CRACKERJACK COURTROOM NOVEL

THE INNOCENT WOMAN
by Parnell Hall
a Kindle e-book
May, 2011

A Steve Winslow zinger.

Here's an author who can write! He has enough novels out you'd expect that, right? This was my first Steve Winslow mystery. It won't be my last. Fine, distinct interesting characters. Limited cast. A creative defense attorney hard at work for a surprisingly uncooperative client. First she's fired after accusations of theft from her employer, then one of the owners of the firm is shot to death and Winslow's client is arrested. Watching this lawyer both in and out of court is a real treat. The dialog crackles, the pace is next to pell mell and the explanations are precise. There is a good deal of detail, especially at the end. I would have preferred a more succinct closing to the novel with less sniping between attorneys, but it was a small price to pay for a fast, well done story.

Dead Folks

Author: Jon Jackson

Publisher: Grove Press

ISBN: 0-8021-3602-8

264 pages, trade paper

1999 release

Fang Mulheisen rides again. He rides from Detroit to Montana to Salt Lake City and back again. Mulheisen rides trains, planes and cars. He rides with a ditch rider named Sally McIntyre. Jackson tells a really good story, but from some points of view, he’s telling us the oddessy of Fang Mulheisen, broken up into several parts, called novels.

However, unlike some series, you needn’t begin at the beginning in order to understand this one. Nor will you learn secrets that spoil earlier novels about this detective. Jackson’s protagonist is a detective sergeant with the Detroit police department. He’s been around a few years and he’s assigned to Homicide. One of his personal goals is to make some good busts on important members of the local mob. Now, this is difficult to do, but Mulheisen is patient and follows the trails wherethey lead.

A recent hit on a mob guy has led Mulheisen to Montana, where he again picks up the trail of the elusive and illusive Joe Service. Service is an outside mob contractor. He’s called in when the mob needs to investigate it’s own. He and Mulheisen have been dueling for decades. Dead Folks tells the tale of how Mulheisen persists in his pursuit of Service and the result. Along the way a number of people get explicitly wiped out, hence the title. Along the way some of the characters in this book affirm life’s essence in some explicit and sometimes amusing sexual acts, not all of which could be called ordinary, however that word may be defined.

You may have trouble finding copies of this novel. It’s worth the trouble.

Jackson has a sometimes quirky attitude toward life and we see it amply displayed in this delightful novel. Jon Jackson is one of those excellent authors who knows a good story when he tells it. Here is one such.

Prescient thriller novel

Cloak of Darkness

Author: Helen MacInnes

Publisher: Fawcett Suspense

ISBN: 0-449-20115-5

pub. 1983 pb, 307 pages

Probably difficult to find, but well worth the search, this is Helen MacInnes at her very best.The story concerns the fictitious Interintell, an organization supported by, but not a part of, the governments of a few NATO countries. Interintell has tasked itself with the enormous job of tracking and developing countermeasures against growing threats of terrorism anywhere in the world.

Interintell is the brainchild of Bob Renwick, an American living and working in Europe. As a super-secret organization, Interintell goes to great efforts to keep its principal officers in obscurity. But Renwick, protagonist of this superb, thriller, is shocked to discover that his home, his special secure telephone number and other details of his personal life are included in a hit list developed by the ruthless executive of an international munitions firm. Worse, the firm which holds the list in an unknown player on the world scene.

Renwick jumps into action, fending off probing attempts to locate him and his wife, and moving his limited resources into action to find and neutralize the enemy. Almost from page one, MacInnes screws up the action to tighter and tighter levels of tension, with stories within the main theme adding to the attraction. This is one of only a few novels which can truly be called spellbinding. Renwick and his cohorts race across the world to ever-changing and ever-fascinating venues, sometimes thwarted, other times winning the small confrontations and battles which make up the fabric of this most excellent novel. Here as most of MacInnes’s work, the conclusion is eminently satisfactory, and yet, leaves available to the reader, the thinnest of threads, the faintest of suggestions of more to come.

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A story worth revisiting

EVEN THE WICKED
by Lawrence Block
ISBN-0-380-72534-7
pb from Avon, 373 pgs, pub 2/98

The Grand Master does it again. Now a licensed private investigator, Matthew Scudder is faced with a most perplexing case. Even if, strictly speaking , he has no client. Of course, for those who follow the tracks of recovering alcoholic, ex-cop Scudder, know that the absence of a client, indeed, the absence of much of anything that might be called a case has never stopped him from pursuing whatever fragile thread captures his attention. Part of the time, he does have a client, other times, not, it's just one of the fascinating aspects of this book.

As always, Block's writing deftly brings the nature and the ambiance of the city right off the page and into your immediate presence. His principal secondary characters, as usual, play important roles in moving the story forward and adding fine texture to the mix. Block's writing remains as smooth as ever was.

With the publication of the first letter in a local newspaper, the city's attention focuses on someone who calls himself the Will of the people. He suggests that certain criminals whom the law of the land has thus far been unable to snare, ought to be disposed of, done away with, dispatched. Who would care? Who indeed. So the Will of the people announces his targets and begins his cleanup campaign. And even though Scudder has no client connected to the Will of the People, as his erstwhile partner, TJ points out, "Dude's the whole city's problem." But all too soon the Will of the People becomes Scudder's immediate problem, and a complex, cerebral as well as action-filled adventure begins as Scudder pursues a serial killer through the city. EVEN THE WICKED is a thoughtful examination of parts of our society which need more light. It invites reflection on certain aspects of our life and is a distinct pleasure to read.

Lambda Nominee is a worthy novel

The Cruel Ever After
by Ellen Hart
A Minotar (St. Martin’s Press)
2010 release. Hard cover, 320 pgs.
ISBN: 9780312624768

This, Hart’s nineteenth Jane Lawless mystery, is probably the darkest and most shocking of the series. Difficult to read it is chock full of, painful, difficult relationships and actions. The extensive cast of characters, many of whom fans will have met before, are almost all revealed to have seriously dangerous dark sides. And even when those troublesome and even illegal dimensions of their characters are revealed and confronted by other individuals in the book, they persist in their ways, ways that sometimes tread close to the abyss.
The shocks begin very early when Lawless’s former husband, a man she hasn’t seen for twenty years, appears in Minneapolis. Not only are we more than a little surprised to discover that Jane was married many years ago, she is upset by his appearance, supposedly ‘simply for old times sake.’ It becomes quickly apparent that Chester Garrity, one of the most facile liars and con men you’ll ever meet, has a specific personal agenda. Garrity is a user of anybody and everybody within reach. That he is such, should, it seems to this reader, to be more apparent to Jane than appears to be the case.
That Garrity is also fairly incompetent also becomes obvious. Part of the tragedy is that his incompetence visits appalling harm on the people around him. Almost immediately plans go awry and spiral out of control. Murder results. Garrity demonstrates such a high level of impotence in the face of disaster that it is hard to believe he has managed to stay alive and out of prison for this long.
At roughly the same time that Garrity begins his ill-managed plan to sell antiquities of questionable provenance, a lethal cabal of shadowy vigilantes makes its presence known by murdering a popular gallery owner. Is there a link here? Of course there is, but readers will require almost infinite patience to figure out the links and resolve the tangle of threads and relationships. Patience is particularly important in the first half of the book. After that, with the background and setup in place, the action and the pace pick up. Logic takes firm hold and as the complications and resolutions of the many plot lines become clearer, the author’s grip on her story becomes firmer. The second half of the novel as revelation bangs in on top of revelation and explanation explodes, is all vintage Hart, an excellent writer who is almost always in full command of her work.
There were times however, when I wanted to scream at Jane Lawless, and wondered who was really managing that usually incisive and clever mind.

RED SKY NOW PUBLISHED

Mary Whitney and Tanner embark on a romantic sailing vacation in the British Virgin Islands. During a quick swim, Tanner finds three hundred dollar bills floating beside their charter. Contact with the authorities leads to confusion and murder of a local Treasury agent. Believing Tanner has stolen millions of dollars from a smuggling cartel, Tanner is kidnapped by the cartel to force him to reveal the location of the missing money. Mary goes on a frantic quest to save both Tanner and herself. With help from a young secret Service agent, Hilda Martin, Mary offers herself as bait in an attempt to rescue her husband and trap the killers. In the violent final confrontation at sea, Mary pits her sailing skills against a powerful motor yacht and Hilda Martin is forced into a frightening gun battle with the enemy.

Buy RED SKY here: http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43440

KIND OF BLUE, A POLICE PROCEDURAL WITH CLASS

Kind of Blue
By Miles Corwin
ISBN: 978-1-60809-007-5
From Oceanview Publishing
323 pages, November, 2010

A few years ago, this author wrote a couple of serious non-fiction books about the Los Angeles Police Department. He spent a lot of time with cops in that city and wrote books that became best-sellers, “The Killing Season” and “And Still We Rise.”

Now he’s back with a powerful persistent novel that draws from the same source material. “Kind of Blue,” is not your ordinary police procedural. It constantly reminds readers that the cops involved are no super beings, rising above the worst humanity can offer to save their city; nor are they all thugs, wife beaters and abusers. They are ordinary citizens, sometimes corrupt, sometimes honorable and brilliant, often prejudiced, but too often willing to make the supreme sacrifice for the citizens they serve. And, occasionally they violate the rights of criminals.

Author Corwin bends a keen and discerning eye on this stew of varying humanity to fashion a fascinating novel of human relations. Asher Levine, a dedicated, mostly honest cop, is one of LA’s best homicide detectives. But as the book opens, Levine is a former cop, having abruptly resigned after he was unable to protect a vital witness from being murdered. The death of Latisha Patton, never solved, devastates the detective and causes him to question his abilities, even though it is clear that apart from his dedication, he is a brilliant detective. So he resigns.

A year passes and a decorated officer has died, murdered in his home and the special homicide squad needs Levine’s help solving the case. More to the point, certain key executives in the LAPD hierarchy need the case solved or at least put to rest. Levine has had that year to discover his resignation hurts him more than it does the LAPD. With clearance from the top cops, Levine is fast tracked back to the force and handed the case.

The problem, of course, is that Levine won’t just concentrate on the current case and thus all sorts of actions that need to be buried along with the ghost of Latisha Patton. Traces of other earlier activity begin to resurface as Ash Levine winds his way through labyrinthine police and social structures of the street until he comes to the shocking final solution.

The title is apt, a riff on a 50 year old Miles Davis studio piece, the cover fits the mood and the attitude of the novel. All the elements fit and it was a pleasure to read this excellent book.

PELL-MELL MEDICAL THRILLER

Critical ConditiON
By C.J.Lyons
ISBN: 9780515148688
Mass Market, 300 page
2010 release from Jove

Fourth and last in the Angels of Mercy series. A hospital in Pittsburgh is under siege, both from within and without as a huge blizzard brings the city to a standstill. In the hospital, Dr. Gina Freeman is trying to cope with the problematical recovery of her fiancé, detective Jerry Boyle, suffering from bullet wounds. Elsewhere in the hospital, other capable if flawed women, Charge Nurse Nora Halloran, and student Amanda Mason, prepare to wait out the storm.

A vicious band of armed killers suddenly appears, looking for a doctor who happens to be out of the hospital. She, apparently, holds the key to the continued well-being of a powerful and wealthy political figure from the West Coast. The thugs demonstrate a frightening propensity for killing anyone who gets in the way and the bodies pile up.

Written in an almost breathless, pell-mell style, the novel never sags for more than a page or two. Crisis lands on crisis almost as fast as the bodies pile up. Tension grows to almost unbearable levels and relationships become more entangled, setting up conflicts among the protagonists. In the end, the resolution results in a few more bodies. An excellent novel of type. The characters are well-drawn and have sufficient differences to make them easy to keep track of, the ploys used to confound the gangsters are interesting and varied and appropriate to the venues. The dialogue is logical and understandable and it fits the scenery.

Unusual terrific novel of crime on Midwestern prairies

Big Wheat
By Richard A. Thompson
Poisoned Pen Press 2011
ISBN: 978-1-59058-820-8

World War I is done and Charlie Krueger’s older brother is never coming home. Charlie, his sister and their mother must cope with an increasingly abusive drunken father and husband. The summer of 1919 wanes and vast acreages of the Middle West prairies are thick with ripening grain. Up the long reaches from the banks of the Platte and the Missouri come the contract threshing crews and their machines, most followed by raffish bindlestiffs to supplement a farmer’s friends and relatives. The crews are often peopled by men of questionable backgrounds and are occasionally eyed with suspicion by local sheriffs who rarely chase criminals beyond their county boundaries.

When Charlie Krueger has a final confrontation with his father, he leaves behind a sorrowful mother and sister and the local girl he thought he’d love forever. He becomes a bindlestiff, traveling from farm to farm, learning the threshing business and nurturing his love for machines.

The machines are new, complicated and prone to breakdowns. Charlie hooks up with a marvelously conceived traveling machine repair crew that becomes his new family. But lurking in the background is a killer, a killer who believes Charlie saw his latest brutal deed. He seeks to find and murder Charlie. Meanwhile, the sheriff of Charlie’s home county has developed leads which point him toward Charlie as a murderer.

This then is the roiling plot which moves the story forward. Carefully constructed and set against the vast reaches of the plains states, the novel evokes a time and place and the attitudes of the people and the land in a powerful and moving way. Readers will smell the dust, drip sweat and shrivel under the burning sun right along with the threshing crews. They’ll feel a clutch in the night as the sheriff and the murderer draw closer and they’ll empathize with the casual corruption and the surmounting goodness of the characters the author has created.

A fine, exciting and unusual well-written novel I am pleased to recommend to all readers of crime fiction.

A Dark Disturbing Novel: Absolution

ABSOLUTION
By Susan Fleet
ISBN: 978-1-4357-0841-9
Pub. 2008, Lulu & Kindle

This brutal, dark and explicit novel has a compelling drive to the third-person narrative that makes it difficult to look away. In part, I suspect, readers may be drawn on by an almost irresistible desire to learn how much farther the author is willing to go.
Set in one of the most suggestive cities on the continent, New Orleans, the author has created a nasty killer of similar proportions. The Sinner stalks his victims with a relentless attention to detail until one begins to wonder if he’ll get away with his crimes. It reveals nothing to mention that he does meet an appropriate eventual end, because the mystery is in his identity, carefully concealed through most of the narrative.
As the title suggests the psycho-sexual aberration at the heart of this killer’s impetus is rooted in an intense religiosity and the issues that raises. The sweaty pre-Katrina summer season in New Orleans only enhances the often oppressive feelings of many of the scenes.
The novel combines a multiplicity of viewpoints with several elements of subgenres of this kind of commercial fiction, relentless if sometimes mis-directed police procedures, multiple murders, obscure and difficult motives and complicated relationships between members of a pretty large cast. The tension between the detectives and a local reporter, for example, is very well explored, as are certain racial elements.
If there are a few lapses in logic, an occasional unexplained coincidence, and some dialogue gaffes, overall, Absolution stands out as a highly credible effort.

Latest from Walker's Wild Onion series is a winner

Too Many Clients
By David Walker
ISBN: 9780727869302
Published by Severn House,
2010, 214 pgs.

Another sparkling crime novel in the Wild Onion series. It’s always a pleasure to open a book knowing you are in the hands of an experienced storyteller. Author David Walker has been around the block a few times and he has the accolades to show for it. His latest does not disappoint. Here we have a pair of wise and witty practitioners who are married to each other. In less sure hands, the marriage of two characters often lets a lot of steam out of a relationship and sends readers searching for other divertissements.

Not this time. Private investigator Kirsten, married to uber-relaxed lawyer Dugan, takes on her husband as a client, after a bad cop is found murdered. Dugan, never a careful person, has blundered into the thing in such a way he becomes a suspect. And while Dugan can act odd at times, almost the antithesis of the hard-driving lawyer of many crime fiction novels, he is far from the only character. There’s Larry. Larry Candle is a partner in Dugan’s office. He just doesn’t come off as someone whom you’d want to represent you in court for anything more serious than a mistaken parking ticket. Yet Larry manages to get the job done all the while irritating nearly everyone around him.

As the days pass, Dugan and Kirsten continue to collect new clients who somehow all want them to locate the killer of this bad cop. To Kirsten and Dugan’s collective thinking these new clients don’t seem to be entirely above suspicion, either. Meanwhile the cops continue to zero in on Dugan. Gradually, as Kirsten digs deeper into the people who knew or knew about the dead cop, the story takes on wider and wider implications, tangling mob figures with international activities, a prominent churchman and….well, you get the idea.

Twists on top of fascinating complications.
The novel is well-paced, complicated, and a truly fun read. I look for more cheeky stories in Walker’s Wild Onion series.

Musings on errors

The following is a piece by Bo Parker from a newsgroup post which I like
and use with permission.

Since typos have become one of the topics de jour, even
though such strikes me as somewhat off the track, I'm tossing in my
two cents of comment, which is probably what's it's worth in today's
world. When I first ventured out into the "publishing world" with my
first novel some two and a half years ago, I did so with the goal
suggested by friends--that the book be used as a fund raiser for
local charities and civic groups. I quickly learned that once the
"publishing pie" is sliced, there are very few monetary crumbs that
trickle back to the source for the author or anyone else. Along the
way, I discovered the actual cost of printing the book, which led me
to take a different route, knowing full well the brush with with
which I would be tarred as an author who had a book "published" by a
method not considered "traditional."

Along the way, I did know, as some have said, "at least enough to
have the manuscript professionally edited." That I did. Four times,
by four different "professional" editors. Included in this quartet
was one who had edited published books, another who was recommended
by a published author, and one who had been "certified" after taking
"an extensive test, based on the Chicago Manual of Style, the MLA
Handbook, The Gregg Reference Manual, and Merriam-Webster's
Collegiate Dictionary, 11th, edition." Guess what? My published
book has mistakes in it. Some of them are an embarrassment to me. And
they have become a reminder of a comment made to me by a published
author. "Mistakes are why you want to go with a traditional house.
Then they can be blamed on its editors, not the author."

Based on the the majority of opinions expressed so far that
mistakes in published books are a given for a multitude of reasons,
and in a void of suggestions as to how they can be eliminated, I am
left at a loss to understand the rational behind the comment that
mistakes can make a person think less of the author. However, I have
learned a lesson. The first book as a fundraiser has exceeded my
expectations, and publication of the second in the series will follow
the same path, with one addition. On the appropriate page, below
"published by...." will be the statement, "Edited by...." That leaves
me with only one question. Will there be an editor who is willing to
have his or her name published as part of the book?

Bronson L. Parker
THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE: An Outstanding Thriller

Set The Night On Fire
By Libby Fischer Hellmann
ISBN: 978-0-98406-5-7
Trade Paperback from
Allium Press, Chicago, 2010
346 pages.

Every so often a novel comes along that connects with the reader in such a visceral way that it is like a punch in the stomach. This is such a story. If you lived through the nineteen-sixties and your memory is reasonably intact, or you learned even a small amount about those turbulent times, you will connect with this story.

On one level this is the story of Lila Hilliard.

Forty-some years after a particular series of spectacular and dangerous events in Chicago that revolved around a nasty far-off war and a political convention, a mysterious fire has robbed her of the only family she has ever known. At about the same time, a man named Dar Gantner, just released from prison, returns to Chicago from prison to reconnect with a few of his former companions from the same era. One, a woman named Rain, tells Dar that another of their mutual friends has just met with an odd fatal accident. It is clear in their conversation that Rain doesn’t entirely believe that it was an accident.

From that moment on it becomes apparent that dark and unknown forces are at work. But why? Who are these people we meet at the beginning of the book, who targets them and why? Through a series of small and then progressively longer flashbacks we are transported to a time when young people believed the rhetoric, that they could indeed change the outcomes of momentous happenings, that they could affect the course of the most powerful nation in the world. Some of those players, whatever they believed, moved on to build calm and substantial lives of commerce, and politics, and contemplative existences. They don’t want to relive any part of that time.

Most readers alive today will have memories of the Chicago convention of 1968, or of the riots and will begin again to remember the emotions of the time. And even if not, the measured, artful, portioning out of connections, of information, will bring those emotions to the surface. On another level, this is the telling of the great events of the late sixties, the crimes and the abuses and the trails that descended from them, not from the newspaper headlines or the televised reports, but through the eyes and hearts of some of the young people at the center of the conflicts. But this is no polemic, nor is it an attempt to change the record.

What the author has done is produce a cracking good thriller that grips a reader by the throat and doesn’t let go until the final pages. One after another the revelations keep coming, and as the central characters struggle to stay alive long enough to solve their mysteries, the author maintains our interest in the love story, the history and the dynamics of the times. It doesn’t matter your political beliefs, then, or now; the characters and their trials will reach off the pages of this fine novel and touch you in ways that are basic to our existence as human beings. This is a fine, fine novel that well deserves the accolades it will surely receive.

TWO FOR READING PLEASURE: Cooper & Hachey

A Crooked Little House
by Susan Rogers Cooper
Publisher: Avon
ISBN: 0-380-79469-1
pub.date: January, 1999
246 pages, PB

This novel is less a mystery than an in-depth examination of a few weeks in the life of an entertaining and intriguing family in suburban Texas. The mystery of who murdered a young homeless woman is really the framework from which to dangle a whole houseful of family members from bright children to irascible mother-in-law.

Eloise Pugh is a romance writer. She lives in Codderville, Texas, in a home undergoing construction of a major addition. In addition to the construction workers, assorted pets, and three children plus a husband are in residence. Written in the first person, readers are treated to EJ’s often delightful, practical and frequently artful coping techniques.

These are wonderful characters, created by a writer with great skill and a fine eye for detail. There just are no missteps, even among certain characters who I doubt very much are a routine part of the author’s environment.

EJ’s family is happily preparing for the imminent high school prom of one of her charges. Their mood is abruptly shattered when EJ’s errant sister-in-law is charged with the murder of that homeless woman. Never one to simply accept apparent reality, EJ determines to save her reluctant sister-in-law by finding the real murderer. EJ’s path of detection becomes a wandering, twisting road of deception, doubt and several surprises.

Perceptively written, well-paced, “A Crooked Little House” is a lot of fun and
informative as well.
_______________________________________________________________

A Matter of Motive
by Michael Hachey
Avalon Books,
December, 2004
Hard Cover, 282 pages, $26.95
ISBN: 9780803496880

A lot of books are published every year in this country, far more than all the Internet, magazine and newspaper reviewers can possibly read, digest and then comment on. Here is one such that should have received more attention than it did when first released. Dexter Loomis is the only cop in Higgins Point, a small town in rural Wisconsin. As the novel opens, the mayor drops by and tells Loomis he’s being appointed chief, since the former chief abruptly left town.

Dexter is okay with that, mainly because he is yet ignorant of the gathering storm of crime about to descend on his town. Two suspicious deaths occur within days of each other, deaths that may or may not be related. In addition, Loomis has to cope with a loud and aggressive county sheriff who means to keep tight control of everything in his baliwick.

Loomis is smart enough, even though woefully inexperienced, to know he’s over his head and liable to sink quickly. So he calls the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigations for help. Enter an agent who has a direct connection to one of the murder victims. Since this is usually grounds for immediate recusal, the author has to work around this, which he does in a logical and clever way.

The writing is competent, smooth and the story develops logically as a reasonable pace. The book may be somewhat overly complicated, which leads to some unnecessary meandering, but the sense of the small community, its long time residents and the struggles of the principal characters provides a very nice if not exceptional novel of criminality and malfeasance in small-town America. Hachey’s tone and pace is just right for the setting, resulting in a very enjoyable reading experience.

BLOG POSTS & LANCELOT'S LADY

Dos and Dont's for Organizing an Online Blog Tour

While organizing my own 15 day/108 stop online tour, I was contacted by a number of authors who wanted me to host them during their tours. I was very happy to do so, but in the process, I learned that not everyone is as organized as I like to be. This brings me to today's post where I'll share some tips―some dos and don'ts for organizing an online book tour.

1. Do be organized; don't be disorganized. Keep a calendar on your computer where you can post dates as your hosts book them. Note down the host's name and the blog they've said they'll host you on. Some people have more than one blog, so this is an important step.

2. Do pay attention to details; don't ignore what your host wants. Keep all emails from your hosts for references. Some will tell you specifically what they want; some have preferences on topics or themes and on word count. Give your hosts what they ask for. Be sure to add your website and buy links to each blog post, and any contest information you may have.

3. Do send info early; don't leave it to the night before. Email your hosts at least 3 days before and include the MS Word doc of your post, plus attach your book cover and author photo as jpgs. Don't zip the files or use uncommon programs. If you don't have MS Word, ask your host what he/she prefers.

4. Do send a reminder; don't expect everyone to remember. Email your host the day before as a reminder and ask them to schedule your post to go live early in the morning. I prefer to send my guest's posts out around 3 AM.

5. Do make everything EASY for your hosts; don't make them chase down info or photos on websites. Give them what they need.

6. Do check your host's post the morning of your stop on their blog; don't just forget about them. Leave a comment and thank them.

7. Do be active; don't be inactive. Check the blog post throughout the day. Answer comments or questions from visitors. Check it again over the next couple of days.

LANCELOT'S LADY

Lancelot's Lady ~ A Bahamas holiday from dying billionaire JT Lance, a man with a dark secret, leads palliative nurse Rhianna McLeod to Jonathan, a man with his own troubled past, and Rhianna finds herself drawn to the handsome recluse, while unbeknownst to her, someone with a horrific plan is hunting her down.

Lancelot's Lady is available in ebook edition at KoboBooks, Amazon's Kindle Store, Smashwords and other ebook retailers. Help me celebrate by picking up a copy today and "Cherish the romance..."



You can learn more about Lancelot's Lady and Cherish D'Angelo (aka Cheryl Kaye Tardif) here or over here. Follow Cherish from September 27 to October 10 on her Cherish the Romance Virtual Book Tour and win prizes.



Authors & Readers: What do you like best about online book/blog tours?

Leave a comment here, with email address, to be entered into the prize draws. You're guaranteed to receive at least 1 free ebook just for doing so. Plus you'll be entered to win a Kobo ereader. Winners will be announced after October 10th.



All the best,

Cherish/Cheryl

VERMILION DRIFT: OUTSTANDING NOVEL

Vermilion Drift
By William Kent Krueger
ISBN: 9781439153840
Hard Cover from Atria,
2010, 305 pages

Authors of crime fiction, like authors working in any other genre, often use their talents to work through personal issues, sometimes intensely private issues. Although it is not entirely clear, the writer may be working through some family issues with this novel. Does that matter?

Perhaps. That depends on the result. In this case, the author, possessed of well-honed, significant writing talent, has produced a novel of finely wrought proportions, multi-layered with considerable depth. By that I mean that the characters demonstrate multiple levels of engagement, and the story itself works on more than one level. Almost every character who appears in the book is involved in the story in more than one way. Some of their levels are casual or socially related, such as what may be routinely expected of law officers in Tamarack County, the Northern Minnesota location of this novel. Other characters, Henry Meloux, for example and other Native Americans; Sam Wintermoon, appears, and of course, Cork’s mother and his father, Liam, all have, at different times, visceral involvement in the story.

The problem, if there is one, is that this story is much more a novel of family and community relationships than it is a novel of suspense, or crime, horrific and awful though the crimes were. Death is always the ultimate judge, from whom there is no appeal.

So, in my view, the problem is one of balance, or perhaps of categorization. The involvement of Cork O’Connor, now a private investigator, alone in Aurora, is mostly one of self-examination. The novel is one of Cork’s journey of discovery. What was the meaning of his occasional nightmares? What were the issues that consumed and separated the O’Connor family in those last fateful months of Liam O’Connor’s life?

The novel begins with Cork once again at odds with his Ojibwe heritage. His mother, remember, was a member of the tribe. He’s hired by the owners of the Vermilion One and Ladyslipper mines to deal with threats against the mine. But then he’s also tasked to try to locate a missing woman, sister of the mine owner. Lauren Cavanaugh has gone missing. Finding the missing woman opens a window on old unsolved crimes from a previous generation, from a time when Cork’s father was the sheriff of Tamarack County.

Sorting through old albums, records and memories, fresh and repressed, takes up the body of the novel As with all of this author’s previous novels, the explanation is logical, satisfying and meaningful. Krueger, as always, is skillful in evoking the landscape, not just its physical self, but its atmosphere, its mystical presence and its influences on the people who reside there.

In the end, this thoughtful exploration of law, truth and justice and their profound influences on all of us is a highly successful emotionally moving effort.

CRIME FICTION FOR EVERYONE

In Dog We Trust
by Neil Plakcy
ISBN: 2940000889596
Ebook available from
Amazon, Smashwords,
B&N.

Steve Levitan is a convicted felon. Through a lapse in internal discipline, he did a little computer hacking and soon found himself in prison. Released on parole, he returns to his home, Bucks county, Pennsylvania, where he obtains a position as a part time faculty, teaching English at a local college.
His marriage fell apart, which is another factor setting up everything that follows, murder, car chases, odd and interesting characters, such as a sort of hard guy named Santiago, Steve’s parole officer, and a couple of cops, one of whom is a long-time school buddy of Steve.

Then there is the dog. Who names their dog Rochester? The dog belonged to a dead woman, and dog and Steve bond almost immediately, although both seem to have serious issues with authority.
Without revealing too much, this is a very “now” detective novel, delving into computer and other crime. How closely do you reads your credit card statements? The novel is well written, smooth and interesting. It’s always good when a crime novel teaches or reminds readers of information they should know. This story does that, without preaching or lapsing into lecturing. The classroom scenes and internal dialogues regarding student attitudes are authentic. For anyone who enjoys a jaundiced look at small college academic life, this novel is a pleasure to read on another level.
Everything about this novel smacks of a professional, polished approach. The writing is smooth, the characters well developed, and they stay in character. The plot has been carefully laid out and proceeds at a good pace. It’s conclusion is satisfying. Then there’s the dog, Rochester.
Dog lovers will be pleased to know that the author refrains from anthropomorphizing the dog. Undeniably talented, Rochester is helpful throughout the novel, but only in naturally occurring, that is, doggy ways. “In Dog We Trust” is a completely enjoyable way to spend a reading afternoon.

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A Wasteland of Strangers
Author: Bill Pronzini
Publisher: Walker & Company.
ISBN: 0-8027-7560-8
257 pages


This is another of Bill Pronzini’s intensive, commanding, explorations of current social ideas and concerns which move a national colloquy in many forums. But this is not a social treatis full of statistics. This is a moving, intense, crime novel, that will captivate and enthrall the reader. Take one large, dangerous looking, individual, John Faith, by name. He’s a traveler, a seeker, a man on the move. Insert this stranger into a small resort community during the off season. This community happens to be in northern California, but such are the author’s skills, it could be anywhere. It could be your hometown.

John Faith is the immediate object of suspicion, because he’s a stranger and he doesn’t look like he belongs. His presence gradually reveals and widens long-standing cracks in the comfortable, biased attitudes and ideas of almost everyone in town. Why has this man come to town? What are his motives? His answers are enigmatic, and even at the end we are left with questions. John Faith’s encounters with the police chief, the bigoted lake-side resort owner, some local Native Americans, and a bartender or two, are like pebbles dropped in a placid pool. The ripples expand and expand until they reach the edge of the pool and die. Except in this case, the ripples grow larger, intersect and become irresistible waves that begin to tear at the base fabric of the town.

This psychological thriller is tightly plotted, and intricately presented. It’s pace is irresistible. “A Wasteland of Strangers” is a thoughtful, satisfying crime novel. Artist Doug Henry has presented a handsome, evocative cover illustration. Highly recommended.