Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for December, 2015

Theophania Bogart has fled England, where her aristocratic father hanged himself in his cell while awaiting trial for murder.  She’s taken a new last name, moved to San Francisco, found an apartment, and opened a gift shop featuring luxury items for bed and bath.  She’s content in her new home, fervently trying to guard her privacy.  Then a death that occurs literally before her eyes changes everything.

Tim Callahan, Theo remarks in the opening sentence of The Man on the Washing Machine, was a petty thief, a cheat, and a bully.  He was also the neighborhood handyman, so going in and out of the various apartments gave him lots of opportunity for pilfering.  In fact, he stole a pair of earrings that belonged to Theo’s late mother, and even though she had gotten them back she never allowed him in her apartment again.

The San Francisco police department immediately suspects that someone pushed Callahan out of the third story window directly opposite Theo’s apartment, and Inspector Lichlyter starts to interrogate everyone in the immediate vicinity.  Since Theo is the only one who saw Callahan fall, she becomes the main object of the police inquiry, making her wonder just how much longer her background and her secret will be safe.

Distracted by the divisiveness of her neighborhood association’s meeting following Callahan’s death, Theo’s antenna for self-preservation slips a little, and when she returns from walking her dog Lucy she’s not paying as much attention as usual to her surroundings.  As she climbs up the back stairs to her apartment and opens the door to the utility room, her thoughts are wandering.  In the room’s bright overhead light she sees, to her complete astonishment, a man in a business suit standing on top of her washing machine.

Theo Bogart is a feisty heroine with a fascinating background.  Daughter of a wealthy English family, she was a well-known paparazza and had photographed celebrities around the world.  But she changed her life when she arrived in the United States, giving away her Christian Louboutin heels and Chanel handbags to charity and clothing herself in long-sleeved T-shirts and jeans.  She’s determined to stick to these changes and to her new name, but a second murder makes that even more difficult.

The Man on the Washing Machine won the 2015 Minatour Books/Mystery Writers of America prize for First Crime Novel.  It’s easy to see why.  Heroine Theo is delightful, smart, and determined to succeed in her new life.  And the mix of neighbors–her Japanese-American gardener, her gay best friend who is having romantic problems with his partner, her own business partner who seems to be more and more removed from the business–all add to the quirkiness around her.  And when a new neighbor enters the picture, with the possibility of a romance that Theo would like to avoid, things get really interesting.  All the characters and the author’s familiarity with the San Francisco scene make this debut novel stand out.

You can read more about Susan Cox at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

Claire Talbot is the youngest prosecutor in the state of Florida, only a few months into her new job.  She’s working long hours with no time for a personal life, but she’s convinced herself she doesn’t need or want one.

The day following a successful trial, her secretary hands her a package that she says was given to her by a man who wouldn’t leave his name.  Inside the envelope Claire finds newspaper clippings related to eight missing persons cases that took place three decades earlier.  In little more than a year, eight women from Central Florida had disappeared, never to be seen or heard from again.  With one exception, all were in their twenties and brunette, the only exception being a blonde woman about a decade older than the others.  And even though the articles were written in a formal, factual manner, Claire becomes violently upset after reading them.

This brings up a familiar feeling for Claire, one she has had all her life.  It’s a sense that something unexpected is about to happen, and it manifests itself in a tightening in her stomach, a strange vibration in her body, an increased pulse.  But nothing ever happens, or at least has never happened so far, so why is she  feeling this way again?  Shaking it off, she leaves her office and gets into her car only to have the front passenger door flung open by a man holding a knife.  Before Claire can obey his order to drive, the passenger’s door is opened again and the assailant is pulled out.  A couple of quick punches to his face leave him flat on the cement, those punches coming from a middle-aged man whom Claire had noticed attending the trial she won the day earlier.

The man identifies himself as Mark Hastings, a former police officer and the person who had left Claire the envelope of newspaper clippings.  He tells her that the missing persons cases date to the time he was on the force and that he’s never been able to forget them.  Claire tells him to make an appointment to discuss this with her, but before he can do so there is a break in the cold case.  It appears that the body of one of the women has just been found.

Time of Departure is a mystery novel with fantasy overtones.  Or is it a fantasy novel with mystery overtones?  Either way, it’s a great read.  Claire Talbot is an engaging heroine, trying to come up with answers to the chilling series of crimes that took place when she was a child but also trying to understand the strange feeling that she has whenever she’s around Mark Hastings.  And Mark, a wounded soul, knows more about Claire than he can let on without alienating her completely.  Each one is engaged in a delicate maneuver, trying to come at a past truth while still maintaining a hold on a present reality.

You can read more about Douglas Schofield at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

It’s interesting how language changes over time.  Take the words Philadelphia lawyer, a term I read years ago.  I remember it as a compliment, expressing approval of an attorney’s ability.  In fact, that’s how the expression came about, an acknowledgement of the outstanding reputation of lawyers from that Pennsylvania city in the early days of the colonies.

But now it apparently has a pejorative meaning, that of an attorney who uses the technicalities of the legal system to win, ignoring the spirit of the law.

If we stick to the original meaning then Bennie Rosario is definitely a Philadelphia lawyer, which in fact she is.  Head of the small, successful firm of Rosario and DiNunzio, she’s in the office when she receives a call from a man being held for murder at the Philadelphia Police Department, or the Roundhouse as it’s known to locals.

Thirteen years have gone by since Bennie last saw Jason Lefkavick.  He was twelve at the time, and Bennie had been called by Jason’s father to get his son out of jail.  Matthew Lefkavick tells Bennie that Jason was taken out of school after a brief fight in the lunchroom and brought to the town’s holding cell.  The presiding judge, known as Judge Zero Tolerance, sentenced both Jason and the boy he fought with, a bully named Richie Grusini who had been tormenting Jason for years, to prison time.

But due to a variety of circumstances and against her will, Bennie soon is removed from the case by Matthew and forbidden to see the boy again.  She has not forgotten him, and when she sees Jason now, again in jail and again protesting his innocence, she’s determined that this time justice will prevail and she’ll get her client freed.

Jason tells her that he saw Richie again, this time in a neighborhood bar, and how he became upset watching Richie having a good time with a friend while downing a few drinks.  Jason went up to him, the two started to fight and were thrown out of the bar.  Jason followed Richie down an adjacent alley to “have it out with him,” as he admits to Bennie, and the next thing he remembers is passing out and, when he awakes, seeing Grusini lying on the ground, covered in blood.  The police arrived and arrested Jason, who had blood on him and a knife in his hand.  A pretty damaging scene, Bennie thinks.

Corrupted tells the story of Jason, past and present, but also tells the reader the story of the failed juvenile justice system in Pennsylvania from which the novel gets its name.  It’s a moving and extremely upsetting account of how venal judges worked with for-profit prisons; instead of sending juvenile offenders to some sort of rehabilitation, the judges were paid for each youth they sent to jail.  It became known as the “Kids for Cash” scandal, and two sitting state judges were sentenced to lengthy jail terms.

Lisa Scottoline’s excellent novel retells this dramatic story, bringing to life how everyone in the case was impacted.  It also gives readers of Ms. Scottoline’s previous books a closer look into Bennie’s earlier life and the reasons she’s so consumed by her profession.

You can read more about Lisa Scottline at this web site.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.

William Fletcher, formerly a professional boxer and currently a private eye, isn’t finding life easy.  Fletcher was working in New York City in the early 1920s after the end of his boxing career led him to become “muscle” for Bill Storm, a low-level gangster.  Storm had become desperate in seeking ways to make money after his unpredictable behavior led other criminals to avoid giving him jobs, so he kidnapped the son of a wealthy family and was holding him for ransom.

When he called on Fletcher to watch the boy while he left them to obtain the ransom, Fletcher freed the boy and waited for Storm’s return.  A fight ensued with Fletcher being badly beaten, but both men were able to escape before the police arrived.

Fifteen years later, Fletcher has relocated to New Orleans, earning a precarious living as the only licensed black investigator in the city.  He hasn’t been in touch with Storm during all those years, but now Storm has tracked him down and is looking for a favor.  He tells Fletcher he has a daughter whom he hasn’t seen since she was an infant, more than twenty years earlier.  Now he’s dying and wants to meet with her before his death.  He’s been told that his former wife is now living in New Orleans, and he has convinced himself that if his wife is found, their daughter will be with her.

Fletcher reluctantly agrees to look for Storm’s wife, Frieda Rae.  Armed only with a photograph of the woman that was taken years before, Fletcher locates a woman who recognizes the woman in the photo.  She tells the detective that Frieda Rae died just a few months earlier, but she’s heard that the woman’s daughter is singing at some low-down blues joint on Bourbon Street.  So Fletcher heads that way to locate her.

He finds the young woman, as he was told, singing in a club that is really more of a brothel.  But she’s simply a vocalist, not a prostitute, and goes by the name Lady Storm.  When she’s told that her father wants to see her, she tells Fletcher she’ll have to think about it.  Feeling he’s done his job, Fletcher leaves, only to get a call a few hours later from his friend Brawley, a detective on the city’s police force.

The police have discovered Bill Storm’s body with a bullet hole in the back of his head on a street in the French Quarter.  In his pocket there’s a note saying “Meet me in Congo Square at 11:30 tonight.–Zella.”  That’s Storm’s daughter’s real name.

The Red Storm is a great read, due in part to its terrific characters and its sense of place.  The Crescent City of the 1930s is alive with jazz, blues, ladies of easy virtue, corrupt cops, and more.  William Fletcher is a flawed hero but a real man.

You can read more about Grant Bywaters at various sites on the Internet.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her web site.