This book is great. It narrates the story of an ex-cop, who's now a struggling sculptor, Adam McCleet. Through an elaborate and twisted plot who is named heir of a very wealthy man, but in order to inherit his share he has to solve a murder. All through out the book the story is narrated in a very intelligent way and it has exactly the right amount of suspense, whit, sex and humour, which has been perfectly timed. All in all is the perfect book to read when you're feeling down and want something to cheer you up! It'll make you laugh and make you wanna keep reading so much that you'll finish it in no time.

The first in the series with Minogue still a sergeant. It's set in an Ireland that reminded me of John Le Carre's cold war Germany. The IRA and the British are involved and there are intricate double double-crosses. The bad guys lose but the good guys don't quite win and are not all good. I had to read it twice to get the plot straight but it was well worth it. Not much humor . Perhaps not the book to read if you're trying not think about September 11, although again that makes it all the more relevant.

If you haven't yet read McIlvanney, get on it! This man is brilliant. His detective, Jack Laidlaw, remains one of the most intriguing characters in fiction. "Strange Loyalties" charts Laidlaw's quest to discover meaning after his brother is killed. The characters that we encounter, as well as the questions that are raised, help shed light on so many aspects of our own lives. The depth present in this particular novel made me want to weep at the conclusion. The truth McIlvanney expounds in both his characters and their dealings in life, makes the beauty of this book complete. This is one of those stories that long after you've put it down, you feel its presence and its insight growing inside of you. I just hope that McIlvanney one day gets the credit he so much deserves.

"Sunshine Enemies" is the Mario Balzic novel (note it is not called a mystery any more) that I have been waiting for K. C. Constantine to write ever since the second book in the series ("The Man Who Like to Look at Himself"), where the chief's family life was thrust into the background. One of the strengths of the first Mario Balzic story, "The Rocksburg Railroad Murders," was that the chief's wife, kids and mother were part of his life and part of the world in which he lived. But with each subsequent novel Ruth and the rest of the Balzics were scarcely seen; sometimes Mario would ask his mom for some information about someone from the old neighborhood, but more often than not there would be a note from Ruth reminding Balzic she had not seen him awake and/or sober for a while. All that changes big time with "Sunshine Enemies."

The title is a drunken twist on one of Balzic's caustic comments on the way of the world. It takes us a while to learn that in this novel, just as it takes us a while to understand why this is not a mystery novel. "Sunshine Enemies" is a character study that digs deep into the psyche of someone we are still getting to understand after eight novels. The set up is a series of distractions: the Police Chief of Rocksburg has to deal with a minister complaining about a recently opened porno shop, but gets a bigger headache when a brutal knife murder takes place outside the shop. A reluctant witness tentatively comes forward, and it does not seem that we have much of a mystery here. But then Balzic's mother suffers a massive stroke and suddenly brutal crimes in the small western Pennsylvania town become insignificant.

The prognosis for Marie Petraglia Balzic is not good and suddenly Balzic is face to face with his deepest insecurities. His wife confronts him with the brutal truth about how they have both used his mother, Ruth's best friend, as the chief means of staying connected. Balzic looks at his daughters and realizes they have become grown women, who tend to curse just like their father, a fact that horrifies him. The novel becomes a series of crushing body blows for Balzic, one after another, in which he finds himself shaken to the depths of his soul as his world is turned upside down.

The hallmark of this novel, like Constantine's other novels, are the conversations that Balzic has with the other characters. But this time the key difference is that the vast majority of such dialogues are not about a crime under investigation. Instead, they are about such issues as what Balzic thinks about what happens to people after they die, what he thinks about Marie dying her hair, and what really happened when his mother defended him from the attacks of a nun when he was a child. There are some conversations about the crime at hand, allowing Mo Valcanas to hold forth on the relationship between pornography and sex crimes, but they become meaningless as Balzic contemplates the great impact his mother has had on not only his life but also that of everybody who knows her.

The fact that this is not a "true" mystery per se should not matter to readers of the series. The chief attraction here is Balzic's compelling personality not the sordid little crimes he is solving in each novel. Of course, I appreciate the irony in getting what I wanted in a way that almost makes me wish events in Balzic's life did not take such a tragic turn. But the character has needed to reclaim his soul for several novels now, and it has been clear from the beginning that his soul is with his family.

At the Appellate level, Brooklyn attorney Cass Jamison proves that her client Keith Jernigan could not have committed the robbery that he was previously convicted of, thus obtaining freedom for the innocent man. Subsequently, Cass gets embroiled in a divorce case when her tenant Nellis Cartwright wants her previous settlement with her former spouse, Grant Eddongton, re-negotiated because she insists her attorney, a friend of Cass, botched up the case.

Keith reappears in Cass' life when the son of her secretary is arrested after forming a friendship with the man. Cass suspects that Keith had something to do with the arrest and begins to investigate the man. She learns that though he was framed for the robbery count that she got him acquitted on, he threw acid into the face of a former girlfriend. When Nellis is shot in her office, Cass thinks that she might have been the intended target and wonders if she is again going to on guard until she gets some answers.

SWORN TO DEFEND is a great 250 page mystery novel that fans will swear is one of the best fictions pieces of the year due to an intriguing twist on the story line in which the client is innocent of the charges, but culpable for a more devastating crime. However, the final few pages seem as if Carolyn Wheat needed an upbeat-like ending for a climax, which thankfully fails to take away from a greatand fast-paced tour of Brooklyn that will keep readers on the edge of their seats. Fans of urban legal procedurals need to read this novel and Cass' previous two stories (DEAD MAN'S THOUGHTS and MEAN STREAK) for some of the best the crime genre has to offer.

Harriet Klausner

Margot Arnold, where have you been all my reading life? How does it happen I'd never even heard of you until a month or so ago, when I've been devouring mysteries (especially well-written, intelligently-plotted ones) for some forty years now? (Oops, probably shouldn't have said that, but--it's only too true, so why not?)

My first acquaintance with Penny and Toby was in 'Lament for a Lady Laird'--the title having caught the eye of this devoted Anglophile. I was immediately caught up in the adventure of Dr. Penny Spring, an anthropologist, and Dr. Tobias Glendower, archeologist. One is almost tempted to add the word 'extraordinaire' after each occupational designation, for such they are.

Penny, an American occupied at Oxford as a teacher, is a widow of perhaps 50-something, with a 30 year-old son, Alex, who is scheduled to join her for a holiday in her adopted country, now that he's a full-fledged medical doctor, about to take up his practice in New York City.

Before his arrival, however, she is queried for the whereabouts of her fellow teacher, Toby. Scotland Yard is most desirous of his presence, immediately if not sooner, because of a murder at the Brighton Pavillion, during a reception for the visiting troupe of Russian ballet stars. The suspected ballerina, Sonya Danarova, will speak ONLY to Sir Tobias, which has quite flummoxed Inspector Grey, the man in charge.

Toby, in a blue funk, as happens not infrequently, is off in Wales, excavating a cave, known locally and elsewhere as Toby's Folly, a location as secretive and nearly inaccessible as the moon. Eventually, he is found, and prevailed upon to return to England and in Brighton, finally, meets up with Sonya, who is the daughter he never knew he had.

Although no year is mentioned, if Sonya is in her late twenties, and Toby was last in Russia in the late 50s, then this story quite obviously takes place in the mid to late 1980s, when spies and espionage were still very much a part of every day life.

The characterizations are wonderfully realized, every one of them unique. The plot is perfectly sensible, and the writing will blow you away. Entirely. Although I've only read two of these books--so far--I wasn't thrown off pace or made to feel I'd missed anything by not reading the stories in order. I can guarantee it won't be long before I visit once again with Penny and Toby and share another of their adventures. What a treat to find an intelligent couple of a certain age, who have a wonderful working relationship, get along well together, and who also function well when they're apart. They are, moreover, a straight couple who have apparently never had the slightest inclination to fall into bed together. Extraordinaire, indeed!

This is one of those fast-paced books that you will hate to have to put down until you're finished. Delilah West, a resourceful and tenacious private eye, is hired to find the missing teenage daughter of George Wylie, a Laguna Hills businessman. The plot thickens as Delilah discovers the murdered body of the Wylies' neighbor.

As Delilah races to find the link between the murder and the girl's disappearance, you won't be able to turn the pages fast enough. Sharp characterizations and vivid writing make this another winner from Maxine O'Callaghan.

Be sure to read her other Delilah West titles, as well as her two novels featuring Anne Menlo.

An old blood feud from when Smoke Jensen was just starting to become a legend erupts when a brother find out Smoke killed his brothers. He and his gang kills some friends and kidnaps Sally, Smokes' wife, to bring him out to even the score. " The Last Mountain Man" sets out to get his wife back and to end this feud once and for all. With his friends Pearlie and Cal he wittles down their numbers and makes them miserable then ends the blood feud in Mountain Man fashion.

Under a Monsoon Cloud is the first novel by HRF Keating I read (actually heard on audio tape) and it won't be the last. Detective Ghote is an unforgetable character whose misadventures and efforts to save himself and his family from doom are presented in a spellbinding narrative rich with wit and local color. The ending comes as a surprise and a relief.

In this book, PI Robin Miller discovers the true meaning of friendship, the one's you can always count on. Her characters are realistic and so are the situations the author has written them in. She also disvcovers - Kentucy.