Wednesday, May 25, 2022
Beneath the Stains of Time: Ripples (2017) by Robert Innes
Beneath the Stains of Time: Ripples (2017) by Robert Innes: Over the past two-three months, I discussed only three good, notable locked room mystery novels and short stories, Theodore Roscoe's Z i...
Casual Debris: Casual Shorts: Jack Finney, Of Missing Persons (1955)
Casual Debris: Casual Shorts: Jack Finney, Of Missing Persons (1955): Finney, Jack. "Of Missing Persons." Good Housekeeping, March 1955. First published in Good Housekeeping , March 1955. A publicatio...
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday -- Catfantastic: Nine Lives and Fifteen Tales
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Short Story Wednesday -- Catfantastic: Nine Lives ...: Recently my son went through his paperback books for books to donate to the book sale. He offered me three short story anthologies in the Ca...
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE VALLEY OF UNREST
Jerry's House of Everything: SHORT STORY WEDNESDAY: THE VALLEY OF UNREST: 'The Valley of Unrest: A Book without a woman: Edgar Allan Poe: An Odd Oddity Paper" by Douglass Sherley first published in boo...
Little Big Crimes Review: Dreaming of Ella by Francelia Belton
Little Big Crimes: Dreaming of Ella, by Francelia Belton: " Dreaming of Ella," by Francelia Belton , in Denver Noir, edited by Cynthia Swanson, Akashic Press, 2022. The publisher sent ...
Short Story Wednesday Review: Blood Moon: A Kate Burkholder Short Mystery by Linda Castillo
Blood Moon: A Kate Burkholder Short
Mystery by Linda Castillo begins as more than
one tale in the long running series has--- a buggy crash. In this case, Merle
Beachy is on his way home from The Strawberry Festival and things are going
wrong. He was already running late and had missed the evening meal. The thick
fog certainly isn’t helping as the damp and cold settle in on man, beast, and
every surface, including the roadway.
Things go way worse when a loud noise in the woods
just after a bridge crossing causes his horse to spook and run flat out. The terrified
horse plunges off the roadway, through a ditch, and towards the trees where it
soon becomes clear that the buggy is not going to slide in between the trees. Merle
is thrown clear of the damaged buggy only to be, within a couple of minutes, attacked
by the creature that spooked the horse.
After fighting off the creature, which he thinks
might be a bear, the injured man makes his way to a nearby farm. As it happens,
that farm is Levi Miller’s place. Levi Miller and Kate Burkholder have known
each other since they were kids, so when she learns his call is why dispatch is
calling her, she knows that his request for her presence is legit and needed.
Before long, Chief Burkholder and her partner, John Tomasetti, are in her unit
and headed towards Miller’s farm.
Good thing too as there will be more incidents this
foggy dark night. Something is in the woods and things are definitely rapidly escalating.
What it is and how to deal with it are two of several questions in Blood
Moon: A Kate Burkholder Short Mystery.
An interesting tale that is a bit of a change of
pace from what goes on normally in this series. While billed as a “short
mystery” this read is a novella and is action orientated with virtually no
character development and very little backstory. It is just a fun short visit
with some characters long known to readers and new folks.
Also included in the eBook is the opening chapters of the next novel in this long running series, The Hidden One.
I picked this up, pre-publication, using funds in my Amazon Associate account.
Kevin R. Tipple ©2022
Tuesday, May 24, 2022
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: Under the Whispering Door by T.J. Klune: Reviewed by Jeanne Attorney Wallace Price is not a happy man. He’s already had to fire one employee, a previously reliable woman w...
SleuthSayers: What Fired Me Up to Write a Fireworks Story by Barb Goffman
SleuthSayers: What Fired Me Up to Write a Fireworks Story: Shortly before July 4th last year, I posted this on my Facebook page: One day I am going to write a story in which someone who sets off fire...
Publication Day for Back Road Bobby and His Friends Editor Colin Conway
If you read my story, I hope you like it. If you don’t,
at least you have eleven other short stories to read so I am sure you will find
ones you do like in Back Road Bobby and His Friends.
Monday, May 23, 2022
Coming Next Month
Noir at the Bar: Dallas returns to Wild Detectives with our headliner, Joe Lansdale!
Once again, yours truly will also be reading. Make sure to book the date.
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Last Seen Wearing: Hillary Waugh
Bitter Tea and Mystery: Last Seen Wearing: Hillary Waugh: Last Seen Wearing by Hillary Waugh, published in 1952, is an early example of a true police procedural. I have wanted to read this book for...
SleuthSayers: Writing Outside the Outlines by Steve Liskow
SleuthSayers: Writing Outside the Outlines: Two weeks ago, I attended an interview with Don Winslow at which he was autographing his new novel. During the Q & A, someone asked abou...
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Skelton's Guide to Suitcase Murders by David Stafford
I seldom burble about
books, having read too many to think that they are all exceptional, but I find
myself burbling about the second book in the Skelton’s Casebook series by David
Stafford. I cannot remember who was so ecstatic about the first book that I
felt compelled to find the sequel but I located Skelton's Guide to Suitcase Murders (Allison & Busby, 2021) and was
straightaway enthralled.
Set in 1929, this
series follows the career of barrister Arthur Skelton, who had the reputation of
salvaging the most hopeless of defenses. In this book a woman’s corpse is found
in a suitcase and her husband, an Egyptian doctor, is accused of killing her.
She was believed to have been straying from the marriage, and potentially
incriminating materials are found in their home. There was no real evidence
against the doctor and the condition of the corpse was such that identity could
not be categorically proven. However, the doctor appeared to be on his way to
the gallows from sheer xenophobia. Skelton and his clerk Edgar Hobbs are
determined to do their best to save him.
In addition to
this major homicide case, Skelton is defending a man accused of knowingly
driving a truck full of stolen peacock feathers. He is also defending a young
tearaway charged with burglarizing a factory and setting it on fire to cover up
his depredations. His novel approaches to both cases are mesmerizing.
On the home front,
Skelton has another set of challenges. His wife is determined to buy an
airplane and fly it to Australia. His father is newly retired from his job and
is at a loss as to what to do with himself. He is sad and depressed, sitting in
his chair all day long.
This tale gently parodies
the classic mysteries of the Golden Age while delivering a cracking good
puzzle. The witty writing and deliciously eccentric characters are icing on the
cake. The thread about a guinea pig named Primrose Moorfield is worth the price
of the book all by itself.
Like the Bryant
and May books, this mystery captures the flavor of the time beautifully. Again
like Bryant and May, there are periodic data dumps of incredibly esoteric
information. I now know more about peacock feathers than I ever thought
possible. The tongue-in-cheek narrative has a spot-on sense of comedic timing,
no doubt gathered from Stafford’s theatre experience.
This book is utterly delightful and I cannot recommend it highly enough.
·
Publisher: Allison & Busby
(September 23, 2021)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 352 pages
·
ISBN-10: 0749026987
·
ISBN-13: 978-0749026981
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works on
Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
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