WHODUNIT?

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Murder on ice

I have to confess that I have a soft spot for mysteries set in offbeat foreign locales (probably because I so enjoy off-the-beaten-path travel). I know what you're thinking: all good suspense novels should be staged in L.A. or New York or possibly Florida. Alexander McCall Smith changed all that by setting his marvelous mysteries in Botswana, of all places. Nowadays, Henning Mankell offers atmospheric whodunits set in northern Sweden, A.C. Baantjer's Inspector DeKok plies his trade in the red-light district of Amsterdam, and Donna Leon's Commissario Brunetti navigates the canals of Venice. Enter author Arnaldur Indridason and his first novel to be published in the U.S. (translated from his native Icelandic), Jar City. Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson is an intense and introspective protagonist: a solver of crimes in Iceland, a country largely free of criminal activity; a more-or-less straight arrow with two addicted children (one of whom is pregnant and still using). The descriptions of Reykjavik and the surrounding area, though not central to the narrative, are fascinating in their own right, and the plotting is riveting. Look for Indridason to appear on critics' shortlists for best new author of the year, best mystery novel and so forth. Best of all, the sequel to Jar City, titled Lady in Green, is due out shortly.


Alex Cross goes Hollywood

James Patterson is something of an icon among Florida writers, indeed among mystery writers of any locale. His 34th book, Mary, Mary, featuring FBI agent Alex Cross, is here, and it ranks among the best installments of the popular series. Cross is a bit of a throwback: he still lives in a mom-and-pop D.C. neighborhood with Nana Mama (his grandmother), Janelle and Damon (his two children) and a cat named Rosie, and he still drives a Beatles-era Porsche. Cross is taking a well-earned vacation in Disneyland (on the heels of his harrowing adventures in 2004's London Bridges) when he is called upon to investigate the shooting death of an actress outside her Beverly Hills home. When an L.A. Times reporter gets an e-mail accurately detailing the killing, offering bits of information unavailable to anyone but the police and the perpetrator, it becomes painfully clear that this is just one of a series of related murders by the pseudonymous(?) Mary Smith, "killer of the stars." The film industry elite are worried sick—who will be next on the list? Mary, Mary is replete with red herrings, both for the reader and for Agent Cross; this will prove to be one of his most convoluted and challenging cases, and it's diabolical entertainment for his cadre of readers.


Mystery of the month

Were I to compile a list of Tip of the Ice Pick winners, T. Jefferson Parker, Michael Connelly and Tony Hillerman would all be somewhere near the top. Still, I suspect that the numero uno spot would be occupied by Walter Mosley, so it is perhaps a foregone conclusion that his latest, Cinnamon Kiss, the 10th installment in the acclaimed Easy Rawlins series, captures this month's award. It is 1967, the Summer of Love. Now well into his 40s, Easy has reined in some of the impulsiveness that characterized his early years. When his daughter, Feather, contracts a rare blood disease, Easy must shelve his newfound morality in order to raise the $35,000 needed for her treatment. His devil-may-care sidekick, Raymond "Mouse" Alexander, has a line on an armored car heist that should provide the needed funds, but Easy opts for a missing persons job instead. The armored car job might have been the better option: one of the missing persons turns up quite dead, and the other is on the run to avoid a similar fate. Easy tracks his quarry to San Francisco and ends up smack in the middle of the psychedelic revolution. Juxtaposing history with personal story is a device used often and well by Mosley; last year's Little Scarlet was set against the backdrop of the Watts riots. The issue (the tragedy, really) of racism bubbles just beneath the surface of all the Easy Rawlins novels, giving his legions of white readers insight into black culture that may well be missing from their lives otherwise.


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