Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Bookseller by Tim Sullivan

Paula Messina Reviews: The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey

 

Please welcome author Paula Messina back to the blog today…

 

  

The Secret Hangman

by Paula Messina

 

The Secret Hangman by Peter Lovesey begins with Inspector Peter Diamond receiving a letter from a secret admirer. Far from mysterydom’s cuddliest detective, Diamond is surprised any woman is interested in meeting him. Nevertheless, the woman who has the hots for Diamond optimistically suggests they meet at the Saracen’s Hotel on Thursday evening.

Diamond wouldn’t be Diamond if he wrote the date down in his calendar. It’s fair to guess Diamond doesn’t own a calendar of any sort. Besides, he put the secret admirer out of mind as he quickly moved on to search for a missing mother, Delia Williamson.

The next day, a woman is found hanging from a swing’s crossbar in Bath’s Sydney Gardens. You don’t need to be an avid mystery fan to know with absolute certainty that the dangling woman is Delia Williamson.

Her death is obviously a suicide. At least that’s what Diamond and everyone else believe until the pathologist points out “two sets of ligature marks.”

Murder it is.

Diamond returns to his office to find a chocolate cake in wait. The secret admirer strikes again. After Diamond and crew polish off the cake, they attempt to trace Williamson’s final hours. She worked her shift as a waitress at Tosi’s. Did she leave with the waiter Luigi or with the last diner, Dalton Monnington, a Jacuzzi salesman? Or was the murderer closer to home? Say her live-in lover, the rather cool Ashley Corcoran? Or is it possible that Danny Geaves, Williamson’s former partner and the father of her children, had it in for her?

Diamond wants to speak to Geaves, only he’s vanished without that proverbial trace.

Until he is found hanging from a bridge.

Meanwhile, Diamond, his larder empty, goes grocery shopping and manages to drive over another customer’s bags. After Diamond pays to replace her destroyed food, the owner invites him for a drink that night, which is how Diamond meets Paloma Kean and her son Jerry, a devote Christian who volunteers at hospitals in the area.

Another woman is found hanged, and days later, her missing husband is found suffering from a similar fate. When a third woman is found at the end of a noose, it’s obvious a serial killer is on the loose. Diamond begins a frantic search to find the third missing husband before it’s too late.

Hangman takes lots of twists, and Diamond runs through his list of suspects before finally solving the who and why of the mystery. The only remaining question is the fate of his relationship with Paloma Kean.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that we have a master plotter at work. Among the many honors bestowed on Peter Lovesey (1936-2025) are the MWA Grandmaster Award for Lifetime Achievement, the CWA Gold and Silver Daggers, and the Diamond Dagger for Lifetime Achievement.

Lovesey’s also great at spinning characters with real depth and personality. Peter Diamond is a wonderful character worth revisiting in the other books in the series. He’s irascible but vulnerable, not quite the curmudgeon he presents to the world, and he has a sense of humor. Diamond’s still reeling from the murder of his wife Steph three years before Hangman begins, and the scenes with Paloma are touching and tender. It’s impossible not to root for Paloma to appear in the next mystery.

The series also boasts an admirable cast of supporting characters. There’s the well endowed Georgina, Diamond’s boss whom he frequently locks horns with, and his underlings, the delightful Ingeborg, the insufferable John Leaman, and the long-suffering Keith Halliwell.

Readers enjoy visiting locations mentioned in their favorite books. Arthur Conan Doyle died in 1930, taking Sherlock Holmes and John Watson with him to the grave—at least in theory. Nearly one hundred years later, fans still flock to the non-existent 221B Baker Street, perhaps expecting Mrs. Hudson to open the door and invite them to wait upstairs for Holmes’ return. So it’s not surprising that another well developed character in the Diamond series is Bath itself. Diamond climbs hills and descends into Bath’s many caves. The places mentioned are real, not figments of Lovesey’s imagination.

While reading Hangman, I had the sense I could visit the places described and pop in for a pint at the Old Crown, maybe even chat up Diamond himself, or perhaps spy on Paloma and Diamond when they meet up at the Saracen’s Hotel for a little tipple. It turns out Lovesey used to conduct tours of Bath.

I was convinced that I had figured out early the connection between the three ill-fated couples and the murderer. I resisted the temptation to jump ahead and confirm whether I was correct. Of course, I’m not spilling the beans. You’ll have to read The Secret Hangman to find out whodunnit. I can tell you this: Peter Diamond and crew are well worth your time.

  

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4fFP6Nw

  

Paula Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Brothers McKay by Craig Johnson

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Brothers McKay by Craig Johnson

Paula Messina Reviews: Before Midnight by Rex Stout

 Please welcome author Paula Messina back to the blog today…

 

 

Before Midnight

by Paula Messina

 

I knew it was my lucky day when I found Before Midnight, a Nero Wolfe mystery I hadn’t read. I’ve lost count of the Rex Stout mysteries I have read. He’s an author I often return to. Before Midnight didn’t disappoint.

All the elements that make Rex Stout a popular mystery writer are here. The crime is so complicated only a genius of Nero Wolfe’s ilk can solve it. Archie’s as witty and charming as ever. Nero Wolfe is his stubborn, inflexible self.

It’s his way or the highway when Attorney Rudolph Hansen, accompanied by Messrs. Oliver Buff, Patrick O’Garro, and Mr. Vernon Assa, descends on West 35th Street uninvited and  demand Wolfe abort his eleven o’clock tete-a-tete with the orchids on the brownstone’s top floor.

And what matter is so dire the orchids should be abandoned? Not the murder of Louis Dahlmann. Oh, no, not that. It’s Dahlmann’s missing wallet, which contained the answers for a contest to promote Pour Amour cosmetics, that is the pressing issue.

Hansen represents Lippert, Buff and Assa, an advertising agency. LBA’s major client is Heery Products, which sells the Pour Amour cosmetics line. Dahlmann, LBA’s late wunderkind who conceived the idea for a contest with its million dollars in prizes, had the audacity to take a bullet to his chest when the contest was in its waning days.

Dahlmann’s sins are even greater. The afternoon before his inconvenient demise, he waved the sheet of paper with the answers in front of the final five contestants.

Now LBA and Heery Products are in a very sour pickle. Dahlmann’s dead, and no one knows who has the contest’s answers.

After much wrangling, Wolfe agrees to undertake a search to discover who removed the wallet from Dahlmann’s pocket and made away with the contest answers. For once, Wolfe—and he is absolutely adamant on this point—is not investigating a murder.

Is the murderer the wallet thief, or was each crime committed separately? Is the wallet thief Attorney Hansen? Someone from LBA? Heery Products owner Talbott Heery? Or one of the final five contestants? The murder scene provides no clues. Interviewing the lot proves fruitless. With nothing to go on, Wolfe’s genius is of little value.

Then a second body drops.

Wolfe blames himself for the death and takes to his bed. But Wolfe finally puts his genius to work, earns his substantial fee, and throws in the solution to Dahlmann’s murder gratis.

As a reader, characters are important to me. They need to be individuals I’m willing to spend time with. Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe fill that bill. The introduction to Before Midnight is by Robert Crais, and he lays out a convincing argument that the power of this mystery series is the friendship between Nero Wolfe and his chronicler, Archie Goodwin. I concur.

Crais quotes Rex Stout: “Here are two friends. Here are two people sharing their lives. As you wish for friendship, share in theirs. As you seek companionship, share in theirs. As you search for love, search in theirs.”

After listing many literary couplings, Craig says, “The appeal of friendship is old, and the pleasures inherent in such fictional pairings are no less valid today than they were in the days of Holmes and Watson, or in the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, and seventies—the incredible five decades through which Stout published Nero Wolfe.”

In creating Nero Wolfe, Stout clearly was inspired by Arthur Conan Doyle. Just as the strength of the Holmes mysteries is the friendship between Sherlock and John Watson, Archie Goodwin and Nero Wolfe’s relationship is paramount. It contrasts with that of Sherlock Holmes and Dr. John Watson. Goodwin is not a sidekick. He is Wolfe’s partner in crime solving. The housebound Wolfe acknowledges that Goodwin is the eyes and legs of the partnership. They’re equals. Holmes, on the other hand, often acts more as a teacher, lording over Watson with his superior intellect and vast knowledge.

Archie’s needling to rouse the lazy Nero to get to work might suggest otherwise, but the pair share a deep respect and filial love. If you have any doubt, read Death of a Dude in which Wolfe doesn’t just venture outside into the wilds of New York, he flies to Montana to assist Archie.

There’s another reason Stout is admired by so many writers. His simple style is deceiving. His descriptions are always unique. For example, in Midnight, he doesn’t tell us contestant Gertrude Frazee has a crooked smile. That would never do.

“When she spoke her lips wanted to move perpendicular to the slant, but her jaw preferred straight up and down. You might have thought that after so many years, at least sixty, they would have come to an understanding, but nothing doing.”

The description is pure Archie Goodwin. His wit is another reason the series has never gone out of print. Archie’s intelligence is often overlooked. Maybe he isn’t the genius Wolfe is, but he’s no slouch when it comes to those gray cells.

For my money, Nero is misunderstood. Yes, he’s hardly the cuddliest guy in the literary world, but he’s not callous. While Archie guarantees a fun time whether it’s watching a Mets game or dancing into the wee hours, Nero is a fantastic host. You might not want to dine with him every night as Archie does, but you can take this to the bank: The food would be five-star Michelin and the conversation scintillating.

Just as Arthur Conan Doyle occasionally drops the veil hiding Sherlock Holmes tender side, Stout gives us glimpses into Wolfe’s sensitivity. If you doubt this, check out The Golden Spiders.

I’m in the same camp as Dame Agatha Christie. I read Stout for Archie, not Wolfe. This is from the Wolfe Pack website: Dame Agatha Christie was a huge Rex Stout fan. She was known to go to her local bookstore and enquire after the latest Archie Goodwin novel. The clerk would gently remind her that they're referred to as Nero Wolfe mysteries, to which Christie would reply, "Nonsense! Everyone knows that Archie does all the work!"

 
 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/48OLPag

 

 

Puala Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Lost Angels by Michele Dominguez Greene

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Lost Angels by Michele Dominguez Greene

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Monk by Tim Sullivan

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Monk by Tim Sullivan

Paula Messina Reviews: The Priest by Joseph Caruso

 Please welcome back author Paula Messina to the blog today. By the way, when I was looking for cover images for the piece today, I cam across this regarding the author and the West End Museum.

  

The Priest

 

by Paula Messina

 

 

I write historical fiction. One of my recurring characters and his family live in Boston’s North End. He occasionally ventures into nearby Scollay Square and the West End. Hoping to uncover some delectable morsel to use in my writing, I recently visited the West End Museum.

The museum was enjoyable, but I didn’t uncover anything I didn’t already know. That is until I spotted a dark blue, thin volume in one of the display cases, Joseph Caruso’s The Priest. Published in 1956, both novel and writer were new to me. I left the museum hoping that The Priest would provide that tasty tidbit I’d been searching for. I can’t say I found it. Instead, I discovered something far more rewarding, a gripping novel.

The priest in question is thirty-eight-year-old Father Octavio Scarpi, the eighth and youngest surviving son of an Italian fisherman. ‘Tavio is huge, so huge he cannot fasten his Roman collar. He is not Hollywood handsome, nor is he blessed with a plain face. A former boxer, fisherman, and World War II soldier, the priest has a “crooked, broken nose.” He’s an ugly giant whose exceptional strength is his undoing.

Father Scarpi is assigned to St. Dominic’s in the West End, where he grew up. He is haunted by the death of his brother Onofrio and a war-time rape. A priest who hears confessions and absolves others of their sins, he cannot forgive himself.

The novel begins as a jury returns to the courtroom with its verdict. Joseph Shannan, a gangster who unquestionably has earned a place behind bars, is found guilty of the murder of Ellen Greer. When asked by the judge if he wishes to speak before sentencing, Shannan tells the judge, “What’s there to say?...I been saying I didn’t do it.”

Father Scarpi is called to hear the confession of the dying Vincent Spinale. Grabbing the priest’s wrist, Spinale begs for absolution after divulging, “I have sinned….I killed a woman, father….Greer. I killed Ellen Greer. Save me, Father!”

Father Scarpi grants Spinale absolution as the confessor lapses into a coma. Bound by the seal of confession, the priest cannot reveal that Vincent Spinale is Ellen Greer’s murderer. All hope of convincing Spinale to confess to the authorities is doomed when he dies. Short of a miracle, the for-once-innocent Joseph Shannan will die in the electric chair.

His lips might be sealed, but that doesn’t keep Father Scarpi from attempting to right a wrong. He visits Shannan, whose real name is Peppino Schianno, in prison. Shannan recognizes ‘Tavio. Peppino and Onofrio were best friends. The meeting stirs Father Scarpi’s memory of the first time he and Peppino met. An enraged Octavio “poleaxed” his inebriated brother Onofrio. Their brothers Victor and Anthony as well as Peppino restrained the massive Octavio as he lifted Onofrio “to hit him again.”

The priest becomes obsessed with Shannan and disobeys his superiors in a desperate effort to save his dead brother’s friend. As he struggles to save Shannan from the electric chair,  Father Scarpi discovers Ellen Greer’s murder hinged on rape. Ultimately, Octavio Scarpi, who cannot escape his guilt in Onofrio’s death and the rape he committed during the war, cannot save Shannan. Devastated by his failure, the priest decides to leave the priesthood.

Caruso doesn’t sensationalize Father Scarpi’s dilemma. Instead, he depicts a very human, deeply vulnerable man haunted by his violent past. Father Scarpi has lots of company. St. Dominic’s other priests suffer from the same affliction as do others, including Beneditto Scarpi, the priest’s father, who blames himself for his wife’s early death. These Christians, who all believe God forgives sins, cannot forgive themselves.

Beneditto tells Octavio, “There is guilt in all of us, but at times the feeling of guilt is more than the act that brought it on.”

Because of his failure to save Shannan, ‘Tavio resoves his Roman collar and leaves the priesthood. His brother John is unable to convince him to return to St. Dominic. He tells the priest, “What I am doesn’t matter. It’s you that matters. You are another man’s hope….Would you deprive your parishioners of their hopes just for your own feelings of guilt?”

John sees what his brother Octavio, blinded by guilt, cannot see. Father Scarpi is respected by his parishioners, who seek and need his comfort and guidance. The priest, who believes his physical strength is his greatest weakness, fails to recognize his real strength, his faith.

The Priest portrays a vibrant community of Sicilians, Southern Italian immigrants, and their American children in the early 1950s. The men don’t attend Mass, but they and their wives have a deep faith that guides their lives. The men are “calfoni: fruit peddlers, laborers, fishermen.” In other words, they are uncivilized and crude. They may have accents and lack polish, but they live their Old World values, work hard to support their families, and trust in a God they pretend to eschew.

There’s another homicide that hovers unspoken over The Priest: the premeditated murder in the first degree of the West End by the City of Boston. In the name of urban renewal, Boston Mayor John Hynes targeted the destruction of the West End and exiled the calfoni. According to the West End Museum, in 1958 and 1959, more than 12,000 West Enders were evicted. Forty-six acres were leveled. Like the Joni Mitchell’s song, “Big Yellow Taxi,” the city tore down a thriving community to create a parking lot.

That gigantic parking lot remained until 1965 when two towers with 477 apartments were erected along with a gigantic sign that proclaims, “If you lived here, you’d be home now.”

Only the families that had occupied the land for decades could not go home. They couldn’t afford the luxury apartments. To this day, former West Enders lament the destruction of their homes.

Joseph Caruso (1924-2008) was born in Sicily and immigrated to the West End when he was seven years old. A writer, filmmaker, and painter who worked as an Art Director for the Post Office, he received a Bronze Star for bravery during World War II. Caruso was one of the founders of The Committee to Save the West End.

The families that lived in the West End couldn’t stop the government, nor could they stop the inevitable change already underway. The calfoni’s sons and daughters assimilated and abandoned the Old World ways of their parents and ancestors.

Those who lived in the West End still mourn for the vibrant community that was taken from them. Little of Caruso’s West End remains. One exception is St. Joseph Parish, the novel’s St. Dominic. It is still an active church. 

 

Paula Messina ©2026 

Paula Messina writes the Donatello Laguardia stories, which are set in Boston’s North End during the 1940s. They appeared in the Best New England Crime Stories 2024 and 2025 and another Donatello Laguardia short story is scheduled to appear in Black Cat Weekly. She lives near America’s first public beach.

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Two Truths and a Lie by Mark Stevens

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Two Truths and a Lie by Mark Stevens

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – From the Dust by David Swinson

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – From the Dust by David Swinson

Mystery Fanfare: The Big Shake: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake Mystery Fiction - Guest Post by Randal Brandt

Mystery Fanfare: The Big Shake: The 1906 San Francisco Earthquake i...: At 5:12 a.m. on April 18, 1906—one hundred and twenty years ago today—the landscape of San Francisco was permanently altered by a 7.9 magnit...

Patricia Abbott: FFB: THE FOG, James Herbert

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SleuthSayers: Richard Estes and the Art of Seeing

SleuthSayers: Richard Estes and the Art of Seeing: I’m delighted Derringer award-nominee , Tom Milani, is joining us today to talk about how Richard Estes' paintings inspired him to look ...

Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday; Agatha Christie's Short Story Collection (Kerrie Smith from the archives)

 Patricia Abbott: Short Story Wednesday; Agatha Christie's Short Story Collection (Kerrie Smith from the archives)

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Diversion by Cindy Goyette

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – Diversion by Cindy Goyette

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Crossroads by C.J. Box

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Crossroads by C.J. Box

Guest Post: Reprise - Kansas City Breakdown by M.E. Proctor

 

In the middle of next month, Kansas City Breakdown, will be released by Cowboy Jamboree Press. The book by M. E. Proctor and Russell Thayer is a sequel to their Bop City Swing of last year. Please welcome back M. E. Proctor to the blog today as she explains how the new book came to be in this guest post.

 

 

Reprise - Kansas City Breakdown

 

by M.E. Proctor

 

 

When Russell Thayer and I started Bop City Swing two years ago (already!), neither of us had ever written a piece of fiction in collaboration. My only experience with a vaguely similar joint effort goes back to producing a 200-page report with a colleague on the dry subject of alternative forms of work organization (I’m not going to go into the nuts and bolts of that) when I was on a research contract with a European university. I don’t remember how we managed the writing part. What I recall is how much fun we had in the sandbox coming up with wild ideas. And how much fun my research partner was. I can still picture him. A dude tall as a giraffe, under thirty but with less hair left on his head than a newborn chicken. He was quirky and brilliant. Christopher Lloyd in Back to the Future. I suspect he smoked more than the cigarettes that he puffed on constantly when we were together. Damn it, man, open the window! We shared a tiny office, next to a rumbling mechanical room, blissfully remote from the rest of the Economics Department and its stern director. We locked the door to keep snoops away.

So yes, I like to work with people. They should be a little mad and chaotic, to balance my very organized mind.

If we had sat down to ponder methods and objectives, Russell and I might never have gotten out of the starting blocks. We just said, what the hell let’s do it, let’s write a story featuring these two characters that we have put in a bunch of stories already, and see where it takes us.

We created an inciting incident, a political assassination in 1951 San Francisco, and threw our characters into it. My protagonist, SFPD Homicide Detective Tom Keegan, worked the case. The role of Russell’s leading lady—Vivian Davis aka Gunselle, a killer-for-hire—was more of a head-scratcher. We brainstormed options, discarded a bunch of them before landing on a promising one: Vivian was hired to shoot the guy but somebody beat her to it. She’s pissed off because she was robbed of a fat paycheck. Both Tom and Viv are hunting the killer. They each have part of the solution. Eventually their paths will cross with explosive results.

Bop City Swing was conceived as a stand-alone. Then we found a publisher (Cowboy Jamboree Press) and started thinking about a follow-up. Tom and Vivian were great characters and deserved another walk in the spotlights.

Follow-ups, reprises, book #2 in a series can be tricky.

First problem. The characters have a common history now. Supporting players have been introduced. There’s a chronology of events, and continuity to think about. No more meet-cute: he’s a cop and she’s a killer. Their interactions are ambiguous, by definition. Add to that the attraction she feels for him and the temptation she represents for him. The sexual tension between them added spice to the first book. In the second one, it has to be picked up and given an extra tug. To make things even more complicated, Tom is in a long-term relationship with a spunky San Francisco Chronicle crime reporter.

Second problem. The plot and the theme. Bop City Swing revolved around politics and the misdeeds of the moneyed class. It was also a story of revenge and trauma wrapped inside a murder investigation. Book #2 has to go in a completely different direction.

One way to mark a radical shift is to change locations. We left San Francisco and decided to go to Kansas City. Jazz music, still, but with a side of barbecue. Then we opened the Noir Codex on a couple of new pages. Under G and M for Gangsters and Goons, Mobsters and Molls. And Russell and I went to work using our favorite technique, the key questions:
Why would Vivian and Tom get together and what are they doing in Missouri?

As is always the case when you put all the ideas in a big pot and stir vigorously, answers come and keep coming as the plot progresses. Secondary characters walk on stage and demand attention. Some almost get killed but survive because we like them so much. Others aren’t so lucky. And the end is never exactly what you have in mind at the beginning.

Here’s how we answered our key questions.
The book starts with an FBI undercover operation. The plan is to infiltrate a high-level Kansas City Mob meeting to gather information. A San Francisco gangster is going to the conference and is considered a ‘soft’ target. He can be seduced. A honey trap. If the right woman for the job can be found. Tom knows somebody who could pull it off, but what will he have to do to convince her? Vivian doesn’t work for the police. Tom has a stake in the success of the mission. He’s her designated handler. His job is to get her out alive.

The book is called Kansas City Breakdown.

In music, according to Wikipedia, a ‘breakdown’ is a section of song characterized by solo performances. Vivian and Tom have their starring moments. They also play well together.    

--

Latest Publication:

 

Kansas City Breakdown

By M.E. Proctor and Russell Thayer

 

Publisher: Cowboy Jamboree

April 2026

Paperback

eBook

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4sJcEnQ

 

 

M. E. Proctor ©2026 

M.E. Proctor was born in Brussels and lives in Texas. She’s the author of the Declan Shaw detective mysteries: Love You Till Tuesday and Catch Me on a Blue Day (Shotgun Honey Books). She’s the author of two short story collections, Family and Other Ailments and A Book to Live By. She’s also the co-author with Russell Thayer of two retro-noirs: Bop City Swing and Kansas City Breakdown. Short fiction in Vautrin, Tough, Rock and a Hard Place, Bristol Noir, Mystery Tribune, Reckon Review and Black Cat Weekly among others. She’s a Shamus and Derringer short story nominee.
Author Website: www.shawmystery.com. On Substack: https://meproctor.substack.com.

Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Cyclist by Tim Sullivan

 Lesa's Book Critiques: Kevin’s Corner Annex – The Cyclist by Tim Sullivan

Paula Messina Reviews: Strange Houses by Uketsu

 

 Please welcome back author Paula Messina to the blog today…

  

 

Strange Houses

 

by Paula Messina

 

 

Strange Houses by Uketsu is one strange book. I can imagine English teachers throughout the country hurling it against a wall and screaming, “There’s no character development.”

They’d be right. There’s also no plot, setting, or the requisite digging for clues in a mystery.

But that’s mere quibbling.

After all, who needs plot, character, and setting when the reader has Uketsu?

Houses isn’t nearly as strange as the writer. Well, that might be nitpicking. Both book and writer are bizarre. The strangest thing of all is that I, a connoisseur of the those typical requirements -- you know, plot, character, setting – for labeling a manuscript a novel, especially character development, read through to the end.

Truth is I’m a sucker for books with pictures. Houses has a ton of them, so many that it’s probably a novella disguised as a novel.

The “About the Author” at the back of the book states that Uketsu “only ever appears online, wearing a mask and speaking through a voice changer.” He has 1.5 million followers, and his mysteries have sold “nearly 3 million copies in Japan since 2021.”

His real name and identity are unknown. In the lower right hand corner of the book’s cover, there’s a minuscule photo of Uketsu wearing a white mask. Well, we’re supposed to believe it’s the author. It could be anyone wearing a mask, or a badly carved pumpkin, or Angelina Jolie getting a facial. Take your pick.

According to Wikipedia, “Uketsu's fiction blends conventional prose with visual elements (drawings, diagrams, floor plans) that are presented as clues within the text.” Indeed, Houses is replete with renderings of different houses that harbored murderers. In one sense, those drawings are reminiscent of the Golden Age mysteries that contained maps or layouts of buildings. Those drawings were never the focus of the story. They were visual aids. Uketsu’s renderings are vital to the story.

I question that Uketsu uses “conventional prose.” In fact, there is little prose for most of the book. Instead, there’s lots of dialogue that is presented in a format reminiscent of a play minus stage directions.

As for setting, yes, the book is about houses, but they are explored as architectural renderings or through dialogue, not as environments occupied by characters.

The story begins when a friend calls the unidentified narrator—is he Uketsu?—to say he’s considering buying a house. However there’s something odd about it. It has an inaccessible space in the kitchen, a space that could not possibly serve any purpose. The friend is wisely leery about moving in any time soon.

The narrator agrees to investigate. He doesn’t put on his deerstalker hat and grab a magnifying glass. No. He calls Kurihara, “a draughtsman with a prestigious architectural firm.” Through Kurihara’s amazing powers of deduction, the narrator learns that many other aspects of the house are weird. The strangest aspect of all is that it’s a charnel house.

I’m positive Kurihara will never replace Sherlock Holmes as the world’s most beloved detective. Sherlock was a genius, but he worked to solve his capers. Kurihara, on the other hand, has an uncanny ability to discover a house’s secrets by simply looking at its layout. He never tests his hypotheses, and he’s never in doubt. If he were a professional baseball player, his end-of-season batting average would be one thousand. Not even the Babe achieved that record.

Back to that inaccessible space. Kurihara quickly determines its use without considering and rejecting other possibilities. For example, maybe the husband wanted a dumbwaiter so he wouldn’t have to carry his late-night snacks upstairs. Or the wife wanted shelves for her cookbooks and changed her mind. Kurihara simply knows the space’s purpose.

Armed with Kurihara’s insight, the narrator, a freelance writer, does what any writer in that circumstance would do. He writes an article about the strange house his friend is leery of buying.

And then a body is found. Missing a left hand.

Yuzuki Miyae, the wife of the dead man, approaches the narrator. With her input, the narrator connects the house to the Katabuchi family. A series of houses and the gruesome details of that family’s curse begin to unfold.

It was difficult to keep all the names straight. Many begin with the same letter, which can be confusing even when the names are familiar. At least Kurihara is not a member of the Katabuchi family. The friend who got the ball rolling at the beginning of the story is Yanaoka. Yuzuki’s mother is Yoshie. It’s enough to make a reader yell, “Try some other letters of the alphabet.”

Strange Houses, as much as it examines anything, examines what happens when a family believes it’s been cursed and must go to extremes to maintain its status. Uketsu likes to pepper his work with drawings. It would have been beneficial if he’d included one more, a road map so the reader could keep straight all the Katabuchi generations and their efforts to save the family’s status. He piled twist upon twist to tie up all the loose ends. By the time I approached the finale, I needed a stiff drink.

Strange Houses was translated by Jim Rion. The cover states that it is “the chilling Japanese mystery sensation.” I wouldn’t describe it as chilling. I’m not sure it qualifies as a mystery sensation either. It’s all talk and little action. The narrator and Kurihara never step foot in one of those strange houses. Kurihara’s analysis of those architectural drawings is pretty much the sum and substance of the detecting. The great reveal is a long narration. The many twists at the end were a bit overwhelming.

I’m glad I read Houses. It’s an intriguing writing experiment of how far an author can go and still maintain reader interest. And sell enough copies to make most writers jealous. Readers who like the unusual will enjoy this book. More conventional readers might find it annoying.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4sC5BND

Paula Messina ©2026

Paula Messina is writing an historical mystery set in Boston’s North End. Donatello Laguardia, the WIP’s main character, solves crimes in Devil’s Snare and Snakeberry. Her contemporary fiction appears in Black Cat Weekly, The Ekphrastic Review, THEMA, and Wolfsbane. And yes, her Donatello Laguardia stories have recurring characters.

Joan Leotta Reviews: Death Times Seven: A Daniel Pitt Novel by Anne Perry and Victoria Zackheim

  

Death Times Seven: A Daniel Pitt Novel (Book 7 of 7 in the series)

by Anne Perry and Victoria Zackheim 

Publication Date: Apr 14, 2026

Available in Kindle, HB, ($30) and Paper

ISBN#: 978-0593982518

Published by Ballantine Books

Pages: 288 in HB

 

Review by Joan Leotta

 

Imagine that you’ve been out of touch with an old friend for a while and then, unexpectedly, you meet again. That’s how I felt about reading the newest Daniel Pitt mystery from the pen of the late great Anne Perry. I’m a hardcore Perry fan—all of her series. Several of the lines ran their course naturally, but the Daniel Pitt series and the Elena Standish series have young protagonists, so it was harder to say good-by to them when news of Perry’s death was published.

 

However, it seems that before her death she entrusted Daniel and his wife Miriam and the other regulars of this series which follows the young lawyer and wife in their quest for justice for individuals and for society as a whole, in the early twentieth century. By allowing Victoria Zackheim, a close friend as well as an editor to finish this book she has given us a gift from beyond the grave, a legacy of words.

 

Death Times Seven takes place in 1913 England. Daniel is asked to take over (mid -trial) for a more senior person in the law firm, fellow attorney, Toby Kitteridge, who had to leave London upon learning of the sudden brutal attack on his parents in their parsonage—mother dead, accused father.

 

Miriam Ifford Croft (Daniel’s wife), of course, as always, has much to offer, helping Daniel to defend the hapless Peter Ward, the client, whose innocence it seems was only believed by Kitteridge and then herself and Daniel. As the two cases develop, we are given entry to the courts as the trial proceeds as well as to the workings of forensic pathology in that era. New evidence surfaces. We are also party to the mystery in the countryside where Toby is valiantly trying to help his father recover and clear the cleric’s name. Daniel travels out to the countryside to help his friend. It’s a satisfying dual mystery, well plotted, character driven, and full of excitement.

 

I’m often wary of these posthumous additions to a series. But this one is a true gem. Zackheim has seamlessly woven whatever part of the story she was to finish.

 

How did she do it? From a reader’s standpoint, plot and structure are well done. But what brands this book as a piece true to Perry is the way the characters are handled, particularly young Daniel. As I was reading the book, reserving judgment as I traversed the paragraphs, I was confronted with a scene that made me realize the depth of Zackheim’s commitment to the sharing the character of Daniel as Perry had oft portrayed him---she sets a scene where Daniel cuts off a thick slice of bread and slathers it with butter (jam in another place) and eats it as much as for its comfort as for its value as sustenance.

 

This gesture, one that defines Daniel as a man who enjoys the simple things, is typical of Perry and the particular gesture is one that reminds us of Daniel’s youth and even harks back to the time when we knew him as a boy in the William and Charlotte Pitt (his parents) series. I could not stop reading it. Stayed up all night, not wanting to miss any part of it. Will likely read it a second time for the shear enjoyment of the language and to say goodbye once more to these characters. I suppose ending with the seventh is a series is fitting since seven is considered one of the perfect numbers, but I would certainly not be averse to reading number eight, even if wholly penned by Zackheim.

 

But if this is the end, the last new novel by Perry to read, it is certainly a fitting tribute to her talent and her love of the characters she has created and we, her loyal readers, have come to know and love.

My electronic copy came from a reading service. I’m already on the wait list at my local library; I’d like to hold the hardback in my hand to read. Definitely one of my top three books so far this year.

 

Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4bbv3Cw

 

  

Joan Leotta ©2026 

Joan Leotta plays with words on page and stage. Her poetry, essays, cnf, short stories, and articles are widely published. Mysteries are favorite things to read.. short and long.. and to write.

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