Crime Fiction

If you want to read a great Australian series of police procedural novels you can’t really go past Jon Cleary’s Scobie Malone series. The High Commissioner by Jon Cleary is still a great example of quality writing that takes a good chunk out of Australian life and lays it down for examination. This first book in the series is set in London with a young Scobie Malone called out to arrest the Australian High Commissioner for murder. It’s an introduction to a character who would go on to develop into one of the best known Australian protagonists.

It wouldn’t be for another 4 years before the next book in the series was released. Helga’s Web by Jon Cleary confirmed the promise of the first book and Scobie Malone had developed into a more self assured police detective. It was the sort of follow up book that suddenly makes you want to find out more about the main character and all of the others who would go on to become regulars.

If you are into Australian crime fiction and want to read a series that will take you right into the middle of the cultural landscape of the country, particularly of Sydney, then track down as many of the 20 Scobie Malone books as you can.

I felt fortunate to have discovered Mark Gimenez when I read his debut novel, The Color of Law and made a mental note to keep watch for his subsequent book. Unfortunately  bush telegraph system of my mind went bung and I missed his next 2 books before getting hold of The Common Lawyer. Everything that I remembered enjoying about Gimenez’s captivating writing style was repeated here in this new legal thriller.

The Common Lawyer is a nicely constructed suspense thriller that mixes an off-beat light heartedness with a more sobering social commentary and serious look at childhood terminal illness. As with his other novels, Gimenez uses the backdrop of Austin, Texas as his setting, particularly the more peculiar local section known as SoCo – being short for south of the Colorado River.

The protagonist of The Common Lawyer is Andy Prescott but he’s not the usual big shot lawyer earning squillions in a major law firm. He is a small-time traffic ticket lawyer who specializes in getting his clients’ out of paying their speeding tickets for a hundred bucks a pop. His motivation is not the love of his job, it’s the desire for a top-of-the-range mountain bike and he gets his adrenaline rush by shredding the dirt trails in the hills outside of town.

Andy Prescott is the kind of unassuming guy you find it easy to root for, but he’s also the kind of guy who is gullible enough to believe just about anything. When billionaire businessman Russell Reeves approaches Andy to do his legal work for a development project in SoCo, he conveniently overlooks the fact that Reeves could have afforded any better credentialed lawyer he wanted.

Suddenly, the world is Andy’s oyster as the money begins rolling in thanks to the work from Reeves. The job has expanded to some extra work for the rich man. Andy is asked to track down 17 women, supposedly former girlfriends of Reeves and report back everything he can find out. What Andy finds out is that there is a similarity attached to each of the women he finds that is too great to ignore and he begins to grow increasingly apprehensive about the fact that he is being used.

What we know is that Russell Reeves has a son who is dying of cancer. We also know that there are some other people looking for the same women that Andy is looking for and those doing the finding are dying. It turns out that although Andy is getting paid a lucrative amount of money, he may not be around long enough to enjoy it.

The Common Lawyer asks the burning question: How far would you go to save your child’s life? The tone of the story reaches a state of desperate urgency replacing the early easy going banter that was enjoyed while getting to know Andy and his friends whose primary concern had been finding a girl willing to date them.

There are some powerful moments in the book, particularly in the awareness of the inevitability of death, made all the more moving because the knowledge was expressed by a child.

Danger comes in the form of a hired killer looking to take out Andy and the chase sequence in the latter part of the book is transparently telegraphed in the opening chapter of the book. This doesn’t detract from the plotting at all, in fact I was anticipating the fact that it would happen and wasn’t disappointed.

The Common Lawyer is a fast-paced thriller that should appeal to a wide ranging audience. It’s a legal thriller but without the procedure, an action thriller minus the highly accomplished professional hero and a moral lesson without the highbrow preaching tone that can be overbearing. There is a well hidden mystery behind the action that is worth waiting for. It hits the mark as a compelling story that flows smoothly from start to finish.

Here is a review of an older crime novel, something from the golden years in fact. The book is Phantom Lady by Cornell Woolrich, published in 1942. Woolrich was one of the finest exponents of noir fiction and this book is a prime example of his work.

Review of Phantom Lady by Cornell Woolrich

A book that begins with a chapter titled `The Hundred and Fiftieth Day Before the Execution’, as this one is, gives you an immediate impression of what lies ahead. There is a definite sense that we are leading towards a very nasty ending indeed. Right from the get go the reader’s interest is piqued and you are compelled to read on.

The man facing execution is Scott Henderson, and we meet him as the story opens when he picks up a girl in a bar based solely on her outrageous hat. For some reason he’s in a foul mood and pays her little attention, even though he takes her out to dinner, a theatre show and then back to the bar. When he gets home to his apartment he is greeted by the police…and the body of his strangled wife. Things start getting really interesting from here on out.

We find the story revolving around the careful recounting of Scott Henderson’s movements on that night as he desperately tries to establish an alibi. As the title of the book suggests, the lady he was with that night has disappeared, leaving him in deep trouble. Chapter by chapter the clock ticks down building tension and adding an enormous feeling of desperation to the search. Three people, each of whom is willing to put themselves in danger to see that justice is served, conduct the search for that elusive alibi. Firstly, Henderson’s girlfriend / mistress gets herself deeply involved, at times placing herself in extreme danger. The second person is an old school friend who Henderson calls, in the belief that he is the only person who would care enough to help. And thirdly, and most surprisingly, is the police officer that was instrumental in seeing Henderson convicted. He begins to hold grave misgivings about his guilt and provides the impetus behind their quest.

Cornell Woolrich expertly weaves an exhausting tale as lead after lead is explored in an all out effort to save Scott Henderson’s life. As can be expected, given the nature of the chapter titles, the story culminates in a nail-biting ending, making it a most satisfying reading experience.

I’m currently reading the new book by Texas author Mark Gimenez titled The Common Lawyer. This is the 4th book by Gimenez following The Color of Law (2005), The Abduction (2007) and The Perk (2008) and once again it is set in the Texas city of Austin. Gimenez uses Austin as a vital part of the story which takes a young laid back lawyer and sets him up for the ride of his life.

Here is the book synopsis from the back cover.

Andy Prescott is the most laid-back young lawyer in Austin, Texas. Specialising in traffic law, he operates from a small room above a ramshackle tattoo parlor. He rides a trail bike and spends way too much time drinking beer in the sunshine. Ambition has never been Andy’s strong point – he prefers to take it easy. That is, until one of Texas’s wealthiest men walks into his office.

On the sport, billionaire Russell Reeves retains Andy as his lawyer and, in exchange for some easy legal work, pays him more money than he has ever earned before. Andy’s life is transformed. BUt nothing comes for free. Russell is a desperate man whose sole aim is to save his eight-year-old son Zach, who is dying from leukemia. He is prepared to do anything – even if it means putting Andy’s life in danger…

A new suspense thriller has just been released by duo authors Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child titled The Wheel of Darkness. It is the 8th book to feature FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast. The other books in the series are Relic, Reliquary, The Cabinet of Curiosities, Still Life With Crows, Brimstone, Dance of Death and The Book of the Dead.

The book is set predominantly on a large luxury ocean liner – the Britannia – which proves to be the stage for maritime disasters that threaten to make the Titanic a walk in the park. The Wheel of Darkness is a desperate struggle that puts Pendergast at the greatest danger he has ever faced while also showcasing some of his amazing skills as the ultimate investigator.

Summary From the Back of the Book

Perched like a black crow on a crag in the most hostile depths of the Himalayas stands a monastery. For a thousand years the monks have kept guard. Now their sanctum has been violated, the secret carried off. After a millennium of hiding from the world, the guardians of the treasures will have to turn to an outsider for help.

Luckily Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast is no stranger. Having trained body and mind in Tibet, he knows the land well. But neither he nor his ward, Constance, are prepared for the truth about what the monks have been protecting.

The pursuit of the stolen artefact takes Pendergast and Constance far from the snowy wastes, to where the largest-ever ocean liner is preparing for her maiden voyage. As Pendergast and Constance board, they know they are joined by a cargo of secrets and murderers. As the ship slips into the night, it becomes a deadly race to recover the secrets of the monks, or blackness threatens to fall not just over the ship, but the wider world…

The following crime novels are due to be released in April. Although this is not all the books that will be published this month, these are the books that I’m going to do my best to track down and read.

Blood Moon by Garry Disher (5th in the Hal Challis series)

Fifty Grand by Adrian McGinty

Walking Dead by Greg Rucka (7th in the Atticus Kodiak series)

Palos Verdes Blue by John Shannon (9th in the Jack Liffey series)

I’m particularly excited to see that the new Atticus Kodiak book will be released. This is a bodyguard series that I have really enjoyed in the past and have missed in recent times. I have to go back and read the previous book (Patriot Acts) which slipped under my guard following a 6 year haiatus from the series.

The entire Atticus Kodiak series is as follows:

Keeper (1996)
Finder (1997)
Smoker (1998)
Shooting At Midnight (2000)
Critical Space (2001
Patriot Acts (2007)
Walking Dead (2009)