FFB Review: "BURN" (1995) by John Lutz ---Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Friday means Friday’s Forgotten Books hosted by Patti Abbott. Patti is currently celebrating five years of forgotten books with good reason. Check out the complete list here after you read the review below from Barry Ergang for lots of other book suggestions……

BURN (1995) by John Lutz

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

Joel Brant "looked a lot like the serial killer Ted Bundy, only older. Mid-forties, probably, Carver's age." The situation he hires Del Moray, Florida private detective Fred Carver to look into isn't the kind that becomes bizarre as the investigation proceeds; it's bizarre from the outset. The owner of Brant Development, a construction outfit that builds residential properties, Joel Brant wants Carver to find out why a woman named Marla Cloy, whom he insists he's never met, has accused him of stalking her. As he digs into their lives and encounters their friends and associates, Carver is confounded by possibilities. Is Marla Cloy trying to set up Brant to kill him, claiming self-defense? Or has Brant lied, and is he using Carver so he can kill Marla and make a similar claim? If either scenario is valid, what's the motive behind it? Who hired the seemingly mindless hulking brute of a killing machine named Achilles Jones to stop Carver from asking questions?    

The debates Carver has with his journalist girlfriend, Beth Jackson, about male versus female perspectives on a number of issues complicate his thinking and broach ambiguities he's forced to consider. Personal matters of an intimate, intense, and highly emotional nature also create conflicts between and within them that add tensions to the events they have to contend with. A man who seeks core truths, Carver is frustrated by the uncertainties the case entails, as well as those in his love life.

Burn's two plotlines are as simple and straightforward as described, and I don't want to spoil surprises by revealing anything more. Like the work of Ross Macdonald (whose plots tended to be far more convoluted), this is a strongly character-driven novel. Fred Carver, a divorced and disabled ex-cop, is flawed and fallible and thus relatably human. Beth Jackson is a strong, self-possessed, insightful woman who, despite hardships in her past, is ready to tackle almost any challenge. Del Moray Police Lieutenant William McGregor is as repugnant a specimen barely classifiable as a human being as any in fiction. Carver's friend Desoto, a detective with the Orlando PD, is a contrastingly sophisticated professional who favors a stylish wardrobe atypical of most fictional cops. These and other characters, even minor ones seen briefly, come alive on the page thanks to John Lutz's skill.

Lutz writes a clean, lucid prose from which some wonderfully terse but telling descriptive passages shine through. For instance, he describes Marla Cloy's mother as a woman no longer young whose "classic bone structure" indicates that "the beauty of her youth lay immortal beneath the surface of time."

Despite the fact that John Lutz has been writing for a long time and has an impressive body of work that includes several series (the Carver novels being among them) and many standalones, this is the first of his books I've read. Barring unforeseeable events, it won't be the only one.

Readers who dislike street language—most of which emanates, along with body odor, from the odious Lieutenant McGregor—and onstage violence will want to avoid Burn. Those who can accept them as elements of hardboiled fiction will likely find it a thoughtful, compelling, intelligent, top-shelf read.    

Barry Ergang ©2013

The current issue of the e-zine King's River Life contains a reprint of Barry’s flash fiction "Spring Idyll" (http://kingsriverlife.com/04/20/spring-idyll-a-mystery-flash-fiction-story/) as well as a great review of his novelette  "The Play of Light and Shadow" (http://kingsriverlife.com/04/20/celebrate-earth-day-with-4-e-book-mysteries-reviewsgiveaway/) 

Burn is one of the many books Barry Ergang has for sale at http://www.barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/. He'll contribute 20% of the price of the books to our fund. A Derringer Award-winner, Barry's fiction, poetry and non-fiction have appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. You can find some of it at Amazon and Smashwords.