Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part VII: J. Kingston Pierce

J. Kingston Pierce is the overworked editor of both The Rap Sheet and Killer Covers, the senior editor of January Magazine, and the lead crime-fiction blogger for Kirkus Reviews.

• The Axeman, by Ray Celestin (Sourcebooks):
New Orleans, Louisiana, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was a culturally rich but sometimes violent place to reside. “[C]olorful miscreants stalked the streets,” explains Gary Krist in his 2014 history of the place, Empire of Sin; “warring vice lords shot up their rivals’ saloons and gambling dens; and mysterious Italians, purportedly members of the murky organization called ‘the Mafia’ or ‘the Black Hand,’ assassinated one another for obscure and sinister reasons.” Making matters even worse, from the spring of 1918 until the autumn of 1919, a serial killer known in the popular press as the Axeman, preyed on the Crescent City’s populace, mostly on its Italian-American residents, killing them with old axes that he (presumably he) left at the scene of his atrocities. Amid the facts of this case, British author Celestin inserts three fictional sleuths whose goal it is to identify the killer and bring his reign of terror to a swift halt. The first is a 20-year police veteran, Michael Talbot, who has previously endangered his career by helping to prosecute and imprison a crooked fellow cop and former mentor. Next comes Luca D’Andrea, that adviser himself, newly freed after a five-year penitentiary stint and soon drafted by a Mafia chieftain who wants the Axeman removed from the streets before his homicidal acts provoke police to crack down on all crime in the city. Finally, there’s Ida Davis, an able young black woman who clerks at the local office of the Pinkerton National Detective Agency, and who hopes--with the aid of a “chubby-face” musician known as Lil’ Lewis (or Louis) Armstrong--to bring the Axeman down and thereby win promotion to field agent. The Axeman’s plotting gumbo of political shenanigans, gang hostilities, and hints of the supernatural diverges somewhat from the historical record, but you can’t say the dramatic results aren’t worth Celestin cheating here and there.

• The Girl on the Train, by Paula Hawkins (Riverhead):
Because it gathered plaudits right from the moment of its release in early 2015 (and quickly built up a reader following, thanks in part to heavy promotion through the Goodreads site), I was sure I’d despise this novel; I rarely enjoy best-sellers. In this case, though, I was wrong to be skeptical. Hawkins, who has previously concocted romantic-comedy tales under the nom de plume Amy Silver, here delivers the thoroughly suspenseful story of Rachel Watson, a divorced but not quite indigent young alcoholic who rides a commuter train in to and out of London every day, despite the fact that she lost her public-relations position some while ago. The rail transit brings her peace that she lacks in other areas of her life. It also lets her fantasize about the people she sees inside the houses passing by. Those folks include Scott and Megan Hipwell, an attractive couple who occupy a residence not far from the one Rachel and her ex-hubby, Tom, once owned. Lonely Rachel is convinced the Hipwells share an idyllic life--at least until the morning she spots blonde Megan swapping kisses with another gent in her back garden. Not long after that, Megan goes missing, and Rachel summons up the courage to approach local police with what she knows of the apparent betrayal, sure it will help their search. But the cops don’t believe her, both because they’re wise to her dipsomaniacal ways and because she has recently behaved erratically toward Tom and his new wife. Rather than slink away, Rachel determines to figure out for herself what has happened to Megan. She contacts the missing woman’s lover, allows her concern for Scott Hipwell to evolve into a disastrous affair, and generally makes a mess of things. That her nosiness and poor choices eventually lead to a resolution of this mystery is remarkable, but credibly executed. Readers who have accidentally picked up the wrong book when looking for Hawkins’ psychological thriller will want to correct that error post haste.

• Inspector of the Dead, by David Morrell (Mulholland):
Thomas De Quincey is not the most obvious candidate to become a crime solver. A journalist turned essayist, with intestinal problems, bad eyesight, and a serious opium jones, by 1855--the year in which Inspector of the Dead is set--he was 70 years old. Yet in the hands of author Morrell, De Quincey and his youngest child, the surprisingly resourceful and progressive Emily (who assumes a Watson-like role here), seem well on their way to joining the ranks of fiction’s memorable Victorian-era amateur sleuths. Someone is intent in these pages on doing away with members of England’s fashionable class, presumably to satisfy a desire for revenge. On the corpse of each victim the killer leaves the name of a person (and there were several) who at one time or another sought to assassinate Queen Victoria. Assisting Scotland Yard, as they did in Morrell’s much-praised last novel, Murder as a Fine Art (2013), the De Quinceys look toward the twisted psychology of the murderer in order to discern his identity, exposing somebody whose outward respectability conceals a volatile well of self-justified resentment. Yet even then, there’s no guarantee that the laudanum-imbibing De Quincey and his more youthful cohorts from the constabulary can stop the so-called Revenger from striking what appears to be his ultimate target: the right-proper Victoria herself. Morrell shows a keen eye for historical atmospherics, and he does an extraordinary job of illuminating faults in both the social and political strata of mid-19th-century British society. Moments of humor and rollicking adventure make the reading of this second installment in what Morrell says will be a trilogy of books all the more pleasurable.

• A June of Ordinary Murders, by Conor Brady (Minotaur):
Temperatures are running quite high in Dublin, Ireland, during the summer of 1887, and so are tempers. With representatives of Queen Victoria coming to the city soon to help celebrate the monarch’s Golden Jubilee, local police are on the lookout for anarchists who would like nothing more than to end British hegemony over this island nation. The last thing they need are further criminal distractions. But those come anyway. Two corpses, evidently belonging to a man and a boy, are found in a public park, shot to death, their faces mutilated. Detective Sergeant Joe Swallow of the Metropolitan Police, a cynical copper who’d like to add new successes to his record, quickly realizes there is nothing “ordinary” about these slayings. The murdered man, after all, turns out to have been a woman in masculine attire, and Swallow’s difficulty in identify either victim exposes him to press derision. If that weren’t enough bad news, a local criminal matriarch, Ces “Pisspot” Downes, has died in her bed, leaving her covetous lieutenants to vie for control of her empire, and a house servant is found mortally bludgeoned and discarded in a canal. Brady, a former editor of The Irish Times, does an estimable job of establishing Swallow’s multiple dimensions, fleshing out his historical environs, and exploring the politics that roiled Dublin 130 years ago. I’m very much looking forward to reading his sequel, The Eloquence of the Dead, due out in March 2016.

• The Whites, by Richard Price writing as Harry Brandt (Henry Holt):
It’s possible I would have passed on reading The Whites, had it not been for author Richard Price’s interview with Terry Gross, host of National Public Radio’s Fresh Air program, back in February. So interesting did I find Price, and so open about his history and his goals in composing this novel, that I went out the next day and bought The Whites. Smart move. At the center of this expansive cop tale is Sergeant Billy Graves. He used to be part of a crackerjack anti-crime unit of the New York Police Department, known as the Wild Geese, that rewarded cowboy independence. But he eventually shot the wheels off his own career when he killed an innocent 10-year-old boy rather than the drug-crazed scumbag for whom he’d been aiming. Graves has since been lucky to earn command of the NYPD’s Manhattan Night Watch, which responds to post-midnight felonies and tees up further investigations for the morning shift. However, his hard-won peace is put at risk after a slashing at Penn Station costs the life of a man he had known in his Wild Geese days, a murder suspect who’d “walked away untouched by justice.” Borrowing a term from Moby Dick, Graves and his Wild Geese cohorts used to call such lawbreakers-on-the-loose “Whites.” Now it appears that one of their number has turned vigilante, eliminating those Whites piecemeal, and if might fall to Graves--the last member of that old unit still with the NYPD--to put a stop to it. Meanwhile, a psychopathic detective stalks our hero’s family, hungry for his own version of revenge. This is no straightforward police procedural or action-rich whodunit; it’s a loosely focused narrative that compels reader interest with its character development and Price’s dexterity with language.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part VI: Anthony Rainone and Seamus Scanlon

Anthony Rainone is a contributor to January Magazine and The Rap Sheet. He lives in Brooklyn, where he writes screenplays.

• The Cartel, by Don Winslow (Knopf):
Art Keller is a tragic figure. He has been fighting the war on drugs for four decades on behalf of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA). He has been the de facto American warlord on drugs in Mexico. In particular, he has waged a personal battle against Adán Berrera, the head of the El Federación cartel. It has cost Keller his family and his partner, and at the beginning of this novel, it seems it has cost him his will to live as well. The Cartel is about so much more than Keller, however. It takes in everything swirling around the drug trade like a twister ripping the ground apart. It is about the violent forces interlocking the cartels against each other with unspeakable brutality (men are burned alive in oil barrels). It is about the market forces of supply (Mexico) and demand (the United States) that make Adán and Keller puppets in a Machiavellian clash of law and order and money. Adán can no more turn away from what he has built and what he has become, than Keller can lay down his gun and stop hunting the man who has forced him to live in cheap motels and look constantly over his shoulder. The Cartel is more than a saga: it is folklore, history, and socio-economic forces all backdropped by the context of fragile human life. Everyone is affected by the kind of choices made in this yarn, from the man and woman on the street trying (literally) to make one dollar, to the cowboy-dressed millionaire narcos hiding out in hilltop mansions that could withstand an invasion from Seal Team Six. Winslow is a master novelist, and there is good reason why his book spans more than 600 pages and demands considerable attention from readers. Three-quarters of the way through, you lose sense of who belongs to which cartel, who is fighting against whom, which plazas (drug territories) are vital and which are not. It is the same logistical maze that law enforcement faces when confronting the constantly shifting sands of drug alliances and wars. The violence here is unrelenting: burnings, throat slashings, redundant deaths by semiautomatic rifle. This maelstrom of bloodshed beats like an unending drum rhythm, because it brings the reader face-to-face with the true nature of narcotics-dealing. Keller is up against a tsunami. The immense fortitude and, perhaps, lunacy necessary for someone to remain committed to this drug war is enough to make your stomach churn. This is realism at its best. In the pas de deux between Berrera and Keller we see mirror images of the lengths to which each man will go. Berrera is barbaric: men, women, and children are endlessly executed on his orders. Meanwhile, Keller is coldly objective: he turns a blind eye to the Mexican military assassination squads he assists. In the end, almost nobody is left alive, though one could argue that they weren’t really living to being with. Keller has again lost those he loved, but perhaps he has gained, too. Maybe he isn’t really all that tragic a figure. Maybe he realizes that the best you can hope for is the victory today and the single life you can save from the bullet.

Seamus Scanlon is a librarian, a professor at The City College of New York, and the award-winning Irish author of As Close as You’ll Ever Be.

• Dark City Lights: New York Stories, edited by Lawrence Block
(Three Rooms Press):
Science fiction, crime, horror, tour guides, squeegees, movie locations, struggling artists, ambulance chasers, Marilyn Monroe, the garment industry, subways, Shakespeare in the Park, wilding, a corrupt bedside manner--all of those genres and topics, plus more, are included in this fine collection of New York City stories, along with a succinct and witty introduction by Lawrence Block. His own story in this collection, “Keller the Dog Killer,” I had read previously, but it is always a pleasure to reread tales featuring Keller, the antihero assassin-for-hire with a penchant for guns, stamps, and getting rid of loose ends. “The Big Snip,” by Thomas Pluck, made me wince in a good way. “The Garmento and the Movie Star,” by Jonathan Santlofer, is a magnificent story about Marilyn Monroe. “The Dead Client,” by Parnell Hall, has great energy, dialogue, and humor. Erin Mitchell’s “Old Hands” is written with aplomb and bleak humor. S.J. Rozan’s “Wet Dog on a Rainy Day” is a sobering, despair-filled story of lost love. This anthology offers great stories in the great city of New York, where anything can happen and usually does. Highly recommended.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part V: Ali Karim

Ali Karim is The Rap Sheet’s longtime British correspondent, a contributing editor of January Magazine, and the assistant editor of Shots. In addition, he writes for Deadly Pleasures Mystery Magazine, Crimespree, and Mystery Readers International.

• After the Crash, by Michel Bussi (Weidenfeld & Nicolson UK):
A sensation in France, and a bestseller in the UK, Michel Bussi’s After the Crash (French title Un avion sans elle) is a remarkable narrative, a look at how an unknown past can impinge on an uncertain future. In 1980 (before DNA testing became commonplace), a passenger plane crashes in the French-Swiss Jura Mountains, instantly killing and cremating more than 160 people. The sole survivor is a three-month-old baby, nicknamed Dragonfly, whose identity is the intriguing plot device powering this page-turner. Close to two decades on, questions still remain, as a pair of families--representing two different sets of parents on that flight from Turkey--battle for “ownership” of the child. Is she Lyse-Rose de Carville or actually Emilie Vitral? The Carville family have wealth, while the Vitrals most definitely do not, which adds a socio-political dimension to Bussi’s yarn. Private investigator Crédule Grand-Duc, who has been hired by one of the grandparents to solve this mystery, contemplates suicide, despairing that he will never be able to complete his assignment. But before speeding off into oblivion, the sleuth notices a clue, one he hopes will finally reveal the truth behind the identity of Lylie, as the now teenage survivor has come to be known (that name being a hybrid of her two possible real identities). This realization comes too late, though, for Grand-Duc is then murdered … or so it seems. Told largely through excerpts from Grand-Duc’s journals, After the Crash achieves a conscientious unpacking of this mystery, delving into the ways that uncertainty over the girl’s heritage affects not only her relationship to the world but also her potential siblings’ relationships to Lylie. Now available in 26 languages worldwide, Bussi’s engaging yarn is perfect for a winter’s evening, and one of the best English-translated crime novels of 2015.

• The Crossing, by Michael Connelly (Little, Brown):
The title of this novel refers to forcibly retired Los Angeles police detective Hieronymus “Harry” Bosch “crossing the line” to help his half-brother, so-called Lincoln Lawyer Mickey Haller, on a defense case that at first appears to be a slam-dunk. Alexandra “Lexi” Parks, a respected city official, has been savagely slain in her bed and the evidence seems to point unequivocally at Haller’s client, Da’Quan Foster, a gangbanger turned family man. Bosch doesn’t really want to become involved in this tragic affair; he’s quite content rebuilding an old Harley-Davidson motorcycle. However, after Haller’s usual investigator is involved in a hit-and-run incident, the attorney turns to our favorite detective for assistance. Bosch isn’t so easily swayed as others are by signs pointing to a home invasion with a sexual motive, all gone wrong. He thinks Foster just might be as innocent as he claims. As he pursues the case, though, Bosch must not only overcome the guilt inflicted upon him by his former colleagues (who see him as a “traitor” for aiding a criminal defendant), but negotiate around roadblocks thrown up by someone who’s determined to alter the path of justice. Connelly’s journalistic background is much in evidence here, as he keeps a tight rein on an eclectic array of supporting characters and mutiple plot twists, and imbues his narrative with the atmospherics of the complex U.S. legal system as well as the techniques of modern police procedure. Written in a terse and urgent style, The Crossing is the sixth Connelly novel to feature Mickey Haller and the 20th investigation for Harry Bosch. So far, Bosch shows no signs of stagnation, despite evidence of age dogging his heels. Like the Harley in Bosch’s garage, this protagonist charges on untarnished. Thank goodness.

• Dust and Desire, by Conrad Williams (Titan):
Better known to readers of horror fiction than those attuned toward mysteries, Conrad Williams here begins a P.I. series that’s rooted in the seedier side of London. His protagonist is Joel Sorrell, a melancholic, sometimes self-destructive former cop haunted by the murder of his wife and the disappearance of his daughter--years-ago crimes that still bleed inside his mind. In Dust and Desire, Sorrell is hired by the mysterious Kara Geenan to track down her missing 18-year-old brother, Jason Pythian. Along the way our hero falls victim to several visceral assaults, but he always manages to lick his wounds and return to the chase. It appears that a serial killer may be involved in Jason’s disappearance, one who has succeeded thus far in remaining under the radar. Monsters beget monsters as Williams provides context to the destructive capabilities of his repeat killer, known as “Wire.” There’s also a goodly amount of witty but black-edged dialogue here, and introspective ruminations that make Sorrell sound like a Cockney Philip Marlowe. It should be noted that one of the more memorable players in Dust and Desire is London itself, though a version of the British capital that you won’t find in TripAdvisor or Expedia. Sorrell’s city is more of the hellish variety, with the gumshoe filling a Job-like role. Readers who enjoy the nihilistic tales of Derek Raymond will find similarly engaging (and terrifying) treats in Williams’ story.

• Life or Death, by Michael Robotham (Mulholland):
The winner of this year’s Gold Dagger, given out by the British Crime Writers’ Association, Life or Death unravels the yarn of Audie Palmer, a convicted armed robber who, just one day shy of being released after spending 10 years in a Texas maximum security prison, suddenly breaks out. Why would anyone do such a foolish thing? As the Bard said, “thereby hangs the tale”--and it’s a damn good one. It seems the armored truck robbery that landed him behind bars, led to the deaths of four other people, and left Audie in a coma also left behind many unanswered questions. Such as, whatever became of Audie’s brother and the $7 million that truck had been carrying? As Audie flees, determined to keep a promise he made long ago, he’s pursued by a motley assortment of federal authorities and more nefarious figures, including his old cell compatriot, Moss Webster, and tenacious FBI Special Agent Desiree Furness. Relentless in its pacing, with a storytelling style that is almost elegiac and a conclusion guaranteed to satisfy the reader’s every curiosity, Life or Death is a twisted, brooding thriller that makes us question what we think we know of the past and its links to the future.

• Songs of a Dead Dreamer and Grimscribe, by Thomas Ligotti (Penguin Classics):
Thanks to the first season of HBO-TV’s True Detective, there’s been a marked resurgence of interest in the work of American horror-fictionist Thomas Ligotti. The same themes of philosophical pessimism, cosmic horror, and antinatalism that can be found in Ligotti’s work also peppered True Detective. This Penguin Classics paperback edition gathers together the first two collections of Ligotti’s short stories. While not “crime fiction” per se, there is mystery here, and certainly crime. This newly released volume opens with a thought-provoking essay by Jeff VanderMeer, award-winning co-editor of The Weird, and features a number of standout tales. One of the best is “The Frolic,” a distressing episode about a psychiatrist, his family, and the touch of a madman who may well extend his insanity to other layers of reality that cloak our own. No less engaging is “Drink to Me Only with Labyrinthine Eyes,” in which a magician’s act turns out to be far more sinister than it initially appeared to his distracted audience, raising questions about how our senses interpret what we experience--which may or may not be real. Special mention must be made of Ligotti’s highly acclaimed homage to H.P. Lovecraft, “The Last Feast of Harlequin,” which gives us an unreliable narrator in an unreliable world. Although they may not be to everyone’s taste, these stories will be a revelation to lovers of mystery fiction as well as to people who were puzzled by allegations that True Detective’s writer had committed plagiarism by borrowing from Ligotti’s work.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part IV: Kevin Burton Smith

Kevin Burton Smith is a Montreal-born crime writer and critic currently looking for an honest glass of beer in Southern California’s High Desert region. In the meantime, he’s working on the Great Canadian Detective Novel, writing features for Mystery Scene magazine, and contributing far too infrequently to The Rap Sheet. Not incidentally, Smith is also the founder and editor of that invaluable resource, The Thrilling Detective Web Site.

• The Fade Out: Act One and The Fade Out: Act Two, by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips (Image Comics):
It may seem odd recommending a serialized novel or film before it’s played out, never mind a comic book. But trust me--judging from what’s gone before, and the quality the Eisner Award-winning team of Brubaker (words) and Phillips (pictures) continually bring to the genre, those of you who get your crime-fiction fix at the dark end of the street won’t want to miss this one. And now that two-thirds of this 12-part noir comic miniseries has been gathered into two easy-to-obtain collections (each comprising four issues), you’ll have no excuse. Because this sprawling saga of 1948 Hollywood is simply one of the sharpest, most morally complex crime stories in any medium in recent years; a great noir that somehow was never filmed. A deliciously gritty swirl of sex, violence, naked ambition, and back-lot treachery, The Fade Out revolves around a couple of tortured (and alcoholic) writers still haunted by World War II, a murdered actress, an ill-fated starlet, a plucky PR girl, a despotic studio head and his ruthless, take-no-prisoners fixer (who knows where all the bodies are buried--and may have buried a few of them himself), plus several more gloriously doomed schemers, dreamers, wannabes, and never-wases. Hell, even Dashiell Hammett shows up here, briefly, drink in hand. It’s all brought to a full boil with dark grace and bleak wit, with Phillips’ shadow-drenched, evocative artwork bringing Brubaker’s twisting, turning script to life. If you’ve missed out so far on what The Fade Out offers, these two collections are the perfect way to catch up. And all you crime writers out there should consider yourselves lucky that these guys are content--for now, at least--to stick to comics.

• The Girl with the Deep Blue Eyes, by Lawrence Block
(Hard Case Crime):
The cover of this work prominently displays the publisher’s retro-looking logo and a naked babe (painted by the late Glen Orbik) with the obligatory gun and come-hither look. Even the title suggests we may be time-traveling back to the heady days of the original paperback boom, when thousands of cheesy soft-cover books (with their lurid covers, and promising varying degrees of lust and violence) filled the spinner racks of America. Some of those paperbacks were well worth reading, some even approached the level of literature, but every one of them promised--at a bare minimum--fast, cheap thrills. And all the years and all my alleged maturity are defenseless against Block’s latest, a knock-off quickie that gets in, gets out, and leaves behind only the lingering stench of sex, sweat, booze, and blood. Protagonist Doak Miller is a former NYPD dick, pushing 50, who’s set up shop as a cut-rate private eye in a steamy Florida bunghole somewhere between Tampa and Panama City. He has an understanding with the cops, as well as with several hot-to-trot women around town. But the fireworks, carnal and otherwise, really begin when he agrees to pose as an out-of-town gun in order to help the local fuzz nab Mrs. Lisa Otterbein, who’s looking to get rid of Mr. Otterbein. Simple enough, until Doak sees Lisa, she of the deep blue eyes, and then all bets are off. There’s an instant erotic attraction, and before you can say James M. Cain, the two are plotting to murder her husband--in between several steamy amatory encounters that definitely weren’t written in the 1950s. “It was more than kinky,” Doak reflects at one point, “It was … well, he didn’t know what it was, exactly.” What it is--exactly--is an unholy combo of primal urges, sexual obsession, twisted desires, and murderous treachery played out in motel rooms, bars, and dark alleys, that will not end well for anyone. But, then, really good noir tales never have sequels. This is Block at his very best, having a bit of fun. It’s greasy and sleazy and cheap, but sometimes cheap is how I feel.

• The Martini Shot: A Novella and Stories, by George Pelecanos (Little, Brown):
When George cleans his closet, it’s always worth seeing what he drags out. One of the most acclaimed genre authors of our time, Pelecanos is known primarily for his tough, socially relevant crime novels, mostly set in Washington, D.C., and his work in television for such class acts as The Wire, The Pacific, and Treme. Yet he isn’t particularly recognized for his short fiction--possibly because he’s done relatively little of it. He’s sure got the chops for it, though. Stretching back almost two decades to “When You’re Hungry” (1996) and roaring right up to the present with “Miss Mary’s Room” and “The Martini Shot,” both making their debuts here, this collection is like a whirlwind tour of Pelecanos’ world: men (and occasionally women) caught out on that line, pinned between need and duty, survival and honor, in a land of broken dreams and shattered promises. Pelecanos’ characters, be they grifters, cops, thugs, snitches, killers, or just some scared kid in a bad neighborhood trying to get home in one piece, always have hard choices to make, and those choices, even the right ones, inevitably come with a price. The intended money shot here is “The Martini Shot,” which details the on-location relationship-of-convenience between two lonely, middle-aged members of a TV cop-drama crew--an affair that’s sidetracked when another member of the production staff is murdered. With his spare, hard prose Pelecanos shows surprising compassion and nuance in that yarn, but for my dough the real heart of this collection lies in “Chosen,” a sort of prologue for his most recent series character, Spero Lucas (The Cut, Double), which relates the unapologetically earthy yet touching romance between Lucas’ Greek-American parents and their interracial slew of adopted kids. There’s always emotional heft to this author’s work. Despite the hard-bitten and often glib cynicism of his characters and the bleak, savage violence that pops up so frequently in their world, underneath it all there’s an underlying belief in at least some of his players that maybe, just maybe, choices really do matter, regardless of the cost, and that perhaps there is some hope after all. Heady stuff, if you ask me.

• Someone Is Watching, by Joy Fielding (Ballantine):
Remember Peter Sellers in Being There, explaining that he “likes to watch”? Well, ditto for the folks in Fielding’s latest standalone, a perverted little fairy tale that’s equal parts Brothers Grimm and Hitchcock’s Rear Window. Cocky Miami private eye Bailey Carpenter not only likes to watch, but gets paid for it. She’s young and beautiful, the princess in the tower, with a lucrative gig as the lead investigator for Holden, Cunningham and Kravitz, a prestigious Miami law firm. She lives in a swank high-rise, drives a flashy little sports car and is, of course, wonderfully thin. She’s also set to inherit a small fortune from her recently deceased dad, and will no doubt live happily ever after. And then she gets raped. The actual attack is--mercifully--dispatched quickly, reduced to a few unsettling pages early on, but it’s not the sexual assault that interests Fielding; its the vicious psychological and emotional aftermath. With her unknown assailant still on the loose, Bailey holes up in her apartment, afraid to leave, showering incessantly and tormented by nightmares. The phone rings and there’s nobody there. Fragile and frightened, she becomes obsessed with watching tenants in the tower across from her with binoculars. Particularly the preening exhibitionist who has sex with various women and never closes his blinds. Does he know she’s watching? Is he watching her? Could he be her attacker? Could he even be … a murderer? Bailey doesn’t know it, but nobody--the cops, building security, her own brother--quite believes her suspicions. Only Claire, her estranged half-sister, and Claire’s wise-ass teenage daughter, Jade, seem to buy into Bailey’s story. But as the comely P.I. sinks deeper into a drowning pool of paranoia, fear, guilt, and deceit, she begins to question her own sanity. Readers may as well. This isn’t an easy book, but at a time when rape is too often trivialized for political gain, it’s a powerful and timely one, haunting and harrowing. Read it now. But for God’s sake, pull the blinds.

• Woman with a Blue Pencil, by Gordon McAlpine (Seventh Street):
Don’t let all the highbrow praise for this metafictional head-spinner scare you away--McAlpine’s ambitions may be more high-falutin’ than those of the next ink-stained jasper, but he knows how to tell a kick-ass story. Even when it’s presented in bits and pieces. The snippets from a couple of different novels, interspersed by selected correspondence from the editor (the “woman with the blue pencil” of the title), are dealt out here like clues that the reader must assemble on his or her own. You’ll soon be caught up, though, as I was, by the author’s ambitions and audacity, as well as his capacity to nail the tone and reach of 1940s pulp fiction, and the tango writers and editors have been seemingly dancing forever. This slim volume should be a heaving mass of look-at-me-now literary pretension, but McAlpine keeps it moving, flitting from one novel’s story of a bookish Japanese-American UCLA professor, Sam Sumida, who’s still grieving over his murdered wife, seeking solace in watching a detective film on the night of June 6, 1941 … to the eye-rolling adventures of pulp hero Jimmy Park, a preposterously over-boiled L.A. gumshoe of Korean descent turned super spy, who’s out to nail those “dirty Japs” for Uncle Sam. And then there are the letters from Maxine Wakefield, an editor at Metropolitan Modern Mysteries Inc., who offers guidance to Tukumi Sato, the creator of both Sam and Jimmy. Tukumi just wants to be a writer, but the poor sap’s ambitions are being thwarted at every turn not just by commercial necessity (always a bitch), but also by the cold, bitter realities of a scared, paranoid post-Pearl Harbor America. And that, beyond the post-modern whiz-bang and the gleeful potshots at the publishing biz, is where the true heart of this book beats. McAlpine may be a master of hint and nuance, but when the walls break down between fiction and reality, and the real story emerges, it’s a punch to the gut: the sad tale of Tukumi Sato, an American writer caught up in history.

Finally, one choice from the crime non-fiction shelves ...

• Ghettoside: A True Story of Murder in America, by Jill Leovy (Spiegel & Grau):
Politicians may grandstand, the NRA and its lackeys may suggest that more guns are always the answer, and others may bristle at the apparently offensive suggestion that “black lives matter,” but Los Angeles Times crime reporter Leovy drops the cold, hard truth on the table: black lives might well matter (at least to some of us), but black-on-black murders don’t seem to count for shit, given the abysmal solution rates of those crimes, the lack of interest displayed and funds allocated to solving them, and the general apathy displayed by the rest of the country over the issue. Which is--partially--what makes this non-fiction book so bracing. Leovy finds one LAPD cop, John Skaggs, who does give a damn, and she doggedly follows him through his paces, using the wedge of a single case--the pointless murder of Bryant Tennelle, an 18-year-old black kid walking down an L.A. street one spring evening with a friend, carrying an unopened bottle of root beer--to pry open the whole ugly mess of racism, politics, cultural and societal malfunction, and downright stupidity that have set the seeds for this bloody epidemic. Not that Ghettoside is a finger-pointing screed that lays the blame on any particular faction, or even a particular race. As Leovy’s investigation spirals further and further out, it soon becomes clear that there are no easy answers, just a steaming mess of factors that will eventually bring everything from modern-day policing budgetary concerns to the Canadian Inuit and gender roles under her microscope. Of course, Skaggs, a methodical, gentle giant of a man, polite to a fault, is not the only cop to give a damn, but this book also explores how Skaggs and his like-minded colleagues are at a disadvantage and discouraged when dealing with the institutional practices of big-city law enforcement. The endless stats, the underlying reasons for the carnage, and the answers, fleeting as they are, are heartbreaking. But it’s the never-ending litany of American families destroyed by violence that will truly haunt you. Possibly the best book about real-life homicide cops since, well, David Simon’s Homicide was published more than 20 years ago, this work pulls no punches and soft-sells nothing. It’s a ballsy, alternately inspiring and angry piece of literary journalism and truth-telling that should be mandatory reading for any American who dismisses the whole issue by glibly claiming that “all lives matter.” Prove it then. Do something.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part III: Stephen Miller

Stephen Miller was a regular contributor to Mystery News, writing the “In the Beginning” column about new crime fiction writers for several years. He has also penned posts for The Rap Sheet and reviews for January Magazine. Originally from Central Ohio, Miller now makes his home in Massachusetts with his wife, Leslie, and spends his days working in the insurance industry.

• Dead Soon Enough, by Steph Cha (Minotaur):
Los Angeles private eye Juniper Song (simply “Song” to all those she encounters) is back for the third entry in this intriguing series. Hired by an affluent expectant mother to monitor her surrogate’s activities, Song soon finds herself investigating the disappearance of that surrogate’s best friend, Nora Mkrtchian, an Armenian political activist and blogger who was being stalked by Internet trolls protesting the erection of a centennial monument commemorating the Armenian Genocide. It becomes clear that the activist’s drumbeat of criticism against genocide deniers was striking many of the wrong chords among her opponents, who may be connected to the Turkish government. In trying to piece together Nora’s whereabouts, Song confronts wingtip corporate law firms, under-the-radar casinos, and her own struggles about what might have been an unwise decision made in her past. I’ve been a fan of author Cha’s ever since the release of the first entry in this series, Follow Her Home (2013), which introduced an amateur sleuth with a serious Philip Marlowe complex. In the succeeding two books, Song has developed into a fascinating private-eye protagonist with a millennial edge and sensibility. While the character clearly contrasts with many of the P.I. clichés, Cha still knows how to keep the classic elements of the genre moving forward. The climax of Dead Soon Enough contains a twist that is both surprising and chilling. Variations of it have been done before, but not with this level of skill and sensitivity to character. Cha is a major talent.

• Death in the Face, by Craig McDonald (Betimes):
Those of us who inhale the Hector Lassiter series (starting with 2007’s Edgar-nominated Head Games) enjoyed a big year in 2014, so it was fair to expect that 2015 might be a bit on the quiet side. Happily, this was not the case, as McDonald released a new and unexpected entry in the series late in the year. Death in the Face finds Lassiter on assignment for Playboy magazine, shadowing Ian Fleming’s research trip to Japan while the latter scouts locations for his next James Bond adventure, You Only Live Twice. Lassiter and Fleming were fighting comrades working for their respective intelligence services during World War II, and we soon learn that this literary junket has a more serious dual purpose: to bring an end to a Japanese biological weapon, Operation Flea, that’s still very potent and capable of decimating English and American agriculture. Lassiter also has his private motive for coming back to Japan--he’s heard a rumor that there’s a lost manuscript written by his late and beloved wife, Brinke Devlin, whose ghost has been lurking throughout all of the Lassiter books. In this, the ninth outing featuring the writer “who lives what he writes and writes what he lives,” Lassiter hasn’t lost a step. Rubbing elbows not only with Fleming, but also with actors Sean Connery and Robert Shaw, and Japanese author-poet Yukio Mishima, Lassiter dodges bullets and explosions, and the set piece here involving a pool of crocodiles is alone worth the price of admission. McDonald’s Lassiter stories represent a sorely needed throwback to ultra-hard-boiled adventure tales, and while the series is winding down (we can expect only one more novel and a collection of short stories, both due in 2016), the entire series hangs together as a multi-volume biography of the greatest fictional pulp writer ever created.

As a side note, 2015 also saw the release of the Craig McDonald-curated Borderland Noir (Betimes), an anthology of crime stories featuring a roster of writers that included Ken Bruen, James Sallis, and the chronically underrated Manuel Ramos, among others. It’s a terrific addition to the location-themed collections we’ve seen published over the last few years.

• The Harder They Come,
by T.C. Boyle (Ecco):
While literary staple T.C. Boyle might not appreciate being included here (at least judging by this Q&A exchange), I’m prepared to go out on a limb and state that The Harder They Come deserves a place in the fraternity of great suspense reads of 2015. On style points alone, this novel impresses mightily, but it doesn’t end there. It’s a penetrating study of extreme anarchists and the fracturing of families due to mental illness. Sten Stenson is a mild-mannered, retired school administrator on a vacation cruise. He’s also an ex-Marine, and during a poorly planned land excursion in Costa Rica, his tour group is robbed by local bandits. Guided by long-suppressed instinct and training, Stenson single-handedly strangles one of the robbers. Although he’s heralded as a hero back home in Northern California, all he wants to do is fade into the background. His son, however, has other plans. Adam is a mentally damaged pseudo-survivalist, living not only off the grid but at the indulgence of his parents and grandmother, while fantasizing that he’s a modern-day John Colter (Adam prefers to be addressed merely as “Colter” as an homage to the 18th-century frontiersman). Taking shelter with Sara, an older woman who subscribes to the theory that any level of government equals fascist oppression, Adam suddenly kills a local and leads law enforcement on a feral manhunt through the forests of redwoods lasting weeks, keeping the entire local population on edge. Readers who know Boyle as a wicked satirist will perhaps be surprised that this tale is told “straight,” with little authorial commentary. The characters offer their opinions and biases freely and their conflicts drive much of the action toward a climax sadly all too common these days.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part II: Jim Napier

Jim Napier is a crime-fiction critic based in Quebec. His book reviews and author interviews have appeared in several Canadian papers as well as in Spinetingler Magazine, The Rap Sheet, Shots, Reviewing the Evidence, January Magazine, the Montreal Review of Books, and the Ottawa Review of Books. In addition, Napier maintains an award-winning crime-fiction site called Deadly Diversions.

• The Girl Who Wasn’t There, by Frederick von Schirach (Little, Brown Canada):
An original and profoundly disturbing novel, The Girl Who Wasn’t There is a layered puzzle mystery set in Germany. The story moves through decades of a man’s life, from his difficult childhood to his career as a successful photographic artist, until he is charged with a horrific crime. In his early years, Sebastian von Eschburg endures an almost total lack of affection within his family, culminating in his father’s suicide. His mother is scarcely more attentive to the boy than her husband had been, and sends him away to boarding school so that she might sell the family home and possessions, and take a lover who openly despises him. Life there is scarcely better for Sebastian, and when he is diagnosed as suffering from hallucinations, he learns to become even more circumspect around others. On leaving school, Sebastian apprentices with a well-known photographer, easily moving into a world of ephemeral images that allows him to express his fantasies, and through them he gains fame and, even more importantly, the approval of others. But when Sebastian is accused of a brutal crime, and evidence is discovered in the boot of his car, he finds himself arrested for murder. He withdraws once more within himself, and ultimately confesses to the crime, though the body is nowhere to be found. The ending of von Schirach’s novel contains an unexpected and shocking twist that will force readers to examine their most basic assumptions about the nature of guilt, and of truth itself.

• Half the World Away, by Cath Staincliffe
(Constable & Robinson UK):
One of the most accomplished of today’s British crime writers, Cath Staincliffe’s standalones never disappoint. In her latest, a graduating student named Lori Maddox decides to spend her gap year in Asia, photographing her travels and posting her adventures on a blog site. She’s very level-headed, so her parents do not worry unduly. At first things go well, and Lori writes that she’s gone to China with a newfound friend, and has secured a job teaching English to locals. But when her posts cease, her parents become concerned. After several weeks of silence, her mother and her mother’s ex-husband (Lori’s father) set out on their own to track down their daughter. Their journey is a harrowing and cautionary tale, as they find themselves in a closed society, unable to speak the language and ill-equipped to deal with either ordinary strangers or the authorities, who seem more concerned about preserving China’s image as a safe tourist destination than helping them to locate their offspring. Staincliffe effectively portrays the challenges confronting every parent: when to let go of one’s children, and what to do when things begin to go wrong. A superbly crafted suspense yarn that will leave readers satisfied, yet profoundly disturbed.

• The Hesitation Cut, by Giles Blunt (Random House Canada):
Canadian author Giles Blunt’s series of John Cardinal crime novels ranks among the best ever set down on paper. But his latest work is a one-off, and it’s a winner. Brother William is quietly tending a monastery library in upstate New York when a young poet named Lauren Wolfe arrives to do some research. As she works at a library table he observes cut marks on her wrists, clear signs of a suicide attempt. Captivated by her beauty and intelligence, William becomes concerned for her future, and when Lauren finishes her research and leaves the monastery he abandons his vocation to follow her to New York City. It’s not long before William assumes a new identity--or rather, his former one, which he’d given up 10 years before--and becomes Peter. He takes a job in a bookstore to sustain himself, and tracks Lauren down. He even manages to move into her apartment building. Peter’s only aim is to protect Lauren from harm. It turns out that she could use the help: she is in a toxic relationship with a controlling (and out-of-control) man who threatens to drag her, once again, into his own dark and very twisted lifestyle. But it’s a dangerous game that Peter has chosen to play, and before it has ended he will find himself in jeopardy. Blunt’s evocative and insightful take on obsession and its consequences will remain with you long after you finish this book.

• The Hunter of the Dark, by Donato Carrisi (Abacus UK):
Italian writer Donato Carrisi is well-known to European readers, having garnered prizes for his bestselling 2012 novel, The Whisperer, as well as for The Lost Girls of Rome and The Vanished Ones. In The Hunter of the Dark, Carrisi enters what at first glance appears to be Dan Brown territory, to produce a tale melding ancient secret societies with contemporary crimes. But don’t let that put you off; persevere and you will be rewarded with a literate and plausible story of twisted lives, innocent victims, and dark secrets long harbored by those within the Church of Rome. At the end of an otherwise typical day, the many visitors to Vatican City are quietly moved to the exits with no explanation given. The Swiss Guards secure all the entrances, and the phone lines to the outside world, including the mobile signal, are all severed. The staff members, both lay and ecclesiastical, are invited to return to their homes. Left almost alone in the Papal grounds, a priest named Marcus, together with his mentor, Clemente, make their way to a small wooded area, where they view the remains of a nun: she’s been stripped of her clothing and murdered, her arms and legs severed from her body. The Vatican authorities have taken charge: the Italian police have no jurisdiction within the grounds, and it has been decided that there will be no forensic examination, no autopsy, no recording of fingerprints, and no DNA evidence gathered. Instead, it will be left to Clemente and Marcus to solve the crime themselves and end the evil that has penetrated their sacrosanct realm. Clemente explains that “There is a place in which the world of light meets the world of darkness.” Marcus is told that he has a gift, the ability to recognize the signs of evil. He is, Clemente says, a penitenziere, a hunter of the dark, and his task is to discover the perpetrator of the nun’s heinous slaying, and prevent him from killing again. Marcus will not be able to fulfill both parts of that mission, however, and he’ll have his work cut out for him just trying to avoid becoming another of the victims. A superbly crafted and layered exploration of the roots of psychosis, wrapped around a fine suspense tale.

• Open Season, by Peter Kirby
(Linda Leith):
Over the short space of three novels Montreal author Peter Kirby has established himself as a serious contender in the Canadian literary world, and someone to be watched. Each of his books raises a disturbing social issue and treats it intelligently and with compassion, while carefully balancing the need for convincing characters and structured suspense. Kirby’s latest work, Open Season, focuses on the plight of illegal immigrants in Canada, vulnerable people in search of a better life, yet who all too often find themselves at the mercy of callous thugs who hold them captive and force them into the sex trade. A South American journalist is working to expose the racket when she disappears and her lawyer’s office is ransacked. It falls to Montreal police detective Luc Vanier and his partner, Sergeant Sylvie Sainte-Jacques to solve her kidnapping and rescue the imprisoned women. The plot lines are seamlessly interwoven, the settings convincing, the action builds to a compelling climax, and Kirby even finds time to turn the spotlight on the federal authorities who are supposed to be applying a compassionate policy toward refugees. Open Season combines a penetrating and intelligent look at an important social issue with a carefully crafted and entertaining crime plot.

Favorite Crime Fiction of 2015, Part I: Steven Nester

Steven Nester is the host of Poets of the Tabloid Murder, a weekly Internet radio show heard on the Public Radio Exchange (PRX). Nester is also a freelance writer whose work has appeared in The Rap Sheet, Mystery Scene, and Firsts Magazine.

• The Killing Kind, by Chris Holm (Mulholland):
“Trying to make things right one murder at a time,” says Michael Hendricks, a hit man who only kills other hit men. A Special Forces guy presumed to have died in Afghanistan, Hendricks is invisible, moving with speed and stealth, which is a testament to author Chris Holm’s writing, because Hendricks carries so much baggage it’s a miracle he can even lift a gun. His tech-wizard pal and former army mate Lester figures out when and on whom gangland executives have ordered hits, and for a price Hendricks will get there first and eliminate the threat. What starts out as a good day in the killing grounds, though, becomes a frightening game of cat-and-mouse when the mob puts a hit on Hendricks in the form of Alexander Engelmann, the type of creepy yet sophisticated European to whom sadism is a fine wine to be savored. There is an emotional and moral depth to this novel, well represented in characters such as Evie Walker, the love Hendricks left behind, and the gay FBI agent, Charlotte Thompson, who is intent on tracking Hendricks. Holm doesn’t flinch from fleshing out those two, and his efforts give The Killing Kind the sort of realism that many shoot-and-run thrillers can’t claim. Lucky for readers that Hendricks’ world has become even more complicated by the end of this book than it was at the outset, suggesting that we can expect sequels.

• The Redeemers, by Ace Atkins (Putnam):
Things are looking down for Quinn Colson. Not only must this 30-something Mississippi sheriff contend with women problems, a crack-smoking sister, and a shiftless Hollywood has-been of a daddy, but now he’s been voted out of office. It’s enough to make him consider returning to Afghanistan to engage in security work. Colson has only days left to take down his persistent nemesis, the man who engineered his recent election defeat: corrupt county supervisor Johnny Stagg. However, more troubles are brewing. The new year has arrived with a bang. Law-enforcement officials are being kept busy with a couple of southern-fried yeggs who steal the supposedly money-jammed safe belonging to local lumber magnate Larry Cobb when they can’t blow the thing open. Seems Cobb’s ex-son-in-law, Mickey Walls--who helped put the wheels of that theft in motion--wants cash and revenge, and when the safe is found to contain detailed records on every illegal deal Cobb has made, local politicians and crooked cops are put in the sights of justice. New and naïve sheriff Rusty Wise gets shot while investigating, so now it’s up to Colson’s old deputy, Lillie Virgil, to step up and get the job done the way Colson taught her. Lucky for her and the good town of Jericho, Mississippi, that Colson can’t stop sheriffing. Colson gets his man, but it only leaves the door open for another criminal enterprise to set up shop in this flawlessly written book.

• Serpents in the Cold, by Thomas O’Malley and Douglas Graham Purdy (Mulholland):
Written in grime on last month’s fish wrap, the atmospherics presented by authors O’Malley and Purdy in Serpents in the Cold--Boston, winter, 1951: why would anyone be there unless they were stuck or had a nice operation going?--are so complete and credible, they might have you checking your arms for needle marks. Dante Cooper is a heroin addict and Cal O’Brien is a drunken ex-cop. The demons chasing these old pals are scattered when Dante’s sister-in-law, Sheila, is brutally murdered, perhaps by a serial killer, and dumped into Boston Harbor. You know the deck is stacked when it’s revealed that Sheila was involved with a gangster, because in the post-war monochrome of a desultory Boston, behind every gangster is a politician. Dante and Cal manage to focus and find new purpose in securing justice for Sheila; if those two (sadly unqualified as they are for this assignment) can’t hunt down the slayer, then Sheila will have died for no reason. Women like her, who can fornicate their way up the food chain, discover too late that the higher they go, the more they know. And that can be an extreme liability. Chilled by one of the worst winters in Beantown’s memory, tackling their case in the wake of the infamous Brink’s Robbery of 1950, and hampered by a lack of resources, Cal and Dante must confront some of the city’s most powerful players if they’re ever to figure out how Sheila went from a nice warm bed to the mud of an icy shoreline.

• Voluntary Madness, by Vicki Hendricks (New Pulp Press):
Punch and Juliette are a spontaneous couple with a plan in this well-deserving reissue, and that is to live their lives to the fullest in Key West, Florida, until their money runs out--and then they’ll commit suicide. Well, the dough does disappear, sooner rather than later, and to keep the high life going these two co-dependent lovebirds move from burglary to armed robbery to accidental murder. In the meantime, life is a work of art to the multi-racial Punch, who is allegedly writing a novel, as well as to Juliette, a wisp of white trash from Tennessee, who plays a willing enabler and sidekick to Punch’s exhibitionist and outlaw ways. “I could see myself as Sundance, if I knew how to shout,” Juliette says, and in an ominous development of character, she soon learns to howl. The pair focus on robbing restaurants for cash and dinner, and become media-darling desperadoes in a town that celebrates nonconformity. For Punch--diabetic and a committed alcoholic--death wouldn’t be too far removed, even if he walked the straight and narrow, but he keeps upping the ante. Juliette doesn’t really want to die, and she knows that keeping Punch sober will also keep him busy at the typewriter, and that the chance of literary fame should cause him to stick around for at least a while longer. But Punch, being a highly attuned anarchist (“Nothing’s right or wrong, good or bad,” he says. “Just more or less interesting.”), seems as assured of his death wish coming true as he is of finding coal in his stocking.

• The Outsider: My Life in Intrigue, by Frederick Forsyth (Putnam):
Thriller master Frederick Forsyth’s memoir is subtitled My Life in Intrigue, and that’s no lie. Writing with typical British reserve, his adventurous existence takes him from the point of achieving his early goal of flying jets for the Royal Air Force to his crucial career choice of journalism and the opportunities it presented. Later, after moving to the BBC, Forsyth made fine use of his globe-trotting experiences from Berlin to Biafra, before being cashiered for insubordination. With the variety of good-natured aplomb and que sera, sera attitude that abounds in this book, Forsyth eventually finds his bank account near empty and decides to get himself out the hole by writing a thriller in one month’s time--a book that turned out to be The Day of the Jackal (1971). Forsyth has ties to the British intelligence agency MI6. He moonlighted as a gentleman (read unpaid) spy, filing reports while covering the atrocities in Biafra during the late 1960s. He also spirited secret documents, in his car, from East Germany to the West--a hair-raising escapade that could have caused him apoplexy even if it had run smoothly, which it did not. Forsyth blames much of his life and career on good fortune, and he recounts its twists with a cheerio that is infectious and makes the whole affair sound like quite a romp. While most of us will lead lives of quiet and normality, it’s greatly entertaining to read about someone else who has enjoyed grander and more memorable exploits, and is generous enough to share them.