This is week 19 and the turn of the S – authors to hit the
spotlight on our Crime Fiction Alphabet Journey.
If you visit Mysteries in Paradise website, Kerrie has been kindly collating everyone else’s contribution to the journey here.
If you visit Mysteries in Paradise website, Kerrie has been kindly collating everyone else’s contribution to the journey here.
I have probably too much choice on my shelves this week. Some of the authors who have been over-looked and
fail to make the line-up include....Gerald Seymour, Mark SaFranko, Anthony Neil
Smith, Lawrence Shames, Doug Swanson, Zoe Sharp, Dan Simmons..... mentioning,
but a few.
Sandford, Smith,
Smith...........3 enjoyed
John Sandford – Rules
Of Prey

The murderer was intelligent. He was a member of
the bar. He derived rules based on professional examination of actual cases: Never
kill anyone you know. Never have a motive. Never follow a discernible pattern.
Never carry a weapon after it has been used. Beware of leaving physical
evidence. There were more. He built them into a challenge. He was mad,
of course . . .
The killer's name is Louis
Vullion, a low-key young attorney who, under the camouflage of normalcy,
researches his next female victim until the pressure within him forces him to
reach out and "collect" her. Plying his secret craft with the tactics
of a games master, he has gripped the Twin Cities in a storm of terror more
fierce than any Minnesota winter.
It is after the third murder that
Lucas Davenport is called in. It is the opinion of his colleagues that
everything about the lieutenant is a little different, and they are right — in
the computer games he invents and sells, in the Porsche he drives to work, in
the quality of the women he attracts, in his single-minded pursuit of justice.
The only member of the department's Office of Special Intelligence, Davenport
prefers to work alone, parallel with Homicide, and there is something about
this serial killer that he quickly understands. The man who signs himself
"maddog" in taunting notes to the police is no textbook sociopath; he
has a perverse playfulness that makes him kill for the sheer contest of it. He
is a player.
Which means that Davenport will
have to put all his mental strength — and physical courage — on the line to
learn to think like the killer. For the only way to beat the maddog is at his
own hellish game. . .
Martin Cruz Smith –
Gorky Park

Gorky Park is a 1981
crime novel written by Martin Cruz Smith set in the Soviet Union. It follows
Arkady Renko, a chief investigator for the Militsiya, who is assigned to a case
involving three corpses found in Gorky Park, an amusement park in Moscow, who
have had their faces and fingertips cut off by the murderer to prevent
identification.
Roger Smith – Mixed Blood

If you are unsure on whether to take the plunge on Smith’s
violent modern day portrayal of South Africa, you could jump in with Ishmael
Toffee – a short novella, which will give you a flavour.
Reluctant bank robber
Jack Burn is on the run after a heist in the United States that left $3 million
missing and one cop dead. Hiding out in Cape Town, South Africa, he is
desperate to build a new life for his pregnant wife and young son. But on a
tranquil evening in their new suburban neighbourhood they are the victims of a
random gangland assault that changes everything. Benny Mongrel, an ex-con night
watchman guarding a building site next to Burn's home, is another man desperate
to escape his past. After years in the ghetto gangs of Cape Town he knows who
went into Burn's house, and what the American did to them. He also knows his
only chance to save his own brown skin is to forget what he saw. Burn's actions
on that night trap them both in a cat-and-mouse game with Rudi 'Gatsby' Barnard
- a corrupt Afrikaner cop who loves killing almost as much as he loves Jesus
Christ and Disaster Zondi, a fastidious Zulu detective who wishes to settle an
old score. Once Gatsby smells those missing American millions, the four men are
drawn into a web of murder and vengeance that builds to an unforgettable
conclusion.
Schwarz, Skipper,
Sturges............3 unread
Stephen Jay Schwarz –
Boulevard
I’m unsure of the how or the when I came across this author,
probably only a year or two ago, but this and his second book, Beat also
featuring Hayden Glass intrigued me. I don’t suppose I will get to this soon,
but it’s reassuring knowing that it’s safely shelved and waiting for me.
Stephen Schwarz's
intensely nonstop thriller is about a LAPD homicide detective who must find a
killer responsible for a series of murders that are directly related to him.
Los Angeles Police Department homicide detective and former vice cop Hayden
Glass is a sex addict. The addiction has ruined his marriage and irreparably
damaged many of his relationships. However, he has always been able to separate
his behaviour from his career. But, when a series of killings in the L. A. area
seem to be meant as a sign just for him, his addiction threatens to ruin both
his professional career and his life.
"Raw, twisted,
and so hard-boiled it simmers from beginning to end." – Robert Crais
Roger Allan Skipper -
Bone Dogs

I think I should
maybe extend that mantra to all authors – don’t buy anything new from an author,
unless I have read all their other books on my shelves.....yeah right, like
that is going to happen!

A pound to a penny, when I start reading this, my kid's take the mickey and claim it's me in 10 years-time!
A pound to a penny, when I start reading this, my kid's take the mickey and claim it's me in 10 years-time!
Tuesday Price is a wiseass, a boozer, and a loser. Only his wife Linda recalls a smarter, better man, and she's losing faith in that man's return. When Tuesday befriends a strange, silent Vietnam vet who eternally sits with a cooler of beer in a disabled pickup, Linda's had enough. At her departure, Tuesday is left with only his new friend as a companion - until the old vet is found dead, and Tuesday is blamed. Alone and haunted by regret, Tuesday's daily life deteriorates until he must unearth his sordid past to reach a worthwhile future. But his past is a tangle of murder, deceit, and abandonment for which his only punishment has been self-inflicted. In order to reclaim all that has been lost, he returns to his deserted childhood home and, with hammer and nails, rebuilds the sagging structure, reassembling a history quite different than the one he'd believed while finding the future not at all what he'd expected.
"Skipper...
brings both protagonists and environment to life in powerful language that
ultimately becomes a sort of hard-edged poetry." – William Gay
P.G. Sturges - The
Shortcut Man

Recommended or blurbed by Michael Connelly
In the best tradition
of James Ellroy and Elmore Leonard, P.G. Sturges has written a smart and
entertaining crime novel set in the underbelly of Los Angeles, with a cast of
characters that runs the gamut from saints to sinners. In the center of it all
is Dick Henry, a "shortcut man," who cuts through red tape for his
clients, whether it be an elderly woman ripped off by shady contractors, or a
landlord with a pesky tenant many months behind on the rent. Sturges's
characters live in a world where right and wrong is a fine line, a line often
crossed by our hero, Dick Henry, who knows that the shortest answer to many
problems may not always be legal.
Back next week with some T's!
Col - Oh, I'm so glad you've enjoyed both Smith (Martin Cruz) and Smith (Roger). In very different ways, each captures a setting and a way of life. They write about complicated characters and I respect each one's ability to draw me in and tell a good story.
ReplyDeleteMargot thanks. It has been a while since I've enjoyed a Renko, maybe in 2014!It would be good to start again at the beginning and see how he changes.
DeleteI read and enjoyed Rules of Prey despite Lucas Davenport being such a womanizer at the time but in latter books he does settle down. He is the ultimate fantasy for men: he's rich, attractive to the ladies and likes to drive fast, expensive cars. I really enjoyed Eyes of Prey and Certain Prey (the heroine antagonist was kick ass memorable). I would love to buy Certain Prey in digital but it's too expensive. Waiting for a sale. Sorry I know that last part was more than you wanted to know. I also have Dust Devils by Roger Smith to read. Anxious to try him to see how I like his style.
ReplyDeleteKeishon - another Davenport fan! Never too much detail because when I'm not reading, I want to know what everyone else is up to.
DeleteLucas will have to join Jack Taylor and Renko and the Factory detective in an ever-lengthening queue!
Please see the Smith until you're blogging again, or at least let me know how you get on!
Oh, I just finished Fade Out by Joseph Hansen. Very good mystery featuring a gay insurance investigator. I'm reading his second book in the series, Death Claims, right now. These mysteries are not so easy to figure out. After reading maybe two more I will give Roger Smith a shot. I've bought a few of his books because they've been really cheap digitally. Will let you know.
DeleteGreat taste, I read Fadeout last month I think. I had never heard of Hansen until a few months ago. I don't think I will get Death Claims read anytime soon though. Enjoy!
DeleteCol, your comments on not buying more books by an author until you have read the ones you have... that sounds like me. I am trying to improve in that area.
ReplyDeleteMost of these sound interesting, although not sure about the Roger Smith books. I thought I had read the John Sandford books, at least the first few, but now I am wondering. It does not sound familiar.
I liked Gorky Park a lot but did not read it until a few years ago. Then I read all the others that had been published very quickly. They were not all equally as good, but I did like Polar Star a lot.
Tracy, I definitely won't buy any more books after my birthday in October, or at least I might limit myself to one book for every 5 or 10 I have read.
DeleteThe first few Prey books will definitely need to be re-read because my memory isn't particularly good any more.....hence the blog! Smith was very violent, but in context - beware!
The only one I've read is the Martin Cruz Smith, and I liked it very much but never specially wanted to follow up - I read a non-series book (I think preceding Gorky Park, which was his big breakthrough maybe?) and didn't like it AT ALL. something horrible about vampire bats.
ReplyDeleteMoira, I don't think I know the other MCS book you're talking about. I know he had a couple of books about a gypsy, can't recall a vampire bat in that one!
DeleteCruz Smith's Renko definitely gets my vote too and I loved Gorky Park. I thought it was a brilliantly written book, showcasing Moscow life through the life of Renko, grim, dark, foreboding, and stifling.
ReplyDeletePrashant, definitely the setting helped the book, not a place you would care to visit very much.
Delete