Kop by Warren Hammond, $24.95
First-time Denver novelist Hammond has written an excellent science fiction mystery of a world-weary and corrupt policeman making a final stand as an honest detective.
Lagarto is a mold-infested planet. Vice in the capital city is controlled by the Bandur crime syndicate. Detective Juno Mozambe and his boss and best friend the chief of police have stayed in power by working with the syndicate for 25 years. Juno is an enforcer who is quick to apply violence where the chief or the crime boss needs it.
The mayor is applying pressure to get a new police chief. As a favor to his friend, Juno takes on a murder case that the chief believes can be connected to the mayor. To give the investigation an appearance of honesty, he partners Juno with an uncorrupted rookie from a wealthy family.
Juno does not want to work with this untested and dangerously attractive young woman but they start investigating the case of a murdered soldier. This seems to lead to a twisted serial killer instead of the mayor. Juno has a code of honor despite his brutal ways and we grow to respect him, as does his new partner.
Lagarto is a world where big promises were made and then the off-worlders left the settlers to struggle in a system built for failure. I don’t know if Hammond had a specific model for Lagarto but the heat and corruption come through as he creates a version of a neglected colony/city on an unhappy and abused planet.
Blood Drive by Jeanne C. Stein, $7.99 | Stein is another local author blending mystery with the fantastic. Her second novel about bounty hunter and now vampire Anna Strong is a solid continuation of the series.
Anna is only slowly getting accustomed to being a vampire. A family dinner is uncomfortable for Anna because of the garlic in the pasta sauce. It grows stranger when her dead brother’s girlfriend makes her first appearance in 15 years to ask for help finding her missing daughter. The girl may also be a niece Anna’s family never knew about.
Her search for the girl leads Anna into a wider world of supernatural creatures. There’s quite a hidden world inside San Diego.
Anna is prone to sudden anger and undercutting her mission with the stupid actions it brings on. Experienced vampires who try to befriend her keep warning that she’s in danger of losing her human intelligence to her vampire ability to destroy.
Her relationships with humans are all in jeopardy. She pushes away and lies to her mother, her boyfriend and her business partner. These are all things to be worked out in later books while she deals with the current danger.
There are more books about young female vampires and their friends than I can keep up with these days, but it’s safe to say Anna Strong is contending for leader of the pack.
Wicked Things by Thomas Tessier, $6.99 | Tessier shows the negative side of small-town life with exemplary style. In “Wicked Things,” Jack Carlson is an insurance investigator looking into a string of deaths in Winship, which is “upstate, out in the middle of nowhere.” No one death stands out as suspicious, but that many are written up by the same insurance salesman through different companies is suspicious.
Winship seems a picturesque town. It takes several days for Carlson to find a different side, including a sex zone that’s sleazier than those in most big cities. More deaths follow with Carlson in town and its obvious something is happening.
Tessier writes an interesting hard-boiled story of the detective uncovering the town’s secrets with time to take a series of the women he meets to bed. Tessier’s real specialty is his quiet build-up to the horror story that follows. Some online reviews have hated the ending but I thought it captured the evil of the place perfectly.
The book also includes the novella “Scramburg, U.S.A.” about Schramburg, another upstate town that is not the idyllic spot it appears to be.
Howie Hackett is a troublemaker and a disappointment to his adoptive parents. They ask police Captain Bell for help. Bell intimidates Howie to force him to leave town but Howie doesn’t stay away for long. Howie unleashes a string of clever counterattacks. Bell’s response is brutal and releases more undesirable consequences. As with “Wicked Things.” Tessier doesn’t try to rationalize the unnatural when it appears. It’s just there waiting to show up when someone pokes too much at the status quo.
Fred Cleaver writes a regular column on new science fiction.
