The Burglar who Painted like Mondrian by Lawrence Block *****

Bernie Rhodenbarr is a burglar, a careful burglar, a skilled burglar. In this strange series, Bernie is the good guy. In The Burglar who Painted like Mondrian by Lawrence Block, his theft of valuable stamps is minor compared to two murders, the theft of Mondrian masterpieces, and the kidnapping of his friend’s Carolyn Kaiser’s cat.

The cat’s name is Archie Goodwin; he is a Burmese. His buddy, Ubi (Ubiquity or Ubiquitous) is a Russian Blue and despondent with the absence of his partner. In what might be the cruelest and most violent part of the book, the kidnapper cuts off some of Archie’s whiskers and mails them to Carolyn.

Archie’s ransom is a Mondrian painting. It turns out that there are several choices, and by the end, Bernie has stolen most of them. Actually, all of them that were not stolen before he could get to them. Unfortunately, a couple of dead bodies show up in places where his attendance is both obvious and inexplicable, making him suspect number one.

If that sounds like a circus of false starts and strange coincidences, you’ve got it right.

If you’re in the market for a cozy mystery with many twists and turns all building to an Agatha Christie-like conclusion with everyone sitting in the living room quietly while Bernie explains what happened and identifies the murders. This is just the book for you.

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The Cocktail Waitress by James M Cain ***

“Joan White…formerly Joan Medford…formerly Joan Woods…you are under arrest, for the crime of murder…” 

Joan tells her side of this story in The Cocktail Waitress by James M Cain. Both Joan’s husbands and her lover are dead with the causes of death left in question. Beyond these unsolved mysteries, when Joan’s story ends, she is pregnant with a second child. Joan prays this child will be spared all the cruelties she and her first child endured. Unfortunately, Joan had been taking Thalidomide to help her through her difficult pregnancy. The story ends before the Thalidomide mystery is resolved.

I am old enough to remember Thalidomide: its sale to mothers for morning sickness and the massive birth defects this caused. Cain wrote this book in the 1970s long after the Thalidomide scandal broke and it was taken off the market, so this sets the story in the 1950s or 1960s. However, the cocktail waitresses wore hot pants which Mary Quant invented in the mid-1960s. Unfortunately for the timeline and the narrative, the UK banned Thalidomide in the early-1960s, and the US never approved the drug at all.

In addition to the unresolved deaths, and the unrealistic introduction of Thalidomide, I found Joan an unbelievable character. Sometimes she is a ruthless gold-digger and other times she is deeply concerned with ethics and justice. Sometimes she is naïve and gullible, while at other time she is worldly-wise and scheming. This is one of the few (only) Cain books with a female POV character and for good reason.

This book was lost after Cain’s death in 1977. Through detective work and editing, it was published in 2012. Unless you are a dedicated Cain fan, I recommend you stick with the New York Times review: “It certainly entertains, but it also disappoints.”

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Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen ****

Bad Girls Throughout History by Ann Shen is a collection of 100 single-page biographies of famous women. It could be a wonderful bathroom reader, a book where you can start and stop on any page.

It could also be a catalog for the child who needs to research someone from history.  This volume includes big names: Queen Elizabeth I, Jane Austen, Harriet Tubman, Amelia Earhart, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Oprah and many others. It also includes some more obscure names: Tomyris (warrior), Aphra Behm (writer), Maria Mitchell (astronomer), Lilian Bland (aviator), Anna May Wong (actor), among others. Also some surprises like Judy Blume and Joan Jett.

Warning to parents: some of these women might not be appropriate for young children. For example, Bettie Page was a famous pinup girl known for bondage poses. Ching Shih is succinctly summarized with “from prostitute to pirate.”

A broad summary of women across cultures and times.

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The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler ****

The Big Sleep by Raymond Chandler is the first Philip Marlowe, private detective, book. Marlowe is summoned by General Guy Sternwood to investigate bookseller Arthur Gwynn Geiger’s blackmail attempt. The blackmail note implicates his daughter Miss Carmen Sternwood, a wild young woman. The other daughter, Mrs. Vivian Regan, married to a bootlegger, is no less trouble. The more Marlowe investigates, the more complicated the case becomes, and the more dead-bodies that turn up.

 “Vivian is spoiled, exacting, smart, and quite ruthless. Carmen is a child who likes to pull wings off flies. Neither of them has any more moral sense than a cat.”

 The investigation opens with Vivian’s husband suddenly abandoning her for an old flame, and Carmen being blackmailed for posing nude. However, as the story unfolds more people get involved. The murders and motivations compound to include various money-making schemes and more personal concerns. In the end, love wins out over law or justice.

This book is a product of its time (1930s). Marlowe uses Jew and fag as derogatory labels. Virtually every scene includes smoking, and most include drinking. The production and sales of smut is a lucrative and heinous crime. Surprisingly, the few women, notably the two daughters, are strong and independent.

The book is full of clever dialogue:

“I been shaking two nickels together for a month, trying to get them to mate.”

“I’m nice to be nice to, soldier. I’m not nice not to be nice to.”

“Her eyelids were flicking rapidly, like moth wings.”

“Kissing is nice, but your father didn’t hire me to sleep with you.”

“Shake your business up and pour it. I haven’t got all day.”

…and dated vocabulary:

Electroliers: electrified chandeliers

Automatic elevators: elevators without attendants

Chirp: provide information

Muggs: men

If you are interested in a hardboiled detective, tough, fearless, and smart, Mr. Marlowe is perfect. This is a fast read, with ever-increasing twists and turns, and a satisfying conclusion.

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Into the Thinnest Air by Simon R Green ***

Ishmael Jones is an alien with moderate powers (sense of smell, speed, strength). Along with Penny Belcourt, he solves mysteries. Into the Thinnest Air by Simon R Green is the fifth book in this series. In this locked-room mystery, dinner companions at the Castle Inn disappear without a trace, while the survivors try to figure out what happened. The Castle Inn has a long history, and most theories tend towards the supernatural. Ismael suspects otherwise.

The Castle Inn was a smugglers’ hideout and, famously, the scene of an 1886 dinner hosted Elliot Tyrone where he poisoned everyone. He was hung from the single tree outside the inn. He blamed his actions on Voices. The Inn has since been shrouded in mystery and danger. The hanging tree, long gone, reappears like a ghost, other people disappear and hear voices, and eerie stories abound.

The dinner is attended by old friends who planned to renovate the Inn and run a successful tourist business twenty years ago. That venture failed, and the friends were all ruined. Albert and Olivia left town and have now returned with their lottery winnings to try again. Vicar Thomas and Eileen, together with journalist Jimmy and author Valerie, all stayed, feeling trapped by the failed business.

This short book (167 pages) has little action aside from the six disappearances which happen silently and invisibly. That leaves mostly discussions and arguments along the lines of “What happened?” and “What should we do now?” With all this discussion, I found the reveal to be disappointingly obvious from the beginning.

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On the Move by Oliver Sacks ****

On the Move by Oliver Sacks is a memoir distilled from a thousand journals kept by this prolific author throughout his 75 years. Dr. Sacks was a neurologist, but his memoir treats this as a secondary activity, a background activity for his curiosity and empathy for his patients, himself, and others. Much of his writing harkens back to nineteenth-century medical cases, where the patient’s history was holistic, everything was relevant, compared to today’s scientific papers. This is what made him such a popular author.

Dr. Sacks came from a privileged family of Jewish doctors. He took full advantage of his position. When England was castrating gay men, he moved to North America. His connections allowed him to pursue whatever he desired. This included trans-continental motorcycle adventures, serious weightlifting (he held the California squat record at 600 pounds), exotic international travels, and, most importantly, he could see only the patients that interested him without regard to financial considerations.

Once he discovered the joy of writing best-sellers, this became his primary occupation/avocation, but even here he felt no pressure. Some books came quickly, some took many years, and others were simply abandoned.

This book, reflecting his life, jumps around. Some events are repeated, and the timeline is ignored as he free-associates from one event to another, free borrowing from his journals and published works. In other cases, this might scream for a strong editor, but here it seems to truly represent the author’s life.

When a scholarly, scientific friend told Dr. Sacks, “You’re no theoretician,” he replied, “I know but I am a field-worker, and you need the sort of fieldwork I do for the sort of theory making you do.” Dr. Sacks lead an interesting life, and his fieldwork makes for interesting reading.

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