Guilt, Vengeance Come Into Play for a Thrilling Read

David Morrell’s “Long Lost” (Warner, $25.95, 310 pages) is the sort of compelling yarn you open at bedtime to sample the first few pages and wind up wide-eyed at 3 a.m. wondering how the darn thing’s going to end.

Here’s the hook: Protagonist Brad Denning has a beautiful wife, a terrific young son, a promising career. But he has not been able to shake the guilt that has plagued him for decades, ever since he told his kid brother Petey to stop bothering him and get lost. Taking him a bit too literally, Petey never made it home again.

His disappearance eventually destroyed the family, and Brad has never been able to forgive himself. When a pleasant-enough homeless man shows up, claiming to be Petey, Brad is dubious, but the guy has all the right answers. No sooner is he accepted as the long-lost little bro, the self-proclaimed Petey goes homicidal, shoving Brad off a cliff and kidnapping the wife and son. Adding to the fears of the badly damaged but recovering Brad, the largely disinterested FBI agent assigned to the case tells him the perp is not his brother but a serial killer who has eluded the agency for years.

By this point, roughly the first fourth of the novel, Morrell has delivered a model suspense thriller, earning enough goodwill to draw us past the not-quite-enthralling section in which, like the author’s most famous creation, Rambo (yes, that Rambo, the hero of his 1972 novel, “First Blood”), Brad buffs up and rides out for vengeance. Thankfully, that mood passes and the book shifts back to thriller mode zooming on to its inevitable showdown, delivering a fair measure of detection and application of logic and some genuinely suspenseful moments along the way. Anyone with a serious fear of snakes should probably avoid chapters seven and eight.

A Hard-Boiled Collection Featuring an All-Star Cast

In his introduction to the trade paperback anthology “A Century of Noir” (NAL, $15, 521 pages), Max Allan Collins describes his co-editor, Mickey Spillane, as “the most famous living mystery writer,” a claim that’s difficult to dispute. He also states that most of the 32 tales in the collection “are hard-boiled enough to chip a tooth on.” Again, fairly indisputable. It’s definitely an all-star affair with the likes of Ross Macdonald (“Guilt-Edged Blonde”), John D. MacDonald (“Murder for Money”), Evan Hunter (“Dead Men Don’t Dream”), James M. Cain (“Cigarette Girl”) and Chester Himes (“The Meanest Cop in the World”) at the top of their respective forms. Also well-represented are such current favorites as Lawrence Block (“How Would You Like It?”), Sarah Paretsky (“Grace Notes”) and Marsha Muller (“Deceptions”).

The co-editors have chosen well from their own stock on hand, too. Spillane’s “Tomorrow I Die” is a mordant novelette with a surprise ending; Collins’ “Kaddish for the Kid” features popular sleuth Nate Heller in a ‘30s-era tale that, as is the case with the Hellers, mixes crime fact with crime fiction.

Law Enforcer Becomes a Villain Targeting Lawyers

There’s a welcome air of edgy humor that sharpens Taffy Cannon’s “Open Season on Lawyers” (Daniel & Daniel/Perseverance Press, $13.95 trade paperback, 288 pages). You can sense the fun to come from the first sentences of the book: “Somebody was killing the sleazy lawyers of Los Angeles. In the beginning, hardly anybody noticed.”

Cannon’s two leads here are hard-boiled LAPD robbery-homicide Det. Joanna Davis and her resourceful nemesis, Ace, also known as the Atterminator, whose prey are attorneys who push the limits of the law.

The author moves the action from law enforcer to lawbreaker with easy grace, but the action seems to be weighed in favor of the villain who bumps off the liars for hire using original murder devices that call attention to their most successful legal loophole-picking. The lawyers are such an unlovely group that it’s almost impossible not to sympathize with the “Atterminator.”

Essay Fest Highlights ‘Forgotten’ Selections

Two years ago, Jim Huang, editor of the Drood Review, one of the better newsletters devoted to the subject of crime fiction, published “100 Favorite Mysteries of the Century,” a series of that many essays written by members of the Independent Mystery Booksellers Assn. Now, Huang is back with another trade paperback essay fest, “They Died in Vain” (Crum Creek Press, $13, 192 pages), calling attention to, as the subhead puts it, “Overlooked, Underappreciated and Forgotten Mystery Novels.”

There are some surprising selections among the 103 tales. One doesn’t think of Vera Caspary’s “Laura” or George Pelecanos’ “The Big Blowdown” as being particularly overlooked or forgotten, but the comments about them are smart and on point. And any book serving as a reminder of the joys to be found in titles such as the deliriously witty “Fast Company,” by the late screenwriter Harry Kurnitz, using his “Marco Page” moniker, or Richard S. Prather’s hard-boiled and hilarious West Coast reply to Mickey Spillane, “The Wailing Frail,” belongs on every mystery fan’s reading list.

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Dick Lochte, the author of the prize-winning novel “Sleeping Dog” and its sequel, “Laughing Dog” (Poisoned Pen Press), reviews mysteries every other Wednesday.