There Was A Little Girl by Ed McBain

Matthew Hope is an attorney from Chicago now living in Florida.  Late one night he visits a bar to meet someone; when he walks out the front door of the bar to see if the person's he's waiting to meet is coming, he's shot, twice.

The shooting deprives Hope's brain of oxygen for several minutes, and after surgery he ramains unresponsive.  His private investigator, a man named Warren Chambers, and his partner, Toots Riley, immediately start an investigation to find out who shot Hope, working in tandem with a police detective who's a friend of Hope's.  Their goal is to retrace Hope's steps in the days leading up to the shooting, believing that they will find a motive for the shooting, and that a motive will lead them to the shooter.

Hope had recently had a tough criminal case and had chosen to focus on civil law for a while.  He'd been  working on a real estate deal.  A circus owner who regularly winters in Florida, had recognized that much of his profit is from his midway operation, and had decided that he'd like to buy a large parcel of land in town to use to set up the circus over the winter.

But there's a hitch:  the owner of the parcel is nearly bankrupt and his property is heavily mortgaged. His creditor is expected to litigate the debt, and this would delay or prevent sale of the property to Hope's client.

Meanwhile, Hope investigates the freedom the circus owner may or may not have to make the deal, and meets a remarkable woman.  She is a striking young woman with red hair who, though only about 22, has a thriving business as a wigmaker.  Having inherited her mother's half share of the business when her mother died three years earlier, she is now half owner of the circus.  When Hope talks to her, she insists that her mother's suicide was a murder.

It seems to me that the novel has three parts, each with a different mood that gradually turns darker.  I was sincerely surprised by the turn of the plot in the last third of the novel.

The young woman who owns half the circus, her mother and father, and her friends from her time in the circus (which includes the couple who own the parcel the circus owner wishes to acquire) are a colorful cast of characters.

This novel was published in 1994.  Ed McBain was a pen name of the author Evan Hunter, a prolific novelist who died in 2005.

I don't know why I picked up this novel which I've owned for about a year.  It's coincidence that it's also set in Florida.

Cuba Straits by Randy Wayne White

In Cuba Straits, Doc Ford gets involved with the desperate business of an old acquaintance, General Rivera.  Cuba is not exactly wide open, but Rivera has been making money smuggling ballplayers and cultural artifacts from Cuba into the U.S.  Both activities are illegal, but in baseball-mad Cuba going to the "show" on the mainland is a highly regarded activity.  The theft of cultural and historical artifacts, perhaps not so much.

Ford's old friend, Tomlinson, naturally gets involved and ends up as a baby sitter for a very colorful Cuban baseball player.

Ford knows that Rivera has left out a lot in his account of the trouble that he's in, and he strongly suspects he should not get involved.  After Tomlison sets sails for Cuba, Ford feels he's obligated to go but he decides to turn back -- until he rescues two girls, 11 and 13, from a horrible shipwreck

It's not enough for Ford to save the girls from their piece of raft and the sharks that would like to feast on them; after he hears their story and perceives that they are in danger he feels responsible for their welfare and this development drives the rest of the plot.

Once Ford arrives in Cuba, the action  intensifies in pace and interest.  This was the point at which I became hooked and couldn't wait to find out what would happen next.  It's approximately at this point that a serial killer is introduced and this serial killer reminds me a little of the serial killer in True Detective.  I believe it's a sin to waste a really good idea; you should use it over and over because if it's been good once it will be again at least one more time (and maybe more).

This book has a wonderful cover.  And this author has written a lot of books in this series, featuring marine biologist and ex-CIA guy Marion "Doc" Ford.  I believe this is the 22nd book.  (White has recently started a second series featuring Hannah Smith, expert fishing guide and amateur detective, and I'm happy to report that she makes an appearance here.)

I read a review in which the reviewer seemed to see this book as speculative fiction, a vision (or a version?) of what will happen in Cuba in the near future.  Cuba is close enough to us that I think it is of natural interest to many.  The closeness of Cuba to Key West means that Cuba's history is part of Key West's history, as well.  When I saw the Buena Vista Social Club in the theater, the audience loved it so much that they applauded at the end.

Photographs of Cuba I've seen have shown beautiful colonial architecture and wonderful cars from the 1950's with their sensual and organic shapes.

Cuba is alluring.

For all these reasons I decided to take a chance on this novel.

I've noticed that some readers are reluctant to take a chance on jumping into a series well past the beginning.  They suspect, I think, that they will have missed something important (or, perhaps, they enjoy the serial, the repeated visits with known characters).

I was prepared to have that experience, but I think White handled it well.  (Although as I write this, I find myself wondering:  if White had not told us anything about Ford relationship with his old buddy and dear friend Tomlinson, would we not have been able to infer long history and great loyalty? Perhaps - and it might have been more interesting.  I can't help noticing, however, that some readers like to have all the loose ends wrapped up and to have everything explained.)  As the novel progresses, Tomlinson and Ford act in tandem even though they are in different places and are not communicating - not only do they have a deep loyalty to each other but almost a sixth sense about the other.

What does this book have?  Boats!  Two, and one of them is called No Mas, which I think is a good name.   (No explosions, however, but I am not disappointed.)  Also, guns.  If you like guns, there are at least three here .. no, four, if you count the beretta.  Lots of cool technology on Ford's boat, like an anti-radar cover.  How cool is that?

There's a scene where Tomlinson (if I remember correctly) meets a man in a bar who feels him out and then shows him photographs of Castro taken by his father back in the fifties and sixties.  Sometime recently I saw a news report about Cuba in which I thought the reporter said that Cubans remember the fifties and sixties vividly, and that certainly is conveyed in this scene.

Doc Ford is a marine biologist and so there's quite a bit about turtles.  There's quite a lot about Florida, which was mostly lost on me as I'm not a Florida person.  But I love Carl Hiassen, and he, White and Ed McBain share a love of Florida's flora, fauna and geography which I'm sure  readers enjoy and which I respect.

For me, the pace and narrative of the book really picked up after Doc and Tomlinson arrive in Cuba.

I've just heard that the U.S. and Cuba are going to establish a ferry which will permit you to take your car to Cuba.  Where does the line form?  Do they take dogs, too?

After I'm Gone by Laura Lippman

Felix Brewer is a successful bookmaker until he's convicted by the Feds.  Unable to face imprisonment, he leaves his wife, three daughters and a mistress behind.

When his girlfriend, Julie Saxony, disappears ten years later, it's widely assumed that  she's left town to join him.

When her decomposed body is found in a local park, it's obvious that she hasn't left to join her lover. The police work the case, but are unable to close it.

A retired detective, bereft by the loss of his wife to cancer, goes to work as an independent contractor for Baltimore's police department, working cold cases.  He chooses his own hours and chooses his own cases.

One day he opens the Julie Saxony file, and the picture he sees there, of a beautiful blonde woman with breatakingly beautiful blue eyes, makes him choose her for his next cold case investigation.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was certainly suspenseful - it's a murder mystery, after all - but what was really interesting about this novel was Lippman's exploration of the lives, burdens and conflicts of the wife, daughters and mistress left behind.

Her characters are well delineated and they behave in unpredictable ways that seem fresh and original,

This is the rare suspense novel with fully developed characters struggling with real lives.  This is not a Tess Monaghan novel, but she makes an appearance at the end of the story.

I talked to a friend of mine about whether or not this novel was enjoyed by her mystery book group. She said the folks in her mystery book group liked the novel well enough, but that they thought it was not a mystery.  I said,  "How can they say that?  There's a body and there's a detective."  She said, "Well, they said that what the novel was really about was the lives of the women left behind." That's true:  that is what this novel is really about.  It is a very suspenseful novel, however, and I think many mystery readers will still enjoy it,

The Miniaturist by Jessie Burton

Petronella Oortman's father has died, leaving their family broke.  Her mother thinks that marrying Petronella to a rich man will save Petronella from poverty and assure her future.  She writes to all of her contacts, and a man from Amsterdam responds.

He comes to visit Petronella in her small town, and she plays the lute for him.  They marry, he departs, and she leaves some time later to join him in Amsterdam.

She's surprised and disappointed that he's not there to meet her.  She meets instead his sister and his two servants.  She feels unwelcome.

He finally returns home, but he seems never to have any time for her.  He surprises her one day with a very large cabinet, a miniature replica of his house on the Golden Bend in Amsterdam.

She's disappointed by the gift but she eventually resolves to furnish it by writing to a miniaturist advertised in Smit's List, the local list of merchants.  Soon, the miniaturist begins to send her miniatures she has not requested, and she is mystified and fearful about what they may mean.

At the same time, tensions between her husband and his sister seem to rise, and they also make her feel uneasy.

This book has a number of surprises and a supernatural element.  Because it's set in 17th century Amsterdam, I expected "Girl with a Pearl Earring," and that is not this book.

On the back of my copy of The Miniaturist, there is a blurb from the UK newspaper Observer review: "A fabulously gripping read that will appeal to fans of Girl with a Pearl Earring and The Goldfinch, but Burton is a genuinely new voice with her visceral take on sex, race and class."  Sex, race and class are central to this novel.  It won't surprise you, I'm sure, that I didn't expect that focus on sex, race and class in a novel set in the 17th century.  While that focus reflects the concerns of our own time, I found myself feeling that the novel's voice was authentic rather than a vehicle for exploring the issues of our time.

I found Jessie Burton's writing style surprising:  she regularly used words with which I was not familiar and her prose was often more poetic than concrete.  This did not affect (I don't think, anyway) my ability to understand the story (and there was a lot of plot in this book).

It appears to me that she did a great deal of research; I know little of 17th century Dutch society, or how it may have differed from city to country, etc.  I was under the impression that Vermeer and his family were hidden Catholics and that their Catholicism was an open secret that was tolerated by their neighbors.

I mention this because the neighbors in this novel are not tolerant, and I was surprised.

This novel's conflict is between the private and the public sphere.  At the beginning of the novel, I thought, "This is Rebecca," the novel by Daphne du Maurier.  But, by the end of the novel, I felt that the plot was very different from that novel and that a great deal of focus was on private actions and private values being in conflict with the larger world.

Above all, it was a very suspenseful novel.  I have the feeling that a lot of people will enjoy the suspense, and some people will feel that not all questions have been tidily answered by the end of the novel.