Omar Yussef, the engaging protagonist and indefatigable amateur sleuth in two previous novels from Matt Beynon Rees, travels from Bethlehem to Nablus when the story begins in The Samaritan’s Secret.

Yussef is a teacher of history and a keen student of Palestinian culture, and life has generally been peaceful and pleasant for the 57-year-old family man, but he is about to get an extremely troublesome immersion into the social and political maelstrom that threatens Nablus – a singularly dirty and dangerous town from which ‘even the stones might get up and run away.’

As the friend and unofficial assistant of Lieutenant Sami Jaffari of the National Police, Yussef accompanies Jaffari on a routine investigation into the apparent theft of an ancient Torah from a Samaritan synagogue. Instead of larceny, though, Yussef and Jaffari find themselves investigating a grisly murder: that of the son of a Samaritan priest.

The dead man – with more than his share of secrets during his lifetime – seems to have had provocative financial, political, and personal involvements. The solution to his murder – more than a little complicated – will have Yussef following a trail that involves passions, violence, religion, money, corruption, and – as if you did not already suspect as much – more murder.

As an enthusiastically recommended murder mystery that has an intriguing plot, complex characterizations, compelling themes, and fascinating settings, The Samaritan’s Secret goes a step further in being an usually vivid and candid portrayal of what might be the most complicated, least understood, and most regularly vilified cultural and political environment in the world – the Palestinian Mideast.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

More from my “Killer Fiction” Review Archives

Jack Irish, the tough and complicated but somewhat flawed Australian lawyer (who seems to have given up practicing law), is now principally employed in Melbourne as a private investigator (of sorts) who specializes in collecting debts (from very reluctant deadbeats) and finding (or even occasionally inventing) witnesses for clients who need a little extra unorthodox help with their cases. And when he’s not employing some rather questionable ethics on difficult cases for his troubled clients—usually with unimpeachable results—Jack splits the remainder of his time at the horseracing track (with a small circle of friends eager to secure the “inside track” through rather creative ways for their wagering advantages) and at Taub’s Cabinetmaking (where he works as a somewhat belated and not completely dedicated apprentice for a cynical master craftsman).

One day, though, Jack—a widower who intentionally overloads his schedule so that he does not have to spend too much time dwelling upon his lonely existence—is retained to find a missing person, Gary Connors. Gary’s father, the elderly Des Connors has retained Jack and is eager to draft a will and put his legal and financial affairs in order, but there is the small matter of a considerable amount of money that Des’s son had fraudulently obtained from him. Now the elder Connors wants his money back, but the younger Connors, a man of questionable character and spotty past, is nowhere to be found. At first it seems to be a routine case, but when Jack begins making inquiries, he quickly runs into problems. Nearly everyone that Jack talks to seems deadly serious about privacy and secrecy, and as Jack soon discovers, Gary Connors was apparently involved in some sort of questionable business enterprise. Jack suspects that it was a complicated, corrupt, and hazardous business, and—as quite a few people are now warning Jack—it involved something about which Jack should simply stop making inquiries. In response to the threatening tone of the warnings, most people would simply walk away, but Jack, of course, just cannot leave it alone. After all, he is working for a client who deserves quality service. And what follows for Jack is a harrowing adventure filled with excitement and danger—with some pleasurable diversions every now and then—and a complicated case dominated by some surprising twists and turns.

Peter Temple, one of Australia’s most successful crime novelists, delivers an exciting tale of corruption, deceit, and violence in Black Tide which was previously published in 1999 in Australia. Other Jack Irish books, published previously in Australia, include Bad Debts (which is also currently available in U.S. markets through MacAdam/Cage), Dead Point (2000), and White Dog (2003); Temple’s other stand-alone thrillers include An Iron Rose (1998), Shooting Star (2002), and In the Evil Day (2002). Readers will enjoy Temple’s crisp prose, complex characterizations, and crafty plotting in Black Tide and will most assuredly, like me, look forward to reading Temple’s other works.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

More from my “Killer Fiction” Review Archives

Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson, a fifty year old veteran police officer in Reykjavik, Iceland, knows that murders are actually quite rare in his country. Moreover, he knows that they are normally solved easily and quickly. However, when Erlendur arrives on the scene of Reykjavik’s most recent murder, he realizes that is nothing normal about this case.

A sixty-nine year old man has been discovered dead in his basement apartment, and pinned to his chest is a piece of paper upon which someone has scrawling a cryptic three-word message: “I AM HIM.” With very few other clues to work with—including a photograph of a graveyard headstone—Erlendur quickly knows that he is facing what is perhaps his most challenging case. And, as he pursues various obscure leads in the case, Erlendur follows a complicated trail of sexual violence, perverse relationships, and family secrets.

Arnaldur Indridason’s highly recommended novel is one of the most pleasant surprises of the 2005 publishing season. Winner of the 2002 Glass Key Award for the Best Nordic Crime Novel, Jar City is now finally available in this recent English translation.

Indridason’s fascinating mystery is an intricately plotted, ingeniously crafted thriller. Filled with vivid characterizations, provocative themes, and nicely detailed settings [about which I am particularly partial since I lived in Iceland for a year and a half], this first-rate police-procedural is an absolutely stunning success to which I am giving my highest praise.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

More from my “Killer Fiction” Review Archives

Phil Nicholas had been one of the best jump jockeys in England. But after a devastating fall and life-threatening injuries, Phil wondered if he would ever regain his confidence and ability to win.

Now it seems as though Phil is finally making an impressive comeback because he is—to everyone’s surprise—crossing the finish line on Snowflake, a 33-to-1 long shot, and dramatically passing January King—the favorite—at an important race at the Wincanton racecourse. Life is finally getting better. Phil is in the winning circle once again, he is happily married to Julia, a sexy, beautiful, young woman who adores him, and his bad luck is apparently relegated to the past.

In the meantime, however, a man sits at home and furiously grouses about having been robbed. He had placed a substantial wager on January King—a sure thing as he had seen it—and then, while he watched the race on the television, he had incredulously witnessed the impossible: January King, at the last fence, lost the race! The jockey had simply dropped his hands, sat still in the saddle, and let some pathetic outsider catch him on the line. “Well,” thinks the unfortunate gambler, “I know the little bastard’s name. I know the jockey. It won’t be hard to find out here he lives.” Slamming his fist on the table, dangerous feelings of anger boil up inside him like a separate creature, like a dark and terrible beast. Now, the beast would begin getting even for all the losses, all the misfortunes, all the problems.

With this is the predicate for all the follows, John Francome weaves a richly detailed (and frequently too deliberately paced) tale of horseracing, duplicity, problematic romance, disturbing psychopathology, and violence. At times Dead Weight is a fascinating character study as we watch the passionate but haunted Phil Nicholas as he negotiates the complicated twists and turns on the racecourse and in his marriage. At other times Francome’s novel offers itself as a carefully plotted suspense thriller as we watch inexplicable violence being unleashed on apparently innocent victims by a darkly dangerous man who lurks in the story’s shadows. And for those who are interested in such details, we are at all times offered a vivid panorama of the British horseracing world.

Francome, quite frankly, isn’t exactly Dick Francis—although other critics have made a favorable comparison—but Dead Weight is a reasonably entertaining (albeit occasionally plodding) tale of torment, endurance, and victory.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

More From the “Killer Fiction” Review Archives

Travel back in time to 1838. The United States has sent a small flotilla of seven ships on an exploratory adventure to Antarctica on a scientific mission. As an important member of the expeditionary force, twenty-four year old Wiki Coffin has been assigned to one of the ships, the Swallow, as translator and scientific officer. The resourceful and charismatic Coffin, the son of a prominent New England ship’s captain and a New Zealand Maori woman, has also been assigned additional duties—should the need arise—as criminal investigator and law enforcement officer.

During the ships’ transit through the South Atlantic, however, the American fleet makes a puzzling discovery: Two derelict ships, the Annawan and the Hero, in varying degrees of disrepair, are stranded at Shark Island, an isolated, mysterious—and apparently otherwise uninhabited—island off the coast of Brazil. Perhaps pirates were involved in the ships’ fates. Or perhaps the ominous fortifications perched atop the island’s cliffs hold the keys to understanding what has happened to these two ships. Or perhaps there are other reasons.

Upon preliminary investigation, the American explorers find that the Hero has apparently been intentionally run aground and abandoned, but the Annawan’s marooned crew has remained with their damaged ship. In fact, Captain Ezekiel Reed, the Annawan’s eccentric commanding officer who has been accompanied on his voyage with his exotic Creole wife, quickly enlists the Americans’ assistance in hopes of repairing the Annawan and returning it to sea.

Before the repairs can begin, however, inexplicable murders threaten to further bedevil and perhaps destroy the Annawan and at the same time disrupt the Americans’ mission.

Coffin must act quickly to investigate the crimes and identify the person (or persons) responsible. Coffin immediately worries, though, that his prior acquaintance eight years earlier with Captain Reed’s beautiful young wife may complicate his investigation. And—of course—someone is clearly very eager to thwart Coffin’s investigation.

Joan Druett’s well-crafted and thoroughly surprising mystery is filled with fascinating snippets of 19th century historical and anthropological facts, and Wiki Coffin is a fascinating protagonist certain to beguile and entertain readers. Strong plotting and lots of cross-cultural and nautical details make Shark Island an impressive, fun-to-read sequel to Wiki Coffin’s debut in A Watery Grave.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

My “Killer Fiction” Archives

London can be a dangerous place. Just ask Tommy Akhtar, “London’s best [perhaps only] Ugandan-Indian private eye, devoted son [at least most of the time], [and] hard-drinking [which is a remarkable understatement] veteran of the Mujahideen.”

Tommy is a reasonably successful P.I., and he always has plenty of clients. For example, Mr. X’s wife ran off “with some scumbag” and took her husband’s car with her; the husband “wasn’t too vexed about” the wife, but he hires Tommy to recover his beloved Beamer. Mrs. Y is more than a just a little annoyed that her “rooster’s spending a lot of time away from the hen house . . . Perhaps he’s fluffing another pillow [says Tommy] and perhaps the pillow’s pink. Or perhaps he’s shooting dice or perhaps he’s shooting smack”; in any event, Mrs. Y has hired Tommy to find out if the old bird is up to “something sexual.” And Mrs. Z hires Tommy when her sixteen-year-old daughter ran away, and she “called the Old Bill but what were they going to do?”

Those clients, however, are simply what Tommy calls “Easy money.” When sexy prostitute Melody Chase shows up in Tommy’s rundown office, life as a P.I. suddenly gets much more complicated. She wants Tommy to find out what has happened to Natasha, her missing roommate and fellow working girl. Quicker than you can say Exoticmelody and Sexyrussian, or quicker than you check out their websites, Tommy gets involved in a case that soon leads to a murdered Parliament member, government scandals, family problems, drugs, sex, and—a true sign of the times—terrorism.

Let me make a promise to the adventurous reader who is willing to be confronted by the dark humor and colorful language of City of Tiny Lights: You will be easily charmed by Tommy Akhtar—a fellow you can think of being something like the results of a Raymond Chandler and Salman Rushdie collaborative effort. Akhtar is, however, Patrick Neate’s unique creation, a complicated man of vibrant passions (including cricket and family) and unrepentant weaknesses (including cigarettes and Wild Turkey); moreover, you will thoroughly enjoy (if that is the proper word given the context of the novel’s more serious plot and themes) your descent into the “gritty, sexy, treacherous . . . [and] seedy underbelly” of contemporary London. Filled with bizarre characters, rendered in colorful (jargon-heavy) prose, and tinted with some of the finest satire you’ll find anywhere in literary mystery fiction, City of Tiny Lights is a first-class entertainment by one of the most interesting new voices in contemporary fiction. Patrick Neate—author of three very different and acclaimed novels (Musungu Jim and the Great Chief Tuloko; Twelve Bar Blues; and The London Pigeon Wars) has been called “shrewd and stimulating” (Nick Hornby), “ingenious and witty” (The New York Times), and “colorful and compelling” (USA Today); and as The Daily Telegraph has announced, “Patrick Neate is an extraordinary story-teller and a fearless one, whose writing illuminates the deep structure of our society and fires a warning shot over complacency and intolerance.”

So, take the plunge into a surprisingly different London and find out for yourself why so many reviewers and critics are already huge fans of Patrick Neate’s City of Tiny Lights.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

My “Killer Fiction” Archives #16 – A Reprinted Review

Sergeant Keen Dunliffe of Leeds is summoned to investigate a mysterious death. A woman has apparently drowned in a pond on the grounds of the estate of George Lascelles, the 7th Earl of Harewood. And because of Lascelles’ status—he is, after all, 1st cousin to the Queen of England—Dunliffe is under considerable pressure from superiors to handle the case quickly and quietly.

As he begin his investigation, Dunliffe soon discovers that the dead woman—Dr. Christine Swinton of London—was, by all accounts, a highly esteemed university professor whose research specialization was Georgian English history. Swinton had been in Leeds to participate in a medieval conference at the university, and it is there that Dunliffe develops his first meaningful lead in the case: Dr. Gillian Waltham, an American professor who is also at the conference, was Swinton’s very good friend, and Waltham believes that Swinton’s death was no accident; moreover, Waltham claims that Swinton, in her research, may have recently uncovered controversial information about King George III that could adversely affect the entire subsequent history and legitimacy of the English monarchy. And those research findings, claims Waltham, may have been the catalyst for what Waltham believes was Swinton’s murder.

With very little initial evidence to support Waltham’s theory, however, Dunliffe is skeptical. But then Dunliffe’s interest in the case changes dramatically when some highly placed British government officials—inexplicably intent upon micromanaging a local investigation in Leeds—put peculiar pressures on Dunliffe, and they “recruit” him to conduct a covert investigation of someone they believe might be very much involved in Swinton’s death: Waltham.

So, as Dunliffe follows orders and gets closer, so to speak, to Waltham, and—ironically—at the same time as Waltham herself offers to help Dunliffe find out who was responsible for her friend’s death, Kingdom of Lies becomes more and more interesting. Dunliffe thinks the stories about research and Georgian corruption of royal legitimacy are mere smokescreens for something far more ordinary but nevertheless powerfully malignant. However, before he is finished, Dunliffe—eager to protect himself, friends, family, country, and his own principles—will have run headlong into deceit, political intrigue, and even more murder.

Lee Wood’s highly recommended Kingdom of Lies is an effective mystery thriller that showcases two compelling characters—Dunliffe and Waltham—and embroils them in an intricately crafted plot embellished with fascinating historical details and vividly portrayed contemporary English settings. Readers who carefully follow the abundant clues (and avoid the numerous red herrings dragged across their paths) will, I think, still be pleasantly surprised when Dunliffe finally solves the case, and those readers will say, “Ah, but of course! Now it all seems so obvious!”

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

My “Killer Fiction” Archives #15 – A Reprinted Review

The scene is London in 1948. People seem to be still waiting for the dust to settle and clear after World War II, and everyone in England is acutely anxious because of political and economic tensions.

Now, enter Jethro, former Cunard deck-officer and current creeper (cat burglar) and jewel thief. Before you can say “Good Save the King,” a reluctant but patriotic Jethro is recruited into a complicated scheme by none other than MI5. It seems as though certain individuals—perhaps some people highly placed in government circles or even in the royal family itself—are making MI5 rather nervous. Yes, England had only a couple of years earlier prevailed in her struggles against fascist Germany, but now MI5 believes covert fascists somewhere in England are once again intent upon destroying the British culture and government.

Of course, the narrator of Spectres in the Smoke, the resourceful Jethro—not your ordinary screwsman (burglar) or tealeaf (thief) but perhaps Britain’s very best face (a crook of some repute)—is asked by British intelligence to creep (enter a dwelling by night, quietly and without noise) and half-inch (steal) something very important from a the drum (house) of some spiv (VIP) and make a clear stoppo (getaway). “Wa-al blimey,” says, Jethro, a fellow with the bottle (courage to do a deed) enough to swallow (accept a situation), “Why not?” After all, anything for good old England! So, sooner than you can say “Bob’s your uncle!” (Everything will turn out fine!), this most colorful fellow to come along in fiction in many years is off-and-running into one of the year’s most fascinating thrillers.

Finally, here is some advice freely dispensed into readers’ King Lears (ears): Filled with colloquialisms and jargon, historical and political details, some very fine characterizations, and more twists-and-turns than a naïve tourist’s taxi-ride through London (a.k.a. “The Smoke”), Tony Broadbent’s historical mystery-thriller will have readers guessing (and smiling rather often) from beginning to end.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

My “Killer Fiction” Archives #14 – A Reprinted Review

Here is reason to celebrate: Amsterdam’s “gray sleuth” of the Warmoes Street Station, Inspector DeKok, appears in the twelfth volume in Baantjer acclaimed series to appear in English translation from Speck Press.

DeKok, you ought to first understand, is “from an old and long line of sailors, the first to make his living on shore.” Because of that ancestral heritage, and for other personal reasons, he is eagerly awaiting the opportunity to take a brief leave from his police duties and join the crowds who “are expected to see the sailing ships enter the port” during Operation Sail Amsterdam.

But DeKok’s plans are in jeopardy because a “nice, pretty, athletic” young woman has mysteriously disappeared after having been admitted as a patient in Amsterdam’s Slotervaart Hospital. The generally easy going DeKok is especially bothered because in “an orderly country such as Holland, people did not often disappear without a trace. That was an intolerable thought. There were countries where it happened regularly, but the Netherlands was not such a country. And if he, DeKok, had anything to say about it, there would never be a point when a disappearance was a common occurrence.”

Then a second woman disappears. DeKok wonders, “How could the sudden disappearance of two young women be explained? How was he to interpret the strange circumstances that accompanied the disappearances?”

Actually, and more to the point, DeKok would tell you that he “intensely disliked the mysterious disappearance of people. He preferred to start his investigation with an honest-to-goodness corpse—a corpse with clear signs of murder, like a strangled throat, a dented skull, recognizable bullet holes. In his long career he had never been able to bring all his faculties to bear when there was no corpse.”

Well, DeKok’s preferences for the “honest-to-goodness corpse” turn into something like cynical wish fulfillment when a body is discovered “with clear signs of murder.” With that becoming his rather morbid catalyst, the “grey sleuth examined his own feelings. In his long career he had learned to isolate himself from grisly, brutal, and violent death by building a wall around his inner being that allowed him to view the seedier aspects of his profession with objective detachment. It was a self-defense mechanism. But it had never succeeded in making him insensitive or heartless. Under it all he retained his innate compassion and sympathy for the victims.”

And so it goes, with that as background, that DeKok (in another winner from Albert Cornelius Baantjer’s series) must contend with disappearances [more than two], murder [most fiendishly motivated and executed], and plenty of closely guarded secrets [with plenty of felons eager to keep those from being discovered]. What begins as something that DeKok himself admits is “an absurd tale” turns into a thoroughly entertaining romp among the canals, brothels, police stations, hospitals, and other colorful locales in Amsterdam, a city where the charming DeKok says, “There’s never a recession in crime.”

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

New “Killer Fiction” Review

In Gainesboro, a small mountain community in North Carolina, Barry Clayton had to give up a promising career elsewhere when he was needed instead at the family business, Clayton and Clayton Funeral Directors. Because of Alzheimer’s disease, Barry’s father could no longer work, and Uncle Wayne needed someone else to keep the Clayton family business from going under. So, of course, Barry returned to help.

But when a client (a dead body) suddenly disappears from the funeral home, Barry—after notifying the local sheriff Tommy Lee Wadkins—realizes that he must also draw upon his own prior training and experience as a former police officer in order to recover the body as quickly and as discreetly as possible. After all, Clayton and Clayton “never lost a body in nearly eight decades of business,” and now is no time to break with tradition.

Barry and Tommy Lee, though, have a very difficult case on their hands, and the identity and prestige of the missing man makes the situation even more complicated and urgent. The missing man is Y’Grok Eban, a Vietnamese immigrant with an extraordinarily impressive record of having heroically assisted many American servicemen in his country in the 60s and 70s, and Y’Grok is scheduled to be buried later in the week when dozens of political and military dignitaries, veterans, and other Vietnamese immigrants are scheduled to attend the funeral.

The early investigation suggests that Y’Grok’s disappearance may, however, be related to something sinister that happened decades ago in Vietnam. Clues begin to accumulate: A cryptic tattoo speaks of a long-buried past; a few of the mourners who arrive for the funeral seem to be too closely guarding old secrets; and an enigmatic message in a letter announces that “Raven has come home!” But when shots are fired at Barry, and when one of the most important persons in town for the funeral is brutally murdered, Barry and Tommy Lee know that they must move quickly to prevent further mayhem in tiny Gainesboro.

FOOLISH UNDERTAKING, Mark de Castrique’s third entry in his cop-turned-reluctant-undertaker series, is incontrovertible proof that this North Carolina native and resident knows how to write a first-rate mystery thriller. A cleverly constructed, fast-paced plot and a colorful cast of characters (including a generous supply of suspects) will keep readers entertained and guessing all the way to the end of this RECOMMENDED whodunit.

Copyright © 2009 Good Books

My “Killer Fiction” Archives #13 – A Reprinted Review