edited by Ed McBain

New York: Forge, 2005. $27.95

One of the late Ed McBain’s final projects was Transgressions, a magnificent mammoth collection of brand-new original novellas. McBain filled its nearly 800 pages with giants—Lawrence Block, Jeffery Deaver, John Farris, Stephen King, Sharyn McCrumb, Walter Mosley, Joyce Carol Oates, Anne Perry, Donald E. Westlake, and McBain himself.

The stories all feature various kinds of transgressions, and, in a way, their format itself is a transgression. Novellas are too long to be short stories and too short to be novels. Where do you print stories that don’t fit the norm? Because the answer to that question is usually "Nowhere," novella collections like this one are infrequent treats.

While no one story is less than captivating, some of the stories are especially gripping. Possibly the strongest and most haunting of them is Joyce Carol Oates’ The Corn Maiden: A Love Story. Told from multiple perspectives, this story of the kidnapping of an eleven-year-old girl as part of a reenactment of an old sacrificial ritual will draw readers in and keep its hold over them long after they have moved on to other stories in the volume. Oates transgresses all the rules of grammar, creating sentence structures to match her characters’ personalities and mental states. The very first sentence, "Whywhy you’re asking here’s why her hair," is a perfect example of what Oates has in store for her readers. There are entire passages in this style which will leave readers breathless and totally mesmerized by the characters.

Walter Mosley, the creator of Easy Rawlins, Fearless Jones, and Socrates Fortlow, introduces a new pair of winning characters in Archibald Lawless, Anarchist at Large: Walking the Line. A modernized Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, Lawless and his newly hired assistant "scribe" Felix Orlean, "walk the line between chaos and the man." In their initial outing, Lawless and Felix find themselves involved with international intrigue, murder, and corrupt big businesses. Lawless keeps Felix in the dark for much of the story, encouraging him to develop his own curiosity and investigating skills. And Felix exhibits a questioning reluctance to accept Lawless at face value, which serves to energize Lawless. Archibald Lawless is one of those larger than life characters who is sure to bring readers back again and again. Here’s hoping this is just the first of many excursions for this pair.

Transgressing the historical fiction she usually writes, Anne Perry contributes Hostages, a story of rigidity and intolerance in Northern Ireland. Perry’s title refers not only to the family in the story who are taken by captors, but also to both groups being strongly bound to their respective ideals and traditions. Protestant leader Connor O’Malley is preparing to take his wife and son for a week’s vacation at an isolated area near a lake. O’Malley, known for his unwavering views, sees any deviation from those views—whether it be a religious compromise or his wife’s desire to wear pants rather than dresses—as a betrayal. Moderates, including his own daughter, have been pressuring him to compromise with the opposing Catholics in order for both sides to be able to start along the path of peace. O’Malley will have none of it.

At the beginning of the story, Bridget O’Malley is compliant to Connor’s will, doing everything he asks in order to keep peace in the household. Things begin to change when the family awakens to find three strangers in their cottage. The trio are Catholics who have come to persuade O’Malley to step aside and allow a more moderate leader to step forward. The situation becomes volatile as O’Malley and his captors grow more antagonistic towards one another. The story focuses mainly on Bridget, however, as she begins, during the process of dealing with her family’s physical imprisonment, to break away from the emotional imprisonment her husband has subjected her to.

The ten novellas featured in Transgressions have found a welcome home. With examples of such high quality to go by, here’s hoping that other editors will follow Ed McBain’s lead so that more collections of these literary transgressors will be available in the future.

—Neal Alhadeff

by James Patterson and Maxine Paetro

New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2005. $24.00

James Patterson’s fourth Women’s Murder Club mystery, 4th of July, is a change of pace from earlier installments. For starters, co-author Maxine Paetro joins Patterson this time, taking over from Andrew Gross, co-writer of the previous two episodes. In a further change from the earlier books, in 4th of July Patterson’s main character, San Francisco police lieutenant Lindsey Boxer, goes it alone. The other members of the Women’s Murder Club appear in only a handful of pages.

4th of July contains two nearly separate storylines featuring Boxer. The first starts out with the members of the Women’s Murder Club meeting over drinks to discuss one of their fallen comrades and Boxer’s latest case. Their meeting is interrupted when Boxer’s former partner, Jacobi, calls regarding a break in the case. Jacobi picks Boxer up and they agree that, despite the drinks, Boxer is fit for duty. Their decision turns out to be a fateful one, leading to Boxer finding herself on trial for her career.

While on leave to prepare for her trial, Boxer housesits for her vacationing sister who lives in Half Moon Bay, a small town about 40 miles outside of San Francisco. While there, Boxer becomes involved in the investigation of a string of serial killings.

Patterson and Paetro keep both storylines moving at the brisk pace which is one of the hallmarks of Patterson’s work. His fans have also come to expect interesting and charismatic characters, of which there are plenty in 4th of July.

One thing readers don’t expect in a Patterson novel, however, is a disappointing ending, of which this one has two. As the trial storyline nears its conclusion, Patterson and Paetro provide Boxer and her lawyers with new information which seems to set readers up for a nice Pattersonian twist. Instead the story makes an about-face which has nothing to do with the misleading information—which is never further explained, much less mentioned again.

The Half Moon Bay portion of the novel falters for a different reason. Two key pieces of the puzzle are revealed not through Boxer’s investigative skills, but by third parties. After watching Boxer endure the frustrations of her trial and the investigation, it is disappointing to see her relegated to more of an observer than a driving force in the final stages of the case. On the other hand, the twists brought about by the unveiling of those final clues were surprising and very satisfying.

Despite its weaknesses, 4th of July will please most fans of James Patterson and the Women’s Murder Club.

Neal Alhadeff

by Linwood Barclay

New York: Bantam Books, 2005. $22.00

Toronto Star columnist Linwood Barclay’s second novel, Bad Guys, is an entertaining story starring Canadian newspaper features writer Zack Walker. Barclay’s first novel, Bad Move, also featured Walker, and the return of this character is anything but bad news.

The tone of Barclay’s Walker novels is light and humorous. Much of the humor stems from the way Walker interacts with the world around him. A family man, Walker tends to overreact to situations at home, especially those that involve his teenage children.

In Bad Guys, Barclay follows Walker along two storylines. The first involves his daughter and a suspected stalker. In the process of trying to determine whether or not his daughter is actually being stalked, Walker ends up stalking her himself and discovers that she has a boyfriend he didn’t know about. Meanwhile, on the professional front, Walker is writing a feature article on private detective Lawrence Jones. As part of his research, Walker has been accompanying Jones on stakeouts as Jones attempts to catch a ring of burglars who have been robbing high-end clothing stores.

As a result of his involvement with Jones, Walker gets involved in a high-speed car chase which ends in a shoot-out. When Jones is later attacked and left for dead, Walker decides to find those responsible and begins tracking the robbers on his own.

Complicating matters, a photographer at Walker’s paper is murdered, a mobster takes an interest in the new car Walker has just bought at a police auction, and there is a kidnapping.

Barclay successfully balances the comical and serious aspects of the story, keeping readers interested in both Walker’s investigation and his home life. Though written with a light touch, the novel is gripping when it counts, and includes a very nicely handled twist ending.

All in all, Bad Guys makes for a good time. More Zack Walker would be welcomed.

—Neal Alhadeff

by Christopher Fowler

New York: Bantam Books, 2005. $24.00

Christopher Fowler’s veteran British police detectives, Arthur Bryant and John May of the Peculiar Crime Unit, return in The Water Room. In this second Bryant and May novel, the pair investigate the apparent drowning of an elderly woman named Mrs. Singh in her dry basement.

The case takes many interesting turns involving the history of London’s lost rivers, the occult, Roman and Egyptian mythology, and more criminal activity on Mrs. Singh’s street.

Bryant and May, who have been partners for 50 years, couldn’t be more different. The eightyish Bryant lives in the past. He’s a student of London history and relishes his memories of the 1940s, when everything was better. Bryant is also fascinated by the occult and mythology, often studying old books for clues to solving present-day crimes. He hates change and resists the computerization of criminology.

May, a few years Bryant’s junior, embraces change. He uses all the latest gadgets, including electronic pads which e-mail notes from the field back to the office. While Bryant worries about the future of England, based on his pessimistic views of the younger generation, May is satisfied that they will prove capable of taking the reins of government when their time comes.

Their opposing personalities inform the way they conduct their police work. Bryant snaps and insults; May charms and ingratiates. The differences between these two old friends lead to much of the book’s humor. Listening in as Bryant and May bicker during stakeouts is a joy.

Alternating with the story of Bryant and May’s investigation is the story of Kallie Owen who, along with her boyfriend, buys and moves into Mrs. Singh’s house. Kallie’s growth over the course of the novel is not only a fine piece of character development, but also a key element in the story’s plot.

Christopher Fowler should gain a number of new fans as readers start discovering The Water Room. On finishing the novel, readers of all stripes may find themselves feeling a bit like both Bryant and May. Like May, they’ll undoubtedly be anticipating future cases involving the pair. And like Bryant, they’ll likely be yearning for more details of cases from the past. Fowler frequently teases readers by dropping hints about such cases, most notably the one involving suspected vampires and the death of May’s daughter. Regardless of where Fowler takes Bryant and May in future novels, he’s sure to find a welcoming audience.

—Neal Alhadeff

by Rennie Airth

New York: Viking, 2005. $24.95

Rennie Airth’s 1999 novel River of Darkness, a superlative evocation of post-World War I England, won the French Grand Prix de Littérature Policière and was shortlisted for five other major crime fiction awards. It introduced Scotland Yard Inspector John Madden, who, grief-stricken at the deaths of both his wife and infant daughter from influenza within the same week, seeks oblivion in the horrifying trenches of wartime France. He returns to England and his detective work so shattered by his experiences that he feels he will never live fully again, but the gruesome 1921 slaughter of a family in a small Surrey village acquaints him with Dr. Helen Blackwell who becomes his wife and exorcises his inner demons.

In The Blood-Dimmed Tide, the equally stunning second installment of Airth’s closed trilogy featuring John Madden, ten years have elapsed. The year is 1932 and Madden has resigned from Scotland Yard to take up a farmer’s life in Surrey. Although devoted to Helen and his children Rob and Lucy, Madden still feels obligated by experience and temperament to unofficially "take charge" when a young girl’s body, her face unrecognizably disfigured, is discovered not far from his home. Madden continues working on the case even in the face of Helen’s opposition to his renewed involvement in police work and his realization that, with Hitler rising to power and England and Germany again on the verge of hostilities, the case has dangerous national and international ramifications.

Familiar and welcome faces from River of Darkness, like psychiatry pioneer Dr. Franz Weiss, Madden’s old Yard superior Angus Sinclair, and brash young detective Billy Sykes, reappear in The Blood-Dimmed Tide. As in River of Darkness, the killer in this novel is monstrously psychologically abnormal, and it takes all of Madden’s clarity of reason and quiet courage to unmask him, which he does in a brilliant denouement reaffirming the powers of decency and morality—which are soon to be tested in another crucible of war.

In one of the most brilliant novelistic treatments of the troubled years between the World Wars, Rennie Airth explores a civilization disintegrating under economic and political pressures too monumental to be alleviated by traditional methods. It was an era when, as in William Butler Yeats’ poem "The Second Coming" (Airth’s source for the chilling title of this book), some "rough beast" was "slouching toward Bethlehem" to be born. In The Blood-Dimmed Tide, that beast is headed toward John Madden’s sweet green fields of England as well.

Mitzi M. Brunsdale

by Rick Gadziola

Toronto: ECW Press, 2005. $19.95 CND / $15.95 US

Ex-cop Jake Morgan leaves the Boston PD after his gambling habit indirectly leads to the death of his partner. Leaving his shield behind, Morgan moves to Las Vegas where he finds employment as a dealer at Julius Contini’s Oasis Hotel and Casino. When Mr. C. asks Jake to take on a special assignment, the ex-cop is skeptical. Contini wants Jake to be an escort for his niece, who is visiting from New York. Jake isn’t pleased at the prospect of babysitting, even when it turns out that the niece, Angelica, turns out to be a ravishing Britney Spears look-alike who throws herself at Jake every chance she gets. He is even less pleased when the assignment takes a decidedly wicked turn which leads to Jack and his attractive charge being regularly followed, threatened, and assaulted by a pair of mob goons.

Fifty years earlier, Angelica’s grandfather, Carmine Bonello, had disappeared mysteriously along with a large amount of money skimmed from the mob’s ill-gotten profits. Is Angelica’s harassment somehow connected to her grandfather’s disappearance? Before any dust manages to settle on Jake, he comes across several fresh corpses, his apartment is trashed, he gets beaten and shot in the leg, and he gets hit on by both a cross-dresser and a heavy metal rod. To make matters worse, Angelica’s presence is seriously hampering his social life.

Rick Gadziola’s second outing with Jake Morgan (after the 2004 novel Raw Deal) is a fun romp, a delightful throwback to an earlier age in crime fiction, when it wasn’t unusual for "hard-boiled" adventures to have a playful innocence. One can easily imagine Rock Hudson, Frank Sinatra, or even Burt Reynolds in the role of Morgan.

The details of Las Vegas street life, night-life, and gaming are given a ring of authenticity by the author’s research and his personal knowledge of the subjects. (Toronto-based Gadziola is a semi-professional gambler, a World Series of Poker regular, and is frequently "comped" at the best casinos.) The book design also deserves comment. All of the page numbers are printed in little boxes shaped like playing cards. For example, Chapter 1 is marked with the Ace of Spades, Chapter 10 bears the Jack of Clubs, and Chapter 25 is indicated by a pair of Queens and a Five. This design scheme could have easily gone overboard, but as a minor touch, it adds to the book’s charm.

The plot of Freezout, featuring a puzzle that nearly reaches the level of Queen and Christie, is a fun blend of action, and mystery. Yes, in the 21st century there are still authors able (and willing) to imbue adult fiction with hidden clues, secret codes, and buried treasure without making it come off as forced or absurd. Freezout is not Hemingway, but as entertaining crime fiction with a Las Vegas theme, it’s a Royal Flush in Spades.

—Steven Steinbock

by Kathryn Reiss

San Diego: Harcourt Books, 2006. $17.00

Lost memories, good luck charms, and art are among the themes of this California-girl-in-rural-England suspense novel. Juliana Martin-Drake’s mother needs to separate from her husband and return to her native England in order to get a fresh start on her artistic career, so fifteen-year-old Juliana and her nine-year-old siblings end up being dragged to Blackthorn, a seaside village without the internet, shopping malls, or fast food.

The good news is that they end up moving into a cottage on the same property where Duncan Carrington, a cute red-headed boy, lives with his stepfather. But then Juliana, who had been adopted by her parents after being found wandering the beaches near Santa Cruz ten years earlier (her only memory being that her name was "Jewel Moonbeam"), begins suffering strange blackouts which are accompanied by smells and memories of her early childhood, which had until then been locked away.

Before Juliana’s past can be more fully revealed, her mother’s friend Liza Pethering, a rather obnoxious portrait artist, is found dead. Foul play is suspected and Simon Jukes, a local troublemaker, is arrested. But Juliana isn’t so sure Simon is the killer.

Blackthorn Winter has a well-conceived plot and an engaging premise.

—Steven Steinbock

by Andrew Vachss

New York: Pantheon Books, 2005. $25.00

Two Trains Running is a historical crime novel which unfolds over a two week period in 1959 in the fictitious mill town of Locke City, somewhere in the Midwest. Locke City is the private "Sodom and Gomorrah" of a wheelchair-bound criminal by the name of Royal Beaumont, but the security, profitability, and longevity of his fiefdom have begun to be threatened by infidels. A local IRA unit wants all of the action, but so does the Mafia! What is an "honest" criminal to do in order to hold onto what is rightfully his?

Enter the anti-hero, an Übermensch called Walker Dent. Like the enormously successful Burke—a benevolent street vigilante in Vachss’ main hard-boiled noir series—Dent is a cold-blooded killer for hire with a noble conscience. Death and destruction follow closely in Dent’s wake as he attempts to help Beaumont keep an iron grip on his empire while at the same time pursuing his own mysterious agenda. He is deadly to a fault, but he is also as chivalrous as Don Quixote was towards his Dulcinea del Toboso.

The plot is rounded out by a racially motivated lynching, a riotous group of gun-packing black revolutionaries, a goose stepping neo-Nazi organization, and two juvenile gangs hell-bent on settling a turf war, and is set against the backdrop of the impending 1960 presidential campaign pitting John F. Kennedy against Richard M. Nixon.

Reading Vachss is by no means a passive activity. His writing forces readers into the boxing ring. You cannot stop and rest until you are through. Each word, each page, and each chapter is a jab, cross, and left hook combination aimed at the head, the heart, and the groin. Vachss’ staccato style of storytelling relentlessly pummels you to the point of exhaustion and in the process forces you to look into the abyss where the evilness that is within and around us all. Emerging from this pugilist purgatory, the reader is left beaten, bloody, and battered but also more acutely aware of his or her path in this world and the dark undercurrents swirling around it.

The recurring question that Vachss asks in Two Trains Running is, "Can you be noble while also practicing violence, extortion, blackmail, and even mass murder?" The answer will probably surprise you. Be prepared to enjoy this wonderfully complex book while at the same time getting angry and frustrated with its myriad of unsavory characters, and possibly even pathologically attracted to them. One way or another, you will definitely find you have been affected by Two Trains Running by the time the bell for the final bout rings!

—Louis Boxer

by Stuart Kaminsky

photographs by Laurie Roberts

Cohasset, MA: Hot House Books, 2005. $29.95

Who better to get inside the lives of great mystery writers than a man who is a great mystery writer in his own right? Stuart Kaminsky is the author of fifty mystery novels. A past president of the Mystery Writers of America, Kaminsky is a six-time nominee for the Edgar, which he won in 1989 for his novel A Cold Red Sunrise featuring his Moscow-based detective, Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov.

There have been a number of excellent anthologies of mystery author interviews. (Ed Gorman’s Speaking of Murder and Jon Jordan’s Interrogations come immediately to mind.) Two elements make Kaminsky’s Behind the Mystery stand out—Laurie Roberts’ beautiful photography and Kaminsky’s unique lines of questioning. To put the book together, Kaminsky traveled to the four corners of the U.S. and everywhere in between in order to speak with the authors, in most cases in their homes. He visited the Louisiana bayou to talk with James Lee Burke, the Rio Grande to talk with Tony Hillerman, Boston to talk with Robert B. Parker, and Beverly Hills to interview Faye and Jonathan Kellerman. Other authors interviewed for the book include Mickey Spillane, Sara Paretsky, Sue Grafton, Lisa Scottoline, Lawrence Block, Ann Rule, Joseph Wambaugh, John James, and the recently deceased Evan Hunter, also known as Ed McBain, to whom the book is dedicated.

Photographer Laurie Roberts photographed the authors in their homes, unposed in their natural environments. We see Sue Grafton at her computer and in her dining room, Elmore Leonard sneaking a smoke during a phone call, Donald Westlake with his collection of old typewriters, Martin Cruz Smith playing at the piano with his granddaughter, and Michael Connelly reeling in a fishing line. Instead of asking the authors about their writing methods and muses, Kaminsky exchanges jokes with them and talks with them about such things as their families and religious views, often succeeding in getting past the veneer that public figures are often reluctant to drop.

For lovers of American crime fiction, Behind the Mystery makes for a worthy top-shelf reference book as well as a prized coffee-table volume.

Steven Steinbock

by Mike Harrison

Toronto: ECW Press, 2005. $19.95 CND / $15.95 US

Eddie Dancer is all shook up. While he’s trying to finish a crossword puzzle, a tough character named Joe Baker arrives at his P.I. office to hire him to find a guy named Richard Wyman who double-crossed Baker during a bank hold-up and took all the money. Two days later a guy named Richard Wyman wants to hire him to locate Joe Baker, who he says double-crossed him and took all the robbery money. Being an ex-cop, Eddie knows he should stay out of the case, but curiosity gets the better of him. His investigation takes him to the sleaziest of tattoo parlors and biker hangouts, the inner sanctum of a prison, and an emergency room where a hooker friend ends up after suffering possible brain damage from an apparent drug overdose.

All Shook Up, English-born author Harrison’s first P.I. Eddie Dancer novel, is set in Calgary, Alberta where Harrison teams his hero up with a motley group of friends to help him with the case including Nosher and Splosher—a ruthless pair of Cockney auto mechanics who are also identical twins—and the unstoppable and aptly-named Danny Many Guns.

All Shook Up is as funny as it is brutal, with peppery dialogue and enough sadistic practical jokes to keep you rolling on the floor. In one scene, for instance, Nosher and Splosher replace the motor in a nasty pimp’s Cadillac with a Volkswagen engine, and when the pimp looks under the hood to see what’s making all the noise, the Cockney twins shove him into the engine compartment and slam down the hood. All Shook Up is not a comical crime novel, but Harrison’s feel for humorous situations and funny dialogue adds to the pleasure of this wild adventure.

There are moments when characters’ dialects don’t ring true. Black ex-con Phillip P. Wilson’s speaking style could be replaced with that of almost any other character and he would still sound the same. But fans of fast-moving private eye stories and humorous crime tales will delight in Harrison’s writing, and will look forward to Eddie Dancer twisting and shaking his way through the next installment.

Steven Steinbock

by Daphne du Maurier

read by Emma Fielding

Franklin, TN / Surrey, UK: Naxos Audio Books, 2004. $28.98 (4 abridged CDs)

5 hours, 14 minutes

"Last night I dreamt I went to Manderley again." So begins Daphne du Maurier’s classic 1938 novel of suspense. The book opens with the narrator describing her trip to Monte Carlo as the paid companion of a pompous American woman, Mrs. Van Hopper. While staying at the Hotel Cote d’Azur, the narrator (who remains unnamed throughout the novel) meets a recently widowed aristocrat, Maxim de Winter. The two immediately fall in love and the novel recounts their romance, their hasty marriage, and their subsequent return to de Winter’s estate, Manderley.

A profound psychological unease sets in for the narrator as the newlyweds arrive at Manderly. It quickly becomes apparent to her that her husband hasn’t completely let go of his deceased first wife, Rebecca. The entire home, in fact, seems to be haunted by Rebecca’s memory, if not her very ghost. The narrator is tormented by her unanswered questions, the disapproving housekeeper Mrs. Danvers, and her husband’s obsession with his late wife.

Actress Emma Fielding manages to capture both the ominous tone of du Maurier’s novel and the youthful and sadly hopeful exuberance of the narrator. The book was carefully abridged for this recording by David Timson and although it has been trimmed to just over five hours, listeners are unlikely to notice any gaps in the story. Timson also wrote the liner notes (which are in a booklet included with the discs). For interested listeners, he draws correlations between the author and her heroine, and between Rebecca and Bronte’s Jane Eyre. All in all, this is an excellent production of a classic.

Steven Steinbock

by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

read by David Timson

Franklin, TN / Surrey, UK: Naxos Audio Books, 2005. $118.98 (18 abridged CDs)

18 hours

All 24 pre-hiatus Sherlock Holmes stories (those contained in the two collections The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes), are flawlessly read for this recording by actor and writer David Timson, who has a real feel for Holmes and Watson, expertly capturing their voices, as well as those of various clients, villains, and police officials.

Little need be said about the stories themselves. Lovers of the canon will enjoy hearing Timson’s renditions of classics like "A Scandal in Bohemia," "The Red-Headed League," "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and "Silver Blaze." Transitional music is provided throughout the set, mostly string quartet and trio pieces from Naxos’ large inventory of classical recordings.

In addition to narrating the stories, David Timson shows himself to be a scholar of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s work. The 44-page booklet that accompanies the discs includes background information and a short analysis for each story, as well as a short biography of Conan Doyle.

The only complaint I have about this excellent box-set is the odd chronology of the tales. Instead of ordering the stories as they appeared in the original collections The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes and The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, or even following the chronology established by William S. Baring-Gould in his Annotated Sherlock Holmes, the stories are presented in an odd sequence, beginning with "The Adventure of the Speckled Band," and followed by "The Adventure of the Stock-Broker’s Clerk," "The Adventure of the Copper Beeches," "The Red-Headed League," "A Scandal in Bohemia," and so forth. And the set is simply titled The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, despite the fact that the stories in the original collection of that title constitute only half of the stories in this Naxos CD edition. The title of the second collection, The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes, is nowhere to be found on the packaging, and is mentioned only in passing in the liner notes. Nevertheless, it would be difficult to find a collection of Sherlock Holmes stories which was better performed or more lovingly produced.

Steven Steinbock

by Rupert Holmes

read by Patrick Lawlor

Old Saybrook, CT: Tantor Media, 2005. $34.95 (10 unabridged CDs)

11 hours

When a man who has won a mantel full of Tony Awards for writing and scoring a musical decides to write a mystery novel, it shouldn’t be surprising that he’d give the novel a score of its own. That is precisely what Rupert Holmes, who in 1986 adapted Dickens’ The Mystery of Edwin Drood to the musical stage, has done. And as odd as the prospect may at first sound, Holmes’ resulting creation is an opus in its own right.

The year is 1940, when Big Band swing jazz ruled the airwaves. The U.S. is staying out of the war in Europe, and the Golden Gate Exposition is being celebrated in San Francisco, which is where saxophonist Ray Sherwood happens to be touring with the Jack Donovan Orchestra, fleeing the memories of his young daughter’s death and his subsequent divorce. At the Expo, a beautiful coed from Berkeley hires Ray to help her adapt a musical score and a foreign-born stripper proposes to him, later apparently leaping from the Tower of the Sun to her death. The tragedy makes for a disturbing start to the friendship between Ray and the young Berkeley student, Gail Prentice. But Gail, despite being young enough to be his daughter, begins to fall hard for Ray, and the feeling is mutual.

Swing has a lot going on beneath its light, easy, and at times madcap tone, including twists involving foreign spies and secret codes, and themes dealing with hope, loss, and musicology. Swing is full of surprises.

Music by Rupert Holmes, written especially for the novel, is inserted throughout the audiobook at appropriate points in the story. However, the print edition contains historical photographs from period postcards and printed musical notations which serve as clues that are missing from the audio edition.

Patrick Lawlor’s reading of the novel is sincere. Despite some technical flaws, Swing is a fun, exciting, and at times titillating story that captures the feel and the music of a bygone era.

—Steven Steinbock

by James Lee Burke

read by Will Patton

New York: Simon & Schuster Audio, 2005. $49.95 (10 unabridged CDs)

12 hours

It is hard to imagine anyone improving on the poetic style of James Lee Burke. But Will Patton’s reading of the author’s work brings out the beauty of his writing in ways that can bring tears to the eyes.

It’s 1958 and Dave Robicheaux and his half-brother Jimmie are taking a break from their job at the oil derricks off the Texas coast in the Gulf of Mexico, enjoying the sun and surf at a Galveston beach, when they are rescued from a shark attack by a tall, good-looking redhead named Ida Durbin. Jimmie takes an immediate interest in Ida that doesn’t let up when he learns that she isn’t as pure as she at first seemed. Jimmie and Ida prepare to run off together, leaving Ida’s illicit life behind. But their plan fails, and Ida is lost to Jimmie.

Flash forward to the present. Over the course of twelve previous novels, readers have gotten to know Dave Robicheaux, a Cajun ex-drunk, as he flip-flops between being a cop, a bait-and-tackle shop owner, and a semi-private eye. After a serial rapist-murderer begins ravaging the region, Robicheaux hears the deathbed confession of a college classmate which brings up questions about Ida Durban’s disappearance and raises the possibility that she was murdered.

Patton, who has appeared in Silkwood, Gone in 60 Seconds, The Client, and Remember the Titans, delivers a stunning performance in this full-length reading. His hushed whispers cry out with emotion. His regional accents, whether they be Cajun or Texan, and his characterizations, whether of a rich landowner or a poverty-stricken African-American, have an authentic feel. Patton gives Robicheaux’s voice the flawed, tragic, and sexy quality inherent in Burke’s depiction of the character.

Steven Steinbock

by Robert Hicks

read by Becky Ann Baker, Tom Wopat, David Chandler, and Jonathan Davis

New York: Time Warner Audiobooks, 2005. $29.98 (5 abridged CDs)

When Nashville music publisher Robert Hicks was invited onto the board of a small museum in his hometown of Franklin, Tennessee, he learned the story of Carrie McGavock, a woman who dedicated her life to burying the dead from a Civil War battle in 1864. Widow of the South is Hicks’ fictionalized account of the story, based on scrapbooks, letters, and diaries he found in the McGavock home.

The novel shifts between the end of the 19th century and 1864 as Hicks tells the story of the Widow McGavock, her slave and companion Mariah, her husband John, and a Confederate soldier named Zachariah Cashwell who loses his leg in the battle. Having lost three of her five children, Carrie McGavock was already in mourning when the Confederate Army commandeered her home. As the dead and wounded from the Battle of Franklin are brought to her home, Carrie becomes immersed in nursing the wounded and burying the nearly 1,500 dead. (A total of 9,000 men lost their lives during the Battle of Franklin.)

The story is powerfully moving, however, at times the narrative is slow. The carnage of the battle scenes contrasts sharply with the conflicted love between Carrie McGavock and Zachariah Cashwell. But conflict is, after all, what most fiction is about.

The team of narrators is a good one, with Becky Ann Baker reading the sections told from Carrie and Mariah’s points of view, while the three men trade off reading the various male characters’ parts. Disc Five contains a ten-minute interview with the author and bonus material which is accessible by inserting the disc into a computer. The music and the "splash screen" (a visual display of a graveyard, a Confederate flag, and a woman holding a bunch of daisies against a backdrop of battle sounds) are attractive bonuses. The "enhancements" are comprised of fourteen photographs with captions, profiles of the narrators, and a note from the author.

Steven Steinbock