1/5/2004
The Murder
Room is the new offering from P. D. James (Knopf; $25.95). This is
a very special gift from the lady (Baroness James of Holland Park) who
has delighted in fooling us for lo these many years. “Murder is
the unique crime,” she once pointed out and “women seem to have a special
gift for being able to work out the minutiae necessary to this crime.”
So here’s the over-eighty James, spinning a new tale in her intractable web.
The Dupayne, a small private museum on the edge
of Hampstead Heath devoted to the interwar years between 1919 and 1939,
is in turmoil. The Trustees—the three children of its founder—are
bitterly at odds over whether it should be closed. Then one of them is
brutally murdered, and what seems to be no more than a family dispute
erupts into horror. Even as Commander Adam Dalgleish and his team investigate
the first murder, a second is discovered. The murders appear to
echo the notorious crimes of the past featured in one of the museum’s
most popular galleries, The Murder Room. Dalgleish had recently visited
the room and as he and his team begin its investigation, the murders pose
an unexpected complication. The detective-poet, for many years single
and self-sufficient, has embarked on a new relationship with professor
Emma Lavenham, which is at a critical stage. Yet each new development
in the Dupayne case distances him further from commitment to the woman
he loves.
We have matured with the Baroness James; through this story she
gives us sly reminders of the issues that her characters, and we, have
absorbed through the years. Wonderful gift, a mature Dalgleish maturely
in love!
A howling funnel of destruction screams across the prairie and slams
into the sleepy town of Promise, Oklahoma. The mammoth twister splinters
houses, shreds crops and tosses cars through the air in The Breathtaker
by Alice Blanchard, (Warner Books; $24.95). When Police Chief Charlie
Grover finds three mutilated corpses in a tornado-ravaged farmhouse, his
first thought is that flying debris impaled the victims: a husband, wife
and small daughter. But his instincts tell him something different.
Through police work, Charlie proves the three were murdered and
discovers their executioner has left a particularly appalling calling
card. Yet how could the killer predict exactly when a tornado would
strike? Could this psychopath be one of the storm chasers who streak across
the plains in pursuit of the ultimate thrill ride (Charlie’s father is
one)? Enlisting the aid of tornado-chasing scientist Dr. Willa Bellman,
Charlie steps into a chaotic world of high-tech risk-taking in search
of a cunning criminal—one he soon suspects is stalking him and his lonely
teenage daughter. This is indeed a killer like no other: one who
conspires with the power of nature to commit and conceal unspeakable crimes.
The Breathtaker film rights have been sold to Warner
Brothers-based John Wells Productions (Wells is an executive producer
on ER).
For those of us who love history with our mystery, it’s always
good news when Margaret Frazer has a new story to tell. Here it’s
The Hunter’s Tale (Berkley Prime Crime; $23.95) the fourteenth
in her series of medieval mysteries featuring Dame Frevisse of St. Frideswide’s
nunnery in northern Oxfordshire. One of Dame Frevisse’s young charges
at school there has been taken from the nunnery by her older brother,
Hugh, to her home to attend the funeral services of their father,
Sir Ralph Woderove, recently murdered to the sorrow of almost no one.
Hugh, the hunter of the title, manages his father’s hunts and shoots,
while older brother Tom manages the estates. Sir Ralph has paid both of
them nothing through the years, insisting they earn their daily bread.
Another death occurs, and it is now clear that Sir Ralph’s death
has not left all grievances to rest, and Dame Frevisse steps in. The research
and the wit brought to this series by Frazer is impeccable, and eminently
readable. Two of the books, “The Servant’s Tale” and “The Prioress
Tale”, were nominated for Edgar awards.
Remember When (Putnam; $25.95) has two authors, two points of view
and only one persona. The prolific romance writer, Nora Roberts,
sometimes writes as J. D. Robb when she feels a violent streak coming
on. Here, she writes in both identities in a two-part novel.
In Part One, we meet Laine Tavish, owner of an antique store in
Maryland called “Remember When.” The locals have no idea that she used
to be Elaine O’Hara, daughter of a notorious con man. A long lost
uncle shows up at the shop, and is run down by a car. Soon after,
Laine’s home is ransacked and it is up to her to discover who is chasing
her—and why. She teams up with Max Gannon and the two pursue a fortune
in lost jewels. In Part Two, J. D. Robb takes us to New York City in 2059,
and puts Detective Lieutenant Eve Dallas on the case. Sharp-witted and
sexy, Eve pursues her outlaws in a time and place where crime meets cutting-edge
technology - and the jewels are still being sought after
decades. Interesting, but I feel that a Nora Roberts plus a J. D.
Robb in the same volume somehow does not add up to a two-star production.
More like a one and a half.