TESS GERRITSEN – Ice Cold. Ballantine Books, hardcover, June 2010; reprint paperback: April 2011.

Genre:   Police procedural. Leading characters:   Rizzoli & Isles; 8th in series. Setting:   Wyoming.

First Sentence:   She was the chosen one.

    Medical Examiner Maura Isles, in Wyoming for a medical conference, takes off on an impromptu ski weekend with a former college friend, his daughter and another couple. Faulty GPS directions and a blizzard, leaves them lost, stranded and one of the group with a life-threatening injury.

    Seeking shelter, they find the village of Kingdom Come where, in spite of signs that people lived there very recently, everyone has disappeared. Her friend, who leaves to seek help, disappears and it’s up to Maura to brave the winter.

    In Boston, Det. Jane Rizzoli is informed her friend, Maura, died in a car accident and fire. Jane travels to Wyoming with her FBI-agent husband and finds the more they learn, the more things seem wrong. What has really happened and just who are the bad guys?

    I must remember the lesson of never starting a Tess Gerritsen book in the evening as I did not put this book down until I’d finished it at 4 a.m. So I write this review being sleep deprived.

    By the eighth book in a series, some authors forget a reader may be picking this up as a first book. Not true here. The essential background information for each character is incorporated into the flow of the story. We know who these characters are and understand their relationships.

    The only character for whom that is not true is the rather mysterious and enigmatic Anthony Sansone, introduced in The Mephisto Club, yet that lack of definition felt deliberate and didn’t bother me.

    Both Jane and Maura are smart, strong, capable women while having a more vulnerable side making their portrayals realistic. Gerritsen’s ability to convey setting and conditions not only provide a strong sense of place but add to the tension of her books. When it’s cold, you reach for a blanket; when you’re in an autopsy, you want to look away but can’t.

    She also expresses emotion incredibly well; anger, fear, uncertainty, being overwhelmed by fatigue — they are all made tangible. The plot touches on many issues relevant to recent news. Those issues are handled factually and informatively. As always, Ms. Gerritsen’s medical and forensic knowledge is apparent. If find myself fascinated but admit it is not always for the weak of stomach.

    Her ability to create a feeling of danger and suspense keeps you turning the pages. I was certainly never able to predict the “who” and “why” behind the events.

    I do have one criticism. I kept having the feel Ms. Gerritsen’s original book was much longer and she was forced to trim it down. Whether this was the reason, it had a choppy feel to many of the transitions between scenes. The flow I would like to have seen just wasn’t there.

    While I personally prefer Ms. Gerritsen’s standalone thrillers, this was a book I very much enjoyed. It’s the perfect weekend or airplane read and I look forward to the next case of Rizzoli and Isles.

Rating:   Good Plus.

Editorial Comments:   For a list of all of Tess Gerritsen’s suspense novels, complete with covers for most of them, check out the Fantastic Fiction website.

   I watched the first two episodes of the Rizzoli & Isles TV show on TNT, and was favorably impressed. Not enough to put up with logos, commercials and the constant clutter on the screen while you’re trying to watch, but enough so that I plan on buying the first season on DVD as soon as it comes out. Did anyone else keep up with the series?

   Here’s my contribution to the lists that are popping up now that 2010 is over. I read nearly 100 books last year but not even half of them were vintage detective novels. I’ll have to rectify that this year.

   The list is in chronological order and not ranked because I can’t ever put my likes in numerical order or even apply letter grades. I did, however, add some highly opinionated comments after most of the titles to give you an idea of how much I liked or disliked a book.

   Titles in BOLD were excellent and entertaining on all levels. All of those titles are well worth seeking out. Good luck with finding them though, as nearly all are out of print and scarce in the used book trade. The stinker books (and there were quite a few) are at the bottom of the list after the row of asterisks.

   â— The Red Lady – Anthony Wynne. (Impossible crime with a clever gimmick that fooled me. How could I not see that one coming?)

   â— The Chinese Orange Mystery – Ellery Queen. (A re-read for me.)

   â— The Curse of the Bronze Lamp – Carter Dickson.

   â— The House Without a Key – Earl Derr Biggers. (First ever time I read a Charlie Chan book. Rather surprisingly good.)

   â— The Emperor’s Snuff Box – John Dickson Carr. (Brilliant! Why has it never been filmed? Would work beautifully on screen. Very Rear Window like, plus many cinematic sequences.)     [FOOTNOTE.]

   â— The Horseman of Death – Anthony Wynne. (One of his dull ones. Went on and on and on. Ugh.)

   â— About the Murder of a Man Afraid of Women – Anthony Abbot. (One of the better Thatcher Colt books, heavy on action in the last third. You learn a lot about ballistics in his one. Truly a surprising ending. I gasped, believe it or not.)

   â— The Ghost Hunters – Gordon Meyrick. (Short stories about an occult detective, all supernatural elements with the exception of one story are rationalized. Mediocre. One story was like a “Scooby Doo” cartoon in print.).

   â— The Greek Coffin Mystery – Ellery Queen. (Another re-read. Ellery’s lectures and overall pedanticism are annoying to me now. I think I loved them when I read them as a teenager.)

   â— The Witness at the Window – Charles Barry. (Silly, but entertaining in a Gun in Cheek kind of way. Has a secondary, French-speaking detective who appears in the last half of the book who is obviously a Poirot parody.)

   â— Poison Unknown – Charles Dutton. (More of an action thriller. From Dutton’s later period when he abandoned his scientific detective John Bartley in favor of the youthful Harley Manners who tended to resort to traps and gimmicks when unmasking the killer.)

   â— The Cleverness of Mr. Budd – Gerald Verner.

   â— All Fall Down – L.A. G. Strong. (Trenchant wit, good plot, forgotten writer whether as a mainstream novelist, short story writer or detective story writer. Well worth tracking down all of his detective novels. Also his supernatural short stories.)

   â— Murder of a Chemist – Miles Burton. (Extremely rare book. I read it then sold it online for an outrageous sum. Email me for details if you’re curious about the sale. The book is not really worth reading though.)

   â— Tragedy on the Line – John Rhode. (The early Rhode’s are surprisingly good, IMO. Rhode gets a bad rap as one of the dreary writers, but he often is entertaining. Sometimes ingenious.)

   â— The Claverton Mystery – John Rhode. (Surely one of his best, near brilliant.).

   â— Into the Void – Florence Converse. (Odd little book about bootlegging in a New England village, has a quasi impossible crime plot, more interesting as a study in the American village as microcosm than as a detective story.)

   â— Death on Tiptoe – R.C. Ashby. (I loved this! But I have a penchant for Gothic elements in the detective novel. My review for this book can be found here.)

   â— Out of the Darkness – Charles Dutton. (Author’s first book, underrated writer. He wrote a handful of books that deal with the psychopathology of multiple murderers long before anyone was writing about demented serial killers. This one deals remarkably well with the after effects of shell shock.)

   â— The Crooked Cross – Charles Dutton. (Once again emphasis on the psychopathology of murder. Fundamentalist Christian beliefs lead to mania.)

   â— The Lava Flow Murders – Max Long. (See my review here for more on this book.)

   â— Cue for Murder – Helen McCloy. (Near brilliant. Title serves as a huge clue. Basil Willing and McCloy never really get their due when discussing the cream of the crop of the Golden Age. She is definitely overlooked, IMO. Also book is spot on with the theater background — one of the best theater mysteries of any era. Really understands the actor mentality.)

   â— Streaked with Crimson – Charles Dutton. (Yet another crazed serial killer with an interesting motive.)

   â— Murder, M.D. – Miles Burton. (Overrated; most of book is dull, surprise ending is not really much a surprise for a savvy contemporary reader.)

   â— He Arrived at Dusk – R.C. Ashby. (Her best detective novel. Gripping with a Du Maurier like mastery of misdirection in the narration. Read my full review here.)

   â— The Joss – Richard Marsh. (More a supernatural thriller but with a smidgen of a detective plot that recurs throughout.)

   â— The Shade of Time – David Duncan. (Impossible crime novel, not one of my favorites due to an insulting misunderstanding of what a transvestite is in the latter portion of the book.)

   â— Murder Takes the Veil – Margaret Ann Hubbard. (Great setting: a convent school in the Louisiana bayou; story was like a bad Phyllis Whitney plot though.)

   â— The Notting Hill Mystery – Anonymous or Charles Felix. (Innovative, clever and thoroughly original – especially since it was published in 1863! My critical essay appears here earlier on this blog.)

   â— Death at Swaythling Court – J. J. Connington. (His first detective novel. Much of it seems like a parody of the genre in the first half. Entertaining, lively with an intricate and satisfying plot.)

   â— Such Friends Are Dangerous – Walter Tyrer . (Whopper of an ending. Took me completely by surprise. A little masterpiece. Succeeds as both a scathing satire of British village life circa 1955 and as a devilish detective novel. By a writer who mainly wrote adventure thrillers for the Amalgamated Press syndicate.)

   â— Candidate for Lilies – Roger East. (Underrated writer, excellent plotter, literate style. This one has a truly poignant ending for a detective novel. Borders on true tragedy in the classic Greek sense.)

   â— The Case of the Constant Suicides – John Dickson Carr. (This makes many “Best of Carr” lists. I found it to be more farce than detective novel, even with its gimmicky plot. The character of the staunch Catholic Scottish woman had me laughing out loud on the subway train several evenings.)

   â— Rough Cider – Peter Lovesey. (Brilliant! Surely one of Lovesey’s best if not his best of all time.)

   â— Murder Rehearsal – Roger East. (Mystery novelist’s plot idea seems to be the model for a real killer’s handiwork. Gets a bit convoluted in the middle, but worth seeking out. He can write!)

   â— The Lord of Misrule – Paul Halter. (Disappointing. I figured out how the killer left no footprints because the main clue was obviously planted and is also a blatant anachronism for the Victorian era in which the book is supposedly set. Also bothered by servants who were treated as members of the family — talk about lack of verisimilitude! They were allowed to take part in the seance? Never! I wanted to be surprised and delighted, but was not. I guess he’s hit and miss. For me this was a big miss.)

       Books You Would Be Wise to Avoid:

   â— The Watcher – Gerald Verner. (Pedestrian plot, lackluster writing, stock characters.)

   â— The River House Mystery – Gerald Verner. (I have no problem revealing to you that the butler did it in this one. Seriously! Utterly dreadful.)

   â— The Screaming Portrait – Ferrin Fraser. (Absurd and contrived from beginning to end. On the first page we are told that the narrator had been tiger hunting — in South Africa! I should’ve thrown the book in the trash then and there.)

   â— The Case of the Scared Rabbits – George Bellairs. (Very scarce book, but one of his worst plots. Not worth seeking out)

   â— Red Rhapsody – Cortland Fitzsimmons. (My first and probably last Fitzsimmons book. Ludicrous plot, high body count and laughable solution. Also, another insulting treatment of a gay man from the 1930s. Blecch.)

FOOTNOTE / Editorial Comment:   After John’s list appeared first on Yahoo’s Golden Age of Detection list, Bob Houk pointed out that:

    “The Emperor’s Snuff Box was made into a movie in 1957, called The Woman Opposite or City after Midnight. Here’s the IMDB entry:

    “http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051071/.”

   Apparently a British production, the film’s two stars were Phyllis Kirk and Dan O’Herlihy, and it was released in the US by RKO Radio Pictures. It has come out commercially on VHS but (so far) not on DVD. It should be findable, but (after a quick search), I haven’t yet.

    For Part Four of this series, go here.

13. “Winter Run.” Originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, January 1965. Reprinted in Alfred Hitchcock: The Best of Mystery, Galahad Books, hardcover, no editor stated, 1980.

   Johnny Kendell is on the run — from himself. After he has tragically gunned down an old bum, Johnny quits the force instead of facing a departmental inquest and leaves town with his fiancée, Sandy. Anywhere will do.

   Within a week, they settle in a new town, and Johnny, seeking work but finding none, reluctantly accepts the job of deputy sheriff. At first, things go well — until he runs afoul of Milt Woodmann, the former deputy and a real womanizer. When Woodman begins making moves on Sandy, Johnny’s trigger finger starts getting itchy again ….

    “Winter Run” was filmed (as “Off Season”) for The Alfred Hitchcock Hour (first aired 10 May 1965, the last show of the series), and is available here on Hulu.

14. “Warrior’s Farewell.” Originally appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, August 1967. Reprinted in Alfred Hitchcock: The Best of Mystery (see above).

   The unnamed narrator reads in the newspaper about the death of an old Korean War buddy and flashes back to the war and what his pal did, executing summary justice on an enemy POW — no trial, just gunning him down.

   After the war, their lives intersect several times, and the narrator gradually comes to understand that his old buddy is still meting out justice — one bullet at a time ….

15. “A Melee of Diamonds.” Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, April 1972. Reprinted in Alfred Hitchcock: The Best of Mystery (see above).

   It has all the earmarks of a classic smash-and-grab: break the glass, ignore the alarms, and scoop up as many precious stones as possible before security gets there. In the middle of all this confusion, a policeman gets clubbed to the pavement, but a Concerned Citizen manages to pursue and capture the thief anyway.

   The kicker in this scenario, however, is that the malefactor doesn’t have the diamonds, worth $58,000, anywhere on him or in him — yes, they actually X-ray the guy — or anywhere along his escape route. Even the Concerned Citizen gets searched: no joy.

   Captain Leopold is baffled, a condition he thoroughly hates, when he gets an unexpected break while he’s buying a can of coffee ….

● PAMPERED YOUTH. Vitagraph, 1924. Alice Calhoun, Cullen Landis, Wallace MacDonald, Ben Alexander. Director: David Smith. Both this and the film below were shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   This is a real curiosity, a two-reel condensation of a seven-reel adaption of Booth Tarkington’s The Magnificent Ambersons. William K. Everson notes that it is a “16mm blow-up from a badly battered 9.5mm print that Kevin Brownlow rescued from a market-place in France during the 1960s.”

   The condensation preserves the outlines of the decline and fall of the Ambersons, climaxing in a spectacularly staged fire sequence that reunites the remaining impecunious Ambersons (Isabel and her son George) with the successful suitor she once spurned, Eugene Minafer, also clearing the way for the marriage of George to Eugene’s daughter Lucy.

● DAYDREAMS. Angle Pictures, London, 1928. Elsa Lanchester, Charles Laughton, Harold Warrender, Dorice Fordred , Marie Wright. Based on a short story by H. G. Wells. 25min. Director: Ivor Montagu.

   A strikingly designed, delightful short film in which a housemaid (Lanchester) fantasizes about a rich marriage followed by a series of adventures in which Laughton figures importantly as a lascivious villain, all of it resolved when Lanchester, awakening from her day-dreams, walks away from her mundane job.

[UPDATE] 09-18-11. Thanks to a comment left by Mike White, Walter’s review of Pampered Youth has been amended to correctly identify Eugene Minafer’s daughter. Her name was Lucy, not Fanny. Thanks, Mike!

   (Mike was the long time editor and publisher of Cashiers du Cinemart. You might wish to visit his website at http://www.impossiblefunky.com.)

MURRAY LEINSTER – The Brain-Stealers. Ace Double #D-79, paperback original, 1954. Published dos-à-dos with Atta, by Francis Rufus Bellamy. Reprinted by Ace in single volume form, circa 1974. Trade paperback: Wildside Press, 2007.

   So came last October, and I started my month of ghoulish reading with Murray Leinster’s The Brain-Stealers (Ace, 1954), a crackerjack bit of sci-fi from a master of the form.

   This one starts fast and never lets up, as a spaceship full of blood-sucking aliens lands on the first page in a remote part of the country and discharges a band of “little guys”: hairless, short-limbed, sharp-toothed and incredibly selfish beings with the power of mind control, who proceed to enslave the locals and propagate, with plans of world domination.

   Said world is a clever wrinkle Leinster throws in the plot-pot. Brain-Stealers is set in a near-future society (near-future in 1954 that is) ruled by something called “Security” where science, culture, even knowledge itself are carefully regulated in the name of peace and safety.

   (Which makes the whole thing unbelievable; I mean, now really! Can you honestly imagine people giving up their individual rights for the promise of security? But I digress…)

   Such a world seems ripe for enslavement, but in the tradition of the best sci-fi, Leinster rings in an escaped scientist (experimenting in thought-projection no less!) who lands in the middle of things and finds himself in a run-and-jump war with the aliens.

   This is pulp as it oughta be: stylish and fast, with a plot that keeps twisting right to the end as Leinster throws his rogue scientist in and out of peril with breath-taking speed. You honestly can’t spend a better couple hours than sitting down with this and … letting your mind go!

C. W. GRAFTON – The Rat Began to Gnaw the Rope. Farrar & Rinehart, hardcover, 1943. [Mary Roberts Rinehart Mystery Contest winner.] Reprint paperbacks: Dell #180, 1947, mapback edition; Perennial Library, P639, 1983. Poisoned Pen Press, trade paperback, 2020.

   Lawyer Gil Henry’s client describes him as a young man who has “got more curiosity than an old maid and his mind is so sharp it’s about to cut his ears off.” Henry is this and much more — tenacious, eager, with a humorous, self-deprecating wit.

   Sometimes he’s a bit of a bumbler, but he has the good grace to acknowledge it. And in this, his first case, his determination serves him in good stead.

   Henry is hired by Ruth McClure to look into the matter of some stock she has inherited: Her father, who was recently killed in an auto accident, has left her a hundred shares in Harper Products Company, the firm where he was employed. The owner of the company, William Jasper Harper, is offering to buy the shares for much more than they are worth, and Ruth wants to know why.

   Henry takes her on as a client — with reservations because the senior partner in his firm is dating Harper’s daughter. And when he receives an urgent summons to come to Harpersville earlier than he planned (because someone has ransacked Ruth’s house), he still is hesitant.

   But he goes, in a car borrowed from his partner, and is involved in a near-fatal accident on the way. When the accident turns out to be due to a shot-out tire, he checks the car Ruth’s father died in. There is no evidence, because there is no tire — someone has taken it from the wrecking yard.

   From there on, suspicious circumstances mount up: There seems to be little love lost between Ruth McClure and her adopted brother, Tim; Ruth’s father lived well beyond his means; there is a disfigured egg lady who is also living beyond her means — and indeed buys the eggs she sells to selected persons (including Mr. Harper) at the grocery store.

   When Henry confronts Harper personally, he is run out of town, and he must go to Louisville, Kentucky, where the company’s accountants are, in search of further evidence. Before he finally gets to the bottom of this strange state of affairs, murder has been done twice — and Gil Henry is considering committing a third.

   Grafton’s style is easy and humorous, the plotting is good, and the characters are sure to intrigue you. Gil Henry is an extremely likable young man, and it’s regrettable that he appears in only one other book, The Rope Began to Hang the Butcher (1944).

   Grafton — the father of contemporary private-eye novelist Sue Grafton — wrote only one other suspense novel, Beyond a Reasonable Doubt (1950).

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

SUE GRAFTON – “A” Is for Alibi. Holt Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, April 1982. Bantam, paperback, 1982. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and soft.

   In this first of a series featuring female private investigator Kinsey Millhone, screenwriter Sue Grafton introduces us to a captivating character. Millhone is thirty-two, twice divorced, with no kids (after all, she can’t very well ramble around California in her beat-up Volkswagen with two babes and a lonely husband waiting at home).

    “A” Is for Alibi begins with Kinsey telling us she has killed someone for the first time. The event “weighs heavily” on her mind, and in a tightly packed 274 pages we find out just how it happened.

    Millhone takes us back to the beginning of the case, when she meets with the widow of a prominent attorney in Santa Teresa, a small, upperclass beach community in southern California (and Grafton’s admitted tribute to Ross Macdonald).

    The woman was convicted eight years ago of poisoning her philandering, abusive, and very rich husband with a capsule of oleander-a common California shrub-which she allegedly slipped into his bottle of tranquilizers so he would take it at will, when she wasn’t around: “A” is for alibi.

    The woman has proclaimed her innocence from the beginning. After eight years in prison for a crime she didn’t commit, she wants Millhone to find her husband’s real murderer.

    What follows is a beautifully written story of spoiled love, American-style. Ex-wives, children of divorce, ambitious girlfriends, loyal secretaries, and longtime business partners — Millhone grills all of these with the tenacity of the best hard-boiled detectives, and her female sympathies draw out the emotional reality of the characters with refreshing clarity.

    In the end, she has no choice but to kill someone, and we are as surprised as she is when it happens. Don’t miss this one, or its sequel, “B” Is for Burglar, which appeared in 1985.

         ———
   Reprinted with permission from 1001 Midnights, edited by Bill Pronzini & Marcia Muller and published by The Battered Silicon Dispatch Box, 2007.   Copyright © 1986, 2007 by the Pronzini-Muller Family Trust.

SUE GRAFTON – “A” is for Alibi. Holt Rinehart & Winston, hardcover, April 1982. Bantam, paperback, 1982. Reprinted many times, in both hardcover and soft.

   A classic, of course, but I hadn’t read it until now. It far outclasses the other two or three I’ve sampled in the series.

   Alibi takes every hardboiled device and turns it inside out with a female protagonist. Sleeping with a sexy suspect? Check. Obsession with some kind of justice? Check.

   Facing down sexy suspect, with no qualms? Check. But it’s not Sam Spade, it’s Kinsey Milhone. And that forces the reader to think about gender and genre expectations.

   It’s not just the concept that’s excellent; craft is necessary for the concept to succeed. Here’s a nice passage from page 150 of the Bantam paperback (an edition riddled with typos):

   While the 1980s time frame feels historic now, the story feels freshly told. And that’s what defines a classic.

   It’s a couple of days early, but I’ll wish you a Merry Christmas and the Happiest of Holidays right now, with plenty of time to spare.

   I’ll also take a short break from blogging until early next week. Maybe this bit of time off will give me a chance to get caught up on email, but yes, I know, you’ve heard me say that before.

   Thanks to all of the contributors to this blog over this past few months. I’ve learned something from every review and every article you’ve sent me, and from every comment that’s been left. This blog wouldn’t be the same without you.

           — Steve

  WAYWARD. Paramount, 1932. Nancy Carroll, Richard Arlen, Pauline Frederick, John Litel, Margalo Gillmore, Burke Clarke, Dorothy Stickney, Gertrude Michael. Based on a novel by Mateel Howe Farnham. Director: Edward Sloman. Shown at Cinefest 28, Syracuse NY, March 2008.

   Showgirl Nancy Carroll marries Richard Arlen, whose very upper-class family is not at all happy with his new wife. They are stuffy and Carroll’s theatrical background and breezy manner alienate most of the family except for a black-sheep in-law (John Litel), who drinks too much and shares Carroll’s dislike of formality.

   The family is dominated by Arlen’s mother, splendidly played by a stern and unforgiving Pauline Frederick. Misunderstandings abound until Arlen finally sees through his mother’s duplicity and forces her to back down and accept Carroll into the family.

   Carroll, Frederick and Litel bring the film fitfully to life, but Arlen’s inability to stand up to his mother for most of the film makes you wonder what Carroll saw in him in the first place. A ’30s soaper that added little luster to the program.

Editorial Comment:   Besides the cast and crew,there’s no other information about this film on IMDB — no synopsis, no comments, nor any other external links. There has never been an official release, and in all likelihood there never will be one. Quite surprisingly, though, if you were so inclined to try, you should be able to find a copy on DVD rather easily on the collector-to-collector market.