The Night Detectives-Jon Talton

The Night Detectives
Jon Talton
Poisoned Pen, May 7 2013, $24.95
ISBN 9781464201325

In Phoenix, Arizona, Felix Smith visits the office of private investigators David Mapstone and Mike Peralta. The former historian and ex-deputy sheriff, and at one time sheriff notice how much the elegantly garbed Smith stands out in their dumpy office. He retains the partners with $10,000 in cash to look into the reported suicide of Grace Hunter.

In San Diego the retired hooker leaped from a nineteenth floor balcony to her death. Smith admits there is no evidence to the contrary to make a case for an accident or murder. The client leaves only to have his face blown up by an AK-47 in their parking lot. The two sleuths begin their inquiry in San Diego seeking Grace’s boyfriend Tim Lewis in Ocean Beach where Mapstone once lived. Tim says Scarlett, as Grace was called in America’s Finest City, is his girlfriend and mother of his child; unaware she is dead. He also admits that he and his Scarlett have deadly financial trouble with America’s Finest Pimp.

This tense David Mapstone mystery (see South Phoenix Rules) is an exciting whodunit that keeps the audience in suspense wondering what next. Although the bad guys are out of casting 101, readers will relish the two Night Detectives’ superb investigation.

Harriet Klausner

The Big Beyond- Michael Lister

The Big Beyond
Michael Lister
Pottersville Press, Apr 12 2013, $16.00
http://www.pulpwoodpress.com
ISBN: 9781888146332

During WWII in in 1940s Panama City, Florida, private investigator Jimmy “Soldier” Riley awakens strapped to a bunk after two thugs knocked him out. He has one thought besides his constant one of how he failed Lauren Lewis: quick death before the woman who hooked up electrodes to his penis can give him a charge. However, former combat pilot Clipper Jones and Salvation Army nurse Ruth Ann Johnson rescue him from the psychos.

Jimmy, who has lost his right hand to the mean streets and his soul to his dead angel, thinks what a trio as Clipper lost an eye so no longer flies military planes and Ruth Ann lost a leg providing combat medical care to troops. Ruth Ann loves Jimmy, but knows he remains obsessed with Lauren. She decides to have a makeover in her ghostly rival’s image because she believes
that is her only chance with him though she knows in her gut that Jimmy will not move on until he confronts Lauren’s killer.

The sequel to The Big Goodbye is an exhilarating historical noir that brings to life the Florida Panhandle during WWII. Action-packed from the moment the protagonist wakes up strapped, fans will enjoy the adventures of the three hardboiled wounded warriors investigating murders in Panama City.

Harriet Klausner

Some Like It Hot-K.J. Larsen

Some Like It Hot
K.J. Larsen
Poisoned Pen, Mar 5 2013, $24.95
ISBN 9781464200984

Billy Bonham opens up a detective agency in Bridgeport. His training consists of watching Bogart play hardboiled sleuths. Bartender and murder witness Cristina McTigue becomes Billy’s first client; on her part because of a brain tumor and his part because she is a Mary Astor-like femme fatale. She employs him to find stolen diamond earrings that Marilyn Monroe wore on Some Like It Hot.

Chicago-based Pants on Fire private investigator Cat DeLuca gets Santa garbed Billy out of a jam. However that night Cat’s brother informs her that someone murdered her first boyfriend Billy. Cat claims to have been Billy’s partner to uncover the identity of the killer. She quickly learns the history of the diamonds while eluding bullets and searching for a killer and the gems with help from the posse and Mama’s Cannoli.

The latest Cat DeLuca Mystery (see Liar, Liar and Sticks And Stones) is a fun farcical thriller. Fast-paced with some macabre graveyard humor, fans who enjoy a lighthearted over the top of the Willis Tower detective tale will enjoy Cat’s zany escapades as she learns “Diamonds are a girl’s best friend” except instead of men, gems grow cold when you are dead.

Harriet Klausner

Killer Honeymoon-G.A. McKevett

Killer Honeymoon
G.A. McKevett
Kensington, Mar 26 2013, $24.00
ISBN 9780758276513

When her family camped in her San Carmelita, California house for her wedding, private investigator Savannah Reid and her husband, Police Detective Sergeant Dirk Coulter decamp twenty-four miles away for a honeymoon on Santa Tesla Island. After an evening of bliss in a dumpy motel selected by Dirk, they relocate to a pre-Civil War cottage near the Santa Tesla Lighthouse arranged by her close friends and Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency associates, Ryan Stone and John Gibson.

While looking out from the top of the lighthouse, Savannah sees a woman running on the beach, but not as if she was jogging. The pair goes to see if the runner needs help when they hear her scream followed by gunshots. As TV newscaster Amelia Northrop dies, she says the name William; her husband is land developer William Northrop. Island police chief Charlotte La Cross acts uninterested in solving the homicide while Savannah’s crew including partners Stone and Gibson, and Moonlight Magnolia Detective Agency’s Tammy Hart; as well Granny Reid Waycross join the Killer Honeymoon.

The latest Savannah Reid mystery (see Buried in Buttercream) is a humorous cozy that readers will appreciate with its dirt poor Georgia wit clashing with Southern California sensitivities. Fast-paced and loaded with jocularity, sub-genre fans will learn what series readers expect from G.A. McKevett when it comes to Savannah. The whodunit is excitingly clever but it is the repertoire between the cast that make for an entertaining investigation.

Harriet Klausner

Hot Stuff-Don Bruns

Hot Stuff

Don Bruns

Oceanview Nov 16 2012, $25.95

ISBN 9781608090617

 

The difference between the amateur and the pro is the pro gets paid even when they lack experience as is the case with Miami’s Moore or Less Investigations PIs Skip Moore and James Lessor.  Besides being sleuthing tyros, the pair acts more like teens on the prowl of a good time than investigators on a case.

 

When someone murders L’Elfe sous chef Amanda Wright, her friend Emily Minard wants the culprit caught as a way to pay back a debt to her late buddy.  She asks her boyfriend Skip to make inquiries and persuades the French restaurant’s chef Jean Bouvier to hire Moore or Less to go undercover in order to determine who on the staff has a motive.  Possessing a culinary arts degree, James replaces Amanda as the sous chef while Skip possessing two hands replaces AWOL dishwasher Juan Castro.  Police Detective Ted Conway warns the bungling pair to stay out of his way.

 

The latest Stuff investigation (see Too Much Stuff) is an amusing murder mystery as the two stooges cause havoc in the posh French restaurant while trying to uncover a killer one dish at a time.  The whodunit is fun but thin while fans of the Stuff duo will enjoy their jocular juvenile jaunts amidst a stuffy elite dining class.

 

Harriet Klausner

The Ice Maiden Cometh Not-Alistair Boyle

The Ice Maiden Cometh Not

Alistair Boyle

Allen A. Knoll, Nov 15 2012, $23.00

ISBN 9781888310092

 

In Southern California heart surgeon Dr. Chester Kulp hires investigator Gil Yates to look into the death of his son-in-law Sandy Straus.  Arrogant Chester pays Gil $10,000 to determine whether Sandy committed suicide when he fell or jumped from a roof in Muhlenheim, Pennsylvania.  Though he detests the pompous doctor as a pretentious a-hole and has a fear of flying, the money is too good to ignore so he accepts the case.

 

In Muhlenheim, Gil meets and is taken aback by the grieving widow and Chester’s daughter Ginger as she is drop dead gorgeous.  The circumstantial evidence affirmed by the cops and a local PI point towards likable Sandy killing himself.  Only Ginger and her dad insist her late spouse would never harm anyone especially himself.  To prove this Gil dugs deeper into the life of the victim.

 

The latest Gil Yates investigation (see They Fall Hard and What Now, King Lear?) is an entertaining at time humorous middle boiled noir as the protagonist is a bull in the Muhlenheim “china shop”.  The lighthearted storyline is fast-paced but thin.  Still fans will enjoy Gil’s antics starting with almost soiling his pants on the plane and his amusing “Shermanesque” march through Muhlenheim society.

 

Harriet Klausner

Femme-Bill Pronzini

Femme

Bill Pronzini

Cemetery Dance, Nov 2012, $19.99  

www.cemeterydance.com

ISBN 9781587672675

 

The Unnamed Detective has been a private investigator for many years but never met a femme fatale except in fiction or the movies like The Maltese Falcon or Double Indemnity.  That is until his bail bondsman friend Abe Melikian introduces Nameless to Cory Beckett, who meets the definition of femme fatale adding new curves to the “species”.  Nameless muses he spent more time as a detective than the twenty-eight years old Femme Fatale has breathed.

 

Melikian hires Nameless to find Beckett’s younger brother Kenneth who jumped bail.  Kenneth has been charged with stealing a $20,000 diamond necklace from the alcoholic wife of his employer San Francisco union leader Andrew Vorhees.  Nameless begins his search for the jumper while Cory uses her wiles to influence him.

 

Although he remains the Unnamed Detective in this entry, he is no longer Nameless (see Hellbox).  Cory makes the tale entertaining as she lives up to the opening line: “Femme Fatale. French for deadly woman” though her actions are somewhat typical of her literary and film sisters.  The storyline is fast-paced as Nameless works a case in which Cory Beckett’s weapon of choice is sex.

 

Harriet Klausner

Kinsmen-

Kinsmen

Bill Pronzini

Cemetery Dance, Nov 2012, $19.99 

http://www.cemeterydance.com

ISBN 9781587672668

 

Student Allison Shay, accompanied by her boyfriend was driving from the University of Oregon to her home in the Bay area, but never made it.  Allison’s frantic mom Marian hires the Nameless detective to find her daughter whose last known location is the Northern Comfort Cabins in Creekside, California; population 112 where the car broke down.  Marian tells the sleuth she knows nothing about the boyfriend. 

 

Nameless visits the cabins where he questions the proprietor Mr. Bartholomew about Allison.  The owner tells the detective what he told the sheriff that he never saw the boyfriend nor when the couple left.  Taking the same room that Allison occupied, Nameless, fearing the worst, questions the locals who at best are uncooperative and overtly hostile as the San Francisco detective has entered rustic hell.

 

This is an enjoyable reprint of a 1993 novella that focuses on an insular small population in which hate crimes are ignored by the community (think of the BSA and PSU scandals).  Fast-paced with Nameless risking his life for the truth, the small-town cast never quite gels beyond the James Dickey Deliverance stereotypical cloning.  Still this is a taut entry as the protagonist increasingly fears what he will have to do once he affirms his dreaded belief.

 

Harriet Klausner

The Prodigal Son-Colleen McCullough

The Prodigal Son

Colleen McCullough

Simon & Schuster, Nov 6 2012, $26.00

ISBN 9781451668759

 

In 1969 biochemist Dr. Millie Hunter informs her father Medical Examiner Dr. Patrick O’Donnell that someone stole tetrodotoxin blowfish extraction from their lab.  John Hall traveled from Oregon to Holloman, Connecticut to claim his inheritance.  At a family gala welcoming him, he dies from an injection of blowfish toxic extraction, a poison that kills almost instantly and leaves no trace.  One day later the death of Professor Thomas Tarleton Tinkerman by poison occurs.

 

Holloman Police Captain Carmine Delmonico leads the investigation in which Millie’s husband Dr. Jim Hunter had the means and opportunities (to the victims and to the toxin) though he finds no motive.  Carmine believes the husband of his second cousin is innocent.  He looks at those who lost a fortune when Hall came to New England, the Chubbs University faculty members who gain with the professor’s death, and even a hate crime to destroy the black and white couple Millie and Jim.  However, no one seems to have a motive that ties the murders of the scholar and the heir.

 

The latest Delmonico 1960s police procedural (see Naked Cruelty and Too Many Murders) is an engaging historical investigative tale.  The set-up is strong as there are plenty of suspects, who may have committed one of the homicides, but none appear to have motive for multiple murders; however, the rationale once revealed seems weak at best.  Still fans will enjoy this 1969 Connecticut mystery.

 

Harriet Klausner

Death in the 12th House: Where Neptune Rules-Mitchell Scott Lewis

Death in the 12th House: Where Neptune Rules

Mitchell Scott Lewis

Poisoned Pen, Nov 6 2012, $24.95

ISBN 9781464200601

 

 

In a building undergoing renovation in Manhattan, sexagenarian rock and roll great Freddie Finger of Rocket Fire was found hanging from a pipe with three bullets in his body.  Freddie’s daughter Vivian Younger the actress pressures NYPD to bring Starlight Detective Agency chief David Lowell, known nationally for the Winston Case (see Murder in the 11th House), into her dad’s investigation. 

 

NYPD Lieutenant Roland explains to Lowell that Finger is the third ancient rocker recently murdered; Gene Hallow and Wally Fischer preceding him as victims.  Using astrological charts to guide him, Lowell looks into the background of the late rocker only to find a horde of people with motives as the dead singer was mean spirited to women (especially ex-wives and groupies) and the band during his heyday as the alcoholic lead singer.  With his team of Sarah the hacker, Mort the psychic and Andy the bodyguard, Lowell continues his inquiry using charts of those with a motive to reduce the pool.

 

The second Starlight Detective Agency Mystery is an engaging cozy starring a likable hero and a strong specialized support crew.  The whodunit is fun to follow as Lowell uses astrological charts to eliminate the number of potential killers.  Readers will enjoy his exploits as he seeks who caused a Death in the 12th House.

 

Harriet Klausner