PAUL HEATLEY - THE PITBULL (2015)

Synopsis/blurb......

'In times of peace, the warlike man attacks himself.'

Tom Wayman was not born a fighter. He was moulded through hardship and hatred, thrown to the dogs and left to fend for himself. 

When he fights, men cheer for him. They place bets on him. They celebrate his victories, but they just as readily lust for his blood. 

Set in the dark and dirty underworld of illegal dog-fighting, 'The Pitbull' is a hallucinogenic nightmare, a trip through hell, the story of a man more beast than human. It is his fractured relationships, his bloody battles, and his underlying, seething misanthropy.

The newest standalone novella from the author of 'The Motel Whore' trilogy, and 'The Mess', 'The Pitbull' is Paul Heatley's strangest, darkest tale yet.

No animals were harmed in the writing of this story.

Not a tale populated by unicorns and dancing fairies in an English summer meadow. Abandon hope, all ye Paul Heatley main characters.

What we have is dark, brutal, harsh, sickening and compelling - one damaged man's life exposed.

Tom fights dogs for a living, having previously been a doorman/bouncer. It's something he's rather good at, though not something he especially enjoys. It's a wage and as the novella progresses it's apparent that he's ill-equipped to do anything else.

And that's the nub. Tom's alone, separated from his ex-partner, Ellie and son, Tom Jr. who he loves. He dreams of the family life he never had, when not haunted by the nightmares of his own sadistic upbringing. He yearns for normality and reconciliation with Ellie and his boy, but while he's fighting that isn't going to happen, Ellie has made that abundantly clear.

Catch-22 for this outsider.

Another enjoyable (hmm, maybe not the right word) piece from Heatley. Similar to The Motel Whore and The Vampire in tone...... damaged people on the fringes of society, doing the best they can, with the tools they've got, struggling to arrest a slow downward spiral towards rock bottom. Arguably, in this case, Tom's not got any further to fall.

Not recommended for those of a sensitive disposition.

4.5 from 5

Paul Heatley has been read before - The Motel Whore, The Vampire, The Boy, FatBoy and An Eye For An Eye. More from him sits on the pile waiting. 

Read in January, 2019
Published - 2015
Page count  - 83
Source - purchased copy
Format - kindle

STEPHEN SOLOMITA - DANCER IN THE FLAMES (2012)

Synopsis/blurb....

Detective Boots Littlewood of Brooklyn’s 64th Precinct has been tasked with an investigation that’s hitting close to home: the murder of his police captain. It’s been called another tragic cop killing. Boots suspects something closer an organized hit and he knows in his gut that the perp in custody is an innocent man. Boots’s new partner, “Crazy” Jill Kelly, is taking it personally, too. The daughter of a murdered officer, she’s got a quick temper, a vengeful streak, and a crackerjack aim.

Once Boots and Jill hit the streets of the city they uncover more than dirty secrets. The investigation is reaching back a decade to the sordid serial crimes of the Lipstick Killer—and ahead to a cesspool of corruption and conspiracy that taints the badges of New York’s finest. But as Boots and Jill prepare for hunting season, they realize that they too have become the hunted.


Second book of 2019 and a decent read, but one not quite hitting the heights of Solomita's The Striver which I enjoyed back in 2014.

All of the book is spent in the company of Boots Littlewood, a New York detective. An investigation into the death of his bookie's sister, gets Boots a tip that a habitual car thief from his neighbourhood witnessed the death of a cop a month or two back. The thief has gone to ground, but Boots teamed up now with sexy, crazy, man-eater Jill Kelly run him to ground.

The police hierarchy are happy to pin the cop murder on the thief and close the case and Boots ain't having it. The rumour is that the dead cop was dirty and part of a clique, which is an added incentive for the murder to be swept under the carpet, especially with elections in the offing. The crux of the book then sees Boots endeavouring to spring the thief, while in conflict with the might of the NYPD and never quite sure if he is isolated or if he can trusty Crazy Jill.
 
New York, dirty cops, police politics, corruption, baseball betting on the fortunes of the Yankees, neighbourhood respect, family, a beating, a partnership in work and in bed, an investigation, an attempted hit, some payback and the revelation of a few closely guarded secrets and the real murderer. Selective justice follows.

Enjoyable, hard-hitting, hard-boiled and believable. Solomita writes convincingly about the police and their dirty laundry. Boots definitely isn't Frank Serpico, but he's likeable, determined, conflicted but mostly straight - as honest as he can be, anyway.

I have more to look forward to from Stephen Solomita on the TBR pile - as himself and under his pseudonym David Cray.

4 from 5

Read in January, 2019
Published - 2012
Page count - 244
Source - purchased copy
Format - hardback

TOM PITTS -101 (2018)

Synopsis/blurb....

On the cusp of pot legalization in California, Jerry runs afoul of some San Francisco bikers in the marijuana game. He flees straight up Highway 101 to Humboldt County to hide out deep in the hills at Vic’s, a reclusive pot farmer and old pal of his tough-as-nails mother. But trouble finds Jerry no matter where he goes and soon the bikers, a pair of stone killers, and a Russian weed tycoon named Vlad the Inhaler are all hot on Jerry’s trail. 

Fallout from the unfolding chaos piques the interest of SFPD detective, Roland Mackie, when he learns Jerry’s host, Vic, is somehow involved. It opens a twenty-year-old wound, an unsolved case called the Fulton Street Massacre, and Mackie is willing to do whatever it takes to get a pair of cuffs on the elusive Vic. 

When Jerry and his protectors are chased off the mountain and back down the 101 to an inevitable showdown back in the Bay, he learns Vic is much more than his host, he’s a mentor, his mother’s hero, and the toughest man he’s ever met. 

With an unforgettable cast of characters and an action-packed plot, 101 is a wild ride through Northern California’s “emerald triangle.” 

Another wild ride indeed...... bikers, Russian mobsters, a pot shop rip-off, a manipulative girlfriend, a feckless son, a concerned mother, a debt of honour, a chance of survival, a cannabis farm caretaker with a chequered past, a moral compass and someone who has just now painted a big red target on his back, a bothersome cop with a long memory and a couple of contract killers, trying to clean house.

Never less than interesting, 101 is a combustible mix of characters and motivations.

Jerry - son, boyfriend, reckless, naive, stealer of the cash, idiot

Vic - pot farmer, protector, living the low life since the Fulton Street Massacre, in debt to Barbara or so he feels

Ripper - Vic's friend and general gopher

Big Man - Vic's landlord/employer, connected to the bikers - the Dead BBs

Barbara - Jerry's mum, gutsy, determined, inextricably bonded with Vic after events of the past,

Piper - Jerry's girlfriend, step-daughter of the leader of the Dead BBs

Cardiff - imported Russian muscle/killer

Aaron - Cardiff's sidekick, allied to Dead BBs

Terry Naughton - top Humboldt biker

Dmitri - pot shop manager and theft victim

Vlad - Russian head honcho

Eric Tribban - Dead BB President, with a headstrong step-daughter

Roland Mackie - detective with a 20-year hard on for Vic

Tory Nagle - FBI, involved in a RICO case into the bikers

Ollie - biker, gopher and errand boy,

Meth Master Mike, Clean Man, Dandy Dan, Doughboy - window dressing characters each with a role to play

Robbery, a rip-off, a massaging of the figures, a heading for the hills and improbable sanctuary, a manhunt, a police investigation, a kidnapping for leverage, some hostile questioning, a shoot out or three, mistrust and conflict between the players - the Russians and their biker partners, which might play to Vic's advantage, a stakeout, a road trip, a return to the San Francisco and more bloodshed.

Violent, fast-paced, fresh, on-point, savvy, knowing, populated by an entertaining cast, a lot of whom become collateral damage as events play out. Pitts imbues even his peripheral characters with enough pep and zest for this reader to want to know more about them and spend longer in their company, even when they aren't especially attractive people.

Interesting locales - Humboldt county hillsides, the 101 and San Francisco, with a splash of Oakland thrown in.

Overall - a busy novel with never a dull moment, and a lot packed into a little (168 pages to my copy). Extremely satisfying and entertaining - my kind of book.

4.5 from 5

101 was my second dance with Tom Pitts after his fantastic American Static was enjoyed late 2017.

His earlier works - Piggyback, Hustle and Knuckleball still cry out to me from my TBR pile.

Tom Pitts has his website here.

Read in January 2019
Published - 2018
Page count - 168
Source - review copy from author
Format - PDF


Q+A with Tom Pitts - January 2018

2 BY BEAU JOHNSON

A couple of short story collections from Beau Johnson this week. 

If Paul D. Brazill and Paul Heatley like his work, I'm pretty sure I shall enjoy these two sets, featuring (mostly, I guess) Johnson's main man, Bishop Rider.

Beau Johnson has his website here and you can check out some of his stories here.

Catch him on Twitter - @beaujohnson44




A Better Kind of Hate (2017)

The world has never been perfect. The world has never been all bad. But there has always been evil and men who drink of it. This ends now.

Enter Bishop Rider and people like him who have had enough and are willing to embrace what most will not. The world will never be perfect. The world will never be all bad. It’s the middle we must embrace. This, a better kind of hate.

Praise for A BETTER KIND OF HATE:

“Hard hitting stories of lives on the razor’s edge.” —Paul D. Brazill, author of Too Many Crooks, A Case of Noir, Guns of Brixton, The Last Laugh and Kill Me Quick!




The Big Machine Eats (2018)

Life has never been easy. Life has never been kind. It is always hungry. It is never full. Enter the struggles within the pages of The Big Machine Eats. Where fathers clash with sons, cannibals turn on cannibals, and sometimes sandwich meat is far from the worst choice a person can make.

These stories, along with the continuing adventures of Bishop Rider, make up the bulk of this collection. They are not for the faint of heart. They are not for those who fail to believe one should get what one deserves. We must help ourselves. We must help those who find themselves unable. If not, it’s as the sign says: The Big Machine Will Eat.

Praise for THE BIG MACHINE EATS:

“Beau Johnson has put together a collection of stories so compelling that you will want to set aside a few hours each time you come to it. One just isn’t enough, and the next thing you know you’ll be grumpy at work because you stayed up way past your bedtime.” —Paul Heatley, author of Fatboy

2018 - MY READING YEAR

More for my own amusement than any expectation that this holds any interest to anyone else....

I surpassed my annual target of 120 books for the year, totalling 137 for 2018.
Books is a somewhat loose term, insofar as I'll count anything available to source on its own as a book.

The vast majority of my reading was "crime fiction" though I have no idea on the number of books in the various sub-genres - PIs, police procedurals, Noir, Cosies, mysteries, thrillers, hard-boiled, who-dunits .......

QUALITY - subjective obviously - but overall no stinker books encountered, which if I approach my reading on the basis of selecting what I think I will enjoy isn't a surprise.

More of the same needed in 2019, I reckon.

11 - 5 STAR READS
55 - 4.5 STARS
51 - 4 STARS
6   - 3.5 STARS
13 - 3 STARS
1   - 2.5 STARS

AGEING - I think I've called myself out on my oft-repeated claim that I enjoy books from the 60s, 70s and 80s in a pre-tech age. Yeah man - you enjoy them, but you don't read them!

I'll see if I can get double digits for 60s, 70s, 80s and 90s this year.

1 from the 1930/40s - a collection of pieces previously released singly
1 from the 1940s
1 from the 1950s
2 from the 1960s
0 from the 1970s
1 from the 1980s
4 from the 1990s
10 from the 2000s
74 from the 2010s
43 from 2018




FACT v FICTION - I used to target myself with one non-fiction book a month.
That's gone for a Burton then!

Try and read more in 2019, which shouldn't be too challenging.

134 fiction
3 non-fiction




READING FORMAT
The kindle wins - hopefully in 2019 I'll read more physical books

81.5 Kindle

28 paperback
10 Epub file on laptop
8   PDF
5   hardback
3   audible
1   magazine
.5  iPhone

LENGTH
Does size matter?

14  <50 pages
16  51-100 pages
33  101-200 pages
44  201-300 pages
24  301-400 pages
6    400+ pages

My longest read was 640 pages - The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair by Joel Dicker
My shortest was 13 pages - Breaking Spirits by Glenn McGoldrick

DIFFERENT AUTHORS
103 in total, plus 4 anthologies which had multiple authors.
One author was read under two different published names - Jack Strange/Jack D. McLean

NEW-TO-ME AUTHORS
59 in the year

POPULAR AUTHORS
15 authors were read more than once

12 times Lawrence Block
3 each by Nick Kolakowski, Graham Smith, Robert Parker, Glenn McGoldrick
10 authors twice








GENDER ANALYSIS
77 male authors (with 105 books)
26 female authors (with 28 books)










AUTHOR NATIONALITY
14 different countries represented, not too much from Europe overall and nothing Scandinavian - Don't Cry For Me Nordic Crime.

46 USA
27 ENGLAND
8 SCOTLAND
3 CANADA, AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND
2 IRELAND, NORTHERN IRELAND
1 SOUTH AFRICA, MALAYA, BELGIUM, SWITZERLAND, ZIMBABWE, GERMANY, GREAT BRITAIN (unable to ascertain whether from England, Scotland or Wales)
with a couple UNKNOWN




SOURCE
I'll try and read more pre-owned books in 2019

55 pre-owned
25 publishers
19 Kindle Unlimited trial
15 authors
10 Net Galley
8  publicists
5  Edelweiss

PAGES READ

Monthly - 2761 - 4170 - 2909 - 1022 - 533 - 1816 - 2966 - 1511 - 1890 - 4481 - 2667 - 1247

Total - 27973

Monthly average - 2331 pages
Average book length - 204 pages

FAVOURITE COVERS

DECEMBER 2018 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST! (PART 2)

Make hay while the sun shines, which is what I did in December - the intention being to start reading some of the books I own in 2019 and stop buying more. (I'll see how that goes!)

Here's six more that were acquired in December......

Don Winslow - The Force (2017) - purchased

I can't actually remember what was the last Winslow novel I read, but it's been a few years now. Maybe I can address that oversight in 2019?

The acclaimed, award-winning, bestselling author of The Cartel - voted one of the Best Books of the Year by more than sixty publications, including the New York Times - makes his William Morrow debut with a cinematic epic as explosive, powerful, and unforgettable as Mystic River and The Wire.

Our ends know our beginnings, but the reverse isn't true . . . 

All Denny Malone wants is to be a good cop.

He is "the King of Manhattan North," a, highly decorated NYPD detective sergeant and the real leader of "Da Force." Malone and his crew are the smartest, the toughest, the quickest, the bravest, and the baddest, an elite special unit given unrestricted authority to wage war on gangs, drugs and guns. Every day and every night for the eighteen years he's spent on the Job, Malone has served on the front lines, witnessing the hurt, the dead, the victims, the perps. He's done whatever it takes to serve and protect in a city built by ambition and corruption, where no one is clean - including Malone himself. 

What only a few know is that Denny Malone is dirty: he and his partners have stolen millions of dollars in drugs and cash in the wake of the biggest heroin bust in the city's history. Now Malone is caught in a trap and being squeezed by the Feds, and he must walk the thin line between betraying his brothers and partners, the Job, his family, and the woman he loves, trying to survive, body and soul, while the city teeters on the brink of a racial conflagration that could destroy them all. 

Based on years of research inside the NYPD, this is the great cop novel of our time and a book only Don Winslow could write: a haunting and heartbreaking story of greed and violence, inequality and race, crime and injustice, retribution and redemption that reveals the seemingly insurmountable tensions between the police and the diverse citizens they serve. A searing portrait of a city and a courageous, heroic, and deeply flawed man who stands at the edge of its abyss, The Force is a masterpiece of urban living full of shocking and surprising twists, leavened by flashes of dark humor, a morally complex and utterly riveting dissection of modern American society and the controversial issues confronting and dividing us today.

Shaun Bythell - The Diary of a Bookseller (2017) - purchased

A bit of non-fiction which I picked up when browsing after Christmas. I'm an inveterate book buyer, time to see things from the other side of the fence.....

Love, Nina meets Black Books: a wry and hilarious account of life in Scotland's biggest second-hand bookshop and the band of eccentrics and book-obsessives who work there

'The Diary Of A Bookseller is warm (unlike Bythell's freezing-cold shop) and funny, and deserves to become one of those bestsellers that irritate him so much.' (Mail on Sunday)

'Utterly compelling and Bythell has a Bennett-like eye for the amusing eccentricities of ordinary people ... I urge you to buy this book and please, even at the risk of being insulted or moaned at, buy it from a real live bookseller.' (Charlotte Heathcote Sunday Express)

Shaun Bythell owns The Bookshop, Wigtown - Scotland's largest second-hand bookshop. It contains 100,000 books, spread over a mile of shelving, with twisting corridors and roaring fires, and all set in a beautiful, rural town by the edge of the sea. A book-lover's paradise? Well, almost ...

In these wry and hilarious diaries, Shaun provides an inside look at the trials and tribulations of life in the book trade, from struggles with eccentric customers to wrangles with his own staff, who include the ski-suit-wearing, bin-foraging Nicky. He takes us with him on buying trips to old estates and auction houses, recommends books (both lost classics and new discoveries), introduces us to the thrill of the unexpected find, and evokes the rhythms and charms of small-town life, always with a sharp and sympathetic eye.

Travis Mulhauser - Sweetgirl (2016) - purchased

I got a copy of this a few years ago via Net Galley but never read it. It was less than half price in Waterstones' sale, so maybe having it under my nose will inspire me to read it. I do think I will enjoy it.

A tense cat-and-mouse game and a brilliantly realised story of hope in a seemingly hopeless place. 

Percy is 16 and used to her mama disappointing her. But this time her mama's been gone for nine days, and she's been seen up at Shelton Potter's farmhouse. Which can only mean she's strung out on meth again, and who knows when she'll be back. 

A blizzard rolls in, and Percy jumps in her pickup and sets off for the farmhouse. She finds Shelton and a woman passed out on the floor, sleeping off the latest binge. But no sign of her mama. 

Percy heads upstairs and finds a neglected baby girl in urgent need of care and attention. Percy knows she has no choice. She has to take the baby and get her to a hospital as soon as she can. 

But the blizzard shows no sign of stopping, and soon her pickup is snowed in. Now she's on foot, and before long two-bit criminal Shelton wakes up and heads out with four of his associates, on the hunt for whoever has taken the baby.... 

Taut, darkly humorous and told in Percy's unflinching voice, Sweetgirl is a moving exploration of courage and sacrifice that is horrifying, tender, and hopeful.

Nick Petrie - Light it Up (2018) - purchased

The third in Nick Petrie's Peter Ash series. I have the first on the shelf but haven't read it yet....

Denver, Colorado. 

Peter Ash is wearing an armoured vest, has a pistol strapped to his leg, a semi-automatic rifle by his side, and a large stash of drugs money behind him. It's hot, the static is buzzing and he's trying not to think about what happened last week. 

Ash is riding shotgun in a truck leased to Heavy Metal Protection, a security firm that protects cash-rich cannabis entrepreneurs from modern-day highwaymen. Just seven days ago, Heavy Metal lost an entire vehicle, crew and cargo, disappearing without a trace. 

Armed robbery? Double homicide? Whatever, Ash is there to make sure it doesn't happen again. There's no doubt he has the skill set for the job: eight years of hard-won combat experience and a nervous system fused on high alert - a crippling liability in civilian life... but a survival trait in a combat zone.

James M. Cain - The Cocktail Waitress (2012) - charity shop purchase

Another of those Hard Case Crime novels with an entertaining cover. Seemingly a lost final novel from Cain published posthumously......

Following her husband's death in a suspicious car accident, beautiful young widow Joan Medford is forced to take a job serving drinks in a cocktail lounge to make ends meet and to have a chance of regaining custody of her young son. At the job she encounters two men who take an interest in her, a handsome young schemer who makes her blood race and a wealthy but unwell older man who rewards her for her attentions with a $50,000 tip and an unconventional offer of marriage... Includes a 4,000 word feature on the locating of this "lost" Cain novel, by Hard Case Crime editor, Charles Ardai

Tony Knighton - Three Hours Past Midnight (2017) - purchased 

Another author I have yet to read anything from, though his other Crime Wave Press published book - Happy Hour: And Other Philadelphia Cruelties sits on the pile. I do like my heist novels.

His last job a disaster, a professional thief teams with an old partner eager for one last score – a safe in the home of a wealthy Philadelphia politician. But they are not the only ones set on the cash. His partner dead and the goods missing, he hunts for his money and the killer to find out that this may have been a job best left undone.

DECEMBER 2018 - ADDITIONS TO THE LIBRARY - 6 OF THE BEST! (PART 1)

A few more into the collection during December......

Scott Von Doviak - Charlesgate Confidential (2018) - purchased copy

Years ago a recommendation from Stephen King would have me purchasing on auto-pilot. Not always these days, but I do like my heist novels and this one sounds a bit different.....


“CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL is terrific.” – Stephen King

A breathtakingly clever, twist-filled narrative that moves from 1946 to 1988 to 2014 and back again, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL establishes Scott Von Doviak as a storyteller of the first order.

A group of criminals in 1946 pull off the heist of the century, stealing a dozen priceless works of art from a Boston museum. But while the thieves get caught, the art is never found. Forty years later, the last surviving thief gets out of jail and goes hunting for the loot, involving some innocent college students in his dangerous plan – and thirty years after that, in the present day, the former college kids, now all grown up, are drawn back into danger as the still-missing art tempts a deadly new generation of treasure hunters. A breathtakingly clever, twist-filled narrative that moves from 1946 to 1988 to 2014 and back again, CHARLESGATE CONFIDENTIAL establishes Scott Von Doviak as a storyteller of the first order, and will leave you guessing until the very last page.

Douglas Skelton - The Janus Run (2018) - purchased copy

I've enjoyed a couple of books in Skelton's Davie McCall series - Blood City and Open Wounds - with a couple more still to get to. How could I resist a book with a character titled Coleman at it's forefront - even if he does spell it incorrectly?

"Bullet-ridden, bold, brilliant." Neil Broadfoot

When Coleman Lang finds his girlfriend Gina dead in his New York City apartment, he thinks nothing could be worse... until he becomes the prime suspect.

Desperate to uncover the truth and clear his name, Coleman hits the streets. But there's a deranged Italian hitman, an intuitive cop, two US Marshals, and his ex-wife all on his tail. And trying to piece together Gina's murky past without dredging up his own seems impossible. Worse, the closer he gets to Gina's killer, the harder it is to evade the clutches of the mysterious organisation known only as Janus – from which he'd long since believed himself free.

Packed with plot twists, suspense and an explosive climax, The Janus Run is an edge-of-the-seat, breathtaking thriller – NYC noir at its finest.

Ralph Dennis - Atlanta Deathwatch (1974) - purchased copy

A long forgotten and out of print series, or in my case - a never heard of one, has been brought back to life by Brash Books. Twelve titles to be republished in total, regarding Hardman, an Atlanta PI.

The first novel in the unforgettable, ground-breaking series by Ralph Dennis is finally back in print... after being coveted for years by collectors of the very best in hardboiled fiction. 

It's Atlanta, 1974. Jim Hardman was a mediocre cop until he was wrongly accused of corruption and thrown off the force. Now he works as an unlicensed PI, trouble-shooter and bodyguard... often partnered with his drinking buddy Hump Evans, a black, ex-NFL player who supports his playboy lifestyle by working as hired muscle. 

Hardman is hired by The Man, a black mobster, to investigate the murder of his white girlfriend, a college student. It's a case that plunges Hardman and Evans into the center of a violent street war that stretches from Atlanta's seedy back alleys to the marbled corridors of power.

This new edition includes an introduction by Joe R. Lansdale, the New York Times bestselling author of the Hap & Leonard crime novels.

Praise for the HARDMAN novels:

"His prose was muscular, swift and highly readable. Like Chandler and Hammett before him, Dennis was trying to do something different with what was thought of as throwaway literature." Joe R. Lansdale, from his introduction

"Expert writing, plus good plotting and an unusual degree of sensitivity. Ralph Dennis has mastered the genre and supplied top entertainment. " The New York Times

"The Hardman books are by far the best of the men's action-adventure series." Mother Jones Magazine

"Ralph Dennis is an underappreciated master. His Hardman series is one of the finest in the P.I. genre." 
Robert Randisi, founder of the Private Eye Writers of America

Laura Lippman - I'd Know You Anywhere (2010) - purchased copy

Another author, I've heard good things about but have never tried. Lippman has about twelve novels in her Tess Monaghan series and nearly the same number of standalone novels. this one sits on its own.

Eliza Benedict cherishes her peaceful, ordinary suburban life. But her tranquility is shattered when she receives a letter from the last person she ever expects to hear from: Walter Bowman. There was your photo, in a magazine. I'd know you anywhere. 

In the summer of 1985, when she was fifteen, Eliza was kidnapped by Walter. He had killed at least one girl and Eliza always suspected he had other victims as well. Now on death row for the rape and murder of his final victim, Walter seems to be making a heartfelt act of contrition. Having wondered why Walter had let her live, she cautiously makes contact with him. 

Yet as Walter presses her for more and deeper contact, it becomes clear that he is after something greater than forgiveness. He wants Eliza to remember what really happened that long-ago summer. He wants her to save his life. And Eliza, who has worked hard for her comfortable life, will do anything to protect it - even if it means finally facing the terrible truth she's kept buried inside.

Rusty Barnes - The Last Danger (2018) - purchased copy

I enjoyed the first Killer From the Hills book - Ridgerunner a couple of years ago, as well as his subsequent Knuckledragger. I do like Rusty Barnes and his books.

Three months after a shootout with the renegade Pittman family robbed him of his brother, Matt Rider is trying to put his life back together. His wounds are many, his sworn enemy Soldier Pittman may wake up and begin to tell what he knows, his wife is on the knife edge of sanity, and his teen daughter has gone missing with the son of his sworn enemy. 


In a whirlwind series of killings, thefts and rash decisions, Rider ends up muling drugs across the Canadian border for the Pittman family in order to save his daughter and wife from an even worse fate, even as he betrays them. Rider must choose between what is best for his conscience and what his sometimes murderous instincts tell him: kill them all.

Travis Richardson - Lost in Clover (2012) - purchased copy

Another speculative punt of sorts, in this case a double one as I've just bought Richardson's recently released short story collection as well - Bloodshot and Bruised

Welcome to Clover, Kansas, a small town sitting in the middle of America’s Heartland. It's a peaceful community, until the night that high school student Jeremy Rogers accepts an invitation to party with the “cool” older kids. After things go irreparably wrong, and Clover is thrust into the national spotlight, Jeremy keeps his involvement a secret. As the town heals from the tragedy, Jeremy falls into a psychological abyss from which he cannot escape, until he encounters the monster from his past and has an opportunity to redeem himself. A novella.