New Mysteries on the Shelves (6)

Fortunately, our library doesn't skimp on finding new mysteries--here are three more new ones.

First is Soul Patch: a Moe Prager mystery by Reed Farrel Coleman. This paperback features the New York private investigator, Prager, returning to his cop roots in Coney Island as he is drawn into a murder investigation and the recent death of a NYPD detective. Prager's assignment is additionally hampered by the mistrust between the police and him when delving into police criminal activity which occurred up to 30 years earlier. Prager also has his emotions further churned up as his marriage has troubles and his attention drifts to an attractive Latina detective. Coleman's new novel is 233 pages and the fourth of the "Prager mystery" series.

The next book is Roux Morgue by Claire M. Johnson, a second entry of the Mary Ryan series. Ryan, a San Francisco pastry chef, returns to her old alma mater to teach and lands in an annoying turf war between her original mentors and her contemporaries. That may not be so surprising but additional job pressures from the dean and two unexpected deaths of fellow faculty lead to a decidedly dicey environment. This story is on the cozy side too with a possible romance for Ryan and humor for the reader. The book is 223 pages.

Last is In the Night of the Heat: a Tennyson Hardwick novel, a new title with the writing collaboration of actor Blair Underwood with Tananarive Due and Steven Barnes. In this second Hollywood mystery with African-American private detective/actor Hardwick, he is requested to help a football star facing threats after his acquittal in a murder case. Preoccupied with a good, new TV job,Hardwick declines but events change so that he reverses his decision. The acting job suddenly appears and the football star suffers a sudden death from questionable suicide. Again, the offer comes to help--this time in the investigation of the football player's death from his family (with a sizable money offer)--and Hardwick agrees. The case jumps from location (the governor's mansion) to time period (the 1960s) with the detective facing dangers from the work and juicy dangers from a steamy background. The book is 447 pages.

Finally, actor Blair Underwood (currently in ABC-TV's Dirty Sexy Money) is a big draw for the book as he is on the book cover (unlike the first Tennyson Hardwick book) and the cover says "Blair Underwood presents... [book title]" (again, unlike the first book.) Interesting move, book editors.

Crime writer James Crumley dies

Browsing through the New York Times online Sunday, I found that writer James Crumley had died last week at age 68. According the news stories, Crumley was an influential crime novelist with his violent private eye novels set in the American West of Montana (Crumley's home state as an adult). Here's a somewhat recent photo of Crumley from Google.

A specialist in hard-boiled private detective fiction, Crumley is credited with moving the genre pass the Raymond Chandler era to its then present day of post-Vietnam stories. His best-known is The Last Good Kiss (a title that one fellow librarian remembers reading years ago) published in 1978.

That book features the dubious private eye C.W. Sughrue, "a former Vietnam War criminal and hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting womanizer." The other PI series Crumley started earlier featured Milton Chester "Milo" Milodragovitch, a multiple divorced man who's also (like Sughre) [a] "hard-drinking, cocaine-snorting womanizer."

In fact, I looked on the library shelves and found one book The Right Madness available by Crumley. The cover shows a man sitting quietly in a darken bar, lighting up a smoke--certainly a fitting image for Crumley's fictional world.

Although not a big-name seller with his books with stories that lose some logistics, Crumley has notable fans including writers George Pelecanos, Dennis Lehane and Michael Connelly according to the Washington Post obituary.

Wall Street Fiction (fun stuff)--

If you are fearing the worse with all the new troublesome news stories coming out about Wall Street this week, then grab a fiction book about the financial world and see if things might be better. Wall Street Noir is another of the Akashic's noir anthology series of short mystery fiction. This one features (mostly) writers with financial backgrounds in 17 stories.

I was surprised to find this title but pleased with the creativity that is out there to focus on this American institution ripe with possible pitfalls. As written in Publishers Weekly these fictional stories find actions of "greed, volatility and desperation often lead to crime." Well, maybe this might let you focus on the troubles of others for a bit.

Wall Street is edited by the Shamus Award-winning author Peter Spiegelman.

Book Club discusses "Death of a Writer"

Last month, the book club discussed Michael Collins's Death of a Writer and after a delay, here's an abbreviated post of the book discussion. Collins is an Irish born writer and international ultra-distance runner--Death is his eighth and newest book. Here's a Googled pix of Collins.

This novel has a college setting when a severely-ill professor's hidden work is discovered and becomes a publishing sensation when promoted by a friendly graduate student and a rival writer. The professor's work documents the acts of a murder which, upon closer examination, appear to match the circumstances of a local unsolved murder. Is it remotely possible that the professor was involved in the actual murder? The book is largely split with the Professor Pendleton's story and the investigation by a cold case detective.

Our attitude about the book was *somewhat* mixed. Two of us somewhat liked the book. Two people didn't choose to finish it and the rest didn't care for the book. And one cleverly summarized the book was repetitive and pretentious (plus other term I forgot).

The mystery story was fine but the extra storyline with some characters led to sordid paths that appeared to just dead-end. In fact, none of the characters had a truly cheerful life although there was one--the graduate student, Adi--you would hope to see succeed.

The story of Pendleton and his hardships give the novel a good start but the longer it goes, the more it appears to drag on. As one asked if the novel had any humor (well, dark humor then as promised in the book jacket), we found very little in the story.

Ultimately, when asked if we could recommend the book to any one--none of us could say "yes."

Yestersday's News Become New Fiction Books (Hurricane Katrina)

With the recent Hurricane Gustav headlines, the three-year old Hurricane Katrina is back in the American consciousness. Since that time, of course, books about the tragedy have swept up in bookstores and libraries with its share of fiction books. Our library system has at least three adult titles in the mystery genre.

First is James Lee Burke's Tin Roof Blowdown from the long-running series with Iberia Parish Sheriff's Detective Dave Robicheaux. He travels to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina to help restore civil order which includes dealing with violent and desperate lawbreakers roaming the streets.

I have a copy of this book at home (a Christmas gift).

Second, I noticed in our new book section months ago, First the Dead by Tim Downs. This book marks the third of the series with forensic entomologist Nick "Bug Man"Polchak, so nicknamed because he is an expert in using bugs to deduce the time and circumstances of death. A member of DMORT, the disaster mortuary operational response team, used by FEMA to assist with mass casualties, Polchak goes to New Orleans when Katrina hits. Some corpses, however, show signs of death before the storm and Polchak's investigation takes a much different turn. First the Dead is also under the Christian fiction genre.

Last is New Orleans Noir, a collection of 18 unpublished short stories edited by Julie Smith. This is the twelfth book of the recent city noir short story series with two sections for the pre-and post-Katrina entries. Well-known writers such as Laura Lippman contribute to this project along with those on the rise.