Wednesday, September 22, 2021
Beneath the Stains of Time: Penelope's Web (2001) by Paul Halter
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: Anthologies and Collections from the Book Sale
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: AN OAK COFFIN
Short Story Wednesday Review: No Dead Body in Sight: A Noah Milano Short Story by Jochem Vandersteen
From the massive archive….
The elderly Ms. Albert is not being
taken seriously by the police or anyone else because she claims to have found a
dead body. She is sure the body was of a dead man, and that he had been shot in
the stomach. Unfortunately, by the time she left the beach and returned with
the police, the body was gone with no sign of anything. She wants Noah to find
out what happened to the body.
She certainly seems to have her wits
about her and Noah likes her and believes that she believes she really did see
a dead body. Thanks to her legendary film producer husband, she does have the
money to pay security specialist Noah Milano’s fee which means money isn’t the
issue. A rare thing indeed with Noah’s clients. Noah isn’t sure he can really
help her nor does he have a really good idea how to proceed as this is not the
normal type of case he deals with on a daily basis. Still, she is adamant and
something probably happened. He reluctantly begins to dig into the case and
before long has an idea or two about what might have happened.
Published in 2012 this is another
fast moving Noah Milano tale. Son of a legendary Los Angeles gangster, Noah
knows how to work both sides of the street to solve cases. A fast and pleasant
read, No Dead Body in Sight: A Noah Milano Short Story by Jochem
Vandersteen, packs a couple of surprises along the way.
No Dead Body in Sight: A Noah Milano Short Story
Jochem Vandersteen
http://www.sonsofspade.blogspot.com
August 2012
ASIN: B008Y0YQTY
eBook
18 Pages
Purchased using funds in my Amazon Associate Account to read and review.
Kevin R Tipple ©2015, 2021
Tuesday, September 21, 2021
Little Big Crimes Review: Incident at a Diner by Chris Miller
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: DUKE: Inspector Mislan and The Expressway Murders by Rozlan Mohd Noor
SleuthSayers: Three Best by Michael Bracken
Monday, September 20, 2021
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: No Simple Death by Valerie Keogh
Valerie Keogh
is a Dublin native who now lives in England. She is a former nurse who writes
two crime series, the Hudson and Connolly books and the Dublin Murder
Mysteries, and stand-alone psychological thrillers.
No Simple
Death (Bloodhound
Books, 2019) is the first book in what is now called the Dublin Murder
Mysteries. Originally it was published as a Garda West novel on Amazon’s
independent publishing platform in 2017 under the title That One May Smile.
While I was able to find blog reviews of this first version, I found none in
any of the usual sources for reviews and I could not find copies for sale.
Sergeant
Michael West responds with his partner Detective Peter Andrews and a full scene
of the crime team to a call about a violent death in a church cemetery in an
upscale Dublin suburb. A nearby resident Edel Johnson reported the grisly
discovery. Johnson had come to the attention of the police three months earlier
when her husband disappeared. He has not been seen since and the missing
persons case has gone cold. Now she’s finding a murdered man she claims not to
know. The police are understandably curious about her role in both incidents
but before they can question her in more detail, she disappears.
The
investigation takes West and Andrews to Cornwall and to Cork, back to Cornwall
and finally to Belfast, with some scenic descriptions along the way, where it all
comes together in a deviously crafted plot, one of the most original I have
seen in a long while.
This is a fine police procedural. Hints of the psychological thrillers that Keogh writes lurk in the background but they do not overshadow the focus on the police investigative process. West is a down-to-earth and likable character, who as a solicitor who decided to seek greater career fulfillment in law enforcement. His partner Andrews is a perfect foil for West’s shortcomings as an investigator. The ever-disappearing Edel Johnson, who was Kelly Johnson in the original version of this book, is distraught at the loss of what she thought was the perfect marriage. West is immediately attracted to her and this interest drives some of his decisions perilously close to a line that professionals ethically cannot cross. This romantic interest was handled realistically, one of the aspects of the plot that I liked. Between the great plot twists and the police investigation and the handling of character interactions, there is a lot to like in this book. Recommended!
·
Publisher: Bloodhound Books (November
28, 2019)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 308 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1913419207
·
ISBN-13: 978-1913419202
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works
on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, September 19, 2021
Sample Sunday: MYSTERY AT THE BLUE SEA COTTAGE: A True Story of Murder in San Diego's Jazz Age by James Stewart
Please welcome author James Stewart to the blog today as he tells us all about his new narrative nonfiction book, MYSTERY AT THE BLUE SEA COTTAGE: A True Story of Murder in San Diego's Jazz Age. It is scheduled to be released by Wild Blue Press on October 5th. True unsolved murder of a beautiful Jazz Age dancer who left home one evening to meet a mysterious man and the next day turned up dead on lonely Torrey Pines Beach. The press hyped the case as police uncovered intriguing suspects, Hollywood connections, a clandestine meeting at a beach cottage, and secrets that threatened to ruin the killer.
Set in Jazz Age San Diego against the backdrop of yellow journalism, notorious Hollywood scandals, Prohibition corruption and a lively culture war, Mystery at the Blue Sea Cottage tells the intriguing true story of a beautiful dancer, a playboy actor, and a debonair doctor. In January 1923, Fritzie Mann left home to meet a man whose identity would forever remain a secret. The next morning, the barely clad body of the beautiful and bewitching dancer washed up on lonely Torrey Pines beach, her party dress and possessions strewn about. The scene baffled investigators. Was it suicide, murder, or an accidental drowning? A botched autopsy created more questions than it answered, revealing a scandalous secret and a powerful motive for murder. Journalists in southern California hyped the case, but when Fritzie’s Hollywood connections came to light the investigation shifted to L.A. and the story became a nation-wide sensation. An ambitious District Attorney battled a high-profile L.A. private counsel in the most sensational trial in San Diego’s history. The big question: What happened at the Blue Sea Cottage?
MYSTERY
AT THE BLUE SEA COTTAGE: A True Story of Murder in San Diego's Jazz Age by
James Stewart
Prologue – A House Party in Del Mar
On the morning of Monday, January 8, 1923, after
performing in Los Angeles for two months, Frieda Mann rode the midnight train
home to San Diego dressed like a flapper.
The outfit shocked her mother, Amelia. A party dress
of brown silk crepe fringed with rows of copper beads and a brown hat with a
tan ostrich feather? Who wears a get-up like that on an overnight train ride?
Not her daughter, usually. Frieda said she’d borrowed the outfit from her
friend in Long Beach for a house party on Sunday evening. It seemed odd to
Amelia. She scolded Frieda for being careless with her friend’s fancy outfit,
then put it away and told her to wear her own clothes.
Frieda behaved oddly for the rest of the week, but
Amelia saw no hint of melancholy. If anything, the girl acted too cheerful, too
much like herself, especially that last day.
“She was joking around the whole day and making
happy her sick sister,” Amelia Mann said later in her thick Hungarian accent,
“…and she made jokes, take her bath, and was lively—don’t show a thing—nobody
can say this girl had something in her heart, because she was happy, and she
always was a jolly kid.”
That jolly kid, twenty years old, went by a stage
name better suited to her personality and profession: Fritzie. She remained
jolly to the end, Amelia insisted, despite what some would claim. Still,
something new seemed to be weighing on Fritzie.
What had she been up to in Los Angeles for the past
two months? Filling dancing engagements and visiting friends, or so she said.
Her visit home was supposed to be short—long enough to break a contract with
her employers in San Diego and perhaps tie up some loose ends—then return to
L.A. for work and from there on to San Francisco. But maybe she’d been doing
something else, like consorting with the wrong kind of people, a danger in the
interpretive dance world. Or, more dangerous still, trying to break into Hollywood,
again.
Don’t worry, Mother, Fritzie said when Amelia asked
her to share her troubles. Everything will work out.
But Amelia did worry, perhaps more than she would
have before now that her older daughter, Helen, lay dying in a sanitarium, the
consumption killing her by degrees as it had her husband three years before.
Fritzie’s cageyness about her plans for Sunday evening bothered Amelia the
most. She mentioned the house party more than once but refused to share
details.
“Between Del Mar and Los Angeles,” Fritzie said when
Amelia asked where the party would be held, which meant nothing—it was a
hundred miles between Del Mar and L.A. At other times she answered, “in Del
Mar.”
“Tell me the man with who you go,” Amelia said.
“A man from L.A.”
Each time Amelia asked, Fritzie refused to give the
man’s name or pretended she didn’t know. She’d never done that before.
There were enough reasons to worry about a young
daughter without her keeping secrets. Times had changed in the few years since
the Great War and not all in a good way. The shifting gender norms and
rambunctious behavior of the younger set—the late-night drinking and dancing,
the permissive attitudes towards sex—had come too far and too fast for
traditionalists. There were no safeguards anymore. Suitors no longer called on
a young woman at her home, where her parents could keep an eye on her; now the
man picked her up in his automobile and took her out on a “date,” ostensibly to
a restaurant, a moving picture, or a jazz dance. But they might end up at a
speakeasy or a hotel.
Amelia had scrutinized Fritzie’s dates as much as
any mother would, always asking questions and writing down the man’s name. Some
of the men had seemed respectable enough. The soft-spoken Jewish doctor from
the Veteran’s hospital, who Fritzie had dated on and off since the previous
spring, fit into this category. Fritzie had seemed to care for him, at least
before she left for L.A. last November. Was he the house party mystery man?
Maybe. The doctor had telephoned her almost every day since she returned home
so they must still be seeing one another. But he lived in San Diego, not L.A.,
and Fritzie would’ve had no reason to hide his identity.
Other suitors had vexed Amelia, one a man Fritzie
had dated the previous fall. She had seemed smitten though it hadn’t lasted
long—thank God. Supposedly an actor and director, the man never entered the
house or stepped onto the porch, just waited on the street in his pretentious
Marmon touring car and summoned her with that damn ahooga horn. One morning
he’d picked up Fritzie for a drive south of the border to Tijuana. Amelia
hadn’t liked the idea one bit—nothing good happened in TJ, a place that teemed
with bars and brothels. To size the man up, Amelia had created a pretext; she
asked him to drop her off at the Paradise Hills sanitarium, where Helen was
being treated at the time, on their way south. Riding in the back seat of the
ritzy machine, Amelia had jotted down the man’s physical description, just in
case. Was he the mystery man from L.A.? He lived there and worked in the motion
picture business, a business Fritzie wanted to join. Hopefully not. Fritzie’s
troubles had seemed to start around the time she met him.
Not that Amelia had much control over Fritzie
anymore, least of all her dating life and aspirations. Modern young women, the
ones they called New Women and flappers, tended to do as they pleased,
tradition and consequences be damned. Fritzie had been around more than most
women her age anyway, especially for a place like San Diego, a rather
provincial city of 80,000. She’d spent her early childhood in Europe, spoke
several languages, and danced before large audiences in San Diego, Denver, and
L.A. But if Fritzie’s independence and self-assurance gave her certain New
Woman sensibilities, no one could call her a flapper—she didn’t smoke
cigarettes or hang out in speakeasies or sleep around or do other things
flappers did on the big screen. Fritzie danced on stage, not on tables. She was
a sensible girl who helped to pay her sister’s medical bills and pursued a
career as a dancer on her own. And if interpretive dance had naughty undertones
in some quarters, Fritzie considered herself a serious artist and any
salaciousness rested in the minds of people who had such thoughts. But she had
a twenty-year-old’s overconfidence and naiveté and moved in risky circles, the
night world of the cabaret and on the fringes of Hollywood. A young lady could
get herself into trouble if she weren’t careful. Her attitude and behavior may
have changed; in many ways, things had not.
***
On Sunday afternoon, January 14, 1923, as she
watched her daughter get ready for the house party in Del Mar or wherever she
was going, Amelia’s anxiety grew. Was Fritzie really going to a party? She
seemed to be getting ready for one, putting on a real flapper outfit. She
dolled herself up with makeup and curled her hair and donned her Long Beach
friend’s glad rags, as the younger set called their fancy outfits. To the brown
hat and dress, she added brown satin shoes and silk stockings. She accentuated
the outfit with a necklace of black and white beads, a gold bar pin on her left
breast, and a barrette pinning her hair on the left side. She topped it off
with an electric blue coat. She packed an overnight bag with a pink satin night
shirt and underwear,
makeup, and a sheer peacock blue nightgown with
longish sleeves and gray fur trim.
If I’m not home by noon tomorrow, Fritzie assured
her mother, I’ll call.
At 5:15 p.m., ten minutes after sunset, Fritzie
grabbed her handbag and vanity case. With her usual flippant goodbye wave to
her older brother William, she headed out the front door of their tiny rental
house on Spruce Street, near the northeast corner of Balboa Park. Amelia, a
small woman, walked with her daughter in the cool January twilight under a
cloudy sky, past the California Bungalow-styled homes of the modest
neighborhood, two blocks to the streetcar stop at 30th and Redwood. On the way,
Amelia’s trepidation grew into a premonition. She implored Fritzie to stay
home.
“Tell me who is the man who takes you out,” Amelia
said.
“He is a man from Los Angeles,” Fritzie said.
“Tell me the name.”
“I don’t know his name.”
“You told me always who you go out with and now you
don’t want to tell me.”
Amelia continued to nag but at the trolley stop
Fritzie gave her a quick hug and stepped up onto the streetcar. Photographs of
Fritzie Mann, most of which show her in an exotic dance costume, reveal a
pretty woman with delicate features whose self-assured, vibrant temperament is
evident. Her dark brown hair, often tinted auburn by the red hairnets she wore,
wasn’t cut in a flapper bob, but she kept it short in line with Jazz Age
fashion and the preferred style of the New Woman. Having seen these pictures,
it’s easy to imagine her waving goodbye to her mother, confident that she had
everything under control. No photographs of Amelia survive, but it’s not hard
to imagine her face as she watched the streetcar disappear into the gathering
darkness, the trolley pole sparking on the overhead wire: The worried look of a
mother who knew or suspected that her youngest child had gotten herself into a
fix and feared it was about to end badly.
Fritzie likely caught a south-bound streetcar, the
shortest route to downtown. From there the car would’ve rattled down 30th
Street on the eastern edge of Balboa Park, zigzagged around the corner of the
park through Golden Hill, and then due west along Broadway into downtown.
Fritzie had kept the rendezvous point to herself, mentioning only that she was
meeting the mystery man downtown. It might’ve been the U.S. Grant Hotel, a
gathering place for the younger set in the heart of downtown that Fritzie and
her chums frequented. Or the Golden Lion Tavern, another hangout. Or, if the
man was coming by train, the Santa Fe depot.
Twenty minutes later Fritzie called Amelia.
“Mother, that party will not be between Del Mar and
Los Angeles,” Fritzie said. “It will be in La Jolla.”
A strange phone call on top of the other
strangeness. Did the house party change venues at the last minute? La Jolla was
nine miles south of Del Mar, somewhat closer to home. If Fritzie hoped to allay
her mother’s fears with this information, it didn’t work.
“You might think you know the place where you are
going,” Amelia said. “I don’t. You don’t told me who you go, and I don’t know.”
Don’t worry, Fritzie said. “It is a very quiet place.”
***
James Stewart ©2021
James A. Stewart was born in Baton Rouge, LA, and
grew up in a small town sixteen miles to the north called Zachary. After
graduating from Louisiana State University with a BS in Industrial Technology,
he spent twenty-five years on active duty with the U.S. Navy, including a tour
as commanding officer of USS MOUNT VERNON (LSD-39). He also holds a BA in
English from National University and an MFA in Creative Writing from UC
Riverside. He lives with his family in San Diego, CA. Mystery at the Blue Sea
Cottage is his first book. https://www.jamesstewartauthor.com/
Saturday, September 18, 2021
KRL This Week Update for 9/18/2021
First off, for those following my blog tour for my book “One of Us” today's stop is at I Read What You Write! There I talk about What My Characters Read Says About Who They Are https://ireadwhatyouwrite.com/2021/09/18/guest-post-what-my-characters-read-says-about-who-they-are/
Up on KRL this morning a review and giveaway of "What the Cat Dragged In" by Miranda James https://kingsriverlife.com/09/18/what-the-cat-dragged-in-by-miranda-james/
And a review and giveaway of "Partners in Lime" by Bree Baker https://kingsriverlife.com/09/18/partners-in-lime-by-bree-baker/
And a review and giveaway of "Panic Attack" by Dennis Palumbo, along with an interesting interview with Dennis https://kingsriverlife.com/09/18/panic-attack-by-dennis-palumbo/
We also have the latest Queer Mystery Coming Attractions from Matt Lubbers-Moore https://kingsriverlife.com/09/18/queer-mystery-coming-attractions-october-2021/
For those who prefer to listen to Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast directly on KRL, here is the player for the new ep which features the first chapter of "Murder Under a Blue Moon" by Abigail Keam read by local actor Brianne Vogt Debbas https://kingsriverlife.com/09/18/mysteryrats-maze-podcast-featuring-murder-under-a-blue-moon/
Up during the week we posted another special midweek guest post, this one by Josh Pachter about the recent mystery anthology he edited "Monkey Business." It is published by Untreed Reads https://kingsriverlife.com/09/15/monkey-business/
And another one by thriller author Katie Lattari about the setting of her new book "Dark Things I Adore" https://kingsriverlife.com/09/15/the-darkness-in-your-own-backyard-dark-things-i-adore/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review and ebook giveaway of "The Safecracker's Secret" by Sandra Bretting https://www.krlnews.com/2021/09/the-safecrackers-secret-by-sandra.html
And a review and ebook giveaway of "One Cat for the Road" by Gin Jones https://www.krlnews.com/2021/09/one-cat-for-road-by-gin-jones.html
Happy reading,
Lorie
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera
SleuthSayers: Ten Years at SS by John Floyd
Scott's Take: Behind The Throne: The Indranan War: Book 1 by K. B. Wagers
Behind
The Throne: The Indranan War: Book 1
by K. B. Wagers revolves
around a former princess who became a gunrunner and now must return home to
become the heir and future empress. She never wanted to come back home, but
with most of the royal family killed in a series of attacks, it is time for her
to return to the role she was born for—ruler of the Indranan Empire. Though,
based on the first chapter, she may not live long enough to so as somebody
wants to take over and is happy to spill her blood to do so.
This science
fiction book set far into the future has Earth references and connections, but
Earth is not a focus. Gender politics are reversed and women hold much more
power in the society than men. The citizens of the Indranan Empire worship the
Hindu gods and are involved in a non-official war with the Saxons. The main
character is a sarcastic woman named Hail Bristol who is to be the future
Empress. She never wanted the job, but is not about to abandon her people to those
who would take her place. She is a complex and emotional character whose
instincts tend towards the violent side. Not that there is anything wrong with
that as sometimes violence is the answer.
An obvious negative
in the book was the fact that despite the main character being a former gunrunner,
the author never considered the implications of providing weapons to others and
being potentially responsible for what they do with those weapons. Even though it becomes clear to the reader
that the former gunrunner may have inadvertently supplied the weapons that were
used to kill her family members, as well as to nearly kill her, this angle is
completely ignored. In fact, the author made sure to keep her rather clean for
a gunrunner. Allegedly, she never was really bad and never supplied weapons
that killed innocents and, though she is very feared by some, she never did
much wrong. The idea is that the main character was able to stay relatively in
the gray despite being a criminal and never went too far into the black.
Behind The Throne: The Indranan War: Book 1 by K. B. Wagers is a fun, violent, humor packed read with plenty of intrigue and politics throughout. There is a lot of character development and plenty of relationships evolve throughout the novel. It is a rather dark and mature read that includes suicide, various forms of murder, bioweapons, and a number of children are killed quite horribly. Book Two in the series, After The Crown is here from my local library system.
Behind The
Throne: The Indranan War: Book 1
K. B. Wagers
Orbit Books
(Hachette Book Group)
https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/k-b-wagers/behind-the-throne/9780316308595/
August 2016
ISBN# 978-0-316-30860-1
Paperback (also
available in audio and eBook formats)
432 Pages (includes a preview of the next book and a two-page author interview)
My reading copy came from the Central or Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2021
Friday, September 17, 2021
Beneath the Stains of Time: Mystery at Friar's Pardon (1931) by Martin Porlock
Sweet Freedom: Mathew Paust, RIP
FFB Review: Vengeance in Death: Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 6) by J. D. Robb
It is 2058 as Vengeance in Death
begins and Homicide Lieutenant Eve Dallas is wrapping up her latest case in New
York. She thinks she is done for the day and is looking forward to going home
to Roarke and a weekend off. That is until the strange phone call comes in on
her tele-link. The caller claims to have been blessed by God and therefore
quite justifiably killed a sinner. He offers his religious viewpoint of the
world, before and after he gives her a riddle to solve for the location of his
victim.
It does not take Eve and her assistant, Officer
Peabody, long to solve the riddle. Once they arrive on scene, they are smugly
assured by the doorman that everything is absolutely fine and that Thomas
Brennen is away from his penthouse suite. Not willing to take the guy’s word
for anything, Lieutenant Dallas convinces the doorman to take them up to the penthouse.
It is clear when the door is opened that death is in the air. They gradually
work their way into the suite and soon find a scene of incredible carnage. It
might be the worst scene Lieutenant Dallas has ever come across and she has
seen quite a few bad scenes.
She is going to see more really bad scenes in the
coming hours as she chases an elusive killer in Vengeance in Death.
One who clearly is taking the lives of others as he works closer and closer to
Roarke. As has happened before in this series, Roarke's past is another problem
to work around in the read that is part police procedural, part romantic
suspense, and all very complicated.
All the usual caveats apply in this sixth book of
the long running series. Head hopping still occurs as do numerous tropes common
in the mystery field. At the same time, the reads are enjoyable and pass
quickly as readers are reminded that guns are outlawed, but murders still occur
in NYC. The result is another entertaining read.
The series to this point and my reviews:
Naked in Death:
Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 1) March 2021
Glory in Death:
Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 2) April 2021
Immortal in
Death: Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 3) May 2021
Rapture in
Death: Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 4) June 2021
Ceremony in
Death: Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 5) July 2021
Vengeance in Death: Eve Dallas Mysteries (Book 6)
J. D. Robb
https://jdrobb.com/1997/10/vengeance-in-death/
Berkley
October 1997
ASIN: B000OCXJR0
eBook (Available in audio and print formats)
354 Pages
My copy came via the good folks at my branch, Lochwood Library. Scott, once again, made the Libby App work for Dad.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Criminal Minds: Sing, O Muse from James W. Ziskin
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Marie Colvin, Dan Rather, Feather Thief, Gilead, The Sum of Us, Slaughterman's Daughter, Rainier Erupts, Exiles
MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Plague of 'ist' by Janis Patterson
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Sweet Baby Jenny" by Joyce Harrington
Short Story Wednesday Review: Mystery Weekly Magazine: September 2020
Mystery Weekly
Magazine: September 2020
opens
with “Cult of Personality” by Nick Legrand. John Fielding has a job interview
with Mr. Roger Martin Mathis of the billboards and the giant smiling face with tag
line, “WE’LL GET HIM FOR YOU!” A lot is riding on this interview and Mr.
Fielding is feeling the stress from long before he finally walked into the
marble floored lobby of the building on the way to his scheduled appointment.
How the interview went and the repercussions of that are detailed in this
increasingly surreal story.
The story that inspired the cover art comes next with
“The Figurine” by Edward Hodi. After wandering the streets and purchasing some
sort of small figurine, the narrator went home and crashed on the couch.
Eventually, hours later, he got up, took the figurine and looked at it. He had
purchased a small figurine of the Grim Reaper and pretty much has very little
memory of doing so. He placed the figurine on top of the newspaper and as it
happens, right on the picture of some guy on the front page of the paper. He
goes about his business and discovers the next day that the figurine has quite
the power.
After two surreal and weird tales, the mere straightforward
mystery, “Golden Lives” by Joseph S. Walker is a breath of fresh air. Private
Annalee Lincoln is met by Police Officer Whitney Lewis upon arrival at the airport
in Sacramento. Her brother Ike is dead and she is home looking for answers.
Though it has been only three days he has already been cremated. Ike died during
the commission of a crime, but Annalee does not believe it and launches her own
investigation to figure out what actually happened that fateful night and why.
This reader hopes that we will see more of Officer Lewis and Annalee Lincoln in
stories to come.
Samuel Sharpe and Bartholomew Blunt return with another
interesting tale in “The Case Of The Red Ribbons” by Benjamin Mark. Captain Elias Young has a complicated case of
missing diamonds and more. Fortunately, he can put his two best detectives on
it and have Sharpe and Blunt solve it all.
“Two Taxis” by William Burton McCormick is next where
readers are taken to a resort town on the Mediterranean. Things go wrong at the
hotel and it is not really the fault of Jean-Paul fault through Monsieur Rault
is going to blame him for everything. Things escalate quickly in this
complicated and enjoyable tale.
Detectives James Alonquin Mendelsohn, known to many
as “Jam” and his partner Detective Sammie Aku have a murder to solve outside “Kitty’s
Kats: Exotic Dancers.” The dead woman is posed in the same way as the figure on
the overhead sign advertising to one and all what goes on inside if the name of
the business did not already make things very clear. That body outside the club
is the first case in “Neon Nights” by Shea E. Butler and the proverbial tip of
the iceberg.
Skipping between current events and a work in
progress is “Never Kidnap A Crime Novelist” by Stan Dryer. Fiction and the real
world collide in a complicated tale that can not be explained at all without ruining
the read.
The “You-Solve-It” this month is “An Oldie But A
Goodie” by Eric B. Ruark. Sheriff Tracy Hyers is back in the neighborhood
looking for the escaped canine terrorist, Horace. It is time to once again talk
to the owner, Lydia Monroe, about her dog. It should have been simple. It
wasn't.
The solution to the august 2020 puzzle “A Number's
Game” by Bruce Harris brings this issue to a close.
Mystery Weekly Magazine: September 2020 is another enjoyable read. A bit more surreal than most issues but still a solidly good read. Complex plots and characters in tales with no easy solutions make for another good issue.
For quite some time now I have been gifted a subscription by the publisher with no expectation at all of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2021
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Little Big Crimes Review: A Hell of a Thing by Wayne J. Gardiner
Review: A Good Day For Chardonnay: A Novel by Darynda Jones
A Good Day For Chardonnay: A Novel by Darynda Jones is the second read in the series that began in A Bad Day For Sunshine. It was in that book that readers were introduced to the quirky town of Del Sol, the newly elected sheriff Sunshine Vicram, and her family. While some things were resolved in that book, one major thing was not, and that continues here in a secondary story line.
One of several
secondary storylines in a complicated and occasionally a laugh out loud read.
In the main storyline, Levi Ravinder is involved in a serious altercation in
the parking lot of the Roadhouse Bar and Grill. To say that Sunshine and Levi
have history is to say the sun and the desert have a history. This night Levi
was trying to stop three men who were beating and stabbing Keith Seabright. What
Seabright was doing at the place, what his connection with Levi is, who the
three men are, and other questions are questions she needs official answers to
as fast as possible. All she knows for sure, based on what Levi is saying is
that he is military of some type and had to drugged to be losing to his three assailants.
Instead of going to the hospital as the clearly injured Levi should, he soon
escapes custody and disappears into the night. Presumably headed north in pursuit
of the three who left the scene in a truck.
As in the first
book, relationships in and outside of family power this novel. Therefore, as
many things from the first book continue here, it is not possible to discuss
those things that drive forward the secondary storylines in this read.
Along the same vein,
it is also not possible to discuss two glaring technical errors in the last
fifty pages without creating spoilers. Suffice it to say, those of who have
spent time in hospitals or know a thing or two about police vehicles, might be
briefly and annoying jolted out of the world of the book.
That being said,
this is a funny read that reminds this reviewer of the Sheriff Brady
series by J.A. Jance with a lot more humor. This read also has a multi-page and
graphic sex scene between two characters that may be too much for some readers.
One did expect the romantic moment though this reader did not expect the
graphic detail of the event. The read also has plenty of action, violence,
misdirection, and mystery.
All in all, A
Good Day for Chardonnay is a good read and ties up the primary storyline
and several ongoing issues from the first book quite well.
A Good Day For
Chardonnay: A Novel
Darynda Jones
St. Martin’s
Press (MacMillan)
https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250233110/a-good-day-for-chardonnay
July 2021
ISBN #978-1-250-23311-0
Hardback (also available
in audio and eBook formats)
416 Pages
My reading copy came from the Skyline Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple
©2021
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