Review summary: The two principal mysteries in this historical crime novel are interesting, but this is really a character study and what an incredible study it is. A powerful, and often inspirational, story overall, with the bonus of having a mystery or two for the central character to solve. Highly recommended. (Click here for text of full review.)
Our rating:
A Thousand Falling Crows Larry D. Sweazy A Historical Mystery Seventh Street Books (May 2015)
Publisher synopsis: Sonny Burton was forced to retire from the Texas Rangers after taking a bullet from Bonnie Parker in a shoot-out. The bullet so damaged Sonny's right arm that he had to have it amputated.
While Sonny struggles with recuperating and tries to get used to the idea of living a life with only one arm, Aldo Hernandez, the hospital's janitor, asks Sonny to help find his daughter and bring her back home. She has got herself mixed up with a couple of brothers involved in a string of robberies. Sonny agrees to help, but is more concerned about a wholly different criminal in town who has taken to killing young women and leaving them in local fields for crows to feast on.
Just as Sonny is able to track down Aldo's daughter, he comes to an uncomfortable realization about who might be responsible for the string of murders and races to nab the killer before another girl is left to the crows.
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Dandelion Police Sergeant Nina Markov has never been happier since meeting FBI Special Agent Michael Hanson. However, a fairy tale ending for the pair doesn't seem to be in the cards, as time is running out in her quest to find Russian mobster, Pavel Ivanovich — the man who has stolen a priceless family heirloom.
When Nina's carefully lain trap for him catches his underling instead, she realizes that her only chance is to make him fall in love with her and then use him to reach Pavel.
For a recipe this convoluted, Nina is going to need the assistance of cupcake baker and misguided matchmaker, Pearl Waterman.
Nina has to decide how far she'll go to keep her promises, retrieve the last connection to her family, and try not to lose the only man she's ever loved in the process.
— Promises To Keep by Delia Brendan
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When a former Special Forces operative Charles Burns dies in a car wreck in Miami, police and the FBI believe it is just a tragic accident. But when Reznick learns that his teetotal friend was apparently drunk at the wheel, he begins a one-man investigation into the incident. It isn't long for a succession of ex-Special Forces operatives die in mysterious circumstances.
As he himself becomes a target, it becomes clear that the death of Burns is part of a much bigger plot by a foreign government, one that threatens to wipe out not only Reznick, but also hundreds of innocent American lives.
— Hard Wired by J. B. Turner
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Cooper Dixon should have it made, with a beautiful wife, Kelly, two great kids, and a thriving business, the Tower Agency. But for Cooper, things aren't turning out how he expected. He and Kelly are caught in a never-ending cycle of arguments — Cooper can't remember the last time they had sex. And Cooper's troubled business partner, Gates Ballenger, is scheming to sell the Tower Agency out from under him.
When a gang of criminals is hired by a mysterious client to kidnap Kelly and set up Cooper to take the fall, Cooper's life goes completely off the rails. The cops quickly zero in on Cooper as the prime suspect, and the combination of an attractive suburban mother, workaholic husband, and a million-dollar insurance policy makes the case primetime television fodder.
Soon, Cooper's face is plastered on every TV screen in the country. Cooper races against time to find his wife before the gang turns her over to their client, whose plan to take down Cooper is far more sinister than anyone could imagine.
— The Rented Mule by Bobby Cole
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Thirty years after the shocking murder of Jenny Franklin, followed by the arrest and conviction of his brother Terry, Knoxville Detective Bobby Taylor returns to his North Carolina hometown of Clayton at his aging mother's request. Reluctant to face his estranged father and make amends after blaming him for not doing more to save his brother, Bobby arrives to discover the head of another young girl has washed up on the banks of the wild Neuse River. Disgusted at the brutality and familiarity of the crime, he realizes the murderous, sadistic monster from his past has returned with a vengeance. His brother's blood is now on the hands of those who failed to catch the real killer the first time around. Fueled by retribution, and eager to heal his past, Bobby's determined to bring the true murderer to justice.
Armed with equal parts instinct and desperation, Bobby confronts his broken relationships while chasing a mysterious trail of death that spans thirty years and two continents. Obstacles, lies, and deception face him at every turn as he partners with a tough-as-nails female reporter and a reluctant Chief of Detectives to catch a resurrected killer and vindicate his family's name. In the end, Bobby finds redemption in a way he could never imagine as the whispers of the river reveal the horrible secrets beneath her swift, cold currents.
— Cold Currents by Byron Suggs
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Nothing else can hurt this calloused retired Chicago homicide detective (or so he thinks), not after he lost his beautiful young Beth to bullets meant for him nearly 30 years ago. But when Jack's cell phone vibrates at 5:30 a.m. on Christmas morning, little could he have predicted the challenges that lurked.
Kate, Jack's daughter (herself a NY homicide detective), enlists his help on a murder case she is working. The intrigue compounds when he learns her case is intricately entwined with a plot to assassinate a sitting President, and that a former first lady is one of the conspirators. But the situation only gets worse with Jack's involvement, as it leads to a group of foreign agents kidnapping Kate in order to coerce Jack's bidding. He must then balance his focus between rescuing his daughter, and preventing the assassination. If that were not complicated enough, the conspirators attempt to contract Jack for the hit.
— Jack and the New York Death Mask by Michael Carrier
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This is a new ebook edition of a book published in paperback by Pinnacle in 2010.
The first victim is attacked in her home. Tied to her bed. Forced to watch every unspeakable act of cruelty — but unable to scream. The second murder is even more twisted. Signed, sealed, and delivered with a message for the police, stuffed in the victim's throat. A fractured nursery rhyme that ends with a warning: "There will be more."
For detective Jack Murphy, it's more than a threat. It's a personal invitation to play. And no one plays rougher than Jack. Especially when the killer's pawns are the people he loves …
— The Cruelest Cut by Rick Reed
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Cutting-edge research requiring controversial experiments. Startling dreams delivering cryptic communication from the dreamer's future self. Ruthless rivals determined to control mind-bending new technology. When you're balancing on the edge of what's possible, trouble awaits, ready to push you into the abyss.
This daring psychological journey into the very nature of causation and consciousness will leave you turning the pages and grasping for solid ground — especially when it becomes clear just how much fact lies within the fiction.
— Trial Run by Thomas Locke
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New on the Mystery Bookshelf during February 2016 …
An Empty Hell by Dave White, A Jackson Donne Mystery (4th in series)
Publisher: Polis Books
A year after the devastating events of Not Even Past, Jackson Donne has gone into hiding in the forest of Vermont. Under the guise of Joe Tennant, Donne has been recovering — and even enjoying his life up north. Until one of the few friends he's made goes missing. Meanwhile, back in New Jersey, someone is killing ex-cops — the ones who Donne used to work with.
Terrified Donne is committing the murders, a former colleague hires private investigator Matt Herrick to track down New Jersey's most famous fugitive. Herrick agrees and almost immediately, there's a bounty on his head. The closer Herrick gets to tracking Donne down, the more dangerous the case becomes. And once Donne and Herrick cross paths, the two cases tie together, and Donne realizes he must go back to the life he left behind. Because the past has come calling, and if Donne does face up to it, he and Herrick could lose everything, including their lives.
Another town, another problem. Former Marine Daniel Briggs slips from locale to locale, the haze a comforting pillow, but inevitably the chips fall hard.
Daniel finds himself in Maine, courtesy of a small hamlet called Old Orchard Beach. While everything seems quaint on the surface, the veteran sniper soon finds himself pitted between evils. Which one will he choose … or which one will choose him?
— Fallen by C. G. Cooper
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Glasgow, 1965. Headstrong teenager Jack Mackay cannot allow for even the possibility of a life of predictability and routine. The seventeen-year-old has just one destination on his mind — London — and successfully convinces his four friends, and fellow bandmates, to join him in abandoning their homes to pursue a goal of musical stardom.
Glasgow, 2015. Jack Mackay dares not look back on a life of failure and mediocrity. The heavy-hearted sixty-seven-year-old is still haunted by what might have been. His recollections of the terrible events that befell him and his friends some fifty years earlier, and how he did not act when it mattered most is a memory he has tried to escape his entire adult life.
London, 2015. A man lies dead in a one-room flat. His killer looks on, remorseless. What started with five teenagers following a dream five decades before has been transformed over the intervening decades into a waking nightmare that might just consume them all.
New on the Mystery Bookshelf during February 2016 …
The White Worm by Sam Siciliano, A The Further Adventures of Sherlock Holmes Mystery (4th in series)
Publisher: Titan Books
Sherlock Holmes and his cousin, Dr Henry Vernier, travel to Whitby, to investigate a curious case on behalf of a client. He has fallen in love, but a mysterious letter has warned him of the dangers of such a romance. The woman is said to be under a druidic curse, doomed to take the form of a gigantic snake. Locals speak of a green glow in the woods at night, and a white apparition amongst the trees.
Is there sorcery at work, or is a human hand behind the terrors of Diana's Grove?
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Reluctantly heading up the Indianapolis PD's Missing Persons Bureau, Lt. Leroy Powder investigates a series of unusual cases while training a female sergeant …
Indianapolis police lieutenant Leroy Powder's new job in Missing Persons calls for tact, sensitivity, and diplomacy: three traits no one would use to describe the lieutenant.
He also has to break in a new sergeant, Carollee Fleetwood. Taking a bullet for her partner in the line of duty made Fleetwood a hero. It also relegated her to a wheelchair. But this cop gives as good as she gets, and won't take any sass from her unconventional superior as, together, the two take on a series of very strange cases.
— Hard Line by Michael Z. Lewin
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Arrogant and homophobic Tony T. Tunderew, author of a muckraking bestseller, hires Dick Hardesty to look into blackmail threats he's been receiving. When Tunderew and a male hustler die in a mysterious car crash, Dick's investigation reveals Tunderew was working on a new book exposing an evangelical husband-and-wife team and their religious-based community for troubled teens.
Is Tunderew's death "divine intervention," or something far more sinister?
— The Dirt Peddler by Dorien Grey
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We are delighted to welcome author Sean Lynch to Omnimystery News today.
February is Library Lovers Month, and we're teaming up with Sean to celebrate by featuring the first in his Farrell and Kearns series of thrillers, Wounded Prey (March 2015 trade paperback, audiobook and ebook formats); more information about the book can be found, below.
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Photo provided courtesy of Sean Lynch
Sean Lynch grew up in Iowa, holds a bachelor's degree in sociology, and served in the U.S. Army as an enlisted infantryman. He spent nearly three decades as a municipal police officer in the San Francisco Bay Area. During his career he's been a Motorcycle Officer, S.W.A.T. Officer, Sex Crimes Investigator, Firearms Instructor, and Homicide Detective.
A young girl is snatched from her rural Iowa school in broad daylight. The child is later found murdered, her body hanging from a tree.
When retired San Francisco Police Inspector Bob Farrell reads a newspaper account of the horrific crime, he realizes his worst nightmare has come true. The same remorseless predator a government agency stopped him from putting away twenty years before is once more on the loose.
Farrell enlists the aid of rookie Iowa deputy Kevin Kearns, who is tortured by his inability to prevent the kidnapping. As the murderer wreaks a trail of blood and destruction across North America, the duo sets out to track down their lethal prey.
But Farrell and Kearns aren't playing by the rules any more than the killer is, and soon the F.B.I. has them all in its sights …
It is always a pleasure to welcome back author Lauren Carr to Omnimystery News.
Lauren's 11th mystery in her popular Mac Faraday series is Cancelled Vows (Acorn Book Services; January 2016 trade paperback and ebook formats) and we asked her how she decides which characters live to see another chapter, as it were. She responded with an anecdotal story, which she titles, "So Many Murders, So Little Time".
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Photo provided courtesy of Lauren Carr
The other day, a friend called. I had barely gotten, "Hello," out before she asked me, "Do you think I kill too many people?"
Hmmm. I had to think about that one.
"I killed five people today and I'm about to kill two more," she explained. "Do you think that's too many?"
I had to ask. "Well, why did you kill them?"
She then went on to explain that the main honcho was caught by the mad scientist in the act of going back on their deal with the lovely blonde who he had abducted from the airport. Then there was the private eye who saw too much. And then there was the hooker who he poisoned as a human Guinea pig to see how their secret potent would work. It was a complete failure because the hooker spontaneously combust — causing a fire in the game room which wasn't supposed to happen.
"Now I'm about to gun down the two gunmen they hired to replace to two killed in the buffalo stampede," she said.
"Do you really have to kill those two gunmen?" I asked. "If you feel like you're killing too many people, maybe you should spare them."
"No, they have to die," she said. "But I decided to let the cab driver live."
"That's good," I said. "Who's going to kill the hit men?"
"Johnny," she said. "Right after he cleans up the mess in the study from killing Adrian. Is it just me, or am I killing too many people?"
I had to scratch my head and think. "Not when you compare these killing to those two motorcycle gangs you gunned down last year."
I heard a sigh of relief from the phone. "That's right. There were at least fifty people in that gang and I didn't let even one of them live. Thank you so much, Lauren. Gotta run. Frank's home and I have to fix dinner."
As I hung up the phone it occurred to me that my phone lines are probably being taped by the NSA if, for nothing else, entertainment value.
P.S., Two hours later, my friend emailed to tell me that during dinner she decided to allow the two gunmen to live for another three chapters.
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Lauren Carr is a popular speaker who has made appearances at schools, youth groups, and on author panels at conventions. She also passes on what she has learned in her years of writing and publishing by conducting workshops and teaching in community education classes.
The owner of Acorn Book Services, Lauren is also a publishing manager, consultant, editor, cover and layout designer, and marketing agent for independent authors. This year, several books, over a variety of genre, written by independent authors will be released through the management of Acorn Book Services, which is currently accepting submissions. Visit the Acorn Book Services website for more information.
Lauren lives with her husband, son, and three dogs on a mountain in Harpers Ferry, WV.
Police Chief David O'Callaghan and Chelsea Adams' wedding day is fast approaching. Unfortunately, at the last minute, David discovers that there is one small problem to be taken care of before he can walk down the aisle — divorce his first wife!
Lauren Carr takes fans of the Mac Faraday mysteries to the Big Apple in this nail biting adventure. In Cancelled Vows, David, Mac, and Gnarly, too, rush to New York City to dissolve David's marriage to an old girlfriend — and he's got five days to get it done. When murder throws up a road block, it is up to David's best man, Mac Faraday, and Gnarly, K9-in-waiting, to sort through the clues to get David to the church in time!
It's Carnival time and the Caribbean-colonized planet of Toussaint is celebrating with music, dance, and pageantry. Masked "Midnight Robbers" waylay revelers with brandished weapons and spellbinding words. To young Tan-Tan, the Robber Queen is simply a favorite costume to wear at the festival-until her power-corrupted father commits an unforgiveable crime.
Suddenly, both father and daughter are thrust into the brutal world of New Half-Way Tree. Here monstrous creatures from folklore are real, and the humans are violent outcasts in the wilds. Tan-Tan must reach into the heart of myth and become the Robber Queen herself. For only the Robber Queen's legendary powers can save her life … and set her free.
It's fire season, and the hills of Los Angeles are burning. When police and fire department personnel rush door to door in a frenzied evacuation effort, they discover the week-old corpse of an apparent suicide. But the gunshot victim is less gruesome than what they find in his lap: a photo album of seven brutally murdered young women — one per year, for seven years. And when the suicide victim is identified as a former suspect in one of the murders, the news turns Elvis Cole's world upside down.
Three years earlier Lionel Byrd was brought to trial for the murder of a female prostitute named Yvonne Bennett. A taped confession coerced by the police inspired a prominent defense attorney to take Byrd's case, and Elvis Cole was hired to investigate. It was Cole's eleventh-hour discovery of an exculpatory videotape that allowed Lionel Byrd to walk free. Elvis was hailed as a hero.
But the discovery of the death album in Byrd's lap now brands Elvis as an unwitting accomplice to murder. Captured in photographs that could only have been taken by the murderer, Yvonne Bennett was the fifth of the seven victims — two more young women were murdered after Lionel Byrd walked free. So Elvis can't help but wonder — did he, Elvis Cole, cost two more young women their lives?
Shut out of the investigation by a special LAPD task force determined to close the case, Elvis Cole and Joe Pike desperately fight to uncover the truth about Lionel Byrd and his nightmare album of death — a truth hidden by lies, politics, and corruption in a world where nothing is what it seems to be.
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