The new KD Thorne thriller, The Hunt for the Ransomware Hackers, is off at the editor. Hydroelectric dams are being targeted by ransomware attacks, and KD and Blunt are on the trail of the hackers.

I got my right knee replaced last week, so I’m going to be out of commission for a little while. In the meantime, here are a couple of August reading suggestions.

Just read Murder Among Children (1967) by Donald E Westlake. You may recall that I am a big fan of Westlake’s Parker books (written as Richard Stark). I wrote about the first book in the Mitchell Toben series, Kinds of Love, Kinds of Death, earlier this year. 

Tobin, a disgraced former police detective, is contacted by a young woman, his second cousin, who needs help dealing with a crooked cop who’s demanding a bribe from the coffee shop she’s set up with friends. As Tobin starts looking into the situation, her boyfriend and a prostitute are murdered, and she’s charged with the crime. Tobin is tasked with finding the real killer. Colorful characters, fast-paced action, and a hard-to-figure-out plot make the pages fly.

Murder Among Children is discounted to $2.99 (US) on Amazon today. Here’s the link if you’re interested.https://www.amazon.com/Murder-Among-Children-Mitchell-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B00D668GSS

Also read Bats Fly at Dusk (1942) by Earle Stanley Gardner (of Perry Mason fame) writing as A.A. Fair. This is the seventh of the Bertha Lam/Donald Cool private detective series, which are slightly comic old school who-done-its. This is the first of this series I’ve read. Just curious as to how different this would be from a Perry Mason book.

On this outing, Lam is hired by a blind man to find a woman who was in a car accident, while Cool is doing his WWII military service and can only be consulted via telegram or letter. In short order, the case turns into a murder investigation of the missing woman’s employer. It’s the usual tightly plotted, red-herring-filled story you’d expect from Gardner, even if some of the clues are a little far fetched. A quick, fun read.

If you’ve read a crime thriller you particularly liked, please let me know about it so I can put it on my list.

Happy reading!