The Pot Thief Who Studied Einstein, by J. Michael Orenduff, $14.95. Hubert Schuze is a self-styled lapsed archaeologist who sells antique Indian pots and reproductions from his adobe shop in Old Town Albuquerque. He has a few politically incorrect ideas about whether “found” pots should be placed in museums or sold to private collectors, arguing that most of the Anasazi artifacts in museums are hidden away where nobody can enjoy them. And besides, a guy has to make a living.
In his third outing, Hubie is offered a quick 2,500 hundred bucks to appraise the holdings of a reclusive collector, and when he gets there (after being blindfolded on the trip) he discovers that three of the pots are his own copies, not originals. And after he’s left, he discovers he’s missing his appraisal fee. With the help of his young art student friend and drinking companion Susannah, he sets out to recover the money but of course becomes involved in a murder case when the collector turns up dead.
The concept, of course, owes a huge debt to Lawrence Block’s Bernie Rhodenbarr series, right down to the light, amusing banter between Hubie and Susannah each afternoon as they down margaritas at their favorite neighborhood tortilleria.
The Attenbury Emeralds, by Jill Paton Walsh, $25.99. Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane live on in this series of admirable continuations that succeed in capturing the essence of Dorothy L. Sayers’ well-known characters while discreetly losing some of the more annoying baggage that came with the originals.
In this third book from Paton Walsh, Lord Peter is now 60, the year is 1951, and he and Harriet are coping with postwar austerity and a vastly changed society when Peter is put in mind of his very first case, from 1921.
Faithful readers will remember how damaged Peter had been by his experiences in the Great War, and here he recalls with great clarity his long and painful recovery, which was aided immeasurably by his loyal and exemplary manservant Bunter.
It was also helped along by the Attenbury emeralds, legendary Indian stones that had a habit of disappearing and reappearing, and it was Peter’s first encounter with them that gave him the sense of purpose as an amateur detective that led to his eventual re-entry into society.
The emeralds also figure in a mystery that Peter tackles in the present day, one that involves several murders. Bunter, now married with a son of his own who is like a brother to the Wimsey offspring, is now truly a member of the household, and he and Harriet offer their customary assistance to Peter, as do other familiar characters from the canon, such as his Scotland Yard brother-in-law Charles Parker.
If Peter has become endowed with somewhat more democratic values than his creator held, he was always a less snobbish character than she and would be expected to have evolved in the direction that Paton Walsh has taken him. For that reason alone, we must admit — heretical as it may be — that we quite prefer the continuations to the originals.
Danse Macabre, by Gerald Elias, $24. Blind, embittered former concert violinist Daniel Jacobus is persuaded to break his self-imposed exile from society when elderly Rene Allard, a beloved old-school violinist and noted humanitarian, is murdered just after his farewell performance at Carnegie Hall.
The chief suspect is his rival, BTower, a showboating young African-American violinist who represents everything Jacobus detests in today’s crassly commercial classical music world.
Jacobus comes to believe that the young man is innocent although he has been convicted of the crime. So with his friend Nathaniel Williams and his youthful protegee Yumi Shinagawa, among the few people he trusts in the world, he follows a trail of clues to Salt Lake City and back in search of the real killer.
Tom and Enid Schantz are freelancers who write regularly on new mystery releases.
