Review by New York Times Review
I'M always stumped when someone asks me to find them "a good mystery," because I might recommend a serial killer thriller like Jo Nesbo's fiendishly clever novel THE SNOWMAN (Knopf, $25.95) to someone hankering for a civilized British detective story like Peter Lovesey's STAGESTRUCK (Soho Crime, $25). So let's play favorites - but pick your poison first. FAVORITE BOOK The final exit of a beloved sleuth is the focal point of my choice: THE TROUBLED MAN (Knopf, $26.95). Henning Mankell makes it clear that his brilliant if chronically depressed Swedish detective, Kurt Wallander, has solved his last case. In the course of investigating a political conspiracy that dates back to the cold war, Wallander comes to realize "how little he actually knew about the world he had lived in" and how inadequate his efforts to fix that broken world have proved. Although it accounts for his perpetual mood of despair, that insight also makes him a hero for this age of anxiety. FAVORITE NEW SLEUTH George Pelecanos's new protagonist. Spero Lucas, is not only younger and friskier than most private eyes, he's also untainted by the cynicism that goes with the profession. Making his first appearance in THE CUT (Reagan Arthur/Little, Brown, $25.99), Lucas brings his lusty appetites and taste for danger to a vivid narrative about gang wars in Washington, D.C. The big question: Can Pelecanos keep his young hero from flaming out? FAVORITE DEBUT NOVEL/FAVORITE ACTION THRILLER Sebastian Rotella scores twice for TRIPLE CROSSING (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $24.99), which begins on the San Diego-Tijuana border and sends good guys from both sides of the fence to combat drug smugglers and terrorists in the badlands of South America. FAVORITE COZY That would be A TRICK OF THE LIGHT (Minotaur, $25.99), Louise Penny's mystery starring Armand Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec and set in the enchanting village of Three Pines. FAVORITE REGIONAL MYSTERY In SHOCK WAVE (Putnam, $27.95), John Sandford drags Virgil Flowers away from an all-girls volleyball tournament and dispatches him to Butternut Falls, where a bomber is intent on keeping out a big-box store. FAVORITE SUSPENSE NOVEL Cara Hoffman takes on rural poverty, domestic abuse and teenage violence in her first novel, SO MUCH PRETTY (Simon & Schuster, $25), which watches a family of urbanites come to grief in upstate New York. Runner-up is another novel on the same theme: BENT ROAD (Dutton, $25.95), in which Lori Roy observes the breakdown of a family that has moved to Kansas to escape racial tensions in 1960s Detroit. FAVORITE MYSTERY WITH A SOCIAL CONSCIENCE A tie between THE END OF THE WASP SEASON (Reagan Arthur/ Little, Brown, $25.99), by Denise Mina, and THE BOY IN THE SUITCASE (Soho, $24), by the Danish authors Lene Kaaberbol and Agnete Friis. Mina's gritty Glasgow procedural features a female cop who takes pity on a 15-year-old killer because she's witnessed the neglect that can produce such damaged children. The criminal mistreatment of children is also the focus of the Danish thriller, which follows the efforts of a nurse to identify the 3-year-old boy she rescues at the Copenhagen train station. FAVORITE NOIR Antiheroes don't get much darker than the protagonist of James Sallis's moody existential mystery, THE KILLER IS DYING (Walker, $24), a hit man who wants to make one last clean kill before he dies. But I have to go with the rogue Scott Phillips introduces in THE ADJUSTMENT (Counterpoint, $25). This prince of a fellow made a killing pimping and working the black market as an Army quartermaster in Rome during World War II. But peacetime life in Wichita is so dull it takes all his ingenuity to come up with a new way to make a dishonest living. FAVORITE SUPERNATURAL MYSTERY Michael Koryta easily takes top honors for two eerie novels, THE CYPRESS HOUSE (Little, Brown, $24.99), a 1930s gangster story with spooky undertones, and THE RIDGE (Little, Brown, $24.99), a ghost story set in an old mining region of Kentucky. FAVORITE HISTORICAL MYSTERY If the category were narrowed to World War II-era novels, it would be a tossup between FIELD GRAY (Marian Wood/Putnam, $26.95), the darkest of Philip Kerr's Berlin stories, and David Downing's POTSDAM STATION (Soho, $25), with its horrific scenes of Berlin falling to the Red Army. But in an open field, top honors go to C.J. Sansom for HEARTSTONE (Viking, $27.95), a Tudor mystery that captures the chaotic state of England in the aftermath of Henry VIII's ill-conceived invasion of France. FAVORITE PERFORMANCE BY AN OLD PRO That's a tough one in a year that saw top-drawer work from Michael Connelly in THE FIFTH WITNESS (Little, Brown, $27.99). James Lee Burke in FEAST DAY OF FOOLS (Simon & Schuster, $26.99) and Thomas Perry in THE INFORMANT (Otto Penzler/ Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, $27). Sue Grafton earns special mention for keeping Kinsey Millhone engaged and endearing through her 22nd alphabet mystery, V IS FOR VENGEANCE (Marian Wood/Putnam, $27.95). But for sentimental reasons, I'm going with Lawrence Block's nostalgic novel, A DROP OF THE HARD STUFF (Mulholland/ Little, Brown, $25.99), set in New York in the 1970s, when Matt Scudder was still a working cop and crime was still "the leading occupation" in his Hell's Kitchen neighborhood.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 4, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
PyeMart is coming to Butternut, Minnesota, and not everyone is happy about it. Then bombs start going off, first at at corporate headquarters in Michigan and then at the Butternut construction site. Virgil Flowers, of the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, is dispatched to coordinate the investigation with local police and the federal ATF agents. So who are all these cops looking for? A violent tree-hugger, livid that the construction will damage a pristine trout stream? Or one of the local business owners? The bomber sets off a couple more blasts and continues to avoid detection. Flowers himself is nearly collateral damage. Sandford's fifth Flowers novel is thoroughly entertaining but not quite on a par with its predecessors. Its relative weakness may stem from the fact the local crime victims are faceless, and the corporate victims seem so, well, deserving of their fates. Virgil himself still hasn't cut his hair, can't keep a woman, and has a new collection of rock-band T-shirts all endearing characteristics. A Sandford B+ is better than most thrillers out there. He's set his own bar very high.--Lukowsky, Wes Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Wry humor, a fully realized lead, and tense atmospherics lift Sandford's suspenseful fifth novel featuring Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension agent Virgil Flowers (after Edgar-winner Bad Blood). When a bomb kills a construction superintendent in Butternut Falls, a small community divided over the imminent arrival of a PyeMart megastore, Virgil gets on the case, even though it's his day off. Three weeks earlier, a bomb exploded at PyeMart's Michigan headquarters shortly before a board meeting. Willard Pye, the company head, was unharmed, but his executive assistant was blown to pieces. Given the number of locals hostile to the company, Virgil has no shortage of possible suspects, and the ante rises as more bombs are detonated. Coupling a thoroughly modern investigative approach with old-fashioned logical deduction, Virgil narrows in on his target. Sandford effortlessly conjures up the rhythms and personalities of a small town in one of his best outings to date. Author tour. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Lucas Davenport (Buried Prey), a senior agent with the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, sends his junior colleague, Virgil Flowers, to investigate mysterious bombings at the construction site of a new PyeMart megastore in the tiny town of Butternut Falls and at its headquarters. Flowers, starring in his fifth series outing (after Bad Blood), has a number of suspects from which to identify his likely culprit: the many local merchants, environmentalists, and politicians who oppose the new venture for economic, environmental, personal, and professional reasons. Verdict The plot, a thinly disguised reference to the local community opposition that Walmart has faced for years, lacks the excitement and panache characteristic of Buried Prey and other Davenport titles. Also, introducing local humor and personalities may help to create a more credible story, but-dang it, Sandford-that ain't enough! [See Prepub Alert, 4/11/11.]-Jerry Miller, GSLIS, Simmons Coll., Boston (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
A methodical bomber gives Virgil Flowers a welcome chance to recover from his atypically bombastic last outing (Bad Blood,2010, etc.).Three days before his 70th birthday, billionaire Willard Pye and his board of directors are one room away from an explosion that rocks his boardroom outside Grand Rapids and kills Angela (Jelly) Brown, his executive assistant. Another blast follows with indecent haste, killing a construction superintendent at the site planned for a new PyeMart in Butternut Falls, Minn. The second bombing brings out the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension in the person of Virgil Flowers, who assures the disgruntled Pye that he expects to clear the case within a week. "One week and I kiss his ass," Pye tells Marie Chapman, his high-priced amanuensis. But a week doesn't look like nearly long enough for a case this complex. Lots of townsfolk in Butternut Falls are against the new megastore. The Cold Stream Fishers, fearing that a pristine trout stream will be fouled, are especially militant. And Despite Pye's denials, it looks as if a PyeMart expediter has bribed Mayor Geraldine Gore and at least three city councilmen into supporting the highly divisive project. Virgil networks, invites more than 100 locals to make up lists of potential bombers and wonders whether his faltering long-distance relationship with Warren Count Sheriff Lee Coakley is strong enough to keep him safe from Marie Chapman and other indigenous temptresses. The bomber, meanwhile, is moving ahead with a deep-laid plan, setting off one explosive device after another in order to make some kind of statement, mislead Virgil and cover his tracks.The tale drags at times, but the mystification and detection are authentic and the solution surprisingly clever. Virgil fully deserves to have Willard Pye kiss his ass.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
