Review by New York Times Review
NO MAN'S NIGHTINGALE (Scribner, $26) is Ruth Rendell's 24th Inspector Wexford procedural mystery in almost 50 years, so we're naturally curious about how that venerable detective may have mellowed in retirement. Well, his mind is still sharp enough to solve a murder case bungled by Mike Burden, his old deputy and now detective superintendent of the Kingsmarkham constabulary. Always a tolerant man, Wexford is ever more alarmed by the racism and bigotry that have taken root in his little patch of England and were a factor in the murder of the Rev. Sarah Hussain, abiracial single mother raising an out-of-wedlock child. And, if anything, he's grown more caustic about barbaric insults to the mother tongue, like the Alternative Service Book that replaced the Book of Common Prayer in Anglican churches. But while Wexford seems content to let a younger generation make its own mistakes, he does feel diminished by the loss of his professional status. He's also become quite testy about the limits imposed by age and, more annoyingly, by restrictive social attitudes about age. "He was realizing how insignificant he had become in the great scheme of law and order... of having nothing to do in a society where doing things was all-important." More philosophical? I'd say so. Mellow? Not on your life. MICKEY HALLER IS the kind of lawyer who works out of the back seat of his Lincoln Town Car and gets paid for his services in gold bricks. In Michael Connelly's latest legal thriller, THE GODS OF GUILT (Little, Brown, $28), a "digital pimp" arrested for murdering one of the prostitutes whose professional websites he manages joins Mickey's sterling client list of thieves, rapists, embezzlers and killers. But for once this ethics-challenged criminal defense lawyer needn't resort to any shady shenanigans because Andre La Cosse didn't kill Giselle Dallinger - or Gloria Dayton, as she was known to Mickey seven years earlier, when he helped her get out of the game and staked her to what he thought would be a new life in Hawaii. Disheartened to learn that he hadn't "changed the direction of a life" after all, Mickey feels compelled to perform another good deed to relieve his conscience. "There is no more noble a cause on this planet than to stand for the wrongly accused," he's advised by the old lawyer he considers his life coach. So saving La Cosse and finding Gloria's real killer might keep him from being haunted by the "12 apostles, the gods of guilt" who sit in life's jury box, passing judgment on him for a colorful but hardly glorious career of snatching lowlifes from the jaws of the law. An honorable performance in the courtroom might even redeem Mickey in the eyes of his 16-year-old daughter, who can't forgive her father for springing a guilty client who turned around and killed two people she knew in a drunken-driving accident. At this point, you want to buckle up for the roller coaster of a trial this has all been leading up to. Connelly stays cool as he crosscuts between tense courtroom scenes before the "gods of guilt" and brutal confrontations outside the courthouse with the hired killers from a Sinaloan drug cartel, a rogue government agent and some plain old crooked Los Angeles detectives. Mickey's got a lot riding on this trial - but, win or lose, let's hope his attempts at character reformation don't last too long. NOTHING JACK TAYLOR does should surprise readers of Ken Bruen's poetically violent novels - except how long this bad boy manages to lay off the booze, cigarettes and brawling in PURGATORY (Mysterious Press/ Grove/Atlantic, $24). But rest easy: Our roaring lad eventually rises to confront the taunts of a serial killer who wants him to join his crusade. The turning point for Jack is a recruitment dinner with a mysterious billionaire intent on acquiring the remaining assets of the faltering local economy. "You're a sort of Irish Zelig," he tells Jack, "witness to the history of Galway." But the things Jack witnesses these days - feral teenage gangs, high-school girls wasted on dope, thieves who steal the gold chalices from churches - would cause a saint to go blind. And Jack, whose heroism is fueled by "plain old-fashioned rage, bile and bitterness," is no saint. Never was, never will be. Amen. THE DOMESTIC AFFAIRS of fictional sleuths are rarely as fascinating as their authors think they are. But you have to admit that Clare Fergusson, the Episcopal priest in Julia Spencer-Fleming's mysteries, set in the Adirondacks of upstate New York, leads an eventful life. THROUGH THE EVIL DAYS (Thomas Dunne/Minotaur, $25.99) finds Clare very recently married, obviously pregnant and back at her pastoral duties in Millers Kill after serving in Iraq. But because of the awkward timing of that pregnancy she's been told to resign her post or be called up on charges of "sexual misconduct and conduct unbecoming to a priest." Meanwhile, Russ Van Alstyne, Clare's new husband and the local chief of police, has just learned the town council is proposing to shut down his department and outsource the work to the state police. Given all this Sturm und Drang, it's amazing Spencer-Fleming manages to carry off a layered plot that opens with an arson, a double homicide and a kidnapping and expands into a broader picture of the drug use, domestic violence and desolation squeezing the life out of this small town.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 1, 2013]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Unusually flush, sober, and settled into a new apartment stocked to the gills with books, Jack Taylor is no longer entertaining requests to hunt Galway's disappeared, identify the tormenters of its marginalized, or root out authoritarian abusers. But Jack's reputation as the man who'll deliver some manner of truth and justice stands, and he'll not walk away from Galway's darkness easily. C33, a vigilante killing criminals who have escaped legal justice through technicalities, seems to think Jack is a suitable playmate. Dropping Jack a note about the latest killing, C33 identifies the next mark and signs off with, Your turn. Despite the challenge, Jack hopes to avoid jumping back into the mix and sets his ally Stewart on C33's heels. In the meantime, Jack becomes entangled with Reardon, a crazy surfer mogul snatching up parts of Galway. Throughout, Jack's brutal inner voice shouts dire predictions as his attempts to avoid past mistakes lead to disasters for his friends and a hunt for the killer he's foolishly dismissed. Bruen's storytelling style, a stream-of-consciousness mix of prose and verse, strips away Galway's tourist-board facade and offers a darkly comic social commentary. Jack Taylor tales don't end well; that's just not the life our Jack's living. But Bruen always respects his characters, and they end right. Noir fans will find exactly what they love here. Note to RA librarians looking for links: The BBC series Jack, based on the Jack Taylor series, is now available in the U.S., and it's almost as good as the books.--Tran, Christine Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Edgar-finalist Bruen's excellent 10th Jack Taylor novel (after 2011's Headstone) finds the Irish PI looking upon the sights of Galway with now-sober if ever-wistful eyes-but a serial killer wants him to come out and play. Signing invitations to Jack as "C33," the mysterious figure inflicts vigilante justice on other murderers and scumbags. "A Dexter with an Irish lilt... C33 had honed the art of reprisal in the States, an equal killer land of opportunity." For once, with a possible new woman in his life, Jack isn't interested, and stays aloof from the crimes, much like a soul lost in purgatory. But when his former drug-dealer friend, Stewart, picks up the challenge, all hell breaks loose. Bruen maintains his trademark hip references and highly poetic style, but fans expecting the usual are in for some shock therapy, as he busts out one series-changing surprise after another. Agent: Lukas Ortiz, Philip G. Spitzer Literary Agency. (Nov.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Galway ex-cop Jack Taylor, whose main job these days is keeping himself clean and sober, goes up against a vigilante whose targets richly deserve to die. You might feel sorry for Joseph, the teenager shot off his skateboard, if you didn't know he was dealing dope to kids even younger than him. But no one mourns the passing of Tim Rourke, the accused rapist who'd be rotting in prison instead of the grave if a dewy-eyed social worker's testimony hadn't freed him to meet his maker. Or Peg Ramsay, the moneylender's widow who's been determined to squeeze her clients even harder than her late lamented husband ever did. Or Dolan, the landlord who neglected to make sure all his tenants had made it out of his properties before he burned them down. Jack wouldn't waste a tear on any of these victims if their killer, calling himself C33, weren't sending notes to Jack (The Devil, 2010, etc.) inviting him to join the festivities. Soon enough, Jack and his mates, Zen-spouting entrepreneur Stewart and lesbian Sgt. Ridge N Iomaire, are up to their necks in C33's lethal games. The case brings Jack bumping repeatedly against dot-com billionaire Daniel Reardon, with each new collision producing fresh eruptions of bile--is there an angrier narrator in the genre than Jack?--but precious little in the way of plot development, until the obvious suspect gets identified and does a runner, turning Jack from reluctant detective into nemesis, a role that suits him much better. For all the furious energy of Jack's throwaway riffs, the title of this installment, which would have fit most of Bruen's pitch-noir dispatches equally well, isn't the only thing that feels recycled here.]]]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
