Category: Fiction Page 137 of 341

The Friday 56 for 12/4/20

On December 4, 2020

In Currently Reading, Fantasy, Fiction, News/Misc., Quotations, The Friday 56, YA/MG/Children's Books

This is a weekly bloghop hosted by Freda’s Voice

RULES:
Grab a book, any book.
Turn to Page 56 or 56% on your ereader. If you have to improvise, that is okay.
Find a snippet, short and sweet.
Post it

from page 56 of:

The Silver Arrow by Lev Grossman

“Kate. Tom. Good to see you. You made it this far.”

“Uncle Herbert!”

“Uncle Herbert!” Tom said. “We went through the woods and didn’t crash and then we saw a station and it was full of animals and they talked and then the train talked!”

Tom said this as one long continuous word. Uncle Herbert didn’t look particularly surprised at any of it.

Mostly Human 2 by D. I. Jolly: The Further Adventures of the Rock Star Werewolf

By HCNewton

On December 3, 2020

In Urban Fantasy

Mostly Human 2

by D. I. Jolly
Series: Mostly Human, #2

Kindle Edition, 343 pg.
Tinpot Publishing, 2020

Read: September 28-October 25, 2020

What’s Mostly Human 2 About?

On the heels of the dramatic events at the end of Mostly Human, the werewolf rock star, Alex Harris has to leave town for a while. He needs to stay out of the limelight before people figure out how his nephew was rescued and start asking too many questions about the “dog” that freed him. He also needs to get his head on straight after it. So he takes off incognito, eventually winding up in a wolf sanctuary in Norway, where he finds work (and where he can take off every few weeks and fit in).

He settles in and establishes a home there, at some point, he strikes up a friendship/borderline romance with an intern, and things really come to life for him.

Eventually, circumstances force him to leave and he answers an inner call to go to Russia to find out more about his lycanthropy. From there, he’ll return home and try to re-establish his life with family and bandmates. If only the mysterious (magical?) voice in his head and a fellow werewolf with an agenda will let him.

To Re-cap or Not?

So, Mostly Human was the first book I read in 2017, I started this at the end of September of 2020. There’s a lot of months and a lot of books between those two (sure, most readers won’t have as many books between these two, but they might share the time gap), and I’ve gotta say, I had a lot of trouble remembering details/names/plot points from the first one. Jolly didn’t do a lot to help.

It’s a tricky thing (it seems) to decide how much of a recap to work into the early chapters of a follow-up book. Generally, I’m in favor of a minimalistic approach—unless it’s a situation of “remember that character who showed up for 3 chapters in Book 2? Well, they’ll be a major player here in Book 9.” But when there’s this much time between the publication of the two books,* you’ve got to toss readers a bone.

* December 2016-November 2020, officially.

Yes, eventually, he gave enough bread crumbs that I could piece together enough of what happened—especially once I read my original post—and, yes, between this release and the re-packaging of the first book, hopefully he picks up new readers that won’t have to reach back 35 months for their memories. It’s not a deal-breaker, by any means, but detracted from the experience.

A Very Talky Urban Fantasy

While there are some good scenes of werewolf action, some nefarious goings-on, and a respectable amount of violence. But man, there was a lot of talking. A lot of banter. A lot of emotional naval-gazing.

Which is a very pleasant change of pace compared to your typical Urban Fantasy. Jolly focuses on the relationship (in various stages) between Alex and Cassandra, Alex and his sister, his sister and her boyfriend, and so on. There’s more space devoted to developing and evolving the relationship between Alex and Cassandra than anything about Alex and his wolf nature.

The book is notionally about Alex, his curse/lycanthropy, and his growth in knowledge about other lycanthropes, but I’m not convinced that’s the case. It seems to be more about Alex understanding and accepting himself, how that will the relationships around him and his future. His lycanthropy plays a huge part in that, and its shadow looms over everything, but that doesn’t seem to be where the heart of the book is. He may have set out to write an Urban Fantasy, but I don’t think he fully succeeded and ended up writing a Lad Lit-kind of book with Urban Fantasy flavoring.

I’d pay money right now to see a straightforward Lad Lit novel from Jolly, I think he’d do great with it. Or something like Mike Chen does with SF, using that setting to tell family stories. Jolly purposefully doing that with UF (rather than accidentally as he seems to have done here), would be something to get excited about.

So, what did I think about Mostly Human 2?

I enjoyed this, I like the story he told and the story he set out to tell. The best part of a werewolf character is seeing how the wolf affects the human and the human’s life.

This is a great world, full of interesting characters. I don’t know if this is the end of Alex’s story or not. It could easily be that. Or it could be the launching to a new phase of Alex’s story with a greater understanding of his condition and a new path for life. I think it could go either way, and I’d be fine with either outcome.

It’s a fine tale, a solid (and different) take on lycanthropy, with a lot of things to grab a reader in addition to the protagonist growing extra hair on occasion. You should check it (and its predecessor) out.

3.5 Stars

Disclaimer: I received a copy of this novel from the author in exchange for my honest opinion and this post.

Last Stand in Lychford by Paul Cornell: A Tense, Taut Conclusion to this Series (that I really don’t want to see conclude)

By HCNewton

On December 1, 2020

In Fiction, Paul Cornell, Urban Fantasy

Last Stand in Lychford

by Paul Cornell
Series: Witches of Lychford, #5

Kindle Edition, 192 pg.
Tor, 2020

Read: November 24, 2020
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s Last Stand in Lychford About?

When I talked about the last book, The Lights Go Out in Lychford, I said:

The conclusion was simply fantastic and heart-wrenching—with a last line that will drive you to the online bookstore of your choice to try to order the conclusion immediately.

And it picks up right from that point—Lychford has seen plenty of trouble and conflict the last few years, but this time, it’s for all the marbles.

It’s not supposed to be a final showdown between other-worldly forces and the defenders of the town. It’s supposed to be some of the other-worldly forces just rolling into town, wiping out humanity in Lychford before moving out to the rest of the planet. But the crafty, wily, and stubborn trio that we’ve been following for the past few years have a thing or two to say about that. They may not be fully ready for what’s coming their way, but that’s not going to stop them—and as usual, we see that they’re pretty good at adapting to whatever circumstances they find themselves in.

The New Characters

What better time than the last volume of a series to introduce three major characters? (well, maybe 2 major and one minor—no pun intended). We meet both a new fairy and a new mortal (and her daughter) who both play significant roles in the final confrontation.

The fairy’s quite possibly the most helpful representative of the species we’ve encountered, as far as Autumn and Lizzie are concerned. He’s pretty entertaining as far as the reader is concerned. So that’s a win all around.

The human, Zoya, is a newish resident of Lychford—struggling to keep her and her young daughter afloat. She’s fully aware that strange things happened in town a few weeks before we meet her, but she doesn’t understand it—and is in no rush to understand. All she cares about is finding rent money so she and Jas aren’t evicted. I can’t get into her role in things but Zoya’s background, her personality, and circumstances make her a pleasant and important addition to this world and I’m glad we got to see her.

I don’t have much to say about Jas, but I enjoyed her. She was a fun burst of innocence in grim circumstances.

Autumn and Lizzie

Naturally, the most important characters to the book are our returning protagonists. Lizzie’s always been my favorite character, the one I could relate to most in this series. But…there’s a lot of what she does in this installment that just annoyed me, it didn’t feel like the same character to me (it’s likely just my mood at the time). At the same time, I connected more with Autumn here than I’m used to.

Overall, though, I appreciated their character arcs (contained in this book and over the series, both). These two women—rebuilding a friendship, learning about a whole new (to them) world of magic and strangeness and fantastical beings—are not really de rigueur in Urban Fantasy. I enjoyed them for their novelty, but more than that, I thought they were solid, well-rounded, believable characters that were just a lot of fun to spend time with.

You Might Want to Read this Next to an Open Window

There’s a claustrophobic feel to a lot of this book as Lychford is cut off from the rest of the world, and it gets worse as the book goes on. But there’s one scene in particular where Autumn is micrometers (maybe nanometers) away from probable doom. Cornell nailed that scene in a visceral way.

So, what did I think about Last Stand in Lychford?

This was exactly the conclusion this series needed. Cornell nailed the landing—teaching us a lot about the world (much of which we’d guessed, but now we know) and surprising readers the way things wrap up, while making it all feel inevitable and right. All along, this has felt like the most real, the most possible Urban Fantasy series—and even as cataclysmic events unfold, Cornell somehow makes it feel a whole lot more believable than any UF I can think of.*

* I think I said something similar about Amber Benson’s Witches Echo Park series—and the two series have a similar feel, but I think Cornell does a slightly better job of it.

This series about a tiny English town standing between two worlds, as humanity’s (unwitting) defense against beings from other worlds, other realities has really been a blast. I heartily encourage you to go back to Witches of Lychford and dive into this series.

4 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, opinions are my own.

Criminal Collective by Russell Day: Great stories about People at Their Worst

By HCNewton

On November 27, 2020

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Russell Day

Criminal Collective

by Russell Day

Paperback, 268 pg.
2020

Read: November 16-20, 2000

Murder is just another service the nation’s capital has to offer. Like any service industry, you get what you pay for. Less than a grand, in some quarters, will buy you a thug with a baseball bat and a good swing. And at no extra cost they’ll usually tell all their friends about it then spill their guts to the police, once they’re hauled into an interview room.

Creating a dead body is the easy bit. Making it vanish, without questions, now, that’s skilled work. If you pay the extra, someone like me will make the body, the evidence and any troublesome connections melt away, like snow in a heatwave.

What’s Criminal Collective About?

This is a collection of shorter stories from Russell Day, one of my favorites in Crime Fiction. There’s really not much more that I can say, but it seems to brief to move on at this point, so let me just steal from the back of the book:

Do you struggle to know the best place to bury a dead gambler?

Do health care professionals laugh at your attempts to fake a slipped disc?

Do your weapons choices leave you embarrassed at punishment beatings?

If the answer is yes, then Criminal Collective is the book for you! Nineteen stories, each one written to help navigate the tricky etiquette of being a scumbag in the 21st century.

Never again be left nonplussed by the rules of Roadkill Roulette!

Never again mistake your German Virgins for your Automatic Nuns!

Never again leave your fingerprints on a golok!

Criminal Collective! Permanent solutions in an uncertain world.

Doc Slidesmith and Yakky

All the troubles I’ve had over the years have been handed to me by the living not the dead.

There are three Doc Slidesmith stories (one might be novella-length, I’m bad at judging that). For me, these are the highlight of the collection—one of my highlights of the year (have I mentioned how much I love Slidesmith?).

There’s “The Tattooist, The Tarot, and Bang-Bang the Clown,” in which someone ducks into the wrong shop while running from the cops. That was plenty of fun. Then there’s “Not Talking Italics,” which I wrote about two years ago, and loved just as much this time around. Seriously, a short story should not be this good.

The novella (or so) piece is called “Coming Up with a Because (A Game for Three Payers). The three players are A Tattooist, A Nurse and A Solider and we focus on each of these in rotation as the novella tells what happens when a figure from Doc’s past comes looking for a favor. I spent more than a few pages convinced I was a step or two ahead of Doc. That was a mistake. I’m tempted to go on and on here, but it’d just be the ravings of a fanboy…

Doc Slidesmith—you won’t find an amateur sleuth smarter or more enjoyable to read about.

SF Stories

There are two stories that are a SF/Crime Fiction hybrid. Neither of them did much for me. Not that either were bad, I just didn’t connect with them. I’m betting if I tried them again in a couple of months, they’d click with me.

However, both made a reference to the “protein wars.” I’d love to read a story/novel/series about them, the idea intrigues me.

So, what did I think about Criminal Collective?

“I never wanted a different life, Dad,” Liam said. “I was trying to change who I was. I wanted to be someone who wanted the life I had.”

I’ve read that line a few times since I read that story. I think I’m going to have to read it a few more to fully digest it.

There was one other story besides the SF ones that didn’t wow me. All three were okay, though. Not a bad one in the bunch. And the highs more than made up for the not-very lows.

Some of these elicited chuckles, some were disturbing (I mean, put the book down and think about something else for a bit disturbing*), there were a few that had an emotional punch that seemed out of balance compared to the brevity of the story—which speaks to how quickly Day can pull the reader in, and get you invested in some pretty unsavory characters.

* That’s not an exaggeration.

I’d love to talk about some of the stories in detail, but to do so would involve spoiling them—but if you get this book as you should, you’re in for a real treat when it comes to “Click. Size Zero. Delete”, “Reduced to Clear”, and “Colon: Full Stop” in addition to the Doc Slidesmith stories.

As always, Day’s ability with voice and style is at the forefront here—it’d be easy to believe that nineteen authors contributed to this anthology rather than one author creating nineteen distinct voices.

Basically this was a treat from beginning to end, and as always when it comes to Russell Day, I strongly recommend this and encourage you to pick it up.

5 Stars

BOOK SPOTLIGHT: What the World Needs Now – Trees! by Cheryl Rosebush, Zuzana Svobodová

By HCNewton

On November 23, 2020

In Book Tour, Fiction, YA/MG/Children's Books

Today I’m pleased to welcome the Book tour for the children’s book, What the World Needs Now – Trees! by Cheryl Rosebush. After this post, I’ll be giving my take on the book here in a little bit.

Book Details:

Book Title: What the World Needs Now – Trees! by Cheryl Rosebush, Zuzana Svobodová (Illustrator)
Publisher: YPD Books
Format: Ebook/Paperback

Book Blurb:

In the tropical rainforests of Indonesia lives an orangutan named Jefri. There are lots of reasons Jefri needs trees. And it turns out, people need trees just as much as Jefri for many of the same reasons. What the World Needs Now: Trees! explores the universal connection people, plants, insects and animals share with life-giving trees.

About the Series:

What the World Needs Now is an environmental children’s book series for ages 4-8 that aims to connect the world’s youngest book lovers to the importance of nature, and our place in it.

Each book in the series follows a friendly animal through its habitat, helping kids learn about one thing the world needs now, be it more trees or bees or less plastic, to maintain a healthy planet.

The series is designed to help parents and educators lay the foundation for future learning on the world’s most pressing environmental challenges. But for our littlest kids, the connection starts at a much simpler point: their first job is to fall in love with nature – because you don’t protect what you don’t love.

The books support engaging with our kids on how we can better respect and care for the only planet we have.

About the Author:

I was born and raised in Southern Ontario, Canada in the cities of Burlington and St. Catharines. Long before the internet and mobile phones (now I’m aging myself!), my childhood was spent in forests and parks, on bike rides, and playing hide and seek until the streetlights came on. My family did comical Griswold-style road trips in wood-paneled station wagons. We spent summers swimming in friends’ backyards. These are my very fortunate roots.

I knew from an early age that my destiny would take me far from Southern Ontario. I graduated high school and moved to Montreal to study international politics at McGill University. The subject fascinated me, but as graduation approached, I realized I didn’t know what I wanted to do with a degree in international politics. I didn’t want to become a lawyer. I didn’t want to become a politician or civil servant. The media industry, on the other hand, intrigued me.

The West Coast of Canada also intrigued me. So, after graduating McGill, I packed up again, moved to Vancouver and took the first media job I could get at a local Top 40 radio station (Z.95.3) in Vancouver. Best job. Great bosses. I learned so much. But after a couple of years there, the winds of change came calling again.

September 11, 2001. In a heartbeat, Z95.3 went from playing Britney Spears to reporting up-to-the-minute information on the local, national and international fallout of the terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. In that moment, I knew I had found my calling. I wanted to do something that was needed on a good day, and needed even more on a bad day. I wanted to become a full-time journalist.

So, I packed my bags again (a running theme in my life), and moved to Ottawa, Ontario to do my Masters of Journalism. Another incredible two years culminated in me getting a research internship with the Canadian Broadcast Corporation (CBC) in London, England. That position helped me land back in Montreal for a second chapter there as local news reporter for the CBC. While I was there, I wore just about every hat you could in CBC’s radio and TV newsrooms. Depending on the day, I was a researcher, producer, reporter, or online writer. I even filled in for the weather reports every once in a while.

https://www.cherylrosebush.com/

Purchase Links

YPD Books

My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the book) they provided.

What the World Needs Now – Trees! By Cheryl Rosebush, Zuzana Svobodová: Orangutans and Rainforests for Kids

By HCNewton

On November 22, 2020

In Book Tour, Fiction, Non-Fiction, YA/MG/Children's Books

What the World Needs Now – Trees!

by Cheryl Rosebush, Zuzana Svobodová (Illustrator)
Series: What the World Needs Now

PDF, 34 pg.
2020

Read: November 21, 2020

What’s What the World Needs Now – Trees! About?

This is a cute little book about an orangutan named Jefri, his home in the Sumatran rainforest, deforestation; and what can and should be done about to prevent it.

Okay, so only some of it is cute—it’s hard to make deforestation (in general) and the elimination of rainforests (in particular) adorable.

In addition to the main information, there are little boxes with additional/supplemental information, ideal for whatever adult is reading to/with the child to give more information or to launch a discussion.

How were the Illustrations?

The art is wonderful. Svobodová balances accuracy with an attractive, cartoonish style. The illustrations are full of small little touches to keep the attention of the youngest readers as they come back again and again.

So, what did I think about What the World Needs Now – Trees!?

I wanted a little more from the text—either something to hook the reader a bit more, or another detail or two. It’s hard to put my finger exactly on it—but I thought something was missing. That aside, I thought it was a good introduction to the issue without being alarmist and suggests common-sense solutions.

It’s good, important information delivered in an attractive package. A great way to kick-off this series for young readers.

3 Stars

My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including the book) they provided.

EXCERPT from The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli

By HCNewton

On November 20, 2020

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller, Quotations

Earlier this morning, I talked about the book, and now I get to give you a little taste—the opening paragraphs, I hope it hooks you the way it did me.

from Chapter 1 of The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli (available from Polis Books)

Friday

In the gutter lay a man, face up, between two parked SUVs on Sutton Street. He wore a pale gray suit with impossibly thin pinstripes. It was Zegna, because I’d seen one on my partner, Detective Hamilton P. Turner. The suit was still in good shape, a testament to its workmanship, but the man was not.

I squatted and looked at him in the evening of an April day. I put on my latex and turned him gently. Our fashionable boy wore no tie and his pink shirt had a large red-brown blotch right where his heart used to beat. His suit was ruined in the back, an exit hole right through the trapezius. That’s what the coroner’s report would probably say.

He was about six feet, one inch. Skinny, with fine brown hair, blue- gray eyes. glauco, they say in Italian, which is what the body turned out to be. My grandfather was called Glauco for his eyes. This guy was good looking. Once. No sign of a struggle. Two wounds: a dime-sized hole punched through the back of the head and one more straight into the chest—probably the second shot as he lay prone—to make sure he stayed all the way dead. Below, burrowed halfway into the asphalt, was a slug.

The blues who’d found him already radioed for the NYPD photogs and CSU.

I walked back to my car to call my partner, who’d hadn’t told me why he couldn’t come along to the party. “I’m good,” I said to Turner. “You’re missing a beautiful spring evening in New York City, marred only by one dead body.”

His voice crackled over the radio: “Just the one? Gonna rain later. Meet you back at the precinct, Paolino,” Turner said.

I tossed the receiver back into our Crown Vic’s front seat and walked back to the body. Turner liked to call me little Paul because I was taller than him.

The photogs showed up and cordoned off the area around the body.

“Any other bodies, Detective Rossi?” the photographer asked me.

“I told you, one. Why does everyone think there’s more than one?” I said.

“Yeah, but you know, sometimes you think there’s one and then other bodies just start showing up when you look around. They’re like rabbits.”

I smiled at our photographer, Joe Rinn. He had a nice sideline doing weddings. “You never tell those brides what you do, do you? That you flash dead bodies all day. That your work graces medical school books about fatal wounds?”

“Nah,” he said, smiling back at me, then turning to the job at hand. “I tell ’em I’m an artist.”

I stood back and let the artist work. I tugged my right ear, tilted my head to get another look at this guy, and wondered what this poor fucker had done to deserve a dog’s death.

Rinn circled the body like a vulture. “The geeks’ll be here in a minute. And hey, a Post guy is comin’, too. He asked me to keep the bodies fresh.”

“A body. One body. We’ll try to oblige, but if the fourth estate doesn’t show in time, tough,” I said.

After they took the first set of photos, the CSU geeks began. Hair, blood, and nail samples. They scraped his jacket, pants, and shirts with tape to pick up foreign elements, like someone else’s hair or blood.

I looked around to figure some possible MOs. There was a small service alcove down a few steps and a few feet away. Our hunter knew his rabbit’s habits. Maybe tailed him for a few days. He waited in the alcove and calmly skipped up to the victim as he walked between a Range Rover and an Escalade. That gave the shooter some tall cover, and then he did him. Bang. Bang. Or rather Ping, Ping, with a silencer. The killer had probably taken care after the first shot to lay the body down, so that they were partially obscured, on Sutton near 51st. And that’s when he—or they—popped him a second time. His head, inches from the curb, was near enough that his blood had drained into the sewer nearby. Just when you think you’ve seen it all.

The body came conveniently with docs, a small black address book and an Italian identity card wrapped in a soft, dark brown leather case— Gaitano Muro, forty-six years old and a Milan address, so immediately I thought Mafia. Even the stupidest perp knows not to leave docs in a fixit job. The killer must have been spooked immediately and had to run. This was a botched execution. Two kill shots to rob someone? Not likely.

The address book had names and phone numbers but little else. No addresses. The ID was diplomatic, Capo Servizio something or other, Consolato Generale della Repubblica Italiana, it said, with an embossed little star inside an olive branch and a mechanical gear wheel. My Italian wasn’t bad thanks to my grandfather. Muro was a diplo and Signore Muro from Milan came all the way to New York City and found unexpectedly that this late April evening would be the least lucky night he was ever to have, and he was dropped in the gutter on Sutton St. I suppose there are worse streets to die on.

I’d bet it wasn’t the way he thought it would go. Nobody ever does.

Read the rest in The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli to see what happens from here.

Thanks to Polis Books, Vito Racanelli and Saichek Publicity for this excerpt!

The Man in Milan by Vito Racanelli: A Hunt for the Truth on the Streets of New York and Milan

By HCNewton

On November 20, 2020

In Fiction, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Man in Milan

by Vito Racanelli

eARC, 336pg.
Polis Books, 2020

Read: November 9-14, 2020
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s The Man in Milan About?

NYPD detective Rossi is called to the scene of a homicide. It looks like a mugging gone bad, but there’s something wrong with the scene that Rossi can’t accept the first impression. Soon, he and his partner discover that this man is attached to the Italian embassy (although it’s initially denied). The deeper they get into the investigation, the murkier things get and the deadlier things get, too.

While they try to deny it, try to avoid the conclusion, the detectives have to admit that the evidence is pointing to a solution in Italy. They’re able to follow the evidence to the victim’s homeland, leading to an explosive conclusion.

The Police

Probably the strongest part of this book—and it’s key to the success of a police procedural are the characters—particularly the police characters*. From practically the instant we meet Detectives Paul Rossi and Hamilton P. Turner, I felt I knew them. Racanelli nailed these characters. They’re at once characters we’ve seen before, and know well—but made them feel fresh.

* There are a few other strong characters that I don’t have the space to talk about, for example: a newspaper journalist who’s almost as strong and developed as Rossi and Turner, that we don’t get quite enough of; and Rossi’s ex-wife and daughter, who I’d like to see again, too.

Rossi is divorced, in AA, more than a little jaded, but driven by the work that’s the only thing he has left in the world aside from the daughter he doesn’t get to see as often as he wants. He has strong ties to his Italian heritage—can speak and read it fluently (which comes in handy)—without being a stereotype. He has a medical condition that crops up to make life inconvenient, if there’s a sequel or two in the future, I’d like to learn more about this.

Turner is a solid cop, but he has ambitions beyond the NYPD, he wants to get into city politics—ultimately that mayor-ship. And he’s open about it. But more, he’s a poet, who regularly presents at events throughout the city, he can’t seem to go anywhere without finding a woman to seduce, dresses better than most detectives (shades of Connelly’s Jerry Edgar?), and has been described as a “black beatnik.” Some authors would take these traits and give us a character that’s just a collection of quirks, but Racanelli uses them to turn Turner into a well-rounded character.

The deceased’s sister, Tenente Laura Muro, is a policewoman from Italy. She arrives to claim the body and return it to be buried. But she’s also interested in helping the investigation and brings a knowledge of both Muro as a person, his past and his home that prove invaluable to Rossi and Turner. That she’s attractive and intelligent just makes her presence all the more welcome to the partners.

Rossi and Turner have a Lieutenant who has no interest in the case until it becomes something the mayor is taking an interest in, and actually wants them to drop it almost immediately. He’s the kind of petty bureaucrat that you hope doesn’t exist outside fictional police departments (but sure seem to show up in all sorts of police procedurals). He’s a solid character, but not one you’ll enjoy (and aren’t supposed to).

What Really Worked

The initial chapters following Rossi and Turner as they look into Muro’s death, talking to the Italian ambassador, Muro’s estranged wife and so on. Once others associated with Muro are killed, there’s a lot of political pressure put on them to make an arrest. Once it becomes clear that someone wants to add their deaths to the list, the external pressures to make an arrest outweigh all the politics.

When the evidence begins to point to an Italian group that seems more Urban Legend than reality, things take off plot-wise and the stakes get higher. Racanelli handles this skillfully, both the reticence of the detectives to follow the evidence and the way they come around when they have to.

What Wasn’t as Strong

Once it became clear to me that the case was going to take the detectives to Italy*, I worried a little about things. And sadly, those worries were valid. But maybe it’s just me.

* It’d been a few weeks since I read the pitch for the book, so I’d forgotten all of it.

Whether it’s Michael Connelly (Nine Dragons) or Neil Lancaster (Tom Novak series)—and probably other examples I can’t think of at the moment, anytime when you take police detectives and put them into a foreign context (especially when it becomes less police procedural and more international thriller), I think the book loses something. This one didn’t lose a lot, but I think it stumbled a little bit—Racanelli handled the switch in flavors as well as anyone, though, I want to stress that this is a me-thing, not a Racanelli-thing.

The Setting

There are plenty of reasons for this to be set in 2002 for the plot to work—beyond that, it’s a great setting for this kind of book. The characters can use cell phones and the internet, but smart phones aren’t ubiquitous and what characters can do with phones/internet is still limited enough that the detectives have to work for their information, not everything is captured on phones, and so on. It may have been a practical choice to set the book when he did, but the benefits make it a great choice.

So, what did I think about The Man in Milan?

From the voice, the style, the characters and the nature of the story—this is a solid, entertaining story. The persons responsible for the murder are dark and mysterious, but it’s not overplayed. The motive behind the (initial) killing, and its method make sense and are just chilling. The escalation in terms of violence and scale feels natural, it felt like this could be based on real events.

Racanelli’s take on Italian culture isn’t one that I think I’ve seen before and it’s one I’d like to learn more about, too.

The more action-thriller parts of the novel are as tense and compelling as you’d want, the procedural material is as good as you’ll find anywhere. The Man in Milan is a great way for Vito Racanelli to introduce himself to Crime Fiction readers, and I look forward to seeing what he produces next.

Disclaimer: I received this book from the author via Saichek Publicity in exchange for this post and my honest opinion—thanks to both for this.

4 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, opinions are my own.

BOOK BLITZ: The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce by Tom Gillespie

By HCNewton

On November 11, 2020

In Book Tour, Fiction

I’m pleased to host a Book Blitz for Tom Gillespie’s The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce today, a book that defies a snappy one-sentence synopsis.

Book Details:

Book Title: The Strange Book of Jacob Boyce by Tom Gillespie
Publisher: Vine Leaves Press
Release date: July 21, 2020
Format: Ebook/Paperback
Length: 298 pages
Purchase Link: Amazon UK/Amazon US

Book Blurb:

A spiralling obsession. A missing wife. A terrifying secret. Will he find her before it’s too late?

When Dr Jacob Boyce’s wife goes missing, the police put it down to a simple marital dispute. Jacob, however, fears something darker. Following her trail to Spain, he becomes convinced that Ella’s disappearance is tied to a mysterious painting whose hidden geometric and numerical riddles he’s been obsessively trying to solve for months. Obscure, hallucinogenic clues, and bizarre, larger-than-life characters, guide an increasingly unhinged Jacob through a nightmarish Spanish landscape to an art forger’s studio in Madrid, where he comes face-to-face with a centuries-old horror, and the terrifying, mind-bending, truth about his wife.

About the Author:

Tom Gillespie grew up in a small town just outside Glasgow. After completing a Masters in English at Glasgow University, he spent the next ten years pursuing a musical career as a singer/songwriter, playing, recording and touring the UK and Europe with his band. He now lives in Bath with his wife, daughter and hyper-neurotic cat, where he works at the university as an English lecturer. Tom writes long and short stories. His stories have appeared in many magazines, journals and e-zines. He is co-author of Glass Work Humans-an anthology of stories and poems, published by Valley Press. Visit Tom at tom-gillespie.com.

My thanks to Love Books Group for the invitation to participate in this tour.

PUB DAY REPOST: The Law of Innocence by Michael Connelly: To Prove He Didn’t Do It, Haller has to Prove Who Did

By HCNewton

On November 10, 2020

In Fiction, Michael Connelly, Mystery/Detective Fiction/Crime Fiction/Thriller

The Law of Innocence

by Michael Connelly
Series: Mickey Haller, #7

eARC, 416 pg.
Orion, 2020

Read: September 26-27, 2020
Grab a copy from your local indie bookstore!

What’s The Law of Innocence About?

On his way home from celebrating a win in court—a precious finding of “NG” (Not Guilty), Mickey Haller is pulled over in a traffic stop that quickly goes south and Haller finds himself in the back of the patrol car while the officer opens his trunk to discover a dead body—it turns out to be a former client of Haller’s who happens to owe his former defense lawyer a hefty amount of money.

It’s clearly a frame-up. There’s no reader who will buy Haller committing the crime in this way—sure, it’s possible that Haller would be driven to murder by something (for the sake of argument), but he wouldn’t do it this way. He’s too slick, too clever for that. Thinking like that is well and good for readers of Crime Fiction, it’s not how the police think. If you get all the evidence pointing at someone, they’re likely to be guilty, especially if there’s no evidence pointing in another direction.

Which is what happens here. So from his cell in the Twin Towers Correctional Facility, Haller has to plan his own defense. Sure, he knows all the conventional wisdom and jokes about defending yourself, but defending people in court is what has defined Mickey Haller for his adult life and there’s no way he can let someone else take the lead on this. It’s the fight of his life—literally a fight for his life—and Haller has to be the one doing the fighting.

Haller can’t count on a “reasonable doubt” defense. It won’t be enough to get a “Not Guilty” verdict, not if he wants to be a defense lawyer ever again, he can’t go into court with the world thinking he got off on a technicality. Haller has to prove he’s innocent, and the only way he can do that is by finding out who’s guilty, and proving that in court.

The prosecuting attorney is no slouch—frequently in legal fiction, you get someone who’s clearly there to play Washington Generals to the series protagonist’s Harlem Globetrotters, putting up a token case for the defense attorney to use as a way to show off all his tricks. But Dana Berg, star prosecutor for the Major Crimes Unit is hard, smart, and utterly convinced that Haller is guilty. So convinced that she’s not above using as many tricks and sneaky moves as Haller. She’s a worthy opponent which makes it all the better.

Hail, Hail, the Gang’s All Here

Mickey’s friends and family won’t believe this accusation—he’s not a killer. They know this and show up to help—many of them probably would if they had some doubt about his guilt, but we all know that Haller’s half-brother. Harry Bosch, wouldn’t have anything to do with him if Bosch thought there was a chance he was a killer. But Bosch is as involved as Cisco, Haller’s own investigator is. Lorna’s there, as well as Jennifer Aronson. I wasn’t terribly impressed with Aronson the last time we saw her in The Gods of Guilt, but she’s come a long way since then and is key to Haller’s defense.

It keeps going, Maggie “McFirece” McPherson, his ex-wife, and his daughter, Haley, are stalwart supporters, too—and Maddie Bosch even pops in. I’ve always liked Haley and enjoyed her a lot here. You’ll never see me say anything against Maggie’s character, either. Connelly created a great family for Haller back in The Lincoln Lawyer and they continue to pay off here.

While it’s great to see everyone show up to support and help—and Haller needs all that he can get—it’s his novel, it’s his fight, it’s his life in the balance and the novel’s focus is solely on him. With a character like Bosch, he’s a constant threat to steal the reader’s (and likely the writer’s) attention—but he doesn’t even come close. It’s all about Mickey Haller.

Isn’t this just like Fair Warning?

I was slightly afraid of that when I read the blurb for this—do we really need two books from Connelly in 2020 where the protagonist is suspected of a murder that there’s no chance at all that he committed? I figured Connelly would pull it off, but, yeah, there was a degree of trepidation on my part going into it.

Here’s where they were different—in Fair Warning, McEvoy being suspected is just his way into the mystery, and the shadow of suspicion may linger over him, but it’s never really much more than that. But here, Haller being the suspect is the whole novel—he’s only the suspect for a couple of days (which we don’t even see), he’s the accused for all but the first chapter. That makes all the difference, there’s no way to compare the experiences of McEvoy and Haller.

Current Events

This book takes place at the close of 2019 and over the first few months of 2020, and through news reports in the background and some conversations between characters we get glimpses of what’s going on in American culture at the time—specifically, the impeachment and reelection bid of Donald Trump and the early days of the spread of COVID-19. Neither makes a significant impact on the plot, but they act as part of the background, nailing the events of the novel to a specific moment.

I wondered for a while if this would make the novel dated in years to come, making it too “of the moment” to last. But the more I think about it, the more I think adds some flavor, some perspective to the novel, and the way that Connelly uses the current events to ground the novel. I ended up really liking the way he did it. Sure, Haller’s very few and quick comments about the President may put off some readers, if they couldn’t have guessed Haller’s political leanings, they haven’t been paying attention.

So, what did I think about The Law of Innocence?

If I hadn’t been approached to be on this tour, what would’ve likely happened is this: I’d buy The Law of Innocence on release day and had been really excited about it, but would’ve set it aside so I could catch up on some backlog—and it would’ve ended up languishing away on my shelf unnoticed. I’d have probably have made it my last book of 2020 or first of 2021 as a little treat to myself. And I would’ve been mad at myself for that once I got to about the 20% mark (if not earlier). For this to be available and unread would be just wrong.

There’s a one page (or so) introduction/foreward that’s just dynamite, followed by a really strong first chapter, and then starting in chapter 2, we’re off to the races. It’s just unrelentingly good, gripping, fast-paced, smart, and tension-filled from that point through to the jaw-dropping end. Sure, you may be confident that Haller would prevail, but you can never be sure for a moment how that might come to pass—and any time you start to think you know? You quickly discover that was hubris.

Connelly is one of the best in the business, but he’s not satisfied with coasting on his reputation or his laurels, he’s constantly striving to prove that he’s one of the best around—and usually succeeds at it. The Law of Innocence has him doing just that. The prose is lean and tight, the characterizations are spot on, the pacing is perfect and you just can’t put this down. I had a lot going on last week when I read this and several things I needed to accomplish—and I ignored almost every single one of them just so I could finish this. I gave myself five days to read this and finished it in two. Between the story, the characters, and the way Connelly put this together, I had no choice.

A lot of the legal thrillers I’ve read over the last couple of years save some of their best moments for things the lawyers get into outside of the courtroom, The Law of Innocence doesn’t do that. Yes, there are some good moments with Haller and the team investigating things, or while Haller is incarcerated. But the best moments of the novel take place in the arena that Haller comes most to life—in the courtroom, facing off against a good prosecutor, in front of a smart judge and a jury that he can only hope to persuade. Haller’s good at putting the pieces of a puzzle together (especially when Bosch and Cisco give him the right pieces), he can get a witness to give up just the right information, but he shines when he’s using the rules of the court, rules of evidence and the laws of California to further his own ends.

If you’ve been through the wringer with Haller before, you have an idea of what to expect—and you won’t be disappointed. If you’ve never spent time with the Lincoln Lawyer before this, you’re in for a treat. Either way—The Law of Innocence is one of the best thrillers of 2020 and you need to get your hands on it.

4 1/2 Stars

Disclaimer: I received this eARC from Orion via NetGalley and Compulsive Readers in exchange for this post—thanks to all for this, but the opinions offered above are solely mine.

This post contains an affiliate link. If you purchase from it, I will get a small commission at no additional cost to you.

My thanks to Tracy Fenton and Compulsive Readers for the invitation to participate in this tour and the materials (including a copy of the novel) provided.