Mystery ‘Capital Crimes’ paced to keep reader interest

Maine Bound is a column featuring new books written by Maine authors, set in the Pine Tree State or that have other local ties.

CAPITAL CRIMES, by Stuart Woods, Putnam, New York, 2003, hardcover, 288 pages, $25.95.

Woods, a part-time Mount Desert Island resident, has brought back Will Lee for the fourth time as his protagonist. Like Woods, a Georgia native, Lee started in politics as a Senate aide and worked his way up the ladder and now occupies the Oval Office.

Democrat Lee, aided by his Central Intelligence Agency director wife, Kate, finds himself with a thorny situation. It seems that someone is killing off conservative icons by an assortment of methods. (Would all Democrats have so enthusiastically embraced a search for such an assassin?)

But Will and Kate aren’t alone in this chase. Most of the legwork falls to Robert Kinney, the able deputy director for criminal investigations who seems the logical successor for the fairly incompetent political appointee who is the FBI director.

The whodunit in “Capital Crimes” is dispensed with fairly quickly. Then it comes down to the hunt for the assassin.

As always, although sometimes predictable and implausible, Woods’ fast-paced latest volume will sustain readers’ interest. There isn’t a great deal of twists and turns, more a series of near misses, but “Capital Crimes” will keep Woods’ fans satisfied. – Dale McGarrigle

MISTRIAL, by Woody Hanstein, Audenreed Press, Brunswick, 2003, paperback, 289 pages, $12.

With more than 20 years’ experience, Woody Hanstein certainly understands the life of a small-town trial lawyer. It may be mundane at times, but it’s also important to clients in need.

Besides, sometimes mundane is a good thing, as the Farmington mystery writer’s protagonist Pete Morris discovers in

Hanstein’s fourth courtroom novel.

Morris finds himself with a client facing conviction on a manslaughter charge. Rick Maxwell had gotten behind the wheel after one too many drinks and fishtailed into another car on an ice-covered road, killing a local schoolteacher.

Then things start to go hinky. Maxwell gets a mistrial after one of his jurors, an elderly woman, winds up dead in a trailer fire. A rumor begins floating around that her death has something to do with drug trafficking. And the more Morris digs, the more danger he and his pregnant girlfriend, Karen, find themselves in.

Hanstein keeps the surprises coming, right through the last page, and readers will follow him around these twists and turns. Maybe it’s time for him to leave the courtroom behind, and concentrate on writing. There’s always room for another talented mystery writer on the national scene. – Dale McGarrigle

LIFE BETWEEN THE TIDES, by Les Watling, Jill Fegley and John Moring, illustrated by Andrea Sulzer, Tilbury House Publishers, Gardiner, Maine, 2003, 110 pages, $15.

There’s a whole world beyond the sand dollars and blue mussels that most of us remember finding on Maine’s beaches; populated by bushy-backed sea slugs that look like creeping, crawling forests, ghostly, glowing sea grapes and moon jellies, and the long, thin algaes known as dead man’s fingers.

A new book called “Life Between the Tides,” chronicles these lesser-known, but fascinating inhabitants of our varied coastline. Compiled by the Maine Sea Grant, with text by University of Maine and Maine Maritime Academy Researchers, the book is available from Tilbury House Publishers in Gardiner.

This pocket-sized book starts with a great description of how Maine’s coastal ecology works, written by UM Darling Center professor of oceanography Les Watling. Subsequent chapters explore the lives of invertebrates (animals without a backbone), fish and plants of the shore with a test written by marine biologists and detailed pen-and ink drawings by Andrea Sulzer.

The result is a field guide that is equally enjoyable for summer beachcombing or wintertime bathtub reading.

– Misty Edgecomb