Tag Archives: Ted Clifton

Fiction, Reviews

‘Fiction No More,’ by Ted Clifton

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There are three books to date in the Vincent Malone mystery series by Ted Clifton. Fiction No More is the third. It’s worth your time.

Vincent Malone, just to jog your memory, is a former legal investigator from Denver, now living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. For a while he worked as a van driver for a local bed and breakfast, but with improving health and a new attitude and live-in girlfriend, he’s moving back into his old work. He still drives the van now and then, but he’s got new challenges.

Still, his latest case comes out of the Inn. A famous mystery novelist is visiting, and she asks Vincent to check out a man whom she believes is following her. He has contacted her in the past, she says, asking why an incident in her first novel so closely mirrored the murder of his own father.

When the man is arrested for another murder by the police, the author surprises Vince by offering to pay for his defense. Vince’s lawyer boss takes the case on, and the trail leads to that older case from the novel. Turns out the author hasn’t been entirely honest with Vincent – her grandfather had firsthand knowledge of the crime, and had described it to her. It all has to do with the theft of Native American artifacts long ago – and some of the people involved are still alive and dangerous. One of them is even powerful.

Fiction No More was a pretty good read. As I’ve said before, these stories combine hard-boiled and cozy elements, and the fusion works pretty well. An unnecessary anticlimax provides a bittersweet coda that I’m not sure I’m grateful for or not.

Cautions for language and adult themes. Modern attitudes toward marriage and cohabitation bothered me a little, but that’s the world we live in.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Blue Flower, Red Thorns,’ by Ted Clifton

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Vincent Malone is the continuing hero in Ted Clinton’s series set in Santa Fe, New Mexico, of which Blue Flower, Red Thorns is the second. Vince went from being a high-flying Dallas lawyer to a successful Denver legal investigator before quitting that work due to his health. He drifted into Santa Fe, where he took a job driving a van for a bed and breakfast. But he found use for his detective skills in the first book, Santa Fe Mojo, and is easing back into that career.

Nevertheless, he’s still driving the van when Blue Flower, Red Thorns begins. He makes a run to Durango, Colorado to get some friends’ son out of a legal problem, and returns to help his pleasant employers deal with a group of important guests. They’re hosting a rising young woman artist and her entourage, while a big auction is held at a local gallery. But these guests act pretty much as you’d expect artists and dealers to act – they’re temperamental, and the artist’s drunken mother makes a scene physically fighting the gallery owner. Which makes her the chief suspect when the owner is found murdered – but if you’re looking for people with motive, there is no shortage. Vincent will have to plunge into the world of art forgery to untangle the mystery.

This is very good entertainment reading, perfect for the beach (or your living room while you’re quarantined). Vince is tough and cynical enough for the hard-boiled fan (though he’s mellowing with a new girlfriend), and the recurring cast of characters is sympathetic enough for cozy readers.

Cautions for language and adult themes. There’s one more book in the series so far.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Santa Fe Mojo,’ by Ted Clifton

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Vincent Malone, hero of Ted Clifton’s Santa Fe Mojo, was once a hotshot lawyer in Dallas, until alcohol trashed both his career and his marriage. He drifted to Denver, where he found his niche as a legal investigator. Then he developed gout, and missed too much work. Figuring a warmer climate would help, he headed for Albuquerque, and cheap housing. But in a diner in Santa Fe he saw an ad for a job driving a customer van for a bed and breakfast. On a whim, he applied for the job.

Vincent is a misanthrope, a man who’s seen the worst in people and has distanced himself from them. But the couple who hire him are annoyingly nice. He doesn’t know what to do with them, but he kind of likes working there as he gets used to it.

They’re excited to greet their first guests at the B&B, but something is wrong. The rooms were booked by a major sports agent who lives locally, for a group of his top clients and their spouses. But when they hold a meeting, it ends in shouting and threats.

The next morning the police come. The agent has been murdered. Vincent can tell that the sheriff’s department would like to hang something on him, but they quickly settle one of the clients – a major league baseball player. Security video shows the two men fighting in the agent’s front yard, a few hours before the murder.

Vincent, though, based on his investigative experience, thinks the cops haven’t looked far enough. They found an easy suspect and stopped detecting. The accused’s lawyer shows up, and he’s the accused’s uncle and Vincent’s spiritual twin – a hard man who got rich defending whoever paid him, using any kind of trick he could get away with. But he’s older now, and thinking it might be nice to form some kind of bond with his only surviving relative. At least he forms a bond with Vincent, who shares his bemusement at discovering morality late in life.

Santa Fe Mojo straddles the line between cozy mystery and hard-boiled, and does it pretty well, I think. The gradual softening of Vincent’s hard shell in the warmth of human friendship provides an enjoyable sub-plot. I enjoyed Santa Fe Mojo quite a lot. Cautions for language, mostly.