“where a good crime C r i m e can be had by all” c h r o n i c l e Issue #238 November 2005 P D JAMES Garry DISHER The Lighthouse 323pp Tp 29.95 Snapshot 337pp Tp 29.95 Combe Island, off the Cornish Coast, The neat suburban homes of the has a bloodstained history of piracy peninsula seem like an improbable and cruelty. Now privately owned, it setting for sex parties, blackmail and offers respite to over-stressed people in murder. Winter is closing in on the positions of high authority who coastal community of Waterloo. require privacy and guaranteed Behind closed doors, its residents security. But the peace of Combe is have some peculiar ways of keeping violated when a distinguished visitor warm. When Detective Inspector Hal is bizarrely murdered. Adam Dalgleish Challis is called to investigate the is called in to solve the mystery quickly brutal murder of Janine McQuarrie, and discreetly, but it is a difficult time shot in a deserted country lane as her for him and his depleted team. seven-year-old daughter looked on, Dalgleish is uncertain about his future with Emma Lavenham, his progress is hampered by lies and secrets. It doesn’t help that the woman he loves, while Detective Inspector Kate Miskin has Challis’s superior - bureaucrat, golfer and toady Superintendent her own emotional problems and the ambitious Anglo-Indian, McQuarrie - is Janine’s father-in-law. Or that Challis has his own Sergeant Francis Benton-Smith, is worried about working under personal demons to confront. Everybody has something to hide Kate. The team have hardly begun to unravel the complicated and something to lose. And someone in Waterloo is determined motives of the suspects when there is a second brutal killing. The to kill again. The 3rd in Garry Disher’s highly praised Inspector whole investigation is jeopardised when Dalgleish is faced with Challis series following Dragon Man and Kittyhawk Down a danger more insidious than, and as potentially fatal as, (both Pb 19.95). The New York Times Book Review says: “Enough murder. This eagerly awaited successor to The Murder Room with the angst – time for a straightforward police story with a (Pb 22.95) displays the qualities which aficionados have come to terrific plot, nuanced characters and solid procedures, served up expect of P D James: sensitive characterisation, an exciting and on refreshing new turf… all this has been done before, but rarely superbly structured plot, and vivid evocation of place. Highly with such smooth, assured mastery.” Highly recommended. recommended. (English) (Australian) A QUALITY QUARTET OF CRIME Boris AKUNIN Jacqueline WINSPEAR The Death of Achilles 330pp Tp 29.95 Pardonable Lies 328pp Tp 32.95 International intrigue, Caucasian banditry, the criminal Maisie Dobbs, psychologist and investigator, has handled underworld in 19th-century Moscow and an irresistible femme many difficult cases since she opened her office in Fitzroy fatale: if Erast Fandorin was hoping for a quiet homecoming, he Square, London. But few requests have been as unusual as the is about to be disappointed. Returning to Moscow after an one she receives from Sir Cedric Lawton one September absence of six years, he finds himself instantly embroiled in evening in 1930: she must prove that his son Ralph is really court politics and scandal. His old friend General Sobolev – the dead. This case will challenge Maisie in unexpected ways, for famous ‘Russian Achilles’ – has been found dead in a hotel Ralph was an aviator shot down by enemy fire in 1917. If she room and Fandorin suspects foul play. Using his now-famous is ever to get to the bottom of the mystery, she must travel to powers of detection, he embarks on the battlefields of northern France, an investigation, during which the where many ghosts still linger. She political and the personal may quickly realises that her become dangerously blurred. With investigation is producing far more the assistance of some formidable questions than answers. And martial-arts skills acquired in Japan, before she can reach the truth, she our eccentric and ingenious hero must first uncover all sorts of endeavours to discover not so much secrets and lies that some people whodunit, as why. The 4th outing would clearly prefer stayed buried. for Fandorin following Winter This is the 3rd outing for Maisie Queen and Leviathan (both Pb following Maisie Dobbs (Pb 20.95) 19.95) and Turkish Gambit (Tp and Birds of a Feather (Tp 32.95). 29.95). Highly recommended - I can She is a heroine to cherish. Highly barely wait a year for each new recommended. (English, but a US adventure! (Russian) resident) - Peter 2 Modern Crime Liz ALLEN Stephen BOOTH Tawfik AL-HAKIM The Set-Up 443pp Pb 19.95 Dancing with the Virgins Diary of a Country Number One disappears after a 562pp Pb 19.95 Prosecutor night out with her girlfriends. Number In a remote part of the Peak District stand 135pp Pb 26.00 Two disappears after working late at the the Nine Virgins, a ring of stones Who shot Kamar al-Dawla office. Number Three disappears after a overshadowed by a dark legend. Now, as Alwan? Was it a crime of business trip to New York. They were all winter closes in, a 10th figure is added to passion? What was the role of the young, successful and beautiful. The the circle; the body of Jenny Weston is beautiful peasant girl Rim? Is the Dublin police are baffled, and call in Kate discovered with her limbs arranged so mysterious Sheikh Asfur as crazy as he Waters, crime profiler, to give them a she appears to be dancing. This might seems? This book is an Egyptian comedy lead. Kate welcomes the job, but she has a only be the beginning. (British) of errors. Partly autobiographical, it is history with the lead detective on the Elizabeth BRIGHT written as the journal of a young public case, Timmy Vaughan, and they both Invitation to Murder prosecutor posted to a village in rural fight to keep things on a firmly 228pp Pb 16.95 Egypt. Imbued with the ideals of a professional footing. As the investigation A Card Making mystery. Jennifer Shane’s European education, he encounters a progresses, Kate and Vaughan realise brainchild of a shop, Custom Card world of poverty and backwardness they are dealing with some of Dublin’s Creations, has not been all glitter and where an imported legal system is both most vicious criminals. (Irish) tinsel. Customers are scarce and, after alien and incomprehensible. Tawfik al- Robert ANDREWS finally landing a client, Jennifer hears a Hakim was born in Alexandria in 1898 A Murder of Justice murder over the phone. And when she and studied law in Paris. He worked as a 299pp Pb 18.95 receives a threatening note, it is clear public prosecutor in a provincial When drug runner Skeeter Hodges is someone has designs on her life, too. Egyptian town before becoming the Arab killed, homicide detectives Frank Now, between holding card making world’s leading dramatist, as well as a Kearney and José Phelps investigate - lessons, trying to scissor her ex-fiancé out major short-story writer and man of until their boss tells them to pin as many of her life, and piecing together a murder, letters. He died in 1987. (Egyptian) unsolved cases on Skeeter as possible. Jennifer has really got her work cut out With the streets turning into killing fields for her. (American) KEY and the pressure growing, the pair must Maggie BRUCE academic choose between following orders and The Gourdmother following their instincts. (American) 260pp Pb 16.95 banking Linda BARNES The First Gourd Craft mystery. Brooklyn Hardware 382pp Pb 16.95 girl Lili Marino has found herself starting canine detectives Boston PI Carlotta Carlyle has over in the tiny village of Walden been hired by a cab company to Corners, New York, where she has the clerical investigate a series of attacks targeting time and space to cultivate her first love: Boston area cab drivers. It seems crafting gourds. She is also becoming cosy/malice domestic somebody is after their medallions. Then surprisingly expert at cutting to the rotten Carlotta discovers hidden microphones heart of a mystery. Lily is just starting to culinary/food in the garage at the taxi company she feel welcomed in Walden Corners when works for but when she brings it to the she finds the local high school football fbi attention of Sam Gianelli, (the company’s coach dead on the first day of hunting co-owner and Carlotta’s off-again, on- season. (American) feline detectives again lover), he does not want the Joe BUFF microphones disturbed and will not say Straits of Power 512pp Pb 18.95 forensic why. (American) Clive Cussler says, “Joe Buff takes horse racing mystery Carol Lea BENJAMIN the reader through a labyrinth of action Lady Vanishes 288pp Pb 16.95 and high adventure.” Patrick Robinson medical Harbor View is a Greenwich Village says this book is a “hair-raising trip to the home for thrown away people. The bottom of the ocean.” (American) military residents love Lady, the live-in therapy Jeff BUICK dog. But when the owner dies in a tragic Lethal Dose 357pp Pb 16.95 and bizarre hit-and-run accident and native american Gordon Buchanan discovers that Lady vanishes, Harbor View is plunged his brother’s death was attributed to a into chaos. Working undercover, with her police procedural medication produced by Veritas pit bull Dashiell filling in for the missing Pharmaceuticals, the largest drug political/legal Lady, Rachel Alexander discovers that company in the country.