http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag en jstrafford@timesdispatch.com Copyright 2008 2008-05-12T23:00:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/dont_forget/ It’s a pesky thing, traumatic amnesia. It’s even worse when you’re a cop, you’ve been shot, you’ve lost a day of memory and you can’t tell your colleagues if the shooting was linked to the case you were investigating. That’s the premise of Cassandra Chan’s “Trick of the Mind” (338 pages, St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95), the third entry of her series featuring Detective Sergeant Jack Gibbons and his wealthy friend Phillip Bethancourt. Gibbons has been looking into the theft of extremely valuable jewelry from the home of Miranda Haverford, a recently deceased nonagenarian. When he’s shot, not only his colleagues but also Bethancourt follow in his footsteps as Gibbons struggles with a painful and prolonged recovery. What follows is the revelation of murder and more attempted murder. Chan, a devotee of Dorothy L. Sayers, brings a contemporary sensibility to the traditional British mystery. In “Trick of the Mind,” she gives readers another well-paced 2008-05-12T23:00:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/old_times_new_crimes/ Picture a nice, calm antiques business: plenty of beautiful and interesting old things, helpful folks, the grace of the past. Then throw in murder, and you have Jane K. Cleland’s well-crafted series featuring Josie Prescott, the owner of an antiques operation on New Hampshire’s coast.  In “Antiques to Die For” (307 pages, St. Martin’s Minotaur, $23.95), the third entry in the series, Josie’s friend Rosalie Chaffee has been found dead, leaving a 12-year-old sister, Paige, for whom Rosalie had been guardian since their parents’ deaths.  In the course of appraising Rosalie’s estate on Paige’s behalf, Josie finds evidence of shenanigans, a possible motive for murder — and herself in danger. With appealing characters and a well-grounded knowledge of antiques, Cleland matures and improves with each book.  This is a series antiques buffs will love, and one that those who don’t know a Queen Anne secretary from a majolica pitcher will appreciate.  2008-04-15T16:15:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/o_brother_where_art_thou/ Few storylines can complete with the missing-person plot to hold a reader’s attention.  And when the writer is the queen of suspense, Mary Higgins Clark, well ... “Where Are They Now?” (289 pages, Simon & Schuster, $25.95) begins 10 years after Charles “Mack” McKenzie Jr., a college student, disappears from his New York apartment.  But every year on Mother’s Day, he calls home to assure his family he’s all right.  At year 10, his younger sister, Carolyn, tells him she’s going to track him down for her sake and her mother’s (Carolyn and Mack’s father had died in the World Trade Center on Sept. 11). But Carolyn’s visit to a police detective sets a wildfire that has the cops thinking Mack may be a serial killer. With twist following turn and with Clark’s exquisite pacing and trademark multiplicity of suspects, “Where Are You Now?” will keep you guessing till near the end, when Clark reveals all in this deeply satisfying whodunit.  2008-04-08T16:37:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/book_em_lorna/ Imagine, bibliophiles: a town filled with specialty bookstores.  That’s what the town fathers of Stoneham, N.H., have done to try to revive downtown, and Tricia Miles has taken the opportunity in Lorna Barrett’s “Murder Is Binding” (281 pages, Berkley Prime Crime, $6.99) to open a mystery shop, Haven’t Got a Clue. But trouble arises in Doris Gleason, the owner of the Cookery, a cookbook shop net door to Haven’t Got a Clue.  Doris is abrasive, short-tempered and nasty — and when she’s found dead, stabbed in the back, the local police chief tries to pin the crime on Tricia. “Murder Is Binding” is the first in a projected series, and booklovers — particularly mystery fans — will want to stroll through Stoneham as the stories proceed.  2008-03-31T16:27:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/old_school_ties/ “Ellie, the headmistress wants to see you.” Could any other words strike as much fear into a boarding school girl? But not to worry.  Ellie Haskell is 35, and her old headmistress needs her help.  Seems the Loverly Cup has gone missing from St. Roberta’s School, and wouldn’t it be loverly if Ellie could find it and identify the thief? But murder intervenes in “Goodbye, Ms. Chips” (278 pages, St. Martin’s Minotaur, $23.95) by Dorothy Cannell The 12th book in the series, “Goodbye, Ms. Chips” is another romp of killer wit. Take Cannell’s description of Mrs. Battle, the headmistress:  She “would have needed one of the contestants to die on the runway not to come in last in a beauty pageant.” Wicked? You bet.  But wickedly clever and wickedly funny, too — and a worthy entry in an entertaining series.   2008-03-31T16:25:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/the_new_west_and_its_still_wild/ As a wildfire rages in the canyons of southern Colorado, Jamaica Wild, a young employee of the federal Bureau of Land Management, is searching for an elderly American Indian, Ned Spotted Cloud. When she finds his body, she also finds that the old man was universally reviled. And so goes Sandi Ault’s second novel featuring Jamaica, “Wild Inferno” (287 pages, Berkley Prime Crime, $23.95). As she did in “Wild Indigo,” Ault combines Indian lore with a dandy whodunit, and the result is a fine mystery. Animal lovers will rejoice at the reappearance of Jamaica’s pet wolf, Mountain. Ault has another page turner, and readers can anticipate more of Jamaica’s adventures.   2008-02-05T03:40:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/the_heart_of_the_matter/ As timeless as the Hippocratic oath, as timely as the contemporary torture debate, Liam Durcan’s debut novel, “García’s Heart” (296 pages, Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin’s Press, $23.95), combines the two in memorable fashion. At the heart of the story is Dr. Patrick Lazerenko, a physician-turned-researcher-turned-businessman who heads a company that helps retailers market their products through “cognitive analysis” — knowledge of consumer’s brain responses.  As a teenager in the mid-1980s, Patrick worked in the Montreal convenience store run by Hernan García and his family — and later became the lover of Hernan’s elder daughter, Celia. Now, Hernan, a one-time cardiologist charged with torture during Honduras’ troubles in the early 1980s, is on trial before the war-crimes tribunal in the Netherlands, and Patrick has traveled to The Hague to confront both their pasts. Elegaic and stately, “García’s Heart” is as much a meditation on memory and our ability to deceive ourselves as it is a political thriller.  And Durcan, a neurologist himself, paces the story expertly, giving the reader ample time to ponder a number of imponderables — particularly the tyranny of the heart and the mystery of life’s complexities.   2007-12-25T01:58:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/ripped_from_the_headlines/ Few mystery writers know Washington as well as Margaret Truman — and why not? She lived in the White House when her father was president and visited the city often as the wife of New York Times journalist Clifton Daniel. And like her father, Truman isn’t shy about exposing Washington’s dirty little secrets. In “Murder on K Street” (318 pages, Ballantine, $24.95) her 23rd Capital Crimes novel, she takes on lobbyists. When Illinois Sen. Lyle Simmons’ wife, Jeannette, is found dead in their home, the senator has an alibi: He was making a political speech in front of hundreds. But the senator is worried and calls his old college roommate, Phil Rotondi, a retired federal prosecutor. What Rotondi finds is a web of intrigue that leads right to K Street, the den of lobbyists. Truman’s longtime protagonists, Mackensie and Annabel Smith, appear in supporting roles, but this is Rotondi’s story — and it’s a winner, ripped, as they say, from the headlines.   2007-12-25T01:57:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/high_tech_and_aristocrats/ Mysteries about strong women are nothing new, but Eugenia Lovett West provides a page turner of a twist in her first mystery, “Without Warning” (294 pages, St. Martin’s Minotaur, $24.95). Former opera star Emma Streat is living large in Connecticut:  Her husband, Lewis, is a big success in the world of high tech, their two sons are in college and she’s a busy woman, not a sad empty-nester. But then Lewis is killed by a hit-and-run driver near their home, and Emma sets out to find his killer.  Convinced that the murder has something to do with her husband’s business, she travels from Connecticut to the United Kingdom and back several times, all the while rubbing elbows with the aristocrats of the U.S. tech world and those of England’s old nobility. Despite threats to her life, Emma will not be dissuaded as she ferrets out not only Lewis’ killer but also a mega-threat to the world.  West makes all this believable and tells her story with style, with wit (Emma’s godmother’s voice “sounded like a tuba filled with gravel” ) and with panache worthy of Ian Fleming.  2007-12-15T18:02:00-05:00 http://bookbag.mytimesdispatch.com/index.php/bookbag/love_and_death/ Near his 50th birthday, London advertising man Ambrose Zephyr fails his annual physical and is given about a month to live.  Alphabet-obsessed since childhood, Ambrose is determined to put letters to each of his final days with his wife, Zappora “Zipper” Ashkenazi, a literary columnist for a fashion magazine. Such is the premise of CS Richardson’s “The End of the Alphabet” (120 pages, Doubleday, $16.95), a lovely and poignant story of love and death. Ambrose wants to travel — alphabetically, of course — so he and Zipper set off for Amsterdam and move on to Berlin, Chartres, Deauville and other places before his illness forces them to return to London. Written with imaginatively spare prose, “The End of the Alphabet” is a moving fable for lovers, a thoroughly adult and restrained love story that shows us that death may end a life but not a relationship.  It’s Richardson’s gift to anyone in love.   2007-08-18T17:54:00-05:00