I read the Pintoff book on vacation and never got around to blogging about it, which is a shame, because I liked it a lot.  It’s a police procedural set in 1905.  The protagonist, Simon Ziele, is a former New York police officer who’s sought a less stressful post in a small town north of the city.  A brutal murder there sends him back to Gotham, where he partners with a university professor who studies the criminal mind.  Writing in the 21st century, Pintoff effectively captures the early flavor of what we now know as criminal profiling.

I’m delighted to see there’s a new sequel, A Curtain Falls.

While we, of course, knew the story, we both thought that someone without that knowledge would still have followed and been satisfied by the plot.

In 1981, Field of Blood’s Paddy Meehan is a copy “boy” at the Scottish Daily News in Glasgow.  When the murder of a young boy touches her (very Catholic) family, she willfully pursues the story — the mystery — losing her family’s support and discovering that she’s self-sufficient without it.

Mina has James Lee Burke’s gift for describing atmosphere: the snow and cold rain of Glasgow, shadowy streets of vacant buildings, the parlors of people stunned by poverty.  She also captures Paddy’s emotional climate, as she goes toe-to-toe with newsroom misogynists, acknowledges her lack of faith and weighs the value of a career vs. a traditional family.

The mystery and character both develop at a satisfying and logical pace.

And, as a former journalist, I loved this passage.

Paddy: “Yeah, that’s the trouble with working here.  Everyone’s a cynic.”

His eyes softened.  “We’re all heartbroken idealists.  That’s what no one gets about journalists: only true romantics get jaded.’”

Meanwhile, at the officer’s club and in private parlors, stiff drinks and stiff upper lips prevail, affairs flourish and wane and siege humor colors the dialog.  It’s all too, too Graham Greene.

Max Chadwick is the British information officer (PR guy) trying to bolster the locals with cheery tales of incidental heroism while covering up news of a serial killer preying on young women: a killer who may well be one of the Brits’ own.

Mills effectively mixes history with some well-drawn fictional characters.  He’s less effective as a mystery writer.  The clues didn’t draw an inevitable net tighter and tighter around the killer.   The conclusion felt more like, “Oops, time to end this book.  Here’s who done it.”

Anyway, this article at Salon.com introduced me to the subject.   I especially liked the bracket at http://jensbookthoughts.blogspot.com/ in which favorite fictional detectives square off against each other.  What, no point spread?  In round three, my toughest choice was between Kurt Wallander and Dave Robicheaux.  I chose Wallander, but, if I had to choose which author’s books I liked more,  things might go the other way.

Oh, sure, he really gets into the Samuri warrior mentality, that whole honor and duty thing.  To the manner born and all that.  And it only takes a short course with the Japanese equivalent of Yoda to turn him into a sword fighter who can go mano a mano with the best guy in the entire country.

Even Hunter acknowledges that keeping the story straight as he’s switched  back and forth between the stories of Bob Lee and his father, Earl, has occasionally forced him to rewrite their history.   I haven’t kept up on the Swagger series, so maybe he’s grown into this character.  If so, could we please rewrite his character to bring back the iconic, stoic sniper/tracker/woodsman from Point of Impact?

EW sheds some light on one of my earlier blog questions about  Scandinavians and Nazis:  Larson crusaded against right-wing extremism in Sweden until his untimly death in 2004.

Is national socialism still driving world politics, or is it just a useful device for contemporary suspense writers?

No boring exposition here. Nunn gives her characters dialog that economically conveys character and drives the story.

In Nunn’s apartheid-based world, a cop with a secret, on the verge of trouble and insubordination (is there any other way?) navigates the dark pathways between whites and blacks to find a murderer in a South African village.

I’ve been working my way through a number of Edgar nominees and this is yet another worthy candidate.

Nesbo’s work is excellent and probably lives up to the jacket blurb calling this the best Norwegian crime fiction novel ever, but only the Norwegians know for sure.