There’re special discounts on the eBook versions of the Travelers books 1-5. That’s The Traveling Man: free, The Computer Heist: $.99, The Blackmail Photos: $.99, The Freeport Robbery: $.99, and The Kidnap Victim: $.99.
These discounts run through November 2, so if you haven’t read the early books and want to catch up, or you know someone who’d like to try them, now’s your chance.
Hard at work on a new Travelers book. This outing finds them on the run from the Orange Hill Cartel, a mob crew they’ve cheated more than once.
Meanwhile, I’m always on the lookout for exciting thrillers or mysteries that maybe you haven’t read yet. This month is no exception.
First, Hell With the Lid Blown Off (Alafair Tucker Mysteries Book 7, 2014) by Donis Casey. This is an historical mystery, which takes place in rural Oklahoma shortly before World War One.
I was a little put off by the organization of this book (each of the sections is named for the focus character), but once I got going, it was hard to put down. Lots of local color about family and small-town life in the 1910s, and one of the best descriptions of a tornado I’ve ever read.
After a terrible storm pummels the area, one of Alafair’s sons finds a man buried in muck. Initially, everyone thinks he died in the storm, but a knife wound is discovered on the body. Lots of likely suspects and believable red herrings make for a fun read as Alafair and the local sheriff each try to solve the case.
Also read I Have Some Questions for You by Rebecca Makkai (2023). Bodie Kane, a 40-ish film professor and podcaster, returns to her prep school to teach in a short term, only to get caught up in reexamining the murder of one of her prep school classmates and the conviction of a school employee.
A beautifully complex murder mystery—Bodie’s reinterpretation of the relationships among her classmates and teachers and her reevaluation of her own behavior in the past and present make this book a real page turner that skillfully juggles several possible murder suspects. Named Best Book of 2023 by several newspapers. A high recommend.
Working hard on the outline of a new Travelers book. In the meantime, here’s two thrillers I read last month. They couldn’t be more different from each other. One is traditional hard-boiled, the other is quirky literary.
The first is My Gun Is Quick (Mike Hammer Book 2, 1950) by Mickey Spillane. I’d never read one of these books, although I was familiar with the character from popular culture (which means I knew the character’s name, but I don’t know why).
Mike Hammer is a hard-drinking, quick-to-fight private eye who lives by a code of protecting the innocent and punishing the guilty. On this outing, a prostitute is murdered, and the police aren’t interested, at least initially. So Hammer digs into her death and uncovers the city-wide corruption supporting a violent prostitution ring.
Lots of twists and turns here, leading to a smash-up finale, although you’ll have to ignore the casual sexism and homophobia that marked the hard-boiled thrillers of this era.
Also read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2019)by Olga Tokarczuk. (Tokarczuk is a Nobel Prize winner). This is a first-person literary mystery. The narrator, Janina, is an eccentric older woman. You might practice astrology, translate William Blake into Polish, and be strong for animal rights, but, trust me, you are not as eccentric as Janina. Community leaders in her village are being murdered in bizarre ways, and she gets involved in the investigation, trying the patience of the local police.
We dig into her character via her philosophical musings, odd outbursts, and spirited generosity, as we follow along to the discovery of the killer and the surprising ending. Challenging and enjoyable.
It’s the dog days of summer, and I’ve started writing a new Travelers crime thriller. Hoping for it to be the best one yet. But more on that later. Here’re two mystery I read in the last month. One from the time capsule and one contemporary.
A Knife for Harry Dodd by George Bellairs (Inspector Littlejohn, book 20, 1953). In a small town in England, Harry Dodd, a happy-go-lucky ne’er do well, is stabbed outside a pub on his way home and dies before he can get help. As Inspector Littlejohn of Scotland Yard digs into the case, he discovers that Dodd isn’t at all the man he appears to be and that his girlfriend and his estranged family all have motives to want him dead.
This is a classic, old-fashioned police procedural loaded up with convincing red herrings and false trails. An easy, fun read.
Also read Dark Angel (Letty Davenport Book 2) by John Sandford. Sandford is probably best known for the Lucas Davenport Prey series. I’ve read a number of those books, so I thought I’d give this one a try. This is a “ripped from the headlines” kind of book.
Letty Davenport is Lucas Davenport’s adopted daughter, and she does investigations with the Department of Homeland Security. On this outing, she’s on the trail of a hacker collective that’s disrupted railroad trains in Russia. In the usual John Sanford fashion, circumstance quickly go out of control at Davenport tries to home in on the hackers and discover the real reason that the NSA has sent her after them. A quick read with lots of exciting twists and turns and a great introduction to a cast of fresh characters that I imagine will be appearing in later books.
First off, I want to thank you all for helping to make the launch of The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce a big success. And I hope you’re enjoying the discounted KD Thorne books.
Just got back from vacation, and I’m starting to plot a new Travelers book. Every Travelers book needs to be complex and original, so the plotting can take longer than I would like. In the meantime, here’re two mysteries I read last month.
Cold in Hand (Charlie Resnick Mysteries Book 11, 2008) by John Harvey. An intense, extremely realistic British police procedural. Detective Inspector Resnick is brought out from behind a desk to deal with a teen gang dustup that resulted in the death of a young woman.
To add to the problems of lying witnesses and community distrust, the father of the slain girl blames Resnick’s partner, DI Lynn Kellogg, who was first on the scene, for her death.
The pages fly by in this complex, beautifully crafted thriller. If you like British crime books, you won’t be disappointed.
Second, Peerless Detective (2015) by Michael Raleigh. It’s the late 1970s or early 1980s. Billy Fox, fresh out of the army, comes to Chicago to look for his missing high school sweetheart, where a chance meeting with detective Harry Strummer leads to a job learning to be a private detective. Lots of detailed tradecraft and descriptions of the city.
This is really a coming-of-age story, as Billy learns some hard lessons about life and love, but it also contains two mysteries that are unraveled very realistically, one involving Billy and the other involving Harry. Lots of fun.
As promised, there’s special eBook pricing from June 17 through June 21 to celebrate the launch of the new KD Thorne thriller, The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce, which is only available on Amazon.
Here’s the blurb for The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce:
The US government wants to keep it secret…
An undercover CIA agent traveling with an archeological team stumbles upon a deposit of the strategic metal hafnium in the ruins of an Inca temple in the Andes mountains. Essential to manufacturing nuclear reactor control rods—it’s every rogue state’s dream come true.
While the US State Department rushes to negotiate for control of the mine, word leaks out, and jihadis and black marketeers develop competing plans to seize the mine and sell the hafnium to bad players around the globe.
National Defense Agency operatives KD Thorne and Jeffery Blunt track these criminal groups from the US to Europe to South America, where they uncover the details of the conspiracy. Will they find a way to turn the tables on these groups and keep them from taking over the mine? Or will KD, Blunt, and their allies die in the Andes at Agua Dulce?
The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce is a careening rollercoaster ride that will keep you turning pages. If you like hard-to-figure-out plot twists and non-stop action, you’ll love the fourth novel in the KD Thorne series.
…
So there you have it. Don’t miss your chance to catch up on KD’s adventures! Pick up your copies before Friday when prices go back up.
Got the manuscript for the new KD Thorne book, The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce, back from the copyeditor. He made some valuable suggestions, so I’ve got a little more work to do.
In the meantime, from May 6-10 Travelers books 1-5 will be discounted. So if you need to catch up with the Travelers, now is your chance. I’ll send out an email with the details next week.
And here’re two thrillers from the 1980s that I read last month, where the men are still macho and women are beginning to assert themselves.
A Trouble of Fools (Carlotta Carlyle Book 1, 1987) by Linda Barnes. Carlyle is an ex-cop newbie private investigator in Boston, circa late 1980s, so the background is drugs, guns, the Italian mob, and the last vestige of support for the IRA.
Carlyle is hired by an Irish spinster to find her missing brother, who drives for the cab company that Carlyle used to drive for after she left the police force. The case turns from missing person to something much more dangerous after the spinster is attacked and her home ransacked. Finding out the who and the why takes Carlyle down the back alleys of Boston where she has to use all of her connections and street knowledge to figure out what’s really going on and put a stop to it.
Interesting characters and a complex point of view make for fun reading, particularly after Barnes gets the various plot threads moving.
Second, Rafferty’s Rules (Rafferty P.I. Book 1, 1987) by Bill Duncan. Rafferty is a wise-cracking ex-cop PI working the mean streets of Dallas, Texas, so there’s a slight comic element playing against the hard-boiled style.
Rafferty is hired by a wealthy couple to find and bring in dead-or-alive the outlaw bikers who kidnapped, raped, and brainwashed their daughter. Rafferty wastes no time kicking the hornet’s nest of local outlaw bikers to get on the trail of the thugs he’s after, and pretty soon things turn from ugly to brutal as he tracks his prey across rural Texas. A fast-paced, tightly plotted thriller.
KD Thorne book 4, The Hidden Mine at Agua Dulce, is off at the copyeditor. In the meantime, here’re two thrillers I read last month.
First off, Spy Game (Brodick Cold War Thriller book 1) by John Fullerton. This book is set in Pakistan and Afghanistan during the 1980s when the Soviet Union is mired in Afghanistan. Richard Brodick, a British spy in his first assignment, is undercover as a journalist gathering intel on the Afghans’ progress in their war against the Soviets.
He’s at odds with his superiors, can’t trust any of the locals he’s dealing with, and is conflicted about what he’s been assigned to do.
Lots of suspense and detailed tradecraft, a hero who does not do what you expect him to do, and historical accuracy make for a fun read.
Second, The Maid (Molly the Maid book 1) by Nita Prose. I picked up this book because the reviews were outstanding. This is a traditional cozy-style mystery told in the first person by Molly, a hotel maid who has what seems to be a learning disability of some sort. She’s constantly misinterpreting other people’s actions and intentions, which lands her into the middle of a murder investigation at the hotel where she works.
Deft plotting and the unique point of view make for real page-turning pleasure here. If you like old school cozy mysteries, this book is for you.
Finishing up the new KD Thorne book, where NDA agents KD Thorne and Jeffery Blunt are on the trail of jihadis and black marketeers who are trying to gain control of a newly discovered strategic metal before the US government cuts off their access. Hope to have it off to the editor shortly. In the meantime, here’re two crime books I read last month.
First off, The Snatch (Nameless Detective book 1, 1971) by Bill Pronzini. I’d heard of this series, but I’ve never read one. The nameless detective is hired to handle a kidnap payoff, but everything immediately goes sideways. Money taken, nine-year-old boy not returned, everyone connected to the family a suspect.
This is a classic noir detective procedural, with twists, turns, and surprises that all add up in the end. Lots of fun. If you like the old Chandler and Hammett books, this is your cup of tea.
Second, One-Shot Harry by Gary Phillips (2022). It’s 1963 in Los Angeles. Racial tension is high before Martin Luther King’s visit to the city. Harry Ingram, a Black man who is a freelance photojournalist and parttime process server, quickly finds himself on the bad side of white gangsters and the city’s power brokers as he digs into the puzzling death of his Korean War buddy, a white jazz trumpeter who hangs out in Black nightclubs.
Lots of local color about 1963 LA, plus the intricate dance of race relations during the civil rights movement, make for an explosive backdrop to this fast-moving, complex who-done-it. I’ll be checking out more of Phillips’ novels.
Finishing up the new KD Thorne book, where NDA agents KD Thorne and Jeffery Blunt are on the trail of jihadis and black marketeers who are trying to gain control of a newly discovered strategic metal before the US government cuts off their access. In the meantime, here’re two crime books I read last month.
First off, The Passengers by John Marrs. The premise here is the that unhackable driverless cars have been hacked, putting the lives of eight innocent passengers at risk as people across the web are provided information about each passenger and asked to vote on who will live and who will die.
Started a little slow for me, as we learn about the complicated background stories of each passenger from their own point of view, but it quickly picked up speed as the hacker makes his demands and the tension and plot twists piled up. A very clever, well-reviewed thriller.
Second, The Thief Who Couldn’t Sleep (Evan Tanner Book 1) by Lawrence Block. I’ve read most of Block’s Matthew Scudder books (disgraced detective) and the Keller books (contract killer), but I’d never read one of his Evan Tanner books.
The Scudder books are top-notch gritty crime thrillers, but this Tanner book is more lighthearted and tongue-in-cheek.
Evan Tanner is a polymath who does not sleep due to a brain injury suffered during the Korean War, which gives him plenty of time to work on his many sort-of-maybe legal interests. In this first outing, he’s on the trail of a fortune in Armenian gold hidden in Turkey during WWI. In short order, he’s stumbling into trouble all across Europe, which makes for a lot of screwball plot twists and suspense. A quick, fun read.
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