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Rarely have I been so glad that I checked a book out of the library rather than buying it.
I picked up this bait-and-switch "mystery" because of the intriguing premise detailed on the back cover:
Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends.
SPOILER: Ha ha! Thought you'd find out what happened when he was a kid, right? Ha ha!
The majority of the book is about Ryan investigating a current mystery whose solution seems quite obvious and cliched, and having a cliched and annoying affair with his partner. Periodically, he tries to dig into far, far more interesting mystery of his past, and also the question of why he still can't remember anything about it. He regains tantalizing snippets of memories while investigating and finally figuring out the incredibly obvious solution to the current mystery, which I guessed a hundred pages before he did.
The current mystery comes to a deeply unsatisfying resolution, of the fake-gritty, "you moron, you didn't bother to follow procedure so now the detailed confession by the murderer is inadmissable and they will walk free."
As for the question of his past, Ryan realizes that he will never have any idea whatsoever of what happened. The end!
And then I metaphorically hurled the book across the room with great and metaphorical force.
I have ranted about this before (see hirshberg tag), but I HATE it when something is set up as a mystery which will have a solution, and then the author fails to solve the mystery and instead writes, "Like real life, some things are unknowable and some mysteries are never solved, so this too will have no resolution."
IT'S A MYSTERY NOVEL. It's up to the AUTHOR whether or not to solve the mystery.
I don't mind open-ended conclusions and having to draw my own conclusions about some things, but I very much dislike it when something is set up as a puzzle, and then not solved because it's "realistic." All else aside, in real life things aren't so clearly set up as puzzles!
Why this won the Edgar is beyond me.
In the Woods
I picked up this bait-and-switch "mystery" because of the intriguing premise detailed on the back cover:
Rob Ryan and his partner, Cassie Maddox, land the first big murder case of their police careers: a 12-year-old girl has been murdered in the woods adjacent to a Dublin suburb. Twenty years before, two children disappeared in the same woods, and Ryan was found clinging to a tree trunk, his sneakers filled with blood, unable to tell police anything about what happened to his friends. Ryan, although scarred by his experience, employs all his skills in the search for the killer and in hopes that the investigation will also reveal what happened to his childhood friends.
SPOILER: Ha ha! Thought you'd find out what happened when he was a kid, right? Ha ha!
The majority of the book is about Ryan investigating a current mystery whose solution seems quite obvious and cliched, and having a cliched and annoying affair with his partner. Periodically, he tries to dig into far, far more interesting mystery of his past, and also the question of why he still can't remember anything about it. He regains tantalizing snippets of memories while investigating and finally figuring out the incredibly obvious solution to the current mystery, which I guessed a hundred pages before he did.
The current mystery comes to a deeply unsatisfying resolution, of the fake-gritty, "you moron, you didn't bother to follow procedure so now the detailed confession by the murderer is inadmissable and they will walk free."
As for the question of his past, Ryan realizes that he will never have any idea whatsoever of what happened. The end!
And then I metaphorically hurled the book across the room with great and metaphorical force.
I have ranted about this before (see hirshberg tag), but I HATE it when something is set up as a mystery which will have a solution, and then the author fails to solve the mystery and instead writes, "Like real life, some things are unknowable and some mysteries are never solved, so this too will have no resolution."
IT'S A MYSTERY NOVEL. It's up to the AUTHOR whether or not to solve the mystery.
I don't mind open-ended conclusions and having to draw my own conclusions about some things, but I very much dislike it when something is set up as a puzzle, and then not solved because it's "realistic." All else aside, in real life things aren't so clearly set up as puzzles!
Why this won the Edgar is beyond me.
In the Woods
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Do you have any books to rec which would scratch the "Still haunted by childhood trauma" itch that I hoped the first book would be about?
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Really, it's a helluva lot better. Cassie has a good 1P voice, Sam is much more fleshed-out, and there's an interesting kind of The Secret History/A Fatal Inversion setup. Granted, the plot itself, especially its resolution, is REALLY unlikely, but at least it's not full of utter GENDER FAIL and RAGE-INDUCING NON-INFORMATION like the first one.
Do you have any books to rec which would scratch the "Still haunted by childhood trauma" itch that I hoped the first book would be about?
Hmmmmm....of course the moment I am asked about a specific category, all the possible examples fly right out of my head, even tho I'm sure I probably have three or four books with that plot around here! Let me think....do you want law enforcement protags or will just general Hauntedness with a civilian do?
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Yeah, I'm totally almost certain I have at least 2 or 3 books that totally fit that description. I'm looking on my LibraryThing....
Absolutely everyone I know ranted about how the ending to the first book SUCKED, plus I was completely spoiled going into it, and I only wanted more backstory on Cassie, so it totally lived up -- down? -- to my radically lowered expectations.
Hmm, Tess Gerritson might be good? I haven't read her stuff ever -- but --
A terrifying new serial killer begins stalking the streets of Boston, using his vast medical knowledge to systematically torture and kill vulnerable women, a modus operandi which has earned him the nickname "the Surgeon". As Jane Rizzoli, accompanied by detective Thomas Moore, works the case, she comes across trauma doctor Catherine Cordell, who almost died in the same fashion at the hands of another psychopath several years before, but killed him before he could kill her. Rizzoli soon establishes a connection between the two cases, concluding that she may be on the trail of a deranged copycat.
Altho I'm kinda tired of deranged brilliant serial killer books, yuck. Hmm. //searches some more
This article on "Pan-Asian crime fiction" looks really interesting. http://www.latimes.com/entertainmen
Also this blog seems to be about cops, mysteries, and readers? http://hookembookem.blogspot.com/2010/0
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http://voices.washingtonpost.com/cr
For nearly 20 years, D.C. homicide detective Mitch Credle has tracked down and locked up killers, many of them teenagers and young men. In dry, bureaucratic prose, Credle has written up facts from investigations in official charging documents.
Credle creates characters and facts in his first novel, "Stranger in the Streets." The book, which Credle self-published, tells the story of two boys, known as Smokey and Black, who grow up in a tough part of D.C. and work for a drug crew. A dramatic event ties the two together forever and affects the course of both their lives.
Writer is this guy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co
Bonus, he appears to be African-American, not white cop writing about black kids. Minus: that awful, awful cover.
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....also possible Problematic aspects with the half-naked torso of a young black man with a weapon standing in for his dick and emphasized crotch. AUTHORS, DO NOT DESIGN YOUR OWN BOOKS COVERS, SRSLY PLZ.
Mitch Credle is the author of fiction novels, "Stranger in the Streets" and "Damaged Roots." Creator, producer and director of web series "The Real Hood Wives of DC" comedy drama and "Keepingitreal Confessions with Juicy J
....OK, maybe I'm not as interested in this guy.
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http://www.amazon.com/First-State-CJ-Fl
Expiration Date by Duane Scwierczynski - does have childhood trauma, plus time travel, which is an interesting combo....
City of Dragons by Kelli Stanley -- a homicide detective and ex-prostitute sets out on her own investigation in 40s San Francisco.
Ghosts of Belfast - "Gerry Fegan, a former IRA hit man haunted by the ghosts of the 12 people he killed, realizes the only way these specters will give him rest is to systematically assassinate the men who gave him his orders. Though those in the militant IRA underworld have written him off as a babbling drunk and a liability to the movement, they take note when their members start turning up dead. Meanwhile, Fegan is attracted to Marie McKenna, a relative of one of the newly slain men and a pariah to the Republicans. Can Fegan satisfy his demons and redeem himself, or will the ghosts of Belfast consume him first?" Okay, I may get this. By Stuart Neville. Whoo, Irish noir is hot right now. I think I have some novels by Declan Hughes, but not sure if he's good.
This woman also sounds kinda fascinating http://www.talominbooks.com/html/author
There seem to be remarkably few novels about a cop with a traumatic past event -- more about survivors confronting their pasts.
Also yikes: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/13/us/13
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A lot of the times the Crisis Counselors get called out involve the following circumstances:
1. Pre-existing mental illness, and/or current intoxication on drugs and/or alcohol,
2. A moment of blinding rage and/or self-hatred,
3. A gun.
In cases in which only the first two present, we generally don't called out. The person punched the wall or their significant other, dramatically slashed their wrists, threw something, etc. Cops were called, and maybe someone went to the hospital. But we almost always only come if someone died or is probably going to die, so we don't see as many "High/mentally ill + enraged/despairing + no gun" cases.
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Like many soldiers, he did not take seriously the Army’s mental health questionnaires given out at his tour’s end. “They were retarded,” he said. “All of us were like, ‘Let’s do this quickly so we can go home.’ They asked: ‘Did you see any dead bodies? Did you take part in any combat operations?’ Come on, we were in Iraq. They didn’t even ask us the really important question, if you killed someone.”
Jeeeeeeesus.
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I dunno if you already read the Gretchen Lowell series by Chelsea Cain, but I loved those -- the setup is a kind of reversal of Silence of the Lambs, with a glamorous brilliant female serial killer and a haunted traumatized homicide dick, and the author was also a Portland reporter so she really gets the PNW in ways outsiders don't. (Cain also wrote a memoir of her counterculture childhood which I think I rec'd to you a long while ago....) Archie definitely qualifies as traumatized and haunted and there's also a fun self-insert-type reporter character who's not a Mary Sue. The first book, Heartsick, is the best. It's pretty trashy but surprisingly well-written and fun.
Not really in the category, but Over Tumbled Graves, from 2001 I think, by Jess Walter, got a rave review from someone I know -- stars a female detective and "turns the conventions of serial killer fiction on its head," and the author was a Spokane reporter who covered a serial killer case and it's apparently about our culture's obsession with same as much as the crime.
I read some Val McDermid novels, whose protag also qualifies as traumatized (they're what the series Wire in the Blood was based on), but they're rather terrible.
I'd Know You Anywhere, by Laura Lippman, has a kidnap victim facing her abductor after decades, but I don't know how good it is. (A different novel by her, What the Dead Know, was....okay, but not great -- about the apparent return of a kidnapped girl decades later.)
-- Incendies (Scorched), the Canadian entry for foreign-film Oscar, also looks good, maybe. "A mystery crossed with a Greek tragedy," the reviewers say.
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