Dick Lochte

Good Mystery, Superb Characterization

Laughing Dog, by Dick Lochte, is a fairly typical mystery, but with two protagonists, Serendipity Dahlquist and Leo Bloodworth. In Laughing Dog there are, as well, not one, but two mysteries, each paired with one of the detectives. The story of each is narrated by its respective detective in alternating chapters from a limited first person point of view. And for each detective there are multiple murders, baffling clues, incomplete information, drugs, show more treks to foreign lands, chases, fights and aha moments.

What is not typical of the genre is the high quality of characterization found in this olio. Leo, the senior member of this team, is a former policeman, has a problem with alcohol, has paid his dues and has a well-earned cynical and gruff view on life. He is also refreshingly vulnerable, though he'd never admit it. Serendipity is a clever young woman (she's 15 years old) who has a very strong sense of her personal worth and is always willing to defend it. When once asked by a potential client how old she was, she immediately replied, "I don't see the relevance of such a question. And I find it patronizing and offensive." (Kindle location 228) She is not really a member of Leo's detective firm, but has attached herself to Leo because she wants to do detective work and sees Leo as heroic and wisely capable. She helps with the filing, acts as a receptionist, tries to manage Leo's alcohol consumption, and when a case arrives and Leo is not available, she jumps in with alacrity.

The relationship Serendipity has with her grandmother, famous actress Edith Van Dine, is particularly telling. 'Gran' is another veteran who has worked through the trenches and has earned a sense of entitlement. She has raised Serendipity and would like her to become first, an actress, but most importantly, a normal young lady, exhibiting proper behavior, limiting her acquaintances to proper individuals and definitely not hanging around detective offices and associating with the criminal types encountered in that mileau. Gran is demanding of Serendipity and the love they bear for each other is obvious, but Serendipity is smart and knows Gran's soft spots. She can cajole Gran into allowing her enough freedom to pursue her interests.

In short, Serendipity's personality has been highly influenced by her grandmother's own character. It is quite interesting to see how Serendipity develops through the guidance and role models of both her prim and proper grandmother Edith Van Dine and the gruff but wise detective Leo Bloodworth. It makes what would be an entertaining run-of-the-mill murder mystery become a story that one always wants to pick up and continue reading.

The author also displays a deft touch with his dialogue. Serendipity sounds like a young woman, using the slang of her age group and taking particular care with being specific in her references (she's an aspiring author as well as a detective); Leo is looser, more casual, and uses similes appropriate to the world in which he works. The secondary characters shine - Gran is the older matron who assumes privilege and forcefully states her desires and aversions, expecting everyone to acceed to her; an old acquaintance of Gran's and occassional escort of Serendipity is Carol Taylor-Bright, a fellow actor and distingué gentleman, always in an exquisitely tailored three-piece suit and very very prim in his speech patterns as well as his behavior.

Laughing Dog is delightful to read, particularly if one pays attention to how the personalities of the characters are portrayed as they interact and change. I definitely look forward to reading the other books in this series by Nero Wolfe award winner Lochte.

I received a free copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less

Books written by celebrities seem to be on every shelf of the bookstore lately. Just about all the members of the original Star Trek cast have their names on the cover of a science fiction novel, whether they actually wrote them or not. Hillary Clinton has signed an $8 million contract with Simon & Schuster for her story, with a history as a best-selling author already behind her. And Christopher Darden, erstwhile prosecutor of O.J. Simpson, has apparently decided that writing courtroom show more mysteries is just the thing for his post-legal career.

Fortunately, Darden had the good sense to team up with a strong journeyman mystery writer: Dick Lochte, author of the Leo Bloodworth novels, Sleeping Dog and Laughing Dog, and the Terry Manion novels, Blue Bayou and The Neon Smile, each one of them better than the one before. And the team-up works, sort of; despite the fact that the mystery itself can be guessed by the veteran mystery reader in the first 50 pages, despite the fact that the writing is often execrable, this book keeps one turning the pages.

Nikki Hill is an attorney with the Los Angeles District Attorney’s Office, making her second appearance in a Darden/Lochte novel (the first was The Trials of Nikki Hill). This time around, she is assigned to assist a more senior, and duller, attorney in prosecuting Randy Bingham, a rich young wastrel with poetic aspirations who is accused of killing his girlfriend. Her boyfriend is homicide detective Virgil Sykes, a man determined to clear his partner of charges that he murdered a young woman. Both of them befriend Adam, the young son of the girlfriend Bingham is supposed to have killed, and Adam becomes deeply enmeshed in both of the cases occupying his new friends.

The trial dialogue is competently written, if unexciting; this isn’t a mystery that has its heart in the courtroom. It is therefore all the more disappointing that the dialogue concerning the politics in the district attorney’s office is so sinister it’s often laughable (“’Right,’ Dana said sarcastically, jerking the door open. ‘Remember, my enemy’s friend is my enemy’”), and that the sex scenes sound as if they belong in a romance novel (“A tremor of excitement electrified her body”). The bad guys sound as if they walked into the novel from Central Casting (“’He’s never offed a bitch,’ Jay Jay added. ‘He just, you know, messes ‘em up a little’”), as does the sexist police officer (“’Oh, mama!’ McNeil exclaimed, checking out the corpse. ‘This is my favorite kind of lady. No sass. Low maintenance’”). Overall, the writing sometimes sounds like the authors are participating in the Bulwer-Lytton contest (“His beloved’s lifeless flesh had not yet cooled, but he was beginning to worry about his own wretched hide”).

Why, then, does this book hold the reader’s interest? It would be easy to say simply that the pace is fast, turning this into the sort of popcorn reading that’s just right for a quiet winter weekend when the reader wants only to be entertained, not to think. But what really does it is that the three main characters are so well-drawn that one wants to keep reading just to find out what happens to them. Nikki would be fun to have a good gossip about men with, to talk to about what it’s like to be a professional woman who loves her work but wants a family, to dish the dirt on office politics. Virgil works hard, thinks hard, and loves hard. Adam sounds like a fascinating kid, a ten-year-old millionaire who is a genius with electronics. These characters have a complexity that the lesser characters in the novel belie, a life to them that makes them real. Together, they make reading this novel feel like a handful of hours spent with new friends.

Originally published in The Drood Review of Mystery, Volume 21, No. 1 (Jan/Feb 2001) at 5-6. show less

For a first mystery this is a lot of fun. Of course, using a highly respected mystery author as a "co-author" helped a lot but you can tell that much of this mystery came from the mind of Mr. Roker.

Chef Billy Blessings works on a national TV morning show as a chef and sometime interviewer, as well as a front man who visits the crowds each morning (sound familiar?). When his executive producer is killed by poison in food from his restaurant Billy is on the case, trying to figure out who show more killed Rudy and why.

There is a lot of inside information on how a daily morning show works, some of the back-biting and in-fighting that happens but basically the mystery is about solving the crime not about name dropping and sly giggles about "inside information".

I got a little tired of the whole international serial killer stuff but then I get tired of those stories in real life too.

Still, this is highly recommended, it is fun with only a little graphic violence depicted. show less

Al Roker's narration of this light-hearted (yes) murder mystery is delightful. I had no trouble picturing in vivid detail the entire cast, especially the main protagonist, Billy Blessing. As,of course, Al Roker. The story line had a few surprises and a few tables were turned, some predictably. My only complaint is the inconsistent behavior of a main antagonist. I don't believe that driving in Chigago is so simple that even someone simple could do it.