On Rankin, Robinson, Crumley and Lippman; three thumbs up, one down

Rankin, Robinson and Lippman complete my reading in January. Opened February with James Crumley as I continue to plow through a towering to-be-read pile by reading nothing -- or almost nothing -- but mysteries and thrillers.

Book 15:  Let It Bleed by Ian Rankin

Book 17: Cold Is The Grave by Peter Robinson

Recently, I've been whining about a couple of my favorite British writers who've wandered off in new directions. Rankin has retired Rebus and taken up with a new guy named Fox who works in the Complaints, Britain's version of America's Internal Affairs.  Robinson shelved Banks for a one-off, featuring a mysterious death in a haunted house.

The solution -- return to Rankin and Robinson's early works.  Let It Bleed was issued in America in 1996, Cold Is The Grave is from 2000.

Let It Bleed is an unusual Rebus mystery in that there are no murders to solve. Instead, two suicides lead Rebus to investigate corporate-government malfeasance.  It is an especially appropriate book for our times.

Cold Is The Grave has Banks heading off to London as a favor for Chief Constable Jimmy Riddle. Riddle dislikes Banks, but when the chief constable's daughter shows up on a porn site, he knows Banks is the man to locate her.  A favor for his boss leads Banks down a convoluted path of intrigue and murder.

Both books are perfect examples of why Rankin and Robinson have been successful writers here, and in their native Britain, for a couple of decades.

Book 18:  Dancing Bear by James Crumley 

Rankin and Robinson's mysteries are positively genteel when stacked against the hard-boiled thrillers of James Crumley. If you're seeking sex, drugs and a climbing body count, Crumley's your man.

His hero, or anti-hero, is Milo (short for Milodragovitch), a general layabout who likes his cocaine and drinks peppermint schnapps to keep some distance from whiskey.

An old (literally) girlfriend of his late father asks Milo for a favor, which promises a hefty payday for a little work.  Here's an ironclad rule for such novels -- there's no free lunch or the easier the pickings appear to be, the more dangerous the case becomes.

Soon after hiring on, Milo watches as a man is blown up. Naturally, he soon finds a grenade rigged to blow beneath the driver's seat of his own car.  From that first explosion, the body quickly starts to rise.  Milo is reluctant to kill, but his reluctance only goes so far.

There are two mysteries in Dancing Bear: What are the bad guys up to? And why was Milo ensnared in the whole thing to begin with? The answers matter a whole lot less than an exhilarating ride with Crumley

Book 16: The Most Dangerous Thing by Laura Lippman

Laura Lippman and I are parting ways. The bond between writer and reader has come apart.

The Baltimore writer is talented. I thoroughly enjoy her mysteries featuring Baltimore P.I. Tess Monaghan. But Lippman doesn't want to write about Monaghan quite so often any more.  Her latest works have been a series of one-offs, leaning toward a sociological exploration of bad things that happen to people, rather than outright mysteries or thrillers.

The latest, The Most Dangerous Thing, from 2011, is dull.  Lippman explores the lives of three families, all very different, but united through their children's friendship.  The kids spend most of their summers exploring a vast forest near their homes.   

They stumble upon a homeless man living in a rundown shack.  Let's just say the man isn't leaving this book under his own power.

Part of the problem with The Most Dangerous Thing is that the man's death is more unfortunate than mysterious or compelling.  And the another is that none of the families are all that interesting.  None of the characters can carry the weight of a novel.

There's a cameo by Tess Monaghan and that's a serious mistake on Lippman's part.  Tess soaks up all the energy of the novel during her brief appearance.  I wanted to stay behind with her, rather than go where Lippman wanted to take me. 

I've decided to take a pass on Lippman's future one-offs.  If she wants to bring Ms. Monaghan back, it will be as if I'd never gone away.

2012 Reading -- Part One

I have a plan for my reading in 2012.

The first part of the plan involves rereading. I’ll get to that topic in a future post.

The second part of the plan revolves around the need to reduce the pile of books to be read that are taking over my library like the tribbles took over the Enterprise.

Implementation of the second part of my 2012 reading plan is underway. I’ve decided that in January, and possibly February, I will focus almost exclusively on reading mysteries and thrillers. I enjoy the genre and books in that category generally prove to be a quick read.

The experiment is working. I’ve read eight books in 11 days, and, although the book pile is shrinking imperceptibly, I’m feeling better about all those books to be read.

Here’s one-half of a summary of my reading in 2012:

Book 1: North of Nowhere by Steve Hamilton

After reading The Lock Artist I resolved to become better acquainted with the work of Steve Hamilton. 

That resolve was strengthened after discovering that his Alex McKnight series was set in the U.P. I have vacationed in The Yoop two of the last three years. I’ve been to The Soo, Paradise and Whitefish Bay – all locations that regularly appear in Hamilton’s series.

Hamilton’s an entertaining writer. His plots move with the speed of a north wind out of Canada, McKnight is an appealing character and the location is unique.  North of Nowhere is the fourth book in the series. From my perspective, the books just get better and better.

Book 2: The Outlaw Album by Daniel Woodrell

Book 7: Crimes in Southern Indiana by Frank Bill

Two short story collections – from Daniel Woodrell and Frank Bill – that might be characterized as Hillbilly Noir.  

The Outlaw Album is the first short story collection from Woodrell, an accomplished novelist who is often compared to Cormac McCarthy. Crimes in Southern Indiana is not only Bill’s first story collection, it’s his first book.

Both are great; a disturbing serving of violence and depravity. Woodrell's collection is the strongest, but he’s been at it the longest. Crimes in Southern Indiana is an impressive debut. 

There are similarities in the subject matter. Both Woodrell and Bill explore a poor, marginalized segment of the American population that includes tweakers and drug dealers, the greedy and the victimized, hapless law enforcement officers and folks who simply see settling a disagreement with a gun as a logical and reasonable response.

I especially enjoyed The Echo of Neighborly Bones and Uncle by Woodrell; two stories as haunting and as disturbing as anything written by Stephen King.

Book 3: The Impossible Dead by Ian Rankin

Initially, I didn’t warm up to Ian Rankin’s new series, featuring Malcom Fox and the Complaints, Britain’s version of America’s Internal Affairs.   

The Impossible Dead, Rankin's second book featuring the Complaints, was slow taking off. Other cops don’t like the Complaints, practice a lot of passive-aggressive behavior and call it cooperation, etc., etc., etc.

But a third of the way into the novel, Fox starts digging into a long-forgotten cold case that appears to be connected to the current case of cop corruption he’s investigating and The Impossible Dead starts reading like an Ian Rankin thriller – flat-out riveting.

Fox isn’t Rebus, but by the time The Impossible Dead steams to its conclusion, it’s evident that Rankin’s new series, and his new cast of characters, has the potential to be just as compelling as the Rebus novels.

Tomorrow: A summary of books four, five, six and eight.

Doors Open cements Rankin's reputation

Books 15 and 16 comprise the range of reading experience, from fast-paced pleasure to a slog through a messy fraud of a book.

The pleasurable read belonged to Ian Rankin. Doors Open was issued in 2008 in Great Britain, but it was just released here last month.

Doors Open is the story of a dot.com millionaire who has grown bored. His boredom leads him into planning an art heist with a banker and an art professor. The heist goes well, but -- as you would expect -- nothing else does in this thoroughly entertaining thriller.

Rankin is one of the leading writers in the popular thriller/crime/mystery genre and Doors Opens only serves to solidify his street cred among readers.


A Quiet Belief in Angels is the first book from R.J. Ellory. Frankly, I hope it is his last. It's a misogynistic, disturbing mess; over-written from the standpoint of content and style. Obstensibly set in Georgia before WW II, the characters don't sound like crackers. This is one of those novels where every adult in well spoken and far wiser than almost anyone you've met in real life.

And then there are the errors of chronology. Early in the book, when a particular event takes place, it's 1943 and our narrator is 15. One hundred pages later, recalling the same event, it was 1942 and he was 14. I could let errors of commission like that slide if the entire book weren't so bad.

Every woman in this novel -- every woman -- dies a horrible and disturbing death. Yes, this book does have something to do with a serial killer, but the fate of some of these woman goes beyond that.

The writing, stylistically, is turgid. It might be accepted as elegant by some with its nascent dawns, but try reading it. This is the first book in a long, long time that I considered abandoning before I was midway through. I stayed to the end and now I'm wondering why.