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April 27, 2011

Sick by Brett Battles

“It’s a war that should have started a lot earlier than it did. All we’re doing is damage control and catch up.” – Matt Hamilton

There’s a war brewing in America, one simmering just below the surface but ready to explode. Captain Daniel Ash, his family, and the other 56 residents of Baker Flats military base find themselves at ground zero of that war one horrible night when hell descends upon their little corner of the world.

Awakened by a cry from his daughter, Ash goes to her room expecting to find her upset from a nightmare. Instead, he finds the girl burning with a dangerously high fever. As he struggles to get her into a cold tub he calls out to his wife for assistance, but gets no response.

Leaving his daughter in the slowly filling tub he returns to his bedroom and finds his wife still in bed. Dead. Panic now flooding in, Ash races to his son’s room and finds him apparently unaffected by whatever killed his wife and has made his daughter dangerously ill.

As he huddles in the bathroom with his two children Ash makes a frantic call to 911 pleading for help, but when it finally arrives it is not what Ash had expected, and his life will never be the same again. →

April 27, 2011

Dancing with Gravity by Anene Tressler

“Whether we love – or fail to love – there is always a cost.” – Nikolai

I’m not exactly a religious person, and almost never read books that could be labeled “Christian Fiction,” but there was something about the description of Dancing with Gravity, the debut novel from Anene Tressler, that made me think this one was somehow a little different than the typical genre offering.

Dancing with Gravity tells the story of Father Samuel Whiting, a Catholic priest who finds himself approaching middle age only to discover he’s not entirely sure how he got to where he is in life, nor is he sure he wants to be there anymore.

Already constantly questioning his ability to adequately handle his role as head of Pastoral Care at a teaching hospital in St. Louis, Father Whiting returns from an extended trip to Italy for a conference only to find another large, and unusual, responsibility foisted upon him… to minister to the spiritual needs of a group of circus performers who have set up shop at the nearby Missionary Sisters of the Little Flower’s motherhouse.

As Father Whiting gets to know the colorful members of the troup he strikes up a friendship with Nikolai, one of the trapeze artists. As their unlikely friendship deepens, Father Whiting comes to realize he’s been sleepwalking through life, not fully experiencing all it has to offer. →

April 26, 2011

Dear Mr. Holmes: Seven Holmes on the Range Mysteries by Steve Hockensmith

“I think we need to ask ourselves a very important question: What would Sherlock Holmes do in this situation?” – Gustav Amlingmeyer

Though now a full blown series of novels that recently saw its fifth entry, World’s Greatest Sleuth!, author Steve Hockensmith’s Holmes on the Range series got its start as short stories appearing in magazines such as Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Now for the first time all seven stories which have featured the Amlingmeyer brothers, cowboys turned detectives in late 1890’s America, are available in one collection: Dear Mr. Holmes: Seven Holmes on the Range Mysteries.

The opening story of the collection, Dear Mr. Holmes, introduces readers to brothers Otto “Big Red” and Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer. While out on a cattle drive, Otto entertains his fellow cowboys in the evenings by telling stories or reading from magazines. The Amlingmeyers lives change forever the night Otto reads a story called “The Red-Headed League” to the group.

Gustav is immediately captivated by the story’s lead character, some English bloke named Sherlock Holmes, and becomes obsessed with the idea of “detectin’ and deducifyin'” (“Some folks get religion. Gustav got Sherlock Holmes.”). When two of their fellow cowboys are murdered one night Gustav gets to put the lessons he’s learned from Mr. Holmes to the test sooner than anticipated as the Amlingmeyers attempt to solve the killings. And with that, Gustav “Holmes of the Range” Amlingmeyer is born. →

April 25, 2011

Mayhem & Thuggery by Josh Stallings

Last week I reviewed Josh Stallings’ powerful debut, Beautiful, Naked & Dead. Today I am pleased to welcome Josh for a guest post that shows sometimes inspiration strikes pretty close to home.

Beautiful, Naked & Dead by Josh Stallings Petty thieves, women who take their clothes off for money, small time criminals, big time mobsters, these are the characters I embrace. I write hard-boiled crime fiction. But the why of the matter is a mystery.

Fact: my grandfather sold bootlegged whisky on the Pike in Long Beach California. In the sixth grade his teacher said, “Harold Stallings, you will spend your life behind bars.” He did, he became cop, spent his later life as Chief of Corrections, behind bars. He also spent his first forty years at bars as often as possible. He was long time sober when he passed.

What does this have to do with my writing? Wait. My father stole his first car at 16. It was a Ford coupe. Black. Sexy. He did it to impress a girl who sold lemonade on the boardwalk. As he tells it, the keys were in the ignition. The car was in the driveway. The owner could be seen washing dishes. Pop took off the brake and let it roll down to the street. He then drove to the beach and parked in plain view of the boardwalk. It was important the girl saw him get out. He knew this would cinch the deal with her. He walked down an incline and was almost to her. She was smiling. He swallowed and started to speak, “Hi I saw-”

“Hal, you best come up here.” His father stood between the patrol car and the stolen Ford coupe. Busted. →

April 20, 2011

Boca Mournings by Steven M. Forman

Boca Mournings by Steven M. Forman “The old you was a young slugger. Now you’re a veteran counterpuncher. You win by decisions instead of knockouts.” – Claudette Permice

When we last saw Eddie Perlmutter he had been dubbed the “Boca Knight” by the Boca Raton press for his successful handling of some messy matters involving both the Russian mafia and a group of neo-nazis. Former decorated Boston police officer or not, it was a pretty nifty showing for a 60 year old retiree with arthritic knuckles and two bum knees.

Boca Mournings, the second book in the Eddie Perlmutter series following Boca Knights, finds Eddie having capitalized on his minor celebrity by getting licensed and officially going into business as a private investigator. And while his phone has been ringing off the hook, the majority of the callers want Eddie to investigate spouses suspected of having affairs. Not exactly what the 34 year Boston PD vet had in mind.

Things soon heat up, however, and before Eddie knows it he’s juggling cases ranging from the merely curious (Who’s sabotaging the elevator at the Delray Vista condos?), to a personal mission (Why can’t his friend Sylvia remember anything before her twentieth birthday?), to the life-altering (What happened to the gay couple who disappeared from their tight-knit community?). Along the way he manages to shut down a cyber-criminal – and pick him up as an unofficial sidekick – and parlay the results of one investigation into a project to tackle the lack of adequate health care for a nearby low income community. Oh yeah, his prostate is also acting up. →

April 19, 2011

Wrecker by Summer Wood

Love You More by Lisa Gardner He seemed to need to feel his body collide with the physical world to know he existed. – Wrecker

The child came into the world in a San Francisco city park, born to an unmarried hippie mother who didn’t even bother naming him for a year. When the boy shows a talent, even at such a young age, for being disruptive and getting into things he shouldn’t his mother, Lisa Fay, finally decides on a name for him: Wrecker. With a start like that, it’s no wonder life ends up being an uphill battle for the boy.

Unprepared for dealing with a child, especially after Wrecker’s father exists stage left, Lisa gets caught up in drugs, eventually leading to her involvement in a crime that lands her in prison looking at a 30 year stretch. So, at the ripe old age of three Wrecker enters the California foster care system, bouncing around a bit until his uncle, Len, is located in the Mattole River Valley of Humboldt County in upstate California and agrees to take the boy in.

Already caring for a wife debilitated by the effects of an infection that attacked her brain, Len quickly realizes he is in no position to keep up with Wrecker. Enter the residents of Bow Farm, a small community of four individuals who live just up the road from Len. Used to chipping in to help Len care for his wife, they agree to temporarily take in Wrecker until Len can arrange to take him back to child welfare in San Francisco. Temporarily turns into seventeen years, as we follow Wrecker from age three to twenty and watch how the ragtag Bow Farm community helps shape him into a strong young man, and how he brings them all together in a way they couldn’t possibly have foreseen when they first agreed to watch the wild child known as Wrecker. →

April 15, 2011

Beautiful, Naked & Dead by Josh Stallings

“I guess the truth is, there’s only so much you can let pass, then you start drawing the line. Don’t draw the line somewhere, it all turns to shit.” – Moses McGuire

Moses McGuire knows a thing or two about life going to shit. Forty-three years old, he wakes up every day with a decision to make: go to his job as a bouncer at a strip club, or kill himself? The job at the strip club is relatively new, he got that shortly after being released from prison, but the thoughts of suicide aren’t. In fact, as Moses recalls it he was six years old the first time the thought seriously crossed his mind.

Somehow he made it another thirty-seven years down a rugged-ass road without topping himself, but not without hitting a few major potholes along the way. Medically discharged from the marines for “almost constant drinking and general insanity,” Moses has served time, picked up more than his share of battle scars from bar fights, is in debt to his ex-wife and his bookie, and has been cut off by his dealer for passing a bad check. (“Hell, what kind of dealer takes checks anyway?”) That suicide option looks better every morning.

And the morning we meet him at the start of Beautiful, Naked & Dead may well have been the day, until Moses gets a phone call from one of the girls at the strip club asking for his help. Not just any girl, actually, but the one person in the world Moses considers a friend. When she doesn’t show for their scheduled meeting Moses goes to her apartment, where he finds she’s been brutally tortured and murdered. The one good thing in his life having been taken from him, there’s going to be Hell to pay for those responsible, as well as anyone foolish enough to get in his way. →

April 12, 2011

Dead Man’s Eye by Shaun Jeffrey

Maybe there was something worse than darkness.
– Joanna Raines

Joanna Raines used to think there was nothing worse than darkness. What else would a young, aspiring professional photographer think when they begin losing their vision to Fuchs corneal dystrophy? Distraught that the chance to pursue her dream is slipping away, Joanna undergoes a corneal transplant in one eye in hopes that will restore her vision. If all goes well, she’ll have the other eye done too.

While waiting on a train platform on her way to a follow up visit with her physician, Joanna witnesses a horrific accident when a man falls in front of the train and has one of his arms torn off. While the man is down, apparently dead, Joanna sees a dark shadow envelop him, seeming to enter his body through the stump of the ravaged arm. As the shadow dissipates the man jerks back to consciousness, not only alive but far more calm and upbeat than anyone has a right to be having just lost an arm to a train.

Joanna tries to convince herself what she saw was merely a trick of lighting, or perhaps something amiss from the operation. When her doctor removes a tiny stitch that had been irritating her eye and affecting her vision Joanna is satisfied that was the problem. That is until upon exiting his office, located within a hospital, she sees the man from the train platform being wheeled past her in the hallway and, despite the bright lights of the hospital, he is still shrouded in the menacing black shadow.

When the shadowy vision persists not only with the man from the train but begins appearing around other people, people who all seem intent on doing her harm, Joanna slowly comes to the disturbing realization she is seeing something very real, but which others cannot. She is seeing pure evil. →

April 11, 2011

The Shame of What We Are by Sam Gridley

The Shame of What We Are by Sam Gridley He had the sensation of having been lost so many times it was a dream he never escaped. – Art Dennison

We first meet Art Dennison as a four-year-old living with his family in Camden, New Jersey in the summer of 1951, and over the course of twelve interconnected short stories The Shame of What We Are follows Art through to age seventeen and high school graduation.

As we look in on Art in those twelve snapshots of his life we are treated to an intimate peek into the mind of a sensitive, intelligent boy who struggles to cope with life-altering events such as a cross-country move, his parents’ divorce, his mother’s mental breakdown, and his own journey from overwhelmed and insecure to on the cusp of grasping the confidence needed for his burgeoning independence.

Along the way author Sam Gridley skillfully interweaves details about both pop culture (America’s burgeoning addiction to television, for example) and world events (the launch of Sputnik, desegregation) that make the 1950’s setting come alive in a wonderfully vivid manner. To that end, the dozen or so illustrations by artist Tom Jackson which are included marvelously capture the essence of the stories, helping bring them even further to life. →

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