Do Some Damage: Interview: RyNyx Discusses Her Love of Mysteries and Her Dark Academia Standalone, ENIGMA

Do Some Damage: Interview: RyNyx Discusses Her Love of Mysteries a...: RuNyx is the New York Times bestselling author of the Dark Verse series and multiple standalone novels. Her latest standalone, Enigma , feat...

Murder Books: The Bat Computer by Isabella Maldonado

 Murder Books: The Bat Computer by Isabella Maldonado

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: A Limited Justice by Catriona King

Catriona King is a medical doctor, originally from Belfast in Northern Ireland. She relocated to London to work as a physician and trained as a medical forensics expert there, assisting the Metropolitan Police with their cases. She returned to Belfast where she now lives and writes the DCI Craig police procedural series. The first book about Craig was published in 2012 by Crooked CAT Publishing. The second edition was released in 2016 on Amazon’s independent publishing platform CreateSpace. The 25^th book in the series was issued recently in June 2021. The books are based in Northern Ireland but often involve other parts of the UK and Europe.

A Limited Justice introduces Detective Chief Inspector Marc Craig of the Belfast Docklands Coordinated Crime Unit and his team of homicide investigators, as well as Craig’s lifelong friend Dr. John Winters, the lead medical examiner. The team is tackling a bizarre homicide at a gasoline station, where the victim was drenched with fuel but seems to have died from a blow to his head. The instrument used to administer that blow is hard to identify and some of the trace evidence is unusual. When some of the same elements show up at an apparent mugging and drowning in Limavady, 60 miles northwest of Belfast, Craig’s team realizes the two investigations will lead to the same person, despite the differences in murder methods.

An excellent contemporary procedural that emphasizes forensics, as might be expected considering the author’s professional credentials. A thread about the killer runs in parallel to the investigation. Normally I don’t like to know what the culprit is thinking, it so seldom is edifying, but this murderer is not ordinary. At all. I consider the freshness of the plot to be a high point of the story.

The single false note is the treatment of Detective Inspector Julia McNulty, lead for the Limavady homicide team. She is presented as difficult, egotistic, and defensive, disliked by her coworkers. Nonetheless she melts as soon as Craig looks at her. Really stereotypical and offensive treatment of a woman in a managerial role. A solid editor would have corrected this glaring fault in the story before it saw print. However, the story line is so original that I can recommend this debut of a long-running and potentially binge-worthy series, especially to fans of police procedurals.

·         Publisher: ‎ CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform; 2nd edition (May 31, 2016)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Paperback: ‎ 286 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1533494509

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1533494504

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Every Kind of Wicked by Lisa Black

Lisa Black writes two contemporary crime fiction series, one about Theresa MacLean and one about Maggie Gardiner and Jack Renner. Both MacLean and Gardiner are forensic scientists, the regular day occupation of Black, whose real name is Elizabeth Becka Lansky. Maggie Gardiner teams up with a homicide investigator named Jack Renner in the second series, set in Cleveland. The third book in the series was shortlisted for the 2019 Sue Grafton Award.

In the sixth book Every Kind of Wicked (Kensington, 2020), Maggie is called to a deserted cemetery to examine the site around a bloody corpse for clues amid falling snow. At first glance it is a mugging gone wrong but when the medical examiner couldn’t figure out what kind of weapon was used to kill the young man and when his girlfriend vanishes as soon as she heard he was dead, the police know they have a real mystery on their hands. An apparent victim of an overdose in another part of town turns out to have ties to the first case, linking the two and adding another level of complexity to what seemed initially to be a simple investigation. Lots of local color about Cleveland add depth to the story.

The creatively construed plot is a well thought out tale of white collar crime, with plenty of surprises and misdirection. It is hard to say much about it without giving away some key points. Multiple story lines come together neatly in an intricate police procedural that features forensic investigative detail and analysis.

On the other hand, I have to wonder why anyone who can fashion a devious narrative like this one would dream up a character like Jack Renner, whose back story challenges credulity from the outset. And yes, I understand this is the sixth book in which he’s appeared. The first two or three chapters of this book focused on Maggie’s agita over her dealings with Jack, and I nearly put it down. I read crime fiction for the crime and the investigation, not the relationships.

I expect the mixed reviews from the professional reviewing sources reflect this dichotomy of great plot and unbelievable characters: Kirkus gave it a starred review and Publishers Weekly said it is so-so. Recommended for fans of forensic medical thrillers and police procedurals with the caveat that they will have to look past some questionable characterization.

 

·         Publisher: ‎ Kensington (August 25, 2020)

·         Language: ‎ English

·         Hardcover: ‎ 336 pages

·         ISBN-10: ‎ 1496722388

·         ISBN-13: ‎ 978-1496722386 

 

Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2021

Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.

SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: Lynda La Plante - Listening to the Dead and The Judas Horse

SHOTSMAG CONFIDENTIAL: Lynda La Plante - Listening to the Dead and The Ju...:   Queen of Crime Drama Lynda La Plante launching series 2 of true crime podcast on 24th February; LISTENING TO THE DEAD The forensics podcas...

Do Some Damage: The Problem of Faux-rensics in Crime Fiction by Thomas Pluck

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MAKE MINE MYSTERY: The Killing Thing by Janis Patterson

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Sunday Television Review: HARROW

Scott found this on HULU and saved it to watch after all the usual stuff we watch had finished this spring. Once that happened, we started working through some of our backlog and this show was one of them. We were quickly hooked and blasted through Season One over about three days. Season Two is coming and can be seen in some places, but for now, HULU does not have the new season yet. 

Ioan Gruffudd stars as Harrow, a forensic pathologist, living in Australia. Divorced with a daughter, he solves cases while also trying to keep secret something he did. He lives on a boat, does not suffer fools well, and has a bit of a snarky sense of humor. That is at least partly illustrated by the fact that he plays the occasional practical joke on a fellow pathologist who has a major air of self-importance and zero sense of humor.

Season One contained ten episodes and were all good ones. We like it a lot and very much recommend it.

On HULU at https://www.hulu.com/series/harrow-0f00a4f0-37da-4fb5-a9ae-71995b6c575d and other streaming platforms and vendors.

Hulu Synopsis:

Daniel Harrow is a brilliant forensic pathologist who solves the cases others can't. When a secret from his past threatens his career and his family, he'll need all his wit and forensic genius to keep a crime buried forever.

CrimeReads: ON JUNK SCIENCE, POP FORENSICS AND CRIME FICTION by Andrew Case

CrimeReads: ON JUNK SCIENCE, POP FORENSICS AND CRIME FICTION by Andrew Case

Saturdays With Kaye: Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

Chaos by Patricia Cornwell

Cornwell’s fans will welcome the latest Kay Scarpetta mystery. It starts with a public spat between the ever prickly Scarpetta and Bryce, her chief of staff, the day before she’s to give an address at Harvard.  Another complication is her apprehension about her sister Dorothy flying in to be in the audience. She has no idea why her sister is coming since she hasn’t been to Cambridge to see her in eight years. Maybe she wants, at long last, to be friends?

Scarpetta is stunned to find out someone called nine-one-one about her dust up with Bryce. That, and other oddities, lead Pete Marino, a Cambridge Police Investigator, to believe that someone is out to get her. When a young woman she has had a couple of passing encounters with ends up dead, she’s called to the scene to investigate. The area is having an intense heat wave. The decision is made to enclose the area of the park where the mysterious young woman met her death, which is also mysterious, and most of the action of the book takes place inside this chaotic crime scene, stifling hot and full of the stench of death. Her spectacularly mismatched FBI husband is involved in the case, causing another layer of tension. Then there’s the fact that Pete Marino may be wanting to become involved with her sister Dorothy, a thought that horrifies Scarpetta.

Following the twists of the cyber hacking, and the delving into the death of the young woman, will give Cornwell fans another great read with their favorite neurotic medical examiner. Have fun!

Reviewed by Kaye George, Author of Death on the Trek, for Suspense Magazine

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 7/26/18

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 7/26/18