MERCY - Book review - ADULT CONTENT

David Lindsey’s ‘sexually charged thriller’ Mercy was published in 1990 and runs to 673 pages and covers a harrowing series of murders in seven days.

Houston, Texas. Homicide detective Carmen Palma is dedicated and tenacious. She needs to be in a homicide department packed with men. Her older and vastly experienced fellow detective partner Birley is coming to the end of his career; he’s supportive and trustworthy. They’re both called out for the murder of Dorothy Ann Samerov – a grisly corpse with sexual overtones. It’s highly likely that this could be the second murder committed by a serial killer: the first was only a week ago: Sandra Moser.

Both deaths involved sadomasochism. The book title is the safe word used by a participant – called out to stop the pain when it gets too much. Each subject might have a different agreed safe word. Though in the case of Sandra, the safe word was ignored, and she became the first victim...

It soon becomes obvious that there’s an underground network of wealthy Houston women living secret double lives. Some of them are connected to the psychotherapist Broussard, yet he has a solid alibi...

FBI Profiler Sander Grant is called in to assist Palma, and he proves to be a fascinating character, almost as strong as Palma herself.

This is a police procedural that leaves little to the imagination in either gore or sex.

The high page-count can be partly attributed to the detail Lindsey provides in the description of every item of clothing, every tree, and the car routes taken by Palma in her investigations. It’s immersive narrative, often employed in non-fiction work such as David Simon’s ground-breaking Homicide.

Apart from the in-depth treatment of psychology of serial killers, psychosexual villains and psychiatry in general, Lindsey has a gripping often humane style, as these two examples might indicate:

‘Life was gradually taken away what it had gradually given. It was the nature of things, but few people understood their tentative ownership of their gifts until they saw them being taken away from someone they loved. If you were lucky life allowed you that, a preview of the way it was going to be’ (p219).

‘We only know people to the extent they want us to know them’ (p252).

And despite the graphic murder and sex scenes, his other visuals are also effective too:

‘rain glittering through the beans of her headlights like shattered glass falling out of the black sky’ (p331).

 However, if you think you’ll be offended by the subject matter, then avoid. 

The book was adapted into a movie with the same title in 2000.

MAIGRET IN COURT - Book review

Georges Simenon’s Maigret in Court was published in 1960 (translated 1965).

Chief Inspector Maigret, 55, is attending court to give evidence. A woman and her child were brutally murdered in their flat. The accused is the victim’s nephew, a quiet picture-framer, Gaston Meurant. He is fortunate to be appearing before Judge Xavier Bernerie, ‘the most scrupulous and the most passionate seeker of the truth. Thin and in poor health, his eyes feverish, with a dry cough, he resembled a saint in a stained-glass window’ (p2).

Meurant’s wife Ginette was in the witness box too: ‘underneath her make-up (she) had the paleness of women who live in a hothouse atmosphere’ (p44).

In philosophical mode, Maigret compared his appearance in court with that of his friend, Pardon, the local GP, who constantly bemoaned the limited time allocated to each patient. ‘Each patient is a separate case, and yet I have to work on the conveyor-belt system...’ (p49). While for Maigret in court there’s a need to be concise: ‘The number of the witnesses is reduced to the minimum, as are the questions that are put to them... The case is merely sketched in with a few strokes; the people concerned are no more than outlines, caricatures almost...’ (p50).

In the event, Maigret cannot reconcile the violent portrait the court paints with the man his investigation revealed.

We again meet Maigret’s long-suffering confederates Janvier and Lucas; and Maigret is looking forward to retiring in two years with his wife.

This, like many of his works, is a slim volume, yet it is steeped in the minutiae of police procedurals and court procedures in France and makes riveting reading.

Simenon was a literary phenomenon, writing over 400 novels; he wrote 75 Maigret novels and 28 short stories featuring the detective. Simenon died in 1989, aged 86.

No Witnesses - Book review

Ridley Pearson’s 1994 thriller No Witnesses doesn’t disappoint. I’ve yet to encounter one of his books that doesn’t deliver.

Homicide detective sergeant Lou Boldt is approached by an old associate, the police department’s forensic psychologist, Daphne Matthews. Her boyfriend Owen Adler is a multi-millionaire in the food supply business. Adler has been receiving threatening faxes full of hate. He has been told not to go to the police. So Daphne wants Boldt to investigate clandestinely.

The threats turn out to be real and deadly, starting with a supermarket tin of soup at one of the Adler supermarkets; one victims dies from poisoning, the other is seriously ill.

So begins a cat-and-mouse case, where the clues are small and frustrating; but fortunately Boldt is meticulous and no small detail is overlooked.

Several aspects of this police procedural set it above many of its contemporaries, the humanity, the detail, the pace and the insider knowledge. 

Boldt is businesslike but humane, despite the lowlifes he has to contend with:

‘Any homicide cop felt the pain and suffering of the victims and their relatives – no matter how callous to the crime scenes he or she became, no matter how quick the one-liners, and how easy it was to move on to another case. The tragedy of the Crowley family had deeply affected everyone…’ (p338).

And then there’s the suspense. Pearson has the enviable knack of ratcheting up the tension in more than one encounter. You’re there, you can feel the threat, the anxiety. Daphne, Adler and his daughter are in jeopardy; and Boldt is convinced there’s somebody in the department aiding the deranged blackmailer.

There’s humour, inevitably, some of it dark. One instance: They want to track down the withdrawals of the ransom money – it’s being done via the city’s ATMs, a few thousand dollars at a time. The bank boss, Lucille confronts a technician, Ted Perch, asking for his help. ‘… Perch looked a little hurt. She knew more than he did, and he did not like that. And if he tried to look up her skirt one more time, Boldt was going to say something about it…’ Later, after technical talk with Boldt, ‘Lucille recrossed her legs and Perch didn’t even notice. That was when Boldt knew he had him.’ (p160) Had Perch hooked, in fact.

It’s  a little out-dated now, due to the advances of technology, but that doesn’t spoil the tale at all. You’re there, in 1994, sweating it out with other cops in Seattle.

Oh, and there’s a neat twist near the satisfying end, too.

Book review - Romance

Ed McBain’s 1995 novel of the 87^th Precinct, Romance, is up to his usual high standard, a bravura mixture of police procedural, social commentary, slick characterisation and humour.

It begins with Detective Bert Kling attempting to fix a date with Sharyn, a black Deputy Chief Surgeon. He’s concerned about the difference in their rank, not the difference in their colour; she’s merely wondering about the colour issue. They agree to meet. It’s a phone call, and we’re in omniscient point-of-view mode so we get the emotions of both characters; it works well. So, a budding romance...

Next, we’re in an interview between a detective and a concerned redheaded actress who has been receiving threatening phone calls. Soon, we realise that these two characters are acting in a play called Romance. It isn’t a very good play; subsequently, the actress in the play is stabbed. McBain has fun depicting the ‘arty types’ on both sides of the script, with plenty of back-stabbing.

‘Carella wondered if the smile was an actress’s trick. Or even an actress’s tic. He realised all at once that with an actress, you could never tell when she was acting You could look into her eyes from now till doomsday and the eyes would relay only what she was performing, the eyes could look limpid and soulful and honest, but the eyes could be acting, the eyes could be lying. (p188) Of course the same could be said of an actor; but Carella is busy interviewing an actress…

Actress Michelle Cassidy isn’t happy with the play or its author. She turns up at the 87^th Precinct to inform Kling she’s been receiving threatening phone calls, just like in the play. Later, she is stabbed, though not fatally… Great publicity when the play is mentioned on the front page of the newspapers and in TV newscasts; then a murder happens and it’s a publicist’s dream though a nightmare for the detectives of the 87^th.

Many of  regular the 87^th Precinct gang figure in here, too: Carella, his wife Teddy, Ollie Weeks (‘the bigot of the universe’), Meyer, Lieutenant Byrnes, and Monroe and Monaghan (the homicide duo)…

Strange, how times change. ‘Nobody was quite ready to take offense back then…’ (p171) This was about something as ‘innocuous’ as calling women ‘girls’. I wonder what Carella would make of the offense brigade today on anti-social media? And as hinted at earlier, there’s evidence of racial tension as well as anti-Semitism. Maybe times don’t change that much, after all…

Great observation throughout, to be expected. ‘The dog immediately began barking at Kling, the way all little dogs do in an attempt to convince people they’re really fierce German shepherds or Great Danes in disguise.’ (p223)

It’s good to meet these characters again after a lengthy absence. Not everything is what it seems; there’s a twist on the obvious twist. The story neatly ends with Kling and Sharyn no longer on the phone but in a romantic - and sensual - situation.

Even Hunter (Ed McBain) died in 2005, aged 78.

Book review - The Treatment

Mo Hayder’s debut thriller Birdman garnered heaps of praise. This is her second (2001) and also features DI Jack Caffery. His previous case soaks into his psyche, not least because he’s bedding a survivor from that time, Rebecca. He's your typical flawed detective.

If you’ve read Birdman, you know what to expect. If you haven’t, prepare to enter dark territory; you can jump in here without losing too much in the way of backstory, as references tend to fill you in. If you’re of a sensitive disposition, you’d be well advised not to read these two books: they’re graphic, gritty, foul-mouthed and populated by unsavoury individuals, many of them without a shred of conscience or compassion. Cosy crime this is not.

Despite clocking up 478 pages, there is not a great deal of incident. But what there is you will find to be intense, uncomfortable reading. While a police procedural crammed with technical details, The Treatment is mainly about paedophilia, but it also touches on trust, love, family, cowardice, and teamwork.

In south London, on the edge of Brockwell Park, a husband and wife are discovered bound and beaten in their house. Their young son Rory is missing… The details of their ordeal are drip-fed, creating suspense and dread. It does not end well for the family. Worse, though, it seems that another family has also been targeted by the same demented perpetrator. Caffery’s private life is a mess; this case has uncanny similarities to the disappearance of his brother Ewan, an event that haunts him even after twenty-five years. We, the reader, get to learn what happened to Ewan; the ending will disappoint some readers, I suspect.

Hayder has the knack of switching from various characters, good and bad, to keep you turning the pages. Nightmarish quality of writing and story.

To date, DI Caffery appears in seven books.

Book review - Undercurrents

Written by Ridley Pearson in 1988, Undercurrents is his first Detective Lou Boldt novel.

Sergeant Boldt is investigating the ‘Cross Killer’ – a serial murderer who cuts a crucifix into the victim’s chest. Boldt is assisted by police psychologist Daphne Matthews.  

Slowly, painstakingly, their tenacity builds up a criminal profile. Yet this is more than a police procedural novel. Pearson provides poignant observation of people’s flaws, including Boldt’s, not least the disintegration of his marriage. ‘Being a cop is like a terminal disease: it consumes you, entirely, slowly but surely. I’ve allowed it to take everything out of my life. And I’ve suddenly reached the stage where I resent that.’ (p260).

There’s wit aplenty too. Boldt is being hounded by the press, notably because an earlier suspect, who proved to be innocent, was murdered before he could go to trial: ‘You’re getting more press than a pair of cotton slacks.’ (p131)

However, there seems to be more than one killer; there appears to be a copycat, too. Throughout their investigation, the killer (or killers) seem to be at least one step ahead.

Beneath the surface there’s a deep-seated anger at the perpetrator, who denies the innocents of life.  If you’ve never read a Lou Boldt book, this is the place to start. You won’t regret making the guy’s acquaintance. I’ve also read the tense suspenseful sequel, The Angel Maker, which I can also recommend. There are nine books in the Boldt series.

Book review - The Empty Hours

Here we have three mysteries from Ed McBain’s 87^th Precinct. 

‘The Empty Hours’ concerns the corpse of Claudia Davis, who was young and rich. Detective Steve Carella works with the usual precinct detectives to crack a case that ‘had been crazy from the beginning. Some of them are like that.’ McBain believed that coincidence and a good memory help cops as much as detailed field work, and this case is a good example of both.

He had the knack of creating images and situations, sometimes bizarre, sometimes poignant, with very few words. ‘The shop was small and crowded. Badueck fitted into the shop like a beetle in an ant trap.He was a huge man with thick, unruly black hair…’ (p53)

I do wonder if he was being playful, or was it mere coincidence, when one of the victim’s cheque stubs was numbered 007. (p55) Bearing in mind that this short story was probably penned in 1960, long before the James Bond mania took hold.

He also liked to through in irony. For example when Cotton Hawes questioned a witness in a women’s hair salon. Hawes was a redhead with a white streak in his hair as a result of a knife assault. ‘… he felt like a customer who had come to have  his goddamned streak touched up…’ (p63)

‘J’ (1961) begins with the murder of a rabbi in an alley next to the synagogue. Inevitably, Meyer Meyer accompanies Carella on this case. There are plenty of amusing and fascinating asides about Meyer and Jewishness. The murderer must surely be a Jew-hater – particularly since the letter ‘J’ was painted on the brick wall next to the corpse.

Here, as elsewhere, McBain gives us poignancy: ‘His shoulders shook with the sobs that came from somewhere deep in his guts. Carella turned away because it seemed to him in that moment that he was watching the disintegration of a man, and he did not want to see it.’ (p129)

‘Storm’ (1962) features Cotton Hawes on weekend vacation to a ski resort with a lady friend, Blanche; he has booked separate rooms in the Rawson Mountain Inn. Unfortunately, the heating only seems to work in one of the bedrooms… Before long, however, he is faced with the death of a female ski instructor, stabbed with a ski pole. McBain then gives us two pages of how Hawes got to know death intimately over the years, starting as a rookie and then as a young detective. He’d vomited in the early days, but not any more; he’d seen too much. But then, and now, he still got angry. Anger that could consume him. And here, out of his jurisdiction, he has to contend with the local police who seem incompetent.

McBain’s 87^th Precinct novels and stories are written in the omniscient point of view and yet have plenty of interior ratiocination on life, love and death from the regular characters. We get to know these guys, their fears and foibles, and their determination to bring the perpetrators to justice.

And that’s why he can write about any one of the precinct characters – as in ‘Storm’ – because he knows them so well.

McBain (real name Evan Hunter; he also used about six other pen-names) wrote his first 87^th Precinct book in 1956 and was prolific and greatly respected as a writer. He died in 2005.