023. Reasonable Doubts (2006).

Reasonable Doubts by Gianrico Carofiglio (2006).

        

A legal mystery with maybe 20% of thriller.

The rest is filled with life, love and Philosophy.

I know it sounds strange, but it works out so well, I must tell you this:

This is a wonderful book.

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layers. – Guido Guerrieri.   The main man. One of the top, if not the top, defense lawyer who defends everyone except pedophile. When he believes in something, he doesn’t give it up and never afraid of going after it.

He is over 40 now and he feels it obviously (especially after his break-up with his wife).  So these days, he is just trying to keep it up with his age, you know, things like starting bicycling to courts-room and eating healthy food, etc..

He is possibly the only defense lawyer in Italy and probably in the world, who reads/loves poetry and secretly dreaming up becoming a writer one day.

This book is quite different from any books I’ve ever read which feature lawyer as a main guy. In this book, practicing laws is not in the center stage of the storyline. It’s the life of Guido, that’s most interesting, therefore, most important.

Guido is apparently going through some kind of mid-life crisis. First, his wife just left him and now he is not even sure if he has a right job for the rest of his life. And this leads to a lot of contemplating and self discovery.

Carmelo Tancredi.   A good friend of Guido and a very smart/tough police inspector specializing in hunting down the worst (rapist, child traffickers, etc.).

Quite an intellectual. He is only one thesis away from getting Psychology degree (university), but can’t afford to do it. Too busy busting child pornographer-rings.

A regular looking man with a “God-given” intuition and “crazy-bull” stubbornness. 

He helps Guido a lot by giving him a proper advice and confident info. Sometime, protection, too. If you are an anti-Mafia prosecutor in Italy, you gotta have a friend like him.

Natsu Kawabata.   Ex-model turned high-end Japanese cuisine chef.  A beautiful woman and Guido’s new lover (?). Yes, he is sleeping with his client’s wife.

Fabio Paolicelli.   Natsu’s husband.

He is sentenced 16 yrs in prison for drug trafficking which, of course, he completely denies. He used to be a Fascist thug and beat the crap out of Guido when Guido was a 14 yrs old kid. Guido swears for revenge ever since and now, Fabio is his client behind the bar and Guido is struggling to contain his anger against him. The only reason Guido decides to defend him is his beautiful wife. Well, what can he do? His wife left him months ago, so…

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lace. – A beautiful city of Bari in the southern part of Italy. All I can tell you is according to the author, this is a wonderful city with full of life and judging by his writing, he probably adores this city with passion.

         

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lot. – 1. Defense lawyer, Guido Guerrieri is asked to defend Fabio Paolicelli against drug trafficking charge which Fabio of course claims that he has no involvement with.

2. From the beginning, this is quite complicated case. For one, the evidence is overwhelmingly stacking against Fabio. 

3. The other, Fabio used to be a Fascist gang who 25 years ago beat up Guido for nothing more than fun and Guido still remembers the incident like it happens yesterday, swearing REVENGE!!

4. Things get even more complicated once Guido starts sleeping with his beautiful Japanese wife, Natsu (kind of sweat revenge?) but hopelessly falling in love with her without even telling her about it.

5. Then, things get serious when Guido finds out his client somehow get mixed up with nasty Drug Gangs.

One really interesting aspect of this book is that the narrator/hero-Guido talks to himself a lot. Whenever he talks to someone-his clients or friends or a beautiful woman, what he says and what he actually thinks is, well,…….let’s just say there is a HUGE GAP between them. Guido behaves and, very successfully, talks like a top lawyer like he actually is. But his mind is always wondering around because even if he is extremely talented/smart and is respected by the both side of the laws, he is never sure if he is making a right decision.

This kind of uncertainty makes him venerable yet much more cautious and forces him to prepare even more than what he has to. Therefore makes him a much better lawyer than anyone around him.

By the way, his inner-debates are absolute KILLLER!!

So incredibly DARK & FUNNY!!

Big reason why this series is popular in ITALY!!

         

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erdict. – This book is perfectly balances between Guido’s personal life (love) and professional one (lawyer).

The author perfectly paces the book with Guido’s love life and solitary and job, yet builds the tension toward the end so effortlessly, it is no wonder someone decides to go through all the troubles to bring this book to the other side of the continent (translation from Italian to English, too). 

That is THE BEST DESITION EVER!!

One of the best thing ever to come out of Italy, I must say.

As Guido spends almost all of his spare time, wondering around the city, meeting people, thinking deeply about the meaning of the life, this book is filled with easy Philosophy and theory of life.

The bottom line is: This book is     

  A love story supported by a very tight legal thriller with just enough Philosophy to spice up the story line.

A WONDERFUL BOOK!!

Please, do yourself a favour and go get it.

022. The Goldfish Bowl (1987).

The Goldfish Bowl by Laurence Gough (1987).

        

One of those, tough, entertaining thrillers from 80’s that nobody knows.

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layers. – Jack Willow.   Main man. Man with a cold demeanor and little words. Kind of like DIRTY HARRY without a 357 magnum.

Hell of a talented cop, according to his boss, but time to time, forget to work as a team.

Claire Parker.   Willow’s new partner. Old one is out with sickness. 

A cute 28 yrs rookie with intelligence and style. Just what every 80’s mystery needs: beauty with brain and a bit of an attitude.

David Ulysses Atkinson.   Homicide detective. Short but well-dressed and well-built. 

Arrogant, cocky, always trying to impress/pick up girls. 

George Franklin.   Dave’s partner. Really big (fat) guy with a mild temper.

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lace. – The rainy city of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

Because his story is grim, the city featured in this book is wet and dark, too. Vancouver is supposed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Canada when it’s not raining. Then again, it always rains in this city.

Sine it’s still 80’s, Vancouver is not a big city, yet. Now, it’s third densest city in the world after Hong Kong and Tokyo. And the police force is still not as big as now a day, neither.

         

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lot. –A killer (man) dressed up like a woman with a red lip stick, thick make-up, blond wig and race trimmed dress, kills a couple of seemingly unrelated victims. Then a cop is shot to death during the investigation. From there, the killer starts a killing rampage blowing away one by one with 45mm Winchester (which is a ridiculously big gun), right in the middle of the city!!

Inevitably, the city is in panic, the police department is under tremendous pressure, and the cops are frantically looking for a crew to find the killer.

It is pretty tight setting with lots of possibility. But the book’s total volume (mere 186 pages) is not long enough to develop all the characters and properly explore their relationships, giving you an impression that it just ends abruptly. Another word, this book could be a much much better mystery if it has little more space. Too bad.

Still, I’ve read books much worst than this one and this book is not a bad mystery, actually.

Also, at the very last chapter, there is a BIG SURPRISE  which I couldn't even imagine. Mainly because there are no indications what so ever of a true identity of killer. When the killer is finally revealed, it takes me a moment to figure out what is going on which is good thing (a HUGE surprise)? or bad thing ( Lack of hints. It just comes from nowhere!!)? Kinda hard to tell. I personally like mysteries which hide hints everywhere throughout the story line so that I can somehow deduce the bad guy before the ending. But this one is NOT that kind of book, I guess.

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erdict. – There is nothing new or strange here. However, Laurence Gough manages to create a detective story with grit and enough suspense to make this a quite entertaining book.

This book is good but not good enough to receive “Spencer”-kind of attention (80's true hero of private detectives).

Totally worth your time if you can somehow find it. (second hand book store, I think.) It doesn’t really stands out from whole bunch of 80’s good writers but still holds its own pretty good. That’s it.

021. Death In The Air (1935).

Death In The Air by QUEEN Agatha Christie (1935).

        

This is 

12^th

 MIGHTY HERCULE POIROT MYSTERY

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layers. – Mighty Hercule Poirot.   The second best detective in the history of human race, next only to God himself, 

SHERLOCK HOLMES!!

As Holmes bases almost all his deduction  on hard evidence (a scientist, he is), Poirot puts emphasis on exploring and manipulating the human mind (Psychologist).

This is entirely my guess, but I think Christie intentionally tries to create a detective who is completely polar opposite of Sherlock Holmes.

Their physical appearance (Holmes, tall, athletic and hawk-face, Poirot, short, round and egg-head) and character (Holmes, in-human, machine-like emotion, Poirot, kind, gentle and talkative) couldn’t e more different, except for the fact that they both easily manage to annoy anyone around them without much effort.

Also, not like seclusive and secretive Holmes, Poirot just loves attention and publicity (FAME)!!!

He loves sweat (Hot chocolate) and beautiful women, and firmly believes that hot inside-air fixes all the problems, so he tries really hard to keep his home intolerably hot.

Unfortunately, there is no appearance of his lovable and brave sidekick Arthur Hastings in this book. Pity.

He is tidy to the point of obsession. When something on the table or desk or book shelves out of its places, he notices it right away and put it back to the right place immediately, sometime unconsciously too. This kind of tendency to pay attention to the smallest possible detail helps him a lot for his cases because he never misses anything out of their places.

Bottom line is Poirot is a kind, gentle, thoughtful hero (Genius) who passionately hates crimes/murderers and deeply cares for innocent and troubled souls.

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lace. – Christie’s book open explores various exotic locations (she is an amateur Archeologist, I think).  Egypt, India or anywhere near the Middle Eastern country. However in this book, the crime is committed inside the airplane. So the location is airplane’s destination which is from London to Paris.

Christie often describes the cities with up most details just like Poirot explaining his method to spectators, you feel like looking at the pictures sometime.

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lot. –This book contains all the classic Christie elements.

1.      En-closed area (airplane) with bunch of completely different characters from completely different background.

2.      Incompetent inspector (Japp, in this case) with an attitude of spoiled tyrant.

3.      Exotic location with impossible murder (South African blow-gun with deadly snake poison!!).

4.      And the final, MASTER DETECTIVE!! In this case, 

HERCULE POIROT!!

Poirot, despite of his comical looks is actually fearful/ruthless hunter when it gets down to murder business.

Almost always he puts himself around suspects, and sets up the trap between them, patiently waiting out and luring them into the deadly trap without criminals realizing it. He calls this psychological trap,

“his little experiment”

Again, because of his peculiar/crazy manner and outrageously funny look (egg-head with magnificent beard), nobody, I mean including police, ever suspect his intention, EVER!! He lays out the same trick in this book and, well, you know the rest.

Also, he so-well knows how to encourage people to fulfill, so called, “fundamental need of human nature” which is, of course, “need to talk”.

He is genius at letting others talk about themselves and from there, finding the pieces to his case and putting them all together neatly at the end.

As much as he hates murderer, he also cares a lot about innocents who get involved with murder.

Most of the time, he really helps out others at the end, like resolving difference between couples, clearing the misunderstanding, and healing the old wound.

Come to think of it, he is a perfect counselor to a lot of suffering souls because at the end, he literally knows everything and thinks out the best possible solution to every possible trouble surrounding the case. 

Ever since teenager kid, I’ve always wanted to have uncle like him.

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erdict. – What can I say? You can’t say anything bad about the QUEEN Christie and certainly not to 

Mighty Hercule Poirot!!

This book comes out from probably Christie’s most creative period and simply put, just wonderful book to be included in your collection.

One of those beautiful books ages magnificently with time.

Timeless classic.

020. Maigret And The Idle Burglar (1961).

MAIGRET AND THE IDLE BURGLAR by Georges Simenon (1961).

        

One of very early detective books from France.

One of those good novels which put emphasis not just on crimes but also people and the surrounding environment.

Wonderful mystery with wonderful characters..

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layers. – Maigret.  A chief superintendent. A very good, old-fashioned inspector( two yrs away from retirement ) who spent countless hours on street therefore, knows every corner of the city and every people in it.

Now, because of so called modernization of the department, he has to spend hours everyday writing reports in his office, sometimes, not even allowed to be in the crime scene due to some kinds of NEW and STRICT jurisdiction regulations imposed by new-white color-college educated-bureaucraps. Which of course doesn’t affect him at all. Can’t even slow him down.

He personally assumes that all the officers pour in 80% of their time filling in forms these days. Totally ridiculous.

He has seen everything, done everything and possibly arrested every sort of criminals in his career. Yet, he still holds personal grudge against murderers and that kind of passion makes him probably the best cop in the city.

He is very lucky to have an understanding and thoughtful/intelligent wife with whom he discusses his cases quite openly.

Aristide Fumel.  Inspector. Because he can’t read or write well, despite of his age (51 yrs), he still stays on the bottom of the leather.

Very ugly but somehow manages to marry once. However, his wife just disappears one day and after all those years, he still is looking for his wife.

What’s funny is even with all above personal problems, he is one of the best inspectors in Paris. And because high-profile bank rubber case sucks up all the resources, he has a sole responsibility for C case.

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lace. – 60’s Paris. Apparently the whole police department is going through upgrading and modernization for the new century. But that only means there won’t be any more rooms for old school cops like Maigret and Fumel. Then again, you can’t solve every case with systemized approach and organized man power only, because the crimes are committed on the street not in the conference room or police head quarter. So Maigret and Fumel are still the core of the police department even if they try not to acknowledge it.

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lot. –This is one of the very early works from the early stage of modern detective novel. However, this book contains all the necessary elements.

1.      Main detective (Maigret) and his trusted sidekick (Fumel).

2.      Very detailed description of real police procedurals.

3.      The department is against the main detective, so our hero is sandwiched between his own people behind him and villain in front of him.    

   

Now, the actual plot. Just like real police work, there are a lot going on at the same time.

First, there is a gang of bank robbers emptying bank after bank without any troubles which makes media friendly public prosecutor real nervous. Then there is a murder of a quite burglar (main title). And for a minor note, a drama school student, a girl of seventeen, runs away from home possibly with unknown man.

From the police’s point of view, the bank robber is the major crime and therefore, all the resources are naturally poured into this one. However for Maigret who has known Cuendet (the idle burglar) for decades, the priority is little different.

Maigret, as a chief-inspector who runs the investigation unit, has to pay total attention to the bank robber case.  But for him, this is the kind of case which requires nothing but time to find the criminals, because sooner or late, they will find the trace of gangs and all they need is one tiny whole in their (gang’s) network to break it wide open.

For the Cuendet case, things are totally different. In order to find the murderer, Maigret has to find out all about the burglar, his world, to establish the pattern and the suspects. Since there is no evidence what so ever to connect the killing to anyone, Maigret tries to get into Cuendet’s mind by talking to people who know him, staying the same hotel C used to sleep and eating the same dishes at the same restaurant on the same table.

And he is doing this while leading the 24 hrs pursuit of bank gangs. And it is officially not even his case. Obsession, if you ask me.

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erdict. – I’ve said this a lot, but any old (1961), foreign language (French) detective novels which survive and get to re-publish in 21 century are either great or important. This book is both.

This book, its story and its characters are all aged so well, it is hard to believe this book (series) is written over 50 yrs ago.

It ends very peacefully with quite a few questions up in the air. Actually, come to think of it, none of them are answered!! Man, what a book!!

Yet, it achieves a very satisfying ending in which you will feel good about Maigret and what he achieves.  

A great reading.