Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Murder on the Red River by Marcie Rendon

Marcie Rendon lives in Minnesota and is a member of the White Earth Anishinabe Nation. She is a playwright and author of both nonfiction and fiction. She is mentioned on Oprah Magazine’s 2020 List of 31 Native American Authors To Read. Her second mystery was nominated for the Mystery Writers of America’s 2020 Sue Grafton Memorial Award. Her first mystery Murder on the Red River (Cinco Puntos Press, 2017) won the Pinckley Women’s Debut Crime Novel Award in 2018 and was shortlisted for the 2018 Western Writers of America Spur Contemporary Novel Award.

Set along the Red River, which creates the Minnesota and North Dakota border, in the early 1970s, this book is as much a story of the abuse of Native American children as it is a conventional mystery. Renee Blackbear was taken away from her mother as a toddler and lived in a succession of white foster homes. When she was eleven years old her foster mother sent her to work in the crop fields. A farm laborer she remained, shooting pool at night and on weekends for extra funds. Her laser-like focus on earning money resulted in the nickname of Cash.

Her only support system was the county sheriff who always looked out for her, starting from the time he removed her from the auto her drunken mother had wrecked. When a farm laborer is found stabbed to death in the county, the sheriff asks her if she can learn the name of the Native American victim. Her investigation takes her to the Red Lake Reservation, more than 100 miles north, where she finds the dead man’s wife and children waiting for his return.

Who killed a harmless itinerant agricultural worker and why occupies Cash’s mind when she’s not in the wheat fields or winning pool tournaments or listening to the sheriff try to convince her to enroll in college. The daily news broadcasts about the Vietnam Conflict from the televisions in the bars Cash visits firmly set the timeframe.

The shameful practice of separating minority children from their parents did not start along the Mexico-United States border. It went on a long time before that in populations of Native Americans. This book relates the details of the mistreatment and substandard education of these children while it rolls out a competent whodunit. Especially for mystery fans looking for more ethnic diversity in their reading.

 

  

·         Publisher: ‎ Cinco Puntos Press; First edition (April 11, 2017)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Paperback: ‎ 208 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1941026524

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1941026526

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021 

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

Beneath the Stains of Time: Adrift (2017) by Micki Browning

Beneath the Stains of Time: Adrift (2017) by Micki Browning: Micki Browning is an FBI National Academy graduate who learned that police work is as much about documenting crime as it's about fightin...

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Hawke’s Prey by Reavis Wortham

So here we are, at the height of vacation time, when we should be getting our annual sunburn on the beach or cracking our fillings on popcorn in a frigid movie theatre as we watch the forces of good battle those of evil against incredible odds. But 2020 had other plans for most of us. To make up for a bit of it, I offer for your consideration Hawke’s Prey (Pinnacle Books, 2017) by Reavis Wortham, which is the first appearance of Sonny Hawke, a Texas Ranger in the small town of Ballard in West Texas.

Everyone in Ballard and the surrounding area is watching the sky with concern as snow falls at a rapid clip and the wind speedily stacks it up in attractive but impassable drifts. Since blizzards are not generally seen in those parts, the residents scurry to town to lay in supplies and take care of other business that cannot wait. Sonny’s wife Kelly proceeds with her plan to take her teenaged students from high school on a tour of the county courthouse, knowing school will likely close around noon. Sonny follows her on Ranger business. After completing his tasks and visiting with a few folks, he goes to the very top floor in the courthouse to check out the weather. He lingers there, absorbed in the snowfall and its implications until he hears gunfire. A lot of it. A cautious peep over the balcony reveals a group of terrorists shooting their way into the courthouse, leaving a trail of bodies in their wake and shepherding everyone that is still alive into a courtroom at gunpoint.

Sonny quickly realizes that he’s the only person in the courthouse that the terrorists have not captured. He also recognizes they are being led by someone who knows his business. Most of the doors to the building are blocked and the terrorists are strategically deployed to ensure no one enters the remaining ones. He texts the sheriff with the information he can gather, using a cell phone with a fading battery.

The sheriff in his turn is reeling from a pre-emptive assault on his office. Phone calls to the state police, Homeland Security, and the FBI are no help, as the snow is rendering transport impossible. Even the media can’t get through to Ballard. He collects his remaining personnel, deputizes a few military veterans, and plans his own strike. To complicate an already bad situation, all of the parents of the children in the courthouse are demanding immediate action and threatening to mount a rescue on their own.

The action does not stop in this story. It could have been tightened effectively here and there, and characterization is not its strong suit, but if you liked the move Die Hard, you will like this book. A fine summer read.

·                     File Size: 1311 KB

·                     Print Length: 480 pages

·                     Publisher: Pinnacle Books (June 27, 2017)

·                     Publication Date: June 27, 2017

·                     ASIN: B01LYDQSBC

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020

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

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: A Season to Lie by Emily Littlejohn

A Season to Lie by Emily Littlejohn (Minotaur, 2017) is the satisfying follow-up to this series’ highly praised debut Inherit the Bones. Gemma Monroe returns from maternity leave to her job with a small Colorado police force in a blinding snowstorm, finding a stack of reports on a desk that she left completely cleared three months earlier. Before she has time to review them and learn what’s happened in her absence, she and her partner Finn respond to an anonymous call about a prowler at a private school. Wondering who could possibly want to be out on a night like this, Gemma and Finn rouse the security firm to let them into the locked campus and circle the buildings, looking for signs of entrance, theft, or vandalism. They find none, but Gemma does discover the gruesomely dead body of an internationally known writer who was teaching part-time at the school under an assumed name and an altered appearance.

Their investigation uncovers eccentric staff members at the school with complex relationships and sets off a media firestorm. One of the students reports extensive bullying among the students, instigated by someone only known as Grimm. In addition, a putative construction group has moved into town but the personnel look remarkably like members of organized crime.  

On the home front Gemma has still not married Brody, the father of her baby, despite the urging of her friends and family. His early infidelity has left her distrustful of him, no matter what he does. He’s accepted a contract to write a textbook, which he can do while he looks after Grace, allowing Gemma to return to work. He quickly becomes bored and frustrated with full-time childcare, though. Sorting through and balancing their individual needs perplexes Gemma while she enjoys the first few months of her baby’s life, and she thrives on the intellectual stimulation of the investigation.

Two more books in this very good police procedural series have been published, and they are all well written, reliably solid reads. The distinctive setting of Colorado provides great context for the action, but the people are the strongest element. Gemma is a believably complex person, surrounded by secondary characters no less well developed. This story drops some clear hints about her future with Brody. Strongly recommended. Start with the first book if at all possible.

·         Hardcover: 304 pages

·         Publisher: Minotaur Books (November 14, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1250089417

·         ISBN-13: 978-1250089410

Aubrey Hamilton ©2020

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

Beneath the Stains of Time: Behind the Music: "The Riddle of the Humming Bee" ...

Beneath the Stains of Time: Behind the Music: "The Riddle of the Humming Bee" ...: Just like my previous blog-post, this is a return to a mystery writer I only discovered last year, namely Paul Charles , who's a con...

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Ways of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake

The Ways of Wolfe by James Carlos Blake (Mysterious Press, 2017) is the fourth book by Blake about the Wolfe crime family whose business interests lie on both sides of the Texas-Mexico border. Axel Prince Wolfe, his father’s planned heir to the family law firm, decides to join his high school friend and a stranger in the theft of three-quarters of a million dollars’ worth of bearer bonds. Already married with a small daughter, he is planning to drop out of college and focus on the family’s criminal enterprises, despite the family rule that everyone must obtain an undergraduate degree before joining the company. [The Rules of Wolfe (Mysterious Press, 2013) goes into this requirement in more detail. I raved about this book in a post to DorothyL while attending the 2016 Left Coast Crime convention and still refer readers to it at every opportunity.] They successfully acquire the bonds but the getaway goes sideways, and his partners abandon him to save themselves. He refuses to give up the names of his cohorts to reduce his prison term, and he is sentenced to an onerous 30 years.

His relatives turn their backs on him, and he becomes fixated on the daughter who won’t visit him or write him. After 20 years in confinement he joins a young Mexican inmate with hidden ties to a cartel in planning a jail break, and they escape during a driving thunderstorm, leaving several bodies in their wake. After they manage to cross the river into Mexico, Axel is invited to join the cartel and helps them in an ambush of a rival gang. He desperately wants to see his now-grown daughter though, and off he goes.

Blake is an exceptional writer of fast-moving crime dramas. His grim descriptions of border desert crossings are meticulous in their hair-raising detail, and his depictions of shootouts and other action scenes are intense and pulse-pounding. While he’s received a good deal of recognition from critics, he is still not widely known among the thriller and mystery reading community, which is truly unfortunate for everyone.

Publishers Weekly starred review.

·         Hardcover: 304 pages

·         Publisher: Mysterious Press (September 5, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0802125778

·         ISBN-13: 978-0802125774

Aubrey Hamilton ©2019

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

Beneath the Stains of Time: Unlocked: "The Poet Who Locked Himself In" (2017) ...

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Lesa's Book Critiques: Reading in Bed by Brian Doyle

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Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips

Fierce Kingdom by Gin Phillips (Viking, 2017) got raves from Lucinda Surber of Stop! You’re Killing Me last year when it was released, and it’s been on my TBR list ever since. Further inquiry reveals she is not alone in thinking this is an excellent book. The New York Times Book Review named it one of the best crime novels of 2017, and it received a trifecta of starred reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.

It opens simply enough. Joan is urging her 4-year-old son Lincoln to pick up his toys so they can leave the zoo just before closing one day. When she finally has gathered the last superhero figure and they make their way to the gate, she sees, in a sickeningly familiar scenario, men with guns enter and start shooting every person they see. She clutches her son and runs the other way, back into the zoo, searching for a place to hide. Her knowledge of the zoo helps them to a place of safety, where she is preoccupied with keeping her chatterbox of a child quiet while they wait for the police. Lincoln is an inveterate story-teller and she is worried sick he will give their hiding place away. The tense narrative carries the reader along with Joan as she inwardly listens for footsteps and gunfire while she outwardly calms her son.

Other people are hiding in the zoo as well and some chapters are written from their points of view. A couple are written from the shooters’ perspective, but most of the book reflects Joan’s experience. The entire book, nearly 300 pages, takes place in about 3 hours.

This is at once a tightly written, highly suspenseful narrative of a life-and-death chase played out by people any of us might know and the story of a mother’s fascination with the new life she’s been given to nurture and her primal urge to protect it. The flora and the fauna of the zoo are lovingly described in some of my favorite parts of the book. It’s clear the author is a devoted nature lover.

I read this fast-paced, unusual book in a single sitting. Highly recommended.

·         Hardcover: 288 pages

·         Publisher: Viking; First Edition (July 25, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0735224277

·         ISBN-13: 978-0735224278

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

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

Relevant History: Refugees Then and Now by Barbara Ridley

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Crime Watch: Review: FOOLS' RIVER

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Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Testimony by Scott Turow

In Testimony (Grand Central Publishing, 2017) Scott Turow leaves behind the familiar territory of Kindle County, the location of nine of his previous books, for the byzantine world of international diplomacy and the investigation of war crimes in Bosnia. In his early 50s, the protagonist William ten Boom is determined to make his life over. His marriage has ended, his children have launched, he’s resigned from his partnership in a solid law firm, and when he’s approached to join the International Criminal Court in The Hague, it seems to be the logical next step.

A member of the Romani, the European itinerant people we call Gypsies, has come forward and testified to the ICC that he witnessed the mass murder of an entire Roma community, 400 of his family and friends, at the height of the atrocities in Bosnia in late April 2004. A group of men dressed in Chetnik uniforms forced them all into transport vans and they were never seen again.

Ten Boom is hired to lead the investigation and to prepare to prosecute the perpetrators if they can be identified. In addition to the Serbian paramilitary, some of the rumors suggest that it was carried out at the behest of the mad President of Bosnia who plundered and terrorized the nation until he was driven into hiding. Some blame rogue members of the U.S. Army, who they say killed the Gypsies in revenge for their theft of military equipment. The Russian Mafia is mentioned. Yet other rumors said the entire community simply relocated. This suggestion is given little credence as no member of the community had been heard from in the more than 10 years since the incident.

Ten Boom is immediately plunged into a medley of cultures and the nuanced pace of global diplomacy in The Hague. His lead investigator is a heavy drinking Australian who turns out to have a doctorate in forensic anthropology. He is intrigued by the lawyer representing the lone survivor of the massacre and his relationship with her is a major thread of the story in addition to the investigation. Another thread is ten Boom’s discovery of relatives in the Netherlands.

When I need a reliably engaging read, Scott Turow is on the short list of authors I look for. I was surprised to see the subject of this book but found it interesting. It is unusually long however, nearly 500 pages, much of it due to ten Boom’s interior monologues, which are perceptive but not what I expect in a legal thriller. The ending, which has a nice twist, suggests we might see more of ten Boom in the future.

·         Hardcover: 496 pages

·         Publisher: Grand Central Publishing; 1st edition (May 16, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 1455553549

·         ISBN-13: 978-1455553549

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

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

Lesa's Book Critiques: Wicked Deeds by Heather Graham

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Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Proof of Life by J. A. Jance

Proof of Life by J. A. Jance (William Morrow, 2017) is the 23^rd title in the long-running series that follows the career of J. P. Beaumont, first as a Seattle homicide detective and then as he works in other agencies. This is the first title in which Beau is completely retired from paid employment. He is bored, restless, and not sure what to do with his time. His younger wife Melissa (Mel) is now Chief of Police in Bellingham and works long days so he must rely on his own resources.

A former crime reporter for the local newspaper approaches him at a restaurant one night. The retired reporter is writing a book on the crimes he covered during his long career and he wants to consult Beau about a murder that Beau investigated and that continues to haunt him. Beau reluctantly agrees and before they have a chance to meet, the reporter dies in what appears to be an accident. The timing seems off and when he’s asked to investigate the death, Beau becomes convinced it was deliberate murder.

In the meantime Mel is called to the scene of ongoing domestic violence and manages to imprison the abusive husband and to move the mother and her children to safety. The shelter will not take the family dog so Mel brings the Irish wolfhound home temporarily. Beau knows nothing about dogs and his education as a canine caretaker is a significant story line.

Between calling in favors to get information about the reporter’s death, as his access as a private citizen is restricted to Google, and integrating his new dog into his home, Beau’s days are suddenly full. When the fingerprints of a ruffian from a local gang are found in the reporter’s home, Beau starts looking for him. Within days, the gangbanger is killed in a hit and run, which helps Beau convince the Seattle police to investigate both deaths as suspicious.  

I find the inventive methods authors use to handle the aging of the main characters in their long-running series intriguing. Some authors slow the aging process so much that it is almost nonexistent, Robert B. Parker’s Spenser for instance. Spenser refers to his Korean War experience in his early outings. If he aged realistically, he would likely not be working out at Henry Cimoli's gym in the current releases. Others try to create situations in which the character can convincingly continue to investigate beyond the point at which the character formally retires from the role he or she filled at the inception of the series. Ian Rankin has said several times that he did not know the mandatory retirement age within the English police at the time he created John Rebus or he would have made the character younger to begin with. As it is, Rankin retired Rebus at the correct age and then brought him back as a member of a special team that investigates cold cases.

We first met J.P. Beaumont in 1985 in the Seattle Police Department. Jance gave him a logical career progression, moving him into more senior positions and then finally retiring him. Now it seems he’s on the brink of a new career as a private investigator. I look forward to his next adventure in this reliably readable series.

·         Hardcover: 368 pages

·         Publisher: William Morrow; First Edition (September 5, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0062657542

·         ISBN-13: 978-0062657541

Aubrey Hamilton © 2018

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

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: What You Break by Reed Farrel Coleman

What You Break (Putnam, 2017) is the second book from Reed Farrel Coleman about Gus Murphy, a former Suffolk County NY police detective whose personal and professional life shattered a few years earlier. He has slowly been putting the pieces back together. He’s found a job at a third-rate hotel, where he serves as their security officer, airport van driver, and weekend nightclub bouncer. Gus has been seeing Magdalena, a bartender and an aspiring actress for awhile, when she is offered a role that will take her to Detroit for several months. Gus is trying to decide if their relationship will survive the separation when a passenger on a routine trip from the airport kicks off his internal alarm system. His suspicions are heightened when the newcomer and Slava, the hotel doorman, appear to know each other.

Worried that this new visitor to the hotel has brought trouble, Gus is watching him the next day when he and Slava drive away together. Gus follows them to a New York neighborhood and witnesses the professional execution of the man they were visiting. The ensuing police investigation leaves Gus trying to protect Slava while explaining why he was there.

In addition to this hotel-related problem, Father Bill, the long-standing friend of Gus and his family, asks Gus to take on a paying client. The grandfather of a murdered teen offers Gus considerable money to learn why the murder was committed. The police have identified the killer through unshakeable DNA evidence but no one understands how the girl crossed the path of the hardened gang member to begin with. Not sure that he can do more than the police have and disliking his potential client, Gus reluctantly agrees to look into the case.

Juggling both investigations along with his unexpected relationship problems, Gus learns that two of the men involved have committed unspeakable crimes. One is overwhelmed with guilt and the other is chillingly remorseless, providing an intriguing contrast.

Gus is an appealing character. Unlike many damaged protagonists, the wounds that Gus has suffered have healed enough to create some protective scar tissue, which is allowing him to create a new life while not forgetting the old one. Publishers Weekly starred review.

·         Hardcover: 368 pages

·         Publisher: G.P. Putnam's Sons; 1st edition (February 7, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         ISBN-10: 0399173048

·         ISBN-13: 978-0399173042

Aubrey Hamilton ©2018

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

Crime Watch: Review: THE THERAPY HOUSE

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