It's a good thing this novel is short enough for me to read in one long day. I couldn't put it down. I love Ken Bruen's Irish books with detective Jack Taylor, but this one, set in Galway, is simply the best yet.
Taylor is convinced that everything he touches dies, and that could be true. At this point, his surrogate son, Cody, is lying in a hospital in a coma that may be permanent. There is nothing Taylor can do for Cody except wait.
Waiting, of course, is not something Jack Taylor does well. When his former partner, Ridge, asks for help on a murder case, he figures it will at least keep him occupied. And the murder is strange, a boy who's been crucified.
Back in Galway, Taylor is faced with his past, too much of it. All the places he went, the people he lost, the roads he didn't take. But the killer strikes again, burning a woman alive. Ridge and Jack have to find this one soon.
As always, Bruen doesn't use a single extraneous word. His style is as clear and crisp as his mood is dark and clouded. The end of this one comes with a snap that left me wanting more, lots more.
THE GIRL OF HIS DREAMS
By Donna Leon, Atlantic Monthly, 288 pages, $26.50
Most series get flabby as they age. That's not the case for the Donna Leon novels featuring Commissario Guido Brunetti. The Girl of His Dreams, the 17th Brunetti book, is the tightest story yet. Coming on top of two brilliant novels, it is definitely one of Leon's best.
This story opens with the funeral of Brunetti's mother. It is a time for quiet remembrance and formal rituals. Leon shines in these passages, which are always set-ups for the case to come.
At first we don't have a murder. A priest, a family friend, comes for assistance. A new protestant group in Venice is drawing congregants. The priest, an African missionary, is convinced they are out to do harm. Brunetti, never a true believer, thinks they may be. So he and his wife Paola, along with Inspector Vianello and his wife, go undercover.
This interesting but unfruitful investigation disappears when a murder occurs. And no ordinary murder. The victim is a child, exquisite, blonde, made for a loving family to cherish. The child is the daughter of Gypsies, camped on the mainland of Venice, distrustful of all outsiders and especially the police. Brunetti can make no headway with them. The dead child begins to haunt him and the trail takes him into yet another netherworld of death.
Leon's best novels always have a social and political subtext, and The Girl of His Dreams is a both a superb mystery and an indictment of the fears that hide beneath the wealth of the new, unified Europe. This is Leon's territory and she works it in ways that are always sad and difficult to forget.
CARELESS IN RED
By Elizabeth George, HarperCollins, 640 pages, $29.95
Elizabeth George's previous novel, What Came Before He Shot Her, was a brilliant and provocative work with a truly shocking ending. Careless in Red, a sequel, is a letdown. It's far too long, overloaded with subplots and finicky with little plaints about the British class system. But George's hordes of fans will love it because Detective Superintendent Thomas Lynley is back.
The novel begins with a body on the Cornish coast. The corpse is a young male who had been climbing a stony sea cliff. The vagrant who comes across the body finds his way to a lonely farmhouse, breaks in and plans to telephone the police. But there is no phone, and he's discovered by the owner.
That opening takes us to the local village, where Detective Inspector Bea Hannaford runs a small shop with a couple of constables. At first, the death appears to be a tragic accident. The victim, Santo Kerne, is local, son of a family trying to revive a long-closed beach hotel. The draw is the summer surfing season, and the Kernes have invested all they have in the venture. Santo, a handsome ladies' man, might have been a draw for single women, but he wasn't much on the planning and working side of the business.
When evidence proves Santo's death was no accident, Hannaford seeks help with the investigation. Her search includes the smelly vagrant who found the body, who turns out to be DS Thomas Lynley, escaped to the coast to hike while trying to forget the senseless shooting death of his wife. Eventually, Lynley calls in his old partner, Barbara Havers.
There are half a dozen subplots swimming around in this ocean of prose, and while I soldiered through the one about miracles, I found I could skip whole pages of surfing lore (George was obviously mesmerized by her research) and the charms of Cornish pasties. As always, George overdoes the blather about the nobs and plebs, and overuses "bloke" in every conversation. A cuppa and a bloke do not an Englishman make. All that said, this is typical Elizabeth George, and it may only seem weak because it's a follow-up to the best book she's ever written.
THE DEMON OF DAKAR
By Kjell Eriksson, translated by Ebba Segerberg, St. Martin's,
448 pages, $28.95
This is the third Ann Lindell novel by Kjell Eriksson to be translated for the North American market, and after the brilliance of The Princess of Burundi and The Cruel Stars of the Night, it's hard to see how the author could do any better, but this novel is riveting.
It begins in a country in the Caribbean. A man named Manuel learns that his brother is in prison. He determines instantly that he will go his aid in a foreign country where he knows no one.
The story then slips over to the history of a large and lively chef at upscale restaurants in Uppsala, Sweden, a mythic man named Slobodan. He has worked in many kitchens, owned and lost several restaurants, left Uppsala, and returned. His first successful venture was Alhambra, a place for ladies of means. His second was Dakar, devoted to the foods of West Africa, which was instantly popular.
Then one of the restaurant's partners is murdered, and Lindell is on the hunt. More people die, and it's clear that there is much about Dakar for her still to learn. Eriksson is a gifted storyteller and a great creator of character, and it all works in this terrific novel.
THE BLUE RELIGION
Edited by Michael Connelly, Little, Brown, 384 pages, $28.99
Fans of The Wire have to read this. Here are 19 great short stories by some of U.S. mystery writing's best, including a marvellous bit from T. Jefferson Parker - crime in a retirement home - and a short adventure by Connelly's Harry Bosch.
It's rare to find a collection that doesn't have at least one clunker in it, and since all the stories are about cops, this book could have gotten a bit sticky or sentimental. But there's 's none of that in this book. This is great storytelling at its peak.