The Conspiracy Club

Mystery of the month

Best-selling author Jonathan Kellerman, known for his Alex Delaware mystery series, wins our December Tip of the Ice Pick award for his stirring new stand-alone thriller The Conspiracy Club (Ballantine, $26.95, 384 pages, ISBN 0345452577). Protagonist Dr. Jeremy Carrier, like Delaware, is a psychologist, but there the similarity ends. Carrier is trying to put his life back together after the brutal murder of his live-in girlfriend, Jocelyn. The crime has never been solved, and in the absence of a better suspect, the police are keeping a close eye on Carrier. As details unfold, it turns out that Jocelyn's murder was even more grisly than the authorities had let on, a surgically precise dismemberment of the body in the manner of Jack the Ripper. Then Carrier receives an anonymous message, a medical document with an air of "clue" about it; in short order he begins to realize that someone is feeding him information about several murders, each mirroring the slaying of his beloved Jocelyn. Before the investigative noose tightens 'round Carrier's neck, he must identify the cunning psychopath who has thus far operated well under the authorities' radar. Kellerman unerringly develops his plots and subplots, keeping his reader on the proverbial seat's edge until the denouement. His characters are well-drawn and likable (even the villains, sometimes), and the pacing is near perfect, even for jaded longtime suspense-ophiles (like me, for instance).

A French twist on holiday crimes

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Georges Simenon's Inspector Jules Maigret is one of the icons of suspense fiction, in a league with Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's legendary Sherlock Holmes. This year, just in time for the holiday season, Harcourt is releasing Maigret's Christmas, a delightful collection of short stories featuring the intrepid inspector and an assemblage of youthful heroes. In several of the stories, the young protagonists assist Maigret in his investigations, bringing out a paternal component in the childless detective. One tale involves a girl who insists that Father Christmas has come to visit her in the night; she is not usually given to such flights of fancy, and Inspector Maigret determines to get to the bottom of the mystery. All of these stories have been published before in mystery magazines and previous compilations. Thematically, though, this is a tight collection, as quaint and charming as a black-and-white film, yet timeless in terms of story lines, craftsmanship and dialogue.


Murder in the Adirondacks

In his critically acclaimed 2000 novel Suspension, author Richard Edward Crabbe detailed the post-Civil War terrorist plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge. Three years later, Crabbe treats us to his second historical novel, The Empire of Shadows, a Byzantine tale of love and murder in 1889 America. While vacationing with his family at an Adirondack hotel, New York Detective Bureau Chief Tom Braddock comes face to face with death: a young and attractive hotel maid has been killed, and Tom's son is the prime suspect. Meanwhile, a convicted murderer, a Mohawk Indian, has escaped from New York City, and was last seen headed toward the Adirondack wilderness. Braddock knows in his heart of hearts that this is the man responsible for the murder, and he sets off in search of the escapee. It proves to be a difficult chase, since the Indian has experience with the land that few city dwellers can match. As is the case in the best mysteries, all is not as it seems—the clues point in one direction, but nagging doubts as to the manipulations of the people behind the scenes arise in the mind of the detective (and the reader). The details of 1880s America ring true, evidence of extensive research on the part of the author; the plotting is solid and the suspense palpable. All in all, an excellent sophomore effort from a fine contemporary writer.


© 2003 ProMotion, inc.
www@bookpage.com