Mystery is served: Contemporary entree, historical dessert

Mysteries have evolved into a salad of sub-genres. This month we investigate three contemporary tales -- two private eyes and a police procedural -- plus an "enquiry" set in England, in 1860.

REVIEWS BY TOM CORCORAN

Stone Quarry by S. J. Rozan extends an award-winning series with plot and personal repercussions from last year's A Bitter Feast. Bill Smith and Linda Chin are attempting to mend their relationship by keeping a therapeutic distance -- she in the City, Bill at his upstate New York "escape" cabin. Even with classical music in the air, the boonies are not peaceful. Smith and Chin's resolutions of past situations have led to a grim expansion of problems. A body in the basement of Smith's favorite hangout and a woman requesting his expertise in tracking stolen art -- without police involvement -- force Smith to break his own policy of not working while on vacation. Rozan's seamless writing ranges from glorious to no-frills, the action is backwoods tough, and Stone Quarry is consistently believable.


Shooting at Midnight by Greg Rucka begins not with the author's compelling character Atticus Kodiak, but with the bodyguard's sometime lover, Bridgett Logan. This New York cop's daughter is a streetwise investigator and recovering addict with a sense of justice and a weakness for drugs. Bridgett is asked to honor a promise made years ago to Lisa Schoof, a fellow down-and-out teenager. But the pledge to help protect her from an abusive ex-lover gets twisted. Lisa wants to murder Vince Lark.

Within hours, Lark has been killed in a "shooting gallery," Lisa refuses to speak in her own defense, and Bridgett realizes that her father's service revolver is missing. Bridgett must risk her life to learn the circumstances of the murder. The investigation exacts horrendous sacrifice, and Atticus is delivered a mysterious summons. To tell more would ruin this gritty novel's true-to-life suspense.


Veteran NYPD detectives Joe Gregory and Anthony Ryan make their fourth appearance in Edward Dee's Nightbird. The longtime partners know the boroughs, the worlds, and underworlds of urban New York as intimately as the cop saloon they frequent. When Broadway actress Gillian Stone plunges many stories to her death, many assume suicide. This theory is bolstered when the detectives learn that her employer, producer Trey Winters, had requested that the young woman submit to a drug test. If she'd been using, her career would halt.

But word filters down that Gillian and Winters were lovers. And the case is complicated by the detectives' discovery that Danny Eumont, Ryan's nephew, had once been involved with the dead woman. What begins as a routine case becomes a complex and personal challenge to the partners.

Edward Dee, an ex-New York detective, paints backdrops with authenticity and cynicism. Gregory and Ryan, purposeful and sharp, take different approaches to crime solution, yet blend their insights to reach resolutions.


In The Twisted Root by Anne Perry "agent of enquiry" William Monk is asked by Lucius Stourbridge to help locate his missing fiance, the widow, Mrs. Miriam Gardiner. Miriam departed a gathering at the Stourbridge estate and, along with coachman Treadwell and the coach and team, vanished. Lucius is crushed; his parents and maternal uncle Aiden Campbell act similarly. But they reveal that Miriam was perhaps a step down in station, "over-familiar" with servants, and "at least" nine years their son's senior. Presently, the coachman is found murdered, and Miriam is presumed the killer. Monk, an ex-police officer fired for insubordination, believes there is more to the crime. With the assistance of his new wife Hester Latterly, Monk pursues an investigation that, with classic Anne Perry twists, leads into Victorian bedrooms and, eventually, the courtroom.


Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the new Florida Keys mystery, Gumbo Limbo, both from St. Martin's.

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