Since no link to authors whose names begin with 'Q' is given on the main archive page, in order to read that page, please copy http://www.marymartin.com.au/q.html into your browser window.
 
 

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

Reviewed on this page:The Celebutantes On The Avenue (Antonio Pagliarulo), The Celebutantes in the Club (Antonio Pagliarulo), Snuff (Chuck Palahniuk), Flashback (Michael Palmer), Zambezi (Tony Park), African Sky  (Tony Park), Red Light by Jefferson Parker, Bad Business (Robert B. Parker),  A Thousand Bones ( P J Parrish), I Saw You (Julie Parsons), Kindred Spirit  (John Passarella), Protect and Defend (Richard North Patterson), Conviction (Richard North Patterson), Exile (Richard North Patterson), Water Touching Stone (Eliot Pattison), Bone Mountain (Eliot Pattison), The Dante Club (Matthew Pearl), Parallel Lies (Ridley Pearson), Cut And Run (Ridley Pearson), Shame the Devil (George P Pelecanos), .Right As Rain (George P. Pelecanos), Hell to Pay (George P. Pelecanos),Soul Circus (George P Pelecanos), Hard Revolution (George Pelecanos), The Night Gardener (George Pelecanos),  The Last Days of Newgate (Andrew Pepper), The Whitechapel Conspiracy (Anne Perry), Blind Spot (Terri Persons), Blind Rage (Terri Persons), The Hippopotamus Pool (Elizabeth Peters), Thunder in the Sky(Elizabeth Peters,) The Mummy Case (Elizabeth  Peters), The Passenger (Chris Petit), Gods Behaving Badly (Marie Phillips) Songs Of The Humpback Whale (Jodi Picoult) Salem Falls (Jodi Picoult),.Perfect Match (Jodi Picoult),Second Glance (Jodi Picoult), Mercy (Jodi Picoult), Picture Perfect  (Jodi Picoult), My Sister's Keeper (Jodi Picoult),Vanishing Acts (Jodi Picoult), The Tenth Circle (Jodi Picoult), Nineteen Minutes (Jodi Picoult), Change of Heart (jodi Picoult),  Ludmila's Broken English (DBC Pierre), Joseph's Mansions (Richard Pitman and Joe McNally), The Windsor Conspiracy (Mike Ponder), A Spy's Life (Henry Porter), Brandenburg (Henry Porter), The Last Nazi (Stan Pottinger), Night Watch (Terry Pratchett), Monstrous Regiment (Terry Pratchett), A Hat Full Of Sky (Terry Pratchett), Going Postal  (Terry Pratchett), Making Money (Terry Pratchett), The Science of Discworld III Darwin's Watch (Pratchett, Stewart and Cohen), Thud! (Terry Pratchett), Wintersmith (Terry Pratchett), The Unseen University Cut-Out Book (Pratchett, Batley and Pearson), Nation (Terry Pratchett), Aberystwyth Mon Amout (Malcolm Pryce),Willows for Weeping (Felicity Pulman), Omerta (Mario Puzo)
                                           THE CELEBUTANTES
                                                      ON THE AVENUE
                                                by Antonio Pagliarulo
                                                ISBN  9781741662320
                                                            343 pages
                                            RANDOM HOUSE AUSTRALIA
                                                           June 1 2007
                                                               $19.95
                                          reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                           June 4 2007

Perhaps I should begin this review with a disclaimer: I am a parent, not a teen and am, therefore, unlikely to take the same view of the book as the intended readership, which is the teenage market.

The Hamilton triplets, Madison, Park and Lexington, are millionaires in their own right. They are also sixteen years old. They are not in the least hampered by their youth: they design (or one of them does) gala society events, clothes (for the Triple Threat label belonging to Lexington) and general mayhem, depending on one's viewpoint.

Lex has been forbidden to attend a gala event to which her sisters have been invited. Not in the least deterred, Lex follows Park and Madison to the occasion which is in aid of a museum's Impressionist art wing.

Lexington is more concerned with the well-being of her fashion label than anything to do with the Museum. One of the  guests is Zahara Bell, fashion editor extraordinaire and Lex knows that if Zahara sees Lex's designer creation, fame and fortune (well, she doesn't need the fortune) will follow. Unfortunately, Lexington's plans go awry when the lifeless body of Zahara, wearing one of Lex's gowns, is found.

A photographer attempting to snap scandalous shots of the famous and infamous harasses the Hamiltons.

Theo West, scion of the Hamiltons' chief rival, is also at the do, in the company of Annabelle, a rival of a different sort. Then there's Jeremy Bleu, an up and coming film star but now the conquest of Park.

American kids are reputed to be more sophisticated than their Australian counterparts and if the Hamilton triplets are   representative of their culture, perhaps it is just as well. Let the Aussies be just that bit more naive than their contemporaries for a while longer. How awful to think that kids will be bored out of their brains by the time they are twenty -- or even less.

I hate to be unfair to any book, but whether it is because of my (disad)vantage point of seniority or, perhaps, the author's inability to create believable, sympathetic characters, I must say this oeuvre left me on the chilly side.

It's quite likely that teenagers now want to read about people who have everything but who take their possessions and standing for granted. If so, no doubt this will be very popular.

The mystery itself was not badly plotted. I didn't see the villain approaching any more than did the potential victims.

The characterisations, alas, left quite a lot to be desired. I couldn't, for the life of me, raise much enthusiasm for any of the characters. To be portrayed as blasé and disillusioned at such a tender age is disappointing.

On the whole, the book is lightweight -- but one wouldn't expect an overly complex plot peopled with living, breathing characters to be realistically aimed at a truly junior readership.
          THE CELEBUTANTES IN THE CLUB
                     by  Antonio Pagliarulo
                              ISBN 9781741662788
                                       336 pages
                       Random House Australia
                                  February 1 2008
                                          $19.95
                      reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                   January 24 2008

The Hamilton triplets, Lexington, Madison and Park, now seventeen, are back and surrounded by trouble once more. It's nearly the end of the school year but their father's club, Cleopatra, is having its grand opening. Everyone, including the school's Reverend Mother, wants to find out about Cleopatra, but the girls are not going to spoil the surprise.

A senior at their school is Damien Kittle, Duke of Asherton. Oddly enough, he has a father who is living, but he's only a knight. I couldn't help wondering, too, how someone described as British Royalty, came to attend an American school rather than one in a Commonwealth country. Still, I suppose that's mere nitpicking.

Most of the student body of St Cecilia's is at the opening of the club but during the festivities, tragedy strikes. The Duke becomes a dead Duke, with a hole in the head to prove it. Strangely, a large, pink stiletto sandal appears to be the murder weapon and everyone knows that  Concetta Canoli, yet another heiress, but one on the hefty side, despite her family fortune being dependent on diet products, is in love with Damien so why should she kill him? Could he have repulsed her advances?

Not all of the triplets think Canoli is a murderer. The police, however, do. Detective Aaron Connelly is quite happy that he has arrested the murderer when he snaps the handcuffs on Canoli (without Mirandising her.)

 The Hamiltons have their driver take them to St Cecilia's so they can break into Concetta's locker (since that's where girls always keep their secrets.) They risk life and limb scaling the school's wall but once possessed of the locker's secrets, they find the only thing worth having is a notebook entitled ìThe Black Cry Affair.î

In this outing, I didn't find the murderer quite such a surprise as I did the miscreant in the first Celebutantes book. The characters were, unfortunately, just as vapid as in the first oeuvre but I felt the author was just a bit condescending toward his targeted audience.

The efficient and effective authors of crime fiction do research. They would not place a British Royal at school in the US. For that matter, the corpse also presented inaccuracies. Every mystery fan who takes the genre seriously knows that corpses don't bleed. There's no beating heart to force the  blood from the body.

Then there's the matter of procedure. As already mentioned, there are formalities to be observed when someone is arrested. The scene of crime is important so that before a corpse is taken away, SOCOs photograph it from every possible angle. The officer in charge doesn't dismissively order his underlings to get it away from him.

There are other discrepancies later in the book, as well, but these give you some idea of the author's shortcomings. It struck me that an author who can't be bothered with a little research displays the utmost contempt for his readers, no matter how young. Speaking from experience, I would say that teenagers are pretty bright and, if they have read a bit in the mystery genre, they will pick up these inconsistencies.

The author's strength is in his plotting---as well as his knowledge of designer labels. Perhaps he should make more of that. It's a shame that he hasn't made the most of what he had at his fingertips in producing a novel that could have been entertaining.
SNUFF
by Chuck Palahniuk
ISBN 9780224078580
197 pages
Jonathan Cape
June 2 2008
$32.95
reviewed by Denise Pickles
May 29 2008

Some years ago, at the urging of my dearly beloved, but very bossy, son, I read FIGHT CLUB. When I noticed the author of SNUFF, I thought I would preempt my sonís categorical imperative and read this book before he noticed it had been released and exerted pressure on me to read the latest Palahniuk masterpiece.

The plot is fairly simple. Cassie Wright, porn actress, wants to set a world record for serial sex. She thinks she can cope with six hundred rampant penises in one day, so the stage is set and the story told from the viewpoints of three men in the queue and Cassieís very personal assistant, Sheila. Speaking of which, there are various videos of said porn queen on the Net to publicise the book, but Cassie in the videos ainít no sheila. She is a drag queen.

The men in the queue are marked with indelible ink (so no one can return for seconds?) and one wonders if any of them hopes to be the fortunate one to precipitate Cassieís predicted demise.

Of the three blokes whose story is told, the most heart wrenching is that of Number 72. He is a young fellow who has been told he is the issue of the porn queen herself, the result of an accidental insemination. Regardless of the Oedipal implications, he is prepared to give his all to save his imagined mother from the horrors to which she has been subjected-- submitted?-- all these years.

Some of the men are fortified by Viagra, but all are hopeful that they will help propel the lady into porn history.

The quality of the writing is good but of the satire perhaps a little less so. The characterisation is about on a par with the characterisation.

Did I enjoy the book? Now that is the question. It certainly provided an education, so I guess the answer to that is how one appreciates education.

After reading the work, I rang my son and proudly announced my achievement. Had he read the book? ìOh no, Mum.î quoth he. ìI think heís become a bit repetitive.î
                                                        FLASHBACK
                                                      by Michael Palmer
                                                             Arrow
                                                  ISBN 0-09-941077-X
                                                             $18.70
                                                          July 6 2001
                                                reviewed by Denise Wels
 

              Michael Palmer (The Sisterhood, Side Effects, Natural Causes, Extreme Measures, Critical Judgment, Silent Treatment, Miracle Cure, The Patient ) is another of the growing band of professionals who turn their backs (well, perhaps only turn sideways in this instance, since Palmer still works part time for the Massachusetts Medical Society) on their professions in order to find fulfillment in fiction. Dr. Palmer credits renowned medical thriller writer, Robin Cook, with being his inspiration to turn to mystery authorship, since Cook, a couple of years ahead of Palmer, trained in the same institution then became successful in a new career.

            Flashback contains an increasingly popular theme: the dehumanisation of medicine as it becomes the pet of large corporations at the expense of the old-time practitioner who placed human well-being ahead of personal pelf. There is also a bow to the difficulties encountered by innovators in having a new medicine accepted by various federal drug agencies, not the least of which are the legal, moral and ethical dilemmas on treating humans with experimental drugs.

             This novel involves the return of neurosurgeon Zack Iverson to his home town, Sterling, at the behest of his father, Judge Clayton Iverson and Ultramed-Davis Regional Hospital.  The Judge was Chairman of the Board of Davis Regional Hospital prior to its sale to Ultramed, a vast corporation involved in buying up  hospitals to increase its already immense profits. Zack's older brother Frank is the apparently successful administrator of the hospital but is desperately jealous of his younger brother's success. There is a rebuy option on the hospital should Ultramed not prove up to the expectations of the town of Sterling but the time in which the sale may be reversed is rapidly dwindling.

             Eight year-old Toby Nelms is suffering from a mysterious ailment which is rapidly becoming worse. Since his hernia operation he has been subject to bouts of screaming, aggressive panic . The reader is made privy, unlike the people surrounding Toby, to the fact that the boy is experiencing a flashback to his operation, to the reality of being conscious and aware of the actuality of the operation mingled with the nightmare of his fears... that he would be totally castrated. The author also inserts accounts of former patients who meet dreadful fates whilst in the grip of similar flashbacks.

             Zack is called in as a consultant on Toby's case and his investigations turn up all manner of strange things, not the least of which being that the hospital is staffed by people who had been totally discredited in hospitals where they had previously been employed. Added to this is the active campaign to sully the career and reputation of an admirable practitioner who had at one time been Zack's mentor.

            Palmer writes well and tells an involving story. Sibling rivalry, as well as rivalry between the generations, is explored as are other nastinesses of human nature. His characters are vivid and the situations all too possible. He does not talk down to the reader and writes of medical subjects in a way that is totally comprehensible to the layman. He also resists any temptation to splatter his work with superfluous blood, brains and body parts. There is a sub-plot, too, of romance for those for whom a simple medical plot is insufficient to maintain total interest. For a man who claims to have achieved less than distinguished marks in English when attending university, he has belied his initial lack of success in that discipline.
                                                ZAMBEZI
                                                    by Tony Park
                                                 ISBN 1405036788
                                                       423 pages
                                                   MACMILLIAN
                                                   August 3 2005
                                                            $30.00
                                          reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                   August 9 2005

Zambezi is about an Army man searching for his zoologist daughter in Zimbabwe. It contains references to Afghanistan, the work of journalists, guns and hardships suffered by people in Africa. It is written by an Australian man who has spent time as a reporter, who has worked with politicians, served with the Australian Army reserve in Afghanistan and spent time in the Zambezi Valley, where much of the action of the novel takes place. It is no wonder, then, that   the narrative carries the imprint of authority.

The action - and that is certainly an appropriate description - of the tale begins in Afghanistan, where Master Sergeant Jed Banks, in the course of carrying out his duties, saves the life of a rather annoying journalist. At the same time, Jed ends the life of a terrorist. Shortly thereafter, Banks is told that his beloved daughter Miranda, a research assistant in Zimbabwe, has been killed by a man-eating lion. He leaves for that country, determined to investigate the purported death of his daughter, for a deep instinct tells him she could not be dead.

Miranda has, unbeknownst to family and boss, Christine  Wallis,  fallen in love with Hassan bin Zayad, a wealthy hotelier whose attention has, of late, been more taken up with his game reserve than with his hospitality interests. Hassan has been deeply affected by his encounter with Miranda and returns her affection. Then tragedy strikes Hassan when he is informed that 'there has been a death.' His life is forever altered by the message which also touches the well-being of the other people in this tale.

This is an action story packed full with animal attacks (human, leonine and crocodilian, to name but a few) betrayal and love. Part of the adventure steams with sex but then so do many stories these days. Mr. Park is excellent at evoking the atmosphere of Africa, hot, dangerous and insect ridden, as well he might, given the time he spends there. Jed Banks and the Australian journalist, seemingly ineffectual Luke Scarborough, are two of the few characters with not much to hide, in contrast with Miranda, Christine and, indeed, Hassan. Despite Banks being American whilst his creator is Australian, the soldier comes across well and strongly. The situations are plausibly set up and the tension maintained with some secrets kept from Jed until nearly the conclusion of the book. A tinge of romance leavens the lot of the hardbitten, beset Master Sergeant while the wildlife descriptions are bound to charm, as well as frighten, the reader.
                                            AFRICAN SKY
                                              by Tony Park
                                      ISBN 9780330423038
                                                 505 pages
                                                      PAN
                                              May 3 2007
                                                  $19.95
                                      reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                May 9 2007
In this tale, Australian author Tony Park  writes a thoroughly entertaining adventure in this tale of World War Two as it affected Southern Rhodesia.

Squadron Leader Paul Bryant is the Adjutant at a Flying Training School in Kumalo. The raped body of a parachute packer is discovered in Bulawayo and two white members of the police force need to talk to Bryant about the crime. WPC Pip Lovejoy interviews him about the woman, Felicity Langham, or Flying Felicity as she is known because of stunts she  performs. Pip has the feeling that the Australian, Bryant, might have known Felicity somewhat better than he would like to divulge.

Meanwhile, the reader has been treated to the final minutes of the life of pilot Smythe. The young man has been killed, but not as a result of the crash of his plane. Two bushmen were responsible for the murder of the man, clad only in his underpants, as he attempted to flee  their attentions.

The point of view of the baddie of the piece is given as he takes the employment of the two murderous bushmen  to its natural conclusion. It is made clear that he is inimical toward the British so one may assume his plan is somehow to damage them.

Catherine De Beers is a close friend of Felicity Langham and also, it appears, of Paul Bryant. He and Pip go together to break the news of the pilot's death to the wealthy woman who had been widowed not terribly long before, in a hunting accident. Pip soon gathers that Paul is a very close friend of Catherine as he was of Felicity Langham, that, in fact, the triangular friendship may have had closer ties than are usual in most friendships.

This is a well written tale. It manages to combine an adventure with an unspoken commentary on the conditions that prevailed in the day, not to mention somewhat steamy sex scenes..

There was discrimination then against both the black indigenous population and the white women who were suddenly called upon to aid in areas where, previously, only white men had laboured. The awful treatment meted out by some whites toward the indigenes was a sad reflection on the European attitude toward the blacks, seen in many countries throughout the world at the time. Some whites viewed the blacks as little better than animals and the treatment the blacks received was, in some instances, worse than that received by animals owned by the same people. Small wonder, then, that so many of those countries rebelled against such unthinking treatment which caused results such as the appalling situation that one beholds in Zimbabwe of today.

The characters of Catherine and Felicity, to my mind, verged on the cartoonish, although I realise that more space could not really have been devoted to their development since, if they had been pursued with long backstories, the tautness of the plot would have suffered. Suffice it, then, that their broad stroke depiction is sufficient to the tale.

I enjoyed the descriptions of the landscape, which include glimpses of the wild life and gained the impression that the author is very familiar with the land he portrays, although the ending of the book, to my mind, was not the equal to those descriptions.

The author is surely one worth watching, if he is, in future, capable of turning out further fiction of the standard achieved in this book.

                                      RED LIGHT
                                  by Jefferson Parker
                                          HarperCollinsPublishers
                                  0-00-710194-5
                                                     $27.50
                                                January 2001
                                        reviewed by Denise Wels
               Journalist Jefferson Parker (The Blue Hour, Where Serpents Lie, The Triggerman's Dance, Summer of Fear, Laguna Heat, Pacific Beat, Little Saigon ) is a resident of California where the books of which Detective Sergeant Merci  Rayborn is  the heroine, are set. Presumably Parker has, in his day job, had opportunity to observe actual and possible opportunities for corruption within the merry band of law-enforcement officers; certainly this story gives one to wonder if depravity to the extent portrayed could possibly exist.

             The novel opens with a prologue in which nineteen year-old  prostitute, self titled Aubrey Whittaker, prepares a meal to be eaten in the company of a blonde man whom she has nicknamed Dark Cloud, because of his perpetual air of pessimism and gloom. The end of the meal sees the departure of mysterious D.C. and the arrival of someone who knocks at her door and says he is her friend returning. Whittaker opens the door to find her killer waiting there.

             Merci and her partner Zamorra are assigned to the crime and later, in the department's attempts to find solutions for old unsolved cases Rayborn is given the slaying of another prostitute, Patti Bailey, killed in 1969. As Merci delves into the murders, she finds, to her horror, that her lover, Sergeant Mike McNally, is implicated in the current killing while there appears to be a possibility that both murders may somehow be linked despite having different perpetrators.

             To my mind, although the concept of the story was good, the actual writing was, for want of a better word, rough. Frequently I had to break the flow of my reading and go back to ascertain just what it was the author intended, something unlooked for in the work of a journalist. The occasional subediting lapse did not help matters, either.

            The character of Merci was not quite convincing. Admittedly, her life had been shattered when she was the inadvertent cause of the death of her former partner, Tim Hess, the father of her baby son, Tim Jr. Perhaps it was simply that, as a man, Parker does not have sufficient insight into a female character to use one as his main protagonist (and he shows no mercy in the blows he deals Merci!) Certainly, some of Merci's actions, particularly  toward the end of the book, made me squirm and feel that no woman could ever behave in that manner especially since the actions she deplored were necessary to her doing her job to the best of her ability.

             The motive of the murderer, while convincing, did not seem to be sufficient to provoke quite so involved a retribution. Added to my criticism is the fact that there appears to be too much introspection on the part of the main protagonist. A certain amount of self examination is necessary to explain much of Merci's behaviour but Parker seems  to belabour the point. In future more action and less reflection, please Mr. Parker.

             A further reproach aimed at this work is one for the publisher. Why on earth compare the author with Thomas Harris when the standard of the actual writing of the latter has been much criticised? I must admit that seeing the comparison on the front cover made me turn to a different book before beginning  to read this novel.

            These criticisms aside, the story has much to recommend it, although those readers disliking gratuitous gore should tread warily.
                                                           BAD BUSINESS
                                                               by Robert B. Parker
                                                               ISBN  0719566428
                                                                      310 pages
                                                                  John Murray
                                                                  April 15 2004
                                                                      $32.95
                                                reviewed by Denise Wels Pickles
                                                                 April 13 2004
 

Approximately three decades after his debut, Robert B. Parker's most famous private investigator, Spenser, puts in another appearance in Bad Business with nary a twinge of arthritis in evidence to slow him down despite his years. Award winning Parker is something of an institution in American literary circles and could possibly even be likened to Raymond Chandler in his effect on American crime fiction. Parker taught for a brief stint after obtaining his doctorate, with a thesis which included mention of the work of Chandler. Parker finished a novel, Poodle Springs which was left incomplete by Chandler. Adding to the Chandler myth, Parker wrote Perchance To Dream, a sequel to the earlier author's The Big Sleep. It would be most unfair to describe Parker's writing as derivative; he has a voice all of his own. In addition to his many Spenser novels, he has written other series , one in which Sunny Randall stars and another featuring Jesse Stone. Parker has even dabbled in Western fiction - Gunman's Rhapsody was published in 2001.

Bad Business  takes a look at shonky big business. The tale begins innocuously enough with Marlene Rowley coming to Spenser's office to hire his services to investigate her husband, Trent. She demands that Spenser find evidence - preferably graphic evidence - of Trent's infidelity. There is a very funny scene depicting a wagging tail of investigators following various errant spouses (spice?) and finally deciding to pool some of their knowledge.

Trent Rowley is the Chief Financial Officer of Kinergy, a power broking company whose wellbeing is balanced on vast financial dealings. Spenser is bemused to find his simple divorce case blossom into a full murder investigation. Fortunately for him, he has his faithful aide-de-camp Crow, the services of his dog, Pearl and his friends in the police department upon whom to call. Along the way, Spenser encounters a sleazy talk show host, Darrin O'Mara, sometime corporate pimp who espouses a strange notion of 'courtly love'. O'Mara has an inexplicable attraction for various of the corporate wives, as well as a rather unsavoury friend.

Spenser needs to do a quick course in the financial practices of big business in order to uncover just what is going on in Bad Business. Fortunately, he numbers amongst his associates the world's most accomp;ished chartered accountant.

After all these years of writing crime thrillers, Parker has a slick turn of phrase. He employs humour to engage his readers as well as a suitably twisty plot. The book could not be described as containing memorable people from the point of view of characterisation, however. All Parker's goodies tend to speak with the one wise-cracking voice which is not to say that it detracts from the tale as a whole. It would just be nice to see some characters whose personalities are more than sketched.

Parker fans as well as those readers sampling Parker's work for the first time are unlikely to be disappointed. This is a glossy, humorous tale peopled by largely unsympathetic characters in the financial world but funny and appealing goodies.
A THOUSAND BONES
  by P J Parrish
ISBN 9781416525875
        471 pages
     POCKET BOOKS
    January 1 2008
           $19.95
reviewed by Denise Pickles
       February 4 2008
 

Sisters Kristy Montee and Kelly Nichols comprise the author P J Parrish. Living in separate states, as they do, it's quite astonishing that they manage to compose their books as seamlessly as they do, yet nowhere could I detect a change in the writing style from one to the other.

The prologue begins in 1988 with Joe Frye talking to Louis Kincaid, her lover, about what happened to her when she was a rookie, in Michigan, in October 1975. She has been carrying a secret with her all that time but now she feels she must confess.

Joe is the only female deputy in the Echo Bay Sheriff's office in 1975.  She is unfortunate that her appointment has stirred up some resentment amongst other officers, but her knowledge proves her worth, especially when the bone of a girl is  found  and Joe is the only one able to identify what the officers see. Then Joe, with the help of two children, find more bones and a piece of jewellery, which is useful in identifying a girl. Thus, the first of the remains of a series of victims are discovered. Of course, forensic science is very primitive in those days so that DNA is not able to be us to aid identification.

Eventually, a sum total of a thousand bones is discovered but the Sheriff has no firm suspect.

The case becomes complicated when carvings are discovered on trees near the bones and they are identified as representing different months, according to the calendar of the local Indian tribe.

The mystery is very good, with the requisite red herrings being drawn across the reader's path. The characterisations, too, are well done. The reader's withers are well and truly wrung because of the discrimination Joe must suffer from her fellow deputies, not to mention her boyfriend of the time.

The baddy's character is a different matter entirely. I am afraid that he, too, is entirely probable. I just wish he wasn't.

The authors have managed to evince a wonderfully cold, intimidating winter environment, one that, despite our century plus (according to the old system) temperatures, had me shivering.

As to Joe's secret, I have to confess that were I in the same position, I would have done the same thing.
I SAW YOU
by Julie Parsons
ISBN  9780333906996
354 pages
MACMILLAN
March 3 2008
$32.95
reviewed by Denise Pickles
May 5 2008

The action opens with a rather horrible death. A man has his hands cuffed behind his back and has been without food and water for longer than he is able to count. He is in considerable pain and discomfort and the reader is left wondering what sort of monster could possibly do these things to another human being.

In July 2005, Michael McLoughlin is enjoying the summer but is incredulous that retirement has finally hit him. He has been a policeman for a long, long time but has, at least, lined up a job that is more pleasure than work, just for the summer.

Margaret Mitchell still mourns the death of her murdered daughter, Mary, years after the event. Since the murder, Margaret has lived in Queensland but now she has returned to Ireland and is occupying her house, having no rent paying tenant.

In a moment of expansiveness, enjoying the pleasure of the moment at retirement, Michael has promised a friend that he will look into the death of Marina Spencer, a girl who was found by the coroner to have committed suicide, but Marinaís mother, Sally, doesnít believe that is possible. Now Michael must face the consequence of his transient feeling of happiness and perform what he feels will be a brief job, but without the benefit of being part of an official investigation, complete with badge.

Unfortunately, the deaths donít finish with Marinaís and Michael finds himself investigating a cluster which, in the normal run of things, would be statistically unlikely.

One aspect of this novel, absent in so many books that narrate the doings of unofficial investigators, that I find realistic, is the way Michael is constantly being pulled up short by the fact that he is no longer a policeman and so no longer has the resources of the Guards on which to call. He is uncomfortable at pulling the wool over trusting eyes when it comes to his own out of date credentials.

When I arrived at the denouement, I was surprised to find myself holding my breath and itís a long time since I had to admit to anything like that when reading a book, thus, I have to give Parsons full marks for that aspect of the suspense.

Characterisation, too, was well done. I can imagine the motivation of a newly retired policeman to continue investigating-- as well as the frustration of needing to use methods previously foreign to him. Similarly, the conviction of the mother of the dead girl that her child would not have taken her own life, is very plausible. The slightly forlorn, anxious to please Vanessa is beautifully depicted although at first I thought her to be much younger than she really is.

This is not a debut novel and it displays quite a lot of polish in its construction as well as its characterisation. On the whole, I can pronounce it a good, if somewhat claustrophobic read.

                                        KINDRED SPIRIT
                                          by John Passarella
                                               387 pages
                                    ISBN 9780743484800
                                      POCKET STAR BOOKS
                                               July 1 2006
                                                   $16.95
                                reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                              August 3 2006
 

Before I get into the meat of this review, perhaps I should first state my lack of credentials in the area. This is a horror novel. I used to read horror but have reviewed very little in the genre so please bear this in mind when considering my evaluation of KINDRED SPIRIT by award winning author (the Bram Stoker, no less) John Passarella.

Hallie and Heather Moore are identical twins. They have the much touted bond attributed to people of their kind and have it to the extent that they are able to communicate telepathically. When they are ten years old, that particular ability is fractured when Heather, in an attempt to outdo her sister, climbs a tree in the middle of the night and falls. She lives, but it is a close call and they are no longer able to communicate telepathically. Heather's personality undergoes a change and she becomes far more mature than Hallie, who perceives herself as remaining rather flighty, even when she is an adult television journalist.

To her family's horror, Heather is mysteriously murdered and mutilated on a roadside, an event that estranges the twins' mother from survivor Hallie. On the first anniversary of the horror, Hallie returns to the site of the slaughter and, amazingly, finds her sister's locket; amazingly because the scene of crime officers had turned over the area in a search for clues after the crime. Could the murderer have returned to gloat?

Hallie moves to adjust the simple cross that marks the location of Heather's final living moments and receives a physical shock which also jolts her mind and enables her to receive the impressions of her sister's last, horrific experiences.

The author inserts pages giving the murderer's point of view, without disclosing his identity. Over time, we learn that he has returned to the murder site to relive the partially disappointing occurrence and had lost Hallie's locket, which he had kept as a trophy. We also learn that he was abused as a child by his father, most especially after his mother's desertion (does anyone else see this as something of a cliché to explain the killer's crimes?) but that he exacted an incomplete vengeance at the time, one that he continues to perfect by repeatedly killing people he sees as the reincarnation of the originator of his plight.

Hallie's TV work, already deplored by a new boss as mere fluff, suffers and she takes leave of absence on grounds of illness. After her unsettling experience on the anniversary, she becomes estranged from her rather casual boyfriend. Thus, Hallie is suitably placed to devote her time and energy to tracking down the killer. She does have help, however. Heather's spirit has moved into her body and Hallie is happy to welcome her. Hallie is less happy when she begins to suspect another spirit hitched a ride with Heather's.

I must admit to wondering why Heather could not simply communicate the murderer's identity to her twin or at least give a more comprehensive account of the events leading up to her death, if she did not realise who the killer was.

I thoroughly enjoyed the beginning of the book. It is obvious from the acknowledgments that the author did a fine job of researching the work going on in a television station. The newsroom, as well as the staff meetings, were convincingly portrayed. I could almost have believed Passarella was a journalist. It was only after Heather began emerging, to the extent that her son Shane recognised her, that I became a tad uneasy. Still, I recognise that as a failing of mine, as an outsider to the horror genre, rather than a fault of the author. His relating of the actions of the ghostbusters (really, the paranormal investigators) was vastly entertaining and I could have wished for more detail.

I have no fault to find with the characterisations, general aspect of the plot (with the exceptions already stated) or the pace of the action. All I could have wished was a more subtle inclusion of the weirdness factor.
 
 

                                                  PROTECT AND DEFEND
                                                    by Richard North Patterson
                                                                Hutchinson
                                                       ISBN 0-09-180041-2
                                                                RRP $27.95
                                                               January 2001
                                                       reviewed by Denise Wels
 

                                Richard North Patterson is a lawyer. Experience in his professional life
       provoked, in 1979, his first novel,The Lasko Tangent. It must have been heartening for the
       lawyer-cum-writer to have his first thriller win an Edgar Allan Poe Award. Others of his books are Dark Lady, No Safe Place , Degree of Guilt , Silent Witness and Eyes of a Child ,
       some featuring Caroline Masters, one of the main protagonists of this novel, Protect and
       Defend.

                           By definition a lawyer has to be an accomplished wordsmith, but the use he
       makes of his talent decides his success in a possible career in fiction. Patterson has amply
       demonstrated his abilities to maintain a high degree of tension and suspense in all his
       legal thrillers to date. In this book I found my attention wandering somewhat but fear that
       was due to my lack of familiarity with the American legal and political system. As an
       Australian, I was mystified by many of the twists and turns in the recent Presidential
       election. Probably Americans would find the Australian system equally obscure. The fact
       that this novel deals with events with which a new American President finds himself
       confronted had me rather puzzled along the way.

                           One aspect of the novel that I found confusing was the importance placed on the secrets harboured by the respective protagonists. Perhaps I am wrong (this has been
       known to happen on the odd occasion) but I am inclined to think that Australians would not
       allow such things to destroy a political career if the candidate were otherwise capable.
       Perhaps we are a more laid-back nation... or perhaps I am simply naive about such
       matters.

                          Patterson uncannily predicts a narrow election win by a successful candidate
       although his winner was a Democrat rather than the real life Republican victor, and by a few
       thousand rather than the skimpy hundreds win. The successful contestant, Irish American
       Kerry Kilcannon, finds himself in the uncomfortable position at the end of his inaugural
       address, of having the Chief Justice die of a stroke, the death possibly hastened by the
       loathing the Justice felt for the new President. This necessitates President Kerry Kilcannon
       having to nominate a Chief  Justice and he plumps for a woman, heroine of earlier books,
       Judge Caroline Masters.

                            The tension of the book rests on a case nicely calculated to polarise the
       emotions of readers since it involves situations about which most people hold firm views.
       Mastersí former law clerk, Sarah Dash, is approached at an abortion clinic  by pregnant
       fifteen-year-old Mary Ann Tierney. Sarah has obtained a court order to protect access to the
       clinic from militants who would seek to deter pregnant women from having abortions.

                                Mary Ann, originally willing to become a mother, has discovered that the fetus she is carrying has hydrocephalus. Not only is it unlikely to live but, if carried to term, will
       possibly ensure the motherís future infertility. To complicate matters further, the Tierney
       parents are strongly pro-life. A side-effect of the Tierney case is that it affects the possibility  of Caroline Mastersí confirmation as Chief Justice.

                               The entire concept, involving as it does such complex primal emotions as
       concern for life both of a mother and a child, together with the conflicting reactions
       generated by perceptions of parental rights being challenged by legalistic manoeuvres, is
       engrossing. Add to the mix the Machiavellian machinations of ruthless politicians willing to
       overstep all bounds of human decency and integrity and you should have a book that defies
       the reader to put it down. I know it is only a fault of my own ignorance of the  American
       system that permitted me to find the 546 pages overlong.

                                It would be an unrealistic reader indeed who would not expect to find Judge
       Caroline Masters in the centre of a future Patterson epic: this book leaves plenty of territory
       to explore.
                                            CONVICTION
                                   by Richard North Patterson
                                        ISBN 0333908589
                                              465 pages
                                           MACMILLAN
                                      February 3 2005
                                               $30.00
                                  reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                         March 10 2005
 

One could say that Richard North Patterson has the best of two worlds so far as his background goes. He practised law and studied creative writing. He was a sometime politician, in that he was an Assistant Attorney General in Ohio as well as striding very impressive halls of power when being a prosecutor in the Watergate affair. He has been reported as saying that (from an interview on Absolute Write) "Trial lawyers have to be story tellers - have to arrange complex facts in attractive narratives; grasp character; understand judges, juries, make clients appealing, understandable.Ý They do have a lot of stories to tell ".  The author amply demonstrates his ability to tell stories and bring life to complex subjects and characters in CONVICTION.

Teresa Peralta Paget is one of Mr North Patterson's ongoing characters. He has established, in previous books, the horrors that she suffered as a child as well as those inflicted on her daughter, Elena, now a teenager living with Terri and Terri's husband Chris - another character who has endured horrors in previous outings. Now Terri is called upon to attempt to extricate Rennell Price from the death sentence which is to be executed in fifty-nine days by the state of California, a state where, at the time of writing of the book, the death penalty still existed.

Price and his elder brother Payton, doomed to die first, were convicted fifteen years previously of the murder of a nine year old Asian girl, Thuy  Sen. It was a particularly horrible crime in which the child asphyxiated on the ejaculate of two men who raped her orally then cast her body into the waters of San Francisco Bay. At first, given the history of her own daughter which has an unpleasant resonance with the case which Terri, her husband Chris and stepson Carlo must fight, Terri finds it difficult to feel empathy with her client. Rennell is a large man, an impassive man who  has a brutish aspect. Only gradually does Terri discover it is not so much impassivity which her client displays but lack of understanding. Further into the case, Terri realises that Rennell is innocent of the horrific murder but is retarded and was the victim of a miscarriage of justice. His loving grandmother was bereft of her possessions at the behest of a rascally counsel who served only his own drug addicted requirements.

The author seems to me to have included rather more didacticism in this work than in previous stories. It is necessary for the reader to understand a lot of legal niceties which influence the smooth flow of the narrative. Carlo, a recent Law graduate, is a useful receptacle for instruction by which the reader is also educated. This having been said, the action does not slow because of the schooling, but is deepened and made more understandable. There are perils a-plenty introduced, including dangers to Terri's family, both from internal divisions - Elena cannot be brought to understand how her mother can defend someone accused of a crime such as the one perpetrated against herself - as well as external threat.

The author makes a very convincing argument against the death penalty and the strange laws that can ensure the execution of a man despite the realisation of most that he is innocent. The decreasing of the legal avenues open to the defenders are made very exciting indeed, despite what may have, in the less skilled hands of a different writer, proven dry as dust. I would defy any reader to remain unmoved by this skillful tale of implacable injustice visited upon an innocent man by whom so many minds have been revolted.
                                               EXILE
                                 by Richard North Patterson
                                     ISBN 9781405089142
                                                562 pages
                                             MACMILLAN
                                         February 3 2007
                                                  $32.95
                              reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                        February 21 2007

Richard North Patterson has, from his very first novel, demonstrated his excellence at plotting, characterisation and, not least, literate storytelling. Until now, the author has not ventured beyond the limits of American politics but in EXILE he tackles an extremely difficult subject: the sad state of relations between Jews and Palestinians, the rights of each to a country and the horrors of extremists willing to go to such lengths as blowing themselves up in order to further their people's ends.

The prologue introduces the reader to the two would-be suicide bombers, Ibrahim Jefar and Iyad Hassan. It is told from the point of view of Jefar, therefore the reader learns only, when Hassan takes telephone calls from their handler, that the person giving them orders is a mysterious 'she'. This introduction also casts light on possible motivations for Arabs who give up their lives with such enthusiasm, a concept with which westerners might have difficulty coming to grips.

Jewish lawyer David Wolfe has had his life planned successfully for many years. One small glitch occurred when he fell in love with Hana Arif, a  Palestinian girl also studying to be a lawyer. Perhaps if David had been more observant of his own religion, such a circumstance would not have occurred but it did and David was devastated when Hana left with her fiancé Saeb Khalid. Now, thirteen years later, Hana reappears in his life, married and with a twelve year-old daughter, a girl whom Saeb is determined will grow up to be a traditional Muslim woman: dutiful, ill-educated and completely different from Hana's wishes for her.

David, because of his relationship with his fiancée Carole, meets the Prime Minister of Israel, Amos Ben-Aron. The politician makes a huge impression on the lawyer so  Ben-Aron's assassination the following day is somehow more personal than would have been the case had David not met the man. Then, to make things even more complicated, Hana rings David, desperate for his help. She, Saeb and Munira have had their passports confiscated on suspicion of being complicit in the assassination. Eventually Hana is charged and imprisoned.

David, contrary to the dictates of common sense and even despite doubts about her innocence, represents Hana, a position that destroys his hopes for the wedding to Carole as well as causing his abandoning all hope for a career in politics. The case necessitates a visit to Israel and meetings with politicians belonging to both Israelis and Palestinians alike.

At home, David is pitted against prosecutor Marnie Sharpe, the woman who was formerly his boss, a woman who dislikes him intensely and who sees a victory over Wolfe as even more desirable than against an antagonist whom she could regard impartially.

This is a particularly powerful piece. The research the author has performed must surely have intimidated a lesser writer. Patterson has covered much of the same ground he attributes to his protagonist and is not averse to describing the horrors suffered by both sides of the Israeli/Palestinian debate. It must be said, however, that, to my mind at least, the characterisations, especially of Hana and Carole, could well have been stronger.

The masterly tale told with Richard North Patterson's customary attention to detail is fascinating. I found it completely engrossing despite my usual distaste for reading about violence in that area (or any other in real life, to be perfectly truthful). The story can quite possibly cast light on what some westerners may perceive as a murky and mysterious hatred. It is  a work which probably will not leave the reader for some time to come but which will certainly give the him a greater sensitivity to news of yet further atrocities in the Middle East.
 

                                          WATER TOUCHING STONE
                                                      by Eliot Pattison
                                                     Century  London
                                                  ISBN 0-7126-8054-3
                                                           $30.45
                                                       July 6 2001
                                               reviewed by Denise Wels
 
 

       It may come as a surprise to mystery readers to discover that the deservedly vaunted The Skull Mantra  was not Eliot Pattison's first book. He had previously written several non-fiction works of which one, Breaking Boundaries, achieved the distinction of being named one of the best management books of the year by The New York Times.

              Pattison, an international lawyer, had travelled widely in China and the genesis of his innovative The Skull Mantra (how many mysteries with a theme of Buddhism in Tibet can you think of?) was in a visit he paid to a Tibetan Buddhist temple two decades before  writing that novel. Shan Tao Yun, Pattison's main protagonist, represents the face of the decent, idealistic Chinese as opposed to the corrupt officialdom of the oppressive recent order of Chinese bureaucrats.

              The Skull Mantra  won the Edgar Award for best first novel from the Mystery Writers of America. This was not the only recognition Pattison received for that outstanding book since he was also nominated for the British Golden Dagger Award and the Dublin Literary Award.

             Pattison's first novel saw Shan entrusted with the task of solving the murder of a Chinese official. Shan had been a Beijing investigator but had been imprisoned in a labour camp in Tibet on trumped up charges. His companions in the camp included Tibetan monks and lamas, and after observing these people with admiration, Shan converted to their way of thinking and their religion. Shan successfully solved the task with which he had been entrusted and was given his unofficial freedom providing he did not move beyond a certain area.

           The opening of Water Touching Stone finds Shan living with his Buddhist friends in a gompa hidden in the depths of the mountains. Disturbing news reaches them that a woman teacher has been killed and a lama gone missing. The Buddhist religious perceive it is their duty to go to the dead woman, Lau, to ensure that her spirit does not become lost and they charge Shan with the task of unmasking her killer and discovering the whereabouts of the missing lama. Thus Shan sets out from the hidden gompa together with the lama Gendun, Lokesh and the Tibetan guide, former monk Jowa.

           As Shan's investigation begins he finds that someone is killing Lau's boy students, the orphans of the zheli. He must therefore prevent further deaths and find out why the boys are being slaughtered.

           Shan meets and travels with people of the many races inhabiting Tibet. He goes to the infamous Glory Camp where he discovers that Americans are not beyond the intrigues of the murderers, but why, and how? Jakli,  the Kazakh girl who is about to be married becomes Shan's guide.

         Pattison masterfully depicts the harsh but beautiful Tibetan landscape. He tutors the reader painlessly in a background of Buddhism while intriguing us with the intricacies of the mystery. The dreadful penalties in Pattison's fiction recently found resonance in news bulletins when a Tibetan woman was sentenced to six years in gaol for the heinous crime of possessing and watching a video of the Dalai Lama.

        This is a 'quest' narrative, a 'road' book, utterly fascinating with its many levels. The author has noted that while his characters are fictional, the events of the book are founded in fact. It is his hope  that the free people of the West can be motivated to attempt to help the optimistic but terribly oppressed people of Tibet as they struggle against their unjust oppressors.

        A third book in the series is to be released in 2002. It would be nice to imagine that in the meantime some measure of freedom might be achieved by the peoples of Tibet but at present that seems highly unlikely.

                                                           THE DANTE CLUB
                                                              by Matthew Pearl
                                                            ISBN 0099465981
                                                                 372 pages
                                                                   Vintage
                                                           February 2 2004
                                                                  $22.95
                                                     reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                                          August 15 2004

THE DANTE CLUB is a remarkable work by an author with impeccable credentials. Matthew Pearl graduated from Harvard and Yale. He also acquired the Dante Prize from the Dante Society, the organisation which is the direct descendant of the Club about which he writes.

The novel is set in 1865, just after the close of the American Civil War. Boston sees many returned soldiers from that war, many suffering from what today's world would call post traumatic stress disorder. One of the returned soldiers, however, has been honoured in an unusual way by the city. Patrolman Rey is a mulatto. He has been accepted into the city's police force as its first coloured member. There are restrictions. He is not permitted to wear a uniform and he is not permitted to arrest a white man.

Rey is present with the police chief, Kurtz, when the murdered body of Chief Justice Healey is reported. A housemaid finds the body of her master - the naked body, which is crawling with three kinds of insects. The distraught widow bids fair to lose her wits in the aftermath of the tragedy.

The police chief rounds up various rogues of the city in an attempt to cast some light on the identity of the murderer. One man whispers something to Nicholas Rey before plunging to his death through a window. Rey transcribes phonetically what the man said and decides he must discover the meaning of what is obviously a foreign language.

Poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is, at the same time, engaged in translating Dante's DIVINE COMEDY. He is aided by several literary friends comprising the Dante Club: publisher J.T. Fields, poets James Russell Lowell and Oliver Wendell Holmes as well as historian George Washington Greene. Nicholas Rey seeks their assistance in translating the mysterious words of the suicide. It is because of Rey that the Dante Club become embroiled in the mystery of the murder. They see Healey's death as a reflection of the fate of some victims in Dante's Inferno.

Augustus Manning, the treasurer of the Harvard Corporation, has threatened Fields with the loss of the business put the publisher's way by Harvard should Fields go ahead with the publication of Longfellow's translation of Dante. The Dante Club realise they must protect Dante and the translation from any association with the crime. Thus, they pretend they are unable to help Rey with the meaning of the words he has scribbled, insisting they are nonsense syllables. They feel they must track the identity of the murderer themselves.

Meanwhile, Rey has been forbidden to pursue his investigation. Instead, the detectives, a corrupt lot intent on the easiest solution and the most convenient miscreant, are called in to solve the case - or cases, as more corpses are uncovered. The Dante Club members are increasingly alarmed as they learn of the new victims, the murders of whom reflect the progressive inner circles of hell.

This is a most interesting and intriguing work. Admittedly, at first the reader might find it heavy going because of the archaic language, but it is well worth persevering. The atmosphere generated  by the author is wonderfully  evocative; his characters are convincing. While Pearl, in his historical note, admits that the murders never occurred, he states that Rey is an historical composite. An added note of authenticity is that extracts from journals, poems, essays and other works of the members of the Dante Club as well as others close to them have been employed in the text of the narrative.

I can certainly recommend this book unreservedly to any reader with an interest in American literature or the work of Dante, as well as of American literary history.
                                                   PARALLEL LIES
                                                   by Ridley Pearson
                                                            Orion
                                                ISBN 0-75284-601-9
                                                          $29.95
                                                   January 11 2002
                                               reviewed by Denise Wels
 

              Ridley Pearson is an amazing man. Before he ever began writing he was a musician and, in fact, still plays bass guitar in a band. Not only did he play music, he also wrote it. On deciding he  needed to look for a second career he thought about writing. Perhaps the fact that his family included writers may have inspired him but certainly he is a meticulous author who never skimps on his research nor on the painstaking construction of his novels.

             Pearson is fascinated by forensic detection and his fiction has had an impact on the real world, given that a prosecuting attorney who was reading Pearson's Undercurrents utilised methods expounded in that book to bring to justice a homicidal husband. Another of his novels, Chain of Evidence played some part in causing an uproar at a genetics conference while the state of a fictional corpse, victim of arson, in Beyond RecognitionÝwas later mirrored in a non-fictional death. Some others of the author's  novels are The Angel Maker, No Witness,  Hidden Charges , Probable Cause, Hard Fall  and Blood of the Albatross. Ridley Pearson also writes under the nom-de-plume  of Wendell McCall.

            Pearson has been quoted as saying  that entertainment is a large part of his life. He plays music and writes, both in order to provide entertainment.  It can truthfully be said that he succeeds. While his books are constructed very carefully and his forensic research is impeccable, he never falls into the trap of becoming boring or didactic.

            Parallel Lies  initially posits two characters, one, Umberto Alvarez, appearing to be evil, while the other, Peter Tyler, is the good character set to catch the bad. As events unfold the readers' perceptions change as they are made to empathise with Alvarez who, it becomes apparent, is only seeking justice for the death of his wife and children. The death was caused by the negligence of a railway company. Tyler, an ex-cop, lost his job with the police because he was pilloried for beating a black man, although the man was, at the time of the beating, inflicting grievous harm on his baby daughter. Just as proof of Tyler's lack of racial bias, the author has him fall in love with one of the railway company's security people, a black woman. As the tale progresses, Alvarez and Tyler appear to adopt certain aspects of each other's lives: a very interesting story-telling tactic.

          Pearson gradually builds complex portraits of his two main protagonists, showing how each is, in his own way, deeply wronged yet essentially benevolent. The amount of information the reader can absorb about the construction and running of trains as well as the minutiae of solid forensic detective work is astonishing. Heaven help the nerves of an unwary railroad passenger who picks up this book to while away his journey as a litte light reading! The story telling is incisive with never a wasted word. The action is indeed breathtaking yet the author never resorts to gloating over gore. There is romance, but never any tediously titillating sex.

           Those fans of Pearson's Lou Boldt series who have perhaps lamented the absence of that popular character in this stand-alone novel, may be reassured. Boldt will return in 2002 with the release of Art of Deception.
                                CUT AND RUN
                               by Ridley Pearson
                                ISBN 0786867264
                                       398 pages
                                       Hyperion
                                     April 6 2005
                                      $US 23.95
                       reviewed by Denise Pickles
                                     April 2 2005

Writer/musician Ridley Pearson appears to excel in both his fields. I've not heard his music, only reports of it, but my experience with his writing has instilled  in me quite a regard for Pearson's abilities. For that matter, how many crime fiction authors can claim to have helped solve real life mysteries, as Pearson, with his novel UNDERCURRENTS, did in 1988? His nearly three decades of writing have produced the very popular Lou Boldt series in addition to television productions, stand alone novels, short stories and books written under various noms-de-plume.

Six years ago, Roland Larson, then with the Witness Protection program, fell in love with one of his charges, Hope Stevens. That undertaking ended in a bloodbath which, fortunately, Hope was able to escape. Larsonís colleagues were not so fortunate. The assassin belonged to the Romero Family, the gangsters on whose activities Hope blew the whistle. In the present, Donny Romero, who was gaoled at the time, is due to be released and Larson, now a Federal Deputy Marshall with the Fugitive Apprehension Task Force, holds grave fears for Hopeís safety. Stevens had disappeared from the protection scheme after the massacre and, using the methods taught to her by Larson, gone into hiding on her own terms. Larson, who has searched fruitlessly for the woman in the intervening years, is astonished when, at a performance of  Much Ado About Nothing (Hope had taught him to appreciate Shakespeare and now Larson haunts Shakespearean festivals) in his home town of St. Louis, he hears what he feels is Stevensí laugh.

Larson is frustrated in his attempt to identify the person whose laugh he thinks he recognised when he is accosted by two agents who transfer him to Princeton, New Jersey, where he is told that Leo Markowitz, the man who wrote the program for Laena, the list of people covered by WITSEC, together with their current names and addresses, has disappeared. The programmerís assistant has been murdered in a manner suggesting the methods of the assassin owned by the Romeros. For Larson, the conclusion is inescapable: the presumed abduction is intimately involved with Hopeís case.

The jeopardy driven story is told from various viewpoints: Larson, Hope, the assassin and Hopeís resourceful five year-old daughter all have their thoughts portrayed. Larson himself must, in addition to locating and protecting Hope, prevent the auction of the WITSEC secrets in order to prevent annihilation on a grand scale by mobsters intent on inflicting their own vengeance. In such a massacre, the innocent would perish along with the guilty.

It is quite obvious that Pearson has a great respect for the language and delights in his use thereof. Sometimes, however, this works to his disadvantage as he searches for similes and metaphors that possibly avoid repetition of words. This results in unnecessarily wordy efforts which could detract from the overall impact of the sentences.

Despite this minor criticism, the narrative is excellent, the excitement sustained throughout and the adventures within the bounds of credibility. The characters - even that of the assassin - are well drawn while the minor  individuals are disposed of efficiently, although with a maximum distribution of gore and body parts.

Please, Mr. Pearson, don't consider relinquishing your career in crime fiction writing!
 
 

                                                             RIGHT AS RAIN
                                                          by George P. Pelecanos
                                                                       Orion
                                                           ISBN 0-75284-388-5
                                                                    $17.95
                                                              January 11 2002
                                                       reviewed by Denise Wels
 

                  Welcome news for thriller and mystery fans that Right As Rain  is now available in the small paperback format.

                  Like George P. Pelecanos's other works A Firing Offense, Nick's Trip ,Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go ,The Big Blow Down ,King Suckerman ,The Sweet Forever  and Shame the Devil . Right as Rain is set in the Washington D.C. area. Unlike  others of his books, Pelecanos did not introduce any Greek characters into Right as Rain  - or if he did, they passed me by, unnoticed. Nonetheless, the main theme of this book is race : racial tension, racial perception, the uneasiness different races feel with each other, the perceptions of individuals in a relationship involving people of different colour. While the story is in the third person, much of it is told from the point of view of a black man, Private Investigator  Derek Strange.

                 A black woman, Leona Wilson, is devastated by the death of her son Chris. Chris was a policeman who was shot in far from straightforward circumstances by white fellow policeman, Terry Quinn. Leona feels that Chris's good name has been maligned and it has not been placed on a memorial to those officers who died in the course of their duty despite the fact that she feels Chris was attempting to perform his duty when he was killed. She asks Derek Strange to uncover just what did happen to her son and so redeem the general perception of him.

               Derek's investigations  lead him to Quinn whom he feels could help unravel the particulars of Wilson's death. Along the way Strange discovers that Leona's daughter, Sondra, has become a hopeless drug addict  living in degradation and utterly at the mercy of  the drug masters of the Washington DC area. Derek makes it one of his goals to restore the girl to her mother and attempt her redemption.

                Redemption, both failed and succesful, as well as race is another theme of this involving book. It is odd that such a topic be juxtaposed against the violence and general grue of Pelecanos's narrative. Nonetheless, the various threads meld and work impeccably. The entire work portrays a dance of the doomed - the criminals, the bent police, the drug addicts. Despite this pessimism, there is a ray of optimism apparent to leaven the whole despite the possibility that the narrative could be described as violence made word.

              Pelecanos's books are always absorbing. The characters are well drawn and the whole tightly plotted. My own aversion for violence did nothing to negate the interest I found in the tale. Oh yes, and the resolution of the mystery is satisfying despite the surrounding deep gloom.

                                                             SOUL CIRCUS
                                                          by George P. Pelecanos
                                                             ISBN 0752851918
                                                                  341 pages
                                                                     Orion
                                                                 May 2 2003
                                                                    $29.95
                                                         reviewed by Denise Wels
                                                                  July 2003

                   Former  bartender, electronics salesman, shoe salesman,  construction  worker, and independent film producer George Pelecanos brings a wealth of non-academic as well as journalistic experience to his writing. His books, which include Nick's Trip , Shoedog , Down by the River Where the Dead Men Go   A Firing Offence, The Big Blowdown , King Suckerman ,The Sweet Forever , Shame the Devil , Right As Rain  and Hell To Pay have gradually become accepted by a reading audience eager to embrace new talent. Pelecanos, a Greek American, is reputed to have been aware of some racial prejudice during his formative years and has certainly taken up the cause, in his books, of those marginalised (to employ the fashionable term) by modern society. He has obviously studied the plight of those black Americans living in a futureless abyss in and around the Washington DC area where he sets his books.

                    Derek Strange and Terry Quinn who  featured in Right as Rain are the protagonists of Soul Circus: Nick  Stefanos , Pelecanos' chief character in another series, also plays a part in this episode in the casebook of Strange Investigations.

                   Derek Strange, the likable black Everyman private investigator of Right As Rain, has married his assistant, Janine, and is attempting to balance his increasingly settled and happy home life against the demands of his profession. He is striving to prevent a client, drug dealer and overall bad man, Granville Oliver, from receiving the death penalty in a society which abhors that penalty while permitting it. Oliver's removal from the active crime scene of Washington DC has left a n