FINAL CUT, by Eric Wright

FINAL CUT is a mystery featuring Staff Inspector Charlie Salter, of the Toronto Metropolitan police. Salter has an desirable odd-jobs position in the Special Affairs Center. In FINAL CUT he has a sweet assignment, baby-sitting an American-directed film set in Toronto, warmly depicted here. He gains the director's cut view of the craft behind the magic. The villain's escape may be unrealistic, while the contents of a grocery bag are precisely detailed.

The job looks a cinch until various acts of sabotage occur during the filming. After several occurrences, the screenwriter is killed. The pushy young star, the grouchy cinematographer, the unappreciated assistant director, the autocratic continuity manager, and all the others are suspects. Salter investigates with quiet competence, the complete opposite of the flashy car chases of the movie.

A subplot of the novel is Salter's relationship with his teenage son Seth, who wants to dance professionally. Salter is uncomfortable with this decision, though he keeps it from Seth. He wants better for the boy, and doesn't want others, including his police brethren, falsely stereotyping his son as gay. Salter gets Seth a chance to visit the set, where he's fascinated by meeting a famous actor, Henry Vigor. Vigor has made a career playing villains. He's a Nazi in this film, although he escaped from them in real life. Seth idolizes the old man, and by the end of the novel, may have a new career choice.

The noir detective has to walk alone; Salter has his wife and family. That's another reason I love this series. The family relationships are quite real, neither idolized nor demonized.

ANONYMOUS REX, by Eric Garcia

Raymond's Chandler's Simple Art of Murder. “But down these mean streets a man must go who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid.”
Or, down these means streets a dinosaur must go. In this quick-paced witty novel, Vincent Rubio is a noir-style California private eye with a bad herb habit. He's also a Velociraptor in disguise, one of the 16 species of dinosaurs which have survived the great extinction and insured their future existence by secretly moving into the human world. In a wildly complicated plot Rubio must avenge his dead partner and solve the murder of Raymond McBride, a prominent Carnatour entertainment mogul. There's a dame with secrets, lethal minions, forbidden love between different dinosaur species, and a terrible basil addiction to fight. Garcia has created a wonderful world about hiding and coming out, and the one regret is that he can sustain it in only three books.

DAMAGE CONTROL, by J.A. Jance

A critic once pooh-poohed grocery store books, saying that he didn't want to purchase his reading the same place as he bought his laundry detergent, or words to that effect. Working mothers who pulled DAMAGE CONTROL from the shelf, however, knew exactly what they were getting—another chapter in the life of working mother Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady. The Arizona sheriff wrestles with several violent deaths which occur in one storm-ravaged weekend, while juggling the needs of her infant son, teenage daughter, and her supportive but wearying at-home spouse, Butch, whose writing career needs more time. I don't know why Jance always feels compelled to make at least one of the deaths in her books excessively violent, as she does here with that of a young woman. Her writing is strong enough to hold readers without this fillip of gruesomeness.

Male critics may scoff at scenes of hostage negotiations interspersed with those of laundry, new-parent sleep deprivation,and the joys of takeout pizza, but this is exactly where Jance connects with her readers. Brady seems at her most realistic here when she soft-pedals her day to her husband, not wanting the grimness to spill into her home sphere. As someone whose work has been at times grim and demanding, I'll take Joanna Brady as a role model anytime.

A hearse of a different book

Who knew the world of cozy mysteries was large enough for two amateur detective morticians? The *Hearse* series by Tim Cockey stars Hitchcock "it's a family name" Sewell, from a family funeral home in Baltimore. The *Undertaking* series by Mark de Castrique, features "Burying" Barry Clayton, from fictional Gainsboro, N.C The *Hearse* was first.

Each series has its supporting cast, which de Castrique appears to have copycatted: tragic family circumstances, plucky relatives, dogs with stupid names. Hitchcock Sewell gets a kooky sidekick, his sexy ex-wife. Barry Clayton only gets a grumpy surgeon girlfriend.

In Tim Cockey's debut *The Hearse You Came In On,* Hitchcock horns his way into investigating the death of a young woman who has previously crashed a funeral service wearing a short short short white tennis dress. She claimed she wanted to plan her own funeral. Blackmail, dirty videos, police corruption, and political coverups move the story along. Hitch regards it all with wit and often tenderness.

Mark de Castrique's *Foolish Undertaking* starts well: Barry views his uncle praying in front of the funeral home. Oh, wait--he's only planting petunias. End of humor. Barry is tasked with the funeral of an honored Montagnard soldier. The Montagnards helped the U.S. in Viet Nam- this requires boring exposition. The corpse disappears. Not funny.

In the de Castrique/Barry Clayton book the suspects are nearly identical. They're now a dubious Boston detective, a famous actor, a US Senator, and... something else. But they're all ex-military, and quite similar. Each man has his share of aides, and THEY're suspects, too. The last book I read with so many nearly identical suspects was Dorothy L. Sayers' *Five Red Herrings.* I hate *Five Red Herrings.*

Eccentric Baltimore locals and locales vs. respectfully depicted Appalachian ones. Your pick.