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The Arizona Triangle, Sydney Graves (HarperCollins, 304 pages)
This terrific book is a debut mystery from Graves, the nom de plume for writer Kate Christensen, and it promises for an excellent series to follow. Set in rural Arizona in a small town inhabited by artists, the book introduces us to PI Justine (Jo) Bailen. Rose Delaney was Jo’s best friend in childhood but a teenaged crush ended their closeness. Twenty-five years later, Jo is called in by Rose’s family after Rose has gone missing. It turns out she hit a bad patch – an inappropriate relationship with a student, false claims of Navajo identity and the loss of her job. She disappeared from the art colony where the girls grew up but her family doesn’t believe the local cops will investigate the case.
A bit reluctantly, Jo starts searching by revisiting old friends, lovers and even parents in her hometown. It brings out a lot of memories that should probably have been left in the past. Then Rose is found and the story really takes off. To say more is to give away a great plot.
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I found this book irresistible from the opening page and stayed up late to finish it. There are a few first mystery missteps: Graves repeats the clues too often and she’s fond of listing the possible suspects but these are minor quibbles. Meanwhile, the setting is something that Tony Hillerman could conjure up. and Jo is a wonderful addition to the ranks of great American female PIs (or any PIs, really). I await her return.
Karla’s Choice, Nick Harkaway (Viking, 297 pages)
The subtitle is A John le Carré Novel and that’s partially true. Harkaway is le Carré‘s son and he has resurrected some of his father’s great characters: Smiley, Control, Molly, Hayden, Prideaux and others. The plot, which is very dense, relates to events in The Spy Who Came in from the Cold.
Alec Leamas is not forgotten in the period shortly after his death; Smiley is in retirement after the debacle enjoying married life with Lady Anne, reading German and making plans. Then Control summons him for what is to be a short stint. A young Hungarian refugee, living and working in London, has accidentally encountered a KGB assassin. Her employer, a respected publisher, has vanished. It appears he was the intended target. Smiley’s task seems easy: protect the girl and find out what’s going on. Of course, things will not turn out well, as we all know. There will be betrayals and lies and pain.
All this is expected in a le Carré novel and, despite some overwriting, Harkaway pulls it all off. He tends to get carried away with descriptions (as le Carré also did) but that’s all forgivable. Since the plot does hinge on Leamas’s death, it’s essential to read the earlier novel. You will also have to suspend your knowledge of the future (we are in 1963) and what happens in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. This means Hayden is still a golden boy, sailing about the Circus, teacup in hand. It’s difficult to imagine that Harkaway, a solid writer in his own right, will continue this kind of fill-in history of the Circus but it’s not impossible to imagine at least one more novel before the Circus implodes. We shall stay tuned.
The Treasure Hunters Club, Tom Ryan (Simon & Schuster Canada, 400 pages)
Ryan is best known as an award-winning young-adult author but this lively mystery, set on the Nova Scotia coast, is for grown-ups, although his younger audience won’t be put off by it if they stumble upon it.
The setting is Maple Bay, an idyllic seaside town with a great history. Seventeen-year-old Dandy Feltzen grew up searching for treasures from the sea with her beloved grandfather; Peter Barnett, of Vancouver, has suddenly inherited an estate owned by his late grandmother, who was estranged for all of his 40 years; Cass Jones had a dream of becoming a bestselling novelist but the dream has crashed in New York and now she’s just grateful to get a job in Maple Bay house-sitting. Maybe a new location will get the creative element moving.
These three strangers are about to become enmeshed in a series of murders and it all starts with the story of pirate’s gold buried somewhere in Maple Bay. The search for the treasure has been part of the town lore since its beginning, and the local historical society is the centre for all things pirate and, as the story begins, the centre for murder. The plot is clever, with lots of attention to the locale and some good characters. I loved this book and I hope to hear more from Ryan.
Johnny Delivers, Wayne Ng (Guernica Editions, 283 pages)
This delightful novel is Ng’s fourth. It’s a sequel to his second book, Letters From Johnny, which won the Crime Writers of Canada Best Novella Award. I loved that book and this one is far better. Ng excels at character-building and dialogue and he’s got style to burn. Add all that to a vision of a vanished Toronto – the seventies, when Yorkville was skid row and Chinatown began and ended at Dundas and Spadina. It’s all here along with a great plot about a pair of kids peddling pot.
Johnny’s family is in trouble. His mother has run up a lot of debt and his aunt, who runs the local mah-jong parlour, holds the notes. The family restaurant, which is, incidentally, also the family home, is security. It appears that they could lose everything and end up, literally, in the streets.
Johnny’s solution is to get some more income by delivering weed, at a time when selling pot was seriously illegal. Ng gets that frisson of fear, the idea of a good Chinese kid ending up in reform school like his buddy Barry, who got him into the business. This is a wonderful trip to old Toronto, full of laughs and a tear or two. Not to be missed and I look forward to more from Ng as Johnny grows up.
Beautiful Ugly, Alice Feeney (Flatiron, 320 pages)
There is so much to like about this beautifully written novel that it’s a shame to complain about a confused plot filled with contrived coincidences but that’s the unvarnished truth. This is Feeney’s seventh book and she’s an accomplished writer. All she needs is a little order in her plot. The book begins with a blow. A woman disappears while on a routine errand. It appears she stopped at the side of the road to give assistance to another woman. Her car is still there but she’s vanished
A year later, her husband, Grady, is trapped in the neverland of the vanished beloved. If he knew she was dead, he could grieve. If he knew she was alive, he could continue to hope. As it is, he’s stuck. His life, time, career as a writer, all frozen. Grady is falling apart. His publisher offers him a cabin on a remote island in hopes that solitude will unblock his work. We all know where this is going. The island will have more ghosts than Grady’s imagination. If this were an ordinary psychological novel, it would be bad but Feeney is too good for that. She creates a setting that resonates and her characters, including the missing wife, have depth.
The Business Trip, Jessie Garcia (St. Martin’s, 345 pages)
Jasmine and Stephanie don’t know each other until they end up in the same row on a plane. Stephanie is a business woman en route to an important meeting, Jasmine is fleeing an abusive relationship. There’s no way the two would ordinarily meet and yet, a few days later both have disappeared. The only link, aside from that plane trip, is a man named Trent McCarthy, who seems to have encountered and impressed both women enough for them each to text their friends the exact same message about him before they disappeared.
That’s the intriguing premise that takes the reader on a rollercoaster ride of chance, malice and a lot of scary stuff as the search for the women, dead or alive, takes centre stage. To say more is would reveal too much but this one is a weekend binge read. Enjoy it.