Catch them if you can

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

The bartender was named Catch, a nickname from his hockey days when he wore a goalie's glove that looked for all the world like a baseball catcher's mitt. He had been a first-rate high-school player, perhaps pro quality, until the fall from the snowy rooftop broke both his ankles and left him with a permanent limp. Now, several years later, Catch is chronically under-employed at a northern Minnesota bar that caters to a crowd of rowdy snowmobilers and local town drunks. The lady in pink in the far booth is a newcomer. Her name is Serene; she is anything but. Before the evening is out, Catch and Serene will take part in a killing, conspire to conceal the evidence of one another's involvement, and launch a torrid (and homicidal) love affair. The case falls to St. Paul detective Paris Murphy. Dark House marks Murphy's third appearance in Theresa Monsour's well-received series (the other entries being Clean Cut and Cold Blood). Murphy is a straight-up, full-throttle cop and not inclined to take any guff from anyone; her character is well drawn and complex, an amalgam of Irish, Lebanese and pit bull (with a healthy dose of feminine sensuality). Meticulous plot development and breakneck pacing will leave the reader eagerly awaiting the next installment.


Word on the street

Quadriplegic detective Lincoln Rhyme returns in Jeffery Deaver's The Twelfth Card (Simon & Schuster, $25, 416 pages, ISBN 0743260929). You may remember Rhyme from The Bone Collector (either the book or the movie starring Denzel Washington. This time out, Rhyme must look into the case of Geneva Settle, a Harlem high-school girl who survived a rape/murder attempt while doing research at a library. It seems there may be some connection between Geneva's term-paper research on a freed-slave ancestor and the attempt on her life. In order to connect the dots, Rhyme and his assistant, Amelia Sachs, will have to delve into a seriously cold case, one that is some 140 years old. Deaver is superb at plotting; he seamlessly weaves in the story of a post-Civil War conspiracy, high-level modern-day financial chicanery and the calculating iciness of a nondescript assassin. Red herrings abound, and each epiphany seems to unearth another facet of the dense mystery. In The Twelfth Card, more than in previous books, the character of Lincoln Rhyme is fleshed out—cracks are beginning to appear in his stony facade, a change that will be welcomed by compassionate readers. The dialogue is especially crisp; Deaver displays a feel for street vernacular virtually unparalleled in modern crime fiction.


A missing woman of the night

Irish author John Connolly neatly splits the genre difference between mystery and horror with his latest Charlie Parker thriller, The Black Angel. Parker is drawn into the search for a missing woman, the cousin of a close friend and business associate; the woman, once beautiful, has had a hard life shaped by anger, drugs and prostitution. The police have given the case short shrift—druggies and prostitutes go missing every day, after all. Only the woman's mother still believes that her daughter's life is salvageable. Things take a turn for the stranger when the disappearance is linked to a bizarre church in the Czech Republic. The church, called Sedlec, is decorated, and indeed constructed, using human bones. The chandelier itself is reputed to contain every bone in the human body. It is but a piece of the puzzle surrounding the Black Angel, a perhaps mythical statue sought for centuries by infamous evildoers and their descendants, some of whom will cross paths with Charlie Parker. Once again, Connolly has crafted a first-rate suspense thriller. The supernatural component is integral, but more subdued than, say, a Stephen King novel (perhaps more along the lines of James Lee Burke's In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead). Connolly's writing is both lyrical and insightful, as well as eminently thought provoking.


Mystery of the Month

This month, BookPage's Tip of the Ice Pick Award goes to Canadian author Giles Blunt for his stylish and intense mystery novel, Black Fly Season. When the black flies come to Algonquin Bay, Ontario, you have two choices: stay inside or become dinner for the voracious little beasts. When a young woman trips into the World Tavern covered in fly bites, the disbelieving locals think she must be high, or perhaps just a bit retarded. The truth is somewhat stranger: "Red" has a bullet lodged in her brain and no memory of the events leading up to it; in fact, no real memories at all, including her identity. Homicide detectives Lisa Delorme and John Cardinal quickly realize that Red is in danger; whoever tried to kill her will certainly try again if/when he realizes his first attempt was unsuccessful. Meanwhile, the decapitated remains of a very unlikable biker turn up at a local waterfall. These two events are, all in all, more violent crime than the town has witnessed in a very long time. It seems likely that the crimes are connected, though the explanation is more convoluted than might initially meet the eye, and includes a twist or two to keep things interesting. Blunt, a former screenwriter who has won the Silver Dagger and Arthur Ellis awards, knows all too well how to sustain the suspense. All the genre superlatives apply here: taut, gripping, visceral, riveting (not to mention that the book appears just in time for black fly season!)


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