Lesa's Book Critiques: The Perp Wore Pumpkin ed. by J. Alan Hartman
Sunday, November 16, 2025
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Mrs. Nash’s Ashes by Sarah Adler: Reviewed by Kristin Millie, a former child star all grown up, goes on a pilgrimage to take the remains of Rose McIntyre Nash, her elde...
Saturday, November 15, 2025
KRL Update 11/15/2025
Up on KRL this week a review of "Thanks for Muffin" by Victoria Hamilton, along with a fun guest post by Victoria about autumn, and a recipe perfect for your Thanksgiving day brunch! There is also a giveaway of a $25 Amazon gift card open to US and Canadian residents! https://kingsriverlife.com/11/15/thanks-for-muffin-by-victoria-hamilton/
And reviews and giveaways of a pair of mysteries with dogs-"Die Another Dane" By Laurien Berenson and "Dying Cry" By Margaret Mizushima https://kingsriverlife.com/11/15/a-pair-mysteries-with-dogs/
And a review and giveaway of "Murder Two Doors Down" by Chuck Storla along with a fun interview with Chuck https://kingsriverlife.com/11/15/murder-two-doors-down-by-chuck-storla/
We also have a review and giveaway of "Fallen Star" by Lee Goldberg, and there's a bonus mini review of the audiobook version https://kingsriverlife.com/11/15/fallen-star-by-lee-goldberg/
Up on KRL during the week we posted another special midweek guest post, this one by mystery author Barry Maher where he shares how a brain tumor inspired his book https://kingsriverlife.com/11/12/brain-cancer-for-fun-and-profit/
And another special midweek guest post, this one by mystery author KJ Charles where she talks about her new gothic mystery romance novel "All of Us are Murders" and books she thinks her main character might be reading https://kingsriverlife.com/11/12/all-of-us-murderers/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review and giveaway of "The Corpse With The Amber Neck" by Cathy Ace - https://www.krlnews.com/2025/11/the-corpse-with-amber-neck-by-cathy-ace.html
And a review of "In the Algorithm We Trust" by local author Ryan David Ginsberg https://www.krlnews.com/2025/11/in-algorithm-we-trust-by-ryan-david.html
And a review of "Elbows Up!" a very different sort of anthology https://www.krlnews.com/2025/11/elbows-up-canadian-voices-of-resilience.html
Happy reading,
Lorie
SleuthSayers: Whodunit? Beats Me.
SleuthSayers: Whodunit? Beats Me.: All of us who write and sell short stories know there are ups and downs, hills and valleys, boomtimes and dry spells. It's mostly bee...
Scott's Take: Predator versus Spider-Man by Benjamin Percy and Marcelo Ferreira (Illustrator)
Predator versus Spider-Man by Benjamin
Percy and Marcelo Ferreira (Illustrator) collects the miniseries which is set
in the same universe as Predator vs Wolverine, Predator vs
Black Panther. This miniseries sees Spider-Man attempting to stop a new
serial killer during a power outage in New York. The new serial killer is a
rogue Predator. It is not long before Kraven the Hunter and other Predators
arrive to make matters worse.
Spider-Man and Mary Jane both have big
roles in this quick action packed and incredibly violent horror style miniseries.
The violence is not shy at all. People are skinned and way more. The art is
intense and does a good job of showing the horror of the situation.
My one gripe is the ending is not really
an ending. Instead, it is set up for the Predator vs Marvel Universe
miniseries. A book should have a proper
ending and not just leave the reader going—Okay, so that’s it.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/435P9Lw
I read this through the Marvel Unlimited app.
Scott A. Tipple ©2025
Tuesday, November 11, 2025
Publication Day Review: Hollywood Hitman: A Thriller by Michele DomÃnguez Greene
Billed as a “gritty police procedural,” Hollywood Hitman: A Thriller by Michele
DomÃnguez Greene is not at all gritty or much of a police procedural if you
have read a lot of police procedurals and crime fiction. This first book in the
Cassidy Clarke series, is more a cozy style mystery with a lot of
relationship drama than an actual police procedural.
As the book opens, Cassidy Clarke is a new
boot in the LAPD and about to work her first day. She is looking forward to the
fact that she will be assigned a patrol partner and a beat. She lives with her
father, Bill Clarke, a legendary homicide detective who is about to go through
his last day on the job. After 41 years with the LAPD, and with cognitive
issues becoming more apparent to Cassidy and others, he is retiring. Cassidy
worries as the job is all her divorced father has and he has no plans for the
future to occupy his time.
Despite the Fact that it is his last
day, Bill and his partner, Pete Barrera, are sent out to a crime scene that
appears to be the latest work in a string of killings. This is the third killing
in five weeks that appears to be linked to the same killers. Each of the female
victims has been strangled, posed afterwards, and left with a small lipstick
heart on a cheek.
While Bill and his partner go about
their work, Watch Commander Steven Kriss puts Cassidy to work with five-year
veteran Sean Riley for their first patrol in Hollywood. He has worked with her
dad before and she is glad to be paired up with him. But, her time on patrol is
short lived as she is soon involved in the serial killers case more than her
father ever was. A father who isn’t happy being frozen out of the investigation
and decides to work various cold cases all on his own.
While the vast majority of the
characters are cops, and the police station is the setting for numerous scenes,
the actual police procedural aspects of the read are few and far between. This
is more of a cozy style mystery read with a lot of personal drama mixed in to
the story. Cassidy is dealing with a father who is having serious and worsening
cognitive issues, the perception of other officers of her, a childhood friendship
forever changed due to a horrific family tragedy, and her own internalized
fears regarding all of that as well as her relationship with her boyfriend that
leaves a lot to be desired.
The result is a read heavy on feelings
and relationship dramas. It simply does not have much of what an experienced reader
expects to come across in a police procedural.
That being said, for what it actually
is, the read is a good book. There are numerous interesting characters, conflicts,
plenty of drama, and well as several strong mystery elements. If you read Hollywood
Hitman: A Thriller by Michele DomÃnguez Greene for what it is, as
opposed to the expectations created by the marketing, you will find an
entertainingly good read worth your time.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/47tmDou
My digital ARC came by way of the
publisher, Thomas & Mercer, by way of NetGalley, with no expectation of a
positive review. The second book in the series, The Lost Angels: A Thriller, currently has
a late April 2026 publication date on Amazon.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2025
Monday, November 10, 2025
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Little Girl Lost: A Lucy Black Thriller by Brian McGilloway
Little
Girl Lost by Irish author Brian McGilloway (Pan Macmillan, 2011) is the
first book about Detective Sergeant Lucy Black. Black transfers from the
Lisburn police station to the CID unit in County Londonderry to stay closer to
her father who suffers from progressively worse dementia. A month into her new
job finds the entire force caught up in the search for the missing daughter of
a wealthy Derry businessman. During a heavy snowfall a girl is reported in the
woods near Prehen and the team is called out to the site. Lucy gets there first
and finds a child, not the missing teenager, in soaked pajamas and freezing
cold. She does not speak, even to give her name, clinging to Lucy who
accompanies her to the hospital.
Because Lucy
is the only person who can approach the child without setting off piercing
shrieks, the powers that be temporarily assign her to the Public Protection
Unit to find the child’s family to her great disappointment. Her new commanding
officer seems a decent sort but she can’t help feeling sidelined from the
action swirling around the high-profile case of the kidnapped girl.
While Lucy
begins calling schools to ask about missing students, the forensics tech looks
over the child’s clothing and finds it is covered with a fine spray of blood.
Not hers, because she is unhurt beyond hypothermia, but someone else’s. There’s
enough to believe the child came from a crime scene somewhere, making the need
to identify her more urgent than ever.
An absorbing,
complex, and realistic police procedural. The multiple plot threads come
together in a surprising way, solving an old crime as they do.
Lucy Black is
a wonderful character. Her intelligence, kindness, and determination make her a
promising police officer. Anyone who has worked in a bureaucracy will
understand her struggles with the politics and the favoritism of the police organization.
Her attempts to avoid putting her father into a care facility as he becomes
progressively worse are heartbreakingly realistic. Watching her juggle the two
as the larger drama of the kidnapping plays out is fascinating. Recommended.
Starred
review from Library Journal.
·
Publisher: William Morrow Paperbacks
·
Publication date: May 6, 2014
·
Language: English
·
Print length: 336 pages
·
ISBN-10: 0062336592
·
ISBN-13: 978-0062336590
Amazon Associate Purchase
Link: https://amzn.to/3WJBYMI
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2025
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, November 09, 2025
Review: Innocence Road by Laura Griffin
Comes out Tuesday....
Innocence Road by Laura
Griffin takes readers to far Southwest Texas in the Big Bend region and the
small town of Madrone in Chisos County. This read reminded me a lot of the Josie
Gray Mystery series by Tricia Fields. Innocence Road is
also a very good police procedural in its own right.
Leanne Everhart was saved from cleaning out
her old garage when she is sent to a location to meet Officer Will Akers. He
had been in a local Texaco getting a cup of coffee while on patrol when a woman
came into the place and told the young officer with six weeks on the job that
she had found a body. Patty Paulson is a member of the Desert Angels. A group
that puts jugs of water in the desert to try and save lives.
Everhart goes over to the nearby area of
train tracks where they cross a bone-dry small culvert and verifies that there
most definitely is a body in the culvert under the short railroad bridge. The
body has been there awhile. Buzzards are overhead and it is obvious that
animals and other things in nature have been at work doing what they do with
the dead. But, no animal smashed in the right side of the young dead woman’s
head hard enough to cave it in with shards of bone sticking up through her hair.
After spending eight years in Dallas,
Everhart is back home where she grew up. In some ways that is a good thing. In
other ways it is not, as she is again reminded that in the small town of Madrone,
everybody knows everybody. They also know all your business and have an opinion
on that as well as an opinion on everyone in your family going back decades.
It is January, tourist season, and news
of the discovery spreads like a wildfire. Not only are there plenty of tourists
in town, there are also plenty of reporters. Reporters that want to know what
she thinks and knows about the release of Sean Moroarty from Huntsville Prison
where he had been serving a life sentence without parole.
That was until new evidence came out
that his confession was coerced. Jim McBride, the current Chief of Police, was
the senior detective on the murder case of 18-year-old Hannah Rawls. Her dad
was also on the case. Both men were in the room when he confessed. Suspicion of
wrongdoing is landing primarily on her dad who is no longer among the living
and therefore can’t defend himself.
As part of her dad’s legacy in law enforcement
in the area, she is feeling a lot of pressure over what may or may not have
happened. The idea that her dad would do such a thing is unthinkable, though
her mom does not seem to share that same opinion. That family legacy and
division is just one piece of the secondary storyline involving the release of
Sean Moriarty. A release that has huge repercussions for several characters in
the read.
That case also affects the here and now
as Chief McBride wants to write off the dead woman beneath the railroad tracks
as just another dead migrant in the desert. Resources and funds are scarce and
he does not want to waste them on a dead migrant in the desert as that sort of
thing happens all the time. It is a way of life and just how things are. He
wants the bare minimum done and to close the books on the case as soon as
possible. As she investigates, and deals with his constant questioning of her
abilities, she becomes increasingly convinced that there is actually a serial
killer at work in the area. One that has been active going back many years.
What follows is a complicated police
procedural with a cast of interesting characters. Rich in setting details,
depth of characters both primary and secondary, and a complicated primary and
secondary storylines, the resulting Innocence Road by Laura
Griffin, becomes a highly entertaining police procedural read. One hopes it is
the start of a series.
Strongly Recommended.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4hHr0kc
My digital ARC was provided by the
publisher, Berkley, through NetGalley, with no expectation of a positive
review.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2025
Saturday, November 08, 2025
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Silver Pigs by Lindsey Davis: Reviewed by Jeanne Rome, AD 70: Marcus Didius Falco is an informer for the Emperor, which is a somewhat precarious occupation given ...
Scott's Take: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Naruto by Caleb Goellner, Hendry Prasetya (Illustrator), and Jorge Jiménez (Illustrator)
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles/Naruto by Caleb Goellner, Hendry Prasetya (illustrator), and Jorge Jiménez (Illustrator,) is a 4 issue crossover miniseries where Naruto and TMNT crossover in a joint universe away from either of the main universes. April O’Neil, the human friend of the TMNT, visits the Hidden Leaf village (home of Naruto) on a secret reporter mission. Team 7 (Naruto and friends) are assigned to escort her back to the Big Apple Village (New York in a Ninja world), but are attacked by the Foot Clan. After defeating them they are attacked again by the TMNT in a classic misunderstanding battle before teaming up. The rest of the volume is the two teams becoming friends and eventually taking on the Shredder.
This action-packed humor filled read is
rather short, but fun. The art is really good and so is the characterization.
The creative team does a good job of putting the Ninja Turtles in the Ninja
World while keeping the core elements of TMNT. I really enjoyed this read as a
fan of both groups and I hope they do more.
Amazon Associate Purchase Link: https://amzn.to/4qcb9y8
My digital read came by way of the
Hoopla App and the Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2025
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