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Blonde Lightning by Terrill Lee Lankford
Ballantine Books
July/2005
288 pages
The dark side of Hollywood has a way of drawing us all in with its seedy, desperate, characters. In Blonde Lightning, Terrill Lee Lankford takes us into familiar noir territory with a fresh cast of characters, and manages to escape Raymond Chandler’s ghost by telling an insider’s tale in today’s Hollywood that is equally violent, and nearly as poetic as the Chandler novels we all love.
Mark Hayes wants nothing more than to be a player in Hollywood. Out of desperation, he hooks up with his neighbor, Clyde McCoy, veteran screenwriter and professional drinker…for one last shot at getting his name in the credits. Even if it is a B-movie. After emptying his savings account, Hayes earns the title of Associate Producer. His role is more baby-sitter and gopher than producer, but he doesn’t mind. Until accidents begin to happen on the set. Accidents that turn out to be premeditated plans to shut the production down. The number one suspect on Mark’s list is Mace Thornburg, a bad guy out for revenge against McCoy. Ultimately, Mark and Clyde are pulled into a game of cat and mouse, and the only award the winner will go home with is their life. The rough and tumble ending avoids cliché, and leaves the reader hoping for more adventures with Mark Hayes as he navigates his way through the nightmares and dreamland we call Hollywood.
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Running Dark by Joseph Heywood
The Lyons Press
June/2005
304 pages
Heywood’s fourth Woods Cop Mystery, featuring Michigan conservation officer Grady Service, reaches back to the mid-1970s at the beginning of Service’s career. Running Dark is an unlikely mid-series book, but Grady Service fans will be gratified to see how and why Service came to be the dedicated CO he is in the previous three Woods Cop Mysteries.
Shortly after returning from Vietnam, and starting with the DNR in his father’s footsteps, Service is pulled into undercover duty in an Upper Peninsula area known as The Garden. The Garden is home to commercial fishermen who have taken a vigilante stand against stringent fishing regulations, and Service quickly finds himself in another unwinnable war. One that is under-funded by the state government, and one against natives (Yoopers) who know the way of the land much better than the DNR. Along the way, a local is stabbed, and therein lies the mystery of the novel—which ultimately gets lost in the plot, as Service spends most of his time trying to stay inside the confines of the law to bring down the vigilantes.
The setting is beautifully drawn, showing a side of the country that is every bit as wild and dangerous as the Alaskan wilderness. While the book is long on action, and short on mystery, Heywood skillfully keeps things moving with a compelling main character and a well-rounded cast of left-of-center backwoods characters. If they haven’t already, fans of Dana Stabenow and Nevada Barr should give this outdoor series a try.
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This Dame For Hire by Sandra Scoppettone
Ballentine Books
June/2005
272 pages
This Dame For Hire is a fast-paced, rollicking ride through 1940’s New York City. Scoppettone captures the pace and the lingo of the period perfectly with dialogue that zings off the page, and it is a memorable debut for her heroine, female PI, Faye Quick.
Two months after finding the body of a high society girl dead on the streets of Greenwich Village, Faye Quick is hired by the girl’s parents to solve the murder. Faye tackles her first murder case with gusto and heart, wasting little time uncovering the true life of the murder victim, who had more secrets than Lon Chaney had faces. As countless boyfriends, ex-boyfriends, and secret lovers pile onto the suspect list, Faye Quick finds herself constantly looking over her shoulder, and coming face to face more than once with a killer who fails to take the skills of the 1940’s woman PI seriously. Make no mistake about it, Faye Quick can handle herself, and a gun, with the best male PIs of her time.
A small quibble with the plot is the inclusion of a character who is psychic. Faye Quick is smart enough, resourceful enough, and persistent enough to solve a case without the help of a friend who gives her murky clues to begin with. But beyond that, Scoppettone plays by the rules, and creates a few new ones while she’s at it. I, for one, hope this dame is available for hire for a long time to come.
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