Kevin's Corner: Aubrey Nye Hamilton

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Monday, June 22, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Fear the Reaper: A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright

Fear the Reaper by David Housewright (Minotaur, June 2026) is the newest of the Rushmore McKenzie series. McKenzie is an unofficial private investigator who does favors for friends and friends of his friends. His circle of friends is ever-widening and they bring him some original problems which he cannot resist trying to solve, often with the assistance of his childhood best friend, Bobby Dunston who is a career cop.

Mac and his wife Nina are visiting Bobby’s parents in their vacation home in upstate Wisconsin. Mac and Bobby Dunston started as neighbors in St. Paul and became inseparable from an early age. When Mac was 12 his mother died and Patty Dunston stepped into the role, making the two men even closer. Patty is a huge fan of a small winery near their Wisconsin home and the group of five visit one Friday afternoon, where the popular place is nearly full. Bobby is the first to see the man who enters the crowded room carrying an AR-15, and he and Mac tackle him before he can fire a shot.

Unfortunately Wisconsin is an open-carry state. Since he was stopped before he actually injured someone, he was not breaking a law and the police could not press charges. The sheriff was uneasy though. The security camera footage showed the prospective gunman looking around the room, as if searching for a specific target. He of course is not admitting to anything, so she asks Mac to find out who the intended victim was to try to stop another attempt that might succeed. This unenviable assignment required Mac to look into the lives of each person at the winery that afternoon and find out if someone might benefit from their death. He had no authority to interview anyone or to examine records but that never stops Mac. Of course his questions upset a few people, revealing as they did some details better left private.

Housewright excels at creating believable characters and here he sketches a handful of them in sharp outline with a quick snapshot of their lives. While relationship trouble seemed inevitable for a number of the people present that Friday from some of the things Mac learned, murder was a bit of a stretch for most of them.

Mac’s deep attachment to his friends and family is a nice change from the alienated anti-hero so common now. He’s genuinely a nice person, and the people he meets in the course of his investigations recognize it. The solutions start with Mac’s knowledge of human nature and, if not clearly clued, they align with the facts as presented.

After 23 books, a mediocre read might be expected but I didn’t find it here. Another innovative plot with familiar characters, devious misdirection, and more than competent writing. I have no idea why readers do not rave about these books. They are one of the best long-running series still in print. Anyone looking for a new series to binge should look at this one. Recommended!

Publisher: ‎Minotaur Books
Publication date: ‎June 23, 2026
Language: ‎English
Print length: ‎320 pages
ISBN-10: ‎125036048X
ISBN-13: ‎978-1250360489

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

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

Sunday, June 14, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Midnight Patriots: An Einstein-Chaplin Thriller by Paul Levine

Paul Levine is a former trial lawyer and the author of two best-selling legal thriller series that have won the John D. MacDonald Fiction Award and have been shortlisted for the Edgar, Macavity, International Thriller, Shamus, and James Thurber prizes. He took an entirely different direction with his writing in 2025 with a book set in the late 1930s about real-life friends Charlie Chaplin and Albert Einstein who united their considerable forces to oppose the creeping fascism threatening to overtake the world. Combining fact with well-considered fiction, it was named Best Thriller of the Year from Best Thrillers.com.

The dynamic if unlikely duo of Chaplin and Einstein is back in Midnight Patriots (Nittany Valley Productions, June 2026). This time Charlie is in deep trouble. William Randolph Hearst has put out a contract on Charlie because of his ongoing dalliance with Hearst’s mistress Marion Davies. (The much older Hearst was notoriously jealous of Chaplin and possessive of Davies. A Peter Bogdanovich film called The Cat’s Meow (2001) uses it to explain the death of cinema producer Thomas H. Ince. Wonderful movie.) In addition, a German sharpshooter has been sent to assassinate Chaplin for his satirical portrayal of Hitler in his new movie The Great Dictator. Chaplin made Hitler look a fool and Hitler wasn’t standing for it.

Einstein isn’t much better off. An aging German spy named Fritz Duquesne is determined to show his bosses that he has not lost his touch. He plans to kidnap Einstein and return him to the Nazi Germany Einstein fled years earlier. At the same time, and fortunately for both Chaplin and Einstein, a pair of FBI agents is watching Einstein at J. Edgar Hoover’s orders to obtain evidence of subversive behavior. Major Leslie Groves is trying to enlist Einstein to monitor the research into an atomic device underway at multiple universities.

While under multiple threats, Chaplin tries to convert prospective presidential candidate Charles Lindbergh from his isolationist views. Mobster Mickey Cohen acts as bodyguard to Chaplin and Einstein. And Lena Horne gets her big career break when she meets Cohen who offers her a performing contract at a popular nightclub of which he is part owner.

Most of the major players were real people. A summary at the end of the book explains which is which and what happened to the nonfictional ones. Somehow the idea that Einstein and Chaplin could be friends is startling but they were both well-known world citizens and they held similar views. Likewise, Lindbergh’s status as an aviation hero clouds public knowledge of his conservative politics and strong belief in eugenics. It is easy to draw parallels between people and events in the book, set in the late 1930s, and the present time.

Much of the action takes place on the cross-country train known as the Super Chief, as Einstein and Chaplin return to Los Angeles after a trip to New York and a stop in Chicago on their way west. Insight into the workings of the long-gone passenger railway is always fascinating. Readers who like mysteries set on trains will want to read this book, as will those interested in the mindset of the United States as it waffled on entering the war against Germany.

The parts here about how the pro-war factions in the U.S. worked around the insular Congress reminds me of one of my favorite books of 2024. The Wealth of Shadows by Graham Moore (Random House, 2024), which was a fictionalized account of real-life happenings during the early days of World War II, described how President Roosevelt tasked the Treasury Department with finding a way to undermine the German economy, intending to force a financial stop to the fighting while staying officially within the isolationist policies in place.

A fascinating piece of fictionalized history. Recommended!

· ISBN-13: ‎979-8994263013

· Publisher: ‎Nittany Valley Productions, Inc.

· Publication date: ‎June 16, 2026

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎390 pages

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4xr9ici

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

Monday, June 08, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Every Lie I Told by Hilary Davidson

Hilary Davidson is a Toronto native now living in New York City. Her first work of crime fiction The Damage Done (Forge Books, 2010) won the 2011 Anthony and Crimespree awards for best first novel and was shortlisted for the Arthur Ellis and Macavity awards for best first. She’s written dozens of short stories. Every Lie I Told (Blackstone, June 2026) is her eighth work of crime fiction.

Jackie Swift is just another hamster on the enormous wheel of New York, running endlessly trying to reach the next rung on the ladder of success. Her parents died when she and her sister Madi were young, leaving them to the questionable care of an uncle. Jackie has been trying to overcome the disadvantages of her early life ever since, while pretending to have the upper-crust life that she wants. She learned early that her lack of family connections and resources would keep her out of her chosen field of journalism, no matter how hard she worked. She slid sideways into a dubious public relations firm with some credible clients and a lot of shifty ones. Her habit of shading the truth about her life quickly expanded to covering up for wealthy people behaving badly. Dissembling about everything, from her customers’ actions and intentions to the store where she bought today’s outfit, became routine.

Jackie is overwhelmingly protective of Madi, who dabbled far too often in drugs and made other unwise decisions. Jackie had come to keep Narcan on hand for emergencies so when Madi called in the early hours of Monday morning that she needed help, Jackie scrambled for the naloxone and drove to an Upper East side townhouse. She could not find Madi but she did find the quite dead body of her former mentor and employer. The police focus early on Madi as the likely killer and as they search for her, Jackie does everything she can to throw suspicion on others, including an ex-wife who tried to kill the dead man more than once.

The story delivers credible insight into the inner workings of publicity firms and marketing psychology, which I found thought-provoking. With a driving pace and one surprise after another, the story held my attention to the end despite my lack of sympathy with most of the characters, who were singularly unpleasant. Fans of contemporary psychological thrillers and unreliable narrators will love this book.

· ISBN-13: ‎979-8228475151

· Publisher: ‎Blackstone Publishing, Inc.

· Publication date: ‎June 16, 2026

· Edition: ‎Hardcover

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎371 pages

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4fv3o3j

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

Monday, June 01, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Butler by Clare Mackintosh

The Butler by Clare Mackintosh (Podium Publishing, June 2026) is a stand-alone thriller from the author of the DC Ffion Morgan and DS Leo Brady series. CWA recently announced that Clare is shortlisted for the 2026 CWA Dagger in the Library.

Baxter is a butler who freelances for wealthy individuals in need of major domo services for a short time. He’s been hired to prepare and run a villa in the hills above Cannes for a house party of some half dozen individuals connected to the industry during the film festival and the accompanying events. Alec Prescott is the host, he and his ex-wife Sylvie Calloway are also celebrating the 21^st birthday of their only child Carter. Prescott arrives with his current much younger girl friend Kaitlynn. Baxter is alarmed to learn that Kaitlynn doesn’t know that Sylvie will be present and Sylvie doesn’t know about Kaitlynn. In addition to this worrying trio, Prescott and his girlfriend Jade and Prescott’s godparents Damian and Francesca Huxley, film producer and actress, respectively, make up the rest of the party.

Damian loses no time in trying to convince Alec to finance his next film, Alec declines and tactlessly suggests Francesca is too old to play leading roles. Alec also calls Prescott to task for not holding down a paying job, and Sylvie and Alec trade jabs over his youthful girlfriend. The atmosphere is tense and Baxter is required to supply vast quantities of alcoholic beverages to soothe tempers. The first two or three days are consumed with cinema viewings and media events, especially for Francesca who is promoting her newest film. The sniping continues whenever two or three of the party are together, and dinner with everyone is downright fractious.

Through it all, Baxter and the couple he hired to help him stay busy. They plan, shop, cook, and serve meals on time, clean all the rooms in the villa, change linen and towels, and cater to the constant demands for booze.

Early one morning Baxter finds Alec Prescott at the bottom of the swimming pool, quite dead. Too many people were upset with Prescott for Baxter to believe it was accidental. He decides to investigate on his own.

Readers familiar with Agatha Christie’s 4:50 from Paddington APA What Mrs. McGillicuddy Saw will immediately see the similarity of Baxter to Lucy Eyelesbarrow, that very expensive but extremely capable housekeeper who worked for wealthy households a few weeks at a time.

An original and pleasant read. Mackintosh is a recent find whom I plan to follow more closely. I particularly enjoyed the details of the job, which gave a strong Upstairs, Downstairs feel to the narrative. This story has strong potential to become a series.

· Publisher‏: ‎Podium Publishing

· Publication date: ‎June 16, 2026

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎208 pages

· ISBN-13: ‎979-8347009268

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4e1byiA

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

Tuesday, May 26, 2026

Happiness Is A Book: The Dust and the Heat by Michael Gilbert

Monday, May 25, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Storm Warning: A Dez Limerick Thriller by James Byrne

Storm Warning (Minotaur, May 2026) by James Byrne is the latest in the very fine thriller series about Desmond Aloysius Limerick (Dez to his mates), a military veteran with unusual skills, a smart mouth, and an irresistible ability to make friends wherever he goes. He’s in New York when this book opens, learning how to cook in a high-end restaurant and enjoying life when the FBI asks him to accompany a Department of State executive, her security guard, and a hostage rescue team to a scientific research center in an isolated part of coastal Newfoundland. It seems all communications with the town and the research center have been lost and the assumption is the group is being held hostage, possibly for the sensitive information held by the multinational scientists working there. Dez’s skills as a gatekeeper are expected to be needed to enter the facility.

The night before the rescue team leaves, Dez is approached by a group of thugs who offer him cash not to go on what was supposed to be a highly secret rescue mission. He declines but worries about this open indication that someone has a vested interest in keeping the research center sequestered and has learned about their plans.

A pair of competing blizzards with the Canadian east coast as their target complicate the flight to the remote village where the center and the scientists are. The plane with the hostage rescue team falls behind and only a small group of diplomats and security guards reach their destination. Once they land, the action never stops. As with all of the books in this series, Dez is relentless in his focus and endlessly creative in achieving his goals.

He's particularly challenged here as people are not always who they seem to be, right up to the end of the book. I found my belief of who were the good guys and which ones were the bad guys was constantly undergoing revision.

Dez does have a tendency to think he knows what’s best for everyone around him. I was amused to see his arrangements for one character were politely but firmly declined, setting him back on his heels for a bit. It was no doubt a salutary experience for him.

Highly recommended! This book can be read as a stand-alone but since Dez tends to acquire friends in each adventure and take them with him from one story to the next, the reader who wants to fully understand the back story of every title should probably read the books in order.

Starred review from Publishers Weekly.

· Publisher: ‎Minotaur Books

· Publication date: ‎May 26, 2026

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎400 pages

· ISBN-10: ‎1250319811

· ISBN-13: ‎978-1250319814

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4e1byiA

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

Monday, May 18, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Hero: A DS Walker Thriller by Patricia Wolf

The fifth book in the DS Lucas Walker series by Patricia Wolf, to be released later this month, is as good as the earlier titles. Wolf has the gift of creating immersive and original narratives that immediately pull me in. I raced through this one in a day.

Hero (Embla Books, May 2026) finds Walker back in Queensland, after being caught up in an internal political fracas within the Australian Federal Police. He ended up on the Queensland force, in a tiny town called Katima, an easy drive from his hometown Caloodie, where he spends his weekends with his family, something he couldn’t do in his previous job.

The body of a young man hanging from a tree was the first big case for Walker in his new job. Walker was suspicious of the supposed suicide arrangement from the start and sure enough the autopsy revealed the man had died of an overdose. Walker was attempting to identify the victim when a retired member of the force mentioned a cold case with strong similarities. The earlier victim was never identified and it always worried the retiree. A call from the Conroy estate sent the two cases from Walker’s mind, as Caden Conroy, the professional cricket player and national hero, had been bloodily murdered in his drawing room. The killing set off frantic demands for immediate arrests, and political strings were pulled at all levels. Walker as part of the local police was considered incapable of handling a major investigation. While he was forced to hand the Conroy case over to the federal police, he still had the other two cases to work, which began to show odd connections to the Conroy family and the cricket academy they ran.

The craze for sports gambling of all kinds and the potential for its abuse as well as the tendency to hold sports figures up as objects of adulation are examined thoroughly in this story. My knowledge of cricket, which is considered to be Australia’s national sport, is unfortunately limited to a chapter in Murder Must Advertise by Dorothy L. Sayers where Lord Peter Wimsey displays his skill at the game.

A thread about Walker’s niece demonstrates his attachment to his family and his desire to stay close to them. His late grandmother and her house remain deeply important to him, giving him a depth of humanity not always seen in crime fiction protagonists.

The settings are exotic, the characters are terrific, and the plots in this series are innovative and well executed. Fans of outback noir and police procedurals should definitely add these books to their TBR lists. Readers of the series will be delighted with this new entry. Recommended!

Publisher: ‎Embla Books
Publication date: ‎May 20, 2026
Language: ‎English
Print length: ‎432 pages
ISBN-10: ‎1471422666
ISBN-13: ‎978-1471422669

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4nv7Qkx

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

Monday, May 11, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: An Enigma by the Sea by Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini

Carlo Fruttero and Franco Lucentini were a well-known literary duo in Italy for several decades until Lucentini’s death in 2002. For about forty years they co-wrote newspaper and magazine articles, literary essays, edited numerous anthologies, and published six groundbreaking and best-selling mystery novels. Their first novel, The Sunday Woman, was adapted for film in 1975 starring Marcello Mastroianni, Jacqueline Bisset and Jean-Louis Trintignant.

An Enigma by the Sea, their third book, was first published in Italian in 1991 as Enigma in luogo di mare by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore S.p.A., Milano. It was published in the UK in 1994 by Chatto & Windus Ltd, London. Bitter Lemon Press has issued a fresh edition with a translation by Gregory Dowling, an Oxford graduate now residing in Venice. Dowling is no stranger to crime fiction, he’s the author of a half dozen historical mysteries.

Bitter Lemon Press seems to specialize in exquisitely written mysteries, although this particular title is more of a comedy of manners than crime fiction. Readers who enjoy snark and eccentric characters along with their whodunnits will adore this book. The aforesaid eccentrics inhabit 153 villas set among the pine trees of the forest Gualdana along the coast of Italy. Most of them use their villas as vacation residences but some inhabit them year round and rely on the tiny village nearby to supply their needs. There’s Signor Monforti, chronic depressive and inveterate naysayer who yearns after the beautiful Signora Neri. He is sure if she would just marry him, his negativity would fly away, never to return. Signora Neri is of a more practical turn of mind and questions just how happy she could be with someone who never is.

Then there’s Signora Baldacci, known to be straying outside her marriage with the much younger Dino Fioravanti. It was popularly supposed that Signor Baldacci was in ignorance of this arrangement until the two men encountered each other outside a local bar and blows were exchanged. Threats were also uttered and the local police fear the threats will be carried out; they were specific and detailed, these threats, and both parties have the means to execute them. Much time and worry is expended within the police office, trying to decide what to do.

Then there’s the villa infested with rats and the daughters of the family shrieking and huddling on the beds. And Signor Salvini who is sneaking a girl into his wife’s vacation villa for the usual reasons, but she is so clearly no better than she should be that he cannot be seen publicly with her for fear of word getting back to his wife. He makes up all sorts of reasons to stop along the way to the village so as to arrive after dark. And the pair of comedy writers who have encountered writers’ block. And on and on.

The story seems never to get around to any crime to speak of but the villa residents and the village storekeepers are so amusing I didn’t really mind. Until about midway in the book one character after another realizes this person or that one hasn’t been seen for awhile. They each make their way to the Marshal’s office to report a missing person, who is overwhelmed by the report of the fourth unexplained absence. Watching the local police investigate is quite entertaining.

A list in the back of the book itemizes the characters and their role in the book. It would be more helpful up front where the reader could consult at the first moment of confusion, of which I had many.

Readers who require frenetic action should pass on this story. But I found it to be a witty, beautifully written book. Kirkus summed it up neatly: “A juicily acerbic mystery that’s more lurid soap opera than whodunit.”

· Publisher: ‎Bitter Lemon Press

· Publication date: ‎April 21, 2026

· Language: ‎English

· Print length: ‎416 pages

· ISBN-10: ‎1916725198

· ISBN-13: ‎978-1916725195

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3Pwxtoz

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

Monday, May 04, 2026

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Beth Is Dead by Katie Bernet

Beth Is Dead is Katie Bernet’s debut novel. Published by Simon & Schuster in January 2026, the story is a startling contemporary recasting of Little Women, the classic girls’ book by Louisa May Alcott. I read this book at the beginning of the year and I still do not know what to think of it.

The book supposes the fictional March family is living in Concord, New Hampshire, where their mother Margaret works as an Emergency Room nurse, supporting the family. Meg attends Harvard to become a doctor, and Jo is trying to publish a book. She has a large social media following. The family is suffering the backlash of the father Robert March’s book about his four daughters, giving personal details that mortified them. Beth, the third daughter, according to the book, was killed in a traffic accident.

The book turned into a bestseller but it distressed his family. It also enraged the public on behalf of the daughters, whose privacy had been violated. The public reaction surprised Mr. March, who like his real-life model Bronson Alcott, tended to be clueless. He left the family, believing he would draw attention away from them. In reality, it left Mrs. March to hold the family together, something Bronson Alcott did all too often to his wife Abby.

Beth was especially upset. She was still quite alive and couldn’t understand why her father would kill her even fictionally. She is an accomplished pianist and has been admitted to a prestigious performing arts school called Plumfield, paid for by Aunt March, a successful business executive. Amy also wants to attend but there isn’t enough money for both of them. Typically for Amy, she presses Beth to give up her place and they argue at a New Year’s Eve party, given by Meg’s friend Sallie Gardiner.

Beth is found dead outside not far from her home the next morning on New Year’s Day. Amy and Jo each come under suspicion, as does John Brooke, Beth’s piano instructor and Meg’s off-and-on boyfriend.

The details of Alcott’s books have been tossed into a blender to form a different picture of the family, while retaining critical elements of the original, akin to a kaleidoscope. Like the fictional Margaret March and the real-life Abby Alcott, the mother of the family here deals with day-to-day life while the father lives in his books. Meg’s aspirations to a medical career are new, but Jo’s writing, Amy’s art, and Beth’s music are all established pieces of the original Alcott catalog.

I am not sure how successful the book is as a mystery as opposed to a clever retelling of an iconic story. The investigating officers seemed to jump to conclusions without adequate evidence as they accused first one sister, then another. The actual culprit was obvious in retrospect.

A fascinating piece of writing. Devotees of the Little Women canon may find the book traumatizing however.

Starred reviews from BookPage, Kirkus, Shelf Awareness, and Publishers Weekly.

Publisher‏: ‎Sarah Barley Books / Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers
Publication date: ‎January 6, 2026
Language: ‎English
Print length: ‎400 pages
ISBN-10: ‎166598869X
ISBN-13: ‎978-1665988698

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4ejG7Rt

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

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