WHODUNIT?

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Mystery of the Month

For a number of years, husband-and-wife authors Jonathan and Faye Kellerman have topped the charts with each new release, Jonathan with his psychological thrillers featuring child therapist Alex Delaware, and Faye with her police procedurals featuring borderline agnostic policeman Peter Decker and his Orthodox Jewish wife, Rina Lazarus. Faye Kellerman has taken a markedly different tack with her latest thriller, Straight Into Darkness. Set in Munich in the days just before Hitler came into power, Straight Into Darkness is a dark and complicated tale of a series of strangling murders in an otherwise bucolic city park. The victims are young women, sometimes with evidence of recent sexual activity. Assigned to the case is policeman Axel Berg, a family man and WWI veteran with a marked distrust of the uneasy political situation in Germany. Hitler is staging rallies and garnering support for his platform by taunting the Munich police about their inability to catch the serial killer at large in the city. Hitler, of course, blames the Jews, the Gypsies and the homosexuals, and in doing so, manages to force the police department into detaining an innocent Jewish banker. When the banker is lynched en route to jail, the city erupts in violence, further fueled by another murder of a young girl, this one only a child. It is exactly the pandemonium needed by Hitler to foment insurrection and to begin to implement his master plan for the next decade.

Faye Kellerman's father was, as a young man, a U.S. Army soldier in Germany; because of his fluency in Yiddish, he had the opportunity to speak with concentration camp survivors. Drawing from the stories he shared with her, usually under duress, Kellerman has fashioned a gripping and exceptionally believable story of a city and a country (and indeed, a world) on the brink of disaster at the hands of madmen. Straight Into Darkness is a crystal-clear example of a writer at the top of her game, easily one of the most intense and absorbing mysteries of the year.


A Minnesota murderer on the loose

Not since Blake Crouch's chilling Desert Places has a debut mystery caused such a stir in the halls of BookPage as Brian Freeman's Immoral. Set in Duluth, Minnesota, Immoral traces the path of a serial killer, a deviant with a taste for teenage girls. The most recent victim is Rachel Deese, by most accounts a rather arrogant and amoral young woman. There is no body on hand, but all indications are that she has met with foul play like young Kerry McGrath, who was killed some 14 months before. Lieutenant Jonathan Stride, a recent widower, is assigned to the case, along with his Chinese-American partner, Sergeant Maggie Bei. Stride is the world-weary veteran of the pair; Bei, for her part, is the wisecracking sidekick. The plot is cleverly crafted, with villains crawling out of the woodwork at every turn. Even the most recent victim is more than a little twisted; rarely has a crime novel casualty been more deserving of her fate. Though a suspect is arrested, his trial resolves little, and raises yet more questions. Fast-forward three years: Stride is now remarried, not entirely happily; petite Maggie Bei has married a retired Olympic swimmer. The scene switches to Las Vegas, and two more lead characters are introduced. Also, there is some compelling evidence that Rachel may not be dead after all. Or is she? Immoral is a slick and savvy offering and the best debut mystery in quite some time.


Rendell probes the pitfalls of modern-day crime

The reigning grande dame of English murder mysteries, Ruth Rendell, is back with a diabolical tale of unrequited love (and a murder or two), 13 Steps Down. Superstar model Nerissa Nash has had her share of would-be suitors, even a stalker or two, but nobody quite as persistent as Michael "Mix" Cellini. Mix has single-mindedly followed Nash's career forever, and he feels certain that if he can just meet the object of his affections, she will be bowled over by his panache, charisma and good looks. Never mind that he is, in reality, no better than average in any of the above-listed categories, and he suffers from an expanding midsection as well—Mix intends to make Nerissa Nash his wife. Meanwhile, Mix's landlady, elderly Gwendolen Chawcer, suffers in the throes of her own unrequited love that dates back some 50 years, a chaste flirtation with young doctor Stephen Reeves. When she discovers that Reeves' wife has recently passed away, she decides to rekindle the flame, with mildly disastrous results. There is no love lost between Mix and Gwendolen, and there is a truly evil cat afoot in the house as well. When the first murder is finally committed, a shallow grave will be dug in the backyard of the townhouse they share, and it will not take long for its contents to rise accusingly to the surface. 13 Steps Down is great fun, a tongue-in-cheek look at the pitfalls of modern-day murder.


Last note from a master of the procedural

If Ed McBain does not hold the record for sheer numbers of books in a mystery series, I can't imagine who does. Fiddlers, is (by my count) the 55th installment in the 87th Precinct series. For almost 50 years, McBain, who died in July, entertained his readers with perhaps the finest police procedural novels of modern times. By turns ribald, gritty and cynical, this last novel in the famous series is a tale of a serial killer on a mission to right perceived wrongs meted out to him over the span of a lifetime. Veteran policeman Steve Carella is assigned to the first case, the murder of a blind violinist in an alley behind a popular nightspot. Fear not, however. There will be plenty of murders to go around, and all the favorite McBain characters will be on hand—Bert Kling, in the throes of despair over the breakup with his African-American girlfriend; Fat Ollie Weeks, desperately trying to lose weight and make time with comely policewoman Patricia Gomez; and of course, the aforementioned Carella. As is the case with earlier McBain stories (and with life, for that matter), there are lots of characters to keep track of (a cheat sheet would be a big help!). That said, murders are rarely solved through the work of one person, and everybody involved has a backstory that contributes to the resolution. And nobody, but nobody, could weave the disparate details together like Ed McBain.


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