13th book in a mystery series, and the magic just isn’t there any more. The characters don’t appear as fresh or as interesting as they once did, and the plot leaves you wishing you’d opted for a racy romance novel. It’s difficult writing mysteries in series. Characters are expected to evolve and meet unique challenges in each new book, but sooner or later, some appear only as mere shadows of themselves. There is, however, an exception. The characters that spring from the fertile mind of Elizabeth Peters have never grown stale. The Ape Who Guards the Balance is the latest in the series and the 10th installment in the unusual life of Victorian Egyptologist Amelia Peabody Emerson. Together with her sexy, irascible husband, Radcliffe; handsome son, Ramses; his loyal friend David; and her lovely, trouble-seeking ward, Nefret, Amelia is once again up to her exquisite neck in crafty criminals and Egyptian tombs. The year is 1907, and as another archaeological season begins in Egypt even Professor Radcliffe Emerson’s brilliant reputation is of little use in securing a choice excavation site. His less than diplomatic nature has landed the family another boring concession digging in the Valley of the Kings. Just as Amelia decides that there’s nothing she can do but keep a stiff upper lip, Nefret, now a young heiress, purchases a mint-condition papyrus of the famed Book of the Dead. This ancient collection of magical spells and prayers designed to ward off the perils of the underworld soon proves to be the key to the mystery that plunges Amelia into renewed dangers with old enemies.
In addition to grave robbers and bold villains, this adventure also provides another encounter with Sethos, the elusive Master Criminal who made his first appearance in The Mummy Case. As expected, Sethos’s flagrant attempts to impress his beloved Amelia still outrage Radcliffe, but one begins, perhaps unwisely, to soften to his charm. In The Ape Who Guards the Balance, readers will see yet another facet of Sethos’s enigmatic and captivating personality.
Devotees who have followed Amelia Peabody since her first encounter with Radcliffe Emerson in Crocodile on the Sandbank should be prepared to see Ramses now grown to manhood and every bit as brilliant and appealing as his father. The Emerson’s ward, the beautiful Nefret, who Amelia rescued from an isolated and forgotten desert oasis in The Last Camel Died at Noon, has been transformed from a 13-year-old Priestess of Isis into a tantalizing young woman quite unaware of Ramses’s growing fascination with her. Unfortunately, some characters in any mystery series must, sooner or later, be phased out. One might remember, with sorrow, the passing of the cat Bastet. In this newest addition to the series, readers should be prepared one of the oldest and best loved characters meets a noble end.
In Elizabeth Peters’s delightful Amelia Peabody series, the magic is still there, and the characters and plots just keep getting better.
Who knows how it happens. One day you pick up the 13th book in a mystery series, and the magic just isn't there any more. The characters don't appear as fresh or as interesting as they once did, and the plot leaves you wishing you'd…
Robert B. Parker has been writing Spenser novels for a quarter century now, and, let’s face it, his wise-cracking, hard-hitting, classics-spouting hero is getting a little long in the tooth. It seems only natural that Parker would want to introduce a new hero to his readers, even as he continues Spenser’s adventures. That the hero is part of the Spenser milieu makes it easier to get to know him, and considering the character’s character, that’s probably a good thing.
Jesse Stone is a man with a past; he’s an ex-Los Angeles police officer, divorced, and an alcoholic in the making. For a young man, he’s carrying a lot of baggage when he becomes the police chief of the little town of Paradise, Massachusetts (which is where we met him in Night Passage, Parker’s first novel in this new series).
In Parker’s new novel, Trouble in Paradise, we pick up where we left off at the end of Night Passage. Jesse’s actress ex-wife is living in Boston now, working as a weather girl. Also in for a change of scenery is Jimmy Macklin, who’s just out of prison and looking for a big score; he thinks he’s found it in Paradise, specifically Stiles Island, a gated community for the very rich. Together with Faye, his girlfriend, and a hand-picked crew of criminals, he plans to cut Stiles Island off from Paradise, rob the entire island, then make his getaway by sea. What he doesn’t count on is Jesse Stone if Jesse can find the time to stop him. His plate is pretty full as it is, with a hate-crime to investigate, a wealthy family meddling in his investigation, and three (!) women after him. Thwarting a band of expert, bloodthirsty criminals might be the easiest thing he’ll do all day.
Trouble in Paradise is full of Robert B. Parker’s trademark snappy repartee, straight-arrow justice, and characters you care about. Jesse Stone is not as endearing a character as Spenser, but like Spenser, like reality, he shows a capacity for change. I’ve got a feeling he’ll grow on you.
Robert B. Parker has been writing Spenser novels for a quarter century now, and, let's face it, his wise-cracking, hard-hitting, classics-spouting hero is getting a little long in the tooth. It seems only natural that Parker would want to introduce a new hero to his…
Cat on the Scent, the seventh mystery co-written by Rita Mae Brown and her feline collaborator Sneaky Pie, features all the traits of purebred fun.
Recently Disney telecast a version of these mysteries, called Murder She Meowed. It was wonderful to hear the voices of Mrs. Murphy and Tucker, the cat and corgi sleuths who bring clues like gifts to their house-sharer, Mary Harry Harristeen. She’s the postmistress of Crozet, Virginia, and thus privy to the town’s news and gossip (and clues!) when residents pick up their mail. Crozet is shocked when a wealthy resident is shot during a Civil War battle reenactment. Of course Harry and her pets which now include another cat, Pewter get involved in solving the shooting, the first of several to rock the close community.
The sheriff considers the amateur detective a busybody, but concedes a fair amount of past success, little appreciating that her furry friends really deserved the credit. Lassie-like, they uncover and deliver clues, or coax humans to the evidence. Brown gives such intelligence to her animal characters that soon the reader begins looking more to the four-legged for insights into human behavior. The hilarious highlight of the book is a scene straight out of Disney the three animals collaborating to drive a car containing a shooting victim.
The antics of the animals, Brown’s witty observations, the history-revering Virginians, and the Blue Ridge setting make this a pleasurable read for lovers of this popular genre. Enjoying it with two dozing cats on your lap, as I did, made it all the more perfect.
George Bauman is the co-owner of Acorn Bookshop in Columbus, Ohio.
Cat on the Scent, the seventh mystery co-written by Rita Mae Brown and her feline collaborator Sneaky Pie, features all the traits of purebred fun.
Recently Disney telecast a version of these mysteries, called Murder She Meowed. It was wonderful to hear…
No one does an art thriller quite like B.A. Shapiro, and with such as novels The Art Forger and The Muralist, she’s carved out quite the niche by blinding literary thrills with questions of authenticity, value, museum politics and the inner workings of various historical art scenes.
Shapiro’s next novel, Metropolis, arrives this spring from Algonquin Books, and BookPage is delighted to reveal its cover and an exclusive excerpt!
First, read a bit about Metropolis in the official synopsis from Algonquin:
This masterful novel of psychological suspense from the New York Times bestselling author of The Art Forger follows a cast of unforgettable characters whose lives intersect when a harrowing accident occurs at the Metropolis Storage Warehouse in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
But was it really an accident? Was it suicide? A murder? Six mysterious characters who rent units in, or are connected to, the self-storage facility must now reevaluate their lives. We meet Serge, an unstable but brilliant street photographer who lives in his unit, which overflows with thousands of undeveloped pictures; Zach, the building’s owner, who develops Serge’s photos as he searches for clues to the accident; Marta, an undocumented immigrant who is finishing her dissertation and hiding from ICE; Liddy, an abused wife and mother, who re-creates her children’s bedroom in her unit; Jason, who has left his corporate firm and now practices law from his storage unit; and Rose, the office manager, who takes kickbacks to let renters live in the building and has her own complicated family history.
The characters have a variety of backgrounds: They are different races; they practice different religions; they’re young and they’re not so young; they are rich, poor, and somewhere in the middle. As they dip in and out of one another’s lives, fight circumstances that are within and also beyond their control, and try to discover the details of the accident, Shapiro both dismantles the myth of the American dream and builds tension to an exciting climax.
Metropolis hits bookstores and libraries on May 17, 2022. While you wait, we’re delighted to reveal the cover from designer Sara Wood and art director Christopher Moisan. Plus, an exclusive excerpt after the jump!
BOSTONGLOBE.COM, JANUARY 7, 2018. Cambridge, MA—Rescue workers were dispatched to the Metropolis Storage Warehouse at Massachusetts Avenue and Vassar Street in response to a 911 call at 11:15 this evening. At least one person was taken to Massachusetts General Hospital with critical injuries after a fall down an elevator shaft. Details are limited, and neither police nor hospital officials identified the victim. Questions were raised about what people were doing at the self-storage facility at that hour, and police are investigating other violations concerning the building. This is a developing story. It will be updated.
ONE
Zach
May 2018
It’s Rose’s fault. It’s Aetna’s fault. It’s Otis Elevator’s fault. All of the above and none of the above. Zach Davidson hovers at the edge of the crowd, but at six two it’s tough to blend into the background. The auctioneer doesn’t know Zach is the recipient of the money from the forthcoming sales, and he wants to keep it that way, although he doesn’t know why this matters. He isn’t even sure why he’s come, unless as some perverse form of self-flagellation.
“Most of you know the rules,” the auctioneer begins in her booming voice, “but I’m going to go over them quickly. Due to foreclosure of the building, the contents of twenty-two abandoned storage units are up for sale. The minimum bid is one hundred dollars. Cash only. I’ll open the door to each unit, and you’ll have five minutes to see what’s inside, and then I’ll start the auction. You may not cross the threshold. You may not touch anything. You may not ask me any questions, because I don’t have any answers. You take it all or you leave it all. Then we move on to the next unit. Is this clear?”
There’s a murmur of acceptance, which echoes off the concrete walls and floor, the steel-reinforced ceiling. They’re standing outside Rose’s old office, the woman Zach shouldn’t have relied on. Every direction he looks pisses him off. Rose’s empty desk, the dim bulbs, the peeling paint. He turns his back on the yellow police tape stretched across the elevator.
It’s been almost four months since it happened, and still no one knows for sure if it was an accident, a suicide attempt, or a murder attempt. Could be any of them, but it doesn’t make all that much difference. He’s screwed any which way. Damn elevator. Damn Rose. Damn hard luck.
He follows the auctioneer as she marches down a corridor lined with heavy metal doors, each imprinted with a round medallion containing a large M intertwined with a smaller S and W. Metropolis Storage Warehouse. One hundred and twenty-three years old. Six stories high. Ninety feet wide. Four hundred and eighty feet long. Almost four hundred storage units of various sizes and shapes; some even have windows. Zach knows it well.
Author B.A. Shapiro
The potential bidders are a mixed bunch. Two men in ratty clothes smell as if they’ve been sleeping on the street, which they probably have. Another three look like lawyers or real estate developers, and there’s a foursome of gray-hairs who appear to have just stepped off the golf course. A gaggle of middle-aged women in running shoes sends stern glances at a girl clutching a pen and a pad of paper, who seems far too young to be the mother of the children she’s yelling at. Male, female, tall, short, fat, slim, white, Black, brown, rich, poor, clever, or not so clever. Like the inner recesses of Metropolis itself, a diverse assemblage that stands in contrast to the archipelago of cultural and economic neighborhoods Boston has become.
Zach has owned Metropolis for ten years, bought at a ridiculously low price in a quasi-legal deal that looked to be the way out of the consequences of his bad choices. Although it still belongs to him, however temporarily, he has no idea what’s behind any of the doors. The building had a well-deserved shady reputation when he purchased it, and he concluded he was better off not knowing what people were storing in their units. In retrospect, a little prying might have averted this mess.
The auctioneer, a beefy woman with biceps twice the size of Zach’s, takes a key from her backpack and dramatically twists it into the lock. Then she slides the ten-foot-wide fireproof door along its track on the floor to reveal a murky room, lumpy with shadowy objects. She reaches inside and flips on the light.
“Take it all! Leave it all!” she cries. “Five minutes!”
Revealed by naked light bulbs hanging from the eleven-foot ceiling, #114 is decidedly dull. An old refrigerator, an electric stove, a bunch of mismatched chairs, a couple of mattresses, clothes overflowing from open cartons scattered all over the floor. There are at least two dozen sealed boxes lined up against the far wall and a four-foot pile of empty picture frames ready to topple. Everything is coated with what appears to be decades of dust. Zach groans inwardly. He needs every cent he can squeeze out of this auction, and no one’s going to bid on any of this junk.
But he’s wrong. After the auctioneer starts rippling her tongue in an impenetrable torrent of words, people start raising their hands. When the contents go for $850, Zach is flabbergasted. The other units surely contain more impressive stuff than this and should generate even higher bids.
Some do, some don’t, and two are completely empty.
“Take it all! Leave it all! Five minutes!”
When the auctioneer unlocks the door of #357, there’s a collective gasp. The interior looks like a stage waiting for the evening performance to commence: a complete upscale office suite, including a desk, bookshelves, and a small conference table surrounded by four chairs. Bizarre. It goes for $3,500.
On the fifth floor is a tiny and perfectly immaculate unit: a neatly made single bed, an intricately carved rolltop desk, a chair, a small bureau. Nothing else. One thousand dollars. In #454, there’s another bizarre tableau. Creepy, actually. It appears to belong to a couple of teenagers. Two desks piled with books and trophies, walls covered with movie posters, and corkboards adorned with invitations and photos and newspaper clippings. Did they come here to study? To hide? Zach stretches his neck in as far as he can without the auctioneer cutting it off.
She almost does. “Step back, sir!” she yells, her voice stiletto-sharp. “This minute!” Everyone looks at him as if he’s committed a heinous crime. “Take it all! Leave it all! Five minutes!”
Annoyed, he does as she orders, but he wants to see more, surprised to find himself interested in the lives lived here. This is something he’d never considered before, or to be more correct, he had thought about it, but only as a means to get the bad guys out of the building and clean up his own act. Now the questions surge. Who were these people? Why these particular items? And, most intriguing of all, why did they leave so much behind?
Unit 421 is another stage, but this one is freakish in its attention to detail. It’s a double unit with two round windows, and it looks like an upscale studio apartment, perhaps a pied-à-terre. Against one wall, a queen-size bed is covered by a rumpled silk bedspread and an unreasonable number of pillows. A nightstand holding a lamp and a clock sits to its right side; a large abstract painting is centered over the headboard. At the other end of the unit is an overstuffed reading chair, a writing desk, and a sectional couch, also with too many pillows, facing a large-screen television. In the corner, there’s a small table, two chairs, and a compact kitchen featuring cabinets, a refrigerator, a microwave, and a fancy hot plate.
“Take it all! Leave it all! Five minutes!”
This time there’s no doubt in Zach’s mind to whom the unit belongs, or rather, to whom it had belonged. Liddy Haines. He closes his eyes and presses his forefinger to the bridge of his nose in an attempt to make the horrific image go away, which it does not. Six thousand dollars.
Unit 514 was apparently used as a darkroom, and from the looks of it, also as a bedroom. He stares at the sheets pooling at the edge of a cot, at the dirty clothes heaped on the floor. He’s seen three beds in three different units over the last hour, and he clenches his fists to contain his anger. If Rose didn’t know people were living here, she should have. It was a lawsuit waiting to happen—even if it wasn’t the lawsuit now upending his life. An irony he’d appreciate more if he weren’t so damn furious.
In contrast to Liddy Haines’s unit, there’s no expensive furniture here, but there is a lot of high-quality photographic equipment. A long table edges the south side of the room, overflowing with trays, chemicals, jugs, paper, an enlarger, and an assortment of spools, filters, thermometers, and timers. A clothesline with pins attached stretches over the jumble, and there are at least a dozen five-gallon Poland Spring containers, most of them full, along with another dozen warehouse-size cartons of energy bars.
A Rolleiflex camera is perched atop a stack of cartons, its well-worn leather strap dangling. Zach recognizes it because of the nature photography he’s been doing lately, his current obsession. Highpointing, climbing the highest peak in every state, was his last one, and that’s what got him into taking landscape pictures in the first place. But his interest in mountaineering has been waning—thirty-two states is more than enough—as his new interest in photography has waxed. He’s usually only good for one obsession at a time, dropping the previous one when another grabs his fancy. He’s an all-in or all-out kind of guy.
The Rolleiflex is a twin-lens reflex, medium format, which hardly anyone uses anymore. But if you know what you’re doing, it takes remarkable photos. Zach rented one when he was at Bryce last year, and the first time he looked down into the viewfinder—which is at waist, rather than eye, level—he was blown away.
The vastness of the mountains and the big sky in front of him were perfectly reflected through the lens, without the tunnel vision effect of a standard camera. When he returned to Boston, he kept it a few extra days and experimented with street photography. The cool part is that because you’re looking down rather than directly at your subject, no one is aware they’re being photographed. Vivian Maier, arguably one of the greatest street photographers ever, used a Rolleiflex.
Zach leans into the unit as far as the Nazi will allow, searching for pictures. There are a few lying about, but it’s difficult to see them from the hallway. The ones he can see are all square rather than rectangular, a feature of the Rolleiflex. He tilts his head and squints at a photo on the end of the table closest to him: a striking black-and-white with afternoon sunlight cutting a diagonal across the image.
A man is standing in front of an open door with an arched top; the word “Office” can be clearly read behind his head. His shoulder leans against the doorframe, one knee slightly bent. His eyes stare off into the distance. Before Zach understands what he’s seeing, his stomach twists. It’s a photograph of him.
Praised by horrormeister Stephen King, Paul Tremblay’s shocking new novel, The Cabin at the End of the World, is an often graphic account of one family’s ordeal when their vacation is shattered in a cult-like home invasion. We asked Tremblay about the book’s origins, its dark path and his inner fears that helped forge the novel.
