Meat-Wagon Mike’s Change of Heart is Greg Levin’s contribution to Colin Conway’s Back Road Bobby and His Friends, a 509 Crime Anthology. Mike is a paramedic with a stealing habit. You know from the beginning that something is going to go wrong. Then its like, well, that wasn’t so bad. Neither was that. And then, well, yeah, there ya go.
This is another story where if you cheer for the lead character, you wonder what it says about you. Mike is a paramedic, maybe a good one, maybe not so good. What he is good at is lightening the load of the recently deceased by taking their watches, jewelry, cash, etc. Years ago, he made a mistake and stole from an injured (but not dead) Handbrake Hardy Frye. Now, like everyone else in the 509, he’s trying to get to Handbrake.
Mike makes no apologies for who he is, which kinda makes him likable. And, like so many of us, when he tries to do the right thing, everything goes to hell. 5-stars for this lightning paced story.
Wolf Bog by Leslie Wheeler is the newest bonus episode on Mysteries to Die For. Listen to the first chapter and my review everywhere you get your podcast or from my website.
This book is an amateur sleuth story where Katheryn Stinson, a curator of prints and photographs for a small library, is drawn into the mystery of the surfacing body of a local man who went missing forty years prior. Rating Wolf Bog on a 5-point scale against the “perfect amateur sleuth”, I give this 3.75. Bottom line: Wolf Bog is for you if you prefer small town mysteries with likeable characters, deliberate pacing and/or the Berkshire setting.
Driver Giddy Up Derrick is trying to live up to the expectations her grandfather set. The only problem is her uncles won’t let her out from behind the reception desk. When the legendary Handbrake Hardy Frye is rumored to be on his deathbed, Giddy Up decides to make the trip to pay respects. Two eighteen year old girls, 1,800 miles, and enough ramen for a week. What could possibly go wrong?
The next story in Colin Conway’s Back Road Bobby and His Friends belongs to me. I thought about skipping this one. You know, recusing myself, and then decided nahh.
This story is has a different tone than the preceding episodes. Giddy Up and her friends Angel and Marcella deal with some grown up problems. Giddy Up isn’t given the chance to live up to her potential simply because she was born female. Angel is a domestic violence victim. First by her step-father, then by her boyfriend. Marcella is an illegal immigrant kidnapped from her family and forced into the sex trade. Real and heavy stuff. Giddy Up and Angel live dangerously by deciding to make the trek to Spokane. Along the way, they save Marcella from the men holding her.
Is this story for you? If you like darker stories, then probably not. It wouldn’t surprise me if you found Giddy Up and her friends silly. If you like dark stories with the potential of a happy ending, then yes, I think you’d enjoy the antics of three girls ready to take on the world.
In the book, the genre was listed as murder mystery. If you pick up this book expecting a murder mystery, you will be disappointed. This book is not a whodunnit, where the amateur sleuth Archer Landis is solving the mystery of his lover’s murder.
This book is a thriller, where the unwilling hero, Archer Landis, is being accosted personally and professionally, forcing him to chase the rabbit down its hole.
Rating Architect of Courage on a 5-point scale against the “perfect thriller”, I give this 4.25.
Strengths of the story. The pacing is fast without being aggressive or too fast to follow and has the plot twists that are the hallmark of a good thriller. Our hero is in constant mortal danger, and like so many thriller heroes, has no idea why. The setting moves between NYC, a beach house, and the south of Spain and draws in international figures from Spain, Israel, and Morocco. Having the hero be an industry leading architect sets this book apart, bringing in a world seldom explored in thrillers. This book is well written in terms of the noun-verb-noun writing and the editing. There is a lot to like.
Where the story fell short of the ideal. While the book is well written, the opening chapters were rough. The adjectives were too flowery, the cheating husband too falling on his own sword. There are also several convenient coincidences and suggestions by minor characters that felt less than organic, intentionally set to advance to the next chapter. This does clean up by about the fifth chapter, when the story really takes off.
Thriller endings are often difficult. Authors generally have created such a complex weave of plots (those twists and turns readers love) that to unravel each one in a logical and satisfying manner is a very complicated task. When you get to the end and look back over the entirety of the story, do the actions of all the players (not just the hero) hold up? Weisfeld did better than most, but she wasn’t perfect. I am not going to go into spoiler detail. These plot resolution points prevented me from scoring the book higher, but I doubt it is something that will bother the vast majority of thriller lovers.
Bottom line: Architect of Courage is for you if you are into thrillers, faster paced stories, and international flavors.
From June 20 through July 15,2022 Architect of Courage is on tour with Partners in Crime. Check out the tour link for more content and information
In Trey Barker’s contribution to Colin Conway’s Back Road Bobby and His Friends, Jesse is ready to leave the world behind and live off the grid. But to do that, he needs some cash. A carefully placed question or two connects him with Wobble Wheel Wooley, a man on a quest for a pile of money hidden by Handbrake Hardy.
This call-and-answer style story has two men whose paths become crossed. Jesse isn’t fussy about where his next pay day comes from, just that it comes. Wobble Wheel is on a Coronado quest for the mother of all payouts. Unpredictable, Wobble Wheel drives the story, dragging Jesse along for the right. A clean, straight-forward story, I give this 4 stars.
There is a lot to love in Nekesa Afia’s debut mystery Dead Dead Girls. This book is an amateur sleuth-style mystery. Our sleuth is 26-year old Louise Lovey Lloyd. A Black woman in 1920s Harlem, she works as a waitress in a café over a kinda sleezy speakeasy by day and dances her feet off in the best club in the neighborhood at night. On her way home from a late night of music and drinking, Louise and her companion Rosa Maria discover the body of a teen in the cafe’s doorway. Louise feels for the girl who reminds her of her younger self, of her younger sisters. With a spine of steel, Louise works with the New York police to go into the one place they can’t, the homes and businesses of Black New York.
Rating Dead Dead Girls on a 5-point scale against the perfect mystery, I give this 3.5 stars.
Strengths of the story. The lead character is vividly imagined and brought out on the page. You can the pride and frustration that would come with being friends with the smart and courageous woman. The setting is equally well drawn out, letting us feel the pulse of the band as Louise dances the Charleston. I simply love the language. I do not know how much research Ms. Afia did, but it was worth it. The slang is a key part of being transported to this neighborhood, at this point in time. The story is well told in the noun-verb-noun sense and is well edited, as you would expect with Berkley Prime Crime.
Where the story fell short of ideal. Ms. Afia weaves a complicated plot for her debut novel and with that intricacy comes the opportunity to make leaps in logic and leave string hanging. It is the type of story that at the end you think ‘ok, fine. That’s good.’ And then the questions start popping up. What about this and how was that managed. Beside the mystery itself, this happens with the apparent constant threat Louise is under. For readers who tend not to dissect the logic of a story, I am confident you will be delighted with this one.
Bottomline: Dead Dead Girls is for you if you like dynamic amateur sleuths and the under explored time of 1920s Harlem.
In Dave Zeltserman’s contribution to Colin Conway’s Back Road Bobby and his Friends, Jack “Gator” Wilson is living a simple life after doing time for his role in a horse track robbery. Billy Slake finds him, plying him with coffee, donuts, and an offer too good to be true.
And you know what they say about offers too good to be true.
This straightforward story is a fast, clean read. A two-character story, the play between Gator and Billy Slake rings true as anyone knows who has followed a friend into a misadventure. A solid read at three stars.
The Nikki Dolson’s Card Shark Molly’s Last Hand is the second story in Back Roads Bobby and His Friends, Colin Conway’s last edition to the 509 Crime Anthology. Molly is picking up a month’s worth of cash in one night by working as a dealer in a very private, pop-up poker game. The crowd is rough but the pot is big and Molly has plans for her share of the take. She is working the crowd as she makes the flop: a pair of eights and an ace. More money is thrown on the table. Molly flips the next card, another ace. The deadman’s hand, she realizes. And that’s went everything goes to hell.
Card Shark Molly’s Last Hand is one of those stories that slaps you in the face if you get so cocky as to assume where it is going. Nikki does a great job of dragging you through a litany of emotions – pride, fear, anger, anguish, more anger – all in twenty-one pages. It is a strong example of short story writing, made more potent by being in the hard crime genre. A 5-star review. Read this one if you are a fan of stories that keep you on the edge of your seat.
The Escape of Jimmy the Saint by Frank Zafiro is the first story in Colin Conway’s BACK ROAD BOBBY AND HIS FRIENDS, a 509 Crime Anthology. Jimmy “the Saint” Sauntiago loves his 1969 Chevelle, loves to drives, loves his girlfriend…well, maybe not the last one so much. She’s pressuring him to give up his first two loves and settle down. Jimmy’s life is driving and outsmarting, outmaneuvering, and plain old out driving Deputy Shiple. That man HATES Jimmy. Then Jimmy learns Handbrake Hardy Frye, the driving legend, is making his exodus from this world (the anthology’s tie that binds). Instead of delivering his current package to his customer, Jimmy decides to take it to Handbrake, a gift befitting a legend.
This short story has all the hallmarks of a Frank Zafiro tale. The hero isn’t quite good, the story isn’t quite simple, and the ending has you reading it twice. Like all Frank’s stories, this one is for readers who prefer the gray, where life isn’t all roses and sunshine, but it’s not so bleak that there isn’t hope. Go in with an open mind, ’cause you aren’t going to guess where this one is going.
Colin Conway has just released the newest anthology of his 509 universe, Back Road Bobby and his Friends. I am thrilled to have written a story for this collection titled Giddy Up Done Gone. My story is about something everyone wants but noone can buy: respect. Giddy Up is eighteen and grew up in her grandparents loving home. With her grandsparents now deceased, her family had very modest expectations for her life. In a family of mechanics and car junkies, being female kept her out of the pits. I suppose this is a coming-of-age story, but it didn’t feel like it when I was writing. It has the hallmarks of a TG Wolff story-strong characters, humor, and a healthy dose of rule breaking. Check out all the wide and varying stories in this newest edition to the 509 universe.
TG Wolff 