Turn on the Heat by A.A. Fair

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Published in 1940, Turn on the Heat is the second Bertha Cool & Donald Lam PI mystery by Erle Stanley Gardner writing as A.A. Fair. An untrustworthy client hires them to find a woman who disappeared around 20 years before. Another investigator who was poking around the case then gets murdered. Cool and Lam must find the missing woman, but throw sand into the eyes of the police to keep them from getting close to their client. The title, therefore, refers to law-school grad Lam creating confusion and distraction.

The plus is that the story gets tangled plenty fast as Cool and Lam scramble to avoid jail and charges as accomplices after the fact. Lam tries to protect Cool by keeping her out of the loop, but as usual she blunders into the thick of things anyway. Another positive is that in the Cool and Lam novels, more than the Perry Mason novels, Gardner examines the rough side of local politics: seedy cops, crooked politicians, co-opted news reporters, mean gangsters, and cowed citizens. As in the Mason novels, the killing takes second to the complex criminal scheme that goes bad and leads up to the killing.

The negative is that being elaborate, plot and incident may be hard to follow and at least some of the time make extreme demands on intelligence and memory. Another qualm I had – this time it wasn’t enough telling myself to make allowances for 1940s attitudes – was related to the tone when Gardner described female characters. The running joke in the series is that the females fall for Lam due to his gentlemanly ways and willingness to listen without handing out advice. But in this one the young woman swoons for Lam, unbelievably. Bertha Cool’s dependence on Lam to see them through to the end wasn’t consistent with her confidence, assertiveness, and toughness. The chuckling references to her pounds didn’t do much for me.

Still, I think the Cool and Lam novels are funnier, grittier, and sexier than the Perry Mason novels. Well-worth reading. I found 10 Cool and Lam mysteries in a used book store this past summer. It was the find of the year so far.

Cugel’s Saga by Jack Vance

Review byBowden P. (Trey)

Since Cugel’s Saga is almost 30 years old, I think I can be fairly liberal with spoilers. The book literally picks right up where Eyes of the Overworld left off – with Cugel on the very beach he started his quest with, though without Firx to encourage him. Instead of repeating his path in Eyes of the Overworld Cugel takes a different route (mainly because people’s memories are long). This odyssey takes him into the employ of a wizard digging for the scales of Sadlark a creature of the Overworld, and provides a Macguffin that is very useful throughout Cugel’s journey.

From digging in a swamp for scales, to a duel of wits with Bunderwal for a position in a merchant house, to a job as worminger (or worm wrangler) on a ship for that merchant house, to mutineer and caravaner, Cugel makes his way back to Almery. Of course, Cugel being Cugel, his desire for wealth, food, comfort and feminine companionship at low prices to free frequently lead him into trouble. Trouble for him, amusement for us.

After reading this and sitting on it for a few days I think I figured out what I like about the book and Cugel – they have some Shakespearean traits. From the dialogue to Cugel seeming an unlikely bastard of Falstaff and Trinculo (the clown from The Tempest). He also begins to become a bit heroic – perhaps in the same style Flashman is heroic with an eye on the larger prize.

It also makes a nice change of pace from Eyes of the Overworld, in that Cugel actually benefits and profits some from his schemes. Some profit, but its nowhere near his targets, still enough to keep him moving along (usually in front of an angry mob) and from abject poverty. He also seems to do his best when he is honest and polite, particularly in his dealings with Facumeil, Phampoun and Iuconnu. He even begins to take on some traits of Odysseus as well in these encounters. Because of this it also reminds me of some of the older fairy tales where the hero does best by being polite, honest and personable. Cugel can do this, and like other fairy tales, he manages to out clever himself periodically.

Anyway, it’s a good book, worth at least 3½ stars. I’d love to see a stage or film adaptation of this, with Harry Anderson in his prime declaiming for all he’s worth.

Likes:

• Cugel. Like Falstaff, we can laugh at him and with him. And Trinculo, he gets above himself, but keeps things from becoming too grim.
• Imagery.
• Characters that were a match for Cugel.

Dislikes:

• The ending. It felt abrupt, but there was room for a sequel.

Suggested for: Jack Vance fans and fantasy fans.

Seduction by Brenda Joyce

Review by Jerelyn H. (I-F-Letty)

I had read all of Brenda Joyce’s mysteries and loved them, and was happy to get a chance to read one of her historical novels.  Ms Joyce truly is a journeyman writer of romantic fiction in its many genres.  I was immediately captured by the characters, Charles/Dominic and Julianne and their families.  This is my first 5 star of the year I started it after dinner and finished it by breakfast, which is always a good sign.

Seduction takes you on quite a ride.  Set during in the summer of 1793, you meet the Greystoke family of Cornwall in particular Julianne the youngest sister.  Intelligent and well read, a devotee of Thomas Paine’s The Rights of Man, she is one of those in England caught up in the romance of the French Revolution.  Enamored with the humanitarian values the Revolutionaries espoused.  She is helped along in these beliefs by her radical leaning friend and hopeful suitor, Tom with whom she has started a correspondence society with revolutionaries in Paris.  While innocent in their inception these societies were dangerous clearing houses for information and a useful tool for spies.

When her brothers suddenly appear with a horribly wounded man, who they say they think is a smuggler, and wish for her to tend until they can get back.  Julianne is left in the dark as to his real identity, and left to make her own conclusions.  While in a raving fever Charles/Dominic speaks only in French and cries out a revolutionary slogan, and relives much of the horror he has seen, all this leads Julianne to think his is a wounded soldier of the revolution and that if her family finds out whom he really is they will turn him into the local authorities.  So begins a very interesting and page turning story that I found to be very well researched and true to the time period.

There is a group of writers that write a more historically accurate romance which borders on historical fiction, Ms. Joyce explains this in the afterward.  For me I like my historical romances to be well researched when speaking of actual events, getting the facts straight as she delves a little deeper into the politics of the time and the mindset of the characters in this book.  When dealing with spies and especially people who have lost everything and forced to run for their lives, nothing is black and white, Ms. Joyce deals with this beautifully and it was never boring, the love story was understandably complicated,  but there was no doubt that whatever happened it was meant to be.

I am glad to recommend this book and I thank the publishers and the folks at Net Galley where I obtained my copy. Seduction will be released February 2012.