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Crusher by Niall Leonard

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Crusher is a book with a marketing problem. Or perhaps “peculiarity” is a better word than “problem.” You see, Niall Leonard happens to be married to E. L. James, she of the Fifty Shades of Grey fame, and the publisher has been touting this in its press about the book. I suppose it’s attention-grabbing, but I think it does the book a disservice for a number of reasons: Crusher is a completely different book, written for a completely different audience, and this sort of marketing makes it seem like Leonard used his wife to pave his way to publication.

Actually, Leonard does have some good writing credits, which were thankfully also mentioned in the press release I received. He’s written for several well-known UK television shows like Hornblower and Wire in the Blood. I suppose it’s inevitable that his relationship to James would have emerged, whether or not the publisher touted it. Perhaps the strategy really does help sell more copies of the book – I wouldn’t know – but I still think it’s strange (and funny).

All that aside, Leonard has written a thoroughly enjoyable mystery of publishable quality. It doesn’t surprise me that he has experience writing television – the book is fast, with lots of dialogue and action. It’s one of those books that could also accurately be described as a thriller, although it’s certainly a whodunit as well.

Seventeen year old Finn Maguire is a high school dropout, working at a London fast food place and living with his dad, a has-been actor now struggling (and failing) to start a new career as a screenwriter. Finn comes home from work one day to find his dad bludgeoned to death, and as is almost always the case in mystery novels, our protagonist is the prime suspect.

Since Finn figures the police are too busy focusing on him to find the real murderer, he decides to do some investigating of his own. His search leads him to a mob boss named McGovern, and before long, Finn is in deep, deep trouble. But he’s also uncovering lots of secrets and getting closer to finding the truth.

Crusher doesn’t have a large number of characters, which also means it doesn’t have a large pool of suspects. Due to this fact, many listeners may find the culprit easy to guess. They may also feel that a certain red herring takes up entirely too much of the plot. Still, these flaws are easy to overlook, at least in the audio version, in light of the book’s strengths.

Primary among these strengths is Finn’s (first person) voice, of which the narration is part and parcel. I’m a sucker for narrators with accents, and Daniel Weyman has a terrific one. He’s great at conveying Finn’s bluster and toughness, but also the emotion that his tough words try to hide. I read a review of Crusher that called Finn a “cold fish,” but I found that to be far from the truth in Weyman’s capable hands. Finn puts up a strong front, but he’s clearly torn up about his father’s death, and later events in the story show his shell cracking further. After a pretty heart-breaking denouement, I was really feeling for the guy.

One element that was not as easy to overlook, however, was the female element. Basically, all the females in Crusher are awful. One or two may approach “realistically flawed,” but that’s pushing it. Of course, the males aren’t too great, either, so it doesn’t bother me as much as it would otherwise. This is a book peopled with some very unsavory characters, not unexpected for a book about the mob. (Normally I stay away from books that feature the mob in any way, but I love listening to mysteries on audio above all, and I figured I would give this a shot.)

Leila reviewed this one a little while ago, and she focuses on how it doesn’t seem to really be a young adult novel, due to its lack of “firsts” for its main character. That’s a question I don’t have a firm opinion on, but I think it’s interesting to ponder. Regardless, I think Crusher will certainly appeal to teens who like grittier mysteries and stories about the mob, and this is a well-done audio version.

Review copy provided by the publisher. Crusher is available now.

I Hunt Killers by Barry Lyga

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Jasper “Jazz” Dent is the son of the world’s most famous serial killer, Billy Dent. Since Jazz was a little boy, Billy had been training Jazz in the family business. Billy himself is a true sociopath, and he killed far and wide in gruesome ways. He killed well over 100 people before he made a mistake and was eventually caught and given a life sentence.
Jazz was sent to live with his grandmother, Billy’s mother, who is senile, which means he pretty much takes care of himself. Despite being Billy’s son, Jazz himself had not yet committed murder and can pass himself off as a “normal” teen boy. He’s got a best friend and a girlfriend and is in the school play. But being the son of Billy Dent did a number on him, and he knows how to manipulate people, how to hurt them and get away with it, and he’s haunted by the voice of his Dear Old Dad that seems to always be telling him that other people don’t matter, that they exist only for his enjoyment.
When a young woman turns up dead in Jazz’s town, he’s convinced it’s another serial killer. The sheriff isn’t so sure, so Jazz sets out to prove it to him. As it becomes increasingly clear that this new killer has connections to Billy Dent, Jazz is even more determined to hunt him down and prove that he himself will not turn out like his father.
Let’s get the inevitable comparison out of the way: Yes, this is a lot like Dexter for teens. It’s not just a marketing phrase. I haven’t read any of Jeff Lindsay’s books, but I have watched a bit of the television show, and there are certainly a lot of similarities.
That said, what made I Hunt Killers an enjoyable read for me is how it diverges from Dexter. Jazz was raised to be a killer by his father and it’s a constant struggle for him to not act on impulses that have been hammered into him for years. He feels guilt over his actions (particularly when he manipulates people to get what he wants), and he’s horrified by his more violent thoughts. He doesn’t want to be a sociopath with no regard for others’ feelings or right to life. And this is the marked difference between the two characters: Dexter knows he is this way; Jazz fears he is this way. While Dexter as a character was engaging in a creepy way, Jazz as a character is engaging in a human way.
He’s also a character with a great voice. This story doesn’t sound like it was narrated by just anyone, and I thought Jazz came across as very authentically teen boy.
So, I like the way Lyga wrote his protagonist, but I also like the way Lyga writes, period. He’s clearly a pro. There are no awkward sentences, no stumbles, no rookie mistakes. I
don’t dislike debut novels, but sometimes it’s nice to read a book by
someone who’s done this before. It really shows here.
The mystery itself is enjoyable, if a bit predictable. Lyga doesn’t present the reader with a huge host of suspects, so it’s not hard to figure out the culprit. But the journey there is a thrill ride, and Lyga includes enough subplots to keep even the most perceptive reader’s interest.
Mysteries can run the gamut from pretty tame to pretty explicit, even when the subject is murder. I Hunt Killers is, probably unsurprisingly, on the more explicit end. The acts of violence are described in detail, and they are pretty twisted (the word “flayed” is used more than once). There’s also a fair amount of description of sexual assault. Dear Old Dad did pretty much anything you could think of to his victims, who were almost exclusively female. It’s certainly appropriate for a teen audience, but it won’t be for every teen. 
I Hunt Killers does what mysteries do best at the end: wrap up the current mystery and present us with other character-centric mysteries to solve in forthcoming novels. There’s closure AND there’s the desire to read more. I look forward to potential sequels, but I’ll have to space them out with some less brutal reads.
Review copy received from the publisher. I Hunt Killers is available now.

Kill You Last by Todd Strasser

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In Kill You Last, Shelby’s comfortable existence has just ended. Her father, who runs a photography and modeling business, has been connected to three missing teenage girls, and the evidence pointing toward his guilt just continues to pour in. She’s also started to receive threatening emails from a person who promises vengeance for her father’s actions. When it seems like everyone has already decided her father is guilty, Shelby decides to do a little investigating of her own.
I quite enjoyed the first two books in Strasser’s “Thrillogy,” but I think the shine has worn off a bit for me. This go around, I was much less forgiving of the thin characterization and somewhat juvenile writing style. The little snippet he gave the reader at the beginning – present in all the books – was also a little tiresome this time. The reason for that is that this prologue isn’t actually any new material: it’s simply an excerpt from a later portion of the book with a few bits edited out to avoid spoilers. When I reached the part of the book the prologue had been taken from, I felt cheated rather than illumined. As a hook, it falls short.
 
All that said, the mystery itself is quite good. Strasser is excellent at dangling several possibilities before the reader, making them all equally plausible, and then making the big reveal at the end seem as if it should have been obvious all along. And despite the lackluster writing, this book is a surefire page-turner. I even read it in the car, something I almost always avoid due to motion sickness, because I wanted – needed – to know whodunnit.
I also have to give Strasser credit for not pulling his punches. Shelby starts out steadfast in her defense of her father, but she slowly grows to realize that he is a lot worse than she knew. In fact, he’s a downright dirty creep, and as Shelby learns more, her picture of him just deteriorates. I appreciated that Strasser made her father this creepy guy who is perhaps innocent of murder, but certainly not innocent of other awful things. In too many stories, the end of the book tidily resolves the parental issues to show that it was all a misunderstanding or the person isn’t as bad as they seemed. Not so here. Shelby’s father isn’t the only one, either – her other friends, family, and acquaintances have dirty secrets too, even if they may not be murderous.
In all three books, Strasser writes from a female point of view. I’m always curious to see how male writers do this (and how female writers do a male point of view). Due to the almost complete lack of character development, though, I can’t really judge how well Strasser succeeded in capturing the female voice. This is especially apparent in the last chapter, when Strasser quickly wraps up the story in what might as well have been a series of bullet points describing what happened to each character. It’s a prime example of the kind of telling, rather than showing, that is used to develop character – and pretty ineffectively. It’s a flaw for sure, but if you’re a fan of this type of story, it won’t prevent you from enjoying it.

Perception by Kim Harrington

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Kim Harrington’s Clarity was a surprise hit for me last year, so Perception, the follow-up novel featuring psychic sleuth Clare Fern, was a guaranteed read. While I definitely enjoyed it, it didn’t live up to my expectations.
One of Clare’s classmates has gone missing. The girl’s mother visits Clare’s family for a psychic reading, but they aren’t able to tell her much. Clare, however, buoyed by her success with the events in the first book, decides that she wants to help solve the case. Meanwhile, Clare has been receiving notes from a secret admirer. While the notes are flattering at first, they start to grow more sinister. Is there a connection? And does it have anything to do with the messages Clare’s brother, Perry, has been getting from beyond the grave from a girl who has been dead for years? 
The mystery is fine, although the clues are frequently obvious and inserted into the story somewhat clumsily. In one scene, Clare learns that she should try searching for alternate spellings of a possible murder victim’s name to get more information on her after noticing that a friend’s name is spelled strangely. It’s not very smoothly done, but I may be biased since something like that is Librarianship 101.
What I really wanted out of Perception was a greater focus on Clare’s interesting family history, some of which was hinted at in Clarity. Mystery series are perfect for giving the reader a self-contained mystery in one volume and slowly building a longer mystery arc over several volumes, but that longer arc was virtually nonexistent here. It’s a shame, since the details dropped in Clarity were fascinating and a surefire hook to keep readers interested in sequels.
Perception also focused way too much attention on Clare’s love triangle, which I found tedious and supremely uninteresting. Clare’s got a legitimate choice to make about the two boys who want to date her, but it’s too large of a plot point. I wanted more sleuthing and less mooning. I admit this is a personal preference and some readers may be very invested in Clare’s decision, but I was tempted to skim during those parts.
Lastly, Clare seems to have lost some of her snark that made her character such a treat to read about in Clarity. I remember laughing out loud several times during the first volume, but it didn’t happen much in the second. Her voice isn’t completely changed, but it’s not as amusing.
All that said, Perception is still enjoyable. There aren’t many YA novels that are so completely, straightforwardly mysteries. (By that I mean, many books have mystery elements, but they’re often simply a part of the story rather than the whole point of the story.) Mystery is one of my first literary loves and I cherish the chance to re-visit it in YA when I can. Perception is a solid entry and I look forward to the next books.

The Traitor in the Tunnel by Y. S. Lee

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I’ve looked forward to the new Agency book for some time now. Good historical mystery series are legion in the adult realm, but harder to find in YA. Mary Quinn and her exploits definitely fit the bill. Unfortunately, while I enjoyed the third entry, The Traitor in the Tunnel, it was ultimately a bit of a letdown. Overall, it’s a good book and certainly worth a read, but it’s the least satisfying entry so far.
The reason for my disappointment is the mystery aspect of the novel. The writing is still excellent, Mary is a great character, and her relationships with various other ancillary characters are further developed (in particular with James Easton). But most of the story centers around Mary’s relationship with a man who may or may not be her long-dead father, and there wasn’t much surprising or interesting to that portion.
The actual mystery of the book starts out very small: Mary has been assigned to Buckingham Palace as a parlor maid to investigate a series of petty thefts there. Soon, Mary stumbles across a larger mystery, which could send the entire royal family into scandal: the Prince of Wales was involved in a drunken altercation, and his friend was killed by a Lascar. The Lascar – an opium addict – has the same name as Mary’s father, and Mary is determined to find out what happened that night and clear her maybe-father’s name, if she can, as well as develop some sort of relationship with him.
Then there’s a little to-do with the underground sewers needing repair, and James Easton’s company has been hired to do the job. Here’s where the real problem lies. The solutions to the mysteries I mentioned above (the thefts and the altercation with the Lascar) are pedestrian and not really mysteries at all. Telling you the solution would be spoiling it, but really, there’s nothing to spoil. What could have been interesting was the mystery in the sewers, but it’s not explored until very late in the book, and the climax follows within a few dozen pages of it being introduced.
The last thing I’ll mention is actually a spoiler, so if you plan to read this book and haven’t yet, stop reading now. Near the end of the book, the Agency splits up. Its two managers, Anne Treleaven and Felicity Frame, had been having divergent ideas about how the Agency should be run: Felicity wanted to involve men and take cases on a larger scale, whereas Anne wanted to keep it strictly women-only and keep the cases small and unobtrusive. At the end of the Traitor in the Tunnel, the Agency has been dissolved and Mary is left to decide which person she will follow, or to strike out on her own. 
I really wasn’t a huge fan of this turn of events – the series is called “The Agency” after all, and part of what drew me to the books is that they were about an all-female spy agency. When that’s taken away, it doesn’t seem nearly as interesting. I’ll still read the other books, but I’m curious to see what direction Lee plans to takes the series now that the Agency is apparently out of the picture.
Although the mysteries were a letdown, I did really like Mary’s interactions with James Easton (pretty swoony, I must admit). Octavius Jones also makes a return, and the scenes he shares with Mary are pretty darn funny. I also have to give major credit to Lee for the subplot involving Mary and the Prince of Wales. Mary contemplates doing something pretty major, and the way it’s described reminded me that I was reading a book about a woman who was now twenty years old – no longer a teenager. It also reminded me that spies in Mary’s situation really do have to contemplate doing some pretty major stuff, despite how unrealistic the idea of The Agency actually is.
Book borrowed from my local library.