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The Wrong Side of Goodbye
By Michael Connelly
Little, Brown, 392 pages, $38
We are well past the usual burnout for series characters but Michael Connelly's Harry Bosch books continue to enchant and engage. The Wrong Side of Goodbye manages to be every bit as good as early masterpieces such as The Concrete Blonde and Trunk Music. As fans know, Harry is retired from the LAPD and spends his days working as a part-time private investigator as well as investigating cold cases for the San Fernando PD. The only caveat is that he cannot use police information in his PI work. That doesn't seem to be a problem until two cases converge in unusual ways. The cold case is that of a serial rapist – clues have been lost, witnesses long gone. The private case involves octogenarian-billionaire Whitney Vance. Sixty-five-years ago, Vance fell in love, impregnated his 16-year-old girlfriend and then his father forced the pair to part. The girl – along with the baby – disappeared. Vance never loved another woman. He wants to know if there's an heir or heiress out there somewhere. He offers Harry $10,000 just for one meeting. It's detection and romance, how can Harry resist? Just how Harry solves both his mysteries requires a couple of coincidences and a tiny bit of contrivance at the end, but I wasn't disappointed. This is a terrific Connelly book.
The Keys of My Prison
By Frances Shelley Wees
Véhicule Press, 188 pages, $14.95
Have you heard of the great Canadian author Margaret Millar? She was one of the hottest bestsellers in North America in the 1950s. Working right behind her in talent, but relatively unknown, we have Frances Shelley Wees, whose plots ran to Canadian pulp, and who, if this reissued classic is any indication, really knew her way around a psychological thriller. The setting is Toronto's Rosedale. The story begins with a man in a coma and his devoted wife sitting next to him. Rafe Johnson is the perfect husband; attentive, charming, gracious, all any woman could want. He's also the heir to a fortune and, at this moment, on the cusp of death. Rafe survives, but the man who comes out of the hospital is a complete stranger to his wife and family. Gone are the kind, pleasant ways. The new Rafe is coarse and vulgar, drinking away his days and ignoring his wife. Can a personality change? Or is something more sinister afoot? The plot leads to psychologist Dr. Merrill and his assistant, Henry Lake. Just what is the truth about Rafe Johnson? Thankfully, Véhicule is bringing out more of Wees's novels. I love period pulp.
Rather Be the Devil
By Ian Rankin
Orion, 354 pages, $32
John Rebus returns in this superb mystery set in Edinburgh with a murder 40 years cold. To add to the psychological twist, Rebus has quit smoking and, as any former smoker knows, to go from a two-pack-a-day habit to nothing is no small matter. When his girlfriend, pathologist Deborah Quant, sends him a jar of diseased lung, she has no idea that there's more than one reason Rebus has sworn off the devil weed. Rebus wants to celebrate a bit, so he arranges a dinner for himself and Deborah at a notorious hotel. In the 1970s, the Caledonian was the haunt of rock stars and prostitutes. It was also the scene of the never-solved murder of Maria Turquand. Rebus is interested in the cold case, but his ex-partner, DI Siobhan Clarke, has a more recent crime he can help with: A local crime leader has been beaten senseless on his own doorstep and the rumour is that Rebus's old friend/nemesis, "Big Ger" Cafferty, is responsible. Clarke's current case and Rebus's cold one converge when Turquand's husband turns out to be an employee of a very wealthy (and possibly criminally connected) banker. Rankin plays off the lavish lifestyles of past celebrities with the even more opulent surroundings of today's ultrarich. When there's no shortage of wealth, life is cheap.
Stone Coffin
By Kjell Eriksson, translated by Ebba Segerberg
Minotaur, 304 pages, $36.99
Kjell Eriksson's seventh Ann Lindell novel has already been nominated for an award for Best Swedish Crime Novel. From the first page, it's easy to see why. The prologue is set in the tropics – full of lush vegetation, vibrant lizards, creamy sweet drinks. A man is chatting: "I want to buy some land," he says, and the locals smile. A tourist to be taken. The man sips a beer and contemplates the future away from snow and ice. Cut to a tragedy: A woman and child are run down by a car just outside Uppsala. Accident or murder? Why would anyone want the pair dead? That same day, the woman's husband disappears. Is he a murderer? Is he another victim? It's soon discovered that the husband recently purchased land in the Dominican Republic. Was he already planning crime and escape? This is classic Nordic Noir and one of Eriksson's best.
The Bone Collection
By Kathy Reichs
Simon & Schuster, 339 pages, $29.99
Only one of the stories in this collection of four is brand new, but it answers the most burning question for fans of Kathy Reichs: Just how did Temperance Brennan come to forensic pathology? Reichs answers that one both for her famous fictional female, as well as how she, the author, arrived at a truly unusual career. In Bones in Her Pocket, there's a bag of remains to be sorted and compared and that might just be the end of Tempe's career. Swamp Bones, my personal favourite, has Tempe examining the remains of a body that has become lunch for a giant Burmese python in the Everglades. Bones on Ice takes us to Mount Everest, where an earthquake reveals a mummified corpse. Finally, First Bones is the big reveal: how Tempe got her calling. This is a great introductory book for anyone who hasn't already got the Brennan bug.
Disposable Souls
By Phonse Jessome
Vagrant Press, 336 pages, $24.95
The first thing you notice about this book is that Phonse Jessome, a journalist, really knows his way around Halifax. You can set a GPS by these streets and head out into a city you may prefer not to know, as this isn't the pretty Halifax the tourism board touts. This is a place where a well-known TV pastor can end up in the water at a container pier. No one knows a thing. City cop Cam Neville draws the case. Neville, late of the Canadian Forces, has a dead wife and a serious case of PTSD. He's also testing his department's patience. He either solves the case of the dead pastor or he quits. Teamed up with a Mi'kmaq Mountie named Blair Christmas, Neville heads deep into the Halifax "tenderloin" district, where more than danger awaits – this is also a trip into his own past, a place he thought he'd never revisit. If Jessome writes plots as good as his settings, he could emerge as one of Canada's best new crime authors.