Fatal Remedies (Leon, 1999)

  Donna Leon. Fatal Remedies. (1999) Guido Brunetti’s wife Paola smashes the window of a travel agency said to sell sex-tours to more complaisant countries than Italy. Brunetti suppresses the report of the crime, but cannot of course escape its consequences. Oddly, the agency’s owner wants to compromise: if Paola apologises and pays for the window repairs, he will not press charges. A serious robbery takes Brunetti’s attention away from his wife’s legal problems. A witness to the robbery promises to give a deposition, but before he does so, his wife falls down the stairs in their apartment block. And so Brunetti embarks on another investigation of interlocking cases. The travel agency is a key element. Neither  Guido nor Paola fully achieve their goals, but they have tried. That's all they can do.

Leon shows us how the police proceed step by step to the solution, and how the their erratic work schedule and the revelations of human weaknesses and evil affect their personal lives. Politics and the endemic casual corruption  interfere with the investigation. Paola understands that their family is not insulated from these effects. But Paola and Guido consider each other as equals. It’s not a friction-free relationship, but it works.

I think Leon is one of the best crime-fiction writers of our time. ****

Kinsey And Me (Grafton, 2013)

Sue Grafton. Kinsey and Me. (2013) A re-read. I enjoyed the stories perhaps more this time, since I knew them well enough to suss the solution, and so could enjoy watching Grafton drop the clues and lead up to the final twist.

The second half of the book is tough reading. It’s  a series of short stories and sketches that amount to a (fictionalised) memoir of Grafton’s mother (“Vanessa”) and her relationship with her daughter (“Kit”). They inflicted pain on each other, unintentionally, but effectively. Each needed the love of the other, each tried and failed to do it well. Vanessa’s alcoholism barred the path to the easy companionship they both wanted. Grafton herself says she “learned the secrets of the human heart” from her mother. One secret is that we fear we do not deserve each other’s love. But love is not about deserving.

Recommended. ** to ****

Poetic Justice: R is For Ricochet (Grafton 2004)

Sue Grafton. R Is For Ricochet. (2004) Nord Lafferty, rich and used to getting his way, hires Kinsey to look after his daughter Reba when she’s paroled. At first, Reba is apparently willing to live a reformed life. She had been convicted of embezzlement. The money was never recovered, which makes her a target not only of the law, but of her old associates. It takes her a while to realise she’s been played, whereupon she engineers a suitable retribution. Miscellaneous mayhem and murder, betrayals, and deceptions that even Kinsey believes for a while, and assorted misinterpretations and shenanigans make for a well done puzzle and ultimately a kind of justice, albeit not legality. Reba is a criminal, and pays for her crimes, but she’s also Nemesis for the crooks that betrayed her. Grafton disapproves of crime, but disapproves of injustice even more.

Recommended. ****

The Ferguson Affair (MacDonald, 1960)

 Ross Macdonald. The Ferguson Affair (1960) Lawyer Bill Gunnarson believes his client Ella Barker is innocent. An unlikely P.I., he starts digging, and turns up the usual corruption, ancient secrets, double crossings, dysfunctional families, and impossible dreams that characterise MacDonald’s world. The McGuffin is a stolen diamond, which his client received as a gift. The police believe otherwise, and charge her with theft.  Murders ensue.

Published in 1960, but it reads like an early novel. There aren’t many of the edgy metaphors that make the Lew Archer novels such a pleasure to read. But MacDonald as always raises uncomfortable questions about the difference between legality and justice, and about the desperation of people trapped in situations where the only options are bad ones. The line between perpetrator and victim is sometimes blurred.

Still, I enjoyed the book. Gunnarson’s willingness to risk reputation and life in his quest for truth and justice makes him another knight in rusty armour. Recommended ***

Speer's Prison Years (The Secret Diaries, 1976)

 Albert Speer. Spandau: The Secret Diaries (1976) The diaries were secret in that it was forbidden to send out more than one letter a month. But friendly guards helped Speer smuggle his diaries out. He selected and edited his notes, and this book is the result.

It’s surprisingly compulsive reading. The revelation of the man’s character is what kept me turning the pages. I’d recently watched The Rise of the Nazis documentary series. The historian who discussed Speer pointed out that he had carefully doctored the record of his work as war production manager for the Reich. I’m not sure to what extent these diaries continue the attempted deception. In the early years, Speer repeatedly muses about how he was enthralled by Hitler’s architectural ambitions. Later, he castigated himself for admiring what he now sees as grandiose kitsch (a word he does not use), and refers to how his responsibility for war materiel production has burdened him with guilt.

He also discusses architecture, and his hope that he could reestablish an architectural practice on release. He confesses to a taste for traditional styles, and wonders how he might fit into the modern fashions. As the years pass, the hope of early release fades in the face of Soviet intransigence, his musings about a possible professional future fade also.

The most genuine sounding passages are his sorrow that he’s missing the growth and development of his children, and the inevitable failure to establish a close parent-child bond. There aren’t enough visits and letters. It's clear that his family have made the best of their situation, and their father figures less and less in their lives.

An essential book for anyone who wants to understand the 3rd Reich. The desire to build huge monuments seems to be a universal trait of tyrants. ***

Canadian Pie (Ferguson, 2011)

Will Ferguson. Canadian Pie (2011) Ferguson has made a decent living writing for hire. Here we have a collection of his mostly commissioned pieces.. They vary in quality, probably because the assignments varied in their appeal for Ferguson. He writes very pleasant light humour, with an irritating habit of doubling the punch line to make sure the casual airline magazine reader gets it. He’s best at satire and personal anecdote.

All in all, I enjoyed the book; I guess I read it casually. A highlight is As the Irvings Turn: A Maritime Soap Opera. It ran on CBC Moncton, but it seems the Irvings were not amused, as the last episode never aired. The opener, The Lost Art of Crank Calls, is one of the best pieces in the book. The examples are clearly based on personal participation.

A good book to have on hand for the times when you have a few minutes of time you’d rather not spend with your gloomy thoughts about the state of the universe. **½ to ****

Uniform Justice (Leon, 2003)

 Dona Leon. Uniform Justice (2003) A murder at a private “military academy” leads Brunetti into discovering corrupt politics, ruthless power seeking, and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. The perpetrator(s) will never face justice. Brunetti finds them out, but knowing how a good man was punished for his unwillingness to play the power game sours his success.

Another in the Commissario Brunetti series, darker than previous ones I've read in its depiction of the moral filth in which political corruption grows. Recommended, but not a happy read. ****