Two Memorable Crime Novels for Winter Reading: Con Lehane's THE RED SCARE and Cara Black's HUGUETTE (December Releases)

New York City in 1950 held neighborhoods far more separate than they are today: From Hell's Kitchen, where Mick Mulligan is starting his new chapter as a private investigator (PI), to the neighborhood where a black cab driver's family lives, means Mick's white Irish self steps into danger, threat, and abuse. But this isn't just his first case—it's his only case, dangled in front of him by organized labor leaders, which Mick's already aware means just a doorway away from organized crime. 

Besides, Mick can't work his own trade any longer, thanks to the anti-Communist rage sweeping the nation:

This was the reasoning—I went to meetings with Communists, I ate lunch with Communists, I agreed with Communists on certain things—that got me fired from my job as a cartoonist (we liked to call ourselves animators) at the Disney studio, won me a place on the Hollywood blacklist, and brought me back to New York City, where I hung out my shingle as a private investigator.

Mick's investigation and his own safety are tangled with union politics and high-powered maneuvering by men ready for serious power. He's not a serious "Red" himself, although he believes every working person should get a fair deal. But that's enough to paint a label on him, leading into what author Con Lehane calls THE RED SCARE MURDERS (release delayed to Dec. 16). 

And the label can swipe in all directions, as his taxi driver, an old friend of the man on death row that Mick's trying to exonerate, makes clear:

"You one of them fellas who go out and save the guy the cops thought done it? ... That's what Harold needs. Harold didn't kill no one. ... Maybe it was them Communists he got himself mixed up with."

Lehane's language is perfect for this page-turner crime novel, with phrases like "his tone as sincere as a priest in a pulpit," and plenty of Irish immigrant heritage tossed in.  One of Mick's helpful allies even mentions Hollywood detective fiction author Dashiell Hammett, in an effort to encourage the would-be PI: "I guess he told me this because Hammett had been Red-baited too."

Swing along for the smart and sometimes devious women, the men puzzling out the politics of the time, the darkness of urban angers and the gentle efforts of friendship. THE RED SCARE is a classic of the urban noir genre, with plenty of quick twists and not much gore. Besides, there are such strong parallels in the social politics of Lehane's 1950s and our own 2025 that you could imagine this feisty crime novel was just written last month. Great fun and good reading.

THE RED SCARE is one of the November releases from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press, and definitely has a place on the winter to-be-read (TBR) stack, for both nostalgia and good feelings.

Another December release from Soho Crime, HUGUETTE by Cara Black (Dec. 2), might qualify for some "trigger warnings." Set in Paris at the end of World War II, it's jammed with rape, everyday sexual and physical abuse, and messy violent deaths of nice people. 

But for any reader of Black's excellent Aimée Leduc Paris PI series, this is a must-read. The first few chapters flip back and forth between 1947 and 1945, not always smoothly. About a third of the way into this 300-page historical police and crime novel, the name Leduc comes up, and Cara Black fans know we're on our way into a significant "back-story" to the popular series. How much trust can Huguette Faure place in the "flic" (cop) who offers to help her? Who murdered her father and stole the family business? What are the secrets behind the grown children who now surround her, and who don't know what was stolen -- or, more poignantly, WHO was stolen -- from this attractive, determined, and impoverished young woman who'd been given such a bad hand by history and crime as a pair?

"These cocky soldiers needed to be shown they couldn't treat her like a kid," Huguette thinks as she puts herself in fresh danger with more questions. "Establish authority, her father would say, when dealing with black marketers."

But Black's double epigraph to the book includes a quote from Benito Mussolini's foreign minister Count Galeazzo Ciano, and it's one Huguette should keep in mind: "Victory finds a hundred fathers but defeat is an orphan."

If you can keep reading, with hope, through Huguette's grievous losses, Black's portrait of postwar Paris and her backstory to Aimée Leduc will be a gift to your mystery-loving soul. Buy two copies: one for a friend's holiday gift, and one to treat yourself to some willing Parisian distraction as you keep checking your lists. 

Three Kinds of Crime Fiction/Mystery, 3 Settings: Hamburg, Fiji, Maine

Catching up a bit ...

I picked up HAMBURG NOIR over the summer, as it had an August release date. Part of the top-notch and provocative Akashic Noir series, it's edited by Jan Karsten and mostly translated -- 11 out of the 14 stories -- by Noah Harley. The book's presented in three sections: Water & Schnapps, Dream & Reality, Power & Oblivion. The 10-page introduction is extraordinary in itself, an introduction to the German city from a lover's lips.

When I opened the book, I expected to taste something of the city where my father was born, in 1925, to parents "just Jewish enough" to need to leave their homeland. But that Hamburg is not in the book, and the reason's clear in looking at the author biographies: Most of the authors were born in the 1960s, long after war had changed their landscape. I was eager to read what Zoë Beck would contribute ("Abreast Schwartzonnensand"), as I'd read some of her other fiction. Hers turned out to be a courtroom scene shaped as a play, all dialogue, one of the most interesting works of crime fiction I've read. Other stories, more conventional in form, range from a handful of pages to a story of almost 30 pages by Matthias Wittekindt. And all of them, as expected, are dark, often twisted, even malicious.

I liked this passage from Katrin Seddig's tale, set in the Altona district:

I wasn't Miles Davis. The world wasn't a film noir, the world was gloomy and foolish, it had no beauty. That was the difficulty: to track down the beauty in it all. Wasn't that the essence? Everything always looked like something else to me—that, or I was left searching for it something that I already knew and hoped to find in what I was seeing.

If Hamburg is one of your love languages, pull this onto your bookshelf. If noir is how you wrestle with the world, ditto. And if you just want to play tourist -- well, this book will prevent you from going to Hamburg. So maybe take a pass, unless perhaps you're longing to feel better about New York by contrast.

Nilima Rao's second Fiji mystery featuring Sergeant Akal Singh came out in June. SHIPWRECK IN FIJI (Soho Crime), set in 1915, with the Great War echoing from the other side of the world, is indeed (as its press release claims) "brimming with warmth and humor." The Indian-born police officer is way out of his comfort zone, still struggling to grasp the culture in which he's been pinned. Chasing down possible Germans on a nearby island should seem familiar, but instead Akal lands in more confusion as he meets native villagers whose tribal customs may prevent pursuit of the criminals he's after. For the sake of his friend Taviti, ready to translate the local customs, Akal takes on a mentor's role in policing, and learns a great deal about the "true stories" that men tell each other. I couldn't put this one down. (And you don't need to have read the first in the series, A Disappearance in Fiji, but you'll probably want to catch up with it after Akal has you applauding his efforts.)

I didn't realize at first that Scott Carson was the pseudonym of Michael Koryta --  if I'd known, I might not have tried the new title under the Carson authorship, DEPARTURE 37, for fear it would be "too terrifying" for my taste. That would have been my loss! It's rare that an author can provide underpinnings to time travel as part of a crime novel or thriller and have it all make sense. This book, set in coastal northern Maine, takes 16-year-old Charlie through a naval experiment that tears open her life, starting with the moment when her deceased mother's voice speaks to her from the cockpit of a wrecked plane, saying what hundreds of pilots across the country are also hearing in the voices of people they love: Don't fly today. I refuse to offer any spoilers ... that should be enough to let you know whether this is your kind of good read. To my delight, it was one of my best treats of the season, and goes onto my "let's read this again" shelf, for sure, with its attachment to "the most famous moment in the history of artificial intelligence."

More reviews soon, as I'm now writing them for two other publications, just figuring out my footing. Or pagination.

 

Brief Mention: THE NAMING OF THE BIRDS by Paraic O'Donnell

I found Paraic O'Donnell's two earlier books, The Maker of Swans and The House on Vesper Sands, so compelling that I've shelved them in my "read again" section. Haunting and full of the unexpected, they situate at the intersection of literary fiction and crime fiction.

So I bought his third book this summer, THE NAMING OF THE BIRDS. This one's more squarely crime fiction, but evocative and often mysterious. If you're an Irish crime fiction fan, grab a copy. If you long for justice for children and especially the orphaned, you'll also want this. It's not about birds (or about Adam and Genesis) -- the title is a misnomer that way -- but oh, what a good read.

Scottish Noir, THE DIARY OF LIES by Philip Miller (3rd Shona Sandison Book)

Beach reading is wrapping up -- it's time for substantial and satisfying crime fiction to go with the hints of autumn rolling in. And the newest investigative reporter novel from Edinburgh's Philip Miller is perfect for the task.

THE DIARY OF LIES picks up with Shona Sandison, whose necessary walking cane (an injury sustained in The Golden Acre; more about it in The Hollow Tree) disguises her determination to get the scoop for her newspaper, no matter the risks. The promotional material for the book calls it a "paranoid political thriller." That would almost qualify it for nonfiction at this point, wouldn't it? Shona takes the situation seriously and angrily (a good definition of Shona herself), making it frustrating when her investigation takes her into what feels briefly like some adult-level fairy-tale crossover between Britain's "Green Man" and the mythic Robin Hood. Yet violence keeps erupting around her, and her narrow escapes are far from amusing. 

When a sketchy woman armed with a shotgun opts to let Shona past the gateway to a hidden Internet guru, she's still stunned from her sudden morning tumble into blood and threat. "Her path had been disarranged. Now, she barely knew her way forward." Plus, she's a city worker — how can she handle a situation that's taking her away from paved roads and GPS and all? Her abrupt passage comes with instructions from a rough woman leading her further off road:

"Over the stile and through the trees," the woman said. "Keep going straight ahead ... you'll come to a large house. The manor. The curtains will be drawn. You'll find Robin in there."

"Robin?"

"Loxley.  You'll be entering the back of the house. Wait at the curtained window — you'll hear the radio. Don't go in, love—he's armed. Wait to be let in."

Shona looked at the woman, calmly exhaling smoke. She was warning of deadly violence, yes she seemed serene.

"Okay. This way?" Shona pointed to the fence.

"I'm not repeating myself, sunshine."

What she discovers at the crumbling old mansion is a far cry from an upscale data farm, yet it offers access to the information she needs to make sense of the political corruption she's discovered. 

Shona looked at the data loading, the entwined wires, the blinking lights. This was not the journalism she'd grown up with, in which she had made her way. This was about systems, codes, data and access. Arcane technologies. ... She felt uneasy. Aware of how afraid she might be. 

It won't be easy to run, when the time comes. Not with her cane, and not without it. But bullets will soon fly.

One of the delights of this dark and well-twisted novel is the steady echo of Britain's older cultures beneath the action. There's no need to read the two preceding novels, but those who have will notice right away that the sense of ancient mythos and of a universe that's not automatically friendly is still throbbing in Miller's version of Edinburgh and its surroundings. 

Watch for the threads that tie Shona, however reluctantly, to her uncertain allies. If she's going to both survive the threats and provide a top-notch and substantiated journalistic exposé, she'll need every connection she can summon.

Soho Press describes this new release as a good fit for "for fans of Ian Rankin, John le Carré, and Denise Mina." I'd extend the list to work by Paul Doiron, Lee Child, Ruth Rendell, Jaqueline Winspear, and Charles Todd. If "political paranoia" is getting to you, racing against it with Shona Sandison may bring a sense of relief and capability, as well as the satisfaction of a soundly constructed and resonant crime novel.

New Billy Boyle World War II Mystery, A BITTER WIND, by James Benn

About six weeks from now, the latest World War II mystery featuring Captain Billy Boyle comes out. That seems like a long time in terms of what's happening in my garden in the meantime ... but this may also be a perfect moment for a heads-up about an enthralling new adventure that you could want to pre-order, or at least place on your autumn reading list, or even reserve at the local library.

A BITTER WIND (the title's from a Sherlock Holmes quote) is the 20th in this lively series. James R. Benn adeptly reintroduces Boyle and his allies for those new to the group: Billy works in a special task force for General Eisenhower, solving crimes in the Allied forces and behind the lines of battle. Who would guess that on Christmas Day 1944, as the war seems closer to ending and Germany is in retreat in many locations, England's own shores would be unsafe?

Yet Billy and his girlfriend Diana, a leader in the Special Operations Executive ("dangerous work in occupied Europe"), literally stumble upon a murdered officer on a seacoast cliff on one of their few days off together. When Billy locates top-secret documents in the dead man's pocket, it's clear that espionage is underway. Unexpectedly, Diana is the senior officer in the investigation. So a pressing question is, can Billy and his own best friend Kaz, short for Lieutenant Piotr Kazimierz, keep to an agreement that Diana and the other women in this coastal secret base will take the lead?

Like Billy and Diana, readers will find almost no quiet time in this rapid-action adventure. Deaths multiply, and savvy women hold many of the threads of information that Billy needs to pull. Series fans who bonded with Kaz's sister Angelika, a recovering concentration camp victim, will see her come into her own in this book: How could she not be of value to the British, with her many languages, analytical skills, and determination to defeat the Germans?

What fun it is to discover the daughter of Sherlock Holmes author Arthur Conan Doyle as a character in this history-hugging novel! As Billy agrees not to ask officer Jean Conan Doyle about her father and she offers not to quiz him about Eisenhower, she admits, "So it seems we are bound by our more famous relatives, are we not?"

Conan Doyle decides to send Billy into occupied Yugoslavia, to connect with partisans there and track down the strands of espionage and murder, as well as prisoners who've escaped the Germans. It will be dangerous. She explains:

The north is crawling with armed bands, some young men seeking to avoid conscription by Mussolini's army or forced labor for the Germans. I imagine the SOE is actively aiding them, but that's not my department. Our job is to intercept the information and pass it on. ... While the Croatian fascists are savage, they understand how to obey their masters. The German transmissions make it clear they want the escapees captured and returned.

Billy's already aware that Yugoslavians are a conflicted bunch:

I was aware that Josip Broz Tito led the Partisans, and that they were giving the Germans a run for their money. Tito's bunch were Communists, which didn't seem to trouble anyone as long as they kept killing Germans. The Serbian Chetniks supported the former king and didn't like Communism.

Confused yet? So is Billy, but the bottom line is, once he's back in an active war area, all of those forces are coming after him. Whether he and his team can rescue the witness they need for their British murder investigation will depend on being able to dodge ammo, ride horses, and forge alliances with the "right" people.

Ties to an earlier European murder investigation will take series readers back to "the criminal who got away," with Benn supplying enough reminders or quick explanations for old and new fans to realize how the danger to Billy Boyle swiftly ramps up. We know it's a series—he's got to survive—but for a while, the outcome looks chancy.

Crime solvers won't get a full workout in A BITTER WIND because the explanations for the murder twists tumble together near the end in a set of hasty connections. But maybe Billy's got no other way to absorb them, considering the risky and challenging adventure underway. 

This is a true page-turner. Watch especially for Angelika's actions. Benn's sleight of hand reveals wartime as a season of heroes of all genders. That's part of the results of his consistently solid and astounding research, once again.

Suicide or Murder? Frankie and Her Allies Hunt Answers in FINE YOUNG PEOPLE by Anna Bruno

High school suicide destroys much more than the student who dies — it marks an entire community with grief, anger, and questions. In her last term at a high-end Catholic prep school, Frankie may look like she's got everything she wanted: acceptance into the college she most wanted, her best friend Shivani for life, and a mom who loves her, knows how to let go when needed, and is slowly starting to treat her as an adult.

But she isn't getting over the effects of Kyle's suicide -- and it's the third at her school in her family's history. When Frankie and Shiv opt to dig into one of the other suicides, that of Woolf Whiting, as their community journalism project, the revelations in the community, and even at home, push Frankie through anguish and the kind of fury that can feed a person's growing maturity, too.

Bruno takes a risk in this "crime fiction" by letting loose a literary streak that slows the pace and deepens the emotions. And this author's risk pays off. Maybe it's the kind of approach that suicide deserves: questioning the values of life, from love to religion to forms of truth.

Father Michael had called us "fine young people." How a priest could know what was hidden in the recesses of our teenage hearts was beyond me, but I had no doubts about our collective character.

What troubles me now ... is not that he was wrong about us, but that he was right. We were fine young people. But one day, in the not-so-distant future, we might find ourselves in the midst of some business transaction or political maneuver, in service of someone or some profit, only to find that we have quietly, and perhaps unknowingly, turn a corner and become the adults we had once dismissed with contempt. 

So, what are the biggest pitfalls of high school, besides the frictions that can happen between the closest friends? Drugs has to be number one, right? And sex, the kind you fall into when you think you're in love, or when you're more drunk than you realize. The deeper their investigation goes, the more Frankie and Shiv find that high school heroes can be broken, damaged — and at risk of death. But was Woolf's death at his own hand or someone else's? For most of this compelling and emotionally revealing novel, it looks like the answer will never be found. Be a savvy crime-fiction reader, though: Watch for the tiny threads that Frankie overlooks. See whether you can reach the real answer before she does.

That competition for reader versus sleuth may be the heart of the modern mystery genre, and it's where the author's skills are fiercely tested. Anna Bruno gets an A on this one ... maybe even an A-plus, if they're still giving those in Frankie's high-school world.

The book, published by Algonquin, is newly available this week. It will make a terrific book-group book, and raises powerful questions about religion and community as well. 

Football? FBI? Woman Taking Risks? and Southern! Dip Into MISSISSIPPI BLUE 42, by Eli Cranor

Eli Cranor moves toward the middle of the field, away from some of the gore and violence of Don't Know Tough, Ozark Dogs, and Broiler, to spin an entertaining crime novel in MISSISSIPPI BLUE 42, available August 5. 

Set, of course, in Mississippi, the plot tests how a college football team can excel and make it to the top tier -- when the money pushing it forward is unquestionably dirty. FBI rookie Rae Johnson, whose life as a top coach's daughter makes her a pro at analyzing the sport, doesn't yet have field experience in her new career. Six days of crawling through documents about team performance and the thriving success of its hometown hasn't thrilled her, but it's made her certain that no bunch of college players could possibly be as clean as the records show. No DWI? No speeding? No partner issues? Someone's cleaning things up.

Her partner Frank agrees. But unless they can find the threads to the man manipulating the situation, and fast, they'll have to wrap it all up and go back to the office.

Rae's determined to do better than that. 

A month ago, the FBI Director had been handing Quantico's Leadership Award to Rae, top of her class again, but where had that gotten her? Stuck with a past-his-prime field agent investigating a possible NCAA fraud case in Compson, Mississippi. The White-Collar Crime division of the FBI wasn't exactly the trajectory Rae had imagined for her career. A Joint Terrorism Take Force would've been more her speed. More contact. More action. A badass in a black jacket with JTTF stamped across the back, chasing down leads, collecting counterintelligence, and nullifying national security threats. Then again, how many agents' daddies were college football coaches? Rae knew why she was in Compson; she was there because of her father.

The death of rising star quarterback Matt Talley pushes Rae into overdrive, determined to solve a murder as well as track down the stink of dirty money. Her father's maxims are her go-to wisdom: at this point, "In case of doubt, attack." Is it wise for her to pursue the bad guys (hint: a noose is involved) or to fake a background in order to get close to the replacement quarterback? Will her pursuit of an "inside man" break the case, or break out in naked moments? (Come to think of it, how did her field-agent partner stay calm when Rae accidentally answered her door without pants on?)

Under the great action and the quick shots of humor, there's a beguiling protagonist here whose choices may not be wise, but are still smart, strong, and very understandable. The ultimate disaster for Rae comes with a stunning twist, and her ability to save herself -- and the case -- will depend directly on what kind of FBI agent she really is.

You don't have to know a field goal from a touchdown to love this one. And diving into it could be the best break of your summer vacation. Thanks, Eli Cranor and Soho Crime.

PS - Cranor is an Edgar winner. And Soho Crime/Soho Press calls this a series debut! I'm in. 

Crime Fiction, or Science Fiction? Eric Rickstad's REMOTE: THE FIVE (The Remote Series Book 2)

It's rare that a publisher and author can dance their calendars so well that book 2 in a series is published before you've lost the stinging memories of book 1 -- but Eric Rickstad and Blackstone Publishing have made it work, just in time for some properly creepy summer reading.

Book 1 in the series, called Remote: The Six, released on April 8; this week, book 2, REMOTE: THE FIVE, is available. Although it's an author's job to give enough scaffolding so you can jump into a later book in a series and not feel lost, the double premises behind Rickstad's plotting mean you'll appreciate this new volume more if you've read the first one; I'll paste that review below, since the publication where it appeared abruptly vanished this spring (alas).

Premise 1: Serial killings of entire families are taking place, with FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark assigned to identify the murderer and stop him. Means and opportunity aren't hard to pull together, but motive depends on this next part --

Premise 2: Gilles Garnier, also known as X, is one of six people raised with a new-to-humans ability: They can "remote view," that is, see and hear what's happening in some other location. The killings are his part of his psychotic effort to find or create other remote viewers.

 Hold on -- before you discard the notion as too far from reality, bear in mind that the author's "discussion topics" from the first book reveal that he's based this on a CIA research program, historically real. He's clearly spent major effort on the FBI procedures involved in Agent Stark's efforts, too. In effect, Rickstad is shifting a dark crime novel just a bit further along into what the future could bring -- so in that sense, park this book in the "dystopian" genre, too. And who isn't grimly interested in dystopian fiction just now, in an effort to understand what's going on in our scary global situations??

As REMOTE: THE FIVE opens, it seems another of the remote viewers, S, is turning to murder: 

This woman, suspected of the murders of two MIT researchers in the field of bioengineering and genome modification, had the same strange scar on the back of her neck that Garnier and Q had. This woman whom Garnier suspected of being manipulated by the program, as was Q, into murdering a list of individuals in the hope of maintaining or strengthening their fading remote-viewing abilities. Of course, it might really have been only a test by the program to see how far the two would go to maintain their ability—to determine how strong their addiction to that power really was. 

There's that dystopian note: "addiction to power."

Stark and Garnier head in separate directions, each pursuing a persistent hunch about the ongoing murders. The FBI agent has his own twist: He seems unable to let go of pursing the case, even when his own wife and small child are in enormous danger. And Garnier appears to be dying. So, will the case be solved before Garnier can't even walk and wake, or before Stark carries his own trauma from childhood into another generation?

If you like all threads neatly tidied by the end of a book, don't try this one -- there are quite a few strands left dangling at the end, and there's little resolution of the threats that seem only to deepen. But for those hooked on the estrangement and bitterness of noir (or related dystopia), this is a prime candidate for book of the summer. Of course, the sequence of titles and the rough-edged ending to REMOTE: THE FIVE make it clear there are more books ahead in the series, so it's understandable that threads dangle. Rickstad has left more of them unresolved than is usual, so book 3 will need to carry a lot of power.

Let's see how soon the next book will come to the shelves!

 

BOOK 1 review, originally published in the New York Journal of Books:

Remote: The Six, The Remote Series Book 1 by Eric Rickstad 

Kudos to Blackstone for opting to release both of the first two books in Eric Rickstad’s new Remote Series within the same year: book 1 now, and book 2 in July. The suspense raised by this new thriller, Remote: The Six, could otherwise be close to unbearable—because Rickstad is a master of suspense and quickly ramps up both tension and personal threat for FBI Special Agent Lukas Stark. On the road, constantly falling behind the attacks of a brutal serial killer, Stark is all too aware that this man is deliberately assaulting families. Like his own, his wife and eight-year-old son, whom he hasn’t seen in literally months, thanks to his job.

 

Stark appears to be mostly a lone hunter, with support from forensic teams wherever he lands to assess the latest deaths. “The FBI had not been brought in until the third murdered family … made it clear through MO—victims bound to chairs, wife’s throat cut, father and children bludgeoned—that there was likely a single killer working across state lines.” So he’s doing his own assessments, asking creative questions, probing behavioral and psychological patterns. Rickstad doesn’t hold back on the twists from the start: Just a few pages in, Stark reflects that he knows “all too well the bloody fingerprint a father’s violence left on a son’s soul.”

 

So in many ways, Stark’s solo hunting for the serial killer is a perfect fit for his own damaged self. Alas, he’s got less than one chapter of the book to hunt that way, as his superior, an FBI Special Agent in Charge, arrives without warning on the latest crime scene, with a very strange civilian in tow. Stark is expected to take on as a partner this peculiar and intrusive man, who reminds him of “a secretary bird, which takes flight only when pressed by imminent danger.”

 

Yet this is also the moment when Rickstad’s ground-shaking crime novel crosses over into speculative fiction (what used to be only called sci fi), because Gilles Garnier has his own way of searching for the perpetrator: something called remote viewing, which lets him see what someone else is looking at.

 

Stark’s very unhappy with the notion, which reminds him of course of all the fraudulent or at best useless psychics he’s already seen in action. Rickstad then cleverly braids together several long processes: of Stark revealing only to himself his own internal damage, of the frustrations of the serial killer, and of Gilles Garnier confessing what he’s actually doing, and how he’s gained the capacity to do it. (For those who hate crawling inside the minds of gruesome killers and their terrified victims, this book’s a good thriller for you, because those aspects don’t take up a lot of the narrative.) The pacing is impressive, the dialogue and twists highly satisfying, and by the time Stark himself is unraveling, it’s all too clear why.

 

Equally intriguing is Stark’s own theory of the killer, which involves a biochemical form of addiction to arousal. He’s aware that the theory makes him an outsider, and even Gilles Garnier agrees it will put off the other professionals: “Addiction implies a lack of free will, of personal responsibility.” But might this be the case anyway?

 

This is indeed book 1, so there are a couple of scary dangling threads at the end. (Not long to wait until they’re back in play, with July 8 the predicted release date for book 2, Remote: The Five.) But Rickstad also offers some startling information in his promotional “discussion topics,” which include the presence of historically real serial killers in his home state, and a CIA research program, also historically real, on remote viewing. Maybe the sci-fi side of the book is actually a view into something scary and very possible, after all.

 

 

Catching up on Crime Fiction, June 2025: Two Legal Thrillers

In the middle of May, many authors who've been donating their time as book reviewers to the New York Journal of Books received sudden and startling news of the online publication's abrupt end. I had reviewed more than 200 books in the mystery, thriller, and crime fiction genre for NYJB; I miss working with Lisa and Ted there. I've already got a commitment to another publication for reviews, and will update you when that takes effect.

Meanwhile, I had some books read-and-ready-to-review, and that's what these two are. 

First is IN DEFENSE OF GOOD WOMEN. Retired attorney Marilyn J. Zimmerman brings us a very controversial look into law and punishment in terms of women who may be charged with infanticide. That can be the charge even if there's a grief-stricken woman who's suffered a miscarriage or stillbirth, should the "system" turn against a particular woman. During a political era when restrictions on pregnant women are tightening, Zimmerman's expert handling of her plot -- a minister's teenage daughter charged with drowning her newborn, and a complicated set of family twists -- leaves room for multiple opinions of fault, morality, and even the law (or maybe especially the law). Criminal defense attorney Victoria Stephens at first can't understand the case or her client; when she does begin to grasp what's happened, she loses her objectivity and takes steps that raise deep concerns, even legal ones. 

Zimmerman writes well (and this is her first published novel) and has a good grasp of the genre as well as the law. The 300-page book provides a slow peeling of layers of truth with a ramping up of tension and suspense. One drawback is that the book is clearly written with a purpose related to the type of crime, rather than to the function of crime fiction, and that makes Victoria, the protagonist, a bit less credible than she might have been without such an obvious point. 

Interested in women's rights and how things go wrong? This could be your fave of the summer.

Former FBI director James Comey offers a third book in his series featuring federal prosecutor Nora Carleton and her tough (but lovable) investigator Benny Dugan, back in New York City after an earlier book placed in Connecticut. FDR DRIVE is an action thriller with plenty of threat and  chase scenes. It's a good summer read, especially if you "know" New York and can recognize buildings and neighborhoods. In terms of plot, it suffers from the same drawback as Zimmerman's book: It's more about legal structures than about the characters, which tend to be only skin deep. I felt there wasn't enough "cost" to Nora, and that the descriptions of buildings in particular went on for way too long. Most of all, the book lacks a sold through-line. Would I read another James Comey? Yes, I would, both for the experience that I know lies behind these and in hopes that he'll wrestle his writing skills into a tighter and more satisfying book next time.

Watch for more reviews on this Kingdom Books blog (named for the mystery specialty shop that my late husband Dave and I owned for 17 years, nurtured by his deep and wide expertise in the genre). It's good to bring it back into action.

Crime Fiction from Nicola Griffith, June's Nebula Grand Master

 Nicola Griffith at center, with her award.

The Nebula Award is for science fiction, not mystery -- but author Nicola Griffith has been able to excel in both genres, so it's a thrill to see her named Grand Master by the sci-fi world this summer. Her acceptance speech is well worth reading, as she talks about "world building" ... something that's also common to crime fiction and historical fiction, not just speculative or sci fi work.

Summer's a great season for discovering a new author and barreling through a series. Thanks to Picador, Griffith's three crime novels featuring Aug Torvingen are newly released in softcover in the US: THE BLUE PLACE (which I just devoured), STAY, and ALWAYS. Check out a long description of Aud (Norwegian born, American by choice, a former police detective now taking specialized private work. In THE BLUE PLACE she agrees to track down a case of art fraud, murder, and a red herring of drugs connected to a Mexican cartel. Why? 

"It's the adrenaline," Aud admits to her new and very close friend Julia. "When everything slows down and my muscles are hot and strong and the blood beats in my veins like champagne I feel this vast delight. Everything is beautiful and precious, and so clear. Light gets this bluish tinge and I feel like a hummingbird among elephants, untouchable."

But that elation and "untouchable" sensation can lead her astray, and does, with nearly unbearable costs. Maybe you'll connect to that part of Aud. Or maybe to the gorgeous descriptive passages of her adopted home area, Atlanta, Georgia, or the home she revisits as a safety location during the crime hunt, Norway, with its mystical winters, stunning landscape, and pervasive legends.

My dad used to say, "Do as I say, not as I do." Let me pass that along to you also: Take Griffith's Aud Torvingen crime novels slowly and luxuriously. Don't devour ... instead, savor. That's what summer was made for.

And here's a postscript from Griffith, to remind you that you may not have heard of her books (especially if you're not reading sci-fi), but you've heard of the authors who praise this sleuthing series: Dennis Lehane, Val McDermid, Dorothy Allison, Lee Child, Manda Scott, Francis Spufford, Laurie King, Ivy Pochoda, Robert Crais, Elizabeth Hand, James Sallis and more.

 

MILO'S RECKONING by Joseph Olshan: Crime Fiction, Tender on the Tongue

 

[NOTE: With the lamented closing of the New York Journal of Books last month, I am returning to reviewing crime fiction, mysteries, thrillers, and more on this blog site. Welcome back!]

How strange that a novel that opens in 1994 should feel like historical fiction—and yet the tender exploration of MILO'S RECKONING by Joseph Olshan reminds us of how much has changed in the past three decades. 

Graduate student Milo Rossi, an expert in both Italy's language and its literature, confronts the sudden death of his menor, Lenny D'Ambrosio. Though the death is ruled a suicide (but why?), Milo can't believe Lenny would do this. After all, the two of them had in-depth and emotional discussions of Italian and Jewish writer Primo Levi, whose inability to leave behind the "survivor's guilt" of the Holocaust led to a self-imposed death. Suicide wasn't a taboo subject between them! And Milo had spent the evening before Lenny's death with him, intending to reach a topic Lenny wanted to share.

 "So what did you want to tell me?" Milo had questioned him while they were driving to the train station, looking over at Lenny, who seemed about to explain and then faltered. "Let's talk about it in the morning. Call me when you get to your office." If Lenny had been contemplating suicide, why would he have asked Milo to call him the following morning, knowing full well that he would never answer the phone? 

Milo's somewhat sheltered life hasn't equipped him to discuss this with police detectives. Maybe it's a sign of the time that the man questioning him actually knew Milo's deceased father, a golfer. But the real issue 25-year-old Milo can't resolve, and that pushes its way into the investigation of Lenny's death, is the recent death of Milo's own brother.

Here's where the culture-change aspect hits hard: Milo's brother Carlo's death imposed a halt to Milo and his mother ever understanding that handsome family member. Beset with questions around Lenny's death (what if it were murder? who would benefit?), Milo begins to pull back the coverings of his own brother's life, slowly and with a persistent throbbing of horror and doubt -- because the more he learns, the more he faces the certainty that his brother had been gay, something that would have devastated their traditional Italian mother. Rose Marie is still Milo's own "number one," with a life that revolves around cooking and home. Thirty years later, with same-sex love much more open (although once again being framed as "other" by a powerful social force), it's frightening to confront the pain that families endured over less accepted forms of love and attraction. Is that time returning?

If Olshan had only taken the book this far, MILO'S RECKONING would be a literary novel, its part-European languor periodically fizzing with moments of attraction (say, to Lenny's sister) and possible escape routes from being Mama's boy forever. But those familiar with Olshan's earlier novels, like Cloudland and Black Diamond Fall, know that his elegant prose is likely to dip abruptly into potential danger, and even criminal activity. That's the case here also: Terrified that Lenny's possession of a sexually disturbing videotape may mean his mentor's been involved in international trafficking and exploitation, Milo flees to Italy with hope of unraveling what led to his mentor's death. But at the same time, he is desperate to find answers to his own brother's life and to the family structure that failed to support that.

Olshan's writing is direct and evocative, and at times feels as though it's been newly translated from the Italian tongue that Milo embraces. That's not the case — Olshan has New York City roots and has lived on both American coasts — but this gentle tilt of language underlies the explorations Milo commits to. When he faces his own life's shadows on several levels, he carries with him the literary discussions that have framed his beliefs. Must he abandon what's precious to him, in order to accept both his brother and his friend?

Green City Books, release date June 10, 2025,  hardcover, 284 pages.