Ace Atkins Enters the Edgar Race

A cowboy mystery!  Or at least, that’s what I thought when I saw the nominee’s name (Ace Atkins) and the title of his book (The Ranger).   After reading two previous nominees with a strong sense of place (1222‘s Norway and Suspect X‘s Tokyo), I anticipated a novel set in the past.  In Wyoming.  I guess I was confusing “ranger” with “range,” because what I got was something much different.  For one thing, it’s set in present-day Mississippi.  For another, it features Army Ranger Quinn Colson.  And I guess Atkins can’t help being named Ace.

A former Pulitzer-prize nominated journalist, Atkins is great at setting the scene and the character at the same time.  Here’s a sample:  ”Quinn headed home, south on the Mississippi highway, in a truck he’d bought in Phenix City, Alabama, for fifteen hundred, a U.S. Army rucksack beside him stuffed with enough clothes for the week and a sweet Colt .44 Anaconda he’d won in a poker game.  He carried good rock’n'roll and classic  country, and photos from his last deployment in Afghanistan, pics of him with his Ranger platoon, the camp monkey “Streak” on his shoulder, Black Hawks at sundown over the mountains.”

Quinn’s on leave due to a death in his family – his uncle, the county sheriff, has killed himself.  Or did he?  The criminal culture in rural Mississippi is long and runs deep, with payoffs, mob ties, meth labs, a religious cult, and one outsider – a pregnant teen come to town to find the low-life boyfriend who abandoned her.  Add in a comely, feisty female deputy and you have a mystery that offers fascinating characters doing interesting things.  The plot is twisty enough to satisfy those who want intellectual stimulation, and has enough fast-paced action for those who seek testosterone.  I’m always looking for relationships and characterization, and The Ranger‘s good for that, too.

I expect this is the start of a new series for Atkins, and it’s a measure of my enjoyment that I’ll not only be looking for more Quinn Colson books but exploring the Ace Atkins backlist.

But how does The Ranger stack up against the other nominees?  On plot, I’d put it behind The Devotion of Suspect X, but ahead of 1222.  For voice, it’s even-steven with Devotion.  In terms of characters, its #1 of the three.   Here’s the LL final ratings to date for the MWA Edgar Allan Poe Awards, Best Novel:

1. The Ranger by Ace Atkins
2. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
3. 1222 by Anne Holt

Edgar Nominee #2: The Devotion of Suspect X

Mystery writer Keigo Higashino is the one of the most widely known and bestselling novels in Japan.  Or so says the jacket blurb for The Devotion of Suspect X, and I don’t doubt it.   Translated from Japanese to English by Alexander O. Smith, the mystery’s writing style is like the spring-time ice on a river, smooth and finished, while below, the river eddies and churns.  Here’s a sample:

“At 7:35 a.m. Ishigami left his apartment as he did every weekday morning. Just before stepping out onto the street, he glanced at the mostly full bicycle lot, noting the absence of the green bicycle.  Thought iwas already March, the wind was bitingly cold.  He walked with his head down, burying his chin in his scarf.”

Ishigami will soon become Suspect X, when he devotes himself to saving  his neighbor Yasuko (she of the green bicycle) and her daughter from life in prison after the women kill Yasuko’s ex-husband.  That Ishigami has loved Yasuko from afar is soon made clear.  The lengths he will go to in order to save her is not apparent until the book’s last few pages.  That his efforts are all for nothing, sentencing both Yasuko and Ishigami to a life of penance, makes the Devotion of Suspect X a  particularly resonant and memorable read.

The characters are well-drawn and compelling:

• Ishigami, the math genius whose devotion to family led him away from the university and to teaching high school math
• The lovely Yasuko, a former bar girl and essentially decent woman, and her schoolgirl daughter Misato
• Detective Kusanagi of the Tokyo Police, working through what is essentially a police procedural, only suspecting that Ishigami is perpetually two or three steps ahead  of him
• Physicist Dr. Manubu Yukawa, former classmate of Ishigami and friend of Kusanagi, who sees more deeply than the police do
• Plus a host of other characters, including police officers, the nice couple who own the lunch take-away where Yasuko works, and of course the abusive ex-husband.

Here’s what I liked:  the book was very well-plotted and intricate, with a nice “uh-oh” ending, the cat-and-mouse between the physicist and the mathematician, Yasuko’s overall plight, and the story of unrequited love.

Negatives:  only that the story is told at such a remove that it is hard to really emotionally engage with the characters.

So, in the race for the Edgar, how does it stack up against 1222?  Definitely superior.  Here’s the ranking for MWA Best Novel from Literary Lunchbox so far:

1. The Devotion of Suspect X by Keigo Higashino
2. 1222 by Anne Holt

First Up for the Edgar: Anne Holt’s 1222

1222 is the eighth book in the Hanne Wilhelmsen series by Anne Holt, but the first translated into English.  And it’s the first book in my read-it-and-rate-it marathon for the MWA Edgars, Best Novel nominees.

The voice of the writer is definitely something I evaluate early on and has a huge impact on how I ultimately rate the book.  Holt gets off to a good start:

“As it was only the train driver who died, you couldn’t call it a disaster.  There were 269 people on board when the train, due to a meteorological phenomenon that I have not yet understood completely, came off the rails and missed the tunnel through Finsenhut.  A dead train driver comprises only 0.37 percent of this number of people.  Given the circumstances, in other words, we were incredibly lucky.”

As you can see, the novel opens with a train crash.  Hanne Wilhelmsen, confined to a wheelchair thanks to a gunshot wound several years ago, is traveling by train for medical care which could potentially restore her ability to walk.   It’s cold, very cold, and the train derails, sending its several hundred passengers to seek shelter at a nearby, mostly empty hotel.  They’re sequestered by the weather; hence, when one of the group is murdered, the murderer must be among them.  It’s like Gilligan’s Island on steroids, except somebody killed Mr. Howell, and there are more characters to keep track of.

There are shifting relationships, many red herrings, several plot twists, and some nice characterization as solitary Hanne engages her intellect and, perhaps unwillingly, her empathy.  She gains a confidant – a prickly teenager with a yen for a somewhat older woman – as she struggles to unravel the intricacies of the crime(s).

Here’s what I liked:

• The old-fashioned locked room mystery
• The atmospheric atmosphere
• The boy, Adrian, and his growing friendship with Hanne
• Hanne’s antipathy to Kari Thule
• The doctor

Not in love with:

• That the doctor’s a dwarf
• That the motivation for the murder is made available to the reader through coincidence, thereby only narrowly avoiding a resolution that cheats
• The Hercule Poirot-like showdown with all the suspects gathered together under the benevolently watchful gaze of the police
• The “wink is as good as a nod” expectation that the reader will figure out who the mysterious, bearded man with the glowing eyes, beautiful lips and healthy teeth who was being guarded in a remote section of the hotel.  Oh, I scoured the internet for reviews that would tell me what OTHER readers thought this was supposed to be.

Although I’ve not yet read the other nominees, I’ve got a sneaking suspicion that 1222 is not likely to be my top-ranked.   Frankly, I’m a little surprised that it is nominated.   Next up:  The Devotion of Suspect X.  Another translation, this time from the Japanese author Keigo Higoshano.

Quick Review: How the Mistakes Were Made

I picked up How the Mistakes were Made thinking it was a mystery.   It’s not, but it kind of feels like one!  It’s the story of an uber-popular grunge band, The Mistakes (Nirvana era), how the three-some got together and subsequently fell apart.  All told from the point of view of the woman who ruined the band:  bassist/drummer Laura Loss.

Mystery-like elements include:  Written in first person.  Plays with time.  Uses framing device to tell a story that happened in the past.  Lets you know something bad happened.  Oh, and something more bad happened!  And even worse.  There are fatal flaws.

Definitely worth reading.  And I have to say – the book is written by Tyler McMahon.  I assumed Tyler was one of those late 20, early 30-ish female writers with an androgynous name.  Nope.  He’s a guy and does an awesome job of telling the story from a woman’s POV.

Tey stands the test of time

Josephine Tey may have shuffled off this mortal coil sixty years ago, but I was recently reminded of her lasting impact on crime novel genre when my husband brought home a slender paperback: her book, The Daughter of Time.

The book features none of those elements that are so essential today.  The protagonist has no flaws, or at least they’re not very serious ones.  Nobody is armed, there is no hand-to-hand combat or car chases, and no CSI forensics.  There’s not even a crime scene to speak of.  And romance?  If there is any, it’s all off scene.

What there is plenty of is intelligence.  Here’s the set-up:  Detective Inspector Allan Grant is in hospital.  He’s stuck there.  He’s bored.  And a good friend challenges him to put his brain to good use and solve a historical mystery.  He’s given a stack of photos to flip through, and one catches his eye.  Who is it?  The man looks like he’s beleaguered, but has a noble countenance.  A man behind the bench, not on the dock.

It’s Richard III.  That evil hunchback that every British schoolchild knows murdered his nephews in the Tower.  But did he?

Bed-bound, Inspector Grant prevails upon those around him to visit the bookstores and the library for him.  Fortune smiles upon him in the form of a research assistant, the charming American, Brent Carradine.  Together, they examine the logic of the supposed crime and peel back the slanderous fiction by unearthing contemporaneous documents that prove without a doubt that Richard III was no murderer.

It’s an engrossing exercise in mental calisthenics that features charming characters engaging in a great deal of chat.  I’m torn – would today’s mystery buffs, who eat up Harlen Coben, Michael Connelly, Stieg Larsson, Janet Evanovich, have the patience for a book that is so low on snark and kick-ass?

I think so, yes.  The Daughter of Time may not be fashionable, but it offers us as readers the opportunity to accompany the main character on a journey of discovery; to examine, accept or discard, the clues; and to resolve a mystery we care about.  And isn’t that what lies at the heart of the genre?

Rosamund Lupton’s Sister packs tension, surprise into debut

From a writer’s perspective, Sister is a particularly interesting crime novel.   It uses a framing device whereby sister #1 – Bee – talks to a kind-hearted prosecutor about her actions related to the disappearance and subsequent investigation into the death of sister #2 – Tess.

This perspective allows author Rosamund Lupton to reveal the story at her own pace, include Bee’s reflections and basically have all the benefits of a first person account, while hinting at some withheld information.

And what information that is!  To avoid having to use a spoiler alert, I’ll just say that Bee does get to the bottom of Tess’ death in a way that is wholly satisfying, albeit surprising.  Along they way, Lupton explores sororal relationships, romantic love, as well as how easily trust is given and broken.  Bee’s journey is one of discovery.  Not only does she solve the crime, she discovers a great deal about her sister, her family, and most importantly, herself.

I marvel at the way Rosamund Lupton has packed her debut novel with all the plot of a police procedural, the suspense of a thriller, and the mystery of… well, let’s just say, the book reminded me a bit of the Sixth Sense, in that all the clues are there, you just don’t see them until it’s too late.  Kudos to the author!  I look forward to more from her.

Food, Love and Jealousy in Meredith Mileti’s novel

Aftertaste: A Novel in Five Courses, is chick lit with a vengeance.  And I mean vengeance.  Mira Rinaldi has a solid marriage, a successful career as a chef in her own, up-by-the-bootstraps New York Italian restaurant, and a beautiful, albeit demanding, baby.

Well, two out of three isn’t bad.  Jake’s cheating.   And Mira’s been sentenced to anger management.  What follows is the oft-told tale of the sadder-but-wiser woman rebuilding her life, sans man.  Along the way, Mira’s forced out of her beloved restaurant, and it’s bittersweet when her contribution is only recognized when the quality goes down and the new owners not only want her to come back to run it, but want to build a franchise with her.  Mira’s conflicted.

Luckily, she comes to her senses and remembers what’s important to her.  A life well-lived, doing what you love, is the best revenge.  Mira’s voice is compelling, the story is sad, funny, wise, and witty in turns, and as she grows stronger in character, in friendships and in life, it’s a story worth reading.

Still don’t know if you want to read it?  Here’s a quick wrap-up to help you decide:

• Will you learn something from this book? Probably not.
• Is the main character interesting/likeable?  Yes and sort-of.
• Is the plot interesting?  Sure!
• Will you tell all your friends they simply MUST read this book?  Well, I’m not telling mine that.
• Does it stack up well against other chick-lit?  Absolutely.