Suburban Dicks by Fabian Nicieza

G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 400 pages, $27 (c2021)

According to the author’s bio on the back flap of the book, Fabian Nicieza “is an Argentine American comic book writer and editor who is best known as the co-creator of Marvel’s Deadpool and for his work on titles such as X-Men, X-Force, New Warriors, Cable, and Thunderbolts.”

So you know the book is going to be funny, right.

One of Nicieza’s main characters is Andrea Stern, who spends most of the book looking like a beach ball with feet, i.e., she’s pregnant, with her fifth child. The other main character is Kenneth Lee, a reporter who ran afoul of ethics considerations, i.e., he crossed the line and made up a quote on a major story. This book is about coming back from being knocked back for the protagonists and about being haunted and shackled by the past for the antagonists.

Andrea had a bright future ahead of her. She was gearing up to become an FBI profiler after helping to solve a major case while still in college. Then she got pregnant. The father of her child was set to make oodles of money on Wall Street, so Andrea put her dreams on hold. She married Jeff and they proceeded to bounce out a bunch of children. Some of them might be named Sadie and Sarah, and Eli, and … um, there’s another one. I’ll think on it. Another is definitely on the way. At the beginning of the book, Andrea is seven months pregnant, but maybe she miscounted the months because she looks as though she might burst. (Insert your own ripe fruit simile here.)

Unfortunately, Jeff cheats, not with other women but from his clients. He “appropriated” funds, got caught, and is on probation. The family has downsized from a McMansion to (still a pretty big) house. They live in the suburbs. Jeff commutes by train. There is only one car. At 6:30 or so every morning the whole family drives him to the train station. Then, because it is summer, there are activities, friends, pool time, kids running wild. Not so secretly, Andrea is bored and disgruntled. 

Here’s an excerpt about Jeff:

They had brought their furniture over from the old house even though Jeff had wanted to buy all-new stuff. He continued to act like the money would last forever even when so much of it had been lost.

Not lost, since that implied an accidental misplacement. Squandered. Stolen, Litigated. Adjudicated. Reimbursed to the clients he had cheated. Paid to the IRS to avoid going to prison. Any and all of those better defined where the money had gone as a result of Jeff’s transgressions.

Kenneth Lee is a couple of years younger than Andrea and knew her in high school. He had a crush on her. She had a crush on his older brother. Kenneth is living out his disgrace at a small town paper in New Jersey and hoping for a big story that will send him back to the big leagues. However, he still carries the character defects that landed him in purgatory to begin with: arrogance and the ability to piss off just about anyone, especially his mother, Blaine (aka Huiquing, but “Blaine” looked better for the purposes of selling real estate). Huiquing lives in a retirement facility, where she is one of the youngest residents. This fact proves useful later in the book. Meanwhile, it provides great fodder for humor and a touch of humanity.

What brings Andrea and Kenneth together again after many years is the murder of a gas station attendant. As the story begins, Andrea stumbles across the crime scene shortly after two patrol officers arrive. Her youngest child needs to pee. One of the officers will not let Andrea use the restroom, so the toddler, unable to hold it, pees all over the crime scene. While, ahem, events are unraveling, Andrea gets a good look at the scene. In rapid fire language, Andrea tells Officer Wu (daughter of the mayor) how she and the other officer mishandled the crime scene. Them she drives off.

The official line is that the victim, Satkunananthan Sasmal, was killed in a robbery. Andrea knows that couldn’t possibly be true. She can’t help it; she’s hooked. She starts her own investigation, sometimes dragging one or more children with her, . When she combines forces with Kenneth, they make the most of their irregular resources: retired people, housewives, the tight-knit Indian community, a friend at the FBI. The FBI friend is Ramon. If Andrea hadn’t gotten pregnant, she would have broken up with Jeff and run off with Ramon. They met during the case that made Andrea famous. But that was then and this is now, and she hasn't seen Ramon since then. Neither she nor Kenneth have very weighty credentials to be investigating the crime and trying to uncover malfeasance in the community government. But they persevere.

“Suburban Dicks” is a worthy tale. The plot line becomes more serious as the investigation digs deeper. Might be worth a hankie or two. It certainly is worth an MBTB star or two!

MBTB star!

Ah, Ruth — that’s the name of Andrea’s judgmental oldest child. I think she’s a rising star at the age of nine.

Murder at the Mena House by Erica Ruth Neubauer

Kensington, 304 pages, $15.95 (c2021)

Erica Ruth Neubauer has a new book coming out soon, part of her series starring young American widow, Jane Wunderly ("Danger on the Atlantic"). The books are set in the Roaring Twenties and the covers are quite charming. I thought I would begin with her first book in the series, "Murder at the Mena House." The setting was Cairo, Egypt. The characters were pretty much limited to the grounds of the famous Mena House resort. I was in the mood for an Agatha Christie-like mystery: dead body, sleuth, exotic setting, soupçon of romance, antiquities, Art Deco!

Alas, one should never take an author's template and slap it on another author's book. "Murder at the Mena House" was pleasant, but I lost a firm grip on who the heroine was. Was she plucky, traumatized, intrepid, or foolhardy? Also, she had a lot of adrenaline bursts.

The series has caught the fancy of quite a few readers and I find no fault with the setting. Perhaps this is just the mystery you need to cozy up to.

The Shadows by Alex North

Celadon Books, 352 pages, $16.99 (c2020)

Alex North has already gotten on people’s nerves — in a good way — in “The Whisper Man.” Although I’m a little late with this review, this is the second book in his series starring Amanda Beck, a detective in Featherbank, England. Never throw away a good formula, they say, so North is sticking to horrifying people with the (perhaps) occult and (definitely) murders. Again, children have been murdered. If you draw the line at reading books about children being murdered, opt out of this series. I don’t know if North is going to make Detective Beck a specialist in child murders, but this is the second book with that theme. Just saying.

This time the action takes place in the nearby town of Gritton and the outer area of Gritton Wood. Grrrritttton. Quite a grating, rasping noise. The name doesn’t lend itself easily to imaginings of bucolic woods and quaint thatched cottages, unlike Stow-on-the-Wold, for instance. It is an ideal representation for the economic wasteland the town and surrounding area have become and for the woods, which are not bucolic and are, in fact, gloomily called The Shadows.

Paul Adams grew up in a sad house in Gritton Wood, as did his friend, James. Paul saw it as his duty to protect James from bullies when they were young school kids. Once they were older and transferred to a larger school in town, Paul was helpless to stop it when James was pulled into the orbit of fellow student, Charlie Crabtree. Charlie’s henchman, Billy Roberts, slavishly followed Charlie and resented the intrusion of James and Paul into their two-person cohort. But Charlie needed them.

The book goes back and forth between the present day and when Paul was fourteen years old. Back then, Charlie was at the center of a trauma that haunted Paul so much he found himself unable to return to his town until now. He has returned because his mother, Daphne, has dementia and is living her last days. Occasionally, Daphne will wake up and urgently say things which make no sense. Like, “Red hands, Paul! There are red hands everywhere!” And, “Oh God, it’s in the house, Paul!” Of course, one might say that that “information” reaches Paul too late, since he is staying in his mother’s house while in town.

Aaaaaaa.

What did Charlie do? It is alleged that Charlie masterminded the killing of another child. Then Charlie disappeared. Fourteen-hear-old Paul was hauled into the police station.  

Paul never returned home after he left for college. He became a teacher 400 miles away. He had wanted to be a writer, an activity he shared with Jenny, who became his girlfriend after he and James started to drift apart. But what was it about Charlie that broke the strong bond between James and Paul? Charlie referred to a local myth about a man who haunted The Shadows. If Charlie and the other boys could meet this man (who had a dark hole where his face should be) through lucid dreaming, they could use the man as a guiding spirit to punish people for slighting or tormenting them. Paul was hesitant but James was all in.

While Paul is in Gritton he discovers that other children have been murdered over the years by people who claimed to have done the killings in the name of Charlie Crabtree. There’s an online discussion group in which a poster has adopted the handle, @CC666. They claim to know a lot about the case because they were there! This is what brings Detective Beck into the picture. In researching the old Charlie Crabtree case, she discovers Paul is now back home. It’s a golden opportunity to find out if he was involved in the subsequent killings or, more probably, has some insight into them.

And that’s when spooky things start happening to grownup Paul. He finds spooky things in his mother’s attic. He meets people from long ago who mostly are reticent to discuss the past with him (and they’re spooky). Something spooky is pushed through his mother's mail slot. There are spooky glimpses of someone/thing in The Shadows.

I can hear you asking a lot of questions, because my bare-bones summary leaves a lot unaddressed. I can’t help you. To answer them would be to commit the ultimate sin of giving away the plot.

I will say there is authorial trickery involved in this book. That’s my only hint. Maybe it’s too much of one. Maybe all it does is make you think I’m showing off. I offer that hint because I think the book could have done without it. That’s my rationale and I’m stuck with it.

North is great at creating atmosphere and giving glimpses of things that go bump or swish-swish-swish (the sound of a knife) in the night.

When You Are Mine by Michael Robotham

Scribner, 368 pages, $24.99

I have been a Michael Robotham fan for a long time. The first book of his I read was “The Night Ferry” (c2007). I especially liked the main character, a young Sikh woman named Ali Barba. She was a detective with the Metropolitan Police in London. What was amazing to me at the time was how Robotham, a man, so convincingly voiced his character, a woman. 

Being able to adequately express characters of a different gender often upends authors. Authors, good authors, writers with style, writers with a stylistic verve, are sometimes unable to convincingly voice a character of a gender different than what they are. Like Robert Parker, they might go overboard in expressing how smart, self-reliant, brilliant, independent, clever, tough, brainy, and — okay, I’ve run out of synonyms for “smart” and “doesn’t rely on men” — resplendent a character of a different gender is.

In fact, since (and before) Robotham’s “The Night Ferry,” the author’s go-to characters are two men: Vincent Ruiz, ex of the police force, and Dr. Joseph O’Loughlin, a psychologist. I have loved those books as well, but I have been secretly waiting for the return of Ali Barba.

“When You Are Mine” is not that book.

However, it comes close. The main character is Philomena “Phil” McCarthy, a constable at the Southwark Police Station, London. She has joined the police force despite being the daughter of one of the most notorious crimelords in England. Her parents divorced and her mother tried her best to keep her from her father’s world.

Phil has not seen her father, since remarried to the annoying Constance, in six years. Her father’s sixtieth birthday is coming up, and Constance has been relentless in trying to get Phil to visit. Truth be told, Phil has fond memories of her father’s large and boisterous family. Her uncles, all criminals, were kind to her and still love her. Blood is thicker than employment affiliations, apparently.

Henry, Phil’s fiancé, knows about her family and is intimidated but not bowed. With eyes wide open, they are beginning to plan their wedding. 

That’s when the manure hits the fan. In answering a domestic violence call, Phil runs afoul of Detective Sergeant Darren Goodall, the man suspected of beating his girlfriend, Temperence “Tempe” Brown. Tempe is grateful for Phil’s guidance and sympathy. DS Goodall is livid and vindictive. In the course of helping Tempe escape Goodall, Phil befriends her and opens up to her. Tempe seems to know what Phil needs; she can help with wedding plans and organize pantry items. Okay, you can say it with me. Ready? “If it seems too good to be true, it probably is.”

It turns out Phil knows Tempe under a different name. She went to school with a Maggie Brown. Something happened, and Maggie transferred out. Maggie=Tempe. Perhaps the only thing I can fault Phil for is being too slow to realize something is amiss with Tempe, but then part of the book wouldn’t have existed. So, yay for slow. But this seems minor compared to the take-down Goodall is laying on Phil. Working his connections, Goodall is making it seem that Phil is a stalker and conniver, or worse.

Perhaps Phil’s father can help?

And there you have the mixings for a complex plot for a book. Happy reading!

P.S. Once again, if I need to state it bluntly, Michael Robotham has created a female character with warmth and depth. Bonus: Her family, most assuredly guilty of heinous crimes, also has warmth and depth.

The Shining Girls by Lauren Beukes

Mulholland Books, 363 pages, $16.090 (c2014)

I’m torn between admiration and confusion about “The Shining Girls,” by South African author Lauren Beukes [“Beukes, rhymes with ‘mucus’. Or, if you prefer, ‘George Lucas’. (That’s the anglicised version, of course. The correct Afrikaans pronunciation is slightly different, but I grew up English-speaking).” — from Lauren Beukes' website]

On the one hand it is a recognizable serial killer story. A man with a compulsion — we’ll discuss that further in a bit — kills young women in a violent, ritualistic way. He takes trophies; he leaves a calling card. There is a young woman who was an incomplete victim several years ago. She is trying to find her would-be killer and avenge herself. She has the help of a washed-up reporter, reassigned from the homicide beat to sports. (No offense to sports writers.) She still lives in Chicago where her attack and the murders of the other victims took place.

Beukes reveals from the start who the killer is. The murders range from the 1930s to the 1990s. And here is the first trick. The killer travels through time. I wouldn’t, however, classify this as a science fiction book, although I would attach the word “horror” on a long string to the plot. This is the confusion. Not real confusion, but just stylistic confusion. Mostly the book reads in a straightforward manner, despite all the time traveling. The women who are murdered have their own short stories. They are sweet, or sad, or angry, or hopeful.

Harper is nuts and obsessed. The device which allows him to time travel may feed that obsession. There is no doubt he was damaged to begin with, but then he is handed the ultimate murder assistant. It is a wonder there aren’t more victims. Keep in mind, though, that despite the spread in years of the murders, to Harper, it is not a matter of 60 years but months.  

Kirby, the young woman who escaped being 100 percent killed by Harper, has had her whole life jumbled and smashed by her trauma. She somehow still manages to be smart, brave — sometimes foolishly so — and intense. Her mother is ineffective in giving her solace, but that is not due to the attack; it’s just who her mother is.

Kirby is going to college in 1993 when her part of the book starts. She receives an internship at one of the Chicago newspapers. She has asked to be assigned to Dan because he knows about her case, although he doesn’t recognize her at first. Slowly, she persuades him to help uncover other murders that might have a similar modus operandi. It is difficult to assemble information because, well, the killer travels through time.

There’s no true attempt to explain how it is that Harper has a device that allows him to time travel, how the victims have been pre-selected for him, their names emblazoned on the wall of the magic house, shining and calling to him, how he knows automatically how to find his victims, both in their youth and again at the time of their deaths. It simply is. Perhaps the ending is a hint; maybe evil exists at all times, in all places, that some people are just doomed to die in a certain way.

The stories of the women slated to die are tiny gems shining in the book. These women do shine. They shine in their despair, desperation, hope, innocence, stubbornness. Never mind Harper. Never mind Dan. Maybe even never mind Kirby. They just tie all the stories together after all.