The Knife Slipped by Erle Stanley Gardner ('writing as A.A. Fair") was recently published by Hard Case Crime. It was written in 1939 and meant to be the second of the 40 novels Gardner wrote about private detectives Bertha Cool and Donald Lam but was considered too racy and violent at the time and Bertha Cool too hot and tough. I pulled my hat down low on my forehead and walked out of the office. Elsie Brand didn't even look up from her typing. Bertha Cool stood in the doorway of her private office, watching me out through the outer door. "Goodbye, lover," she said. I slammed the door. (Titan, 2016).
The Yellow Dog is one of Georges Simenon's earlier books about Inspector Jules Maigret, who studies people rather than clues in order to discover the murderer. In this book Simenon seems in considerable debt to Arthur Conan Doyle, as the motive for the murder goes back a fair number of years and involves a number of conspirators in a small coastal town where every one knows every one else. Simenon wrote over 200 books, 75 of them with Maigret as the detective. "You're lucky my friend! Especially in this case in which my method has actually been not to have one." (Penguin, 1931. Translated by Linda Asher).
The Midnight Line is number 20 in Lee Child's series about Jack Reacher, ex-Army MP and West Point graduate who travels randomly with just his toothbrush. Reacher discovers a West Point class ring in a pawn shop and sets out to find its original owner, helped by his contacts in the army. He eventually ends up in Wyoming, in the middle of an opioid ring which supplies the West Point injured soldier, Rose Sanderson, and fights (physically and mentally) his way out. Map reading. The difference between winning and getting wiped out. (Delacorte Press, 2017)
Two Kinds of Truth is Michael Connelly's 22nd book about Harry Bosch, now retired and working for the San Fernando police. As usual, Connelly has loner Bosch working on two different cases simultaneously: in one he goes undercover to solve a murder involving an opioid ring and in the other he has to defend his actions in a reopened case where he helped put someone on death row thirty years ago who is still there. Bosch barely survives the undercover operation and is successful in defending his actions of thirty years ago, with the help of his half-brother lawyer. Connelly continues to create vivid characters within the detailed workings of lawyers and policemen, though Bosch is fighting against his increasing cynicism. The reality of the world was dark and horrifying.
(Little, Brown and Company, 2017)
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