Cornwell's latest is hard to put down

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Let it be said that I almost gave up on Patricia Cornwell's latest novel, Trace, a mere 11 pages into the book, when I encountered the name of the man who would be the villain of the piece, Edgar Allan Pogue. (Anyone who has read Cornwell's unloved and widely maligned Southern Cross may recall the equally mal-monikered scoundrel, Butner Fluck.) God knows I am no stranger to a pun, but I was in no mood to see the tautly crafted Scarpetta novels camped up with ill-advised attempts at humor. I decided to give it another 11 pages. That became another 11, and another, and I have to confess, I got hooked. At the outset, pathologist Kay Scarpetta is summoned back to Richmond. It seems that a young girl has died and that the cause of death is a mystery: it may be natural, it may be homicide, but nobody in the Virginia Medical Examiner's office can say with certainty. The girl's father has some political clout, and he demands answers. Scarpetta is able to determine that the girl was murdered, but things take a turn for the weird when trace evidence links the killing to the death of a construction worker at the site of the old forensics building where Scarpetta once reigned supreme. Although perhaps not the best of the series (I am a big fan of Cornwell's earlier work), Trace is solid and tightly paced, which should appeal strongly to her legions of fans.


Murder in the District

A car pulls to the curb after dark in a marginal Washington, D.C., neighborhood; drug dealer Skeeter Hodges sits in the driver's seat talking to longtime pal and partner in crime Pencil Crawford. A hail of bullets rips through the vehicle, leaving Skeeter dead and Pencil badly wounded. Officers Frank Kearney and Jose Phelps are assigned to the case and given the task of closing a boatload of open homicides by determining which ones can be attributed to the freshly departed Mr. Hodges. The more, the better, according to their beleaguered boss—a not unreasonable position, considering that close to one-third of all murders in the District go unsolved. The ballistics report on the bullets throws them a curve, however: it turns out that the same gun that killed Hodges had been used in the earlier killing of a congressional aide, and the connection threatens to open up a political can of worms that may well rattle the halls of legislation. A Murder of Justice is number three in a series; author Robert Andrews should be required reading for police procedural fans worldwide.


Mystery of the month

September's Tip of the Ice Pick award goes to eccentric nouveau noir author James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential, White Jazz) for the darkly original Destination: Morgue! Although not a detective novel per se, Destination: Morgue! serves up more mystery and crime in 400 pages than any other three books I can think of offhand. It comprises 14 pieces—including three novellas, a profile of celebrity defendant Robert Blake, several true-crime stories and a wealth of autobiographical material—that provide a template for the genesis of a mystery novel. When Ellroy was 10 years old, his Hollywood party-animal mother was murdered; the perpetrator remains at large. His obsession with her death, and his subsequent immersion into the Los Angeles homicide scene, has resulted in some of the premier crime novels of his generation. Ellroy pulls no punches—the milieu he portrays and the language he employs are not for the faint of heart (or stomach). His density of detail and staccato delivery are virtually unmatched in modern fiction of any genre. Of a teenage homicide investigation: "It was proactive. It was reactive. It ran tangential. It ran straight ahead. It was footwork and filework and gruntwork. It was a full-fledged freak symphony." Ellroy's characters are deliciously sleazy, often even the ones who are supposedly the "good guys". If you are looking for subtlety, look somewhere else; Ellroy is as subtle as a chainsaw. But fans of true detective grit as offered up by the likes of Andrew Vachss or James Crumley take note: if you feel that your favorites have gone a bit too soft around the middle, a touch mainstream, give James Ellroy a shot. You won't regret it.


© 2004 ProMotion, inc.
www@bookpage.com