Right from the very title, William H. Hallahan has written a book of juxtapositions, a novel that relentlessly compares and contrasts its two main protagonists and the situations and societies in which they find themselves. Ostensibly a spy thriller, Catch Me: Kill Me follows two men who never meet, and whose interests in the case…
When we conceived our Revisiting the Edgar Awards series, our goal was to hopefully shine some light on a list of (possibly lesser-known) books deserving of praise while also treating these books like time capsules: once-buried containers full of bygone ideals and preconceptions reflective of the time in which they were published. So when looking…
Take-Out by Rob Hart is a collection of short stories all set in the culinary world and all flavored with a hearty dose of crime. Take-Out: And Other Tales of Culinary Crime is a collection of 16 crime-fiction short stories by the acclaimed fiction author, Rob Hart. Hart’s short stories have appeared in places like Thuglit, Shotgun…
Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets by Rosemary Simpson is the third Gilded Age New York mystery featuring heiress Prudence MacKenzie and ex-Pinkerton Geoffrey Hunter. When Claire Buchanan arrives in the office of MacKenzie and Hunter, she claims her sister was murdered. An opera singer, Claire had been in Europe when her sister died and…
From New York Times bestselling author Shelley Noble, Ask Me No Questions is the first in the Lady Dunbridge Mystery series featuring a widow turned sleuth in turn-of-the-twentieth century New York City. A modern woman in 1907, Lady Dunbridge is not about to let a little thing like the death of her husband ruin her social life. She’s ready…
Last summer, on a Sunday afternoon, I schlepped out to Washington Cemetery in a very ungentrified stretch of Brooklyn. Some 200,000 graves—almost all of them Jewish—occupy the 100 acres of this marvelously shabby necropolis along Bay Parkway. I was looking for the grave of Max Hochstim, a vicious Jewish racketeer who, during his heyday 100-plus…
In Devil’s Mile, Alice Sparberg Alexiou tells the story of The Bowery in stunning detail, from its origins to its pre-Civil War years to its deterioration beginning in the postbellum years, ending her historical exploration of this famed street in the present, bearing witness as the old Bowery buildings and the memories associated with them are…
The Stakes by Ben Sanders follows an NYPD robbery detective who uses his insider cop knowledge to rob rich criminals (available March 6, 2018). Rip-offs are a dangerous game, but heist man Miles Keller thinks he’s found a good strategy: rob rich New York criminals and then retire early, before word’s out about his true…
Well, I am a degenerate. I can be a nitpicky viewer, and last time I pointed out the lack of heroin in The Deuce’s fairy tale of New York. And what do you know? We get an overdose this time around, though I won’t say who. About midway through the episode, I started wondering where…
After last week’s emotional high point, you have to expect a low, and this is an enjoyable coast toward the inevitable. We learn the why behind the “No Go Zone” of Times Square. The culmination of free speech rulings allowing pornographic films to be filmed in the United States and the Knapp Commission scaring the…
