A Dark and Twisted Tide by Sharon Bolton, aka S. J. Bolton

Minotaur Books, 448 pages, $21.99 (paperback)  (c2014)

I have a tremendous (tremendous!) number of books waiting to be read. Every once in a while I grab something from down deep in the pile, resist the siren call of newer titles, and dig in. “A Dark and Twisted Tide” is what I plucked out of the grab bag and it actually made it to the finish line.* That’s because it had a couple of elements I couldn’t resist.

First, the heroine of the story, Lacey Flint, recreationally swims in the Thames. How clean is that river, really? How clean was it in 2014, when the book as issued. There is even a warning at the end by the author: “Please do NOT swim in the tidal Thames. Lacey Flint is a fictional character and a reckless one at that. The Thames is deep, fast, and dangerous.” Ooo, doggie! That is enough to get me started.

In addition, as if I needed more incentive, the part of the Thames where Lacey swims and lives (on a houseboat) is haunted by stories of “The Mermaid.” She is spoken of in whispers, and seemingly, just by one who has seen her to another who has seen her. If you know, you know. Lacey has seen her. Maybe.

“A Dark and Twisted Tide” is actually Bolton’s fourth Lacey Flint novel. I read it without having read the others (or, more accurately, having remembered if I had read any other), and it did not disappoint. Lacey has demoted herself to the river patrol unit of the police from a being detective with the crime squad. Her boyfriend is in the wind and may have delved a little too deeply into the underworld in which he is supposedly undercover. Her ex-boss still thinks highly of her and doesn’t mind when a series of dead bodies brings Lacey back to an association with her department.

The dead bodies are all of young women of Middle Eastern descent. They are bizarrely wrapped like mummies in linen sheets, drowned in the Thames, and weighted down to live forever in the depths below. Except a couple corpses pop up to pique Lacey’s curiosity. What is an officer to do when a corpse literally bobs up in front of you while you are navigating the waters?

Are the women victims of a human smuggling operation? a sex ring? a racist serial killer? to assuage family honor? All the clichéd reasons of why there are dead Middle Eastern women float to the top along with the corpses.

There’s enough tension, sideways glances, and personal revelation to make a solid story.

* As an aside, this book has been in my pile since it was an ARC in 2014!

Edgar Award Nominees

The Edgar Awards will be presented on April 28. See the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Awards webpage: https://edgarawards.com for the complete list of nominees in the various categories.

These are the nominees we have reviewed so far. Most of them are nominated for the Best Novel of 2021.

Venice Sketchbook, by Rhys Bowen (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../the-venice-sketchbook...

Five Decembers, by James Kestrel (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../five-decembers-by...)

No One Will Miss Her, by Kat Rosenfield (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../no-one-will-miss-her...

Never Saw Me Coming, by Vera Kurian (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../never-saw-me-coming...)

Suburban Dicks, by Fabian Nicieza (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../suburban-dicks-by...)

Razorblade Tears, by S. A. Cosby (https://mbtb-books.blogspot.com/.../razorblade-tears-by-s...)

Razorblade Tears by S. A. Cosby

Flatiron Books, 336 pages, $17.99 (c2021)

This has been nominated for an Edgar Award.

S. A. Cosby’s most widely known books, “Blacktop Wasteland” and this book, “Razorblade Tears,” weren’t published until the author was in his 40s. His success is due to his perseverance and his outstanding writing.

“Razorblade Tears” is grim and compelling. After each chapter was finished, I gulped and gasped as if there weren’t enough air. I don’t find the word “propulsive” attractive except when referring to jet fuel, but were I to use that word I would use it for this book. Cosby knows how to keep his audience reading.

What Buddy Lee and Ike have in common: They are both fathers and grandfathers. They have both served time in prison. Life pitched them down and it has been hard to claw their way up. They are disgusted that their sons were gay. Their sons are dead.

What Buddy Lee and Ike don’t have in common: Buddy Lee is white and Ike is Black. Buddy Lee is unemployed, lives in a trailer, and consumes a lot of beer. Ike has built up a successful lawn care business during the fifteen years he has been out of prison.

Derek, Buddy Lee’s son, was married to Isiah, Ike’s son. Neither of their fathers attended the wedding or would talk to their sons in any meaningful way. Derek and Isiah’s daughter, Arriana, is three. After Derek and Isiah were recently murdered, Ike and his wife, Mya, took over raising her. 

Too late, Ike is trying to come to terms with his son's homosexuality and the fact that he no longer has an opportunity to tell him he loves him, something that went unsaid for a long time. Buddy Lee and his wife parted ways years ago. She remarried someone who is racist and homophobic. She’s no great shakes herself in the area of tolerance. Buddy Lee is no saint and despised his son's “choice,” but between Ike and Buddy Lee, Buddy Lee is the one who is opening his heart.

Buddy Lee thinks he needs to atone for his past thinking by finding his son’s killer. He goads Ike into helping. It is a partnership forged in hell. Buddy Lee is racist and keeps putting his foot into his mouth around Ike. Ike hates Buddy Lee. The partnership starts off rocky and for every step forward, there are a couple of steps back. Of the two of them, Ike is the one who is built to intimidate. His old street name was “Riot.” He has killed before and is fighting with his better self to bring himself to kill again. It’s a short battle.

It’s a lesson in cutting to the chase when Buddy Lee and Ike begin to do some investigation. Grrr. Crack. Smash. Shake, shake, shake. They slowly build on the information they “acquire.” One clue is getting to a woman, Tangerine, who may be the reason the young men were killed. More grr-ing, cracking, smashing, and shaking ensue.

While grim and violent, the book is not without some dark humor, mostly provided by Buddy Lee. Here’s Buddy when two men are giving him a beating:

The first monster that approached him had a mustache so full it was like a cat had taken up residence on his upper lip. The other grizzly bear was so cockeyed Buddy Lee figured he could see around a corner without turning his damn head.

Buddy Lee went at them like a windmill on legs. He swung on Cockeyed while he kicked a Cat Stache. 

 

Even though it is 2021 book, here is an MBTB star! I think it counts that I’ve had the book since 2021!

Girl in Ice by Erica Ferencik

Gallery/Scout Press, 304 pages, $27.99

Portland has stuttered on the axis and turned back towards winter. After surviving an April snowstorm (quelle horreur!), of course I picked up a book about death in the Arctic! It made my piddling 30+ degree weather seem absolutely balmy.

Val Chesterfield is a professor and linguist. She has a working knowledge of some rare languages, one of which is West Greenlandic. It doesn’t come as a surprise, then, when she is asked by Professor Wyatt Speeks to see if she can communicate with a girl about eight years old who was dug out from inside a glacier, thawed, and brought back to life. Say, what?

Furthermore, Wyatt was mentor to Val’s brother Andy, her twin. Andy’s recent death right outside the front door of Wyatt’s research facility in Tarramiut Station, Greenland, has haunted Val since it happened. “Remote” doesn’t adequately describe the facility. “Cold” doesn’t begin to describe it either. Andy froze to death. He shouldn’t have been out of the main station at night, all alone. This is background to explain why Val, a depressed person with crippling anxiety, even would think about accepting Wyatt’s invitation. Also, Val’s father, an old codger, thinks Wyatt murdered Andy. He bullies Val into accepting the offer.

With a full supply of pills and the hope that there is adequate liquor at the station, Val shakily ventures forth. The research station is only accessible by plane when the weather isn’t bad. That area of the world is getting to the end of the habitable season, so the daylight is rapidly dwindling, the temperature is dropping, and the window for flying in or out is closing.

Also dropping into the station are two young polar divers, a married couple, Nora and Rajeev Chandra-Revard. They are giggly, passionate, and looking forward to the challenge of exploring how climate change has affected Arctic waters. Raj doesn’t accept that Wyatt chipped out an “ice girl” and revived her. What’s the gimmick, he wonders.

Already at the station is Wyatt’s assistant, Jeanne, a mechanic, cook, bottle washer, mysterious mother earth figure. Val will be rooming with Jeanne for the seven weeks she is scheduled to be at the station. 

Wyatt is determined to understand what the young girl has to say. So far, she has been more like a child who was raised by wolves than someone ready to communicate with everyone.

Val realizes the immense task ahead of her when she thinks the girl has not vocalized any root words Val can associate with any known language. The girl takes to drawing, however, so there is that one advantage. But all she will draw are circles. Then she graduates to a bird of sorts. Val treats her like an English-as-a-second-language student, but the girl refuses to learn in a normal fashion. Val feels frustration but also an attraction to the mystery of the girl’s origin. Is it all an elaborate hoax?

Val treats everyone with suspicion. There is no doubt Andy froze to death. But why was he outside inadequately dressed? Andy wasn’t around when the ice girl was discovered, so it can’t be related to that, could it?

There is a weather phenomenon happening around the world. A sudden storm hits all kinds of communities with freezing winds. People are flash frozen and killed before they can react, a sort of hyper-piteraq, a Greenland katabatic wind. (You can look it up, too!) Weather chaos is the curse that keeps on giving.

There is no doubt in Val’s mind that something is amiss, but is it real or is it the product of Val’s disintegrating mental state?

“Girl in Ice” is a thrilling book with a lot of hooks to catch readers who like unusual twists. Sometimes, however, the book seems to take a step forward and two steps back, which mires the book a little. Mostly, though, it ran smoothly forward. The ending was appropriately shocking. And the underlying message of climate catastrophe on the horizon has not been lost.

When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East by Quan Barry

Pantheon, 320 pages, $27.99

This is not a mystery, but it plays with the mystery and mysticism of Buddhism, specially Tibetan Buddhism.

Two young twin boys were released by their family to join the local monastery. All they had known to that point was their family's herding existence on the pastures of Mongolia. At the monastery they learn to be monks. One of them, Mun, is exalted to the Redeemer Who Sounds the Conch in the Darkness. Unlike other Buddhist sects, Tibetan Buddhists believe in the reincarnation of the special enlightened ones. Members of the Buddhist monasteries are sent out on quests to find the reincarnated holy one after his last incarnation dies. Mun is an incarnation. Although he is very young when he is exalted to his role, he nevertheless has more spiritual power than the other monks and is revered.

Mun's brother Chuluun, the narrator of the book, serves by Mun's side, although he is mostly just a regular monk. After Mun grows up, he suddenly casts off his robes and leaves the monastery, renouncing his vows. Chuluun is very lonely without him; the twins share the ability to sense each other's thoughts. Chuluun leaves for the faraway big city of Ulaanbaatar.

The Buddhist wheel turns on and another venerated figure dies. It is the mission of Chuluun to aid his mentor and other people with locating the reincarnated holy one. Because they pass through Ulaanbaatar, Chuluun asks his twin to accompany them. To Chuluun's surprise, Mun says yes.

There aren't a lot of landmarks to guide their journey throughout Mongolia, but these are no tourists venturing out to interview three young candidates spread far and wide. (And Mongolia is wide.) I love that the book is part travelogue.

But what is "When I'm Gone, Look for Me in the East" really about? (In her biography, Quan Barry says she was born in Saigon and was raised in Boston.) Her "story" is about the nature of Buddhism. Through Chuluun, she tells of the obstacles mortals must overcome to attain enlightenment. The primary tenet of Buddhism is all life is about suffering and the end of suffering. To participate in this cycle, is to rid oneself of desire. What are young men like Chuluun and Mun about but desire?

Barry has created tranquility and anxiety in her book. She asks the right questions. And you will love the character of Little Bat.

The Venice Sketchbook by Rhys Bowen

Lake Union Publishing, 411 pages, $14.95 (c2021)

“The Venice Sketchbook” has been nominated for an Edgar Award.

Wartime romance. Venice. Art. What more do you need? The end.

Well, maybe a little more description.

Rhys Bowen — of Evan Evans and Molly Murphy fame — has channeled Mary Stewart and given her readers a novel of love and danger set before and during World War II.

Juliet Browning has left her drab, repetitive life in England to study art for one year in Venice. Although she is slightly older than her fellow art students, she still manages to form friendships and have a good time. Her joy is enhanced by meeting again a dark-haired, dashing Venetian, a count, no less, named Leo. She had met him a few years before when an elderly aunt took her to Italy for a cultural tour. They only had a day or so at the time, but it was love at first sight and for the ages. Of course. Then they meet again years later. Juliet is an adult and Leo is attractive.

The story switches often to a story told by Caroline Grant, another Englishwoman, but one whose time is now. Her great-aunt Lettie has died and left her enough money to travel to Venice to scatter her ashes. Among Aunt Lettie’s few possessions are art sketches. They are quite good and Caroline is amazed to find that her aunt had such a passion. There are also some keys.

Good fortune follows Caroline in her quest to find out more of her aunt’s life in Venice and she manages to discover what the keys open. They open the past.

Caroline, too, manages to find a dark and attractive stranger, Luca, to help her in her quest. One of the keys fits a small apartment at the top of a building belonging to Luca’s family. It turns out the apartment belongs to Aunt Lettie and, therefore, now belongs to Caroline.

Juliet’s story is told by her in bits and pieces. She has come to love Venice. So she stays for one reason or another even after Hitler begins attacking countries. Even after Italy enters the war.

Rhys Bowen is a good storyteller. She creates tension without inducing panic and fear in her readers. In her writing, she tries to show her basic belief that most humans are very good. It’s a sweet, melancholy story.

The Impossible Us by Sarah Lotz

Ace, 496 pages, $17

This is not a murder mystery, although there may be one or two murders revealed at the very end.

"The Impossible Us" is about Bee and Nick and their romance. Remember Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan in “You’ve Got Mail”? Remember Patricia Highsmith’s “Strangers on a Train”? Remember “Spiderman: Into the Spider-verse”? Rrrrr. That’s the sound of the tumbler tumbling all those ideas and mixing them up. Ta-dah! “The Impossible Us.”

Nick is a writer who has failed to publish a good book. He has resorted to ghostwriting and editing other people’s manuscripts. (A note: Personally, I think this is a highly honorable and difficult profession, but “The Impossible Us” seems to belittle it. It’s fiction. What can I say?) His last client, a rich posh person, has neglected to pay Nick for his recent, arduous work. So Nick fires off an irate (but caustically funny) email demanding money. The email goes astray and lands in Bee’s mailbox.

Bee has failed at a relationship (boo, hiss, Nate!) and her job keeps her indoors refashioning wedding gowns for disappointed brides. (“How about an asymmetrical jacket with a peplum?”) Until she gets Nick’s funny — to her — email, her days are dull and she has mostly neglected her social life.

You know how this is going to go, don’t you? Nick and Bee meet cute, are attracted cute, and — what’s the next step? They don’t know what the other looks like, so their attraction is based on their text exchanges. They are both good at writing their thoughts out, and soon become fluent and unselfconscious about their happiness and misery.

That takes us through quite a bit of the book. Finally it was time for the meet cute. And that takes up the rest of the book.

I am reluctant to tell you what that part of the book is about, because it’s Sarah Lotz’ secret weapon. I’ll say this: The problems Nick and Bee encounter are different, quirky, and daunting. 

Patricia Highsmith gets lots of mention. There is probably at least one murder. But that is not the focus of the book. I read one other Lotz book and she crafts a twisty plot effortlessly.

I loved this book. (Also, the "Mandela Effect" reference.)

No One Will Miss Her by Kat Rosenfield

William Morrow, 304 pages, $27.99

“No One Will Miss Her” has been nominated for an Edgar Award.

This book would have been massively better (and more surprising) had I not read the inner flap description. As it was, given the glaring hint, I figured out whodunnit after the first chapter. Be that as it may, I soldiered on.

A body is discovered in a rental cabin in a rural community in Maine. Although her face has been blown off by a shotgun, there is no doubt among the male police officers present that the victim was Lizzie Ouellette. Why are they so certain? There is a quite visible mole on one of her breasts. Lizzie had "a reputation." Never mind she had a husband, Dwayne Cleaves — where is he, by the way? Bingo, case solved. Dwayne killed Lizzie.

It is disconcerting to discover that many of the chapters are written in the first person by Lizzie, à la “The Lovely Bones.” Through her narrative we discover what a painful childhood she had as she got older. Her father was a loving man who tried his best. When they were poor, he shot squirrels for dinner. Lizzie thought it was a treat. But he couldn’t protect her from the school bullies who called her “trash,” mostly because that was her father’s business, tending a trash heap. Kids are cruel. Then those kids grow up and find other ways to show their cruelty.

The local police think they’ve sewn up the case, but along comes hotshot Maine criminal investigator, Ian Bird. He starts poking his nose into things and looks hard at the last occupants of the rental cabin, Adrienne and Ethan Richards, from Boston. Ethan is a disgraced investment banker who lost gazillions of dollars in investors’ money. He is lucky he is not in jail. In fact, he is so lucky to still have massive quantities of assets still available to him. Adrienne preens for Instagram and Facebook and her tens of loyal followers. It sucks to be married to a criminal. Ethan is a non-entity but Adrienne has some hidden depths.

Readers only have to wait until halfway through the book for the plot to begin its twisty churn towards the end.

Kat Rosenfield is a competent writer. Although her locals sound brutish, they also sound very human in their nastiness. Poor Lizzie.

Under Lock and Skeleton Key by Gigi Pandian

Minotaur Books, 352 pages, $26.99

I had been reading a lot of dour, serious books, most of which got eliminated after about twenty pages, when I first picked up “Under Lock and Skeleton Key.” I read a few pages and my first thought was, this is too light. So I put it down. But over the next few days, I found myself thinking about how Gigi Pandian’s book had a lot of intriguing elements in it. The tone was clean-cut and throw-back. There were shades of Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys — although I am a die-hard Brains Benton fan — and I renamed Pandian’s book, “The Mystery of the Lock and Skeleton Key.”

What were those intriguing elements? Tempest Raj, the protagonist, is a defrocked magician. Something went wrong with her high-powered Las Vegas act, and she was left to skulk back to her family’s compound in Northern California, in a town named Hidden Creek. She is of mixed heritage; her grandfather came from India and her grandmother from Scotland. Her parents were just as quirkily matched, “What happens when a carpenter and a stage magician fall in love? They form a Secret Staircase Construction business to bring magic to people through their homes.”

There is a family legend/curse that the oldest child of the Raj family dies prematurely. Of the more recent generations, the victims have included her grandfather Ashok’s older brother and her mother’s older sister. And in defiance of the oldest child rule, Tempest’s mother also died in a suspicious manner a few years before “Under Lock” begins.

(An early P.S.: I commend Gigi Pandian for managing flashback information without indulging in convoluted, confusing chapters of flashbacks.)

(Another P.S.: There are many magicians in this book, but if you are looking for revelations, or even major descriptions, of magic secrets, you can move along. But then you’d be missing a really great book.)

Not only is twenty-six-year-old Tempest out of work and motherless, but a few years back she managed to scuff up the relationship with her best friend from public school days. Fortunately, Ivy, the ex-best friend, works for Darius, Tempest’s father, so can't help but meet occasionally. Darius still owns the small company specializing in constructing hidden rooms, secret staircases, trompe l’oeil, and other architectural illusions. Darius was the person who brought the stories of Emma, Tempest’s mother, to life. The company was in demand at the start. But not so much lately. The stories died when Emma died. And the customers liked stories.

Needless to say, the family compound is a treasure trove of architectural misdirection. There are secret “keys” to access rooms in the house. It’s not just the stereotypical pulling on a book on a bookshelf to activate a hidden door; there are hidden buttons and keyholes, including panels with secret triggers and floors with switches. Tempest lives in the tower (accessed by a secret staircase, natch). It is while she is alone in the tower that she begins to hear a fiddle being played. It is playing a tune Tempest’s mother used to play. No one else has heard the ghostly, midnight serenade. Is Tempest out of work, humiliated in the magicians’ world, AND going crazy?

Then a body appears lodged in a space where it could not possibly have been lodged. The body appears in the house of a customer for whom Darius is remodeling a kitchen pantry. The owner of the house has no connection to the Raj family, but the body has a definite connection to Tempest. What is going on?

The delight of this book is also in the many characters Pandian introduces. Besides Ivy, Tempest’s friend and fellow magician, Sanjay, surfaces to help. Some of the people in the construction company are almost like family. Ashok and Morag moved to California to be with Tempest’s family, and in his retirement, Ashok has taken to cooking with much gusto. Some of his Indian-Scottish dishes are at the center of the family's feasts for friends.

Although the full extent of what happened to Tempest during her magic act in Las Vegas is not revealed for quite a while, the incident  almost killed her. Plus, there may be multiple lawsuits stemming from it. Plus, her contract with the venue hosting her act was terminated. Plus, she lost whatever money she had settling debts.

Life is grim at the moment for Tempest. The haunting music adds to her unease. The dead body is the capper. If it weren’t for her friends and family supporting her, Tempest would more than likely have curled into a ball in a corner and stayed there. (Not really, because she’s not that kind of heroine.)

In the best tradition of childhood mysteries — although I think this is meant to be an adult book — the protagonist is plucky, intelligent, intuitive, and intrepid. Many, many things are unexpected. I love the idea of hidden rooms. I love the idea of Indian-Scottish food. I love the ideas of truth, justice, and family mystery. I didn’t even need the stuff I usually complain about books not having: People needing to be people -- sleep? bathroom facilities? teeth-brushing? shower? At least there’s a lot of eating.

MBTB "Rx": This is a cozy that actually makes you feel better.