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excerpt, review

Book Review: Spin by Patricia Cornwell

By Ray Palen

February 10, 2021

Spin by Patricia Cornwell is the second Captain Chase novel, where Calli Chase races against time to thwart a plot that leaves the fate of humanity hanging in the balance. Patricia Cornwell is no one-trick pony. Arguably, she created the modern-day forensic thriller with her unmatched Scarpetta series (in my opinion, only author Kathy Reichs…

Book Review: Surrender the Dead by John Burley

By Ray Palen

February 10, 2021

Once it was over, nobody talked about the missing. It was an unspoken pact carved into the town of Wolf Point, as if the thing that had taken so many of its residents could be awakened again by the mention of its name. It was strange how quickly Erin had gotten used to that as…

Book Review: Killer Content by Olivia Blacke

By Doreen Sheridan

February 9, 2021

Odessa Dean is still getting used to life in New York City after spending her first quarter-century or so in the sleepy Louisiana town of Piney Island. Her aunt needed a cat-sitter while jaunting off to Europe for three months, so Odessa happily took the opportunity to see the big city, rent-free. Aunt Melanie tried…

Book Review: The Unwilling by John Hart

By Ray Palen

February 8, 2021

Set in the South at the height of the Vietnam War, The Unwilling combines crime, suspense, and searing glimpses into the human mind and soul in New York Times bestselling author John Hart’s singular style. John Hart has long been producing quality literary fiction that has transcended different genres, yet he still is not the household name he…

Book Review: The Low Desert: Gangster Stories by Tod Goldberg

By Doreen Sheridan

February 8, 2021

Raymond Carver meets Elmore Leonard in Tod Goldberg’s The Low Desert: Gangster Stories, an extraordinary collection of contemporary crime writing set in the critically acclaimed Gangsterland universe. If I’m being perfectly honest, most collections of crime short stories are … fine. Entertaining and good for a quick genre fix but often lacking in depth and memorability.…

Book Review: A Stranger in Town by Kelley Armstrong

By Janet Webb

February 5, 2021

Trouble always seems to find Detective Casey Duncan and her boyfriend and boss Sheriff Eric Dalton, particularly when they’re off-piste, looking for some R&R in the wilderness surrounding Rockton. For readers who are new to Rockton, a thumbnail explanation— First, let me explain Rockton to those new to the series: it’s a small, isolated town…

Book Review: Girl A by Abigail Dean

By Gabino Iglesias

February 4, 2021

There’s something about dark narratives about dysfunctional families that pulls readers in. It probably stems from a sense of empathy mixed with familiarity. However, some stories take dysfunction into places so dark and dangerous that readers aren’t pulled in; they’re brutally dragged. Abigail Dean’s Girl A belongs to this second group. A crushing tale that…

Book Review: A Glimmer of Death by Valerie Wilson Wesley

By Janet Webb

February 3, 2021

A Glimmer of Death is delightful new mystery from Valerie Wilson Wesley. The word glimmer references the aura some folks give off to recent widow Odessa (Dessa) Jones. Sometimes it’s a whiff of a smell or a color or mist that surrounds a person. Dessa is an empath who has inherited a wide array of…

Book Review: Before the Ruins by Victoria Gosling

By Ray Palen

February 3, 2021

“The year Peter went missing was the year of the floods.” This recollection comes from our narrator, Andrea or ‘Andy’.  Following the fateful summer of 1996, she and her three best friends will go through an experience that will leave none of their lives without tarnish.  Thus, is the main plotline of the debut novel…

New Excerpt: The Sign of the Gallows by Susanna Calkins

By Crime HQ

February 2, 2021

ONE London November 1667 The north-western road to St Giles-in-the-Fields was darker and more desolate than Lucy Campion remembered. She shifted her peddler’s pack, full of True Accounts and Strange News, her shoulders aching under the familiar strain. She’d taken the longer path to avoid the outskirts of Covent Garden since it still teemed with…

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