In his extraordinary mysteries Charles Todd transcends the boundaries of the form to bring us works built on the basic premise of any good fiction–to show and reflect on the myriad facets of the human condition. SEARCH THE DARK, the latest in his post- World War I series featuring Inspector Ian Rutledge, sends the war-damaged detective to a small Dorset town to locate two missing children. The body of a woman, assumed to be their mother, has been found. The local police have a suspect, a mentally unhinged veteran who believes he has glimpsed his wife and children on a railway platform there, even though he’d been told they’d died in an enemy bombing.
Uncle Oscar was one of a kind. His dusty antiques shop, the Green Vase -- nestled in San Francisco's historic Jackson Square neighborhood -- was like his own personal museum to the Gold Rush era. Needless to say, I was shocked when he was found dead in his shop, and even more surprised to discover he'd left the venerable establishment to me!
This is Green’s most recent novel of the Nightside, a hidden part of London populated by creatures who never see the light of day. John Taylor is a Nightside PI who specializes in finding things. But something has just found him: Excalibur, the sword of King Arthur himself. Since the sword is practically sentient and turns up only when there’s a big job to be done, what does it want with Taylor?
Law school drop-out-turned-flower shop owner Abby Knight has been asked to be a bridesmaid by her cousin. But before the couple says "I do," a groomsman disappears-and another member of the wedding party is found dead. Abby has to hurry down an aisle of suspects to unveil the truth-and make sure the bride still gets to the church on time.
Nathanael West's Hollywood novel takes place mostly at the margins of the movie kingdom, the universe of set painters and extras, frustrated small-timers, hangers-on and oddities. There are prostitutes here, transplanted Eskimos, a failed comic who sells silver polish door to door so that he can force luckless customers to watch his act. No one in this book has found the promise that California was supposed to offer, and at the end their anger and resentments collect into a riot in the streets that is the sum of their individual discontents.
