Verses For the Dead - Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child

   2018; 328 pages.  Book 18 (out of 22) in the “Agent Pendergast” series.  New Author? : No, and No.  Genres : Police Procedural; Thriller; Serial Killers.   Overall Rating: 8½/10.

 

    It’s a brand new day for Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the FBI.  For starters, he’s got a new boss, Walter Pickett, who admires Pendergast’s “successful investigation rate” but hates his attitude towards heeding authorities and working with others.

 

    So it’s no surprise that Pendergast also finds he’s been assigned to a new area: Miami, Florida.  Say goodbye to the Big Apple, Aloysius.  Say hello to The Sunshine State.

 

    That means Pendergast gets to work with a new partner, a Native American named A.B. Coldmoon.  Don’t ask him what the “A.B.” stands for; those are white man’s appellations.

 

    Oh well, it could be worse.  Some psycho killer could start slashing the throats of Miamians, cutting out their hearts, and leaving them on other graves.

 

    And also leave excerpts from classical works of literature, aka “Verses for the Dead”.

 

What’s To Like...

    I enjoyed the setting change for Verses For the Dead, even if it did mean meeting a whole slew of new characters and remembering which ones were Miami PD and which ones were Miami FBI.  Agent Coldmoon is developed into a worthy assistant for the quirky Pendergast.  Instead of being cast as a bumbling rookie, he impresses Aloysius with his investigative technique and shrewd deductions.

 

    As always, the case rapidly becomes more complex.  There are clues aplenty, but how do they fit together?  Road trips are taken, and bodies are exhumed.  Is the killer right-handed or left-handed?  Are some of the deaths suicides?  Why does Agent Coldmoon have a “malodorous chemical refinery” (Pendergast’s description, not mine) smell about him?

 

  Verses For the Dead is both a Medical Thriller and a Police Procedural, both of which  are among my favorite literary genres.  It was a treat to also learn a few phrases in Latin, Spanish, and even in Coldmoon’s native Lakota tongue, including “Atanikili” and “Philamayaye”.  Thank goodness for Google.

 

    The ending is delightfully 50-pages long, well thought-out, and filled with twists, thrills and nail-biting fights.  In other words, it’s vintage Preston & Child.  It’s also quite complicated, and the last two of the fifty chapters involve Pendergast answering the questions a Miami Herald reporter had, and which had puzzled me as well.  Verses For the Dead is both a standalone novel and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.6*/5, based on 10,948 ratings and 1,069 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.22*/5, based on 18,296 ratings and 1,605 reviews.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Empyrean (n.) : heaven; especially the highest part of heaven.

Others: Diener (n.); Iconoclast (n.); Persiflage (n.).

 

Excerpts...

    Something even louder than the music blasted one of her eardrums; she looked over to see a skinny, goateed guy in a post-punk outfit yelling at her.

    She turned to him. “What?”

    “I said, are you a parking ticket?” he yelled back.

    “Parking ticket?  What are you talking about?”

    “Because you’ve got fine written all over you!”  He laughed wildly, eyes wide.  (pg. 85)

 

    “Coffee, partner?”

    Another, longer pause.  Then Pendergast accepted the cup; took a small, tentative sip.  “The floral bouquet of poison sumac blooms first on the palate,” he announced.  “Followed by notes of diesel oil and a long finish of battery acid.”  And he handed the cup back.

    “Exactly the way I like it,” said Coldmoon, closing his eyes contentedly and downing the lukewarm beverage in a single gulp.  (pg. 251)

 

“Of all the would-be witnesses out last night, not one mentioned seeing a blood-spattered man carrying a hatchet and a human heart.”  (pg. 101)

    The profanity level in Verses For the Dead seemed lighter-than-usual for a Pendergast novel.  I counted just 13 instances in the first 20% of the book, four of which were f-bombs.  Maybe Miamians cuss less than New Yorkers.

 

    One reviewer was disappointed that there was no “is it natural or supernatural” aspect to the story, which is a much-loved Preston & Child trademark literary device.  He has a point, but at least they didn't awkwardly force it into the plotline.  Similarly, some of my favorite New York characters, such as Constance Greene, Vincent D’Agosta, and Proctor, only get a brief mention, but I have a feeling they’ll make a dramatic comeback in the upcoming books.

 

    Enough of the quibbling.  I’ve now read 15 books in this series, and have been hooked on it since Book One, Relic.  The mystery storylines are always unique, well crafted, twisty, and devoid of any slow spots.  The character development is always superb, especially Agent Pendergast.  The endings are always surprising and plot threads always get tied up.  Verses For the Dead is no exception.

 

    8½ Stars.  One last thing.  As with any Police Procedural, acronyms are commonplace.  Here OPR and ViCAP are encountered, but their full-length meanings are given.  Not so for TBI, which shows up twice, and which I couldn’t suss out on my own.  It stands for Traumatic Brain Injury.  Now you know.

The Closers - Michael Connelly

   2005; 447 pages.  Book 11 (out of 20) in the “Harry Bosch Novel” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Police Procedural; Hard-boiled Crime Fiction; Murder Thriller.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    After three years of retirement, Harry Bosch is back in the Los Angeles Police Department! The chief of police has personally extended the offer to join up again.

 

    Most of the LAPD that were there when Harry retired now welcome him back, but a couple are a bit frosty to him.  One in particular is downright hostile about it.

 

    He’s not getting his old job back.  Instead, he’s been assigned to the Open-Unsolved Unit.  You and I would call it the “Cold Case Department”.  He and his partner, Detective Kizmin “Kiz” Rider, have already been given a case to reopen: an unsolved murder of a high school girl way back in 1988.  And, as one of LAPD's upper brass quips, “New hope for the dead.  Harry Bosch is on the case again.”

 

    The trouble is, Harry’s not sure whether that Captain was being sarcastic or not.

 

What’s To Like...

    The Closers combines two of my favorite crime genres: Police Procedurals and Cold Cases, and is the eleventh book in Michael Connelly’s 20-volume “Harry Bosch” series.  I’ve read a bunch of these books, starting way back before this blog existed.  I do recall the first one, The Concrete Blonde, and being blown away by it.  I’m not reading the series in order, and I don’t think I missing out on much.

 

    Harry’s “unretirement” is further complicated by him having to learn to work with a younger, female detective as an equal partner instead of an underling.  He also has to get caught up on the latest technological advances in things like DNA profiling, wiretaps (via something called ListenTech), and phone call tracing (via something called AutoTrack).  Harry grudgingly acquiesces to all that, but draws the line at using computers to write up reports.  He’ll stick with a good old typewriter, thank you.

 

    Harry, known in the past for his uncompromising brusqueness when dealing with authority figures, now also has to learn to be tactful.  Because this is a cold case, it means two other detectives originally worked the case and failed to come up with anything.  Harry now has to interview them and critique their performances, and hope he finds something they missed.  Good luck with trying to be diplomatic, Harry.

 

    I love this series because Michael Connelly is a master at crafting a complex, captivating mystery, filled with subtle clues, human drama, red herrings, plot twists, and well-developed characters.  There’s just enough thrills and spills to keep the pacing brisk, without the action becoming “over the top”.

 

    The ending is suitably exciting, and is keyed by Harry discovering a subtle clue in a photograph.  It’s a crucial bit of evidence, so tag along with Harry and Kiz as they methodically discover and apprehend the killer(s).  Trying to solve the case before they do will probably be a fruitless venture.  The final chapter gives one last surprising plot twist that will leave Harry and the reader with a heavy heart.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Jonesing (v.): having a fixation on (something).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 22,565 ratings and 1,694 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.19/5 based on 60,485 ratings and 2,470 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “You know who we have to thank for this, don’t you?” Bosch asked.

    She looked at him quizzically.

    “I give up.”

    “Mel Gibson.”

    “What are you talking about?”

    “When did Lethal Weapon come out?  Right around this time, right?”

    “I guess.  But what are you talking about?  Those movies are so far-fetched.”

    “That’s my point.  That’s the movie that started all of this holding the gun sideways and with two hands, one over the other.  We got blood on this gun because the shooter was a Lethal Weapon fan.”  (pg. 35)

 

    “So if I was a defense lawyer,” Pratt continued, “I would have Mackey cop to the burglary because the statute of limitations has long expired.  He would say the gun bit him when he tried it out so he got rid of the damn thing — long before any murder.  He’d say, “No sir I didn’t kill that little girl with it and you can’t prove I did.  You can’t prove I ever laid eyes on her.”

    Rider and Bosch nodded.

    “So you got nothing.”

    They nodded again.

    “Not bad for a day’s work.   What do you want to do about it?”  (pg. 141)

 

“I think you could probably talk a zebra out of his white stripes if you had to.”  (pg. 272)

    There was a lot less profanity in The Closers than I expected: just 7 instances in the first 10% of the book, although five of those were f-bombs.

 

    As is the norm, the author uses lots of acronyms that us civilian readers need to remember.  Among them here are ESB (Evidence Storage Building), PDU (Public Disorder Unit), RHD (Robbery & Homicide Division), and IAD (Internal Affairs Department).  I remembered most of them, but kept forgetting what SID stood for.

 

    I can’t think of anything else to quibble about.  The Closers was a great read for me, with an awesome glimpse into what it’s like to be a big city detective.  I count Michael Connelly as one of my favorite Police Procedural authors; his books never disappoint me.

 

    9 Stars.  One last thing.  The Closers is set in the present, which means 2005, the year it was published.  It was fun to see some long-departed entities in the text, most notably the Yellow Pages and Borders Bookstore.  Those were the days!

Police - Jo Nesbo

    2013; 562 pages.  Book 10 (out of 13) in the “Harry Hole” series.  Translator: Don Bartlett.  New Author? : No.  Genres: Police Procedural; Crime Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Norway.  Overall Rating : 9½*/10.

 

    Somebody recently murdered a retired detective in Oslo.  The killer must want to die since we know that the police department there won’t rest until they’ve found him and taken their revenge.  But now a second policeman’s been murdered.  Rather gruesomely.  Ski pole through the mouth. 

 

    Serial cop killer?  Copycat slaying?  A psychopathic two-man team?  Or maybe just a coincidence?

 

    Interestingly, both men were lured to, then executed at, the scenes of investigations that each had blundered many years ago.  These two present-day cop-slayings both occurred on the anniversaries of those two failed investigations.   So I think we can rule out coincidence.

 

    I sure wish Detective Harry Hole was here to aid in the probe.  These are just the sort of oddities he excelled in solving.  Alas, he’s left the police force for the better-paying life of a college lecturer.

 

    And he’s vowed never to return to his old profession.

 

What’s To Like...

    Police is the fourth book I’ve read from Jo Nesbo’s spellbinding police-procedural series featuring Harry Hole.  I’m not reading them in chronological order, so I wasn’t aware of Harry’s departure from the Oslo Police Force.

 

    Police is written in Jo Nesbo’s native Norwegian language, and translated into English by Don Bartlett.  “English” here does not mean “American”, and it’s always fun to run into strange spellings and terms such as: grey, whizz-kid, torch (“flashlight”), storey, matt (“matte”), spelt, whingeing, bedlinen, and my personal favorite: mozzie, which turns out to be the English slang for what we Yanks call a "mosquito".

 

    There’s a slew of musical references, some famous, others rather esoteric.  Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon is cited several times, and IMO, appropriately so.  And there’s an eclectic mix of other bands/solo acts getting some well-deserved ink, including: Jay-Z, Decemberists, Rihanna, Merle Haggard, Talking Heads, and one of my favorite musicians: Steve Harley.

 

    The storyline is fast-paced; there are no slow spots.  The tale is told from multiple characters’ points-of-view, and Jo Nesbo’s writing and storytelling skills are sufficient to ensure that things never became confusing or boring.  It should come as no surprise that the cop killings don’t stop at two.  I’m proud to say I sniffed out a couple red herrings before the Norwegian detectives did, but like them, was amazed to realize those revelations still didn’t bring me any closer to determining the identity of the perp(s).

 

    Everything builds to a nail-biting climax.  The slayings are all eventually solved, but I guarantee you’ll never guess the baddie(s) and the motive(s), even though afterward, it will all seem logical and obvious.  The final chapter is a protracted epilogue which will first throw you a startling plot curve, then leave a lump in your throat, and finally make you want to go find and read the next book in the series.

 

Excerpts...

    Truls didn’t need to look at the papers, he had read them at home.  He had laughed out loud at Mikael’s feeble statement about where the investigation stood.  “At this moment in time it’s not possible to say . . .” and “There is no information regarding . . .”  They were sentences taken directly from the chapter about handling the press in Bjerknes and Hoff Johansen’s Investigative Methods, which had been a set text at Police College and in which it said police officers should use those generic quasi-sentences because journalists got so frustrated with “no comment.”  And also that they should avoid adjectives.  (pg. 61)

 

    “Did you know that in peacetime policemen are responsible for four per cent of all murders worldwide?  In the Third World the figure is nine per cent.  And that makes us the world’s most lethal occupational group.”

    “Wow,” Bjorn said.

    “He’s kidding,” Katrine said.  She pulled up a chair and placed a large cup of steaming tea on the table in front of her.  “When people use statistics, in seventy-two per cent of cases, they’ve made them up on the spur of the moment.”

    Harry laughed.

    “Is that funny?” Bjorn asked.

    “It’s a joke,” Harry said.  (pg. 391)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Scrumping (v.) : stealing fruit, such as apples from trees.

Others: Trompe l’oeil (n.); Matt (adj.); Skint (adj.), Trainers (n.); Syncope (n.).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 11,238 ratings and 2,221 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.23*/5, based on 43,274 ratings and 3,046 reviews.

 

“You look like someone’s pissed in your porridge.”  (pg. 92)

    It’s hard to find things to quibble about in Police.  This is a dark, gritty police procedural with a lot of violence and mature themes, plus a moderate amount of cussing: 20 instances in the first 20% of the book.  But that’s to be expected in any Jo Nesbo murder/thriller.

 

    Harry Hole is absent for the first 184 pages of the story; which is surprising, considering the series title uses his name.  It takes a bunch more pages before he’s persuaded to help in the investigation, but you knew that was going to happen since there are three more sequels after this in the series.  Also, I’m pretty sure, if I were reading these books in order, I’d have been aware of his departure from the force.

 

    There are numerous other references to characters and crimes from earlier books in the series, but I eventually sorted those out as well.  Small details were more of a challenge; Jo Nesbo expects you to know that Ila is a Norwegian jail, Violin is a kind of heroin, and Odessa is a Russian-made weapon.  Happily, I sussed out those as well.

 

    For me Police was another masterfully-constructed page-turner from Jo Nesbo.  I have three more novels from this series (all earlier than this one) on my Kindle, plus one book, Midnight Sun, from another of his series.  I’ve never yet been disappointed in reading anything by Jo Nesbo.

 

    9½ Stars.  Let’s hear it for the brief mention of joik, a traditional form of song performed by the Sami people in the Lapland region of Northern Europe.  It’s great stuff; go listen to some on YouTube.

Cockroaches - Jo Nesbo

   1987 (in Norwegian), 2013 (in English); 437 pages.  Book 2 (out of 12) in the “Harry Hole” series.  New Author? :No.  Genres : Crime Fiction; Mystery Thriller; Thailand.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

 

    It’s a delicate diplomatic situation.  The Norwegian ambassador to Thailand has been murdered.  Someone stuck a knife into his back.

 

    Unfortunately, it didn’t happen at the Embassy, nor the Ambassador’s residence.  It took place instead in a seedy motel room.  The kind you rent to “meet” a cute little hooker.  So says the motel manager who rented him the room.  So says the hooker who discovered the corpse.

 

    The Norwegian government has decided to send Detective Harry Hole to Bangkok to investigate.  His primary mission is not necessarily to solve the murder; that’s neither here nor there.  Rather, it’s to make sure that the embarrassing details of the case are covered up and kept out of the newspapers.  And they’ve drummed that repeatedly into Harry’s head.

 

    Unfortunately, Harry has a history of having trouble obeying orders from higher-ups.

 

What’s To Like...

    Cockroaches is the second book in Jo Nesbo’s fantastic Harry Hole series.  Book One, The Bat, is set in Australia, (and reviewed here); this time Harry and the reader are treated to a trip to Thailand.  It was fifteen years before Cockroaches was translated into English.  By that we mean “The Queen’s English”, not the American variant, so we have strange spellings such as kilometres, defenceless, and aluminium; and weird terms such as torches (flashlights), windscreens (windshields) and hoovering (vacuuming).

 

    Many years ago, I spent three days in Thailand, and I can attest that Jo Nesbo does a fantastic job in capturing the “feel” of Bangkok here: the heat, the humidity, the tuk-tuks, the unbelievable amount and diversity of the city’s daily traffic, and the national pride that Thais have in being the only Southeast Asian country that was never a European colony.  It’s all real, even the ubiquitous pimps showing foreigners pictures of their "working girls".

 

    The Mystery aspect of the story is done equally well.  It quickly becomes clear that this is not merely a “call-girl tryst gone bad", and it was fun tagging along with Harry as he doggedly – and against his superiors’ wishes – tries to get to the bottom of the murder.  Some key clues pop up along the way, but properly interpreting them is quite challenging, and a couple of them are red herrings intended to mislead.

 

    In addition to the British-English terms, we get to learn some words and phrases in both Thai and Norwegian, and I always like that.  One of the latter was “faen” a Norse cussword, which I’ll let you google to find out what it means.  Harry’s musical tastes are impeccable: at one point he wears a Joy Division T-shirt, and he also makes reference to the obscure prog-rock band Camel, whom I greatly like.  He also attends his first quasi-legal cockfight, which was enlightening for me as well.

 

    Everything builds to an excellent ending that’s full of both excitement and twists.  Harry’s keen crime-solving logic saves the day; to be honest I still didn’t have a clue who did it when he broke the case.  All the storylines are seemingly tied up, although there’s a teaser on the last page to make you think twice about that.  Cockroaches is both a standalone novel and part of a series.

 

Excerpts...

    ”His career has ended in a cul-de-sac.  He came from some job in Defence, but at some point there were a couple too many “buts” by his name.”

    “Buts?”

    “Haven’t you heard the way Ministry people talk about one another? ‘He’s a good diplomat, but he drinks, but he likes women too much’ and so on.  What comes after the ‘buts’ is a lot more important than what comes before; it determines how far you can get in the department.  That’s why there are so many sanctimonious mediocrities at the top.”  (pg. 117)

 

    “What is it about you Thais and heights?  According to Tonje Wiig I’m the third Norwegian to be thrown out of a house this week.”

    “An old mafia modus operandi.  They’d rather do that than plug someone with lead.  If the police find a guy beneath a window they cannot rule out the possibility that he might have fallen accidentally.  Some money changes hands, the case is shelved without anyone being directly criticised and everyone’s happy.  Bullet holes complicate matters.”  (pg. 130)

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Ludic (adj.) : showing spontaneous and undirected playfulness.

Others: Alopecia (n.); Bodger (n.); Trainers (n., shoes).

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.3*/5, based on 3,800 ratings and 1,478 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.73*/5, based on 50,252 ratings and 3,018 reviews.

 

“Who on earth pays half a million for a tape recorder?”  (pg. 146)

    There’s not much to gripe about in Cockroaches.  Be aware that this is a gritty, police-noir series, so there’s a fair amount of cussing (18 instances in the first 20%), violence, and adult situations, including one roll-in-the-hay.

 

    Despite all its positive attributes, Bangkok is also known as a center for child-pornography and pedophilia.  Both raise their ugly heads in Cockroaches.  Don’t read this book if this is going to upset you.

 

    About the only other thing I can quibble about is the choice of title.  I only recall two instances of cockroaches making the scene, and neither was important to the story.  I think I’m happier that they didn’t have a greater impact.

 

    9 Stars.  I still maintain that the best police-procedural murder-mysteries are written by Scandinavian authors: Henning Mankell, Stieg Larsson, Maj Sjowall & Per Wahloo, Jo Nesbo, and others.  Cockroaches does nothing to dissuade me from that lofty opinion.

Bone Box - Faye Kellerman

   2017; 481 pages.  New Author? : Yes. Book 24 (out of 26) in the Peter Decker and Rina Lazarus series. Genres : Police Procedural; Serial Killers; Crime Thriller.  Overall Rating : 5½*/10.

 

    It’s a perfect day to be out hiking in upstate New York.  Rina Decker is thoroughly enjoying it, even if there’s no one along to chitchat with, and apparently the newly-opened Bogat Trail was not well-known to other local hikers yet.

 

    It’s autumn, the best time of year to take some nature photos, and Rina’s brought her camera.  Everything is lush and green, the trees are colorful, and there’s one particularly stately oak tree off-trail in the distance, just begging to be photographed.

 

   Wandering off the trail is a little risky:  you could get lost, but Rina’s done it before, and she's carrying a compass for just such a venture.  So it’s off across the woodland, enjoying Mother Nature, and at one point accidentally stepping on a twig sticking out of the ground and snapping it off.  Well now, isn’t that cute, the twig looks like skeletal hand trying to free itself.

 

    Uh-oh.  Upon closer observation, that twig is a skeletal hand.  Don’t touch anything, Rina, you don’t want to disturb the crime scene.  And call your husband immediately, since he's a member of the local police department.

 

What’s To Like...

    Bone Box was my introduction to a long-running police procedural series by Faye Kellerman featuring the husband/wife team of (police detective) Peter Decker and his (private investigator) wife Rina.  This is the book 24 in the 26-book series, so I’ve missed most of the backstory, although I gather they used to live in Los Angeles, and at some point moved to upstate New York to escape the hustle and bustle of city life.

 

    Despite Rina literally stumbling across the first body, most of the focus is on Peter and his intern detective partner, Tyler McAdams as they try to identify the remains that are years-old, and discover who did the dirty deed(s).  This is a police procedural, my favorite crime-mystery sub-genre, and so not surprisingly Peter, Tyler, and the reader spend a large amount of time interviewing any and all those who may have known the victims.

 

    I liked the writing style: it’s witty and fast-moving, full of interesting and well-developed characters.  One of those happens to be transgender, with a spouse who’s also transgender, both of whom are beginning the process of getting a sex-change.  Sound improbable?  Well maybe, but I remember a 1970s article in our local newspaper, The New Times, which chronicled just such a circumstance.

 

    There are a bunch of recurring characters in the storyline: old friends, kids and step-kids, former police coworkers, et al.  I struggled to keep track of them, yet that didn’t negatively impact my grasping of the storyline.

    I liked the literary nod to Stephen King, and the musical nod to Jane Monheit (who?).  I was astounded to learn that Akron, Ohio is reputed to be “The Methamphetamine Capital of the Country”, and if there was a tie-in to the titular “Bone Box”, I missed it.  There’s a small amount of cussing, not a lot, and that impressed me.  I like it when an author can keep you turning the pages without having to resort to excessive use of profanity.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

Hinky (adj.) : (of a person) dishonest or suspect.

Others: Orthogonal (adj.).

 

Ratings…
Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,111 ratings.

Goodreads: 3.98*/5, based on 6,964 ratings and 636 reviews.

 

Things that Sound Dirty but Aren’t…

    “I know you’re not the problem.  But, at present, you’re the only scapegoat I have.  Put some clothes on and let’s get out of here.” (loc. 1161)

 

Kindle Details…

    Bone Box sells for $4.99 at Amazon,  The other 25 books in this series cost anywhere from $4.99 to $9.99.  Faye Kellerman has also written some standalone novels, all in the crime-mystery genre, and which range in price from $2.99 to $11.49.

Excerpts...

    “I’m just trying to get a feel for Delilah.  Were the two of you close?”

    Natalie took a tissue and blew her nose.  “She could be secretive.”

    “About what?” McAdams said.

    “If I knew that, I wouldn’t have said she was secretive.”

    Decker smiled.  “What do you think she was secretive about?”

    “Anything she didn’t want to talk about, which upon reflection, was probably a long list.”  (loc. 1567)

 

    “Thanks for coming down.”

    “Like I had a choice?  Why am I here?”

    “I’m asking for your help.”

    “What help?  I can’t help you.”

    “You don’t even know what I’m asking for.”

    “It can’t be good.  You don’t drag a person down to the police station just to get help.  So either arrest me for something or I’m going home.”

    “You want me to arrest you?”

    “Well, no.  I don’t want you to arrest me.  I didn’t do anything arrestable.  I don’t even know if that’s a word.”  (loc. 5637)

 

“I’m old.  I don’t have time to be patient.”  (loc. 4812 )

    Sadly, there’s a lot to quibble about in Bone Box.  We’ll try not to get long-winded about these.

 

    There are way too many WTF’s.  Some examples: Decker leaves Rina alone at their house, despite knowing there's a psychopath stalking her.  Predictable things ensue, but the day is saved by a well-armed good guy showing up at just the right and most improbable moment.  At another point, a key witness who just happens to be hiding out in Decker’s former stomping ground of Los Angeles is quickly located, despite her having changed her name and assumed a new identity.  Such coincidences might be okay in an action-thriller, but not in a police procedural.

 

    The bad guys seem incredibly chatty during interviews, and easily talked out of wanting a lawyer to be present during the questioning.  They're easily persuaded to rat out each other, even when Decker lacks enough evidence to arrest them for something.

    The storyline meanders too much.  The original victim is a transgender male, and I thought the plotline might extensively explore this angle.  But he/she quickly fades into the background as other bodies and near-misses turn up, all female, all young, all straight, and all assumed to be of more interest to the readers than someone looking to get a sex-change.

 

    The biggest problem is the ending.  There isn’t any.  Decker finally figures out who did what to who, and why, but both he and the perps know that he lacks enough proof to convict the them.  This is normally addressed with a few more chapters where the baddies succumb to some clever ploys the protagonists, but here, the story just ends with everything still unresolved.  Talk about a major letdown.

 

    5½ Stars.  In reading the Amazon reviews, I’m not the only one to find the ending to be disappointing.  So maybe Bone Box is just one of the weaker books in this series.  Maybe Faye Kellerman was burnt out when she wrote it.  Maybe that’s why it was discounted at Amazon.  Maybe the earlier books are much better.  We’ll see.  I not ready to give up on such an acclaimed author after just one book.

The Drop - Michael Connelly

   2011; 481 pages.  Book 15 (out of 20) in the “Harry Bosch Novel” series.  New Author? : No.  Genre : Police Procedural; Hard-boiled Crime Fiction; Serial Killer Thriller.  Overall Rating : 8½*/10.

 

    It's a good day for Detective Harry Bosch and his partner David Chu: they've just been assigned a cold case from the LAPD archives and they're always happy when that happens.  After all, that’s what their department, the  "Open-Unsolved Unit" of the Los Angeles Police Department ("OU" for short) exists for.

 

    Lieutenant Duvall has asked them to reexamine the files of an old murder/sexual assault case because recent (and improved) DNA testing on a blood sample found at the scene of the crime has come up with a match.  That doesn’t necessarily mean they’ve found the killer; it could be a “false positive” by the crime lab due to accidental contamination of the retested sample.  But the DNA match is of a guy who’s a registered sex offender, so that makes it a promising lead.

 

    But there are a couple of problems.  First of all, it turns out the sex offender was only eight years old when the crime was committed.  It’s hard to imagine him raping and killing at that age.

 

    Secondly, the Lieutenant has just assigned an additional case to Harry and David.  That means they'll have to split their time between two separate investigations.  And this new one is a doozy: George Irving, the son of a prominent city councilman, has fallen to his death from a seventh-floor hotel balcony.  Was it suicide, murder, or an accident?  The councilman has specifically requested that Harry be put in charge of finding out.

 

    That's rather surprising, because Councilman Irving is an ex-cop who feels the LAPD unfairly set him up as a scapegoat years ago, and he's been making their lives miserable ever since.

 

    And he blames Harry Bosch in particular for his dismissal from their ranks.

 

What’s To Like...

    Talk about a bargain: the reader gets two Harry Bosch stories for the price of one in The Drop.  You might expect the author to somehow contrive to merge the two plotlines at some point in the book, but that doesn’t happen here.  Harry has to find time to investigate and solve them both, while meanwhile raising a teenage daughter, trying his best not to botch a potential romantic interest, and squabbling with most of his LAPD coworkers, including his partner.

 

    This is a typical Harry Bosch novel.  It is set entirely in the greater Los Angeles area, and even one of my old stomping grounds, Newhall, gets a brief mention.  This is a “police procedural”, meaning the emphasis is on savvy police sleuthing, not on over-the-top thrills, chases, and spills.  The pressure is on the author to keep things interesting and Michael Connelly, as always, is up to the task.

 

    There are 42 chapters covering 481 pages, so there's always have a convenient place to stop for the night.  I learned a new Spanish phrase, “muy sabroso”, which I had to google, and had to wiki the music reference to Frank Morgan as well.

 

    Both investigations have lots of plot twists along the way to trip up Harry and the reader.  Harry counters by not always doing things “by the book”, which is also usual for him, and I was left wondering just how often things such as “jumping the warrant” and the “LAPD choke hold”, both of which occur here, happen in the real world.

 

    The ending is what you’d expect from a police procedural.  One investigation gets wrapped up around 70%-Kindle, the other about 10%, later, the the book closes poignantly with Harry doing some much needed soul-searching.  I suspect real-life cops go through the same sort of thing from time to time.

 

Kewlest New Word ...

High Jingo (n., phrase): a situation that is highly politicized or fraught with danger

 

Ratings…
    Amazon:  4.6/5 based on 4,262 ratings.

    Goodreads: 4.17/5 based on 56,268 ratings and 3,083 reviews

 

Excerpts...

    “You said he has a job.  Doing what?”

    “He works for the Grande Mercado up near Roscoe. He works in the parking lot, collecting the shopping carts and emptying trash cans, that sort of thing.  They pay him twenty-five dollars a day.  It keeps him in cigarettes and potato chips.  He’s addicted to both.”  (loc. 779)

 

    On his way back he saw Lieutenant Duvall standing outside his cubicle.  Chu was nowhere in sight.  Bosch knew that Duvall wanted an update on the Irving case.  In the past twenty-four hours she had left him two messages and an e-mail, all of which he had failed to return.

    “Harry, have you gotten my messages?” she asked as he approached.

    “I got them, but every time I was going to call, somebody called me first and I got distracted.  Sorry, Lieutenant.”

    “Why don’t we go into my office so you won’t get any more of these distractions.”

    It wasn’t spoken as a question.  (loc. 1540)

 

Kindle Details…

    You can pick up the The Drop for $11.99 at Amazon.  The rest of the books in the series are all in the $9.99-$11.99 range, with the older ones generally having the slightly lower prices.  Michael Connelly has several other series, plus some standalone novels; those range in price from $8.99 to $14.99.  Finally, he has a few short stories that tie in to his various series; which are usually priced at $1.99.

 

“How old is your daughter?”  “Fifteen going on thirty.”  (loc. 920 )

    The quibbles about The Drop are minor.  Michael Connelly’s Harry Bosch books always have a gritty tone, so you have to expect a fair amount of cussing, violence, and references to things such as torture, sex, rape, and child molestation.

 

    Also, police departments apparently go crazy when it comes to using acronyms.  In addition to the few that I knew and/or could figure out, there were the following: OCP, PAB, DROP, “code three”, RHD, TOD, MPR, SID, JD, PSI’s, OPG, NBH, DSAT, BOR, EOW, RFC, and AGU.  Sometimes Michael Connelly tells you their meaning; sometimes you’re expected to suss it out for yourself.

 

    The book’s title refers to one of those acronyms listed.  “DROP” stands for “Deferred Retirement Option Plan”.  Harry is getting old, and DROP is one more thing for him to stress out about, but it has only tangential impact to the storyline.

 

    That’s about it for the quibbles, and they’re all pretty ticky-tacky.

 

    8½ Stars.  Subtract ½ Star if you like you like your cop stories to be heavy on the gunfire-&-chase scenes and light on the sleuthing.  Personally, police procedurals are favorite kind of crime novel, and The Drop was another fine effort by Michael Connelly in that genre.

One Step Behind - Henning Mankell

   1997 (Swedish), 2002 (English); 409 pages.  Translator: Ebba Segerberg.  Book 7 (out of 11) in the “Kurt Wallander” series.  New Author? : No, but it’s been a while.  Genre : Police Procedural; Murder-Mystery; Swedish Crime Fiction.  Overall Rating : 9*/10.

    The three young people were last seen in southern Sweden on Saturday, June 12^th, which coincidentally was Midsummer’s Eve.  On a lark, they apparently decided to spend the rest of the summer traveling around continental Europe, and once or twice they even sent postcards of their wanderings back to their parents.

    But the mother of one of them is sure that’s not her daughter’s handwriting on the postcards, and fears she’s been murdered.  She’s adamant that Detective Kurt Wallander and his staff begin an investigation.  After all, her daughter has been gone more than a month now.

    Wallander would normally oblige – the mother’s becoming quite the pest by now – but he’s got a more important case to work on.  One of his fellow detectives, who’s been missing from work the last couple days without calling in, has just been located.  At the apartment where he lived.  Dead.  With half his head blown off from a pair of close-range shotgun blasts.

    Shotguns don’t come equipped with silencers.  So how come none of his neighbors heard the shots?

What’s To Like...

    One Step Behind is another great Police Procedural by Henning Mankell.  Kurt Wallander and his fellow detectives essentially start from scratch as they try to figure out why someone blew one of their colleagues away, and the reader gets to tag along and attempt to solve the case before the cops do.  The same game is played with the three missing kids, who, thanks to the prologue, the reader already knows are dead, while the detectives still think they’re gadding around Europe.

    There are plenty of plot threads to try to solve: a.) who killed the detective, and why?, b.) where are (the bodies of) those missing kids?, c.) is there some sort of connection between those two cases?, d.) why did the detective, just back from vacation, tell his coworkers he felt “overworked”?, e.) how come the neighbors didn’t hear those shotgun blasts?, f.) why did the killer leave the shotgun at the crime scene?, g.) who is Louise?, h.) where’s the telescope?  A couple more plot threads arise as the investigation progresses, but this is a spoiler-free review.

    There was a very “realistic” feel to the investigation, as should be true of any police procedural.  There are lots of people to question, and most of the inquiries will of course turn out to be dead ends.  Yet somehow Henning Mankell keeps everything interesting.  The detectives work round the clock, and the fatigue causes all of them, including Wallander, to occasionally overlook things and reach the wrong conclusions.

    I liked the setting: southern Sweden (the Ystad area) during a summer heat spell that just seems to go on and on.  There are some nice twists along the trail, and over the course of the book, my guess at the identity of the perpetrator(s) jumped around a bunch.  Not surprisingly, my final guess was wrong.  The book’s title references Wallander and his cohorts’ feeling that they were always one step behind the both killer(s)’ (jeez, how do you properly punctuate that?) plans and the deceased detective’s own investigations.

    The ending is suitably tense, exciting, and plausible.  There is the obligatory chase scene, but even that is done in a realistic fashion - on foot and at night.  I thought the epilogue was also deftly done.  It resolves a couple remaining plot threads, and features two interviews involving Wallander.  He fields questions from a colleague’s teen-aged son, who is considering becoming a policeman, to which Wallander does his best to be both honest and upbeat, which isn’t easy for him.  The second interview involves questioning the perp(s), where both Wallander and the reader learn that serial killers are not always depraved monsters.

Kewlest New Word ...

Kick-sled (n.) : a sled popular in Scandinavia that consists usually of a low seat on runners and that is propelled usually by one holding the back of the seat, standing on a runner with one foot, and pushing with the other. (Wikipedia it.)

Excerpts...

    Wallander and Gertrud would go through the last few boxes of his father’s belongings.  They had finished packing the week before.  His colleague Martinsson came out with a trailer and they made several trips to the dump outside Hedeskoga.  It occurred to Wallander, who was experiencing a growing sense of unease, that what remained of a person’s life inevitably ended up at the nearest dump.

    All that was left of his father now – aside from the memories – were some photographs, five paintings, and some boxes of old letters and papers.  Nothing more.  (loc. 206)

    “It’s just strange that the perpetrator would leave his weapon behind.”

    Wallander nodded.  That had been one of his first thoughts.

    “Have you noticed anything else strange around here?” he asked.

    Nyberg narrowed his eyes.

    He said, “Isn’t everything about a colleague having his head blown off strange?”  (loc. 1121)

Kindle Details…

    One Step Behind is priced at $9.99 right now at Amazon.  The other books in the series range in price from $7.19 to $11.99, except for Book 2, The Dogs of Riga, which apparently is not available as an e-book.  There are another dozen or so Henning Mankell e-books for the Kindle; those are in the $8.99-$13.01 range.

“All houses have ghosts,” she said.  “Except the newest ones.”  (loc. 363 )

    There’s not much to gripe about in One Step Behind.  If you can't stand cusswords in the books you read, please note that there are 16 instances of that here, 10 of which are the word “hell”.  For a gritty police procedural novel, that’s actually quite clean.

    Kurt Wallander’s persona is pretty much a downer throughout the whole series, and One Step Behind is no exception.  Here his usual “burnt-out cop” demeanor is uncharacteristically low-key here, but he’s approaching 50, and has just found out he’s developed diabetes and needs to change his diet and exercise habits.  He does not react well to this new reality.  I am not diabetic, but I gained some new insight into how deeply that impacts a person’s life: always being tired, always being thirsty, always having to go to the bathroom, etc.  I now have a greater respect for those who have to deal with diabetes.

    That’s about it.  As a writer of police procedurals, Henning Mankell (1948-2015) is in a class by himself, and One Step Beyond is another superb effort by him.  This was a real page-turner for me, and that's not something I say about many books.

    9 Stars.  One last note:  on page 79 there's a brief mention of a Baroque composer named Dieterich Buxtehude.  I’m a classical musical enthusiast, and I was surprised that I’d never heard of him.  He’s real, there’s a Wikipedia page for him, and it turns out he was Johann Sebastian Bach’s teacher.  I listened to some of his music via YouTube, and he’s impressive.