City of Bones, by Michael Connelly

One of Connelly's best.

Harry Bosch is sent out to see a bone unearthed by a citizen's dog. The discovery leads to the remains of a twelve-year-old boy, at least 20 years old, in the hillsides of the Santa Monica mountains.

As with all cases, Harry is impatient and wants to find the apparent killer immediately. He works night and day to identify the body,then track down possible suspects. In the course of the investigation he meets Julia Brasher, rookie cop, and finds a soulmate in her.

The investigation leads down one alley and then the other, at each turn encountering snags big and small. As usual, he is dogged by upper levels of police management wanting quick solves and willing to bend the truth to get there. The pursuit of image never interests Bosch and he insists on telling the truth every time.

More than once in the course of the story Bosch asks himself or is asked by others - what does he believe in? He says he believes in the "blue religion". The pursuit of the killers, the pursuit of justice, the truth. He is, however, as Deputy Chief Irvin Irving says, a "shit magnet". Bad things happen to Harry. Perhaps more so in this novel than in others.

IN the end the case is solved. But not particularly satisfactorily. We never really find out what happened, exactly, and the ending is ugly.

I have lived in Harry's body, in a way, for many months, as I read through this series. He would probably not find me interesting but I find him fascinating and very real. That reality comes from Connelly's attention to details. He doesn't have to trot out every injury in a homicide. Describe it fully. He doesn't have to tell us what a rich woman's house appears like to Bosch. He doesn't have to take us into the paperwork. But he does. And that's why I buy it all.

Note: I wrote this in 2009. I don't usually post reviews of mysteries here but I make exceptions.

Dark Places, by Gillian Flynn

Dark places, inhabited by unstable, unpredictable characters.

The main character, Libby Day, is 31 at the opening, a bitter, angry young woman not given to trusting others. Or even having others in her life. She's always been a bit standoffish but events in her early life sent her down a road of manipulation and guardedness.

At the age of seven, in early 1985, Libby was in the house when she heard others being attacked. Although she did not see anything, she head enough to make her afraid. She managed to slip out of the house and hide in the nearby woody area. She heard her brother Ben calling for her a little later but remained hidden.

Her mother and two sisters were killed that night: her mother was knifed, then shot in the head, her sister Michelle was strangled in her bed, and her sister Debby was axed to death. Libby herself stayed out all night, made it to a gas station to call for help, and ultimately lost two toes and a finger to frostbite.

Ben was charged with the murder, and in part because of Libby's testimony, he was sent to prison for life. Libby grew up with her aunt, the subject of much attention from the press, and at age eighteen inherited a large amount of money from collections made for her. In her twenties she was persuaded to co-author a self-help book, a pop survival book, but she herself didn't believe much that was in it.

At age 31 she learns she is almost out of money. Getting a regular job just seems too much to her. She feels too tired and she doesn't get along well with others. So when the opportunity to earn a little money by talking to a group of "murder fans" comes along, she takes it. She meets this odd assortment in an old building, where they are split into interest groups - interest in various sensational murder cases. Her case draws interest because many people believe Ben to be innocent. They want to locate the real killer.

Eventually, although she is upset to find that everyone in the group believes Ben to be innocent and her to be complicit in his conviction, she comes up with a plan to get more money from them. She will talk to various key players in the episode, ask them questions that possibly only she can ask. And thus she sets off on a journey that takes on a life of its own.

The chapters alternate between 1985 and "now". Libby's chapters are in first-person, the others in third. Gradually we creep up on the actual night of the murders, inch by inch, through the experiences of Ben, Libby's mother Patty, and a few others, with breaks for Libby's current travels. The technique builds suspense to the point where I found it almost unbearable to go on. Or to not go on.

Bury Your Dead, by Louise Penny

Complexity! And lots of it!

Chief Inspector Armand Gamache (of the Surete) is pulled into a strange case while taking a leave of absence. An amateur archeologist, bent on discovering the grave site of the founder of Quebec, is found murdered in the basement of the Literary and Historical Library, an old and treasured library of books in English. The local police ask Gamache's informal assistance. Although he tries to stay out of it Gamache cannot help himself. His mind churns endlessly, searching for answers.

Meanwhile, he is haunted by memories of a recent confrontation with the kidnappers of a young subordinate. Bits of the final scene and the hours before it play in his mind like a tape, stopping and starting seemingly without his control. His broken memories gradually reveal to us the mistakes he made and the consequences of his actions, as well as those of others in command, until we finally get the full picture.

But that isn't all. A previous case has been kept alive in his mind as well. The partner of a convicted man remains unconvinced of the guilt of his friend. He writes a note to Gamache every day, asking "Why did he move the body?" When Gamache finally decides the case deserves another look, he sends Inspector Jean-Guy Beauvoir in to Quebec to investigate quietly, informally. Neither man is particularly convinced that they got the wrong guy, but Beauvoir is willing to do his best to find out.

These three cases run alternately through the book, to the setting of Quebec and particularly Old Quebec City. I did have to pay some attention to the description of this lovely city and to think about visiting myself some day. Or at least looking at it in Google Earth. For Ms. Penny seems determined to impart some of her own love of the city to the reader.

We learn, too, of the uneasy alliance between the French and English in Quebec, where the English are a decided minority. Although their fighting times are long over, memories seem to span generations.

An interesting introduction, for me, to Chief Inspector Gamache. I felt I got to know him a little in this long book, to know his heart, as well as that of his mentor and a few of his subordinates. The case of the dead archeologist turns out to take many different turns, while Gamache does a great deal of reading at the Lit and His and beyond. I am wondering how he behaves in more familiar stomping grounds now.

Started Early, Took My Dog - by Kate Atkinson

Kate Atkinson's novels just delight me. I get great pleasure reading them. There are books that I like but these I love.

As in the others, this novel features a range of characters, some central and some peripheral. Jackson Brodie is again featured, former detective now supposedly retired. He falls for one more case: to find out who gave birth to a woman, Hope McMaster, a woman who now lives in New Zealand but who was born in England. Jackson figures it shouldn't be that hard, considering he's already traveling. Wandering, really, not settling anywhere. Might as well look into the case while he's on the road.

Another major character is Tracy Waterhouse, former police detective, present head of security for a retail store. Tracy is an amply-built woman who has made her job her life, for the most part. She is not married, has no children. When she spots a familiar woman on the street, pulling a small child, she can guess what will happen to that child when she gets home. She confronts the woman, a drug addict Tracy had arrested when she was with the police. On the spur of the moment she does something highly unusual and unexpected, which changes the course of her life.

When Jackson starts to hunt down birth and adoption records he runs into a blank wall. The presumed birth parents do not appear to exist. So who really did give birth to Hope?

There are other minor characters whose lives are intertwined with these and whose actions surprise and delight at times. It's like a full, satisfying meal that left me feeling just right. 

9 Dragons, by Michael Connelly

The latest in the Harry Bosch series, this one goes into territory rarely experienced by Bosch.

Bosch and his partner Ferras are assigned what appears to be a routine liquor store robbery. The owner, John Li, was killed before he could reach his gun. The killer took the disk from the digital camera for that day, but left two other disks that Li had saved. Bosch looks through the two carefully and discovers a possible motive for the killing. Along with a representative from the Asian Crimes Unit Bosch postulates a connection to an Asian triad based in Hong Kong.

A possible suspect is brought in for questioning and is arrested for extortion. Harry then receives a threatening phone call that he suspects came from a Triad member. And then a video of Harry's thirteen-year-old daughter showing her tied up and held in some unknown place.

Harry only met his daughter when she was four, and had no idea she existed before that. He managed to find a way into her life and an uneasy alliance with her mother, Eleanor Wish, to whom he was once married. Mother and daughter now live in Hong Kong, where Madeline has been learning Chinese and Eleanor works for a casino. So when Harry gets the video he heads for Hong Kong.

What follows is a breathless chase to find his daughter, perhaps more hectic than anything Bosch has experienced before. He leaves devastation in his wake and reason to pile on yet another load of regret. And as we have come to see in other Connelly books, there are twists at the end.

Harry has mellowed over the years but still has "the mission" to get a case solved as quickly as possible. This impatience often costs him dearly but also often means success in his solve rate. He still makes rash decisions and is impatient with those who do not see the job as he does, but he's more cautious, has learned from the past. He is not spending as much time castigating himself and has moved more into his role as father. It's a role that will be interesting to watch him fill.

Note: not the type book I usually write about here because I usually just write my reviews of mysteries on bookcrossing.com and nowhere else. This book is a loaner, however, not registered with bookcrossing, and I wanted to be sure I got some of my thoughts down somewhere.

Darkly Dreaming Dexter, by Jeff Lindsay

The first in the series. We meet Dexter, lovable serial killer, for the first time.

In some ways he is hardly lovable. Although Dex has learned from his foster father to channel his need to kill so that he only kills those "worth killing", he clearly enjoys the task and revels in the pain and blood attendant to it. He readily admits to having no conscience, no real feelings, to faking it.

Yet somehow we are with him. We sympathize with his needs and want him to stay out of harm's way. We don't want him caught. And after all, he is offing those who have no redeeming social (or other) value.

In this episode Dexter has dreams. He has, in the past, been blessed with dreamless deep sleep. But now he wakes with dreams that are disturbing, some of which seem to foretell the future or poke into another mind - or is it another mind? Dex is not sure where these thoughts come from. He is used to hearing from his "dark passenger", the urge that pushes him to kill. Are the dreams a part of that or something more?

The dreams tend to be related to recent murders. Murders of prostitutes where the body is cut neatly into pieces and where there is no blood. All of the blood has been drained from the bodies. When Dexter has his first view of one of these crime scenes he is dizzy with admiration. So perfect, these murders. Clean, precise, perfect. He doesn't spend any time feeling sorry for the prostitutes, even envies this murderer his freedom to kill innocent victims.

The dreams lead Dexter on and even help him find the murderer eventually. When he does, however, he faces the surprise of his life, and the choice of his life.

It is hard, in some ways, to read a book series after it has become a television series. Having seen the television series first I tend to think of the television characters first, comparing them to the upstart characters in the books, while of course the books came first. I wonder how I would have felt about the television series if I'd read the books first. For the two are different in many respects. It isn't surprising that the Dexter on television is nicer and less obsessed by blood and torture than the one in the book. I suspect the producers found that bloodthirsty version one that would be hard to sustain, week after week, without losing a large part of the audience. It is one thing to read of some actions and another to see them.

The book Dexter also has a slightly different sense of humor. They both joke, to themselves, about who Dexter really is and what he wants. The book version also deadpans comments about Miami that are, frankly, very funny. In fact, I may enjoy this aspect of the books most of all. The book Dex seems a little more real in some ways, more threatening. Neither is as frightening as any real serial killer, I suspect, however.

Dexter is surrounded by characters with the same names in both the books and the tv series, but the characters also differ here and there. I am finding the television characters more complex and interesting than those in the book. As I read more of the series I may revise my thoughts.

Note: Another book that would I would not normally review here. I usually knock out mystery reviews in bookcrossing only, with a few rare exceptions. This book, plus the second in the series, were lent to me, though, and have no bookcrossing registration.

No One Heard Her Scream, by Jordan Dane

I should know better. Or maybe not. I found this book on the Publisher's Weekly notable books list for 2008. It was listed under "mass market". Mass market paperbacks do not have to be bad, I can certainly attest. In this case, though, I should have looked more closely before ordering the book from a fellow paperbackswap member.

I did not realize it was in the category of "romantic suspense", a slight improvement over straight "romantic". It's a category I don't particularly like but that I occasionally read, mainly because somebody gave me the book.

The two main characters are Rebecca ("Becca", of course) and Diego, both thirty-something or below, both coping with issues of trust, both strong and highly attractive blah blah blah...in other words, the usual characters in romantic suspense novels.

Becca is a detective in the San Antonio police department, while Diego's position is a bit more shady, man on the inside of a powerful empire led by a wealthy fifty-something man with unsavory predilections.

Becca is still trying to cope with the disappearance and apparent murder of her younger, teenage sister when she takes on an arson case that results in the discovery of a body, dead seven years. The body is of another young woman who disappeared, and the two cases appear to be connected.

From here we get romance, danger, really bad people with no redeeming qualities (not for Jordan Dane a complex antagonist), and fairly sketchy policework. Dane knows some things about police and fire procedure but not enough. Ask me about the blood spatter in the hotel room where Becca's sister was held...no, don't ask because I'm likely to forget this book within a few days.

I recommend this book to people waiting in line, people stuck on airplanes, people trying to get through the time. Or LifeTime movie producers.

The Cloud of Unknowing, by Thomas H. Cook

The Cloud of Unknowing was a book written in the 14th century, a "spiritual guide". It urges a young monk not to search for knowledge about God but to know God through love (I simplify, of course). There is nothing in this book, the one by Thomas Cook, that makes direct reference to the earlier work, except the way of knowing, of getting through that cloud, getting there through love.

We begin in the office of Detective Petrie. We begin with confusion: one death, two, three, four? And a promise to tell the whole story. This chapter is written in the second person, as if an unseen person is telling your story for you. The "you" in this case is David Sears.

The office conversation - or interrogation if you want to call it that - is intertwined with the story told in the first person by David Sears. The short detective chapters simply keep us in place, bring us back to the present.

Through this means Cook leads us gradually into the family of David, his sister Diana, and their father. He takes us through the drowning death of Diana's son Nathan, a child who was full of fear and who seemed to have inherited some kind of mental illness. The path then leads back to David's father, whose own struggle with what was diagnosed as "paranoid schizophrenia" escalated in later years.

I use the quotation marks only because my own knowledge of this condition tells me that there are no physical tests for it and there is, further, no proof of genetic descendency, however long such assumptions persist. Nevertheless, we have to assume in this book that, genetic or not, this family is somehow afflicted. That affliction may come as much from the cruel emotional cuts inflicted by David's father as by any kind of real illness.

We learn that Diana is not "getting over" her son's death. More, we learn that she is suspicious of the means of his death, yet her avenues of investigation defy normal categories. Instead of looking for physical or even circumstantial evidence, she looks backward thousands of years to ancient deaths, ancient myths, as well as more current stories. She tries to draw in her brother, his daughter, others.

Yet oddly nothing is every really overt. Nowhere do we have the direct conversation where people learn from each other. More, we see accusations and assumptions and an unwillingness to move in different directions. And thus I found myself at times frustrated, wondering why David does not consider other options, why Diana is not more specific. Yet isn't it often true that family members do not hear each other?

In the end we do have deaths, each one questionable - what made it happen? We don't have all the answers. We do have siblings torn by deaths but with a true loyalty to each other that survives the worst kinds of visions. Certainly this is less about the underlying mystery than it is about David and Diana and the bonds of childhood.

Songs of Innocence, by Richard Aleas

I had not heard of this series until the day I bought this book. I was looking specifically for this one and could not find it under the author's name. Fortunately, a Borders employee recognized it as one of this series and he found it on another shelf.

"Hard Case Crime" publishes old and new pulp mysteries, in low-cost editions. Many current mystery writers have written for the series, taking on a type of mystery that they might not usually do, the kind of hard-boiled detective genre. The covers feature original art created for the story. When I saw the painting on the cover I realized first that it resembled the pulp fiction covers of old and second that most modern-day cover art comes from sources like Getty Images and is not created for the specific work.

Songs of Innocence features a detective who also featured in Aleas's first novel, Little Girl Lost. In that episode, detective John Blake was indirectly responsible for the death of one woman and the near-death of another. His guilt has now led him to leave detective work altogether and take up working as an assistant at Columbia University (one of the places I wanted to attend as a young'un, by the way) and to take some writing classes.

He meets the gorgeous but sad Dorothy Burke, called Dorrie, in a class, and one thing leads to another. In this case it isn't just sex that follows but a mutual support arrangement, given that both are prone to depression and thoughts of suicide. They even make a pact that one will not off herself without first calling the other.

So when Dorrie turns up dead in her bathtub, apparently a suicide, Blake is skeptical. But generally keeps his thoughts and his investigation to himself.

Of course his investigation does not stay secret. It invites inquiry by a wide range of bad guys and Blake is at times beaten up to prove it. His investigation also ferrets out ugly secrets from others Blake had not included on his list of possibles. In the end, it becomes too much, far too much.

I was a bit uncertain about the "notable book" status of this book as I was reading it, although it certainly does have an edge of reality and depth you would not normally find in a pulp novel. The end, though, explains it all.

Person of Interest, by Theresa Schwegel

More a story of a man and a woman than a mystery of deaths in Chinatown, this novel is in that select category of mysteries that go beyond the genre.

Craig, a police detective, is working undercover to capture the gangs in Chinatown responsible for a slew of deaths from illegal drugs. His obsession with the case takes him beyond the limits of the department and into his own savings. He spends nights and days gambling, trying to pick up the leads he needs, and often sleeps in a sleazy motel.

Meanwhile, his wife Leslie struggles with their teenage daughter Ivy, who is increasingly going out of control. She feels she has not been part of a real couple for a long time and feels the pull of attraction to, of all people, her daughter's boyfriend Niko.

Each of them observes and draws conclusions, usually wrong, about the other. Their destructive tendency to keep their observations to themselves threatens to destroy the family.

Craig's efforts undercover finally yield what appears to be the perfect lead. He pushes his superior to follow through, to be ready for a big bust. Craig's obsession with the case does appear to be as unhealthy as his superior officer says it is, even though we can sympathize with his desire to end the deaths.

Gradually, Leslie is drawn unknowingly into Craig's world and even her life is threatened.

The characters of Craig and Leslie are beautifully drawn, the emotions, the drives well explicated. I wanted desperately for the two to find each other again.

What the Dead Know, by Laura Lippman

It felt like cheating in a way to read this book for the notable book challenge. Although I read a lot I do find that "notable" books tend to take longer to read than the genre books I read just for pleasure. This book fit into both categories so it was like a special treat, a guilty pleasure.

Two young sisters, 11 and 15, disappear from the mall in Baltimore on Easter weekend 1975. After intense investigation the case goes cold. No leads. Thirty years later a woman has an accident near the home of the girls and from her hospital bed she confesses to being one of the sisters.

Enter detective Kevin Infante, social worker Kay Sullivan, eccentric lawyer Gloria Bustamante, and the girls' parents. Strangely, though, the woman does not come out and say where she has been all these years. In fact, she refuses to tell anyone the name she uses now.

The woman, who claims to be Heather Bethany, the younger sister, is not just uncooperative. She is cold, withdrawn, even manipulative. She uses the system, the lawyer, and especially the social worker, to avoid going to jail and to draw out her story. She dribbles it out bit by bit, none of it offering much hope of substantiation.

Her behavior and personality frustrate the investigators and make it difficult for the lawyer and social worker to help her. Her odd self-centeredness and refusal to reveal her present name make them all, to different degrees, suspicious. Is she really Heather? If so, why doesn't she tell all? If not, what does she hope to gain?

I was immediately taken by the circumstances and by this woman's unusual personality and story of her kidnapping. The lack of clear details made me want to scream at times. I was by turns a total believer and as suspicious as the detective. The personalities of the other characters are just as interesting, and I regret not being able to follow their lives further - perhaps in other novels?

I was disturbed by the type of police work that was done. I felt a more methodical approach at the very beginning would have unearthed more information than was found (information that was revealed later), and it seemed more could have been done to discover "Heather"'s identity by way of fingerprints, for example. My familiarity with police techniques from crime shows and murder mysteries has made me especially aware of the many leads that can logically be followed. It seems, though, that this novel is more psychological than crime.

An odd bit: throughout the book the word "police" is used as a term for an individual police officer or a synonym. For example, the detective introduces himself as "a police". I have never seen or heard this use of the word before. Is this something Baltimorean, perhaps?

Black Dahlia Avenger, by Steven Hodel

I confess to a perhaps unnatural fascination with "true crime" stories. I have read many, from the very good to the unbelievably bad. But that isn't the primary reason I wanted to read this book.

When I visited a special motel in Desert Hot Springs one year the owner told me that Steve Hodel had been there and had told him his story about the Black Dahlia (Elizabeth Short) murder. The motel owner (a friend of mine) was highly enthusiastic about Hodel and his book. I decided to get it some day, in large part because of that endorsement. That day came when I saw that it was available through paperbackswap.

Hodel is a retired detective from the same police force that investigated this murder years before he joined. His experience as a detective led me to believe that his research and analysis would be sober, thorough, and logical, even though it focused on his father.

It's a thick book, full of details and exhibits and what the author refers to as "thoughtprints" - his way of connecting dots. His use of these thoughtprints bothered me a bit because they are a way of relying on assumptions more than on cold hard evidence. I recognize that the type evidence he obtained was not direct (photographs, memories, notes with odd references, newspaper articles) and it was necessary to try to piece together the meaning from them, but I felt he went from finding this type evidence to drawing those conclusions and then referring to his conclusions as fact. It seemed odd that a detective would make such leaps.

From the beginning I wondered about his decision to do this investigation without aid of LAPD files on the subject. He made several assumptions about their availability but did not actually make the effort to obtain them until after the book was published (this version of the book is the expanded version and does include information from LAPD files). His explanations, that he no longer has the connections to the department that he once had, didn't convince me. In his place, if I had the other materials that he unearthed and so carefully labeled and reproduced, I would have been hungry for confirmation of my conclusions, hungry enough to see how far I could get in looking at those files.

Another block to my own ability to buy Hodel's story whole is the writing itself. I am sure the editors worked slavishly to make it readable and to organize it. Sometimes, though, you reach a point where you have to say "enough" and let it go out in the world. I suspect this is what happened. The book is repetitious, oddly organized, and difficult to wade through. It got to the point where I set it down after reading just a page or two, then picked it up later to continue slogging on. A better writer might have been able to put it together better and make a better case with the same facts.

Hodel may well be right in many of his assumptions, and the case he made for a "coverup" in the years surrounding the Black Dahlia murder and early investigation, is convincing. In fact, the case he makes against his own father as the murderer is worth serious consideration. I do quibble with some of his reasoning:

He draws a portrait of his father as a man who used women and then discarded them (except for his last wife, who hung in for 30 years). Yet when Steve Hodel creates a possible motive for the killing of Beth Short he assumes Short agreed to marry Hodel and when she later jilted him he became enraged and killed her. The two pictures of George Hodel don't match, in my opinion.

I also found Hodel's "evidence" that his father's longtime friend, Fred Sexton, also took part in some of the murders Hodel attributes to his father unconvincing. One part of the evidence is a photograph of Sexton compared to a police sketch of a perp seen by a witness. The drawing shows a man with a prominent widow's peak, while Sexton has none and has a high forehead. I can't buy that they are the same man.

All of which does not mean that I don't believe Hodel's basic conclusion that his father killed Elizabeth Short. It seems very possible and even likely. I am less convinced by what he trots out as the other murders also committed by his father.

I am frustrated that all his work did not lead to an official investigation, a circumstance that clearly befuddles Hodel as well. At one point he took his findings to a DA in Los Angeles county offices, a person who could in fact find reason to call for an investigation. The chapter is titled "Filing My Case with the District Attorney's Office". Yet he did not officially file the case there. Instead, he contacted a member of the office whom he knew, gave him the information, and requested an "as-if" memo. The DA knocked out a several-page memo stating that he would file it if it were real. Why didn't he file it for real? I didn't get a good answer to that either.

A near-exhausting hunt that, for me, turned up almost as many questions as answers.

The Water's Lovely, by Ruth Rendell

Ruth Rendell creates main characters who are not always on the right side of "right", who for their own peculiar reasons (some easier to understand than others) sometimes behave rather badly. I have read other books of hers and for that reason I don't expect everything to turn out all right nor do I expect the protagonist (it's usually a woman) to make her way honorably at all times. Another characteristic of Rendell's novels is the mystery. We might guess but do not know crucial information. Thus some reviewers call her a master of "psychological thrillers" - but don't take that as a comparison to writers of mass market "thrillers" or even fine mysteries. These stories stand on their own plane.

Thus The Water's Lovely spins on a mystery that maybe isn't one, really. The main character, Ismay, a young woman living with her sister Heather, holds onto a secret that only her sister shares, the secret of how their stepfather drowned in the bathtub. The two, however, have never actually talked about this secret, so Ismay is not entirely sure she's got it right. She wonders: did Heather murder him? If so, she thinks she knows why. And she worries about what Heather might be driven to do in the future.

A rather large cast of characters enters into the story, each one somehow connected to Ismay or Heather, each one somehow affected, unknowingly, by this secret. Ismay and Heather's mother Bea has gone "mad" and given to pronouncements from the bible when she is not tucked close to her radio. Their aunt Pamela, who lives with Bea, pursues the opposite sex through online and newspaper ads, even venturing into "speed dating" and something called "romance walking". Ismay falls for Andrew, a self-centered lawyer whose privileged background seems to keep him from taking an interest in anything not he. Heather falls for Edmund, a kind and thoughtful nurse at the hospice where she works, a young man whose mother, Ingrid, is a first-class hypochondriac who also majors in guilt trips. Flitting about through all of these lives is Marion, a tiny 40-something single who jumps and skips and dances from place to place, while thinking about the many ways she can cheat others of their money and belongings.

For me, the novel is like a feast where all of the courses are perfect, unexpected, delicious. The flawed characters, and all of them are somehow flawed, are so finely drawn that at times I thought Rendell must have known people I know, or taken parts of my own character and used them in her characters' thoughts and deeds. So tasty, so nutritious, so excellent. It all finishes with some answers, but we are still left wondering.

One Good Turn, by Kate Atkinson

One Good Turn is wonderful! From the very first sentence I was entranced by Atkinson's use of words and her terrific low-key sense of humor. I was surprised to find that the book is actually a mystery, but there is nothing genre-like about it, no standard investigation or even single investigator. I was further surprised to find that it makes use of characters first developed in another of Atkinson's books, again a genre technique. It doesn't matter as we learn what we need to know from this book alone.

The story begins with a "road rage" incident in Edinburgh involving a suspicious name-changing character and a beefy guy who wields a baseball bat. The incident draws together an interesting group of characters, but the story reads rather like strings spreading further and further apart, or perhaps more like a web built by a spider. Each chapter develops the story for one or two of the characters, and only near the end do the paths intersect, in a crazy, hilarious episode, rather like the punchline in a shaggy dog story.

The writing is superb. The insights into character are well-informed. The humor is delicious.

What Came Before He Shot Her, by Elizabeth George

I categorized this book as a "mystery" but Elizabeth George is heading into new territory here. Another reviewer calls it a "whydunit", a good description.

George has written several books (all of which I have read) about Thomas Lynley and Barbara Havers of New Scotland Yard and Lynley's close friends and oft-used consultants. The books are written sequentially, and significant events take place in the primary characters' lives. In other words, they do not stand still.

In the book previous to this one, With No One As Witness, Lynley's pregnant wife is shot. She lingers on life support while Lynley decides what to do about the baby inside her. The shooting is apparently random and was done by two young black men, one very young.

What Came Before He Shot Her is the tale of the 12-year-old who found himself facing Helen Lynley with a gun. The story starts, as the title suggests, well before the act and explains what circumstances led him there.

The story follows his family, a struggling group that consists of Joel, the 12-year-old, Toby, his eight-year-old brother, who is "not right", Vanessa, Joel's older sister, and their Aunt Kendra. The children have survived horrific experiences on the streets of London and in their homes. They have learned the ways of the street and the wisdom of keeping their own counsel. It isn't safe to "grass" on another, no matter how much trouble that other causes.

And so it is that Joel, in a desperate effort to protect his little brother from another boy who has threatened him, heads down a path that gets darker and darker. And so it is that he cannot tell anyone what he is doing.

The bones of the story are clear enough. What really places George in a different category is that she rounds everything out, adds the details and experiences that make the characters truly lifelike and sympathetic.

She devotes much of all of her novels to details that have no bearing on the final outcome, the discovery of the criminal. But over time, over several books, the details add up. So it is with this story. All of the family members have a life and a story to live. We follow each one as he or she tries to make a way in the world. We also follow the efforts of some governmental and private individuals who can see past the obvious and find real people, worth helping, in this family unit. In the end we see what looks like failure, but I'm sure it doesn't end there.

I can't wait to get my hands on the next chapter.

Body Trace by D.H. Dublin

Body Trace:

Nancy Drew plays forensic scientist is how I see this book. The book's hero is Madison Cross, recently graduated from medical school, who has just taken a job with the Philadelphia Crime Scene Unit, the forensic investigation team. We can understand - somewhat - how Ms. Cross might be a bit green and might make mistakes, but I don't think we can give the same break to the rest of the team. We watch Madison and her more experienced coworkers return to the scene of the crime again and again - three times at least - because they didn't bother to do a thorough job of collecting evidence the first time. Instead of following a routine, they wing it. What kind of scientist does this??

They analyse materials only when they have a theory for them. Madison follows along but nobody tells her what she should be doing.

Twenty years ago a writer might have gotten away with some of this because the reading public wasn't as knowledgable about forensic science and techniques. Now we are. We can pick up that the photographer doesn't know how to do a proper job, for example, when told that "she took photographs from every conceivable angle". Then she backed up and took more. No. Wrong. You start with the wider view and photograph in circles, gradually closing in on the body. There are specific methods for collecting evidence,as well, including the collection of trace evidence. We see none of that here. Instead, this crack team visits the scene many days later and finds a bit of hair here, a bit there.

Yet the writer, D. H. Dublin (a pseudonym for Jonathan McGoran) is writing a series on the C.S.U.! Who does he think he is??

What he does well in this book is describe Philadelphia, the city where he lives. I suspect Phillie readers might enjoy the book because they can recognize the landmarks, the restaurants, the bridges and highways. It's not enough for me.

Murder at the Washington Tribune, by Margaret Truman

Murder at the Washington Tribune: A Capital Crimes Novel (Truman, Margaret, Capital Crimes Series.)

The theme is a good one: a long-time journalist succumbing to a temptation to invent to get a better story. But the details drag it down, make it unbelievable.

First, the protagonist has been a highly-ethical straight-shooter for his entire career. As he engages in his bit of fraud he hardly seems bothered by it. The reasons for his deception are slim and not convincing. I simply didn't buy that this type character would do these things.

Second, the police investigation. At heart of the story is the contention that two closely-spaced murders could be the work of a serial killer. The conclusion is drawn from the fact that both women were strangled, both were young and attractive, both were in journalistic careers. There are, however, many ways to strangle someone, and each creates a kind of "signature". It is unlikely that two different persons would have exactly the same signature. Yet there are no details of the killings given. Only that they were both strangled. It is as if the police were investigating a crime in 1950, not now.

THere are other aspects of the investigation and of the reporting that don't ring true. A lead is a lead, and both the police and a reporter are likely to follow it up, whether or not they think it's useful. Yet we have most of these characters deciding what's important and what isn't without making the extra effort. I simply do not buy it.

Then there is the matter of the missing brother who turns up suspiciously. His story never falls together right.

Read it on an airplane or waiting room. It will give you something to do and it's better than a romance novel.