Tag Archives: legal

Hot Wheels by William Arden (1989) – BR00085 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸⚪⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

The Three Investigators series that I loved as a kid was transformed some years ago into this new Crimebusters series that I could never find in stores. The stories are aimed at young adults, but I was expecting the stories to have relatively the same type of stories that I fell in love with as a kid. Wrong. Instead, they have updated their ages from 14 to 17, updated their lifestyles from chores and bicycles to part-time jobs and cars. And thrown in lots of women to entice their hormonally-charged bodies. In short, the characters have grown up but not necessarily in keeping with the personalities they had originally. In this story, the 3Is are helping their cousin who has been charged with grand theft auto.

What I Liked

Jupe, Bob and Pete juggle the case, their jobs, and their social life to stay on top of things. In the old series, most of the time the characters were all together, or were working on different parts at the same time. In the new update, lots of other things interfere in their lives (a little more realistic, but less enjoyable). Yet Jupiter Jones is still the leader who relies on his brains more than his brawn.

What I Didn’t Like

The biggest fault is that the authors have added an action element to the series. Kind of like some of the false notes that appear in other series, the characters in this series have increased their physical fitness with karate and judo. So, eventually, there is a fight scene complete with big thugs and guns.

The Bottom Line

Same series, similar concept, same names, but different characters.

The Face-Changers by Thomas Perry (1998) – BR00081 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

Jane Whitefield is back, and she is trying to live up to her promise to her husband to not help any more fugitives to disappear. But then her husband brings her a Richard-Kimble-like friend who has been framed for the murder of his research assistant, and he can’t even blame a one-armed man. Her husband asks her to help because the friend is his old mentor.

What I Liked

The story expands outward pretty fast, as Jane discovers that other people have been using her identity and reputation to “help” people for profit, in some cases where the people didn’t need any help but were scared into thinking they did. Basically to create the demand for the service they can provide. So Jane has to figure that part out too, or she’ll never be able to save anyone else again, let alone her husband’s friend. Added to the mix is an FBI agent who wants to know what is going on, and knows Jane has the answers — and he’s willing to arrest her to find out. Aiding a fugitive is just the first charge of many he has in mind. Plus, just for fun, her husband is being hit on by one of the bad guys.

What I Didn’t Like

It’s a little hard to follow at times as she criss-crosses the U.S., and some of the sub-stories are a little over-developed.

The Bottom Line

Solid novel.

Extreme Justice by William Bernhardt (1998) – BR00078 (1999) – 🐸🐸🐸🐸⚪

The PolyBlog
October 10 1999

Plot or Premise

In the seventh in the series, lawyer Ben Kincaid has become disillusioned so he runs away from the law and takes up jazz music full-time. When a body shows up on stage (literally falling on Ben), Ben has to step up as a lawyer again to save the owner of the club who has been framed for the murder. Working against the owner and against Ben is the fact that the owner served time for the murder of someone else from the old days, a friend of the owner — and an old friend of the new victim! A few too many links and the police think they have their man. Ben wants to see justice done, but his return to the law is only temporary, supposedly.

What I Liked

The story-telling is first-rate, and the mystery aspects of it become almost secondary. Loving, Jones and Christina are all back on the scene, and you get to see one sub-mystery involving Christina.

What I Didn’t Like

Everyone is impatient with Ben and keeps telling him to wake up and realize who he is (a lawyer, not a jazz music) and the constant angst grates on the nerves. Loving and Jones don’t have much to do, and Christina’s mystery drops several GIANT clues that Ben doesn’t see. The ending reads more like an action / movie ending, and all three of the sub-mysteries are easily figured out by the reader well before they are unveiled in the story.

The Bottom Line

Stronger story-telling than mystery.

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.