Review: "Domino Island" by Desmond Bagley

Domino Island by Desmond Bagley HarperCollins, 2019   Domino Island is Desmond Bagley’s “lost” novel. The manuscript (ms) was discovered by the researcher Philip Eastwood at Boston University’s Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center where Bagley’s papers are housed. Along with the ms—titled Because Salton Died—were letters between Bagley and his editor at Collins, Bob Knittel, and handwritten notes on the ms, identifying planned changes for publication, but Bagley pulled Because Salton Died from Collins and the changes were never made. There are a couple hypotheses about why Bagley stopped work on the book. The first and most obvious is Bagley decided it was a hopeless project and there is some evidence supporting this. In the letter to his editor accompanying the ms, Bagley wrote, “I had a bad case of ‘writer’s block’[.]” He had started and abandoned four “standard Bagleys”—adventure thrillers—and he decided to try something entirely new to get his creative energy going. So, in the early days of 1972 he began working on an Agatha Christie-style traditional mystery, or whodunnit, but Bagley wanted to rework the novel into his usual fare because: “My method of writing is singularly ill-adapted for the writing of a whodunnit. I begin with a situation and let it develop, and the plot follows where the development leads; whereas a whodunnit should be meticulously worked out in a synopsis before a key on the typewriter is touched.” The second hypothesis—and my favorite of the two—involves the film, The Mackintosh Man, which was based on Bagley’s 1972 novel, The Freedom Trap. Doubleday, Bagley’s American publisher, wanted a novel like The Freedom Trap that could be marketed in tandem with the film’s release in 1973. Bagley’s next novel, The Tightrope Men (1973), seemed to oblige this request since it is similar in theme to The Freedom Trap. But both thoughts are purely conjecture since, as far as I know, no one has uncovered any direct evidence to support one theory over the other for Bagley’s motive for ditching Because Salton Died in favor of writing The Tightrope Men. Now on to the review: Bill Kemp, a former Royal Army officer, is a highly competent and well-paid insurance consultant working for Western and Continental Insurance Co. Kemp is sent to the Caribbean Island nation, and former British colony, Campanilla, to investigate the death of the well-heeled David Salton. Salton’s decomposing corpse was discovered in a small boat off Campanilla’s coast, and the local coroner ruled the cause of death as a heart attack. Kemp’s investigation is supposed to be nothing more than a simple “check-the-box” operation, but things start unwinding when he arrives on the island. According to a police captain, Kemp’s body was too far gone for a cause of death to be determined. And Salton had enemies everywhere. He was involved in island politics, and he’d been railing against the island casinos—rumored to be owned by an organized crime syndicate—the banking industry, which specialized in moving money discreetly for wealthy clients without paying much local tax, and the current and very corrupt government. Domino Island’s origins as a whodunnit are visible in the finished book. The mysterious death of David Salton. The wide spectrum of suspects. Kemp’s observations of the police’s inadequate original investigation and his developing and then discarding of suspects and murder theories. But the climactic resolution of the mystery is far from traditional—although a portion is set in something like a drawing room—with a bunch of action and a conclusion that would be difficult for any reader to guess because there simply aren’t adequate clues in the narrative. Which is okay, because Domino Island works well as an adventure thriller through its exotic location, bullet-flying action, and Kemp’s tough guy persona. Domino Island isn’t Bagley’s best, but it’s a welcome addition for any of Bagley’s regular readers. *                   *                   * This is a slightly updated version of a review published on Feb. 17, 2022.

a little more about Domino Island…   After Because Salton Died was found, Bagley’s literary estate allowed the screenwriter Michael Davies to make the changes identified in the manuscript notes and from the correspondence between Bagley and Knittel and Domino Island was born. According to Philip Eastwood’s Afterword, Bagley’s “typescript, of approximately 89,000 words, bore on its title page: NEW NOVEL BECAUSE SALTON DIED (if you think of a better, please do) And more than 47 years after it was written, the publisher did find a better title with Domino Island. *                   *                   * Check out Amazon’s page for Domino Island  For more information about Desmond Bagley and his work, check out The Complete Desmond Bagley at Amazon

 

Review: "The Wolf in the Clouds" by Ron Faust

 

The Wolf in the Clouds by Ron Faust Popular Library, 1978   The Wolf in the Clouds is Ron Faust’s second novel. Originally published in 1977 as a hardcover by Bobbs-Merrill’s Black Bat Mystery imprint, it has been reprinted by Popular Library (1978)—which is the edition I read—and more recently as a trade paperback and ebook by Turner Publishing. Like much of Faust’s early work, The Wolf in the Clouds is a relatively simple adventure yarn with a poetic lilt that makes it a little more.    A small town in rural Colorado is under siege by a slow-moving blizzard and a rampage killer. A killer who shot several people at a nearby ski resort and is now hiding in the rugged Wolf Mountain Wilderness Area. The storm trapped three college students skiing in the shadow of the Wolf—a high, unforgiving mountain peak—and two forest rangers brave the freezing temperatures to mount a rescue. The rangers, Jack and Frank, find the skiers safely holed up in a small cabin, but they also find the killer; a man named Ralph Brace whom Jack once considered a friend, but quickly realizes he never knew Ralph at all. The Wolf in the Clouds is an entertaining and smoothly written adventure novel. It is written in first person from Jack’s perspective and the narrative includes ideas larger than the story. The complexity of public land use is only one and it is as relevant today, perhaps even more so, than it was fifty years ago. The prose is both complex and simple; easy to read, but with a texture of beauty about it: “Roof timbers creaked, the last light faded from the windows, the stone walls exhaled a new, acid cold. The long winter night was here; we had fourteen or fifteen hours until dawn.” The story lacks the complexity of Faust’s later novels and the protagonist, Jack, is shaded by a cold veneer. He is aloof, even in an early scene with his wife, and something of an outsider with both the Forest Service and the townsfolk, which is forgivable since everything works so well—setting, plotting, character. The Wolf in the Clouds isn’t in the top-tier of Ron Faust’s body of work, which is reserved for his final six or seven novels, but it is still damn good. *                 *                 * This is a slightly updated version of a review published on May 19, 2016.

Check out The Wolf in the Clouds on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.

Review: "Chain of Evidence" by Garry Disher

 

Chain of Evidence by Garry Disher Soho Crime, 2007   Chain of Evidence is Australian crime writer Garry Disher’s fourth novel to feature Inspector Hal Challis and Sergeant Ellen Destry. A police procedural set in the rural, but booming Mornington Peninsula area south of Melbourne in Victoria, Australia. A place where poverty and wealth live side-by-side and crime is as deadly and ugly as it is in any large city. While visiting his dying father in his childhood home in the dusty, hardscrabble South Australia town of Mawson’s Bluff, Challis unofficially investigates the mysterious disappearance of his sister’s husband, Gavin Hurst, from eight years earlier. Hurst is a man not readily missed by many of Mawson’s Bluff’s residents and his disappearance is truly a mystery. His truck was abandoned at the desert’s edge and his body was never found. Back home at the Waterloo Station, Ellen Destry is filling in for Challis during his absence when a girl is kidnapped on her way home from school. She is found imprisoned in an uninhabited house. Abused by what Destry believes is a pedophile ring operating in the Peninsula. Her investigation hits roadblocks from within the police service and the only person she can trust is Hal Challis, more than 1,000 kilometers away. Chain of Evidence is a powerful and disturbing procedural. The two major mysteries are intriguing and executed with the sure hand of an absolute professional. It is Ellen Destry’s coming out as an equal partner with Challis. The setting, both the Peninsula and Mawson’s Bluff, is rendered with a muted artistry and adds immeasurably to the novel’s power. There is nothing gory or exploitative about either storyline and Disher has a way of mixing character stereotypes to develop tension between the characters, the plot, and the reader. It may be the best book in the series. If you are new to Garry Disher, Chain of Evidence is a very good place to get acquainted. *                        *                        * This is a slightly updated version of a review published on August 12, 2017.

Check out Chain of Evidence on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.

Review: "Branded" by Ed Gorman

Branded by Ed Gorman Berkley, 2004   “He wanted to build himself a cigarette, but his hands were covered with the woman’s blood. There was something vile about cigarette paper soaked with blood.”   Branded—which is currently available as an ebook from Speaking Volumes—was originally published as a paperback original in 2004 by Berkley and (needless to say) it didn’t get the play it deserved. Andy Malloy is nineteen and preoccupied by the daydreams of youth. Andy, Sir Andrew as he is known in the realm, imagines himself a knight of King Arthur’s Court where he is brave, just, and admired. But his reality is much different. He works as a store clerk, his father is a drunk, and his stepmother, Eileen, is petty and unfaithful. Arriving home from work Andy discovers Eileen lying dead on the couch, a gunshot wound to her forehead. His father, Tom, is the obvious suspect and Andy hides the body until Tom convinces Andy he isn’t the killer. The only problem is the Sheriff, a hard man with a reputation for beating and killing suspects, doesn’t believe any of it. Branded is a superior western novel. It is a heady mixture of character, plot, and action. Populated by real people who act and behave, at different times, both rationally and irrationally. A town gossip whose only joy is causing trouble, a violent lawman with a suspicious background, a town drunk whose personal frailty and desire for respect is painful, an isolated woman with a burned face. And townspeople who do their best to ignore it. The plot is closer to crime, shadows of serial killings no less, than a traditional western and there is a satisfying, and surprising climactic twist. But it is also appealing as a traditional western and readers of both genres will find much to like here. *                      *                      * This is a slightly revised version of a review published on June 8, 2016.

Check out Branded on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition.

 

Review: "Front Sight: Three Swagger Novellas" by Stephen Hunter

 

Front Sight Three Swagger Novellas by Stephen Hunter Atria Books, 2024     I read Stephen Hunter’s first Bob Lee Swagger thriller, Point of Impact (1993), sometime during the Spring of 1994. And holy wow, it knocked me off my feet with its disturbingly realistic violence—the realism due as much to the emotional impact on the characters as the action itself—and the dizzying large screen conspiracy plot with a former Vietnam sniper, turned Arkansas drunk, nicknamed Bob the Nailer, at its core. I read the next two—Black Light (1996) and Time to Hunt (1998)—as they were released with the same satisfying awe as I’d had while reading the first. Frankly, all three are among the best thrillers published in the 1990s. After that, Hunter switched to telling the story of Bob Lee’s father, Earl. A rugged former Marine and legendary Arkansas lawman gunned down in 1954 by the nasty Lamar Pye—you should read the fantastic Dirty White Boys (1994) for Lamar’s tale. Hot Springs, which was the first of three books featuring Earl—the other two are Pale Horse Coming (2001) and Havana (2003)—hit bookstores in 2000. And then in 2007 Hunter returned to Bob Lee with the disappointing The 47th Samurai and again in 2008 with the so-so Night of Thunder. Which is when I lost interest in Hunter’s new releases and the Swaggers both. I mention all this because I recently read Hunter’s Front Sight (2024), a collection of three Swagger novellas—one each for Earl and Bob Lee, and another featuring Bob Lee’s grandad, Charles Swagger—and found myself wondering if I’d been too hasty in writing-off Hunter and the Swaggers. The first, “City of Meat,” featuring Charles Swagger, is a hard-as-nails story about an elusive drug syndicate working Chicago’s predominately Black 7th District in 1934. Charles is a former Arkansas sheriff and renowned gunfighter turned G-Man on an FBI team looking for the notorious bank robber, Baby Face Nelson. While investigating a possible sighting of Nelson at the Chicago Stockyards, Charles is confronted by a knife-wielding man soaring high on an unknown narcotic. Charles teams-up with the real-life depression-era Black lawman, Slyvester Washington, nicknamed Two-Gun Pete—rumored to be the source material for “Dirty Harry” Callahan in the Dirty Harry movies—and follows the trail of the narcotics gang into unexpected places. “City of Meat” is action-packed and violent, but its real-world setting, the plight of Blacks on Chicago’s Southside—nobody really cared what happened there so long as it stayed there—give it a panache and a depth unusual for anything published in the thriller category. As Hunter says in his intro, “City of Meat” is his attempt at writing the equivalent of “the message picture,” where the story is accompanied by a portrayal of a societal ill. And it worked well. “Johnny Tuesday,” which began life as an unproduced screenplay, is a hardboiled film noir in novella format. It is hardboiled in a Carroll John Daly way: fast-paced but at times frustratingly indecipherable with a black and white morality and, especially in the case of Earl, cartoonish characters. It’s 1945 and Earl Swagger is fresh from the South Pacific and now fighting a personal war in the small fictional city of Chesterfield, Maryland. He hits town using the name Johnny Tuesday to investigate a lethal bank robbery and finds pretty much everyone in town is a scoundrel. The style of this one is cool—it feels like one of those “complete novel” tales published in the pulps of the 1930s. A category I like, but the writing (as good as it is) felt a little too self-aware and the plot a little too busy. And even worse, Earl seemed like an altogether different man than he is in his novels. “Johnny Tuesday” would have worked better if the hero hadn’t been Earl Swagger, or if I hadn’t read any of Hunter’s excellent Earl Swagger novels before reading it. “Five Dolls for the Gut Hook,” which is my favorite of the stories, is a serial killer tale set in Hot Springs, Arkansas. It’s 1979 and Bob Lee is drowning his dark Vietnam memories—“whiskey dreams were the best, and this one was fine”—in his tiny Polk County, Arkansas trailer. But his slow suicide gets shunted aside when his old friend Sam Vincent comes asking for a favor. A killer is targeting young transient women working Hot Springs’ sex trade and the local force is out of ideas of how to catch the monster. They won’t go to the staties or the FBI because it would bring unwanted publicity as Hot Springs is trying to transition from a rough and tumble crime town into a family destination resort. And everyone is sure Bob Lee can bring something new to the investigation since he comes from lawman stock. And, of course, they’re right. In Hunter’s intro to “Five Dolls for the Gut Hook,” he says it is his attempt at writing a “notorious genre of bloody Italian mystery-horror films of the seventies,” called “Giallo.” A film style I’m unfamiliar with, but if any of the films are as good as this tale, I need to make amends and get acquainted with it quick-like. Besides the great title, “Five Dolls of the Gut Hook,” has that grand dusty feeling of the 1970s: pickup trucks, sweat, cowboy shirts, brutality, dark deeds, and corrupt cops all wrapped into a honky-tonk town darkened by its many secrets. And there’s Bob Lee, being Bob Lee, too. This one alone is worth the price of admission.

Check out Front Sight on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.

Review: "Death of an Ex" by Delia Pitts

Death of an Ex by Delia Pitts Minotaur Books, 2025     Death of an Ex, which is Delia Pitts’s second Vandy Myrick mystery, is a thoughtful, deliberately paced private eye novel with a rich New Jersey setting and a heaping of emotional healing. A former Rutgers University cop, the middle-aged Vandy moved back to her small hometown of Queenstown and took a job as a lawyer’s “pet private investigator.” Her boss, Elissa Adesanya, is also Vandy’s best friend and the work tends to be low market rackets like divorce, insurance fraud, and process serving. Vandy is thrown into the deep end of the investigative pool after attending a glitzy event at the high-end Rome School—a private boarding school in Queenstown—where her young friend, Ingrid Ramirez, is receiving an award. Vandy’s ex-husband, Philip Bolden, which is a great surname for any character, is at the reception and even after twenty years he still makes Vandy’s pulse rise and her knees weak. A few days later Vandy takes Philip to her bed and for a moment she doesn’t mind being the other woman. That changes when Philip is gunned down a few blocks from Vandy’s apartment and Vandy is left to figure out who did it and why. All while traversing the mine field of Philip’s personal life—he was married with a teenage son and his wandering libido caused nothing but trouble. While also hoping to keep her and Philip’s indiscretion a secret. Death of an Ex, while rightfully a private eye tale, has the atmosphere of an amateur sleuth in a particularly well-done cozy. Vandy’s investigative style is circular and primarily based on emotion rather than the linear style most often used in detective tales. She bumps around the primary suspects, as sneakily as an English Village sleuth, looking for motive and opportunity. A wobbly tactic because of its use of repetition—a repetition of Vandy’s emotions and a repetition of questioning the same suspects over and over—to deepen the mystery, but one that ultimately works since it reveals the illogic and tragedy of murder. But the true charm of Death of an Ex is Vandy’s own struggle with the death of her only child and Pitts’s vivid rendering of a predominately Black New Jersey town.

Check out Death of an Ex on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

 

Review: "The Blue Horse" by Bruce Borgos

The Blue Horse by Bruce Borgos Minotaur Books, 2025   Bruce Borgos’s third Sheriff Porter Beck procedural, The Blue Horse, opens with a pop and a wow—a BLM (Bureau of Land Management) wild horse gather, also known as a roundup, is interrupted when a helicopter crashes while pushing a herd through a narrow canyon in Beck’s Lincoln County, Nevada—but ends with a shrug and a sigh. Beck, who was watching the gather from the back of his own horse, locks down the crash site almost immediately. And in no time at all Beck and his deputy, Tuffy Scruggs, determine it was no accident. The pilot was shot by a sniper and they even find a spent shell casing atop a blue plastic toy horse. The primary suspect is Etta Clay, the leader of a wild horse advocacy group called CANTER. The local Nevada ranchers, and the BLM’s leadership, think CANTER is fanatical since it has compared the removal of wild horses from Nevada’s rangeland to genocide. But Beck isn’t so sure of Etta’s involvement in the killing or that CANTER is wrong about the way the horses are managed on public lands. Then Lincoln County is shocked by another brutal murder and while the two killings are different in style, Beck figures they must be related. The Blue Horse has a complex plot with angles and nuance—the Montreal mafia plays into it, as do ranchers, modern mining, Beck, who suffers from night blindness due to a congenital disease called retinitis pigmentosa, and, since the action takes place in September 2020, so dies Covid. Not to mention, Beck’s sister goes missing in a national park. While the complexity adds drama, it lessens the impact of the action and makes the climactic clash a little ho-hum. The villains are nasty, but (especially in the last third of the narrative) are cartoonish and have all the subtlety and competence of clowns. With that in mind, Beck is solidly drawn and likable, the setting is vivid, and the didactic discussion about wild horses is interesting as heck. If you like Craig Johnson’s Longmire, you’ll enjoy The Blue Horse, but all the while wish it had that same richness as Borgos’s previous novels.

Check out The Blue Horse on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

 

Review: "The Frozen People" by Elly Griffiths

 

The Frozen People by Elly Griffiths Viking, 2025     Elly Griffiths’ latest mystery, The Frozen People—which is scheduled for release on July 8—is a likable first in a new and wholly original mystery series. In fact, it is a hybrid of sorts, since Ali Dawson, part of a secret cold case team with the meaningless title of the Department of Logistics, is tasked with solving cases so cold they use a new, and not completely understood technology, to travel back in time and gather evidence. The team’s operating procedures are simple: watch, bear witness, don’t interact, and stay safe. To date these rules have been easy to follow since the time jumps have been reasonably short and the people being watched were unable to see Ali. But things change when the politically connected Isaac Templeton—a Tory MP and the boss of Ali’s son, Finn—asks the Department to travel to the Victorian London of 1850 to clear his ancestor, Cain Templeton, of the suspicion that he killed three women. Isaac believes the whispers about Cain has sullied his family’s name and that Ali and the Department can clear it. Ali takes the challenge. With the help of an expert, she studies the era, readies the proper attire, and, not completely successfully, attempts to adopt the meek attitude of Victorian women. Of course, things go wrong quickly, the natives can see her, Ali gets stuck in 1850, and her son, Finn, is accused of murder back home in 2023. The Frozen People is a solid traditional mystery with an original concept and enough personality, in the form of Ali, to give it zing. While it starts slowly—the confusing number of characters introduced early-on is the primary culprit—the narrative picks up quickly when Ali jumps into the past. The Victorian London setting, from the attitudes and clothing to the colder than expected weather, is splendid. Ali is beset by one catastrophe after another until it seems her plight, and that of Finn, is doomed. And the time travel element? What isn’t great about a detective solving multiple murders across nearly 200 years?

Find The Frozen People on Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the hardcover.

Review: "Night on Fire" by Douglas Corleone

 

Night on Fire by Douglas Corleone Minotaur Books, 2011     Douglas Corleone’s second Kevin Corvelli mystery, Night on Fire, is a snappy and sharp legal thriller with personality—in the form of the almost debauched and always fun Corvelli. While chatting-up a cougar in his favorite outdoor beach bar, in Ko Olina on Oahu, Corvelli is among the many witnesses of a nasty and drunken fight between newlyweds. Corvelli’s only thoughts about the dust-up are: 1) too bad he doesn’t do divorces; and 2) just how sexy the bride is. With that, Kevin follows his libido into the cougar’s room in the Liholiho Tower of the Kupulupulu Beach Resort where the fight would have been forgotten, except later that night the Liholiho catches fire, killing eleven—including the sparring groom—and very nearly gets Kevin, his cougar, and a four-year-old boy named Josh Leffler that Corvelli befriended at the hallway vending machine. It takes investigators only a few hours to rule the fire as arson and a few more to finger the angry bride, Erin Simms, as their prime suspect. Of course, Corvelli takes Erin’s case, pisses off his law partner, Jake Harper, and makes one or two ethically dubious choices while facing down a prosecutor that seems to have a personal grudge against him. Night on Fire is a great summertime read—from its vivid Hawaii setting to Kevin Corvelli’s questionable personal behavior; which Corleone obviously had fun writing. Corvelli is a borderline alcoholic, a confirmed skirt chaser, but a damn good lawyer and something of an okay guy once you scrape the gunk away. There is a bit of fish-out-of-water subplot here, too, as Corvelli takes a big brother-like interest in the young Josh Leffler. The mystery is nicely developed with a handful of well-placed clues and the courtroom scenes are excellent. The climactic twist ending is on the far side of wild, but it didn’t bother me a whit since the journey there was so damn fun. Night on Fire is a must read for anyone with a hankering for entertainment and a desire to get away this summer without leaving home.

Night on Fire appears to be out-of-print (for some sick reason), but you can check out the original hardcover here at Amazon.

Review: "The Tribe" by Bari Wood

 

The Tribe by Barri Wood Valancourt Books, 2019   The Tribe, by Bari Wood—which was originally published by NAL in 1981—is a slow burning and suspenseful horror novel with a genuine Jewish golem at its core. It begins with the liberation of the Nazi extermination camp Belzec at the end of World War 2. Major Bianco, an American officer, becomes curious about the inmates living in barracks 554 because, unlike the camp’s other survivors, they are skinny but not emaciated. Bianco searches the barracks and inconceivably discovers boxes full of food, which should have been impossible since the Nazi’s were starving any Jews that weren’t sent to the gas chambers. But before Bianco can question the men of barracks 554, they disappear from a military transport. The Tribe’s roots are in Nazi Germany’s extermination camps, but the story is set in New York City and Long Island in 1980. The murder of a young Jewish academic by a ragtag Brooklyn street gang starts things off, but the police investigation is cut short when the killers—all of them are still boys, really—are beat to death in the basement of an abandoned house. The only clue, and it’s not helpful to anyone, is the clay-like mud covering the crime scene. The Tribe is a good example of 1980s horror. It is smart. The characters are well-drawn. The suspense is built scene-by-scene, and while the reader knows what the monster is, the mystery about the how and the why of the beast is intriguing and surprising. A richness of detail about the Jewish communities in New York City and Long Island, and the experiences of these men and women during the Holocaust, adds texture. The story says something about racism and hate, too. Its only real flaw, and this can be said of so many popular novels of a certain length, is that the story’s pacing slows to a crawl in the few dozen pages it takes for the characters to come together for the big and satisfying climactic showdown. *               *               * This review originally went live, in basically the same form, on January 23, 2020. The Tribe was featured in Grady Hendrix’s Paperbacks from Hell: The Twisted History of ’70s and ’80s Horror Fiction (2017); which is on sale for $1.99 at Amazon in Kindle (as I write this) here. It was republished as part of Valancourt’s Paperbacks from Hell series. The Paperbacks from Hell books are published in mass market—although the pricing is higher than I would like for a mass market at $19.99—and in Kindle with some truly excellent cover art.

Check out The Tribe at Amazon—click here for the Kindle edition and here for the paperback.