Haunting Norwegian Historical Fiction, EYES OF THE RIGEL by Roy Jacobsen

It's sometimes said that the great literature offers two great themes: "A stranger comes to town" and "Someone leaves on a journey." In EYES OF THE RIGEL, Roy Jacobsen weaves together both of these, as new mother Ingrid Barrøy calmly announces she is leaving her island for a while—with her mysterious and calm dark-eyed baby.

It's soon clear that Ingrid is seeking the father of her child. How this little one came to arrive at the end of the long war, how much love is involved, and why her father's gone are mysteries from almost everyone. Perhaps Ingrid herself isn't sure how this journey has come to be. But she is determined to make it, without questioning whether she can complete it and find Alexander. 

Yet, aside from rowing away from the island and landing on Norway's mainland, she has little idea of where to go. That is, she doesn't actually know where to look for Alexander. So her initial impetus is seeking signs of his passing. For this, nearly speechless, she holds up the child, Kaja, whose dark gaze is unmistakably his. Others meeting the baby's gaze seem compelled to point to the faint trail ahead.

From this book of slow and evocative revelation, here are some key moments:

[p. 90] They made some food and ate it to the sound of snoring from the next room, in what Ingrid considered would have been an oppressive atmosphere, had they not had Kaja, who was sitting on the table between them and laughing at their playful fingers, she was so serenely marble-white and oblivious to both war and peace that Ingrid was able to reassure herself—once again—that the journey had not only been undertaken because of Kaja, it couldn't even have happened without her, without a child to lug around, this most divine of all burdens.

[p. 106] "You're walking along a road of bad consciences, my dear."

"Hva?" Ingrid said.

Hübner answered—as far as she could make out—that the Occupation of Norway had been of a special kind, in many places it had been more like co-operation, it had tainted people, now they were washing away the stains, the country is cleaning its hands. Yes, even many of those who did do something of value know that they could have done more, and they would prefer not to be reminded of it.

[p. 110] Ingrid ... realized she would have to resign herself to not understanding what she was doing, and not let it worry here, as if it were possible to think in a way which was unthinkable. Or stop feeling what she felt. What are you doing to me, little one, she thought, and pressed Kaja to her body.

The translation by Don Bartlett and Don Shaw evokes the languages of Scandinavia, but also of isolation and desperation. EYES OF THE RIGEL—the eyes are those of the child, and the Rigel was a ship that Alexander served on—offers the most elusive of mysteries, with delicate clues to their solution, and a finale as wide open as the ocean itself. Readers of mysteries by James Benn, Charles Todd, and Fuminori Nakamura may find much to enchant them in this slowly compelling adventure.

This is the third of a series that Biblioasis brought to America in translation; the previous volumes were The Unseen and White Shadow. When you order Jacobsen's work from a local bookstore, as them to check the Consortium list in the US, or the University of Toronto Press in Canada.

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

Set a Thief to Catch a Thief, Rock'N Roll Style: ROCK OF AGES from Timothy Hallinan

Hurrah, the new Junior Bender mystery, ROCK OF AGES, is released today! This rollicking crime and caper novel from Timothy Hallinan unfolds one of the goofiest propositions Junior (his real name) Bender has ever received: Aging mobster Irwin Dressler wants the professional Hollywood thief to unravel fraud and murder inside a tour of 1960s-era rock bands.

You might think Junior could just say "not my area" and duck out. But that would reveal that you haven't read enough of Hallinan's addictive Junior Bender series --- because remember reading somewhere that Hollywood's beginnings involved big money from at least one crime syndicate, and that even today where there's movie money, there's graft? Well, Irwin Dressler is the most frightening and capable of all the possible money men on the spot. Just his name is enough to set grown criminals shaking in their shoes. And Junior, although he's on decent terms with the mobster and his staff, can't say no unless he wants to risk his own life and his family. 

Lest you mistake the book title for something, umm, preachy, listen up: The multiple-band tour of drug-worn, alcohol-slurping geriatrics has the name "Rock of Ages" because the investors all had a stake in these bands back in the day, or even dreamed of singing in them. And all the investors on this tour are criminal creeps themselves. With Dressler the creepiest and most powerful.

That is, he WAS the most powerful. But at least one of his co-investors this time thinks Dressler's over the hill, toothless, and that stealing the money from the tour (modestly successful) should be a piece of cake. Junior's job is to make sure that cake thing is just bait in a big nasty trap.

All this would make a rocking caper novel on its own -- but Hallinan's special touch is the family love (with complications) that drives each of his protagonists. In Junior's case, he's finally got some real time with his teen daughter Rina, with ex-wife Kathy skeptical, and Rina herself pushing Junior to finally explain to her how he makes his living and what his adventures (dangers?) are like.

And just as Daddy-Daughter bonding weekend starts, Dressler applies the screws to Junior.

Mind you, he does his best to protect Rina while he's investigating and maneuvering. It should be safe enough for her to sit in the audience, right? Well, maybe not ... but at least one of the groupies, the elderly but very hip Lavender, is willing to sort of babysit or, umm, teen-sit.

So when danger runs rampant and deaths multiply, Junior urges Rina to stay hidden in the popcorn room with Lavender, with the door locked. He'll rap a pre-arranged code on the door when he comes to get them. He's underestimated how smart and sardonic his daughter is. Rina says to him:

"So, umm, you don't think that anyone else in the world might just knock twice, like for 'two bits'? I mean, that's sort of the default, isn't it? I always knock—"

"This is what happens when I get to clever. I'll just say, 'Hey Rina,' okay?"

"Can't you just hang up on him?" Lavender asked in the background. "I'm not going to live forever."

"I love her," Rina said. "Bye, Dad."

She loved her. I'd had my daughter for less than one day and she'd seen an attempted murder, spotted one of the most terrifying crazies since the Spanish Inquisition, and fallen in love with a groupie from the 1960s. This was probably not what [Rina's mom] Kathy had in mind.

Don't get distracted by all the side-splitting caper humor ... there's serious crime going on here, and as a dedicated mystery reader, your task is to see who's responsible and how to get Rina and Junior out of there alive (without Kathy being ready to kill Junior herself). Because Junior isn't exactly finding the key to do it.

Not yet a reader of this series? No sweat, jump into this one for the kicks and giggles, then go grab the earlier titles. Each one has a great twist and marvelous dynamics.

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

Brief Mention: THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB, Agatha Christie-Style Update from Robert Thorogood

It's time to build up the summer reading stack -- and if you savor a good traditional British mystery with neat clues and a somewhat eccentric sleuth, then the newest from Robert Thorogood should top that heap of books by the hammock. THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB offers 67-year-old widow Judith Potts, who likes to skinny dip in the Thames at night and who hears an outcry and gunshot that signal the death of her riverside neighbor.

Potts is a regular creator of crossword puzzles, so she's good at puzzling out a clue. (She's also fond of a shot of whisky for any reason that comes to mind.) To sort out what's actually taken place next door, though, in her town of Marlow (UK), she recruits a local dog walker who knows a little about everyone who owns a dog in town and a few who don't. When she adds a third to this team, the careful but also very knowledgeable wife of the local clergyman, there's no stopping their investigation. Fortunately, unlike the situation in "cozy" mysteries, none of them need to marry, date, or seduce a police officer to hear them and collaborate -- because DS Malik, the investigating officer, is also female and swamped with three murder cases, and she definitely needs all the help she can call in.

Thorogood has a tidy track record of previous mysteries and is credited with creating the BBC TV show "Death in Paradise" (now running on PBS). He has a gift for the gently absurd, a comfortable pace, and a nice armful of clues and red herrings. Most of all, in THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB, it's the dialogue that adds delight, as with this interchange between DS Malik and Judith Potts. Malik is trying (without success) to shoo Judith off the case, and she begins:

"We don't know Mr. Dunwoody was murdered."

"Are you saying the bullet hole appeared in his forehead as if by magic?"

"Well, no, but we can't rule out that his death was a terrible accident. Or what if he did this to himself?"

"You think he committed suicide?"

"It's a possibility."

"Poppycock!"

DS Malik blinked in surprise. Had the woman in front of her just used the word "poppycock"?

For light entertainment in an updated traditional British mystery, THE MARLOW MURDER CLUB is a great choice. Just released by Poisoned Pen Press in America, a year after its British debut.

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

Phryne Fisher #22, THE LADY WITH THE GUN ASKS THE QUESTIONS

Whether you met her in one of the series on Public Television, or in one of the 21 earlier books by Kerry Greenwood, it's not surprising if you wish you ran into her more often. Australian sleuth Phryne Fisher is elegant, stylish, and a liberated woman of the 1920s. With her friends among the police and her ever-loyal assistant Dot, Miss Fisher exerts her lively curiosity and sharp wits to solve all sorts of murders and related crimes.

Book 22 in Kerry Greenwood's Miss Phryne Fisher series, THE LADY WITH THE GUN ASKS THE QUESTIONS, is a story collection crammed with delight. Only half of that pleasure involves the crimesolving -- the other half is the way Greenwood allows the stories to reveal her writing process and how she chooses her adventures. Her "Apologia" at the start of the collection offers:

As you will see, sometimes I try out some of the cast of a novel in a short story to see if they like me enough to stay for a whole book, there being a great difference between 3,000 and 85,000 words, and an author needs to pick her company if she has to give them house room for so long.

Greenwood follows this short introduction with a second, called "On Phryne Fisher," that reveals how she began the series. If you're already a fan of the books, some of this won't be new -- but it's still fascinating. For instance, "Because I wanted her to be a female wish-fulfillment figure, I wanted her to be like James Bond, with better clothes and fewer gadgets." Bingo! Greenwood adds, "She's a bold creature for the 1920s but not an impossible one. None of the things she does are out of the question for that brittle, revolutionary period." And then there's the author's insight on the balance that good historical fiction must convey: "Too much detail and the reader is bored. Too little and it fails to convince."

But of course, the whole point of this collection is to present the stories themselves. It's actually a republication of a 2007 group, with four brand new stories added, all set in 1929. The author admits she's done a light re-edit on the earlier stories to tidy up some loose ends -- and then explains more. "Hotel Splendide" is based on an urban myth first written down in the 1920s; "The Vanishing of Jock McHale's Hat" was written for a Christmas collection ("I wanted something light and frivolous, yet with dark undertones"). "Marrying the Bookie's Daughter" explores Phryne's personal independence (can you really expect her to accept a marriage proposal?). And in the midst of all this, of course, these are proper mystery stories, embedded with neat clues, clever puzzle twists, and Phryne's marvelous personal style: "You horrible little insect," she tells one criminal, adding, "I suppose it is educational to find out that you can't have everything that you want," as she offers to lock up the perpetrator with a snake, instead of turning him over to the police.

Summer's just about here — and this is a great addition to the reading pile for real relaxation and plenty of smiles. If you read a copy ASAP, you might even be ready to re-read it at the opposite end of the season. Think of how frugal you'll prove yourself to be! And by that point, you may even have decided which of Phryne Fisher's tea gowns would suit your own style. (Right?)

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

Outrageously Fun Summer Reading: BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK, Tamara Berry

It's such a great feeling: plunging into a really good mystery that also makes me choke with laughter, then looking up the author for the first time and realizing: She's written other books that I can order up! There's going to be more fun in my summer of reading, thanks to discovering Tamara Berry.

BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK starts with a delightful premise: Tess Harrow, a bestselling thriller author, has inherited a rustic cabin in the woods, one in shabby enough shape that it could hide a few bodies, for an imagination like hers. But how Tess is going to make time for writing, when she's also brought along her (rightfully) bitter and resentful teen daughter, will demand true creativity. 

Fortunately for Tess, there's no time to worry about that -- within minutes of their arrival at the cabin, an explosion shakes the mother and daughter, followed by fish parts and (gulp) human body parts landing on their vacation shelter. 

Thanks to the setting in the big woods of the Northwest, Tamara Berry can toss in sightings of Bigfoot and an active logging culture. But the discovery that both the traveling librarian and the local sheriff have read all Tess's books -- and have ideas about whether or not an author belongs in their real crime scene -- turns the plot into a madcap escapade.

You know the author rule about pushing your character to cope with more threat, more danger? Berry pushes Tess to cope with the ridiculous yet real, as exotic animals trample the scene and Tess attempts to climb to the cabin roof in hopes of getting enough cell signal to demand investigation of the tangled but necessarily connected events:

There were times when having a brilliant, observant, hard-edged child was a source of inordinate pride for Tess. This was not one of those times.

She threw up her hands. "You win. I want to call the sheriff and see if he's checked on those toucans for me. This is getting ridiculous. It's been two days, and no one has said a word. I can't be the only one who's bothered by them." ...

Nothing she tried to do made any sense. No twist of the plot, no turn of the screw fit the complexities of the story—particularly now that it included flamingos. A daring escape from the zoo occurred to her only to be immediately cast aside ... Detective Gonzalez was on the hunt for a killer, not a PETA vigilante.

In addition to the wacky caper aspect and the smart conversations Tess gets into (when she can get someone besides her daughter to listen), BURIED IN A GOOD BOOK embraces another pleasure: When Tess takes risks, they're intentional and part of unraveling the crime(s) at hand -- not because of stupid mistakes. So this book is head and shoulders above many cozies. In fact, if it weren't for the itch of potential romance threaded through, the book would barely fit into the cozy category at all.

Let's see, if Donald Westlake set a book in the Northwest woods and made his protagonists into smart women, and then embedded his trademark capers and humor -- no, that might be taking the possibilities a bit far. 

Besides, I enjoy Tess Harrow so much as written:

"Now, you see here, young man," she said. The steely note in her voice remained. "I don't know how you're tangled up in this dead body business, or why you're stalking me outside a grocery store, but let's get one thing straight. You don't approach me when I'm with my daughter, understand? She's a minor, and if you say one thing that's even remotely threatenig in her earshot, I'll have the sheriff on your doorstep faster than you can say harassment. ... You might have a hundred alibis, but it still wouldn't matter to me."

Put this into the summer TBR stack. (Release date is May 24 from Poisoned Pen Press.) Be a super good friend to someone else and order or buy an extra copy while you're at it. Might as well share the laughter.

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

New V.I. Warshawski Sleuthing from Sara Paretsky, OVERBOARD

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort: Max comments, ‘If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.’”

No good deed goes unpunished. Detective V.I. (Vic, or Victoria) Warshawski may have only let her dogs out for a short run, but they take off by the waterfront and find a half-dead young woman lying among the rocks. Of course Vic calls for emergency services, and by the time the fragile teen is getting help at the hospital, the private investigator has got trouble with the police, the hospital, and, most importantly, someone from the Chicago underworld who thinks the immigrant teen was carrying a vital small item and must have slipped it to V.I. during the rescue. Not so—but is anyone going to believe Vic, or is her life going to be repeatedly in jeopardy at every move she makes?

Of course, her life is never simple enough to just have one crisis underway: She’s also trying to provide protection for some aging Jewish friends whose synagogue is under attack. Oddly, there’s a big-money real estate deal offered for the old building. Is the vandalism connected, as a form of pressure? As she gradually begins to also see parallels between the two ongoing crises, Vic also suspects someone on the police force is involved with the mob and its money.

That’s enough to concern her friends, especially after one particular officer with a reputation for torture and menace targets Vic maliciously, with both language and force.

Her trusted advisor Lotty puts it bluntly: “It’s shocking, and deplorable, that you and this young man were molested,” Lotty said. “But, Victoria, please be realistic. If the police really are covering up a major crime, you can get yourself seriously wounded physically, on top of the degradation of a strip search.” When Lotty asks Vic to back off, for the sake of the friends who love her, it seems important to do so.

Yet other forces are in action: The rescued teen vanishes from the hospital; when Vic tracks down the youth’s Hungarian grandmother, she finds collusion between a nursing home and the black-ops police officers. More assaults on the synagogue distress Vic’s elderly friends to almost the breaking point. She clearly can’t help being pulled back into this dangerous mess, can she?

One of the pleasures of reading Sara Paretsky’s Warshawski novels is that despite the threats and pressure, there’s relatively little gore spread around, so the focus can stay on the perpetrators and their motives. Even the bent police pressure on Vic amounts to little more than battering her (although, granted, much worse gets threatened). Series readers will recognize the steady build-up of Vic’s insistence on justice at any cost, a reliable characteristic of these books. New to V.I. Warshawski? Relax and enjoy the well-plotted story and don’t worry about earlier titles—Parestsky doesn’t embed anything that calls for reading the other books, and her highly professional narrative makes it easy to catch Warshawski’s motivations and maneuvers. The quirks of the Chicago waterfront add to the book’s drama, and to the factors stacked up against this lone detective. But don’t take the “lone” notion too seriously: Vic’s willingness to be a friend, with all her heart, gains an equal return, and she’s well supported.

One of Vic’s friends makes a comment near the end that sums up why this investigator finds her work worth the effort, despite its risks and her often wounded body: Max comments, “If everyone sat at home watching Netflix, we’d never have any justice in this life.”

For Vic, that’s not going to be a problem.

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

BAD ACTORS, Sardonic and Delightful Espionage from Mick Herron

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

 “Herron’s plot is packed with twists and delightfully sardonic conversations, and the book’s only major flaw is that at some point it ends, and one must resume normal life.”

It’s hard to miss the promotion on television and online for “Slow Horses,” as the earliest in Mick Herron’s Slough House spy novels jumps genre into an Apple TV+ show featuring Gary Oldman. But Bad Actors, eighth in the series, has no connection to performance, despite the title that might immediately pop a stage into the back of an American reader’s mind.

It turns out that the British term “bad actor” means a person who’s done things that are harmful, illegal, or immoral. Herron’s Slough House is a discard group for MI5 spies who’ve messed up and now get tedious assignments sorting through social media or phone books or worse. Every spy assigned there—dustbinned might be a good term to add—knows they’ve made a mess somewhere in their recent past, and they won’t be allowed back into the Park, the office of really performing agents, ever again.

Well, unless you count Ashley Khan. Quite young and still deluding herself that the infamous Diana Taverner will take her back into important operations, Ashley is also obsessed with the source of her demotion: Jackson Lamb, head of Slough House. On a recent assignment, Lamb caught her following one of his spies. They may be (they are) all failures, but still, they are his, and he doesn’t allow anyone to mess with them (much). So he’d broken Ashley’s arm and sent her back to Taverner, whose acid response was, “You broke her, you own her.” Back to Slough House she went.

Since Ashley is as paranoid as any other spy, and clueless as well, she’s baffled by the interactions around her in Slough House. While she obsesses on punishing Lamb, the team is actually in crisis mode. Cokehead Shirley Dander’s been send to a sanitarium to dry out; narcissist Roddy Ho is creating avatar girlfriends for himself as a distraction; River Cartwright, the most potentially sane of the Slough House discards, isn’t even around, presumed dead or permanently missing.

And like Ashley, most readers will rush a third of the way into the book, at least, before confirming that almost all the machinations taking place have Jackson Lamb behind them. One could certainly be excused for not looking at Lamb—between his predictably terrible farts, his smoking and spitting, and his disgustingly soiled clothing and office, he’s both camouflaged and repellent. But he’s also brilliant, and much sharper, it turns out, than Diana Taverner herself.

Thanks to adept storytelling, readers are aware before Lamb (or is that impossible?) that ex-spy Claude Whelan, a tool in use by Taverner, is muddying all possible waters with a notion of payback on Lamb, and he’s more effective than young Ashley:

Where did Whelan’s loyalties lie? Not with either side. Not with any bad actor, whether in the Service he’s led or the government he’d served. … It still rankled, his fall from grace, and why shouldn’t he take some matter of revenge? It wasn’t really him, he knew that. He was nobody’s idea of an avenging knight. But wasn’t it time for a change.

Soon dominoes are tumbling in various directions, only Lamb really knows their triggers, and as a savior of anyone or anything, Lamb’s even less likely than Claude Whelan. The fun (and poignant bonding) of Bad Actors lies in watching all the others, at Slough House and beyond, gradually realize that only Lamb’s irreverent demands and plans are likely to get them out of a mess that’s so absurd, so wracked with capers and collapses, then even Claude Whelan will say he can’t tear his eyes away.

Herron’s plot is packed with twists and delightfully sardonic conversations, and the book’s only major flaw is that at some point it ends, and one must resume normal life. But there may be a flavor of wicked humor remaining in what one does afterward—along with great satisfaction at what Lamb and the “Slow Horses” pull out of their grubby, out-of-fashion hats.

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

Traditional Sleuthing with Jewish Touches, from Andy Weinberger

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books] 

“This fine traditional LA crime novel with its Jewish tang and its quandaries of the elderly provides enjoyable entertainment.”

Amos Parisman is feeling his age—he needs naps, he misses his wife (she’s in a care home with dementia), he has to be careful about remembering his keys. But that doesn’t mean he’s ready to quit the private eye work he’s done all his life. So when a “homeless lady” in is neighborhood is murdered and his police buddy Lieutenant Bill Malloy is open to his help, Andy’s eager to contribute. Anything that will dispel the fog of aimlessness and sorrow in his life is more than welcome.

The lieutenant half apologizes for the collaboration, and hopes Amos doesn’t mind. He’s blunt: “Mind? Are you kidding? This is exactly the kind of case I need.” He admits, “It’s a police matter. Only I happen to know a little bit about her. And besides, Bill—this retirement thing?—between you and me, I’d rather be dead.”

Although Amos is not religious, he’s 100 percent Jewish in heritage and outlook, and his thoughts and conversations are sprinkled with scraps of Yiddish and wry comments about his mixed neighborhood in Los Angeles.

And that’s the fun half of this old-fashioned PI tale, because the other half, getting acquainted with a lot of homeless people and the not always pure-minded folks who “help” them takes a lot of Amos’s energy. That energy drain is also part of why his gentle romance on the side with a wealthy Jewish woman is pretty low key, mostly holding hands, kissing, and sharing a bottle of wine (much more for her). Amos has a moral code and he’s still in love with his wife, absent though her mind has become—and yet this new “girlfriend,” Mara, wants him to move in with her, to save money and be less lonely.

This might not be great for Mara’s granddaughter, Amos considers: “She’s a smart girl and has figured out that I’m quietly shtupping her grandma. His effort to hold Mara back isn’t exactly working, since she can point to his efforts to assist the police as being unpaid, so somehow worth less. Amos, on the other hand, says “The pool old woman in the dumpster? The throwaway?” Mara is blunt: “She’s not going anywhere.”

Maybe his PI work soothes his conscience, which is not exactly happy with the situation. Or maybe he’s just stubborn and doesn’t want to let go, the way he hasn’t let go of his wife. But isn’t that a good think?

This fine traditional LA crime novel with its Jewish tang and its quandaries of the elderly provides enjoyable entertainment, and is the third in Andy Weinberger’s own late-life second career (he’s a bookseller first of all). By the time Amos figures out what’s actually going on in the crescendo of deaths of the homeless, he’s got himself into a risky situation that someone his age should have known better about.

Then again, who should be better at making moral choices than an old Jewish PI who wishes he could always figure out what’s right? When the case finally ends, Amos says, “It’s not a good thing. The only good thing is that it’s over."

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

Terrific Short Crime Fiction in July Anthology, JACKED, from Run Amok Books

If your crime fiction reading is dominated by the books that get advertising dollars, that's completely understandable -- because those are the ones you hear about often.

But where's the adventure in biting the hook when it's baited with those ad dollars?

Great news: Run Amok Books, a small "indie" press near Princeton, NJ, has a new crime fiction imprint. JACKED is part of that launch. Pulled together by author/editor Vern Smith, who's already had a finalist novella for Canada's Arthur Ellis Award, this new release includes 21 stories of murder, mayhem, and wry mystery that rise way above expectations. 

That's because the authors providing the stories are already seasoned in this field. Take the story "Killing in Periot," a short pithy tale of family disfunction. It's by Allison Whittenberg, who's racked up three Pushcart Prize nominations. A cross between a hard-boiled approach and a YA revenge tale, the story builds to the perfect finale in a single word: "Good." Unforgettable.

"Len Bias" turns crime fighting and the war against drugs inside out in completely unexpected ways. Setting it in Portland, Zephaniah Sole offers a cop with a bad back  (don't they all have that?) who proudly reports that "I'm the FBI guy embedded in the team." The team turns out to have a brilliant way of infiltrating the worst drug business, and I shook my head for quite a while after I figured it out. Sole gives a clean, clear, well-paced approach to the twist, and an astute reader may get it, just before the author pulls back the curtain.

And what about that creepy approach that made Edgar Allan Poe a trailblazer? Meagan Lucas, highly experienced as both author and editor, shapes "Picking the Carcass" into a women's updated version of "The Gold Bug." Shivers. More shivers. What a mom will do to get by, right?

My favorite might be Ricky Sprague's "The Gryfters," but then again, that might be because it takes root in some of the best of both hard-boiled and caper fiction. The first line is, "I handled by first carjacking with real sang-froid." Could that be you?

I could go on, crooning over this nest of snarky, crazy, neatly twisted stories until I've had a chance to find a reason to name each one of them "the best" in some aspect. But it makes a lot more sense to stop here, and let you look ito JACKED for yourself.  It's coming out July 1 (can be pre-ordered now!) and in the meantime you can check out the press website (https://runamokbooks.website) and some cool readings by the authors on the Run Amok Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/runamokbooks). Make sure to check out the very lively and intriguing blog attached to the website, too.

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

Solve the Murder, Cancel the Curse: PLEADING THE FISH from Bree Baker

The seventh in the Seaside Café Mystery series, PLEADING THE FISH, sends Everly Swan into a desperate dive for research that may prove it's safe for her to marry Detective Grady Hays (and become Mama to his adorable son Denver).  Everly's long-established family in the seaside town of Charm, North Carolina, has far too many widows in it, and family lore says that the men chosen by the Swan women die quickly, struck by a historic curse.

The curse, if it exists, dates back to the original owners of the house that's become Everly's sweet-tea and gourmet food café. The place comes with a protective seagull and a hauntingly clever cat that Everly suspects could be those original lovers, hanging around to comfort and warn her.

But the dangers she faces, as an amateur sleuth motivated by love and loyalty, are very real and very much in the present. Series readers will sympathize when they notice that Everly is going to have to "make nice" with her childhood enemy Mary Grace in order to dig into what's motivating the small town's latest crime wave. Whoever is responsible clearly realizes that Everly is on the hunt—because the criminal keeps dumping seaweed and fish all over her vehicles, as well as threatening her directly on the town's gossip website.

No need to read the other six books in the series first—Baker does a nice job of  bringing in the pertinent details. But it will be a lot more fun if you already have, plus if this is your first peek into a Bree Baker book, beware! You may find yourself buying all the rest of the series, for a good summer of relaxing romantic suspense. 

"Bree Baker" is a pen name of Julie Ann Lindsey, whose website shows her other series. Perfect for a very feminine stack of books to sweeten the evenings. And, of course, PLEADING THE FISH comes with recipes at the end, this time including the famous Swan lemon cake, "to bolster a hero's heart."

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

Compelling, Revealing, Fierce, and Agonizing: Eli Cranor's Debut Crime Novel, DON'T KNOW TOUGH

Dennis Lehane did it for Boston: gave us the gritty lives of people growing up impoverished not just in terms of money and power, but self-esteem and affection. And then Lehane turned each narrative on its ear to show us the love and courage that burn underneath—not like an unquenched flame, but like vinegar or whiskey poured into an open wound.

In his first published novel, Eli Cranor does the same for Arkansas—not in a city but in the dangerous fields of high school football. And the even more perilous crowds of spectators, whose rough cheers and rougher sneers suggest they're ardent bystanders ... but who have built and incited the violence playing out in front of them.

Desperate but still somehow idealistic, incoming coach Trent Powers intends to bring his unruly football players into enough collaboration to win games. He must, to regain his wife's respect and some measure of the control that his Caifornia father-in-law has stripped from him. Still convinced he can be a savior, he's willing to do anything to rescue a possible team star and capture the region's prized title.

But he hasn't ever met someone like Billy Lowe before—or principal Don Bradshaw, already immersed in the team's harsh masculinity and its local roots of abuse. Bluntly, Bradshaw tells Trent Powers, "What's up is a sh**-storm, and you're sitting in the eye of it."

Extraordinary football player that he is, Billy's at the core of the team's dark nightmarish actions. The principal claims it's because of the Blackness in Billy and his older (and also game-fierce) brothers—an unproven but widely asserted claim, and a pillar of the book's Southern Gothic framework. "You got to know how to handle a Lowe."

But Cranor strips his characters under blazing spotlights, letting them narrate in turn, and readers soon know more about Billy's desperation than anyone at the school guesses. Here's a sample of Billy's home life:

I heard Him flick his lighter.

Whole body go tight at the smell, feeling that burn all over again. ... The other night when he stuck me. I's sitting on the ground against the sofa, holding Little Brother, watching Wheel of Fortune, and then he stuck that red [cigarette] tip in my neck, like it was some kind of joke. I just squeezed Little Brother tight. Just took it. Been taking his sh** for years. Back when I's a kid and He's still bigger than me—I had to take it. Didn't have no choice. Don't know if that's what I's thinking when He stuck me, but I knew I couldn't let Him see me hurt. Little Brother started screaming, loud and crazy, like he could feel the fire in my blood.

That time, Billy's Little Brother got a vicious and humiliating punishment for witnessing Billy's pain. This time, Billy's past his own limit and lets loose one massive punch that knocks over his mother's "boyfriend." The man's still alive (though he doesn't deserve to be) when Billy takes off to wash himself clean at the river—and get drunk.

When "He" dies, Billy's the immediate and only suspect. Coach Powers struggles naively to rescue Billy from this mess, the only way this outsider coach can press the team to the title. Meanwhile, two women with very different motives get involved, and despite the pulse-pounding action and violence of the story, the truth of the death emerges slowly and indirectly. And maybe not in time for anyone, least of all the coach, to be saved.

Though DON'T KNOW TOUGH is packed with brutality and its consequences, Cranor metes it out in precise doses that punch to the gut yet keep the pages turning. Grim, bleak, even the hope that does arrive—and yes, it does—comes tainted with high costs and dark potential. So take a good soul-clearing walk after reading this. But it is, in its own powerful way, well worth the pain.

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.

Aimée Leduc Risks All, in MURDER AT THE PORTE DE VERSAILLES, by Cara Black

This 20th adventure of the style-conscious and cash-poor Parisian detective Aimée Leduc takes the single parent into a collision of dates and pressures, and Cara Black ramps the tension up with page-turning plotting that never relaxes.

It's November 2001—do you recall those first few months after 9/11, when the world had become (for Americans in particular) a much more frightening place? With bomb threats and danger "codes" and new forms of airline security? 

All that and more are resonating for Leduc, as she hosts a birthday celebration for her three-year-old daughter, mourns her father (he'd died on the same date), and begins to consider leaving Paris behind, to live more safely on a farm with her little daughter's father. But wait, that would also mean leaving behind her detective agency, and her close friends and colleagues, too.

Before the pressure has a chance to reach decision point, a crime shatters the family-and-friends gathering: Boris Viard, who left the party to go back to work and pick up his forgotten gift for the child, is desperately injured in a bomb explosion at his workplace, the Laboratoire Central de Police. Now it's a crime scene, for MURDER AT THE PORTE DE VERSAILLES.

Fans of the series and newcomers alike will guess quickly that by sending her little one away with papa to the farm in order to concentrate on clearing Boris of accusations that he set the bomb, Aimée makes an unexpected gap in her emotional life—one that another investigator may sense and be drawn toward.

Or is it just her detective skills that counterterrorism pro Loïc Bellan is recruiting?

"You owe me," Aimée said. "Plus, I'm your colleague now."

She put her hand on his arm. He turned, an intent look in his eyes. She inhaled the leather tang of his jacket, realized how warm his arm was through his sweater sleeve. The heat he generated just sitting there. She noticed the length of his eyelashes.

Idiot. Stop it. Heat flushed her neck.

Never get involved with a flic.

Especially a flic her father had a history with.

The effort to clear Boris will take all the investigatory skills and connections that Leduc and her detection partner René can muster. But it may also cost her more than she can afford.

Cara Black's narrative skills and suspense-laden pacing have never been better. The absence of that adored daughter frees up Leduc to push harder and absorb extra risks, and without details of little sticky hands, babysitters, and bedtimes, the action moves with power and authenticity. 

New to the series? Don't worry, there's no catch-up needed. Long-term fan? Enjoy Black's surge into her best writing yet.

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

Emotional Thriller, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BENNETTS by Lisa Scottoline

 

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Scottoline’s flawless plot twists create a bond with this scrambling, desperate dad in his new-found courage and hastily recruited allies.”

Lisa Scottoline’s thrillers are always tight, taut page-turners, packed with action and risk and suspense. In What Happened to the Bennetts, she crafts fresh intensity because of the powerful emotions at stake, reassembling like kaleidoscope pieces with every fresh scene.

The opening chapter presents a parent’s nightmare: Jason Bennett, a court reporter with a specialty in lip reading, is headed home with his wife and two kids in the family car after his daughter Allison’s lacrosse game. When a truck begins to tailgate them, he’s ready to pull over and get out of the way. Instead, a couple of men attempt to carjack them, and of course Jason yields—anything to keep his family safe!

But instead, despite the family’s scramble out of the car, one of the criminals fires at them, a shot that will be fatal Jason’s daughter. Before the Bennetts even have a chance to face what’s just happen, FBI agents scoop them up, convinced that the criminals are part of a dangerous gang of drug traffickers. And for the rest of the Bennetts to survive, they’ve got to enter witness protection. Right. Now.

Special Agent Kingston pounds the urgency into them: “A carjacking usually occurs for one of three reasons. Number one, the car is stolen to flee the scene of a crime. Number two, the car is stolen because it’s a specific make, as part of an auto theft ring. Number three, the victim is in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

In this case, the FBI concludes, is option number one. Except that since one of the criminals killed the other during the attempt, there’s going to be a lie circulated that Jason Bennett shot the second criminal, and in a gang like this one, revenge will already be in motion.

So that’s enough pressure to put the family into hiding in a rural back woods, with protection. But WITSEC doesn’t have what they need to process Allison’s death (they can’t even be at her funeral!) or deal with rumors circulating about them (Jason’s wife was having an affair, Jason is killing anyone involved). Let alone the emotional distress of Allison’s younger brother, who’s blaming himself and spiraling down rapidly.

It’s Jason’s point of view that carries the book, and his self-blame, as the dad who should have been able to protect his daughter, is enormous. He could spiral down, too—but he’s already shown his courage and devotion in many small ways, so when he takes things into his own hands, determined to confront the criminal gang and somehow get his remaining family members out of this nightmare purgatory, he’s acting from love and determination. And his suspicions soar sky high when he puts together his wife’s nearly accidental affair with the law team for the criminal consortium. She hadn’t even realized this … and now, Jason finds, “I couldn’t say another word. I couldn’t stay in the room with her.” Because it’s starting to look like there’s been nothing accidental in all of this, but the FBI isn’t “getting it,” and it’s up to Jason to find a way.

“I had to get back and tell Dom [an FBI agent] everything. My family wouldn’t be safe outside the program until the conspiracy had been exposed.”

Nothing’s really prepared Jason Bennett for this kind of mission. But he has the most powerful possible reasons for pursuing it. And Scottoline’s flawless plot twists create a bond with this scrambling, desperate dad in his new-found courage and hastily recruited allies.

Clear the calendar before you start reading; What Happened to the Bennetts is so good, you may not want to put it down until the hard-won and well-earned finale.

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