These Mysteries Play April Fool Tricks

Tomorrow is April Fool's Day, and although I've never been a fan of its tradition of pranks (they often seem more cruel than funny), it really is an appropriate day for the mystery writer's penchant for fooling readers via surprise plot twists and red-herring clues. Here are three good novels that specifically play on the April Fool theme. April Fool by William Herbert Deverell, a well-known Canadian author and criminal lawyer, won the 2006 Arthur Ellis Award for best novel. It's just one entry in his series featuring the classically trained, self-doubting Arthur Beauchamp, QC, of the British Columbia criminal bar. Beauchamp is enjoying his retirement as a hobbyist farmer on B.C.’s Garibaldi Island when he is dragged back to court to defend an old client, Nick "the Owl" Faloon, once one of the world’s top jewel thieves. The diminutive Faloon has been accused of the unlikely rape and murder of a psychologist, and the combination of courtroom thriller and whodunit takes the reader on an entertaining ride of twists and turns. Another Canadian favorite of mine, Louise Penny, penned The Cruelest Month (referring to April), which won the 2008 Agatha Award for best novel. It is the third novel in her series featuring Chief Inspector Armand Gamache and the small Canadian town of Three Pines. The tale involves a group of friends who visit a haunted house in Three Pines in the hope of ridding it of evil spirits. When one ends up dead, apparently of fright, Gamache and team investigate, and Gamache soon faces some old ghosts of his own. Finally, for fans of historial mystery settings and H.R.F. Keating, the noted English crime fiction writer best known for his series featuring Inspector Ghote of the Bombay CID, there is A Remarkable Case of Burglary. The story begins on the morning of April Fools' Day in 1871, as Val Leary--handsome, charming and broke--notices a young maidservant scrubbing the steps of a home as he walks through one of London's wealthiest districts. He is instantly inspired by the idea of a "remarkable burglary," but the seemingly perfect set-up soon gets complicated in the upstairs-downstairs world of Victorian England. For more April Fool's fare, see http://mysteryreadersinc.blogspot.com/2015/04/april-fools-day-mysteriesapril-fools.html

Happy Birthday to March-Born Mystery Writers!

Because I was born in this month, I am naturally curious about other writers with March birthdays. If you look at the whole literary realm, from children's book great Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) to the Roman poet Ovid, the list is overwhelming. So I narrowed it down to just March-born mystery/crime fiction writers. And they're a varied lot! Start with the late Mickey Spillane (Frank Morrison Spillane, born March 9, 1918). I'm actually not a fan of his PI Mike Hammer, who debuted in 1947's I, the Jury, but Spillane is a pioneer of "hard-boiled" crime fiction and won the 1995 Edgar Allan Poe Grand Master Award, so you may want to meet Hammer just to indulge in old-fashioned, tough-guy nostalgia. More modern mayhem comes courtesy of James Patterson (born March 22, 1947). Patterson is probably best-known for the African-American psychologist and police detective protagonist of his Alex Cross series (including Along Came a Spider and Kiss the Girls), but he has penned standalone thrillers and other series, such as the Women's Murder Club. Meanwhile, there's Nevada Barr (born March 1, 1952), author of the Anna Pigeon mystery series with a park ranger detective (so naturally set in national parks). Her debut novel, Track of the Cat, won the 1994 Anthony Award and Agatha Award for Best First Novel. Staying with the wilderness theme, another March writer is Dana Stabenow (born March 27, 1952). Her Kate Shugak mystery series is set in Stabenow's native Alaska and has a unique protagonist: an Aleut living on a 160-acre homestead in a national park, with a half-wolf, half-husky roommate called Mutt. The first Kate Shugak mystery, 1992's A Cold Day for Murder, won the Edgar Award for Best Paperback Original. But probably my favorite of all the March-born mystery writers is Peter Robinson (born March 17, 1950) and his Inspector Alan Banks novels set in Yorkshire. The 1999 Anthony Award and Barry Award for Best Novel went to the tenth entry in the series, In a Dry Season. When a drought drains the local reservoir to reveal the ruins of a lost village and the unidentified bones of a murdered young woman, Banks must hunt down a sadistic killer who has escaped detection for half a century. For all authors born in March, check out this list: https://www.bookish.com/articles/happy-birthday-authors-a-look-at-writers-born-in-march/

My Plan to 'Spring Clean' the Bookshelves

Happy St. Patrick's Day! After some green beer, I've decided to launch my spring agenda, which requires that I tackle two tough topics: spring cleaning and getting rid of books. Even though I buy fewer hardcover or paperback books now that e-books are inexpensive, more convenient for traveling and reference, and create no storage headaches, I still do buy bound books simply because there is nothing more pleasurable to me than sitting quietly and turning pages, lost in a story. But then I end up with cluttered, dusty bookcases and no space for my new favorites because out-of-date texts and raggedy paperbacks are hogging limited shelf space. So after reading advice columns about how to best tidy my bookshelves, here is my spring-cleaning plan: No. 1, I take all the books off the shelves, and clean and fix the shelves. No. 2, I initially divide the books into piles of "must keep" and "could go." (I steel myself to resist reading the books while making my decisions, or I'll never finish the task.) How do I decide which books to let go? I decide to cart away books that I have read but don't like, that I have read but know I will never read again, or that I haven't read but know I will never read. No. 3, I further divide the "could go" pile into four piles of books to "sell," "donate," "return to owner/lender," or "trash." Some folks suggest turning the trash books into craft projects (such as paper flowers from the pages), but I'll leave that to someone more artful. No. 4, I take the books that I'm going to keep and clean them up (maybe repair a few), and then rearrange them by some scheme that makes sense while remaining visually appealing (author, size, genre, etc.). No. 5, I follow through on selling, donating and trashing, so that piles of unwanted books don't end up in the garage as homes for spiders. No. 6, I reward myself with a quiet read of a new book, or one of the old favorites I found while cleaning. I do empathize with any readers determined to cling to book-jammed spaces, however, and so I'll also pass along these memes about bookworms who hate spring cleaning: https://media.bookbub.com/blog/2017/03/15/reading-over-spring-cleaning-memes/

Time to Add Irish Green to Your Noir Reading

It's almost St. Patrick's Day, and I admit to a special liking for the holiday. It's not because of my Irish heritage; it is because the holiday falls on the day before my birthday (I had many green-iced birthday cakes growing up thanks to bakery discounts). What better way to celebrate than an exploration of Ireland's healthy crop of mystery and crime fiction! I can only mention a few, so I'll start with one of my favorite Irish authors: Tana French. Her 2007 debut mystery, Into the Woods, won Edgar, Macavity, Anthony and Barry awards for best first novel and launched her Dublin Murder Squad series. A male-female detective team investigates the murder of a young girl in the same place where two children went mysteriously missing "into the woods" many years earlier (with a very personal connection for one detective). The latest French work is 2016's The Trespasser, in which a slamdunk, lover's-quarrel murder pulls the Murder Squad protagonists in unexpected directions. Another good Irish author choice is Benjamin Black, the mystery-writing pen name of award-winning novelist John Banville. Christine Falls, an Edgar and Macavity awards nominee, launched Black's series about a tormented pathologist named Quirke. Set in 1950s Dublin, the story begins when Quirke tipsily returns to the morgue after a party and finds his own brother-in-law tampering with the records of a young woman's corpse. Quirke reluctantly begins looking into the woman's history and discovers a web of treachery that implicates the Catholic Church and may involve members of his own family. In 2016, Black added Even the Dead to the Quirke series: A mysterious car crash death and a missing pregnant woman lead the pathologist into a dark tangle of profit, politics and religon. Back on the distaff side, another award-winning series comes from Louise Phillips. The Doll House, which won Best Irish Crime Novel of the Year for 2013, features Phillips' series protagonist Dr. Kate Pearson, a criminal pyschologist. Pearson is called in when a body in a Dublin canal ties back to a family's tragic past and newly surfaced, traumatic childhood memories. Liz Nugent's Unravelling Oliver is another Irish Book Award winner; it's a dark "why-dunnit" about a seemingly charming Dublin children's author who shocks the community when he savagely attacks his devoted wife. And if you're looking for crime noir, try Ken Bruen and his lauded Jack Taylor series about a disgraced Galway police officer turned PI whose investigations often confront the negative Irish social changes of "Celtic Tiger" prosperity. Bruen's most recent series entry is 2016's The Emerald Lie. For more Irish mysteries by Irish authors, see https://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/irish-crime-fiction

Senior Themes: Proving Mystery Never Gets Old

Because I'm in the process of moving my 91-year-old father to an assisted living facility, I've been researching the mysteries of aging--and aging in mysteries. Most mysteries about seniors feature amusing, quirky "golden-agers" of the "cozy" mystery variety. I guess it's reassuring to read about older characters who aren't "cognitively impaired" and "mobility challenged" while "facing mortality." But, after dealing with real senior issues, I began to hanker for a realistic senior detective without a sweetening dose of cute humor. And I wanted characters and social issues more contemporary than Agatha Christie's Miss Marple in an English country manor! My search of senior-themed mysteries turned up one non-cozy example in Daniel Friedman's Don't Ever Get Old, winner of the Macavity Award for Best First Novel and nominee for both Anthony and Edgar awards for best first novel. Ex-Memphis detective "Buck" Schatz starts on the trail of an old nemesis, partly to settle scores and partly to recover a possible treasure in gold. Though 80-something Buck is literally “too old for this,” his instincts remain, and he does have a grandson's help with things like “the googles” and other technological hurdles. Violence and realism are laced by humor that acknowledges mortality and old age's physical and mental limitations. Another discovery was Thirty-Three Teeth by British author Colin Cotterill, which won a 2006 Dilys Award from the Independent Mystery Booksellers Association. Dr. Siri Paiboun, one of the last doctors left in Laos after the Communist takeover, has been drafted to be national coroner and must unravel a series of mysterious murders. Untrained for the job, the 72-year-old has outstanding qualifications undimmed by age: curiosity and the courage to follow clues despite political pressure. But I'm not opposed to a spunky elder sleuth if he or she is the credible product of a spunky elder author! Start with Macavity Award nominee A Valley to Die For by 81-year-old Radine Trees Nehring, which introduces widow Carrie McCrite and retired detective Henry King to her "Something to Die For" series set in the Ozark mountains. From 83-year-old Lorena McCourtney comes the gray-haired Ivy Malone, protagonist of a series that includes two Daphne du Maurier Award winners, Invisible and On the Run. Finally, Edgar Award-winning screenwriter Rita Lakin, 87, offers the Gladdy Gold series, starting with Getting Old Is Murder, in which 75-year-old Gladdy Gold and her gang of Fort Lauderdale retirees hunt down a killer. For cozy senior options, see http://www.mystery-cozy.com/Mystery-Cozy-Senior-Sleuth-Cozies.html