BOOK REVIEW: Stephen Carter's PALACE COUNCIL

Stephen Carter's novel Palace Council is the third in his series of "Darker Nation" mysteries. The first were The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, both of which I have read and reviewed previously on this blog.

I liked both of Carter's previous mysteries (although I must confess a preference for the first, simply because of the multiple chess references) and haven't picked up his fourth work of fiction, Jericho's Fall, because it is in a completely new genre which I am uninterested in (spy thriller).

Palace Council is not as good as it's two predecessors. This time, instead of a straightforward murder mystery with a pinch of political intrigue and family drama in the mix, Carter has decided to write a faux historical novel.


The two main characters are Aurelia Treene and Eddie Wesley. Aurelia marries Kevin Garland, who is the son of "perhaps the richest Negro in the United States" in the 1950s. The Garland family played central roles in Carter's first two books. Eddie is in love with Aurelia, but he's also a dedicated writer. He ends up with two National Book Awards before he's 40 and a wanderlust which has him interacting with all the major characters of the era, including Joseph P. Kennedy, Richard Nixon, Edgar Hoover, Langston Hughes and many more.


However, the problem is that Carter has lost focus on what made his first two "Darker Nation" novels so interesting: they were centered around the Darker Nation! This idea is a clever concept that African-Americans have created their own, parallel social strata and power structures in America which are entangled  but distinct from the white hierarchy which rules America. It is Carter's mordant portrayal of this Darker Nation which animates his other novels and its absence in Palace Council leads to a plodding tale.


I do hope that Carter returns to his previous setting in future mysteries; for now, I would only recommend reading Palace Council for completeness. Otherwise just stop at reading The Emperor of Ocean Park and New England White, the first two in the series.


Title: Palace Council
Hardcover: 528 pages.
Publisher: Knopf.
Published: July 8, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: B.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's Faithful Place

Tana French's Faithful Place  is the sequel to her mystery novels The Likeness and In The Woods (see MadProfessah's A/A+ review).

Unlike other popular mystery writers like Ian Rankin, Julia Spencer-Fleming  or Sue Grafton, Tana French does not just ave one main protagonist in her murder mystery novels. Since Faithful Place is her third book and all three of her books share in common that the main character works for the Dublin Police Department, people have started calling her books the Dublin Murder Squad series. Her first book In The Woods featured Rob Ryan as the main character, while The Likeness featured Ryan's partner Cassie Maddox as the main character while her third book  Faithful Place features Cassie's former boss Frank Mackey. It's an interesting gimmick, "chaining" her novels together by switching point-of-view by promoting formerly supporting characters in one novel to main character status in the next.

This is just one signal French is sending that her books are not your everyday mystery novels. French has an amazing gift for characterization and dialog. Some reviewers think her latest book is her best one to date, despite all the awards won for her debut book. I was more impacted by her second book, probably due to the fact that Cassie is her most attractive protagonist of the three.

I've previously stated that In The Woods is about the intense, emotional platonic relationship formed between a man and a woman who work together, while The Likeness is about the intense emotions which arise  between adults who have formed a relationship like a  surrogate family. Well, Faithful Place is about the intense emotions which always exist between siblings who have grown up in a dysfunctional family headed by a violent alcoholic father and an emotionally vicious mother.

This family is the one that Frank Mackey bailed out of at age 19 when he was stood up by his sweetheart Rosie Daly after they had made plans to run off to England and start a life together. He decided to leave his vaguely criminal, financially depressed and depressing neighborhood named Faithful Place on his own and never looked back.

Twenty-two years later Rosie Daly's suitcase shows up and Frank is drawn back to his old neighborhood and the remnants of his family and acquaintances who still live there. This being a murder mystery, bodies do start to show up, which shatters Mackey's world forever. Because of obvious conflicts of interest, Mackey is banned from working on the case but as we already know, rules and regulations are not his strong suit. So, he convinces a young, earnest "floater" policeman named Stephen Moran to be his eyes and ears into the official investigation while he uses (and abuses) his multiple emotional and familial connections to the crimes to get closer and closer to the devastating truth. 

Title: Faithful Place.

Author: Tana French.

Length: 400 pages.

Publisher: Viking Adult.

Date: July 13, 2010.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+ (4.07/4.0).

PLOT: A+.

IMAGERY: A.

IMPACT: A.

WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's The Likeness

Tana French's The Likeness is the sequel to her stunning debut novel In The Woods (see MadProfessah review).

The Likeness is another intense "psychological thriller" in which who commits the murder is not as important to the author as the psychology of the killer (and the detective).

In this outing of the Dublin Murder Squad, which occurs roughly six months after the events depicted in  In The Woods, a body is found in a very small town outside of the big city who has a bizarre likeness to Detective Cassie Maddox, one of the main characters of the first book. Even more bizarrely, the Jane Doe has apparently appropriated an old fake identity that Cassie used to use, that of Lexie Madison, when she served on the Undercover Division under her difficult boss Frank Mackey. The new, fake Lexie has apparently been hanging out with a curious foursome of students who have taken residence in town's great manse though an inheritance and consider themselves a family.

Mackey has the brilliant but dangerous idea of hiding the information of Lexie's death from the media and her "family" and suggest that Cassie wear a wire and reprise her undercover role as Cassie, this time to try and catch the girl's killer, who is most likely to be one (or more) of the members of Lexie's new family. Her boyfriend Sam O'Neill (who also appeared in the first novel) will be the lead detective to try to solve the murder.

The story becomes incredibly emotionally taut as Cassie realizes how alike she and Lexie were in many ways, and begins to uncover some of her doppelganger's secrets as she attempts to replicate Lexie's relationship within a very odd family.

If  In The Woods was at its core a novel about the deep friendship between a man and a woman and the incipient complications that ensue, The Likeness is about the intensity of bonds that can form between families that are self-selected in adulthood. Additionally, French is able to really show the reader the psychological and emotional toll of extended undercover police work. The Likeness is another tour-de-force novel which stays with the reader for a very, very long time after the last page is read.

Title: The Likeness.
Author: Tana French.
Length: 466 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: July 17, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Tana French's In The Woods

I was completely unaware of Tana French's Edgar-award winning first novel In the Woods until a friend of mine who knows I like mysteries told me I had to read it. I'm very glad of the recommendation. Having read every single one of Ian Rankin's Inspector John Rebus novels I was delighted to find a new mystery author.

The two have some similarities, in that they are both British authors who set their books in their respective countries' biggest city (Rankin in Scotland's Edinburgh and French in Ireland's Dublin). French's books are less centered around a specific main character but instead are more emotionally focussed narratives.

For example, In the Woods is the story of Rob Ryan and Cassie Maddox, two Murder Squad detectives who are investigating the horrific murder of a 12-year-old girl named Kary Devlin. The body was found in the very same woods a then-12-years-old Rob had been found 20-years before covered in blood with no memories while the two best friends he entered the woods never seen again.

In the Woods at its core is a story about the powerful bonds of friendship. The friendship between Rob and Cassie is lovingly depicted, from Rob's perspective as the narrator. The complications of a friendship between a straight man and straight woman are acknowledged and even emphasized in some ways. The other friendship that anchors the novel is the friendship between the young Rob (then called by his middle name Adam) and his two best friends, which is depicted in nostalgic flashbacks.

It becomes clearer and clearer as the novel progresses that the resolution of the recent Devlin murder involves some deep secret buried within the creepy Devlin family but that more importantly, regardless of that resolution, the lack of resolution of the old crime is weighing increasingly heavily upon Rob's psyche. In the end, Rob becomes a quintessential "unreliable narrator"  but there are other, more serious ways that Tana French breaches the contract between reader and murder-mystery author which makes In the Woods an unforgettable and thrilling read.

Author: Tana French.

Title: In the Woods

Length: 429 pages.
Publisher: Viking Adult.
Date: May 17, 2007.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.
PLOT: A.
IMAGERY: A+.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: Alastair Reynolds' The Prefect

Despite never having heard his name before a year ago, British science fiction writer Alastair Reynolds has turned into one of my favorite authors.

In the space of about 8 months (December 2009 through July 2010), I have read five of his novels, all of which are set in his Revelation Space universe. Those books are (in the order I read them) Revelation Space, Redemption Ark, Chasm City, Absolution Gap and The Prefec.

The Revelation Space universe is at least as interesting as Peter F. Hamilton's Confederate and Commonwealth universes. The two British authors have similar ideas: humanity is flourishing hundreds of years in our future, we have met a few aliens and technology (especially in computing) has advanced in particular ways. Both universes feature a way for humans to "cheat death." In Hamilton's, a memory cell which contains the entire personality can be backed up and then inserted into a cloned copy of the original person, and people can generally select their age, sex and overall physical appearance. In Reynolds' universe a back-up of the personality can be made and then installed in either an "alpha-level" or "beta-level"simulation which runs on a computer. Alpha-level simulations are controversial, they are considered independent entities in their own right; beta-level simulations are more common and are more likely to be replications of the original human personality they were based on.

Reynolds' stories are darker, more cerebral and intricately plotted with secrets within secrets to be revealed to the reader during the execution of the plot. Hamilton stories are usually more straight-up swashbuckling military space operas, thrilling adventures that greatly entertain. Hamilton is still my favorite writer, but Reynolds gives him a run for his money!

A theme of Reynolds' work is the inclusion of complicated choices (often between multiple, equally bad scenarios) that his characters have to make and his obsession with identity and misdirection. Oftentimes a central question in the books is discovering the solution to a central mystery, and several times that mystery involves the "true" identity and motives of a central character.

The Prefect is set in a time period between the events of Revelation Space and Chasm City, set in the Glitter Band, a group of 10,000 human-made habitats set in orbit near the planet Yellowstone in the Sky's Edge star system. The title character is Tom Dreyfus, who is a member of Panoply, which is basically the police force for the 100 million people who live in the Glitter Band. Panoply officers are not allowed to carry guns, because their mission is to insure the process of democracy in the band, which occurs through nearly continuous electronic plebiscites of the populace. However, The Prefect at its core is really a standard detective novel, which I like because I am also a big fan of mysteries. It is reminiscent of Reynolds' best book to date, Chasm City, which also revolves around the work of a cop.

It is also a hard sci-fi novel. The book has profoundly altered humans known as Ultras, another group of altered humans known as Conjoiners, space battles, sentient computer programs and a possibly alien entity known as The Clockmaker.

If you like "hard" sci-fi and the work of authors like Hamilton, Reynolds and Neal Asher, you will almost definitely enjoy The Prefect. I did!

Title: The Prefect.
Author: Alastair Reynolds.
Length: 416 pages.
Publisher: Ace.
Date: June 3, 2008.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A-.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl Who Played With Fire

The sequel to Stieg Larsson's amazing The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is The Girl Who Played with Fire.

As I mentioned in my review of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, the book was nearly impossible to put down. It's sequel is even more addictive. The third book in what is now being called the Millenium series was released on Tuesday May 25th and is called The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest.

The first book really doesn't treat Lisbeth Salander as the main character, even though she is clearly the title character. The second book is clearly all about Lisbeth Salander. The book begins with her, the plot centers around her back story and the book ends with her.

There is another mystery in Fire, of course; this time it's a brutal double murder of a couple that occurs the same night (probably in the same hour) as the torture-murder of someone who had abused Lisbeth.

The reader's loyalties are severely tested--could the hyper-intelligent, violent, socially unaware, sexually ambiguous, titular Girl also be a murderer? Mikael Blomkvist, the true main character from Tattoo, returns and is basically the only one who believes in Lisbeth's innocence after she becomes Sweden's #1 Most Wanted criminal, blasted on the front page of every media outlet in the country.

Another interesting feature of Fire is that it includes the internal details of the police investigation to solve the double murder as well as an inside view on the manhunt to track down Lisbeth.

The resolution of the mysteries are skillfully done and by the end of the book we find out a lot more about Lisbeth, especially her family background. But to get there the reader is taken on a nail-bitingly suspenseful ride which is well worth the price of admission: cracking open the book.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl Who Played with Fire.
Paperback: 656 pages
Publisher: Vintage; Reprint edition.
Date Published: March 23, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A/A+.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A.
IMPACT: A+.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson has become a publishing phenomenon. It's a contemporary mystery novel set in Sweden (Stockholm, mostly), written by a debut novelist who died suddenly before his books were officially published.

Happily he wrote three books before he died, and the third book, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest will be released in May 2010. The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo has also been made into a major (Swedish) motion picture which was released in the United States in March 2010.

The book is centered around Lisbeth Sander, an anti-social hacker with a photographic memory who works with a corporate security form on private investigations of people, as well as Mikael Blomkvist, a crusading journalist/publisher who loses a libel case against a prominent Swedish businessman. The story is set in Sweden, mostly Stockholm and the fictional Hedestad Island.

The plot is incredibly complex, built around three compelling mysteries: solving a disappearance of a 16-year old girl from a remote Swedish island over forty years before, unearthing the truth about the complicated business deal which caused Blomkvist to commit libel and fiiguring out what makes Lisbeth Salander tick.

Salander is one of the great characters in the mystery genre; it is no wonder that Oscar-nominated British actress Carey Mulligan has aggressively gone after (and apparently won) the role, with David Fincher directing.

Despite a viciously negative review from The New York Times, the novel has gone on to become a publishing sensation in several countries and won multiple awards. This is not surprising to understand. Once begun, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo is almost impossible to put down. I got it for Christmas last year and had finished it and the sequel before New Year's Eve!

Don't say I didn't warn you.

Author: Stieg Larsson.
Title: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
Paperback: 608 pages.
Publisher: Vintage.
Published: June 23, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: A.

PLOT: A+.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: A.
WRITING: A.

BOOK REVIEW: China Miéville's THE CITY & THE CITY

China Miéville, brilliant author of The Scar and Perdido Street Station is back on the top of the critics lists with his latest work, The City & The City.

I am a huge fan of China Miéville's previous fantasy work, and I'm also a big fan of mysteries, so when I heard that the genre-defying British author's latest book was a noir thriller I was excited and intrigued.

The City & The City is a very unusual book (as expected from Miéville) built from a mundane beginning: the body of a murdered woman is found in a bad part of a city and an experienced detective is assigned to the case.

The detective is Inspector Tyador Borlu and the city is Beszel. The other city is Ul Qoma. The city & the city somehow occupy the same geographical space, in what the author calls a "crosshatching" where the residents of each city have their own language, food, culture, dress but have to consciously avoid acknowledging the existence of the other twin city, or be accused of "Breach."

Breach are the mysterious enforcers of the separation between the two cities. Both sides fear breach, and as the story unfolds breach takes on larger-than-life status.

Miéville does an interesting job of subverting and supporting the murder mystery/detective thriller format.

Overall, I was somewhat disappointed by The City & The City. I'm not sure if it is because I had such high expectations from Miéville due to my love of his previous fantasy novels The Scar and Perdido Street Station. One big difference between those works and this latest work is the length. The City & The City is barely half the length of either of those works, and is nowhere as multi-threaded and multi-faceted as those works. This may be due to the form, itself, which of course has an overarching plot imperative: Will the detective solve the mystery and catch who committed the murder?

I think what happens in The City & The City is that the plot is so dominated by this one theme that even the bizarre setting of the two cities is not enough to maintain the level of fascination that Miéville is usually able to sustain when he is creating a work free of the constraints of a specific format like that imposed by the detective procedural.

If you have already read the other Miéville books, I would recommend starting with those and skipping the trip to The City & The City.

Author: China Miéville.
Title: The City & The City.
Length: 336 pages.
Publisher: Del Rey.
Date: May 26, 2009.

OVERALL GRADE: B+ (3.4/4.0).

PLOT: A-.
IMAGERY: A-.
IMPACT: B.
WRITING: B+.

My Favorite Books of the Decade 2000-2009

Thank goodness for school holidays. Thanks to this academic hiatus, I have been able to post my favorite films of the decade and my favorite television shows of the decade. Now comes my favorite books of the decade. It should be noted that these are books that were published between January 1, 2000 and December 31st, 2009 and read by me during that period. On Thursdays, I will try to regularly review either a movie or film in 2010.
Here are some capsule reviews of some of my favorite books, with full reviews accessible by clicking on the titles.

10. Fledgling. The final work from one of my favorite science-fiction authors who unfortunately died during this decade, in 2006. Octavia Butler was one of the very few African-American women to write in this genre, and she was quite successful, with her writing winning both of the highest accolades in the field, the Hugo and Nebula awards. Fledgling is Butler's re-imagining of the vampire myth, with the lead character being a genetically modified member of the Ina race, who appears to be a 13-year-old black girl but who is actually a 53-year-old creature who feeds on humans in symbiotic, mutually pleasurable relationships. As usual, Butler's work deals provocatively with issues of race, power, Author: Octavia Butler. Released: 2005.

9. Anathem. One of the most highly regarded science fiction books of 2009 gets on the list for its sheer inventiveness. Neal Stephenson is well-known for his genre-busting works such as Snow Crash, Cryptonomicon and his New York Times best-selling works of historical fiction that make up the Baroque Cycle. His books are generally huge and Anathem is no exception. This time Stephenson is playing with several different speculative fiction forms: alien first-contact, potboiler set in an insular academic/religious community, and road trip/quest. The story is told as a first-person narrative by a Fraa Erasmas who appears to be some kind of monk in an order devoted to the contemplation of mathematics and science. In fact, a slightly skewed look at mathematics and science play an integral role in the book, because Stephenson uses an encyclopedia of neologisms in the text to describe topics familiar to any college math/science major--half the fun of the book is trying to figure out what basic mathematical concept he is referring to using faux ancient terminology. The plot is a delightful romp and one is sad but satisfied when the book comes to an exciting conclusion. Author: Neal Stephenson. Released: 2009.
8. The Nine. The only work of nonfiction on my list of favorite books of the decade. Generally, I prefer fiction, and speculative fiction, at that, when I read. However, I am intensely interested in United States constitutional law, and so the Supreme Court is a hobby of mine. One of my all-time favorite books is Edward Lazarus' Closed Chambers: The Rise, Fall and Future of the Modern Supreme Court. Jeffrey Toobin's The Nine is an updated version of this insiders look at the inner workings of the SCOTUS. It is an absolutely fascinating read for anyone who has ever cursed the name of Antonin Scalia. Author: Jeffrey Toobin. Released: 2007.
7. Southland. An absolutely brilliant book which combines many of my favorite things: Los Angeles, law, mystery, history, openly gay characters, and an intellectually interesting analysis of race and gender. Southland is set in three different times: the 1930s south Los Angeles, the 1965 Watts riots, and post-Rodney King uprising West Los Angeles. The main character is Jackie Ishida, a Japanese-American lesbian law student, who together with an African-American guy named James Lanier attempts to figure out why her grandfather bequeathed nearly $40,000 in cash to a black guy named Curtis Martindale that she had never heard him mention before. It is a family drama, murder-mystery and historical fiction, all tied together with excellent plotting and well-crafted writing. I wish all mystery novels were as engrossing and meaningful as Southland. Author: Nina Revoyr. Released: 2003.
6. Cloud Atlas. This book was given to me by a friend who thought I might like it without telling me anything about it. It's a perfect way to encounter David Mitchell's brilliant onion of a novel. It was only after I finished reading it that I discovered how well-regarded and highly celebrated Cloud Atlas is. There is a brilliant conceit to the novel which I do not want to reveal, but suffice it to say that whatever your favorite genre is, you will not be disappointed. (I should warn you that Cloud Atlas still gets this high a ranking in my favorite books of the decade despite the fact that there were probably 50 pages in the middle of the book that I skipped unread without any loss of enjoyment in the novel, and without substantially detracting from my overall evaluation of the book as a masterpiece.) Author: David Mitchell. Released: 2004.

5. Perdido Street Station and/or The Scar. Hello, Hollywood? Miéville writes the most imaginative and terrifying "weird fiction" (as he himself calls it) of anyone writing in speculative fiction today (that I have read). Unfortunately for Hollywood, the books are probably unadaptable even in these post-Avatar days. I discovered Perdido Street Station by looking for sci-fi/fantasy novels that had won multiple awards at AwardAnnals.com and China Miéville was the only author at the time who had two books in the Top 20 whom I had never heard of! Lots of people either hate or love his work, but I was completely blown away by both Perdido Street Station and its "sequel" The Scar. I put both books on the list of my favorites for the decade because they are both excellent and I didn't want to choose one over the other. Both books are set in the city-state of New Crobuzon on the planet of Bas-Lag, one of the most intriguing and well-imagined locales in all of speculative fiction. However, I found the third book set in New Crobuzon, Iron Council, almost unreadable. It has sat by my bedside for nearly 6 months, untouched past the third chapter. Interestingly, there are almost no characters shared between the three books except New Crobuzon itself. That, and the fertile imagination of the author, are the real attraction here. It is a place you will not soon forget. Author: China Miéville. Released: 2000 and 2002.

4. Unaccomplished Earth. When people ask me who my favorite author is, I almost always immediately reply "Jhumpa Lahiri." She writes about the immigrant experience of Bengali (South Asian) people trying to assimilate, acclimate and accomodate "American" values. Although, I am not Bengali, since I am an immigrant from the Caribbean I think the universal nature of her description of the experience of how outsiders become insiders resonates deeply with me and any other group of people who feel marginalized in this culture. Plus her prose is simply beautiful and her plotting is generally surprising and realistic. In the past decade Lahiri also released her first novel, The Namesake, which was made into a well-regarded film starring Irfan Khan and Kal Penn, but I think it is in her short stories that Lahiri gets the reader to spend just the right amount of time with her characters, instead of the extended commitment of a full novel. Accustomed Earth is her second collection of short stories, her first (in my opinion, inferior) collection, Interpreter of Maladies won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2000. Author: Jhumpa Lahiri. Released: 2008.

3. The Name of the Wind. The best fantasy novel I have ever read, and that probably includes The Lord of the Rings. What makes The Name of the Wind so compelling is that it blends multiple genres. It is a coming-of-age tale, a mystery, a orphan-makes-good story and a memoir. For good measure, it is also set in a school of magic, like the esteemed Hogwarts in the Harry Potter novels! This is just the first book in what the author calls The Kingkiller Chronicles. It is hard to imagine that the next book (The Wise Man's Fear) can live up to the first, but even if it is only half as good, it will be a remarkable achievement by this first-time author. Author: Patrick Rothfuss. Released: 2007.

2. The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. A heartbreaking work of staggering genius. Winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction in 2008. A stunning melange of sci-fi/fantasy geekdom and Dominican Republic history and folklore, wrapped around an immigrant story and an impossible love story. Although this is one of the few books in my Top 10 that I have not re-read, I think it is because the memory of how shattered I was by reading the ending the first time still haunts me. Author: Junot Diaz. Date Released: 2007.

1. Pandora's Star & Judas Unchained. Although not as overwhelming as his reputation-ensuring Night's Dawn trilogy, Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained (sometimes called The Commonwealth Saga) are a monumental work in their own right. I disagree with critics who think that what the author begins in the first book he fails to bring to a satisfying conclusion in the second book. In all honesty, they are really one huge masterwork which the economics of modern publishing required to be split into two parts. Clearly, the author must be enamored of the vibrant, complex, exciting universe that he created in these books because he has returned to them in his next huge work, the excellent Void Trilogy, whose first two books The Dreaming Void and The Temporal Void have been released already, to mostly ecstatic reviews. I believe that the enthusiasm with which the Void Trilogy books have been greeted with is animated by residual good feeling from those who have read and enjoyed the Commonwealth Saga. It should be noted that these new books are an interesting departure for Hamilton since they feature a well-written and engaging plot thread which is almost entirely fantasy-based instead of the military space opera hard sci-fi for which he is most well-known and appreciated. I have re-read all four books Hamilton has published this decade and can honestly say they have given me the most enjoyment of anything that I have read since 2000. Author: Peter F. Hamilton. Released: 2005 & 2006.

Honorable Mentions: Jonathan Strange & Mr Norrell by Susannah Clarke, The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins, The Lies of Locke Lamora by Scott Lynch, Resurrection Men by Ian Rankin, The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J.K. Rowling, The Golden Compass by Philip Pullman, Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides and Spin by Robert Charles Wilson.

Best Book Read This Decade (Published Before 2000): Doomsday Book by Connie Willis.

John Morgan Wilson's SPIDER SEASON is coming!

My favorite mystery writer, John Morgan Wilson, wrote me an e-mail note today thanking me for MadProfessah's review of his most recently published book, Rhapsody in Blood, and to tell me that he has a new book, entitled Spider Season coming out late this Fall! December 9, 2008, according to Amazon.com. You can read the first chapter of the book at Wilson's personal website.

First of all, how cool of it is to get a letter from a writer whose work you admire and they tell you that they like the review you wrote of their work?

Secondly, how exciting is that finally after two long years, a new episode in the Benjamin Justice series will be out soon?

If you haven't heard of Benjamin Justice, he is the fictional openly gay, ex-reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for the Los Angeles Times that had to be returned after a huge scandal.

He always seems to find himself in complicated murder mysteries set in Southern California and Los Angeles (the first several books are actually set in the heart of the gay ghetto itself: West Hollywood).

The first seven books in the series are: Simple Justice (1996), Revision of Justice (1997), Justice at Risk (1999), The Limits of Justice (2000), Blind Eye (2003), Moth and Flame (2004) and Rhapsody in Blood (2006).

I am thinking of re-reading (and reviewing) the first 6 books or so for this blog before the 8th one comes out in December. I would strongly recommend reading them in order, although each one is self-contained, the impact of the events on the character is deepened if you have experienced the events of the previous books.

BOOK REVIEW: Stephen Carter's NEW ENGLAND WHITE

Stephen L. Carter's New England White is the sequel to his The Emperor of Ocean Park (see MadProfessah's review), which was a delightfully amusing and densely plotted murder mystery containing trenchant social commentary on academia, race, law and political correctness.

Since New England White is his second novel and is centered around a minor character from his first it is immediately at some disadvantages. First, the writing style and milieu in this novel is no longer new to the reader since we've seen this intimate, insider's view of academic society and the black bourgeoisie (dubbed "The Darker Nation" by Carter) in Emperor of Ocean Park.

But, instead of the central character of the book being a Black law professor at an elite New England law school (*cough* Yale *cough*) Carter has switched the focus to the wife (Julia Carlyle) of one of the other Black law professors in the first book who in the interim has now become not only a federal Judge but White House counsel and President of said elite University!

So Carter's second book is both comfortingly familiar and disappointingly unfamiliar simultaneously. Darn it, we liked Tal Garland from the first book and he barely has a cameo in this book, though his wife and child do appear repeatedly.

What Carter does do well in New England White is pose increasingly significant puzzles on the way to revealing the contours of a central mystery which involves a death. The format is a good one and his insight into the setting of his story and the sociopolitical commentary (albeit in a fictional context) is amusing and engaging.

The main (and nearly fatal) flaw of the book is the ending. In particular, the last 50 pages and the denouement of the plot include scenes which attempt to be suspenseful but in reality strain credulity and significantly weaken the overall impact of the novel.

Regardless, Professor Carter has found a very enjoyable (and lucrative) niche in the publishing world. I hope that he is able to produce another novel in this vein, although I would recommend he base the third book about Kimmer Garland, the character in common to the main characters of his first two books.

GRADE: B+.

REVIEW: The Emperor of Ocean Park

I read The Emperor of Ocean Park by Stephen L. Carter a few years ago in hardback and in eager anticipation of his second book, New England White, I
re-read it in paperback over the summer. I would preface my review by saying that I am an avid fan of the mystery genre (I'm currently working my way through Ian Rankin's brilliant Inspector Rebus series) as well as a former international chess player and avid Supreme Court watcher. These interests are clearly shared by Carter, who when he is not writing mystery novels is Professor of Law at Yale Law School, which is probably the best law school in the country.


Interestingly, the main character in The Emperor of Ocean Park happens to teach at a prominent law school on the Eastern Seaboard. The character's name is Talcott Garland, whose father Judge Oliver Garland was an unsuccessful conservative nominee to the United Supreme Court and whose wife is in the running for a judgeship on the United States Court of Appeals.

When his father dies unexpectedly, Talcott risks his marriage, his career and possibly his own life in order to uncover the secrets unearthed by his father's untimely death.

The book is an engrossing but somewhat phlegmatic read, due to its length (over 650 pages) and subject matter. I look forward to reading Carter's New England White, and I hope that he doesn't take another five years to write his next mystery novel.


GRADE: B+.

REVIEW: John Morgan Wilson's RHAPSODY IN BLOOD

My favorite gay mystery writer John Morgan Wilson is back with a seventh Benjamin Justice novel, Rhapsody in Blood. Benjamin Justice is a 40-something, HIV+ white gay man missing one eye who lives in West Hollywood and is a disgraced former Los Angeles Times reporter who was forced to return a Pulitzer Prize after it was revealed he faked his award-winning article. Somehow he finds himself in situations where people harboring secrets frequently meet violent deaths (and he is often in mortal danger, too--when we first met Justice he was HIV- and intact). His sidekick is Alexandra Stevenson, a statuesque African American trust fund baby in her early 30s who also happens to be a star Times reporter. Other characters in the Justice series are Maurice and Fred, a 70-something gay couple who have been together for over 50 years and who rent out the room over their garage to Justice in the heart of Boystown.

The first six books in the series have also used Los Angeles (and usually West Hollywood) as a character. One of the most enjoyable features was reading Wilson's descriptions of locales around the city complete with historical nuggets of places that I can (and often do) drive by whenever I want. Initially the books in the series had the cute affectation of always including Justice in the title: Simple Justice, Revision of Justice, Justice at Risk, The Limits of Justice. Then the series took a harrowingly dark turn during the last one and continued in that vein in Blind Eye with some relief coming in Moth and Flame.

The latest installment is Rhapsody in Blood, which is not set in Los Angeles but is a classic Hollywood murder mystery. Justice and Stevenson go up to a small mountain town a few hours away from L.A. now called Haunted Springs. Fifty years ago gorgeous movie star Rebecca Fox was found murdered in one of the family-run hotel's rooms on March 15th while shooting a movie in Eternal Springs. She had recently had sex with someone and the hotel owner's teenage son claimed he had seen a black man coming out of the room. The man Ed Jones was immediately arrested by the local sherrif (who happened to be related to the hotel owner) and lynched later that same night--no murder weapon was ever found in the hotel room. Twenty-five years ago Rebecca Fox's daughter Brandy Fox checked into the same hotel room on the 25th anniversary of her mother's murder and was found dead in her room with her throat cut and the knife in her hand. The death was ruled a suicide. The name of the town was changed to Haunted Springs and the mythology of the two Hollywood deaths and the creepy hotel grew, particularly after the publication of a best-selling true crime book about the ill-fated town. Now Hollywood is filming a movie based on the Rebecca and Brandy Fox deaths at the hotel. Templeton is writing a story about the filming of the movie, which stars one of the current top female box-office stars, a very attractive up and coming male starlet and a popular rapper.

What makes the Justice novels so interesting is that even though they are firmly ensconced in the murder mystery genre the author has no qualms about including social commentary on any number of urgent comtemporary topics. In Rhapsody in Blue there are threads about race (from the DL or "down low" phenomenon, to a dissection of the psychological motivations behind the panic caused by Black male/White female couplings, lynching, among other topics), sexuality (outing, the coming out process, childhood precociousness, age-based anxieties), music (hip hop/rap, the music business, the title is a pun on Rhapsody in Blue which is a key theme throughout the book), history (who controls what the nature of 'truth' is, how the past influences the present and the future, basic historical facts about lynching in the United States), fame (it's fragility and allure, the Hollywood public relations apparatus, the extremes to which people will go to get it, gossip, etc) all weaved together in a well-crafted mosaic which provides a backdrop for a satisfying, insightful and fun read.

I can't wait for the next one!

GRADE: A.