The Blinds by Adam Sternbergh ECCO/Harper Collins, $26.99, 382 pages, ISBN 978-0-06-266134-0 Next on our October freakfest is a novel by Adam Strenbergh, the creative demento who conjured up the Edgar nominated Spademan novels. Spademan’s the sometimes kind-hearted assassin, who operates in a destroyed, dystopian New York City. This time however, Mr. Sternbergh’s come up with a standalone that takes place in Texas. Who knew, or would’ve guessed, that
The Changeling by Victor LaValle Spiegel & Grau/ Penguin Random House, $28.00, 431 pages, ISBN 978-0-8129-9594-7 It’s become a tradition. Each October, in observance of All Hallows Eve, the Dia de los Muertos and JDM’s birthday—which is on Halloween—the MBR reviews works of the paranormal, otherworldly and unexplained. The weird, supernatural and bizarre stuff that’s outside of our usual focus on murder, mayhem and mankind’s general savagery. All in
She Rides Shotgun Mysterious Book Report No. 305 by John Dwaine McKenna Some authors hit the bookstores in high gear and never stop producing exciting and original works that become award-winners and best-sellers almost overnight, because readers get excited and tell their friends about it. Word-of-mouth spreads like wildfire and the writer establishes a bigger fan base with each new book. Our author this week deserves just such chit-chat.
Exit Strategy by Steve Hamilton Putnam/Penguin Random House, $26.00, 287 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-57438-2 One year ago, (MBR 254,) we alerted readers to a new series by award-winning, New York Times best-selling author Steve Hamilton that featured an anti-hero protagonist named Nick Mason. Mason’s the guy who, in order to get out of serving the last fifteen years of a twenty year sentence in a maximum security prison, makes a
Here and Gone by Haylen Beck Crown Publishing Group/Penguin Random House, $26.00, 287 pages, ISBN 978-0-451-49957-8 Recently, there’s been a growing movement in the publishing world, attempting to increase readership and sell more books by encouraging some A-list male crime fiction writers to produce new novels using androgynous-sounding names. The reasoning behind this is that unisex pen names will attract more female readers, since they tend to avoid the
Dark River Rising by Roger Johns Minotaur Books/St. Martins Publishing Group, $26.99, 2936 pages, ISBN 978-1-250-11009-1 The Mysterious Book Report is always on the lookout for promising debut authors with unique protagonists and interesting points of view, that are set in unusual places which are all wrapped up in an original and compelling plot. This is such a one, an outstanding new murder mystery that takes place down south,
The Force Mysterious Book Report 301 by John Dwaine McKenna According to Dwight, one of my retired cop buddies, only a few crime fiction writers Really get it, when writing about the demands, the stresses and the effect—on marriages, children and personal lives—of being a police officer in America today. It’s a career that is rewarding, exciting, sometimes monotonous, and always dangerous enough to take your breath away. Not
American Static Mysterious Book Report No. 300 by John Dwaine McKenna The Mysterious Book Report has reached another milestone with this, our 300th review. It’s taken a little more than six years and a couple of hundred thousand words to get to this point, so we wanted to mark the occasion with something special . . . something out of the ordinary . . . something so memorable that
G-Man by Stephen Hunter Blue Rider Press/ Penguin Random House, $27.00, 443 pages, ISBN 978-0-399-57460-3 The Great Depression of the 1930s was a time of unrelenting misery, hardship and economic deprivation. It was an era that left indelible scars upon all who lived through it, for who could forget the massive unemployment, the endless bread lines, or the dislocation and migration of tens of thousands of impoverished farmers who’d
Lucky by Henry Chang Soho Press, $24.95, 218 pages, ISBN 978-1-61695-784-1 New York City’s Chinatown is the home turf of NYPD Detective Jack Yu, the beleaguered serial character created by author Henry Chang, and a personal favorite of the MBR, because the pragmatic and altruistic Chinese-American crime fighter operates in one of the most violent, superstitious, drug and gang-infested, as well as racially-prejudiced environments on planet earth without losing