Review: All or None by Clive Fleury

 Genre: Hard-Boiled Mystery

Description:

“Returning to Sydney, Detective Ramesh Ryan is promoted to the Homicide Squad. Zoe Yang joins him there. Now a detective herself, she is assigned as his junior partner. Straight up, the cops are off and running-investigating the discovery of a murdered company director. Following the clues, Detective Ryan finds that this and a second murder may be linked to past events.

As the pressure mounts for a quick solution to the case, the detective finds that he too, is in the killer's crosshairs. But Ryan is distracted from the investigation by a romantic encounter with an old university friend. He also worries about his mother, Mumta, and her new obsessive desire for grandchildren from her only son. Could this be linked to her recent medical tests? And there's another pressing problem-the plague of rats in his apartment block.

Detective Ryan's hands are well and truly full!”

Author:

“Clive Fleury is an award-winning writer of books and screenplays and has worked all over the world as a Film/TV director, writer and producer. He has written six books, most recently All Or None, the second novel in the Detective Ryan Murder Mystery series.”

Appraisal:

This mystery has multiple story threads which keep things interesting and keep the reader guessing how things are going to turn out. First, we have the protagonist, Detective Ramesh Ryan, who has just been promoted to a new position as a homicide detective. The challenges of being in a new position and figuring out how to work with and interact with others in the department is a challenge. That his partner was just transferred from another city and is learning her job as well as the both of them figuring out how to make their team work complicates things still further. Throw in some happenings in Ryan’s personal life and things get more complicated. All of this just makes figuring out the mystery and where the story is going to go that much less clear for the reader which is a positive for a mystery. The results are an engaging and entertaining read that draws the reader in as you try to figure things out along with Detective Ryan.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

The author lives part of the time in Australia and some words that I’d describe as Australian (not commonly used in American English) are used a time or two, but it is no big deal.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an ARC (advance reviewer copy) so I can’t gauge the final product in this area.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Review: I Put a Spell on You by Michael Hayes

 

Genre: Hard-Boiled/Mystery

Description:

“Private eye, Tom Sharp, and his faithful AI assistant, Frank, investigate the death of an unlucky man hit by a bus. It looks like an accident, but the victim’s elderly mother believes her son was cursed.

It’s Los Angeles, 2055, where life is cheap, the tech is glitchy, and magic is real. The kicker: Sharp is the only one in this world immune to magic. As he’s often reminded by friend and foe alike, he’s not immune to bullets. Welcome to the Peaceable Kingdom.”

Author:

A resident of Los Angeles, Michael Hayes has a Bachelor of Music degree from Berklee College of Music. He continued his education by attending Brown University where he got a Masters Degree in Creative Writing. I Put a Spell on You is the first of two novellas Hayes has written and released, at least thus far, featuring private eye Tom Sharp that take place in the near future.

Appraisal:

This book and the world where Tom Sharp operates isn’t like today’s world, but it is close. While it might be a stretch to call it science fiction, fantasy, or the umbrella genre that includes both, speculative fiction, it definitely has aspects of them in the story. The part I’ll call fantasy is what Sharp describes as “Magic.” It is something that he, unlike most people, is immune from, but involves some people being able to put a spell of some kind on another person with various repercussions. Then we’ve got holograms popping up, my favorite being a small little thing called Frank who is Sharp’s assistant. He’s smart … make that intelligent. But it is artificial. Frank is more advanced than current AI apps, but still doesn’t’ know everything. Frank weighing in and helping Sharp certainly adds a bit of a near-future science fiction twist to the story. All of this adds some additional dimensions to what you’d normally expect from a private eye trying to solve a case. As with all good mysteries, what the private eye finds to be the answer to the mystery will keep you guessing right up to the very end. This was definitely a different read for me, but one that was a lot of fun trying to figure out not only the mystery, but the story world it happens in kept me on my toes as well.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 18-19,000 words

Review: Tampa Heat by Thad Diaz

 

Genre: Mystery/Hard-Boiled

Description:

“Beneath Tampa’s Tropical Majesty Lies a Sinister Past

Logan Walsh can take the heat.

He’s fought fires for two decades.

But when he helps his bail bondsman father chase down a skip, things go sideways. People start getting hurt. People close to Logan.

Now this treacherous trail of biker gangs, crooked cops, and greedy land speculators threatens to burn more than his career...

...his floundering marriage, his life, even his kids are on the line.

And he must find a way to get at these players and unravel a mystery that stretches across decades to one of Tampa’s darkest chapters.

You’ll love Tampa Heat because it’s written by a twenty-five-year firefighter.”

Author:

“Thad Diaz was a Tampa Bay firefighter until he retired in 2021 with 25 years of service. He wrote sci-fi and fantasy as T. Allen Diaz, but he's always been a fan of hard-boiled mysteries. Now that he no longer rides fire trucks, he can tell that story without concerns for his career. The Cigar City Case Files is based in Tampa. Its stories occur in actual or fictionalized places tailored to this great city. The tales display its glorious beauty and gritty underbelly as only a native can. Diaz still lives in the Tampa Bay area with his wife, two of his kids and a house full of dogs. Tampa Heat is only the first in a series that he hopes will span into the double digits. Follow him online and join his email list for the Tampa Heat prequel, Temple Terrace Badger Game today.”

Appraisal:

This was an interesting read. The protagonist, Logan Walsh, is a fireman who works on the side for his dad who is a bail bondsman. Both his jobs figure into this story as well as dad with lots of other things thrown into the mix to spice it up even more including being separated from his spouse which is causing him to miss his kids (and the feeling is mutual). Lots of things to juggle, but it doesn’t prevent him from starting to dig when something doesn’t seem quite right regarding a bail skipper he and his dad had to deal with. He starts down a rabbit hole and things get more and more complicated the further he goes. Keeping track of all the players and everything that may or not figure in to what was going on, not only in the present, but many years into the past, was hard and kept me wondering what I and Logan might be missing. I was on edge and trying to figure things out right up to the end.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

While not to the point of impacting the rating, the number of proofreading misses in this was getting close to the line for me.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 90-95,000 words

Review: Blood by Choice by Rob Pierce

 

Genre: Noir/Hard-Boiled/Crime Fiction

Description:

“Two women and a child are murdered. Dust, who unknowingly set them up, returns to Berkeley to find the killer. With his old buddy Karma in tow, Dust discovers that one of the culprits was Vollmer, a ruthless hired gun working for Dust’s former boss, Rico. When Vollmer finds out Dust is in town the hunt becomes mutual.

In this, the third book of the Uncle Dust series, old debts are paid and new ones incurred. Brutish, dangerous men lurk in every corner and slaughter runs rampant.”

Author:

“Rob Pierce wrote the novels Uncle Dust and With The Right Enemies, the novella Vern In The Heat, and the short story collection The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet. Editor of Swill Magazine, an editorial consultant with All Due Respect Books, and co-editor at Flash Fiction Offensive, Rob has been nominated for a Derringer Award for short crime fiction and has had stories published in numerous ugly magazines. He lives and will probably die in Oakland, California.”

Appraisal:

The protagonist of this book is technically named Dustin, but his nickname, Dust, fits him much better. Why? Well generally because he’s dirty, as in not a very nice person in many ways. He’s done a lot of bad things in his life and they don’t stop in our story here. But it’s easy to forgive him, even as the body counts are steadily climbing as the story goes on, because Dust is back on the streets of the East Bay, mainly in Oakland and Berkeley, with the intent of finding whoever it was that killed two of his former girlfriends along with a child of one of them. Those deaths might have happened in an effort to get Dust back in the Bay Area so the local crime boss could exact some revenge. Doesn’t matter. Dust can’t let this go unanswered. If you’re really into hard-boiled, maybe you like your hard-boiled eggs as hard as a rock and the bodies piled up as high as a San Francisco high rise, then this is definitely the book for you.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This genre isn’t the one to read if you’re offended by strong language, adult situations, or violence of any kind in your reading material. Consider yourself warned. It appears that this is the third book in a series featuring Dust, but this story stands alone well, there is no need to have read prior books in the series to understand what is going on in this one.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an advance reader copy, so I can’t judge the final product in this area.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Review: A Sharp Medicine by Dale T. Phillips

 

Genre: Hard-Boiled Mystery

Description:

“Zack Taylor's life is once again in shambles. Having narrowly escaped death, guilty over the pain he's caused a loved one, he's hurting and angry. When looking into the disappearance of a reporter, Zack's death wish may be his cure for his troubles as he uncovers a world of corruption and evil in a world of politics, passion, and power.”

Author:

Dale Phillips has written several books in the Zack Taylor Mystery series, a supernatural thriller, non-fiction, and a ton of short stories and poetry. In the words of Weird Al, he also lost on Jeopardy (in spectacular fashion according to his bio on Amazon).

For more, visit Phillips’ website.

Appraisal:

This was a good read. A mystery that kept me guessing what the answer to what was at the bottom of the rabbit hole that protagonist Zack Taylor started down when he went looking for a reporter who had gone missing. Possibly needless to say, there was a lot to find, much more than Zack or I would have expected.

While the mystery was good and kept me on the edge of the seat, the character of Zack is what set this book apart from a typical mystery, even of the hard-boiled type. That’s because Zack has a questionable past. He’s done some things he shouldn’t have and now regrets. He’s trying to do good, at least in part to make up for those things in his past. Sometimes this gives him insight into the wrongdoers that someone else might not get. It also means that Zack doesn’t always feel as restrained by social and legal norms as most people would. This just adds to the tension and the not being sure what to expect element of the story. I guess you could even say that Zack can be a bit of a mystery himself.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 45-50,000 words

Review: With the Right Enemies by Rob Pierce

Genre: Hard-Boiled/Crime Fiction

Description:

“Vollmer’s a young guy, grows up on ugly streets. He survives by being uglier, hurting people for money, hurting people because he likes hurting people. When he’s hired to track down Dust and bring back the money he stole, keeping Dust alive isn’t a priority. Neither is keeping anyone else alive, even people he loves. Vollmer’s killed people he loves before. With The Right Enemies is the bullet-drenched follow-up to Uncle Dust, Rob Pierce’s acclaimed debut novel about a bank robber’s disastrous fling with domestic life.”

Author:

“Rob Pierce wrote the novels Uncle Dust and With The Right Enemies, the novella Vern In The Heat, and the short story collection The Things I Love Will Kill Me Yet. Editor of Swill Magazine, an editorial consultant with All Due Respect Books, and co-editor at Flash Fiction Offensive, Rob has been nominated for a Derringer Award for short crime fiction and has had stories published in numerous ugly magazines. He lives and will probably die in Oakland, California.”

Appraisal:

Mickey Spillane fans will not be disappointed. With the Right Enemies is a stylistically adept dark tale with clipped narrative, gritty dialog, and plenty of psychopaths.

The action races through California’s Bay Area cities of Berkley and Oakland.

“Oakland was bloody. Nothing unusual there, but Berkeley was bloody too. The towns were side by side and there was violence in both, but Berkeley was a university town, the focus was on the achievements of the educated masses, not the occasional shootings in bad neighborhoods. In Oakland, every minute was a possible occasion.”

Pierce depicts the locale with authority and creates a chilling bunch of characters that could have been lifted straight from police blotters.

My only complaint is that the story is not quite a complete tale. It is a sequel to Uncle Dust and apparently a prequel to another installment in a sort of Perils of Pauline serial. Except for the people who are killed, events do not affect the characters. They are the same at the conclusion as they are coming.

While it’s a ripping narrative as far as it goes, it doesn’t have the psychological tension of Raymond Chandler or the genre’s greatest wacko, Jim Thompson. I say that only out of respect for Pierce’s obvious talent and the expectation he can move to a higher level.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

This is a hard-boiled crime novel. If you’re sensitive to language and such, this isn’t your thing to begin with, right?

Format/Typo Issues:

None

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: Sam Waite

Approximate word count: 50-60,000 words

Choice Cuts / Joe Clifford

Reviewed by: Keith Nixon

Genre: Crime / Noir / Hard Boiled / Short Story Collection

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words

Availability    

Kindle  US: YES  UK: YES  Nook: YES  Smashwords: NO  Paper: YES

Click on a YES above to go to appropriate page in Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Smashwords store

Author:

Joe Clifford is acquisitions editor for Gutter Books and managing editor of The Flash Fiction Offensive. He is the author of three books.

You can learn more about the author at his website.

Description:

The author’s debut collection of noir and crime stories previously published in a variety of magazines, brought together for the first time.

Appraisal:

I’ve previously reviewed and thoroughly enjoyed two of Joe Clifford’s novels – Junkie Love and Wake The Undertaker so I was interested to see how he dealt with the shorter form. In summary – very well. This is an enjoyable, if at times challenging, read. There’s a real spread of subjects, from drugs and their users to combat stress to prison escapes. Some have nods to Clifford’s past experiences as a user (read Junkie Love for more information). However, all have an underlying element of empathy for the characters. This is not sensationalized story telling.

Most are at the high end of the quality spectrum, one or two not so. To be fair, those that fell into the latter segment were the shortest of shorts, where there was insufficient room to develop a narrative, but that’s just down to my preferences.

There are too many stories to go through in detail so I’ll pick out some of the highlights.

Another Man’s Treasure is written in the first person, a perspective that Clifford seems most comfortable writing within. The main character and a friend called Geiger trawl flea markets with the aim of making a few dollars from junk. Geiger thinks he’s got the perfect scam to rip off one of the stall holders, but the tables are turned in rather gruesome fashion.

Meat follows several Russian prisoners who escape the most brutal of confinements and battle their way across a frozen landscape, miles from anywhere. In order to survive they need a source of food…

In Red Pistachios a once successful writer is struggling with life, literally. A student of his, one to whom the main character owes a debt in effect, returns after several years away, but to disastrous consequences.

Joe Clifford has many enviable strong points as a writer, but the one that shone through yet again was his descriptive narrative. Simply read and enjoy this collection of high quality work.

FYI:

Scenes of drug taking.

Format/Typo Issues:

Nothing of note.

Rating: **** Four Stars