Short Story Wednesday Review: Hollow Point: A Short Story by O’Neil De Noux

From the archive….

As Hollow Point: A Short Story begins, it is 1984 in New Orleans and Casey Aloysius is once again the target of a manhunt by the New Orleans Police Department. Six years ago he went to prison in Angola for a raping a ten year old girl. The parole board granted his release so he got free three days ago. He came back to New Orleans and tracked down the now 16-year-old girl. Once he found her, he kidnapped her and raped her repeatedly making sure to do everything he had done before all over again. He left her barely alive, savagely beaten and abused, and chained to a wall of a garage after telling her repeatedly he was punishing her for reporting him before. If it had not been for two neighborhood boys who thought they heard a puppy whimpering and came looking she might have died there.

 

This is an all hands on deck situation as the police of the City of New Orleans look for Casey Aloysius. That means even the homicide unit is working the case. After briefing the officers under his command, Lieutenant Mason sends LaStanza and his partner, Jodie Kintyre, over to Mercy Hospital to get a statement from the victim. As it happens, Jodie’s mom and the mother of the victim were friends so the victim, June Holmes, remembers Jodie from the old neighborhood. Her need for vengeance is not a solitary need as soon a member of New Orleans’s finest is gunned down.

 

What follows is a hard-edged police procedural type short story that has occasional flashes of cynical humor. LaStanza has seen a lot in his years on the force and his internal monologue and cutting comments say as much about him as they do others. An enjoyable short story, the chase is on in Hollow Point: A Short Story by O’Neil De Noux.

 

 

Hollow Point: A Short Story

O’Neil De Noux

http://oneildenoux.net/

Big Kiss Productions

https://www.facebook.com/BigKissProductions/

November 2016

ASIN: B01MTIZSO2

eBook

41 Pages

 

 

Material was picked up using funds in my Amazon Associate account when the author publicized the release last month. 

 

Kevin R. Tipple ©2016, 2021

Lesa's Book Critiques: SANDIE’S CORNER – HEART SEIZURE BY BILL FITZHUGH

 Lesa's Book Critiques: SANDIE’S CORNER – HEART SEIZURE BY BILL FITZHUGH

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 40 Fabulous Writing Conferences in June 2021

Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 40 Fabulous Writing Conferences in June 2021: Writing workshops and conferences always pick up in the summer. This June features more than three dozen conferences and workshops for write...

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Life Among the Savages by Shirley Jackson:   Reviewed by Christy             Shirley Jackson is known for her quiet horror, specifically the novel The Haunting of Hill House and ...

Jeanne Reviews: Hope Rides Again: An Obama Biden Mystery by Andrew Shaffer

Please welcome Jeanne of the BPL back to the blog…

 

Yes, you read that right:  this is a mystery where the sleuths are the former president and vice-president of the United States.  And if reading that makes you skeptical, join the club.  I thought the idea was ridiculous.

 

Then someone talked me into reading the first book, Hope Never Dies, because it was very funny.  I needed funny at the time, so I gave it a try and nearly fell off the treadmill laughing a couple of times.  Sure, the concept is over the top but really no more so than having a baker solve all the murders in a small town (which has a LOT of murders!) or other series in which Jane Austen, Edgar Allan Poe, or Eleanor Roosevelt catch the criminals. 

 

The stories are narrated by Joe Biden, who is portrayed as being somewhat inept (his smartphone baffles him at times, for instance) but who is passionate about justice, America, and looking out for each other.  He’s an all-around decent guy who may not have all the answers but you know he’ll have your back.  Barack Obama is the cool guy, the professor, the one who wants to stop and take stock before Joe rushes in.

 

As the second book opens, Joe is mulling whether or not to run for president.  Since the book came out in July, 2019, Shaffer had to walk the fine line of “will he-won’t he” in Biden’s musings.  Biden is in Obama’s home town of Chicago for an economics forum, and traffic is terrible.  It’s St. Patrick’s Day weekend and the celebrations have already started, so that when Biden gets out of the cab to walk he smells the odors of corned beef, cabbage, and horse manure which made him “nostalgic for the Senate Chambers in August in the seventies” before the advent of air conditioning. 

 

It isn’t long before there’s the murder of someone Joe met and liked, and he isn’t sure that Mayor Rahm Emanuel is going to see that the investigation gets the attention it deserves. So Joe is going to take the case himself, with a little help from the guy in the tan suit.

 

I put off reading the second book in the series because I figured it just couldn’t be as good as the first.  After all, the element of surprise (if you will) is gone. Finally I picked it up and I was right.  It wasn’t as good as the first. 

 

It was better.

 

Others have disagreed, I’ll admit.  And maybe it’s more due to really REALLY needing something funny at the time I picked up Hope Rides Again but it seemed to me there was something to laugh at on every page.  I like Shaffer’s sense of humor and the way he portrays the “bro-mance” between Biden and Obama and the way their wives are always bemusedly a step ahead of them. And trailing in their wake is hapless Secret Service agent Steve, who has to be a glutton for punishment.

 

I don’t suppose there’ll be a third now but if there is, I’ll be reading it.

Lesa's Book Critiques: TALK BOOKISH TO ME BY KATE BROMLEY

 Lesa's Book Critiques: TALK BOOKISH TO ME BY KATE BROMLEY

In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday 5/24/2021

 In Reference To Murder: Media Murder for Monday 5/24/2021

Markets and Jobs for Writers for 5/24/2021

  Markets and Jobs for Writers for 5/24/2021

Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Don't Lose Her by Jonathon King

The first book in the Max Freeman series by former journalist Jonathon King, The Blue Edge of Midnight (Dutton, 2002), won the 2003 Edgar Award for Best First Novel and was shortlisted for the Anthony Award for Best First Novel, the Barry Award for Best First Novel, and the Macavity Award for Best First Novel. It introduced Freeman as an ex-cop fleeing from the memory of shooting a child by accident and hiding from everyone but his conscience on the edge of the Florida Everglades. The seventh and apparently last book in the series is Don’t Lose Her (Open Road, 2015).

Diane Manchester, a Federal judge and eight months pregnant, is forced into a van as she walks down the street in Palm Beach, on break from the courtroom where she is presiding over an extradition case involving a Colombian drug lord. Her terrified husband Billy calls in Freeman, who conducts investigations for Billy’s law practice. Freeman launches his own search, leaving the obvious avenues to the FBI and believing the defendant of the judge’s current case is behind her kidnapping. His first stop is at Billy’s bank, where he retrieves $100,000 in cash to use as bribes for informants who won’t talk to the FBI. His hunt takes him into the underside of southern Florida society, where poverty and drug addiction and those that exploit its victims are the norm.

Three story lines offer multiple perspectives on the action-- Freeman, the judge, and a young woman pulled into the crime -- and then converge in the heart of the Everglades. A fast-moving, intense thriller with a strong sense of place and a suspense-filled finale. The descriptive passages about the Everglades are striking. It’s clear King knows this region well. Highly recommended.

 

·                     Publisher: Open Road Media Mystery & Thriller (June 2, 2015)

·                     Language: English

·                     Paperback: 262 pages

·                     ISBN-10: 1504001656

·                     ISBN-13: 978-1504001656 

 

Aubrey Hamilton ©2021 

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

Lesa's Book Critiques: PINT OF NO RETURN BY DANA MENTINK

 Lesa's Book Critiques: PINT OF NO RETURN BY DANA MENTINK

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

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

CrimeReads: SHOP TALK: MEGAN ABBOTT DRINKS TWO DIET COKES, MAKES WEIRD CHOICES, AND KEEPS ON WRITING

CrimeReads: SHOP TALK: MEGAN ABBOTT DRINKS TWO DIET COKES, MAKES WEIRD CHOICES, AND KEEPS ON WRITING

Ladies of Mystery: So where do I get my ideas? by Susan Oleksiw

 Ladies of Mystery: So where do I get my ideas? by Susan Oleksiw

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Shadows at the Fair & Key Lime Crime: Quick Reviews

Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Shadows at the Fair & Key Lime Crime: Quick Reviews: Reviews by Jeanne Shadows at the Fair by Lea Wait Maggie Summer, owner of Shadow Antiques, is looking forward to the Spring Antiques Fa...

In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 5/20/2021

 In Reference To Murder: Mystery Melange for 5/20/2021

Scott's Take: Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Volume 3

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Volume 3 collects “The Infinity Event” and all of its tie ins with the main Avengers titles so there are two distinctly separate but connected wars. Captain America leads most of the Avengers into space alongside a coalition of Alien races to confront the Builders. The Builders are a hostile race of Aliens who are killing everyone on entire worlds as they rampage on a bloody path to Earth. With most heroes off Earth, Thanos and his Black Order goons attack. It is up to Iron Man and the Illumanti to stop him.

 

While most characters get the spotlight at least once, I think the best moments in this volume are by Thor, Black Bolt, and Black Panther. Each character has intense and epic moments. Since this is a book consisting of mostly wars, there are large scale battles which result in a lot of action and are very colorful. 

I still think someone should have put in editor’s note to explain things for folks not up to speed. For example, why does Iron Man have a new armor in this volume? Readers who have not read the previous books are going to be confused as that is never addressed. There are other situations like this as there were in the preceding book. Despite the minor nitpicks, Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Volume 3 is awesome and I highly recommend it.

Avengers by Jonathan Hickman: The Complete Collection Volume 3

Jonathan Hickman

https://www.marvel.com/comics/creators/11743/jonathan_hickman  

Marvel

https://www.marvel.com/comics/collection/89969/avengers_by_jonathan_hickman_the_complete_collection_vol_3_trade_paperback

February 2021

ISBN#: 978-1-302-92647-2

Paperback (also available in eBook format)

512 Pages 

 

My reading copy came from the Downtown Branch of the Dallas Public Library System.

 

Scott A. Tipple ©2021

Beneath the Stains of Time: She Had to Have Gas (1939) by Rupert Penny

Beneath the Stains of Time: She Had to Have Gas (1939) by Rupert Penny: Rupert Penny 's She Had to Have Gas (1939) is the sixth novel in the Chief Inspector Edward Beale series and has a premise as enticing ...

Happiness Is A Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE STUDIO CRIME BY IANTHE JERROLD

Happiness Is A  Book: FRIDAY’S FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE STUDIO CRIME BY IANTHE JERROLD

Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE CREEPERS by John Creasy

Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: THE CREEPERS:   The Creepers  by John Creasey (originally published as Inspector West Cries Wolf , 1950; US publication as The Creepers , 1952) A fairly e...

FFB Review: DEATH OF A SNOB (1992) by M.C. Beaton (Reviewed by Barry Ergang)

From the archive…

 

DEATH OF A SNOB (1992) by M.C. Beaton 

         Reviewed by Barry Ergang 

 

It’s Christmas in the Scottish Highlands and Hamish Macbeth, police constable of the village of Lochdubh, is miserable indoors with a head cold while a snowstorm rages outdoors. He’s equally miserable because he’s been looking forward to spending the holiday with his parents, who have “moved to a croft house and land near Rogart.” Other family members will be there as well, among them his Aunt Hannah—and there’s the rub. “Aunt Hannah,” you see, “was a fat-loud-mouthed harridan who loathed Hamish. But she had been generous to the not-too-comfortably-off Macbeths with presents of money and gifts for Hamish’s little brothers and sisters. Never anything for Hamish. She loathed him and never tired of saying so.”

 

“Ever since you put that mouse down her back when you were eight, she’s never been fond o’ you,” his mother reminds him, and Hamish understands that his attendance at the festivities, which will potentially prove remunerative for his parents, would be looked upon with less-than-sanguine eyes—especially Hannah’s. She is arriving on December 20th, so Hamish promises that if the head cold doesn’t kill him, he’ll drop off presents before then.

 

He’s barely back in bed when Priscilla Halburton-Smythe, “once the love of his life, until Hamish had grown heartily sick of the weight of the torch he was carrying for her,” shows up at his door. She’s there to ask that Hamish give some advice to her friend Jane Wetherby, and Hamish agrees to see Jane the following day. The tall attractive woman who shows up is wearing “a thin white blouse plunged at the front to a deep V” that she tends to emphasize, inadvertently or otherwise, by leaning forward when she speaks intently. She fears that someone might be trying to kill her. Her suspicion is based on a couple of potentially fatal accidents—or were they merely unfortunate incidents?—which have recently occurred.

 

Jane is the proprietor of “a health farm called The Happy Wanderer on the island of Eileencraig….‘I not only teach people how to have a healthy body but how to get in touch with their innermost feelings.’” When she explains that a villager read her tea leaves and said someone was trying to kill her, she “began to worry about my guests.”

 

As you can easily imagine, Hamish becomes one of the guests.

 

The farm is closed for the winter, so the guests are friends Jane has invited to spend Christmas with her. They include two married couples, Jane’s ex-husband, and Harriet Shaw, a woman who writes cookbooks and to whom Hamish finds himself attracted despite their age difference. One of these people is the titular snob, and the others are among the suspects Hamish must contend with while also clashing with the local constabulary.

 

Death of a Snob is the sixth title in the Hamish Macbeth series but the first that I’ve read. I’m not sure I ever would have were it not for a longtime friend of mine who is an equally voracious reader, and who told me he’d enjoyed several titles in the series which—like this one—are short, quick, and diverting reads. M.C. Beaton excels at characterizations, particularly through dialogue, and atmosphere, especially when depicting the tensions among the Christmas guests at the health farm and the hostility of the Eileencraig islanders toward strangers. She’s also quite skilled at conveying a gentle kind of humor.

 

With the caveat that you avoid the epub edition I read as being obnoxiously riddled with typos and other problems in both narrative and dialogue, I can readily recommend it. Unfortunately, I can’t recall where I acquired this particular epub edition, so you’re on your own in that respect. 

Barry Ergang ©20016, 2021 

Some of Derringer Award-winning author’s Barry Ergang’s work is available at Smashwords and Amazon.