Michael P. King

I’m still putting the last bit of polish on my new Travelers crime thriller, The Stolen Art Two-Step. Here’s the description:

When a con blows up, it doesn’t matter how simple it was supposed to be…

The Travelers, posing as art recovery agents, are hired by an insurance company to retrieve a stolen Picasso. A simple, straightforward job. Find it. Steal it. Return it.

But as they con the owner of the stolen painting to discover its whereabouts, they come under the scrutiny of gangsters and bad cops intent on spoiling their score and blackmailing them.

Can they deliver the painting, outmaneuver their enemies, and escape with their aliases intact?

The Stolen Art Two-Step is a high-stakes game of criminals working at cross-purposes to line their pockets. If you like complicated plot twists, criminal shenanigans, and high-speed action, you’ll love the twelfth novel in the Travelers series.

When The Stolen Art Two-Step comes out, there will be discounts on earlier books in the series and on the new book. I’ll fill you in after the release date is set.

On the reading front, last month I read The Good Thief’s Guide to Amsterdam (2007) by Chris Ewan. 

The premise here is that a mystery writer, Charlie Howard, supplements his income as a burglar (I know). In this first book of the series, he’s in Amsterdam, where he gets caught up in the hunt for three plaster monkeys of Hear No Evil, See No Evil, and Speak No Evil. Murder and mayhem ensue as he tries to find the statues, escape from the other players, and figure out why the statues are valuable.

This is a well-crafted, fast read that will keep you guessing. Lots of fun.

Happy reading!

The new Travelers crime thriller, tentatively titled The Stolen Art Two-Step, is off with the editor. I’ll find out what he has to say in a few weeks, always something insightful and on point.

In the meantime, I just read Creation Lake by Rachel Kushner (2024). Sadie Smith (an alias) is a private industry spy sent to France to stir up trouble among small farmers who fear corporate farming and the loss of water rights. Why? That’s beyond her paygrade and thus unknown to us. To accomplish her goals, she worms her way into a countryside anarchist commune to manipulate them into organizing a protest that she hopes will blow up. Everything is going to plan until her orders change at the last minute, which leads to surprising results.

This book is told in the first person, so we’re inside Sadie’s head as she manipulates and reacts to the other characters. We see them through her, so her judgments and misjudgments inform how we understand the action.

Creation Lake is on the literary side of what I review here and has a philosophical angle that’s important to making sense of the ending, but it’s still an enjoyable read.

Happy reading!

PS: If you’re new to the reader group, I want to thank you for signing up. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

The KD Thorne Thrillers

Between moving to Los Angeles and celebrating the holidays, I’ve fallen behind on writing the latest Travelers crime thriller. But now the holidays are over, we’re all moved into our new place, and I’m getting back in gear. Hoping to make this new book the best Travelers book ever.

If you’re looking for a mystery to read in the meantime, last month I read Fortune Favors the Dead (Pentecost and Parker Mysteries Book 1) by Stephen Spotswood, a 2021 Nero Award winner.

This is a detective and sidekick novel in the Sherlock Holmes style that takes place in 1942. The eccentric detective who’s always one step ahead is Lillian Pentecost, but here the narrator sidekick, Willowjean Parker, is anything but a Dr. Watson. She’s a working-class ex-circus performer with a protective streak and an eye for trouble.

The case involves a rich woman murdered in her home after a séance at a Halloween party. It’s a classic locked room mystery, with lots of well-placed red herrings that keep you guessing as to who did it: a family member, a disgruntled employee, the spiritualist from the séance. Every character has an important role to play. Lots of fun!

Happy reading!

PS: If you’re new to the reader group, I want to thank you for signing up. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

Last month I read Quarry, the first of the Quarry series by Max Allan Collins (2015). Quarry is the alias of a contract killer who works for a man he knows only as “the Broker.” He’s an ask-no-questions, get-the-job-done kind of guy, similar in a way to Parker, the Richard Stark thief.

On this outing, he’s sent to a small Iowa town on the Mississippi River to murder a man who seems to be an innocuous nobody, but when the job blows up, he’s on the trail to discover who double-crossed him.

Tight plotting, carefully drawn characters, and suspense-filled action make for a fun read.

Happy reading!

PS: If you’re new to the reader group, I want to thank you for signing up. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

The KD Thorne Thrillers

Howdy,

Still unpacking from my move to Los Angeles, but I am getting back to work on my new Travelers thriller. In the meantime, last month I read The Black Swan Mystery (1960) by Tetsuya Ayukawa. This is a Japanese railway murder mystery where the police detectives have to discover the murderer and break down their alibi.

During a union strike, the owner of the mill being struck is murdered. The owner has a reputation for ruthlessness and tough bargaining. Was the murderer a union member or a business associate or someone from his personal life? Chief Inspector Onitsura and his team have to sift through the evidence and interview all the suspects to uncover the murderer while the murderer is killing more victims to cover their tracks. (Don’t want to give away if it’s a him or a her.)

This is a classic, old school mystery revolving around railway timetables, mistaken identity, and confused timelines, where the evidence finally leads to a surprising (I think) ending. Lots of fun.

Happy reading!

PS: If you’re new to the reader group, I want to thank you for signing up. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

Just finished reading Blue Lonesome by Bill Pronzini (2014). This is a classic mystery story. Jim Messenger isn’t a detective. He’s a lonely guy in a dead-end job who takes an interest in a lonely woman who commits suicide. He wants to know why, which takes him from San Francisco to her hometown in the Nevada desert, where unsolved murders are the key to understanding what led this woman to take her own life. To solve the murders, he must confront the belligerent locals, who don’t want him snooping around.

This is a complex, entertaining mystery where key characters grow and change, which makes this a very satisfying read.

Happy reading!

PS: If you’re new to the reader group, I want to thank you for signing up. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

There’ve been a lot of new signups to the reader group. Thank you to all the new folks joining us. In this newsletter, I share mysteries and thrillers I’ve been reading, and keep you updated on my books—what I’m working on and when a new Travelers or KD Thorne book will be released. If you haven’t had a chance to check out all my books, here’s the link. https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

Last month I read The One from the Other by Philip Kerr (Bernie Gunther book 4). I’ve written about an earlier book in this series. Bernie Gunther is a wise-cracking, Nazi-hating, German ex-cop private investigator. On this outing, he’s trying to eke out a living in Munich in the immediate aftermath of WWII. Poverty, food rationing, and Germany divided into the US, French, British, and Russian zones make up the background for this mystery.

He’s been hired to find out if a woman’s husband is dead so that she can remarry, a simple enough job. But events quickly turn into a labyrinth of double-crosses where he’s on the run from the cops and criminals. Beautifully complex and emotionally detailed.

Happy reading!

Happy New Year! I’m on the last edits of the new Travelers book, tentatively titled The Orange Hill Payback. Then it will go off to the editor and he’ll have his say. So far, I’m happy with the way the story has shaped up. Lots of plot twists and turns, some new tradecraft, and the Travelers conniving their way through a maze of hard trouble.

If you want to catch up on the series before the new book comes out in the spring, you can see a complete list of my Travelers and KD Thorne books here:

 https://www.amazon.com/stores/Michael-P.-King/author/B00W81SHBI

Meanwhile, here’re a thriller I read after Christmas.

We Solve Murders by Richard Osman (2024). Osman writes the Thursday Murder Club series, which I’ve mentioned previously. This book is the start, it seems, of a new series.

This is a rollicking, tongue-in-cheek who-done-it, featuring Steve Wheeler, a retired cop, and his daughter in-law, Amy Wheeler, who works for a close-protection agency. Clients of Amy’s agency are being murdered, and the evidence points toward Amy as the killer. And if that’s not enough, someone is trying to murder her to keep her from solving the case.

It’s off to the races, with comic characters in pursuit of their dreams and Steve and Amy following the clues across the globe to figure out who the murderer really is. The story takes a little while to build up speed, but once it’s going, it doesn’t disappoint.

Happy reading!