Scene of the Crime

P.D. James, now well into her 80s, goes from strength to strength — no lessening of powers here. "The Private Patient" (Knopf, 360 pp., $25.95), James' 17th novel, is among her best: elegant in prose, sharp and subtle in observations, rich in setting and characterization.

In classic British style, the plot focuses on murder in a remote place and on a fixed number of eccentric suspects. Here, the setting is a gloomy country mansion that's become an exclusive hospital for plastic surgery. An investigative journalist comes to have a disfiguring scar fixed — and is strangled in her bed after the operation.

It's then up to homicide detective Adam Dalgliesh and his team to look into the intertwined lives of the hospital's staff and hangers-on. Dalgliesh is one of crime fiction's finest gems. He's a copper with a poet's soul — a gentleman with impeccable manners, a spine of steel and (when needed) a formidable way of getting things moving. They don't call him Commander Dalgliesh for nothing.

Charles Ardai seems to be having way too much fun. Ardai, who started Juno.com, is also the co-founder of Hard Case Crime, publishers of hard-boiled noir paperbacks with delightfully lurid covers that echo the pulp fiction of yesteryear.

Now Ardai is celebrating HCC's fiftieth book with one of his own: "Fifty-To-One" (HCC, 335 pp., $7.99). It's the first under his own name, and it's a doozy.

It's the 1950s, and a sweet young thing named Trixie has written a pulp novel about $3 million stolen from a mobster — and at the moment of publication someone carries out that exact crime. The mobster thinks she's done it, takes the book's publisher and Trixie's sister hostage, and forces Trixie on a wild chase through the New York underworld to find the dough and get everyone out alive.

The book is chock-full of in-jokes — like having 50 chapters named for HCC's books in order. It's great sport watching Ardai stretch to connect text with titles. This could have devolved into mere stunt writing, but Ardai pulls it off.

Two writers named Larry and Don have small but crucial cameos in Ardai's book — a shameless homage to Donald Westlake and Lawrence Block, wily veterans of the pulp racket. These two still turn out wonderful books, the most recent being Block's "One Night Stands and Lost Weekends" (Harper, 366 pp., $14.95 paper).

It's a collection of his early stories from the '50s and '60s, rescued from long-forgotten magazines like "Manhunt" and "Trapped." Not all are first-class. (In his self-deprecating introduction, Block wonders who would possibly be interested in them.) Still, they're well worth resurrecting as the portrait of a self-described "gormless young man" who grew up to be a killer writer.

"The Victoria Vanishes" (Bantam, 323 pp., $24), by Christopher Fowler, stars the Peculiar Crimes Unit, a group of cracked eccentrics within the London police force dedicated to solving crimes that seem impossible by the usual laws of this world. As one character notes, "The kind of crimes that reach our little unit can best be appreciated and resolved through a consideration of the laws of paradox."

The team's heart and soul are its elderly lead detectives, John May and Arthur Bryant. Bryant is especially endearing — cranky, absent-minded, brilliant and stuffed with obscure information about London. His knowledge of the history of drinking establishments serves the team in good stead as it tackles its latest task: finding a serial killer who targets lonely-hearts women in pubs — including an establishment that has not even existed for 80 years.

I was sad to hear that Tony Hillerman died last month. He was a deservedly popular writer with a gift for capturing the spirit and atmosphere of his beloved Southwest.

I met him once, years ago, at his home in Albuquerque, N.M., for a two-hour interview that covered many topics besides his writing, among them his Catholic faith, American history, his background as a newspaperman and the joys of being an adoptive parent (five of his six kids were adopted). Throughout it all, he was immensely charming and empathetic.

Even as his health declined in the last few years, Hillerman kept turning out fine stuff. Bless his heart.

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