Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Nantucket Sawbuck by Steven Axelrod

Steven Axelrod’s police procedural series set on Nantucket surfaced recently on a list of Cape Cod mysteries. I’ve gobbled up Philip Craig’s books about J.W. Jackson and Cynthia Rigg’s books about Victoria Trumbull, both cited on the list. Since Axelrod’s series was mentioned more or less in the same breath as these two favorites, I made a point to find a copy of the first book, Nantucket Sawbuck (Poisoned Pen Press, 2014). Kirkus, Publishers Weekly, and Booklist all agreed this series debut was worth reading, a rare editorial concurrence.

Preston Lomax was a wheeler-dealer, who earned a lot and spent a lot, especially on the mansion he was building on Nantucket Island. He did not hesitate to delay or forego altogether payments to the many tradesmen who made his renovations possible, earning a reputation among the island residents as someone to avoid if possible. Unfortunately with money tight, declining work from someone who should be and might eventually be a paying customer was just not an option for most of the folks trying to piece together enough jobs to exist. Lomax didn’t reserve his opprobrious behavior just for his contractors, all of his children hated him and his wife had cause to. When Lomax turns up dead, unquestionably murdered, new Chief of Police Hank Kennis couldn’t decide which direction to look first.

Lots of characters, maybe a little too many to easily keep track of, with corresponding multiple points of view and personal crises. Hank himself is an interesting guy, a published poet who left California to come to the East Coast and who is still finding his way in his new job and his new town. He definitely believes in the people aspect of policing; at one point one of his deputies refers to him as a “dinosaur” for failing to rely on computers for his collection and evaluation of evidence.

The book is divided into two parts, one setting the stage for the murder and the second for the investigation. The first was absorbing if a little long, but the real action starts in the investigation. Kennis is a careful, logical investigator, who encounters a few surprises on his way to an arrest. Well written, fully realized characters, satisfying resolution. Four more titles follow this one, creating an opportunity for a good summer reading binge.


 

·         Hardcover: 318 pages

·         Publisher: Poisoned Pen Press; 1st edition (January 1, 2014)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 9781464200878

·         ISBN-13: 978-1464200878

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Complete Cases of Inspector Allhoff, vol. 1 (2...

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Complete Cases of Inspector Allhoff, vol. 1 (2...: Back in January, I reviewed D.L. Champion's " The Day Nobody Died ," a richly plotted locked room mystery from the pages of...

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Defendants by John Ellsworth

The Defendants  by John Ellsworth (Subjudica House, 2014) is the first book in his Thaddeus Murfee legal thriller series, although a prequel released in 2018 makes it the second in the chronology of series events. Less than two years of legal practice in the small town of Orbit, somewhere in southern Illinois, has left Thaddeus ill-prepared to take on a defense for murder, but his client, poor but honest waitress Ermeline Ransom insists he’s the only lawyer she trusts.

Ermeline unfortunately got between the local public works contractor and the Chicago mob to whom the contractor had discontinued kickbacks. When a visit from a mob enforcer did not shake the overdue payments loose, the enforcer attacked Ermeline and set the stage for the contractor to be accused of the crime. After the Orbit Attorney General declined to prosecute for lack of evidence, Ermeline then retained Thaddeus to pursue civil damages.

This was not what the mob had in mind; they did not want any competition for the money they believed the contractor owed them. They decided to squash these upstarts from nowhere once and for all by killing the contractor and slickly framing Ermeline. The local police had no choice but to arrest her on the face of the evidence but Thaddeus knows she didn’t do it. How he outsmarts the cutthroat prosecuting attorney from Chicago while collecting the proof and testimony needed to bring the crime home to its perpetrators make a lively absorbing read.

The author says these books, about a dozen in the series, are based on his early days as a practicing lawyer, and I believe him. Thaddeus makes some rookie mistakes that his more experienced friends and paralegal manage to undo. He makes up in zeal what he lacks in experience, though. The residents of Orbit come together around Ermeline and her son to protect them as much as they can, showing some of the best reasons to live in a small town. Readers of legal thrillers will especially like this book.

·         Paperback: 262 pages

·         Publisher: Subjudica House (January 15, 2014)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0615953778

·         ISBN-13: 978-0615953779

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Dead Man’s Footsteps by Peter James

Dead Man’s Footsteps by Peter James (Pan Macmillan, 2014) is the fourth book in the Detective Superintendent Roy Grace contemporary police procedural series. Based in Brighton, significant parts of the book take place in New York and in Australia.

The story opens with Ronnie Wilson in New York City on 11 September 2001, preparing for an important business meeting in the World Trade Center at 10:00 A.M. A meeting that does not take place for reasons we all know. Wilson is up to his ears in debt and uses the terrorist attacks and subsequent chaos to shed those debts along with his identity. The graphic descriptions of the bombings and their impact on New York City and its residents continue to chill, despite the intervening years.

Then the story focuses on Abby Dawson and her terrifying experience locked in a failed elevator for more than 24 hours. Anyone with the slightest bit of claustrophobia will find this part hard to read.

The story flips to DS Grace on a late Friday afternoon in October 2007, in a foul mood over poker losses the night before and made worse by a call about the skeletal remains found at a building site. The subsequent investigation will consume his weekend along with that of many of his colleagues.

The book moves back and forth in time and in place among Wilson, Dawson, and Grace, disorienting and without clear connection for many chapters until the skeleton is identified as Wilson’s first wife, who was believed to have gone to Los Angeles years before. It’s this lack of clear momentum I think that makes the book slow going for about the first third. It seems to pick up steam about then, as Abby’s role begins to take shape and as Grace’s comprehensively explained detective work comes to the fore.

The authenticity of the detailed police procedures is a hallmark of this series, I gather from many reviews. The portrayal of internal department politics, complete with hateful managers and backstabbing peers, is recognizable to anyone who has worked in a large organization. The socially inept detective whom everyone avoids but just happens to be brilliant at his job is also a character familiar to me in real life.

A fine police procedural, after its slow start, that unfortunately requires a more than normal investment of reading time for its 566 pages. It may well be hard to find as this appears to be another series that is not published in the United States. This review is based on the UK trade paperback released in 2014. The original hardback was published by Macmillan UK in 2008.

·         Trade Paperback: 592 pages

·         Publisher: Pan Macmillan; New edition (October 9, 2014)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1447272641

·         ISBN-13: 978-1447272649

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema: Rain on the Dead by Jack Higgins, 2014

Chess, Comics, Crosswords, Books, Music, Cinema: Rain on the Dead by Jack Higgins, 2014: I will give you my verdict right away. Rain on the Dead (2014) is probably the most disappointing Jack Higgins novel I have read till dat...

Via WELCOME TO HELL ~ by Glenn Walker: What I Liked in 2014

WELCOME TO HELL ~ by Glenn Walker: What I Liked in 2014: There was a lot to like this year and a lot to dislike, but I'll try to keep this positive. In television this year we probably w...