Month: October 2024

In Blog Series, Currently Reading, Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, News/Misc., Opening Lines, Quotations, Reed Farrel Coleman

Head & Shoulders used to tell us that, “You never get a second chance to make a first impression.” That’s true for wearing dark shirts, and it’s especially true for books. Sometimes the characters will hook the reader, sometimes the premise, sometimes it’s just knowing the author—but nothing beats a great opening for getting a reader to commit.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001, 11:43 P.M.
He is the last man alive. Or at least, things would be less complicated if he were.

He is standing on the platform at the Smith and Ninth Street subway station. The tallest station in Brooklyn looms over the Gowanus Canal. The canal, so polluted with toxins and heavy metals that you don’t have to be Jesus to walk on its waters. A writer once joked it was the only body of water that was 90 percent guns. Nobody is joking tonight. Nobody! Not about anything.

The lone man is waiting for the G train. He smells the acrid windblown smoke continuing to rise from where the World Trade Center stood. His blue Mets cap is squashed low on his forehead, his eyes fixed on the pebbled concrete under his running shoes. He hopes that by not looking up he might be invisible. It makes no rational sense. Today the world stopped making sense. Still, he can’t help but peek at the place where the towers once stood. He quickly looks away. The pile smolders. Ash, shreds of paper, and carcinogenic dust still rise into the air, carried by the prevailing winds. A downy coating of gray snowflakes falls around him.

from Blind to Midnight by Reed Farrel Coleman
Cover of Blind to Midnight by Reed Farrel Coleman
Sure, picking up a Coleman novel, you know you’re not in for a romp. But starting off with that date, you know things are going to be grim–and the next three paragraphs emphasize that.

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PUB DAY REPOST: Candle & Crow by Kevin Hearne: Growing, Changing, and Moving On

By HCNewton

On October 1, 2024

In Fiction, Iron Druid Chronicles, Kevin Hearne, Urban Fantasy

Candle & Crow

by Kevin Hearne

DETAILS:
Series: Ink & Sigil, #3
Publisher: Del Rey Books
Publication Date: October 1, 2024
Format: eARC
Length: 352
Read Date: September 13-18, 2024

What’s Candle & Crow About?

What isn’t this about? Al has to address a potential treaty violation of a group against some British citizens, which leads to some treaty re-negotiations; Gladys wraps up business she started in the last book, prepares to leave her job, and sees some shite; the Morrigan tries to settle among humans in her new body; Al, Buck, and Nadia are targeted by the police; Al has to help out his American counterpart with a tricky problem; Al gets a line on who cursed him; and…a few other things that I can’t figure out how to describe in a phrase or two.

Seriously, this book is busy. But somehow, it doesn’t feel crammed or over-stuffed; everything gets as much time as it needs to be addressed; everything makes sense; you don’t lose track of any plotlines; characters get to grow and develop (and be introduced!). And the last couple of chapters are so satisfying that I don’t care that I can’t finish this sentence properly.

A Trio of Druids

Fittingly for what Hearne has stated will be the last book in the universe of the Iron Druid Chronicles (I’m waiting for him to change his mind. Maybe a foolish hope, but it’s one nonetheless), we get to see all three of the Druids from that series for a little while—and none of them togther.

Working with his students has been good for Owen, Atticus—I mean, Connor—is in a good place (in several senses of that word), and Granuaile is…well, still Granuaile. I think I’ve mentioned she was getting on my nerves toward the end of IDC, and she’s still there. But she’s still essentially the same character—so if you weren’t annoyed by her, you’ll enjoy her appearance (I did, even with my attitude).

We got just enough time with them all to get a sense of where they are, what the future holds for them, and to see that they’re doing well—the events of Scourged are far enough past that they’ve settled into the next stage of their lives. It’s a good way to say goodbye to this world.

Deities

Since at least book 3 of the IDC we’ve had a good understanding of how gods, goddesses, and lesser deities function, live, and have power both now and throughout the ages. Hearne’s had Atticus and Al explain it a time or two since then, so faitful readers will get it.

But in these pages, we are given two examples (or three, depending on how you want to count something) of how this functions toward entities that aren’t part of the major pantheons (or minor ones, either—how would you describe Perun’s?). They are two divergent types of entities and the application of what we know about deities in this world is quite different (while linked).

I think it’s clear that I’m struggling to describe this without giving something away (if you haven’t noticed, let me assure you that I am). However, for fans of this world and fans of just good worldbuilding—Hearne does a great job with this stuff, if I didn’t know better*, I’d say that he started building toward this novel in Hammered.

* Okay, I don’t know better, he might have had this as part of his Master Plan all along. But I’m willing to bet he didn’t.

Al and the English

Al has to deal with a representative of the British government a few times over the course of this book as a part of his sigil agent duties. I honestly don’t know if I’ve been so purely entertained by Hearne (outside of an Oberon-heavy moment) as I was in reading Al’s narration during these parts.

He really doesn’t like this guy—and it’s tough to say that Al gives him a real chance before deciding to write him off—but the reader can understand why. I think that Al gets close to mean in his attitude and actions toward this man, but I don’t think he crosses the line. Then again, I was chuckling and highlighting so much in these interactions, I might have missed it.

So, what did I think about Candle & Crow?

I have said many good and complimentary things about the books in this series—and I stand by them—but this is what all of the Ink & Sigil books should’ve been like, at least at their core. We’ve seen a little of the Sigil Agent life, but there’s been a lot of other things going on, and not that much of it has to do with the administration and enforcement of contracts. It was just so cool to focus on that as much as we got to here. Yes, the big action stuff, taking on whacky monsters and nasty people experimenting on supernatural creatures and whatnot is pretty cool, too. But we get that kind of thing in all sorts of UF—we don’t get to see a lot of supernatural people wrangling with human governments over the wording of a hundred year old document* and the deadly ramifications of that wrangling not going well. It’s a shame that Hearne embraced this aspect of Al’s life so completely here at the end.

* Well, we get glimpses of that in The Rivers of London series, don’t we? But it feels very different.

I enjoyed every bit of this book—and am not sure how to talk about it without just blathering on and on about how good everything was. The action—and despite what I may have suggested earlier, there was plenty of it—was gripping and moved well. The emotional arcs of the characters were done with Hearne’s typical deftness (and maybe more than typical deftness). The humor was Hearne at his best. The magic at work was perfect, and…yeah. I just have nothing but compliments upon compliments here.

If you have any kind of emotional investment in Buck, Nadia, or Al going into this book, you will love the ending. It was a real treat, the last chapters just made me feel all warm inside.

I was so enthusiastic about this book that i think i might have convinced a friend to pick up the first IDC book just so he can catch up and appreciate all of this book—and another friend who’d read Hounded through Scourged to pick up this trilogy. And I’m more than ready to do that to anyone else reading this post.

I don’t know what Hearne’s next project will be, but I’m ready for it. In the meantime, I’m just going to bask in how wonderfully satisfying that Candle & Crow was.

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this book from Random House Publishing Group – Ballantine | Del Reyvia NetGalley—thanks to both for this.

5 Stars

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you. As always, the opinions expressed are my own.
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In Medias Res: Black Maria by Christine Boyer

By HCNewton

On October 1, 2024

In Currently Reading, Fiction, In Medias Res, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

As the title implies, I’m in the middle of this book, so this is not a review, just some thoughts mid-way through. The book releases today, and I didn’t want to wait to say something.

Black Maria

by Christine Boyer

Book Blurb:

Business magnate Thomas Farney and Detective Felix Kosmatka both want the same thing: to catch the monster who brutally murdered Farney’s young grandson.

Thomas, brutal and savvy, didn’t become wealthy by playing by the rules or kowtowing to authority. Felix, smart but green, still believes in the integrity of law and order…and he believes solving this case may be his ticket out of his dying hometown.

Felix must team up with seasoned detective Adam Shaffer to hunt the killer. Their investigation leads them into the past-when Thomas and his coal company owned the town, and when the riches beneath the surface belonged to anyone ruthless enough to claim them. Thomas made a multitude of enemies in those lawless days, and perhaps a few followed him into the present to exact their revenge.

Set in the Pennsylvania Rust Belt in the 1970’s, Felix’s faith in his institutions is shaken when the killer reveals a difficult truth: the rich and powerful rarely pay for their own sins, and vengeance can sometimes look uncomfortably like justice.

This starts on some very familiar territory—a young, ambitious, and talented detective on a small town police force catches a murder that between its method, victim, or victim’s family is going to make it a major story. In this case, it’s all three—this powerful magnate’s young grandchild is killed in a pretty chilling way. It’s such a big deal that outside help is brought in—the two investigators have different goals, different methods, and probably different ideas about where the case should go. They form an alliance (however uneasy it may be), it’ll be tried by circumstances and their own backgrounds—their secrets may be uncovered along the way, but they’ll get their killer. We’ve seen this before—in print, TV, and film. We will see it again in all three because it works.

And it works well here—I really want to see the way that Felix and Shaffer’s relationship develops along the way—Felix is one of those detectives you can’t help but root for. I really like this guy. But Boyer isn’t just going to give us this story of the partnership, because she threw me for a loop, just when I thought I knew where this book was going.

We got a chapter from the killer’s point of view. And not in one of those aggravating chapters where they’re called “He” or “She” (with the capitals so you know who the author is talking about) and all the teasing about which character of the right gender that adjective is talking about. Nope. Boyer just names Them* (which is one of the ways that this isn’t one of those aggravating chapters). So this novel is suddenly not a whodunit, but a whydunit. We get the killer’s backstory, we get to see how They went about starting to plan the killing, and how they try to outsmart the detectives.

I don’t know exactly where Boyer is going, but..oh, I’m this close to sacrificing sleep to finding out. (I also think if I read much further, it’ll be easier to stay awake than to have some of these visuals take up residence in my subconscious.

Jo Perry’s blurb says (in part), “the place where everything in Black Maria really happens is the deep, vast, coal-dark chambered maze that is the human heart.” Having read just under 50% of this leads me to say that she’s (no surprise) dead right. You should go look for it.

* Okay, I can see how this is fun to do