Richmond Reads
by John Denniston
The detective genre has long been a male-dominated realm, with female
crime-solvers such as Patricia Cornwell’s Kay Scarpetta and Agatha
Christie’s Miss Marple standing out as the exceptions that prove the
rule. Two recent novels with female protagonists, however, should go a
long way to push aside the stereotype that good detection, and good
crime reading, must come from a man’s world.
The Calling (Harcourt, 384 pages, $24), the debut from
Inger Ash Wolf, introduces Detective Inspector Hazel Micallef of the
Port
Dundas police in Ontario, Canada. This 61-year-old’s life revolves
around back pain, painkillers, divorce, Scotch, a nagging 87-year-old
mother and, suddenly, a serial killer who is targeting the elderly.
Micallef’s virtually crime-free town comes alive with death in the most
gruesome sense when, a few days later, another body is found in a
grotesque pose and she finds her calling: to toss aside police
bureaucracy and jurisdictional boundaries to hunt the madman.
Lovers of Michael Connelley, Harlen Corbin, Robert Crais and the like
will immediately take to the characters in “The Calling.” There’s
Micallef with her determination, faults and moral self-assurance; the
well-drawn motivations and intentions of her subordinates; the
cold-blooded killer and even his host of victims. Readers of crime
fiction will love the fast pace, the tight writing, the plot tangles and
the surprising denouement.
“The Calling” is a welcome addition to the genre of hard-boiled crime
stories, and we can only hope that it’s the beginning of a series from
Wolf, who, according to the publisher, is “the pseudonym for a prominent
North American literary novelist.”
On the softer side, there’s Precious Ramotswe, Botswana’s “foremost
solver of problems” who returns in The Miracle at
Speedy Motors, the ninth book in Alexander McCall Smith’s No. 1
Ladies’ Detective Agency series (Pantheon, 256 pages, $21.95).
Mma Ramotswe is being kept busy. First, there’s the letter that arrives
at her office (which is attached to her husband’s auto repair shop,
Tiokweng Road Speedy Motors) asking her to help a woman find her family.
“Please find me a birthday, and find me some people,” the letter
implores, but the sender doesn’t know her real name or any of her blood
relatives. Then there’s the series of anonymous threatening letters:
“Fat lady, you watch out!”
Then there’s her No. 1 assistant, who clearly wants to be the No. 1
detective, and there’s her husband’s insistence that their crippled
foster daughter may one day walk again. What’s a good detective to do?
For Mma Ramotswe, the answer is in her insights into human nature. “The
Miracle at Speedy Motors” is as charming and sweet as a cool breeze
coming across a savannah. If you’re not yet a fan of the No. 1 Ladies
Detective Agency, “Speedy Motors” is a great place to start.
John Denniston lives and writes in Richmond.
