Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Archive for September, 2017

Back in 2012 I reviewed Nicci French’s first thriller, Blue Monday, featuring Frieda Klein and raved about it.  Since then I’ve read all those that followed, except for one (can’t imagine how I missed it).  Now comes Dark Saturday, definitely among the top five mysteries I’ve read this year.

Frieda is a psychotherapist, which in England is apparently the term for what Americans call a psychiatrist, with more than her own share of demons.  In addition to a private practice, she has also consulted with the London police, although at the opening of this novel they have parted ways due to grave trust issues on both sides.  But now she’s approached by Walter Levin, a mysterious figure who is either a government official or not; in any event, he helped Frieda in the novel immediately preceding this one, and now he’s called on her to repay the favor.

Hannah Docherty was eighteen years old when she was convicted of murdering her mother, stepfather, and younger brother and sent to Chelsworth Hospital, a place for the criminally insane.  During the thirteen years since, she has remained virtually silent, not speaking to any of the staff, the other patients, or the therapists trying to help her.  The Docherty case was investigated by police detective Ben Sedge; after a brief investigation he arrested Hannah, who was duly convicted and sentenced to life at Chelsworth.

For nearly all of those years Hannah has been in solitary confinement, yet somehow, when Frieda visits her, she is a mass of bruises and scars and she appears to have been drugged.  The hospital staff doesn’t seem to care.  As far as Frieda can ascertain, no one has visited Hannah since her conviction.  As one of the nurses says, “Why would any relative want to see her?”

Something about Hannah resonates with Frieda, and almost against her will she agrees to look over the woman’s file and find out more about the case.  The issue has come up, the therapist is told, not because there’s any doubt about Hannah’s guilt–“it’s the most open-and-shut case I’ve ever seen” according to a police official–but because there’s a question of how the case was handled.  If there’s no issue concerning the perpetrator of the crimes, Frieda tells Levin, “then there’s no harm in me looking at the files.”  But, of course, when you open a box, you can never be sure what’s going to fly out.

The Frieda Klein series is outstanding.  The writing is sharp, the plots convincing, and the protagonist is full of strengths and weaknesses that will keep you reading one book after another.  For best results, as they say in commercials, start with Blue Monday and read the remaining novels in order.  Each book can be read on its own, of course, but the power of the series is in following the development of the various characters–Frieda, her somewhat wayward niece Chloe, her former therapist Reuben, the police detective Kerrigan, and several others whose voices are complements to Frieda’s.

Nicci French is the pen name of the wife-and-husband writing team of Nicci Gerrard and Sean French.  Information about them is available at various websites.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Along with all the other readers of the Kinsey Millhone series, I approached Sue Grafton’s latest novel with both anticipation and despair.  The anticipation is obvious–I’ve been reading Ms. Grafton’s mysteries since A is for Alibi was published in 1982 and have enjoyed every one.  At that time it seemed inconceivable that the end of the alphabet would ever be reached; delusional thinking, I know.

Now comes the despair–Y is for Yesterday is, I imagine, the next-to-last book in the series.  I’m trying to think how Ms. Grafton can work around her self-imposed finale.  Could she start all over with A+ is for Adventure/Adultery/Absence?  It works for me; anything to read more about Kinsey Millhone.

When the book opens in 1989 (that’s present time in the series), Kinsey is approached by Lauren McCabe, whose son Fritz has just been released from prison.  Ten years earlier Fritz killed a teenage friend, Sloan Stevens.  The two were part of a group of high school students led by Austin Brown, who was both admired and feared by his classmates.  Austin had been the instigator of a “shunning” of Sloan for reasons that secretly benefited him.  Allegedly trying to patch things up, he invited her to a party at his family’s cabin.

She reluctantly agreed to go, although once she got there words were exchanged between the two of them.  Angry and upset, she started to walk away, but she was overtaken by Austin and three of his friends, driven to a remote area in the woods, and killed.  Although Austin’s gun was the murder weapon, it was Fritz who fired the shot.  Of the four boys implicated, one gave state’s evidence and avoided jail time, one was convicted of lesser charges and spent time in prison, Fritz spent ten years in jail and was automatically freed under California law at age twenty-five, and Austin Brown disappeared.

When Kinsey and Lauren meet, Lauren tells the detective about a package she received after Fritz’s return home.  It contained a tape of sexual acts committed by four boys, including Fritz, against Iris Lehmann, another member of the student group, who was obviously drunk and/or stoned at the time of the attack.  The tape was accompanied by a demand for $25,000 from the McCabes with the warning that unless it was paid, another copy would be sent to the police.  Even though Fritz had served time for Sloan’s murder, he still could be prosecuted for rape and sexual assault.

As always, Sue Grafton’s characters are wonderfully portrayed.  We meet Fritz, who was desperate to be a friend of Austin’s when they were in school together; Iris Lehmann, who now wants revenge on the boys who violated her and taped the assault for their own amusement; Troy, who spent years in prison for his involvement in Sloan’s death and since his release has been trying to atone for his part in the attack on Iris; and Lauren and Hollis McCabe, fearful that their son is headed down the wrong road again but with conflicting opinions on how to deal with it.

Y is for Yesterday shows the reader a more vulnerable, more cautious, Kinsey but still a woman determined to do her job.  Ms. Grafton’s other returning characters–Kinsey’s elderly landlord Henry; Rosie, the owner of the Hungarian restaurant down the block from Kinsey’s apartment; and Jonah Robb, a former lover of Kinsey’s who is still in an off-again-on-again marriage with a very jealous wife–are all present in Y is for Yesterday and the novel is richer for them.

Wait–here’s another thought.  The author could switch to another alphabet, since many other languages have more than 26 letters.  Tamil, for example has 247; if that seems too daunting, she could choose Hindi or Hungarian, each with 44!  If you know Ms. Grafton, please feel free to pass this post along to her.

You can read more about Sue Grafton at this website.

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

West Virginia prosecutor Bell Elkins is back, and I am delighted.  I am totally devoted to Julia Keller’s series, and this is her most ambitious novel yet.

The novel begins with a painfully personal acknowledgement.  During the author’s recent visit to her hometown of Huntington, West Virginia, there was an epidemic of heroin overdoses, twenty-eight in a twenty-four period, with two fatalities.  The national scourge of drugs has severely impacted West Virginia; the state currently has the highest rate of overdoses in the country.

Ms. Keller has put her feelings into Fast Falls the Night, moving the drug crisis to Bell’s hometown.  Acker’s Gap is being particularly hard hit by heroin overdoses and deaths in the single day in which the novel takes place.  The first overdose takes place in The Marathon, a gas station/convenience store that’s manned during the evening hours by Danny Lukens.  He has given the key to the bathroom to a woman who, he’s sure, is going to use it to get high on heroin.  Not his business, he thinks to himself; he doesn’t want any trouble.  But after waiting for more than twenty minutes for the woman to come out, he goes to the restroom and calls through the closed door several times to see if she’s okay.

When there’s no answer, he calls the sheriff’s office and Deputy Jake Oakes arrives.  Having no better luck at getting the woman inside to respond or to open the bathroom door, Jake gets the key from Danny–the woman is lying in the middle of the dirty floor, her face blue, and a used syringe beside her.  That’s the first overdose and the first death.

Even worse than the simple fact of heroin is that carfentanil has been added to the drug that the town’s addicts are using.   It’s an ingredient a hundred times more potent than fentanyl and ten thousand times stronger than morphine and is used to stretch out heroin so that the original drug can be sold more profitably.

Given the incredible number of cases that are springing up all over town, and the underfunded police and district attorney’s offices, Bell is feeling overwhelmed.  There’s simply not enough money or personnel to deal with this problem, but what are the alternatives?  Just wait it out, Bell wonders, and allow the addicts to tempt death every time they inject themselves?  After all, if they don’t care about themselves, why should the police and the courts be concerned?  But, of course, Bell does care, and she’s trying to come up with a plan to get the contaminated drug off the streets.

The official reactions to this crisis are not the only moral points in Fast Falls the Night.  Deputy Jake Oakes is attracted to Molly Drucker, a local EMT, but either she’s not interested in him or something is stopping her from showing her interest.  Bell’s sister Shirley has two devastating pieces of news to give to Bell, her cancer diagnosis being the easier one to talk about.

And what can be done about Raylene Hughes, the negligent mother of an adorable daughter?  Is the child better off with her con-artist mother or with her father, a man whose war experiences and brain injury has made him unreliable and possibly violent?

Julia Keller’s latest mystery ends with as many questions as it answers, as is true of real life.  The characters in the novel, and the plot itself, are mesmerizing, and you will keep reading without letup until the last page.  And even then, you’ll be left wondering.

You can read more about Julia Keller at this website.

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

Chief Inspector William Wisting of Stavern, Norway has his hands full.  He receives new information about a high-profile crime, his former lover asks for his help in dealing with a problem at her restaurant, and his pregnant daughter extracts a promise from him to be at the hospital with her when she delivers her first baby.

Jens Hummel was a taxi driver who disappeared in Stavern six months earlier, along with his cab.  Neither man nor vehicle has been seen since.  Norway’s media has been having a field day with this, stating that the police had not done all they could to break open the case, insinuating that poor work and a lack of interest in the fate of Jens were to blame.  Now a call from Suzanne, William’s former girlfriend, gives the inspector some news.

She tells him that a man has been to her restaurant for the past several evenings, and on one of those nights he was reading an article about Jens’ disappearance.  When Suzanne noticed, she made an innocuous comment to him, and his response was, “It’s sitting in the barn.”  Then he picked up the paper, left, and hasn’t returned.

Suzanne also has a problem of her own.  She suspects one of her waitresses is stealing from the till, but she doesn’t want to fire her without knowing for certain that she’s guilty.  So she asks William if he would do surveillance for a day or two, trying to see whether the young woman Suzanne suspects is actually pocketing the restaurant’s money.  William thinks of his overload of police work and his pregnant daughter, but he can’t say no, and thus he agrees to visit the restaurant the following evening.

William’s daughter Line has just moved back to Stavern from Oslo, awaiting the birth of her daughter.  On a shopping expedition to furnish her new home she bumps into an old school friend, Sofie Lund, and Sofie’s year-old daughter.  The two women, both single, renew their friendship over the coincidence of motherhood, being first-time homeowners, and returning to their home town.  But Sofie’s home has a strange story behind it that involves her late, unlamented grandfather, a murderous gangster known as the Smuggler King.

Ordeal is the tenth novel in this series, the fifth published in English.  There’s a fascinating introduction to the book that explains that the author was himself a Chief Inspector in the Criminal Investigation Department, just like the protagonist he created.  There is an amazing sense of realism in the book, a deep knowledge of how things work in small-town police departments; the real Stavern, Norway has a population of 3,000.  But, of course, there can be plenty of crime and violence in a small town, certainly enough to keep William Wisting busy.

Jorn Lier Horst is the winner of both the Glass Key and Martin Beck awards for his earlier novel The Hunting Dogs.  You can read more about him at this website.

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

Kristy Tucker doesn’t have an easy life.  She’s a single mother with a teenage son, the caretaker for her ailing father, and works for a boss she doesn’t respect.  But still, she thinks to herself, I’m managing all this and someday things will hopefully be different.  As the saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Kristy’s son Ryan, a bit of an outcast at school, has been secretly taking martial arts lessons.  When Kristy finds out she’s upset, both because he kept it from her and because she’s not a fan of physical force to solve problems.  She makes her feelings known at a meeting with the trainer, Lance Dobson, and thinks she has put an end to Ryan’s lessons.  But the next day Lance shows up at the house, apologizing and asking for another chance to keep giving Ryan lessons, stressing the benefits of the lessons to a boy who feels out of the mainstream in his town.  Swayed by Lance’s apparent sincerity, not to mention his good looks, and by her son’s fervent desire, Kristy agrees he can continue.

Lance works his charm on everyone, even Kristy’s dad, a former prison guard.  Not until after Kristy and Lance are married does the real Lance shows himself as a physical and emotional bully and abuser, a control freak who needs to dominate every aspect of Kristy’s life.   And when she tries to rebel, Lance has no compunction in threatening her father and her son.

Kristy is the public information officer for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, a job requiring communication skills among inmates, the media, and the prison system.  She works in the Polunsky Unit of the prison system, where 279 men are on death row.   Kristy has always been able to keep her emotions in check while dealing with the men, but now one of them, soon to be executed, has touched her.

Clifton Harris was convicted of setting his house on fire, killing his two young children who were inside.  Like all the other prisoners awaiting execution in what has been called “the hardest place to do time in Texas,” Clifton is on lockdown twenty-two hours a day in a small solitary cell, with no access to phones or television or contact with any other prisoners.  But Kristy is moved by his declarations of innocence; she’s not certain she believes him, but she’s equally not certain he’s guilty.  And the date of his execution grows closer and closer.

Hollie Overton has written a taut, terrifying thriller.  I must confess that I started the book, read about one third, and had to put it away for several days because it was so scary!  But when I picked it up again and read to the end, I felt it was well worth it.  The characters and the plot are top-notch, and the abusive, frightening situation that Kristy finds herself in is unfortunately too familiar to anyone who reads the newspapers or watches television.

You can read more about Hollie Overton at this website.

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