A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie Mysteries) by David Housewright | LibraryThing

A Hard Ticket Home (Mac McKenzie Mysteries) by David Housewright | LibraryThing:

Faced with the possibility of having to turn in an embezzler and come away with nothing or leave the police department and collect a huge finders fee from the insurance company, St. Paul detective Rushmore MacKenzie chooses the latter.  Now he works similar to Lawrence Block’s Scudder:  he has no license but does things to help people. In this story he’s been hired to find the sister of a girl who needs a transplant.  Jamie Carlson had  left home at 18 (never satisfactorily explained)  never to return, after graduating high school, and now they need to see if she’s a match for her younger sister, Stacy who needs a bone marrow transplant.  

MacKenzie finds the sister quickly enough.  She’s married, with a child, TC, to a used car salesman in St. Paul who is involved with a rather shadowy group of elite businessmen who all made their money selling at a discount.  He tells her of the need to be tested for the transplant, and she agrees to go home but is viciously murdered before she can. Mac’s oldest friend is a homicide detective on the St. Paul police force and he’s working on a case that’s soon linked to Jamie’s death, not to mention the involvement of the ATF and FBI.

As with any first book in a series, there are some loose ends and the occasional requirement to suspend credulity (what Mac does with a concussion at the end of the book defies belief despite its explanation).  Nevertheless, a good read.

I discovered Housewright after reading Penance, one of the Holland Taylor series. This new series, featuring Rushmore MacKenzie shows promise, and I’ve already started onTin City, second in the series.

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Kindness Goes Unpunished by Craig Johnson

This book, #3 in the Longmire series, has a marvelous first sentence: “ I should have brought my gun.”  Gradually, it’s revealed that he’s reading a Grimm’s Fairy Tale to some first graders. “My dad thinks you’re a butthole,” chimes in one. “You shoulda brought your gun,” says another.

Walt and Henry (and Dog) travel to Philadelphia to meet Walt’s daughter Kate’s boyfriend and his family. Since Vic is also from Philadelphia, Walt uses the opportunity to visit with her mother. Henry is participating in a Native American art exhibit at the Art Museum.  Before he gets a chance to see her, Katie is badly injured in a fight with her boyfriend who seems to be disliked by virtually everyone.  Then the boyfriend takes a flying leap off the Benjamin Franklin bridge. And the bodies begin to pile up.

One little tidbit I picked up was that American Indians intensely dislike the white name for them:  “Native Americans,” since they don’t consider themselves American.  At least according to Craig Johnson who should know, I guess.

George Guidall does his usual fine job of narration. EXCEPT for one HUGE mispronunciation that I have heard from other readers of books that take place in Philadelphia.  The Schuylkill River is pronounced “schoo-kill” although the official pronunciation is “school-kill” but definitely *not* “sky-kill,” as anyone who grew up in the area knows full well.  

Couple problems I had with this book that made it less interesting than the others of the series I’ve read. Moving characters out of their home territory into an alien environment is always tricky. Walt is smart, granted, but on occasion he outsmarts the Philadelphia cops without even knowing the city.  The business with Vic in front of her mother was a bit ridiculous. The Indian medicine ceremony in the ICU was absurd.  Still, Johnson’s books have a nice mix of humor and character interaction.

I would recommend reading this series in order.  In this title particularly, if you don’t know the characters and some of their backstory, you might be a little flummoxed.

Impact by Stephen Greenleaf | LibraryThing

Impact by Stephen Greenleaf | LibraryThing:

I was a bit reluctant to read this book by Stephen Greenleaf.  I’ve been reading my way through his entire Marsh Tanner series (excellent) and this is a stand-alone. (There is an oblique mention of Tanner on page 295 that was fun.)  Often that means a letdown for the reader used to a particular set of characters. Not so in this case.  I was hooked from the beginning.

The plot revolves around the crash of Surfair 617, a relatively new aircraft that collided with a small private plane. (Shades of an actual crash near Los Angeles between an Aeromexico DC-9 and a Piper Cherokee just a few years before this was written, and if the book has any flaws it’s perhaps the somewhat preachy concerns over flight safety pronounced by Alex Hawthorne.)

The cast of characters includes Alex’s partner, Martha, who keeps him on schedule, organized and satisfied (if you know what I mean.)  Keith Tollison, another lawyer,  is having an affair with Laura Donahue, husband of Jack, who is terribly injured in the crash. (He was sitting next Carol with whom he was having an affair who happened to be the Brenda’s sister.)  He may be permanently paralyzed and neurologically impaired.. Tollison is in an on-again, off-again relationship with Brenda. Brenda has a mentally handicapped son who is devastated by his aunt’s death.  All of these people come together in a nicely done courtroom drama.  Yes, it’s a bit of a soap, but well done.

Greenleaf was trained as a lawyer so the legal aspects appear quite authentic.  Something I found less so, was the conversation between the Air Traffic Controllers and the doomed plane before the crash. I’m a train and plane junkie so naturally I listen to ATC (you can stream it over the internet) for fun. (I often chose to fly United  because they broadcast cockpit/ATC communications over channel 9.) **  The book’s rendering of those transmissions did not ring true.  No matter.

**Sometimes the communications can be funny, e.g. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acU2LnvEJSs or scary http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qV6inj9KYcA

If you listen regularly you get a real appreciation for the work of pilots and Air Traffic Controllers. Lots of recordings at http://www.liveatc.net/, which you can also get as an iTunes app - it’s worth the $2.99

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Toll Call by Stephen Greenleaf | LibraryThing

Toll Call by Stephen Greenleaf | LibraryThing:

OK, so by Greenleaf standards, this one is not quite up to par. It's far above the run-of-the-mill detective stories and still belongs in the class with Ross MacDonald whose writing his resembles.

Tanner’s long-time secretary, Peggy, is getting some rather salacious phone calls. Then one night she’s pushed down the stars and Tanner intervenes. Unlike the other books I have read in the Tanner series, this one gets personal and perhaps a bit heavy on the side of psychobabble. Lots of speculation as to why Peggy might have "encouraged" the moron with a concomitant excessive dose of guilt, etc.  I don’t remember Maugham's Of Human Bondage that well, but my goodness, Peggy seems unable to break with this guy.  It’s never satisfactorily explained.  I kept wondering, “now, why would you do that?” or “hey guys, cop time, bring in the heavies.”

On the other hand, there is a plot twist at the end I just did not see coming.

I like Ruthie.  She’s  a stitch who has the most crass similes and metaphors imaginable. "That warning's about as useless as a condom on a canary."



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The Master of Knots by Massimo Carlotto | LibraryThing

The Master of Knots by Massimo Carlotto | LibraryThing:

I had never read any of Carlotto before discovering this book in his “Alligator” series. Marco, ex-con, now private investigator without a license, and bar owner sets out with two other ex-cons (well, Rossini is still an active gangster) to eliminate a gang of S&M degenerates.

Mariano Giraldi comes to  hire Marco and his friends “Max the Memory” and Rossini,  to locate his wife, Helena who has been kidnapped. She specialized in being a model for S&M photographs. The husband who had a relationship with a different submissive dared not go to the police for fear their lifestyle would become public and his business would suffer.  The woman has been gone a month leaving little hope of finding her alive.  Others then disappear as Marco et al realize they have stumbled on to an S&M blackmail ring and snuff-film maker.

There’s a subplot revolving around the G8 summit meeting in Genoa in 2001.  The police engaged in some serious violence against demonstrators and many were later brought to trial.  Max, a Free Trade advocate, goes to protest and is seriously injured. Obviously Carlotto is making a strong political statement.

The dizzying amounts of Italian Lira being thrown around dates the book since the Lira was replaced by the Euro in 1999-2002.  When they pay 20,000,000 Lira as a bribe to a hooker, my head begins to wobble a bit.  That aside, this is a fun, if inconsequential, little entertainment that shows a very dark side of Italy’s corruption.  If you want something as dark but more literary, read Donna Leon’s books.  They are both entertaining and literate.  Carlotto suffers by comparison.



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