Blog Posts by David

"Final Exam" by Maggie Barbieri
Minotaur, 324 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


One would think that any college professor who carries a teaching load of four classes on a Friday would be entrenched in the tenure pool of her employer (in this case, her alma mater as well).

Far from it: Like Rodney Dangerfield, Dr. Alison Bergeron doesn't seem to get much respect from the uppity-up's and muckety-muck's at St. Thomas College, on the scenic Hudson River in the Bronx.

Except, that is, from Marcus, the fellow who preps her "anything with bacon" breakfasts in the commuter's cafeteria on campus.

So, the good doctor is fairly unsurprised when she's forced to accept the onerous task of taking over for a resident adviser who's skipped out after spring break, leaving St. Thomas in the lurch for the remaining five weeks of the semester.

Dr. B is sizzling to beat her morning rasher of bacon, but she's not altogether unhappy to ditch her cushy digs, as they've been overrun by the

"Faces of the Gone" by Brad Parks
Thomas Dunne, 330 pp., $25.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


Journalist-turned-novelist Brad Parks presents a likable new lead character in 31-year-old Carter Ross, who resides in a Nutley, New Jersey (Martha Stewart's hometown), bungalow with a personality-challenged cat, Deadline, inherited from a bygone galpal.

More to the point, Ross works as an investigative reporter for a fictitious Newark, N.J., newspaper, The Eagle-Examiner, thereby earning the moniker "Bird Man" on the city's mean streets.

Those streets have just gotten a whole lot meaner, as four citizens are killed, execution-style, in a weed-choked parking lot.

Newark's Finest (Ross would be hard-put to call them that) are baffled by the case, but Ross is determined to trace the tie that binds the victims, as he doesn't buy the cops' theory of a bar robbery gone bad.

Parks scores nice shots on multiple levels in his debut novel. First and foremost: He never lets the story get in

"Rinkitink in Oz" by L. Frank Baum
Books of Wonder/William Morrow
318 pp., $25.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James


A hearty heigh-ho to Books of Wonder for bringing out L. Frank Baum's fourteen Oz books, originally published during the years 1900 to 1919, in beautiful facsimile editions complete with color plates, featuring artist John R. Neill's fanciful illustrations. (W.W. Denslow illustrated the premiere volume, "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.")

Almost every Oz book contains a journey of some kind, whether the purpose is to locate a missing person, or to reach a desired destination, or just to seek pleasure in sightseeing, as in "The Emerald City of Oz."

"Rinkitink in Oz," an excellent selection from the series, proves the rule in Baum's literary wanderlust. Small wonder, then, that in life he traveled from his birthplace of Chittenango, New York, to the Midwest, then the West, residing for awhile in South Dakota (where he worked as a newspaper editor in Aberdeen), before

"Mrs. Malory and Any Man's Death"
by Hazel Holt
Obsidian, 246 pp., $6.99 (paperback only)
Reviewed by David Marshall James


What is it about English villages that renders them such favored settings for murder mysteries?

Perhaps it's that everyone is way up in everyone else's business. Or, to put it less colloquially: Such locales tend to harbor a plethora of busybodies.

When does true concern for one's neighbor end and sheer nosiness begin? If one shares news of a neighbor with another neighbor, then at what point could that be termed gossip?

In her seventeenth Sheila Malory mystery, author Hazel Holt has the village of Mere Barton (near Bristol) housing a veritable hive of suspects when one of their most well-organized residents dies after apparently mistaking some poisonous mushrooms for the edible variety.

But, really, she ought to have known better, given that she had been gathering her own wild mushrooms for most of her lengthy lifetime.

That lingering doubt causes Mrs.

"Ford County" by John Grisham
Doubleday, 308 pp., $24
Reviewed by David Marshall James


John Grisham's latest book (his twenty-third) is a collection of short fiction, seven stories altogether, in all of which the characters are dancing their individual pas de deux with the law.

Some are literally manhandled by it, while others are gradually beaten down by it. Some bend it to their advantage, while others openly scoff at it.

In the final story, "Funny Boy," two characters face the most difficult code of all: that of unwritten laws, for which there is no court of redress.

All of the entries in this volume transpire in fictitious Ford County, Mississippi (county seat: Clanton), somewhere northeast of the state capital, Jackson, somewhere southeast of Memphis, and somewhere south of Tupelo. It's tempting to equate Clanton with the real Canton, although Clanton seems farther north than the actual Canton.

The first two stories, which take up about one-third of the book, are the best,

"The Fleet Street Murders" by Charles Finch
Minotaur, 306 pp., $24.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Christmas 1866 proves far from merry for two London journalists working for rival newspapers.

They are both dispatched-- with better outcomes, they could hope-- into the realm of Charles Dickens' Jacob Marley.

However, Charles Finch's third Charles Lenox mystery does not concern itself with spirits-- save for those to be found in public houses, such as Fleet Street's Ye Old Cheshire Cheese, in Berry Brothers and Rudd wine merchants, and on the sideboard in Lenox's study.

Life is still very "Upstairs, Downstairs" for Sir Charles, ensconced in his townhouse on Hampden Lane, off Grosvenor Square. Mary, the parlor maid; Ellie, the cook; and Graham, Lenox's "Man Friday," strive to keep the tea brewed just so, the bread-and-butter pudding just right, and Lenox's life in general
just swell.

Sir Charles would like to ferret about in the particulars of the murder cases, which from the

"U Is for Undertow" by Sue Grafton
Marian Wood/Putnam, 403 pp., $27.95
Reviewed by David Marshall James


Twenty-one down-- five to go.

Nothing much has changed in Santa Teresa, California, since private investigator Kinsey Millhone's last case. In fictional time, that transpired only a few months ago, anyway.

It's April 1988, and Kinsey will turn 38 in May. She's still residing in the renovated (twice, thanks to a pesky bomb) garage apartment in Henry Pitts' yard, a few blocks from the beach, where she takes her early a.m., three-mile jog-- well, most mornings.

Back home, breakfast consists of cold cereal and coffee. Kinsey's culinary skills range from peanut-butter-and-pickle to sliced-hard-boiled-egg-with-mayo sandwiches. Fortuitously, Henry loves to cook and bake fresh bread and cinnamon rolls, to have Kinsey over to dine at the drop of a tea towel, and to counsel her in fatherly (or grandfatherly) fashion.

Otherwise, for sustenance, there's Kinsey's favorite neighborhood

"The Mirror and the Mask" by Ellen Hart
Minotaur, 305 pp., $25.99
Reviewed by David Marshall James

Jane Lawless may be embroiled in the hurly-burly of owning two Minneapolis restaurants, but, as she fast approaches 45, there's something missing from her life beyond the success of her entrepreneurial endeavors.

Any romantic could pinpoint the problem as the lack of a deep and abiding love, especially as Jane's latest lover has left (permanently, it would seem) for Nebraska.

Jane is filling the void in her life by "avocating" in private investigations, but that interest also comes with complexities: Should she be a hardboiled, by-the-book, "dig it out of the Internet" gumshoe, as tutored by her highly professional friend, A.J. Nolan?

Or, should she be a mix-and-mingle, adopt-a-mask, "on a wing and a prayer" P.I., as her best friend, theater manager Cordelia Thorn, would have it?

Cordelia never met a drama she didn't want to star in, never passed up an opportunity to dress up and