June 2007 Fiction and Mystery Reviews

Silence
by Thomas Perry

Harcourt
Hardcover
ISBN# 015101289X
Suggested Retail Price: $25.00 or as low as $11.99 from Amazon.com!

Wendy Harper was a LA restauranteur who was in the wrong place at the wrong time several years ago when she witnessed a murder. She was badly beaten and left for dead by the murderer, but managed to survive. Former LAPD detective Jack Till took pity on her and helped her to disappear so completely that not even the mob could find her. Six years later, Till is forced to locate Wendy when her former lover and business partner is charged with her murder. Till can't stand to see the wrong man convicted, and starts searching for Wendy. In the meantime, the killer hires a team of married assassins to follow Jack and murder Wendy.

Silence is a throwback to the hardboiled detective novels popularized by authors like Raymond Chandler and the legendary Dashiell Hammett. And I just loved it. The character of Jack Till is pretty much right out of Central Casting, but the psychotic, cold-blooded, sociopathic assassins made an interesting twist on a story line that would otherwise have been pretty predictable.

Darkhouse
by Alex Barclay

HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
Hardcover
ISBN# 0007195362
Suggested Retail Price: $20.70 or as low as $16.77 from Amazon.com!

Detective Joe Lucchesi is forced into a leave of absence from the NYPD following his involvement in the shooting of a kidnap suspect. After a year of frustration, he takes his wife and son and moves to Ireland. Soon afterward, his son's girlfriend is kidnapped. Joe has a bead on the villains and tries to convince the local cops that he's on the right track, but they give him the cold shoulder.

Its a simple little mystery that takes you through the vagaries of Irish culture and police politics. Makes a fine book for the beach.

Brasyl
by Ian McDonald

Pyr
Hardcover
ISBN# 1591025435
Suggested Retail Price: $25.00 or as low as $12.75 from Amazon.com!

Sci-fi author Ian McDonald takes on a challenging task in bringing three separate plot lines from three different eras together in a single novel. Its a contemporary take on the well-worn parallel universe theme, using Sao Paulo, Brazil as a backdrop. Fans of McDonald's previous novel 'River of Gods' will certainly want to try this one on for size, but newcomers may find it a tough slog.