Dark Places by Gillian Flynn, Shaye Areheart Books, 368 pgs., hardcover, ISBN: 978-0-307-34156-3.  $24.00.  Release date: May 5, 2009.
        This is Gillian Flynn’s second novel; the publication of her first, Sharp Objects, received critical acclaim, won multiple awards and was a Barnes & Nobel Discover and a Booksense Pick; it has since been optioned by Pathe Films.
        Dark Places is the story of Libby Day, the survivor of a family massacre when she was seven years old, and her brother Ben.  She testified against her teenaged brother, who was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her mother and two sisters.  Now Libby is in her thirties, her trust fund from well-wishers is running dry, and she needs to find work.  But, this survivor is not a likeable person—and therein lies the rub. Libby was a difficult child and is now a difficult adult; she is lazy, depressed and manipulative. She has sticky fingers (she likes to snatch objects—a form of shoplifting—whether she’s in a retail establishment or elsewhere).  She is perpetually angry and bitter, and given a choice, usually looks for the easy way out.  So when she is contacted by The Kill Club, a macabre secret club obsessed with solving notorious crimes, she discovers a way to profit from her past without having to go out and find a real job.  The club is willing to pay her to interview her jailed brother and others involved in the tragedy, including her estranged alcoholic bum of a father.  The club doesn’t believe that Ben is guilty and eventually Liddy has to admit that she may not have seen what she thought she saw on that terrible wintry night, when she lost some digits to frostbite.
        The novel is broken into four “voices”:  Libby’s—then and now; brother Ben’s; the mother, Patty Day, and the last voice, which explains what actually happened that night.  The use of this “device,” is most effective as the story swings back and forth between the present day and the murders, committed 25 years ago.
        The writing is sharp, gritty, and unsentimental, propelled by genuine suspense, but tinged with edgy periods of tedium—the tedium of Liddy’s ongoing ennui and lack of confidence—portrayed almost too effectively.  It can be off-putting to the reader to have to deal with a “heroine” so disagreeable.  But it works.  The ending, however, although subtly “telegraphed,” comes out a wee bit contrived.  Still, Ms. Flynn offers a meaty alternative to the “good girl” theory, one that challenges the current conventions, and that’s a good thing.  CC

The Dawn Patrol, by Don Winslow, a Vintage Books trade paperback, under the Vintage Crime/Black Lizard imprint.  320 pgs.  ISBN: 978-0-307-27891-3. $14.00. Release date: June 23, 2009.
         Some of us never grow up, especially when it comes to surfing.  Once a surfer, always a surfer, until something breaks or the sea takes its revenge.  And so it is with Boone Daniels, a former cop, now working as a PI to pay the bills, so he can surf, surf, surf, hang out with his friends and eat fish tacos.  He’s out every morning with The Dawn Patrol, four guys and a girl, catching the waves off Pacific Beach in Southern California, until a luscious babe of a lawyer seeks his help in uncovering an insurance scam. 
        But he has a dilemma: the “big swell” is about to occur, a once every twenty years phenomena, that some surfers call “epic macking crunchy.”  Which, roughly translated from “Surfbonics,” means it’s going to be good: twenty-foot peaks coming every thirty seconds or so.  And Daniels doesn’t want to miss it.
        But the lady lawyer is pushy and insistent and he gives in.  The investigation rekindles one of his other obsessions—the unsolved abduction of a young girl named Rain, which ended his career with the San Diego police force a number of years before.  As he delves into the “insurance scam,” dead bodies turn up, blackmail is exposed, and a cast of bizarre characters push his investigation techniques to the limit. Daniels stumbles into what appears to be a child trafficking ring and is

 rewarded for his efforts with an attempt by a group of thugs to kill him. 
        This is an energetically written novel—told in present tense, fast paced, sometimes at a breathless speed.  The story exudes atmosphere, from the colloquial narrative and dialogue, to the fabulous scenery that is Southern California.  But there’s a deep, dark undercurrent as well: the persistent drug culture, seamy strip clubs, the plight of illegal aliens, and the shadowy underworld that exploits them all. 
        Don Winslow is a former private investigator and consultant.  He lives in Southern California, but admits he isn’t the best of surfers.  He has written a number of novels, including The Power of the Dog, The Death and Life of Bobby Z, and The Winter of Frankie Machine, which is soon to be a movie, starring Robert de Niro and directed by Michael Mann.
        Get out the beach blanket and rub in the sunscreen.  Then sit back and take it all in.  CC


Also from Vintage Crime/Black Lizard:

 Self’s Murder; a Gerhard Self Mystery by Bernhard Schlink.  Vintage Books.  A Vintage Crime/Black Lizard original.  Paperback.  Approx. 288 pgs.  ISBN: 978-0-375-70909-8. $15.00.  Tentative release date: August 11, 2009.
Translated from the German by Peter Constantine.
        This is the last novel in a trilogy, involving the cranky, dour and increasingly frail, seventy-something sleuth, Gerhard Self.  Self, recovering from a heart attack and refusing advanced treatment, is hired by a partial owner of a German bank, Weller and Weller, to help him gather data for writing the bank’s history. But Herr Welker has a problem: he can’t find the bank’s silent partner, whose name doesn’t appear in any of the bank’s records.  Shortly after taking the job, Self is accosted by a man who pushes a suitcase full of money into his hands, then races off, crashing his car into a tree.  Self soon finds himself traveling to Eastern Germany, shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall—jumped by skinheads before closing in on a money laundering scheme with connections to the Russian mafia.
        Self’s introspection grabs the reader and sustains an intimacy that lasts from the first page to the last.  The reader stays in his head, plodding along with him, feeling the pain of old age and infirmity, and the odd triumph of discovery and connection.  A worthy read, in any season.  CC

Mind’s Eye, An Inspector Van Veeteren Mystery, by Håkan Nesser. Vintage Books.  Vintage Crime/Black Lizard.  278 pgs. Trade Paperback.  ISBN; 978-0-397-38622-6.  $14.00.  Release date: June 16, 2009. Translated from the Swedish by Laurie Thompson.
        Although readers may remember Nesser’s prior novel, Woman With Birthmark, Mind’s Eye is actually the first in the series of Inspector Van Veeteren novels that launched Nåkan Nesser’s career.  It is the story of a man, Janek Mitter, who wakes one morning after a nasty bout of drinking with his wife of six months, and finds her dead in the bathtub.  They had worked as teachers at the same school, he for twenty years, she for two.
        He remembers little of what happened.  Soon he is charged and convicted of murder (not premeditated), and sent to a mental institution because he is in a state of mental decline.  Shortly after arriving at the institution, Mitter is murdered in his cell.  Van Veeteren realizes that the two murders are linked in some macabre way and sets out to find the murderer.
        Van Veeteren, aided by his associates, investigates Mitter’s and Ringmar’s backgrounds and unearths some disturbing details that lead to the uncovering of other murders, and eventually to the killer.  C        
       
    
                                  Copyright © Sandy Raschke