Off the peg PIs - one size fits all

I’ve just finished The Irish Sports Pages by Les Roberts (review to follow shortly). This is the fourth of the Ohio/Kentucky crime novels I’ve recently read and I’m detecting a trend (the other three books being The Killing of Strangers, Satan’s Lambs and The Lime Pit). In fact skipping forward to the next novel I’m about to read, Tonight I Said Goodbye by Michael Koryta, it might in fact be a de facto rule of Mid-Eastern crime writing – that all crime novels are PI novels. I won’t pre-judge TISG, but the other four all share some similar characteristics with regards to the PI.

1. They’re all in their late 30s to mid 40s.
2. They’re all single with failed marriages and only a few close friendships.
3. They have a caring, romantic, sentimental side that they do their best to hide or deny.
4. They’re driven by a core sense of justice and fighting the wrongs of the world, and yet they know and are friends with people who routinely break the law.
5. They’re prepared to use violence, but only for a righteous cause.
6. They’re prepared to take a beating or dally with death to solve the case. In fact they seem to actively court it.
7. They’re smarter than the collective minds and resources of every state and federal agency combined and are always several steps ahead of them (even though they are often a failed cop).
8. They’re stubborn and ignore every warning to back off from a case and let the professionals deal with it.
9. They have suspect judgment, especially near the end of a case, rushing off to save the day rather than doing the sensible thing and calling the cops or bringing reinforcements (meaning they are caught and disarmed and then have to get themselves out of a sticky situation – a bit like James Bond really – why the bad guys don’t jut kill them straight off is a mystery in itself).

It obviously takes a certain kind of person to be a PI in these here parts. Of course, lots of crime fiction has it cliché characters and formulaic plots – they’re familiar and comforting and they work, producing a flawed hero people can identify with and an entertaining story. Reading four of a kind in a row though can be a bit wearing.

Review of Satan’s Lamb’s by Lynn Hightower (Felony and Mayhem, originally published 1993)

Satan's Lamb's by Lynn Hightower is another of the Ohio/Kentucky novels recommended to me.

Lena Padget had been in graduate school completing a PhD in economics, but for the six years since her pregnant sister and nephew were murdered by her brother-in-law, a member of a satanic cult, she has worked as private investigator, helping women who are in trouble. Jeff Hayes got two, concurrent twenty years terms for first degree manslaughter on the grounds of diminished responsibility. Having behaved himself and supposedly found God he’s being released early. Likewise, Hayes’ old business partner, Archie Valetta, is also being released. Padget and Hayes have unfinished business, and she’s also hired to protect Valetta’s ex-wife who fears that the former biker gang member is going to return to reclaim the stolen money she was supposed to have hidden. Soon Hayes is back on the scene wanting to collect his wife’s life insurance money, and Valetta attacks his ex-wife, making off with her young son, Charlie. With the help of local detective, Joel Mendez, a specialist in occult crimes, and Rick, her hacker ex-husband, Padget is in close pursuit, but when she finds Valetta he’s dead and the boy missing. It’s clear that Hayes is once again mixed up in a satanic cult and that they’re almost certainly holding the small child captive, waiting for the right time to use him as a human sacrifice. With the clock ticking, Padget races to try and save the young boy’s life.

It took me quite a while to get into Satan’s Lambs. Hightower writes proficiently, but the story took some time to develop and whilst the characters were well drawn it wasn’t until well into the book that I started to identify with them. My feeling was that the first half of the book spent too much time trying to set out the context for the story and flesh out the characters and their relationship with one another. In the second half of the book there was a better balance between description, action and contextual material and it morphed into a page turner and I couldn’t wait to find out what happened next. The relationship between Padget and Mendez develops nicely, and there is a good cast of supporting characters. I won’t give any spoilers, but I thought the moral ambiguity of the ending was excellent. Overall, a slow burner that got better as it progressed.