Blood on the Tongue by Stephen Booth

First Line: It was an hour before dawn when Detective Constable Ben Cooper first began to get the news.

It is a bitterly cold and snow-filled winter in England's Peak District, and problems begin to pile up as high as the snow for Detective Sergeant Diane Fry and Detective Constable Ben Cooper. First there's the man crushed by a snowplow on a road going over a high pass. Then there's a woman who, from all outward appearances, simply curled into a ball in the snow on Irontongue Hill and waited to freeze to death. And what about the body of a baby that was discovered in the hulk of a World War II bomber?

Fry needs all the help she can get, but her extremely limited patience is wearing v-e-r-y thin. Every time she looks for help from Cooper, he seems to be with a Canadian woman who's come to the area to find out the truth about the disappearance of her grandfather during World War II. Can't that man ever concentrate on what's important?

It took me a while to pick up this third book in the Cooper and Fry series, and I'm glad I finally did. Blood on the Tongue is an excellent blend of old crime and new. Many threads in the story go all the way back to World War II when a bomber crashed on Irontongue Hill, and-- rumor has it-- the Canadian pilot walked away with a very large shipment of money they were transporting to another airbase. It's a complex and very gratifying plot that Booth has created, and I certainly enjoyed trying to piece together all the clues.

I continue to have mixed reactions to the author's dynamic duo of Fry and Cooper. Ben Cooper is the kind of man everyone seems to like and to go to for help. He's nice, he's easy-going, and he has some good intuitive skills that are handy in police work. Him I like, although I should probably be ashamed of falling for him so easily. I'm normally not such a pushover.

On the other hand, Fry continues to rub my fur the wrong way, even though I know what happened in the past to help turn her into a person who acts more like a starving pit bull with toothache. I find that I quickly become exasperated with her when she's on the scene. Fortunately she's seldom in the spotlight in Blood on the Tongue, so I never wanted to throw the book at the wall.

Even though it has little to do with the actual merits of this book, I think my reading enjoyment was enhanced by a trip to the UK last year in which I experienced blizzard-like conditions, road closures and the like in the Peak District. I found myself being able to picture the countryside, feel the bite of the wind, and hear the crunch of the snow under my feet. Even without my "insider's" knowledge of the weather, I think any reader can and will appreciate those outdoor scenes.

Now that I've thawed out enough to share my opinion of this book, I find myself looking forward to reading the next in the series. If only I could find some way not to react so strongly to Diane Fry!

Blood on the Tongue by Stephen Booth

ISBN:  9780743236188

Scribner © 2002

Hardcover, 387 pages

Police Procedural, #3 Cooper and Fry mystery

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Book Outlet 

Dancing With the Virgins by Stephen Booth

Title: Dancing With the Virgins
Author: Stephen Booth
ISBN: 0743431006
Publisher: Pocket Books, 2002
Mass Market Paperback, 528 pages
Genre: Police Procedural, #2 Cooper and Fry mystery
Rating: D
Source: Paperback Swap

First Line: On the day the first woman died, Mark Roper had radio trouble.

In a remote area of the Peaks District in England, a prehistoric ring of stones called the Nine Virgins witnesses the brutal murder of a young cyclist. When Detective Constable Ben Cooper and Detective Sergeant Diane Fry learn that another woman was attacked by an assailant with a knife less than half a mile from the Nine Virgins, they feel they've found the start of a pattern that needs to be stopped immediately.

After enjoying the first book in the series, Black Dog, I expected to settle down to another good read, and Dancing With the Virgins did start well. Author Stephen Booth is a master of the atmospheric setting of the Peaks District-- making it appear both beautiful and menacing-- and his two main characters are finely drawn. However, I had several major problems with this book.

Those very same main characters that I'm getting to know so well are rubbing my fur the wrong way. Diane Fry is the Queen of Not-Letting-Anyone-Get-Close. She realizes this but doesn't know what to do about it... or if she even wants to do anything about it. She's so prickly that, no matter what anyone does, they put their foot in it. I may understand some of her motivations, but after a while prickly gets old, and I begin to wish that she could remain civil to everyone for one entire hour.

Ben Cooper, on the other hand, is the opposite of Diane Fry. Where Diane Fry sees black or white, everything is in shades of grey to Ben Cooper. He has a difficult time saying no to anyone and seems to want to be all things to all people. As a result, he seems frozen in place at times.

The pacing of the book was glacial and came very close to being a Did Not Finish for me. The first substantive clue for the main murder occurred on page 380 of a 528-page book. The culprits for this were the many subplots that sucked all the life out of the investigation into the murder of the cyclist. Besides the murder, there were plot threads involving child pornography, illegal dog fighting, a corrupt cop, two young homeless men camped out in a broken-down van, domestic violence, a young park ranger learning the ropes... and others. If there'd been fewer subplots, I think things would've moved a bit faster and the book would've held my interest.

As it stands, Dancing With the Virgins just didn't work for me. I do have the third book in the series here, and I will read it. But it will be a while before I pick it up.

Learn more at Amazon.

Learn more at Alibris.

April 2011 New Mystery Releases!

Spring has well and truly sprung here in the Sonoran Desert. I'm hoping that I'm healed up enough so Denis and I can hop in the Jeep and head off on a trail or two so we can check out the wildflowers.  Until then, I'm cleaning up Casa Kittling a bit at a time-- not just for a highly anticipated house guest, but so I can spend lots of time this summer in the pool.

Before I go off to clean the bathroom floor and then sort through an almost 30-year-old yarn stash, let's see what new books being released in April have me adding to my wish lists.

The titles are grouped by release dates, and I've included the information you'll need to find them at all your favorite book spots.  I hope one or two of these titles have you drooling, too!

 ==April 5==

Title: The Hanging Wood

Author: Martin Edwards

Series: #5 in the Lake District mystery series set in England and featuring DCI Hannah Scarlett of the Cold Case Squad and retired historian Daniel Kind

ISBN: 9781590588529

Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2011

Hardcover, 278 pages

"Twenty years ago, a teenage boy, Callum Hinds, went missing in England’s Lake District. His uncle was suspected of having done the boy harm and interviewed by the police. When he committed suicide close to his cottage in the Hanging Wood, everyone assumed it was a sign of guilt. But the body of the boy was never found.

Now his sister, Orla Payne,  has returned to the Lakes and takes up a job in an atmospheric residential library, close to her father’s farm, the upmarket caravan park, and the Hanging Wood. She wants to find the truth about Callum’s disappearance, and--at the prompting of Daniel Kind--making a drunken call, tries to interest DCI Hannah Scarlett, head of Cumbria’s Cold Case Review Team, in the case."

Title: The Fifth Witness
Author: Michael Connelly
Series: #4 in the Mickey Haller series set in Los Angeles, California
ISBN: 9780316069359
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company, 2011
Hardcover, 448 pages

"Connelly's compelling fourth legal thriller featuring Mickey Haller finds the maverick L.A. lawyer who uses his Lincoln town car as an office specializing in "foreclosure defense." Haller's first foreclosure client, Lisa Trammel, is fighting hard to keep her home, maybe too hard. The bank has gotten a restraining order to stop Trammel's protests, and she becomes the prime suspect when Mitchell Bondurant, a mortgage banker, is killed with a hammer in his office parking lot. A ton of evidence points to Trammel, but Haller crafts an impressive defense that includes "the fifth witness" of the title. Connelly has a sure command of the legal and procedural details of criminal court, and even manages to make the arcane, shady world of foreclosure interesting. While the prose may lack some of the poetic nuance of his early novels, the plot is worthy of a master storyteller."

Title: The Busy Woman's Guide to Murder

Author: Mary Jane Maffini

Series: #5 in the Charlotte Adams professional organizer series set in upstate New York

ISBN: 9780425240601

Publisher: Berkley Prime Crime, 2011

Paperback, 304 pages

"Mona Pringle, the local 911 operator, is calling Charlotte Adams with her own emergency: Serena Redding, a high school "mean girl" who used to torment Mona, is coming back for a reunion. When Mona talks about how good it would feel to kill Serena, Charlotte doesn't believe she means it. But when a woman who looks like Serena is killed in a hit- and-run, and another former mean girl is also run down, Charlotte realizes she needs to look both ways for the now-missing Mona."

Title: Dogs Don't Lie

Author: Clea Simon
Series: #1 in the Pru Marlowe Pet Noir series set in New York state
ISBN:  9781590588628
Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press, 2011
Paperback, 260 pages

"Pru Marlowe isn't your ordinary animal psychic. A tough girl on the  run from her own gift, Pru left the big city to return to her picturesque Berkshires hometown looking for a little peace. Too bad that her training as an animal behaviorist got her mixed up with  Lily, a rescue dog, and Charles, her person. Now Charles is dead, and Lily looks good for it. After all, Lily is a pit bull, a fighting-ring dropout, and way too traumatized to give Pru a clear picture of what she has witnessed. But Pru knows something about bad girls trying to clean up, and, with a sense of justice strong enough to overcome her dislike of human society, she takes the case. Listening to the animals, Pru picks up clues--and learns there are secrets in the pretty little town that make murder look simple. Unable to tell  anybody about her psychic abilities, uncertain at times about her own sanity, Pru comes to realize that if she clears Lily, she’ll likely become the prime suspect--or the next victim. While the only  creature she can totally trust is her crotchety tabby Wallis, Pru’s got to uncover the real killer--and find a way to live with her gift--before the real beasts in the town savage her and those she has come to love."

==April 7==
 

Title: Inspector Singh Investigates: A Deadly Cambodian Crime Spree

Author: Shamini Flint

Series: #4 in the Inspector Singh series based in Singapore

ISBN: 9780749953478

Publisher: Piatkus Paperback, 2011

Paperback, 320 pages

"Inspector Singh is in Cambodia - wishing he wasn't. He's been sent as an observer to the international war crimes tribunal in Phnom Penh, the latest effort by his superiors to ensure that he is anywhere except in Singapore. But for the first time the fat Sikh inspector is on the verge of losing his appetite when a key member of the tribunal is murdered in cold blood. The authorities are determined to write off the incident as a random act of violence, but Singh thinks otherwise. It isn't long before he finds himself caught up in one of the most terrible murder investigations he's witnessed - the roots of which lie in the dark depths of the Cambodian killing fields."

Title: The Devil's Edge
Author: Stephen Booth
Series: #12 in the Ben Cooper and Diane Fry series set in England's Peak District
ISBN: 9781847444790
Publisher: Sphere, 2011
Hardcover, 352 pages

*UK Release*

"The newspapers call them the Savages: a band of home invaders as merciless as they are stealthy. Usually they don't leave a clue. This time, they've left a body. The first victim is found sprawled on her kitchen floor, blood soaking the terracotta tiles. Before long, another corpse is discovered, dead of fright. As the toll rises, it's up to DC Ben Cooper and DS Diane Fry to track down the killers. But the enemy isn't who they think it is. Beneath the sinister shadow of the mountain ridge called the Devil's Edge, a twisted game is in play -  a game more ruthless than the detectives can imagine."

 ==April 11==

 Title: Murder to Music

Author: Lesley Cookman

Series: #6 in the Libby Sarjeant series set in Kent, England

ISBN: 9781907726545

Publisher: Accent Press Ltd., 2011

Paperback, 368 pages

*UK Release*

"Libby Sarjeant and her friend Fran are invited by Fran's creative writing tutor to investigate a house that is reputedly haunted. For once, Libby can be as nosy as she likes without ploughing straight into a murder investigation, for the only deaths here appear to have occurred over a hundred years ago. But perhaps someone alive today doesn't want Libby to continue? And if so, will she be safe?"

==April 20==

Title: Guilt by Association

Author: Marcia Clark

ISBN: 9780316129510

Publisher: Mulholland Books, 2011

Hardcover, 368 pages

*Upcoming review on Kittling: Books*

"L.A. prosecutor Rachel Knight is stunned when her office soul-mate, Jake Pahlmeyer, is found shot to death in a sleazy motel along with a 17-year-old boy, raising ugly suspicions that she doesn't want to acknowledge. Given Jake's top case to work--the rape of the teenage daughter of one of the DA's prominent contributors--Rachel is warned by her boss to leave her colleague's death alone. But with her big heart and hard head, she uses her network of sources and risks career and safety to pursue both cases, teaming up with Detective Bailey Keller and following leads to Hispanic gangs and porno rings in the seamiest parts of the city. Clark offers a real page-turner here, with smart, fast-moving prose; a skillfully constructed plot; and a protagonist well worth knowing. Rachel, whose past is only hinted at, is a well-rounded character who's as tough with suspects as she is sensitive with young victims. A top-notch legal thriller that will leave readers wanting more." 

==April 26==

Title: Death on Tour

Author: Janice Hamrick

Series: #1 in the Jocelyn Shore series based in Austin, Texas

ISBN: 9780312679460

Publisher: Minotaur Books, 2011

Hardcover, 320 pages

"A passport's not needed to enjoy Hamrick's ditzy debut, the first in a new cozy series and the winner of the 2010 Mystery Writers of America/Minotaur Books First Crime Novel Competition. While Austin, Texas, high school teacher Jocelyn Shore and her fashionista cousin and best friend, Kyla Shore, are on an Egyptian tour, one of their group, unpopular 55-year-old Millie Owens, takes a fatal plunge off the great pyramid of Khafre outside Cairo. The police later determine that Millie was murdered, stabbed in the neck. Entries in a journal that Jocelyn finds in Millie's bag suggests someone on the tour might be dangerous. Good-looking Alan Stratton, who's traveling alone and wears no wedding ring, adds romantic interest. Hamrick does a good job capturing life on an exhausting budget tour as her snazzy if snarky amateur sleuth, who tends to be hard on the middle-aged and elderly, investigates some fishy fellow tourists with a hypercritical eye."

Are you eagerly awaiting any of these titles, too? Which ones? Do tell!

Black Dog by Stephen Booth

Title: Black Dog
Author: Stephen Booth
ISBN: 0671786040, Pocket Books, 2001
Genre: Police Procedural, #1 Cooper & Fry mystery
Rating: B+

First Line: The sudden glare of colors beat painfully on the young woman's eyes as she burst from the back door of the cottage and hurled herself into the brightness.

Welcome to Edendale, a village in the Peak District of England. Edendale is home to Constable Ben Cooper, an officer with a bright future who nevertheless worries that he will never be able to fill the shoes of his father, a police sergeant who died in the line of duty in Ben's own precinct. Ben relies a great deal on intuition and leaps of logic in his work.

New to the Edendale Police is Diane Fry, a very ambitious young woman on the fast track to promotion. She relies on good, solid investigative work that follows the rules. She's aloof, prickly and more than a little tired of the fact that the people living there tell her nothing while they all treat Ben Cooper like a beloved son.

Not exactly the most promising start to any sort of partnership, is it?

Ben and Diane find themselves thrown together more often than not when 15-year-old Laura Vernon is found murdered. Like Diane, Laura and her parents are outsiders, outsiders that the villagers have never been very friendly toward. Booth has about the best description of how people think in an insular community, and it reminds me of why I no longer live in one:

Yes, you only really knew people when you knew everything about them. You needed to know it all-- from the exact moment they had been conceived in the long grass behind the village hall to the first word they had spoken, and the contents of their fifth-form school reports. You needed to know what size shoes they wore, how much money they owed the credit card company, when their bout of chicken pox had been, and which foot had the ingrowing toenail. You had to know who their first sexual encounter had been with, what brand of condom they had used, and whether the experience had been satisfactory. Now that was knowing somebody.

In a village that thinks that way, Diane Fry has her work cut out for her. Actually the entire police force has its work cut out for it because Harry Dickinson, the old man who found Laura's body, is a close-mouthed, cantankerous soul who knows more than he's telling. What is it that Harry knows? Why do none of the villagers like the Vernons? Why is Laura's father determined to pin his daughter's murder on the gardener he's just fired?

I found Booth's depiction of the Peak District very atmospheric...almost chilling. The plot was satisfyingly convoluted and had a very deliberate pace. In fact the pace of the story reminded me a great deal of Harry Dickinson, the old man with a lot to say but who wasn't going to say it until he was damned good and ready. While the plot marched on, I got to know Ben and Diane a bit better. Ben is the intuitive one, the one who has heavy family responsibilities, and he's also prone to bouts with the "black dog"-- slang for depression. Diane is the anti-social one. The one who knows how to dress, how to behave and what to say in order to be promoted, but one who wants to keep everyone at arm's length. Although I found all the prickliness tiresome at first, once Booth began telling us their back stories, I was willing to set that impatience aside and enjoy the story more.

Enjoy it I did. The setting, the plot, the deliberate pacing, and the characters all combined to make me not pay close attention to the clues Booth planted all along the way. When the murderer's identity was revealed, my reaction wasn't one of shock but one of "Well of course that's who it was!" Not only that, but by book's end I fully came to appreciate the title of the book. In Black Dog, Stephen Booth has laid the foundation for an excellent mystery series. I look forward to reading more.