Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A young deformed and mute boy is rejected by his father than his mother. He is accepted by an older man who taught him how to read a write, but he died of old age. Left alone he finds nothing but trouble and has to flee his home town.
Comments: Yis is an odd and slow cooker novel of Western delights.
Rating: 5 stars
Summary: A single mother working an enormous amount of hours for little pay takes a night for herself and winds up in bed with a drug dealing psycho. He winds up dead, she has been drugged and can not remember if she killed him or someone else. Also we are missing a bag full of drug cash. All the while the cops are on the hunt to see who killed the scum bag and where’s the cash.
Comments: A wild ride of a debut novel. A F Carter is the real deal.
Rating: 3 stars
Summary: A former Minneapolis police officer holding in the woods like a hermit is asked by the former county sheriff to look into his missing daughter and grandson when the current sheriff thinks it’s a simple runaway.
Comments: Unfortunately weakly plotted and time line and distances are off, probably to not overly complex the plot. Rather formulated and predictable unlike Eskens previously brilliant novels.
Rating: Starred Review
Summary: A women with little going on decides to deep dive and create a crime podcast about a unsolved double murder around Christmas time in 1972 on the border of North Carolina and Southern Virginia. She enlists the help of a famous Washed up TV news anchor and some notes from her Grandfather’s attic she discovered. Told from a parent and past narrative.
Comments: A brilliant developed crime novel expertly written. Pruitt nails the narrative of the time.
Rating: Starred Review
Summary: Before a fathers release from prison for a technicality he has to defend himself from a ruthless Aryan gang. Upon his release he kidnaps his daughter when her mother is murdered by the gang in revenge. He fleas with his daughter and seeks to survive a gangland murder on himself and daughter.
Comments: A high octane violent crime thriller. Of the likes of Eli Cranor or S A Crosby float your reading boat, this will be right up your Southern Cali grill. Don’t ignore Harper like I did. Jump on it.
Rating: Starred Reviews
Summaries: The city of Baxter is going to be transformed after the announcement of a huge Nissan factory being built. Two nifty crimes stories expertly written from various character points of view. Drugs, money, desperate people.
Comments: Highly recommended crime novels. Fast paced and page flippers.
http://smile.amazon.com/A.-F.-Carter/e/B08CZYJS7W%3Fref=dbs_a_mng_rwt_scns_share
Rating: 5 stars
Summary: An American trying to start a career as a private detective in the roaring Havana of the 50’s gets himself involved in the Batista regimes attempts to end any revolution against there oh so great government.
Comments: Viva Cuba Libre Revolutions have consequences. A great crime noir and it looks like we will get a second novel here. I can’t wait.
Rating: Starred Review
Summary: A struggling author without any ideas for a new novel meets a former friend for a drink and is given an idea to look at his family past. A well off Newton Massachusetts women married to a highly successful dominant husband, disappears from her family in the mid 70’s without a trace for nearly 18 years. Told brilliantly by multiple characters we dive deadly into family accusations and hate.
Comments: Completely honest here: The story unfolds in such a way I thought is was real for the first half of the book. Absorbing and suspenseful you will not put it down. We waited a long time for a new William Landay book, and he goes and one ups us all and writes the novel of the year. Highly recommended.
Rating: Starred Review
Summary: An Earl Swagger prequel. The world is in the midsts of WW2 and Earl is back from the pacific war theater where he island hopped and became somewhat of a legend war god. When the war in Europe gets bogged down by some mysterious snipers in the hedge grows of France interrupting the D-day push the OSS calls on a Earl to solve the problem he is only capable to figure out.
Comments: Hunters gift as a writer is to slowly turn the thermostat up. No slow burn, but a continuous stoking the fire to keep the reader page flipping. His love for the rifle, the precision of shooting, oh I know how difficult this is, lives in his story. I would highly recommend some research and back reading of the Earl Swagger books. They are all excellent.
Rating: Starred Review
Summary: Back dropped in a dry dusty town during the annual festival named Sunsetter a series drug deals and possessions a young man dies of a overdose setting off a bleak chain of events. The discovery of who is doing the distribution will forever change the lives of the people involved.
Comments: I will say up front this is a top 10 novel of the year for me. Bleak, dark, and crime noir to the very core of writing. Some serious chops go into writing a novel this good. No good happens here. Don’t expect smiley faces. So great. Highly recommended.
