MAY 2022 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST!

May's additions......

new crime, old crime, 5 new-to-me authors, and one dude I've enjoyed before.

John Godey - A Thrill a Minute with Jack Albany (1966) - Kindle Unlimited

John Godey is most famously known for the novel The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, which I have on the TBR pile (as well as a copy of the original film with Walter Matthau). Having a subscription to KU I thought I'd take a punt on an earlier book by him. There a second book with Jack Albany if I like this one.  

Jack Albany's world is turned upside down when he is mistaken for muscle from the mob. The actor is sucked into the world of organized crime as the gangsters he has taken up with plot the kidnapping and random of the mayor of New York City for a cool $10,000,000. Jack must find a way out of the gang and secure the safety of his new love, Sally.

Gabino Iglesias - The Devil Takes You Home (2022) - Net Galley review site 

I've heard good things about this one and was happy to stick my hand up for a review copy. Forunately I got the thumbs up. I have some of Gabino's earlier books on the TBR pile.

From an award-winning author comes a genre-defying thriller about a father desperate to salvage what's left of his family—even if it means a descent into violence.

Buried in debt due to his young daughter’s illness, his marriage at the brink, Mario reluctantly takes a job as a hitman, surprising himself with his proclivity for violence. After tragedy destroys the life he knew, Mario agrees to one final job: hijack a cartel’s cash shipment before it reaches Mexico. Along with an old friend and a cartel-insider named Juanca, Mario sets off on the near-suicidal mission, which will leave him with either a cool $200,000 or a bullet in the skull. But the path to reward or ruin is never as straight as it seems. As the three complicated men travel through the endless landscape of Texas, across the border and back, their hidden motivations are laid bare alongside nightmarish encounters that defy explanation. One thing is certain: even if Mario makes it out alive, he won’t return the same.

The Devil Takes You Home is a panoramic odyssey for fans of S.A. Cosby’s southern noir, Blacktop Wasteland, by way of the boundary-defying storytelling of Stephen Graham Jones and Sylvia Moreno-Garcia.

Craig Smith - Ladystinger (1992) - review copy from publisher Brash Books

BOOM! One day last week some unexpected book post!

Beautiful young grifter Maggie Rohrer picks up rich businessmen in dark hotel bars, drugs their drinks, then lures them back to their rooms and robs them once they’ve passed out. It’s a lucrative con, until one night in New Orleans when a mark tricks her, forcing her into a dangerous swindle in Jamaica that could either bankroll a new life outside of the game…or get her killed.

An Edgar Award Finalist for Best First Mystery

Adapted into the movie Scam starring Christopher Walken & Lorraine Bracco.

“Compulsive reading. . . a riveting conclusion of the white-knuckle kind.” Boston Sunday Globe

“Add some well-drawn, vicious villains with no redeeming qualities, a colorful Jamaican setting, then mix with a chilling, violent denouement for a recipe for success.” Los Angeles Daily News

Craig Henderson - Welcome to the Game (2022) - review copy Edelweiss - Above the Treeline

Another exciting debut novel which sounds amazing.

From a brilliant new voice, Welcome to the Game is a gripping

thriller that races through Motor City at heart-stopping pace as

its protagonists swerve to avoid danger at every turn 

Craig Henderson screeches onto the scene with this fast-paced debut starring

ex-rally driver Spencer Burnham. Having moved his family from England to

Detroit and opened a foreign car dealership, Spencer’s life was derailed by

the death of his beloved wife. Now disconnected from his young daughter

and losing control of the cocktail of drugs and alcohol that gets him through

the day, he only just keeps Child Protective Services at bay while his business

teeters on the edge of bankruptcy. 

Then he has a seemingly chance encounter with a charismatic but lethal

gangster, Dominic McGrath. Feeling the squeeze from informants, the rise of

tech surveillance, and a hotshot detective who’s made busting him a personal

crusade, McGrath’s been planning a last heist that would allow a comfortable

retirement, provided he can find a very special type of driver—one who’s

capable, trustworthy . . . and naïve. 

Spencer quickly proves himself behind the wheel, with his innate sense

of timing and precise, high-speed maneuvers. And McGrath even pays cash,

lots of it. But it comes at a price; Spencer finds himself playing in an arena

where rookies don’t last long. Wising up to the ruthlessness behind McGrath’s

charming façade, he tries to break free, but McGrath has too much invested

to allow him to leave. 

As the city swelters in a heat wave, the two men apply their considerable

talents to besting each other, while mistakenly assuming they have only each

other to beat. 

Zijin Chen - Bad Kids (2022) - review copy from Net Galley

Chinese author, Chinese thriller. What's not to like?

You can't choose your in-laws. One beautiful morning, Zhang Dongsheng pushes his wealthy in-laws off a mountain - the perfect crime. Or so he thinks. Even though the murders were as carefully choreographed as a play, he did not expect that three teenagers had caught him in the act. But Zhang Dongsheng seriously underestimated the smarts of those three kids. . . Dark, murky and violent, Bad Kids is the Chinese suspense thriller about the inner lives of teenagers that has taken China by storm.

Steve Goble - Wayward Son (2022) - review copy from Edelweiss - Above the Treeline

Steve Goble has been read and enjoyed before - The Bloody Black Flag and his first Ed Runyon book - City Problems, which I wasn't blown away by. I'm happy to try again with the second in the series.

A PI goes hunting for a missing boy—and ends up being prey

Ed Runyon, a former sheriff's deputy haunted by past missing child cases that went horribly wrong, is struggling to launch a PI agency and still live in the Ohio farm country he loves. His love life is in shambles, too, as his partner turns to someone else. His best friend got roughed up by a rogue cop, so Ed is in a fighting mood.

Ed finds a new focus when he is hired to find a runaway chess aficionado who is keeping secrets from his homophobic, religious parents. Finding kids is the reason he became a PI, so Ed is determined to succeed and put the demons and other problems behind him. But Jimmy Zachman made a bad move and ran into far more trouble than he was already in, and the hunt for him leads Ed to a deadly and desperate confrontation. Everything comes down to determination—and one very risky move. Ed must find Jimmy at all costs.

Perfect for fans of John Sandford and Robert Crais