Crime fiction |
Seattle-area writer Gary Alexander's "Zillionaire" (Gale/Five Star Press, 256 pp., $25.95) is a riot, despite (or because of) its star, Buster Hightower, a not-very-funny stand-up comedian who returns after his lead role in Alexander's 2010 book "Disappeared."
This time out, Buster's girlfriend's distant relative shows up on their doorstep. He's got a line on something strange: a mysterious series of numbers that might lead to a fabulous legacy left by a Japanese — wait for it — zillion-aire.
Throw in a sleazy dentist with money problems and a brain-freezingly complex code needed to crack the secret. Then add a crisis with Buster's classic Cadillac: It's been kidnapped and held for ransom. (Bits and pieces are being mailed back until Buster does the right thing.) Needless to say, high jinks ensue.
Gary Alexander will sign "Zillionaire" at noon Oct. 8 at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop, 117 Cherry St. (206-587-5737 or www.seattlemystery.com).
Run out right now and buy "No Rest for the Dead" (Simon & Schuster, 256 pp., $24.99), not just because it's a terrific book but because it's for a good cause: Brother-and-sister editors Andrew and Lamia Gulli are donating all profits to the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.
The book is a group effort: Starting with a simple premise (a nasty art curator's murdered body turns up in a Berlin museum), 26 writers contribute a chapter each. And there are some heavy hitters here, including David Baldacci, Jeffery Deaver, Lisa Scottoline, Kathy Reichs, Alexander McCall Smith and our own J.A. Jance. Big fun and good deeds at the same time. What more do you need?
Stella Rimington — that's Dame Stella Rimington to us — was the first woman director general of the British Security Service (MI5), so she knows what she's talking about when it comes to espionage fiction. In retirement, she's published a string of books about agent Liz Carlyle, the latest and most accomplished being "Rip Tide" (Bloomsbury, 384 pp., $25).
Told in unadorned and unfussy prose, "Rip Tide" mixes piracy on the high seas with hot-button political and religious issues. It appears that someone is giving pirate groups off the coast of Somalia inside knowledge about which containerships are loaded with valuable medical supplies. And what's with the British-born Muslim man discovered with some pirates when British troops intercept them in the Indian Ocean?
One cautionary note: The book makes frequent and possibly confusing use of the term "Asian," which in England means people of Pakistani or Indian descent.
Medieval Japan, with its strict moral codes, threats of sudden violence and highly structured feudal loyalties, is rich ground for mystery fiction. Laura Joh Rowland's excellent series about an imperial spy, Sano Ichiro, makes full use of this setting.
Rowland skillfully avoids the slightly patronizing tone of other novelists who have written about that time and place (I'm looking at you, James Clavell). Rowland also makes sure that her extensive research blends unobtrusively into her stories.
"The Ronin's Mistress" (Minotaur, 336 pp., $24.99) takes as its inspiration a true-life revenge tale that has become an icon of Japanese literature: the carefully plotted murder by 47 ronin (masterless samurai) of the aristocrat who caused their master's death. Sano, beset by rivals and court intrigue, is assigned to see if the defiant samurai should be forced to commit ritual suicide.
Finally: Best of luck to Seattleite Michael Gruber, whose espionage novel "The Good Son" has been shortlisted for the prestigious Ian Fleming Steel Dagger Award from the British Crime Writers' Association. The winner will be announced Oct. 11.
Adam Woog's column on crime and mystery fiction appears on the second Sunday of the month in The Seattle Times.
