Nicking Votes, by Stephen Buehler

"Nicking Votes," by Stephen Buehler, in Low Down Dirty Vote 2, edited by Mysti Berry, Berry Content Corporation, 2020.

I have a story in this book, by the way.

It's the summer of 1974 and con man Nick Townson is having a bit of hard luck.  His (stolen) car is overheating so he has to pull into a small desert town named Promise.  He will have to wait overnight for repairs and figures to while away the time by conning the locals out of some money with bar bets and similar tricks.

But it turns out there is an election going on, with two candidates for mayor: a sleazy developer and the attractive owner of the bar where Nick is playing his sneaky games.  Nick has no interest in politics but he may have no choice but to get involved.

A lot of clever twists in this one.

The Law of Local Karma, by Susan Dunlap

 "The Law of Local Karma," by Susan Dunlap, in Berkeley Noir, edited by Jerry Thompson and Owen Hill, Akashic Press, 2020.

The publisher sent me an Advance Reader Copy of this book.

When Sergeant Endo Maduri talked about the case later he'd start off, "That was the last time Shelby and I rode together.  It made some of the guys on the force uncomfortable, but Maduri didn't care.

That is the opening paragraph, and it sets the hook nicely.  Is it the last time because Shelby dies, or retires, or because the two cops decide they can't work together?  It certainly made me want to turn pages and find out.

It's a winter afternoon in Berkeley and someone has killed a real estate flipper.  That means there are tons of suspects because lots of people had reasons to hate the guy, including police officer Shelby  and their only witness, a college kid named Janssen.  Maduri and Shelby get the witness in their car for a search around the neighborhood and he manages to include Lisa, a woman who is way out of his league, but would like the excitement of a trip in a police car.

Maduri is trying desperately  to keep the kid's attention on possible suspects while Janssen is much more interested in Lisa.  And Shelby, nearing retirement age and grumpy as hell, seems to have lost interest in the whole deal.  There are some clever twists here.

I must say this story almost lost me on the first page.  Maybe it's just me but I had a hell of a time figuring out who was who.  Is Shelby Callahan's first name?  Is one or both of them the patrolwoman?  Who is the suspect that everyone loses interest in but leaves face down on the sidewalk?  

Only the Desperate Come Here, by Michael Mallory

 

"Only the Desperate Come Here," by Michael Mallory, in Mystery Weekly Magazine, August 2020.

I made a huge embarassing gaffe in an earlier version of this review.  My apologies.

 This is the fifth appearance here by my friend Michael Mallory.

When a client goes to attorney Scott Turley they know they are scraping the bottom of the barrel.  He lives in a room at the Y and his dinner is whiskey.

So it is a surprise when Carl Bone the Third, son of a city councilman, comes to him.  Seems he killed an old college buddy in the alley next to the bar where he worked.  Turley knows the ropes and has some tricks up his sleeves, but fate has a few aces he will need to deal with...

My favorite line: "While confession might be good for the soul, it was terrible for billable legal fees."

Clever stuff.

What Brings You Back Home, by Michelle Richmond

"What Brings You Back Home," by Michelle Richmond, in Alabama Noir, edited by Don Noble, Akashic Press, 2020,

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book.

This is a sly one.  I enjoyed it a lot.

The nameless protagonist has returned to her childhood home of Mobile.  If anyone asks she leads them to think that her work is "as innocuous as it is forgettable.  She's in marketing, right?  Or is it advertising?"

Neither one, as it turns out.  She's up to something else, but maybe not entirely unrelated to those professions mentioned above.  And maybe they aren't as innocuous as they seem...

Twice I thought I knew where this story was going.  Twice I was fooled. Midway through we realize what is going on and the trajectory changes, becomes more, shall we say, polemic.  That wouldn't have worked nearly so well if Richmond hadn't set it up with the first-half.

Title is a nice choice. And here is my favorite bit of writing for the week:

"When you come from poor, poor is always in your head..."

Colibrí, by Nicolás Obregón

"Colibrí," by Nicolás Obregón, in Both Sides: Stories From The Border, edited by Gabino Iglesias, Polis Books, 2020.

Milagros Posada is the deputy sheriff of a county near the Mexican border.  It is not a job that comes with much respect.

When the body of a dead Mexican teenager is found on the Fourth of July, Mili's boss, the elderly sheriff,  responds  that the "stiff'll keep till Monday."  Mili doesn't accept that and goes out to the scene. "I'm just hiking," she unconvincingly tells the Border Patrol man who finds her there.

There's no crime here except illegal border crossing and human smuggling.  The kid died of natural causes.

But Mili is determined to learn his identity and get the news back to his family.  Nobody else seems interested in the job.  It turns out Mili has tragedy in her past and is willing to use that as a tool to get information.

This is a quiet and moving story.

The Cask of Los Alamos, by Cornelia Read

"The Cask of Los Alamos," by Cornelia Read, in Santa Fe Noir, edited by Ariel Gore, Akashic Press, 2020.

The publisher sent me a free copy of this book.

If you were to define stories from Akashic Press's Noir Cities series in one word, which words would show up the most often?  Grim, depressing, violent, affected, suspenseful, cynical...  How about quirky?  Probably not that often.

This story is quirky.  Let's start, reasonably enough, with the first line.

The thousand injuries of Richard Feynman I had borne as best I could. But when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge.

If that sentence, together with the title, does not immediately bring a certain short story to mind then you need to enroll immediately in Remedial Mystery Reading 101. 

We are in a historical mystery (also a rarity in the Noir Cities books), not going back to the time of Edgar Allan Poe (except in spirit) but to World War II.  The Manhattan Project is toiling away in New Mexico and our narrator, Thurston, has taken a deep grudge against his fellow physicist.

A good deal of this story is based on Feynman's actual life, and I was amazed to realize how little I had known about it.  For example, the way he chose to watch the first atomic explosion is drawn from life.

Read has combined these true details with her fictional character's plot which is, of course, modeled on Poe's.  She carries off this combination with great panache.  Does Thurston succeed in killing Feynman, turning this into an alternative history story?  Or i this an altogether different type of tale?

Wouldn't you like to know?

No Honor Among Thieves, by Rob Hart

"No Honor Among Thieves," by Rob Hart, in Lockdown: Stories of Crime, Terror, and Hope During a Pandemic, edited by Nick Kolakowski and Steve Weddle, PolisBooks, 2020.

The proceeds for this book go to the Book Industry Charitable Foundation, a very worthy cause.

This is the third appearance in this column by Rob Hart.

Roger is a banker.  He is working from home due to Covid but he needs to get some files he can't access electronically.  Why aren't they available digitally?  Because they contain data you don't dare expose to hackers, stuff that could get people sent to jail.

It turns out other people want those files too.  People who are more determined than he is...

A nice bad guy versus worse guy story.

By the way, Ann Davila Cardinal has a very nice ghost story in this book, but I don't review ghost stories.

Setting the Pick, by April Kelly

"Setting the Pick," by April Kelly, in Mystery Weekly Magazine, July 2020.

Today's story is about an anonymous private eye, of somewhat dodgy ethics, setting up a bad guy to take a fall.  It's fun to try to figure out what our protagonist is up to.

And the writing is fun too. Our P.I. describes his appearance: "A guy a few birthday cakes north of forty, with thinning hair, a slight limp in his left leg, and a suit straight out of a Motel 6 lost and found."

Enjoy.

A Beastly Trial, by Mark Thielman

"A Beastly Trial," by Mark Thielman, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July/August 2020.

Oh, what a lovely cover.  This is the fifth appearance in this space by Mark Thielman.  Of his previous successes I count two historical mysteries and two comedies.  This time he combines the two.

The tale is set in sixteenth-century France.  Bernard de Vallenchin is an advocat, essentially a defense attorney, and he has his work cut out for him.  His client, together with her six offspring, committed the unprovoked murder of a small child and the community is demanding vengeance.  But what makes the case particularly challenging--

No.  I can't tell you that.  Major spoiler.

I had no idea where this story was going but I read some hilarious passages to a friend who seldom reads mysteries and she figured it out immediately.  That tells you something about me or about her, I suppose. 

This story is based on an actual trial that took place in France hundreds of years ago.  Thielman makes it clear that it is firmly rooted in a view of the universe that seems more foreign to us than the medieval French language.  But that is part of what makes it a fun story.

Chin Yong-Yun Sets The Date, by S.J. Rozan

"Chin Yong-Yun Sets The Date," by S.J. Rozan, in Deadly Anniversaries, edited by Marcia Muller and Bill Pronzini, Hanover Square Press, 2020.

This is the fifth appearance here by my friend S.J. Rozan and the second by the formidable Chin Yong-Yun.  She is the mother of Rozan's private eye Lydia Chin, and quite a character herself.  This aging resident of New York's Chinatown combines the modesty of Poirot, the indecisiveness of Holmes, and the lack of curiosity of Marple. 

In this story she notices that Chu Cai, the son of a friend, seems unhappy, even though he has just gotten engaged. Listen to the way she rationalizes her behavior after seeing the Chu family in a restaurant:

I stood on the corner enjoying the warm day.  Eventually the Chu family emerged from the Wo Hop.  I took a few steps over, to the shadows...  I hurried to catch up with Cai.  Since he had been such a good friend of Am-Zhang's, it was only polite that I greet thim.
"Chu Cai!" I said. "Can this be you?"

 She cleverly arranges for him to come to her apartment to tell his problem to Lydia -- who, alas, is not there.  Perhaps, Mrs. Chin says, he can tell her the problem and she can do the groundwork, although she is not quite sure what ground has to do with detective work.

A wonderful character, a charming story.