Category Archives: mystery

Dexter is Delicious by Jeff Lindsay

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Dexter is Delicious is the latest entry in the Dexter Morgan series by Jeff Lindsay. For those of you who aren’t aware, the first novel in the Dexter series, Darkly Dreaming Dexter, was the basis for the first season of the Showtime series Dexter. But after that the books and TV series had nothing in common except a charming serial killer of killers named Dexter Morgan. And much like the show, the books have been of uneven quality. Book 3, Dexter in the Dark, was bad, while books 2, Dearly Devoted Dexter, and 4, Dexter by Design, were better (but not nearly as good as the first book). So how does book 5 stand up?

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The Affinity Bridge by George Mann

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The Affinity Bridge is another steampunk novel by George Mann. It was actually written before Ghosts of Manhattan (review) and there is a sequel, The Osiris Ritual (review), which just came out in the US (Four books in the series have been published in the UK). Mann is setting himself up as the master of the steampunk universe. So, how is the book?

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The Final Solution by Michael Chabon

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The Final Solution is Michael Chabon going through the genre ghetto and trying to bring them to a wider audience. With The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay he dealt with comics, with Gentlemen of the Road he aimed more at a fantasy/adventure tail and The Yiddish Policemen’s Union was a science fiction book (more in the vein of The Man in the High Castle than spaceships and space opera). The Final Solution is a detective novel and if you’re going to write a detective novel, then you might as well aim high and shoot for a Sherlock Holmes book. Although Holmes’ name is never mentioned in the book, it is apparent to all that it is him. So did Chabon pull it off?

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The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett

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The Maltese Falcon by Dashiel Hammett is the quintessential detective novel with Sam Spade as the prototype detective. Hammett created a detective archetype (or at least popularized it) that survives (and even thrives) to this day. I would guess that more people have seen the movie (the Humphrey Bogart version) than have read the book. So, is the book worth reading or should people just see the movie?

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Noir by Robert Coover

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Noir by Robert Coover was a challenge for me. I approached it with a sense of anticipation as well as dread. Coover is a post modernist writer (and I usually detest post modernism), but the basic concept seemed interesting. A noir novel interpreted into a post-modern spin. And it’s a book that some will love, but others (like me) will have to fight to get through all the post-modern annoyances.

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My Dark Places by James Ellroy

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My Dark Places by James Ellroy is part murder mystery and part biography. For people wondering how Ellroy can write so wonderfully about Los Angeles in the 1950’s, you’ll see that he lived through it. The seedy places and heartbreak that were hidden by the Dragnet sheen and are depicted in Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet are shown here, only in real life. Because James Ellroy’s mother was murdered in 1958 Los Angeles and it affected his life and writing.

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The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard

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The Pale Blue Eye by Louis Bayard follows in Bayard’s tradition of historical books. Where Mr. Timothy (review) followed the future adventures of a fictional person, The Pale Blue Eye brings us to the past of a real person. In this case, the real person is Edgar Allen Poe during his time in West Point. And it was a surprise to me that Poe was in West Point, but he was indeed there. Since Poe was pivotal in the development of the detective novel, it’s only appropriate that the story has Poe helping out a detective solving a murder…with a twist at the end that is truly unexpected.

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Black Dahlia by James Ellroy

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Black Dahlia by James Ellroy is the first of Ellroy’s L.A. Quartet (including The Big Nowhere, L.A. Confidentialand White Jazz). While L.A. Confidential is, by far, Ellroy’s best book, Black Dahlia is the one that first felt like a James Ellroy book. This is the first Ellroy book that you can pick up and as soon as you read the first page, you know you’re in a James Ellroy book. And as it’s based on a true story, we get to see Ellroy finally master the mixture of reality and make-believe that are notable in his future books.

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The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett

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The Thin Man by Dashiell Hammett was Hammett’s last novel and probably his second most popular (after The Maltese Falcon). It was also the starting point for the Nick and Nora Charles movies (starring William Powell and Myrna Loy). They movie and the book are completely different types of stories, but both are well worth their time.

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Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard

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Mr. Timothy by Louis Bayard is a Dickensian mystery thriller with a familiar narrator in a Victorian setting. The novel follows from previous stories in a way that makes sense and has an engaging mystery. Louis Bayard has created an interesting novel that takes it’s time getting going, but finishes with a bang of action and several twists and unexpected turns.

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