Customer Reviews

First Lady

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(8)
3 star:		(5)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Hillston, North Carolina Police Chief, Cuddy Mangum has his hands full, and it looks like his beloved job is on the line. Just as he's being recognized, nationally, as an innovative crime fighter, and his department is ranked number one in small cities in the south, there appears to be a serial killer loose in Hillston, murdering and mutilating women. To make matters worse, this brazen killer seems to be taunting and challenging Cuddy and his best friend, Homicide Lieutenant, Justin Savile V, personally, leaving the two of them messages on the bodies, and clues in their offices, homes and cars. The entire police department is running in circles, and beginning to look both inept, and incapable of solving these crimes. As the body count rises, North Carolina politics come into play, and Cuddy and Justin are issued an ultimatum...solve these crimes, now, or turn in your resignations..... After ten years, Michael Malone is finally back with a new mystery starring his most memorable characters, Cuddy Mangum and Justin Savile V, from his critically acclaimed novels, Uncivil Seasons and Time's Witness. Unfortunately, First Lady is not nearly as good as the previous two books, and has some problems. Though the writing is crisp and eloquent, and the dialogue, wonderful, the plot is neither tight, suspenseful, nor all that compelling, and tends to ramble all over the place. Instead of being intriguing and intricate, the story line tends to be confusing and unbelievable and Mr Malone ties up the loose ends with a predictable and unsatisfying ending. That said, his characterizations are brilliant and unrivaled, and he brings Hillston and the New South to life with imagination, and great insight, wisdom and humor. If you're a Michael Malone fan, you probably won't want to miss the continuing saga of Mangum and Savile. For those new to this author, go back and read his much better previous works, and enjoy.

As a mystery writer with my debut novel in its initial release, I have been wondering when I'd next read a Michael Malone mystery. He vanished from the mystery world, yet now, over a decade after vanishing, he has returned with his North Carolina-based series starring police officers Cuddy Mangum and Justin Savile. FIRST LADY is as well written as his previous novels. It is thoroughly contemporary--a bit hardboiled and noirish with violence and sex. There is political corruption, odd characters, official manipulation, and sensational crimes. Our protagonists are flawed characters though good men. Cuddy and Justin are searching for a serial killer known in the media as Guess Who. Malone's plot is well-paced. His story seems believable. FIRST LADY is a fine work--well worth the long wait.

Although murder, policemen and sleuthing are central to its plot, Michael Malone's splendid new novel FIRST LADY is no more a conventional mystery than War & Peace is a book about battle strategies. The true glory of Malone's work lies in how deftly and imaginatively he gives his characters life and depth, and how perfect is his ear for dialogue. While the "whodunit" aspect of the book certainly is interesting and credible (and provides ample grist for devotees of the genre, including a most satisfying denouement), it is the legions of disparate flesh-and-blood people that make FIRST LADY so absorbing and so entertaining. This is a book for serious readers - and for people who normally eschew detective fiction. Malone is a southerner who has spent much of his life elsewhere. His arms-length fascination with the not always smooth melding of the Old and New South gives FIRST LADY, which is set in North Carolina, a wry descant. After a long sojourn doing other things, Malone, one of our very best novelists (DINGLEY FALLS, UNCIVIL SEASONS, HANDLING SIN, TIME'S WITNESS, FOOLSCAP), is back and in top form. Rush to embrace this book: you'll love it!

Not a lot of words needed to say WELCOME BACK to Michael Malone. You have been missed. There simply are not enough of "I can't put it down authors" for any to go so long betwwe books. Keep them coming! The First Lady is a wonderful read. (though my favorite book is still Handling Sin). Highly reccommend to all.

I'd long given up on Michael Malone as being dead or retired or something (it turns out he was just writing for television; I'd love to know for what shows), so the publication of "First Lady" was a truly pleasant surprise. It's been a long time since I read his previous novels, so it would be unfair for me to say how this new one stacks up against them. I will say that it is a truly entertaining read and a good enough mystery, but Malone is such a wonderful writer that finding out who did it is just a small part of what keeps you turning the pages. The writing here is sparking and lively, the characters alive and always amusing. I can only hope Malone will continue to give us more novels.

I heartily suggest that newcomers snatch up whatever Malone novels they can find.

What a relief to have another novel by Michael Malone in my
hands! Malone is such a joy to read--and FIRST LADY reminds me what a truly great writer he is. It's been nearly 10 years since I read TIMES WITNESS--but now that Malone has come back from his life in film to writing books, I'm hoping that I won't have to wait so long for his next novel. In FIRST LADY, Malone takes on all the BIG issues of our times, and as usual, he does it with compassion and, best of all, side-splitting humor. He has a social consciousness that harmonizes with Dickens and yet he plays riffs with Mark Twain. You'll love Justin and Cuddy and the other characters in this book--and best of all, you won't ever want to put it down. I'm looking for his next novel--and his next, and while I wait, I'm going back to read HANDLING SIN again.

Okay, so I figured out whodunit about 100 pages before the cops did; so it's not as intricate and absorbing as "Time's Witness" (which I consider to be not only one of the finest mysteries, but one of the finest novels I've read); so Michael Malone writing in Justin Saville's voice is less successful than he is when writing in Cuddy Mangum's voice (you need to have read the previous books to know what I'm talking about -- is it just me or is Justin a bit of a drip?) -- all that taken into consideration, this is still a terrific read. Malone, speaking in whomever's voice, is still head and shoulders above 95% of every other mystery/humor writer out there. His ear for dialogue never fails, his plotting is always taut. All three of the Justin/Cuddy books are literate, twisty, witty -- just plain great. Start with the first ("Uncivil Seasons") because there are characters and history there that will make "Time's Witness" (wow, what a book!!) and "First Lady" resonate all the more. Why Malone isn't as successful as Grisham is beyond me. He's only 100 times better.

Michael Malone brings back Police Chief Cuddy Mangum and Lt. Justin Savile V to investigate a rash of murders in the town of Hillston, North Carolina. An unknown assailant is killing young women and leaving taunting messages to the police chief and his lieutenant. Things get a bit worse when it appears that a popular rock singer is the next victim of the killer the press has dubbed Guess Who. When it turns out that it was not the singer but somebody else the town council demands results from the local police department.

Mr. Malone does an excellent job in telling this story. He pays attention to every single one of his characters and each one of them brings an element to the plot. The characters range from the politician who is obstructing justice, the policewoman who wants to be there for her Chief but also there for her niece, and the news reporter who loses her job after one of her stories prove to be false. The reader gets to know each player in this book intimately and gets to laugh and cry together with the protagonists. The plot is well executed and a joy to read. Malone does not concentrate solely on the Guess Who killer but also on the town's day to day. The author has a great grasp of language and makes the story interesting at all times. This is my first Michael Malone novel and it will not be my last.

Michael Malone is back. For all those out there who just asked, "Who the heck is Michael Malone?" I shall tell you.

You mean you don't know?! Pfft. Michael Malone is only one of the greatest storytellers currently on the planet.

He's written such fine literary works as "Foolscap," "Handling Sin," "Dingley Falls," "Time's Witness," "Uncivil Seasons" and the Edgar Award-winning short story "Red Clay."

What's that? "Never heard of `em?"

All right then, maybe you're familiar with Malone's head writer work on the soap opera "One Life to Live." His creations of such groundbreaking characters as tortured minister Andrew Carpenter? Slick con-man David Vickers? Southern belle Blair Cramer? Mystic heroine Luna Moody? Rapist Todd Manning, the ultimate soap antihero?

No?

Sigh ... one day that medium is going to be reworked so it gets (and deserves) recognition and not ridicule.

Anyway, it doesn't matter that you've never heard of Malone in the past. Right now is the perfect time to get to know him for the first time, with his original books being reissued to find a new audience.

Plus, there's a new Malone book just released, after a decade's absence, entitled "First Lady." And it's more than enough to make you become a diehard fan for life.

Set in the troubled town of Hillston, North Carolina; "First Lady" focuses on two beleaguered members of the Hillston police force at probably the lowest points of their lives.

Lt. Justin Savile V (the Fifth) is currently mourning the sudden death of his infant son and estranged from his beloved wife, while Police Chief Cuddy Mangum is wrestling with the fact that the love of his life married a crooked politician.

Right now, the press is none too happy with Justin and Cuddy, as the town is under attack by a serial killer. Deemed the Guess Who Killer because of his m.o., there doesn't appear to be any end in sight. Obscure clues turn up to torment our heroes, but are indecipherable until it's too late. No one is safe, and everyone is restless.

Add on to the conflict the fact that sexy rock star Mavis Mahar is in town, making eyes at the very willing Justin, and possibly next in line on the Guess Who Killer's victims list (with a smoking affair with aforementioned crooked politician to boot), and you've got a sizzling scorcher of a novel.

If you had been a soap opera fan, and watched "One Life" during his run, you'd have picked up on the fact that Malone is very dedicated to characters first, and letting the storylines expand from there.

"First Lady" operates in a similar fashion, with a good voice that takes its time in unwinding but will hook readers in the meanwhile.

It's a fabulous introduction, especially since some of Malone's other books can be seen as stuffy and literary at first glance, and leaves the reader hungry for more. Cuddy and Justin also appear in the earlier "Uncivil Seasons" and "Time's Witness," and after reading "First Lady," the opportunity to find out what was going in those books is mighty tempting.

With Malone's reissues in full swing, now is a good time to get acquainted with a contemporary master.

Malone, Michael. Time's Witness. 1989. 541p. $16.00 (pb). ($10.20 from amazon.com)
Michael Malone. First Lady. 2001. 500+ p. $24.00 (pb) ($18.72 from amazon.com).

The words that pop into my head when I reflect on Malone's wonderful comic novels about life in North Carolina are "generous," "rich" and "humane." Time's Witness (1989) and First Lady (2002) are the second and third crime novels featuring Cuddy Mangum, the super-smart class police chief of Hillston, NC, and his chief of the Homicide Bureau, the Justin Savile V, who descends from a long line of southern aristocrats, with governors, state and federal legislators, and judges in his family line. Cuddy hides his intelligence (but only partly) behind a wisecracking, southern cracker exterior. He is scrupulously honest, and as a consequence, so is his police force, because he keeps them toeing the line and he has resolutely weeded out the crooks who hid behind their badges before he came along. The bad cops, no ex-cops, don't love him for this, and in Time's witness, two of them try to do him in, and three of them are involved in all sorts of crime. Justin, for all his aristocratic lineage and mien, is a warm and passionate man and a doting husband: he can connect with almost anyone, including the petty thieves, drunkards and other reprobates he uses as informants.

Both of these novels are first-rate, but if I had to give an edge to one of them, it would be Time's Witness. That's because of its theme (a black veteran wrongly convicted of homicide and slated to be executed, and a white racist conspiracy against all sorts of things, but ultimately to maintain control of the state by the `right kind' of people, all of whom are conveniently white) but also because it tells a haunting love story, with star-crossed lovers (Cuddy and the wife of the liberal aspirant for governorship), and lastly, because it contains what may be the most exciting and funniest account of a jury trial ever, or at least in the last forty years.

There are in addition the small excellences which seem effortlessly to grace every one of Malone's exceptional novels: a lovely scene on pp. 167-171 where Cuddy interviews a boy --eleven years old, poor white, and somewhere between nervous and scared-- about an abandoned car he has found; a passage on pp. 414-5 between the warden of the state penitentiary where the condemned man is being held and Cuddy, discussing the death penalty; the moments scattered throughout the book when Cuddy reflects on his doomed love affair with Lee, wife of the governor-to-be, who will never leave her husband because although the marriage is loveless it makes sense politically, and that's what she's been bred to be, the first lady of the state her family made their millions in. Lastly, there are the wonderfully rich characters who people the pages of this wonderfully rich book -Bubba Percy, vulgar, brassy, tasteless and bright, and relentlessly on the make as reporter and then editor of the local newspaper; a variety of very bad guys, who may be stupid or ignorant but are also as dangerous as poisonous snakes, violent and mean; various civil rights activists, black and white; Cuddy's crew of detectives, none of whom fit stereotypes of southern blacks or whites; and -most glorious of all- Isaac Rosethorn, Cuddy's savior when he was a child and his mentor still, one hell of a lawyer and a real human being, vanity, love, and all. (See pp. 318-9 for a fine description of Cuddy's relations with Isaac.)

I will say less about First Lady (2002), first because I've already said about Time's Witness but it also applies to this book, and secondly, because as soon as I finished it, I lent it to our son, a philosophy professor, to read on the plane back to his house on the other side of the country. He's already emailed me and asked me to send him more novels by Malone. The plot is about a series of murders which appear to have been committed by a serial killer, dubbed (by the press) the Guess Who Killer, because his victims wore Guess Who t-shirts. There is another doomed love story -this time, Justin's, as he and his wife Alice adjust to the death of their infant son -Alice has moved out and Justin can't bring himself to pursue her, so torn up is he by the death. Justin narrates this novel, Cuddy the first. Riding his horse Manassas in the early morning light, Justin comes on a young woman, who dives into the river and then surfaces in front of him like a mermaid bathed in sunlight. She is a singer, a star of the first water, kind of a cross between Sinead O'Connor and Janis Joplin, and Justin is lost -for a while.

These, and especially Time's Witness, are mystery stories like War and Peace is a war novel and To Kill a Mockingbird a legal thriller. They are generous novels, which depict a rich and all too human universe, in which saints and sinners are inextricably intertwined. Indeed, sainthood and sinnership often share space uncomfortably in the same breasts.

A review isn't long enough to list the riches of either of these wonderful books.