Brief Mention: Nonfiction for Crime Buffs (by Tom McCarthy, Bruce Goldfarb, Billy Jensen)

Our review platform is meant for ardent collectors of mysteries and crime fiction, as we ourselves have been for decades. That said, now and then a publisher or publicity person sends along a work of nonfiction related to crime. We generally just pass them along to someone who needs them (research! research!). Here are three that lingered in the office for a while and are now headed out to further readers ... you might want to order one or more of them for your reference shelf. Here's why:

1. You love caper mysteries. Maybe you grew up with Donald Westlake (or discovered him later in life) and love the humorous twist. Most of all, though, you appreciate a tale of a good heist. Your recent "likes" may include Tim Hallinan's Junior Bender series, or the San Juan Islands capers written by Bethany Maines, or some of the Colin Cotterill series and an occasional treasure from David Carkeet. Or, of course, you're still hoping someone will reveal what happened to the art stolen from the Isabella Stewart Gardiner Museum? Nope, sorry, that's not in THE GREATEST HEIST STORIES EVER TOLD, edited by Tom McCarthy and published by Lyons Press in 2019. But DB Cooper is in here! So are eight other "compelling and true stories of brilliant plans, guile, and nerves of steel," as the editor describes the selections. "Planning is everything, and carrying out those plans is no easy task ... benefits for these clever thieves were abundant—loads of money and the freedom to do whatever they wanted with it. If only for a short time."

2. You're obsessed with how the forensics work out. Did you mark your calendar for the recent TV miniseries featuring Lincoln Rhyme hunting for the Bone Collector? Shelve every book by Patricia Cornwell next to your bed, until her later titles starting making you feel too ill or invaded your sleep with overly realistic nightmares? Do you pick apart a Kathy Reichs or even an Archer Mayor mystery, probing whether a death investigator or coroner would really miss that particular hint? Frankly, you need the back story, which you'll find in 18 TINY DEATHS: THE UNTOLD STORY OF FRANCES GLESSNER LEE AND THE INVENTION OF MODERN FORENSICS (Sourcebooks, 2020). Bruce Goldfarb whips the details of this woman's life and classrooms into a well-laid-out tale of scientific investigation. It puts the modern science into perspective and shows how hard it can be to move things forward ... especially as a grandmother without a college degree. The reading's a bit slow, but there are lots of golden nuggets.

3. You can't resist those late-night true-crime shows on TV; you drive extra slowly past any local murder site; you wonder whether the detectives would let you offer your insight, based on how clever or intuitive you are. Is that you? Or would you rather get the true story of someone this really applied to, and how he went from journalism to solving mysteries himself ... that's Billy Jensen, who relates his own engagement in crimesolving in CHASE DARKNESS WITH ME (Sourcebooks again, 2019). This is solidly first-person narrative, and doesn't pretend to be balanced. But my goodness, is it ever a page-turner! If you can put up with Billy talking entirely about himself and his perceptions, grab this for your shelf -- or give a copy to a friend who fits the bill.

Good luck! And don't use these as how-to books, please. There are no guarantees of success in such a field ...

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Superb Hollywood Crime Caper, in KING MAYBE, Junior Bender

To me, there's only one king of the caper novel in crime fiction: the late, great Donald Westlake. Sure, Dave Zeltserman tied up the modern "noir" caper a few years ago. Rory Flynn's carving out Boston space for his, if not quite so cheerfully. And there are regional gems like Carl Hiassen's Florida titles and the Texas ones by Kinky Friedman.

But Westlake's gift was a combination of exquisite timing (the kind a good comedian has to have) and a willingness to show that criminals can be ordinary dumb bunnies like the guy next door. Beyond that aspect of his caper novels, Westlake also revealed, in a short early series of his under the pen name Tucker Coe, that he understood heartbreak, male style, and could write it with precision and a sharp blade of a pen (or typewriter key). Even though he ended that series before his career soared, the revelation insisted on slipping into his hard-working and often-failing criminals in the rest of his work.

Timothy Hallinan hasn't used the same sort of sleight of hand. His Bangkok series featuring Poke Rafferty rose steadily into a portrait of how a "family of choice" can form and be nurtured; the biggest risks Poke takes, he takes for the sake of the people he cares about.

So when Hallinan segued into the Junior Bender series (which despite the character's name is emphatically NOT "young adult"), he took that emotional dynamic directly into the life of his exquisitely skilled, art-expert, house burglar in Hollywood, Junior Bender. Bender is in many ways clueless about how relationships work -- but he chooses phenomenal women who, if he can manage to let them, not only put up with his gaffes but also teach him how to treat a smart, wise, savvy woman ... like his ex-wife, his teenage daughter, and his current girlfriend, who's so careful not to fully trust him that he's not even sure he knows her real name.

Good thing Junior stumbled into those liaisons, because the heist he's attempting at the opening of KING MAYBE (Junior Bender #5, from Soho Crime) goes wrong so fast and so hard that he'd be a bloody battered corpse, were it not for the rapid response of his ladyfriend (and getaway driver) Ronnie. And it's only Ronnie who can keep calm enough to sort out what's pushing the disasters into place, as Junior holds an incredibly valuable postage stamp in his hands while at least three people try to kill him. Even Stinky, who hired him:

Stinky ... settled his weight farther back in the seat, which made the car dip. "As you should know from recent experience, Junior, when I want to kill you, I'll hire someone to shoot you."

"Like that other man just did," Ronnie said.

Stinky said, "What other man?"

I said, "Never mind."

"And you thought," Ronnie said serenely to Stinky, "that they caught Junior in the act, as people say, and he told them you sent him, and they said, 'Well, all right, then, thanks, here you go,' and gave him the stamp as a reward and came after you."

"Well," Stinky said, "when you put it that  way -- "

"I said the exact same thing," I told him. "When she reacted to my theory. Word for word."

... "Both of you," she said. "You're hopeless."

Hallinan braids a very believable sort of triple betrayal into the plot, while at the same time leaving it to Junior and his two tech-genius teen crime associates (who aren't supposed to be doing that any more) to figure out how to salvage his own daughter's dating life and upcoming birthday party.

I laughed my way through this enjoyable adventure, and if only crime could be this rewarding (in the long run), I might have suggested it to a few other people looking for themselves, like Junior has been. But then again, Junior Bender's Hollywood career is just fiction. ... I think!

Thanks, Tim Hallinan, for great entertainment and the best of twists and conclusions. And PS -- I wish Donald Westlake could be reading your books now.