Month: June 2020

The fourth in a solid police procedural series set in evocative Norfolk, “Tell No Tales” finds dependable, sharp-minded, unstoppable Detective Inspector Tom Jansson pursuing the truth behind the mortal fall of an unidentified man from Sheringham Cliffs. I have walked the 78 kilometers of marshes, dunes, and beaches of the Norfolk Coastal Path and author J. M. Dalgliesh’s evocative descriptions of fictional Sheringham brought vivid memories back to life. Alongside his usual team, Jansson is now lumbered with a new Detective Sergeant, Cassie Knight, and the subtle interactions of this new relationship build on his evolving intricate storyline, in a familiar, slow-burning progression. The dead man turns out to have a dark past and as treacherous a present, and Jansson’s swirling set of clues almost unmoors him. As usual, Dalgliesh’s prose is smooth and muscular, his grounding in Norfolk is flawless, and his characterization is solid. The plot involves sinister outside forces, a device that can unroot the plot from the closely observed characters, but the climax is, as usual in this Hidden Norfolk series, satisfying and twisty. “Tell No Tales” is another fast, delectable read.

Garry Disher is a national treasure, a writer of subtlety and prodigious narrative control. “Peace” is the second in a murder mystery series set in the dry farming land of South Australia, starring Hirsch (aka Sergeant Paul Hirschhausen), a newbie in a small country town. None of your standard crime fiction tics for Hirsch: he is a decent, hardworking cop with a sharp mind. Disher is brilliant at setting the scene and bringing this unforgiving area of Australia to life, and in “Peace” he takes his time building up a tapestry of crimes, minor and then, dramatically, most major. The final third is a rollercoaster of investigation and action. A large array of characters, all people I’m sure you recognize, sparkles amidst Hirsch’s relentless pursuit of hard-won justice. Disher does not waste a word and the pages tumble under the reader’s eye; this is late-night compulsion. One of my favorite mystery reads in 2020.

“The Glovemaker” is an earnest historical novel set in a remote Mormon community in Utah in the late nineteenth century. A lone woman frets about her late-to-return husband when a fugitive lands on her doorstep. In an era thick with persecution (a fascinating unexpected morsel of history), the law will surely follow, and the novel turns into a fraught set of moral decisions by her and her neighbor. The setting amongst Utah’s canyons is vividly portrayed. “The Glovemaker” is a smooth read, most interesting, although the plot fails to live up to its early dramatic promise.

What saved me in my teen years was a mobile library housed in a bus. “The Giver of Stars” offers the fascinating tale of an even older mobile library, a horseback service run by women in rural Kentucky in the late 30s, so of course I was hooked. Jo Jo Moyes is a capable stylist, perhaps a little prone to clichés in characterisation and dialogue, but her steady plot, involving as it does marital woes, the library service’s battles against conservative men, and even a death, drew me in. Englishwoman Alice Wright and firebrand Margery O’Hare emerge as memorable. Descriptions of the library’s routes in all seasons bristle with life. An enjoyable read, although the ending rounded matters up too cleanly for my twisted likings.

“Khaki Town” plunges the reader into a sprinkle of Australian history we have barely heard of, the tale of Queensland’s Townsville in early 1942, when American soldiers, mostly African-Americans, flooded the town and brewed up a cocktail of simmering violence. Into this cauldron strides an unknown American senator, Lyndon Baines Johnson, charged with restoring order discreetly. It’s a fascinating tale and Judy Nunn unfurls the plot with a sure hand, but characterisation lets the story down. All the main players seem like puppets clumsily deployed. Nunn’s bold depiction of LBJ also irked me; I know the future president well from biographies and histories, and he was altogether a more complex and compelling man than revealed in “Khaki Town.” An enjoyable but by no means riveting read.