Flowering Judas

Starred review from June 13, 2011
Rather than present a variety of characters with reason to want the eventual murder victim dead as she's done in recent books in this series, Edgar-finalist Haddam immediately presents the reader with a corpse in her stellar 26th mystery featuring PI Gregor Demarkian (after 2010's Wanting Sheila Dead). The body of Chester Morton, a long-missing college student, turns up in Mattatuck, N.Y., hanging from a billboard bearing his image and a request for information, part of his mother's frantic attempt to learn his fate. Called in to consult by the local police chief, Demarkian soon spots some anomalies that suggest that Morton didn't die where he was found. The discovery nearby of a backpack containing an infant's skeleton only adds to the puzzle. While the plot itself isn't one of Haddam's twistiest, the re-creation of the fishbowl that is smalltown life is pitch-perfect and shaded by a chilling glimpse of human darkness.

May 1, 2011

Good grief. Or grief with a hidden agenda?

When a Cavanaugh Street stalwart, 99-year-old George Tekemanian, collapses during breakfast at the Ararat restaurant, Gregor Demarkian (Wanting Sheila Dead, 2010, etc.) escorts him to the hospital before he leaves Philadelphia for Mattatuck, N.Y., a small town turned small city, to consult on a case concerning a man missing 12 years who suddenly turns up swinging from a billboard at the entrance to the community college. Less interested in the plight of the deceased (Chester Morton) than in the fate of his friend George, Gregor (aka the "Armenian Poirot") uses only half his little grey cells to consider whether it was murder or suicide and the rest to keep calling his love Bennis and the hospital to see how George is holding up. Still, he probes for the answers to four questions: Why did Chester leave Mattatuck? Why did he return? Whose baby was jammed into a bright-yellow backpack, possibly the only item Chester had with him when he disappeared, now uncovered on a construction sight? And why is Chester's mom Charlene still demanding information about her missing son if she's so convinced his former girlfriend killed him that she's virtually stalking her? It seems equally abnormal to grieve loudly and conspicuously for a dozen years like Charlene and to grieve for a friend who isn't yet dead like Gregor. There'll be two murders; hubbub at a trailer park; incompetence and deceit at the local cop shop; and the theft of Chester's body from a funeral home storage locker before Gregor wraps up matters and plans are floated to celebrate George's 100th birthday.

Will work for those who favor overlooked clues planted in plain sight and great detective summations. 

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from June 1, 2011
In the 12 years since Chester Morton disappeared, his mother has never stopped trying to find out what happened to him. She's handed out flyers, harassed the police, and paid for a roadside billboard asking passersby who may know something to come forward. The billboard has been there all 12 years, and hardly anybody pays attention to it anymore. Then, after Chester's body is found hanging from the billboardhis very recently dead body, mind youthe authorities ask former FBI agent and part-time investigator Gregor Demarkian to find out what's going on. Faithful readers of the Demarkian novels (there are more than 25 of them) will be lining up for this gripping mystery, but here's the thing: like each of its predecessors, it works just fine as a stand-alone, too. Gregor is such a well-drawn character that readers, within a few pages of meeting himand even if they've never picked up another Demarkian novelwill feel like they've known him for years. Rarely is a mystery series as consistently excellent as this one.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)