Guest Post: Writing “A Sign of the Times” by Tom Milani

 

Please welcome back author Tom Milani to the bog today…

 

Writing “A Sign of the Times”

by Tom Milani

Michael Bracken’s invitation to contribute to Sleuths Just Wanna Have Fun: Private Eyes in the Materialistic Eighties, set the tone for the anthology: “Stories can be funny or humorous or just light-hearted. The cases probably won’t be earth-shattering.” When he asked which historical event I wanted to include in my story, I said the 1984 presidential election. Like a lot of people, I like to root for underdogs, and there were few underdogs bigger than Walter Mondale that election. For the case itself, I decided that the crime would be stolen campaign signs.

My setup was classic: Melody Murphy, a pretty young woman, walks into Steve Kahler’s office, asking for the PI’s help. At the same time, I wanted to play with the tropes. Rather than being a femme fatale, Melody is an earnest volunteer, still trying to decide when to take a stand. Rather than being a cynical PI with a bottle in the desk drawer, Kahler has been on the job barely a year, his office rent subsidized by Nunzio Vitale, his best friend and mentor.

Once I’d established the characters and the circumstances, I knew that the mystery contained two questions: Who was stealing the signs? Why were they being stolen? For Kahler, finding out who was stealing the signs was relatively straightforward. Answering the question of why required some research on my part. I read articles on the campaign and on the issues of the day.

Reagan’s reelection campaign was marked by the president’s optimism—“Morning in America” was the theme of one of his campaign ads. In contrast, Mondale promised to raise taxes. That was something to draw from, but it wasn’t enough. So, I turned to controversy, specifically the Reagan administration’s response to the HIV/AIDS crisis. In this case, the personal turned out to be political.

I hope you enjoy the story, and thanks again to Michael Bracken for the opportunity to be part of this amazing anthology.

 

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Tom Milani ©2025 

Tom Milani (www.tommilani.com) has published short fiction in Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes in the Psychedelic Sixties, Illicit Motions, Janie’s Got a Gun: Crime Fiction Inspired by the Songs of Aerosmith, and Mickey Finn: 21st Century Noir vol. 5, among other places. “Barracuda Backfire” was published in 2024 as Book 4 of Michael Bracken’s Chop Shop series of novellas. His first novel, Places That Are Gone, will be published on May 13, 2025, by Unnerving. 

Review: The Queen City Detective Agency: A Novel by Snowden Wright

  

The Queen City Detective Agency: A Novel by Snowden Wright is set in early 1985 in Meridian, Mississippi. Like an onion, this book is complicated with many layers. Racism, classicism, the Dixie Mafia, and more play major roles in this novel.

 

Turnip Coogan had been facing twenty to life for capital murder when he decided to flee the jail. One of the trustees had left a window open, due to the brutal heat, and Turnip decided to head on out that window. He forgot that the jail was on the roof of the courthouse. Going out that window put him outside on the roof of the building on this blistering hot January day.

 

Trapped on the roof with nowhere to run, his plight becomes a spectacle to all, and a crowd gathers below in downtown Meridian, Mississippi. Known to all as the “Queen’s City” things are on an economic downhill slide no matter where you stand in the city. Being on the roof of the courthouse makes it just a little more apparent.

 

Turnip is also on a downhill slide and he knows it. He knows he has been put in this trap as he, and his well-known connections to the Dixie Mafia, have been used against him. He is a desperate man, powerless against what is happening, and pushed to the edge, literally and figuratively. It is no surprise when he goes off the roof and dies seconds later as gravity finishes the job started long ago.

 

It is just a few hours later when Leonora Coogan, mother of Lewis “Turnip” Coogan, reaches out to Clemetine Baldwin, bi-racial owner of the Queen City Detective Agency to get the people who killed her son.

 

The next day, she and her white partner, Dixon Hicks, drive to Lenora Coogan’s trailer to discuss the situation. By now, everybody for 100 miles around has seen the video of her son crashing to the sidewalk from the roof of the courthouse. She strongly believes that he did not jump to his death.

 

She is sure he was killed because the Dixie Mafia wanted to silence him for what he knew and might say as he faced a possible murder conviction. While she doesn’t know specifics about what her son did for them, she is sure he did some stuff and was important to them, and that they did not want him talking about any of it.

 

While Clem knows that the Dixie Mafia is blamed for anything and everything, she also knows that they sort of exist and are ruthless at times. Mom had no idea what her son did for them and, honestly, did not want to know as she got some good stuff out of his work. That pipeline is cutoff with her son’s death so that factors in, without a doubt, on her request for help now. But she is grieving and needs help, can pay, and despite her subtle and not so subtle racism, Clem agrees to take the case. Afterall, the racism is nothing new and Clem as decades of dealing with it as she was born and raised here and what Lenora is saying is the usual stuff.

 

What follows is a complicated novel where some things, like allegiance to the Confederacy, are proudly displayed, and other things, such as drug use and sexual favors in the jail, are hidden from prying eyes. A complicated crime fiction read, the case and those involved, go through a lot of twists and turns in a book that is well worth your time.

 

One hopes that another book in this series is coming as this one was very good and sets a strong foundation for a possible series.

 

 

For another take on the book, make sure you read Lesa Holstine’s August 2024 review.

Amazon Associates Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4hyiS3T

 

My ARC reading copy came from the publisher, Harper Collins, through NetGalley last summer, with no expectation of a review. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2025

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The 7th Canon by Robert Dugoni

Robert Dugoni has been on my to-read list for awhile. He is a productive and creative author, nominated for every major crime fiction award and winner of several. He is most known for his Tracy Crosswhite police series set in Seattle; the 11^th book will be published in 2025. His first series was a set of legal thrillers with David Sloane and then he dipped into espionage with his Charles Jenkins books. Most recently he has begun a series about Seattle defense attorney Keera Duggan. He has also written several stand-alone thrillers.

The 7^th Canon (Thomas & Mercer, 2016) is one of his stand-alones. It features San Francisco defense attorney Peter Donley, who is suddenly pinch-hitting for his uncle in a murder trial. Not just any murder trial, the priest who set up and ran a controversial shelter for street youths in the sordid Tenderloin district has been accused of killing one of his inmates days before Christmas. The prosecuting attorney is campaigning for the governor’s chair and has a lot riding on a successful conviction. Donley is inexperienced but not so naïve that he doesn’t recognize when the evidence does not add up.

Donley is another fictional lawyer who believes in doing his own research. Most of the book centers on his investigation and his hunt for witnesses and crucial documentation, little of it takes place in a courtroom. The plot is a bit predictable but the characters are outstanding, original and well-rounded. Set in late 1980s San Francisco, not all that long ago, the places and streets mentioned remind the reader that things have changed in the intervening 35 years, as does the lack of references to cell phones and laptop computers. Fans of Dugoni’s other books should not overlook this one. Followers of legal thrillers in general should add it to their reading lists.

·       Publisher: ‎Thomas & Mercer (September 27, 2016)

·       Language: ‎English

·       Paperback: ‎333 pages

·       ISBN-10: ‎1503939421

·       ISBN-13: ‎978-1503939424

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link:  https://amzn.to/4evYbov

  

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024 

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

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