Justice Done by Jan Burke

Published digitally by Pocket Star on September 15, 2014

Justice Done is the fifth of six short collections of Jan Burke's crime stories. Although the collection is uneven, the stories are representative of Burke's unusual and engaging approach to crime fiction.

Boniface "Bunny" Slye, a shell-shocked veteran of the First World War, stars in "The Quarry," a murder mystery narrated by his friend Dr. Max Tyndale. They are sort of a Holmes/Watson duo who are featured in other stories by Burke. The story is reasonably entertaining although it goes on a bit too long.

A party on the Queen Mary provides the setting for "Miscalculation." A nerdy girl named Sarah confronts the mystery of a death that occurred two generations earlier, when the Queen Mary was used as a troop carrier during World War II. The story is unconvincing and its ending is disappointingly uneventful.

"Two Bits" is a quiet story of a boy who was kidnapped while his brother roamed through a store in a strange town with the shiny new quarter the kidnappers gave him. Not a conventional crime story, "Two Bits" is an affecting examination of the crime's impact on the brother who was duped.

Written from the perspective of a man living in horse-and-carriage days, "An Unsuspected Condition of the Heart" tells of a man who married for money, whose in-laws openly plot each other's murders, and whose new wife finds herself in an unhappy situation. The story fits within the book's title and reveals the charm with which Burke often writes.

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Convicted by Jan Burke

Published by Pocket Star on July 14, 2014

I was unfamiliar with Jan Burke's work so this collection of four short stories served as an introduction. The stories are more breezy than substantial, but I enjoyed them.

"The Anchorwoman" is a young woman named Cokie who spies out her window and reports neighborhood gossip to her friends. She enlists the help of the story's narrator (a new fan of Sherlock Holmes) in solving a mystery about a moving van full of singing clowns. The story is cute and clever, if not quite in the same league as Arthur Conan Doyle.

"Revised Endings" features a mystery writer who plots to do away with her demanding editor. This is again a cute story, even if it seems like a frustrated writer's revenge fantasy.

The lead character in "Devotion," forensic anthropologist Ben Sheridan, apparently appears in at least one Jan Burke novel (Kidnapped). Sheridan uses his devoted dogs to track a boy who is missing from the house in which the body of a murdered man is found. The story is a smart whodunit with a strong message about the devoted friendships that people form with each other (and with their dogs).

The longest story, "The Muse," is about a young man who is trying to be a writer. A chance encounter with a woman who drives a Rolls Royce leads to a relationship and an end to writer's block. Their mutual love of Hitchcock movies plays a key role when the woman's sister interferes with their relationship. There isn't much of a mystery here (and no Hitchcockian suspense) but the story is pleasant.

None of the stories build tension, while character development is limited by their brevity. I'm not sure this story collection persuaded me to check out Burke's novels but it certainly didn't dissuade me from doing so.

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