They Should Have Listened to My Mother

Today is Mother's Day, and all week, I've been thinking about my mom. She was warm and smart and an incredibly good sport. She had a jones for cleanliness that was somehow never exhausted. ("A little soap and water never killed anybody." "I can't believe you can sleep in this filth!" "I didn't ask who put it there, I said, 'Pick it up!'") Despite daily setbacks, she never gave up on advising her five kids how to stay out of trouble or how to treat people. ("How many times do I have to tell you?") When we misbehaved, it wasn't because we didn't know better. I wonder if some crime fiction characters would have benefitted from her guidance.

Unlike some lawbreakers, professional robber and occasional killer Crissa Stone is capable of cutting her losses and walking away if there's serious trouble. ("I don't care who started it, I said STOP!") She's careful about the jobs she takes, and she doesn't kill when she doesn't have to. Mom would be appalled by Crissa's occupation ("Who taught you THAT? You didn't learn that in this house!"), but she would applaud Crissa's attention to detail, resourcefulness, and toughness, as well as her love for her young daughter and loyalty to Wayne, her lover and mentor (we won't tell Mom he's in a Texas prison). Her goal is admirable: a big enough score to get herself out of the crime business, reunited with her daughter, and Wayne out on parole.

Frank and Marquis, this is not my mom!

In Wallace Stroby's third series book, Shoot the Woman First (Minotaur, 2013), Crissa hooks up with a couple of guys she's worked with before, Charlie Glass and Larry Black, and Charlie's cousin Cordell, to snatch a duffle bag of drug money from Cordell's boss, Marquis Johnson, a criminal kingpin in Detroit. ("Where are you going, and who are you going with? Do I know them?") Events take a very bad turn. Crissa heads to Florida, to turn over Black's share of the loot to his family. This is not the straightforward handover Crissa might have hoped for ("Life isn't fair"), but I wouldn't have expected anything easy, given my experience with writer Stroby.

Stroby reminds me a bit of Elmore Leonard. His lyrical writing, characterization, and spot-on dialogue can put a spit polish on any old plot vehicle, but his plot never drives like it's old. This one careens like a bat out of hell, thanks to Frank Burke, an ex-cop with nothing left to lose, who talks Johnson into hiring him to recover his money. ("You can't find it? Well, if you'd put things where they belonged, you wouldn't have this problem.") Watching Frank methodically tracking down Crissa, whose sense of responsibility makes her linger in Florida, reminded me of that relentless semi driver after Dennis Weaver in Steven Spielberg's 1971 movie, Duel. A heckuvan original heroine, a villain out of your nightmares, and a pedal-to-the-metal look at good vs. evil and the role of fate in our lives. Whoa, Mama.

Let's let Mom have a crack at Paul Thomas's Death on Demand (Bitter Lemon, 2013). Four men get together six years ago for their annual boys' weekend. Two of them have soured marriages. A third, Christopher, complains that he can't just look in the phone book for a hit man to deal with his wife. ("If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.") Three months later, Joyce dies in a hit-and-run accident, the first of a string of fatalities in Auckland, New Zealand, that runs to the present day. ("Always wear clean underwear in case you get in an accident.") Two weeks ago, Christopher is diagnosed with a fatal illness. Now, Maori DS Tito Ihaka, exiled to the boonies from Auckland Central, is brought back to re-open the investigation that got him into trouble in the first place. ("I will always love you. No matter what.")

Ihaka is "unkempt, overweight, intemperate, unruly, unorthodox and profane." In other words, he's a maverick like Ian Rankin's John Rebus. ("So what if John's mom let him do it? If John's mom let him jump off a cliff, would you want me to let you do it too?") Ihaka is also an absolute whiz at solving cases, much to the appreciation of enigmatic Auckland District Commander Finbar McGrail and DS Johan Van Roon, Ihaka's protégé and only cop friend. It rankles DI Tony "Boy" Charlton and DS Ron "Igor" Firkitt, because they hate Ihaka. There is prejudice against Maoris and and elbowing for position in the Auckland force. Like Rebus, Ihaka has a practical attitude about maintaining productive relationships with certain criminals and dispensing informal justice to those whom the law doesn't reach. ("You must think rules are made to be broken.") Women find him very attractive.

This was my first Ihaka book, and I really enjoyed it. There are plenty of unusual characters, in addition to the complicated Ihaka, and their relationships and dialogue are very well done. The unspooling of this multilayered tale has an unpredictable rhythm, in that just when you think things are clearing up, Ihaka grabs hold of another thread, and you realize you were wrong. This book, the fourth in the series, can be read out of order, but I'll definitely be looking for the three earlier books: Dirty Laundry, Inside Dope, and Guerilla Season.

Whether you're a mother yourself or remembering your own mother today, I hope your Mother's Day is a wonderful one.

Dazed and Confused on Presidents' Day

It's a state and federal holiday, but who knows exactly what we're celebrating today? It's Presidents, President's, or Presidents' Day. Here in California, we're honoring George Washington and Abraham Lincoln; if you live in Alabama, you might be saluting George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Some parts of our country are generously honoring everyone who's ever held the office of United States President.

At Read Me Deadly, we'll focus on George Washington; however, we'll observe the confusion that's become traditional to the day. In other words, don't expect me to make perfect sense.

To honor Washington's military leadership during the American Revolution, you could read David McCullough's nonfiction book, 1776. Alternatively, you could strip off your clothes, close your eyes, and visualize Emanuel Gottlieb Leutze's 1851 painting of Washington's Delaware River crossing on Christmas night, 1776, before the Americans surprised the Hessians at the Battle of Trenton. Now, sing Yankee Doodle while you fill the bathtub with cold water and ice cubes. Clamp your teeth to stifle shrieks that would alarm your dog, and slip into the water with a mug of hot-buttered rum in one hand and the book of suspense perfect for today, Elisabeth Elo's North of Boston (Pamela Dorman Books/Viking, 2014), in the other hand. In the book, Boston perfume company heiress Pirio Kasparov does what few people could do: she survives four hours floating on a piece of wood in the frigid Atlantic after her friend Ned Rizzo's new lobster boat is sliced in half by an unidentified freighter. Pirio is rescued by the Coast Guard, but Ned is never found. As her father says, Sam Spade wouldn't let his friend go unavenged, and neither should Pirio. And, how can Pirio look Ned's young son, Noah, in the eye if she doesn't find out who killed his father?

I wanted to read this book as soon as I saw its synopsis, but I wasn't expecting the story-telling talent of first-time writer Elo. Pirio, who narrates, spent her rebellious childhood enduring punishment at boarding school. Now, she has complex relationships with people who seem real: her beautiful, enigmatic mother, dead since Pirio was 10; her self-absorbed Russian immigrant father and his second wife, whom he doesn't love; geeky Noah and his irresponsible, alcoholic mother, Thomasina, whom Pirio has known since boarding school; and her ex-lover, John Oster, a fisherman friend of Ned. This is a book that combines a quest with the examination of childhood memories, the compromises of growing old, and oceanic environmental issues. Pirio could have hired a private eye to look for Ned's killer, but that would have been a whole lot less fun. She's tough, smart, and tenacious—I hope we see more of her.

At first glance, the reason for reading Martha Grimes's satire, The Way of All Fish (Scribner/Simon & Schuster, 2014), to commemorate Washington may not be apparent. Trust me. Fish (you do remember the Delaware River, right?), the British (Washington fought 'em for our independence, and Grimes, an American, is famous for her series books named after English pubs, although this book is set in New York), hit men (think guns and the death of war), the world of publishing (Washington chopped down that cherry tree when he was a kid, and we all know trees turn into paper and books), and convoluted plots and lies (Washington didn't tell a lie when he confessed to felling that tree, but the truth is, he probably didn't chop down anything). We'll skip further sketchy evidence that Grimes's book is suitable for Presidents' Day and go directly to its first paragraph:

They came in, hidden in coats, hats pulled over their eyes, two stubby hoods like refugees from a George Raft film, icy-eyed and tight-lipped. From under their overcoats, they swung up Uzis hanging from shoulder holsters and sprayed the room back and forth in watery arcs. There were twenty or so customers—several couples, two business-men in pinstripes, a few solo diners who had been sitting, some now standing, some screaming, some crawling crablike beneath their tables.

Nobody got shot; it was the Clownfish Café's aquarium that exploded. Candy and Karl, contract killers whom we met in 2003's Foul Matter, had tailed literary agent L. Bass Hess into the café (Candy and Karl insist on getting to know a mark before they decide whether he deserves killing), and exchanged gunfire with the fleeing shooters. When they re-holstered their guns, they followed the lead of a blonde woman who had been reading and eating spaghetti alone. She tossed the wine out of her glass, filled it with water, and saved a fish. Pretty soon all the aquarium's fish were swimming in glasses and water pitchers, and Candy and Karl had a new interest: clown fish.

They are further interested when they discover the beautiful blond is the target of an outrageous lawsuit by Hess, who says she owes him money for a book written two years after she fired him. Candy and Karl decide to kill two birds with one stone: they'll neutralize (but not kill) Hess and rescue poor, innocent Cindy, who's been suffering from writer's block and victimized by lawyers, who may not be working entirely on her behalf. This involves recruiting Foul Matter's publishing titan Bobby Mackenzie and best-selling thriller writer Paul Giverney, and a host of other characters, such as a weed smoker who wrestles alligators in Florida during tourist season and a brainy Malaysian femme fatale so interested in the scheme that she's almost willing to work for free. If you haven't read Foul Matter, the references to that book's plot are a little confusing, but you're all smart people, capable of figuring it out, and, if you can't, well, President's, Presidents', or Presidents Day is a little confusing, too, and we're not talking about how you absolutely must understand this to the letter—we're not building a nuclear bomb here. Writer Grimes obviously had fun writing it, and I had fun reading this entertaining satire.

Happy holiday, no matter how you spell it or whom you're celebrating.

Review of Sue Grafton's W Is for Wasted

W Is for Wasted by Sue Grafton

For me, reading a Sue Grafton alphabet series book is like slipping on a pair of comfortable old slippers. I live on the central California coast where the series is set (fictional Santa Teresa and ritzy Montebello are really Santa Barbara and pricey Montecito), and Grafton is meticulous when describing the area's lifestyles, geography, and history. I've known protagonist Kinsey Millhone, now in her late 30s, since A Is for Alibi was published in 1982. Obviously, Kinsey isn't aging as fast as I am.

Raised by a strict maiden aunt after her parents died in a car accident when she was five, Kinsey likes the stability of rules, although she often breaks them. She can be a smartass and lies easily. After a few years on the police force, she's now a private eye who's been married and divorced twice.

Kinsey is a cheapskate who cuts her own hair with a fingernail scissors and lives in scuffed boots and jeans unless something more formal is required; then, she drags out that one black dress hanging in her closet. After a bomb destroyed her old place, home is now a compact apartment fitted out like a ship's cabin, courtesy of her landlord, neighbor, and good friend, 88-year-old Henry Pitts. Henry, his older brother William, and William's Hungarian wife, Rosie, who runs her own restaurant (currently closed for fumigation), are like family to Kinsey. A few years ago, Kinsey was flabbergasted to learn her mother's relatives live in nearby Lompoc. Apparently, her wealthy grandmother was estranged from Kinsey's mother when she married Kinsey's dad; Kinsey is as eager to establish a close relationship with her mother's family as she is to walk across a minefield.

The joys and heartaches unique to family ties, the ways we damage ourselves by deceiving others, miscarriage of justice, the devastation of addiction, searching for meaning in a materialistic society, and contrasts between haves and have-nots are familiar themes in Grafton's series. In W Is for Wasted (September 2013, Putnam), these themes run through two narratives that ultimately connect two men, both dead at the book's beginning. Kinsey knew one of them: unscrupulous private detective Pete Wolinsky, shot late at night near the bird sanctuary.

Kinsey doesn't recognize the other man when a coroner's investigator asks her to view a corpse with no ID at the morgue. He was a homeless man found dead on a Santa Teresa beach. Such are the oddities of life, that a scrap of paper bearing the words "Millhone Investigations" found in a dead man's pocket makes Kinsey's life intersect with that of a morgue's John Doe. How the Kinsey who loves lying and snooping through a suspect's dresser drawers always feels compelled to do the right thing has always interested me. Somehow, she feels honor bound to find out who he is and why he needed a private investigator. Kinsey begins by tracking down his homeless companions, Pearl, Felix, and Dandy.

The character portraits of these Central Coast homeless are one of this book's strengths. And so is the look at Kinsey as she follows clues to a will, an old wrong, and new family connections before discovering the nature of the ties that bind her John Doe to private eye Pete Wolinsky.

It's sleuth work 1988 style, and it's comforting to see Kinsey still using index cards, a Smith-Corona typewriter, crisscross telephone directories (some decades-old telephone directories even include occupation and spouse's name for each listed address and phone number!), face-to-face interviews, pay phones, and folded paper maps. Narrator Kinsey is still witty and engaging, although somewhat more contemplative and subdued than usual. Dialogue, especially between squabbling family members, is terrific and sounds like something I'd actually overhear. There's a reunion atmosphere as familiar series names such as cops Jonah Robb and Con Dolan, attorney Lonnie Kingman, and private eye Morley Shine pop up. Kinsey's old beaus Cheney Phillips (does he ever drive anything but this year's red Mercedes?) and Robert Deitz make an appearance, and a Japanese bobtail joins the cast of characters.

It's enjoyable stuff, although some of the  connections between people stretch coincidence, and plot lines bringing old characters in feel manufactured, even if welcome. And, at 484 pages, it reminded me a bit of the old Hillary Waugh police procedural classic, 30 Manhattan East: A Case for Homicide North, in which the reader watches Det. Lt. Frank Sessions open the drawer of his desk, take out a pencil, sharpen it, chew the eraser, lean back in his chair.... In other words, there is much extraneous detail.

In any case, Grafton's alphabet books are popular for good reason: Kinsey is darned likable. I had fun seeing her and the regulars again and thinking about all the ways in which "W" is for wasted: wasted lives, wasted hopes, people who are "wasted" on drugs or killed. I'll be sorry when the alphabet ends.

Veronica Mars: Not Just for Teens

If you keep up with popular culture––or even if you don't––then you probably heard recently about the website Kickstarter's impressive fundraising to make a movie followup to the Veronica Mars TV show. The show appeared for three seasons, from 2004-2007, starred Kristen Bell as Veronica Mars, Enrico Colantoni as her father, Keith, and featured a raft of young actors, like Tina Majorino, Jason Dohring, Percy Daggs III, Amanda Seyfried and Max Greenfield. Veronica Mars was set in the sun-drenched southern California beachside town of Neptune, where you were either extremely wealthy or worked for the rich folks.

I remember one evening in 2004 when I was channel surfing and caught the beginning of the show. I was definitely not part of its target demographic, but who could resist the smartest, most badass 17-year-old blonde PI ever?

When Keith Mars was the county sheriff and Veronica was dating Duncan Kane (Teddy Dunn), son of billionaire software developer Jake Kane (Kyle Secor), she was part of the in crowd. All that changed after the murder of Lilly Kane (Amanda Seyfried), Duncan's sister and Veronica's best friend. Certain anomalies on the scene and in alibis made Keith suspect Jake. All hell broke loose after that.

When Jake Kane's company went public several years earlier, he'd made millionaires of dozens of people in town; pretty much every single employee at the company. Needless to say, he became extremely popular, and fingering him for the murder of his own daughter was politically unwise. Keith was booted out of the sheriff's job and started his PI firm (Mars Investigations), Veronica's mother (Corinne Bohrer) left the family and Veronica was forced by her so-called friends to choose between loyalty to her father and her membership in the "09er" social group.

Veronica chose Keith. Working at Mars Investigations and being cast out by the 09ers opened Veronica's eyes to the dark underside of Neptune and Neptune High. She lost every bit of sunny naïveté she'd ever had and became a tough-talking teenage Philip Marlowe. She even packed heat and wasn't afraid to use it––in this case a taser, though, not a revolver.

Here's the basic plot of Season One of the series. Like many crime series, there is a season-long mystery to be solved; in this case, it's the murder of Lilly Kane. This part of the story is a bit reminiscent of Twin Peaks, only without the incomprehensible and supernatural plot twists. Every episode of Veronica Mars also includes a single-episode mystery to be solved; either a case that walks through the door at Mars Investigations or something that comes up at Neptune High School.

In the pilot episode, Veronica rescues the new kid in school, Wallace, when he's found duct-taped to the school's flagpole. It seems Wallace made a big mistake in his job at a convenience store. He pressed the silent alarm button when local Mexican-American biker gang members shoplifted beer, but when the sheriff showed up and confronted the gangbangers and Wallace, Wallace decided his skin would be more likely to stay intact if he didn't rat on them. Too late, though. New Sheriff Don Lamb may be a smarmy jerk, but he's not an idiot. He calls Wallace a wimp and takes the store's security tape. Of course, that means the bikers are going to be charged. In one evening, Wallace has managed to alienate both the new sheriff and the biker gang members, who are classmates at Neptune High.

Now that Veronica has made friends with Wallace, that means she's got problems with the gang, including its head, Weevil. After exchanging some witty threats with Weevil, Veronica offers to fix the criminal case if the gang agrees to leave Wallace alone. She manages this in a clever caper that shows her ingenuity and the fact that in spite of everything, she still has some people in her corner. Her scheme gives Wallace protection and has the welcome side benefit of causing acute embarrassment for both Sheriff Don Lamb and one of her 09er tormenters.

In another episode, "Credit Where Credit's Due," Veronica has established an almost friendship with Weevil. (As the Shangri-Las used to sing, "He's good-bad, but he's not evil.") Weevil's grandmother is fired from her longtime domestic job with the family of movie star Aaron Echolls (Harry Hamlin) and is charged with having fraudulently used a credit card she obtained under the Echolls name. Veronica investigates, and in the process of clearing Weevil's abuela, she finds out a lot more about the secret lives of the 09ers––and Weevil's gang.

Subjects of other episodes' mysteries include missing family members, a dognapping ring, a school mascot-napping, a con game perpetrated against young 09er women, steroid smuggling, blackmail, extortion, a cult, money stolen in a high-stakes poker game, a fake ID ring, sexual harassment, domestic abuse, and bomb threats at Neptune High. And all the while, Veronica continues her investigation into Lilly Kane's murder, her missing mother, and her own rape at a party where she was roofied by a person or persons unknown. The final two episodes of Season One resolve all these mysteries, and they're thrill bombs, filled with action and motion.

Despite the fact that this show's protagonist is a teenager, this is no juvenile effort.  The mysteries' construction and solution are a cut above most TV crime drama. True, there's still time for teen romance, Veronica's cat-and-mouse battle against Sheriff Lamb, frequent clashes with the half-admiring Vice Principal Clemens, and high school hijinks; not that that's such a bad thing. This is also one of those shows filled with music that sends you to iTunes to check out that song with the catchy hook.

Here and here are some amusing moments from the show. Several bits feature teacher Mrs. Hauser, and I should note that the episode involving her (2.13: "Ain't No Magic Mountain High Enough") may be a psychological catharsis for you if you've had lingering emotional scars from a nemesis teacher.

For somebody AARP-eligible to enjoy a show about a teenage PI should be embarrassing, but can I call this a guilty pleasure if I frequently recommend it to my contemporaries––and the ones who've watched it have given it rave reviews?

Today is the final day of the Veronica Mars Kickstarter campaign. If you want to be part of it, you can make a pledge anytime before 11pm EDT, here.

Even if you don't want to be part of the Kickstarter campaign, check out the show; no matter if you're well past your own high school years. You can easily find the DVDs for purchase or rental, or watch episodes online here. And, you're in luck, because reruns of the series have been showing on weekdays at 5pm EDT (and repeated on the weekends) for some months on SOAPnet (argh, I know), and they are back to the beginning starting today.

Book Review of Kerry Greenwood's Unnatural Habits

Unnatural Habits by Kerry Greenwood

On her way out for cocktails in the iffy Melbourne neighborhood called Little Lon, Phryne Fisher rescues a young woman who is about to be attacked by three menacing thugs. The woman, Polly Kettle, tells Phryne she is a reporter on a hot story about three young, unmarried, pregnant women who disappeared from a nursing home where they were waiting to deliver their babies. During most of their pregnancy, the women had been made to atone for their sins by being forced to work in the Magdalen Laundry at the Abbotsford convent.

The day after the Little Lon adventure, Polly is kidnapped, and Phryne's friend, police detective Jack Robinson, asks Phryne to help find Polly, since Phryne is better suited to wheedle information from the brothelkeepers Polly had been asking about the missing women. Phryne's investigation takes her from the brothels to the slum home of one of the victims, to the (worse yet, to Phryne) middle-class homes of other victims, to the nightmarish Magdalen Laundry, and more. Even for the normally unflappable Phryne, what she learns about what can happen to unprotected young women is shocking and disheartening.

Although this story has as much verve as any Phryne Fisher novel, it tackles serious subjects in an affecting way. Young women who became pregnant in the 1920s were often rejected by their families and forced to go into unpaid servitude in convents, working in dreadful conditions and subject to whatever discipline the nuns wished to apply. Women had few legal rights and protections and could lose their freedom in many ways, as illustrated vividly in this novel. Phryne can't right all the wrongs of Melbourne society, but she's determined to help as many women as she can and, almost as important, mete out rough and suitable justice to their victimizers.

I confess that whenever I read a Phryne Fisher mystery (this is the 19th in the series), I squirm a little, because Phryne is just too good to be true. She's rich, beautiful, brilliant, able to outwit any villain and conquer any opponent. She collects devoted friends and dependents (doctors, society do-gooders, cabmen, wharfies, street urchins, assorted denizens of the demimonde; you name it) who enthusiastically become part of her detective team. Whenever Phryne needs help, there is always somebody ready to hand with the necessary resources who is eager to spring into action. Her allure is so overwhelming that even her lover's wife is her friend. And anyone who opposes her fears her––or is taught to fear her. Could there be such a superwoman today, let alone 90 years ago?

What I have to remind myself is that the Phryne character is a feminist fantasy figure, wielding a sword of social justice. And what's wrong with that? James Bond is a fantasy figure (of a different sort, obviously!) and nobody seems to mind that one bit. So I resolve to go with the flow and enjoy this fantasy figure and her fantasy life––which, in this book as always, includes colorful, extra-legal and oh-so-deserved punishments for bad guys; socialist workers who treat Phryne as a valued comrade; and hookers with hearts of gold.

Speaking of fantasy, this novel continues the Phryne tradition of lots of descriptions of period clothes, perfumes, hairstyles and, best of all, food and drink. I'm always heading for the refrigerator and liquor cabinet when I read a Phryne Fisher book. This time around, we're told of a classic book, Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks, by William Terrington, published in London in 1869. Take a look at the book here. This is one peculiar recipe book. Here's one of the recipes:

Ponche á la Parisienne: Boil 1/2 pint of water and 1 lb. of sugar; when it comes to the thread, add the oleo-saccharum of 1 lemon [I've discovered that is a sweet oil made from citrus peel and sugar] and juice of 2, 1-1/2 pint of brandy, and 1/2 pint of rum; let this heat, but not boil; pour it in a hot bowl; set fire to it; stir it well, and pour into glasses while blazing.

I think I'll choose a more traditional Phryne favorite, like a White Lady (2 oz. gin, 1/2 oz. Cointreau, 1/2 oz. lemon juice and 1 egg white, shaken with ice and strained into a chilled cocktail glass). I suggest you do the same and raise a glass to what might be the best Phryne Fisher book of the series to date.

Unnatural Habits will be published in hardcover by Poisoned Pen Press on January 1, 2013. It is currently available in audiobook form from Audible.com.

Note: I received a free publisher's review copy of Unnatural Habits. A version of this review may appear on Amazon and other sites under my user names there.

A Fireside Chat with a Hot Female Shamus

During these cold winter evenings, it's a luxury to sit by the fire and escape into a book, especially if the book comes equipped with a tough, pool-playing shamus named Alessandra Martillo.

Al is of Puerto Rican heritage. She grew up in New York City's public housing. Her father, a military man, was largely absent although he made sure his 6-year-old daughter knew how to defend herself and drummed it into her head that men are only after one thing. Al was sent to live with an aunt after her mother committed suicide when she was 10 years old. She ran away and lived on the streets for a year until she was rescued by her Tío Bobby. A career in the NYPD evaporated when Al was thrown out of the police academy. Al has serious problems with authority.

When Norman Green's The Last Gig begins, Al is working for PI Marty Stiles, an ex-cop who knows his stuff, but who's not above getting his hands dirty for his clients. Neither is he above having the hots for his employee. Even though Al made it clear she's not interested, he still can't keep his cool around her. When she wears low-rise jeans, "his tongue hangs out so far you could put a knot in it and call it a tie."

Stiles has an acquaintance, Daniel Caughlan, an Irish mobster and trucking company owner. Someone is hijacking his trucks, possibly for transporting drugs. Caughlin suspects he's being set up for a fall and someone close to him is involved. Although Stiles has had Al handling only minor investigations such as car repossessions, Caughlan hires Al because she's smart, stubborn, doesn't scare and "can take a punch." He wants her to name the traitor. It doesn't take long before Al is digging into the death of Caughlan's musician son 6 months earlier and she realizes it's much less straightforward than Caughlin thinks. It's also very dangerous for Al.

It's hard to imagine a situation that Al would consider too dangerous. She's courageous to the point of foolhardiness, probably because she's stronger and more coordinated than most men. Al is also beautiful. She's not a Barbie doll but "the kind of broad who could pitch a shutout against your softball team, hit one out herself, then drink you under the table after the game."

These same traits that make Al an exciting heroine in the style of Lisbeth Salander and Kathleen Mallory can also be a source of eye rolling and tedium when all the reminders of her attractiveness and strength start piling up. Still, as long as the reader accepts a near-superhuman heroine, it's easy to root for Al and enjoy Green's book. The author has a detailed knowledge of his characters' city and the music industry that employs some of them. Other than Al, the characters are believable people. The plot is engrossing and it moves at a satisfactory pace, but what makes the book is Alessandra Martillo. She's da bomb and I'll read the sequel, Sick Like That.

I'm not sure when I'll get to that sequel, because I have some other books on a shelf near the fireplace. I'm anxious to go back to the Philippines via reading Alexander Yates's Moondogs. Kirkus Reviews describes the book in this way: "The kidnapping of an American businessman in the Philippines sets in motion an odd series of events involving his estranged son, a hard-boiled cop who inspired a hugely popular film series and a ragtag strike force with special powers." That sounds good to me.

But before visiting the Philippines, I'm enjoying China with Qui Xiaolong's Death of a Red Heroine. This is a book with another irresistible protagonist, Chief Inspector Chen Cao, head of the Shanghai Police Bureau's Special Case Squad. Dick Adler of the Chicago Tribune says, "Blends history, plenty of poetry and a compelling mystery: the murder of Guan Hongying, a former national role-model worker, a beautiful young woman who slipped from patriotic fame into loneliness and depravity... We get to see, smell, taste and hear an amazingly evocative portrait of a country."

I hope that wherever you are, you are safe and warm and have a good book to read.

Have Ambulance, Will Travel

I am amazed to think that we are coming up to the 100th anniversary of the War To End All Wars. I've been intrigued by the WWI era and I frequently read mysteries that use the days after the war and into the 1920s as a backdrop for unusual themes and interesting characters who inhabit the shadowy world of crime fiction.

One of the sub-genres of mystery fiction is that involving the plucky young woman who has the foresight to cast off the shackles that were keeping women at home, barefoot, pregnant and yada yada. Class barriers at this time were dissolving for many reasons, only one of which was the fact that an entire generation of Britain's young men had been wiped out and women were stepping in to fill the breaches. There were a few of these young ladies who cast off their pasts and leapt to the defense of the good guys, managing to get themselves close to the front lines of the war in France, either as ambulance drivers or nurses.

Kerry Greenwood's Phryne Fisher was one of the early protagonists who fit this mold. I first encountered Phryne Fisher when she took her first case that started with an ocean voyage to Australia in Cocaine Blues. This mystery introduced Phryne as a wealthy young woman with some relation to the British nobility. It was the decade of the 1920s and the Honourable Phryne was at loose ends in London.

Phryne had not always been rich; she was actually born in Australia in circumstances of poverty, but her father came into an inheritance and the Fishers left their privation behind them. Phryne was named after a courtesan of extraordinary beauty who lived in Ancient Greece in the 4th century BC. This lovely was purported to be the model for some famous statues of Venus.

Hispano-Suiza

After finishing school, Phryne went to France and joined a French women's ambulance unit during WWI and was duly decorated for bravery. Phryne being quite beautiful, she also worked for awhile as an artist's model. After the success of solving her first murder case, she settles down in Melbourne, Australia, in a house with the number 221B and has no problems finding clients. She has a certain code of conduct, but she does enjoy the company of lovers. She also drives a Hispano-Suiza, one of the few in her part of the country. Greenwood has drawn a vivid portrait of a very intriguing sleuth with an excellent sense of place and time and I have enjoyed almost all of the 18 books in this series. I have kept two for a rainy day because I don't tire of Phryne.

Another intrepid young lady of fiction who has fled home and hearth is the American, Jade del Cameron, whose character has hints of Beryl Markham and Isak Dinesen. This series of six books so far is written by Suzanne Arruda. Jade was raised on a ranch in Cimarron, New Mexico. But we are introduced to her in Mark of the Lion when she is attached to the French Army as an ambulance driver. Her mantra when the shells are pelting down is "I only occupy one tiny space, the shells have all the rest of France to hit."

After surviving an air raid by the skin of her teeth Jade takes on the dying wish of a mortally wounded pilot who asks her to find his brother and thus begins her career as a detective. Her investigation leads her to Nairobi, Africa. Later she comes back to Africa as a photographer, but mysteries and occasional murders require her sleuthing skills. She is an intrepid soul and counts marksmanship, knowledge of motor mechanics learned in the ambulance corps and piloting an airplane among her abilities.

The backdrop of Africa enlivens this series. Del Cameron is frequently either going into the wilds on safari or on photographic jobs in the interior, while at the same time clashing with the staid British ideas of how a woman should behave. She is gutsy enough to try everything and has no fear when she has to pilot an airplane. Jade is very different from Phryne Fisher and both series have a lot to recommend them.

Perhaps the best known of our mold-shattering young women is Jacqueline Winspear's amazing Maisie Dobbs. There are eight books chronicling her adventures. She is introduced in Maisie Dobbs, which was the Agatha Award winner for Best First Novel in 2003. Maisie was the daughter of a costermonger (someone who sells fruit and vegetables from a wheel barrow) and she went into service at the age of 13 as a maid for an aristocratic family in London. She was very bright and, with the help of her employers, she left their service, went to school and later trained in the nursing profession.

MG

While a battlefield nurse during the war, part of a Voluntary Aid Detachment, Maisie was injured both in body and spirit. She returned to London after the war to work with her mentor, a well-known detective, Dr. Maurice Blanche, at Discrete Investigations. When Blanche retires, Maisie opens her own detective agency. She is cautious, concerned about the state England is in but she does need to get around and so has an MG as a pair of wheels.

In her first case, she is asked to look into why several severely scarred veterans are dying unexpectedly at a therapy retreat on a farm. Maisie sees that perhaps the murderer may be as much a victim of the war as the vets. This story makes us very aware that wars don't stop on the date the history books give us; in fact, they never end. The repercussions are like the splash of a pebble in a brook, ever widening. Winspear does the history of the social changes that came about after the Great War beautifully without sermonizing.

I won't make a prediction about which of these heroines you would like best. Perhaps it is important to know that there were real women who could have been the models for characters such as these. One of them is Hélène Dutrieu (10 July 1877 – 26 June 1961), known as the Belgian Hawk, who was a cycling world champion and stunt person, pioneer aviator, wartime ambulance driver and a director of a military hospital. After the war she was a journalist.