Tuesday, February 17, 2026
Mystery Fanfare: CHINESE NEW YEAR MYSTERIES: Year of the Horse
Mystery Fanfare: CHINESE NEW YEAR MYSTERIES: Year of the Horse: 恭賀發財 Gung Hay Fat Choy! This is the Year of the Horse. To celebrate the Chinese New Year , I've updated my list of mysteries that take ...
SleuthSayers: Red Herrings Can Still Stink
SleuthSayers: Red Herrings Can Still Stink: Five years ago, I ran the following column, which had the most views of all my SleuthSayers essays published before and since then. It there...
Jerry's House of Everything: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: BAD ACTOR (JANUARY 9, 1962)
Jerry's House of Everything: ALFRED HITCHCOCK PRESENTS: BAD ACTOR (JANUARY 9,...: We lost one of America's greatest actors this week. Even before his noted portrayal of Boo Radley in his first film, To Kill a Mocking...
Review: Diversion: A Probation Case Files Mystery by Cindy Goyette
Diversion: A Probation Case Files
Mystery
is the third book in the highly enjoyable series that began with Obey
All Laws. While you could start here, it would be best to read that
book and the second one, Early
Termination,
before embarking on this read. There are backstory and character development
aspects in this read that build on storylines of the previous books.
Pulled from very boring mandatory staff
training, Phoenix probation officer Casey Carson teams up with Betz, her
ex-husband and cop, to pay a visit to one Martin Phills as the read begins. He
is a murder suspect and hasn’t been on parole supervision long. Her plan is to tell
him she needs to conduct the usual home visit. Her home is that with his guard down,
Betz and his partner, Anita Moody can get the double murder suspect in custody
before he knows what hit him.
For Casey Carson, it is her last day
before she takes a vacation. Not that her time off is really going to be that
relaxing or even a vacation. She is going to go on a diversion program to
support her sister, Hope, on her new job. (What happened is just one of several
reasons to read the earlier books, so I am not telling you why.) the program is
aimed to help kids with issues better ways of getting high on life instead of
drugs and alcohol. They will be hiking in the mountains around Flagstaff and on
their own.
Because Martin Phillips is very much
armed at the time of custody, as well as his violently resisting arrest, it
should be easy to keep him in custody, regardless of how the murder
investigation pans out. She can go on vacation secure in the knowledge that everything
is handled.
It does not take long for everything on
the diversion program vacation has gone wrong in every way possible. Casey Carson,
Hope, and others face a lack of supplies, an out-of-control wildfire, and,
among other issues, a killer who wants what he wants and is stalking one of
them order to get it.
An interesting and fast-moving read, Diversion:
A Probation Case Files Mystery by Cindy Goyette is also a mighty good
book and well worth your time. This read is published by Level Best Books, as
are the earlier installments of the series.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: ????????? The publisher still does not have this up at Amazon.
My digital ARC came by way of the author
with no expectation of a review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Monday, February 16, 2026
The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers: 2-16-26
Always amazed to make the list. My review of The Hadacol Boogie: A Dave Robicheaux Novel by James Lee Burke gets the roundup started this time.
Mystery Fanfare: PRESIDENTIAL MYSTERIES: Presidents Day
Mystery Fanfare: PRESIDENTIAL MYSTERIES: Presidents Day: I usually post a Presidential Mysteries list for Presidents Day, a nd I have to say once again I thought about not posting this year, but...
In Reference to Murder: Media Murder for Monday
In Reference to Murder: Media Murder for Monday: It's the start of a new week and that means it's time for a brand-new roundup of crime drama news: THE BIG SCREEN/MOVIES Magnolia ...
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Carousel of Time by Bernard O’Keeffe
The
Carousel of Time by Bernard O’Keeffe, the fifth book in the DI Jim
Garibaldi series, will be released in the UK by Muswell Press on 19 February
2026. Unfortunately the books are not yet published in the US.
All of the
books are set in Barnes, that upscale suburb southwest of London, where the
Barnes Fair is always held on the second Saturday in July. Games, stalls
staffed by local nonprofit groups, food of all kinds, and rides are plentiful.
This year, though, murder taints the event. Shelley Granger, a local resident
and owner of a popular card and gift shop, is found dead with a severe head
wound near the carousel the morning after the fair.
DI Garibaldi
and DS Milly Gardner learn that the victim had spent the last day of her life
at the fair, working at various stalls. In the late afternoon she met school
friends in a years-old ritual to remember their school friend who died the year
they graduated by riding the carousel, which Esther had loved. Granger had last
been seen at a post-fair party, another annual ritual, attended by dozens of
Barnes residents. Surprisingly, CCTV cameras were not set up around the fair,
so Garibaldi and Gardner had to piece together the dead woman’s movements the
hard way: through interviews.
Everyone said
that the victim was well liked, had no disagreements with anyone, and her shop
was profitable with a strong repeat customer base. Careful questioning and
cross-questioning yielded information to the contrary. Granger was upset that
her university son had joined a group of activists known for defacing
businesses and they had loud arguments about it. She had also developed a line
of anonymous cards that offered critical comments about the recipient and
apparently she had been sending some of them. For instance, the local would-be
star of the drama society received one that called her “No Talent”. The school
friends all said the group was on excellent terms with each other but Garibaldi
felt they were withholding information. So instead of no suspects in the
murder, there are many.
Garibaldi’s
penchant for obscure information lets O’Keeffe work in plenty of detail and
history about carousels, such as those carousels with horses that move up and
down are more properly called “gallopers”. Horses remain stationary on true
carousels.
A traditional
detective, Garibaldi reminds me of Inspector C. D. Sloan of the Calleshire
Chronicles by Catherine Aird. Patient and persistent, although Sloan is not
given to the pedantic asides that pepper Garibaldi’s conversation. And Milly
Gardner is far preferable to Constable Crosby, that traffic cop wannabe. Still,
there’s a similar feel to the books.
Recommended
for fans of character-driven police procedurals with equally strong plots.
·
Publisher: Muswell Press
·
Publication date: February 19, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 336 pages
·
ISBN-13: 978-1068684494
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2026
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal
It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, February 15, 2026
Little Big Crimes: The Right to Lose, by Wil Medearis
Little Big Crimes: The Right to Lose, by Wil Medearis: "T he Right to Lose," by Wil Medearis, in Tennis Noir, edited by John Shepphird, Level Best Books, 2026. It's unusual when m...
Mystery Fanfare: MARDI GRAS MYSTERIES
Mystery Fanfare: MARDI GRAS MYSTERIES: Mardi Gras aka Carnivale . Whatever you call it, it's a great setting for Murder ! Busy streets, crowds, costumes, drinking .. m...
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Ring of Innocent (1952) by Brian Flynn
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Ring of Innocent (1952) by Brian Flynn: Brian Flynn 's The Ring of Innocent (1952), the fortieth title in the Anthony Bathurst series, begins with Martin Scudamore going to se...
Guest Post: Excerpt from Something Prowling in Paradise Park: A Kate Tessler Amateur Sleuth Mystery by Kris Bock
Please welcome back author Kris Bock to the blog
today with an excerpt from her new mystery, Something Prowling in Paradise
Park: A Kate Tessler Amateur Sleuth Mystery. This is the seventh book in The
Accidental Detective Mystery Series. Published by Tule Publishing, this
book is scheduled to be released on March 2nd in eBook format.
In The Accidental Detective humorous mystery
series by Kris Bock, a witty
journalist solves mysteries in Arizona and tackles the challenges of turning
fifty. Something Prowling in Paradise Park: A
Kate Tessler Amateur Sleuth Mystery
(Book 7) is out March 2!
Three cases. One body. Zero
chance of staying out of trouble.
Kate Tessler may have
thought her days of chasing danger were over. But the former war
correspondent’s “retirement” in sunny Paradise, Arizona, is anything but quiet.
With her eccentric circle of friends and colleagues, Kate has built a new
life—full of mysteries, mayhem, and the occasional stakeout—as she works
towards earning her PI license.
After wrapping her last case,
Kate wonders what’s next when three cases—all brought by friends—fall into
her lap. Squatters in a snowbird’s house, local pedigree dogs disappearing, and
smash and grab burglaries at local pot shops. Kate juggles the cases with help
from her usual cast of amateur crime solvers, including the teen sons of
Paradise’s mayor. As she digs, Kate suspects at least two cases are
connected.
But things turn deadly when a
late-night stakeout leads Kate and one teen sidekick, interested in
investigative work, straight to a body. Was it a gruesome accident—or something
far more sinister?
With humor and high
stakes, The Accidental Detective mysteries prove that
danger and friendship don’t retire quietly.
Learn
more about The
Accidental Detective humorous mystery series, or go
straight to the order link for Something Prowling in Paradise Park.
Excerpt:
Sleuth
sisters Kate and Jen are investigating squatters who have taken over Bob and
Leslie’s house.
We returned to Bob and Leslie’s neighborhood
and followed the winding streets. As we came around a curve, we got a clear
view of the Standish house.
“Uh-oh.” I leaned forward to see better.
Bob and Leslie stood on the front lawn of
their house. Bob and a bearded guy were yelling at each other, faces close and
body language one step from violence. Another man stood about ten feet away,
watching them, and a woman I didn’t recognize stood in the open doorway of the
Standish house.
Jen pulled the car to the curb. “Do we care
if they see us?”
“Yeah, if we want to surveil them later. You
guys stay here.” I got out. I’d long since learned that most people couldn’t
tell one short, gray-haired woman from another.
Bob and the bearded guy were yelling over
each other. I did catch the word police from Bob, and “Just try it” from
the other guy.
I went up to Leslie. “What on earth
happened?”
She dropped her hand from her mouth. “We
thought we’d go over while they were gone, throw out their stuff, bar the door.
But that woman was inside.” She shot a furious look at the woman watching the
action, wearing a bathrobe and a smug look. “She’s wearing my bathrobe. I tried
to take it off her.”
I winced. “That was probably not the most
useful thing you could do.”
“I was so mad. Bob tried to drag her out of
the house, but she struggled like a cat getting a bath. We’d barely made it to
the front door when the men came back. So much for getting in there and
defending our territory from them.”
“Yeah.” I wanted to point out that they’d
asked for our help but weren’t taking our advice. The least they could do was
give us time to make a plan that used logic and didn’t break any laws—or at
least any laws that we were likely to get caught breaking. They didn’t seem to
realize that even if the squatters were in the wrong, Bob and Leslie couldn’t
legally do violent things to them.
The most we could do now was diffuse the
conflict. And maybe get going on this case quickly before Bob did something
regrettable.
“Okay, we need to get those names and see
what we can learn about them. And you two need to go back to Odelia’s or find
someplace else to stay. Keep your heads down for a day or two while we work
this out.”
Her expression turned mulish. “We shouldn’t
have to.”
“I know. Try to have a little patience. Do
you think you can get Bob back there before someone gets hurt?”
She gave a long-suffering sigh and went to
her husband. She finally got his attention by grabbing his arm.
I strolled over to the door. The woman was
about thirty, with stringy brown hair and a thin face. Probably a thin body as
well, but it was hard to tell with the fluffy bathrobe. It had to be over
ninety degrees outside, hardly fluffy bathrobe weather, but cold air poured out
the open door. Most Arizonans set their thermostats relatively high to control
their utility bills, but of course these people weren’t paying those bills.
“Hi, I’m Kate. You must be new in the
neighborhood. I don’t think we’ve met yet.”
She gave a cautious nod. “Rita.”
“Do you know what all this is about?” I
gestured toward the fighting men.
“Oh, they’re crazy, the old guy and his
wife. We have a rental agreement for this house, but they decided they wanted
to come back to Arizona for the summer, and now they’re trying to kick us out.”
“Really?” I opened my eyes wide. “Wow, that
is unbelievable. But if you have a legal agreement, they can’t boot you out
early, right?”
“They can try. That’s why we have to make
sure one of us is here all the time. They’ve been threatening to change the
locks.” She stared into my eyes, a good sign she was lying, or possibly high.
“That’s what the fight is about. They waited until Jason and Zeb left, and they
came over to, like, throw all our stuff out or something, but I was still
here.”
“So the three of you live here?” I gestured
toward the two younger men.
“My boyfriend”—she nodded toward the younger
guy with the beard—“and his friend.”
Leslie was tugging Bob’s arm without much
success.
“Do you think you could get your boyfriend
to back off before that other man has a heart attack or something? He looks
like he’s about to keel over.” Actually, while Bob’s face was red, he looked
healthy enough. But younger people were often ready to believe anyone with
white hair was a step from death.
She hesitated a moment, giving me a
suspicious look, and called out, “Jason. Hey, Jason.”
He either couldn’t hear her over Bob’s
bellowing or was too caught up in his own comments. Rita stepped away from the
open door but kept a wary eye on me.
Then Bob threw a punch. It was slow and
clumsy. Jason dodged easily, but Rita rushed over there as Leslie started
screaming.
I took that opportunity to slip through the
open door. I didn’t want to get in the middle of a physical fight over who
could access the house, and a physical fight wouldn’t end things anyway if the
squatters stuck to their story and had a forged rental agreement. But since
they’d provided a nice distraction, I wouldn’t pass up the chance for a quick
look around. Maybe I’d find some useful evidence.
Amazon
Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3M89nil
Kris Bock©2026
Kris Bock writes novels of mystery, suspense, and
romance, many with outdoor adventures and Southwestern landscapes. Her Furrever
Friends Sweet Romance series features the employees and customers at a cat
café. Her romantic suspense novels featuring treasure hunting, archaeology, and
intrigue in the Southwest are perfect for fans of Mary Stewart or Barbara
Michaels. Learn more. As Chris Eboch, she
writes for young people, including ghostwriting for popular children’s
mystery series. The Eyes of Pharaoh, a middle grade
mystery set in ancient Egypt, brings the past to life as three friends
investigate a plot against Pharaoh.
Saturday, February 14, 2026
The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: More Recent Publications from the Short Mystery Fiction Society
The Short Mystery Fiction Society Blog: More Recent Publications from the Short Mystery Fi...: Still hiding out from the cold? Got some time before the next Olympics event you plan to watch? What better way to spend your time than with...
KRL Update
Up on KRL this week a review and giveaway of another fun food mystery, "May Contain Murder" by Orlando Murrin, along with a yummy recipe from Orlando for your Valentine's Day celebration, and beyond https://kingsriverlife.com/02/14/may-contain-murder-by-orlando-murrin/
And a review and giveaway of "A Field Guide to Murder" by Michelle Cullen along with an interesting interview with Michelle https://kingsriverlife.com/02/14/a-field-guide-to-murder-by-michelle-l-cullen/
And a review and giveaway of "No One Would Do What the Lamberts Have Done" by Sophie Hannah https://kingsriverlife.com/02/14/no-one-would-do-what-the-lamberts-have-done-by-sophie-hannah/
We also have a mystery short story by Gregory Meece. This one involves the Olympics, so now seemed like a perfect time to publish it https://kingsriverlife.com/02/14/mystery-short-story-just-desserts/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review of "Watch Us Fall" by Christina Kovac https://www.krlnews.com/2026/02/watch-us-fall-by-christina-kovac.html
Happy reading and Happy Valentine's Day!
Lorie
--
Kings River Life Magazine https://KingsRiverLife.com
KRL News & Reviews https://www.krlnews.com/
Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast https://mysteryratsmaze.podbean.com/
Mystery Fanfare: SWEETHEART SLEUTHS
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Jerry's House of Everything: BIG TEX #1 (JUNE 1953)
Jerry's House of Everything: BIG TEX #1 (JUNE 1953): Alas, Big Tex wasn;t big enough to make past its first issue. Tex White is new to the town of Gambler's Gulch, which is under the thra...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child: Reacher: The Stories Behind the Stories by Lee Child Reviewed by Jeanne Back a few years ago, Otto Penzler managed to talk his friend ...
Scott's Take: Bug Wars Book One: Lost in the Yard by Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar (Illustrator), Matt Wilson (Colorist), and Becca Carey (Designer)
Bug Wars Book
One: Lost in the Yard by Jason Aaron, Mahmud Asrar (Illustrator), Matt
Wilson (Colorist), and Becca Carey (Designer) is a weird book. I am not sure who the
intended audience is. It’s sort of Game of Thrones-ish, sort of Conan-is,
sort of a lot of fantasy adventure deals. No matter what you try and compare it
to, the deal is told from a kid’s perspective of life among the bugs with bug
worldbuilding pages by his dad. It is weird.
A kid and his
family are forced to move to his deceased dad’s place. Slade has inherited his
father’s love of bugs. Sydney, his brother, has an intense hatred of them and blames them
for the death of their father. During an argument between the two, Slade is
shrunk to the size of a bug and winds up outside the home. He is now stuck in
bug world. A word that is remarkably like his own normal world. He now seeks to
survive, get back to normal size, and return home. He also wants to uncover why
his father died and protect his brother from the bugs vengeance.
There is nudity,
bestiality, violence, cussing, torture, slavery, and way more. This is a very
adult book that, for some reason, stars a child protagonist. It is not ever
clear if he is a pre teen or a little older. The read also comes across to this
reader as two different books stuck together. Some aspects of it seems forced.
The art is
excellent, even though most of the humanoid insects end up looking basically
human except for some minor changes. The world building is interesting, even if
the bug facts were disgusting and made me hate bugs even more. There is a
larger world built up.
Major Spoiler---the
book synopsis claims Slade will uncover the truth about his father’s death.
That does not happen at all. Maybe the sequel will explain. The book raises
more questions than answers.
There will be a
second book and a one shot about the witch spiders released at some point. How
it will be collected has yet to be announced. The title of the second story arc
is The Fellowship of The Fucked-Up. Clearly a play on the Lord
of The Rings series.
Amazon Associate
Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4taWpRB
My paperback
reading copy came from the Vickery Park Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2026
Friday, February 13, 2026
Jerry's House of Everything: A FORGOTTEN BOOK TWOFER
Jerry's House of Everything: A FORGOTTEN BOOK TWOFER: Mike Mars Flies the X-15 by Donald A. Wollheim (1961) Air Force! by Frank Harvey (1959) Two books celebrating the early years of the s...
In Reference to Murder: Mystery Melange
In Reference to Murder: Mystery Melange: The 2026 Pulp Factory Awards finalists have been announced, voted on by members of Pulp Factory, a professional association of pulp writers,...
Thursday, February 12, 2026
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Hit List: Top 10 Favorite Hybrid Mysteries: In 2021, John Pugmire's Locked Room International published Masahiro Imamura's Shijinso no satsujin ( Death Among the Undead , 201...
Thursday Treats: 2/12/2026
Welcome back to “Thursday Treats.” Viewership dropped significantly again, week to week, so maybe this was not the bright idea I thought it was when I started it.
Michael Bracken recently announced that
his short story, Takes the Cake, appears at the “Micromance Magazine Substack.”
You can read it here for free. By
the way, he also announced that the Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir
annual anthology series will continue. He has a new publisher (no word if the
previous volumes will also be republished) and that once he has release dates
for the sixth and seventh books with the new folks, he will put the call out at
his website. http://www.CrimeFictionWriter.com
Authors John M. Floyd, Steve Liskow, Nick
Guthrie and several others appear in Black Cat Weekly #232. This is a weekly
publication featuring short stories and novellas in multiple genres. You can
buy individual issues or one of the far better subscription deals at blackcatweekly.com.
Nick Guthrie also announced that his
short story, The Youth of Today, appears online at the Urban Pigs Press. You
can read it for free here.
Fellow SMFS list member by Justin L. Murphy announced on the list that his true crime book, Ruth Snyder: The Real-Life Murderess Inspiring The Modern Femme Fatale. Available at Amazon in digital form, the book details the 1927 Ruth Snyder case. This is the fourth book in his True Crime series.
Author Kris Bock reached out recently to
me recently to let me know she had another book in her The Accidental
Detective Mystery Series about to come out. Something Prowling in
Paradise Park: A Kate Tessler Amateur Sleuth Mystery comes out on March
2nd in digital format from Thule Publishing. You can preorder it now
on Amazon and other vendors. Make sure you
come to the blog this Sunday as she is contributing a guest post featuring an excerpt
from the new book. Just as she has done for previous book in this series and
her other reads.
Author Tom Milani announced his short
story, Someday You Will, appears at The Yard: Crime Blog. You can read the tale
for free here.
The March/April issue of Alfred
Hitchock’s Mystery Magazine is now out. Authors Kevin Egan, R. T. Lawton,
and others, are in the new issue. Learn more at the website.
So, if AHMM is out, you already
know that the new issue for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine is out. It
is and includes short stories by Ashley-Ruth M. Bernier, David Dean, John M.
Floyd, Robert Lopresti, Josh Pachter, Marilyn Todd, and others. Learn more at
the website.
Author Lois Winston announced that her
latest novel, Embroidered Lies and Alibis, is now out. This is
the 15th book in her long running Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery
Series. You can learn more about the mystery on her website or just go
straight to Amazon and get it in
various formats.
Until next time….
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Wednesday, February 11, 2026
Mystery Fanfare: VALENTINE'S DAY MYSTERIES. //VALENTINE'S DAY CRIME FICTION
Mystery Fanfare: VALENTINE'S DAY MYSTERIES. //VALENTINE'S DAY CRIME...: Although Valentine's Day is all about love, but love and hate are often quite close emotions. Valentine's Day is perfect fo...
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: More Short Stories by the Lockridges
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: More Short Stories by the L...: I read the first few stories in Flair for Murder by Francis & Richard Lockridge in January 2025. Now, over a year later, I have finis...
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: NOBODY LIVES THERE NOW, NOTHING HAPPENS
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: NOBODY LIVES THERE NOW, NO...: "Nobody Lives There Now, Nothing Happens" by Casrol Orlock (from Women of Darkness , edited by Kathryn Ptacek (1988) This short, ...
Jim Nesbitt's Guest Post Review: The Poison Dart by Geri Dreiling
Please welcome back author Jim Nesbitt back to the blog today with his latest guest post review …
The
main character in Geri Dreiling's second mystery novel, The Poison Dart,
isn't a cop or a shamus so she doesn't carry a badge or a gun.
But
Debbie Bradley, an investigative reporter, uses some of the same sly, dogged,
bold, deceitful and sometimes illegal tricks a detective routinely pulls out of
their hat.
Her
lies are smooth and sweet. Her trespassing skills are stealthy and cat-burglar
quick. Her stake-out chops are tenacious and iron-bottom sound. And she's a
master at chasing the social media breadcrumbs that show the connects between
the subjects of her stories.
Best
of all, she takes the reader on a fast-paced ride-along as she shuffles through
her tradecraft tricks to discover the next tendril of an ever-more-dangerous
web of rich-kid heroin addicts, sleazy roadside deadbeats, redneck money mules,
cartel killers and a Mexican family shackled to a network of ruthless drug
traffickers.
Bradley,
known as Crime Beat Girl for her underworld stories in a slick city magazine
and the accompanying podcast that gives her a certain measure of fame, also
takes readers on a tour d'horizon of St. Louis and its satellite towns.
It's
a place where the top two questions everybody asks a stranger are: Where did
you go to high school? And, which parish do you belong to? Yeah, it's a
clannish town more than it is a city, very much focused on its storied past
rather than its threadbare present, and the author takes the perfect snapshots
that show its insular folkways.
There's
a great riff on a St. Louis institution, the Wednesday lunch at St. Raymond's,
the Maronite church just south of downtown that serves as the spiritual home
for the city's Lebanese and Syrian immigrants. It's still a place where deals
are made and pols, cops, mobsters and just plain folks rub elbows.
One
of Bradley's regular podcast guests is a retired cop still known as Captain
Jack Flannery, a renown raconteur who gives listeners -- and readers -- a fast,
colorful summary of the mob wars of the early 1980s between the Mafia, the
Syrian faction and a crew with connections to The Outfit in Chicago. More than
a few tit-for-tat car bombings.
But
this is a sideshow to the book's main event -- Bradley's initial intent to do a
story about rich kids hooked on heroin, centering on the overdose death of a
teen named Caleb Webb, the son of prominent real estate developers and twin
brother to Connor.
This
leads Bradley to Macie Holloway, Caleb's semi-girlfriend who blames herself for
his death because she believes the source of his last heroin hit was someone
she touted. Macie has the gaunt, doom-struck look of heroin addict deeply
depressed about Caleb's death and his constant, spectral presence as a ghost
whispering in her ear.
While
Bradley is worming her way into Macie's confidence, a big drugs-and-money raid takes
place out in the boonies west of St. Louis. At first, this seems like an event
only tangentially related to Caleb's death.
But
as Bradley pulls at the tendrils of this web, it becomes apparent that there's
a direct connection between Caleb's death and the cartel that got stung by the
raid and the murderous boss who runs it, El Duro.
Every
tendril is another step in harm's way. But Bradley is relentless, locked on the
trail of a suddenly far bigger story, refusing to back down, jazzed by the
thrill of the hunt. After all, she's the Crime Beat Girl, a nickname she lives
up to in this terrific novel by Geri Dreiling.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4akwzSn
Jim
Nesbitt ©2026
Jim Nesbitt is the award-winning author of five hard-boiled Texas crime thrillers that feature battered but dogged Dallas PI Ed Earl Burch. The fifth Ed Earl Burch novel, THE FATAL SAVING GRACE, has just been released. Nesbitt was a journalist for more than 30 years, serving as a reporter, editor and roving national correspondent for newspapers and wire services in Alabama, Florida, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Washington, D.C. He now lives in Athens, Alabama, where he is writing his sixth Ed Earl Burch novel, THE PERFECT TRAIN WRECK.
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