Fletch - Gregory McDonald

Gregory McDonald

Gregory McDonald won back-to-back Edgar Awards for best first novel, and best original paperback, in 1975 and 1977. These books are quite raw for the 1970s. The language and themes are definitely not "cozy," and there is plenty of casual sex. However, the plots are complex and clever. The style is almost entirely dialog, and quite clipped. The humor is tongue-in-cheek, which I find pretty funny.

Fletch is variously a reporter and an art writer, having been educated in both. He's a complete free spirit. You never know from one book to the next where he will pop up.

Recurring characters:
Irwin Maurice Fletcher, I.M. Fletcher, commonly known as Fletch.
Marilyn Moxie Moonie, Fletch's friend since childhood.
Alston Chambers, he begins as a rookie attorney in a big law firm, but moves to the DAs office.
Crystal Faoni, an overweight reporter
Jack Faoni, Crystal's son

#1- Fletch 1974
Winner of an Edgar Award. A rough-and-tumble tale of a reporter, Fletch, who is hired to commit a murder. Who is to be murdered? The man who hires him! Fletch is undercover to get the scoop on the local drug dealer in his beach town. His newspaper is giving him a hard time because it's taking so long to get answers. Meanwhile, he's busy also trying to find out why he's been hired to kill someone who seems to have a nearly perfect life, and he's also busy avoiding paying alimony to two previous wives.

An example of the humor: "At eleven-thirty, the phone began ringing persitently. He knew it was... any one of several News-Tribune executives who routinely became excited, one way or the other, in pleasure if they were real professionals, in anger if they were not, when a staff member had snuck a genuine, unadulterated piece of journalism over on them." ,

#2- Confess, Fletch 1976
Winner of an Edgar Award. Fletch has been living in Europe, but comes to Boston to track down some paintings that were stolen from his fiance's father. The father, Count deGrassi, was kidnapped and held for ransom, but without the paintings, the money demanded can't be raised.

Fletch arranges for an apartment swap through an agency so he will have a place to stay in Boston. He arrives, cleans up and goes out to dinner. When he returns, the naked body of a murdered young woman is on the living room floor. Naturally, the police would like him to confess.

There are more twists to this story than you can imagine.

#3- Fletch's Fortune 1978
Fletch is blackmailed by the CIA to bug the rooms of his fellow journalists at a national convention. They say they'll make his ever-mounting tax debt and crimes go away if he complies.

On the very first morning of the convention, the President pf the Journalism Association is murdered. He made lots of enemies over the years, but which one of them hates him enough to do the deed.

The recordings Fletch collects turn out to be useful in other ways, as well.

#4- Fletch and the Widow Bradley 1981
Fletch is back to being a reporter, but he gets fired from his newspaper because he quotes the CEO, Tom Bradley, of a company as being alive when it turns out the man has been dead for a year. Fletch is understandably put out because his boss is giving his incompetent girlfriend good stories and not firing her for little errors.

Meanwhile, he finds a wallet with $25,000 dollars in it, but is having a lot of trouble returning it to the owner. The man doesn't seem to want the wallet back.

Fletch sinks his teeth into finding out what happened to Tom Bradley. The answer is surprising for 1981.

#5- Fletch's Moxie 1982
Moxie has a job acting in a movie that is being filmed. It's not a good script and it's not going well. Moxie has become concerned about her finances- her financial manager has told her some things that are concerning. However, money is not her strong suit, and she has just signed whatever he told her to for years.

Fletch shows up at the filming of a talk show interview with Moxie and Steve Peterman. Steve is the director of the show and her financial manager. During the interview Peterman is stabbed and dies. Yet nothing unusual shows up on the tapes.

Moxie wants Fletch to find out what's wrong with her finances.

Secondary story is of Moxie's father, an aging, well-known classical actor who has been drunk for decades. Keeping him in line is almost a full-time job in its own right.

#6- Fletch and the Man Who 1983

#7- Carioca Fletch 1984
This book is almost a travelogue of Carnival in Rio de Janiero with a bit of story woven in. One of the characters from Fletch, Joan Collins Stanwyk, reappears in this book.

Fletch is enjoying a vacation in Brazil when an old woman approaches and insists that he is her husband, Janio, who was murdered 47 years previously. She wants him to tell her and her children who murdered him.

Fletch ends up being cursed with Brazilian voodoo, chased by a pack of kickboxers, and hounded by Janio's young grandson who has only one leg.

Joan, who reappears in this book, then disappears!

#8- Fletch Won 1985
Although written in 1985, this is really a prequel which tells the story of how Fletch got started in journalism.

As a rookie, he is assigned to write headlines, but he is too clever, and gets reassigned to cover the announcement of a gift to the art museum. The giftgiver is murdered in the News-Tribune parking lot, and he is reassigned again to cover a thinly disguised brothel. Then he gets fired! But that doesn't stop him from pursuing both stories.

#9- Fletch Too 1986

#10- Son of Fletch 1993
Events of Confess, Fletch are recalled in this story.

Fletch is confronted by an adult man who certainly appears to be his biological son. This encounter gives us the most sympathetic and human portrait of Fletch in any of the books.

The primary plot is a set in a neo-Nazi organization bent on creating anarchy and taking over the United States for white supremacy. There are a lot of stereotypes, but it's eerie for a 1993 book. This is my least favorite of the Fletch books.

#11- Fletch Reflected 1994
This is a fairly odd story. Fletch's son is called by an old girlfriend, Shana, to come investigate the estate of an eccentric genius. The genius, Chester, has built a huge closed community. He rigidly controls his wife and four adult children who live there.

Shana is convinced that someone is trying to kill Chester. There have been multiple accidents from which the man has barely escaped. Fletch's son calls Fletch, and while they are at the estate they learn the depths of the children's hatred for their father.

I would say the story is an allegory of some kind, but I'm not sure the Fletch books are that deep. It is an interesting plot, for sure.

Navajo Tribal Police - Tony and Anne Hillerman

Tony Hillerman (fair use)

Tony Hillerman, May 27, 1925 – October 26, 2008, was the author of a series of mysteries featuring Navajo tribal police. The first three books feature Joe Leaphorn. The next three feature Jim Chee. After that, both men are included in the books. The crimes are always more mysterious due to the lack of understanding between Navajo, Hopi and white people's ways of thinking. They are set in the American Southwest.

Recurring Characters of note:
Joe Leaphorn, Navajo Tribal Police
Jim Chee, Navajo Tribal Police
Bernadette Manuelito, eventual wife of Jim Chee

#1 The Blessing Way (1970)

#2 Dance Hall of the Dead (1973)

#3 Listening Woman (1978)

#4 People of Darkness (1980)

#5 The Dark Wind (1982)
The book opens with three Hopi men walking back from collecting spruce branches for a sacred ceremony. The find the body of a man, but since he is Navajo, and they do not want to disrupt their own ceremony, they do not report it. The palms of the hands and the soles of the feet have been cut off the dead man. By the time the body is found it is badly decomposed.

A small plane with pilot and passenger is night flying in to an arroyo bringing a cargo of cocaine. The experienced pilot crashes. When the plane is found, both men are dead, a third man has a bullet in his back, and the drugs are missing.

This incident occurs on land that has recently been transferred to the Hopi tribe by the government. It used to be Navajo. A well was dug for the Hopi, but the windmill has been severely vandalized three times.

How are these incidents related? Jim Chee is new to this jurisdiction, and he is sent to look into only the windmill damage. But he can't help but find evidence relating to the other issues.

#6 The Ghostway (1984)

#7 Skinwalkers (1986)

#8 A Thief of Time (1988)

#9 Talking God (1989)

#10 Coyote Waits (1990)

#11 Sacred Clowns (1993)

#12 The Fallen Man (1996)

#13 The First Eagle (1998)

#14 Hunting Badger (1999)

#15 The Wailing Wind (2002)
Young and new, Officer Bernadette Manuelito finds a dead man in a pickup truck in one of the many dry arroyos of the area. Seeing no wounds, she assumes he drank himself to death like so many others have done. Her hobby is botany, and while waiting for other authorities to arrive, she collects some seeds for certain Navajo ceremonies and carries them in a cast-off tobacco tin she finds.

But the tin has ties not only to the dead man, but to an old murder, and a long lost gold mine. Chee and Leaphorn manage to get the tobacco tin re-placed at the site without getting Bernadette in trouble.

Denton Wiley had confessed to the old murder, served his time, and is still hunting for his wife who disappeared at about the same time. He engages Joe Leaphorn to try to find her. How are all these events related?

#16 The Sinister Pig (2003)

#17 Skeleton Man (2004)

#18 The Shape Shifter (2006)

After Tony's death, Anne Hillerman wrote the following books:

#19 2013 Spider Woman's Daughter (2103)

#20 2015 Rock With Wings (2015)

#21 2017 Song of the Lion (2017)

#22 2018 Cave of Bones (2018)

#23 2019 The Tale Teller (2019)

#24 2021 Stargazer (2021)

#25 2022 The Sacred Bridge (2022)

#26 2023 The Way of the Bear (2023)

#27 2024 Lost Birds (2024)

Mystery Series - J.P. Beaumont

J.A. Jance (Creative Commons)

Judith Ann Jance, born 1944, is an author of three different mystery series, all written under her own name. The Beaumont series features Jonas Piedmont Beaumont, a police detective from Seattle.

The Beaumont and Joanna Brady series converge in Partner in Crime, Fire and Ice, and briefly in Proof of Life.

Recurring Characters of Note:
Jason Pierpont Beaumont, variously a policman, retiree, and private eye
Mel Soames, his third wife
#1 Until Proven Guilty (1985)
#2 Injustice for All (1986)
#3 Trial by Fury (1986)
#4 (nominated for: 1987
#5 Taking the Fifth (1987)
#6 Improbable Cause (1987)
#7 A More Perfect Union (1988)
#8 Dismissed with Prejudice (1989)
#9 Minor in Possession (1990)
#10 Payment in Kind (1991)
#11 Without Due Process (1993)
#12 Failure to Appear (1994)

#13 Lying in Wait (1995)

J.P.'s grandfather, from whom he gets the Pierpont name, has recently died. He is attempting to pay more attention to his grandmother.

A horrific death in a fishing boat fire turns out to be a torture murder, and the widow is a woman J.P. attended school with. Else was a cheerleader when he was a basketball player. Also living at the fishing marina is a man named Alan Torvaldsen, who was also a classmate. The dead man is Guntar Gebhardt, whose father was an S.S. officer in World War II. Guntar quietly honored his father's memory with a secret collection of toy German soldiers.

But when a woman on a nearby island dies in a similar manner, all previous conclusions seem to be wrong.

This is a fast-paced book with twists and turns at ever juncture.

#14 Name Withheld (1997)
#15 Breach of Duty (1999)
#16 Birds of Prey (2002)
#17 Partner in Crime (2003)
#18 Long Time Gone (2005)
#19 Justice Denied (2007)
#20 Fire and Ice (2009)
#21 Betrayal of Trust (2011)
#22 Ring in the Dead (novella, 2013)
#23 Second Watch (2013)
#24 Stand Down (novella, 2015)
#25 Dance of the Bones (2015) (Brandon Walker crossover)

#26 Proof of Life (2017)
Beau has retired, had knee replacement surgery, and is living happily with his third wife, Mel Soames. She is Chief of Police in Bellingham, WA. While they are having dinner out, an acquaintance of theirs, Max, a journalist stops by the table and makes several cryptic statements. Since he and Beau were never on good terms, Beau doesn't pay much attention.

However, just hours later, Max is dead. A young woman, not a blood relative of Max's, but nevertheless one of his only friends and his heir asks Beau to look into the death. She suspects it is not an accident.

If you are a dog lover, this is a great book. Beau and Mel end up "temporarily" babysitting a black Irish Wolfhound. Not only is Lucy Rambo a loveable addition to the story, she plays a large role in the denouement.

#27 Still Dead (novella, 2017)

#28 Sins Of The Fathers (2019)
#29 Nothing to Lose (2022)
#130 Den of Iniquity (2024)

Mystery Series - Travis McGee

John D. MacDonald

John D. MacDonald (1916-1986) wrote thrillers and various standalone crime stories from 1936 on. In 1964, the first Travis McGee book appeared. McGee is not a detective, but a salvage consultant living on a boat in Florida. McGee is 6'4" tall, ex-military, and has a commanding presence. He consistently gets pulled into high-stakes adventures, usually to solve problems that are beyond the reach of the law. These are rather hard-boiled stories with lots of action and some sex (not explicit), but there is a cerebral element to all the problems he is called upon to solve. His sidekick is Meyer, an economist, with whom he shares everything. He has few emotional ties, but two women do appear in the series, both of whom have an impact on his life before they are abruptly removed (for different reasons). All the books in this series have a color in the title.

Recurring Characters of Note
G. Ludweg Meyer, economist and his best friend
Puss Killian, one of the few women Travis really loved
Gretel, another of the few women Travis loved

#1 The Deep Blue Good-by (1964)
#2 Nightmare in Pink (1964)
#3 A Purple Place for Dying (1964)
#4 The Quick Red Fox (1964)
#5 A Deadly Shade of Gold (1965)
#6 Bright Orange for the Shroud (1965)
#7 Darker than Amber (1966)
#8 One Fearful Yellow Eye (1966)
#9 Pale Gray for Guilt (1968)
#10 The Girl in the Plain Brown Wrapper (1968)
#11 Dress Her in Indigo (1969)
#12 The Long Lavender Look (1970)
#13 A Tan and Sandy Silence (1971)
#14 The Scarlet Ruse (1973)
#15 The Turquoise Lament (1973)
#16 The Dreadful Lemon Sky (1975)
#17 The Empty Copper Sea (1978)

#18 The Green Ripper (1979)
The Green Ripper is a child's mispronunciation of The Grim Reaper. McGee has been living aboard his boat with Gretel, one of his true loves. She has temporarily moved to a location closer to her new job as an all-purpose-person at a health spa. She is telling Travis and Meyer about an odd occurance where she recognized a man from her past with one of the owners. A few day later, the man is dead from a fall off his bicycle and Gretel is in the hospital with an unexplained flu-like disease. Her condition worsens, and the pathogen can not be identified.

When Gretel does not survive, Travis insists on an autopsy, and a clever murder is revealed.

McGee embarks on a quest to find the man Gretel recognized, find out what's going on and exact revenge. His quest takes him to a militant terrorist "church" in California with a chilling agenda.

#19 Free Fall in Crimson (1981)
#20 Cinnamon Skin (1982)
The Travis McGee Quiz Book (compiled by John Brogan, introduction by MacDonald) (1984)

#21 The Lonely Silver Rain (1985)
This is the final book in the series. It's not exactly clear if MacDonald intended to end the series, but it does make a nice conclusion. The final chapter takes place in a rain so heavy it bounces off the pavement. Travis calls it a "lonely silver rain."

A friend of McGee asks him to try to recover his custom yacht that was stolen. It's a real long shot, because stolen boats are usually quickly transformed so as to be unrecognizable. However, the custom build of this one does suggest a method to find it. When McGee finds the boat, there are three dead bodies aboard, and someone in the drug smuggling world seems to want to blame McGee and the boat owner for the murders.

McGee travels to Mexico to try to keep from being killed by finding out who is really to blame.

Meanwhile, someone is leaving whimsical pipe-cleaner cats in various colors on his own boat.

Mystery Series - Butch Karp

Robert K. Tanenbaum (b. 1942) was a member of the District Attorney staff of New York City. From this experience, he found source material for his books. The series featuring Roger "Butch" Karp and Marlene Ciampi is snarky, smart and often raunchy (although this gets toned down a bit as the series progresses). However I find the books honest and engaging. The main players are not cookie-cutter caricatures. The character development over time is superb.

The first book was published in 1987 but is set in 1970 in New York City. The main characters all work for the New York District Attorney's Office. The first 15 books were ghost written by Michael Gruber. The character of Butch is somewhat biographical of Tanenbaum.

Recurring Characters of Note:
Roger Karp, "Butch"
Marlene Ciampi, "Champ"
Raymond Guma, "Goom" - ADA
Roland Hrcany - ADA
Vernon Talcott (V.T.) Newbury - ADA
Kevin Tighe - criminal
Clay Fulton - police detective
Harry Bello - almost retired/retired cop
Ariadne Stupenagel - reporter and long-time friend of Marlene
Tran Vinh - a Vietnamese with an interesting past
Dirty Warren - a street vendor with Tourettes
The Walking Booger - a street person
John Jojola - a Taos Pueblo
David Grale - a former relief worker, now "father" of the Mole People
Ned Blanchet
Nadya Malovo

#1 No Lesser Plea (1987)
Karp is a young lawyer working in the District Attorney's office of New York City. He begins to learn the painful reality of bureaucracy vs. justice. Cutting plea deals is the way to keep the office running smoothly. However, there is one case that Karp can not let go of. Mandeville Louis and two other men were involved in the killing of a liquor store owner and his son during a robbery. Butch realizes that Louis has been committing similar crimes for a number of years and is determined to cut through the man's manipulations and bring him to punishment.

Marlene Ciampi joins the DA staff part way through the book, and she and Karp quickly become an item. He is rebounding from his wife's decision to leave him for another woman. Is his affair with Marlene just a reaction, or is it the real deal?

Butch respects the DA, Philip Garrahay, and fights for his reelection.

Then Louis sends a bomb.

#2 Depraved Indifference (1989)
The book begins with Croatian Freedom Fighters hijacking a plane. Their weapon is a homemade bomb that turns out to be a fake. However, a real bomb they left in a locker does go off, killing a policeman. This brings the full weight of the justice system to bear. At least it should, but Butch is finding that many different parties seem to want this case to go away.

Karp and Marlene are in a serious relationship, and Karp is now the Assistant Bureau Chief... until he gets fired by his ever political boss. Story date is 1976.

#3 Immoral Certainty (1991)
The title of this book comes from Butch's definition of "immoral certainty," the assurance that some criminals have that they never do anything wrong. The book begins with Felix Tighe being caught red-handed in a robbery. However he almost manages to turn the tables and get the police in trouble for hitting him even though he attacked them with a knife. He is convicted, but has jumped bail and is loose in the city.

A secondary plot deals with the murder of a small-time mobster.

The other primary case in the book involves a Satan-worshipping sex cult participating in the abuse and murder of children (well, this was set in the seventies, and there were a lot of such stories).

Butch and Marlene are seriously planning to get married, and Butch must get the consent to divorce his wife Susan who moved out before the series of books began.

Story date is 1977. Felix Tighe's first adult crime. Butch is Chief of the Criminal Courts Bureau. The recurring theme in all the books is the difficulty of bringing criminals to justice when there is no time for trials and almost every case is resolved with a plea bargain. This book is perhaps more violent and graphic than others in the series.

#4 Reversible Error (1992)
One of the two primary plots is that of a serial rapist who eludes identification because there is no way to track similarities. The book refers to a change in NY law (perhaps 1975 Federal statutes) which allows rapes to be prosecuted without a confirming witness, but requires evidence of force. This was a big improvement over the previous requirements for proving rape. Marlene works with a student who has been one of the rape victims to develop a computer program to identify patterns.

The other plot involves the systematic killings of city drug lords. One of Butch's friends, a cop, seems to be involved. Butch is being groomed to be the new DA, but things don't always work out politically, especially for Butch.

It looks like Butch and Marlene are actually going to get married, but city rules will not allow her to continue to work in the same department. She's not about to become a housewife.

#5 Material Witness (1993)
The book opens with the murder of a man who is left dead in a Cadillac. The two men who commit the murder think no one has seen them, but then they realize there was a trucker and his girlfriend in the parking lot who have to be dealt with.

Meanwhile, a mistake is made by a young ADA which releases a dangerous criminal whose conviction should have been a sure thing. Butch takes responsibility and resigns from the department.

Butch and Marlene are married, living in her industrial apartment, and their first baby is due in about four weeks. They are both free of career responsibilities. Butch takes up playing basketball again. He had been on the way to the pros when an injury permanently sidelined him.

However, it turns out that the murdered man was a pro player on the fictional New York Hustlers basketball team. The coach asks Butch to look into it, because the police don't seem to be taking things very seriously. Butch joins the team as their replacement player. Marlene stubbornly continues to investigate despite her advanced pregnancy.

Their daughter Lucy is born under interesting circumstances.

#6 Justice Denied (1994)
The Homicide Bureau of the DA Office has been reinvented with Butch as its head. Marlene is back to work as head of the Rape Bureau.

The book opens with the murder of a Turk who worked for the U.N. in New York. An Armenian is arrested for it- just one more bad story in centuries of strife between the two ethnic groups. The girlfriend and alibi for the Armenian disappears. Is this suspicious or not?

Marlene is cultivating a near-retirement, drunk cop who helped solve the Material Witness case. His name is Harry and he has cleaned himself up and becomes the godfather of baby Lucy. He begins working for her, helping to find the perpetrators of a supposed suicide that occurred after a rape.

Butch and Marlene are in danger of losing their "apartment" on one floor of an old industrial building in Manhattan.

In book time, it's still the late 1970s.

#7 Corruption of Blood (1995)
It's been 8 years the Butch has worked under Bloom so 1983 or 84. Lucy is 3, but it's supposedly 13 years since Kennedy assassination, so 1976. Thus the book timeline is pretty fictitious.

This is a straight-up fictional conspiracy theory book about the Kennedy assassination. Butch accepts an appointment to a Senate Committee to investigate the Warren Commission Report. Butch and his new boss originally think this is to be a legitimate investigation, but soon learn that what they are supposed to do is rubber stamp the original report. Butch has taken V.T. Newbury and Clay Fulton with him to staff the new investigation

Marlene is angry and refuses to go to Washington, D.C., but when D.A. Bloom pulls some of his shenanigans, she heads for D.C. and finds a legal adventure of her own, aided by Harry Bello.

They adopt a huge Neopolitan Mastiff dog abandoned by the neighbors and name her Sweety.

#8 Falsely Accused (1996)
Butch is working for a private firm where he is finally making a lot of money. He and Marlene have remodeled the loft into a beautiful apartment. Lucy is 7 and goes to PS1, where they must drop her off every day. She makes friends with a girl whose mother is being stalked. The mother hires Marlene to help her get this guy away from her. Marlene enlists the help of her policeman friend Harry Bello. They are so successful that they decide to open an agency to help women who are being stalked or abused. Marlene becomes pregnant again.

The Medical Examiner, Murray Stelig, is fired by the Mayor and the D.A. for reasons that seem completely bizarre to Butch. He hires Butch to bring a lawsuit against the city.

Meanwhile Ariadne Stupenagel is researching a story about gypsy cab drivers being held up and possbily murdered. Then she is seriously beat up.

#9 Irresistible Impulse (1997)
Butch is once again Chief of the Homicide Bureau of the DAs office. It's 14 years since he first became an ADA (stated to be in the late 60s, and the book says it is the "start of the 1980s," but book time does not flow quite like real time). James Keegan has replaced the corrupt Sanford Bloom, who was ousted in the previous book. Keegan was hoping for a judgeship, but was passed over, and is now the District Attorney of New York County.

The book opens with a doctor somewhat reluctantly issuing a death certificate for a womn when he is asked to do so by another doctor friend, Vince. Eventually, the death seems suspicious and the body is exhumed. Vince seems to be tied to Medicaid fraud, but proof is elusive

Meanwhile, Butch takes on the biggest trial of his career. A young white man has killed five elderly black women, but his family has hired the best defense attorney in the country, who is going to argue for insanity.

Marlene has expanded her security business, protecting celebrities from stalkers. With the funds these clients bring in, she can also protect low-income women who have no way to fend off unwanted attentions. She is simultaneously guarding a pro tennis player and a famous cellist. Vince turns up again, and reveals his true colors.

Marlene and Lucy usually stop at a Vietnamese noodle shop for her after-school snack. When the shop is burned by arsonists, Marlene learns that Vinh has many talents

#10 Reckless Endangerment (1998)

Karp is now the Deputy District Attorney for Special Projects. This position is a lightweight compared to his past jobs. However, he is currently content.

The book opens with the shooting of a Jewish couple by an Arab cell calling themselves Duhd el Dar al-Harb (Against the House of War). It looks like this group is nothing but four young men with a grudge and a lot of energy. However, things begin to heat up between the NY Arabs and Jews.

Two Mexican brothers are in jail for a murder related to a drug deal which also involves an Arab.

Lucy is 10, and the twins are 2. The year is given as 1981. Tran Vinh now works for Marlene, but Harry is getting worried about their near-illegal (and probably actually illegal) methods of protection. He goes to work for a bigger security firm and wants Marlene to follow. Vinh becomes something of Lucy's mentor and definitely her protector.

#11 Act of Revenge (1999)
Lucy is 12, and very much the pre-adolescent mother-hater. She's feeling particularly self-pitying because her ability to learn languages so easily has resulted in her being studied scientifically, and also because her figure hasn't begun to develop.

A double murder occurs in the back room of the Chen's retail Asia Mall. Lucy's friends witness the crime. Lucy is there but does not actually see it happen.

The alternate plot involves the mob-style murder of an upper-level member of organized crime.

When the two murders turn out to be related things get crazy.

We learn more about Tran's background. He is still serving as Lucy's protector, but he can't take too many more chances with the American's finding out who he really is.

#12 True Justice (1999)

At the beginning of the book, Marlene is forced to shoot yet another scumbag of a man, and she gives up her protection business. A rash of thrown-away newborns has hit the city and the media is in a feeding frenzy. Marlene agrees to defend one of these young mothers.

The parallel plot is the murder of the parents of a friend of Lucy, who is now attending Sacred Heart High School. The twins are 7.

#13 Enemy Within (2001)

The book begins with a police chase where the person being chased is gunned down when he flees. There is no question that that man killed is a lowlife, but there are a lot of forensic details that verify this was more of an assassination than a clean shoot. Race again becomes an issue as the policeman is white and the dead man is black.

Several street people are murdered. Again, there is no public outcry because these are invisible people. Lucy is now 17, and her fervent piety takes her into the deepest pits of despair where many of these people live. She also thinks she might be in love.

When a rich, white woman kills a person who she claims threatened her with a knife, Butch begins to believe there is a connection with the "bum slashings," as they have been dubbed.

Marlene makes a fortune when the IPO of the security company she works for rises in the market on the first day. However, she does not handle this well and may be teetering on the brink of a mental breakdown.

The best part of this book is a chase scene in the dark through the lowest levels of old subway and sewer tunnels.

#14 Absolute Rage (2002) This book is really a turning point in the series. The action becomes more violent. The title is fitting.

Lucy is now 18 and in Boston College. On the train, on the way home for vacation she is somewhat attracted to a boy, Dan Heeny, who is an MIT student. "Home" is now partly on Long Island. Marlene bought an old estate and fixed it up. There, she escapes the city and raises Neopolitan Mastiffs to be guard dogs. It turns out that Dan's family has the house next door. However, his family is from West Virginia, and they are only on Long Island to finish closing that house in preparation to sell it. The house had been in Rose's (the mother) family.

Dan's father, Red, is a mine worker in West Virginia. He has been fighting the "company union" for years, trying to get in a real union to help the working people. Dan stays on LI, and the rest of the family returns to West Virginia. Then he gets a call that real trouble has erupted at home because Red did win the election, but the company isn't going to accept that.

Marlene gets involved in the West Virginia mess as she tries to get a simple-minded patsy out of jail. Butch accepts an assignment to represent the feds in their attempt to clean up the politics of the coal-mining county. Before the end of the book, the entire family is in West Virginia.

This is an action-packed and sometimes shocking narrative, exposing many of the evil practices of strip mining in the mountain states.

The twins are ten, and Giancarlo becomes blinded at the end, but he handles it much better than anyone expected. Lucy has a crisis of faith.

This book is based on the true story of Jock Yablonski, and a labor crisis in Pennsylvania. The true crime book is also by Tanenbaum and is titled, Coal Country Killing.

#15 Resolved (2003)

Marlene is just barely sane and functional. She can't put the events of West Virginia behind her, and she is mostly living on Long Island, only coming back to their Manhattan loft occasionally.

Meanwhile, one of Butch's old nemeses, Felix Tighe (Immoral Certainty), is out of prison and determined to exact vengence. He get mixed up with a group of terrorists who plan to blow up the courthouse.

Butch becomes the District Attorney, filling out the term when Jack Keegan gets a federal judgeship.

Books from the beginning through Resolved were ghost written by Michael Gruber.

#16 Hoax (2004)

The next three books are a trilogy involving a maniac, Andrew Kane, who wants to control all of New York

You can definitely tell that the books from here on were written by a different person (Tanenbaum himself). There is an awful lot of backstory in Hoax. When the action finally gets moving, I think the story is comparable to the earlier ones, but it takes a while to get there.

As noted previously, book time is out of sync with real time. It is now past Sept. 11, 2001. The twins are eleven and Lucy is 20. Giancarlo has taught himself how to play several musical instruments, and he and Zac spend a lot of time on the streets busking for spare change. They sneak into a rap club to support a rapper friend of theirs. When the rival rapper is gunned down and their friend is charged with the murder, they become material witnesses.

Meanwhile, Marlene and Lucy have taken a trip to New Mexico to bond, and so that Marlene can try to recover from the accumulated trauma of the life she has led. Whle there, they become friends with a Taos native John Jojola, sheriff on the pueblo reservation. Four young boys have gone missing in the past six months. Marlene has no intentions of getting involved, but she seems to be a trouble magnet. Lucy falls for a young rancher, a man named Ned.

#17 Fury (2005)

This book is clearly the weakest in the story to date, although it doesn't lack for action. The use of language is not nearly so precise as in earlier books, and there is still a lot of backstory. In addition, there are many errors that no one would tolerate from an independent author. A punch to a victim later turns into a bite. Other bits of the story turn up later as something different. One event of the final courtroom scene is a blatant problem.

A rape and beating that took place ten years ago is one of the central plots. The Brooklyn DA is suing the city of New York for intimidating the confessions of the five young black men who were charged and convicted.

Two other disgruntled young men join up with an Islamist terror group, but they get more than they bargained for.

Marlene ends up defending a professor against a rape charge.

Throughout, Butch is accused of being racist, anti-police, of being soft on prosecuting crimes in his own office, but he doggedly clings to doing what is right.

The action is a bit over the top, but it includes all the interesting characters of the series, and another chase in New York's subterranean tunnels.

#18 Counterplay (2006)

The Neopolitan Mastiffs have suddenly turned into Presa Canario dogs which, though hard to believe, are even more ugly. This is not simply a change in the kind of dogs Marlene trains. Gilgamesh himself has changed breeds. Salt water taffy in the last book has changed to licorice. These are not major errors, but they are the kind of detail that I think should be caught in mainstream, best-selling books.

The earlier books, although action-packed, were somewhat believable. The three in this trilogy: Hoax, Fury, and Counterplay, have devolved into something more like a superhero comic book. They are not exactly bad, but they are quite a change from the earlier books. Characters have become more like characatures- the straight-arrow DA, the violence-loving wife, the mystical daughter, a cowboy, an Indian, a villian who seemingly has tentacles everywhere, and the mysterious shadow world of underworlders who live in the tunnels beneath New York.

Guma is persuing cold cases and decides to prosecute an unsolved disappearance that was probably a murder. The body of the missing person is found, but things are not quite that simple.

The Islamic terrorists who seem to be allied with the primary villian are planning another major assault on New York.

#19 Malice (2007)

Book year is 2006. This one is filled with political intrigue as the Karps try to figure out who has taken over the evil organization that was personified by Andrew Kane. The terrorist groups are still trying to cause havoc in New York City, and we begin to get an inkling of who is really behind all this.

Lucy is living in New Mexico with Ned, but that doesn't keep her from becoming involved when the Department of Homeland Security calls upon her to translate a message in an obscure language.

Butch is still recouperating from the attack at the end of the previous book, and he takes on a civil case in Idaho involving the brother of a college basketball friend. Of course, everything ends up being related.

From Hoax onward, the books are more like episodes in one continuing saga.

#20 Escape (2008)

One of the two parallel stories in the book is taken from the real-life case of Andrea Yates who drowned her five children in the bathtub. This part of the story does an excellent job of balancing the legal definition of insanity with the obviously deranged mother who thought God had told her to kill her children to save their souls.

The other story is the ongoing saga of the Islamic terrorists who are trying to bring down the United States, the Sons of Man who are attempting an economic control of the country, and the crazy cast of Butch Karp's family and friends who are constantly involved in preserving New York City and the country.

Although Tanenbaum (since Resolved) has written the books himself, this one is slightly less wordy, with more of the text to the point of action. I keep reading because I like the diverse and implausible cast of characters.

#21 Capture (2009)

The series continues very much in comic book mode with the unlikely cast of the Karp-Ciampi family, Ned the cowboy, Tran the Vietnamese who is now best friends with his old enemy the Pueblo Indian John Jojola, the ruthless reporter, the evil arch-enemy, the treacherous Sons of Man, David Grale with his army of homeless tunnel-dwellers, and don't forget the District Attorney's office. But it works!

The terrorists are still at it, having recovered from being foiled in their previous plot. Of course, they may only be tools of the Russians or the Sons of Man.

The courtroom secondary plot involves the trail of a Broadway producer. Did the girl in his room commit suicide or did he kill her?

#22 Betrayed (2010)

This book has one story revolving around a "Fixer," a man who makes big problems go away for rich people. This person and the man who hired him are woven through events which are purposely mis-interpreted. A young woman goes missing and is believed to have been taken into the slave trade in Mexico. "Dirty Warren" the street newspaper vendor at the courthouse is arrested for the murder of a woman he used to know.

The terrorist saga continues with the trail of the Imam at the mosque where Jojola and Tran witnessed the murder of Miriam Kalifa. But the men are under deep cover in anti-terrorist activities and can't say as much as they'd like, and the defense for the Imam is claiming that Jojola and Tran actually committed the murder. The Sons of Man are suffering setbacks.

Karp's children are less involved in this book, but Marlene chooses to defend Dirty Warren.

#23 Outrage (2011)

This book seems to be better written again with more focus. Lucy is having second thoughts about getting married to Ned. The twins are 15, over 6 feet tall, and learning to stand up for what's right. Their private school baseball team has a chance at the playoffs, but an Hispanic boy who has a scholarship is being not-so-subtly pushed off the team by the coach even though he's an excellent player.

The primary theme is that of suggestive confessions forced by police. A not-terribly-bright young man is arrested for several brutal murders across two buroughs. Karp is embarrassed and outraged when his office indicts the man who is clearly not the guilty party. The only way to save face is to find out who really is the killer.

#24 Bad Faith (2012)

The legal theme of this book is whether parents have the right to withhold medical treatment from their children for religious reasons. The reader is not forced to think about it too hard, though, because it turns out that the "Reverend" definitely has motives that go beyond the spritual.

Chechyn terrorist Nadya Malovo is still up to her tricks, having now convinced the US government that she will give up terror plots in exchange for a place in the Witness Protection Program.

#25 Tragic (2013)

This is the "calmest" book in the series, and probably the most realistic. No terrorism, just a tragic story of two young men who are minor criminals, but they are enticed to help with a killing for money. The lives that are changed forever, even though they later are sorry for what they have done, can't be altered.

The feud is between two factions of a dockworkers union. One has the best interests of the workers in mind, and the other is corrupt, stealing money from the union pension fund.

The subject of the book is loosely woven on a framework of Macbeth.

#26 Fatal Conceit (2014)

In the opening scene, Lucy is in terrible jeopardy due to her "job" with the super-secret anti-terrorism group. She and Ned are on assignment in the Middle East. When the compound is attacked, Lucy manages to get a message out on a cell phone.

Two advisors to the U.S. President are running the military response, and refuse to call up a drone strike on the attack that is taking place. Lucy is taken hostage and Ned is missing.

The President refuses to admit that Al Queda is still powerful, and this leads to the murder of the candidate for CIA director.

#27 Trap (2015)

The main theme of this book is how much can be at stake between traditional teacher's unions and charter schools. Another good read about people in power going wrong for greed, when an attempt to cover up theft leads to murder. No terrorists in this book, but there are some Neo-Nazis.

The personal aspects of Butch's life deal with his twin sons who are now almost grown.

#28 Infamy (2017)

Intrigue and black-market oil are the key elements of this book. A powerful businessman with the President's ear will do anything to prevent the truth coming out about how he has protected his own oil-production facilities. The code word MIRAGE keeps turning up as Karp tries to unravel the truth. Along the way, the businessman's beautiful wife, a decorated soldier and a dirty cop are murdered.

#29 Without Fear or Favor (2017)

The final book in this series is almost entirely a courtroom case, but with flashbacks to the scenes that are elements in the lawsuit. Racism is rampant for both good and bad reasons. A radical young black man calling himself NatX is mostly looking for ways to kill people under the umbrella of black rights. Butch gets in the way of his goals.

Mystery Series - Roderick Alleyn

Ngaio Marsh

(Edith) Ngaio Marsh was a New Zealand writer in the golden age of crime fiction. She is considered one of the top four of the era (with Agatha Christie, Dorothy L Sayers, Margery Allingham). She lived from 1895-1982.

In my opinion she's in the running for the best of the lot. Her forte is collecting a large cast of characters with relationships, animosities and ulterior motives. She usually has scenes with rooms filled with people, and the reader must pay close attention to who is saying what to whom in order to have a glimmer of the solution to the crime.

Inspector Alleyn is the police presence in all her mysteries. All but four of the books are set in England. The others are in New Zealand.

Recurring Characters of note:
Inspector (becoming Chief Inspector) Roderick Alleyn
Agatha Troy, his wife
Inspector Fox, his assistant

#1 A Man Lay Dead, 1934

#1 Enter a Murderer, 1935

#1 The Nursing Home Murder, 1935

#1 Death in Ecstasy, 1936

#1 Vintage Murder, 1937

#1 Artists in Crime, 1938

#1 Death in a White Tie, 1938

#1 Overture to Death, 1939

#1 Death at the Bar, 1940

#1 Surfeit of Lampreys/ Death of a Peer (US title), 1941
The Charles Lampreys are a family whose immediate head, Charles, is the younger brother of a peer, George. Consequently, he keeps going through money in the way he's been accustomed to live, but George is the one who inherited the family fortune. Several times, the Charles Lampreys have needed to be bailed out of financial hardship by George. Now George says (apparently), "no more."

The family is a lively bunch, currently living in a double apartment in England (after we first meet them in New Zealand). There are a pair of twins who have spent their lives joking/lying about which is which. The oldest daughter is an actress, and two younger children round out the group. Their favorite passtime is playing charades and they keep a large closet full of props and costumes. Of course there are servants.

George angrily visits after the next request for funds, but he is found in the elevator, seriously wounded by one of the famous props.

This is one of the best examples of Marsh's ability to confuse everything with a huge group of people who are experts at play-acting, and the twins make it even more complex.

#1 Death and the Dancing Footman, 1941

#1 Colour Scheme, 1943

#1 Died in the Wool, 1945

#1 Final Curtain, 1947

#1 Swing Brother Swing/ A Wreath for Rivera (US title), 1949

#1 Opening Night, 1951

#1 Spinsters in Jeopardy/ The Bride of Death (US abridged version), 1953

#1 Scales of Justice, 1955

#1 Off With His Head/ Death of a Fool, 1956

#1 Singing in the Shrouds, 1958

#1 False Scent, 1959

#1 Hand in Glove, 1962

#1 Dead Water, 1963

#1 Death at the Dolphin/ Killer Dolphin (US title), 1966

#1 Clutch of Constables, 1968

#1 When in Rome, 1970

#1 Tied Up in Tinsel, 1972

#1 Black As He's Painted, 1974

#1 Last Ditch, 1977

#1 Grave Mistake, 1978

#1 Photo Finish, 1980

#1 Light Thickens, 1982