Showing posts with label June 2025. Show all posts
Showing posts with label June 2025. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 01, 2025
SleuthSayers: Some Great Books
SleuthSayers: Some Great Books: The first half of the year will end in about thirty-five minutes on the East Coast of the US, so this is a perfect time for me to share my f...
Monday, June 30, 2025
Monday Evening Humor Seen On Facebook
Wish Sandi was here to see this as I used to say this now and then and it did annoy her.... lol
Gravetapping: Ed Gorman and Ed & Lorraine Warren
Gravetapping: Ed Gorman and Ed & Lorraine Warren: Ed Gorman and Ed & Lorraine Warren * * * The novelist Ed Gorman collaborated with d...
Beneath the Stains of Time: Visitors to the Isolated Island (2020) by Kie Houjou
Beneath the Stains of Time: Visitors to the Isolated Island (2020) by Kie Houjou: Last year, Kie Houjou became one of my favorite mystery writers on the strength of two novels, Jikuu ryokousha no sunadokei ( The Time Trav...
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Death by Accident: Bill Crider
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Death by Accident: Bill Crider: The Sheriff Dan Rhodes series by Bill Crider is set in a small town in Blacklin County, a fictional county in Texas. It is a cozy series; Sh...
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Elias Enigma by Simon Gervais
Simon Gervais is a former
federal agent with extensive experience in military operations and law
enforcement where he specialized in protective operations and counterterrorism.
He has used his deep knowledge of the intelligence community to write more than
a dozen popular espionage thrillers that have attracted a strong reader
following.
His newest book is The
Elias Enigma (Thomas & Mercer, 8 July 2025), the second book in his
series about retired assassin Caspian Anderson and his girlfriend, German spy
Liesl Bergmann, who has been temporarily assigned to support the Defense
Clandestine Service, a well-hidden department of the United States. Anderson is
being brought back into the organizational fold, which isn’t sitting all that
well with him because he likes to operate as a lone agent.
Anderson has been assigned to
follow small business and technology whiz Frank LaBelle, the founder of Scout
Orbital, to France where LaBelle is meeting with representatives of a large
organization that wants to acquire LaBelle’s latest invention. The United
States is concerned about the political allegiance of the associates of the
acquiring corporation and wants to keep the cutting-edge technology out of
adversarial hands. Another group aligned with the purchasing company is
determined to make sure the sale goes through. A third faction is shadowing
LaBelle for reasons unclear to Anderson. When all three crowds converge in a
hotel lobby at a business convention, things go boom.
In the meantime, Anderson’s
parents, who quietly run a medium-sized trucking company in Maine, are taken
into ATF custody for protection from gangsters who seem to have been using
their trucks to transport ill-gotten goods. The crates and boxes were sent
through two or three layers of intermediaries, and the Andersons had no way to
know the contents were not as described on the bills of lading. When they
accidentally found out, they reported the shipments to the authorities, putting
themselves in danger.
Original plots, breakneck
action, and authentic tradecraft make this title a winner. Fans of spy
thrillers such as the Gray Man, Orphan X, Terminal List, Victor the Assassin, and
Mitch Rapp series will want to add this new book to their reading lists.
The third book in the series
is scheduled for publication in July 2026.
·
Publisher:
Thomas & Mercer
·
Publication
date: July 8, 2025
·
Language:
English
·
Print
length: 348 pages
·
ISBN-10:
1662518552
·
ISBN-13:
978-1662518553
Amazon Associate Purchase
Link: https://amzn.to/3I1h8nI
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former
librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Guest Post: “A Promise to Pete”: A Short Story of Firsts by James Patrick Focarile
Please welcome James Patrick Focarile as he
shares how his short story, A Promise to Pete, came to be in the new
anthology, Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers: 22 Stories of Mystery
& Suspense. Published by Superior
Shores Press, the read is available at Amazon and
other vendors.
“A Promise to
Pete”: A Short Story of Firsts
Writing the short
story “A Promise to Pete,” published in the anthology Midnight Schemers
& Daydream Believers by Superior
Shores, was an enjoyable and interesting departure for me. The majority of my work
to date has been from the point of view (POV) of the criminal. A criminal with
everyman qualities and flaws. An anti-hero. But in “A Promise to Pete” I set
out to write my first detective story. And I wanted the main character to be a
homage to the classic detectives of Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett,
while continuing to honor my active, minimalist writing style.
As with many of my
works, I chose the first-person POV, which pours out of me the easiest. I find
that in first-person, I can inhabit the character and lean on my years of
training and experiences as an actor to create dialogue and dramatic structure.
While several of my stories in the past have been “ripped from the headlines,”
the inspiration for this story was different and happened more organically on
one of my daily neighborhood walks. As I turned the corner, I found two small
white socks laying on a neighbor’s front walk. They were wet from the previous
night’s storm and my mind started to wander. Why were the baby’s socks there?
Why both of them? What happened to the kid? As I continued to walk and mull
over the lost socks, the idea for a story started to percolate. I’d write a
mystery involving a kidnapping (another first for me). A few weeks later, “A
Promise to Pete” was born.
Another first with
this story was having the pleasure of working with Judy Sheluk. A previous story
of mine had been shortlisted for one of her anthologies but, unfortunately, missed
the final cut. Thankfully, she provided me with some great feedback and, after
incorporating it, I found a home for that story.
This time around
though, I was happy to learn my story was selected. Again, Judy and her team
provided valuable feedback during the editorial process. Many of my previous
stories have been published “as is” or with minimal revisions. But with “A
Promise to Pete” Judy was more hands on, providing me with great ideas for
streamlining the story, as well as character embellishments. She even
encouraged me to explore other options for the title. All of her suggestions improved
the final product, making the story more compelling.
Writing can be a
solitary experience, but what I learned this time around is that it can also be
a collaborative one. Especially if you’re open to constructive feedback from
qualified readers and if everyone’s willing to compromise. It’s always tough to
cut your ‘darlings’, but sometimes you need someone not so close to your story
to ask the right questions so you can make it even better.
I’m coming off recently being a first-time Derringer Finalist for a story I wrote for Shotgun Honey so it’s an exciting time. A lot of my work is available for free on my website, but I hope readers take a chance on “A Promise to Pete” and the new Midnight Schemers & Daydream Believers anthology which includes twenty-two stories of mystery and suspense. It’s a great line-up of writers so you’re bound to enjoy it!
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/44vnrJF
James Patrick Focarile ©2025
James Patrick Focarile is an award-winning writer and Derringer Finalist who resides in the Northwest U.S.A. He holds an undergraduate degree from Rutgers University and an M.F.A. from Brooklyn College. His work has appeared in the following: Shotgun Honey, Mystery Tribune, Guilty Crime Story Magazine, Pulp Modern Flash, Close To The Bone, Thrill Ride Magazine, and more. For more info, visit: JamesPatrickFocarile.com
Saturday, June 28, 2025
Scott's Take: Marvel The Uncanny X-Men: Days of Future Fun by Jeffery Brown
Marvel The Uncanny X-Men: Days of
Future Fun
by Jeffery Brown, author and illustrator, is a fun read. This is a children’s
book that has Professor X trying to raise his young X-men as children in short
little comedy skit segments. A number of X-Men are featured such as Storm,
Cyclops, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, and more. This is a lighthearted book with no
real plot--- just humor.
The skits range from the X-Men playing
hide and seek to trying to steal the cookie jar from Professor X. There are
scenes where Magento is the substitute teacher for Professor X. Even the New
Mutants stop by briefly for a skit. The illustrations are colorful if a little
simple.
Apparently, there are several Marvel
books and Star Wars books by the same author. I had never heard of these books
before I saw this one on my local library website. This seems like a fun series
to read with your kids.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4kTgK8V
My reading copy came from the Martin
Luther King JR Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2025
Friday, June 27, 2025
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 72 Calls for Submissions in July 2025
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 72 Calls for Submissions in July 2025: This July there are six dozen calls for submissions. All of these are paying markets, and none charge submission fees. As always, every genr...
Mystery Fanfare: MAIGRET: New TV series on PBS
Mystery Fanfare: MAIGRET: New TV series on PBS: MASTERPIECE on PBS has announced that Maigret , a contemporary series, will premiere on Sunday, October 5, 2025 at 9/8c on PBS . The fi...
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Lunar Love by Lauren Kung Jessen: Reviewed by Jeanne Olivia “Liv” Huang Christenson is a mixed race Chinese American who is poised to take over Lunar Love, a matchmaking ...
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