Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Southernmost by Silas House

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Lesa's Book Critiques: THE STRANGER IN THE LIFEBOAT BY MITCH ALBOM

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Lesa's Book Critiques: THE PRODIGAL DAUGHTER BY METTE IVIE HARRISON

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Lesa's Book Critiques: ONE NIGHT TWO SOULS WENT WALKING by Ellen Cooney

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Relevant History: How a Mayor and a Bishop Heroically Saved a Jewish Population During WWII

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Bookbrowsing: Saved by the Book by Ken Kuhlken

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Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, t...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Conversations with American Writers: The Doubt, t...: Reviewed by William Wade   Conversations with American Writers:   The Doubt, the Faith, and the In-Between by Dale Brown is...

Novelette Review: "Shifting Is For The Goyim" by Elizabeth Zelvin

It is worth noting that many of the reviews give away most, if not all, of the details behind the story. This review absolutely does not. This review, unlike many others out there at Amazon and elsewhere, is safe to read without ruining this very good novelette.

Far different in style and tone from the Bruce Kohler Series written by author Elizabeth Zelvin is Shifting Is For The Goyim recently released by Untreed Reads. Emerald Love is a singer and a good one. Thanks to Michael, her boyfriend and fellow musician, she has had several number one hits. Immensely popular she is now one of those one name artists such as Cher, Madonna, etc.  She’s come a long way from her home in Pumpkin Falls, New York.

With crowd leaving for their homes she is now on the way to her family home for Passover. She’s missed the last five by way of being on tour, but there is no missing this one. For many reasons she will wish she had in this tale of the paranormal, death, faith, and family relationships.

This is a sometimes dark story of pain and loss for different from the often humorous Bruce Kohler Series. It is also incredibly good and features a complicated character, Emerald Love, who is very worthy of her own novel series. One hopes that such might be in the works based on this very complicated and very short mystery tale.

Shifting Is For The Goyim

Elizabeth Zelvin                                                                                 

http://www.elizabethzelvin.com

Untreed Reads Publishing

http://www.untreedreads.com

July 2012

E-Book Only

Estimated print length 31 pages

$1.50

Material supplied by the author in exchange for my objective review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2012

Review: "Available Grace: True Short Stories of the Rewards of Intentional Living" by Marianne Cassell

The synopsis explains it best-- Available Grace: True Short Stories of the Rewards of Intentional Living is a wonderful collection showcasing moments when the author, her family, and friends experienced the grace of God in their lives.” As the Texas author explains, “Because these are true stories, I have changed the names of many people who were involved.”

Broken into six sectional chapters, the book covers 1964 to present day and relates numerous moments where God impacted the author, her family and their friends. Most of the stories involve the time period when the author was young to middle age though some are at other points.  The book was inspired by a bible study teacher who talked about sharing God’s grace with others in the class.

“Chapter One-Learning God’s Way” covers events where the author made peace with a very difficult neighbor, opened her home to a homeless couple, dealt with rumors that were not true, and other topics. Helping others and learning from them is the focus in this section.

That idea continues in “Chapter Two-Reaching Out.” This section is about taking a more active role in reaching out to others. For example, instead of waiting for the church to send a homeless couple to their door, the author and others in the church in Lubbock overcame obstacles to open a soup kitchen where it was needed. The power of faith at work in others in a very moving thing and covered in various cases in this chapter.

We all need healing in some way.  It comes in various forms in “Chapter Three- God Heals.”  From the story of her own daughter’s needs to the death of a child to many others, this chapter gives comfort and peace while showing how God can heal.

“Chapter Five- God’s Comfort and Encouragement” talks about many life problems and marriage situations. The author returns to the concept of her writing a book to make the point that this too was completed by overcoming obstacles.

 

The result of all that has gone on before is “Chapter Six-Receiving and Giving” where the author writes: “Once you give a gift without expecting anything in return there is an afterglow that occurs and makes you want to give all the time. But the reality is someone has to receive it if someone gives, and at one time or another that someone is each of us. (Page 151) The theme here is that a gift must be embraced to work its magic and this chapter details those cases. At the same time the gift is a sacrifice and one that has to be acknowledged in order for the gift to be embraced.

While the stories are separated into sections, many of these pieces share the same elements of all the chapters. Inspirational and comforting, this 283 page book is about the power of  God, faith, and the strength to deal with what comes along in life. Texas Author Marianne Cassell has created a moving testimony to her faith and the power it holds in her life and in so many others.

Available Grace: True Short Stories of the Rewards of Intentional Living

Marianne Cassell

Strategic Book Publishing and Rights Co.

http://www.sbpra.com

November 2011

ISBN# 978-1-61204-608-2

Paperback (also available in e-book)

283 Pages

$13.95

Material supplied by PJ NUNN of BreakThrough Promotions for my objective review.

Kevin R. Tipple ©2012

Barry's Reviews: "THE BODY AND THE BLOOD" (2010) by Michael Lister

THE BODY AND THE BLOOD (2010) by Michael Lister

Reviewed by Barry Ergang

John Jordan is a man beset by conflicts, internal and external. An ex-cop, he's currently the chaplain for the Pottersville Correctional Institution and a sometime investigator who is trying to reconcile his capacity for violence with his calling to pacific ministry. He's experiencing a crisis of spirituality, if not exactly of faith. He has a tenuous relationship with his father and brother. He loves and has reunited with his wife Susan, from whom he had been separated, but is still in love with a co-worker, Anna Rodden, who is also  married. Susan lives in Atlanta and loves city life; Jordan prefers the rural life he has in Florida. Where to live together has yet to be decided and could potentially be a source of friction, especially considering the surprise Susan has for him.

Jordan also has to deal with his father-in-law, Tom Daniels, the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections. Like Jordan, Daniels is a recovering alcoholic. Unlike Jordan, who has been sober for quite a while, Daniels' sobriety is very recent. It's a kind of shocked sobriety, the result of his wife Sarah having been raped by Juan Martinez, a prisoner at the Pottersville Correctional Institution. It has become Daniels' mission to put him away for the rest of his life. He's feeling good about accomplishing this because he has found a witness, another prisoner named Justin Menge, who is willing to testify against Martinez.

When Jordan learns this, he's taken aback because (when the novel opens) he's just had a conversation with Menge's sister Paula, who has visited her brother for the first time in the four years since he's been incarcerated. Menge, Martinez and others are kept in G-Dorm in the Protective Management unit of the prison. PM is for inmates who are at risk from the general population, and G-Dorm is supposed to adhere to rigid security protocols.

Technically, Jordan's workday is over and his time is his own, but he's returning to the prison because of a flyer he's received announcing a Catholic mass in the PM unit. The flyer is a doctored version of the one the priest distributed, and includes the words "A murder will take place." He discovers that Tom Daniels is on-site, too, conducting interviews and taking depositions, and shows Daniels the flyer. The two return to G-Dorm, where those who are not attending the mass are locked in their cells. Shortly thereafter the mass begins. Jordan and Daniels chat with one of the correctional officers who oversees the unit, a slacker named Potter. During Holy Communion, Jordan notices blood seeping from under the door to Justin Menge's cell. It can't possibly have happened—the cell was locked and the unit under observation by Jordan, Daniels and Potter—but Justin Menge has been murdered.

There is no dearth of suspects. Besides Martinez himself, there are inmates who would commit murder for him. There is Chris Sobel, Menge's boyfriend, and Paula Menge, who had visited her brother earlier. There is the priest, Father McFadden. During the course of his subsequent investigation, Jordan learns that an inmate named Mike Hawkins is in the PM unit. He's the son of the racist, homophobic sheriff of Pine County. Paula Menge insists that her brother was set up for eventual incarceration by Sheriff Howard Hawkins, and that Justin was in fact innocent. Jordan later finds out that a prison psychologist, DeLisa Lopez, might be intimately involved with an inmate who is a suspect in the case. And then there are Potter and Pitts, the correctional officers whose laxity frequently leaves the PM unit vulnerable to problems. 

Correctly guessing (rather than deducing) the identity of the murderer very early on didn't diminish my enjoyment of The Body and the Blood. Michael Lister does a good job of weaving together the various storylines and, although what attracted me to the novel in the first place was the locked-room puzzle, what ultimately proved most appealing was the credible complexity of John Jordan.

I wish I could say that for all of the other characters, but I can't. Many of the novel's suspects are not sufficiently fleshed-out. Some appear in brief scenes but don't make distinctive impressions, so when they're referred to later on, you'll either page back to see exactly who they are, or you'll shrug and keep reading. The characters who most come alive, apart from first-person narrator John Jordan, are his wife, his in-laws, his best friend Merrill Monroe, and Anna Rodden. In other words, those to whom he is closest.

Lister relies heavily on dialogue which, along with his lucid narrative style, speeds the story along nicely. But he has a habit of interrupting conversations with expository paragraphs, then returning to the conversations. I found myself often having to go back to the dialogue that preceded the exposition to recover the point of that which succeeded it. He also has a fondness for acronyms, but doesn't always explain what they stand for. I can only guess that FDLE stands for Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

Although its impossible-crime aspect isn't in the league of John Dickson Carr, Paul Halter, Hake Talbot and Clayton Rawson, The Body and the Blood  nevertheless merits a Golden Age Mystery-type illustration depicting the layout of G-Dorm and the relative positions of inmates' cells to where the mass was held at the time Jordan discovered murder had been committed. I found it difficult to envisage from the verbal description given.

Whether the following comment applies to the print edition I can't say, since I read the e-book—specifically, the Kindle edition—but the latter is in dire need of a good proofreader. It teems with punctuation errors and misspellings, and at least a couple of sentences are missing necessary words.  

Despite its locked-room puzzle, The Body and the Blood is not a cozy whodunit/howdunit in the manner of the aforementioned Golden Age authors and others. It is very much a hardboiled detective story involving onstage violence, raw language, and some sexuality. Readers who find these elements repellent are advised to stay away. Those who can deal with them can expect a fast-moving read starring an appealingly human protagonist. My nitpicks notwithstanding, this one is recommended.

Barry Ergang © 2012

Barry Ergang's own locked-room mystery novelette, "The Play of Light and Shadow," is available at Smashwords and Amazon in e-reader editions for 99¢. Formerly the Managing Editor of Futures Mystery Anthology Magazine and First Senior Editor of Mysterical-E, winner of the Short Mystery Fiction Society’s Derringer Award for the best flash fiction story of 2006, his written work has appeared in numerous publications, print and electronic. See Barry’s webpages. Remember, too, that he has books from his personal collection for sale at http://barryergangbooksforsale.yolasite.com/ He'll contribute 20% of the purchase price of the books to our fund, so please have a look at his lists.