Don't Go, by Lisa Scottoline (St. Martin's Press; $27.99)

While Dr. Mike Scanlon is deployed to Afghanistan, he gets some terrible news: his wife, Chloe, has died in a fall in their kitchen. Mike comes back to make arrangements for both the burial and for the care of their infant daughter, Emily. Fortunately, his sister-in-law and her husband love the baby, and Mike agrees to give them temporary custody while he’s deployed.

But something about his wife’s death isn’t quite right. First of all, he learns that Chloe was an alcoholic, stashing bottles of vodka all around the house and even drinking in the car. More shocking still: she was pregnant when she died.

So what does this father of the year opt to do? He signs on for another tour. By the time he gets back, he’s lost an arm, several friends, and his toddler child is scared of him. Each time he tries to connect with the kid, his sister-in-law tells him he’s doing it wrong—and he stops trying.  Not surprisingly, the sister-in-law and her husband fight for permanent custody of the kid, and it’s hard not to root for their side.

Mike does, however, try to figure out who got his wife pregnant—and misses a clue so obvious that it was laughable.

I won’t ruin the little suspense there is by telling you how it turns out. But rest assured, it’s the most unrealistic ending ever.

Scottoline, who has written close to 20 mysteries and writes a humor column for the Philadelphia Inquirer normally does better than this. There is nothing to recommend about this book. 

Gone Girl, by Gillian Flynn (Crown; $25)

I finally got around to reading Gillian Flynn’s third mystery and boy, was it worth the wait! I had loved Sharp Objects, her first book, but had lost track of her. A friend recommended Gone Girl, and it was terrific. Full of huge, unexpected twists and turns, red herrings, and “OMG” moments.

Nick and Amy Dunne have it all. Both are beautiful, living the New York City glam life. The two magazine writers supplement their incomes with a trust fund set up by Amy’s parents, the authors of the “Amazing Amy” series of children’s books.  

But in a head-spinning turn of events, it’s over. Both are laid off, the trust fund is gone, and they lose the Brooklyn brownstone. When Nick’s twin sister calls from the Dunne family home in North Carthage, Missouri, to say that Nick’s mother is dying, he decides that he and Amy must move back to his family homet. They rent a foreclosed McMansion in a ghost town of similar properties and try to make a new life.  Using the last of Amy’s money, Nick and his sister open a bar.

On the afternoon of Amy and Nick’s fifth wedding anniversary, Nick gets a call at the bar from a neighbor, saying that his cat is outside, and his front door is wide open. Nick returns home to find signs of a struggle and Amy gone.

Model-handsome Nick has been anything but a model husband. He doesn’t help himself by lying to the cops.  The reader knows it’s just a matter of time before the cops learn what we know and put him away.

Until. . .

Sorry. I can’t tell more without giving away the best moments of a terrific story.

With such an outstanding plot, it seems somewhat petty to say that I hated how the book ended. Flynn pulled back at the last minute, with an ending that came across as surprisingly cowardly. I’d love to know why she lost her nerve. 

As soon as I have time, I'm going back to read Dark Places. 

The Start of Everything, by Emily Winslow (Delacorte Press; $26.00)

When the body of a young woman washes up in a flooded marsh outside of Cambridge, England, Detective Inspector Chloe Frohmann and her partner, Morris Keene—just back from medical leave after being knifed in the gut and hand—must first figure out who she is, before they can try to solve the question of who killed her.

Meanwhile, a number of letters addressed only to Katja, in care of the university, arrive in the mailroom, where Mathilde Oliver has the job of sending misdirected mail to the proper recipient. Mattie, whose father is an astronomy professor at the university, has some pretty major issues. She reads the letters and learns that someone named Stephen is pining for this Katja. Problem is, there doesn’t seem to be anyone at the university with that name.

Could it be that Katja is the young woman in the swamp? Well, maybe. The parallel plot lines would certainly lead one to that conclusion. But that would be too easy. Instead, Emily Winslow, an American living in Cambridge, muddies the plot with people sharing the same name; a pivotal character who gets two other pivotal characters confused and calls them by the wrong names; confusing switches between the past and present: and finally, the lamest plot device of all time: an evil twin who doesn’t surface until near the end of the book.

It’s a shame Emily Winslow’s plot wasn’t up to her setting. Cambridge shouldn’t be wasted on such drivel.  This book was a sloppy mess.

The Black Box, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown;$27.99)

Why would Anneke Jesperson, a Danish photojournalist, wade into the L.A riots following the Rodney King verdict? With the body count rising by the hour, Detective Harry Bosch, who made the report of Jesperson’s execution-style murder in an alley in South Central, didn’t have the luxury of finding out. He had no sooner bagged a shell casing at the scene, when he and his partner were called to the next murder. No coroner, no CSI—just another victim.

But 20 years later, Bosch is still curious. Now a member of LAPD’s Open-Unsolved Case unit, Bosch specifically asked to be assigned to the case. The murder book is sketchy, at best. A few calls came in over the years inquiring about the status of the case, but no one had even taken the time to go through the victim’s knapsack or other belongings. With the anniversary of the riots looming, the head of the unit wants to prove that the LAPD is still actively working all unsolved murders from those terrible days.

Bosch starts with the only evidence he’s got: the shell casing. He traces it to several other crimes, and tries to follow it back to who might have had it at the time of the riots. He also focuses on Jesperson’s belongings, to attempt to understand what brought her first to the US, and then to LA. 

In Connelly’s skillful hands, what could have been a routine police procedural becomes a multi-layered, engrossing read. On the Mt. Rushmore of current great American mystery writers, Connelly’s face would be front and center. 

                                                                  

Phantom, by Jo Nesbø (Knopf; $25.95)

I am perplexed by the explosive popularity of Scandinavian murder mysteries. Don’t get me wrong: they are, for the most part, good reads. But my question is more along the lines of “Why Scandinavia?”  Why not Eastern Europe? South America?  Obviously, it’s not a language issue, since publishers of books from those countries could pay to have books translated to English or other languages just as they must for their Swedish and Norwegian authors. And I recognize, of course, that many countries are currently struggling with life and death issues that make writing mysteries frivolous and irrelevant. Trust me: I’m not superficial enough to be questioning why there aren’t mysteries coming out of, say, Somalia or Haiti.  But I am curious as we don’t see mysteries about the Mexican drug trade, corrupt Russian oligarchs, Eastern European spies, or similar topics written by authors in those countries.

In the mystery world, Norway boasts two superstars: Karin Fossum and Jo Nesbø. Phantom, Nesbø’s latest Harry Hole mystery, shows just why he makes the list. Hole, the Oslo police officer last seen in The Leopard, thought he’d never come back to Oslo from Hong Kong. But that plan changed in an instant when Oleg, the 19-year-old son of Harry’s former lover, was arrested for the murder of Gusto Hanssen. Harry had helped to raise Oleg and, although he’s lost touch with the boy, knows without a doubt that he was not capable of murder. The police aren’t inclined to investigate what they believe is the open-and-shut case of one drug dealer killing another.

As Harry retraces Oleg’s steps, he learns of the terrible toll that a new drug, called “violin,” has taken on the seedy side of Oslo. Once they try it, users will stop at nothing to get more. Adding to Harry’s anguish over Oleg’s arrest is the older man’s guilt at having deserted Oleg and his mother.

Phantom is a multi-layered, well-plotted mystery filled with compelling characters and a setting bleak from both weather and hopelessness.

Mad River, by John Sandford (Putnam; $27.95)

The calls to the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension came in fast and furiously. Agnes O’Leary—shot dead during a robbery. Emmet Williams, gunned down as he got in his car. An older couple, the Welshes, shot to death in the kitchen of their home. Murders never happen in Shinder, located in remote western Minnesota, so odds were, the four were somehow connected. Lucas Davenport, head of BCA, directed investigator Virgil Flowers to get himself to Shinder and figure out what was going on.

Jimmy Sharp, Tom McCall, and Becky Welsh had themselves a goal: steal the diamonds that former Shinder High School homecoming court member Marsha O’Leary wore to her 35^th high school reunion. Becky saw the bling when she served Mrs. O’Leary some sheet cake. Becky, the “hottest girl to ever come from Shinder,” only wanted the stones; she and Tom were horrified when Jimmy pulled his gun and capped Marsha’s adult daughter, Agnes. When their getaway car wouldn’t start, they also shot Emmett Williams and stole his car. After that, it was easy: they went around town killing anyone they pleased: those they thought might have money, their parents—really, anyone, for any excuse.

Virgil Flowers works with the locals to try to get to the bottom of the Charles Starkweather/Caril Ann Fugate-esque crime spree. Each new victim made a bizarre sort of sense, but the initial shooting of Agnes O’Leary didn’t fit the pattern. Virgil focuses on that killing as a way of understanding the rest, while the sociopathic trio evades the cops and the bodies keep stacking up. The addition of a cop to the list puts the spree in a whole new category. It’s all Virgil can do to try to take the killers alive before the locals eliminate any chance of him learning what set them off in the first place.

John Sandford’s Virgil Flowers mysteries are just as good as his Lucas Davenport series always was. His books are immensely readable and they never disappoint. This one is terrific.

The Hiding Place, by David Bell (NAL;$15.00)

The murder was the biggest thing to ever happen in sleepy little Dove Point, Ohio. Little Justin Manning disappeared while his 7-year-old sister, Janet, was supposed to be watching him in the local park. When his body was discovered in a shallow grave, the police charged Dante Rodgers with his murder, based to a large extent on the information that Janet and her playmate, Michael Bower, provided about what they had seen on that fateful day.

Now, the 25^th anniversary of Justin’s death is looming, and a local reporter is onto the story. Too many questions remain about the killing.  The reporter speculates that Dante Rodgers, who has always maintained his innocence, was charged and convicted primarily because he was black. Janet’s father remains withdrawn and angry, and is incapable of maintaining a normal relationship with Janet or her 15-year-old daughter, Ashleigh. Even Michael Bower, who has returned to Dove Point, wants to know what Janet really saw that day in the park. But she can no longer distinguish between what she remembers and what she heard from others.  

When a man shows up at the Mannings’ house claiming to have knowledge about what actually happened to Justin, Janet hopes that he can help answer the remaining questions.  The truth, when it is finally revealed, is more horrific than she ever could have imagined.

David Bell’s The Hiding Place was disappointing. I figured the mystery out early on, by recognizing clues that Bell made far too obvious. I kept waiting for a twist or two to justify the too-early reveal, but none came. So the ending, instead of producing the desired, “Holy cow!” of a reaction, instead made me resent having taken the time to read past the point where all had already been made clear.

Trust Your Eyes, by Linwood Barclay (New American Library; $25.95)

Thomas Kilbride’s schizophrenia causes delusions in which the CIA, FBI, and President Clinton speak with him—without benefit of any communication devices—asking for his help. Convinced that a cataclysmic, world-wide computer virus is about to wipe out all electronic maps, Thomas stares for hours at a program called Whirl360 that shows street-level views of every street in every city in every country. With a savant’s ability to recall everything he has seen, Thomas has committed each map to memory against the day when he is called upon to help his country re-create what has been lost.

Thomas’s brother, Ray, arrives in Promise Falls, New York, to attend the funeral of their father, who was killed in a riding mower accident. Ray indulges Thomas with his map hobby, until one day when Thomas points out something he’s seen in an upstairs window of a New York City apartment building: a face with a plastic bag stretched tightly over it. Thomas is convinced that a crime has been committed. Ray makes a few calls but gets nowhere, particularly when he explains that his schizophrenic brother is behind the questions. Finally he travels to New York to find the building and ask a few questions.

Thus sets in motion a huge cat-and-mouse game that threatens to take down one of the biggest names in New York state politics. The stakes are serious enough that those involved will stop at nothing to keep their secrets from being exposed.

I loved this book. I thought the premise was brilliant, particularly for those of us who have spent any time looking at Google Earth or any other street-level mapping program. I’ve often wondered, when I look at programs like that, whether the people in the view knew they were being filmed, and wondered what would happen if the camera caught a crime being committed. My only complaint about the book was that Barclay includes a secondary plot regarding child abuse. It’s unnecessary and dilutes the power of his main narrative. But in a story this good, having too many plots is really a petty criticism. This was a great read.

My Once-a-Year Break from Mysteries

Mystery lovers: sorry if you've returned to this blog lately and been disappointed with the lack of new reviews. I promise they'll start again very soon.

Here's my excuse: Once a year, I try to read a non-mystery, just because I feel like I ought to.  This year's choice is Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall. It's the story of Henry VIII's dumping his first wife in order to marry Anne Boleyn. I'm finding it really slow going. Mantel uses far too many pronouns, when a proper noun or two would make her story clearer. Her text is so dense that I find it hard to wade through. Often, she'll have a long paragraph about the weather or scenery, and end with a sentence that is crucial to the plot. Mystery writers know how to showcase those important sentences so that we rarely miss them.

I feel very self-righteous for reading it, and that's worth a lot!  But it's slow going, and is keeping me from blogging. I generally knock off a mystery in about three days, while Mantel's historical novel has taken me over two weeks. What this annual exercise always shows me is how much I love mysteries. I never tire of them.

But I'm almost done, and then it's back to the good stuff! Thanks for sticking with me. I'll be back soon.

The Exceptions, by David Cristofano (Grand Central Publishing; $24.99)

The Bovaro family’s mantra is no loose ends. One of the most powerful mob families in New York, they know that much of their influence comes from their enemies knowing that the family will ultimately get their revenge, no matter how long it takes.

When the McCartney family of Montclair, New Jersey, decided to go out for an early breakfast, they had no idea that it would change their life. Mom, Dad, and pretty little Melody entered Vincent’s restaurant in New York’s Little Italy just in time to see Tony Bovaro slit the throat of Jimmy “the Rat” Fratello. The McCartneys drove off, but not before 10-year-old John Bovaro caught sight of their license plate number. John was captivated by the little girl, so when the cops came, he asked them if they knew whether the girl was alright. That tipped the cops that there were witnesses; they found the McCartneys and put them in the witness protection program. Mom and Dad testified at the trial, the case was thrown out, and killing the McCartneys—all three of them—became the Bovaro family mission.

Fast forward some 20 years. John Bovaro—now Jonathan—has gone almost respectable. He owns a trendy New York restaurant, although his family uses the place to launder money. Assigned by his family the task of killing Melody McCartney, he has a Justice Department employee with a gambling addiction on his payroll, providing Melody’s current identity and address in exchange for debts being covered. Jonathan hunts Melody down wherever she is, telling his family he’s planning to do the hit, while telling himself that he’s protecting her.

And here’s where the book got creepy.  Under the guise of some weird unrequited love for Melody, Jonathan became her stalker. He decided he would become “Man in Produce Section and Stranger on Cell Phone and Jogger in Park” in order to keep an eye on her. He finally makes contact and lets her know how long he’s been watching her—decades, at this point. It wasn’t the tragic Mob version of the Capulets and Montagues that I think Christofano wanted to portray. Instead, this was just sick. Had I been Melody, I would have run as fast as I could the other way, although admittedly, her options were limited. But I really, really didn’t like Jonathan. His behavior gave me the jim-jams even when he was trying to seem normal and heartbroken.

The Exceptions just didn’t do it for me.

A Wanted Man, by Lee Child (Delacorte Press; $28.00)

Jack Reacher is an unlikely hero. As he describes himself, he’s a “No-account, unemployed and homeless veteran. . . with no stable relationships.” He hitchhikes across the country and, even in this day and age, still manages to get rides. But the rides always end badly, with Reacher having to shoot bad guys and foil crime in whatever locale he finds himself.

In A Wanted Man, Reacher is still—as in Child’s most recent books—trying to get himself to Virginia. He’s fallen for a woman he’s spoken to on the phone, and wants to meet her in person to see if there’s the chance of romance. But, as always, his plans are detoured when his ride doesn’t quite work out. This time, he’s picked up by two guys and a woman, and the woman tries to signal to Reacher that something is amiss. The reader knows that earlier that evening, three guys had walked into a bunker but only two walked out. But where the woman came from, who the dead guy was, and why the FBI, CIA, and State Department are all involved in what looks to be a local crime is the crux of the story.

I really like Reacher, though I’ve read so many of Child’s mysteries that his character’s idiosyncrasies make me roll my eyes. For one thing, Reacher only owns the clothes on his back, since he has no luggage. So when they get dirty (three days on a shirt) he merely buys more. He budgets between $20-$25 a day, which he feels is “cheaper than living somewhere, and easier than washing and ironing and folding and packing.  That was for damn sure.” But where does he get his money? And if he carries it with him (he doesn’t seem like a credit card kind of a guy), how does he not get rolled by the occasional bad guy who picks him up?

Oh—I forgot. He’s Jack Reacher. Who would dare?

He also has an internal clock that should be in a museum. My mother has pointed out that he always knows what time it is, despite not wearing a wristwatch. In this book, he sets “the clock in his head for two hours” to force himself to wake up though he hasn’t slept for at least 24 hours.

But the little tic that I like the most is Reacher’s emphatic, “That was for damn sure” whenever he mentally agrees with himself.  (I included one of these lines in the quote in the third paragraph.) I once heard Lee Child speak at a book festival, and someone pointed out that he writes that line in his books frequently. The fan asked Child if he uses it so often because he uses it himself. As I recall (I wasn’t taking notes, and this was several years ago), Child said that it was more of a writer’s device to transition between scenes or action. I had never noticed the line prior to hearing the question, but once it was pointed out, I notice it whenever I read one of his books.  

Lee Child’s Jack Reacher stories are improbable, similar, and totally enjoyable. That’s for damn sure. 

Gone, by Randy Wayne White (Putnam; $25.95)

 I’ve always enjoyed Randy Wayne White’s Doc Ford mysteries. I’m a sucker for mysteries set in Florida, and his were among the best. So I was excited to learn that he had started a new series, focusing this time on a young fishing guide/sleuth named Hannah Smith.

The series debut, Gone, made me laugh out loud—and it wasn’t meant to be funny.  Not because of flaws in any of the important elements. Smith was clever, brave and likeable. The plot was fine: a fabulously wealthy young woman has disappeared, perhaps in the company of a sadistic boyfriend, and Hannah is asked to find her and bring her home.  And the setting is great: it’s hard to go wrong when you set a mystery in the the steamy, fetid atmosphere of Florida.  

No, what’s wrong with Gone is that it was written from a woman’s perspective by a man obsessed with breasts.   

Seriously. 

The first time I noticed it was when Hannah, wanting to perk herself up, dresses up and checks herself out in the mirror. She delights in looking at herself as she "spills out of her favorite 34D bra.” The sight gets makes her get “teary-eyed and smile, because she, in her own mind, is about as shapely as an ironing board balancing two peas.” 

I have yet to meet the woman who gets teary-eyed at the sight of herself “spilling out” of a bra. The sight might well bring a man to tears—as a woman, I wouldn’t presume to know. But to a woman? “Spilling out” just means it’s time to buy a bigger bra.

Several pages later, a gay friend says to her, “’I’ve never opened a Playboy magazine in my life, but, I swear, Hannah, even I love your tits.’”

A bit later, she interviews an older woman who had been victimized by the guy who may be responsible for the young woman’s disappearance. She sees “what might have been a Chantelle bra, raspberry lace and glitter, draped over a velvet divan.”  The older woman, who starts out being hostile, eventually warms to Hannah, pressing a grocery bag on the younger woman as a gift; inside is the very same bra. “The fact that Mrs. Whitney and I wore the same bra size—34D—had helped, too. It created a sisterly feeling that is often the reward when women share private matters they wouldn’t entrust to a man.”

Oh, where to start with this one. First, older women don’t usually leave their bras out where guests can see them. Second, they never—you can take this one to the bank—present a used, unwashed bra to another woman as a gift. Third, the “fact” that the witness and Hannah wore the same bra size would be unknown to either woman, as women—and this may come as a surprise to men reading this--don’t exchange that information upon meeting each other.  And fourth, sharing the same bra size would not create a “sisterly feeling.”  I’m still laughing about this one. The only scenario in which I could imagine women bonding over sharing the same bra size is if they met in a plastic surgeon’s waiting room prior to augmentation.

(Much, much later, Hannah finds herself in danger and distracts the bad guy by unbuttoning her third button, “enough for him to see me spilling out of Mrs. Whitney’s 34 D Chantelle bra.” I’m hoping she at least laundered Mrs Whitney’s bra before wearing it. But again—spilling out? Clearly, they don’t wear the same bra size: 34 D may have fit Mrs. Whitney, but Hannah needs to go in for a fitting.) 

But wait: there’s more! A lawyer changes into a satin blouse which reveals “her bouncing breasts when she walked.” Another character has “grapefruit-sized implants.” The list goes on and on.

Randy Wayne White needs to forsake this experiment and go back to writing from a guy’s point of view. He can still include nonsense like this, if he thinks it would help move his plot along. For instance, he could describe Doc Ford getting “teary-eyed” as he looks at himself in a mirror, “spilling out” of an athletic supporter that’s too small. Or interviewing a witness, where he sees dirty boxers thrown over the back of a couch—only to find that the witness made him a gift of that same pair of dirty boxers. All the while sharing that brotherly bond that comes when two guys wear the same size underwear. 

Unbelievable.

Randy Wayne White: living up to his first name.