Twenty mystery stories – that will hold me for a while

 kw: book reviews, story reviews, mystery stories, crime fiction, anthologies, collections

I read mystery stories from time to time. Not novels; I prefer the short form because the author has to make a point and be done with it. Seeing that The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2024, edited by Anthony Horowitz, was available, I checked it out.

Twenty stories, and I have to say, all over the map. I like variety. With one exception I liked these stories. Here is my breakdown:

• ++ : 3
• +   : 9
• ~   : 7
• x   : 1 (skipped this one)

Not all of these are "murder mysteries", only about half. To me, that is a relief. "True crime", in all its variety, is more to my taste. Herewith, the three I liked the best:

"Beat the Clock" by Michael Bracken. The solution to a murder hinges on the vagaries of what clocks do—or must have done for them—when Daylight Time starts or ends. Motive? A big inheritance, that all expect will go three ways.

"How to Teach Yourself to Swim" by Fleur Bradley. The narrator can't do much to help an abused boy, but the boy rescues himself from a drug-dealing family by learning to swim.

"A Family Matter" by Leonardo Padura. Here I must digress. This is about someone wishing to escape from Castro's Cuba. A dear friend of mine swam overnight from a city near Guantanamo Base to a little offshore island, laid doggo in the water while the sun was up, then swam to the Base and obtained asylum in the US. This was more than 50 years ago. He still lives, now in California. In the story, the escapee is being helped from an unexpected direction, and the narrator, a retired cop, relies on the importance of family in Cuban society to find him, and then the twist occurs and I must leave it to you to see that for yourself.

A few of the notes I wrote after reading the stories:

Hidden heroism.
One too many snap decisions.
"Never not a cop" can be good.
Outliving the forensics.
Single mom gets away with killing (not her ex).

The last story, called a Bonus by the editor, is "The Suicide of Kiaros" by L. Frank Baum, the author of the Wizard of Oz series. The editor called it "the darkest story in the book," so I skimmed it without missing much. It's another gotaway story. It is not the story I skipped entirely; that one I could see right away hinged on deadly danger to a family, and I can't stomach those.

Great writing, from end to end. Now, back to science and scifi.

Crime and ambiguity

 kw: book reviews, mysteries, anthologies, crime fiction

I took a break from a steady diet of nonfiction to read The Best Mystery Stories of the Year 2021, edited by Lee Child.

The phrase "murder mystery" evokes the most common subgenre of mystery and crime fiction. Fortunately, not all good mystery stories involve murder, and these are the ones I prefer. Some stories and story series, set in small towns, involve so many murders that one is left wondering whether the town will soon be uninhabited. I like a clever crime with a clever solution, or even a banal crime that requires cleverness to be solved.

A mystery story usually needs a resolution, meaning most mysteries are also problem-solving or puzzle-solving stories. Come to think of it, nearly all satisfying stories, of every genre, involve problem solving. Stories that don't resolve are rarely satisfying; the few such that make it into print (or are published online) draw few positive reviews.

Enough philosophizing! The last story in this volume, a "bonus story", "My Favorite Murder" by Ambrose Bierce, is one of the very few engaging stories that doesn't resolve, but the story-within-the-story has an ending of sorts, leaving the "outer resolution" up to the reader. Bierce exaggerates so dramatically that he can be considered an honorary member of the X (for "eXtreme") generation. Prior to reading this story, I had only read a few bits of The Devil's Dictionary, which exemplifies why he is called "bitter Bierce."

Of the 20 stories of 2021, I read 19. A story by Stephen King is included, but having read one short story by King a long time ago I decided that he takes a reader to places I don't care to visit.

A few of the stories involve crimes other than murder. One that deserves special mention is "The Adventure of the Home Office Baby" by David Marcum; he is a devotee of Sherlock Holmes, and writes new Holmes stories with great verisimilitude. I believe Conan Doyle would be flattered. A stillborn baby is the only death in the piece, which is much more about international intrigue, meaning Mycroft Holmes is involved. Saying any more would be too much. This is my favorite of the 19.

A few other stories don't involve murder, but most do. All are very well written and I enjoyed them. I'll leave it at that.

A dud, and then some fun escape lit

kw: book reviews, fiction, crime fiction, science fiction, collections, short stories

The books now on my reading table are nearly all short story collections. I began to read one, then set it aside in favor of another, and didn't return to it.

Firstly, I picked up Exit Wounds, edited by Paul B. Kane and Marie O'Regan, a collection of murder mysteries, as the title clearly indicates. Alongside it I set Future Tense Fiction: Stories of Tomorrow, edited by Kirsten Berg, Torie Bosch, Joey Eschrich, Ed Finn, Andrés Martines, and Juliet Ulman; a collection of stories from the Future Tense column sponsored by Slate and others. I don't care for a steady diet of crime stories, so I decided to intersperse them.

At the first sitting I read four stories in Exit Wounds. "The Bully", by Jeffrey Deaver takes a turn midway that makes you realize you are inside the mind of a serial killer. However, it is rather cerebral and pensive. The next three were also told from the killer's point of view, and each was progressively darker. Then, in Future Tense, I read first "Mother of Invention" by Nnedi Okorafor; a smart house with the directive, "Protect the occupant" does just that, to the detriment of the house's designer, but to the benefit of the occupant, his spurned lover. I didn't care for "No Me Dejes" by Mark Oshiro, though the technology of memory capture from a dying person for retention by a chosen descendant is intriguing. I had read "When Robot and Crow Saved East St. Louis" by Annalee Newitz, and re-read it with much enjoyment.

At that point, a day or so later, I decided to skim and skip in Exit Wounds to confirm a suspicion I had. While not all the stories are first-person-killer, nothing matches "The Bully" in quality. I decided, "enough is enough" and set it aside.

With the exception of "Domestic Violence" by Madeline Ashby, which I'd also read before and don't care for, the rest of the stories are full of interesting ideas. "Safe Surrender" by Meg Elison adds a dimension to the longing many adopted children have to know their natural origins, and "Overvalued" by Mark Stasenko explores ramifications of putting a monetary value on—and a futures market for—prodigies and other brilliant people.

I grew up on SciFi in the Campbell mold: "Pose a problem, then solve it." In more modern fiction, whether specific problems are solved, or even solvable, takes a back seat to the growth (or not) of those involved. Not all of the stories even end with an ending, seeming to be instead ending at a beginning. I am coming to realize that life is like that. What's the good of finishing a great task if you're left with no more than endless resting on your laurels? And life itself is a project without a definite ending, usually. Though it does end, all to often it ends ambiguously. Stories that reflect that may be less satisfying, but can be more gratifying.

A week of crime reading

kw: book reviews, fiction, crime fiction, anthologies

From time to time I like to read mysteries. I like the cerebral stuff such as the Agatha Christie classics featuring Hercule Poirot. I prefer to avoid murder mysteries; thefts, daring escapes, and clever conspiracies are more my speed. I decided to venture into reading crime fiction when I saw the collection CWA Anthology of Short Stories: Mystery Tour, edited by Martin Edwards.

Apparently, everyone's favorite crimes are murders. Of the 28 stories, more than 20 involve a murder, plus one probable murder (but a lot about that story is ambiguous as well). Whether murder, theft, arson, or something else, in about 2/3 of the stories the perpetrator got away with it. In the three stories that feature a detective, by the various names they are called, the perpetrator is caught, typically in a clever way.

The subtitle indicates that these stories are set in locales worldwide. Few are placed in America. One touching, and very gentle story, "Bombay Brigadoon" by Vaseem Khan, is set in India. "Wife on Tour" by Julia Crouch is an escape story, with plenty of backstory to have the reader rooting for the wife to take flight. I'll not give the title to avoid a spoiler: one story has two seeming friends, each plotting to kill the other. The better planner succeeds.

The writing is, of course, excellent from end to end. Given my proclivities, however, this book has sated my interest in the genre for a good, long time to come.

The ChRIstMas sEason

kw: book reviews, crime fiction, short stories, anthologies, christmas

It seems there is a book series for everything. For those who like to read a lot of crime fiction, I find the Soho Crime Series. The volume that caught my eye is titled The Usual Santas (no editor[s] named), and the title is that of a story within by Mick Herron.

The title story is perhaps the most memorable. Eight mall Santas have finished their service for the night, and gather together as is their wont for a bit of complimentary grub before going home. Also, as is their habit, they do not change out of their Santa costumes, preferring to not know who their compatriots are, though they have met this way, season after season, for many years. But they find a ninth Santa among them. They discuss how to determine who the "newcomer" might be. You didn't think I would tell you more than that, did you?

The eighteen stories are in three sets, lighthearted, dark, and warmhearted (each in its own twisted way). They are set all over the world, in all imaginable cultures among those that have adopted, at least in a mercantile way, the Christmas season. A Hindu street urchin with a flair for drawing ponders how to depict her close friend. POW's in North Korea (set in 1953) try to cobble together some kind of seasonal cheer. Jane Austen ponders the loss of a dowager's diamond necklace. As one might imagine, one fellow's mischief is another's mayhem.

Fun stories to read. I seldom read crime, but a collection of this quality, I'll make an exception for.

This cat is a little too human

kw: book reviews, crime fiction, mysteries, animals

Ten brothers, former mobsters (mostly); five old desert rats called the Glory Hole Gang; three generations of feline PI; a former priest; a petite redhead with a penchant for sticking her nose where it doesn't belong: Mix all these with a dozen or so supporting cast and a couple of corpses, and you have a great bit of escape literature for my last several evenings. Cat in an Ultramarine Scheme by Carole Nelson Douglas is the 22^nd in her Midnight Louie series.

And who is Midnight Louie? He is the Alphacat, in a series that began with an introductory book or two, then settled in to an acrostic run at B and is now up to U. While miss Temple Barr bombs around Las Vegas on purposes of her own, Louie looks out for her. This time, keeping Ms Barr from winding up the third corpse in the case requires Louie to bring in his parents, Ma Barker and Three-o-Clock Louis, and his daughter, Midnight Louise, plus a gaggle of variously distant relatives, as the Cat Pack. It takes all of them, at one juncture, to extract her from the inner sanctum of the mysterious Synth, a cabal of magician-performers, whose most recent "president" is now one of the corpses.

But what is the Synth, really? Why has a European bombshell "favored" them with a visit? What connection do they have with IRA fundraising (and weapons smuggling)? Those questions await answers as the book closes. With the letters V to Z waiting in the wings, I see that Ms Douglas is going way beyond the idea of a trilogy. Perhaps at the end of the viginte-quintilogy all the threads will be nicely tied up.

Well, a few threads do get tied up in this volume, but the story is more about the production of a Mob museum and associated eateries (and drinkeries), an amnesic magician seeking his memories in the locales of his past exploits, and the ongoing question: Who is Temple Barr really going to marry? In these novels, it really is all about her.

I sometimes wonder what a cat is thinking. In the Midnight Louie books, about every third or fourth chapter is in Louie's voice, and he sounds a lot like Sam Spade (Yes, Ms Douglas, I know it is on purpose). I suspect if we could get into a real cat's mind, the thoughts would be rather one- and two-word snippets: Hungry. Chase bird! Out? But it is kind of fun to imagine cats having richer mental lives than their usually stoic faces might let on.

For most mysteries, it is de rigeur to have everything all tied up and brought together, usually in the last chapter. We know life is more iffy than that, and this writer, at least, takes her cue from that. Somehow, the crimes that are solved are satisfying enough. This was a fine read for the rainy nights we've been having.

Blessings in the bush

kw: book reviews, crime fiction, mysteries, african setting

I have enjoyed yet another "No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" novel by Alexander McCall Smith: The Double Comfort Safari Club. I particularly like these for two reasons. Firstly, they are not "murder mysteries," but instead delve into the mysteries of human behavior and inconsistency. Secondly, they are very homey. Precious Ramotswe, the proprietor of the Agency, is a comfortable woman of "traditional build" which means large economy size, who has a wise manner and few foibles. Her assistant Grace Makutsi is more like an excitable kid sister, with foibles aplenty but a lovable nature.

Sometimes the two of them together can team up to solve a situation. More frequently, Mma Ramotswe, moving with almost glacial inertia, brings matters to a conclusion while her assistant watches. This is not "action fiction," but is more true to life, in which most detective work is boring routine punctuated with the occasional surprise. Nobody here is a kung fu expert, though it might be said that our dear lady detective is adept in mental aikido.

In this novel she is faced with a few delicate cases, one requiring travel to the stunning Okavango Delta, plus the twists and turns of Mma Makutsi's ongoing courtship with her fiancé Phuti Radiphuti, complicated by a debilitating accident he suffers and intervention by a hostile maiden aunt. It takes a force greater than Mma Ramotswe's to dislodge Rra Radiphuti from the aunt's control, but that's what friends are for.

The Botswana setting is about as different from the familiar Western environment as I can imagine, and its beauty and charm—and occasional qualm and venality—are brought out with great grace by the author. The land is caught halfway between historical African culture and the Westernized veneer wrought by a few centuries of missionary efforts. The people, as people do, make the best of both worlds as they slowly evolve into a modern culture. The simple qualities of thought that underlie the Setswana languages (the people are multi-lingual) might at first lead one to think the people are simple-minded. They are far from that. They may think differently, but they are neither shallow nor simple. There is much here to tantalize the innately problem-solving reader, without the chilling effect of the killings most mystery stories seem to require.

PI Kitty to the rescue

kw: book reviews, animal fiction, crime fiction, mysteries

I am definitely partial to cats. Several well-known mystery book series use cats as more than props. I've noticed titles starting with Cat in or Cat on, and a color in the title, and decided to give one a try. The opening chapter of Cat in a Topaz Tango by Carole Nelson Douglas, which is in the voice of Midnight Louie, promised something a bit different.

Different in a number of ways. Much of said chapter recounts recent events in the lives of the dozen or so principals in and around this book. This pegged it as a soap opera in progress, with a handful of parallel stories more-or-less intertwined, and at most one or two reaching any conclusion in this volume. And so it proved.

But I am not one to recount plots. The author is able to make a reader care about the characters, a trait I honor by not giving much away. The central story thread is a contest titled Dancing with the Celebs, and the levels of show-must-go-on-despite-mayhem silliness know no bounds. Eight adult contestants (half-n-half male-female), and four teen girl contestants paired with members of a boy band, compete in Dancing with the Stars style, but mainly for charity. The twist here is that to vote for a dancer, an audience member must call in and donate $20 to a lost children's charity. The action mainly takes place at a hotel in Las Vegas.

Amidst all this, the central character (Louie) and his human, miss Temple Barr, go undercover with a police lieutenant and a private security officer for the hotel (who has a past with the lieutenant, being the father of her 13-year-old daughter), to catch a stalker known as the Barbie Killer. So far only dolls have met their demise, but in gruesome ways. Ms Barr wears a teen idol persona she has cultivated in prior novels and the police reps masquerade as her agents.

The contest is marred by seeming accidents that are soon seen to be sabotage and other dirty tricks. The main perpetrator (not the only one) is found to have a deep grudge against one of the dancers. Others have more complex motives.

Every three or four chapters, a chapter in a different typeface gives us events from Louie's viewpoint (closer to the ground). He and a casino cat named Topaz, who is a pretty good sidekick for this caper, have a definite paw in solving the various mysteries that present themselves, and snagging (pun intended) the perpetrator. If a cat could think at a human level, I suppose he would sound like Louie.

About as frequently, we are whisked to Zurich to keep up with the progress of a formerly major character, one Max Kinsella, stage magician and secret anti-terror agent. Throughout this book he is amnesiac after barely surviving an attempt on his life, and only slowly recovering (though well enough to bed his psychiatrist). And that brings in another thread. There is a ton of sexual tension and innuendo throughout. It seems to be expected of mystery writing, though a few writers do quite well without it.

By the end of this volume, there are a couple of happy endings, a distinctly more confining ending for a certain perpetrator, and several loose ends for the author to weave into the next in the series. This is #21, but the author is yet young.

Will versus Reason at the end of time

kw: book reviews, crime fiction, fantasy, science fiction

I find I've reviewed four of Matthew Hughes's books (This search ought to bring them all up, plus this post). Between Baro Harkness, Guth Bandar, and Filidor Vesh, he has quite a stable of characters, with quite diverse personalities, to explore the Archonate for us.

I must have read Majestrum or a sister novel at some time in the past, but don't remember; it was pre-blog. I did remember Henghis Hapthorn and his dilemma—maintaining paid employment as a discriminator (detective) of impeccable empirical skills, while the age changes to one in which magic takes the place of logic. In The Spiral Labyrinth we find Hapthorn sharing his body with his intuitive side (which he'd previously denied having); a personality who's taken the name Osk Riever.

Together with his integrator (PDA), now become an animal "familiar" called a grinnet, he/they locate a missing merchant, who is found to be captive of a telepathic fungus on a small, cold world. Freeing the captive serves to close the introduction to the story, but our heroes are far from done with the fungus.

Rather than flog the tale, however, I find it more interesting to contemplate the question Hughes is asking through Hapthorn: If magic is the application of will plus skills by a trained, intuitive person, how is this different from a situation in which logic rules, given that will and skill is also needed to succeed?

It is sort of like the "irresistible force versus immovable object" of classical logic: There is no definitive answer, but there are sure to be plenty of interesting side products.

In this story, Hapthorn having lost Osk Riever, the now completely unintuitive discriminator finds that, whenever he can be coerced or tricked into speaking a magic spell, he has sufficient will to see its accomplishment, usually in a spectacular way. The grinnet supplies the magical knowledge, stored in it by Riever, who has been studying magic diligently since he became separate, but within. Yet Hapthorn is no magician, which is verified when he meets some real ones.

At story's end, the two halves of Hapthorn are resident in different bodies, and the grinnet, having found a will of its own, has been granted re-"decanting" into a mechanism; it's tired of being a small mammal, considered prey by an unfortunate variety of larger critters. I reckon Hughes has further adventures up his sleeve, perhaps leading to a reuniting of Hapthorn and Riever, perhaps not.

That which answers all answers none...fortunately

kw: book reviews, science fiction, fantasy, crime fiction

At last! An author capable of writing a book with an engaging style, compelling plot, interesting characters, and exciting new ideas, who doesn't bother cluttering up the story with oversexed or wantonly vicious characters or scenes.

Matthew Hughes is relatively new to the Science Fiction/Fantasy scene, but is an established writer and journalist and speechwriter. He writes crime/suspense fiction as Matt Hughes. His new book Black Brillion combines both. I am glad he refers to this work as Fantasy, for it is set in a time so far future—the Sun is close to going Red Giant—that one could not hope to imagine the technology.

This is a story of transformation, on many levels. The protagonist, one Baro Harkness, a policeman or "scroot" (the police enterprise is named "The Bureau of Scrutiny"), forced to work alongside a criminal he recently arrested, learns a few things about himself, humanity, and existence. A most welcome lesson: any unique tool or skill can be used as a weapon.

The plot revolves about a particularly dreadful alien species, apparently extinguished millennia earlier. Yet the viewpoint is not unitary, and one comes to realize that the common practices of one culture may seem irredemably evil to another...and vice versa. Hughes does not give us much from the Dree viewpoint, just enough to elicit the tiniest twinge of pity that they had to be expunged, though the book ends with a bit of doubt, whether they really are extinct.

The concept of "the commons," an ancient, corporate store of archetypical memories, drags one along, hoping for more. We'd all like to gain control of our dreams (as someone who begins dreaming whenever my eyes close, even when awake, I've been trying to learn such control for decades). The vivid descriptions of the waking dreamscape doubled my desire.

The title material, a type of Philosopher's Stone, along with its blue, red, and other-colored siblings, is supposedly a distillation of ancient industrial waste from our time. This I find the least plausible of the ideas...I am too much the Geologist and Chemist!

I'll be looking for more of this author's titles, scouring out existing ones, and awaiting future offerings.