The Write Kind of Crime

I’d never heard of the Arthur Ellis Awards for best crime and mystery writing in Canada until recently. The annual awards given out by the Crime Writers of Canada — on May 31 this year – have as their icon a whimsically-designed hanging man statue. Cute, no? The CWC awards ‘Arthurs’ for best crime short story, crime nonfiction, juvenile crime book, French crime book, unpublished book and best first crime novel published in the previous year. For whodunit fans of all ages, what a great way to get a leg up on our got-to-read-soon list! Now I’m all into this awards scene because the engrossing mystery I’m reading now is up for Best Crime Novel. Go Peter Robinson!

Robinson, noted for his Inspector Banks mystery series, is from Yorkshire, England but now lives in Ontario. With this new book, Before the Poison, Robinson spins a tale of a British-born film composer, Chris Lowndes, in retreat from a successful life in Hollywood. Having recently lost his beloved wife to cancer, Chris buys an old estate house in the Yorkshire Dales, the former home of a woman hanged for murder. He wonders what really happened in his house, and whether the beautiful ‘murderess’ actually committed the crime of poisoning her cold fish of a husband. He discovers a lot more than he bargained for…

The other books on the 2012 Best Crime Novel shortlist are:

A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny

Having won the Arthur Ellis best crime novel award last year with Bury Your Dead, Louise Penny makes her return to the limelight with A Trick of the Light, her seventh novel featuring the detective magic of Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. “Like P.D. James, Penny shows how the tight structure of the classical mystery story can accommodate a wealth of deeply felt emotions and interpersonal drama.” (Booklist)

I Am Half-Sick of Shadows by Alan Bradley

Set in a cosy British village at Christmas, Bradley in this novel continues his detective-in-training Flavia de Luce stories which reflect his love of the singular (I love that word) Sherlock Holmes. “We find in Flavia an incorrigible and wholly lovable detective; from her chemical experiments in her sanctum sanctorum to her outrage at the idiocy of the adult world, she is unequaled.” (Library Journal)

I’ll See you in My Dreams by William Deverell

Another in Deverell’s series of Arthur Beauchamp comic mystery stories, this one “finds the outwardly crusty, poetry-loving, wily old lawyer compelled, by new developments, to look back at his first — and most disastrous — murder trial… which went horribly wrong. Now, nearly 50 years later, he is opening old wounds but also facing a chance for redemption and reconciliation.”

The Guilty Plea by Robert Rotenberg

Famous American criminal lawyer F. Lee Bailey said: ”A few lawyers are really expert in managing cases — especially criminal cases — in the courtroom. A small percentage of these are very good at making trials come alive. Robert Rotenberg is one of the few, along with Scott Turow, David, Baldacci, John Lescroat. His Guilty Plea is a crackling good read, plan to keep turning pages late into the night!”

Take a look at the other shortlists on the Crime Writers website, and come back in June to find out who won. Now, back to my book!

Lyle

Two kinds of detective stories

I really can’t accept that it’s September already, so instead of talking about new books for the fall, or good reads for chilly nights, I thought I’d tell you about a couple of books I really enjoyed this summer.

The GCPD in action.

On the recommendation of a friend, I picked up the DC comics series Gotham Central by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka.  The original run has been reprinted in a number of trade paperbacks, and WPL has all of them. This series is unique in that it follows not one main character, but an ensemble cast, over its 40 issue run.

Gotham Central focuses on the police department of Gotham City, which just happens to be Batman’s city. It tells the stories of the men and women who work in the Major Crimes Unit (MCU) of the department. What I like is that it doesn’t make the cops out to be one-dimensional stooges who need rescuing and assistance from the superhero in every issue, as in many superhero comics. Rather, the detectives try to solve cases, big and small, on their own and only turn the Bat-signal on as a last resort. The police actually resent the idea of Batman and often find him to be a distraction.

Batman and many familiar villains (Mr. Freeze, Joker, Two Face, etc) appear throughout the series, but often only in supporting roles. The true stars and heroes of this series are the police who follow up on mundane leads, sit on stakeouts, and navigate departmental politics.

I stuck with the detective theme and really enjoyed P.D. James’ Unnatural Causes.

This is the third book in which Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard appears. Dalgliesh has just completed a gruesome and emotionally draining case in London, and is looking forward to a peaceful holiday on the Suffolk coast at his aunt’s cottage. But it isn’t long until his holiday is interrupted by the news that a body has washed ashore in a small boat  — with both hands cut off. It turns out to be the body of a local mystery writer and soon we’re introduced to many of the eccentric residents of this usually sleepy village, most of whom are suspects. While Dalgliesh is not officially a part of the investigation, news spreads that Scotland Yard’s finest is in the vicinity and he is drawn in to help solve the case.

While some have criticized James for being too wordy, I personally love to get lost in her poetic prose. I’ll leave you with the following passage, when Dalgliesh first arrives at the coast:

At the crest of the track Dalgliesh stopped the car to watch and to listen. Autumn had never been his favourite season, but in the moment which followed the stopping of the engine he wouldn’t have changed this mellow peace for all the keener sensitivities of spring. The heather was beginning to fade now but the second flowering of the gorse was as thick and golden as in the first richness of May. Beyond it lay the sea, streaked with purple, azure and brown, and to the south the mist-hung marshes of the bird reserve added their gentler greens and blues. The air smelt of heather and wood-smoke, the inevitable and evocative smells of autumn.

Trevor

On your mark… get set… GO!

I hope most of you are enjoying the summer. I certainly am. The sun is shining most days, the mosquitoes aren’t that bad (yet), flowers are blooming everywhere, and the smell of barbeque permeates the evening air. What a great time! I doubt many of you are thinking ahead to the fall, when the leaves will turn golden or brown or red, start to fall, signalling the colder weather to come. Some of us have to. It’s my job; I order the library’s fiction books four to six months in the future. While you probably don’t want to think about raking leaves, harvesting our gardens, and pulling out the warmer coats and gloves, at least there’s comfort to be found in the great titles coming out this fall. Have you got your library cards ready? It’s time to start placing some holds. On your mark, get set, go!

The usual suspects will be releasing titles this fall, including James Patterson, who along with various co-authors, has four new titles this fall – Guilty Wives; Private: #1 Suspect; Kill Alex Cross; and, Christmas Wedding. How does he do it? I swear he must live at his keyboard! Clive Cussler has also been a busy bee, giving us two new titles: Devil’s Gate and The Race. Sue Grafton continues her Kinsey Millhone alphabet mysteries with V is for Vengeance. Other noteworthy bestsellers include: Only Time Will Tell by Jeffrey Archer, Zero Day by David Baldacci, Accident by Linwood Barclay, Lethal by Sandra Brown, Death of Kings by Bernard Cornwell, The Dovekeepers by Alice Hoffman, Bonnie by Iris Johansen, 1225 Christmas Tree Lane by Debbie Macomber,  A Trick of the Light by Louise Penny, Forgotten Affairs of Youth by Alexander McCall Smith, and 11/22/63 by Stephen King. I could go on and on, but I don’t think our blog editors would appreciate that!

There are a number of titles I’m quite anxious to read myself. Some of them will undoubtedly be bestsellers, while others will be quietly enjoyed by a smaller audience. Either way, I think this list has a little something for everyone:

Guillermo Del Toro’s Night Eternal is the third and final book in his Strain trilogy about a vampire invasion, following The Fall. Nuclear Winter blankets the land, darkening the Earth for 23 hours a day. Vampires control the planet; the defeated humans have been interred in vast camps and are harvested for the sustenance of the Master Race. But not all have been contained. A ragtag network of humans roams free, continuing the desperate resistance. As the final battle dawns, the group’s only hope is the intervention of an unexpected race of beings – avenging “angels.”

Out of Oz, by Gregory Macguire, concludes the extraordinary series The Wicked Years, following Lion Among Men. The marvellous land of Oz is knotted with social unrest – the Emerald Cityis mounting an invasion of Munchkinland, Glinda is under house arrest, and the Cowardly Lion is on the run from the law. And here comes Dorothy. Amid all this chaos, Elphaba’s tiny green baby born at the close of Son of a Witch has come of age. Now, Rain will take up her broom in an Oz wracked by war. 

Ami McKay’s Virgin Cure has been much anticipated, and it won’t disappoint. Set in Victorian New York in the year 1871, as a crowded, sweltering summer of riots and poverty comes to a close, 12-year-old Moth’s journey is just beginning. Sold away by her mother, Moth becomes a pickpocket on the streets of the Lower East Sideand becomes involved in a world of danger and violence. The Virgin Cure is a tale of secrets and truths, of dark myths and magic of the heart – of one woman’s fight to be heard, and one girl’s desire to be loved. 

A Bitter Truth, by Charles Todd, is the third novel in the Bess Crawford series, following An Impartial Witness. When battlefield nurse Bess returns from Francefor a well-earned Christmas leave, she finds a bruised and shivering woman huddled in the doorway of her London flat. The woman reveals that she has fled her abusive husband – an officer on leave. When Bess accompanies the woman back to her small village, she gets caught in the centre of the hunt for a killer when a wounded soldier is murdered in the woman’s home. 

Arnaldur Indridason’s Outrage is sure to be a hit. In a flat near Reykjavikcity centre, a young man lies dead in a pool of blood although there are no signs of a break-in or any struggle. A woman’s purple shawl, found under the bed, gives off a strong and unusual aroma. A vial of narcotics found in the victim’s pocket among other clues soon lead Erlendur’s colleagues down a trail of hidden violence and psychological brutality, and of wrongs that will never be fully righted. 

Domestic Violets, by Michael Norman, is a darkly comic family drama about love, loss, and ambition. Tom Violet has failed, once again, to have sex with his wife. And that’s not the worst of it. There’s the 9-5 office job that’s slowly crushing his spirit, his lovelorn stepfather who’s in constant need of counsel, and the strange realization that his boozy stepmother is sort of stalking him. Then there’s the inappropriate crush he has on a 23-year-old colleague. Too young to have these kinds of problems, but too old to see anyway out, Tom finds himself mired in hopeless inaction. 

Lee Bermejo’s Batman: Noel, inspired by Charles Dickens’ immortal classic A Christmas Carol, features different interpretations of The Dark Knight, along with his enemies and allies, in different eras. Along the way, Batman must come to terms with his past, present and future as he battles villains from the campy 1960s to dark and brooding menaces of today, while exploring what it means to be the hero that he is. Members of Batman’s supporting cast enact roles analogous to those from A Christmas Carol, with Robin, Catwoman, Superman, The Joker and more playing roles that will be familiar to anyone who knows Dickens’ original holiday tale. 

Finally, Terry Pratchett returns to his wildly popular Discworld in Snuff, featuring my favourite character, Sam Vimes. According to the writer of the bestselling crime novel ever to have been published in the city of Ankh-Morpork, it is a truth universally known that a policeman taking a holiday would barely have time to open his suitcase before he finds his first corpse. Commander Sam Vimes of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch is on holiday in the pleasant and innocent countryside, but not for him a mere body in the wardrobe – there are many, many bodies and an ancient crime more terrible than murder. He is out of his jurisdiction, out of his depth, and out of his mind, but never out of guile. Where there is a crime there must be a finding, there must be a chase and there must be a punishment.

- Barbara

Books of Summer

It’s July, but Winnipeg is still in the grip of hockey fever following the announcement that a new NHL team called the Jets will be playing here – a testament to the power these supposedly trivial pursuits can wield. Even those of us who don’t play them can be drawn in by their emotion on the field or on the page.

If you’d like to brush up on your hockey history, The Rebel League by Ed Willes (a former sportswriter for the Winnipeg Sun) is an anecdotal chronicle of the World Hockey Association where the Jets started out. It’s all here: Bobby Hull’s million-dollar contract, colourful hockey franchises, lawsuits, and innovations which would have a widespread effect on pro hockey, like the 18-year-old draft and the talent hunt for European players .

If you’ve ever doubted that sports can have a profound impact on society, I Had a Hammer proves otherwise. Much more than just a collection of baseball memories, this is Hank Aaron’s first-hand account of the prejudice he and his contemporaries who followed Jackie Robinson into major league baseball faced – including death threats when Aaron broke Babe Ruth’s home run record.

Nick Hornby’s memoir Fever Pitch is the definitive portrayal of the otherwise normal guy with a full-blown sports obsession, in this case the English soccer team Arsenal. You’ll remember that the word “fan” is short for fanatic as Hornby asks himself “the only true question there is: Which comes first, Football or Life?”

Team dynamics play a huge role in sports. In These Girls, Hope Is a Muscle by Madeleine Blais follows one season in the lives of a high school girls’ basketball team, from tryouts to the state championship. Her in-depth portraits of the players provide insight into how important athletic skill and competition can be for young women.

Non-fiction is not the only choice for sports fans, either. Baseball may have the edge on literary fiction with titles such as Shoeless Joe and The Natural, but Paul Quarrington’s King Leary has a claim to the title of Great Canadian Hockey Novel.

And genre fiction with a sports backdrop is always popular. It Had to Be You and other books in the best-selling Chicago Stars series by Suzan Elizabeth Phillips follow the romantic entanglements of professional football players. Harlan Coben’s engaging Myron Bolitar mystery series (starting with Deal Breaker) features a former basketball player, now star sports agent. In fact, there’s a mystery series for every sport from boxing to horse racing to golf.

Sports books are a sure thing for readers. If you don’t see a title that interests you here, check with the rabid book fans at your local library!

Danielle

That Thrilling Millennium Trilogy

How about that Millennium thriller trilogy? These three Swedish page-turners – The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest — not only packed a punch for suspense-hungry readers, but got us interested in author Steig Larsson’s backstory (How similar was his too-short life to co-protagonist Mikael Blomkvist anyways?). They also created a firestorm of interest in three subtitled movies, which is no small feat. I thought Naomi Rapace was brilliant in her understated portrayal of the noir-ish, anti-social yet ever resourceful Lisbeth Salander. Now we have a Hollywood movie starring Daniel Craig, as the fearless,straight-shooter Mikael, and little known actress Rooney Mora as the mysterious Lisbeth to look forward to. (Let’s hope they get it right!) Plus there’s a chance of a fourth novel, possibly finished, after the family legal battles are settled, by Larsson’s common law partner and writing collaborator Eva Gabrielsson.

I read the trilogy just before they became hugely popular; I didn’t know my interests had become so mainstream! Is this what being forty-something does to one’s sensibilities? But my question still remains: why is the Millennium Trilogy so popular? I haven’t got ‘the’ answer yet. Perhaps every reader or viewer has their own reasons.

Is it because we find that our idealized Sweden of our imaginations is as corruptible as our own culture in reality? Is it because the books were written with such vivid prose? At one level this seems unlikely given a writing style that sometimes tends towards the repetitive and the obscure. (Mikael, I glad to know you like a cup of java, but do I need to know you made a fresh pot every day?)

For whatever it lacks in writing style, the plotting is impeccable. Tightly woven, the action is frenetic and hypnotic, or building up to it. There’s also the unlikely pairing of Lisbeth and Mikael as characters, forever on the run, yet always on the trail of justice amidst the haunting forces of authoritarianism. It’s a David and Goliath tale, truth be told.

The series’ icon of course is Lisbeth. A 90-pound, tattooed, Goth-ish damaged young soul of a computer hacker with a photographic memory, Lisbeth is disturbed — on the verge of being psychopathic — yet she’s still somehow likeable! No easy feat for an author. The tales play well as political thrillers and whodunit mysteries (at least Dragon Tattoo), yet there’s enough comedy to make the stories breath with a sense of real humanity. The chapter of Lisbeth taking down two hulky yet unsuspecting gang members on motorcycle in the second book is hilarious.

Why did you enjoy the Millennium Trilogy?

- Lyle @ WPL