Short takes: Thrillers

Reviewed by MICHELE HEWITSON

G M Ford: FURY

Leanne Samples is a bit simple. But when investigative journo, Frank Corso hears she wants to retract her evidence that a man waiting on death row raped her, Corso believes her.

Walter Leroy Hime, the man on death row, is a totally unsympathetic character, even if he is innocent. Corso was fired by the New York Times for fabricating a story that cost his paper millions.

But he's given a second chance by the owner/editor of a tabloid rag, the Seattle Sun. Corso is a great anti-hero, worth getting to know. And Ford's writing is as smart and lean as his main character.

Pan, $22.95

Michael Connelly: The Narrows

Connelly's loner cop, the now retired Harry Bosch, meets up with The Poet, the former FBI agent turned serial killer who staged his own death after a shoot-out with his protege, FBI agent Rachel Walling.

When The Poet reappears, he leaves a nasty calling card for Rachel: eight dead bodies in the desert.

Meanwhile, Bosch, now a PI, is investigating the death of another former cop. All plots lead to The Poet.

Connelly, one of the leading stars of the genre, is never less than competent, and the usual thrills and twists are here. But this is not his best work. The writing seems a little tired: like Bosch himself.

Orion, $35

Michael Robotham: The Suspect

Clinical psychologist Joseph O'Loughlin is called in to help the cops find out about a murdered woman.

Turns out O'Loughlin had a history with her: she was a client who developed an obsession and was rejected.

He's a bit slow letting on to the cops. Now he's the prime suspect, and on the run. And people from his past are winding up dead.

There's some stuff that's supposed to be social comment about the mishandling of child sex abuse cases, but ignore any attempts to make this a moral tale and enjoy it for what it is: a jolly good page-turner of a thriller.

Timewarner, $35

Stuart Archer Cohen: The Stone Angels

In Cohen's Buenos Aires there are no good cops: only degrees of badness and corruption.

Comisario Migeul Fortunato might be the exception. He possesses a face, and a voice, which console the families of the dead and convince them to entrust him with their loved one's funeral arrangements — for a 10 per cent commission.

But mostly, in the scheme of things, and despite that US$500,000 he has hidden away, Miguel is a good cop.

Except that six months ago he killed a foreigner in a kidnapping gone wrong. Now a young woman is sent to Argentina to investigate.

She's out of her depth in a city "bankrupted by 50 years of dictatorship and plunder, but still retaining in its turbid streets, a tawdry and exhilarating magnificence".

As the story of the murdered foreigner unfolds so does Miguel's investigation of himself — an investigation of what makes a lie out of a life, and of how we might judge it. Yet there's no overt moralising.

A graceful, mesmerising, witty tango of a crime novel.

Orion, $29.95

Massimo Carlotto: The Colombian Mule

Arias Cuevas has been a naughty boy, caught smuggling drugs at Venice airport, but this is not what really worries him.

He stole the cocaine from his rich, mean drug-running lesbian aunty, La Tia. Things are about to go very wrong.

Especially when the police set up a sting to find out who the drugs were intended for, which leads to a trail of set-ups, cock-ups and cover-ups.

Carlotto writes a jolly decent yarn with great, truly bent characters and some crackingly funny dialogue.

Orion, $29.95