Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label crime. Show all posts
Wednesday, October 22, 2025
Mystery Fanfare: HALLOWEEN NON-FICTION
Mystery Fanfare: HALLOWEEN NON-FICTION: Last year I added a list on Halloween Non-Fiction . Here's that updated list. Be sure and check out my 2025 Halloween Crime Fiction Lis...
Wednesday, July 30, 2025
Gravetapping: Review: "Front Sight: Three Swagger Novellas" by Stephen Hunter
Gravetapping: Review: "Front Sight: Three Swagger Novellas" by S...: Front Sight Three Swagger Novellas by Stephen Hunter Atria Books, 2024 I read Stephen Hunter’s first B...
Monday, May 19, 2025
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Dick Tracy by Segura, Moreci, Borges, Osman, Englert, Campbell
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Dick Tracy by Segura, Moreci, Borges, Osman, Engle...: Reviewed by Jeanne I grew up reading the comic strips in the local paper. I read them all, from Peanuts to Far Side to Little Orph...
Wednesday, July 31, 2024
Friday, May 10, 2024
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Scarlet Death by Elaine Viets
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: A Scarlet Death by Elaine Viets: Reviewed by Jeanne Angela Richman is a death investigator for Chouteau County, which means she is one of the first called to the scene...
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Short Story Wednesday Review: Death’s Brother: A Top Suspense Story by Bill Crider
Professor Jon Cline always tried to help his
students. Such was the case with Dana Randall. He taught Romantic Poetry at the
University and Dana was in one of his classes. He soon learned as he tutored
her outside of class that she was bored and soon to be wealthy once her
inheritance come him. As things progressed, she started providing the very
lonely and single Professor Cline her own brand of personal tutoring in her bedroom.
The middle-aged Cline can’t believe the 20 something
Dana wants to be with him. Sure, over the years, he has heard all sorts of
stories of nubile woman who got involved with their professors. He never
believed it would happen to him and she can’t get enough of his help.
Far different than his Sheriff Rhodes series, this dark and twisted short story is a good one. Populated with characters that may annoy some readers and an overarching sense of doom and futility, this is a far different type of read that his other series work. It also contains quite a few twists all the way to the bitter end.
Material was recently purchased using funds from my Amazon Associate account for my use in an objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2013, 2022
Friday, April 29, 2022
Sunday, November 21, 2021
Tuesday, September 14, 2021
Saturday, January 23, 2021
Gravetapping: DOUBLE FEATURE by Donald E. Westlake
Gravetapping: DOUBLE FEATURE by Donald E. Westlake: Double Feature , a 2020 release from Hard Case Crime and originally published as Enough in 1977, includes a short novel and a novella. The n...
Wednesday, January 20, 2021
Short Story Wednesday Review: Chalkers by Michael Bracken
It has been a tough few days here for me interspersed with some good which you already know about if you read the news here and elsewhere Saturday. What may not come to mind was the fact that Friday was the four year anniversary since my Mom passed. I know how everybody says 2020 was bad and it was here at times with Scott’s seizure and my health issues including the cancer scare last summer and fall, but 2017 was way worse for me personally. Mom died that January, Sandi spent much of the year in the hospital including that summer when I got us moved here to the house and then Sandi came home on hospice the Friday before Thanksgiving and passed on December 1. Yesterday would have been Sandi’s 61st birthday. I am still here and still sober, so that counts for something, but the last few days have been really hard. I have not done much of anything, so, today is a repeat for you for Short Story Wednesday.
This week I remind you of Chalkers
by Michael Bracken. A lot is going on in these few pages. It is a very good
read and I tell you that again in my review from nine years ago. I also remind
you to go check out the reading suggestions by Patti Abbott and TracyK for today and every
day.
Using chalk to send coded messages on the sidewalks at an
unnamed Baptist university in Texas is a way for men with certain interests to
contact other men with those same interests. It was done 40 years ago when the
narrator had attended the conservative school and it is still the technique
used now.
40 years ago something happened one night and Bryce Daniels
vanished. The eleven remaining numbers of the group have hardly spoken to each
other since. Now, thanks to a sidewalk message in chalk in their traditional
spot outside the English Building, the remaining members of the group have been
summoned to meet once again. Secrets will be revealed in this complex story
from author Michael Bracken.
Along with his crime fiction, author Michael Bracken is
perhaps best known for his confession style stories published in a variety of
markets. Such is the case here in Chalkers as the entire story
consists of narration without almost any dialogue. A one sentence of dialogue in
the story is powerful because of the statement it contains, but also because
the one sentence explains almost everything. This short story of slightly more
than two thousand words from Untreed Reads Publishing works on all levels and
is a good one.
Material supplied quite some time ago by the author in exchange for my objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2012, 2021
Friday, December 04, 2020
FFB Review: Scorched Noir: A Collection Of Southwestern Crime Tales by Garnet Elliott
We kick off the month of December here with my July 2015 review of Scorched Noir: A Collection Of Southwestern Crime Tales by Garnet Elliott. Like my dead Kindle which I cannot use these days, the book seems to be out of print and is not available in eBook format. So, if you have it in your TBR pile, you might want to shuffle the stacks. Also make sure you head over to Patti Abbot’s blog as well as Aubrey Hamilton’s blog to see their reading suggestions.
Scorched Noir: A Collection Of
Southwestern Crime Tales features eight previously
published tales by Yuma, Arizona native Garnett Elliott. That harsh desert
landscape with limited opportunities is the setting for these tales. These
short stories are set in Yuma, Arizona or towns like it contain a couple of
consistent themes that become clear as one reads through the book.
It opens with “Trailer de Fuegeo.” Corrections
Officers need somewhere to go to blow off some steam after work. They tend to
go out to a certain spot in the nearby desert to drink, smoke, and trade
stories. One guard stands out in the battle to keep the inmates in line. His
name is Tench and he has done fifteen years of guard duty in a lot of bad
places from Texas to Arizona. He has always done what needed to be done and
tonight will be no exception.
“Somerton Sangre” features a man named Jesus Vega.
Known to do some questionable things when necessary, Mrs. Sandoval wants him to
find out who killed her brother. Her brother was killed and dismembered just
after he illegally crossed the border. While the way he was killed would
indicate drug runners, his sister is sure he was not into that. She has the money to pay for Vega to look
into things and find out who killed him. To do that Vega is going to have to
cross into Mexico and try to find the people who transported her brother
across.
Jesus Vega is also very much involved in the next
story titled “Jesus Contra las Brujas Plasticas” or “Jesus Versus the Plastic
Witches. “ While working for a witch lady, Dona Cruz, he is assigned the task
of checking out a new and nearby competitor. He needs the money and is used to
doing dirty deed for her. Not because of her supposed powers, but the fact that
he needs the money she is willing to spend. He does not fear the alleged power
of those who claim to see the future, cast spells, and the like. Maybe he
should.
The landscape and everything on and in it cooks under
the summer sun in Arizona. That certainly is true of those storage places
scattered around the area. It was brutally hot when Motorcycle Officer Ray
Satoshi and Robert Opp wheeled into a storage lot run by Joe Pender. They are
looking for a guy who shot and killed a bouncer at the nearby gentleman’s club
before getting away with forty three grand.
People are going out into the desert to commit suicide
at a certain rock landmark .Why they are doing that and whether they can be
stopped are just two of the issues Shari faces in “Bad Night at Burning Rock.”
In “Snowflake” he has been waiting for the stripper to
show up for food at the IHOP when she got off work down the street. Dwayne
knows by the way she dances just how class Lisa is. He also figures he can do
something to help her career as he is a social media specialist.
“The Greatest Generation” are the targets of Vonda and
her partner. They pose as home health care workers and steal everything they
can to fund their travel and drugs. They figure it is their right because the
seniors took everything with no though to the future. With their next score in
sight it is time for Vonda and her partner to to clean up as fast as they can
and do what needs to be done to claim their latest prize.
The three women, all with the first name of Debbie,
work the ER at the local hospital. “The Darkest of the Debbies” works the job
to do what has to be done to keep home together. Way easier said than done.
The eight short stories of Scorched Noir: A
Collection Of Southwestern Crime Tales feature complicated reads of
multifaceted characters often doing what has to be done to survive. Nothing is
right or wrong when one is doing what has to be done to survive. Drugs and
crime, like the sun and the desert, are always present in these tales of people
coping with what they have and what they can do each day. Scorched Noir:
A Collection Of Southwestern Crime Tales by Garnett Elliott may not
make you feel better about yourself, but it might make you feel more
appreciative of your working air conditioning as well as some of the life
choices you had to make along the way.
Material supplied by the publisher in exchange for my
objective review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2015, 2020
Friday, July 31, 2020
Monday, May 25, 2020
Saturday, November 23, 2019
BLACK GUYS DO READ - Book Reviews Blog: CORROSION by Jon Bassoff
BLACK GUYS DO READ - Book Reviews Blog: CORROSION by Jon Bassoff: For a few minutes I wished that I were dead but then I worried about hell and what it would bring. I would describe myself as an avid re...
Friday, November 22, 2019
SleuthSayers: Crimes Against Women Are Nothing New
SleuthSayers: Crimes Against Women Are Nothing New: This is the second of three virtual panel discussions by some of the authors whose short stories appear in Me Too Short Stories: An Antholo...
Friday, March 15, 2019
FFB Review: "In The Best Families" by Rex Stout (Reviewed by Patrick Ohl)
I was reminded of this review by
Patrick Ohl earlier this week thanks to the memories function on Facebook.
Since it had been five years, it seemed like a good time to run it again. Make
sure you check out the full list over at Sweet Freedom. Have a good one!
 |
| PAPERBACK |
The last time we checked in at Nero
Wolfe’s brownstone in The Second
Confession, the great man was directly confronted by Arnold Zeck, a
criminal mastermind who is something like the Professor Moriarty to his
Sherlock Holmes. Luckily for Wolfe, soon afterwards, an event occurred that
placed Zeck squarely on Wolfe’s side. But Zeck has gone too far this time.
It happens when Sarah Rackham asks for
Wolfe’s help. She is a wealthy woman, and has been happily married to Barry
Rackham for four years. In that time, Barry has regularly asked for money, but
lately his demands increased so dramatically that Sarah refused to give him
anything the last time. After that, Barry no longer asked her for money, and
yet his extravagant spending habits are unchanged. Where is all this money
coming from?
No sooner does she leave, a package of
sausage is delivered to Wolfe’s door. Except the sausage manages to
metamorphose into tear gas, and Arnold Zeck is soon on the line, gloating to
Wolfe that had the package contained a bomb, Wolfe would now be dead. He then
formally demands that Wolfe not investigate the Rackham case.
 |
| AUDIO CD |
But Wolfe is not one to be bullied and
sends Archie along to the residence of Calvin Leeds, Mrs. Rackham’s cousin,
ostensibly to investigate a dog poisoning. (In a delightful tip of the hat to
the events of The Second Confession,
Archie at first proposes that he go down to Mrs. Rackham’s country house for a
weekend party, only to have the idea firmly rejected.) Before you know it, a
murder occurs, and Archie is once again dealing with the same officials as in The Second Confession. But this time,
when Archie returns to the brownstone, the door is wide open, and Nero Wolfe is
nowhere to be found…
The conclusion of the Arnold Zeck
trilogy is typical of trilogies. The first one introduces the concepts and the
second one expands on them. In the third instalment, the story goes into
maximum overdrive with the stakes higher than ever before. The only thing with
trilogies is that most of them seem to misstep on the third outing, with a few
notable exceptions. In that regard, In
the Best Families is a satisfying conclusion for the Arnold Zeck trilogy,
but in the interests of fairness, I have to admit it’s the weakest of the three
books.
The problem for me is that Wolfe and
Archie, so delightful together, spend most of the novel completely apart and
only reunite near the end. We miss out on that classic Wolfe-Archie banter, and
although Archie is terrific on his own, he’s always so much better when he’s
nagging Wolfe. And really, the lengths Wolfe goes to in this novel are just… extreme, especially for him. I’m not
entirely sure whether I liked this or not. I’m in danger of saying too much, so
I’ll just shut up now.
 |
| AUDIBLE |
The murder mystery that starts the ball
rolling is a decent one, with a clue or two pointing you in the right
direction, but long before the solution, the book abandons the central mystery
and becomes more of a thriller. The mystery is resolved in the end, and its
solution really is satisfactory, but it’s been left more-or-less alone for so
long that it loses some of its impact.
I liked In the Best Families just fine, but compared to the two entries
that precede it, it’s pretty underwhelming. But it stands up decently on its
own merits as a Nero Wolfe story, and it really is fun to read about these
characters. The stakes are high and Wolfe’s playing a very dangerous game. The book sags a bit in the middle when Wolfe
goes missing, but when he reappears near the end, the book springs back to life
for one whizz-banger of a finale! And for once, the mystery at the book’s core
is pretty decent, especially by Rex Stout standards. Overall, this one is
recommended, but only for those who’ve read the previous entries in the Zeck
series.
Patrick Ohl ©2014, 2019
Patrick
Ohl is a 20-year old Canadian crime fiction aficionado who enjoys hobbies such
as taxidermy and runs a dilapidated motel in the middle of nowhere alongside
his crazed mother. He enjoys relaxing in his subterranean evil lair while
watching his favourite hockey team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, and will
occasionally make chicken chow mein to die for. His life is accompanied by a
soundtrack composed by John Williams, and James Earl Jones provides occasional
voice-overs.
Thursday, January 17, 2019
Sunday, December 30, 2018
Tuesday, December 04, 2018
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