Eric Pallant's Mystery Book Reviews Home Fiction Reviews Nonfiction Reviews Jewish Books Mystery Recommendations Links Mysteries First, some favorite authors and their series Lindsay Davies She's a Brit whose detective lives in Rome, 70 AD. He loves women in short togas, but falls in love with one who is undoubtedly smarter than he is. In fact he is generally surrounded by a domineering mother, a brow-beating sister, and dogs that demand a lot of him. Davies has a wonderful ability to place you, the reader, in the heart of working class Rome at the height of the empire and do it with great humor. Her protagonist, Marcus Didius Falco, is so lascivious and so accurately portrayed you cannot help but marvel that he's written by a woman. Start at the beginning with Silver Pigs and see if you can prevent yourself from continuing with the series. Batya Gur Gur, who recently died after writing five mysteries, covers the closed societies of Israel, peeling them layer by layer like an onion. Her books begin slowly, but are written intelligently, methodically, and carefully. I've read three of her stories: one about kibbutz life, one about concert musicians, and the third about psychiatrists. The same detective, Michael Ohayan, an outsider himself in Israeli society is given the chore of penetrating the closed societies and the minds of the criminals. Carl Hiassen His other books are similar to Double Whammy, reviewed below, which is to say, morally satisfying, humorous, fluff. Tony Hillerman Hillerman's mysteries all take place on the Navajo indian reservations of the four corners area of the southwest U.S. Like all my favorite mystery writers, there is no gratuitous violence, gore, or liquor, the suspense is palpable, and the characters are totally lovable. It pays to read these mysteries in order, though it isn't necessary to begin at the beginning, since Hillerman has written dozens. He teaches about Navajo culture with such sensitivity that the Navajos have given him awards and, according to Sue, use his books in their schools to teach youngsters about their heritage. The relationships among the Navajo tribal policemen grows and changes with time so if you start at the end of the series you'll have missed some of the earlier developments, but that's not critical. But after reading several of them, as I have, you will grow to care about the characters and become anxious to see how they are doing. Lisa Scottoline I've listened to four Scottolini mysteries performed on cassette by Barbara Rosenblatt and loved everyone of them. Like all my favorite mystery writers, there is no gratuitous violence, gore, or liquor, the suspense is palpable, and the characters are totally lovable. Scottolini's mysteries all involve a law firm in Philadelphia comprised entirely of women. Her characterization of these women, the inner city, and working class Italians is impeccable and utterly delightful. The reading is pure theater. Some other books The Art Thief by Noah Charney ** (of 4) Mildly entertaining. A Caravaggio is stolen from a baroque church in Italy. A 20th century painting is taken from the Kazimir Melevich Society in Paris. The London musuem loses its newly acquired masterpiece. The characters are stock: an overweight French detective, a down in the dumps British detective, glamourous art dealers, wealthy British gentry, clueless American collectors. The plot has more twists than a mountain road and the culprit is obvious early on. The book is at its best when it explains art history and the world of high-rolling collectors. August 2008. Bangkok 8 by John Burdett *** (out of 4) It's a mystery. I read mysteries not for the crime but to learn something about other places and times. This one takes place inside the sex industry of Bangkok, Thailand, but the sex is neither titillating, nor repulsive, but rather treated as a business by the protagonist, an incorruptible cop on the Thai police force. I can't recall his name (I finished the book two weeks ago), but he's a Buddhist cop, so there's much to learn about Buddhism, and is purported to be the only cop in Thailand who doesn't take bribes or sleep with prostitutes. So that's a twist on the hard-drinking, womanizing detective normally found in these stories. The characters are likeable, personable, and believable. The plot clicks along. There's humor and suspense. It's a good story. October 2004. Bangkok Tatoo by John Burdett *** (of 4) This is the second in Burdett's series starring a devout Buddhist cop whose boss is corrupt and whose mother runs a successful whorehouse for aging American tourists. Burdett wrote this book with more confidence than the Bangkok 8 and that makes it a better read. The characters seem less self-conscious and consequently more believable. The mystery is strong until the end, the plot snappy, and the reason for reading any mystery -- the opportunity to learn about another time, place, and culture -- is excellent. How else might I ever see the inner workings of Bangkok's red light district through the eyes of a Buddhist? December 2005. Bangkok Haunts by John Burdett **** ( of 4) It's difficult to write a series of detective stories with the same cop in the same location and not get stale. Burdett, now writing book number three, gets better, rather than repetitive. He is more comfortable and relaxed filling out the Buddhist Thai policeman, Sonchai Jiptleecheep, who may be the only son of a prostitute and brothel owner in Bangkok who is also the only honest cop in the country. In addition to learning about Thailand, Buddhism, the difference between Asian and Western ways of thought, Burdett does the best job of anyone I've read in humanizing the sex industry. The prostitutes and transsexuals that traverse his books are regular people with good days and bad, friendly and voluble, or tired and grouchy. That said, the mystery in Bangkok Haunts is good enough; the story line, however,and the characters that inhabit it are irresistable. June 2008. Bethlehem Road Murder by Batya Gur ** (of 4) At the height of the second intifada, with tensions between Israelis and Palestinians at the ignition point, a Jewish girl of Sephardic origin is found murdered in the attic of a house being renovated by Arab workers.  The characters peopling the block of the murder, including the police, are peaceniks, right-wingers, Ashkenazim elitists, Yemenite and Moroccan Jews, and hapless Palestinians caught up in the nightmare of distant suicide bombings and a ruthless Israeli police response.  Every chapter begins in obscurity and the plot focuses nearly entirely on the unfolding evidence.  So on the one hand you feel like a detective as things slowly become clearer, page by page, but on the other this is one of Gur’s weakest, because the characters are flat, and chief detective Michael Ohayan doesn’t do much but show up in scene after scene to examine a new clue.  April 2009. The Careful Use of Compliments by Alexander McCall Smith * (of 4) Maybe McCall Smith writes like a woman or is writing for women: his characters notice intricate details and reveal their feelings about scented tissues and whether they should wash the kitchen floor this morning or later in the day. Or maybe his books are just totally soporific. A forged Scottish painting is probably connected to the mysterious death of a painter of the original, but more than sixty percent of the book has already passed fretting over the chief sleuth's (Isabel Dalhousie) choice of baby formula for her newborn before there's even a suggestion of foul play. I never even reached the part where Dalhousie heads for the Scottish beach where the painter allegedly drowned. It would have been more exciting to watch the paint on the forgery dry. December 2007. Cotton Comes to Harlem by Chester Himes *** (of 4) This is such an accurate rendtion of 1960s Harlem I could smell the trash in the streets, sense the despair, hear the sirens, and feel like an invisible observer of slum-bound African Americans before civil rights. It was perfectly reproduced I could only envision the action on a black and white screen. Two black detectives, Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones, search the bars, drug dens, steaming summer streets, junkyards, abandoned lots, whore houses, and jazz halls for a ring of thieves. It's a period piece, but of a type not many people with this much insight ever put together. August 2009. Daddy's Girl by Lisa Scottoline **** (of 4) It’s the usual Scottolini fare:  shrimpy, gutsy, wise-cracking lawyer (Penn professor of law in this case) without a decent boyfriend gets caught up in violent crime in Philadelphia.   In this case, Natalie Greco endures a prison riot while teaching a prison class on justice and then witnesses a murder mid-mayhem.  Scottolini is maturing as a writer, taking more risks, and having more fun.  January 2009. Devil's Corner by Lisa Scottoline *** (of 4) I once read that we read mysteries to learn about another place or time or culture as much as for the mystery itself. Devil's Corner is vintage Scottolini: a young, Italian, feisty, female investigator goes after bad guys, this time in the crack cocaine trade. That's what I learned about -- the economic structuring of street trafficking. There's also something fascinating about women writer's of the murder mystery trade. The investigator's in Scottolini's books worry about their hair and whether their purses match their shoes and how many calories are in dessert rather than the male writer's cop who worries about booze and babes. So I learned about women, too. This book is similar to her others. It clips along, there's danger and real humor, it snows in Philadelphia where the plots always occur, and everyone important is Italian. Barbara Rosenblatt read the audio book I listened to and she's the very best. September 2007. Double Whammy by Carl Hiassen *** (of 4) Vintage Hiassen. The murderers and bad guys are Florida tele-evangelists and land unscrupulous land developers, assisted by rednecks with brains the size of 'possums. The good guys are a black cop, a cuban detective, an anti-development woodsman with a log cabin full of great books who lives on roasted roadkill animals, and a photographer with a bad temper, but a good heart. It's like many of Hiassen's other books. Wonderful parody of Florida's hucksters. In the end bad things happen to bad people and the reader cares a little bit more about the environment and the victims of racism, sexism, or classism. He'll make you laugh aloud. October 2006. Faceless Killers by Henning Mankell *** (of 4) The first in the series. Kurt Wallender is a contemporary Swedish policeman who true to the genre of crime fiction is recently divorced, has trouble with women, gets his face bashed in, and drinks too much.  And yet Faceless Killers is a page turner mostly because of its ordinariness.  Most of the action takes place in a police station where a group of cops goes over the clues and gets nowhere, just like in real life.  They check bank statements, interview people who are of no help, the Swedish sky is gray and wintry, and they come back to the police station to discuss it all again.  You understand exactly why Kurt Wallender has such troubles.  November 2006. The Kalahari Typing School for Men by Alexander McCall Smith Not as good as the first in the series, The Number One Lady's Detective Agency. It's a sweet book, but the slow pace of the first book that seemed to capture the heat and pace of southern Africa, here just turns out to be slow The Number One Lady's Detective Agency by Alexander McCall Smith A very sweet, fun read about the Miss Marple of Botswana Pompeii by Robert Harris ** (of 4) About the three days before Mount Vesuvius blew its top and decimated the city of Pompeii as seen through the eyes of a conscientious aquarius in charge of trying to figure out why the Roman aqueducts have stopped flowing. An interesting novel since you know how it is going to end, but watching how the Romans begin to uncover the signs of the impending explosion is fascinating. Sinister Pig by Tony Hillerman. **** (of 4) One of Hillerman's better stories. I feel like he is wrapping up his characters as he wraps up his writing career so this book has an especially satisfying sense of closure. Skeleton Man by Tony Hillerman *** (of 4) What's not to like about Hillerman. The man can wrte, he can educate, describe southwestern landscape and indian personalities, and he can write suspense without blood and gore. In this book he takes on Hopi legends and the historical conflict between Navajo and Hopi as well as taking a none too subtle jab at anglo preoccupation with unlimited wealth. November 2006. The Yiddish Policeman's Union by Michael Chabon **** (of 4) Hard to say if this book plays in Peoria, but Chabon prepares a perfect rendition of two genres: 1940s noir detective novels and Yiddish culture. A murder occurs in a sleazebag motel on the wrong side of the tracks in Sitka Alaska, home to Jews who were permitted to settle there after Palestine failed as a Jewish state following WWII. Arab - Israeli conflicts are replaced by Chasidic - Tlingit ones. The hard-drinking detective drinks slivovitz from the old country instead of whiskey; chasidic hoodlums hang in gangs on street corners discussing how to launder stolen money and what's the talmudic way to kosher pots; and the detective has to follow his chief-of-police, ex-wife (he's still in love with her) on his hands and knees through an escape tunnel, but all he can think about is how much he misses being able to bite her tushy. The parody holds for the entire book and the more you know about murder-mysteries and Yiddish culture, the more you'll enjoy it. June 2007. Eric Pallant, Department of Environmental Science, Allegheny College/updated 20 August 2009.