Michael P. King

Making my final changes before I send my new Travelers crime thriller, Grifters’ Hopscotch, to the editor.

In the meantime, two crime books I read last month.

Read The Riviera Contract (Hayden Stone Thrillers, book 1: 2013) by Arthur Kerns. I usually take author biographies the include FBI or CIA type experience with a grain of salt. The ability to describe the right weapons or a particular inlet on an island does not necessarily translate into suspenseful plotting and an exciting read. But in this case, they do.

This is a 007 sort of romp, where the bureaucrats get in the way of the operatives and the men are a little bit too flirtatious, but Kerns makes it work. Hayden Stone is a retired FBI agent working as a contract player for the CIA. He’s carrying personal baggage in the form of a fresh divorce, and an old flame appears on the scene, and he’s not quite sure if he really wants to continue being an operative. But as the bodies pile up, and the case becomes more dangerous, he finds the will to do what has to be done. Lots of fun. (There is more than 1 book with this title, so be sure about the author.)

I also read The Cater Street Hangman (Charlotte and Thomas Pitt Series book 1: 1979) by Anne Perry. I knew about Perry’s series of Victorian mysteries featuring Inspector Pitt and his high-born wife, and I knew the series was a great success, but it didn’t really seem like my cup of tea. Then Anne Perry passed away and I heard an old interview with her on the radio. Turns out that when she was a teenager, she spent 5 years in prison for helping a friend murder the friend’s mother, which made me think: I’ve got to read one of her books. So I read the first one. I was very pleasantly surprised.

This book is a serious page-turner with lots of realistic detail of London in the late 1800’s, the relationships between and among the characters are compelling, and Perry keeps you guessing as to the identity of the murderer until the very end. Would read another of these.

Happy reading!