Police – MostlyFiction Book Reviews We Love to Read! Sat, 28 Oct 2017 19:51:27 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.4.18 MISTERIOSO by Arne Dahl /2011/misterioso-by-arne-dahl/ Wed, 13 Jul 2011 16:00:48 +0000 /?p=19144 Book Quote:

“Not much had been said during the meeting, no new progress had been made. They were now working from the theory that the killing spree was over and that the deficit for the Swedish business world was going to stop at three and only three entries: Kuno Daggfeldt, Bernhard Strand-Julen, and Nils-Emil Carlberger.

They were wrong.”

Book Review:

Review by Bonnie Brody (JUL 13, 2011)

Misterioso by Arne Dahl is a unique and wonderful book. It is part mystery, part police procedural, part existential philosophy and part comedy. There is something so distinctive about this book that it resists categorization. On the surface, it is a mystery but so much of the novel lies below the surface, getting into the characters’ minds and thoughts as they live their lives and work at trying to catch a serial killer.

The title of the book comes from a piece of music composed by Thelonius Monk, a famous American jazz pianist and composer, now deceased. There is a serial killer on the loose in Sweden who is killing very rich and powerful men. The killer waits for his prey in the victim’s living room listening to Monk’s Misterioso on the stereo and when the victim arrives he is shot in the head two times. The killer views the music as “a pantomime, a peculiar dance of death.” The Swedish police put together what they call an A-Team to find this killer.

Paul Hjelm is one of those chosen for this select group. It is ironic for him as on the afternoon he was picked, he expected to be fired. He was with his colleagues that morning and there was a hostage situation in a building near police headquarters. An Estonian immigrant, here illegally, was holding a group of people in the immigration office hostage. Paul decides to take matters into his own hands and he goes into the office and shoots the man holding the others hostage. Paul feels very badly about doing this and expects Internal Affairs to fire him for his impulsive action. He acted on his own without waiting for back-up. Instead of being fired, he becomes a national hero.

The group gathered to form the A-Team is very original. There is a singer – a man who used to be Mr. Sweden when he took steroids; there is a Chilean who is called black-head because he is not blonde like most Swedes; there is a woman who also sings and likes to masturbate in her office; there is a Finn who has a secrets from his past life prior to coming to Sweden; there is a pedantic idealist who loves to give his political views. The reader sees how the team interacts and gets to know one another. Hultin, the team leader, always enters the room through a mysterious door that no one knows about. Where it comes from and where it leads to is a mystery.

As the team works together, there are four victims dead. The A-Team checks out all kinds of leads including the Russian and Estonian mafia, the victims’ businesses and personal lives, and they find out a lot of information. One of the victims is a pedophile, together the three of them tried to rape a woman who later committed suicide, and some of their businesses are involved in mafia corruption. “An amphetamine-babbling proprietor of a video store with private viewing booths in Norrmalm had cheerfully offered them some child porn films with Russian subtitles, even though they had shown him their police ID. He was arrested.”

Paul is in the midst of a marital crisis, an existential aloneness where he and his wife of many years, Cilla, can no longer communicate and find themselves totally separate. Paul has this “dreadful, unbearable feeling that we can never really reach anyone else. Never ever, not even those closest to us. The horrifying sensation of absolute existential aloneness. And now he saw this same emotion in Cilla’s eyes.”

We learn about the Palme murder that is a huge deal in Sweden. It is mentioned several times in this novel. Olof Palme, the Prime Minister of Sweden, was assassinated in 1986 and the murderer was never found. The A-Group does not want to be seen as ineffective like the investigation of the Palme murder turned out to be. It is very much in the back of their minds as they search for the serial killer. When they do not have luck finding the murderer after a month “either they were doing something fundamentally wrong, or else they were dealing with another Palme murder.”

We also learn about the prevalence of xenophobia in Sweden. The term black-head refers to anyone who doesn’t have blond hair as do most of the Swedes. There is a great deal of prejudice against immigrants and looking like a Swede is considered very important.

“The more they got to know each other, the harder it becames to understand each other. As always.” This background of existential ennui reminded me of Sartre and Camus, especially Sartre’s book Nausea. Paul becomes obsessed with a mark on his cheek, most likely a common pimple. However, he worries it’s melanoma and the mark takes on different shapes depending on his mood and the different crises he is facing.

Much of the dialog is tongue in cheek and I found myself laughing at the oddest moments. Tiina Nunnally did a wonderful job of translation and the book flows throughout. There is not a dull moment. It seems like the Scandinavians are having a true renaissance in crime writing and Arne Dahl is right at the top with this first in a 10 book series finally available to US readers.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 18 readers
PUBLISHER: Pantheon (July 12, 2011)
REVIEWER: Bonnie Brody
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Wikipedia page on Arne Dahl
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: More Scandinavian mysteries: 

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

The Shadow Woman by Ake Edwardson

The Snowman by Jo Nesbo

Bibliography (translated only):

]]> THE SILENT GIRL by Tess Gerritsen /2011/the-silent-girl-by-tess-gerritsen/ Tue, 05 Jul 2011 12:41:17 +0000 /?p=19096 Book Quote:

“Violence leaves a mark, a psychic stain that can never be scrubbed away with mere soap and bleach. In a neighborhood as insular as Chinatown, everyone would remember what had happened…. Even if this building were torn down and another erected in its place, this bloodied ground would remain forever haunted in the minds of those who knew its ugly past.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky  (JUL 5, 2011)

Forensic pathologist Dr. Maura Isles angers the members of the Boston Police Department when she testifies against Officer Wayne Graff. Dr. Isles maintains that Graff’s savage beating of alleged cop killer Fabian Dixon led to the suspect’s death. Although Maura knows that she will be ostracized because of her testimony, she tells the truth as she sees it: “I only concern myself with the facts…wherever they may lead,” she says. Her attitude irritates her good friend, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, who can understand why Graff “lost it.”

Tess Gerritsen’s The Silent Girl is about the evil that men do, the grieving relatives who are left behind to mourn their dead, and the thirst for vengeance. The main plot centers around a tragedy that occurred nineteen years earlier, leaving five people dead, including the alleged perpetrator, a Chinese cook named Wu Weimin. The incident was known as the Red Phoenix massacre, named after the restaurant in Chinatown where the carnage took place. The police close the case, after deciding that Wu shot the others and then turned the gun on himself. However, the widow of one of the victims defends Wu; she insists that he was a kind and unaggressive man who would never hurt anyone.

Dr. Isles, Homicide Detective Jane Rizzoli, and Jane’s partner, Barry Frost, find themselves in the thick of a complex case that begins when the unidentified corpse of a beautiful woman is found on a roof. Her neck is slashed and her hand is severed by a very sharp implement. Who was she, and why was she murdered this way? As the investigation proceeds, it eventually becomes clear that there is some connection between this killing and those that were blamed almost two decades ago on Wu Weimin.

The Silent Girl is sharply written, engrossing, fast-paced, and suspenseful. The author skillfully incorporates intriguing information about Chinese history, martial arts, and forensics into her story. The well-defined characters include Iris Fang, fifty-five, who runs a martial arts academy and serves as an occasional first person narrator; her talented and loyal associate, Bella Li; Johnny Tam an ambitious young Chinese detective; and Patrick Dion, the grieving father of a seventeen-year-old girl, Charlotte, who disappeared a month after her mother was gunned down in the Red Phoenix restaurant.

As the investigation proceeds, Rizzoli and her colleagues become increasingly baffled. No matter how much information they uncover, the most important facts remain stubbornly elusive. It is almost as if the detectives are chasing ghosts. Gerritsen skillfully wraps everything up with an electrifying conclusion that raises a provocative question: Is taking the law into one’s own hands ever justified?

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 161 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books (July 5, 2011)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

Romance Novels:

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique

]]> MISERY BAY by Steve Hamilton /2011/misery-bay-by-steve-hamilton/ Sun, 03 Jul 2011 14:08:52 +0000 /?p=19146 Book Quote:

“He hanged himself. From a tree. There was some alcohol in his system, I guess, but… I mean, he went out on his own and he drove down by the lake and he hanged himself.”
“Did he leave a note?”
“No note. There usually isn’t.”
“I know, but…”
But nothing I thought. The man was right. Despite everything you see in movies, no matter how somebody kills himself, they almost never leave a note.

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale  (JUL 3, 2011)

After a wait of 5 years and 2 non-series books, including last year’s Edgar award winning The Lock Artist, Steve Hamilton has brought back Alex McKnight in Misery Bay, the eighth book in this excellent series. While relaxing at the Glasgow Inn in Paradise, Michigan with the owner Jackie Connery and his friend Vinnie “Red Sky” LeBlanc, Alex’s evening is interrupted by a man he didn’t expect to ever see there, Chief Roy Maven, who surprisingly asks for Alex’s help. Chief Maven, the head of the nearby Sault Ste. Marie police force, wants Alex to help his old state trooper partner, Charles “Raz” Razniewski, determine why his son Charlie would hang himself in a remote part of Misery Bay, Lake Superior on the Upper Peninsula part of Michigan.

Alex reluctantly agrees to help by visiting Michigan Tech, the college where Charlie was a senior majoring in forestry, a recent change from the major his father wanted him to study, criminal justice. Alex meets Charlie’s roommates and other friends and really doesn’t find much to help understand the suicide. Although Charlie and his father had some words about the switch in major, Alex doesn’t really find anything significant. However, when Alex returns to Chief Maven’s house to let Raz know about his conversations, he finds Raz on the floor with his throat cut open and dead in his own blood

This leads to the visit to northern Michigan of two FBI agents, the annoying and distrusting Agent Fleury and the somewhat friendlier Agent Janet Long. Neither wants Alex or Chief Maven’s help and encourage them to stay out of their way. Of course, that’s the wrong thing to say to Alex or Chief Maven, who despite their differences, are both passionate in their dedication to find Raz’ killer. Working together and separately, they are more successful than the FBI in finding the clues that may uncover the murderer of Raz and possibly other related murders and possibly a link to the Chief’s past. Hamilton does a very good job in bringing Alex and the Chief together, providing a little more depth into the struggles that both men face with their past and how it influences their current and future relationships with their family and friends.

Overall, this is an excellent book and I can only hope the start of more in this series. Although I’d certainly recommend starting at the beginning of this series, Steve Hamilton does do a good job in providing enough back story about each of the main characters so that this book could be read without having read the prior books. However, really this background serves more as a reminder to the faithful readers and Hamilton does hold back on the much of the details of the major impact on Alex’s life that occurred in A Stolen Season.

I really enjoyed how Hamilton presented the main story of this book and the back story of learning more about Chief Maven and the changing relationship between him and Alex. However, the scenes at the Glasgow Inn and those between Alex and Vinnie were minimal in this book and that was a little disappointing after all this time waiting for the new book in the series. I certainly felt as if Alex (and Steve Hamilton) were just not ready to deal completely with the hardships from the prior book, although you could feel the pain that Alex still has. Although five years has occurred between books, that is not the case between the two books as the events in A Stolen Season appear much more recent.

To me, Steve Hamilton is one of the best authors at developing characters especially in the use of dialog in developing his characters, especially with the occasional humor. He also does a really great job in making the reader see and feel the Upper Peninsula part of Michigan where most people have not visited. I If I ever went to Paradise, Michigan, I would expect it to be cold (and snowy even in April) and that Jackie would be behind the bar at the Glasgow Inn. I’d ask him for one of his special supply of Canadian Moulson (which he probably wouldn’t give me). If Alex wasn’t there, I’d try to find the five cabins his father made. Also, although many readers I’m sure have grown up near American Indians, many of us have not, and reading about them in this series is also educational as I trust Hamilton has presented these people and their relationships correctly. The primary first person presentation from the mind and voice of Alex McKnight also helps better understand him and his relationships with his friends and enemies. Overall,  Steve Hamilton is one of the best people writing today and I wish he he’d decide to quick his day job at IBM to write full time.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 44 readers
PUBLISHER: Minotaur Books; First Edition edition (June 7, 2011)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Steve Hamiltion
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of: 

Night Work

And another set in Northern Michigan:

Dead of Winter by P.J. Parrish

Bibliography:

Alex McNight series:

Stand-alone:

]]> ICE COLD by Tess Gerritsen /2010/ice-cold-by-tess-gerritsen/ Thu, 01 Jul 2010 19:12:27 +0000 /?p=10395 Book Quote:

“Something had caused the previous occupants of this settlement to flee, leaving doors unlocked, windows open, and meals uneaten. Something so terrible it had caused them to abandon cherished pets to cold and starvation. Was it still here, the thing that drove them from this place? Or was there nothing at all there except her own dark fantasies, born of fear and isolation?”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (JUL 1, 2010)

In Tess Gerritsen’s Ice Cold, forty-two year old medical examiner Maura Isles is heartbroken. She is in a relationship with Daniel Brophy, a Catholic priest. However, their year-long affair has not brought either of them much happiness. Daniel is reluctant to give up his calling, and Maura is frustrated with his inability to make up his mind. After spending the night together, they part. Maura flies from Boston to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, to attend a medical conference. There, she meets a former classmate, pathologist Doug Comley, who is divorced and has a thirteen year-old-daughter, Grace. He asks Maura to accompany him and his friends on a trip to a cross-country ski lodge. She agrees, but soon regrets her decision. Doug loses his way in the snowy landscape, and they end up stranded. When Daniel and Boston homicide detective Jane Rizzoli do not hear from Maura and are unable to contact her, they fear that something terrible has happened.

Ice Cold is an action-packed thrill ride with intriguing characters we care about. Maura is courageous but realistic; she knows that if she is not rescued soon, she will probably die in this frozen wilderness. Jane and her husband, Gabriel Dean, an ex-Marine and an FBI agent, are determined to find their friend, but they will face obstacles more formidable than the horrendous weather. Meanwhile, Daniel is wracked with guilt over the way he has treated the woman he loves, especially when he realizes that he may never see her again. This is a story about survival in the wilderness under extreme conditions, the limits of romantic love, and the dangers of bending one’s will to a charismatic cult leader. Jeremiah Goode has created a sect with hundreds of followers who slavishly adhere to his decrees, some of which are rather repellant. Maura’s struggle to survive will become interconnected with the fate of Goode and his supporters.

Gerritsen maintains suspense by shifting back and forth from Maura’s travails to Jane and Gabriel Dean’s efforts to save her. Unexpectedly, Maura discovers that she is being shadowed, but who is following her and what does he want? The conclusion, which is a humdinger, includes one or two surprising twists and turns. Gerritsen has written an absorbing and chilling story that will keep readers turning pages well into the night.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-5from 169 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (June 29, 2010)
REVIEWER: Tess Gerritsen
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Tess Gerritsen
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

Bibliography:

Medical Thrillers:

Jane Rizzoli & Maura Isles Series:

Romance Novels:

* Originally published as the Tavistock Series

** Originally published as an Harlequin Intrique

]]> 2 IN THE HAT by Raffi Yessayan /2010/2-in-the-hat-by-raffi-yessayan/ Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:59:16 +0000 /?p=10045 Book Quote:

“Show me your hands!” Alves commanded, ducking behind another tree. He was less than ten yards away now. He put the light on the perp again.

In the artificial cone of yellow light, Alves saw that the figure was wearing a tuxedo.

Stepping from behind the tree, Alves made his way forward. The man stood unnaturally rigid. Not even a flinch as Alves stepped over brush and dry leaves to reach him. The man was ocean frank, like the girl. The scene was familiar. Nothing he had seen himself. But he had heard enough from his old sergeant Wayne Mooney to know what he had just found.

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (JUN 12, 2010)

Raffi Yessayan’s second book, 2 in the Hat, is a somewhat disappointing, but still enjoyable sequel to his first book 8 in the Box. This book takes place 3 years after 8 in the Box and includes many of the same characters with continuing emphasis on Assistant District Attorney Connie Darget and police detectives Angel Alves and Wayne Mooney.

Detective Alves’ daughter accidently finds a dead girl in the playground where she and other members of the Mitey Mites football team that her father coaches are running a last lap after practice. Alves quickly runs to the scene and finds not only the dead girl but a dead man posed in a way that is similar to an old unsolved Prom Night Killer case his former sergeant Wayne Mooney told him about from ten years ago. Because of his prior experience, Mooney is reinstated to the homicide division to work with Alves to see if the Prom Night killer has returned or if this is the work of a copycat killer.

While Mooney and Alves are tied up on the Prom Night killer, Detective Ray Figgs is looking into neighborhood killings that appear to be gang related. Figgs has struggled in his job lately being more interested in drinking than solving murders, but something about these cases is keeping him sober enough to make him return to his former form.

Assistant District Connie Darget is always around to help the detectives with both cases and decides to look into the past Prom Night killings and provide his thoughts about the killer to the detectives. Detective Alves finds Darget more of a pain than a help as he ignores his ideas. Alves also becomes distracted by the three year old Blood Bath Killer case. He begins to think that maybe Mitch Beaulieu who they thought was the killer, and who had committed suicide before anyone could talk to him, may not have been the Blood Bath killer as he begins to suspect someone else who worked closely with Mitch Beaulieu.

The tension builds throughout the book as the detectives all work to find the killers while the killers work to keep the detectives from finding them. Yessayan includes a few twists along the way to keep the suspense building.

As in the first book, Yessayan uses a mix of third person perspectives to show the thoughts of Connie Darget, the homicide police detectives as well as a serial killer that keeps the police busy looking for clues. Of course, that is part of the problem I had with this book as much of the story seems familiar from the first book and not just because the characters are the same. Detective Alves is still having difficulty balancing work with family as he chases clues to a serial killer, Detective Sergeant Mooney keeps the pressure on Alves to work the case instead of going home to his family, Connie is still an attorney usually working to his own benefit and, of course, a serial killer is on the loose.

I’m not sure if reading the first book is beneficial or not to reading this book. Although Yessayan provides enough detail about the characters and back story that this book can be read as a standalone, he does keep some things from the reader that would be known if the first book had been read. However, I’m thinking that knowledge was not necessarily a good thing as some of the suspense that builds in the first book and again in the second book for a new reader was not as suspenseful to me since I knew something about a key character that was not provided to readers of only the second book. This may be another reason I was somewhat disappointed with this book.

Yessayan follows the same style as in his first book having many chapters (109 total) with each chapter in the perspective of one of the main characters. No doubt, James Patterson is one of the people who influenced his writing style. I actually enjoy this short chapter approach especially if I just have a few minutes to read a chapter. The change in perspective is done effectively as I never was confused about which character was the focus of that chapter.

One thing that is missing from this book that I enjoyed in the first book is more on the legal aspects and the lives and cases of the assistant district attorneys. This book is much more of a police procedural / serial killer suspense book and less of a legal thriller novel. With Yessayan’s own experience as a Boston district attorney, he was certainly able to bring much to these parts of the book and with less about legal issues and lawyers, he’s writing in areas that I’m sure he is familiar, but likely lacks the same in-depth experience that makes the story more realistic. Hopefully, he’ll bring more of his legal experiences to his future books and leave the serial killer novels to others.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 37 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books; 1 edition (April 13, 2010)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Raffi Yessayan
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

8 in the Box

Bibliography:

]]> 8 IN THE BOX by Raffi Yessayan /2010/8-in-the-box-by-raffi-yessayan/ Sat, 12 Jun 2010 14:58:14 +0000 /?p=10052 Book Quote:

“She was alive when she was put in the bath?”
“I think so. There are other ways to drain a person of her blood, but the easiest way is to have the heart do the pumping for you.”
“So he puts his victims in the bathtub and slits their wrists. Are they incapacitated in any way? Unconscious maybe?”
“No trace of drugs in the blood.”
“So maybe he hits them over the head and knocks them out. Who knows? But whoever lost that blood is definitely dead, right?”
“Angel, I can’t say so with any scientific certainty, and this isn’t my specialty, but if that was Susan McCarthy’s blood in the tub, my guess is she’s dead.”

Book Review:

Review by Chuck Barksdale (JUN 12, 2010)

New author Raffi Yessayan’s first book 8 in the Box is a solid legal thriller based in Boston, Massachusetts that is also a well done and enjoyable police procedural. With a mix of perspectives, Yessayan shows the thoughts of the homicide police detectives and the district attorneys as well as a serial killer that keeps the police busy looking for clues.

The book focuses on several young assistant district attorneys, with the lead being Conrad “Connie” Darget, somewhat more experienced than the other attorneys and one that is respected for his success by both his male and female co-workers. Connie also develops good relationships with the police and works to earn their trust when he visits crime scenes. This also helps him in assuring the cases he tries will be managed correctly in the field so he will be more successful in winning his cases.

Connie gets to work with two main homicide detectives, new detective Angel Alves and the more experienced Sergeant Detective Wayne Mooney. The two detectives certainly are challenged to solve what become a series of missing people whose blood is left behind in a bathtub of water. The “Blood Bath Killer” is careful to not leave any significant clues as the two detectives work tirelessly to solve the murder. Mooney’s continual press on the young Alves does lead to some stress in Alves’ family as the added hours often leave him unable to participate in family functions his wife Marcy plans. The story includes several twists along the way as the killer confuses the detectives with no clues and a mix of victims.

Although this book is mostly about finding the serial killer, Yessayan does spend a fair amount of time building the back story of the various characters, with an emphasis on the attorneys. This makes sense since Yessayan spent 11 years as a Boston assistant district attorney and he is obviously comfortable writing about these experiences even if fictional. Yessayan spends the most time on Connie Darget and his cases along with his relationship with law student Andi Norton. Andi spends too much time on the cases Connie gives her and this only leads to problems with her law classes. Other attorneys include Mitch Beaulieu, a sensitive African-American attorney who struggles with the many cases against African-Americans, and Nick Costa who is more interested in impressing women then in being prepared for his cases which he never seems to win.

Yessayan’s style in the book is to have many chapters (85 total) with each chapter in the perspective of one of several main characters. Since the book doesn’t really feature one main character, many different perspectives are presented; however, Yessayan does a very good job of making it clear from whose perspective that chapter is in and at no time did I feel confused. Although I wasn’t sure about this approach at the beginning, I think it worked and allowed to get into the minds of the key characters, including the killer Richter, thus allowing the reader to understand what was going on in the book. Of course, although you do learn more from being in the mind of the killer, Yessayan does not give the reader too much information too soon.

I’ve just started Raffi Yessayan’s second book, 2 in the Hat, a sequel to 8 in the Box. Many of the same characters are back and the same mix of perspectives with short chapters is in this book. I’m not sure I agree with the numbering approach of the book titles, especially since the numbers are not in order. I had to keep reminding myself to read the “8” book before the “2” book. I’d suggest Yessayan use a different approach if he continues the series since this will be nearly impossible to keep straight after a few books in the series.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-4-0from 24 readers
PUBLISHER: Ballantine Books (March 23, 2010)
REVIEWER: Chuck Barksdale
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Raffi Yessayan
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

2 in the Hat

Bibliography:

]]> THE THIRD RAIL by Michael Harvey /2010/the-third-rail-by-michael-harvey/ Thu, 22 Apr 2010 23:53:19 +0000 /?p=9032 Book Quote:

“The pieces of this case, maybe two or three cases, held together by the thinnest of wires: circumstance and an educated guess. The rest floated and turned in the darkness, offering themselves up as a piece of the puzzle, with no real clue as to how or why.”

Book Review:

Review by Eleanor Bukowsky (APR 22, 2010)

The Windy City is the setting for Michael Harvey’s fast-paced thriller, The Third Rail. Private investigator Michael Kelly is part of a task force that includes a detective named Vince Rodriguez and a no-nonsense FBI agent, Katherine Lawson. Their goal is to find a sadistic sniper who shot several passengers riding Chicago’s public transit system. Someone in the know contacts Kelly, and the conversation leads the ex-cop to believe that the key to this puzzling case may lie in the distant past.

Unwilling to be a helpless pawn in a psychotic individual’s twisted game, Kelly launches his own investigation with the help of Hubert Russell, a “twenty-something cyber hacker.” Kelly also consults a retired policeman named Jimmy Doherty in order to gather information and gain a fresh perspective. Michael scours his memory, as he tries to figure out what happened long ago that could have driven someone to commit such vicious crimes. He soon suspects that the shooter may have an accomplice who is nursing a long-standing grudge.

Not everything in this novel is gloom and doom. Kelly has a soft spot for his year-old spaniel, Maggie, and a high regard for a beautiful judge named Rachel Swenson. Although Rachel is uncomfortable with Michael’s penchant for getting into trouble, she cares enough about him to keep him in her life. However, as events heat up, Rachel may very well run out of patience with her boyfriend’s tendency to track down felons on his own.

Harvey has a spare and straightforward writing style, enhanced by brief, staccato sentences and crisp dialogue. Dramatic descriptive passages add to the tension-filled atmosphere. After the perpetrator picks his first victim, “He pulled the trigger, and the woman dropped straight down. Like a puppet with strings cut, she was all here and there, arms, legs, and a smear of lipstick across her lips and down her chin.” This is not a prettified Chicago. There are rats the size of cats, seamy alleys filled with dumpsters, and “the last remnants of the city’s Cabrini-Green housing complex project” provide a haven for gangs and other miscreants. In the high-rise, which is now little more than a shell, “metal mailboxes scored with bullet holes ran along one wall, and the linoleum floor was covered with broken glass and a handful of syringes.” Even Chicago’s blunt mayor, John J. Wilson, is a profane and arrogant boor who bullies people into doing his bidding.

This gritty police procedural keeps us engrossed until it wanders off track during the overly cluttered conclusion. Harvey throws everything but the kitchen sink into the mix (terrorism, abduction, corruption, violence, cover-ups, you name it), and not all of the myriad twists and turns work well. However, The Third Rail is, for the most part, a suspenseful and entertaining novel that is as unpredictable and rough-edged as the most rundown areas of Chicago’s South Side.

Editor’s note: A portion of this book’s proceeds will be donated to The Cambodian Children’s Fund.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-5from 51 readers
PUBLISHER: Knopf; 1 edition (April 20, 2010)
REVIEWER: Eleanor Bukowsky
AVAILABLE AS A KINDLE BOOK? YES! Start Reading Now!
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Michael Harvey
EXTRAS: Excerpt
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: Read our review of:

We All Fall Down

The Fifth Floor

Bibliography:

]]> BAD COP by Paul Bacon /2009/bad-cop-by-paul-bacon/ Sat, 13 Jun 2009 03:02:25 +0000 /?p=2282 Book Quote:

“When the man wouldn’t budge, Clarabel threatened to write him a summons for disorderly conduct. He called her bluff by rightly pointing out that she had no authority to do so as a recruit. Undeterred, Clarabel took a practice summons out of her duffel bag and pen from her breast pocket. This was serious. Even though it was a practice summons, she was using it like the real thing, which could get her fired, thrown in jail, and possibly sued. I imagined her going to court. Then I imagined myself going to court to testify against her. I quickly turned away so as not to be a witness. I knew better than to try to stop her, so I just kept an eye on the man and hoped I didn’t have to restrain him.”

Book Review:

Reviewed by Dean Murphy (JUN 11, 2009)

A humorous view of cop life and fast-paced action introduce the reader to “New York’s least likely police officer.” What, Jeff Foxworthy as a cop? Close. Only Foxworthy or Paul Bacon could get away with plastering on the cover of a book: Duty called. I couldn’t find the phone. That, and the cop cliché of a partially eaten doughnut. Though this thought-provoking, hilarious reality cop tale appears to be mostly fiction, it is a memoir. “Some incidents have been combined, and all criminal suspects and NYPD members of service are depicted as composite characters, except the narrator and the cat.”

Bacon has the crap-magnet attraction of having the wrong job at the wrong time. “First I’d been fired via cell phone by someone in a taxi, and now I was being fired with a mass e-mail.” Bad Cop begins with Bacon being blown out of the Dot-Com bubble onto his ear, taking a survival job as a clerical temp in Lower Manhattan. Munching a chocolate croissant (before he discovered doughnuts), he notices with casual New Yorker indifference smoke billowing out of the World Trade Center. Ugly reality creeps into the cracks of his brain like bathtub tile mildew—an indelible stain.

Feeling flush with pride at being a post-9/11 New Yorker and needing a job, Bacon discovers that he’s five years over the age limit to become a firefighter—no chance to stand with Mayor Giuliani at Ground Zero. NYPD qualification requirements fortunately for Bacon are more lenient. “As long as I had two arms and two legs, no felony convictions and could tell red from green, I was almost assured a place on the force.” He becomes “New York’s least likely police officer” in a series of events that seem to be taken from the script of a television cop sit-com. Bacon draws a thin, blue line with philosophy and reason—and straddles both sides, favoring the one most economically viable. After four pitchers of margaritas, Bacon indicates to a friend about an obnoxious bar mate, “Let’s lose the guy.” His friend “Dave leaned in and whispered, ‘He’s buying.’” Bacon nodded. “A few more rounds couldn’t hurt.”

At the rookie induction ceremony, Paul Bacon is introduced to his partner, Suarez. “Cops go by last names, you know. What’s your name?” When Suarez thinks he says “Baker,” Paul replies, “Bacon. Like in breakfast.” Suarez responded, “‘Like pig?’ she laughed. ‘Man, you’re gonna get a lot of shit for that.’” Suarez later accidentally “pepper-sprayed me right in the mouth. In that instant, years of good intentions went up in flames, along with my lips and taste buds.”

Becoming a rookie for New York’s Finest is not cheap. Bacon had to shell out more than seven hundred dollars to buy police basics, such as uniforms—and handcuffs. Bacon stared in awe at the “shiny pair of handcuffs. They seemed intimidating even inside their plastic bag. I held the pack between thumb and forefinger and shook them out onto my bed as if I were discarding a dead rodent. It took a few minutes before I got the courage to pick them up.” With cat-killing curiosity, Bacon, of course, snapped on one cuff, then discovered that he couldn’t unlock it with the key provided. Searching two hundred thousand hits on the Web about how to unlock handcuffs, he learns that the key has to be turned three-hundred-sixty degrees in both directions, to unlock the offending bling. Of course, he could have called 911, but his blue uniform would have clashed with a red face. Lesson to be learned: Unlock anything in life as a test, before using it for the purpose intended. Don’t put okra seeds in your ear, just to see if you can get them out. Don’t touch your tongue to a frozen metal pole.

“Days at the academy began with ‘morning muster,’ our routine dose of inspection and humiliation.” Bacon is instructed by a sergeant, “a plebe like the rest of us, [to] open and close ranks—a series of verbal commands which, if not perfectly executed, could turn us all into bowling pins.” Bacon couldn’t remember the second of two dozen commands, after Attention! “Just then, I heard our platoon commandeer crowing behind me like a two-hundred-pound rooster, ‘De-TAAAIL! AH-ten-HUNH!’” Bacon’s fellow rookie/friend whispers in “a low, gravelly voice, as if in super-slow motion: ‘You are so screwed.’”

Inevitably, rookies are issued—omigod!—handguns. Bacon visualizes himself as Dirty Harry, name-drops Smith & Wesson, Sig Sauer “and the lightweight Glock, which looked like a watergun.” Selecting his service weapon, Bacon is in love. “This was not a casual first date…the handgun you picked first would be yours for the rest of your career. Like that ill-advised biker tattoo, you would have years to regret the wrong choice.” Bacon asks friend Bill Peters how much ammo the guns held. With the response of 16 rounds, “‘Then where does the CO2 cartridge go?’ I said with a confused look—as if his weapon was designed for paintball.” Peters responded with choice four-letter, multi-meaning, suggestive expletives.

Upon being promoted to sergeant while still at the academy, Bacon is advised not to be too dictatorial. Another officer advises not to let subordinates bowl (well, another four-letter word, anyway) him over. “I gave their suggestions only a moment of thought before deciding I would just be myself and see how that worked.” It’s easy to understand how Bacon was a successful cop. He had perps laughing so hard he placed them into custody without using any cop paraphernalia. Bad Cop is not just a humourous take on wearing NYPD blues. In a particularly touching scene, Bacon does not enforce closing a playground at winter’s early dusk, when a four-year-old on Harlem’s meanest streets has no other form of entertainment. Good cop!

Being New York’s soon-to-be-disgruntled finest begins to wear on Bacon. New York’s least likely becomes less likely, NYPD blues become jaded. His first “collar” (arrest) leaves him disheartened, when he believes what a shy, 48-year-old sheepish man tells him, despite multiple felony possessions. “Searching my first prisoner…was a long and nerve-racking experience. Dressed for winter in four jackets, two windbreakers, and three pairs of pants, the man had more pockets than a politician.” Truth be told. Bacon is ready for Suarez’s pepper spray, something to give him a reason to turn it in—even his true love, Smith & Wesson. This is the difficult part, watching enthusiastic youth learn that there is a real world out there, a world filled with those who mostly don’t share enthusiasm for anything, except escape from reality. And, also, because of the few “hairbag” officers who milk the system with excessively unearned overtime pay, truly bad cops.

Stop reading halfway through, if you want to retain good feelings about those who are supposed to serve and protect. Bad Cop, after all, is a memoir, reality. Bad Cop deserves a galaxy of stars, from Amazon’s 5-Star rating.

stars-5-0

Reviewer L. Dean Murphy was introduced to Bad Cop in what could be a scene from Bacon’s book. Forty-thousand feet over the Pacific, a flight attendant saw Murphy marking up an advance review copy of Cemetery Dance. “It’s sacrilege to write in a book,” she said. Murphy explained that he was a writer and book reviewer. The attendant said, “My son just published a book.” Oops! Murphy thought. He didn’t have a parachute, he’s not a good swimmer and it’s a long way to Tokyo. He relented, smiled when he learned that she “just happened to have a copy of Bad Cop.” Forty pages into it, he gave the author’s mother his card, asking the publisher to send a review copy. Murphy says the book is a fantastic read on its own merit, not just because Bacon’s mother bumped him up to first class and kept refilling his glass with the airline’s best Pinot Noir, and served an extra portion of barramundi with saffron cream sauce.

AMAZON READER RATING: stars-3-51from 5 readers
PUBLISHER: Bloomsbury USA; 1 edition (March 17, 2009)
REVIEWER: Dean Murphy
AMAZON PAGE: Bad Cop: New York’s Least Likely Police Officer Tells All
AUTHOR WEBSITE: Paul Bacon
EXTRAS: The Boston Phoenix review of Bad Cop
MORE ON MOSTLYFICTION: For more funny cop stories in fiction:

Flipping Out by Marshall Karp

Avalanche by Patrick McManus

Bibliography:

]]>