The Third Rail

The Third Rail is Michael Harvey’s third Michael Kelly novel but my own first experience with the author and his series hero. Kelly is a Chicago ex-cop, a man who still has contacts within the department but knows too much about Chicago politics ever to be tempted back into to the job. He much prefers keeping his hand in the game by offering his investigative services to those Chicago citizens in need of a little private help – even though his work sometimes forces him to spend time with Chicago’s slimy mayor.

This time around, Kelly finds himself directly involved in the hunt for a serial killer who is terrorizing his city via several very successful random shootings. Kelly was at the scene of the first killing and he almost caught the killer in a chase through snow-filled Chicago, only to learn later that the killer was purposely sucking him into the investigation. The question is why.

Harvey knows his city well, and even readers who have never been to Chicago are likely to come away from The Third Rail with a sense of what life is like there for the locals. The book’s pivotal element is, in fact, based on a real life 1977 incident in which several L train cars derailed and fell to the ground, killing eleven people in the process. Michael Kelly, nine years old at the time, survived the crash but is still haunted by what he saw and heard that day. Apparently, he is not the only one.

The Third Rail is a nice blend of thriller and police procedural (Kelly gets himself attached to the official investigation as a consultant while working on the sly directly for Mayor Sleazy) and fans of the genre will likely enjoy the ride despite the spare style in which Harvey spins his tale. So much happens to Michael Kelly as he frantically tries to catch up with the shooter that Harvey has little time to develop his secondary characters – and even some of his more important ones. Perhaps readers of the first two Kelly books already know so much about Kelly and those closest to him that this is not problem for them, but first-time series readers will find themselves wishing they had been told more about the Third Rail characters.

And, as it turns out, there are lots of characters and culprits to keep up with: Homeland Security goons, duplicitous FBI agents, crooked cops, psychopaths, corrupt leaders of Chicago’s Catholic archdiocese, a nerdy computer wizard, a girlfriend, and, of course, Mayor Sleazy. So much happens, and happens so quickly, it is little wonder that the characters remain somewhat unrealistic to the very end.

Reading The Third Rail was a bit like frying up a skinny chicken; I kept wishing for a little more meat on the bones. Genre fans who enjoy a more spare approach to their thrillers, however, will probably love this book. If that’s your taste, give this one a shot.

Rated at: 2.5

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)

Mexico City Noir

Mexico City Noir is a collection of 12 crime-related short stories with settings in the various neighborhoods of Mexico City, from its richest to its poorest and most dangerous ones. The most intriguing idea behind publisher Akashic’s Noir series, of which this book is one of many, is that each collection strives to give the reader a good feel for life in the city in which the stories are set. I did not get much of a feel for the city of Boston when I read Boston Noir (the only other book in the series I have read), but this collection is a different story, pun intended. The tales vary widely in tone and style but they all seem to have one theme at their core: the corrupt police system of Mexico City is more dangerous to the common citizen than the criminals the police are supposedly trying to control.

This collection is unusual in another way. This is one of the rare times that the best thing about a short story collection just might be its preface. Editor Paco Ignacio Taibo II has written a striking description of life in Mexico City in the book’s preface entitled “Snow White vs. Dr. Frankenstein.” Taibo obviously loves his city and he correctly finds it to be an exciting and exotic locale in which to set contemporary Mexican fiction. However,Taibo is quick to describe how life for the average citizen of Mexico City is governed by the ever present reality that the local police are to be more feared than trusted. The stories that follow his preface illustrate just how dangerous local policemen can be and why they are such a threat to those they are paid to protect, even to the point that victims of petty crime are often afraid to report the crime to authorities.

Some of the stories are set in contemporary Mexico City; others go back decades in time. Some are told in a rather straightforward manner, some are a little harder to grasp, and one of them reads like something imagined during a bad trip on LSD. What they have in common is an excellent translation into English and the theme that the real danger in Mexico City is a police force that is so very often itself on the wrong side of the law.

These are stories of police brutality, forced confessions, bribes, rapes and assassinations by police gangs, corrupt priests and nuns, transsexuals, homosexual rapes, gangs of children on the city’s streets, homeless people who dare not stop moving during the day for fear of police harassment, and much worse. Those responsible for promoting Mexican tourism cannot be happy with books like this one because the overall impression it leaves with non-Mexican readers is a warning for gringos to stay the hell out of the city for their own good.

Bottom line, this is pretty good noir style fiction but it is definitely of the more depressing variety.

Rated at: 3.0

Reading Ebooks Against the Clock

I've been reading at a frantic pace all afternoon - but not for a reason I like.

For the second time in the past few months, I've had to rush through an ebook so that I could finish it before it disappeared from my Sony Reader. It's not the Reader's fault; it's a fluke in the way the Harris County public library system regulates the use of its ebooks. Keep in mind that there are about 4 million people in this county (almost one of every six Texans lives in Harris County, in fact), so it almost always takes at least two weeks to gain access to one of the system's electronic books.

Because of the high demand for what seems to be a rather limited number of ebook copies, the library does not allow an extension of time for downloaded ebooks. That means the clock begins ticking as soon as a patron's download is finished and, after fourteen 24-hour periods, the book is killed regardless of what page a reader might be on. I get that and I undertand why it has to be that way right now. But, for at least the third time now, I have gone weeks with no checked-out ebooks only to have two or three of them become available to me simultaneously. Because the ebooks are available for just three days after patron notification, that means they have to be read within 16 or 17 days, at most.

I'm not a great fan of ebooks but I do enjoy the opportunity to download books from my library. Unfortunately, demand seems to be outpacing supply of ebooks in the Harris County system at a time when libraries are struggling to balance budgets while putting books, CDs and DVDs on the shelves.

I have mixed emotions about the whole thing, I have to admit. If the supply of ebooks can be increased only by cutting the number of real books on the shelves, is this a good thing? My vote is a definite NO.

As it turns out, I am not particularly thrilled by Mexico City Noir, a short story collection of crime fiction set in that city, and I wonder if my opinion was tainted by my rushed reading of the dozen stories in the collection. Reading against the clock is not an experience I want to repeat any time soon.

Best of 2010, Update 20

I have several new books to consider for a place in my real-time Best of 2010 list this time around: The Secret Speech, Republic, Damp Squid, Mr. Peanut and Horns. These are pretty much all over the map. Two are "political thrillers," one is a literary murder mystery, one fits best in the horror genre, and one is a look at the evolution of the English language.


So, after due consideration, this is what the fiction list looks like after 42 fiction books read:

1. Cutting for Stone - Abraham Verghese (novel)
2. Matterhorn - Karl Marlantes (Vietnam War novel)
3. The Calligrapher's Daughter - Eugenia Kim (novel)
4. Remarkable Creatures - Tracy Chevalier (historical fiction)
5. Drood - Dan Simmons (historical fiction)
6. The Secret Speech - Tom Rob Smith (historical thriller)
7. Far Cry - John Harvey (police procedural)
8. A Fair Maiden - Joyce Carol Oates (novel)
9. Johnny Porno - Charlie Stella (noir crime fiction)
10. The Samaritan's Secret - Matt Beynon Rees (detective fiction)

And the nonfiction list from a total of 14 read so far this year is unchanged:

1. Lies My Mother Never Told Me - Kaylie Jones (memoir)
2. Man of Constant Sorrow - Ralph Stanley & Eddie Dean (biography)
3. Losing My Cool - Thomas Chatterton Williams (memoir)
4. Jane's Fame - Claire Harman (on the evolution of Jane Austen's reputation)
5. The Opposite Field - Jesse Katz - (memoir)
6. The Tennis Partner - Abraham Verghese (1998 memoir)
7. Game Change - John Heilemann & Mark Halperin (political nonfiction)
8. Damp Squid - Jeremy Butterfield (on the evolution of the English language)
9. Top of the Order - Sean Manning, Ed. (baseball essays)
10. A Time to Betray - Reza Kahlili (memoir of Iranian CIA agent)

Five books, two changes:The Secret Speech enters the fiction list at number 6, pushing Not So Perfect off the list, and Damp Squid enters the nonfiction list at number 8, eliminating Goosetown. So these are the best 20 books of the 56 books I've read as of today...and the beat goes on.

Horns

Ig Parrish did something terribly wrong last night. The problem is that, with the exception of one of two rather vague details, he cannot remember exactly what he did to earn the devil's horns that have suddenly sprouted from the top of his head. Ig does remember spending much of the night ranting about God and organized religion at the base of the isolated old tree under which his girlfriend had been murdered just a year ago. Now, unlike the hangover he had every reason to expect, he understands these horns won't go away by the end of the day.

He thinks maybe he deserves his new horns. After all, local law enforcement officers and just about everyone else in his home town believe that he has gotten away with the brutal rape and murder of his longtime girlfriend. Even Ig's parents are fairly sure that he did it, something he only learned accidentally by allowing his parents to see the new horns atop his head. The horns seem to compel others to speak aloud their deepest secrets - something they will not remember doing as soon as Ig and his horns are out of sight.

Horns is about Ig Parrish, an empathetic young man whose loyalty to someone who saved his life a decade earlier will come back to bite him over and over again. He has only ever loved one woman, a relationship that began when Ig met her in church when they were both fifteen years old. Suddenly, on one terrible night, she was snatched from him forever. But now, with the help of his new horns, Ig just might be able to make someone pay for what they did - or maybe not.

I almost gave up on this one. There is enough of what I consider to be a rather juvenile type of humor of the "gross out" variety that I was bored with the first quarter of the book. Then, Hill's humor became more subtle and the characters, although they are never all that realistic, became somewhat more believable. Horns has an intricate plot, one told by flashbacks in which the same action is sometimes recounted from more than one point-of-view. That device often works well for Hill but I was frustrated by the occasions when the repeating of a scene provided very little new information to the reader and only seemed to pad the book's almost-400-page length.

Hill, though, ties everything together in a satisfying ending that is well written and almost explains why Ig Parrish was gifted with his own pair of devil's horns in the first place. Frankly, this one turned out to be a good deal better than I would have bet after reading its first 100 pages.

Rated at: 3.5

Mr. Peanut

Alice Pepin was well aware of her allergy to peanuts and she knew that eating even one or two of them would very likely kill her. Yet emergency responders found her dead on the floor of her kitchen with a handful of peanuts in her mouth. Did she commit suicide-by-peanut, as her husband claims, or did David Pepin force his wife to eat the fatal snack? I kind of figured I would know the answer to that question by the time I finished Mr. Peanut, the debut novel Adam Ross toiled over for more than thirteen years, but I have to tell you that I am still not sure what happened in that New York City apartment the day Alice Pepin died. Mr. Ross was kind enough to offer his readers several alternative endings as he closed out his story, so I suppose we can all pick one we like best and move on.

David Pepin is co-owner of the video/computer game design firm that made him and his wife extremely wealthy. Alice teaches in a private school for disturbed children. Money is not a problem for the couple but they are having other problems; Alice is extremely obese and the yo-yo effect of her constant dieting is ruining her health and placing as much emotional stress on David as it does on her. David, in fact, would prefer that Alice keep the weight and lose the stress.

Detectives Sam Sheppard and Ward Hastroll believe that David Pepin is a murderer and they are determined to prove it or force him into a confession. Pepin, though, never flinches and continues to proclaim his innocence. As it turns out, the gut feel that both detectives have about Pepin’s guilt probably come from experiences with their own wives. Both men have daydreamed about the deaths of their wives so often that they intuitively understand what must have driven David Pepin to kill his wife.

Mr. Peanut is an exploration of the evolution of three individual marriages that all end up in the same place. Readers of a certain age will quickly recognize that Detective Sam Sheppard is based on the real life Doctor Sam Sheppard who was convicted of bludgeoning his wife to death, only to be released from prison some years later when his conviction was overturned on appeal. A good portion of the novel explores, in detail, what might have happened between Sheppard and his wife when he was still a doctor at the hospital founded by his father - only in the novel does Sheppard morph into a police detective.

Ward Hastroll, the other detective, has a wife who has refused to get out of bed in his presence for several weeks. Hastroll fantasizes about her death and, at one point, he sells all of their furniture and refuses to provide his wife with food or water for several days. Only when he realizes that she is going to starve herself to death or die of thirst does he begin to feed her again. His is the most broken of marriages.

As Ross moves from marriage to marriage, eerie similarities in the situations become clear and the reader will likely find that the three marriages begin to blend into one very horrible situation. Each husband wants to be free of his wife and is considering murder as the best available option to make that happen. Each wife has been driven to the point of despair and depression by her husband’s insensitivity and lack of passion and is looking for her own way out of the marriage – but, for them, murder is not an option.

My favorite part of the book is the author’s tribute to the films of Alfred Hitchcock (several pages are devoted to a university film class studying the films of Mr. Hitchcock) and the way that David Pepin eventually finds himself in a nerve wracking situation the famous director would have loved. I did, though, find my enthusiasm for the book dwindling as I made my way through each successive section and by the time I reached its ambiguous ending I had grown frustrated by the book’s structure - and the multiple ending approach was the last straw. This is one good idea taken too far.

Rated at: 2.5

(Review Copy provided by Publisher)