Blood Standard is a beautifully written slow-moving hardboiled noir. Isaiah Coleridge is an enforcer with the Chicago mob. Since he is Maori, he can never be truly part of the Family. When he falls out of favor, he is sent to Nome Alaska, the “Mafia penal colony”. After letting hisContinue Reading
Maggy has been without a job in London for two years. Her neighbor sets her up as a secretary to Mr. Wight, an alcoholic private investigator. When he sends her home minutes after her arrival on her first day, Maggy cleverly solves one of his cases and pockets the fee.Continue Reading
Unusual artwork is used effectively in a murder mystery set in a traveling circus. Spectacle Vol 1 is good until the unsatisfactory conclusion. Twins Anna and Kat are members of a traveling circus. Anna is the fortune teller. Kat is a knife thrower. When Kat is murdered with her ownContinue Reading
Another great police procedural, #4 in the Memory Man series. Amos and his partner, Alex, are on vacation when Amos sees something in a nearby house and investigates. Two bodies are found and Amos and Alex join the local police in searching for the murderer. Soon the opioid crisis, anContinue Reading
Archie Coe, hypnotist, cat whisperer and sucker to every dame he meets. The art and dialogue both up the 1940s noir feel in Archie Coe Vol 1. Jack Midland hires Coe to find the reason his wife, Hope, is frigid to him since their marriage. Hope insists that she andContinue Reading
Southern paranormal cozy mystery with ghosts, witches and a murder or two. Hope, Faith and Charity plan to open a Wiccan school and white witches’ potion shop in rural Sunflower County Mississippi. Sarah Booth Delaney and her partner in the Delaney Detective Agency, Tinkie Richmond, are paid to dig upContinue Reading
Great finish almost makes it worth reading the rest of The Favorite Sister. Brett, Stephanie and Jen are the sole remaining season 1 cast members on the new season 4 of the Real Housewives-esque reality show, Goal Diggers. The show ostensibly empowers women, while provoking as many fights among themContinue Reading
“Something or other is sending half the over-sixties round the twist” in the Flaxborough Crab. A rash of panty theft, quick grope and runs, and window peeping has befallen Flaxborough. The perps are described as elderly men who scuttle away sideways like a crab. When an esteemed villager is accidentallyContinue Reading
Cabals be caballing. In The Crooked Staircase, Jane Hawk is hunting more of the cabal that used brain nanobots to force her husband to kill himself. In this series entry, Simon Yegg is the so-mean-it-is-unbelievable type of villain. He tortures his ex-wives up to, and including, gang rape to getContinue Reading
Page-turner is so overused that it has become trite. Here is how I felt about Obscura by Joe Hart. I…COULDN’T…PUT…IT…DOWN! Literally! I was reading my kindle at stop lights, during boring parts of a telephone conference call at work (with my office door closed of course) and when I shouldContinue Reading
Romance, history, southern charm, friendships, family and secrets swirl in the High Tide Club. At 99, Josephine is dying on her half of an island off the coast of Georgia. She calls Brooke, an attorney, to help search for her best friends, Ruth, Millie and Varina, from over 80 yearsContinue Reading
Characterization is sacrificed for plot in Bats in the Belfry. There are a multitude of characters in Bats in the Belfry. Most are only vaguely fleshed out. We first meet the main players at a funeral where they begin to discuss how they would hide a dead body. Old AgathaContinue Reading
An eerie ambience suffuses The Broken Girls. It is a mystery wrapped in a ghost story or perhaps the other way around. “Ghosts and dead babies and murdered girls. What next?” Roberta, Katie, Cece and Sonia were all dumped at Idlewild Hall, an all-girl boarding school in 1950 Vermont. RobertaContinue Reading
The Marmalade Murders is an enjoyable cozy mystery set in a small North Wales village. Penny and Victoria are partners in the village spa. When they get roped into checking in contestants for the local food competition, they discover some irregularities. Why did someone call Florence telling her to checkContinue Reading
Only Sherlock Holmes unites the unique and disparate tales within Baker Street Irregulars The Game is Afoot. The 13 stories within this collection take wildly different approaches in their homages to Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock is a girl, a native American, a student, a teacher, a librarian, a rabbi and aContinue Reading
Not for modern readers, The Leavenworth Case will made the reader appreciate Sir Arthur Conan Doyle all the more. Bestselling 1878 amateur detective mystery. It sold 750,000 copies in the 15 years after its publishing. Arguably the first full length mystery written by a woman, The Leavenworth Case is narratedContinue Reading