Mysteries

Beautiful, deceptive women have been hiring hard-boiled private eyes ever since the gumshoe genre began. But a clever author can add a few contemporary twists to this time-honored situation and come up with a compelling mystery that’s fresh as paint. In “When Last Seen Alive” (Putnam, 240 pages, $22.95), the fifth in Gar Anthony Haywood’s popular series about Southern California sleuth Aaron Gunner, two appropriately comely clients send the African American private eye on two separate hunts.

One involves the search for a missing person whom Gunner supposedly met at the Million Man March. The other concerns a dallying councilman from Inglewood. What we’ve learned in a thousand whodunits from Chandler to Mosley is that the two cases eventually should connect. But Haywood has eschewed that hoary tradition in favor of a pair of very original plots that remain parallel, twisting and turning smartly while placing Gunner in conflict with cops, the FBI, a black extremist group known as the Defenders of the Bloodline, and a terrifying knife-wielding sociopath with a fondness for true-crime literature.

In addition, Haywood is particularly adept at sliding social commentary into his carefully plotted tales. And his descriptions of Southern California are sometimes worthy of Raymond Chandler: “Silver Lake was the Los Angeles capital of schizophrenia. It was Caucasian and Hispanic, gay and straight, young and old. It was picturesque, and it was garish; quaint and charming here, plastic and phony there. . . . [Silver Lake] offered a little something for everybody. Including the dumb and dumber.”

*

Earl Emerson should let us all in on his secret for getting the most out of each workday. Somehow, he manages to maintain a full-time job as a lieutenant in the Seattle Fire Department while also producing two mystery novels each year--eagerly awaited additions to a pair of award-winning series that chronicle the separate lives and times of fireman Mac Fontana and private detective Thomas Black, both Rainy City professionals.

Emerson’s latest, “Deception Pass” (Ballantine, 246 pages, $22), is his 10th entry in the Black saga. Like the others, it is a smart mixture of very witty banter and very dark subject matter. In this instance, the mix is weighed a bit toward the latter, with Black investigating a particularly vicious 17-year-old Manson-like multiple murder. His client is a successful businesswoman who uses her wealth to improve living conditions in her city (the sleuth initially thinks of her as “Mother Teresa with a bankroll”). A blackmailer has unearthed her long-hidden involvement in the Deception Pass slayings, but Black’s problem goes beyond merely finding and stopping the crook. He has to figure out whether his client was a helpless witness to the dreadful slayings or an eager participant. The result is one of the best mysteries of the year.

*

Poetic, complex and multidimensional, James Sallis’ insect-titled crime novels about New Orleans detective Lew Griffin--”The Long-Legged Fly,” “Moth,” “Black Hornet” and the current “Eye of the Cricket” (Walker, 190 pages, $21.95)--are unlike any other you’re likely to crack open. The main treat is also the main mystery: What is it that makes the protagonist--a morose middle-aged African American intellectual, eking out a tenuous existence by teaching literature at a local college and hiring out as a private detective--tick?

Narrated by Griffin, “Cricket” is ostensibly about his search for several missing young people in the Crescent City, one of whom is his son. But, unlike just about any other detective novel, there is no linear progression to the investigation. Instead, as filtered through Griffin’s quick, contrary, memory-obsessed mind, the story shifts, switches and leaps back and forth in time. Peppered with images of intriguing events from Griffin’s past, as well as references that range from Andre Gide to Woody Woodpecker, the compelling tale carefully leads us to a conclusion that is both rewarding and--unusual for Sallis’ tales about Griffin--uplifting.

Dick Lochte and Margo Kaufman take turns reviewing mystery books every four weeks. Next week: Mary Rourke on books about faith and spirituality.