Favorite Reads, Spring 2026

 I’m a little late with my Q2 list. That doesn’t mean I had trouble finding books to recommend. On the contrary, it was a good quarter.

 The Big Empty, Robert Crais. I’ve been a fan of Crais’s work for over twenty years. His consistency is such I’m hard pressed to say which of his Elvis Cole books is my favorite. Until now. The Big Empty is the work of a master of the craft at the peak of his powers. Not only is this a compelling story with characters as well drawn as any in the literature, Crais handles with aplomb things that cause even the best of writers to stumble, such shifting points of view and timelines. Even if you’re not typically a fan of PI fiction, do yourself a favor and read this one.

 Mirage City, Lev AC Rosen. A new voice to be reckoned with in the PI genre. Rosen sets his novel in the gay community of Los Angeles in the 1950s, when homosexuality was still a crime. The story is complex and well told, and Rosen never stoops to preaching. The issues of the time – more than a few of which still linger, though not officially – are described matter of factly to allow the reader to draw his or her own conclusions. Outstanding book. I’ll look for his earlier novel.

 Gray Dawn, Walter Mosley. There aren’t any compliments for Mosley’s Easy Rawlins novels that haven’t already been said, so I’ll leave it at this: Gray Dawn has everything one would expect from a Rawlins novel without seeming repetitious in any way. Easy’s family life evolves, but he still reaches back to former acquaintances for help when needed. His name may be misleading – things are never easy for Mr. Rawlins – but reading Mosley’s books is never a chore. The writing flows like water over a cliff. No oner does a better job of putting readers firmly in a place they’ve never been.

 Hatchet Girls, Joe Lansdale. Hap and Leonard ride again. I don’t know if there’s anything exceptional about this book when compared to the rest of the Hap and Leonard oeuvre – except maybe the premise – but the voice is so comforting and familiar to readers of the series that you feel like you’ve settled in with an old friend you haven’t seen for a while by the time you finish the first page.

 Crooks, Lou Berney. This book is currently on all kinds of award lists, and deservedly so. The story of a family of, well, crooks, who are proud of their heritage and happy to work together to enhance it. Berney’s writing is easy on the eyes and the story – stories, actually – each could stand alone as novellas. In Berney’s deft hands a framing story ties everything together as the children make their own ways after Mom and Dad had set their courses. Crooks proves a book can be great fun and still thought-provoking.

 At Their Own Game, Frank Zafiro. Why isn’t this guy better known? He’s worked on multiple crime series himself and collaborated on two others (that I know of) and I’m hard pressed to say one is better than the other. Usually a police procedural writer, At Their Own Game takes the POV of a cop turned criminal to examine both sides. The story is complex, with several twists I didn’t see coming until I found myself mumbling, “Of course,” though I never felt adrift. If you’re not familiar with Zafiro’s work, you’d be wise to take a look. Everything he writes is good.

 The Killing of the Tinkers, Ken Bruen. I picked this up at a used bookstore shortly after I heard of Bruen’s death. Two chapters in I realized I’d read it before but never thought of stopping. Jack Taylor is Jack Taylor, and sometimes Bruen makes him suffer more than he should, but Bruen’s ability to tell a tragic story with a little whimsy, and his unsurpassed control of the language, make everything he wrote a treat. His passing is a great loss.

Winter's Favorite Reads

 This is a shorter quarterly list than usual. That doesn’t mean read any less, or that I didn’t like as many books. I’m a Shamus judge this year, so my reading time has been consumed by award submissions and I don’t think it’s appropriate to single any of them out until the short list has been announced. Those books will be noted in a future “Favorite Reads” post.

 

The Blooding, Joseph Wambaugh. An examination of the first homicides solves through DNA analysis. Two young women were brutally murdered in only a few minutes from the English university where the scientific breakthrough was made, allowing their cases to be used to prove the theories. Fascinating from start to finish and told in Wambaugh’s avuncular yet riveting style. I never met the man, though we corresponded once, but I was truly sad when I learned of his death last year. He was a national treasure for both his fiction and non-fiction writing, and the crime writing community owes him more than can be expressed.

 

The Fatal Saving Grace, Jim Nesbvitt. It took nerve to reintroduce loose cannon private eye Ed Earl Burch into a formal law enforcement setting, but Nesbitt shows the inevitable friction while also displaying the ways in which Ed Earl was a stud cop in his day. The supporting cast plays well off of the protagonist and the dialog is always entertaining without drawing attention to itself. Nesbitt also creates a sense of place reminiscent of the movie Hell or High Water, though this story takes place farther west. I’m going to have to go back and look into some of the books I missed in this series while I wait for the next one, and I am waiting for the next one.

 

Hang on St. Christopher, Adrian McKinty. Book Eight of the Sean Dufffy trilogy. (That was the author’s original plan. The first three went so well he couldn’t stop, and we’re all better off because of it.) Duffy is a Catholic cop in Northern Ireland during The Troubles, which means he has to check his car for bombs every time he gets in. The friction between Duffy and the protestant cops has pretty much died down, but no one else he deals with during an investigation trusts him, including Special Branch. McKinty creates a sense of time and place like few others, and Duffy is a fascinating and always growing character. Let’s hope the author has at least one more of these in him.

 

The Last Exile, Sam Wiebe. Book Five of the Wakeland series picks up where Sunset and Jericho left off, with Dave Wakeland having left the agency he was running with partner Jeff Chen. The book starts with Wakeland living in Montreal and returning to Vancouver to help Chen’s cousin, lawyer Shuzhen Chen. What starts as a protection job soon enmeshes Wakeland with a ruthless motorcycle gang as he learns the agency is in the midst of going under, due in large part to an unscrupulous real estate developer. Wiebe always makes the Wakeland novels about more than the case, and The Last Exile is no exception.

My Favorite Reads, Fall 2025

 My favorite reads from the fourth quarter of 2025.

 Notice I don’t say the “best” books I read over the past three months; these are my favorites. My ego is not such that I am willing to pronounce anything as “best,” which is a consensus thing.

 At best.

 The Black Echo, Michael Connelly. The first Bosch novel and not as fluidly written as later books would be, The Black Echo still has all the elements Connelly’s loyal readers came to love. If you’re a Harry Bosch fan and wonder how things got started, look this one up.

 Wolf Tickets, Ray Banks. A re-read I enjoyed just as much as the first time. Banks is one of those writers who makes you forget you’re reading; the book flows as if these two guys are telling you their stories. Using multiple first-person POVs can seem gimmicky, but Banks makes it seem like you’re coming across each of them in a bar on alternate nights. This is the book that set the Ray Banks hook in me.

 True Target, Austin Camacho. I don’t typically care for hit man protagonists but I’m a devotee of Camacho’s Hannibal Jones series, so I gave this one a try. I think I still prefer Jones – after all, he’s a PI and I’m a PI guy – but Skye is a protagonist who can carry a series. The story is never predictable but always makes sense, and Skye has aspects to her character – including her pronoun – that makes this not just another hit man novel.

 Winter’s Bone, Daniel Woodrell. I re-read this a couple of weeks before we lost Woodrell, so how great was out loss was fresh in my mind. A beautifully written book where the writing never draws attention to itself to interfere with the story or characterization, by which I mean Woodrell never succumbed to striving for the ‘sentence beautiful;’ telling stories in a gripping and evocative manner was how he naturally wrote. I think I’ve read all his novels now and I’ll continue to come back every year or so to remind me of his extraordinary talent.

 Not Born of Woman, Teel James Glenn. Frankenstein’s creature returns from the Arctic to work as a private investigator in pre-World War Two New York. Glenn’s writing evokes Mary Shelley’s voice while still giving Adam Paradise license to tell the story in his own way. Paradise has both gifts and limitations mere humans lack but none strain credulity once you accept the initial premise. This book deserves all the acclaim it has received.

 The Blooding, Joseph Wambaugh. Speaking of extraordinary talents, this non-fiction effort by another giant we lost this year shows his off on multiple levels. Though he was the greatest writer of police procedurals ever – rivaled only by Ed McBain – Wambaugh’s non-fiction is even better. Here he examines in detail two gruesome murders in an English village in the mid-1980s that led to the first instance of identifying a killer through genetic fingerprinting. Alternately funny and painful to read, The Blooding left me sitting quietly for several minutes after I finished it; I took a couple of days off from reading when I was done.

 

 

Summer's Favorite Reads

 This is a longer post than usual, but I had an excellent summer of reading.

 

On Tyranny, Timothy Snyder. I bought this during 45’s administration but didn’t get around to reading it until now. Only about sixty pages long, Snyder shows the similarities of authoritarian takeovers, most of which have a disconcerting resemblance to what we’re going through now.

 

Way Down on the High Lonely, Don Winslow. Few writers have the ability to write such consistently excellent books that are each so different. This one takes us into the mountains, where what started out as the search for a missing child turns into PI Neal Carey finding himself in the middle of a war with white supremacists. All the Winslow touches are here, which means I liked it a lot.

 

A Few Days Away, Tony Knighton. This is the first of Knighton’s books I’ve read, but I’ll be back. Knighton’s Nameless Thief draws a little from Hammett’s Continental Op and a lot from Richard Stark’s Parker to create a story that is as tightly-written as the plot is explosive. A great read from start to finish.

 

Get Shorty, Elmore Leonard. I’ve read this at least half a dozen times and it still makes me laugh. Leonard’s funniest book and still my favorite, though I’ll admit several have more compelling stories. (Such as? Hombre, City Primeval, Glitz, Swag, and probably a couple of others that aren’t coming to mind right now. None are more fun.)

 

Fog City, Claire M. Johnson. A 1930 San Francisco PI leaves town, placing the agency in the hands of his young secretary. She wants to do more than keep the lights on and continues to accept cases, one of which puts her well in over her head. Johnson captures the aura of Prohibition-era San Francisco as well or better as anyone since Hammett, and Maggie Laurent is a character whose diligence and enthusiasm make her easy to root for.

 

November Road, Lou Berney. I re-read this as part of preparing to moderate a panel at Bouchercon and liked it even better the second time. Not so much an alternative history as a ‘what if’ story of what could happen when two very different people both decide to leave their old lives behind. Berney can make a grocery list fun to read, and here he has a lot more material to work with. An outstanding book that deserved the acclaim it received.

 

Inverse Cowgirl, Alicia Roth Weigel. I rarely feel the need to read memoirs of people less than half my age, but Weigel’s account of growing up intersex came to my attention as part of researching the current Nick Forte project. A frank and unapologetic look at what life can be like for the intersex community and the problems it brings, as well as ideas for how to avoid them in the future. A powerfully personal, yet eminently readable book that I highly recommend for anyone who wants to learn about this too often neglected group.

 

Money, Money, Money, Ed McBain. It’s Ed McBain. What else do you need to know? This is one of the later books, after Fat Ollie Weeks came around for comic relief. McBain wrote 57 87^th Precinct novels and they all rate at least four stars out of five. This one has drug dealers working behind an unusual front, counterfeiters, and a dead woman eaten by lions.

 

Going Infinite: The Rise and Fall of a New Tycoon, Micheal Lewis. Lewis happened to be working on a book about Sam Bankman-Fried when the whole FTX operation went tits up, so he got a lot of inside scoop. I have the feeling the publisher wanted to get this one out while SBF was still in the news, so we’re left with no good conclusion, as the legal situations had only just begun to play out. The least satisfying of Lewis’s books I’ve read, but the world of crypto is so shady and built on such a sandy foundation not even he could get me to understand it.

 

By the Dawn's Early Light, Lawrence Block. A long story; not a novel, this is an excellent episode in the Matt Scudder oeuvre. Here he gets a casual friend out of a jam without knowing what exactly the jam is and inadvertently causes more harm. Scudder does find a way to help even the score.

 

Rain Dogs, Baron Birtcher. I’ve been watching Birtcher on panels for years and always promise myself to read one of his books. I finally got around to it and will definitely be back. Rain Dogs is a remarkably complicated story that comes together without artifice or allowing the reader to see what’s going on behind the curtain until Birtcher is ready to show him. Trigger warning: there are a couple of gruesomely violent scenes, but they are not gratuitous, as they provide insights into character and future motivations..

 

Made in America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, Bill Bryson. An entertaining and informative examination of how America has added to and changed the English language. The book covers far more than language alone, which makes for interesting lessons in both history and sociology. Bryson has a dry wit that makes the book a lot of fun to read.

Spring's Favorite Reads

 

Assassins Anonymous, Rob Hart. Who would figure a twelve-step program for professional killers would make for an entertaining book? Rob Hart did, then proved it. AA is violent, funny, and thought-provoking as Mark tries to stay on the path when everyone he meets seems to want to kill him. Rarely are high-concept stories this well executed.

 

Real Bad, Real Soon, Eric Beetner. This worthy successor to last year’s The Last Few Miles of Road shows what happens to Carter McCoy after he establishes himself as the go-to guy for off the record justice. Beetner has a gift for lending a familiar tone to a story that’s very much different from its predecessor while remaining just as engaging. I blew through this one and am already waiting for a third helping.

 

Survivor's Guilt, Robyn Gigl. With more ins and outs than the stitches in a quilt, Survivor’s Guilt tells the story of a millionaire’s murder. The cops pick up a suspect, who confesses right away. Attorney Erin McCabe has to be talked into taking the case, but when she does she finds things don’t add up any better than Forrest Gump’s algebra homework. There are elements of Ross McDonald in the buried family secrets. A riveting story with a taut, exciting ending.

 

Once You Go This Far, Kristen Lepionka. An experienced hiker has a tragic fall. Or does she? Her daughter engages PI Roxane Weary, who ranges from western Ohio, thorough Michigan, and into Canada to unravel this increasingly complex story. Weary is a realistic PI: a little unsure, and worried she’s in over her head. Her greatest virtue is a stick-to-it nature that can work for and against her. Lepionka has a Shamus to her credit (The Stories You Tell) and this book will only fortify her reputation.

 

Butcher's Moon, Richard Stark. Number 16 in the Parker series has several callbacks to earlier novels, but you won’t be lost if you haven’t read them. On the other hand, it will make you want to read them. Someone stole the stash from an earlier job and Parker wants his money back. As he’s shown before, this is unacceptable, and he takes on an entire corrupt town to get what he’s owed. Compelling from Page One.

 

Spade & Archer, Joe Gores. I’d heard about this prequel to The Maltese Falcon for years; finally got around to reading it. The anticipation did not lead to disappointment. Gores is Hammett-like enough to be entertaining for a devotee such as myself while not letting the book become a pale copy. Three stories strung together with a common thread, Spade and Archer should be on the menu of any Hammett fan.

Winter's Favorite Reads

 Within Plain Sight, Bruce Robert Coffin. The fourth in the outstanding Detective John Byron series shows Coffin’s skill at weaving an intriguing story around the lives of police officers is undiminished. The procedure is tight but never steps on the story’s momentum or the interplay between the characters, which exists on multiple levels.

The Two-Bear Mambo, Joe R. Lansdale. Hap and Leonard Number 3 was used as the third, and, alas, final season of the Hap and Leonard TV series. No one describes serious, sometimes tragic, situations with more inherent humor than Lansdale, which makes even the most fraught sequences bearable. (No pun intended.) Some of the philosophical digressions go on a bit long, but Hap and Leonard are always worth a read.

Ocean Drive, Sam Wiebe. Wiebe set PI Dave Wakeland aside for a bit to write this multi-POV cop and crook novel and pulls it off with such aplomb you’d think this was all he wrote. As always, the plot is tight and believable, the characters are three-dimensional in ways that support the flow of the story, and the dialog falls on the ear like you’re eavesdropping. Weibe started off very good and keeps getting better.

Blind to Midnight, Reed Farrel Coleman. Book 2 of the Nick Ryan series delves a little more into character and the world is a better place because of it. The problem I have with high-octane thrillers- books or movies - is the incessant quest to raise the stakes, makes them too unbelievable. Coleman tethers his book to how individuals will be affected, and for them this is life and death. Let’s hope this series continues.

The Devil Raises His Own, Scott Phillips. Like all his books, only Scott Phillips could have written this. Raunchy, violent, and laugh out loud funny, Phillips weaves multiple characters and storyline into what becomes a unified whole by books end. Not for those easily offended by foul language, but that’s your loss.

The Other, Jeff Markowitz. I’d been waiting for this one since I learned Markowitz was working on it; he didn’t disappoint me. Parallel stories that take place ninety years apart and focus on two Nazi youth camps in New Jersey built on the same site. Things weren’t as bad when Markowitz started the book as they are now, which makes his writing eerily prescient.

Liar’s Dice, Gabriel Valjan. The Shamus winner for Best Paperback original last year and a worthy recipient. Valjan sets his stories in Boston of the late 70s and early 80s; I went to grad school in Beantown 1983 – 1986 and lived in the area for an extra year, so much of what he writes hits a sweet spot with me. meticulously researched, Valjan pulls together several stories. Some relate to each other; some don’t. All effectively show what few stories od, which is that even private eyes are often pulled in multiple, and sometimes conflicting, directions.

Rapino/Amato, Charlie Stella. The Godfather is back and in good form. A sort-of-sequel to last year’s excellent Joey Piss Pot, Rapino/Amato spreads the new York mob’s reach to Montana, where a convicted mobster is working for an unnamed federal agency. Meanwhile, tensions are running high in New York as the creaking mob hierarchy tries to adapt to life in the 21^st Century. Stella’s keen ear for dialog is unsurpassed and he weaves two disparate stories together with the skill of a master.

A Rented Grave, Charles Philipp Martin. This book stands as evidence why you should make yourself available to moderate panels at conferences (in this case left Coast Crime), and read at least one book by each author. I’ll confess to not having been aware of Martin until I started prepping for the police procedural panel at this year’s conference. I’ll keep my eyes open for more. Think 87^th precinct in Hong Kong. Outstanding work by a writer who knows how to stay out of the way and still contributes the great lines.

The Menace of the Years, Frank Zafiro. Outstanding police procedural that not only handle procedure with aplomb but also police policy, politics, and personal lives. The dialog flows and is appropriate to each character, with humor used as it should be. An all-around enjoyable and enlightening book the late Joe Wambaugh would approve of.

Summer's Favorite Reads

 Savages, Don Winslow. The more I read of Winslow, the more I like him. This is a more complicated story than The Dawn Patrol or California Fire & Lifer, but he handles the increased number of moving parts just as well, keeping the reader on the edge of the seat while never allowing the pace to become too hyper. The dry humor helps. Highly recommended, though the movie is eminently missable, even though Winslow has a partial screenwriting credit.

In the Electric Mist With Confederate Dead, James Lee Burke. Not Burke’s best but maybe my favorite. I don’t usually go in for books with supernatural elements, especially crime novels, but Burke’s touch is so deft I fell right into it. It doesn’t hurt that this book focuses on New Iberia and the surrounding swamps, which is where Burke always does his best work. Unlike Savages the movie In the Electric Mist is one you ought to find. It’s outstanding, though under-released in this country.

The County Line, Steve Weddle. It’s been quite a while since Weddle’s acclaimed collection of stories Country Hardball came out; The County Line is worth the wait, though let’s hope he doesn’t make a habit of such long intervals. The story of rural criminal gangs set during Franklin Roosevelt’s first year in office, The County Line brings alive the Depression era problems and practicalities and puts the reader right in the thick of them by gradually winding the stories of the main characters ever closer until everything everyone does affects everyone else in a manner that always makes sense.

Trigger Guard, Chris Grall. (Non-fiction.) Outstanding review of firearms, from blunderbusses to M-4s. Grall has an engaging writing style that makes a topic that could be dry as duct flow past the eyes like a river. My plan had been to read a chapter at a time as a palate cleanser between novels, but once I read the first chapter I was hooked and read it straight through.

The Ones You Do, Daniel Woodrell. Book 3 of The Bayou Trilogy, this one focuses on John X. Shade, father of the brothers who carry the first tow books. John X. – he’s never referred to as plain old John – is a pool hustler whose hands are no longer steady enough to support him and bad choices through the years are catching up. He’s a ne’er-do-well piece of shit when you get right down to it, but you can’t help but root for him, as none of the people he’s shit on over the years seem to hold it against him. All the wry humor and bizarre situation that made the first two book such treasure are here in this worthy conclusion to the Shade family saga.

The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson. (Non-fiction) An informal history of the evolution of the English language. By “informal” I mean written in a breezy, engaging manner; the book is meticulously researched. Every page has something a lover of the language will find worth knowing, and Bryson’s easy writing makes the who enterprise a pleasure.

Black Betty, Walter Mosley. Maybe the best of the Easy Rawlins books I’ve read so far, though that could be because it’s freshest in my mind; Devil in a Blue Dress is very good. I’m glad I decided to read them in order, as Mosley’s writing becomes more refined and he keeps finding different ways to make Easy’s life hard.

Spring's Favorite Reads

 As you’ll soon see, the spring that just ended was a good season for reading, at least for me. Two vacations, one of them extended, gave me more time than usual for reading. I did not waste it.

 

The Monkey’s Raincoat. Robert Crais. A lot of writers tone down the things that made them popular once they become bestsellers; I guess it’s the way of the world. Once you’re on top, the publisher wants to keep you there, which inevitably leads to writing books they hope will attract a wider audience than the core group that launched you; the core will stay, whatever you do. This is not to imply Crais has watered down his writing in recent years, but I decided to go back and read the early Elvis Cole books in order, so I got myself a copy of The Monkey’s Raincoat and had at it. It was a pleasure to be reminded of what attracted me to his writing in the first place; this is as good a first PI novel as has been written since The Big Sleep. No question I’ll stick with the plan and work through these in order now.

 

All Them Wrong Things, James D.F. Hannah. I began to include as yet unreleased ARCs in these reviews about a year ago, but this is the first time I’ve included a book that is not yet under contract. Hannah is hot right now, with awards and nominations and inclusions in annual anthologies. Best known for his Henry Malone PI stories, All Them Wrong Things  is a departure for Hannah, the story of a decent man caught up in small town corruption and a brother who is an asshole for the ages. All the action and great dialog you’d expect from a Malone book is here, with a story sensibility more in the direction of Elmore Leonard or S.A. Cosby. Let’s hope this one finds a home quickly.

 

Joey Piss Pot, Charlie Stella. (I read an ARC; the book drops in July.) No one since George V. Higgins has captured the sense and attitudes of organized crime better than Stella, and even though it’s been a while since he wrote in this genre, Joey Piss Pot shows the author hasn’t lost an inch off his fastball. The book abounds with intersecting plot lines, characters who aren’t as smart as they think they are – or need to be – and dialog that reads like you’re at the next table in the bar eavesdropping. Stella’s fans will be delighted, and Joey Piss Pot should also bring him some new ones.

 

The Outfit, Richard Stark. The fourth Stark/Parker book I’ve read and, for my money, the best of the four. Stark spends more time in other people’s heads than usual here, and the effect is engrossing, as he takes events tangential to the main plot and spends entire chapters on them without making you wonder when he’s going to get back to what the book is ostensibly about; that’s a gift. Stark is on my list of writers I’ll make a point to read at least once a year and I see no reason why he shouldn’t stay there.

 

The Hot Kid, Elmore Leonard. This is a book that holds special significance for me. It came out in 2005, when I was not only not published, I wasn’t even what could be called a member of the writing community, more like a reader with delusions of writing adequacy. I won a contest with HarperCollins for an ARC of The Hot Kid so long as I wrote a review they could use. I used what I wrote for them as my audition to be a reviewer for the New Mystery Reader website. NMR editor Stephanie Padilla liked it, started assigning books to me, and gave me my first look inside. This exposed me to a lot of books and authors I would not otherwise have discovered, and interviews with several of them – notably Ken Bruen, Declan Hughes, and the aforementioned Charlie Stella – brought me inside the community; the interview with Stella led almost directly to my first contract. It’s been almost twenty years since I read Carlos Webster’s exploits, so I decided to see how well the book held up. The answer is, very. It rambles a little, but the action and dialog are all top-notch Leonard and the book is as much fun to read as anything he wrote, right up there with Get Shorty.

 

Killer’s Choice, Ed McBain. There isn’t much to recommend this 87^th Precinct novel over any of the others. There’s also nothing that makes it not at least as good as most. In short, it’s a solid McBain Eight-Seven story, which means it’s outstanding.

 

Resurrection Walk, Michael Connelly. I was off Connelly for several years, mostly because his writing doesn’t have the kind of voice and style I like as much as do some others. I picked this up on an impulse because it had both Mickey Haller and harry Bosch, and now I’m back on board. For whatever reason, I picked up on Connelly’s journalistic voice better here than before. Couple that with an exceptional and well-crafted story and he’s now on my list of authors to read at least once a year. I’ll not say more about Resurrection Walk lest I spoil something. Just go and read it.

 

The Last Few Miles of Road, Eric Beetner. Beetner is an underappreciated gem. Not by other writers, where his reputation was solidified years ago; the general public should be more aware of him, and would be if the big houses weren’t so timid. There are more plot twists here than in any few miles of road. They’re all surprises, and all are prepared so your typical reaction will be “Is should have seen this coming,” even though you didn’t. Much as I like to read for style, Beetner gift for keeping out of the way of the story and characters is so well developed, and works so well, it’s something young writers – and writing teachers – would do well to at least be aware of.

 

Winter's Favorite Reads

 Brown’s Requiem, James Ellroy. His first novel and a first-rate debut. Fritz Brown has enough resemblance to a traditional private eye for readers not to be made uncomfortable by some of his unorthodox activities. Ellroy’s style is not the staccato, scandal rag voice of his more recent work, but it ain’t Chandler, either. I’ve been thinking about going back to his earlier works for years, but my dissatisfaction with his last couple of books put some urgency to the idea. I’m glad I did. I’ll mine this vein for a while now.

 

The Delta Star, Joseph Wambaugh. I know I’ve said this about several writers, but here I go again: Not his best, but Wambaugh is so good even a pedestrian effort by his standards is still better than ninety percent of what else is out there. No one has ever conveyed how cops think and react better.

 

The Detective Up Late, Adrian McKinty. Sean Duffy is back, and the world is a better place for it. A Catholic detective in the Royal Ulster Constabulary during the Troubles, Duffy is assailed and mistrusted from all directions and has to fight to carve out his own niches of justice, or as close as he is allowed to get. McKinty’s writing is as good as ever and several years away has not diminished his ability to make Duffy’s saga compelling. The book reads as if it could be the end of the series, though the door is ajar for more should the author feel the impulse. Let’s hope he does.

 

Baseball Obscura 2024, David Fleming. Fleming wrote for the Bill James web site until James shut it down last fall. Fleming responded with the closest thing I’ve seen to James’s Baseball Abstracts since James wrote the Baseball Abstracts. The writing and analysis are predominant over the numbers and Fleming’s writing is up to the task. Early editions had too many typos, but my understanding is that corrections have been underway. Probably not of much interest to those who are not seamheads, but there’s a lot here for those who are.

 

And Every Man Has to Die, Frank Zafiro. Book Four of the River City series, and Zafiro keeps right on rolling. Each book so far has looked at different aspects of the police by using different characters, so the setting is truly paramount here. All the books read well as standalones, though I am enjoying going through them in order for the context provided.

 

Universally Adored and Other One Dollar Stories, Elizabeth Bruce. I’ve been a fan of Bruce’s writing since we were in a workshop together in 2002. Her novel, And Silent Left the Place, is among my favorites through several re-reads. Every story in this collection begins with “One dollar,” but where she goes from there is unique each time. Bruce has a gift for dialog and capturing emotions without beating the reader over the head to make sure they get it. A delightful and insightful collection.

 

Mucho Mojo, Joe Lansdale. The second Hap and Leonard has all the things people like me enjoy in Lansdale’s writing: humorous dialog, tongue-in-cheek descriptions, and plenty of action. The middle of this one is a little slow and I can live without some of the philosophical discussions the boys engage in, but this is a solid series I’m sure to return to.

 

The Last Good Kiss, James Crumley. This book gets better every time I read it. The story meanders and what the case is about doesn’t become clear until late, so if you like instant gratification, keep reading for the exquisite writing, which never becomes self-indulgent. The reveal of what’s been going on is jaw-dropping. Ross Macdonald never wrote a sicker family dynamic more beautifully.

Autumn's Favorite Reads

 Subtle Felonies, Austin Camacho. I’ve always had a soft spot for Hannibal Jones, Camacho’s PI character, and Subtle Felonies shows why. Jones is enough like a traditional PI to be comfortable, and different enough to hold my interest. This complex plot has a twist I did not see coming, but in hindsight was inevitable. That’s the mark of a well-written and enjoyable book.

A Stab in the Dark, Lawrence Block. I came late to the Matt Scudder books and I’m in the process of reading them in order. A Stab in the Dark is Number Four and frankly, I don’t know that I think it’s as good as the first three. That said, Block’s standard is so high, even a run-of-the-mill effort is still as good as 90% of the other books I’ve read. In my mind, Block is to PI fiction what Ed McBain is to police procedurals.

Small Mercies, Dennis Lehane. My God, what a book. Eye-opening, shocking, funny, and heartbreaking with a plot that never goes quite where you think it will even though the story is set against actual events that took place in my lifetime, namely the Boston busing riots. Lehane has a touch like none other for such things. Might be the best book he’s written, and when you stop to think about what else he’s done, that’s the highest praise I can give. (I had more to say about Small Mercies last November.)

Chicago ’63, Terrence McCauley. McCauley has written Prohibition-era crime stories, modern techno-thrillers, war stories, Westerns, and now this, a fact-based account of an unsuccessful assassination attempt on President John Kennedy three weeks before the trip to Dallas. The book reads like a cross between James Ellroy (without the sometimes distracting cadences of his later work) and Day of the Jackal. McCauley’s writing has never been smoother or more transparent. (I was lucky enough to score an advanced reader copy; the expected publication date is February 13, 2024.)

Summer's Favorite Reads

 Old Bill Miner, Frank Anderson. Brief biography of one of the last of the Western train robbers. Miner was known as a gentleman bandit, always polite and deferential. Also not always the sharpest knife in the drawer. The film The Grey Fox is a depiction of Miner’s life.

 

We Pointed Them North, E.C. "Teddy Blue" Abbott and Helena Huntington Smith. Delightful memoir of a man who worked cattle his entire adult life. Helena Smith did a wonderful job keeping Teddy’s voice as much like his spoken dialog as possible. (At least I’m told she did.) It’s funny, it’s sad, and it’s a master class in what it was like to be a cowboy, both on the frontier and after.

 

Hombre, Elmore Leonard. This was the third or fourth time I’ve read this book and I still think it may be Leonard’s best. When people say Out of Sight and Get Shorty were the first movies to do Leonard justice, they mean the crime novels; the movie version of Hombre is pitch perfect. The character changes made by Irving Ravetch and Harriet Frank, Jr. are true to the tone of the book, and they did well to keep as much of Leonard’s dialog as possible.

 

Last Stand at Saber River, Elmore Leonard. The least of the three Leonard Westerns I read over the summer, but still good enough for inclusion. Written in the mid-1950s, his style was still forming, and there’s too much internal monologue, but the story and characters are top-notch. (The TV movie with Tom Selleck and the Carradine brothers is eminently missable. Just to give an idea, you get to see a dead man start to stand just before a commercial break. Apparently he didn’t wait for “Cut!” and the error was missed in editing.)

 

Law at Randado, Elmore Leonard. Much better than Saber River, and much more like an Elmore Leonard novel. The dialog is better and the action flows more naturally. Kirby Frye is a character who could have carried a couple of books.

 

The Bandit & Others - The Best Western Stories of Loren D. Estleman, Loren Estleman. Collections of stories by a single writer are typically more consistent in quality than anthologies by multiple authors. Even so, it’s rare to find a collection where every story is as good as in this one. (Stop me if you’ve heard this before.) People have been after me for years to read Estleman, either for PI or Westerns. I finally listened. Now I must read as much of him as possible.

 

Her Perfect Life¸ Hank Phillippi Ryan. I don’t typically read psychological thrillers; I like more overt criminal activity. This was in a swag bag from a conference and HPR is a big deal, so I figured what the hell. I’m glad I did. In the interest of full disclosure, I thought there was a little too much time spent in characters’ heads, but that’s a personal preference. The characters are well-drawn and believable, and the story is complicated enough to hold one’s interest without becoming so convoluted you don’t care anymore. The twist at the end is killer.

 

California Fire and Life, Don Winslow. This book was primed to be a disappointment after the high expectations created by my first trip into Winslow’s oeuvre, The Dawn Patrol. Nope. I enjoyed CF&L at least as much. All the things I liked about The Dawn Patrol were there, with the depth made possible through the use of multiple points of view. Winslow has a unique gift for providing detail in an entertaining manner that would come across as information dumps at the hands of most authors. Highest recommendation.

 

And Silent Left the Place, Elizabeth Bruce. I will confess, this one is personal. Elizabeth Bruce and I have been friends since we met at a writing workshop twenty years ago. This was her first novel, a literary effort with fascinating characters and a well-crafted story. No navel-gazing here, and no use of language just to show the author has command of it. She displays her talents in an understated yet lyrical manner that made it a pleasure to re-read after all these years.

 

 

Winter's Favorite Reads

 The Dramatist, Ken Bruen. It’s hard for a Jack Taylor novel not to make this quarterly recap. Bruen has as unique a voice as anyone, and I read mostly for voice. The books are more character studies of Jack Taylor than they are mysteries, yet Bruen keeps them fresh throughout.

 

Leave the Gun, Take the Cannoli, Mark Seal. Outstanding history of how The Godfather came to be one of the greatest films of all time. I cannot recommend this book highly enough for film buffs, or those who are into The Godfather.

 

The Dawn Patrol, Don Winslow. I finally caught up with Winslow, once again proving I am ridiculously slow on the uptake. I’d been put off a little by the length and topics of his more recent work; thanks to the friends who suggested I look earlier. Winslow has a gift for dialog, as well as providing exposition in such an entertaining manner you look forward to it. A lot funnier than I expected, which is never a bad thing.

 

Criminal Economics, Eric Beetner. I finished this one and thought, “This is Shakespearean noir.” I’d tell you why, but that would spoil the ending. Read it yourself. It’s well worth your time.

 

God Save the Mark, Donald Westlake. Begun as a Richard Stark Parker novel, Westlake shifted gears and turned it into a comedy. Not as funny as some of the later humorous novels, it’s still a delight. Easy to see how this same story could have been very dark.

 

The First World War, Basil H. Liddell Hart. Still considered the gold standard after 90 years. While there are things here I could investigate in more detail, my key takeaway was that this was a pointless war with needlessly horrific casualties that didn’t accomplish much except to light the fuse for WWII.

 

Jimmy the Wags, James Wagner. I forget how many times I’ve read this book; I turn to it when I want to get in to a PI frame of mind. Wagner was a decorated NYPD officer turned private investigator; this is his PI memoir. It’s hilarious and cautionary at the same time.

 

Shotgun, Ed McBain. To say this is a typical Ed McBain novel is to say it’s better than just about anything else out there. This is a typical Ed McBain novel. The high expectations he developed should not detract from its evaluation.

 

Muscle on the Wing, Daniel Woodrell. Volume 2 of The Bayou Trilogy. Woodrell is best known for books such as Winter’s Bone and  Tomato Red, but these early works are outstanding and deserve more appreciation.

 

The American West, Dee Brown. A broad history of the frontier from before the Civil War till about the turn of the 20^th century. Outstanding in its own right, and a treasure trove of information on where to take research for the Western that is gestating in my imagination.

 

We Own This City, Justin Fenton. Man, has the Baltimore Police Department been fucked up for a long time. (The whole city, for that matter.) The parallels to the Rampart scandal in LA that formed the basis for The Shield are disturbing. WOTC is the source material for David Simon’s recent HBO series of the same name (what some are calling season 6 of The Wire) but with far more detail.