Crimespree Magazine #56

by Reed Farrel Coleman

  Theodore Feit

  THE COLD NOWHERE

  Brian Freeman

  2014

  Quercus Publishing, Inc.

  Duluth Detective Lieutenant Jonathan Stride returns in THE COLD NOWHERE, the sixth in the series of thrillers featuring Stride written by Brian Freeman. The novel picks up shortly after Stride and his long-time partner and friend Maggie Bei attempted, unsuccessfully, to be more than friends. And the experiment came with a cost: Stride’s love, Serena Dial, was gone, leaving Stride and the Duluth Police Department to be a Detective for a Sheriff’s Department outside the city. But they couldn’t stay apart for long, and the appearance of Catalina Mateo, a sixteen-year-old runaway and prostitute, in Stride’s home brings them together again. The three work together, awkwardly and with some reservations, to solve a series of murders that surround the girl. But for Stride, it isn’t just another case. Cat is the daughter of a woman he vowed to protect. His failure in doing so left her an orphan ten years ago, and he can’t help but feel guilty in letter her down and owning a part of what she became.

  Like all good series, picking up with Stride, Serena, and Maggie was easy. Mr. Freeman’s story telling is good, and his mystery remained a mystery to me until he revealed the culprit behind the killings. And, in keeping with tradition, Mr. Freeman portrays Duluth in a proud albeit harsh way:

  “Locals boasted that Duluth toughened anyone who survived the winters, but Stride knew that it also made you old before your time. You couldn’t fight the elements and not feel the damage to your body. You couldn’t weather the storms and not get broken. There were other, less visible scars, too. The more time he spent in Duluth, the more he learned about keeping things inside...After a while, it became a way of life.”

  THE COLD NOWHERE is a good story with familiar characters, but there are things that nagged me throughout the book and, in part, the entire Stride series.

  Detectives seem to job hop: Stride from Duluth to Las Vegas and back. Serena from Las Vegas to Duluth to the County Sheriff’s Office. And Maggie, it seems, could not be a US Citizen, which is mandatory for policing in the United States.

  Throughout the Stride series, the characters take quite a beating. Shot, burned, falling from bridges, car accidents, and more. But good characters stand on their own Stride, Serena, and Maggie are no exceptions. A crime fiction novel should include danger and thrills, but they don’t have to happen to the same people all the time.

  I continue to enjoy the Stride series. Good crime fiction should include a well-told and compelling story and characters that are well developed, consistent, and dynamic; complicated but likable. Mr. Freeman has accomplished both in THE COLD NOWHERE.

  George Lichmann—TheThirtyYearItch.com

  COURIER

  Terry Irving

  2014

  Exhibit A

  I am a huge fan of early 1970’s thriller movies, especially the political and espionage movies laden with conspiracies. The minute I saw the description on the back of this book, I knew it would be something I would enjoy. And I did.

  Rick Putnam is in Washington DC 1972, he’s just back from ’Nam and has a job as a motorcycle courier. He gets caught up in a nightmare scenario while delivering some footage for a local news station. The film contains an interview with a government employee and it is breaking news. Within a few hours of the interview being filmed everyone involved is dead, except Rick...So far.

  Irving does a great job with keeping the pace flying forward. It was also really fun to read a thriller without the internet or cell phones.

  Irving is a writer who is bringing his own experience to the book, here’s part of his bio from IMBD:

  “Began in television by riding a BMW 60/R carrying 16mm color reverse film for ABC News during the Watergate Scandal. Worked on Good Morning America, Nightline and This Week with David Brinkley and covered The Fall of the Berlin Wall, US Marines in Beirut, the Release of Nelson Mandela and the 1980 Presidential Elections. Left ABC after 20 years to pursue digital media.”

  This book kicks ass and I can’t wait for the next one.

  Jon Jordan

  Crooked Numbers

  Tim O’Mara

  2013

  Minotaur Books

  In his second novel, the sequel in the Raymond Donne series following the terrific Sacrifice Fly, and because of the events which took place in that book, culminating in a four-story drop from a fire escape, Donne is no longer a cop: “It’s not all that rare for cops who’ve been injured on the job to be given promotions and higher paychecks. It wasn’t how I pictured my career path, so I left.” (And this despite the fact that his uncle is the police chief.) For the past several months he has been the dean of the Brooklyn middle school where he used to teach. The interactions of Donne with the students under his care, as well as their parents, is empathetically and realistically shown, owing perhaps to the fact that the author is himself a teacher in the New York City school system.

  In the opening pages, Douglas William (“Dougie”) Lee, who had been one of Donne’s students for two years, studying math, literature, history and science, is viciously stabbed to death one night “on the cold, dark tennis courts under the Williamsburg Bridge.” The bridge itself becomes somewhat symbolic in Mr. O’Mara’s hands, metaphorically connecting Brooklyn on one side and Manhattan on the other, and the public housing projects and its gangbangers on either side. Dougie was not quite 17 years old, and despite the fact that at first blush the cops, finding a few bags of pot on the body, believe he was into gangs and drugs, the thought being that he was “just another black boy killed, dealing drugs and hanging around the wrong people,” Donne is convinced otherwise. At the behest of the murdered boy’s mother, Donne promises to try to find the person stabbed the boy a dozen times, and to use his connections with the police and the newspapers in that effort. To that end, it helps that Dennis Murcer, the detective assigned to the case, had gone through the academy with Donne and used to date his sister, and that the very attractive Allison Rogers, the crime reporter assigned to cover the story, agrees to help Donne by keeping up the coverage which would in turn perhaps amp up the pressure on the cops to investigate the crime beyond their initial impressions.

  At the time of his death, Dougie had been a scholarship student at a private school on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. Within a few days of his death, one of his best friends is killed and another is hospitalized. The story takes some very unexpected turns as Donne continues to investigate what was going on in their lives, convinced that these things must be connected. The novel is well plotted, and the author’s writing “style,” for lack of a better word, makes this a very fast and enjoyable read.

  Gloria Feit

  THE DEVIL LAUGHED

  Gerrie Ferris Finger

  2013

  Five Star

  Moriah Dru, owner of Children Trace, an investigative company, and Richard Lake, a lieutenant with the Atlanta P.D., are at Lake Lanier in the mountains in the northern part of Georgia on the July 4th weekend. She finds a boat that’s now only partially submerged because of the drought. It’s the sailboat Scuppermong, that’s been officially missing. (The boat is named after a type of grape.) Four years ago the body of the husband of one of the couples aboard was found. The other three people are still missing.

  Instead of looking for a child, Moriah is hired by Evangeline, 13, the daughter of one of the women aboard, to find her mother.

  The cover features a wine glass with red wine being poured into it. This refers to the wine country at Cape Fear, where the boaters came from, and where both couples owned wineries.

  When they and the boat disappeared, an old drunk was questioned as he said he saw a boat being taken out of the water. It was not the sailboat. Two young people said the same thing. They gave false names so they can’t be found. Not much credence was given to the man’s story because he was drunk. However, when the sailboat was found, his story was looked at a little more closely. He wasn’t able
to give any more testimony because he is now dead—murdered.

  The body of a woman is found, but it’s the mother of another child—Diana, 14. Now the girl has disappeared—and now Moriah gets to do what she does best—trace the child.

  Finger won the St. Martin’s Press / Malice Domestic Best First in 2009. She was a crime journalist for The Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

  Gay Toltl Kinman

  The Devil’s Workshop

  Alex Grecian

  May 2014

  Putnam

  Alex Grecian’s latest book, The Devil’s Workshop, has a thrilling plot with notorious characters. This is the third book in the series out of six. The plot takes place in London during the 1890s with a theme comparing law and justice. It is more of “a who done it” than an actual mystery since the readers know the villains and their deeds.

  The plot begins with a prisoner horribly tortured by persons unknown to him. A few chapters later the reader is able to learn who the prisoner is and why he is being tortured. A secret organization of zealots, after capturing certain criminals, attempts to dispense their own brand of justice. They have planned for some of the murderers to escape from prison, but the plan goes incredibly wrong. As the killers elude the secret society, Scotland Yard’s Murder Squad detectives, Walter Day and Nevil Hammersmith, are asked to find the criminals. Unfortunately, the criminals are able to resume their sadistic killing as they try to avoid the chase by the detectives. Grecian used the secret organization to illustrate the theme of law versus justice.

  Early on the reader finds that one of the escaped killers is none other than Jack The Ripper. Grecian is able to solicit different emotions from the readers regarding this character, ranging from hatred to sympathizing with him. They are exposed to his past and present exploits, as well as to his philosophical thoughts about law and justice.

  The Devil’s Workshop is not a book for the squeamish. It will keep the reader on the edge of their seat with its psychotic characters and intense plot. The action is non-stop and the reader will not want to put the book down.

  EVERYTHING TO LOSE

  Andrew Gross

  2014

  William Morrow

  “Thriller” is a word that is thrown around a lot these days. It has become a favorite go-to label of marketing folks (just like noir). What Andrew Gross is writing truly is a thriller. He’s got quick pacing and a sense of urgency running through his books like fire follows gasoline.

  In EVERYTHING TO LOSE he sets up a solid story with Hilary Cantor in what begins seems a blessing in disguise that may be a curse.

  Hilary’s life has taken a bad turn lately, due in large part to a husband who walks out on her and a son suffering from Asperger’s.

  By sheer chance she witnesses a freak accident. When she goes to help finds the driver dead. She also finds a bag with around a half million in cash. She goes against her principles making a rash decision to take the money and split the scene. What follows is a game of cat and mouse as she struggles with her decision. And soon the people who were supposed to get the money use their long reach to find it. The book continues to twist and turn and keeps pumping the gas speeding to an amazing ending.

  In some respects, it felt at first a little like A SIMPLE PLAN. But unlike that book, EVERYTHING TO LOSE actually has characters you care about. Gross does such a writes such good characters that you don’t want the book to end. Yet the book is written in such a way that you read it quickly because there is no way you want to put it down. Pure brilliance.

  Jon Jordan

  Field of Prey

  John Sandford

  2014

  G. P. Putnam

  Best-selling author John Sandford has another winner with his recent book, Field Of Prey. It is an intense mystery thriller that explores the world of serial killers. The suspenseful plot moves along at a fast pace with the cat and mouse game between the BCA detective, Lucas Davenport, and the serial rapist-killer.

  The story begins with a teenage couple losing their innocence, and then being overwhelmed by a terrible smell. The police investigate and a body stuffed in a well, eventually discovering twenty-one skulls. The female victims had been killed over a great many years, one every summer, regular as clockwork.

  The story takes several unexpected turns with Lucas becoming more and more emotionally engaged. In this novel, Lucas appears to know all of the facts he needs to solve the case; yet is unable to connect the dots. All the while, girls are going missing and dying at the hands of a serial killer. The only slight problem with the plot is the small scenes with Virgil Flowers, the main character of his other series, also a BCA detective. Because of the intense plot and great character portraits, the few parts of the book that included Flowers were a distraction as he was working on a completely separate unrelated case.

  The characters are very well developed, believable, and have the reader rooting for and against them depending on if they are good or bad. Lucas Davenport is part Hollywood, part policeman. He drives around in a Porsche and Mercedes wearing fancy clothes but is also a very good father and husband who cares about his family. Davenport is a guy doing a job he loves while making sure the bad guys don’t win. There are also the familiar characters: Del Capstock, Rose Marie Roux, agent Virgil Flowers and Davenport’s family. A new face, Goodhue County Deputy Catrin Mattsson, is the female version of Davenport. She is tough, pretty, refuses to bow to authority, and has a take no prisoner attitude.

  Also, within recent Sandford books is a social commentary on a certain issues. The author does this without getting heavy handed or appearing to lecture the readers. Many times he gets his point across through humor. In this book he describes someone who is schizophrenic with a personal comment on how he views the media today with a book quote that pretty much summarized it all, “Fu—in media.” Sandford has multiple scenes in the book where the media becomes an impediment to the investigation, spins the facts the wrong way, or outright distorts the truth.

  As in all Sandford books, there is a riveting mystery with added humor. Field of Prey has many twists and turns. This novel is extremely fast-paced that allows the reader to get into the mind of a serial killer, the victims, and the police investigation.

  Elise Cooper

  THE FOURTH MOTIVE

  Sean Lynch

  April 2014

  Exhibit A

  Assistant District Attorney Paige Callen is out for her morning run when she is brutally attacked on a deserted stretch of California beach. Her attacker lets her go—but ensures she knows that she will be seeing much more of him. Soon it’s apparent that someone who is relentless, methodical and determined to draw out Paige’s terror is stalking Paige. Paige’s father, retired Judge “Iron Gene” Callen, decides to call in retired cop Bob Farrell to track the psycho down and keep his daughter safe. Farrell enlists the help of former Deputy Kearns, and together they attempt to keep Paige out of the line of fire while trying to figure out just who is behind the attacks. Assault soon turns to murder, as the Judge’s long-time maid is brutally killed, and Kearns takes Paige on the run for her protection. But her stalker is never more than a few steps behind...

  There is no shortage of action in THE FOURTH MOTIVE, the second novel from Sean Lynch featuring Farrell and Kearns. In fact, the action is nothing short of relentless—exactly what you want in a high-octane thriller. As in WOUNDED PREY, the story is dark, yet psychologically fascinating, and impossible to put down. Lynch knows how to paint one hell of a bad guy—truly the stuff nightmares are made of.

  Our private investigator Bob Farrell is a hard-drinking retired detective who isn’t afraid to break the rules in order to mete out his own brand of justice; but as he says, he’s one of the good guys. He is certainly someone I would want in my corner—he is deadly and tough, and not afraid to fight dirty. I appreciate a hero that steps past the red tape to get a job done—no matter the cost. Yet Farrell is nicely balanced against his sometime partner Kevin Kearns—a much younger, fitt
er and more naïve ex-deputy who is still looking to get back on a police force somewhere and leave his past mistakes behind him. Farrell badgers him into getting involved with the case, but he and Kearns truly are a well-matched team.

  The pages of this novel flew through my fingers. Lynch obviously knows what he’s talking about—not only regarding investigations, but also human psychology and motivation. This novel packs a one-two punch that can’t be beat.

  Erica Ruth Neubauer

  THE GIFTED

  Gail Bowen

  2013

  McClelland & Stewart

  The title refers to Taylor, the 15-year-old daughter of Zack Shree and stepmother Joanne Kilbourn (told from her POV), set in Regina, Saskatchewan. Taylor, inherited her deceased mother’s talent, and has painted two works of art that have raised over $40,000 in a charity auction. One of the paintings is of Julian, 19, in the nude. This shocks her parents, and even more shocking is the video of Julian having sex with their friend, an older married woman. They are even more worried as Taylor seems enamored of Julian.

  The book’s blurb states that the author’s work “...weave the domestic with the dramatic and to explore the dark side of human nature while keeping the life-affirming pillars of family and friendship standing.” The story is mostly about the relationships and little of the murder that happens on page 144, and little of the investigation thereafter The 14th in the series.

  Gay Toltl Kinman

  HERBIE’S GAME

  Timothy Hallinan

  July 2014

  Soho Press

  Things are getting personal for Junior Bender. Wattles the gangster comes to see Junior about getting some information back. His office was burglarized and an important piece of paper was stolen. A piece of paper that listed the names of a chain of criminals that ultimately ended in a hit. Wattles is understandably nervous, and he convinces Junior to help him out. There’s only one person Junior can think of who could have pulled off the heist, especially in the distinctive style in which it was done—Junior’s former mentor, Herbie. When Junior pays Herbie a visit, he finds that someone has beaten him to it—Herbie has been tortured to death. Junior’s rage and desire for revenge is a deep well. Herbie was more than a mentor for Junior—he was a father figure. Junior starts down the list of criminals, trying to untangle the knots in the story to figure out who ordered the hit—and who is looking for revenge.