Florentine Finish by Cornelius Hirschberg

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

Mystery writers who have used their own personal or professional experience include Erle Stanley Gardner (lawyering), P.D. James (health care administration), Sarah Paretsky (insurance) and writing as “Emma Lathen,” Mary Jane Latsis (banking and law) and Martha Henissart (economics and finance).

Three years after publishing his autobiography, The Priceless Gift, Cornelius Hirschberg put his experience as a jewelry salesman to work in a crime novel, Florentine Finish. It is a fast-paced adventure of murder in the black market jewelry business. The story is about Saul Handy, an ex-police officer who sells jewelry. As the result of a private deal, he finds himself in the midst of three murders connected to the jewelry black market. He is being framed for the murders, so he decides to solve them himself.

The violence in Florentine Finish is contrived at times, according to Elmer Pry of Twentieth-Century Crime and Mystery Writers. For example, Handy has a bloody body hanging out of his back seat as he drives for blocks. Finally, a police officer stops him and asks, “Who’s your friend?” Overall, though, Pry was impressed with this novel. He wrote, “[Hirschberg’s] use of the commercial setting is as intriguing, as informed and informing, and as central to his story as Wall Street’s banking milieu is to any of Emma Lathen’s Judge Thatcher stories, although Hirschberg’s style is closer to the hard-boiled mode, with its colloquial language, violence, and isolated and cynical, but finally somehow sentimental, hero.”

This mystery won the Edgar Award for Best First Novel in 1964. Hirschberg never wrote another book.

Still Alice by Lisa Genova

Review by Mirah Welday (mwelday)

My book club recently read Still Alice by Lisa Genova and our discussion was a sobering and thought-provoking one.  Some of us found ourselves thinking about friends and family members who had been stricken with Alzheimer’s.  Some of us found ourselves over-analyzing every moment we were forgetful in recent weeks, especially while reading the book.  Some of us began wondering if we should consider early screening for the genetic markers for Alzheimer’s.  Genova’s book pushed us all to reexamine our lives and the lives of those we know.

Alice Howland is a psychology professor at Harvard University with an illustrious career giving lectures, writing textbooks and mentoring students. She is world-renowned researcher and educator of linguistics. When Alice finds herself feeling disoriented in familiar places and forgetting simple facts and appointments, she thinks it’s a side effect of menopause.  After testing, Alice is diagnosed with early onset Alzheimer’s disease and eventually her grasp of her memories becomes harder and harder to hold on to. The changing dynamics of her relationships with her three children and husband create tension and heartache for everyone.

The novel is told from Alice’s perspective and this allows the reader to really experience Alice’s confusion and frustration while coping with Alzheimer’s.  Many of us know what it is like to communicate with and love someone battling Alzheimer’s but I think Alice provides us a window into the mind of someone diagnosed with the disease.  I believe Genova intelligently delivers Alice’s struggle with respect and sensitivity without shirking away from the reality.

Murder Makes the Wheels Go ‘Round by Emma Lathen

Review by Matt B. (BuffaloSavage)

In the glory days before the oil shock of 1973 – 1966, to be exact – Michigan Motors aims to turn the Big Three into the Big Four. Trouble is that first it must mend its reputation which was sullied by three of their top executives going to prison.

The trio that was convicted of price-fixing has just been released from the joint. Rumor has them either welcomed back or shunned by the company. Our series hero, investment banker John Thatcher, is also worried about the future of the company. He’s been sent to the Motor City by his employer, Sloan Guaranty Trust, to investigate the prospects of the company, if any.

One of the ex-cons, the talented and forceful Ray Jensen, is found shot and stuffed into the back seat of a limousine. Suspects abound. Wahl took Jensen’s place and has no plans for demotion. Krebbel, the new president, wants to minimize messes and move on. Jensen’s wife and her lover, another company exec, have an obvious motive. Jensen’s jail bird buddies and their wives fret about being abused again.

The novel has a couple of problems. It’s more a novel of manners than mystery since there are no clues. Granted, it is like a golden age mystery in that the reveal strains credulity. Picking nits, I have to say that I’m from near Motown. I was disappointed in the authors when they created the Grand Island Tollway in Detroit when actually the Grand Island North and South Toll Bridges are in Western New York. Also, there is no Elwood Street and Sebago Road intersection in Detroit since the former street is in a northern suburb and the latter road does not exist in that metro area. Disappointing since even before Google, accurate and complete paper maps existed for writers and editors to consult.

Her sarcastic digs at car guys typify New York City snooty attitudes about Detroit, even in its heyday. The PR field and its practitioners are energetically mocked. In this outing, her dry, witty dialogue reveals character and moves the plot. The prose style is stylish, like a Talk of the Town piece in the New Yorker. I think the characterization of the hero works best. Thatcher is an updated version of the gentleman detective. He is intelligent and talented but doesn’t make a big of show of it. He does get off sharp nifties when the situation calls for it. He genially carries on even when Lathen puts him in zany situations.

Emma Lathen was in fact two women. Mary Jane Latsis was an economist and Martha Henissart an economic analyst. So when they are talking about business conditions from the late Sixties to the early Nineties, they know what they are talking about. They wrote under a pen-name in order to protect professional associations, mostly captains of industry with fragile egos.