Darkness More Than Night, by Michael Connelly

A Harry Bosch novel.

In this story, Bosch's unusual first name (Hieronymous) becomes an important element in the plot.

Another great entry in the Harry Bosch series.

Tag Man, by Archer Mayor

http://archermayor.com/tag-man/

A detective novel set in Vermont, part of a series.  3-1/2 out of 5.

Nine Dragons, by Michael Connelly

A Harry Bosch novel, with a little bit of the Lincoln Lawyer at the end. Not bad, really. This was an audio book. The person who read it was a little bit intrusive. He did voices, which isn't always objectionable, and it wasn't the worst I've heard, but it was just a little bit too much.

I will read, or listen to, more of these.

Murder of a Chinese storekeeper that appears to be a Triad killing leads Bosch to arrest a Triad bag man. The plot goes very quickly and violently from this point, taking Bosch to Hong Kong, and back to Los Angeles.

Another Thing to Fall, by Laura Lippman

A Tess Monaghan mystery, set in  Baltimore, involving a TV production company taping a new show for a cable series, some suspicious events including at least one murder, and a glimpse into the personalities, stresses and conflicts that populate such an enterprise.

This is a well-done novel of suspense, not a masterpiece of literature, that kept me entertained all day today, a cold and rainy Sunday in late November.

Cinnamon Kiss, by Walter Mosley

Great mystery, story, atmosphere. Great insight into the life, and point of view, of an African-American in California in the 1960s.

Great book.

The Last Good Kiss, by James Crumley

Well, I didn't know it, but James Crumley is dead.

I just heard about him, and he's been dead over a year. Just my luck.

The Last Good Kiss is a pretty good read. I got a little put off at the beginning by its overblown language, but I started to get used to it.

Then I got put off by the constant drinking and fighting, it was starting to give me a hangover.

The plot twisted enough to make me read to the end, and I might just try another book by the late Mr. Crumley.

Black Money, by Ross MacDonald

Vintage Crime 1996, copyright 1965. ISBN 0679768106. 238 pages.

I recall being introduced many years ago to Ross MacDonald's work by someone who said MacDonald was a latter-day Raymond Chandler. I suppose that was true, latter day being the 60s rather than the 30s, but that was a long time ago. (Incidentally, the author's real name was Kenneth Millar. Click on the title of this entry for a link to a detailed article about Millar/MacDonald's life and work.)

In Black Money, Lew Archer is hired by a wealthy young man who has lost the girl of his dreams to a man who appears to be some kind of a scoundrel. Martel claims to be from France, a political refugee unpopular with the DeGaulle regime. Young Virginia Fablon is very much taken with Martel, and cannot be persuaded to see him as anyone other than who he claims to be.

Virginia's father died in what was judged a suicide about seven years before this story takes place. Her mother is beginning to find it difficult to maintain a lifestyle such as that enjoyed by her neighbors in this seaside country-club community of the rich.

When Archer begins to investigate Martel, he is met with threats, and soon senses a greater mystery than the simple seduction of young Virginia by this mysterious and unlikely man.

As one always expects in MacDonald's work, there are great characters, a deviously complicated plot, and plenty of gritty observations from the narrator, Lew Archer. This is the hardboiled detective formula at its very best, and every page is a pleasure.

The lobby of the hotel was the mouth of a tourist trap which had lost its bite. There were scuff-marks on the furniture, dust on the philodendrons. The bellhop wore an old blue uniform which looked as if he had fought through the Civil War in it.

Back Story, by Robert B. Parker

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York. 2003. 291 pages



This is a Spenser novel, one of the series of thirty or more, featuring characters well-known to those of us who have read so many of these. Hawk, Susan Silverman, Quirk, Spenser, and yet another Pearl (I don't know what happened to Pearl I, in a novel I didn't read), the dog.

Spenser is a private detective living in Boston. Susan is his love, a respected psychiatrist. Hawk is a "criminal genius," a former covert operative of vague and mysterious roots, an African-American keenly aware of the tension between races in our society who will be reading impenetrable scientific literature in one scene, only to respond with the worst shuck-and-jive language ("sho nuf") in the next.


Spenser is nothing less than a Samurai. He is strong, brave, skilled at warfare beyond belief, and possessed of a powerful sense of right and wrong. People come to him who have been wronged, treated unfairly, by powers that they are too weak to overcome, and Spenser sets out to correct the injustice.

In this novel Spenser is approached by a young woman, Daryl, through the intercession of his adopted son Paul Giacomin. Daryl's mother was killed in a bank robbery in Boston in 1974; this story is placed somewhere in more current times, probably at the beginning of the twenty-first century. (My, it's strange to write that.) It was never discovered who exactly shot her mother to death, there is a cloud of mystery and a hint of cover-up over the crime. This is essential Spenser. He goes to work.

Through the story he unravels the facts of the case, not without risking his life and those of his friends, and killing several of the enemy who try to keep him from the truth. He uncovers a complicated intrigue involving organized crime and the FBI, which I will not explain out of a desire not to spoil the mystery for those who have not yet read this delicious book.

There is a strange and bittersweet ending, a sort of shifting of resolution that I found interesting, even realistic. But make no mistake, this is rich fantasy, pure escape fiction: There are no Spensers walking the face of this planet. No woman is as beautiful or tolerant as Silverman, no friend as powerful, connected and brave as Hawk. No cops (including the FBI) so impotent and frustrated, or at worst corrupt and evil, connected to the mob or mired in cover-ups of their own mistakes. There will be no resolution of this puzzle without Spenser's intervention.

At the end of the battle the Samurai sheaths his sword. The field is littered with dead bodies. The world is still evil, but he has inserted some balance, neutralized some threats. He has done what he set out to do, but we are not sure if Daryl will know the details of who killed her mother. She has, according to the formula, opted out, told Spenser to stop looking, she doesn't want to know any more. But Spenser did not stop once he had begun; he leaves no job unfinished.


This is escape fiction at its best, with a few thought-provoking threads woven through it. Parker has something to say about the hippies and the anti-establishment movement in the seventies, the dope-smoking culture, and the modern hangers-on who live in this past, rolling joints and cursing the Man. Over-simplified it may be, but he makes his case: if you want to change the world, you'd better be ready to get hurt and hurt some others, you'd better have a good plan and the means to execute it. Self-reliance is what Spenser is about: he knows exactly whom he can trust.

Parker is also interested in the discomfort we feel when we are inescapably faced with racial issues. He contrasts Spenser's invulnerable bond with the equally invulnerable Hawk, and their superiority to prejudicial thinking expressed through their black-and-white ribbing, their comedic take on the whole "what color am I" issue, with the stark hatred and rejection between whites and blacks that drives essential elements of this plot.

It is also important to mention that in this novel Spenser meets Jesse Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Massachusetts. Stone is the star of another excellent series by Parker, which has had some success adapted for television -- as did the Spenser series in the past.

If you haven't had the pleasure of reading Robert B. Parker, wait no longer. There is a pile of great reading here, you can't go wrong.

Some other than official Robert B. Parker Web Sites:

Bullets and Beer
A Parker Biography on Kirjasto (Pegasos, at www.kirjasto.sci.fi.)
A Parker Article at bookreporter.com
New York Times Article
Wikipedia Entry (includes more links)

The Terrorists, by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

(Translated by Joan Tate. Swedish title: Terroristerna)

According to the dust jacket, this is the last in the Martin Beck series, finished only a few weeks before Per Wahlöö's death in 1975.

This novel begins with detective Gunvald Larsson travelling to South America to observe security at a state visit from a foreign diplomat. There is an assassination by bombing during the visit, with grisly circumstances, that is later accredited to a terrorist group known as "ULAG."

Back in Stockholm, Martin Beck, with Larsson and his other hand-picked men, prepare for a similar state visit, fearing that there will be an attempt similar to the South American tragedy.

Beck and his team are opposed by a cool sociopath named Heydt, and three others, including a French electronics expert and two Japanese bomb experts. The terrorists enter the country undetected and prepare to carry out their mission, while the police and national security try to stop them.

Interspersed with this is another plot, the story of Rebecka Lind, a young and single mother living in Stockholm. Although the dust jacket describes this character as a "hippie," I feel that Rebecka is quite a bit more complicated than that stereotype allows for. Her first adventure involves being arrested for robbing a bank. This is -- believe it or not -- a misunderstanding due to her remarkable level of naivete.

Rebecka's desperate struggle to survive and provide a good life for her baby is threaded through and contrasted with the other plot, where all the cleverness that Beck and his team can summon is used to prevent the assassination of an unnamed unpopular Senator from the United States. The father of Rebecka's child is a U.S. citizen who was avoiding the draft by living in Sweden during the Vietnam war. He returns to America on some bad advice, and winds up in prison.

This is a suspenseful yet strangely calm story, with the usual backdrop of bumbling political idiots trying their best to control Beck and his people. Beck is, as usual, doubly challenged to both defeat the terrorists and outwit the foolish maneuverings of his superiors to implement actions that would ensure the failure of his efforts. In the midst of this, he tries more than once to help Rebecka, with whom he has a brief contact when she is tried for bank robbery early in the novel.

The dust jacket says that Sjowall and Wahlöö wanted to write "a series that ...would trace 'a man's personality changing over the years..." That is, they wanted to show how Beck would change as a result of the forces of society and politics around him.

I found it interesting to re-read this novel as well as Cop Killer, having forgotten the exact flavor and content of these works. There are characters and connections from Cop Killer in this book,; it was a pleasant surprise to have selected these two to read out of the series.

It is interesting, 30 years after the writing of these books, to reflect on the weary cynicism expressed herein. Many Americans seem to think that the Scandinavian countries have achieved a sort of Utopia, an ideal mixture of benevolent socialism and democracy. While they surely have solved some problems, one wonders at what cost, and how well. It's an odd place to find inspiration for thinking about social change, socialism, and the welfare state, but I did find it there.

Police are one of the services that most people will agree the government should provide. It may be the vantage point that this allows that prompts the atmosphere for thinking about just what we do expect from our government, and what we're prepared to trade for it.

Beautiful Ghosts, by Eliot Pattison

This is the fourth novel Eliot Pattison has written about Shan Tao Yun, and the fourth that I have read. The others were (from first to third) The Skull Mantra, Water Touching Stone, and Bone Mountain.

Shan was once a highly-placed Inspector in Beijing. But uncovering the truth about the wrong people caused him to be discredited, removed from office, and thrown into prison in Tibet. In prison he comes to know and love the Tibetan monks sentenced to hard labor lao gai beside him. They impart an understanding of their spirituality, of Buddhism, and encourage him to strengthen his own Taoist practices. Religion is, of course, counter-revolutionary, and punishable by law in the People's Republic.

In each of these novels Shan is presented with a mystery that forces him to use the skills he once employed for his government. Overlaying each plot are the themes of the incredible beauty and spiritual mystery and power of Tibet and the Tibetan people, and their unspeakable oppression at the hands of the Red Chinese government.

In Beautiful Ghosts, Shan comes again into contact with Colonel Tan, the administrator of the county. Tan is once again trying to avoid political trouble with officials from Beijing. This time he is the reluctant host to Director Ming and Inspector Yao, who are searching for lost antiquities. A monk, Surya, is convinced that he has killed a man. As a result Surya casts off his robes and declares himself dead, and eventually takes up a new life among the people who carry night-soil in Lhadrung. Shan's old friends Gendun and Lokesh, illegal monks from the secret monastery of Yerpa, play important roles in this story, as do many other interesting Tibetan, Chinese, and British characters. Indeed, descendants of members of the Younghusband expedition of 1904 figure in this story.

An FBI agent from the USA, Corbett, is also involved, as is a trip to Beijing and the United States.

Again, Pattison has succeeded in writing a terrific police procedural tale, set in beautiful Tibet. He manages to evoke much of the Tibetan Buddhists' plight while celebrating their incredible spiritual strength. The ruggedness of the country and the people who live there left me with a strong impression of my own weakness and addiction to the comforts of life in 21st century America.

If you have not read any of these very entertaining and uplifting books I strongly recommend that you start with The Skull Mantra. Enjoy this rich experience of some of the best mystery writing coupled with fabulous descriptions of this country and its people, insight into the Buddhist religion and philosophy, and terrific character conceptualization and development.

Cop Killer, by Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo

I read some of the "Martin Beck" series several years ago, but I don't remember them well. This book is, as well as I do recall, a good example of the series. I found it throughly enjoyable. The reading list from Donald Knuth cited earlier in this journal reminded me of them, so I took this novel and another, The Terrorists, out of the library.

Cop Killer is a delightful read, and a short one. Sjöwall and Wahlöö were apparently believers in "leave them asking for more".

In it Martin Beck, Chief Inspector for the Swedish National Homicide Squad, is summoned to the little town of Ånderslov, near Malmo because a woman has disappeared. Foul play is suspected, but hasn't yet been confirmed.

As Beck works on this mystery, the incident that gives the book its title occurs in Ljunghausen. A fugitive from the scene of that crime is coincidentally involved in Beck's mystery in Ånderslov, and leads Beck's associate, Lennart Kollberg, to a solution of the original crime.

The book carries a strong flavor of tired cynicism, and despair with the state of society in 1970s Sweden. Many comments are made about the social damage caused by the welfare state, and a general attitude of disgust with the National Police force and its bureaucracy pervades the book.

I expect that the best known novel in this series is The Laughing Policeman, as it was made into a movie. I'll have to read, or re-read, that one as well