Saturday, December 30, 2023

Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of December 31, 2023

 Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of December 31, 2023 

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers: 12-30-23

 The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers: 12-30-23

SleuthSayers: 2023 in Review

SleuthSayers: 2023 in Review:    Another year's almost done, and I'm posting an easy-to-write column today: a look back at the stories I've published in the p...

Scott's Take: Power Girl Returns by Leah Williams


Power Girl Returns by Leah Williams has the difficult assignment of being the first new book staring the character in years. Power Girl along with the JSA has been relegated to the bench for several years. They had no place in the main DC universe until recently.

 

This book comes out of the events of Lazarus Planet where a lot of stuff happened, but the only relevant part for this book is that magic rain poured down on the world and caused changes in people. One of those changed people is Power Girl as she now, for some reason, has telepathic powers. With these new powers, she has agreed to be a psychologist for the superhero community. She has also agreed to help Omen (formerly a member of Teen Titan) also be a psychologist for the superhero community. Together they will treat patients and their first patient is Beast Boy who has recently survived a gunshot to the head.

 

Thanks to the head trauma caused by the bullet, he now seems to be stuck in the form of a calf and unable to speak. Because of his ability to shape shift, the injury was healed and there is now nothing physically wrong with him. That means the problem is mostly likely in his head and could be PTSD related or something like that.  This first case leads to more as they attempt to figure out why other heroes in the Superman family are now also suddenly having strange issues as well.

 

Also included in this read is a second graphic novel storyline that collects the Knight Terror tie in issues. In this part, a bad guy has managed to bring every person’s nightmares to life. The entire human race is experiencing their worst dreams. If you are a person like Power girl who has survived the death of two worlds, you are going to have serious issues. What happens when your nightmares become real?

 

The sections have different artists with their own look and style. They are both great, but very differentin style and tone. There is plenty of humor and action. There is a lot of character exploration. There are changes made to classic elements of Power Girl as a character that I am not sure how I feel about them. But, they are trying to find a way forward for the character since she has been benched for so long. 

 

One thing that I wish would have been explored, would have been the fact that Nightwing brings Beast Boy in and they both have suffered being shot in the head in the last few years. A talented author could have drawn parallels to the different consequences they experienced suffering the same type of injury.

 

The stories in Power Girl Returns are a little short since they were originally backups for the main Superman title. Backups for people who don’t know is like little short stories included after a main book has finished. But they are released in parts together.



This series is being relaunched as a main book by the same author. It is only just started, but the plot is that a Kryptonian virus is killing normal human beings. It seems to have some tie to Power Girl’s Krypton. If Power Girl can’t figure out what is happening, more humans will die and the Superman family of this Earth will take the blame.

 

My reading copy came by way of the Hoopla App and the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2023

Friday, December 29, 2023

Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – FALL BY TRACY CLARK

 Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – FALL BY TRACY CLARK

A Writer's Life....Caroline Clemmons: A Bride for Gideon: The Proxy Brides Book 16 by Caroline Clemmons

A Writer's Life....Caroline Clemmons: A Bride for Gideon: The Proxy Brides Book 16 by C...: A Bride for Gideon:  The Proxy Brides Book 16 by Caroline Clemmons Amazon Buy Link Book Blurb: Keira desperately wants to belong somewhere G...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Working Girl Blues: The Life and Music of Hazel Dickens by Hazel Dickens and Bill C. Malone

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SleuthSayers: Let Them Want More

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The Rap Sheet: Adrian McKinty’s Forgotten Early Works

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Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: HOLIDAY HOMICIDE BY RUFUS KING

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Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: TOM SWIFT AND HIS OCEAN AIRPORT

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FFB Review: Delusion in Death: In Death Series by J.D. Robb


Lieutenant Eve Dallas of the NYPSD has seen a lot of bad things, but nothing at all like this as Delusion in Death by J.D. Robb begins. The scene in the bar, On the Rocks, in Manhattan Lower West Side is a bloodbath.

 

Literally.

 

There is blood everywhere and dead bodies, scattered everywhere with some top of others, as some sort of frenzied deal went on with very few survivors. In a matter of minutes, over 80 people died as they fought hand to hand and did everything they could to kill each other. Friends turned on friends, coworkers turned on each other, and the results are a nightmare for Dallas, Detective Peabody, and others that have to go inside the destroyed place and work a massive case of savage carnage.

 

Of course, Roarke owns the place, and that means he is involved. Was this aimed at Roarke? Was it terrorism aimed at the City? Was it something else?

 

With Roarke involved that also means that eventually Roarke’s butler, and everything, Summerset is involved. As longtime readers know, Dallas and Summerset, are like oil and water. They don’t mix well and have a grudging tolerance of each other with Roarke as their focus. But, in this case and as has happened before a couple of times, Summerset is a huge help because he has seen quite a few things in his many years.

 

Summerset has had a long and checkered life including experiences during the “Urban Wars.” A period where there was incredible strife, civil unrest, and terrorism as mankind did to each other as it always does-- kill on a large scale. Summerset knows of two very similar sounding incidents during that period. One was in South Kensington, an area of London. That was followed by another event in Rome a few weeks later.

 

The military and the politicians covered it all up and nobody knows who or what was behind it all. She asks Summerset to reach out to his old contacts and see if anybody, all these years later, might have an idea what is going on now. While Eve Dallas wonders if somebody is trying to resurrect the old terrorist group, Red Horse, or something else is happening, it isn’t long before the federal agency, Homeland, is involved. The race is on as Dallas and others chase an elusive suspect who won’t stop with just one demonstration.

 

A fast moving read, Delusion in Death, unspools a gripping read. All the usual caveats apply with the head hopping and such, but those quickly fall away as the author once again pulls the reader deep into a police procedural set in the future where people still kill for all the usual reasons. The tools of cops and killers are different, but humanity does what it does.

 

I also still want an auto-chef, Roarke’s library, and maybe my own Summerset.


 

My reading copy came by way of the Libby/OverDrive App and the Dallas Public Library System. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023

 

Thursday, December 28, 2023

Coming Soon


Coming soon and featuring tales that first appeared elsewhere and are published again here. Crimeucopia - Say It Again includes my strange tale, "Visions of Reality."

https://www.amazon.com/Crimeucopia-Say-Again-Various-Authors/dp/1909498548

Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

 Lesa's Book Critiques: WHAT ARE YOU READING?

Jerry's House of Everything: THE SHADOW: DEATH HOUSE RESCUE (SEPTEMBER 9. 1937)

Jerry's House of Everything: THE SHADOW: DEATH HOUSE RESCUE (SEPTEMBER 9. 1937): Orson Welles plays the shadowy presence who knows what evil lurks in the hearts of men.  Young family man Paul Gordon, with a very ill daugh...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: 2024 Radio Bristol Book Club

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: 2024 Radio Bristol Book Club:   Have you caught the Radio Bristol Book Club ?   Each month the  Birthplace of Country Music  and the  Bristol Public Library  come togethe...

Wednesday, December 27, 2023

Lesa's Book Critiques: KEVIN’S CORNER ANNEX – RESURRECTION WALK BY MICHAEL CONNELLY

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Jungle Red Writers: Bring it, 2024 -- And by "it" I mean BOOKS!

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Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 86 Calls for Submissions in January 2024 - Paying Markets

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Beneath the Stains of Time: At the Sign of the Clove and Hoof (1937) by Zoë Johnson

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Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: More Christmas Stories

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Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday: The Wife on Ambien, Ed Park

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Short Story Wednesday Review: Guns Of Brixton by Paul D. Brazill


From the massive archive…

 

Getting good help is always a problem whether in the real world at the store or repair shop, or in the fictional world. Kenny Rogan and Big Jim Lawson were supposed to go get a brief case from a man known as Half Pint Harry Hebb. Now, his name could be changed to Brainless Half-Pint Harry Hebb as Big Jim just used a sawed-off shotgun to permanently change the man’s cognitive skills in a highly negative way. While Big Jim considers the matter “a little accident” Kenny vehemently disagrees and understands the catastrophe that has befallen the duo.

 

Half-Pint Harry Hebb was a key player with the local underworld. Considering the fact that Mad Tony Cook sent them to get the now slightly damaged stainless-steel briefcase he is not going to be pleased at all that a man of Half-Pint Harry Hebb’s stature is now dead. Once they turn over the briefcase their fates are pretty much sealed. Of course, if Kenny and Big Jim can get rid of the body on their own and make it all go away with no one the wiser, then they should be good. And they can get rid of the body as part of a trip they have planned to do an independent job of their own.

 

Anyone who pays attention at any level to the world of politics, religion, crime, and other humans’ endeavors should be well aware that the cover up is always a worse disaster than the original crime. Such is the case here in Guns of Brixton when the effects of a few minutes in a Landon garage ripple far afield from Kenny, Big Jim, and the departed Half-Pint Harry Hebb. For all involved it is going to be an odd and often violent start to the New Year.

 

Like a lot of the Paul D. Brazill’s excellent stories there are a large number of cultural references at work in this twisting crime yarn. Many become clear in time via the context of the story through one does get the feeling one is missing a point or joke here and there. What is clear regardless of your personal familiarity with the cultural references is that humor is prevalent in this read as is plenty of serious violence and action in a noir style tale that gets bigger and bigger as the novella works toward the conclusion.

 

Much like his very good A Case of Noir much is at work in Guns of Brixton making the read well worth your time and money.

 

 

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

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2015, 2023

 

Tuesday, December 26, 2023

Lesa's Book Critiques: IRISH MILKSHAKE MURDER

 Lesa's Book Critiques: IRISH MILKSHAKE MURDER

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 43 Writing Contests in January 2024 - No entry fees

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Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Christmas All Through the South

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Monday, December 25, 2023

Side Gig

 

Merry Christmas

 

Hope it was a good one for you and yours....

Beneath the Stains of Time: Murder in Retrospect: The Best and Worst of 2023

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Bitter Tea and Mystery: Winter Solstice: Rosamunde Pilcher

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Markets and Jobs for Writers 12/25/2023

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Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Hardcastle’s Actress by Graham Ison


Graham Ison spent 30 years in the Special Branch at Scotland Yard and then four years at 10 Downing Street as Protection Officer to two Prime Ministers. Thus equipped with a uniquely specialized background, he began writing crime fiction. His Brock and Poole, Tommy Fox, and Gaffney and Tipper series are all contemporary. His Hardcastle series is set during World War I. One article about Ison says he turned to historical crime fiction when his contemporary police procedurals could not keep up with the changes in real-life policing, thus rendering his books inaccurate before they were published. See the article in Shots, http://www.shotsmag.co.uk/feature_view.aspx?FEATURE_ID=232

Hardcastle’s Actress (Severn House, 2007) is the fifth book featuring Ernest Hardcastle, Division Detective Inspector in charge of the Criminal Investigation Unit of Whitehall Division of the London Metropolitan Police. The Hardcastle family is happily preparing to sit down to its 1914 Christmas Day goose when a messenger from Scotland Yard arrives with an urgent summons from the detective chief inspector of the CID. Mrs. Hardcastle is considerably put out but Hardcastle leaves promptly to learn he’s to go to Windsor to investigate the murder of a young woman whose body was found in the Great Park that morning. Hardcastle ruins Detective Sergeant Charles Marriott’s Christmas by requesting his assistance.

The dead woman was an actress who had been part of a troupe appearing at a local theatre. She was the star performer and supported the war effort by encouraging members of the audience to step up and enlist after the show. In addition to the military men hanging around the stage door, hoping to take her to dinner, she’d also been getting anonymous letters, some proposing marriage. Hardcastle felt he would not have far to look for her killer.

The story is rich with period detail. Set in the early days of the war, the English people were just starting to realize what they were in for. Casualties were pouring in and the impact of loss was beginning to be felt. Ison does a great job in portraying how little ordinary folk cared about international politics. The police procedures of the time are well documented as well. Automobiles were still a rarity then, and the police had to conduct a stakeout with a horse-drawn carriage.

Hardcastle is an admirable series lead. He is a curmudgeon while thoroughly professional. Marriott is a good foil, knowing when to argue with Hardcastle and when to be silent. The frequent use of Cockney rhyming slang, while no doubt an accurate reflection of the usage of the time, sent me to an online dictionary repeatedly.

A fine piece of historical crime fiction. Recommended especially for fans of World War I mysteries.

 

·         Publisher: Severn House (August 1, 2007)

·         Language: English

·         Hardcover: 216 pages

·         ISBN-10: 0727865153

·         ISBN-13: 978-0727865151

 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023

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

Sunday, December 24, 2023

Little Big Crimes: A Right Jolly Old Elf, by Joseph S. Walker

Little Big Crimes: A Right Jolly Old Elf, by Joseph S. Walker:   "A Right Jolly Old Elf," by Joseph S. Walker, Black Cat Weekly , #120, 2023. This is the eleventh story by my friend  to grace ...

Jerry's House of Everything: A CHRISTMAS EVE GHOST STORY: THE STALLS OF BARCHESTER CATHEDRAL

Jerry's House of Everything: A CHRISTMAS EVE GHOST STORY: THE STALLS OF BARCHE...: One of the most noted authors of the classic British ghost story was scholar and antiquinarian Montague Rhodes James, who would often read h...

26th Annual Critters Readers Poll Opened -- Best Review Site


After claiming the title of “Best Review Site” three years running, I decided to not submit Kevin’s Corner or run last year in the Annual Critters Readers’ Poll. I then regretted that decision for the next few weeks as so many commented on my blog, on various social media platforms, and by email that I should have run again. 


I was also repeatedly and vehemently told not to shut down the blog and that it provides a major service to mystery readers as well as readers in general. That support that was expressed then, as well as several other times over this past year, is the only reason why I have kept the blog going. 

 

So, with the 26th Annual Critters Readers' Poll now open, I have placed Kevin’s Corner in the running in the Review site category.  If you think the blog is worthy, please vote at https://critters.org/predpoll/reviewsite.shtml

 

After you vote, make sure you respond to the confirmation email and registers your vote so that it is counted.

 

As always, we will be going up against a number of review sites have teams of reviewers and are active in many genres across multiple forms of media. Most of them host book giveaways and other events as well. This site remains an underdog as always because we do not have all the bells and whistles that other sites have to drive traffic to them.

 

If you think we are worthy of your vote, please go cast your vote today. Remember, you have to respond to the confirmation email for your vote to count.

 

On behalf of Aubrey Hamilton, Barry Ergang, Jeanne of the BPL, Scott, and the numerous guests that have visited the blog during 2023, and myself, thank you for your support.

 

Kevin

Saturday, December 23, 2023

Saturday Evening Humor

 


Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of December 24, 2023

 Dru's Book Musings: New Releases ~ Week of December 24, 2023

Scott's Take: Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths by Joshua Williamson

 

Dark Crisis on Infinite Earths by Joshua Williamson (Author), Daniel Sampere (Illustrator) collects the main titles for this event. The tie ins which are referenced throughout the book in little dialog boxes saying go to this boor or that to continue the plot thread are not collected here.

 

In this event, the most of the members of Justice League are murdered. With every villain on the planet knowing the Justice League is dead, the bad guys have declared open season on every remaining hero. Deathstroke is leading an army of villains with one simple mission--- kill every hero. It’s up to the sidekicks and legacy heroes to save the world. Led by Nightwing and Superman’s son, can the remaining heroes protect the planet?

 

Featuring heroes like Supergirl, Black Adam, Damian Wayne,  Hal Jordan (one of the few big name justice league members who survived as he was not part of the current team), and others,  the spotlight is on the lower profile heroes than the usual main heroes of the DC Universe. The art is epic and really showcased in the massive number of great fights. Early on readers are treated to Nightwing going hand to hand with Deathstorke as well as Jon Kent having to face off with Cyborg Superman. Those are just two of the early fights that are featured in this book.

 

There are also some really emotional moments like Nightwing leading a candle light vigil for the fallen heroes while Supergirl holds Lois Lane up. Or when Hal Jordan learns that all of his friends are dead after returning from outer space and looking for his former teammates. The return of another superhero team that has not been used in a long time is handled incredibly well.

 

The plot is rushed a bit in this stand alone read. The tie ins are where they really let the events breath better. Overall, this is a pretty cool event book if you like the lower profile heroes with cool cameos with various smaller heroes like Frankstein (yes, that Frankstein) and more. 


 

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

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2023 

Friday, December 22, 2023

A Writer's Life....Caroline Clemmons: Angel for Christmas by Caroline Clemmons

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Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Flight of the Reindeer: The True Story of Santa Claus

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Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: CRIME FOR CHRISTMAS BY C. H. B. KITCHIN

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Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: HER DESERT LOVER: A LOVE STORY

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FFB Review: Spirit Of Steamboat: A Walt Longmire Story by Craig Johnson

 

With Christmas coming Monday, it seemed a good time to remind you of this very good seasonally appropriate read. 

 

The Tuesday before Christmas brings snow, relative quiet, and no real plans for Sheriff Walt Longmire other than his annual rereading of A Christmas Carol. That is until the quiet dark-haired woman toting a garment bag walked into his office. Eventually it becomes clear that she wants to see the former Sheriff, Lucian Connally. The woman claims to have something that she would like to return to him.

 

Lucian is living at the “Durant Home for Assisted Living” and could probably use a visit from somebody besides Sheriff Walt Longmire and Dog. Not only is the home’s television another victim of Lucian’s legendary temper having died by gunshot, the man is not in the best of moods because it is Christmas and he has been drinking quite a bit. He has no idea who the mystery woman is either until she says “Steamboat.”

 

What follows is an incredibly suspenseful flashback tale of a flight to save a child’s life against the odds---medical and environmental. On Christmas Eve in 1988 an aging WWII plane and a cast of locals including the recently retired Lucian and first year Sheriff Walt Longmire pulled off a Christmas miracle. Though readers can surmise from nearly the start that the dark-haired woman was that child, there is plenty of suspense in how the flight happened and why she is back now.

 

While Spirit of Steamboat: A Walt Longmire Story is a short book as it is a novella, it is a powerful and deeply moving book. Craig Johnson brings alive the storm, the people, and the history of a legendary aircraft in a way that few novelists could do. The resulting 160-page book might simply be the best thing the man has ever written.

 

You can, and should, also read Lesa Holstine's 2020 take on the book here.



Material supplied by the good folks of the Plano Texas Public Library System. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2013, 2017, 2021, 2023


Wednesday, December 20, 2023

Shalom Auslander's Fetal Position: Pictures of People in Straw Hats Writing in Sun-Dappled Fields

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Dark City Underground: REVIEW: "O LITTLE TOWN OF DONUTS" BY RON PEER WITH MITZI LYNTON

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Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday "The Possibility of Evil" Shirley Jackson

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George Kelly: WEDNESDAY’S SHORT STORIES #155: NO ONE WILL COME BACK FOR US by Premee Mohamed

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Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE SPECTRE-BARBER

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Short Story Wednesday Review: The Empty Manger by Bill Crider


As we roll towards Christmas 2023, I thought for this Short Story Wednesday I would offer you a seasonal repeat. It seemed fitting.

 

Back a number of years ago, I first heard about The Empty Manager by Bill Crider when Ben Boulden mentioned his 2008 review of the same over on his Gravetapping Blog. It wasn’t available via eBook or at my local library so Bill Crider sent me a copy from his own personal library. I reviewed it here on the blog late December 2014. I mentioned in here again in December 2016 and again in 2019. I had planned to read the other novellas in the book and still have not managed to do that. Life tended to laugh and interfere with my plans on this and quite a number of other things. So it goes. Though I have not managed to get the job done, my advice remains the same as it was then—if you can get your hands on the book, do so.

 

Sheriff Dan Rhodes can’t remember it ever snowing in Blacklin County on Christmas. It certainly didn’t look like it would happen this year with daytime temperatures in the upper 60’s and low 40’s at night. Typical weather for the area residents of the county located in East Texas, but not conducive to the postcard winter wonderland so many long for at this time of year.

 

Like a lot of small Texan towns-- and elsewhere for that matter-- the downtown area of Clearview has a number of vacant buildings in various states of disrepair. Some of the vacant buildings are in very bad shape. Shoppers were drawn away to the nearby Wal-Mart or one of the big new grocery stores and local businesses closed leaving the buildings to decay and rot. City council member Jerri Laxton had been pushing plans to restore the grandeur of the downtown area.

 

One of her ideas was to get some of the local high school students to paint a mural on one of the walls of a downtown building. Some of the local religious leaders convinced all that in the spirit of the season the mural should be of a manger with a brilliant star hanging over it. Somebody else came up with the plan to have members of the local Baptist congregation play the parts of Joseph, Mary, wise men, and the shepherds with a doll standing in for the baby Jesus. After all, the risk with a real baby as part of the outside scene would be too high.

 

It was a very good thing that a doll was used because, according to Francis Blair, somebody stole baby Jesus. She is very upset that somebody would do that. She might be more upset if she knew there was a dead body in the alley behind the building.

 

While Rhodes never drinks a Dr Pepper----though he does talk about it---- and he never eats any crackers, he does actively work the cases. Any Rhodes story is a good one and this one is no exception. The novella, The Empty Manger by Bill Crider is well worth the effort to get your hands on the book, Murder, Mayhem, And Mistletoe. Crider’s story is one of four novellas in the book that also contains works from Terence Faherty, Aileen Schumacher, and Wendi Lee.

 

 

Material supplied by the author so that I could read and review.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2014, 2016, 2019, 2023


Tuesday, December 19, 2023

Lesa's Book Critiques: THE LAW: A DRESDEN FILES NOVELLA BY JIM BUTCHER

 Lesa's Book Critiques: THE LAW: A DRESDEN FILES NOVELLA BY JIM BUTCHER

Beneath the Stains of Time: Not a Ghost to Be Found: "The Name on the Window" (1951) by Edmund Crispin

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SleuthSayers: The Best Private Eye Stories of the Year

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Review: Blood Relations: A DS Ryan McBride Novel by J. Woollcott

 

It is several months after events in A Nice Place to Die as Blood Relations: A DS Ryan McBride Novel by J. Woollcott begins and the scene is bad. Detective Sergeant Ryan McBride and others have come this April day to Hungry Hall, a rundown country house near Antrium. It was the home of Patrick Mullen. Now he has been found very much dead in his bedroom in a scene that has shaken a number of officers.

 

Mullen was a retired Chief Inspector and a legend- for good and bad reasons. Ryan’s new boss, Inspector Whelan, believes that the killing has to be the work of somebody connected to one of Mullen’s old cases. McBride isn’t so sure as the intensity of the crime scene means he thinks it is personal and wants to focus on family and friends. Whelan says no and tells him to look at past cases. This will become an ongoing issue as Whelan does everything to micromanage his case, including putting him on the clock.  Of course, some of her need to control is being the new boss and trying to get credit to move up the ladder, but some of it no doubt goes back to when both first joined the police and became rivals to a certain extent. As his old boss discovered, it is best to let McBride do his thing and get out of the way as he closes cases.

 

What follows is a complicated read. Several secondary storylines introduced in the first book continue as characters continue to evolve and relationships change. The case also generates additional new and very interesting subplots. Those situations play a comfortable background medley to a complicated murder case and other crimes.

 

Much is going on in Blood Relations: A DS Ryan McBride Novel and the result is a complicated multi-dimensional read that works in all aspects. A book and a series that I never would have heard about if not for Aubrey’s recent review.

 

This is a series that builds on the previous book, A Nice Place To Die. Highly recommended.

 

 

My reading copy came by way of the publisher, Level Best Books, and NetGalley.

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2023

Monday, December 18, 2023

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Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Twilight Queen by Jeri Westerson


Jeri Westerson wrote fifteen mysteries about Crispin Guest, the social pariah and former English knight who in 1383 strikes out on a new career as a private investigator. Now she has given her attention to the court of Henry VIII, which one might think has been thoroughly explored. However, Westerson has turned the slight historical references to Will Somers, the court jester, into a real person and the center of a new mystery series.

In the second book The Twilight Queen, to be released in January by Severn House, some time has lapsed since Will’s debut. The court is in a quiet uproar, as Henry is losing interest in Anne Boleyn, the woman he defied the Catholic Church to marry. Anne has failed to produce a son, and Henry is starting to look around the court for her replacement, a scant three years after their marriage. Some are pleased, as Anne made enemies on her way up and they are eager to engineer her downfall. Others, like Will Somers, are appalled at Henry’s treatment of his first wife, Catherine of Aragon, and now fear a similar fate, or worse, is waiting for Anne.

Within this hot bed of political treachery, Anne issues an urgent summons to Will. He finds her in her chambers, where she shows him a dead man near her bed. She doesn’t know him and believes the body has been placed in her room to discredit her with the king. She begs Will to take him away and find out who is trying to damage her reputation. Thus Will embarks on his second investigation.

Will is a fascinating character with an innate sense of fairness and decency. He tries to persuade Henry not to abandon Anne so readily, drawing the wrath of some of Anne’s enemies who are working to remove her. Westerson has drawn a vivid and frightening portrait of a court ruled by an unstable egomaniac, where anyone within the king’s sphere could be knighted or beheaded with equal ease and with as little cause.

Will has a far more adventurous love life than a respectably married man should have. The book is as much about his romances as it is about his budding career as a detective. His long-suffering wife holds her own in their marriage, as well as any woman could at that time. How their relationship evolves will be interesting to watch as the series unfolds.

For fans of well-written and well-researched historical mysteries. Recommended.

·         Publisher: Severn House; Main edition (January 2, 2024)

·         Language: English

·         Hardcover: 224 pages

·         ISBN-10: 1448310903

·         ISBN-13: 978-1448310906


 


Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2023


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