A Crang Mystery Series by Jack Batten
A Crang Mystery #1
Crang Plays the Ace
Jack Batten
'Cause a poker face aint' just a song by Lady Gaga' Crang is a criminal lawyer. He loves jazz, old movies, Polish vodka, his Volkswagen convertible, and his girlfriend Annie, not necessarily in that order. A wise-cracking WASP with a moral code that owes little to the Law Society of Upper Canada, Crang is equally quick with his lip and fists, but he can tell a fish fork from a pair of brass knuckles when he has to. The clients who come to Crang's second-floor walk-up office on Toronto's Queen Street strip--street punks, two bit robbers, and small-time scam artists--are usually guilty. Crang likes it that way. Mostly he gets them off and they're grateful. So when Matthew Wansborough, wealthy financier and scion of a fine old family, comes to Crang with the novel problem that his $300,000 investment in Ace Disposal Services is too profitable, Crang is puzzled. Wansborough isn't Crang's usual kind of client and Ace isn't Wansborough's usual kind of blue-chip operation. Crang's unorthodox investigation of Ace reveals that it's a dirty player in a dirty business, run by men who oil the wheels of commerce with kickbacks, fraud, muscle--and murder. Mystery and comedy mix in this entertaining novel, written with the in-depth knowledge of the legal scene and the easygoing style that have made bestsellers of Batten's previous books. Once readers have made the acquaintance of Crang, they will be eager to read of his future cases in what promises to be a long and successful series.
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A Crang Mystery #2
Straight No Chaser
Jack Batten
Classic Batten--on the rocks Jazz. Cocaine. Vietnamese triads. Dope-dealing yuppie lawyers. Jack Batten's got them all in his second mystery novel starring Crang, the unconventional criminal lawyer with a taste for straight vodka and a nose for trouble. This time out Crang is hired by his buddy Dave Goddard, a sax player whose playing style is from the fifties, but whose unwitting involvement in a complex coke-smuggling ring is pure eighties. Crang's friendly offer to help Dave find out who is tailing him takes a reluctant sleuth into a series of unlikely locales: behind the scenes at Toronto's oh-so-chic film festival; into a triad-run afterhours boozecan; and into the gang's inner sanctum, the office of Big Bam, the ring's genial but deadly kingpin. No one could ever accuse Crang of being a superhero, but with his usual mixture of innate cool and naive enthusiasm he brings the villains to justice and readers to the end of a cleverly entertaining romp that leavesAbout the AuthorJack Batten, after a brief and unhappy career as a lawyer, has been a very happy Toronto freelance writer for many years. He has written thirty five books including four crime novels featuring Crang, the unorthodox criminal lawyer who has a bad habit of stumbling on murders that need his personal attention. Batten reviewed jaz for The Globe and Mail for several years, reviewed movies on CBC Radio for twenty-five-years, and now reviews crime novels for The Toronto Star. Not Surprisingly, jazz, movies and crime turn up frequently in Crang's life. Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Fenk's face was the color of a Santa Claus suit. His mouth was slack, and his eyes popped in a way that made the irises seem smaller and the white parts larger. He didn't look as bad-tempered in death as in life. He looked scared. The cord must have hurt like hell."Oh my God.""What the matter?" James asked, holding position at the door."Nothing that's part of your job," I answered James.I opened the saxophone case. No strap. I looked back at Fenk. The strap was buried in his neck, the strap that held Dave Goddard's saxophone when he played it.
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