FMAM MOSTLY MYSTERY REVIEWS
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THE FMAM MOSTLY MYSTERY REVIEW is the place to come
to find out what to read next. Want to know what readers are saying
(as opposed to critics) about the books you see around you? You’ve
come to the right place! And, if you appreciate a critical review
we’ll have those, too. Come in, sit down and see what’s
write with the world! (Or, right in the world of write!) New reviews this month from: . Dr. Cynthia Clark . Harriet Klausner . Christine I. Speakman . Cerri Ellis . |
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June 2008
Betraying Mikki
Jude Atkins
Electronic book Publication: January 2008
Cost $5.95
ISBN: 9781419911903
Publisher’s website www.cerridwenpress.com
Kelly McWinter is back and it’s still murder.
We first met Kelly McWinter in “Anna’s Secret” a quick quirky mystery that worked. Ms. Atkins is still writing stories that work.
In “Betraying Mikki” Kelly has been asked to help prove a friend’s niece is innocent of murder. It doesn’t help that the niece’s fingerprints are all over the murder weapon, that she has no alibi, that she’s pregnant with the married murder victim’s child, and that the last words anyone heard her say were “I’ll kill you.”
It took me a few pages to recognize that I had already ‘met’ Kelly McWinter. I went searching back in my reviews to find where I had read him before. Now, normally that might appear to be a not so good thing…not remembering a character. However, I don’t believe so, in this instance. “Anna’s Secret” was an introduction to a setting and mood of Ms. Atkins main character, a character coming out of grief and rediscovering life. In “Betraying Mikki” we meet up with Kelly McWinter as he’s finding balance in his life and love. He’s still the loyal friend and easy-going guy.
I enjoyed “Betraying Mikki” for its simplicity and straightforward mystery. It was a calming read during a hectic week.
Bitter Pill
Stacey Klemstein
Echelon Press, 2008,
$15.00, 232 pages
ISBN: 13 978-1-59080-550-3
Rennie Harlow has a knack for finding dead bodies. What starts out as just another day with Rennie stopping by Doc Hallacy’s pharmacy to pick up her mother’s prescription for anti-anxiety drug turns into murder. Since her mother’s retirement every time her mother sees a movie or commercial she is convinced she has that condition. This time it’s narcolepsy and Doc has been great to label the ant-anxiety drug with the flavor of the week disease. But on this morning, the pharmacy is still and Rennie knows something is not right but instead of call Bristol, the sheriff she enters and finds Doc dead.
She calls Bristol and then Max her editor. Since her return to her hometown she has been working part time for the newspaper and living in the apartment over the garage at her mother’s home.
Rennie is in love with Bristol who is married to a shrew. Her ex husband her remarried and seems to be the husband now that he never could be with her. Max is hiding something, and Doc left all his money to a man in a wheel chair and not his family.
Doc was a good, kind man, the kind that gave you prescriptions for half price if you were down on your luck, or free if need be. So, why and who would kill such a man. Bristol asks Rennie to tag along under the guise of “you found the body, and you can watch their faces, sense their truthfulness.”
There are plenty of suspects to choose from – a thieving family of children, Doc’s family, the rival in the wheel chair, even Bristol ’s wife – all leading us on a delightful romp.
Stacey Klemstein writes in a charming “you are there” way, such that you feel as if you are traveling with Rennie. You can see the pain of her greyhound when she and Bristol find it cowering in a ravine like area. You can feel the ache and sadness Rennie feels as she rushes her dog to the vet. Stacey paints such a fluid picture with her words that you are right there, tasting, smelling, and touching. You are no longer just reading a book, you are transported into Rennie’s life, and a writer cannot do better than that! Excellent!
On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 5!
Las Vegas Noir
Edited Jarret Keene and Todd James Pierce
Akashic Books, May 2008,
$15.95, pp. 300
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-49-1
What better setting for a crime noir anthology than Las Vegas. Sin City, where truth is stranger than fiction, and luck is the lady holding all the cards. Where, according to the song sung by Sheryl Crow, there is “Such a muddy line between the things you want
and the things you have to do.”
The characters in Las Vegas Noir cross that muddy line, from simple blackjack dealer into murder accomplice, cocktail waitress into coke dealer, college professor into serial killer.
The anthology includes sixteen stories in all, each one a vignette into the diverse areas that make up Vegas. As with all the books in the Noir series from Akashic, many of these neighborhoods are explored with an eye toward the sometimes seamy and gritty underbelly of decay. Las Vegas Noir features places well known to locals: Scotch 80s, Summerlin, Chinatown, West Las Vegas, Nellis, Sunset Park, Pahrump, Centennial Hills and even Area 51.
Space does not permit me to include every story I enjoyed, but I do want to highlight a couple of exceptional tales.
The late John O’Brien (author of Leaving Las Vegas) renders a chilling story of vices and violence in The Tik.
Vu Tran’s shattering story This or Any Desert mines a wealth of emotion and angst with his tale of a ex-husband and cop who turns vigilante when he learns of his ex-wife’s battery at the hands of her new husband.
Tod Goldberg explores dark comedy and irony with his story, Mitzvah. His protagonist is a con-man turned faux-rabbi tired of laying low in Summerlin and looking for a way out of the Vegas suburbs.
Janet Berliner’s The Road to Rachel combines Native American folklore with the mystery surrounding Area 51 to create a darkly humorous cautionary tale.
After reading the wonderful collection of stories in Las Vegas Noir, I am happy to say everything that happens in Vegas doesn’t always stay in Vegas. Sometimes it finds it’s way between the covers of a book and readers are the winners.
Cerri Ellis
Book Reviewer and Film Critic at Large
The Shape of Imagination:
http://cerriellis.blogspot.com
South by South Bronx
Abraham Rodriguez
Akashic Books, April 2008,
$15.95, 350 pp.
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-56-9
The South Bronx comes vibrantly alive in Abraham Rodriguez’s mystery novel, South by South Bronx. A colorful array of characters invite you into a world filled with double-crosses and dirty cops, drug dealers, secret agents, and stolen money.
When a drug dealer decides to keep money meant to be laundered for a group of terrorists, it foils a secret undercover CIA operation. Both the FBI and the CIA are hot on the money trail, as well as a host of other nefarious characters, and with the body count rising, it’s no wonder the dealer is in hiding.
Detective Sanchez is a good cop who always played by the rules–and it nearly destroyed him. He has one last chance to change his destiny and one more promise to keep. But to make things right, he’ll have to do something very, very wrong.
Shoe salesman and ladies man, Alex embodies smooth Latin charm and it’s nothing unusual for him to wake up every morning with a different, beautiful woman naked in his arms. Even the fact that he can’t remember bringing this particular beautiful woman home is not odd, due to his increasing problem with blackouts. But something about the sexy blond troubles him. Possibly because no one else remembers her with him the night before.
Mink and Monk are usually inseparable. Their friendship formed long ago from a common bond–expressive passion for their art. One a writer, the other a painter, both men now suffer from the fickle whims of the trendy art community and a once adoring public that now barely remembers them. They need something to spark a creative muse. Could their muse be hiding in Alex’s apartment?
Deft and edgy, South By South Bronx builds subtle layers of connection. Rodriguez applies a variety of brushstrokes to his story; sharp dialogue and lyrical prose underscore the portrait of each character, creating a depth uncommon in today’s crime fiction. The novel’s passion illuminates the darkest corner, bringing the South Bronx to glorious life on the page. A book to savor.
Cerri Ellis
Book Reviewer and Film Critic at Large
The Shape of Imagination:
http://cerriellis.blogspot.com
The Deal
Adam Gittlin
Oceanview Publishing,
May 1, 2008,
$23.95, 456 pages
ISBN: 978-1-933515-13-7
Jonah Gray is a success. He followed in his father’s financial footsteps. Jonah immediately took to real estate brokering and in no time was making a seven figure income. He has good looks, money, youth, and greed. It is the last quality that gets him in trouble. A family friend, about the same age as Jonah, comes to him with the deal of a life time. But the deal must be handled in three weeks, cash, and discretely. And the cash is not small potatoes, its a half a billion dollars, so all caution, all reason leaves Jonah and he jumps at the deal.
Jonah enlists the other members of the brokerage team to create deals in case one or more falls through. Time is of the essence, and profit is high. Each member puts together their plan and begins the process of ensuring the deal can go through. In the meantime besides working on his own deal, Jonah goes to a wedding where he not only meets a beautiful woman he winds up with a stolen Faberge Egg in his bag.
He hides the Egg in his father’s safe while he attempts to figure out why the thief left the Egg with him. Then the beautiful girl becomes a psycho.
What Jonah thought would be an easy multi million profit went from simple to complex to some sort of International ties, to what isn’t his father telling Jonah? But before Jonah can find out, his father is murdered complicating even more a convoluted case. No one is who they seem and Jonah no longer knows who he can trust.
Jonah must discover what the clues his father left behind mean, what is really going on with the deal, who stole the Egg and why, and who is the psycho?
So many questions. We journey with Jonah as he learns that so much that he thought was reality was not.
Adam Gittlin has woven an intriguing story of the real estate world, with international components thrown in, a psycho for good measure, and love in his own backyard to create a memorable and enjoyable mystery. I enjoyed THE DEAL, although, I did immediately, say, to myself when the deal was presented to Jonah, “If it is too good to be true…” Other than that, it is an exciting thriller.
On a scale of 1 to 5, I give it a 4.7.
Toronto Noir
Edited by Janine Armin and Nathaniel G. Moore
Akashic Books, May 2008,
$15.95, 300 pp.
ISBN-13: 978-1-933354-50-7
When most people think of Toronto, I would hazard a guess they imagine a colder, northern version of New York City. But to think that would be quite wrong. While both cities are a multicultural nexus more than a melting pot, Toronto has a unique flavor all its own.
From the CN Tower to The Beach, Little India to East York and across town to the Humber Loop, Toronto is a city on the move. Boasting one of the most expansive transportation systems in Canada, the place can get disorienting to newcomers. No wonder one of the town’s slogans is “Come in and get lost.”
Toronto Noir suggests you do just that, read the anthology and get lost in sixteen diverse tales of adultery, avarice and murder.
While I enjoyed several of the stories in this anthology, a few stood out as more than merely enjoyable.
Gail Bowen’s The King of Charles Street West is a chilling tale of avarice and greed run amok. Billy Merchant is ambitious and happy enough to sit with his landlord and listen to the old man reminisce about the old days back in Russia. Of course, this is mostly due to the fact that the old man doesn’t have any heirs and named Billy in his will. The young man has dreams of a future Toronto and big ideas of how the city will grow.
In his mind, he’s already spent the inheritance and prospered from his insider knowledge of the real estate market. When Billy learns a legitimate heir is on his way from Russia to visit old Vova, he makes a decision that has repercussions on the future.
In Peter Robinson’s Walking The Dog, we see how well romance and death can go hand-in-hand. When a minor celebrity and a wealthy housewife meet at The Beach, love and lust collide in a gamble that ends in murder.
A Bout of Regret by Michael Redhill is a delicious little story of lust and the lucky when a bar owner gets a visit from the husband cop of the woman he’s been banging for several years. The ending is a delightful little twist.
If you’re looking for something a little different to read, Toronto Noir should satisfy.
Cerri Ellis
Book Reviewer and Film Critic at Large
The Shape of Imagination:
http://cerriellis.blogspot.com
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