Category: Krimi

Good Reads meta-data is 398 pages, rated 2.85 by 220 litizens.

Genre: krimi; Species: medieval period.

DNA: Italian; Species: Firenze; Sub-species: Dante.

Verdict: Second time around.

Tagline: Stupidity is god’s will. (That explains a lot.)

It is a world where whatever happens is god’s will, and that is that.  Any further consideration is blasphemous. Faith not reason prevails…for most.  In this stifling and stultifying milieu Messer Durante is an exception, one of only a few, who looks beneath this sanctimonious carpet to the see the warp and weft that weave the  Church’s hypocrisy. According to Dante (1265-1321), god means for us men (but not women) to make full use of our abilities. But this makes him a non-Believer or worse in the eyes of most others. In short, it all has a contemporary resonance. 

Dante is a Prior for a two-month term of office.  Six priors comprise the executive of the city-state government of Florence, and during their two-month terms, they live in the office dormitory. The short term is to discourage strong government by promoting rotation of the office, and the residency requirement makes it a full time job: Those are the fictions. This duty is unwelcome to those with a business to manage, a farm to tend, a sick wife to mind, or travel to do and they try to avoid the call to duty. Ergo, often the incumbents are layabouts with none of those concerns. The priors are nominees of the guilds that dominate local commerce and that commerce dominates the secular city. The historic Dante was a prior from the apothecary guild.  He had qualified for this guild because it was relatively easy, he had an interested in science, and it afforded prestige for which he was hungry from go-to-whoa. But no, he was not a drug dealer.  

In this story most of the priors are timeservers, some reluctant, others more willing, but Dante takes it very seriously when the dead start to pile up in the strangest places and in the strangest ways.  Those who answer god’s telephone tell him to back off, but he keeps going through the murk of Guelph, Ghibelline, greed, graft, and grievance.  

Confession.  I never did understand how the woman in the box worked or what the eight-sided hall of mirrors had to do with anything.  Maybe you do.  Inform me at your leisure. 

***

I have read this before but was moved to do it again after reading a biography of the poet discussed elsewhere on this blog because now I thought I now know him better. 

Good Reads meta data is 320 pages, 3.35 rated by 342 litizens.

Genre: krimi.

DNA: Yankee.

Verdict: ‘Looking, Garv.’

Tagline: the squirrel did it!

Taxidermy is a dangerous trade, but Garv was not warned of this peril when he learned the business.  Now he knows.  He survives the mobsters, psychopaths, MAGAs, and more through the combined efforts of (Y)Angie his de facto wife who is an inveterate love tackler; Otto the Russian imp who honed his survival skills in the Gulag whom they shelter from ICE, his criminal brother who is less of crook than the police and lawyers after them.  Oh, and the sacrifice of Fred, the tame, because stuffed lion, in the living room.  Fortunately, it turns out the venom in a dead snake’s fangs is still toxic. Who knew.  

This is a re-read.  

Japanese anime (1978-9) 52 half-hour TV episodes rated 7.9 by 1,700 cineastes.  These were also screened throughout Europe at the time, as witnessed by the German and Spanish reviews on the IMDb.  

Genre: SyFy.

DNA: Japan.

Verdict: More, please.

Tagline: Holy Jupiter!

Between 1940 and 1951 Captain Future policed the nine planets in radio plays, pulp magazines, and even pulpier paperback books in the United States. There were further adaptations, like the Japanese series noted above.  

Seventeen of his 45-minute adventures were available from Radio Archives the last time I looked. Recommended to all SyFy nerdlngs.  These radio plays were written by Edmond Hamilton and voiced by Milton Bagby who does a marvellous job.  

Captain Future is Curtis Newton who is the most scientific of all scientists in the Solar System, where all nine planets, some moons, and a few asteroids and a comet or two are inhabited, and even some pinheads, mostly by humanoids, along with the required monsters for Curtis to tame, bamboozle, trap, or slay.

In his mission of mayhem he is aided by a living brain in a self-propelled glass box with waldos, being the last of Dr Simon Wright whose science is second only to that of Curtis; Grag the giant metal manling; Otho the rubber android, and assorted others.  See the Wikipedia entry for details.  

Nothing stops Captain Future: when villains maroon him on an uninhabited asteroid in a space suit with two hours of air, using the metals of the asteroid and his handy sonic screwdriver borrowed from Dr Who, he promptly builds a nuclear reactor to turn the rock itself into a space ship. Likewise the dreaded demons who dwell in the Great Red Fire Sea on Jupiter are no match for this wizard of science.

Sorting out the Solar System is a big job, to be sure, but Curt is an even bigger sort-outer than that, and in the later stories he extends his crusade against wrongdoers to time travel as well as interstellar and intermolecular space. This crusader needs no cape when he has science on his side.  

I heard some of these stories as a child, syndicated to a local radio station, and now I listen to them on my daily walks as a holiday from the unrelieved idiocy of contemporary events. 

Good Reads meta-data is 203 pages, rated 4.22 by 2403 litizens. 

Genre: Krimi; Species: Holmes.  

DNA: Edwardian England.

Verdict:  Poof!  

Tagline: Now you see him, now you don’t.

Erik Weisz (1874-1926) of Appleton Wisconsin is wrongly accused of murder, melée, and mayhem but Sherlock comes to the rescue as only he can, his Boswell at hand. You know Erik, that is, Harry Houdini stunt performer, illusionist, and escapologist extraordinaire. 

With a few of the tricks of his trade, Houdini assists Sherlock in identifying and apprehending the villain.  Most amusing is Watson’s first airplane ride. Indeed.  Of course there is no end to Sherlock’s wiles and the conclusion is foregone, though there are some nice and neat twists and turns along the way that confirm his nostrum: when all possibilities have been eliminated the impossible remains, or something like that.  

No trade secrets are revealed and I never did find out how Harry  got through that wall. 

***

The lengthy entry on Erik in Wikipedia makes for good reading.  There I note that after World War I he devoted a great deal of his time, effort, and reputation to debunking fraudulent spiritualists. He became a member of the editorial board of the Scientific American as a result.

This is a title in the series The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, which books, mostly reprints, are by a different authors.  In this one there are several typos, e.g., ‘wanned’ for ‘warmed’ and some formatting errors.  I expect the text was converted to digital for the Kindle by an A.I. that couldn’t read.  

Good Reads meta-data is 192 pages, rated 4.08 by 695 litizens.  

Genre: krimi; Species: Holmes.

Verdict: Stilted. 

Tagline: Bully!  

What chance do villains have when a young Sherlock Holmes is on the case? Even less when he is abetted and assisted by a young Theodore Roosevelt.  

Holmes is in a company of British actors touring the USA so he can learn the tricks of the thespian trade: make-up, disguise, voice changes, posture, accents, and costumery.  A brash Roosevelt had written him a fan letter after reading one of his early monographs on ash or something and they meet in New York City.  No sooner than they do, than a man is shot and off they go in pursuit, this dynamic duo.  

To the police this is a mugging gone wrong, but in it Holmes sees an ocean or more exactly a political assassination in the making.  

Thanks to the intervention of Holmes, President Rutherford Hayes is not assassinated.  His one-time Democratic rival Samuel Tilden figures in the investigation, as does a later Vice-President, Chester Arthur, and an elusive Charles Guiteau. A student of US presidential history will see in this list a connect the dots picture.  In a corrupt election Hayes defeated Tilden, who, to his credit, accepted the result for the sake and peace and quiet.  Later, Guiteau shot President Garfield, while proclaiming he was a Stalwart, the name of a political sect. The result was that Arthur, likewise a Stalwart, became president.  Hmmm.  The rug of history has been pulled over this for centuries.  

Until the current incumbent caused the question of corruption to be reopened, historians had regarded Arthur to be the most venal president. He will now have to cede that title to the Felon-in-Chief. 

Footnote: Guiteau had a brush with utopianism in that he joined Noyes’s Oneida Community for several years, but was banished.  The details are salacious. The brief biography of his miserable specimen reminded me of many holders of high office in the news today.

I said ‘stilted’ above because it is written as if it were from Roosevelt’s diary and so imitates his laboured styled.  And I guess it is successful in that imitation because it certainly is laboured.  

***

Stimulated by this reading I once again sought a biography of Tilden.  No recent one exists, as I discovered the last time I tried to find one about ten years ago.  There is a gap in the literature then, but this time I did find one published in 1939 and will acquire and read that as the world turns.  

I formed a very high opinion of Theodore Roosevelt in reading Edmund Morris’s three volume biography of the man some years ago. Highly recommend to biographistas.  

This book is a volume in the series of more than thirty reprints as ‘The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes.’ I have read several others, each by a different author.  

Good Reads meta-data is 262 pages, rated 3.89 by 815 litizens.

Genre: Krimi, Species: Sherlock. 

DNA:  Holmes.

Verdict: More please. 

Tagline:  The impossible takes a little longer.

By hook and crook, Holmes and Watson find themselves in Egypt pursuing a wayward Duke at the behest of Mrs Duke.  Much colourful to’ing and fro’ing in 1904 Egypt in company of Howard Carter follows. Yes, that Howard Carter.  

No adventure in Egypt is completed without a sandstorm and so…. Then there is the Valley of the Kings….   Oops don’t forget the bent pyramid.  We also have the relief of the Nile, and a luxury hotel.  

In short, it is a gripping ripping yarn.  

A Study in Crimson (2020) by Robert J. Harris 

Good Reads meta-data is 290 pages, rated 3.75 by 921 litizens.  

Genre: Krimi; Species: Sherlock.  

DNA: Holmes. 

Verdict:  I ate it with a spoon. 

Tagline: ‘He’s back!’  

There is a subtitle: Sherlock Holmes 1942 because this is a tribute to Basil Rathbone’s embodiment of Sherlock in the 1942 film The Voice of Terror.  For those whose first Holmes was Rathbone, he remains the standard against whom all others are measured.

During London wartime blackouts, four disconnected women have been murdered and mutilated.  Baffled, as usual, the plod calls in the ageless Sherlock with his Boswell, this Watson is not the avuncular buffoon of Nigel Bruce’s portrayal, but still none too bright.  While the war explains the blackout it does not figure in the story in any other way. Except…well, it turns out to be the key to the plot.  Nicely done that.   

There are many red herrings and blue cods, while the least likely is per genre the villain.  

***

I bought a paper copy of this book at Abbey’s while we were on a staycation at that art deco palace, the Grace Hotel. I read it in a single rainy day there, and a rainy night, to be sure.  Very diverting.  

Grave Expectations (2025) by Rob Johnson.

IMDb meta-data is 290 pages, rated 4.31 by 55 litizens.

Genre: krimi.

DNA: Brit.

Verdict: Diverting.  

Tagline:  Ineptitude has a few rewards. Very few.  

Three hapless friends, having tried their luck at bank robbery and failed miserably, end up running a funeral parlour somewhere near Gatwick southwest of London.  They aren’t very good at that either.  

Then Madame Lash threatened to dob them in for their failed bank robbery, unless they help her…rob a bank.  Well, they do have form and it is the same bank.  What follows are wheels-within-wheels as the villains scheme against each other even more than the bank.  

Then there is Alicia, the morgue technician in the basement of the funeral business where she rules the domain of the dead.  I would have liked to read more of her exploits.

I read it pretty much in one sitting during our visit to Bathurst in western NSW.  It is third in a series about this triumvirate.  

Ross Macdonald, The Underground Man (1973).

Good Reads meta-data is 288 pages rated 3.94 by 2419.

Genre: krimi.

Verdict: The Best. 

Tagline: It’s hot!

Lew Archer’s humane instincts put him in the middle of a martial dispute when feeding pigeons, while waiting for a bus, he shares his peanuts with a small boy. Soon he is in the crossfire between a loutish father and a battered mother as they quarrel over the boy. Knowing he should walk away, Archer does not.  

Ever the loner himself, Archer wants to help this broken family and so the inner knight errand mounts his faithful dusty blue Ford sedan and sets forth.  Once in, it’s all in for Archer. As he goes to and fro, asking questions against the background of a raging wildfire like a conquering army pounding and destroying all in its path slowly approaching the city. 

While the prose is spare the metaphors are rich (albeit sometimes too rich and forced) as Archer moves through the body politic of SoCal – noir in the sunshine, indeed.  Once broken, families repeat that break through the generations it seems.  The title should be ‘Men’ not ‘Man.’  Much of the action stems from fragile masculine egos.  

The people he questions seldom want to talk about the most important things. The façade of normality is just that, a screen. 

***

I sometimes think Macdonald is THE krimi writer. One critic said he wrote the same story twenty-five times in varying ways. Each time with more depth, insight, or empathy.  It was story about a broken family.  

K. A. Bedford, Black Light (2015).

Good Reads meta-data is 328 pages, rated 3.22 by 45 litizens. 

Genre: Thriller: Species: Paranormal.  

DNA:  Black Swan. 

Verdict: A change of pace. 

Tagline:  Elves and demons rove Western Australia!  ‘Get your amulets right here! Three potions for the price of two!’  

A few years after The Great War, a widowed English novelist moves as far away as possible from bad memories to Western Australia, hours south of Perth.  She lives alone, hires servants, writes novels, wears old clothes (at times those of her dead husband), has plenty of money, never attends church, drives cars, does not coif her hair, is reclusive, each and all of these facts shocks the locals. They, however, are divided among themselves over which of her unnatural behaviours is the worst. So far she hasn’t started smoking or playing loud music, but can it be long before she starts this devil worship?  So they may well ask. The vicar reviles her wanton ways! He is small-minded hypocrite.  A touch of realism there.  

(A similar reaction to women of that time on the other side of the world is On the Rocks, discussed elsewhere on this blog.)

Then, unbidden, a favourite aunt from Old Blighty makes the two-week odyssey by air (circa 1926) to warn Novelist of impending doom!  Doom?  Doom.  However, once arrived, Aunt is so exhausted from the sojourn, confused by her fatigue, ill from motion sickness, disoriented in the unfamiliar surroundings that she cannot quite say what impelled (or paid for) her impromptu trek, apart from some strange dreams involving Novelist. These dreams, as she recounts them, are very detailed and accurate about places and objects auntie has never seen.  We have entered Spooktown in the Twilight Zone.     

Side Bar: spiritualism reached a high in the years after World War I.  The wholesale slaughter of a masculine generation gave impetus to efforts to penetrate the beyond.  While many charlatans and crooks took advantage of that demand, there were also well-meaning people who explored the occult.  One of them is Novelist’s neighbour, who spends most of spare time, when not reading up on magic, building a time machine with correspondence from H. G. Wells. Get the idea?

The plot pot thickens when she receives first a menacing letter, then a threatening one, and finally a blackmail demand.  Since she has only been there a few months, none this makes sense…in this world.

Daunted, she nonetheless fights back with scant assistance and resources, not including the local plod whose only apparent interest is football.  Another touch of realism that. Being other worldly the story does not stick to Ronald Knox’s decalogue for krimis. Ergo, in the last 50+ pages all kinds of new information and characters enter.  It’s just not natural!  

***

A change of pace from my usual reading.  It is well written and thoroughly contextualised with differentiated characters. The detail is rich but not suffocating.  It ends on an open door that suggests a follow-up novel.