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Summer Reading

Summer Reading

Making good progress on KD Thorne book 3, although I don’t have a title yet.

If you’re looking for a summer read (or a winter read if you’re in the southern hemisphere), I’ve read two excellent crime thrillers.

The first, Five Decembers by James Kestrel, won the 2022 Edgar Allan Poe Award for best mystery. This crime novel, which takes place during WWII, follows police detective Joe McGrady as he tries to solve a gruesome murder on Hawaii and gets trapped in Asia during the war while tracking down the killer. This book is excellence from start to finish. Don’t want to say too much because I don’t want to spoil any of the plot twists.

Also read Billy Summers by Stephen King, which was recommended to me by a Readers Group member. Most everyone has read a Stephen King book. This one is a crime thriller with a tiny supernatural reference to The Shining about three-quarters of the way through. King is still at the top of his game.

Billy Summers is a hit man who only kills bad people, but on this outing he ends up in a complex plot where he doesn’t know what’s really going on until it’s too late. Lots of suspense, action, and complex backstory make for a first rate read as we discover the limits of who Billy is and what he’s capable of.  Very enjoyable.

Happy reading!

Happy New Year

Happy New Year

Still finishing up Murder at Mercy Creek, KD Thorne book 2. KD and Blunt have been sent to Mercy Creek, Iowa, to investigate the murder of an undercover FBI agent who was working on a corruption case that spans the Interstate 35 corridor.

Drug running, gun smuggling, and police corruption. A criminal cartel jealous of its turf. A local sheriff whose motives are hard to read. What could possibly go wrong?

Meanwhile, two books of interest—

Read The Erasers by Alain Robbe-Grillet (English translation from French). This was an award-winning French novel written in 1952. It concerns a supposed murder being investigated by a special agent who doesn’t know that the victim survived the attempt and is in hiding. The writing is stylized, following the point of view of most of the characters at some point in the text. It’s a sort of “locked box,” where all the characters know bits of what happened, and the special agent has to try to piece together the truth. Has a surprising ending.

This is a cerebral book that requires a lot of focus because you have to keep track of and separate out the various points of view, but if you like to see how far the crime fiction form can be stretched, you might enjoy it.

Also read Song of the Lion (A Leaphorn, Chee & Manuelito Novel). This is book 21 in the series, and the third written by Anne Hillerman, who took over the series from her father. I’ve read several of the earlier ones written by Tony Hillerman, but this is the first one of hers I’ve read.

As in all of these books, there’s lots of local color about Navajo Country (in the southwest US) and Native American ways and rituals. And the lead characters are as compelling as ever. This outing concerns a bombing that seems to be connected to a plan to build a controversial Grand Canyon resort, which environmentalists and various stakeholders oppose. Plenty of complications and a plot that’s hard to figure out until the very end. A fun read.

Finally, The Murder Run: The Travelers Book 6 will be discounted to $0.99 at the end of January. So if you haven’t read it yet, here’s your chance. I’ll send out a reminder when the exact days are set.

And The Gone Sister (Lee Callaway Book 2) by Thomas Fincham is free today. I’m picking up a copy.

https://www.amazon.com/Private-Investigator-Mystery-Suspense-Callaway-ebook/dp/B0772WPK9Y

All for now. Happy reading!

Happy November!

Happy November!

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US friends. Hope you have a safe and fun-filled gathering.

Still working on the new KD Thorne thriller—tentatively titled Murders at Mercy Creek. Five twenty-something friends have been murdered in Mercy Creek, Iowa. One of them was an undercover FBI agent investigating drug and gun smuggling down Interstate 35 from Iowa to the Mexican border. Police corruption may be involved, so KD and Blunt have been tasked with running a parallel investigation. Hope to release it in January.

Meanwhile, two books of interest—

Recently finished The Last Mona Lisa, by Jonathan Santlofer, which was one of People Magazine’s best books of summer. Luke Perrone, a struggling artist and art professor, is tracking down information about his grandfather, who stole the Mona Lisa in 1911. Was the genuine Mona Lisa returned to the Louvre or was it replaced with a forgery? And why did his grandfather steal the painting in the first place?

Perrone’s journey takes him down a rabbit hole of theft, forgery, and murder as he travels from Florence to Paris to New York following the trail that leads to the last Mona Lisa. A fast, fun read.

Also read The Blackbirder (1943) by Dorothy B. Hughes. She wrote a number of crime novels, starting in the 1940s, and was an important influence on the genre. This is one of the earlier ones, told from the point of view of a young woman on the run from Nazi spies in the US during World War Two. We only know what she knows, and she’s constantly misinterpreting what she sees and consequently being manipulated by bad players. Still, she manages to find her way clear by the end.

Read this book because I’d read a later book by Hughes, In a Lonely Place (1947), about a screen writer who might be a murderer, which was made into a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. Loved the movie. The book is quite different from the movie, and, I think, better. If you were going to read one Hughes book, this would be the one.

All for now. Happy reading!

The Hijacked Review

The Hijacked Review

Here in Ames, Iowa, the university semester is starting up, and the students are back, so it feels a little like fall even though the weather is still hot. What’s going on?

First off, the Kirkus review of The Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent is now out. Kirkus calls it: “A thriller that offers an undeniably entertaining way to spend an afternoon at the beach.” I’m very pleased. You can read the whole review here:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-p-king/the-hunt-for-the-hijacked-nerve-agent-kd-thorne/

Now that The Hunt for the Hijacked Nerve Agent is out, and I’m at work on a new book, I’ve been getting some reading done.

Just a reminder, the books I comment on here are usually discounted eBooks I got from Bookbub, Early Bird Books, or Murder & Mayhem, which are the three discount eBook sites that I think have the best quality books right now. (I don’t get a special deal from these sites. It’s just where I’m buying my discount eBooks.) Here are three thrillers that are really different from each other and all excellent.

Recently read Sara Paretsky’s 19th V.I. Warshawski novel (2018), Shell Game. It’s been a while since I’ve read one of her books, and she does not disappoint. It starts out simply enough, with Warshawski trying to help a friend’s nephew avoid a murder charge and at the same time trying to hunt down her missing niece, but quickly devolves in a complex case involving scam loans, artifact thefts, crooked billionaires, and undocumented refugees. Lots of details about Chicago, lots of action and suspense. Paretsky is still at the top of her game.

Also read Martin Limon’s GI Bones, the sixth of his novels that follow two US army criminal investigators (Sergeants Sueno and Bascom) in 1970s South Korea. It was a National Public Radio Best Book of the Year (2009). On this outing, they’re investigating a cold-case missing/murdered GI and hunting down an officer’s delinquent teenage daughter. The local color here (both South Korea and US military) is fabulous and the story races along. A fast, fun read.

And finally, just read The Border, the third book in Don Winslow’s Power of the Dog trilogy. I read the first book in this trilogy earlier this year. This is an excellent novel about the drug war in the US and Mexico that follows the exploits of a former DEA agent. Rich, fleshed out characters, and a complex, suspenseful plot about corruption and justice. It was named best book of the year by a number of outlets. A great read.

That’s all for now. Happy summer reading!

February 1: Detroit noir and pickpocket scams

February 1: Detroit noir and pickpocket scams

Just discovered Loren D. Estleman’s Amos Walker series. Finished Motor City Blue (book 1) a few days ago. This book features Amos Walker, a tough guy detective in 1980’s Detroit, on the hunt for a missing woman. Seriously hard boiled and a great, fast-paced read. Estleman is a four-time Shamus Award winner. If you’re not familiar with this series, here’s the link to Estleman’s author page so you can take a look. https://www.amazon.com/Loren-D.-Estleman/e/B000APK5BO

Spend a lot of time researching (more that I’d like), and most of it can be pretty dry stuff. But occasionally I come across something I think you’ll enjoy reading.

Thief hunters in Paradise is a fun website that covers practical tips about how to avoid being taken advantage of by crooks when you’re traveling. It also including short videos of scams and attempted scams. Here’s the link: https://bobarno.com/thiefhunters/

Finally, if you’re into free ebook promos, here’s one I found: February 5-Star Festival of Thrillers. All of these ebooks have an average review score on Amazon of between 4.5 and 5 stars. As usual, you get a free ebook for an email list signup. Hope you find something you like! Here’s the link: https://books.bookfunnel.com/2020-02-fivestarthrillers/5u7amgvxei

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

The Computer Heist Review in Kirkus Reviews May Issue

The Computer Heist Review in Kirkus Reviews May Issue

Exciting News! The Kirkus review of The Computer Heist was selected by their Indie Editors to be featured in Kirkus Reviews May Computer-Heist-no-review-Amazon1 Issue. The review will appear as one of the 35 reviews in the Indie section of the magazine, which is sent out to over 5,200 industry professionals (librarians, publishers, agents, etc.) Less than 10% of their Indie reviews are chosen to be featured. As you can imagine, I’m flying high.

If you haven’t read the review, you can read it here:

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-king2/the-computer-heist/