February 2006 Fiction and Mystery Reviews

Rampart Street
by David Fulmer

Harcourt
Hardcover
ISBN# 0151010242
Suggested Retail Price: $25.00 or as low as $12.50 from Amazon.com!

Fulmer is an excellent tour guide for the old New Orleans. He takes us down streets with names we have only dreamed about. We know some of the names and some of the places but this tale is out of our time.

Detective Valentine St.Cyr works for the boss of Storyville. That is, he did work for him. Now he has returned to this job after recovering from an earlier disastrous manhunt and mystery. The new plot concerns the murder of a wealthy white businessman. His body is found in the red light district of Rampart Street. What was he doing here, and how will his family handle the shame of it?

Author Fulmer takes us through a lot of famous Jazz names and hotspots, but he is most concerned with Buddy Boulden and Jelly Roll Morton. Me, too! This is my favorite kind of music, and the words just make the plot even more sensitive to me. The victim's daughter demands that a proper investigation takes place and who else but Valentin should be the best detective to hire.

Enjoy the smoky music and the twists and turns of the politics of New Orleans. It's a very good story, as were the earlier St Cyr adventures. This is fiction, but it feels real.

On The Run
by Iris Johansen

Bantam

ISBN# 055380343-3
Suggested Retail Price: $26.00 or as low as $11.00 from Amazon.com!

Iris Johansen breaks away from her Eve Duncan series to introduce us to a new plot and new characters. Grace Archer is introduced to us as a horse-whisperer who is hiding out on a small farm. She is protected by the CIA where she was a first class member of an elite group.

Grace has a daughter, Frankie whom she has been raining alone. The father is a former agent and her former partner. She is holding a king seized grudge against him believing that he caused her father's death.

One day the farm is attacked, and Grace and her daughter are on the run to another hiding place. The attacker wants to bring Grace back to an Arab sheik's compound to train his very special horses. The horses are a pair of pure white Arabians. They both have blue eyes. They are mean, and no one has been able to calm then down. Grace had worked with them in the past and seemed to able break them in. "The Pair," as they are known, are believed to be able to guide the sheik to an area were special plans are hidden. They are worth a lot of money.

All through the book there is a love/hate relationship between Grace and her former partner and lover. Do hang in through this silly romance, because the second half of the book is well worth reading. It's exciting and you have some great characters to root for... including the horses.

The Sacred Cut
by David Hewson

Delacorte Press
Hardcover
ISBN# 038533849X
Suggested Retail Price: $22.00 or as low as $13.50 from Amazon.com!

It's snowing on the ancient streets of Rome. In the center of the city and under the Pantheon Dome there is a body. It’s a woman and she was carefully positioned so that a gruesome carving on her back showing. Rome police work in cooperation with U.S. agents, and an old secret is revealed. After Detective Nic Costa arrives on the scene, he is ambushed and loses his only witness. The dead woman is an American, which explains how the U.S. government becomes involved. They reveal that there have been murders committed in other places in the world with the same cryptic message carved into the backs of the deceased. The plot thickens when a good-looking blond agent tells another story to Nic that has to do with a grand deception.

This is a dark and satisfying mystery. The detective, Nic Costa, is an engaging character. The reader will find this one a page-turner right up to the climax, which will startle you out of your seat!

The Color of Law : A Novel
by Mark Gimenez

Doubleday
Hardcover
ISBN# 0385516738
Suggested Retail Price: $19.95 or as low as $5.95 from Amazon.com!

This is a very readable "feel-good" tale. It's the story of a very successful lawyer whose name is Scott. Scott is a partner in a large firm, and je makes a lot of money. Basically he oversees big business transactions. He knows how to charge his time at exorbitant rates. His clients also call on him to solve personal troubles, and they pay a pretty penny for that service as well.

Suddenly Scott is forced by a judge to take on a case of murder. It's a court appointment and he cannot get out of it. The client is a drug addict who's charged with the murder of a prominent man's son. He has to represent this woman, and by doing so he is going to lose everything he values: his wife, his job, and the big bucks he makes. At first he is sure the client is guilty, but as he grudgingly moves further into the case he begins to change his mind.

The story will warm you to this lawyer's history and his losses. He has a delicious young daughter who understands all that is going on and roots for her dad. There are other good characters in the book, and besides mentioning the classic story "To Kill A Mockingbird" many times in the test, you will end up comparing it to that lovely old tale. Not as good, of course, but every bit as heart-warming.