Monday, January 24, 2022
Writer Beware®: The Blog: How to Spot a Ghostwriting Scam
Writer Beware®: The Blog: How to Spot a Ghostwriting Scam: Posted by Victoria Strauss for Writer Beware® In 2018, I wrote a post that, in part, warned about a solicitation from an obviously dodgy &...
New Issue of Crime Review
We feature new 20 reviews in each issue of Crime Review (www.crimereview.co.uk), together with a top industry interview. This time it’s author Lilja Sigurdardottir in the Countdown hot seat: http://crimereview.co.uk/page.php/interview/9636
We’re on Twitter at:
Crime Review: @CrimeReviewUK
Linda Wilson: @CrimeReviewer
Sharon Wheeler: @lartonmedia
This week’s reviews are:
THE MAN WHO DIED TWICE by Richard Osman, reviewed by Viv Beeby
The Thursday Murder Club rides out again. This time they’re on the trail of £20,000,000 in stolen diamonds and some violent and ruthless international criminals who surely won't let a bunch of old-age pensioners stand in their way ...
THE CUTTING ROOM by Louise Welsh, reviewed by Linda Wilson
When Rilke is called to a house clearance in a respectable Glasgow suburb, he immediately knows he’s sitting on a goldmine, but the auction job turns out to have a darker side.
THE SECOND CUT by Louise Welsh, reviewed by Linda Wilson
When Glasgow auctioneer Rilke’s old friend Jojo is found dead in a doorway, the police don’t seem that interested, but unlike them, Rilke isn’t quite so ready to write off Jojo’s death as an unfortunate by-product of a dissolute lifestyle.
THE DARK HOURS by Michael Connelly, reviewed by John Verpeleti
Renée Ballard calls in Harry Bosch as her latest case shares a feature with one of Harry’s unsolved cases from ten years earlier. She is also trying to identify two rapists who have been dubbed The Midnight Men.
THE HOUSE by Tom Watson and Imogen Robertson, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Labour MP Owen McKenna receives a demand to withdraw a parliamentary question, under threat that his role in the tragic case of a former colleague will be exposed in the press.
THE ICE COVEN by Max Seeck, reviewed by Kerry Hood
A man and a woman go missing in Finland. Small clues, painstaking work and huge discoveries drop the Violent Crimes Unit of the Helsinki police department into a world of pain and depravity.
ANOTHER KIND OF EDEN by James Lee Burke, reviewed by Tim Field
A Korean War veteran is looking for freedom and enlightenment in the American West in 1962. Peace beckons through his love for an art student but then a meeting with a psychopath makes things start to spin out of control.
JUDAS 62 by Charles Cumming, reviewed by David Rose
Secret agent Lachlan Kite faces peril in Dubai as a brutal ghost from his past works his way down a Russian kill list – with Lachlan and one of his key contacts next in line.
GEIGER by Gustaf Skördeman, reviewed by Ewa Sherman
Grandmother Agneta Broman answers a phone, hears only
one word then shoots her husband and disappears, leaving the police at a loss.
BEFORE THE STORM by Alex Gray, reviewed by John Cleal
Superintendent Bill Lorimer, head of Police Scotland’s
Major Incidents team, investigates the exposure of undercover officers while at
the same time facing a terrorist threat to Glasgow.
BRUNO’S CHALLENGE & OTHER DORDOGNE TALES, reviewed
by Linda Wilson
Fourteen short stories featuring Bruno, Chief of
Police, set in the heartland of France’s Dordogne region.
RIDER ON THE RAIN by Sébastien Japrisot, reviewed by
Chris Roberts
In an out-of-season Riviera resort, a bus brings a
solitary visitor who turns the life of housewife Mellie Mau upside down.
SAFE by SK Barnett, reviewed by Kati Barr-Taylor
Jenny, kidnapped as a six-year-old, is back. But 12
years have changed her. Some would say beyond recognition.
THE FAVOUR by Laura Vaughan, reviewed by Sylvia
Maughan
Ada Howell, brought up in a large old house somewhere
in Wales, constantly tries to live up to her start in life. So much so that
even the death of a fellow student on a trip to Italy doesn’t change her
ambition, until reality is revealed.
ROBERT B PARKER'S FOOL'S PARADISE by Mike Lupica,
reviewed by Chris Roberts
Police Chief Jesse Stone grapples with the case of a
man who made the journey from Florida to Paradise only to end up dead on the
evening of his arrival.
TURF WARS by Olivier Norek, reviewed by Linda Wilson
When a new drug lord is determined to make their mark
on the tough Seine-Saint-Denis district of Paris, it’s not long before the area
is on the verge of an all-out war between the gangs and the police. Against
that volatile backdrop, Capitaine Coste and his team have a murder to solve.
THE LITTLE MAN FROM ARCHANGEL by Georges Simenon,
reviewed by Chris Roberts
When his wife fails to return home one night, Jonas
Milk finds himself suspected of murder by neighbours who he always regarded as
friends – but he comes to realise that what he imagined was acceptance is in
truth only skin-deep.
LAST FLIGHT TO STALINGRAD by Graham Hurley, reviewed
by John Cleal
Propaganda journalist Werner Nehmann is sent to
Stalingrad to put a gloss on the battle that marked one of the turning points
of the war for the German people.
HELL GATE by Jeff Dawson, reviewed by Chris Roberts
Ingo Finch visits New York in 1904 on behalf of
British spy masters to expose the machinations of pro-German agents in the USA.
THE BOYBAND MURDER MYSTERY by Ava Eldred, reviewed by
Linda Wilson
When the frontman of boyband phenomenon Half Light is
arrested on suspicion of murdering his best friend, his army of fans are
determined to prove his innocence.
A belated happy new year to everyone!
Sharon and Linda
Publishing ... and Other Forms of Insanity: 8 Fabulous Writing Conferences in February 2022
WARNING: The list is not totally accurate. One example is that The San Francisco Writers Conference was postponed to July due to Covid a couple of weeks ago. Tried to report this at the blog and comments there are limited to only team members.
Aubrey Nye Hamilton Reviews: Save Me from Dangerous Men by Saul Lelchuk
Save Me from
Dangerous Men
by Saul Lelchuk (Flatiron Books, 2019) is the debut appearance of Nikki
Griffin, a bookstore owner in Oakland, California, by day and a private
investigator and vigilante by night. Griffin is forever scarred by a childhood
tragedy. She finds purpose in helping women escape domestic violence. She has
poor impulse control that finally landed her in some legal trouble; several of
the chapters in the book document sessions of court-ordered anger management
counseling.
Griffin’s
routine of books and stakeouts is disrupted when the CEO of a local tech
company hires her to follow an employee believed to be selling corporate
secrets. A cash retainer of $20,000 makes the job hard to turn down. Griffin
attaches a GPS tracker to the employee’s car and learns her routine. She
decides what she sees and what she’s been told don’t add up and she initiates a
conversation with the employee, during which she becomes convinced industrial
espionage is not why she was hired. She turns her investigation back to the CEO
and the company and their new monitoring software due to be released in a
matter of weeks, and mayhem ensues. Oversized men with guns become extremely
interested in what she knows and what evidence she may have to back it up.
Chapters on the
investigation are interspersed with chapters about her bookstore, about her efforts
to help women escape unhappy or abusive situations, and about a Berkeley
graduate student who wants a relationship. Booklovers will adore her store,
which has become a community center. And the scenic descriptions of Bay Area architecture
and landmarks that unfold as Griffin goes about her days firmly set the
context, along with some thoughtful commentary on the role of technology in 21st
century life.
On the other
hand, nearly half way through the book Lelchuk employs a plot device so old and
so contrived that I cringed when I saw it. Anyone who can create a likable, over-the-top
character like Nikki Griffin with a fine supporting cast should be able to make
a story move better than that. Nonstop action and well-planned fight scenes
round out an excellent thriller. Especially for fans of Jonathan Graves, Orphan
X, Peter Ash, and Jack Reacher.
Starred
reviews from Booklist, Kirkus, and Publishers Weekly.
·
Publisher: Flatiron Books;
Reprint edition (March 9, 2021)
·
Language: English
·
Paperback: 352 pages
·
ISBN-10: 1250170265
·
ISBN-13: 978-1250170262
Aubrey Nye Hamilton ©2022
Aubrey Hamilton is a former librarian who works
on Federal It projects by day and reads mysteries at night.
Sunday, January 23, 2022
SleuthSayers: Wanna be a Paperback Writer? Ten things you didn't know by Melodie Campbell
SleuthSayers: Wanna be a Paperback Writer? Ten things you didn'...: Alternate title… Perils of Publishing… How to keep sane while traversing a career in the wilds of publishing. Hello there! Melodie here, ...
Beneath the Stains of Time: The King's Club Murder (1930) by Ian Greig
Beneath the Stains of Time: The King's Club Murder (1930) by Ian Greig: Ian Borthwick Greig is a now forgotten, obscure mystery writer, born in 1892 and died in 1959, whose name has been wrongly reported online ...
Guest Post: 5 Underrated Locked-Room Short Stories by Tom Mead
Please welcome author Tom Mead back to the blog today. Make sure that you check out his previous post here that he linked to today.
5
UNDERRATED LOCKED-ROOM SHORT STORIES
by
Tom Mead
I
previously contributed a post to this blog about underrated locked-room mystery
novels (you can read it here).
But since I'm such a devotee of the genre, I couldn't stop there. There's
something unique about the challenge of an impossible crime short story. If a locked-room
mystery novel can be likened to a magic show, then a short story is a game of
three-card monte. It requires the same levels of skill and panache, albeit in a
more concentrated form.
As
before, I'll be steering clear of the biggest names in the genre to highlight
some titles which deserve their moment in the spotlight. So you won’t be seeing
Jacques Futrelle’s “Problem of Cell 13” or Melville Davisson Post’s “Doomdorf
Mystery” here, nor any John Dickson Carr or Ellery Queen. And again, this isn't
a "best of" list- it's just about highlighting some great work. There
are so many sensational stories out there that it's impossible to include them
all. So, without further ado, let’s get to the list:
“The Case of the Horizontal Trajectory” by JOSEF ŠKVORECKÝ
Czech-Canadian author Josef Škvorecký had a remarkably distinguished career, championing dissident authors and fighting against totalitarianism in the country of his birth. He wrote a string of remarkable novels, and among his many honours he was nominated for the Nobel Prize in 1982. One of his finest creations is the sleuth Lieutenant Boruvka, who appears in a large number of short stories. Of these, “The Case of the Horizontal Trajectory” offers a unique and gruesome locked-room murder with a completely original gimmick.
Where
to find it: Originally published in The
Mournful Demeanour of Lieutenant Boruvka, subsequently reprinted in The Realm of the Impossible (ed. John
Pugmire & Brian Skupin)
“The
Haunted Room” by GIGI PANDIAN
Gigi
Pandian has established a highly successful mystery writing career, and
frequently offers hints of impossibilities in her work. With her short story collection
The Cambodian Curse she set herself
the tantalizing challenge of using each and every trick discussed by
super-sleuth Gideon Fell in his fabled locked-room lecture which appears in
John Dickson Carr's classic novel The
Hollow Man. All the stories in this collection are good, but "The
Haunted Room" is GREAT. It features her series detective Jaya Jones in a
tale of apparently uncanny theft. The trick is utterly original- dazzlingly so.
This is a tale that deserves to be anthologized and celebrated far and wide.
Where
to find it: Originally published in Bouchercon
2014 Anthology, subsequently reprinted in The Cambodian Curse.
“The
Witch of Park Avenue” by EDWARD D. HOCH
Edward
D. Hoch is a titan of the locked-room mystery genre, and a specialist in short
stories. He wrote nearly 1000 of them. This is both a marvellous boon because
it means there is so much of his work out there for us readers to enjoy, but it
can also be frustrating in that the sheer volume of his work means there are
plenty of excellent stories which have not received the critical acclaim they
deserve. One example is “The Witch of Park Avenue,” which features the
series detective Simon Ark. Ark is a mystical figure, who claims to be a
2000-year-old Coptic priest and frequently finds himself at the centre of
mysteries tinged with the impossible. “The Witch of Park Avenue” features a
murder that occurs in (of all places) the revolving door of a Park Avenue
apartment building. How could a man step through unaccompanied, only to die as
he crossed the threshold?
Where
to find it: Originally published in Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine, subsequently reprinted in The Quests of Simon Ark.
“Coffee
Break” by ARTHUR PORGES
Like
Edward D. Hoch, Arthur Porges wrote a stunning amount of impossible crime short
stories, though he remains unjustly obscure. He created several series
detectives; the hero of “Coffee Break” is Ulysses Price Middlebie, erstwhile
college professor turned “crime consultant.” This is a deceptively simple tale
where an eccentric inventor is believed to have committed suicide in a locked
cabin. But there is so much more to this apparently open-and-shut case than
meets the eye.
Where
to find it: Originally published in Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine, subsequently reprinted in These Daisies Told.
“By an
Unknown Hand” by JOHN SLADEK
John
Sladek is best known as a science-fiction writer, but that is the mystery
genre’s loss. With this short story, he introduced the world to eccentric
super-sleuth Thackeray Phin, who would go on to appear in his novels Black Aura and Invisible Green- both neglected masterpieces of impossible crime. But
“By an Unknown Hand” is where it all started, and finds Phin tackling the
apparently impossible murder of an artist. The sheer breadth of imagination and
ingenuity crammed into the scant few pages of this story is stunning. If only
Sladek had written more.
Where
to find it: Originally published in The
Times of London Anthology of Detective Stories, subsequently reprinted in MAPS: The Uncollected John Sladek.
Tom Mead is a UK-based crime writer specializing in
locked-room mysteries. He has written short fiction for Ellery
Queen Mystery Magazine, Alfred
Hitchcock Mystery Magazine and numerous
others. Recently, his story “Heatwave” was included in The Best Mystery
Stories of the Year 2021 (edited by Lee
Child). His novel Death and the Conjuror is forthcoming from the Mysterious Press in July 2022. John Connolly
has described it as “a novel to intrigue and delight” while Daniel Stashower
calls it “both an elegant tribute and a cunning update of the classic
‘impossible crime’ story.” Tom’s author site: https://tommeadauthor.com/ and Facebook.
Saturday, January 22, 2022
KRL This Week Update for 1/22/2022
Up in KRL this morning a review and giveaway of "Absence of Mallets" by Kate Carlisle along with a fun guest post by Kate about writer's retreats https://kingsriverlife.com/01/22/absence-of-mallets-by-kate-carlisle/
We also have a review and giveaway of "Under Pressure" by Sara Driscoll along with an interesting interview with Jen J. Danna who is half of the team that writes the books
https://kingsriverlife.com/01/22/under-pressure-by-sara-driscoll/
And a review and giveway of "Jane Austen's Lost Letters" by Jane K Cleland https://kingsriverlife.com/01/22/jane-austens-lost-letters-by-jane-k-cleland/
For those who prefer to listen to Mysteryrat's Maze Podcast directly on KRL, you can find the player here for our latest episode an excerpt from "The Whispered Word" by Ellery Adams, read by local actor Ariel Linn https://kingsriverlife.com/01/22/mysteryrats-maze-podcast-by-ellery-adams/
And we have a mystery short story by Gay Toltl Kinman https://kingsriverlife.com/01/22/committing-suicide-a-mystery-short-story/
Up during the week we posted another special midweek guest post, this one by mystery author Sulari Gentill about some of the real life characters in her latest book "Where There's a Will." You can also enter to win a copy of the book
https://kingsriverlife.com/01/19/cameos/
Up on KRL News and Reviews this week we have a review and ebook giveaway of "Balloons, Allies & Dead Guys" by Jennifer Fischetto https://www.krlnews.com/2022/01/balloons-allies-dead-guys-by-jennifer.html
And a review and giveaway of “The Librarian Always Rings Twice” by Marty Wingate
https://www.krlnews.com/2022/01/the-librarian-always-rings-twice-by.html
Happy reading,
Lorie
Scott's Take: Spider-Man: Spider’s Shadow by Chip Zdarsky
Spider-Man: Spider’s Shadow by Chip Zdarsky is one of the first books that is launching
Marvel’s new What If line. This is the only title in the new line,
at this point, due to delays caused by the Covid pandemic.
The what if question here is simple: what if Peter Parker
became Venom? In this read, it ties into a series that had Peter Parker fight
off world and then return to Earth with what he thought was clothing from alien
technology that was actually a symbiote. In that other series, he eventually
figured out he had a symbiote and he was able to get rid of it. This book takes
us back to that storyline and postulates the idea that the symbiote is Venom.
Peter Parker has been having nightmares and is increasingly
under stress. After a personal attack by the Hobgoblin, Peter Parker succumbs
to the influence of the symbiote, aka Venom, and decides to take a more violent
approach to fighting crime. Who will be able to stop an unhinged Peter Parker
from dispensing justice, as he sees it, under the influence of Venom?
Spider-Man: Spider’s Shadow by Chip Zdarsky is a very violent and dark read with pretty
good art work that is heavily influenced by the original story. Since it is
based on the original story, only characters who were active during that time
period are featured so there are a smaller number of heroes in this book. I enjoyed this mature read even though I wish
it was longer so the impact of the events could be better explored. There are
multiple deaths, maimings, and lots of violence. This tale sets up a rather
interesting universe if there is a sequel.
My reading copy came from the Timberglen Branch of the
Dallas Public Library System.
Scott A. Tipple ©2022
Friday, January 21, 2022
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat Saw Murder by Dolores Hitchens
Bookblog of the Bristol Library: The Cat Saw Murder by Dolores Hitchens: Reviewed by Jeanne I have been delighted with the reissues of classic mysteries of late. Both British and American authors have be...
Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: FRANK READE CHASING THE JAMES GANG
Jerry's House of Everything: FORGOTTEN BOOK: FRANK READE CHASING THE JAMES GANG: Frank Reade, The Inventor, Chasing the James Gang With His Steam Team , anonymously written (1890?) Frank Reade, inventor extraordinaire , w...
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