On Edge

This is the first crime novel that was written by Barbara Fister and I was finally able to track down a copy to buy and read, several weeks after I had read her 2nd book, In the Wind. This is also a police procedural with the protagonist a detective, Konstantin Slovo, who is currently on leave from the Chicago PD and under suspicion in the shooting death of his former partner. He is trying to restore a precarious emotional balance as well as recover from a serious gunshot wound he received in the same incident. On the flip of a coin, he heads east and stumbles into a small Maine town that is nearing mass hysteria after the kidnapping and murders of two young girls. The focus is on plot and the complex social psychology of groups getting crazy for any sort of action in the face of such horrible events that seem so out of their control. Slovo is haunted by the child abuse cases he has investigated in the past, especially the last one that he could never solve; it is therefore especially ironic that he becomes a victim of the town's vigilante group that is taking matters into their own hands. In the process of trying to help with the investigation--unofficially of course--he befriends local doctor Hari Chakravarty (the only source of any humor in the tale), the chief of police's daughter Ruth, and, it turns out, the killer.

Murder and Mayhem in Hong Kong

I recently wrote about the forces aligning that led me to John Burdett's Bangkok 8. I investigated what else he had written and discovered that the movie rights to his series of three books set in Bangkok (also Bangkok Haunts and BangkokTattoo) had been bought and are slated to start filming soon. But I also ran across this title, The Last Six Million Seconds, and after messing around with how much time that really was (about 2 months), was curious to find out its significance. The book is set in Hong Kong prior to the handover from Great Britain to mainland China and clocks everywhere are counting out the days, hours, minutes and seconds to June 30, 1997. Our protagonist, Chief Inspector Chan Siu-kai ("Charlie"), is another character defined by others and struggling with himself due to being only half of his chosen national identity, i.e., Chinese. The other half is Irish, but all of him is vehemently anti-communist since he attributes the murder of his mother Mai-Mai, to one of their many purges. Like the detective in the Bangkok series, he is incorruptible and therefore problematic for those who consider political expediencies a higher priority than solving crimes. The grisly murders that anchor this story are dubbed by the press as the "Mincer Murders" since 3 bodies were run through commercial meat grinders while still alive. A tip leads Chan to retrieve 3 heads, sealed in a plastic bag, floating in the sea on the jurisdictional border between Hong Kong and mainland China--raising hopes that the hamburger leftovers might be identified and help solve the murders. The plot is truly labyrinthine and involves the highest levels of government interfering in Chan's investigation. Absolutely no character is all good or all bad, although you would never want to cross paths with most of them. They are driven by history and greed and hopeless passions. Like Bangkok 8, this is not for the faint of heart but an absolutely engrossing thriller, with complex characters and atmospheric settings.

Metzger's Dog is delightful

Yet another recommendation from Nancy Pearl, this book is delightfully quirky. It opens when Chinese Gordon is awakened by thieves breaking into his shop, downstairs from his living quarters. He has no weapons at hand so he takes desperate measures, although he knows there will be consequences. As the thieves move into the room and underneath the landing where he is hiding, Chinese drops his cat on the head of one of the thieves. The screams of surprise and distress-- by all parties involved-- convinces the thieves to depart in a hurry. Doctor Henry Metzger, by the way, is the cat and the dog in question is basically a junkyard brute trained to maim and kill. How he comes into Chinese's life and become the property of Doctor Henry Metzger you'll have to find out for yourself. Chinese, his woman friend Margaret and a couple of his equally unredeemed buddies stumble into the middle of a CIA plot and decide to blackmail the organization for 10 million dollars. They cleverly manage to play most of the bad guys against each other, shut down all the freeways in Los Angeles and get away with their ill-gotten gains, and you'll find yourself rooting for them the whole time. Perry, btw is the author of The Butcher's Boy, but it's been so long since I read it, I may have to add it to the pile beside my bed.

Guy Gavriel Kay still a favorite

Ever since Nancy Pearl turned me on to The Lions of Al-Rassan (see earlier post), I've had a niggling desire to read more of Kay's work and my last trip to Portland and Powell's bookstore offered an opportunity to do just that. The Last Light of the Sun is set in the same world with the same two moons but shifted considerably north and focused on relations between several groups that parallel the Norse, the Anglo-Saxons, and the Celts. Very engrossing story-telling, richly detailed creation of time and place with interesting characters and bits of magic. Faeries take on a vital role and interact with humans in surprising ways in this tale. The rise of a strong English king has put a crimp in the heretofore unimpeded raids from Vikings. Tribes within England have reached uneasy truces, which some seek to cement with politic marriages. The main characters are predominantly a new generation, the sons and daughters of the kings and leaders who waged wars. An interesting twist is offered through side tales of people whose lives intersect those of the main characters, e.g., the miller or a shepherd girl tending her goats. Althogh women are portrayed as resourceful, independent and intelligent, they do not carry the story in the same way they did in Lions. Nevertheless, an excellent read which encourages me to read more of Kay.