Tag Archives: detective

The Best of Sisters in Crime by Marilyn Wallace (Editor) (1998) – BR00055 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
August 11 1999

Plot or Premise

A collection of shortstories from the members of Sisters-in-Crime, the association primarily for women mystery authors.

What I Liked

  • Elizabeth George: The Evidence Exposed — An Agatha-Christie-type story, with an excursion to study British architecture. Stereotype characters but with great twists, and lots of Christie-like turns for explaining possible motivations;
  • Carolyn G. Hart: Upstaging Murder — A mystery weekend starts to look a little more sinister when one of the guests tries to get a jump on the competition with a little sleuthing, and sees one of the actors replace blanks in a gun with real bullets;
  • Sarah Shankman: Say You’re Sorry — A terrible vengeance is exacted for a horror committed years before between two friends, one with money, and one without who is forced to follow the oldest profession to support herself;
  • Marilyn Wallace: A Tale of Two Pretties — A woman facing imprisonment finds a way out, another woman who could be her twin. Simple solution: pay the other woman to just change lives until the imprisonment is over. And the other woman is willing because she’s looking at waiting for her lover to get out of prison himself, and she can’t stand being alone. Something about the best laid plans though;
  • Carolyn Wheat: Life, For Short — A woman in the hospital wants to die, and an angel-of-death orderly on a mercy mission stalks the hospital. Will they meet before its too late? Or will they meet too early? A little darker ending; and,
  • Joyce Carol Oates: Extenuating Circumstances — This is a strange story, both in tone and in format. The story is a list of reasons that a woman has left her husband so he will know why she did some nasty deeds. Somewhat disturbing.

Other good ones in the collection include Mary Higgins Clark (Voices in the Coalbin — suicidal wife hears voices in the coalbin); Dorothy Cannell (The High Cost of Living — siblings against their step-mother); Sara Paretsky (The Maltese Cat — missing sister and her cat); Wendy Hornsby (Nine Sons — woman with nine boys is pregnant with 10th kid); Margaret Manon (Lieutenant Harald and the Impossible Gun — bullet from gun that has an alibi); Sharyn McCrumb (A Predatory Woman — reporter interfering with child murderer about to be paroled); and Dianne Mott Davidson (Cold Turkey — caterer with a body in her fridge).

What I Didn’t Like

A few of the stories are just not quite as good as the rest of the collection including Nancy Pickard (Afraid All The Time — skittish city girl living in the country); Marcia Muller (All the Lonely People — private-eye investigating dating service); Julie Smith (Blood Type — holographic wills and imminent deaths); Gillian Roberts (Hog Heaven — an aging but forgetful Romeo); Susan Dunlap (The Celestial Buffet — gourmands after death); Joan Hess (Too Much To Bare — woman wants revenge for cheating); Sue Grafton (A Poison That Leaves No Trace — death of a sister who competed with daughter); and Gabrielle Kraft (One Hit Wonder — ex-singer, now bartender, is tempted by couple up to no good).

The Bottom Line

Eclectic but solid collection.

Riding the Snake by Stephen J. Cannell (1998) – BR00054 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
June 5 1999

Plot or Premise

Stephen J. Cannell is a writing success on TV and this book is no exception. It takes a wealthy playboy (who never measured up to his father’s standards) and a black female cop (who came from the streets) and throws them together to investigate a crime committed by Asian tongs. About the only thing missing from the demographics are gays because we also have Russians and international intrigue. The short plot summary is that playboy Wheeler Cassidy loses his seemingly straight-laced brother to an Asian tong war involving immigrants “riding the snake” to America and the “free” elections in Hong Kong as it reverts to Chinese rule. Along as his investigative partner is a black cop, Tanisha Williams, being investigated for having ties still to her “hood”, and therefore assigned to a desk in the Asian bureau of the LAPD. She investigates the death of Cassidy’s brother and the brother’s secretary, and it all leads to Hong Kong — taxi to the airport!

What I Liked

A weird series of events leads from Hong Kong back to L.A. and more fights with the tongs, and a Russian nuclear bomb that has been smuggled into L.A.

What I Didn’t Like

Basically, the writing is fine, but the book is what happens when you take a Tom Clancy-type story, replace the spooks with characters from your average cop story on TV, and run it along the same TV format plot lines. No depth here, but it hits all the major story headlines from the popular press.

The Bottom Line

Holes all over the place but a fun ride.

Where Lawyers Fear To Tread by Lia Matera (1987) – BR00058 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
June 5 1999

Plot or Premise

Willa Jansson is the senior articles editor for a law school review when her editor-in-chief gets killed. She wants to know who did it, even more so after a couple more get bumped off.

What I Liked

The law school aspect is well-done, perhaps reflective of the fact that the author actually attended a law school, a nice change from some of the legal authors today. The story zips along at a good pace, and is enjoyable, once you get past the five-too-many characters / suspects and the obligatory “oops, I’ve written 50 pages and haven’t killed anybody else off in order to sustain the suspense” technique.

What I Didn’t Like

The problem with the book is that there are too many pieces, and they all get equal weight: Willa’s relationships with the various men running through the story (she’s the protagonist but all you do sometimes is feel sorry for her), all of the various suspects (pretty much everyone), and a host of motives ranging from being petty to outright greed to the green-eyed monster of justified jealousy. The character development is mediocre, including some peripheral characters that wind up being key ingredients, and some main characters that turn out to be a complete waste of paper. Ironic that the protag is an editor because that is what this book really needed.

The Bottom Line

Zips along at a good pace.

Hush Money by Robert B. Parker (1999) – BR00052 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
June 5 1999

Plot or Premise

Spenser has two cases, one from Hawk and one from Susan. Hawk wants him to help a black college professor who was refused tenure on the basis of rumours that he was gay, he had an illicit affair with a student, and the student committed suicide as a result of a broken heart. Susan wants him to help a friend who claims she is being stalked.

What I Liked

The plot surrounding the black college professor is a typical Spenser novel — take a case for no pay, find there is something weird, start investigating, push some buttons, find out suspect number 1 is connected, and get a visit from some heavies. However, the handling of discrimination issues based on sexual orientation or colour of skin is well done, and that alone raises the story above a typical novel. Of course, the writing is first-rate, as Parker’s work always is, and the story proceeds at a fast clip, with enough twists and turns to make it interesting.

What I Didn’t Like

The second case involving Susan’s friend is ridiculous. Susan is a first-class shrink — yet she apparently is surprised when she finds out that the friend has attached herself to Spenser as her white knight coming to save her, whether he wants to be rewarded or not. Not well handled by Spenser’s character or Susan, doesn’t fit either’s characters’ background in previous novels, and just rings false with each development. Mind you, the resolution of the problem by Susan is first-rate. It just takes a long time to get there.

The Bottom Line

First-rate solid story

Malice Domestic by Mollie Hardwick (1986) – BR00053 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
June 5 1999

Plot or Premise

St. Crispin’s Village, although not quiet per se, is at least restful. Until Leonard Mumbray retires to the village and tries to exact evil upon its townsfolk, with words here or suggestions there. Extortion, blackmail, threats, sneers…whatever it takes to stir up trouble. And trouble leads to deaths, including suicides and murder.

What I Liked

Miss Doran Fairweather doesn’t like it, not one bit. And if Christie had written Ms. Marple at age 26, it might have been Miss Fairweather who resulted. Written in the classic style of life in an English village, there are lots of characters. Besides Mumbray and Fairweather, there is her love — the local widowed vicar, Rodney Chelmarsh. Only love does not run smoothly because Rodney has a handicapped daughter who exaggerates her ailments to monopolize all of Rodney’s time and throws fits if he tries to make friends with others.

What I Didn’t Like

Well-written, but there are too many little twists and turns that are not needed for the story. As well, the ending is a little anti-climactic in terms of the mystery, although it is slightly made up for with a twist in the love story part. Not enough to save the mediocre ending to the mystery but a nice ending nevertheless.

The Bottom Line

Nice ending