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Reviews from JOHN
A. BROUSSARD
JANUARY
- FEBRUARY REVIEWS
ICE
TRAP
KITTY
SEWELL
Touchstone
/ Simon & Schuster February,
2008
 DNA
tests don't lie. Or do they?
Dr. Dafydd Woodruff has cause to wonder.
Sheila Hailey, head nurse in a small-town hospital in northern
Canada
, has accused him of drugging and raping her after a wild night of drinking when
he'd been working there. Now, some
fourteen years later, she notifies him at his home in
Cardiff,
Wales, that he has to pay support for the twins she says he fathered.
Though his own recollections of that night are hazy, Dafydd is convinced
he never had intercourse with her. So
he denies her story, demands she produce DNA evidence to support her claim, and
she immediately does so. Now, with a
rocky marriage grown rockier because of this accusation, he decides to fly to
Moose Creek and settle the matter once and for all.
There, he confronts Sheila, meets the children, and learns that DNA tests
indeed do not lie, but that people do. ICE
TRAP is a tale of greed in the grim landscape of an Arctic town and
countryside. Sewell does a superb
job of portraying this edge-of-the-world community, where musk ox, gigantic
moose and grizzlies roam, where January nights are 24/7 and temperatures can be
fatal to the unwary. As a mystery,
the story leaves something to be desired, since there are plenty of clues, and
most readers will undoubtedly find it easy to guess the truth early on.
Less easy to understand is why it takes Woodruff so long to do the same.
Leaving that aside, this is still a gripping story of a man confronted by
a murky past, and of a calculating woman seeking to profit from it.
- John A. Broussard
CON
ED
MATTHEW
KLEIN
Grand
Central Publishing pb 1/08
 To
be a successful con artist, you have to be able to read people.
Kip Largo is a past master at that skill and, as a result, succeeded well
in his chosen profession...until he got greedy.
Now a long prison sentence and middle-age have mellowed him.
He's decided to go straight with a ten-dollar-an-hour job as a counter
clerk in a dry cleaning store and by running a so-far unprofitable mail-order
vitamin pill business from his rented room.
Then an emergency arises. His
son has run up a large gambling debt with the Russian mafia, and the only way
for Kip to help him is to somehow raise over a half-million dollars.
It will take an elaborate con involving computers, the stock market, and
a millionaire anxious to make more money so he can buy an expensive
Las Vegas
property. CON
ED is the story of a con within a con within a con, and it soon becomes
impossible to tell the lambs from the shearers.
Klein not only spins an engrossing tale here, but entertains the reader
with an encyclopedia of ways in which the unwary can find themselves completely
fleeced.
- John A. Broussard
AT
THE CITY'S EDGE
MARCUS
SAKEY
St.
Martin's Minotaur January,
2008
There's something more going on in this
Chicago
ghetto than gang warfare, and bar owner Michael Palmer now has evidence of just
what it is. But knowledge can be
dangerous. Michael dies in the
flames of his own establishment before he can make public what he has found out.
Only his brother Jason, a returned Iraqi War veteran, knows there was
more to the fire than just a burglary gone wrong.
And the violence seems on the point of escalating as he realizes that
Michael's eight-year-old son is the next target.
While trying to discover his brother's killer and protect his nephew,
Jason stumbles across a useful ally, Gang Intelligence Unit cop Elena Cruz.
As the pair work their way toward a solution to the crime, they also find
their own lives in peril. AT THE CITY'S EDGE is a novel crying to be discovered by the
filmmakers. Everything is here:
Urban gangs, bent cops, a mysterious mastermind pulling strings, a child
whose life is threatened, a soldier just back from one of our more recent wars,
a budding romance, and even a rubber-burning car chase with vehicles smashing
wildly into each other. Sakey
specializes in cliff-hangers, hairsbreadth escapes and the depiction of life in
an urban backwater. It all adds up
to a first-rate thriller.
- John A. Broussard
SATURDAY'S
CHILD
RAY
BANKS
Harcourt, Inc. January, 2008
 British
prisons are tough, but life outside can be even tougher.
Ex-con
Cal Innes learns this lesson when he tries his hand as an unlicensed private
investigator specializing in hunting down missing persons.
The future seems bright, until gang boss Morris Tierman calls on
Cal to run down Rob Stokes, who has taken off with a large chunk of Tierman's
money. Reluctant though he is to
take on the task, Cal
starts his inquiries, and his efforts set off several unintended consequences.
He soon realizes that Tierman isn't really concerned about the money, and
perhaps not even about Stokes; something more important is at stake.
In addition, there are several individuals who are doing their best to
prevent Cal
from succeeding in his quest. Few
fictional characters suffer more frequent mayhem than this particular private
eye...though he does manage to do some brutalizing of his own.
The action takes place in a world replete with uppers, downers, booze and
various other drugs, all wrapped in a miasma of tobacco smoke.
Readers of SATURDAY'S CHILD
will need a high tolerance for obscenity and violence as a way of life.
Non-British readers will have their own special problems in working
through the murky argot of
North Manchester
's underworld. A glossary would have
been much utilized and much appreciated. In
spite of it all, Banks has drawn a fascinating picture of an English setting
that rivals the seamiest sectors of
America
's urban environments.
-
John A. Broussard
EARL EMERSON
PRIMAL
THREAT
EARL
EMERSON
Ballantine Books February, 2008
It's summer, the Cascade forest is tinder dry and it's closed to hikers,
campers, and most certainly bikers. But
Zak Polanski and several friends manage to work their way around the guard and
zoom up into the hills for a weekend of wild-country roaming.
But they aren't counting on the actions of William Potter III, scion of a
fortune, who is out seeking vengeance for Polanski's dating of his
ex-girlfriend. Potter has
heard about the bikers' excursion plans and has recruited his buddies and some
rugged-terrain vehicles to follow them and "have fun" at their
expense. The fun soon turns to
tragedy. Alcohol, anger and guns
don't mix, and a confrontation between the two groups leads to the deadly fall
along a mountain trail of one of Potter's group.
But whether the death was an accident or homicide is uncertain and,
before that can be resolved, fire breaks out and the lives of all the survivors
are at stake. PRIMAL
THREAT's title clearly has a double meaning -- the primitive human emotions
leading up to the death and the even more primitive and terrifying threat of an
all-engulfing forest fire. Emerson
has managed to capture the essence of both meanings.
- John A. Broussard
TONY HILLERMAN
THE
SHAPE SHIFTER
TONY
HILLERMAN
Harper pb 1/08
For some, retirement is like being born again.
For others, it's an introduction to profound boredom.
Retired Navajo Tribal Police Lieutenant Joe Leaphorn fears he may be
slipping into that second category when a photograph of an old Navajo rug wards
off the doldrums. While he can't be
sure, it looks to him very much like a valuable rug woven a century before which
told the tragic tale of horrendous mistreatment by the American government.
The rug is one that had supposedly burned up in a local trading post fire
many years ago. The insurance
company had settled, and the body found at the scene had been identified as a
serial killer long sought by the police. Case
closed! But is it?
Leaphorn doggedly follows vague clues that take him to the current owner
of what may be the rug or may simply be a remarkably accurate copy of it.
What he discovers makes him suspect that the case is in much need of
reopening. THE
SHAPE SHIFTER is a story of the American Southwest and the native Americans
who live there. Hillerman is steeped
in the legends of these people and weaves them into a current tale of cunning,
ruthlessness and greed, along with a generous sprinkling of Navajo tales and
folklore.
-
John A. Broussard
SCHOOL
FOR SCUMBAGS
DANNY
KING
Serpent's Tail Trade PBO 2/08
ISBN:
978-1-85242-972-0
Gafin
School
isn't your ordinary British school for
rehabilitating the incorrigible. In
fact, it seems to be devoted to actually encouraging the incorrigible; or so it
strikes
Wayne
"Banners" Banstead. Expecting
the worst when his exasperated parents send him off to Gafin,
Wayne
is in for a pleasant surprise. The
dozen or so other boys are definitely in his league, but best of all, so is the
faculty. What Banners can't figure
out is what, exactly, is going on. There
are rules to follow, but they're minimal. Beer
flows. Cigarettes and more potent
smokes abound. Gambling is a way of
life. And it isn't until near the
end of term that he and his fellow students find out what is really in store for
them. SCHOOL
FOR SCUMBAGS is primarily a crime novel, and the criminals range from purse
snatchers to flashers to arsonists to just plain thieves.
The protagonist specializes in philosophizing, taking considerable pride
in his chosen criminality and emerging as a leader in more than one school
caper. King has the language and
behavior of the teen-aged delinquent down to a tee.
There's plenty of action here, typified by a rigged soccer game, and
culminating in a spectacular crime. First
rate entertainment.
- John A. Broussard
NO
TEARS FOR THE LOST
ADRIAN
MAGSON
Crème de la Crime / Dufour Editions Trade PBO 2/08
ISBN:
978-0-9551589-7-1
Who is sending threatening letters to former diplomat Sir Kenneth
Myburghe? Journalist Riley Gavin
hasn't heard about the letters, but she's receiving her own anonymous mail, and
it hints that Myburghe is in serious trouble.
Gavin doesn't take the matter seriously, having had more than her share
of crank messages in her career. But
when her friend, Investigator Frank Palmer, shows up as bodyguard to the
threatened statesman, she has to take the matter seriously.
So does Myburghe, though that doesn't deter him from giving his eldest
daughter an elaborate wedding on the family grounds.
And he did so despite the added persuasion of a fake bomb sent to his
home, followed by the amputated finger of his missing teen-aged son.
Gavin and Palmer are convinced there's something in Myburghe's past in
Columbia
, and his mysterious association with the drug lords there, that holds the clue
to what's behind the threats and the gruesome murder of his regular
servant/bodyguard. NO TEARS FOR THE LOST is an international thriller that takes place
mainly in
Britain, and Magson does a commendable job of describing how the drug trade corrupts
even those who are supposed to be suppressing it.
- John A. Broussard
WHAT
GOES AROUND
SUSAN
DIAMOND
Avon
pb 1/08
 A
bludgeoned body is found just outside the fence of an exclusive men's retreat.
Though it's almost certainly a homicide, the police are reluctant to push
very hard for a solution, since the death can't be directly traced to the lodge,
and they don't want to offend the influential membership.
On the other hand, there's a good indication that three of the members
who were there at the time were either directly involved in the woman's death or
at the very least dropped her outside the property and left her there to die a
lingering death. Faced with
inaction by local law enforcement, five close female friends of the deceased
decide to take up where the authorities left off.
Call it vengeance or just plain justice, the women are determined to make
the perpetrators suffer for what they did. In
the process, they bring about profound changes in their own lives.
WHAT GOES AROUND is a very
different kind of tale about amateurs taking over when reluctant officers of the
law fail to pursue leads. Diamond
has a knack for switching viewpoints that reveal as much about the parties
involved as it does about the situations they face, and the result is a
first-rate story about careful sleuthing by five people capitalizing on their
own professional talents.
-
John A. Broussard
THE
VAGABOND VIRGINS
KEN
KUHLKEN
Poisoned Pen Press February, 2008
ISBN:
978-1-59058-461-3
 The
Partido Revolucionario Institucional (PRI) is doing its best to maintain its
control in
Mexico, but there's an election coming up, and there's a new kind of opposition on the
scene. It may, in fact, involve
divine intervention! An apparition
is occurring in various parts of the country urging people to vote against the
PRI, and the vision is reported by the beholders as being the Virgin Mother of
God. All of that's rather remote
from the world of private investigator Alvaro Hickey.
At least it is until beautiful Lourdes Shuler shows up in his office,
claims that the apparition is really her sister Lupe and that she wants Alvaro
to find and rescue her before the PRI can do her harm.
Most amazing of all,
Lourdes
is carrying around a very convincing retainer fee of almost a million dollars
in gold bars. So the hunt begins,
despite Alvaro's many doubts. Why
isn't the PRI actively denouncing the Virgin as a hoax?
Could
Lourdes, herself, be the one who is playing the role of the Virgin?
Most importantly, could she have been the one who murdered her father,
whose death months before is still veiled in mystery?
THE VAGABOND VIRGINS is an unusual thriller in that much of the
story is a long car chase over
Mexico
's back roads, as
Lourdes
and Alvaro seem to stay only one step behind the elusive Virgin.
Kuhlken sprinkles the story with bumbling federales,
well-armed members of the opposition party, and glimpses of a world where
politics are carried out at the end of a gun.
- John A. Broussard
MURDER
IN
GOTHAM
ISIDORE
HAIBLUM
Berkley
Prime Crime PBO 1/08
 Find
Jake Lefkowitz! That's Morris
Weiss's new assignment. It may not
be easy, but it does look straightforward. Jake
has accumulated some gambling debts, and it seems rather obvious that he has
simply gone into hiding as a result. Evidently,
he managed to keep his losses secret from his wife, and Morrie soon discovers
that there was at least one other item he also kept hidden from May Lefkowitz .
. . namely the blonde shiksa he went
off with. But, then, there's more,
much more. Every step Morrie takes
seems to lead him further and further into the Jewish underworld in late
seventies
New York's
Lower East Side
. Inevitably, in his quest, he comes
across a few bodies and plenty of suspects.
MURDER IN GOTHAM is a private
eye novel, with special emphasis on the Jewish culture of that time and place.
Yiddishisms abound, one-liners fill the pages, swift and cutting repartee
is its hallmark, and each of the brief chapters begins with words of wisdom from
Gotham
's famous investigator. Haiblum
writes with panache, but he will leave readers more than a little mystified as
to what clues Morrie is following and how he pieces them together, as he and his
hired help track down "lowlifes" while keeping an eye out for Jake
Lefkowitz.
-
John A. Broussard
Look for these reviews by John on the
PAPERBACK PAGE:
THE SONG IS YOU by Megan
Abbott
THE STRANGLER by William
Landay
DARKHOUSE by Alex Barclay
Home Page
NOVEMBER
- DECEMBER REVIEWS
THE
GRAVING DOCK
GABRIEL COHEN
St. Martin
’s
Minotaur / Thomas Dunne Books November,
2007
There's
more than one mystery surrounding the boy's body.
It was found in a box floating near a
Brooklyn
pier, the makeshift coffin put together without nails.
There's no identification. No
signs of abuse. The child had been
suffering from terminal leukemia, but the death was due to poisoning.
Strangest of all are the letters "G I" in marker pen on the
boy's forehead. But floating bodies
around
New York
Harbor
are no rarity, so the search for the killer would have been perfunctory had
Detective Jack Leightner not become obsessed with the case.
He soon closes in on the perpetrator...only to have him escape by killing
his partner. The death of a police
officer dramatically changes priorities, and even the FBI joins in a frantic
search for the murderer. THE GRAVING DOCK is a fascinating police procedural in the aftermath
of the 9/11 tragedy which, while only peripheral to the story line, nevertheless
casts its shadow over the investigation. Cohen
is a masterful writer, with a knack for cliffhangers that will invariably tempt
the reader to immediately move along to the next chapter.
But he's at his best as he interweaves the main story line with the
detective's always romantic and sometimes bizarre relationship with his
girlfriend. Added to this plot and
sub-plot are a small dose of Buddhist philosophy and a long look at
Governors Island
and its storied past. HIGHLY
RECOMMENDED.
- John A. Broussard
WHO
IS CONRAD HIRST?
KEVIN WIGNALL
Simon & Schuster Trade PBO 11/07
It's
not easy to draw a sympathetic portrait of a psychopathic killer, but Wignall
has managed just that. As a young
Englishman visiting, on a lark, a
Yugoslavia
embroiled in civil war, Conrad Hirst kills for the first time.
In this instance it's a mercy killing, but the scar leaves him open to
recruitment as a hit man, and the following ten years find him plying his trade
for a group he doesn't know or care to know.
It's only with his latest dispatch of an old man that he begins to
question his actions, and that's when he decides to do only four more killings
-- and these not for money. His
targets are the four men he has had contact with, the only ones who know who he
is; and then he'll retire forever. But
it isn't that simple. With one down,
he finds that some organization far more powerful than he'd ever imagined is his
employer. WHO
IS CONRAD HIRST? is one of several recent novels picturing the CIA in
pursuit of a rogue agent, and of a secret organization within the agency
dedicated to achieve its ends by any means necessary.
For the reader who is ready to follow Hirst's body-ridden trail, this is
a quintessential novel of international terror, packed with mystery piled upon
mystery. The less-than-believable
ending is acceptable as the finishing touch on an otherwise convincing and
superb thriller. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED.
- John A. Broussard
TOO HOT TO HANDLE
MARY JANE MAFFINI
Rendezvous Crime Trade PBO 11/07
ISBN: 978-1-894917-57-5
Fiona
Silk is disconcerted when an impatient driver gives her the finger as he roars
past her stalled vehicle, only minutes later to go careening off the highway to
his death. She will become even more
so when she learns that the woman she was sure she had seen as a passenger in
the ill-fated car is not to be found in the vicinity of the crash.
But recently-divorced Fiona has plenty of other matters to concern her:
writer's block when she's barely begun her attempts at self-employment, a badly
depleted cash reserve with mounting bills to pay, an uncooperative ex-husband
who is doing his best to cheat her out of her share of their community property,
and a real estate developer hungry to relieve her of the choice acreage she
inherited from an aunt. Though she
has an amazing knack for always drawing the short stick, there are some bright
moments for our beleaguered protagonist. Her
literary agent has signed her up to write an erotic cookbook, her friend
Marc-André Paradis is finally beginning to recover from a near-fatal gunshot
wound, and a precocious fifteen-year-old named Josey Thring has appointed
herself as her "executive assistant."
TOO HOT TO HANDLE gets off to
a slow start, but readers who work their way through those initial chapters will
find an interesting mystery and a truly amusing protagonist in the person of
Fiona Silk. Maffini is skilled in
her character depiction, describes a complex murder plot masterminded by a
rather unbelievable and inept perpetrator and, for good measure, begins each
chapter with a recipe -- in most cases decadent, even if not erotic.
- John A. Broussard
PREACHING
TO THE CORPSE
ROBERTA ISLEIB
Berkley
Prime Crime, December 2007
The
chairman of a search committee to select a new assistant pastor for a small
Connecticut
Church
would seem an unlikely murder victim. Pastor
Wesley Sandifer would seem an even more unlikely suspect, but that’s what the
midnight
phone call to Rebecca Butterman is all about.
Reverend Wesley desperately wants her to come to the police station,
presumably to have her explain to the police that he could not possibly have
committed the crime. Instead,
however, his main concern is to have Rebecca take over as Search Committee
Chairman. Reluctantly, she does so.
Less reluctantly, she agrees to help Detective Meigs run down the killer
— but only as an observer for him on the committee, whose members are also
suspects. PREACHING
TO THE CORPSE is an unabashedly comfortable cosy, with a
psychologist (Rebecca) who authors an advice column in the local
newspaper but finds it hard to take her own advice, a handsome married detective
(Meigs) whom she is all too attracted to, and a congregation with more than its
share of animosities and infighting. Isleib
has a flair for describing her characters, starting with Rebecca, who is plagued
with self doubt, and extending even to her cat, Spenser, who has few doubts of
any kind. While the motive for
murder may seem a bit unbelievable, human emotions are undoubtedly complex
enough to include it. For the reader
looking for a murder mystery in the older tradition, with little mayhem beyond
the original crime, this novel will fill the bill quite nicely.
-
John A. Broussard
THE
CURE FOR REMEMBERING
RUTH E. WEISSBERGER, MD
Melville House Publishing November, 2007
ISBN: 978-1-933633-20-6
When
someone well into their eighties dies on the operating table, the death should
not be too surprising. Except for
her broken hip, however, Selma Sternberg had been in excellent health.
Furthermore, she had virtually told her grand-niece, Dr. Nora Sternberg,
that she would die if she wasn't immediately sent to some other hospital --
anywhere but
Lafayette
Medical
Center
. Shocked by Aunt Selma's sudden
death, Nora's curiosity is aroused. It
intensifies when she discovers there have been other inexplicable deaths in
recent months, all to patients who were elderly and who, like
Selma
, had long ago retired from positions at the hospital.
Nora soon discovers that not only are the deaths suspicious, but there is
some kind of relationship between them and one or more of her many Sternberg
relatives. THE
CURE FOR REMEMBERING puts a burden on the non-medical reader, with its
pervasive jargon: diaphoretic, thoracentesis,
cholecystitis, and dozens of similarly arcane symptoms, diseases and
treatments. The hospital bureaucracy
is equally opaque, to say nothing of departments, surveys and other entities
designated by consonant-heavy aggregations of initials such as QUCLL, PCMIC and
NATCH. The upside is that the
technical terminology and impenetrable nature of the institution's hierarchy --
to say nothing of the labyrinthine physical structure of the building itself --
give the entire setting considerable credibility.
In addition, Weissberger's plot, centering around the bumbling hospital
administration, is quite believable in the context of real-life newspaper
stories such as the one about a medical center currently under investigation for
performing three operations on the wrong sides of patients' brains.
For avid followers of TV's “ER” and “Grey's Anatomy,” this story
is just what the doctor ordered. For
the rest of us, it's intriguing reading, but we should keep a medical dictionary
close at hand.
- John A. Broussard
TAKE
TWO
ELSA KLENSCH
Forge Trade PBO 11/07
Noted
for its extensive philanthropic work, the multi-million-dollar Woodruff Trust
gets much of its revenue from Woody's, an upper-end thrift shop specializing in
expensive cast-offs of the
New York City
elite. The success of the store has
caught the attention of some television magazine executives, and producer Sonya
Iverson has been assigned to do a show on it and on the store's 40th
anniversary party. But the
interviews and filming have barely begun when the woman who runs the store is
found stabbed to death in the back room. The
death spurs Iverson into some extensive sleuthing while she continues to work on
the documentary, and what she finds is a deeply dysfunctional family at the head
of the foundation -- the founder's three daughters and their children.
Added to the mix is the oldest sister's illegitimate daughter, who has
suddenly appeared and gone to work – anonymously -- at Woody's.
TAKE TWO is an absorbing tale of a family feud and a homicide that
may be a spin-off of the hostility that rages among the sisters.
Klensch is thoroughly acquainted with the worlds of fashion and TV
production, and she knows how to use that knowledge to come up with a first-rate
mystery.
- John A. Broussard
THE
DEADLY NEIGHBORS
MERRY JONES
St. Martin
’s
Minotaur / Thomas Dunne Books December,
2007
This
is Zoe Hayes's first pregnancy. She's
in her forties, is in danger of being laid off from her job as an art therapist
at a clinic, and has her hands full with her precocious six-year-old adopted
daughter Molly. Then there's the
looming wedding to the baby's father, Detective Nick Stiles, who is overly
concerned about the health and well-being of his future offspring.
So now is not the time for her to become reconciled with her father, whom
she has had no contact with for years. But
she can't ignore the call from his neighbor, who tells her Walter Hayes is sick
and needs help. He's going to need
it when Zoe finds him covered with blood, a butcher knife in his hands,
crouching over the body of a woman. Fortunately
for Walter, the post mortem shows she died from having betting slips forced down
her throat. All that should give the
prospective reader some idea of what's in these pages, though the central
element is really Zoe's trials and tribulations with a baby that seems
determined to be born prematurely and a fiancé who is overacting the role of
prospective father. Jones's writing
gives ample evidence that she is familiar with the downside of pregnancy and the
turbulence it may cause in relationships. Though
the crime element is secondary, it's still intriguing, and the denouement should
satisfy mystery buffs and romantics alike.
- John A. Broussard
FATAL
FENG SHUI
LESLIE CAINE
Dell PBO 11/07
Gilbert and
Sullivan Interior Designs has a big job on its hands, remodeling a temperamental
artist's multi-million-dollar home. Shannon
Dupree Young is sold on Feng Shui and has hired a consultant to give
professional advice to designers Erin Gilbert and Steve Sullivan.
From the outset, everything goes wrong.
Developer Pate Hamlin, whose home is next door, has purposely designed
his entranceway to make
Shannon
think he's cast a spell on her house, and she's distraught.
Worse, the spell seems to be working, as the remodeling keeps running
into snags, and husband Michael becomes more and more discouraged with the
project. Then, one of the workmen is
killed with his own nail gun, the attic catches fire, and a runaway bulldozer
plows into the house.
Erin
, despite police warnings to stay out of it, does her own private sleuthing to
find out who's behind the death and destruction.
FATAL FENG SHUI will be of
special interest to anyone interested in this Far Eastern philosophy of building
layout. Others may learn more about
it than they care to know. Caine
also sprinkles in several chapters on interior design to add flavor to the
mystery. The cover of the paperback
deserves special mention and a close examination.
Not only is it well done, but the artist clearly read the book and did a
remarkable job of capturing its details.
- John A. Broussard
BY
BLOOD WRITTEN
STEVEN WOMACK
Harper pb 11/07
There's
a sadistic killer on the loose, who writes yet another letter of the alphabet at
each scene of carnage. But he is no
ordinary serial murderer. His choice
of young women isn't unusual, but the methodical vivisection of his victims is
clearly the work of someone with a thorough knowledge of anatomy and remarkable
skill in surgical techniques. His
goal is simple -- to prolong the agony of the person he is carefully carving up
while causing as much suffering as possible.
BY BLOOD WRITTEN outdoes most
serial killer novels by centering on the torture scenes and their aftermath
rather than on the mystery involved or the search for the psychopath.
It also differs in that the perpetrator is revealed from the outset.
He happens to be Michael Shiftmann, a successful novelist who specializes
in horror stories depicting scenes of gore and mayhem.
He is a charming, almost charismatic, individual who finds it especially
easy to ensnare women for his particular purposes.
Many will consider this to be warped entertainment for readers with
warped tastes by an author who, one hopes, will find a less warped subject for
his next book.
- John A. Broussard
TRAP
DOOR
SARAH GRAVES
Bantam Books pb 11/07
There must
be some good reason why a successful, semi-retired hit man would move to the
rural outskirts of remote Eastport in northern
Maine
. The answer, of course, is that
Walter Henderson has a local target in mind.
His plans get a jolt, however, when he finds, hanging through a trap door
in his barn, the body of a man he knows only too well.
Cory Trow had been bird-dogging his beloved daughter, with considerable
encouragement on her part, and
Henderson
had already been planning to take drastic steps to end the relationship.
But not this way. Though the
police are quick to declare the death a suicide, local resident Jacobia
"Jake" Tiptree isn't so sure. Urged
on by her housekeeper/cook, who is a friend of the dead man's mother, Jake and
her sidekick Ellie White decide to investigate.
The sleuthing gets Jake into more trouble than she ever imagined when
Jemmy Wechsler -- her old acquaintance, and Walter's target -- shows up seeking
refuge at her lakeside home. TRAP
DOOR combines the modernizing of an old
Maine
house with a rambling mystery, while taking Jake and Ellie back and forth
across the Canadian border searching into Cory Trow's past for proof that his
putative suicide is actually a homicide.
Graves
leaves a host of loose ends as she stretches the reader's credulity by
including in the story plot the real or imagined ghost of Jake's late
ex-husband, along with a mysterious book found in the course of remodeling the
house. The fanciful ending fits in
with the general tenor of the book.
- John A. Broussard
PAYING
THE PIPER
SIMON WOOD
Leisure PBO 11/07
Serial
kidnapping of children can be a lucrative enterprise, and the infamous Pied
Piper seems to have made his mint and retired.
But now, after almost eight years, he's back and has struck at an
unlikely victim. Rather than preying
on the wealthy, he has taken the child of investigative reporter Scott
Fleetwood, who simply doesn't have the two million dollars demanded.
So when the FBI is called in, the immediate question is whether or not
this new crime has been committed by the original Pied Piper or by someone who
has a grudge against Fleetwood. That
may be a real possibility, since Scott himself is ready to admit that he's made
many enemies in his career as a journalist.
When he finds a cell phone planted on him which the kidnapper insists he
use solely to communicate with him, that is yet more evidence that the criminal
is someone who knows Scott, and knows him well.
PAYING THE PIPER centers mainly on the anguish caused by this and
earlier kidnappings, while the FBI appears to be futilely pursuing blind leads
in search of the criminal. Wood
combines suspense with psychology as he examines the guilt Scott feels because
he may have contributed to the death of a child kidnapped many years before.
- John A. Broussard
John's e-mail address is:
broupome@kona.net
He has been writing and selling fiction,
including novels and short stories, for several years.
Many of these may be found by clicking:
Powell's
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