For the past few years, television has been the place to go to for a decent story as Hollywood has become addicted to blockbuster hits devoid of an intelligent plot. You may have enjoyed the exquisitely paced Mad Men, period pieces like Downton Abbey, or the social misfit humor of Curb Your Enthusiasm, but if you're still jonesing for a bit of action then you should come to the library and check out the first season of Justified. Based on a short story by the expert author/screen writer Elmore Leonard, Justified follows deputy U.S. Marshall Raylan Givens after he's relegated to an office in the piney woods of Kentucky which just happen to be the area he was born in and spent his life trying to stay away from. His particular brand of justice is what keeps me so interested in the story; with a style that consists of equal mixes Western gunslinger, chivalrous knight, and unconventional law man, it's always what gets Raylan into trouble but is also his only way out of it. I promise you, you'll never think of a hillbilly the same way after watching this show. And for those of you who are already enjoying what may be considered Elmore Leonard's greatest work yet, you should check out Raylan, his new (and first) novel featuring the show's main character.
I'm an unabashed fan of graphic novels. Wait, let me stop trying to act like I'm not a nerd and call them by their rightful title: comic books. Those of you who have asked me for a recommendation of what comic you should read have probably been subjected to at least ten minutes of me gushing about how much I adore Bill Willingham and his long-running comic, Fables, which may be the greatest ongoing comic and second only to Neil Gaiman's Sandman series in my comic pantheon.
Marzi: A Memoir by Marzena Sowa, illustrated by Sylvain Savoia The realm of graphic novels has long been a haven for memoirs, starting with Spiegelman's Maus and continuing into the present with greats such as Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis and David B.'s Epileptic. Marzena Sowa adds to the list with her memoir about growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Poland. It's a unique view that contrasts the naivete and curiosity of childhood with the harshness of Communism. A must-read, especially if you've enjoyed Guy Deslisle's travelogues from his time spent in totalitarian countries (Pyongyang, Travels in Burma).
Who’da thunk it? Would you have guessed that normal everyday Americans would be throwing around names like Dag, Dragan, Jerker, Piet,and Lisbeth. “Yes, I remember when Sven saw Jochum in Kronoberg (or was it Klaipeda?)” Swedish crime fiction is hot. And not just Stieg Larsson and his “Girl Who…” series. There’s Hakan Nesser, Camilla Lackberg, Kjell Ericksson, the venerable Henning Mankell and more every second week. (Just check the Minuteman catalog for the subject “Sweden—Fiction” or keywords “Sweden and mystery.”) Box 21 was written by a Swedish writing duo, one of whom is a journalist, the other an ex-criminal. Roslund and Hellstrom set a gritty noir scene, peopled by sex traffickers, dope addicts, corrupt cops, mob enforcers and a few hardworking detectives, who themselves have demons to fight. Ewert Grens is the senior investigator, a brilliant detective but haunted by the assault decades earlier which left his partner Anni brain-damaged and virtually unresponsive in a nursing home. Grens (a crusty and cranky old fellow) and his team have to deal with multiple crimes involving an abused prostitute, her plans for revenge and the murder of a drug addict by the very same man responsible for Anni’s condition. Box 21 kept me up late reading, and I think it will do the same to you.
A cursory browse of the Boston Globe review Boston Irish by Edward Delaney intrigued me enough to put it on my “remember-to-read” list. Southie, tough Irish characters, corruption, feuds, the Catholic Church, all sounded to me like an interesting, but perhaps predictable mix. I was more than surprised to be deeply drawn into this complex novel and its characters that inhabit the late 1990s world of South Boston and the widening scandal of sexual abuse in the Boston Archdiocese. The towns of Wellesley, Needham, Newton, Brookline and Milton get nods as do Boston College, Cardinal Law, and the Chancery. I felt I entered into the lives, and more importantly into the minds, of this interlocking set of characters, and particularly into the minds of the most unappealing ones. There are few books that have done that for me. Don’t miss this dark but stunning novel. PM
Sleuth, with Michael Caine and Lawrence Olivier
Grisham returns to the world of tort cases (King of Torts, 2003) and street lawyers (The Street Lawyer, 1998) with his new legal thriller entitled The Litigators. He follows David Zinc, a Harvard Law School graduate, from the elite world of corporate law to the life of a lowly street lawyer. David thought anything 
had to be better than his job with a large high power law firm until he offers his services to the partners of Finley & Figg, who are basically ambulance chasers.
study on being a trial lawyer (when his new bosses begin to drop out of the picture) and decides what he wants to be when he grows up. The ending is a bit unbelievable but this is fiction, right? 
Meet Tony Cassella, the hard-boiled private eye with a none-too-typical resume. He dropped out of Yale Law School, testified against fellow corrections officers, has mob connections and knows who to talk to in the New York political machine. He has troubles with his girlfriend and his mom’s boyfriend, a priest, wants in on Tony’s biggest case. And that case involves proving that Ronald Reagan’s newly appointed attorney-general is corrupt. Corruption runs through this noir novel as if it were one of the main characters. As for Tony, you’ll have to read the book to see if can resist the temptations dangled in front of him and remain true to his principles.
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