2003 proved a good year for mysteries

By Adam Woog
Special to The Seattle Times

	E-mail this article Print this article Search archive

Best-of columns are frustrating — so many great works of crime fiction came out this year. That said, here are some favorites from 2003:

"Bangkok 8" by John Burdett (Knopf). An intense ride-along with Sonchai Jitpleecheep of the Royal Thai Police as he investigates the bizarre murder of a shady American soldier. Sonchai — half Thai and half Caucasian, devout Buddhist, son of a famous prostitute — is a witty and compelling guide through his city's baffling, sleazy, irresistible night world.

"To the Nines" by Janet Evanovich (St. Martin's). Bounty hunter and proud Jersey girl Stephanie Plum returns for another antic adventure. As usual, the plot is paper-thin; the real draw is the pleasure we derive from Stephanie's raucous family, blue-collar neighborhood and intricate love life.

"Scavenger Hunt" by Robert Ferrigno (Pantheon). Kirkland author Ferrigno's latest sharp-edged slice of Southern California weirdness. A brilliant director, out of prison and destitute, begs Jimmy Gage for help in promoting his screenplay about a brilliant director framed for murder. But then the director's body turns up floating in a carp pond. The cops think it's an accident; Gage doesn't.

"Old Flames" by John Lawton (Atlantic Monthly). It's 1956 London, and Khrushchev is on a toot. Bored silly with official obligations, the Russian cajoles his escort, a bilingual detective, into taking him out on the town.

The crude but mesmerizing Khrushchev disappears after his opening star turn, but the balance of this wry book — as the detective investigates the death of a frogman near Khrushchev's ship in Portsmouth harbor — remains engrossing.

"Every Secret Thing" by Laura Lippman (Morrow). Seven years ago, two Baltimore girls were convicted of killing an infant. The girls were poor and white, while the baby came from a prominent African-American family. Now the girls are out of "kid prison" and trying to restart their lives — until another baby disappears. Former reporter Lippman has great sympathy for her characters, a strong and grave prose style, and a disinclination to condescend to her readers. The result is both heartfelt and heartbreaking.

"The Kalahari Typing School for Men" by Alexander McCall Smith (Pantheon). McCall Smith's loose-limbed prose once again effortlessly evokes Africa in the latest of his beguiling adventures about Precious Ramotswe. The proprietor of the No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency (and the only female private eye in Botswana) is still big-hearted, capable, "traditionally built," and yearning for her country's old, respectful ways.

"The Distant Echo" by Val McDermid (St. Martin's Minotaur). Scottish writer McDermid specializes in superb thrillers probing psychological soft spots. Here, the unsolved murder of a barmaid in a gritty Scottish town forever alters the lives of four men, who as college students found the body and who have remained suspects over the years.

"Blacklist" by Sara Paretsky (Putnam). Chicago private eye V.I. Warshawski is always raring to go, liberal activist heart on her sleeve. While investigating an abandoned mansion, she finds the body of a murdered reporter. The discovery impels Warshawski in two directions: back to the days of the McCarthy witch hunts and forward into the world of post-Sept. 11 security jitters.

"The Cross-legged Knight" by Candace Robb (Mysterious Press). Owen Archer, one-eyed guard and spy for the 14th-century Archbishop of York, stars in Seattleite Robb's consistently rousing historical mysteries. Here, Archer finds a strangled woman and a badly burned man in the ashes of a suspicious fire; evidence points to powerful enemies of the visiting Bishop of Winchester.

"Grand Theft" by Timothy Watts (Putnam). Droll prose, a tightly coiled plot, and a raffish hero make this a standout. Teddy Clyde, Philadelphia stockbroker and high-end car thief, is framed for murder by mob underboss Little Anthony Bonica, who's long carried a grudge. Bonica, however, seriously underestimates Teddy's resourcefulness and verve.

"Fat Ollie's Book" by Ed McBain (Simon & Schuster). The Grand Pooh-Bah of the police procedural has big fun with this, one of his best about the weary, dedicated cops of the 87th Precinct. Detective Ollie Weeks, having written a cop novel of his own, is dreaming of glory — only to find the manuscript stolen by a sad, sweet junkie who mistakes it for a coded map to genuine treasure.

"Dirty Laundry" by Paula L. Woods (Ballantine). It's 1993, and L.A. is still bruised by the Rodney King riots. African-American homicide detective Charlotte Justice, a determined and brainy investigator, lands in a maelstrom of racial and social disorder when she catches a high-profile case — the murder of a Korean-American assistant to an ambitious Latino making a run for mayor.

Seattle writer Adam Woog's column on mystery and crime fiction appears on the second Sunday of the month in The Seattle Times.

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company