{"id":1430,"date":"2014-08-24T20:06:51","date_gmt":"2014-08-25T02:06:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/?p=1430"},"modified":"2014-08-24T20:06:51","modified_gmt":"2014-08-25T02:06:51","slug":"jane-haddam-fighting-chance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/jane-haddam-fighting-chance\/","title":{"rendered":"Jane Haddam: Fighting Chance"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Fighting<\/a>While much of the attention in publishing is focused on dazzling, huge best sellers, it\u2019s the old reliables, steadily publishing year after year, who keep the engine of publishing moving along.\u00a0 Jane Haddam can now boast 28 novels in her long running Gregor Demarkian series.\u00a0 While there are some series entries I disliked it would almost be more surprising if there weren\u2019t.\u00a0 When Jane Haddam is \u201con,\u201d she\u2019s one of the best, and this turned out to be a favorite of mine in her long series.<\/p>\n

As she uses the tropes laid out so long ago by Agatha Christie, even referring to Gregor Demarkian as the \u201cArmenian American Hercule Poirot,\u201d she makes them fresh and still incredibly enjoyable.\u00a0 Demarkian, for the uninitiated, is a former FBI agent (which gives him all kinds of connections), now working on his own as a consultant.\u00a0 Like Poirot, he is a \u201cworld famous detective.\u201d\u00a0 Poirot reveled in his fame; Demarkian despises it.\u00a0 They do share a mustache, though I feel certain Demarkian\u2019s is un-waxed.<\/p>\n

After so long it would be easy for Haddam to write in a kind of self-referential shorthand regarding her setting and recurring characters, but she avoids it and somehow manages to balance a bit of explanation with the story at hand.\u00a0 You could pick this one up and be as comfortable as if you were starting with the terrific first in the series, Not a Creature Was Stirring.\u00a0 <\/i>She does use long established characters as main players in her drama in this novel, making it one of her strongest, most deeply felt books.<\/p>\n

Gregor lives in an Armenian enclave in Philadelphia, and it\u2019s here he\u2019s brought his Main Line wife, Bennis, who has adapted and adopted her new neighborhood with enthusiasm.\u00a0 One of the keystone personalities of the neighborhood is Father Tibor Kasparian, best friends with Gregor, and now accused of murder.\u00a0 Father Tibor was found, covered in blood, in the chambers of a judge well known for giving juvenile offenders long, harsh sentences.\u00a0 The circumstantial evidence, including a damning phone video of Tibor, send him to jail where he is refusing to talk.\u00a0 To anyone.<\/i><\/p>\n

Haddam often \u2013 or always \u2013 has an issue she\u2019s interested in exploring; in this novel, it\u2019s the juvenile justice system.\u00a0 In her best novels, the issue doesn\u2019t overpower the story, and that\u2019s the case here.\u00a0 It\u2019s the connections between the characters, long established and lovingly created, that provide the true depth to her story.<\/p>\n

As I was reading I also sent Haddam a mental thank you note \u2013 this novel, packed with plot, drama, characters and even a vivid setting, still clocks in at a brisk 311 pages.\u00a0 Old school indeed.\u00a0 This is one of the very best traditional mystery series being written; each installment, if not a joy, is thought provoking and engaging.\u00a0 I would be delighted to read 28 more books about Gregor Demarkian, and if the \u201cVery Old Ladies\u201d could also be a part of things, that would be another gift.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While much of the attention in publishing is focused on dazzling, huge best sellers, it\u2019s the old reliables, steadily publishing year after year, who keep the engine of publishing moving along.\u00a0 Jane Haddam can now boast 28 novels in her long running Gregor Demarkian series.\u00a0 While there are some series entries I disliked it would … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[5],"class_list":["post-1430","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews","tag-americancozy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1430"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1432,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1430\/revisions\/1432"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1430"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1430"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/auntagathas.com\/aa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1430"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}