Crime’s Little Ups and Downs

I was dubious when my sister Laurie gave me Lauren Belfer’s debut novel, “City of Light” (Dial Press; $24.95; 518 pages). Laurie is a fan of what I call bummer books--moody, atmospheric novels in which morose characters struggle gamely but hopelessly in depressing environments. “There aren’t that many happy books,” Laurie argued, and I had to admitthe majority of the characters in the mystery universe are candidates for Prozac. Still, I like historical whodunits, and “City of Light”--set not in Paris, but in Buffalo, N.Y., circa 1901--could not be more impeccably researched. Today, Buffalo brings to mind 12-foot blizzards, Love Canal and an NFL franchise that has given us Jack Kemp and O.J. Simpson, but back then the city was America’s Silicon Valley. It led the world in the trade of flour, wheat, coal, fish and sheep.

“The city had become the most important inland port in America,” notes heroine Louisa Barrett, the enigmatic headmistress of the Macaulay School for Girls. Barrett also presides over a salon where local titans of industry and historical figures such as architect Stanford White (who designed the power stations at nearby Niagara Falls) discuss the upcoming Pan American Exposition and the electrical wonders being pioneered in Niagara Falls.

“I liked to think that my Monday evening salon was the only place in the city where men and women could meet as equals,” observes Barrett, who acknowledges that she was only able to get away with this because of her “unmarriageable” status. “I was kind of a wise virgin--an Athena if you will.”

The status quo is shattered when Barrett’s young goddaughter, Grace Sinclair, threatens suicide. Months before, Grace’s mother, Margaret, had died in childbirth, leaving behind her depressed child and grief-stricken husband, Tom, director of the falls’ hydroelectric plant. On a visit to the newly electrified Sinclair House to cheer up Grace, Louisa overhears Tom arguing with Kurt Speyer, a world-famous engineer. By morning, Speyer is found dead under mysterious circumstances. No sooner does Barrett feel compelled to look into it than Sinclair offers the Macaulay School a million-dollar endowment--with the income to be administered by Barrett. And local citizens begin making cryptic comments about Barrett’s past.

The conflict du jour--the clash between industrialists wanting to electrify the world and early environmentalists trying to preserve Niagara--is gripping and the killer is hard to finger. Unfortunately, the puzzle of Barrett’s tainted past isn’t half as intriguing as the background, and the climax to the action was depressing.

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I doubted “Black Notice” (Putnam; $25.95; 415 pages), Patricia Cornwell’s latest Kay Scarpetta outing, would lift my spirits, but I underestimated the bestselling author. The seldom upbeat Scarpetta, chief medical examiner of Virginia, is still in mourning for her murdered lover, Benton Wesley, when a senator friend delivers a letter from beyond the grave. In it, Benton urges her to get on with her life (which at the moment consists of keeping crazy busy with work so she can’t feel any pain). He suggests that she start by cooking dinner for her longtime colleague, police Capt. Pete Marino, and Lucy, her surly, gun-toting niece (two of the least cheering people imaginable). But before she can preheat the oven, Scarpetta is called to the Port of Richmond, where a badly decomposed body has been found in a cargo container.

Curiously, there’s no police presence, save for a Det. Anderson who “disses” Kay and doesn’t secure the crime site, and Marino, who has been thrown back into uniform on the orders of newly appointed Deputy Chief Bray, a beautiful boss from hell. The police personnel changes come out of nowhere and are distracting, as is a subplot in which someone is posing as Scarpetta on the Internet. Still, once the doctor slips on the latex gloves, she really delivers.

Cornwell understands the difference between facts for shock value and facts that deliver. When Kay picks up her Luma-Lite, a device that detects body fluids, she discovers a message: “Bon voyage, le loup-garou,” (Have a nice trip, werewolf) written in the corner of the container. Soon she is trailing an international serial killer, a pursuit that leads her to Paris, where she finds what she least expects.

Cornwell has a knack for description: “Lucy couldn’t move her lips without moving her hands, as if she were conducting a conversation instead of having one,” she notes. The taut plot is clever and surprising, but the most heartening aspect of “Black Notice” is that the main characters wind up better off, instead of inching further toward the crack of doom.

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Still, if you’re looking for a literary antidepressant, you can’t do better than the hilarious “High Five” (St. Martin’s Press; $23.95; 292 pages) by Janet Evanovich. Stephanie Plum, a hyperkinetic New Jersey bounty hunter, manages to simultaneously search for her missing Uncle Fred, cruise the mall for pointy-toed black satin high heels, and fend off a stalking psychopath, a horny sheik, a hostile little bail jumper, a thug who claims to be Uncle Fred’s bookie, an amorous ex-boyfriend, and a sexy mercenary--all of whom have an alarming habit of hanging out in her apartment.

When I stopped laughing, I sent it to my sister.

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The Times reviews mysteries every other week. Next week: Rochelle O’ Gorman on audio books.