Copyright 2004 by Nancy Whitman Geary. Published by Time Warner Book Group, New York.

It is usually good when, in a mystery story, everything fits together. But sometimes everything fits together just a little too well to be realistic. I am thinking of some of the Agatha Christie books, like Ten Little Indians or Murder on the Orient Express. Entertaining, for sure, but too nicely packaged to be anything but fiction.

Regrets Only is such a book. Exhibit A: A psychiatrist who is being interviewed for a prestigious post offers three “character witnesses” who turn out to be, respectively, her ex-husband, the father of her illegitimate twins and the adoptive father of said twins. Really? She couldn’t get a priest or a rabbi? And wouldn’t at least one of the two who were involved with her undisclosed illegitimate offspring recuse himself because of the obvious ethical conflict?

Exhibit B: The rookie homicide detective assigned to the murder of this psychiatrist is dating – and in love with – the abandoned son of the victim. Again, shouldn’t she have recused herself due to her strong emotional involvement?

Exhibit C: The cop’s boyfriend, who owns a bar, hosts an exhibit of drawings by a troubled young artist who, as it later becomes known, is the half-brother of the owner. This is a gratuitous coincidence that has little bearing on the plot. Why even include this odd coincidence?

So, while I thought the book was well-written, the coincidences overwhelmed me.

5 out of 10.

Copyright 2020 by David Benjamin. Published by Last Kid Books, Madison WI.

The usual disclaimer: The author is one of my oldest and best friends.

I am having a hard time reviewing this book, partly because I have read it before and I tend to rush a second reading. Also – and I hate to admit this because I think it is a character flaw – I dislike books that have long chapters. For example, I had a hard time getting through Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged because some of its chapters were interminable. Should the length of chapters be a factor in my opinion of a book, rather than the quality of the prose or the depth of the thoughts? No, it should not. But it is. As I said, a character flaw.

So I didn’t like the lengths of the chapters in this book – 5 chapters covering 320 pages, or 64 pages per chapter. That said, I think this is otherwise a terrific book, full of insights, charm and humor. The book is largely autobiographical and, as such, I know some of the characters in the book – though not those in Tomah as that period in his life predated our meeting. But I knew his family and I think he portrays his siblings and his mother vividly.

I think the book would be of particular interest to anyone who attended parochial school. Much of the insight is into Catholic life. But beyond the Catholic subtext you will find secular insight into growing up in the 1950s, with many pop references that you will be surprised to discover that you had forgotten – if you grew up in the 50s.

A very good book.

7 out of 10. It would have been 8 if the chapters had been shorter.

Copyright 2001 by Harlan Coben. Published by Dell Publishing, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

I really like Coben’s books. He always keeps you guessing. His plots are deep, devious and very satisfying. And he has a way of revealing details that keep me turning the pages – like an archaeologist slowly uncovering a skeleton with a whisk brush.

Coben seems to be very fond of stories of dead people who aren’t quite dead – see Play Dead and The Woods. The mostly dead person in this case is the wife of the protagonist, Dr David Beck. She died 8 years prior in an unprovoked attack on both of them in the woods (yes, more woods). Beck is knocked unconscious and nearly drowns yet survives – he doesn’t know how – only to find that his wife has been murdered. But 8 years after that horrible night – and after 2 bodies are uncovered at the site of the attack – he begins to receive mysterious anonymous coded messages (which include the admonition to “tell no one”, hence the title). He begins to suspect that his wife may still be alive. But why would she disappear for 8 years?

Unraveling that question – and the mystery of how Beck survived the attack in the woods and why they were attacked at all – is the core of the plot. But while Beck is trying to figure it all out he finds that he is the prime suspect in the murder of one of his wife’s friends and also in his wife’s murder. He has to go underground to avoid arrest and death by the hands of two thugs who are gunning for him. What the heck is going on?

Find out for yourself. Perhaps not quite as good as The Woods, but close.

9 out of 10.

Copyright 2005 by John Sandford. Published by the Penguin Group of G. P. Putnam Sons, New York NY.

This is the 16th in the popular “Prey” series featuring detective Lucas Davenport. While in later books Davenport takes on other jobs, in this one he is still with Minnesota’s Bureau of Criminal Apprehension (BCA), Minnesota’s state-level crime-solving unit. This case invoves a serial murderer who is somehow linked to the “Big Three” – a trio of very disturbed serial killers incarcerated for life in Minnesota’s facility for the criminally insane. Just how the new killer is associated with the three jailed killers is the crux of this story.

Sandford’s style is to present the story in a series of very short passages. I normally like this style – it is similar to Tom Clancy’s – but Sandford takes it to an extreme. Sometimes the passage is a single sentence. And there are a lot of characters in this story and I sometimes had difficulty remembering who they were. That might be more a testimony to my age and how long it took me to finish this book than a criticism of his style, but it was a factor in my enjoyment of the book.

Sandford spins some very complex yarns and he is pretty good at keeping the reader guessing. In this book there are two prime suspects who turn out to be more victim than suspect. And he doesn’t skimp on the body count, either: I think the total number of corpses in this one exceeded 15. But could Davenport have done better at reducing that count? Yes. Mistakes were made and some of the carnage was due to investigative errors. Not Davenport’s most shining moment.

But a pretty good read.

7 out of 10.