TOP TRUE CRIME BOOKS

Try and top these true crime stories, fiction writers:

1. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote (1966)

2. Helter Skelter, Vincent Bugliosi and Curt Gentry (1974)

3. Homicide: A Year on the Killing Streets, David Simon (1991)

4. The Devil in the White City: Murder, Magic, and Madness at the Fair that Changed America, Erik Larson (2003)

5. Crime and Science: The New Frontier in Criminology, Jurgen Thorwald (1967)

6. Doctor Dealer: The Rise and Fall of an All-American Boy and His Multimillion-Dollar Cocaine Empire, Mark Bowden (2000)

7. Wiseguy, Nicholas Pileggi (1986)

8. Donnie Brasco: My Undercover Life in the Mafia, Joseph D. Pistone (1987)

9. Bestial: The Savage Trail of a True American Monster, Harold Schechter (1998)

10. Blind Eye: The Terrifying Story of a Doctor Who Got Away With Murder, James B. Stewart (2000)

11. Finders Keepers: The True Story of a Man Who Found $1 Million, Mark Bowden (2002)

12. A Rip in Heaven: A Memoir of Murder and Its Aftermath, Jeanine Cummins (2004)

13. The Stranger Beside Me, Ann Rule (1980)

14. Lethal Intent, Sue Russell (2002)

15. Killer Clown: The John Wayne Gacy Murders, Terry Sullivan and Peter T. Maiken (2000)

16. The Lives and Times of Bonnie & Clyde, E.R. Milner (1996)

17. Dead Man Walking, Helen Prejean (1993)

18. Public Enemies: America’s Greatest Crime Wave and the Birth of the FBI, 1933-34, Bryan Burrough (2004)

19. Angel Face: The True Story of Student Killer Amanda Knox, Barbie Latza Nadeau (2010) Amanda Knox was found not guilty of the murder in 2011.

20. The Killing Season: A Summer Inside an LAPD Homicide Division, Miles Corwin (1997)

21. The Suspicions of Mr. Whicher, Kate Summerscale (2008)

22. And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank, Steve Oney (2003)

23. Confessions of Son of Sam, David Abrahamsen (1985)

24. Cries Unheard: Why Children Kill — The Story of Mary Bell, Gitta Sereny (1999)25. Blood and Money, Thomas Thompson (2001)

Submitted by
Gerrie Ferris Finger
The Ghost Ship
http://amzn.to/r3imp5

THE GHOST SHIP, an Outer Banks romantic thriller

My beloved Hatteras Island has been cutoff from the rest of the Outer Banks because the sea breached Highway 12 when Hurricane Irene hit the cape. The same thing happened some years ago. I was reporting from the region for the Atlanta Journal Constitution, and the road had just been rebuilt then.

In the wake of Irene, it appears the long skinny islands will recover and rebuild as the residents have done for centuries. Seafaring people are tough as I came to witness.

I wanted to share with you the genesis of my novel THE GHOST SHIP. A couple of years ago, it wasn't a hurricane, but a severe storm that uncovered the hulk of an early 20th century coastal schooner near Cape Hatteras Light House. Honestly, it gave me the creeps. It's no wonder this part of the Atlantic Ocean is called The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

At that time, the Graveyard of the Atlantic Museum at Cape Hatteras was under construction. The director told me that these wrecks were often uncovered from the sands in storms, and that in time another storm would bury my ominous ship skeleton.

While going through the artifacts and photographs at the museum, I came across the The Ghost Ship of Diamond Shoals. The Carroll A. Deering was a five-masted schooner. Returning from her maiden voyage to Rio and Barbados, and still in full sail, she somehow ran aground and her hull and keel buried on Diamond Shoal. This was in January, 1921. When the Coast Guard boarded her, they found no officers, crew, anchors or lifeboats. Only a six-toed cat. Six government agencies investigated the wreck, worldwide, but came to no conclusion. Was it pirates? mutiny? storms? Bermuda Triangle woo-woo?

So, my little gray cells (thank you, Hercule) conceived the idea of my own fictional solution to the mystery. I published THE GHOST SHIP at the end of June. It's not exactly a romance (which has strictures) nor a classic murder mystery. In other words, publishers loved the idea and the writing, but couldn't put it in a category. So, I had Kimberly Hitchens edit and format it for me and it's on Kindle and Nook.

I spent a lot of time on the Outer Banks reporting on the building of the museum and the controversial move of the Cape Hatteras Light House by the Park Service. I have a special affection for the mystery of the Outer Banks. It has lore galore, ghosts, legends, myths and houses made from the timbers of shipwrecks. Go into one of those, and you can sure get the spooks.

The Outer Banks survived another onslaught, as it always will. It seems the wind and sea gods also have a reverence for the The Graveyard of the Atlantic.

Gerrie
THE GHOST SHIP
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com

Review from GoodReads:"A ghost story mixed with a mystery and a love story told by an author who weaves a wonderful tale. A look into a piece of nautical history as well makes this a great read! I don't believe in ghosts but this book....has me changing my mind."

Buy: http://amzn.to/r3imp5

WHEN SERPENTS DIE - Book One in the Laura Kate O'Connell Plantation Series

Laura Kate O'Connell left her life of excitement as an overseas news correspondent to return to her Georgia hometown to raise her two young cousins.

When Royce Lee, Laura Kate's attorney, supposedly commits suicide, too many pieces of evidence tell a different story. Her instincts as an investigative reporting are tingling, and she just can't leave it alone. She meets Jack Rhodes, Royce's business partner. Sparks fly, but can she really trust a man she knows nothing about? And why is it that every time something new develops in the case, he seems to be there?

Warnings to back off escalate to an attempt on her life. Now, for Laura Kate, it's more than just a mystery.

Depending on Jack might be a mistake, but if Laura Kate can get past his southern charms and the nervous way Jack makes her feel, she may get the facts, solve the case, and even save her own life.

INVISIBLE PATH - A Carl Brookins Review

Invisible Path
By Marilyn Meredith
ISBN: 978-1-60659-239-7
Ebook ISBN: 978-1-60659-238-0
2010 Release from
Mundania Press. 224 pages


This charming story from a veteran author is the ninth in her series of Tempe Crabtree crime novels. Tempe is a deputy sheriff in the small town of Bear Creek near an Indian reservation in the mountains of central California.

A young man named Daniel Tofoya is sadly murdered and it develops that while he was a talented and often charming athlete, he could be a nasty bully if the mood took him. There are several possible perpetrators, but as often happens, most attention focuses on a stranger who has come to live on the reservation. The story is complicated by the appearance in town of a small separatist movement, stockpiling supplies in anticipation of a coming explosion of what could be racial and class warfare.


All of this gets sorted out by the patient and wise Deputy Crabtree. With help from her long-suffering pastor husband and exuberant son, Tempe is able to avert several disasters and calm some difficult situations.


The novel is in the classic traditional mystery mode with a lot of emphasis on character development and setting. Relations between members of different races and religious beliefs are very well handled with insight and care. This is another enjoyable and satisfying adventure with Deputy Tempe Crabtree.
--


Carl Brookins
www.carlbrookins.com
http://agora2.blogspot.com
Case of the Great Train Robbery, Reunion, Red Sky

DEVIL'S PLAYTHING - a Carl Brookins Review

Devil’s PlaythingBy Matt Richtel
ISBN: 978-1-59058-887-1
Released, 2011, 324 pgs,
Hard Cover.

This is a novel born of the twenty-first century. It is technology-rich,
abrupt, punchy, and filled with first-person pithy observations. It has a
modern complicated plot and some dark conspiracies worthy of flat-worlders
and those who still appear to believe the landings on the moon were merely
another government scam.

Blogger Nat Idle is drifting through life as a medical reporter and
occasionally paying attention to his rapidly aging grandmother, the only
member of his family in close proximity.  When he and Grandma Lane are on a
casual outing in a San Francisco park, a mysterious stranger, apparently
driving a Prius, shoots at him, or her, or them. How could this gentle,
rapidly aging woman, with no apparent enemies attract an assassin?  Not
possible so it must be Nat who was the target.  After all, he was engaged in
a controversy with some San Francisco cops about Porta Potty corruption.

The novel uses a criminal conspiracy of immense possibilities and
proportions to raise questions about the rising dependence on technology to
replace our individual memories, and to sermonize about American society’s
eagerness to shuttle its older generations into places where they can die
out of sight and mostly out of mind.  Those shortcomings aside, the novel
develops and carries along an inventive idea that is highly fraught with
tension and believability.

Carl Brookinshttp://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Devils Island, Bloody Halls, Reunion, Red Sky
more at Kindle, Smashwords & OmniLit!

Eggsceptional EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS - Happy Easter

EGGSECUTIVE ORDERS
Berkley, 2010
352 pages



If you like light reading, and who wouldn't at Easter time, give Julie Hyzy's award-winning culinary series a hop and skip through the pages as she prepares for the annual Easter Egg Roll at the White House.


Make no mistake this is cozy writing at its best with a series that began with State of the Onion (Anthony award winner).



In Eggsecutive Orders, a White House dinner guest has died. Was he poisoned? Suspicions point to Executive Chef Olivia Paras, the first female White House Chef, and her staff. Even her Secret Service lover, Tom, is no help because he's been told to keep her out of the kitchen, away from the first family's food. She must clear her name to keep her job and boyfriend, to say nothing of staying out of jail, or worse.
This wonderful souffle is funny and mysterious at the same time.

From Booklist
The ever-burgeoning culinary mystery subgenre has a new chef-sleuth. In her second adventure (following State of the Onion, 2008), Olivia Paras, the first female White House Chef, just wants to focus on her job: cooking for the president’s family, preparing state banquets, and getting ready for the annual Easter egg roll. However, when one of the guests at a state dinner dies, everything changes: Olivia and her staff are banned from the kitchens. Her boyfriend, Tom MacKenzie, part of the Secret Service’s presidential detail, has been assigned to keep Olivia from meddling in the investigation. Her mother and grandmother are about to arrive for their first visit to Washington, D.C., and tensions are rising among Olivia’s staff and guest chefs. Hyzy does a great job of keeping us interested in all of these problems, and the back-stage look at the White House proves fascinating. Recipes are included for Eggcellent Eggs. --Judy Coon



Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
THE LAST TEMPTATION out 2012
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

CRITICAL CONDITION - a Carl Brookins review

Critical Condition

By C.J.Lyons

ISBN: 9780515148688

Mass Market, 300 page

2010 release from Jove

Fourth and last in the Angels of Mercy series.

A hospital in Pittsburgh is under siege, both from within and without as a huge blizzard brings the city to a standstill. In the hospital, Dr. Gina Freeman is trying to cope with the problematical recovery of her fiancé, detective Jerry Boyle, suffering from bullet wounds. Elsewhere in the hospital, other capable if flawed women, Charge Nurse Nora Halloran, and student Amanda Mason, prepare to wait out the storm.

A vicious band of armed killers suddenly appears, looking for a doctor who happens to be out of the hospital. She, apparently, holds the key to the continued well-being of a powerful and wealthy political figure from the West Coast. The thugs demonstrate a frightening propensity for killing anyone who gets in the way and the bodies pile up.Written in an almost breathless, pell-mell style, the novel never sags for more than a page or two. Crisis lands on crisis almost as fast as the bodies pile up. Tension grows to almost unbearable levels and relationships become more entangled, setting up conflicts among the protagonists. In the end, the resolution results in a few more bodies.

An excellent novel of type. The characters are well-drawn and have sufficient differences to make them easy to keep track of, the ploys used to confound the gangsters are interesting and varied and appropriate to the venues. The dialogue is logical and understandable and it fits the scenery.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,

Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

DEATH PANS OUT- A Carl Brookins Review

Death Pans Out
by Ashna Graves
Hardcover, 288 pages,
from Poisoned Pen Press

Reporter Jeneva Leopold, faced with a life-altering decision, takes a leave of absence from her job to recover from surgery. Breast cancer has claimed part of her body and she wants time to recover in relative peace. Not just from the debilitating effects of the surgery itself, but she wants to be in a place where she can think about her life and her existence. This is a novel about an unusual woman with an unusual plan to rehabilitate herself.

There are great stories surrounding the searches for precious metals from
California, South America and the Yukon, as well as the production of gold
from less well-known regions, and this one takes its cue from those stories.
Fact or fiction, we are never quite sure, but here is a story which may well
become a part of that so interesting body of literature.

Jeneva’s family has long owned an idle gold mine in the mountains of
Southern Oregon, a harsh, vastly rural region of high deserts, mountains,
isolated communities, wild animals and, legends. One legend surrounds the
mysterious disappearance of Jeneva’s uncle, Mathew. Mathew disappeared one
night from the cabin at the mine almost twenty years before the story opens,
and his mining partner has retreated into a silent years from which he may
never emerge.

Jeneva takes a long leave of absence and moved to the cabin at the mine
where she intends to spend several months of the summer physically and
mentally recovering from her trauma.Almost immediately, a parade of
compelling characters begins to invade her peaceful existence, from a weird
self-styled “artifact hunter,” who insists that he always camps on Bureau of
Forestry land and visits the area regularly, to a hearty sheriff who seems
at times too good to be true,to a taciturn former model and beauty queen
turned rancher, to assorted miners, a tall funeral director and other
assorted characters.They all make for some fascinating scenes and while
the action is never of a high order, the rising tension and sense of danger
to Jeneva and her friends, is well-handled.

I enjoyed the story, learned some things about governmental land management
and local attitudes toward government, and found the ending quite a
surprise. If there are small problems with this debut novel, they stem from
an experienced reporter acting entirely too trusting and naive to serve the
story, and a couple of the rants are a little too long. That said, I look
forward to another adventure with Jeneva Leopold.
Carl Brookins
http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

WHEN SERPENTS DIE

WHEN SERPENTS DIE, a Long and Short Review

When Serpents Die:
Laura Kate Plantation Series Book I
Author: Gerrie Ferris
Publisher: Desert Breeze Publishing
Genre: Contemporary, Mystery/Suspense
Length: Full (171 pages)
Heat: Sensual
Rating: 5
Reviewed by Stephantois
Laura Kate O'Connell left her life of excitement as an overseas news correspondent to return to her Georgia hometown to raise her two young cousins. When Royce Lee, Laura Kate's attorney, supposedly commits suicide, too many pieces of evidence tell a different story. Her instincts as an investigative reporting are tingling, and she just can't leave it alone.She meets Jack Rhodes, Royce's business partner. Sparks fly, but can she really trust a man she knows nothing about? And why is it that every time something new develops in the case, he seems to be there?
Warnings to back off escalate to an attempt on her life. Now, for Laura Kate, it's more than just a mystery.Depending on Jack might be a mistake, but if Laura Kate can get past his southern charms and the nervous way Jack makes her feel, she may get the facts, solve the case, and even save her own life....
I really enjoyed this book. I love a good mystery and this one didn’t disappoint me in any way. Laura Kate is a great sleuth. Every character jumps off the page. The dialogue sounds so natural it’s almost as if you’re overhearing a conversation. And the southern setting of this book added to the enjoyment. The smells, the manners of the South all added wonderful colorful layers to the plot.
There are the essential quirky characters, the red herring, and there’s even a trial going on in town while Laura’s trying to figure out if Royce took his own life.Laura Kate is a series character and Ferris does a first class job of laying in back story and not giving away too much too soon. All the characters were likely suspects, there were twist and turns I didn’t see coming and it was a pleasure to read.Ferris also added some romantic suspense elements into the mix by introducing Jack as a possible love interest for Laura. I can’t wait to see what happens between these two in the next book of the series. And for that matter, read more of Ferris’ work.
If you like a good mystery with a cast of colorful characters, put this one on your must read list.

ABSOLUTION - A Carl Brookins Review

Absolution

By Susan Fleet

ISBN: 978-1-4357-0841-9

Pub. 2008

Lulu & Kindle



This brutal, dark and explicit novel has a compelling drive to the third-person narrative that makes it difficult to look away. In part, I suspect, readers may be drawn on by an almost irresistible desire to learn how much farther the author is willing to go.

Set in one of the most suggestive cities on the continent, New Orleans, the author has created a nasty killer of similar proportions. The Sinner stalks his victims with a relentless attention to detail until one begins to wonder if he’ll get away with his crimes. It reveals nothing to mention that he does meet an appropriate eventual end, because the mystery is in his identity, carefully concealed through most of the narrative.

As the title suggests the psycho-sexual aberration at the heart of this killer’s impetus is rooted in an intense religiosity and the issues that raises. The sweaty pre-Katrina summer season in New Orleans only enhances the often oppressive feelings of many of the scenes.

The novel combines a multiplicity of viewpoints with several elements of subgenres of this kind of commercial fiction, relentless if sometimes mis-directed police procedures, multiple murders, obscure and difficult motives and complicated relationships between members of a pretty large cast. The tension between the detectives and a local reporter, for example, is very well explored, as are certain racial elements.

If there are a few lapses in logic, an occasional unexplained coincidence, and some dialogue gaffes, overall, Absolution stands out as a highly credible effort.

Carl Brookinshttp://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island, Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

BIG WHEAT - a Carl Brookins Review

Big Wheat
By Richard A. Thompson
Poisoned Pen Press 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59058-820-8

World War I is done and Charlie Krueger’s older brother is never coming
home. Charlie, his sister and their mother must cope with an increasingly
abusive drunken father and husband. The summer of 1919 wanes and vast
acreages of the Middle West prairies are thick with ripening grain. Up the
long reaches from the banks of the Platte and the Missouri come the contract
threshing crews and their machines, most followed by raffish bindlestiffs to
supplement a farmer’s friends and relatives. The crews are often peopled by
men of questionable backgrounds and are occasionally eyed with suspicion by
local sheriffs who rarely chase criminals beyond their county boundaries.

When Charlie Krueger has a final confrontation with his father, he leaves
behind a sorrowful mother and sister and the local girl he thought he’d love
forever. He becomes a bindlestiff, traveling from farm to farm, learning
the threshing business and nurturing his love for machines.

The machines are new, complicated and prone to breakdowns. Charlie hooks up
with a marvelously conceived traveling machine repair crew that becomes his
new family. But lurking in the background is a killer, a killer who
believes Charlie saw his latest brutal deed. He seeks to find and murder
Charlie. Meanwhile, the sheriff of Charlie’s home county has developed
leads which point him toward Charlie as a murderer.

This then is the roiling plot which moves the story forward. Carefully
constructed and set against the vast reaches of the plains states, the novel
evokes a time and place and the attitudes of the people and the land in a
powerful and moving way. Readers will smell the dust, drip sweat and
shrivel under the burning sun right along with the threshing crews. They’ll
feel a clutch in the night as the sheriff and the murderer draw closer and
they’ll empathize with the casual corruption and the surmounting goodness of
the characters the author has created.

A fine, exciting and unusual well-written novel I am pleased to recommend to
all readers of crime fiction.

Carl Brookins
http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/
Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,
Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

Happy Chanukah and a Revisit with Harry Kemelman's Rabbi David Small

Chanukah usually falls around Christmas, but since Judaism follows the lunar calendar it arrived early this year. It will be celebrated December 1 through December 9.

Several years ago, I gave my husband eight Harry Kemelmans, one for each day of Chanukah. After the second gift, he knew what the third, fourth, etc. was going to be, and he checked my book shelves to see if he hadn't received recycled Kemelmans. No way.

He got brand new copies

I read them all, starting with FRIDAY THE RABBI SLEPT LATE, published in 1964. I was a big Agatha Christie fan and somehow the rabbi series fell in with the tenor of her mysteries.

In FTRSL, Rabbi David Small of Bernard's Crossing is suspected in the murder of a nanny which happened not far from the synagogue. That first novel, an Edgar best first novel, set off a run of best sellers. Rabbi Small, and I'm sure Harry Kemelman, warmed the hearts of millions with his erudite wit and wisdom.

Mr. Kemelman passed away shortly after THAT DAY THE RABBI LEFT TOWN was published, but I revisit the series from time to time, like I do Agatha and P. D. James, and a host of other favorites.

Happy Chanukah, one and all.

Gerrie Ferris Finger
THE END GAME
http://www.gerrieferrisfinger.com/

NANCY LYNN JARVIS-Realtor turned Murderer

Author Nancy Lynn Jarvis has been a Santa Cruz, California, Realtor® for more than twenty years. She owns a real estate company with her husband, Craig.
After earning a BA in behavioral science from San Jose State University, she worked in the advertising department of the San Jose Mercury News. A move to Santa Cruz meant a new job as a librarian and later a stint as the business manager of Shakespeare/Santa Cruz.

Nancy’s work history reflects her philosophy: people should try something radically different every few years. Writing is her newest adventure. She invites you to take a peek into the real estate world through the stories that form the backdrop of her Regan McHenry mysteries. Details and ideas come from Nancy’s own experiences.





Take it away, Nancy.


OK. You seem nice. You seem like someone I could talk to, like someone who would understand. I have a confession to make. I like to kill people sometimes.

Until about three years ago I sold houses — that’s right — I was a Realtor. But then the market tanked and I took a break from real estate. I got bored pretty quickly and started having these fantasies about murdering people.

It’s not that much of a stretch, real estate agents and murder, I mean. Realtors really do find bodies — sometimes dead bodies, sometimes just naked bodies — people don’t always get notified when their houses are going to be shown — but it’s an interesting business. And after twenty years I had seen a lot of things to feed my fantasies.

So I decided, just as a way to fill time, to write mysteries from a real estate agent’s perspective. I figured I could tell you about some of the things I had seen — some of the funny or crazy things — and about the bodies.

It turns out murdering people is fun. Instead of just taking a time-out from being a Realtor, I’ve retired…or moved on…and am killing for a living.





I have three books out now and am working on the fourth. I can’t tell you too much about the books because they are mysteries, but you’ll like reading about killing people the way I do it. I’m not big on graphic gore, although I do enjoy researching ways to get rid of people. I guess that’s not surprising — I do like CSI — but I’m more of a fan of the Mentalist. I like the way Patrick Jane solves mysteries: by noticing things others overlook, asking questions others aren’t asking, and by reading people. That’s how my protagonist, Regan McHenry solves mysteries and murders, too.

I just had a great idea. I know how I can introduce you to my books without giving too much away. Why don’t you go to my website and take a look? Read the beginning chapters of my books. You can do it for free. You’ll start to see how my mind works and get a better sense of how I write than by reading anything I can say here. (But since book four isn’t ready to be posted yet, I will have to tell you about how it will begin.


It starts on Halloween with a person dressed as death passing out cards to partygoers. All the cards have future dates on them except for one man’s. His has a time on it, a time just about an hour in the future.)

Oh, and there’s a recipe for Mysterious Chocolate Chip Cookies on the website in case you’re into chocolate with your murders. Come on — just between us — I bet you are, aren’t you?

Nancy Lynn Jarvis
http://www.goodreadmysteries.com/
http://www.facebook.com/ReganMcHenryRealEstateMysteries?ref=ts

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE - a Carl Brookins Review

Set The Night On Fire
By Libby Fischer Hellmann
ISBN: 978-0-98406-5-7
Trade Paperback from
Allium Press, Chicago, 2010
346 pages.

Every so often a novel comes along that connects with the reader in such a
visceral way that it is like a punch in the stomach. This is such a story. If you lived through the nineteen-sixties and your memory is reasonably intact, or you learned even a small amount about those turbulent times, you will connect with this story.

On one level this is the story of Lila Hilliard. Forty-some years after a particular series of spectacular and dangerous events in Chicago that revolved around a nasty far-off war and a political convention, a mysterious fire has robbed her of the only family she has ever known. At about the same time, a man named Dar Gantner, just released from prison, returns to Chicago from prison to reconnect with a few of his former companions from the same era. One, a woman named Rain, tells Dar that another of their mutual friends has just met with an odd fatal accident. It is clear in their conversation that Rain doesn’t entirely believe that it was an accident.

From that moment on it becomes apparent that dark and unknown forces are at work. But why? Who are these people we meet at the beginning of the book, who targets them and why? Through a series of small and then progressively longer flashbacks we are transported to a time when young people believed the rhetoric, that they could indeed change the outcomes of momentous happenings, that they could affect the course of the most powerful nation in the world. Some of those players, whatever they believed, moved on to build calm and substantial lives of commerce, and politics, and contemplative existences. They don’t want to relive any part of that time.

Most readers alive today will have memories of the Chicago convention of 1968, or of the riots and will begin again to remember the emotions of the time. And even if not, the measured, artful, portioning out of connections, of information, will bring those emotions to the surface. On another level, this is the telling of the great events of the late sixties, the crimes and the abuses and the trails that descended from them, not from the newspaper headlines or the televised reports, but through the eyes and hearts of some of the young people at the center of the conflicts. But this is no polemic, nor is it an attempt to change the record. What the author has done is produce a cracking good thriller that grips a reader by the throat and doesn’t let go until the final pages. One after another the revelations keep coming, and as the central characters struggle to stay alive long enough to solve their mysteries, the author maintains our interest in the love story, the history and the dynamics of the times.

It doesn’t matter your political beliefs, then, or now; the characters and their trials will reach off the pages of this fine novel and touch you in ways that are basic to our existence as human beings. This is a fine, fine novel that well deserves the accolades it will surely receive.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/,

http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

DEATH IN WEST WHEELING - A Carl Brookins Review

Death in West Wheeling

By Michael Dymmoch

Five Star Mysteries,

Hardcover, 182 pages

Hardcover, $25.95

IBN1594144583

Who knew author Michael Dymmoch, who has written such solid noir mysteries as "White Tiger," "The Fall" and "M.I.A.", could put together such a funny, even hilarious novel as this one, set in a small town in West Virginia, or somewhere close by? Homer Deter is currently acting sheriff and he has to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a teacher at a local missionary school.

This case is just the start of something bigger. Before long, Acting Sheriff Deter is faced with three more disappearances, an odd-acting ATF agent in search of illicit stills, a few apparently random motor vehicle accidents, and including a twenty-three car pileup right in the middle of town. And the funny thing is, all these incidents eventually connect. That even includes the full-grown escaped tiger locked in the post office.

Author Dymmoch has some trenchant things to say about relationships between men and women, and about the state of our society. It's all wrapped in fine writing, a really excellent if skewed sense of our society, and some dandy plotting.

Pick up this good short novel. You'll be glad you did.

Carl Brookins

http://www.carlbrookins.com/, http://www.agora2.blogspot.com/

Case of the Greedy Lawyer, Devils Island,Bloody Halls, more at Kindle & Smashwords!

THE END GAME - A REVIEW

BYLINE: Gina Webb
For the Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Human trafficking --- modern-day slavery --- is the fastest-growing criminal industry in the world, generating an estimated $9.5 billion every year. According to the U.S. Department of State, 600,000 to 800,000 people are bought and sold across international borders each year; half are children, most are female.

Atlanta's airports and transit systems create an ideal environment for traffickers to move victims and stay one step ahead of the police. Low-income neighborhoods are easy targets --- with few resources for extensive search efforts --- and so are high-risk children who won't be missed, such as runaways and foster children.

Or, as cop-turned-missing-children's advocate Moriah Dru calls them: "Troubled kids. My kind of kids." The kind of kids that have been disappearing from Atlanta's historic Cabbagetown neighborhood in Gerrie Ferris Finger's debut mystery, "The End Game."

Dru runs Child Trace, the organization she formed after leaving the police force, and she's called into action when two more children go missing. This time the circumstances are too suspicious to ignore: After a house fire that kills Ed and Wanda Barnes, their young foster children, sisters Jessie, 9, and Dottie, 7, are nowhere to be found.

Dru joins forces with ex-partner Rick Lake, Atlanta PD Homicide Unit, to look into what they at first believe is a local crime. Before long, Dru gets a tip that the girls may be victims of a child sex ring with eager clients in South America. Dru and Lake have less than 24 hours to find the sisters.

"The End Game" won the 2009 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel award, which celebrates the "cozy" genre. Think Agatha Christie and Dorothy L. Sayers --- old lace, small villages, and the ever-present teapot, the trademark of the cozy. Traditionally, cozies avoid gratuitous violence and explicit sex. So, how to write about something so much dirtier than a nice clean-cut murder under those conditions?

Finger carries it off by keeping the kids and their abductors offstage and the action centered on the intense but relatively bloodless hunt. The action takes place during a single day during which Dru and Lake rarely venture far from the scene of the crime --- their house-to-house interviews of witnesses and suspects constitute a walking tour of Cabbagetown.

Punchy dialogue and sly humor keep things moving, and an "eenie meenie miney moe" of neighborhood witnesses --- a prying spinster, a wrongly-convicted child molester, a store-owner who likes to dress up as Santa Claus, even the oily head of child services --- come across as all the shadier for being unlikely suspects.

Dru is a strong narrator whom we get to know through the investigation --- her questions and reactions prove that her heart goes out to hobos, the homeless, and the throwaway kids --- but Finger never allows us far enough into her head to know what drives her. Instead, our closest glimpse of Dru's emotions is of her fierce jealousy toward a rival for Lake's affections in a limp subplot that detracts from the desperate hunt for the girls.

Similarly, what we know about Rick Lake is limited to what Dru tells us: "Lake's daddy had been a cop, like Lake, and a suicide, like my daddy"--- but after dropping bombs like this, she segues back into the action. It's a missed opportunity to use the couple's backgrounds and relationship, a la Karin Slaughter or Tana French, to add depth to the story. Maybe a sequel will offer more insight into what makes these two tick.

Finger, who grew up in Missouri and now lives on the Georgia coast, spent 20 years at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where she edited the columns of late humorist Lewis Grizzard and covered local and national news.

Fiction
"The End Game"
Gerrie Ferris Finger
Minotaur; $24.99; 304 pages

REVIEW - THE END GAME

THE END GAME by Gerrie Ferris Finger
Minotaur Books
Publication Date April 27, 2010

In the first five pages we neet Dru, he protagonist, and Lake, her lover, sound asleep on a rare weekend together.A train horn wakes Dru -- "the seven A.M. from Birmingham was smack on time." Lake lives on the third floor of an old cotton warehouse. Trains shake the building and their horns are "loud and long like an off-key contralto." To Dru the horns are like a piece of familiar music and she knows the"signature sounds of seven air horn maestroes."

A couple of phone calls later Dru is out of the shower, Lake has strapped on his cop gear, and they're on their way to a fire where two people are dead and two young girls are missing.The girls are foster children and the youngest is hearing impaired.

We learn that Dru and Lake were partners at the Atlanta PD until he was promoted to the homicide unit and she quit to start Child Trace and search for missing kids.

It's a chaotic scene: emergency vehicles, cops, firemen, curious neighbors, reporters, two search dogs with their handler, helicopter clattering overhead, The fire captain declares the fire an arsonist's work, using a delayed starter. Dru and Lake work the neighborhood. Everybody knows a little something but nobody wants to talk. Before long there's an "eeny-meeny-miney-moe of suspects."

Is the kidnapper Conrad, the universally disliked head of Child Protective Services? Is Doonan, the property-rich architect next door, a child molester? How about Dwight, the ex-con who may or may not have been wrongly convicted of pedophilia? How about Miss Goddard, also known as Gossiping Goddard, who keeps secrets? And who is "Santa," the person the two missing girls were seen chatting with earlier?

This is a busy novel, with the scene shifting from neighbors' houses, to the cemetery, where local families went for picnics, to the rail yards. A second explosion takes place. A family dog turns up dead. More murders confuse the cops. Rumours surface about other missing children.

For me, the pleasure of reading this novel comes from its adherence to old-fashioned police work. Dru and Lake study crime scenes, ask questions and cross-check gossip. Dru does have a computer hacker working for her who feeds her information, but again, it's nothing fancy, just a case of following leads. At first they find it slow going. People are too caught up in their own affairs to notice what goes on in the world around them. Everyone remembers something, however trivial, but fear getting their neighbors in trouble.

Dru and Lake finally get a break from a mysterious informant. Dru meets him in the local cathedral. His information is detailed and credible, and the chase is on.

One brief exchange gave me a chuckle. Dru asks the mysterious informant how the various players communicate. He says: "How does everybody communicate? E-mail."

The search for the missing girls kicks into high gear, but to say more would be a spoiler.

Two of my favorite characters were the sniffer dogs: Buddy, a German shepherd who sniffs the air, and Jed,a black Lab who's a ground-tracker. The author works their special skills into a scene without resorting to an information dump.

This book won the 2009 Malice Domestic contest for best first traditional mystery. Publication date is April 27.

My thanks to the author and her publisher for an ARC.

Pat Browning
Yukon, OK
ABSINTHE OF MALICE (Krill Press 2008)
Now on Kindle $1.99
www.authorsden.com/patbrowning
http://murderousmusings.blogspot.com/
http://pbrowning.blogspot.com/

PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY REVIEW of THE END GAME

The End Game Gerrie Ferris Finger. Minotaur, $24.99 (304p) ISBN 978-0-312-61155-2


A hunt for two young sisters propels Finger's compelling if at times sobering debut, which won the 2009 Malice Domestic Best First Traditional Mystery Novel Competition. When Jessie and Dottie Rose vanish after their foster parents, Ed and Wanda Barnes, die in a fire that destroys their home in Atlanta's Cabbagetown neighborhood, Portia Devon, a juvenile judge, turns for help to Moriah Dru, a former cop who runs Child Trace Inc. Dru and her detective boyfriend, Lt. Richard Lake, who's officially assigned to the case, conclude that Wanda and a neighbor friend of hers, Millicent Goddard, may have known the predator who took the Rose sisters—and other girls in the area over the years. Millicent's murder and a tip that a child prostitution ring is involved raise the stakes. A well-researched plot and snappy dialogue—plus some fine rail-yard K-9 detecting by Buddy, a German shepherd, and Jed, a Labrador retriever—keep the action moving. (May)