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Death Rode Upon a Monsoon: Jeffrey J. Mariotte’s Flesh of All Sorrows

Daniel Mansfield Jr. is the brand-new chief of police of Sossaman, a small but expanding town that borders the southeast corner of Phoenix. The Mansfield name carries tremendous currency in the desert town due to Daniel’s father, a prior chief of police, who apprehended the Bookbinder, a serial killer in the early 80s who captured, tortured, and then killed women. His calling card? He would bind hardbound books with their skin.

Barely a moment on the job and Daniel’s world is turned upside down: he falls in love with Kristin, who has a stalker in the form of a Sossaman police officer who is also a Nazi sympathizer; Daniel’s brother Davey, and golden child of the family, announces his intention to run for the mayor of the town; and finally, but most chillingly, the body of a dead twenty year old girl is found in a farm field that shows the signs of having been killed by the Bookbinder. With the Bookbinder already in prison for the past four decades, is this the work of a copycat killer, or could the wrong man be behind bars and the original Bookbinder is still on the loose? Daniel’s foray into the mystery will unravel truths that others would rather not have unearthed.

Cover depicts the rear of a white van, its red tail lights beaming. Next to it is a man standing, hidden in a shadow. In front of him/the rear of the van, on the road, is a red high heel shoe. On the horizon is a set of men's eyes looking menacing. — Flesh of All Sorrows cover by Greg Chapman.

Flesh of All Sorrows is the newest police procedural novel by Jeffrey Mariotte. The author of The Slab (2019), River Runs Red (2019), Empty Rooms (2014), and 7 Sykos (2016)(with Marsheila Rockwell), Mariotte is a multi-genre author who has penned many thriller and crime fiction works before including books in The Narcos (Narcos: The Jaguar’s Claw [2018]), Criminal Minds (Criminal Minds: Sociopaths, Serial Killers & Other Deviants [2010]), CSI (Brass in Pocket [2009]), The Burning Season [2011], and Blood Quantum [2010]), and NCIS (NCIS: New Orleans – Crossroads [2017] and NCIS: Los Angeles – Bolthole [2016]) universes. Mariotte brings his police procedural expertise to Flesh of All Sorrows.

The novel is told through two characters: Daniel Mansfield Jr. and the murderer. Aside from each having their own chapters, each character is read from a different perspective: Daniel in first person and the murderer in third person. The alternating perspectives give Flesh of All Sorrows the ticking time bomb element: readers see what the murderer is doing/about to do and the suspense comes from hoping that Daniel and his police officers will be able to save the day. On top of trying to solve these neo-Bookbinder murders, the couple of subplots, such as the right-wing/stalker policeman who seeks revenge on Daniel for perceived wrongs add in more thriller elements and action sequences. There’s a James Bond-style trapped for death sequence, a handful of pursuit and shoot out sequences, and of course, the actual detective work and sussing out theories from the evidence while a killer runs at large in the community.

What makes the aforementioned activities stand out in Mariotte’s work is the emphasis on giving his characters memorable quirks. The majority of police officers Daniel works with are fleshed out and competent at what they do: Deacon Glass, an impeccable, Holmesian detective that becomes Daniel’s right hand man on the case; Rosalie Sepulveda, an admin assistant with a booming laugh who makes sure Daniel has what he needs to run the department and investigate; Leila Vélez, another detective who was once Daniel’s partner who settles in a more action-centric role. Daniel himself has some quirks, such as driving a 1962 Land Rover as his vehicle of preference and having a collection of guitars (some autographed) even though he is terrible at both playing and singing.

Someone (or someones) on the force is a mole to Erica Wilson, a reporter for the East County Courier, who is secretly being fed information about the cases being worked on. In conjunction, after Daniel gives an impromptu address at a protest in response to an indigenous American being shot by a police officer earlier in the week, his response by his own department is mixed, with some praising him and others considering him a traitor. With all the officers humanized and fleshed out with personality, it adds a cloud of sorts to the reader (and Daniel) during interactions: could this likable and proficient character perhaps be an informant, or perhaps an unsympathetic officer whose loyalties lie elsewhere?

After the characters, the next major component of Mariotte’s story is its setting, the fictional town of Sossaman, located in the Phoenix metropolitan area in Arizona. The town, of course, is an important backbone to the story, not just with its small-town vibe, but also the political forces at work, no doubt due to Daniel’s position as a policeman and his stature in the community, one that his family has been a pillar of. Even bigger than the small-town setting is the Arizona desert setting proper. Though the story mentions many times how hot it is, the temperature is not particularly a deterrent to any of the characters. What is, though, is a monsoon that arrives at a climactic moment near the middle of the story that not only threatens crime scenes, but the lives of the characters too as the environment turns to flash flooding. Mariotte takes advantage of the unique monsoon season of Arizona to add an additional element of danger to the story.

A mysterious serial killer case with well written characters and an unforgiving setting, the last element Flesh of All Sorrows provides are a handful of introspective themes. Family patriarchy and their influence on their children or children’s children is a huge motif in the book. Both Daniel and the murderer are who they are because of influence of their father/father’s father. Both feel they are living in the shadows of their respective figure and not fulfilling imposed expectations. It is in each character’s self-journeys into their lineage that major things unfold which in turn have huge consequences in Sossaman, from piling dead bodies to unearthing coverups.

Flesh of All Sorrows in an engaging police thriller. The sections from the killer’s perspective are goosepimplingly scary as the character self indoctrinates themselves into a murderer. These sections are not necessarily gory, but they are still harrowing. The chapters from Daniel’s perspective are more fun as he winds up in life-or-death action sequences while doing the detective work. He does not operate in a vacuum – he’s no Hollywood supercop – and it is his officers operating at their best that allows Daniel to make his way through the case. With Mariotte weaving multiple mysteries, big and small, going on concurrently, he makes Flesh of All Sorrows an engaging and suspenseful desert thriller.

More information about Jeffrey J. Mariotte and Flesh of All Sorrows can be found at the following links:

Fifty years ago, the Great Bookie Robbery occurred in Melbourne, Australia when a gang of well-prepared robbers made off with millions from a bookmaker that was never recovered. While the large sum of missing monies was well known, what was not as known was a secret stash of diamonds that were absconded with, their purported fate even more mysterious.

Five decades later, Gary Chance, a former soldier of the Australian army who served in Afghanistan, now turned criminal, finds himself in a botched robbery of a cult. Though the operation is a bust, he gains a new partner, Eva McCulloch, another criminal who had eyes on the cult’s hidden fortune.

Both searching for that one last job to put their respective criminal lives behind them, Chance and Eva accept a mission from Vera Leigh, an aging socialite/madame/S&M dungeon owner who needs monies to fight ruthless property developers. The new job: track down the mythical diamonds from the Great Bookie Robbery from ages past. With only sparse clues at their disposal, the duo accepts the gig, which will take them to the United States and different cities in southeast Australia, while also being pursued by former accomplices, cult members, criminals, and a retired police officer who all have eyes on the diamonds themselves.

Cover is divided in two, top half and bottom. Top half is white and shows skyscrapers. The bottom is red and shows a dude in a ski mask. — Cover of Andrew Nette’s Orphand Road.

Andrew Nette’s Orphan Road is an Australian crime novel, though with a greater emphasis on the adventure aspects of the criminal underworld rather than the criminal element proper. The protagonists of Orphan Road are “good” criminals in that their adversaries are all unsavory characters themselves, be it a ruthless developer, White Nationalists, a greedy former police officer, and so on, making the morals depicted in the novel black and white, rather than the grey area that is found in more noir-ish crime stories.

The lead protagonist, Chance, is incredibly fun to follow. He is akin to a Jack Reacher-style character: former military, nomadic, off the grid, cunning, finding themselves in the middle of bigger criminal schemes, and extremely proficient at bedding the ladies. The big difference between the two characters is that Reacher is far more noble and near invulnerable compared to Chance, while Chance is a much more grounded character and less of a Gary Stu.

The adventure/mystery of Chance trying to track down diamonds, for all purposes lost to history, it fairly exciting, especially considering the roadblocks and dead ends he and his cohorts encounter. There is a tiny bit of globetrotting, fisticuffs, and gunplay, but the forefront is the mystery. Nette crafts a new mystery (the diamonds) and anchors it to a real-world event (the robbery), which gives the story credibility and buy in from the reader. This does cause a small problem: how does one graft this new mystery when decades have passed and most historic players are long dead and leads dried up. How can in-world amateur sleuths and professionals alike fail to find the diamonds, but Chance is able to get a new trail? The clue is fairly lackluster, a newspaper clipping that, in theory, anyone else would have access to, but its serviceable to get the heroes on their adventure.

The strongest component of Orphan Road does arise from Nette trying to work within these real world confines of lapsed time inherent in old cold cases, and that is its critique on the past and nostalgia. The majority of players in Orphan Road are fairly old, in their 70s and 80s, having served in Vietnam, or East Coast American Mafia of the 80s, or lived through other events. The Melbourne that Chance remembers has been demolished and gentrified, which is supposed to be the ultimate fate of Leigh’s establishment. Leigh, herself, tries to retcon the past by positing it was a time when criminals had class, code, and honour. Chance is quick to point out this rose-coloured view of old school crime, and even confirms it firsthand when he encounters the American mafia, still holding onto their old ways as if in a Scorcese film. Everything in Chance’s mission is old: the archive of files and photos around the diamond caper, the Ford Falcon that is driven, the Luger that is the sidearm, the ruins of burnt down buildings, and even the cult at the beginning of the novel, who worship the lost continent of Atlantis. While there are many adversaries in Orphan Road, the spectre of the past is the prominent one.

The weakest component, on the other hand, is the end of Orphan Road. Not so much the end-end proper, which does nicely wrap up all loose ends of Chance’s adventure – diamonds and all, but it is the in between the book’s climax and then end revelation. After the climax, the adventure resolution is still not within hand, so the book changes its focus from a time-is-of-the-essence thriller to a leisurely explore around and let a large passage of time elapse pace, which kills the momentum. This is unfortunate because everything up to this point is a real page turner, coupled with heightened stakes as Nette is unafraid to kill off a pivotal characters.

There is a passion from Nette on display in Orphan Road, and this is no doubt due to his love of the pulp genre, police procedurals, and gritty crime cinema, all of which he has written essays and commentaries about. With Orphan Road, Nette is able to seize a historic robbery, make it even more interesting, and throw in characters like Chance that are easy to become invested in, while at the same time not resorting to the tried-and-true method of pulling rabbits out of the pop culture reference hat. Orphan Road is anchored historically, despite being contemporary, and it succeeds extremely well.

For more information on Orphan Road and Andrew Nette, check out these links: