Friday, April 30, 2021

Small Crimes: A new collection of Julius Katz stories!

 Small Crimes: A new collection of Julius Katz stories!

Writer Beware®: The Blog: #DisneyMustPay: Authors' Groups Join Forces to ADVOCATE FOR WRITERS OWED MONEY BY DISNEY

Writer Beware®: The Blog: #DisneyMustPay: Authors' Groups Join Forces to Adv...: Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware® Last November, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America (SFWA)  published a lette...

Lesa's Book Critiques: WINNERS AND PICKS OF 2020 GIVEAWAY

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Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE RELUCTANT WIDOW BY GEORGETTE HEYER

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Patti Abbott: FFB RIDERS ON THE STORM, Ed Gorman

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FFB Review: "THE FIEND" (1964) by Margaret Millar (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

 From the archives … 

THE FIEND (1964) by Margaret Millar 

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

 


Charlie Gowen knows he shouldn’t be sitting in his car across the street from the school playground. He was ordered a long time ago against hanging around anywhere children congregate. “The conditions were impossible, of course. He couldn’t turn and run in the opposite direction every time he saw a child. Theywere all over, everywhere, at any hour.” When he sees nine-year-old Jessie Brant fall from the jungle gym, he is determined to warn her parents—even lecture them, if necessary—about caring for someone he believes to be a fragile little girl. But he needs to know where she lives, so in his green coupĂ© he follows her and her girlfriend, Mary Martha Oakley, home.\

 

So begins The Fiend, an outstanding novel of psychological suspense by one of the most skillful writers ever to work in this genre. But to say much more about the storyline would conceivably spoil the hard-to-stop-reading experience, so I’ll refrain beyond citing generalities.

 

The most prominent characters include Kate Oakley, mother of the aforementioned Mary Martha, who verges on paranoia when it comes to her ex-husband Sheridan. Kate is convinced it is he who is watching the house from a green coupĂ©, and who is doing anything and everything he can to torment her. Kate frequently calls her attorney, Ralph MacPherson, whenever she fears—however abstractly— that she’s being assailed by Sheridan.

 

The Brants, Ellen and David, Jessie’s parents, appear to be the almost stereotypical happily-married suburban couple. The operative word is appear. Their next-door neighbors are Howard and Virginia Arlington. They are childless, so Virginia dotes on Jessie like an adoring relative (or mother wannabe), often spoiling her by giving her gifts that Ellen feels are inappropriately expensive. When Jessie is ordered to return a twenty-dollar book to Virginia, Howard—whose marriage is more than a little rocky—presses twenty dollars in cash on the little girl, thus catalyzing a crucial future event.

 

Ben Gowen is Charlie’s older brother and, of necessity since their parents are dead, his caretaker, despite Charlie’s having a job he handles responsibly. Still living in the house he and Charlie grew up in, Ben is more than a little pleased when Charlie meets Louise Lang and sees the two of them develop a relationship that is leading to marriage, because then he’ll be able to find an apartment of his own to live in and finally cultivate a life apart from Charlie’s.

 

In the hands of a lesser writer, The Fiend would most likely become sensationalistic tripe. Ms. Millar takes mundane events and transforms them into a tense, page-turning experience. Readers who enjoy novels featuring characters adroitly delineated via their back stories, internal monologues and dialogues so that they virtually get up and walk off the page, are likely to savor this brilliantly-constructed novel.


 

Barry Ergang ©20016, 2021 

Some of Derringer Award-winning author’s Barry Ergang’s work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.



Thursday, April 29, 2021

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 80 Calls for Submissions in May 2021 - Paying markets

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 80 Calls for Submissions in May 2021 - Paying markets: This May there are nearly seven dozen calls for submissions. All of these are paying markets, and none charge submission fees. As always, ev...

Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

 Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Euro Crime: US Cozy Review: Two from Amanda Flower

 Euro Crime: US Cozy Review: Two from Amanda Flower

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 4/29/2021

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 4/29/2021 

Wednesday, April 28, 2021

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Moyes, Kline, Theroux, Patton, Robson, Pierce

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Moyes, Kline, Theroux, Patton, Robson,...:  Reported by Garry Our first book reviewed this week was the best-selling The Giver of Stars by Jojo Moyes.  This historical novel is set...

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Lucky Policeman (1938) by Rupert Penny

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The Reading Room: Reading Room Interview with Author Annette Dashofy

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Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 35 Writing Contests in May 2021 - No entry fees

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Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: The Big Book of Espionage, ed. Otto Penzler

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Little Big Crimes: Return to Sender by Gar Anthony Haywood

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Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THAT IN ALEPPO ONCE... by Vladimir Nabokov

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Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday: "The Housebreaker of Shady Hill" John Cheever

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Short Story Wednesday Review: High Meadow Storm by Wayne D. Dundee

 From the archives….


Waking up and having no idea where you are or your own name is not a good thing. At least folks found him at the R-Bar ranch and brought him into the small cabin three days ago. He’d been found up by the high meadow after a storm. Who he is and why he was there are just two of the many questions at work in this short story.

 

The ranch is run by teens and their far younger siblings after the death of their parents. Fever took them last winter, as it did many others, in the area. The twins are 8 and supervised by Addie who is almost 17 and her brother Heath, 18. Heath is the one who found the unconscious stranger and brought him to the cabin. The Rudisels are holding their own despite the efforts of nature and man to boot them off the land. With no idea who he is or where he should go, it becomes natural for the stranger to stay and get involved in their struggle in High Meadow Storm by Wayne D. Dundee.

 

As is frequently the case in Mr. Dundee’s westerns a major mystery is at work in this story. In fact, there are several mysteries in play in this enjoyable tale. Nominated for the 2016 Peacemaker Awards of the Western Fictioneers this tale that was originally published in Protectors 2: Heroes-Stories To Benefit Protect is now available as a standalone read. High Meadow Storm is also mighty good read as one would expect from Wayne D. Dundee.

 

 

Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2016, 2021

Tuesday, April 27, 2021

Lesa's Book Critiques: CLARE WHITFIELD, AUTHOR INTERVIEW

 Lesa's Book Critiques: CLARE WHITFIELD, AUTHOR INTERVIEW

CrimeReads: DRIVING IN THE DARK: GETAWAY DRIVERS IN FICTION AND THE DARK SIDE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

CrimeReads: DRIVING IN THE DARK: GETAWAY DRIVERS IN FICTION AND THE DARK SIDE OF THE AMERICAN DREAM

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 22 Great Writing Conferences in May 2021

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Punk Noir Magazine: EVENING NEWS HERO BY DAVID CRANMER

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Matt Paust's Crime Time: SHRAPNEL – James Lloyd Davis

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Jungle Red Writers: Introducing a new Britbox mystery series!

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SleuthSayers: The Pause that Refreshes by Michael Bracken

SleuthSayers: The Pause that Refreshes: Since the beginning of the year, I have read submissions to Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, Mickey Finn: 21st Cent...

Monday, April 26, 2021

SleuthSayers: No, No, No, No-no, No-no-no...Banned Books by Steve Liskow

SleuthSayers: No, No, No, No-no, No-no-no...Banned Books:   by Steve Liskow I'm jumping the season a little. This year, Banned Books Week will be late in September. During that week, we are remi...

Lesa's Book Critiques: PEOPLE OF ABANDONED CHARACTER BY CLARE WHITFIELD

 Lesa's Book Critiques: PEOPLE OF ABANDONED CHARACTER BY CLARE WHITFIELD

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 12 Mystery and Thriller Publishers Open to Submissions - No Agent Required

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 12 Mystery and Thriller Publishers Open to Submiss...: Whodunnits never go out of style, and neither do pulse-pounding thrillers, so if you write mysteries or thrillers, you are in luck.  Here ar...

In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday 4/26/2021

 In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday 4/26/2021

Markets and Jobs for Writers for 4/26/2021

 Markets and Jobs for Writers for 4/26/2021

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: A Fatal Mistake by Faith Martin


Faith Martin is a contemporary British author, who also writes under the names Maxine Barry, Joyce Cato, and Jessie Daniels. She lives in Oxford, where most of her books are set. Among her mysteries are the D.I. Hillary Greene series (18 titles), Jenny Starling series (7 titles), Monica Noble series (3 titles) and the Ryder and Loveday series (7 titles). She has also published 21 novels in romance and romantic suspense.


A Fatal Mistake (HarperCollins, 2018) is the second of the Ryder and Loveday series. The investigative duo of WPC Trudy Loveday and city coroner Dr Clement Ryder is Martin’s latest creation. Set in Oxford in 1960, this historical mystery takes the reader back to the time women were just beginning to find a place in the law enforcement field. WPC Trudy Loveday’s supervisor DI Harry Jennings and most of her colleagues greatly resent having her on the force, and she is finding her chosen career a hard slog.


Dr. Ryder is puzzled by the death of Derek Chadworth, a student of St Bede’s College, Oxford. He appears to have drowned when several punts full of students collided on the River Cherwell. However, Dr. Ryder can find no one who saw the victim in any of the punts before the incident. In addition, the students who were called to testify at the inquest all said virtually the same thing, as if they had been coached. Dr. Ryder is determined to look deeper into the death and requests the assistance of WPC Loveday for a few days. Jennings agrees reluctantly. The last time Ryder and Loveday teamed up, they solved a murder and gained recognition that Jennings wanted for himself. But Ryder knows Jennings’s supervisor well and Jennings is happy to have Loveday away from the police station, so off she goes.


Ryder and Loveday make a welcome departure from the usual crime-solving team. Loveday’s inexperience allows Ryder to give the reader information in the guise of coaching Loveday, which is a good technique that allows the story to keep moving. Nicely developed plot with plenty of suspects and red herrings. Written in the vein of traditional mysteries, think Patricia Wentworth and Agatha Christie, but not exactly cozy. There’s not much in character development and there’s no psychological drama here. This series will appeal to readers of British detective stories.


 

·         ASIN: B07BQKHV7G

·         Publisher: HQ Digital, imprint of HarperCollins (September 5, 2018)

·         Publication date: September 5, 2018

·         Language: English

·         File size: 628 KB

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Saturday, April 24, 2021

Lesa's Book Critiques: TELLING TALES BY ANN CLEEVES

 Lesa's Book Critiques: TELLING TALES BY ANN CLEEVES

The Rap Sheet: Plenty of Plaudits to Go Around

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Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Crazy Stupid Bromance by Lyssa Kay Adams:   Reviewed by Ambrea Alexis Carlisle has had her life upended more than once.   First, she lost her mother; later, she endured months ...

Scott's Take: Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol.1


Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol.1 collects the first volumes of Jonathan Hickman run of Avengers and New Avengers. These titles are highly interconnected so having all the issues together makes reading easier. This is the first of several planned collected volumes to come. Hickman's run is widely considered one of the best runs of the Avengers ever. It is also well recognized to be one of the most complicated as it featured several new characters and new concepts while incorporating lots of existing and new backstory and history between characters.

 

This collection begins with a simple idea: things are getting worse, there are more threats coming, and the Avengers need to get bigger. After an attack on earth by powerful aliens the Avengers launch a counterattack on Mars against new foes. While battling on Mars, they learn of impending threats that could mean the end of life on Earth. Featuring Avengers such as Captain America, Wolverine, Thor, The Hulk and newcomers like Hyperion, Smasher and more. The strongest and biggest team of Avengers will face threats that endanger all life.

 


The focus shifts to the New Avengers in the second half of the book, where the secret group known as the Illuminati attempt to stop multiversal incursions (other Earths are colliding with this Earth) that could destroy it and the entire universe. What are they willing to do to survive? Are heroes like Black Panther, Mister Fantastic, Dr. Strange, Iron Man, and others willing to destroy another Earth if that's what it takes to survive? To save the people you love and to save yourself would you kill an entire world?

 


Featuring incredible art, epic battles, and deep ideas, Hickman’s run is awesome. Pretty much every character is written well and has memorable moments. It is a tale built on relationships between characters, big ideas, and deep concepts. The titles are interconnected in terms of timeline as well as several characters crossover between the different storylines.

 

I highly recommend Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol.1 for both new and old fans of the Avengers. There are so many ideas and characters that it might be difficult for some readers to follow. The read requires a lot of focus for the best experience, but the effort is very much worth it.

 

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Vol.1

Jonathan Hickman

https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/11743/jonathan_hickman

Marvel

https://www.marvel.com/comics/collection/84478/avengers_by_jonathan_hickman_the_complete_collection_vol_1_trade_paperback

August 2020

ISBN#: 978-1-302-92509-3

Paperback (also available in eBook format)

336 Pages  

 

My reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System. 

 


Scott A. Tipple ©2021

 

Friday, April 23, 2021

SleuthSayers: Making Fudge by Joseph D'Agnese

SleuthSayers: Making Fudge: Back in the 1980s a college English professor of mine shared a “stupid Hollywood” story with our class. Some genius producers released a TV ...

Writer Beware®: The Blog: The Case of the Purloined Blog Post: HOW A FAKE DMCA NOTICE FAILED TO SILENCE WRITER BEWARE

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Lesa's Book Critiques: WINNERS AND AN AWARD NOMINEE GIVEAWAY

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FFB Review: TRIAL BY FURY (1941) by Craig Rice (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

From the archive…

 

TRIAL BY FURY (1941) by Craig Rice

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

 

 

Wanting a break from the hurly-burly of Chicago, Jake and Helene Justus hie themselves off to Jackson, Wisconsin and the county courthouse, from which they want to obtain a fishing license. They haven’t been there very long when vacationus interruptus occurs in the form of ex-Senator Peveley being shot by a person unknown in what initially seems to be under impossible conditions since there are six people close by, all of whom are prominent local officials. None of them have seen the shooter—or so they claim.

 

The senator is the second murder victim in Jackson in thirty-two years. This complicates the inept and irascible Sheriff Marvin Kling’s life considerably, since it’s the first murder he’s ever had to investigate. It also complicates Jake’s life, because he and Helene are looked upon as strangers in small-town Jackson, and thus highly suspect. When the sheriff decides to hold them as material witnesses, Helene sends a telegram to their old friend, lawyer John J. Malone, in Chicago, tersely apprising him of their situation—especially Jake’s—and asking him to come help them. After an exchange of additional telegrams, some of the lawyer’s indicating reluctance, Malone finally agrees.

 

Three more murders, each committed in a different manner, occur. Is Jackson County dealing with one killer or four different ones?

 

Jake disappears. Is he on the run either from actual guilt, or simply to elude capture until the crimes are solved? Or has he been murdered or kidnapped? 

 

It’s up to Malone to resolve matters and reveal the identity of the actual killer or killers.

 

I’m pretty sure that this was the first Craig Rice novel I ever read back in the Dark Ages of my teen years, when a cousin who learned I was enamored of detective novels gave me a copy. Since so many years had passed, I decided to reread it.

 

I can recommend Trial by Fury as an entertaining and reasonably well-paced whodunit, but I wouldn’t classify it as one of Craig Rice’s best. She was an exemplar of the screwball comedy school of mystery, but this particular novel, though it has its share of humorous dialogue, is not nearly as funny as other titles in the Malone/Justus series, where both dialogue and situations result in zanier scenes.


 

Barry Ergang ©20017, 2021 

Some of Derringer Award-winning author’s Barry Ergang’s work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.


Thursday, April 22, 2021

Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

 Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 4/210/2021

 In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 4/210/2021

Review: Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery by Patricia Skalka


Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery by Patricia Skalka is the first book in a multi book series. Published in 2004, author takes readers to the peninsula that juts out between Lake Michigan and Green Bay.

 

Dave Cubiak is a man living with incredible grief. His wife and daughter were killed and he knows that he is responsible for their deaths. Not directly, but indirectly, and that grief is all encompassing and wide ranging.

 

“He found it unsettling how quickly life returned to normal for those on the outskirts of loss. For a week after Lauren and Alexis died, he’d failed to pick up the morning newspapers from the front porch, not because he forgot but because everything commonplace seemed superfluous. His perspective had been so altered by death, he could not comprehend a world in which someone would continue to drop a daily paper at his door. He was only beginning to understand that for those not directly touched by it, death was a transient event (pages 60-61).”

 

The former Chicago homicide detective left the force and came up to the Door County to be a park ranger. He promised his former homicide partner he would give the job a year and he intends to uphold that promise despite the grief, the massive alcohol intake, and the ongoing annoying stupidity of others including his boss, Otto Johnson.

 

He wanted to leave death behind. At least, that was the plan. Then three months into the job, in late June, he hears a sharp wail nearby while out running one morning as he tried to flush the toxins from his system. He investigates and finds his boss, Park Superintendent Otto Johnson, at the  base of Falcon Tower. It appears that somebody took a header off the multistory fire watch tower.

 


It soon becomes clear that the deceased is Lawrence Wisby. As Cubiak is forced to explain to his boss, Sheriff Halverson, and Doctor Bathard, the deceased is the brother of the man that killed his wife and daughter by driving drunk and running them down with a car. That makes him a suspect as far as the Sheriff is concerned.

 

An intense and highly atmospheric story, Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery by Patricia Skalka is a complicated and often intense read. Grief plays a major role in the book almost to the point of an actual living and breathing character. Issues related to that aspect of the book leads to considerable backstory as well as a deep resonance with this reader. The ongoing current day mystery is complicated and far ranging and resulted in a considerable surprise when the killer was finally revealed.

 

Intense, complicated, and very atmospheric, Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery by Patricia Skalka is a very good read.


 

Death Stalks Door County: A Dave Cubiak Door County Mystery

Patricia Skalka

http://www.patriciaskalka.com/

University of Wisconsin Press

https://uwpress.wisc.edu/books/5315.htm

May 2014

IISBN# 978-0299299408

Hardback eBook (eBook and paperback formats also available)

246 Pages

 

 

Material supplied by the good folks of the Dallas Library System. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

Wednesday, April 21, 2021

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Wizard of Earthsea, Ministry for the F...

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Lesa's Book Critiques: THE VANISHING MUSEUM ON THE RUE MISTRAL BY M.L. LONGWORTH

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SleuthSayers: The Devil You Don't Know by Robert Lopresti

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Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Clever and Quick" by Christianna Brand

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Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday: "My Father's Friends" from ALL THE DAYS AND NIGHTS, William Maxwell

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Short Story Wednesday Review: Mystery Weekly Magazine: August 2020


Mystery Weekly Magazine: August 2020 opens with “Lucid” by Bill Kelly. Lucy Pritchard, a twenty-eight-year-old grad student, has a plan to help Alzheimer’s patients. She wants to bring up older, lingering memories in the hopes of helping the elderly and those in their lives communicate better. Ted, the 45-year-old director of the Westwood Senior Center, is almost as lonely as the residents, so he is more than happy to let her try her experiments as long as she keeps coming back. She will do so as her real plan is going to take time and she needs Ted's help.

 

There is only one tiki bar in Haines, Alaska and it is called fittingly enough, Bamboo Room. Friends Sherilyn Crabtree and Ginny Krause are in the place to drink and catch up. Ginny is looking to change up her life through this might not be exactly what she had in mind in “The Odds Are Good.”

 

Sheriff Sherri Fine is spared listening any more to Senate candidate Clayton Holmes pontificate thanks to the radio call about a dead body out on Devil's Canyon Creek Road. Sheriff Fine has a complex case in “Bone Soup” by Michael Bracken. The human bones and maybe a few strands of hair are not going to be much help, but they will tell her enough to give her a starting point on a cold case going back years. Hopefully, this is not the last tale with Sheriff Fine as this was and is a really good read.

 

Mom always played a certain set of numbers in the lottery. Mom is deceased, but our narrator continues playing her numbers in “Suicide Insurance” by Gerard J. Waggett. He also has another plan to get some cash quick. Luck might be a lady, but she can also cruelly laugh and rip your heart out.

 

Being the mascot Chester the Shelter Dog is hot and very sweaty work at the Mansfield County Animal Shelter Furry Friends Festival. It is the first one ever as “The Power Of The Dog” by Leon Ciporin begins. The man with the gun might make this a onetime event for a number of folks. He has to be stopped.

 

“A Grave Mistake” by Rachel Amphlett comes next where Ben finds what appears to be a grave. Getting lost in the park was bad enough. Finding the grave is way worse. He has got to find his way back to where he parked and get out of there.

 

Attorney Scott Turley uses a flip phone so it takes him a while to find it. Part of the problem is that he has been drinking awhile in “Only The Desperate Come Here” by Michael Mallory. Carl Bone the third is the caller and he says he needs a lawyer because he killed a man. There is money to be made so Turley is looking forward to the case.

 

Wade Calvert is back home dealing with the trash and his past in “A Little House Cleaning” by David Bart. The farmer is dead, but Miram is still alive and hiding somewhere. He isn't the only one fed up and looking to settle things.

 

The You-Solve-It this month is “A Numbers game” by Bruce Harris. Winterball in January in Puerto Rico where a baseball player, Benny Tasby, is very much dead. The rookie phenom has had his head bashed in with a baseball bat. Naturally, several players resented him in various ways and that means they are all suspects.

 

The issue concludes with the answer to the July puzzle, “Poisoned Relationship” by Laird Long.

 

Another quality issue that showcases a wide variety in the mystery genre. While my personal favorite was Mr. Michael Bracken’s story, all the tales in the issue are solidly good. Interesting characters, interesting cases, there is something for every reader in the Mystery Weekly Magazine: August 2020.

 

 

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, April 20, 2021

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 4/20/21

 The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 4/20/21

Lesa's Book Critiques: A MAN NAMED DOLL BY JONATHAN AMES

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Writers Who Kill: Being Selective about Short Story Submissions by Paula Gail Benson

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The Rap Sheet: Just Trying to Stay on Top of Things

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Beneath the Stains of Time: Twenty-Five Sanitary Inspectors (1935) by Roger East

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Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Department of Sensitive Crimes by Alexander McCall Smith

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Review: A Simple Murder: A Kate Burkholder Short Story Collection by Linda Castillo


Five previously published short stories make up A Simple Murder: A Kate Burkholder Short Story Collection by Linda Castillo. Published in 2013 to 2019, each short story was released at that time as a marketing effort to draw attention to the new book that would soon follow. Such is the case here as there is a short excerpt from the upcoming novel, Fallen, which is to be released this summer.

 

The book opens with “Long Lost” published in 2013 when the romance between Kate Burkholder and John Tomasetti is new. Tomasetti is a state agent and Kate Burkholder is the Chief of Police of Painter's Mill, Ohio. They are their first weekend getaway about an hour from her home. They are at a bed-and-breakfast owned and operated by Harley and Fannie Hilty. They also soon become interested in the disappearance of Angela Blaine who vanished many years prior to their arrival.

 

Next is “A Hidden Secret” where a newborn is left in a laundry basket at the front door of the home of Bishop Troyer. Leaving the child wrapped in an Amish quilt and with an Amish rattle, as well as a being left on the Bishop's porch, all indications are is that the newborn is the hours old child of a local resident. After the baby is checked out at the local hospital and under care, Chief Burkholder needs to identify and locate the parents. Especially the mother who probably gave birth alone and may need urgent medical care.

 

Next up is “Seeds of Deception” which takes readers back to a time in Kate Burkholder's complicated childhood. As the tale begins, she is fourteen and her mom wants her to go pick apples with her older brother Jacob. She is already in trouble because her mom caught her reading a mystery novel the other night using a flashlight under the covers. it should have been a quiet and boring day at Zimmerman's orchard. It isn't at all.

 

It is a Friday evening in the spring and things are unusually quiet in “Only the Lucky.” Chief of Police Kate Burkholder had no idea that there is about to be a major party underway until local Amish farmer Aaron Yonder comes to tell her. She has known Aaron since they were kids and she knows that he does not come to see her easily. The fact that it is Friday the 13th does not help matters. Nor does a murder.

 

Before dawn wake up calls happen a lot in the novels and they happen here too “In Dark Company” where a four in the morning phone call gets things rolling for Chief of Police Kate Burkholder. A woman has arrived at a residence in the surrounding rural area. It is clear that she has been assaulted and she is terrified. What isn’t clear is who did it, what happened to her, and the identity of the suspect or suspects. The case is going to be difficult as the woman seems to have no memory of what happened and does not even know her name.

 

 

The final short story is the 2019 published, “In Plain Sight.” Orin Schlabach's dog would not be silent that morning. Jojo kept barking nearly nonstop at something out in the field. When the 78-year-old man got out there, he realized that Noah Kline is in the field unconscious and barely alive. It is a heck of a way to start a Sunday morning and Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is going to have her hands full.

 


The book concludes with what is billed as Chapter 1 of Fallen. Unfortunately, it is a prologue and has nothing at all to really interest the reader as the short section is entirely too vague. The sis pages here could be applied to any book in this series or pretty much any mystery by any author anywhere. As a preview of the coming book, the section misses the mark massively and serves absolutely no purpose for the book that is coming out in early July.

 

All in all, the actual stories in this collection are good ones. For readers who are not already familiar with them, they are a nice slice of the Kate Burkholder world. They also serve as a nice introduction for readers unfamiliar with the world that began many years ago with Sworn to Silence. Whether, when each short story is about $1.99 or less on their own in eBook format, a hardback print collection priced at $30.99 makes sense, I leave it to the reader to determine.

 

For another look at the book, make sure to read Lesa Holstine’s review from last February here.

 

  

A Simple Murder: A Kate Burkholder Short Story Collection

Linda Castillo

https://www.lindacastillo.com/

Minotaur Books

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250783615

February 2021

ISBN# 978-1-250-81968-0

Hardback (audio, eBook, and mass market paperback formats also available)

416 Pages

 

 

Material supplied by the good folks of the Dallas Library System.  

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2021

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Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Fortune Favors the Dead by Stephen Spotswood


Fortune Favors the Dead (Doubleday, 2020) is the historical mystery debut from journalist and playwright Stephen Spotswood. First in the series, it opens with the meeting of famed private investigator Lillian Pentecost and circus performer Willowjean Parker in 1942, then flash forwards to November 1945 after Willowjean has become Lillian’s assistant.


The children of Alistair Collins, late president and CEO of Collins Steel and Manufacturing, enlist Lillian’s services to solve the murder of their mother Abigail Collins. The twins’ father committed suicide in September for no known reason. Their mother was murdered in the same room a few weeks later after a sĂ©ance at a Halloween party. The sĂ©ance was held by a “spiritual advisor” to whom Abigail had become devoted but who was viewed askance by the authorities. The party was well-attended with plenty of potential suspects but the police were stymied by the lack of evidence and motive. The lieutenant in charge of the investigation is not happy about Lillian’s involvement but realizes he could use her help.


Willowjean is the narrator and the reader learns what she is thinking and how she processes events while seeing only the actions of the other characters. Kirkus equates Lillian and Willowjean to Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin, and the comparison is apt. Their Fritz is a Mrs. Campbell from the Border Counties and the descriptions of her cooking are mouthwatering. Spotswood’s experience in dramatic development informs the pacing of the action which moves smoothly from one scene to the next. The characters are fully realized and quite human; they may be the strongest part of the story, as the actual mystery is so-so. The surprises continue after the unveiling of the murderer up to the last page.


A 21st century approach to gender issues is folded into the story line that I did not consider realistic for the time and place. I think this is part of the inconsistent use of period detail, which will be distracting to some readers. A sound story overall that bodes well for a series continuation.


Starred reviews from Bookpage and Publishers Weekly. The second book in the series is scheduled to be released in December 2021.


 

·         Publisher: Doubleday (October 27, 2020)

·         Language: English

·         Hardcover: 336 pages

·         ISBN-10: 0385546556

·         ISBN-13: 978-0385546553

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.