Short takes: Thrillers

Reviewed by MICHELE HEWITSON

Michael Malone: First Lady

Malone writes marvellous crime stories in which the crime is peripheral, like this one set in the small town of Hillston, North Carolina.

It's the characters which make Malone memorable. Lt Justin Savile V, wayward member of one of Hillston's founding families, and Police Chief Cuddy R. Mangum prove that opposites attract good fiction-writing. Justin thinks fast food is the devil's creation; Cuddy lives on KFC and cold pizza. Justin likes jazz; Cuddy thinks Elvis is God. They make a great team. There is, of course, a murder or two: the body of a young woman has Justin and Cuddy's names on a tag tied around her toe. Malone does good murder mystery, but the real joys are the crackling dialogue between Justin and Cuddy and the cast of minor characters, which includes Cuddy's narcoleptic cleaning lady, Cleopatra, and his poodle Martha, named after the wife of Nixon's attorney general. "He claimed that the soul of that maligned and discredited lady had transmigrated to his dog."

(Robinson, $24.95)

* * *

William Landay: Mission Flats

Ben Truman is a bit of a klutz, at least in the world of law enforcement. He never meant to end as chief of police in the fictional town of Versailles, Maine, but his mom was dying and, after her death, his dad, the former chief, was drinking - again. As Ben, the innocent abroad, in his own history says: "There is no absolute beginning to any story, after all. There is only the moment you begin watching."

This is terrific. Dirty cops versus good cops, badlands versus Middle American values, good dialogue versus every crime cliche a cop drama could chuck at you. And a truly tricky ending.

(Bantam Press, $34.95)

* * *

Michael Marshall: The Straw Men

WARD Hopkins' parents are middle Americans who live a nice, quiet life in the 'burbs. Then they die in a car crash and leave their only son a video which contains a message somehow tied up with a serial killer who is taking young girls. One of these girls is the daughter of former LA detective John Zandt, who "looks like a man who could carry a pair of suitcases a long way or hit someone extremely hard. Both are true." Zandt has a tortured past, Ward an aimless, but happy enough history. A well-paced, nicely plotted scary story about something nasty in that woodshed that is the past.

(Harper Collins, $21.99)

* * *

Peter Abrahams: The Tutor

Be careful what you wish for. And if you wish for your murderous little stories to involve little morality tales, you'll end up with this sort of thing. Greed is bad. Greed involves wanting more money, a better house, your kids to play the cello while making the sports team while getting scores on exams which will get them into the top colleges. Into this little American fairytale comes an evil tutor with a green eye and a lesson to give. Add to the mix a cutesy kid with a liking for Sherlock Holmes, some pseudo spooky bad magic and you have something fairly predictable.

(Penguin, $24.95)

* * *

Hilary Bonner: A Moment Of Madness

A dead rock star. An enigmatic and beautiful wife. A story with more holes than a colander. Oh, and a hack journalist who was once a big shot on Fleet St (which must make him very old indeed) and who now churns it out on a South Devon paper. The wife is called, not very surprisingly, Angel Silver. Within 39 pages she's been compared to Madonna (hair), Liz Taylor (eyes) and Diana (ditto eyes). Lots of drug-fuelled sex with bondage and mild S & M, if you like that sort of thing, badly edited.

(Arrow, $22.95)