BOOKS: Tim Maleeny

I had a GREAT Christmas reading period. I got the latest from John Sandford and Clive Cussler, both initial books in new series (I hope). They were both better than average. I got the comic adaption of the first Artemis Fowl book by Eoin Colfer. It was a great re-read, pictures and all. Series books from William Dietz and Lee Goldberg were enjoyed.

And I discovered some new authors. I'm most excited about Tim Maleeny, who's penning the Cape Weathers detective books. Weathers is a private investigator working in San Francisco. It's familiar territory (not the least being the setting of Cussler's The Chase, albeit the 1907 era Golden Gate city). And bluntly, Cape is a bit generic in terms of characters within the genre. The book packager recognized that. The cover of the first in the series, Stealing the Dragon, only shows his working partner on the cover. So does the second, Beating the Babushka.

Sally is interesting. She's a lesbian. And she's been trained as a Triad assassin since childhood. Now THAT is a great character description. Beats former cop turned detective completely.

Stealing the Dragon is not perfect. It's a first novel and there are flaws. Saw some things coming a mile away. But on the whole it's fairly entertaining. For most of the book, it follows two narratives. The first is modern day San Francisco where a ship transporting illegals from China runs aground on Alcatraz. Weathers becomes involved and has to handle it mostly single-handedly, since Sally is missing.

The other story-line is that of Sally, starting with her becoming an orphan due to murder. She arrives in a Triad school and becomes the best of the best the training can create. This is the story-line that is the real page-turner. Although I did find myself speed-reading through the modern-day parts to get back to the Sally story.

In the end, the last quarter or so, the story-lines coalesce into a pretty flashy finish. Somebody else described it as Dashiell Hammett by way of way of Jerry Bruckheimer. The Hammett comparison rates as a little glorifying, but the Bruckheimer part is bang on.

Haven't read the Russian Mafiya-inspired second book. But it promises more Sally. And that is a good thing. July's reading week can't come soon enough.