Beneath the Stains of Time: The Billiard-Room Mystery (1927) by Brian Flynn

Beneath the Stains of Time: The Billiard-Room Mystery (1927) by Brian Flynn: Brian Flynn was a government accountant, lecturer and author of more than fifty detective novels, most of them starring his dilettante, ...

Unlawful Acts: Shoulder Wounds No. 6

Unlawful Acts: Shoulder Wounds No. 6

Author Jim Nesbit Reviews: Four Kinds Of Rain by Robert Ward

Author Jim Nesbit Reviews: Four Kinds Of Rain by Robert Ward

CrimeReads: WHY ALCOHOLISM AND CRIME FICTION ARE STILL ENTWINED by Reed Farel Coleman

CrimeReads: WHY ALCOHOLISM AND CRIME FICTION ARE STILL ENTWINED by Reed Farel Coleman

Steve Fahnestalk Reviews: REVIEW: MURDERBOT DIARIES (concluded) by Martha Wells

Steve Fahnestalk Reviews: REVIEW: MURDERBOT DIARIES (concluded) by Martha Wells

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Guilty Dead by P.J. Tracy

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Guilty Dead by P.J. Tracy

KRL This Week Update For 9/29/18

Up in KRL this morning a review and giveaway of "Pasta Mortem" by Ellery Adams and Rosemary Stevens, along with a fun food and mysteries related guest post by Rosemary, and the giveaway includes some cute Halloween kitchen towels!
http://kingsriverlife.com/09/29/pasta-mortem-by-ellery-adams-and-rosemary-stevens/



And reviews and giveaways of 4 fun food mysteries for your fall reading-"Dim Sum of All Fears": A Noodle Shop Mystery by Vivien Chien, "Goodbye Cruller World": A Deputy Donut Mystery by Ginger Bolton, "Stabbed
in the Baklava": A Kitchen Kebab Mystery by Tina Kashian, and "Premeditated Peppermint": Amish Candy Shop Mystery by Amanda Flower
http://kingsriverlife.com/09/29/food-mysteries-for-your-fall-appetite/



We also have a review and giveaway of "Rooted in Deceit" by Wendy Tyson, along with an interesting interview with Wendy
http://kingsriverlife.com/09/29/rooted-in-deceit-by-wendy-tyson/



And the latest mystery Coming Attractions from Sunny Frazier http://kingsriverlife.com/09/29/coming-attractions-oktoberfest-edition/



Up on KRL News & Reviews this week a review and giveaway of "The Breakers" by Marcia Muller
https://www.krlnews.com/2018/09/the-breakers-by-marcia-muller.html



And a review and giveaway of "Hollywood Ending" by Kellye Garrett
https://www.krlnews.com/2018/09/hollywood-ending-by-kellye-garrett.html



And a review and giveaway of "Mrs. Odboddy: And Then There was a Tiger" by Elaine Faber
https://www.krlnews.com/2018/09/mrs-odboddy-and-then-there-was-tiger-by-elaine-faber.html


Happy reading,
Lorie

Saturdays With Kaye: Badlands by C. J. Box

Badlands by C. J. Box

Day One of this thriller starts with a crash-bang, whipping the reader between North Dakota and North Carolina, propelling us, relentlessly, into a breathtaking tale of death, greed, and fear. Days Two, Three, and the rest keep us barreling along.

Cassie Dewell takes a new job and finds herself thrust into a place filled with nasty, brutish people, some of whom live short lives. Besides her tough new job as deputy sheriff in the aptly named town of Grimstad, she has other problems. She is maybe the only person who can identify a serial killer called the Lizard King, so she travels briefly to North Carolina to interview him. He attacks her in the interrogation room, tries to strangle her, and almost kills her. After she returns north, she learns there may not be enough evidence to keep him in jail. If there isn’t, she’s in a great deal of danger.

Meanwhile, back in the cold north winter, a twelve-year-old boy, Kyle Westergaard, is the one the reader fears for the most. He’s a true innocent, a bit slow mentally and unable to speak clearly. He rarely does speak and only a few people can understand him. But he knows everything that is going on. The trouble starts the day he sees too much on his early morning paper route, the worst route because it’s the farthest one out. When he sneaks over and picks up a bundle from the site of a car wreck, he becomes the unwitting target of rival factions who want that bundle, all of them vicious people.

The town of Grimstad is a real place and it did experience the oil boom described here, which serves as background and impetus for dirty deeds. The cold northern plains winter permeates these pages. You may have to read this with a sweater on. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did.

Reviewed by Kaye George, author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

FFB Review: PEOPLE BEHAVING BADLY: A Collection of Short Mystery Stories (2015) by John D. Ottini (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

Barry Ergang is back to close out September with his new review of a short story collection. For the list of what is suggested this week, make sure you head over to Patti Abbott’s blog.

PEOPLE BEHAVING BADLY: A Collection of Short Mystery Stories (2015)

by John D. Ottini

The short stories in this collection all involve crimes and criminous behavior, and can thus be subsumed under the mystery category in its broadest sense, but they are not the kind of puzzle stories the term “mystery” implies. That said, they’re a lot of fun.

He tells people who ask that his name is Joe, but the reader can’t be certain this is true. Joe’s skill is looting mailboxes for checks and credit card statements, which he sends on to associates who will use the information thus gleaned to loot bank accounts and sell relevant data to identity thieves. After pulling off such a theft in Unionville, he finds a note indicating he’s been found out, and that the sender wants to meet with him. What seem to Joe “Easy Pickings” remains to be determined.

Now living in a retirement community, Bill Sullivan has said hello to fellow resident “Dumpster Rose,” prior to the arrival of the sanitation truck, three times a week for the past two weeks. Today is like another, except that now Bill invites her to breakfast, Rose’s acceptance of which leads to excitement and revelations, including at least one of the latter Bill could do without.  

Marco Mancini knew from age thirteen that he wanted to become a priest, much to the pleasure of his grandmother and the displeasure of his parents. But heed the call he did, and now serves with Father Bryan at “St. Anne’s Church in crime-riddled Belleview parish. All those years of study and sacrifice at the seminary didn’t prepare him for the evil he’s witnessed over the last five years.” When an upset and very frightened young woman confesses to Father Marco, he surprises her with a “True Confession” of his own in a potent story that might leave readers pondering matters moral and immoral.  

In “A Shoulder to Die On,” Brian Watson frequently forgets to remove the contents of the pockets in his jeans before tossing them into the hamper, so wife Dina makes it a point to check them before they become part of a laundry load. When she discovers a matchbook from “the Wild Horse Club, a singles bar which is best described as a meat market for horny souls,” she finds a seductive note penned inside its cover. She decides to let the discovery pass without comment to Brian, certain he’s not a cheater. But two weeks later she finds a note to him written on hotel stationery, resulting in confrontations which lead to catastrophic outcomes.

Experienced bartender Ace Miller has developed, from general necessity and the specific need to retain his job, a capacity “to listen, sympathize and keep the drinks flowing. Never offer advice unless asked to do so and never argue with a customer.” Between Mrs. Marsalina and, especially, the very demanding—and frequently inebriated—Ben Summerfield, he’s kept extremely busy. While he’s all too familiar with Summerfield’s story, neither he nor Summerfield can foresee the “Killer Karma” that’s coming.

Storefront medium Madame Simone has her latest customer initially tagged as both well-to do and well-educated until he opens his mouth and the grammatical errors pour out. But since he’s willing to pay her sizable fee for a reading, she’s willing to overlook the linguistic ineptitudes of the man who says his name is Tony. The reading starts out reasonably well, Simone having had only one dissatisfied customer in her five years working her grift, but it’s unfortunate she really can’t see the future or she’d know what happens when “The Auditor Cometh.”

“Jillian met Peter in the rooftop lounge on the 20th floor of the Markham Hotel a year ago.” They developed an on-again/off-again relationship “based on pure unadulterated lust, great sex and large quantities of alcohol.” But now Jillian has asked Peter to join her at the hotel lounge for what, unbeknownst to him, is her determination to make an irrevocable break. Their discussion takes the kind of turn Jillian couldn’t have foreseen, and a more radical turn when Will Denton shows up and demonstrates that “Falling is the Hardest Part.”

The nameless, highly imaginative first-person narrator of “A Matter of Disposal” learns that eavesdropping on neighbors Monica and Howard Swartz, who live in the apartment above his in a building with paper-thin walls and ceilings, can have very embarrassing consequences.

Another nameless narrator relates “A Deadly Act of Kindness.” A bone-breaker for his boss Mr. Genovese, he’s watching the home of accountant Daniel Davis because “apparently Dan’s stupid enough to think he can siphon funds out of Mrs. Genovese’s and some of his other clients’ accounts and get away with it.” Davis has denied the accusation but Mr. Genovese doesn’t believe him, so our narrator has been dispatched to send a message via the Davises’ eight-year-old daughter Molly as soon as they leave for the evening and Molly is home with a babysitter.

When he arrives at his office at the News-Tribune very early in the morning, crime reporter Jason Garrett finds an envelope with his name on it which was postmarked three days earlier. The letter is from a Mildred Cruickshank, and details aspects of her personal downfall from an opulent lifestyle to a far less substantial one—and why. Now living in a rundown apartment complex includes Mildred’s having “Hell to Pay” to contend with vicious juvenile delinquent sixteen-year-old neighboring twins Randy and Teddy in a particularly potent tale.

For Donald Roberts, “Sorrow Point” is simultaneously a state of place, a state of mind, and a state of retribution as he recounts his dysfunctional relationship with his parents, with his fifteen-year-older brother Thom, and with Thom’s wife Greta.

Henry Foster tries to discourage his stay-at-home wife Andrea from watching the evening newscasts because they’re always full of grim stories. But she does so anyway while he’s at work at “The Butcher” shop he’s inherited from his father and grandfather. On this particular evening there’s another story about a mass murderer of women. Mostly, however, Andrea is angry at Henry for what she saw on the news concerning him in this darkly comic tale.

Paul Santini is in deep financial trouble—and with the wrong people. He owes three thousand dollars to Romano Sambucco after losing to him in a game of pool, and—worst still—thirty-seven thousand dollars (plus interest) to crime boss Guido Genovese, owner of the “Lucky Thirteen” casino. In the case of the latter, Paul is given a painful warning by Genovese’s man Tony (a.k.a. the Auditor) Deluso that he’s up against a deadline. When a lawyer named Walter Michaels comes into his life with a fortuitous proposition, Paul figures he has it made—if he plays his cards right….

Readers who are fans of crime stories, some of which contain macabre twists, are advised to check out this quick entertaining read from an author whose prose is competently wrought and whose sense of characterization is strong and commendable. The one nit I have to pick is the one I mentioned in my review of James Patterson’s I, Alex Cross regarding “surprise” twists and violations thereof. Mr. Ottini has a predilection for surprise endings in a number of the stories in People Behaving Badly, not all of which are properly prepared for but which are less egregious than Patterson’s—if only because Ottini is working in the shorter form. Then again, in recent years I’ve read quite a few published short stories which violate what I was taught about planting suggestions and implications, so this might be one of those “new normals” we keep hearing about nowadays.

© 2018 Barry Ergang

Some of Derringer Award-winner Barry Ergang’s work is available at Amazon and Smashwords.

Bitter Tea and Mystery: The Drowning Pool: Ross Macdonald

Bitter Tea and Mystery: The Drowning Pool: Ross Macdonald: In this second Lew Archer novel by Ross Macdonald, the plot is complicated, with a large cast of characters. Archer's client is a woma...

The Digital Reader: Nate’s Big List of Writing, Marketing, and Publishing Podcasts

The Digital Reader: Nate’s Big List of Writing, Marketing, and Publishing Podcasts

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 9/25/18

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 9/25/18

In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday for 9/24/18

In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday for 9/24/18

TEXAS BOOK LOVER: Texas Institute of Letters 2018 contests now open!...

TEXAS BOOK LOVER: Texas Institute of Letters 2018 contests now open!...: The Texas Institute of Letters (TIL) literary contests, with prizes totaling more than $22,000, are now open.  TIL has named its disti...

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 9/20/18

The Rap Sheet: Revue of Reviewers for 9/20/18

KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH--Business Musings: Surviving The Stupid

KRISTINE KATHRYN RUSCH--Business Musings: Surviving The Stupid

Saturdays With Kaye: Second Life by S. J. Watson

Second Life by S. J. Watson

This racy, tense suspense novel is set in England and fraught with nerve-wracking suspense. Make sure the edge of your seat is in good shape because it’ll get a good workout.

Julia Plummer is part of a tangled family web that fills her with regret, guilt, and sadness, and that’s before she learns of her sister Kate’s death in Paris. She and her husband are raising Kate’s son, fourteen-year-old Connor, and have had him since he was very young, due to Kate’s dissolute, unorganized lifestyle. As children, they were left to fend for themselves and Julia, the older sister, was always there for Kate. Until she had run away to Berlin while Kate was still young. Until she took her son from her. Until, she feels, she left her to die without her big sister.

Now, Julia wants to make up for everything and find Kate’s killer. Exploring the online dating site Kate had been using before her murder, has unintended consequences. Julia tries to pull away, but is lured by dark urges. She sinks deeper into a situation that she knows she should put a stop to, but is powerless. She’s losing sight of what she needs to do to protect Connor, her husband, and herself. Buried secrets of the past can’t stay buried now, she realizes.

This edgy mystery will keep you guessing and reading, and guessing again, well into the night.

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Requiem in Red, for Suspense Magazine

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 18 Magazines Accepting Reprints - Paying Markets

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 18 Magazines Accepting Reprints - Paying Markets: Escher - Flickr - Attanatta There is nothing quite like having your work published after you have spent months sending your stories or p...

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Wednesday Supersize Edition

The Rap Sheet: Bullet Points: Wednesday Supersize Edition

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller by Cleo Coyle

Lesa's Book Critiques: The Ghost and the Bogus Bestseller by Cleo Coyle