Summer reading:
a chilling selection of the hottest new mysteries

The first summer of the new millennium offers up a plethora of whodunits for the mystery aficionado: a spine-tingler about a most unusual serial killer from Nicci French; new installments in the Jack Reacher and Nick Travers series; a new Robert Crais (sans his well-loved sleuth, Elvis Cole); the latest case for Barrett Raines, a Florida-based African-American policeman; and last, but not least, a puzzler in which the detective is Elvis (Presley, that is), circa 1960.

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

In Beneath the Skin, Nicci French has created the summer thriller against which all this year's entries must be compared. A summer heat wave in London seems unending. Tempers flare, skies remain an industrial yellowish-gray, people collapse in the street. Unsettling and threatening letters, apparently from the same person, have been sent to three women from very different stations in life: Zoe, an attractive young schoolteacher; Jennifer, a glamorous 40-ish housewife; and Nadia, a children's entertainer. Each letter offers details about the women that only the most intimate insider would know. And each letter gets progressively more graphic and violent. Narrated in the first person, first by Zoe, then by Jennifer, then by Nadia, Beneath the Skin constructs a framework of terror and dread that baffles police, the intended victims, and certainly the reader. A summer must-read!


Lee Child's Running Blind brings soldier-of-fortune Jack Reacher back for an encore performance. Reacher is one of those guys we would all like to be: a believer in his brand of swift justice, above all law but his own. In the opening scenes, Reacher watches as a restaurant owner gets shaken down for protection money by a couple of Syrian thugs. A short while later, the bad guys get their comeuppance (Van Damme style) in an adjacent alleyway. After giving the miscreants a thorough drubbing, Reacher affixes labels to their foreheads with super glue. The first label says, "This restaurant already has protection"; the second, "Don't start a turf war with us." "It won't come off," Reacher says. "Not without taking a lot of skin with it. Go give our best regards to your boss, then go to the hospital."

Later that evening, largely on the strength of his performance with the thugs, Reacher is unwillingly conscripted into the service of the FBI, which has uses for his unconventional ways of getting things done. They also have a bit of leverage over him, having witnessed his assault and battery of the Syrians.

Grudgingly, Reacher agrees to help out, not realizing that he will soon be in the midst of a serial killing spree that may well target the one person he truly cares for.


Leavin' Trunk Blues is the second installment in the Nick Travers series by author Ace Atkins. Travers is an unusual sleuth in that he is a blues historian; he lives in New Orleans, but frequents the small towns and countryside of the Mississippi Delta, in search of the elusive roots of blues music. Because a great number of the players were illiterate, there is, in many cases, only an oral history, and Nick wants badly to ensure this valuable piece of Americana is not lost to posterity with the deaths of the remaining original bluesmen.

For several years, Travers has followed the case of Ruby Walker, a black chanteuse who boarded the Illinois Central some 40 years ago in search of the promised land, Sweet Home Chicago. She became a Chi-town blues legend, then lost it all in a heartbeat when she was convicted of the brutal slaying of her producer and lover, Billy Lyons, back in 1959. Although Nick has written to her many times requesting an interview, he has never heard back from her . . . until now. Ruby maintains her innocence, and Nick sets out to see if he can be of some help. Upon arriving in Chicago, Nick finds there are many who want the details of Billy's death to stay obscured, and some of them will go to any lengths to prevent new evidence from seeing the light of day. And before long, Nick will be running for his life from a six-foot-six unholy terror, a Chicago legend named Stagger Lee.

Clearly Ace Atkins has a love for the bluesmen and the cities they called home. His crisp writing style and unusual subject matter should attract a large audience both of blues and mystery fans.


In Demolition Angel, author Robert Crais introduces a female protagonist, Carol Starkey, a one-time bomb squad member who was disfigured and nearly killed by the bomb that took her partner's life. Three years later, as a police investigator in the LAPD Criminal Conspiracy Section, Carol is called in to investigate the aftermath of another bomb, an explosion that has taken the life of one of her co-workers. As the forensics experts sift through the rubble, they turn up a chilling bit of evidence: a fragment of shrapnel bearing the words "Carol Starkey."

The investigation is ratcheted up several notches, no longer treated as a case of random anarchy, but as the latest in a series of explosions specifically targeting members of the bomb squad. The perpetrator is known only as "Mr. Red," the man who would occupy the top position on the FBI Most Wanted list, if only they knew his real name. Carol Starkey is the one technician who has survived Mr. Red's bombs. What follows is a deadly chess game as Carol Starkey and Mr. Red move ever closer to their final confrontation.


Meanwhile, on the Redneck Riviera, the panhandle coast of Florida, African-American police officer Barrett "Bear" Raines is fighting just to hang on in Dead Man's Bay. His wife has left him and taken the kids back to their small hometown, where black folks are more welcome than in urban Tallahassee. He has been taken off his beat as punishment for lackluster performance; he pushes paper from one side of the desk to the other, and then back.

This second entry in the Barrett Raines series by Darryl Wimberley chronicles the downward spiral of Raines's life, then follows him through the one case, that one-in-a-million case, which could be either his chance at redemption or his undoing.

Reminiscent of the novels of the late, great Charles Willeford, the Barrett Raines series is a worthy addition to the pantheon of American mysteries.


Most everybody who can draw a breath knows of the legend that is Elvis Presley. Elvis the swivel-hipped rock'n'roller, Elvis the Army dude, Elvis the movie star, Elvis the overweight drug-abuser, whatever. What most people are not aware of (I certainly wasn't), is Elvis's career as a private investigator. Kill Me Tender: A Murder Mystery Featuring Elvis Presley by Daniel Klein chronicles the (presumably) fictional episode in the life of The King, in which chapter leaders of the Elvis Presley fan club are being systematically murdered in a very unusual manner. Elvis must work outside the constraints of the law and the forensic medical community, first to determine exactly how the girls are being killed, then to identify the killer and bring him (or her) to justice. Deftly woven in are details of Graceland, Priscilla before the wedding, Colonel Tom, and the entire Elvis entourage. Not just for Elvis fans, but truly a good-natured look at the star, the times, and the segregated South.

These six are, of course, only the tip of the ice pick, but they represent a number of days of great reading.


Bruce Tierney is a Nashville-based writer and mystery aficionado. He'll recommend the best in mysteries each month in a new column, "Whodunit?"

© 2000 ProMotion, inc.
www@bookpage.com