Saturday, June 13, 2026
Wednesday, June 03, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Monday, March 23, 2026
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Delivery: A Mercury Carter Thriller by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Make sure you read Aubrey’s review of The Mail Man,
the preceding book, here.
The
Delivery (Mysterious Press, March 2026) by Andrew Welsh-Huggins is the
second thriller about former U.S. Postal Inspection Service agent Mercury
Carter. Carter is now a freelance courier, hand-transporting cargo too precious
to entrust to the usual delivery mechanisms.
In Pawtucket,
Rhode Island, Carter is en route to Providence to deliver a vintage 1951
baseball card signed by Cleveland Indians/Boston Red Sox shortstop Lou Boudreau
to 91-year-old Lenny Pellegrino, who had seen Boudreau play in person. Carter,
also a baseball fan, was looking forward to making the delivery and meeting
Pellegrino.
The pounding
rain makes navigation precarious and Carter encounters a wrecked vehicle with
an unresponsive driver, an obvious victim of hydroplaning and diminished
visibility. He is attempting to extract the bloodied woman behind the wheel
when another vehicle stops and its driver, a large man with a gun, demands that
Carter get away from the accident victim. Carter declines and the first
physical altercation of the book, and there are many, ensues.
Thus begins a
complicated tale in which Carter takes on what he thinks will be a quick
delivery in Pawtucket before he goes on to Providence, which turns out to be
nothing of the sort. The quick side trip spirals into multiple encounters with
an assortment of human rogues--traffickers, drug sellers, and IT
fraudsters--each of whom is running a separate con while angling for a larger
piece of the profits from the various scams underway with their colleagues. Double-crossing
and backstabbing abound.
As expected,
Carter’s quick wit and resourcefulness come into play again and again. It takes
some time to sort through the assorted agendas of the multiple players and
their schemes, I had to re-read sections of the narrative here and there to
make sure I understood them, but Carter eventually works his way through a
truly impressive quagmire of grift, larceny, and violence to the other side and
a satisfying ending.
I am grateful
for the early review copy of Mercury Carter’s latest adventure and recommend it
unreservedly to thriller fans who will be pleased to make Mercury’s
acquaintance.
·
Publisher: The Mysterious Press
·
Publication date: March 24, 2026
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 336 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1613167172
·
ISBN-13: 978-1613167175
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Nv0ZtY
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, December 21, 2025
Gravetapping: My Favorite Books Published in 2025
Monday, January 27, 2025
Monday, January 20, 2025
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Mailman by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Andrew Welsh-Huggins is an
accomplished author of 11 books who has been nominated for the Shamus,
Derringer, and International Thriller Writers-awards. Welsh-Huggins is also the
editor of Columbus Noir (Akashic Books, 2020), and his short
fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery
Weekly, Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, and Mystery Tribune, among
others. He’s written eight mysteries about Andy Hayes, a former Ohio State
University quarterback turned private investigator. His nonfiction book No
Winners Here Tonight (Ohio University Press, 2009) is the definitive
history of the death penalty in Ohio. Hatred at Home: al-Qaida on Trial in
the American Midwest (Swallow Press, 2011) documents a lengthy government
investigation into terrorism that started in Columbus, Ohio.
The Mailman (Mysterious
Press, January 28, 2025) launches a new thriller series with an original main
character who takes the post office’s motto on the indefatigability of a mail
carrier a step or two further. It wasn’t snow or rain that was interfering with
independent courier Mercury Carter’s attempt to make a delivery to Rachel
Stanfield, it was the full-blown home invasion that was in progress when he
arrived. He makes short work of the thugs at the door of the Stanfield house;
the remaining toughs flee this unexpected interference, taking Rachel with
them. Carter follows them from Indianapolis into Illinois and points south,
intent on completing the hand-off he was hired for. Each stop along the way
involves a confrontation in which the kidnappers come off second best but not
convincingly enough to make them leave Rachel behind.
Carter’s
background as a postal inspection agent is a novel way to establish plausible
law enforcement experience as well as knowledge of the mechanics of package
delivery. Carter demonstrates creativity in problem solving. For instance when
he needs a different vehicle because his is familiar to the kidnappers, he
takes advantage of the labor shortage everywhere and signs on as pizza delivery
guy just to access a different car for a short time. The pizza shop owner’s
frustration when she realized her new driver lasted about an hour was palpable,
understandable, and funny. All in all, Mercury Carter is an excellent
contribution to the crime fiction hero pantheon. I am looking forward to the
next installment of Carter’s adventures. Recommended.
Library
Journal
starred review and Library Journal Mystery Pick of the Month.
·
Publisher: Mysterious Press (January 28,
2025)
·
Language: English
·
Hardcover: 360 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1613166109
·
ISBN-13: +978-1613166109
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3CgNwjN
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Friday, November 08, 2024
Monday, September 09, 2024
Friday, June 28, 2024
Wednesday, January 11, 2023
Little Big Crimes Review: The Delivery by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Tuesday, April 05, 2022
Guest Post: Groovy Gumshoes: My Story by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Please welcome author Andrew Welsh-Huggins to the blog today. Like Tom Milani, Steve Liskow, and Mark Troy, Andre Welsh-Huggins has a short story in the upcoming anthology, Groovy Gumshoes: Private Eyes In The Psychedelic Sixties. Edited by Michael Bracken, the book is scheduled to come out Monday, April 11th, from Down & Out Books.
Groovy Gumshoes: My Story
By Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Setting out to write a private eye story set in the 1960s,
I felt I had all the necessary elements. What I lacked at first was the spark
to bring them to life.
For starters, I possessed actual memories. Born in 1961, I
was around for a decent chunk of the decade. I remember images of soldiers on
TV; being told by an elementary school teacher in the wake of Robert F.
Kennedy’s assassination that even making the shape of a gun with my fingers was
forbidden (talk about more innocent times); and my parents awakening me to
watch the first man on the moon. I also have fond memories of tearing around
town on my bike with its banana seat, “cooking” up plastic bugs with a Mattel
Thingmaker, and building snowmen after one of that era’s epic snowfalls.
Next, I had a location. Nowadays, I set most of my crime
fiction in and around my adopted home of Columbus, Ohio. But I knew right away
I wanted a story that played out in the Finger Lakes, where I largely grew up
after my father took a job in Rochester. I went so far as to set a scene in
tiny Lima—“The Crossroads of Western New York”—the town along Route 20 where we
lived and I went to school. Small, quiet and safe, Lima was
the sort of place you could walk half a mile to the library at age six and
hardly anyone batted an eye. (My parents didn’t, anyway). As a bonus, the
tavern where my fictional private eye is hired—the American Hotel—still exists,
practically unchanged.
Finally, I had a character. I named my gumshoe Jerry
Hollister, a nod to a formative book series, The Happy Hollisters,
that
I devoured as a child. The books were published by the Stratemeyer Syndicate,
which also put out Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, but were marketed to a
slightly younger set of readers. They featured a family of five kids living in
fictional “Shoreham,” who used wit and pluck to solve mysteries with hardly any
of the constraints on exploration that we’re used to in these days of
helicopter parenting. Unlike many Stratemeyer books, The Happy Hollisters were
all written by one person, Andrew Svenson, who wrote under the pseudonym Jerry
West—hence Jerry Hollister. (Happily, these books are back in print thanks to
the efforts of Svenson’s grandson.) The name in place, I made my character a
Vietnam vet and ex-Rochester cop who takes the private route after becoming disillusioned
with the police force.
So: I had memories of the 1960s; a location; and a
character. What I lacked was a plot.
Eventually, a dislocated memory started me off. It involved
a family visit to the house of someone my parents knew. A young couple—possibly
teachers—who lived in the country and cultivated a large garden. I’m pretty
sure they kept chickens, and possibly rabbits. Crucially, I recalled the
husband—boyfriend?—sporting a decade-appropriate long beard. And that’s about
it. Both my parents have passed and so the specifics are forever lost. But
perhaps just as well. That one memory was enough to trigger an idea for a story
that finds my private eye searching for a young wife and mother who absconds
with a ganga-smoking guru into the hills overlooking one of the Finger Lakes.
And so Jerry Hollister was born, thanks to the quirk of
fate that transplanted my midwestern parents to western New York State. Better
yet, he appears for the first time in my short story, "Building Something
Better," in the upcoming Groovy Gumshoes anthology. One story into
Hollister's career, I kind of like the guy. Hanging around with him in my head,
it makes me miss those days. It was nice to go back for a while.
Andrew Welsh-Huggins
©2022
Friday, December 03, 2021
Wednesday, November 10, 2021
Little Big Crimes Review: Back Down to Black by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Monday, July 12, 2021
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Slow Burn by Andrew Welsh-Huggins
Andrew Welsh-Huggins is a legal affairs reporter for the
Associated Press in Columbus, Ohio. Welsh-Huggins is also the editor of Columbus
Noir (Akashic Books, 2020), and his short fiction has appeared in Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine, Mystery Weekly, and Mystery
Tribune. He’s written seven mysteries about Andy Hayes, a former Ohio State
University quarterback turned private investigator. His nonfiction book No
Winners Here Tonight (Ohio University Press, 2009) is the definitive
history of the death penalty in Ohio. Hatred at Home: al-Qaida on Trial in
the American Midwest (Swallow Press, 2011) documents a lengthy government
investigation into terrorism that started in Columbus, Ohio. It provided the
basis for the fifth Andy Hayes mystery The Third Son (Swallow Press,
2018). The seventh in the series An Empty Grave (Swallow Press, 2021)
was reviewed on Lesa’s Book Critiques.
The second in
the series Slow Burn (Swallow Press, 2015) finds Andy precariously
balancing income and outgo. So when the grandmother of Aaron Custer, who was
accused of setting a fire in off-campus housing two years ago that killed three
students, says she’s heard there is a witness who can exonerate him and is
willing to pay Andy to find the witness, Andy agrees to look into it. Custer
pleaded guilty to avoid the death penalty, even though he was so drunk he has
no memory of the night, and is serving his sentence with no hope of early
release.
Andy is
skeptical but dutifully begins to dig around, uncovering a local drug gang who
objected to one of the dead students selling in their territory. Then there was
the seismic activity log he found that implicated one of the biggest fracking
companies in the state of Ohio. Some questions about Aaron’s inheritance from
his grandfather arose. Before Andy knew it, he established a range of
unexpected motives for the arson that were all outside Aaron’s knowledge and accountability.
Regional mysteries, mysteries that reflect the area and could not be set anywhere else, are among my favorite. Milan Jacovich in Cleveland, David Mapstone in Phoenix, Carlotta Carlyle in Boston, Rush McKenzie in St. Paul, Deb Ralson in Fort Worth, etc. I am pleased to add another Midwestern series to my list. The university in the background adds an academic flavor to the story. Andy is not a particularly original character but the people around him are, and the plots are innovative. Strong writing and sound pacing round out a well-conceived and -executed series. Recommended reading.
·
Publisher: Swallow Press
(April 15, 2015)
·
Language: English
·
Hardcover: 312 pages
·
ISBN-10: 0804011605
· ISBN-13: 978-0804011600
Aubrey Hamilton ©2021
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on
Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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