The Third World is a notorious landing place for all manner of loose cannons, bad seeds and "wretched refuse," and nowhere is this more pronounced than in the steamy environs of tropical Thailand. Vincent Calvino, protagonist of Christopher G. Moore's atmospheric Paying Back Jack, works at the fringes of the aforementioned groups, a disbarred lawyer scratching out a living as an ad hoc private detective in the mean streets of urban Bangkok. When a clever trick he employs to get a recalcitrant tenant to pay up backfires badly, Calvino is hustled out of the city to a nearby resort town; here, in theory, he will wait until things cool down a bit. Of course, it's not that easy—as he nurses a drink on his hotel balcony, a beautiful young woman plunges past him to her death on the pavement below. Witnesses identify Calvino as having been on the balcony with her when she fell. It is all just a bit too pat, even for the notoriously look-the-other-way Thai police, but since there is no better candidate, they plan to hold him indefinitely. Fortunately for Calvino, he has some well-placed friends who are able to secure his release, but only for the time being. His temporary reprieve may be revoked at any time, so it is incumbent upon him to find some answers—and in record time. Author Moore is an old Thailand hand, having lived in Bangkok since 1988, and it shows persuasively on every passing page.

Burn notice

J.A. Jance is author of not one, but three successful mystery series, one featuring Seattle P.I. Beau Beaumont, one starring Arizona police chief Joanna Brady and one introducing the newest member of the troika, ex-television journalist Ali Reynolds. In her latest adventure, Trial by Fire, Reynolds is approached by the Yavapai (Arizona) County Police Chief with regard to an interim position as media relations officer. Somewhat at loose ends, Reynolds agrees to take the position, for a short time and on her terms. One of the first duties in her new job is to deal with the press when an unidentified woman is rescued from a house fire, burned almost past recognition and now barely clinging to life in the burn unit of the local hospital. Reynolds teams up with hospital-appointed patient advocate Sister Anselm, a strange nun with an undisclosed agenda of her own, to uncover the identity of the burned woman. Problem is, there is still a would-be killer on the loose, one who would like nothing better than to finish the job, and remove once and for all the shred of incriminating evidence that compromises an otherwise near-perfect crime. Jance proves once again that she has mastered the nigh-impossible task of writing consistently (and convincingly) in three quite different styles, one for each of her series—no easy feat!

G is for Grafton

Unlike the rest of us, private detective Kinsey Millhone never gets any older. The perpetually 30-something detective is forever encased in amber in Santa Teresa, California, circa 1988. Things have changed a bit for her, to be sure: her totaled VW bug has been supplanted by a later-model Mustang, and she has tentatively re-established relations with her estranged family, but by and large the aging process has advanced admirably slowly for Ms. Millhone. The latest installment in the popular Sue Grafton series, U is for Undertow, like its predecessors, is set in a milieu free of cell phones, Internet scams, terrorism paranoia and global warming. That is not to say that there is any shortage of bad guys: consider the pair who kidnapped four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh in 1972, held her for ransom, then never claimed the money and never returned the child to her distraught parents. Now, 16 years later, a possible witness has stepped forward—albeit a witness with some serious credibility issues. Kinsey Millhone agrees to look into the case, but not without reservations; her client has a limited amount of money, and Kinsey has moral compunctions about working pro bono (i.e., morals don't put food on the table). The tension ratchets up several notches when Millhone finds herself on a remote hillside, staring down the wrong end of a gun. Sure to please her cadre of fans, and perhaps win her some new ones as well, U is for Undertow is a worthy addition to Grafton's long list of thrillers.

Mystery of the month

In 2004, Joseph Wambaugh was named Grand Master of the Mystery Writers of America—and for good reason: he consistently turns out taut, suspense-laden thrillers, with just a touch of the craziness that seems to characterize Hollywood for the rest of the world. The manic Tinseltown vibe is never stronger than at the time of the full moon, hence the title of Wambaugh's latest novel, Hollywood Moon.

Wambaugh's regular cast is all present and accounted for: veteran policewoman and single mom Dana Vaughn, about to be an empty-nester; aspiring actor-turned-cop "Hollywood Nate" Weiss, who volunteers for any industry-related affair, in waning hope of being "discovered"; two surfer cop partners who converse with one another in barely intelligible surf-speak; sloe-eyed Sheila Montez, the latest and greatest heartthrob of Hollywood Station; and, in spirit at least, the late sergeant known as the Oracle, who served in the LAPD for 46 years, and whose framed photograph every cop touches for good luck before embarking on each shift. As with Wambaugh's previous novels, a central storyline (or two) is interwoven with the daily routines of the department regulars, their loves, their jobs, their peccadilloes. Like life, Wambaugh's novels are by turns comical, whimsical, tense, gripping and, in one memorable instance in the final pages of the book, tragic. For sometimes storylines intersect with much more combined force than the individual tales might generate on their own, and what might seem like simple collateral damage in one story signals a life-altering (or -ending) change in another. I started reading Wambaugh close to 20 years ago, with his groundbreaking The Golden Orange; since then I have eagerly awaited each new book, and have taken the opportunity to devour his back catalog between new releases. Wambaugh is a master of the genre, and he just keeps getting better—quite an achievement considering his work includes such classics as The Choirboys, The New Centurions and The Onion Field.

With each book, Grafton is only getting better. Her Kinsey Millhone series is now in its 21st installment but is nowhere near past its prime. A young man named Michael Sutton shows up at Kinsey's office one afternoon, claiming to have suddenly recalled details from his childhood concerning an unsolved kidnapping of a little girl 20 years ago. Kinsey is skeptical but agrees to work for one day on the cold case. And so it begins. Weaving the narrative and point of view between events and characters in the 1980s and the 1960s, it is not until the breathless final pages that everything connects. VERDICT Readers will not abandon Kinsey Millhone as the series winds down (only five left, VWXYZ!). Her latest is fresh, complex, fast-paced, and immensely enjoyable. Kinsey's sharp 1980s research skills might even leave a few readers nostalgic for a pre-Google world. [See Prepub Alert, LJ 8/09.]—Andrea Y. Griffith, Loma Linda Univ. Libs., CA

False memory syndrome provides the core of bestseller Grafton's intriguing 21st crime novel featuring wry PI Kinsey Millhone (after T Is for Trespass). In 1988, Kinsey takes on client Michael Sutton, who claims to have recovered a childhood memory of men burying a suspicious bundle shortly after the unsolved disappearance of four-year-old Mary Claire Fitzhugh in 1972. But Sutton has a track record of unreliability, and Kinsey must untangle and reconfigure his disjointed recountings to learn if they are truth or fiction. Chapters told from the point of view of other characters in other time periods add texture, allowing the reader to assemble pieces of the case as Kinsey works on other aspects. A subplot involves Kinsey wrestling with conflicting information about her estranged family. Though whodunit purists may be a bit disappointed that the culprit is revealed well before book's end, both loyal Kinsey fans and those new to the canon will find much to like. Author tour. (Dec.)