[Spring 1997: Decided to add a current review page to this site. This will not contain full book reviews, but capsule summaries of mysteries recently read that have particular merit (God forbid, not every mystery I read). The other pages on this site emphasize the tried and true, but there are some really brilliant mysteries being written now, even though we are no longer in the 'Golden Age'. What is contained here is in effect Rave Reviews -- why bother to put the rest on a Web Page? Read the newspapers, etc. for those.] -- original blurb

Additions are also infrequent even when I want to extol a book, because I am lazy and end up postponing updating this page until I've forgotten I was enthused.

To read the occasional Spoiler sections, run your mouse with the left button held down over the green background. It is not recommended you do this unless you have read the book and want to see my take on the plot solution, how well it was done or otherwise.

• Denise Mina: The Garnethill Trilogy. Garnethill, Exile, and Resolution. A harrowing set of books with recurring characters taking place in Glasgow, Scotland at its grittiest. The subject is unpleasant -- child abuse, sexual exploitation, rape, torture, murder involving not just low-lives but the psychiatric profession. Very well-written, with touches of humor in the grim story line, and fine descriptive passages (including 'nightmares', something that is rather difficult to do convincingly). The basic premise is the on-going battle between Maureen O'Donnell and the murderer Angus Farrell, with incidental involvement of unsympathetic cops, a drunken mother, prissy sister, drug-dealing brother, and various rape victims who are well characterized. Not a detective story, but there are many surprises and periods of suspense. Highly recommended.

• Jasper Fforde: The Thursday Next series (Jurisfiction). So far: The Eyre Affair, Lost in a Good Book, and The Well of Lost Plots. These are 'police procedural' books in a technical sense, otherwise like nothing else than Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy or Monty Python's Flying Circus or similar quirky British phantasmagorias. Thursday Next is a member of the Special Ops police force (SO-27, Literary Detection) in the 1980s of an alternative Britain where time travel is common, fictional books are real, and technology is somewhat skewed from what we are used to! She investigates plots and scams involving literature -- forged Shakespeare plays, deletion of Dickens characters, plot meddling as in changing the ending of Jane Eyre, instigated by the arch-crook Acheron Hades. Later, she is recruited into Jurisfiction, the police force within fiction as opposed to external as with Spec-Ops, under the tutelage of Miss Havisham (whose interests outside Great Expectations include car racing). All very amusing and extremely literate, full of 'in' jokes, puns, conundrums, and genre-crossing. A good continuing sub-plot involves her father, who is a rogue time-travel cop who plays deus ex machina throughout, while trying to change history (e.g. ending the Crimean War, which went on for over 100 years, restoring the fame of the unknown Winston Churchill, allowing Lord Nelson to win the Battle of Trafalgar, and at one point actually going back to the beginning of time and establishing life on earth). Note also Thursday's pet dodo Pickwick, plock-plocking proudly over her egg.

• Carlos Ruiz Zafon: The Shadow of the Wind. This best-selling Spanish book is not strictly a mystery but can be read as such (think of "Coffin for Dimitrios," for example). There was a lot of blurb/hype in the edition I read, comparisons with Eco, Borges, Marquez, etc., but I would class it more along the lines of "Phantom of the Opera" and similar bizarre classics with a compelling Gothic plot. In other ways, it is an adventure story and a 'coming-of-age' book for male teenagers, with a truly appalling villain in Inspector Fumero, 'young love' well described, an amusing 'detective' (the homeless Fermin, ex-spy), and a bunch of interesting eccentrics. It is a gripping story with thriller elements, historical settings (Barcelona in the first half of the 20th Century, the Spanish Civil War), supernatural elements, and a Grand Guignol plot involving an obscure but great 'horror' writer whose few books are being sought out by a mysterious devil figure with a burned-out face in order to destroy them. There are some nice settings, including 'The Cemetery of Forgotten Books', an appalling hospice for dying indigents, and a spooky derelict mansion complete with burial crypts, etc. (in many ways resembling Carr's haunted backwaters buried in a sinister precinct of the old town). Barcelona itself is presented as a city with a unique personality. The American edition was translated by Lucia Graves (the poet's daughter) and reads very well. One of the best books I've read this year, and highly recommended.