A Woman of Mystery

The author of fourteen novels, Lisa Scottoline draws upon her personal experiences as an attorney and as a Philadelphian to craft solid legal thrillers in the vein of John Grisham (or at least his early books – I’ve not read him in a while). Most of her books are interrelated, drawing characters from a common, all-women law firm; her three latest books have branched out as stand-alones, but the foundation of law and Philly is the same.

Because Scottoline uses a locale she knows well, the books are nicely evocative of the town, highlighting its many facets. The characters reside in different neighborhoods, from older immigrant blocks to yuppified renewal areas. The different buildings important in law enforcement are featured, of course, and natural scenery like parks and the Schuykill River round things out. As a non-Philadelphian, I expected more mention of cheesesteak!

It is her intimate knowledge of the legal system that drives the plots, though. In her Edgar-winning second book, Final Appeal, and one of her more recent ones, Dirty Blonde, the reader is taken inside the courts, with judges, clerks, and of course courthouse security taking the lead. Other books focus on the intricacies of private law firms and the complex relationships between partners, associates and staff anchoring the tale. All of the books tread the boundaries of legal ethics and the difficult decisions that need to be made when an attorney finds herself embroiled more personally in a case.

With the exception of an uncalled-for abortion recollection in the first book (because it was irrelevant to the story, and pretty much to the character as well), the stories all had a nice flow and timing to them, segueing well between scenes, the patter of dialogue well-managed and the characters believable and consistent. Scottoline is a good writer, undoubtedly with a good editor supporting her; I rarely came across a part of the story that felt extraneous or distracting. The characters are appealingly human, with realistic flaws and challenges. Almost all of them are Italian-American; this too is the author’s familiar ground.

I happily recommend these books if you are looking for a series of well-crafted legal mysteries. For a list of her titles, see Lisa Scottoline at FantasticFiction.com.

When beginning to browse for new authors to read, a logical approach seemed to be alphabetical. On the day our open house was scheduled, we all needed to be off the premises, so we loaded everyone up and went to the flagship Fremont library in our county library system. We all wanted to browse our genres of interest, and the baby napped in his stroller. I wasn’t pulling books to read, but making note of authors to come back to.

Donna Andrews was one of the early authors on the list, and I greatly enjoyed all of her books in this series:

Murder with Peacocks
Murder with Puffins
Revenge of the Wrought Iron Flamingos
Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon
We’ll Always Have Parrots
Owls Well That Ends Well
No Nest for the Wicket

(These titles are in chronological order. In order to read books in the order written – whether or not they are part of a series – I refer to Fantastic Fiction. This is an amazing resource for several fiction genres including mystery, thriller, science fiction, fantasy, and horror. If you haven’t seen it, take a gander!)

Meg Lanslow is a blacksmith in contemporary rural Virginia. She’s in her thirties and single, although in the first book she picks up a hunky theatrical boyfriend who is a fixture of the rest of the books. Meg has a wacky and pleasant family, and of course a mind for detection. The birds in the titles are not insignificant parts of the books, but neither are they so important that only bird-lovers will appreciate them; like Grafton with her letters and Evanovich with her numbers, the birds simply provide a minor theme to connect the series and make it stand out.

Although I certainly enjoy reading stand-alone mysteries, I very much like to dive into a series because I like to follow engaging characters for more than one book; I don’t like to feel bereft of their company after I’ve gotten to know them. Andrews has a fine hand for characters; she develops each personality, finds their rhythm and flow and maintains it across the several books. Rough edges and inconsistencies are few, and she finds a good balance of amusing idiosyncracies without annoying the reader.

The key to a good series is not to develop full-bodied characters at the expense of the plot of each mystery, and Andrews succeeds here as well. Although character-driven series generally lack the intricacies of a stand-alone book – you’ll rarely find one with the depth of mystery offered in The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie, for example – Andrews maintains a satisfying level of actual mystery in her mysteries, keeping her characters company.

These books are well-done, comic and light. I enjoy plenty of heavy and intricate mysteries – for example, Sara Paretsky or Elizabeth George – but I need a balanced diet, and these books hit the spot like whipped cream.