Tag Archives: hardcover

The Corpse at the Haworth Tandoori by Robert Barnard (1998) – BR00066 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

A young man goes to work for an artist in an artist commune, helping the aging artist by mixing the paints and holding the palette, as well as general valet duties. The painter begins a new painting and it is better than anything he has done in a long time, but with his resurgence in art comes a growth in a sense of foreboding around the relationship with the young man. Numerous references are made to the fact that there are unspecified things that the man just wouldn’t do. As the painting nears completion, the young man senses a change coming. A nude body of a young man is found in the trunk of a car parked behind a restaurant (hence the name of the book), and the police begin to investigate the boy’s identity.

What I Liked

The book is really well-written, and it is done out of linear time. The book opens with the police finding the body, and then just as they trace the young man to the artist’s commune, the story switches back in time to several months before when the young man first arrived at the commune. Then it follows the young man through his arrival at the commune, his integration into the community, and his relationship with the artist, right up until the impending change. Then it switches back to the police who finish off the investigation. A major twist at the end was easily seen beforehand, but there was still a second twist within the twist.

What I Didn’t Like

The second part of the twist opened up a lot of doors but the police never go through any of them, unfortunately. For example, the twist opens up a lot of avenues related to the psychology around the death of a child, the loss of a loved one, the loss of a friend, etc. As well, there is the end of one part of the story, a key ingredient, which is never touched upon at all. I found a lot of loose threads that could have been really interesting; instead, the book is wrapped up quickly, almost like the author was afraid to go near the deeper issues.

The Bottom Line

An excellent mystery but a few threads were left hanging.

Beyond the Great Snow Mountains by Louis L’Amour (1999) – BR00050 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
August 11 1999

Plot or Premise

A collection of ten short stories.

What I Liked

  • Crash Landing — A great twist story, about a crashed plane and the man who takes charge to get everyone off before the plane slips off the edge of the snow-covered cliff.
  • Sideshow Champion — A brawling boxer gets the championship fight of his life, but he knows the ones backing the champion are all crooked and will stop at nothing to bring him down. And he knows he has to get out of the limelight to train, so he goes back to the circus as a sideshow boxer to practice for the weeks before the fight.
  • The Money Punch — Another boxing story about a kid who’s up against the rackets and an ex-trainer who is more than a little crooked. Add in a missing new trainer, and the fact that he needs training — he’s got a great right but his left needs to be developed so he can be a better fighter. Oh, and he wants the girl who owns the fight farm.
  • Roundup in Texas — A typical western story where cattle rustlers are lowering cattle estimates, and the foreman looks to be a chump who simply over-estimated. Gun battle at the end, and lots of story in a short timeframe.
  • Under the Hanging Wall — A private-eye story about a man hired to go to a town and find out why his brother would have killed a mine owner. The Sheriff is no help, and there’s a woman who belongs in the big city, not in a bus-stop town along the highway. Set in the early 20th century.

Other stories include: By the Waters of San Tadeo (town bully holds village hostage on island); Meeting at Falmouth (ambushing a traveling gentleman); and Beyond the Great Snow Mountains (woman taken prisoner in Chinese mountains by a tribe).

What I Didn’t Like

Two stories weren’t that great — Coast Patrol (WW II story about a freighter captured by Germans and an Allied pilot) and Gravel Pit (thief gets extorted and wants to kill the extortionist).

The Bottom Line

Decent but eclectic bunch of shortstories.

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.

The Eleventh Commandment by Jeffrey Archer (1998) – BR00057 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
June 5 1999

Plot or Premise

Connor Fitzgerald is an assassin for the CIA. Black ops at its best. But when the CIA director orders a hit, and then wants to hide her involvement from the President, she tries to send Fitzgerald on a one-way futile assignment to Russia to prepare an assassination of the Russian Premier. Fitzgerald’s ex-mentor gets involved and figures out the plan, but too late to save CF from getting caught. A couple of twists later, however, and Fitzgerald is back in the States with the same mission — kill the Premier while he sits next to the President.

What I Liked

The storylines were inventive and well done. Not quite at the level of Clancy or De Mille, but well done still. The writing is first-rate and the story moves along at a good clip.

What I Didn’t Like

The relations between the CIA and Fitzgerald, and between the CIA and the Oval Office are not sufficiently fleshed out, leaving the story as having a little too light touch for the genre. Also, a couple of the twists are too well-telegraphed and you see them a mile off. And a small twist at the end, although expected, is handled far too lightly for the likely reality of the situation.

The Bottom Line

The story moves along at a good clip.

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.