THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2009 is a pretty solid anthology of short stories, only some of which are true “mystery stories.” The problem with this volume, for readers who actually expect a book with the term “mystery stories” in the title to be comprised entirely of such, is that fewer than half of its 20 tales originally saw print in publications devoted to the crime genre. Few of us in the mood for a mystery are going to pick up THE NEW YORKER or THE VIRGINIA QUARTERLY REVIEW.
And when you figure in that guest editor Jeffery Deaver is one of the trickiest crime writers in the short form at work today — if you’ve never read his short stories, or those of Peter Lovesey, you should — this volume becomes even weaker. (Note: I know that Lovesey is a Brit and so could not be included in a book of American mystery stories. I’ve met the man, heard him speak. Very British.)
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Bob Morris and his series star, Zack Chasteen, are back in their fifth saltwater-flavored mystery, BAJA FLORIDA. While it breaks no new ground for either Morris or his main character, it is surprisingly as engaging and satisfying as anything you are likely to read this year.
Zack, the former NFL player and short-term ex-con, is slowly getting used to fatherhood with his baby daughter on the palm-tree farm he shares with his magazine-publisher wife, Barbara, when he is paid a visit from an old friend, Mickey Ryser. Once a successful, freewheeling businessman, Ryser is now dying of cancer, and wants Zack to do him a huge favor.
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I think any writer who desires to create a series character who will be defined and remembered by his quirks should read the first 16 pages of Ian Sansom’s THE BAD BOOK AFFAIR. That’s all it takes for the author to show off the inimitable Israel Armstrong, “Tumdrum’s and possibly Ireland’s only English Jewish vegetarian mobile librarian.”
We get a sense of Armstrong’s romanticism, his self-pity, his odd eating habits, his immersion in books and film, his attachment to friends, his fear of his mother, and lots more, and again, in less than 20 pages. Well done. This is the fourth mystery featuring Armstrong, continuing his adventures running the mobile library — or what Americans would call a bookmobile — at the very tip of Northern Ireland.
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Robert Goddard writes the kind of mysteries and thrillers you can get lost in. Seriously! His novels are often so full of plot twists, interconnected events and characters that you literally risk getting lost. But just as often, you’ll find it worth the effort for the rewards offered.
LONG TIME COMING is a perfect case in point. It jumps back and forth across a span of three decades, with secondary characters showing up in almost every chapter. But once taken in, you’ll find, almost to your amazement, that it is increasingly difficult to stop reading until you learn what happens next.
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It is a joy to read the first book in a mystery series that you hope continues through many more titles. This is what I thought when finishing Elly Griffiths’ THE CROSSING PLACES, the debut of series protagonist Dr. Ruth Galloway, a forensic archaeologist who teaches at the fictional University of North Norfolk. Of course, archaeology and detective work go hand in hand, so it’s a little surprising we don’t see more of them in modern mystery fiction.
In this tale, Galloway is called to the desolate site of the Saltmarsh, where some human bones have been uncovered. It turns out that these bones, while human, belong to the long-ago past of the Iron Age and represent a significant archaeological find. The disappointment that is shown by DCI Inspector Harry Nelson at this news prompts some discussion, and it turns out that he had hoped they were the body of a young girl who had been kidnapped a decade ago.
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