ARC Review: Them Bones by David Housewright

Them Bones
Author: David Housewright
Series: Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels, Book 22)
Publication: Minotaur Books (June 24, 2025)

Description: A stolen dinosaur skull is at the center of a complex mystery laid at the feet of unofficial P.I. Rushmore McKenzie.

There are two things that Rushmore McKenzie hates to turn down―a request from a friend and a challenge. Both of them show up in his wife's nightclub in the person of Angela Bjork, who has come to request McKenzie's help. McKenzie, once a homicide detective, now through a series of unlikely events, is a retired millionaire. But occasionally, for friends, he will do some unofficial private detective work. Over the years, he's hunted down a stolen Stradivarius, the hoard of 1930's gangster, and recovered a stolen, apparently cursed, artifact but McKenzie never imagined a case like this. An exceedingly rare dinosaur skull has been stolen.

Angela, a doctoral candidate, was out on a dig site in Southeastern Montana, when she found a skeleton of an Ankylosaurus. And no sooner than when the skull was removed and placed on a truck then they were attacked, the truck and skull stolen. Worried that nothing is being done to find the stolen skull, she turns to McKenzie. Worth millions on the black market, the chance to recover it becomes fainter by the day. And the people behind the theft are likely willing to do anything, to anyone, to hold onto it.

My Thoughts: This is the 22nd book in the Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels. It is the first of the series that I've read. I was attracted to the Twin Cities setting but quickly came to enjoy McKenzie's personality.

McKenzie is a former cop turned millionaire to unofficial private investigator. When a young woman shows up at his wife's nightclub asking for help, he is willing and intrigued. It seems Angela Bjork is a paleontologist who has come to McKenzie to ask him to help him recover the skull of an Ankylosaurus that she and some others from the University of Minnesota, Macalester, and the Science Museum of Minnesota discovered in Montana. 

The local police don't seem to be doing anything useful, and the FBI isn't interested because the skull was found on private land. The land is owned by a Twin Cities millionaire who wants the skull recovered and donated to the museum before he dies. McKenzie finds himself working for the millionaire and trying to find out who took the skull and where it might be. 

I enjoyed the setting. I liked McKenzie's circle of friends. I liked the references to earlier cases which made me very curious about them. Fans of the series will enjoy this episode. This newbie found the story engaging and hard to put down. 

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Sinister Graves by Marcie R. Rendon

Sinister Graves
Author: Marcie R. Rendon
Narrator: Isabella Star LaBlanc
Series: Cash Blackbear (Book 3)
Publication: Recorded Books (October 11, 2022)
Length: 6 hours and 9 minutes

Description: Set in 1970s Minnesota on the White Earth Reservation, Pinckley Prize-winner Marcie R. Rendon’s gripping new mystery follows Cash Blackbear, a young Ojibwe woman, as she attempts to discover the truth about the disappearances of Native girls and their newborns.

A snowmelt has sent floodwaters down to the fields of the Red River Valley, dragging the body of an unidentified Native woman into the town of Ada. The only evidence the medical examiner recovers is a torn piece of paper inside her bra: a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe.

Cash Blackbear, a 19-year-old Ojibwe woman, sometimes helps Sheriff Wheaton, her guardian, on his investigations. Now she knows her search for justice for this anonymous victim will take her to the White Earth Reservation, a place she once called home.

When Cash happens upon two small graves in the yard of a rural, “speak-in-tongues kinda church,” Cash is pulled into the lives of the malevolent pastor and his troubled wife while yet another Native woman dies in a mysterious manner.

My Thoughts: The third Cash Blackbear mystery starts when a body floats into Ada during one spring Red River flood. The unidentified Native woman has only one clue: a torn page from a hymnal written in English and Ojibwe.

Since its Spring Break, Cash has time to help Wheaton do some investigating. Her investigation takes her onto the White Earth Reservation. She was born there but has been in the foster system since she was three years old and was raised on an assortment of farms owned by White people. 

Cash meets an older Native lady who understands Cash's gifts and who offers her a medicine bag to help protect her as she is investigating. And Cash needs the protection as her investigation leads her to an isolated church with some strange beliefs and a pastor with mesmerizing appeal. 

This was another exciting episode in an engaging series. This one talks about Native women and their babies and just how vulnerable they were and still are. The author's note talks about the many, many bodies of Native kids recently found on the grounds of the boarding schools that they were forced to attend. 

The setting is very well done in this story. The reader can certainly feel Cash's love for the Red River Valley in every page. Cash's resilience and emotional fragility make her an amazing character. 

I bought the Kindle and added the audiobook. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Girl Gone Missing by Marcie R. Rendon

Girl Gone Missing 
Author: Marcie R. Rendon
Narrator: Siiri Scott
Series: Cash Blackbear (Book 2)
Publication: Blackstone Publishing (August 18, 2020)
Length: 6 hours and 48 minutes

Description: Her name is Renee Blackbear, but what most people call the 19-year-old Ojibwe woman is Cash.

She lived all her life in Fargo, sister city to Minnesota’s Moorhead, just downriver from the Cities. She has one friend, the Sheriff Wheaton. He pulled her from her mother’s wrecked car when she was three. Since then, Cash navigated through foster homes and at 13 was working farms, driving trucks. Wheaton wants her to take hold of her life and signs her up for college. She gets an education there at Moorhead State all right: sees that people talk a lot but mostly about nothing, not like the men in the fields she’s known all her life who hold the rich topsoil in their hands, talk fertilizer and weather and prices on the Grain Exchange. In between classes and hauling beets, drinking beer, and shooting pool, a man who claims he’s her brother shows up, and she begins to dream of the Cities and blonde Scandinavian girls calling for help.

My Thoughts: The second Cash Blackbear novel has Cash starting college which she finds a really alien environment. Between hippies and flower children and the growing American Indian Movement, she's being introduced to all sorts of things that haven't come into her world before. She used to working for farmers, drinking beer, smoking and shooting pool. She been in her own apartment since she was thirteen and Wheaton got her out of her last abusive foster home. 

When a college girl goes missing for no apparent reason, Cash finds herself introduced to the white slavery industry which is also something new to her. Another new thing is the reappearance of her brother. She hasn't seen him or heard anything about him since she was taken from her mother as a small child and started on the parade of foster homes. Mo tracks her down and moves in to get to know her. He's a recently discharged Vietnam veteran who was a medic and who has come home with PTSD. They spend time together drinking beer and shooting pool. 

Cash is doing well in college. So well, in fact, that she opts to test out of her freshman English and science classes. Her results on her English final are so good that her professor enters her into an essay contest which will result in her first trip to the Twin Cities for the award ceremony at Macalaster College. And it results in her own encounter with white slavery.

I really enjoyed this story. The setting is familiar to me since I am also a Minnesotan although the Red River Valley is on the opposite side of Minnesota from where I grew up. Cash and I would be near in age and, although our life experiences couldn't be more different, some aspects were completely familiar. 

I liked the author's note that talks about real problems faced by Native American women. 

I got this one from Audible Plus. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: A Purple Place for Dying by John D. MacDonald

A Purple Place for Dying
Author: John D. MacDonald
Narrator: Robert Petkoff
Series: Travis McGee (Book 3)
Publication: Audible Studios (March 13, 2012)
Length: 6 hours and 14 minutes

Description: Travis McGee’s taking his retirement in installments while he’s still young enough to enjoy it. But sooner or later, his money runs out and he has to work. This time McGee’s lured out West to a strangely secretive meeting with a woman in trouble, in a place whose beauty hides some ugly, dangerous secrets.

Mona is in love with a poor, young college professor and married to a wealthy man whom she is convinced is stealing from her trust fund. So she does what any self-respecting girl would do: She hires someone to steal her money back so she can run away with the love of her life.

Travis isn’t sure he wants to help out until he sees Mona getting shot and killed out on the cliffs near her cabin. Now he’s a lead suspect in a plot to help her escape, and to clear his name, he needs to get to the bottom of things. But the murders just keep mounting, and for Travis, even working with Mona’s husband doesn’t seem to help matters. Will he be able to uncover the complex plot in time to save his own skin?

My Thoughts: When his money gets into the reserve, Travis McGee sets aside his retirement and goes looking for a lucrative job. This time he has headed out West to work for a woman named Mona who is convinced that her husband has stolen the money she inherited from her father. She needs money because she wants to run away with a college professor.

McGee is ready to say no since he doesn't like Mona and doesn't know what he can do that lawyers and accountants aren't already doing. But things change when Mona is shot and killed while standing next to Travis. By the time Travis walks down to the nearest phone and calls the sheriff a couple of hours have gone by. When he returns to the isolated cabin there is no body and no indication that anything happened. The police are skeptical especially since a couple looking like Mona and her college professor got on a plane for points South just the day before.

Travis knows what he saw and begins his own investigation. The college professor's sister is on his side since she can't believe that her brother would have run off without talking to her and he certainly wouldn't have run off without his insulin and supplies. 

Travis also convinces Mona's husband that things are not like they look at first glance. The husband has his own assortment of possible enemies and also has the Feds looking into his business practices which are decidedly shifty. Travis agrees to work for the husband because he likes him more than he liked Mona.

This was an engaging historical mystery filled with attitudes that sort of made me cringe while listening to the audiobook. Husbands using physical punishment on their wives wouldn't be acceptable these days and were likely illegal then too. Travis's attitudes to women would not make a desirable partner these days for most women. Not that he is looking for any relationship deeper than a sidewalk puddle after a summer rain. He's proud to be a beach bum and take his retirement in chunks while he is young enough to enjoy it. But when problems need an unconventional, maybe even illegal, solution, no one is better than Travis McGee.

I added this one on March 29, 2021. I think it was an Audible Plus title. You can buy your copy here.

Audiobook Review: Nightmare in Pink by John D. MacDonald

Nightmare in Pink
Author: John D. MacDonald
Narrator: Robert Petkoff
Series: Travis McGee (Book 2)
Publication: Audible Studios (March 13, 2012)
Length: 5 hours and 39 minutes

Description: From a beloved master of crime fiction, Nightmare in Pink is one of many classic novels featuring Travis McGee, the hard-boiled detective who lives on a houseboat.

Travis McGee’s permanent address is the Busted Flush, Slip F-18, Bahia Mar, Lauderdale, and there isn’t a hell of a lot that compels him to leave it. Except maybe a call from an old army buddy who needs a favor. If it wasn’t for him, McGee might not be alive. For that kind of friend, Travis McGee will travel almost anywhere, even New York City. Especially when there’s a damsel in distress.

“As a young writer, all I ever wanted was to touch readers as powerfully as John D. MacDonald touched me.”—Dean Koontz

The damsel in question is his old friend’s kid sister, whose fiancé has just been murdered in what the authorities claim was a standard Manhattan mugging. But Nina knows better. Her soon-to-be husband had been digging around, finding scum and scandal at his real estate investment firm. And this scum will go to any lengths to make sure their secrets don’t get out.

Travis is determined to get to the bottom of things, but just as he’s closing in on the truth, he finds himself drugged and taken captive. If he’s being locked up in a mental institution with a steady stream of drugs siphoned into his body, how can Travis keep his promise to his old friend? More important, how can he get himself out alive?

My Thoughts: Mike Gibson was an Army buddy of Travia McGee's when they both served in Korea. Mike was blinded and otherwise injured and is in a VA hospital. He gives McGee a call and asks for a favor: his sister's fiancé was mugged and died, and he wants Travis to help her out. 

Travis will do anything for his old friend and heads off to New York City. Travis is taking his retirement a little at a time. He takes a job when he needs some money and then retires until he needs funds again. He's a sort of knight errant in tarnished armor. He'll help someone who needs him in exchange for half of what he recovers. 

Nina Gibson has some questions about her fiancé. After his death, she finds $10 thousand in a shoe box and doesn't know how he came by the money. As Travis begins to look he discovers a complex financial scheme going on. Some con artists are taking a wealthy guy for millions which means that Travis might have gotten in over his head. 

Travis stumbles into trouble and finds himself in a hospital where illegal experiments are going on. He's been dosed with an LSD-like potion and learns that the wealthy guy had had the same thing done to him before he had a lobotomy. 

He manages to get out, leaving a trail of bodies behind him, and gains a bit paycheck from the wealthy guy's wife. He also gets the girl - at least temporarily. 

Travis McGee is a character I first met in 1972 when I was riding Greyhound busses between graduate school and my hometown. He was an interesting sort of hero. He has a strong moral center, but it isn't conventional morality. His attitude toward women reads more than a little chauvinistic at a 50 year remove. But still, if a person is in really bad trouble, Travis McGee would still be my choice of a hero to call upon. 

I enjoyed this walk down memory lane. The narration was well done.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.

Book Review: Just Another Day in Paradise by A. E. Maxwell

Just Another Day in Paradise
Author: A. E. Maxwell
Series: Fiddler and Fiona (Book 1)
Publication: Busted Flush Press, LLC (February 1, 2009)

Description: When you say paradise, I think snakes. Maybe that’s because I live in the slice of paradise known as southern California’s Gold Coast. And maybe it’s because I spend my time killing other people’s reptiles.

So I wasn’t too surprised when my ex-wife and sometime lover, Fiora Flynn, came to me because Danny, her beloved dunce of a twin brother, was in trouble.

What did surprise me was the kind of trouble he was in. The killing kind. Complete with the FBI and international spooks.

I didn’t think Danny boy had it in him.

The good news is that unraveling Danny’s snarl brought Fiora back to me. The bad news….

Well, there’s always bad news, isn’t there?

My Thoughts: When Fiddler's ex-wife Fiora comes to ask his help with her twin brother Danny, Fiddler is quick to offer. After all, she's the only woman he has ever loved despite the fact that they couldn't work out living together. 

While Fiora is a financial genius, Danny is more of a screw-up who's always certain that the next scheme will be the one to lead to riches. This time he's in way over his head when he partners to export technology to the Eastern Block even though he knows he'll be smuggling. 

It isn't only the Russians who want the chip technology. The Vietnamese are also interested but mostly to prevent Russia from succeeding. Between the Russian dating Fiora and the Vietnamese woman dating Danny, both factions are hoping to keep track of their subjects. But then Danny is killed, and the last crucial piece of the factory goes missing. 

Fiora is kidnapped by Danny's partner, the Russian spy she's been dating, and Fiddler needs to find the last piece of the factory they are to smuggle out and trade it for Fiora's life. Both the US Customs and the FBI are also involved and each have their own agenda.

Fiddler comes up with a complicated scheme to get Fiora back without letting the missing piece of equipment fall into enemy hands. 

The story was fast-paced and exciting but a dated. The ethnic slurs and attitudes toward homosexuals were a little bit jarring. However, Fiddler was a fascinating character with a strong sense of honor and a really twisty mind. He's a man with perfect pitch who gave up playing the violin because he couldn't produce the perfection he heard in his mind. It was intriguing the way he related the activities of the plot to various sorts of musical forms. 

This is the first of an eight-book series. 

Favorite Quote:

I filed that uneasy coincidence with the other disharmonies sawing away in my brain. I didn't know if I could make the Calexico connection harmonize with anything. It was just one of those little bytes of information I play around with in my spare time. The only difference between my mind and a computer is that a computer knows what's going to happen next. 

I bought this one February 25, 2009. You can buy your copy here.

Friday Memes: Just Another Day in Paradise by A. E. Maxwell

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

Like the rich, California is different. But not that different.

Friday 56:

We don't keep secrets from one another very well. When things feel good, we say so. It makes for a complicated relationship, but what's life without a few well-chosen complications? Dull, that's what.

This week I am spotlighting a book from deep in TBR Mountain. I bought Just Another Day in Paradise by A. E. Maxwell February 25, 2009. It was originally published in 1985 and is the first in the eight-book Fiddler and Fiona mystery series. 

Here is the description from Amazon:

When you say paradise, I think snakes. Maybe that’s because I live in the slice of paradise known as southern California’s Gold Coast. And maybe it’s because I spend my time killing other people’s reptiles.

So I wasn’t too surprised when my ex-wife and sometime lover, Fiora Flynn, came to me because Danny, her beloved dunce of a twin brother, was in trouble.

What did surprise me was the kind of trouble he was in. The killing kind. Complete with the FBI and international spooks.
I didn’t think Danny boy had it in him.

The good news is that unraveling Danny’s snarl brought Fiora back to me. The bad news….

Well, there’s always bad news, isn’t there?

ARC Review: What Meets the Eye by Alex Kenna

What Meets the Eye
Author: Alex Kenna
Publication: Crooked Lane Books (December 6, 2022)

Description: From debut author Alex Kenna comes a pulse-pounding tapestry of secrets, retribution, and greed for fans of Jeffrey Archer.

Kate Myles was a promising Los Angeles police detective, until an accident and opioid addiction blew up her family and destroyed her career. Struggling to rebuild her life, Kate decides to try her hand at private detective work—but she gets much more than she bargained for when she takes on the case of a celebrated painter found dead in a downtown loft.

When Margot Starling’s body was found, the cause of death was assumed to be suicide. Despite her beauty, talent, and fame, she struggled with a host of demons. But as Kate digs deeper, she learns that Margot had a growing list of powerful enemies—among them a shady art dealer who had been selling forged works by Margot. Kate soon uncovers a dirty trail that leads straight into the heart of the city's deadly underworld.

Margot died for her art—and if Kate doesn't tread lightly, she could be the next to get brushed out.

My Thoughts: This debut story is told from a number of viewpoints. 

Kate Myles is a former LAPD officer who was invalided out after having her car hit in a police chase which broke vertebrae in her back and neck and left with constant pain and an opioid addiction. Her marriage, which was already in trouble before the accident, ended acrimoniously. She doesn't care about the husband who was cheating on her before they divorced, but she doesn't want to lose her connection with her young daughter. Her ex used her addiction to force a custody arrangement that isn't in her favor.

Now she's clean, beyond drinking a little too much, and working as a private investigator. When a man comes to her to look into the supposed suicide of his daughter, she isn't excited. But she needs the money and knows the police investigator who had the case as someone who doesn't want to work hard and is always looking for the easy solution.

We hear from Margot Starling who was a troubled person with mental issues who was also a very talented artist who made trends in the art world. One of her projects had her cutting the names of her past lovers into her stomach with an x-acto knife and painting a picture of it. Another had her sneaking a camera into a jail and then painting what she saw. She had quite a few enemies, many of them powerful, who would very much prefer that she was dead.

Kate learns about Margot's potential enemies as she begins her investigation, and she also stumbles into forgery and money laundering scheme which puts her at odds with the FBI and the police department where she worked. 

The story was well-written and exciting. I enjoyed all of the various points of view which help paint a picture of Margot's life. I also enjoyed learning more of Kate's story. 

Favorite Quote:

Two healthy young artists had died suddenly and within months, their paintings, or at least paintings bearing their names, had ended up in this second-rate gallery.

What is going on?

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Last Redemption by Matt Coyle

Last Redemption
Author: Matt Coyle
Series: Rick Cahill (Book 8)
Publication: Oceanview Publishing (November 30, 2021)

Description: Will Rick Cahill survive an insidious disease long enough to see his first-born child—or will sadistic killers murder him first?

Rick Cahill is finally living a settled, happy life. His fiancée, Leah Landingham, is pregnant with their first child and he is doing PI work that pays well and keeps him out of danger. Then a doctor gives him the bad news about the headaches he’s been suffering—CTE, the pro football disease that leads to senility and early death—a secret he keeps from Leah and his best friend Moira MacFarlane.

When Moira asks him to monitor her son, Luke—who’s broken a restraining order to stay away from his girl-friend—a simple surveillance explodes into greed, deceit, and murder. Luke goes missing, and Rick’s dogged determination compels him to follow clues that lead to the exploration of high finance and DNA cancer research.

Ultimately, Rick is forced to battle sadistic killers as he tries to find Luke and stay alive long enough to see the birth of his child.

My Thoughts: This is the eighth Rick Cahill mystery and the first that I have read.

After years as a football player, cop, and private investigator, Rick has been knocked around a lot. He has recently been diagnosed with CTE - Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, the football player's disease. His prognosis is for dementia and early death.

He has recently fallen in love with Leah and the two are expecting a child. It is a miracle for both of them since they are in their early 40s. Rick finally has a chance to focus on his future. He hasn't told Leah about his diagnosis yet since he found out just after she became pregnant. She'd had a series of miscarriages and he didn't want to trigger another one with his news.

Ha e has switched his job to doing mostly background checks for corporate customers which should protect his damaged brain. Then he gets a call from his best friend and fellow investigator Moira who asks him to check on her son Luke. She's afraid that he is violating a restraining order that his ex-girlfriend placed on him.

Rick goes to check on the girlfriend's place and sees Luke visit the house next door. He follows Luke to his employers and then to his home. The next day he learns that Luke's boss has been murdered and Luke has disappeared.

Rick wants to turn things over to the cops, but Moira is afraid for her son. The two continue investigating and soon learn that the case has many complications having to do with DNA cancer testing and manipulating a company's value. And murders of those who might get in the way of a really, really big payoff.

Rick was an interesting character. It was easy to see that he had a history as a lone wolf investigator who wasn't afraid to put himself into danger for his clients. It was also easy to see that he really loved Leah and his unborn child and wanted to do what he had to to have a future with them. 

The mystery was nicely twisty and filled with action with some violence. Fans of the series will enjoy this latest episode. It was also an intriguing story for someone, like me, who is meeting these characters for the first time. 

Favorite Quote:

It was interesting, but murder investigations were law enforcement's field of expertise.

Mine was agitating people until they showed who they really were. Sometimes that spilled over onto murder investigations. And got me into trouble.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from NetGalley. You can buy your copy here.

Book and Audio Review: Evil Dark by Justin Gustainis

Evil Dark
Author: Justin Gustainis

Narrator: Peter Brooke
Series: Occult Crimes Unit Investigation (Book 2)
Publication:  Angry Robot (April 24, 2012); Audible Studios (March 4, 2014)

Length: 10 hours and 57 minutes; 400 p.

Description: My name's Markowski. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.

A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community. Markowski wouldn't normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer's list...

My Thoughts: Stan Markowski is a detective in the Occult Crimes Investigation Unit in Scranton, PA. Though he doesn't think much of vampires or other paranormal beings, he is gradually coming around now that his partner and daughter are both vampires. His current case centers around the unexplained deaths of a variety of supernaturals including witches and werewolves. The FBI also comes to town with another case: someone is summoning demons and making snuff films and it looks like they are being filmed in Scranton.

As Markowski and his partner investigate they discover that Scranton may be the test site for a future race war pitting humans against supernaturals. There are lots of references to Helter Skelter and Charles Manson. There are defrocked bishops and millionaires with agendas. 

This was an interesting combination of genres. It read as a hard-boiled detective story in an alternate present peopled by humans and supernatural beings. Markowski is a smart, competent cop who is eager to get to the bottom of the problem. His partner Karl is a recently-turned vampire and a James Bond fan. His daughter works as a police dispatcher on the night shift, naturally. 

Fans of hard-boiled detective stories and urban fantasy will enjoy this series. I'm eager to read about their next case.

Favorite Quote:

"Neil Charles Duffy," she said. "He's known locally as 'Duffy the Vampire Slayer'."

"Cute," Karl muttered. Clearly, he didn't think it was.

I bought this one April 24, 2012. You can buy your copy here.

Friday Memes: Evil Dark by Justin Gustainis

 Happy Friday everybody!

Book Beginnings on Friday is now hosted by Rose City Reader. The Friday 56 is hosted at Freda's Voice. Check out the links above for the rules and for the posts of the participants each week. Don’t dig for your favorite book, the coolest, the most intellectual. Use the CLOSEST.

Beginning:

The city is Scranton. My name is Markowski. I carry a badge. The monsters from your nightmares are real, all of them. If you live in my town, protecting you from them -- and vice versa -- is my job.

Friday 56:

It was Wednesday morning, and tonight would be our night off. I wouldn't have minded working anyway, but McGuire will only authorize overtime if we're chasing a hot lead. And right now we had no leads - hot, cold, or room temperature.

This week I am spotlighting Evil Dark by Justin Gustainis which has been on my TBR mountain Since April 24, 2012. Here is the description from Amazon:

My name's Markowski. I carry a badge. Also, a crucifix, some wooden stakes, a big vial of holy water, and a 9mm Beretta loaded with silver bullets.

A series of seemingly motiveless murders of supernatural creatures points to a vigilante targeting the supe community. Markowski wouldn't normally have much of a problem with that, but his daughter may be next on the killer's list...

Book Review: Vanishing in the Haight by Max Tomlinson

Vanishing in the Haight
Author: Max Tomlinson
Series: A Colleen Hayes Mystery Book 1
Publication: Oceanview Publishing (August 20, 2019)

Description: An ex-con traces a victim’s clues to set a cold case ablaze

Between fending off a lecherous parole officer and trying to get by in 1978 San Francisco, private investigator Colleen Hayes struggles to put her life back together so she can reconnect with her runaway teenage daughter. Then her life changes dramatically. She accepts a case from wealthy, retired industrialist Edward Copeland. The old man is desperate to solve the brutal murder of his daughter, a murder that took place in Golden Gate Park eleven years earlier—during the Summer of Love. The case has since gone cold, her murderer never found. Now, in his final days, Copeland hires Colleen to find his daughter’s killer in hopes he might die in peace.

Colleen understands what it means to take a life—she spent a decade in prison for killing her ex. Battling her own demons, she immerses herself in San Francisco’s underbelly, where police corruption is rampant. Her investigation turns deadly as she pries for information, yet there is little to go on. However, a song on the radio makes her wonder—did the murdered girl leave any clues that others may have missed?

My Thoughts: Colleen Hayes is an ex-con. She spent ten years in prison for killing her ex-husband when she learned he was abusing their eight-year-old daughter. Now, she's out of prison and looking to rebuild her life. She's currently working as a security guard in an abandoned paint factory and trying to get her license as a private investigator.

A retired police officer steers her to Edward Copeland. The retired industrialist wants someone to look into the cold case death of his daughter Margaret before he dies of lung cancer. She sympathizes with him because she has lost contact with her daughter who has joined a religious cult and wants no contact with her. 

Once she begins looking into the case, she finds what looks like a coverup by the San Francisco police force. Reports go missing or she has to jump through time-consuming hoops for a chance to see them. She also finds that the people who were investigating the case when it occurred eleven years earlier are strangely unavailable to talk to her. The detective who was the lead investigator retired soon after the case. The coroner has retired and moved away. The newspaperman who wrote a number of articles about the case won't return her calls.

Colleen tracks down the lead detective but he's found dead before he can share any information with her. She also finds that she is being followed by someone who isn't reluctant to trying to burn her out at the paint factory. 

I liked Colleen who wasn't going to drop the case even if her client wants her to stop. I liked all the period details that show that this story is set in 1978. I remember the bell bottoms and jumpsuits. I remember when everyone smoked cool cigarettes like Virginia Slims or macho cigarettes like Marlboros. Colleen even drives a cool car and teases her retired police consultant for his Pinto.

This is the first book in a new mystery series. I look forward to reading more of Colleen's adventures.

Favorite Quote:

The results of revenge could last forever, but the relief they provided was fleeting.

I bought this one. You can buy your copy here.

ARC Review: Firewatching by Russ Thomas

Firewatching
Author: Russ Thomas
Publication: G.P. Putnam's Sons (February 25, 2020)

Description: A taut and ambitious police procedural debut introducing Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler, a cold case reviewer who lands a high-profile murder investigation, only to find the main suspect is his recent one-night stand . . .

When financier Gerald Cartwright disappeared from his home six years ago, it was assumed he'd gone on the run from his creditors. But then a skeleton is found bricked up in the cellar of Cartwright's burned-out mansion, and it becomes clear Gerald never left alive.

As the sole representative of South Yorkshire's Cold Case Review Unit, Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler is not expected to get results, but he knows this is the case that might finally kick start his floundering career. Luckily, he already has a suspect. Unluckily, that suspect is Cartwright's son, the man Tyler slept with the night before.

Keeping his possible conflict-of-interest under wraps, Tyler digs into the case alongside Amina Rabbani, an ambitious young Muslim constable and a fellow outsider seeking to prove herself on the force. Soon their investigation will come up against close-lipped townsfolk, an elderly woman with dementia who's receiving mysterious threats referencing a past she can't remember, and an escalating series of conflagrations set by a troubled soul intent on watching the world burn . . .

My Thoughts: Detective Sergeant Adam Tyler works cold cases. When a body is found behind a brick wall in an unoccupied manor, Tyler thinks this will be a case for him. The manor belonged to Gerry Cartwright who had been presumed to disappear on his own one step ahead of law enforcement six years earlier. But the detective who worked on the case before wants to be the one in charge this time too.

Tyler is sort of on his last chance as a police officer. He's a gay man who attacked a superior who was harassing him and is only on the force because his godmother who is a higher ranked officer stood up for him. He tends to overcompensate in his cold cases and often times makes the original detectives look bad which doesn't endear him to them.

He does manage to force his way into the case only to find that the main suspect is the man he had a one night stand with the night before. Oscar Cartwright looks like a perfect suspect and the detective in charge is ready to arrest him but Adam isn't so sure.

Throw in a woman with dementia who is being blackmailed for something she doesn't remember and a series of suspicious fires and the plot gets nicely complicated. It also adds complications that the murder occurs in a small town where everyone knows each other and everyone had some sort of relationship with Gerald Cartwright including a number of the police officers.

I enjoyed this mystery and was surprised when the villain was revealed. Tyler is an interesting and comlex character that I want to read more about.

Favorite Quote:

Sometimes, when people find out what he does for a living, they ask him whether he struggles to sleep at night, in light of all the horrible things he must see. But sleep has never been a problem for Tyler.

No, it's the early evening that troubles him. the time when people with lives untouched by tragedy are preparing meals for loved ones, and wondering if they have PE tomorrow and whether or not the kit's been washed. The time that Mum gets home from work and the kids come in for tea. That's the time that reaches out to remind him of all the horror in the world. It's the time the news breaks.

I received this one in exchange for an honest review from Edelweiss. You can buy your copy here.