SUSPENSE: There is no mystery -- avoid this bunch of stinkers

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Just when you think Patricia Cornwell has hit rock-bottom ....

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THE new year brings not a bumper crop, not an avalanche, but a veritable tsunami of new mystery-crime novels. What's a maxed-out credit-card victim to do? In a nod to our cash-strapped times, here are some much-hyped entries -- to religiously avoid.

Just when you think Patricia Cornwell has hit rock-bottom after dragging Kay Scarpetta, her once-spirited forensic heroine, through a succession of cacophonous stinkers, along comes a 19th house-of-horrors instalment to set the bar even lower.

If you can navigate your way through the churlish characters, silly conspiracy plot and abject tedium of Red Mist (Penguin, 512 pages, $33), you deserve a merit badge and a cookie. Judging by overwhelmingly hostile online reader reviews, Cornwell's fans are finally getting wise to the con.

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The third in a high-profile series by retired Burlington, Ont., bureaucrat Ian Hamilton, The Wild Beast of Wuhan (Anansi, 352 pages, $20) is, if possible, even more unpalatable than its predecessors.

Here we have Asian-Canadian lesbian forensic accountant-cum-martial artist Ava Lee flying all over creation and back, eating nice meals, drinking nice wine, wearing nice clothes and buying nice Danish sweaters. But, barring two drunken Russian sailors, there's nary an ass for her to kick.

Instead, Ava chats with not-so-nice art bandits -- painters of masterful fakes and the dealers, galleries and auction houses that knowingly flog them to unsuspecting buyers, including the Chinese potentate who hires her to get his money back when he discovers half his high-priced collection is bogus.

If you're into international art scams, you'll be bored because you already know all of this and more. If you're not, you'll just be bored silly.

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Robert Crais, who used to be one of the genre's bright, young L.A. talents, delivers yet another simple, hackneyed, paint-by-numbers jaunt in Taken (Putnam, 320 pages, $29). Back are "World's Greatest Detective" Elvis Cole and his monosyllabic ex-mercenary partner Joe Pike, trying to rescue two (almost-fatally) stupid lovers caught up in Mexican-Korean gang warfare.

It's truly baffling why Crais hasn't sold off the Cole/Pike rights to the highest movie bidder, because Taken lacks only the set directions to qualify as a direct-to-video script. For the might-have-been Crais, re-read LA Requiem or Voodoo River from back in the day.

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The latest from So-Cal shlock-meister Dean Koontz, 77 Shadow Street (Bantam, 464 pages, $30), can only loosely be termed a mystery, since the malevolent non-human intelligence behind this bloated haunted-house derivative will be readily guessed by the average tween reader.

To the poor souls caught up in a morphing, condo-converted, 19th-century mansion for nigh-on 500 pages of roiling tedium, your greatest sympathy will surely be reserved for either their stick-people treatment or their entrapment in a vastly unoriginal time-shift premise. Or both.

Simply put, it's a hopelessly meandering novel of squandered suspense, in search of a decent short story.

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This much must be said for Gideon's Corpse (Grand Central, 368 pages, $30), the latest conspiracy fantasy from the prolific Maine/New Jersey writing team of Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child: they keep it moving along smartly, so the suffering is brief.

Given that their last thriller, featuring FBI agent Aloysius Pendergast (Cold Vengeance) went entirely off the rails, a backup series cannot be considered unwise. But Gideon Crew, a Los Alamos scientist who morphed into an action hero to avenge his father's death in 2011's Gideon's Sword, offers no joy.

True, there's a slight (but even more unlikely) twist to the done-to-death terrorist nuke-conspiracy scenario, as well as lots of running and chasing and gunplay as Crew is framed for the dirty deeds. And if you must have something to give your mojito-addled brain cells a rest on some beach in Cuba or the D.R., this will suffice.

But if you're just channelling adolescence, stick to the Saturday-morning cartoons. Much more realistic.

John Sullivan is editor of the Free Press Autos, Homes and Travel sections and specialty websites.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 4, 2012 J9