Let Dover Come Over

Chief Inspector Wilfred Dover is a difficult man to get along with. He’s fat, he’s lazy, he’s rude, he’s inconsiderate – in fact, in just about every measurable way, Dover is a repulsive human being. So woe to the criminal forced to deal with Dover, because it will be an extremely unpleasant experience. That’s what someone in Creedshire is about to learn.

It all started with the disappearance of Juliet Rugg, a young girl who weighs sixteen stone. The grotesquely large girl was even more repulsive than Dover by all accounts, and so nobody really seems to care about her disappearance. But it’s Dover’s job to care, even though he thinks it’s a gigantic waste of his time. But as the investigation proceeds, the question becomes more puzzling: just what did happen to Juliet? The unique circumstances, described in detail in Joyce Porter’s Dover One, make an accidental death, a suicide, an elopement, and a kidnapping seem utterly impossible. The only option remaining is murder… but where could you stuff such a large girl?

The Grandest Game in the World

Okay, here’s the situation: some crazed maniac is out there killing people left and right. With victims dropping like dead flies, the murderer leaves taunting messages for the police in the form of a crazed “dialogue”, chock-full of riddles, puns, and clues to the next victim. The press has gone insane over the story and have dubbed this lunatic “the Wordman”, and the chase is on. Sounds just like a mystery from the Golden Age of Detective Fiction, doesn’t it?

But surprisingly enough, this is the plot summary for Dialogues of the Dead by Reginald Hill, a book that was published in 2002. In this book, Hill’s regular detectives (Andy Dalziel and Peter Pascoe) find themselves duelling against the Wordman, a killer who writes stories about his murders after the fact and submits them to a short story competition.

Chamber of Horrors

Hellbox is the newest novel in the Nameless Detective series of mysteries written by Bill Pronzini. It was published earlier in 2012 but I’ve only just gotten around to reading it. And the book is a bit of a departure for the series, largely doing away with the format of the more recent novels. For starters, this is more of a thriller than a mystery. Not only that, instead of getting two or three cases/storylines, we got only one and we focus on this one, which means that the focus is largely on Pronzini’s Nameless Detective and his wife Kerry. Jake Runyon joins the storyline about halfway through and Tamara makes what amounts to a cameo appearance. In addition, the novel makes many references to a previous entry in the series, Shackles, with which it bears some similarities.

Nameless and Kerry are in the Sierra foothills looking for a second home, and they absolutely love Green Valley, the area in which they have found an excellent potential home. It seems like a perfect vacation… that is, until Kerry disappears. She has been abducted by the psychotic Pete Balfour, a man with a grudge against the entire world. He finally decided to give into his psychotic tendencies and rigged a man’s house to blow up “accidentally”, when Kerry stumbled over him. As a result, she gets kidnapped and imprisoned by Balfour, who then decides he might as well extend his revenge to all of Green Valley…

Sleuth

On a night in August of 1938, police constable Edward Watkins is walking his beat when he comes across some strange sights. It seems that somebody is walking around the streets of London in the garb of a seventeenth-century plague doctor. Soon afterwards, Watkins has a conversation with an odd character calling himself Doctor Marcus, a doctor of crime. Suspicious, the officer is convinced that the doctor has hidden a body inside a nearby trash can—a suspicion that Doctor Marcus confirms! Watkins looks into them and finds they are all empty, much to Marcus’ apparent surprise. So the mad doctor skips off, but as a parting shot he tells the officer to look into the trash cans once again just in case. When Watkins does this, he discovers to his horror that there’s a dead body inside after all.

But how did it get there? And where did Doctor Marcus disappear to? All this seems like it is nonsense, but a few months later, Dr. Alan Twist and Inspector Archibald Hurst are visited by a man named Peter Moore, secretary to Sir Gordon Miller, a prolific author of mystery plays. According to Moore, Sir Gordon received a visitor in his study and the two men had a verbal duel of sorts, which ended in a murder challenge. The two men toss a coin, and the result will determine which man will commit a murder. That man must try and pin the blame on the other, and under no circumstances are the two players allowed to refer to the “game”. Unfortunately, Moore could not see what the coin landed on...

A Second Read

Long-time readers may recall that about a year ago, I sat down here and wrote a review of P. D. James’ An Unsuitable Job for a Woman. That was quite possibly the most difficult review I’ve ever written in my blogging tenure. I realized at the time that I was probably being very unfair to the book, which was ruined by an inept audiobook recording that cast Cordelia Gray as a mystery-solving Care Bear on drugs, doing its very best to suck out anything interesting or exciting about the book.

Well, I’ve now read the book for myself, in order to give it a fair assessment. And the jury is back with a surprising verdict. An Unsuitable Job for a Woman is… quite good! The story revolves around Cordelia Gray, who inherits a private detective agency when her partner Bernie commits suicide. Before long, she is hired by Sir Ronald Callender, the microbiologist, to look into the suicide of his son Mark Callender. The scientist doesn’t doubt the coroner’s verdict that it was suicide, but he wishes to find out why his son committed suicide.

Of Saints and Sinners

Deputy Art Oveson is a young man with a wife and two children. He also happens to be a devout Mormon, living in Salt Lake City in the 1930s. Although it’s nicknamed the city of saints, there is more to Salt Lake City than meets the eye. As clean and virtuous as its exterior may seem, it is a city with more than its fair share of crime and corruption, and pretty soon, Oveson finds himself smack in the center of it all.

It all begins when a wealthy socialite is found dead, brutally murdered by being repeatedly run over with a car. The late Helen Pfalzgraf was the wife of prominent physician Dr. Pfalzgraf, whose reputation as a doctor is nation-wide. The newspapers seize on the story and before long they are calling for someone’s head. Sheriff Cannon, who is heading the investigation, is an incompetent buffoon who is seeking re-election, and decides that the Pfalzgraf case is a top-priority matter—after all, if the case is solved quickly, it’ll be a feather in Cannon’s cap and will make his re-election that much easier…

Set Sail for Murder

I was asked to review Marsali Taylor’s Death on a Longship all the way back in August, but I still had a summer job and school was around the corner, not to mention I had other review requests to get out of the way. So I had to decline an opportunity to be part of a book tour, although our good friend the Puzzle Doctor participated. The review was extremely positive, and so it made me eager to get around to reading this book. Unfortunately, with midterms, work, and unexpected stuff happening left and right, it took me well over three weeks to read this book. However, I’m glad to report that I easily kept track of everything. I never felt lost and when I picked up the book to read some more, I never felt like I had to refresh my memory on what I had read before. Marsali Taylor has written a very pleasant read.

But I’m getting ahead of myself here. The whole story revolves around Cass Lynch, a native of the Shetland Isles who returns to her homeland as part of a film crew, proudly skippering the replica Viking longship Stormfugl. This is being used for Ted Tarrant’s latest film, starring his beloved wife Favelle. They are Hollywood’s Golden Couple—Ted directs, Favelle stars, and come Oscar season they sweep all the awards out from under Steven Spielberg’s nose. (Seriously, how else do you explain his being snubbed as Best Director for Jaws, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, or Munich? For that matter, how did Martin Scorsese not win for Goodfellas?)

Gangsters and Gunsels and Gals (Oh My!)

When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

—Maxwell Scott, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance (1962)

Max Allan Collins is something of a recurring figure on this blog. I’ve quoted an interesting article he wrote on “The Hard-Boiled Detective” in Encyclopedia Mysteriosa. I’ve read two of his Batman short stories. But I hadn’t yet read any of his novels. I finally took the first step in that direction a while ago, where ten of Collins’ Nate Heller books formed the Kindle Daily Deal – each priced at $1.99. I bought all ten of them. But then I figured to myself, why start in the middle of a series I know nothing about? Why not start where the series started? And so I bought True Detective, the first novel in the Nate Heller series.

The Kindle edition begins with a terrific introduction from the author. He talks about how he came up with the concept for this series and how this book came to be. He tells readers how he named his son, how his literary idol Mickey Spillane complimented him on this book, and how (due to its length and content) it was a challenging book to sell. He also expresses a genuine hope that readers will enjoy the book. I know for a fact that there’s at least one insane reader in Canada who loved every page of it.

Nothing is Impossible

Last year, I reviewed The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino. A translation that was published in 2011, it was the first “new” novel that I had read for the blog and when I found out that a second novel was about to be translated, Salvation for a Saint, I perked up and kept track of the publication date. On the day of this novel’s release I purchased an audiobook. I loved The Devotion of Suspect X, and was hoping to once again get a clever story with good characterization.

Well, Keigo Higashino has done it again. This is an improvement over The Devotion of Suspect X. Once more, it’s an inverted mystery, and once more you know who the killer is. But the author turns it into an impossible crime novel, and manages to pull off a daring piece of sleight-of-hand! The plot is a simple enough one: a wife, Ayane Mashiba, decides to poison her husband Yoshitaka, a man so selfish that he was going to divorce his wife because she hadn’t given birth to a child. But, trickster that he is, Keigo Higashino forgets to tell you just how she murders Yoshitaka, who meets his Maker thanks to poison in his coffee.

'Tis the eye of childhood / That fears a painted devil

Maciej Słomczyński

Joe Alex was the pen name of Polish author Maciej Słomczyński (1922-1998). His most famous accomplishment is that he was the only person in the world to translate the complete works of William Shakespeare – an accomplishment I mention because it is relevant to today’s review. Unfortunately, his translations have been criticized as unclear, unfaithful to the source material, and lacking “literary value”—whatever that is. Still, the accomplishment itself is an impressive one, and it is a work of Shakespeare’s – sort of – that lends his novel Jesteś tylko diabłem (You’re Only a Demon) its title.

I say “sort of” because the text in question is The Birth of Merlin, which although originally credited as a co-production between Shakespeare and William Rowley, most scholars nowadays agree that Shakespeare didn’t write any of it. Another reason I say “sort of” is because the book kicks off with the following quote of The Birth of Merlin, translated into Polish… and the lines I have highlighted are all condensed into the phrase “Jesteś tylko diabłem”.

The Case of the Starved Semite

Earlier this year I had the pleasure of meeting Rabbi David Small in Friday the Rabbi Slept Late. I found it a delight, with plenty of colourful characters, a pleasing detective figure, a fascinating Jewish backdrop, and an excellent mystery. And so, you had to figure that it was only a matter of time before I got around to the sequel: Saturday the Rabbi Went Hungry.

After the events of the previous book, Rabbi David Small’s contract has been renewed and he is working in the community of Barnard’s Crossing. A major Jewish holiday, Yom Kippur (The Day of Atonement) falls on a Saturday this year, and so Rabbi Small prepares for the day-long religious service, which requires him to fast (hence the title). The entire Jewish community, it seems, is at the temple for most of the day.

An Air of Evil

Someone needs to buy Christopher Fowler a drink. I’d do it myself, except I’m not in the UK area. Here is a modern writer who understands that, generally speaking, a mystery is only as good as its story. And he comes up with a terrific plot idea in this one: Bryant and May and the Invisible Code. Two children are playing “Witch Hunter” outside a church, and decide that a sad-looking young woman is a witch. “So how are we going to kill her?” one of the kids asks. The woman then enters the church… and then, as the kids watch from the door, the woman drops to the ground, dead! Nobody approached her, and the CCTV cameras clearly show that she died alone.

Arthur Bryant gets to hear of this death from his doctor and is intrigued, but the Home Office refuses  to hand him the case. Instead, Oscar Kasavian calls Bryant and May to his office. Kasavian, it turns out, needs help. His wife has been going crazy of late—covering the mirrors in the house, talking to strangers on the street, and insisting that a coven of witches is after her life. Kasavian doesn’t understand what is going on, and he’s due to make a major speech in a week’s time. He asks Bryant and May to investigate his wife and try to help her—and if they succeed, Kasavian promises to stop trying to shut down the Peculiar Crimes Unit.

Jumping the Shark

It is with a heavy heart that I write this review—and there is a high risk that it will turn into a rant. I have genuinely enjoyed the work of Canadian mystery novelist Louise Penny in the past, and I really looked forward to her newest book, The Beautiful Mystery. It had an intriguing plot idea, and with an author as skilled as Penny behind the wheel, I thought there was no possible way for the book to fail. I was wrong.

The Beautiful Mystery takes place in the monastery of Saint-Gilbert-Entre-les-Loups, a reclusive order of monks who have taken a vow of silence. Ironically, despite their vow of silence, the monks have become famous worldwide for their beautiful singing voices, having released a best-selling CD of Gregorian chants. But then, someone at the monastery murders the world-famous choirmaster, and it is up to Chief Inspector Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec to investigate, along with his sidekick Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir.

I am Chief Superintendent Lookout; Lookout of the Yard...

H. H. Crippen was one of the 20^th century’s most infamous murderers—or, at the very least, accused murderers. Over time, much doubt has been cast upon the “guilty” verdict, and some controversial new DNA evidence suggests that the remains found in Crippen’s basement may not have been his wife’s after all. (This evidence cannot be completely trusted, however.) Whatever the truth of the matter, Crippen and his lover, Ethel le Neve, fled to Canada, but thanks to the miracle of wireless communication, were arrested upon arrival by Inspector Walter Dew, who simply took a faster ship to get there first.

It is this infamous real-life murder case that inspires The False Inspector Dew by Peter Lovesey. In it, a dentist named Walter Baranov decides to murder his shrew of a wife Lydia on board the ocean liner Mauretania. The plan is a perfect one— he will be free to live with his lover Alma, a girl absolutely devoted to him. And in a touch of irony, to get away with the scheme he registers under a false name as Walter Dew, after the famous inspector who caught Crippen. There’s no way the scheme could possibly fail. But, irony of ironies, when a body is found bobbing in the ocean, the captain of the ship quite innocently asks the eminent Inspector Dew to investigate!

Sleep No More

Oil spills are nasty. The oil doesn’t dissolve in water, which is why an oil slick forms, and it pretty much kills life in that area. Worse, they can take a long time to fix—it isn’t a simple mop-up job. Oil spills can cause millions of dollars worth of damage, permanently alter an entire ecosystem… and in Ross Macdonald’s Sleeping Beauty, it starts to rip a family apart.

This is no regular family—this is a family that is incredibly rich thanks to the oil industry. But one member of this family, Laurel Russo, seems personally affected by the oil spill. Lew Archer, private eye, finds her on a beach, contemplating the spill and mourning a dead bird she was unable to save. He takes her to his apartment, where she phones her husband Tom. But Tom, a pharmacist, is about to go to work and explains that he cannot pick Laurel up. Suddenly, something snaps. Laurel leaves Archer’s apartment with Archer’s Nembutal pills, more than enough to kill herself. But suddenly, a ransom demand is made, and it seems like this might be a kidnapping case. It brings back echoes of an earlier case and an unsolved murder in the past... and things get a whole lot more serious when a dead body washes up on shore and violent anti-oil protests commence. In the midst of all the chaos, Lew Archer must find Laurel before she takes the pills or before her kidnapper does something violent… and if that happens, this princess will have embarked on the Big Sleep.

A Literary Life For Me

Stewart Hoag, known as ‘Hoagy’ to his friends, was once a best-selling boy-wonder author. Now, his marriage has fallen apart and he hasn’t got much to show for his stardom. So when he’s offered a job mentoring/collaborating with the current literary boy-wonder, Cameron Noyes, he accepts the job. But it’s not quite so simple. Cameron is addicted to cocaine, has a problem with booze and women, and seems haunted by his past. But as time goes on, Hoagy learns more and more about this idol of the literary world…

… and the tensions rise as Hoagy investigates the cutthroat publishing industry. Many ugly incidents occur which leave the reader wondering what’s going to happen when the tensions boil over into violence. And sure enough, somebody falls to their death, an apparent suicide. But Hoagy is not entirely satisfied and soon enough the police begin to entertain similar suspicions. It’s up to Hoagy and his dog, Lulu, to investigate matters and sniff out the culprit.

Quoth the Raven

Imagine Sir Arthur Conan Doyle meeting Harry Houdini in 1920s New York City, and a bizarre string of murders takes place. A madman is murdering people by using the works of Edgar Allan Poe as inspiration. Every grotesque murder seems more inexplicable than the last. Is there some sort of pattern? To top it all off, Houdini and Conan Doyle are in the middle of their famous spat over spiritualism and whether ghosts can be real. How awkward, then, that the ghost of Edgar Allan Poe keeps showing himself to Conan Doyle!!!

This extremely-awesome idea is the one behind Nevermore, a novel by William Hjortsberg. I’ve searched for this book for a long time, but with no success, before finding an edition for the Kindle. Unfortunately, after all the hype, the book turned out to be a major letdown.

Without a Trace

Anthony Quinn’s Disappeared opens on an interesting scene. David Hughes, an old man suffering from Alzheimer’s, suddenly encounters a ghost from his past. It seems to be the spirit of Oliver Jordan, a man who has been dead for nearly twenty years; it is implied that he was murdered by the IRA. Jordan has returned to sniff out his killers, and he demands David’s help.

A month later, David’s sister telephones the police in hysterics. David is gone, apparently kidnapped. Even if he wasn’t kidnapped, the odds are slim for a man with Alzheimer’s to survive on his own for a long time. Inspector Celcius Daly is called in to investigate. Before long, a corpse is discovered by a priest and the savagely-murdered victim had a connection with David: their mutual passion for duck-hunting.

Things that go bump in the night...

Bill Pronzini’s Nameless Detective is back in action in Nightcrawlers! As the book begins, Nameless is summoned to the death bed of Russell Dancer, a once-infamous pulp magazine writer whose promising career went down the drain. (Dancer appeared in the novel Hoodwink and apparently on at least one or two other occasions.) Dancer wants Nameless to deliver a message to Cybil Wade, Kerry Wade’s mother and the woman Dancer has had a crush on all of his life. Nameless decides to comply with Dancer’s wishes, but he immediately finds strange resistance on the home front from Kerry, who insists that he should inform Cybil right away although Dancer asked Nameless to wait until he died—so that Cybil doesn’t see him in his current state, he says.

Meanwhile, Jake Runyon gets involved in another case when his long-estranged son Joshua gives him a phone call. Jake’s son basically hates his living guts, and Jake hopes that this call might be a sign that a reconciliation is in the works. The news is far grimmer—Joshua’s boyfriend has fallen victim of two predatory gay bashers. Moreover, he isn’t the first victim—and the attackers are only getting more vicious with each new victim.

Madness! Madness!

Hello everybody and welcome once more to another (and this time, the final) special edition of At the Scene of the Crime! Today, I am joined by TomCat, fellow blogger and for today, partner in crime. Our blogs are somewhat similar— we review, we occasionally make up clever ways to be lazy by posting things that pose as articles or lists… and we tend to stay in the “good old” days of crime. So naturally, what could be better to review than a novel by Margaret Millar, an author I’ve come to adore?

Except… the timing for that didn’t really work out and it didn’t seem likely TomCat would be able to get a Millar novel. So how about a novel by her husband, the famous creator of Lew Archer, Ross Macdonald? Except… well, in a mix-up right out of a Donald E. Westlake novel, the book turned out to have gone AWOL.

But wait— Ross Macdonald and Margaret Millar were married authors, and Ross Macdonald wrote a series of novels about a private eye… so where on earth can we find a modern-day successor to Macdonald? Why, in the work of Bill Pronzini! Pronzini truly is a gem—I have never walked away from one of his books disappointed. He always impresses me with the quality of his writing and the way he plots his books, all while drawing out sharp characters. He is one of the best mystery writers at work in modern day. I was all set, and at last, we decided on a book: Savages, a Nameless Detective novel.

TomCat, thanks a lot for joining me!

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