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Bookshelf: New York City Mysteries

"In New York," wrote Henry Miller in 1941, "I have always felt lonely, the loneliness of the caged animal, which brings on crime, sex, alcohol and other madnesses."

Such tendencies have delighted movie directors, television producers and authors who have set hundreds, if not thousands, of police dramas, crime stories and mysteries on the streets, alleys and rooftops of New York. Whatever the real-life crime rate, in fiction, New York remains unsafe and threatening.

The last few months have produced another batch of mysteries set in New York, many by veterans of the genre.

One, The Sniper's Wife (312 pgs, Warner Books, $23.95), represents something of a departure for author Archer Mayor. The 13 books in his Joe Gunther series feature a Brattleboro, Vermont, detective now promoted to field force commander of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation. This is undoubtedly familiar ground for Mayor, a town constable in Newfane, Vermont.

But in The Sniper's Wife, Mayor shifts the scene to New York City, and his focus to a different character, Gunther's detective Willy Kunkle, a former New York City cop who moved to Vermont some 20 years before. As the book begins, Kunkle learns that his estranged wife Mary has been found dead in her East Village apartment, and he returns to New York to identify the body. The New York police consider the death a heroin overdose. Not surprisingly -- Mary had been a drug addict and was found with a needle sticking out of her arm.

In the tradition of hundreds of mystery heroes before him, Kunkle does not believe the official story and sets out to discover the truth and find his former wife's murderer. To accomplish this, he revisits his boyhood home in Washington Heights, has a hostile dinner with an old Army buddy at Peter Luger Steak House in Brooklyn, and reconnects with a small time hustler in Harlem. He also enters a violent maze of drugs, stolen cars and guns and blackmail. As he unravels the story, the body count -- and the number of his death defying escapes -- multiply.

The plot takes a number of intriguing twists and features some interesting characters. But, despite the accurate detail of some New York neighborhoods, Mayor may not have a good grasp of his new venue. As the mystery unfolds, New York is in the midst of a garbage crisis. Somehow, no one notices.

But Mayor's shift of character presents more problems than his shift of scene. Kunkle is a recovering alcoholic with a tendency to violence. Mayor never convinces us that there is a reason Gunther and Sammie Martens, Kunkle's girlfriend and another Vermont detective, care so deeply for him. In fact, Kunkle is monosyllabic and unpleasant, if not downright mean. Kunkle, Mayor, tells us, has had a rough past. He should get over it before Mayor makes him the mainstay of a new series.

Andrew Vachss has no such problems with his character or setting. Only Child (276 pgs, Alfred A. Knopf, $24) is the latest installment in his series of Burke novels, about a man who lives outside the law but seeks to bring justice -- a kind of Robin Hood for bitter, jaded times. Rather than redistributing wealth, Burke avenges the savage mistreatment of children.

Vachss, the author of many books, has made this the mission of his own life as well, representing children and young people in his practice as a lawyer and writing stark, searing books. And, like his hero, Vachss wears an eye patch.

Only Child brings Burke back to his hometown of New York, reveling in the things he has missed (local tabloids, for one), and reconnecting with his band of outlaws. He hooks up with Giovanni, a gangster whose 16-year-old daughter was brutally murdered and who wants to find out who did it and why.

To find the answer, Burke and his strange cast of characters plunge into suburbia, particularly the world of mall wandering teenagers, a strange place for these urban creatures. The book moves rapidly as Burke and associates work to unravel the truth -- and it is as chilling as one might expect.

Those unfamiliar with Burke may find the book a bit difficult to get into and a bit hard to take. Who is this man and who are these people he is with? Not only does the plot involve sexual abuse but the characters freely discuss horrific sex crimes of the past -- fact and fiction -- and some have their own unusual proclivities. Two of the major characters, for example, sell videotapes of their own bondage and discipline rituals. And they are the good guys.

While Burke wanders the metropolitan area, Lincoln Rhyme, the detective in The Vanished Man (399 pgs, Simon & Schuster, $25), the latest novel in the series by Jeffrey Deaver, usually remains in his home near Central Park. The noted evidence expert is a quadriplegic. His sidekick and lover -- Amelia Sachs of the police department -- goes to the scene of the crime for both of them.

In The Vanished Man, a magician is committing seemingly random acts of violence, all devised to resemble a famous magic trick. The conjurer is a worthy opponent even for investigators as skilled as Rhyme and Sachs. His ability to use disguises and quickly change clothes baffles witnesses. His escape skills, reminiscent of Houdini's, let him be captured but not held. And his mastery of deception means that one can never be sure what is crime and what is illusion, what his motives are -- or even who he is.

All of this makes for a riveting mystery, with twists and suspense, as Rhyme, Sachs and other detectives follow the trail of baffling crimes from Central Park to Harlem to lower Manhattan.

Occasionally, the accounts of sleight of hand, illusions and escapes become a bit hard to follow, and some readers may feel Deaver has provided one -- or two or six -- twists too many as the villain evades capture again and again. And the saccharine taste of the last few pages detract from all the tension that went before.

Still, The Vanished Man will make fans hope that Rhyme and Sachs keep sleuthing to help a city where, whatever the real police do, the fictional crime rate remains high.

RECENT MYSTERIES SET IN NEW YORK
Beware the Solitary Drinker, by Cornelius Lehane (2002, 233 pages, Poisoned Pen Press, $24.95)

The Bone Vault, by Linda Fairstein (2003, 384 pgs, Scribners, $25)

Only Child, by Andrew Vachss (2002, 276 pgs, Alfred A. Knopf, $24)

Small Town, by Lawrence Block (2003, 464 pages, Morrow, $24.95)

The Sniper's Wife, by Archer Mayor (2002, 312 pgs, Warner Books, $23.95)

Unholy Order, by William Heffernan (2002, Avon Books, $6.99)

The Vanished Man, by Jeffrey Deaver (2003, 399 pgs, Simon & Schuster, $25)

Howe
 


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