WHODUNIT: JACK BATTEN
The Fleur de Sel Murders By Jean-Luc Bannalec Minotaur, 320 pages, $34.99
Jean-Luc Bannalec is the pseudonym for a German author named Jorg Bong who writes police procedurals about Parisian Commissaire Georges Dupin.
The Commissaire is given to recurring bouts of grumpiness, but he comes across as a likable sleuth of the old school, stubborn about sticking to a clue, perpetually running on caffeine, preferring solo excursions over the collegial system.
Dupin’s latest case takes him out of Paris and into Brittany’s vast marshes and the rich commerce in their salt product.
It seems that an investigative newspaper reporter has been nosing around the intricate and probably crooked business done in the marshes and turns up murdered for her troubles.
Is her death related to the marshes or maybe to a romantic relationship gone bad?
Dupin is the man on the authentically baffling case, and he’s an entirely welcome presence in his lone-wolf and highly caffeinated style.
The Dark Side of Town By Sasscer Hill Minotaur, 320 pages, $34.99
Fia McKee, the central character in Sasscer Hill’s new book, is presented as a hot walker for a stable of racehorses during a meet at the Saratoga Racetrack in Upper New York state.
But the job is actually a cover for McKee’s role as an investigator for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau while she looks into the stable’s trainer whom she suspects of fixing races.
This guy is even sleazier than McKee imagines, and the nifty plot includes a murder at the track and other surprising narrative twists.
Satisfying as all of this turns out to be, even better is the sense of fidelity that Sasscer Hill brings to the business of racing horses.
Before Hill turned to writing crime novels, she bred, trained and rode horses, and she’s impressive in sharing with readers the magic she finds in the whole thoroughbred scene.
In Prior’s Wood
By G.M. Malliet Minotaur, 304 pages, $33.99 A Perfect Shot
By Robin Yocum Seventh Street, 336 pages, $16.95
“A Perfect Shot” tells the story of the good guy of the piece taking delicious revenge on the hugely bad guys who did him wrong.
To make things even more satisfying, the getting even is mostly done without violence, though a vicious Rottweiler named the Great Zeus is hit with what he’s been asking for.
The setting is the ugly part of the Ohio Valley where steel mills are the sole source of jobs.
When the story’s good guy, a cool fellow named Duke who was once his town’s high school basketball star, sets out to escape the mills by opening a classy restaurant, the local mafia, an outrageously bloodthirsty bunch, move in to take away most of what Duke has created.
That’s when the clever and intricate piece of revenge comes into play in a fashion that’s entertaining, justified and not especially bloody.