Category: Krimi

An intriguing set up for our very weary duo.
Before the war, the luxury spa hotels of Vittel hosted the wealthiest members of French and international society. Now, in the winter of 1943, two of these hotels hold British and American women, the former since 1939 and the later since December 1941. The prisoners had lived quietly, surviving on Red Cross aid packages, but now they are beginning to die.
 

One American woman died in a fall down an elevator shaft, and it was assumed to be an accident, then an unknown assailant stabbed another to death with a pitchfork in the stables. With the second death the commandant calls for help, and inspectors Jean-Louis St-Cyr of the Sûreté and Hermann Kohler of the Gestapo arrive. In the pockets of the second victim they find Cracker Jacks and Hershey bars — presumed to be bribes for the guards. St-Cyr and Kohler have to unravel a conspiracy that is at the heart of this odd arrangement.
Above is an edited version of the blurb on the Amazon web site which seemed to me to be both inaccurate and overblown. No Germans stormed into Vichy. The two groups of women are in separate hotels and that is part of the plot, and they have been incarcerated for different periods of time. Whatever the past of the hotels, there is no luxury to be found there. Nor does it make sense to call a hotel a camp. The garbled blurb is very like Janes’s prose. I have read many of the titles in this series but the prose is leaden.
Janes does a good job of distinguishing among the women. There are many different stories among them, and in fact, some of the inmates are French married to Brits or Yanks but with the wrong passports when their papers were inspected. Their individual hopes, aspirations, methods of dealing with the privations and boredom are well brought out, like clutching at occult straws. Confined and controlled for years, there are endless frictions, grievances, and complaints which, powerless to affect the casual agents, the Germans, they take out on each other. There are tensions between the two nationalities, and even more within each.
‘These papers are not in order!’
By the same token there are tensions among the German guards, who would rather be there than in Russia. The commandant who called in the investigators has been undermined and replaced by a subordinate who wants no investigation.
Most of the investigation falls on the American hotel, many of the occupants of which are students who were doing courses in France when the curtain fell.
The grey prose, the cryptic descriptions, the gnomic interpretations, the ambiguity of voices, they all combine to obscure the denouement. But then I read these for the atmosphere, not the arrival. Once again the pair prevail despite all the impediments.
‘Atmosphere’ I said. For example, the privations of the Occupation. Everyone is hungry, and have lived for so long on a poor diet that their senses are diminished, they have no stamina, and cannot concentrate. Nor are the German jailers much better off.

‘A very smooth and entertaining tale of adventure and intrigue in Florence shortly after the great flood. Art objects form the centre of the crookedness, and the social and political entanglements are done with a sure hand, together with a few persuasive characters. The suspense is light.’ From ‘A Catalogue of Crime’, eds. Jacques Barzun and Wendell Taylor.
Occasionally I select a title recommended by Jack and Wendy and this was one. It was readily available in 2004 reprint. Everything in the comments above is true. Alas, it is also true that I tired of it about half-way through. My failing, no doubt.

I liked the characters, the retired British naval man whose instincts help navigate the troubled waters, the indifferent victim, the forthright housemaid, Mercurio the odd ball adoptee, they all livened up the pages. The method of implicating the victim with his car was new to me. I also read with interest the soupçon of Etruscan art mentioned, and wished for more. How the Etruscans related to ancient Romans is one of those recurrent questions when I read about either, the more so having once seen some Etruscan ruins and art while resident in Firenze at the European Universities Institute. I also know that Decius never trusted any Etruscan, real or imagined. alive or dead.
But the plot quickly descended into yet another rendition of the total corruption of Italian society, from the building janitor, who for a few lira will let the Mafia killers into the apartment, to the traffic warden who for a few lira will wheel clamp any car, to the tax collector who for a few lira will raid the office and impound books….. no questions asked. Our heroes are up against a total conspiracy of a kind to make Stalin envious.
Yet somehow our heroes do prevail but by then I was turning the pages so fast that the detail of how escaped me. There were several villains involved and perhaps they came into collision for there is no honour among thieves, I suppose.
Lawyer by day and writer by night,
The author is very accomplished and industrious for there are many other titles. I might try one of the series because I like continuing characters.

The first in the series.
Alex Delaware is a psychologist who is gradually drawn into police work when a child abuser commits suicide in his office during the night. Delaware had been working with the victims of this perpetrator. That event jarred Delaware loose from his profession, his clients, his positions, his habits and much else. At the same time it also opened the door to helping the police with inquiries, in that quaint British expression.

In this case, a fellow psychologist has been murdered along with his girlfriend, and while Delaware did not know the man personally, there is a professional interest and then a police officer asks for his assistance in questioning a seven-year old child who is the only witness to event in an apartment complex in Los Angeles. ‘Questioning,’ as we learn, is not the right word, but rather finding out what the child, now very frightened, saw and then interpreting that. The child arouses his sympathies and he is hooked. If it sounds rather contrived, it is not in the reading.
I particularly liked his long interview with the curmudgeonly emeritus professor who enjoys dishing the dirt. If only…. The description of the rainstorm charged by lightning was very fine, though by then I was impatient to get to the point.
The killing of the dog was too much. Every woman Alex meets is attractive and attracted to him, but he manfully remains loyal to Robin. Tedious.
All of the pieces do fit together in the plot, though it is far-fetched, but then again maybe not. Reality is sometimes hard to believe, too.

There are thirty or so Alex Delaware krimies that I have never read, despite my taste for police procedurals. It came to mind when I recently heard a Garrison Keillor ‘The Writer’s Almanac’ podcast in which he mentioned Kellerman’s long road to publication. Ten years of typing away three hours a night in an unheated garage in New York and stacks of rejections before the first publication.
By the way, this is my third Kindle book reading.

The first in a series of self-styled noir mysteries set in January 1951 in the Big Apple. A very easy read with many short chapters and some interesting characters, and then there is that closet which, like Henry, I thought was going to be explained and wasn’t. I kind of liked that. There was also plenty of woodworking.

It is at once very conventional and somewhat unconventional. The tough cop. The honourable criminal. The femmes fatales, who turn out to be OK. But mostly it is connect the dots. There are some bons mots but it does not crackle.
There is no tension and the characterisation is left to the woodwork. Too many chapters started with a new character who proved to be ephemeral anyway.
The rapprochement between the food critique who has an office nearby (and not at the newspaper for some reason) and the tough cop is not convincing, not interesting, and not relevant. They will probably appear in later titles in the series.
The mystery is that closet where occasionally Henry finds gifts from the future for both his hobby of woodworking and his job of detecting. That and Bobbie the motor-mouth estate agent who seems to know Henry’s business better than he should.
Brian D. Meeks
Left me unsure if I want to read another one in the series.
I read it as a Kindle book. My second.

The fifth in the series and better than ever. Oscar Wilde and Arthur Conan Doyle were friends, and the premise of this series is that Wilde is the model and inspiration for Sherlock Holmes, with his encyclopaedic knowledge, instant perception of facts, computer like processing of information, grasp of new languages in minutes, bolt holes here there and everywhere, mastery of disguise…

In this entry, Wilde and Doyle travel to Europe, each to escape his adoring fans, for some R and R. But no sooner do they check into a hotel than the game is afoot.
Doyle receives some strange mail, forwarded by his publisher, addressed to Sherlock Holmes. That has happened before, but not like this! Doyle shows and tells Wilde, and Oscar insists that they follow-up.
Toute Suite the trail leads to Rome and to the heart of Rome in the Vatican. Once in the eternal city, Doyle takes things as a they seem to be, but not Oscar who sees mystery and deceit in the very air. Some of the scenes occur under the dome of St. Peter in the dead of night.
Gyles Brandreth
The period details, the travelogue, the dialogues, but most of all the stolid Doyle as Waston to Wilde’s mercurial Holmes is a great fun.

‘An Istanbul Mystery’ says the subtitle, the fourth in a series, but the only one readily available to me.
A nice set-up with the young girl exploring the island while the dog takes charge. There is a mystery in a cave and an array of characters, Cousin Evangeline and Uncle Orville added to the mayhem. The séance was a laugh. The running joke about the talking dog was deft. The plaintiff ney lessons were part of the local color.

It is amusing, and the children are fun, and the final denouement surprised me.
On the other hand the French diplomat was not even cardboard, and after he was inflicted upon the reader, he was then dropped. Likewise the two French police officers, who were portrayed more kindly, were introduced and then dropped.
Laurence Goodman, from the back cover
Having said that, I am not motivated to seek out the other titles in the series.

After seeing ‘Duck Soup’ (1933) I had Groucho on the brain. Then I remembered this book which I had started to read years ago, but it had gotten bumped by…a deadline, another book, a failure of concentration, the winds of time, or something. My flawless shelving system allowed me to retrieve in a the twirl of a moustache end.

It is simple and diverting, though Groucho wears, erodes, irks, and bores. Julius Henry Marx just does not have an off-switch. Even when sleuthing, he is wisecracking and pratfalling much to the irritation of his straight-man Watson, Frank Denby, a gagwriter for radio when not sleuthing.

In 1937 a girl’s suicide in Hollywood irks Julius who is quite sure that she was not the suicide-type, and Denby finds the police stonewall suspicious. Off they go…. A midnight visit to a funeral home /office /parlour is straight out of a Marx Brothers picture with an unexpected touch that I will not spoil here.
They come up with nothing but then, true to the scriptwriter’s formula, someone takes a shot at them, convincing them that there is a conspiracy afoot. The plot twist toward the end was visible for miles.

There are a number of other titles in this series from the industrious Mr. Goulart.

But if the trash-talk of Groucho was cut from this book, the remainder would be a short story of 60 pages or so. Too bad because the writer can write. The romance between Jane and Frank is charming, and some of the minor characters like the aged bellboy are well drawn, and the plot brings in the usual suspects, crooked cops from Bay City (where else), gamblers, starlets who will do anything with anybody for shot at fame and fortune, and even a bloodhound.

Wikipedia is full of information about the Marxes. The short version is five brothers, one of whom never acted, Gummo, another, Zeppo, who only did a little before moving on, and the three core brothers of stage, radio, and screen: Groucho, Harpo, and Chico. Stage names, yes, all ending in ‘o’ as was some fashion in their early years. Even Gummo who never took to the stage had an ‘o’ nickname to be consistent.
From left to right: [do it yourself]
Chico because he chased women (chicks), Harpo because…. [figure it out]. Zeppo after the airship. Gummo because he crept around like a gumshoe. And Grocho because…. He preserved his mystique by giving numerous explanations over the years. Their parents immigrated to New York from Alsace, ethnic German Jews. No relation to Karl, the one without any sense of humour.

I came across this title in March 2015 on a list of krimies set in Nebraska provided by the Omaha Public Library. When my eye fell on it, I knew I had to read it. Amazon came to the rescue with a copy. Carhenge! Been there, see that! Once you’ve seen Carhenge, it stays. We have tried for years to work Carhenge into conversations with the globetrotters we meet. Paris, Rio, Shanghai, Cairo, New York, these have little to offer in comparison. [Applause!]

The setting is college summer school offered in Alliance (named by French trappers having taken a wrong turn from the Platte River, they were a long way from anything to trap)— class lists (inaccurate), class rooms (unready), dean (officious), photocopying machine (broken down), internet (off line), textbooks (not arrived), desk top computer for the visitor (inoperative), one pushy student (give me the syllabus now, four months before the session starts!), and more slack students (going through the motions for career or social purposes). In short, a typical summer school. The only thing I found hard to believe was a full professor from the University of Colorado had a modest mien and accepted this assignment and seemed to like students and teaching. That is not a creature I have caught sight of in our local zoo.
These students are largely elementary school teachers accumulating credits either for another degree or to comply with a continuing education requirement. That, too, is familiar. Inevitably one student comes late to the course and another to each class and both demand to know what has been missed (i.e., private tuition). Another underlines every word in the reading but cannot answer any question about it (trees without a forest in sight). Par for any course.
One of the students disappears from class. Yes, that happens. But a few days later her boyfriend is found with a very big knife stuck in his very dead body…. Everything indicates she did it. Now that is not par for any course.
Moreover, she was a thoughtful and bright student who had befriended (advised and counselled, he discovers) several of the other women students. Could she be the culprit?
David McIntyre, our hero, wonders about this and he meets a few local people who, knowing her better than he does, also wonder. The pace is deliberate, and the passing parade of small town characters is given its due. The freelance mechanic, a weedy, bony, twenty year old with tattoos and studs, who longs to be a tough guy but keeps tripping over things, he is a hoot. The denizens of the burger joint act as a Greek chorus. Then there is the heat in the panhandle – open spaces are no-go zones after 10.30 on a July morning. The canopy of elm trees captures and holds a stifling, albeit shady, heat beneath, dark and hot like an oven. Most of all, there is: Carhenge.

The book gives instructions on the best method of viewing the site. To find that out, read the book for I shall not reveal it here. I hope to visit Carhenge again myself next year and make use of the instructions I found here.
James Work
That the plot turns on several novels is great fun and very well realised. There are other literary krimies but none quite like this where life is art is life. Readers of the book will follow. Readers of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ will put 2 and 2 together and get Carhenge.
If Carhenge is unknown, add a brick to the wall of knowledge by reading about it on Wikipedia, or see the film! [Yes, Mr. Spock, there is a film.] Best of all, pay it a visit.

An early entry in the long running series of the cases of sergeants Ernie Bascom and George Sueño, two investigators in the United States 8th Army in South Korea in the middle 1970s.  The Cold War is intense and no where more intense than along the Military Demarcation Line within the Demilitarized Zone. South Korea has a military government that justifies its crimes as necessary for security. American conscripts discover that money can be made in the black market, selling U.S. army equipment and supplies to Koreans.  There is plenty to go around, unless someone gets greedy. Well, yes, that does happen.

The time and place are richly detailed. including the ways of Korean National Police and the interstices of the U.S. Army. The 8th Army wants no trouble, preferring to ignore corruption and even murder within its ranks rather than face bad publicity. The investigation of the death PFC Marvin Druwood was superficial and the subsequent disappearance of MP Jill Matthewson is even less thorough. No sooner is the carpet replaced on these two events, then Bascom and Sueño arrive.
Jill’s mother had written to her congressman who in turn has insisted on answers. To go through the motions Bascon and Sueño are sent to the Second Division near the DMZ with a very limited remit. The Second is a field unit while our protagonists are Rear Echelon M…. F…..s; they are not welcome and the veneer of cooperation drops quickly. No one is happy about the assignment. But of course, once engaged Bascom and Sueño just will not let go.
Bascom is the action man. Show him a door and he kicks it in. A roomful of thugs delights him and only Sueño can hold him back, most of the time.  Volatile! He has a self-destructive fearlessness that frightens Sueño at times. For his part Sueño is the strong silent type who spends all his spare time learning the Korean language and culture. Life is a puzzle to him and tries to figure it out.  Bascom is on a one-way ticket and determined to enjoy the ride, while Sueño cannot quit an unfinished job. Bascom is often impatient with Sueño’s efforts to figure things out, and he neither understands nor cares about the explanations Sueño produces.
They are both cast-iron in these pages. They drink enough alcohol to kill a normal man and seldom sleep more than four (4) hours a night on the case, while travelling the length and breadth of South Korea in an open jeep in the winter! After several beatings, it takes each of then a few pages to recover. Ironmen, indeed.
Limón draws his Korean characters with respect, none are plot devices. The prostitutes are business girls, proprietors of their own small business. The bars and brothels supply the American demand which has created much that is ugly in Korea, but nonetheless the Northern threat is very real. There are martinets among the army men they encounter but there are also some very wise owls who have survived a long time in troubled waters from whom a nod or a hint goes a long way. Sueño has learned to read these signs, which largely escape Bascom.
Martin Limón, whose affection for Korea shines through.
The books are more violent than my usual fare but the compensations are in the travelogue and the puzzles in the plot. In this title I also warmed to the idea that the ultimate prize was a celadon crane vase, perhaps like some we saw at the national museum in Seoul in 2004, and not money or drugs. I do find Bascom’s hormones repetitive.
In a world of misnomers, the Demilitarised Zone must take some prize. It is completely militarised. I visited the DMZ twice in 2004 and found it scary. A million or more men armed to teeth are each side of a line down the middle of a meandering river. Yikes!

Vish Puri, India’s greatest private eye, as he finds occasion to remark several times in these pages, is on the case with his redoubtable team: Doorstop, Facecream, Tubelight, and Grunt. With such an ensemble cast, what could go wrong? There is a lot of trip and some arrival, too. The trip includes a selection of Indian cuisine became Puri is always hungry, and always eating. The back-matter of the book includes several recipes and a glossary of Indian terms, many of them are food.

In addition to Puri’s team of operatives there is his arch rival Hari Kumar and Mummy, Puri’s inquisitive. intrepid, and tenacious mother-in-law. And then there are the Love Commandos.
When Romeo met Juliet neither set of parents was happy and between the loving couple placed many barriers, yes? We all know how that story came to a sad end. They needed the Love Commandos to extract them from their parental restraints and spirit them away to a new life together. In an India with arranged marriages there are many Romeos and Juliets and the Love Commandos fill a market niche by offering elopement services for just such couples.
Puri is a traditionalist in every way including arranged marriage which has worked out fine for him. But his number one operative, Facecream, it turns out, moonlights as a Love Commando. Disapprove though he might, she has always been a loyal and adept agent and he can only return her loyalty by assisting in one of her commando operations when it turns bad.
From Dehli to Lucknow with a side trip to Agra, the adventure unfolds, while Puri eats his way through some of the regional cuisines of India but one step ahead of his rival Hari Kumar, who for reasons to be revealed later, seems to be working the same case. Corrupt politicians, unscrupulous Swedish medical researchers, retired Gurkhas hired out as muscle, an unholy holy man, some miserable Dalits (Untouchables) are among the parade of characters.
Tarquin Hall
The touch is light and the book is replete with slices of India but the plot is deadly serious.
I have read two earlier titles in this series with equal amusement and enlightenment.