The most famous characters represented in the titular subgenre are Don Pendleton’s Mack Bolan, The Executioner, and Richard Sapir and Warren Murphy’s Remo Williams, The Destroyer. But through the late 1960s and since, they have had more colleagues than you might have imagined, around 130 per the back cover blurb. Arranged alphabetically from Able Team (51 titles by various writers under the house name Dick Stivers) to Z-Comm (four books by David Alexander writing as Kyle Maning), each main entry describes the series and its central character, gives biographical information on the author where appropriate, and lists the titles with entry numbers and dates of publication. Appearances in comics, films, and other media are noted after the title listings. In cases of house names and ghost writing, the real author’s name when known appears in parentheses after the title. Especially interesting to pseudonym buffs is the listing under Killmaster, the espionage incarnation of Nick Carter. Among the writers behind the Carter name over the 261-volume series were Michael Avallone, Lionel White, Thomas Chastain, Martin Cruz Smith, W.T. Ballard, Dennis Lynds, Bill Crider, Robert J. Randisi, and Gayle Lynds. Thirty-two pages of appendices discuss such matters as crossovers, reference sources, parodies, one-shots, precursors (Robin Hood, Bulldog Drummond, the Saint, plus various private eyes and characters from comics and hero pulps), and the future of the form. Despite the title, some characters who appeared in hardcover, e.g. Jeff Lindsay’s serial killer Dexter Morgan, have been included.

Unfortunately, the index is inconsistent in its coverage: There is no explanation of guidelines for inclusion, and some personal names that come up in the lists and appendices don’t appear. Since Allen J. Hubin’s crime fiction bibliography is presumably the source of most of the pseudonym information, a nod in the one-page secondary bibliography would have been appropriate. Though arguably for a very specialized audience, this reference will please pulp and paperback scholars.

One of the best is Roz Southey’s Secret Lament, which transports us back to 1736 and the dual-dimensioned world of Charles Patterson, composer, music teacher, and sometimes-detective. Patterson is once again (after Broken Harmony and Chords and Discords) set upon by ruffians while he is trying to keep body and soul together by playing in a theatrical band. When someone attempts to kill director John Mazzanti, Patterson agrees to find the culprit. However, it’s Julia, Mazzanti’s daughter, who winds up dead.

The weird delights of this semi-occult series can’t be overstated. While Patterson snoops through the streets of Newcastle, England, spirits of the dead do what they can to aid him. Unfortunately, they can’t move from the very spot where they met their ends, thus their help is limited—and they also carry grudges. Protagonist Patterson is everything one could wish for in a self-styled detective: affable, when he’s not bashing crooks on the head with skillets; proud, because he recognizes his own musical talent even though the powers-that-be don’t; and curious, especially on his forays in to the parallel dimension that looks almost—but not quite—similar to his own. Time spent with Patterson in 18th century England is a goofy and hilarious trip down History Lane

Before television shows like CSI and Cold Case and before Patricia Cornwell's Kay Scarpetta medical examiner mysteries, there were actual forensic investigators bringing serial killers and other murderers to justice long after their trails had grown as cold as the victims they had killed. The Murder Room, although reading like a mystery novel, is a celebration of the actual achievements of these remarkable justice seekers.

The idea to hold a monthly meeting in Philadelphia of the finest criminal justice minds in the country (and from around the world) was the brainchild of former FBI agent, Bill Fleischer and two of his friends. Frank Bender was a forensic sculptor who could recreate faces from the barest-boned of skeletons and Richard Walter was a forensic psychologist who could develop uncannily correct profiles of killers from just looking at a crime scene. The common bond among them was a feeling that too many murders were going unsolved and the victims' families deserved justice.

Calling themselves the Vidocq Society (named after the 19th century French detective who founded the Surete in Paris, inspired the Sherlock Holmes mysteries and was a model for Scotland Yard), this unique gathering of detectives, beginning in 1989, would study an unsolved murder at each meeting and use their unique investigative skills to solve them. This book chronicles some of their most intriguing cases, some going back as far as 50 years.

A case I found particularly interesting involved a man who massacred his entire family one afternoon, including his wife, his mother, and three children, then calmly left notes for his neighbors and pastor before escaping and avoiding justice for more than 18 years. A combination of psychology and an artistic rendering of how he might look after so long—including horn-rimmed glasses as a disguise—resulted in his capture. Although some of the cases are heartbreaking and horrendous, their solutions are all the more satisfying because they are not fiction. Michael Capuzzo has been a prize-winning reporter and columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The Miami Herald.

There's something rotten in the air in Sheriff Dan Rhodes' Texas county, and it's the fowl smell of chickens from a giant chicken farm owned by one Lester Hamilton (the chickens aren't giant-sized; the farm is). Unfortunately, though the citizens are up in arms about it, the sheriff can't do much about the smell. However, when Lester is shortly found floating face down in an abandoned rock pit, the investigation gives Rhodes a chance to kill two birds with one stone.

The sheriff is faced with the difficult task of finding out who hated Lester enough to kill him, which was just about everybody within a mile or two of the farm. And hate wasn't the only possible motive, seeing as the deceased was a wealthy man and the farm a valuable asset. Who stood to gain from his death?

Rhodes is soft-spoken, straight-forward, determined, and has a dry sense of humor that helps him deal with officious politicians and ornery townsfolk alike. It also comes in handy when he has to deal with his two deputies who vie with each other to try his patience using Abbott and Costello style routines that would have made those two venerable movie comics blush. If you can handle their wisecracking humor and painful puns such as "No Les, no more," you'll enjoy this otherwise straight-forward police procedural with a Texas drawl.

This is the 17th Sheriff Dan Rhodes mystery, the first of which won an Anthony Award for Best First Novel. In Murder in the Air, although Crider breaks no new ground, he continues his mastery of the series that remains as popular as ever.

Carole Nelson Douglas is at the top of her form with a fast-paced, funny plot that segues from the Las Vegas strip to Northern Ireland while providing a vastly entertaining intertwined tale.

Sleek, sophisticated Midnight Louie, that most precocious black cat and self-described “noir kind of guy,” prowls again in his 22nd delightful adventure. This time, the furry private eye enlists a posse of feline friends to solve murders both past and present while taking on the mob in Las Vegas.

Louie's owner, Temple Barr, is public relations consultant for the boutique Vegas hotel Crystal Phoenix, and her boss decides to hike sagging revenues by creating a Mecca for mob aficionados in the city that never sleeps. The plan includes an inventive underground “chunnel of crime” stretching from crime scene to crime scene. Temple takes on the project while balancing worries over her missing former ex-boyfriend, Max the magician, and dealing with her present fiancé, Matt, a talk show host.

Veteran mystery author Douglas deftly switches from character to character in alternating chapters to tell her tale, thereby revealing Louie’s delightful first-person (first-cat?) wry musings and take on crime-solving techniques. Interspersed are chapters that examine Temple's own quandaries. Not only cat lovers will be engaged by Douglas’ tale. Astute readers will also recognize an alphabetical cast to this well-received series.

Think Deliverance and you’ll be primed and properly braced to experience this excellent mystery pitting good guys against the proverbial villains, struggling against the vicissitudes of uncooperative nature. On Location features Rita Farmer, ex-actor and current law student, along with an extensive cast of supporting characters. Among these are Rita's six-year old son, Petey, her best friend Daniel, and her sister, Gina, with whom she has a complicated relationship stemming from a childhood accident. But wait, there are more: Gina’s problematic old flame, private investigator George Rowe, and the brothers Lance and Kenner de Sauvenard, scions of a wealthy Oregon logging family.

The action begins when sister Gina and her wealthy fiancé, Lance, hike to a camp he frequented as a child. Confident that no map is necessary, Lance quickly gets them lost in the forest as a torrential rainfall begins. As you might guess, the desperate duo runs up against an even more desperate band of criminals, and all hell breaks loose. Of course, Rita and crew hasten to the rescue.

On Location is plot-intensive and skillfully so, as numerous, intricately orchestrated plot strands intertwine and converge, leading to the inevitable conclusion. Readers, however, should not be complacent as there are surprises and shocks aplenty along the course, which Sims conjures up for our delectation.

In addition to plot complexity, On Location features realistic, significant relationships between characters, depicting everything from maternal love to sibling rivalry. Sims does an admirable job in representing the human element, warts and all. While she has cast protagonist Rita Farmer in two previous outings (The Actress and The Extra), On Location is by far Rita’s best role to date. I, for one, can’t wait to see her next dramatic appearance in this series that is definitely worth the price of admission.

There are several things you should know about northern New Jersey attorney Andy Carpenter: He has a wicked sense of humor; he’s independently wealthy; he avoids real work like the plague; and he loves dogs. His fondness for canines often involves him in interesting legal work, as it does in Dog Tags, when a German Shepherd named Milo and his owner, Iraq War vet Billy Zimmerman, are incarcerated in connection with a murder case. Andy discovers that Milo and Billy have gotten themselves tangled up in a shady conspiracy whose principals are more than willing to let his troubles obscure their larger, more sinister plan.

Now, while this isn’t Crime and Punishment, it is well written and entertaining, ideal for summer reading. This particular tale (the seventh in a series) calls to mind the works of such authors as Harlan Coben (for its New Jersey setting), Robert Tannenbaum (for its well-drawn cast of supporting characters, à la Butch Karp and friends), and Janet Evanovich (for its quirky mix of sudden violence and off-the-wall humor). I suppose you could also say it evokes the work of Albert Payson Terhune (another dog lover from New Jersey!), in that it features several noble examples of man’s best friend, such as Milo, and Tara, Carpenter’s golden retriever. In the final analysis, all these disparate elements are effectively combined, resulting in a quick, winning, satisfying read.

A final note: besides its literary merits, another neat thing about this series is thinking up clever titles for future books. With previous entries such as Play Dead and New Tricks, can books like Dog Tired, Dog Eat Dog, and Leader of the Pack be far behind?