Edgar Award Nominees 2017 – CONGRATS

Edgar Award Nominees 2017

First and foremost, a huge congrats to all the 2017 Edgar Nominees.

Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

I haven’t read all the nominated books this year, not even close, and I’ve reviewed even fewer — However, there are two especially I’d like to draw your attention to.

Come Twilight by Tyler Dilts is up for best paperback original (I read it as an ebook without harm). You can read my full review of Come Twilight by Tyler Dilts, the latest installment in his contemporary mystery-thriller series featuring Long Beach, California police detective Danny Beckett. Sorry for the dark cover, but it’s a screenshot on my darkened phone while reading in bed. Yes, it’s that good.

Earlier this year, I also read, loved, and reviewed Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye. If you haven’t already heard of this book, it’s a wonderful, edgy exploration of Jane Eyer’s story. You won’t be sorry you picked up this one, or frankly any other book by Lyndsay Faye. It also happens to have one of the most beautiful and interesting covers of the year as well.

Congrats to all the wonderful mystery writers on this list, and congratulations to us fans of mystery novels — we’re spoiled for choice!

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

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2 November 201629 November 2017

Book Review: Come Twilight by Tyler Dilts

WITH A BANG

Tyler Dilts’ latest installment in his current Long Beach Homicide series is fantastic.

Long Beach homicide detective Danny Beckett has had it rough, but things are starting to look up. That is until someone tries to kill him by blowing up his elderly Toyota Camry. The people around him, his fellow officers, his partner, and even his girlfriend do what they can to keep him safe from the mysterious people who have targeted him. And he hates it.

I’m new to the series, which usually means I don’t get the ‘inside jokes’ and things, but it felt more like spending time with a group of great people, old friends, after hitting it off with a member of the group who is nice enough to include and accept you. I felt comfortable jumping in so late in the series and look forward to future books from Tyler Dilts.

I received a free ebook copy for review.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

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Book Review: Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston
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26 September 201626 May 2020

Book Review: Shamus in a Skirt by M. Ruth Myers

IT KEEPS GETTING BETTER

Each book in M. Ruth Myers’ series featuring Maggie Sullivan, a lady private detective just gets better and better.

In Shamus in a Skirt, Maggie is hired by a strange couple of former theater performers who now run an upscale and very discreet hotel. The hotel caters to the wealthy and powerful, but someone is breaking into the hotel safe — or are they? When a young cleaning lady is found dead in the alley behind the hotel, Maggie must learn if certain murder is connected to possible thievery.

Shamus in a Skirt is a very good historical mystery focused when World War II is breaking out in Europe, and many in the US asked if we’d be involved in another European war.

Shamus in a Skirt, like all of her Maggie Sullivan books, feels so … immediate. I don’t really feel like I’m reading historical fiction when I read these books, though the historical details are very good. So good in fact they fit seamlessly in the narrative. If you’re looking for a historic mystery series of quick reading books you can really submerge in, pick up the first book No Game for a Dame in ebook format for FREE. And maybe like me, you’ll find yourself keeping an eye peeled for the next word of Maggie Sullivan.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.

23 August 201624 April 2017

Book Review: Front Page Affair by Radha Vatsal

Out of the Gate Like a Stutz Bearcat

Radha Vatsal is a scholar and a talented storyteller, evident in her strong historical mystery debut, A Front Page Affair, just released this summer.

Capability Weeks (“Kitty” to her friends) and her father (a well-to-do, self-made mogul) live well in 1915 New York City. Kitty, a young addition to the New York Sentinel‘s Ladies Page, covers a July 4th society soiree and becomes tied to a murder and what looks like a plot to endanger the delicate international balance.

Kitty Weeks (and supporting cast) are wonderful. She’s young and privileged and begins to recognize what that has meant in her life throughout this story. I don’t go for that combination in a hero much, but Kitty’s introspection and awareness redeem her (to me at least). A hero who can throw money at their problems and make them go away is not much of a hero. Kitty also works not only externally but internally as well, to find solutions, being creative and brave throughout.

Radha Vatsal has sentences in this book that are heavy with history. It’s hard to write historical novels without ‘info dumping’ on readers. It’s a challenge to weave historical information, foreign to modern readers, and achieve a native harmony so readers glide along, learning without being jarred by the thrills and not the history.

…

Get in on this new series straight away. You’ll enjoy this plucky young hero as she matures during a time of great change in our nation and our world. Strong historical research sunk deep below the surface pushes this debut novel to the top of my recommendation list this month. For a work of fiction, there’s a fantastic ‘Further Reading’ and ‘Selected References and Sources’ pages. Old historian habits die hard.

About the Author: Benjamin Clark writes historical mysteries and works as a history museum curator.

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Disclosure: I received a free copy of this book for review.

16 August 2016

Book Review: Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston

It was the blurb on the cover that did it. “This is one mean, cold, slit-eyed mother of a book.” — Peter Straub.

A couple weeks ago, I roamed Omaha’s wonderful Jackson Street Booksellers, and I know there’s at least one dedicated James Crumley fan on staff who puts books on a certain big table for browsers. Finding this book on that table carries the same weight to me as a personal recommendation from a good friend. This table is one of my best friends.

Table’s recommendation didn’t let me down. Six Bad Things by Charlie Huston is book two of a three book series. It’s unlike me to go out of order (if there’s an order) but I felt like I was caught up quickly and not too out of the loop on the main character and what had gone on to this point at the opening of book 2. It’s contemporary noir (ca. 2005), so my history die-hards may look askance, but shouldn’t! Classic noir fans will enjoy Huston’s style, though I will warn you, this is not a book for those with language and violence sensitivities.

This book is nearly non-stop, with nuanced and realistic action, and a main character that perfectly walks that line between hero and anti-hero. The main character, Hank Thompson, is also nuanced and realistic, conflicted. There are cracks in his life and character as a result of his choices. It’s also unexpectedly funny.

A big recommend from me. Thanks, big table.

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3 August 2016

Book Review: Drive!

Drive!: Henry Ford, George Selden, and the Race to Invent the Auto Age by Lawrence Goldstone

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

A useful history I will return to again and again. Taking the 30,000-foot view, with plenty of details to give the history a personal feel. With the wide-angle overview approach, however, the story moves along without becoming bogged down in details most readers won’t be looking for in such a book. Goldstone weaves the early history of automobiles into a highly readable account, creating a very straight-forward narrative arc, though historical topics are anything but. Highly recommend to those interested in the later Industrial Revolution, early 20th-century history, and of course, car nuts.

If you’re looking at Lawrence Goldstone’s name and thinking it looks familiar, he and his wife wrote at least three excellent memoirs about bibliophiles and the rare book trade — that was my introduction to him as a writer.

This book was provided to me via NetGalley for review.

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4 April 2016

Book Review: The Murder of Mary Russell by Laurie R. King

I’ve just finished The Murder of Mary Russell. Wow. It’s … fantastic. I get nervous with Laurie R King’s new books in her beloved Mary Russell – Sherlock Holmes series. This is book 14 of the long-running series. Sure, I love some books of the series better than others … but this book was marvelous and absolutely the follow-up I needed (as a fan) after Dreaming Spies, Garment of Shadows, and (deep breath), The Pirate King.

After a deadly confrontation, readers are drawn through the history of one of Sherlock Holmes’s earliest cases and the true background of the fascinating Mrs. Hudson(!), and the true nature of her relationship to Sherlock. We even get a bit of King’s take on a Sherlock Holmes not long before his arrival at Baker Street. I know I could read a *lot* more in that vein. Maybe someday King will give us a little more.

About half-way through this latest of the series, I had an idea that though I was enjoying it, The Murder of Mary Russell would only appeal to the die-hard fans of Mary Russell and maybe those true completists of Sherlock pastichery. And a few unbranded #histofic mavericks. After all, we’re delving deep — real deep, into the supporting cast of the series, usually territory for only the most devout readers of fanfic and scholars of minutia. However, after that half-way mark (or so), all that build up became more and more meaningful, reaching deep into the story of King’s Sherlock, which incidentally, is among my favorite interpretations.

We’re also (mostly) but not entirely back in London and Sussex for this tale. If you’re among the legions of King’s readers who love the globe-trotting nature of Russell and Holmes’s lives, you shouldn’t feel too cooped up, after sojourns at sea and a bit of time in Australia during the days of Transportation and gold.

So, a spoiler free review, given how little I can tell you, given that title. Yikes. Read The Murder of Mary Russell and see how the world of Sherlock and Mary Russell is changed forever.

Disclosure: I received a free advance ebook copy for review.

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30 January 2016

Book Review: Jane Steele by Lyndsay Faye

“Reader, I murdered him…., A reimagining of Jane Eyre as a gutsy, heroic serial killer….”

With a lead-in like that, I had high expectations. That and this is Lyndsay Faye we’re talking about, the creator of the marvelous Timothy Wilde series, and the one who finally gave us a gripping account of Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper that frankly is better than anything Conan Doyle would have come up with.

Jane Steele is a fun, action-filled homage to the Gothic triple deckers of the Victorian age. It has the classic tropes: Girl orphaned young, named Jane, abused by the wealthier kinfolk she lives with, sent away to horror-show school and becomes governess … I go into books labeled ‘reimaginings’ with gun-shy wariness. Like satire, it can be a fine line between brilliant and obnoxious, too cute or cloying. Steele is not a satire of the genre, but it is sly and winking, more like a quiet unspoken joke between old friends. Jane Steele is even published as a triple decker — thankfully under one cover. It’s action-filled and just tons of fun with some great characters I deeply hope to see again.

Steele, is also unflinching from the ugliness in ugly people, and hardships of the time. Some of that ugliness is only hinted at in those classic Gothic novels we love, but here if someone is a sexual predator, it’s said/shown.

Anyone shying away from the ‘serial killer’ tag — I think it’s not used well here. Jane Steele isn’t a serial killer. More like a vigilante, or frankly just someone who lives in hard place during a hard time. The violence is largely unflinching, but far from Tarantino-esque. This isn’t a cozy knitting mystery, but I think the majority of readers won’t be put off by the violence.

Faye’s descriptions are gold, building tension then giving readers that pinching little twist of anticipation making payoffs that much sweeter. Book to book, she just gets better and better.

Jane Steele comes out in March, and available for pre-order now.

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31 December 2015

Book Review: The Infidel Stain by MJ Carter

It’s been three years since Jeremiah Blake and bibliophile William Avery teamed up in India for what was one of the most enjoyable books I’ve read recently (The Strangler Vine) — getting in on the ground floor as it were of a new series. The Infidel Stain takes us to London in the early 1840s, into the orbit of publishers and pornographers, dissidents and rebels. Oh, and of course, murder. It’s one of those novels that just oozes with atmosphere of dank and dark London, after a terrifying time in the dangerous jangals of India. Our heroes have become something of celebrities given their encounter with Xavier Mountstuart. We learn a little more about the mysterious Jeremiah Blake’s background in this novel, which was interesting, to say the least. We don’t get much more of Avery, which I would have enjoyed. Maybe the only thing I’d have expected was that ardent bibliophile William Avery, on a rare visit to The City would indulge himself in a visit to a bookshop.

Historically rich, and textured, a thriller that had me reading late in huge gulps.

Ok, an admission: I liked the first book better. But with reports of Blake & Avery 3 well underway, I can’t wait to see what happens next. This book was published as The Printer’s Coffin in the United Kingdom.

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16 November 20159 May 2017

Book Review: Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel

station_eleven_cover
We read Station Eleven aloud, and … wow. My partner now wants to read more post-apocalyptic stuff (I recommended: Alas, Babylon). We follow the intertwining strands of several people’s lives who experience a nearly extinction level pandemic in the near future. I didn’t find it overly gruesome the way some books in the genre go, though there is death and injury, and other unsettling events, as anyone would expect. The book does a lot of slipping and sliding in the timeline, but these shifts are handled deftly by Emily St John Mandel. The post-apocalyptic chapters and scenes largely take place 20 years after the pandemic, which is very interesting. If you’re at all interested, I know you’ll look at more reviews, and have probably already heard of this book. I’m just adding my voice to the choir singing its praises. It’s a creepy, beautiful, touching story about family, survival, and at its core: art. I loved it.

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Category: Book Reviews