Elvis Cole's Partner Faces Peril in 'L.A. Requiem'

Review: L.A. REQUIEM (Ballantine Books 2000)
Author: Robert Crais

Elvis Cole is a tough guy private eye – but not too tough. He actually has a soft inner core that makes him slightly less hardened than many protagonists of the hard-boiled genre. Yet, he's hardly a cream puff. In fact, he'll kick ass, if need be. And he has a sardonic sense of humor that makes him reminiscent of Robert Parker's Spenser, except he's in Los Angeles.

Cole has a partner, Joe Pike, who's stoic (to say the least). Hard to read behind his ever-present sunglasses, Pike plays even-more-badass sidekick to Cole's good-hearted, but tough, main character. What's going on inside Pike's head and how he got that way is part of this story.

The plot's set in motion when the young and beautiful Karen Garcia (Pike's ex-girlfriend, it turns out) goes missing and is found murdered in cold blood. The girl is from a wealthy family, whose patriarch hires Cole and Pike to find her, then to monitor the police investigation into her death. The cops aren't happy about having to work with Cole (and extremely unhappy about working with ex-L.A. cop Pike, so Cole ends up being the point person), but the murdered woman's rich father pulls political weight. So Cole gets assigned to work with female detective Samantha Dolan, who's as icy as winter in Minnesota toward Cole. At least, at first. But, of course, that changes.

To read more, go to: http://mysterycrimefiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_la_requiem

'Sandman Slim' is a Hell of a Guy

Review of SANDMAN SLIM (Brilliance Audio 2009)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Richard Kadrey; read by MacLeod Andrews

Okay, here is the setup: A negative thinker named James Butler Stark is a naturally gifted magician in an LA group called the Sub Rosa. He ticks them off with his smart-alecky approach to magic and gets dragged into Hell, known as "Downtown," for 11 years. Of course, being forced to fight supernatural beings in an arena in Hell for over a decade, he builds up some resentment and steals the key to everything, including Earth, and comes back for revenge.

With me so far?

Oh—and this is funny!

Stark lops off heads, makes the heads watch infomercials in a dark closet, and says when you have nothing left and are starting over on Earth, you really only care whether you own socks or not.

As he rages around looking for his old buddies, he runs afoul of Homeland Security, which is of course hooked up with angels (on the side of, get it?) and starts Stark raving about "angel hoo-doo"—he is not a fan.

None of his buds from Hell are here (only the boss Lucifer can get out), but there are angels . . . and some other in-between unsavories called "kissi." Turns out these unworthies are the real bad guys—and the hellions are really just sports-minded scum. Who cares—they can't get out anyhow.

So now Stark is after the kissi—the ones who really dragged him Downtown and killed his one-true-love Alice.

You can grab your weapon of choice and hear the rest. As Stark puts it—"This is a booty call to a massacre." The narrator, MacLeod Andrews, reads Stark as an ironic sort of hell cat, and I have to say, this audiobook is full-on groovy.

Star Lawrence owns a recession blog called Do the Hopey Copey, at http://hopeycopey.blogspot.com. She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.

Laconic Bodyguarding a Specialty in 'The Watchman'

Review of THE WATCHMAN (Brilliance Audio on CD Unabridged 2007)
By guest blogger Star Lawrence
Author, Robert Crais; read by James Daniels

Does the concept of an ex-Marine, ex-cop dashing around LA trying to keep a hot heiress safe from South American hit men grab you? What if that Marine/ex-cop was your beloved Joe Pike of Elvis Cole/Joe Pike fame? Are you in?

Unlike his growly guest appearances in private detective Elvis Cole books, Pike takes this one over, bodyguarding the brash young Larkin Connor Barkley, who has happened into some weird action when blasting her Aston-Martin through empty LA streets at 4 a.m.

No matter what safe house Pike puts her in—or even finds for her himself—the scuzzies show up an hour later to blast Larkin into giblets. Someone is selling her out. Time is short to find out who the heck these people are and why they want her dead. All the people involved in the early dawn accident are already dead, except for Larkin.

Assisted by his wisecracking buddy Elvis Cole, Pike tries to second-guess everyone who knows him or Larkin—to no avail. In the front door of a safe house—and the bad guys are sneaking in the back door and are in need of some decimating.

James Daniels is the perfect reader for this, doing Pike in a slow, flat, reluctant voice—darn, I hate to use my vocal cords, how many times have I told you that? Elvis Cole comes off as the motor mouth, funny younger brother type. Larkin is no Paris Hilton, either—she is by turns scared, irritated, and a little enamored of her capable protector.

Apparently, when she is not on the run, her usual male companions don’t clean their guns every night, buy her vegan meals, or understand when she sneaks out to dance on a bar amidst shouting Armenians.

By the way—the title, THE WATCHMAN, makes no sense. Where do they get these titles sometimes?

Star Lawence is a long-time writer and owns a recession site called Do the Hopey Copey, at http://hopeycopey.blogspot.com. She can be reached at jkellaw@aol.com.

'The Wheelman' Takes You For a Wild Ride

Review: THE WHEELMAN (St. Martin's Minotaur 2006)
Author: Duane Swierczynski

Patrick Selway Lennon is a wheelman. He doesn't rob banks – he drives the getaway car. And he's about to help pull a bank job in Philadelphia that will be the worst mistake of his career.

Lennon's perfect plan for stashing the money and laying low until the heat's off goes awry when someone tries to horn in on the action. This sets a string of events in motion that pits the Russian Mob against the local Mafia, inflames the greed of a crooked ex-cop and brings a woman named Katie, waiting for Lennon in Puerto Rico, to Philly searching for answers when he fails to show up on schedule.

To discuss the plot in any great detail creates the risk of spoilers. Suffice it to say that it's set in motion by a double cross on the part of two trusted individuals, one of whom, ironically, is acting based on a mistaken impression about Lennon.To read more: http://mysterycrimefiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_the_wheelman_takes_you_for_a_wild_ride

'Flight' Through a Young Man's Bizarre, Transformative Journey

Review: FLIGHT (Black Cat 2007)
Author: Sherman Alexie

Zits may not be the angriest protagonist in literary history, but he surely must come close. In FLIGHT, author Sherman Alexie introduces the reader to Zits (not his real name, but as he puts it his "real name isn't important") on his first day in a new foster home. The nickname derives, of course, from the overabundance of acne he's afflicted with.

Zits is 15 years old, with all the emotional baggage one carries at that age and much more. His Irish mother died when he was six and his Native American father abandoned them, by his account, "two minutes after I was born" and, ever since, Zits has been kicked around from foster home to foster home – twenty, in all. The first chapter, in which Zits meets yet another blithely dysfunctional foster family, perfectly captures his witty, if world-weary, teenaged view of the mess that is his life, as well as his complete disdain for all adult authority.

After getting off to a less-than-ideal start with the folks, Zits reacts in the way he knows best – he runs – but the cops catch up to him. He's taken into custody and befriended, to an extent, by a well-intended cop. In fact, Officer Dave tries to mentor the boy, regarding him as more than just the pimply loser Zits perceives himself to be. However, Zits isn't ready to hear what Officer Dave has to say. Instead, he falls in with a charismatic, slightly older teen he meets in detention. The older boy lures Zits into committing an act of extreme, random violence, by virtually brainwashing him into believing he will benefit from it.

Zits goes along with the program and commits the horrible act – a mass shooting at a bank, during which he gets shot in the head. However, he doesn't die. Instead, he's launched through a series of time traveling, out-of-body experiences, or to be more accurate, experiences in other people's bodies.

To read more: http://time-travel-fiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_flight

'Salt River' Brings the Turner Trilogy to a Sobering Conclusion

Review: SALT RIVER (Walker & Company 2007)
Author: James Sallis

SALT RIVER finds its ex-cop/ex-con/ex-therapist protagonist John Turner serving as de facto sheriff of the small town outside Memphis that he's come to think of as home (the actual sheriff, Lonnie Bates having, for all intents and purposes, retired). The town, however, has succumbed to the ravages of time and decay. Like so many other people and things in Turner's life, the place is dying.

An auto accident involving Bates' wayward son is the inciting event for this story, which (as with the previous Turner books) serves as more of an excuse for conjuring up the ghosts of Turner's past than a traditional narrative. However, a narrative is implied within the scenarios cobbled together in this book – some from Turner's experiences as a therapist, some from his time in prison, others involving various people and situations in the present.

The mystery storyline, such as it is, comes out in fits and starts. In fact, the plot details emerge almost at random, appropos perhaps for a series that emphasizes life's random qualities.

Read the rest at: http://mysterycrimefiction.suite101.com/article.cfm/review_salt_river

Peace doesn't have to be a Fairytale, Singleton Hippie Art

Peace doesn't have to be a Fairytale (c) SingletonI turn the gilded pages,tattered diary with the hippie swirlsand gothic font,and read theeveryday ho-hum story of my life.In between the sharpie doodles,the I-love-you's,the make believe endings,little heartachesscamper like winter mice,their skinny