Penzler's Picks

April 2008

Child, Lee, ed., Killer Year, St. Martin’s.

Lee Child is the editor of this excellent anthology, which is what attracted me to it, and I liked the premise: All the stories are by authors whose first novel was published in 2007, so these were mostly new to me, though I had read Marcus Sakey’s wonderful The Blade Itself, the prose of which glows like the glaze on Sung porcelain. Proving he’s no one-hit wonder, his story, "Gravity and Need," is one of the highlights of this first-rate collection. Sakey’s work is tougher than the weeds growing through cement sidewalk cracks. When the two protagonists are on their first date, the young woman fills a lull in the conversation by asking her beau, "Do you think you could kill everyone in this restaurant if you had to?"

Ray Dudgeon is the private eye hero of Sean Chercover’s first novel, Big City, Bad Blood, and he’s back in "One Serving of Bad Luck," a story so good it suggests that the author’s future is as bright as a Hollywood smile. Ken Bruen, not even close to being a first novelist, somehow got a story in this fine collection, too. Probably Child couldn’t resist adding a good story, "Time of the Green," which has a great twist. Like most collections, or sex partners’ bodies, some parts inevitably are better than others, but there is a preponderance of the yummy stuff in Killer Year. A few copies signed by Lee Child, Laura Lippman, who wrote the afterword, and a few contributors are still available. $24.95

March 2008

Estleman, Loren D., Gas City, Forge.

Best known for his series about private eye Amos Walker, Estleman does not lose a step when writing stand-alone novels such as his latest, set in a Rust Belt city, not Detroit, that is slowly dying because of lost jobs in an outdated economy. Although set in the present day, it has the atmosphere and tone of one set three or four decades ago–or six or eight, for that matter--as certain kinds of corruption never go out of style. The city he has created and the people who populate it, have virtually no involvement with cell phones or the internet, allowing the action (of which there is plenty) to proceed at its own pace, and permitting people to see each other face to face and, you know, talk, rather than interface.

There are archetypes on these pages--a corrupt police chief, an aging crook whose young wife despises him, dirty politicians, reporters out to get the story and whip their competitors, a tired priest, a hooker with a heart (if not quite of gold), an ex-cop-turned-hotel-dick who drinks and smokes too much, a serial killer with a nickname (the Black Bag Killer, for how he disposes of his victims, a.k.a. Beaver Cleaver, for his method)–but they are not stereotypes. Reading Gas City is much like watching a great 1940s black-and-white noir film. $24.95

February 2008

Woolrich, Cornell, Love and Night, Dennis McMillan.

It would be difficult to argue that, over a substantial body of work, Cornell Woolrich is not the 20^th century’s greatest writer of suspense. This new collection of his earliest magazine work, in the usual handsome volume we have come to expect of McMillan’s publications, does not have much crime, murder or terror, but if you are a fan of Woolrich you have to own this book, since all the stories in it have their first publication in book form, previously only seen in the pages of such now-forgotten magazines as College Humor, Breezy Stories and Serenade. It’s no exaggeration to say I’ve read 90% of everything by Woolrich, but the collection comes as a revelation to discover that the century’s darkest writer seems to have flirted with humor. Who knew? In one scene, he describes a man walking down the street as "looking like a million dollars going somewhere to get itself squandered." Situationally, there is humor, too, but also inevitable underlying darkness, as pretty girls fall in love and get married, leaving behind other men who love the girls who never give them a second thought. In later works, the consequences for one or the other participant would be more dire. For the already indoctrinated Woolrich fan, Love and Night is a great book, but it’s not the best place to start if you’ve never read him. $35.00

Otto’s Favorites for 2007:

1. The Tin Roof Blowdown - James Lee Burke

2. Silence - Thomas Perry

3. Bad Luck and Trouble - Lee Child

4. The Overlook - Michael Connelly

5. Down River - John Hart

6. The Watchman - Robert Crais

7. Up In Honey’s Room - Elmore Leonard

8. Heartsick - Chelsea Cain

9. Christopher’s Ghosts - Charles McCarry

10. Best American Mystery Stories 2007 - Otto Penzler, Editor

December 2007

November 2007

Hart, John, Down River, St. Martin’s

Few current authors match John Hart in writing a literary Southern gothic. Here is the opening paragraph of his second book.

The river is my earliest memory. The front porch of my father’s house looks down on it from a low knoll, and I have pictures, faded yellow, of my first days on the porch. I slept in my mother’s arms as she rocked there, played in the dust while my father fished, and I know the feel of the river even now: the slow churn of red clay, the back eddies under cut banks, the secrets it whispered to the hard, pink granite of Rowan County. Everything that shaped me happened near that river. I lost my mother in sight of it, fell in love on its banks. I could smell it on the day my father drove me out. It was part of my soul, and I thought I’d lost it forever.

October 2007

Hunter, Stephen, The Seventh Samurai, Simon & Schuster

Bob Lee Swagger isn’t so much a detective as a one-man wrecking crew, especially in his latest adventure. Although this is a novel of action, it has many quiet moments in which such concepts as honor, obligation, vengeance and the meaning of death are considered with great seriousness. The story begins with a World War II battle in the Pacific in which two men, a Japanese and an American, both behave heroically. The American survives and is awarded the Medal of Honor; he is Bob Lee’s father, Earl, who came home to become a cop and starred in three of Hunter’s previous novels. The Japanese soldier dies. More than a half-century later, his son, also a soldier, travels to Idaho to ask Bob about the sword his father carried onto the battlefield, as so many Japanese soldiers did. Bob tracks it down and flies to Japan to return it to its rightful place. After being warmly welcomed by the family, Bob prepares to return home when he learns from an airport television screen that the entire family has been murdered and their house burned to the ground. He feels it is his duty to track down the killers and avenge his new friend’s death. He doesn’t return to his wife but instead takes a single room on the West Coast to immerse himself in the ways of the samurai. Against the objections of his own family and the American embassy, he sneaks back into Japan to begin the hunt, eventually taking a week-long lesson in swordplay. Fight scenes soon follow, and Hunter writes them as well as or better than anyone in the business, even if not totally realistically. There is excitement and the comforting notion of justice. As has been true of all Hunter’s books, you will be turning pages past your bedtime. $26.00

October 2007

September 2007

August 2007

July 2007

June 2007

May 2007

April 2007

March 2007

February 2007

Favorites for 2006 (from the Jan 2007 newsletter)

1. Hollywood Station - Joseph Wambaugh
2. Echo Park - Michael Connelly
3. Wild Fire - Nelson DeMille
4. Nightlife - Thomas Perry
5. The Night Gardener - George Pelecanos
6. The Two-Minute Rule - Robert Crais
7. Damnation Street - Andrew Klavan
8. Four Kinds of Rain - Robert Ward
9. Slipping Into Darkness - Peter Blauner
10. Best American Mystery Stories 2006 - Otto Penzler, Scott Turow

December 2006

Wambaugh, Joseph, Hollywood Station, Little, Brown.

A full decade has passed since the great writer of cop novels wrote Floater, and 23 years since he set a book in Los Angeles. Wambaugh's return is more than impressive–it's memorable, a flawless ride through the streets of this crime-ridden golden city. With cops as colorful as the petty and major criminals they encounter, there are endless battles to see which side will triumph. As the crimes escalate in this suspenseful novel, cops are placed in greater and greater danger. In what can only be regarded as a minor miracle, all the disparate story lines, all the idiosyncratic personalities, intersect and play roles in the white knuckle climax, a virtuoso achievement that is rarely achieved even by the masters of the genre. In addition to being an exciting story and a vivid portrayal of cops and crooks, Hollywood Station is a powerful indictment of the bureaucratic forces that have hampered the LAPD since the Rodney King episode and the largely bogus charges of corruption in the Ramparts case. If this dark, hilarious and realistic stunner of a novel by the MWA's 2004 Grand Master isn't nominated for an Edgar, we will be witnesses to the crime of the year. $24.99

November 2006

Wilson, Robert, The Hidden Assassins, Harcourt.

When Inspector Jefe Javier Falcon was introduced in the marvelous The Blind Man of Seville, an important new detective elevated the genre. The sequel, The Vanished Hands, was also a splendid literary thriller. Now, in The Hidden Assassins, Mr. Wilson has produced another complex but beautifully written book. The discovery of a badly mutilated nude body (well, of course it's badly mutilated; as opposed to, what?-- nicely mutilated?) is the jumping off point to a police novel that quickly becomes bigger than a single corpse when an explosion blows up an apartment building, the mosque in its basement, and a near-by day care center, killing several Muslims, five children in the center, and the mother of one those innocent victims. As Falcon investigates to learn if the mosque was the target of the attack, or if a bomb-making attempt went wrong, trying to make sense of what happened, the plot becomes even darker and more elusive. Even the sensitive and intelligent policeman, the highest ranking in Seville, cannot provide all the answers. While The Hidden Assassins is completely satisfying, with sub-plots involving Falcon's own intricate personal life proving to be just as compelling as the political and criminal elements of the story, be prepared: not every loose end is neatly tied up. Much as in the real world, that might be too much to expect. It is not an oversight. This outstanding author is meticulous, quite deliberately failing to allow his readers to follow some roads to their ends. There will be at least one more, probably two, adventures involving Falcon. I, for one, look forward to traveling on those roads in his company. The author is unable to tour for this book, but we do have autographed bookplates laid into our copies. $25.00

October 2006

Ward, Robert, Four Kinds of Rain, St. Martin's.

In his first novel since the outstanding The Cactus Garden 11 years ago, this outstanding hard-boiled writer for such TV shows as Hill Street Blues and Miami Vice is back with a black comedy gem. Bob Wells appears almost to be a stereotype--self-righteous left-wing psychotherapist who frequently reminisces about the good old days of the 1960s, when he felt really alive and dangerous, leading protests, doing drugs, battling with cops and capitalists--when he thought he could turn the world into a socialist utopia. Bob is a pathetic loser, having gambled away all his own and his wife's money, making it simple for her to leave him, and he is down to a single paying client while lamenting the fact that he never "sold out" to take a solid corporate job. A major portion of his day is spent at a local bar with his best friend, Dave, where once a week he plays in the bar band called The Rockaholics. A new girl singer joins the band and Bob falls for her, and she for him, but she's heard about his gambling habit and the fact that he's broke, so is reluctant to get too involved with someone too poor to support her. He decides to do something about it and concocts a brilliant scheme to steal a priceless artifact, a mask of an ancient Babylonian god named Utu, from one of his clients. And there it is: that first little step, the one leading down a quiet country lane that quickly morphs into a slick speedway that goes in only one direction. $22.95

September 2006

Klavan, Andrew, Damnation Street, Harcourt.

While I try not to recommend a book as my favorite when I am the editor and publisher (as with this title) since it may lack credibility (I do understand the concepts of favoritism and conflict of interest), I nonetheless have to do it with this terrific novel. It's not just me. The Associated Press wrote, "Klavan's writing is masterful and his characters superbly drawn." The Cox Newswire wrote, "For those of us who can't get enough noir, Damnation Street is a gift." Atlantic Monthly wrote, "If having this much fun with a tale of assassination and romantic melancholy is wrong, who wants to be right?" Entertainment Weekly wrote, "Klavan crafts a taut, tense noir leavened with rollicking mayhem and romantic yearning." There's much more, but you get the idea. A hooker with the face of an angel once spent a night with a professional killer who fell in love with her and proved it by brutalizing her. She has run away, trying to disappear, but he wants her back and hires Scott Weiss, a good guy private detective, to find her. Weiss, too, becomes obsessed with her and tries to protect her from the psychopath who will do anything to get her back. Nail-biting suspense, but also hilarious dialogue and romantic moments combine to make this a memorable reading experience. Signed copies available as of Sept. 25. $24.00

August 2006

Pelecanos, George, The Night Gardener, Little, Brown.

This is a big book with a large cast of characters and numerous story lines that require you to pay attention. The cops, the crooks, their victims and families all eventually intersect, often in surprising ways. The most prominent players are T.C. Cook, a colorful, legendary, crime fighter back in the day whose success rate in solving crimes was 90%, dramatically higher than anyone on the force; Dan "Doc" Holiday, a rookie when he met Cook, went on to become a very good cop but got caught outside the lines and quit rather than deal with the consequences; and Gus Ramone, the moral axis around whom spin those close to him: his family, other cops, and those affected by crime. In the 1980s, several young people were murdered after having been violated. Shot to death, then undressed, bathed, redressed and dropped near a community garden with no hint of a clue, each victim had a first name that could be read the same forward and backward–Eve, Otto and Ava–so naturally the media labeled them "The Palindrome Murders." With 24 years on the force, Cook caught the case but, when the killings suddenly stopped, he had no more trails to follow and retired, leaving it unsolved. When Asa, a teenaged friend of Ramone's son, is found shot to death near a community garden 20 years later, the parallels with the earlier murders are too strong to be dismissed, so Cook and Holiday are drawn back into a case that has haunted them for 20 years. This is Pelecanos' most ambitious novel and, in my view, though I loved those early Nick Stefanos books, his best. $24.95

July 2006

Dunning, John, The Bookwoman's Last Fling, Scribner.

I've loved the Cliff Janeway novels ever since Booked to Die came out 15 years ago, and the new one maintains the exceptionally high standards of this literate and compelling series. Of course, if you like books, how could you not enjoy these wonderfully bibliophilic tales? In Idaho (of all places), Janeway has been asked to look at a collection of priceless children's books–immaculate copies of the greatest rarities in the world of juvenilia. As he examines the shelves more closely, he notices gaps: books that would have been in any first-rate collection that are not present or only in inferior copies. Coincidentally, the man who asked him to provide an evaluation of the collection dies. The family seems reluctant to help, but the ex-cop won't simply go away. Besides, he wouldn't mind owning some of those books himself. Another stunning whodunnit from one of the most justly praised writers of recent years. Sadly, Mr. Dunning has had serious (with a capital "S") health problems and, although he appears to be out of trouble after a long hospital spell, he was unable to travel to promote the book, so there are no signed copies. $25.00

June 2006

Landrican, Linda, ed., Fifty Years of Crime and Suspense, Pegasus.

I'm a sucker for short stories which, as John Dickson Carr once wrote, is "the natural form of the mystery." This huge anthology (542 pages) collects the best from the past half-century of Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, incorporating some of the biggest names in the field and, more important, some of the best. Ed McBain is here twice, once under that name and once as Evan Hunter. So is Donald E. Westlake and the famous story by Edward D. Hoch, "The Long Way Down," in which a man defenestrates from the 26th floor and hits the pavement hours later, later filmed as an episode of McMillan & Wife. Among my favorites is the wonderful Matt Scudder story by Lawrence Block, "A Candle for the Bag Lady," in which the baffled private eye is left a $1200 bequest by a woman who lived on the street. There is a great mixture here of hard- and soft-boiled, male and female, noir and cozy, most of it first-rate. Trade paperback $16.95 P.S. I also enjoyed The Chinatown Death Cloud Peril by Paul Malmont (Simon & Schuster, $24.00), a new pulp novel featuring Walter B. Gibson, the creator of The Shadow, and Lester Dent, the creator of Doc Savage. Throw realism out the window but hold on for a thrilling ride after a bit of a slow start.

May 2006

McCarry, Charles, The Last Supper, Overlook.

Full disclosure: I have said for more than two decades that McCarry is the greatest American espionage writer ever, so why wouldn't I pick this new reprint as my favorite of the month? Although The Tears of Autumn is probably the greatest of his books, possibly followed by The Secret Lovers, The Last Supper is a masterpiece. McCarry's series character is Paul Christopher, the son of Hubbard Christopher who, in The Last Supper joins "The Outfit" (a.k.a. the CIA) in an attempt to locate his wife Lori, a member of a wealthy Prussian family who ran afoul of the Gestapo near the outbreak of WWII and disappeared. When Hubbard is killed, Paul, a poet (as is McCarry) also joins the Outfit to help find his father's killer. Young Paul quickly learns that he is good as an intelligence agent and his career eventually takes him to Viet Nam in the 1960s, as well as Communist China–in a prison camp. In its way, The Last Supper is a history of the CIA, not quite as obviously or as ambitiously as Robert Littell's excellent The Company, but at least as knowingly (McCarry was a deep undercover CIA agent during the years of the Communist threat.) As with all of McCarry's novels, there is a large cast of characters who rarely do what you think they will do. An astonishing book in every way! $24.95

April 2006

Waites, Martyn, The Mercy Seat, Pegasus.

If you like Ken Bruen (and if you don't, what's wrong with you?), Martyn Waites is for you. Although he's published six books in the U.K., this is the first to hit these shores, and it's stunning. When we meet the hero, Joe Donovan, he's drunkenly playing Russian roulette. You can't entirely blame him. He was with his six-year-old son in a crowded department store when he just vanished. His marriage fails, his daughter hates him because she thinks he loves his son more than her, and he loses his job as a top journalist. When a former colleague seeks his help with a different story, another journalist gone missing, she and the newspaper's lawyer promise to help him in the search for his missing boy, now gone for two years. He does help and gets involved with a young teenager who sells himself and an array of some of the most despicable and frightening criminals you hope you never will meet. The poignant hero, no superman but an honorable and righteous figure, is scheduled to appear in another novel next year and I'm looking forward to it already. Although not a short book (421 pages), it flies, with no stop in the action or tension. It has a large cast, all with something to lose, including several who you want to see come out all right. They don't, however, all have happy endings. $25.00

March 2006

Blauner, Peter, Slipping Into Darkness, Little, Brown

Francis X. Loughlin is a cop who, 20 years earlier, arrested and helped convict Julian Vega, a 17-year-old boy who looked like a 12-year-old innocent, of the especially brutal murder of a pretty, much-loved young doctor who worked with children. On the technicality that his lawyer was incompetent, Julian, essentially a boy in a man's body, is released. The victim's family is outraged, as is Loughlin, who swears to them that he'll put him back behind bars. Julian's lawyer tells him he merely has to plead guilty and he'll be set free, having served 20 of his 25-to-life sentence. He refuses, maintaining his innocence and reiterating the charges that he was framed. Then another attractive young female doctor is also viciously murdered and blood is discovered under her fingernails. The DNA is a perfect match–not to Julian, but to the first murder victim. It's a great set-up, but even more fascinating is the parallel stories of two lives, Julian's and the cop's, and the metaphysical divergence of their respective futures. The ex-con, set free after 20 years behind bars, has a life opening up for him. Loughlin is going blind and knows his days are becoming more and more limited. A beautiful piece of serious literature by the winner of the Edgar for Best First Mystery with Slow Motion Riot. Signed copies of Slipping Into Darkness are available. $24.95

February 2006

Murphy, Warren and Molly Cochran, Grandmaster, Forge

This strange and wonderful book won't, admittedly, be for everyone. It is a thriller about a CIA agent but it is also something of a fantasy novel The hero, Justin Gilead, a brilliant chess prodigy, a genius and superb athlete, does battle with Alexander Zharkov, a Soviet super-spy known as the "Prince of Death" who heads the dread secret service agency Nichevo. Gilead is saved from death by a sect of Asian monks who teach him such extraordinary powers as the ability to control all his bodily functions, including breathing and even his heartbeat. Their opposing forces are truly a struggle between Good and Evil. This long novel won the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Paperback Original in 1985 and this new edition, it's first hardcover appearance, features a new Preface by Molly Cochran and an introduction by me. I'm happy to sign copies on request. $27.95. Also in trade paperback, $14.95

Favorites for 2005

1. Red Leaves - Thomas H. Cook
2. The Lincoln Lawyer - Michael Connelly
3. The Forgotten Man - Robert Crais
4. Swing - Rupert Holmes
5. The Hot Kid - Elmore Leonard
6. The Right Madness - James Crumley
7. Ash & Bone - John Harvey
8. Magdalen Martyrs - Ken Bruen
9. Legends - Robert Littell
10. The Trudeau Vector - Juris Jurjevics

December 2005

Harvey, John, Ash & Bone, Harcourt.

OK, so you tell me what to do. I love this book, but I was the editor and it was published under my imprint. So do I tell you how brilliant it is and hear shouts of "conflict of interest"? Or do I pass over it, thereby doing a grave injustice to the author who worked so hard to produce this exquisite book. I skipped Red Leaves by Thomas H. Cook, maybe the finest novel of the year; The Enemy of God by Robert Daley, compared in Booklist to Mystic River "and maybe better"; and Fiddlers by Ed McBain, a superb 87th Precinct novel, because I bent over backwards to avoid the appearance of unfairness. So I've had people say to me that they guessed I didn't like Cook's novel, for instance, or I'd have picked it as a favorite. For the record, Fiddlers made it to #20 on the N.Y. Times bestseller list and deserved even better, Red Leaves is Cook's finest novel since the Edgar-winning Chatham School Affair, Daley surpassed his great cop novels of the 1970s and ‘80s with The Enemy of God, and Ash & Bone just might make you weep, it is so poignant and real. No favoritism here, just fact. Frank Elder's 17-year-old daughter is running wild, probably because of the abduction and rape she suffered and for which she blames him. Torn with guilt, he attempts to reconcile with her while coming out of retirement to help a female cop with whom he once had a brief, clumsy encounter. She is being stalked and a violent criminal may be responsible. Impeccable plotting, characters so real you think you know them, and a prose style closer to poetry than straight narrative combine to make a memorable reading experience by the author who "writes better crime novels than anyone in the world" (Denver Post). $25.00 (also a very few U.K. first editions, signed,

November 2005

Connelly, Michael, The Lincoln Lawyer, Little, Brown

It's kind of silly to name this as my favorite. First, everyone knows Connelly is one of the absolute best writers working today, and so what would he write but a terrific book? Second, he's been one of my favorite writers for more than a decade, beginning with the first novel, and I've never said anything else. Third, he's at the peak of his powers. Fourth, it's a main selection of the Crime Collectors Club, for which we try to pick the best book of the month on a regular basis. Ok, but here's the cool part. It's not a cop novel, for which he is so justly famous. This one is a legal thriller, and one of the best I've ever read. It's about a sleazy lawyer who is afraid to get an innocent man for a client, which he has apparently avoided for his own career. When he gets a client accused of being a brutal serial killer, he thinks he may have been burdened with an innocent man. It turns out, in one of the more suspenseful novels of the year, that he may have been cursed with his worst fear, but this is a Connelly novel, so of course nothing is as it seems. Along with Thomas H. Cook's Red Leaves, one of my two favorite books of the year. $26.95

October 2005

McBain, Ed, Fiddlers, N.Y., Harcourt/Otto Penzler.

It is, sadly, the last 87th Precinct novel we will ever have from the magic pen of McBain, who passed away in August after a lengthy battle with cancer. What is amazing is that the 55th novel in the series still sizzles with the heat and energy you'd expect from someone half his age. Reviews have been extraordinary (deservedly) and so are sales; the book has just gone back to press. A series of inexplicable murders takes place in Isola, baffling the cops of the 87th. The victims seem to have no connection, they are all shot in the face, twice, they seem to have no criminal lives, and they are all about the same middle age. Not at all the sort of thing you'd expect from a serial killer. The victims range from a blind violinist to a college professor to a cosmetics sales rep to a priest. What unified them in their violent fate? Told with uncommon skill and empathy, even for the murderer, this is McBain, ironically and tragically, at the peak of his form. $25.00

September 2005

Jurjevics, Juris, The Trudeau Vector, Viking

The author makes his debut by ignoring one of Elmore Leonard's rules of writing: "Leave out the parts that people skip." Many long paragraphs about numerous arcane facets of science and medicine are described in detail. Get past it is all I can say, as this thriller lives up to its name. It opens at the coldest place in the world, the Arctic Circle, when three scientists are discovered in the middle of a vast expanse of ice, their frozen bodies contorted at impossible angles, their faces etched in terror, their pupils vanished. The world's foremost epidemiologist leaves her 10-year-old son to fly into the region to try to learn what could have caused these macabre deaths. When it becomes clear that no known virus or bacterium was the cause, panic suffuses the team of scientists at the research facility. The mysterious appearance of a Soviet submarine in the neutral waters below Norwegian fjords is a parallel story line that expertly converges at the denouement. Scientific and political motives meet to illustrate an environmental threat of almost incomprehensible magnitude. Truly a chilling book. $24.95

August 2005

Holmes, Rupert, Swing, Random House

I've always known Rupert Holmes as the amazingly talented composer, lyricist, playwright, musician and singer who won two Edgars (for The Mystery of Edwin Drood, for which he won multiple Tonys, and Accomplice), and the Tony nominee for the exquisite Say Goodnight, Gracie. Now, he turns out to be a terrific mystery writer as well, in the great tradition of genuine detective fiction. Best of all, he evokes a time and a place (Hollywood, just before the U.S. enters WWII) and wonderful characters. Saxophonist and arranger Ray Sherwood gets a note, asking him to meet a young woman described as beautiful. As he sits at the table, a dancer with the Folies Bergere who he's never met sits down and asks him to marry her, telling him she has good teeth and showing off her figure. He declines and, soon after, she plunges to her death from a high tower. It is dismissed as a suicide since she was depressed about having to return to Vichy France, since she was a Jew and therefore doomed. All is not what it seems, of course, and you will love the twists and turns, as well as the girl who sent the note, and the relentlessly witty and unexpected dialogue. The book has been packaged with a CD of original big band music, written by Holmes. Autographed copies available. $24.95

July 2005

Daley, Robert, The Enemy of God, Otto Penzler Books/Harcourt

Remember when the biggest police writers in American were Joseph Wambaugh, Ed McBain and Robert Daley, the guy who outsold them both? He became famous for a true crime book, The Prince of the City, and such cop novels as Year of the Dragon (a Bruce Willis movie) and The Blue Wall. His first adult novel in many years, The Enemy of God, is a brilliant tale, structured much like Dennis Lehane's Mystic River and Lorenzo Carcaterra's Sleepers. Four members of the swimming team in high school remain lifelong friends. One of them, a priest, has apparently committed suicide by jumping off a roof and the others refuse to believe it, knowing the powerful activist would never take his life. A District Attorney, a journalist and a high-ranking cop investigate their friend's death in a high crime neighborhood, where the priest had been battling the local drug dealers. As we flash back to the years between the formation of their friendship and the present day when the tragedy again brings them closer again, secrets emerge which resonate in the present. This extraordinary book, more novel than mystery story, will grip you immediately and never let go. It is truly one of the most memorable, moving books of the year. $23.00

February 2005

Klavan, Andrew, Shotgun Alley, Forge.

Although Klavan has won an Edgar, made the best-seller list with Don't Say a Word and True Crime, both of which were filmed, the first with Michael Douglas and the second with Clint Eastwood, and been described by Stephen King as "the most original American novelist of crime and suspense since Cornell Woolrich," he has not yet become a household name of the magnitude of some lesser contemporaries. Perhaps time will correct this injustice. Shotgun Alley is the second book to feature his extraordinary characters, Scott Weiss and Paul Bishop, two fully realized characters with great strengths and, oh boy, serious weaknesses. Weiss, a former cop who now has his own private investigation firm, carries agony with him. "Sometimes," Klavan writes, "it felt like life was all salt, and he was just one big wound." Bishop works for him. A former biker thug and criminal, Weiss caught him, beat him to a pulp, and offered him a job. In their latest case, a man planning to run for political office hires them to get back his sexy teenaged daughter, who has run off with a motorcycle gang so tough they are called the Outriders, its members having been kicked out of the Hell's Angels and other gangs for being too wild. Bishop goes after her, with instructions to seduce her to get her away, but no one figured he'd fall for her–fall really hard. Great characters, great writing, and a breakneck pace that is relentlessly suspenseful make this impossible to stop reading and impossible to get out of your mind when it's over. $24.95

January 2005

Cray, David, Dead Is Forever, Carroll & Graf.

Cray is one of the best hard-boiled writers alive and I find it baffling that he hasn't become a household name. Each novel is chock-a-block with everything you could want from a good crime novel: fully limned characters, dialogue that doesn't waste a word, a plot that is both puzzling and comprehensible. Here, in his least hard-boiled novel to date, he introduces a private detective with a trust fund, Phillip Beckett who doesn't much like to work but does, occasionally, and charges very high fees to help support his habit of collecting Chinese art. When his sister comes to him with a problem, he knows he has to help because it's family–but he charges her outrageously anyway because a jade dragonfish is coming up for auction and he has to have it. Beckett quickly solves a murder but then must learn who pulled the strings–only to discover that it must be a member of his own family. Cray has never written a bad book, nor do I think he's ever written a bad sentence. You should know his work. Start here and then check out earlier titles, too. $25.00

Favorites for 2004

1. Night Fall -Nelson DeMille
2. At Hell's Gate - Ethan Black
3. The Bookman's Promise - John Dunning
4. Best American Mystery Stories 2004 - Nelson DeMille
5. Take Me, Take Me With You - Lauren Kelly
6. Double Play - Robert B. Parker
7. Hark! - Ed McBain
8. Wolves Eat Dogs - Martin Cruz Smith
9. The Road to Ruin - Donald E. Westlake
10. Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality (reissues) - John le Carre

December 2004

DeMille, Nelson, Night Fall, Warner.

I don't usually pick a main selection in the Crime Collectors Club as a favorite because it is redundant–if it's a CCC main selection, by definition we like it. But this is probably my favorite book of the year, so I have to pick it. The premise is based on the actual explosion of TWA Flight 800, bound from JFK to Paris, above Long Island Sound in July 1996. A thorough investigation by half a thousand people working for the CIA, FBI and various police departments determined that it was a mechanical failure, caused by a faulty bit of wiring. This explanation remains in place today, in spite of the fact that more than 200 eyewitnesses saw a streak of white light head directly toward the 747 just before it became a ball of light in the summer sky. All this is true. Five years later, a memorial for the families of the victims gets John Corey, a former New York cop who now works for the FBI, involved in having a closer look. It seems a married couple (married, yes, but not to each other) had an X-rated tryst on the beach that night and videotaped their activities, inadvertently filming the horrific tragedy in the sky behind them. The tape, if it still exists, could prove whether that white streak was a missile or an optical illusion, as the government claims. Alternately poignant, hilarious and chilling, Night Fall kept me up until 5:30 in the morning with the most exciting reading experience of the year. $26.95

November 2004

le Carre, John, Call for the Dead and A Murder of Quality, Walker.

No, I haven't entered a time warp. These first two novels by le Carre were first published in 1961 and 1962 respectively, but they have just been reissued in absolutely beautiful hardcover editions by their original American publisher at such reasonable prices that they seem like the bargain of the year.

Call for the Dead introduces George Smiley, here called on to investigate a member of the Secret Service who has been accused of being a Communist. Cleared of the charge, he nonetheless apparently commits suicide, but Smiley smells something askew and discovers a spy ring with a long history. There is a perceptive, informative and fascinating new introduction written by P.D. James specifically for this edition.

A Murder of Quality is not at all typical of le Carre's work, being a pure detective novel with no elements of espionage or international intrigue. Smiley's old friend is now editor of a small newspaper who receives a letter from a subscriber saying that she is sure her husband is going to kill her. Although reluctant to investigate, he accommodates his friend and is stunned to learn that the letter-writer has, in fact, been violently murdered. This is a classic English country house murder with an academic setting, the type of book you would expect from Michael Innes, Nicholas Blake, Dorothy L. Sayers or any of the great Golden Age authors. With a new introduction by me. Each volume is $18.00.

October 2004

Ellroy, James, Destination: Morgue!, Vintage

Too bad there is no hardcover edition of this terrific book; I'm afraid we have to settle for a trade paperback. As a fan of Ellroy's work for 20 years, I admit I've found several of the later novels a bit daunting. Long and dense, they have been hard work. His telegraphic style–short bursts of energized words, no wasted verbs or adverbs–require effort, but in the short works, the reader will be rewarded instantly. This book may not be for everybody. He writes raw, violent, vulgar prose that hasn't been politically correct since before he was born.

This is a collection of essays, mainly autobiographical or about crime (sometimes both), mostly written for GQ, and three novellas written specifically for this book. Here are a few quotes: "My Life as a Creep" opens with "Sex almost killed me. I managed this without human contact." In his piece about boxing, a fighter has been described as a good kid. Ellroy writes: "Good kids is fanspeak. Good kids are killers who limit their rage to the ring." Another story describes the life of a bad guy, pure gutter scum, who is sentenced to death for a crime Ellroy doesn't believe he committed. He is in favor of the death penalty. "If you have to know why we need the death penalty," he writes, "you're never going to know." He meticulously dissects the case against the criminal and pleads against his execution (to no avail, it turns out, as the date of his death is listed in a postscript). This powerful volume shows in glaring fashion the difference between a real writer, one who matters (Joyce Carol Oates has called him the American Dostoevsky), and those who write frothy throw-away fiction.

September 2004

Furst, Alan, Dark Voyage, Random House

The spy novel has been making a comeback after its bleak years following the breakup of the Soviet Union. Frequently, today's stories are set in the past, and no one does it better than Alan Furst. His combination of style, storytelling skill and the era in which he works reminds me of Eric Ambler and Casablanca. World War II, exotic settings, double-crosses, intrigue and constant danger mesh to produce a body of work seldom matched in this challenging (both for the author and the reader) genre. In Dark Victory, the Dutch captain of a rusty old freighter is told by the owner of the shipping line that his boat will, sub rosa, become involved in the war against the Nazis, running guns as a secret cargo. Near misses, close encounters with enemy submarines and ships, heroic (if frequently understated) actions lead to a climax so thrilling you'll have white knuckles as you grasp the arm of your chair. A few signed copies are available. $24.95

August 2004

Hall, Adam, The Quiller Memorandum, Tor.

It's not a new book, but it is a new edition (for which I've written my usual brilliant, erudite, insightful, and stylish introduction - which I recommend you immediately skip and go on to one of the coolest espionage novels ever written). Quiller, a top spy for "the Bureau", a fictional British espionage organization that does not officially exist, makes his debut in this thriller, which won the Edgar for Best Novel in 1966. A large coterie of high-level Nazis who escaped after World War II have risen to power again, using new names, in West Germany and have secret plans to establish a new Reich. They are as ruthless and brilliant as they are insane, and they have managed to assassinate many of their greatest adversaries. Only Quiller remains to stop them. Successfully filmed in 1966 with a screenplay by Harold Pinter and starring George Segal, this on is a white knuckle read. Hardcover $24.95 Paperback $13.95

July 2004

Dunning, John, Booked Twice, Scribner.

I wanted to pick Dunning's most recent novel, The Bookman's Promise, as my favorite a few months ago, but there were so many other great things that I couldn't find space. So consider this a belated recommendation of that, but also of the first two books in the Cliff Janeway series, Booked to Die and The Bookman's Wake. Now those first two novels have been collected in a single beautifully produced volume with an introduction titled "The Book Collector," which gives more valuable tips to collectors (or anyone thinking about it) in its succinct three pages than many full-length books have done. Denver policeman Janeway makes his debut in Booked to Die, as readers are introduced to the book collecting passion of a cop who tries to solve the murder of an apparently harmless book scout who is murdered on Friday the 13th, his unlucky body placed beneath a ladder. In the second adventure, Janeway has retired from the force and earns his living full-time by dealing in rare books. When he is asked to help with a case involving a valuable Edgar Allan Poe volume, he simply can't resist. While the writing is first-rate in all three Janeway novels, and the crimes and solutions are also among the finest being written today, the most fun is being led through the arcane world of rare books by a true expert. $26.00

June 2004

McCarry, Charles, Old Boys, Overlook.

There is no other way to say it. Charles McCarry is the greatest espionage writer that American ever produced. There are other terrific ones (Alan Furst, Robert Littell, Martin Cruz Smith) but McCarry is the American John le Carre–his equal in style (both are poets) but his moral superior. In Old Boys, his series hero, Paul Christopher, disappears and is reported dead. His nephew, Horace Hubbard, refuses to believe it and enlists a coterie of former CIA colleagues to help search for him. The hunt for Christopher and a priceless scroll that could change the face of Judeo-Christian faith puts Hubbard and his friends in the way of former Nazis, ex-KGB operatives who are now Russian Mafia, and a rich Arab terrorist who wants to blow up ten U.S. cities simultaneously, all of whom want to kill them, and U.S. government officials who want them safely home. The non-stop action roars through China, Russia, Brazil, Tel Aviv, Bulgaria, Rome and other exotic locales as plots within plots unfold. I can think of no other writer who could manage such a complex story line with such a large cast of characters and keep it both comprehensible and exciting, always presented so eloquently that it is often difficult to resist stopping to reread paragraphs. $25.95

May 2004

Westlake, Donald E., Thieves' Dozen, Mysterious Press.

I admit it. Donald Westlake just cracks me up. I know Carl Hiaasen and Janet Evanovich sell more books, and Tim Dorsey is so outrageous I have to laugh out loud sometimes, but the most consistently funny writer during the entire course of my adult reading life has been the creator of John Archibald Dortmunder, the star of this collection (which has, of course, only eleven stories).

In his introduction, Westlake provides a little anecdote about the creation of each story, including the note that the occasional idea wafting into his head is his one link to Joan of Arc. One had its genesis when he least expected it. "...I had occasion to wonder what I was doing in Italy, where, in fact, I was on vacation. The trouble is, I don't know how to go on vacation. From what? I don't have a job, I don't have a boss, and if I have a schedule it's self-imposed and mostly ignored."

While each of these stories is a gem, my favorite is "Too Many Crooks," which won the Edgar in 1989. It begins with Dortmunder asking his accomplice, Kelp, "Did you hear something?" "The wind," Kelp answers. Since they were in an underground tunnel, this seemed unlikely. They had dug the tunnel from the basement of a store they had rented to the vault of the corner bank, according to their cleverly acquired maps. A few more whacks with their pickaxe and they'd be in. A few more whacks and–YES!–they were in. The problem is that the vault was full of people who were thrilled to see them. They were bank employees who told them the robbers were outside. Dortmunder and Kelp thought they were the robbers. Now they were hostages, too. $12.95

It's a great spring for Westlake fans, as there is also a new Dortmunder novel, Road to Ruin (Mysterious Press, $24.95) and a reissue in both hardcover and trade paperback of his Edgar-winning God Save the Mark, with a new introduction by Otto Penzler (Forge, $25.00 and $14.95)

April 2004

Grossman, Lev, Codex, Harcourt.

This spring seems to be the time for bibliomysteries. In addition to the excellent new John Dunning novel, The Bookman's Promise, and the spectacular Spanish translation of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafon, there is this knockout first novel by Lev Grossman, the book critic of Time magazine.

A very successful young banker, Edward Wozny, has two weeks of vacation time before moving to London. He stops at a client's home to help with a small matter. It turns out that wooden crates of old books are stacked in a huge room in an apartment, and Wozny has been summoned to unpack, shelve and catalogue them. Though the task is both beneath him, as he sees it, and too specialized, he doesn't want to disappoint an important client, so he sets himself to the task.

One of the treasures is a codex so rare that it's very existence has been questioned, but the text curiously parallels a video game that captivates him. He becomes so addicted to it that he finds it more and more difficult to distinguish between fantasy and reality. A nice concluding twist ties up this compelling literary thriller nicely. $$24.00

March 2004

Connolly, John, Bad Men, Atria.

The title is a masterpiece of understatement. This fine young writer has many strengths, but near the top of that list is his ability to make his villains incredibly, well, villainous. Connolly divides his time between Ireland and the U.S., mainly, ah, Maine. This is his fifth novel but the first that does not feature his ex-cop hero, Charlie "Bird" Parker.

A present-day murderer, bank-robber and all-around monster name Moloch is in prison, dreaming of a massacre on Sanctuary Island, off the Maine coast, that occurred 300 years earlier, led by himself. (Connolly uses supernatural elements in his work better than anyone ever has.) He escapes with a little band of equally evil criminals and goes to the same place, now called Dutch Island, in pursuit of his battered wife and their son, their arrival foretold by a series of horrific, unexplainable events, including strange dancing lights and dead people walking the earth. The thugs, intent on their campaign of violence and destruction, are unaware that their actions may have repercussions that transcend their worst nightmares. Not for the squeamish, but a wonderfully plotted and poetically written work. $25.00

FEBRUARY 2004

Rosenberg, Paul C., The Last Days, Forge.

My usual preference is for books with real style, where the writing is the most important element of the book. But sometimes, I just want a terrific story, what is so commonly called a page-turner. This book is a page-turner.

Out of nowhere, Rosenberg's first novel, The Last Jihad, became one of our fastest selling books last year and went on to The New York Times best-seller list for many weeks. This should do the same. The hero, Jon Bennett, is the senior advisor to the president and he is, of course, handsome ("Matt Damon good looks"), rich ("seven-figure salary"), drives both a Jaguar and a Porsche, smart (Harvard MBA). He is the hope for peace in the Mideast.

The co-hero is Erin McCoy, Bennett's deputy and CIA operations officer. You may not be shocked to learn she is beautiful and a master of several weapons. But get past the cliches and the breathless prose and you have a terrific plot, in which the U.S. has a peace plan for the Mideast which a lot of bad guys want to scuttle. Once you start this one, you won't stop. $24.95

January 2004

Otto's 10 favorites of 2003

1. John Burdett, Bangkok 8
2. Michael Connelly, Lost Light
3. Robert Crais, The Last Detective
4. Mark Haddon, The Curious Incident Of the Dog In the Night-Time
5. James W. Hall, Off the Chart
6. Sam Hill, Buzz Monkey
7. Rupert Holmes, Where the Truth Lies
8. Andrew Klavan, Dynamite Road
9. George Pelecanos, Soul Circus
10. Gene Riehl, Quantico Rules

DECEMBER 2003

Spillane, Mickey, Something's Down There, Simon & Schuster.

I admit I'm biased. I've been a great fan of Mickey Spillane for about 45 years. I liked him when I was young and I like him now, largely for different reasons, though the great story-telling abilities transcend all the years. Something's Down There is his first novel in seven years, and his first non-Mike Hammer since The Body Lovers 36 years ago. Okay, this isn't his best book, but it's still a fast-moving page-turner that has the usual elements of a Spillane story. His hero, Mako Hooker (sounds pretty close to Mike Hammer) is big, tough, honest and irresistible to women. There's a gorgeous girl, bad guys, and a plot with a nice surprise ending. Set in the Caribbean, this is the story of an apparent sea monster that eats boats, with or without passengers. Bigger than any known shark or other savage sea creature, it has terrorized the islanders, who immediately incorporate it into legend. When a secret U.S. government agency sends operatives to investigate, Hooker finds his past coming back to haunt him. He thought he had retired from that agency years ago, but his life is put at stake and he realizes he can never resign. $24.00

NOVEMBER 2003

King, C. Daly, The Complete Curious Mr. Tarrant, Crippen and Landru.

In addition to being one of the finest writers of detective fiction in the 20th century, Ellery Queen (in the person of Frederic Dannay) was a scholar of the detective story, particularly the short story. He compiled Queen's Quorum, a list of the 106 (later expanded to 125) greatest collections of short stories in the history of mystery fiction. One of the greatest rarities on that exalted list is King's The Curious Mr. Tarrant, a volume which has eluded virtually every collector of crime stories. Now, a new edition, collecting all those stories, plus four never previously collected, is available, and I urge you to sample these wonderfully crafted tales of impossible crimes, such as the case of a Hollywood star who disappears from a suite of locked rooms in a house surrounded by detectives, and a modern mystery that precisely parallels that of the Mary Celeste. Detection in its purest form, from the Golden Age. With a new introduction by Edward D. Hoch. Queen wasn't exaggerating when he called these "the most imaginative detective stories of our times." Hardcover $29.00; trade paperback $19.00

SEPTEMBER 2003

Brill, Marius, Making Love, Doubleday (London; no U.S. edition).

Clients of the bookshop are always asking for something "different" and, believe me, this is it. The story is told from the point of view of the book, which has fallen in love with Miranda, the heroine. "Her eyes stroked my words, just as yours do..." "The corners of her mouth curled. I made her smile. All I could think was, ‘You are lovely.'"

Miranda's job is demonstrating sanitary napkins in a department store, and her leisure time is spent drinking and reading romance novels. When she finds Making Love on the shelves of her local library, she takes it and becomes the target of a government agency seeking to destroy every copy of the book. A handsome agent tries to seduce her to learn if she has read too much of the book and kill her if she has.

There is no end to the laugh-out-loud hilarity in these pages. The bad news is we have only a few signed first editions available and are unlikely to be able to get more, so if this sounds appealing, don't hesitate! The ultimate bibliomystery and a marvelous feat of storytelling. $32.46

AUGUST 2003

Lewis, Jim, The King Is Dead, Knopf.

Walter Selby returns to Tennessee after World War II a hero. Late one night, after a baseball game, he meets the stunning Nicole Lattimer, is smitten, and marries her. With two lovely children and a prestigious government career, his life appears to be perfect until he makes a mistake, resigns from his job, and comes home early to find his wife with another man, and he commits a shocking crime. As his life figuratively ends, so does the first half of the book. In New York, 35 years later, one of Selby's children has become a successful actor who finds no joy in his work. A strange director allows him a journey in pursuit of his father, and of the family's long ago secrets. In Faulknerian style, this more than a story about a crime, it is a search for truth and morality in a changing America. What a writer! $24.00

JULY 2003

Heinrich, Will, The King's Evil, Scribner.

This is a first novel by a young writer (I mean really young!) of enormous talent who has written a disturbing book. It is about a man who leads a life largely devoid of passion or emotion who discovers Adam, a badly beaten boy on his doorstep and befriends him. In spite of the many kindnesses he shows, Adam's behavior goes from bad to malevolent, yet is forgiven again and again. The book is a fable, a very dark fairy tale about the eternal battle between Good and Evil to settle the fate of a human soul. After a slow start, with maybe a little more of the musings of a teenager about the works of Mondrian than one might wish, this compelling novel will hold you enthralled. $23.00

JUNE 2003

Fforde, Jasper, Lost In a Good Book, Hodder & Stoughton.

One of my favorite types of mysteries is the bibliomystery, a novel in which books, bookstores, etc. are a major plot element. It's why John Dunning's Booked to Die was my favorite book of the year in which it was published, and why I retain a great affection for Elizabeth Daly. Jasper Fforde had an international best-seller last year with The Eyre Affair, which I loved, and now he's back with Lost In a Good Book. Much fiction requires a suspension of disbelief, and these two literary escapades require more than most, but it's worth it. In the first book, an arch-villain named Acheron Hades kidnaps characters from the original manuscripts of famous books, holding them for ransom. If he kills them, they are permanently eliminated from every book ever published in which they had once appeared. Tuesday Next is the detective who rescues these characters. In the current novel, she attempts to find her husband of one month who has disappeared and no one claims to remember him. During her sleuthing job, she helps Miss Havisham close loopholes in the plot of Great Expectations, deals with lost Shakespearian manuscripts, and is immersed in numerous other literary puzzles and challenges. Filled with wordplay, literary allusions and comic situations, this bizarre book is a series of intellectual pyrotechnics unlike anything you've ever read. Signed copies of the U.K. first edition $47.48; signed first U.S. edition, $24.95

APRIL 2003

Levin, Ira, A Kiss Before Dying, Carroll & Graf.
I was recently asked to write an introduction to this first novel by Ira Levin (who, incidentally, will be given the Grand Master Award by the Mystery Writers of America next month) and accepted with relish. I’m often asked for my list of 10 greatest or favorite all-time mysteries, and this one, which won the Edgar for Best First Mystery, is always on the list. Try to ignore the two wan movies that were made from this masterpiece. It’s the story of an ambitious young man and the lovely girl who falls in love with him and becomes pregnant – which he knows will enrage her father, head of a powerful company for which he wants to work and which he’d seen as his future fortune. Unless he can do something about his problem, his dreams will be smashed. He takes care of his girl friend, and then proceeds to woo her sister. Ordinary, decent people are caught up in a vile web, not of their making, and the tension mounts as they attempt to return to their lives – and fail. One of the great mystery stories of all time, in a nice new trade paperback edition. $12.00

MARCH 2003

With this giant volume, McMillan celebrates that 20-year-milestone with a collection of original stories by an all-star lineup of today’s top noir authors. The best story in the book is Pelecanos’ dazzling “The Dead Their Eyes Implore Us,” but there is much joy to be had in reading Crumley’s “Hostages,” Connelly’s “Cahoots,” Christopher Cook’s “The Pickpocket,” and so many others, including the under-appreciated Jon A. Jackson, James Sallis, Rick DeMarinis, Jesse Sublett, Scott Phillips and, from beyond the grave, previously unpublished work by Willeford and Howard Browne’s unproduced screenplay. More than 700 pages of great stuff that you can dip into over the course of the next few cold months, getting a bit of your favorite writers and sampling a few new ones who could become favorites. (We have two copies left of the gorgeous limited edition, signed by every living contributor, at $300.00.) Trade edition $35.00

FEBRUARY 2003

When Karen has a date with a guy she likes, they stop at her door and he kisses her good night. After the kiss, she turns toward the door. He gets it. “I can wait,” he says. “You think it’ll be long?” She answers, “What’re you doing Sunday?” Now, call me nuts, but I think that’s cool.

There’s not a bad story in the book, and most are outstanding. While they last, we still have a few signed first editions. $24.95

Favorites for 2002

1. Leonard, Elmore, When the Women Come Out to Dance, Morrow
2. Malone, Michael, First Lady, Sourcebooks
3. Ellroy, James (ed.), Best American Mystery Stories 2002, Houghton Mifflin
4. Haining, Peter, The Classic Era of Crime Fiction, Chicago Review Press
5. Stark, Richard, Breakout, Mysterious Press

December 2002

This huge, over-sized volume depicts the posters and other graphics of the classic era of film noir.

It is hard to imagine that a $50.00 book is a bargain, but this one is. There are 270 extra-large pages filled with full-color illustrations of every great private eye movie, all the great noir suspense classics, and more reproductions of posters of B films (and worse!) that nonetheless had wonderfully pulpy images.

There are hard-boiled private eyes, gangsters and, most important, femmes fatale–mostly blond, usually gorgeous, and always in a low-cut dress, blouse or sweater. Rare posters include The Blue Dahlia (with Alan Ladd and Veronica Lake) as well as The Blue Gardenia (with Richard Conte and Anne Baxter); The Lady in the Lake (with Robert Montgomery and Audrey Totter) as well as The Lady from Shanghai (with Rita Hayworth and Orson Welles); Woman on Pier 13 (with Laraine Day and Robert Ryan) and The Woman in the Window (with Edward G. Robinson and Joan Bennett); and Dark Passage (with Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall) and Dark City (with Paul Henreid and Lizabeth Scott).

While the poster art is the chief attraction of this glorious book, the text is utterly fascinating and informative, as you might expect from this author. He wrote Dark City a few years ago, easily the best-written and best researched book on film noir, and last year produced Dark City Dames, a well-illustrated collection of interviews with six of the most important actresses of the much-loved genre that flourished in the 1940s and ‘50s. $50.00

November 2002

As the series editor of the annual Best American Mystery Stories, I’ve read literally thousands of short stories in the past seven years, but they inevitably fade in memory as the next wave comes along. A few stay with me, however, and the title story of this superb collection is one of them. It was so good, in fact, that it was selected for Best American Mystery Stories of the Century. “The Dark Snow” originally app eared in Playboy and it would be hard for anyone to be prepared for the seething rage that readers will experience as they read the story of a man who simply wants to be left alone and those who won’t allow it. As one of the best short story writers working today, DuBois has been nominated for three Edgars and won two Shamus awards. These are suspense tales and mystery stories with excruciatingly wonderful surprise endings. Even if you are not ordinarily a fan of the short story, you should acquaint yourself with these white-knuckle shockers. Hardcover signed limited edition (with a separately publishe short story) of 225 copies, $42.00. Also available in trade paperback at $16.00

October 2002

Probably known more for his celebrity biographies (Dean Martin, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sonny Liston) than for his Mafia thrillers (Cut Numbers, Trinities), Tosches has gone in a new direction entirely with his latest novel, an unforgettable literary tour de force which seamlessly marries erudition to evil.

The plot is simple: members of the Mafia learn of the existence of the original manuscript of Dante’s masterpiece, The Divine Comedy, and steal it, murdering anyone who knows about the priceless treasure. They then make a monumental mistake by asking a noted writer and scholar to authenticate it. The writer’s name is Nick Tosches. Tosches then decides he wants the manuscript himself and takes gun in hand to protect it–and himself–from the mob. I can’t tell you more.

While the storyline is straightforward, Tosches’ execution (no pun intended) of it is anyt hing but. The narrative twists and turns alternately between the present day and Dante’s time. The poet’s search for enlightenment from an ancient mystic runs parallel to Tosches’ savage indictment of modern times. In the Hand of Dante is a profane and profound bibliomystery, a memoir and a screed painted on a canvas filled with sex and violence. And, in its unrelenting brilliance, it is much more. $24.95

September 2002

Okay, I admit I'm a sucker for this type of book. I love reference books, especially when they're big and, for fun, if they have great color illustrations, they are irresistible. This one is gorgeous, not unlike The History of Mystery by Max Allan Collins which I recommended earlier in the year. And which everyone who ordered a copy was extremely enthusiastic about.

The author, who has produced numerous reference works in the mystery world and a boatload of anthologies, knows a lot and makes it accessible. He defines the "classic" era as being from the mid 1850s to the mid 1950s, which covers a lot of ground. He correctly covers writers who were influential, even if they were not stylists of the first rank, not destined to be read today except by those of who remain charmed by earlier times and the crimes that made those cobbled streets run crimson with the blood of its helpless victims.

Chapters are divided into types of fiction, such as rivals of Sherlock Holmes, dime novel detectives, private eyes, spies, etc. It's a great way to follow espionage fiction from its beginnings up to John le Carre (a bit after the 1950s, but let's not quibble), for example, and the same holds true for the other chapters, in which chronological overviews are given.

And, oh my, the illustrations! I've been collecting for a hundred years (well, more than 35, but you get the idea) and there are covers and dust jackets that I've never seen before. Brilliant colors on coated stock that leap off the page and rivet the eyes. If there were no text at all, this cover art would be worth the astonishingly reasonable price of this coffee table tome. I'd write some more, but I really need to go back and look at some of this stuff a second time.

August 2002

When Sanibel Flats, the first Doc Ford mystery, was published in 1990, it caused a small sensation and continues to do so. The book is an exceptional and finely written novel and it remains one of the most sought- after first mysteries.

Doc Ford is an ex-operative who lives in a house-on-stilts in Dinkin's Bay marina. Ford runs a mail-order business supplying marine specimens to schools and research programs and he is surrounded by a cast of fascinating characters who inhabit that Bay. Doc, whose real name is Marion, is one of those hard-boiled, sensitive, weathered, Floridians who is instantly likeable, and White is one of those hard-boiled, sensitive writers who is instantly readable.

In this, the ninth mystery in the series, Doc's sometime assistant, Janet Mueller, who has an on-again, off-again relationship with one of Doc's friends, has joined a deep-sea dive with three others, even though she isn't yet an accomplished diver. The boat founders and one survivor is picked up. Amelia Gardner has managed to swim to a light tower in the Gulf of Mexico. It is assumed by the folks of Dinkin's Bay that Janet has been lost, but Amelia confides in Doc that, although her perceptions cannot be trusted under the trying circumstances, she thinks there was another boat in the area without lights. And if there was, then its quite possible that the other three in the party were picked up.

The scene is set, and White takes the reader on a wonderfully evocative tour of both the marine and marina life of Florida as Doc Ford investigates the loss of his friend and tries to get to the bottom of what happened out there in the Gulf. $24.95

July 2002

A book from Steve Thayer is always worth the wait. He has set three of his books, The Weatherman, Saint Mudd and Silent Snow, in the Minneapolis area and has repeated several of his characters. But here he introduces us to a new cast of characters and moves the action to Kickapoo Falls in Wisconsin.

Apart from the farmer who finds the body on his land, Deputy Pennington is the first to arrive on the scene. Is this, he thinks, sexual, and did somebody stand and watch? Soon Sheriff Fats and Trooper Russ Hoffmeyer join him. Hoffmeyer soon admits to Pennington that he was once invited to join Michael and Maggie in a threesome, which he did, and the whole episode was filmed. Pennington admits to some jealousy that he was never invited and it isn't long, of course, before he becomes the major suspect in the double homicide and he is arrested.

It is 1960 so there is an election coming up. Most of the good folks of Kickapoo Falls are solidly behind Richard Nixon, but Deputy Pennington has the rare chance for a short conversation with John F. Kennedy when he comes through town during a campaign trip. This is before Pennington's arrest and before the end of the story when we will have learned a good deal about Wisconsin politics and the private sexual quirks of many of its fine upstanding citizens. Deputy Pennington, who has spent all his life in Kickapoo Falls, will take a trip to Nantucket and find himself on a boat near Hyannis Port before he finally puts that strange year of the wheat field murders behind him. $24.95

June 2002

James Bond is an enduring character who has managed to remain iconic through three major authors: Ian Fleming, John Gardner and now Raymond Benson. There are scores of parodies and pastiches by others including Kinglsey Amis, but these are the main guys. Gardner wrote more Bond novels than Ian Fleming, his creator, and Benson now tools in with his eighth (Fleming wrote only 11 novels), and he manages to retain the vigor of the character and the storyline as well as, or better, than his earliest efforts.

In a plot perhaps a little too close to today's headlines to be comfortable, Bond finds himself battling a terrorist who has developed the perfect biological weapon, small enough to be virtually invisible, yet powerful enough to destroy entire populations. Will Bond be able to stop a disaster? Will he have some cool devices to help him prevail against overwhelming odds? Will he hook up with any gorgeous babes along the way? What do you think?

In addition to signed copies of the first American edition, we also have some singed copies of the true first, the U.K. edition published by Hodder and Stoughton at $47.46. Finally, we also have some British firsts, signed, of Never Dream of Dying at $44.98

May 2002

If you've seen any of my recommendations over the past several years, it's no secret that one of my favorite living writers is Thomas H. Cook. While The Interrogation is a complete departure from the type of book he has produced over the past decade, it is nonetheless a masterful performance that demonstrates his versatility as well as his talent.

The entire action takes place over a 24-hour period during which the police interrogate Albert Jay Smalls. Smalls is a homeless man who has been picked up for committing that most horrific of crimes - the murder of a child. The cops, good guys who want desperately to make the case and keep Smalls off the street, are given only a day to break him before they have to let him go since there is no direct evidence to link him to the crime. They know he did it, but proving it is something else again.

As they race against the clock in search of clues in various parts of the city and various parts of Small's history, they are thwarted again and again, driven to frustrated fury at the prospect of letting him go, to disappear forever into the netherworld of the homeless.

The police had found Smalls when they rounded up all the vagrants in the park - not to roust them, but to find someone who could have perpetrated this monstrous act. Detective Cohen was there, in charge of the case with his partner, reflecting on the scene.

"He remembered how he'd watched the helpless vagrants," Cook writes, "stagger into the ball field, and imagined his own people marched through narrow European streets and herded together in rain-soaked village squares, the trains already waiting in the distance. Had they been as faceless to their guards, he wondered, as the derelicts in the park's gaseous mist had been to him?"

Cook again demonstrates that he is both a master of suspense and a poet. $23.95

April 2002

According to his publisher's statistics, the peerless Donald E. Westlake, who has made his mark both with witty capers and with gritty noir thrillers, has more than a million copies of his Mysterious Press books in print, as well as more than a million copies of his many titles in print around the world. And I'd like to go on record as saying that he deserves every bit of that success. This is a case of an immensely talented author getting his due, with the vast (and, alas, sometimes taste-impaired) reading public revealing a great discernment.

Westlake has been well and truly acknowledged by his peers over the more than four decades of his career, having, among other honors, been named a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, been the recipient of the Bouchercon Lifetime Achievement Award, and been nominated for an Oscar for his screenplay of The Grifters.

His latest book, Put a Lid on It, is a far cry from his recent throat-grippers (The Hook, The Ax) and also different from his recent revivals of his earlier cold-blooded/hard-boiled Parker series (Firebreak, Flashfire). It is closest in tone to his Dortmunder titles (most recently, Bad News), but it introduces a different sort of thief than the protagonist who is featured in The Hot Rock, Bank Shot and others. Meehan, the hero of Put a Lid on It, like any other Westlake lead character, is a one-name kind of guy and is as recognizably a Westlake creation as if he were branded with a giant "W."

Smart as he is, though, Meehan wouldn't be a Westlake hero if bad luck were unknown to him. When we first encounter him, he's sitting in jail in the Manhattan Correctional Center, denied parole and stoically awaiting sentencing. Out of the blue, a chance to alter his fate presents itself when a clandestinely dispatched representative of the president's reelection campaign presents himself as Meehan's potential savior.

All Meehan has to do is come up with a workable plan to steal a hideously incriminating videotape from the upstate New York estate of a wacko millionaire. He must find the appropriate accomplices to help him and so forth…while the clock is furiously ticking.

Fans of such sophisticated political farce as Larry Beinhart's American Hero (transferred to the screen as Wag the Dog) or Joe Klein's (a/k/a Anonymous) Primary Colors will enjoy the twisted application of Don Westlake's merry cynicism to the idea of the bungled high-level cover-up. They will admire, as well, his long-perfected ability to blend incredible smartness with an ever-entertaining degree of smart-aleck impudence. More Meehan, please. And more Westlake, too, for as long as he can tap the keys of the old portable typewriter on which he still works. $23.95

March 2002

I know, I know. You're thinking, here's Otto, flogging one if his books again. Actually, I haven't in nearly two years - not because there weren't some terrific ones, but the appearance of impropriety or favoritism is not lost on me.

This new book, however, is truly wonderful. You don't actually have to like boxing to enjoy these stories, though it does help.

Joyce Carol Oates' "The Man Who Fought Roland La Starza" is, she has said, largely autobiographical. If you read this powerful and poignant long story, you'll definitely want to know how autobiographical it is, because it has its share of shocking moments.

Lawrence Block has done his usual masterful job, and Thomas H. Cook's little jewel is as poetic and surprising as you could hope for. Clark Howard, who has been nominated eight times for Edgars for his short stories and true crime books, winning one of each, has produced another authentic and hard-hitting story. And speaking of authentic, Loren D. Estleman wrote about what he knows - having once been a boxer himself.

James Grady, author of Six Days of the Condor, produced what I told him is the best thing he's ever written, and he agreed, recreating an infamous Jack Dempsey fight in Billings, Montana, adding a nice twist.

No one writes better or more truly about boxing than F.X. Toole, a corner man in real life, whose Rope Burns was a New York Times notable book of the year.

With one strong story after another, there is also work by Doug Allyn, Andrew Bergman, Brendan DuBois, Edward D. Hoch, Stuart M. Kaminsky, Mike Lupica and John Shannon.

If you are a sports fan, or live with one, you will love this collection which so accurately and, sometimes, tragically, illustrates the thrill of victory and the agony (never truer than in this sport) of defeat. $24.95

February 2002

This thriller from the author of Hart's War is addictive. Analyst Dr. Frederick Starks has just turned 53 and, on his birthday, receives a letter which informs him that he has ruined the letter-writer's life and now his life is about to be ruined.

Starks must solve a riddle, he is told. He must find out whose life he ruined within two weeks. If he does not, he must kill himself. If he does not kill himself, then those nearest and dearest to him will be killed. The letter is signed Rumpelstiltskin.

At first Starks is dismissive - but he does call relatives to see that they are all right. Not all of them are. In fact Starks is convinced that the letter writer is deadly serious when he discovers how the birthday of his 14 year-old great-niece was ruined. He must now engage in the game or be responsible for the lives of others.

While he works frantically to try and unlock the past and find whose life he could possibly have ruined, Rumpelstiltskin is also busy. Within hours of receiving that first shattering letter, one of Dr. Starks' patients throws himself under a subway train, though Starks knows the patient was not suicidal.

When the police tell him that a couple and a homeless woman saw the man jump, Starks tries to find them. He finds only the homeless woman, who tells him that she was given money by the couple to tell what she witnessed. Starks is certain that Rumpelstiltskin must be one of the couple, but he's wrong. It's even more sinister than that and, when he meets the accomplices, he realizes that his adversary has been planning his revenge for years.

Soon, Starks' life is spiraling downward. There is nothing hidden from Rumpelstiltskin. His credit cards, his bank accounts, his patients, his homes in Manhattan and in Massachusetts, his reputation - nothing and no one is safe as Starks races against time as his world shrinks and his options run out. The clock is ticking as he hunts a ruthless psychopath who always seems to be one step ahead of him.

As Starks tries to figure out what to do besides react to his life spinning out of control, he uses his training, his dwindling resources, and every weapon available to him to combat this relentless and deadly foe. $25.00

Otto's Favorite's for 2001

1. First Lady - Michael Malone
2. The Final Country - James Crumley
3. Money, Money, Money - Ed McBain
4. Mystic River - Dennis Lehane
5. Pagan Babies - Elmore Leonard

December 2001

It may start to look as if I have stock in this little press because I've come to praise one of its books for three months in a row (The Great American Paperback in October and Pulp Culture in November). Well, I wish I did, because this group of books includes some of the most beautiful and exciting mystery reference books ever produced.

The text by the fine mystery writer, Max Allan Collins, is a joy to read. It's not hard to tell when a writer is writing and when a scholar is writing.

Inevitably, because of the enormous range covered between these covers, it's mostly pretty superficial, skimming the surface of the entire genre, but it's all nicely presented.

Collins begins with Vidocq, credited with founding the French Surete and the author of his Memoirs (1828-29) that are more fiction than fact, and moving quickly to the true inventor of the detective story, Edgar Allan Poe, then on to Allan Pinkerton, who caused to have ghostwritten the best adventures of his famous detective agency (again with less devotion to reportage than one might have wished). There's a good deal about the early dime novel heroes, such as Old Sleuth and Nick Carter, whose adventures were sold for a nickel and a dime, and were the predecessors of the pulp magazines.

Everyone you'd expert to find here is mentioned, and even some authors and books you might not have expected to see in such a huge overview, bringing the history up to today's best-seller lists with Robert Crais, Harlan Coben and Thomas Perry. Granted, they get less than a paragraph each, but what can you expect in a book of fewer than 200 pages (albeit they are giant pages) that covers absolutely everyone of significance (and some who have none)?

But, as with the other books produced by Collectors Press, it is the magnificent illustrative material that is the most compelling. Page after page of splendid full-color illustrations of dust jackets, paperback covers, movie posters and whatever else makes breathtaking artwork are an endless joy.

As before, the $45.00 price is a bargain, thanks to the creative production that was done in Hong Kong.

I realize that I'm gushing, but you've got to see this handsome tome to fully appreciate what I'm getting at. If you have a friend, relative, loved one or boss who you'd really like to suck up to, get this book as a gift.

But get two. Because once you see it, you won't want to part with it. $45.00

November 2001

Pulp magazines reigned for about a quarter of a century as the most popular entertainment medium in America. They were cheaply produced and, during the Great Depression, were blessedly cheap, generally a dime.

And they were plentiful. After a low-key beginning, when a few magazines displayed their tasteful covers to an appreciative readership, their success spawned countless competitors. The covers became more and more garish, and promised ever greater excitement.

Western covers went from an illustration of an Indian gently paddling his canoe to furious cattle stampedes, a huge gang of obviously ferocious savages attacking a defenseless family, and depictions of shoot-outs in every conceivable locale.

Mystery covers went from showing a cop on the beat to villianous thugs tearing the clothes off a helpless young woman - most frequently a generously endowed young blonde- or any other sort of action that promised the reader endless excitement.

And they delivered. Pulp writers knew how to write thrilling stories and books. Many of the best went on to extremely successful careers in book form, having learned their trade in the pulps. Dashiell Hammett, of course, wrote most of his stories and novels for the pulps, and he is now recognized as one of the most influential fiction writers of the 20th century. Raymond Chandler, too, wrote stories for the pulps and is frequently conceded to be the great mystery writer of the 20th century.

Pulps became more and more specialized as their numbers increased, soon appealing to readers of jungle stories, science fiction, fantasy, railroad stories, romances, westerns, western romances, aviation, Foreign Legion, engineering, outdoor tales, courtroom, Wall Street, newspaper, firefighters, sea stories, and so on.

Now there is a new book that recalls that Golden Age of the pulp magazines (roughly 1920-45) with a knowledgeable and nicely written text that covers all the highlights of the major magazines and the major writers who are sometimes remembered today and, alas, sometimes not.

And there are those fabulous covers! Magnificently produced in Hong Kong, the $39.95 cover price is a genuine bargain. Here is The Shadow, Max Brand, Talbot Mundy, Erle Stanley Gardner, Black Mask, Sax Rohmer and Fu Manchu, C.S. Forester and Captain Horatio Hornblower, Doc Savage, The Phantom Detective, and on and on.

For the old codgers among us, this gorgeous book will produce a happy nostalgic trip down memory lane. For younger readers, eat your heart out. It will show you what you missed in a great time of great storytelling that today's television shows can't ever match. $39.95

October 2001

One of the greatest disappointments that can befall the mystery aficionado is to find an author or a series detective that you absolutely adore, only to have the author disappear or the character killed off.

Conan Doyle tried to do it to Sherlock Holmes, throwing him off the edge of the Reichenbach Falls (happily to resurrect him some years later), and Nicholas Freeling did it to Inspector Van Der Valk, permanently alienating his readers. Maj Sjowall and Per Wahloo planned ten books about Martin Beck and, within days of completing the tenth adventure of the Swedish policeman, Wahloo died, ensuring no further books in the series.

Not quite so dramatically, Michael Malone apparently fell off the face of the earth. (He became a highly successful television writer, which is almost the same thing.) Today, even some sophisticated readers of mystery fiction have forgotten Malone, who wrote two masterpieces involving a pair of detectives in a small town in North Carolina, Justin Savile and Cuddy Mangum.

Unlike too many cops portrayed in detective fiction as stupid, corrupt, or both, Justin and Cuddy are fully developed as intelligent, honest cops who try to do their job as well as possible, even though they have their human flaws. Cuddy is arrogant and impatient, Justin drinks too much and likes the ladies a bit more than he should, seeing how he's married (just barely now, as his wife has moved out of the house).

First Lady is the first volume about these terrific characters in more than decade (Time's Witness was published in 1989; Uncivil Seasons, one of the few nearly perfect novels in the history of detective fiction, was published in 1983). Thankfully, Malone's publisher is also releasing the first two books in trade paperback editions, which I can recommend as strongly as anything I've praised in this monthly column.

Very little is as it seems in this poetically written mystery novel. A serial killer seems to be on the loose, but is he really a serial killer? A pattern is discovered by Justin that seems brilliantly thought out and then, as in E.C. Bentley's Trent's Last Case, holes are punched through the theory by various members of the law enforcement community (including two women from the FBI), most of whom seem to be working together like adults, not worrying too much about who's going to get credit or blame.

First Lady (the eponymous heroine is the great love of Cuddy's life, though she happens to be married to the governor) is utterly contemporary, with some gruesomely described violence and a healthy dose of (very discreet) sex, but it's also a wonderfully constructed old-fashioned puzzler, with a cornucopia of clever clues, a near-surplus of suspicious suspects and a trawlerful of red herrings guaranteed to fool the most assiduous armchair detective.

Welcome back, Mr. Malone. And don't make us wait another dozen years for the next Justin and Cuddy novel! $24.00

September 2001

Greg Rucka has created a remarkable character named Atticus Kodiak, a bodyguard who, together with assorted friends and associates, has appeared in four previous books. Before reading Critical Space, it is not necessary to know the sometimes complicated history of Atticus and his professional and personal relationships, but it helps. It helps, for instance, to know that Atticus has been romantically involved with Bridget and Natalie, both of whom have worked on cases with him. It helps to know that Bridget has a very complicated past, which Rucka chronicled in his fourth book, Shooting At Midnight. And it helps to know that he has already had a run-in with one of the most deadly international assassins working - a beautiful woman who goes by the name of Drama. And it is Drama who takes center stage in this latest case. After quitting a high-profile case as bodyguard to spoiled movie star Skye Van Brandt, Kodiak is approached by an old friend from England who is bringing the famous abused children's advocate, Lady Antonia Ainsley-Hunter, to the States for some appearances. After one near-miss with Lady Antonia, another attempt to abduct her is successful. But it is not a ransom or publicity that the kidnapper wants - she is merely bait for the real target: Atticus. A game of cat and mouse leads through the subways of New York, out to Staten Island, back over to New Jersey, and Atticus is once again in the presence of Drama, who now needs his help. She has become a target of an assassin every bit as good as she is. He goes by the name of Oxford and Drama, who has some idea who might have put the hit on her, needs backup to combat this elite killer. What is remarkable about this book, and the series as a whole, is not only the writing, which is crisp and concise, but the inside information from Rucka about what it takes to be a bodyguard, what the training is like, and how certain situations are defused. Rucka knows his stuff and deserves a wider audience. $23.95

August 2001

If anyone knows how to keep a carousel of a plot going - with multiple entrances and exits, and any number of brass rings looking like the real thing - it's Joe Gores. His "DKA files" books - DKA standing for Dan Kearny Associates, a motley crew of accomplished San Francisco repomen - provide the kind of plot where the reader must trust the author and settle back for the wild (and wonderful) ride.

In this new novel, the men and women of DKA meet up once again (and form a useful, if uneasy, alliance) with members of the Muchwaya family of Gypsies. Dan, in fact, agrees to be hired by Staley, a Muchwaya elder he likes, despite considering him "the twistiest man he had ever known." What Staley wants is for Dan to bring to earth the elusive and extremely gorgeous Yana, apparently now on the lam after murdering her husband. Yana is as clever as she is beautiful, and her wily disguises keep her - barely - one step ahead of Kearney.

Cons, Scams and Grifts lives up to its title, with the usual Gores gust keeping the action fast, furious and funny. I'm not going to tell you about the talking orangutan, or the phony baron, or the lesbian dominatrix, or the mortuary cosmetician known as Becky Thatcher, or what part the Pope plays, or how the Japanese mob got involved.

Just trust me - it all makes sense in the end. And you're going to love it. $24.95

July 2001

LaManna is new to the world of mystery/thriller writing, although his screen credits include the Jackie Chan/Chris Tucker movie, Rush Hour, Silvester Stallone's Cliffhanger and Star Trek: First Contact. And, as those movies might suggest, Acid Test is a fast, thrilling tale of murder and international intrigue which is already earning LaManna comparisons with Tom Clancy and Stephen Coonts.

The time is the very near future. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the small Soviet states have been in limbo - starvation interspersed with small wars - making them ripe for a take-over by a megalomaniac who sees his mission as the savior of these small former satellites of Russia. That man exists. He calls himself Batu Khan and his dream is to make the Trans-Altaic Alliance, which includes Armenia, Uzbekistan and Afghanistan, a viable world power. As he moves towards Georgia and the Ukraine, the West, especially American President Burton Marsh, watches carefully.

But there is also danger much closer to home. Special Agent Matt Wilder has seen actions in the Australian Desert that disturbs him. When he returns to the United States to report those activities, he witnesses something horrific.

Called to the Security Forces Officers' Club in Washington, Matt is asked if he would mind talking to his friend, Gail, who has worked with Dr. Tom Herrold for many years. When Matt arrives at the cafeteria, he sees Gail calmly eating her meal and Dr. Herrold sitting opposite her - with a steak knife handle sticking from his right eye.

Wilder will find that such incidents of massive aggression by formerly calm American citizens are escalating, reminding him of what he saw in the desert. He realizes that he must find the connection between these incidents at home and what he observed when the forces of Bhatu Khan were engaged in battle - and he must find that connection quickly.

The Trans-Altaic Alliance, growing stronger, soon will be ready to threaten the United States through Western Europe, and President Marsh is struggling with his cabinet, as well as the spasms of uncontrollable anger and aggression that threaten to overtake him.

This is great stuff - a book to be devoured in one sitting. $19.95

June 2001

This is Woodrell's third book set in the Ozarks and, like the other two, Give Us a Kiss and Tomato Red, it peels back the layers from lives already made bare by poverty and petty crime, exposing the reader to the raw everyday hopes and fears of the poor and the helpless. Told through the voice of thirteen-year-old Shuggy Atkins, this is the story of Shug, overweight and devoted to the one person who loves him, his mother Glenda, and her boyfriend Red, a brutal and ignorant man. Red hates Shug but uses him to break into houses to steal drugs and anything else that can be sold. Glenda makes a meager living looking after the local cemetery and spends her time trying to keep Red amused and away from Shug, who he loves to humiliate but whom she adores. Glenda is Shug's only champion. She calls him Sweet Mister as she continually boosts his confidence and promises a better life for him, if not for herself. But when Glenda sees the beautiful green Thunderbird with leather seats and its driver, Jimmy Vin Pearce, a chain of events is set into motion that will end in violence and bloodshed. Glenda must keep hidden from Red her infatuation with Jimmy Vin's money and fine clothes while she and Shug dream separate dreams of making a new life away from the violence. Woodrell writes books that are small in volume but large in scope. It is impossible to put down this story of less than 200 pages until the final tragedy unfolds. $23.95

May 2001