by Eliot Pattison

I´ve never stopped suggesting Eliot Pattison´s thriller, The Skull Mantra (Minotaur, 2008), to mystery fans; and it has a place in my permanent book collection. It won a well-deserved Edgar award for Best First Novel when it was published in 1999. Pattison introduces Shan Tao Yun, who has been sent from his job as the Inspector General of the Ministry of Economy in Beijing to a forced labor camp in Tibet, where his fellow prisoners include Tibetan monks and other dissidents. Then a local Chinese official is discovered - headless - near the road construction project Shan has been assigned to. A Chinese colonel assigns Shan to solve the case. It´s clear that the Colonel expects the murder to be blamed on a specific monk, and he tries bribing Shan with more food and better living conditions to accede to his directive. As we follow Shan in his attempts to remain true to his conscience, appease the Colonel, survive inhumane conditions, and finally solve a complex mystery, we´re introduced to a singular and stunning country, its people, and its customs. I´ve seldom read a novel that more effectively captures the soul of its setting (Tony Hillerman comes close) in all of its contradictions, difficulties, and beauty. Though Shan takes center stage, the real hero of this novel is Tibet, during its ongoing struggle for freedom from China.

by George Dawes Green

Although he went on to write two nicely reviewed novels - The Juror and the recently published Ravens - I found both of them to be a bit too scary for my taste. But I absolutely loved George Dawes Green´s very first novel, The Caveman´s Valentine, published way back in 1994. (I am so happy it’s back in print from Grand Central Publishing.) It´s a page-turner with wonderfully three-dimensional characters. Bad things happen, but nothing absolutely too awful to bear. Romulus Ledbetter, the caveman of the title, is a Juilliard-trained classical pianist. He´s also homeless and a paranoid schizophrenic. (He would say that he isn´t, technically, homeless, since he lives in a cave in Manhattan´s Linwood Park.) In the time that isn´t taken up with searching for food in dumpsters, Romulus wages war against the sinister Cornelius Gould Stuyvesant, whom Rom believes is beaming down totally dangerous Y rays from the Chrysler Building. These rays are the direct cause of all the ills facing humankind, and Rom is convinced he must find Stuyvesant and stop him. He´s diverted from his quest because one Valentine´s Day morning, Romulus discovers a dead body lying in front of his cave. Driven to find the murderer, he must reconnect with the world he´d long ago left behind, including his daughter, a policewoman, all the while coping (or not) with his schizophrenia, his hatred of Stuyvesant, and the "civilized" world.