Review: Buried Strangers

Author: Leighton Gage
Format: hard copy 308 pages
Characters: Mario Silva, Arnaldo Nunez, Hector Costa
Subject: crime, police corruption
Setting: Sao Paolo, Brasilia Brasil
Series: Chief Inspector Mario Silva Investigation
Genre: police procedural
Source: public library
Challenge: Support Your Public Library

Mario Silva, Chief Inspector for Criminal Matters of the Federal police of Brazil, is trying to solve a crime in the city of Sao Paolo. What are these bones discovered when a dog dug one up? They're obviously human, but there appears to be a mass grave with 30-40 bodies. When the local cop on the scene, Delegado Tanako, is killed,  Silva's boss reluctantly lets the team go from their base in Brasilia to investigate, although he'd much rather they stay in town and dig up some dirt on the man who is running against him in the upcoming elections.

While in Sao Paolo, Silva, his deputy Arnaldo and his nephew Hector also become involved in locating a family missing from that cities' infamous favelas (slums).  Could this disappearance be connected with the bodies in the mass grave?  Many theories are advanced, many palms greased, a little romance blossoms, and Silva goes back and forth between Sao Paolo and Brasilia, while his crew continues to track clues. Who are these people?  Are they related?  Why were they killed?  And what happened to the witnesses who reported the other family missing? There are characters who are quite nasty, others who are quite likeable, and the plot certainly contains enough action and clues to keep us turning pages. In fact, I was so engrossed in finding out how it ended, that I read the last 35 pages while working out on the eliptical!

Leighton Gage, the author of this well-plotted who-dunnit, lives part-time in Brazil.  His knowledge of this huge country is obvious, and his ability to weave the language, the regional diversity and the mores of this nation into the story is exceptional. The reader gets a clear picture of modern day crime activities in Brazil, and gets a crime detective who hopefully will appear in upcoming episodes.

Review: A Share in Death

Author: Deborah Crombie
Narrator: Michael Deehey
Format: audio- 6 discs, +/- 7 hrs
Characters: Duncan Kincaid, Gemma James
Subject: murder mystery
Setting: Yorkshire England early 2000's
Series: Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James #1
Genre: police procedural
Source: public library

Here's a great way to ring out the old year, and look forward to the new.  This is the first book in a series.  I'm going to want to read every one of them.  A great british police procedural.  In this first episode we meet Duncan Kincaid, of New Scotland yard, recently promoted to Superintendent detective. Kincaid is vacationing in Yorkshire when he becomes embroiled in a series of murders and attempted murders.  Crombie gives us many suspects, good motivation, a well developed plot, a great sense of place, and doesn't give us enough to solve the mystery until quite near the end.

We also meet, very slightly, Gemma James, Kincaid's detective sergeant who is still back in London holding down the fort while Kincaid tries to avoid the wrath of the local police force who resent NSY's nosing in.

It's a great beginning story, and promises lots more.  I've read another so I know they get even better.  I can't wait to have another helping.

Too bad I couldn't wait until January 1 to count them in 2010 challenges, but there'll be plenty more where these came from.





Challenges: Audio books, Thrillers, Typically British, Support your Library

Review: Rizzo's War

This is NOT your average police/crime/forensic procedural. This is a book with great police characters who actually have brains and hearts as well as brawn with some police procedure to help flesh out the characters.

Lou Manfredo's debut novel opens with a crime scene, but quickly shifts to a discussion between the two main characters: Detective Joe Rizzo, a 20+ year veteran of the NYPD, and his newest partner, young just-made detective, eagerly ambitious Mike McQueen.  By the end of the first seven pages, I was determined to dislike Rizzo intensely.  By the end of the book, I was in love with him.  Manfredo's character development is some of the best I've seen in a police procedural, and to me is exceptional in a first book.

As they solve their cases, Rizzo teaches young McQueen the ropes, gingerly stepping through the minefield of looking the other way, developing a series of 'favors' given and returned, and staying just inside the law.  Set in a predominently Italian neighborhood, Joe exhibits the ability to take cultural differences into account when questioning people, when trying to determine what really happened and why, and he insists that McQueen try to apply those same attitudes.

Unlike many books currently featuring policemen and detectives, the cases are not the central point of the book.  While they are well presented, giving us a good view of the dreadful, often demoralizing life of  big city crime solvers and the reader is drawn steadily along to see how they are resolved, the core discussion is the subject of honesty, integrity, right vs wrong, black vs white and how the average cop on the beat is confronted with moral decisions every day.

The author, drawing on his own 25 years experience in the Brooklyn criminal justice system, adds into the mix the inevitable crooked politicians and cops on the take to give us an exciting, tightly drawn picture of law and order in today's world.

In the end, we come to understand Rizzo's motto: "There's no wrong. There's no right. There just is."

This was ARC copy I received from the Early Review program of LibraryThing.  Thanks to Minotaur books for making it available.  It also came with a promtional sampler of the audio book to be released.  If you like your books in this format (as I certainly do) this one is OK, but I didn't care for narrator  Bobby Cannavale's rather flat rendition.