A Red Death by Walter Mosley (1991)

The IRS, the police, the FBI, and his best friend's wife are all after Easy Rawlins -- and that's just the people he knows about.

Book Review: A Red Death, the second Easy Rawlins novel, takes place in 1953, five years after the first installment. Communists are suspected of infiltrating the black community, his failure to report ill-gotten income is catching up to Easy Rawlins, and he's discovered three violent deaths. Not much is going well and Easy feels both guilty and scared about the few bright spots in his life. He tries to adhere to his personal moral code, but seemingly fails as often as he succeeds. In A Red Death we meet a few familiar characters from the first novel, but Mosley spends less time examining sociology as he did in Devil in a Blue Dress and more time establishing a local community that both helps and endangers our intrepid hero. Not quite up to the standard of his first book, but A Red Death is still a quick, exciting, and compelling read.  [3★]

Cover Her Face by P.D. James (1962)

A servant is murdered in a manor house in the English countryside, but Detective Chief-Inspector Adam Dalgliesh of Scotland Yard is on the hunt.

Book Review: Cover Her Face is the first of the Adam Dalgliesh mysteries, and the Chief-Inspector comes off as the least interesting character in the book. He may solve the mystery in his deliberate and enigmatic way, but we see and learn next to nothing about him. He's not quite a non-entity, but not a lot more; even his stalwart right-arm, Detective-Sergeant Martin is given more personality. Fortunately the other characters are interesting, the writing and plotting are brilliant, and P.D. James closes in Thin Man style with all the suspects gathered in a room to learn which of them is the perp. I'll admit that I had strong suspicions about the eventual culprit, but I was far from certain. Cover Her Face is intelligently written and James is fair to the long suffering mystery reader. I felt if I'd been a little more rigorous, carefully checking off suspects as they were eliminated by the evidence, I should've been able to solve the mystery for myself. In contrast to Dorothy Sayers, P.D. (Phyllis Dorothy) James grew up poor and under-educated, but later became a Baroness -- this may be the first book I've read by a Baroness. Despite the sketchily drawn Chief-Inspector, Cover Her Face left me wanting to read more P.D. James.  [4★]

Whose Body? by Dorothy L. Sayers (1923)

An architect finds a dead stranger, wearing only a pince-nez, in his bathtub; fear not, Lord Peter Wimsey sees all.

Book Review: Whose Body? is Dorothy Sayers' first novel featuring her dilettante detective, Lord Peter Wimsey. Sayers, a contemporary and countrywoman of Agatha Christie, was one of the first women to get a degree from Oxford and one of the first of the new breed of mystery writers. Although entertaining, I found Whose Body? more interesting as a historical artifact, a curio, Peter Wimsey's origin story. Although the plot is enjoyable enough and this short book is a quick read, the plot also hangs on a rather implausible twist and a lengthy written confession. Wimsey himself takes a little getting used to: he has a bit of Bertie Wooster about him (along with an impeccable man-servant, Bunter), and the book reflects the off-hand, almost oblivious, prejudices of the time and class (the Jews have a poor time of it within). On the more fun side, Sayers is meta and post-modern enough to be quite aware that she's writing a detective novel within the genre of detective novels, with occasional interjections such as: "Of course, if this were a detective story, there'd have been a convenient shower exactly an hour before the crime ... ." Whose Body? is also full of the aristocratic Britishisms of the 1920's (as from old movies): "old man," "quite," "by Jove!" Wimsey's affected monocle is actually a magnifying glass, his silver matchbox contains a torch (flashlight), and he has other proto-James Bond tools. Enjoyable if unlikely, an interesting glimpse into the early days of the cozy mystery.  [3★]

Devil in a Blue Dress by Walter Mosley (1990)

A recently unemployed L.A. war veteran is hired to find a white woman in a black neighborhood.

Book Review: Devil in a Blue Dress is the first of Walter Mosley's series of mysteries featuring Easy Rawlins, a worthy successor to the L.A. detective lineage of Philip Marlowe and Lew Archer. Set in 1948, Mosley gives the reader a strong sense of post-war black culture, when many African-Americans were hopeful of a "double victory," that victory over the Nazis in Europe would lead to victory over discrimination back home. Ezekiel Rawlins, a new homeowner, exemplifies the hopeful attitude of blacks who were willing to invest in an unwelcoming society. The scenes of the times ring true and at times the book seems almost as much a sociological description as a mystery. But the mystery is great, solidly in the hard-boiled detective tradition, and the reader will be tempted to try finish the book in a single sitting. Devil in a Blue Dress evokes neighborhood and community, as well as the seedy gangsters and hoodlums who run the mean streets of the city. Also a film with Denzel Washington and Don Cheadle.  [4★]

To Love and Be Wise by Josephine Tey (1951)

An American photographer disappears in an English village, but Inspector Grant of Scotland Yard is on the case.

Book Review: To Love and Be Wise is the fourth Inspector Grant mystery, and each has been better than the one before. This volume was the most compelling of the series so far, such that I read the final 50 pages in a sitting. A cozy mystery, set in a rural village that has become a colony for the London arts community, that has all the elements for a good puzzle. Inspector Grant is more steady than brilliant, he's no Sherlock Holmes, but the mystery intrigues and the characters entertain. The Scottish Josephine Tey (also a London playwright) knew the people she wrote about. Fortunately, To Love and Be Wise doesn't contain the casual class prejudices of her earlier novels. Instead it contains her usual perfect writing and intelligent approach, and is always very British. The ending will be a surprise.  [4★]

Love in a Fallen City by Eileen Chang (1943)

A collection of six brilliant novellas and stories by the great Chinese author.

Book Review: Love in a Fallen City is so obviously good that it tests the limits of translated fiction. Written when Chinese culture was changing, traditions were failing, war and revolution threatening. Eileen Chang explored universal human emotions in a time and milieu almost completely foreign to Western readers. That she could present real, credible human beings in such a setting is a testament to her wonderful ability as a writer. These stories make me conclude that any difficulties I had stem more from my cultural ignorance than any flaw in the writing. How much am I missing because I don't know Chinese literary traditions, history, and culture? The themes are of the conflicts of romance and marriage in a changing society, like a latter-day Jane Austen, only with concubines, opium, and inevitable desolation. A world inevitably difficult for women, leading to family trouble and various forms of self-destruction. Each story in Love in a Fallen City is individual, with Chang trying different techniques and approaches. In "The Golden Cangue" she makes the story real through vivid description and fantastic colors: "The sky was a cold bleak crab-shell blue" (a "cangue" is an unmoored pillory). "Sealed Off" still seems modern while being subversive and metaphorical. All the stories delve deep into examination of thoughts, feelings, fears, motivations, emotions. Plot is secondary. The stories in Love in a Fallen City reward slow reading, even re-reading, yet the reader wants to skim ahead to find what happens because we care about these people. Chang packs so much into each scene, each sentence, the reading is almost too rich.  [4★]

The Plot Against America by Philip Roth (2004)

What if ... a racist was elected President of the United States under the slogan "America First"? What if ... a foreign government plotted behind the scenes to get that racist elected?

Book Review: The Plot Against America describes a speculative past in which anti-Semite and famed pilot Charles Lindbergh was elected president in 1940. Written during the W years, the book is a thousand-fold more relevant today, with one major exception: Lindbergh, at least, was a genuine aviation hero. The Plot Against America is a thoroughly detailed and carefully written novel. Philip Roth brings the reader deep into the story, his historical research making it credible and realistic, and his old-school writing style is both absorbing and convincing. Descriptions are lengthy and minute, the mark of one of America's great writers. The story is told from the perspective of eight year-old Philip Roth, living in a quiet neighborhood in Newark. Reminiscent of Sinclair Lewis' lesser known It Can't Happen Here, and equally insidious. The reader can't help but be struck by the numerous parallels to the events of today. Scary. It's also notable for how quickly the Jewish population has been forgotten in discussions of the immigrant experience in America. Here Roth has a story to tell, and the writing focuses largely on plot, the travails of the Roth family. The Plot Against America is still relevant, and a striking example of how to write a quality novel.  [4★]

Herland by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (1915)

Three men exploring the Amazon ... find just that.

Book Review: Herland is a fun read, not meant, I think, to be taken too seriously in any of its various incarnations. A lost 2,000 year-old women-only civilization. A rare utopian (as opposed to dystopian) novel, for the first 50 pages it reads as a typical story of he-man exploration, such as those written by Edgar Rice Burroughs or Arthur Conan Doyle. After that we get a rather didactic bit of world building, more telling than showing, without the story-telling abilities of an Ursula Le Guin. What's most interesting is what Gilman chooses to address, the details she includes, the conclusions she draws regarding her female society, and how much famous feminist Gilman had acculturated the male-dominated times in which she lived. In Herland, "Motherhood" is exalted and the primary purpose of this mysterious and isolated society, but raising children is limited to trained class. There is no romance or sex. Conception is magical: immaculate and voluntary. Population control is simple and abortion is abhorred. Clothes have many pockets. There are no dogs, only carefully bred and domesticated mute cats. Although not specifically stated, the society is vegetarian. Cattle and other animals aren't cultivated as they take up too much room (similar to today's vegetarian and environmental arguments). Of course Herland is both a bit of propaganda and glimpse of possibilities, just as are 1984, The Handmaid's Tale, and Fahrenheit 451. Mostly interesting as a period piece, reflecting the thoughts of a noted feminist of the time. Although much of Herland doesn't seem relevant or applicable today, it's still an interesting (if at times a bit dry) read. Unlike her story "The Yellow Wallpaper," it's not required reading (it's no The Handmaid's Tale), but an educational and unique product of its time.  [3½★]