NICK KOLAKOWSKI - BOISE LONGPIG HUNTING CLUB (2018)

Synopsis/blurb....

When you want someone found, you call bounty hunter Jake Halligan. He’s smart, tough, and best of all, careful on the job. But none of those skills seem to help him when a shadowy group starts taking his life apart piece by piece. 

First Jake comes home to find a dead body in his gun safe. He thinks it’s a warning—and when you drag people back to jail for a living, the list of people who want to send that kind of message is very long indeed. With backup from his sister Frankie, an arms dealer and dapper criminal, Jake plunges into the Idaho underworld, confronting everyone from brutal Aryan assassins to cops who want his whole family in jail. 

But as Jake soon discovers, those threats are small-time compared to the group that’s really after him. And nothing—not bounty hunting, not even all his years in Iraq—can prepare him for what’s coming next. Jake’s about to become a player in the most dangerous game ever invented… 

Boise Longpig Hunting Club is a wild ride into the dark heart of the American dream, where even the most brutal desires can be fulfilled for a price, and nobody is safe from the rich and powerful. 

Praise for BOISE LONGPIG HUNTING CLUB: 

“Nick Kolakowski spins a ripping pulp yarn of smart-ass bounty hunters and bad-ass crime queenpins caught in the Jean-Claude Van God-Damnedest take on The Most Dangerous Game since Hard Target, but with no bad accents.” —Thomas Pluck, author of Bad Boy Boogie and Blade of Dishonor 

A bounty hunter with a marriage to repair and a notorious sister who's an illegal arms dealer. Welcome to the world of Jake Halligan, a veteran of a few desert conflicts and currently contemplating the return into his life of his ex-wife, Janine and the loss of some weapons from his mostly legal gun stash. Recovering his guns from Zombie Bill might be problematic as Bill wants to trade the guns in return for Jake turning in his sister Frankie to the law. That's not going to happen. Keeping hold of his wife a second time around might also prove difficult.

The above scenario is effectively act one in our drama. Our second part concerns more trouble aplenty for the Halligan's as our uneasy trio of Jake, Janice and Frankie become unwitting pawns in a rich man's game - payback for a long ago transgression of the sibling's deceased father.

In no particular order we have - a kidnapping, a quarry confrontation, some sisterly support with heavy weaponry, a confrontation with a dodgy cop, a life and near death skirmish with an axe-wielding neo-Nazi, a death in custody, a dead girl in his gun safe, some tension in the family, a drop in on the neighbours, the downside of bounty hunting with a heart-wrenching take down of a grieving father, another dead kid connected to the gun safe girl, an investigation and a set-up, a less than pleasant chit-chat with some obscenely rich and powerful people full of their own self importance and an unshakeable sense of entitlement, leading to a compelling and climactic manhunt with the Boise Longpig Hunting Club, some familial bonding and a dusting off of those hard-earned military skills.

Plus points
Interesting characters - tick - and ones I wouldn't mind seeing in further adventures if time allows
Pace - tick
Story lines - tick
Action - tick
Setting - tick
Resolution - tick
Banter, dialogue, black humour - tick
Length - 155 pages - perfect - tick

Downside
Nothing really, one minor gripe - I probably didn't take too much to sister Frankie initially, but she'd grown on me by the end

4.5 from 5

Nick Kolakowski's books have been enjoyed before - A Brutal Bunch of Heartbroken Saps and Slaughterhouse Blues both earlier this year.

Read in October, 2018
Published - 2018
Page count - 155
Source - review copy received from author
Format - ePub file read on laptop

JAMES W. HALL - WHEN YOU CAN'T STOP (2018)

Synopsis/blurb....

One woman’s quest for revenge, a dangerous international conspiracy, and ruthless corporations intertwine in this page-turner from bestselling author James W. Hall.

Despite Harper McDaniel’s best efforts, the man responsible for the murder of her husband and son was exonerated thanks to some slick legal wrangling. This blatant injustice has only made Harper more determined than ever to bring down the culprit. Her ammunition? Incriminating information about his olive oil operations in Italy. But the clues that she follows are leading her into the depths of a corrupt plot that is more poisonous and far-reaching than she realizes. And more dangerous, too, because her enemy is prepared for her pursuit.

Accompanied by her brother and mobster grandfather, Harper treks across Spain from Seville to a medieval castle, home to a successful olive farmer who is one of Harper’s closest allies. Shadowed every step of the way by a ruthless assassin, Harper is moving ever deeper into enemy territory—and questioning whom she can really trust on this personal path of justice and revenge.

My first James W. Hall book for a few years and my first time reading him where pretty much all the action takes place outside of Florida, in this case Spain and Italy. It's the second book with Harper McDaniel as the lead and though it worked well enough on its own, my enjoyment probably suffered a bit from not having read the first book - When They Come For You. My own fault, as I downloaded it on Net Galley then never actually got around to reading it.

McDaniel is hurting. She's grieving for her husband and son, probably murdered in the first book I guess. Revenge on Lester Albion, head of a huge global corporation and the man responsible for their death is her sole raison d'etre for living. It's a lone wolf task, as her brother, Nick and grandfather, Sal are side-lined initially as she decides to go it alone. However, as events unfold they become more and more involved.

We open with Harper undergoing some martial arts training in Spain, preparing herself physically and mentally for the inevitable confrontation further down the line. While she's involved in this, we have her tracked by Gerda, a former Olympic medal-winning decathlete now-turned assassin. Gerda is under instruction from someone at Albion, where her mother is the number two to kingpin, Lester to keep tabs on Harper.

Gerda has her own complex issues to deal with - sexually abused by her father, until she rebelled and killed him - her mother all the while aware of the abuse, but unwilling to act on Gerda's behalf. She's emotionally stunted and as begets a former Olympian, she's ultra-competitive and driven. She's ruthless, efficient and cold. Effectively an automaton - point her in a direction, whisper in her ear and watch her go and do her master's bidding. Unknown to her, she's also the object of head honcho Lester Albion affections.

Lester Albion himself is a weird one. Fixated on Gerda and determined to morph from a puny physical specimen into a man worthy of her attention. The regular blood swaps-cum-tranfusions with his young daughter are aimed towards that goal, despite the possible detriment to his daughter's health. He's infatuated and distracted.

Harper is investigating Albion Industries recent diversion into the olive oil industry in the hope of luring her nemesis out of his lair and executing her own brand of justice on him, having lost faith in the authorities ability or interest in achieving a legal solution.

Gerda eventually gets orders to eliminate Harper and there are several efforts to close her deal. All thwarted and usually at a cost to some innocent bystanders. She's a whirlwind/wrecking ball is Gerda and responsible for a swift sharp increase in mortality rates in our Mediterranean settings. Our heroine, Harper dodging assassination while investigating wrong-doing and scheming herself makes for quite an exciting and interesting read. 

I enjoyed the back-drop of olive growing and the micro-potted biography of the industry's evolution and its importance both culturally and economically to olive growing regions of both Spain and Italy, with the potential for corruption both with EU agricultural funds and the organised criminal involvement in fake extra virgin oil. I never knew it could be so lucrative.

Hall packs quite a lot into these 330-odd pages .... revenge, corruption, scheming, unsavoury family secrets, poverty - fuelling ambition, love rivals, a rotten to the core corporation, some uneasy insiders, olive-growing, pursuit, murder, a chicken, a rekindled romance, arson, neck scarf strangulation - more than once, fisticuffs, Mob bodyguards, hospitals, hotels, olive groves and secret burials, trust issues, a sick daughter, suspected betrayal, confrontation and eventual resolution.

I did like it. Not sure that I would have been heart-broken had events turned out differently, but I was keen to go where Hall took us. I wanted a resolution however that transpired and I got one. I enjoyed the back-story and the various family history and dirt of all our players, not just that of Harper and her clan.

There's plenty of action throughout and elements of humour in some of our confrontations and exchanges and I liked the setting. Not too bad overall, though undoubtedly I would have appreciated it more had I read the earlier book with Harper. My fault for coming at it ass-backwards.

3.5 from 5

James W. Hall has written 20 plus books over the years. I'm more familiar with his long-running series character - Thorn and a Florida setting, though I haven't read anything from him since 2010 when I started compiling a reading record. Hall has also excelled as a poet and short-story writer.

Read in October, 2018
Published - 2018
Page count - 333
Source - Net Galley review copy
Format - ePub file read on laptop

2 BY MICHAEL Z. LEWIN

A couple from the late 80s and early 90s and Michael Z. Lewin this week, not an author I've yet had the pleasure of reading.

I do like the NO EXIT PRESS covers on these two, especially Underdog.






















Lewin hails from the US, but has been a long-time resident of the UK, currently living in the west country.

Lewin has written twenty plus books across three series including about half a dozen standalone novels. His first Albert Sansom mystery - Ask the Right Question was published in 1972. The other two series feature Leroy Powder and Adele Buffington.

He's still writing today - The Right Thing, a novella was published last year.


Michael Z. Lewin has his website here.

Childproof  (1988)

It seems that someone has it in for the Indianapolis Service agency, Hendricks, when the head of one of the offices, Adele Buffington is assaulted in her office and witnesses the assailant copying some of her files. Then a man with the same name as an ex-Hendricks employee is found murdered.

In between having to cope with her workload of abused children, bewildered parents, and overworked staff, and having to deal with both a love-sick daughter and the baffling affair of Donna East - who has gone missing with her two children after being promised a fortune by a mysterious visitor - Adele solves the case in this refreshingly original mystery.

Michael Lewin was born in Massachusetts in 1942 and educated at Harvard. Since 1971 he has lived in Frome, Somerset and is a full-time writer. He has three "characters" - Albert Samson, Leroy Powder and Adele Buffington. Adele Buffington is the girlfriend of Albert Samson, who appears in many other Michael Lewin novels including Our of Time and Ask the Right Question.

Underdog (1993)

Jan Moro is a small businessman. Very small. He dines behind restaurants and showers where he can. Jan Moro is, in point of fact, homeless... and on the run from Billy Cigar, a likely type who has made his mark murdering people in South America. How did Billy ever notice Moro? Why are all the Indianapolis cops looking for Jan? It all started with a big man being mean to a small dog.... then Moro got one of his great ideas. Now he has become the world's first homeless P.I. and if he can't figure out what makes Billy Cigar burn and how to give the Law what they want.... he won't get out of this concrete jungle alive!

"An ironic commentator on the state of Midwestern bizarre." - New York Times

" A writer with style, sensibility and wit...." - Ross Macdonald

HARLAN COBEN - HOME (2016)

Synopsis/blurb.....

The boy who had been missing for 10 years was right in front of him.... 

A decade ago kidnappers grabbed two boys from wealthy families and demanded ransom, then went silent. No trace of the boys ever surfaced. 

For 10 years their families have been left with nothing but painful memories and a quiet desperation for the day that has finally miraculously arrived: Myron Bolitar and his friend, Win, believe they have located one of the boys, now a teenager. Where has he been for 10 years, and what does he know about the day, more than half a life ago, when he was taken? And most critically: what can he tell Myron and Win about the fate of his missing friend? 

Drawing on his singular talent, Harlan Coben delivers an explosive and deeply moving thriller about friendship, family and the meaning of home.

It's been a year or two (actually five)  since I read anything from Harlan Coben and while I enjoyed this, it's probably going to be a similar period before I pick up anything else by him. It was good, but not especially amazing. My wife enjoyed it as a beach read on our recent holiday, but even for her it wasn't the sort of book you immediately press into someone else's hands and keep pestering them to start it and then nagging them constantly as to where they were up to. I had mostly indifference from her when I cracked the spine.

We have two missing boys, Patrick and Rhys from ten years ago and one suddenly turns up in London. After a struggle - a fight and three deaths - a period of negotiation and another confrontation with a violent London pimp, one of the boys, Patrick is rescued. But where is Rhys?

Myron Bolitar is our main character. He's a retired sports agent and a famous almost basketball star and to be honest I'm not too sure what his job is now. Probably rich - I think he sold his sports agency and is now a bit of a busybody. One of the missing boys, Rhys was his best friend Win's cousin's child. Win, another rich dude apparently hasn't stopped looking for the boy in the intervening years.

I quite enjoyed the set-up and the riddle of what happened to the boys. There is frustration for Win and Myron, as Patrick's family don't want him troubled by questions about Rhys especially after the trauma of his lifestyle and the injuries he suffered in his rescue. The pair, then try and start at the beginning, re-looking into the investigation from the moment the boys went missing.

Family, conflict, secrets, a vanished au-pair, unresolved grief, marital difficulties, London rent boys and an underage sex business, siblings and friendships, support and understanding, some teenage help in the form of Myron's nephew - Mickey and cohorts, a scary cross-dresser and lots more.

Eventually we get answers and everything is resolved. The actual outcome is the only believable option really. I just didn't feel any particular emotion when we have our resolution. I was interested in what happened, but I wasn't happy/sad/elated/shaken (delete as necessary) at how things turned out. 

An okay mystery, fairly fast-paced. I didn't mind Myron as a main character. He means well. We have his connection to his nephew and the love he shows for his parents and his fiancee. He's one of the good guys. His friend Win, I'm guessing has appeared in earlier books in the series - Home is the 11th. I didn't take to him at all. Coben strives to portray him as dark, enigmatic and mysterious. He doesn't like attachments and romantic entanglements and is aware that he's the loner type. He disappears from Myron's life for long periods at a time. I found him to be a massive tool frankly. 

All in all - an okay read but not one that has me shouting from the rooftops for others to read. Does what is says on the tin.

3 from 5


I will read more from Coben in the future - I have a few on the pile and he is one of the few authors my wife enjoys.

No Second Chance , Play Dead, Hold Tight, Tell No One have been enjoyed to a greater or lesser extent in the past.


Read in October, 2018
Published - 2016
Page count - 416
Source - purchased copy
Format - paperback

A RIGHT BUNCH OF CHARLIES

A few from the stacks with Charlie as the author and Charlie as the protagonist.........

Author Charlies........Charlie Stella, Charlie Higson, Charlie Huston

Protagonist Charlies ........ Charlie Muffin from Brian Freemantle, Charlie Hood from Duane Swierczynski, Charlie Hardie from T. Jefferson Parker

The Inscrutable Charlie Muffin (1979)

Brian Freemantle has published 15 books in his Charlie Muffin series, of which I've only read the first - Charlie M back in 2014 - and which I loved which makes my continued ignoring of Freemantle's books all the more baffling. Inscrutable in the third in the series. Freemantle has written a whole lot else besides...

On-the-run spy Charlie Muffin investigates the destruction of an ocean liner

They call Charlie Muffin a traitor. He has been on the run ever since the blow-up in Berlin, when British intelligence declared him obsolete and tried to kill him. Charlie outsmarted them then, and he has done so ever since, staying one step ahead by forgoing any semblance of an even halfway normal life. Now he is alone in Hong Kong and his only protector and friend, Rupert Willoughby, is a hemisphere away.

Now Rupert is in trouble. He has invested £6 million in a massive new ocean liner but the ship is destroyed by arsonists, burning completely down in a Hong Kong harbor. The owners blame Chinese agents, but Charlie smells a rat and agrees to investigate. But the conspiracy is more dangerous than anyone knew, and it's not long before Charlie realizes that his good deed could be his last.

My Dead Body (2009)

Charlie Huston is another author I haven't read for a few years - the back end of 2013 saw The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death enjoyed. Huston has a few standalone novels and two series to his name featuring Joe Pitt - a sort of Vampire and Hank Thompson - not a vampire. Vampire's aren't usually my kind of reading which may partly explain the near five year break from his work, but I have enjoyed the odd one I've read - before 2102 when I started the blog. My Dead Body is the fifth and currently the last published in the Pitt series


NOBODY LIVES FOREVER. NOT EVEN A VAMPYRE.

Just ask Joe Pitt. After exposing the secret source of blood for half of Manhattan's Vampyres, he's definitely a dead man walking. He's been a punching bag and a bullet magnet for every Vampyre Clan in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and the Bronx, not to mention a private eye, an enforcer, an exile, and a vigilante, but now he's just a target with legs.

For a year he's sloshed around the subway tunnels and sewers, tapping the veins of the lost, while above ground a Vampyre civil war threatens to drag the Clans into the sunlight once and for all. What's it gonna take to dig him up? Just the search for a missing girl who's carrying a baby that just might be the destiny of Vampyre-kind. Not that Joe cares all that much about destiny and such. What he cares about is that his ex-girl Evie wants him to take the gig. What's the risk? Another turn playing pigeon in a shooting gallery. What's the reward? Maybe one shot of his own. What's he aiming for? Nothing much. Just all the evil at the heart of his world.

Charles Higson - Happy Now (1993)

Not much Charlie Higson can't turn his hand to - acting, comedy, writing - books and for television and radio. I think I love him most for The Fast Show with Paul Whitehouse and others. Before he turned his hand to writing YA novels - my son and I met him at a book signing for one of the Young Bond books. He penned four novels in the 90s. Happy Now is the second.

'I do not believe that a man can be truly happy unless he fully understands what he is and can act accordingly ... how can it be wrong to be happy?' 

These lines are taken from Will's diary, a seemingly innocuous exercise book which details his house-breaking activities. Will carefully selects houses - forty-seven so far - ensuring their owners will be in. As they cook their supper or watch television, Will (wearing surgical gloves and leaving no trace behind) enters not only their houses, but their secret lives. A secret museum, housed in his loft, is 'held together by sex'. All his trophies are carefully catalogued and he keeps a very precise diary of his activities and his thoughts. 

All his life Tom Kendall had lived as quietly and normally as possible ... but he gave people the creeps ... 'kids didn't like him, or the cat'. When Tom discovers Will's diary he decides to adopt the same quest for happiness. Tom has problems of his own - a difficult temper, problems with his girlfriend, Maddie, and an overwhelming sense of powerlessness. Perhaps Will's diary holds the key?

L.A. Outlaws (2008)

I first read this author back in the late 80s, enjoying Laguna Heat and Little Saigon. Altogether he's penned about twenty books including six in the Charlie Hood series, which I haven't yet started. He's won three Edgar Awards and he's very good. Most of his books seem to be set in Southern California. L.A. Outlaws is the first in the Hood series

Los Angeles is gripped by the exploding celebrity of Allison Murietta, her real identity unknown, a modern-day Jesse James with the compulsion to steal beautiful things, the vanity to invite the media along, and the conscience to donate much of her bounty to charity. Nobody ever gets hurt--until a job ends with ten gangsters lying dead and a half- million dollars worth of glittering diamonds missing. 

Rookie Deputy Charlie Hood discovers the bodies, and he prevents an eyewitness--a schoolteacher named Suzanne Jones--from leaving the scene in her Corvette. Drawn to a mysterious charisma that has him off-balance from the beginning, Hood begins an intense affair with Suzanne. As the media frenzy surrounding Allison's exploits swells to a fever pitch and the Southland's most notorious killer sets out after her, a glimmer of recognition blooms in Hood, forcing him to choose between a deeply held sense of honor and a passion that threatens to consume him completely. With a stone-cold killer locked in relentless pursuit, Suzanne and Hood continue their desperate dance around the secrets that brought them together, unsure whether each new dawn may signal the day their lies catch up with them.

Hell and Gone (2011)

I started reading Duane Swierczynski in the mid 2000s - The Blonde, Secret Dead Men, Expiration Date and Severance Package before losing track of his books. I re-discovered him a few years ago and have since enjoyed Canary , The Wheelman and Fun and Games - the first in his three book Charlie Hood series

Left for dead after an epic shootout that blew the lid off a billion-dollar conspiracy, ex-cop Charlie Hardie quickly realizes that when you're dealing with The Accident People, things can get worse. Drugged, bound and transported by strange operatives of unknown origin, Hardie awakens to find himself captive in a secret prison that houses the most dangerous criminals on earth.

And then things get really bad. Because this isn't just any prison. It's a Kafkaesque nightmare that comes springloaded with a brutal catch-22: Hardie's the warden. And any attempt to escape triggers a "death mechanism" that will kill everyone down here--including a group of innocent guards. Faced with an unworkable paradox, and knowing that his wife and son could be next on the Accident People's hit list, Hardie has only one choice: fight his way to the heart of this hell hole and make a deal with the Devil himself.

Rough Riders (2012)

I could happily re-read all the Charlie Stella books I've read thus far if I had time and if I hadn't actually parted with them a few years ago. He writes about New York and mob wannabes mainly. Jimmy Bench-press, Eddie's World, Charlie Opera, Cheapskates, Shakedown, Mafiya, Johnny Porno. Just the titles hooked me. I still have Rough Riders - a sequel of sorts to Eddie's World and Tommy Red still to enjoy. I wonder when he has a new one out?


Rough Riders is the sequel to Charlie Stella's first novel, Eddie's World. Ten years have passed and the action has moved from the streets of New York to the prairie state of North Dakota. What happens when a multiple murderer, the mob, a former cop, and the FBI mix it up in the frozen heartland?

SEPTEMBER 2018 - READING LIST AND PICK OF THE MONTH

Ten books read in the month which is my monthly target. One standout FIVE STAR read, several very, very good reads, a few good and a couple okay with just the one which I wasn't particularly enamoured with.

We spent time in the company of a hitman-turned-protector; a cop fixer for the stars in 60s San Francisco; a Paignton PI getting down and dirty; another guilt-ridden PI caught up in the Los Angeles Rodney King riots in the early 90s; a Floridian orange grower caught unawares in New York at Christmas time; a low level mobster grave-robbing and framed in 60s New York; a jaded reporter on the hunt for a story and a missing girl in Las Vegas; a simple Glaswegian graveyard worker inadvertently caught up with a criminal gang; a Luxembourg based head-hunter and a magazine of crime fiction shorts and reviews.

My favourite in the month and the FIVE STAR amazeballs was Kevin Wignall's For the Dogs

Three other books were scored a fraction less with 4.5 STARS each - Jerry Kennealy's Screen Test, Paul D. Marks and White Heat and Meat Bubbles and Other Stories from Tom Leins

The full ten were.....

Matt Phillips - Bad Luck City (2016) (4)

Jerry Kennealy - Screen Test (2016) (4.5)

Kevin Wignall - For the Dogs (2004) aka The Hunter's Prayer (2015) (5)

Paul D. Marks - White Heat (2012) (4.5)

Ed McBain - Downtown (1989) (4)

Ian Rankin - A Cool Head (2009) (4)

Tom Leins - Meat Bubbles and Other Stories (2018) (4.5)

Keith Jeffrey (ed.) - Bullet Issue 3 (2004) (3)

Donald E. Westlake - The Busy Body (1966) (3.5)

Daniel Pembrey - The Candidate (2013) (2.5)


3 of the 10 were 4 STAR reads and very enjoyable - Matt Phillips and Bad Luck City, Ian Rankin's A Cool Head and Ed McBain's Downtown

1 - 3.5 STAR read enjoyed a fraction less Donald E. Westlake's The Busy Body

1 - 3 STAR read which was okay - Bullet Issue 3 - edited by Keith Jeffrey

1 - 2.5 STAR which didn't really do it for me - Daniel Pembrey's The Candidate, though the format probably didn't help - an Audio Book which kind of bumped me out of it as the narrator was rather annoying.

10 reads from 10 different authors,

3 of the 10 were new-to-me authors - I can't really count editor Keith Jeffrey in the mix. I have more to read on the pile from Paul D. Marks, Kevin Wignall and Jerry Kennealy

Ian Rankin, Ed McBain, Donald Westlake, Tom Leins, Matt Phillips and Daniel Pembrey have all been enjoyed before and I still have them all sitting on the TBR pile. I do also have more issues of the Keith Jeffrey edited Bullet on the TBR pile as well.

Gender analysis -  9 male authors, ZERO female - OOPS - shocking but no big surprise. Deja-vous - I keep deferring my all female reading month. There were female contributors to Bullet, but that's just lame claiming that. Quickly moving on.

Of the 9 authors read, 2 are English, 5 hailed from the US, 1 from Scotland, 1 born in Belgium but might class himself as English and the editor of Bullet might possibly be English, who knows?

9 of the 10 of the reads were fiction - 5 novels, 3 novellas, 1 novel length set of inter-connected short stories. Bullet Magazine was a combination of fiction short stories and non-fiction reviews and hat tips to musicians, books and authors.

5 books were from this decade, 1 from 2018, 2 from 2016, 1 from 2013 and 1 from 2012.

3 were from the noughties, a couple from 2004 and 1 from 2009

1 was a late 1980s book - McBain's Downtown from 1989 and lastly one from the 60s - Donald E. Westlake's The Busy Body, originally published in 1966

I'm quite pleased that a few of the books - 4 were read from the collection, now re-homed in my man-cave garage after being in storage for about 18 months during a protracted on-off-on again house move. I hope to dip more from my book tubs in the future. I have too many books for conventional shelving!


Settings -  Las Vegas present day, 60s San Francisco, 90s Los Angeles, 60s and 80s New York, Glasgow and Edinburgh from 10 years ago, modern day Paignton on England's Riviera, Luxembourg. Kevin Wignall's For the Dogs offered a road trip around Europe - Italy, France, England, Switzerland, Hungary and the Caribbean as well as Australia fleetingly.
Our crime fiction magazine probably took us everywhere but the story locations weren't exactly highlighted.

Publishers - 2 from Near to the Knuckle (aka Close to the Bone), 2 from Down and Out Books, 1 from Mysterious Press, 1 from Mandarin, 1 from Simon and Schuster, 1 from Orion Books - Quick Reads, 1 x magazine enthusiastically self-published, 1 x Amazon Media/Audiobook


7 of the 10 reads were pre-owned. 3 were provided by the publisher - 2 from Down and Out Books, 1 from Near to the Knuckle. I think they are referring to themselves as Close to the Bone now.

Favourite cover? Jerry Kennealy's Screen Test - got to love Steve McQueen ain't ya?

Second favourite cover - Tom Leins and Meat Bubbles and Other Stories

My reads were this long 128 - 320 - 228 - 252 - 256 - 128 - 213 - 44 - 179 - 142

Total page count =  1890 (1511 in August ) ....... an increase of nearly 380

2 were Kindle reads, 2 were Audio Books (something quite new to me) and 2 were paperbacks, 1 was a hardback, 1 was a PDF, 1 was an ePub file read on my laptop and 1 was an A5-sized magazine


1 < 50,
0 between 51 < 100,
4 between 101 < 200,
4 between 201 < 300,
1 between 301 < 400,
0  > 400 pages

Jerry Kennealy's Screen Test was the longest read at 320 pages

Keith Jeffrey's edited Bullet Issue 3 was the shortest at 44 pages long.

2 BY ROSS THOMAS

A couple this week from US author Ross Thomas and someone I probably haven't read in about 25 years or so. I think I first discovered in him the late 80s, enjoyed something - can't remember what. I subsequently bought a few books from him, shelved them and moved on.

Ross Thomas wrote about twenty-five novels in a career that saw him published from 1966 to 1994 - crime fiction, thrillers and espionage - including three different series characters - Mac McCorkle, Arthur Case Wu and Philip St. Ives under the pseudonym Oliver Bleeck. 

Briarpatch won the 1985 Edgar Award for best novel.

In his non-novelist life he was a reporter, a foreign correspondent and a public relations executive in the US, Europe and Africa. He died in 1995.

I suppose after twenty plus years I ought to blow the dust off these and read them!


Briarpatch (1984)

When Detective Felicity Dill is blown to smithereens by a car bomb, her brother, Benjamin, a consultant to a Senate sub-committee, flies to their hometown for her funeral. But Benjamin has two other missions in mind: to find Felicity's murderer and to get a much-needed deposition for his sub-committee.

A lot has changed in the burgeoning Sunbelt city of his youth, and Dill soon uncovers a vicious web of murder and political skullduggery that involves a motley array of friends and enemies from his own past and his sister's mysterious present: Dill's boyhood friend who got rich as an arms dealer in Vietnam; a spaced-out electronics genius: several members of the local police; a very beautiful lawyer; and an ex-CIA spook whom everybody in Washington wants to meet.

Sexy, streetwise, fast-paced and funny, Briarpatch is the novel all Thomas fans - and everyone else - have been waiting for.

"There are very few of our contemporary entertainers as consistently entertaining as Mr Thomas and ever fewer who can match him for style and power...." - The New Yorker

The Fourth Durango (1989)


In the God-forsaken city of Durango a man can get lost. In fact, it can be arranged - for a small fee, payable to the Mayor and Chief of Police....

Jack Adair, ex-judge-turned-jailbird, is a man who wants to get lost badly. 400,000 US Dollars badly. That's the money floating around a Panama bank with Jack's name on it after an alleged bribery deal.

Father Teddy - aka the Snout, aka Theodore Cotraire - is a man with a .22 shotgun and a mission, a mission to save Jack. He'd like to fond him badly. 400,000 US Dollars badly.

As the hideously disfigured Teddy drifts around town preaching through the barrels of his gun, the killings start to rise, and a macabre pursuit ensues. But can Jack find Teddy before Teddy finds Jack and the Mayor and Chief of Police find Jack's body....?

"The most knowledgeable, exciting and original writer in hid field" Julian Symons, INDEPENDENT