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Dieter Kalteis: The Get
Toronto in the 70s. Long hair on men normalizing, multi-cultural neighbourhoods entrenching, and politicians demanding a crackdown on crime. Two collectors for Ernie Zimm’s protection racket: Gabe ‘the Twist” Zoller and Lenny Ovitz. Zoller has a bit of a problem collecting at the Merchant of Mink leading to the owner and his bookkeeper being killed…
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James W. Ziskin: Bombay Monsoon
India’s June 1975 ‘State Emergency’ is still debated as a dark era in the country’s history. It was a period of inordinate confinement, depression of civil rights, the silencing of opponents, and the deep censorship of the press. Into a volatile environment tyro reporter Danny Jacobs is sent to investigate and report. He arrives days…
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Eleanor Catton: Birnam Wood
Birnam Wood is an activist collective in the Lake Korowai area of New Zealand. The two principals, Mira Bunting and Shelley Noakes, are friends and ecological rebels in a comfortable mid-class village way. Bunting is the risk taker and the strident of the two. She likes to ‘borrow’ peoples land to do the groups…
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Aaron Philip Clark: Blue Like Me +Interview
‘My father always said becoming a police officer is one of the most self-destructive choices a person can make. He likened it to drowning in a lake.’ Trevor “Finn’ Finnegan is a PI on a stakeout. He knows there are dirty LAPD cops involved at the site, but when his former partner Munoz shows up…
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A Dark and Broken Heart: R.J. Ellroy
The other day found me rereading A Dark and Broken Heart (2012). That’s actually surprising as I have little time for such indulgence. This overview is from Ellroy’s website: It should have all been so easy for Vincent Madigan. Take four hundred grand from the thieves who stole it in the first place and who…
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Sam Wiebe: Hell and Gone
PI Dave Wakeland is minding his own business when chaos breaks outside his office window. Masked, gun wielding raiders are coming out of a building across the street. It’s a heist of some type and they don’t hesitate to shoot the pedestrians on the sidewalk as they move to their van. Wakeland takes the fire…
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James L’Etoile: Black Label
Jilly Cooper wakes up, naked in bed with a brutal migraine. She’s in a condo that she’s never seen before and has no idea where she is. Nearby is an empty tequila bottle and a framed photo of her and her boss at Dynalife Pharmaceutical, CEO Jonathan Mattson. She’s only ever had a professional relationship…
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Robin Yocum: The Sacrifice of Lester Yates
Hutch Van Buren is the Attorney General of Ohio and bored beyond belief. Always someone who roots for the underdog and a talented, driven prosecutor, he longs for more of… something. ‘Something’ walks into his office one day without an appointment. Black binders carried by prison guard Reno Moretti. Lester Yates, the Egypt Valley Strangler…
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Will Staples: Animals
This is the world of endangered animal poaching. It’s a terrible world, and haunting. And in this world insurance investigatior Randall Knight and Kruger National Park ranger Cobus Venter converge. Venter turns vigillante after two Kruger rangers are killed. Knight is on the verge of discovering a virus that could turn into a deadly pandemic.…
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John Galligan: Bad Axe County
Heidi Kick was made interim Sherrif in rural Bad Axe County, Wisconsin. It doen’t go down well with some of the citizens, including the Senior Deputy who thought the position would automatically be his to inherit. Battling targetted snide comments and attempts to set her up, Kick soldiers through. An ice and snow blizzard is…
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David Shawn Klein: The Money
Never do business in the men’s room Brooklyn is where Harry Krakow plies his trade in the legal system. A lawyer for the hapless caught up in a system they have little understanding of. Anatoly Zhukov approaches Krakow in the men’s room saying he’s not the Zhukov the District Attorney is looking for, he’s a…
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Halley Sutton: The Lady Upstairs
Blackmail, Corruption – All in a Day’s Work Jo, Lou and Jackal all work for the Lady Upstairs. Lou is the only one who has direct contact with Lady. She delivers the targets, and they get to work. The targets: wealthy men who are somehow on Lady’s radar. Generally, cheating, corrupt, thieving, assholes. Jackal didn’t…
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Jason Beech: American Spartan +Interview +Bonus Book-1 Review
SOFTLY, SOFTLY Ricky Nardilo is a cop in the small town where he grew up. His position there is tenuous – he doesn’t know who on the police force he can trust. Everyone in town is owned by Vale. Vale who haunts his life and watches his every step. It wasn’t a great town when…
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Andrew James Greig: Whirligig
Each measured drop…provides fresh impetus to bone gears transmitting rotary movement via the main pulley, meshing with each interconnected neighbour in an intricate ballet of bone wheels, cogs and spindles, held in place within a skeleton case of polished branches and carved twigs. With exacting precision a killer with a meticulous hand is at work…
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William Boyle: City of Margins
It’s South Brooklyn in the 90s and you are about to take a tour of the souls in the City of Margins. Included are two widows, a disgraced cop, a hopeful screenwriter, a college dropout, and a high school girl dreaming of escape. All of them, one way or another, revolve around corruption, suicide, loansharking…