The Bricklayer, by Noah Boyd, c2010 ($9.99)

I loved this book.

It was an adventure with puzzles, but then I wasn't reading this for its realistic portrayal or deep social commentary. So it was fun.

There's been a lot of comparison of Steve Vail, the "Bricklayer," to Lee Child's Jack Reacher. True, they are both masters of their own fate and they don't want no stinking bosses, but Vail is way more fun.

Steve Vail used to be an FBI agent. Before he was fired. For insubordination. A few years later the FBI needs him again. They send Deputy Assistant Director Kate Bannon to round him up from Chicago, where he is a bona fide bricklayer. In fact, she has to climb up onto a roof to talk with him while he's buttering up a chimney.

The group Rubaco Pentad is killing enemies and critics of the FBI. In a convoluted, unethical way, that might be a good thing, but the FBI is not amused. Rubaco Pentad wants millions of dollars to stop. The first agent who tried to deliver the money died. The second one disappeared. Uh, oh. Now what do we do? Think, think. Hey, let's use a very smart scapegoat who doesn't work for the FBI anymore. Surprisingly, Steve Vail says yes.

What follows is a clever, albeit overly complicated, series of cat and mouse moves. In its opening gambit with Vail, Rubaco Pentad has Vail in a dark tunnel wired with light-sensitive bombs, punji boards, and no way out. Since that happens in the first third of the book, I don't think I'm spilling too many garbanzos when I tell you that Vail, despite the odds, escapes. (Besides the best part is in how Noah Boyd -- an alias for a former real-life FBI agent -- shows us how.) Vail uses great intuitive and deductive skills to decipher the clues and find the perpetrator. Then another trap is set. Then Vail deciphers more clues. Rinse and repeat.

Great fun.

The Day of Small Things, by Vicki Lane, c2010 ($7.99)

Vicki Lane has a way of giving Appalachia an other-worldly atmosphere. In The Day of Small Things, she mixes romance and Appalachian myth and magic in stories set in the 1930s and the present time. And, yes, it does eventually qualify as a mystery book; there are criminals.

The two stories, which each take up half the book, have very different tones.

In the 1930s, Fronie Gentry tells everyone that her daughter, Least, is simple. Between beating and belittling Least to keep her submissive, Fronie is determined to keep one of her children with her to help on the farm. Life is very hard, no doubt, in Appalachia in the best of times, but this is also the Depression. Mortality rates are high and it's not uncommon for children to die young. Going along to get along, however difficult, is the path of least resistance for Dark Holler families. Despite Fronie's oppressive thumb, Least manages to make a young friend and, before it's too late, to make the acquaintance of her grandmother. Granny Beck is a canny woman, full of Cherokee secrets, spells, and herbal knowledge, all of which she passes along to Least. Then a calamity pitches Least out on her own. Although she is an innocent afoot in the world, she actually makes it no further than a few miles down the road and becomes a semi-prisoner in a local dance hall/house of ill repute. The story gets darker and deeper from there. This part of the book is full of Appalachian cultural details that are intriguing. The chapters switch between various characters' points of view. They are written with an Appalachian voice that is endearing and catchy.

The second half of the book is about Birdie, a woman who has lived in Appalachia all her life. When Dorothy's grandson is kidnapped, she asks her friend Birdie to use her "powers" to help find the grandson. The problems and conveniences described in this part of the book are all too modern. From cell phones to meth to gated estates, the outside world has come to Dark Holler.

Lane has a way with tone and prose that sinks her story right to the heart. Small Things is about family and love and ancient hate. There is a strong mystical and spiritual element, so if that's not your bag, walk on by this book. However, Lane isn't preachy or silly with its use. She received an Anthony nomination for In a Dark Season several years ago. That's not surprising. Her writing is strong and evocative. This book reminds me of Ursula Le Guin's fabled series, beginning with The Wizard of Earthsea, in how it addresses balancing the forces of the natural world.

Locked In, by Marcia Muller, c2009 ($7.99)

This book will give you nightmares. It will make you want to put a phone in your coffin. You will want to take out oodles of disability insurance. Because what if ...

San Francisco P.I. Sharon McCone was shot in the head by an intruder in her office. When she groggily regains consciousness, she finds that she cannot move or talk, but she has perfect awareness, just no way to communicate that. Marcia Muller has been writing Sharon McCone stories since 1977, and this book represents a very different kind of story. With Sharon out of commission in the hospital, her team, relatives, and husband must solve the current caseload to see if one of the open cases brought the intruder to their doorstep.

Dizzingly told from various viewpoints, we follow her main investigators as they doggedly break their cases. We even have insight into Sharon's despair and determination, as her story is told in the first person. She is locked into her own mind, all decked out with nowhere to go.

I really liked Sharon's part of the story. It was told with a great depth of feeling. And, as I said before, it's a nightmare inducer. The rest of the intermingling tales were a little disconcerting. My co-worker John said that in the hands of a lesser writer, it would have been a mess. I will be happy to get back to just Sharon, all the time.

I will say this, however, it was a great gimmick. It got me to read my first Sharon McCone in a couple of years, and I can't wait to read the next up, currently in hardcover, Coming Back.

The Last Run, by Greg Rucka, c2010 (hardcover, $25)

Tara Chace rocks! Or she has a head hard as a rock. Or she has rocks rattling around in her head. Or all of the above.

Tara Chace is Greg Rucka's superspy chick creation. Throughout her adventures in two books and numerous comics, Tara has escaped in the nick of time over and over. If she were a cat, she would have used up her nine lives a long time ago. Now she's finally feeling the draw of home and hearth since the birth of her daughter, Tamsin. Facing the quandary of many modern mothers -- having a job that takes her away a lot -- she balks at having her child mostly raised by a nanny. Worse yet, the danger she often leaps into might leave her daughter parentless. She has tendered her resignation as a "minder," i.e., action-adventure heroine on behalf of Queen and country, and requested quieter office duty. On the verge of making this happen, a serious situation arises in Iran and the powers-that-be say that only Tara will do.

An informer from decades past, now inactive and all but forgotten, has requested that British Intelligence extricate him from Iran. (Oh, by the way, he just happens to be the Ayatollah's nephew.) Just as freedom is within reach and Tara's improbable plan to escape with the informer is succeeding, things go, as the British say, pear-shaped. Rucka does a tremendous job keeping the tension high and the story rolling along. It was hard to put the book down. And I don't say that lightly.

Luckily, Rucka does not sacrifice character development for cinematic extravagance. Telling comments about Tara and her daughter, about Tara's boss, about the other members of Tara's team bring the story to a very human level. For instance:

"She closed her eyes, mind wandering free, instantly finding Tamsin, so far away. The fever, had it broken yet? Was she all right? Then she was seeing Tom Wallace, perfect in memory, a flight of fancy as Tara held their daughter in her arms, showing her to him. Look what we made, look at this beautiful creature we created."

The story isn't everything; people are everything. And Rucka's creations can hold their heads up high.