Many fiction writers have long been urged to get
out of their ivory towers and research the real
world for their material. Boris Riskin did better
than that; he went out and actually worked for a
living. A Brooklyn native, Riskin traveled the
world. He lived in France twice, once on a
honeymoon, again to attend the Sorbonne, both times
to write … and write. After studying at the
University of Michigan with playwright Kenneth Rowe,
Riskin supported himself and family at a variety of
jobs -- from dishwasher to factory worker, busboy to
a hawker of low price garments for high fashion
women. All the while experiencing first hand the
stuff of the human condition that feeds his writing.
Mr. Riskin’s work has appeared over the years in a
variety of literary magazines, including The New
Yorker. Long an avid reader of mystery-thrillers, he
finally decided to write one. The crackling result
was Scrambled Eggs (2005), a taut thriller that
introduced a salty new reluctant sleuth called Jake
Wanderman, and an exciting new crime novelist called
Boris Riskin. Riskin now lives and writes in Sag
Harbor, at the eastern end of New York’s Long
Island, where the bay and ocean are close enough to
touch he says, and the air is alive with stories.
Jake Wanderman lives there too, back in action now
as the Shakespeare-quoting anti-hero of Mr. Riskin’s
new autopsy of the art world, Deadly Bones (2008).
“Deadly Bones,” the new thriller by Boris Riskin
and the second Jake Wanderman novel, is barely four
pages into its prologue when the first victim, a
crooked art dealer named Cormac Blather, is murdered
in his antiques shop on Main Street in Sag Harbor.
We observe the killer and witness the deed, but are
left in a sinister murk as to the identity of the
murderer, nor are we any wiser about his motives for
stabbing Cormac to death.
We do learn that Cormac is not exactly on the
up-and-up. He has recently sold an ossuary, a burial
box made of limestone “used to contain the bones of
the dead in Jewish burial ceremonies thousands of
years ago,” to Bryson Mergenthaler, “his best
client, a man in the top twenty” of the Forbes 400
richest. Cormac knew the ossuary was a fake, but
could not resist the money he received nor
apparently the pleasure of deceiving this rich and
powerful man.
Jake Wanderman is known as the “Sam Spade of Sag
Harbor,” apparently from his adventures in Mr.
Riskin’s previous thriller, “Scrambled Eggs.” Jake
is in his 50s, was a high school English teacher
specializing in Shakespeare (whom he is prone to
quote with delightful frequency), and is six months
widowed from his beloved wife, Rosalind. Jake knows
the perforated Cormac’s daughter, Toby, because his
wife had worked for her. Toby is a kind of
fictionalized Martha Stewart, complete with a
perfect, large, gated home in Georgica.
Might as well mention here that one of the many
gratifications of “Deadly Bones” is the rainbow of
local color: streets and locales (“I took 114 to
Stephen Hand’s Path, then Cedar to North Main
Street”), towns, stores, and eateries (Rowdy Hall,
Sag Harbor’s Espresso and Conca D’Oro) that will
often be delightfully familiar to East Enders.
“The siren went off supposedly at noon every day,
but typical of the charm of Sag Harbor it was
usually off a minute.” There is great fun in knowing
the places described in a novel. You get to match
the author’s descriptions against your own mental
images and experiences, which adds a dimension to
your reading.
Mostly Jake is the first-person narrator, but once
in a while a chapter is in the third person (a
slightly unusual technique, but it works nicely
here). Most of the third-person chapters follow
Landis Kalem, the billionaire Mergenthaler’s
personal assistant, but a few follow the police
officers who become involved in the murder.
Another pleasure of “Deadly Bones” is that Jake is a
gourmand of the highest water, a bit like Spenser,
Robert Parker’s detective. For Jake food means love,
life, healing; when he is injured, as he is several
times during the course of the novel, people,
particularly women, bring him food with wonderful
regularity. He is frequently enjoying food,
preparing delicious-sounding meals, or at the very
least thinking about what he has eaten or
envisioning what he intends to eat. A man after my
own heart.
“I made coq au vin no more than two or three
times a year because it was a lot of work. Rosalind
loved the dish; it was one of her favorites,
probably because it was loaded with butter and wine.
This was the first time since she had died that I’d
attempted it. It came about because I had a sudden
yearning. That was when I usually cooked it, the
juices flowing with the memory of my introduction to
it back in Paris when I was a young student there.”
In the middle of preparing the meal, Jake receives a
visit from Detective Sienna Nolan, the lead
detective on the Cormac Blather murder case. “Would
you care to tell me anything about this?” she asks.
“Inside the bag is my Private Investigator card,”
Jake says. “I’d given it to Cormac right after I’d
had them printed. That was when I was still
expecting to become a P.I.”
Detective Nolan happens to be quite attractive, but
she gives Jake a hard time about the card, seeing as
how he is not a licensed P.I. “I was beginning to be
annoyed by this woman even though she had the most
startling green eyes I’d ever seen.”
Nolan doesn’t want to allow Jake to become involved
in her investigation in any way, but Toby, the
murderee’s daughter, plucks some major strings to
get him involved. Her tarot reader says, “I should
persuade you to investigate his murder” because “the
police will not be able to do it themselves.” Jake
becomes Nolan’s unofficial, and at first unwanted,
partner, and begins to notice more than just her
pretty eyes. Of course the first thing they do
together is go out for a bite to eat.
The plotting in “Deadly Bones” is fairly complex and
I won’t spoil the fun of unraveling the path to
Jake’s resolution of the identity and motive of the
murderer. But I will mention that partly due to
being assaulted and beaten badly enough to land in
the hospital (Southampton) and partly due to a
break-in and the theft of the fake ossuary from
Mergenthaler, Jake ends up backtracking the phony
ossuary to Jerusalem to inquire with the Israeli
Antiquities Authority about the provenance of the
bone box and also to follow the trail of the Russian
Mafia.
In Jerusalem Jake eats several fine meals (no
surprise there) and becomes amorously interested in
another female cop, this one Israeli and even more
beautiful than Detective Nolan. He is also
kidnapped, drugged, and nearly killed by the Russian
Mob. Luckily he is saved because the police have
been monitoring the Russians.
Which leads to my only major complaint about the
novel. Most of the times Jake is attacked he neither
fights back nor saves himself. He is generally
rescued in the nick of time by others. I found it
especially curious that he is so passive because we
are informed early on that he is a lifelong
practitioner of “yoga, karate, sit-ups, push-ups,
and waitankung, the tai chi and yoga-like movements
mI’d learned in Thailand.” Seems a shame to have all
those skills and not use ’em even once.
Quibbles aside, Jake is an amiable and enjoyable
character. It is great fun to watch him spouting
Shakespeare, charming the various females he
encounters, and eating often and well as he
investigates the trail of the murder from Sag Harbor
to Jerusalem and back.
Mr. Riskin is informative and interesting on many topics during the course of the novel, from archaeology to history to police procedural details. “Deadly Bones” is well constructed and will keep you entertained from its opening murder to its denouement
Turning sixty and retiring as a Shakespearean professor, Jake Wanderman looks forward to spending his golden years with his beloved wife of twenty-fives Rosalind. However, to his shock, Rosalind walks out on Jake without an explanation insisting he should know why.
Not long afterward, Jake attends his childhood friend Morty Adler’s party in the Hamptons where he meets Cynthia Organ. She tells him that Morty said that Jake would help. She explains further that her spouse Boris just died and in his secret closet in their home, she found gold bars and six Faberge eggs. Apparently the Russian mafia claims they belong to them and law enforcement from both countries wants the stolen gems. Unwittingly, Jake is involved in an international incident with murder as a calling card when all he wants is his wife back.
SCRAMBLED EGGS is a delightful amateur sleuth tale starring a bewildered hero, who spouts Shakespeare at any given moment especially when he is nervous. The story line is fast-paced, but held together by the likable professor who wonders what happened to his anticipated idyllic lifestyle that has gone out of control. Sub-genre fans will enjoy this tale told by a bard filled with fun and fury.
Harriet Klausner
