Ashes to Dust (Minotaur, 5/2012) is Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s third book about Reykjavik lawyer Thora Godmundsdottir.  It begins when an excavation of houses buried by an old lava flow reveals three bodies and a severed head.  Thora is a personable, chatty, but persistent sleuth.  She manages to juggle her legal work, her amateur sleuthing, and the care of her teenaged son and six-year-old daughter without much help from her unsatisfactory ex-husband.  Her knowledge of the law and willingness to ask uncomfortable questions (a la Miss Marple) enable her to get to the bottom of some very knotty puzzles.  Her cases often revolve around circumstances  and laws peculiar to Iceland.  Interesting characters and unusual country make these cozies a treat.

–posted  5/13/2012

Former military policeman John Ceepak and his young partner Danny Boyle are cops in the resort town of Sea Haven, New Jersey.  The only thing Ceepak and Boyle have in common is a love for Bruce Springsteen’s music.  Ceepak is all business, “a cop 24/7,” who does “not lie, cheat or steal nor tolerate those who do.”  Boyle, who originally came on the force as a part-time summer cop in order to impress college girls, is a rather callow, light-hearted, wise-cracking sort.  This odd couple manages to work together to the conclusion of each case in Grabenstein’s funny and suspenseful books. Fun House (Pegasus, 2012), is the seventh book in the series.  It tells what mayhem happens when a reality TV show comes to town.

–posted  5/15/2012

Katy Munger has written six mysteries featuring the indomitable Casey Jones.  Because Casey served a short stretch in a Florida jail, she can’t get a PI license in Raleigh, N.C., where she now lives. Instead she does legwork for the blimp-sized PI Bobby D.  Readers happily followed smart and sassy Casey from Legwork (Avon, 1997) to Bad Moon on the Rise (Thalia, 2009) and hope to see further installments of her adventures.

Then in 2009 under the pseudonym of Chaz McGee, Munger wrote two very different mysteries featuring the “Dead Detective” Kevin Fahey, who in life was a bad cop, a mediocre husband, an absent father and a drunk. After death, he tries to make up for his deficiencies in life. But the newest books in the series Angel of Darkness (Severn, April 2012) and Angel Among Us to be published by Severn House in November 2012, dispense with the McGee pseudonym and list Katy Munger as the author.  What’s a bibliographer to do?

And, by the way, Munger is also the author of the Hubbert and Lil mysteries written under the pseudonym of Gallagher Gray.  Sometimes called the Partners in Crime series, these four books, written between 1994 and 1997, feature feisty 84-year-old Auntie Lil and her button-downed 55-year-old-nephew T.S. Hubbert, who do their bit to make the streets of New York less dangerous.

–posted 5/6/2012

Raleigh North Carolina resident Sarah Shaber has written a pair of novels set in World War II Washington DC featuring young widow Louise Pearlie who works as a file clerk for the Office of Secret Services (OSS), precursor to the CIA.  In her first case Louise’s War (Severn 2011), Louise tries to help Rachel Bloch, a college friend, escape Vichy France before the Germans take over.  In the new book, Louise’s Gamble (Severn, 5/1/2012) Louise befriends a refugee who turns out to be a Countess.  Shaber’s other series stars Simon Shaw, history professor at a college in Raleigh, North Carolina, with a propensity for amateur sleuthing.

–posted 4/30/2012

Weary of those gloomy Swedish detectives?   Perhaps it’s time to dip into some Icelandic crime novels.

Arnaldur Indridason’s novels about Detective Inspector Erlendur Sveinsson of Reykjavik, may be a good introduction to Icelandic crime fiction.  Erlendur is a less gloomy than Wallender, but he is just as disheartened by the stupidity and greed that motivates criminals.  He is also burdened with a dysfunctional family:  he is divorced and estranged from his two drug-abusing children. Modern Iceland is relatively peaceful and murder is rare, but the seamy underside of Reykjavik keeps Erlendur busy. These novels are well-paced and suspenseful.  At times the author captures the strange and menacing emptyness of the landscape.  Icelandic names present a problem for catalogers. The last name is a patronymic, not a family name; thus a person is properly referred to by his or her given (first) name.  Best to look for Indridason’s books under both A and I. (Ditto for Sigurdardottir).

1.  Jar City (2004)

2.  Silence of the Grave (2006)

3.  Voices (2007)

4.  The Draining Lake (2008)

5.  Arctic Chill (2009)

6.  Hypothermia (2009)

7.  Outrage (2011)

8.  Black Skies (2012)

Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s books are about as different from Indridason’s as they can get.  Thora Godmundsdottir is a Reykjavik lawyer who invariably gets drawn into the problems of her clients.  She manages to juggle her legal work, her amateur sleuthing, and the care of her teenaged son and six-year-old daughter without much help from her unsatisfactory ex-husband.  Thora is personable, but no-nonsense and diligent in her sleuthing.  Her knowledge of the law and willingness to ask uncomfortable questions (a la Miss Marple) enable her to get to the bottom of some very knotty puzzles.  Interesting characters take precedence over suspense in these cozies with an exotic setting.  Sigurdardottir is a civil engineer as well as an author.

1.  Last Rituals (2007)

2.  My Soul to Take (2009)

3.  Ashes to Dust    (2010)

4.  The Day is Dark   (2011)

5.  Ashes to Dust (2012)

Quentin Bates is an Englishman who lived in Iceland for ten years.  He has written a pair of novels starring a young Icelandic policewoman, Gunna  Gisladottir.  In the first book, Frozen Assets, Officers Gisladottir and Hvalvik investigate when a dead body is found floating in the harbor of their ordinarily peaceful Icelandic fishing village.  Eventually, a web of corruption connected to Iceland’s business and banking communities is uncovered.  In the next book, Gunna has accepted promotion to Sergeant in the Reykjavik police department, where she is still getting accustomed to her role as a manager.  In addition to watching the prickly and Gunna grow into an astute and effective police detective, the reader also learns about Iceland’s financial collapse.

1.  Frozen Assets (2011)

2.  Cold Comfort (2012)

We will have to wait to read Stella Blomkvist’s novels; none of them have reached the U.S.   Stella is the author, narrator and protagonist of a series of thrillers set primarily in Reykjavik.  Stella is an ambitious young lawyer–smart, beautiful and single; every woman’s dream of power, sophistication and glamour. No surprise her fans are legion in Iceland. In fact, Blomkvist is a pseudonym of a well-known Icelandic public figure, so her insider’s take on politics and the media may just be authentic.  These sound like fun, but we will have to wait for a translation to be sure.

1.  The Bronze Statue (1997)

2.  The Perfect Crime (2000)

3.  The False Killer (2001)

4.  The False Witness (2002)

5.  Murder at Thingvellir (2005)

6.  The Last Meeting (2006)

And last but not least, there is Hallgrimur Helgason, an award-winning Icelandic author whose only book available in English is the sardonic Hitman’s Guide to Housecleaning, published by Amazon Crossing in January 2012. Tomislav Boksic (aka Toxic) is a Croatian hitman who flees the U.S. after a botched assassination and finds himself unemployed and unemployable in Iceland.  Imagine one of Carl Hiaasen’s characters in the frozen north.  Here are some of his Rules for a Hitman:

• Don’t miss the target. People tend to get a bit upset if they notice you’re trying to kill them.
• Don’t waste a bullet. You have to think about the environment, too–you really shouldn’t add an unnecessary gunshot to an already noisy city.
• Morning is for murder. Nobody expects a bullet for breakfast.
• Don’t confuse killing and murder. Murder is for amateurs, killing is for the professionals.
• Embrace every new passport they give you. It’s always nice to get a new life now and then.
• Don’t kill the wrong guy. Or you’ll end up in Iceland.
• When in Iceland, stop the killing. There are so few of them.

–posted 4/27/2012

Darn, I missed the movie Drive starring Ryan Gosling.  The previews just didn’t grab me.  But now that I have read reviews of the book by James Sallis, I’m going to track it down.  Gosling plays Driver, the main character who works as a stunt driver by day and a getaway driver by night.  When double crossed, Driver becomes a monster of revenge. The New York Times Book Review called the book a “perfect piece of noir fiction.”  Not only is it a short, powerful story, but James Sallis is a first-class stylist who has been compared to Raymond Chandler.  His elegant prose is full of dark imagery.  Now the sequel, Driven (Poisoned Pen, 4/3/2012) picks up Driver’s story seven years later.  He has taken on a new identity and become a successful businessman, but his past is ready to catch up with him. Sallis is the author of two other series:  the Lew Griffin books and the books about the ex-con Turner. He has also written a biography of Chester Himes.

–posted 4/7/2012

It was so nice to meet and talk with our many subscribers at the conference.  Thank you for stopping by.

Of course, we also had fun describing eSequels to potential new customers. eSequels went online way back in 2008, so it surprises me that  librarians still say (positively, I think):  “Oh, I never heard of this.”   It is very hard for a start-up company like ours to make an impact on public libraries, and I understand why.  I know from experience that public librarians are just so busy keeping things running, that finding the time to evaluate new databases is difficult.  Many a day I drove to my little library on Boston’s south shore determined to get one particular thing accomplished–revise a budget, write a news release, order new barcodes or make a new sign.  But after a day of fending off various crises, doing a dozen other tasks and skipping lunch, I still hadn’t accomplished my original goal.

Mind you, I’m not complaining.  I loved my job.  But I understand the realities.

That’s why getting away to conferences is valuable.  It gives one a little breathing space and a chance to share experience and knowledge with colleagues.  And, let’s face it:  the nicest people in the world are public librarians.  What better group to spend time with.  I’m already looking forward to PLA, Anaheim.

–posted 4/6/2012

In 1976 Vietnam War veteran Robert Chow has been taken on by the New York Police Department as a sop to Affirmative Action.  He is the only Chinese-American patrolman on the Chinatown beat and the only officer who can speak Cantonese. Chow’s supervisor dislikes him and his colleagues disregard him. And he fights to overcome his own inner demons–post-combat trauma and alcoholism. But he is determination to win promotion to detective status.  One Red Bastard (Minotaur, 4/24/2012) is the third volume in the series.  Chow has become a detective in training.  But his personal and professional lives collide when his girl friend, Lonnie, becomes the prime suspect in a case with potential international repercussions.  Lin, himself a Chinese-American, captures the insular and corrupt climate of this particular place and time in these thoughtful noir crime novels.

–posted  4/6/2012

Sail of Stone (Simon & Schuster, 3/13/2012) is the sixth book in Ake Edwardson’s series about Erik Winter, Chief Inspector of the Gothenburg police.   It concerns the disappearance of Axel Osvald, who supposedly went to Scotland to investigate the presumed death of his father during WWII.   When not on duty Winter is a jazz enthusiast and a gourmet cook, and the lover of a doctor named Angela.  Gothenburg (Goteborg), the second largest city in Sweden, is famous for its University and is the home of Volvo automobile manufacturing.  Edwardson’s perhaps unfair portrayal makes the city seem a dreary place; cold in winter, hot in summer, full of drunks and criminals.  Winter is a moody character in the best tradition of Nordic cops.  Edwardson has worked as a journalist and has taught at the University of Gothenburg.  His books are skillfully written, perceptive and suspenseful.

–posted  3/20/2012

Those who saw the 2002 movie About Schmidt will always see Jack Nicholson as the disagreeable retired WASP attorney who goes off the rails when his daughter announces her impending marriage to a Jewish lawyer.  Though the movie is quite different from the novel, it managed to capture much of Louis Begley’s wry tone and poignant humor.   The second book in the series got decidedly mixed reviews.  Now the third, Schmidt Steps Back (Knopf, 3/2012) shows Schmidtie at 78 getting ready for a visit from an old love, the irresistible Alice Verplanck, widow of his former law partner .  Random House claims that this is the most “emotionally nuanced installment” of Begley’s trilogy.

–posted 3/11/2012