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Readingomnivore Reviews

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’s GONE TOMORROW is one of her Detective Inspector Bill Slider novels. It was published separately in 2001, then republished in THE FOURTH BILL SLIDER OMNIBUS in 2007. DI Slider works out of Shepherd’s Bush CID in London.

When Lenny Baxter is found stabbed through the heart in Hammersmith Park, there are no witnesses and no forensics. Slider and his team are in for a long slog as they must backtrack Baxter to find his killer. They discover that Baxter is a small-time crook, grafting off women who’re receiving child benefits, selling drugs in the park, doing collections for loan shark Old Herbie Weedon, running . for illegal bookmakers; he’s on the fringes of a major criminal organization that has its elements rigidly compartmentalized and scared stiff of its boss. Slider and his team gradually build a chain of contacts, starting with a leather jacket, to connect them.

Harrod-Eagles does an outstanding job of misdirection, keeping attention focused away from the killer, so that the identity comes as a surprise. Foreshadowing is present; information is presented as Slider and his team uncover it; the conclusion is realistic. After Slider catches the killer, the criminal organization case is taken over by the National Crime Squad to finish off. There’s also the continuing story line of Slider’s relationship with Joanna, with its complication of her move to Amsterdam for a symphony job; Atherton’s tomcatting again on Sue.

The continuing characters--Slider, Superintendent Porson, Atherton, Joanna, the various members of Slicer’s team--are believable individuals. I especially like that Harrod-Eagles shows their success coming from a joint effort, not as a sudden brainstorm from Slider. She’s good at creating villains that, though evil, still have elements that keep them human.

Atmosphere and sense of place are strong. “Outside on the street Saturday night was winding itself up, and down in the shop they’d be bracing themselves for the influx, later, of drunks and druggies, the combative and the intellectually altered; barmy old gin-dorises wanting a maunder down memory lane, and stinky winos who’d performed their own lobotomies with decades of cheap booze and falling down on their heads; electric-haired conspiracy theorists; smudge-eyed lost teenagers scooped temporarily out of harm’s way; morally vacant youths who thought crime was a lifestyle choice. Black eyes, bleeding noses, wandering wits, sullen silences, vicious insults, foul language, an unstaunchable stream of repetitive stupid masquerading as cool; smell of fear of feet, smell of fear, smell of pee; and vomit, and blood. All the glamour of the eternal cops ‘n’ robbers story.” (99)

GONE TOMORROW is a substantial entry in this good long-running series. (A-)
 
Cynthia Harrod-Eagles’s GONE TOMORROW is one of her Detective Inspector Bill Slider novels. It was published separately in 2001, then republished in THE FOURTH BILL SLIDER OMNIBUS in 2007. DI Slider works out of Shepherd’s Bush CID in London.

When Lenny Baxter is found stabbed through the heart in Hammersmith Park, there are no witnesses and no forensics. Slider and his team are in for a long slog as they must backtrack Baxter to find his killer. They discover that Baxter is a small-time crook, grafting off women who’re receiving child benefits, selling drugs in the park, doing collections for loan shark Old Herbie Weedon, running . for illegal bookmakers; he’s on the fringes of a major criminal organization that has its elements rigidly compartmentalized and scared stiff of its boss. Slider and his team gradually build a chain of contacts, starting with a leather jacket, to connect them.

Harrod-Eagles does an outstanding job of misdirection, keeping attention focused away from the killer, so that the identity comes as a surprise. Foreshadowing is present; information is presented as Slider and his team uncover it; the conclusion is realistic. After Slider catches the killer, the criminal organization case is taken over by the National Crime Squad to finish off. There’s also the continuing story line of Slider’s relationship with Joanna, with its complication of her move to Amsterdam for a symphony job; Atherton’s tomcatting again on Sue.

The continuing characters--Slider, Superintendent Porson, Atherton, Joanna, the various members of Slicer’s team--are believable individuals. I especially like that Harrod-Eagles shows their success coming from a joint effort, not as a sudden brainstorm from Slider. She’s good at creating villains that, though evil, still have elements that keep them human.

Atmosphere and sense of place are strong. “Outside on the street Saturday night was winding itself up, and down in the shop they’d be bracing themselves for the influx, later, of drunks and druggies, the combative and the intellectually altered; barmy old gin-dorises wanting a maunder down memory lane, and stinky winos who’d performed their own lobotomies with decades of cheap booze and falling down on their heads; electric-haired conspiracy theorists; smudge-eyed lost teenagers scooped temporarily out of harm’s way; morally vacant youths who thought crime was a lifestyle choice. Black eyes, bleeding noses, wandering wits, sullen silences, vicious insults, foul language, an unstaunchable stream of repetitive stupid masquerading as cool; smell of fear of feet, smell of fear, smell of pee; and vomit, and blood. All the glamour of the eternal cops ‘n’ robbers story.” (99)

GONE TOMORROW is a substantial entry in this good long-running series. (A-)
 
Tamara Ward’s STORM SURGE is the first book in her Jonie Waters mystery series, set in Wilmington, North Carolina. It was released in e-book format in 2011.

Reporter Jonie Waters has been run out of Cheatham County, Tennessee, after she exposed financial improprieties by the Sheriff and two of his deputies; she’s gone home to Wilmington, North Carolina, which she’d left years before to escape her dysfunctional family. Her boss has pulled strings and gotten her a job as a freelance reporter on the Wilmington Tribune. While Jonie’s completing her employment interview and paperwork with editor Lee Sanford, she gets a tip for a news story at the nearby Marine Biology Research Center; when she gets there, she discovers the body of her childhood friend Abby Pridgen. Abby, a professor researching the cause of persistent fish kills on the Cape Fear River, had been punched in the face, knocked off the boardwalk at the Center, and impaled upon a broken tree trunk. She’d been ten weeks pregnant. Investigating the case are Wilmington police detectives David Wyeth and Jonie’s step-sister Kimmie, who hates her guts; Kimmie does everything she can to cast suspicion on Jonie. But who wanted Abby dead--her research supervisor Stephen Ballings, with his history of romancing female researchers and stealing their work; the unknown father of her baby; Dean of the College of Marine Biology Lynne Kipling, jealous of Ballings; Jason Rossini, Josie and Kimmie’s old boyfriend, who’d developed a relationship with Abby; Phaser, Kimmie’s twin and Josie’s step-brother, the only member of her family Josie stayed in touch with, who’d loved Abby since he was a teenager; Mark Listlen, Abby’s ex-fiance who’d been stalking her since their breakup; or someone involved in the pollution leading to the fish kills? Desperate to use the story to parley her freelance into a permanent position on the Tribune and to remove herself as a suspect, Jonie goes over and above to find the killer.

The plot in STORM SURGE has a good collection of suspects and possible motives; the identity of the killer is foreshadowed, though Ward keeps attention focused elsewhere. I have several major questions, however, about police procedures and Jonie’s background. For one thing, Jonie’s described as nearly broke, dependent on her freelancing job, yet she owns a downtown apartment building inherited from an aunt. Does it not generate income? Wouldn’t the Wilmington Police Department have DNA testing done on Abby’s fetus to determine its paternity? With Jonie identified as a person of interest to the police, would Kimmie be left on the case?

Jonie Waters is a believable protagonist, especially since everything except the prologue is from her first-person point of view. She’s got believable emotional baggage, she’s stronger than she knows, and she’s mature enough to try to reconcile with her family. She does, however, pull major TSTLs, especially for someone who should know better. Jonie ignores the necessity for chain of evidence when she finds in Abby’s trashed office and keeps a strange key; when she traces it to Abby’s college post office box, she finds and keeps a thumb drive containing Abby’s research findings. She breaks into Stephen Ballingers’s office, then she leaves the drive in Ballinger’s computer when she prints out the research files. She never considers that she’s leaving fingerprints all over. There’s alsot he obligatory sizzling attraction between Jonie and the lead detective Daniel Wyeth.


Ward is good with setting and atmosphere: “I...couldn’t disappear in Wilmington. Between large families and old money and friends of friends, run-ins and mutual acquaintances were unavoidable. This was the South, after all. We kept tabs. Also, with the river and nearby beach, the history and distinct charm, not many people wanted to leave Wilmington. The city bred closeness.” (26)


Several editorial problems bother me. One is the formatting. There’s no vertical spacing between paragraphs; each new paragraph is indented only one space. Occasionally a several-paragraph segment is indented five spaces. This produces screens that are solid blocks of text. No matter what letter a singular noun or a person’s name ends with, its possessive is made by adding ‘s. “Canon” (a body of works) and “cannon” (a large-bore gun) are not the same. Jonie takes a thumb drive out of Abby’s post office box, but by the time she tries it on her computer and thereafter, it’s a disk. Which? Another annoyance is the lack of a family name for Kimmie and Phaser.

STORM SURGE has good potential, but it needed another edit before publishing. (C)
 
KILMOON is the first book in Lisa Alber’s County Clare mystery series. It was published in 2014 in e-book format.

KILMOON opens 28 June 2008 in Northern California, where Adrew McCallum, dying of liver cancer, goads his daughter Merrit into giving him an overdose of pain medication by taunting her with his relationship with her mother Julia. They’d met at the famous matchmaking festival in Lisfenora, County Clare, Ireland, and been matched by Liam Donellan, the matchmaker himself. Merrit travels to Ireland to meet Liam after receiving a letter telling her that Liam’s her father. She finds herself involved with a local blackmailer Lonnie O’Brien and his repulsive mother; Liam’s adopted son Kevin; homeless man Marcus Tully whom she befriends; Garda Sergeant Danny Ahern, who’s almost a second son; Lonnie’s slave-wage assistant at the Internet Cafe Ivan; and Kate Meehan, also Liam’s daughter who’s out for the main chance. Then Lonnie O’Brien is murdered. Lonnie’s got plenty of enemies, but who kills him the night Liam’s birthday party kicked off the matchmaking festival?

The plot reads as if Alber had to produce a specific number of pages, regardless of the length of good story. It involves excerpts from Liam’s memoir, Julia’s notebook of the trip to Ireland, and past newspaper accounts and letters to provide information about what happened between Liam, Alexander, Julia, and Adrienne Meehan. The modern story line ends in a series of “solutions” to the murders, past and present, one after the other until the disclosure of the killer’s identity comes as anticlimax.

None of the major characters are very appealing. Each seems convinced of his or her own righteousness, more than willing to suspect the others and yet to refuse to give information to the police. Point of view shifts among them without adding much to characterization.

Atmospheric description is the strongest element in KILMOON. “Our Lady of the Kilmoon nestled in her pasture with the Celtic standing stone her guardian. She extended her shadow over grave markers and minded her business in the genteel way of a bustled and high-bosomed matriarch of old, fanning herself with the breeze, dabbling herself with sea-scented rain. She neither turned away nor embraced visitors who passed over her threshold. When they departed, as they usually did, the fecund remain of the dead became her to brood over once again. Scudding clouds eclipsed the sun, and their shadows passed over Kilmoon likke distress sullying an otherwise placid expression.” (301) Unfortunately this isn’t enough. (D)
 
BUBBA AND THE TEN LITTLE INDIANS is C. L. Bevill’s riff on Agatha Christie’s Ten Little Indians. It was published in e-book format in 2015, the sixth book in the Bubba mystery series. I’ve enjoyed Bubba Nathaniel Snoddy, his mother Miz Demetrice, his fiancee Willodean Gray, and all the assorted inhabitants of Pegramville, Texas, since the first book in the series. Unfortunately this entry is far below par.

The plot opens with David Beathard, resident of Dogley Institute for Mental Well-being, formerly known as superhero the Purple Singapore Sling, comes to Bubba for help. David, in guise of Sherlock Holmes this time, believes that two patients at the Institute have been murdered and their deaths passed off as a heart attack and a suicide. Bubba’s overwhelmed by the WWWA (World War Wedding Armageddon) that Miz Demetrice and Willodean’s mother Miz Celestine are planning with the aid of Peyton, a New York City metrosexual wedding planner. When Bubba goes to the Institute, someone blows up the only cell-phone tower, the telephone junction station, and the road that’s the only access to the Institute; eleven people, including Bubba and his Basset hound Precious are isolated. Then people begin disappearing or winding up dead. Were the first two murdered? Who’s after the others?

There are several things that hamper my appreciation of BUBBA AND THE TEN LITTLE LOONIES. The plot is thin. It presupposes great familiarity with the earlier Bubba books. The killer’s motive makes little sense, and the solution isn’t set up. I’m too whimsey-impaired to appreciate the storyline. The humor is forced and not very funny. The action covers Saturday morning to Monday, but it seems longer.

There’s an overabundance of characters, many of them from previous books in the series, with none of them developed beyond a tag or two. David is the only patient with a full name; none of the other inmates or Preston have family names. Bubba talks as if he’s a too-country reject from Hee Haw. He’s also made into a fumble fingers who destroys most anything electronic or mechanical that he touches. As originally written, Bubba has a college degree, is well-read and a skilled auto mechanic. Everything is told from Bubba’s point of view, giving the story a claustrophobic feel. Miz Demetrice and Miz Adelia are referred to; Willodean has two cameo appearances only.

The sense of place is still good. “The way to the Dogley Institute wasn’t a difficult trek, but there was only one way to go. One simply left the greater downtown area of metropolitan Pegramville and headed north. After a few miles the farms disappeared into piney forests and great thickets that people had been known to go into and never come out. Eventually there was a left turn onto a narrow two-lane road. That road cut through a deep ravine with the Sturgis River on one side and splintering red rock cliffs on the other. [Bubba] drove over a narrow bridge and wound up on the top of a deeply forested mesa. Once, all the land had belonged to a distant cousin of the Snoddys who wanted to grow coffee beans, but he’d lost all his money during the Great Depression, sold the land to a developer, and moved to Argentina with his third wife, never to be heard from again.” (66)

BUBBA AND THE TEN LITTLE LOONIES is simply not up to the standard of the earlier books in the series. (C-)
 
David Campbell and Sean Campbell’s DEAD ON DEMAND is a riff on Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train. It is available in e-book format published in 2012. It’s set in modern-day London.

Edwin Murphy decides that murder makes better sense economically than divorce so, using hidden services within the Internet referred to as the “dark net,” he recruits an unknown person with “you kill mine, I’ll kill yours.” Without any face to face contact or identities exchanged, each will be safe from suspicion. Vanhi, a prostitute, kills Eleanor Murphy as agreed while Edwin is in Vancouver for a job interview. But Edwin doesn’t want to commit murder. He goes back to the dark net and recruits another killer to take out Vanhi’s client, knowing he’s not going to kill Barry Chambers’s people himself. After all, neither of the killers has any way to know who he is. Or do they?

I’m giving up at 27%. The number of characters, potential murderers, and potential victims keeps multiplying. None of the characters are appealing. The premise, especially its escalation by Edwin, seems highly unlikely. Setting and atmosphere are the strongest elements in DEAD ON DEMAND, but they aren’t enough to carry it. No grade because not finished.
 
Monica Fairview’s THE DARCY COUSINS is another fan-fiction sequel to Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, one of the better ones I have read. It was published in e-book format in 2012.

THE DARCY COUSINS is the story of Georgiana Darcy, Anne de Bourgh, and the American cousins Frederick and Clarissa Darcy. It opens at Rosings with the Darcys all present for their annual Easter visit to Lady Catherine de Bourgh. The dashing Clarissa and quieter Georgiana determine to draw Anne out of her isolation, encouraging her to walk and converse with them; they are so successful that Anne stages a disappearance which leads Lady Catherine to banish the Darcys. After extensive searches, it’s concluded that Anne took sail for Philadelphia. In the meantime, Georgiana and Clarissa have become acquainted with three eligible young men: Henry Gatley, who seems disapproving of both; Percy Channing, who seems courting both; and Odysseus Moffet, who seems too self-centered to care for either. The story continues with misunderstandings, confusion about feelings, angst, and finally the triumph of love.

Characters are strong and the originals faithful to Austen. The new characters are appropriate, especially Henry Gatley. The relationship between Georgiana and Gatley echoes the earlier courtship of Elizabeth and Darcy. Georgiana is a dynamic character who grows up realistically as she discovers that not all men deserve to be trusted and that trust must be earned.

Fairview opens the action somewhat by including contemporary events--Napoleon’s return from Elba and eventual defeat, the great exhibition of Oriental artifacts by the East India Company, and the paintings of J. M. W. Turner. She makes good use of setting and atmosphere: “Even Anne’s situation...was not enough to quell their [Georgiana and Clarissa] spirits as the carriage rolled into London, and the hustle and bustle of Town overwhelmed their senses. A more extreme contrast to Rosings could not be found. The motley cries--newspaper boys, knife grinders, chimney sweeps--the streams of conveyances--carts overloaded with vegetables jostling for position with shining yellow barouches--the hoards of people--the costermongers, the bands of charity school children, the porters, the fashionable ladies, the merchants. They had entered a different land.” (144)

My only caveat about THE DARCY COUSINS is that it implies Lady Catherine is a Darcy by blood, not simply the sister of Fitzwilliam Darcy’s mother. Only he, Georgiana, Anne, and Colonel Fitzwilliam are her blood kin; the other Darcys are not. I do understand the networking by marriage so common during this period and among the aristocracy and gentry.

If you like Austen fan fiction, I recommend THE DARCY COUSINS. However, I suggest that you read Fairview’s THE OTHER MR. DARCY first, since it sets up the arrival of Robert Darcy and his subsequent marriage to Caroline Bingley. (A-)
 
The subtitle of Michael Farquhar’s A TREASURY OF GREAT AMERICAN SCANDALS: TANTALIZING TRUE TALES OF HISTORIC MISBEHAVIOR BY THE FOUNDING FATHERS AND OTHERS WHO LET FREEDOM SWING gives a good summary of its contents. It was published in e-book format in 2003 and tells strange and interesting stories about American leaders that are generally omitted from our pasteurized, politically correct textbooks that bore students into total dislike of history. It cuts off at 1980. It’s hard to know how to do a review of A TREASURY OF GREAT AMERICAN SCANDALS. There are too many great stories in each of seven sections to even list them all.

Farquhar explains his choice of subjects: “Certainly the worst episodes of our national past, from Indian degradation to slavery, deserve serious treatment--but in other books. Here the concentration is on individuals, rather than institutions, behaving badly. And though many movie stars, career criminals, and business tycoons have contributed their share to the stew pot of scandal, the people in and around government have consistently added the most spice.”

Part I is “Family Ties That Bind...and Gag,” discussing dysfunctional families, making clear that the generation gap did not originate in the 1960s. In all the attention paid to Abraham Lincoln, relatively few know that Robert Todd Lincoln, his oldest son, had his mother Mary Todd Lincoln declared insane and unable to manage her person or affairs; he had her committed to the Bellevue Place, a private asylum outside Chicago. She was given no warning, taken from her home directly to a packed courtroom, and allowed no effective defense. Her son’s greatest concern seemed to be the amount of his potential inheritance Mary Todd Lincoln was spending.

“Cold Wars” in Part II recounts some of the great feuds between political leaders, wars of words and of duels. Andrew Jackson, one of the champion haters, met Charles Dickinson in a duel that had originated in horse racing debts and moved into personal insults. In the first shot, Dickinson’s bullet lodged near Jackson’s heart (and remained there the rest of his life) but, despite his wound, Jackson shot Dickinson dead. Jackson was involved in a famous duel with Thomas Hart Benton and his brother Jesse, in which Jesse was shot in the buttocks; he also participated in a duel with John Sevier. Jackson was rabid in his defense of the honor of his beloved wife Rachel Donelson Robards, their having married before her divorce from first husband Lewis Robards was achieved; this charge of adultery and/or bigamy became a major issue in the campaigns of 1824 and 1828 and led to Jackson’s defense of Margaret “Peggy” Eaton, which contributed greatly to the enmity between Jackson and John C. Calhoun.

Part III is “Hail to the Chaff,” discussing the less successful of American presidents, including Franklin Pierce. His college roommate had been Nathaniel Hawthorne, whose campaign biography made Pierce look like a cross between St. Francis of Assisi and Alexander the Great (116). Pierce was elected, and Hawthorne was appointed to the diplomatic corps in England as his reward.

Part IV is “Congressional Follies,” covering literal floor fights especially in the years leading up to the Civil War. Most Congressmen carried guns; Benjamin Wade of Ohio carried a sawed-off shotgun in the Senate chamber. Some of the prominent sexcapades include Wilbur Mills of Arkansas and Fanny Foxe who, among other things, went swimming in the Tidal Basin pool. His association with her cost him Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee and ultimately his career. Not enough attention is paid to the unparalleled invective of John Randolph of Roanoke, possibly the strangest-ever elected official in US history.

Negative attacks and dirty tricks are nothing new in American politics. Part V is “Cruel Campaigns,” discussing the 1800 broil between Jefferson and Adams; the “corrupt bargain” campaign of 1824 and the vituperation in 1828 between Jackson and John Quincy Adams; Lincoln’s two campaigns; and the 1884 campaign in which Grover Cleveland’s acknowledged illegitimate child is supposed to have asked: “Ma! Ma! Where’s my Pa?” “Gone to the White House, ha, ha, ha!”

Part VI proposes establishment of “The American Hall of Shame,” with charter members Benedict Arnold; Aaron Burr (standard Jefferson version of Burr’s alleged plans); Roger Taney, whose Dred Scott decision in 1857 intensified the tension that produced the Civil War; Henry Wirz, commandant of the infamous Andersonville prison camp in which so many Union soldiers died; A. Mitchell Palmer, enforcer of the Red Scare 1919-20; Warren Harding, whose friends robbed the US Government blind in the various scandals usually lumped together as Teapot Dome; Joe McCarthy; J. Edgar Hoover; and Richard Nixon.

“Murder, Madness, and Just Plain Strange Episodes” in Part VII include the man who would be queen, Edward Hyde, Lord Cornbury, royal governor of New York 1702-1708. He was Queen Anne’s first cousin and showed his loyalty to her by dressing in women’s clothing. He opened the Assembly in full court dress, and a portrait of him in drag, complete with five-o’clock shadow, hangs in the New York Historical Society. Sarah Henry, wife of Patrick Henry, was confined in the basement of their Virginia estate for four years before her death, often in a straitjacket, suffering from what would now be called postpartum psychosis that made her dangerous to her children.

The final section is “Remains to Be Seen,” covering the perambulations of the bodies of various American figures, including Abraham Lincoln whose body was disinterred some dozen times before eventually being put to rest in the current monument in Springfield.

A TREASURY OF GREAT AMERICAN SCANDALS includes two appendices, one a tabular presentation of biographical facts on each of the presidents through George W. Bush and the other a chronological listing of important events in US history beginning with the Vikings. A select bibliography and chapter notes provide materials for further reading. The style is accessible and occasionally funny. Farquhar does not include any revisionist history, presenting the standard interpretations of Aaron Burr’s conspiracy and of the suicide of Meriwether Lewis--Wilkinson is presented as a patriot in his denunciation of Burr and not even mentioned in the death of Lewis. Still, for someone who believes history is the dull, dry facts found in public school textbooks, A TREASURY OF GREAT AMERICAN SCANDALS will be a good introduction to a living history. (A)
 
Peter Grainger’s BUT FOR THE GRACE is the second book in his DC Smith Investigations series. It was published in e-book format in 2014.

When an elderly resident at Rosemary House Joan Riley dies unexpectedly, her physician asks for an autopsy; something reminds her of the death some months before of Mrs. Riley’s friend and fellow patient, Elspeth Grey. A month later, the toxicology test results show that Mrs. Riley had died of a massive heroin overdose taken orally. Since Rosemary House is an upmarket facility and the Assistant Chief Constable’s mother is a patient there, Superintendent Allen is most anxious that the case be handled quickly and discreetly, without alerting the media. Detective Alison Reeve, in her first senior officer in charge case, has Sergeant DC Smith, and four others on her team. There is no physical evidence, no forensics, and no apparent motive for murder. But how would an elderly woman obtain heroin? And who closed her eyes?

The central plot of BUT FOR THE GRACE is the issue of assisted suicide, a topic in the news for many years. It’s police procedural in format, so the identity of the assistant is not in much doubt, just whether Smith, who in effect runs the inquiry, can bring it home to him. The secondary story line of Smith’s cautious re-entering of the dating game and his meeting Jo Evison, a true-crime writer who wants to write a book on one of Smith’s earlier cases, makes up almost as much of the story as the death of Joan Riley.

Grainger creates an authentic community of individuals with individual talents, skills, and attitudes who form an effective team, almost in spite of their superior officers’ preoccupation with public relations, budget cuts, and manpower shortages. Smith is unique, in that he’d risen to Detective Chief Inspector but, after the Andretti case (about which Jo Evison wants to write), asked to be reduced in rank to Sergeant, where he’s remained. A widower for three years, he’s eligible for retirement with full pension, he’s beginning to doubt the purpose police work when convicted criminals receive ridiculously light sentences, and he has an attractive job offer from an old mate now doing well in the security business. But he’s lost none of his effectiveness: “[Irene Miller] took another look at the detective sergeant and he returned it, eye to eye. He wasn’t rude, wasn’t officious, but there was something...she struggled for the word...something almost relentless in the way he moved methodically through his list of questions, in the way he went straight on through any reservations she might have about what he wanted to know or how he wished to proceed.”

Sense of place is good, with Grainger using it to reveal character as well. “They were almost at the top of the hill, could see the roundabout ahead and beyond it the view down into the old city. Through the thin, miserable sleet he could name every church spire, knew the businesses that occupied every commercial block and could detail the criminal records of occupants of every one of the towers out to the east. The cranes at the docks were skeletal and barely visible now but if you watched long enough from here you would see them swing loads onto ships bound for European ports, and no doubt some of those loads contained contraband that he would be able to find if he had the time and the men to do it. Priorities. Long ago DCI Miller had said to him that it was a war--we advance, we retreat, Smith, but you’d better make sure that we never lose. The law is the wavy line between order and anarchy, between civilization and chaos...”

BUT FOR THE GRACE is another satisfying entry in the DC Smith series. (B+)
 
Jack Caldwell’s THE THREE COLONELS: JANE AUSTEN’S FIGHTING MEN are Colonel Christopher Brandon (Sense and Sensibility), Colonrriageel Richard Fitzwilliam (Pride and Prejudice), and Colonel Sir John Buford (Caldwell’s character, married to Caroline Bingley from Pride and Prejudice). Mention is made of General and Captain Tilney (Northanger Abbey), and Lt. William Price (Mansfield Park). Secondary characters from Austen include the Darcys, the Bingleys, the Wickhams, the remaining Bennet sisters (both of whom are happily married by the end of the book), Lady Catherine and Anne de Bourgh, Edward and Elinor Ferrars, John Willoughby, Sir John Middleton, and Mrs. Dashwood and daughter Margaret. It was published in e-book format in 2012.

Much of the plot deals with the change over time of Caroline Bingley after the Darcys’ marriage and after her humiliation at the hands of her society “friends” at the triumphant introduction of Elizabeth Bennet Darcy at Almacks. It’s more important than ever that she marry well to remove the stigma of trade. She meets and is attracted to Colonel John Buford of Wales, who was had been created a Knight of the Bath for his heroism in the Peninsular War. He seeks to redeem his character from justified rumors of rakishness. Neither believes in marriage for love between members of the Ton, but theirs quickly becomes a love match. Sir John and Caroline honeymoon en route to the Congress of Vienna, where he as a linguist is on the personal staff of the Duke of Wellington.

When all three colonels are recalled to active duty with Napoleon’s escape from Elba, focus shifts to the impact on their families and themselves as they prepare for and face the coming campaign that ends at Waterloo. All three colonels survive, though Sir John is gravely wounded and loses an arm; George Wickham dies honorably at Waterloo.

Things that bother me about THE THREE COLONELS include detailed sex, especially Caroline and Sir John’s wedding night--too much information! There are enough characters and information for at least three books, one for each of the colonels (Richard Fitzwilliam marries Anne de Bourgh after the war). Shifts in viewpoint between characters develops them, but it also makes the narrative choppy. Is Lady Beatrice Wellesley, Wellington’s hostess in Vienna, his cousin as originally stated or his sister? Attitudes, and occasionally behavior, often seem much more modern than Regency. Still, THE THREE COLONELS isn’t a bad read as Austen fan fiction goes. (B+)
 
Cynthia Harrod-Eagle’s DEAR DEPARTED is one of her DI Bill Slider series. It was originally published in 2004 and reissued as part of THE FOURTH BILL SLIDER OMNIBUS in 2007.

DEAR DEPARTED opens with Slider’s arrest of master criminal Robert Bates, aka The Needle, who’d been identified as the killer of Susie Mabbot some years before. He then moves on to the apparent death by stabbing of Charlotte “Chattie” Cornfeld in Paddenswick Park. She’s thought to be the third victim of a serial killer dubbed by the media as the “Park Killer,” because he kills in daylight, in well populated public parks. But it doesn’t feel right to Slider, and the autopsy and toxicology screens show that she’d been given a massive dose of quick-acting barbiturates. The stab wounds were mostly superficial and made when Chattie’d already lost consciousness. So the team must find a personal motive and killer. The police use a master demo disc from the jazz-classic fusion group Baroque Solid to identify her. Chattie ran a consulting business Solutions, working mostly with musical groups. She’s doing very well financially so, when search of her home turns up a significant amount of cocaine, the first suspects are her resentful, drug-involved half-sister Jassy Confeld and her drug-dealer boyfriend Darren Barnes. Two of the men in Baroque Solid have been Chattie’s lovers, and oboist Toby Harkness had been obsessed. There’s also the secret negotiations of her father Henry Cornfeld, of Cornfeld Chemicals, to sell his company to Global Chemicals. Chattie and her older half-sister Ruth are substantial shareholders in Confeld. But who needed Chattie dead, and why?

The plot is police procedural with appropriate foreshadowing, yet the killer’s identity is a surprise. The result is a team effort, rather than a one-man show. A new member has been added, Tony Hart, a smart, smart-mouthed DC from Brixton who’s excited to get into real policing after six months on the Diversity Advice Follow-Up Team (DAFT). Details of personal life--Joanna’s pregnancy and Slider’s reactions, Atherton’s break-up with Sue and his realizing how much he misses her--remind that these are individuals, not cogs in a machine. At the celebration for solving Chattie’s murder, Superintendent Porson calls Slider to announce that Bates escaped from custody when being transferred, setting up at least one sequel.

Harrod-Eagles is good with succinct characterization. Of one of the intelligence boffins associated with the capture of Bates, she says: “Ormerod was a large and serious man, who towered over Slider and would have made two of him in bulk, and at least ten in conscious supremacy. He had a handsome, authoritative face, eyes like steel traps, and the smell of power came off him like an aura. This man was from the far, far end of policing, the place of hard deals done behind closed doors, of anonymous corridors, tense telephone calls, operations with code names and briefings with senior ministers where the senior ministers behaved quite meekly. It was as different from Slider’s place on the street as the Cabinet Room of Number 10 was from the checkout at Tesco’s. Slider felt faint just breathing Ormerod’s aftershave, and when Ormerod smiled, it was even more frightening than when he didn’t.” (294) Most of the story is shown through Slider’s eyes, so he’s the best developed of the characters, though Harrod-Eagle has created an authentic community of police.

Sense of place is also good: “On the Paddenswick Road side, the park was bounded by a low wall with spiked iron railings, the whole combination about nine feet high. An iron gate let on to a wide concreted path, which ran straight for twenty feet and then branched to give north-south and east-west walks, plus a curving circumference route round the northern end of the park that was popular with runners. The whole park was pleasantly landscaped, mostly grassy with a few large trees and one or two formal flower-beds beside the paths, filled now with the tidy summer bedders beloved of municipal gardeners--bright red geraniums, multicolored pansies, edgings of blue and white lobelia and alyssum. It was all open space, not at all murder territory, except for a stretch of vigorous shrubbery of rhododendrons, spotted laurels, winter viburnum and other such serviceable bushes, plus a few spindly trees of the birch and rowan sort.” (306-7)

DEAR DEPARTED continues a long-running series with strength. (A-)
 
Monica Fairview’s THE OTHER MR. DARCY is a continuation of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, following Caroline Bingley in her journey to self-knowledge and a loving marriage with the other Mr. Darcy, Robert Darcy of Boston, Massachusetts. It was published in 2009.

Caroline Bingley meets Robert Darcy when she collapses in tears following the wedding of Fitzwilliam Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet. She’s mortified but, by the time she meets him again officially, she’s concluded that he’s beyond the pale socially. En route to Pemberley at short notice because Elizabeth is ill, the party of Caroline, Louisa Hurst (now widowed), Robert Darcy, and Colonel Fitzwilliam are forced to put up for several days with Fitzwilliam’s friends the Loughs. At their house party, rumors spread that Caroline is momentarily expecting a proposal of marriage from Sir Cecil Pynes; to save her face, Robert Darcy announces that he and Caroline are engaged. The relationship continues apace as Robert Darcy makes clear his feelings about the hidebound social rules Caroline is so fixated upon, and she learns how her “friends” of the Ton really regard her--tainted by Trade and thus ineligible for marriage despite her looks, money, and manners. In the meantime, Wickham has eloped with a married woman; he’s later wounded in a duel with her husband and dies of his wounds. Elizabeth’s illness resulting from losing a baby leaves it uncertain if she will be able to bear children. As Caroline explores her feelings, the engagement goes from face-saving to reality based on love.

THE OTHER MR. DARCY uses limited third person point of view that shows Caroline’s changing attitudes explicitly. There’s a bit much of her not realizing Robert’s feelings for her and her impetuosity when she thinks he’s sailed for Boston without seeing her. Fairview gives Fitzwilliam Darcy a Lady Catherine de Bourgh moment when he confronts Caroline to tell her he will not sanction Robert’s marriage to her, she coming from Trade not being an appropriate match for the heir of Pemberley, should he and Elizabeth not have a son. This, however, does not last long. The other characters carried over from Pride and Prejudice follow the originals closely.

There’s not much sense of place, despite physical locations and the humor of the Nottingham goose fair. Two minor problems in editing bother me. The first is the woman with whom Wickham eloped from Newcastle. She’s at first identified as a Mrs. Greene, but her husband who wounds Wickham in the duel is identified as Captain Finchley. Which? Fairview has all the women present at Wickham’s funeral, but it was not customary during the period for females, even close relatives, to attend funerals.

Still, as Austen fan fiction goes, THE OTHER MR. DARCY isn’t bad. (B+)
 
Duncan Whitehead’s THE GORDONSTON LADIES DOG WALKING CLUB was a free or inexpensive e-book published in 2012.

THE GORDONSTON LADIES DOG WALKING CLUB opens with a contract killer preparing a grave site in Gordonston Park, a private park in the upmarket neighborhood of Savannah, Georgia. It then moves to the club members--three women who meet there daily at 4 PM to allow their dogs to run and to share cocktails and gossip. All are concerned with the impending death of another of their members Thelma Miller. When she dies of throat cancer, her husband Elliott Miller becomes an attractive target for widows Cindy Mopper and Carla Zipp; not only is he well off financially, but he’s the longtime alderman for the district and expected to run for mayor at the next election. It then moves into Elliott’s time years before in Buenos Aires, where he may have met an elderly Adolf Hitler.

I’m giving up at 24%. So far Thelma’s death is the only significant event. The flashback is clunky, and nothing is made of the possible Hitler survival. Whitehead’s exposition establishing the characters is not integrated but presented as “what you need to know” information chunks. Writing style is monotone; shifts in point of view do little to add to characterization. The strongest element in the story is the setting, but it’s not enough to carry the book. I just don’t care enough to continue. No grade because not finished.
 
Donald Tyson’s short story “The Curse” was published in THE RAVENER & OTHERS: SIX JOHN DEE AND EDWARD KELLEY OCCULT MYSTERIES in e-book format in 2012. Dr. John Dee is the English polymath who did pioneer work in mathematics, navigation, and geography. He was a friend of Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the so-called School of Night, an early advocates for the establishment of an English empire. He served as court astrologer to Elizabeth I; Dee believed that he communed with heavenly spirits through his skryer Edward Kelley.

On progress at Kettleridge Hall, Elizabeth I and her court observe what appears a fit of madness in Anne Downing, one of her maids-in-waiting whom Elizabeth wants to match to sea captain William Pikes. Anne is showing signs of illness, inattention, fretfulness, so Elizabeth sets Dee to observe her. Dee concludes Anne’s being poisoned; Elizabeth, concerned about her own safety, orders him to discover who’s behind it. Anne believes herself under a curse, told to her by her father on his death bed, that she must never marry, else she and her children would be mad. The elderly woman Dee suspects of poisoning Anne is found murdered with a human finger bone and grave mould near the body, implying that she’d been a witch. A divination by Kelley discloses the origin of the curse and who’s responsible for the poisoning.

Interesting story with good historic detail, though Anne Downing and her suitor are fictional. There’s a believable tension between Dee, who truly believed, and Kelley, who appears more manipulator. (B+)
 
Sofie Ryan’s THE WHOLE CAT AND CABOODLE is the first in her Second Chance Cat mystery series. It was published in e-book format in 2014. It features Sarah Grayson, owner of the repurpose shop, Second Chance, and her adopted stray cat Elvis. It’s set in North Harbor, Maine.

The mystery is the death by poisoning of Arthur Fenety, boy friend of Maddie Hamilton; he’s poisoned at Maddie’s home with Napthathion, a banned pesticide, and she’s arrested for his murder. Arthur had been a con man with a string of wives and girl friends all over New England. Her good friends Liz French, Charlotte Elliott, and Rose Jackson, all honorary aunts of Sarah, who spent summers with her grandmother Isabel, are determined to prove her innocence, and Sarah is drawn in by her need to protect the elderly women.

SPOILERS****SPOILERS****

THE WHOLE CAT AND CABOODLE has most of the cozy mystery cliches. To begin with, the women have no reason to involve themselves. There’s no indication that the police are railroading Maddie or failing to investigate the death fully. The lead detective Michelle Andrews has unfinished business with Sarah, but she’s competent and open-minded. Charlotte’s son Nick is the death investigator for the county medical examiner, attracted to Sarah, so he passes on information that probably should not have been made public. Rose’s elderly admirer turns out to be a computer whiz who hacks into all sorts of systems for information. Elvis is a feline lie-detector whose response Sarah learns to read; when confronted by the killer, Elvis rescues her by dropping a live mouse on the woman’s foot.

There’s a distinct shortage of viable suspects throughout the book. Sam Grant, the son of one of Fenety’s “wives,” is introduced well after the fact of the murder, and the circumstances of the murder make it highly unlikely that he could be the killer. Arthur’s sister Daisy is mentioned one time and is accepted at face value as a recent in-comer; until their confrontation in the climax of the plot, there’s no hint of a possible motive. There’s no suspense and not much sense of place.

None of the characters, including Sarah Grayson as first person narrator, are well developed. Sarah’s another cliche--single woman in her thirties, lost her dream job and comes back to where she’d spent happy summers with her grandmother, busy but connected with her grandmother’s friends, attracted to Nick Elliott but not acting on it yet. Nothing individualizes her. Charlotte, Rose, and Liz are the standard quirky elderly friends, with Alfred Peterson as Rose’s admirer as much for the comic relief of his posing nude as the model for a drawing class as for his computer expertise. They could be from any number of cozy mysteries.

I kept reading THE WHOLE CAT AND CABOODLE because the reviews had been so glowing, I thought I would eventually find something wonderful. The fireworks never went off. (F)
 
RIDDLED ON THE SANDS is the fourth book in J. J. Salkeld’s Lakeland Murder series set in and around Kendal, in Cumbria. It was published in e-book format in 2013 and features Detective Inspector Andy Hall.

One of the best features of this series is the sense of a real community of police officers doing the best they can in less than optimum conditions, faced as they are with personnel cuts, superior officers more politicians and accountants than detectives, lack of funds for sustained investigations, and some colleagues with minimal work ethics. Superintendent Val Gorham has turned out to be less draconian than Hall and his team feared, both because Hall has learned how to manage her and because she recognizes his case clearance record is a positive reflection on her administration. Salkeld uses shifts in point of view to reinforce personal detail and individual traits that create believable human beings whose lives and work continue between installments of the series

Another factor adding verisimilitude is the team’s working on more than one case at a time. In RIDDLED ON THE SANDS, local Morecambe Bay net fisherman Jack Bell disappears. His tractor is found trapped in the sands and, acting on instinct, Sergeant Ian Mann has it dug out and subjected to forensic analysis. A bullet is found, one that contains DNA from Jack Bell, who apparently was cut down by a double burst of automatic weapons fire; ten bullets and a shell casing are recovered from the sands, with evidence of many more shots ricocheting off the tractor. What on earth is going on? While the team investigates the murder, Detective Constable Jane Francis, who’s now in a relationship with Hall, investigates an anonymous letter sent to sleazy on-line merchant John Perkins, threatening to destroy what he holds most dear; when his garage containing most of his stock is burned to the ground, she’s assigned to the arson case. As Hall and the team continue the Bell case, its ramifications come to include a mole communicating operational plans to drug dealers, massive shipments of drugs brought into the United Kingdom, and Mann’s old mates from the Marines to interdict the drugs.

Characterization is the strongest element of RIDDLED ON THE SANDS. “Jimmy Rae and his invisible mate made Hall nervous. It wasn’t just that they worked to different rules. It was the nagging sense that Rae lived in a strictly binary, black and white world. You were with him and his mates, and whatever it is they thought they were protecting, or you were against them. And Hall just didn’t see anything like that. He understood that you had to have a very specific world view to ever be able to pull a trigger, and he knew that he never could. Because the harder he looked at anything, absolutely anything at all that involved people, the more complicated it became.” Sense of place and plot dynamics are also well above average.

RIDDLED ON THE SANDS is perhaps the best to date of the series. (A)
 
BOARD STIFF is the fifth book in Annelise Ryan’s Mattie Winston mystery series. It was published in e-book format in 2014, featuring Mattie Winson, medicolegal investigator for the County Medical Examiner’s office in Sorenson, Wisconsin.

Mattie’s a mess when BOARD STIFF opens. Her relationship with Detective Steve Hurley turns out to be a one-night stand since, while they were still in bed, his wife Kate shows up. Not only did she not file divorce papers some fifteen years before as Steve’d thought, she brings along Emily, the daughter he never knew he had; they move in because they’re homeless. Mattie loses it and spends two months gambling away half of her divorce settlement (some $200,000). Since the demise of her relationship with Steve Hurley means the nonfraternization policy between medical examiner and police personnel is no longer an issue, Izzy gives her job back. Her first case back is the death of Bernie Chase, owner of the Twilight Nursing Home, which brings Mattie and Steve back into sexually explosive contact. Bernie’s cause of death is not readily apparent. Rumors abound that Bernie’s been killing off the bedridden patients at the nursing home to keep his bottom line in the black; he’s in an affair with the evening charge nurse; he and his wife Vonda Lincoln are effectively separated though still living in the same house. Suspects abound, but there’s no evidence. Who wanted him dead, and why?

POSSIBLE SPOILERS***POSSIBLE SPOILERS

Several things bother me about BOARD STIFF. One is the extent to which lawyers can and do limit and delay the investigation of the ownership of the nursing home. The details should be a matter of public records accessible through the incorporation papers and through state and local licensing agencies. Another is the failure of the Sorenson police to take seriously allegations of so many deaths so soon after patients entered hospital-type care.

I’ve not read LUCKY STIFF, the fourth book in the series, which may account for some of the change in Mattie Winston as first person narrator and protagonist. The gambling addiction is a new development, one not foreshadowed previously. In fact, she’d experienced such a hard time financially since the divorce that it is a major inconsistency that she’d gamble away so much in such a short period. She and Hurley ignore the nonfraternization policy when she knows, should they be caught, she’ll lose her job with the odds practically nil that she can find a nursing job in Sorenson. She pulls a major TSTL at the nursing home, putting her into a life-threatening confrontation with the killer. And as a trained, experienced nurse, she’s at least eight weeks pregnant before she realizes it. Then she decides she’s not going to tell Steve Hurley about the baby while he’s agitated with Kate and Emily.

Two of the strong points of the series have been humor and a good sense of place. Both are sadly lacking in BOARD STIFF. It’s a sad falling-off from earlier books in the series. (C-)
 
CAT SITTER AMONG THE PIGEONS is the sixth book in Blaize Clement’s Dixie Hemingway mystery series set on Siesta Key, off Sarasota, Florida. It was published in 2010. Dixie, formerly a Sarasota County Sheriff’s Department deputy, is now a professional pet sitter.

Dixie’s helping the injured Mr. Stern tend his American Shorthair Cheddar when his granddaughter Ruby arrives unexpectedly on his doorstep with her four-month-old daughter Opal. Ruby’s the prime witness against Myra Kreigle whose trial for a $200,000,000 Ponzi real estate investment operation begins on Monday. Myra lives next door to Mr. Stern and observes Ruby’s arrival. When Dixie leaves, she’s followed, kidnapped, taken to an out-of-town location, where it’s discovered she’s the wrong woman; she’s released unharmed, but she knows she was taken in mistake for Ruby. The man behind the kidnapping is Kantor Tucker, the multimillionaire who posted $2,000,000 bail for Myra Kreigle. Then, under cover of an arson, Opal is abducted from Mr. Stern’s home and Ruby is told that the price of Opal’s life is her not testifying against Myra. Ruby agrees. Can Opal be recovered so that Ruby’s free to tell the truth?

The plot in CAT SITTER AMONG THE PIGEONS depends on several coincidences: Ruby looks like a younger edition of Dixie, same size, same blonde hair, which sets up Dixie’s kidnapping that produces the first information about the plot against Ruby; Dixie sees Myra’s spying on the Stern house and suspects she’s involved int he kidnapping; Dixie overhears Turker’s threat against Opal if Ruby testifies; and Dixie enters Myra’s empty house and overhears Myra telephoning Tucker about the nursemaid and the location of the abducted Opal. It seems improbable that such a vital witness in a major case would not be in protective custody or in a witness protection program. It also seems unlikely that, knowing she’s possibly in danger, Ruby would go to her grandfather’s house, literally next door to Myra’s home on Siesta Key. The climax, in which Opal’s father, pro drag-racer Zack Carlyle, his friend Cupcake Trillin, inside linebacker for the Bucs, and Dixie rescue Opal from the kidnapper is over the top. Clement does make it easy to suspend disbelief and enjoy the ride.

The personal story line continues. Dixie has entered a relationship with Guidry, willing to admit that she loves him. He’s been offered the job as head of the Homicide Division of the New Orleans Police Department, and he’s eager to return to help rebuild his city. “Sunlight, humidity, and sandy sea breezes have softened all the hard edges on Siesta Key. Petals of hibiscus blossoms are indistinct at their edges, palm-fronds are faintly fringed at their borders. Even the thorns on the bougainvillea have a vagueness at their tips as if they might decide to turn soft if the idea pleased them. All over the island the lines are sinuous, undulating, ambiguous. The Key is eight miles long, north to south. We are bordered on the west by the Gulf of Mexico and on the east by Roberts Bay and Little Sarasota By. We have some of the finest beaches in the world, some of the wealthiest part-time celebrity residents in the world, and a steady current of sun-dazzled tourists. We also have every shorebird and songbird you can think of, manatees, dolphins, the occasional shark, and semitropical foliage that would smother us in a minute if we didn’t keep it trimmed back. The Key is where I was born and where II will die. If I moved somewhere else, I wouldn’t be me.” (42) Can she follow the man she loves?

CAT SITTER AMONG THE PIGEONS is a good addition to the series. (B)
 
Anne Hillerman’s ROCK WITH WINGS is the second book in the Navajo Nation mystery series created by her father Tony Hillerman. It is a new 2015 release in print as well as e-book formats. As before, it features Officer Bernadette “Bernie” Manuelito and her husband, fellow Officer Jim Chee, of the Navajo Nation Police. Their former boss and mentor Joe Leaphorn is slowly recovering from the gunshot wound suffered in SPIDER WOMAN’S DAUGHTER, coming along physically but still unable to speak, communicating by one tap for “yes,” two for “no” until Bernie sets him up with a laptop so that he’s able to help solve their cases.

Bernie and Chee are vacationing in the Monument Valley where his cousin and clan brother Paul is beginning a photography tour business; he offers use of his new hogan in exchange for their help. However, Leroy Bahe, head of the Navajo Police contingent there, asks for Chee’s help for a few days while his personnel are off training, to ride herd on a movie crew that’s filming a zombie movie in the Valley; Chee agrees. Then Bernie gets a call that her younger sister Darleen, who lives with their mother, stayed out all night and isn’t answering her cell phone, so Bernie needs to return home, only to be pressed into service by Captain Largo. Chee has to find one of the movie bunch who went off in the desert and in the process finds a gravesite, complete with charred human bone, and deals with an over-zealous security guard who winds up shot dead in the hotel suite of the movie’s producer Delahunt. Bernie has a traffic stop in which the driver demeanor is suspicious, but there’s apparently nothing illegal going on. Her curiosity is fueled by the FBI’s interest in the traffic stop and by Agent Cordova’s refusal to give any information about why they’re interested in Michael Miller. By the time Bernie’s case is closed, skinwalkers, endangered plants, and an old man’s determination to preserve his view of Ship Rock come into play.

As in SPIDER WOMAN’S DAUGHTER, point of view shifts between Bernie and Chee. Both are developed characters, uneasy between the traditional Navajo ways in which they were reared and today’s world. Hillerman is good at using details of setting to reveal character: “Bernie knew that geologists described Ship Rock as the core of an ancient volcano. The dikes, or stone walls, that radiated from it had once been lines of liquid glowing lava that spewed up through the earth rather than pouring from the volcano’s mouth. One Dine story, also violent, told of Ship Rock as the home of vicious birds that scooped up the People and fed them to their fledglings. Geologists disagreed about the age and force of the volcanic field that created Ship Rock and the dikes, just as the People’s stories of the rock’s origin and purpose varied depending on the storyteller. As Bernie saw it, the diversity of stories reinforced the idea that there are many valid ways to see the world and live in harmony, in hozho, with nature and your fellow humans.”

Others are less developed, though Hillerman is producing some interesting newcomers. One is Rosella Tsinnie, the first woman investigator for the Navajo Police, trained by Joe Leaphorn years before. She’s smart, tough, and irascible. Bernie’s Mama and Darleen, as well as Leaphorn and Louisa, continue the sense of real people with real lives that continue between installments. The number of characters far exceeds those strictly necessary, and many have only last names.

The elements of both storylines, Chee’s movie-crew mystery and the outcome of Bernie’s traffic stop, fit together but not seamlessly. Parts of both are obvious, and the conclusion of Bernie’s case depends on a change of heart by a felon and on the appearance of a skinwalker.

Still, Anne Hillerman is continuing a long-running series in satisfactory style. (B)
 
WYCLIFFE AND THE DUNES MYSTERY is a late entry in his long-running mystery series featuring Detective Chief Superintendent Charles Wycliffe. It was printed in 1993 and reissued in e-book format in 2010.

Wycliffe and his team come into action when the naked body of an unknown young man is found buried in the dunes near the village of Hayle, near St. Ives in Cornwall. His backpack and clothing prove him to be Cochran Wilder, son of MP Royston Wilder, who had disappeared from a walking holiday along the coast in May 1977. He had died from a severely depressed fractured skull caused by a blow to the top of his head. The only clue to his demise is an inscribed antique silver necklace found in the pocket of his clothing. As they investigate, Wycliffe and his team discover that a group of sixth-formers occupied a holiday chalet near the dunes for a partying weekend, though they all as now (1992) deny having seen Cochran Wilder. Someone sends anonymous postcards and warnings to five of the group; Henry Badger, local eccentric and uncle to Gillian Grey, one of the sixth-formers, is the likely suspect. Badger, however, asks Wycliffe, if he dies suddenly, to investigate his death even if it appears to be from natural causes. Badger soon thereafter dies in the same manner as Cochran Wilder. What had Badger known, and who needs it hidden?

The plot is police procedural in format, and Burley plays fair in foreshadowing both killer and motive. It’s a skilled variant on the “old sins casting long shadows” theme.

One of the strengths of the series, as well as of WYCLIFFE AND THE DUNES MYSTERY, is the relationship between Wycliffe and his subordinates, skilled professionals all, but who value each other as individuals. Wycliffe’s a complex character, still surprised by the vagaries of human nature: “He felt depressed. Even after more than thirty years in the police, he still found it hard to accept that happy families are a rare breed. It was strange the extent to which his upbringing and the stories he’d read as a child still conspired to colour his outlook on life, his judgements and his expectations.” Burley introduces a new member to the team iin Detective Constable Iris Thorn, daughter of Afro-Caribbean immigrants, whose pleasant smile conceals an unexpectedly steely determination.

Setting is always prominent in Burley’s works, and WYCLIFFE AND THE DUNES MYSTERY is no exception. “Kersey walked to Foundry Square through drizzling rain and found Russell’s Ope. It was a row of white-walled cottages fronting on the blank ramparts of a deserted foundry complex left over from the days of Hayle’s greatness. Once, the vast cylinders for mine pumping engines were cast here, and it was from this foundry that the Dutch commissioned the largest pumping engine in the world to empty their Haarlem Lake. Now it had about the same relevance to modern industry as a flint-knapper’s yard.”

WYCLIFFE AND THE DUNES MYSTERY is a satisfying read. (B+)
 
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