Bibliomysteries by Laura Lippman and William Link

MysteriousPress.com is publishing (in digital form) a series of stand-alone mystery stories by popular crime authors in which books, bookstores, libraries, or manuscripts play a central role.  I don't usually review individual short stories, but I'm making an exception for the Bibliomystery series because the concept is interesting and the authors are well known.

"The Book Thing" by Laura Lippman was published on January 15, 2013.

Expensive illustrated books are disappearing from the children's bookstore in Tess Monaghan's North Baltimore neighborhood. Since Tess wants the store to survive so her daughter will have a place to shop for books, she agrees to investigate despite the owner's inability to pay her. It doesn't take Tess long to discover how the thefts are being committed.

While Tess tries her hand at social work and matchmaking before the story is done, the tale's best moments belong to the thief rather than the private investigator. He is drawn with uncommon understanding and compassion. The thief prompts Tess to think about the lives that books live, they ways they die, and the purposes they serve.

Given the uncertain future of brick-and-mortar bookstores, the story is notable for its condemnation of tacky readers who get free advice from bookstore owners and then download the recommended books into their eReaders from online retailers. The story also has a telling message about parents who burden their kids with their own childhood favorites (potentially killing the child's desire to read) rather than letting their children discover their own treasures. In short, this bibliomystery isn't much of a mystery, but it's a fine examination of the role books play in our lives.

RECOMMENDED

"Death Leaves a Bookmark" by William Link was published on December 11, 2012.

Troy Pellingham, hoping to speed up his inheritance, kills his wealthy uncle, the owner of an antiquarian bookstore, by toppling a heavy bookcase on him and smashing his skull with a heavy art book.  Police Lieutenant Columbo investigates the death.

All the familiar Columbo props and mannerisms are showcased: his cigars and rumpled raincoat; his search through every pocket for the one that's holding his notebook; his disarming pretense of forgetfulness; his habit, when questioning a suspect, of saying "Oh, just one more thing" as he is about to leave; his repetition of phrases like "boy, oh boy" and "That's a new one on me!"

In "Death Leaves a Bookmark," Columbo doesn't piece together clues like he did on the television show. In fact, he solves the crime without much effort at all. Still, the murderer and his attractive cousin (who plays a vital supporting role) are well defined characters, and their interaction adds spice to the story.

If you are unfamiliar with Columbo and don't see Peter Falk in your mind as you read "Death Leaves a Bookmark," I would recommend this story with resrvations because there isn't much to it. For Columbo fans, I recommend it whole-heartedly just for the joy of seeing the weathered detective in action again.

RECOMMENDED

Little Wolves by Thomas Maltman

Published by Soho Press on January 8, 2013 

Creepy and atmospheric, Little Wolves mixes two kinds of horror -- awful reality and fear of the supernatural -- while building suspense with the steadiness of precision machinery. The emphasis, as it should be in a truly frightening novel, is on the horror that lurks in human behavior.

Lone Mountain is a sleepy, mostly empty town in Minnesota that balances liquid and holy spirits. It is also a town in the grip of wickedness. A boy named Seth shoots Will Gunderson, Lone Mountain's sheriff, before killing himself, leaving his father, Grizz Fallon, distraught and overwhelmed by guilt. It is Pastor Logan Warren's first test and he can't find the words to offer succor. His pregnant wife, Clara, feels responsible for Seth's death because she had been teaching his class about doom, the end of life tale told in Ragnarok. She also feels her own brand of guilt because Seth came to her door before he shot Gunderson, but she left his knock unanswered. Is that why she sees Seth in the corn field after his death, or is she witnessing the return of a spectral Seth?

According to town gossip, the Fallon family has long been cursed. Was Seth possessed by evil spirits or did he have a good reason for killing Gunderson? Grizz doesn't want to know yet he's haunted by a need to learn the truth. He gets a clue from Leah, a girl Seth was dating before her father forced them to break up. It isn't a story the town wants to hear.

In addition to being a fan of Beowulf and its concept of wergild (blood debt), Seth had an affinity for coyotes (the titular little wolves), having raised some from infancy. After Seth dies, the coyotes in Lone Mountain behave strangely. Clara also has an affinity for coyotes, perhaps due to the stories her father told her about a girl who was part wolf. Clara always suspected that the stories had something to do with her own life, and she feels drawn to Lone Mountain because she is certain her mother died there. According to Clara's father, her mother died in a car accident, but he buried part of the truth and Clara is determined to unearth it.

All of these (pardon the expression) haunting questions give the reader an incentive to keep turning pages, as does Thomas Maltman's vibrant prose. The story borrows from legends and mythology while remaining grounded in the desperation of rural life. Little Wolves often straddles a line between supernatural and worldly horrors, creating unrelenting suspense from the uncertain perils Clara and the other characters must face. I wasn't entirely convinced by the penultimate scene and its blast of terror, but it is at least consistent with the story Maltman tells.

The portrait of Clara as the teacher who can make the kids appreciate Beowulf where others could not is a bit contrived, but the fullness of her character is convincing. She has an interesting way of analyzing word origins that informs her understanding of the world. She married a religious man but is filled with religious doubt, a conflict that serves the story well. Clara's search for her past leads to a truly creepy backstory that begins to unfold about midway through the novel.

Although Little Wolves includes a pastor in its cast of characters and explores a theme -- forgiveness -- that should resonate with religious readers, this isn't an overtly religious book. According to Grizz, the whole town craves forgiveness for the sins it visited upon Native Americans a hundred years earlier. While Seth and Grizz and the sheriff and Clara's father are of more immediate concern to the reader, perhaps the entire town should seek forgiveness for its judgmental treatment of residents it views as outsiders. Maltman asks the reader to decide which central characters deserve to be forgiven. Writing with penetrating insight, he makes it possible to forgive them all.

RECOMMENDED

Rage Is Back by Adam Mansbach

Published by Viking on January 10, 2013 

About a third of Rage Is Back is an excruciatingly irritating mix of ultra-hip cultural references and D-list celebrity name dropping. I was indifferent to another third. The remaining third approaches brilliance. Stray sentences, random thoughts, sometimes entire pages shine like polished platinum.

Kilroy Dondi Vance is a nineteen-year-old mixed race drug dealer. His mother's family is from Trinidad and his father is half-Jewish. Having attended Manhattan's third-most-prestigious prep school on a scholarship, he's now an Angry Young Man whose mother, Karen, has kicked him out of her apartment. Dondi's also something of a graffiti historian. Karen is worried that Dondi is turning into Billy, Dondi's absent father. Back in the day, Billy (a/k/a Rage) and Karen (a/k/a Wren 209) tagged trains together. Before he fled to Mexico, Billy got himself into a mess with a transit cop-turned-demon named Bracken, the man who killed Billy's friend and fellow graffiti writer. When Billy returns to Manhattan sixteen years later, Bracken is running for mayor and Dondi ... well, as you'd expect from an Angry Young Man, Dondi is none too pleased with Billy.

Still, after Dondi gets together with Billy and his old crew of graffiti writers, a plan to take revenge against Bracken takes shape, and therein lies the plot. The writers embark on an Ocean's Eleven scheme, complete with ensemble cast, designed to thwart Bracken's ambition. When the novel stays focused on that scheme, it's fun and lively and supremely entertaining. To the extent that the novel serves as a fictional history of (and tribute to) graffiti writers, it is fascinating. To the extent that it relies on time travel portals and other supernatural weirdness, it derails.

When a novel screams "Look how modern and literary and determinedly ironic I am," it generally isn't a novel I enjoy reading. Some writers, Adam Mansbach tells us, can't rely on a straightforward narrative because they're too "busy trying to prove how smart they are." Exactly. Mansbach is one of those annoyingly intrusive writers who talks to you about what he's writing while he's writing it ("You recall a few chapters back when I ..."). Being up-to-the-second cool means Mansbach can rag on Hunter Thompson and Tom Wolfe because their psychedelic prose is passé in an age where up-to-the-second fiction is inspired by designer drugs that Timothy Leary could only dream about. And Mansbach can smugly dis Bob Dylan because, you know, dude is old and Mansbach isn't (yet).

Most of the novel is written in the first person from Dondi's perspective. For reasons I can't fathom, a character named Cloud 9 takes over the narration in chapter 10. His voice is a bit more "street" than Dondi's, but not much. In another literary affectation (Mansbach seems determined to try them all), Cloud 9 doesn't bother to set off dialog with quotation marks. Chapter 11 returns to Dondi's perspective ("hey, it's me, Dondi again"). Ugh.

In addition to being artistic, the characters are impossibly erudite. Dengue Fever, for instance, places the three-dimensional letters he builds in the context of hieroglyphics and illuminated manuscripts and the mystery vowels of ancient Hebrew. My eyes glazed over when Dondi started talking about Theseus and Pirithous and "my man Odysseus." That's just a little too precious for me. On quite a few occasions, I was less than convinced by Dondi's voice, particularly when he's nattering on about the uncoolness of white boys. The voice just didn't seem authentic, you feel me?

Despite my griping, I enjoyed much of Rage Is Back. Mansbach incorporates a short story into the plot that was supposedly written by a drug dealer. It contains the best sustained writing in the book. The story forsakes the literary trickiness that mars the surrounding novel, opting instead to tell a straightforward, powerful tale. When Mansbach turns his talent to descriptive writing, he paints expressive pictures of dank subway tunnels and captures the mixture of artistry and audacity required to tag trains. And underlying all the nonsense is a good story, almost a great story, that for significant stretches is well told and nonsense-free. It also delivers an important but well-buried message about the nature of fame. Patience is rewarded as the initial struggle to connect with the narrative pays off in the final chapters.

RECOMMENDED

Driver's Education by Grant Ginder

Published by Simon & Schuster on January 8, 2013 

Driver's Education is a multigenerational story in the sense that the primary characters are a young man, his father, and his (mostly unseen) grandfather. As is common in modern novels, both time and point of view shift frequently.

In sections of the novel labeled "What I Remember," Colin McPhee talks about his life. He starts in 1956, at the grand opening of a theater called the Avalon. Movies and the Avalon play a large role in his young life, particularly after his mother dies. Colin's love of movies apparently motivates his desire to write screenplays and in 1974, after he moves to Hollywood and sells one, he rather improbably reunites with Clare, a former Avalon co-worker who is now an aspiring actress. When Finn is born, Clare comes to resent Colin's love for his son (she actually tells him that he should love Finn less). At this point, believing not a word of Colin's story, I was asking "Who are these people?" They certainly aren't people I recognize.

The screenplay, Colin's only successful writing venture, is followed by twenty years of writers' block. At some point Colin begins taking care of his father (largely absent from his life after Colin's mother died) who had a stroke and apparently suffers from a form of dementia. Nearing the end of his life, Colin's father feels the need to drive his car (Lucy) again, so he calls Finn and asks him to bring the car from New York to San Francisco.

Finn is an assistant story editor on a reality TV show that resembles The Real World.  His job is to "guide" the reality. Finn and his friend Randall recover Lucy and begin a road trip. Along the way Finn tells Randall some tedious stories that his grandfather used to tell. Finn wants to document those stories and brings along a video camera for that purpose. They go to Pittsburgh because Finn's granddad has a story about saving a man from a collapsing building in Pittsburgh. They crash a medical supply sales convention in Columbus because Finn's granddad fell in love with a female pilot in Columbus. They track down a baseball in Chicago because Finn's grandad told a story about nudging a ball hit by Ernie Banks from foul into fair territory. The road trip eventually turns into a movie. Toward the end of the novel, Finn interviews Randall (again on film) so that Randall can complain about how Finn edited reality when he made his movie. We also learn from Randall that Finn has been an unreliable narrator.

The novel's theme, as expressed by Randall, is this: Colin values realism (or at least he values cinéma vérité) and hates Finn for choreographing reality while Finn wants Colin to be a better liar. That conflict is apparently meant to supply dramatic tension while saying something weighty about the way people create their own realities. Neither goal is realized. Driver's Education creates an emotional distance between the reader and the characters simply because the reader doesn't care one way or another about contrived experiences that we aren't meant to believe. It's ironic that a novel about the fabrication of reality fabricates reality so poorly.

The description of the trip through Ohio -- "Everything is extremely pretty in a very un-pretty way; interesting because there's a phenomenal lack of interest" -- could stand as a summary of the book. Grant Ginder's prose is pretty while the novel's content is uninteresting. Taking a road trip to document an old man's stories might be an intriguing premise for a book, but not this book. Grandpa's stories are dull, there are only a few of them (it's surprising that a cross-country trip would hightlight only three cities), and the discovery that Finn's versions of his grandfather's stories aren't entirely truthful is hardly a world-shattering revelation.

It's a shame that Ginder didn't tell a better story because he has a nice sense of literary style. Unfortunately, he's fond of writing inane sentences like "Half of loving someone is being okay with hating her" in the apparent belief that readers will mistake nonsense for deep thought. His characters are constantly engaged in profoundly witty conversations that are neither profound nor witty. Did I believe that Clare rented a private booth in a porn arcade so that she could have "a private place to cry"? I did not. Did I believe that Finn and Randall brought a fifty-year-old cat along on their trip? No. The novel is littered with nonsense like this in a failed attempt to add heft or interest to an empty story. While some sections of Driver's Education provide momentary entertainment and would probably work well as short stories, the novel fails to come together as a convincing, meaningful whole.

NOT RECOMMENDED

Nightfall by David Goodis

First published in 1947

Vanning is hiding out in Greenwich Village. He doesn't know Fraser is watching him.  Neither does he know that two men who robbed a bank in Seattle are in New York, but he knows those men are after him. They think he has the $300,000 that was stolen from the bank. Fraser thinks Vanning might be the third robber. The evidence suggests that Vanning, using the name Dilks, met with a man named Harrison, killed him, and fled with the $300,000, cash that Harrison was supposed to launder. Yet Fraser can't wrap his head around Vanning's participation in a bank robbery, much less a murder. Vanning is a commercial artist, a former naval officer with no criminal record. Fraser doesn't want to arrest Vanning until he knows he can recover the money, but his doubts about Vanning's guilt haunt him because the evidence is probably sufficient to send Vanning to the electric chair.

When the two robbers catch up with Vanning, he claims he doesn't know where the money is. Is Vanning telling the truth? In a plot worthy of a Hitchcock movie (Nightfall was filmed but not by Hitchcock), Vanning is the traditional figure who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. Vanning is torn between his desire to go to the police and his certainty that the police will always follow the easy path. The evidence points to Vanning's guilt and Vanning knows that nothing he can say to the police will convince them otherwise -- especially given his inability to produce the $300,000 that he knows he once had. It's the missing money that makes Nightfall different from thrillers that follow the "innocent man trying to prove his innocence" formula.

This isn't David Goodis' most suspenseful novel, but the plot is intriguing. Nightfall is the kind of low key crime novel that modern authors, obsessed with martial arts and car chases, seem unable to replicate. The novel's thrills come from tension rather than action. Its focus is on psychology rather than gunplay. The story's violent moments are explosive but contained, usually related in a paragraph or two. Goodis tosses a love story into the mix that I thought was unconvincing, but that reaction was tempered by the knowledge that Vanning isn't capable of thinking clearly.

Goodis gives the gift of realism to his characters. Responding to the stress of an untenable situation, Vanning slowly comes unglued. He behaves foolishly and can't understand why. He feels himself being dragged down in "a whirlpool of defeat." He's disappointed in himself ("I can't get a practical thought in my head," he says), but as Fraser tells him, if we really knew ourselves, "we'd be adding machines instead of human beings." Frasier suffers from crippling self-doubt as he worries that Vanning has either escaped or been captured by the robbers. A small-minded robber with big plans is motivated by the desire to escape the crushing force of ordinary life. The female character, Vanning's love interest, is a bit thin, but the other primary characters have full personalities.

Noir is dark by definition, but Goodis filled his novels with the contrast of color. The interiors of apartments have paintings of orange sunsets over gray-green water hanging on sky blue walls. Goodis changes up his prose style, sometimes writing stark sentences, sometimes rambling. He tells the story in the first person but Vanning occasionally talks about himself in the third person, a symptom of his deteriorating mental status. Dialog is snappy. The resolution is satisfying, although perhaps too bright for a true noir tale. In short, although David Goodis wrote better books than Nightfall, the solid prose, tight plot, and insightful characterizations make Nightfall an enjoyable read.

RECOMMENDED