OVERKILL by Vanda Symon

Vanda Symon’s Overkill, featuring Constable Sam Shephard, first appeared in Symon’s native New Zealand in 2007 and the series has since run to five books. But this edition of Overkill is both Symon’s and Shephard’s first appearance in the United States. Shephard is a “sole-charge” police constable in the rural town of Mataura, in the Southland Region of New Zealand. A place where everybody knows everybody else. The economy is based on cattle ranching and beef processing, and serious crime is something on television news rather than a real-life experience.

When Gabriella Knowes is reported missing, leaving her young daughter unattended at home and a suicide note on the kitchen table, Sam takes the initiative and organizes a search party. Sam quickly finds Gaby’s body washed up on a river bank. At first glance, Gaby’s death is a suicide, but as Sam investigates, it becomes clear Gaby was murdered. To further complicate things, Sam is removed from the case, suspended from her job, and treated like a suspect in Gaby’s murder. All because Sam didn’t tell her boss that she and Gaby’s husband, Lockie, were lovers before he married Gaby.

Overkill is an entertaining, but flawed first novel. Among its many strengths are the depictions of small town life. The rumors and comraderies, the finger-pointing and rivalries. Sam is a likable and relatable character, but she is often more whiny than she is tough. The novel’s major flaw is the Prologue because it shows the reader what really happened to Gabby. It undercuts the potential suspense since it takes Sam half the story to catch up with what the reader already knows. But Overkill’s flaws are easy to overlook because the how of Gaby’s murder is less important than the why, and, for this non-ranching city reader at least, the why is a wild and satisfying concoction.

CHAIN OF EVIDENCE by Garry Disher

Chain of Evidence is Australian crime writer Garry Disher’s fourth novel to feature Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry. A police procedural set in the rural, but booming Mornington Peninsula area south of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. A place where poverty and wealth live side-by-side and crime is as deadly and ugly as it is in any large city. 

While visiting his dying father in his childhood home in the dusty, hardscrabble South Australia town of Mawson’s Bluff, Challis unofficially investigates the mysterious disappearance of his sister’s husband, Gavin Hurst, from eight years earlier. Hurst is a man not readily missed by many of Mawson’s Bluff’s residents and his disappearance is truly a mystery. His truck abandoned at the desert’s edge, his body never found.

Back home at the Waterloo Station, Ellen Destry is filling in for Challis during his absence, a girl is kidnapped on her way home from school. She is found imprisoned in an uninhabited house. Abused by what Destry believes is a pedophile ring operating in the Peninsula. Her investigation hits roadblocks from within the police service and the only person she can trust is Hal Challis, more than 1,000 kilometers away.

Chain of Evidence is a powerful and disturbing procedural. The two major mysteries are intriguing and executed with the sure hand of an absolute professional. It is Ellen Destry’s coming out as an equal partner with Challis. The setting, both the Peninsula and Mawson’s Bluff, is rendered with a muted artistry and adds immeasurably to the novel’s power. There is nothing gory or exploitative about either storyline and Mr. Disher has a way of mixing character stereotypes to develop tension between the characters, the plot, and the reader. It may be the best book in the series. If you are new to Garry Disher, Chain of Evidence is a very good place to get acquainted.

COLD HIT by Stephen J. Cannell

Cold Hit (2005) is Stephen J. Cannell’s fifth novel featuring LAPD Detective Shane Scully and the second I’ve read. The first title I read, On the Grind (2009), was disappointing in its lack of depth, character development and over-easy plotting, but Cold Hit is a top-notch police procedural that renders a fully-realized Shane Scully. A complex plot with more than one surprise, and an alluring Southern California setting.

Shane Scully and his partner Zack Farrell are the primary detectives on a series of killings targeting homeless men. After the victims are killed with a bullet to the head, their finger-tips are removed and a symbol is carved into their chests. With the case going nowhere—no suspects, witnesses, clues, or the victims’ identities uncovered—the LAPD’s brass are threatening to remove Scully as the primary detective and form a multi-agency task force to continue the investigation.

Cold Hit is a nicely developed, finely plotted, character driven procedural. It has a sense of the believable from the police investigation to Scully’s relationships with his partner—drowning in alcohol and divorce—and his family. He is likable, something of a maverick who struggles against authority, and tough without being super human. The investigation deepens into the realm of national security and there is an interesting discussion about the post-9/11 world’s enhanced federal law enforcement powers without the story losing its appeal or momentum. Even better, it made me want to read another Shane Scully novel.

COMPOUND MURDER by Bill Crider

Compound Murder is the twentieth novel featuring Blacklin County, Texas Sheriff Dan Rhodes. The series started in 1986 with Too Late to Die, and the latest title (number 22 in the series), Between the Living and Dead, is scheduled for release in August. Blacklin County’s population is small, but the characters and crimes are anything but.

It opens with a burglary at the Beauty Shack. The thief broke the restroom window, and stole the Shack’s latest inventory items—“…hair extensions and wigs. Made from real human hair,” which have an impressive street value. Sheriff Rhodes’ report and scene investigation are interrupted by another call. A corpse is in the parking lot of the community college. When Rhodes arrives the scene is being handled by Dr. C. P. Benton; “Seepy” to everyone who knows him. Dr. Benton isn’t a deputy, but he thinks he is, and he is pretty sure the dead man was murdered—

“You’re sure it’s a crime scene?”

“That would be my professional judgment as a graduate of the Citizens’ Sheriff’s Academy.”

As it turns out Seepy is right, and Rhodes quickly identifies a handful of suspects. The victim was an English professor, and not well liked. The primary suspect is a student named Ike Terrell. Ike is a suspicious character simply by relation. His father is Able Terrell who is the leader of the county’s local survivalist group. He has a compound, guns, and rumors of more guns. The investigation is far from clear, and the plot is littered with twists.

Compound Murder is smooth, humorous, and criminal. It is a rural police procedural; mostly whodunit with a shimmer of hardboiled. The humor is secondary to the well-crafted mystery, and acts as a foil to the seriousness of the crime. It is developed in the eclectic oddball characters—the Abbot and Costello act of the police dispatcher and jailer, and Rhodes’ straight man-like reaction to it—and the dialogue, which hums with misunderstanding. The stolen hair is a hot topic, and provides a few well-placed laughs— 

“‘That’s not a head,’ Rhodes said. ‘It’s a wig stand. With hair on it. Real human hair, too, I’ll bet.’

“‘He scalped his victim?’

“Buddy’s voice trembled. Rhodes didn’t know if the cause was excitement or disgust.

“‘No,’ Rhodes said. ‘His victim was Lonnie Wallace.’

“‘It was Lonnie Wallace’s body at the college?’

“Rhodes wondered why all his conversations seemed to go this way. Maybe it was somehow his own fault.”

Mr. Crider nicely develops the setting—the decaying main streets of Blacklin County’s small towns; the heat; the country’s expanse. The places, and many of the characters, flow from novel to novel developing a strong sense of place in each, and the series a whole. There are also a few insider jokes: Joe Lansdale’s name shows up twice. Once as a karate instructor, and again as a novelist.

Purchase a copy of Compound Murder on Amazon.

BROUGHT IN DEAD by Harry Patterson (Jack Higgins)

Brought in Dead is the twentieth novel published by Harry Patterson, and the second to feature Detective Sergeant Nick Miller. It was originally released in the U. K. as a hardcover by John Long in 1967. It is a police procedural that is hijacked by what is seemingly a secondary character, at least early in the story, and twists itself into straight revenge.

Detective Sergeant Nick Miller isn’t an ordinary policeman. He is independently wealthy, thanks to his brother’s television business, drives a Mini-Cooper, and graduated from the University of London. He is also coarse, and frankly, not the most likable of Mr. Patterson’s protagonists; although he is less disagreeable here than he was in his debut novel, The Graveyard Shift.

It begins with the suicide of a young woman who drowned herself, and took extraordinary steps to conceal her identity. She carries no identification, and the identifying tags are torn from her clothing. She is also a recent addict. Her arms have several fresh needle marks, and the pathologist discovers a small amount of heroin and cocaine in her blood. She is, once Miller identifies her, the girlfriend of a local gangster and the daughter of a respected businessman.

Miller is certain it is murder—the dead woman’s boyfriend, Max Vernon, who owns a high end betting parlor and several other less savory rackets, is the primary suspect, but when a witness changes her story at the Coroner’s Court the death is officially ruled a suicide. This is where the novel shifts from a police procedural to a revenge novel. The primary character also shifts, from Nick Miller to the dead girl’s father, Duncan Craig. Craig is the managing director of a successful electronics company, and a former military man who vows to destroy Vernon.

Brought in Dead is an interesting novel. It is rightly a Nick Miller procedural, but the story belongs to Duncan Craig. Craig is the central player in the second half of the novel, and he is also the most interesting. He uses an impressive array of electronic eavesdropping equipment to identify Vernon’s business assets, and then systematically destroys each. As I read the novel I found myself wondering why the entire story wasn’t told from his perspective. It would have been better for it.

The strengths of the novel, as always with Mr. Patterson, are the strong plotting, the precise, stark prose, and the lightning quickness of the story. It features many of the same players as the original Nick Miller novel, The Graveyard Shift, including Jazz pianist and heroin addict Chuck Lazer, Detective Superintendent Bruce Grant, and Detective Constable Jack Brady. It isn’t in the top tier of Harry Patterson’s work, but it is an entertaining and satisfying novel.

I also learned a nice piece of slang—“snout” was used by the police to describe an informer. Now if I could find a use for it in my everyday parlance.

THE DRAGON MAN by Garry Disher

The Peninsula is “a comma of land hooking into the sea southeast of Melbourne” in Victoria, Australia. It is a tourist destination known for its beaches, wineries, and coastal towns. It is sparsely populated, beautiful, and, recently, the stalking ground for a sex killer. One woman was found dead on the Old Peninsula Highway—a lonely road treading the western coast of the peninsula, cutting south and west—and another has disappeared.

Inspector Hal Challis, the regional homicide specialist, is assigned the investigation. The search is headquartered in the fictional city of Waterloo. A city with a small police force, and an even smaller CIB—Criminal Investigation Branch—squad. The killer is careful and clean. The only significant lead is the track of a rare brand of tire near the dumping site of a victim—

“There was no semen. The killer used a condom. There were no fingerprints. The killer used gloves. What he’d left on his victims were absences, including the absence of life.”

The Dragon Man is a beautifully written police procedural. The main plot is supplemented with crisscrossing subplots. An overzealous constable. A series of house burglaries. A frightened woman trading sex for drugs. And Hal Challis. An almost broken, flawed man. A man who is married to a woman who, along with her lover, attempted to kill him. A man who is underestimated by most, and a man who is likable, and, at times, real.

“He drove on. Christmas Day. With any luck, someone would find a body and free him from Christmas Day.”

The setting is rendered with care, and the small details—a bucket in the shower to catch the water for additional use in the garden, dry draught-like conditions of mid-summer heat, herons feasting on mosquitoes—create a real world believable place. A place that is familiar and exotic. Mr Disher also plays with morality. The police often behave more consistently with the criminals they chase. One steals evidence from the police locker. Another attempts to blackmail a woman for sex during a traffic stop.

The Dragon Man is the real deal. It is the first novel (of six, so far) featuring Hal Challis. It is something of a cross between literature and police procedural. It is rich on detail, economical, meaningful, and a wonderfully entertaining novel.