Last Update 2/15/12
Carte Blanche
by Jeffery Deaver, Pocket, 2011, $9.99, ISBN 978-1-4516-2935-4
Deaver,
whom I’ve never read until now, takes over the James Bond franchise with
this longish and quite good adventure. He is part of an operation to
discover the nature of a rumored terrorist act but is hampered by laws
which prohibit from pursuing the case in the normal fashion because he
is in the UK. The chief villain, Severan Hydt, is the head of a
glorified trash and recycling company, aided by a singularly unpleasant
chief of staff. Bond has to outwit Hydt and the rival British
intelligence service as well, because the agent in charge is hopelessly
incompetent and obstructive. Doing so takes him to various locations
around the world including South Africa and brings him into contact with
a sizable number of interesting characters. There is a succession of
surprise revelations at the end that caught me unawares. As an aside,
although I generally ignore blurbs, I had to respond to the one quoted
on the cover from the Washington Post which claims that Deaver
“brilliant captures Fleming’s style.” Clearly whoever reviewed it had
never read Ian Fleming, probably basing his or her comments on the
movies, which this novel more clearly resembles. Deaver is American, not
British, and the difference is at times obvious. He also moved Bond to
the present day, not a bad idea but it certainly doesn’t help to emulate
Fleming’s style. Worst of all, the relaxed pacing, slight sense of
Bond’s own moral ambiguity, and the dwelling on details of incidentals
like card games is almost entirely absent. It’s a very good novel, but
nothing like anything Fleming ever wrote. 2/15/12
Boca Daze by
Steven M. Forman, Forge, 2012, $25.99, ISBN 978-0-7653-2876-2
I
was mildly disappointed by the second in this series, mostly because the
first one was so good, but Forman is back in stride with the third
adventure of Eddie Perlmutter, retired Boston cop and now popular
private detective in Boca Raton, known colloquially as the Boca Knight.
He has several new cases this time including a chain of illegal
dispensers of legal drugs, a Ponzi scheme with national implications, a
team of assassins who target Eddie and his friends, a crooked priest, a
comatose homeless man, and others some of which are tied to one another.
The book moves along at an almost frantic pace but always without losing
control, even when Eddie himself loses control. He also has to come to
terms with his own erectile disorder and make common cause with a
violent street gang. Great fun from the first page to the last. 2/10/12
Death
Comes to Pemberley by P.D. James, Knopf, 2012, $25.95, ISBN
978-0-307-95985-0
The
Adam Dalgliesh mysteries by P.D. James rank second only to Dorothy
Sayers in my estimation, but James brought that series to a close with
her previous novel. This one is a sequel to Jane Austen's Pride and
Prejudice, and captures the tone of that brilliantly while adding in
a low key but puzzling mystery. Elizabeth Darcy's brother in law is
accused of murdering his best friend in a woodlot near Pemberley one
evening, and his drunken statement that he is responsible for the man's
death is interpreted as a confession. An alternate solution seems
unlikely given the alibis available to all of the other principle
characters, but the reader knows that some surprise is in the offing.
I half suspected the truth in this, but despite the well constructed
mystery element, this is more about the characters than the detection,
and in fact no one actually solves the crime until the guilty party
confesses. Different in tone from James' other novels, but no less
well written. 2/8/12
ing for Tomb
Service by Kate Kingsbury, Berkley, 1997
One
of the two Pennyfoot Hotel mysteries I was missing showed up on Ebay.
It’s about average for the series, but comes late in the sequence when
Kingsbury was showing more interest in her various characters than in
the detection sequences. Her low key romance is also starting to heat up
a bit. She pokes a bit of fun at the clergy this time around, and
there’s a particularly annoying accountant who is gone by the end of the
book. The mystery itself is okay but not really that interesting. More
enjoyable for the byplay than the main feature and not one of the
stronger titles in the series. 1/27/12
Dig Deep for
Murder by Kate Kingsbury, Berkley, 2002
While
digging a new garden, residents of Manor House discover a dead body
buried in a shallow grave. It’s one of the local people and suspicions
rise involving locals as well as the American soldiers stationed in the
village. Naturally our heroine has to investigate to clear up matters,
even if that puts her own life at risk. The romance evolves slightly as
do the other subordinate stories, but the mystery this time is pretty
tame and uninteresting. One of the low points in the series. 1/16/12
Fire When Ready
by Kate Kinsbury, Berkley, 2004
When
a munitions factory is built near a small British village, the locals
are upset because it’s a natural target for German bombing raids. Then
the factory explodes, killing the owner, but not because of the
Germans. Someone local is responsible. Is it a saboteur or someone with
a grudge against the dead man? Or, as the police believe, was it simply
an unfortunate accident? There are threatening letters, business
rivals, rumors of an affair, and other complications. Reasonably good
detective work alongside the usual variously amusing and annoying
sideplots involving the recurring characters. One of the better entries
in the series. 1/16/12
The Emperor’s Tomb
by Steve Berry, Ballantine, 2011, $9.99, ISBN 978-0-345-50550-7
I’ve
seen several of this author’s books but this is the first I actually
read. Many contemporary thrillers – particularly those that constitute a
series – involve heavy doses of testosterone and weapons porn and very
little actual story, usually ineptly told. But there is a sprinkling of
good ones in the mix. This particular one involves Chinese politics,
lost Confucian manuscripts, a kidnapped child, assassinations, ancient
traditions, a secret order of eunuchs, a two fisted gun toting hero and
an equally competent female lead. There’s not much mystery – we get to
see all the parties at work and there’s no confusion about motivation –
but there’s lots of action. This falls somewhere between the two
extremes. It’s clearly an adventure story similar to Andy McDermott, but
it avoids most of the silliness of Clive Cussler or Stephen Coonts. I
would read more by Berry, but I wouldn’t make a special trip to the
store to find his latest. 1/14/12
Death Watch by
Jim Kelly, Minotaur, 2010
This
is the second in the Peter Shaw series. Shaw is a young detective who is
investigating the murder of a man who operated the organ and drug
disposal incinerator at a major hospital. His death seems linked to the
disappearance sixteen years earlier of his twin sister, or does it?
There are some questionable characters living at a local hostel, a
mysterious old man who may be more than he seems, rumors of a
frightening figure known as the Organ Grinder, hints of impropriety at
the hospital, and a plethora of clues, some of which seem to contradict
one another. Underlying that is a back story in which Shaw investigates
a case which disgraced his father. This is a very complex mystery and it
involves a bit of coincidence to cause two separate story strands to
overlap, but that's part of the fun. Not quite as good as the first in
the series, but head and shoulders above most other detective fiction
I've read recently. 1/9/12
For Whom Death
Tolls by Kate Kingsbury, Berkley, 2002
A
Manor House mystery. An altercation between two American soldiers
stationed in Britain during World War II is followed by the death of the
one of them, found hanging in the church belfry. The lady of the manor
decides to investigate for herself, in part to smooth the animosity
between the two groups, in part because she has a thing for an American
major, and in yet another part because her secretary has a crush on the
chief suspect. For the most part this is a genuine detective story
despite the humorous interludes, mild romance, and sometimes distracting
side stories. It does, however, rely on a cheat as the killer is someone
we hadn’t even known existed as a potential suspect. Fair. 1/1/12
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