Better Late Than Zugzwang

I've heard about patients falling in love with their psychoanalysts, but my case is somewhat different. I've fallen for a psychoanalyst who is 1.) a fictional creation and 2.) lived his fictional life in St. Petersburg in 1914, just before the Russian Revolution.

Zugzwang is the fifth novel by Irish writer Ronan Bennett, whose last book, The Catastrophist, I called "a splendidly stylish thriller, chronicled with the dark energy of Joseph Conrad and the cool irony of Graham Greene." Bennett's latest is about Dr. Otto Spethmann, Jewish by birth but not by religion -- although he does remember fondly the challah which his father, a Polish baker, used to bring home. Spethmann claims to be above the political violence and racial hatred ripping Russia apart, but that doesn't last long.

Zugzwang (which came out last fall from Bloomsbury, fueled no doubt by infusions of Harry Potter cash, and which for reasons too boring to list I've just gotten around to read -- in one sitting) is a chess term used to describe a position in which a player is reduced to a state of utter helplessness. He is obliged to move, but his every move only makes his position worse. Spethmann plays a mean game of chess, mostly against his famous musician friend, and has just accepted as a patient the troubled Polish-Jewish chess genius who is expected to win the World Championship in St. Petersburg.

The book begins with two apparently unrelated murders -- of a leading liberal newspaper editor and a radical young poet. There's a shrewd police inspector called Mintimer Lychev, a wealthy and anti-semitic thug called The Mountain, two daughters in distress (Otto's and The Mountain's, who is Spethmann's patient and lover) and several Communist Party terrorists who kill each other more often than they destroy their stated foes. One very nice touch is the offhand mention of a Georgian named Dzhugashvili, a senior member of the Party hierarchy. That was the birth name of Stalin.

Another reason to love Zugzwang is the fact that Bennett -- influenced by Dickens and Wilkie Collins -- decided to write the novel as a weekly serial. What a concept! "I wrote the first two chapters quite quickly and liked them, then contacted The Observer and said, would they be interested? It was on a whim, really," he says. The London paper loved the idea, as did his agent and then Bloomsbury.

The rest is history -- and great fun.

Florentine Farewell

How sad to realize that this is the next-to-last book we'll ever have about that chunky, weak-eyed, absolutely fascinating Sicilian policeman, Marshal Salvatore Guarnaccia, the ultimate rustic (i.e., Southern) outsider dropped into the sleek world of Florence. Originally published in 1982, DUTCHMAN never appeared in America until this new paperback edition from Soho Crime, Magdalen Nabb's loyal supporter until her death last year.

Nabb was born in Lancashire, England in 1947. She studied art and pottery at the College of Art in Manchester, and it was there that she started writing. While working in a pottery studio in the Italian town of Montelupo Fiorentino, Nabb came up with the idea for her most popular character, Marshal Guarnaccia. From 1975 onward she lived and worked as a journalist and writer in Florence, Italy.

Before her death, Nabb finished the manuscript of Guarnaccia’s last case, VITA NUOVA, which Soho will publish in June.

Listen to Rhino

With all the crush of holidays, books from publishers both big and small, and the one-damned-thing-after-another of everyday life, I haven't gotten around to raving about a new book from Vince Emery Productions, a San Francisco house which specializes in noir.




George J. "Rhino" Thompson is a true original in the world of crime literature, called by Julian Symons "one of the most intelligent critics of Hammett's work." (Symons was no slouch himself; he also wrote an early Hammett biography.)

Rhino's doctoral dissertation on Hammett at the University of Connecticut led him to change his career from university English teacher to police officer. He wrote the best-selling Verbal Judo: The Gentle Art of Persusasion, founded the Verbal Judo Institute and got lots of TV time.

Previously only available serialized over seven issues of The Armchair Detective magazine in 1973, HAMMETT'S MORAL VISION is arguably the single most influential book-length analysis of Dashiell Hammett's novels. Spanning all sections of his career, the book discusses five novels: The Dain Curse, The Glass Key, The Maltese Falcon, Red Harvest, and The Thin Man. Detailed analysis shows how the author and his work changed over time. Each novel is discussed in its own chapter with comparative criticism, and there is a list of resources for further reading and research. Additionally, this compiled text includes a new chapter in which the author discusses the impact Hammett has had on his own life.

The best thing about Thompson's book is the absence of that boring, occasionally condescending tone which "serious" critics often adopt when discussing crime fiction. He writes, clean, clear, refreshing prose about a man who changed the way we think about the genre.

The Bitter and the Sweet

I like Italian mysteries for the same reasons I enjoy Italian coffee: they're dark, hot and bitter. That's why CRIMINI, a new short story collection from that brilliant band of European crime specialists called Bitter Lemon Press, is such a pleasure. Edited by Giancarlo De Cataldo, who also contributes a strong story about a Christmas Eve kidnapping that goes bad, and translated by Andrew Brown, these nine stories are eye-openers into a world which the casual visitor rarely gets to see.

My favorite story is A Series of Misunderstandings by Andrea Camilleri, about whom I've written glowingly in recent months. Camilleri is probably the best mystery novelist that you’ve never heard of since Donna Leon, who has a kind word for him on the cover of Excursion to Tindari. His books, about a Sicilian police detective called Montalbano, are bestsellers in Europe and the basis of a popular Italian TV series. They are published as paperback originals in the U.S. by Penguin, who make a serious effort with their artistic and evocative cover paintings. Also of great importance is the work of award-winning translator and poet Stephen Sartarelli.

Camilleri's story in CRIMINI isn't about Inspector Montalbano but deals instead with Bruno, a smart, sexy, friendly telephone repairman who has a fling with one of his customers. A dumb joke by Bruno results in her death by some very nasty gangsters, who think she knows something she shouldn't. It's a tender tale, totally Italian and completely absorbing.

For more from Camilleri, check out his new Montalbano book, due out in April.

A Storm of Pleasure

Some brilliant critic once wrote that T. Jefferson Parker was "the best crime writer working out of Southern California" -- and that was before I read STORM RUNNERS, just out in mass market paperback. It's a literally stunning story about failed friendship, revenge and rainmaking. There are two superb villains: a John Huston-like figure from Chinatown who runs Los Angeles's Department of Water and Power; and a Harvard-educated drug dealer who runs La Eme, a feared branch of the Mexican Mafia, from his cell at Pelican Bay, the toughest prison in America.

These two get together to stop a San Diego TV weather reporter from continuing her research into increasing rainfall. The stalker they send to scare her gets private eye Matt Stromsoe back into action after a car bomb set by the drug lord, meant to kill just him, instead leaves former cop Stromsoe one-eyed and mangled and his wife and young son dead. Hired to protect the rainmaker, Matt finds himself falling in love with her -- and risking his life and sanity once again to protect her.

Parker's new hardcover, L.A. OUTLAWS, has received some excellent reviews -- although it would be nice not to have the rave in the L.A. Times dismiss most other crime fiction as rubbish.

The Morgue the Merrier

I reported yesterday on a new bounty from some of my favorite small presses, and now comes a rich package of Golden Age delights from Rue Morgue Press. Catherine Aird won a rave ("a most ingenious writer") from The New Yorker for THE RELIGIOUS BODY when it first appeared. It sends Inspector C.D. Sloan into a nunnery to great effect.

And Manning Coles' two Tommy Hambledon stories set in mid-1930s Germany and London caused critic Anthony Boucher (the man who invented us all) to call them "a single long and magnificent novel of drama, intrigue and humor." Drink to Yesterday and A Toast to Tomorrow were written by two neighbors -- Cyril Henry Coles, a British Army Intelligence officer, and Adelaide Oke Manning. All great reads from the Morgue.

More Large Pleasures from Small Publishers

Is this the best job in the world, or what? Not only do I get to read big books from large publishers owned by German corporations, but I also get to enjoy tasty offerings from houses with higher aspirations if smaller advertising budgets.


Hard Case Crime is a perfect example, a literary version of Proust's madeline, one bite of which takes me back to the pulp novels I used to read for 35 cents a pop. But Charles Ardai does lots of new stuff, too -- like this terrific book by Christa Faust about a former porn star who is talked into making one last appearance and winds up running for her life.

Katharina Hacker's THE HAVE-NOTS has won lots of prizes, raves and sales in her native Germany, and now, thanks to the bold folk at Europa, promises to shake up American readers who don't see that many German thrillers as good as this.

Finally, James Sallis -- poet, biographer of Chester Himes, author of the Lew Griffin series -- has a new series going from Walker about a burned out Memphis cop named Turner who has opted out and taken a job as a country sheriff's deputy. Fine stuff, as are they all.