Lesa's Book Critiques: Dungeons and Danger by Elizabeth Penney
Showing posts with label arc. Show all posts
Showing posts with label arc. Show all posts
Monday, June 22, 2026
Wednesday, June 03, 2026
Saturday, May 30, 2026
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Subtle Art of Folding Space by John Chu: Reviewed by Kristin An infinite number of universes. Humans have coded and manufactured “skunkworks” to manipulate and manage physics of t...
Monday, May 25, 2026
Sunday, May 24, 2026
Review: The Brothers McKay: A Longmire Mystery by Craig Johnson
Pepper McKay is very dead. Hated by
nearly everyone, Pepper McKay ran his life, his family and pretty much
everything and everyone else, for miles around for many decades. While he had
his business interests, his marriage a number of years ago gave him control
over what is known as the “O-Kay Ranch.” Located at the mouth of Crazy Woman
Canyon, the dude ranch, is in Absaroka County, Wyoming. That means his death
has to be investigated by the local sheriff, Walt Longmire.
That means the good sheriff and his
number, two, Victoria Moretti, need to get to the scene as fast as possible. It
does not help that they are stuck in a barely moving traffic jam on the road in
thanks to one of two lightning caused wildfires that started overnight. The
fires are running wild, thanks to drought and dead trees and whatnot, and will
go where they want and when they want.
Eventually, they get to the former
working ranch that is now operated as a dude ranch. For decades it was operated
by the Harris family. Then the granddaughter, BeeBee, turned it into a dude ranch,
then married Pepper McKay, and then he went work taking control and running
roughshod over everyone and everybody.
Pepper McKay, a hard drinker, and pretty
much hard at everything, had gone fishing in Crazy Woman Creek that morning. He
had lunch and other food with him, but hadn’t been seen since. One of the long-time
ranch hands had gone looking for him and had finally found him floating face
down in the water. The ranch hand had pulled the body up onto the bank and then
called 911.
Walt Longmire had a long history with
Pepper McKay going back some four decades. So, the fact that the man was drinking
in his last hours is no surprise. Beyond that obvious fact, as Vic examines the
body, she advises Longmore and the newly assigned to the area Wyoming Highway
Patrol Trooper, Shane Wilson, that the back of Pepper McKay’s head shows
obvious signs of some sort of traumatic brain injury. She also notes the
numerous contusions and abrasions, but those could have happened as the body moved
downstream through the churning waters and hit rocks and such. She also notes
that by how heavy he feels, his lungs are probably full of water.
It is clear to all three of them that an
intoxicated Pepper McKay could easily have slipped and fallen, striking his
head in the process, before drowning. It is also very possible to all that he
might have been hit in the head with a rock and left to drown. So, the question
is—accident or murder?
If it was a murder, it would also be a
very complicated case with a laundry list of suspects. For decades Pepper McKay
lived his life like a human wrecking ball—he smashed through obstacles and
people with wild abandon. That means the suspect list, inside and outside the
family, is a long one and complicated. Some neutral observers, if they knew
what had happened decades ago, might put the good Sheriff on that suspect list
too.
As Walt Longmire spins up outside resources
to assist his investigation, another problem is dumped into his lap by the
newly appointed Wyoming Attorney General, his own daughter. Maxim Sidorov wants
to relocate to Durant. With no parole officer in the area, that would mean that
Sheriff Longmire would have to be his parole officer despite the fact that the
man tried to kill him awhile back. Maxim Sidorov lost an eye in that attempt.
He also gained a lot of respect for him and is trying to help him find a great
aunt, Ruth One Heart.
Maxim Sidorov is soon in town, living in
the jail, and advising Walt on what has turned out to be the definite murder of
Pepper McKay. He is instrumental to the investigation which also manages to bug
the heck out of Longmire. He also briefly annoyed this reader who had an out
loud “Duh” moment when Sidorov pointed things out.
The Brothers McKay: A Longmire
Mystery
by Craig Johnson is a highly entertaining read that keeps the reader turning
pages. Part murder mystery, part survivalist action read, it also sets up what
will clearly be the focus of the next book in the series. Unless the author has
juked and head faked this reader on this too.
Recommended.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4e6xQ3e
My digital ARC came by way of Viking
Penguin, through NetGalley, and with no expectation of a positive review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Friday, May 22, 2026
Review: Seldom Seen Road: Burnt River Mysteries by John Degen
These days, there are few books that just grab me
and don’t let go. Seldom Seen Road: Burnt River Mysteries by John
Degen is one of those books. Maybe because I identified so closely to the
central character, Mark Roth. His grief and his isolation very much hit home
for this reader.
Life often happens in unplanned and devesting ways.
Living in the isolated cabin on the north shore of Lake Huron was planned, in a
way. After all, they had bought the cabin and planned to live there a lot once
Mark retired. The two of them aging day by day together. He never contemplated
the unthinkable. Mark never planned on being a widower.
But, he is.
Sara is gone and he spends a lot of his waking time
at the cabin drinking in isolation. His
life has closed down to visits with a police cousin who patrols the area,
fishing, baseball games, an occasional phone call or visit with their academic daughter,
and all the booze one man alone can drink. Their daughter, Stephanie, is a criminalist
and college professor living many hours away in Thunder Bay. He is a lonely man
living at a very isolated cabin deep in the woods and locked in a world of
grief and loss.
As the book opens, Mark Roth is out in his boat and
fishing as the night begins to overtake Lake Huron. By way of his hearing aids,
a Bluetooth connection, and his cellphone, he is listening to the visiting Toronto
Blue Jays take on the Cleveland Indians at the stadium several hundred miles to
the south. It is a nice night and he is deeply focused on the game and the
images he sees of it by way of the audio byplay.
It is only when he can no longer see his bobber
floating in the darkness, and can easily see the lights of a large tanker
coming far too close for his very small craft, that he decides it is time to go
back to the shore. He reels his last cast in, fires up the boat motor and
running lights, and swivels in his seat to look at the nearby shoreline and the
lights of the very small town.
It is only then that he sees the strobing lights of
at least eleven emergency vehicles lined up around the mouth of the river as
well as numerous more flying down the Trans-Canada Highway at high speed. Something
very bad has happened and he realizes he can also hear sirens like crazy. The
small town of Burnt River is hopping tonight.
He heads back in to the marina where he rented the
boat earlier and finds the owner, Madeline Colby. She says somebody was found
in the water, tangled up in the roots of a tree on her shoreline. A kid at the
local diner saw the man and freaked out. Soon, Mark’s cousin, Constable Jeremy
Roth, was first on the scene and jumped into the cold waters to rescue the guy.
Not that he actually needed to do that as the man
had been long dead by the time Jeremy got to him. And it wasn’t just a few
minutes dead either. Snagged in the limbs of a fallen tree, the dead man had
very live lamprey eels feeding off his face. From the way the body appears,
somebody murdered the man, and then came here to dump the body. The killer or
killers most likely expected the body to drift out into the cold deep waters of
Lake Huron to never be seen again. So much for that.
Who is this man and why was he murdered?
Identifying the dead is the easy part. Why it
happened and who did it is a puzzler. Mark Roth has considerable interest as
his cousin, Jeremy, is involved thanks to his actions. Constable Jeremy Roth
may be on the outside of the case looking in, for a variety of reasons, but he
does have some access, and Mark wants all the details.
If Stephanie had her way, her dad would abandon the
isolated cabin and move to her in Thunder Bay or in a home somewhere where he
wasn’t alone. She worries. She always did, but it is way worse with her mom
gone and how her dad is in the aftermath. She is very aware that her dad is
doing little more than marking time. The last thing she wants is for him to
start poking around at the fringes of a murder.
Yet, that case seems to be the one thing that gets
her retired dad going a bit. His life was in music, not police work. But, he is
very interested and wants to bounce case ideas off of her despite the fact that
she is an academic and not an actual investigator. A part of her, whether she
truly wants to admit it, interests her as well. A murder like this just does not
happen in Burnt River.
Yet, it did.
That murder is just the start of things in this
complicated and highly atmospheric mystery read. Shifting in point of view to
follow Mark, Jeremy, Stephanie, and others, the case gets bigger and bigger.
Quite a lot is going on in these characters lives and even more is going on
outside them. The woods may be lovely, dark, and deep. But they hold a lot of menace
and violence as well.
Billed as the first book in the Burnt River
Mysteries series, the foundation is well laid in Seldom Seen Road.
The read is strongly recommended.
Make sure you read the author’s guest post on
setting, Is
that a real place?, at Kings River Life Magazine.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4wY3xCO
John Degan’s website: https://www.jkdegen.com/
My digital ARC reading copy came from the publisher, Latitude 46 Publishing, through
NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Tuesday, May 19, 2026
Monday, May 18, 2026
Sunday, May 17, 2026
Tuesday, May 05, 2026
Saturday, April 25, 2026
Friday, April 24, 2026
FFB Review: The Devil’s Bones by Larry D. Sweazy
Earlier this week, I saw author Larry D. Sweazy post this message on Facebook. “Stumbled across this radio interview for my first mystery novel, The Devil's Bones, in 2012. The Art of the Matter with Travis DiNicola and Sharon Gamble was an amazing radio show for local artists on WFYI, the Indianapolis PBS/NPR station. The Art of the Matter no longer exists and it and its fantastic hosts are sorely missed. .
https://www.wfyi.org/show/the-art-of-the-matter/2026-03-30/the-art-of-the-matter-march-2-2012
I think the interview and the book hold up, and the subject matter is still relevant, if not more so... I hope you'll give this interview with Travis a listen.”
While I have not had a chance to listen
to the interview yet, I was reminded how much I very much enjoyed this book.
So, I thought I would remind you today of that fact with my October 2013 review.
From the archive…
Late August of 2004 finds Deputy Jordan
McManus in the bed of a former girlfriend early one morning while drought grips
Dukaine, Indiana. Like the drought that grips the area, McManus is gripped by
the past. A past that includes the love of his life, Ginny, who has been
married for quite some time and has changed. Whatever they had once, years ago,
has been tarnished by time and the fact she has a child and is married to Ed
Kirsch. Not known for being mentally stable at the best of times, were he to
discover what McManus and Ginny have done the results could be disastrous.
Instead of spending time with Ginny,
McManus is supposed to be out patrolling the area. If he had been out doing his
job, he might have been out at Longer’s Pond with his boss, Marshal Holister
Coggins a little quicker. He might have had more time to secure the scene. He
might have been able to examine the small skeleton in the mud a little bit.
Maybe if he had been more focused on doing his job, he might have been able to
prevent the shooting that took down Holister and wounded him by somebody who
laughed like a maniac while doing it.
Moving back and forth from 1985 to late
August of 2004, author Larry D. Sweazy weaves a complicated tale of pain, loss,
racism, regret, and redemption in The Devil’s Bones. The read
shifts in point of view throughout the book as the pieces slowly come together
in various mysteries. Each secret has had a damaging ripple effect over the
years and has caused numerous events --many of which Deputy Jordan McManus has
little knowledge of despite being on the edge of many of them. Relying on his
brother nicknamed “Spider,” a tenuous decision at the best of times, McManus
works to clear his name and end the current carnage. The shooting of Holister
and himself is just the start of a wave of violence that will also uncover the
past and answer questions that have haunted the small town for years.
Reminiscent in style and tone of his
many westerns, The Devil’s Bones is a very complicated mystery
that pulls the reader in quickly and never lets go. Rich in details,
characters, and setting, nothing is simple in this read where drought finally
exposes all the secrets of the past.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/3QgOFyy
ARC provided by the author way back in October 2011 for my use in an objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013, 2026
Wednesday, April 15, 2026
Friday, April 10, 2026
Wednesday, April 08, 2026
Tuesday, April 07, 2026
Publication Day Review: Revenge Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel by John Sandford
Revenge Prey: A Lucas Davenport
Novel
by John Sandford finds Lucas Davenport and Shelly White at a house on a
cul-de-sac in a rural area. It is February in Minnesota as a cold overcast day
is working steadily closer to what will be a brutally cold night. It is a safe
house and the two Deputy U. S. Marshals are awaiting the arrival of a defecting
Russian and his family under escort by Witness Protection Marshals and others.
The defector used to be a very high-ranking
person in the Russian spy agency. Now his name is Leonard Summers and he and
his family have spent the last eighteen months hidden in a CIA facility near
Washington. They worked on learning and perfecting English while the CIA and
others squeezed them for intelligence. The plan is for them to hide out in the
house for the next two weeks or so to see if everything is okay.
It isn’t.
Within minutes of their arrival, a
Russian kill team makes their presence known by firing shots into the house. A
chase and resulting gun battle is on and so is the hunt for the elusive kill
team.
What follows is an intense and fast
moving read as Lucas and others chase the assassins. Assassins who have to try
again or be executed by Putin’s regime.
The name of the game here is action and Revenge
Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel by John Sandford delivers in every way
possible. It also has several laugh out loud dialog moments that may or may not
include Virgil Flowers.
A fast and fun read, Revenge Prey: A Lucas Davenport Novel, by John Sandford is very much worth your time.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4orOUls
I received this as a digital ARC from
the publisher, G.P. Putnam's Sons, through NetGalley, in late October 2025,
with no expectation of a positive review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2026
Monday, April 06, 2026
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
