David Schwinghammer's Blog - Posts Tagged "mystery-series"

When I saw the review for LAKE OF TEARS, a mystery featuring a woman sheriff of a small town, I was thinking “Marge Gunderson!” No such luck. Although Mary Logue has published twelve mystery novels, many featuring Claire Watkins, this book is nothing like “Fargo”.

At the beginning of the book, the sheriff in the county seat of Fort St. Antoine, Wisconsin, has a heart attack, and Claire takes his place, just in time to be confronted with a skeleton imbedded in a replica of a Norwegian longboat set afire to celebrate the town’s Norwegian heritage.

This book is different in that a couple of the characters are Afghanistan vets, suffering from PTS; one of the suspects who had been a boyfriend of the victim prior to his war service is a newly hired deputy on Claire’s staff. One of his best friends from the war also shows up looking for the deputy. Another suspect is the girl’s current boyfriend who had given her a diamond engagement ring. He and Andrew Stickler, the deputy, had locked horns previously, apparently over the girl.

Logue throwS in a further complication with Stickler, aged 26, dating her daughter, Meg, 18.

Otherwise, LAKE OF TEARS reads like a episode of “Law and Order” or one of the numerous cops shows on TV. It’s short, only 207 pages, and Logue takes the easy way out in respect to resolution, but I didn’t hate it. I guess I’ll have to wait for the new “Fargo” TV series, sanctioned by the Coen brothers, to get my “Fargo” buzz.

I've read reviews of THE GIRL IN THE SPIDER'S WEB that argue Lagercrantz's book is on a par with the previous Lisbeth Salander novels. I beg to disagree.
For on thing Lagercrantz is more of a journalist and celebrity biographer than a novelist and it shows. A big no-no in the mystery craft is not to try to use dialogue to provide backstory. Lagercrantz does this over and over. No reporter would let his source carry the interview like the Blomkvist interviews.
Also, once again, Salander, the star of the show, doesn't get enough time on stage. Too much of the book is about Blomkvist whining about Millennium possibly going under and stories in celebrity mags that claim he's over the hill. He hasn't had a big story since Lisbeth's Russian gangster father was revealed as a major crime figure and eliminated.
This story is about cyber hacking, mainly of the NSA. They're really bad guys in the story, so bad that the story is rather unbelievable. Yes, they snoop on everybody, but they don't steal intellectual property.
The intellectual property we're speaking of is artificial intelligence and a scientist named Franz Balder has made great strides in the field. But he's developed a conscience. All he wants to do is help his autistic son August. Surprisingly his ex-wife isn't opposed to the idea. But then he's murdered and Lisbeth swoops in to save August. There's also lots of information on how to hack into a file. Of course August is a savante (isn't everybody?) and he helps Salander decipher an important NSA file.
We are also treated to another nasty villain, Camilla, Lisbeth's beautiful, psychotic twin sister. She's inherited her father's crime syndicate, but she's so beautiful and shy looking that nobody believes what a criminal mastermind she is. She hates her sister and a confrontation is imminent.
That's another thing that's wrong with the book. The ending just fades out without a real confrontation. There is one, but it's not between the sisters. That's what I hate about series mysteries. Some of them have cliff hangers, and you have to buy the next book to find out what happens. Lagercrantz is doing well enough with this one for that to be inevitable. Not that I won't read it.

MISERY has always been my favorite Stephen King book, mainly because it wasn't about some dopey clown sticking his head out of a sewer grating. It was about an obsessed fan who happened to find her favorite writer in dire straights after a car accident and refused to let him go until he promised to continue her favorite series, which he had discontinued. It was plausible, in other words.

FINDERS KEEPERS is also about an obsessed fan who sets out to rob a J.D. Salinger like novelist who had been out of the public eye for twenty years. Morris Bellamy is more interested in a continuation of the Jimmy God novels (think Holden Caulfield), the last of which seemed to him to have been a sellout. John Rothstein keeps his writing and some money in a safe which Morris and his friends break into; Morris then dispatches his literary hero with a bullet to the brain and hides the money and the moleskin notebooks in a trunk buried beneath a tree. But he's arrested for a brutal rape and spends the next thirty-five years in jail.

Along come Pete Saubers who lives in Morrie's old house; he finds the trunk and the money as the bank beneath the tree has eroded revealing the trunk. Wonder of wonders Pete is also a big Rothstein fan, but he needs the money more to help his parents. His dad just happens to be a victim of the Mr. Mercedes attack; he can barely walk and has been laid off his job as a real estate salesman, thanks to the recession. His wife still has a job but just barely. Pete decides to send them five hundred a month, anonymously, and it pulls them through. By the time he's ready for college it's running out and his little sister wants to go to a private school; she's bullied at the public school she goes to.

Pete wants to go to college to become a heinous (j.k) literary critic, as he doesn't quite have the talent to imitate his hero, Rothstein. He decides to sell some of the moleskin notebooks; he asks his former hippie teacher to whom he might sell them without too many questions being asked. Coincidentally (he said sarcastically) the teacher recommends a former friend of Morrie's who now owns a rare books store. He's wise to Pete immediately and sets out to blackmail him into giving him all of the notebooks. There are two new Jimmy Gold books, the second of which is his best, in Pete's estimation.

I know you're asking, Where the heck is Bill Hodges and his gang from MR. MERCEDES?, as was I. It takes over a hundred pages before he makes an appearance. Tina, Pete's little sister, the one who gets bullied, is friends with Barbara Robinson from the first book. Of course she is. She's noticed Pete is losing weight, his acne has resurfaced and he talks in his sleep. Holly who brained Mr. Mercedes with a sock containing ball bearings is now Bill's assistant, and she's gaining confidence every day. Jerome, Bill's lawn care boy from the first book is Barb's older brother, now in college. He returns to help out.

I think you know by now my main objection to the book is the unusual number of coincidences. But this is Stephen King, and he's got to be the best writer I've ever read at hooking you on the first page. Besides, Bill is an ex-cop who was suicidal at the beginning of MR. MERCEDES; Holly is somehow related to the woman Bill fell in love with in that book who came to a sad end. Bill blames himself. There's a cliffhanger at the end; I hate cliffhangers, but this is a three-book project, and the cliffhanger involves Mr. Mercedes, Brady Hartsfield, who's supposed to be brain dead; Bill isn't so sure. The John Rothstein plot has been fully resolved.

In her second attempt at continuing the Leaphorn/Chee/Mauelito saga, Anne Hillerman centers on several plots and subplots.

The first one involves a speeding citation Bernie Mauelito issues to a man named Miller who has a gun in his glove box and a rifle in his trunk with two boxes full of seeming dirt. It's against the law to carry a gun in your car on the Navajo reservation. Although there's a drug sting going on, the FBI doesn't seem at all interested in Miller, but Bernie won't let it go.

She and Jim Chee are planning a vacation in Monument Valley, one of the most beautiful areas on the reservation. But a motion picture is being made there, involving zombies of course, and some violence seems to have occurred at one of the hotels. The Navajo police are short on investigators so Chee is asked to handle it. Chee finds blood and later a body. Their vacation is cut short when Bernie receives a call from a neighbor telling her her sister, Darlene, has left her mother alone. Another rather mundane plot involves a new tourist business Chee's clan brother has set up. Chee tries to fix the ancient people mover his clan brother wants to use to take the tourists to the sites.

Oh, yes, Chee also finds a grave at one of the tourist sites. It's been recently dug. Chee is suspicious the movie company wants to use the grave site for publicity. Then they find the residue of human bones. Once again Joe Leaphorn doesn't see a whole lot of action, although Chee does ask him for his opinion on the grave and items found there. This time Anne Hillerman has an excuse; he was shot in the head in the last episode and can't speak. When they get him a new laptop he is revitalized and makes some important contributions.

Back in Shiprock, Bernie finds a burning car near an elderly Navajo's house. He claims a skinwalker did it. Coincidentally the car belongs to Miller.

All in all there are too many subplots and the resolutions to some of them leave a lot to be desired. During a climax scene at the old Navajo's house, no body seems to recognize the so-called skinwalker who comes to the rescue. Bernie doesn't put two and two together, even when she's sitting behind the “skinwalker” in a car later on. The skinwalker's motivation is also suspect. Why would he/she come to their rescue when he was shot at previously?

Don't give up on our favorite character's involvement in the next episode, if there is one. The Lieutenant has asked Joe Leaphorn to work part-time at his own pace, and he has accepted.

Jefferey Deaver begins THE COFFIN DANCER with an author's note: “To Madelyn Warcholik for keeping my characters true to themselves, for making sure my plots don't move so recklessly they get pulled over for speeding . . .”

Make no mistake, Deaver is still one of my favorite authors, despite his wild twists. I wasn't aware THE COFFIN DANCER existed until Amazon recommended it. I thought I somehow missed it as the publication date read 2015, but it was actually written in 1998, according to the paper back I read. I started reading Deaver after I saw the movie, THE BONE COLLECTOR with Denzel Washington and Angelina Jolie in the title roles, and I've been looking forward to the next Lincoln Rhyme ever since. There are at least a dozen in the series, if not more. Almost forgot; Lincoln Rhyme is a paraplegic who overcomes his handicap time and time again.

But if Madelyn Warcholik is an editor, she should be fired. There are two characters, who happen to be villains, that are too much alike, and they are involved in an unbelievable twist toward the end of the book that almost ruined the whole novel for me. There's just no suspension of disbelief. Authors can usually handle this sort of hang-up by planting a believable event or characteristic earlier in the book. Deaver does it by explaining why the characters are so similar. I have three letters taped to my computer: RUE, resist the urge to explain. You can do it by doing the above or hinting that things just might not be the way they seem.

The plot is similar to other Rhyme novels. There's a criminal mastermind who's been hired to kill three witnesses who all happen to be pilots. They saw a man load three duffel bags into a plane and take off when the airport was closed. This man was under an FBI indictment. The criminal mastermind is a hit man who solves the problem by planting a bomb on the plane of one of the witnesses. Two of them remain, the wife and one of the other pilots. They are in financial trouble, but they have a contract to deliver medical transplants in a very short timeframe. So the clock is ticking.

Lincoln and the hit man set up the ticking clock when the wife is determined to make a delivery when she should be hidden away in a safe house. The hit man also seems to have paranormal foresight as he repeatedly figures out where the witnesses are hidden. He's also a dead shot and he uses explosive charges in the bullets. Amelia Sachs, Lincoln's detective partner, is so scared during one gun battle that she doesn't dare return fire, and she can't forgive herself for what happens next.

Okay, so despite my misgivings regarding two of the characters, would I recommend THE COFFIN DANCER? Hell yes. Deaver uses extensive research to show how Lincoln Rhymes uses forensics to match wits with these masterminds. That research will bother some people as it slows down the pace, but when you learn something from a mystery novel, I think you're ahead in the ballgame. I'm actually surprised Denzel and Angelina haven't done another Lincoln Rhyme movie.

Sometimes bookworms like me like to revisit certain writers because of the cast of characters rather than an anticipated plot. Ed McBain's 87th Precinct; Stuart Kaminsky's Porfiry Rostnikov novels. And now Jeffery Deaver Lincoln Rhyme series, featuring a paraplegic forensic investigator and his homicide detective girlfriend, Amelia Sachs.

This episode is different in that Lincoln has decided to quit working as a consultant for the NYPD because he feels he got an innocent man killed in his last case. But he's still working forensics in civil cases. A lawyer has hired him to prove an escalator was faulty when it suddenly popped open and ground a man to death with it's internal gears. Meanwhile Amelia is unknowingly working on the same case as she tracks a serial killer who has just murdered a man with a ball peen hammer. He gets away because she tries to save the man who fell into the escalator.

Something else new is Lincoln's hiring of an intern who also happens to be a paraplegic. She's pretty smart; she beats him at chess. Amelia's old boyfriend is also back in town, just released from prison on good behavior. He claims he took the rap for his brother in a hijacking caper. She seems conflicted, and we're worried she might be tempted to ditch Lincoln for Nick.

As usual in a Deaver novel, we learn a few things. The killer is suffering from a genetic disorder, sometimes known as giantism (Think Andred the Giant), but he's only 6'4” and weighs 150 or so. His brother had the disorder as well. He's been picked on all his life, being called “Stringbean” and similar insults. He's also a master craftsman; he makes miniature furniture; he even keeps a “Toy Room” in his apartment.

Here's the thing about Deaver. In his author's notes in one of his novels he thanks an editor for stopping his excesses when it comes to plotting. So . . . he's aware he has a problem with suspension of disbelief. There are several hard to believe twists in this one as well. That guy must've been on vacation. I hope I can be forgiven for giving just one example. One of the culprits avoids prison after it's proven he wasn't who he claimed to be. He goes to work as a snitch for one of Lincoln's undercover detectives to run down the top notch dealers in the drug trade. But one of the things he did was to order a hit on his best friend. The friend was saved, but correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't that still attempted murder?

I will buy the next Lincoln Rhyme novel; I usually wait until I can order two books at the same time to avoid postage, but I wanted this one right away. After all, it's not the plot that keeps me coming back to the Lincoln Rhyme characters, it's Lincoln and Amelia and the other cast members.

Author John Sandford and the lead character in his PREY novels, Lucas Davenport have made some big moves lately. Sandford has moved to New Mexico, and Lucas has quit his job working for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension.

But Lucas is back in the saddle when governor Elmer Henderson, who is running for president in the Iowa caucuses, asks for his help. Seems like these two weirdos have been hounding him to move to the center so leading democratic candidate Michaela “Mike” Bowden (think Hillary) doesn't win the democratic nomination.

Sandford likes to show you who we're dealing with and why they are the way they are. So he introduces us to Marlys and Clay Purdy early on. She's an old sixties radical and he's done time in the Middle East with the National Guard and is suffering from some form of PTS.

Henderson has a hunch these two are planning some kind of dangerous scheme. He has a description for Lucas; she has white curly hair and he has gray eyes. Lucas still has connections in the BCA, and he compiles a list of possible radical organizations who might have a gripe against Bowden. Then, as usual in a PREY novel people start dropping like flies.

Sandford also has another motive. Lucas needs a badge. He's having trouble enough getting the head of the Iowa state cops to give him some support. It takes a tongue-lashing by the governor to get the jealous director to give him four state cops to help him track these people down. Bowden isn't helping either; she insists on doing a “walk through” during the Iowa State Fair, the worst possible place to provide security with thousands of people milling about.

This is an instructive book for beginning writers. If your character is tied up in a chair waiting for the axe to drop, you can't have him/her reach into a desk drawer and find a knife. That's too convenient. You need to plant that knife earlier in the story. Lucas does track down the Purdys, but they're gone by the time he finds their farm. There's a workshop in the hayloft and Lucas finds several bolts; he can't quite make the connection, but he does in the nick of time. The dummy should've known what they were for, but he was concentrating on snipers. There's evidence Clay is a crack shot.

Sandford does accomplish his goal because Lucas always gets his man, at least ninety-nine percent of the time. At the end of the story, somebody owes him one (I think you can guess who that might be) and that something turns out to be a job.

Lucas Davenport has a new job as a federal marshal, with a twist. Thanks to his political connections, Lucas can pick and choose his cases, which causes some resentment among other marshals who have to such menial tasks as escort prisoners and provide security on board passenger jets. Lucas only wants to “hunt,” which means hunt the baddest of the bad.

He gets his wish when a “shooter” robs a drug cartel counting house, killing five people, including a six-year-old girl, whose grandfather was one of the counters. The shooter gets away with seven or eight million dollars.

Those readers who loved Lucas's crew back at the Minnesota BCA have a treat in store. Lucas can't handle this case on his own, as the people who pulled this robbery have machine guns. The federal marshal service sends him two deputy marshals, Bob and Rae. Lucas pictures the old comedy team by that name. He doesn't realize that Rae is a tall black woman who started two years for the Connecticut basketball team. There's a lot of ribbing going on among the three. During a lull in the case, they stop to look at magazines. Bob, a stocky little fellow who's smarter than he looks, buys a photography magazine; Rae is into South American art. The snazzily dressed Lucas picks a men's fashion mag. He says, “I guess I'm the dumb one.” But the biggest clue comes from a neighbor of the gunman whom they track mainly through technology, such as phone records. He knows there was a graduation party next door to the shooter's former digs and they'd hired a videographer. Sure enough the killer truck's tags show up on the video.

The other impressive thing about Sandford's new direction is Garvin Poole's legitimate affection for his girlfriend. One would think that Garvin Poole would be a sociopath, but he really loves her and risks getting caught to save her when she's apprehended, even tough she's capable of stabbing another woman in the frontal lob with an eight-inch screwdriver when they get into a tussle.

The cartel is also after the man who stole their money; they send two hit men after him, using the some of the same methods the marshals are using to find him. One of them is also a woman. Sandford likes to do that once in a while. He's wants to show that women are just as good at detection and malice as men. There just seem to be more of the maclious type in Davenport's world.

This is more of a thriller than we used to in the other Prey books. Weather and Lucas's family are barely mentioned, although his home office is still Minneapolis. Sandford indicates that Bob and Rae will be back, as Lucas tells them he'll ask for them if he finds another interesting case.

THE BURIAL HOUR is very topical in that it deals with the refugee crisis in The Middle East. But this is Jeffery Deaver, so you know you're going to get a wild twist along the way.

The plot starts with this weirdo, hangman musician who is kidnapping people to use their dying gasps in musical compositions. Surprisingly Lincoln and Rhyme refer to him as “The Composer”. Naming serial killers in the press is supposed to be taboo, as they seem to revel in the attention.

Lincoln and Amelia get involved just in time for Stephan (We get his point of view along the way) to escape to Italy. Lincoln and Amelia use various forensic methods to track him and their next confrontation is in a refugee camp in Italy, where he kidnaps a Libyan. Stephan has these booby traps that gradually tighten a noose. He leaves a small version made out of cello strings at the various scenes. Lincoln and Amelia always seem to get their just in the nick of time, which should make you suspicious.

As in a lot of mysteries, a minor character, Ercole, a forestry cop, is the one we pull for. The Italian cop in charge of the investigation is impressed with Ercole's preparation, and he assigns him to the case. A villain in the form of an Italian prosecutor, named Spiro, seems awfully jealous of American intrusion in the case. He makes things tough for Lincoln and Amelia. We later find out why.

The Deaver twist has to do with a secret American intelligence group that needs to find a way around torture to find out where the next attack might be. Hint, Stephan is involved.

So then there's a definite theme. Even in Italy you have groups and people who oppose using Italy as THE BURIAL HOUR, which means the country is unwittingly bringing terrorist into the country disguised as refugees. When does it get out of control? This would be the Burial Hour. Others want to help the refugees. Deaver seems to be taking a swipe at the conservative take on the issue as a rich American is involved.

This effort is not up to Deaver's usual standards. Deaver is obsessive when it comes to research, and we usually learn something along with finding out what happens in the plot. In this one we learn a little bit about truffles. Ercole is working on truffle smuggling when he is called in to help with the Composer case.

Despite what some reviewers claim, Lisbeth Salander is on stage much more in Lagercrantz's second novel, than in any of Larsson's originals.

At the beginning she's in jail and she must deal with one of the two major villains in the novel, Benito, a crewcut mauler, who makes the warden's life hell. Benito likes to torment Faria Kazi, a Moslem woman in jail for murder. Lisbeth is her protector.

Mikael Blomkvist, editor of MILLENIUM, an investigative magazine, has an always will be the major character, if not the most popular, in the novel. He takes his cue from Salander to investigate the mistreatment of identical twins. Salander and her malevolent sister were involved in the program. It involved nature versus nurture. The twins were separated early on. One would go to a relatively poor family, the other to a rich family. The theory was that environment would play a role on how both personalities developed. The second villain in the novel, Rakel Greitz, is a psychoanalyst who has gone to insane lengths to keep the program under wraps, including the murder of a significant character.

Two other identical twins , Dan Brody and Leo Mannheimer also play a role. Brody was put with a farmer who worked his charges nearly to death. Leo Mannheimer is located with an investment broker and his family. Brody's salvation is the guitar; he becomes a jazz virtuoso; Leo, although adopted, has been tagged to run the company as he has an extremely high IQ. But Leo is miserable; he loves to play the piano, and goes so far as to play concerts.

Lisbeth's mentor, Holger Palmgren, who, as we know, saved her from a sexual predator, goes to see her in prison, despite being confined to a wheelchair. He has been given papers by a secretary who worked at the institute that ran the identical twin experiment. It names names and Lisbeth passes them on to Blomkvist.

As the story moves along, we eventually find out why Faria Kazi is in jail. It has to do with her family's disapproval of her boyfriend. Her brothers are jihadists; he's much more moderate. Conveniently, Faria's two brothers and Benito join forces against Lisbeth. Of yeah, there's also a motor cycle gang we've met before in the other books, and Dr. Greist employs a thug to do her dirty work.

At the end of the novel, Lagercrantz thanks Larsson's brother and father for giving him a chance to continue Larsson's work. According to what I've read, the forth novel was almost complete. Lagercrantz is no Larsson; we shouldn't expect him to be, but he does a capable job developing Lisbeth Salander. My only complaint is the ending sort of fizzles and Lagercrantz leaves room for more torment for Lisbeth as some of her enemies are still alive, and that doesn't include her evil sister who did not appear in this episode.