(2) Lehane vs. (15) Bazell

Could this matchup of an upstart young writer and an established champ turn into a Duke - Lehigh situation? Bazell has only written 2 books, Lehane has 9 (*Note: I am excluding Lehane's The Given Day because it is not really a mystery book). Here we go.

1) Quality of Books - Again, we will start with the lower seed, in this case Josh Bazell. A young writer who has often been described as writing novels that are a cross between "The Sopranos" and "House" authored by Chuck Palahniuk...quite the combo.

Very Good: Beat the Reaper, Wild Things

Pretty high praise for the guy, how can Lehane's much more extensive bibliography stack up?

Lehane has written a long series in addition to two incredible stand alone novels.

Great: Mystic River, Darkness Take My Hand, Gone Baby Gone, Shutter Island

Very Good: Prayers for Rain, Sacred

Good: A Drink Before the War

Okay: Moonlight Mile

Percentage wise, Lehane takes it, but it is much closer than it looks...as we will discuss below.

Advantage: Lehane

2) Great Characters - Bazell has written two books from the point of view of Dr. Peter Brown, a former mob hitman turned life saver with a target on his back. Brown is hiding from his former employers and trying to maintain a low profile. In the second novel he is solving a mystery and protecting an archeologist. The man is cutting and sarcastic and able to kill with the efficiency of a secret agent. Altogether a great person to base a series around - additional bonus points for the fact that he kills someone by making a knife out of his own femur. As in the bone in his leg.

Lehane has created many, many characters and based a series around two private detectives, Patrick and Angie. The two have a fantastic back and forth and some of their interactions are hilarious. They also have a friend named Bubba. Bubba is a complete psycho and probably Lehane's greatest invention - a man completely without morals who will do whatever it takes to protect his friends regardless of the consequences. His stand alone characters (like crime boss Jimmy in Mystic River) are deeply flawed and complex people whom Lehane fleshes out in typically detailed fashion.

This one comes down to a relatively simple question: Is Bazell's one character better than any of Lehane's?

Advantage: Lehane

3) Style / Inner Workings / Readability - This will surely be the tightest catagory between the two authors. Bazell has an interesting style, complete with the medically detailed footnotes one would expect from a doctor. Lehane's writing is gut wrenching and often a mediation on the cost of violence. Both write page turners, although Lehane relies more on the shocking twist including the one at the end of Shutter Island which seven years later I still cannot figure out. Lehane's take on the private eye world of Boston took us to the dark side of a city that had rarely been seen in the fiction world. Through a complex cast of characters and darkly twisted plots, Lehane made Boston his city. He owns it as thoroughly as Lee Burke does New Orleans. His best work? In my opinion, his take on the serial killer genre Darkness Take My Hand. The book was horrifying, twisty and took a wander down the dark path at the center of each of us. Truly a stunning achievement. However, Lehane did stumble somewhat in his last effort Moonlight Mile in which all the elements that made his earlier books successful were omitted without explanation. Basically: he pulled his punches and lost all the darkness and tension from the previous books.

Bazell's best is probably the thoughtful Beat the Reaper in which his main character reflects on how he became a mob hitman - and then a doctor - while completely destroying the American health care system. There is a lot going on here and much of it works brilliantly. While some of the plot is a little bit predictable, Bazell does anything but take a straight forward path getting there. As mentioned earlier, his footnotes are truly bizarre and understatedly brilliant.

Bazell may one day be at the top half of the seeding if he continues to do good work in the future, but...this is Lehane we are talking about and any of his great books is better than either of Bazell's.

Advantage: Lehane

(1) Lee Burke vs. (16) Tana French

There are some matchups that are destined to see the underdog upset the grand master.
This is not one of those cases.
James Lee Burke has written 18 Dave Robicheaux books (for the sheer volume of his collection, I am omitting his other very good series); Tana French has written 3 Murder Squad books, each featuring a different character spun off from the previous novel.
Is there any chance for the talented French to overcome the odds stacked against her?
Lee Burke is the number one seed for a reason...

1) Quality of Books - Let's start with French who has three published books, each featuring a different main character (her fourth follows the same format). Here is how I ranked her three titles:
Good: In the Woods,
Okay: The Likeness, Faithful Place
However, if one was to give French ratings based on the synopsis's for her novels, she would be one of the greatest mystery writers alive.
Now we tackle the immense collection of Lee Burke...
Great: The Tin Roof Blowdown, Swan Peak, A Morning for Flamingo's, A Stained White Radiance, Heaven's Prisoners, Black Cherry Blues
Very Good: Burning Angel, The Glass Rainbow, The Neon Rain, Dixie City Jam, Jolie Blon's Bounce, In the Electric Mist with the Confederate Dead, Purple Cane Road,
Good: Sunset Limited, Cadillac Jukebox, Crusader's Cross, Pegasus Descending, Last Car to Elysian Fields
Breaking down the percentages makes it pretty clear Lee Burke dominates - 13 of his 18 books are in the Great to Good range (72%), 0% of French's novels fall into the same catagories.
Gigantic Advantage: Lee Burke

2) Great Characters - Lee Burke has created two of the best characters in modern mysteries: his "hero" Dave Robicheaux and "morally complex" Clete Purcell. Robicheaux and Purcell are tormented, haunted men who lash out violently and are prone to self-destructive behavior. Purcell's best moment? Bulldozing a mobster's house. Lee Burke has brilliantly crafted two men who are not always likeable, but are shockingly compelling. I have not even gone into his villains who are often so real that you can picture them sitting next to you. There are no cardboard cutouts in Lee Burke books, every character is fully fleshed out. Rather brilliantly, I might add.
French rotates characters frequently and is intensely interested in how they fall apart throughout their various investigations. The pick of her litter? Probably Cassie Maddox who appears in two books and in the second has to impersonate a murder victim in order to root out the killer. Again, if you were giving points for the synopsis of a novel, French wins this thing by a mile.
Ultimately Clete Purcell may be the greatest character in mystery novels...ever. The man is at times a little boy, and at others a psychotic killer. Only Lee Burke makes him both, and a frighteningly flawed human being at the same time.
Huge Advantage: Lee Burke

3) Style / Inner Workings / Readability - Tana French's novels have been well reviewed (from the praise she has recieved many will be shocked to see her in the 16th slot) but her books are very, very overrated. She takes too much time setting things up when a simple half page description would have been more than adequate. French's books rely however, on jaw dropping twists and for the most part she succeeds. The end of In the Woods was so unexpected that I had to re-read it several times before I fully grasped that she had, indeed, taken me there. However...here is my main complaint - in her original debute, she never solved the original mystery (that took place long before the books events). I have a major problem with this. French feels it is enough to have her character begin to emotionally heal from the traumatic experience, no! She needs to provide a genuine solution. Her meandering style should at least come to a strong conclusion, even with the twists and turns she takes. I tried to read French's books as fast as I could, not because they were page turners, but simply because I wanted to move on to something else.
Lee Burke often leaves unresolved threads in his novels as he incorporates mystical elements, but the reader always feels satisfied at the end. His books are page turners, and when he does twists (like in Heaven's Prisoner) he does them well. Lee Burke does not always have big game changers at the end of his novels, but rather small detonations throughout that reverberate long after he finishes writing. His style is untouchable, literary and so incredibly vivid that one does not read a Lee Burke novel but rather experiences it. You smell, taste, touch and hear everything in the book. Unlike French you do not skip passages, you devour them. Additionally, few authors have been better suited to write about a certain city than Lee Burke. He seamlessly weaves through the underbelly running through Lousiana and incorporates elements as diverse as neo-nazis, the best book ever on Hurricane Katrina and old school mafioso in the french quarter. Top that Tana French!
Advantage: Lee Burke

As expected it is a crushing, going away win for the master of New Orleans crime fiction.

The Mystery Writers Bracket Battle Royale

While writing a breakdown of Stieg Larssen and Jo Nesbo, I had the idea of pitting all my favorite mystery authors against one another in an ultimate battle royale that would finally select the greatest mystery author of all time (obviously having not read all mystery authors in the universe I am using my judgement and going with the best I have read).
The authors will be seeded and then 16 of them will go head to head as we wind down to just who is the best mystery author ever (or whom I have read).
Your first question: What criteria will I use to figure this all out?
Glad you asked!
I plan to break it down with three major catagories: 1) Quality of Books (what percentage falls into the "Great" to "Horrible" range) 2) Main characters (just how indelible are their creations...) 3) Style / Inner Workings / Readability (by which I mean how good a writer is the author).

The seedings
1) James Lee Burke - Dave Robicheaux novels
2) Dennis Lehane - Patrick Kenzie novels / Mystic River / Shutter Island
3) Philip Kerr - Bernie Gunther novels
4) Ken Bruen - Jack Taylor novels / Crime Squad Novels
5) James Ellroy - LA Quartet / Underworld America Trilogy
6) Jo Nesbo - Harry Hole novels
7) George Pelencanos - DC Quartet / Derek Strange novels / Nick Stefanos trilogy
8) Don Winslow - Stand alone novels
9) David Peace - The Red Riding Quartet
10) Ian Rankin - Inspector Rebus novels
11) Stuart Neville - Gerry Fegan / Jack Lennon novels
12) Stuart Macbride - Logan McRae novels
13) T Jefferson Parker - Charlie Hood novels / California Girls
14) Chelsea Cain - Archie Sheridan novels
15)Josh Bazell - Peter Brown Novels
16) Tana French - Murder squad novels

Agree? Disagree? Who got seeded too high? Who is too low? Are you excited by the matchups?

The Throwdown: Stieg vs. Jo

Last fall, after watching AMC's tv series "The Killing", I read a review which suggested authors to read in order to get a mystery fix between episodes. It was the single greatest thing I ever did because it led me to Jo Nesbo's incredible Harry Hole series. The books feature a cover with a
stamp in one corner touting Nesbo "the next Stieg Larsson" which is one of the most utterly ridiculous proclamations ever made by the publishing world. Here's why:

Quality of Books - While this is not quite the most fair statement to hold against Larsson who tragically died shortly after completing his third Millennium novel, Nesbo has written seven Harry Hole Books which are...here we go...much better than any of Stieg's novels. Before
you chuck the computer across the room, at least hear me out while I break it down starting with Stieg. Larsson's books have been nothing short of a cultural phenomenon and have sold hundreds of millions of copies. Two successful film franchises have been made about them (leading to two distinct and indelible portrayals of his heroine Lisbeth Salander) but when you look closer at the books Nesbo's superiority becomes very clear. Stieg wrote three
books: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, The Girl who Played with Fire, and The Girl who Kicked the Hornet's Nest. He wrote one great book (the first) and two good books (the second and third). Stieg's legacy mostly resides in the fact he created one of the most undeniably unique characters in modern fiction.

Nesbo on the other hand, has written seven novels (six of which I will rank since I have yet to snag the brand new and potentially great seventh book Phantom).
Great: The Redbreast, The Redeemer.
Very Good: The Devil's Star, The Snowman[1], The Leopard
Okay: Nemesis

So the final tally: Nesbo wrote two books that fall into the “Great” Category, and three which fall
into “Very Good”. He wrote one semi-clunker. Stieg wrote one great book which showed how high the ceiling was for his potential, and then slumped significantly with his next two books both falling into the “Okay – Good” Range (I was generous giving them both good, but in their defense both were page turners). My ultimate point here: had
Stieg written 3 “Great” books, he would win this one. He did not, thus…
Advantage: Nesbo

Great Characters – Stieg, as we covered above, created Lisbeth Salander who has become one of the most popular characters in novel history. Nesbo’s creation Harry Hole is completely underrated in comparison. Like Salander he is a deeply flawed, haunted character who screws up as much as he succeeds. I have never rooted for a character as openly as I have for poor Harry
Hole. He is a tragic figure and a beacon for unyielding torment and even in his most damning moments I find myself on his side. Hole remains the only character that I have ever yelled at while reading a book. I yelled “No Harry!” when the character was about to break his tenuous sobriety and his frequent downfalls are heart shredding. Public opinion says to go with Salander, but…
Advantage: Even

Style / Inner Workings / Readability – Larsson’s novels are set in Sweden; Nesbo’s in Norway. Stieg’s books are very different, the first being a serial killer story, the second and third all conspiracy based. Nesbo’s detective Harry Hole deals with his destructive personality
while also being the best investigator in Norway. Hole frequently comes up against staggering
odds and Nesbo’s ability to make each book a defined and hauntingly complex
story is a testament to his writing skills. Larsson…is nowhere near as great a writer as Nesbo. His first book was plot driven (and virtually impossible to put down) and the next two sort of lacked in that department – preferring instead to be driven by Salander’s character (ironically done with
great foresight by Stieg). His writing style is ponderous and at times plodding and very, very detail oriented. That said: each book had a point at which I could no longer put it down. In the
second and third it often took two or three hundred pages, but eventually the pages were flying by. Stieg’s books examine the dark undercurrents of fascism in Swedish politics; Nesbo’s do a
similar thing with Norway. Where Nesbotruly sets himself apart however, is his jaw dropping twists. The beginning of each Nesbo book serves up a compelling theme which runs throughout the plot and weaves itself so expertly that it is only at the thrilling end that you understand just how brilliant the book was. Again, he is a vastly superior writer.
Huge Advantage: Nesbo

Ultimately, Nesbo takes it in a rousing victory. While Stieg has had some fortunate marketing and his indelible characters, Nesbo has written better overall novels – and will presumably continue to do so. The real matchup for Nesbo will come soon: Philip Kerr and his astounding Bernie Gunther series.

[1] The Snowman could arguably go into the
great category.

Best of the Month: March 2012

Fiction

A Feast for Crows by George RR Martin - Many fans of Martin's stunning series do not like this book for a few reasons: Martin took forever to put this book out, it features half of his characters (missing many of the fan faves) and cannot possibly match up to the previous book. In this slower and deeper fourth volume, Martin is spinning plots and building characters he has previously not written from the perspective of (like Cersei Lannister) to staggering depths. However, having had a little bit of distance from the 3rd book (and knowing the 5th is there waiting for me now) allowed me to fully enjoy this book. It is a complex read where tiny grains of detail await. I genuinely enjoyed it though it was nowhere near as action packed as Storm of Swords.

Non-fiction

40 Years of Shite - Trying to gain some perspective on England's national team is never easy as a fan. The team has become increasingly dismal in recent years due to a complete inability to keep up with the football development going on in the rest of the world. The managers, players and everyone else involved have never been the right match for the job and this book expertly explores how it could have done better while skipping none of the agony of defeat. It is also funny and highly entertaining as one attempts to sort through each and every dismal defeat.

Best Books of the Month: February 2012

A quick note before we get into the books - again, none of them actually have to be written in 2012.

Fiction:

What it Was by George Pelecanos - The master of DC Noir has been very absent from my reading lists simply because his latest have been, in a word, terrible. Pelecanos, like many great crime writers (Paging Dennis Lehane!), got away from what made his books so great in the first place: the western-style, urban showdown. In his latest - a furiously written return to one of his greatest creations, Derek Strange, he shies away from nothing. Pelecanos has always been at his best when he is letting his characters tell the story of his hometown (in this case the 70's) and his villian in this book is a fantastic brute. This novel was actually hewn from his masterpiece The Night Gardener when one character spun the legend of Red Fury. Pelecanos never lets up in this book and it shows in the tense, taut thriller that I devoured in a day. Welcome back George, lets see if we can keep it up.

The Ghost by Robert Harris - Harris, who also wrote the fantastic Fatherland takes on the twisty world of a ghostwriter tasked with setting down a former Prime Minister's memoirs (think Tony Blair). The result in a gut wrenching thriller that slowly winds towards it stunning and heart breaking conclusion. Giving away any of the plot would be a crime, but the style also bears mentioning: many writers tend to overwrite everything. Harris's novel is, if anything, is underwritten perfectly and he ratchets the tension so expertly the reader can barely stand to put the book down. Brilliant.

Don't Fear the Reaper by Josh Bazell - Imagine Chuck Pahalniuk writing the Sopranos...set inside ER. Strange combo that Bazell just manages to pull off perfectly. His main character is a former mob hitman hiding out as a med student in New York. When he gets recognized by one of his patients chaos ensues. The novel is hilarious and completely deadpan, while taking the reader deep inside the medical world (the footnotes are incredibly helpful). Looking forward to the sequel, set to be released in March.

Non-Fiction

Fever Pitch by Nick Hornby - A delirious look inside the world of English Football ("Soccer" for the undereducated) Hornby is an Arsenal Super Fan. He describes his life through the prism of his fandom and the result is a hilarious spin through decades of obsession. His prose is brilliant and at times utterly devestating. He never shies away or hides from his complete insanity, and in embracing it sports fans get to see a little piece of themselves. Take the following passage:
"I was unable to defend my team’s inadequacies to my father – I could see them for myself, and I hated them – and after each feeble attempt at goal and every misplaced pass I would brace myself for the sighs and groans from the seat next to me. I was chained to Arsenal and my dad was chained to me, and there was no way out for either of us.”

Best of the Month January 2012

Here are the best books I have read thus far in January (again, none of the books actually have to be written in Jan 2012)

Non-Fiction

Inside Scientology by Janet Reitman - Reitman's brilliant and comprehensive history of Scientology virtually eviscerates the cult. The Rolling Stone reporter kicks down the doors of secrecy and shatters any illusions you have that this is not a cult. Bottom line: scientology is about the coin...and no one even pretends otherwise. The book breaks down into four parts: first a history of enigmatic con man L. Ron Hubbard, second the new leader David Miscavige's rise to power, thirdly the horrific death of a woman who was completely conned and finally a look at the church going forward - including the seduction of Tom Cruise. This book is brilliantly written and understated. Reitman simply presents the facts, horrifying as they are.

Fiction

Fun and Games / Hell and Gone by Duane Swierczynski - The first two books in the Charlie Hardie trilogy are rip roaring rides through a twisted landscape of brutality. Deeper than the average thriller, these are books with serious guts. From the opening page they rip along like a runaway train, forcing you to blow through the pages without stop. I cannot wait until the 3rd is released in March 2012.