Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, April 14, 1991 TAG: 9104180068
SECTION: HORIZON PAGE: B-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Reviewed by TOM SHAFFER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
A DEATH BEFORE DYING. By Collin Wilcox. Holt. $17.95.
IMMORAL CERTAINTY. By Robert K. Tanenbaum. Dutton. $18.95.
The Gulf War and the Cold War are over and the war against drugs has become too tedious for escape fiction. Murder in vicarages and country homes is for Agatha Christie, who is better on television than she ever was in print, and leaves a void that no writer of spy fiction seems able to fill. LeCarre and Deighton are treading water.
Crime writers have to brave new frontiers. Richard Abshire's interest in international business intrigue is a promising example. Both of his Jack Kyle stories - "Dallas Drop in 1989" and "Turnaround Jack" last year - get into it, and both are first rate.
The sickest of the new frontiers has a growing fascination with criminals who torture and murder children. New novels from Robert Tanenbaum and Collin Wilcox, both seasoned professionals, are solid disgusting examples.
"Immoral Certainty" has great characters, old-fashioned (adult) sex, organized crime and standard doses of cops-robbers brutality. For some perverse reason though, Tanenbaum added a graphic visit to a satanic cult that cuts up children.
"A Death Before Dying" is Wilcox's 13th Lt. Hastings police story. Hastings is a likable, fallible, aging detective who, in this story, tracks down a sadistic sex fiend whose victims portentously re-enact scenes of child abuse.
These are two of six or eight novels I have reviewed here (or decided not to review) in the past year. Somebody, somewhere thinks this filth is a form of entertainment. If there is a race going on among crime-fiction writers and publishers, I hope Abshire and Morrow win it.
Tom Shaffer teaches law at Notre Dame University.
by CNB