Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 15, 1992 TAG: 9203150228
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: F-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
L.A. Times crime reporter Michael Connelly makes an impressive fiction debut with "The Black Echo." It's a tightly plotted procedural/caper novel that lives up to its blurbs from Edna Buchanan and James Lee Burke.
Connelly's protagonist, Harry (for Hieronymus) Bosch, is yet another brooding maverick cop, but he's so believable that he overcomes the potential stereotypes.
The plot revolves around Harry's Vietnam experience as a tunnel rat, a soldier who explored and tried to destroy the vast maze of tunnels the Viet Cong had created.
Harry and his partner answer the call when the body of one of his fellow tunnel rats is found. The veteran was a heroin addict, and though the death appears to be an overdose, Harry soon realizes that there's more to it. His investigation leads him to one carefully planned bank robbery that happened several months earlier, and to another that may be in the works. But why is the FBI so interested, and what about the two Internal Affairs cops who won't leave Harry alone?
Connelly knows the details of police work and uses them well, but he doesn't let realism get in the way of a good story. The exposition moves briskly through several unexpected turns, and the conclusion is a satisfying pay-off. "The Black Echo" could be the beginning of an excellent series.
- MIKE MAYO, Book page editor
Neon Dancers.\ By Matt and Bonnie Taylor. Walker. $19.95.
A.J. Egan and Palmer Kingston are rival reporters who share light housekeeping in Florida, beat each other brainless with their by-lines, and do their make up in bed. A.J. (the Ms.) and Palmer (the Mr.) are tangled this time in the snares of zoning scandals, ethnic rivalries, mobsters and government prosecutors on the make. Of course, like good reporters everywhere, they fight the dunces of newspaper management, both the editors and bean counters, neither of whom would recognize a story if it wrapped around their optic nerves.
There is a fine line in all this that is required to keep the story believable, because real reporters seldom solve crimes. The Taylors, former newspeople, manage to stay generally within the bounds, so much so that the boring digging that's necessary for a good page-one story in real life sometimes puts a drag on their fiction. This is the second in what promises to be a series by the Taylors. It's a good approach, and it has a future, even if A.J. and Palmer never seem to have to meet a real deadline.
- ROBERT HILLDRUP\ \ Blindsight.\ By Robin Cook. Putnam's. $21.95.
In his newest medical thriller, Robin Cook uses a familiar formula - the intense young physician caught up in a medical scandal so thoroughly diabolical and deadly that no one will believe it. In this case, the protagonist is forensic pathologist Laurie Montgomery. Oddly, the arch villain here is not a doctor, although there are a few physician characters who would never win a Nobel Prize.
Each new Cook suspense novel is like visiting your favorite restaurant. You can could on being served something excellent. "Blindsight" is no exception. You'll enjoy the bizarre premise, the lively plot and the finely drawn characters. In these troubled times, it's nice to know you can still count on Cook for a well-written, enjoyable thriller.
- JUDY KWELLER\ \ Box Nine.\ By Jack O'Connell. Mysterious Press. $17.95.
This first novel was the winner in the Mysterious Press Discovery Contest, whatever that is. It is about a police narcotics team in a squalid Massachusetts neighborhood. The cops are fighting the introduction of a worse-than-crack designer drug that turns users into linguistic geniuses and then drives them crazy. O'Connell overdescribes things, dredges up too many plot lines and indulges in awful metaphors ("she can see his tongue resting like a pink carpet in the valley of his mouth"). But his principal character - a brutal, sexy, restless, plainclothes officer named Lenore Thomas - is fascinating. She will brighten and sustain O'Connell's crime stories when he gets a little more discipline.
- TOM SHAFFER\ \ Pride's Harvest\ By Jon Cleary. Morrow. $20.
The latest novel in the Scobie Malone series examined xenophobia, racism and political power in Australia. The Japanese manager of a cotton plantation is found trussed and skewered in a bale of his own produce. Malone is dispatched to assist, and finds himself in the middle of social tension between the locals and the Japanese, the locals and the Aborigines, and the old- money locals and the new-money locals. He also discovers traces of a hushed-up 17-year-old murder, and, to quote Malone, "I don't believe any crime starts the moment it happens. The start of it is buried inside the person who commits it ... So I start looking into the past when it come to a case, because that's where it begins."
The present and past meld together and clues point toward the political kingmaker of the district. The tensions between races provide a seething undercurrent which widens the investigation to an evaluation of moral positions taken by Australian settlers many years past. Cleary uses Malone's sense of duty and investigative skills to make statements against racial bigotry worldwide. This is a well-crafted novel which examines deep social issues with skill and humor.
- LARRY SHIELD
Robert Hilldrup is a Richmond writer and former newspaperman.\ Judy Kweller is vice-president of an advertising agency.\ Tom Shaffer teaches law at Notre Dame University.\ Larry Shield writes software.
by CNB