The Dead Don't Lie: An Abe Lieberman Mystery
Categories: Mystery & Suspense , Staff Picks , Fiction
I just read Stuart M. Kaminsky’s The Dead Don’t Lie, the latest Abe Lieberman mystery.
I’ve enjoyed the series since its 1991 debut with Lieberman’s Folly. That volume introduced the Chicago police detective—sixty-ish, feeling the first twinges of mortality in his arthritic knees, a world-weary basset hound of a man whose mild manner hid decades of street smarts. We also met Lieberman’s partner, Bill Hanrahan, a decent but troubled man who was drinking too much since his wife left.
Great minor characters rounded out the cast, from Lieberman’s energetic wife, Bess (leading light of their local temple); to Iris, the quiet Chinese waitress whom the Irish-Catholic Hanrahan found himself courting; to Lieberman’s brother, Maish, and the chorus of “alter cockers” who frequent Maish’s deli.
In The Dead Don’t Lie, our heroes have a few more years on them. And this time around, they’re working a pair of puzzling mysteries.
Dr. Lemi Oraz Sahin, a prominent member of Chicago’s Turkish-American community, has been murdered. Lieberman is working that case, gradually learning what the reader already knows, that the murder is related to a lost journal reputed to prove that the Turkish massacre of Armenians in 1915 was really committed by the Kurds. That’s information that fanatic Turkish nationalists, eager to see their home country permitted to join the European Union, would kill for.
Hanrahan is meanwhile working the shooting under very confused circumstances of a chef named Jonas Lindqvist. A pair of brutal young boxers, a briefcase full of money, and an unfortunate link to Hanrahan’s father-in-law complicate that case.
But neither case is the real draw here. It’s the terrific characters and the wonderfully rich stories of their lives that are irresistible. Though there are plenty of other older detectives out there (fans of this series might particularly like to try Ronald Tierney’s The Stone Veil, which introduced “Deets” Shanahan, an elderly p.i. based in Indianapolis), nothing here seems merely formulaic. This series is a real treat.
