Eye of the Beholder by David Ellis

Eye of the Beholder is a gruesome but thrilling murder mystery that tracks two sets of murder sprees in a small college town fifteen years apart.  In 1989 the bodies of six young women are found in the basement of the college’s auditorium… two are wealthy coeds and four are prostitutes.  The victims are gruesomely murdered in accordance with the lyrics of a song by a relatively unknown heavy metal band.  A professor at the college uses these lyrics in his literature class that both student victims have attended.  Terry Burgos is a maintenance worker at the college and also a part time employee of the professor.  Forensic evidence of the murders is found in Burgos’ home and he is arrested and confesses to the crimes.  Paul Riley is the fresh faced prosecutor who wins the guilty verdict against Burgos on five of the six murders.  Burgos is ultimately executed.  The sixth victim is wealthy businessman Harland Bentley’s daughter and for personal reasons, he requests his daughter’s murder not be included in the indictment of Burgos.  Riley honors that request. 

Now fifteen years later, Paul Riley has moved on to private practice.  His main client and core of his private law practice is Harland Bentley.  A young female reporter begins asking questions about the Burgos trial, calling it background information for a current story.  Suddenly, one of her sources is murdered, then the reporter herself is violently murdered.  Riley recognizes the murderer's methods as those described in verse two of the heavy metal song used in the slaughter the victims from fifteen years earlier.  Riley is invited to assist the police in the investigation of the current day murders but when they learn Harland Bentley is his client, Riley’s credibility suffers.  The police suspect he is withholding information to protect his client or even himself.  Riley harbors some suspicions of his own about his client and decides he must investigate further into the events of the 1989 murders to find the present day killer.  Meanwhile, Riley and his girl friend become targets of the killer.

David Ellis writes an intriguing ‘who done it’ with an interesting cast of characters… lawyer with a conscience, philandering rich guy, wild child teenager, schizophrenic serial killer, troubled police detective, predatory college prof, sexy girlfriend who happens to be the governor’s daughter.  The plot is fraught with complexity and enough twists and turns that the ride becomes more enjoyable than the destination.  All in all, much more enjoyable than those airplane books he writes with James Patterson.

Black Cherry Blues

Having read most of Burke’s stories, I found this early one, his 3^rd of 20 novels in the Dave Robicheaux series, Black Cherry Blues. Dave is trying to raise his adopted daughter, 6-year-old Alafair, and recover from the nightmares about the brutal murder of his wife. But he runs into some trouble when he runs into an old friend, his college roommate, Dixie Lee Pugh. Dixie was a rock and roller, who had been talented, but fell on rough times, most of that having been driven by his own alcoholism and drug abuse. Dave, a former cop, was also an alcoholic, but one who had found AA and long-term sobriety. Dixie has aligned himself with some bad people, notably Sally Dio, who is connected to the mob and is doing some land deals in Montana that don’t’ make sense to Dave.

I won’t review the plot except to say that Dave is always the stubborn yet honorable guy even though his life and Alafair’s are both threatened by the bad guys. I don’t think this is Burke’s best work, but it is still better than most crime novels. Burke’s prose is always the real treat. His descriptions are unusual, fluid, and beautiful, whether he is writing about his cast of characters, or the landscape in Louisiana and Montana. He is firmly placed in my power rotation of authors.

Wait for Signs by Craig Johnson

Hot off a book of short stories by George Pelecanos comes a small book of 12 short stories featuring Walt Longmire by Craig Johnson, mostly set around Christmas. Probably a given that if the book-length Longmire stories are such a hit with me that these dozen short stories will also resonate with me.

A few examples:

Old Indian Trick. Walt takes Lonnie Little Bird for his periodic diabetes check. They stop at a diner for a quick bite only to find it’s just been robbed; Lonnie uses an OIT to send Walt and the local cops on the right path. This is Johnson’s first Longmire story that was a Tony Hillerman award winner.

Slick Tongued Devil. Now just why does a Bible salesman show up at Walt’s cabin with a Bible he says his wife just ordered . . . 6 years after she died?

Firebird. Lucian Connelly, Walt’s former boss and mentor, lives in a Durant, WY assisted living facility. Christmas is coming up. Lucian has been sort of booted from his room for a while because a space heater set his curtains on fire. Odd, because Lucian doesn’t use a space heater.

Several Stations. A semi has slipped off an exit ramp to the interstate and spilled its load into the snow. Deputy Santiago is working the details as the snow continues to fall on Christmas Eve. Walt sends him home to be with his family; he and Dog will wait for roadside assistance to haul up the truck and close the interstate per highway patrol orders. While picking up some of the mess, a beat up car pulls up. The driver of a on-the-edge of being destitute family is disappointed the interstate is closed; how they will ever get home for Christmas.

Toys for Tots. Daughter Cady in home from Philly for Christmas and has dragged her dad on a shopping trip. First stop is Best Buy. While walking in, Walt stops to talk with the young man in full dress Navy uniform and an arm in a sling manning the Toys for Tots stop at the store’s entrance. Being an inactive Marine (no such thing as an ex-Marine), they exchange conversation about their experiences while Cady shops. The Navy guy’s shoulder is a mess from being run over by a Humvee in Iraq, so he is home on disability leave to mend. A ruckus is the store results in a man dashing out carrying a laptop. What happens next would make this one terrific holiday TV movie. This and OIT were my favorite stories in this collection.

Most of the stories in this delightful collection would add local detail, color, and subplots to the background of any of Johnson’s novels, but here, they further demonstrate Longmire’s folksy wisdom and strength of heart for the people of Absaroka County who continue to elect him as their Sheriff. This is one terrific little book to curl up  in front of a fire with a bottle of Walt’s favorite Rainier beer.

My main regret is that now I am officially current with the Longmire series. Have to wait out the next book (and Season 4 later this summer or fall on Netflix). This sprint through Johnson's catalogue of 12 Longmire book could well be one of my favorite endeavors since taking up this blog.

East Coast Don

A Brewing Storm, A Raging Storm, A Bloody Storm by Richard Castle

A Brewing Storm is the first of a trilogy of e-book shorts by Richard Castle featuring protagonist, Derrick Storm.  Richard Castle is the pen name for the ghost writer of the Derek Storm series and later the Nikki Heat series as well as the popular ABC TV show, Castle where Richard Castle is played by Nathan Fillion.  Apparently the identity of the ghost writer is buried so deep that Fillion, the actor attends the author’s book signings.

In the TV show, Richard Castle is often chided by his author buddies for killing off his successful protagonist, Derek Storm thus ending his lucrative series.  So in A Brewing Storm, Derek is brought back to life.  He is enjoying the life of an outdoorsman in Montana in the CIA version of a witness protection program when spy master, Jedidiah Jones calls in a favor and brings Storm back to Washington to investigate the kidnapping of a Senator’s step-son.  Derek must work with gorgeous but capable FBI agent April Showers to sift through confusing ransom notes and complicated relationships of families as well as decipher motives of U.S. and international politicians.  Of course the ending twist segues nicely into novella #2 in the series, A Raging Storm.

I was at that point in the process of selecting my next book where nothing looked all that interesting and I needed a diversion… A Brewing Storm served that purpose very well.  So well in fact I immediately downloaded the next e-book in the series… now it’s a guilty pleasure.  Lots of fluff, no gray matter required but a fun, quick read.

A Raging Storm is the second e-book short in Richard Castle’s Derek Storm trilogy.  Storm witnesses the assassination of a U.S. Senator and is commissioned to solve the murder as well as track down six billion dollars worth of gold bars previously owned by Russia’s Communist Party and at the core of the Senator’s death.  Storm and FBI agent April Showers are sent to London to interrogate Russian outcast Ivan Petrov.  Petrov is suspected of bribing the dead Senator and of having knowledge of the missing gold bars.  But there is a traitor in Petrov’s camp who is loyal to Russia and dangerous to the American crime fighting duo.

 

A Raging Storm is just as corny and fluffy as the first short in the series but just as entertaining… and yes, e-book short #3 is already downloaded.  By now I’m wondering, who is the ghost writer and why is he hiding behind Richard Castle?  Is he embarrassed to be associated with these sappy tales or more likely is this noise just part of marketing the whole Richard Castle brand?

A Bloody Storm is the final installment of Richard Castle’s e-book short trilogy reviving his Derek Storm character.  Storm’s pal, April Showers was able to extract the location of the missing gold bars from Petrov, a wealthy Russian outcast.  Storm and a team of ghost CIS operatives are commissioned to go find it.  His team consists of another ‘dead’ CIA agent named Casper, a Russian geologist and Dilya, an Uzbekistani woman and CIA asset.  The coordinates pinpointing the location of the gold require the team to cross the Molguzar Mountains (I don’t think these mountains even exist) into Uzbekistan.  Jeddiah, Storm’s CIA handler suspects one of the team is a traitor but he’s not sure which one.  The spy master’s suspicions are confirmed when the team collides with deadly opposing forces in Uzbekistan.

The final installment in this e-book short trilogy like its predecessors is short… short on plot complexity, short on plausibility and short on character development.  But its subtle humor and fast pace manages to keep the reader fully engaged and thoroughly entertained.  Plus for Castle TV fans, it adds a new dimension to the whole lame but charming experience.  As for the question, ‘Who is Richard Castle?’ an internet search reveals several possibilities including James Patterson, Michael Connelly, the late Stephen Cannell, Tom Straw, and Terri E. Miller… but so far no one will admit to it.  Perhaps the ghost writer just doesn’t want to be known by this name.  According to Nathan Fillion, the character's name "Rick Castle" was noted by the show creator as sounding like "Rich Asshole" and is an accurate description of his character… I love that.

Being Mortal

I saw this book on an AMA list of the 10 books that physicians should read. Atul Gawande is a Harvard-educated physician, and he has produced a remarkable book that looks at end-of-life treatment issues and how we’ve gotten so much wrong, both within the medical establishment and in our families. He provides specific and poignant case examples, and he supports his arguments with excellent data. This is a remarkably compassionate book about this most difficult matter. I vividly remember the extreme awkwardness of trying to deal with these issues during my medical school, internship, and residency years – but attending doctors, hospital administrators, and families all struggle to face decisions about the end of mortality, problems that they’ve been ignoring or avoiding all along. Gawande’s book is important, not only to physicians, but to all of us as we get older and face our inevitable age-related decline. By not directly facing the reality of aging and dying, we only end up doing more harm. Take the time to read this book.

The Martini Shot by George Pelecanos

I’ve been waiting for months for my name to come up on the wait list for the latest from one of my power rotation authors.

“the martini shot”. (n). Hollywood term for the last shot of the day, because the next shot is out of a glass.

For the uninitiated, George Pelecanos is a Washington, DC based mystery writer of 19 previous books, all based in Washington, DC (my home through high school) over different eras in the 20^th century. He is also an Emmy-nominated writer/producer for HBO’s magnificent Baltimore-based The Wire. If you are familiar with IMDB, you know just how persnickety the readers are when it comes to rating movies and television shows. The average viewer rating for The Wire is a whopping 9.4 out of 10. That’s #4 on IMDB’s list of the top 250 TV series (behind Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, and The World at War; I know you were wondering). He has written and produced for HBO’s New Orleans-based Treme. This guy delivers the goods . . . consistently.

And I think he graduated from my high school in suburban Maryland. I know his older sister did.

His latest effort contains 7 short stories and a novella. Pelecanos is known for his gritty street stories of crime in DC with nary a mention of the US government. Better than anyone I’ve ever read, he captures the rhythm of the time, the people, and especially, the dialogue. For some, me included, the first taste of his books can be challenging because of the street dialect, language, and the in-the-gutter stories of drugs, crime, and both the humanity and inhumanity that exists in neighborhoods many of us avoid.

And in The Martini Shot, he delivers again . . . a couple of days in the life of a confidential informant . . . the problems between a good playground high school basketball player, with a chance to escape the neighborhood, and some street punks he helped whip in a pick-up game . . . just over the DC line millennials looking for drugs.

But Pelcanos takes us elsewhere, too, well out of his comfort zone that readers expect . . . a sweet tale of a Greek immigrant, his wife, their natural born child, and their three African-American adoptees . . . a Miami-based insurance investigator tracking an insurance scam in Recife, Brazil . . . an off-the-boat Greek immigrant trying to make it in DC between the wars.

The novella that gives the book its title appears to draw from his time working on Treme. It, too, is based in Louisiana (unstated, but seems obvious) on the set of a TV mystery where he gives us a behind the scenes look at the day-to-day, and after hours, goings on of the show.

As I said, every story delivers. And while the locales change and some seem almost cherubic in comparison with his novels, death still lurks. Pelecanos is not one of the mainstream, grocery store rack writers who frequent the couches of the talk shows. Check out some interviews or his readings on YouTube.  Even after watching some, I suspect that some might still be on the sideline, unsure about attempting one of his street-smart novels. If so, this would be a good place to sort of ease in. I suspect that those who choose this as their first Pelecanos title will want to jump right in to his novels.

ECD

Detective Lessons

Bill Larkin has mostly written short stories and novellas, but this is a full-length crime novel set in Los Angeles. Orange County Deputy Kevin Schmidt (Schmitty) is essentially on the outs with his department, having been parked on a patrol boat in Newport Harbor where he is supposedly safe from seeing any meaningful action. Of course, things don’t work out that way. Billionaire real estate developer Mac Whelan can’t find his son, Jimmy, who Schmitty knew from high school, and Mac enlists him to help. He accepts even though it is against the rules to do such work outside the department. Mac demands that Schmitty team up with the beautiful private investigator Megan McCann who plays by her own set of rules, and neither of them is initially happy about this partnership. In the process of looking for Jimmy, they uncover a complex real estate scheme against Mac, but they also uncover Mac’s dark history that dates back to some illegal activities in the 80s in Cabo San Lucas. In the course of the story, the ultimately heroic Schmitty alienates just about everyone except Megan.

This is a plot-driven story which is well conceived. At times, the dialogue gets a little cheesy, but it’s funny and it helps create Schmitty as a law enforcement outcast, a do-it-my-own-way kind of guy. For example, in his initial encounter with Megan, Schmitty says, “Let’s take your car. Hey, girls always know within two minutes whether they want to sleep with a guy, marry him, or kick him in the balls. So tell me, how am I doing?” Megan responds, “Get yourself a cup.” When Schmitty later asks Megan about a low-life they’ve just encountered, she said, “Throw out the sliminess and the fact that you can’t trust him, and he’s a really sweet guy.”

The story is entertaining and the protagonists are likeable. The book could keep you entertained on a cross country flight. This one could be the start of a series of novels about these characters – I hope so. I’ll stay tuned for another book by Larkin.