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Private Investigator

Review

The Recruiter

by Jeff Ayers

Rick Carter, not his real name, walked away from his family ten years ago to keep them safe from the ramifications of his job. He is the best of the best when it comes to recruiting others to handle jobs notorious criminals want dealt with. Professional assassinations, smuggling, or dealing with trafficking issues while keeping those in the driver’s seat out of the spotlight? Call Rick. But even with his unscrupulous methods, Rick has a moral code. When he’s forced to find killers to eliminate a law-enforcement task force, he quickly learns that there is more at play than he realized, and now his family and entire criminal empire are about to end horribly. Podolski crafts a skillful and page-turning action thriller that does not let up for a second. Rick and his telling of the story make someone completely unlikeable into one whom the reader can root for to succeed. It’s hard to create empathetic characters when you build a world of criminals, but Podolski nails it. This looks like the start of a series, and the second one cannot come fast enough.

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Review

The Recruiter

by Jeff Ayers

Rick Carter, not his real name, walked away from his family ten years ago to keep them safe from the ramifications of his job. He is the best of the best when it comes to recruiting others to handle jobs notorious criminals want dealt with. Professional assassinations, smuggling, or dealing with trafficking issues while keeping those in the driver’s seat out of the spotlight? Call Rick. But even with his unscrupulous methods, Rick has a moral code. When he’s forced to find killers to eliminate a law-enforcement task force, he quickly learns that there is more at play than he realized, and now his family and entire criminal empire are about to end horribly. Podolski crafts a skillful and page-turning action thriller that does not let up for a second. Rick and his telling of the story make someone completely unlikeable into one whom the reader can root for to succeed. It’s hard to create empathetic characters when you build a world of criminals, but Podolski nails it. This looks like the start of a series, and the second one cannot come fast enough

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Review

The Queen City Detective Agency

by Willy Williams

On New Year’s Day 1985, as the countdown to Ronald Reagan’s second presidential inauguration begins, Turnip Coogan, in custody for the murder of real estate developer Randall Hubbard, falls from the roof of the courthouse in downtown Meridian, Mississippi. It may be morning in the rest of America, but that Reaganite optimism has bypassed the state’s “Queen City,” where strip malls developed by the late Hubbard have “sucked the life out of the city’s downtown” and its convenient location between New Orleans and Atlanta has made Meridian “a vital pit stop in the loosely affiliated crime belt of the Deep South.” Knowing of her son’s connection to the notorious Dixie Mafia, Lenora Coogan is convinced that his death was neither an accident nor a suicide and hires Black cop-turned-private investigator Clementine Baldwin and her white partner, Dixon Hicks, to find the “sons of bitches who killed him.” Complicating the investigation is the still-jailed Odette Hubbard, who had recruited Turnip to kill her husband and then canceled the hit job. She wants Clem and Dixon to identify the real killer, a request that puts a target on Clem’s back. Jim Crow laws may be a thing of the past, but Clem still must battle old-fashioned racism as she goes after the city’s powerbrokers. Wright’s (American Pop) Southern noir introduces a compelling, complex, bourbon-loving sleuth who both loathes and loves her hometown. Her budding friendship with Dixon will have readers anticipating their next crime-solving adventure.

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Review

The Murder of Mr. Ma

by Brian Kenney

A high-energy, rambunctious tale that shares much with Sherlock Holmes—the Guy Ritchie versions, that is—as well as traditional Chinese gong’an crime fiction, in which government magistrates solve criminal cases. It’s London, 1924 and Judge Dee Ren Jie, known as Judge Dee, has just arrived in the country to investigate the murder of a colleague whom he knew during World War I, when both served with the Chinese Labour Corps. No less a personage than Bertrand Russell introduces the Judge to Lao She, a retiring London academic who quickly becomes Dee’s sidekick—they are introduced in a prison breakout, it’s complicated—and the two set off to locate the victim’s family. One murder soon becomes two, then more, all performed with the distinctive butterfly sword, putting yet more pressure on Judge Dee to find the perpetrator before he or she tries to murder him. The authors do a wonderful job of depicting the bustling London of the ‘20s, the Chinese community and the relentless racism and stereotypes it is a victim of, and absolutely fabulous displays of martial arts. There’s word that Dr. Dee may be returning to solve another case; here’s hoping he does!

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Review

Invitation to a Killer

by Brian Kenney

Love a good locked-room mystery? Well, here’s a book with two, sort of. Augusta Hawke, crime writer with a developing side gig as an amateur detective, has been invited to a dinner party at the home of Callie Moore, wife of one of Washington, DC’s biggest lobbyists, making Callie herself a sort of demi-goddess. Turns out Callie is eyeing Augusta to ghostwrite her memoirs; in fact, everyone at the dinner has some sort of publishing aspiration. And it’s quite the assemblage, including a congressman and his wife; a CIA couple; and Doc Burke, a famous humanitarian. Augusta may have little interest in ghostwriting, but the menu is delectable, the libations lavish—until the doctor seems to fall asleep. Except you, me, and Augusta all know he’s not sleeping. He’s dead, likely, it turns out, from his heart condition. O.K., it’s not a locked-room mystery if everyone Ubers home, but certainly it has the makings of one. Over the next several months, Augusta researches and ruminates, deciding that indeed the good Doc was murdered, likely poisoned. But how to find the murderer? Augusta decides to host a writers’ retreat, in the Shenandoah Mountain, just for the dinner guests. This crazy/fun plan—yes, it snows abundantly—provides the true locked-room experience. For all who love Augusta’s wit, insights into DC and the publishing industry, and a little bit of Agatha.

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