Melelani's Mana, by Lono Waiwai'ole

Melelani's Mana, by Lono Waiwai'ole, in Honolulu Noir, edited by Chris McKinney, Akashic Press, 2024.

The publisher sent me a copy of this book.

I paid this story a high compliment: as soon as I finished it I put the author's debut novel on my TBR list, because I wanted to know more about the characters. It's clear that he has written about them before and they are interesting folks.

But since I am not fully informed, forgive me if I make false assumptions.  Melelani appears to be Native Hawaiian.  Her lover Wiley is also, but grew up on the mainland.  Now he's a gambler, preparing for a big poker night, with a ten grand buy-in.  Mele wants to come to the game but she seems less interested in poker than the security issues.

And there are big issues because one of the players plans to rob the game.  Things turn very nasty. 

The story is well-written and I loved the characters. The casual supernatural element is a turn-off for me but your mileage may vary. 

 

Truth or Die, by Austin S. Camacho

 "Truth or Die," by Austin S. Camacho, in Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House, edited by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson, Down and Out Books, 2024.

A few pages into this tale I felt awash in a cozy wave of nostalgia, which is odd since it is not a cozy or nostalgic story. Let me explain.

A century ago a staple of Black Mask Magazine was a tale in which a stranger arrived in a corrupt big town or  small city and started clashing with the resident gang of crooks (or competing gangs).  It takes a while for the reader to figure out whether the newcomer is a good guy or a bad guy - or, this being the world of hardboiled, a good bad guy or bad good one. 

This story begins with Skye getting off a bus at 4:25 in the morning.  She quickly finds an injured man in a dumpster and she pulls him out. Does that make her a good guy? Then she arranges to meet up with the head of one of two rival mobs.  Bad guy?

A nice and suspenseful story.  I was left with one question: Where does the first dead body end up? 

Windfall, by Michael Bracken

 "Windfall," by Michael Bracken, in Scattered, Smothered, Covered & Chunked: Crime Fiction Inspired by Waffle House, edited by Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson, Down and Out Books, 2024.

This is the tenth appearance here by my friend and fellow SleuthSayer Michael Bracken.

Let me begin by saying of all the anthology themes I've run across this might be the most unexpected.  Admittedly, I have never been in a Waffle House.

Mike, Jerry, and Bill, three old pals, go fishing one day and make an unexpected catch: half a million bucks that fall (falls?) out of an armored car when it's robbed. 

But that kind of money is like fairy gold, hard to hold onto.  Mike keeps urging his friends not to spend conspicuously, but as one of them says "What good is having it if we can't spend it?"

You know what they say about the love of money. They could have added that it's the root of a whole lot of trouble.

I admit that what put this story over the top for me is the clever connection between it and the title of the book.  But you will have to figure that out for yourself.

 

The Grim, by Donna Andrews

"The Grim," by Donna Andrews, in Black Cat Weekly, #165.

This is Andrews' second appearance here. 

What we have this week is a fantasy-detective story.  Not the easiest mashup to make work, but I enjoyed it.

The narrator, nameless unless I missed it, is in charge of spooks in his area and a problem has come up, wouldn't you know it, in the busy season right before Halloween.

A few weeks ago I talked about world-building, and this is another example, although we might call this other-world-building, because we are discussing the rules of the afterlife.  It turns out that the first body buried in a cemetery can't leave it. It becomes the Grim, a fierce black dog which guards the graves and helps new spirits to find their way to the underworld.

For this reason, the narrator explains, wise cemetery-managers bury a dog before they bury other humans.  Because no person is likely to want the job of death-pooch.

In our story the problem is that the Grim at a new cemetery is clearly suffering from job dissatisfaction and is causing trouble.  Our hero has to figure out the cause of Fido's dilemma and find a solution.  

His work is satisfactory and so is the story.