WHODUNIT?

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

Crimes of passion

The highbrow love affair between Episcopal pastor Clare Fergusson and married police chief Russ Van Alstyne ratchets up a notch or two in Julia Spencer-Fleming's fifth novel featuring the troubled duo, All Mortal Flesh. Van Alstyne has confessed his love for Fergusson to his wife, and she has taken it as you would expect: she has kicked the police chief out of the house, forcing him to seek temporary domicile with his mother. Russ reacts by taking a short leave of absence; upon his return, he is shocked (or so he says) to find that his wife has been murdered, her throat slit and her body defaced by a hunting knife identical to one that has gone missing from Van Alstyne's backpack. The veteran cop is pulled off the case and relieved of his badge, the investigation taken over by a zealous state cop who has apparently made up her mind that Russ is guilty. With suspicion and betrayal at every turn, Russ and Clare must investigate on the Q.T., staying one step ahead of the none-too-friendly state police and the mounting evidence against one or both of them. All Mortal Flesh would be best enjoyed having read the previous installment, To Darkness and to Death, as numerous references are made to events that unfolded in that book. Nonetheless, it works as a stand-alone; the characters and relationships are complex and meaning-laden, the plot is carefully laid out and quickly paced and the tension of the forbidden love between the protagonists colors their every moment together.


Evil stalks the City of Angels

Some books just have "movie" written all over them, and Will Beall's L.A. Rex is one of them. This gripping debut novel revolves around young Ben Halloran, a rookie cop with a hidden past, assigned to the 77th Division, home of L.A.'s roughest neighborhoods (and toughest gangs). Halloran is partnered with Miguel Marquez, a Daryl Gates-era cop from the bad old days who often (and unapologetically) lets the end justify the means. Cutting back and forth between the 1970s and the present, Beall spins a riveting tale of the L.A. streets and the hard cases (both criminal and cop) who inhabit them. One of the major players is a larger-than-life character named Darius, once a street thug, now the head of a multimillion-dollar rap label. Darius hasn't strayed too far from his roots, however, and is a key POI (person of interest) in a homicide investigation with overtones of the real-life murders of Tupac Shakur and Notorious B.I.G. It is the task of Marquez and Halloran to find justice for the dead—problem is, the dead keep piling up faster than the cops can log them in case books. The pace is breathtaking, the dialogue snappy and street-savvy. Beall brings an insider's sense of authenticity to the book, as he serves as a police officer in the aforementioned 77th Division (although he is currently working on both a screenplay for L.A. Rex and a second novel, tentatively titled The Lion Hunters).


First-rate legal suspense

October debut novel #2 is brought to you by veteran trial lawyer Paul Batista, whose legal thriller Death's Witness reads like an early Grisham novel. When lawyer Tom Perini, a former Heisman Trophy winner, is found murdered in Central Park, the investigation stalls early on, and Perini's widow, Julie, is left with the unsettled feeling that something is being covered up. With just a bit of preliminary sniffing around, Julie quickly realizes that her husband was not the lily-white soul mate and father that he seemed to be. In fact, he was funneling huge amounts of money through a secret bank account, the latest deposit upwards of $100 million! When the cops show up to impound all of Tom's paper and computer files, Julie grudgingly complies. Unbeknownst to the law, however, she has been diligently copying everything for later perusal. That said, she can only sift through the data if she survives, and nefarious forces on both sides of the law seem to have it in for her . . . unless she can lead them to the missing millions.

Death's Witness is an outstanding debut novel. Like L.A. Rex, it was penned by someone from the trenches, with an insider's knowledge of how the system works, and more importantly, how to game said system for one's own ends.


MYSTERY OF THE MONTH

This month's Tip of the Ice Pick goes to award-winning Icelandic author Arnaldur Indridason, for his latest (and, it must be said, somewhat disturbing) thriller, Silence of the Grave. His first novel released in the U.S., 2005's Jar City, introduced world-weary police inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, and left readers clamoring for more. The book won the Glass Key Award for Best Nordic Crime Novel, a distinction shared with such luminaries as Karin Fossum, Henning Mankell and Peter Hoeg. Now Erlendur is back to investigate a decades-old case that may or may not be a murder. Over the years since World War II, Reykjavik has continued to expand. Construction sites are everywhere, but this is the first time in Erlendur's memory that a skeleton has been unearthed in one of them. He gathers together a crack team of forensic specialists and investigators (most with names quite unpronounceable to the native English speaker), and embarks on what may well be a fool's errand. Still, murder has no statute of limitations, and Erlendur must rule that out before he can let the case drop.

Silence of the Grave is really four separate stories woven together, and deftly at that: the ongoing investigation of the grisly findings at the construction site; a cold case (although perhaps all cases in Iceland fall into that category to some degree) of suicide and sexual betrayal; a postwar case of domestic violence that escalated into something unexpected and unspeakable; and the modern-day tale of a disaffected police officer and his severely dysfunctional family. Bit by bit, as these disparate chapters unfold, the reader begins to get an idea of the identity of the deceased, and how he (or she) came to an end; then time and time again, the investigation hits a dead end, and all of our preconceived notions have to be re-evaluated. Sympathetically translated from the original Icelandic by Bernard Scudder (as was Jar City), Silence of the Grave is a darkly atmospheric novel, a book to be read slowly and savored on a cold October night.


© 2006 ProMotion, inc.
www@bookpage.com