I just finished an advanced reading copy of Baby's First Felony, John Straley's latest Cecil Younger mystery. And this latest book in the series is the first since Cold Water Burning, which was published in 2002 and hailed not only as the year's best mystery novel but the best novel of the year. Did it really take him 16 years to think up a suitable sequel? I was really looking forward to reading it, but sadly, it is nothing like his previous stories. The book has no chapters - it is a continuous monologue from the main character, Ceil Younger, testifying about the events that led to his arrest and why he should be granted leniency. I am not sure why Straley wrote it. He was a criminal defense investigator for the Alaska Public Defender's Office for 30 years, so perhaps he wanted to show what his client's lives were like and what going through the criminal justice system entailed. I myself do not read mysteries for a dose of hard reality, and so I was very disappointed in the book. I say it is a skip, although I would indeed recommend the other, older books in the series.
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