Book Review -- Mephisto Waltz by Frank Tallis

Review Mephisto Waltz. Disclaimer: this copy free from Pegasus Books

Another excellent entry into the historical / detective fiction series, this time set in Vienna in 1904. Think: Jonathan Kellerman’s Alex Delaware and his cop friend Milo Sturgis, except here it’s the time and place of Freud. The case: there’s a bomb-wielding anarchist on the loose, and nobody knows who he is, including the people who work with him. He goes by one name: Mephistopheles (hence the title; go to YouTube for the actual music), and he’s always hidden. The book starts with a three-member jury sentencing someone to death. His face is melted with acid, so you don’t know who. Other killings (one accidental) follow, and there’s a last-second cipher to figure out, and a bomb to stop.

That’s enough summary. The mystery is handled well, but in a way you may not be familiar with, and I mean that as a very good thing. There’s no CSI-like structure, or procedural. There’s an ME, of course, and he may remind you of one from TV’s procedurals, but that’s it. The coolest things about this book, and done well in the whole series, but really done well here, are:

      A)    you get a slice-of-life (of just under 300 pages) of what it would be like to live in 1904 Vienna, and it’s taken just as seriously—if not more so—than the murders. The crimes are part of this early-20^th Century world, before WWI and, in fact, in the time of early cars (Herr Porsche is a minor character, his car is a push-button, as many of the earliest ones were, and he drives a hybrid!), so these are treated as something that would be an everyday part of this world. No sensationalism; no guns. None of the tropes of the genre. They happen as they would happen in that world, and that world molds them. The world isn’t altered to enhance the crimes. The crimes enhance that world. You really feel like you’re there, tasting all that strudel. And--

B) It’s a treasure trove of cool things to look up, to learn about, to listen to on YouTube. This is the kind of thing that makes Dan Brown books so interesting: I buy those in their Illustrated Editions to see the paintings, to look at the sculptures, to learn about the locations (Good idea to Pegasus Books: Consider publishing Illustrated Editions of this series, going back to the first—and why not include a CD or a link to listen to the constantly-referenced music of the time?). And I do the same with Tallis’s series: I’ve listened on YouTube to all of the (very) many songs and music mentioned. They’re actually very good. (Favorite: “The Elf-King” from a few books ago.) I’ve looked up all the real-life personages (This one does a very good job of listing all of them at the end, and of offering quick bios and glimpses.), from Porsche to Freud, and all of the princes and princesses. So it’s not just a simple mystery and you’re done, a ton of books in a series so alike that they all bleed into each other and you couldn’t explain one to somebody (Are you listening, Kellerman?). This series is different, each one a stand-alone, distinct. Tallis publishes one every five to six years, and maybe for this reason.

And Mephisto Waltz even has a cool, gaslight-noir cover. It’s my first hardcover of the series—thanks to Pegasus Books. (That’s my disclosure. Again.) So grab this one. You may read it in one sitting, like I did. When you’re done, get the other six, and enjoy. And feel free to look up the music, the people, the art, and the inventions of that world.

A Death in Vienna -- A Very Short Review

Photo: The book's paperback cover, from a review at The View from the Blue House, because how could you not read a blog with that name?

A rare treat: A fantastically written novel that's also a helluva mystery.

A woman shot to death in a locked room--but no bullet. Vienna at the turn of the 20th Century. Sigmund Freud. Anti-Semitism. Gender bias. Another murder. Cultural references. Schubert and Lizst. Philosophy. The beginnings of modern-day detection. And beautiful writing. What else can you ask for?

All of these come together in A Death in Vienna, one of the better books I have read in some time. So good, in fact, that it makes me want to write (more, or consistently) again, after a bit of a bummer summer. This is indispensible for me, and I am grateful.

And did I mention that the book and its writing are intelligent? You won't feel pandered to or talked down to here. Nothing is spelled out for you, and there aren't any cliffhanger chapters that you or Annie Wilkes would have a problem with. (Well, okay, I didn't like one of them, a misunderstanding between a character and his wife. But, what the hell.)

This book is the first in a historical detective series of six books, the last published in 2012. A pity there haven't been more, but Tallis said he was worried about over-saturation and the books blurring together with nothing new to say. I have to admit: Jonathan Kellerman and, yes, maybe Robert B. Parker fell victims to this. Perhaps Tallis was wise to keep his series short. He has written many other things, and good writing is good writing, and the genre is essentially the same, so check them out, under both of his names. I have just written a note to myself to check area bookstores for all of Tallis's books, written under Frank Tallis and under F.R. Tallis.

You should do the same. Read this one first, as apparently reading them in order does matter for this series.

Very highly recommended, so much so that I have unapologetically written a short, gushing review. This one made me excited about getting back home and finishing errands so I could read more. What better compliment is there to give?

My Interview, Part 2

Following is more of my interview at a cool website for newbie and professional writers, The Writer's Block, at Raychelle-Writes.blogspot.com.  Specifically, you can find my interview here.  But it's an interesting site, so look around!

You can find Part One of this series a couple of blog entries ago, or here.


4)      Tell us about your latest published short story, “Hide the Weird”. Where can readers find it?

Readers can find “Hide the Weird” in Space and Time Magazine: The Magazine of Fantasy, Horror and Science Fiction, via http://www.spaceandtimemagazine.com or at a newsstand near you.  It’s a romance with a twist: a young man can see into the very near future (usually a couple of seconds to a couple of days); what he sees next is an ex-girlfriend, who he still loves, jumping from her apartment window, aflame, and plummeting to her death, a shooting star he loves crashing to the ground.  But when?  Can he stop it?  If he can’t, how can he warn her about it without her thinking he’s a freak?  And, throughout all this, is he really saving anyone, or just making someone else die?  All of that in just four magazine pages, with a nice illustration by Mark Levine.

5)      I understand that you have recently completed a novel. What can you share about it?

That I’m soon to seek literary representation for it.  Just finishing the pitch and packaging. 

And that it’s a story of redemption.  Foster was a cop who couldn’t save a three-year old girl from plummeting to her death.  Now he’s dead inside—despite a façade, he’s just a depressed and broke PI with a dying mother.  But after Henry Blanchard hires him to find his missing daughter, Foster soon learns he’ll have another chance to save someone from certain death.  And at the end, when he saves her, he saves himself.  

Some people fail at something so traumatic that it defines their lives.  How many get a chance at peace and self-redemption?  Foster does, but it’s not easy:  The vice-president of RI’s largest construction company is extorted and blackmailed by his ex-wife and her lover—a known crime figure named Charlie—who wants the company to work on the Mob’s pork-barrel projects and to launder its money.  The VP’s eighteen-year daughter, Melissa, witnesses this and runs away.  Foster finds her at her drug-dealing boyfriend’s in time to save her from Charlie’s hitmen.  But he’s forced to lose her.  Foster solves two other connected crimes while also fending off crooked cops, a dirty detective, a seductive and deceitful woman—and his depression, created by his mother’s illness and his regret and loneliness.  The climactic scene: a Wendy’s restaurant, where he finds Melissa—and the hitmen sent to kill her, plus some.  The novel resolves with Foster’s and Melissa’s recoveries, his mother’s death, the end of his mental and emotional anguish, and his self-redemption.  Sort of.

6)      Who are your favorite authors? What is on your reading list right now?

Too many favorites to mention, but here are some, in no particular ranking: Shakespeare, Stephen King, Robert B. Parker, Nietzsche, Anne Lamott, Alice Munro, Umberto Eco, Barbara Tuchman, Dan Simmons (though we need to have a talk about Flashback), Woody Allen (short stories and screenplays), Quentin Tarantino’s screenplays, lyrics of Paul Simon, Lennon/McCartney and Brandi Carlile.  And, well, how much space do you have?  Right now I’m reading Jonathan Kellerman’s latest (though they all seem to be bleeding into one by now), and The Best American Mysteries of 1998 (working my way up), and Joyce Carol Oates’ Haunted: Tales of the Grotesque.  And whatever I’m doing at my job, plus new stuff in the new textbooks that look interesting.  And…

(Me again.)  One more in this interview series to come.

Victims: An Alex Delaware Novel--A Google Preview

photo: from it's Goodreads page; release date is February 28th, 2012

Read the Google preview, which was about half the book, maybe more.  Mostly good stuff so far, though it was like watching an R-rated Law and Order episode.  Very genre, overly episodical, with the minor characters and just-the-facts ma'am mixed with the unnecessary relationship stuff between Delaware and Robin that I'm guessing over 80% of the readers skip over, including me.  Some of the writing, as usual, tries too hard to be brutal chic, but it's still effective, and I can see a little of the tone in my preview, which is a compliment to Kellerman and a bit disconcerting to me.  His minor characters are, as always, stereotypes, yet effective and memorable.  In other words, nothing brand new or groundbreaking here, but you're not going to find that in a series this long, anyhow.  What he does, he does very well.  I'd defy almost anyone to hear a summary of one of his books, without ending or character names, and be able to tell them apart so well that I'd get the actual title of the book from them.  After the fourth or fifth in the series, they all kind of blend together.  That's why I gave up buying every book about two books ago--that's a large series to box up and give away.  They're well-done enough for me to read from the library, though; I might just go to Barnes and Noble or the library and read this one in a few hours while my better half's doing a double.  (And then put it back on the shelf.)  I'm more than a little bothered by the obvious, but still-understated, glee the author takes in his gore and depravity shots, but he knows that's why we read his books, so what choice does he have?  Sometimes his stuff can be so brutal that you feel like taking a shower afterwards, but that doesn't stop us from reading it, does it?  More to come after I read the whole thing...

Mystery--Jonathan Kellerman

I've read every Kellerman, even his nonfiction stuff, like Savage Spawn, and I have to say that his Alex Delaware series now is suffering from the series disease--nothing new to say; no new ways to say it.  I figured out the ending in advance here, as I have with many of his lately, unless the denouement purposely came out of left field.  Every now and then a series writer will strike gold with a late addition to his series, as Robert Parker did with his second April Kyle book, but Mystery is not one of those for Kellerman.  In fact, it hits home more as a depressing look at the bimbos who have to sell themselves in every way possible in L.A., and those who mind it (the victim) and those who don't (the two women at the end).  The victim, it was said, was beautiful, radiant and gorgeous, sexy even when sad, but then she got her face blown off, literally, and later we learn that she did everything it's possible to do with a body.  And one woman, at the very end, is elated when she tells her friend that she spent a night in a hotel room with BOTH of their Sugar Daddies, and the other woman is aghast that she was not invited.  It's a Mystery why I read these anymore, but I'll read the next one, and the one after that.  I've read 'em all, so I can't stop now.  At least it's a quick read, as I read the whole thing in one night, maybe 3 to 3 1/2 hours.  But that just shows you how predictable the writing was, as well.  It's sounding more and more pugnacious and judgmental, too, but I suppose they always were.  Still waiting for the gold nugget late in this series.