An Ordinary Decent Criminal, by Michael Van Rooy ($14.99) (c2005)

Now here's a refreshingly odd voice! Career criminal Montgomery Uller Haaviko has changed his name to Sam Parker, moved his young family to Winnipeg, and is trying to get a job in the straight world. As if.

As if the world would let him. Surely one of the points that Canadian author Michael Van Rooy makes is that it is difficult to go straight after being in prison for all sorts of crimes, large and small, and after using a young lifetime's worth of all sorts of nasty addictive substances.

As if it would be easy to break from thinking like a criminal, to not jones after those nasty substances, to have other people give you a break.

Monty/Sam is letting the past go, he is finding ways to deal with the anger that builds up inside him, and he knows if he screws up his wife, Claire, will take their baby, Fred, and he will never see them again. If he were lucky, she would leave him Renfield, their dog, and the mouse who lives in an aquarium.

Right off the bat, right after moving into their rented home in Winnipeg, burglars -- of all the nasty insults -- break into Sam's home at night. Using James Bond-like skills, he kills them all. Just in case, his naked wife has his back, armed with a baby and a bayonet.

Justified or not, excessive force or not, Sam now has a local mobster after him, and police sergeant Enzio Walsh thinks he has hit the criminal jackpot, never mind that Sam has done his time, shaken off all his drugs, and no longer associates with the criminal world. Now the new neighbors don't think too highly of him either. Pretty spectacular work for the first 24 hours.

"An Ordinary Decent Criminal" is a very clever, wry story of an unusual man. It's also a manual in how-to do many things criminal. (Don't try this at home!) I haven't heard such a compelling, unexpected voice since Josh Bazell's "Beat the Reaper." Van Rooy keeps the reader off balance; it is impossible to guess where he will take his story next. The author manages to craft a story that's always moving but that lauds the quiet moments in his protagonist's life. The story is often violent and tough, but has a graceful presence.

A Cursed Inheritance, by Kate Ellis (British ed.)

This was a British, psychological, psycho killer book, with intertwined storylines and the requisite twist at the end. This is the first Kate Ellis I've read, and I think I missed the much-needed background on the relationships that the series' characters have with each other by reading a book so far into the series. Some of that stuff fell flat for me.

The description on the back cover says that this is a West Country crime novel that features "Wesley Peterson, one of Devon's first black detectives." Wesley studied archaeology at university, and he's a thinker when it comes to solving crime.

A client of a spa claims her jewels have been stolen. The body of an obscure true crime writer is found in the local river. Meanwhile in the U.S., two centuries-old skeletons have been disinterred, with musket balls signaling that the cause of death was by unnatural means. How do these relate to a decades-old murder of six people in a mansion?

This book is very readable, but I had a problem with Wesley. He realized that a couple of the people peripheral to the crimes might be in danger. He does nothing to protect them, except later wish he had done something to protect them. (Thus advancing the plot dramatically, however.) He has an awkward relationship with his wife that needs mending, doesn't see his two children much -- and one of them a baby -- and he passively-aggressively flirts with a co-worker and the widow of the murdered man. Maybe I'd feel more kindly towards him had I read the prior books.

The Good Thief's Guide to Paris, by Chris Ewan ($14.99)

Hmmm. Chris Ewan and his books may be the literary equivalent of seeing a bunch of infinite selves in a couple of mirrors. Ewan's main character, Charlie Howard, is a thief who writes caper novels about a thief. Of course, very few people know that Charlie is a thief. His fence knows. And his literary agent, Victoria. And not too many people in-between. Charlie likes keeping his legal and extra-legal selves separated. He even submitted a false picture for his dust jacket.

Charlie is in Paris trying to write his next novel. Victoria may know that Charlie is a thief, but she does not know what he looks like. She thinks he is a suave, sophisticated world-traveler. What would make her think that? Why, the picture on his dust jacket, of course.

So, let's pause for a minute and ask what's the story with Chris Ewan? Have you seen his author's picture on his website? It screams suave, sophisticated world-traveler, if you ask me. And is Chris Ewan a burglar? Perhaps only his fence and literary agent know the answer.

What I do know is that this book is amusing, highly creative, and enjoyable reading. And instructive. There's even a lock-picking tutorial at the end.

In the book there are break-ins, a dead body, double-crosses and double-double-crosses, lots of Parisian atmosphere, and a charming protagonist.

The Dewey Decimal Systen, by Nathan Larson ($15.95)

Although the basic premise may seem familiar ("Caveman's Valentine," Rosemary Aubert's Ellis Portal series, "Gun, with Occasional Music," "The Zero," and even "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time"), Nathan Larson puts his own definite spin on it. Take a character with a psychological difficulty, in this case obsessive-compulsive disorder, place him in a time after another, but more disastrous, 9/11 in New York City, give him a memory shot full of holes, and make him a vet, probably physically and psychologically manipulated, not by the enemy but by the U.S. military. Bingo! You have "The Dewey Decimal System."

Of course, Dewey Decimal is not his real name. He doesn't or won't remember what his real name is. He talks sporadically of events in his lifetime, or they could be episodes implanted in his brain. He lives in the devastated New York Public Library and is working, compulsively, to organize the books. He is currently still on the 000s. But that's his passion. His livelihood is as muscle for a corrupt New York City D.A., in whatever form that occupation still exists.

There are still police and FBI agents, but they are warped shadows of what used to be. In this post-apocalyptic New York, decimated by both the bombs of 2/14 and a subsequent super-flu, the rules of play are written behind the scenes and under the table. Gangsters of every stripe, especially of Eastern European and Russian origin, run the game. It's hard to know where everyone's loyalties lie. And that is Dewey Decimal's world.

Nathan Larson's book is a rocket ride through this world. His hero is charming but ruthless, quirky with his own moral code. Dead bodies virtually fling themselves all over the pages of the book, mounting in increasing numbers as the book reaches its denouement. (Does Larson have Quentin Tarantino on his speed dial?)

Bring on the Purell (™). I'm ready for the next installment.