Tuesday, January 16, 2024
Beneath the Stains of Time: The Footprints of Satan (1950) by Norman Berrow
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Top Ten Tuesday: Bookish Goals, 2024
Review: Dream Town (Eve Ronin Book Five) by Lee Goldberg
As Dream
Town by Lee Goldberg begins, Eve Ronin is living a nightmare. She made
a bargain with the devil and now the reality has hit as she is being forced to
watch how a film crew is handling her real life recent past. She is the youngest
homicide detective in the Los Angeles Sheriff’s Department and is on scene
where an incident involving her took place.
If that is not
bad enough, her estranged father, Vince Nyby, is the director. He wants back in
her life and one way is by manipulating their every encounter. Of course, her
mom is also good at that and has a minor role in the first episode. Eve Ronin
wanted nothing to do with any of this, but at least this way, she has some say
as to how this fictionalized life of her is portrayed.
Her partner,
Duncan “Donuts” Pavone is on set with her as he decided not to retire just yet.
He also is his own one-man crime wave on the catering provided on set. He is
enjoying the food as well as Ronin’s disgust with the trappings of Hollywood.
Soon they leave
and are headed back to their station, Lost Hills, when Pavone takes a phone
call from Captain Mel Dubois. He recently took over and the fact he is calling
Pavone directly means something is up. Pavone soon explains that Dubois called
because somebody was out hiking with his dogs in the nearby upper Las Virgenes
Canyon Open Space Preserve and the dogs found what appear to be human bones.
The land was a ranch at one time and now is a state park. The open space is also
a vital wildlife corridor that links the Santa Monica Mountains to other
mountain ranges to the north.
Somebody from
their forensics department, Nas Baker, is already on scene as she was summoned
from a nearby subdivision where she was working another unrelated case. She
believes the bones are human, but they are going to need anthropologist. Good
thing Dr. Daniel Brooks is also around and can take a look.
If the bones are
human, it could be related to gang activity. Such gang activity is a known
problem and one that leads to body dumps in relatively isolated places. That
could be what happened here as Dr. Brooks has quickly determined that the dogs
found two leg bones and that death was about two years ago. He also has
determined that both leg bones are left ones. That means they have at least two
victims. He also believes that both were probably male. Since the dogs were
running free of their leashes while the owner stood some distance away where he
could not see them, the bones could have come from anywhere nearby making the
area to be searched massive. Finding the rest is going to take some time.
Between that
crime scene and being assigned to the filming locations for the first episode
of the new series on her life, as well as the aftereffects of events in Movieland
and moving into her new house, Ronin has a lot going on. But, this is Los
Angeles and that means when a celeb is killed, she as the celebrity homicide
detective, is going to handle the case.
She gets the
early morning before dawn phone call, Kitty Winslow was murdered at her home in
the compound in Hidden Hills. Fortunately, Ronin’s new house is just minutes
away and she quickly arrives on scene. One of the stars of the reality television
show, Life with the Winslows, the group is rich thanks to dad,
Caleb Winslow, being a star of various westerns. Like other such “reality” shows,
nearly all of what is portrayed is fake and heavily orchestrated thanks to script
writers and others. Now the major star of the show is dead and Ronin and Pavone
have yet another case to deal with.
This latest in
the Eve Ronin series is another good one. Many moving parts are
in play here in this complex police procedural that pulls the reader along at a
rapid pace. So too is the occasional flash of humor or sardonic whit as a
character comments on the players and the myths that Hollywood spins for our
viewing pleasure.
As always, one could start here, but like any good series that builds on itself, it is best to start from the beginning. In this case, begin with Lost Hills and work your way forward. You will be glad you did. Doing so will also make Dream Town an even more lively and entertaining read than it already is.
Make sure you read Lesa Holstine's review today as well.
For some reason, the Amazon Associate image box no longer works, even on posts like this one, that were set up weeks ago. So, please go here to pick it up.
My reading copy was an ARC from the publisher, Thomas & Mercer, via NetGalley.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2023
Monday, January 15, 2024
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Our Favorite Books Read in 2023: Jeanne's Mysteries
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: The Russian Wife by Barry Maitland
The
fourteenth book in the Brock and Kolla series by Australian author Barry
Maitland came my way over the holidays and of course I had to stop everything
to read it. One of the appealing aspects of this series is the way the
characters grow and progress in their careers. I had feared when reading the
first books about the duo that Kathy Kolla would always be second chair to the
older David Brock. Not so. In this title, she has moved up the ranks to the
rank of Detective Chief Inspector, leading her own team of homicide
investigators.
Brock has
come out of retirement and returned to the Met, this time assigned to the Fraud
team. He doesn’t know anything about the work and struggles to find meaning in it.
He’s assigned to the task of talking to a wealthy couple about a scam email she
received, something they would ordinarily not address but Julian Babbington is
a cousin of one of the Assistant Commissioners and therefore receives special
treatment. He owns one of the largest privately owned collections of art in the
country so when Nadia Babbington is found dead 24 hours after the Met’s visit, Brock’s
analytical instincts are aroused. A young artist with whom she’d been
associating is found dead less than a week later. While both deaths are characterized
as suicide, Brock points out the potential connection to the epidemic of counterfeits
sweeping the art world. The Fraud Division managers agree they need to make
sure the deaths have nothing to do with the extensive art collection and Brock
launches an investigation.
In the
meantime Kathy Kolla is looking at the death of a man known to be violently
abusive to his wife. While no one apparently could have been in the room with
him when he died, the forensic evidence does not quite add up to suicide
either. Two distinct story lines are juggled throughout most of the book, until
one is closed out, not especially realistically, and the two team up as of old
to resolve the second one, which is tortuous in its complexity.
Maitland was
originally an architect and buildings always feature in his books. Here, an ancient
church in need of restoration plays a significant role. He did his homework and
describes the issues around the wheeling and dealing in high-priced art,
including the collectors who secretively acquire what they believe to be
original masters and instead learn they have a very well done copy. The entire
series is recommended.
·
Publisher: Allen & Unwin
(November 30, 2021)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 320 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1760879649
·
ISBN-13: 978-1760879648
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2024
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on
Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, January 14, 2024
Little Big Crimes: Permanent Lent, by Peter Spiegelman
The Final Hours to Vote in 26th Annual Critters Readers Poll -- Best Review Site
These are the final hours to vote in the poll this year. Kevin’s
Corner is in the running in the Review site category. If you think
the blog is worthy, please vote at https://critters.org/predpoll/reviewsite.shtml
After you vote, make sure you respond to the confirmation
email and registers your vote so that it is counted.
As always, we are going up against a number of review sites
have teams of reviewers and are active in many genres across multiple forms of
media. Most of them host book giveaways and other events as well. This site
remains an underdog, as always, because we do not have all the bells and
whistles that other sites have to drive traffic to them. We are also the only
site that reviews Mysteries and Crime Fiction primarily.
If you think we are worthy of your vote, please go cast
your vote today. Remember, you have to respond to the confirmation email for
your vote to count.
On behalf of Aubrey Hamilton, Barry Ergang, Jeanne of the
BPL, Scott, and the numerous guests that have visited the blog during 2023, and
myself, thank you for your support. It means a lot.
Kevin
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Books Read in December 2023
Beneath the Stains of Time: This is It, Michael Shayne (1950) by Brett Halliday
Saturday, January 13, 2024
Scott's Take: Hawkeye: Bishop Takes King by Ashley Poston
Hawkeye: Bishop Takes King by Ashley
Poston is the first novel to feature Kate Bishop (the second Hawkeye or, as she
calls herself, the better Hawkeye) as the main character. After a mishap
rescuing a guy named Milo who was having his bag stolen, in the process, she
accidently switched bags with him. Inside Milo’s bag is a book. Kingpin wants that
book and is willing to kill anyone he has to so that he gets it. Of course, if Kingpin wants the book so bad, he has a nasty plan involving it. That
means it is up to Kate Bishop, Lucky the pizza dog, and others, to stop him.
Full of humor, action, some romance, a
mystery, and cameos by various superheroes, this tale is worth your time. While this is billed as a young adult novel, there are some rather intense horror elements/horror scenes in this read. This story is told in an interrogation/
flashback style which means that every few chapters of flashback, there is an
interrogation chapter, before the reader goes back to the flashback chapters. Surprisingly, this technique worked well and did not create a choppy read.
This is supposed to be a canon novel
set in the comic book universe. Kate Bishop in the comic has a way different
backstory that the tv version. Therefore, it could have been helpful for
readers not familiar with the original version to have here a short backstory
summary along with the significant relationships listed.
I highly enjoyed this novel and I
hope there is a sequel.
My reading copy came in hardback from
the Central, aka Downtown Branch, of the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2023
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