There is nothing like opening a new book and turning to the first page of the latest volume in a riveting mystery series.
This is especially true when each book stands on its own, such as the three novels previewed in this column.
The House of the Rising Sun (2015) by James Lee Burke is simply a masterpiece, a wonderful work by one of the best American novelists writing today.
The dialogue is crisp, the prose is stunning and the character of former Texas Ranger Hackberry Holland, as well as a large cast of other characters, is complex and compelling.
The story begins when Hackberry travels to Mexico in 1916 to seek his estranged son, a cavalry unit officer and First World War veteran.
After a violent gunfight that leaves four Mexican soldiers dead, he escapes the country in possession of a stolen artifact, raising the ire of a murderous Austrian arms dealer who places Hack’s son Ishmael squarely in the cross hairs of a plot to recapture his prize, believed to be the mythic cup of Christ.
As the action deftly builds we meet three remarkable women: Ruby Hansen, the Danish immigrant who is Ishmael’s mother, and Hackberry’s one true love, Beatrice DeMolay, a brothel madam descended from the medieval knight who brought the shroud of Turin back from the Holy Land. Then there’s Maggie Bassett, the former lover of the Sundance Kid and a woman with the wiles of Lady Macbeth.
In her own way, each woman aids Hackberry in his quest to reconcile with Ishmael, defeat their enemies and return the Holy Grail to its rightful place.
Dry Bones (2015) by Craig Johnson is the author’s latest Walter Longmire novel, an intricately plotted story that succeeds on every level.
The story begins with the Wyoming sheriff helping pull the corpse of Danny Lone Elk, a Cheyenne rancher, from the turtle pond on his ranch. Walt soon suspects Danny did not die from natural causes, given the uproar that rises over the recent discovery of a nearly complete T. rex skeleton –nicknamed Jen after the paleontologist who unearthed her – on Danny’s land.
The discovery fuels a fight amongst the U.S. government, Absaroka County’s own High Plains Dinosaur Museum and the Lone Elk family. And Walt and Henry Standing Bear battle a gang of thugs, protective family members, politicians and bureaucracy in their quest to save Jen.
The hero never wavers, through thick and thin, the secondary characters are complex and the story winds to a satisfying ending.
Endangered (2015) by C.J. Box is a chilling novel, featuring Wyoming game warden Joe Pickett. This is the 15th book in the Pickett series and the author yet again takes the reader on a roller-coaster ride of utter suspense and entertainment.
The ride gets rolling when Pickett, out collecting dead sage grouse, learns his adopted daughter, April, is near death after being severely beaten and dumped to die on a rural road.
April’s boyfriend, Dallas Cates, is a suspect and the Cates family is obstructing the investigation, for reasons Pickett cannot understand. The suspect denies having anything do to with the crime. But Pickett knows in his gut who is responsible. He just doesn’t know the danger he will face as he strives to discover the truth.
These three titles are all available at your Okanagan Regional Library www.orl.bc.ca.
– Peter Critchley is a reference librarian at the Vernon branch of the Okanagan Regional Library.
