Showing posts with label March 2023. Show all posts
Showing posts with label March 2023. Show all posts
Saturday, April 01, 2023
SleuthSayers: Taking Stock of the Markets by John Floyd
SleuthSayers: Taking Stock of the Markets: Over the past several weeks it's been my pleasure to participate in several Zoom sessions with other writers and writers' groups....
Jerry's House of Everything: JIM HARDY COMICS BOOK -- GIANT EDITION (1944)
Jerry's House of Everything: JIM HARDY COMICS BOOK -- GIANT EDITION (1944): "Jim Hardy" began his career, (sort of) as Jim Conley, Ex-Convict . Creator Dick Moores worked with Chet Gould on Gould's D...
Friday, March 31, 2023
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Shadows Over Baker Street edited by Michael Reaves and John Pelan
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Shadows Over Baker Street edited by Michael Reaves...: Reviewed by Jeanne This wonderful collection of short stories imagines the worlds of Sherlock Holmes and H.P. Lovecraft colliding to del...
Beneath the Stains of Time: It's a Numbers Game: Q.E.D. vol. 23-24 by Motohiro Katou
Beneath the Stains of Time: It's a Numbers Game: Q.E.D. vol. 23-24 by Motohiro...: The first of two stories from Motohiro Katou 's Q.E.D. vol. 23, "The Liar," begins with Sou Touma arriving in Taiwan to meet...
Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH
Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH: The Phantom Tollbooth by Norman Juster (1961) The classic juvenile fantasy, made even better (as if that were possible) by illustrations ...
FFB Review: Time of Death by J. D. Robb
Time of Death by J.D. Robb is
a novella collection featuring NYPSD Lieutenant Eve Dallas. Unlike the Three
in Death collection that was primarily straight forward, the strange
and flat-out weird plays a bigger role in this read.
It opens with Eternity
in Death. In late April 2060, Tiara Dent bought into his myth of living
forever. Now she won’t see 24 as the young beautiful woman is a very dead
celebrity. The two puncture wounds on the left side of her throat give some
indication to how it happened.
Eve Dallas hates
stiletto heels. She hates the dressing up to mingle and socialize party
nonsense. But, when you are married to Roarke, a very rich man, you do what you
have to do. That means being very dressed up and in attendance at the gathering
hosted by Maxia Caryle. It was supposed to be a fun evening in Eternity in Death. Certainly not a
murder scene. But, it is, and now there is a victim, one very bloody suspect,
and many other folks that also have to be ruled considered as killers or
witnesses. Now the real party can get started.
It is early
spring in 2060 and the traditional ferries still sail across the water to the Statue
of Liberty. One on those ferries, the Hillary Rodham Clinton, has a very
bloody bathroom. No doubt the person that was in that bathroom is dead. Nobody
could have survived that massive amount of blood loss. Yet, there is no body. That person did not just get up and leave. It
all means that Lieutenant Eve Dallas has a missing victim, a floating crime
scene, and more than a few suspects in Missing in Death.
The three
novellas in the Time of Death collection are all good ones. They push the boundaries
of the strange a little bit, but all three end up being logically solved. As
always, there are plenty of twists and turns as the reads move quickly to a
resolution.
My reading copy
came by way of the Libby/OverDrive App and the Dallas Public Library System.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
Thursday, March 30, 2023
Wednesday, March 29, 2023
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Fair and Tender Ladies, Boy Who Talked to Dogs, Dollbaby, Librarian of Burned Books
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Nevermore: Fair and Tender Ladies, Boy Who Talked ...: Reported by Garry Fair and Tender Ladies by Lee Smith. “I used to be a scandal myself. Now I am an institution.” Ivy Crow is a fire...
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Birdie" by Lauren Groff
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday: "Birdie" by Lauren Groff: Some serendipitous wandering around on the internet on the weekend led me to discover a new (to me) author that I want to read, and a shor...
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: CLOONATURK
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: CLOONATURK: "Cloonaturk" by Mervyn Wall (firxt published in Argosy [UK], December 1947; reprinted in Wall's collections A Flutter of Wi...
Short Story Wednesday Review: Guilty Crime Story Magazine: Issue Six, Fall 2022
Guilty Crime Story Magazine: Issue Six,
Fall 2022,
opens with “Overnights at the Bumblebee Motel” by Michael Grimala. Gordon has a driven a long way from Ohio to
southern Louisiana in search of Hannah. He thinks the Bumblebee Motel might
offer a clue or two in his search. He needs to find his sister.
Publisher and Editor Brandon Barrows is
next with “One Last Ride.” Foley just wants to park his cab the night and go to
bed. Dispatcher Hugh Spenser is a serious annoyance and he is not done with
Foley yet. Instead, because the next driver is out sick, Foley has to keep
working. He has to go to the airport on a nasty night and pick up a passenger
named Thomas Bailey. Foley’s Bed, and his unhappy wife, are going to have to
wait.
Steve Liskow’s short story, “Peepin’ and
Hiddin’” is next where at least one of the neighbors is a real jerk.
Unfortunately, he is teaching his own son the same bad ideas. Wes and Louie
have fireworks, cherry bombs to be specific, and are perfectly willing to use
them. It is July 1st, a drought is happening, and they have zero concern for
others in their condo complex. That is going to change.
Dan Moore knows the kid is up to
something in “You Wouldn’t Shoot Me” by Anderson Barnes. He tailed him from the
buss and followed him off the bus at a stop in Roxbury. Every step they take
sends Dan Moore deeper in a neighborhood he does not know and where it seems
everyone is watching him.
He used to be a cop. Now, each evening,
he sits in a bar and limits himself to five drinks. He plays an inner game with
himself in “Some Sunny Day, Baby” by Joseph S. Walker and tries to figure out
if this will be the night he goes for six. That is until a face from long ago,
Anson Brancato, shows up and tells him of a problem and Carl Denham. Favors are
owed and he owes Carl Denham.
“I’ll Scratch Yours” by Thomas Nicholson
is next where our man is on a massage table having his bad shoulder and more
worked on by an unseen masseuse. The department is paying and it should help
him feel better. It might actually work if she did not talk so much. She has a
lot to say.
The author, Mr. James, is meeting with a
man known to some as Mr. John Wesley Hardin about an upcoming movie. It is to be a western and he had some
questions as Wyatt Earp, still living out in California, told him to get gone.
Lonnie put the two together for his own reasons. Getting Mr. James to show up
was just the first step in the plan in “The John Wesley Hardin Rag by Coy Hall.
The issue closes with the nonfiction
piece, “The Jeff Davis 8: A True Crime Story” by. N. Fraley. It recounts the
discovery of eight women in and around various bodies of water in Jennings,
Louisiana. During the period between 2005 and 2009 the bodies of the women were
found. All were sex workers who may have been killed by a serial killer. They
may have been the victims of rogue police officers. We may never know as this
piece explains.
As always, the stories in Guilty Crime Story Magazine: Issue Six, Fall 2022 are not happy reads. Like the tales in previous ones, these are not tales of people drinking tea, cats hanging out, or ones that make one content with the state of the world where one is sure all will work out. Far from it. Darkness, in a variety of ways, is probed in the tales that make up this issue. While this reader had his own favorites, all are solidly good reads.
My reading copy was a purchase of the eBook last October by way of funds in my Amazon Associate account.
Kevin R. Tipple © 2023
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