Booked (and Printed): October 2025

 

Booked (and Printed) October 2025     October came and went with the same dreariness as a solitary night cap. The shortening daylight and crisp temps marked the passage from summer into autumn. Halloween was a blast, but with mixed emotions since it was the first year our sweet daughter spent the holiday with her friends rather than her dear old parents. But keep in mind my complaints are, at worst, superficial since I truly am a lucky man. I have a home, a family, a good job, and— Almost everything a man could want. Including more reading material than anyone could finish in a long, long lifetime. My reading was shallow again: two books—both novels—and seven short stories. This sparsity was due, mostly, to my continued eye troubles, which I’m not going to talk much about here but for the curious you can always read my prior Booked (and Printed) post here. Those same eye issues are why this post is so late, too. The month opened with a return to John Keyse-Walker’s brilliant Caribbean-set Teddy Creque mystery series. REEFS, ROYALS, RECKONINGS (2023), which is the final (so far at least) of four books. But hopefully not the last. In this one, a royal in direct line—albeit a distant one—to the throne of England is visiting the British Virgin Islands. At Government House welcome party, the royal and her husband, an American of little worth, are thrust into a murder investigation after a woman attending the gala is gunned down. Teddy is his usual affable and brilliant, if insecure, self. The mystery is tightly wound. The plot is fun and unique. And while I guessed the culprit earlier than I should have, the journey into Teddy’s world was a blast. If you enjoy BBC’s Death in Paradise, you’ll love Reefs, Royals, Reckonings, as well as the other three Teddy Creque mysteries. The other book-length mystery was the unorthodox WE CAN’T SAVE YOU, by Thomas E. Ricks (2025). We Can’t Save You is part mystery, part thriller, and part political manifesto. When a group of Maine First People organize a recurring protest on a bridge that routinely floods it gives rise (yeah, pun very much intended) to a larger movement: a First People’s protest against industrial caused climate change. The bulk of the narrative follows a peaceful march of natives down Maine’s coast. The issues We Can’t Save You discusses are interesting and relevant, but there wasn’t much of a mystery, or any suspense, either. But it still pulled me to the last page without more than a few complaints along the way.

Now for those seven short stories. Peggy Wurtz Fisher’s “THE PICKUP”—which appeared in the Department of “First Stories” in the October 1984 issue of EQMM—is a dazzling dark suspense tale about a single mother and a drifter. The perfectly ironic twist will bring a smile to even the most jaded reader. There is a touch of James M. Cain about “Pick Up”—and wow did I like it. “THE BOOK CASE,” by Nelson DeMille (2012), features DeMille’s recurring character, John Corey. The tale—the plotting, narrative, etc.—is pedestrian but readable. The real pain is Corey’s constant reminders of his brilliance as a detective. He had to remind us how damn good he is because it surely never surfaced in the narrative. Oy vey. It was like watching a Pink Panther movie without any of the humor. Joe Hill’s “THE PRAM” (2023), is as entertaining as any story I’ve read this year. About a married couple mourning a miscarriage, it is haunting and spooky with a dry wit and a lively and clever style. It is a horror story and a very, very good one. “BIG DRIVER,” by Stephen King (2008), is a revenge tale about a midlist cozy mystery writer—Tess Thorne—and her turn with a psychopath nicknamed Big Driver. The action, from almost the first page to the last, is brutal. There is a rape and an attempted murder. But Tess comes through the far side with a do-it-yourself kind of justice. I liked this one a bunch, but if violence and fear bother you, Big Driver is one you should skip. As an aside, “Big Driver,” was filmed as a Lifetime movie starring the always watchable Maria Bello. October ended with a trio of Jack Ketchum shorts—in honor of Halloween—culled from his brilliant collection Peaceable Kingdom (2003). “THE RIFLE” (1996), is a tale of fear and motherhood—what would you do if you discovered your child was evil? “THE BOX” (1994) is about a box with a secret so dark it ruins anyone that looks inside. “The Box” won a Bram Stoker Award from the Horror Writers of America. And the final tale, “LUCK” (2000), is a weird western with a handful of hardcases stranded in an anonymous camp waiting for a comrade to die. My favorite story of October? It is most certainly, Joe Hill’s “The Pram.” Fin— Now on to next month…

Booked (and Printed): March 2025

 

Booked (and Printed) March 2025   Ah, Spring is in the air—wait, it’s snowing? Right now? March’s weather was topsy-turvy with a handful of warm days sprinkled like so many chocolate chips in a mostly chilly month. It was also a month that found my review writing for the blog woefully inadequate to my reading. Of the seven books and two shorts I read during March, I only wrote three reviews—one is for SKIN AND BONES AND OTHER MIKE BOWDITCH STORIES, by Paul Doiron, scheduled for release on May 13. In a phrase, Skin and Bones is great, but you’ll have to wait until May 12, a Monday, to read what I really think about it. Another is for the forthcoming true crime title, THE CLEVELAND JOHN DOE CASE, by Thibault Raisse, about a 2003 suicide that turned into an enigma when it was discovered the dead man had lived under an alias for decades. Scheduled for a Tax Day release, April 15, you’ll find my review on this same bandwidth on Monday, April 14. The final review, and the only one to actually appear at the blog in March, was for Henry Slesar’s terrific mystery story, “THE TIN MAN,” which appeared in the June 1984 issue of Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine—read the review here. Now for the other seven titles I neglected to mention even though, for the most part, they were damn good. PALMS, PARADISE, POISON, by John Keyse-Walker (2021), is the third (of four) Constable Teddy Creque mysteries. Set on the tiny Caribbean Island of Anegada, which is part of the Royal Virgin Islands, Teddy is battening down for an approaching hurricane when he receives a message from headquarters about an escaped prisoner named Marianna Orro, or as she calls herself, Queen Ya-Ya. A practitioner of Santeria, Queen Ya-Ya is not only scary, but she is dangerous, too. Teddy is sure Ya-Ya will run for a bigger island, but of course, she ends up on Anegada as the first ever prisoner in the island’s one cell jail. At least until she engineers an escape with what appears to the witnesses as mind control. Teddy chases Ya-Ya from Anegada to rural Cuba. Palms, Paradise, Poison, is as good as Keyse-Walker’s first two Teddy Creque novels; which is saying something because those earlier books were marvelous. The setting, while shifting from Anegada to Cuba, is as vibrant as ever—I could almost feel the sand between my toes—and makes for a nice respite from these cold Northeastern winters. The Santeria infused in the narrative made for some interesting reading, but the real treat is kicking around with Teddy for a few hours.

One of my reading goals for 2025 was to add more variety to my leisure reading. With that purpose in mind, I read Marsha Forchuk Skrypuch’s WW2 young adult novel, THE WAR BELOW (2014). The teenage Luka, a Ukrainian, escaped from a Nazi labor camp and is torn between returning to the camp for his friend Lida or making his way across the Carpathian Mountains to Kyiv where, he hopes, his father will still be alive. Going back to the camp for Lida is hopeless since it will put him back in the hands of the Nazis and so he decides his only choice is to find his father. Luka makes scant progress moving through the mountains in winter, but he does make a new friend and stumbles upon the Ukrainian Insurgent Army fighting the Nazis and then the Soviets as they push in from the east. There are some interesting discussions about Ukraine’s abuse by both the Soviets (both pre- and post-war) and the Nazis, but it was obviously written for younger teenagers because it lacked much of the nastiness of the conflict. The War Below is a good book for your teenage readers, but be ready to help them put it in context with the happenings of the 1930s and 1940s, both Nazi and Communist, because the narrative never goes much beyond Luka’s own story. My quasi-reading challenge with Minotaur Books led me to ONE MAN’S PARADISE, by Douglas Corleone (2010). Paradise won the St. Martin’s Press/MWA First Crime Novel Award and while it is obviously a first novel—the pacing isn’t perfect and the protagonist makes more than a couple wildly immature decisions—it is also a readable distraction. Kevin Corvelli, a New York criminal lawyer, comes to Honolulu to make a fresh start after failing to win an acquittal for an innocent client that was murdered in prison. Covelli vowed he would never work a felony case again, but when his office landlord, also a lawyer, drops a high-dollar murder case in his lap, all Corvelli sees are the dollars. The case is murky with at least three solid suspects, all with motive and opportunity, but what Kevin can’t see shapes the court case. Paradise’s setting is sharp and while the climactic ending is frayed with a where did that come from? feeling, it’s a solid debut and I’ll likely read more of Corleone’s work. I came to Joyce Carol Oates’s marvelous writing late in the game, back in 2015 when I took over Mystery Scene’s “Short and Sweet: Short Stories Considered” column and started seeing her stories in magazines and collections. But since then, I’ve been an advocate for Oates’s often surreal and always meaningful tales. Her 1992 novel, BLACK WATER, is a brilliant fictional retelling of the Chappaquiddick Incident where Senator Ted Kennedy crashed his car into a pond and his passenger, Mary Jo Kopechne, drowned. The names have been changed—Kopechne is “Kelly Kelleher” and Kennedy is, mostly, referred to as “The Senator”—and it is told from the perspective of the drowned woman. The effect of Oates’s evocative prose, the images of Kelleher’s life in flashback form, and the claustrophobic blackness of her drowning are powerful. Everyone should read Black Water because it is a literary powerhouse and it illuminates the feminine experience in America during the second half of the 20th Century. March also saw me return to Jack M. Bickham’s Brad Smith series, which has become something of a literary comfort food for me. DROPSHOT (1990), the second book in the series, is set on the Caribbean Island of St. Maarten and I enjoyed jumping into Smith’s world as much this time as I had the prior five or six readings I’ve made of Dropshot. Read my old gangster review here. And finally, the other short story I read, “ANYWHERE OUT OF THE WORLD,” by Swedish crime writer, Karin Tidbeck (2018), is a brilliant tale asking if the past ever dies. Four teenagers venture into the woods on a dark Swedish night looking for a mythical supernatural phenomenon, but only two of them return. Years later, the survivors find themselves back at the scene hoping to find something that will relieve their grief and guilt. But as everyone knows, personal tragedy has a long shelf life. Whew. Fin— Now on to next month…

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.

Playing Roulette with Minotaur Books

 

Playing Roulette with Minotaur Books   If you’ve been paying attention to the blog, you’ve already noticed my recent devotion to the writings of David Housewright; especially his long-running series about unlicensed Twin Cities P.I., Rushmore McKenzie. Back in February, 2024, I noticed the library had a shelf full of the McKenzie books in hardcover, which jangled my memory of when the long gone and fabled Leisure Books—fabled at my house, anyway—was reprinting the series in mass market during the second half of the ’00s. A title that had caught my attention back then was the second book in the series, Tin City (2005). I bought it but never read it, lost it in one move or another, and utterly forgot about both the series and Housewright. But this library bookshelf rekindled my interest in the series. So being a studious kind—and never really caring if I start with the first or twentieth title in a series—I studied each book, mostly looking at the blurbs from trades like Publishers Weekly (which I agree with often) and Kirkus (which I agree with less often) and settled on the eleventh book, The Devil May Care (2014), because it had received a starred review from PW. And wow did that book hit every note just right. To say I was hooked is an understatement. After turning the last page, I rushed to the library to retrieve the first book in the series, A Hard Ticket Home (2003), which of course wasn’t in the collection and so I rolled to the second, Tin City. The very same title that had caught my eye nearly two decades earlier.

After racing through a handful of the McKenzie’s, an idea jittered and popped. An idea that went something like this: the library has a bunch of mysteries published by Minotaur Books—the same house that has brought out all twenty-one of the McKenzie books—in the late ’00s and throughout the ’10s; so, I decided, I would concentrate much of my non-mandatory reading to the Minotaur Books sitting on the library’s shelves. And it went well, even though it was kind of like playing roulette with my reading since I often knew nothing about the books or authors before picking them up. Although I’ll admit I took too much advantage of the McKenzie’s since they accounted for eleven of the nineteen Minotaur titles I read. All eight of the authors were new to me and I have every intention of reading more books by at least five of those writers: David Housewright, Sasscer Hill, Brian McGilloway, John Keyse-Walker, and J. D. Rhoades. Due to sheer meanness, I chose not to finish two of the titles: Ranchero, by Rick Gavin (2011), and L’Assassin, by Peter Steiner (2008). As for 2025, I’m thinking of sticking to the game plan for at least the first few months, but after that, who knows? Maybe I’ll schedule my reading around Golden Books or maybe Harlequin’s NASCAR romance series or…. Here’s the rundown of the Minotaur Books I checked out from the library and read in 2024 (click the titles for the review, if I wrote one):

February The Devil May Care, by David Housewright (2014) – McKenzie #11 Tin City, by David Housewright (2005) – McKenzie #2

March Pretty Girl Gone, by David Housewright (2006) – McKenzie #3 Madman on a Drum, by David Housewright (2008) – McKenzie #5 The Taking of Libbie, SD, by David Housewright (2010) – McKenzie #7

April Flamingo Road, by Sasscer Hill (2017) – Fia McKee #1 Bleed a River Deep, by Brian McGilloway (2010) – Ben Devlin #3

May Man in the Water, by David Housewright (2024) – McKenzie #21 The Territory, by Tricia Fields (2011) – Josie Gray #1

June Highway 61, by David Housewright - 2011 – McKenzie #8 Ranchero, by Rick Gavin (2011) – Nick Reid #1

July Curse of the Jade Lady, by David Housewright (2012) – McKenzie #9

September The Last Kind Word, by David Housewright (2013) – McKenzie #10

November The Dark Side of Town, by Sasscer Hill (2018) – Fia McKee #2 Unidentified Woman #15, David Housewright (2015) – McKenzie #12

December Sun, Sand, Murder, by John Keyse-Walker (2016) – Teddy Creque #1 Breaking Cover, by J. D. Rhoades (2008) – Tony Wolf Stealing the Countess, by David Housewright (2016) – McKenzie #13 L’Assassin, by Peter Steiner (2008)

Trivia – My short story, “Asia Divine,” appeared in the same anthology, Bullets and Other Hurting Things (2021), as David Housewright’s tale, “Best Man.” A connection I didn’t realize I had with McKenzie’s creator until a few months ago. “Asia Divine” is available in my collection, Casinos, Motels, Gators (2024).

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)

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…