Number 22 - Killer's Choice - Ed McBain

 

An accidental reread for me.  half way through i suddenly realised I'd read it a few years ago.  On checking my Facebook "books read in" albums i read it in 2017 and at the time was my first Ed McBain novel.

It's very much a product of its time. If someone tried to publish this today there would be a storm about the casual sexism displayed by pretty much everyone including the women.

However, that aside, this is a damned good police procedural. It's the 4th in the 87th precinct series, but they all work as standalone novels so no prior knowledge is necessary.

I would love to see an ongoing tv series made of these books, set in the same time as the books. They could do three or four of the books per series and they'd take years to get to the end of the source material.

This one follows the investigation into the death of a young woman, Annie Booth, shot to death at her job in a liquor store. It wasn't a robbery since the cash was all still in the register.

Every person who knew Annie seems to describe a different person.  But which of them had the motive means and opportunity to gun her down?

There's also a subplot with another killer being chased down. McBain managed to squeeze a lot of story, and description, into the scant 150 pages of this book.  It's not perfect, but it's solid and good enough that I now pick up the 87th Precinct novels any time I see them going cheap.

In summary, some dated attitudes but a good read.

Number 77 - Monster Town - Bruce Golden

 

Now this was a lot of fun.

Dirk Slade is a washed up ex cop working as a private eye (what else could he be with that name) in Monster Town. Monster Town is where the movie monsters go to live when work in the movies dries up. It's the 60's so they're in a particular slump. I'm not talking about the actors who played the monsters.  In this reality, the monsters are real and play themselves on the screen.

When Dirk is called to investigate the disappearance of the son of Vladimir Prince (aka Count Dracula), it starts a chain of events in progress that he would never have predicted. 

His best friend, a local journalist, is murdered whilst following up a Godzilla big story. As well as the missing boy, he needs to avenge his friend's death and uncover the story.

Along the way he runs into the wolfman, the invisible man, Quasimodo, Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, a vicious gargoyle and others, and starts up a new romance with the beautiful wasp Woman, She has a sting in her tail.

It's all told in classic hard boiled prose. All short and sweet as a short and sweet thing, with similes galore.

It kept a grin on my face the whole time I was reading it.  This is a comedy that doesn't rely on telling jokes (although  there are some gloriously convoluted puns to be found) but on telling the ridiculous story as straight as it could possibly be told.

At only 120 pages it's a quick and very easy read.  For fans of the old horror movies, there are a ton of Easter eggs and sneaky references. It's not particularly deep and meaningful.  It's not meant to be.

If you want a droll, surreal murder mystery in a brilliantly realised setting, this is the book for you.  And it's on special offer over at the PS Publishing discount site.

 

Number 68 - Poppet - Mo Hayder

 

Mo Hayder sadly died on 27th July this year after being diagnosed with motor neurone disease in December 2020. 

The first of her books was The Treatment, one of the most disturbing thrillers I've ever read. The treatment is the second Caffery book so I bought the first book in the series (Birdman) very quickly.  That turned out to be equally disturbing with one revelation in particular that made me put the book down and go for a walk to get the image out of my head.

Since then I've collected each of her books as they were released,  I'm slightly behind in reading them and decided to pick up on the Jack Caffrey series where I left off when I heard the sad news.

While she's never reached the sheer disturbing heights of those two books since, she is still a guaranteed source of dark and gritty crime drama that hovers on the edge of true horror fiction.

This one is no exception.  A hysteria is spreading in an insane asylum about a dwarf that sits on the chests of the inmates and smothers them.

AJ is one of the chief nurses at the institute and is naturally concerned about the patients, especially when a spate of power cuts lead to an increase in the sightings, and a number of the patients self harming and worse. He contacts Jack Caffery for help  and the ensuing investigation forces both men to stand up to their internal demons.

For some reason the narration has turned to present tense, compared to the standard past tense of the previous 5 books in the series.  this lends the story a sense of immediacy and urgency. The story is gruesome and filled with unpredictable twists and turns.  The chapters are short and choppy, keeping the pace moving at a hectic rate. 

Luckily, Flea Marley is kept to the sub-plot in this book.  In the previous Caffery book I'd started to find her incredibly annoying. She basically went against all rules throughout and get herself into eminently avoidable danger as a result. Sidelining her from the main story in this one was a very good decision on Hayder's part.

This is an excellent addition to the Caffery series. It's best to read them in sequence since there is a strong continuity in place. However they do all also work well as standalones.

Once I've finished Wolf and hanging Hill I'll have read all the books she wrote as Mo Hayder.  She has a new book out posthumously next year - The Book of sand -  under the name Theo Clare.  It will certainly be on my to buy list.

Number 63 - The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths - Harry Bingham

 

Harry Bingham  knows how to give good title. This is the third book in a series.  The first two are called Talking with the Dead and Love Story With Murders.  The series is narrated in first person by a detective in rural South wales called Fiona Griffiths.

That makes this a more than slightly ominous title for book three. However the strange death is more figurative than literal. Fiona has to go undercover to solve a serious fraud case which seems to have branched out into murder. She's not well known for her emotional stability at the best of times and finds her new undercover identity supplanting her own.

This is one series that seems to improve as it goes on.  The first was very good, but turned a bit silly near the end.  It was well enough written though that I had no hesitation in picking up book 2.  Admittedly, even if I had doubts, that title, Love Story with Murders, would have persuaded me. Book 2 either managed to hold back on the silliness or incorporate it more naturally into the narrative.  

Book 3 is the best of the series so far.  despite being nearly 450 pages, the p[lot zips by at a cracking pace and it feels like half that length.  

There still is a level of silliness in this, some of what she does would almost certainly have blown her cover (or just plain had her killed), but it's convincing enough while you're reading that it's easily forgivable. Apart from anything else, it's too entertaining to nitpick. 

I have book 4 on my shelves and will be reading that in the not too distant future.

Number 59 - Broken - Karin Slaughter

 

Karin Slaughter must be the most appropriately named writer in history.  She writes gruesome crime/police procedurals featuring some spectacularly messy crime scenes. 

One of the best things about her books is that you have no idea who will actually survive, or how much will be left of them. This is no exception, and I was convinced that yet another of her regular characters was about to meet a nasty end.  Whether they did I'm not going to say.

I'm a bit late to the party here.  There are about 6 more in this series already.  In this book she manages to say goodbye to Grant County as the central location.  Despite Sara having left Grant County a few books previously, she hadn't truly said goodbye to the town or made peace with some of its inhabitants.  

This opens with a young student murdered by the lake just before Sara returns to her parents' house for Thanksgiving.  The prime suspect for the killing is arrested and confesses.  However he then kills himself in the jail cell and writes "Not me" on the wall in his blood as he dies.

Sara has a very personal grudge against Lena Adams, the arresting officer and calls in Will Trent from the GBI to investigate the deaths. Lena and Sara are both characters we sympathise with. Putting the antagonism between the two heroes (flawed as they may be) creates a huge amount of tension at the heart of the book. 

The story moves at a cracking pace and, as previously mentioned, we don't know who will live till the end of the book.  Sara and Will are both in the sequels so they're in the clear, but the rest of the cast don't have that luxury. I suppose if I'd read this when it came out, I wouldn't have had even that reassurance.

The plotting is as strong as ever, with the various plot threads pulling together to reach a satisfying conclusion. I'm not sure it would be possible to pick out the murderer early on in this but that's not a bad thing. It's a procedural as much as it is a detective story and the journey to the solution is as important as the answers to the questions. The pieces of the puzzle are carefully laid out and there's a lot of pleasure to be had from working out various character's motivations.

If I was to criticise it, maybe there was a bot too much luck (both bad and good) involved in the eventual unmasking of the killer, but that's a minor quibble. 

This is a worthy goodbye to Grant County.  i will be sure to continue with the series sooner rather than later.

Number 19 - Doll - Ed McBain

 Ed McBain is one of the legends of the crime writing scene.  His 87th Precinct stories - of which this is apparently number 20 - paved the way for hard hitting realistic cop shows like Hill Street Blues.  His influence on the genre can't be denied.

He was so popular when this one was published, they didn't even bother to put his first name on the cover.

I've read several of these books now and they deserve the praise heaped on them.  They're fast paced, exciting and compulsive reads.

With a few hours spare in a day, I've been known to finish them in a day.  

I really should be reading them in sequence, but with more than fifty to source, that's a tall order and they work well as stand-alone novels in any case.

This one revolves around the hunt for the killer of Tinka Sachs, a fashion model.  Her daughter was sitting in the next room playing with the eponymous toy while a man viciously hacked Tinka to death. 

It's a case that leads Detective Carella into mortal danger. He follows up a lead on his own and goes missing.  His colleagues have to pull out all the stops to solve the murder and his disappearance.

The prose is brisk and plain, whilst still breaking most of Elmore Leonard's rules of writing on a regular basis. Adverbs are used to describe how characters speak when necessary.  They don't just say things. People whisper, shout, ask and correct others. This is a great example of why Elmore Leonard's rules only apply if you want to write like Leonard.

And the style really works.  It never feels like complex writing. It draws you in and makes you feel for the character's plights. The tension genuinely ratchets up in the last few chapters. I was really annoyed that I had to go back to work with 30 pages left to go.

I was more annoyed that the previous owner has torn out the last page.  Luckily, the main plot was resolved before that, and I've only missed a loose end or two being tied up, or set up for book 21, I'm not sure.  I popped onto Abebooks and ordered myself a new copy so I can read what I've missed for 83p plus postage.

There are some aspects that need to be looked at in the light of the fact the book was written in the 60's.  Although the intent is not to offend, the description of the black detective might not pass muster these days. 

I wuld love to see a TV version of these books, in the original 50s/60s settings. With more than 50 books, there's a lot of material they could choose from.  For short books they have a large cast and it would make a great ensemble drama.

 I have a whole slew of these still to read.  You will see more reviews popping up from time to time.  Hopefully, the rest of them haven't been vandalised.

Edited to add - my replacement copy arrived and I managed to read the last two pages. They made an unexpectedly moving close to the novel.  McBain really was a master of the art,