Crime Fiction Dossier

Book Review: "Suspicion" by Joseph Finder

SUSPICION
By Joseph Finder
New York: Dutton, 2014. $27.95

The differences between a good book and a great one are often subtle. Good books have well-rounded and realistic characters – but in a great one, they come alive on the page, taking shape as real, breathing and thinking people you feel as if you know. In a good story, you are entertained, your interest is piqued – but in a great one, you’re held captive, enthralled by a plot that you can no more forget than you can forget about eating and drinking.

Joseph Finder’s Suspicion is an example of a great book. It utilizes many of the familiar elements of the modern thriller novel – ordinary people in extraordinary situations, cliffhanger endings, high-tech gadgets, shifting POVs – but does so in an outstanding way, transforming the ordinary into something rare and wonderful.

The protagonist of Suspicion is a single dad named Danny Goodman. He’s a writer – he’s working on a big biography of industrialist Jay Gould and is way past his deadline – and like most writers, he’s not exactly flush with cash. His teenage daughter, Abby, goes to a fancy Boston private school, and they’ve got a school trip to Italy coming up. Danny doesn’t have the money to pay for it. What’s worse, he doesn’t have the money to cover the overdue tuition bill either. And his publisher is demanding he turn in his manuscript, or else they want their money back.

Suffice it to say, Danny’s in trouble. And that’s when Thomas Galvin enters his life. Galvin is one of the other parents at the school; the father of Abby’s new best friend. Galvin is rich. Not just regular rich either, but chauffeured Maybach rich. Private plane rich. So it’s no big deal for him to cover the cost of Abby’s trip to Italy. His daughter’s best friend has to go, too, right? And when Danny needs $50k to cover the tuition and credit card bills, who else is he going to ask?

Big mistake. Because Galvin is not the guy you want to ask for money. And he’s certainly not a guy you want to be indebted to. Galvin, you see, isn’t just a rich guy. He’s a rich guy who works for a Mexican drug cartel. And shortly after the fifty grand lands in Danny’s bank account, the DEA lands on his doorstep. They’ve been spying on Galvin for years, and now they want Danny’s help. If he refuses, the Feds will indict him as a co-conspirator – and the cartel will probably cut him into pieces with a chainsaw.

When you examine the component elements of Suspicion, there is nothing that leaps out at you and screams greatness. But it is in the way that Finder has assembled those elements, the way he tells his story, that truly sets it apart. The pieces of the puzzle all fit together seamlessly, more like a Bach prelude than the average thriller novel. The three-dimensional characters, the picture-perfect settings, the impeccable plotting, the white-knuckle suspense, everything works together in harmony.

Really, though, it’s no surprise that Suspicion is the best thriller I’ve read in years. Finder is a master of his art, perhaps the finest contemporary writer of suspense, and he’s been operating at a very high level for a long time. With Suspicion, we’re seeing the fruits of decades of labor, and it’s a joy to behold.

This review first appeared in Strand Magazine.

Book review: "House Reckoning" by Mike Lawson

HOUSE RECKONING
By Mike Lawson
New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 2014. $25

The business of publishing is an unpredictable one. Much like William Goldman’s famous maxim about Hollywood – “Nobody knows anything” – even the people who have toiled in the publishing trenches for a lifetime can’t claim to understand what will work and what won’t with anything much greater than Ouija Board-precision.

Witness the case of Mike Lawson. House Reckoning is his tenth novel – the ninth in the Joe DeMarco series – and he’s been writing top-notch thrillers ever since his first, The Inside Ring, debuted back in 2005. By all rights, he should be a fixture on the bestseller lists, if not a household name. Yet, mind-bogglingly, he’s not. Fortunately, you don’t have to be left out in the cold any longer. Lawson’s latest makes for an excellent introduction to his work and his series character.

House Reckoning dives into the backstory of Joe DeMarco. DeMarco is one of those Washington political operatives with a vague title and a powerful boss. He’s a fix-it man, and although his name might not appear on any org chart, he’s a powerful tool in the arsenal of his employer, Congressman John Mahoney, the minority leader and former Speaker of the House.

DeMarco usually has his hands full doing his boss’s dirty business, plugging leaks and greasing wheels in the best tradition of G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt. This time, though, he’s off on a personal mission: to find the man who murdered his father.

DeMarco has always known that his dad, Gino, was a mobster, and that Gino was murdered two decades ago. Joe may not have exactly made peace with that fact, but he’s learned to live with it. That ends when one of his father’s former associates, a Mafioso dying of cancer, contacts Joe with some shocking news. Not only does the man know who killed Gino – but the murderer now holds a position of power and influence in the government.

This revelation sends DeMarco on a mission of revenge. He’s not exactly sure what he’s going to do about it – how can he even reach a man who’s all but untouchable? – but there’s no way he can just let this slide. Gino DeMarco may have been a mobster and a hired killer, but he was also a good and loving father. So it’s up to Joe to make this right.

Lawson has a deceptively smooth, low-key style that is perfect for the stories he tells. There’s nothing fancy about his prose, but you’ll still find yourself smiling at the funny parts and your heart beating fast at the tense ones. Writer Wallace Stegner once wrote that “hard writing makes easy reading” and Lawson’s work exemplifies that.

Who knows why Lawson isn’t better known among readers. Maybe there isn’t much market for smart, witty, and entertaining thrillers that plumb the depths of the seedy world of Washington politics. But one thing is certain: Mike Lawson is the only writer I know who comes close to matching the stories of the great Ross Thomas, the finest thriller writer to ever roll a blank page into an Underwood. You shouldn’t need any more endorsement than that.

This review first appeared in Strand Magazine.

Book Review: "One Kick" by Chelsea Cain

ONE KICK
By Chelsea Cain
New York: Simon & Schuster, 2014. $25.99

When Chelsea Cain's first thriller, Heartsick, debuted in 2007, it was a big bestseller. The story of a police detective and the female serial killer who tried to kill him won raves from the fans – but it left me cold. I thought it was too calculating and manipulative for its own good, using shocking subject matter to interest readers in a very shallow way. So it was with some hesitation that I picked up Cain's latest book, One Kick. But as a new series with a new publisher, I thought it deserved a fresh chance.

Now I'm starting to rethink my earlier decision to write off Cain's first series. One Kick is so good, I’m wondering if I wasn't too hasty in my earlier judgment. Because this writer clearly knows how to write suspense. One Kick has a knockout punch of an opening chapter – one of the best I've read in a long time – and it just keeps going from there.

Kit Lannigan was abducted as a little girl, the victim of one of those crimes that captivate the nation. Following her dramatic rescue several years later – recounted in that killer opening chapter – she became a media darling. But as the story picks up ten years later, Kit, who now calls herself Kick, just wants to be left alone.

She’s spent the years since her rescue training herself never to be a victim again. Not only has she honed her body into a weapon, with intensive training in the martial arts and hand-to-hand combat, she's also become highly skilled with firearms, knives, throwing stars, nunchucks, whatever she can get her hands on. Living off the proceeds of a financial settlement (the book never says who the other party in the lawsuit was), she spends all her time training – and obsessing over missing children.

With the help of a troubled young man she calls her brother, Kick tracks cases of missing children around the country, following Amber Alerts and news bulletins, scouring the internet for clues, covering the walls of her apartment with maps and pictures of kidnapped kids. It’s not healthy, but it’s how Kick maintains just a sliver of control over her chaotic life, the feeble grasp she has on something approaching normalcy.

When a man named Bishop shows up in the living room of Kick’s apartment – a man with seemingly no past, no identity, and endless resources – the next phase of Kick’s life is started. A boy is missing, and Bishop thinks he knows where he is. But he needs Kick’s help to rescue him. She doesn’t want any part of it – she can’t handle any part of it – but there is no way that she can refuse.

Kick is a wonderful, multi-dimensional character, a bundle of anxieties and neuroses wrapped up in a focused, lethal package. You can’t help but be fascinated by her, so troubled and complex, but also so instantly likeable. If Bishop were half as well written, their pairing would really be outstanding. As it is, though, he's a cipher; deliberately so, at least in part, but too empty and shallow to generate much interest. His interactions with Kick are good, but on his own there’s just not much to him.

Sharp though its plotting and pacing are, One Kick isn't a perfect book. It's built more for speed that finesse, and there are times when the narrative velocity gets so heated up, it risks running right off the rails. This is especially true with the third act, which races by so quickly that it doesn't even have time to build to a proper climax. The final confrontation between the heroine and the villain ends up curiously flat and so contrived it verges on parody. It's as if Cain worked so hard to make the first three-fourths of the book so gripping that she simple ran out of steam.

Even so, the conclusion of One Kick is still satisfying in its way, and it sets up the story for a sequel, which I'm already eager to read. For flat-out entertainment that grabs you from the start and only releases you when you've gone through the wringer, you're not going to find a better book this summer than this one.

This review first appeared in Strand Magazine.

10 Mystery and Suspense Novels You Need to Read

It's hard to keep up with all the good books that come out. Some of the real gems inevitably end up falling through the cracks. So here's a list of ten books that I recommend to you, just in case you missed them.

Lawrence Block - When the Sacred Ginmill Closes

Lawrence Block has written so many great books that it's hard to single out just one. But this one, a flashback in the Matt Scudder series, has remained with me of the years probably more than the others. The writing and plotting are both so damn beautiful.

Michael Connelly - The Black Echo

You can see the foundation for Michael Connelly's whole body of work laid out right there in his first novel. From the beginning, he was firing on all cylinders, with his protagonist, his voice, and his themes all in place. Brilliant writer.

Joseph Finder - Killer Instinct

Joseph Finder is one of today's top writers of thrillers. He has the story sense, the smarts, the writing chops to bring it all together. This book from 2006 is one of my favorite thrillers of the past decade.

Lisa Gardner - The Neighbor

Lisa Gardner started out writing category romances and now writes taut, engaging thrillers. This is one of my favorites, a hard-edged and gritty story about the darkness that sometimes lies beneath a cheerful domestic facade.

Thomas Harris - Red Dragon

Do you ever read a book, and as soon as you're finished, you want to grab the next person you see and demand that they read it, too? This is one of those books. The Silence of the Lambs is the better known Hannibal Lecter story, but this is the better book.

Laura Lippman - Every Secret Thing

This was Laura Lippman's breakout novel, the one that put her on the path towards literary superstardom. It's a powerful, wrenching story of suspense, as the legacy of the death of a baby at the hands of two preteen girls comes to bear on life in the present.

Thomas Perry - The Butcher's Boy

Can an author be a bestseller and award-winner and still be underrated? Yep. Witness Thomas Perry. He is an amazing writer who deserves to be read by anyone who loves a good suspense story. This was his first, and is still one of his best.

Daniel Silva - The Messenger

Daniel Silva's series featuring Israeli spy-art restorer Gabriel Allon is one of my favorites. The books are smart and suspenseful, filled with great action, international locales, and contemporary political topics. This is one of my favorites in the series, but they're all good.

Karin Slaughter - Undone

Karin Slaughter's work isn't always easy to read. Her books are dark and troubling, and her stories really put her characters to the test. But if you like a walk on the dark side, this is one of her best.

Ross Thomas - Chinaman's Chance

Probably my favorite book by my favorite author. A vastly entertaining story of con men working a job in a corrupt Southern California town. This is the book I selected and wrote about for Thrillers: 100 Must-Reads.

Please note: Comments on the Crime Fiction Dossier are disabled due to the overwhelming amount of spam. However, if you're interested, you can join in the discussion over on Facebook.

Book Sales Battle Childhood Cancer

The Team Julian Foundation, a not-for-profit that raises research funds for childhood cancer, is teaming up with an acclaimed thriller novelist to raise money through e-book sales. The foundation was started by The Boivin family in memory of their son Julian who was diagnosed with an incurable brain tumor at the age of 4. Marcus Sakey, television host and author living in Chicago, is a personal friend of Brad and Nettie Boivin, and together, they are using the growing popularity of e-books to raise money for a worthy cause.

Marcus Sakey published his first book in 2007, but his friendship with the Boivin’s and their son Julian started long before his writing success. Seeing first-hand how the popularity of e-books and independent publishing is changing the publishing industry, decided to use his readership to raise money for the cause. He collected seven short stories and published the e-anthology, Scar Tissue. During the month of September, Pediatric Cancer Awareness Month, 100% of the proceeds will go directly to the Team Julian Foundation. After that, he will contribute 50% of the proceeds.

Sakey knew Julian since he was born and he was a sweet, happy-go-lucky kid. But Julian’s life changed dramatically one terrible morning in 2010 when he woke up feeling disoriented. His parents rushed him to the hospital, where Julian was diagnosed with an atypical brain stem glioma.

“One of the most terrifying nightmares a parent could ever face is learning that their child has cancer,” Nettie Boivin recalls. “What’s worse is when they’re told that a cure does not exist.”

The Boivins lost their son just 7 months later and created Team Julian shortly thereafter. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over $100K for pediatric cancer research. It is completely volunteer- based which means funds go directly to supporting research that ultimately leads to breakthroughs in cures for brain tumors and childhood cancer.

The e-book revolution has already changed the way we read, but now, it’s changing our ability to raise funds. Unlike gala dinners or organized walks, Scar Tissue will provide funds to the Team Julian foundation for years to come.

Boivin states, “Knowing Julian’s friendship with Marcus and their affinity for playing out stories of good and evil, Jules would be so proud to know his pal has joined forces to beat the ultimate bad guy - pediatric cancer.”

Buy Scar Tissue: Amazon – B&N

The Pelican Brief Conceit

I originally posted this on Facebook, but thought I'd share it with you folks that hate Zuckerberg's monster.
 

There's a certain plotting device used in a lot of suspense novels that I find particularly annoying. I call it the "Pelican Brief conceit," since the Grisham novel used it rather notoriously.

It works like this: The plots follows the protagonist as s/he moves through the story. As with most suspense novels, the book uses a fairly close third person POV. We see what the protagonist sees and his reaction to it. We watch what he does. We even know some/most of his thoughts.

Until, that is, we come to the crucial moment when a great secret is revealed. Except it's not revealed to us (the readers). The protagonist reads the document, sees the murderer, or overhears the conversation, so HE knows. But it's like the cable went out (conveniently) for just that moment. The plot continues, again told from a close third person POV, as if nothing strange ever happened. But the author won't tell us what the character learned until much later in the book, when it can be revealed as part of the story's climax.

I find this annoying. For one thing, it places the author's mechanics front and center. It makes it obvious that we're reading a manufactured story, learning only what the writer wants us to know and when he wants us to know it. For another, it makes no narrative sense. The story follows the protagonist as a neutral, disembodied narrator – except when he's learning something important. At that point, the narrator turns as coy as a blushing maiden flirting with an older man.

This is a cheap way to gin up suspense. It's not playing fair with the reader to show us everything the character does and sees and hears, but hide from us some crucial secret. Don't tell us the mundane stuff if you're not going to tell us the important stuff. Either we should know what the character knows, or the story should be constructed so that we don't know anything (or what we know is false). That's a different kind of book, though.

What do you think? Have you ever noticed this? Or am I too nit-picky?

Several people commented on the original post, if you'd like to see their remarks.

Amazon.com & The Crime Fiction Academy Make Crime Fiction Notoriety Accessible for Creative New Yorkers

I thought this might be of interest to some of you. I've heard good stuff about their classes, and the line-up of teachers is outstanding.

The Center for Fiction is pleased to announce that their one-of-a-kind writing program, The Crime Fiction Academy (CFA), is one of the most recent recipients of an Amazon Grant. The grant program, offered byAmazon.com, provides funding for exceptional nonprofit author and publisher groups that, “foster the creation, discussion, and publication of books.” The $25,000 grant will allow the CFA to offer significant scholarships of 50% or more to incoming Fall 2012 students.

The Crime Fiction Academy launched in February 2012 as the first ongoing program dedicated exclusively to crime writing in the United States. Each student enrolled in CFA attends a 12-week Writing Workshop, a once a month Master Class, a Crime Fiction Reading seminar, as well as up-close-and-personal discussions with leading agents and editors in the field including Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Lee Child, Harlan Coben, Thomas H. Cook, Linda Fairstein, Susan Isaacs, Dennis Lehane, Elmore Leonard, Laura Lippman, Val McDermid, Joyce Carol Oates, Jason Pinter, S.J. Rozan and Karin Slaughter.  Students also receive 24-hour access to the Center for Fiction’s Writing Studio and free admission to all Center for Fiction events.

Admissions for the Fall 2012 session are rolling and classes begin October 1, 2012. Students can apply directly through the Center for Fiction’s website and grant scholarships will be awarded on as case-by-case basis. Tuition may be paid in person at the Center, online, over the phone, or by mailed check.

New Releases: Mysteries and Thrillers (June 5, 2012)

The following is a list of mystery, thriller and suspense novels that are being published this week. They should be in stores now. If you don't find them on the shelves, any bookstore can order them for you. Visit the IndieBound website to find the indepedent bookstore nearest you.

If you'd like to order books online, you can easily do so via Indiebound, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Publishing on June 5, 2012:

Gillian Flynn - Gone Girl (Crown, Hardcover)

Julie Hyzy - Grace Among Thieves (Berkley, Mass Market Paperback)

Bryan Gruley - The Skeleton Box (Touchstone, Hardcover)

Matthew Quirk - The 500 (Reagan Arthur Books, Hardcover)

Also:

• Laurell K. Hamilton - Kiss the Dead (Berkley, Hardcover)
• Laura Bradford - Hearse and Buggy (Berkley, Mass Market Paperback)
• Charles Todd - An Unmarked Grave (William Morrow, Hardcover)
• David Housewright - Curse of the Jade Lily (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Steven Saylor - The Seven Wonders (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• S.J. Bolton - Dead Scared (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Chris Knopf - Ice Cap (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Sara Foster - Beneath the Shadows (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Maggie Sefton - Cast On, Kill Off (Berkley, Hardcover)
• Robert K. Tanenbaum - Bad Faith (Gallery Books, Hardcover)
• Anne Holt - Blind Goddess (Scribner, Paperback)
• John Katzenbach - What Comes Next (Mysterious Press, Hardcover)
• Claire Cook - Wallflower in Bloom (Touchstone, Hardcover)

Note: This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all new releases. Rather, it's a list of those books that look the most interesting, promising, etc. Or I just really liked the cover.

New Releases: Mysteries and Thrillers (May 22, 2012)

The following is a list of mystery, thriller and suspense novels that are being published this week. They should be in stores now. If you don't find them on the shelves, any bookstore can order them for you. Visit the IndieBound website to find the indepedent bookstore nearest you.

If you'd like to order books online, you can easily do so via Indiebound, Amazon or Barnes and Noble.

Publishing on May 22, 2012:

Greg Rucka - Alpha (Mulholland Books, Hardcover)

 

F. Paul Wilson - Nightworld (Tor Books, Hardcover)

Bruce DeSilva - Cliff Walk (Forge Books, Hardcover)

 

Also:

• Jane Casey - The Reckoning (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Daniel Friedman - Don't Ever Get Old (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)
• Paul Theroux - The Lower River (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, Hardcover)
• Patrick Conrad - No Sale (Bitter Lemon Press, Paperback)
• Peter Farris - Last Call for the Living (Forge Books, Hardcover)
• Catriona McPherson - Dandy Gilver and an Unsuitable Day for a Murder (Minotaur Books, Hardcover)

Note: This is not intended to be a comprehensive list of all new releases. Rather, it's a list of those books that look the most interesting, promising, etc. Or I just really liked the cover.

Read This Book: "The Girl Next Door" by Brad Parks

Brad Parks is one of the best new mystery writers to come along in the past several years. Not only does he have talent, but he has an original voice that makes his books stand out from the pack. His first two novels were winners (both of awards and cheers from the fans) and his third is no different.

The Girl Next Door finds Carter Ross back on the beat, reporting on crime on the streets of Newark, New Jersey. Newark has more than enough crime to keep any dozen reporters busy, but Carter's feeling kind of bored until he comes across an obituary in his own newspaper. One of the paper's carriers was killed in a hit-and-run accident. Carter decides to write a story about her, but when he starts investigating her life, he uncovers details that he never expected to find.

Carter Ross is the best thing going in Parks' books. He's smart, funny and original. Sure he's a bit of a button-down pain in the ass at times, but you have to respect his commitment to telling the truth in his stories, regardless of the cost. The Girl Next Door is like the rest of Parks' work: a gritty mystery (although it's not dark), with plenty of humor and even a little sex. All in all, it adds up to a very entertaining story.

The Girl Next Door is highly recommended as a good read.