an apocalypse is not a tea party: The Last Policeman and *Countdown City, by Ben Winters

"You're like a monster, dude...From a monster movie. The man who would not fucking quit."

---Countdown City

My mega apologies to author Ben Winters for waiting so  long to get to these books. I felt so guilty that even though the author sent me an ecopy of Countdown City,  I paid for a real-book copy to ease my conscience.  They have a unique premise -- a huge asteroid is about to fall out of the sky and life as we know it has changed for the worse, and a policeman steadfastly remains to do his duty, on and off the job.    As the time gets closer, civilization starts to slide toward chaos.  With the news of impending doom, a lot of people, including much of the police department in Concord, NH where this book is set,  have gone bucket list -- meaning that now that they know when it's all going to end, they'll spend their last days doing things they've always dreamed of  doing before they died.    Someone's got to care -- and that someone is Hank Palace, a relative newbie to the police force who has been promoted to detective, a move that ordinarily wouldn't have been possible in that short of a time.  Hank, nice guy that he is, has become "the last policeman."  In both books, the author asks his readers to consider "what it means to be civilized when civilization is collapsing all around you," a key point in trying to understand the main character of this series.

 In The Last Policeman, the first in a three-part series, the number of suicides around the world has skyrocketed since the upcoming asteroid crash was confirmed. In Concord,  many of them are by hanging.  So when a guy has been found dead with a belt

9781594745768

Quirk Books, 2012

316 pp

paper (my copy from the author -- thank you!)

around his neck in the men's room of a McDonald's, it seems like it's just another "hanger," but Hank doesn't think so. He thinks it's murder and wants to do a full investigation, even though his colleagues think he's wasting his time.  He plows ahead, but the resources formerly available to him as a detective are limited because of the impending doom, so he'll have to rely mainly on good old-fashioned detective work.  He's also got a sister to deal with, who comes to him because her husband has gone missing.   The question here is what spurs him on when the apocalypse is just around the corner -- what is it about this guy that compels him to do what he does? And how the heck does he stay so good when the rest of the world's starting to come unglued?

The investigation in this book is not so different than in any crime novel -- it's what's going on around the police work that makes for the best reading.  While global society is starting to unravel at its edges, in Concord, it's getting harder to find gas, cell phone signals and internet connections, but people are really clever.  They're also pretty afraid of getting arrested --  with new federal government laws in place that put people away for even minor offenses, no one wants to live out their last days in a jail cell. On top of that, inflation is hitting hard and businesses are closing left and right, sometimes to give employees more time with their families before the end.  For the people who still have jobs, keeping them is a financial must in preparing for the future.  Even the current entertainment defines the times: the ongoing top-rated show, Distant Glimmers, as Hank relates, adds a subtext filled with hope for survival.   And, as you might have guessed, conspiracy theories are rampant and organizations have sprung up,  filled with people who believe there's still hope if they act -- Hank's sister Nico among them.

Considering it's the first novel in a series, it's pretty darn good.  I like Hank, but I spent a lot of time wondering  how he keeps it all together while things are starting to fall apart. He's overly nice, an all-around good guy, less cynical than I'd expect, but whatever. The supporting characters are not as well developed as they probably could be, but that's pretty normal for a first-in-series novel.   I also found the predoom setting to be a really interesting backdrop for a police novel, but the book was overall less "apocalyptic noir" in tone than I'd hoped it was going to be.  The one thing I really didn't like (but understand the logic behind)  was the whole Nico plot --  where she gets involved in some "nonsense" regarding secretly-constructed bases on the dark side of the moon -- that gives these parts of the book more political conspiracy thriller-weighted moments that to me seemed unnecessary. 

If you are a fan of crossover novels, you'll have a sporting good time with this one, so I'd say give it a try, and definitely read this one before the second novel, Countdown City, which picks up with the asteroid

 9781594746260

Quirk Books, 2013

316 pp

paper

just 77 days away from its collision with our planet. As people try to prepare for the inevitable, the government has put Hank out of a job, as it has federalized the Concord Police Force. Investigative units are out -- "relatively unnecessary, given the current environment." The patrol units are amped up, but now everyone reports to the Justice Department. Hank takes early retirement after being on the job only a short time, but his unemployed status doesn't curb his desire to help others.  Countdown City is much more action packed than its predecessor, and I have a feeling that this volume might be the lynchpin between the first and the last novel in this series, getting everyone in place for what's to come.  

The situation is rapidly becoming hopeless as the world waits for the big crash.  The scientists have predicted that the asteroid will hit Indonesia or at least somewhere close, and American shores have been flooded with boats filled with people trying to escape "boomsday."  Electricity in Hank's neck of the woods is no more; people are getting "aftermath ready," hoarding food and water and "whole new forms of abrupt departure, new species of madness" are popping up everywhere. Scam artists are taking what money people have left.  Hank's sister is still involved in an "anti-asteroid conspiracy" group, one of several which have popped up, taking their theories very seriously.  In the midst of all of the craziness, Hank's childhood babysitter Martha is missing her husband, and calls on Hank for help.  Nice guy that he is, of course he can't turn her down, and despite the fact that his usual resources no longer exist, he forges ahead. 

from http://rt.com/news/paint-asteroid-earth-nasa-767/

 There are two main avenues being explored here -- first, the search for Martha's husband, which leads Hank down other investigative avenues, and the author's exploration of people's responses to downright dire  circumstances.  On one side, the litany of  people and their uncivilized behavior begins to get depressing, although it's fit into Hank's investigation well so that there's no in your faceness about it.  It's so realistic that after I finished this book one of my first thoughts was about all these weirdo people in real life who think a coming apocalypse could be a good thing -- and how they don't have a clue.  Both avenues tie very neatly together in this novel, to produce a heck of a setup for the final volume.  Some events were a little too neat, too pat, too deus ex machina,  though, sadly I can't say what those are so as not to spoil the show. So, yes, I recommend both novels -- especially to people of a dystopian bent where crime solving  is a big factor in the story.  These books are really out of the box -- a good thing.

so...when's volume three coming? I have to know what happens now -- you left me hanging!

*The Shining Girls, by Lauren Beukes (repost)

9780316216852
Mulholland, 2013
368 pp

hardcover

"It is a game. It's a destiny he's writing for them. Inevitably, they're waiting for him."




 note: When I picked up this book for my "books published this year" summer readfest,   I had zero clue as to what it was going to be, but as it turns out, it's focused on crimes against women, so I thought I'd post it here as well as on the main page of my online reading journal.

 The Shining Girls is a mix of time-travel scifi and serial-killer crime fiction,  but don't believe the blurb written by Matt Haig on the back cover that says it's a cross between The Time Traveler's Wife and The Silence of the Lambs.  Even if, in your wildest imagination, you could mix the two, you still don't come anywhere close to The Shining Girls.  Yes, there is time travel and yes there is a nasty serial killer out there, but this killer already knows who he's going to kill and visits his victims beforehand -- and even leaves them a little something to hold on to until he comes back.  Bought exclusively for its summer-read/beach potential, the book didn't let me down; it may not go on this year's list of favorite novels of the year, but it's still pretty good.

In this story, time runs along different chronologies.  The serial killer in this novel, Harper Curtis,  has his own time line -- he jumps in and out of time from the 1930s until 1993  -- and then there's the timeline of one his victims, Kirby, whom Harper mistakenly leaves alive after a brutal attack.  Third, there's the real, historical chronology, time and changing attitudes moving forward in history.   It may seem confusing at first, but it makes sense here. As the novel opens,  Harper Curtis is running from an angry mob in a Depression-era Hooverville.    He runs into a shack, takes a coat and leaves; in one of the pockets is a key.  He is drawn to a mysterious house in the city of Chicago, a jumping-off point into time; a place where his destiny, and those of a group of young women he doesn't even know, is literally written on the walls.  The women are the shining girls of the title, and he is compelled to track them through time and ultimately to snuff out their glowing potential in the world.   Harper  visits each one long before he kills them, leaving some token; years later when it's a woman's time to die, he leaves something else with each of them, something from one of the other victims.  One of them, Kirby Mazrachi, escapes from a savage attack and her destiny with death, but she is left with both physical and emotional scars. She becomes fixated on finding the person who did this to her, determined enough to the point where she becomes an intern on a newspaper that covered the case because of the access to the paper's archives.  She has caught on to the pattern of artifacts left behind, but trying to find someone who will listen to her is pretty much impossible, as is trying to pin down one specific person whom she knows is responsible for a number of other brutal attacks.

On a surface level I suppose you could read this book as another serial-killer novel with a time-travelling gimmick as a hook, but to me it goes well beyond that sort of simplified explanation.  Harper is figuratively plucking the wings off of  women, killing them just as they are starting to make a difference in their present;  cutting off their potential for making  a difference in  the futures of others.  Thinking about that, it seems to me that the author is not only talking about men who feel compelled to keep women down, but also about victims of violence -- where every life taken represents a loss of  future possibilities.  The crazy time loops in this novel help to point out that although time moves on, violence  against women has always been, is, and always will be part of our existence, with effects that ripple ever outward over time.

Overall, it's a good enough novel, one that kept me intrigued,  but there were parts that dragged and I had to read it twice to figure out the House. I'm also not big on graphic violence, which there is plenty of in this book; I get the point -- these were living people with personalities, lives, parents, loved ones -- but sometimes too much is just too much.  The ending, well, since I can't talk about that here, suffice it to say I think the action-packed  empowerment statement was a little too obvious,  but I know lots of people who'll disagree.  This book is getting some excellent reviews, but not everyone is loving it -- I'm somewhere in the middle of all of that.  I'll recommend it as a good summer read -- but read it slowly so you don't have to go through it a second time like I did.

 fiction from South Africa

On a Bender x3: Crashed, Little Elvises and The Fame Thief, by Timothy Hallinan

After spending a LOT of time on all of this dark crime, it's time to lighten up for a while with the added pleasure of discovering a previously-unread (by me) author.   Timothy Hallinan is a snarky writer who, among all of his other talents, has totally captured Los Angeles in his three novels Crashed, Little Elvises, and The Fame Thief.    I know -- I worked there for some time and lived pretty much next door to the Valley for what seems like eons, and he's nailed it.  You  meet all kinds of people, see all sorts of bizarro-world things that are perfectly normal there,  and well, he's somehow managed to capture that feel of LA that's pretty much indescribable to people who've never lived or spent major amounts of time there. 

Hallinan's antihero main character is Junior Bender, so-called because his father's name was Merle and, not wanting to saddle his son with the same name, his dad officially named him Junior.  His education consisted of reading through The Recognitions, by William Gaddis, a book that led him on to other books where he learned a host of other important things.  Junior is divorced from Kathy, and has a wise-beyond-her-years newly- teenaged daughter named Rina whom he absolutely adores.  Junior, however, is not like other dads -- he makes his living as a burglar, a career he started at the age of 15, and sometimes does favors for less savory people who have no other avenues and who know Junior will  get the job done. 

In the first installment of this series, Crashed,
 

9781616952761
Soho Crime, 2012
356 pp
 paper

career-burgler Junior Bender has picked up a gig from a  "facilitator," whose client wants Junior to steal a Paul Klee painting from some people who are currently on vacation.  She has provided the layout and other info Junior will need to know -- but what she doesn't know is that there's a video camera that is tracking Junior's every move.  Sadly, he discovers it too late...and the guy who monitors the stored recordings has him in a corner. He will either work for Trey Annunziato, "a third-generation hood," "heir to the Valley's most diversified crime family," and "Mount Rushmore with hair," and do the job right, or his face will be the one the painting's owners see on the recording when they come back from their vacation.  Trey is planning to go straight and has decided to make one last porno movie "to finance everybody's transition to the straight life," meaning all of those people involved in her criminal enterprises.  The star is going to be a former child actress, Thistle Downing  who captured everyone's hearts on her own television show some years earlier but now is a drug addict having trouble making it through the day.  While Trey's plan to exploit Thistle is already in progress, there are people who don't want to see the film made, and there have already been problems.  Junior's job is to make sure Thistle is ready to work, and to see that the film gets made at any cost.   As Junior soon finds out, this won't be easy -- and when one of his friends ends up dead, it becomes personal.

It sounds kind of like a cut-and-dried kind of mystery, but no. There are multiple laugh-out-loud moments and the author's totally nailed LA and the Valley here, along with the various personality types you find living there.  No one is safe from his snark here, most especially  the media vultures and the film industry.  Crashed is a book that is hard to dislike -- and I don't really have anything on the negatory side to say about it.  It's good for all crime readers, especially when you want something on the lighter as opposed to edgy side, although it does have its moments of blood, guts and wisecracks.  As an anti-hero, Junior's one of the best -- he has a conscience and a very clear sense of morality with lines he tries not to cross unless absolutely necessary.  In his own burglar sort of way, he's a wonderful dad, and has made a promise to himself to never lie to his daughter -- who has her own very cool personality as well.   Definitely a first-rate series starter, and after I finish this series, I'll be off to find others by this writer.   I LOVED this book, and I think my enthusiasm must have bubbled over, because now my husband is reading it. We never agree on crime novels, but I think this book may prove to be the exception.

Moving on to the second book in this series, Little Elvises

9781616952792
Soho Crime, 2012
347 pp
paper

has one of those very cool storylines where the past returns to bite people in the butt in the present.  As in the previous book, Junior is once again being blackmailed into something he doesn't particularly want to do.  A Detective DiGaudio tells him that the cops can make him for a crime that could put him away for twenty years, even though he and Junior both know he didn't do it.  Even though he has an alibi, the people Junior was with at the time of the crime have been already intimidated by the cops so he can't hope for any help in that arena.  As it turns out, diGaudio's uncle Vinnie, who lives with an ex WWF wrestler named Hilda the Queen of the Gestapo and now goes by Popsie, is on the edge of being arrested for the murder of tabloid hack Derek Bigelow.  Vinnie's on the hook because people have heard him say he was planning on offing the guy, but actually, some unknown person beat him to it.  The detective wants Junior to get his uncle's name cleared ... or Junior goes down.

Back in the 1950s/60s, Vinnie, who has a long history with the music industry,  promoted "Little Elvises," who were all the rage on an American Bandstand-type program -- there for their handsome looks rather for any musical talent.   They filled a vacuum between the "raw" -- Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, for example, and the Pat Boone types.  These "handsome Italian kids with tight pants and big hair,"  as Junior's daughter told him in a report she did for school, were "churned up to the surface in the wake of Elvis Presley" in Philadelphia.  The "most pathetic" of the little Elvises was named Giorgio,  and one of the better ones, Bobby Angel, just disappeared one day.  Having no choice, Junior has to take this case seriously, but it isn't long until Junior realizes that someone's after him --  after his first visit to Uncle Vinnie,  someone's already shooting at him.   Hiding out at the North Pole Motel in the Blitzen room, he enlists the help of Louie the Lost, his friend who gained his name when as a getaway driver he got lost in a Compton neighborhood with a trunk full of diamonds.   With the help of his daughter Rina, Junior blazes his way through a very strange case; however, he's actually in for more than he bargained for when Bigelow's widow cozies up to him and when Marge, the North Pole's owner, asks him to find her missing daughter. 

You just have to appreciate Timothy Hallinan's whacked imagination in these books.   Once again, he's done an excellent job in evoking LA's craziness and its overall atmosphere, which really is like nowhere else if you really get to know it.   Junior's character has definitely become a bit more complex since Crashed, especially in his interactions with his daughter and his ambivalence about his ex-wife, especially now that she seems to have a new boyfriend.  Like the other book, his interactions with the other characters are often hysterical, but in this slice of the world Hallinan has created, make perfect sense.  And what characters they are -- crazy as loons some of them.    The author notes that he wanted to "play with the idea with the idea of media imitation" here, but there's also a theme that carries over from Crashed -- namely, the idea that fame can destroy someone who's not prepared for it. Once again, I'm floored by how good this book is -- while it may seem a bit complicated at first, as the few initial "aha" moments are reached, things begin to fall into place easily. Underneath the laughs, there is a sad and rather human human story here. Recommended.

Moving on to the third and newest book in this series, with grateful thanks to Soho,  Junior's back in The Fame Thief, another story that has its roots in the past and in the entertainment industry.

 

9781616952808
Soho Crime, 2013
324 pp
hardcover,

ARC from Soho Crime (thanks!)

The Fame Thief might be considered an ode to "all the beautiful and not so beautiful girls everywhere who lose their way in the world without stumbling over anyone kind."

We're back in Hollywood territory once again as Junior takes on a sixty-plus year old mystery.  This time he's not being blackmailed, but he's been summoned and hired by Irwin Dressler, a career mobster who pretty much controlled everything that went on in Hollywood for years.  Dressler is in his 90s, and is taken care of by two thugs named Tuffy and Babe, but he is still one of the most dangerous old men around and someone to whom no one says no.  Junior has been picked up by Dressler to find out who destroyed the career of Dolores La Marr, an actress who was once known as "the most beautiful woman in the world," and a Life Magazine cover girl way back when.  One night in Vegas, 1950, the cops raided a party and everyone was picked up and tossed into jail, but everyone was bailed out within a couple of hours.  Everyone, that is, except Dolores.  A picture taken through the bars of her cell --"no sleep, no shower, no hairbrush, " makeup everywhere from crying -- turned up "everywhere," followed by more stories leaking pictures of Dolores with known criminals.  As Dolores notes, 

"One day I was the wide-eyed innocent from Scranton who was hitting it big in the sticks, and a week later I was the Whore of Babylon, I was a gun moll, I was a paid companion, I was a prostitute...I was over."

Dressler wants to know who set her up back then, and Junior starts looking into Hollywood's past, which is more than connected with the mob. But when he starts digging, people start dying.

The Fame Thief is another fine entry in this series, and like the other two,  filled with that sarcastic, snarky humor that sets this series apart as well as that insider view of Los Angeles. There are a couple of diversions here not found in the others, though -- first, a step back in time to get the picture from Dolores' point of view, cool because I love when the past meets present in any novel;  second, well, let's just say it's an element that took me by surprise and one which I was not so keen on, but I won't spoil it.  I think all in all, this book may have been my favorite as far as storyline (without the final chapter), and I'll definitely look forward to the next installment. 

*Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery, by Robert Kolker

9780062183637
Harper, 2013
399 pp

hardcover


I'm not the biggest fan of modern true crime -- my interests in this area really lie in older, historical true crime, but once in a while a book comes along that I just have to recommend.  Lost Girls: An Unsolved American Mystery is one of them.  You won't find any grisly details or any sort of recounting of horrendous murders here, simply because the mystery behind the deaths of the five young women around which this book is focused has not yet been solved.  This is a book that from page one will draw you in and keep you there because it's that good. The author's writing and handling of the subject matter haunted me on a human level, and while the book is centered around a series of crimes, it's also a look at how each and every one of these "lost girls" and their families were failed by the system due to officials' indifference toward them, primarily based on what they did for a living.

If you've been on the fence about this one, or if you've been thinking you'd wait to see what other people have to say, wait no more. There is no sensationalism here, no lurid details, nothing you'd find in what I consider crappy true crime books -- on the contrary, it is a book that is intelligent, sophisticated, and one that you will be thinking about long after you've finished it.

You can read more of what I have to say here; as far as I'm concerned, it's one of the best true crime books that's come along in a very long time. 

Death in Sardinia, by Marco Vichi

9781444712278
Hodder and Stoughton, 2012
originally published as Il Nuovo Venuto, 2004
translated by Stephen Sartarelli
454 pp

paper, UK
american edition: 2014, Pegasus books

"A policeman must do his duty to the best of his ability ... But above anything else, he must be ... fair ..." 

Just when I thought I'd had it with Inspector Bordelli and his long-winded war reveries, and flirtations with giving up smoking,  along comes Death in Sardinia to change my mind.  This book is much more on task than the previous two, enough so that I've already preordered Vichi's  Death in Florence, which I should get in November some time. 


It's 1965, Christmas is fast approaching, and Bordelli is called out to investigate the death of a notorious loan shark named Badalamenti,  who has ended up with a pair of scissors deep in his neck.  Bordelli had once tried to investigate Badalamenti, but was denied;  now that he's dead, the inspector has full access.  The coroner performing the autopsy pulls an engraved ring out of the dead man's stomach, and he lets Bordelli know a bit of information about the killer to help Bordelli narrow down his search.  Going through the loan shark's apartment, Bordelli stumbles upon a hidden space filled with promissory notes, compromising photos of a woman, and a collection of wedding rings. He also finds pictures of a young girl, with the name "Marisa" on the back.   Going through all of the names on the notes, and looking at the photos,  Bordelli decides that Badalamenti's murderer must be among them, and sets about returning the notes to Badalamenti's customers while sizing up each one as to whether or not he is the killer. In the meantime, his trusty sidekick Piras has gone home to Sardinia to recuperate after being shot while in the line of duty; while there, a family friend shoots himself, causing no end of grief for friends and family, but Piras realizes that something's not right -- and after the funeral it dawns on him: where was the shell from the shot?  Both men have their hands full trying to sort things out. 

Death in Sardinia tackles not only these crimes, but also gets more fully into Bordelli's character.  He realizes that he's not getting any younger, and waxes about aging; he also realizes that although the war that is always on his mind has been over now for two decades, it may be time for him to "stop looking at the world through its prism." Besides, in this day and age, the new generation of young people 

"could no longer bear hearing the older people's complaints about the war and having to queue up for bread.  The tears to be cried had already been shed. Now it was time to start living again, and having fun. Maybe they were right." 

More importantly, Bordelli comes to realize that the letter of the law doesn't cover every situation, and that he must apply principles of fairness and understanding while on the track of justice.

This book moved much more quickly than its two predecessors, and there was more of a clear path from crime to investigation to solution than in the earlier novels.  Although there was still the war reminiscing and memories to fill the pages, and although there was quite a bit that could have been taken out to move the book along and make it much tighter, it really is the best of the series so far. As in his other two novels, past and present meaningfully intersect in this story, here maybe more so, a quality I actually like in these books.  And while there's a good mystery here, it's not so edgy or gritty,  so it's perfect for those who enjoy lighter crime fare.

crime fiction from Italy

this year's international dagger (CWA)

The CWA has chosen -- this year's International Dagger award has been split between Fred Vargas for The Ghost Riders of Ordenbec and Pierre Lemaitre for his book Alex, which I haven't yet read but which is on tap here shortly. 

This year I really have to disagree -- The Collini Case, by Ferdinand von Schirach which is frankly stunning, and Roslund and Hellstrom's Two Soldiers , which also frankly, is amazing, were both so much better.   As much as I liked Vargas' book, it didn't measure up to either of these two books.  I'm actually stunned. 

Better luck next year and hopefully the judges will take into account that crime fiction goes well beyond entertainment value and into a medium for examining the world around us.

purge-o-rama continues -- someone take these books! (US only, please)

Today coming off the shelves and available to US readers at absolutely zero cost are the following -- take as many or as few as you'd like. Don't feel like you're being greedy if you want more than one.

Scandinavian crime:

1. Anger Mode, by Stefan Tegenfalk 

2. Last Rituals, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

3. My Soul to Take, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir 

4. Ashes to Dust, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

5. The Day is Dark, by Yrsa Sigurdardottir

6.The Boy in the Suitcase, by Lena Kaaberbol 

my shelves thank you, and I thank you as well!  I'll leave this up until Friday.