WHODUNIT: JACK BATTEN
THE GOLDEN EGG By Donna Leon Atlantic Monthly Press, 284 pages, $28.50
Commissario Guido Brunetti of the Venice Police appreciates as much as the next cop the value of information he picks up on his computer or, more likely, information that the ever efficient office secretary, Signorina Electra, picks up for him. But Brunetti has his reservations. Computer knowledge, he thinks, is “without nuance.” By itself, it lacks the “unveiled skepticism” that his junior detective Vianello brings to his verbal reports, and taken alone, it has none of Signorina Electra’s “in-person analyses” to set things straight.
Not coincidentally, the investigation in the case Brunetti is dealing with in the latest Donna Leon novel depends at every stage on the kind of personal information that reaches beyond the grasp of computers. The case is both odd and heart-breaking, focusing on a silent, 40ish man who hangs around the dry cleaning shop Brunetti patronizes. This fellow seems to be a deaf mute with intellectual development problems, and when his body is found, the poor guy apparently having choked to death on sleeping pills, the mystery of his identity seems impenetrable.
In Italy, a country where each citizen’s personal history is revealed in bureaucratic paper work from birth to death, there is not a single trace of the deaf man’s existence. His life seems to have unfolded in a world without communication, and what follows in this compelling little novel is a series of interviews that ever so slowly lay out the dead man’s pitiful history and the chilling explanation of his death. It’s here that Brunetti finds the story’s heartbreak. And so do the readers.
FARTHING By Jo Walton Tor, 316 pages, $16.99
A rewrite of history, Walton’s novel supposes that dominant right-wingers in the British government made a deal with Hitler in 1941. Hitler got the continent, Britain took over France’s colonies, and nobody went to war. Eight years later, as the mystery story begins against this background, someone murders the upper-crust English twit behind the Hitler arrangement. The suspects are legion, the political implications become frightening, and the man from Scotland Yard seems just smart enough to solve the murder but just secretive enough to somehow upset the sleuthing applecart.
SHOOT THE MONEY By Chris Wiltz Premier Digital, 270 pages
Karen and Earline are a couple of goodlooking young women figuring to make a buck in the post-Katrina New Orleans restaurant business. Karen’s been around the block a few times, Earline’s fresh in from Louisiana hick country. But both are resourceful at handling the bad guys who are inevitably headed their way. Wiltz delivers fresh-sounding dialogue, and she powerfully evokes the feel of New Orleans on the rebound. One warning: the book’s inadequate editing eliminates section breaks and generally turns the narrative into an often confusing run-on mess.
SNOW WHITE MUST DIE By Nele Neuhaus Minotaur Books, 374 pages, $28.99
This is a thriller that keeps on giving. Set in a suburban village near Frankfort, the action begins when a local man returns to the village after serving 10 years for murdering two of its teenage girls (sentences are apparently light in Germany). His release heats up violent passions that have been cooking over a low flame for a decade. There’s hardly a decent person in the village, and it takes Neuhaus, a careful writer, a long while to sort out the major villains from the merely minor offenders.