My Favorite Books Published in 2024

My Favorite Books Published in 2024     There was a time not so long ago when I read enough new mystery and crime releases that I would have felt more comfortable (although not that comfortable) putting together a “best of the year” listing, but 2024 hasn’t been that kind of year. I have read a bunch of books published this year—I’ve even reviewed many of them here at the blog and at Mystery Scene’s website, which like the magazine is now gone—but my survey of the genre hasn‘t been broad enough to declaratively state what I think of as the best. So—instead of championing the following five titles as the best of the genre, these are my favorite of the books (of those I’ve read) published this year. As has been the case since 2016—when I took over as Mystery Scene’s short story critic—about two-thirds of my intake this year were story anthologies and collections. And this list reflects that disparity. So, without precedence, here are my favorite mystery and crime fiction books published in 2024:
HERO, by Thomas Perry (Mysterious Press / Jan. 16). This action-packed thriller from the author of The Old Man is everything I like about thrillers: fast, complicated without being busy, and a rush of pure adrenaline. In my review I called Hero “a shotgun blast from the first page to the last.” Read the review here. Check out Hero here at Amazon.
THE STARK HOUSE ANTHOLOGY, edited by Rick Ollerman & Gregory Shepard (Stark House / June 3). A big and ambitious celebration of Stark House’s silver jubilee, this anthology has 30 tales from mid-century to today. There are brilliant stories by Jada M. Davis—a short novel, really—Charles Runyon, Orrie Hitt, Dan J. Marlowe, Ed Gorman, Fredric Brown, Wade Miller, and—so many more. In my review, I called The Stark Anthology, “close to a perfect hardboiled story collection…” Read the review here. Check out The Stark House Anthology here at Amazon.
SAFE ENOUGH AND OTHER STORIES, by Lee Child (Mysterious Press / Sep. 3). If you’ve only read Child’s Jack Reacher series, many of these 20 standalone tales may surprise you. They showcase Child’s ability as a writer—sharp plotting, expert pacing, and subtle irony—without tying him down to the expectations of a series character. As I wrote in my review of Safe Enough, “[it] reads easy” and “there is nary a dud in the pack.” Read the review here. Check out Safe Enough and Other Stories here at Amazon.
CHRISTMAS CRIMES AT THE MYSTERIOUS BOOKSHOP, edited by Otto Penzler (Mysterious Press / Oct. 22). The twelve stories here are a catalogue of good short fiction by some of the genre’s best writers. Every tale has a scene or two in New York City’s Mysterious Bookshop and every single one is exciting, well-written, good-natured (aka nothing dark) and every story is different from every other story. About those writers—they include, Lyndsay Faye, Ace Atkins, Rob Hart, Jeffrey Deaver, Thomas Perry, and a bunch of others just as good. Read the review here. Check out Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop here at Amazon.
FLINT KILL CREEK: STORIES OF MYSTERY AND SUSPENSE, by Joyce Caro Oates (Mysterious Press / Nov. 5). This twelve-story collection is a dark ride into the underbelly of what it is to be human. The tales are dark, at times grotesque without ever being unbearable, and written with a power of language that allows them to live in the mind of the reader long after the pages have been turned. And here is my favorite line from the review I wrote for Flint Kill Creek: “It should appeal to fans of Joyce Carol Oates and anyone else with a humanist bent and an eye for the phantasm of gothic hallucinatory realism.” Read the review here. Check out Flint Kill Creek here at Amazon.
HONORABLE MENTIONS: Man in the Water, by David Housewright (Minotaur Books / June 25); An Honorable Assassin, by Steve Hamilton (Blackstone / Aug. 27); Against the Grain, by Peter Lovesey (Soho Crime / Dec. 3).

Review: "Against the Grain" by Peter Lovesey

 

Against the Grain by Peter Lovesey Soho Crime, 2024   What is advertised as the final Peter Diamond mystery, Against the Grain, the 22nd entry in the impressive series, is a marvelous send off for the cantankerous but brilliant detective. When Peter’s former deputy, Julie Hargreaves—who quit the Bath CID years earlier after she “wearied of his [Diamond’s] overbearing conduct”—has asked Diamond to visit her for a week at her home in the Somerset Village of Baskerville. Diamond does his best trying to avoid the visit, but he is ultimately convinced it is the right thing to do by his romantic partner, Paloma. When Diamond and Paloma arrive, they find that Julie has been blinded by macular degeneration. A condition she kept secret from Diamond when they worked together and may have been the true reason she left Bath. Julie is content with her life, but she has a request of Diamond. Claudia Priest, the heiress of a local dairy farm and Baskerville’s primary employer, was convicted to three years’ incarceration for manslaughter when a party game went horribly wrong. A former lover and then-hanger-on of Claudia’s, Roger Miller, was trapped and crushed to death in a grain silo while trying to recover a garter that would win him the favors of Claudia for the evening. Claudia, without much fuss, was convicted of negligent manslaughter, but Julie believes Claudia was treated unfairly during the trial and she asks Diamond to do his own investigation—off the books, of course—to determine if Claudia is truly guilty. A request Diamond jumps at since it will be his first village mystery, and he would like to test himself as an amateur sleuth against the likes of Miss Marple. Against the Grain is a smart fair-play traditional mystery in the style of the golden age of detection. Diamond is his usual stubborn, at times affable, at times irascible, and always genius self. His interactions with the locals—a laconic and moody teenager named Hamish, the local busy body, a talkative barmaid—are often uncomfortable and always funny. Diamond takes a few wild swings at investigating—he plays at being Columbo and then Poirot—but as the tale winds down he finds his detecting mojo and unravels the mystery as only Peter Diamond can do. And that final revelation is as surprising as it is good.

Find Against the Grain on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

Review: "Flint Kill Creek" by Joyce Carol Oates

 

Flint Kill Creek Stories of Mystery and Suspense by Joyce Carol Oates Mysterious Press, 2024     Joyce Carol Oates’ latest collection, Flint Kill Creek: Stories of Mystery and Suspense, is a masterpiece of the macabre. Its twelve tales, which the publisher tells us have been “reformulated”—perhaps meaning they have been revised from their original publications—deal with meaty issues: loneliness, envy, and fear are the most prevalent. “The Phlebotomist,” about a confused and timid woman drawn into an uncomfortable conversation with the male phlebotomist that helped draw her blood, is as troubling and dark as any tale I’ve read. An ambiguous ending acts only to amplify its foreboding. “Weekday” follows a distracted father driving to work; worrying about the list of errands his wife assigned to him that morning and all but forgetting about his toddler daughter in the backseat. There is no doubt where it will end, but the journey is a harrowing (and worthwhile) ride into the frenzied shadows of modern parenting. “Friend of My Heart,” about a dissatisfied adjunct professor meeting a far more successful former classmate, is a bitter pill of loneliness, betrayal, and envy. And that ending—well, read it and you’ll know. “Bone Marrow Donor” is a macabre tale about fear and medical hope. It reads with the abstract delirium of a drug-induced high. “The Nice Girl” is about a young high school graduate—the type of girl that always does the right thing—overshadowed by her mentally ill and addicted older sister. The tale’s jagged edges cut the reader a thousand times before its images settle into memory. “Happy Christmas” is a razor-sharp story about family, love, and loneliness. The dark secrets it reveals make the story linger in the reader’s mind long past the final word. “Late Love,” which is my favorite story in the collection, is a marvelous play on love and sanity. The narrator is unreliable and every word is precise and perfect. Flint Kill Creek is a brilliant collection. It should appeal to fans of Joyce Carol Oates and anyone else with a humanist bent and an eye for the phantasm of gothic hallucinatory realism.

Check out Flint Kill Creek on Amazon: Kindle edition here and hardcover here.

Shorts: "Dicky and the Hat" by Mike Baker

Dicky and the Hat by Mike Baker   *     *     *     *   RICHARD’S FATHER SILENTLY MOUTHED the words “Please kill me” into the unstable air between them. Richard blinked, mentally stumbling his way back into the diner’s chaos and thrum. Richard had trust issues—especially with his own imagination. He sat across from his dad Arturo watching the old man meticulously cut up his fried eggs and then eat them, one piece at a time. He met his dad at the State Street Diner every morning for breakfast even though Richard never ate breakfast and the idea of his dad, knee deep in the beginning stages of senility, navigating there from eight city blocks away—gave Richard the yips. His dad insisted. Richard was a soldier for Ducky Fiumara, a capo in the Genovese Family, and did a number of things for walking around money but his main job was killing people which you’d never say out loud. You definitely wouldn’t say “wack” either, unless you were an asshole who spent his time pimping or doing hold ups. Mostly, he and Ducky didn’t say anything, there wasn’t even a nod. Sometimes it felt like telepathy. Richard had coffee with Ducky and the way Ducky sugared his espresso let Richard know who needed to go. Richard took care of it and that, as they say, was that. Richard’s dad had never had to do that kind of work. He’d been an accountant for Ducky’s father and then for Ducky after Ducky’s dad retired. The senility didn’t start until after Richard’s dad retired. Thank god. They didn’t talk about the senility either because as rotten a dad as Richard’s dad had been, he was still his dad and he couldn’t bear to think of the man as less than he’s been, let alone say the words to his dad or make dad acknowledge it. “You don’t eat enough Dicky and your eyes look tired. You’re wacking off too much at night. You never could stop doing that when you were a boy. Filthy goddamn habit.” Richard clenched up. He knew, or he believed, his dad couldn’t help it but Richard was a made guy unlike his dad and even his dad busting his balls was almost too much. “How’s the garden these days Pop?” His dad took a bite of eggs. They dribbled a little down his mouth. “What did you say?” “The garden, how is it?” “Have you called you sister?” “What Pop?” “Your sister, are you deaf, have you called her?” “No Pop.” He hadn’t talked to his sister in two years. Not since she moved to Connecticut, and she’d moved to Connecticut to get away from Richard, who she hated. She hated the old man but like Richard, she couldn’t admit it. Not really. “Pop, we’re having Christmas dinner at Aunt Johnny’s this year, you gonna come?” Aunt Johnny was his mom’s sister and she hated Arturo and his dad hated her but Richard had to ask. “No, I’m going to the VFW, they got a thing for veterans. Bring a cake for me from the bakery by the house.” He meant Richard’s childhood home, his dad lived in a home for poor old people and that place, the bakery, had been gone for 20 years. His dad spit a piece of eggshell on his plate. “fuck’n greaser in the kitchen did that on purpose because we’re Italian.” Richard cringed. This had been a neighborhood diner when he was a kid but the neighborhood had changed as family’s moved in with the steep increase in rents and upscale real estate. Guys like Richard learned to navigate. His dad’s generation, not so much. Richard needed to leave. Ducky wanted to see him in there early. Ducky didn’t have many rules but one of the few was not ever being late for a meeting with Ducky, not ever. You could feel safer fucking up a piece of work than being late. Shit happened on jobs but being late for a meeting was disrespect and that did not fly with Ducky. He watched his dad dip toast in his eggs and crunching down on the greasy yellow toast, bits and crumbs blew out of his mouth. The way his dad ate breakfast disgusted Richard. His dad disgusted Richard. Doing the kind of work he did, self-control was how you stayed out of jail. It was how you stayed alive. You took your time; you were under control. His dad had never been 100% under control. His dad worked long hours, tracking someone else’s money and he couldn’t make mistakes because these people only had one answer for mistakes but afterward, when he came home, he got sloppy. His dad had had an assistant once. The assistant was young with three kids at home. One day Ducky called Richard’s dad into the Office and asked him point blank about a ledger. It was one of the assistant’s ledgers and Richard’s dad said he’d rather not say. Ducky said someone was in trouble, the assistant or Richard’s dad. That meant exactly one thing. His dad said the assistant had either been sloppy or he was stealing. And considering the size of the assistant’s family, Richard’s dad said it was probably stealing and maybe it was the assistant. You make choices in this life but it’s really only one choice. You chose to live or you chose to die. Whoever did it, and only the old man knew, the old man chose his own ass. Fuck the assistant. All Ducky said was thanks and Richard’s dad went back to work, sitting right next to his assistant. The assistant’s entire family got murdered that night. The police, people around the neighborhood, all said it was Puerto Ricans robbing them because they were all cut up but who knows? Richard knew, even then, who did it. Everybody knew who did it. Richard’s dad came home drunk and before Richard could even get a word out, his dad laid into him with his belt and its buckle, and then went to work on his mom and sister. You’d think Richard would have gotten him back when he grew up, when he started working for Ducky but even now, if his dad pulled a punch as a joke, Richard flinched a little. Watching the old man eat, he made up his mind. The old man needed to die. He wasn’t sure when but this had to stop. He couldn’t do it though, kill his own dad. He probably would hire some Puerto Ricans and then kill them afterwards. “I got to go Pop. I got to go see our boy.” That meant Ducky. His dad always called Ducky “Boy” since he had worked for Ducky’s dad and what grown man would allow himself to be called Ducky? “Whatever Dicky. See you tomorrow.” Richard got up, paid for him and his dad, looking back at his dad sitting crumpled and old. Richard decided to let it all go, let the old man die natural, and headed out the front door, the door’s tiny bell jingling as it opened and closed. Richard’s dad watched Richard leave and then nodded at a man sitting a few booths down. The man got up, left a couple a bucks on the table, and headed out the door after Richard, the tiny bell jingling, a newspaper covering the throwaway gun palmed underneath it. Fin

Mike Baker lives in North Florida with three feral cats, a couple of asshole racoons, a possum named the Colonel and a chihuahua named Chloe. He is, most days, catholic whether he wants to be or not.

© 2024 by Mike Baker / all rights reserved

 

Booked (and Printed): November 2024

 

Booked (and Printed) November 2024     November brought the first dusting of snow—and it was only a dusting but just enough fell to ice the roads for Thanksgiving travel, which made me happy we had nowhere to go. It brought friends to our home, a fire to our fireplace, and darkness at quarter past four. It also made for a month perfectly fitted for reading and I took advantage, at least as best I could, by reading six books—two story collections and four novels—and three short stories; every one of the shorts by the late mystery writer, Jeremiah Healy. That trio of Healy tales starred Boston private eye, John Francis Cuddy, and while they are easily categorized as hardboiled, each stands tall as a puzzling whodunit, too. Another commonality of the stories: each was nominated, but failed to win, the Private Eye Writers of America Shamus Award for best short story. “The Bagged Man”—published in the Feb. 1993 issue of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine—is a gem of a murder mystery. Cuddy is hired to help a private investment firm escape the bad publicity it has received since a homeless man, wearing a bag over his head and protesting that same firm, is found murdered. The set-up is believable and, of course, Cuddy solves the murder with his usual competent flair. “Rest Stop”—which was published in the May 1992 issue of Alfred Hitchcock Mystery Magazine—is a cool take on a real-time kidnapping. While talking to an attendant at a highway rest stop, Cuddy sees a kidnapping. In a rush, he follows the kidnappers and finds himself in deep trouble. It has more action than the average Cuddy tale and it works very well. “Turning the Witness”—published in Guilty as Charged, edited by Scott Turow (1997)—is my favorite of this month’s three stories for the simple reason that when the solution was revealed I kicked myself for not solving it earlier. Read my detailed review of “Turning the Witness” here. I read these three stories in the following two Jeremiah Healy collections (and both are well worth reading) published by Crippen & Landru: The Concise Cuddy (1998) and Cuddy – Plus One (2003).

As for the books… two are story collections—one a single author effort by William Campbell Gault and the other a multi-author anthology of criminous Christmas tales—with the remaining four novels squarely within the mystery genre. William Campbell Gault is best known for his mystery and crime novels, but in the 1950s he wrote several speculative tales for, mostly, digest magazines. Mixology 2: More Science Fiction Stories (2024), gathers three—a short and two novelettes—of Gault’s best sciencey stories published in Fantastic Universe. Each tale is exciting and thought-provoking with worlds and characters both familiar and new. Click here to read a detailed essay I wrote about William Campbell Gault and Mixology 2. The other story collection is Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop, edited by Otto Penzler (2024). Its twelve tales are, as the title suggests, set during the Christmas holiday and have at least some action at New York City’s famed Mysterious Bookshop. An outstanding anthology with an impressive list of contributors that will ring true for anyone that enjoys the crossroad where mystery and Christmas meet. Check out my detailed review of Christmas Crimes at the Mysterious Bookshop here. Back in April, I told you about Sasscer Hill’s first Fia McKee mystery, Flamingo Road (2017). A book I really liked—you can read my detailed review here. Fia has appeared only twice and (fortunately) my local library has both titles. So naturally I got around to reading that second book, The Dark Side of Town (2018). Fia, working undercover for the Thoroughbred Racing Protective Bureau at New York’s Saratoga Race Track, is investigating a trainer suspected of horse doping. The evidence against the trainer is sparse, but the outcomes of his horses is suspect. One thing leads Fia to another and soon she is hip-deep in a scheme of blackmail, murder, and kidnapping. The Dark Side of Town is an enjoyable foray into the horse-racing world with more in common with Sue Grafton than Dick Francis. My only wish? I wish there was another Fia McKee. Bill Crider’s We’ll Always Have Murder (2003) is a hardboiled blast starring silver screen tough guy, Humphrey Bogart. The plotting is slick, the action is sharp, and Crider paints Bogart with a likable hue. It is set in the Hollywood of the late-1940s and it could easily have been written in that same era. You can read my detailed review of We’ll Always Have Murder here. Another book I wrote a detailed review for, is Alan Orloff’s second Mess Hopkins novel, Late Checkout (2024)—which means I won’t spend much time bending your eye about it here. Other than to say it is light-hearted and mysterious fun. Mess is pretty cool, too, with a self-deprecating wit and enough sense to know he doesn’t know much. Read my full review of Late Checkout here. Now, for my favorite book of the month—and it was a close race. David Housewright’s twelfth Rushmore McKenzie novel, Unidentified Woman #15 (2015). While driving on a snowy night in Minneapolis, McKenzie witnesses a woman thrown from a moving pick-up truck. McKenzie does what McKenzie does and rescues the woman from the icy highway asphalt. She wakes up to no memory of who she and since her pockets were empty of any identifiers, she is simply known as Fifteen. After Fifteen’s release from hospital, McKenzie and his girlfriend, Nina Truhler, happily allow her to stay in their swanky Minneapolis condo. But there is concern for Fifteen’s safety since whoever tried to kill her is still out there. Things go sideways—how else will they ever go in a McKenzie novel?—and McKenzie finds himself in a race to figure out Fifteen’s identity and exactly who is trying to kill her. Unidentified Woman #15 is in my top three or four of the McKenzie mysteries. It has all the usual hallmarks of the series: a strong setting, colorful characters, concise plotting, and of course the likable McKenzie. It is also surprising, suspenseful, and personal for McKenzie for a few reasons. An absolute winner from the first to the last page. Fin— Now on to next month…

"Lewis B. Patten's A Man Alone Plot" by Mike Baker

 

Lewis B. Patten’s A Man Alone Plot: The Law in Cottonwood & Red Runs the River by Mike Baker     Every time I read a Lewis Patten book, I start thinking about Frank Gruber’s list of seven Western plots*. My intuition tells me that Patten’s work defies such categorization and, while Gruber’s list may be correct, Patten's writing transcends it.  Here’s what I mean: there were some liberal reinterpretations of Agatha Christie books made into movies that Christie canonists hated because they monkeyed with the plots but, as I heard someone say in their defense, Dame Agatha wrote whodunits. These new interpretations were whydunits. Patten books often feel like they don’t fit Gruber’s list, but they do. Lewis Patten, at his best, wasn’t just writing about adventure. He was deep into the psychology of both the protagonist and the antagonist. And he usually did it inside 150 pages. Marshal Morgan Gaunt has a problem. The first cattle drive is due into Cottonwood, and the town council passed a “no gun” resolution that Gaunt will have to enforce on his own, as he’s The Law in Cottonwood. Cottonwood is, six months of the year, a wide-open town, which means whores, gambling, and non-stop liquor for all the drovers rolling cattle into the stockyard depot. Gaunt is a longtime lawman, and he knows the first few groups of waddies will fight the no-gun ordinance tooth and nail. And that worries him almost as much as Buck Robineau coming back worries him. Robineau is a trail boss that Gaunt shot and crippled during last year’s herd season, and Robineau swore to kill Gaunt when he came back. None of the saloon men like the no-gun ordinance, as it threatens business, but moreover, they don’t like Gaunt, who busts up crooked gamblers who rob the waddies of their wages by cheating them, and the hardcases that rob and kill them when they’re passed out drunk. They all want him dead. The Law in Cottonwood covers three days of the season, and if you’ve read a few of these, you can imagine how it goes. Gaunt, a man alone, fights to keep Cottonwood under control as the forces against him mount to brutally impossible odds. Lewis Patten wrote many of these in his long career, and this was a later one, written in 1978, near his career’s end. It’s as good as any of the earlier stories and perhaps is tempered by the understanding a long life gives a man. The story isn’t less tense, and the beatings Gaunt takes aren’t softened. What Patten does, though, more with a softer palette, if that makes sense, is keep us in Gaunt’s head, where the terrain is darker and uglier. There are less big explosions and more internal bombs going off as Gaunt, a lawman near the end of his career, pushes through his mounting physical and mental wounds to appear unmoved by the unfolding events as he faces down a growing wave of vicious gunmen hot for his blood.

The “man alone” plot is my favorite storyline, and Patten is its master. I thought his book Death of a Gunfighter (1968) was my favorite until I read Red Runs the River (1970). Captain John Sessions, formerly of the Army of Northern Virginia, comes home to find his family seemingly butchered by Cheyenne until he realizes his stash of greenbacks and gold is missing, which had to mean white men covering up the robbery with an Indian-like slaughter. Sessions tracks the men to a near fort, where he promptly loses them in a mass influx of riders come to sign on and fight the currently rampaging Cheyenne. Sessions signs on himself, thinking the killers did as well. They all head out, tracking the Cheyenne to a river with a long narrow island, where the Cheyenne attack. Patten only sketches the island’s dimensions as, throughout the book, he selectively stretches its features to meet the story’s needs. The men first dig rifle pits and then connect the pits with trenches, which helps them better organize their defense against the Cheyenne but also facilitates the hunt and then internal war between Sessions and the three unknown killers. The book is mostly claustrophobic internal monologue, increasingly weary and paranoid, as Sessions tries to figure out who among his fellow Indian fighters are the killers, with the killers hunting him during the confusion of the various skirmishes and then at night, stretching slightly the believable but shoring that reality by weighing almost every conflict against Sessions. It’s a Patten formula, the lone hero getting attacked on all sides, his injuries mounting as his will to survive is tested, and his rage and need for righteous vengeance mounts to a fever pitch. I’ve not read every book he wrote, but it seems to be the theme central to all of the books I’ve read. Lewis Patten’s “man alone” plots, where the protagonist faces impossible odds and must rely solely on their own wits and resilience to survive, serve as a powerful metaphor for the human condition. In Patten’s stories, the protagonists are often faced with brutal and unrelenting violence, forcing them to confront the darkest aspects of human nature. Through Gaunt’s and Sessions’ struggles, Patten reveals the profound isolation and loneliness that can accompany the human experience, that man remains fundamentally alone in the universe, forced to confront the abyss of uncertainty and mortality. By exploring this theme through the lens of the Western genre, Patten creates a sense of timelessness and universality, reminding readers that, despite the trappings of modernity, we remain vulnerable to the same existential fears and uncertainties that have haunted humanity throughout history.

* Frank Gruber’s List of Western Plots 1. Union Pacific story. The plot concerns construction of a railroad, a telegraph line, or some other type of modern technology or transportation. Wagon train stories fall into this category. 2. Ranch story. The plot concerns threats to the ranch from rustlers or large landowners attempting to force out the proper owners. 3. Empire story. The plot involves building a ranch empire or an oil empire from scratch, a classic rags-to-riches plot. 4. Revenge story. The plot often involves an elaborate chase and pursuit by a wronged individual, but it may also include elements of the classic mystery story. 5. Cavalry and Indian story. The plot revolves around “taming” the wilderness for white settlers. 6. Outlaw story. The outlaw gangs dominate the action. 7. Marshal story. The lawman and his challenges drive the plot.

Review: "Turning the Witness" by Jeremiah Healy

 

“Turning the Witness” by Jeremiah Healy from Cuddy-Plus One Crippen & Landru, 2003   “Turning the Witness”—which was originally published in Guilty as Charged, edited by Scott Turow, in 1993—is an excellent John Francis Cuddy tale with some admirable sleight of hand and a beautiful climactic twist. Rick Blassingale, an unlikable investment advisor, is accused of killing his estranged wife. The prosecution seemingly has a slam-dunk case since Blassingale has a financial motive for the murder and a witness saw him leaving the crime scene. In desperation, Blassingale’s lawyer hires Cuddy to find enough dirt on the witness to poke holes in her testimony. Cuddy isn’t much interested in helping Blassingale side-step the murder wrap—he’s a pompous ass and jailtime would do him some good—but Cuddy’s professional integrity requires that his investigation be rigorous and thorough. So he does what Cuddy does—interviews the witness, ponders the elements of the crime—and in short order finds the solution. “Turning the Witness” is a solvable puzzle with solid clue placement and a convincing narrative. Cuddy is, as usual, thoughtful, inquisitive, tough and, perhaps most importantly, likable and honest. Littered in the narrative are shimmering descriptions of Boston, Cuddy’s hometown, and even one backhanded comment about New York City. Which adds up to a very good time spent reading. “Turning the Witness” was shortlisted in the best short story category for the Shamus Award in 1994; losing to Lawrence Block’s Matthew Scudder tale, “The Merciful Angel of Death.”

Check out the Kindle edition of  Cuddy-Plus One here at Amazon.