Ted Fox reviews the latest in thrillers.
THE LATE SHOW
Michael Connelly
Little, Brown and Company
Even fictional detectives grow old and Michael Connelly's iconic LAPD homicide detective, Hieronymus "Harry'' Bosch, born in the 1950s, is no exception.
Interviewed in the Los Angeles Times, author Connelly says " . . . at 67, Bosch presents readers of the redoubtable series with a different kind of ticking clock''.
Enter The Late Show, Connelly's 30th novel in 25 years, and Rene Ballard, a driven young detective trying to prove herself in the LAPD.
She works the night shift in Hollywood (hence "The Late Show''), beginning many investigations but finishing none, each morning turning her cases over to day-shift detectives.
This beat is Ballard's punishment because of her accusations of sexual abuse against her supervisor, Lt Robert Olivas.
At the start of the book Ballard and partner John Jenkins catch a couple of cases. One is an assault on a sex worker who was beaten, dumped and left for dead in a parking lot.
The other case is high-profile: four people murdered at a Sunset Boulevard nightclub called the Dancers. Ballard and Jenkins only get the scraps, with Ballard assigned to the "collateral damage'', a mortally wounded waitress.
The case brings her into conflict with her former partner, Ken Chastain, and Lt Olivas who's in charge of the investigation. Chastain failed to back up Ballard in her complaint against Olivas and is now Olivas' right-hand man.
As Ballard manages involvement in these cases, both officially and others against the direct orders of Olivas and her lieutenant, there's much to keep the reader fully engrossed well into the night.
FINAL GIRLS
Riley Sager
Penguin Random House
Quincy Carpenter, is the survivor of a massacre in which her five friends died 10 years earlier.
Following these murders at Pine Cottage, three young women (including Quincy), who have managed to survive separate mass murders, are nicknamed "Final Girls'' by the media.
Quincy blocks out the past and becomes a successful food blogger. She alsohas a fiance, Jeff, an apartment and Coop, the police officer who saved her life all those years ago.
Then, Lisa, the first Final Girl, is found dead in her bathtub, her wrists slit, and Sam, the second Final Girl, arrives on Quincy's doorstep.
Quincy is suspicious of Sam, who appears untrustworthy and intent on making Quincy relive the past, events that Quincy can't remember.
Gradually, Sam's probing reveals Quincy is not as together as she would like to think. Her steady life begins to crumble as the flashbacks begin.
This effort from a horror buff, who was hooked on the genre after enjoying Scream's combination of mystery, gore and comedy, is best read in the daytime.
DARK WATER
Parker Bilal
Bloomsbury
Dark Water is the sixth novel in the Makana Investigations series by the novelist Jamal Mahjoub, writing under the pseudonym, Parker Bilal.
Once the head of Sudan's Criminal Investigations Department, Makana became a target after the 1989 regime change and flees the country with his wife and daughter.
As they do so, with his wife driving, they are forced off a road into the water below. Makana is thrown clear and has been living with the guilt of his wife and daughter's demise ever since.
Dark Water takes up the story in Cairo, the city of Private Investigator Makana's exile. Here he is approached by an Englishman, Marcus Winslow, who appears at Makana's door one morning with a mission. He wants him to bring in Ayman Nizari, who is hiding out in Istanbul and saying Makana is the only person he can trust.
Winslow claims to represent the British Secret Intelligence Services. Nizari, a dangerous specialist in biochemical nerve agents is on the run and asking for asylum.
Makana is unconvinced, until Winslow says Nizari claims he has information and evidence about Makana's daughter, Nasra, whom he claims is very much alive.
In Istanbul, Makana quickly realises that nothing is what it seems. Everyday meetings raise misgivings. Finally, meeting Nizari, Makana's ghostly past closes in and he becomes both hunter and hunted.
Dark Water is a relentless thriller that explores the government and civilization of Northern Africa and its neighbours. It works too, as a stand-alone novel.
A TALENT FOR MURDER
Andrew Wilson
Simon and Schuster
Agatha Christie was an English crime novelist, short story writer and playwright.
During the Blitz in World War 2 (according to Wikipedia), she worked as a pharmacy assistant at University College Hospital, London, acquiring a good knowledge of the poisons featuring in many of her novels.
On the evening of December 3, 1926, Agatha Christie had a blazing argument with her husband (who wanted a divorce), after which he disappeared to spend the weekend with his mistress, Nancy Neele. Agatha simply just disappeared.
But her disappearance prompted a huge outcry from the public at large, the UK Home Secretary and even Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
She was not found until 10 days later after an extensive hunt, registered at a Harrogate hotel under the name Mrs Teresa Neele. It remains Agatha Christie's biggest unsolved mystery.
A Talent for Murder is author Andrew Wilson's brilliant imagineering of those missing 10 days. By his own admission, Wilson is an avid Christie fan and it shows in this book's style.
In Wilson's account, Christie is accosted by a Dr Kurs in the London Underground. He demands she kill his wife. It appears Kurs has obtained husband Archie's compromising letters to Nancy Neele. He also threatens harm to Christie's 7-year-old daughter. Following Kurs' orders Christie disappears and checks into a Harrogate hotel.
The other players are an ageing plod, superintendent William Kenward, deputy chief constable, convinced Christie was murdered by her husband. Una Crowe, a bored society girl who sees herself as an investigative journalist and decides Christie's disappearance needs investigating by herself - and Christie's "assistant'', Kurs' aggrieved wife.
As Wilson says of A Talent for Murder, " . . . every Christie fan who's read it so far seems to love it, and I think they realise it's written with empathy and respect''.
I couldn't but agree and look forward to what might follow.
HERE AND GONE
Haylen Beck
Penguin Random House
A casual invitation from a friend sees Audra Kinney finally leave abusive husband Patrick, take the family car and head to California with her two children, Sean (11) and Louise (3).
In the Arizona desert, a scared Audra is pulled over by the Elder County sheriff. The stop turns ominous when the sheriff finds marijuana in the car. Audra denies all knowledge of it, yet the sheriff arrests her and radios his deputy to come pick up the children and take them "somewhere safe''.
Later at the sheriff's office Audra demands to see her children. The sheriff asks "What children?''. And so the nightmare begins.
Audra becomes headline news and with the sheriff's story undisputed, the unchallenged story is that she's crazy, murderous, or worse.
That is until a young man named Danny Lee in San Francisco recognises in Audra's predicament a similar experience to that of his wife.
Their child, too, had disappeared, never to be found and his wife never recovered from the tragedy. Danny decides to head to Arizona to uncover the truth.
This fast-paced, disturbing thriller is Haylen Beck's, (pen name for crime writer Stuart Neville) debut novel.
Ted Fox is an online marketing and social media consultant.
