Arts & Events

This month I have three mystery/thriller novels to recommend and two to avoid.

(A) The Busy Body -- Kemper Donovan (Five stars)

A mystery set in Sacobago Maine.

Great set up: after a narrow loss in a three-way presidential election, Maine Senator Dorothy Gibson retreats to her primary residence and decides to write her memoir with the considerable assistance of an unnamed ghostwriter. Imagine that Dorothy Parker was hired to write Hillary Clinton’s bio and you get the picture. 

After a couple of days, the Senator and the ghostwriter set out for the nearby “Betty’s Liquor Mart” to secure supplies. They run into a Dorothy Gibson superfan who informs them that she and her husband are renting the adjacent property, the Crystal Palace. They take a selfie with the fan, Vivian Davis. Two days later, she’s dead. Initially, the authorities describe Vivian’s death as a suicide. The Senator and the Ghostwriter don’t buy it, so they launch their own investigation. 

Kemper Donovan has written a nifty mystery that works on many levels, because the narrator’s voice is so funny. The biggest problem is the title: “the Busy Body.” This doesn’t work but Donovan and his publisher couldn’t use the obvious, “the Ghostwriter,” because that was the title of a famous thriller by Robert Harris. Tough luck, Kemper Donovan. Your mystery needs to be read by more people. 

(B) The Ghost Orchid -- Jonathan Kellerman (Five stars) 

A superb police-procedural mystery set in Los Angeles. 

Alex Delaware and Milo Sturgis return in the 39th book in this notable series. It’s a superior police-procedural that begins with a Bel-Air double homicide: a married woman, Meagin March, and her Italian boyfriend, Gio Aggiunta. As usual, the plot features well-constructed twists and turns. 

It’s difficult to write a straightforward police-procedural mystery that holds a reader’s attention for 300 pages. Jonathan Kellerman is the master of this because he combines an intriguing plot will skillful characterizations. 

(C) Hero -- Thomas Perry (five stars) 

A chase thriller set in Los Angeles. 

Thomas Perry has written 31 novels, most of them chase thrillers where the protagonist is being pursued by a hitman. In “Hero,” Justine Poole works for a high-end security firm and, in the line of duty, shoots two burglars. Their boss, the evil Mr. Conger, hires a hitman to take out Justine. 

Thomas Perry’s cat-and-mouse thrillers, particularly the “Jane Whitefield” series, are known for their carefully crafted plots and painstaking attention to detail. That’s true in “Hero.” 

The problem with the novel is that Justine lacks depth. Jane Whitefield was a fully developed character; Justine Poole is not. 

Two Novels to Avoid: 

The Year of the Locust -- Terry Hayes (Three stars) 

A spy thriller set (primarily) in Washington DC and Iran. 

The protagonist is master CIA spy, Ridley Walker. (Ridley uses several names: Kane, Sadiqaa Khan, Daniel Greenberg, and Fyodor Petrov.) He is sent into Iran to obtain information about an ISIS spin off, the “Army of the Pure,” that plans a major attack on the west. The mission doesn’t go as planned and Ridley has a traumatic meeting with the “Army of the Pure” military commander, Roman Kazinksy. (Kazinsky is also known as Abu Muslim al-Tundra and “the Locust.”) The novel describes Ridley’s mission to abort the terrorist attack and eliminate Kazinsky. 

SPOILER ALERT: “The Year of the Locust” is a well-conceived spy thriller for the first half of its 800 pages. Then it changes. Imagine that you were eating Thanksgiving dinner at a fancy French restaurant, and they served the courses one at a time: appetizer, soup, salad, bread, vegetable, potatoes, dressing, as you expected. Then, when the main course arrives, in place of turkey, the fancy restaurant served tofu. That’s what happens to the plot in the second half of “the Year of the Locust;” we’re led to believe we will be served a traditional main course, and we get something very different. 

What happened? In 2013, Terry Hayes published “I am Pilgrim.” Many thriller fans eagerly awaited Hayes’ next book, originally promised for 2016. Instead, “The Year of the Locust” arrived in 2023. I suspect that Terry Hayes had a problem with the novel conclusion. When this occurred, he and his publisher had the choice of dividing “The Year of the Locust” into two parts; it could have ended after “part two” – hallway though the novel -- and then he could have taken more time on parts three and four. That choice would have gotten his fans a book closer to 2016. Instead, Terry Hayes and his publisher delayed the novel until 2023 and stuck us with a “tofu” ending. 

Last Night -- Luanne Rice (Three stars) 

A police-procedural mystery set at Rhode Island’s famous Ocean House hotel. 

At the onset of a blizzard, famous artist Maddie “MC” Morrison goes for a walk with her six-year-old daughter, CeCe. Later, Maddie’s body is found; her daughter is missing. The murder is investigated by Maddie’s sister, Hadley, and two hotel guests, detective Conor Reid and his fiancée Kate Woodward. 

Luanne Rice is a good writer. Her characterizations are strong, and the novel is helped by the setting at Ocean House. Rice is particularly adept writing about art. 

SPOILER ALERT: Told from multiple points-of-view, “Last Night” moves along briskly only to collapse at the denouement. Luanne Rice lost control of the narrative and ended by resorting to a device similar to, “all of the above.” 

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