Category: Mysteries

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Legitimate Business Is Out!

LBCoversmJust found out that Legitimate Business is out already. It all went very fast. That’s e-books for you. Once the cover was settled, the rest was easy. At least that’s what I assume since I didn’t have to do anything.

It’s exciting to see my book at Amazon. I can’t say “in print” because it won’t be in print. But it will live on people’s e-book readers. And those who don’t like Kindles, keep in mind there are Kindle apps for the iPad and Android tablets. And there’s a Kindle Cloud Reader.

I hope you buy it and, even more, you like it. Let me know. I’m curious to get feedback.

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Legitimate Business will be published by Endeavour Press

EndeavourEndeavour Press in London will publish Legitimate Business. Just got the signed contract back. So it’s a go. Look for it in a couple of months. Endeavour only publishes e-books, so there won’t be a print edition, but since that’s the way the book business is going anyway, I’m not sad about that. The good news is that the book will be out and available to readers.

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Call For The Dead by John LeCarré

Call for the Dead coverMy sweetie found this one on the free table at the local library. I’m a big John LeCarré fan, but I had never read this one. A Call For the Dead was LeCarré’s first novel from 1961. It’s also the novel that introduces George Smiley for the first time. Right on the first page of the chapter one we get to know Smiley in this unforgettable line, “Short, fat and of a quiet disposition, he appeared to spend a lot of money on really bad clothes, which hung about his squat frame like skin on a shrunken toad.” What powerful language to introduce your protagonist.

Over eight pages, we learn of all Smiley’s history, how he got to be a spy, worked in Germany under the cover of an exchange scholar to recruit agents for the British, how he was called back to London when his cover had worn off, and how he started preparing for retirement by checking up on high civil servants to make sure they aren’t spying for the Communists.

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Careless in Red by Elizabeth George

20131115-191155.jpgThis novel was my first introduction to the inspector Lynley mysteries. I may have seen one episode on PBs, but I had never read a novel featuring him. It was a long novel, very long, but, to its credit, I have to say the story kept me engaged.

George takes her time. The novel starts in media res, a lone hiker along the Cornwall coast finds a dead body at the bottom of a cliff. The young climber had obviously fallen from the cliff. The hiker finds the closest inhabited place, a weekend cottage owned by a vet. When she arrives up, she’s startled to find the stranger waiting in her house. He takes her to the body, she recognizes the teenager, they go off to the local inn to call the police.

That starts a long, meandering story as involved as a Russian novel with almost as many characters. The hiker turns out to be Lynley, who’s ran away from his life after his wife was killed by a mugger on the street in front of their house. The vet, Daidre Trahair, isn’t as uninvolved as she leads on. The local cops aren’t of much use. DI Bea Hannafort takes over the case. She has her own problems with shuffling her teenage son to her ex-husband so she can focus on the case.

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Never Go Back by Lee Child

Jack Reacher has finally made it back to Virginia. Except what he finds isn’t what he was looking for. If you recall, Reacher was stuck in North Dakota four books ago (62 Hours). While helping the local police department to keep a witness alive, he ended up talking to the commanding officer of his old MP unit, Major Susan Turner. He liked her voice and decided to go to Virginia to meet her. It took him a while to get there (Worth Dying For and A Wanted Man) were stations along the way.

In any case, when he gets to the 110th, everything is upside down. Major Turner isn’t there. Instead a Lt. Colonel tells him that he’s accused of a crime Reacher was supposed to have committed sixteen years ago. In addition, a paternity claim has been laid against him. And he informs Reacher that, by the way, he’s recalled to active duty. He is brought to a nearby hotel where two thugs, obviously military in mufti tell him to disappear or else.

And, with that, we’re off. The book is very fast paced and full of tension. Whenever you think Reacher has beat his pursuers, they have another trick up their sleeve. The hunt takes them from Virginia to Pittsburgh to Los Angeles. Once in L.A., the book starts dragging a little. By that time, the MPs, the FBI, the DC Metro Police and the bad guys are after him and Turner. I was disappointed by the ending. SPOILER ALERT! The suicide at the end seems like a copout. That notwithstanding, I found the book hard to put down.