Firecrackers for the Fourth of July

Do I need to remind you this Friday is the Fourth of July? Many of us Americans will be celebrating our country's birthday by hitting the road for a three-day weekend. Packing a terrific book is crucial, and do I have a few sure-fire reads for you!

Let's begin with the trip itself. We'll assume you're traveling with an adult companion. To pass the time, you could jointly tackle one of those impossible British cryptic crossword puzzles. If that attempt fizzles, and your conversation falters, fuel it with a controversy. Note I said "fuel," not "use flamethrower." Keep in mind that topics such as "your no-good cousin, the one we have to keep bailing out of jail" or "your rotten taste in men that always gets you in trouble" could ruin the trip before you reach the destination. A better choice for a delectable bone of contention is provided by Rolling Stone's 500 Greatest Albums of All Time, edited by Joe Levy and published by Wenner Books in 2005. Where would you rank albums by Elvis Presley, the Stones, the Beatles, Bob Dylan, Chuck Berry?

Maybe you and your travel mate would rather sing songs instead of merely talk about them (hopefully, you're belting out lyrics in your car and not on my Southwest flight to Portland, Oregon). Take along Reading Lyrics, edited by Robert Gottlieb and Robert Kimball. It covers more than 1,000 lyrics, by more than 100 American and British song writers, from 1900 to 1975. It's a book you can use once you reach your destination, too. Hand it to your significant other while you slip into the shower. He or she can sit braced against the shower door and feed you lyrics. The two of you can warble a duet à la Natalie Cole and her father, Nat King Cole, with "Unforgettable."

Alternatively, loll in the tub with mai tais and accompany lyrics from the musical South Pacific with rhythmic splashing and drumming toes. Create some personal fireworks and then towel off to "People Will Say We're in Love" from the Broadway hit Oklahoma!. Or, commemorate American independence with a bathtub reenactment of the Boston Tea Party (Twinings English Breakfast tea would be ideal here) and a spirited rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." (Note: This last suggestion is open to suitable modification. If you're an American in the tub with a Brit, this scenario will work well; if your tub mate is French, pay tribute to Lafayette, the aristocratic French general who fought on the Americans' side in the Revolutionary War, with beaucoup toasts of champagne. If you're sharing the tub with a fellow American of the opposite political party, display patriotism as currently practiced in the United States by trying to drown each other.)

If you're alone in the tub, there's no better place to begin Terry Hayes's I Am Pilgrim (Emily Bestler Books/Atria, May 27, 2014), which opens with a brilliant forensics expert, whom we come to know as Scott Murdoch (aka the Pilgrim), prowling around a squalid Manhattan hotel room, while an unidentifiable young woman lies in a bathtub full of acid. She appears to be the victim of a perfect, albeit gruesome, murder, but the roles she, the killer, and NYPD homicide detective Ben Bradley play in the multi-layered plot will only fully be revealed much later in this book of 600+ pages.

Meanwhile, we weave in and out of a jumble of Scott's troubled memories of people and places, piecing together his relationship with his folks, his recruitment into espionage by the Division, and his duties as a federal agent policing American spies in Europe and Asia before 9/11. Scott has barely taken early retirement when he is asked to investigate evidence of a terrorist plot found in Afghanistan. There is plenty of foreshadowing, but we readers are already following the separate story thread of a determined jihadi, codenamed "the Saracen," as he witnesses his father's beheading in Saudi Arabia, moves with his stricken mother and sisters to Bahrain, and forms the belief that the way to strike back at Saudi rulers is through their enablers in the West. It's a fascinating to and fro, watching Saracen's unfolding plot and Pilgrim's attempts to identify and stop him.

By the time we reach the ticking-clock finale, we've visited many locations, watched ingenious maneuvering and deductions, and met a host of complex characters. We may not be rooting for Saracen, but we understand him. The book could have used some trimming, and there are some exceedingly grisly scenes. But this first in an anticipated trilogy by Hayes, a movie screenwriter and producer of Payback and Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, is a highly entertaining espionage thriller I was reluctant to put down.

Speaking of highly entertaining, let me tell you about Lenny Kleinfeld's wild and witty Some Dead Genius (Niaux-Noir Books, May 30, 2014), which forced me to repeatedly put the book down, squeeze my eyes shut, clamp my lips closed, and re-route laughter through my nose out of courtesy to other people on the train.

This hardboiled black comedy involves a series of artists' murders investigated by the pair of smart, but cynical Chicago cops we first met in Shooters & Chasers (see review here): Mark Bergman, a 35-year-old hunk who goes through women like a dolphin goes through waves, and John "Doonie" Dunegan, a happily married family man. In Some Dead Genius, which can be read as a standalone, they're joined by a cast of colorful characters that includes mobsters, artists, politicians, and journalists. The book is R-rated for violence, sex, and language. Its structure allows a reader to tag along with the criminals, one of whom is so racked with guilt, I had to root for him; as well as watch Doonie and Mark chase the clues (I rooted for them, too). Chicago locations are put to good use; at one point, the cops pursue the killers through the Art Institute in an extended cinematic scene that could have been choreographed by Quentin Tarantino, had he channeled the Marx Brothers.

I've been a Kleinfeld fan since the late Leighton Gage raved about him after judging books for the Best First Novel Edgar. Kleinfeld's fast-paced books are likely to appeal to fans of Elmore Leonard and Carl Hiaasen, but it's difficult to convey the high energy and originality of the prose without a sample, so here you go:

Tesca [a "semi-simian" loan shark] grabbed Dale's ear and dragged the squealing art dealer past forlorn walls pimpled with empty picture hooks, up a short set of stairs to a sleeping loft. Only thing in it was an air mattress, lost inside the imprint left by a king-size bed; Dale's furniture had marched out the door months ago. Tesca kicked the air mattress out of the way as he strode to the closet, with Dale's ear and what was attached to it lurching after him.

Some Dead Genius would make a very fun vacation companion this weekend.

I'll be back on Thursday to tell you about a few more good weekend reads: Josh Malerman's Bird Box and Adam Brookes's Night Heron.

Note: I received a free advance review copy of Some Dead Genius from the author.

Review of Serge Quadruppani's The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees

That yellowish glob is the bee's pollen basket

The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees by Serge Quadruppani (translated from the Italian by Delia Casa)

We're already flabbergasted by the ongoing shutdown of the United States government, which keeps many federal workers home, so why not look at another perplexing workers' disappearance?

Colony collapse disorder involves the sudden vanishing of worker honey bees from their hives. While the queen bee continues tirelessly laying her eggs, there are no workers to provide food for the colony. The cause of CCD isn't clear. Because pollinating bees play an essential role in the world's food production, this mysterious new syndrome is receiving a lot of attention.

Honey bees are at the heart of Serge Quadruppani's The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees, published on September 3 by Arcade. The story begins when vacationing Commissario Simona Tavianello and her husband, Marco, a recently retired police chief, pay a visit to Giovanni Minoncelli's honey shop in Italy's Piedmont region. The long-married Tavianellos are both stubborn and, despite their deep love for each other, they often resemble two rams with their horns locked. Their relationship—already frosty because Simona is resentful that they're vacationing in the mountains rather than at the sea—drops a few more degrees when her attempt to open Minoncelli's door is blocked by a corpse on the floor inside. Nearby is a piece of paper that proclaims, "THE WORKER BEE REVOLUTION."

It turns out that beekeeper Minoncelli is a militant environmentalist well known to the police, and the dead man, Bertolazzi, was an engineer with Sacropiano, a corporation involved with genetically modified organisms and pesticides. But the case is more complex than it looks at first glance. Minoncelli has an alibi for the time of the shooting, and the gun used was the one Simona had left in her hotel room. Therefore, she feels an obligation to assist Maresciallo Calabonda, whose life was made miserable when the local newspaper welcomed him to Torre Pellice by misspelling his name as "Cacabonda," and the name stuck. Calabonda is happy to have the help of Simona, famous for her work with the National Antimafia Commission, as long as she is willing to let Calabonda take the credit.

It isn't long before Simona is convinced that the mountain air leads to lunacy, as crimes mount, identities are mistaken, and immigrants are misunderstood. She interacts with one eccentric technophile after another, including an extremely shy newspaper reporter named Felice, who is passionately interested in a neural network software program applied to crime scenes; a cranky coroner; and the expert on bees, Prof. Aldo Martini, described as a "huge, lanky insect."

In fact, people described in animal terms is only one aspect of a theme in this book: how humans are just one cog in nature, but they're mucking up the whole works. Hikers make their way up into the "great embrace" of the mountains, but all the valley's toxic emissions are captured in the snow of the mountain peaks, where cows in their pastures look down on the world with "sweet, fly-encircled, melancholy gazes." Deer pause, looking askance at what humans are doing. For a short time, we see the world through the eyes of a tiny Slovenian worker bee. She is depicted in such gorgeous sensual terms one dreads anything bad happening to her; it's writing like this that makes CCD seem a personal tragedy.

In addition to the witty and beautiful passages about nature, there are mouth-watering little moments devoted to food. Marco is Neopolitan and proud, but he's curious about "exotic" cuisines, which for him begin about 20 miles outside of his home city, and he is tormented by the thought of Simona enjoying good food and drink without him. I was tortured, too. It was all I could do not to hit the wine aisle at the nearby grocery store after reading about "the cheerful scent of violets wafting off the plaisentif cheese and mingling with the bouquet of that same delicate flower in a bottle of Barolo Fossati 2000."

Quadruppani's English crime-fiction debut is charming; at 203 pages, it left me wishing for more fleshed-out sequels. It reminds me a bit of Margaret Atwood's dystopian trilogy in its obvious love of nature and cautious stance toward corporations, and of Andrea Camilleri's Salvo Montalbano books in its squabbling characters and leftist takes on the exploitation of immigrants, the sad state of investigative journalism, and the corrosive power of governmental bureaucracies.

We should all be concerned about what happens when capitalists and governments get their hands on miraculous scientific breakthroughs in nano-, bio-, and computer technologies. The very nature of living things, including humans, is vulnerable to modification in both good and evil ways. Modifications might look beneficial but carry unforeseen consequences. I appreciated The Sudden Disappearance of the Worker Bees as entertaining crime fiction, but mostly for the questions it raises about the artificialization and commoditization of all natural organisms.

Breaking the Law for Labor Day

Pumpkin spice latte season begins

It's Labor Day. Kudos to the folks who decided the best way to celebrate American workers is to give them the day off. It's summer sales or a last trip to the lake. Tomorrow we say goodbye to beach reads and hello to books for fireside reading.

In honor of Labor Day, I've assembled some books whose characters work hard at breaking or upholding the law and flouting all sorts of workplace rules. These books will help you transition from the porch swing to the living room's upholstered chair.

Don't turn up your nose when you see "On Her Majesty's Supernatural Secret Service" on the cover of Australian Daniel O'Malley's The Rook (2012, Little, Brown and Co.). Don't you like Men in Black and Doctor Who?

The book begins when a woman wakes up on a London park bench. She's bloody and bruised and has no memory. Surrounding her are twitching corpses wearing latex gloves. In her pocket are several letters addressed to "You," one of which begins "The body you are wearing used to be mine." From the letters she learns the following: her name is Myfanwy (sounds like Tiffany) Thomas, she wrote the letters to herself because she suspected she was in danger and she's high up (a rook) in the Checquy Group, a secret agency that guards unsuspecting Britain from supernatural forces. Oh, yeah, and an unknown someone at work is trying to kill her. (This is counter to American workplace laws but the Checquy Group is a British agency so perhaps murder is allowed––if attempted politely.)

The Rook, first in a new series called the Checquy Files, is an entertaining hybrid of thriller, Monty Python's Flying Circus, X-Files and The Bourne Identity.

Now I've got movies and TV shows on the brain in addition to books. If you took Don Winslow's Savages and crossed it with a relentless chase movie, such as No Country for Old Men or Jaws (if a land shark rather than an ocean-going shark were pursued), you'd get James Carlos Blake's The Rules of Wolfe: A Border Noir (July 2013, Mysterious Press), sequel to last year's Country of the Bad Wolfes.

That book describes a Texas family's gunrunning and smuggling operations history but now we move to the present to find Eddie Gato Wolfe too impatient to earn the college degree necessary to join the family business. He heads south and winds up with a security job for a violent Mexican drug cartel run by La Navaja. Breaking a universal workplace rule, Eddie goes to bed with Miranda, the girlfriend of his employer's brother, El Segundo. Making it worse, when El Segundo discovers them, Eddie kills him. It's time for Eddie and Miranda to hotfoot it outta there into the Sonoran desert with La Navaja's men panting after them. The only question is which will kill them first: the desert or the chasers. Very vivid writing.

Kevin Egan's debut, Midnight (Forge, July 2), reads like Scott Smith or Cornell Woolrich reworked the movie 9 to 5.

In that movie, a lot of wild scrambling takes place at Consolidated Companies. In Midnight, New Year's Eve provokes scrambling in the courthouse offices of Manhattan Judge Alvin Canter. That's because Canter died of a heart attack in the morning of December 31st. Had he died after midnight, paychecks for law clerk Tom Carroway and secretary Carol Scilingo would have continued, because an administrative rule dictates they will serve out the remainder of the calendar year. Naturally, both of them really need the money. All they need to do is conceal the judge's death until the following day.

A desire to stay employed by getting around a quirky rule leads to excruciating desperation as one thing after another goes wrong. Beautiful use of courthouse setting. Riveting isn't a strong enough word.

Review of Wolf Haas's The Bone Man

The Bone Man by Wolf Haas (translated from the German by Annie Janusch)

I swear I will talk to you about The Bone Man without using phrases such as "choking on words," "picking a bone with," and "putting somebody through the meat grinder," even though I'm in the mood to be snarky after reading the book's droll narration by someone I can only assume is meant to be God.

Maybe I'm wildly off the mark. The narration is an unusual combination of omniscience (the characters are psychoanalyzed, and their behavior is bemoaned or complimented), philosophizing, and breezy self-deprecation ("Anyway, where am I going with this"). The narrator pulls the reader close with chatty little questions ("she looked like that actress in the French film—real quick, what's it called again, the one they reran on TV recently") and heartfelt advice ("Now, when you're close to hysteria, it's best if you eat something"). Then the narrator winks and pokes an elbow into the reader's ribs by abruptly changing the subject or falling into free association. The narration must have been a challenge for Janusch to translate without changing its flavor, and whether you find it entertaining or think it gets old or in the way of the story will determine in large part whether you like this 176-page book.

The story begins at Löschenkohl's Grill, a restaurant catering to day trippers in the sleepy town of Klöch, East Styria, Austria. It is famous for its crispy fried chicken; in a good week, the restaurant serves 10,000 chickens. That translates into four tons of bones, pulverized in the basement bone grinder by former Yugoslovian soccer player Goran Milovanovic. In 1995, Milo made a gruesome discovery: among the chicken bones was the femur of a middle-aged man. Unlike the health inspectors, who always found something, the police were unable to identify either victim or perpetrator. Later, renowned Styrian artist Gottfried Horvath disappeared.

Today, private eye Simon Brenner arrives at the urgent request of the restaurant manager, old man Löschenkohl's daughter-in-law, Angelika, but she's nowhere to be seen. It's not unusual for Angelika to leave her husband Paul for a few days, but Paul insists Brenner find her. Brenner moves into a room up in the attic, next door to the cheerful waitress, who only eats frankfurters. More disappearances and the appearance of a severed head in a bag of soccer balls prod Brenner to stop contemplating his long-gone fiancée's incessant chicken-eating and "huge rack" (surely, the result of eating hormone-fed chickens) and focus on his investigation.

Brenner is an unassuming and appealing character, a lonely ex-cop whose favorite technique is to sound people out by not asking them follow-up questions. His thoughts readily stray from the case to the wife of a former police colleague, the time he went to a whorehouse on business, the music and games of his youth. For a book of under 200 pages, there are quite a few characters, but I didn't have problems keeping them straight. Their activities—disappearances, soccer, travel by bus and car, creating and collecting art—provide plenty of grist for Brenner and that deadpan, omniscient narrator. The action takes place in a surrealistic haze until it breaks out to run helter skelter across the finish line.

Austrian writer Haas's award-winning Simon Brenner books are very popular in Europe and have been made into three German films. It appears as if the seven-book German-language series is being translated willy-nilly like those of Jo Nesbø and Nele Neuhaus, but Melville International Crime is working to bring out the entire series. The most recent book, Brenner and God, is the first English translation. The Bone Man is second in the series, and second to be translated. It can stand alone in its wackiness, and you'll either get a kick out of it, like I did, or you won't. I recommend it to readers who enjoy quirky crime fiction, black humor, and digressive narration.

Note: I received a free review copy of The Bone Man, published by Melville International Crime, in March 2013.

Memories Are Made of This

I'm sure you've walked into a room, only to discover you've forgotten what you planned to do there. And maybe you've heard the comment, "You'd forget your head if it weren't screwed on." Finding yourself headless would create a world of problems; however, this isn't The Twilight Zone, so we won't explore this topic further. The head sitting so firmly on your shoulders is capable of generating enough Big Headaches for you, like, how do you know what you're perceiving is reality? Can you trust the validity of your memories, the foundation of your self-identity? Is it possible for your memories to be implanted or altered?

These are questions David Ambrose poses in his 2000 book, The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk. The title refers to Luis Buñuel's surrealist film, The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie, in which some friends are trying to have dinner together, but their plans are constantly thwarted by disturbing events, odd scenes involving other characters, or their own bizarre dreams. None of these interruptions cause the friends to give up the idea of sharing a meal; they relentlessly continue their efforts, despite the illogical or impossible nature of what's happening around them.

Like a viewer who tries to make sense of that movie, a reader must figure out the actions of Ambrose's characters, who may not be what they seem. Brian Kay is a middle-aged man with brain damage caused by a viral infection. He remembers everything before the virus, but he can't turn experiences since then into permanent memory. Susan Flemyng, Kay's neurologist, conducts research in visual memory in Washington, D.C. When the book opens, she is enjoying close relationships with her father, husband, and young son. Charlie Monk has difficulty remembering events from his youth. He's currently a James Bond figure working for an agency so secret it doesn't have a name; Charlie takes instructions from a man he knows simply as Control. In between his super-heroic feats, Charlie relaxes in Los Angeles with beautiful women and good wine.

As the plot progresses, the characters and the reader relax no more. Dr. Flemyng explains:

"Chuang Tzu was a Chinese sage who lived twenty-five hundred years ago. He told once of how he dreamed he was a butterfly or a butterfly who now dreamed he was a man. People have been telling that story ever since, because it represents something that mankind has always known instinctively--that we can never be sure whether the outside world corresponds to the picture of it that we have in our head. We can't even be sure that the outside world is actually there."

While The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk isn't a ghost story, Henry James's The Turn of the Screw comes to mind. Ambrose cleverly and energetically twists his futuristic thriller's plot, and the reader will need to interpret what has happened. This is one of those books that provoke thinking about the nature of evil.

After choosing his identity and memories, this shopper
should choose a good memory-foam mattress.

Carsten Stroud's Niceville, published in June 2012 by Knopf, is another. Sylvia Teague has often thought Niceville, founded in 1764 by four families who've now been feuding for a century, would be "one of the loveliest places in the Deep South if it had not been built, God only knew why, in the looming shadow of Tallulah's Wall." On top of this limestone cliff sits an ancient forest that whispers and creaks around a large sinkhole, full of cold black water, called Crater Sink. Cherokees considered it a place of evil; all the present-day citizens know is that nothing goes into Crater Sink and comes back out. In addition to this unsettling place, Niceville claims a bothersome statistic: people disappear at a much higher rate than the national average.

The latest such disappearance is Rainey Teague, Sylvia's 10-year-old son, last seen looking into the window of Uncle Moochie's pawnshop. A few days later, the kid is found. Oh, man, you'd never guess where. This is the point in the book when I visited the likker cabinet for a glass of bourbon and settled deep down in a comfy chair to savor Stroud's vivid writing, oddball characters, black humor, and crazily complex noir plot.

What else? Two men rob the First Third Bank, and a third coolly shoots not only the cops pursuing the first two, but also the people covering the chase in the news helicopter. Then the shooter puts on his Ray-Bans and lights a cigarette, "consoled by the warmth and the lovely light" of what promises to be a pretty evening. Do I need to tell you these three outlaws have watched The Treasure of the Sierra Madre? I must also mention a dentist who poses and then photographs his unconscious female patients in erotic tableaus, and a civic leader who installed a video camera in the bathroom his teenage daughters use.

Obviously, those characters make a mockery of the name of the town, but lawyer Kate Kavanaugh tries to be nice. Her client just won a divorce custody case against her husband, the extremely nasty Mr. Christian Antony Bock, who should, but doesn't, ooze down into a dank cellar and stay there. Although Kate's husband Nick is troubled (he served in Iraq with the Army Special Forces), he's now a more-than-competent lawman with the Cullen County Criminal Investigation Division, and he adores his wife. Kate's dad is a professor at the Virginia Military Institute, and her sister is married to a hot-tempered jerk who runs a private security company. Sorry, I was talking about good guys, and the bad guys keep intruding. There are only so many nice people in Niceville.

There are more disappearances, macabre deaths, and mysterious events that can only be explained in supernatural terms. Like Jim Thompson's Pop. 1280, Niceville puts a comedic edge on crime. And like The Discrete Charm of Charlie Monk, it will give you a chance to contemplate how memories can entrap their creator and others, and identity can be manipulated for evil purposes.

This gothic thriller isn't for everyone. It's not a soothes-you-to-sleep read. If you appreciate dark humor, lyrical writing, and a plot that's spooky as hell, master storyteller Carsten Stroud wrote it for you. Let's hope very hard we'll see a sequel.

Note: I received a free review copy of Niceville.

Book Review of Simon Brett's Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess

Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess by Simon Brett

In grand old mansions, the treasured volumes in the library were leather bound and, many times, unopened. In my library, the treasured volumes with a place of honor are the Felony & Mayhem books. I can assure you that my collection is close to complete because I like the authors represented and I really enjoy the books themselves, with their excellent covers and the high-quality vellum-like paper.

Recently, I was introduced to Simon Brett’s intrepid duo, Blotto and Twinks. Blotto is the youngest son of the Duke of Tawcester, christened Devereux Lyminster. His nickname is not derived from his drinking habits, since he rarely imbibes. While incredibly handsome, his main expression is usually one of confusion. He is a simple soul, maybe a bit simple-minded, who believes that if one lived by the rules and conduct expected in a cricket game the world would be a better place. His sister, known as Twinks, née Lady Honoria, is the Sherlock of this duo, possessing a very fine deductive mind with exhaustive knowledge of methods of murder. Her inadvertent talent is having men fall in front of her like ninepins. She, seemingly unaware of her beauty, lives for the occasions when she can put her mind to solving crimes.

In Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess, just hot off the Felony & Mayhem Press, Blotto has begun to realize that his mother, the Duchess of Tawcester, had cleverly set a matrimonial trap for him. She has been dangling the daughter of a friend of hers in front of him since she has come out. Blotto just wishes she would go back in. If he can find a female who can provide the companionship and loyalty of a good horse, it might be a different story. As it is, an extended weekend house party has been planned, and Blotto doesn’t think he can deal with the inevitable murder that is bound to be solved by a brilliant amateur sleuth as well as the problems of evading his mother’s plans for matrimony.

As the weekend commences, Laetitia––the girl in question––begins following Blotto with what, in another girl, might be called dog's eyes, but in this case is actually frog’s eyes. Before long, the murder takes place and the victim is Laetitia’s mother. The expert amateur houseguest sleuth has called the members of the party as well as the staff into a large room and immediately pins the evil deed on Corky, the family chauffeur, since there was no foreigner to pin it on.

Blotto and Twinks have already really gotten a handle on the murderer, as Twinks noticed a painted red hand on the victim’s back. They acknowledge the fact that it is no use mentioning their suspicions, because their mother, the Duchess, has ordered the crime be solved immediately and, in the authorities' eyes, amateur detectives at house parties are always right.

Thus begins the affair of the League of the Crimson Hand. The story takes place in the 1920s, during a time of considerable change, but there are still the classic dim aristocrats, loyal retainers, dastardly villains and perils Pauline would cringe at. The first of these is an opium den, which provides the next clue, and the chase is on, in a vintage version of Planes, Trains and Automobiles. Blotto’s vehicle of choice, though, is his classic Lagonda. With this as his steed and his cricket bat as his lance, Blotto leaps into action, rushing in where any intelligent angel would shudder to enter. Twinks’s genius is his perfect balance.

Simon Brett has a deft hand with parody, playfulness and punch lines. He has always been a master at developing a good mystery and he doesn’t fail here. The story is clever, bright and pokes gentle fun at the attitudes of the time. The prose is salted with slang which, authentic or not, made me smile. As a matter of fact, I laughed, chuckled and occasionally guffawed throughout my reading. There is a fine line between smart and silly, and Brett has great intuition about where it is. I had fun reading this book and will keep it on my shelf to read again.

Note: I received Blotto, Twinks and the Dead Dowager Duchess as a free review copy.

Nuthin' Says Lovin' Like Sumpthin' from the Oven

I admit it. I'm not the world's best or most organized cook. While I'm rushing pasta from stove to sink I bump into my kids as they're setting the table. When a dinner guest cuts my chocolate cake I spill coffee beans all over the kitchen floor. I'm as apt to chop my finger as the scallion I'm holding.

This might explain why I'm more fond of reading cookbooks than I am of cooking from them even though I love good food and enjoy messing around in the kitchen. I'm fascinated by glimpses into the mysterious lairs of professional chefs where culinary miracles are produced and served. As a fan of crime fiction, however, I most enjoy witnessing something lethal in those kitchens and I'm not talking about the artistic arrangement of dead carrots on a plate.

After all, a well-equipped professional kitchen is a natural place for violence and death. Glittering knives, sharp tools whose use I can only guess, heavy pans and flaming dishes. A walk-in refrigerator. Large plastic bags. Drāno for the sink. A butcher's block. What better place for hot tempers to boil over into homicidal rage? A good place for a waiter to debone another with a fish knife or a wine steward to clobber the pastry chef with the Châteauneuf du Pape.

I'm not a fan of TV chef Anthony Bourdain, but his book Bone in the Throat: A Novel is a very grisly yet merry caper set in the Dreadnaught Grill of Manhattan's Little Italy. Everyone in the Dreadnaught kitchen is caught in the cross-currents of food, entrepreneurship and crime, including the dentist in legal trouble who is forced by loony feds into becoming a restaurateur as part of a farcical sting operation to ensnare loan shark Salvatore "Sally Wig" Pitera, who bankrolls the eatery; the dope-using chef; and sous-chef Tommy Pagano, Pitera's nephew. Tommy isn't fond of the Mob, but Uncle Sal raised him, so Tommy allows him and some other mobsters to use the kitchen for after-hours "business" and is caught in a squeeze by the FBI as a result. Oh, boy.

If you think that a grease fire or getting cut while chopping onions is the worst that can happen in a kitchen you're in for an eye-popping, stomach-churning experience when you read Bone in the Throat. This is a delectable satirical novel; maybe not for reading while eating, although the knowledgeable talk about ingredients and savory recipes stoked my appetite and kept me munching as I peeled the pages of this book. Bourdain graduated from the Culinary Institute of America, but he deserves an honorary degree from the Homicidal Institute of America as well. Clever gangsterese, hearty servings of SoHo culture, entertaining characters and over-the-top kitchen mayhem. Black humor en croute. Bon appétit!

P.S. If this book promises to be too violent for your taste but you're looking for a food-infused mystery, former Washington Post restaurant critic Phyllis Richman's first Chas Wheatley book, The Butter Did It, is a fun traditional mystery and may satiate your appetite.