Crime Fiction Reading in June 2017

In June I began reading from my 20 Books of  Summer list (my list is HERE). Only five of my seven books read this month were from that list. The Big Killing was a carryover from my reading in May, and I purchased Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective in June so that I could read it prior to watching the TV series. So I am a bit behind on the list, but still doing well. I read three books from the 1990s and only one vintage mystery, published in 1937.

These are the seven books I read in June:

The Big Killing (1989) by Annette Meyers

Xenia Smith and Leslie Wetzon are executive headhunters located on Wall Street. This is the first of the mysteries featuring this team. Wetzon meets Barry Stark, a potential client, at the Four Seasons for lunch. He excuses himself for a moment; shortly after that, Leslie Wetzon finds his dead body in a telephone booth at the restaurant. Both Smith and Wetzon are very interested in the homicide cop, Silvestri, who is assigned to the murder. The main protagonist, Wetzon, was formerly a dancer on Broadway, and that side story lends the most interest to the story for me. 

Vanishing Act (1995) by Thomas Perry

I have only read two books by Thomas Perry, and I feel like I have found a new favorite author. The first was The Butcher's Boy, about a man who murders for hire, and a brilliant young analyst, Elizabeth Waring, who notices a pattern related to his crimes. Vanishing Act is the first in a series about Jane Whitefield, a Native American guide, who helps people in trouble find new identities and disappear. I will be reading more books by Thomas Perry later in the year.

Dangerous Davies: The Last Detective (1976) by Leslie Thomas

Dangerous Davies is a hapless detective with serious flaws who through patience and determination manages to solve the cases that he takes an interest in. The book was published in 1976 and Davies takes up the cold case of a teenage girl who disappeared in 1951. My review is HERE. I will continue reading the series (only 4 books) and watching the TV series.

The Man with the Getaway Face (1963) by Richard Stark

This is the 2nd book in the Parker series by Richard Stark (aka Donald E. Westlake). Parker is an amoral crook; Westlake wrote 24 books about him between 1962 and 2008. I find it hard to describe these books, so I am borrowing a paragraph from The University of Chicago Press, the publisher of the reprint edition: 

"Parker goes under the knife in The Man with the Getaway Face, changing his face to escape the mob and a contract on his life. Along the way he scores his biggest heist yet: an armored car in New Jersey, stuffed with cash."

Track of the Cat (1993) by Nevada Barr

Track of the Cat by Nevada Barr is a fine debut novel, the first in a series about Park Ranger Anna Pigeon. In this novel, Anna has a posting in Texas (the Guadalupe Mountains National Park). The book is a nature lover's delight, and Nevada spends a lot of time hiking in the park. Nevada is a loner, cranky, not much for socializing; a different kind of heroine. 

The Black Ice (1993) by Michael Connelly

The second novel in the Harry Bosch series starts on Christmas day; Harry is eating his Christmas dinner alone and is on call. That same night, he ends up in a motel room where the dead body of Narcotics detective Calexico Moore has been discovered; or so they assume, since the body has been in the room for weeks and is in bad shape. The investigation into how Moore died takes Harry to Mexico.

Busman's Honeymoon (1937) by Dorothy Sayers

This is the last novel in Dorothy Sayers' series about Lord Peter Wimsey. After five years of being wooed by Peter, Harriet Vane has finally said yes, and we get a peek at the wedding planning, the nuptials, but most of all their first few days of marriage at Talboys, where a dead body is discovered.