Sukey's Favorite

On Mexican Time
By Tony Cohan
BDD Audio, $25
ISBN 0553526618

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The only mystery here is what makes people exchange their familiar home terrain for one in another country with a vastly different, often inscrutable, culture. Tony Cohan may not solve this mystery completely, but he offers much more than casual clues in his wonderfully written, and ably read, new book, On Mexican Time. Cohen and his wife Masako first came to San Miguel de Allende, a small town in the mountains well north of Mexico City, as casual visitors. They hadn't planned to stay, but after more and ever lengthier trips, they realized how much happier they were away from the angst and anxiety of Los Angeles and how much they loved and cherished the pace, the place, and the people of San Miguel. So they did what many others have done (and written about), they bought a crumbling colonial house that needed everything and dealt with the foibles of contractors and workmen, and the frustrations of dealing with a foreign bureaucracy. But unlike his bestselling peers, Cohen looks deeper into his relationship with Mexico and Mexicans, deeper into the allure of the culture and the reality of being a refugee from our featureless, fast-moving technofuture.

Encores for the masters of mystery

REVIEWS BY SUKEY HOWARD

Forty-six years ago, Ed McBain published the first in a series that has become legendary in the genre and beyond. With The Last Dance, this prince of police procedurals adds the 50th chapter to the annals of the 87th precinct.

The gruff good guys are all here: Carella, Brown, Meyer and Kling, as well as paunchy, pugnacious Ollie Weeks, and they're caught up in a string of murders that don't seem to have any logical connection, save the seemingly odd use of rohypnol, a.k.a. the date-rape drug. Their investigation takes them from the glittery theater district of Isola, McBain's name for his thinly disguised version of the Big Apple, to seedy clubs and dangerous slums. But wherever this author goes, his eye for detail, his ear for language and his innate understanding of the complex dynamics of this multiracial metropolis are dead-on accurate. And, as McBain himself reads, you hear the tale in tones that only a native New Yorker or, to keep the conceit going, Isolian could produce.


Tony Hillerman

When it comes to setting the scene in the Southwest and weaving Native-American characters into cunningly constructed plots, no one does it better, or with more authenticity, than Tony Hillerman. In Hunting Badger, read by George Guidall, we're back in Hillerman country with Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn, who just can't seem to settle into retirement, and Sergeant Jim Chee of the Navajo Tribal police. Three men have pulled off a major heist from a Ute gambling casino, and vanished into the rugged country of the Four Corners canyons. Working from a Ute legend and a lead from a questionable source, Leaphorn and Chee crack a case that has confounded local authorities and the FBI.


Jonathan Kellerman

Fans of Dr. Alex Delaware and his friend and partner, LAPD Detective Milo Sturgis, have a hair-raising five hours in store for them, as John Rubinstein, always one of my favorites, narrates Jonathan Kellerman's latest psychological thriller, Monster. Delaware has dealt with many elusive, arrogant killers, but this string of gruesome murders has him baffled, and Milo miffed. The only thing that ties these cases together is the almost incoherent babbling of a nonfunctional psychotic who has been locked up in a high security hospital for the criminally insane for 16 years. As the grisly killings mount, Sturgis and Delaware try desperately to put the disparate shreds together and when they do, they find a monster who gives new meaning to the word.


Michael Connelly

Here's a crime writer whose audience and reputation grow with every book, and with Void Moon, nimbly narrated by Barry Bostwick, he's back in bestsellerdom again. Cassie Black, his hero/anti-hero, is one of the more appealing criminals to show up for some time, and it's hard not to root for her. She'd given up robbing high rollers at Las Vegas casinos after a night when the best laid plans went disastrously awry and the man she loved chose death rather than prison. But now, for reasons I won't reveal, she's decided to give it one more go and then get out forever. Does she or doesn't she? You'll find out and, along the way, get the inside scoop on how to scope out a mark, rig a room, dismantle locks, and ply the more arcane tricks of this treacherous trade.


Edna Buchanan

A long-time crime reporter, Edna Buchanan uses her first-hand knowledge of Miami vice, violence, murder, and mayhem to spice up her Britt Montero mystery series. Much like her creator, Britt covers the crime beat and the mean streets for a major Miami daily and sees more than her share of the city's steamy, seamy underside. In Garden of Evil, Britt becomes intrigued with an unusual serial murderer -- a woman the police are calling "the kiss me killer," whose MO seems to be seduce 'em, shoot 'em and leave a little lipstick at the lurid crime scene. This deadly dame started her coldblooded spree in upstate Florida, but is slowly, surely moving south. Then, suddenly, she's in Miami and on the phone with Britt. This might be the biggest story of Britt's career, but it might also be her last. I've liked all of Ms. Buchanan's books and I like the way Sandra Burr performs them -- this is certainly no exception.


Sukey Howard reports on spoken word audio each month.

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