Books: The Dead Are Discreet (Jacob Asch #1) By Arthur Lyons (1974)

“When Jacob Asch takes a job investigating the gruesome murders of socialite Sheila Warren and her boyfriend, film producer Randy Folsom, all clues point to Sheila's distraught husband as the obvious killer. At least until Asch discovers that Sheila had been attending séances and dabbling in witchcraft prior to her death. Using information coerced from Sheila's associates in the California black magic scene, Asch learns of a porno film starring Sheila, now in the possession of an arcane sect of Satanists, whose uncanny rites suggest a completely different motive for the crime.”

1970’s noir doesn’t get any creepier than this debut novel by Arthur Lyons. The Dead Are Discreet –the first of eleven books- introduced readers to 34-year-old Jacob Asch, an embittered but nonetheless witty and compassionate, half-Jewish former investigative reporter for the (fictional) Los Angeles Chronicle. After being jailed for six months because he refused to rat out a story source, Asch drifted reluctantly into a gumshoeing career, and found that it fit him.

Arthur Lyons was born January 5, 1946, in Los Angeles. His family moved to Palm Springs at age 11. He graduated from the University of California, Santa Barbara in 1967 and worked in his family’s restaurant business in the town before becoming a writer. Lyons published a nonfiction work in 1970, a study of Satanism and cult development in America called The Second Coming. However, it was this novel which would mark the course of his writing for the next 20 years.

The Dead Are Discreet is seemly an outgrowth from the authors research on cults, as it leads Jacob “through the underground of Los Angeles of the 1970s, from its arcane religious sects of Satanists and Jesus freaks to the kinky sexual pleasures of the wealthy who could callously destroy the life of a teenage girl for the sake of a roll of bizarre movie films.”

Lyons was one among a cadre of talented young American detective novelists of that era and into the early ’80s, all vying to wear the crowns once sported by earlier stars of the genre such as Chandler, Dashiell Hammett and Ross Macdonald. The New York Times called Jacob Asch “one of the more convincing private eyes in the business, thanks to Mr. Lyons’s skill at characterization.” Dorothy B. Hughes of the Los Angeles Times complimented Lyons on his “true ear for everyday dialogue.” And no less a critic than fellow author Charles Willeford commended Lyons as a “master of plotting.” Asch found himself involved in a wide range of criminal settings, and Lyons researched all of them so thoroughly that he alternated his crime novels with nonfiction studies of cults, devil worship, pornography, and other nefarious activities.

After 1994’s False Pretenses, Lyons turned his attention to noir motion pictures, an interest that led him to produce one last book, a nonfiction work titled Death on the Cheap: The Lost B Movies of Film Noir, as well help co-create the annual Palm Springs noir film festival, which celebrated its 25^th Anniversary this past spring (and which is now named for him). All of those books are currently out of print, and thanks to Tony, who runs @SideshowBooks here in Los Angeles, and who is a noir fan, I’m going to start reading some. Sadly, In March 2008, after suffering head injuries from a fall, followed by a stroke and then pneumonia, he passed away at 62.

Books: The Last Devil to Die (The Thursday Murder Club #4) by Richard Osman

“It's Boxing Day lunch at Cooper's Chase, where our resident septuagenarians Elizabeth, Ron, Ibrahim, and Joyce learn about the murder of antiques dealer, Kuldesh Sharma (who had a cameo in the previous book), who also happens to be a friend of Stephen, Elizabeth's husband. Of course, DCI Chris Hudson and Donna were determined to keep the members of the Thursday Murder Club out of their current murder investigation, but this proving hard to do. They’re quickly, however, get drawn into the dangerous world of drug dealers, art forgery and antiques. As the team investigates, Chris and Donna find themselves off the case, replaced by someone up the chain of command, which implies to them that there is more going on than anyone thought. Meanwhile, Elizabeth and her dementia suffering husband Stephen have come to a crossroad and nothing will be the same again.”

As The Thursday Murder Club further expands its caseloads beyond the confines of Copper’s Chase, including adding (and saying goodbye) to recurring characters, it comes to a natural breakpoint with The Last Devil To Die. A more emotional entry in the series, author Richard Osman still gives up a complex mystery, a dark look into some antique dealers business where forgery, deception, and murder seem to be the routine. We also get a B plot involving a lonely fellow resident, Mervyn, who has become the target of an online romance scam, and who refuses to believe his Tatiana is fictitious.

 

Despite some dark things (and a lot of death), Osman continues to give these wonderful characters a sense of humor. There are some laugh-out-loud moments, ones that are needed, mostly as the medical issues of Stephen and the couple’s solution to his dementia is a gut punch (and I wonder if there will be residual effects in later volumes). So goofy-fun Joyce steps up during a good portion of the operation, with Bogdan also playing a bigger, yet sympathetic role and Ibrahim also proves a vital part to play in the Murder Club's investigations.

 

While everything sort gets tied up neatly, there are a few dangling plot threads, but a fifth volume will be on the way –probably in late 2025- as Osman began a new series this year, We Solve Murders, with new characters and settings. Which means I’ll not read it until 2026. 

Books: The Librarianist by Patrick deWitt (2023)

“Bob Comet is a retired librarian passing his solitary days surrounded by books and small comforts in a mint-colored house in Portland, Oregon. One morning on his daily walk he encounters a confused elderly woman lost in a market and returns her to the senior center that is her home. Hoping to fill the void he's known since retiring, he begins volunteering at the center. Here, as a community of strange peers gathers around Bob, and following a happenstance brush with a painful complication from his past, the events of his life and the details of his character are revealed.”

Most of the novel is taken up with Comet’s past, with only a small part set in 2005/2006, where we learn of his adventures as an unhappy runaway child during the last days of the Second World War, of his true love that is stolen away, and pride and purpose he finds as a career librarianist. What sustains the novel is Bob, who is sort of a straight man surrounded by a number of outsized people like Connie and Ethan – and the ones in the retirement home, as well as June and Ida, who we see in the latter half of the book (and characters straight out of Dickens).

The Librarianist is, perhaps, deWitt’s most accessible novel, though it’s more prone to clichés of the genre than previous tales. I can identify a lot with Bob, an introvert, as well. Still, I found the book effective, with its dark humor and compassion little seen in today’s fiction;  a moving and delightful character study that is warmhearted with a likable hero.

Books: The Bullet That Missed (The Thursday Murder Club #3) By Richard Osman (2022)

 

“The crime-fighting quartet of the Coopers Chase Retirement Village take on an ex-KGB colonel, several TV icons, a murderous money launderer, and more as they rush to catch the latest killer. Joyce suggests that the gang investigate the death of Bethany Waites, a local TV presenter whose car was pushed off a cliff several years prior. Bethany had been investigating a tax fraud operation worth over £10 million and had told colleagues she was close to revealing the mastermind behind it all. Now the Thursday Murder Club wants to know: Who killed Bethany? What happened to the £10 million? And why, since they started their investigation, have their two prime suspects in Bethany’s disappearance turned up dead?”

So far, the strongest of three, The Bullet that Missed moves at a swift pace, with exciting revelations as the tale builds. Then there is the mysterious man everyone is calling The Viking who wants Elizabeth to kill an old KGB agent, or he’ll kill Joyce. Then there is Ibraham trying to puzzle out what happened in the prison (a murder of another inmate) where Drug Queen Connie Johnson is awaiting trial for the actions in the last book.

The humor is still there, and Joyce remains funniest, somewhat daffy, eccentric character who is, of course, sometimes the cleverest of the lot. And she usually gets the best jokes, like this, “I have been Googling but there's not much there. I got so desperate I even used Bing but the results were the same if a bit slower”, and it made me laugh aloud. Still, Elizabeth remains the heart and soul of this series (and remains a hoot herself), a cunning woman who possess some brilliant talents and friends. Nothing seems to ruffle her feathers, with the exception of knowing that her husband Stephen’s time is growing shorter, as he begins to sense that there is finally something wrong with him.

Yes, it’s a cozy mystery the British have excelled with for more than a century, but it’s fun and very charming. And as I grow older, it’s also fun to read tales that feature positive age representations –this series celebrates the intelligence, ingenuity, resourcefulness and savvy that only comes with a life fully lived. Also, I learned a lot about cryptocurrency.

Books: The Jennifer Morgue (The Laundry Files #2) By Charles Stross (2010)

“In 1975, the CIA used Howard Hughes's Glomar Explorer in a bungled attempt to raise a sunken Soviet submarine in order to access the "Gravedust" unit, an occult device that allows communication with the dead. Now a ruthless billionaire intends to try again, even if by doing so he awakens the Great Old Ones, who thwarted the earlier expedition. It's up to Bob Howard and a collection of British eccentrics even Monty Python would consider odd to stop the bad guy and save the world, while getting receipts for all expenditures or else face the most dreaded menace of all: the Laundry's own auditors. Howard is sent abroad with Ramona Random, an operative of the Black Chamber and a member of BLUE HADES, to defeat Ellis Billington's plan to steal and use the Gravedust unit on DEEP SEVEN. BLUE HADES has an interest in preventing this. Ellis has relocated to the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and put it under an occult enchantment which ensures only people who fit a particular stereotype can enter the island safely.”

The Jennifer Morgue is the second collection of stories by Charles Stross featuring Bob Howard, containing the title novel, a short story called Pimpf, and an essay titled The Golden Age of Spying. And yes, as much as the first book played out like an old school spy novel, ala Len Dieghton, this one is a full blown homage to James Bond, with secret island bases, gadgets, monologue prone mad men out to remake the world and beautiful women.

And for those who want to keep with this series, the Black Chamber is an American cryptanalysis agency, which was officially disbanded in 1929, but then secretly re-tasked with occult intelligence duties sometime later. The Black Chamber is basically the US equivalent of The Laundry. "Black Chamber" itself is the designation the Laundry has given to the organization: its internal name is Operational Phenomenology Agency (OPA). Meanwhile, The Deep Ones is the code name for an ancient civilization living under the oceans. They are powerful but pose no immediate threat to the human population so long as humanity does not intrude on their territory, which is defined by a treaty. They have a long-standing issue with Deep Seven, are known as The Chthoians, a race of “polymorphous, occupy areas of the upper crust near the Polar Regions.”

Rooted in Lovecraftian overtones and Stross’ love for Ian Fleming’s James Bond, this book fits nicely into the same sort style that Tim Powers has done for decades. It’s not a diss, more to prove that writers can have similar themes and ideas and still present it in an entertaining fashion. And I adore Stross’ continued in-joke about how PowerPoint is really a tool of the occult.

Like the first book, I did not get every nerd reference in this book –especially the computer ones. I’m assuming Stross knows what he’s talking about, when he goes on describing things –if only because programmers who read his work will call him out on it. But it’s still a fun book with absurd ideas, snarky humor, and good pacing.