Mysteries, North Carolina style

    I occasionally review books for the monthly magazine, Our State: North Carolina. As most of my blog readers aren't North Carolina residents, I thought it might be worth re-printing a couple of recent reviews--as it happens, both are mysteries set in North Carolina and both convey a strong sense of place.
    The first review, reprinted here, is is an appreciation of Margaret Maron's latest novel. Maron captures the sense of the Piedmont region, both the fast-disappearing rural areas and urban/suburban sprawl. Her mysteries are wonderful entertainments that also address social issues.
    The next review will focus on the Western part of the state and Vicki Lane's evocative stories of mayhem in the mountains.
    Both reviews are reprinted with permission.

The Buzzard Table

By Margaret Maron

The opening scene in Margaret Maron’s latest mystery may startle fans expecting a North Carolina setting. The preface of The Buzzard Table describes a tense scene in a Somali hut where two journalists are held hostage. Not to worry — by the first chapter, we’re back in Colleton County, North Carolina, home to Judge Deborah Knott and her family. Part of the pleasure of this novel is discovering the links between the Middle Eastern adventure and Deborah’s domestic life.

Multiple plots emerge and tantalize the reader. An ornithologist shows up, claiming to be a relative of a local grand dame. A real estate agent is murdered, and a young boy is shot. An airfield may be the site for rendition flights carrying prisoners out of Guantánamo Bay.

Helping untangle these mysteries is Deborah’s husband, Deputy Sheriff Dwight Bryant, and her cousin, detective Lt. Sigrid Harald. Dwight and Deborah met Sigrid during their honeymoon in Maron’s previous book Three-Day Town. Now their relationship deepens as Sigrid returns to Colleton County to visit her ailing grandmother.

Family and community always figure in Maron’s stories. In The Buzzard Table, Deborah’s relationship with her stepson, Cal, takes center stage as she and Dwight explore whether she should officially adopt him. Will that cement his place in the family? Or is it premature?

Maron is at the top of her form, engaging readers with wit, complex plots, social commentary, and moving depictions of family ties.

--Katie Baer

"Our State magazine, April 2013, reprinted with permission."

Mysterious reading

Mysteries are my weakness. I’m a student and fan of the genre. I like most of the sub-genres, from hard-boiled to police procedural to psychological thrillers. (Cutesy “cozies” generally don’t do it for me.) The authors that make my short list include John Harvey, Peter Robinson, Susan Hill, P.D. James, Deborah Crombie, Laura Lippman, George Pelacanos, Janwillem van der Wettering, Georges Simenon—oops, this is growing way beyond a short list.

But you can see that my tastes are eclectic, catholic, even. And a mystery maven is always happy to discover new authors. Recent reads include three worth recommending.

The first is Cuckoo’s Calling by “Robert Galbraith.”  You’d have to be living in a cave not to have heard all the hoop-de-doo about the author, revealed to be J. K. Rowling of Harry Potter fame. After her identity was revealed, the book shot up to the top of bestseller lists, prompting some readers and reviewers to suspect the whole thing was a publicity stunt. And a mighty smart one, at that. Rowling denies any such promotional skullduggery, insisting that she just wanted to give the book, her first mystery, a chance to stand on its own, without the burden of expectations associated with her name.

Whatever the authorial hoopla, what about the book? I liked it very much, to my surprise—as I’m among the perhaps nine people in the world who could never appreciate the Harry Potter series. First, the protagonist has one of the best names ever: Cormoran Strike. He is also an unlikely hero-sleuth. He is shambling, broke, practically homeless, plagued by a missing leg and persistent memories of fighting in the desert of the Middle East.

But Strike is smart and persistent and generous-hearted. The plot almost doesn’t matter—it’s convoluted and kind of silly and any devotee of mysteries could identify the killer within the first third of the book. The reason to read Cuckoo’s Calling is to meet and learn to appreciate Cormoran Strike and his sidekick secretary, Robin Ellacott.  I hope Rowling brings the pair back.

S. J. Bolton is an author new to me, though she’s certainly been around for a good while, so I don’t know how I missed her. She’s a British crime writer who specialties in psychological mysteries—think, Ruth Rendell—and has racked up all sorts of awards, including a CWA Gold Dagger. Dead Scared is her fifth novel and tells a strange tale of suicides among Cambridge undergraduates. But are they really suicides? Or are the victims driven to kill themselves as a result of a demonically inventive campaign? A young detective, Lacey Flint—fearless but carrying her own psychological scars—agrees to go undercover to find out. Needless to say, she soon becomes a target of the puppet masters. Some of the plot twists beggar belief, but Bolton’s sure hand with creating tension makes this a book that’s hard to put down.

The Wrong Girl by Hank Phillippi Ryan weaves multiple plots lines around the theme of the foster care and adoption systems gone wrong. Serious social criticism is made palatable by a fast-paced story. The original question—what happens if an adopted child and the biological mother reunite but then suspect that they are mismatched? —gets magnified into ancillary issues. The amateur sleuth, newspaper reporter Jane Ryland, is assigned to cover a murder that may be connected to an adoption scandal. Of course, she can’t stop at one investigation, and follows leads all over Boston, often at a dizzying pace.  Ryan’s background as an Emmy-winning investigative television reporter at Boston’s NBC affiliate helps ground the story and makes the reporter-heroine’s frenetic quest seem realistic. This mystery, the second in a series, will be released in early September.