The hotel choices in the early years were limited to those which had an indoor pool (these trips were always in February) and were in close proximity to a mall that had book stores.  A nearby Civil War battlefield was a bonus.  DC has a very good public transportation system so we could park the car on arrival and not have to move it, or battle for a parking space, in the city.  Back then, my kids thought riding the transit system was a treat.

Days were spent touring the Capitol, the Supreme Court, and the Library of Congress.  One year, the Library was hosting an exhibition of items from the Vatican.  One of the items was the letter written by Henry VIII asking the pope for the annulment of his marriage to Anne Boleyn.  When we were in the corridors at the Capitol, the kids tried to see how many famous faces they recognized from the news.  Evenings consisted of dinner, a browse in a bookstore, and the pool.  But most of our time was spent at the Smithsonian museums.  None of my kids were enthused by the Air and Space Museum but they loved the Museum of Natural History.  February was a great time to go; there were no crowds.  One of my daughters was enthralled by bugs.  She didn’t care how ugly it was or how many legs it had.  Once, she spent the better part of a day studying an ant farm.  On one of our visits, she had the bug zoo at the Smithsonian pretty much to herself.  The docent took a bug and out it on her shirt.  Instant camouflage!  The bug disappeared into whatever color it was on.  It was the highlight of that trip.  The Museum of American History and its bookstore accounted for another day and we would spend a couple of days in the various art museums.  They loved all of it because it never occurred to them that they wouldn’t.

And, the Smithsonian Museums are free.

The number of visits increased when my oldest went to law school at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, VA.  She applied because she knew the area from trips to Colonial Williamsburg.  Her only disappointment was the scarcity of bookstores.

Those trips were usually from Saturday to Saturday.  Our days were full.  But the week before vacation was spent in endless discussions about what to bring….not clothes or stuffed animals but books.  New books could and would be acquired on the trip but the books that were true favorites had to come too.  Everybody had a bulging book bag.  Just one book a day was risking boredom so it needed to be two books a day and if two were coming why not three?

There is an article in the New York Times today about the disappearance of the bookstore.  The small, local bookstores have long since been eaten up by the big chains.    Now, Barnes & Noble is the only national chain still in business and that may not be for much longer.  Amazon contributed greatly to the demise of the small stores and regional chains and really kicked them to the ground with the introduction of the Kindle.  Barnes & Noble moved faster than Borders and created the Nook but in putting its money into an ereader and ebooks, it has had less money to put into published books.  Borders disappeared with barely a sigh.  Barnes & Noble is likely to close stores and to turn much of the space in the remaining stores to the Nook.  How much browsing will there be?

My children were not more intelligent nor more curious than other kids their age.  But they accepted the idea that a trip to a bookstore was a treat.  They didn’t get a book each time.  Sometimes they read a book while they were there.  They did enjoy the discovery of a new author or a new series and the weighty decision of which book should be bought next was part of the fun.  An ereader isn’t going to provide that.  It isn’t going to replace the migration of books from one person’s books to another person’s bookshelves.  It will be convenient but it won’t be the same.  I have had my Kindle for over a month.  I have bought a few books but I haven’t read anything on it yet.  I still have a wonderful, colorful stack of books to get through yet.  One factor in the Kindle’s favor is that my library system does have ebooks that can be borrowed….

but if we treasure the bookstore experience, Barnes & Noble needs our  support.  Amazon is moving toward a position that is stunning in its implication.  Amazon may dictate what we read by what it carries in stock.

Nothing is ever easy for Junior Bender.  He is a burglar; everyone knows that.  He is never violent, he never enters a home when people are present.  Everyone knows that, too.  He has a foolproof alibi for the time of the robbery.  So why is he in a police station being accused of breaking into the home of a judge and attacking the judge’s wife?  Detective Paulie DiGaudio lets Junior know that his alibi is no longer foolproof.  “My name mean anything to you?”  “Sure,” I said. “It’s a synonym for all that is admirable in law enforcement.”  “Beyond that.”  I said, “Philadelphia in the fifties.  Imitation Elvises.  Handsome Italian kids with tight pants and big hair.”

Those handsome kids were famous for fleeting moments but during those moments they made a lot of money and that money was managed by Vincent DiGaudio, Paulie’s uncle.  The offer to Junior is straightforward.  If he solves Vinnie’s problem, Paulie will make sure that alibi is foolproof again.  Vinnie’s problem: something to do with murder.

Since his divorce, Junior has been living in a series of motel rooms.  The motel of the month is Marge ‘n Ed’s North Pole, a Christmas themed business where the rooms, as much as possible, were identified by the names of Santa’s reindeer rather than numbers.  The bright spot in Junior’s life is his daughter, Rina, a thirteen year-old computer whiz who can find her way into any place that has information Junior needs.  She easily discovers that among the Little Elvises Vincent DiGaudio managed was Giorgio, a man-child of exceptional beauty who was completely devoid of any talent and was absolutely terrified every time he stepped on a stage.   Giorgio was a shooting star that flashed across the television screen and the movie screen and then disappeared while on a movie project in Hawaii.  Giorgio is gone but not forgotten; he has his own star on the music industry’s walk of fame.  Vincent DiGaudio wants Junior to investigate that previously mentioned murder.  Derek Bigelow, a reporter for every supermarket tabloid in the US, has been found dead, his body resting on Giorgio’s star.  Vincent had made it known that he intended to kill Bigelow but someone got to him first.  Vincent had a hit all set up for the next night.  Now the police are going to be coming for him; his threats are coming back to haunt him.

In short order, Junior finds himself being chased by some murderous characters in a Humvee without any clue as to why.  He meets Derek Bigelow’s wife, Ronnie, and before there is time to give it any thought, they become bedmates.  And Marge, the owner of Junior’s motel of the month, comes to him, terrified, because her daughter Doris is missing. last seen with a decidedly unsavory character.

Junior’s life becomes dangerously complicated when he finds a note on his windshield – CALL IRWIN.  Irwin is Irwin Dressler, a man of incredible power in the state of California.  That he was in his nineties didn’t make his less dangerous.  Irwin Dressler was  ” The power broker, the man who made things happen, the guy with the secrets.  The Wizard of Was.”  Despite all that, Junior decides not to call him so Irwin sends some friends to bring Junior to him.  Irwin doesn’t mind if Junior discovers who killed Bigelow but he doesn’t want a connection to be drawn from Bigelow to Vinnie DiGaudi.  If Junior agrees to this plan Irwin will owe him a very big favor and Junior knows that isn’t something to be sneezed at.

As in all Timothy Hallinan’s novels, the characters, heroes, villains, and all the people in between, are perfect.  Junior is not a hero in the truest sense of the word but when Junior gives his word, people know he can be counted upon to follow through on the promise.  The rest of the characters are secondary in that, like CRASHED, LITTLE ELVISES is a Junior Bender book and make no mistake about it.  Junior is the moral center of the books, honest as defined by his moral code.  If Junior were a character in a fifties television Western, he would wear a white hat.  Junior and Bret Maverick could be soul mates and the Maverick reference brings up something really interesting about the characters.

Hallinan uses the term “the Wizard of Was” to describe Dressler and as the title of a section of the story.  Junior is thirty-eight years old but this book plays to the readers who remember the real “Little Elvises” who had their moments of glory on American Bandstand.  We remember Maverick and Matt Dillon and the stories about the mob wars in New York and Chicago and Las Vegas.  It was a more innocent time, those early teenage years, before all innocence was lost on November 22, 1963, a watershed moment for the world.  Hallinan captures those days in the fifties when songs on the radio were a couple of minutes long and singers weren’t expected to set their own versions of DANTE’S INFERNO to music.  Payola doesn’t seem like such a terrible crime fifty years later.  He also reminds the reader that the important things don’t really change.  In writing about the girls who screamed for the Little Elvises, he describes their devotion. “They were crushes, not love affairs.”  Describes Justin Bieber and the Jonas Brothers for today’s tweens.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Tim Hallinan book if there weren’t more than a few lines that sneak up on the reader and evoke laughter.  “Want to join Marge in a glass of vodka?”  “Sure, it there’s room.”   This one took me awhile – “…Arthur Love Johnson…used to be called Algae on account of his initials.”  Then there is the word problem that I swear was on a test.

Hallinan has, again, written a story that is so much more than a good mystery.  Buried in the funny lines and the character development are glimpses of life as everyone experiences it in one way or another.  Be it Simeon, Poke, or Junior, Hallinan’s men are the good guys who do their best to do right.  And Hallinan succeeds in writing some of the best books in the genre.

And he manages to tie up all the ends of all the stories in LITTLE ELVISES, making it a completely satisfying reading experience.

Like CRASHED, LITTLE ELVISES is only available as an e-book.  Both Amazon and Barnes&Noble offer free downloads of programs that allow readers without a Kindle or Nook to purchase the books and read them on their PCs.  No excuse not to buy these books for the ridiculously low price of 2.99 each.

Hallinan’s Poke Rafferty is a travel writer who settled in Bangkok and acquired a family.  His wife, Rose, was a dancer and his daughter, Miaow, was a street child whom they adopted.  Burdett’s Sonchai Jitpleecheep is a setective in the Royal Thai policeforce in Bangkok.  His mother owns a bar in the Patpong district. His wife, Chanya, was a prostitute.  Their marriage went off course when their son died, but they make an effort to get back what they had.  Chanya has moved away from her past, as she writes her Ph.D thesis for her degree in sociology.  She is herself a resource on the lives and the times of the people in Bangkok.

Sonchai is instructed by his superior officer, Colonel Vikorn, that the theft of human organs for transplant is to be his new focus.  The immorality of the trafficking is not the problem.  Rather it is that renegade suppliers are setting up a new pipeline that by-passes General Zinna’s highly profitable business.  General Zinna is Vikorn’s boss and the rules among human traffickers and the traffickers in human organs need to be maintained.  Both men are determined to win high political office and bribes are expensive.

Sonchai discovers that the new players in the trafficking business are the beautiful and morally bankrupt identical twins, Lilly and Polly Yip.  Vikorn gives Somchai a black America Express Card, a ticket to unquestioned high end shopping, be it 6 star hotels, Zegna clothing, or corneas.  With that as his calling card, it doesn’t take long for Sonchai to find himself in the same circles as the twins.  They are known as the “vultures” and it it their home that sits on Vulture Peak looking down on the city.

Sonchai and his American Express card travel to Hong Kong, Dubai, Shanghai, Monte Carlo, and, in an orgy of cynicism, to Lourdes.  The twins have no difficulty in culling the desperate and the rich from the flock.  There is no question that they have an unending supply of donors.  Greed, desperation, and the invisibility of the poor make it very easy to succeed in marketing body parts.  Added to the mix is the story of General Zinna and a young, handsome soldier whom he loved.

Burdett gives us two terms to consider: “the comodification of  bodies” and “the promiscuity of objects”.  Chanys explains that once something has been defined as an object, it is promiscuous in that it can be bought and sold like any other object.  It is this view that makes the selling of body parts, prostitution, and slavery an acceptable part of an economic system.

Bangkok and those of its people who walk on the dark side make fascinating reading.  I look forward to reading the previous books in the series.  But if I were to visit Bangkok, I would prefer to meet Poke, Rose. and Miaow.

Over the course of his ten years in prison, Vance has used his celebrity, his money, his understanding of human weakness, and his intelligence to form a perfect plan to escape. Vance’s wealth was hidden in a manner that made it impossible for the authorities to gain control of it. He could disappear into any corner of the world. But Vance wants revenge on Tony and Carol and, since neither are married or have children, he will go after people who are important to them but are not involved in their professional lives.

Tony and Carol find Jacko’s threats a distraction from the work they are paid to do. Prostitutes are being murdered. The first victims were women who worked the streets but the killer is now tracking victims into their homes. He leaves his mark on their bodies, signing them as his property.

Added to these problems is the decision to relocate Carol and her unit out of Bradfield. The police have found Tony an expensive independent contractor despite his success in increasing their solve rate.

The story is ultimately about family, those that are supportive and strong and those that are dysfunctional and harmful. Val McDermid writes very good books.

The book starts with Charlie enjoying his holiday working in his garden.  He gets a call ordering him to get to the official opening of the new shopping mall, the Curzon Centre.  Arthur Threadneedle built the new addition to Heckley and, because he has an eye for what is best for Arthur Threadneedle, he decides not to name this one after himself.  He calls it after the most prominent family in the area, the Curzons.  The family is minor gentry but Threadneedle is counting on the family moving up the social ladder quickly.  Ghislaine Curzom. called Grizzly by the family, is the girlfriend of one of the royal princes so who better to attract the attention of the public.  Threadneedle isn’t just the most prominent businessman in Heckley; he is also the mayor.  Any connection to the royals will surely move some of the limelight in his direction.  Things don’t go as planned when Ghislaine reveals the bronze plaque decorated with an obscenity in bright red paint.

This is  hardly a reason to call in the CID but all to soon Charlie’s expertise is needed when Arthur Threadneedle is found dead, a single shot to the head.  Complicating the lives of the police of Heckley, there is an insurance fraud developing around horse-racing ,and a number of increasingly threatening break-ins in the homes of the locals.

Anyone looking for an enjoyable reading experience with likeable characters, a satisfying mystery, and very funny lines will enjoy Stuart Pawson.  He is another of the authors who does not get the attention he deserves.

Gabe is home-schooled and has been accepted to Harvard and Julliard.  His passion is music and his talent as a pianist suggests a very successful career in his future.  At fifteen, Gabe social c0nnections are minimal, music is his world.  But Gabe’s life before the Deckers, has prepared him to deal with bullying in an unexpected way.  Dylan Lashay is a bully and he decides to make Gabe a victim even though they are strangers .  He intimidates Gabe by showing him a gun.  Gabe buries Dylan in a torrent of gun facts and admits that his real name is Donatti and his father is a killer, a member of the Mafia.

Peter Decker finds himself agreeing to investigate the suicide of Gregory Hesse, a student at Bell and Wakefield, the same school Dylan attends.  His mother insists that Gregory had no interest in guns and wouldn’t now how to get one.   Then Myra Gelb, another student at the same school, commits suicide.  Another teenager with no experience with guns, Myra gets a gun and someone shows her how to use it.  An investigation shows that Bell and Wakefield has a problem.  Rich and priviledged students have created their own Mafia, terrorizing because he has the power to do so.

The bulk of the story tells the tale of Gabe’s relationship with Yasmine Nourmand, a fourteen year-old as musically gifted as Gabe.  The two teenagers form a bond.  Yasmine is a Persian Jew; Gabe is a Catholic living with the Orthodox Jewish Deckers.  Yasmine is protected and her parents would not allow her the brief contacts, mostly text messages, that she has with Gabe.  The Deckers are happy that Gabe has found a friend but they understand that this friendship will end when the Nourmands learn of it. Gabe’s world is not the same world Yasmine inhabits.

The author does shine some light on the fascination with guns that defines us in some countries.  The title GUN GAMES suggests guns are not always considered the instruments of death and injury that they so often are.

GUN GAMES is a young adult novel with a mystery tacked on.  I hope the twenty-second book in the series goes back to the formula that has succeeded so well.

” A rough wind lifted the decaying leaves that lay in front of the burial chamber and sent them swirling through the iron gates that separate the living from the dead.  Two figures occupied the chamber’s narrow inner space.  The first, a woman, lay face up, her head resting on a stone altar step.  One of the leaves had lodged in her hair.  The second figure, enveloped in the cloak and hood of a pilgrim, bent and reverently removed the leaf.  The woman gazed up at the intruder, as though pleading for mercy or forgiveness, and the figure knelt and applied a firm pressure to the woman’s open eye lids, sealing her eyes in the first ritual of death….The figure then made the sign of the cross over the woman and whispered a benediction in Latin….

It is the evening of Good Friday and Count Casati and his family are waiting for the ritual procession to pass, a procession of men, and women now, who carry the cross as a reminder of the suffering on that momentous Friday 2000 years before.  The Casatis are also waiting for Rita Minelli, Count Casati’s niece, recently arrived from the United States.  Rita is the daughter of the count’s late sister and he was not pleased when Rita contacted him with the news of his sister’s death and the content of her last wish.  According to Rita, her mother wanted nothing more than to be returned to Assisi and reunited with her ancestors in the Casati burial chamber.  The count agrees (how could he not) but is is with dismay that the family slowly realizes that Rita intends to stay, living with the family in the palazzo that she seems to think is her rightful home.

The Casati family, the count, his English wife, Amelia, his daughter , Artemesia, and his granddaughter, Paola, are not enamored of Rita.  She is intrusive and doesn’t know her place; she also has a lot of money, a fact that seems to make her think that she has a right to re-order the lives of the Casatis to her whim.

When the body in the burial chamber proves to be Rita’s, Commissario Alessandro Cenni is assigned to bring about a fast and acceptable conclusion to the matter.  No one said anything about finding the killer.  Rita was unloved by her mother and she is unloved by her new-found relatives but someone must have convinced Rita she was loved.  The autopsy discloses that Rita was pregnant and the pregnancy occurred after she arrived in Italy.

The Casatis have powerful friends in Rome who will do their best to ensure that a family so old and respected should not be treated as if they had any part in such a tragedy  After all, they are victims, too.   The Casatis are noble but cash-strapped; Alex Cenni is not noble but he is rich.  Alex considers that a draw in dealing with the Casatis who don’t usually have to answer questions they find impolite or impolitic.  Rita might have been unwelcome but she didn’t deserve to die.  Cenni doesn’t believe the killing was unpremeditated.  Rita’s murder was planned by someone very calculating, someone who knew Rita could be found at the burial chamber.  Whoever killed Rita, knew Rita well.

Alex’s problem is too many suspects, none with alibis.  He is not helped by the interference of another ranking police officer, Fulvio Russo, who seems to have ties to Rita Minelli and Artemesia Casati.*

The best review of the book is to be found on the back cover.

“THE LAST ENEMY,  Grace Brophy’s mystery in an Umbrian setting like no other, serves up more delights that the local pastacerria.   The murder of Italian-American Rita Minelli during Holy Week in Assisi, with its warren of winding alleys, hidden squares and steep cobbled stairways, poses questions for Commissario Alessandro Cenni, not the least, those concerning a 17-th century manuscript, a Croatian immigrant, and a reclusive Contessa.  With pressure from Rome, the Commissario’s own job is on the line.  Brophy’s wry, laser-like insight probes the layers of Italian aristocracy, the police system and the clergy with a sure, deft touch.”

Cara Black, author of THE AIMEE LEDUC SERIES.

***Artemesia Gentileschi is frequently mentioned in the story both as the subject of Artemesia Cenni’s famous, if plagiarized, book and as the painter of Judith Slaying Holofernes. The author may have been playing with the readers in that Judith and her servant are clearly not put off by the brutality of their work.

AN INTERVIEW WITH YRSA SIGURDARDOTTIR – MURDER AND MAYHEM IN ICELAND

J. Sydney Jones interviewed Yrsa Sigurdardottir on March 27, 2010 for his blog, Scene of the Crime.  Sydney is the author of THE EMPTY MIRROR and REQUIEM IN VIENNA.

Syd’s interview:

Yrsa Sigurdardóttir, Icelandic crime novelist, joins us today on Scene of the Crime. The author of numerous children’s books, Yrsa has also written a popular crime series featuring lawyer and single mother of two, Thóra Gudmundsdóttir. Of the five that have been poublished in her native country, two have thus far appeared in English translation, Last Rituals and My Soul to Take. The third, Ashes to Dust, appears this summer in English.

Yrsa’s books have won critical acclaim not only in Iceland, but also abroad. Publishers Weekly finds her work “engaging,” and further states that the author “keeps readers guessing.” Similarly, thLondon Observer calls her work “both frightening and funny – a terrific trick if you can pull it off.”

Welcome, Yrsa, to Scene of the Crime.

First, please talk about your connection to Iceland.

I write about my home country Iceland, where I was both born and reside. I have written 5 books for children and 5 for grownups, all of which are set here – aside from one which takes place in Greenland. I have tried to take my readers to varying locations within my country as there are remarkable differences in both the landscape and the social aspects, depending on where you chose to wander.

What things about Iceland make it unique and a good physical setting in your books?

Iceland is a very beautiful country, sparsely populated and thus in most part untouched by man’s endeavors. It has long been known as the land of ice and fire, being the home to i.a. the largest glacier in Europe and being situated on the boundary of two tectonic plates, a location which provides the country with more than its fair share of volcanic eruptions. These have left their mark on the land, spectacular lava fields with their irregular surface formations offer up a smorgasbord of eerie scenery, not to mention the visual marks provided by the numerous geothermal fields.  The almost utter lack of trees adds to the majesty of the landscape as it ensures an uninterrupted view. Iceland is therefore a joy to write about, not to mention the opportunities its harsh landscape provides for murder, getting rid of bodies and other ingredients necessary for a good mystery.

Did you consciously set out to use Iceland as a “character” in your books, or did this grow naturally out of the initial story or stories?

It grows naturally, when you live in a small, geographically isolated country the locality itself becomes integrated into your being. When I wrote the first book about Thora it sold abroad before I was done and this put some pressure on me to include aspects regarding Iceland I would not have considered when writing purely for my countrymen. It was solely an internal anxiety, i.e. no one asked me to do it but nonetheless I had some sleepless nights thinking about how I could best incorporate tourist information into the plot line. Thankfully I got over it and stuck to the original plan and as a result I believe the book is more true to my intentions and for readers interested in Iceland the information contained within the novels pages should not feel contrived.

How do you incorporate location in your fiction? Do you pay overt attention to it in certain scenes, or is it a background inspiration for you?

I am absolutely conscious of the local when writing. As mentioned before I try to move between places to keep it interesting, for the readers and myself as well. There are always scenes where the location itself plays a big part, when you want the reader to visualize the surrounds to build up suspense and in retrospect these are usually the scenes in which someone gets hurt or something bad is about to happen. The background of each story is very much integral to the backdrop in which it takes place as almost the same amount of time goes into my research of the area I intend to focus on, as goes into the actual writing. I look into issues big and small, not always things specific to the plot but things that I hope will give me a feel for the place and the people inhabiting it. This works quite well as it not only helps me to get ideas for subplots, twists and turns but also provides the building blocks from which I can make plausible, local characters.

How does Thóra Gudmundsdóttir interact with her surroundings?

My protagonist is a native so she interacts with familiarity with her surroundings. However, her boyfriend side-kick is a foreigner so he often serves as the eyes of the outsider, commenting on oddities and asking the questions that need answering in order for the foreign readers to better understand the society and surrounds.

Has there been any local reaction to your works?

Icelanders seem to accept my writing so the local approval stamp is in the bag. This is very important to me as annoyance or comments regarding an implausible or unauthentic backdrop would equate to a mission ill accomplished.

Of the novels you have written set in Iceland, do you have a favorite book or scene that focuses on the place? Could you quote a short passage or give an example of how the location figures in your novels?

It is hard to pick one book above the rest although I have very warm feelings towards the location chosen for the third book, Ashes to Dust. It takes place in a small fishing village on the Westmann Islands off the south coast of Iceland, an island on which a volcano erupted with much ado in 1973. Being pretty used to lava and seascapes it was an archeological dig called Pompeii of the North that intrigued me the most. The dig involves excavating houses from underneath massive layers of ash to showcase them in situ, while my story adds a fictional twist when something other than broken roof beams and rusted iron is unearthed. On every visit to the dig I was just as impressed as the first time I laid eyes on the huge, deep canal, as the blackness of the all-encompassing ash and the effect it had on sounds was intimidating, not to mention the graphic reminder of nature’s not so gentle treatment of the houses we intend to keep us safe from the elements. The below describes a trip in the middle of the night to the dig by Thóra and Bella, her “secretary from hell”:

“The excavation site was completely silent, except for the creaking beneath Thóra and Bella’s shoes as they walked through the slag on the pathway.  It was as if they were travelling through a deep valley:  nothing could be seen of the world around them apart from a clear sky and the faint traces of a street that had disappeared from the surface of the earth a third of a century ago. Thóra couldn’t block out the uncomfortable feeling that they were being watched through the broken windows of the empty houses as they walked by.  Of course she knew that there was not a living soul here apart from herself and Bella; nevertheless unease plagued her.  She got goose bumps when a light breeze stirred a loose paper plate lying in front of the wide door of a little house.  The house looked as if it had once been yellow, but the catastrophe that had overwhelmed it had given it a dull green appearance.  This decrepit shack looked so sad and neglected that Thóra had to stop for a moment and stare at it.  It was easy to imagine a dust-covered middle-aged woman standing at the window in her dressing-gown, waiting for life to pick up where it had left off in January of 1973. Thóra shook off the image. She wasn’t used to letting her imagination lead her astray – it must have been the guilt she was feeling over their business in the area.  At best, it was immoral. The oppressive silence also played a part. Thóra was so unused to it.  Even in the quiet neighbourhood where she lived one could always hear the sound of traffic, even at night an indistinct hum from cars driving down the neighbourhood’s streets managed to reach her ears. Here, there was no sound, although the town was just below them and everyone could have barely gone to bed.  Ash and slag clearly swallowed all the noise, even the creaking of their shoes.  It was like watching television with the sound muted.”

Who are your favorite writers, and do you feel that other writers influenced you in your use of the spirit of place in your novels?

I don’t have any particular favorite writers, the ones I like are too many to list and to complicate matters further, when I really like a book it is the title I remember, not the author’s name. However there is no question that I am influenced by other authors regarding the spirit of place since I mostly read in English as not enough mysteries are published in Icelandic to soothe my appetite. As a result I am usually reading about fictional events in places that are foreign to me and have learned to appreciate the added dimension this gives the text for the reader.

What’s next for Thóra?

Thóra is now going into yearlong hibernation, having been pretty busy for five books in a row, in as many years. This vacation of hers will not be noted on the foreign market for some time since the translation process delays publication by a year, at the very, very least. If I take the English market as an example, there are three books yet to come out before this blank spot arrives as only the third in the five book series will be out this summer (Ashes to Dust). The book I am writing now and is due out in Icelandic this fall is a horror story (ghost story) which takes place in a deserted town in the Westfjords in Iceland. It will contain main characters set forth for the purposes of this book alone and I am enjoying immensely the freedom provided by such disposable protagonists.

Thanks once more, Yrsa, for taking time out from the writing to share your view of Iceland with us.

You can follow Yrsa’s blogs most Wednesdays at Murder is Everywere.

“How The World Became One Big Crime Scene”

The Irish Times, on July 8, 2010, carried the above-mentioned article* by Declan Burke.  In the article, Burke mentions some of the outstanding authors who are writing books in settings that old-school mystery writers would not have imagined.  When I got pulled into the mystery genre, the locales were the United States, especially New York City and Los Angeles, and England.  Now engrossing mysteries and thrillers are being set all-over the world, including Laos (Colin Cotterill) and North Korea (James Church), places that have been secret.

Now, the world is the mystery reader’s oyster.

Declan Burke writes:

“The classic dramatic conflict between have and have-nots forms the backdrop to Leighton Gage’s Chief Inspector Mario Silva novels, which are set in Brazil.

“Brazil is a rich country,” [Leighton] says, “but it’s still a developing country. As such, it continues to have highly inequitable income distribution. That’s changing, and changing rapidly, but it’s still true that this country’s taboos (unlike the ones Dashiell Hammett, Raymond Chandler et al had to contend with) can vary immensely depending upon where you stand in the socioeconomic pecking order. Forcing one of your children into prostitution is repugnant, for example, but there’s no taboo against it if the alternative is to let your other children starve.

“That’s an extreme case, obviously, but Brazil is full of societal issues that don’t arise in so-called First World countries. Liberation theology, for example, has been condemned by the Princes of the Church, but many of Brazil’s poorer priests practice it. Excessive concentration on the promise of reward in heaven, they say, often propagates social injustice on earth. So, at one end of the scale, a defence of liberation theology is taboo. And, at the other end, not embracing it is equally taboo.

“How could I possibly live here, be a writer, and not want to tell people what a fascinating place this is?”

Authors who live in the countries about which they write, like Timothy Hallinan (Bangkok) and Matt Beynon Rees (Jerusalem) have moved from their western roots to build lives with, and among, the people they write about.  Like Gage, they write in the country and of the country, not  about the country.

Yrsa Sigurdardottir (Iceland), Jo Nesbo (Norway), Andrea Camilleri (Italy), and Fred Vargus (France) are natives of the countries about which they write, bringing a different sensibility to their books, one distinct from that of a writer who has come to the country from another place.  Leighton Gage is  Brazilian but not in the same way that Andrea Camilleri is Italian.  One is of the country by choice, the other is of the country by birth.  Neither is more than the other.

Writers like Gage, Hallinan, and Rees bring to their writing the sort of  “eyes wide open, taking in the surroundings” of a stranger in a strange new place even if they have lived in the country for twenty years.  Things that are taken for granted by those born to the place  are a feast to the senses of in-comers.  Christmas in Bangkok isn’t like Christmas in Los Angeles.  Easter in Israel is a far different experience than Easter in Wales.

Readers experience the best of both experiences of time and place.  And through that comes the recognition that the more things change the more they are the same.  A police procedural is, by definition, the process by which police work to solve a crime.  The method is the same no matter the place of the crime.  Writers of mysteries present the truth that death at the hands of another is destructive of soul no matter where it happens.  The human experience is shared by all humans for good and for evil.

The world of mystery readers is now, really, the whole world and there are new authors being added to the list all the time who bring new perspective to even  these new places.  The Botswana of Michael Stanley’s  Detective Kubu is not the Botswana of Kwei Quartey’s Inspector Darko Dawson. Fiction is a fantastic teaching tool:  we become educated as we read our favorite authors and, through articles such as this, we expand our list of must-reads exponentially.

*Article has been archieved

A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE is different than most of the books written in the recent past.  It is at once a murder mystery, a thriller, and an indictment of politics in these United States.  It is Oliver North, Iran-Contra, and Nicaragua.  It is Reagan and the monster in everyone’s closet – communism, the Evil Empire, the world-wide plot to bring the United States to its knees.

This book is as much about John Robey as it is about Robert Miller.  Robey is the voice that breaks the narrative, the words in italics  used to explain what we didn’t know, what we didn’t want to know.

John Robey is CIA and so was Catherine Sheridan.

The CIA began as the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) during World War II when Franklin Roosevelt realized that the information the US was receiving about the events in Europe were coming from Britain.  The United States did not have an organization to seek out and disseminate clandestine information.  Roosevelt placed the responsibility for the OSS in the hands of General “Wild Bill” Donovan.  At the end of the war, Truman dismantled the OSS and it reappeared in 1946 to protect American interests outside its borders.  The CIA was specifically prevented from running operations in the United States.

The CIA in A SIMPLE ACT OF VIOLENCE is the all-powerful, unchallenged organization with which we are familiar.  John Robey is a veteran of clandestine operations and he is a cynic, a patriot without illusions.  He tells the reader, “Richard helms, acting Director of the Central Intelligence Agency, once said in an address to the National Press Club, ” You’ve just got to trust us.  We are honorable men.”…Captain George Hunter White, reminiscing about his CIA service, said, “I toiled wholeheartedly in the vineyards because it was fun, fun, fun.  Where else could a red-blooded American boy lie, kill, cheat, steal, rape and pillage with the sanction and blessing of the all-highest.”…It’s a fallacy.  You cannot have a corrupt and self-serving organization populated by people who are there for the very best reasons.  People wind up in the CIA, and they either get with the program, or they understand what the program is and get the …. out of there as fast as they can.”

Robey explains the difference between morals and ethics.  Morals are the rules determined by society so that it can function without anarchy.  Ethics determines how the rules are followed in a particular situation.  Situational ethics belies the belief in law.  The CIA exists to exploit or control a situation.  John and Catherine were experts at the exploitation of men and nations in service of their country.  When those skills brought them to Nicaragua in the eighties they were fully prepared to follow orders.

The United States began to lose its naivete with the assassination of John Kennedy.  But twenty years later we were still willing to believe what we were told about being the only power that could prevent the world from falling to communism.  The Sandinistas overthrew a dictatorial government and began a literacy program, the division of property to laborers, and the abolition of torture, movements that should have received the support of the United States.  But Nicaragua allied itself with Cuba and when Reagan took office in 1981, the US actively backed the Contras.  In exchange for sending drugs into the United States, the Contras got military hardware to battle the duly elected government led by the Sandinistas.  Thirty years later, the tide of drugs into the US has not abated.  Manuel Noreiga thanks us for our support.

The author writes concisely; the plainness of the language gives weight to the message.  He describes the “sacred monster” the thing we create to further our purposes but which turns and devours us.  He writes that there are, “Periods of American history considered unsafe to remember, events people pretended never occurred.”  The CIA is the guardian of those secrets, “the best kept secrets are the ones that everybody can see” but that everyone ignores.  Situational ethics encourages willful blindness.

This is a powerful book because it is a quiet one.  Robey and Miller are talking about the movie  “A Few Good Men.”  Robey tells Miller , “What the movie was trying to communicate was the complete impossibility of preventing the bigger picture.

Catherine Sheridan’s death is not the prologue to the story.  It is the postscript