A-- B-- C-- D-- E-- F-- G-- H-- I-- J-- K-- L-- M-- N-- O-- P-- Q-- R-- S-- T-- U-- V-- W-- X-- Y-- Z

Carson, Paul

Cold Steel

London, Arrow Books. 392 pp. £5.99.

A twenty million grant from the EC and Eire is able to afford the Dream Team from the US for the Mercy Hospital's Heart Foundation. This will look good on TV and at election time. When the daughter of a member of the Dream Team is found murdered, the police are ordered to wrap up the case quickly. A drug addict, squatting in a Dublin hellhole is suspected. He ends up in the care of an intelligent and caring doctor. "Psychopathic behavior" he tells the police, "is a rather strange phenomenon. Many psychopaths never come to the attention of the police, leading apparently normal lives. Indeed some may use their cunning and guile to achieve high positions in society." The police take in the lesson and gradually become convinced that it isn't the drug addict who is guilty, but someone high up the ladder. In the meantime, a caring doctor at the Mercy Hospital decides to investigate at least one member of the Dream Time. He thinks all doctors should be caring, and she just isn't.

Political ambition, the alliance between politicians and top criminals, greed, and plain stubborn Irish honesty clash. And you'll watch those tablets the nice doctor gives you and those No Smoking signs much more carefully after you've read this fast-paced and intelligent thriller.

Dr. Paul Carson, married, two children, runs an Asthma and Allergy clinic for children in south Dublin.

Cleeves, Ann

A Day in the Death of Dorothea Cassidy

London, Allison and Busby Crime. 208 pp. £5.99.

Two boys found Dorothea Cassidy's body on Midsummer's Day at seven o'clock in the morning. The two boys were brought up on a diet of crime serials on TV. They knew what to do. One stayed and one cycled off to fetch the police. Dorothea Cassidy, wife of the local vicar, was murdered. She was good. She was very, very good. She had also been lovely in her lifetime. Why would anyone strangle her?

The sleuth is our old friend Inspector Ramsay, who quickly establishes the fact that she couldn't possible have fallen naturally with her arms folded. And where was she all evening before she was murdered? Her husband hadn't been too worried. Dorothea Cassidy was not known for punctuality. Inspector Ramsay has an aunt called Anne who lives in sheltered accommodation and this being a small place she is his intelligence officer.

Dorothea Cassidy's murder is difficult to solve, because she was emotionally involved with such disparate people. They had all been caught up in her compassion. Who could have wanted her dead? Then one of the suspects is murdered. Second murders are very interesting in crime novels. They are usually committed to prevent the killer's identity from becoming known and yet they point the finger at the perpetrator.

And what do you do with a deaf witness who can only report what was seen?

The Inspector Ramsay novels are set in Northumberland. The author originally is a North Devonian and now lives in Newcastle.

Cleeves, Ann

Killjoy

London, Allison & Busby. 188 pp. £5.99.

On a night in which the fog seeped inland from the Tyne into Hollowgate (whose fortunes have declined) the dead body of a young woman is found in the boot of a car in the theatre car park.

The local police are overstretched as it is, an escalation of violence from joy-riders (if anything is ever inaptly named these are). Inspector Ramsay and Sergeant Hunter are called in from outside to help the locals. First things first. Even before they can think about the investigation, Ramsay has to organise the manpower for the hunt, call a press conference and most important, make arrangements for overtime. Then he can start.

Memories go back a long way in these small places. Ramsay is held responsible for the death of a local, a bastard when alive, but a folk hero when dead. The finger of suspicion points at the "folk hero's" family and the locals threaten to take the place apart if they are touched.

Is Ramsay too slow solving the case? Another murder before he finds the right track ... and the story of his lost love will hold you in suspense all through the book even if you are not romantic.

Ann Cleeves has been a child care officer, bird observatory cook (husband is an ornithologist), auxiliary coastguard and probation officer.)

Constantine, K.C.

Brushback

New York, The Mysterious Press, Warner Books. 278 pp. US $22.00

Bobby Blasco, known as the Brushback Kid, was a complicated man, difficult to know, more difficult to like, maddening. He was by turns kind, generous, mean, cheap, thoughtful, egocentric. Once upon a time he had been a great baseball player, hence his nickname. A brushback is a fastball intentionally thrown near the batter's head or body to put him off his stroke. Ironically, he was battered to death with a baseball bat once given to him by the great Ted Williams. By the time he died, he had come down in the world. Friends had become ex-friends. He beat his wives and they became ex-wives. He ran an illegal gambling club.

The sleuth is Detective Sergeant Rugs (because anyone can walk over him) Carlucci, doubling as acting police chief till the mayor decides who will be chief. Carlucci has a ghastly mother and goes to great length to keep her from interfering in his work. The mayor is a conman with all the sweet talk of a thirdrate politician, who thinks nobody sees through him. Carlucci concentrates on the murder investigation while trying to run the police as acting chief. There is nil cooperation from the mayor, who has his own agenda.

It is clear that Carlucci is a good detective, and he does solve the murder. However, does he want to be police chief badly enough? Is he made to be a chief? This is a penetrating picture of regional America through Rocksburg, a fictional western Pennsylvania town, its dialogue, speech nuances, mores, what keeps it ticking over within a larger America despite the closure of mills and mines.

K.C. Constantine is a pseudonym. If you like Rocksburg, you are in luck. There are thirteen previous mystery novels set in it.

Cornwell, Patricia

The Last Precinct
A Kay Scarpetta Novel

London, Little, Brown & Co. 449 pp £10.99.

Law enforcement tolerates women. It doesn't celebrate them and punishes those who become heroes. That's the dirty little secret no one wants to talk about.

This time Virginia's Chief Medical Examiner Kay Scarpetta is herself the object of suspicion leading on to a criminal investigation. A very formidable female assistant district attorney from New York is brought into the case. Kay cannot decide whether the new arrival is against her, for her, perhaps even objective and not playing politics. The more she is pressed, the more Kay Scarpetta turns inward on herself and has to find the inner resources to cope. Her forensic abilities are no longer enough. Where should she go when there is nowhere to turn and nobody to turn to for help?

The larger than life presence of Kay Scarpetta's niece Lucy enters the picture. Lucy, a lesbian, has fewer illusions than Kay about the administration of justice and the treatment meted out to women both within and outside the law. Lucy has decided to quit law enforcement and instead she is involved with an outfit calling itself "The Last Precinct". This Robin Hood type of outfit is where one goes when all hope of justice has run out. It is against Kay Scarpetta's training to go outside law enforcement but nobody seems to want to listen to her. Since there is nothing else to be done, Kay Scarpetta has to go to "The Last Precinct" for help.

Captain Pete Marino is here to help and in understanding the story of Anna, the refugee from Austria, we begin to understand the nature of evil and how it must be withstood.

Not just for aficionados, tautly written, this is virtually a textbook of forensic science, police and criminal psychology, human relationships and much, much more.

This is the eleventh in the series.

Craig, David

Torch

London, Constable. 174 pp. £16.99.

Using money pouring in from the European Community, an unscrupulous developer puts up a new building intended to transform Cardiff marina. It is burnt down. Local gangsters had made threats when the developers refused to pay protection money. Had they carried out their threats? The policeman is Dave Brade (his sidekick is Glyndwr Jenkins) and he is personally involved because a girlfriend of his (a prostitute) was killed in the fire. All that is found of her is a platinum ring, and his ex-wife is angry and bitter that he should have given this symbol of their marriage to a whore!

There is a most wonderful portrait of Corbett, who sees himself as a middleman. The commissions from his principals are often contradictory, but he sees his role as reconciling them. The day comes when he finds that he cannot reconcile the parties and each expects him to make arrangements to eliminate the other. He feels his position as middleman threatened, but needs must when two devils drive.

The villains are absolutely villainous. The developers are out to conceal their villainy and greed under the cloak of respectability and service to the community. The traditional gangland families (the Sendantas) are crudely and openly villainous. There are eccentrics as interesting as the villains. The cops sweat it out. It's a neat point as to who wins in the end.

Welshman David Craig lives in South Wales and also writes as Bill James.

Curzon, Clare

All Unwary
A Mike Yeadings (ably assisted by Detective-Sergeant Rosemary Zyczynski) Mystery

London, Warner Books. 248 pp. £5.99.

"It's hard on newcomers who've lived by their own values for generations."

Amongst the changes that occurred in the UK was the coming of Japanese factories. There were benefits for the Japanese in proximity to an ever-spreading European market and a ready workforce unaccustomed to high wages. For the locals, a welcome escape from persistent unemployment. The tax boost made it possible for the local authority to provide social amenities. It was money, after all - not love - that made the world go round!

No new situation escapes the vigilant eye of a crime writer.

This particular puzzler is set in just such a situation.

The daughter of an English mother and a rich and powerful Japanese executive disappears, reappears and then disappears again. The powerful Japanese executive has a chief executive, and he is murdered. Lots of red herrings. Misdirections, as the police think that the No. 2 was murdered instead of his boss by accident. After all, one Japanese could be like another to the hired killer.

Very much in the way is the mindset of folk from different cultures projecting their views of the other.

An unexpected and satisfying ending to a British, oops, sorry, Welsh cosy.

Clare Curzon has written crime fiction as Rhona Petrie, witchcraft novels as Marie Buchanan and has returned to a life of crime as Clare Curzon

Cutler, Judith

Staying Power

London, Hodder & Stoughton. 293 pp. £16.99

Alan Grafton is an outwardly succesful businessman. He is found hanging from a canal bridge. The only identification found on him is a business card belonging to Detective Sergeant Kate Power of Birmingham. Nothing suspicious. They'd been sitting next to each other on a flight from Florence, he had suggested a date ... and not rung her.

Kate Power is not only new in the Birmingham police, she is a woman and she is not a local. Life is made difficult enough for her at work. She is lonely. To add to the disagreement and the disagreeableness, her colleagues are convinced Alan Grafton's death was suicide and Kate thinks it was murder.

If it was suicide, what drove an otherwise contented young man to it? DS Kate Power must know. As she follows her instinct in pursuing the investigation and the case unravels, a whole series of crimes is revealed. Judith Cutler does not just relate a mystery yarn or even report on what it is like to be a woman in the police. She also explores the business and sexual mores of our time, and despite the grimness of the tale, the ending (when Kate Power thinks she may have met Mr. Right) should make you fall about laughing.

Judith Cutler comes from Birmingham. She is the secretary of the Crime Writers Association at the time of writing.