THE HOOK
By Donald E. Westlake
Mysterious, $23.95
Who knew novelists could be so nasty? Sure, every once in a while, the leading lights of the literary world will engage in a public cat fight. But if the estimable Donald E. Westlake is to be believed, these same wordsmiths are capable of murder most foul as well.
In “The Hook,” the three-time Edgar winner sets up an intriguing equation, involving two accomplished writers and old pals who find themselves on opposite ends of the creative spectrum. The most celebrated of the two, Bryce Proctorr, still commands million-dollar contracts, even though he’s in the throes of a massive writer’s block. The other, Wayne Prentice, is a prolific midlist type who’s struggling to cope with bottom-line trends in the publishing industry.
The men meet semicute in a New York library one afternoon while researching new projects, and, over cocktails, hatch a plan to reverse each other’s fortunes. Since much of Proctorr’s problem is caused by a shrewish trophy wife, he tries to interest Prentice in a scheme that would trade her murder for Proctorr’s publishing Prentice’s newly completed manuscript in his own name. Thus Prentice would see his novel hit the best-seller charts and earn a lot more money than he would in a lifetime of cranking out fiction and freelance magazine articles.
Westlake, whose “The Ax” was one of the most satisfying and insightful crime novels of 1997, is a master at making this kind of offbeat dynamic succeed. The writers’ evil strategy comes off without a hitch, and each prospers in his own way, until the demons of doubt and jealousy begin festering in Proctorr’s head. At that point an already-dark scenario turns completely creepy–and highly entertaining.
BLUE DEER THAW
By Jamie Harrison
Hyperion, $22.95
Unlike most mystery writers, Jamie Harrison tends to kill someone off near the beginning of her books and then more or less ignore the misdeed for the next hundred or so pages. The crime-solving is postponed in favor of updating her fans on the comings and goings of the residents of tiny Blue Deer, Mont., where everyone seems to be involved in everyone else’s business all the time (picture an overserved Lake Wobegon, surrounded by mountains).
The trick, of course, is to make us care about these people–all friends, relatives and occasional prisoners of Sheriff Jules Clement–who, anywhere else, might seem merely to be annoying busybodies. But the beauty of the Big Sky setting and Harrison’s heavenly prose combine to keep us interested in these Blue Deer layabouts, when what most of us are really looking for is, yes, a mystery.
Here, the locals are consumed with preparations for the wedding of a popular couple, one of whom already is famously pregnant. The incongruously elaborate festivity is to take place at a historic hotel on the outskirts of town, which also happens to be where a woman was just found frozen in the snow. That death, while suspicious, fails to put much of a damper on the preparations for the wedding, until several other folks–all of whom are associated with a treasure trove of paintings and artifacts stored at the inn–start turning up prematurely deceased.
That’s about it, really. The joy in reading “Blue Deer Thaw” comes in immersing oneself in all the shenanigans surrounding the wedding, determining who’s sleeping with whom and marveling at how the hamlet’s residents survive yet another winter, minus the benefit of an AA chapter. None of this could be accomplished without the empathy and wit of Harrison, a genre artist whose splendid fiction could be taught as part of any university’s creative-writing program.
A BEER AT A BAWDY HOUSE
By David J. Walker
St. Martin’s, $23.95
Sometimes it seems the top Chicago mystery writers–David J. Walker, Sara Paretsky, Barbara D’Amato, Hugh Holton, the late Eugene Izzi among them–tailor their novels to fit readers who live within sight of the Sears Tower, and only incidentally for those who dwell beyond the collar counties. Such Chicago-centric books as “A Beer at a Bawdy House” often provide as much historical, geographical and political background as a civics textbook. But considering how terrific a setting for real and imagined mayhem our city is, that’s hardly an indictable offense.
In this second installment in Walker’s promising Wild Onion series, a widely respected Roman Catholic bishop is unexpectedly reminded of a mistake he made years before on a fishing trip to Canada. It isn’t anything earthshaking, but several threatening phone calls prompt the bishop to seek the counsel of the intrepid private eye-lawyer team of Kirsten and Dugan, who tend to accept jobs most other firms wisely turn down.
As a former priest, Walker informs his work with lots of archdiocesan color, while as a practicing attorney, he also adds a firm legal foundation and appreciation of the byzantine workings of City Hall. His love for the city also comes through in his ability to place readers right alongside Kirsten and Dugan as they take their well-paced investigation from Lincoln Park to Lincoln Village to New Buffalo’s Irish Riviera.
DRUMSTICKS
By Charlotte Carter
Mysterious, $22.95
At the beginning of Charlotte Carter’s third Nanette Hayes mystery, we find Carter’s sexy and savvy New York sax player cum amateur PI in the throes of a debilitating funk. After returning from Paris and an ill-fated love affair, she has sought solace in the bottle and blown off almost every opportunity to further her jazz career.
Soon, however, help arrives in the form of a pair of voodoo dolls sewn by a seemingly good-hearted street peddler, Ida. Hayes’ fortunes immediately turn, and she begins making dough on e street and in clubs. After she decides to thank Ida by inviting her to one of her gigs, the dollmaker stops a bullet that police are convinced was intended for someone else at the nightclub.
Hayes feels guilty for this ugly turn of events and takes it upon herself to determine the truth. After much digging, she discovers that Ida led an adventurous life and wasn’t quite as angelic as she appeared to be. With the help of several colorful acquaintances and some sharp-edged New York cops, Hayes gets to the bottom of the mystery, but not before a promising hip-hop singer and his girlfriend are murdered and the leggy sax player herself is threatened with violence.
Carter has created a terrific protagonist here, one who takes full advantage of her sensuality and irreverent personality.
ALL THE LUCKY ONES ARE DEAD
By Gar Anthony Haywood
Putnam, $23.95
In the latest installment of Gar Anthony Haywood’s excellent Aaron Gunner series, the hard-boiled South-Central L.A. sleuth is called upon to solve the murder of a hip-hop star (a case clearly inspired by the deaths of rappers Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur, and–not coincidentally–the incarceration of shady record-label executive Shug Knight on a probation violation).
Although he could use the money, Gunner is reluctant to accept the assignment, which the police have written off as a suicide and which comes at a time when Gunner has already begged off a request to investigate threats to conservative black radio talker Sparkle Johnson (a female version of Larry Elder). But events conspire to force Gunner to wade into the seemingly unrelated messes, and he becomes a target as well.
Despite its mere 232 pages, “All the Lucky Ones Are Dead” still manages to pack quite a wallop. Haywood sticks to the basics and loads the reality-based gangsta storyline with trademark tough-guy dialogue and believably gritty settings. Beginning writers might note that Haywood and Carter’s fine novels are relatively short (proving that size doesn’t always add punch to a story) and that readers–like horse players–sometimes welcome a sprint, as do critics.
IN BRIEF: Fans of Chicago-based mysteries will want to sample the latest from Hugh Holton and Eleanor Taylor Bland, two fine writers who showcase black police detectives in their dramas. In “Time of the Assassins” (Forge, $24.95), Holton pits Cmdr. Larry Cole against a well-financed gang of narco-terrorists and a millionaire hit man in their employ. Bland’s “Scream in Silence” (St. Martin’s, $23.95) finds Lincoln Prairie in the grip of a daring arsonist and Marti MacAllister trying to balance her time between crimefighting and caring for her and her partner’s family. Both books are worthy additions to their authors’ series.
There’s no more interesting protagonist in crime fiction than Barbara Seranella’s anti-heroic Munch Mancini, a recovering drug addict, ex-biker chick, ex-con, practicing auto mechanic and wannabe limousine mogul. That the author shares much of the same background with her character only makes the series–“Unwanted Company” (HarperCollins, $24) being the third title–that much richer. The unwelcome guest of the title is one of Munch’s old running mates who’s fresh out of jail and doesn’t quite get her friend’s new clean-and-sober lifestyle. Other new arrivals include a deranged serial killer and two-bit State Department agent. Don’t miss this series.
Two new anthologies try to encapsulate 100 years of genre fiction. The noir-tinged “Sleuths of the Century” (Carroll & Graf, $24.95) offers story-length looks at some of our most beloved P.I.s and cops, including Nero Wolfe, Hercule Poirot, V.I. Warshawski, Jim Chee, Matt Scudder, Easy Rawlins and Lew Archer. Coming up in another month or so, Otto Penzler and Tony Hillerman will introduce “The Best American Mystery Stories of the Century” (Houghton Mifflin, $24), which rounds up all the usual suspects and also finds room for such writers as William Faulkner, Ernest Hemingway, James Thurber and Joyce Carol Oates.
