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Reading Rescue, November 2006: Mysteries in Foreign Countries
By Anne Allen and Mary Anne Fulmer
 November
is a month with two distinctly American events -- election day, when
Americans have the opportunity to express their opinions freely at the
polls, and Thanksgiving, when we celebrate our history with New World
foods like turkey, potatoes, and cranberries. For a change, the Reading
Rescuers (no boring books here!) will take you on a tour of mysteries
set in foreign countries with vastly different cultures.
City of Ice, by John Farrow, takes place in
Montreal, a city divided between English and French speakers, caught
between the forces of law and the powerful Hell's Angels, and where
rival gangs are battling each other for supremacy. Detective Emile Cinq-Mars
is a man with a secret - a source who anonymously tips him off to
illegal activities in the city. College student Julia Murdick has a
secret, too: she's assumed another woman's identity and become caught up
in a Hell's Angels operation. Cinq-Mars impresses on his new partner
that no one can be trusted and he is proven correct as betrayals and car
bombs are everywhere in this fast paced novel. Farrow makes good use of
Montreal in winter, with locations as diverse as Mont Royal, a horse
farm outside of the city, a ship lingering in the harbor and the ritzy
University Club all figuring in the action.
Venice is the setting for Donna Leon's excellent
mysteries featuring police commissario Guido Brunetti. In the first book
in the series, Death at La Fenice, Brunetti is called to
investigate the murder of conductor Helmut Wellauer, dead after drinking
cyanide-laced coffee during the intermission of 'La Traviata'. Wellauer
was a renowned conductor, but a difficult man, his reputation tainted by
rumors of Nazi-collaborating in the past. Leon brings Venice to life --
the entrenched bureaucracy, the maze of streets and canals, the decaying
palazzos, the sense of timelessness. Through it all, Brunetti,
inexorable ferrets through the past, collecting strands of evidence to
solve the case.
An old man is found dead, grotesquely murdered in
Istanbul's Jewish quarter, with swastikas drawn on the wall in the dead
man's blood. This is the stunning start to Belshazzar's Daughter
by Barbara Nadal. Inspector Cetin Ikmen brings his unusual methods to
the investigation -- constant smoking, frequent gulps from a bottle of
cheap brandy, and even a consultation with a transvestite psychic. The
victim's address book, written in the Cyrillic alphabet, points Ikmen
toward an English teacher who is destroying himself, a half-German
Nazi-sympathizing factory owner, a family of Russian émigrés, and a
Jewish community living in fear.
John Burdick's Bangkok 8 begins with a shocker:
two policemen are trailing a car, lose it in traffic, and find it again
just in time to witness the murder of the driver. And what a murder it
is -- the victim has been trapped inside the car along with dozens of
poisonous snakes and a huge python. Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep's
partner and Buddhist 'soul brother' is killed by one of the snakes when
the car is opened, sending Sonchai on a vengeful mission to uncover the
person behind the murder. When the victim is identified as a U.S. Marine
with ties to the international jade trade, Sonchai (partnered with a
female CIA operative) is compelled to tread a line between the naivete
of the West and the pragmatism of modern Thailand. Bangkok itself plays
a major role in the novel, with its all-night clubs and bar girls,
stifling traffic, and oppressive heat.
Rei Shimura is 27 years old, the daughter of a Japanese
man and his American wife. Raised in San Francisco and able to speak but
not read Japanese, she has moved to Japan to explore her heritage. In
The Salaryman's Wife by Sujata Massey, Rei travels to the Japanese
Alps for the New Year's celebration and a stay in a traditional country
inn. A diverse group of Japanese and gaijin (foreigners) are enjoying
the holiday, until one of the guests is found dead in the snow.
Knowledgeable in both cultures but accepted by neither, Rei is asked by
the police to serve as translator, a chore that brings her much closer
to the murderer than is comfortable. The author lived in Japan for a
number of years and eloquently describes Rei's search for belonging.
This book is the first in a series and lighter in tone than our other
choices, partly because Rei works as an English teacher, dabbling in
antiques, not in law enforcement.
We wish you happy holidays from all of us at the Penn
Area Library. As always, contact us at
mfulmer@pennlib.org or phone
724-744-4414.
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