Stranger in paradise /

Denise Mina's bold, brave crime novels make up for all the indignities women suffer in genre fiction - especially the notion that a female protagonist is better off being likable than being real. Mina smashed that false article of faith with her dead-grim Garnethill trilogy, featuring a hard-bitten heroine who fights the social conditions that lead to the abuse of women, children and the elderly in a Glasgow slum. "Field of Blood" began a second series, not nearly as gritty but just as truthful, about Patricia Meehan, known as Paddy, a Glasgow newspaper "copyboy" ("so inconsequential she could have hanged herself at her desk without exciting comment") who develops into a first-rate crime reporter by investigating a series of child murders in her working-class neighborhood. By the time SLIP OF THE KNIFE (Little, Brown, $24.99) opens, in 1990, Paddy, now a newspaper columnist, is something of a local celebrity: "She had stumbled on a talent for articulating nationwide annoyances." But Paddy is still an investigative journalist at heart, and when someone murders Terry Hewitt, her first love, she's all over the case. That takes some courage, given the police theory that the killing was an I.R.A. hit and Paddy's own suspicion that Terry and a photographer who becomes the next victim were murdered because of the book they were working on. Paddy's potty mouth and irreverent attitude are good defenses in the rough-and-tumble world of cutthroat journalism. (One of the book's lowdown pleasures is watching a pack of story-hunting jackals terrorize a killer after his release from prison.) But despite her tough exterior, Paddy can't hide the essential decency she brings to a dirty job. Mina's realistic style gives her urban settings a smudged beauty as distinctive as the roaring wit of Glasgow's colorful citizens. Close characterization is another forte, and sizing people up at a glance is a specialty. "He was a small, bald man and as such didn't like to be seen doing small, bald things" pretty much takes care of a petty-minded editor. To grasp the sense of dislocation felt by a man fresh out of prison, all you need to know is that "the last time he was in a car his feet hardly touched the floor." And Mina's scenes of violence, rough enough by genre standards, feel more intense because she relates them from the victim's point of view. That's real guts for you. OBEDIENCE (Shaye Areheart/Crown, $24), a first novel by Will Lavender, is so slithery it ends up eating its own tail - which is not a bad thing for an academic mystery posing a puzzle so tricky that even the main characters wonder if the whole thing is a hoax. Don't expect any easy plot summary here, but it should help to know that the college students running around rural Indiana, trying to rescue a kidnapped girl in the six-week grace period before she's due to die, have been assigned their task in Logic and Reasoning 204. The creepy Professor Williams strongly hints that "Polly" is a real person and that her fate is indeed in their hands, but you can't help wondering why the college campus boasts a statue of Stanley Milgram, the behavioral psychologist who conducted infamous experiments in blind obedience when he taught at Yale in the 1960s. Authentic puzzle mysteries are an endangered species in these hectic times, so it's a genuine, if slightly perverse, kick to follow every byzantine clue in this bizarre game. Yes, the characterizations are thin, and yes, there are times when you want to yell, "Hey, kids - if X is so, and Y is also so, then. ..." But the author always jumps in to cast doubt on some initial premise in the mental equation. If you solve this one without peeking at the last chapter, it's an automatic A. We're so accustomed to finding Victorian-era mysteries set in gaslight London (or, if we're lucky, gloomier Edinburgh) that the initial surprise of THE ANATOMY OF DECEPTION (Delacorte, $24), a first novel by Lawrence Goldstone, is its Philadelphia locale. Although members of high society figure in the plot, this is no refined mystery of manners. Rather, it's a grimly faithful account of the state of medical research in the late 1800s. As seen through the eyes of a young doctor studying under William Osier, a real-life pioneer in modern medicine, the anatomy room of the Blockley Dead House is the most exciting place in the city - until a more sophisticated student introduces him to the delights and dangers on the shady side of town. Vivid period setting and amazing medical detail duly noted, if Goldstone's hero were any more naïve he'd be institutionalized. Robert B. Parker's crime novels about Jesse Stone, the chief of police in Paradise, Mass., never really hit their stride until Crow came to town. A hired killer whose real name is Wilson Cromartie and whose Apache ancestry seems dubious, Crow returns in STRANGER IN PARADISE (Putnam's, $25.95), a story about the usual small-town troubles that's involving without being exciting. But who cares, as long as it teams up two action heroes who were born to fight on the same side. Crow is Hawk, the enforcer in Parker's better-known Spenser series, before he was housebroken - which allows Jesse to be Spenser, before he got old. Jesse and Crow take target practice together ("We're good. ... "We are") and discuss their careers ("No point being a warrior if you can't find a war"). But mainly they talk the guy talk that is music to our ears. Denise Mina's novel features a journalist with 'a talent for articulating nationwide annoyances.'

Jesse Stone, one of Parker's three series heroes, is no Spenserian knight errant he's an unhappy, conflicted cop with a drinking problem and a problematic relationship with his ex-wife. Like Spenser, however, Stone is absolutely undeterrable in his investigations. He also speaks in Spenser's clipped, cynical sentences, but what comes across as edgy in Spenser seems borrowed and faux hard-boiled in Stone. In the seventh entry in the series, Stone, the police chief of Paradise, Massachusetts, reencounters the criminal responsible for a crime spree in the city 10 years previously. Wilson Crow Cromartie, a professional hit man involved in a plot to take over the wealthy part of Paradise through an elaborate bridge-commandeering, kidnapping, and hostage-taking scheme that left two cops dead, shows up unannounced in Stone's office. He wants Stone to stay out of his way while he finds a young woman, involved with a Latin gang, and returns her to her father. Stone, for his part, follows Cromartie through Paradise, looking for a way to dodge the statute of limitations and put his adversary away. The plot ricochets through a classic double standoff, held together by the fate of the young woman Cromartie seeks. Not Parker's best work, but all of his series have devoted fans, who will be eager, as always, to get their hands around anything new.--Fletcher, Connie Copyright 2007 Booklist

Jesse Stone trades quips with his deputies, Suitcase Simpson and Molly Crane; struggles with his relationship with his ex-wife, Jenn; and grapples with a criminal's return in bestseller Parker's sizzling seventh novel to feature the Paradise, Mass., police chief (after 2007's High Profile). Ex-con Wilson "Crow" Cromartie, who claims to be Apache and who eluded the police after a shootout 10 years earlier in Trouble in Paradise (1998), wants Stone not to interfere in his search for someone in Massachusetts. A Florida mob bigwig, Louis Francisco, has hired Crow to kill his ex-wife and kidnap his 14-year-old daughter, Amber, but Crow has a policy of not harming women. In the end, Stone does more than leave Crow alone; he decides to make sure Amber, who's involved with a Latino gang, gets a chance, however slim, to overcome the odds stacked against her. Stone and Crow make an appealing odd couple as they first warily size each other up then become grudging allies in the pursuit of justice. (Feb.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

When Amber Francisco, the 14-year-old old daughter of a Florida racketeer, becomes involved with a Paradise Island gang banger, her father sends an enforcer to Massachusetts to bring her home. But after Wilson "Crow" Crowmartie-a dangerous Apache Indian hit man in the mold of another Parker character, Spenser's cohort, Hawk-is asked to kill the girl's mother, he turns to his old nemesis, police chief Jesse Stone (Sea Change), to intervene. At the same time, Jesse's ex-wife, Jenn, investigates the gang problem for her TV station and in doing so exposes herself to danger. As in his Spenser novels, Parker allows his characters to dish out justice in their own way while just staying within the law. Blending descriptive detail with sparse dialog, Parker has not lost his touch. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/07.] (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Parker's second-string hero, police chief Jesse Stone (High Profile, 2007, etc.), moves deeper into Spenser territory, for better or worse, when he tangos with an adversary-turned-ally who's as tough and laconic as he is. Ten years ago, a violent, determined gang of crooks cut off Stiles Island from the rest of Paradise, Mass., took the residents hostage, killed some of them and robbed the rest. Now, as if he's been waiting for the statute of limitations to expire, Wilson Cromartie, last seen speeding off with millions of dollars, has returned to the scene of the crime. He hasn't come to gloat, he assures Jesse in a courtesy call, but to find someone. Not that it matters, because none of Crow's earlier victims, Jesse quickly ascertains, is willing to testify against him on the chance of linking him to a capital crime. Instead, Jesse plans to keep an eye on Crow, who claims to be an Apache warrior, and see what happens. What happens is that the former hit man rapidly tracks down Amber Francisco, 14, at the request of her father, a moneyed South Florida racketeer. Though the girl, a potty-mouthed Lolita whose sex partners include gangbanger Esteban Carty and his comrades in the Horn Street Boys, is no prize, Louis Francisco wants her back and her mother dead. But Apache warriors have their standards, and Crow, who's already shot one of the Horn Street contingent, refuses to kill any women; as subsequent events demonstrate, he'd much rather sleep with them. So Francisco gets on the phone and hires the surviving Horn Street Boys to kill mom and return his daughter, and Crow quixotically decides to join forces with Jesse to protect Amber. Parker at his worst. As the body count rises among competing factions, Jesse and Crow take turns exchanging Zenlike aphorisms to cover their lack of motivation for behaving like a pair of loose cannons. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.