Review: The Witness by Jordan Standridge

 Genre: Crime/Suspense/Romance

Description:

“Cops and deer. Her mama always told people Raina could sense them before she saw them. So the day she left home for a quick trip into town and sensed a cop ahead, she wasn't surprised to see one working a traffic stop. But never in her wildest dreams could she sense that traffic stop would turn into her own personal nightmare.

Attempting to save the life of a defenseless deputy, Raina nearly lost her own in a short but brutal attack. As she recuperates, the life she knew and loved is systematically being taken away from her by those she thwarted. Now she must dig deep inside herself for the courage to not only survive but to forge a new life in case she did.

Assigned to her case, Detective Channion Scott had a solid reputation for solving crimes. When he soon turned into her personal bodyguard, he wondered how was he to solve his attraction to the courageous woman who'd risked her life to save another's?”

Author:

An avid traveler, Jordan Standridge has worked in a variety of jobs, from sales, to being a police and fire dispatcher, and a manager. This is her second book, the other book being the first in this series.

Appraisal:

I think it is fair to say that I’m having a lot of conflicting feelings about how to review this book. The story at a high level is a good one. I love the characters. As the name of the series indicates, the protagonist is a strong and courageous woman who you can’t help but like and pull for her to get through these challenges. I enjoyed the different story threads and how they all fit together.

However, there are aspects of the author’s approach to writing that I found problematic. The book is a lot longer than it probably needs or should be because the story had a tendency to go down a rabbit hole. As a reader we would get a brain dump of what was going through one of the main character’s minds at a certain point, not unreasonable except the tendency to go into way too much detail was there. Then we’d get the same for what a more obscure character was thinking, which isn’t normal. The way it was done often had me thinking about the old writer’s adage to “show, don’t tell.” It felt like the reader was getting both shown and then told and told and told. At times the story took turns that stretched credibility, but I managed to get past those instances, and the reader was sometimes told things that I didn’t think were needed to understand the story and didn’t add anything to it, just bogging it down. I imagine some readers wouldn’t notice or take issue with the things that bothered me. If you think you’re one of those readers, the book has a lot of good points, so give it a try.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: *** Three Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 145-150,000 words

Review: 10 Little Rules for Understanding America by Danny Zimny-Schmitt

 Genre: Travel/Politics

Description:

“What if the road to understanding American politics runs through every one of its 3,000+ counties?

In this compelling mix of travel memoir and geopolitical insight, the author crisscrosses the country, visiting every county in the US, with one goal: to listen. From diner counters to train stations, coffee shops to rural gas stations, the journey reveals how where we live shapes what we believe—and how we vote.

Inspired by books like The Last American Road Trip and Our Towns, this exploration uncovers the patterns, tensions, and quiet truths that define the American experience today.”

Author:

“Danny Zimny-Schmitt holds degrees in environmental science and geography from the University of Denver and works in the renewable energy industry. Growing up in inner city Chicago, visiting family in Wisconsin, and then moving to Denver for school, he was inspired to learn about the differences between places at an early age. When he's not traveling, he enjoys reading, running, and advocacy work for local nonprofits. He lives in Denver.”

Appraisal:

This series appears to be a set of short reads, each of them with “10 little rules” to help a person in some way, whether that help is what might be classified as “self-help” or to help you understand something that is good to know in a better way. In the process you’ll potentially learn about some other subject that you might be interested in.

This specific volume involves travel and the ways it can expand a person’s view and understanding of the world. Mark Twain has been quoted as saying that “travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness,” (a quote included in this book at an appropriate spot), and that concept is one that runs through this book. The author had a goal of visiting every county or county equivalent in the US. He accomplished that goal and in this book delves a bit into the travel experience, but also what he observed and learned from the experience. A lot of this is political, but makes the point that we aren’t as far apart as it sometimes seems. While a short quick read it also references other articles and studies as well as having links to websites where more information about some places and subjects mentioned can be found. A fun, quick, and thought-provoking read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 15-20,000 words

Review: Beneath the Gavel by Stephen M. Murphy

 

Genre: Legal Thriller

Description:

“A judge. A murder. A family divided.

Judge Ferdinand Pitt never expected to see his estranged father in his courtroom—especially not in handcuffs, accused of murder. But when the victim turns out to be his son’s volatile boss, the case takes a devastating turn. As evidence shifts suspicion from father to son, Ferd is forced to investigate the crime himself, risking his career and violating every ethical boundary he’s sworn to uphold.

With his rival attorney circling, his marriage unraveling, and his mother’s health failing, Ferd must navigate a maze of lies, secrets, and buried resentments to uncover the truth. But in a family fractured by abandonment and silence, justice may come at the cost of everything he has left.

Beneath the Gavel is a gripping mystery about loyalty, legacy, and the impossible choices we make when the law hits home.”

Author:

A native of Boston, Stephen M. Murphy is the author of some legal thrillers as well as being a judge in the San Francisco Superior Court.

For more, check out his website.

Appraisal:

Judge Ferdinand Pitt, or Ferd, the nickname we get to know him as, is the protagonist of the book. He’s obviously had some success in life, in spite of a history that required him to beat the odds to get to where he has in life. Then things spiral a bit out of control when his dad who he hasn’t seen since he abandoned the family when Ferd was a kid is charged with murder and as he tries to find out if his dad is guilty things start hitting even closer to home. Trying to juggle his judicial ethics, while also protecting his family, turns into a juggling act. In the meantime, as a reader, trying to figure out who did what along with the judge kept me very engaged. A good read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

Very few issues except for a handful of times using the word waive instead of wave.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 70-75,000 words

Reprise Review: The Last Line of a Goat Song by Jonathan Doyle

 

Genre: Literary Fiction

Description:

“Living a life of self-imposed isolation, a lonely man finds himself on a road trip to Mexico with a woman whose life becomes intertwined with his. Forging an unlikely friendship, they must learn to navigate the dangers and chaos of their adventure while confronting ghosts from the past.”

Author:

“Jonathan Doyle is a screenwriter and novelist based in Los Angeles with his large collection of books and his trusty DVR. A native of Phoenix AZ, Jonathan grew up in Southern California and is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University with a degree in Psychology, but still can’t overcome his fear of freeway overpasses. When he’s not busy working on a new novel/poem/song/screenplay, he enjoys reading Virginia Woolf, lamenting a Lakers loss, or watching Siberian tiger videos online.”

Appraisal:

First, this is the story of William, an older man who has never been able to speak. He knows about the lives of the neighbors in his apartment complex in great detail. The neighbors may or may not be vaguely aware that he exists.

It’s also an adventure story. Or maybe it could be described as a road trip story where a couple of friends take a road trip and stuff happens. Except in this case the “friends” really aren’t. They are William and Maggie, a twenty-something neighbor of William. Yeah, one of those who barely knows him. The reason they’re taking the trip is that William has a van he has no use for and Maggie’s family in Mexico who she hasn’t seen in years really need a van.

If all this seems slightly strange and yet a bit intriguing, we’re in agreement. And just as in those road trip stories our intrepid travelers will encounter things that make you laugh and others that make you cringe and worry. In the process, William and Maggie learn a little more about the world and themselves. An entertaining, offbeat read.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Some adult language and mild adult content.

Format/Typo Issues:

Review is based on an unproofread pre-release version, so I can’t judge the final product in this area.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 55-60,000 words

Review: The German Client by Bruno Morchio

Genre: History/Mystery

Description:

There are three strands to this book: secret events of 1944 during the Nazi occupation of Italy (after the fall of Mussolini); a search for those secrets in ‘the present day’ (this book was first published, in Italian, in 2008); this second thread being displacement activity for Bacci Pagano, while he sits by the hospital bedside of his comatose girlfriend, Jasmine, who has been badly beaten waiting for her to wake or not wake – which is the third thread.

The events of 1944 are loosely based in fact, and the setting (Sestri and surrounding area near Genoa) is accurate.

One of the puffs at the front of the book, from Il Giornale di Brescia, claims this is “the best novel Morchio has written so far.” Telegraph Avenue adds that “This is the beauty and the distinctive trait of Italian noir. There is more than just crime: [there are also] history, politics, society, love, friendship.”

Bacci Pagano is the protagonist in a series of gumshoe-type investigations by Morchio. Italian readers are very fond of him. This is the fifteenth in the Pagano series and the first to be translated into English (in 2020) by Kazabo Publishing, which specialises in providing English translations of books which have been bestsellers in their original language but have never been available in English before. Perhaps unusually for series, especially this far in, Il Giornale’s review claims this series is hitting a new high note with this book.

Author:

Bruno Morchio lives in Genoa, Italy, where he worked as a psychologist. He has won two literary prizes for the mystery genre, the “Azzeccagarbugli” and the “Lomellina in Giallo” Prizes; and has been a finalist for the “Bancarella”, “Scerbanenco” and “Romiti” Prizes.

Appraisal:

Morchio is very knowledgeable about the area in which this book is set. It is a reasonable supposition that the local 1944 story piqued his interest, and led him to write this particular book. The Pagano books are not usually set in the past. The original 2008 publication date was already nudging the edges of plausibility for a WWII story, if your protagonist is going to be interviewing participants in that conflict in your book’s present. Even teenage partisans would have been about eighty in 2008, and the eponymous German, in his sixties, is the son of Hauptmann Hessen, the German in the story from 1944. Nevertheless, that strand of the story convinces. The tendency, forged in war-time, only to speak when absolutely necessary, not to inform on a comrade, and to maintain that tight-knit comradeship to the grave comes across strongly. In point of fact, all the characters are well drawn. In addition, Italian life sits lively on the page, the Italian way of life is there on the page, and the cultural life of this time and place shine through.

Unfortunately, the three plots do not entirely hang together. Why and how Pagano became enamoured of Jasmine is never fully explained. And how she ended up in the hands of the traffickers is kept from the reader until very late in the book, providing a mystery that I found more frustrating than intriguing. The mystery from 1944 turns out to be no mystery at all, except … no, I won’t give that away – it would be a mean spoiler.

The 1944 sections set in are the strongest part of the book: I always felt we were on firmer ground when Morchio took us back to that part of the story. And it does form the major part of the book, with a satisfying plot of its own.

I hope Kazabo feel it worthwhile to translate others in the Pagano series. And that somebody decides to turn them into a television series (in Italian or English, I don’t mind) now that we have run out of the Sicilian Montalbano novels to dramatise. Here we have just enjoyed the first series of Inspector Gerri, set in Puglia (at the other end of Italy from Genoa). But Telegraph Avenue is quite correct: there is a particular charm to Italian noir, on the page or on TV.

If you are a fan of Andrea Camilleri’s Inspector Montalbano books, or you tried Pentimento Mori by Valeria Corciolani on the strength of my recent review, or you enjoy holidays in Italy or have felt you would really like to visit that country, or simply enjoy noir crime fiction, you will find much to enjoy in this novel.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: Judi Moore

Approximate word count: 65-70,000 words

Review: That the Dead May Rest by Karen A. Wyle

 

Genre: Paranormal Fantasy

Description:

“After a life of peril and fear, Millie has reached the peace, beauty, and security of the afterlife. But one day, when she is performing her glad duty of welcoming a new spirit, that spirit recoils from her in horror — because her body had become a zombie, and had brutally killed him.

As more spirits make the same terrible discovery, they ask themselves, and each other: is this somehow my fault? When will it end? And finally: what can we do? Is there something we can do to stop this?

And are there people among the living who can help them to do it?”

Author:

“Karen A. Wyle was born a Connecticut Yankee, but eventually settled in Bloomington, Indiana. She now considers herself a Hoosier. She is an appellate attorney, photographer, and mother of two.

Wyle's thoughtful and compassionate fiction includes SF, historical romance, and fantasy. She has also collaborated with several wonderful illustrators to produce picture books. Relying on her legal background, she has written one nonfiction resource, explaining American law to authors, law students, and anyone else interested in better understanding the legal landscape. Wyle's voice is the product of a lifetime spent reading both literary and genre fiction. Her personal history has led her to focus on often-intertwined themes of family, communication, the impossibility of controlling events, and the persistence of unfinished business.”

Appraisal:

I think calling this book different and unique would be fair. It takes some things that are mysteries and imagines what the answers might be. Things like what happens after we leave this life. It imagines strange happenings and how to figure out why they are happening and how to deal with them. How all of this relates to the rest, what the ultimate answers are, and how it all fits together isn’t at all like anything I’ve read before. And, of course how it was all going to work out, especially for Millie, the main character, was something that mattered to me as the reader and kept me engrossed to the last page.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

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

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 85-90,000 words

Review: Miller and Kelby: Major case squad files by Maxine Flam

Genre: Short Story Collection/Crime Thriller

Description:

“Two Detectives, One City

The time: the late 1970s

The place: Los Angeles, California

Joseph (Joe) Miller and William (Bill) Kelby are detectives with the Major Case Squad. They get the hard-to-solve cases. And they solve them the old fashioned way with grit and determination, forensics, and help from the department psychologist.

Miller and Kelby are a dedicated detective team that Los Angeles turns to when there are unsolved murders in the city. And solving murders is their specialty. They put their lives on the line every day for the citizens of Los Angeles, a city that rarely sleeps.”

Author:

“Maxine lives with her aquatic friends. She doesn't let her disabilities get in the way of taking classes at the local junior college. Maxine has two Associate Arts degrees, one in Natural Science and one in Liberal Arts. She has had multiple short stories published since 2019.”

Appraisal:

I’ll admit to feeling torn about this collection. I think it might depend on how you generally approach reading short story collections. If you read one or two stories, then do something else, that works. But if you tend to read several stories at a time without many breaks then I think these stories might feel too much the same. There’s nothing wrong with stories having a pattern. (Every novel in the romance genre has the same basic pattern at a high level.) With one exception these fit a basic pattern. I liked the two main characters, Joe Miller and Bill Kelby. A third character who shows up in most stories is Dr Delmonico, the police department psychologist. He sometimes stretches belief in the theories he comes up with, not that he comes up with them, but no matter how out there his theories seem to be, he apparently never gets anything wrong. In spite of these concerns, I still enjoyed reading these stories and meeting Miller and Kelby.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

A small amount of adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

A small number of typos.

Rating: **** Four Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 Words

Review: Lost Souls by Steve Stiles

 

Genre: Fantasy

Description:

“Soul Collecting is an easy way to make a living, except for the being dead part. Unfortunately for Madelyn, she's not interested in either being dead or, heaven forbid, having to work at it. Trust me when I say her adjustment issues are only beginning.

Just as Madelyn catches on and finds her soul collecting groove, she screws up on the job. It’s a mistake that could end her existence, as well as the futures of innocent people who are very much NOT dead…yet.

While a motley assortment of collector friends pitch in to help, other collectors are deadset (see what I did there?) to make sure she fails. The clock is ticking for Madelyn as she battles to right her wrong before her soul collector status wears off.

Rules are rules, whether you listen to them or not.”

Author:

A mystery man who doesn’t appear to have any other books out at the moment.

Appraisal:

This was a unique book that drew me in quickly and kept me engrossed to the very end. The concept is that there are a group of … we’ll call them souls I guess, who get assigned to be what are called collectors. These collectors are spirits who can potentially transport themselves anywhere on Earth under the right conditions. They have a duty to help “collect” the souls of humans who die and to transport these souls to drop off points where they then move on to where ever they go. Those souls who are assigned to be collectors get a small amount of training and then go through a whole lot of trial and error as they get a handle on it.

I’m afraid to say much more for fear of spoiling the story. As the main character, Madelyn, figures things out the reader goes along for the ride and tries to figure them out too. Madelyn has something happen that is extremely rare and no one is sure how to deal with it, which makes things more intense for a while. Then throw in things that feel just like this life, lots of other souls, some who help you, some who are trying to get in your way, and some that you’re not sure where they fall, keeps things interesting. I found the author’s sense of humor as well as a protagonist that I was pulling for along with the unique story world made for a great story.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

Format/Typo Issues:

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

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: BigAl

Approximate word count: 80-85,000 words

Reprise Review: Soul Walk by Melissa Bowersock

 

Genre: Paranormal Mystery/Suspense

Description:

“Paranormal investigator Lacey Fitzpatrick and medium Sam Firecloud are making quite a name for themselves. When a TV network offers to feature them on a popular ghost series, they realize they could dispel misconceptions and bring credibility to their work. However, filming their process is more troublesome and complicated than they knew. Their goal to research and release the ghostly tenants of a haunted bed and breakfast in Malibu is at odds with the studio’s penchant for sensationalism. On top of that, Sam finds his connection to one of the ghosts to be painfully personal, and he and Lacey struggle to keep their work, their relationship and their newfound stardom from unraveling.”

Author:

“Melissa Bowersock is an eclectic, award-winning author who writes in a variety of fiction and non-fiction genres: biography, contemporary, western, action, romance, fantasy, paranormal and spiritual. She has been both traditionally and independently published and is a regular contributor to the superblog Indies Unlimited. She lives in a small community in northern Arizona with her husband and an Airedale terrier. She also writes under the pen name Amber Flame.”

Learn more about Ms. Bowersock on her website or follow her on Facebook.

Appraisal:

When a TV network offers to feature Sam and Lacey on a popular ghost series, they realize they could dispel misconceptions and bring credibility to their work. The network executives have chosen a haunted bed and breakfast for Sam and Lacey to investigate. At first Lacey is worried about how much she will be able to contribute if the network has their own team to do the background research of the B&B and the ghostly inhabitants. Therefore, she takes on the research as she always has when it was just her and Sam. This gives her an in-depth and personal feeling for the ghosts.

Lacey and Sam find the filming for the show tedious and tiring. However, they are willing to see it through, and release the ghosts from their earthly suffering. You can tell Ms. Bowersock does a lot of research for her stories. The non-paranormal stuff like going through the filming process is realistic and fascinating. The history behind the hauntings is believable and draws the reader in to set aside any disbelief that this could never happen. Ms. Bowersock is able to find a nice balance between realism and the supernatural.

To top it all off Sam and Lacey are seriously talking about taking their relationship to the next level. I love the way we, the readers, get to take part in their personal lives. It is another touch of realism added to the story. If you like cozy mysteries with a touch of the paranormal I highly recommend this series.??

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

*Trigger warning* One of the ghosts was a five-year old girl who endured horrific abuse, both emotional and physical, before she died. This is not overly graphic.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues were found.

Rating: ***** Five Stars

Reviewed by: ?wazithinkin

Approximate word count: 35-40,000 words

Review: Body in a Barrel by Aaron Mead

 

Genre: Novella/Crime Fiction

Description:

“A body in a barrel just appeared on the shore of Lake Mead, and Lenny Battaglia is worried.

Forty years ago, when Lenny was a henchman in the Las Vegas mafia, his partner, Frank, whacked the victim, and Lenny helped dump the body. But there’s another victim in another barrel somewhere in the lake, and it’s got Lenny’s name on it. For now, that barrel’s underwater, but the drought-ravaged lake keeps dropping, and Frank is talking to the cops.

Lenny tows his fishing boat to the lake to haul his barrel farther from shore, but his boat’s too small, the barrel’s too heavy, and he’s too old. Lenny needs a new plan. Can he cover the horror of his crooked past before it catches up to him in the present?”

Author:

“Aaron Mead is the author of Body in a Barrel, a Las Vegas mafia crime novella. His other work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times and has been covered by NPR. In his Substack publication, sub·plot, he posts serial fiction and short essays on faith, philosophy, books, and the writing life.”

Appraisal:

This was a quick, fun, and intense read. How things are going to work out for the main character Lenny weren’t obvious at any point right up to the very end. (How I wanted it to end was up in the air too.) The story, while well out of my life experience, felt real. At the end we find out that while not a true story, it is based on a few real life people and events which I think helped keep it feeling real.

Buy now from:            Amazon US        Amazon UK

FYI:

Has some adult language.

Format/Typo Issues:

No significant issues

Rating: **** Four Stars