Michael P. King

Recently read Harlem Shuffle by Colson Whitehead. This book has received a lot of hype—and it does not disappoint. Ray Carney’s a Harlem furniture store owner just trying to navigate his way between the crooks and crooked cops in his neighborhood while he keeps his store afloat through legal and not-so-legal means. His cousin’s a hustler with a lot of bad ideas about how to get rich quick. And when his cousin ropes him in on a jewelry heist, he’s scrambling like mad to stay out of jail, out of the clutches of the mob, and to keep his part of their score, all while protecting his reputation as an upstanding businessman. Lots of fun!

You might recall that at the end of January I picked up a copy of The Gone Sister (Lee Callaway Book 2) by Thomas Fincham. Two plot threads here—the murder of a college basketball player and the disappearance of a young woman. While the cops are looking into the murder, Lee Callaway has been hired by the missing woman’s blind sister to find her.

This book starts out slow for me, but as it moves along, it picks up speed and the complications become a lot more interesting, particularly the way the two cases intertwine. Liked the blind sister character a lot.

And if you’re following my crime research, here’s a link to an article about how cybercriminals use checks stolen from mailboxes.

https://theconversation.com/how-cybercriminals-turn-paper-checks-stolen-from-mailboxes-into-bitcoin-%202165721446+Version+A+CID_cdcec7d6744fe4b86bfbc8d9e77a0d8e&utm_source=campaign_monitor_us&utm_term=How%20cybercriminals%20turn%20paper%20checks%20stolen%20from%20mailboxes%20into%20bitcoin

Finally, the Kirkus review of Murder at Mercy Creek is out. Kirkus calls it “… a ballet of tension and rough justice.” You can read the full review here: 

https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-p-king2/murder-at-mercy-creek-kd-thorne/

Happy reading!

Still writing the new KD Thorne book. Here’s a few thrillers I’ve been reading along the way. Maybe one of these is for you.

Just read SA Cosby’s new crime thriller, Razorblade Tears. It concerns two homophobic ex-cons, one white and one black, who are on the hunt for whoever murdered their married gay sons. This is a serious, very gritty, roller-coaster ride through grief, revenge, and dealing with choices that are too late to change. I was still thinking about it two days after I finished it.

Blast from the past. Read Graham Greens’s Orient Express (originally called Stamboul Train) published in 1932. This is not Murder on the Orient Express, but instead is a suspense novel which involves the interwoven fates of a shrewd businessman, an overworked chorus girl, a vindictive journalist, and a has-been revolutionary traveling by train across Europe from Belgium to Turkey. A complex read focusing on Europe in the 1930s—nowadays really for the history buff—but kept me guessing until the end.

Finally, read Zoe Sharp’s Absence of Light (Charlie Fox #11), featuring Charlie Fox, a female professional bodyguard who’s always finding herself in trouble up to her neck. (I commented on #4, First Drop, earlier this year.)  On this outing, she’s working protection for a search and rescue team in the aftermath of an earthquake and trying, clandestinely, to solve a murder. As usual, she has to punch well above her weight to keep the bad guys at bay long enough to discover what’s what. I figured out one of the subplots about midway through, but didn’t fully understand how it was connected to the main plot until the very end. A fun read.

And on a research note, here’s an article about small town corruption:

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/31/us/guernsey-wyoming-police-chief.html?searchResultPosition=9

That’s all for now!

Hope you’re enjoying your summer, getting some time to relax and read some fun books.

Recently read James Lee Burke’s The Last Car to Elysian Fields, which is a classic Dave Robicheaux crime thriller, featuring a lot of south Louisiana local color and a solid hard-to-figure-out crime.

Another series I really like is Alan Furst’s Night Soldiers novels, which are spy novels set during and just before World War 2. If you like history, and a well told tale, you’ll get a kick out of these.

I’m hard at work on the Travelers book 9 (no title yet), which starts out with some dark web shenanigans. Here’s a link where you can learn some background about the dark web, if you care for that sort of thing.

https://www.csoonline.com/article/3249765/what-is-the-dark-web-how-to-access-it-and-what-youll-find.html

Finally, if you’re into free eBook promos, here’s one I’m participating in:  The Art of the Arcane Suspense and Thriller Giveaway. I think it’s got enough new books to make it worth a look. 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/aota-thiller-giveaway-1506/9j6nwd80wx 

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

Life is still stranger than fiction. I’m taking every precaution and I hope you are too. (Whatever those are wherever you’re at.)

We’re still closing in to the countdown to Thicker Than Thieves: The Travelers Book 8. Everything takes a little longer during the pandemic. In the meantime, here’re a few public service articles:

First, an article that describes what’s going on when you need a ventilator to help you breathe. Scary but important info.

Second, an article about DIY facemasks: what to make them out of, how to make them, and how to clean them. There have been several of these articles. This one is a pretty decent overview, I think.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/07/answers-your-diy-face-mask-questions-including-what-material-you-should-use/?tid=ss_mail

Third, a website where you can see international, national and state COVID-19 projections (keeping in mind that projections are only as good as the underlying data):

https://covid19.healthdata.org/

On a lighter note, if you’re into free eBook promos, here’s one I’m participating in:  Message in a Bottle: Mystery and Thriller Group Giveaway. I think it’s got enough new books to make it worth a look. As usual, you get a free eBook for an email list signup. Hope you find something you like! Here’s the link:

https://claims.prolificworks.com/gg/5wcG2E0mPoufqE4fkjVj

Happy reading!

A quick note…

While doing research for book 8, Thicker Than Thieves, I came across some interesting information about the retail, cash converter, and stolen value of diamonds.

So if you’ve got some stolen diamonds to sell (just kidding), here’s what you might expect. It’s kind of surprising just how fast the price drops.

https://www.quora.com/How-much-money-do-diamond-smugglers-make

Another article that might catch your interest is called These Police Drones are Watching You, which discusses the pervasiveness of police drone use in the US. No matter where you are on the politics of public aerial surveillance (Should you have a right to privacy in your backyard, for example?), there’s some interesting info here.

And if you want to buy one, you’ll find out what the good ones cost.

https://www.pogo.org/analysis/2018/09/these-police-drones-are-watching-you/

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

Right after Christmas, got the chance to visit one of my brothers and his family down in San Antonio for a few days. Had a fun time enjoying the warmth and catching up. (Long line at the Alamo!) But now I’m back to my desk.

Still hard at work on Thicker Than Thieves: The Travelers Book 8. Hoping to make it the best Travelers crime thriller ever. While I’m rewriting and making changes, I’ve been doing some general research reading for the future.

In Harper’s Magazine, I read an article about murder-for-hire scams on the dark web.

The way these scams work is that a bad player thinks they are hiring a murderer, but in fact they’re just being taken. They pay in bitcoin and then the supposed “murderer” disappears with their money without doing the killing.

Or it turns out that the supposed “murderer” is actually the FBI and the bad player ends up charged with conspiracy to commit murder.

The downside is when the bad player, after being ripped off, decides to take matters into their own hands. Could a murder have been prevented if the bad player were arrested earlier?

Here’s the link if you want to check out the article: https://harpers.org/archive/2020/01/click-here-to-kill-dark-web-hitman/

That’s all for now. Happy reading!

Wow! The fall is flying by, the leaves are dropping here in Iowa, and I’m working on a new Travelers book—number 8. Its working title is Thicker Than Thieves, and it concerns smugglers, terrorists, and white nationalists—at least for now.

One of the subjects I’ve been researching for this book is how to clone a smartphone; in other words, how to make an exact copy of a phone so that you could use it to do anything the original phone would let you do—use the saved passwords, use the protected WIFI, gain cloud access. The list of illegal behaviors is only limited by the precautions the phone owner took and the ability of your hacker. If you’re interested, you can check out the basis process for copying a phone right here: https://www.lifewire.com/how-to-clone-phone-without-touching-it-4570908

On a celebratory note, the Kirkus Review of The Casino Switcheroo is out. Kirkus calls book 7, “Another full-throttle installment that shows that this crime series has no intention of slowing down.” You can read the full review here: https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/michael-p-king/the-casino-switcheroo/

There are also some excellent reviews of The Casino Switcheroo up on Amazon—knowing that I’m writing books that you enjoy really makes my day! I love to hear from you.

Happy reading!