mystery

The Late Show by Michael Connelly – Book Review

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The Late Show by Michael Connelly – Book Cover

Reneé Ballard – The Appointed Successor of Harry Bosch

Good old Harry Bosch, our favorite detective (see The Concrete Blonde), and arguably the lead of the best crime series I’ve ever read, has retired. He’s gotten old, poor guy. Reneé Ballard, the protagonist of The Late Show, seems to be Connelly’s chosen successor for the Hollywood Division.

A quick Google search reveals that in the next Ballard story, the two crimefighters will team up. I don’t know, maybe Bosch, who has always had a soft spot for women, takes Ballard under his wing, or something like that—after all, he’s well into grandpa age now. But let’s leave that as a surprise. (Ah, I’m sure he’ll charm her.)

But fortunately, we won’t be left feeling Bosch’s absence for too long, because Ballard’s approach, dedication, and outsider status remind us a lot of Bosch. Plus, Ballard is pretty sexy too. (Sure, Bosch is sexy too, but just a bit less so.)

We overlook Ballard’s flaws just as we did Bosch’s, or rather, we overlook the author’s obsession with the same basic setup that he couldn’t quite let go of in The Late Show either: the lone wolf who follows their own path, constantly clashing with at least five superiors, with both sides making life difficult for each other at every opportunity.

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Tripwire by Lee Child – Book Review

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Tripwire by Lee Child – Book Cover

Major Reacher in Top Form!

Attention Reacher fans! This installment of the series stands out in two key ways from the major’s usual (though hardly ordinary) adventures.

First: Our protagonist is in the best shape of his life in Tripwire. He’s packing in 10,000 calories a day and has gained a whopping 20 kilos of muscle. (He’s digging like a machine, after all.) So, woe to any villains who cross his path! Except, of course, if nature calls while he’s dealing with one. Along with all those calories, he’s downing a full ten liters of mineral water every day. (By the 23rd book in the series, Past Tense, there’s still no sign of overworked kidneys, so we can assume the major kicked this harmful habit.)

But does it bother me one bit if he might have a few, let’s say, accidents now and then? Not in the slightest! I’ve made it clear before that Major Reacher is my ultimate role model (see: Die Trying).

Major Reacher in Love!

Second: Our favourite detective is in love! And this isn’t some fleeting infatuation that anyone might experience over a pretty face or a shapely leg. It’s a long-standing emotion reawakened. It’s certainly unusual to see the major, who’s used to women falling at his feet, intoxicated by his rugged charm (which, let’s face it, is totally understandable), showing such vulnerability.

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An Evil Mind by Chris Carter – Book Review

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An Evil Mind by Chris Carter – Book Cover

Are All Chris Carter Books the Same?

I decided that An Evil Mind would be the last Chris Carter book I read; never again in my life. I only read this one so I could say goodbye to the series with a good, scathing review. But why? BUT WHY!?

Well, my friend, because every Robert Hunter story is exactly the same.

Victims drop like flies. Each book features increasingly horrific massacres. The detectives analyze, brainstorm, but they never get anywhere.

And in the end, it always turns out that some entirely average criminal has been weaving these elaborate, time-consuming, and ridiculously complicated plans. And it’s always disappointing when the Hunter books reveal that the GREAT MANIPULATOR is nothing more than, say, an ordinary hater, the ex-girlfriend or maybe poor old Aunt Maggie from next door.

Moreover, if Detective Robert Hunter happens to meet a hot woman who’s a perfect match for him, she’s likely to get killed off before Hunter even has a chance to sweep her off her feet.

But then, dammit, it turns out that the sixth installment in the series, An Evil Mind, is an entirely different story!

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Locke & Key: Master Edition, Volume Two by Joe Hill – Gabriel Rodriguez – Comic Book Review

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Overflowing Imagination and Gothic Horror

If, like the author of these lines, you’ve never been a big comic book fan, Joe Hill & Gabriel Rodriguez’s volume is the best way to change your attitude. Don’t worry, there’s no superhero nonsense here; despite the everyday protagonists, the main feature of the illustrated pages of Locke & Key is the overflowing imagination – where teenagers’ struggles to fit in and their romantic troubles are elegantly accompanied by thriller, gothic horror, and surrealism.

Although at the beginning you might feel like you’ve signed up for a teenage story (after all, the main characters are teenagers), and the scheming villain who almost laid all his cards on the table in the previous part isn’t nearly as frightening, you’ll soon be shaken out of your complacency by the captivating “shadow” section. Yes, Zack Wells still has plenty of tricks up his sleeve.

Locke & Key is an Exceptional Experience

Locke & Key: Master Edition, Volume Two by Joe Hill - Gabriel Rodriguez grapic novel cover

And although there are repetitions in the second part of Locke & Key (if someone comes up with some information, you can bet it’ll be dealt with soon), thus reducing the excitement factor a bit, the absurd ideas, the variety of the Locke family’s keys, and the astonishing twists guarantee an above-average experience.

Especially if the illustration switches to “Tintin” style for a few pages. Okay, maybe not. Besides making you wonder what the point of that is, it probably doesn’t have much point. Unlike the comic book cover within the comic, which doesn’t hesitate to punish with a brutal spoiler!

Brutally Exciting – Joe Hill Shocks You by the End

Did I say something about the excitement factor? Oh yes, the second part of Locke & Key becomes much more thrilling by the end. Can you imagine that? Getting excited over a comic book? Absolutely, when the investigation kicks in, the pieces start to come together, and our heroes race against time – with a cunning bastard as their opponent. And it ends with a nice little cliffhanger in your face. But one that really makes you think: there is no justice in this world.

Rating: 8.1/10

Locke & Key: Master Edition, Volume Two by Joe Hill – Gabriel Rodriguez
312 pages, Hardcover
Published in 2016 by IDW Publishing

(Master Edition, Volume Two collects Locke & Key: Crown of Shadows (#1-6), Locke & Key: Keys to the Kingdom (#1-6))
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Review of the previous volume:
Locke & Key: Master Edition, Volume One

Thin Air by Richard Morgan – Book Review

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Thin Air by Richard Morgan – Book Cover

Genetically Modified Noir on Mars

In 2008, Richard Morgan wrote a book about a genetically modified Martian super-soldier who wins a lottery ticket back to Earth and comes home to do some sleuthing. Ten years later, he wrote another one titled Thin Air, where the protagonist is again a genetically modified super-soldier, but this time he’s investigating the disappearance of the Martian lottery winner – on Mars, several hundred years later.

I’d bet on it, that Morgan captures many of us with his macho protagonist because it’s truly heartwarming to see such a competent, skilled individual at the center of the action, someone who occasionally rips apart those who get in his way during his investigations. But the focus isn’t on the ripping apart, of course – despite a strong emphasis on action, Thin Air is ultimately a crime novel, specifically in the noir sub-genre.

Washed-up protagonist? Check.
Femme fatale? Check.
Nefarious conspiracy in the background? Check.

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One Shot by Lee Child – Book Review

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One Shot by Lee Child – Book Cover

My role model (see Die Trying), Major Jack Reacher, makes his first appearance in One Shot on page 42. How is that possible? I have no idea. Moreover, I thought I had already read this book before. But no, I missed this volume, and that’s great news because in this early installment, the Major is at his best. And of course, so is Lee Child. And naturally, this is the book that was adapted into the cool movie Jack Reacher (IMDb: Jack Reacher) where Tom Cruise does everything to RISE to the role.)

Child’s book is thrilling from the first page.

How can you tell? Well, despite our beloved hero’s late appearance, you find Lee Child’s story unputdownably exciting from the very first page.

Then Reacher barges in and once again sticks his nose into something he shouldn’t. And once again, he’s nosy, impertinent, and unshakeable… And once again, it turns out that things that seem entirely obvious aren’t so obvious after all.

How does Jack Reacher do it? Using the good old Sherlock Holmes method. Things that would mean nothing to you, spark something different in his mind. Things you would immediately declare as black, he flips around and proves to be white.

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The Last Mile by David Baldacci – Book Review

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The Last Mile by David Baldacci - Book Cover

Amos Decker Used to Punch Above His Weight

I bet you thought Memory Man, the first book in the Amos Decker series, was pretty great. Sure, beneath the surface it was just another run-of-the-mill crime novel—but it still stood out as something oddly gripping and refreshingly original, thanks to its 286-pound, grumpy, and socially awkward main character who remembers literally everything that has ever happened to him, down to the exact second. In The Last Mile, this oddball Amos Decker returns—a man who, on top of everything, had to avenge the murder of his own family. Now that was one hell of a start.

Especially if, like me, you once swore off David Baldacci for good, convinced he was a truly awful writer. And yet, Memory Man—I’ve got to admit—turned out to be weirdly irresistible.

Long story short: Amos caught the bastard who murdered his family—that nasty little piece of garbage—and ended up joining the FBI as an outside consultant. Just like Patrick Jane in the final season of The Mentalist.

Hey—Decker’s Starting to Lose His Mind!

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Die Trying by Lee Child – Book Review

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Die Trying by Lee Child - Book cover

Since hardly anyone reads this blog anyway, I think I can safely admit—without becoming a public laughingstock—that Major Jack Reacher is one of my all-time role models! Yep, I said it. Big words, I know. But anyone who reads the thriller Die Trying will definitely find themselves admiring Lee Child’s ex-military cop hero from that point on.

Jack Reacher. Role Model. Period.

My role model, Major Jack Reacher, in the second installment of Lee Child’s excellent series (which I picked up again after some 20 years and accidentally reread) finds himself in the back of a van—alongside a very attractive FBI agent. She’s been kidnapped. My role model, Major Jack Reacher, just so happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and ends up in the van by accident. The hopelessly dumb kidnappers in Die Trying don’t just toss him out of the van—they drag him with them. These poor fools have no idea what kind of trouble they’ve just signed up for.

Because my role model, Major Jack Reacher, is strong, smart, highly trained, cunning, and more Sherlock than Sherlock Holmes himself (see: The Hound of the Baskervilles). (Just watch how he analyzes the girl at the beginning.) His sense of justice is off the charts. He’s also the best sniper around. (You can bet a few people are gonna take a bullet to the head.)

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The King’s Gambit by John Maddox Roberts – Book Review

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The King's Gambit by John Maddox Roberts – Book cover

In the opening volume of what is now a historical crime series spanning more than ten books, Decius, a low-ranking official at the very bottom of the Roman hierarchy, begins investigating the murder of a freed slave. The time: 70 BC, smack in the middle of the Roman Republic’s period of crisis. And guess who Decius runs into right in the very first chapter of The King’s Gambit? Bingo, you got it: the equally green and freshly ambitious Gaius Julius Caesar. Later on, of course, more famous faces from the era show up—everyone from Pompey the Great and Cicero to the scoundrel Publius Clodius Pulcher.

More of a Historical Novel than a Whodunit

Now, technically speaking, The King’s Gambit is a crime novel—it checks off a bunch of the genre’s usual boxes (forensic expert, informant, tough-guy sidekick)—but you still kind of feel like you’re reading historical fiction. The investigation itself is pretty thin, not particularly thrilling or original (there are moments when John Maddox Roberts rather clumsily uses well-known historical facts just to nudge the plot forward—hello, pirates), and most of the time it gets drowned out by long digressions into the political and historical dynamics of the day. Not least because young Decius becomes OBSESSED with the idea that he’s stumbled right into the middle of an anti-state conspiracy. And that everyone is out to get him. Um… what?!

A Conspiracy? Oh, Please.

That grand conspiracy claim eventually fizzles out and turns into nothing more than a plain old political scheme. Typical. But Decius doesn’t let go—he keeps digging into the case. No one understands why he’s MAKING SUCH A FUSS over a murdered slave. No one. Not even you.

The first book in John Maddox Roberts’s SPQR series honestly feels more like the pilot episode of a detective TV show. It’s a bit clunky, a little unsteady, but maybe not terrible—and you can’t help but hope the series eventually finds its stride.

It Feels Like You’re Actually in Rome

What definitely works in The King’s Gambit’s favor, though, is its setting, which feels completely authentic. For instance, I gave up on the similarly themed Gordianus series precisely because it lacked that feeling. It didn’t help that I had just finished reading Colleen McCullough’s epic Masters of Rome series, which made Gordianus fall flat by comparison.

Luckily, The King’s Gambit doesn’t suffer the same fate. In fact, quite the opposite. Almost every other paragraph drops in some piece of information so naturally woven into the text that it helps you better understand the political and civic backdrop of the time—or just makes you feel like you’re right there, tagging along with eager-beaver Decius through the cramped, stone-paved alleyways of ancient Rome.

Rating: 6.9/10

The King’s Gambit (SPQR #1) by John Maddox Roberts
274 pages, Paperback
Published in 1990 by Minotaur Books
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The Fort by Adrian Goldsworthy

Gods of War by James Lovegrove – Book Review

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Gods of War by James Lovegrove - Book cover

A Lukewarm Investigation Begins

In Gods of War, James Lovegrove’s crime novel, Sherlock Holmes is now in his sixties. No surprise, then, that his joints creak and crack like an old staircase. And chubby Dr. Watson? Let’s be honest—he’s not exactly in top shape anymore either. Lucky for them, they barely need to do anything in this story.

The great detective, get this, can’t even be bothered to pull off the biggest cliché in every Holmes story—using his signature method to deduce, without breaking a sweat, what extraordinary adventures his long-lost buddy had on his train ride—because, supposedly, he’s “too excited about the new case.” Which, by the way, turns out to be nothing more than a pathetic little burglary.

(Feels a bit cheap, doesn’t it? I mean, how hard would it have been for Lovegrove to throw in that Watson’s seatmate across the aisle was an elderly, half-limping horse trader from Devonshire on his way to buy feed for his prize stallion, Oxhead—while to his right sat a spinster in a pheasant-feathered hat, off to visit her sister, who suffers from trichotillomania, casually reading Northanger Abbey, fourth edition.

Cost him nothing.)

Laurel and Hardy Back on the Case!

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