WHODUNIT?

REVIEWS BY BRUCE TIERNEY

In the winner's circle

By this point, there must be no trophies left for Rick Riordan to add to his mantelpiece. He is the triple-crown winner of the three most coveted awards in suspense writing: the Edgar, the Anthony and the Shamus. His Tres Navarre mysteries, typically set in the Texas Hill Country around Austin, offer a deft blend of hard-bitten urban PI fiction and the big-sky purple-sage romanticism of a Louis L'Amour western. In his latest adventure, Rebel Island, the aforementioned Navarre finds himself far from his usual haunts, both physically and metaphorically. For one thing, the perennial bachelor is tying the knot with longtime sweetheart Maia Lee, who is pregnant. For another, he has returned to an unsettling locale laden with bad memories from his childhood, Rebel Island, for a brief honeymoon with his bursting bride (and his ne'er-do-well older brother, who has tagged along for the ride). If that's not surreal enough, let's introduce a vindictive U.S. marshal, a trio of college druglords, a wily blackmailer and a grimly efficient assassin. Oh, and a hurricane of truly biblical proportions, for however difficult a mystery may prove to solve, it becomes exponentially more difficult when the wind is screaming around your ears and waves are lapping at your ankles . . . on the second floor! Red herrings abound (perhaps courtesy of the storm-tossed sea), the dialogue is smart and incisive, the characters superbly drawn. For longtime Riordan fans and newcomers alike, Rebel Island is a guaranteed-to-please page-turner of the first order.


The killer inside

Jeff Lindsay's Dexter in the Dark is certainly one of the most original novels in recent memory. This is the third of the Dexter books, which are so popular they have been adapted into a TV series for Showtime. Think "CSI" meets An American Werewolf in London, and you won't be far off. Dexter Morgan represents the "CSI" part of the equation. He is a South Florida forensic pathologist with a big secret. The big secret is the Dark Passenger, a vengeful being who inhabits Dexter's psyche, directing him in all sorts of merry mayhem in the name of the greater good. Or so Dexter thinks. This is, of course, a hobby best pursued solo, but Dexter has a couple of soon-to-be stepchildren who are hip to his secret, so he reluctantly agrees to train them in the dark arts that will come to shape their young lives. It must be said that Dexter only wreaks havoc on folks who richly deserve it, and given his line of work, he is exceptionally careful not to leave any incriminating evidence. Lately, though, his Dark Passenger seems to have deserted him; Dexter senses that something has frightened his alter ego badly, perhaps another Dark Passenger. Not a happy thought, especially as this new being seems to have none of Dexter's scruples with regard to choice of victims. Lindsay has a tongue-in-cheek writing style reminiscent of Lawrence Block's in his Burglar (Bernie Rhodenbarr) series—ever so slightly highbrow, but at the same time displaying an endearing self-effacing quality in the protagonist.


Moving toward murder

"Have truck, will haul." A mind-numbing business venture, perhaps, but leagues better than working as a line cook at Cap'n Crab or selling home security systems door-to-door. Still, the two proprietors can't give up their day jobs until the fledgling trucking company, financed with a small and unexpected bequest from a distant deceased aunt, begins to show a profit. James Lessor and Eugene "Skip" Moore have been buddies since grade school; they went through school and college together, and now they share a dismal Florida apartment suitable for a pair of charming slackers of limited means. Still, if you can believe James, that's all about to change: Within two years, according to his calculations, the pair should make a cool million bucks (hey, if Matt Damon and Ben Affleck can do it . . .). Little do they know that in a matter of days they will be hauling dismembered body parts around Miami, running afoul of both the bad guys (really bad guys) and the law, getting shot at, kidnapped and worse (not to mention involved in what might well escalate into the overthrow of the Cuban government). Stuff to Die For is the latest from Don Bruns, author of the popular and critically acclaimed (by me, among others) South Beach Shakedown. A worthy successor to that fine book, Stuff to Die For is a sure bet to appeal to fans of Carl Hiaasen, Tim Dorsey or James O. Born.


Mystery of the month

Every now and then you run into a book that has it all: humor, a delightfully dark tone, a world-weary and larger-than-life protagonist and a wildly inventive storyline. Craig McDonald's Head Games is such a novel. The "head" in question is none other than that of Pancho Villa, which was stolen from his grave decades ago, perhaps by longtime Villa henchman Rodolfo Fierro. Rumors flew that Yale's vaunted Skull and Bones society might have been the ultimate recipient of the head, but nothing was ever proven. McDonald uses that real-life incident to build a darkly humorous story, using a cast of real-life mid-century luminaries: Marlene Dietrich, Orson Welles, Ernest Hemingway, Jack Webb (of Dragnet fame) and a laconic Yale frat boy who goes by the name "George W."

As Head Games opens, it is 1957, and the head is still on the missing list. The protagonist of the tale, a mystery novelist/screenwriter named Hector Lassiter, came up through the pulps like his contemporaries Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett. With several marriages and countless bottles of booze behind him, Lassiter is a little the worse for wear. Still, he carves a dashing figure—the sort of man's man who would appeal to the readers of that era's True magazine. His interviewer, one Bud Fiske, is a poet by trade, but as any poet can tell you, there's not a lot of money in that line of endeavor; Bud pays his bills by grinding out prose for the lurid men's magazines that grace the behind-the-counter areas of '50s drugstores and smoke shops. Early on, Bud reflects that he may have bitten off more than he can conveniently chew, as he finds himself smack in the middle of a shootout in a south-of-the-border cantina, with the Mexican Federales as the opposing team. A book with a premise as unorthodox as this could easily dissolve into farce, but McDonald skillfully avoids that trap, crafting a clever and only slightly over-the-top slaughter-fest worthy of James Ellroy or James Crumley.


© 2007 ProMotion, inc.