To order a book, click on it. You will go to the Amazon.com page for the book, giving you price and availability. If you find any errors on these pages (wrong title-link URLs especially), please let me

A link on a name (usually with a pile of books next to it) will take you to a summary of the writer's major books. A link on a book title usually takes you to Amazon.com to read other opinions or purchase the book. Occasionally a title link will take you to my full of the book, but those exceptions are indicated in the text.

Mystery Writers

 What people find to like in genre fictions is a puzzle, sometimes. I ran across a review of Blind Descent which mentioned in passing that Nevada Barr's novels were more interesting than Tony Hillerman's because they were focused on "REI stuff" rather than Indians. As the cliché goes, "Whatever." One is reminded of Bert's affection for 'The Wonderful World of Pigeons.'

As a non-REI buff, I don't care if the Ms's Barr and Pigeon know a piton from a pylon. The mountaineering/caving details in Blind Descenthave the tang of accuracy about them, and that's all I ask. Essentially the entire novel takes place is Lechuguilla Cave, New Mexico, Carlsbad's uncivilized big sister. The climax hinges on climbing, and, mercifully, Pigeon emerges relatively unscathed.

Rather like Ill Wind, also set in the Southwest, the plot of Blind Descent blends the individual tragedy of murder with a topical subplot, environmental damage to the cave by gas drilling. This time the two elements are integrated more successfully than in the earlier novel, and the result is one of the best Anna Pigeon novels. I would still suggest Firestorm to a new reader as my personal favorite and the strongest plot, but you can hardly go wrong with Nevada Barr.

I have created a complete list of Barr's books, with brief reviews of the Anna Pigeon novels in chronological order. I've also written full reviews of the last three additions, Deep South, Blood Lure, and Hunting Season.

 I'm not overflowing with affection for good ole boys, so if I hadn't happened on Burke by accident, I doubt if I'd ever have read his books. One look at that truckstop face, and you don't need to know that he wrote a series of novels set in nineteenth century Texas. But you wouldn't guess, indulging in that stereotype, that the Dave Robicheaux novels, a series of detective stories set in a small town outside New Orleans, would be lyrical mixtures of magic realism and gritty back alley violence. Some writers find their milieu and blossom. I picked up a Burke novel about Montana recently, and it wasn't there, none of what I read him for.

Sunset Limited delivers the goods. Louisiana grotesques who would be comfortable in a Tennesee Williams play or a Faulkner novel, Hollywood carpetbaggers who make the locals look like the nice kids next door, a hitman as chillingly surreal, and real, as Randall Flagg in The Stand, and Robicheaux's extended family--Bootsie, Alafair, and Clete. The plot hinges on discovering who crucified a labor leader some thirty years ago, and it carries us through some new understanding of Robicheaux's personal demons.

There isn't a bad Robicheaux novel (I hope Burke didn't sell Alec Baldwin the franchise for the movies, though). My personal favorites are Black Cherry Blues and In the Electric Mist with Confederate Dead. Burke has always dealt with issues bigger than who killed 'im and why. Sunset Limited is not for the weekend escapist.

I have created a complete list of Burke's mystery novels, with brief reviews of the Dave Robicheaux books in chronological order. I've also written a full review of the most recent Robicheaux novel, Purple Cane Road.

 Hillerman was at the top of his form at this point. If I could only have one of the books, it would be this one. An archeologist disappears. Dead or absconded? A backhoe disappears. What's going on? Indian traditionalists feuding with anthros? Pot poachers? The topical plot is about the illegal trade in prehistoric relics. Tent revival religion, Navajo-style, plays a part in the resolution, and Leaphorn and Chee are finally beginning to work together effectively (and still not buddies. Leaphorn observes of Chee that he doesn't like him, but he respects him).

This is one the most tightly plotted novels, with a ending that comes together quickly and emphatically. When Jim Chee reveals to us, more than fifty pages from the end, who the killer is, the suspense mounts steadily from there on, because Leaphorn is not in a position to learn what Chee has discovered. A brilliant subplot almost begs to become a 'prequel' novel, about Leaphorn's younger days on the force.

However, the most powerful thing in the novel is Leaphron's grief over the loss of his wife. Emma has died suddenly and meaninglessly of complications after brain surgery, and Hillerman devotes many paragraphs to Leaphorn's 'ghost sickness.' Faced with a loss of his own, Leaphorn is sensitized to some of the Navajo attitudes toward the dead which he regarded as superstitious before. He doesn't abandon his house, but Emma's haunting presence as a memory anchored to the most trivial things makes the idea tempting. He moves the bed to change what he sees when he wakes up, he sleeps on her side so he won't unconsciously reach out to her in the night.

I have created a complete list of Hillerman's mystery novels, with brief reviews of the "Navajo Police" novels in chronological order. I've also written a full review of the most recent Chee/Leaphorn novel, Hunting Badger. Watch for a new entry in the series, The Wailing Wind, coming in June, 2002.

 How many reviews have I read that began discussing Judas Child by expressing concern that without Kathy Mallory, an evening with Carol O'Connell might not be much fun. And they all say what I'm going to say, "Don't worry." Judas Child is a stunner of a book, with a plot that twists back on itself like a very lively snake, characters you will miss the moment you close the book, and some wisdon about human nature and the nature of survival that you will come back to.

O'Connell has staked out some special territory with her sociopath on the side of good, Kathy Mallory. I read the Mallory books back-to-back in a week; I was only saved from buying Stone Angel hardcover because it turned up in Dublin while I was overseas in a pre-American paperback. The trip from the New York City nightmares in the first three novels to the Louisiana Gothic of Stone Angel is an amazing ride from gritty street realism worthy of Andrew Vachss to voodoo madness that would give Dave Robicheaux permanent DTs.

I have created a complete list of O'Connell's books, with brief reviews of the Mallory novels in chronological order. I've also written full reviews of Shell Game, Crime School, Dead Famous, Winter House, and Find Me.

 Vachss' style has become a bit didactic in the last few books, and he's struggling with getting a good mixture of fact and fiction. Despite the complaints of some of his diehard readers, I think he succeeds here. Safe Houseis not up there with Strega and Flood, but a must for Burke fans. If you want to 'meet' Burke, go with one of the two early novels, which are still in paperback, and are genre classics: Hard-boiled (more like geode) detective stories with lots of action, fascinating eccentrics, great jury-rigged technology, and villains you love to see get what they deserve.

Burke is involved with neo-Nazis, this time a creep who's stalking his own wife, who's fled from the abusive relationship. All he really wants is the baby she's carrying, his Aryan son 'Gerhardt' (Yeah, he named it pre-birth). She's in a safe house; he's under government protection, and Burke is in the middle. A new lover, a tough little Irish/Inuit lady named Crystal Beth, just may take Burke's mind off Flood and Belle. A couple of scary bad guys and some plot twists as sudden as Goldor's death in Flood. The commercials for Vachss' causes will hit you every once in a while. What did you expect, moral ambiguity?

I've posted a review of Vachss' new Burke novel, Choice of Evil.

Here's an article Vachss wrote for MSNBC on the new 'cyber-cons': 'Cyber-chumps' are Net's big victims. Vachss has a gift for writing about sex crimes in a way that communicates their sheer evil without a mustard-seed of titillation. He has the lock on moral fiction at a time when American psycho wannabes like Queeny Tarquinteeny and David 'Let them eat snot' Lynch and their fans have declared morals just too boring. Now here's a fun romp, by way of thought experiment: Burke in the same room with Brat Eatsom Ellis... a public place....

I have created a complete list of Vachss' books, with brief reviews of the Burke novels in chronological order. I've also written a full review of recent entries, Choice of Evil and Pain Management.