26 — Wednesday, August 23, 1989 - North Shore News

books Kis

Crime pays for mystery book

SINCE CELEBRATION of various anniversaries seems to be
much in vogue this year, mystery buffs might be interested
to note that it was 350 years ago that the astute French
playwright Jean Racine remarked: “Crime, like virtue, has its

degrees.”

Indeed, and this week we have
four books to recommend, all
dealing with criminal acts of some
degree.

Sanctuary (Doubleday; 437 pp.;
$24.95 in hardcover) tops the list
with a first-rate piot, tight, sardonic
writing and a most unlikely hero.

Matt Teller is young, talented
and on a wild-goose chase in the
California desert: or, more accu-
rately, a two-headed dog chase.
On assignment for the sensa-
tionalistic tabloid rag ‘Here and
There,’ Teller’s career has hit a
low point: scrabbling to hang on
to his job by bringing H&T readers
yet ancther mutant-mutt exclusive.

Instead he stumbles across a
mutilated corpse lashed to a bed
frame.

Meanwhile, in a2 generic,
Guatemalan village, baseball scout
and booze hound Bill Buchanon
has found The Arm: a kid with a
pitch that could save the ex-
baseball great’s life -- or at least
his expense account. The only
problem is that Buchanon has of-
fended the head of the local
right-wing death squad.

Buchanon comes-to after a
severe beating in a local bar on!y
to discover that bruises and a
hangover are the least of his wor-
ries. It seems that the death
squad’s idea of a good practical
joke is to give the gringo what he
came for: inside Buchanon’s duf-
flebag is one human arm — minus
the yest of the pitcher's talented

The escapades of this mismat-
ched pair and the events that fink
them together amount to a
tautiy-written mysiery-thriller ’ lib-
erally faced with offbeat humor of
the darkest shade. Joseph P.
DeSazio’s Sanctuary delivers what
it advertises: a novel of terror and
suspense from bizarre start to
deadly finish.

oee

Magician ‘Shifty’ Lou Anderson
and handicapper Jay Fox have just
hit it big at the races, pulling down
acool, fifteen grand-plus. It could
be the worst mistake of their lives.

The King of Tae Nightcap (Ban-
tam; 246 pp.; $19.95 in hardcover)
is William Muzray’s (When The
Fat Man Sings) story of two
friends whe find themselves on the
inside track to an early death when
the money goes missing and loan-
shark creditors begin to circle.

Shifty traces the winnings to Ti-
juana, but getting them back turns
intoa ‘Steeplechase of transvestite

TICKETS!

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weekday adrnission to the PNE.
Valid August 21 to August 25 and
August 28 to September 1, 1952.

The Move is Oni

hustlers, porno film magnates,
crooked jockeys, sadistic mobsters
and pre-Columbian artifacts.

With his tale of conscience-
numbing poverty, race track
chicanery and greed in low places,
Murray's The King of The
Nightcap is a sure bet for the win-
ners’ circle.

oe ¢

Two new paperback releases
have some dastardly but
delightfully delicious mystery tales
to tell as well.

Anthony (Tone) Nello is not just
any hustler: he’s the King of The
Hustlers (Bantam; 277 pp.; $4.95).

False documents, computer
rip-offs, hot tapes and any other
non-violent scam you can name are
Tone’s areas of expertise in gritty,
Windy City. Tone knows the ins
and outs of every con game in
town and Chicago is one big town.

Smooth, charming and in-
telligent, Tone has it all — or does
he? When he falls in love he begins
to have doubts about the lifestyle
of the fast and infamous, but the
prospect of a two-million dollar
heist leaves little room for second
thoughts.

The deal is complicated by the
release from prison of Tone’s
nemesis, convicted rapist Edgew
Plumber. Plumber heads up a gang
even the Mafia avoid like the
plague and Edgew has his own
plans for the ‘King’.

Eugene Izzi’s King of The
Hustlers proves that crime does

pay — for some of the people

some of the time. But the King’s

MIKE

STEELE

book review
time just might be running out...
eee

Author Jack Curtis won a few
hundred thousand fans with his
first book Crow’s Parliament. His
newest crime entry, Glory (Corgi;
396 pp.; $4.95) should make an
airtight case for reader loyaliy.

Ex-cop John Deacon is a lush, a
top British detective who could not

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authors

cope with his wife’s death and who
found that the department’s pa-
tience had limits; the force may
not always be with you.

Street-hard and cynical, Curtis
becomes embroiled in the grisiy
murder of a young computer pro-
grammer who was hacked to death
in her apartment. Curtis only
agrees to investigate because the
victim’s roommate was once a
friend of his former wife. Curtis’
own curiosity is piqued when he
realizes that not only are the local
cops not getting anywhere but they
seemt to have been warned off.

Glory is a story of iove, despair,
deceit and the inner ravings of a
psychopath’s diseased mind. Has
this been done before? Yes, but
only to a point.

Curtis is adept at crafting a plot
within a plot, 2 story-iine whose
direction only seems predictable.

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