Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

January 1, 2024

Three Boys Missing by James A. Jack

On Sunday, October 16, 1955, three boys from the Jefferson Park neighborhood in northwest Chicago went to a movie at a downtown movie theater. They never returned home and were found murdered two days later. James Jack was one of the original detectives assigned to search for the missing children, and he details the case. The investigators were under pressure to solve the case quickly - little did they know that it would take 40 years to bring the killer to justice.

I live just north of Jefferson Park and I know the areas in this book very well. This crime occurred in the pre-Internet era, and police work was very different in the 1950s than it is today. Now there are surveillance cameras everywhere and there have been great advances in DNA testing. It does seem like the police spent a lot of time chasing down pointless leads. A number of the officers had fixed or pre-conceived ideas about who committed the crime - one of the persistent ideas was that a gang of teenagers had killed the boys. Most of the suspects brought in for questioning were guilty of something, just not of murdering the three boys. One witness starts filming the scene and a police officer is disgusted and confiscates the film - they'd be shocked that in 2023, everyone has a camera on their cell phone and people record everything. With law enforcement agencies not cooperating or communicating with each other, it was a wonder than any crimes were solved.

Milwaukee Avenue where much of the action in the book takes place, in the 1950s

Doing Time by Jodi Taylor

March 9, 2023

Doing Time by Jodi Taylor

Three misfits find themselves as Time Police trainees, seemingly doomed to failure. They resolve to succeed in spite of the obstacles thrown in their path and the poor assignments they receive. But when another officer is found murdered, one of the team members is accused of being the murderer and the other two trainees resolve to rescue their partner.

A spin-off series from the author's Chronicles of St. Mary's series. Characters from St. Mary's make appearances with the usual resulting mayhem (if the bells are ringing, the dogs are barking, and a mob is chasing a group of people, you know St. Mary's is in town). The first book in a new series. Great fun, as always.

The Murder House by James Patterson and David Ellis

June 28, 2020

The Murder House by James Patterson and David Ellis

After barely escaping prosecution for corruption, former NYC detective Jenna Murphy takes the only job she can get, with the Southampton Town Police Department, where her uncle is the chief of police.  She is shocked to find the wealthy and privileged community is a hotbed of murder, where a serial killer has apparently been preying on tourists and transients for years.  All of the murders seem to center around Number 7 Ocean Drive, a fabulous oceanfront mansion that has stood empty for years, locally known as The Murder House.

The main character is flawed almost to the point of being ridiculous.  Although we’re told repeatedly what a great cop she is, she accuses one male character after another of being the murder, physically attacks suspects before questioning them, and does not demonstrate any of the instincts that are vital to being a good police officer.  She is also paranoid and a heavy drinker.  Noah, the character that she attacks repeatedly, unbelievably ends up being her love interest.  Although some readers gushed about the great suspense, I figured out who the killer was a little over halfway through the book. 

James Patterson isn’t one of my favorite authors, and I had a really hard time finishing this one.  The female narrator’s voice in the audiobook grated on my nerves.  I finally ended up returning the audiobook and getting the print version instead.  I don't recommend this one at all.

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell

November 7, 2019

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell

Liam Dwyer goes out for an evening of drinking with his brother, has a blackout and can’t remember what he did, how he got home or why he was in the bathtub.  Or where his clothes are.  The morning after Liam’s binge, his ex-lover Kerri is found murdered in a seedy hotel room, and his blood and his fingerprints are all over the room.  As a forensic detective with the Philadelphia Police Department, Liam is called to the scene to collect evidence.  Liam’s brother Sean Dwyer is a homicide detective with the Philadelphia Police Department.  He and his partner are on another case, pursuing a local black gangster named Cutter Washington, who they believe is responsible for the beating death of a local store owner.

Since both Liam and Sean knew the murdered girl, Sean convinces Liam that they shouldn't say they knew her right away, otherwise the detectives assigned to the case would zero in on them and not look for the real killer.  Liam agrees since he can't remember where he was the night before.  Sean and Liam decide to conduct their own investigation, trying to beat the clock before anyone finds out about their connection to the victim.  Liam claims nobody else knows about his connection to Kerri, but is that really true?

This was an entertaining mystery.  While it doesn't have an unreliable narrator since it's written in the third person and from several points of view, almost all of the characters are lying.  I had a good idea who murdered Kerri about 1/3 of the way through the book, but I kept reading to find out how it was done.  There are some flaws but mystery readers will enjoy it.  The cops don't come off very well, since most of them are doing some pretty shady things.

Sarah Jane by James Sallis

October 3, 2019

Sarah Jane by James Sallis

Sarah Jane Pullman (which may or may not be her name) was born in the area where Tennessee meets Alabama.  Her mother flitted in and out of her children’s lives, and although her father was hardworking, he couldn’t make a success of anything.  From an early age, Sarah roams from place to place, stopping when she runs out of money or meets someone interesting or just gets worn out, always hiding her secret history.  The chaos of her early life teaches her to travel light with regard to possessions and people.  Along the way, she serves in the army in a combat unit, earns a college degree, and becomes first a fry cook, then a baker, then a chef.  After her police officer boyfriend is killed in the line of duty, Sarah finds herself drawn to police work and becomes a deputy sheriff.  She is doing a good job, too, until the sheriff goes missing and she finds herself promoted to acting sheriff to investigate his disappearance.  But the deeper Sarah gets into the investigation, the more she realizes that the sheriff had secrets of his own that caught up with him, just as her own secrets find her.

Although we are aware that Sarah is telling her story selectively, deliberately omitting certain details, the reader is well into the novel before realizing exactly how unreliable a narrator Sarah is.  She chooses not to define many of her relationships and misadventures, even her relationship with Sid, one of the men who stays in her life longer than most men do.  Sarah is a true noir character, always short of money, taking whatever job comes along, choosing the wrong kind of man, and living according to her own code of ethics.

James Sallis writes wonderful, spare prose and does not waste words, the kind of writing that makes you stop and go back to re-read a loaded sentence.  Many thanks to the publisher, Soho Crime, and editor Juliet Graemes for providing me with a pre-publication ARC.

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

July 27, 2019

Ask Again, Yes by Mary Beth Keane

Francis Gleeson and Brian Stanhope met at the police academy and were rookie cops together.  They weren’t particularly close friends, but end up being neighbors in the New York suburb of Gillam.  Their children grow up together and the youngest two, Kate and Peter, become best friends.  But Brian’s wife Anne is mentally unstable, and when she commits a violent act, the two families are bound together forever.

In hindsight (which is always 20/20), several of the characters realize that they should have seen a tragedy approaching.  There is also a hint of Romeo-and-Juliet, when forbidden lovers Kate and Peter find each other again years later.  As the years pass, several of the characters come to realize that the people they demonized, are just regular people with their good and bad points, and that mental illness is just that, an illness.

Uncle George is somewhat overlooked in all the drama between the two families, but he is actually a wonderful character, the guy who always manages to show up when you need him, no matter what is going on in his life.  He is a hard-working man who takes on his brother’s responsibilities and makes major changes to his life without complaining (Peter realizes that his uncle was only around 30 when he took him in and raised him).  

Overall, I enjoyed the novel but there were a few things I would have changed.  I would have liked to hear from Lena (Francis’s long-suffering wife) about how she felt over the years.  Some episodes are over-explained and got a little long (yeah, the Stanhopes are genetically prone to alcoholism, we got it, no need to explain more).  Less teen-aged angst would have been okay, too.  The ending was a little unsatisfying.  I’m not sure what I was expecting but like a lot of literary fiction, the book sort of just stops when one of the characters realizes that they are all just fine.