Anastasia Pollack is not having a good time lately. Her husband Karl recently died in Vegas.  The fact that he died on a roulette table at the Luxor Hotel in Las Vegas was pretty bad. The fact that he was a closet gambler, cleaned out every account they had without her knowing about it, and […]

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The Fate Of Pryde is the second book in the series The Trilogy Of Remembrance. In book one The Drawing Lesson the reader was introduced to Turner Prize winning painter Alexander Wainwright. You can read the review here.
The Fate Of Pryde once more takes the reader into Alexander’s creative world. Famed as a landscape artist […]

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The newest anthology from the New York/Tri-state Chapter of Sister’s in Crime is another good, though often very somber, entertaining read. Filled with 22 stories, the book edited by Terrie Farley Moran, frequently pays homage to the past while also lamenting a present not everyone wanted. Occasionally amusing, most often the tales are about rectifying […]

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For the past few years I have compiled a list of my favorite books read. It was a surprisingly difficult task, the caliber of new authors is so high that to chose one over another is next to impossible.
2011 was no exception, time and time again wonderful books crossed my desk. It makes me happy […]

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P. I. Jake Hannigan has a “…square jaw and skepticism that can’t be bought on Sundays in Blue Law States.”  (Page 5) That means he has a fondness for alcohol and will indulge that fondness whenever the mood strikes including his own office. That is where Professor Durgen found him on a certain Monday morning.
 
Professor […]

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Virgil Flowers returns in SHOCK WAVE and the read is a good one. This is the fifth novel of the series and this time he is chasing a bomber. Virgil is based in Mankato, Minnesota and therefore routinely covers the southern part of the state for the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. He also goes […]

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Basic Things You’ve Always Wanted To Know – Volume One
It seems that a new ‘tell all’ book about a Hollywood celeb comes out  every 30 seconds. But are they worth reading? For the most part the answer would be a resounding NO. Who cares if actress X slept with actor Y? It is their business, […]

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Memory’s Wake by Selina Fenech
Fairies and Fantasy Pty Ltd (July 3, 2011)
978-0987151117
328 Pages
Looking for a young adult urban fantasy with enough adventure, romance, and page-turning excitement to keep even the most easily distracted teen captivated? Then look no further than Memory’s Wake by Selina Fenech.
Imagine being dropped into a strange world with nothing more than the […]

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There are few people that can genuinely say that they love their job, but I am one of them. I never know what wonderful delight will appear in my mailbox. A case in point is Mark Evan Walker’s new book The Case Of The Blood Red Stars.
I first encountered Mark because of his outstanding art […]

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With the subtitle of “11 Short Stories of  Killers, Fixers, and P.I.’s” you know exactly what you are getting in this primarily hard-boiled read from Sniplits. Unlike many anthologies that often waste several pages with a well-meaning introduction of some type, this one gets straight into the action.
“Vista with Player” by R. A. Allen opens […]

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With rookie River Ranger Mandy Tanner and her boss Steve Hadley watching, things are about to get very dangerous on the Arkansas River in Colorado. One of the river rafts has flipped and tossed equipment and passengers into the swirling river churning towards some deadly rapids. With odds against them before they start, Tanner and […]

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I am not particularly political by nature, I tend to view all politicians through my skeptical, aging and not very rosy glasses. Politics has a nasty habit of being Orwellian by its very nature. “Four legs good” George Orwell explains in Animal Farm. That slogan however is added too later by the politicians “Four legs […]

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Bloomington, Indiana should be nothing more than a quiet college town.  It had been until a strange flashing star began to light up the night as well as daytime sky. A star that can’t be seen anywhere else on Earth. Strange events are also happening in a local wooded area.  All too soon it becomes […]

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It’s May in Wyoming and Sheriff Walt Longmire would like to get the prisoner transfer finished and go home as he has plans. It has been a long day already and having to stop for food at the South Fork Lodge in the heart of the Bighorn Mountains was a necessary risk. Sheriff Longmire and […]

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Before it happened it seemed to 13 year old Lizzie Hood that the Verner family next door was perfect in every way. Lizzie had been friends with Evie for what seemed like forever and spent almost every waking moment in her company. Evie’s mom is bland and unassuming. Evie’s sister, Dusty, rules home and school […]

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Most people probably do not view food as a particularly political subject. They are wrong, food is a hugely political arena. Unfortunately it is a subject that for the most part goes unreported in the press.  Sure we hear about Mad Cow disease, or the dangers of Mexican produce, but what we do not hear […]

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This subject of bio-terrorism is a disturbing one. You only have to look back at the post 9/11 Anthrax attack to understand the desalinizing effect that bio-terorrism can have. Some call it the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, a threat that you cannot see, it is a silent executioner. It could be in the water, […]

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Friday, December 4th it snowed in Houston. That was yesterday and this is now on a Saturday night. While the rain falls on the city of Houston, a body lays half in and half out of the heated swimming pool behind a posh home. If you don’t look closely, it almost seems as if she […]

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Cody Hoyt is your clichéd classic troubled cop on the edge.  Divorced, disgraced, alcoholic, with a reputation of being a cop with great investigative instincts but lots of issues,  Cody Hoyt is back home in Montana after everything blew up in Denver. These days he tries to stay sober while working as a detective in […]

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From Dirt Roads to Rail Roads to Interstates

I am a fan of children’s books, they are far more complex to create that many people realize. It is the one genre of books where the reader is not the purchaser. It is often the parent or grandparent doing the buying. A key factor in a children’s […]

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Feral hogs have been running wild in Texas for years. As the problem has worsened and moved into urban areas, news reports started airing more and more frequently on the issue. If something gets reported on the news enough and there is any way possible to make a reality show on the subject, some network […]

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A Fairy Tale For Grown-Ups
Fantasy is a curious genre of writing and one that is much misunderstood. Detractors say things like, anyone can write a fantasy book, the author can fix any problem that he has ‘written’ his hero into by inventing a new spell or Elf! Yes, at the garbage end of the genre […]

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“Tomorrow.
The world is filled with tomorrows and none are worth a damn, at least for me.  Tomorrow has some bit of hope attached. Things will be better tomorrow. I’ll have a decent job and a good solid wife.  Tomorrow I’ll have my health back or a brand new baby boy or a string of ponies.   […]

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Featuring nine stories by Edinburgh resident Nigel Bird, this short collection features tales told by adults and juveniles dealing with dark days and even darker thoughts. The characters often are not happy go lucky folks. These are people trying to survive in a world stacked against them. As such, sometimes the language is a bit […]

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It is 1979 and Brendan Fishback isn’t doing too well in the game called life. Waking up next to a dead woman can cause huge problems. The fact that she, Ashleigh Sizemore, was the daughter of the wealthy and powerfully connected, Ralph Sizemore is a huge problem. Word is old Ralph is going to be […]

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This novel marks the sixth installment of the “Something to Die For” mystery series as well a new publisher. Carrie and Henry King are an active retired couple who recently got married and occasionally help out small town police with peculiar cases. They have decided to celebrate their eight months of wedded bliss by taking […]

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The third novel in this mystery series, “Breaking Silence” by Linda Castillo, is quite possibly the most disturbing book to date.  Police Chief Kate Burkholder is hard at work trying to stop a series of attacks against the Amish while solving a complex murder case.
 
At first, what happened that cold December morning at the Slabaugh […]

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My summer reading this year kicked off with Cambodia’s Curse: the Modern History of a Troubled Land by former New York Times reporter Joel Brinkley. Brinkley won a Pulitzer in 1980 for his coverage (at the Louisville Courier Journal) of the fall of the Khmer Rouge.
The title Cambodia’s Curse bugs me. Though cultures resistant to […]

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An Unauthorized History
I am the first to admit that I am a 55 year old man that still acts like a two year old. There is a one word question that I ask over and over again, Why? It is a simple three letter word, and I have used it so often I am […]

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Historical Fiction is a hard taskmaster. The author must weave the fiction elements into the harsh reality of the facts. When done well (a rare occurrence) you have a book where fact and fiction blend so well that the reader does not know where one ends, and the other begins.
These are lofty goals. But there […]

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