Hell Hole, Chris Grabenstein, St. Martin's Minotaur, $24.95.
These books have the kind of humor that writers like Robert B. Parker, Lawrence Block (in Burglar mode) and Harlan Coben (in series mode) have all made look so easy. Grabenstein has the same easy, deft touch, a gift for dialogue and the throw away line that makes you laugh when you are about a paragraph further down the page. He also has a way with a plot - as I thumbed back to the beginning to reorient myself for writing my review, I was impressed at how he'd set his story threads early and played them out at the very end of the book. And Ceepak himself is really a classic. He's a decorated Iraqi war vet who lives by the West Point code of behavior. He didn't go to West Point, he just thinks it's a good way to behave. He is incapable of telling a lie or not following a rule; he's always prepared and ready for action. Luckily, this paragon is viewed through Danny Boyle's eyes, so the whole thing never gets too serious, though Ceepak, told from this removed viewpoint, acquires an air of mystery and capability he might not have if these books were told from Ceepak's point of view. As a result, you're always delighted when he's on the canvas.
As Grabenstein explained to me once, each book is titled after an amusement park ride - and then he adjusts the plot to sort of fit the dynamics of whatever that particular ride may be. In this book, the Hell Hole ride is the one where you get into a round tube with many other people, standing against the walls. As the tube spins the floor falls away. Frankly, just reading about it made me want to throw up, but Grabenstein does indeed neatly tie the dynamic of the ride into the story. The main thread is about the discovery of a suicide in the bathroom of a local rest area - when Danny arrives on the scene without Ceepak he thinks there's some details that aren't right, and snaps a few photos with his cell phone, which is lucky as the crime scene tech is a notorious slob (he was first memorably encountered in Tilt-a-Whirl). The dead man was a member of a group of Iraqi vets who are partying up a storm on the Jersey shore and who have gotten the unpleasant duty of identifying the body. They want to go out and kill whoever did this to their buddy, but Ceepak gets them to hold off as he investigates the crime himself, managing to wrest jurisdiction away from the original investigating officer.
There's a lot of other good material here about politics, the Patriot act, fathers and sons, loyalty and just straight up investigative police work that make this not just a rocket powered, but a textured, read. Grabenstein's prose may be rather straightforward but he relies on the New Jersey poet laureate, Bruce Springsteen, whenever he needs a shot of poetry. Humor, a good police story, and Bruce. To me, this is pretty much a perfect summer read.
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