E. J. Copperman, Written Off

E. J. Copperman, Written Off
Crooked Lane, 2016
ISBN 978-1-62953-599-9
Also available as an ebook.

Mid-list mystery author Rachel Goldman has just finished the first draft of her fifth novel featuring missing-persons investigator Duffy Madison.  And then she receives a phone call from a man claiming to be Duffy Madison, a missing persons investigator who is currently working with the Bergen County prosecutors's office.  To say Goldman is skeptical is putting it mildly.  Especially when he claims to have no memories that go further back than 4 years--when Goldman's first book was published. 

They meet and she gets sucked into the investigation of a missing mystery writer (A-list), which leads to the discovery that three other mystery writers, in three states, had all gone missing and then been found dead.  Hmmm.  Nicely constructed and written, and Goldman manages to avoid the TSTL syndrome.  Her assistant (Paula Sessions) contributes by finding some rather strange facts about Madison's past.  And Goldman's father shows up to help her and becomes an integral part of the story. 

While this is not a perfect book (e.g., the name "Remington Steele" kept intruding on my consciousness), it is very well done.  I wonder, however, how easy it's going to be to keep the central theme of the book--"Who is Duffy Madison?"--going for very long.  This one, at any rate, is is well worth your time.

The return of copycat photoblogging (another feature no one asked for)

Chris Bertram has a neat photo of a street corner in Cork.  I have the Flatiron building in NYC.

 

(Taken in 2003.)

James Grady, Last Days of the Condor: An addendum

One interesting feature of many books is that the chapters are headed by a quotation or other material.  One thing Grady has done is head some of his chapters with song titles, which make an interesting play list:

Buffalo Springfield, "For What It's Worth"
Bruce Springsteen, "Born to Run"
The Kingston Trio, "The Zombie Jamboree"
            (Written by Conrad Eugene Mauge)
Roy Orbison, "In Drams"
Jackson Browne, "Doctor My Eyes"
Bob Dylan, "A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall"
The Yardbirds, "Heart Full of Soul"
John Lee Hooker, "Boom Boom"
Warren Zevon, "Lawyers, Guns, and Money"
Jesse Colin Young, "Darkness, Darkness"
The Doors, "Light My Fire"
Tracy Chapman, "Fast Car"
John Stewart, "Daydream Believer"
             (Of course, the Monkees had the hit single)
Steely Dan, "Do It Again"
Richard Thompson, "I Feel So Good"
Bob Dylan, "Like a Rolling Stone"

James Grady, Last Days of the Condor

James Grady, Last Days of the Condor
Forge Books (TOR), 2016
ISBN 978-0-7653-7841-5

This is a sequel to Six Days of the Condor, which, in my opinion, was a good but not great spy thriller.  [It was made into a great spy movie, of course, starring Robert Redford (who was actually old for the part), Faye Dunaway, Cliff Robertson, Max von Sydow, and John Houseman, and was directed by Sydney Pollack; the screenplay was by Grady and Lorenzo Semple, Jr.  It is, as a result, one of two movies in which the author of the book was involved in writing a screenplay that vastly improved on the novel.  The other is The Big Fix.]

Grady is not a graceful writer. But the first 80% or so of this book is killer.  Condor has been released from a facility where he was being treated for, well, being crazy.  He's back in Washington, working at the Library of Congress, deciding whether books being disposed of by one of another government agency should be saved of pulped.  He is, of course, under surveillance, and one day, when he arrives home, he finds one of his watchers dead, rather gruesomely, in his living room.  He goes on the run, partly not to be sent back, partly to stay alive, and partly to discover why. 

In the course of his escape, he meets and teams up with Faye Dozier,* who was another of the CIA people keeping tabs on him since his release.  They manage to avoid death, but only by creating an incident in a subway station that makes his flight hard to completely cover up (even if the particulars can be disguised).  They wind up at the apartment of Merle Mardigan, a 50-something government employee whom Condor has seen (as I recall in a coffee shop) and wanted to get to know.  She, somewhat unwillingly, provides them with shelter.

But the time comes when they have to try to come in from the cold, and that’s where things go, as the Brits say, pear-shaped.

The book is mostly a compelling read, and I, at any rate, became very involved with Condor, with Faye, and with Merle.  (The initial part of Merle's involvement may echo a little too closely Six Days of the Condor.)   We see Condor, now in his 60s, trying to recover the skills—or at least his knowledge—of his earlier days (there is one reference to Six Days... in the book).

But the last roughly 20 pages seem to me to be a cop-out, as if Grady didn't really know how to end it.  The ending does not provide much resolution, nor does it leave us wondering what will come next.  But up to that point, it is very good.

*I can’t help thinking that a woman named Faye D. is a tip of the hat to Faye Dunaway.

(Includes, after the book concludes, a "prequel" to this book, "Next Day of the Condor," which should probably be read first.) 

Max Allan Collins, Better Dead

Max Allan Collins, Better Dead
Forge Books, 2015

ISBN-13: 978-0765378286
Also available as an ebook

While presented as a single story, I think it works better to consider Better Dead as two linked novellas (as in fact the TOC suggests).  In the first, Nathan Heller, Chicago PI with an office in LA and a newly-opened one in NYC, is hired by Joseph McCarthy to discover what is being hidden about the Rosenbergs, by a committee seeking a new trial for them (headed by Dashiell Hammett), and by columnist Drew Pearson seeking information to discredit McCarthy. 

For anyone who has (for whatever reason) followed the Rosenberg case at all, there's not much new here.   Despite the evidence that has emerged making it clear that at least Julius Rosenberg was a spy, the overwhelmingly strong case that the prosecution engaged in misconduct and that both the FBI and the CIA were pursuing ends other than a just resolution to this case, to me at any rate, remains the most important conclusion.  Collins (through Heller) dissects the evidence and the personalities quite well, and, if you are not familiar with the events, this about as good an introduction as you are likely to find. 

The second half of the book involves CIA experiments in the mid-1950s with LSD and other chemical means of controlling people. This section of the book spins off the career and death of a government chemist, Frank Olson, who was involved in the research in question, but who had a conscience.  Linking the two cases is Heller's involvement with McCarthy, who wants to go after the CIA.  Heller pushes through cover-ups, stonewalling, and what can only be called CIA malfeasance to an unsettling conclusion. 

If you want two mysteries drawn from the recent history of the US and of the involvement by government agencies in activities that will (I hope) make you think twice about government secrecy in general and the CIA in particular, these two tales will compel your attention.  They will not leave you feeling pleased or happy or safe.

Sarah R. Shaber, Simon Said
St. Martin’s Press, 1997
ASIN: B004RJ9G0U

The first book in the series featuring Simon Shaw, Profess of History at Kenan College in Raleigh, NC.  I felt, while reading it, that I should like the book more than I was.  I have taught at the college level since 1970, so I tend to be perhaps overly sensitive to "academic" mysteries.  In that respect, the book was better than most--I have only three or four reservations, which are worth mentioning.  (Which should tell you what I think of most mysteries with academic settings.)  My main problem is that I did not like the main character.  We could start with his attitude toward the prosecuting attorney with whom he becomes acquainted (Julia McGloughlan).  He seemed obsessed with what she was wearing (and especially if, according to his tastes, what she was wearing "went with" her hair and general appearance.  Their entire relationship seemed off, somehow.  We could go on to his being something of a mope (with cause, perhaps,  but a mope).

With respect to the academic setting (this is relevant to some of the events in the book)...Part of the story involved a rivalry between Simon and one of his history department colleagues.  Simon received tenure when he was hired, Alex Andrus was an untenured assistant professor.  What struck me as wrong about their portrayal was indicating that Simon's appointment with tenure would preclude Andrus (who was already a member of the faculty when Simon was hired) from getting tenure.  In my experience, that's not how it works.  If Andrus was hired as an assistant professor in a tenure track position, then his eligibility for tenure would become dependent on the quality of his work.  If he was not hired in a tenure-track position, then Simon's hiring would be irrelevant to whether he got tenure--he wouldn't because he was not hired into a tenure-eligible position.  

A second somewhat major plot point arises out of Simon's having been the faculty member in charge of the senior honors thesis course for history majors.  In that course, seniors wrote an honors thesis; for students intending to apply to graduate school in history, that thesis would have been a major thing.  One of the students, Bobby Hinton (who, coincidentally, turns out to be related to the family in which the central murder in the book occurred), received a C.  Not good.  The problem is that Simon was the *only* reader of his thesis.  Every institution with which I am familiar that has an honors thesis option for majors has a committee of faculty who read the theses; these may be outside faculty (I've read several honors theses in economics for other econ programs at other places). 

A third weirdness is that the book is set during the summer session.  If Bobby had completed his course work in the normal 4 years at a small, private, selective, liberal arts college, he would have graduated.  But there he was, and it's not clear why. 

A fourth--Simon has to miss a day of his summer school class, which is an upper division, specialized course in North Carolina history.  And with next to no notice, and with no preparation, another of the history faculty walks in and teaches it?  Really?  I suppose it's possible. 

The initial mystery (to get back to the point of the book) is the discovery of a woman's body, buried beneath what would have been the old cookhouse that is being excavated (archaeologically) by one of Simon’s colleagues.  She is identified as the daughter (Anne Bloodworth) of a wealthy man in the community in the early 20th century; she had disappeared in 1925 (?), and, based on the bullet hole in her skull, murdered on the night she disappeared.  When she disappeared, the servants in the house had been given the night off (by her, to see a movie). her fiancề (Adam Bloodworth) who lived in the house  and was her second cousin, whom she did not want to marry) had what turns out to be an iron-clad alibi; and her father(Caleb) was allegedly asleep at the time someone shot her and buried her just outside the main house  (in the cellar of the old cookhouse).  Now, what leaps to your mind about who is the most likely suspect?   Yeah, me too.  But it takes the entire book before (1) the experienced detective on the Raleigh police force, (2) the attorney, and (3) Simon to get it--and, actually, only he gets it.  I suppose I could accept that if I found Simon to be a character with whom I want to spend more time.  But, as I said above, I found him unlikable.  Which is too bad.  Good series are hard to find.

For those of you whose TBR piles aren't big enough

3 fantasy writers to read while you wait for George R.R. Martin to finish Game of Thrones:

http://www.vox.com/2016/5/22/11693132/game-thrones-recs-george-martin-robin-mckinley-megan-whalen-turner-ellen-kushner

I have read none of these, so I am just reporting.