Crimefile: Writer and critic Michael Painter, reviews books by both first-timers and old reliables, including Haunted Ground by Erin Hart and Robert Ludlum's The Altman Code .
Derailed. By James Siegel, TimeWarner, £9.99
This is a first work by New York advertising executive Siegel and I have to say that it is a sizzling thriller from a terrific new talent. Sounds as if I'm echoing the blurb, but in this case the blurb tells the truth.
Advertising director Charles Schine takes the 8.43 a.m. to Penn Station each working day, but on the day he misses it and takes the 9.05 a.m. instead, everything in his life changes. Sitting across from him is the luscious Lucinda Harris. They strike up a conversation, one thing leads to another as they continue to commute to New York, and they eventually end up in bed together in a rented room in a downbeat Manhattan hotel. They have barely got to the kissing stage when a thug, who beats up Charles and rapes Lucinda, invades the room. Of course, the thug then begins blackmailing Charles, and our formerly staid advertising man's existence takes on a hellish aspect.
Sounds old hat, but Siegel invests his story with more twists than a corkscrew. He also creates real characters, writes prose that carries his readers along breathlessly, and postulates a satisfying and believable conclusion to the whirlwind narrative. One to watch out for.
The Dead. By Ingrid Black, Headline Trade, £10.99
Ingrid Black is in fact journalist Eilís O'Hanlon, plus an unnamed writing partner. Why all the secrecy? Some kind of publicity ploy, or is there a deeper reason? Well, we are in the mystery area, so I suppose this is one with which to start.
The book is set in modern-day Dublin and is narrated by an American, an ex-FBI agent named Saxon, who is becalmed in our despoiled metropolis and hating it. Some five years before the present action starts, Saxon had a rather deadly encounter with an alleged serial killer, Ed Fagan, known as the Night Hunter. Now it appears that Fagan has returned and is about to kill again. Saxon finds this rather odd, as, in the past, he himself dispatched said Fagan with extreme prejudice. When bodies begin to turn up, the police, led by glamorous Chief Supt Grace Fitzgerald, become convinced that the Night Hunter is stalking the mean streets of Dublin once again.
The Dead is a good old rip-snorter of a tale, but the pretensions towards a Joycean prose style - the rain ". . . falling to its last end on all the living and the dead", and so on - rather set my teeth on edge. The book could also have gained from tighter editing, as it goes on too long. However, all writing is a learning process, and the final few sentences would lead me to believe that we haven't heard the last of Saxon.
Haunted Ground. By Erin Hart, Hodder & Stoughton Trade, £10.99
Erin Hart is another American, real this time, who spends a lot of her time in Ireland, is married to an Irishman, and has become fascinated by this island's language and traditions.
Her novel starts with the discovery of the severed head of a red-haired woman in a bog in east Co Galway. Called in to investigate are archaeologist Cormac Maguire and pathologist Nora Gavin, both of them sharing an animosity that we just know will eventually blossom into romance.
Applying modern forensics, plus an ass-load of common sense, our amateur sleuths unearth an ancient as well as a modern web of conspiracy and deceit. The girl in the bog may have been executed because of an unwanted pregnancy, while the newer shenanigans are occasioned by greed, family covetousness, and the obsessive nature of one woman's need.
Hart intertwines her narrative with the darkness of history and the more modern traits of the new freedoms to construct an old-fashioned, though engrossing story.
Want to Play? By P.T. Tracy, Michael Joseph, £10
Another first novel, and another good one, this. The action begins in rural Wisconsin when a fanatically religious old couple are found shot to death in a church. At the same time, in Minneapolis, detectives are seeking a serial killer who has the whole populace paralysed by fear.
At first, the two investigations appear to be divergent, but little by little it becomes apparent that the same perpetrator may be at work. Eventually the trail leads to an isolated Catholic boarding-school, where dark deeds are unearthed and a stunning climax is achieved. Tracy shows great skill at weaving what is a very intricate plot, and her narrative fairly crackles along. I'll look out for her again in the future.
The Face. By Dean Koontz, HarperCollins, £17.99
Koontz has a huge following for his suspense-filled and psychological thrillers, but I'm afraid I'm not one of them. This is a big read, more than 600 pages, and quite a few times in the reading of it I mentally urged our author: "Please break into a gallop."
For example, at the beginning, it takes the protagonist, Ethan Truman, an ex-LAPD detective, seven whole pages just to open a box with an apple in it. The fact that the apple contains an eye possibly has something to do with the delay, but still!
Truman is the security chief for the eponymous Face, Hollywood's most dazzling star, who is being threatened by a rather devious psychotic. It is his 10-year-old son, Fric, who is the target of this pervert's hate, and it takes the aforementioned 600 pages for Truman to find and destroy the madman - or woman!
Ideal for these rain-drenched days of high summer, The Face will either keep you interested or put you to sleep. What more can one ask?
The Altman Code. By Robert Ludlum and Gayle Lynds Orion, £12.99
It feels odd to be reading yet another thriller by the dearly departed Ludlum. A huge bestseller when he was alive, the moving hand continues to write and to keep him up there with Grisham et al.
Another big read - I'm suffering from tendinitis from holding these immense tomes! - this one is concerned with a ship sailing from Shanghai, allegedly containing tons of chemicals for Saddam Hussein to create those fictional weapons of mass destruction that we continue to hear about. As Saddam has also possibly gone to join our author in that great auditorium in the sky, most of the content of the book has now become old hat. Still, the convolutions of the plot serve to maintain the interest, and Ludlum, dead or alive, was always one to tell a good story.
Michael Painter is a writer and critic