New Crime Fiction (Paranormal Threads, Of Course!) from John Connolly, THE FURIES

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“The story of the story—the remarkable production and author–reader loyalty during a global pandemic—makes the book a must-have for Connolly readers and fans of New England paranormal twists.”

 

The cover of The Furies announces a thriller—and the title page presents “Two Charlie Parker Novels.” To find the reality of this pair of short novels, turn to the Acknowledgments: John Connolly wrote The Furies out in public, five days a week, as the Covid pandemic gripped the lives of his readers. Starting with a notion of vengeance and a pair of sisters (it’s called The Sisters Strange, and for Connolly, “strange” is a keyword for dark and dangerous), this writer of the macabre and historically haunted added a mystic rune. And then, like a gambler dealt a hand she can’t discard, Connolly resolutely attached one short chapter after another in devotion to entertaining and distracting his readers.

 

The author explains: Whatever plot items he’d quickly inserted on one day (and these chapters circulated in five languages!), he had to live with and build from. No going back for changes, when each chapter launched as soon as it had been written. Fortunately, this is Connolly’s 22nd Charlie Parker novel or novella, so in that sense, the deepest ground work already existed.  

 

Focused in the classic Parker locale of Portland, Maine, The Sisters Strange offers a returned-to-town criminal, the sisters he’s romanced, and a hoard of valuable old coins that at one point all belonged to a single aging collector. The menace and evil of that collector, named Kepler, should have prevented anyone from stealing his goods. But some thieves don’t know what’s good for them.

 

Parker get called into the hunt for the thieves: A man he likes and respects is in love with one of those sisters, and can’t bear to see her threatened. Seeing women as victims needing rescue, Charlie Parker is as likely as anyone else to fall for the call.

 

By the time the strands are painfully untwisted, Parker’s recognition of who’s masterminding both the crimes and the brutality is running a bit too late to prevent damage.

 

The second novella in this package, The Furies, invites Charlie Parker to rescue another damsel in distress. He’s overloaded; he tells his buddy Dave, the local bar owner, to tell the woman to leave a number and he’ll get back to her.

 

“I heard a woman’s voice in the background. Dave spoke again, repeating what had been said. ‘She asked me to tell you that it’s urgent,’ he said. ‘Also, she says her name is Sarah Abelli, but she used to be Sarah Sawyer. She’s Nate Sawyer’s widow.’”

 

When Dave asks Parker about that name, Nate Sawyer, Parker warns him away from the Mob connection. But for the sake of both Dave and that mythical woman in distress, Charlie Parker will take the case.

 

This time, as in many other Connolly tales, there’s a dead child involved, and perhaps a ghost, not a very nice one. That should be an opening for Charlie Parker’s dead daughter, who haunts him, to make an appearance. But she doesn’t. And although Parker’s fascinating and complex friends Angel and Louis, well known to series readers, do appear, they’re not essential and they don’t reveal more about themselves—niggling disappointments for those who always hope for more from these “familiar faces.”

 

Neither novella on its own would compel re-reading: Go once through and head toward a deeper Connolly novel in other covers. But the story of the story—the remarkable production and author–reader loyalty during a global pandemic—makes the book a must-have for Connolly readers and fans of New England paranormal twists.

 

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Mystery from Vermont Author Ann Dávila Cardinal, Puerto Rican Coming of Age: THE STORYTELLER'S DEATH

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“A good gift for readers over a wide spectrum, especially those who like their exploration laced with a hint of mystique, mystery, and the mystic in a tropical locale.”

 

Earlier novels by Vermont author Ann Dávila Cardinal have aimed for young adult readers, and the first few chapters of The Storyteller’s Death offer a child and then adolescent’s point of view: Isla Sanchez surfs a confusing childhood in which her alcohol-abusing mother regularly sends her to Puerto Rico each summer to live with maternal relatives there, in modest comfort and with cousins to play with—but most importantly, a stern grandmother who’s also a gifted storyteller (cuentista) and a great-aunt who loves and comforts the very lonely girl.

 

When the grandmother dies, Isla is 18 years old and begins to have powerful visions of the stories she’d been told—yet with frightening new details added. Experiment teaches her that to write the story down in complete detail can halt the invasion of the related vision. One family death after another, Isla struggles to master this unwanted gift of stories from the dying.

 

At the same time, adulthood even in her ultra-protective and conservative Puerto Rican family mean that Isla feels a powerful attraction for a young man she’s been prevented from socializing with, because of his dark skin color and lower status on the island. His kindness and tenderness have drawn her since childhood, but now those characteristics stir a new response. While she’s trying to handle this, and to keep up with her more sophisticated and elegant Puerto Rican cousins, the visions feel invasive. They can take over when she’s with others, regardless of her willingness.

 

Her mother finally learns about these storyteller visions, and at first offers sympathy, but it doesn’t last:

 

“When my mother’s eyes finally swung my way, just a glance into their glassy surfaces told me I wouldn’t be finding help there. But I had to try; there was no. one else to turn to. Not anymore. .. ‘That thing we talked about yesterday? What if it happens again?’”

 

From this point, about halfway through, The Storyteller’s Death becomes a mystery, with Isla seeking the truth of her family’s past and struggling to right their connections with others on the island. And, of course, the thread of romance continues. After the slow pace of the first half of the book, the second half feels lively and intriguing and is laced with Puerto Rican customs and phrases, offering a delightful visit to what will be a fresh new setting for most readers.

 

The book’s promotion as an adult novel may not be well chosen; it is, at heart, a coming of age piece, often sweet and touching. And this will make it a good gift for readers over a wide spectrum, especially those who like their exploration laced with a hint of mystique, mystery, and the mystic in a tropical locale.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Brief Mention: FAREWELL BLUES from Maggie Robinson, Series Finale

There are plenty of mentions that FAREWELL BLUES is the end of Maggie Robinson's light-hearted and romantic Lady Adelaide series (including on the author's website), so this is not really a spoiler! This is the fourth book of these 1920s mysteries, with paranormal humor provided by Lady Adelaide's late husband Rupert, assigned to help her solve crimes and resolve her personal life, as a way to recover from his own sins and finally make it to heaven.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Lady Adelaide books has been the protagonist's gradual realization that she may become involved with a man from entirely outside her social "set." Not only is Inspector Devand Hunter a police officer—he's also of Indian heritage and London's not ready for such a romance.

The casual racism repeatedly demonstrated in the series is lightened here by Dev narrating some of the chapters, and by the entertainment value of Rupert's ability to pop in and out of scenes, as well as to pry into Lady Adelaide's thoughts. Series fans will want to discover how Robinson wraps up the series, including her three (!) epilogues. 

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Magic and Mystery from Clea Simon, in A CAT ON THE CASE

Boston-area author Clea Simon has always excelled at world building.

Some of this in her previous books has evoked the passionate underworld of Boston's music scene, with its drugs, sex, rock and roll, but above all, deeply needed relationships. At other times she's woven complex relationships between humans and their pets, often understood better by the four-footed companions. Her hauntings and witchery have delved into human longing, as well as desperation.

Now, in A CAT ON THE CASE, Simon evokes a layered set of mysteries: a crime that involves a mostly helpless immigrant music student (make that two crimes, as one uses her as a front and the other threatens to sink her into hopeless debt and danger). And the longing of pet owner Becca Colwin to exert magical abilities,which enfolds a mystical confusion of its own, as Becca is sure she's already been able to make something magical take place—which her three cats, savvy and powerful, know darn well was something they achieved, not Becca.

Readers of Simon's "Witch Cats of Cambridge" series (Polis Books) will already know that the cats Clara (the youngest and assigned to protection detail), Laurel, and Harriet have a long and powerful past and are rather arrogantly aware of their own power. Simon's world building includes lives of felines dating back to the awesome Egyptian deity Bast, and the first couple of chapters of A CAT ON THE CASE require close attention to what's going on.

But after that, the book becomes a classic mystery involving a possibly valuable antique violin, thieves at the crystals-and-magic shop Charm and Cherish where Becca works, and a murder next door. Becca's determination, and her sense that the vulnerable Ruby is worth caring about, quickly propel her into chasing down danger and sniffing out the double entrapment that Ruby is too naive to notice.

Becca's old friend (and magic circle member) Maddy isn't convinced.  

"So tell me everything you know. I mean for real, Becca. Not just that you have a feeling about this girl."

"I do, though." Becca paused before continuing. "There's something going on with her, but I don't get any sense of danger from her. More than that, my cats are very calm — they were fine with her and they're fine with the violin."

That's the violin that seems to be the target of international thieves willing to murder in order to possess it. But why?

Good thing Becca has three savvy cats to watch over her and work out the means, motive, and perpetrators, whether in person or in spirit!

Yes, this is a feline-filled cozy, but it's also an intricate work of speculative fiction. Shelve with Boston mysteries, cat tales, female protagonists, and intricate fantasy, all wrapped into an unusual crime-solving exploration of friendship and the paranormal.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Going Global from 2019: In Laos with Colin Cotterill, in South Africa with Tim Willocks

International mysteries abound now, and make up the second best way to get to know another location and culture -- the first best, of course, being a visit there in person. For those of us staying home this season, thank goodness for Colin Cotterill!

Cotterill's Siri Paiboun series keeps getting more off-beat and more fun, as his Laotian national coroner (circa 1980) ages. Dr. Siri in this 14th book is now 76, and his physical challenges are small compared to his spiritual ones, since he is possessed by a thousand-year-old shaman and finds the other world often intruding into his practical life of would-be retirement and comfortable meals with his noodle-making wife and their friends.

THE SECOND BIGGEST NOTHING refers to a quip of John Kerry's in the past, calling the Vietnam war "the Biggest Nothing in history." Then what was the overlapping war in Laos and Cambodia? To Dr. Siri, obviously it must have been the second biggest nothing! But a hangover from those days is the unresolved anger in some of the survivors, and now there's a major death threat in Dr. Siri's life as a revenge move. Spurring him to frantic action and passionate unraveling of his war-era actions is the size of the threat, which is directed at his family and friends as well.

Siri's police inspector buddy Phosy reminds him to start with the repetitive nature of the threat itself:

"I'm guessing that when he made that threat initially you would have sensed that it was more than just words. You would have seen him as capable of following through with it. It would have frightened you. For some time you would have been looking over your shoulder. On how many occasions have you experienced that kind of fear in your life?"

All eyes turned to Siri. He looked up at the lamp and seemed to be rewinding through his seventy-six years. He sniffed when he reached the end.

"Twice," he said. ... "Better make it three times," said Siri. "Just to be sure. .. I'm not given to panic, but I confess to missing a few heartbeats on those occasions."

As Dr. Siri spins out his personal history for his friends, he reveals the history of his country's war experience at the same time.

Brace for some shudders, as well as the sweet entertainment that Cotterill always provides, full of love of family and friends and efforts to set things right ... that sometimes go awry. A fun read, and one of the most enjoyable mysteries of 2019. From Soho Press, and easily available through orders at local bookstores, as well as online.

* * *

The development of noir within the mysteries genre has often reflected on the term's roots in "film noir" and brought Los Angeles, New York, and many another city with vast socioeconomic inequality into dark fiction. It's also become a home for crime fiction that's rooted in historic injustice and bitterness, as in the Irish noir of Stuart Neville, or even landscapes that produce darkness for large parts of the year, such as the Arctic and Scandinavia.

But for crime fiction where violence is a steel-strong cultural strand, South Africa repeatedly hosts a driven darkness. The names of the authors may not be common in full-page ads in review magazines, but their power is fierce and their writing can shatter the everyday: I'm thinking of Jassy Mackenzie, Malla Nunn, Paul Hardisty, James McClure.

And, new to me this year: Tim Willocks. Willocks, who's also a screenwriter and hence lays out his fiction in action-packed scenes, wrote at least four published novels before MEMO FROM TURNER swept out from Blackstone Publishing. Count on that background for the strength and ferocity of this thriller, in which Turner, a black "warrant officer" with Cape Town's homicide unit, struggles to nail a killer across lines both racial and socioeconomic.

Readers will know early in the book the identity of the likely killer, who's casually injured a black street girl with his high-end Range Rover, while very much inebriated. It's the mandated cover-up by the young man's powerful mining-magnate family that becomes a threat to Turner himself, as he struggles to find a way to force a confession and some kind of justice.

[Jason] looked at. Turner as if giving him his full attention for the first time.

"Turner, right?"

"Right."

"Where's Rudy?"

"I thought we'd handle this without him ... Rudy said you'd make a witness statement."

Jason waved the jug. "I didn't hurt a f***ing fly in Cpae Town."

"I didn't think you did."

"Now Rudy tells me they want me in a cell, sh**ting in the same bucket as five blacks."

"Tell me what happened early Sunday morning, outside the shebeen."

"You know what happened."

"I wasn't there," said Turner. "I need to hear it from you."

... If Jason would have let him, Turner would have gone. The dash-cam video would be enough to push a warrant through. He felt no pity for the hulking young farmer; but he had no desire to kill him.

Unflinching in his portrayal of a landscape without pity and a stacked deck of injustice, Willocks slams Turner against all of it, and the body count rises swiftly. But there is always an aura of enormous regret in this thriller, something that also seems to ooze from the battered landscape and its terrible history.

It's a book that's hard to put down, and impossible to forget. So consider yourself warned -- but I hope you pursue a copy, and dare to read it all. It's worth all the unease and disturbance. And the deadly risks that Turner's willing to undergo.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Chasing Crime in Laos with Dr. Siri Paiboun, #13, DON'T EAT ME, Colin Cotterill

Dr. Siri Paiboun has retired from his Party-required position as national coroner of Laos (1980s style). That gives him plenty of time to spend with his wife, Madame Daeng, assisting at her noodle shop -- except somehow he's pretty often away on adventures instead. As DON'T EAT ME (number 13 in this highly entertaining international caper series) opens, Dr. Siri and his good friend Civilai -- Comrade Civilai, that is -- have smuggled a large, bulky item home on a raft. And the next morning brings them a regrettable visit from their friend Inspector Phosy, who has not retired and therefore needs to confront them with presumably smuggling a weapon into the People's Democratic Republic of Laos.

The good part is, it's not a weapon -- it's an enormous electrical movie camera, for the friends' ambitious notion to create a Laotian version of War and Peace on screen. Starring, of course, handsome young men like themselves (okay, like they Once Were).

A year earlier there had been an incident that resulted in the old boys coming into possession of some drug money. Quite a sum in fact. Siri had invested much of his in charitable acts while Civilai had smuggled in some delicious but rather expensive wines, a new lounge suite and a car -- not new but classic. Yet still they had not completely used up their ill-gotten gains. In fact they had enough not only to buy the camera, but also, with a little budget tweaking, to produce a modest film of tehir own. ... They removed the camera and wrapped it in an old parachute canopy. Getting it to the Lao side would be Siri's problem. ...

"How do we develop the film?" Civilai asked.

Siri laughed.

"Old Brother," he said, "on the eve of the race does the marathon runner worry about what drinks will be available at the winner's reception party? No. He takes one step at a time."

Once Phosy realizes he doesn't have to arrest his buddies, everyone relaxes. Which in turn leaves time to comtemplate the challenges for their plan: No power to run the machine. No operating manual. An interfering sort of local bureaucracy that's likely to rewrite the script for its own members, if it gives a shooting permit at all. And, oh yes, complications in the family circle, related to Mr. Geung.

Readers of the series will leap at the notion of hearing more about Mr. Geung's life, especially his planned marriage (!). If you haven't read any of the earlier books, be warned: You need to abandon disbelief, go with the flow, and let Dr. Siri and Mr. Geung demonstrate the fine points of the Laotian spirit world, where each of them keeps connecting.

But there's more to DON'T EAT ME than the madcap adventures of these rebels! There is, of course, a crime ... perhaps two or three? ... a skeleton (not yet bare) ... a criminal enterprise involving animal smuggling ... and conflict with the "real" bureaucracy.

Cotterill's passion for clever and unexpected twists that show the Party at its manipulative worst (and of course Dr. Siri fumbling his way toward a solution that his friends will help implement) takes the plot to drastic extremes this time. It felt like a lot of chapters spent wondering whether the team would ever be able to restore its usual lives -- and feeling highly anxious about missing family members!

Colin Cotterill's Dr. Siri books are always a delight. DON'T EAT ME may be one of the most memorable in the series. And it's almost sure to send you back to the earlier titles, whether for the first time or the third (or more). Good fun, and a great summer read, from Soho Crime (an imprint of Soho Press).

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Backstory #1: How Caitlin Strong Grew Into Texas Ranger Overkill, in STRONG TO THE BONE, Jon Land

It's not a spoiler to look at the Author's Note in the back of the newest Caitlin Strong Texas Ranger thriller from Jon Land. Setting STRONG TO THE BONE into context, Land wrote, "Strong to the Bone started with me wanting to challenge Caitlin as I'd never challenged her before. Provide a deep look into a part of her psyche I'd never previously explored."

With that decision, Land provided fresh depth to his series character, a Texas Ranger who's a lone female in her field much of the time in modern-day Texas -- and whose "nature and nurture" both come from her father, grandfather, and more, riding for justice and crime control in the Lone Star state.

Land's unusual format for his Caitlin Strong books involves flashing alternate glances into the past stories of the other Texas Rangers in the family. This time it's Earl Strong, who missed out on the armed forces in World War II only to find himself confronting the very dangerous J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, over a murder case at a prisoner-of-war camp ... a murder involving Germans who have complex backgrounds and motives.

Darkness fell without any of the first responders emerging from the complex.

"What did the Rangers do for excitement back in the day before we had terrorists?" Caitlin asked D. W. Tepper.

"You mean besides hunting dinosaurs? Well, we did have the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and John Wesley Hardin to deal with. And your grandpa, he even went up against the Nazis."

"Earl Strong spent time in Europe?" Caitlin asked, trying to reconcoile the apparent discrepancy with what she know of her grandfather's history.

"Nope, he went up against them right here in Texas ..."

At the same time, Caitlin's life partner Cort Wesley Masters is tangling with a case that looks independent of Caitlin's -- one that jeopardizes the safety of his risk-taking younger son. The couple's powerful and spirit-swept ally Guillermo Paz sweeps into action to protect both generations. And suddenly bullets are flying (no surprise to series readers!).

What makes STRONG TO THE BONE different from earlier titles in this series is that Caitlin's past, as probed here, is more personal than the preceding backstories of her Texas Ranger forebears have revealed: She's been overly violent for a long time, causing her superior officer, D. W. Tepper, to tear out his hair repeatedly, as Caitlin spirals from one round of violence into another. What's her trigger? Land must have written the book long before the hashtag #MeToo took over American news -- but it could have been Caitlin Strong's own battle cry.

STRONG TO THE BONE is a lively page-turner, crammed with action, suspense, and interlocked tales of courage and skilled investigation. Take the associated paranormal strands with some humor and enjoy the way they give bite to the conflict. I'm a fan of Guillermo Paz and his crazed spirit journeys here -- but every Caitlin Strong book also lures the reader to make a declaration on behalf of the historic and modern Texas Rangers, even to say (in another recent meme): I'm with Her.

[NB: Land's author website is usually out of date, but still fun to explore: http://www.jonlandbooks.com]

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Brief Mention: THE FURY, John Farris, Classic Crime and Horror Fiction Re-Released by Chicago Review Press

Film buffs may be far more familiar than I was with THE FURY, released in the horror genre in 1978 (a Brian De Palma film). The recent release of this book in softcover by the independent Chicago Review Press gives an exciting way to see the original book and how John Farris, known for his contemporary horror, handled the plot some 40 years ago.

Today's fiction has surged past the premise of THE FURY in many ways -- it's not at all surprising to find that a CIA agent (Peter Sandza) needs to seek out his government-kidnapped exceptional son Robin. And the paired plot line with a mega-wealthy family's daughter, Gillian Bellaver, sharing some of Robin's unusual psychic gifts (and perhaps a psychic bond?) is not unusual, either.

But without the frills and imagery of the silver screen, it's fascinating to watch the author lay out these two young lives as the ordinary and familiar unravels. I didn't find it as chilling as the film surely was in 1978. But I couldn't put it down, either. And seeing the book as prelude to today's masters of the paranormal crime mystery (like John Connolly) is irresistible.

For insight into how the horror genre developed and for a fascinating look at the written precursor to the noted film, THE FURY is well worth picking up and ... dare I say, enjoying? (Oh, don't let the rather basic cover deter you. It's irrelevant to the work.)


PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Powerful Trilogy by Tarn Richardson Concludes -- But Only in the UK So Far

Every now and then, a moment comes along when readers can make a huge difference in getting a good book published. This is one of them -- because the third volume of Tarn Richardson's stunning "The Darkest Hand Trilogy" has been published in the United Kingdom. But not yet in the United States. Overlook, the US publisher for the series, needs to see sales jump for the first and second books, and to hear from readers who want the third one NOW ... instead of in 2018, which is when the title is tentatively pushed back to, in the Overlook Press schedule.

Which of course immediately raises the question, why do you want these powerful World War I crime novels for your shelf, and how will Tarn Richardson's work pull readers into the desperate and dangerous adventures of rogue Catholic inquisitor Poldek Tacit?

Let's back up a bit -- to the three premises of the earlier volumes, The Damned and The Fallen. Poldek Tacit was raised by the Catholic Church to be one of its inquisitors, and that's premise number one: that the most powerful religious structure of modern history, one that still has its own city and its annointed God-listening leader, could have maintained a hidden force to fight evil and the inevitable corruptions of the faith that it brings: the Catholic Inquisition, a corps of dedicated trained experts in exorcising demons, battling Satanic forces, and preventing any earthly appearance of the AntiChrist.

Premise two, which calls for an almost equal suspension of disbelief -- or perhaps more realistically, for accepting an unusual metaphor for what a powerful church might bring into existence -- is that the church Poldek Tacit serves has created a dreadful half-caste of former humans that live in the dark places of the world and take the form of flesh-hungry werewolves. Starved and tormented though these half beasts may be, they still may have human emotions and loyalties. And Poldek finds himself in league with one such werewolf, Sandrine, whose loving loyalty toward a former soldier of the world war brings her into the fight against the surging evil in the world.

Premise three is the most outrageous, but the most compelling, despite its "paranormal" slant: that there might exist with the Catholic Church and among its priests and bishops a corps of power-hungry, devil-eager men, known as The Darkest Hand, determined to bring about the re-emergence of the AntiChrist, and thus the End Days of the World -- and that the otherwise irrational mass carnage taking place in the years of World War I, the Great War, is actually an intentional sacrifice of the innocent and brave, a killing spree intended as a worship effort toward the leader of the forces of evil.

If you've been reading the surging amount of World War I crime fiction (and literary fiction) being published, this leap of metaphor may begin to make astonishing and uncomfortable sense. How could we explain in any rational way how so many nations in Europe plunged into killing so many young men in such horrible ways? The "shell shock" that plagues Charles Todd's detective protagonist Ian Rutledge comes across as a probably very rational reaction to trench warfare, poison gases that made the act of breathing into a short path to death, and gruesome bayoneted killings where people walked or "swam" among body parts and their detritus, struggling to reach safety.

[Spoiler alert] At the end of the second volume, The Fallen, not only have we seen the forces of goodness fail and fall, but dark hero Poldek Tacit himself tumbles from the heights into certain death below -- we stagger with grief, along with his beloved Isabella and his close friends. Although Poldek has his own confusing inner spirits that shout evil to him, his actions are reliably those of a strong warrior for the good, and his loss is terrible.

But readers of the first two volumes won't be surprised when they meet Poldek again in the third, THE RISEN. As with the fall of Gandalf in The Lord of the Rings, we long to find a loophole to the contract with disaster. And although Dumbledore in the Harry Potter series remains dead in body after the sixth title, he's not the protagonist of the series -- it's Harry who must survive to the next book. Similarly, it's hard to picture a third volume here without Poldek in some form.

But like Graham Greene's whiskey priest, or even Le Carré's George Smiley, there are enormous flaws in Poldek Tacit. And the closer the series gets to an actual rising of the AntiChrist, the louder the invasion of Poldek's soul and mind becomes.

Meanwhile The Darkest Hand assembles its final plan. Javier Adansoni, within the Vatican, defines its reasoning:

"We have done what needed to be done. To persevere. To triumph. Ask yourself, would any other faith not do as we have done to ensure its continuance? Are we so different from other religions who try to enforce their creed upon others? No! We are simply better prepared and better provisioned for the task."

The group's members explain to each other how they have trapped and tormented Poldek Tacit over the years -- although they don't at first realize he may have survived their attacks.

Meanwhile, Tacit's re-entry into his own small counterattacking force of four people -- Tacit, Isabella, Sandrine, and Henry -- breathes some hope back into their effort. But first they need to figure out what the other forces in play are up to, especially those of the priest-turned-wolf Poré, who appears to be on the side of the Darkest Hand in some confusing way. Poldek Tacit begins to wrestle with the details:

But all he could say was, "I need more to go on. More than Seven Archangels!" And then he paused and said, "Unless ..."

"Unless what?" asked Henry, sitting forward, his eyebrows arched. He recognised the keen light in Tacit's dark eyes, a look always adopted when the Inquisitor had discovered a vital clue. He was pleased to see it. It meant that this feral distant man, the one who seemed so remote and indifferent to all they had told him, was now snagged by its mystery.

From here, THE RISEN becomes a race against the clock and against the forces of The Darkest Hand, as the team presses all its resources -- and recruits a few more -- into stopping the rituals and slaughter that are swiftly opening a portal to the End Times of the world.

The final stunning twist to the actions of evil makes a bitter sense out of another terrible aspect of the years 1917 and 1918. But for that, you'll need to read THE RISEN, which ends with an author note reminding us that "World War One was responsible for the deaths of 10,000,000 soldiers and 7,000,000 civilians and achieved no tangible benefits to mankind other than in the science of medicine. It resulted in the annihilation of an entire generation of young men, bankrupted nations ... eventually dragged the world into a second world war."

Is it outrageous to apply this to the times in which we live today? I think the fit is frightening, as our nation jockeys for dominance with another nuclear power, wrestles with the costs and pain of diversity, struggles to assert moral value during terrible choices. Tarn Richardson's series is a darned good read, jammed with suspense and the efforts that are required to remain humane during dark times. It is, painfully, more than fiction, I fear.

Now, to circle back to where this began: To get your third volume, THE RISEN, you have several options. You can, of course, spend extra funds to import a British copy. Or you can take direct action here: Make sure you've purchased -- and that Overlook knows you have -- the first two volumes of the trilogy. Then tell the publisher you want the third volume, THE RISEN, as soon as possible. Here's an e-mail for the press: publicity@overlookny.com

The Overlook website is http://www.overlookpress.com and its Facebook page is here. 

Let's see what we can do to move THE RISEN onto US bookstore shelves -- and our own.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Humor, Paranormal, but Solid Investigation, with Dr. Siri Paiboun in Colin Cotterill's THE RAT CATCHERS' OLYMPICS

A new mystery in the Laotian Dr. Siri Paiboun series from Colin Cotterill (Soho Crime) is always worth celebrating -- and THE RAT CATCHERS' OLYMPICS is worth stopping all work and just plain enjoying the ride.

Actually Dr. Siri, who's been a coroner for his country in the frustrating 1970s, is now retired. But in this 12th in the series, Siri and his wife Daeng figure out how to join their politically connected friend Civilai on an exciting trip to Moscow with the athletes from Laos who are competing in the 1980 Olympics. That's the year that the United States and 64 other countries boycotted the summer games (a protest of Russian's presence in Afghanistan at the time). So Cotterill cleverly sets up the competition as a smaller-than-usual set of games that can let even the poorly trained and mostly unfinanced Lao team still show up well and have a great time.

But before the athletes -- and Siri, Daeng, Civilai, and their friend and nurse Dtui -- have left the ground in their rickety airplane, an unusual change in the passengers takes place, and Civilai realizes there's been a last-minute, unacknowledged substitution among the competing sharpshooters. Soon the friend decides they've witnessed the start of a major crime, to take place in Moscow. The fifth of their usual group, Inspector Phosy, left behind in Laos, tackles the groundwork to figure out what's planned. When Phosy's hoped-for informant is immediately murdered, the team knows they are all in danger. And the planned international crime is deadly serious.

But that's really the only serious part of this delicious and enjoyable romp through Moscow's hospitality in THE RAT CATCHERS' OLYMPICS. From Dr. Siri's own tendency to abruptly vanish into a land of spirits, to his wife's wagging tail (a long story!), to the love affairs of the athletes, and at last to the rat-catching competition impulsively added to the games, this is a page-turner of the best sort: full of characters worth caring about, a plot with just enough twists, and lots of joy. But it's also crammed with investigative efforts and speculation. For example, when the Moscow-placed suspect disappears:

"He might have gone for a jog," said Dtui.

"Or a walk on the roof," said Daeng. "Insomnia."

"Or he might be out casing the scene of the shooting," said Siri.

"Or actually committing the crime," said Civilai, still feeling guilty for his failure.

The four were seated in the B block cafeteria with stodgy Soviet breakfasts in front of them. Two tables away sat the shooting team with Sompoo in the middle telling jokes.

"This really is a fine time for an assassination, you have to admit," said Siri. "The local TV stations have nothing but Olympic news and smiling citizen interviews. I can't even imagine a murder report finding its way into the newspapers for the next three weeks."

Whether you're fitting in a bit more summer reading, or adding to your admirable shelf of Soho Crime international mysteries, THE RAT CATCHERS' OLYMPICS will reward your purchase. Might as well get one for a friend, too ... I'm already listing the people in my life who deserve this sweet reward.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

New from Jon Land, Paranormal Series Debut, DARK LIGHT: DAWN

Graphic violence alert!

With his second book this summer, Jon Land opens a testosterone-filled series of adventure and saving a threatened world, in DARK LIGHT: DAWN. The book opens the "Maximillian Chronicles," jumping sideways into the life of Navy SEAL Max Youngner, who stumbles across details that shed light on his father's mysterious death.

Max loves his career -- nothing like a life-and-death battle to make him feel alive:

"Take that, you f***er!!"

Did he say that or only think it? Impossible to say amid the firestorm raging around him. But he did know he felt buoyant, even joyful, strangely at home in this conflagration of violence he found himself embracing. The blood soaking him smelled sweet and coppery, suddenly not altogether unpleasant, even welcome, as he twisted away from the fighter's still convulsing form, finally slamming another fresh magazine home.

Fear not -- Max has doubts, and the very creepy revelations he confronts about a meteor, underground currents of darkness, and how his father's life became forfeit, well, those are just what he needs to shake his own life off one set of rails and direct it into deeper, more deliberate efforts.

Meanwhile, there's an epidemic possible, and Dr. Victoria Tanoury needs to deal with it. She's grateful for any and all help coming her way -- including the apparent messages from her dead fiancé, still taking care of her. When her dangerous situation and Max's crisis overlap, the two head into an equally risky re-lighting of a long-ago passion they once shared.

Rattled off in short chapters of just a few pages, this End of Days epic continues for more than 400 pages, bouncing between plot threads and crises. It's a great summer adventure for those who especially enjoy military combat novels and Dan Brown-style epic battles, including for the soul and the heart. Land, with Maximillian "brand" originator Fabrizio Boccardi, keeps the action explosive. It's quite a shift from his Caitlin Strong series, but very close to the Tyrant books he's crafted.

This is genre fiction with a specific tilt, both military and paranormal. If that's the combo you're ready for, settle in for a page-turning week of mind-blowing twists and classic characters.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

British Mystery to Grab Right Away, ALL OF A WINTER'S NIGHT, Phil Rickman

If you already know the Merrily Watkins mysteries and enjoy them, don't hesitate -- go out and get a copy of ALL OF A WINTER'S NIGHT right away. And clear your schedule for page-turning reading from Wales-connected author Phil Rickman.

If, like me, you're new to this British series, let me fill you in. Merrily Watkins is the vicar of a community church in a mostly rural section of England, Hereford, on the border of Wales. She's also what in the States we would call an "exorcist" -- but in a very quiet way, with a group of others religious leaders who've found themselves called to relieve the troubles of those who experience paranormal events. They call their field of effort "deliverance" and it has a lot to do with letting people get things of their chests, and then following up with prayer and related church services.

But Merrily's position is under attack from the new bishop and it's not clear how far he'll go to restrict her out-of-pulpit activities. She's also concerned about her daughter Jane, taking a gap year before university and somehow unmoored from expectations.

Both Jane and Merrily find support from a neighboring musician -- who in turn collaborates with local Detective Inspector Frannie Bliss as a shooting and a vehicular death turn out to reveal the powerful strands of organized crime in the region, with international ties and a lot of money.

When the two plot lines cross, the action and risks multiply exponentially. So do the ties to a much earlier form of spirituality in the region, expressed in part through the concept and character of the ancient "Green Man," but also in the rituals of a very private, very disturbing group of folk dancers recreating "Border morris" dances with strange undertones.

I saw parallels in many of the characters to the landowners, farmers, and ambitious developers of my own northern Vermont region. And if we don't yet have a Merrily Watkins among us, I'm willing to believe there's an opening for her American counterpart (in fact, John Connolly's Maine paranormal series evokes the same sense of timeless power and faith).

Don't let the "haunting" aspect of ALL OF A WINTER'S NIGHT keep you away from this crime novel -- because it is in the long run all about human greed and passion, and following the benefits of the crime. But getting to the solution takes a long, lovely time, nearly 500 pages in which each chapter provides a powerful impulse forward, and the Big Questions get intelligent and passionate attention.

Here's the author's own take on what Merrily is up to:

It's a real job; there's at least one in every diocese in the UK. They work with psychiatrists, social workers ... and also the police. Inevitably, in this series, this is the aspect of the job that predominates.

And their own beliefs are often tested. There are few certainties. The borderline between psychology and the unexplained is often laid out in barbed wire.

A keeper. And I'm going to have to find the preceding 13 Merrily Watkins mysteries, ASAP. 

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

World War I and the Werewolves and Priests ... Book II of Tarn Richardson's Darkest Hand Trilogy

I swore I'd never read those crazy books that mingled crime fiction and the paranormal -- until I picked up one of John Connolly's and realized the hauntings and lines of evil portrayed were really good metaphors for the kinds of crime that even rural areas find poisoning the well of life from time to time. And then I more or less tripped over Tarn Richardson's first book in his "The Darkest Hand Trilogy," The Damned. As I wrote in my review of The Damned last year, Richardson's choice to use an enduring Catholic Inquisition, warrior priests, and accursed werewolves turned out to be an apt way to portray the blood-soaked years that made up World War I.

Now the second book is available: THE FALLEN. Crusading inquisitor Poldek Tacit suffers the most horrific tortures of the Inquisition as the book opens -- while the dark forces he once battled are in motion from within the heart of the Vatican, laboring to be sure the killing grounds are truly saturated with the blood of Europe's finest generation.

As Tacit reflects on the secrets and maneuvers that resulted in his imprisonment -- for preventing carnage at a "Mass of Peace" in Notre Dame attended by international peacemakers -- he's well aware that if he'd been true to his depressed, angry, despairing self, and less susceptible to a nun's kindness and integrity, he might not be in this plight.

In a world fuelled by hate, at the end it was a love Tacit thought he never could feel again, this time for Isabella, which brought salvation for him and save Isabella. Making sure she was out of harm's way, Tacit had bounded alone into the Mass for Peace and blasted Cardinal Monteira from the pulpit just moments before he had slipped the stinking wolf's pelt over his head and transformed into a bloodthirsty werewolf. Tacit wondered if he could have done anything differently to save himself, to avoid arrest. ... No, he would have changed nothing.

Meanwhile, Isabella too is examining the events and catching up with their causes, in the company of a young officer and his partner, less tortured but also in danger:

"Stop!" she said. "Stop! ... You're telling me great swathes of people have sided with the Devil? That it originates from within the Vatican? That they are attempting to see his return to the world? ... I will not believe it for a moment!"

"And that is why they are allowed to grow, fester like a disease in a wound. For long we have investigated. They are preparing his domain. But he will only return when the world is truly ready, and his lieutenants are in place ... they must be stopped."

Fear not, the Poldek Tacit/Isabella romance never has a chance to heat up the way that a certain vampire series did a decade ago. THE FALLEN swiftly turns into a series of battles on the Italian front of the First World War ("the war to end all wars") that author Tarn Richardson notes (at the book's end) have been seemingly forgotten -- yet were held in extreme conditions and cost the lives of almost half a million men.

The abrupt, short chapters of the book -- there are more than a hundred -- fit this battle-by-battle crushing force of history well. And Richardson's use of his alternate history makes more sense out of the insistent killings than any dry narrative could. Tacit's determination to stop the forces of evil swiftly leads to his own position as a piece to sacrifice in the game. Can he make the sacrifice effective enough, worth the dying?

When I finally came up for air after reading this, I felt like I understood the cost of that war much better. Horror is sometimes the truth of those millions of deaths, isn't it? I'm looking forward to next year's finale. Meanwhile, I have a satisfyingly different point of view from which to look at some other powerful World War I narratives again, from those of Charles Todd's guilt-haunted mysteries to the heartbreaking clarity of Pat Barker's Regeneration Trilogy.  And, of course, some nonfiction on the Great War -- even if that's not as strong a historical narrative as Richardson's own. From Overlook Press, publisher once again of the uncannily insightful.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Paranormal Suspense, YA Style, from Jon Land and Heather Graham, THE RISING

Several mystery and thriller authors have woven paranormal threads into their work in recent years, and it often works well to highlight the powerful forces that move people into evil -- and sometimes the ones that help them survive, instead. John Connolly's series set in Maine, with Charlie Parker taking his best shot against deep old cunning spirits that hate life, provides a haunting rationale for the worst and the best in his terrain. Canadian Vicki Delany provoked heightened Gothic suspense in More Than Sorrow, and Carsten Stroud used hauntings and history to accentuate the wicked cruelty of plantation slavery in his bizarrely compelling detective trilogy set in and around Niceville.

In THE RISING, suspense author Jon Land turns from his mildly spirit-struck Texas Ranger series featuring Caitlin Strong (most recently in Strong Cold Dead) to partner with romance author Heather Graham -- rather unfairly described as a team of two thriller authors, since Graham's main strengths are in he-she tangles interwoven in her plots, as well as straightforward vampire and haunting threads. But unexpectedly, the duo's progeny turns out to be a sci-fi suspense offering featuring a pair of high school students destined to fall in love -- Alex Chin and Samantha (Sam) Dixon. Fair warning: Just a few pages into the book, it's clear there are space aliens involved, as well as an obscure NASA program. If you can bear to read further, there's an enjoyable page-turning suspense romp ahead, as Alex (an apparently White smart baby adopted by Chinese parents) struggles, with Sam's help, to locate and stop an alien invasion, armed with the basic skills of high-school geeks.

That said, brace for relatively "young adult" language and pacing in THE RISING. Here's an example:

Alex followed Sam's gaze to the black piece of fabric jewelry, which looked shiny as steel. She had straightened out the one she'd unfurled from his father's wrist.

"See?" she whispered.

But then it snapped back into place with a whapping sound.

Alex took it from her grasp and slid the thing that looked like a slap bracelet into his pocket. He lingered over his mother for what seemed a very long time, before pressing her eyes closed, sobbing and sniffling loudly. ...

"I'm sorry, Alex, I'm so sorry," [Sam] said, easing a hand to his shoulder, which felt hot and hard as banded steel.

Compare that to Land's more usual style, from Strong Cold Dead:

Jones unfolded the picture he was holding and held it so Caitlin could see a tall, gangly young man with a bad case of acne.

"Holy sh**," Caitlin said, not believing her eyes.

"Recognize him, I see."

"I spitted him yesterday bird-dogging a protest outside the Comanche Indian reservation near Austin."

... Jones looked down at the picture. "On a major terrorist suspect yesterday, because he happened to be in the same place as you. Then again, nothing just happens when it comes to Caitlin Strong, does it? You are a genuine force of nature, Ranger."

If you're collecting Land -- or Graham -- you'll want THE RISING for your shelf. Otherwise, mystery fans may want to stick with Land's basic Caitlin Strong series instead, in order to keep the wild suppositions within the range of the way every deadly crime haunts its environment and its people. On the other hand, those gathering the YA (young adult) books of mainstream crime authors like Harlan Coben will appreciate this divergence of Land's -- it's really a YA tease wrapped up in adult covers, and it's fun to go along for the ride.

NEXT: Straightforward California crime fiction from Jonathan Moore, and the newest British spy delight from Mick Herron.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Psychic Mystery in Maine, from Jessica Estevao, WHISPERS BEYOND THE VEIL

Berkeley Prime Crime, a Penguin Random House imprint, brought out the first "Change of Fortune" mystery from Jessica Estevao -- aka Jessie Crockett -- a couple of weeks ago. Set in Maine, WHISPERS BEYOND THE VEIL takes carnival con's daughter Ruby Proulx out of her Canadian father's circle and into the family she's never known: Her mother's sister Honoria owns a very specialized hotel on the coast of Maine, and to Ruby's surprise, she's warmly welcomed back to this embrace she's never known.

Estavao's first in the series isn't Crocker's first, and the hand of an experienced author means this series arrives tight, well plotted, and cleverly paced from the get-go. A traditional mystery in the Agatha Christie vein, with plenty of suspicious characters and motives, the 1898 story is spiced with psychic and criminal possibilities. Aunt Honoria's unusual resort is the Hotel Belden and it caters specifically to those seeking wisdom from beyond -- that is, to Spiritualists (quite fashionable at the time!). Ruby's arrival turns out to be a blessing in every way, as she steps up to help her aunt with the resort's opening week.

When the expected staff member who's a medium doesn't turn up -- and many of the guests have booked especially to meet with a medium! -- Ruby and her inner "voice" offer to fill the gap. At first Ruby expects to con the clients, the way her father did in the snake-oil sales that supported the two of them while Ruby grew up. She can "read" a person adeptly, especially with the aid of her pack of Tarot cards (which in themselves turn out to be significant). But the "voice" has better plans for Ruby than that. As she wrestles with a refreshed sense of honor and integrity, she also must sort out the deadly peril accumulating at the hotel, protect herself from exposure as a fraud, and figure out whether, in fact, she has a "gift" or a terrible curse over her life.

I enjoyed every page, and can't wait for the next in the series from this adept New England author, who blogs at the Wicked Cozy Authors site.

Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

THE SAINTS OF THE LOST AND FOUND, T. M. Causey, Serial Murder Plus Paranormal Plus Powerful Storytelling

When seasoned storyteller Toni McGee Causey tugged on her T. M. Causey persona for THE SAINTS OF THE LOST AND FOUND, she chose to go dark -- very dark. And turning her experience in "romantic suspense" Southern novels toward an FBI hunt for a serial killer in Louisiana has put her onto the terrain of the "big writers" of suspense thrillers. Take the loneliness of Lee Child's Jack Reacher, add the determination of Jon Land's Caitlin Strong, and for the third strand, let loose the diabolical wickedness of the killers in, say, Jeffery Deaver's Lincolm Rhyme books. Yes, that seems about right.

But let's start at the beginning of the book, with Avery Broussard riding a but to her former hometown in Louisiana, hoping not to be recognized. The hope is soon dashed, because Avery's been on all the major newspaper front pages for a long time. Her pyschic gift, the ability -- or curse -- of seeing what people have lost, and sometimes where to find those items, pushed her into volunteering as a consultant for the FBI. Sure, the professionals were skeptical, but the FBI agent in charge of the Little Princess Killer cases, Hank, tested Avery to the max and chose to work with her, defend her, protect her as she gave herself to the investigations.

Now Avery's on the run from even Hank. Her most recent efforts to find the small girls that the Little Princess Killer abducts worked out in one sense -- she found the child -- but too late to save the girl's life, by a mere couple of hours. In despair, and blaming herself for the child's death, Avery still wouldn't have run home. After all, her father -- whose pyschic gift is even more awkward than here, because he sees how and when each person will die -- warned Avery years ago that her lifelong true love Jack would kill her. She ran away from marrying Jack, at a cost that's been overwhelming for her and her beloved. Especially since he has no idea why she left him.

So when her father (one of only three people to have her phone number) had a new vision and phoned her to tell her that her brother Latham would die if she didn't come back home, Avery was acutely aware that only pain lay in front of her. And Jack. But given the chance, didn't she need to save her brother's life? (He is the only other person in the town suffering from a psychic gift. Gift? Curse, is more like it.)

Readers of serial killer cases know there's no escape from the evil until you fight it and defeat it, though. And the same holds for Avery. She may think she's home to save her brother. Even for that, she needs to face down her own PTSD, guilt, and horrified awareness of the losses all around her.

That's a lot of twists all at once, and a lot to ask of a reader. But Causey's storytelling is so strong, and Avery's desperate courage is so painful and necessary, that this is a true page-turner.

Take, for example, Avery's first task after she sets up a carefully guarded home for herself, surrounded by alarms, cameras, whatever it takes to keep the curious and the press away from her (and anyone else who may want to hurt someone who's been unsuccessful in preventing children's deaths). Jack's young son Brody goes missing, and Jack's instant reaction is to demand that Avery find this child -- the last thing she needs to be doing, but how can she say no? And in fact, she does find him, once she's able to shake off her "friends." She tells the boy she'll get him to the road home, but he'll have to walk the rest of the way to his dad on his own. Of course he asks, why?

"Town weirdo," I said, pointing at myself, "so I get to make whatever rules I want. That's my rule. And here's my other rule: you don't get to tell anyone -- not a soul -- that I helped you tonight. ..."

I put my hand out for him to shake, which was my second big mistake of the night, because he took it and immediately the image of two bloody eyes [of the boy's presumed-dead mom, his pressing loss of the moment] drilled me with the force of a diamond bit grinding through rock. I nearly passed out right there; it was everything I could do to hold it together for the kid. I must've yelped and jumped back from the contact, because suddenly I was standing -- when I was aware again of my surroundings -- a good three feet away from him.

"You okay?" His eyes were big as his face. Even in the moonlight, I could tell he'd gone all pale.

Avery's mix of tough and vulnerable, of love and despair, is as direct and desperate as her language. I couldn't put this one down.

So I guess I have a couple of authors now whose "paranormal mysteries" are so compelling  that I'll ignore my allergy to psychic moments, and keep turning the pages. (One of those authors is John Connolly. Another is the aforementioned Jon Land.) I never doubted that T.M. Causey would whip, twist, and pound the plot -- and her characters -- to a highly satisfying ending. And sure enough, she does.

I may have to get in line for more of these. Bottom line: tight plot, relentless suspense, and powerful human choices, along with the kind of twists the best mysteries should always have. And yes, there's a darned good reason for the title, but I'm not going to spoil the explanation now -- discover it for yourself, in THE SAINTS OF THE LOST AND FOUND.

World War I and the Inquisition? Yes! Well Worth Reading THE DAMNED from Tarn Richardon

The British have known Inquisitor Poldek Tacit since January 1 of 2015 -- today, thanks to Overlook Press, Tarn Richardson's powerful debut thriller THE DAMNED featuring the rough-living Jesuit arrives for American and Canadian readers. Clear your calendar; I couldn't put this book down.

And I was so reluctant to start reading! Subtitled "The Darkest Hour Trilogy Book 1," THE DAMNED has a cemetery monument topped with a cross on the cover, and the cover text reveals the presence of werewolves in this World War I crime novel. Oh dear!

But fortunately, I've recently become an ardent fan of John Connolly's Maine-based books of crime where evil wears paranormal garb, so I'm a bit more open that I used to be to accepting this kind of twist in a murder mystery IF it's really, really well written.

And Tarn Richardson can definitely write a rattling good tale, with page-turning suspense that never slows down. The book opens in the front-line trenches of Arras, France, in 1914, where the gas, the mud, and the deadly shelling of the nearby German lines turn each battle's movements into a dance of terror and death. For Lieutenant Henry Frost, caught between war's clearly mad leadership and the impending deaths of his men, every effort of courage and gallantry is also a losing effort. When the German shelling abruptly ceases, it's tempting to celebrate -- until Frost and his forces realize the horror of what's actually taken place.

And as the war lines writhe and suffer, Poldek Tacit, an Inquisitor sent by the Vatican against the forces of evil, faces his nemesis in France. Unexpectedly assisting him in investigating who is dying why, in the run-up to the anticipated Mass for Peace, is Sister Isabella, the most unlikely "Sister" that Tacit has ever met. Deliberately sexualized in appearance, she's a Vatican inquisitor of sorts herself, sent forth to "test the faith" of the Church's hardened fighters in the field.

As townspeople, combatants, and even priest around them die, Tacit and Sister Isabella finally take off the gloves and attack each other, with Tacit accusing her of deliberately enticing him:

"Do they think I've fallen from the path with more than my drinking and my faith? Thought that I would be tempted? That I would wish to f*** a whore of the Vatican?"

The words tormented and disgusted her. "How dare you!" roared Isabella, storming forward to strike him. Her hands were drawn white with rage. "How dare you call me such a thing?"

"Well, look at you. You never looked like any Sister I've ever seen!" he cried, climbing out of his chair.

"And you're not like any Inquisitor, Inquisitor! What happened to the man who's hanging [as a portrait] on the wall of the Vatican! The Inquisitor of honor? The one with a light in his eyes and an urgency in his features?"

"He got old."

But this failure of teamwork can't be allowed to stand, because indeed the Church has cause to believe in the evil that's multiplying within the landscape. And unless the bitter Inquisitor with his silver bullets and the angry Sister figure out how to reach and stop that evil, World War I and the Mass for Peace may be even more of a disaster than the armed forces can imagine.

Did I "buy" the notion of an alternate World War I, of werewolves, of a secret and ongoing Inquisition led by the Catholic church? Actually, yes -- the horrors of shell shock, poison gas, and international machinations that we're learning about a century after the Great War, make Richardson's additions to the landscape seem just one small step further in danger and darkness. And Poldek Tacit, a violent but oddly honorable version of Graham Greene's "whisky priest," is a perfect fit in this world gone mad.

So who do you suppose the true villain is? By the end of THE DAMNED, the sacrifices that Tacit needs to make are clear. And I found I was eager for the second and third books of the trilogy. I hope Overlook won't wait too long to move them in our direction.

By the way, THE DAMNED is a debut novel, and only a roughness in the pacing gives this away; the author's writing career is eccentric and includes digital media -- which makes sense, as there's a sense of cameras rolling and dramatic shifts of light with the twists of plot. Overlook's print runs are not huge -- make sure to get your first-edition hardcover ASAP, before a lot of people start grabbing them.

World War II Horror from F. R. Tallis, THE PASSENGER

Mystery readers may know F. R. Tallis better under his other name, Frank Tallis, with which he brings out crime fiction, especially books set in Vienna. Like Ruth Rendell setting aside her most twisted and cunning psychological fiction to her pen name Barbara Vine, Tallis's two names allow a darker side to flourish vividly without the predictability of today's mystery genre.

THE PASSENGER is the fourth in the F. R. Tallis horror titles, all independent but also curiously linked by the powerful resonances among them: the chilling effect of voices not quite heard, of recorded versions of ourselves, of "deviant" forms of spiritual search that take the searcher out of the usual "communion" of belief. This time, Tallis probes a different culture, the intense intimacy of a submarine crew during World War II. The nationality of this crew -- Germans at the turning point of the war, just as America agrees to join the European conflict -- adds to the eerie distancing and terror that Tallis creates in the narrative.

Siegfried Lorenz, a skilled U-boat commander but a political skeptic, knows and excels at his real work: to comprehend the emotions and interactions of his crewmen and induce them to exert their best skills, within a "communion" of mutual effort and attachment. He inclines to more mercy than the Fuehrer's commandants are expected to show -- not only does he refrain from slaughtering survivors at sea, but he presents them with a bit of survival gear that his crew can spare, and leaves them with shards of hope.

So it's ironic that a special mission for his submarine results in the sudden deaths of two prisoners on board, and Lorenz can prevent none of the twists of fate: not the deaths, nor the apparent run of bad luck that follows, complete with what must be hallucinations, the appearance that one of the dead men is haunting Lorenz's sub, determined to undermine his command and the safety of his crew.

Lorenz makes the most of his brief relief between missions to seek information from an elderly doctor named Hebbel, a friend of his family in Berlin. In Tallis's framing, this interlude is the last moment Lorenz can claim as under his control in any sense:

'A curious thing happened on our last patrol,' said Lorenz, affecting an attitude of casual disregard. 'We were transporting a British prisoner who unfortunately dies before we could get him back to base for questioning. Shortly after, one of my mechanics had an accident -- he banged his head on a diesel engine -- and from that moment onward he kept on babbling about having seen the dead man.'

'The brain is a remarkable organ,' the doctor responded. 'But uniquely vulnerable.'

Under Lorenz's continued pressure and questions, the doctor finally gives his professional opinion on the hallucinations that Lorenz poses as a hypothetical -- but that are far worse than that. The doctor explains:

'The unconscious: that part of the mind that is not accessible to introspection. Deeper and wider than any ocean you have explored, my dear fellow, infinitely deep. ... Hallucinations might represent some kind of communication from the unconscious. ... if a person were, let us say, in some kind of danger, then the hallucinations might be construed as a warning.'

There are, of course, almost no moments when submariners are NOT in some kind of danger.

Tallis braids the complexity of the mind and spirit with the pagan symbolism chosen by leaders of the Third Reich, and lets Lorenz recount the battle, both personal and literal, erupting from the conflict of his humane beliefs and his tender care of his crew, versus the demands of German (or any) warfare.

Although THE PASSENGER is not a typical fit for the crime fiction genre -- even less so than Tallis's 2014 title The Voices (reviewed here) -- the depths and currents explored turn out to mesh with the darkness that lies within modern crime. The author is also a psychologist, and readers access the richness of  the practice, probing the strengths and dangers of the mind.

If you're reading the post World War I crime fiction of Charles Todd, the World War II mysteries by James Benn, or the classic "Regeneration Trilogy" from Pat Barker, THE PASSENGER will fit well with your exploration. Dark, direct, and chilling, it's an excellent read, deftly paced for psychological suspense and a very believable brush with the supernatural. I won't forget the terrors -- or the strong assertions -- of this well-written "gothic" novel with its ocean of symbols and its stormy crises.