Suppose you deeply love your half-sister, Desiree, someone you’ve grown up with and been close to for most of your twenty-eight years. But two years ago you despaired about her self-destructive lifestyle and cut off all contact. Less painful,…
Category: Commentary
Review: Sheehan’s Dog by Les Roberts
Les Roberts’s latest hard-boiled crime novel introduces Brock Sheehan. Sheehan sits on his houseboat in a Lake Erie marina ten years after retiring as a persuader for the Irish organization on the west side of Cleveland. He drinks Bushmill’s Black…
Review: By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl
By Way of Sorrow by Robyn Gigl My rating: 4 of 5 stars Erin McCabe and Duane “Swish” Swisher, criminal defense attorneys, are asked to defend a Black transgender woman accused of murder. Erin is a white transgender woman, and…
Review: Preacher Turned Cop
Only The Holy Remain by Alverne Ball My rating: 5 of 5 stars This thriller takes us to the streets of Chicago that author Alverne Ball knows well. It introduces Detective Frank Calhoun, currently on psychiatric leave. Calhoun, a sometime…
Review: Crime, Guilt and Identity
Blind Faith by Alicia Beckman Leslie Budewitz, writing as Alicia Beckman, presents her second non-cozy novel, a gripping story whose characters struggle with moral and religious issues and the challenges of their personal histories. Lindsay Keller is a lawyer whose…
The Dark Hours: Bosch Backs up Ballard in New Connelly Mystery/Police Procedural
I’ve read all but a few of Connelly’s mysteries, and I just scarfed down the newest, The Dark Hours, the fourth in the Renée Ballard series. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed all four, but was disappointed that Connelly pulled Bosch into the…
Zachary Carter, The Price of Peace: Money, Democracy, and the Life of John Maynard Keynes
Can John Maynard Keynes teach us anything new for dealing with the problems created by the covid-19 pandemic? Hasn’t his thought been thoroughly integrated into current economics? (“We’re all Keynesians now.”) We can learn something, argues Zachary Carter, maintaining that…
Review: “Bitter Medicine” by Sara Paretsky
This is the 4th novel in the V. I. “Vic” Watshawski, P. I., series, an interesting story of murder and medicine, set in 1985 or ’86. The central issue is, who killed Dr. Malcolm Tregiere, the assistant at the women’s…
Eric and the Fiery Furnace: Oven Cleaning Adventures
For self-care as a writer, I clean the oven–once every twelve years. My mother always said, “Clean your oven every twelve years, whether it needs it or not.” Full disclosure: She never said that. But, although most household chores are…