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Kaminsky, Stuart M.

The Dog Who Bit a Policeman

New York, The Mysterious Press from Warner Books. 275 pp.

The sleuth is Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov. He is an outsider and this is accentuated by the fact that he married a Jewess. He is a man of physical and spiritual suffering and forbearance. He is an avid reader of the Russian classics and in the days before Gorbachev, American detective novels. He is good at his job. His superiors realize they cannot do without him. There is an uneasy symbiotic relationship.

Ostensibly, this mystery novel deals with an inconsistency in the attempt to get at the Russian Mafia (there seem to be policemen trying) via their exploitation of cruel dogfights. Rostnikov wants to get the Mafia. He is also investigating a murder, and he wants the rival gangs not to go to war against each other to settle the matter of guilt. As he explains frankly to them, he doesn't mind them eliminating each other, but when they fight, the innocent get hit by the bullets. Around this theme, Kaminsky has woven life in Moscow today for ordinary people, the portraits of the Mafia chiefs, driven by their obsession for power leading to rivalry amongst themselves to get at and hold unlimited power not just of the underworld, but the world of politics.

Who killed the murderer? In the end, the heartrending truth is discovered. Rostnikov is forced into a deal with his superiors. The woman who loved her son more than life goes free. But a Mafia nominee is now free to go to the top of Russian political life.

Inspector Porfiry Rostnikov, Chicago police detective Abe Lieberman, and the PIs James Rockford and Toby Peters are all creations of Stuart Kaminsky. He writes four novels a year.

Keating, H.R.F.

The Hard Detective

London, Macmillan. 236 pp. £16.99.

Life for life, eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, burning for burning, wound for wound, stripe for stripe. One by one, policemen are being murdered in accordance with the methods set out in Exodus 21 v. 23. Even the policeman in charge is killed, his eye taken out.

The Chief Constable puts Detective Chief Inspector Harriet Martens in charge. Her philosophy is that policing is a matter of war. The forces of law and order, the police, are at war with the criminals in our midst. She initiated a Stop the Rot campaign in her district and it worked. The Chief Constable assigns a psychologist to help her profile the serial killer. As the story unravels, we are kept in suspense over who is being helpful, who is being obstructive and why?

None of the measures to protect the police work. Harriet Martens decides she must offer herself up as bait. If attacked, the only solution might be to kill the perpetrator. Is that a viable or a moral solution? The psychologist doesn't think so and interferes. Both an intellectual and emotional mystery, in which hardly anyone looks at the rest of the Biblical quotation and is certain the serial killer is a man. Only Harriet realizes that a woman may be driven to serial murder by her treatment at the hands of men.

King, Laurie R.

To Play the Fool

London, HarperCollins. 260 pp £5.99.

A dog called Theophilus and an unknown tramp are created by their friends in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park. The investigators are homicide detectives Kate Martinelli and Al Hawkin. Soon enough Kate hones in on one of the tramps. Laurie King has some wonderful creations, and this is one of the most intriguing. His name is Erasmus. During the week he lives in a Graduate Theological Seminary and weekends he goes back to the park. His entire conversation consists of quotations, but what quotations! If like me you love quotations, have paper and pen by your side (unless you are a totally computerised household, in which case, prepare your laptop). When he can't remember, it simply means that he can't think of a quote that fits the answer. Kate is annoyed to find that she has to invent questions which are only capable of being answered with a quotation. Eventually, she asks if Erasmus (known in the seminary as Brother Erasmus) knew the dead man. Brother Erasmus answers: "Am I my brother's keeper?" Kate decides this is his admission of guilt. He does nothing to clear himself, nothing to deflect the investigation away from himself. Is he a murderer or the saintly fool he plays?

To clear him, Kate must find the real killer, and she does, with an upbeat ending to warm the heart.

The chapter headings come from G.K. Chesterton's biography of St. Francis of Assisi.

Knox, Bill

Blood Proof

London, Allison & Busby. 256 pp £5.99.

An arson attack on the whisky warehouse of Broch distillery in the lonely, wild, Scottish Highlands. The Scots take any attack on their favourite brew very, very seriously. Colin Thane, second in command of the elite Scottish Crime Squad, is sent north from Glasgow to solve the case of the arson attack which has left three men dead and eight-million pounds worth of the best malt destroyed. He takes with him Detective Sergeant Sandra Craig, red-haired, impulsive.

Nobody seems to have a motive for the arson attack. There seems no reason for the three to be killed. Colin Thane may like the occasional whisky, but he still has to learn about the trade before he can begin to solve the case. He (and the reader) learn about blending, single malt whiskies, and the habits of the habitual drinkers. The serious whisky drinker would start a war if each bottle of his favorite brand did not match the last one.

The sinister events either stem from the Glaswegian underworld, or from the past of the Broch distillery, or the current relationships within the family of the owners, or maybe all of those tied in some way. But if so, why is Colin Thane's wife also being threatened and attacked.

Bill Knox keeps us in suspense right up to the climax of first-class police work, satisfying to the reader, not so to those who think families should matter.

Knox, Bill

Death Bytes

London, Constable Crime. 222 pp £16.99.

Things have come a long way since John Creasey created Handsome Harry of the Yard, happily married and with children such as any grandmother would adore to have. These days coppers have to face inadequate working facilities, new technology, uncooperative superiors who have to be won over to do their job and insist on low-profile policing ... and some very dishy and ambitious policewomen! The ladies don't always behave in a sisterly manner. In Glasgow they also face a criminal fraternity.

A murder takes place in broad daylight in the middle of a market. For perfectly obvious reasons the market folk don't wish to know and disappear. The chief witnesses are law lords, who just happened to be looking out of the window.

The murder and those that follow are connected with the high-tech world. The memory power size of computer chips is measured in bytes and megabytes. Rich pickings for the swift and ruthless.

There is a wonderful scene in which a lynching mob moves in on an investigation. The policeman, with a voice like a foghorn, bellows at them: "... If you've a job, we ask Inland Revenue to take a close look at your tax returns. If you've no job, we ask people like the Benefits Agency, then Housing Benefits, even Social Security to dig out your files. We tell them things we know about -- those little undeclared cash-only earnings, the jobbing window cleaning, the minicab driving, even the grass cutting ... Women too -- the part-time barmaids, the home helps, the wee domestic cleaning jobs. Then we get more officials in to check for TV licences and car tax." The crowd melts away.

Perhaps coppers are a match for the ungodly after all!

Bill Knox hails from Glasgow. He won the Police Review Award for The Crossfire Killings, a crime novel which gave the best portrayal of police procedure.

Krich, Rochelle

Blood Money

New York, Avon Twilight. 341 pp. $23.00.

Was it homicide or a heart attack? The first victim was in vigorous health, the only member of his family to survive the concentration camps. The sleuth is Los Angeles detective, Jessie Drake. Driven by the discovery that her own family was in the Holocaust, she pursues what appears a hopeless investigation. She discovers that other survivors of the Holocaust have died mysteriously. None appeared to have money. No close relatives. What secrets bound together their lives and their deaths?

In investigating their deaths, Jessie Drake gets caught up in her own background, her family's past, what is it to be Jewish? Someone who doesn't keep kosher or the Sabbath keeps in touch with God in other ways. What is it to be old? To live with the knowledge that one parent can support eight children, but eight children cannot support one aged parent. Or not to have children. To know that "they" (but who are "they"!) are going to get you, too.

A fresh spin on the contemporary account of the money in Swiss bank vaults, taken from Rochelle Krich's personal history.

Mystery, humorous and heart-breaking.

Rochelle Krich was born in Germany, taught English in high schools, received the Distinguished Educator of the Year Award.