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Edwards, Martin

First Cut is the Deepest

London, Hodder & Stouchton. 362 pp. £16.99.

It is dangerous enough having an affair with the woman married to one of Liverpool's ruthless villains. The villain beats her occasionally, but she won't leave him. However, she decides she must have a lover and seduces Liverpool solicitor Harry Devlin. That's the good news for him. The bad news is that he is also unlucky. A secret tryst in the home of one of her friends is interrupted by a storm and the discovery of a freshly-decapitated corpse with what looks like a stake through the heart.

To cover up the affair, poor Harry has to lie to the police, his partner, and just about everyone else. The greater the lies, the deeper he gets into it. He is even more frayed around the edges than usual. In the midst of all this, he finds he is being stalked by a strange man, who just happens to be an authority on vampires. (The quotations in the book are from Dracula by Bram Stoker, who was a lawyer incidentally.)

A second lawyer is also murdered, with a stake through her heart.

This is very much the "new classical" mystery novel. On the one hand, the "traditional classical" elements of strange and unusual clues that the sleuth must put together. On the other, modern personal relationships set against a contemporary atmosphere, and which must also be understood to solve the mystery.

Since we all love to hate lawyers, there are lots of jokes against lawyers which the author, himself a lawyer, says came from fellow-lawyers.

Elkins, Aaron

Loot

New York, Morrow. 354 pp. $24.00.

The tone of the book is set near the end, when someone gives reasons why he wants his father's paintings back. It isn't their monetary worth. Because they were taken from him at the cost of his life. By recovering them, a precious part of the family history that was stolen from them is recovered. It is also right that they should be returned. The story of European art looting through the centuries is gradually revealed, as the sleuth, Ben Revere, talks to fellow art curators, police, the rich, the poor.

CA$H IN A FLA$H is the motto of old Simeon's seedy Boston pawnshop. Amongst the piles of junk, Ben Revere identifies a lost Velazquez. Old Simeon is murdered, and Ben Revere (feeling somewhat guilty that he hadn't prevented it and might even have precipitated it) sets off on the trail of the murderer and the mysteries accompanying the priceless painting. For those of our readers intent on a life of crime, or just a one-off, the method by which such a painting can be smuggled through customs and airport X-ray machines is meticulously set out.

We are introduced to the great capitals of Europe, and a parade of people who lived through the worst years of the war and somehow survived. Pre-war Vienna is pictured, and Vienna today. The fat ugly women were all on the operatic stage, and the pretty ones were in the audience. Now it's the other way round, says a count, who considers the change a net loss. We learn of the war, and how the Nazis set about their looting and then decided to hide the loot. There is an absolutely wonderful portrait of the "curator" who set up the system for classifying and putting the loot away in the Austrian Alps and goes berserk when the paperwork is ignored. One truck is lost. What happened to the paintings it carried and why was one of them pawned fifty years later for a mere hundred dollars by a professional courier working for the Russian mafia? Why it all matters and how a new generation of Americans and Europeans set about doing what they can are amongst the topics tackled (honestly).

In this topical mystery and adventure novel, superbly researched, skillfully plotted, some of the rightful owners get some of their paintings back, some of the baddies get some comeuppance, and old Simeon's niece gets Ben Revere.

Aaron Elkins, born in Brooklyn, lives in Monterey, California, with his wife Charlotte. He is the recipient of a Mystery Writers of America Edgar. He was once a management analyst.