The Mayors of New York: S.J. Rozan

I am a big fan of S. J. Rozan's Lydia Chin and Bill Smith series. I started reading the books in the series in 2008 and by the middle of 2009 I had read all the books available at that time. Since then I have read all the books in the series. This is the latest book in the series, which now consists of 15 books.

The two main characters in the series are Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. Bill is a white private investigator in his forties who lives in Manhattan; Lydia is an American-born Chinese private investigator in her late twenties who lives in New York’s Chinatown with her mother. They are not partners but they often work together on cases. The element that I have always liked about this series is that the narrator of the books alternates between Lydia and Bill. The first book was narrated by Lydia; the second book was narrated by Bill; and so on.

Most of the books narrated by Lydia are set in Chinatown. Bill's stories are usually set in other part of New York City.

Summary of The Mayors of New York from Simon and Schuster:

In January, New York City inaugurates its first female mayor. In April, her son disappears.

Called in by the mayor's chief aide—a former girlfriend of private investigator Bill Smith’s—to find the missing fifteen-year-old, Bill and his partner, Lydia Chin, are told the boy has run away. Neither the press nor the NYPD know that he’s missing, and the mayor wants him back before a headstrong child turns into a political catastrophe. But as Bill and Lydia investigate, they turn up more questions than answers.

Why did the boy leave? Who else is searching for him, and why? What is his twin sister hiding?

My thoughts:

The series is still going strong after 15 books. If anything, the stories are getting better and better. The pacing and tension in this story is very well-done.

The characterization is very strong. Lydia and Bill each have their own opinions and strengths; neither fits the stereotype of a private eye. I like the relationship that has grown between the two over the series. 

Also, the secondary characters come alive in this book. There is Aubrey Hamilton, also known as "Bree," the mayor's assistant. At one time she had a relationship with Bill, which ended badly, and she is the one that recommended him to the mayor. They are constantly sparring in this story. The mayor’s son is an appealing character, even though he isn't on the page a lot, since the point is to find him. The twin sister of the missing boy is a real pain, very snarky and dismissive, but concerned about her brother.

The New York setting is very well done. In this story, the focus is not on Chinatown. This book features many other neighborhoods in NYC, as Lydia and Bill search the city for information about the missing teenager.

The series does not have to be read in order. I did, and I loved the early books in the series, but many readers stress that this book is a perfect jumping in point, and there are few (if any) references to earlier cases in the books. 

Another review to check out:

Please see the review of The Mayors of New York by Aubrey Hamilton at Kevin Tipple's blog, Kevin's Corner.

Aubrey Hamilton is a blogger (at Happiness is a Book) who specializes in reviewing older mysteries, many written before World War II. Her reviews often include interesting information on the author's background. You should check out her blog. She won a character name in this book by S.J. Rozan. As she notes in the comments below, she was pleased that the character had such a prominent role.

Short Story Wednesday: Two Novellas by Rex Stout

 

In early October I reviewed "This Won't Kill You", a novella in Three Men Out by Rex Stout. Today I am discussing the other two novellas in that book: "Invitation to Murder" and "The Zero Clue". Both of those stories were first published in The American Magazine in 1953.

For a brief introduction to the series of books and novellas:

Nero Wolfe is an armchair detective, preferring to do all his detecting from home. He is a genius, a lover of orchids and fine food, who supports himself (and his household) as a private detective. Archie Goodwin, the narrator of the stories, is both his assistant and a private investigator, and he does most of the legwork. They live in a New York brownstone and share the house with Theodore, a plant expert who cares for Wolfe's orchids, and Felix, Wolfe's cook. 

"Invitation to Murder"

Herman Lewent wants Nero Wolfe to investigate Theodore Huck and the three women that he employees at his mansion. Huck was married to Herman Lewent's sister, who died a year earlier. Lewent had received $1000 a month from his sister since their father died and left his estate to her. Huck had continued to give him that money, but Lewent thinks he deserves more. However, what he really wants Wolfe to figure out is whether one of Huck's employees killed his sister, who died of Ptomaine poisoning. Lewent believes that all three women (a housekeeper, a nurse, and a secretary) would be interested in marrying Huck, and one of them murdered his sister to get her out of the way. Wolfe won't leave his home to investigate but he allows Archie to go in his mansion, to scope out the household and see if there is any basis for the accusation.

Eventually Archie decides that Wolfe really needs to be at Huck's mansion, so he tricks him into coming there. And, of course, the case is solved. 

This is an old-fashioned puzzle mystery, and in this case Stout clearly provides clues to what happened, although I am sure I did not figure out the first time I read it. In these shorter works by Stout, I primarily enjoy Archie's narration and the story telling. 

"The Zero Clue" 

Leo Heller is a professor of mathematics who specializes in probability and has made a lot of money using his talents in that area. Wolfe had some dealings with him earlier and despises the man. When Heller wants help from Wolfe to determine if one of his clients committed murder, Wolfe refuses. But Archie decides to go talk to Heller at his office, in an attempt to gather information that will convince Wolfe to take the case.

When Archie arrives at Heller's office, there are several people there waiting to see Heller either in the lobby of the building or in Heller's waiting room on the fifth floor. Archie goes into Heller's office, finds it empty, and snoops around a bit while he waits. Heller does not show up and Archie leaves. Later in the day, the police discover Heller's dead body in the closet of the office, and they find out that Archie was there. Thus, Inspector Cramer of Manhattan Homicide shows up at Wolfe's door. 

Most of this story is about Wolfe interviewing six suspects to get more information about their business with Leo Heller while Inspector Cramer listens in. Cramer is one of my favorite characters in the Nero Wolfe stories, so I always enjoy it when he shows up. This time Wolfe and Cramer get along pretty well. 

This story also has clues to the solution, but the reader has to know some obscure mathematical facts to be able to catch them, so I am not sure it counts as playing fair with the reader. Not that I think Rex Stout put much emphasis on that part of mystery plots.

I enjoyed learning more about mathematics. My major was mathematics in college but I am sure I did not know the arcane facts that Wolfe uses to make the deduction before I read that story for the first time. Regardless, "The Zero Clue" was my favorite between these two novellas, because I think it is a very clever and entertaining story.

Annual Book Sale 2024: My Husband's Books

Every year in September we attend the Planned Parenthood book sale, which lasts ten days. We usually visit a minimum of five times. This year our visits were curtailed because my husband and I had Covid when the sale began. 

Nevertheless, we did find many books to add to our collection. These are six of the books my husband found. As you can see from this list, he enjoys reading about social history.

My husband purchased the following three books about daily life in various historical periods in England. The author is Elizabeth Burton. The three books were published between 1958 and 1972, and all of them have lovely illustrations by Felix Kelly. In the 1940s she published 6 novels as Susan Alice Kerby. Wikipedia describes them as comic fantasy novels. 

The Elizabethans at Home by Elizabeth Burton.

First published in 1958. This edition is a reprint from 1970.

From the dust jacket:

In this reissue of Miss Burton's highly praised and highly successful domestic history of the Elizabethans, she draws most entertainingly on a wealth of contemporary sources. How did the Elizabethans really live? What was ordinary existence like for the Elizabethan man and woman? What sort of furniture did they use? What were their staple diets? What sort of remedies did they keep in their medicine chests? How did they get their news? What games did they play? These and other questions are answered in this fascinating account which is illuminated by the superb drawings of Felix Kelly.

The Georgians at Home by Elizabeth Burton

Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1967.

From the dust jacket:

In The Georgians at Home, she covers the period from the accession of George the First to the death of George the Fourth, and from a mass of sources, many of them unpublished, she presents a fascinating and remarkably complete picture of Georgian domestic life in all its detail.

She is as interested in the chattels and hovels of the poor as she is in the architecture, gardens, furniture and interior decoration of the great houses built by Kent, Gibbs, Adam, Holland, Nash, Soane and others of a glorious age. Cooking and food; glass, china and utensils; the relative cost of living; the bizarre and often horrifying medical remedies of doctors and quacks, the use of cosmetics; travel, transport and amusements–from Elizabeth Burton's meticulous research into such minutiae a whole way of life emerges.

The Early Victorians at Home by Elizabeth Burton

Published by Longmans, Green & Co., 1972.

From the dust jacket:

The Early Victorians at Home gives a wonderfully detailed account of the domestic lives of our ancestors–their houses, furniture, food, medicine, recreations, gardens–with numerous sidelights on the minutiae of every day life at all levels of society.

The Last Country Houses by Charles Aslet

From the Goodreads description:

The magnificent country houses built in Britain between 1890 and 1939 were the last monuments to a vanishing age. Many of these great mammoths of domestic architecture were unsuited to the changes in economic and social priorities that followed the two world wars, and rapidly became extinct. Those that survive, however, provide tangible evidence of the life and death if an extraordinarily prosperous age. This book recounts the architectural and social history of this era, describing the clients, the architects, the styles and accoutrements of the country houses. 

Nature's Mutiny: How the Little Ice Age of the Long Seventeenth Century Transformed the West and Shaped the Present by Philipp Blom

From the Goodreads description:

Although hints of a crisis appeared as early as the 1570s, the temperature by the end of the sixteenth century plummeted so drastically that Mediterranean harbors were covered with ice, birds literally dropped out of the sky, and “frost fairs” were erected on a frozen Thames–with kiosks, taverns, and even brothels that become a semi-permanent part of the city.

Recounting the deep legacy and far-ranging consequences of this “Little Ice Age,” acclaimed historian Philipp Blom reveals how the European landscape had suddenly, but ineradicably, changed by the mid-seventeenth century. While apocalyptic weather patterns destroyed entire harvests and incited mass migrations, they gave rise to the growth of European cities, the emergence of early capitalism, and the vigorous stirrings of the Enlightenment. A timely examination of how a society responds to profound and unexpected change, Nature’s Mutiny will transform the way we think about climate change in the twenty-first century and beyond.

 

McSweeney's Enchanted Chamber of Astonishing Stories by Michael Chabon (editor),  Mike Mignola  (Illustrator)

From the Goodreads description:

Michael Chabon is back with a brand-new collection that reinvigorates the stay-up-all-night, edge-of-the seat, fingernail-biting, page-turning tradition of literary short stories, featuring Margaret Atwood, Stephen King, Peter Straub, David Mitchell, Jonathan Lethem, Heidi Julavits, Roddy Doyle, and more!

A complete list of the authors and their stories:

• Margaret Atwood - Lusus Naturae
• David Mitchell - What You Do Not Know You Want
• Jonathan Lethem - Vivian Relf
• Ayelet Waldman - Minnow
• Steve Erickson - Zeroville
• Stephen King - Lisey and the Madman
• Jason Roberts - 7C
• Heidi Julavits - The Miniaturist
• Roddy Doyle - The Child
• Daniel Handler - Delmonico
• Charles D’Ambrosio - The Scheme of Things
• Poppy Z. Brite - The Devil of Delery Street
• China Mieville - Reports of Certain Events in London
• Joyce Carol Oates - The Fabled Light-house at Viña del Mar
• Peter Straub - Mr. Aickman’s Air Rifle

Short Story Wednesday: "Dead Man's Shoe" by Floyd Sullivan

 

This story was published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine January/February 2023. I had not heard of this author before, but he had an earlier story published in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine September/October 2021 which I will also read.

"Dead Man's Shoe" by Floyd Sullivan

Rick Peters tells the story of his brief visit to a cabin on Keuka Lake in New York. He was taking a vacation from his job as a professional photographer. The local sheriff rings the doorbell and asks Rick to take photos of an object on a nearby pier. The object turns out to be an athletic shoe with a foot in it. The foot had been sawed off a body just above the ankle. 

This was a slow burn story. Peters doesn't want to give up on figuring what was behind the discovery of the foot. There are some elements that stretched my ability to suspend disbelief, but I enjoyed the story and the ending was very satisfactory.

Last line: "I have no plans to return to the Finger Lakes. Ever."

There is an article about the inspiration for this story at Trace Evidence.

The White Lioness: Henning Mankell

 

The White Lioness is the third book in the acclaimed Kurt Wallander series. Henning Mankell is a Swedish author. The book is set mostly in Sweden but there are also sections of the book set in South Africa. It was originally published in Swedish in January 1993; it was translated into English by Laurie Thompson in 1998. This book was written in the years prior to the official end of Apartheid in 1994.

The story begins with the execution-style murder of a Swedish housewife. The police investigation reveals that the victim was being stalked by an admirer, but he has an airtight alibi. As the investigation continues, the police eventually discover the first stage of an assassination plot to kill a high official in South Africa. The man who is running the operation to train an assassin in Sweden is a ruthless ex-KGB agent, who will stop at nothing to have a successful end to his assignment.

My Thoughts:

The focus on Apartheid leads to a very complex story that sometimes loses its focus. But the inclusion of that subject was one of the reasons I liked the book. I was interested to learn about Apartheid at the time this book was written. I had read historical mysteries set in South Africa in the 1950s and in the 1970s, but this story shows the attitudes and efforts to move forward in abolishing Apartheid in South Africa in the early 1990s.

Kurt Wallander is a police inspector in Ystad following up on just one part of the investigation. As the case continues, he gets pulled into it deeper and deeper. At one point he goes off the rails, taking things into his own hands without letting others on the team know what he is doing.

I like that elements of Wallander's home life and family relationships are included. He is divorced. His father is elderly and lives alone; Wallander and he have always had a difficult relationship. Now his father is planning on getting married and Wallander disapproves. His daughter, who is working in Stockholm, gets drawn into the action, and although I don't care for mysteries where family members are put in danger, this subplot does provide some of the best scenes.

This is not an easy story to read, not only because of the complex plot but also because there is so much ruthless violence. Nevertheless I gave it 5 stars and I understand more and more why the novels in the Wallander books have been so well received.

Short Story Wednesday: "A Father's Story" by Andre Dubus II

 

"A Father's Story"

In some ways this story sneaks up on you. The man telling the story is in his fifties and he talks about his previous life with his wife and four children, and his life now, after his wife left and took the children. Twelve years after she left, the children are grown although his youngest, a daughter, is only twenty and still visits him once a year and meets her old friends in the area. All of a sudden the story switches to a traumatic event that happened when his daughter visited, and tells about that event and how it has affected his life and hers since then. Religion and morality play a big part in this story. Of course, family relationships also have a role.

I liked the story, although I could not fully relate to it. I love the author's writing, and how he tells the story.

This story is collected in Selected Stories of Andre Dubus, originally published in 1988. There are 23 stories by Andre Dubus II (1936–1999) in this book. Not to be confused with his son, Andre Dubus III, who is also a writer of novels and short stories.

I first learned about this author at Patricia Abbott's blog in these posts on two other stories... "Leslie in California" and "The Winter Father." 

I tried to find any book of the author's short stories at last year's book sale but failed. This year, I was lucky and found this book on the last day. 

This was my first experience reading anything by that author. I will be reading more stories from this collection.