Mystery Crime Books

Pottery shop owner Carolyn Emerson finds Betty Wickline murdered inside Carolyn's shop, Fire At Will, one night when she returns to check on some pottery. Maple Ridge, Vermont, is a small town. Once Sheriff John Hodges makes it known that Carolyn is his prime suspect, business falls off at her shop.

With the help of the members of her pottery group called the Firing Squad, including a reformed crook and a retired judge, as well as her assistant David, she begins gathering information into who had a motive to kill Betty. Carolyn soon finds out that she wasn't the only one who didn't like Betty, including the sheriff. But who disliked her enough to kill her?

This series is actually written by Tim Myers. I like all his cozy mystery series that I have read. I enjoyed this one a lot and will be looking for future books in this series.

I liked the Vermont setting, and setting it in a pottery shop really lent itself to this story and the cozy genre. Carolyn, her husband Bill, her assistant David, and his mother Hannah were all great characters, and I look forward to reading more books in this series to see what happens with each of them.

I highly recommend this book.

another good one, I like the characters and look forward to more in the series.

Tim Myers, a.k.a. Melissa Glazer, has yet another winning cozy series on his hands with the debut of A Murderous Glaze, featuring pottery shop owner, Carolyn Emerson. The setting is a cozy, small town in Vermont, and the book opens with the murder of Betty Wickline having already taken place inside Carolyn's shop, Fire At Will, the night before. Since Betty was murdered inside Carolyn's shop with one of Carolyn's tools, and since her animosity toward Betty was common knowledge, the town sheriff, John Hodges, considers Carolyn a viable suspect, or is that just to deflect suspicion from himself?

When the entire town starts to treat Carolyn like some sort of pariah and her business dwindles down to nothing, she decides to take matters into her own hands. She enlists the help of an unlikely bunch of investigators - the Firing Squad - a group of artisans from all walks of life (including a reformed crook and a retired judge) who meet regularly at Fire At Will to share their lives and their love of pottery. They waste no time uncovering all sorts of interesting information about Betty and all kinds of motives for plenty of people to have wanted to hasten her demise.

Carolyn is a likable, albeit somewhat abrasive, middle-aged woman with a sweetheart of a husband, Bill. Carolyn's proclivity for sarcastic wit tends to get her into trouble at times and is undoubtedly part of the reason that some of the townsfolk think her capable of murder. But underneath her gruff exterior, Carolyn is actually a bit of a sweetheart herself. She is the kind of friend anyone would be glad to have on their side, and she obviously instills that same fierce loyalty in her own family and friends. Watching them go out on a limb for one another was heartwarming!

The ending was quite interesting, and leaves the reader with a few unanswered questions - undoubtedly in order to keep us anxiously awaiting the next book in the series (which, of course, I've already ordered!).

Carol Ann Hopkins 3/22/2008

What a fantastic first book in a new series! I really enjoyed this clever little mystery. Great characters, good plot, and wonderful setting. I look forward to many more in this series.

I love mysteries especially new authors! But, I can HONESTLY say this one was boring. It had great reviews,which I mistakenly listened to, and was disappointed.
I really wanted to like it. I loved the cover art!
If you want to read it, go ahead. I just wouldn't tell my friends to read it, that's wall! Sorry!

Did the movie leave you begging for more? Well, there are the sequels, but this story is the strongest one, and the book gives you all the extras that would never fit into one film. Get the book and many of the side stories that were only touched on in the film will suddenly spread out before you in full detail. Definitely a gripping and enjoyable read.

This book has differences with the movie, in fact Mario Puzo was kid mad with Coppola por the arrangements on the movie but it is marvelous is a must to every fan of The Godfather. You got more nervous, tense and excited with the book!

Read this years ago and I wanted to read it again and have it for my library. Just as great as I remembered.

This book is spectacular! I read it in about 2 days. As I love the both the Godfather films (part I and II), I was worried about the book. But I was not disappointed. The films are even more amazing. The first film is the best adaptation of a book that I have ever seen. The book is complicated, detailed and thrilling. I loved getting to know more about this characters and getting into the head of a mafia chief. I highly recommend it!

The book version of the Godfather is a must-read for fans of the movie trilogy. The book (which of course preceded the movie by several years) includes a few minor characters not making the cut for the book, and it expands on the back story of several minor characters, such as Rocco Lampone, Luca Brasi, Al Nieri, Johnny Fontane, and Lucy Mancini).

The book is not, however, as enjoyable or well-done as the movie. Part of the reason certain minor characters were left out of the movie, and other characters roles lessened, is because their plights don't seem to relate much to the dominant storylines, those being the Corleone Family's struggle to remain the most powerful of New York, and Michael's rise to Don. The storylines of Johnny and Lucy especially are there to show the far-reaching influence of rhe Corleones, but still seem to sidetrack the main story.

Parts of the book also seem repetetive, such as the in-depth discussion of Johnny's taste in women. Also, there are certain sequences (such the deaths of Sonny and Appolonia) whose suddenness can only be properly depicted through a visual medium.

Overall a good read, especially for fans of the movie, but don't expect to come away feeling you just read an amazing book.

Like a classic old movie that you love in spite (or because of?) its in old black and white, the obvious back-lot sets, and no super-realistic surround sound, this collection of stories shows its age but wears it well.

If Dashiell Hammett is the D. W. Griffith of hard-boiled detective stories, Chandler is the Alfred Hitchcock.

(Kindle version review) One of my favorite writers and collections, but this is a very poor format ebook. The OCR-related typos are very annoying - they aren't uniform, it's as though several pages, scattered through the book, weren't edited or checked at all.

I have reviewed Raymond Chandler's seven full Phillip Marlowe epics elsewhere in this space. For those who doubt that a mere plebian detective in a once seedy genre can hold your attention and win your admiration as very, very good literature then try these four short pieces to work up the 'big' boys. You will not be disappointed. Moreover, you will get a fair peek at what makes Marlowe tick-his sense of honor, his doggedness in the face of adversity and his tilting after windmills when he gets his teeth in a case. And it does not hurt if there is a good-looking 'dame' in the bargain.

If none of the above convinces you then get this book for the preface by the master Chandler himself about his take, circa 1950, on the meaning of the detective genre as literature. As we know his special pleading then is now the wisdom of the academy.

ON BECOMING PHILLIP MARLOWE

Apparently there are many, many editions of this work. Above I have reviewed the one that has Chandler's introduction. Since then I have found a copy under the same title that has 12 stories in it many of which are different from the above. If you can find it- Vintage Paperback-1988- you will be justly rewarded because what you will get are snatches of stories with various charcters, locales, named detectives and different ending that will later go on to become The Big Sleep, Farewell, My Lovely and Lady in the Lake. Get it if you can, if for no other reason than to see how the master noir detective writer moved the work forward. Amazing.

The title of this review is from the introduction to "Trouble Is My Business." But Raymond Chandler never had doubts about his writing. He once said, "Don't ever write anything you don't like yourself and if you do like it, don't take anyone's advice about changing it. They just don't know." Thankfully he took his own advice and this book of short stories by the master of us all will illustrate just how good the so-called pulp writing was back then, back in what was truly the golden age of crime fiction.

Chandler fans reading this book for the first time will have many "deja vu" moments. The book contains four of the twenty short stories written by Chandler in the 1930s that were warm ups for the seven novels that followed. Chandler wrote detective mystery stories, and became famous for seven novels and a number of Hollywood screen plays, mostly about crime and private detectives in the "film noir" genre of Hollywood black and white films, or what is called LA "pulp fiction". Far from being an ordinary writer of cheap crime stories, Chandler became one of America's best writers from the mid 20th century.

Chandler was a Los Angeles accountant turned writer and he developed his own careful writing style. He started by first analysing other works, such as articles in the Black Mask mystery magazine. He used those stories plus local newspaper crime articles for plot ideas. He would set some of his stories in the fictional ocean side town of Bay City which is really Santa Monica, or set his stories in west Los Angeles, or other parts of southern California. He lived in Santa Monica after being fired from his oil executive job for drinking in the 1930s. He detested the place and moved into LA proper when he became wealthy as a screenplay writer in the early 1940s while working at Paramount. In the late 1940s he moved to La Jolla, just north of San Diego. Chandler started with short fiction pieces in the 1930s and then graduated to novels in 1938-39. From the early novels he was hired to write screen plays and eventually he wrote or created 59 works including stories, screenplays, and novels. His novels with the private Detective Phillip Marlowe brought him fame including the Bogart-Bacall movie The Big Sleep.

This book contains four short stories each about 50 to 60 pages long from the 1930s. These are a warm ups to his seven novels and screenplays that followed. There are plot elements and prose that are almost a duplicate of some of the later novels. For example, the second story Finger Man has scenes and references that are almost directly inserted into The Big Sleep (1939) and Farwewell, My Lovely (1940). For Chandler lovers like myself, it is like eating chocolates to go back and be able to read these early works. Also Chandler has a four page introduction where he makes a number of comments on his writing style and philosophy at the front of the book. Trouble is my Business is the first of the four short stories.

His career did not take off until after he had written three or four novels and started to do screenplays in the mid-1940s. He was lucky in that he was able to write the screenplays and make a lot of money. He became famous for the screenplays, but simultaneously, he rose to further fame by the growth in popularity of paperback books in the 1940s. As a result, millions of his Philip Marlowe detective novels were sold and after just a few years he had moved from a run down flat in Santa Monica to a large house with an ocean view beside the Kellog family in La Jolla. He is now recognised as one of America's best writers from the 1930s through 1940s era. If you get a chance, have a look at the movie Double Indemnity, where Chandler co-wrote the screenplay with Billy Wilder at Paramount - his first attempt at this type of writing - and he and Wilder were nominated for an Oscar but they did not win. I think that is an excellent film, and it is generally regarded as one of the best films of the period.

His technique was to pull old stories apart, then change them, then re-write them as short stories, and then take that work and extend it, modify it again a second or third time or even more, and finally put together complete novels. He would take six months to write a short story - as found in the present collection, while some other mystery writers wrote a complete novel in a week - by dictation. He was not big on plots, but more of a craftsman on the individual scenes and the prose, especially descriptions of the people. He said that it took him two years to write a short description of a person getting up from a table and walking out of a room. So there is a high level of refinement and a certain style that he was able to develop as a result of this writing process. This technique is not new. Shakespeare himself used this technique in virtually every play, taking old myths, stories, and historical accounts such as King Lear. He would break them apart, change them, and make new works with new twists, turns, and addnew characters; his last play The Tempest is his thought to be his only completely original play. Chandler used to joke that if Shakespeare was alive, he would be a Hollywood writer. Chandler is a little more obvious in that some of the prose in the seven novels are almost lifted from the early works - in part because Chandler wrote only one half page increments at a time, and kept those half page writings on file to use as source materials for later works. His aim was to make each segment as complate as possible, but some of his early short stories are similar to and have almost identical names to the full novels.

In any case, this is a book that is not to be missed by Chandler fans and it is simply excellent for anyone else.

Nik Kane was an Anchorage police detective until he was convicted of a crime and spent seven years in prison. When he was exonerated he took a job as a security firm investigator. On his latest case, he was shot and almost died; his son, who was pursuing the same murderer, did die. Nik's wife wants nothing to do with him; so his sister the nun allows him to stay with her while he recuperates.

While healing, Nik flashes back to his youth. In 1967 his father walked out and never came back; his mother never told him why. He thinks of 1985 when he was a rookie and someone assassinated tough police officer Danny Shirtleff with two bullets to his head near Skeleton Lake. Nik and his partner Jackie Dee never learned why Danny was uncover by a make out place; the case went cold without the slightest suspect surfacing. To pass time while recovering, Nik goes over the files he has from the Shirtleff murder.

The story line skips around between the three dates with each representing something critical that happened to Nik; these actually represent three storylines that merge brilliantly though it is somewhat confusing into a strong character driven tale. Readers will learn more about Nik's past that motivates him in the present as Mike Doogan provides a strong shrewd tale that his fans will appreciate.

Harriet Klausner

A truly adult story, with an eerie feel to it unlike most Parker stories. THe story presented chracter development in Belson and Quirk and displayed a deeper understanding of the Spenser/Silverman relationship. The most satisfying Spenser I've ever read.

How dumb and coincidental is this - the bad guy is a patient of Spenser's girlfriend. This is good for readers who can't keep 4 characters in a book straight. He's done much better. Must of had a big boat payment due.

I love Robert Parker, and enjoy many of his novels. I've always found his Spenser series to be uneven -- some of the books are spectacular, but many of them are just passable.

I would put CRIMSON JOY in the "passable" category. A serial killer is on the loose, and Spenser is tapped by the Boston police to help find him. Apparently, Spenser is better trusted than their entire detective force. Spenser later learns that the killer many be one of the patients of his long-time psychologist girlfriend, Susan Silverman, and that her life may be in danger.

CRIMSON JOY is readable, and most of the dialogue is fun. But there is very little story in this novel. The serial killer plot is pretty simplistic. Parker focuses more attention on Spenser's relationship with Silverman, and the constant love talk between them. If you've read the more recent Spenser books, you know what I mean by this. There's also a lot of padding in this book, with numerous scenes that have little relevance to the serial killer plot. So we see Spenser at the gym, Spenser cooking, Spenser on a radio show, and so on.

If you like Parker's writing, as I do, then reading CRIMSON JOY is a decent way to spend a few hours. But if you're looking for an exciting, multilayered story to sink your teeth into, my advice is to try something else.

Spenser is called in by the police on a murder investigation in this, the 15th book in the series. There is a serial killer on the loose - the killer is targeting black women in their 40s, binding and gagging them and killing them in a most gruesome manner. His signature? A single red rose. As race and class tensions rise in Boston, the police put pressure on the team investigating the murders - and Spenser - to close the book on this as quickly as possible.

As Spenser edges closer to the truth, the killer targets Susan. With the police off the case (due to the confession of another man), Spenser calls in Hawk to help him. The two primaries on the murder investigation - Quirk and Belson - are asked to take vacation, because they believe that the wrong man is in jail. They join Spenser in protecting Susan and trying to find the killer.

The action in this book comes and goes - but when it is there, it is high intensity! This book is a thriller and a rather gruesome serial killer murder mystery. As such, it is atypical of Spenser - not to say that murders do not occur, just that usually murder is not the crime Spenser is investigating. Nonetheless, I enjoyed this book a great deal - a recommend from me!

Robert Parker's Spenser series is always good, and Crimson Joy is even better than many of the Spenser books.

A serial killer has been targeting black woman. He ties up his victims, shots them, and leaves a red rose on each woman (thus he's been dubbed Red Rose by the press). Homicide detective Lt. Martin Quirk of the Boston Police Department brings private investigator Spenser in on the case. Red Rose wrote a letter to Quirk claiming that he's a cop, and Quirk wants at least one person on the investigation who is not associated with the BPD. Red Rose then starts leaving red roses for Spenser's girlfriend, psychologist Susan Silverman. Spenser suspects that Red Rose is one of Susan's patients, but Susan is reluctant to help because of patient confidentiality issues. In the meantime, Spenser and Hawk take turns guarding Susan while Spenser and the BPD investigate the murders. The race is on to catch Red Rose before he kills again--especially before Spenser and Silverman become victims.

I enjoyed Crimson Joy for a number of reasons. First, this becomes a psycho-thriller as Spenser matches wits with Red Rose. We even get to hear the voice of Red Rose as he struggles with his demons and his past. Then there is the conflict between Spenser and Silverman about what is more important---patient-doctor confidentiality or catching a killer. There is also a twist at the end. And then there is always the repartee between Spenser and Hawk. These all add up to a great book.

Master "helper" Travis keeps coming up with frightened damsels. And thankfully, Meyer is frequently there to offer advice and consent.

Before reading The Long Lavender Look, I would have argued that Bright Orange for the Shroud was the best Travis McGee book. After careful consideration, I have to admit that The Long Lavender Look steals the crown, even though they both remain extremely entertaining. Since MacDonald sets a high standard for hard-boiled detection, this should tell you that I liked this book very much indeed.

McGee swerves to avoid a nearly naked girl running across the road, and ends up in a swamp of more than one kind. In order to clear his name, he has to find his way to the center of a secret at the heart of a small town Florida police department.

Smart. Fair. Entertaining. Easy to find at used book stores for a small bit of change. What's not to like?

While I still find "Flash of Green" to be my favorite John D. MacDonald book, there's something so appealing about the Travis McGee series that it keeps me coming back to them. And "The Long Lavender Look" is just another addition to the spectrum of colors that his novels get their titles from. Also "The Long Lavender Look" has such a gripping opening sequence of events, and such an array of fascinating characters, that you cannot put this mystery down.

And while I know that MacDonald enjoyed popularity in his time, it seems that his popularity is running out of gas. I hope I am wrong because he is horribly overlooked.

Travis McGee and his friend Meyer are driving home on an abandoned road when a nude young woman races in front of their car. McGee and Meyer end up going off the road and rolling the car, but that's just the beginning of their troubles. Before long, they're shot at by someone in a beat-up pickup truck. As a final welcome to the area, they're arrested for murder and accused of being involved in a robbery some years earlier. Needless to say, McGee digs in and tries to get to the bottom of things.

Travis is loved by a legion of fans and he's at his best here. The supporting cast is interesting as we meet characters like Betsy Kapp, a waitress turned part-time call girl. King Sturnevan is a former boxing contender who is now a sheriff's deputy and befriends Travis. And Lilo Perris is a psycho who mixes freakish strength, extreme sadism, and raw sexuality to keep McGee on his toes. These few and more form a rich stew for Travis to work with as he tries to unravel the mystery of robbery and murder.

The mystery is interesting, and certainly had me guessing for a good while. My only complaint is that it dragged on for a bit too long. There is a climactic scene 50 pages before the book ends where MacDonald could have easily wrapped up the story. Instead, he went for another twist and the actual ending felt a bit anti-climactic and stretched out. It's not like it completely ruined the book, but it does keep it from being as tight as it might have been.

The Long Lavender Look is a solid entry in the Travis McGee series. Long time fans will probably appreciate that the story is a bit of a change of pace from the norm since it doesn't involve McGee performing one of his standard "salvage" operations for a reward. It's not a bad choice for first time readers either. While I did think the ending was a bit sub par, the book is certainly an entertaining read overall.

John D. MacDonald's mysteries are as tasty as the hamburgers of the same name! I love all the Magee books!

I only recommend this one to completists like myself who compulsively insist on reading an author's full body of work. Final Appeal is my least favorite by Scottoline, but it's only her sophomore effort and from here it keeps on improving.

I have ready many of Ms. Scottoline's novels and have found all of them to be worth my time. This one was faced pace and had a couple turns I did not see coming. Highly recomend.

Grace Rossi is a single mother who is a parttime lawyer for a federal appeals court. Much to her dismay, she is assigned a murder case but things improve when Grace's researching the case leads to romance. After a romantic evening, Grace is horrified to discover that her lover has died of an apparent suicide. She discovers that he had had an active love life and she immediately suspects his wife of murdering him. This is the fourth Lisa Scottoline book I have read and is probably the weakest one so far. Most of the action and suspense are contained in the first few chapters, and the book begins to meander and lose focus after that.

I found this book entertaining to read, although the beginning was a little confusing. I just went back to read the first paragraph and it still doesn't really make sense to me - but after I got through the first chapter I was hooked. I didn't rate it a 4 because the author skipped ahead of herself, leaving what I felt was important details behind. Perhaps that was her intention and in a way it was refreshing because you couldn't get bogged down by details. The characters weren't terribly believable, yet they were likeable.
This is an easy read, so if you want something to just take your mind of the mundane of life, I would recommend you give this book a try.
I liked it enough to give another one of her books a try.

After reading and enjoying "Everywhere That Mary Went," Lisa Scottoline's first mystery novel, I was disappointed in this effort. Although the main character is sufficiently developed and the story will be of interest to those familiar with Philadelphia, the plot itself -- the cornerstone of any mystery novel -- is fair at best. The various clues seem contrived. There are fewer of the clever observations which permeated "Mary". Worst of all, the novel lacks the suspense which mystery readers crave: "whodunit" is reasonably predictable, and for obvious reasons.

I am surprised that this novel won an Edgar. It held my interest, but is nowhere near the novels of, say, Michael Connelly. It is a nice, quick beach read, but you can find many better novels in this genre.

I've read the first couple of 100 Bullets, and never really got into them - maybe it's the writing that's so predictably obtuse and intentionally vague, or maybe it's the fact that it reads like something that a 12-year-old thinks would sound really cool. Dunno.

Either way, I thought I'd pick up one of these later issues, to see whether things have gotten any better since then. In a word, no. This collection exemplifies everything I said above, and has nothing of the "standalone episodes" that characterize the early series (thus making it impossible for newcomers to even get *one* layer of enjoyment out of this tripe). Maybe I'm just feeling grumpy today, but Azzarello really lost it for me.

Brian Azzarello, 100 Bullets: Once Upon a Crime (Vertigo, 2007)

There are times over the course of its run when 100 Bullets has been the best comic series going. Once upon a Crime is not one of those times, but a new book in the series, no matter how far it slips off the rails, is still going to be better than a good deal of what you read in the same month.

This is a setup volume, where we spend time getting ready for the big final bangup while learning backstory on some characters. Nothing much happens in this volume-- there's one big plot-related bang, and that's it-- but Azzarello and Risso are so involved with these characters, and are so good at getting into their heads and doing their voices, that even little vignettes about minor characters or stand-ins are well worth your time. ****

Evil men come to evil ends. Thus, the saga continues of Agent Graves and his Minutemen, former allies, enemies and their twined interactions in a very dark, twisted and morally confusing world where nothing is as it appears to be and everyone is out for revenge.

Highly recommended!

An awesome new chapter to 100 Bullets. Things are really starting to heat up as plans are but into motion, alliances change, and you find out the one things that disgusts Lono. Basically, if you've been reading 100 Bullets, you know you are getting this book. If you haven't read 100 Bullets, why the hell aren't you? Pick up the first 2 books and start reading from there and catch up. Do not even think about not starting at volume 1, there is no way you'll be able to follow what is going on. I honestly suggest read the first 2 volumes before deciding how you feel about 100 Bullets because the first book is just an introduction book that doesn't even begin to touch on the greatness that is 100 Bullets.

Good writing and realism helped carry this novel a while for this reader. But I felt the lack of respect and compassion I had for all the characters tended to drag this novel down, and it became a bit of a chore to finish. No one it turns out had any morals or any brains. I wish I could've felt compassion for Mildred Pierce, but she stupidly enabled her bad seed daughter Veda every other page.

Required reading for all natives and denizens of Los Angeles. A dark romp thru our fair city. Accompany Mildred as she traverses LA's golden past- shop with her at Bullocks Wilshire, sweat bullets in the passenger seat as she navigates the Glendale freeway during the flood of 1938, pine for Pasadena, pray that her girls get into Marlborough, imagine singing at the Hollywood Bowl, and marvel as our heroine with the great gams builds an empire out of chicken and waffles - of all things! Mildred is no ordinary pie maker, she's Los Angeles incarnate. Joan Crawford may have won an Oscar for her portrayal in 1945, but Cain's 1941 novel more evenly balances Mildred's capacity for good against a city steeped in bad seeds. And while the film presents Mildred's daughter, Veda, as simply spoiled and shrill, Cain's study presents her as the fully fleshed out viper to which all true divas secretly aspire. Read it and weep. ~ Lili N. Barsha 5/2008

Mildred Pierce proves the old adage that love is blind. Mildred proves that with the men in her life, but even more so with her daughter. Mildred is like many people who can't see the faults in her child, and even when she does she squeezes her eyes even tighter shut. I found this book to be much more captivating than Cain's more popular The Postman Always Rings Twice. This book is timeless, and the characters as believable today as the day they were driven.

I was inspired to read Mildred Pierce after hearing Wesltey Strick, screenwriter and novelists, discuss his new novel on Elvis Mitchell's NPR radio show "The Treatment." Strick said to get in the mood for his own writing, he reread Mildred Pierce and I was intrigued. I had read some other Cain novels and knew he was a master of terse crime fiction but I wasn't prepared for the psychological insight and complexity evident here. His descriptions of American gaucherie and philistinism are unparalleled. His complexity between the mother and daughter is unforced.

The plot, about a Billy Goat husband who leaves his pretty wife for a trashy woman in Southern California circa the Depression, begins simply enough, but spins into penetrating psychological pathology.

His ability to capture America's sense of the American Dream and bad taste reminds me of Paula Fox's novella Desperate Characters and a masterful essay by William E. Blundell's "My Florida," published in the 2005 edition of The Best American Travel Writing.

A man tends to his lawn, showers, gets dressed, tells his wife that he's going for a walk. She knows better --- he's going to see his mistress "and then unbutton that red dress she's always wearing without any brassieres under it." But it's not the mistress that annoys her most. It's the way, in 1931, he's without work and not exactly looking for any.

So far, so ordinary.

Then the author steps in: "They spoke quickly, as though they were saying things that scalded their mouths, and had to cooled with spit. "

That's James M. Cain, folks, the master of the quick, dark truth.

When Cain wrote "Mildred Pierce," his fame and fortune were assured. In the 1930s, he had published "The Postman Always Rings Twice" and "Double Indemnity." These two short, brutal novels had scandalized the bluenoses and become bestsellers. He'd found a formula that, in a repressed culture, never fails --- serving up hot, illicit sex and then punishing the lovers.

In "Mildred Pierce," he adapted the formula and, in the process, wrote what I believe is his best novel. Here the shapely, sexy woman is a wife and mother who wants to stay married. She throws her husband out as a statement of self-respect. It's a costly gesture. As a friend says, "You've joined the biggest army on earth. You're the great American institution that never gets mentioned on Fourth of July --- a grass widow with two small children to support. The dirty bastards."

Mildred's assets are few. She can bake. And she's got a bod for sin. "Her brassiere ballooned a little, with an extremely seductive burden." Although she's got great gams, she feels she's slightly bow-legged, so she takes short steps when she walks. To great effect --- "her bottom twitched in a wholly provocative way."

It's not long before two realities collide. She has no trouble finding a lover (and discovering that she enjoys sex) --- but it's impossible to get a job. For one thing, she is without qualifications. For another, she fears that her eldest daughter, the beautiful and haughty Veda, will scorn her if she wears a waitress's uniform or becomes a clerk in a store.

But a waitress she becomes. And money flows in. Veda is, as expected, horrified. She says Mildred has "degraded" the family. Mildred's response: She spanks Veda silly. To no point. Veda crawls to a couch, laughs and whispers: "A waitress."

It is then that Mildred realizes that she fears her daughter's judgment, "her snobbery, her contempt, her unbreakable spirit." She resolves to open a restaurant, to be a waitress no more. And she thanks her daughter for prodding her to aim higher: "We'll have something. And it'll all be on account of you. Every good thing that happens is on account of you, if Mother only had the good sense to know it."

On the eve of the opening of Mildred's restaurant, she spends the weekend with a society swell and becomes his lover. Back home, her younger daughter has spiked a fever and is in the hospital. The death scene is terrible. Even worse is Mildred's reaction: Thank God it wasn't Veda.

Death and birth collide: As she buries her child, Mildred opens her restaurant. It's a great success. But we have half a book to go, and this half is a slow-mo train wreck --- the story of Veda's evil ways, her schemes to escape her mother and Mildred's shameless effort to win her love.

You think your kids have foul, disrespectful mouths? Listen to Veda: "With this money I can get away from you. From you and your chickens and your pies and your kitchens and everything that smells of grease. I can get away from this shack with its cheap furniture. And this town and its dollar days, and its women that wear uniforms and its men that wear overalls."

Through it all, Mildred is Mother Courage. Her will and her work ethic dazzle. But can Veda be redeemed?

In the movie --- directed by Michael ("Casablanca") Curtiz and starring Joan Crawford, her shoulders so padded she could be a linebacker --- the story is changed for greater dramatic effect. In the book, there's no need; this time, the female is punished and punished and punished, though she's done nothing to deserve it.

"Mildred Pierce" is twice as long as "Postman" and "Double Indemnity" --- and, say I, twice as satisfying. Face it, you're not likely to take a married lover and then kill his/her spouse. But most parents have, at one time or another, a child whose ingratitude is sharper than a serpent's tooth. Well, here's the worst case --- read it and weep for Mildred, then count your blessings.

Clinical psychologist Alan Gregory and his new wife Lauren, a Boulder assistant DA, are stunned at the grizzly, late-night staged death of next-door neighbor Peter at a Boulder theater where he helped out with set construction. Worse, the death mirrors another one of a few weeks earlier in a Denver theater. When a third death occurs, the idea that a serial killer is at work is overwhelming.

The book revolves around resolving the conflicting evidence pointing to one killer in some ways, but multiple participants in other ways. Alan is recruited by Boulder detective Sam Purdy to create a psychological profile of the killer(s). In addition, largely at the request of Peter's urologist wife Adrienne, Alan attempts to unravel Peter's past, where a fire that he survived seemed to be transforming. Adrienne's nanny Lisa is a beguiling character, who knows a lot about Peter. Sam's terseness is toned down as he works with female Denver detective Dale Hunter, obviously interested in him.

The book deteriorates a bit at the end with the action ramping up considerably and the perpetrator(s) revealed not being particularly convincing - almost plucked out of thin air. Nonetheless, the author continues to have an easily digestible writing style and keeps his characters interesting. Overall, a pretty good entry in the Alan Gregory series.

Harm's Way left me teetering between three and four stars, I finally settled on four. Why?

Because I liked almost all the characters in the book - I teetered toward four stars.
Because there was too much theater jargon - I tottered toward three stars.
Because I thought I had the mystery mostly figured out, but I was mostly wrong - I wavered again toward four stars.
Because in the end, a previously stable character became quite the wacko and nobody seemed to notice let alone care - I teetered back to three stars.
However, because I really enjoyed reading the story despite its very strange ending: four big stars.

If you like Stephen White, I'd imagine that you'll like, Harm's Way and if you are reading the series, this is definately not one to skip. If you have never read any others in this series, I'd suggest you begin with the first one and work your way through. Harm's Way is the fourth in the Alan Gregory series and it's worth the time investment to start at the beginning.

This is the fourth in the series with Dr. Alan Gregory. I say that, because to fully appreciate this book, I think you should read the first three books. I'm not giving anything away, the synopsis says that in this book Alan's good friend Peter is murdered. Peter was a 'unique' person. He was a private person, a daredevil and a talented craftsman.

There are the usual twists and turns, as well as vivid descriptions of the Colorado landscape. The whodunit was a little bit far fetched, but for me I could overlook that because I was immersed in learning more about Peter and Adrienne. Friendships and how well we really know each other are a major theme. Alan and Lauren are now newlyweds and getting to further know eachother as well.

This series differes from others too in that Alan's wife has multiple sclerosis. The disease and it's impact on her life, and thus on his are dealt with really well. Lauren remains a vibrant, sexy woman, despite her MS.

Stephen White has the courage to kill off a beloved recurring character in the first chapter! Another novel about beautiful Boulder, Colorado, fascinating lessons in psychology and a story that will surprise you with its ending. You won't be able to put this book down.

This isn't the best of the Alan Gregory series, but it's still better than most of the other books I've read in the past year. I learned more than I wanted to know about theatre, and having Peter gruesomely killed depressed me, but the mystery was top-notch.

I suspect that the novel would be less enjoyable for readers who missed the first three of the series, so buy the others, too. And don't stop here; the series keeps getting better with each new book. I've already pre-ordered Kill Me, number 14, to be released in March.