Criminal Solutions:

Driven investigators, inspired by personal feelings or by anti-authoritarian motives or by saving-the-world syndromes, are the stars of this month's selection of mystery stories. The settings range from England, Norway, Russia, and Italy to Denver and rural South Carolina. The leading ladies include an intrepid reporter of American Indian descent and a humorous columnist whose forte is cooking. The men are mostly more rooted in law enforcement; for example, there's world-weary Aurelio Zen in his last job as a temporary police chief, with co-national Salvo Montalbano handling tricky cases in Sicily, and a Norwegian detective who starts off with a bang by mistakenly shooting an American secret service agent.

That reporter Catherine McLeod is part-Arapaho is a key plot element in Margaret Coel's BLOOD MEMORY (2008). She delves into her own origins as well as into current attempts to build a casino on Indian lands despite public opposition in Denver. Tribal elders dredging up references to a local massacre perpetrated in the nineteenth century further complicate matters. Plus, Catherine is being hunted by a hitman, possibly allied to the casino story or possibly funded by the wealthy Stern family, the scion of which was briefly Catherine's husband. The over-confident hitman is foiled, as is his patron, with the latter arrested and the former shot by Catherine with an inherited revolver, as this over-long tale at last closes.

Calabria, the toe of Italy's boot, is the locale for police official Aurelio Zen's undertakings in Michael Dibdin's END GAMES (2007). As acting chief in Cosenza, Zen deals with a kidnapping gone horribly wrong, with the kidnapped man's American son who apparently didn't know that his father had been born in Calabria, and with a local lawyer and all-around fixer who has ties to the kidnapping as well as to the American movie crew with its ever-present, ever-droning helicopter. Buried past lives and buried treasure are plotlines here, with Zen piecing everything together just before he is escorted out of town following the return of the regular police chief, now recovered from a minor accident. Zen is tough-minded and persistent, making him more than a match for the closed society of Cosenza as well as for the antics of visiting Americans, whatever their absurd motives.

Daniel Silva's spy thriller MOSCOW RULES (2008) follows the exploits of Gabriel Allon, an Israeli agent trying to enjoy his honeymoon while simultaneously engaging in an art restoration project for the Vatican. This apparent jack-of-all-trades travels to Rome for a simple assignment but ends up running a major international operation, with input from the Americans, the British, and the French, all aimed at discovering a terrorist plot with presumed origins in Russia. This enjoyable, over-the-top fantasy sees Allon captured by the Russian secret service twice, forge a Cassatt painting twice, and finally resume his twice-interrupted honeymoon. The mystery represented by the terrorist plan is merely an excuse for an ample display of spy games, subterfuge, erudition, serendipity, and, let's not forget, jet-setting to glamorous playgrounds for spies, the wealthy, the chancers, and the well-connected.

Establishing a much lighter tone despite a similarly high body count, Jennifer Crusie and Bob Mayer's AGNES & THE HITMAN (2007) remains stuck among the South Carolina swamps, allowing all the worldly players to travel to a rundown antebellum mansion for the wedding of a Mafia granddaughter. Cranky Agnes, the heroine so named after her popular cooking tips column, serves up multi-course meals to all sorts, including a teenager sent to kill her or kidnap her dog or something. Another would-be assassin ends up in a previously unsuspected cellar beneath Agnes' kitchen. The mansion's previous owner tries all sorts of tricks to upset the wedding, even ensuring that the lone access bridge collapses before the big event. The hitman Shane and his sidekick Carpenter apparently actually work for the government, a job description that allows them, among other perks, to commandeer an army pontoon bridge for the duration. Shane falls for Agnes and considers retiring from his hitman job. In the meantime, he seeks out the people trying to kill Agnes, steal her dog for its fancy collar, and find the $5 million that may have been hidden in a sealed tunnel in the newly rediscovered cellar. By the way, the theme of the wedding, though not the original intent, is devoted to all things pink, especially flamingos, with live ones showing up to add to the chaos. This novel is a lot of fun, but be prepared for quite a bit of murder and mayhem, among all the humorous asides and plot twists.

A novel from an entirely different plane is PIX (2008) by Bill James. Witty language and sharp characterizations enliven a relatively placid story dealing with crime bosses who face up to a troublesome interloper while fending off the intrusive interest of local law enforcement. The entertainingly mismatched duo of Assistant Chief Constable Iles and Detective Chief Superintendent Harpur note developments from afar, with the assist of wiretaps and rumors. A body is found on a staircase, with the debris quickly cleared up. A woman shows up to inquire about the now-missing man, but no one can give her any information lest a source be compromised. Eventually, after a not unexpected dispatch of the intruder, a quiet peace returns to this English urban center.

Chock-full of plot is Jo Nesbo's THE REDBREAST (2000, with 2006 translation into English), for there are both current events and historical events from World War II brought into play. So many story-lines and so many characters jump in here, that hero Harry Hole, an Oslo-based detective, barely manages to solve the main one, a mystery keyed to a smuggled sniper rifle, and save the country's royal family from assassination. In the meantime, discussion of the moral issues surrounding Norwegians who fought on the Eastern Front with the Germans against the Russians and latter-day consequences take up much of the book. A colleague of Hole's is murdered, but her killer remains elusive while Hole becomes enamored of the daughter of one of the suspects. Despite these compounded subplots, this novel shines and fascinates, never drags even when portraying wartime events, and delivers a fast-paced thriller-style ending.

Lastly, there's the clever tale (Andrea Camilleri's THE WINGS OF THE SPHINX, 2009) of ever-irascible Inspector Montalbano searching out miscreants responsible for murder and fraud, while uneasily dealing with a forlorn love-life and agenda-driven superiors. In the hilarious final chapter, Montalbano manages a whirlwind of solutions to both the cases of the fake kidnapping and the murder of an illegal alien, yet also misses connections with his lover Livia by flying off to her house while she simultaneously travels to his abode. Montalbano, the Sicilian gourmand, is endearing despite his ill temper and because of his empathy for victims, love of his surroundings, especially the sea, and tolerance for the vagaries of a life where there is no gas for police vehicles and one of his assistants constantly gets everyone's name wrong.

Although foreign climes predominate in this month's selections, the American settings are nevertheless quite atmospheric, with Coel's riffs on American Indian history and Crusie & Mayer's cheerful depiction of heat, humidity, humor, and homicide in South Carolina. Pick a book, travel near or travel far, but be sure to enjoy the ride and follow the mystery.