• Too Many Bullets, by Max Allan Collins (Hard Case Crime):
The beauty of conspiracy theories is that they can’t be proved or disproved. They live forever in a kind of limbo, like those surrounding the Loch Ness monster or the Abominable Snowman—or, in this instance, the 1968 assassination of Democratic U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, who was then running for president. In his 19th well-researched novel starring Chicago-based private eye Nathan Heller,
acclaimed author Max Allan Collins takes the RFK tragedy in an interesting direction, combining Manchurian Candidate paranoia with Rat Pack hip.Heller is brought on to enhance security for his old friend Bob Kennedy during the candidate’s fateful, June ’68 campaign stop at downtown Los Angeles’ Ambassador Hotel. After that assignment goes horrifically wrong, and RFK is shot (which history tells us was the work of a Palestinian-Jordanian ex-stablehand named Sirhan Sirhan), the P.I. is approached by none other than syndicated newspaper columnist Drew Pearson (who had previously been “unduly harsh” on the senator) to probe what he contends has been a cover-up by L.A. police of the true circumstances behind Kennedy’s killing. “[I]t would appear there are too many bullets,” Pearson tells Heller. “The assassin’s gun only held eight rounds, but many of the witnesses report substantially more shots.”
This is a star-studded outing for Collins’ hard-boiled shamus, rich in dialogue (the most economical method by which to deliver information in this sprawling story); and Heller overlooks nothing, starting with a mystery woman in a polka-dot dress and traveling all the way up the food chain to the CIA and reclusive billionaire Howard Hughes. The journey is the point of this book, and there is an unexpected payoff for Heller: he may not get his man, but he does get the girl.
• Dark Ride, by Lou Berney (Morrow):
“I’m lost, wandering, and somewhat stoned,” says Hardy “Hardly” Reed as he introduces himself in Berney’s fifth novel, following the award-winning November Road (2018). The 23-year-old Hardly is a low-paid slacker employed as a scare-worker at a decrepit amusement park in some unnamed Midwestern city. He exhibits no more ambition than to take another toke and play with his Xbox.
But Hardly (think “hardly ever tries”) is thrust into responsibility when he figures out that two seemingly abandoned young siblings, dotted with cigarette burns, are in the custody of a mother who lives in fear of her abusive, drug-dealing lawyer spouse. That’s the real scare show, and it turns worse (and also better) when Hardly decides he finally wants to matter. Child Protective
Services offers no help to those children, and while their schoolteacher sees signs of their mistreatment, she does nothing, prompting Hardly to play amateur sleuth in an effort to render the lost siblings aid.For a young man who likes “being ordinary,” it comes as no surprise that he was reared in a foster home and possesses empathy he can rouse to action. With the help of a renegade Goth DMV worker, who supplies information about the abusive couple’s identities, and an older, very helpful woman who is conversant in private investigation techniques and takes the learning-curve-challenged Hardly under her wing (and then some), Hardly finds that he really does matter after all.
• Bloody Martini, by William Kotzwinkle (Blackstone):
Brother Thomas “Tommy” Martini has yet to solve his anger-management problem, and in this sequel to Kotzwinkle’s Felonious Monk (2021), it serves him well. With a hair-trigger temper and the heft to back it up, why would he want to change? He’s a knight errant (but still a Benedictine monk), and a fist often comes in handy. The “grenade of anger I carried inside me was armed once again and ready to blow,” is how he puts it. The pin is pulled in Bloody Martini when he’s faced with both human trafficking in his small hometown of Coalville, Pennsylvania, and the murder of old friend.
Tommy has returned to Coalville—a (fictional) place manifestly bursting with mine fires, as if hell was breaking through—at the request of Finn Sweeney, a crusading TV journalist who might be onto something, and who has asked Tommy to look after his wife, Bridget Breen, an old flame of Tommy’s who has gone missing. Few people are happy to see the prodigal son return; eight years ago, he killed a Coalville man by accident, forcing his exile and unlikely move into the monastic life, and nobody has forgotten about that. His nemesis, a local district attorney aptly named Brian Fury, tried to lock up Tommy for that slaying, and he’s ready to move against our hero again, only this time with brutality and thuggery. It helps that the Martini family business is organized crime;
that levels the playing field, letting Tommy fight fire with fire in a novel that’s as humorous as it is violent.• Everybody Knows, by Jordan Harper (Mulholland):
Life is precarious in the Hollywood Hills, where “houses that hung from cliffs like suicides” are no refuge for even the biggest of stars. The cannon fodder of the show business world live there as if self-destruction was part of the job description—and that’s where Mae Pruett comes in. She’s a “black-bag publicist” for a Los Angeles public relations firm, specializing in disaster control. Truth and lies play hide and seek in Mae’s world, and some clients and associates are “so up front with bullshit it almost counts as honesty.”
When Mae’s boss, Dan Hennigan, is gunned down during what looks like a carjacking, she is convinced there’s more to the story. Mae begins to investigate with valuable assistance from Chris Tamburro, ex-cop, ex-lover, and freelance muscle. They soon find themselves embroiled in a case that blooms like blood in the water, attracting the attention of lawyers, renegade police, sleazy industry insiders, politicians, and the incredibly wealthy—call them, collectively, “the Beast”— because if one isn’t careful, you’ll be lunch.
After all the dirty chores Mae has had to undertake over the years, she yearns “to do one good thing.” She finally gets that chance—but even it is tainted with cynicism and deceptions. Everybody Knows is eminently quotable; author Harper’s sentences are short, pointed, and ironic. Anyone searching for a killer mash-up of Joan Didion and Raymond Chandler should look no further.
Last but not least, one work from the non-fiction shelves …
• While Idaho Slept: The Hunt for Answers in the Murders of Four College Students, by J. Reuben Appelman (Harper):
It was just over a year ago that Americans were shocked to hear about the random fatal stabbings of four University of Idaho students living off-campus in the small college town of Moscow (pronounced MOS-koh). In While Idaho Slept, private investigator and crime journalist J. Reuben Appelman dives deep into the story by taking over where Truman Capote left off in his groundbreaking work, In Cold Blood. But instead of trying to create empathy for the murderers, as Capote did, Appelman puts his focus on those
who perished. He re-creates their lives, with dialogue and character movement, and with just enough detail to build a bond between reader and victims.The accused perpetrator, 28-year-old Bryan Christopher Kohberger, was a Ph.D. criminology student and teaching assistant at Washington State University in Pullman, Washington, located less than eight miles west of Moscow. Police linked him to the November 13, 2022, carnage through DNA evidence found on a leather knife sheath discovered at the crime scene. He was arrested at his parents’ home in Pennsylvania in late December of that year, and formally charged on January 5, 2023. Kohberger has said since that he expects to ultimately be exonerated in court. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty, but the case has yet to go to trial. Meanwhile, new facets of the killings and of Kohberger’s defense continue to emerge. His lawyers will likely insist the house where the victims lived was a “party house,” and say he very well have attended one of these parties. Further, they’ll argue he was not at the scene when the crimes were committed, but instead out on a routine drive, alone.
An interesting element of Appelman’s account is his description of how the execution of crimes and their subsequent investigation has changed with the advent of social media. It would be a distinction of some sort if, during jury selection in Kohberger’s trial, one or more of the prospective jurors were disqualified because they’d read this book.
Other 2023 Favorites: The Lost Americans, by Christopher Bollen (Harper); Hard Country, by Reavis Z. Wortham (Poisoned Pen Press); Blood Sisters, by Vanessa Lillie (Berkley); Device Free Weekend, by Sean Doolittle (Grand Central); and The Gentlemen's Hour (Simon & Schuster, from 2011).
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