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DARK CORRIDORS VOL. 3, No. 3 |
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HILDERBRAND J.W. KERR gives us two new thrillers featuring a Houston police detective |
Police detective vs. sex ring
& a deadly killer-for-hire
of TheColumnists.com
WHEN A PAIR of trade paperback mystery novels you've never heard of turn up in the mail from a small, boutique publishing house, this reviewer doesn't usually hold out much hope that he's going to be swept away on a giant wave of enthusiasm.
But it's nice to be surprised every now and then. Such was the case when I received review copies of J. W. Kerr's "The Devil and Lieutenant Hilderbrand" (Holmes & Watson, $12.99) and "Graves, Worms and Epitaths" (Holmes & Watson, $12.99) in the mail. They turned out to be totally free of anthrax germs, but otherwise quite immediately infectious.
To make a long story short, I raced through them both, back to back, with growing pleasure at the turning of each new page. If I came up with any knock against them, I suppose it would be a certain sparseness in terms of character details and background. They'e both "quick reads," although I found both plots to be well worked-out and satisfying.
That isn't much of a knock, really, because it didn't trouble me at the time I was reading them. In fact, Kerr's economic style was a great relief after tackling some other contemporary mystery novels that bogged me down in extraneous detail and more than I ever wanted to know about some characters I never got around to liking. And I suspect there are lots of mystery fans out there who really aren't looking for much profundity in their thrillers.
Both books were published this year. "The Devil and Lieutenant Hilderbrand" has been enough of a success already that Kerr has embarked on a 15-city book tour to help sell the follow-up novel, "Graves, Worms and Epitaths," and keep pushing the earlier book, too.
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new mysteries by J.W. Kerr |
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Anson Hilderbrand is a solid, experienced Houston, Texas, detective lieutenant who doesn't go out and haunt bars or chase women. He's all business, like P.D. James' Adam Dalgliesh, though he has a wife who loves him--James' Dalgliesh has been a widower throughout his career in print--and isn't a poet like Dalgliesh. In fact, if I closed my eyes, I could see British actor Roy Marsden, TV's perennial Commander Dalgliesh, as Hilderbrand, provided he could lose the accent. There's no fooling around by either detective-- just good, intelligent police work. We could do worse, folks--in reality as well as in fiction.
In the first novel, the "devil" that Hilderbrand faces is a brilliant ex-con who loves killing people so much that he creates his own private corporation that takes orders for "hits," which he then fills all by himself during breaks from his regular job as a city librarian. Yes, that's no misprint. The bad guy is a librarian. Think about it a bit: Is that a perfect cover or what?
The suspense builds as Lt. Hilderbrand and his crew methodically follow up leads while the killer stalks his next victim: The top lawman in the state, the attorney general of Texas.
When it seems things fall into place a little too neatly and the killer seems to be on his way to a long-deserved date with the executioner, Kerr pulls a major surprise out of the hat. That gives the roller coaster an extra downhill run that ought to be fun for everyone.
In the follow-up, "Graves, Worms and Epitaths"--which is taken from a Shakespeare quote--Hilderbrand tackles the case of the execution-style killing of his most loyal police department comrade. As he peels back layer after layer with his investigation, he finds himself in the middle of a different case involving the interstate transportation of runaway youngsters from Los Angeles to Texas, where they're drugged and used as performers in explicit sex shows for wealthy Texans. He even starts uncovering evidence that someone within the department may have been a party to the execution of a police officer.
Kerr has a lean, terse style that gives the books a breakneck pace. Hilderbrand isn't one of those oddball "Dirty Harry" type detectives who's the department maverick. He generally plays by the rules--except for a rather shocking departure from them toward the end of the second book--so, the emphasis is on police procedure and the logical buildup of evidence rather than on the inspired deductive leaps you might expect from a Sherlock Holmes or a Hercule Poirot.
But that doesn't mean this is a dull, paint-by-the-number pair of crime novels. Kerr has the tools to build suspense through the books' intricate, but easily followed plotlines and their short, non-nonsense chapters.
Yes, Kerr's Lt. Hilderbrand turned out to be one of the mystery year's most pleasant surprise packages. May others take the hint and start mailing reviewers equally well-crafted mystery novels in the new year.
© 2001 by Ron Miller.
The Ron Miller caricature is © 2001 by Jim Hummel. The book covers
are reproduced courtesy of Holmes & Watson publishing.
RON MILLER is the author
of "Mystery! A Celebration," the official companion
book to PBS' "Mystery!" television series.
You can comment on this column or contact Ron Miller with an email to: talkback@thecolumnists.com
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