Review: "Galway's Edge" by Ken Bruen

 

Galway’s Edge by Ken Bruen Mysterious Press, 2025   Galway’s Edge (scheduled for release Mar. 4) is a wild-eyed and far-ranging crime novel written as only Ken Bruen can: a splash of poetry; a dash of morality, or the absence of morality, perhaps; a pinch of madness; and a dollop of justice. This is the eighteenth book featuring Galway, located on the western shore of Ireland, private eye Jack Taylor. Jack is hired by the rotund Father Richard, a papal troubleshooter from Rome, to clean up a local vigilante group called Edge. Edge is comprised of five of Galway’s leading citizens, including the Church’s own Father Kevin Whelan. Father Richard’s masters in the Vatican are concerned about the potential for bad press if Whelan’s involvement becomes widely known. But before Taylor can do anything about Whelan, the priest is found in his own backyard dangling from a rope. Soon after, another member of Edge is stabbed to death, and it becomes obvious Edge’s leading citizens are being targeted by a multi-millionaire with a grudge against the group. As Taylor investigates Edge and the millionaire, he does side jobs for a nun hoping to retrieve a stolen crucifix, a battered wife looking for breathing room from her husband, and a terminally ill man hoping Jack will kill him. Happily, one or two of the subplots tie-in nicely with Edge, the millionaire, and Father Richard. Galway’s Edge is a sparkling examination of the steaming rot of humanity’s underbelly—a rot that, as you read, you realize affects us all. The tale spans parts of eight months, November 2022 to June 2023, and many of the chapters are introduced with real life events. A cover-up of an Irish cervical cancer test that gave false negatives. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Donald Trump’s avoidance of consequences in the United States…and so and so on. These real-world events underscore the absurdity of our shared morality—is it any more or less moral for Taylor to kill a man dying of cancer than it is for a government to wage war, a criminal to be elected as the president of the U.S.? Which gives Galway’s Edge a dour expression, but Bruen’s sly wit rescues it from utter darkness. And while Taylor is a hard man with his own distinct sense of morality, which usually conflicts with society’s expectations, his reasoning is never abstract and always understandable. Galway’s Edge is, as is Ken Bruen, the real deal—interesting, thought-provoking, and in equal parts ugly and redemptive.

Check out Galway’s Edge at Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

The Pulp Time Machine: Column Advertising

 

The Pulp Time Machine Column Advertising   I may be alone in this, although I doubt it, but the only thing better than the column advertisements in pulp magazines (usually for sketchy products) are the stories and the illustrations. But if I think about, that’s about all there was… Check out these groovy ads in the last several pages of the October 1950 issue of Thrilling Detective. I’m thinking of sending away for the “Sensational Device Enables Anyone to Test Own Eyes” gizmo and those “Nervous Stomach” garlic tablets. And don't get me started on “Be a Detective” gig because that’s all I’ve ever wanted to be. I hope the addresses still work.         The cover artist is unknown (to me at least).

Review: "Bad Moon" by Todd Ritter

 

Bad Moon by Todd Ritter Minotaur Books, 2011   Bad Moon—which is the second of three mysteries featuring Perry Hollow, Pennsylvania, police chief, Kat Campbell—is a white-knuckle ride loaded with twists and thrills and unsuspected revelations. When Nick Donnelly, a homicide investigator for the State Police before being drummed out after an injury, calls Kat hoping for her help on a cold case his Foundation was hired to solve. On July 20, 1969, the same day Neil Armstrong walked on the moon, ten-year-old Charlie Olmstead went missing from his home. Charlie’s bicycle was found in the water just above Sunset Falls and the police, led by Kat’s father, Jim, ruled his death an accident. But Charlie’s body was never found and his mother, Maggie, believed her son was kidnapped and may still be alive. While on her death bed, Maggie made her only other child, the bestselling novelist Eric Olmstead, promise to find Charlie. So Eric, back in Perry Hollow to bury his mother, hired Nick and with Kat’s unofficial help—after all, the case was closed more than 40-years ago—the trio follow the scant clues into a shocking web of murder. Bad Moon is lightning paced and teeters on the edge of psychological thriller; which makes sense because Todd Ritter has since gained fame for the twisty psychological thrillers he writes as Riley Sager. Ritter litters, in a good way, the narrative with conflicting personal motivations and shades of character compromise. Kat is compromised by her deceased father’s involvement in the case and a relationship she had with Eric as a teenager. Nick’s conflict is with his injury and a grudge he holds against the State Police for his ignominious termination. And Eric is crippled with guilt for leaving his mother alone for so many decades. But it is the plot that matters most because everything else is subterfuge to keep the climactic reveals hidden until they pop onto the page. And oh boy, does it work.

Bad Moon is currently out-of-print, which is a shame because I had a really good time reading it—and if you enjoy an occasional twisted and surprising thriller, where the plot surpasses everything, you likely will too. And don’t worry about reading the series in order because I didn’t have any trouble following Bad Moon, which was my first experience with Kat Campbell and Todd Ritter.

Review: "How I Spend My Days and My Nights" by Håkan Nesser

“How I Spend My Days and My Nights” by Håkan Nesser Novellix, 2019   Swedish crime writer, Håkan Nesser’s “How I Spend My Days and My Nights”—originally published in the Swedish magazine Allas in 2006—is a splendid, if blisteringly dark, psychological chiller that haunts the reader long after the last page. On a rainy November evening, Marteen, a successful novelist, stops on his way home at Harry’s Bar for a quiet drink. His wife, Marlene, is away on business and a quick drink is excuse enough to escape the rain and postpone his arrival to their empty apartment.       Harry’s Bar is empty except for the bartender and a man drinking alone at the bar. After Marteen orders a double scotch, a pitcher of water, and a towel (to dry himself from the rain), and before he can find a table, the lone drinker introduces himself as David Perowne. And while Marteen has never heard of Perowne, the stranger tells him a nasty and unbelievable story about Marlene. But it’s a story that could change everything in Marteen’s life.       “How I Spend My Days and My Nights” is astonishingly good. With a deceptively simple narrative, Nesser seamlessly builds the mystery around the question, is Perowne’s tale about Marlene true? And just as relevant, does it matter if it is true? The Hitchcockian premise is jazzed by a hint of wobbling character reliability, tension, and potential betrayal. Then there are those last few sentences that change everything with an ironic and gut-wrenching twist.

I read “How I Spend My Days and My Nights” in a cool standalone paperback edition from Swedish publisher, Novellix. It was part of a four-book boxed-set called Swedish Crime, which includes stories by Arne Dahl, Karin Tidbeck, and Henning Mankell.       “How I Spend My Days and My Nights” was obviously translated from its original Swedish, but no translator is noted in the Novellix edition.

 

What's New Pussycat?: February 2025

What’s New Pussycat? February 2025   Since we—my lovely family and I—moved from Salt Lake City to Southern Vermont a few years ago the number of used books that follow me home has slackened somewhat; which isn’t saying I’ve become chaste with my book acquisitions but rather small-town Vermont has fewer books sitting around waiting for me than the city had. One of my favorite places for used books is the Rutland City Free Library’s Friends of the Library book sale held on the second Friday and Saturday of each month. The stock turns over nicely—there is always something new in the rotation—and in the more than two years I’ve been going, I have never been turned out empty handed. And I’ve found more than a few treasures. February’s sale was held this past weekend, the 14th and 15th, and (of course) I attended both days because that’s how I roll. My take was five books; well, four books and a box filled with four small paperbacks with each featuring a short story by a Swedish crime writer: Håkan Nesser, Arne Dahl, Karin Tidbeck, and Henning Mankell. I’ll be sure to let you know how I like these shorts since I’m planning to read at least one of them after I finish the novel I’m reading now. But until then, I thought it would be fun to share my latest house-cluttering treasures….
THE BALLAD OF THE SAD CAFÉ, by Carson McCullers (© 1951). The edition I picked up is from Mariner Books, 2005. This collection of seven stories fits one of my reading goals for the year: read more literature! I haven’t read McCullers since my misspent college days and I’m excited to dip my toes into her writing again. The stories included are: The Ballad of the Sad Café, Wunderkind, The Jockey, Madame Zilensky and the King of Finland, The Sojourner, A Domestic Dilemma, and A Tree, A Rock, A Cloud.
BLACK WATER, by Joyce Carol Oates (© 1992). This copy appears to be a first edition, published by Dutton, but the title page / copyright page has been torn out and—good thing I’m a reader rather than a collector—the dust jacket has been clipped. In Black Water, Oates tells a fictional story about Ted Kennedy, Mary Jo Kopechne, and the Chappaquiddick Island incident. The names have been changed from real-life to the fictional one, and the tale is told from the perspective of Kopechne, called Kelly Kelleher here. If it is like everything I’ve read from Oates, it is going to be dazzling. I’ll keep you posted since this is already near the top of my reading list.
HUNTING GAME, by Helene Tursten (© 2014). This is the 2019 edition from Soho Crime, translated from the Swedish by Paul Norlen. I’ve read only short stories by Helene Tursten—her shorts featuring the lovable elderly serial killer, Maud, are to die for—and I’m hoping this first mystery in the Detective Inspector Embla Nyström series is just as good. I’ll let you know what I think when I get to it.
THE LOST, by Jeffrey B. Burton (© 2022). This first edition was published by the mystery line, Minotaur Books, and is the third entry in the Mace Reid series. I’ve never read Burton, but this book has three things going for it: 1) it is set in Chicago; 2) it features a cadaver dog named Vira; and 3) I struggle passing up a book from Minotaur. And yeah, there is home invasion, kidnapping, and a billionaire involved.
SWEDISH CRIME: SHORT STORIES, by Håkan Nesser, Arne Dahl, Karin Tidbeck, and Henning Mankell (2019). This snappy little boxed set was produced by Novellix, which according to the copyright page is headquartered in Stockholm, Sweden. Each story is published in its own paperback (4-1/8” x 5-3/4”) and translated into English. I don’t have much experience reading so-called Nordic Noir, but I’m hoping these tales provide a thrill. I’m also wondering if the same person donated this to the library as Tursten’s Hunting Game.   The stories are: How I Spend My Days and Nights, by Håkan Nesser, Migraine, by Arne Dahl, Anywhere Out of the World, by Karin Tidbeck, and The Man on the Beach, by Henning Mankell.

 

Review: "A Hard Ticket Home" by David Housewright

 

A Hard Ticket Home by David Housewright Minotaur Books, 2004   David Housewright’s first Rushmore McKenzie, A Hard Ticket Home, had escaped my reading eye until now. Before turning its first page, I had read eleven of the 22 books in the series so far and it was fun to see how McKenzie has changed from his first outing to the latest. One thing I noticed—many of McKenzie’s friends, including his best pal Bobby Dunston, call him, “Mac,” which isn’t the case as the series goes on. Another is, McKenzie is moodier in this first story than any of the others I’ve read. Of course he kills a few people and another is killed because of his snooping. But for the most part McKenzie is the same dented and likable hero as he has always been. A Hard Ticket Home opens with a telling of how a St. Paul beat cop, McKenzie, became a millionaire, and it was fun to have the nitty gritty of his future wealth spelled out. But the real meat of the story is about McKenzie’s search for Jamie Carlson. Seven years earlier, Jamie went missing from her parents’ Grand Rapids, Minnesota, home. Her parents—Jamie’s father built a deck for McKenzie’s lake house, which is how they’re acquainted—didn’t search for Jamie when she disappeared but now their younger daughter, Stacy, has leukemia and they are hoping Jamie is a match as a bone marrow donor. McKenzie tracks Jamie down without difficulty, which is when his (and Jamie’s) trouble begins. That trouble takes McKenzie inside a ruthless street gang, onto the guest list of an elite group of entrepreneurs, and turns him into a play thing of the FBI and ATF. A Hard Ticket Home’s Minnesota is less finely detailed than in the future books, but even so, the setting is nicely rendered. It is good fun to watch McKenzie and his series long paramour, Nina Truhler, meet in Nina’s jazz club, Rikkie’s, for the first time. The action, and as one expects from McKenzie there is a bunch, is top-notch and exciting. There are shootings, fisticuffs—including one that nearly kills McKenzie—and even an explosion. The mystery is fine-tuned with more than a couple twists, including a marvelous one near the end. Even better, McKenzie is his usual flawed, smart-alecky, and likable as hell self.

Find A Hard Ticket Home on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.

Syndicated Action Shows from the 1990s

Back in the ’90s cheesy syndicated action television series were everywhere. And man, I was a fan. One of my favorite channels of the era was Salt Lake City-based KJZZ, Channel 14. Its Saturday night lineup was Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, Renegade, and the uber ridiculous but entertaining game show, American Gladiators. So when I saw this advertisement from an old issue of the Salt Lake Tribune (Nov. 7, 1993), I had to share. My favorites from the ad were Renegade, Time Trax—filmed in Australia with the cool premise of a cop from the future tracking down time fugitives in the USA of the 1990s—Kung Fu: The Legend Continues, and Cobra. I’ve always thought Baywatch was a turd and Acapulco H.E.A.T. is even worse. Maybe this Saturday night I’ll make a replay of those Saturdays evenings I gleefully watched away so long ago.

 

Review: "The Longest December" by Richard Chizmar

 

“The Longest December” by Richard Chizmar Cemetery Dance, 2023   Richard Chizmar’s crime novella, “The Longest December”—which is a revised and expanded version of Chizmar’s 2016 story, “A Long December”—is an original and inventive take on the serial killer tale. Bob Howard is a middle-aged sales rep living the suburban dream with a son in college and his marriage, to the beautiful Katy, comfortable and rewarding. But his carefully curated life is shattered when a detective knocks on his door on an early December morning asking about Bob’s best friend and next-door neighbor, James Wilkinson. Wilkinson, a part-time history lecturer at a local University, is suspected in a series of killings dating back years. Bob and Katy insist the police have made a mistake. Wilkinson has been their neighbor for eight years and he is their son’s honorary godfather. And he, Wilkinson, has never shown any behavior to suggest he may be a killer. Of course, Wilkinson has disappeared—which makes him look guilty—and the news media pick up the story with frenzied zeal. “The Longest December” is a bullet of a crime thriller with a psychological element—could Wilkinson have played Bob and Katy for so long, and would he come back and hurt them now?—wrapped in a tense and atmospheric narrative. Chizmar’s sense of pacing is alarmingly perfect but the tale’s essence is the intrinsic suspense as the reader watches Bob circle the truth of what James Wilkinson truly is, on both an emotional and intellectual level, moving from denial to fear and then to something altogether different. “The Longest December” is a thrilling tale with a little Alfred Hitchcock and the film Seven blended into Chizmar’s own secret sauce. And it really works! “The Longest December” was published as one-half of a “double” with Stephen King and Stewart O’Nan’s story, “A Face in the Crowd.”

Check out A Face in the Crowd / The Longest December at Amazon—click here for the hardcover.

Magnum, P.I.: "Don't Eat the Snow"

This advertisement for the Magnum, P.I. pilot, “Don’t Eat the Snow in Hawaii” (air date, Dec. 11, 1980), appeared in the Davis County Clipper (Utah) on Dec. 3, 1980. I’m not sure Magnum and Higgins ever worked out their issues, but it was fun watching them try.

 

Booked (and Printed): January 2025

Booked (and Printed) January 2025   January was a cold mother bear in my wooded paradise. The air temperature dropped below zero for several days and the wind chill nosedived into the –20-degree range. Plus there were the ten consecutive days it snowed. Sure, it was light snow, but still… Add a splash of inky black nights and everything about the month screamed: READ! And so I did. I finished six books—five novels and a single non-fiction work, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century, which all of us Americans thoroughly ignored this past November—and four shorts. One of these shorts, “The Longest December,” by Richard Chizmar, was a pretty terrific novella. While some were better than others, I liked something about everything I read. With every new year I make broad, often malleable reading goals, which are usually meant to mitigate what I see as reading deficiencies from the prior year or years. This year I decided one such area—for the past several years—was my intake of literary works, both old and new. So, my first novel of 2025 was John Steinbeck’s THE MOON IS DOWN. Published in 1942, The Moon is Down, was written as anti-Nazi propaganda and it shows. The characterizations lack Steinbeck’s usual richness and the setting is painted with a duller brush, but—and this is important—The Moon is Down is much more than mere propaganda and it can and should be read as literature. Read my detailed review here. Next up was the spanking new thriller, THE MAILMAN, by Andrew Welsh-Huggins (2025). This speedy and entertaining escapist thriller is something like Lee Child’s Jack Reacher, but in place of a retired Army M.P., is a highly trained and outrageously persistent independent deliveryman named Mercury Carter. I liked it a bunch and if you are of a mind, you can read my review here. As for that solitary non-fiction work, ON TYRANNY, by Timothy Snyder (2017)—who is a professor of history at Yale—it satisfied another of my goals for 2025: read more non-fiction. On Tyranny is a slim but fascinating book about 20 specific things we can learn from authoritarian regimes of the twentieth century—Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, etc.—that can help us stymie those with autocratic designs in our own time. A few of my favorites from this excellent book are: do not obey in advance; defend institutions; beware the one-party state; remember professional ethics; and contribute to good causes. If you’re worried about the future and want to read something smart and lucid, try On Tyranny. I bet you can find it at your local library. BITTERFROST, by Bryan Gruley (2025), is an uneven legal thriller with a crime novel vibe and a cool (pun intended) rural Michigan wintertime setting. There are many things I liked about this one, but the narrative lost some of its drive in the first half as characters and subplots were introduced. Bitterfrost is scheduled for release on April 1, and I’ll have a detailed review posted on March 31. The sophomore entry in John Keyse-Walker’s Teddy Creque mystery series, BEACH, BREEZE, BLOODSHED (2017), is as good as the freshman outing. Teddy Creque, now promoted to a full constable in the Royal Virgin Islands Police Force, is called to the neighboring island of Virgin Gorda to help track down the shark that attacked and killed a medical researcher. Teddy makes quick work of the job, but he finds something not quite right about the young woman’s death. So, as usual, he goes against his immediate supervisor and keeps investigating. On the way, he finds a new paramour, a unique smuggling operation, and a murderer. It’s great fun from the first page to the last and it, simply because it is so laid back and warm, is my favorite read of the month. I’m definitely going to read the next book in the series. THE DISPATCHER, by science fiction master John Scalzi (2016), is a wildly entertaining pulp novella about a future world where murdered people reappear (very much alive) in their own home wearing only their birthday suit. Tony Valdez earns a living as a dispatcher—he mostly works high risk surgeries where he can “dispatch,” or murder, the patient if the surgery goes wrong, which gives the patient and their doctors another shot at getting things right. When Valdez’s friend, Jimmy Albert, goes missing, Valdez is roped into helping the police find him. The investigation leads the reader into the seamy underbelly of the dispatch business. It’s a fun ride all the way through.

As for short stories, January was a middling month. Not for quality, but rather for quantity. I only read four, but I enjoyed them all. Stephen King and Stuart O’Nan’s “A FACE IN THE CROWD” (2012)—which I read in a double format with the Richard Chizmar novella we’ll look at next—is a Twilight Zone-style tale about death and baseball. It didn’t quite meet my expectations, I mean King and O’Nan, right?, but it was still pretty good. “THE LONGEST DECEMBER,” by Richard Chizmar (2023), is a sweet crime novella with an inventive take on the serial killer tale. It reminded me of Alfred Hitchcock and the film Seven blended with Chizmar’s own secret sauce. And it really works! I’ve reviewed this one, but it hasn’t been posted yet…so check back soon. I’m embarrassed to admit that “MARIJUANA AND A PISTOL” (1940), is my first experience with the writing of Chester Himes. This dizzying little story—it’s probably only about 2,500 words—reads like anti-marijuana propaganda, but its hardboiled prose and stark view of humanity give it punch. It originally appeared in Esquire and I read it in Hard-Boiled, edited by Bill Pronzini & Jack Adrian (1995). Finally, Robert Sampson’s “TO FLORIDA” (1987), is a noir gem with an unexpected ending and a brutal vision of humanity’s lowest instincts from the first page to the last. I liked it. You can read my review here.

Review: "The Friends of Eddie Coyle" by George V. Higgins

The Friends of Eddie Coyle by George V. Higgins     reviewed by Mike Baker     Eddie Coyle is a low-level Boston criminal, and he has a problem. After getting arrested for driving a hijacked truck through Vermont, he was convicted and is now out on bail, awaiting sentencing. His solution to the prospect of going to jail? He’s willing to snitch on a fellow criminal. But the police want more from Coyle—they want him to roll on even more associates, which creates a whole new problem for him. Meanwhile, Phil Scalisi is in the bank-robbing business with three other mob-connected hoods, and business is good. Eddie knows about Phil’s bank job, so you can probably see how this might develop into a problem for both Phil and especially for Eddie. And you can already guess how things might unfold. The cops and robbers dynamic heats up, and shenanigans ensue. This book gets a lot of praise—Best Crime Novel Ever. Best Dialogue Ever. I won’t go 100% on either of those claims, but it’s pretty goddamn good. The dialogue never feels stilted or expository. It never gets cumbersome.  Also, it has a loose narrative structure, shifting from character to character without getting bogged down in unnecessary details. George V. Higgins leaves a lot of the work up to the reader. He doesn’t say much explicitly, and pieces of the story are intentionally left out. It’s enough to keep the plot moving, but an engaged reader will start to make assumptions. These gaps—these moments of narrative uncertainty—create a sense of wobbling momentum as things start to unravel. The reader is taken on a perilous ride, with the plot hurtling forward, sometimes faster than you can keep up. If you’ve seen the movie Killing Them Softly, you might get a sense of what I’m talking about. That film is based on Cogan’s Trade, another Higgins classic, and sticks closely to his narrative style. Friends of Eddie Coyle is, in my view, the best example of lessons learned from Dashiell Hammett and Raymond Chandler. Is this book the best? I don’t know. But what I do know is that every word rings true, every sentence flows into the next*. It feels like the end of the night at a bar, and some guy is telling you a story that you’re sure is bullshit—right up until the end, when he hits you with the twist and you realize you just spent the evening getting drunk with Elvis. *            *            * *There’s a phenomenon where, when reading a text, if you come across a word you don’t know and can’t figure out from context or don’t bother to look up, your understanding of everything else becomes slightly diminished. Every unknown word in the text that you can’t decipher or don’t take the time to understand compounds this effect. I believe there’s a similar concept in fiction. False notes, off-putting inconsistencies, or unintentional character flaws—these things pull us out of the narrative and create a kind of psychic drag that slows us down. Look, I read Cormac McCarthy slowly because his writing is dense and complicated. But I read Nick Carter slowly because every other sentence feels fake and hollow.

Check out The Friends of Eddie Coyle at Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.