Rave
Reviews
[BACK]
Washington Post Book World
MYSTERIES
By Paul Skenazy
Sunday, November 15, 1998; Page X08
To Live and Die in L.A.
Zen has seldom been more fun, more violent, and more irreverent than in
Zen and the Art of Murder (St. Martin's, $22.95), a wonderful debut novel
from Elizabeth M. Cosin. This Zen has little to do with Buddhism but much
to do with Zenaria, the first name of a hard-shelled, tough-talking new
female private eye who wanders the streets of Chandler's L.A. We meet
her wandering them drunk, in fact, on the opening pages, mourning the
death of her beloved cat, who died under an automobile's wheel. Then her
day gets worse when she stumbles on her cousin, dead among beer barrels
in the back room at her local pub. But bad as that is, it all feels worse to
Zen, because she'd seen this cousin kill himself years before, diving wildly
off a cliff into the Pacific Ocean along with several other religious fanatics.
This story of family loss, unfinished investigations and religious zealotry
might be enough for most writers, but Cosin adds a second tale, of a
television celebrity's search for a lost father, that takes Zen from Fresno to
the Mexican desert, and from beatings to threatening shots she dodges
while running from gravestone to gravestone through a pet cemetery. Cosin
keeps it all under control, almost, and consistent, always, with Zen's
hard-edged patter and sentimental memories of the family she lost with her
cousin's death, the Los Angeles she adores for its quirks and fantasies, and
the small circle of buddies, ex-lovers and sources who keep her on track.
Zen's a survivor, with a bout of cancer behind her and too much violence
around her. With the help of her monosyllabic buddy Bobo, she finds
herself taking on believers and mobsters, cops and PR men to the stars. If
it all whirls a little out of kilter at times, and if the final summations are as
hard to follow as swallow, it doesn't much matter because this is a lark
from top to bottom, the writing juicy and tight all through.
©1998 The Washington Post Company |
[UP] [BACK]
[UP] [BACK]
Ft.
Lauderdale Sun Sentinel
MYSTERIES
By Oline H. Cogdill, Mystery Columnist
Sunday, December 13, 1998
ZEN AND THE ART OF MURDER. Elizabeth
M. Cosin. St. Martin’s Press. $22.95. 273 pp.
From the very first page, Los Angeles writer Elizabeth M. Cosin sets up a
Chandleresque setting — a dark, rainy day in California, the death of a best
friend, a funeral. But Cosin also brings a sense of humor to her debut.
The best friend is a cat, and the funeral is about to be stopped when she drops
the urn containing his ashes. It’s this type of witty youthful approach,
coupled with a respect for the hard-boiled genre, that propels Zen and
the Art of Murder’s well-developed plot. A former journalist turned
television writer, Cosin shows a real flair for the genre that
should deliver more novels about private investigator Zenaria "Zen"
Moses.
Moses’ latest case gets her involved with two estranged families — her
own and that of television host Latisha Maxwell. The body stashed
in the back of her favorite bar turns out to be her cousin, who allegedly
killed himself more than a decade ago. Meanwhile, Maxwell hires Moses
to find the father she has been claiming has been dead for years.
Cosin handles the complicated plot like a pro. Although her
writing is rough in a few spots, the author smoothly integrates
the character, plot and tone of the hard-boiled genre. As a heroine,
Zen combines a no-nonsense approach to life with just the right
measure of vulnerability. Even a bout with lung cancer can’t slow
her down.
©1998 Sun-Sentinel Co. and South Florida Interactive, Inc. |
[UP] [BACK]
[UP] [BACK]
USA
Today
'Murder' Mystery is in the Beer Cooler
By Kevin V. Johnson
USA TODAY
Thursday, December 10, 1998
In the dreary, rainy world of Zen and the Art of Murder, loss is a given.
Before the action of this detective novel even begins, private eye
Zen Moses has lost her favorite cousin, her right lung and her cat
to, respectively, a mass cult suicide 12 years earlier, cancer 10
years ago and a speeding car the day before.
But Zen's karma train is merciless: By the end of the first chapter,
she also has spilled the ashes of her beloved cremated cat. And
when she goes to her favorite bar for comfort and a cold one, the
owner discovers a body in the walk-in beer cooler. It's her cousin,
dead again.
From this logic-defying start, television writer (Buddy Faro) and
first-time novelist Elizabeth M. Cosin spins satisfyingly noir double
mysteries: one involving cousin Danny, the other about the sordid
past of brittle television talk-show host Latisha Maxwell, who hires
Moses to track down her father.
Just as Sara Paretsky and Sue Grafton, her sisters in detective
fiction, have done, Cosin makes her heroine resourceful, sardonic
and health-conscious. Moses is a tough, wary woman who
wisecracks her way through even the most dangerous or revolting
situations — a rough, seedy bar with a urinal trough under the
stools, for instance — and rides her Richey mountain bike for
exercise.
Cosin also paints Moses' world, mostly Los Angeles and Santa
Monica, Calif., with the weary, familiar shades of '40s detective
fiction, describing one afternoon like this: "The fog added itself to
the sky like a low, smoky ceiling. Nothing new here; Los Angeles
always looked in need of kidney dialysis."
Cosin economically gives her tale emotional heft by linking the
solution to the cousin's murder to Moses' longed-for reunion with
her estranged family. But Cosin is a spendthrift with action: Moses
is chased by everyone from cult members to the cops, has a
vividly painful encounter with a Mexican cactus and swings a mean
car radio. The title, by the way, has nothing to do with Robert M.
Pirsig's famous Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.
An engaging first effort.
Kevin V. Johnson is the Chicago correspondent for the Life
section of USA TODAY.
[UP] [BACK] |
[UP] [BACK]
[UP] [BACK]
San
Francisco Chronicle
Books
By Ellen McGarrahan
Sunday Book World
Sunday, January 10, 1999
And so it was with new eyes that I turned to ZEN
AND THE ART OF MURDER (St. Martin's; 273 pages; $22.95),
a first novel by Los Angeles writer Elizabeth M.
Cosin. The Zen here isn't a belief system but a
private investigator named Zenaria Moses,
frequenter of bars and wielder of heat.
Zen's got some problems. Her cousin has turned up
dead in the freezer of her favorite watering hole,
which is a bit of a shock since Zen thought he'd
actually died years before. Also, a famous
talk-show hostess wants Zen to find her father --
another allegedly dead individual -- about whose
demise the hostess has previously and publicly
wept.
What's a detective to do? The likably thick-
skinned Zenaria takes to the road, all the way from
Fresno to Mexico, and, weapon in hand, attempts
to find the truth in a landscape of lies. Zen comes
across as a bit short on job skills -- attempting
barroom interviews at gunpoint, for example -- but
she's also a resourceful sleuth who, when she's in
over her head, kicks against the current as hard as
she can. An independent thinker, Zen also knows
her own flaws well enough to see them in others.
Well-paced, crisply written and satisfyingly wry,
Cosin's book is a gracefully hard-bitten debut.
©1999 San Francisco Chronicle
[UP] [BACK] |
|