Review Archive for author's that start with ... E

Reviewed on this page:  In The Steps Of Mister Proust (Stanley E. Ely), The Willow Pool  (Elgin), City of Fire (Robrt Ellis), Candlemoth(Roger Jon Ellory), Ghostheart (Roger Jon Ellory), A Quiet Vendetta (Roger Jon Ellory), The Cold Six Thousand (James Ellroy), Past Mortem (Ben Elton), The First Casualty (Ben Elton), The First Cut (Dianne Emley), Cut To The Quick (Dianne Emley),The Princess of Burundi (Kjell Eriksson -- translated by Ebba Segerberg), The Warrior's Princess (Barbara Erskine), Four to Score (Janet Evanovich), Hard Eight (Janet Evanovich), Full House (Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes), Full Speed (Evanovich & Hughes), Motor Mouth (Janet Evanovich), Each Way Bet (Ilsa Evans), Who Killed Marilyn Monroe (Liz Evans), 26A (Diana Evans), American Desert (Percival Everett), The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam (Chris Ewan),

                                  IN THE STEPS OF MISTER  PROUST
                                                 by Stanley E. Ely
                                                ISBN 1879194473
                                                      236 pages
                                                 GLB  Publishers
                                                    April 2004
                                       reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                              November 28 2004
 

Stanley E. Ely is an author hitherto unknown to me. I am a relative newcomer to the genre of gay fiction but of the novels I had read, I had not before encountered work of the quality exhibited by Ely in my reading within this genre. I could find no mention that IN THE STEPS OF MISTER PROUST had garnered any awards, but to my mind it certainly deserves official recognition.

Ely dedicates this work  "To the many who, like me, stand in awe and debt to Proust". A thoughtful dedication indeed. His young protagonist, Joshua Shor, is a confused freshman at Columbia. He and his roommate, Richard, arrive in New York to begin their college years, Joshua studying English (hence the debt to Proust) and Richard Maths. Richard acknowledges that he is gay: Joshua is not certain of his own orientation, thinking himself perhaps equally attracted to women as to men. His father had deserted his mother four years previously and Joshua resents the difficulties he, his mother and his two brothers suffer in consequence.

Joshua has to study the work of Marcel Proust - whom he dubs 'Mister Proust'  in the convoluted belief that by substituting Mister for Monsieur "some of his writing genius might rub off on me" - and becomes immensely affected by it. He is also greatly impressed by the lecturer within whose province Proust's work falls.

Richard and Joshua both set out to become acclimatised to New York's vastly different atmosphere. They are soon regulars in various eating places and meet contemporaries, some of whom are gay, others straight, some of whom are students and others non-academically inclined. Joshua samples the delights proffered by both women and men but is still disinclined to make a decision. Meanwhile, the young men's family situations alter.

This is a remarkable 'coming of age' or 'rite of passage' work. There are many aspects of a young man's thoughts explored. The new scourge of the world, HIV AIDS, is examined as part of the environment of a gay or bisexual male. The narrator remains in character, his voice never faltering despite the protagonist wavering between adult and childish viewpoints. There is a deeply religious background implied and discrimination, both racial and religious, hinted at. Aspects of love, including the love of a family, are displayed. The notion of the impossibility of returning to what once was is also exhibited. The writing is excellent, short and succinct sentences employed with never a wasted word included.

If you are a straight reader who wishes to learn a little about the thoughts and practices of gay men, this is definitely the work for you. Likewise, if you are,  perhaps, a young gay man, confused in a difficult time of life (especially if you have literary leanings)  you could do far worse than read this book. An immensely impressive and enjoyable novel.

This tale begins more than a little unsettlingly. Nikki Brant is happy. She has a secret, divulged to her by her doctor. She has to decide when to tell her husband. She can hear him moving around their bedroom and wishes to welcome him appropriately. But then she realises she never heard his car in the driveway.

Lena Gamble is newly promoted into the Homicide Special section of the LAPD. Her partner, Hank Novak,  calls her  early one morning to go to the location of the homicide of Nikki Brant. In the true tradition of fictional homicides, the prime suspect is the husband, James Brant: a nasty, self confident fellow who takes delight in ridiculing the police who seem to wish to nail him. A dangerous game for a suspect.

The reader is warned early that Lena, herself, is the grieving survivor of a tragedy. Her brother had been a murder victim and, five years later, she is still not over the brutal crime, nor has her brother's murder been solved. Nonetheless, as the rookie part of a veteran/rookie duo, she is prepared to do her part in resolving other murders.

The reader is introduced to a killer before the action plays too far. He is supremely confident, to the extent of not bothering that he has left his DNA in evidence at the crime scene. After all, the police do not hold anything against which to compare it. He is a strange fellow, too, even stranger than the reader is first made aware.

Despite the reader being given an insight into various characters' points of view, this is far from a straightforward novel. Beware of twists and turn just when you think you understand what is going on.

The tale is well written and well plotted. Lena is a welcome addition to the list of sleuths currently plying their trade throughout the crime fiction shelves. If  Ellis can maintain the standard he has achieved in this novel, it will be interesting to discover what lies ahead in Lena Gamble's career.
 
 

                                                                    CANDLEMOTH
                                                                    by Roger Jon Ellory
                                                                    ISBN 0752856677
                                                                         344 pages
                                                                           Orion
                                                                    September 5 2003
                                                                          $29.95
                                                               reviewed by Denise Wels
                                                                    October 7 2003

Roger Jon Ellory is an author new to readers of crime fiction so there is a dearth of information about him available. He lives in England but nowhere is it noted if he is English or, perhaps, a transplanted American. Certainly his knowledge of American recent history is excellent as is his mastery of the American idiom  (insofar as this Australian reviewer was able to ascertain.) I was somewhat bemused to note that Ellory has written about a time period an author with almost the same name - James Ellroy - has also fictionalised. Not only that, both authors are big on conspiracy theory.

Comparisons between Candlemoth and The Green Mile as well as The Shawshank Redemption  are inescapable. The protagonist, also the narrator, Daniel Ford, is in prison, on Death Row in fact, for a murder which he did not commit. The Green Mile has a heavily supernatural element, however, which Candlemoth certainly lacks, but various of the characters are similar. One would assume that in non-fictional life one would find the variety of people Ellory and King describe amongst the prison population. Both write about villainous and evil guards as well as about humane custodians and innocent prisoner victims.

Ford narrates the events leading up to his incarceration, many years previously, to a priest, Father John Rousseau, at first unwillingly but later looking to the priest for company as the date of his execution draws closer.

Daniel Ford and Nathan Verney became friends when they were six years old. This would not have been remarkable had the boys been of the same race but Daniel is white and Nathan black. Their friendship began in the years when there was strict segregation observed in the United States and persisted even when they were adult. Daniel, at various times, also faced discrimination because of his close friendship with a black. Despite the association, when Nathan was most horribly murdered, Daniel was found guilty of the killing of his best friend.

Ellory narrates the sad period of American history from the viewpoint of the two boys as they grow up. They are stunned by the deaths of the Kennedys and Martin Luther King. They are also affected very intimately by the war in Vietnam. Nathan receives his callup papers and the two flee, Daniel to forestall receiving his own draft notice.

This is a very powerful novel. Ellory portrays both the good and the bad of humanity without sparing the warts. The pace is not fast - certainly a big difference from the work of James Ellroy - but the attention to detail is meticulous and the depiction of American history fascinating. It will be very interesting to read any follow up fiction written by this excellent author.

                                                                 GHOSTHEART
                                                                by Roger Jon Ellory
                                                                ISBN  0752861018
                                                                       344 pages
                                                                         Orion
                                                                    May 7 2004
                                                                       $29.95
                                                          reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                                  May 13 2004

Roger John Ellory displayed his remarkable knowledge of modern history in his first novel CANDLEMOTH. It was a memorable work and I predict his second  full length book, GHOSTHEART will remain in the reader's memory an equal length of time. Ellory has the happy facility for taking a past era and bringing it to life in the reader's mind's eye.

Annie O'Neill owns a bookshop. Her father, who, her mother tells her, died when she was nearly eight, had owned the bookshop before her. Now she lives a half life, her circle of acquaintances limited to the customers who patronise her store and her neighbour, Jack Sullivan, who is also her closest friend. Then a man named Forrester comes to the shop. He tells her he was a friend of her father and produces letters written by Frank O'Neill to her mother, yet never received by her, as well as a manuscript whose author he claims not to know. He tells Annie he would like to renew an old custom he shared with the girl's father - a reading circle. They would be the only two members and they would read and comment on the manuscript.

During the same week, a young man calling himself David Quinn also comes to the store and  buys books from Annie. Soon they become friends with the possibility of a deeper relationship ensuing.

Annie reads the pages given her by Forrester and later a further installment . It has a frightening theme. It is set in Europe in the twentieth century just prior to the outbreak of World War Two. The first generation of the tale dies rather nastily but their daughter, Elena, survives. She, like her mother before her, falls pregnant whilst a teenager. She is a Jewess and when her son, Haim, is four years old, the two are imprisoned in Auchwitz. At the end of the war, Haim is taken to the United States by an American soldier named Rosen. Haim is given the man's name, but after the death of the former soldier when Haim is still a teenager, the boy shortens the name to 'Rose' and calls himself 'Harry.' He displays an amazing aptitude for crime and before too long, teams up with another, slightly older, criminal named Johnny Redbird. The story of these two, how Johnny is imprisoned alone for the crimes committed by both men, yet refuses to betray his friend, is told in tandem with the tale of Annie's falling in love - or 'rising into love' as she would prefer to think of it.

Annie has always treasured the memory of her father yet, disturbingly, she suddenly realises she does not have clear and distinct memories of anything she did with him. Her mother had died ten years previously so there is no one for her to ask about Frank until the advent of Forrester. At first she is half afraid of the old man but gradually she learns to trust him. At the same time she is becoming more and more enamoured of David Quinn.

Essentially, this is a book about relationships, trust , loyalty and betrayal, all told against the background of the modern history of Europe and the United States. The writing is beautifully evocative and unhurried. Ellory's knowledge gives him the potential to write an authentic tale, a potential he fulfills admirably. The mystery is engaging and although I guessed the key part of it well before the conclusion of the narrative, the final chapter contained a surprise and a beautifully ironic conclusion.

One can hope that Mr. Ellory can maintain the standard of the quality of his writing in future novels.
                                            A QUIET VENDETTA
                                                 by Roger Jon Ellory
                                                   ISBN  0752868713
                                                           453 pages
                                                               Orion
                                                     October 7 2005
                                                               $29.95
                                               reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                    October 16 2005

Roger Jon Ellory is that oddity, an author of one country who can write convincingly in the idiom of another. I have described Lee Child, another Brit, as 'the quintessential American writer' but Ellory is surely not far behind him. Ellory has written two earlier novels, CANDLEMOTH and GHOSTHEART, set either entirely or in part in the U.S.A. Like its predecessors,  A QUIET VENDETTA,  is set in that country and depicts part of that nation's history.

New Orleans born Ray Hartmann, now working in New York City for the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Organised Crime, is attempting to patch up his marriage, fractured by a combination of the demands of his job and his increasing alcoholism. After his wife has told him she and their daughter will see him in just over a week , the FBI demands Hartmann's assistance in solving a case in New Orleans. A man has been found dead in a 1957 Mercury Cruiser and his charge, Catherine Ducane, the daughter of the Louisiana governor, has been kidnapped. Someone claiming knowledge of the girl's whereabouts has demanded Hartmann's presence before he will disclose what he knows.

A New Orleans born Cuban named Ernesto Perez walks into the FBI's base, announcing that he has Catherine Ducane and will divulge her location if the FBI meet certain conditions. He will speak only to Ray Hartmann every day as long as necessary to make all clear.  Perez relates his  murderous history from the time when, still a child, he makes his first kill,  profiting in knowledge, on more than one level, from the achievement. His involvement in the Mafia is then disclosed, as the history of that organisation as well as 'this thing of ours', the Cosa Nostra, is narrated, along the way revealing the solution to several mysteries, including the death of Jimmy Hoffa. All the while, the importance of family is emphasised: all the while, Hartmann's impatience increases as the future of his own family is jeopardised.

What a tale! For anyone interested in American history, it will provide a gripping read. Ellory is very good at descriptions but, unfortunately, he doesn't curb that talent when depicting scenes of guts, gore and  gruesomely distributed brain matter. In an interview, Ellory claimed that his unpublished work is not as well written as his current work because it is 'a little  verbose'. To my mind, at least, his writing still suffers somewhat from that symptom:  it takes quite some time for the story to  grip the reader as the author  dwells on various descriptive passages. Later, too, I felt that sections detailing the history of the Mafia dragged a little.

My sense of humour was tickled by Ellory's describing a man about to turn fifty as 'old'. Ellory himself is forty so perhaps he won't see people of that age as old in a few years' time. He describes Perez as cultivated and the later New Orleans scenes portray him as enjoying classical music, yet the man's past does not show him attempting to educate himself in the fine arts or music. I was wondering, too, if the REAL FBI would be quite so accommodating to a confessed killer in pandering to his whims. Something that might reflect on the author's own  low alcohol consumption is that  he has one of his characters stand up in an AA meeting and introduce himself by his full name. As anyone with alcoholic friends would know, that is not done, unless the person is unusually unaware of the protocols. Anonymity is very important in AA and, customarily, speakers introduce themselves only by their given name.

These quibbles aside, the book is very ingeniously plotted and is a good albeit a trifle slow, read.
 
 

                                           PAST MORTEM
                                                  by Ben Elton
                                             ISBN 0593050967
                                                   372 pages
                                                 Bantam Press
                                             November 1 2004
                                      reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                              October 27 2004
                                                    $29.95

Ben Elton is, as most people who read the English language would know, a writer par excellence. He has written for stage, large screen and small screen. This polymath has even written musicals. I must confess, however, that were I to be pressed for my favourite Elton work, I would have to name the enormously popular TV programme BLACKADDER. The author, in his novels, has tended to push causes and comment on society's problems. Could any wistful  would-be parent ever forget INCONCEIVABLE or the movie based on that wonderful book, MAYBE BABY? PAST MORTEM sees Elton once more draw his crusading sword from its scabbard as he attacks the curse of both school and workplace: bullying.

Detective Inspector Edward Newson and Detective Sergeant Natasha Wilkie are called upon to investigate the death-by-not-quite-a-thousand (three hundred and forty-seven, to be precise) cuts of Adam Bishop. Bishop was a bully, feared by most of those who knew him, yet someone had managed to overpower and bind him, then inflict hundreds of small punctures on his powerful frame - and tender eyes. Newson turns his powerful intellect to solving the mystery despite at times begin distracted by his beautiful sergeant, with whom he is in love.

Newson has always felt inadequate. He is very short - five foot four - and a redhead. Amazingly, despite his having been given rather insulting nicknames when at school, he had escaped the kind of bullying visited on some of his contemporaries. He knows there is no possibility that the fair Natasha could ever be interested in him - for one thing, she has a boyfriend - so Newson decides to join the Friends Reunited site on the Net.

To the Detective  Inspector's surprise, quite a few from his class of 1984 have signed up and written profiles of themselves. Soon he is in contact with Helen, with whom he had been friends at school. Then he meets once more the girl who had occupied his dreams at the time and with whom he had had a brief romantic success.

On the murder front, Edward decides Bishop is the victim of a serial killer and sets out to prove this. His extra-curricular amorous exploits tend to mar his investigating success but he perseveres. Despite Newson's efforts, the body count escalates.

It goes without saying that this is an excellent book. The author pushes for reform in areas that every reader would know need reforming. He does this in a pleasantly sugarcoated way. Even while we wince at what Elton's characters are uncovering, we can laugh at some of Newson's thoughts and blunders. Bullying and, by extension, domestic violence are only a part of what the author presents for our consideration. The depth of his characterisation of Newson is excellent although some of the other characters are mere caricatures. The mystery is very well plotted - I certainly had no inkling of the murderer's identity. The red herrings are tastily planted as the interest of the story is maintained. Never does the ethical message overwhelm the narrative, yet never is it hidden. The prose is clear and concise although some of the descriptions of the sex scenes might prove a bit much for the faint-hearted.

This is certainly a book to make one think as well as to be very much enjoyed.
                                     THE FIRST CASUALTY
                                              by Ben Elton
                                         ISBN 0593051122
                                                381 pages
                                           BANTAM PRESS
                                        November 1 2005
                                                     $32.95
                                       reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                              November 29 2005

The day Ben Elton turned his considerable talents to whodunnits was a real boon for crime fiction addicts. The combination of his ingenious mind in imagining baffling plots in combination with his irreverent sense of humour, even though that is somewhat understated in this historical novel, THE FIRST CASUALTY, is a winning combination.

Chapter One opens on a scene in Ypres, Belgium, in 1917. It depicts the horrendous conditions pertaining there and the sheer hopelessness of valuing human life.

The second chapter describes the trial of Inspector Douglas Kingsley, formerly of Scotland Yard, a vain man who sees himself as highly principled. His high estimation of his principles is gradually  eroded  as the narrative progresses. Kingsley is visited in Brixton Prison by his wife, Agnes, who tells him she is divorcing him. She and their three year-old son, George, will take her own family name, no longer wishing to be associated with the disgraced name of Kingsley.

A third location is the Lavender Lamp Club in London. Here homosexuals, including the prospective corpse, Captain Alan Abercrombie, are free to make use of available bedchambers for romantic trysts. At the club, the renowned poet, writer of jingoistic (and not very good) verse meets Lieutenant Stamford, soon to belong to Abercrombie's regiment. Stamford falls in love with Abercrombie. When Abercrombie succumbs to shellshock at Ypres and is hospitalised, the last known person to visit the living poet is the smitten Stamford.

Kingsley, meanwhile, finds that the lot of a disgraced former inspector of Scotland Yard, imprisoned with many lags for whose gaoling he was responsible, is very definitely not a happy one. He is severely beaten and is left in no doubt that when he is returned from the medical facility into the general prison population, his life will soon be painfully terminated. Astonishingly, he is rescued by the army, after his death is faked, and he is given an opportunity to survive outside prison if he undertakes to investigate the murder of Abercrombie. Kingsley is not a coward so he assumes the identity of Captain Christopher Marlowe and sets off for Belgium and an investigation fit for the talents of the Yard's former best.

This really is an excellent character study. Kingsley's development and self realisation is wonderfully portrayed. While he never changes his opinion of the illogicality of war, he becomes more understanding of the soldiers, the cannon fodder. He, who would never willingly pick up a gun to advance the war, finds himself in the front line charging the enemy, all in the name of his investigation. He has to question his own pompous notion of himself as he sees exactly what he can rise -- or sink-- to in his investigative partnership with the delightful Nurse Kitty Murray. Elton handles well the end to the adventure with the impossible task of extricating Kingsley from the Marlowe character who has found himself mentioned in despatches and put up for a medal.

The author has created some very unpleasant situations and certainly never shirks from detailed descriptions of bloody conflicts. His depictions of day to day living in the trenches is masterly. He creates an all too believable picture of the Great War and  its horrors including the degrading effect it has on the participants, while at the same time creating an eminently credible man whose character is able to develop and come to terms with an unpleasant knowledge of himself.
                                            THE FIRST CUT
                                              by Dianne Emley
                                                       339 pages
                                              ISBN 1863254757
                                                        BANTAM
                                                 October 2 2006
                                                         $32.95
                                   reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                  October 4 2006

Dianne Emley makes an impressive debut indeed with her protagonist, Pasadena detective Nan Vining. If she is able to maintain the impetus of the first book -- and Emley has left herself some unresolved plot hooks on which to hang subsequent adventures -- the author should be able to delight readers with the perils of Vining for some time to come.

As the book opens, policewoman Frankie Lynde is sitting, in uniform, in a bar, repelling any who attempt to pick her up as she waits for something. Not long after Frankie's entrance, a woman wearing a chauffeur's uniform, seeming to be upset about something, approaches Frankie, imploring her help as her boss has been robbed. Frankie accompanies the woman, who rejoices in the name 'Pussycat' outside where she remonstrates with the petitioner about her appalling acting. It is soon made clear that Frankie has been seduced by the 'dark side' in combination with night spot owner John Lesley and his wife, into the delights of kinky sex, but on that particular night things seem to go too far.

Detective Nan Vining returns to work at the Pasadena Police Department having been absent for nearly a year. She had been killed, briefly, by a knife wielding man she and her fourteen year-old daughter, Emily, have dubbed 'T B Mann' -- the Bad Man. Determined to overcome the difficulties inflicted on her by the malefactor, Nan insists to her colleaguesÝ and superiors that she is quite recovered, hiding from them the fact that she now suffers from debilitating panic attacks, attacks that could impair her efficiency as a cop.

The body of a woman has been found, a woman who died as a result of having her throat slashed. Vining, whom her bosses had not intended should resume work in Homicide, is needed to investigate the case. As she inspects the corpse, who later is discovered to be the missing Frankie Lynde, Nan is horrified to 'hear' the body speak to her. This is the first of several perhaps supernatural communications -- although they may also simply be the result of hallucination -- but fortunately the author keeps the supernatural at a low level and leaves it to the reader how to judge the episodes.

The tale depicts the excesses of Lesley, confident he can escape retribution and now bent on recapturing the exquisite high he experienced from abusing and murdering Lynde. Lesley's wife, Pussycat, is appalled at her husband's action but, drug addicted and frightened for the welfare of her family, lends herself to the kidnapping, with a view to murder, of another victim.

The only mysteries to be solved are whether Lesley will escape detection long enough to enjoy his ultimate pleasure with his latest victim and whether Nan and her colleagues will be able to entrap the villain who has become a friend of her bosses.

The characterisations are quite well done, although Pussycat tends to be a weakish link, verging on caricature rather than character. The main characters are all assigned personal problems and love interests, both licit and illicit. Nan's relationship with her young daughter is convincingly done as the girl comes to terms with the disasters that have befallen her family.

The action is hectic and chilling. My one caveat is the use the author has made of the supernatural element, which seems to grow stronger as the book progresses. One may trust that the next novel in the series is perhaps less generous with intrusions of the occult. In short, the book is a promising beginning.
CUT TO THE QUICK
by Dianne Emley
ISBN 9781863255820
323 pages
BANTAM
March 1 2008
$32.95
reviewed by Denise Pickles
February 13 2008

Detective Nan Vining is the survivor -- just--of an attack by a vicious, knife wielding murderer known to her and her teenage daughter Emily as T B Mann (the bad man.) The near death experience left her with a paranormal sensitivity so that she is occasionally aware of messages from a woman police officer, Frankie Lynde, who fell victim to the killer.

The book opens with someone stalking Oliver Mercer around Pasadena. The cross dressing stalker resents Mercer's success and has worked up a fairly good head of hatred by the time he rings Mercer's doorbell. His artistic butchering of Mercer complete, he is taken aback when the doorbell rings again and he is confronted by Mercer's girlfriend, Lauren Richards. She, too, must die.

Nan Vining and her partner Jim Kissick are sent to the scene, together with other officers of the Pasadena Police Department. There, they find evidence that the killer is probably a cross dresser. A bloodstained footprint left by a size 11 stiletto is a dead giveaway, so to speak. Bloody graffiti on the wall proclaims  ìAll work no playî, leaving the spectator to complete the quote.

Mercer, as one of his enterprises, is in partnership with Mark Scoville in an advertising business involving billboards. Scoville's wife is Dena Hale, a television anchor, and both seem shocked when the detectives give them the news. Scoville, however, is reputed to have been fighting with Mercer.

Dena, meanwhile, is interviewing released murderer and talented author Bowie Crowley (I felt that to be a clumsy name - surely the author could do better) an interview that is to have far reaching consequences.

A fair skinned man with bleached hair, apparently both mute and homeless, is picked up by the Pasadena police. Nan meets him but is made extremely uncomfortable by the fact that he is wearing a pearl necklace with pendant that is almost the twin of the one given to her by T B Mann. Others of the man's victims have been given similar necklaces, in which only the gem in the pendant varies.

Fortunately, the supernatural element of the tale is not shoved in the reader's face, thus, the tale does not suffer from it. It is only dwelt on in the last few pages of the novel.

The characters are, on the whole, quite credible. Nan's feelings toward Kaitlyn, the girl who supplanted her in the affections of her estranged husband Wes, are quite believable even up to the point where Nan is brought to feel sorry for the woman. Wes, himself, is almost too bad to be true, but unfortunately clones of him are to be found quite readily in Real Life.

A cross-dressing murderer is a new one on me. Again, while murderers are, thankfully, not readily discernible in the general population, cross dressers may be found plentifully in the club scene almost everywhere. While the author doesn't attempt to justify his little aberrations, she certainly creates a thoroughly nasty man, on all levels.

As to Dena and Bowie, the ancillary characters, one can well imagine meeting them on any fluff television programme. Vining and Kissick, too, are quite credible, paranormal influences aside.

The plotting is adequately done and I did not feel the early disclosure of the killer detracted from the strength of the story.

Ghosts and all, I'll be interested if Nan Vining manages to be rid of T B Mann in the next instalment of the series.
 

                                         THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI
                                                   by Kjell Eriksson
                                      translated by  Ebba Segerberg
                                               ISBN 9780312327682
                                                         311 pages
                                           THOMAS DUNNE BOOKS
                                           ST. MARTIN'S MINOTAUR
                                                       April 3 2007
                                                          $22.95
                                        reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                     April 13 2007

 From the little I have been able to learn about author Eriksson, he appears to be taking the Swedish crime fiction scene by storm. I could find no references to others of his books being translated from Swedish into English so assume that the award winning THE PRINCESS OF BURUNDI is the first. Based on the quality of the novel, there are bound to be  English translations of others of his books before too long.

The tale opens with a domestic scene that transcends cultures and languages. Berit has prepared dinner, her son Justus is anxious for his father to return home. The weather is vile (it is winter and snowing) and adds a degree of extra worry to John's late arrival.

Misfit Vincent Hahn is introduced to the reader as he rides a bus, not being terribly careful to protect other passengers from his swinging bag as the bus proceeds erratically. He is obviously entertained by a former schoolmate's dejected appearance, especially when his bag connects with her head.

John's location doesn't remain a mystery for long. John  ("Little John") Harald Jonsson's body looks as though it may have welcomed death's advent, given that it is badly bruised, has had its  wrists bound painfully tightly and has had the burning end of cigarettes applied to it.

Inspector Ann Lindell is on maternity leave. Her baby, Erik, has arrived and she has access to babysitters (including her visiting mother, who is critical of her preoccupation) so is able to take an interest in the case.

John's brother Lennart, a petty criminal, is determined to avenge his brother's death. John himself had, in his younger days,  taken some part in criminal activities but he had forsaken that life. Had it been Lennart who had been killed, suspects would have proliferated, but John?

Uppsala police have more than one death that some members of the public feel should be investigated. A rabbit has been hanged. Oddly enough, they feel the human's murder takes precedence.

This is a very good book. The author (in combination with the translator) has the happy knack of evoking atmosphere. The characters are also well done, with a suitable amount of back story created to enhance their credibility. At times, however, the translation seems rather awkward and I would bet (especially when one considers the translator's name) that her first language is not English. Just one example is when Ann is asked if she is married and replies "No, single with a little Erik."

At least one of the errors is initially not to be laid at the feet of the translator. At one point in the story, the whereabouts of a runaway youth become known to Lindell, who contacts the  lad's mother. Unfortunately, about a dozen pages later the inspector once more rings the mother with the same news, again to be met with gratitude. While this sort of thing cannot be laid directly at the feet of the translator (depending on the 'freedom' of the translation) surely an editor doing a reasonable job would have been able to pick up the inconsistency. Failing that, the translator should have noticed.

I do have another criticism to make, one about what I perceive as a fault (though possibly others would not): why do Scandinavian authors have to write, for the most part,  without even a glimmer of humour?
THE WARRIORíS PRINCESS
by Barbara Erskine
ISBN 9780007278442
560   pages
HarperCollins Publishers
September 1 2008
$32.99
reviewed by Denise Pickles
July 18 2008

It must be very satisfying for a writer of fiction when he or she decides on characters about which something is known, but not a great deal. One has the framework but a large canvas on which to paint what one wishes, without fear of committing egregious errors. Thus, Princess Eigon can be given many adventures, both thrilling and romantic, as well as being subjected to unpleasant torment, without having detailed and documented examples of how something markedly incorrect has been presented to refute the author. Thus, even my nitpicking self could find only enjoyment in this opus.

In the prologue, Jess is dreaming that she is standing near her sisterís house in Wales, listening to the voice of a little girl. The child is terrified and Jess attempts to reassure her and get her to take shelter in the house. The child-- or children, as it happens-- do not approach but when Jess awakens, it is to a nightmare in reality. Her clothes, the clothes she wore to a party the previous night, are torn and she is badly bruised. She can remember nothing of how she came to be in this frightening condition. Eventually her memory returns and she is able to work out the identity of her attacker.

Jess, like so many women in the real world, is unwilling to report the assault to the police but unwittingly and unwillingly a link it established between herself and a woman two thousand years in the past. Princess Eigon, when still a small child, and her mother are similarly assaulted and are unable to disclose the attack, for various reasons to Caratacus, Eigonís father (and with all due respect to Rolf Harris, Eigonís environs sound nothing like Rolfís version of The Court of King Caratacus).

The reader gets a birdís eye view of the tribal life in the Wales of two millennia past as well as Rome where the Christian religion is newly growing under the injustices and excesses of the Emperor Nero. Even Roman citizens are tortured and killed as they turn to the new religion, never mind that their status has hitherto guarded them from the worst that Nero can offer.

The premise of this novel is that the circumstances of Eigon and Jess set up a link between the two, even though they are not related to each other through blood. Perhaps that is a somewhat shaky foundation for the link, especially when an altogether different link is set up between the malefactor and his modern day equivalent. Regardless of this, the story is good, although I didnít feel I could classify it as altogether supernatural or altogether historical. Whatever, it is an enjoyable book.
 
 

                                                                 Four to Score
                                                              by Janet Evanovich
                                                                    MacMillan
                                                                copyright 1998

                   When I finally found a bio of Janet Evanovich I was surprised to read that she had twelve novels published before she hit (I use that verb advisedly) on the mystery genre. Her previous novels were romance which explains my not having encountered them. She says that her first story was a pornographic fairy tale. Since I don't imagine it was published, I shall always be forced to wonder ....

                  From Evanovich's writing style I would have estimated her age to be early twenties, but again I was surprised. She has an early twenties  daughter bits of whose character are grafted onto Stephanie Plum, the heroine of her mystery novels One for the Money, Two for the Dough, Three to get Deadly and now Four to Score. When a friend gave me the first of Evanovich's mysteries instructing me to read it, immediately! I did so reluctantly. I am not at all fond of hardboiled mysteries and usually find them tedious. After only a few pages I found myself laughing hysterically and when I finished that novel I looked for more of Stephanie Plum.

                  The author does not strive for 'deep and meaningful' nor even  for convincing characterisation. Like others of the mystery genre I have read recently, she has an ongoing narrative from book to book. In this case, Stephanie Plum, a bounty hunter, is quite sure she does not want to get involved with policeman Joe Morelli who seduced her when she was six and he was eight.

                 Half Hungarian, half Italian Stephanie was a ladies' underwear salesperson forced to seek alternative employment. She went to work for her cousin, sleazy Vinnie Plum, a bail bondsman, as a bounty hunter. Vinnie, in all Evanovich's mysteries, gives Stephanie unlikely assignments, then attempts to double-cross her by giving the tasks to other bounty hunters as well.

                 Evanovich is good at creating unlikely characters... my favourite is her Grandma Mazur, an octogenarian good time girl out to take her excitements (and her men) wherever she can find them. She likes to carry ... and use... large guns and is responsible for hilarious adventures in at least two of Evanovich's books.

                 In this novel, Vinnie assigns Stephanie the job of tracking down Maxine Nowicki who failed to turn up for her court appearance after nicking her boyfriend's car. The boyfriend, Eddie Kuntz, offers Stephanie a further thousand dollars should she be able to find Maxine. Poverty stricken Stephanie's  principles can be a little bent if a large enough sum is proffered, even though she wonders just what Eddie is so anxious to retrieve from Maxine... certainly not love letters, as he claims.

                  Vinnie, of course, follows his usual double dealing practices by assigning the same duty to Stephanie's deadly enemy Joyce Barnhardt. Joyce had been at school with Stephanie and had climaxed their long hateship by being found by Stephanie in an encounter of the closest kind with Stephanie's former husband.

                  As in all of the (award winning) Stephanie Plum mysteries, the job given to Stephanie turns out to be linked to a far more complex crime being investigated by her on-again off-again love Joseph Morelli. Along the way, Stephanie manages to leave a trail of disasters, usually involving fires and explosions, hindering Morelli and putting at risk the life of her pet hamster Rex, who lives in a soup can in Stephanie's apartment.

                   The author has a wonderfully inventive mind when it comes to creating striking comedic characters. I thought she had outdone herself with Grandma Mazur in her previous books, but now she introduces Salvatore (Sally) Sweet, a drag queen musician nearly seven feet tall in his wig and pumps. Extremely hairy Sally, always in search of the perfect manicure, is straight, which bothers his house mate, gay Sugar who is also part of Sally's rock group. A fight between Sugar and Sally leaves Sally bereft of anyone to force him into his corset or put on his makeup.
 

                  Sally is a code expert and so teams up with Stephanie, the mysterious, effective and creepy bounty hunter, Ranger and Stephanie's friend from the office, massive Lula, a black ex-hooker (why are there so many prostitutes in the books I have been reading lately?), since Maxine keeps sending coded clues to her whereabouts to ex-boyfriend Kuntz.

                 Stephanie has a run-in with  local Mafia, encounters an unpleasant criminal whose trademark is amputating fingers from his victims or, when a sufficiently sharp knife is not available, scalping said victims. Yet none of the victims is inclined to talk.

                There is, of course, a hook for mysteries to come, in that Morelli's Grandma Bella has a vision (she has 'the eye') involving Stephanie. How will Stephanie elude the foreseen fate? I don't really need a hook to have me looking eagerly for book five involving Stephanie Plum.
                                                                 HARD EIGHT
                                                              by Janet Evanovich
                                                           ISBN 0-7472-6962-9
                                                                   277 pages
                                                                    Headline
                                                                June 18 2002
                                                                    $29.95
                                                        reviewed by Denise Wels
                                                                 June 2002

                 Be there a woman mystery fan who has never encountered Janet Evanovich and her heroine, accident prone bounty hunter Stephanie Plum? Probably not. I qualify the mystery fan as a woman because Evanovich wrote at least a dozen romance tales before hitting on the mystery genre in which she incorporates romance, humour and a softish approach to thrillers. She does not, unlike other writers whose work I have read recently, devote thousands of words concentrating in loving detail on torture, trailing entrails and spattered brains. Mind, she does throw in a little detail - her description of a broken nose and its later decoration of the victim's face is, well, horrid - but the reader does not get the feeling that she is really enjoying imagining the carnage in her mind's eye. Evanovich has, not surprisingly, consistently made the New York Times bestseller list with her previous books - One For The Money, Two For The Dough, Three To Get Deadly, Four To Score, High Five, Hot Six  and Seven Up - so it is unlikely her horde of loyal followers will desert her most recent offering, Hard Eight.

                This adventure, as usual, sees Stephanie grappling with an FTA (failure to appear) miscreant. Martin Paulson, whose purported crime is credit card fraud, outweighs Stephanie considerably and becomes a running gag throughout the book as she attempts to bring him in for her cousin Vinnie, her employer. As usual, Stephanie's co-worker, former harlot Lula, proves a very domitable cohort. Ranger, whom the author has endowed with superhuman powers, constantly rescues Stephanie from awkward situations while cop and sometime lover, Joe Morelli, tries to pry her out of her chosen career and into one of modified domestic bliss.

                Stephanie takes on the pro bono task of seeking out the granddaughter and great granddaughter of her mother's neighbour, Mabel. Evelyn has run away with her daughter, Annie, but is constrained by a child custody bond. Mabel has given her house as collateral and stands to lose it should Annie not be available to her father. Stephanie is reluctant to do the work but New Jersey's Burg community is a tight knit one and she is more reluctant not to undertake the task. In so doing she runs up against the employer of Annie's father who takes an inordinate interest in the case and sets someone in a rabbit suit to stalk Stephanie and generally create mayhem.

                This author is one of the more predictable and formulaic of the genre but in this book there are differences. First, the similarities, however: Grandma Mazur appears and as usual goes to the funeral parlour to inspect corpses; there is the customary clown figure, in this case a lawyer named Kloughn whose diploma, despite tests he claims to have sat, appears to have come from a mail order company. He it is who attaches himself to Stephanie. Bob the dog, the clown of earlier books, makes only  a token appearance. Stephanie herself, as usual, cannot make up her mind between Morelli and Ranger. Another running gag, from book to book, prolonged here is the notion of cars exploding when Stephanie is involved with them. She also has trouble with handcuffs in this episode. The hook from the previous novel is, as usual diffused, but this time not in the first pages of the novel. Another anomaly is that there was no discernible hook in the tail of this narrative.

                Yes, there was almost the same quota of humour as is customary in an Evanovich oeuvre,  but I felt the author had run out of steam and possibly interest, before the book was done. The character of her sister Valerie, the fallen former perfect role model, was more than a little forced and I simply felt sorry for Valerie's daughter the horse. Perhaps Ms. Evanovich should conjure up another character and begin another series before subjecting her audience to a lack-lustre Nine
                                                                  FULL HOUSE
                                                   by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes
                                                                  ISBN 0-7553-0195-1
                                                                          346 pages
                                                                           Headline
                                                                    September 12 2002
                                                                            $18.95
                                                           reviewed by Denise Wels

                Not being a reader, of romance fiction,  I was not familiar with the work of Charlotte Hughes. I am, however, exceedingly familiar with the books written by Janet Evanovich (One For The Money, Two for the Dough through to Hot Six, Seven Up  and Hard Eight). When I saw Full House was a collaboration between the two authors and read where they are friends, I assumed Evanovich had loaned her more famous name to a struggling novice writer to garner her a wider audience. Not so. Hughes had been writing articles since the early eighties and had her first romance released in 1986. Subsequently, in 1995, she tuned her attention to romantic mystery fiction. Her output is numbered in the decades rather than single volumes and includes Too Many Husbands, Straight Shootin'Lady, Travelin' Man, Sweet Misery, Tigress, Scoundrel, Private Eyes, Louisiana Lovin', And After That, The Dark. Valley of the Shadow, and Night Kills.

                    On seeing that Full House  had originally been written in 1987 by 'Steffie Hall' I assumed, again erroneously, that Hughes had been the original author and that Evanovich had done extensive editing to bring it before the modern audience: Very, very wrong. Janet Evanovich, in a foreword, instructs the reader that she had exhumed one of her own early works and 'enhanced and enlarged' it with the help of her 'good friend Charlotte Hughes'. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and perhaps enhancement is judged by an author altering a work.

                     As I mentioned at the top of this review, I am not a fan of the romance genre unless one counts my much read - but never dog eared; they are too precious for that - copies of the work of Georgette Heyer. If Full House  is an example of modern romance writing I shall take care to avoid that particular category of fiction in future.

                   The narrative begins with Billie Pearce taking polo lessons from fabulously rich, fabulously handsome Nick Kaharchek. Billie is a schoolteacher, the divorced mother of two young children who are at present, since it is school holidays, with their caddish father and his new spouse. Enter the comedy. The horse Billie is riding, malevolent Zeke, treads on Billie's foot (luckily, an injury that heals quickly except when she needs it to bother her) necessitating Nick's driving her home and generally taking more than a passing interest in her girl-next-door-competent-mum good looks. Nick manages to offload his dim, frivolous cousin, bride-to-be (for  the severalth time) Deedee onto Billie until the wedding. Nick is frightened of what Deedee's brother Max, a teenage bored scientist who has the good of the planet at heart, might do since Max has been setting off explosions of late.  Billie has been hearing strange noises around her house at night and the neighbourhood in general has been suffering from an inexplicable influx of insects, much to the horror of Billie's bug man, Raoul. The subsequent narrative features the adventures and misadventures of Billie, the unwilling Nick, Deedee, Max and Billie's children, not to mention the very beautiful and elegant Sheridan Flock, Nick's former fiancée . Nick and Billie are blessed with perfect bodies which ensures an instant attraction for both characters. If Billie's body reflects the properties of the bodies of the two authors, they have my utmost admiration. After two children. Billie still possesses 'perfect breasts' and only one stretchmark is mentioned in her description. I was rather iterested in the horticultuiral abilities Billie must have possessed, too - the bushes that rustle outside her window must have been fed on some wondrously potent fertiliser since Billie and Nick climb the stairs in order to reach her room.

                As a bonus for her devoted readers, Evanovich includes a Stephanie Plum short story after the conclusion of Full House. This story, The Last Peep, features the bounty hunter's friend and foil, black former prostitute Lula. It also parades Grandma Mazur, the funeral parlour addict. Be warned - in the very short story there is no room for  either of Stephanie's love interests, Morelli or Ranger. There is, of course, the dead body of one of Stephanie's bounty hunter targets.

                  I feel the positioning of the two narratives within the book could have been reversed to good advantage. Full House  was, to me, distinctly unfunny, the sex rendered just plain boring and the whole, instead of being  'enhanced and enlarged' made tedious. Evanovich states that in her contemporary works her characters spend more of their time dodging bullets rather than kissing. It may have improved matters had she rewritten Full House  and omitted a lot of the kissing scenes to be replaced by bullets to be dodged. The supposedly funny scenes were overdone with the slapstick being layered on without regard to timing which may perhaps have loaned the book some humour. The Last Peep left me cold, positioned as it was. For me the dreariness of Full House carried over and marred what might have been an enjoyable tale.

                    I noted with some horror the fact that this book is the first in a projected series. Heaven help us! Please, Mesdames Hughes and Evanovich, spare us! I shall be watching out for the second book in the series with a view to dodging it. as if it were an over-enthusiastic bullet
.                                                     FULL SPEED
                                          by Janet Evanovich and Charlotte Hughes
                                                         ISBN 0755301978
                                                                344 pages
                                                                 Headline
                                                               November  1
                                                                   $19.95
                                               reviewed by Denise Wels Pickles
                                                         November 23 2003
 

Janet Evanovich is the much lauded author of the Stephanie Plum books - One for the Money, Two For The Dough, Three To Get Deadly  through to  To The Nines. While the series began as an hilarious romp, it gradually, for me at least, lost its humour as the same tired old situations and characters - albeit under different names and guises - were trotted out each year to the tune of the same formulaic melody. I do include a caveat in that I have not yet read To The Nines. Possibly the formula changed for that outing. Prior to these chefs d'oeuvres, Evanovich penned romance stories one of which, dating to her youth, was a pornographic fairy tale.

Charlotte Hughes, a friend of Evanovich, despite writing many articles, did not produce her first book until 1986, after which time the romance genre was gladdened by a plethora of titles e.g. Too Many Husbands, Straight Shootin' Lady, Travelin' Man, Sweet Misery, and Night Kills. She did not write her first psychological suspense thriller until 1995.

The first Hughes/Evanovich collaboration to be released, in 2002, was Full House. This was a rehash of a work written by Evanovich many years previously and was distinctly unfunny and unengrossing. Full Tilt,  a work I did not read as I was out of the country when it was released, followed. Still  carrying memories of my dislike of Full House  I was quite prepared to dislike Full Speed. I picked it up in reaction to a very dark and pessimistic novel I had just read and, to my utter amazement, it shone!

Newspaper owner, Jamie Swift, has taken a partner, Max Holt. Max is  a very sexy, genius level, techno-wizard and a millionaire. He appeared in Full House as a relatively minor teenage character but his development in the later books is very welcome. He has a self-aware artificial intelligence machine: the computer, Muffin. Max, aided (or hindered) by Jamie had been tracking baddies and discovered a wealthy television preacher,  Harlan Rawlins, had mob connections and was partly responsible for an attack on Max. Jamie is determined to 'help' Max catch Rawlins and the other baddies but the book opens with Jamie attempting to hitchhike to Sweet Pea, Tennessee, the home of Rawlins, since Max would not take her with him and she got out of his car, refusing to go home.

The authors recapped the previous plot nicely with a very funny dialogue between a novice assistant in a Lifeline type call centre. Having made history of the history of the tale, Hughes and Evanovich make Jamie the proud owner of a rusted truck  from which a sorry bloodhound, Fleas, will not be parted. One can only assume that the success of Bob, the dog from the Plum series, was the cause of this animal's inclusion in this novel as Fleas is a spiritual clone of Bob. As a ploy, Fleas works admirably.

Jamie covers her blonde hair with a red wig and sets out to captivate Rawlins - a very easy task - at one of his meetings. To her dismay, Max finds her there and is equally dismayed to find Jamie decked out as a tart. They do, however, rejoin forces and, naturally enough, Jamie places herself in dire danger both moral - immoral? - from Rawlins and physical, from the Mafia.

Max Holt bears some of the hallmarks of a transplanted Ranger from the Plum series. Holt's assistant Dave, the hypochondriac, could be any one of a dozen characters lifted holus bolus from the afore mentioned oeuvres. Nonetheless, the mix of fast action, bloodcurdling tension (minus overdone gore) and excellent humour, really works. I just hope the authors can resist the temptation to make the following books in the series reruns of this book. A little innovation is a good thing. I shall look forward to the next collaboration with a great deal of pleasure and cheerful optimism.
                                          MOTOR MOUTH
                                           by Janet Evanovich
                                                 312  pages
                                          ISBN 0007176252
                                               HarperCollins
                                              October 1 2006
                                                       $32.99
                                       reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                           September 28 2006

All of you Janet Evanovich aficionados must really be in heaven these days, now that you have Alex Barnaby as well as Stephanie Plum on whom to gorge. With MOTOR MOUTH you have the gorgeous Alex Barnaby making a follow up entrance onto the stage, preparing for another jet propelled takeoff to enliven the circuit of your driven lives.

METRO GIRL saw Barney chuck her old home and her old job to go to work for NASCAR driver, pin-up boy Sam  Hooker. Despite the fact that Alex and Sam had enjoyed a brief, intense, well, friendship, for want of a better word, Alex is now determined they keep their relationship on a professional footing. Hooker had not been able to focus his eyes on the single prize of Barney but allowed himself to stray off course and enjoy a brief burst of passion with a sales clerk.

When Hooker comes in second to the 69 car driven by Dicky Bonnano, aka Spanky, neither he nor Barney can believe there was nothing murky about the loss. Subsequent events make it seem almost impossible that Spanky could have won through his own driving talent unassisted by some advanced technology.

Gobbles, the 'spotter' for driver Nick Shrin, confides in Alex and Sam that he has problems.  He soon has even worse problems from which Hooker and Barney rescue him but in the meantime they get themselves heavily involved in a situation tied to the crooked Huevo brothers (one of whom just happens to be a corpse) and equipment with which the Huevos intend making another fortune.

Together with Beans, the omnivorous and ever hungry St Bernard dog, Alex and Sam tear across the countryside, attempting to protect themselves from the Huevo entourage. They encounter some rather  striking characters en route, not the least being the newly minted Huevo widow (who was about to be a Huevo castoff) and her miniature canine companion Itsy Poo.

Evanovich is, as everyone knows by now, a dab hand at producing hilarious situations that make even  this jaded reviewer laugh. The author's invention of Beans generates much laughing gas, too, and the book's baddies could make one shudder, were they not so funny. Evanovich has even included some scenes as amusing as and  reminiscent of that wonderful J T Story book, THE TROUBLE WITH HARRY.

After much judicious contemplation, I can say, without fear of contradiction, that Alex Barnaby is an equal place getter with Stephanie Plum in the ratings race.
 

                                                EACH WAY BET
                                                       by Ilsa Evans
                                                   ISBN 1405037008
                                                          302 pages
                                                      MACMILLAN
                                                     March 3 2006
                                                            $32.95
                                              reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                    February 19 2006

Given that Ilsa Evans' life seems to have been chock full of adventure (she joined the RAAF aged seventeen then, quite a bit later, the Army Reserves) not to mention that she has survived a couple of marriages, various levels of education (including a relatively recent Ph.D.  concentrating on domestic violence) and is still surviving young children, it is not surprising that her fiction which is undertaken for relaxation, is both incident packed and full of humour. Her 'laundry' series (SPIN CYCLE, DRIP DRY and ODD SOCKS, with a fourth in progress) launched her longer fiction career and now EACH WAY BET sees her indulging in a non-series novel.

The prologue introduces the Broadhurst siblings, oldest daughter Corinne, Jillian the middle girl, Emily the baby and son Adam. Emily displays her horror at the idea of her mother having sex and announces that 'No one's ever putting their rude fing near me. Never, ever, ever.' By the time the children have grown up in Chapter One, Emily is afraid that her previous stated ambition might become reality as her current boyfriend has never had sex with a woman and wants to make sure he is committed before altering this state.

The Broadhurst family has a tradition of celebrating Melbourne Cup Day. Corinne invariably masterminds the celebrations and hosts the gathering --until the year of the action. A misfortune has caused her father-in-law to have a mild heart attack. She and her husband must fly to Queensland to succour their unfortunate relative which means Jillian has to play host to the family and friends.

Jillian is a cowed woman. She is the mother of three daughters, one a foul mouthed three year-old, and a son. She had to give up work when Cricket, the youngest child, was born, and now she is constantly exhausted, constantly needed by everyone in the house and constantly wishing she could escape. Emily has a different life altogether. She has a good job and a wonderful apartment in which she enjoys a peaceful existence -- except she would like to have a family and be needed. Corinne's defaulting for Melbourne Cup Day precipitates a swapping of roles between Jillian and Emily, whereby Emily takes on a ready made family and the responsibility for a successful Melbourne Cup Day while Jillian is able to relax.

This is a very entertaining tale brim full of humour. Serious issues are treated in a lighthearted manner yet sensible solutions provided. Readers, remarkably, will find themselves laughing heartily at the antics of a disappearing (used) pregnancy test and the pall cast on a party by gloomy, uncooperative in-laws, a coup which Evans pulls off with seeming ease. Poignancy is added to temper the humour when explanations are given for some of the characters' actions. Even dementia is treated kindly and some gay issues are painted thoughtfully while the very real problem of the burned out housewife is presented with a possible solution.

For a  humorous look at social problems coupled with very human characters, it is good to have an amusing narrative to add a light touch to today's world.
 

                                                     Who Killed Marilyn Monroe
                                                                     by Liz Evans.
                                                                 an Oriel paperback

              When I spotted this title in the catalogue my immediate reaction was 'Not ANOTHER conspiracy theory.' Dunno why I bothered going on (possibly it's that inertia thing .. something which, when put in motion, just can't stop.) Anyway, as I continued reading I found, unbelievingly, that Marilyn Monroe was a donkey. A dead donkey. A dead male donkey. I just had to buy it!

            This is a British mystery. I wish I could find something else written by Liz Evans, but this seems to be an only novel: I hope Ms Evans decides to continue with her mystery writing career.

             Grace Smith is Evans' P.I. She is not so hard boiled as to risk dental caries, and the book opens with the ex-cop turned P.I. (as are so many of them in crimmies) held helpless in her dentist's chair. Not the most heroic situation for a hard boiled P.I.

              Evans dreams up the most ridiculous and hilarious situations for Smith, whose very many shortcomings she takes great pleasure in exposing. The plot twists and turns, various human corpses (of course) turn up (their toes). Each fold in the plot produces more unforgettably funny characters yet the plot is never tortured .

            Can you imagine taking seriously a character named December Drysdale, scion of a family whose eldest sons are named after, in order, the months of the year? When asked the name of his own son, December replies 'Kevin'. May not sound as though they are believable characters, but believe me, they are.

                                                      26A
                                           by Diana Evans
                                          ISBN 0701178884
                                                  230 pages
                                        Chatto & Windus
                                                  London
                                            June 1 2005
                                                 $32.95
                                 reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                            May 26 2005

26A is a remarkable book. It has a large autobiographical component: Diana, like her protagonists, is a twin; she lost her twin sister through suicide; she is the daughter of a Nigerian mother and a Yorkshireman. The suicide of her twin gave the journalist much to ponder and readers should be grateful to her for the dark, albeit funny, tale of sisters growing up in a chequered world.

The narrative opens strangely with the death of two furry animals, Bessi and Georgia, who are caught in the hypnotic gaze of an oncoming vehicle. Soon thereafter, they are reborn as human twins. Thus, they are able to understand the feelings of their hamster, Ham, who dies when they are seven. It seems to them that he has selected the time and manner of his dying, something which, perhaps, influences them in later life.

The twins are adorable. They live in the loft at 26a  Waifer Ave., Neasden. The 'a' distinguishes their quarters from the rest of the house, inhabited by the remainder of the family Hunter: older sister Bel, younger sister Kemy and parents Aubrey and Ida. They are very protective of their territory and mark it accordingly.

When the twins are nine, their British father obtains a transfer to Nigeria, the country in which he met his wife Ida. Ida had escaped village life and the prospect of a forced marriage and readily fell in love with the Englishman although his job returned them to live in England.

Georgia and Bessi, as well as Ida, live a life that is richly imaginative. Ida constantly talks to her mother, Nne-Nne, despite the latter not possessing any means of formal communication. Georgia, in her dreams, frequently attends a house which was once visited by William Gladstone, one time Prime Minister of Great Britain and seeks his wise counsel and companionship.

The twins have many adventures during their sojourn in Nigeria. Some of these, such as their meeting with their grandparents, are pleasant but others, such as one experienced by Georgia, are dramatically unpleasant and life changing.

The story is related against the partial backdrop of the failed marriage of the Prince of Wales, right from the day of the purported 'fairytale' wedding. The concentration is on the childhood of Bessi and Georgia but the latter part of the book is devoted to their maturing and the psychological problems that beset them.

Evans retains a wonderful understanding of how small children think and operate. She casts a magical spell over the reader with her sensitive prose which evokes vivid pictures of the family, from dreamy Ida through the repulsive Mr. Hyde personality of Aubrey down to the future dreadlocked Kemy. Her descriptions of life in Nigeria are richly evocative. It is to be hoped, ardently, that, having related the story of her growing up, Diana Evans has not exhausted her store of fiction but will treat her public to further novels.
                                       AMERICAN DESERT
                                         by Percival Everett
                                           ISBN 0571226612
                                                  290 pages
                                            faber and faber
                                               July 1 2005
                                                    $29.95
                                   reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                              July 14 2005

Percival Everett is, like his protagonist Theodore Street, a lecturer in English at the University of Southern California. Unlike Teddy Street, Everett is (at least, one trusts) not about to lose his job. If he is, it would certainly not be because he, like Teddy, doesn't publish. The author has novels and collections well into double figures. Everett is, again unlike Street, alive. Could that, perhaps, be something of a commentary on the old imperative 'publish or perish'?

Theodore Street is driving to the beach in order to walk into the ocean to inhale a goodly portion of water and thus terminate his existence. His admirable ambition is thwarted when he is beheaded as he flies through his windscreen after colliding with a UPS truck. Presumably he wasn't wearing a seatbelt. Capital punishment is sometimes meted out for such an offence although never by law enforcement agencies, no matter how they like to threaten. A mortician cobbles Street's head to his body so that the corpse is presentable for his funeral. During the service, on the third day after the decapitation, Teddy sits up in his coffin, amazing all around him and discomfiting several because his trousers have been removed. Why waste a pair of pants by burying them when they  fit an undertaker's nether end ? The unexpected resurrection ignites a riot but Ted, with his wife and two children, calls a cab and goes home.

One would assume that human decency would permit a revivified corpse to see out his remaining days above ground in reasonable peace, but not so. The dreaded paparazzi set up camp outside the Street domicile and give the inhabitants no respite from their demands. Then, when Teddy and his family decide to leave the house on a shopping expedition, the walking dead man is kidnapped by a religious fanatic who views him as a demon. Of course, Big Daddy, the leader of the sect, had an unfortunate childhood. To balance the malicious charge of deviltry, later in the narrative Street is seen as divine by another religious group. In the meantime, Teddy becomes an item of scientific interest to the Military and during his sojourn in their less than hallowed precincts, meets some deformed clones of Jesus Christ, the most normal of whom has no mouth.

This is a very funny, albeit darkly so, satire. Everett takes the opportunity to poke fun at a goodly portion of society ranging from students who fall in love with their lecturers, journalists, scientists, religious loons, police, private investigators and even family. No doubt there are some icons which the author has failed to offend but I would be hard put to name them. The gradual transformation of the weak, philandering, thoughtless academic to a good, caring but eminently brave (although having his once discarded organs rattling around within his torso) corpse with a true, albeit detached, heart, comprises an entertaining read. Anyone wishing to view society through a slightly distorted lens but be vastly entertained at the same time should not miss this hilarious book.
THE GOOD THIEFíS GUIDE TO AMSTERDAM
by Chris Ewan
ISBN 9781847391278
238 pages
POCKET BOOKS
June 1 2008
$19.95
reviewed by Denise Pickles
April 22 2008

Hereís a charming little topsy turvy tale in which the hero is a thief. He is also a crime fiction author, which, in my book at least, makes him a hero of an altogether different kind, but letís not get ahead of ourselves here.

Charlie Howard is cu