Review by New York Times Review
MICHAEL CONNELLY'S maverick cop, Harry Bosch, has been kicked off plenty of important police cases over his long career. But until now, he has never gone over to the dark side to work against the prosecution in a homicide case. In THE CROSSING (Little, Brown, $28), the forcibly retired (and terminally bored) Bosch, a former California detective, breaks faith by taking on a private investigation for his half brother, Mickey Haller. The slick defense lawyer has convinced Bosch that his client, a reformed gangbanger named Da'Quan Foster, is not guilty of murdering Lexi Parks, a well-liked city official who was bludgeoned to death in her bed. But the case still makes Bosch uneasy. "Did he miss the work so much that he could actually cross the aisle and work for an accused murderer?" he asks himself. Never mind that the detective is convinced of Foster's innocence. To his former colleagues, he's a traitor. As an investigator with the sheriff's department puts it to him: "You used to be legit. Used to be. Now not so much." Tough guy that he is, Bosch "could feel his face burning red with humiliation." Overcoming his shame, he vindicates himself by solving an unusually cerebral case that hangs on the provenance of an expensive watch, a $14,000 Audemars Piguet. Like a classic whodunit, the complicated mystery pivots on one small clue. An extra treat for the reader is being able to follow the case from the dual perspectives of the prosecution and the defense. As a career cop, Bosch is well versed in the professional tactics of a police investigation. (Even a casual reading of the tricked-up "discovery package" that every investigating officer is obliged to prepare for the defense attorney puts him in a good humor.) But Haller's vocational talents, being on the shady side, are more like the sleight-of-hand tricks of a con man, and once in a courtroom he suddenly acquires the skills of a magician. Brothers they may be, but at times they seem a lot like an ego and its id. RUTH RENDELL'S FINAL NOVEL, DARK CORNERS (Scribner, $26), is a deliciously diabolical tale on a favorite theme: one person's devouring of a weaker person's identity. Carl Martin is the little mouse that allows itself to be caught by the tail. He lives in a lovely house in London's Maida Vale that he inherited from his father. He recently published a successful novel, and the girl he loves has just moved in with him. Carl may be sitting pretty, but he's just the sort of weak-willed milquetoast Rendell enjoys tearing into little bits. On flimsy grounds, he feels responsible for a friend's death, and his unscrupulous tenant, Dermot McKinnon, being aware of Carl's guilty secret, proceeds to blackmail him in psychologically subtle ways. First, he stops paying the rent. Then, he starts taking over parts of the house. When Carl finally protests ("You're ruining my life"), Dermot points out, "It's you who's doing that." Loss of identity also figures in a parallel plot in which a cipher of a girl named Lizzie Milsom steals the trappings, if not the vivid personality, of a dead woman. All of these fragmented lives eventually intersect, propelled by a supporting cast of endearing eccentrics who, sadly, will not pass this way again. WHEN HEROES GO BAD, the earth trembles, as it does in THE GUISE OF ANOTHER (Seventh Street Books, paper, $15.95), Allen Eskens's cautionary story of guilt, redemption and damnation. As a Minneapolis police detective, Alexander Rupert was a prince of the city - Medal of Valor and all that - until he was caught up in a police corruption scandal that derailed his career and alienated his beloved older brother. "More than anything, he wanted to feel that pride again," seeing hope of salvation in the Putnam case, a police matter too easily dismissed as an accidental drowning at sea. But can he resist the temptations of warm flesh and hot money? Eskens's elegant but chilly prose, like winter in the blood, is well suited to this fiercely told morality tale (and its deeply cynical ending), which is sure to send all of us wretched sinners straight to hell. CHILDHOOD IS a perilous country in Lisa Ballantyne's psychological suspense novels, so bleak and hostile that even grown-ups hesitate to go there. "Margaret Holloway, deputy head teacher, mother, wife, did not know what had happened to her when she was a little girl, and she was terrified to find out." But return she does, in EVERYTHING SHE FORGOT (Morrow/HarperCollins, paper, $14.99), when a traffic pileup on a London highway traps her in her burning car until a hideously scarred stranger risks his life to save her. "The crash. ..." she struggles to explain to her husband. "It's made me remember things." These "things," she fails to add, relate to her rescuer, who lies hospitalized in a coma. Ballantyne makes no real mystery of the relationship between Margaret and her savior, choosing to tell their stories in separate but interlocking chapters. Taken individually, these biographical histories of Margaret and the man she knows as Maxwell Brown give structure to the narrative; taken together, they give it a living, beating heart.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [October 11, 2015]
Review by Library Journal Review
Carl Martin, an aspiring writer, has inherited a house from his father, and life is going well for him until he decides to rent some upstairs rooms to Dermot McKinnon for some extra income. When a friend dies from an overdose of diet pills that Carl had sold from his father's stash, Dermot learns of Carl's role in the tragedy and blackmails him into giving him free use of the rental rooms. Carl's mental state spirals into an obsession that gains control over his life and governs every action. Verdict The Edgar Award-winning author (The Girl Next Door) died this past May, so this could be her last hurrah. It is a tale of psychological suspense that is as engrossing as any of her other excellent works. Fans of mystery and suspense will appreciate Rendell's unequaled ability to portray an average person's descent into a psychological quagmire. [See Prepub Alert, 7/1/15.]-Linda Oliver, MLIS, Colorado Springs © Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
