Thursday, March 26, 2026
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Paper Girl, Eleventh Hour, A Death in the Family
Thursday Treats: 3/26/2026
The latest reading opportunities…
SMFS President Joseph S. Walker announced that
his short story collection, Crime Scenes, was released by Level Best Books. Currently available in eBook
format with print scheduled later this year, the collection features twenty
stories. A number of them won or were finalists for various awards. Pick it up
at Amazon and elsewhere.
SMFS list member Andrew Welsh-Huggins’ new book, The Delivery: A Mercury Carter Thriller, came out earlier this week. Aubrey reviewed it here, as she did the first book. Lesa Holstine also reviewed this new book earlier in the week and previously reviewed the first one.
Punk Noir has published, Find What You
Love and Let It Kill You #3 — a PUNK NOIR Magazine series. This series of short
stories are all free to read online at their website. SMFS list
member Sandra J. Cady (For the Love of Writing) and S. B. Watson’s (My Human),
short stories appear as do others.
SMFS member Tom Larsen announced that
his short story, "El Fantasma (The Ghost), is in the latest issue of Black
Cat Weekly. You can pick up Black Cat Weekly #238 here.
Finally, next week sees the release of From the Dust: A Novel by David
Swinson. I was able to read an ARC of this from Mulholland Books through
NetGalley months ago and very much enjoyed it. The police procedural comes out
next Tuesday as does my review of it here on the blog. This is a really good
one, folks, and well worth your time.
Until next time….
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: Sidney Chambers and the Perils of the Night
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 34 Awesome Writing Conferences and Workshops in April 2026
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Underfoot in Show Business by Helene Hanff
Monday, March 23, 2026
In Reference to Murder: Media Murder for Monday
Beneath the Stains of Time: Puzzle in Porcelain (1945) by Elizabeth Gresham (writing as "Robin Grey")
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Delivery: A Mercury Carter Thriller by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Make sure you read Aubrey’s review of The Mail Man,
the preceding book, here.
The
Delivery (Mysterious Press, March 2026) by Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the
second thriller about former U.S. Postal Inspection Service agent Mercury
Carter. Carter is now a freelance courier, hand-transporting cargo too precious
to entrust to the usual delivery mechanisms.
In Pawtucket,
Rhode Island, Carter is en route to Providence to deliver a vintage 1951
baseball card signed by Cleveland Indians/Boston Red Sox shortstop Lou Boudreau
to 91-year-old Lenny Pellegrino, who had seen Boudreau play in person. Carter,
also a baseball fan, was looking forward to making the delivery and meeting
Pellegrino.
The pounding
rain makes navigation precarious and Carter encounters a wrecked vehicle with
an unresponsive driver, an obvious victim of hydroplaning and diminished
visibility. He is attempting to extract the bloodied woman behind the wheel
when another vehicle stops and its driver, a large man with a gun, demands that
Carter get away from the accident victim. Carter declines and the first
physical altercation of the book, and there are many, ensues.
Thus begins a
complicated tale in which Carter takes on what he thinks will be a quick
delivery in Pawtucket before he goes on to Providence, which turns out to be
nothing of the sort. The quick side trip spirals into multiple encounters with
an assortment of human rogues--traffickers, drug sellers, and IT
fraudsters--each of whom is running a separate con while angling for a larger
piece of the profits from the various scams underway with their colleagues. Double-crossing
and backstabbing abound.
As expected,
Carter’s quick wit and resourcefulness come into play again and again. It takes
some time to sort through the assorted agendas of the multiple players and
their schemes, I had to re-read sections of the narrative here and there to
make sure I understood them, but Carter eventually works his way through a
truly impressive quagmire of grift, larceny, and violence to the other side and
a satisfying ending.
I am grateful
for the early review copy of Mercury Carter’s latest adventure and recommend it
unreservedly to thriller fans who will be pleased to make Mercury’s
acquaintance.
·
Publisher: The Mysterious Press
·
Publication date: March 24, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 336 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1613167172
·
ISBN-13: 978-1613167175
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Nv0ZtY
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Little Big Crimes: The Tattle-Tale Heart, by John Leonard Pielmeier
The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: SMFS Spotlight: Barb Goffman
Saturday, March 21, 2026
KRL Update
Up on KRL this week reviews and giveaways of 3 cozy mysteries for your spring tbr-"A Whiff of Murder" A Sixth Sense Mystery by Angela M. Sanders , "Murder from A to Z" by VM Burns, and "A Spirited Supper at Dundoon Castle" by Darci Hannah https://kingsriverlife.com/03/21/a-trio-of-cozies-for-your-spring-tbr/
And a review and ebook giveaway of "The Cat's Eye Charm" by Clea Simon https://kingsriverlife.com/03/21/the-cats-eye-charm-by-clea-simon/
And a review and ebook giveaway of "Diversion" by Cindy Goyette, along with an interesting interview with Cindy https://kingsriverlife.com/03/21/diversion-by-cindy-goyette/
We also have another local ghost story by Sarah Peterson-Camacho https://kingsriverlife.com/03/21/the-headless-bride-a-bordello-banshee-of-frontier-stockton/
During the week we posted another special midweek guest post, this one by mystery author Verlin Darrow, where he shares a fun story about book promotion, and about his new book "The Brighter the Light, the Darker the Shadow" https://kingsriverlife.com/03/18/one-authors-attempt-to-generate-sales-via-emails/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review and ebook giveaway of "A Scoop of Deceit" by Lena Gregory https://www.krlnews.com/2026/03/a-scoop-of-deceit-by-lena-gregory.html
And a review and ebook giveaway of "Eyes of Deceit" by Gabriel Valjan https://www.krlnews.com/2026/03/eyes-to-deceit-by-gabriel-valjan.html
And a review of "Magic and Mischief" by Elizabeth Everett https://www.krlnews.com/2026/03/magic-and-mischief-at-wayside-hotel-by.html
Happy Reading,
Lorie
Market Call: Novellas
As posted on Twitter…
Ruadan Books @RuadanBooks
Attention, authors! We open to novella submissions on
April 1st.
We're looking for dark thrillers, crime noir, and dark
speculative fiction—if you've got a complete manuscript between 25k-40k words
in one of these genres, we want to hear from you.
Submission guidelines here: https://ruadanbooks.com/submission-guidelines/#Novella2026Guidelines
SleuthSayers: Pulpwood Fiction
Scott's Take: New Avengers Vol 1: Killuminati by Sam Humphries and Ton Lima (Illustrator), Tiago Palma (Illustrator), and Stephen Segovia (Cover Art)
New Avengers Vol 1: Killuminati by Sam Humphries and Ton Lima
(Illustrator), Tiago Palma (Illustrator), and Stephen Segovia (Cover Art) more
collects the first five issues of the series. Somone has cloned the Illuminati
( a group of heroes that tried to police the world). So, there are evil
versions of Iron Man, Professor X, Namor, Reed Richards, Dr. Strange and others
running around causing havoc. They need to be killed so Bucky Barnes and the
Black Widow have assembled a team of killers to take them out. Carnage (Eddie),
the Hulk (who is in this volume a little bit), Wolverine (Laura) and others.
This
is a big budget action movie style read with a conspiracy and humor thrown in.
The characterization for a lot of the characters is somewhat off for comedic
effect. This book is just about having a fun time with a big idea. If you want
to see what evil versions of some heroes could be as they terrorize the Marvel Universe
than this is a book for you. There will
be a volume 2 to end the series, but the title and the release date have not
been announced yet.
Amazon
Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4qNq2pC
I
read this through the Marvel Unlimited
app.
Scott A. Tipple ©2026
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