High-quality English language analysis and editorial writing on the news.
Unbeknownst to the good citizens of Ballard, Texas, as Hawke’s Prey: A Sonny Hawke Thriller by Reavis Z. Wortham begins, terrorists have crossed the nearby border and then violently through a nearby temporary border patrol checkpoint leaving bodies in their wake. While snowstorms and blizzards happen in this part of Southwest Texas, this one is […]
Warning Signs by award winning author Jan Christensen is made up of three short stories that were previously published in print and online markets. This collection is a bit less than 19,000 words and each story is a good one. Each story has a small intro, a brief explanation of how the story came about, […]
It has been several books since I read a Jack Reacher novel. For me, they had become entirely too predictable. Reacher drifts into town, finds a more than friendly local cop or waitress, cleans out the problem caused by entrenched locals, and moves out and on down the road. Names and places changed, but the […]
All Due Respect 2020 is the book version of the stories that appeared online at All Due Respect. Edited by Chris Rhatigan and David Nemeth, the stories appear in the book in the same order as they appeared each month on the website. These are crime fiction tales of characters dealing with hard problems. The […]
From the pen of talented historical novelist Joan Schweighardt comes another well-crafted, meticulously researched story about family, community, immigration, oppression, the environment, and having to face the consequences of one’s actions. It’s 1928 and the Great Depression is looming around the corner when two impoverish but talented mixed-raced—Amerindian and European—Brazilian immigrant cousins travel to NYC […]
The story that inspired the cover, “The Calculus of Karma” by M. C. Tuggle, leads off the Mystery Weekly Magazine: June 2020 issue. Deputy Marshal Malcom Lamb has to deal with a body in an alleyway of the asteroid’s main camp. The miner is dead because of the crack in his visor that allowed the […]
Mystery Weekly Magazine: May 2020 issue opens with “The Rusted Beetle” by James Nolan. He has been able to hide in the tiny village of St. Julien in France for some time. He thought he was safe until the man with the black backpack showed up at the same time the legendary wind that is […]
Finding a good product or service to sell really is only half of the story. Now you need to try and get out there and tell everyone about it. In the days before social media and the internet, the only real way for you to promote your business would be for you to get out […]
Code Four is the final installment of the series that began in Charlie-316 by Colin Conway and Frank Zafiro. While much is resolved, one can see how this might not be the end of the story for several of these characters. As this is the fourth and final installment of the story arc that has […]
The Killer Wore Cranberry: A Sixth Scandalous Serving leads off with a very poignant introduction. In a note that honors the pain that many of us deal with this time of year, the loss of a loved one, Editor Jay Hartman honors author and friend, Earl Staggs. Earl was, and still is as his legacy […]
A Private Cathedral: A Dave Robicheaux Novel is a book of two times. Set a couple of decades ago, it has numerous references to the here and now concerning the fight for social justice, the current occupant of the White House, and more. As one always expects in a Dave Robicheaux novel, aspects of the […]
Sunshine Vicram is back in Del Sol, New Mexico, with her teenage daughter, Aurora, better known as Auri. She is also less than thrilled about living in the small tourist town of Del Sol again. Even if it is home for her parents and she and Auri are in the guest house about fifty feet […]
Joan Schweighardt is the author of River Aria, which is both a standalone novel and the third book in a trilogy, as well as other novels, nonfiction titles, and children’s books. She is also a freelance writer and ghostwriter. Currently touring the blogosphere, she’s here today to discuss her novel, her series, the themes in […]
The Religious Body by Catherine Aird is the first book in The Calleshire Chronicles and is a good one. What initially presents as a locked room mystery set in a nunnery is far more complex than the initial set up would have the reader believe. It is early November and before dawn at the Convent […]
Badge Heavy is the third book in the Charlie 316 series and picks up shortly after Never The Crime ended. The Anti-Crime Team is up and running and working the streets of Spokane hard. Officer Gary Stone is on ACT along with Tyler Garrett as well as well with rookie Jun Yang and veteran officer […]
Mulholland Dive: Three Stories by Michael Connelly is a collection of three entertaining stories set on Mulholland in Los Angeles. Each story is complicated and violent in its own way. Each story is from a different time period. Yet, they all share the same idea that greed kills and does so violently. The only question […]
Mystery Weekly Magazine: April 2020 opens with story that inspired the cover art, “The Roaring Twenties Revisited” by John H. Dromey. Lieutenant Tierney of the 23rd precinct wants Molly Sullivan’s help on a case. Tierney’s daughter is friends with a niece of legendary crime figure, Charles Mellon. The niece wants somebody to do a welfare […]
It is the middle of May 2018 as The Lantern Men: A Ruth Galloway Mystery by Elly Griffiths begins and a lot has changed in recent months. Kate is now nine. Dr. Ruth Galloway now teaches at Cambridge and lives with Frank. She is no longer the North Norfolk police’s resident forensic archeologist and is […]
Brian Holloway came out to the house on Shell Island to crack a safe. It is his job and one he has been doing for quite awhile. The owner, a Mr. Robinette, is rather difficult from the start and is clearly more trouble than he is worth and he is obviously worth a lot of […]
Never Look Back In Texas by Russ Hall begins innocently enough with Al Quinn long since retired being asked by Sheriff Clayton to do a little mentoring. He has the experience and despite the grumbling, is ready to help out. He just was not ready to see on his way home hours later, Fergie in […]
Tracing your ancestry is all the rage the last few years and a lot of folks are doing it by way of various genetic testing sites. Many people are totally unaware that once you send off your genetic material, the company that receives your genetic materially can legally do pretty much do anything they want […]
Frozen: A Vera Stanhope Short Story by Ann Cleeves begins with Vera having the day off and wanting to get out and about. After getting some fresh air and seeing the sights, Vera decides to go to the small town of Corbridge for some tea and cakes. She has some and then goes across the […]
It has been a few months since U.S. Marshall Lucas Davenport was shot. September is half gone and he knows he still doesn’t look right no matter what the others say. Working out helps, but he isn’t back physically or emotionally, and he knows it. He also can’t spend much time worrying about where he […]
It is late June 1898 as Sooner Than Gold by J.R. Lindermuth begins. Hiram Mariner is the local doctor and he has come to fetch Sheriff Sylvester Tilghman in his newfangled horseless carriage as they both are wanted down at a mine just outside of town. Nathan Zimmerman, owner of the mine just outside of […]
A coyote found the body first as it lay at the base of a pagoda in Thailand Plaza. Driven by the fires that had consumed Griffith Park moving her natural food sources away, the scrawny coyote took off a chunk of thigh before the flashing lights and sirens of the first officers to arrive […]
She was lucky to have escaped with her life when the intruders came for her that cold and snowy night. She had been ready and had a plan, but as often happens with plans, things went sideways from the point her door crashed inward. She fled into the night and by sheer luck survived and […]
Marilea C. Rabasa is a retired high school teacher who moved west from Virginia eleven years ago. Before that, she traveled around the world with her former husband in the Foreign Service. She has been published in a variety of publications. Writing as Maggie C. Romero, Rabasa won the International Book Award, was named a […]
Ice Hunter: A Woods Cop Mystery by Joseph Heywood begins a series built around Grady Service. A former marine who served in Vietnam, these days he is a conservation officer working in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Specifically, an area known as the “Mosquito Tract” that his father also patrolled before he was killed. Like his father […]
Maine Game Warden Mike Bowditch is in Florida due to a background check on a new hire and a little more when he gets a phone call from Ora Stevens. She is very concerned as her husband, Charles Stevens, has not been in contact with her for over 41 hours. The legendary Game Warden is […]
Humans and there ever advancing technology have always had an impact on the West. Often in unintended ways with major consequences. One of those who has noted those changes have been Author C. J. Box. He has done so in a variety of series, especially those that feature Wyoming Game Warden Joe Pickett. The same […]
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