Hard Cash Valley

The action is intense, gritty, and recurrent in HARD CASH VALLEY, the third crime novel from Brian Panowich (Minotaur, 2020). It’s the story of Dane Kirby, a fire chief turned consultant to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. Kirby is sent to Florida to help the Feds investigate the fallout from a brutal murder associated with the victim’s alleged swindling of prize money from the Slasher—the biggest (underground) cockfight in the USA. The Slasher took place at the Farm in Dane’s home turf of McFalls County, which is familiar territory for readers of Panowich’s previous two novels, BULL MOUNTAIN and LIKE LIONS.

Early in the investigation, Kirby is teamed with a hard-nosed FBI agent named Roselita Velasquez and the duo learns that the victim’s younger brother is hiding out somewhere in Georgia. Finding and protecting the boy, who has Asperger syndrome, becomes a driving force that leads Kirby and Velasquez down some harrowing paths in the north Georgia mountains.

The search for the boy follows a trail that becomes increasingly scattered with the bodies of anyone involved in the international cockfighting ring, and Dane Kirby—with his intimate knowledge of the landscape and the players of McFalls County, and a motivation to find and protect the boy—is essential to guiding the investigation while tussling with federal and local law enforcement along the way.

Dane Kirby’s motivation runs much deeper than achieving the satisfaction of a rescue operation. An event in his past—not revealed until near the novel’s end—haunts his existence and drives his energy, and it constitutes a powerful secondary storyline. The profound psychological heaves of love and loss inform nearly every decision Dane makes; those yearnings make him at once more courageous and more fragile. He’s a man trying to live in the physical reality of his world, but the spiritual realms seem, at times, to inhibit his ability to make meaning out of anything.

Panowich’s prose is graceful and addictive. His characters, no matter how minor to the plot are memorable from their first entrance on the page. Take James Edwin, the key holder for Black Mountain Safari Zoo. "The obese man in sweatpants and house shoes fumbled around in the large pocket of his canvas jacket the way a woman would rifle through the insides of a purse until he pulled out a set of keys... ." This is a character you can instantly see in your mind’s eye. 

The emotional undercurrents of HARD CASH VALLEY are often wrenching but never melodramatic. This is a deeply affecting and entertaining crime story that rewards the reader with both a memorable payoff to the mystery elements of the plot and a moving conclusion to Dane Kirby’s journey of the soul.

Defending Angels

I had been looking forward to reading Mary Stanton's Defending Angels (Berkley Prime Crime, 2008) for quite a while. It had been sitting in my "to be read" pile for some time before I finally got to it this week. The premise was intriguing--a young Savannah attorney, Bree Winston-Beaufort, assumes the law practice of her late uncle. Soon she learns it is no ordinary law, but Celestial Law that she'll be expected to practice, where the clients are dead and must be defended in Celestial Court. Obviously it is a paranormal mystery, and that was fine with me, in fact I was excited to break into that genre a little (although I enjoy Charlaine Harris's Sookie Stackhouse books). Bree assembles a crack team of support staff to help her defend a dead client (whose murder she also must solve), and is guided throughout by mysterious advice from her former law professor. Sometimes the allusions to all things celestial came off as corny rather than clever: Her sister Angelica breezes into town and stays with Bree; the law practice is in an old mansion near a Murderer's Cemetary on Angelcus Street. You get the idea.

Unfortunately, this book was terribly disappointing and not at all what I expected. Certainly it is up to every author to write the kind of book they want, and many will differ from my view of this book.

Bree does not seem to have any savvy or even curiosity. She approaches almost anything that people tell her with an "Oh well" approach. It was difficult, too, to understand much of Bree's motivation. Too often, Bree feels like she just sort of lets stuff happen to her rather than question or express genuine concern. I did not find her to be a very sympathetic character, which is another of book's several problems. The dialogue and backstory felt like filler, not contributing to substantive plot points. The large supporting cast of characters is odd and underdeveloped.

Originally I thought the concept was interesting and innovative, but the more I read, the more it seemed to closely echo Albert Brooks's 1991 film, Defending Your Life. The central puzzle of this book was rather simple, and thus not very compelling as a mystery.

I personally think Ms. Stanton does not make full use of the Savannah, Georgia setting, in fact what could be the perfect setting for this kind of mystery. I did not get any real sense that place was important, inasmuch as Savannah's mysterious, Gothic details were not an integral part of the story, which seems like a lost opportunity.

Perhaps the order was too tall for a book like this: to create a whole new system of law (basically) and set your character to work in it, a character trained in the codified laws of Georgia. It required quite a bit of world-building that just seemed missing: You've got to have the basic system of law itself, then the new Celestial Law, then the local authorities, usual suspects, etc. In addition there is the paranormal element, which here feels contrived. I won't spoil the actual happenings for those interested in reading it for themselves.

Finally, I was increasingly annoyed by the heavy quotations from Milton and others at the beginning of every chapter. They did not contribute to the story (as do, for example, the herb lore at the beginning of chapters in the China Bayles series by Susan Wittig Albert), and seemed woefully dissonant with the novel itself.

Ms. Stanton (who also writes as Claudia Bishop) deserves credit for trying to branch out in a very different direction than the typical "cozy" mystery. She succeeded in that regard, but the story itself does not.

Murder is Binding

Lorna Barrett (the nom de plume of writer Lorraine Bartlett) has written an excellent first mystery novel in Murder is Binding (Berkley Prime Crime, 2008). The setting is the small town of Stoneham, New Hampshire, where local developer Bob Kelly has leased downtown property to a series of small bookshop owners (each shop focuses on a particular genre, like cookbooks, mystery, history, etc.). Tricia Miles, the owner of mystery bookshop Haven't Got a Clue, is the lead character in this story and in the series.

When the owner of Tricia's neighboring store, Doris Gleason of The Cookery, turns up dead, Tricia is left to sort out the mess in order to provide peace of mind not only for herself, but for the tranquil Stoneham. Tricia's sister, Angelica breezes into town for what turns out to be more than just a short visit, and ends up helping Tricia solve the murder. What's more, the sheriff is intent to pin the Doris's murder on Tricia. The "cozy" meter registers pretty high here: small, idyllic town (more like paradise... a town full of bookstores!); Tricia lives above her bookshop; Angelica is a gourmet cook; a meddling sheriff; and more.

Lorna Barrett is a mystery writer of great talent. I especially appreciated the way she brought the retail environment of Haven't Got a Clue to life, a venue I suspect that will provide endless opportunities for future plots (Susan Wittig Albert has used China Bayles's herb business in this way for upwards of 17 books!). Barrett is also part of a new generation of cozy writers who have endowed their characters with complicated social relationships. The subplot of familial fractures in the sister-bond between Tricia and Angelica will offer many opportunities to really understand the motivation for these characters in future novels, as it did in Binding. She also touched on the generational problems we all will face in the characters of Mr. Everett, Grace and Doris Gleason (I won't spoil the plot by giving details!). At the end of the book, I was also left wondering if Mr. Everett and Grace have a future together?

There are other themes Ms. Barrett may pursue, such as community development and the arrival of "big box" stores in small towns (a theme also present in Sheila Connolly's One Bad Apple, a cozy set in neighboring Massachusetts). I'm also looking forward to the development of Angelica's relocation to Stoneham, and how that affects her relationship with Tricia (and her business).

My only quarrel is with the character of Sheriff Wendy Adams, whose motivation was somewhat difficult to believe. If Adams is to be Tricia's foil throughout the series, we will need to learn much more about her and her background. I realize this is not a police procedural, but it seems that any sheriff (even in a small town) would want to give the aesthetic of a proper investigation. This is not a major criticism and certainly does not detract from the many enjoyments of the novel. Personally I didn't find any redeeming quality in Adams, and I'd like to see her knocked off (or moved away) soon, but I am only a reader and it is always up to the author to populate the universe they create.

The action toward the last third of the book was downright suspenseful, and the climactic scene (in the bookshop of course) is much more realistic than one typically finds in a cozy mystery. I applaud Ms. Barrett's first outing and look forward to the next installments.

Bloodroot

In Bloodroot (Berkley, 2001) Susan Wittig Albert has written a novel that probes the depths of generational family secrets through a multi-layered story of kinship bonds and lost loves. China Bayles, Albert's venerable protagonist of (currently) seventeen published novels and many short stories, has left the relatively comfortable confines of her herb business in Pecan Springs, Texas to join her mother, Leatha and Aunt Tullie at Jordan's Crossing, the Coldwell family plantation in the Yazoo Valley of Mississippi. What is supposed to be a short trip to help her mother and Aunt Tullie get the plantation affairs in order turns into a labyrinthine exploration of the generations of families who have lived on the plantation, and the mysteries surrounding their legacies.

Albert is not a writer who shies away from tough issues, and though some classify the China Bayles novels as "cozy," Bloodroot is anything but. In addition to a fever-pitch climactic scene, she tackles such subjects as the repercussions of inherited disease; Native American land rights; several varieties of "forbidden love" and other topics. China's investigation of the present-day affairs of the plantation lead her head-on into the buried secrets of her ancestors' past. The body count was three as far as I could tell, and even though only one takes place in the present, they're all very relevant for China as she seeks to set the affairs of the plantation in order.

Although readers accustomed to the series will miss the presence of regulars like McQuaid and Ruby, Bloodroot works very well as a stand-alone novel. Albert is at the top of her writing game here, magically evoking the deeply atmospheric and beautiful environment of rural Mississippi on the page. Her handling of a number of complex story lines has never been better.

This book brought to mind several interesting perspectives on family secrets and the nature of history. We often tend to view the past as quaint, we romanticize it. But our ancestors faced all sorts of difficult relationships, economic hardships, deaths, etc. Sure the time period and cultural context was different, but they were human experiences all the same. China's realization of this, which is never preachy, reveals a tender strain of love that binds and separates her relatives.

Albert's emphasis on love and remembrance shows us, in some way, why we do the things we do. We don't know the extent of what people have faced in their lives that leads them to be the kinds of people they are. Often such events are purposely buried, but never forgotten. They haunt the present in more ways than we might anticipate.

Asking for Murder

The third and perhaps final installment in Roberta Isleib's Advice Column mystery series, Asking for Murder (Berkley Prime Crime, 2008), is a very fine testament to the pleasures of familiarity one gains from returning to a solid series. It's always a treat when one of your new favorite authors hits one out of the park. And here, I'm happy to report, Isleib's penned another winner.

Inherent in the etymology of familiarity is the idea of family--and certainly Dr. Rebecca Butterman and the other characters of coastal Connecticut that populate these novels have come to represent a kind of "literary family." Luckily, even readers who enter the series with this book will find uncommon familiarity since Ms. Isleib does an effortless job of evoking characters, settings and ambiance for the uninitiated. But what makes such family/familiarity pleasurable in Asking for Murder?

1. Isleib has described and immersed us in an environment so real that we only need sketches of description--a busy highway, the hunger pains of a busy professional, a rainy day, the wall decor in a psychologist's office--to bring us into the story. These sketches are the touchstones of another world that help us imagine what it would be like to live/work/play/eat/love there. We jump from touchstone to touchstone, like boulders in a wide river, over the arc of the narrative. And in the context of the novel we are free to imagine the spaces between the rocks upon which the story is built.
   
2. We have such a good understanding of our protagonist, Rebecca Butterman that we can begin to anticipate (but not necessarily predict, and this is a fine distinction) how she will react in given circumstances. The art of this fiction, though, is that Rebecca is not merely a pawn run through the maze of a story. She is fundamentally changed by her experience. In Asking for Murder she must learn about a novel type of psychological therapy (sandplay or sand tray therapy, influenced by Carl Jung's emphasis on the subconscious). The reader learns along with Rebecca how this fascinating therapy works. And, Rebecca is always working out her emotional experience through the exercise of writing her advice column.
   
3. The supporting cast of characters are integral to the story. Rebecca's psychologist friend, Annabelle Hart, is found badly beaten at the beginning of the story and this is the driving mystery throughout the book: Who would beat Dr. Hart within an inch of her life? As Rebecca attempts to answer that question, she must confront not only Annabelle's family and friends but also her league of patients. No one is free of suspicion. Meanwhile the first (and only) dead body doesn't turn up until more than halfway through. How interesting!
   
4. The premise of the story is believable. Because both Dr. Butterman and Dr. Hart are clinical psychologists, we can easily believe that they would frequently be in contact with all manner of "strange" individuals--even ones in their own families. Beyond the premise, there are enough day-to-day happenings in Rebecca's life that we can easily imagine her as we might our friends or ourselves... sleeping, cooking, eating, meeting people, playing with pets, following up on responsibilities, etc.
   
5. There are important questions in Rebecca's life that remain unanswered. Since these involve her personal relationships and have little bearing on the solution to the central mystery of this book, the reader is not disappointed that they remain unanswered. Rather, this reader is anxious to find out what happens between Rebecca and Detective Meigs. And what develops between Rebecca and her estranged father? How does her sister, Janice ultimately react? Will Rebecca ever resolve her ambivalent feelings about Mark?

I was more than a little sad to close the final chapter in this book knowing there was not another one waiting. I recently read an online interview with Ms. Isleib wherein she mentioned there were no immediate plans for any more books in this series and that she was at work on a stand-alone novel. It would be a darn shame for mystery lovers if this is Dr. Rebecca Butterman's swan song, but given its fine writing and satisfying resolution, Asking for Murder would not be a disastrous coda to a very confident and well-written mystery series.

Preaching to the Corpse

The second book in Roberta Isleib's Advice Column Mystery series, Preaching to the Corpse (Berkley Prime Crime, 2007) does everything a second book in a series should do. I always look for four general developments in a series' installments, and if I find them in multiple books, I know I've found an author I like. Rather than summarize the plot (which you can easily look up on Google, just like Rebecca Butterman!), for this review I will outline the general criteria I look for in an ongoing series and then discuss how it relates to Preaching to the Corpse.

A. Development of the main character. In the series, Dr. Rebecca Butterman is the protagonist: a newly-divorced, smart and self-starting psychologist in Guilford, Connecticut. She's in private practice and teaches part-time at Yale, and she moonlights as an advice columnist ("Ask Dr. Aster") for a popular online magazine. Preaching, while it can be enjoyed as a stand-alone, develops Rebecca into a three-dimensional character first introduced in Deadly Advice. She is asked to take over the search committee for an interim pastor at the Shoreline Congregational Church after the mysterious death of its former chair, Lacy Bailes. She juggles her relationship with her sister, Janice, after deciding to track down their estranged father. She's forced to manage her ambivalent feelings for the married Detective Meigs as their relationship takes turns both tender and coy.

Rebecca shows some more vulnerabilities in this book which makes her more "real." She's a person we'd like to know and be neighbors with, to work with or share an office. She also seems to care less and less about writing her advice column. This does have the effect of making at least this reader a little less interested in the advice column, too. The author, Roberta Isleib is a psychologist herself, and she actually dispenses some very useful advice in the narrative passages of the book which careful readers will pick up on (wise ones will employ it!). Butterman is such a vivid character, and it occurred to me while reading that just being a psychologist is enough for Rebecca The series is strong enough to stand without the periodic (albeit less frequent) "Dear Dr. Aster" letters. Whereas in Deadly Advice the column provided motivation and motion for the action, here it feels not exactly ornamental but rather another task on Rebecca's already-full plate.

B. Development of the setting and environment. The small towns of New England, particularly the Connecticut shoreline, come alive in Preaching. It's winter so the roads are icy and snow is falling; the characters nurse colds and ailments; food is warm and appropriate to the season, and so forth. We have church potlucks, Christmas cookies, warmed-up soup and even a tea party. I am particularly drawn to the condominium complex setting: this is a very unique and "cozy" choice for Rebecca's home, and Isleib does a great job of evoking how it must feel to live there and the way that works into her character's life. That this setting is neither quaint nor idyllic but just plain old realistic has turned out to be part of Rebecca's identity and one of the strongest suits of the series.

C. A strong supporting cast with characters old and new. The best series writers have a set of characters that alternately emerge or play more of a background role depending on their role in the plot of the book. Recurring characters are helpful because they make us feel comfortable in the environment, and they tell us much about the protagonist (who they have some sort of relationship with). Preaching's main recurring supporting character is Detective Meigs, who this time is a little more willing (albeit begrudgingly) to suffer Rebecca's amateur sleuthing into the circumstances surrounding Lacy Bailes's death. We also encounter some of the condo residents again, and Rebecca's sister, but they have background role. There are many new characters, too, almost all associated with the Church in some way, but because Isleib ties up this puzzle so well it is doubtful we will (need) to see many of those folks again (but these are small towns, so we may).

D. A widening and deepening complexity. This is probably true of all of the above categories, but I separate it because it is the overall feeling I expect to have when I've finished the novel. I can begin to answer anthropological questions (with greater certainty) like: How do these characters assign meaning to their lives? Why do they make the choices they do? What kinds of food do they eat? How do they interact with people? What sorts of things are important to them, and why? If you can answer questions like those about the characters in a novel, you know the author is keeping up their end of the author-reader contract--and for that matter, so are you!

This very strong second installment is another great read from Isleib. Readers will be particularly pleased with the resolution, I think, as the perp is not someone I expected at all (I really want to say more about this but I can't because I don't want to commit a cardinal sin and drop any hints!!). There are many intriguing plot points about inner-church politics (even one with echoes of New Hampshire's Bishop Gene Robinson controversy). The writing is tight, the plot believable and I recommend this book.

Deadly Advice

With Deadly Advice (Berkley Prime Crime, 2007), Roberta Isleib has introduced one of the best mystery series to appear since Susan Wittig Albert introduced the China Bayles series in the early 1990s. We can only hope that Isleib's series will run as long as Albert's (currently in its 17th installment).

Deadly Advice introduces Dr. Rebecca Butterman, a Guilford, Connecticut psychologist who sees clients in private practice, moonlights at Yale, and writes a pseudonymous relationship advice column, "Ask Dr. Aster." Newly divorced, Butterman has bought a townhouse condominium in an association full of singles and retirees. It is quite a cozy environment with all the requisite characters (the handyman, the nosy neighbor, the widows, single professionals, etc.), until 34-year-old Madeline Stanton--Dr. Butterman's neighbor--turns up dead in her bathtub of an apparent suicide. Butterman, unnerved by the prospect that such a horrible thing could happen on the other side of the wall shared by their respective units, begins to suspect that Madeline's death may not have been a suicide. Madeline's mother, Isabel, thinks the same thing, and persuades Dr. Butterman to do some amateur sleuthing to uncover the real truth. Madeline may not have been the person her family, or neighbors, thought she was...

Isleib works in the Ask Dr. Aster column angle quite skillfully, so that the subject of the columns mirrors the current preoccupations of Dr. Butterman (the singles dating scene, relationships between children and parents, etc.). We also learn more about Dr. Butterman's life through the various interactions she has with her best friends Angie and Annabelle; her neighbors; her sister, Janice; and various clients and colleagues. There is also an intriguing male police detective, Meigs, who we are sure to meet in subsequent books. Readers will also appreciate Isleib's informative, but never preachy, insights into the human psyche. The many unexpected twists and cliffhangers keep the pages turning quickly, and there are enough red herring suspects for a fiendish fish market.

Deadly Advice unequivocally marks the debut of a major series by an extremely talented and inventive author. Butterman is a real character, confident and vulnerable but likeable. We'll want to get to know her more. Isleib's writing is so smooth is goes down like a fine blended Scotch; the last drop isn't quite enough and it leaves us wanting another round.

Ding Dong Dead

Ding Dong Dead is the fourth installment of the "Dolls to Die For" series by author Deb Baker. It's also the first one in the series that I've read. Like many readers, I don't necessarily like to start series from the beginning because I'm impatient, since most reviews cover the current title and it is inevitable that I've been hooked in by the particular storyline that is mentioned in the reviews. Of course, if the book is good, I'll delve backward into the earlier titles.

That will certainly be the case with Deb Baker, who has crafted a quickly-paced mystery that is both suspenseful and interesting. The premise is that a group of doll collectors in Phoenix--led by the protagonist, Gretchen Birch and her mother, Caroline--is gifted the use of a large mansion to use for a museum. To raise money for its opening and upkeep, they decide to produce a stage play called "Ding Dong Dead." Meanwhile, Gretchen's newish boyfriend, Matt--a Phoenix police detective--is called to a murder scene at the local cemetery. Gretchen and her mother become involved in the investigation of that murder and their sleuthing takes them deep into the troubled history of the long-deceased original owners of the mansion that has been granted to their club to establish the "World of Dolls Museum."

Don't be fooled by the doll theme--Baker does a great job of making dolls work for the suspenseful mystery puzzle that drives the action and thus the story, rather than the other way around. This is a serious mystery with a large cast and several complex plot points. The natural eeriness of dolls, their inherent personification that makes people pause, is reflected in the character of Matt. Yet do not think this is a Chucky-esque, "demonic dolls" sort of series. It's not.

The body count is 2, but there are many other potential victims with near-escapes, and you won't know who the killer is (or their motives) until almost the very end. There are also subplots on mental health and homelessness that Baker works into the narrative with a gentle nod but no preaching, and it was surprising and nice to find these in a contemporary mystery--and handled with great respect and expertise. I will be interested to see what happens to Gretchen and Matt in the next installment!