Category Archives: Fiction

Fiction, Reviews

‘Powers of Arrest,’ by Jon Talton

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Cops burned out of homicide. Not because of blood or gore or being outwitted by criminal masterminds. No, because of its monotony: The same easy suspects, the same filthy apartments, and same kinds of people doing the killing. The pressure from the brass to clear cases. And the paperwork. And that forever part, dead, gone completely… if they let themselves think about it too long.

Cincinnati homicide detective Will Borders is back on the job, but not as he would wish, in Jon Talton’s Powers of Arrest, second entry in a series. Will underwent surgery for a spinal tumor, which left him in a lot of pain, but able to walk with a cane. Because of his service record, the brass let him work now as Public Information Officer, sending out news releases and speaking to the cameras. It’s frustrating duty for a man used to being on the front lines, but it’s police work, and he’s mostly grateful to have it.

Someone is murdering young people, mutilating them sexually. Nobody links the crimes until a young female detective is killed – she’s an actual celebrity, star of a reality show. Will is drawn in when he finds clues leading to his own stepson as a suspect.

Among the murder victims are several nursing students, and that brings Will back into contact with their instructor, Cheryl Beth Wilson, with whom he shared danger – and some mutual attraction – in his previous adventure. This case will give them an opportunity to get closer, though Will fears he’s too damaged to be a lover.

I was impressed by Powers of Arrest. The book is well-written, the characters are interesting (though I thought the culprit insufficiently concealed). No political correctness was noted (perhaps the reverse), and Cheryl Beth is some kind of a Christian, though not a church-goer. At least her faith is treated with respect. Author Talton very clearly loves the city of Cincinnati, which he describes beautifully (you’ll probably want to visit). The love story was engaging.

Recommended. Cautions for language, premarital sex, and disturbing themes.

Fiction, Reviews

‘June Bug,’ by Scott Bell

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The air lay as heavy as a quilt soaked in used engine oil.

The third book in Scott Bell’s Sam Cable series, about a tall Texas Ranger with a remarkable capacity for absorbing physical trauma, including gunshot wounds, is June Bug. There are only three books in the series so far, but the author’s Afterword says he’s planning more. I look forward to them.

FBI agent Rita Goldman is the first to guess that a group of Chechen terrorists are planning a bioweapon attack on the US. This takes her back to Texas, where she is reunited with Sam, with whom she has a whole lot of sexual chemistry, though they’ve been hands-off so far. Memories of Covid are naturally recalled, but what they’re dealing with here is a lot more virulent and frightening than that. And this is not the kind of story where the Rangers save the day before a lot of civilians get hurt.

But worse is to come, if Rita and Sam can’t stop the ringleaders before they get on a plane. And that will be difficult once they’ve both been captured and tied up for use as hostages.

But don’t count them out.

I enjoyed June Bug, though it concentrated more on action than I prefer. I personally would have enjoyed a few more relaxed moments; I like the main characters’ back-and-forth. And the trope by which the hero keeps suffering disabling injuries but just continues on duty and fighting is overused in thrillers (in my opinion).

Still, Scott Bell is a good writer, and I like the characters, and the dramatic tension never flags. I didn’t like June Bug as much as the previous two books, but I liked it fine anyway. The stories feature conservative dog-whistles too (in my opinion).

Cautions for rough language and intense situations.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Graffiti Conspiracy,’ by Colin Conway

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This is another installment in Colin Conway’s The 509 series, about policing in the Spokane area. I like Conway’s novels very much, his short stories (oddly) not much at all. But The Graffiti Conspiracy is a novel, and a pretty good one from where I sit.

Detectives Quinn Delaney and Marci Burke are assigned to the murder of Earl Ricci, a maintenance man for a real estate management company, who was shot to death while covering up graffiti painted on the back of a vacant building.

There are several suspects, including the talented young man who painted the graffiti, and former associates of Ricci’s (at one point he was accused of stealing money from an fleabag hotel, the Hope, which has since been gentrified. This theft, the subject of one of the 509 short stories, shows up in one way or another in several of these novels).

The solution, once it is found, does not involve any shooting or chases. Just a sad story in a sad world, where confused people take the line of least resistance.

Like all the other 509 novels, The Graffiti Conspiracy is character-driven and highly believable. Cautions for adult matter, and moral ambiguity.

I enjoyed it.

Fiction, Reviews

‘May Day,’ by Scott Bell

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“Please, God,” I said to myself, “don’t kill us today. I’d rather not go out like this, if it’s all the same to you, but if that’s your will, at least don’t let me pee myself.”

Couldn’t resist immediately picking up the second book in Scott Bell’s Sam Cable series, about a modern Texas Ranger.

As May Day opens, our hero, fully vindicated in respect to the criminal charges he faced in April’s Fool, is sent to California in a state-owned small airplane (which Cable hates), to pick up a fugitive in custody. This is a young woman, Jade Stone, accused of stabbing a man to death. About the time somebody shoots their plane out of the sky over New Mexico, he begins to suspect that this woman may be telling the truth when she says she was set up.

The story then becomes a wilderness cat and mouse tale, as Cable, Jade, and their injured pilot attempt to evade a crew of rogue federal agents. It won’t be a surprise to the reader that Jade Stone is gorgeous, and increasingly drawn to Cable – but she’s a fascinating character in her own right, and provides a very well-done plot twist toward the end.

Wilderness chase stories are not my favorite kind of fiction, but Sam Cable remains an appealing character, and the dramatic tension ran high. I judge that Cable came out lucky in a few too may close calls, but that’s common in the genre. I certainly enjoyed May Day, and I recommend it.

Cautions for violence, rough language, and a sex scene.

Fiction, Reviews

‘April’s Fool,’ by Scott Bell

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The captain lived in his car, ate takeout food every meal, smoked more than a creosote brushfire, and had his admin print all his emails rather than learn how to use a PC. Dinosaurs were more progressive than Captain Marshall.

One of the delights of being a reader is discovering books that are just fun. I’d never heard of Scott Bell (not to be confused with James Scott Bell, another excellent author), but it seems I’ve been missing something. April’s Fool is the first volume in a series starring contemporary Texas Ranger Sam Cable.

Sam has drawn the unwelcome job of providing personal security for a senate candidate. The candidate is a black woman with a chip on her shoulder, who delights in testing his patience. He disliked her, but hardly wanted her dead. So when he wakes up in her hotel room naked, lying next to her strangled corpse, he is completely unable to account for his actions.

Thanks to his commander’s support, he manages to stay out of jail – for the present. His orders are to lay low and let his colleagues investigate, but (of course) that’s not Sam’s way. He pokes into the candidate’s past and her present associations. Along the way he’ll form an alliance with a diminutive female FBI forensic accountant, and they’ll prove a formidable team.

April’s Fool featured many delights. The writing was sharp, in a brightly hardboiled way:

I was not in a good place. The sofa wouldn’t stop an angry fly, let alone a bullet, and it wouldn’t hide anyone bigger than Goldman. I felt like a cartoon bear hiding behind a pine tree.

Also the characters were vivid, and the dialogue often funny. This wasn’t exactly a comic novel, but Sam Cable is an ebullient personality who keeps his sense of humor most of the time. He’s easy to like. Racial issues are dealt with in what I considered an evenhanded way. All references to Christianity were respectful.

Highly recommended, with cautions for adult subject matter.

Fiction, Reviews

‘When the Wicked Rest’ and ‘Murder by Any Other Name,’ by Colin Conway

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I have bestowed glowing reviews on previous books in Colin Conway’s 509 series of police procedurals set in Washington state, east of the Cascades. When I purchased When the Wicked Rest and Murder by Any Other Name, I didn’t realize that they were not novels but short story collections set in the 509 area.

I discovered I don’t enjoy Conway’s short stories nearly as much as I enjoy his novels. The novels are well-written, character driven, and compassionate. The stories (at least in these collections) are more concentrated. They mostly deal with criminals – either losers who have no hope, or successful ones who make you fear for the world. Neither is much fun, at least for this timid reader.

One story in particular, in Murder by Any Other Name, is especially horrific. It’s called “Angel.” It’s a prison story, a short peek into Hell. Well done, but the stuff of nightmares.

My bottom line on these two story collections is that they’re good (in Chesterton’s sense of being good shots) but also not good (in Chesterton’s sense of shooting one’s grandmother from a distance of 500 yards).

Maybe you appreciate this kind of stuff more than I do. Cautions for extremely disturbing content and lots of bad language.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Path of Progress,’ by Colin Conway

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“That’s a lot of pre-planning,” Johnson said.

“This isn’t the fifties, man. Planning a murder is fairly easy now because of TV and the movies. All anyone has to do is pay attention and take notes. Hollywood has done the heavy lifting for them.”

I’ve recently rediscovered Colin Conway’s 509 series, about law enforcement in eastern Washington state. Most of the stories take place in Spokane, but rural areas come into it at times. My personal favorites are the Dallas Nash stories, but all the main characters are good.

The Path of Progress plays out against the backdrop of Camp Faith, a homeless encampment in a distressed part of Spokane. Both political parties are doing their best to exploit the situation, but the neighbors are increasingly unhappy and demonstrative. Lately, area businesses have been experiencing a string of burglaries.

Leya Navarro is a detective on the Property Crimes squad. She’s a conscientious cop, a married working mother (and a church member), not sure what to think about Camp Faith. She’s assigned to the burglaries and given a partner to work with – a detective named Damien Truscott. This doesn’t delight her. Everyone’s suspicious of Truscott, because he used to be in Major Crimes and then transferred to Property. Nobody goes from Major to Property, a step down in status, unless they’ve screwed up somehow.

Their investigations gradually home in on a local pawnbroker, but all his records seem solid. In time the situation escalates to murder, and then the Major Crimes guys enter the story. The chief MC detective here is a somewhat driven fellow named Andrew Parker, and the focus mostly shifts to him.

There are no gunfights or car chases in The Path of Progress. Just realistic police work performed by well-rounded, believable, and sympathetic characters. I like this approach very much.

I also appreciate that, although no preaching is done, Christian characters are treated with respect. You might think a book focused on the homeless problem would involve a lot of politics, but the ordinary people in The Path of Progress seem mostly troubled and confused. Like the rest of us.

I recommend The Path of Progress, along with the whole series. I really can’t think of any content warnings, though I may have missed some rough language or something.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Bail Out,’ by Jeff Shelby

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I recently discovered that the Noah Braddock detective series by Jeff Shelby is still a going concern. So I had a couple books to catch up with. Bail Out comes ahead of the last one I reviewed, in sequence. But that’s not a problem; they stand alone pretty well.

Noah Braddock, San Diego surfer-cum-private eye, needs money to get repairs done on the house on Catalina he inherited from his murdered girlfriend. His massive friend Carter, who is smarter than he looks, says he has a prospective client, but he knows Noah won’t like it.

The prospective client is Darren Van Welker, an old schoolmate who was Noah’s greatest enemy in his youth. Now he’s a successful businessman with a not entirely savory reputation. Darren is getting married (for the third time), and he wants his adult son Aaron to be there, only he’s in Las Vegas and won’t return his father’s calls. He wants Noah and Carter to go to Sin City and drag the young man back.

Noah doesn’t like Darren any more now than he did in the old days, but he takes the job – making it clear that he’s not going to kidnap Aaron if he doesn’t want to go. In Vegas, they get a line on Aaron’s girlfriend. Going to her apartment, they run into a group of not very impressive gangsters, who are looking for her for their boss. Noah and Carter find themselves helping the two young people escape a serious and dangerous problem related to unpaid gambling debts.

The story is essentially pretty fun, almost a comedy. The Noah Braddock books are not comic as a rule, but author Shelby had fun with this one. The gangsters are somewhat laughable, and Carter alone is such a force of nature that nobody ever seems in great danger.

I enjoyed Bail Out immensely. Jeff Shelby is an entertaining storyteller, whether he goes dark or light. Recommended.

Fiction, Reviews

‘Johnny Careless,’ by Kevin Wade

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She scanned the room and landed on Johnny and just stayed pinned on him, like waiting for the heat from her stare to set his shirt on fire and get his attention.

This one surprised me pleasantly. When I got to reading and realized that Kevin Wade’s Johnny Careless was a story about a middle-class boy moving among the privileged kids of Long Island’s North Shore, I prepared myself for an homage to The Great Gatsby, with maybe a little Marxism mixed in. But it wasn’t like that. Or not mostly like that.

“Jeep” Mullane is the chief of police, the son of a policeman, but the circumstances of his childhood threw him together with the wealthy Johnny Chambliss and his girlfriend (later wife and ex-wife) Niven, so he began to live in two worlds. Johnny had all the irresponsibility of his class, but was aware of it, and kept Jeep close – in part – to ground himself. He could be a jerk, but was always a good friend.

Now Johnny is dead, washed up on the beach with what appear to be contact wounds from a marine engine prop on his body. But what was he doing in the water at that time of night, in that place? Johnny’s powerful father wants it explained, and Jeep wants to understand too.

There’s also pressure from the mayor for the police to stop a string of thefts of high-end automobiles in their supposedly crime-free community.

Jeep will learn – to his shock – that the thefts have a connection to a secret out of the late Johnny’s past.

The writing in Johnny Careless was very good (though author Wade, who’s been a writer for the TV show “Bluebloods,” uses “flaunt” when he means “flout” at one point). An interesting narrative device was employed – the whole story is told from Jeep’s point of view, but events in the present are given in the third person, while flashbacks are in the first person. The characters were interesting and layered. The mystery intrigued me. And it all worked out entirely differently than I expected.

Jeep is an admirable character, though (no surprise here) his morality is not quite Christian as far as sex is concerned. I recommend Johnny Careless, with only the usual cautions.

Fiction, Reviews

‘The Fate of Our Years,’ by Colin Conway

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I was reading Colin Conway’s 509 series, about policing in eastern Washington state, for some time, and enjoying the books. I’m not sure why I lost track of the series – maybe because the books feature revolving main characters and I had trouble keeping track of them. But I need to get back to them. They’re really good. I liked The Fate of Our Years a lot.

Dallas Nash is a detective. He lost his wife a while back, and is mourning hard. He talks to her (when no one’s listening) and avoids music generally, because so many songs remind him of her. But this doesn’t interfere with his work – in fact, he works obsessively, because it’s the only thing that keeps his mind off his grief. Nevertheless, he’s afraid the other cops will learn that he’s seeing a psychologist – it marks you as weak and unreliable.

In The Fate of Our Years, he has to investigate the stabbing death of an old man who was once accused of rape, and the beating death of a homeless man. Neither of these cases are the work of super-criminals. We’re dealing with plain, unromantic police work here, the grinding away until something comes loose.

But the real interest is in the characters. I particularly like it when characters surprise you with unexpected character facets – there are a couple such instances in The Fate of Our Years.

Also, it featured a born-again Christian character who is presented in an entirely positive way. There’s no incentive to do that in today’s publishing world, so I was grateful.

Recommended, with cautions for mature material.