Tokyo Year Zero Review

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Tokyo Year Zero ReviewA strange but effective mystery set in early post-war Tokyo, this novel always seems a bit off-balance. There are murders, there is a police investigation (of sorts), but the primary interest is the portrayal of Japan under the Occupation forces and the desperation of day-to-day life in Tokyo.
You will not get a feeling about being comfortable knowing what's going on. Wheels within wheels, the police at all levels work clandestinely with the criminal gangs, and the police at all levels often seem to be working at cross-purposes to each other. Only the top-level police have access to automobiles, and it is odd to see the day starting with the sergeant barking "Bow!" and everyone bows deeply to their superiors.
When you finish the book, there's no sense of satisfaction--but this dark and disturbing work makes you feel as if you've been given a glimpse of hell--rather like Dante's Inferno. If you want a good, more conventional Japanese police novel, try Matsumoto's Points and Lines. If you want the classic police procedural, try Freeman Wills Croft's series. Tokyo Year Zero is unconventional, unsettling, and harrowing--and effective.Tokyo Year Zero Overview

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The Black Dahlia Review

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The Black Dahlia ReviewJames Ellroy's "The Black Dahlia" is almost too dark, too gripping and too believable. It stands out among a crowd of mysteries (sub-genre police procedural) as simply a great novel. Most mysteries I put down and forget that I've read them. The characters from Ellroy's noir vision of L.A. in the late 1940s and early 1950s are indelibly etched in my mind, as is Ellroy's characterization of the period and location itself. This is the most visceral book I've ever read.
I picked up this book myself from Partners and Crime's Top 100 shelf (P&C is an awesome mystery bookstore in Manhattan's Greenwich Village). I loaned my copy to a friend, who gave it back to me a week later and said he didn't want to read the rest of the series or any other mystery novel again in his life -- this one was perfect and anything else would just ruin his ability to savor "The Black Dahlia". I loaned it to a second friend who finished it in a week, and then went out and bought the complete Ellroy ouevre. This is not a one-night read unless you have strong eyes, strong coffee, heroic concentration and an iron will.
If you get a chance, hear Ellroy read from these books in person.
Sequencing Ellroy's books is tough, because they're all similar in terms of time frame, setting, and characters. The L.A. trilogy plus one is:
* 1947: The Black Dahlia
* 1950: The Big Nowhere
* 1951: L. A. Confidential
* 1958: White Jazz
Dudley Smith also appears in Ellroy's second novel, "Clandestine", set in 1951.The Black Dahlia Overview

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Gilded Latten Bones: A Garrett, P.I., Novel Review

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Gilded Latten Bones: A Garrett, P.I., Novel ReviewWell, not right now, I think. There are enough tantalising clues and loose ends in Gilded Latten Bones to stand another few stories. But the book opens with Garrett retired for about 18 months, living with Tinnie Tate, and someone trying to kill him (or maybe Tinnie) - and Morley Dotes too. The story is then about how Garrett gets his groove back and comes out of retirement. The veneer of calm that has been creeping over TunFaire of late is suddenly revealed as very thin.
To be uncharitable, not a lot happens for the first 200 pages of the book - its sleuthing all the way, although Garrett is not pounding the streets himself. At page 200, there is a little action and the Dead Man goes to sleep. Then another 130 pages of investigation and problem solving, and the last 20 pages tie it all up. There is very little dénouement, and a number of loose threads are left hanging at the end of the story. But every single word has meaning - either in this book, for a past story, or presumably some future one. There is plenty of tension even if the blades aren't flickering.
Bones continues the theme of the last several books of growing up and getting older - noticeably, on seeing all his old friends Garrett notes how they all look a bit more chased by Father Time. Presumably they could say the same about Garrett, but no one does. This is beautifully handled - of all things, this is a lovely character piece, about love and companionship, friendship and adulthood. There a lot of litle clues about the past and future scattered through the story - and if I had to guess, I would say that Pular Singe is writing all these Garrett tales down with help from the Dead Man: some shades of the literary method of the Black Company's Annals there.
Lastly, the book is chock full of surprises: without giving too much away, Bones is not a gentle continuation of where the last few books (especially Cruel Zinc Melodies) were heading. It's not a reboot, or anything of the sort, but Garrett has been set up for a whole new suite of adventures in a whole new sort of TunFaire.Gilded Latten Bones: A Garrett, P.I., Novel Overview

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Sweet Silver Blues (Garrett, P.I.) Review

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Sweet Silver Blues (Garrett, P.I.) ReviewSweet Silver Blues (1987) is the first fantasy novel in the Garrett Files series. TunFaire is an old city, with the royalty and wizards uphill and the criminals downhill in the slums. Outside the city are the estates of the rich.
In this novel, Garrett is an ex-Marine who has spent five hard years fighting the Venageti within the Cantard. After completing his enlistment, he hung out his shingle as a private detective. Now he has his home and office inside the city gates in the commoner section.
Garrett has a partner in the detective business. The Dead Man had been killed four hundred years previously, but is neither dead nor a man; he is a four hundred fifty pound Loghyr whose body might be dead, but whose mind is definitely still alive. He can read the mind of anyone within a score yards or so of his body and can project thoughts into the minds of anyone within the same radius. He is also capable of other psychic tricks within that restricted range.
The Dead Man is very smart and extremely well informed on historical details, but he is also incapable of moving on his own. Garrett is the active partner, gathering facts and reporting back to the Dead Man. The Dead Man compiles these facts and then deduces certain conclusions, often sending Garrett out to collect additional specific information.
In this story, a friend of Garrett has died and the registered will appoints Garrett as one of the executors. Denny Tate had been a cavalryman in the Cantard and had been in the lucky regiment that overran a Venageti treasure caravan. Denny mustered out with a goodly amount of metal.
When Willard Tate takes him into the basement to see his son's silver, Garrett finds much more than he expected. The basement contains one hundred thousand Karentine marks in silver and other metals. No way that could be Denny's share of the plunder. Willard explains that Denny had been trading in metals, buying gold when the price of silver is high and buying silver when the price of gold is high.
Denny's will left most of the fortune to Kayean Kronk. Supposedly she is an old flame from his army days, who had kept writing letters to Denny after he was returned from the Cantard. After Garrett finished reading a few of the letters, he knew that he would take the job. Of course, he would have to return to the Cantard to find the heiress.
Garrett takes Morley -- the half-darkelf -- and three grolls with him to the Cantard. Unhappily, Rose and Tinnie Tate end up sailing with them down to Liefmold, but Garrett makes a deal with the bargemaster to take the girls back to TunFaire. Morley and the grolls are seasick the entire way on the barge to Liefmold and then even more so on the coaster to Full Harbor.
This story has elements of noir detective stories. It also has some obvious similarities to the Nero Wolfe novels, yet Garrett shows more intuition and independence than Archie Goodwin. Once they reach Full Harbor, however, the plot begins to resemble an espionage thriller. Various groups begin to react to Garrett and his crew as if they are official investigators from the capital. Then people start to vanish after talking to Garrett.
Highly recommended for Cook fans and for anyone else who enjoys tales of tough detectives, casual magic, and a dead psychic genius in the wings.
-Arthur W. JordinSweet Silver Blues (Garrett, P.I.) Overview

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