One of my weaknesses as a reader and reviewer is that I’m essentially a prig. I don’t like criminals, and (though there are certain exceptions) I don’t much care for stories where criminals are the main characters. In stories, criminality is always being explained by creativity and a hunger for excitement, but I have a strong suspicion that there are lots of ways to skate close to the edge in life without stealing and murdering.

Still, when Andrew Klavan announced the publication of his story, “The Christian Killer,” in the anthology, The Crooked Road, Volume 2, I downloaded the Kindle version. And Klavan’s story is almost worth the price of the volume in itself. It’s a Christmas story that plays deftly on holiday tropes, managing to be cynical and sentimental all at once. And funny.

As for the rest of the stories, I liked some and didn’t like others. I found Janice Law’s “The City of Radiant Brides” pretty satisfying, a story with a surprise. Also Peter Lovesey’s “The Best Suit” completely confounded my expectations, in a good way.

Other stories went the sociopath path, and I generally didn’t take to them. Particularly Lawrence Block’s “Keller in Dallas,” another pleasureless (for me) outing with his stamp collector/assassin character. Dana Cameron’s “Disarming” left me entirely confused.

And some stories just broke my heart, especially Clark Howard’s long final story, “The Street Ends at the Cemetery.”

This is a pretty good collection, if you like this kind of thing. My problem is that I generally don’t.

Reviewing a Dick Francis book is almost a pointless exercise. I’ve only read one book of his that actually disappointed me, and you can be sure that the writing will always be professional and satisfying. But I’ve had a couple criticisms of his attitudes now and then, and Hot Money calls for one such, so I guess that justifies a critique.

It’s always interesting to discover by what angle Francis will approach his always racing-related plots. This time around the unique element is complicated family relationships, what psychologists call “constellations,” where parents and children fall into predictable roles, into which they tend to relapse whenever they get together.

In Hot Money the constellation is more of a supernova. Multimillionaire gold trader Malcolm Pembroke has been married five times, and has sired a number of children, most of whom resent each other and their siblings’ other mothers. One thing most of them agree on is their hated for Ian, the narrator of this book, whom their father seems to prefer. They’re all certain he’s plotting to cut them him out.

But when Malcolm’s latest wife is murdered, and a couple attempts are made on his own life, he goes to Ian and asks him to become his live-in bodyguard. Ian agrees, and commences picking through the minefield of his family’s loves and hates in order to stop a killer and save both their lives.

The large number of characters in this book make it sometimes hard to follow (make sure to bookmark the character list). That also goes for the superfluity of murder motives – everybody has one, but none of them seem adequate to murder. Sometimes I found the sheer volume of “soft” data kind of overwhelming.

And again, as I’ve seen at least once before in Francis, there’s a tolerant attitude to adultery that displeased me. On the other hand, there wasn’t any explicit sex, and the language wasn’t bad.

Not top drawer Francis, but good.

Ruth reached over a[nd] covered one of Katy’s hands with hers. She spoke very softly, saying, “Forgive me if this hits a little close to home, but I just have to ask: What good are the things that Jesus said and did if they make no difference in how people live?”

You’d have to go far to find a braver Christian novelist than Athol Dickson. As I’ve written in previous reviews of his books, I consider him far above the average CBA writer in terms of craftsmanship and depth. They Shall See God is actually a reissue (slightly re-worked) of one of his earlier novels. I don’t think he’d reached his full powers when he wrote it. Sometimes (and I’m not sure this isn’t just an emotional reaction to my own tensions about the issues) I think the dialogue is a little awkward, but that may just be that he’s accurately inventing conversations that are awkward in themselves.

In any case, They Shall See God is a bold (and generally successful, I think) attempt to deal with one of the touchiest possible issues in theology – the relations between Christians and Jews.

Kate Flint, New Orleans antique shop owner, mother, and recent widow, is a Christian desperately trying to hold her life together. Ruth Gold is a Reformed rabbi. Long ago, as little girls, they were best friends, until they witnessed a horrible murder and their parents determined to separate them.

But now the man who went to prison on their testimony has been released from prison. And people are being killed – beginning with Ruth’s boyfriend. As they come to realize that their lives are in danger, these two women must push past their mutual fears and guilts to try to form an alliance to save their own lives and those of others, and to unravel the deeper mysteries of the old crime.

I won’t say there’s no preaching in this book, because there are preachers here (good and bad), and they do their thing. But the preaching is preaching, and the dialogue is dialogue, and the human depictions cut right down to the heart. I found They Shall See God hard to read – simply because of hard truths – but moving and rewarding. Cautions for some pretty intense violence.

Before author Max Allan Collins hit the big time with his Joe Heller novels and The Road to Perdition, he wrote several novels about an Iowa mystery writer with a sideline in real-life sleuthing, called Mallory (no first name; his friends call him Mal). Judging by A Shroud for Aquarius, Collins was already at that point an excellent writer.

Mallory is called in by the county sheriff to view the scene of the violent death of Ginnie Mullens. Ginnie was Mal’s oldest friend (never a lover). Though estranged in high school, after which Ginnie became a hippie and got into the drug world, they’ve kept in touch, and Mal has always intended to try to mend fences. He never quite got around to it.

The scene looks like a suicide by handgun, but the sheriff isn’t sure. Ginnie is known to have had dangerous connections, and he suspects foul play. There’s also a double indemnity insurance angle. Mal, partly from feelings of guilt, agrees to look into it. Danger, ugly revelations, and a new love await him on his quest.

One thing that’s especially interesting about this book, written in the ʼ80s, is that today’s reader has to view it through a double lens of history. A Shroud for Aquarius is largely a meditation on the aftereffects – which Mal sees as mainly bad – of ʼ60s counterculture.

But for the reader in the 2010s, the ʼ80s setting is in itself a distant mirror, and it’s hard not to think that the hippies won after all, considering that we have an acolyte of Bill Ayers in the White House right now.

Which is a melancholy thought, at least for me.

But the book is good, and is recommended. The usual mild cautions for language and themes apply.

Stephen Hunter continues to delight with his bestselling thrillers, centered on veteran Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger and members of his family. It would be an exaggeration to say there’s no formula at work here – but the formula is in the characters, not the plots. Hunter loves to surprise his readers with fresh situations. He’s put Bob Lee into NASCAR races, samurai sword fights, and terrorism scares. In The Third Bullet he uses the thriller format to examine the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in 1963, something that was hinted at, but not developed, in the first BLS novel, Point of Impact.

The first neat trick here is that Hunter inserts himself into the story. Not in the Clive Cussler manner, portraying himself as a suave and admirable deus ex machina who shows up to get his hero out of a tough situation, but in a real writer’s way. Hunter paints himself, under a pseudonym, as a semi-comic hack with a drinking problem – he’s recognizable through his career arc and book titles. His character plays an initializing role at the start of the book, and then exits. Which is precisely the way to handle it.

As a result of the writer’s experience, old Bob Lee Swagger is enticed out of retirement by a woman who asks him to examine a new theory about the Kennedy assassination. And Bob Lee agrees, for reasons he keeps to himself until the end. On the way there are murders and close calls, and a dangerous trip to Moscow. Bob Lee comes up against a criminal mastermind to beat all criminal masterminds, and there’s a dramatic – and revelatory – final showdown.

I can’t say much about the theory author Hunter proposes here. It’s not entirely clear how seriously we’re meant to take it – this is fiction, after all. To me it seemed, at least, to raise interesting possibilities.

I’ve never been a Kennedy conspiracy aficionado. I know a man who is, and I’ve never argued it with him, because a) I haven’t studied it closely, and b) this guy is a veteran sniper himself, someone who looks at the problem from a shooter’s point of view.

Which is precisely what The Third Bullet does.

Recommended. Minor cautions for language, violence, and adult themes.