Shorts: "On the Corner" by Ben Boulden

On the Corner by Ben Boulden   *          *         *         *   JACK HAD SHOWN UP TWO YEARS AGO with a cardboard sign lettered in what had once been black marker, but had since faded to brown by Vermont’s harsh sun. The sign, in a shaky hand that slanted upwards from left to right, read: STRANDED! NEED AID! ANYTHING HELPS! The sign never changed in those two years Jack stood at the intersection of U.S. Routes 4 and 7, a bounce south of Rutland. His clothes never seemed to change, either. They were always clean, if a little ragged around the edges, and more than one motorist made a flippant remark that always sounded something like, “That lazy bastard dresses better than I do!” Of course, it wasn’t true. Jack dressed like a pauper but he was proud enough to keep his three outfits, which he called “costumes” when no one was listening, as clean as he could without benefit of a washing machine or even warm water. In the summer, everyone knew, Jack camped in a shady thicket of trees a mile south of his roadside work place on a bend of Cold River. He washed his clothes in the icy water, hanging them to dry on the dead branch of an impressive Eastern Hemlock. In the winter, well—the winter was different and no one seemed to know exactly where Jack slept. He sure didn’t take advantage of Vermont’s benevolent motel program that allowed its unhoused residents a free room. He rode, just as he did all summer, his squeaking and rusty Schwinn bicycle south at 5 pm. His summer camp abandoned from November to March with nary a clue as to where he went during those cold months. More than one of Rutland’s finest, both civilian and police officer, had taken it on themselves to follow Jack but none had been able to track him past the intersection of Routes 7 and 103. Right about where Rutland’s tiny airport sat. It was a mystery everyone in town talked about. A few figured he was a ghoul sent to chasten Rutland’s Godless denizens. While others thought him to be an eccentric millionaire with nothing better to do than stand on a street corner and look sad, which everyone agreed he did quite well. But most people figured Jack for an addict, a headcase, or as one old man with a scraggly beard said, “A lazy shit.” They also agreed Jack worked that corner like a job. He peddled into the intersection every morning at seven, stood with his tattered and unchanging sign until five, stepped back onto his bike and disappeared down the road. He did okay, too, since Rutland’s residents were mostly kind. He averaged $15 a day and never spent a nickel on alcohol or drugs. But his sign’s message became something of a joke to those commuters with a sarcastic sense of humor. A few liked to laugh and say, “Just how long can a person be stranded before they call where they are home?” Which is exactly what Janet Walters, a nurse at the local hospital, said to her teenage daughter—slumped down with embarrassment in the passenger seat—after passing Jack an Abe Lincoln through the window of her Kia Soul. It was December and the outside air was sharp. Even as Janet’s window was rolling up, Jack heard every word. He said to himself (but loud enough for Janet and her daughter to hear), “How long, indeed?” Janet’s daughter slumped even lower, and a crimson blotch of embarrassment spread across Janet’s face. She took her finger off the automatic window button before the window had fully closed and looked at Jack. His breath crystalizing in the frigid air. A puppy dog smile decorating his homely face and a benign curiosity in his bovine eyes. Janet said, “I’m sorry. I—” Jack hushed her with a finger to his lips. “No harm meant, ma’am.” “Mom…!” said Janet’s daughter. “It’s—” Janet began. She looked at the bumper of the car ahead of her, studied it for a moment as if an answer to an unasked question would reveal itself. Then she turned to Jack and said, “What are you doing for Christmas?” Jack cocked his head like the mutt Janet’s ex-husband had stolen in the divorce. He said, “Christmas,” like he had never heard the word before. His puppy smile grew bigger, his eyes seemed to dance, and Janet could have sworn Jack was wiggling his hips like a dog wagging its tail. “We always have dinner—” “Mom!” Janet’s daughter sounded alarmed. “We—” The car behind Janet gave an angry honk. She flinched and tightened her grip on the wheel. “Mom,” her daughter said again, “the light’s green.” Janet reached into her wallet and pulled out another bill and pushed it through the window towards Jack. Jack shook his head. “No ma’am,” he said. “You’ve already given me plenty.” “But—”  A second and then a third horn joined the chorus behind Janet. “You better go along, ma’am,” Jack said. “You’ll be late.” He stuffed the five dollars into a front pocket and turned away. Janet sighed and accelerated through the light and turned left onto Route 7. Her daughter pushed herself up in the seat. She said, “Geez, Mom. You almost invited that…that homeless man to dinner!” Janet smiled, just a little. “I’ll have to finish the invitation when I see him again tomorrow.” But no one ever saw Jack again. Two hikers—a woman and her husband—found Jack’s old Schwinn leaning against the Clarendon Gorge Bridge the next spring. The husband posted a photograph of the five-dollar bill with its note clearly in focus on Clarendon’s Neighborhood Facebook page. But it didn’t make sense to anyone— THANK YOU JANET. I FOUND WHAT I WAS LOOKING FOR. NOW I CAN GO HOME. —because Janet lived in a neighboring town and never saw it. But what made Jack’s story, and Janet’s too, truly remarkable is a twelve-year-old boy and his father swear they saw a flying saucer hovering over the tree line on a moonless night just before Christmas. That same day Janet had spoken with Jack about Christmas dinner. Its lights flashing blue and red and white before it zipped impossibly fast towards the star-laden sky and disappeared into the heavens. Fin

Ben Boulden is the author of two novels, several short stories, and more than 400 articles, book reviews, and columns. His latest book, Casinos, Motels, Gators, is available for Kindle, and as a paperback everywhere. Click here to see it at Amazon.

© 2025 by Ben Boulden

 

Review: "Pro Bono" by Thomas Perry

 

Pro Bono by Thomas Perry Mysterious Press, 2025   Pro Bono, by Thomas Perry, is a lightning fast, surprising, and uniquely structured—there are two separate plotlines with one acting as a catalyst for the other, but otherwise never converging—chase thriller. Vesper Ellis, a beautiful, young, and wealthy widow, enters the law office of Charles Warren with concerns that someone is embezzling the investment accounts her late husband had managed. Since his death a few years earlier, Vesper hasn’t done anything with the accounts other than place the quarterly statements in their respective folders. But lately she has noticed the accounts seem to be stagnant even as the market is going up. Warren, who has his own experience with fraudsters, takes the case seriously and when Vesper disappears shortly after leaving his office he reacts as if something nefarious has happened. He contacts the client who referred Vesper to him, any other of her friends he can find, and finally the police. In the background, an old heartbreak of his mother’s resurfaces, also involving financial fraud, which is only tangentially related to Vesper’s plight but plays a large part of the story anyway. Pro Bono is vintage Perry: the plotting is swift, the action is fast, and the pages seem to burn in the reader’s hands. Much of the background plot (or the catalyst plot) is used to build Warren’s motivation for helping Vesper—a widow being defrauded by bad actors, which is exactly what happened to his mother. But it is more than that and it plays out in a surprising and dangerous way. Pro Bono is far from Perry’s best. The separate plotlines are both interesting, but I had hoped the two would converge in a satisfying way, and both are dependent on coincidence. If you’ve never read Perry before, I would suggest starting elsewhere in his backlist, but if you’re already a fan—you’ll like this one, too.

Check out Pro Bono on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

My Favorite Mystery Books Read (But Not Published) in 2024

My Favorite Mystery Books Read (But Not Published) in 2024   I debated about doing a second best of the year post featuring mystery books I read in 2024, but were published in a prior year. I mulled it over, lost sleep about it, and finally concluded—well, that conclusion is obvious, I guess. So…drum roll please…here are my favorite five mysteries I read in 2024, which were published in the far away past. My favorite mysteries published in 2024 can be found here.
SHOOTING SCRIPT, by Gavin Lyall (Charles Scribner, 1966). This aviation thriller from the master of the form, is Lyall’s fourth novel. Set in the Caribbean—Jamaica and the fictional Republic Libra—with a film crew, an ancient WW2 bomber, freedom fighters, and a little revenge. In my review I wrote: “Shooting Script is about as good as a mid-century thriller gets.”   Read the review here (see second paragraph). Check out Shooting Script here at Amazon.
THE SUMMONS, by Peter Lovesey (Mysterious Press, 1995). This traditional mystery, which is the third Peter Diamond investigation, is a marvelous fair-play puzzler with humor, wit, and a cracking good plot. In my review I wrote: “the denouement is a blissful surprise, and even better, a surprise that makes perfect sense.”   Read the review here. Check out The Summons here at Amazon.
ROBAK’S WITCH, by Joe L. Hensley (St. Martin’s Press, 1997). Don Robak, a trial lawyer that has just been elected as a rural Indiana judge, is recovering from a gunshot wound before he officially takes the bench. He agrees to help another lawyer defend a woman accused of killing two kids and what he finds is a marvelous mixture of the hardboiled and the traditional mystery. In my review, I wrote: “Robak’s Witch is simply terrific!”   Read the review here. Check out Robak’s Witch here at Amazon.
MADMAN ON A DRUM, by David Housewright (Minotaur, 2008). The fifth Rushmore McKenzie novel, which is also my favorite of the twelve series books I’ve read, is a personal case for McKenzie. When his goddaughter is kidnapped, there isn’t much McKenzie wouldn’t do to get her back. In my review, I wrote: “Madman on a Drum is a hardboiled tour-de-force private eye novel about justice and revenge.”   Read the review here. Check out Madman on a Drum here at Amazon.
SUN, SAND, MURDER, by John Keyse-Walker (Minotaur, 2016). This easy-going mystery is set on the tiny Caribbean Island of Anegada, part of the Royal Virgin Islands, where crime is uncommon and murder is unheard of. But, of course (as the title suggests), murder finds Anegada. In my review, I wrote: “Sun, Sand, Murder is a delightful whodunit (although it isn’t exactly fair-play) with a smattering of eccentric characters…a brilliant setting, and just enough action to keep the pages turning.”   Read the review here (see second paragraph). Check out Sun, Sand, Murder here at Amazon.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Hemingway’s Notebook, by Bill Granger (Crown, 1986); Turnabout, by Jeremiah Healy (Five Star, 2001); Flamingo Road, by Sasscer Hill (Minotaur, 2017)

"A Darktide of Westerns" by Mike Baker

 

A Darktide of Westerns by Mike Baker     I stopped writing monthly reports on my reading about the time my wife asked me for a divorce in February of 2024. Having momentarily forestalled the situation, I kept reading books and writing reviews but by November, she’d come back undeterred and even more certain that after 36 years of what I took for wedded bliss, she needed to move on and that, young readers, finally threw me so hard that most of what I’ve “read” in December has been on Audible because concentration became a limited commodity used up by my job and trying to avoid driving my car into oncoming traffic. That said, I did read a few books in December. A Wile E. Young book called For a Few Souls More that sucked and is reviewed elsewhere. Shotgun Marshal by Wade Everett which also sucked. Ditto the review. I read a couple of Tom Clavin American West histories, the Audibles I spoke of, that I bought because their 7-hour reading length matched the out and back I had to drive, heading to how it seems is the only way for my extended family to reunite: A funeral. A friend described Clavin’s books as having been researched off of Wikipedia and the History Channel’s website. That’s being generous. Regardless of his weak scholarship though, the boy can write and if you don’t mind shallow reportage, they’re fine introductions to subjects the interested will discover are significantly more complicated.

This brings me to the books worth discussing here: The Sisters Brothers by Patrick DeWitt and Red Rabbit by Alex Grecian. I’ve already reviewed the DeWitt book but I need to describe it for comparison. The Brothers of the title are infamous killers in the hire of the Commodore, an Oregon Territory boss, sent to dispatch the Commodore’s enemies into the hereafter. They have been sent to find a prospector named Hermann Kermit Warm who the Commodore claims stole from him. They haphazardly wander east towards California having strange experiences with odd souls and oftentimes, killing or severely abusing their hapless victims. They are themselves beset by stupidity, hubris, and cruelty. They are barely loyal to each other. These adventures occur without building toward the finale which itself feels haphazard and empty of purpose. The book moves along like a mindless puppy bounding and stupid or a ball bouncing wherever physics decides. It is like a medieval journey story—Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales or Homer’s Odyssey—with less in the way of specific goals. Definitely more like the Canterbury Tales. Or, as monologuist Jerome Sterne said about lesser journey stories his students had brought him for his appraisal, the Brothers are “clowns in space” as they meander from one tragically comic, and seemingly random event, to the next with the whole of it summing with “What a strange night” or the more nebulous “wow, dude” whose simple mindedness defeats the history of art with one ignorant swoosh. You might say, this how life works, things just happen Baker—you can’t order art with a theory but that is why we have art. Life is meaningless. The best art orders it, if only slightly, giving our own real lost moments some kind of perspective that applies a tiny bit of sense to just some of it. The other fundamental problem with the book is that it betrays the one rule that sits at the heart of every good western—there’s someone for whom you want to live. Someone who stands against the shits and screwheads. An f’ing hero. This book is replete with villains, scoundrels, and louts—whores, assassins, and fools. These misbegotten mongrels are all the reasons God made gravity, heart attacks, and auto-erotica asphyxiation. There is no one rising above their failings to lead us. There is no one for whom I gave one good goddamn. The writing is fine. DeWitt is a stylist and for so many pages of me begging for the end, the ending (after the action’s crescendo) is peculiar in how it satisfies. Saying more would ruin its fine and gentle catharsis. I’ll likely re-read it at some point. Alex Grecian’s Red Rabbit is a meatier proposition. Sadie Grace is the Witch of Burden County and a few local knuckleheads have put a bounty on her pretty scalp for reasons best unraveled in the reading. Meanwhile, Rose Nettles—now called Mullins—is burying her recently deceased husband Joe Mullins under a sycamore tree. She’s stranded on a farmstead that she can’t maintain and is without prospects. Grecian delivers upon her two saddle tramps—Ned Hemingway and Moses Burke—a witch Master named Old Tom and his charge, a child of uncertain gender that Tom calls Rabbit. Tom’s headed to kill Sadie so Grace and the cowboys tag along. They are followed by the ghost of Grace’s husband Joe who doesn’t know much but is pretty certain this is a bad idea. I am a western traditionalist preferring square jawed, honest, and quiet tough guys, bitter struggles and godless terrain. And I like both flavors. Patten and Kelton. Sometimes Castle and occasionally, Elmore Leonard. I’ll read a Piccadilly Cowboy book but I won’t be excited about having to do it. I do not think Blood Meridian is God’s gift or even McCarthy’s fifth best book. My point is that I came to weird or horror westerns accidentally. It’s like that cookbook, Come for Drinks – Stay for Dinner. I bought Ed Erdelac’s High Planes Drifter expecting to hate it and came away believing in Erdelac’s talent and the idea that weaving in the strange and terrible might be the only way my beloved genre survives. Red Rabbit has all the gore and violence you expect in a splatter western but with something else. Grecian loves every character in that book so that even the villain, who is an awful son of a bitch, invites you into empathizing with his wretched plight. The story meanders but instead of building toward the meaninglessness that The Sisters Brothers says is at the root of life, each twist and misadventure drives the motley crew toward an uncertain but devastating conclusion. And this is where the book falters slightly. I am one of those rare souls who does not enjoy how some movies end with tiny “what happens to the character” synopses. I would much prefer my own imaginings than the author’s well intended slatherings of hope and resolution. I would say skip it but you might like that sort of thing. The funny in this cosmic joke is that I’d recommend both books. It is possible that DeWitt’s Waiting for Godot like outlook on the why of our lives, sits too uncomfortably in my heart as I contemplate what a 55 year old man does for his second act. And Grecian’s book has flaws I have not discussed because they’re academic and have to do with my own writerly ambitions, my particular tastes in literature and perhaps, like I just said, I really needed a pat and happy ending to settle the constant rumbling in my gut these days. It would be without an understanding of the awfulness of human history that I might say things couldn’t possibly get worse in 2025 so let’s just say it is my fondest hope that the tides turn in all our favors as we put December behind us.

Check out The Sisters Brothers on Amazon—Kindle edition here and paperback here. Check out Red Rabbit on Amazon—Kindle edition here and paperback here.

Booked (and Printed): Dec. 2024

 

Booked (and Printed) December 2024     December is my second favorite month of the year. Its festive feel and the long dark nights—which are wonderful for reading and watching movies with the family—make winter’s arrival seem all right. At least until January’s subzero temps and icy snow comes calling, which is a different story altogether. As for reading, this December was a particularly good month. The number of books I read was far from spectacular—seven books; six novels and a story collection—but there wasn’t a dud in the bunch. Well, except the solitary title I put aside before the final page had been tallied, but I’ll talk about that one later. The month started just right with John Keyse-Walker’s marvelous puzzler, SUN, SAND, MURDER (2016). Teddy Creque is busy. He is the Royal Virgin Islands Police Special Constable, the customs officer, and he works graveyard at the powerplant on the tiny Caribbean Island of Anegada. He gets even busier—so busy he barely has time for his wife and two kids—when a torrid affair erupts with an American helicopter pilot, Cat Wells. Which is exactly when the local ganja hippy, an Englishman they call “De White Rasta” because of his faux pigeon accent, finds Paul Kelliher, a herpetologist studying Anegada rock iguanas, violently murdered on an isolated stretch of beach. Special Constables aren’t allowed to investigate crimes and so Teddy’s boss assigns him the humble task of notifying Kelliher’s next of kin. An errand that turns into its own investigation since Kelliher wasn’t actually a scientist or named Kelliher. And when Teddy realizes the “real” police aren’t going to investigate, he does it himself. Sun, Sand, Murder, which is the first of four Teddy Creque mysteries, is a delightful whodunit (although it isn’t exactly fair-play) with a smattering of eccentric characters—including Teddy himself—a brilliant setting, and just enough action to keep the pages turning. It is perfect for winter reading, with its hot and sandy beaches and warm clear ocean waters. Even better, Sun, Sand, Murder was my favorite book I read all month. Joyce Carol Oates’s FLINT KILL CREEK (2024), which is the only story collection I read in December, is littered with twelve brilliant tales about loneliness, envy, and identity. It is exactly what one expects from a writer of Oates’s stature because she really is a maestro. Read my full review here. AGAINST THE GRAIN, Peter Lovesey’s 22nd Peter Diamond mystery, is bittersweet because it is Lovesey’s last novel. Diamond revels in the challenge to solve an English Village mystery because he wants to test himself against the likes of Agatha Christie’s Miss Marple. It is a fair-play whodunit with humor, excellent clue placement, and a brilliant solution. Read my full review here. My consumption of Westerns has diminished over the years, but every so often I get a hankering for an old-fashioned shootout. Which is what drew me to Lewis B. Patten’s THE TIRED GUN (1973). And it really delivered, too. Patten tinkers with his “man alone” plot—sort of a High Noon drama where the hero is forced to face a gang of killers unaided—just enough to keep the reader guessing at the outcome. The action is swift and violent and… well, read my full review here (and then read the book). Speaking of swift, J. D. Rhoades’s BREAKING COVER (2008), is a bullet of a thriller with outlaw bikers, undercover F.B.I. agents, betrayal, and oh so much violence! It is the kind of book you pick up in the evening and can’t stop reading until the final page has been turned. Read my full review here. I had the distinct pleasure of reading PRO BONO (2025), Thomas Perry’s latest thriller, ahead of its publication—which is scheduled for January 14—and so my review is still a dirty dark secret that won’t be revealed until the second week of the new year. It’s a book I enjoyed, but one that had a unique double plot; one acted as a catalyst for the other but they never came together. Come back in a few weeks for more… If you’ve been paying attention to the blog, you know I’ve been on a David Housewright kick. Wow, do I like his Rushmore McKenzie books and this month’s candy was the 13th entry, STEALING THE COUNTESS (2016). McKenzie does favors for friends and he is lukewarm when he’s approached to act as a middleman to “purchase” a Stradivarius, known as the Countess Borromeo and valued at $4 million, from the thieves that stole it from a famous violinist, Paul Duclos, after playing in a touristy Wisconsin town. McKenzie is tentative about engaging because it’s a felony to receive stolen property, but (of course) he decides to play the game anyway. With some fisticuffs, a couple gunfights, a trip to Philadelphia, and a bunch of sleuthing, McKenize recovers the violin and figures out whodunit. Stealing the Countess is another fine entry in the series—McKenzie is his usual smart-alecky, but likable self. The cast of suspects is large and there is danger lurking everywhere. While the Wisconsin setting is fun, I did miss the vibrancy of Housewright’s Twin Cities, but the smooth style and the whip fast pacing overrode any literary nostalgia I may have felt for St. Paul.

As for short stories—December was less than prolific. The solitary tale I booked as read (outside a collection or an anthology) was Ray Bradbury’s jazzy and inventive “THE WONDERFUL DEATH OF DUDLEY STONE” (1954). Dudley Stone was destined to be better than Faulkner, Steinbeck, and Hemingway, but he disappeared twenty-five years ago, as Bradbury calls it, “to live in a town we call Obscurity by the sea best named The Past.” Douglas, perhaps Stone’s most ardent fan, tracks down the great man with an eye at discovering why he quit writing. And what he finds is… “The Wonderful Death of Dudley Stone” is Bradbury at his best. There is surprise, wonder, and it tumbles off the page with the beat and style of great jazz music. While it originally appeared in Charm magazine, I read it in the Jan. 1984 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Oh, and that book I mentioned all the way in the first paragraph. The one I chose not to finish? It is Peter Steiner’s spy thriller, L’ASSASSIN (2008). It is advertised as a literary thriller, which I often like, but when I hit page 50 and it hadn’t sparked I put it away. But, Publishers Weekly gave it a starred review, so who am I to judge? Fin— Now on to next month…

I made a favorite books of the year list!

The new year started with some good news. Author, editor, publisher, and all-around good guy, James Reasoner, listed my collection, Casinos, Motels, Gators, as one of his favorite books of 2024. Check out his post at Rough Edges here.                     Thanks, James!   Take a peek at Casinos, Motels, Gators at Amazon here.

Review: "The Tired Gun" by Lewis B. Patten

 

The Tired Gun by Lewis B. Patten Doubleday, 1973   A recent essay about Lewis B. Patten’s “man alone” western plots—where an individual, usually a lawman or a gunfighter, is forced to fight long odds without help from the townspeople or his friends—by Mike Baker encouraged me to dig out some of Patten’s work. And I’m glad I did because I had forgotten how good Patten was at writing suspenseful, noirish, and violent westerns. His 1973 novel, The Tired Gun, is a gem that plays with the man alone plot in ways that make it surprising more than fifty years after its first publication. Sam Court has spent the last six years moving from ranch to ranch as a hired gun. The jobs never last long—a few weeks, maybe a few months—but they always pay well. And Sam has built a reputation as a fearless gunfighter. A reputation that follows him everywhere, and encourages hardmen to challenge him with hopes of building their own reputations at his expense. While in a Wyoming saloon, Sam is called-out by a local kid with high ambitions. Sam waits until the last moment to draw his Colt, but in the end, the kid is dead on the floor. Sam heads out-of-town, but the kid’s brother, Jess Morgan, follows with a posse of twenty men. Six months later, the posse still on his trail, and Sam out of resources—both money and energy—he decides to return to the only place he has ever thought of as home: the small town of Cottonwood Grove, in Western Kansas. Six years earlier, before Sam’s world crashed down when his wife died in childbirth, Sam had been Cottonwood Grove’s town marshal. A job he had won when he turned away an angry mob of cattlemen bent on burning Cottonwood Grove to the ground. But when Sam arrives back in town, his doubts start—the town has changed, and while his friends are glad to see him, he begins to worry about the trouble he is bringing home with him. Then there is the son he has never seen and the memories of his dead wife. Even worse, the longer he is in Cottonwood Grove, the more the townsfolk begin pulling away from him. The Tired Gun is a razor-sharp Western noir with a jittery atmosphere and an uncertain conclusion. Sam Court’s history with Cottonwood Grove is vividly shown in flashback snapshots throughout the narrative—from the first pages to almost the last. Court’s fatigue, which is manifested, at times, as a desire to give up and let Morgan kill him, and his distress at what he has brought to the town are visceral and emotionally staggering. The prose is uncomplicated but evocative. A handful of action scenes are so vivid the reader can smell the gun powder, hear bootheels clattering against wood planking, and breathe the electric violence. The Tired Gun will appeal to anyone that enjoys the Western genre and others with a fondness for those mid-century crime novels published by the likes of Gold Medal.