Murder on Wheels
Bill Crider

Being a Texan, I feel it’s only right for me to recommend Murder on Wheels, presented by the Austin Mystery Writers. Kaye George explains in her introduction that the genesis of the anthology was a discussion of a Megabus trip, and “The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round,” one of her two stories in the book, is an ingenious investigation of that setting. The remaining ten stories all involve transportation, mostly wheeled, although V. P. Chandler’s “Rota Fortunae” is set on a sailing ship in the 18th century. The name of the ship that provides the story’s title means “wheel of fate,” however, so it certainly fits. “Red’s White F-150 Blues” by Scott Montgomery is a wild story of the things that can go wrong when you do a favor for a friend. Reavis Wortham spins a compact yarn about a “Family Business” that spans decades. “Mome Rath, My Sweet” by Gale Albright is a mash-up of Alice in Wonderland and a hardboiled PI novel, which gives Hollywood PI Jake Grimm a tough case, but then he’s just the guy to solve it. Earl Staggs is a man who knows school buses, and “Dead Man on a School Bus” makes use of that knowledge with his story’s unusual setting. The other stories here will all keep you entertained as they roll along.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 17:31:54
Scorched Noir
Bill Crider

Garnett Elliott’s collection Scorched Noir features eight stories previously published in online venues such as Plots With Guns, Hardluck Stories, and others. Elliott describes the stories in his introduction as being about “life in the scorching alkaline desert, desperate folks, and Old Mexico dreaming somewhere beyond the desert.” As that comment and the title of the book indicate, the setting here is an important part of these bleak, arresting stories. The title also lets you know that these stories often aren’t going to end well for the characters, whether they’re the E.R. staff in “The Darkest of the Debbies” or the selfie-taking, tweeting Dwayne in “Snowflake.” These stories are all very short, but they have a powerful punch.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 17:46:42
Jewish Noir
Bill Crider

Jewish Noir is an anthology edited by Kenneth Wishnia, who also provides an excellent introduction in which he says, “We wanted a multiplicity of voices in this anthology, and while most of the contributing authors are in fact Jewish, we adopted a generous ‘you don’t have to be Jewish to write Jewish noir’ policy. (See if you can figure out who’s who.)” I wouldn’t presume to know who’s who, but I did spot one byline that tipped me off. Those who know me know that the first story I’d read would be one with the title of “Feeding the Crocodile,” which turns out to be by Moe Prager, who is, at least in the books I’ve read, a non-observant Jew. So I know I got one right. Jewish Noir is a huge volume, with more than 30 stories. The final story, by Harlan Ellison, is one of two reprints, and since it’s an Ellison story, it naturally comes with an interesting and entertaining introduction by the author. The other reprint is from the year 1912, but this is its first appearance in English. It’s “A Simkhe,” by Yente Serdatzky. The table of contents of Jewish Noir is star-studded, to say the least, and while not all the stories are truly noir, they’re all truly well worth your time. This is an excellent anthology.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 17:51:02

More than 30 excellent tales from the likes of Harlan Ellison, Yente Serdatzky, and Moe Prager.

Detroit Is Our Beat
Bill Crider

I’ve written more than once in this column about my appreciation of Loren Estleman’s stories about four Detroit cops during WWII. The cops are known as the Four Horsemen, and the stories about them have all appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Now they’re gathered into a volume titled Detroit Is Our Beat, which contains ten stories, one of them new and written especially for this collection. They’re all as appropriately hardboiled as stories set in one of America’s toughest cities in one of its wildest eras should be. Don’t skip Estleman’s fine “Preface: Blackjacks and B-24s” or his “Valedictory Note,” a tribute to Elmore Leonard.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 17:55:24
Fiction River #15: Recycled Pulp
Bill Crider

John Helfers, the editor of Fiction River #15: Recycled Pulp, and series editors Kristine Kathryn Rusch and Dean Wesley Smith, have come up with a twist on an old pulp idea. Pulp writers sometimes wrote to order. The editor would show them a cover, and they’d write a story based on the picture. John Helfers gave writers three pulpish titles (not covers) each and had them write stories for one of those titles, such as “Crypt of the Metal Ghouls,” by Angela Penrose, “Swamp of the Prehistoric Clan,” by Christy Fifield, and “Prism of the Crab Gods,” by Kelly Washington. That should give you an idea. But only an idea, since I suspect that the stories these writers came up with will surprise you and touch you in a number of different ways. There are crime stories here, but also superhero stories, mainstream stories, science fiction stories, and some that are hard to pin down. They’re all well worth your time, though, and Helfers provides insightful introductions to each.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:01:00
The Golden Age of Murder: The Mystery of the Writers Who Invented the Modern Detective Story
Jon L. Breen

The author is archivist of the Detection Club, that exclusive organization of British writers which elected its first members in 1930. Within the framework of the organization’s early history and collective biography, personal as well as professional, of its most influential members, Martin Edwards refutes some of the reductive generalizations that have been applied to Golden Age detection, not only the British version, but more briefly the undervalued American equivalent. The focus is on the three most important figures of the British Golden Age, two written about extensively in other sources, Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers, but the third woefully neglected in recent decades: Anthony Berkeley, who also wrote as Francis Iles. Other subjects include Margery Allingham, E.C. Bentley, John Dickson Carr, G.K. Chesterton, G.D.H. and Margaret Cole, J.J. Connington, Freeman Wills Crofts, Clemence Dane, Anthony Gilbert, Milward Kennedy, Ronald A. Knox, Ngaio Marsh, Gladys Mitchell, E.R. Punshon, John Rhode, Helen Simpson, and Henry Wade. Among the surprising revelations, in 1926, Father Knox livened up the BBC with a satirical newscast that included the toppling of Big Ben’s clock tower and the hanging of a cabinet minister. Some listeners took the broadcast seriously and panic spread, foreshadowing the reaction to Orson Welles’ dramatization of War of the Worlds 12 years later.

Edwards also summarizes some of the true-crime cases that inspired these writers, adding to the value of one of the most important contributions to mystery fiction history in recent memory.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:04:05

edwardsthegoldenageofmurderAn important contribution to mystery fiction history focused on Agatha Christie, Dorothy L. Sayers, and Anthony Berkley (also know as Frances Iles).

The African American Experience in Crime Fiction: A Critical Study
Jon L. Breen

Robert Crafton focuses on several significant African-American writers: pioneers Pauline Hopkins and Rudolph Fisher, transitional figures Chester Himes and Ishmael Reed, and contemporaries Colson Whitehead, Walter Mosley, and Stephen F. Carter. Close readings of selected works are bolstered by historical, scientific, legal, and sociological background that adds richness to the commentary, e.g. marriage laws central to Hopkins’ Hagar’s Daughter (1901-02), and medical issues in physician Fisher’s The Conjure-Man Dies (1932).

There are some errors and questionable assertions. The surnames of Himes’ Harlem cops Coffin Ed Johnson and Grave Digger Jones are reversed, an easy mistake to make. Barbara Hambly is included in a list of African-American authors, I think mistakenly. The attitude to genre is sometimes patronizing, and the generalizations too sweeping. But quality writing and critical acumen outweigh minor quibbles. Another highlight in a great year for books about crime fiction.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:11:36
Street Poison: The Biography of Iceberg Slim
Jon L. Breen

The author of the Edgar-nominated Pimping Fictions: African American Crime Literature and the Untold Story of Black Pulp Publishing (2013) surpasses that excellent work with a thorough, well-documented, and intensely readable account of the life of Robert Beck (1918-1992), the reformed pimp whose writings as Iceberg Slim jump-started the outpouring of African American street literature beginning in the late 1960s, most from the Los Angeles paperback publisher Holloway House. The events of his life are put in historical context, including an interesting tour of the prisons (good and bad) where he was incarcerated and the various inner-city neighborhoods where he practiced his misogynistic profession. Beck, bad as he was, claimed not to be as evil as other pimps because he didn’t hate his mother quite as much—in fact, by the evidence of this book, he didn’t hate her at all. There’s no question that in his late years he did a great deal of good, sounding a cautionary note for black youth who might be tempted to follow his path. Whether or not you buy Justin Gifford’s claims for his subject’s importance (“more than any other cultural figure of the past fifty years, Beck transformed American culture and black literature”; his Pimp: The Story of My Life was “one of the most important pieces of American literature of the twentieth century”), his life makes a captivating story.

The quotations from Slim’s books, interviews, and other writings demonstrate his immense writing talent and verbal flair. For more evidence, see Shetani’s Sister, a previously unpublished late novel that Beck instructed his wife to keep out of the clutches of Holloway House, which he believed cheated him out of the royalties he earned. (Reviewed from advance uncorrected proof; index not seen.)

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:20:17
The John Dickson Carr Companion
Jon L. Breen

Given the quality of his prolific output, his biographical interest, and his niche specialty of locked rooms and impossible crimes, no mystery writer is more worthy of the companion treatment than John Dickson Carr, and few writers are as qualified to do the job as longtime Carr scholar James E. Keirans. Entries include characters major and minor; book, story, and essay titles; place names and allusions; and broad topics. For example, ten full pages cover alcoholic beverages in the works of Carr, 18 on London locations and institutions. The alphabetical arrangement is easy to navigate except when a long entry (such as Chronology for the Dr. Gideon Fell Mysteries) runs for several pages without running heads to tell you where you are. The 50-page index to names and titles is very useful.

This fine work of scholarship can stand beside Douglas G. Greene’s biography John Dickson Carr: The Man Who Explained Miracles (1995) and S. T. Joshi’s John Dickson Carr: A Critical Study (1990).

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:30:07
So Nude, So Dead
Hank Wagner

In Ed McBain’s So Nude, So Dead, heroin addict Ray Stone comes to in a seedy New York hotel room, craving a fix. He has to postpone that fix, however, as he notices that his bedmate, a fellow user, is lying dead beside him, bleeding from bullet wounds to her stomach. Having no idea of how the woman, a casual pickup, came to harm, nor of what happened to her 16-ounce stash of heroin, Ray’s first instinct is to vanish. After being accused of murder, he realizes his only viable course of action is to discover what really happened while he was unconscious. How he does so while dealing with the insatiable monkey on his back provides the entertaining main action of the novel, as he explores both his sordid past and the underside of a dark, dark city.

Billed as McBain’s very first crime novel, the book is surprisingly accomplished for such an early effort, displaying many of the traits that have drawn readers to the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master over the years, particularly his outsize talent for plotting. While careful not to make Stone too heroic, McBain does make him sympathetic, so that readers find themselves rooting for this poor loser to succeed.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:34:35
New Yorked
Hank Wagner

Ash McKenna of New Yorked, by Rob Hart, wakes abruptly, and initially only faces regret that he could not work things out with the love of his life, Chell, the night before; he recalls being angry with her, but only vaguely, as he blacked out soon after interacting with her. Unfortunately, the time of his blackout coincides with when Chell was attacked and murdered. Inconsolable, Ash embarks on a rage-fueled search for answers, little caring who gets hurt in the process.

Hart’s debut is a terse, grim, gritty, swiftly moving noir that deftly explores post-9/11 New York, and in particular Brooklyn, in all its seediness and glory. Ash is a wrecking ball of an investigator, a direct descendant of Mickey Spillane’s Mike Hammer, searching for justice in a surreal terrain populated by hipsters, addicts, criminals, and other human oddities. Unlike Hammer, he is at one with the denizens of that world, rather than an outsider capable of ironically commenting on what he sees.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:39:47
Basket Case
Lynne F. Maxwell

In Basket Case, first in her Silver Six Crafting Mystery series, Nancy Haddock provides a whole new take on the notion of retirement homes. The Silver Six are self-sufficient seniors who share a home in the small town of Lilyvale, Arkansas. Readers are introduced to the group after one of their granddaughters, Leslee Stanton “Nixy” Nix, a rising star in Houston’s art gallery scene, is summoned to Lilyvale by Detective Eric Shoar because her Aunt Sherry Mae and housemates are disturbing the peace with a series of suspicious booms and clouds of smoke at their house. Of course, Nixy rushes to her aunt, despite the fact that they don’t know each other very well. Nixy’s arrival coincides with a folk art festival that Sherry Mae is hosting on her farm. The work of the crafters is admirable, particularly the baskets that Sherry Mae weaves, but of even greater fascination to Nixy are the Silver Six, each a highly skilled (engineer, teacher, handyman) contributor to the household. Trouble arrives in the form of Jill Elsman, an abusive and intrusive woman who is trying to coerce the town’s landowners, including Sherry Mae, to sell their property to her without ever divulging her reasons for doing so. Justice, of sorts, prevails when Jill is murdered and the land remains in the hands of the original property owners. Did Sherry Mae kill Jill, whose body was found on her property? Obviously not, but who is the perpetrator? Nixy and the Silver Six collaborate to flush out the killer, thereby bonding even more. While Nixy plans to return to her advancing career in Houston, readers will anticipate where her loyalties reside in the end. Basket Case is a promising beginning to a series that features bright, resourceful, likable characters. Nancy Haddock can certainly weave a fine plot!

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:44:33
Black Cat Crossing
Lynne F. Maxwell

Kay Finch’s Black Cat Crossing, first in the Bad Luck Cat Mystery series, unfolds in the town of Lavender, Texas, where Sabrina Tate, new sleuth, is a refugee from her job as a paralegal in Houston. Sabrina abandons her old life to pursue her dream, becoming a published mystery author. Fortunately, her Aunt Rowe owns and rents out a number of riverside cottages, and Sabrina thinks she has found a quiet place to live and work. Wrong! Distraction sets in when Bobby Joe Flowers, a ne’er-do-well relative, turns up to threaten Aunt Rowe and acquire a fortune. Moreover, the townsfolk predict impending doom when the “bad luck cat” appears. The feline in question is a sleek black tomcat who has the uncanny ability of appearing in places where trouble is about to occur. And, indeed, Bobby Joe is murdered, and his body is found in the same place as another body was found years ago. Sabrina is convinced that there is a link between the murders, and she is even more certain that her Aunt Rowe, the principal person of interest to the police, is innocent. Together with “the bad luck cat,” whom she has adopted and names Hitchcock, Sabrina solves the murders just in time to get her book to the publisher. Thanks to Hitchcock, who is truly a good luck cat, she survives long enough to do so.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:53:02
The Cartel
Dick Lochte

Lengthy, ambitious, and uncompromising, Don Winslow’s 16th novel is, as most crime fiction fans must know by now, a continuation of his 2005 novel The Power of the Dog. That earlier work introduced DEA agent Arturo “Art” Keller and his bête noir, Adan Barrera, a silky, villainous Sinaloan drug lord who is, according to Winslow, a fictionalized version of recent Mexican prison escapee Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán Loera. The Power of the Dog was written before Los Zetas, the military arm of the Gulf cartel, rose to the top of the drug-trafficking, kidnapping, oil- and gas-stealing, head-chopping gangs. The Cartel brings us up to date on the Zetas’ horrific crimes, but more important are its characters—primarily an older, even more depressed Keller, who at first sight is in retirement at a New Mexico monastery tending to bees, Sherlock Holmes-style, and a slightly mellowed Barrera, who, like his real-life counterpart, has effortlessly escaped his Mexican prison cell and gone back to business. But, unlike El Chapo, Barrera is more pragmatic than homicidal, with at least a self-deceptive sense of honor. There is a rich assortment of other carefully crafted players, among them a wild child Chicano, Chewy the Kid, traumatized and trained to kill from the age of 11; Magda Beltran, a beauty queen imprisoned for money laundering who winds up being Barrera’s jailhouse inamorata and eventually a top narco; Eddie Ruiz, a charming if shady small-time dealer from Texas who is caught up in the war between the Sinaloa and Gulf cartels and who turns amusingly heroic; and the horrific kill-crazy head Zeta, Heriberto Ochoa, somewhat based on Heriberto Lazcano Lazcano, the late torture-loving Zetas leader. Reader Ray Porter’s rendition of this bloodstained panorama is, at first, oddly removed, a professional, broadcast-voiced observer with no dog in the fight. But as the characters are introduced, he begins to mirror their moods and temperaments—matching Keller’s grim, sardonic attitude, for example, or Magda’s soft and effectively feminine voice as she brazenly moves up in the narco trade. He’s especially effective in his audio delineation of Chewy, a sad and confused child who kills and even flays on order but whom Keller and, one assumes, Winslow, does not see as a lost cause.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 18:58:44
The Diamond of Jeru
Dick Lochte

It’s always a pleasure when someone makes the effort to re-create the magic of radio drama, and does such an entertaining job of it, you begin to realize it isn’t a lost art after all. That’s what the late Louis L’Amour’s son Beau has done, adapting a 2001 USA Network film based on his father’s adventure yarn set in the jungles of Borneo in the 1950s. Its protagonist, Mike Kardec (actor Joel Bryant, sounding sensible and properly heroic), is a former Marine captain, and a Korean War casualty, living in Borneo. He’s hired to guide an expedition into the jungle. His employer, middle-aged scientist John Lacklan (an arch, snide Time Winters), wants to find a large diamond for the wedding ring of his young bride, Helen (Traci Dinwiddie, who sounds precisely like the ethereal beauty L’Amour describes). Naturally, an idiot like Lacklan would erroneously suspect the honorable Kardec of making a play for his beautiful wife and fire him. Of course the guide he then hires would be a con man whose previous employers followed him into the uncharted jungle never to be seen again. What’s a noble hero to do but try to find the Lacklans, with the help of a couple of local tribesmen, and save them before they become the victims of “the last of the Borneo headhunters”? Splendidly paced and enhanced by original music and sound effects that aid rather than overpower the action, The Diamond of Jeru is a fine way to spend a lazy afternoon, stretched out in a hammock in the shade of a tree resting your tired eyes while Kardec and his pals battle the headhunters.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-16 19:01:38
Susan Elia MacNeal on the World According to John Irving
Susan Elia MacNeal

macneal susan elia c Andrea VaszkoThe sign was posted on the wall of Wellesley College’s English Department: John Irving, Novelist, seeks assistant for one year. I’d read everything John Irving had written, starting with The World According to Garp, up to his (then) most recent book, A Prayer for Owen Meany. I’d even read the lesser-known novels, about wrestling and bears and infidelity.

I was a senior and an English major in 1991—and if you remember, it was an awful year for college grads. Well, everyone, really. The stock market was down, unemployment was up, everyone I knew was trying to get into grad school or law school because there were no jobs….

And then that sign, in black Times New Roman on ivory paper, showed up.

I wish I could remember my interview—but I don’t. John Irving’s wife, literary agent Janet Turnbull Irving, did most of the talking. I do remember she was beautiful, enormously pregnant, and had green suede shoes. Irving himself stared out the window, but I did get the feeling he was listening intently. And I do remember when he spoke, he gazed up and out, as if picturing the words on an imaginary page as they were coming out of his mouth.

Through some feat of crazy luck, I got the job, and that fall, I moved to Vermont. I took a studio apartment in the attic of an old house in Manchester and drove every day to Dorset. I’d drive up a mountain, to the very top, where the Irvings lived in a huge house, built by an architect to their every specification. The painting of the apple used on the cover of The Cider House Rules hung in their kitchen.

I wish I could say I was a good assistant—I wasn’t, particularly. But I did learn a lot about writing and writers. Some of Janet’s clients were Robertson Davies, Alison Lurie, and other Canadian luminaries, and I read as much of their work as I could. John had author friends like Ron Hansen and Robert Stone, whose work I also devoured.

John approached (and I’m assuming still approaches) his work like a “regular job.” He would already be in his wood-paneled office when I arrived at 9 am, and worked throughout the day on Son of the Circus and various articles (I remember his piece against censorship for The New York Times, “Pornography and the New Puritans,” shaped much of my thinking about freedom of authors, censorship, and feminism.) At around 4 pm, he’d stop and go to his huge private gym (complete with red wrestling mats) to work out, and then around 5 or 6, begin cooking some gourmet feast for dinner.

macneal mrsrooseveltsconfidanteHe only used a manual typewriter—I think some version from the 1960s?—so I was asked to type draft after draft into the computer, which he wouldn’t even touch, then print out and present the pages to him for revision and editing. Then he’d pass them back to me, and I’d enter the changes into the computer file. Seeing his writing change, what he’d edit out, what he’d expand upon, was an education better than any MFA program. It was a fascinating bird’s eye view and one I learned much from.

It was a hard year—I remember being lonely (my friends were in Boston or New York, and there weren’t a lot of twentysomethings in Manchester). My little attic room had a bat infestation. My winter driving skills and tires were lacking, and I ended up in ditches a few times. But it was still a heady experience.

At the time, I had no conscious ambition of becoming a novelist (and if I’d had, being in the presence of one of the greats would have been unbearably intimidating). I instead aspired to be an editor, and went to the Radcliffe Publishing Course at Harvard, and then worked for the “Little Random” part of Random House as I made my way through the byzantine corridors of publishing.

But something has always stayed with me from my Vermont adventure: a firm belief in freedom of the press, an obsessive love of em-dashes, and the knowledge of how one of the great authors of our time every day sits down to the same blank piece of paper as the rest of us do.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-17 04:18:27

The sign was posted on the wall of Wellesley College’s English Department: John Irving, Novelist, seeks assistant for one year.

Fall Issue #141 Contents

 

141cover465

 
 

Features

Longmire Rides Again

Craig Johnson, the author of the Sheriff Walt Longmire novels about a laconic Wyoming lawman, is attracting the fame and the fans that come with a string of bestselling novels and a hit TV show. There’s even a Longmire Days fan festival.
by Michael Mallory

Death is a Lonely Business: The Mysteries of Ray Bradbury

Surprisingly, the celebrated author of The Martian Chronicles and Dandelion Wine began his career in crime pulps and went on to write several well-received mystery novels.
by Michael Mallory

Not Quite Heaven: Julia Keller’s West Virginia

The horrific 1972 Buffalo Creek Disaster, caused by a mining company, was the inspiration for Keller’s latest Bell Elkins novel.
by Oline H. Cogdill

The Hook

First Lines That Caught Our Attention

The Dark Vision of Ida Lupino

Director, producer, screenwriter, star—Lupino was one of the most versatile and influential talents in film noir.
by Jake Hinkson

Gormania

A chat with Margaret Maron, author of the Deborah Knott mysteries.
by Ed Gorman

Long Upon the Land: A Review

Margaret Maron’s final Deborah Knott mystery.
by Art Taylor

All-Star Detecting with Kareem Abdul-Jabbar

The sports icon—and Sherlockian—has written a novel starring Mycroft Holmes.
by Oline H. Cogdill

“L.A. Requiem” Crossword

by Verna Suit

 
 

Departments

At the Scene

by Kate Stine

Mystery Miscellany

by Louis Phillips

Hints & Allegations

Thriller and Ned Kelly awards, Harper Lee Prize, CWA Daggers

The Hook

First lines that caught our attention

My Book

But That’s Another Story
by Art Taylor

How to Haunt a House
by Leigh Perry

 
 

Reviews

Small Press Reviews: Covering the Independents

by Betty Webb

Very Original: Paperback Originals Reviewed

by Lynne Maxwell & Hank Wagner

What About Murder? Reference Books Reviewed

by Jon L. Breen

Sounds of Suspense: Audiobooks Reviewed

by Dick Lochte

Short & Sweet: Short Stories Considered

by Bill Crider

Mystery Scene Reviews

 
 

Miscellaneous

The Docket

Letters

Our Readers Recommend

Advertiser Info

 

Teri Duerr
2015-10-20 15:13:49
At the Scene, Fall Issue #141

141cover465Hi Everyone,

We may all enjoy the damaged-yet-hip privates eyes, the crazed-yet-erudite serial killers and the dead-yet-hot vampire cops of current crime fiction, but there is something to be said for a good, old-fashioned hero with a code of honor and a commitment to his community. Yes, Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire is a throwback in today’s world, but I’m betting that label wouldn’t bother him a bit. It certainly doesn’t bother his many, many fans. Oline Cogdill caught up with Johnson for a chat in this issue. She also spoke with Robert Taylor, who plays the Wyoming sheriff in the Netflix series Longmire. Boy howdy!

Ray Bradbury is one of my favorite alltime writers, yet I was surprised to learn of the extent of his work in the crime genre. In this issue, Michael Mallory offers an overview of Bradbury’s early pulp short stories and innovative mystery novels.

Here’s an image: Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, basketball icon, riding on the Lakers’ bus—and avidly reading Sherlock Holmes stories. It was time well spent, apparently, because now Abdul-Jabbar has written his own Sherlockian tale, or rather, a tale featuring Sherlock’s older brother Mycroft. Don’t miss our interesting conversation with the amiable all-star in this issue.

Julia Keller’s novel Last Ragged Breath is especially timely given the current trial of Don Blankenship, the former CEO of Massey Energy Company, for the Upper Big Branch Mine disaster in West Virginia in which 29 miners lost their lives. Keller’s novel was inspired by another West Virginia mining-related catastrophe from the 1 970s, and it’s a grim reminder that greed can kill.

There’s lots more in this issue, but I want to be sure to welcome our new contributing editor, Matt Schlecht, to the Mystery Scene masthead. Matt’s been handling a lot of our Twitter and Facebook communications, as well as other editorial tasks. He’s worked at a number of magazines over the years and we’re delighted to have his expertise in house.

Enjoy the issue!

We'd love to hear about books you would recommend, new or old - write and let us know!

Kate Stine
Editor-in-chief

Teri Duerr
2015-10-20 15:22:28
Fall Issue #141
Teri Duerr
2015-10-20 16:26:39
The Killing Room
Sharon Magee

In the fifth book in Christobel Kent’s Sandro Cellini series set in Florence, Italy, the disgraced ex-cop finds his waistline growing, while his private investigation client list shrinks. His wife, Luisa, drags Sandro to the grand opening of the Palazzo San Giorgio, luxury apartments converted from an old palace, to introduce him to manager Alessandro Cornell in hopes that Cornell can push some business Sandro’s way. Shortly after the opening, the security manager, Giancarlo Vito, is fired and then found dead under suspicious circumstances. Cornell offers Sandro the security job, which he reluctantly accepts.

Immediately, he senses something dark about the palazzo. Rumors circulate that a room was unearthed during the renovation that was once used for unspeakable horrors. A resident’s dog disappears, as does another’s favorite bracelet. Dog feces are smeared on doors. One resident is locked in the steam room. And someone slips a porn magazine into Sandro’s briefcase for Luisa to find. Sandro also discovers the bad vibes carry over to the newly installed residents, all rich, unlikable, and secretive. As Sandro investigates Vito’s death, he discovers that any one of the residents might have had cause to want the ex-security manager dead. When another body connected to the palazzo is discovered, Sandro knows he must find the perpetrator of this evil.

London-born Kent spent several years living in Florence, a city she thought she’d hate but grew to love. Her knowledge and love for Florence’s culture and geography shine through in this series. Her characters, with the exception of Sandro and his cohorts (especially Luisa, a wonderful no-nonsense character who keeps Sandro on the straight and narrow), feel a little flat, but the story’s tension more than compensates. Sandro Cellini will be around for a long time to come.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 15:48:45
The Child Garden
Vanessa Orr

When Gloria Harkness answers her door on a late Monday evening, she finds an old school friend, Stephen Tarrant, standing on her doorstep, having what he claims is the worst night of his life. Despite not having seen him for years, she quickly becomes involved in an old childhood mystery—and a number of vicious murders.

Gloria is not your typical protagonist; the divorced mother of a special-needs child, she leads an isolated life at Rough House, located “10 miles between nowhere and nowhere else.” She spends her days tending to others, including her son, Nicky, and her landlord, Miss Drumm, who are both in a care facility. Despite this, she easily slips into the role of investigator in this psychological thriller, unwittingly putting herself and those she loves in danger. As she unravels the mystery of who killed April Cowan, a woman who used to go to school with Tarrant, she begins to unearth a Pandora’s box of other secrets, putting her in direct conflict with the killer as well as other townspeople who have things to hide.

While I originally found it hard to warm up to Gloria, her no-nonsense attitude, mother-bear protectiveness, and willingness to confront any issue earned my respect; and I, like many of the characters with whom she comes into contact, also underestimated her intelligence. As the story unfolds, it is a pleasure to see her world expand and her confidence grow, and to realize that, far from being a sheltered pitiable person, she is a force with which to be reckoned.

As the narrator of her own story, at one point Gloria says that looking back, if she had a crystal ball and could have seen her future, she wouldn’t change a thing. Having seen the strength that Gloria gained in her quest to find the truth, neither would this reader.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 15:53:24
Encore
Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

When actress Bella James is hired for a nine-month run at Canada’s famed Shaw Festival Theatre, she leases a small house in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. As soon as she moves in, however, her dog Moustache digs up the long-interred bones of a woman in the yard. Thirty years earlier, a woman was brutally beaten in the house, but survived. When the police come to investigate the bones, Bella is convinced there is a connection, but the lead detective is reluctant to reopen the 30-year-old mystery.

Fortunately, one of the cops, Jeffers, also believes there’s a tie-in. Since he has to investigate in his spare time and without his boss finding out, he recruits Bella to help with the case. Before long, this unusual detecting duo discovers a link to the very show that Bella is performing, and more skeletons start turning up, although these are of the figurative skeletons-in-the closet variety. When her dog is poisoned and nearly dies, Bella realizes that someone believes that she is closer to a solution than she really is.

In addition to enjoying an intriguing and complex mystery, readers also receive an enjoyable tour backstage at a major theater festival. To top it off, there’s even a bit of blossoming romance between Bella and the veterinarian (Dr. Gorgeous, as she refers to him), who treats her dog.

Mystery, theater, romance, and a lovable dog. That’s hard to resist, and it’s all brought to life by an author who has worked as an actor for nearly 20 years.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 15:56:46
A Chorus of Innocents
Eileen Brady

In this seventh Sir Robert Carey Mystery, A Chorus of Innocents, we find the resourceful Lady Elizabeth Widdrington drawn into a particularly foul murder. It is 1592 in the north borderlands of Scotland. A minister, James Burn, has been beheaded and his very pregnant wife, Poppy, raped. When Poppy shows up at Lady Elizabeth’s door, Elizabeth becomes part of a conflict as deep and complex as Scottish clan rules. So starts an intriguing mystery, chock-full of historical references and rousing prose.

It’s up to Lady Elizabeth to find out who killed James Burn and why. Oxford University graduate Patricia Finney, writing under the pen name P.F. Chisholm, gives her readers a fascinating and realistic historical mystery. The life that a woman of noble birth, such as Lady Elizabeth, could expect to live is strangulating by modern standards. Despite the restrictions of her abusive husband, she cleverly holds her ground. Helping her find justice is the mysterious Mr. Anricks, a traveling tooth puller, who has to fight off claims of witchcraft because he does his job too well. I particularly enjoyed the elderly Lady Hume, grandmother of the laird of the land, a character who is lost in the past and viciously unpredictable.

Although this is the seventh book in the series, it reads as a standalone. So if this series is new to you, then hoist a cup of ale and catch up on the fun, as I intend to do.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 16:00:03
Fool Me Once
Robin Agnew

This book was a pure blast, start to finish. Set in tiny Berdache, Arizona, the stepsister of the nearby (and much hipper) Sedona, Berdache is populated with tarot card readers, holistic healers, and fortune tellers, one of which is our narrator, Alanis McLachlan, who has inherited the White Magic Five and Dime from her deceased mother. Her mother, whose ashes reside in Alanis’ fish tank, was something of a con artist and Alanis is trying to fix all the bad karma for which her mother was responsible. The novice tarot reader Alanis offers free readings for former customers just to right the balance.

Each chapter is introduced with a card image described in terms familiar to a layperson. However, much of Alanis’ time in this novel is consumed with helping (and then saving) the hapless Marsha, who appears to be a domestic abuse victim. When Marsha’s ex turns up dead, she’s accused of the crime. Alanis is on a righteous quest to find the real killer, despite the fact that Marsha could not look more guilty.

While Alanis means well, she has a trust issue (as in she trusts no one), and she isn’t averse to lying or occasionally breaking and entering. She’s in charge of her younger sister who lurks in the background wanting more of a slice of the action. I can see the sister developing into more of a major character in future books. She also has a putative boyfriend, Vincent, whose mother loves her—Vincent isn’t so sure about his feelings. She has a stalkerish former “client” of her mother’s, E.G., who is helpful when it comes to knowing the ins and outs of certain types of criminal behavior. With the help of these three, Alanis tears around Berdache to find the real killer of Marsha’s ex.

Hockensmith’s tone is light, but not dopey; funny, but not nasty. And he has a breezy but smart storytelling style that suits his characters and setting. Being of a certain age I loved his points of reference (at one point Alanis introduces herself and Vincent as Jennifer and Jonathan Hart). I also thoroughly enjoyed the tarot bits sprinkled throughout the book in the form of chapter headings, readings, and illustrations. The only tiny caveat I had was when I first started reading I was certain his narrator was male; once I adjusted to the fact that Alanis was female I felt I was on firmer ground.

A funny book in which the reader also learns something is a rare treasure indeed.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 16:31:25
Hollow Man
Katrina Niidas Holm

Mark Pryor, the captivating storyteller behind the profiler Hugo Marston series set in Europe, writes beautifully about terrible things, so it should come as no surprise that there’s a lot to love in his new standalone, Hollow Man. It is the tale of an Austin, Texas–dwelling English expatriate named Dominic. A prosecutor by day and a musician by night, Dominic is also a self-confessed psychopath (though he prefers the term sociopath; “it has fewer connotations of evil and violence”).

When readers first meet Dominic, he’s controlling his unsavory impulses and living the life of a model citizen. But under the stress of a demotion at work and a ban from playing his favorite club for allegedly copying another musician’s song, his facade of normalcy starts to crack. Add to Dominic’s faulty moral compass money, guns, some dimwitted accomplices, and a gorgeous woman with a felonious plan, and you have the recipe for both a heist gone horribly awry, and one heckuva compelling crime novel.

Pryor’s latest is structured to maximize tension. It’s clear from the outset that everything’s going to go to hell, but you’re in the dark as to the details. Readers spend the first half of the book guessing at how Dominic and company’s foolproof plan will fail, and the remainder waiting for the other shoe to drop. Pryor uses Dominic’s first-person narration to marvelous effect. You know you’re not getting the whole story, but it’s impossible to tell who’s lying and to whom. Is Dominic an unreliable narrator, or is he just a pawn in someone else’s game? That question alone is enough to keep the pages turning.

Pryor’s crowning achievement, though, is the way he makes the reader complicit in Dominic’s machinations. He begins by soliciting sympathy for his antihero. Once that’s accomplished, Pryor drops the psychopath bomb. It’s okay, though, because Dominic’s not a monster; as he tells readers, “I want to fit in, not go to prison.” Plus, it’s not his fault he doesn’t feel emotions like the rest of us; that’s a design flaw, not a life choice. And when he does commit a crime, you almost can’t blame him. You don’t condone his actions, of course, but you might do the same if you were in his shoes. At that point, you’re all in, which means when things start to spiral out of control, you’re left with no choice but to root for Dominic’s success—even if it comes at the cost of another man’s ruin.

Teri Duerr
2015-10-27 16:35:28