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.

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.

Read This Book: "Headstone" by Ken Bruen

I once called Ken Bruen "the dark poet of contemporary noir" (yes, I'm quoting myself -- sue me) and his latest novel, Headstone, confirms that his status is unchallenged. This is a fascinating, powerful and, yes, dark crime novel that only enhances Bruen's already amazing reputation.

Irish private eye Jack Taylor is back for his ninth go-round with demons both natural and otherwise. A gang of young thugs is preying on some of Galway's innocents, and Taylor takes it on himself to stop them.

Headstone is typical of the series. The plot is straightforward, but elegantly wrought. It's violent, but not bloody. The prose is beautiful, idiosyncratic and evocative. As always, Bruen's style is uniquely his own. Nobody else can write like this and they'd be crazy to try.

Venerable editor and bookseller Otto Penzler could not have chosen a better novel with which to relaunch the Mysterious Press, his publishing imprint now located at Grove/Atlantic. Headstone is one of the year's best reading pleasures.

Read This Book: "Getting Off" by Lawrence Block

In over 50 years of publishing, Lawrence Block has written more great words than almost any writer you can think of. Terms like "master" and "legend" get thrown around to often -- but if you wanted to throw a couple of them Block's way, I wouldn't argue with you. Yes, he really is that good.

For almost 20 years now, whenever anyone has asked who my favorite writers are, I've always answered "Ross Thomas and Lawrence Block." And two decades on, my answer is still the same. They are both essential authors that anyone interested in popular fiction simply has to read.

For Getting Off, the book chosen by Hard Case Crime to relaunch their publishing line, Block has resurrected an old pseudonym to grace a new book. "Jill Emerson" is the pen name that he used for several books back in the Sixties. Most of them were sex romps of one type or another -- which is appropriate, given that Getting Off is a sex romp of one type or another. But it's not a type we're used to seeing.

The subtitle of the book is "A Novel of Sex & Violence" so readers should consider themselves warned, because it's filled with both. Kit Tolliver, the protagonist of the novel is a woman who loves having sex with men. The problem is, what to do with them afterward? And there she's found a rather tidy, if blood-thirsty solution. (This is where the violence part comes in.) Much like the preying mantis, she first loves the men, then she leaves them -- at room temperature.

When it occurs to her one day that earlier in her life she had relations with several men whom she didn't kill, it starts to bother her. She's not the kind of woman who likes to leave things undone. Thus, she sets out on a detective mission of sorts, tracking down her former lovers, and setting things "right."

Getting Off is a shocking book, for those of us who still have that capacity. (I'm not too sure about myself.) It is certainly not for every taste, but it is brilliantly written. It's a sexy, violent (there goes that subtitle again), disturbing, darkly humorous, and immensely entertaining novel that prompts some interesting questions about the dichotomy between love (lust?) and hate, fidelity, and how one's personality (and pathology) are shaped by the things that happen to us.

For a man in supposed retirement, Block just keeps on doing what he's always done: write great books. Let's hope this "retirement" lasts a very long time.

Read This Book: "Buried Secrets" by Joseph Finder

 

There's a special joy that comes from watching a master at the top of his game. Kasparov sitting over a chessboard. Heifetz playing the violin. LeBron winning a champion--well, scratch that last one. But you can add to the list the pleasure of reading a thriller written by Joseph Finder. Finder's been at this game for a long time now and he knows what he's doing in a way that most authors simply can't match, a fact he demonstrates yet again with Buried Secrets. 

Buried Secrets features the return of Nick Heller, the "private spy" introduced in the outstanding Vanished. Heller is a former Black Ops agent who now plies his trade in the private sector, utilizing his extensive skills, smarts and contacts to work the shadowy world where corporate, military and intelligence interests meet. 

As the story opens, a young woman is out partying with her friends in a hip Boston nightclub. She meets a guy -- the wrong guy, of course -- and goes home with him, mostly against her will. When she wakes from her drug-induced stupor, she finds herself the victim of a horrific kidnapping. 

It turns out that the girl's father is one of Heller's oldest friends, a billionaire hedge fund manager who'll do anything to get his daughter back. Or will he? The more Heller investigates the case, the more secrets he uncovers, and the further away he keeps finding himself from the truth. 

Buried Secrets is a perfect example of a white-knuckle thriller: suspenseful and exciting, with good action scenes, interesting characters and lots of smart technical details and inside info that take the reader behind the curtain to catch a glimpse of the shadows. 

There are few writers working today who could pull off a book like this with such skill and panache -- and none who could do it while making it all look so effortless. Buried Secrets cements Finder's status as the master of the modern thriller.

Read This Book: "Plan B" by Joseph Finder

This isn't a book -- it's a short story for the Kindle and other formats -- but you should read it anyway. It's free, and worth every penny.

Joseph Finder is known for his best-selling novels, but occasionally he produces an entertaining piece of short fiction as well. He's done just that with Plan B, an action-packed story featuring his new series character Nick Heller. 

Heller is working in Barcelona in Plan B, on a mission to rescue the kidnapped daughter of a Ukrainian billionaire. He's staging a raid on the palatial villa of a wealthy Spaniard, but what he finds inside surprises even him. 

I don't care for short stories as much as I do novels, even though they can be quite satisfying when done well. This can be a problem especially with the thriller genre, where unfolding a scenario and putting it through the paces in just a short span of words is daunting. 

Finder does an excellent job of it, though, telling a fun and fast-paced story that is satisfying on its own accord, and also whets the reader's appetite for more Heller. (Along those lines, this Amazon Single also includes a preview of Finder's new novel featuring Heller, which will be released later this summer.) In the grand tradition of O Henry and Poe, Plan B has a nice twist to keep the reader guessing, something I always enjoy in a short story, and it finishes with an open-ended climax, allowing us to imagine what happens next. 

Although Plan B will likely appeal more to readers who have already read Vanished, the first Nick Heller novel, it can certainly be enjoyed on its own. Finder never fails to deliver.

Read This Book: "A Drop of the Hard Stuff" by Lawrence Block

If you're looking for a good mystery, you'll find none better than A Drop of the Hard Stuff by Lawrence Block. Block is the modern master of the PI novel and this is one of his best. It features a very welcome return for detective Matt Scudder, one of the best characters ever. I loved this book.

Latest Chicago Sun-Times column

I haven't had one of these in a while. Have you missed me?

This morning's paper has my latest mystery/thriller round-up in it. It includes brief reviews of:

Harlan Coben - Caught
Andrew Gross - Reckless
Gar Anthony Haywood - Cemetery Road
Naomi Hirahara - Blood Hina
Julie Hyzy - Eggsecutive Orders

Check it out!