FFB Review-- Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: Death Shall Overcome by Emma Lathen

  

Dipping into the archive for this one today…

 

A few days ago someone in one of the mystery-focused Facebook groups asked the members to identify their favorite Emma Lathen title. Emma Lathen is the pseudonym of economist Mary Jane Latsis and attorney Martha Henissart. Their financial and legal expertise formed the backdrop of their mysteries, which each highlighted an industry or socioeconomic issue (fast food franchises, grain exports, parochial schools, professional hockey, the Winter Olympics). Inevitably money in some form is the impetus for the crime. No psychological suspense, no serial killer, no love triangle: money and the lack of it or the desire for more is front and center.

 

It is difficult to choose among the entries in a long and almost uniformly excellent series but I decided that Death Shall Overcome (Macmillan, 1966) was among my candidates for favorite. I then realized I had not re-read it for some time and pulled my worn paperback copy off the shelves. Its themes are timeless and I found it stands up to the passage of 50 years quite well.

 

Wall Street is in turmoil as one of the oldest brokerages among them proposes a black man for a seat on the New York Stock Exchange. The octogenarian owner of the brokerage has chosen Edward Parry of Atlanta -- Yale graduate, Rhodes scholar, and multimillionaire -- to break the color barrier at the NYSE hard on the heels of the signing of the Civil Rights Act. (The authors were only a little ahead of reality: Joseph Searles III actually became the first African American trader on the New York Stock Exchange floor in 1970.)

 

At the formal reception where Mr. Parry is to be introduced to the New York financial community, one of his prospective colleagues drops dead. Everyone assumes the cause is a stress-induced heart attack until the autopsy discovers nicotine poisoning. Then someone shoots at Mr. Parry as he leaves his house one morning. Protests, counter-demonstrations, and wild rhetoric ensue. (A number of the scenes from this book could have been ripped out of last week’s newspaper.) John Putnam Thatcher, senior vice-president of Sloan Guaranty Trust, the third largest bank in the world, is drafted to try to calm the various groups while the Exchange processes Mr. Parry’s application for a seat and the police search for the killer.  His own knowledge of the financial world and his involvement with the people most affected lead him to the identity of the culprit.

 

Part of the charm of this series is the inside look at the Sloan, which is very much like any large corporation with its internal politics, quirky personalities, and relatives of the president to be worked around. The supporting cast of characters that appear in each book are similar to office colleagues everywhere and invest the story with a personal flavor as well as help Thatcher’s investigations. This particular book is full of visually complex scenes that would film nicely: the sit-in at the main Sloan bank, the NAACP fundraiser, Thatcher and his colleagues hiding from demonstrators by riding the Staten Island ferry back and forth.

As always, the well-written story is witty and tightly plotted. If Emma Lathen is an author new to you, this book is an excellent place to become acquainted with her work.

• Publisher: Macmillan Pub Co; First Edition (June 1966)
• ISBN-10: 9997518446 
• ISBN-13: 978-9997518446

 

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/45XNjyr

 

 

Aubrey Hamilton © 2017, 2025 

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

Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE CLUE IN THE CLAY BY DOLORES HITCHENS

 Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE CLUE IN THE CLAY BY DOLORES HITCHENS

The Reading Room: Vintage/Golden Age Mystery Reading: Reading Room Guest Post by Aubrey Hamilton

The Reading Room: Vintage/Golden Age Mystery Reading: Reading Room G...: Vintage Mysteries: Where to Start This article is for those contemporary mystery readers who have heard about the renewed interest in olde...

Short Story Wednesday Review: The C Word: For Some Lockdown Has Been Murder --- Reviewed by Aubrey

Back in January 2021, Aubrey brought this book to your attention. Seemed like a good time to remind you of the book and her review. 

Up for discussion this week is a recently released charity anthology collected and published by Spellbound Books, the brainchild of Nikki East and Sumaira Wilson. All royalties will be donated to NHS Charities Together, a coalition of 240 NHS charities who support a wide range of health care institutions in the United Kingdom. See more here: https://www.nhscharitiestogether.co.uk/.

The C Word: For Some Lockdown Has Been Murder, released 7 January 2021 on Kindle, is an assortment of 26 short stories that appear to be limited only by the imaginations of the wide range of authors who wrote them. There are disappearances, there are zombies, there are stalkers, there are gang enforcers, there are book groups. There are a depressing number of stories about women with abusive husbands; Andy Hill’s story along those lines called Strength has a nice surprise at the end. There are families who have been driven to the breaking point by lockdown.

Supermarkets play a role in some; one of my favorites is by Nick Jackson called The Haunted Trolley. David Field’s offering, titled Out of Lockdown, is a positively brilliant tale of a creative way to enter witness protection. Derek Thompson’s The Understudy is about a young criminal who learns the ropes faster than his mentor realizes. Men who tell women they don’t know to smile will perhaps think twice if they read Trevor Wood’s entry called Smile Please.

I believe the names of contributors are largely unfamiliar to U.S. crime fiction readers, although a few are well-known.

·         Yvonne Bastian	·         Nick Jackson
·         Jane Carrick	·         Simon Maltan
·         Karen Clarke	·         Tracy Mearns
·         David Field	·         Vanessa Morgan
·         Paul Finch	·         Steve Mosby
·         Chloe Greene	·         Janine Pipe
·         Elly Griffiths	·         Nick Quantrill
·         Sophie Hannah	·         Rob Scragg
·         Matt Hickman	·         Derek Thompson
·         Sarah Hilary	·         Nick Triplow
·         Andy Hill	·         Mark Wilson
·         Laura Huntley	·         Claire Woolins
·         Linda Innes	·         Nick Jackson

 

This modestly priced compilation is a pleasant way to pass a few hours and to meet some new authors while lending support to a group whose resources have been severely taxed in the past year. Recommended!

  

·         ASIN: B08RRW8K6P

·         Publisher: SpellBound Books (January 7, 2021)

·         Publication date: January 7, 2021

·         Language: English

·         File size: 758 KB 

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021, 2022

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

The Reading Room: Golden Age of Mystery Author Bio, Patricia Wentworth: Guest Post by Aubrey Hamilton

The Reading Room: Golden Age of Mystery Author Bio, Patricia Wentwor...: Today on the Reading Room blog we have guest blogger Audrey Hamilton sharing her Golden Age mystery knowledge about one of that period's...

Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: WHAT A BODY! BY ALAN GREEN

 Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: WHAT A BODY! BY ALAN GREEN

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.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Bloody January by Alan Parks

I learned about Alan Parks during the online Hull Noir conference in March 2021.  He is a Glasgow author who spent most of his career in the music industry. He wrote a book about social housing in post-war Glasgow which somehow metamorphosed into the first Harry McCoy historical thriller. It was one of the top crime debuts of 2018 and was shortlisted for the Grand Prix de Littérature Policière, the most prestigious award for crime and detective fiction in France.

Bloody January (Cannongate, 2018) introduces Harry McCoy, newly promoted to detective on the Glasgow police force. Harry has a drug addict girl friend who’s a prostitute, and his best friend from his childhood is now a criminal kingpin. Harry also has a bit of a drinking problem. He gets a tip from a coldblooded killer in prison about a murder that’s about to take place. With little to go on and not really believing the stool pigeon, Harry still looks for the prospective victim and finds her just in time to see her killed and her murderer shoot himself in full view of a bus station packed with witnesses at morning rush hour. Harry returns to the jail to question his informant more closely, only to find he’s been killed too. Three murders in 24 hours is a lot, even for Glasgow, and Harry’s supervisor says he wants a resolution fast.

Set in January 1973 amid the poverty and desperation of Glasgow, the general population is sad, depressed, and struggling. Steelworks, coal mines, engine factories, and other heavy industries went out of business about that time, leading to long-term economic decline with mass unemployment, population flight, and high levels of urban decay. New gangs moved in, younger and more violent, and hard drugs arrived with them. This backdrop of Glasgow’s low point is perfect for noir crime fiction.

McCoy is an interesting character who faints when he sees blood, unfortunate in a homicide cop. He’s got a turbulent backstory and crosses the line between the police and the felonious element occasionally because of loyalty to his criminal friend who protected him as a child. He does have a mostly good relationship with his manager, who recognizes McCoy’s innate ability. Light relief comes through McCoy’s green-as-grass sidekick, who is a new addition to the department. He is supposed to be shadowing McCoy to learn the ropes, but McCoy avoids him in creative ways. Parks worked in details from his music industry experience in a nice touch. An excellent piece of Tartan noir. The fourth in the series is scheduled for release in August 2021.

 

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Canongate Books; Main edition (May 28, 2018)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 320 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1786891336

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1786891334

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

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

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Body Zoo by J. D. Allen

 

J. D. Allen is an accomplished writer, having published a number of romances before turning to crime fiction. In addition to contributions to various short story anthologies, her first full-length novel introduced the Sin City Investigations series and Jim Bean, former cop, now private investigator in Las Vegas, in 2018. Bean’s third adventure is Body Zoo, published by Severn River in June 2021. Number Four is scheduled for release in August 2021.

Bean is hired by an insurance company to look into a possible arson involving an old trailer. The trailer park in question has filed two claims already this year, and the insurance company is understandably cynical about a third one. They believe the owner is upgrading her rentals on their dime, but they need proof to deny payment. Bean visits the torched trailer and interviews the arson investigator as well as the owner. He’s struck by the lack of interest in the tenant, who has disappeared. Emilee Beck seems to have evaporated, which worries Bean. A young woman alone should have someone interested in her wellbeing. Bean decides that person is going to be him.  

Tracing her associates leads Bean quickly to her boyfriend AJ Ward, son and nephew of a pair of brothers who run a profitable sports, hunting, and taxidermy emporium in the area. AJ disappears soon after Bean starts inquiring about Emilee, and his worried father retains Bean to find him. Everyone assumes that he’s joined Emilee, so locating one will locate both. They learn that Emilee is on the run from a motorcycle gang who kidnapped her as a child and pimped her until someone helped her escape. With a price on her head and strong memories of the abuse she endured, Emilee is desperate to avoid capture.

Alternately told from Bean’s perspective and Emilee’s, the story becomes intense. It is a realistic and grim depiction of a human trafficking survivor, a subject of deep concern to Allen, with good cause. I was shocked to learn a couple of years ago that the county I live in is the fifth most likely locale in the United States for human trafficking and that a nearby shopping center is an ongoing focus of law enforcement investigation because of known criminal trafficking activities there.

The seriousness of the plot is balanced with ingenious settings and offbeat characters. For instance, Bean’s favorite greasy diner converted into a vegan café, but he continues to eat there despite not really caring for the food. His associates are great. My favorite of Bean’s sidekicks is a Vietnam-era veteran who can hack a computer with the best of the teenagers around. Well written, fact based, fast moving, intricately plotted. An absorbing book but may trigger more sensitive readers.

 

·         Publisher: Severn River Publishing (June 8, 2021)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: 370 pages

·         ISBN-10:  1648750958

·         ISBN-13: 978-1648750953

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

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

Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: MURDER ON “B” DECK BY VINCENT STARRETT

Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: MURDER ON “B” DECK BY VINCENT STARRETT

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Kill Me Again by Terence Faherty

Terence Faherty is the author of two mystery series, a fan of old movies, and a fellow Hoosier. He also has a beautiful signature which he obligingly placed on a few of my copies of his books when we met at a conference.

He channeled his knowledge of old movies into his series with Scott Elliott. Elliott has something of a love-hate relationship with Hollywood. A promising actor before the war, upon his return no one is returning his calls and he perforce falls back on a job with a second-rate security agency who sweeps up or covers up at the film studios’ behest.

The first in the series Kill Me Again (Simon & Schuster, 1996) opens in 1947 when Hollywood was facing a double crisis: the arrival of the new medium of television, which threatened the film industry’s existence, and the attention of the House Un-American Activities Committee, which altered or ended the careers of more than 300 directors, radio commentators, actors, and screenwriters. Elliott’s company has been retained by Warner Brothers to find out if Bert Kramer, the screenwriter for Warner’s sequel to its World War II blockbuster film, has any Communist connections. That reliable source of information, an anonymous letter, has cast aspersions on Kramer. Warner can’t afford any trouble and is poised to toss Kramer out but wants to salvage his script first.

The problematic Kramer turns up dead shortly thereafter. The police find no shortage of people that Kramer had alienated. But then they wonder if someone at Warner Brothers took a shortcut to its personnel problem or if one of Kramer’s Communist cronies killed him to keep him from outing others. Elliott’s investigation takes him around Hollywood and Los Angeles and east to New York, where some references to Broadway are folded into the story.

A well-written and cerebral look back at old Hollywood. Six more titles follow this one, the second won the 1998 Shamus Award for Best Novel. The fourth and seventh titles were shortlisted for the Shamus Award. Highly recommended for fans of classic movies, post-World War II historical mysteries, and mid-century Los Angeles.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Simon & Schuster; 1st Edition (May 1, 1996)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 300 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 0684826887

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-0684826882

 

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021

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

Aubrey Hamilton Reviews: The Sleeping Witness by Fiorella de Maria

Fiorella de Maria is the pseudonym of Fiorella Nash, an English bioethicist whose research focuses on life issues from a feminist perspective. She is a conference speaker and nonfiction writer dealing with abortion, gendercide, maternal health, and commercial surrogacy. Her novels are published under her nom de plume and include historical mysteries featuring Father Gabriel, a Benedictine priest. The first of these is The Sleeping Witness (Ignatius Press, 2017).

The story takes place in the village of Sutton Westford and the nearby St. Mary’s Abbey in August after the end of World War Two but before the end of sugar rationing. The war and the damage it caused is fresh in everyone’s memories. Father Gabriel serves as narrator. He is approaching middle age, with gray now appearing in his hair, aching joints, and failing close-up vision. The reader is left with the impression he came to the monastery after a career in the world, much like his predecessor Brother Cadfael. Certainly he is more willing to engage with the outside world than many of his brothers are, and Abbot Ambrose must routinely redirect his attention.

The local doctor and his wife are the subject of ugly rumors in the tiny community. She is quiet, pale, and fragile, and the doctor is always by her side. Large bruises on her arms lead observers to some natural but unpleasant conclusions. When she’s found in the cottage of a Danish artist visiting for the summer, both covered with blood and apparently dead with a gun lying nearby, suspicion falls on her husband who steadfastly denies that he hurt either of them. Despite the active discouragement of Abbot Ambrose and Inspector Applegate, Father Gabriel plunges headlong into investigating the crime.

This is an unusual mystery. Much about the characters and the setting, especially Father Gabriel, are implied rather than stated. There is no back story at all. I wondered what Gabriel was doing in the abbey, as he doesn’t seem quite suited for the monastic life. Nearly everyone has something in their past they don’t talk about. Abbot Ambrose for instance seems to have served in intelligence during the war. Other characters turn out to be other than who they say they are. As Miss Marple stated in A Murder Is Announced, anyone could show up in a village in post-war England with a new identity and background. The records were in such disarray, they were likely never to be challenged. An intriguing read. Recommended especially for fans of historical mysteries and of religious detectives.

 

·         Publisher: Ignatius Press (February 10, 2017)

·         Language: English

·         Paperback: 176 pages

·         ISBN-10: 1621640760

·         ISBN-13: 978-1621640769

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021 

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