mystery

Even Dogs in the Wild, by Ian Rankin

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In this twentieth book in the Rebus series, the detective himself has retired from the force. A team from Glasgow has come to Edinburgh out of concern that the crime family they have been building a case against is looking to move into the vacuum left by Edinburgh crime boss “Big Ger” Cafferty’s imprisonment. Now released, supposedly due to ill health, Rebus’s long-time nemesis is watching the jockeying of those trying to take his place.

Meanwhile, Rebus’s protégé Siobhan Clarke is investigating the murder of an important former prosecutor that looks like a burglary though nothing has been taken. Clarke discovers that the victim received a threatening note just before the murder. When a shot is fired at Cafferty while he’s at home, and a similar note is put through the door, the only person Cafferty wants investigating the threat is Rebus.

My introduction to the Rebus novels came in the early 1990s when I found Knots and Crosses in a Toronto bookstore. Rankin’s books were not yet available in the U.S. and online bookstores were not yet a thing. I’ve followed the series ever since, often rereading earlier books, enjoying the complexity and ever-deepening characterisation.

Writing any series, much less a long-running one like this, must be enormously hard. Of course, you have a steady group of characters and a setting. But you can’t let either get stale.

Then there are technical issues. Not only do you have to keep track of what has already happened in previous books, but you must find a way to make each book new. Plus there’s the challenge of providing enough information in each book so a new reader isn’t lost while not so much that a dedicated reader gets bored.

Rankin excels on all counts. It helped having John Rebus be a policeman, so there would be new cases to solve for each book. However, Rankin made the choice to have Rebus age in real time, so eventually the detective hit mandatory retirement age. The author’s solution has been to bring forward Clarke while having her still consult with Rebus on cases. And of course the ex-cop can’t resist tinkering.

Rankin also introduced another character who works in the Complaints division, the equivalent of Internal Affairs, even having him investigate Rebus. Now assigned to assist the Glasgow team, Malcolm Fox brings his attention to detail to the team while struggling to gain the trust of the other detectives who consider anyone who has ever worked in Complaints a traitor.

By the time of this book, Fox, Clarke and Rebus have forged an informal alliance despite their very different ethical codes. Rebus came of age in a time of much looser policing which puts him at odds sometimes with Clarke and even more so with Fox.

My enjoyment of the series has been enhanced by a visit to Edinburgh itself. The city seemed familiar after being there so often in my imagination. I enjoyed tracking down places from the stories and even went in search of the tiny dolls from an earlier book. Rankin has said that he started the series as a way to get to know Edinburgh; through it he has succeeded in introducing others to the city as well.

What I like best about this particular book is the way Rebus’s relationship with Cafferty is developed. Because Cafferty is targeted as well, Rebus must consider him a victim. Plus both of them are older and have been more or less forcibly retired, so they have more in common that just their history with each other. The nuances of the relationship shift throughout the story, adding shades to what we know of both characters from previous novels.

As always in Rankin’s books, even rereading one, I found myself wondering how in the world he would bring all the different strands to a conclusion, yet trusting that he would. If you like mysteries, if you want a challenging puzzle and complex characters, delve into Rankin’s Rebus series.

Have you read any of the Rebus books? Do you have a favorite?

Best Books I Read in 2021

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As a writer, I learn something from every book I read. In no particular order, these are the ten best books I read in 2021. Please check the links to the blog archive for a fuller discussion of those I’ve reviewed.

1. The Winter Soldier, by Daniel Mason
While this is a story about WWI, it is not about trenches and battles. It is a small, human story powered by big ideas, not just the romance/reality of war itself and the emergence of what we now call PTSD as a recognised illness, but also the unlikely connections that save us, the small mistakes that have large consequences, hubris, guilt, atonement. It is a brilliant evocation of this moment when everything about the world changed.

2. This Is Happiness, by Niall Williams
At 17, Noel Crowe goes to live with his grandparents in the small rural village of Faha in County Clare, Ireland. Sixty years later he remembers the events of that remarkable season which started on Easter Sunday when the rain stopped. I have not enjoyed a novel this much in a long time. It took me a little while to adjust to the pace, somewhat slower than we might be used to, but appropriate for this tale of a time measured in a horse’s clopping hooves or a bicycle ride. There is conflict and suspense, too, as in any story, and mysteries to be explored.

3. Deacon King Kong, by James McBride
The story opens with Sportcoat, a deacon at Five Ends Baptist Church who is perpetually drunk on the local moonshine called King Kong, entering a courtyard at the Cause Houses, a Brooklyn housing project. He takes out a rusty handgun and shoots Deems, a young drug dealer whom Sportcoat used to coach on the project’s baseball team. While some reviewers have considered this story a farce, to me it seemed utterly real. The characters are much like people I have known, and their world—so vividly portrayed— one I am familiar with.

4. The Fire This Time, by Jesmyn Ward
I read this collection of essays and poems three times over before I allowed the library to repossess it. Subtitled A New Generation Speaks about Race, it provides a nuanced portrait of racism and race in the U.S. today. The book’s title is a play on Baldwin’s The Fire Next Time, which in turn takes its title from an old spiritual: “God gave Noah the rainbow sign / No more water, the fire next time.”

5. Notes to the Mental Hospital Timekeeper, by Tim Mayo
Mayo’s most recent collection of poems helps me find a way through this difficult time. From his work as a teacher and mental health worker, he brings us encounters with the delusional and with our own pasts. Because it is sometimes hard to tell if the poem is written in the persona of a patient or a staff person, Mayo narrows the distance between the two, finding our common humanity.

6. The Madness of Crowds, by Louise Penny
Penny latest novel of Inspector Armand Gamache and the village of Three Pines in Quebec is simply extraordinary. More than any other book I’ve read, it captures this unprecedented time, while still being an engrossing mystery.

7. North River, by Pete Hamill
James Delaney is a 47-year-old doctor practicing in Depression-era New York, living alone in a house gifted him by a grateful patient. All he has left is his work and, after the carnage of the Great War where he served as a medic, he is determined to save what lives he can and comfort the dying as best he can. Then one morning he returns from the hospital to find a baby in the entryway. I loved this novel. For once, I could simply relax into the life of single person, one who is complicated and flawed but whose basic moral code is evident.

8. The Possible Pleasures, by Lynn Valente
In these poems Valente’s language is simple, yet her images are startling and fresh. In addition, exquisite care has been taken with the ordering of the poems. It’s no surprise that the prestigious Finishing Line Press chose to publish this chapbook. It embeds simple truths in experiences we can recognise and phrases that catch us by surprise.

9. Klara and the Sun, by Kazuo Ishiguro
Klara is an Artificial Friend who, in the first part of this new novel from Ishiguro, is chosen and taken home by 14-year-old Josie as a companion. The use of AFs harks back to the use of governesses, servants, and slaves to do the emotional work some parents, such as Josie’s mother, are too busy for. This theme of service and its evil twin power—the effects on both the servant and served—is one Ishiguro has explored before, notably in The Remains of the Day.

10. We Are as Gods, by Kate Daloz
The story of Vermont’s Myrtle Hill commune provides the narrative backbone of this nonfiction book. Daloz follows the group from its idealistic beginnings through the gradual disenchantment, conveying their stories realistically yet with sympathy. The book combines the focus on Myrtle Hill and its neighbors with a wide-ranging summary of the counter-culture of the period, the growth and brief life of the commune movement, and the gradual recognition among the commune members that no one is actually self-sufficient. We all, including their original Vermont neighbors, rely on our community.

What were the best books you read last year?

The Darkest Evening, by Ann Cleeves

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In the teeth of a blizzard, DCI Vera Stanhope of the Northumberland & City Police sets off for home but becomes disoriented in the tangle of snow-covered rural roads. For a while she is able to follow the lights of another car, but then they disappear, and she finds the car veered off onto a farm track, the driver’s door standing open and—upon investigation—a toddler strapped into a carseat.

Assuming the driver has gone for help, though surprised they left the child, Vera takes the child with her—I could identify with her struggle to connect the carseat in her ancient Land Rover!—and continues along the now-familiar road. It leads to Brockburn, the Stanhope family seat, but one Vera knows little of since her father had become estranged from them before she was born. Her cousin Juliet reconises Vera and welcomes her and the child, even though there’s a party going on, hosted by Juliet’s husband, theater director Mark Bolitho.

Then the dead body of a woman is discovered just outside, found by a local farmer come to pick up his daughters who’ve been helping out with the party.

This is a satisfying mystery with a fascinating cast of local characters, lots of buried secrets, and settings that feel entirely real, whether we’re in woods, mansion, or cottage kitchen. There are constant surprises as Vera investigates. For example, the murdered woman seems to be estranged from her parents and they from each other, but there are unexpected emotions roiling beneath that surface.

Two aspects of this mystery make it stand out for me. One is the information about Vera’s family. I knew her now-deceased father had been the black sheep of the family, but hadn’t realised his aristocratic lineage. His brother Crispin left the house to daughter Juliet with the condition that her mother could live there. Browbeaten by her mother, Juliet is also miserable over her inability to have a baby, while Mark is absorbed in his plans to fix their financial woes by turning the mansion into a theater venue. Vera’s interactions with each of these relatives illuminate the family’s dynamics.

The other is the way the theme—how much about a family is invisible to an outsider—is woven into the plot. It takes an expert geologist to see beyond the surface of a happy family or an estranged one, to sift through the buried layers of past actions, tangled roots and resentments. But Cleeves weaves the theme in subtly. It is only in looking back that I see how it is embodied in the rich characters and their public and private relationships, even in their homes. There are only a couple of places where the idea of family becomes explicit. This is something I struggle with: how much to trust my reader to see what isn’t stated outright.

Having enjoyed the Vera television series I decided to try one of the books on which it is based. I chose this one because it takes place around the winter solstice, and enjoyed it very much, though of course I heard Brenda Blethyn’s voice in my head. That’s one reason I usually try to read a book before seeing its dramatisation, so I can form my own images. I didn’t mind that here because the performances of Blethyn, David Leon as Joe, and especially Wunmi Mosaku as Holly provided extra texture to the story.

There’s plenty of suspense, looking out for danger where it isn’t and being surprised by where it is. With several potential solutions, there’s much to think about. As with the best mysteries, it’s not so much about identifying the murderer as it is about finding the correct narrative among the many possibilities that could have led to this outcome. I found it the perfect read for this season.

What do you think: read the book first or see the show first?

Murder and Miss Austen’s Ball, by Ridgway Kennedy

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As her 40th birthday approaches, Jane has decided that at her advanced age she no longer needs to worry overly about society’s strictures, and so she will throw herself a ball. She has sent for a dancing master and gets in his place Freddy Worth, an itinerant musician and apprentice dancing master. Nonetheless, after hearing Freddy play, Jane is willing to give him a chance.

Her wealthy neighbor, feckless Aloysius Ellicott, impulsively offers the use of the ballroom at Kellingsford Hall. His father, Lord Horatio Ellicott, Viscount Kellingsford, has gone a bit gaga and only seems concerned about his fashionable clothes. The house and estate are run by older brother Percival who is in the process of enclosing fields formerly used as commons, while calling in debts from a neighbor whose income will suffer from his tenants’ loss of the common land.

Amid this turmoil, Jane moves forward with her ball. There is a hilarious scene of Freddy teaching the dances to red-coated dragoons whom Jane has enlisted to serve as partners, their swords clashing and tangling. Freddy’s naval background comes in handy as he translates dance instructions into parade ground commands.

The ball itself starts off beautifully, but then disaster strikes. Determined to discover what has led to the awful events at her ball, Jane enlists the reluctant aid of her dancing master, who is concerned with protecting her reputation, and they roam far and wide following various leads. Austen fans familiar with what is known of her life will for the most part appreciate this depiction of the author, though some of Jane’s escapades may raise eyebrows.

There are other mysteries in bookstores starring Austen as a detective. What sets this novel apart are the remarkable descriptions of the experience of playing in a small ensemble and of dancing these simple and graceful dances.

In this debut novel, Kennedy brings his considerable expertise playing for and teaching English Country Dance (ECD): country dances of this and other periods, including newly composed ones. (Full disclosure: I have met Kennedy; we both belong to a large traditional dance and music community.)

While it surely helped that I was familiar with the dances named, Kennedy’s evocation of how it feels to dance them is remarkable. I was even more awed by his portrayal of the musical sessions. Not a musician myself, I’m still aware of the subtle signals and changes within an ensemble, the turns at improvisation, the sudden quiet or swelling volume, aware enough to applaud these passages.

Mystery readers will not be disappointed with the fast-moving plot, with its surprises and red herrings. Those who have been to Chawton, Bath, and other places in Austen’s life will recognise the settings that are briefly but effectively described.

Fans of cosy mysteries will enjoy this light-hearted romp through Jane’s world. For me, it brightened these bleak midwinter days.

What books have you turned to for a bit of cheer during this month of shortening days?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of this book free from the publisher. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

The Trespasser, by Tana French

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It’s no secret that I’m a fan of Tana French’s mystery series. The early ones are police procedurals, with members of Dublin’s Murder Squad as protagonists. Since it’s the same squad, a minor character from one book sometimes reappears or even stars in a later book.

That is the case here. The protagonist and secondary character from the previous book swap places. In The Secret Place, Detective Stephen Moran has been looking for an opportunity to get on the elite Murder Squad when it arrives as a new clue in the unsolved murder of a popular boy on the grounds of a girl’s boarding school.

Stephen’s previous contact with one of the girls, Holly Mackey, daughter of detective Frank Mackey (protagonist of Faithful Place and a character in The Likeness), led her to bring him the clue. His ability to communicate with the girls persuades the lead detective Antoinette Conway to keep him on the case—provisionally. We follow Stephen’s twists and turns as he tries to figure out the best approach for each witness, determined to impress the bad-tempered Conway. She believes that the entire squad is out to get her for being a woman and that she’ds been given this one for her first case on purpose to see her fail.

In The Trespasser, Conway is our point-of-view character. Stephen Moran is still working with her, now as her partner and member of the squad. They are assigned minor cases, mostly domestics, when finally they are tapped to investigate what is apparently a domestic gone wrong: a woman found murdered in her own home amid the wreckage of what was obviously meant to be a romantic dinner for two.

They are also given Jimmy Breslin, star of the squad, to work with them which makes Conway bristle. She’s unsure whether this is more harassment or a lack of confidence in her, both equally maddening. Breslin pushes them to arrest the boyfriend, despite the lack of evidence, but Conway and Moran see more paths to investigate.

The interplay between the partners is what makes this book spectacular. Throughout, but especially in the interview room, Conway and Moran bounce off each other, inspire each other, support each other, tiptoe around each other’s wounds—all the things good partners should do. Until they don’t.

Nobody does friendships like Tana French. While most stories rely on love stories for emotional content, French gives us friendships, intense as any romance, whether the working friendship of partners, the intense intimacy of teenage girls, or—as in The Likeness—the friends who can become another family.

I’m not really sure how she does it, beyond the individuality and authenticity of their voices. It’s partly what they are willing to do for each other. It’s partly what they understand intuitively about each other. In this book, Moran and Conway have worked together long enough that when they are interviewing a suspect they can anticipate what the other is about to say. Acting as one, they can volley questions and statements to guide the suspect where they want them to go.

With the girls at the school, French brings out the passionate loyalty and secrecy of their friendships. Through interviews we learn what others say about them. We see and hear how little they themselves give the detectives. We learn more about them in the contrast and conflict between different cliques. And when the girls are alone, we sense through their thoughts and actions the volatility of their emotions and the potential for devastation.

This book in particular also examines the stories people tell themselves, stories about themselves and about others, and the influence of these stories on their actions and reactions. I’m fascinated by this theme and looking for other books that might examine it.

As you can tell, there’s a lot more going on here than simply a puzzle to be solved, though that’s here too, and it’s a knotty one. This layered and intricate story is captivating on so many levels.

Have you read any of Tana French’s novels? Which one is your favorite?

The Question Is Murder, by Mark Willen

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As Mr. Ethics, Sam Turner writes a column for a Washington, D.C. newspaper answering readers’ questions about right and wrong. He also teaches classes on ethics in journalism at a local college, so a reader’s moral dilemma would have to be pretty convoluted to challenge him.

Then he gets a letter asking if murder is ever justified.

The writer is a young woman who is being stalked and threatened by an ex-lover, one who is immune to her appeals and too powerful to be stopped through legal means. Killing him seems to be her only option.

Knowing he should not get personally involved, Sam is worried about her, both what she is suffering and what she might do to stop it, and tries to find out her identity. Then Senator Wade Morgan is found dead. Despite his best intentions, Sam finds himself being drawn in deeper, trying to discover if his mystery woman could be the killer. When his own life is threatened, he realises he can’t bow out until the killer is found.

This new novel from the author of the Jonas Hawke contemporary fiction series makes good use of Willen’s 40 years of experience as a journalist in Washington, D.C., covering politics and government. The world of the story—the setting, characters, atmosphere, etc.—is conveyed with the authority that comes from shrewd observation and experience.

At a time when ethical concerns are in the news, mostly about the unethical behavior of political figures, a book like this that takes ethics seriously is most welcome. Lately, too many ethical standards that we took for granted are being flouted by those who have sworn to uphold them. Of course there has always been graft and corruption in politics, but now we have entered an extraordinary new phase of shameless lying and gaslighting.

So I’m grateful for this smart and fast-paced mystery. I love the combination of ethical questions with a mystery’s puzzle. Although much more serious in tone, Willen’s book satisfies me the way Alexander McCall Smith’s series about Isabel Dalhousie does. As a moral philosopher and editor of the Review of Applied Ethics, Isabel considers the ethical ramifications of even her smallest action or thought.

Similarly, Sam Turner—perceptive, principled, flawed—is a character I’m happy to spend time with. I hope there are more books featuring Mr. Ethics to come.

What mysteries are you enjoying this spring?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of this book free from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

The Charming Quirks of Others, by Alexander McCall Smith

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I’ve been working my way through this series set in Edinburgh featuring Isabel Dalhousie. Well, work isn’t really correct since each story is delightful. As a moral philosopher, Isabel “considers” problems and mysteries that others request her help with. Once someone has asked for her help, she believes she is morally obligated to try.

In this, the seventh entry in the series, Isabel has been asked by the wife of a trustee to help an exclusive boy’s school in their search for a new headmaster. The shortlist contains only three names, but the trustee has received an anonymous letter saying that one of the three has a skeleton in his closet that would disqualify him. Isabel is asked to look into their backgrounds to determine which is the problematic candidate.

After agreeing, despite her fiancé Jamie’s usual objection to her investigations, Isabel is surprised to discover that her niece Cat’s new boyfriend is one of the three. Cat is rather intense, going through boyfriends like candy and frequently arguing with Isabel, yet the young woman runs her successful deli with a firm hand. Jamie was once one of those boyfriends, and his relationship with Isabel—they have a charming toddler and plan to marry imminently—is a constant, if minor, source of tension between Cat and Isabel. However, underneath it all, the two women are devoted to each other.

Isabel practices her philosophy not only as editor of the Review of Applied Ethics and the now-defunct Sunday Philosophy Club of the earlier books in the series, but in every aspect of her life. When one of her former colleagues-cum-enemies on the Review magisterially informs her that he is going to write a review of the new book from his partner in crime—the crime of trying to force Isabel off the magazine—Isabel debates the ramifications of each possible response. If she refuses, would that be seen as an act of vengeance? Should she be generous and forgive the two men for present and past indignities?

She also considers just how generous she ought to be when a tragic young cellist falls for Jamie. Jamie is a bassoonist and rather younger than Isabel which feeds her insecurity about their relationship.

It is this application of philosophy to the smallest details of life that I find intriguing in these books. Many people know the author from his No. 1 Ladies’ Detective Agency series. Like those books, the Dalhousie books belong to what Dave King calls the gentle genre: “straightforward tales of ordinary people in mostly every-day, low-key situations.” Authors like D.E. Stevenson, Miss Read, and James Herriot manage the difficult task of composing these stories that become comfort reads for many of us, without falling into “either banality or saccharine gooeyness.”

The solution Dave King identifies is the use of a small town with many characters interacting, noting that “Even Alexander McCall Smith’s Scotland Street books, technically set in Edinburgh, are limited to a neighborhood that acts in most ways like a small town.” “In fact,” he goes on, “most gentle novels draw their tension from this forced association. The connections with people who think very differently from yourself can help amplify the importance of small things.”

That’s certainly true here, with a variety of characters, some new and some familiar from earlier books. However, it’s the philosophy that elevates Isabel’s stories, not the labored dense prose that I struggled with in Philosophy 101, but a common-sense application of moral considerations to the minutiae of daily life.

Added to that are the descriptions of Edinburgh itself and the surrounding countryside. I recently visited that city for the first time, and I love the memories these books call up. The books aren’t perfect, of course. Jamie and Cat are rather two-dimensional, and Isabel herself doesn’t change much as the series progresses. Also, her rather privileged life may rub some readers the wrong way.

For me, they make a nice counter-balance to my other, more challenging reading. Like Alexander McCall Smith’s other books, these make for perfect bedtime reading, when you want to calm your mind and prepare to enter a world of good dreams.

Which Alexander McCall Smith series is your favorite?

Death in a Strange Country, by Donna Leon

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It’s been a few years since I’ve read the early books in Donna Leon’s mystery series set in Venice. With all the nonfiction books I’ve been reading that are set there, it seemed like a good time to revisit them.

In this second book in the series, Commissario Brunetti is called when a body is pulled out of a canal, apparently the victim of a mugging. It turns out to be an American sergeant, a health inspector from the U.S. base at Vicenza. Brunetti’s superior officer, Vice-Questore Patta, whose only concern is politics, wants the case tied up quickly so tourists are not spooked and the Americans in Vicenza placated. However, Brunetti believes there is much more going on here than a mugging.

As you would expect for a senior police officer, Brunetti is working other cases, including the theft of paintings from a well-connected businessman—someone whom Patta wants to cosy up to.

One of the unusual features of this series is the weight given to Brunetti’s life outside of work, primarily his home life with his astute wife Paola and their two children—sixteen-year-old Raffi and thirteen-year-old Chiara—who are growing up too fast for Brunetti. The theme of parents and children runs through all the storylines here, subtly enough that I didn’t realise it at first.

We might all wish to have a Paola in our lives: a wise counselor who can bring us back to earth when we get carried away or confused, not to mention creating a delicious risotto for dinner. The warmth of their family life—Chiara bargaining to stay up to finish her book, Paola joining Brunetti on the balcony—is lovely, while the occasional irritations or silences keep it realistic.

Writers often talk about making the setting a character in a novel, and certainly Venice is a major character in Leon’s books. The author accomplishes this by incorporating details of the culture and customs as well as the buildings and canals. There are Brunetti’s movements around Venice, stopping for a coffee and noting the slight nod that orders a shot of grappa be added. There’s the game he plays with himself where he rewards himself with a drink when he spots a previously unnoticed architectural detail. And the way a night watchman slips an orange card into the iron grating outside each shop to prove that he has come by.

The evocation of Venice and Brunetti’s life there is more important for me than the mystery. I would be perfectly happy with these books even if there were no mystery at all.

Brunetti’s efforts to solve the mysteries are complicated by the corruption and profiteering in government and business, both deeply intertwined with the mafia (the novel was first published in 1993). Naturally this made me squirm a little, since here in the U.S. these crimes have been flagrantly committed at the highest levels of the government in the last few years.

Much here reminded me of John Berendt’s portrayal of Venice and the shenanigans around rebuilding La Fenice. My understanding of the geography gained from that book and the others I’ve been reading enhanced my enjoyment of this book, filling out my imagination as I traveled the streets and canals of Venice with the commissario, a character with whom I would gladly spend any amount of time.

Have you read a mystery or other novel set in Venice?

Nuclear Option, by Dorothy Van Soest

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At 77, Sylvia Jensen believes her activist days are over. She is still involved with community groups and delivers Meals on Wheels, doing what she chooses to do rather than what she feels she ought to do. Then, at a funeral for a woman who had been an inspiring leader during Sylvia’s years protesting domestic and military nuclear proliferation, she is astounded to meet a ghost from the past.

In her 40s, at a meeting planning protests against Nectaral, the biggest military contractor in the state, Sylvia had met Norton, a kindred spirit with green eyes and a crooked smile. Since he was married and had a young son, they tried desperately to keep to friendship. What Sylvia didn’t know was that Norton had a time bomb inside, that he was an atomic veteran.

Now, all these years later, Norton’s son Corey, full of rage and anguished loss, crosses her path, ready to take his protests to another level. How can Sylvia not try to save him from himself?

The mystery unfolds on two levels: the past, where Sylvia and Norton and their friends are on trial for their part in the protest, and the present, where Sylvia has to draw on all her skills as a former foster care supervisor, her courage, and her friendship with investigative reporter J. B. Harrell to untangle the webs being woven around her beloved Norton’s son.

I did not know about the atomic veterans—no surprise since their existence was hidden behind the Nuclear Radiation and Secrecy Agreement Act until it was repealed in 1996. They were ordinary soldiers used as guinea pigs during nuclear tests, ordered to stand without equipment near the blast in order to study the effects of radiation, or sent in to clean up afterward, again without protective gear or being informed about the danger.

I did know about and was involved in the 1960s in protests against nuclear proliferation. The bomb and the horrors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were very much in the forefront of things to worry about. Yet until Van Soest’s book (Full disclosure: Dorothy is a friend of mine), I hadn’t realised that anti-nuclear protests were still going on; that fear had receded into the rear of my personal chamber of horrors.

Like Sylvia and, I’m sure, others who were active in the 1960s and 70s, I have been reluctant to get involved in protests and marches again. Busy raising children and keeping a roof over their heads, I focused on what seemed immediately most important, I suppose making me no better in a way than the corporate heads prioritising short-term profits.

But the last four years have dragged me out of my comfort zone. Protestors fill our streets once again. And now this story, with its interweaving of past and present, invites me to consider what more I might be doing. It chimes with what I’ve been reading and discussing and thinking about all summer: how can I leverage my privilege—for I am surely privileged in many ways, despite my years of poverty—to help make the changes our stricken society so badly needs?

What Van Soest has accomplished in this, her fourth novel, is quite remarkable. She has given us a gripping mystery, with characters who will haunt us long after the last page is turned, placing them within a real-world context that alerts us to dangers we may not have considered. The story never falters, as we are swept into Sylvia’s quest for justice and safety for us all.

Have you read a stirring mystery lately?

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received a copy of this book free from the author. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

The Word Is Murder, by Anthony Horowitz

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Coming up with a title for the book you’ve written is surprisingly hard. It needs to be catchy while giving a hint about what the book’s about and its genre. The title here, which is a bit of a running joke in the story, certainly meets all three criteria.

This is the first book I’ve read by the prolific Horowitz, author of the Alex Rider YA series and two Sherlock Holmes mysteries among others, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. The one thing I knew about him at first was that he is the creator and main writer for Foyle’s War, one of the best TV series I’ve ever seen. I wondered how that brilliance would translate to a genre mystery.

The answer is that it is unlike any mystery I’ve read, while still fitting within the conventions of the mystery genre.

What baffled me at the beginning is that our protagonist, our amateur sleuth, is Anthony Horowitz, author of Foyle’s War, the Alex Rider series, etc. Anthony is finishing up his Sherlock Holmes mystery House of Silk and ripe for a new writing project when he is approached by a curt and rather intimidating former policeman named Daniel Hawthorne.

Hawthorne has a deal for Anthony: write up the case Hawthorne is working on and the two of them split the proceeds 50/50. I had to laugh. So often that it’s become a running gag, writers get people coming up and saying they have a great idea for a story; the writer should just write it up and they’ll split the profits.

After initially refusing, Anthony agrees. It is a fascinating case: a seemingly healthy woman goes to a mortician to organise her eventual funeral arrangements and six hours later she is murdered.

The dynamic between the two is fascinating. Hawthorne immediately establishes dominance by calling the writer Tony, even after Anthony says that no one calls him that and he doesn’t like it. Hawthorne works as a consultant for the police on this case, and expects Anthony to follow him around and take notes but not participate. He also expects to critique the manuscript. Close-mouthed, he doesn’t want to share his thoughts on the case or any personal information. Reluctant to be relegated to the Watson role, Anthony tries to get ahead of Hawthorne in the investigation, with mixed results.

Disconcertingly, Anthony constantly refers to real people, many in his sphere: actors, producers, etc. I was surprised that he would name names: he takes a meeting with Steven Spielberg and Peter Jackson; he recounts an incident with Michael Kitchen; and so on. My writer’s mind whirled. Did he get permission or just assumed they are public figures? Would using them poison the well for him as a writer? Did it add to or detract from the story? It’s one thing for a novel like Ragtime to refer to real historical figures and another to refer to those still with us.

With all that swarming around in my brain, I still found the story engaging, both the interplay between the two men and the mystery itself. I’m not sure I’d want to read a lot of novels in this style—mixing reality with fantasy—but here I found it refreshing.

Have you read a mystery that stretched the rules of the genre?