Review by New York Times Review
MYCROFT HOLMES, Sherlock's older, fatter, smarter brother, was renowned for solving mysteries without leaving his armchair at the Diogenes Club. In Josephine Tey's "The Daughter of Time," Inspector Alan Grant of Scotland Yard was confined to a hospital bed when he tackled the historical crime of the murdered princes in the Tower. And Rex Stout's corpulent genius, Nero Wolfe, investigated criminal cases without budging from his elegant Manhattan townhouse. The Swedish author Leif GW Persson takes up the challenge of the sitting sleuth in THE DYING DETECTIVE (Pantheon, $27.95), which features Lars Martin Johansson, once head of the National Criminal Police, but now retired and vegetating in the country. Johansson is about to bite into a spicy sausage from "the best hot-dog kiosk in Sweden" when he has a stroke that puts him in the hospital under the care of a doctor who's seriously worried about his heart. That in itself might be enough to give Johansson a heart attack, so he grasps at the chance to work on an old case, the unsolved rape and murder of a 9-year-old girl named Yasmine. "Do you think it's possible to solve a 25-year-old murder case if you're forced to lie on a sofa the whole time?" Johansson asks his former colleague and best friend, Bo Jarnebring. Well, sure it's possible, so long as the supine sleuth has friends like Bo, who digs up the police files for his old boss and drives him around to possible crime scenes. Nero Wolfe may have had Archie Goodwin to do the legwork and take his guff, but Johansson has his own minions. Besides his doting wife, Pia, there's his punked-out caregiver, Matilda, to drive him to the faceto- face interviews that are crucial to the investigation, and beefy Max to handle certain illicit errands that shall not be named. Persson wrote a hefty trilogy of deeply researched, if ponderously argued, crime novels based on the unsolved assassination of the Swedish prime minister Olof Palme. On a lesser scale, this exhaustively detailed police procedural, painstakingly translated by Neil Smith, speaks to that same inclination to dig for the truth, regardless of the personal cost, which in this case is quite high. Maybe too high. SONS ARE EXPECTED to carry on their fathers' professions in 1816 Dublin, but when 18-year-old Abigail Lawless tries to follow her father into the medical field, she has to sneak into the anatomical theater where he's dissecting a cadaver for the edification of his male students. In THE CORONER'S DAUGHTER (Pegasus Crime, $25.95), Andrew Hughes takes great relish in describing the occupational hazards of being a smart woman in restrictive times. Luckily for Abigail, her father is happy to tutor his clever girl privately. But Abigail is on her own when she applies her knowledge of human anatomy to question the supposed suicide of a housemaid who was said to have killed her illegitimate newborn child. This slender thread of a plot is sturdy enough to send Abigail all over the city in pursuit of a killer, from the wretched Lying-In Hospital, where poor women are herded into overcrowded wards, to the grand ballroom at Charlemont House, where society swells parade in all their finery. Although social class, religious fanaticism and early forensic medical procedures are all duly explored, I confess to being more thrilled by the spectacle of a life-size animatronic doll - with rotating glass eyes! - entertaining the guests at that society ball. IF FRANK MARR didn't have a drug habit, he'd probably still be with the narcotics squad of the Washington, D.C., police. But Marr is a willing slave to cocaine, so here he is, a lackadaisical private eye in David Swinson's CRIME SONG (Mulholland/Little, Brown, $26), trying to keep his coke edge while investigating the murder of his cousin, a nice kid who happened to be dealing drugs. "I certainly wouldn't want to put my lifestyle on someone else," Marr says. "It ain't for everyone." Drugs and all, Marr is easy to take, a decent guy with a sense of honor. And since Swinson is one of the best dialogue hounds in the business, Marr is also blessed with some terrific street talk. While searching for his stolen vinyl record collection, he has an extended conversation with a cabdriver that just about melts in your mouth. "How many times I gotta keep tellin' you I ain't stupid?" the driver demands. Keep talking. We hear you. THERE ARE STUNNINGdescriptions of rampaging forest fires, majestic mountain ranges and violent storms in THE WEIGHT OF NIGHT (Atria, paper, $16),Christine Carbo's rugged wilderness mystery set in Glacier National Park. If only people didn't stand in front of the landscape. Carbo's characters, a manly park police officer with a burdensome secret and a crime scene investigator with nightmares of her own, aren't the liveliest creatures in the forest, but they perform important tasks like finding the skeleton that kicks offthe mystery. It's in depicting nature's drama that Carbo's writing thrives. "This was no campfire with steady, lulling pops and crackles," she observes. "We were talking about the kind of roaring giant that presses in on you, fills your head with its freight train of noise, and makes your gut vibrate." More of that, please. MARILYN STASIO has covered crime fiction for the Book Review since 1988. Her column appears twice a month.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [June 18, 2017]
Review by Booklist Review
*Starred Review* Forced to retire early from the narcotics unit of the Washington, D.C., police department because of his cocaine addiction, Frank Marr puts his detecting skills to use as a PI. When his Aunt Linda, who was like a mother to him, asks him to check on her college-student son, Jeffrey, Marr soon determines that his cousin is dealing. But Marr is totally unprepared to find his house burglarized, with even his cherished vinyl records that had belonged to his mother taken, and Jeffrey shot dead in his kitchen. This is personal for Marr, who's determined to get the person who killed his cousin despite being told not to interfere with the homicide investigation. With occasional help from an old pal on the force, Marr is soon deeply involved in the drug trade and taking risks that imperil his relationship with cop-turned-defense-attorney Leslie Costello. Former DC detective Swinson knows his stuff, from police procedures to drug use to authentic locale. His second in the Frank Marr series (after The Second Girl, 2016) features sharp prose, spot-on dialogue, and a protagonist as complicated and unlikely as he is appealing. Fans of gritty crime fiction will want to add Swinson to their reading lists.--Leber, Michele Copyright 2017 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Swinson's second Frank Marr novel (after 2016's The Second Girl) starts strong but loses focus. The former police detective turned PI is tailing a cousin, George Washington University student Jeffery Baldwin, because Jeffery is skipping classes and his mother is worried. Frank learns that Jeffery is dealing drugs and follows him to a meeting with his supplier at a D.C. nightclub. Rather than confront Jeffery, Frank-an addict whose stash is getting low-decides to rob him, but when he breaks into Jeffery's apartment, he can't find the goods. Back at Frank's house, the cops are waiting. His electronics, vinyl collection, and handgun are missing, and Jeffery is dead in the kitchen. The police suspect that Frank murdered Jeffery and staged the burglary to cover it up, forcing him to launch his own investigation. A dearth of action, a surplus of surveillance, and unconvincing stakes make for a saggy middle, and though the final stretch is adrenaline-fueled, the ending is too pat. Agent: Jane Gelfman, Gelfman Schneider/ICM. (May) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
Former narcotics detective Frank Marr retired early from the Washington, DC, police department when he failed to conceal his cocaine addiction from his supervisor. Desperate for ready cash to support his addiction, Marr takes on a case as a favor to his estranged Aunt Linda from Ohio. In shadowing his cousin Jeffrey, a college student, Frank discovers that Jeffrey is involved in a small-time drug operation. As Frank is about to teach his relative a lesson, his home is burglarized, his deceased mother's vinyl collection is taken, and Jeffrey is discovered dead on his kitchen floor. In addition, Frank's .38 revolver-the murder weapon-is missing. He trails the stolen goods through inner-city DC to untangle a complex network of a bad cop, desperate addicts, and a taxi driver who is tied to everyone involved. Verdict Swinson delivers a superb second installment (after The Second Girl) in the "Frank Marr" series. Readers of Dennis Lehane, Richard Price, and George Pelecanos as well as fans of The Wire will appreciate the gritty depiction of the mean inner-city streets of our nation's capital. [See Prepub Alert, 11/21/16.]-Russell Michalak, Goldey-Beacom Coll. Lib., Wilmington, DE © Copyright 2017. 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
Good cops and bad cops, good burglars and bad burglars, murder and mayhem in Washington, D.C.Author Swinson is himself a retired detective, and familiarity with policing and crime, and an eye for detail, provides a solid framework for the story as Frank Marr, a retired D.C. narcotics detective-turned-private eye, makes a second appearance (The Second Girl, 2016, etc.) in this cocaine-fueled caper. Marr is a cokehead who feeds his habit partly through his assignments, shaking down dealers or burgling the homes of those he has under surveillance. As the book opens, he's turned a sweet trick: he can confirm to his Aunt Linda that her college-student son, Jeffrey, is indeed dealing dope and has a plan to steal the dope while Jeffrey is in class. But while Marr is breaking into Jeffrey's apartment, Jeffrey is burgling Marr's place and is killed in the process. Of course Marr must conceal the real facts from his old friends on the force, complicating their investigations. Sleuthing on his own, Marr identifies one burglar and the driver of the cab that is used to carry the stolen items to be fenced. He pressures these two, the details begin to emerge, and the trail leads to a dirty cop and an old grudge. All this while Marr continues to feed his habit and at every turn has to face the question of how his addiction will be maintained. Though he claims early in the book that his relationship with lawyer Leslie Costello matters most to him ("Last thing I want to do is fuck it up with her. You don't get that many chances in life"), in fact she figures only slightly in the narrative, and by the end, the relationship is in shambles. This is consistent with the real agenda of addiction; Marr cares more about blow than anything else and illustrates this in other situations. But it is just that consistency that makes the ending so unsatisfying. Though Marr manages to arrange some measure of justice for some of the characters, the body count is high; he never confronts the destruction of his relationship with Leslie; and he seems to think he can ride off into a drug-free sunset, with all accounts squared. A gritty thriller with convincing details, but the feel-good conclusion undermines the effort. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
