Echo Burning

Echo Burning
by Lee Child
Recommended Ages: 14+

Everyone says a storm's coming toward Echo County, Texas, but Jack Reacher isn't buying it. Day after scorching day, the heat beats down on the arid, empty landscape. But both a storm and a burning really are in store for Echo, and make no mistake: Reacher will be right in the middle of the deadly violence at the heart of it.

It starts when an attractive but desperate woman named Carmen Greer picks Jack up only moments after he sticks his thumb out, trying to hitch a ride. The woman tells him that her husband, who beats her, is about to get out of prison; that she can't run, because they would never let her take her 6-year-old daughter Ellie with her; and that she needs someone like local hero Clay Allison – the "gentleman gunfighter" whose gravestone says he "never killed a man that did not need killing" – someone, she feels, exactly like Jack Reacher.

As hard a man as Reacher has already proven to be, straight-up murdering Sloop Greer doesn't sit right with him. He refuses to do it. Refuses to let Carmen seduce him. But agrees to hang around the ranch a little while, just to see what happens and do what comes naturally. He agrees to give her shooting lessons with a .22 caliber pistol. And he starts to believe her story. But then, Sloop returns home a day early. Next thing you know, while Jack is in the backseat of a state patrol cruiser being driven to the next county, Sloop gets shot in the head with his wife's .22 pistol.

Before his eyes, Carmen is taken away in handcuffs. He can't get into the jail to see her for a week – her arrest is on Sunday and visiting hours are on Saturday. He convinces a pro bono lawyer to represent her, but she refuses to talk to the lawyer. The district attorney, one of Sloop's best friends, seems to want to help the woman who apparently killed his buddy, but he has to let Reacher know that almost everything Carmen told him was a lie. Finally, Carmen actually confesses to all the lies and the murder of her husband.

With every piece of evidence coming out more damning than the last, it seems Reacher will have to admit that his judgment of Carmen's character was off – way off – and that his sense of people, honed during a 13-year career as a military cop, has deserted him. Which is, of course, exactly when he realizes for certain that Carmen is totally innocent, and that her husband's murder is part of a pattern involving a trio of contract killers, several yet-to-be-discovered dead bodies, and a sweet little girl whose life is in terrifying danger.

It's an ideal case for a sleuth whose knack for solving mysteries depends heavily on busting heads. Nobody busts them harder and with more precision than Jack Reacher. If you want to get him going, threaten his life. If you really want to get him going, threaten the life of a defenseless, innocent child. It's impressive when he shows mercy. It's terrifying when he doesn't. But now and then, it's good to have somebody terrifying on the side of the angels.

This is the fifth Jack Reacher novel by Lee Child, followed in series order by Without Fail. The 25th book, The Sentinel, is due for release in October 2020 and is co-authored by Lee's brother Andrew Child, a.k.a. Andrew Grant. There is also a book of Reacher stories titled No Middle Name, which I've been seeing in bookstores lately.

Vortex

Vortex
by S.J. Kincaid
Recommended Ages: 13+

In his second year at the Pentagonal Spire, training to be a cybernetically augmented super-soldier fighting space drone battles over the solar system's mineral resources, Tom Raines faces a roadblock to his dream of becoming one of the Indo-American coalition's elite combatants. Due to his own lack of tact and unwillingness to bow down to people that he doesn't accept as his betters, Tom has alienated pretty much all of the CEOs of the corporations that control the government and keep the war going. While old General Marsh says he's counting on Tom to fix things so he can, maybe, one day, actually win the war and not just perpetuate the war machine, it's ironically the horrible Lieutenant Blackburn – he who would be Snape if Tom was Harry Potter – who gives the kid a fighting chance.

As icky as that is for Tom to contemplate, he also has to own up to some mistakes of his own, like one that has breached the Spire's security and let in an evil mind that threatens everything that matters to him. He also has to face his own worst fear – a very justifiable fear, based on an experience that nearly ended him – to help save the life of a friend. And no matter what else he does, it seems unavoidable that he must betray the enemy combatant whom he secretly loves.

Tom has a tough second year at the Spire. But what happens to him, and what he does, makes for compulsively fun reading. There was a passage, in which teenage trainees are trying out a thought interface that allows them to instant-message each other telepathically, that made me laugh so hard I had to take a break and call someone who would let me read it aloud to them. There are frank discussions among characters about questions of character (in a different sense of the word), wisdom, ethics, pragmatism and different kinds of courage. There were also political bits that force the reader to think about how the world might look a little farther down the slope we're on, depending on how slippery it gets in the near future. There were passages where the reader inwardly joins in the main characters' adolescent mischief, romantic joy, sorrow, horror and thrilling escapades. There are displays of cold brutality that should make you shudder, and of sudden defiance that might make you cheer.

All these things play against the backdrop of gosh-wow gadgetry and a fantasy world that, in spite of its imaginative power, requires very little alteration from the real world to paint one's mental picture. This is the second book of the "Insignia" trilogy, between Insignia and Catalyst. S.J. Kincaid is also the author of three "Diabolic" novels, The Diabolic, The Empress and The Nemesis.

Tacky Hymns 78

Again I repeat:

We continue our run-through of the hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal (Concordia Publishing House, 1941) with emphasis on three types of hymns: (1) instances of bad judgment by the folks who selected hymns for the book, judged on the basis of historic, confessional and liturgical Lutheranism; (2) noteworthy quirks of hymn-tune pairing; and (3) wonderful hymns that I think should receive more play time (by which I mean singing time) in confessional Lutheran congregations, even if it means undertaking a challenging process of getting acquainted, because of their precious spiritual and artistic value.

(500) May God bestow on us His grace is a "missions" hymn by Martin Luther (1524), set to its own 1525 chorale, ES WOLL UNS GOTT. If your congregation doesn't know this hymn, work on that. It's beautiful. For many years, I've fantasized about Martin Luther riding his cart to Worms, expecting to probably be burned at the stake like Savonarola, strumming on his lute and singing a hymn like this in his fine tenor voice. But of course, Worms was three years before this hymn. Oh, well, we can dream, right?

(501) Soldiers of the Cross, arise is a "missions" hymn by William Walsham How (1854) couched in terms of military aggression. Shades of "go therefore and shove the gospel down all nations' throats, by whatever force necessary."

(502) Saints of God, the dawn is brightening is a "missions" hymn by Mary Maxwell (1849), a.k.a. "the lady from Virginia." I think the intentions of her use of the word "Pentecostal" in stanza 2 may be innocent, but due to 20th century developments this line may have poor connotations within the Lutheran context.

(503) Rise, crowned with light, imperial Salem, rise is an impressive poem by Alexander Pope (1712, cento, alt.) But it's set to the abbreviated form of OLD 124TH, about which I've complained before. Also, stanza 3 calls upon the congregation to sing "prostrate" and not "prostate," which might be a difficult decision to make on sight at any but a very stately tempo. (See also hymn 339, "All hail the power of Jesus' name.")

(504) O Spirit of the living God is a very fine "missions" hymn by James Montgomery (1823), a prolific hymn writer, poet, sometime editor of a politically radical newspaper and member of the Moravian sect, which I am inclined to forgive him because of the high quality (along with quantity) of his hymns. TLH contains 14 of them. This particular one seems, to me, to be an under-utilized member of the "missions" section. At the risk of overdoing the "hey, this missions hymn is great" bit, I'm going to quit doing that and move directly to...

(511) Jesus shall reign where'er the sun, a somewhat tacky "missions" hymn by Isaac Watts (1719, cento) that is often cited as an example of British imperialism clothed in Christian language. Not for nothing was the British Empire called that on which the sun never set. Whether or not the hymn can be read without interpreting it that way is one question; whether its quality is so excellent that we must overlook its role in history is another.

(512) Art thou weary, art thou troubled is a nice little hymn by John Mason Neale (1862, cento, alt.) that opens the "Cross and Comfort" section. I'd like to mention it, first of all, as an example of excellence in little things, and second, because some of the antiquated language might be a bit of an obstacle today. How many people reaching stanza 4 will recall ever having encountered the word "guerdon" before? (It rhymes with "burden" and means "reward.")

(516) In the hour of trial, another hymn by Montgomery, is a hymn that I often used for personal comfort when I was a deeply unhappy teen. In retrospect, I probably could have chosen better; but it is what it is. It's a soft, gentle hymn of self-consolation, addressed to Jesus, and all that it lacks to be really excellent is an explicit appeal to the efficacy of word and sacrament. Also, the tune ST. MARY MAGDALENE by John B. Dykes (1862) is nice, in a bland, mildly sentimental way, probably contributing greatly to this hymn's overall association in my mind with a sepia-tone photograph. I'll always feel affection toward this hymn, but I'll say of myself what I've said of others: there's no accounting for taste.

(518) If thou but suffer God to guide thee is by George Neumark (1640), set to his own tune, WER NUR DEN LIEBEN GOTT. It's a striking piece, but really what makes me mention it here is its use in the film Babette's Feast, where it is sung by an archpietist sect in Denmark, with the raised 7th degree of the minor scale (in TLH, the F-sharp of G minor) flattened to the equivalent of the medieval Aeolian mode. It really puts a striking twist into a familiar tune.

To sum up the "Type 3" selections in the "Cross and Comfort" section, please make sure your congregation learns to know and love the wonderful hymns (517) The will of God is always best by Albrecht von Brandenburg (c. 1554), (520) Commit whatever grieves thee by Paul Gerhardt (1656), (521) What God ordains is always good by Samuel Rodigast (1675), (522) When in the hour of utmost need by Paul Eber (1560), (523) Why should cross and trial grieve me by Gerhardt (1653), (524) In Thee, Lord, have I put my trust by Adam Reusner (1533), (526) In God, my faithful God by Sigismund Weingaertner (1607) and (535) Rejoice, my heart, be glad and sing by Gerhardt (1653), each of them set to a beautiful and historically significant tune for Lutheran hymn culture.

However, for (528) If God Himself be for me, also by Gerhardt (1656), I would recommend the tune named after it, IST GOTT FUER MICH (Augsburg, 1609), which is paired with it in LBW, LW, ELHy, ELW and LSB, rather than TLH's choice of the hackneyed VALET WILL ICH DIR GEBEN. Both are fine tunes, make no mistake; but IST GOTT has a confidence, strength and seriousness that I think fit the subject matter better than VALET's overexposed cheerfulness.

Another hymn that I wince to admit I loved when I was a depressed kid is (531) Come, ye disconsolate – a poem co-authored piecemeal by Thomas Moore (1816) and Thomas Hastings (1832) set to the gushy tune ALMA REDEMPTORIS MATER by Samuel Webbe (1792). In its sympathetic touchy-feeliness, it perhaps serves best as an example of why the church should consider having one hymn-book for home devotions and another for public worship; I would relegate this to the former.

(533) Nearer, my God, to Thee is that hymn, inescapable as an iceberg in the North Atlantic night, that (legend has it) the ship's band played on deck while the RMS Titanic was going down. The Handbook to the Lutheran Hymnal, after going through multiple variants of this hymn by different authors, who vied with each other to correct the shortcomings of Sarah Flower Adams' original (1841) poem, comes just short of admitting that including it in TLH was a regrettable decision. For example, Adams (even "alt.") never mentions Christ. One of the authors of unsuccessful rewrites was no less a Lutheran leader than Henry Eyster Jacobs. The original and final hymn is such a piece of vague, sentimental religiosity, I'm kind of surprised it made it past the editors of TLH and in my opinion, it's a black mark against their good judgment.

I'll leave off for today where "Cross and Comfort" ends, with the "Times and Seasons" section on deck (hymns 536 ff.).

Victims

Victims
by Jonathan Kellerman
Recommended Ages: 14+

I'll probably remember this book, at least partly, for one chilling moment in which a police artist is admitting that his work on a sketch of a murder suspect, based on an very sketchy eyewitness description, is complete garbage. Yet when he sets eyes on the picture – described, in the moment, as an "ambiguous pale disk filled with bland, male features" that, if colored yellow, could have been "Mr. Happy Face's noncommittal brother" – consulting psychologist Dr. Alex Delaware admits to himself, "It twanged a memory synapse deep within my brain. Had I seen him before?"

Another character's response to a sketch of the same suspect is equally chilling. She says something about how there seems to be something missing from the eyes, to which Alex (who by now recalls the face he glimpsed before) replies to the effect that whatever it is, is also missing from the real guy's eyes. Later, with the killer before him, Alex describes him thus: "Pudding-faced, snub-featured, unlined by contemplation, problematic abstraction, or any of the mean little demands posed by sanity."

The killer in this thriller – actually one-half of a two-killer team – is different, full stop. Different, also, from the bogeyman of almost any other murder mystery I've ever read. Terrifyingly different, in ways that make a psychological angle supremely relevant to the Los Angeles Police Department's investigation of one – no, two – no, four – no wait, five grisly homicides that are clearly the work of somebody who likes to see the insides of human bodies. Mercifully (if that's the right word), he snaps his victims' necks before he eviscerates them. It becomes increasingly clear that this is a killer who is so loony that he probably needs someone to help him organize his crimes and evade capture – maybe someone just as deadly as himself.

It's one of those specially creepy mysteries in which the main character comes to the horrible realization that he's been in a room with each of the killers without knowing it – and that most of the victims, perhaps even more victims than the police know about yet, share a connection that reaches back to a psychiatric facility where he (Alex) worked early in his career. Bad things were done, not necessarily with the best intentions, to a patient who was the wrong guy to cross, aided by an accomplice with a blood lust of his own, and between them they will bring things to the point where a child psychologist is the only person who can stop a killer who snaps necks with his bare hands from doing it to his cop buddy.

Lt. Milo Sturgis and his crime-fighting gang are all back, including Hollywood Homicide Detective Petra Connor and her partner Raoul Biro (stars of a spinoff series of novels). Their dialogue pops with fun and intelligence, and their police work is solid. But with anything but a straightforward case before them, solid police work eventually takes a backseat (along with two flatulent dogs) to leaps of intuition and instinct about what makes cuckoos of the non-clock persuasion tick. And in case I haven't said it clearly enough already, this one's a chiller on a level I didn't expect even of this long, distinguished series of psychologically twisted crime novels.

This is the 27th of going on 36 Alex Delaware novels, ranging from When the Bough Breaks (1985) through the upcoming Serpentine (February 2021). Among the titles in the series prior to this book are Devil's Waltz, Survival of the Fittest, The Murder Book, A Cold Heart and Compulsion; immediately following this book, Guilt, Killer, Motive and Breakdown. Obviously, Jonathan Kellerman writes police thrillers with a psychological component. His other titles include a book of poems for children and their parents and non-fiction about child psychology and guitars.

Tacky Hymns 77

Again I repeat:

We continue our run-through of the hymns in The Lutheran Hymnal (Concordia Publishing House, 1941) with emphasis on three types of hymns: (1) instances of bad judgment by the folks who selected hymns for the book, judged on the basis of historic, confessional and liturgical Lutheranism; (2) noteworthy quirks of hymn-tune pairing; and (3) wonderful hymns that I think should receive more play time (by which I mean singing time) in confessional Lutheran congregations, even if it means undertaking a challenging process of getting acquainted, because of their precious spiritual and artistic value.

(457) What a Friend we have in Jesus is one that I've dealt with before, in "Type 1" terms. However, it's worth knowing ("Type 2") that the old Lutheran Hymnary (LHy) and the Ev. Lutheran Hymnary (ELHy) both improve it by swapping out Charles Converse's undeservedly popular tune CONVERSE (a.k.a. FRIEND) in favor of Henry Smart's beautiful and underrated BETHANY.

(459) Come, my soul, thy suit prepare is a 1779 poem by John Newton that I just want to mention because today's person of average educational and cultural attainments might find the first line unintentionally humorous. The "suit" of which Newton speaks is not the kind you buy on Savile Row, at Men's Wearhouse, etc., but the kind you bring before a lord – in other words, prayer. Smartass.

(461) Hark! the Church proclaims her honor is a hymn by Samuel Preiswerk (1844) that I want to bring forward ("Type 3") because I think it's underappreciated. I made it the theme song of a VBS program I wrote in the late 90s titled "The Infant Church," based on the first few chapters of Acts. Besides having a lovely but (to my ear) unfamiliar tune, the chorale LOBT DEN HERRN, DIE MORGENSONNE, it also sketches out in five brief stanzas the high points of the doctrine of the church: God alone creates her, works through her, protects her, leads her by His word and designs her glorious destiny.

(464) Blest be the tie that binds is interesting for three little "Type 2" reasons. First, Lowell Mason's tune BOYLSTON is correctly harmonized in TLH in the Mixolydian-mode key of G; beware of hymnals whose arrangement of the same melodic notes puts it in C major, because their in-house composer clearly didn't understand what it's about. Second, BOYLSTON is notated in 3/2 time, with a pickup note (i.e., on beat 3); beware of organists who play it like it's in 4/4 and begins on beat 1, because they clearly don't understand what they're about. And finally, although LSB 649 pairs John Fawcett's hymn with BOYLSTON (as do ELHb 462, TLH 464, LW 295, CW 494 and ELHy 420), a certain hymn 975 (found only in the "Accompaniment for the Hymns" book and Concordia Publishing House's very, very proprietary Lutheran Service Builder program) offers an alternate tune, J.G. Naegeli's DENNIS (ironically, arranged by Mason). This is the tune The Concordia Hymnal, SBH, LBW, ELW and another Lutheran hymnal (whose acronym I still haven't looked up, sorry) choose for this hymn, and I suspect that its "not in the pew book but totally available to print out in your service bulletin" status in LSB is a concession to Missouri Synod congregations that have dipped five or more toes in the cultural kiddie pool of the Ev. Lutheran Church in America.

(466) Christ, Thou art the sure Foundation is another "Type 2" hymn, both for textual and musical reasons. First, both TLH 466 and LSB 909 credit John Mason Neale "alt." with the translation from 8th century Latin. However, the LSB translation begins "Christ is made the sure foundation" and changes all the second person pronouns into third – for what it's worth. The other reason is that TLH uses Henry Smart's tune REGENT SQUARE (you're thinking "Angels from the realms of glory") while LSB uses Henry Purcell's WESTMINSTER ABBEY ("In His temple now behold Him"). I think they're both wonderful tunes, but I think I would side with LSB on this one.

(469) Glorious things of thee are spoken – again by Newton – is set ("Type 2") to Joseph Barnby's bland, saccharine tune GALILEAN in this book (think: "Hark! the voice of Jesus crying"). This text-tune pairing is pretty much unique in Lutheran hymnals of my acquaintance. Far more objectionable, however, is its widespread pairing with AUSTRIA, a.k.a. AUSTRIAN HYMN, by Joseph Haydn. (Cf. LHy, CSB, TCH, SBH, LBW, LW, LSB) not so much because of its original association with a patriotic melody written for the Austrian emperor of Haydn's day as because it served, within still living memory, as the national anthem of the Third Reich and its goosestepping, imperial ideology ("Deutschland ueber alles" and whatnot). I have personally known people who described themselves as Holocaust survivors, being moved to leave the church in mid-hymn because of that tune choice. Among other tune choices are ELHy 210's use of Beethoven's HYMN TO JOY, with which I disagree on the grounds (also a backup argument against AUSTRIA) that importing themes from classical masterpieces into the hymnal is detrimental both to the classics and to hymnody. Instead, I recommend Cyril V. Taylor's ABBOT'S LEIGH, used with this hymn in the Lutheran Hymnal out of Australia (1973), and in LSB 646 with the hymn "Church of God, elect and glorious." SBH also tries (as an alternate tune to AUSTRIA) a Lowell Mason tune called HARWELL, while ELW uses a tune by William P. Rowlands titled BLAENWERN.

(470) Rise again, ye lion-hearted is a translation by Martin Franzmann (1940) from an 18th century German hymn about Christian martyrdom, set to its own tune, the perfectly gorgeous LOEWEN, LASST EUCH WIEDERFINDEN by Bernhard Klein (1817). I think it's a very thrilling and encouraging hymn, especially knowing that the age of Christian martyrs is not yet past. In fact, it's going at an unprecedented rate. It bewilders me that, amid new hymns by Franzmann that have been introduced in later hymnals (not all of them showing him at his best), this happy novelty was never renewed – except in ELHy 555, where it is set to Alfred Fremder's about equally attractive but very modern tune STRATFORD.

(476) Ten thousand times ten thousand is a "church triumphant" hymn by Henry Alford (1867), set to John B. Dykes' tune ALFORD (1875), and it's been in lots of hymnals but I don't think it deserves it. I find Dykes' tune pompous and derivative, the lyrics heavy on emotional experience and light on Christ, and the phrase "what raptured greetings" (stanza 3) poorly judged, considering the theological baggage of the term "rapture." To be fair, it references the saints' "fight with death and sin" (stanza 1) and does, eventually, paint the "Lamb for sinners slain" (stanza 4) into the picture. It's not terrible. I just, once again, don't think it's so great in proportion to its widespread popularity, measured by how many books it's in. Another case, perhaps, where being originally written in English has given a hymn a disproportionate advantage. I guess I'll give it 1 tack.

(493) Thou who the night in prayer didst spend is set to the engaging tune ST. PETERSBURG by Dmitri Bortniansky (1822). It occurs to me to mention it now because this is a tune I've seen tried out with a variety of hymns, some of which may surprise you because they are so strongly wedded to some other tune – for example, "Jesus, Thy boundless love to me" (ELHb 84, SBH 399); "Oh, come, oh, come, Emmanuel" (LHy 172, TCH 118) and the one that actually sticks in my mind with this tune, "We saw Thee not when Thou didst come" (TCH 162).

(495) From Greenland's icy mountains is a "missions" hymn by Reginald Heber (1819), set to the Lowell Mason tune MISSIONARY HYMN (1824), and like 476, it's just a little tacky. I give it 0.5 tack for devoting so many lines to a list of exotic places – sort of the sacred-music equivalent of the Huey Lewis song "Heart of Rock and Roll" ("Tulsa, Austin, Oklahoma City, Seattle, San Francisco too..."). More concerning than this picture-postcard passage are the bits that, nowadays, come across as perhaps embarrassingly paternalistic – word-pictures of "heathen blindness" and "men benighted" that one could equally read as either a sound argument for the need for mission work or as a religious justification for cultural imperialism. The strongest argument, of course, would be a depiction of the need for the knowledge of Christ, on which this hymn touches but lightly. So, let's say 1.5 tacks.

(496) Hark! the voice of Jesus crying is at least mostly by Daniel March (1863) and is wedded, as I mentioned before, to Barnby's tune GALILEAN. I'd be much more comfortable with this hymn if it was clearer about whether it's addressing the whole church (with regard to her missionary obligations) or every individual church member (with disregard of his or her individual vocation). Admittedly, there is stanza 3, which basically says maybe you can't be Moses, but at least you can be Aaron; and that's the "author unknown" stanza. So it's definitely March who finally, in stanza 4, doubles down on shaming everyone who doesn't make the task of missions his or her own – a tone of cajolery almost up to the threshold of nagging, which is one of my least favorite shades of hymnody. In contrast, hymns 497 ("The morning light is breaking") and 498 ("Rise, Thou Light of Gentile nations") set a good example of mission-oriented hymnody – the one joyfully reporting the results of the church's mission, the other addressing Christ and calling on Him to shape and empower it. I've seen more negative mission hymns than 496; indeed, there's one in LHy that dangles an explicit threat of death over the heads of believers who don't involve themselves in mission work. But for being somewhere toward that side of center on the sliding scale of law vs. gospel predominating in mission hymns, and for being popular out of proportion to its merits, I award this hymn 2 tacks.

(499) Look from Thy sphere of endless day, with words by William Bryant (1840) set to G.J. Elvey's often-used tune ST. CRISPIN (1862), is one that gets my back up before the first comma. Imagining God as a being that gazes down on us from an ineffably distant realm of existence, it has about as unincarnational a jumping-off point as any hymn in Lutheran hymnody – including the one in SBH that says God is still God even if he destroys the world and all mankind. To those who say they don't know what "incarnational" means, I say you know when it's missing. 1 tack.

We'll pick up with hymns 500ff. another time. Tell then, watch for tacks lying around!

Mystery

Mystery
by Jonathan Kellerman
Recommended Ages: 14+

Child psychologist Alex Delaware and his lover are mostly disappointed by the last night of one of their favorite, classy bars before the hotel it's in gets torn down. The bartender and waiter are temps, not the seasoned pros who made every night at the Fauborg memorable. But Alex and Robin spot one glimmer of old Hollywood glamour – a beautiful blonde, dressed like a starlet of yesteryear, nursing a complicated drink and looking like somebody has stood her up. Her image comes back to haunt Alex when his best friend, LAPD Homicide Lt. Milo Sturgis, calls him to look at a crime scene and, in spite of her face being blown off, he recognizes the starlet from the Fauborg Hotel.

It takes a while to identify the girl. The task is complicated by the fact that she seemed to use a false name. The case gets a few nudges, at Alex's end, from a client of his who used to be a Hollywood madam, and who now wants Alex to tell her if her little boy will be OK when she dies of cancer. One of the nudges leads them to a dating website that brings gold-digging "sweeties" and sugar daddies together. Eventually, Alex and Milo work out that their sweetie, who went by the code name Mystery, came from a sad background and enjoyed a few years of luxury as the kept woman of a retired tycoon, before he passed away.

Their best suspects include a body guard, last seen outside the Fauborg the night of Mystery's murder, and the two sons of the late sugar daddy, who are carrying on in a similar fashion. Also, one of the sons' wives seems to have had a connection to the bodyguard guy. But is she too nice to be involved in murder? Is he more of a victim than a suspect? Whoever the killer(s) is or are, something psychologically twisted, something sexually perverted, seems to be mixed up in the usual motives of jealousy, money and desperation to keep an explosive secret. Good police work is worth a lot, but in a case like this, there's nothing like having a shrink on the team.

So, the mystery of how a writer with dozens of mysteries to his credit gets away with titling one of his mysteries Mystery turns out to have a pretty solid solution. Maybe what readers will find even more memorable about this book, in distinction from others in the series, is the vein of melancholy running through it. The first signs that something bittersweet is in store come right away, with the closing of the Fauborg and the romantic glimpse of a doomed beauty seated across the room. Faded Hollywood dreams and, of course, terminal cancer also figure in this novel's procession of sad themes. But some of those moments are also punctuated with a twinge of irony, like the digs at the ephemeral vacuity of L.A. that figure in Alex's narrative around the Fauborg scenes, and the cynical character he puts on for his climactic interview with the killer.

Whereas Milo carries some of their joint cases, to the extent that Alex seems mainly to serve as his sounding board, this is a case where some of the big moments of discovery are Alex's alone – and for a tiny moment, his acting is so good that you start to wonder whether he's crossed over to the dark side. And again, Alex stretches the ethical limits of his position with the LAPD in a way that shows that, while he does have legit therapy skills, his real passion is crime. After all the mysteries he's helped solve, it just has to be, doesn't it?

This is the 26th of going on 36 Alex Delaware novels, of which just by chance I happen to have read the previous three in a row (Bones, Evidence, Deception) and for which I have No. 27 on deck, Victims. Other novels by Jonathan Kellerman include the spinoffs Billy Straight and Twisted (featuring LAPD Detective Petra Connor), True Detectives (featuring brothers Moe Reed and Aaron Fox), a handful of other standalone novels (The Butcher's Theater, The Conspiracy Club, The Murderer's Daughter) and some collaborations with his son, Jesse Kellerman, most recently including Half Moon Bay.

The Return of Meteor Boy?

The Return of Meteor Boy?
by William Boniface
Recommended Ages: 10+

Ordinary Boy is the only kid without superpowers in Superopolis, but only he can save the town from another plot by the nefarious Dr. Brain Drain – who hasn't let a little thing like his own fiery death stop him from trying to destroy the world. Other things OB finds himself needing to stop include the vain, self-promoting Amazing Indestructo's plan to exploit the memory of his sometime sidekick Meteor Boy, after spending the last 25 years trying to obliterate all memory of the young hero who sacrificed himself to save the city back then.

Also, a team of hippie villains keeps stealing the giant metal cone off the top of OB's uncle's ice cream truck. Also, OB's dad and his team of second-string heroes are trying to set a record for baking the biggest cake ever for the school bake sale, leaving behind a disaster-level mess. Also, OB has one week to invent a time machine for the science fair, in partnership with an annoying, seed-spitting, lisping classmate named Melonhead. And finally, the gym teacher has brought back dodgeball. All of which may spell the end for Ordinary Boy and his friends, Plasma Girl, Halogen Boy, Tadpole and Stench.

This is an often funny, at times thrilling, always entertaining look at growing up in a town where everybody (but you) is super. Many of the supers have really offbeat powers that may actually be more of a hindrance than a help to their lives of heroism, villainy, or just getting by. There's a guy named Pincushion, who keeps a wide range of weapons handy by sticking them through himself. There's the Animator, who brings inanimate objects to life. There's a villain who can turn rainbows solid, a guy who flies around the room like a deflating balloon when he gets a puncture, a hero who always knows which way is north, and even one whose specialty is spreading feelings of gloom (and he, funnily enough, is a good guy). There are also, naturally, a couple of characters whose true loyalties, either for good or evil, prove to be a surprise.

But the biggest surprise of all (unless you have super-brain powers of precognition) is the role O Boy will play in making sure Meteor Boy makes a comeback at the moment when everything depends on him. The discovery he makes puts a touching, yet fittingly goofy, spin on Ordinary Boy's reality and his role in it.

This is the middle book of the "Extraordinary Adventures of Ordinary Boy" trilogy, between The Hero Revealed and The Great Powers Outage. Boniface is also the author of numerous children's picture books, many of them focusing on holidays, and of a horse-breeding novel called Studs.