After reading two mystery series set in Maine, I’m beginning think that Maine is not quite the bucolic, serene place we have all been led to believe. (Although I guess the fact that Angela Lansbury’s TV series “Murder, She Wrote” was set in Maine should have been a hint.)
Tess Gerritsen’s 'The Martini Club' series is set in the small coastal town of Purity, Maine. In the first novel in the series The Spy Coast, Maggie Bird is a retired CIA agent who has moved to the quiet town of Purity to raise chickens.
All is well until a dead body is dropped on Maggie Bird’s driveway, and it is up to Maggie and her friends (who are also retired CIA operatives) to find out who the body is and how it is related to Maggie’s former career.
The acting police chief of Purity, Jo Thibodeau, is used to dealing with crimes like DUI, expired driver’s licenses, and teenage mischief. She is suspicious of who these retirees actually are.
The characters in this novel are so interesting and the Martini Club is an apt name for the group- they drink a lot of martinis as they put their minds together to solve the murder. There are some humorous lines, and the novel is action-packed enough to keep the pace moving.
The second novel in the series, The Summer Guests, revolves around the disappearance of a teenage girl visiting Purity with her family. The host family is one of the wealthy summer residents of the area, and they believe that Maggie’s neighbor is responsible for the girl’s disappearance.
The discovery of another body from years ago in the pond near the residence complicates the investigation, and Maggie and the Martini Club are on the job again to clear her neighbor’s name and find out who is behind the dead body in the pond. This is another solid entry in 'The Martini Club' series, filled with red herrings as to the true culprit.
The third book in the series is the recently published The Shadow Friends. In this novel, Maggie’s fellow Martini Club member and retired spy Ingrid is hosting a global affairs conference when a Russian disease expert (and defector) is discovered dead in his hotel room at the conference.
When Ingrid disappears following the discovery of the body of a dead waitress from the hotel in the trunk of a car, Maggie, the rest of the Martini Club, and Chief Jo Thibodeau, along with other federal agencies, are looking for answers- and Ingrid.
This novel takes the readers out of Purity for a bit as we follow Ingrid and learn more of her back story. This one has a lot of action in it, and I like how Jo has become almost a member of the Martini Club. I highly recommend all three books in the series.
Ron Currie’s novel The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne gives away the ending of his story but how he gets there is fascinating. Babs Dionne may look like a sweet grandmother but she also runs the drug trade in Waterville, Maine, a town filled with Americans of French Canadian descent.
With her group of loyal friends and daughter, Babs has control over all of Waterville, including having the chief of police in her pocket. When her younger daughter disappears, and another drug kingpin sets his sights on Babs, things become dangerous.
Babs will stop at nothing to find out who killed her daughter, and to hold onto control of the impoverished town she grew up in. The novel has been compared to Elmore Leonard (by Stephen King) and The Godfather and I read it in one sitting. It is incredible.
Currie tells Babs' origin story in his newest novel, We Will See You Bleed. In this one we see what led Babs to her life as a drug trafficker, beginning with a brutal rape at the age of fourteen by a police officer.
Babs and everyone in the town works at the paper mill that has been the lifeblood of Waterville for decades. When the company wants to get rid of the union workers, union head Babs organizes a strike that has lifelong repercussions for everyone in the town, and leads Babs to a life of crime. I liked the perspective of a town that has depended on one industry forever and the insular French-Candian community.
Both of these novels are just brilliant, I give them my highest recommendation, and this is coming from someone who is not a big crime novel reader.
The Martini Club series by Tess Gerritsen- A
Published by Thomas & Mercer
The Savage, Noble Death of Babs Dionne by Ron Currie- A+
Published by Putnam
Trade paperback, $20, 378 pages
We Will See You Bleed by Ron Currie-A+
Published by Putnam
Hardcover, $30, 370 pages
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