Insightful Books Reviews
Our reviews section examines the latest mystery offerings, covering books, anthologies, audio books, and videos.
Updated Review Pages from 2005
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More Reviews: 2005/2006
PARDONABLE LIES: A Maisie Dobbs Novel
by Jacqueline Winspear
New York: Henry Holt, 2005. $23.00.
In Pardonable Lies (set a few months after Birds of a Feather), redoubtable psychologist and investigator Maisie Dobbs, in her most memorable adventure yet, must traverse an intricate labyrinth of coincidences to uncover startling truths of mind and soul. Maisie has committed herself to defending a forlorn child prostitute when noted barrister Sir Cecil Lawton, a friend of Maisie's patron Lord Julian Compton, engages her services for a highly unusual mission. Lawton wants Maisie to ascertain whether his aviator son Ralph, whose DeHavilland "flaming coffin" crashed in France in August 1917, is really dead-as the British government maintains. Lawton's grief-stricken wife Agnes never accepted the death of her only child and Lawton is honoring the deathbed promise he made to her that he would mount a search for their son.
Not long after this, Maisie's old friend Priscilla, now married and living in Biarritz, begs Maisie to look into the death of Peter Evernden, the oldest of three brothers Priscilla lost in the Great War. Peter's body has never been located. Though Maisie has begun to experience tormenting nightmares caused by memories of her two harrowing years as a nurse near the Western front lines, she goes to France with her mentor Maurice Blanche (whose own shadowy wartime activities are rising up to haunt them both) to look into the circumstances of Peter and Ralph's deaths.
While all three cases swirl around her, Maisie is also struggling with personal quandaries. Should she leave her luxurious apartment in the Comptons' London mansion and buy a residence of her own-a considerable difficulty for a "spinster" in 1930? Should she continue "walking out" with Dr. Andrew Dene, whose affections for her are becoming more serious than she wishes at this point? And what is she to do about the repeated attempts on her life? So far a darting figure has caused damage to her cherished red MG, a hand has nearly shoved her in front of a subway engine, she's received rat-poisoned chocolates, and her brakes have been sabotaged, leading to a near-fatal collision?
One of the brightest new authors in historical detective fiction, Winspear has an uncanny and meticulous ability for shaping fascinating minor characters, recreating the storm-gathering gloom of the 1930s, and building breathtaking suspense as her utterly convincing heroine courageously employs her talents and expertise to rescue the innocent and bring evildoers to justice while simultaneously slaying her inner dragons without a shred of soggy sentimentalism. Long may Maisie Dobbs, her associates, her friends, and her oh-so-convincing antagonists keep readers enthralled."
-Mitzi M. Brunsdale
REMAINS SILENT
by Michael Baden and Linda Kenney
New York: Knopf, 2005. $22.95
The two protagonists of Remains Silent first meet as adversaries in the courtroom. Philomena "Manny" Manfreda is a criminal defense attorney and Jake Rosen is a chief medical examiner for the state of New York. Rosen's testimony turns Manfreda's carefully prepared defense upside down. Nevertheless, Rosen recognizes Manfreda's heart and tenacity and Manfreda is equally impressed with Rosen's skill and perspicacity. On the surface, the two are complete opposites. She's a beautiful "fashionista" and he's a gruff, divorced slob, indifferent to much of the world outside of his job. Naturally it doesn't take long before they team up like Hepburn and Tracy and become involved in a mystery.
When Rosen's ailing friend and mentor, Dr. Pete Harrigan, is asked to identify some mysterious bones that have turned up in a shopping mall excavation, he asks Rosen to assist him. After Harrigan is found dead, Rosen takes over. Some of the bones turn out to be the remains of a person who disappeared under strange circumstances several years earlier. Rosen calls on Manfreda to help investigate the case and to represent the person's descendent. In this way they begin working as a team to solve a mystery that becomes more and more complex as the story progresses. Who do the other bones belong to? How and why did the victims die?
As they investigate, Rosen and Manfreda become embroiled in a complex situation that contains a lot of surprises for them, as well as for the reader. Harrigan's death comes under scrutiny. Rosen's assistant, Wally, emerges as a key figure in the case. Even Manfreda's chic little dog Mycroft plays a part. As the novel progresses, Rosen and Manfreda become romantically involved. The two make an interesting team, a mixture of sweet and savory, and readers will no doubt look forward to their future combined efforts.
-Carol S. Chadwick
PHILIP MARLOWE'S GUIDE TO LIFE
by Raymond Chandler
edited by Martin Asher
New York: Knopf, 2005. $14.95
This little black paperback book, Philip Marlowe's Guide to Life, could be considered the equivalent to Chairman Mao's little red book for those who want to make the hard-boiled detective's way of life their own. It is a compendium of short pithy quotes excerpted from Philip Marlowe's oeuvre, covering all of the important aspects of noir life, including dames, fast living, crime, Los Angeles, night, private dicks, scotch, sore knuckles, etc.
Asher has arranged Marlowe and Chandler's thoughts on these subjects in alphabetical order from "advertising" to "writers," each quote attributed to its original source material. The list contains everything an aspiring city slicker sleuth ought to know, and ought to be able to say with a more or less straight face. For example, on the subject of "architecture" Marlowe says, "About the only part of a California house you can't put your foot through is the door." Regarding "blondes," he says, "She adores music and when the New York Philharmonic is playing Hindemith she can tell you which one of the six bass viols came in a quarter of a beat too late. I hear Toscanini can also. That makes two of them."
This small book oozes rueful self-deprecation and drips with cynicism towards everyone and everything, including cops, criminals, victims, writers, rivals, and even Philip Marlowe himself who is described as "a cold-blooded beast." Anyone who wants to become a tough private eye or even just do a good impersonation of one needs to keep this book in his or her breast pocket right over a hard, hard heart. It is a fun read for armchair detectives, recalling a time when a man was a man and a dame was "a pretty, spoiled and not very bright little girl who had gone very, very wrong, and nobody was doing anything about it."
Carol S. Chadwick
KILLER SMILE
by Lisa Scottoline
New York: HarperCollins, 2004. $25.95
Lisa Scottoline's Killer Smile is part of a series of interconnected books, the main character of each associated in some way with the Philadelphia law firm of Rosato & Biscardi. In Killer Smile, Mary Dinunzio is a young widowed attorney hoping to make partner at the firm. When she takes on a pro bono case to settle the estate of a long-deceased man-a commercial fisherman named Amadeo Brandolini who died during World War II in a detention camp in Montana, having apparently committed suicide-she becomes frustrated at being unable to find the man's file after searching through stacks of government records. Mary's suspicions are raised when, at a family dinner in the close-knit Italian community of South Philadelphia, she learns that Amadeo Brandolini had been well-known to members of her parents' generation and that unanswered questions about the man's demise still lingered amongst them. Before long Mary begins to feel obsessed with the desire to know more about him, even though all she has to go on is a puzzling government memo, some old photos, a lock of hair, and a few pages of unlabeled, unrecognizable drawings. Her friend Judy tells her, "It's like you have a crush on him or something."
A large part of the charm of this book stems from the development of the main character. Mary Dinunzio is no intrepid Nancy Drew or tough V.I. Warshawski. She is an experienced professional, but she has some all too human insecurities as well. She neglects her work on her regular cases because of her fixation on Brandolini and ineptly resists her friends' attempts to arrange dates for her. She balks at going to Montana since she has never been on an airplane before and later becomes putty in the hands of a slick, handsome reporter who interferes with her case by charming important information out of her. Despite these shortcomings, she ends up surprising everyone, including herself, as she grows more and more fearless throughout the course of the investigation. The story moves along swiftly as Mary works to uncover the person with the "killer smile" in order to put Brandolini's case to rest.
-Carol S. Chadwick
FRIENDS, LOVERS, CHOCOLATE
by Alexander McCall Smith
New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. $21.95
Readers who have enjoyed McCall Smith's Mma Ramotswe mysteries set in Botswana, Africa will find themselves, in his latest novel, in the cooler but more bracing clime of Edinburgh, Scotland. Friends, Lovers, Chocolate, featuring Isabel Dalhousie, is not a mystery in the traditional sense. There are no bodies, no trails of clues, no climactic confrontations with the perpetrator of the crime. In fact, there are no premeditated acts of violence anywhere in this story. The mysteries are those of the heart and the damage that is done is emotional rather than corporeal.
More sympathetic and vulnerable here than she was in McCall Smith's previous Dalhousie novel, The Sunday Philosophy Club, Isabel Dalhousie is not a traditional detective of either the amateur or professional variety who uses her wits to solve baffling puzzles. She becomes involved in peoples' affairs simply because she is good-hearted and perhaps even a bit of a busybody. As the general editor of a journal entitled Review of Applied Ethics, one would expect her to have the discretion to stay out of other people's business, but she doesn't let her professional position stop her from using her personal experience and her status as a respectable mature woman to help people who she believes, rightly or wrongly, need her assistance.
Early in the novel Isabel meets a man who has received a heart transplant. He is troubled by unexplained melancholy and visions of the face of someone he believes killed the donor of his heart. This raises ethical and philosophical questions about cellular memory. Can the heart "remember" things? And if it can, does it retain those memories after death? Isabel sets out to uncover the identity of the heart transplant donor.
While in the process of closing the door on the heart transplant mystery, she opens the door to another enigma when she sees something which leads her to believe that a young male friend of a young female friend of hers has allowed his affections to drift. In attempting to get to the bottom of the matter, she begins to question her own feelings about the young man and to ponder her own choices regarding matters of the heart. Kindhearted readers cannot but forgive Isabel for her meddling, because it stems from the kind of loneliness that can only be experienced by a proud and independent character. Like other isolated protagonists of detective fiction, Isabel is not an easy character to like, but neither is she easy to forget. Once again, McCall Smith demonstrates that there are whole new directions for mysteries to take and fascinating characters to lead the way.
Carol S. Chadwick
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