thriller

Review: Blood on the Tracks

In this brilliant debut, Barbara Nickless introduces us to marine-turned-railroad cop Sydney Parnell. Haunted by her time in Iraq (literally, as she routinely sees the ghosts of fallen comrades), she absorbs scotch like vitamin water, steals smokes from lazy cops and pops Dexedrine just to stay balanced.

Oh, and she kills a bunch of skinheads along the way.

Yeah, I love this character.

Sleep is about the only thing Sydney doesn’t do in this relentless thriller, and I haven’t even mentioned her loyal sidekick, Clyde, a Belgian Malinois who has a love of cheeseburgers, his own kevlar vest and, like Sydney, crippling PTSD from the war.

At the outset of Blood on the Tracks, a charity worker is murdered and hideously butchered. All evidence suggests that her fiance, a marine disfigured by an IED in Iraq, is the killer, but Sydney isn’t convinced. While the Denver PD considers the case closed, Sydney and Clyde continue to search for answers, even though it may expose war crimes that would ruin all of their lives — and might get Sydney killed.

What follows is a Nietzschean descent into the abyss of war and its aftermath. And as the body count begins to pile up around her, Sydney has no choice but to commit herself fully to the truth, even though that works against her self-interest.

What I also like about Sydney is that she isn’t the type who will only kill in self-defense. War has taught her that, once committed, it’s kill or be killed. When she and Clyde enter the skinhead compound, the orders are to take no prisoners, leave no survivors.

This is a very satisfying book to read in 2021. When Blood on the Tracks was first published, in 2016, hate crimes were on the rise in America. They reached a 16-year high in 2020, followed by a literal siege on the democratic process in early 2021.

Justice has taken a beating the past five years, so yeah, it’s very cathartic when Sydney bashes in a skinhead’s face with a rock.

Nickless incorporates all the great ingredients of a thriller — the flawed hero, antagonistic relationships, and numerous plot twists. My only critique of Blood on the Tracks is that there is one twist too many — an unexpected turn that feels superfluous, but more importantly, is difficult to reconcile with the rest of the novel.

However, Nickless lays a deep foundation with long-term story arcs that has me excited for whatever comes next.

I also love that Sydney is not a superstar detective or a prized forensics specialist, as we so often encounter in mystery series. She is a misfit who feels right at home with the outsiders who populate the hobo camps. This makes her essential to the story. To channel my old MFA lingo, it’s the story that only Sydney Parnell could tell, which is what draws the reader into her world.

At least it did for me. I’m looking forward to reading further installments of Sydney and Clyde’s adventures.

Review: Dead by Midnight

Pamela Clare

Dead by Midnight

As 2015 comes to an end, so too does the best romantic suspense series in the genre. Beginning with 2005’s Extreme Exposure, and totaling seven full-length novels and five shorter works, Clare’s I-Team has earned a rabid following and produced numerous best-sellers.

The series comes to an end (for now) with the wonderful short novel Dead by Midnight.

For the finale, Clare brings together all of the previous I-Team characters, who have the misfortune of attending a holiday party at a hotel targeted for a political attack. Though the narco-terrorists claim to want nothing more than a hostage release, the I-Team learns that they intend to leave no survivors.

Working against the clock, and with an outside assist from the FBI Hostage Rescue Team (consisting of characters from the best-selling Kaylea Cross book series), the I-Team faces the realization that they might not survive to see another year.

First off, a disclosure: I do have a connection to this author and this series. Clare is the pen name of acclaimed journalist Pamela White, and she was my editor from 2003 – 2007 at the Boulder Weekly newspaper. Also, she named one of the I-Team characters (the hunkiest one, of course, Julian Darcangelo) after me, and a few years ago I was her guest at a romance writing convention.

Regardless of these connections, I loved this book. I devoured it in three sittings. Clare’s writing style is intense and engaging, and the characters so well-developed that you’re quickly invested in their stories, even if this is your first I-Team encounter (though I would recommend starting with books one, Extreme Exposure, and two, Hard Evidence).

Clare’s specialty is hot, edgy sex scenes, and she does not disappoint in Dead by Midnight. It begins with a sex scene, and the first stiff member appears in the opening paragraph. Classic Clare. The romance is paired with equally visceral scenes of violence and heroism. Clare is the rare author who can titillate, terrify and elicit cheers from her readers in a single chapter.

Her two-plus decades as a reporter lend authenticity to the I-Team series, which centers around a team of investigative journalists. Some of the darkest elements of her tales come directly from personal experience, and this brings verisimilitude to her narratives. She also incorporates insider details to flesh out her stories, including the financial struggles and political landmines of working in the industry, the personal risk of the profession and the emotional toll of publishing power dynamics.

My favorite parts concern the I-Team’s dirtbag editor and publisher, who bear striking resemblances to our former boss, as does, fittingly, the lead villain in Dead by Midnight (“The way to his heart wasn’t through sex or money, but his ego. That’s how it was with all narcissists”).

But even if you’ve never picked up a newspaper, let alone worked in a newsroom, you’ll enjoy Dead by Midnight. This short novel is the perfect holiday read. It’s got something for everyone, and for the I-Team faithful, it is both reunion and farewell.

But only for now, I hope. Further adventures will be on the wish list of all I-Team readers in the coming years.

For the time being, finish out 2015 with this delightful read, the culmination of a decade of thrilling twists and unforgettable trysts.

Review: The Monstrous

The Monstrous

Ed. by Ellen Datlow

Funny how some words have lost their meaning over time. Take “awesome” or “sublime.” Historically, these were words of great consequence, usually associated with nature, not a text-message autocomplete. Living in the Rocky Mountains, I experience the truly awesome and sublime often. The top of a 14’er is the perfect intersection of unspeakable beauty and profound terror.

The point being that you should bring a more elemental perspective to Ellen Datlow’s latest anthology, The Monstrous. The “monsters” here do not conform to the creature-feature definition. Rather, these are encounters with the beautiful and the displaced. Characters confront things that shouldn’t be and must reconcile these irregulars with natural law.

Yes, there are literal monsters in this collection, but more often than not the stories in The Monstrous live in our periphery. The terror doesn’t always come from the creatures, but from the intersection of different worlds.

The essential story of this collection, in my opinion, is “Giants in the Earth” by Dale Bailey. It begins with a classic horror trope of innocent laborers unearthing something beyond their comprehension. But rather than something horrible, they encounter something emotionally overwhelming, so much so that witnesses come away with vacant expressions.

This is not terror, but fascination. This is the thrill of the unexplained. I had a strong emotional reaction to this story because it really delved into the subconscious (fittingly set, of course, in the depths of a mine). If you’ve ever cried for no reason, or been overwhelmed by the beauty of something, you’ll get it. From start to finish, “Giants in the Earth” is a deeply impacting tale.

As always, Caitlín Kiernan delivers a satisfying haunt with “The Beginning of the Year Without Summer,” a psychedelic twist of science and speculation that unnerves with its unresolved tension. Like much of her writing, it put me in the mind of Bradbury — and that’s a headspace I enjoy.

Once again, Datlow has compiled an all-star lineup of the biggest names and rising stars in horror. Familiar bylines (Kim Newman, Peter Straub, Brian Hodge, Stephen Graham Jones) make contributions, with Jones’ “Grindstone” being one of the strongest in the collection.

Among the finest tales is A.C. Wise’s “Chasing Sunset,” which puts a Lovecraftian twist on father-son conflict. It’s short and brutal and, like the rest of the collection, disturbingly fun.

But perhaps the darkest offering in the lot is Livia Llewellyn’s “The Last, Clean, Bright Summer,” a thoroughly troubling epistolary that reads like a modern re-telling of “The Shadow Over Innsmouth,” but set in the Pacific Northwest. Llewellyn is willing to delve into the nightmare spaces even Lovecraft feared to tread.

For my money, this is the official book for Halloween 2015, a collection of shadows, scales, flesh and bone that is beautiful and unsettling all at once. You will recognize some of the monsters in here as ones you’ve faced in your darkest anxiety dreams — and others that you’ve never imagined before, but won’t be able to forget.

Review: The Euthanist

The Euthanist

Alex Dolan

In one of the most promising debuts since Gillian Flynn’s Sharp Objects and Alice Blanchard’s Darkness Peering, The Euthanist strikes like a suckerpunch and never lets up. Seriously, this book is freakin’ relentless.

On most days, Pamela Wonnacott is a kind-hearted firefighter and EMT with a troubled past, but as Kali, she provides a different kind of public service as an end-of-life caregiver. She is attending to Leland, a terminal patient who has requested assisted euthanasia, but in the first of many twists, Leland turns out to be an undercover agent.

The opening chapter of The Euthanist left me breathless, only to be one-upped by chapter two. The pacing is spry and the narration is delightfully disorienting in the manner unique to first-person POV. There is nobody Kali can trust, and even her allies turn on her when she unwittingly brings the FBI to their door.

Dolan manages all of this well, avoiding the usual traps of first-person narration (he keeps Kali disoriented, but not clueless) and managing his twists and reveals organically. Most impressively, he doesn’t manufacture a ridiculous romantic angle or give us a cavity with overwrought sentimentality.

On the whole, this is masterful storytelling that lets the characters, and not convention, dictate their actions. There is only one scene that feels over the top, in which Kali’s costume serves a theatrical purpose rather than a practical one. Beyond that, the characters and their motivations are authentic, and the tension in this novel is intoxicating.

As Kali says, “Fear isn’t pain, but it is the expectation of it.” Except with Kali, Chekhov’s gun is replaced with a syringe.

The Euthanist is particularly relevant as right-to-die issues have gone from hushed whispers to appropriate dinner conversation. Dolan doesn’t beat us over the head with social commentary, but allows the conversation to play out between Kali and Leland.

This is an exciting debut, and I look forward to more of Alex Dolan’s writing.

Best of 2014

Happy New Year, coming to you live from gate B-11 at Charlotte Douglas International Airport (en route from Pittsburgh to Denver).

Tis the season for arbitrary year-end best-of lists. Even the New York Times, with its battalion of bookworms, can’t cover and judge all new titles. I read more than 50 books this year, more than 30 of which were new releases. From this tiny sample, how can I present a definitive list of best books of the year?

What I can do is highlight the finest books that reached my nightstand or my Nook. So here, in no particular ranking, are my top reads of 2014.

Spectacular Science Writing

The Humor Code: A Global Search for What Makes Things Funny

Joel Warner and Peter McGraw

“We’re here to explore the dark side of humor, how comedy can divide and degrade,” write Warner and McGraw. “Here,” in this case, is Denmark, but also Japan, Palestine, Peru and beyond. For more than two years, this odd couple of comedy—Warner a journalist (Westword, Wired, Slate) and McGraw a humor researcher/marketing instructor (at the University of Colorado at Boulder)—traveled the world to learn what incites nasal milk projectiles in other cultures.

Specifically, the intrepid twosome tested whether McGraw’s Benign-Violation Theory (BVT) of humor applied to an international audience.

For that, Warner and McGraw visit a humor science library in Japan; deliver clown therapy to a Peruvian barrio alongside Patch Adams; interview notorious Danish cartoonists; participate in laughter yoga (yes, that’s a thing); attend comedy festivals; and McGraw even gives stand-up comedy a try in Denver’s toughest room.

That’s a lot to fit into a single book, but you’ll want to read every word. The Humor Code is an engaging blend of science writing, travel writing and narrative nonfiction. This is one of the best books you will read this year, and it is deserving of major awards.

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons

Sam Kean

The Tale of the Dueling Neurosurgeons is a brisk and engrossing read, and Sam Kean’s most impressive yet. He digs deep into the archives of psychology to discover little-known and sometimes forgotten gems that have had a great impact on modern science. You will laugh. You will learn. At times you will pick your jaw off the floor and ask yourself, “That happened?”

If you’ve never read Sam Kean, start now. You will devour all three of his books in a week. If you’re a longtime fan, prepare to be wowed once again.

And if you’re a judge for any of the big literary prizes, in the name of all that is just and good, start etching Sam’s name into the trophy.

Faith and Wisdom in Science

Tom McLeish

McLeish explores the history of both scientific discovery and biblical narrative, finding commonalities in the ways humans in each arena are awestruck and inspired by the natural world. There is room, he argues, for the sublime in science. The earliest scientific studies were not the cold, heavily controlled research we have today, he writes, but passionate probes of the natural world. There has since developed a rift between the science and humanities. Science got custody of the brain in the divorce, and humanities, the heart.

If you still feel the sublimity of mountain peaks, marvel at existence at the subatomic level or can be moved to tears by a sunrise, you’ll enjoy Faith and Wisdom in Science.

Dystopian Literature

Justice, Inc.

Dale Bridges

In the introduction to his short story collection, Justice, Inc., Bridges prepares us for the satirical rapture he is about to unleash: God, discouraged by his failed attempts to kill off the human race, comes to the realization that “…when left to their own devices, they appeared to do a fair job of exterminating themselves.”

And thus the chain catches on the death-coaster, drags it to the summit and lets that fucker drop.

Hang on.

These are masterful tales of human obsolescence, cruel absurdities and species self-deliverance. In Bridges’ world, justice is self-imposed, whether or not his characters realize it. You want the convenience and savings of a Wal-Mart? Fine, but you have no one else to blame when you wake up in a world controlled by Wal-Marts. Punishment fits the crime.

Justice, Inc. manages to be both observational and engaging, philosophical yet lyrical at the same time. You’ll find yourself caring as much for the characters and their plights as for the underlying philosophy within each tale.

Bridges writes not with a pen but a skewer, piercing the absurdity of our cosmic sitcom with clarity and humor. Justice, Inc. is philosophical satire in the vein of Vonnegut and George Saunders—fellow madmen who have stared into the abyss and come away laughing.

Ominous Realities

Eds. Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson

Once again, Grey Matter Press has delivered the anthology goods. Take “On the Threshold,” an eerie, Lovecraftian tale of science and madness from William Meikle. Keeping up the intensity is “Doyoshota,” by Ken Altabef, a haunting intersection of conspiracy and cacophony that makes tinnitus sound like a Beethoven sonata.

Eric Del Carlo’s “We Are Hale, We Are Whole” is deserving of any “best-of” anthology, a smart, thoughtful piece of writing that should be a must-read for anyone attempting to world-build within the confines of a short story. It also takes a philosophical bent about quality of life, aging, health care and sacrifice.

Best Biography

Happy Clouds, Happy Trees: The Bob Ross Phenomenon

Kristin G. Congdon, Doug Blandy and Danny Coeyman

Beloved painter Bob Ross is all the more mysterious for the minimal amount of unauthorized or paratextual materials surrounding him. Mostly, what we know of Ross comes from his TV program. The mystique of the painter’s life has fueled his cultish following, and the authors do a wonderful job of exploring the man, his devotees and that ineffable thrill of creation. Bob had a word for it.

He called it joy.

An Infuriating American: The Incendiary Arts of H.L. Mencken

Hal Crowther

The tone of this extended essay is established up front by a quote from the subject himself, H.L. Mencken:

“To the extent that I am genuinely educated, I am suspicious of all the things that the average citizen believes and the average pedagogue teaches.”

Mencken, one of America’s finest journalists, was also a world-class iconoclast, and the tone and spirit of his work is captured wonderfully in this short study by Hal Crowther, himself an esteemed author (and 1992 recipient of the H.L. Mencken Award). Mencken should be required reading for everyone (particularly prospective journalists), and An Infuriating American is as good an introduction to the writer as you’ll find.

The Mad Sculptor: The Maniac, The Model, and the Murder that Shook the Nation

Harold Schechter

“You can certainly learn as much about a society by which crimes people are obsessed with at a particular time,” says Schechter. “I think, in a general way, the crimes that become national obsessions, that strike a deep communal chord, symbolize the particular cultural anxieties of the moment.”

In the 1920s it was poisoners; in the ’70s Charles Manson personified the worst fears of the counterculture; the ’80s had phantom Satanists and the ’90s belonged to the serial killer; and today we have the rampage shooter.

But in the 1930s, it was the sexual deviant that haunted and titillated the public.

Enter Robert George Irwin, the subject of Schechter’s new book.

Irwin was a troubled and talented artist whose stunted psychosexual development (and religious obsession) fueled romantic fixations, violent outbursts, numerous hospitalizations and an attempted self-castration. It climaxed with a vicious triple murder in 1937, made all the more newsworthy because one of the victims, Veronica Gedeon, was a pulp magazine cover girl.

Notable Nonfiction

Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer: The Short Life and Fast Times of the North American Soccer League

Ian Plenderleith

The groundwork for today’s soccer popularity was laid by the North American Soccer League, the subject of Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer. Plenderleith documents the folly, effrontery and ultimate failure of the NASL—an impressively thorough tome that benefits from solid research and a witty outsider’s perspective (though now living in America, Plenderleith is British and brings a European’s passion and insight to football writing).

Rock ‘n’ Roll Soccer is an excellent work of sports journalism and, regardless of whether you follow football or futbol (or both), it is worthy of any fans’ bookshelf.

The Perfect Kill: 21 Laws for Assassins

Robert Baer

It was not hard to get me to pick up The Perfect Kill. Advice on how to pull off a flawless assassination? From a CIA insider? Sign me up. But before you begin stockpiling your arsenal, don’t think of this as a modern-day Anarchist Cookbook, but rather an engaging work of military history—an insider’s view of the Middle East through the eyes of an assassin.

While the subject matter alone is interesting, Baer’s writing makes this a thrilling read from start to finish. He has a narrative voice that is concise, informative and though he occasionally drifts toward the conspiratorial (which isn’t a bad thing), he tempers it by clearly defining what is fact and what is conjecture.

Illuminating Lit

Beautiful You

Chuck Palahniuk

Palahniuk took on male malaise with Fight Club and mocked cultural over-consumption with Choke. Snuff (ostensibly a novel about pornography) lampooned self-destructive excess and exploitation in a manner that could very well have served as a hyper-sexualized predictor of the impending financial crisis of 2008.

In Beautiful You, he wanted to write what he calls gonzo erotica, and in the process has penned an anthem for an overstimulated, multi-tasking, computer-coma society.

Penny Harrigan is a nice Nebraskan girl working in New York City when she catches the eye of the world’s richest man, C. Linus Maxwell. Next thing you know, Penny is the talk of the tabloids and the envy of her coworkers.

Behind closed doors, however, is where Penny is truly transformed. Maxwell introduces her to a world of unimagined, if clinical pleasure. Penny has her reasons to question Maxwell’s motives (especially after a bizarre bathroom tryst with his bitter ex-lover), but is too enraptured with her new-found fame and sexuality.

Oozing with plot twists only Palahniuk’s sardonic tone could make palatable, Beautiful You aspires to remarkable levels of absurdity, but is it any more absurd than the daily inundation of product and marketing? Many reviewers have criticized the gratuitous satire in this novel, but is the idea of world domination via dildo really that far-fetched in a culture that has financially sustained multiple cable shopping channels for three decades?

We are a culture of instant gratification. We are a culture of distraction. We are the lab rats hammering away at the pleasure bar for a taste of sweet, sweet oblivion.

And much like Maxwell, Palahniuk is there wearing a lab coat, taking copious notes and holding up a funhouse mirror to our cage, so that we might catch a distorted glimpse of what we’ve become.

The Children Act

Ian McEwan

Fiona Maye is an experienced judge on the cusp of old age who is questioning her lifetime of restraint (as well as her decision not to reproduce). We enter her story mid-conversation to discover Fiona reeling from her husband’s proposed (and possibly in-progress) infidelity, just as she’s preparing for a high-profile case with a child’s life in the balance.

Cut to the courtroom, where a precocious teenager is refusing a blood transfusion on the grounds of being a Jehovah’s Witness. Invoking the Children Act of 1989, Fiona gives her ruling, the consequences of which ultimately lead to a spontaneous, classically McEwan mistake, one that risks undoing her marriage, her career and a lifetime of calculated decision-making.

The Children Act is a short, but dense novel, as is usually the case with McEwan. The man is a master of reflection and interiority. The opening chapter encompasses but a moment in a 30-year marriage, but lays bare its successes, failings and a lifetime of insecurities and second-guessing. The tragedies unfold in slow motion and a lifetime of torment is distilled into a bitter, lingering moment.

Quality Quickies

We Should All Be Feminists

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

This brief and brilliant essay (it comes in around 20 pages) from the celebrated author of Half of a Yellow Sun, is one of the most interesting pieces I’ve read all year. “Feminist” is a word long-since stripped of its original meaning: politicized, glorified, demonized. It’s got more ill-fitting baggage than an overhead compartment. Adichie cuts through the connotations to get at the core value of feminism and how it celebrates and benefits both men women.

It’s a call to arms to imagine a generation of children raised without the biases that, consciously and unconsciously, perpetuate gender norms. It’s a call to rethink masculinity so that the next crop of men grow up healthier than the last. It’s a call for all of us to “do better.”

The essay may be short, but the conversation it generates is long and important.

Legion: Skin Deep

Brandon Sanderson

StephenLeeds is afflicted with a mental disturbance wherein he has imaginary friends who enable him to solve crimes. His mental manifestations, which he calls “aspects,” have names, back-stories and seemingly a life of their own, though they are bound by the limits of Leeds’ finite knowledge and experience.

In Skin Deep, the second novella in the series, Leeds is coerced into locating the corpse of a tech worker who was in possession of dangerous information—while at the same time outwitting a devious businessman and avoiding the strike of a first-rate assassin.

What makes the Legion books so amazing is not so much the outer conflicts, but the inner ones. Who are we? How do we define who we are? Would we all be better served to, ahem, use our illusions? These are the deeper strings Sanderson plucks in the Legion series.

May there be many, many more.

Horrific Hits

The Winter People

Jennifer McMahon

What is it about New England that inspires isolated, small-town horror tales in which the blood runs as cold as the weather? I’m not sure what it is exactly, but having spent many a wintry a night in Maine, I am familiar with that feeling. And I can’t get enough of it.

Jennifer McMahon captures that frostbite feeling perfectly in this heartbreaker of haunted legends and legacies, curses and karma, and, more than anything, unendurable loss.

The Winter People is well-written and bursting with heart. There are mysteries at every turn, and reminders that grief can be deadly. Or worse. Like a modern retelling of “The Monkey’s Paw,” there are consequences for disrupting the dead, and The Winter People reminds that despair can drive even the most sensible among us to dangerous depths.

Ten Short Tales About Ghosts

K.C. Parton

Typically, the hallmark of a great ghost story is that it unsettles the reader. When reading K.C. Parton’s collection of English ghost stories, however, one is filled not with dread, but comfort. These 10 tales are reminiscent of the kind my father would tell me over campfires—and those, of course, will always be my favorites.

Parton’s stories have that same appeal. These are not tales of terror, but subtle chillers made all the more spooky for their familiarity. Stories that make you think twice before cutting through the graveyard, not to avoid falling prey to a Saw-like killer, but for that abstract fear that tickles as much as it terrifies.

A big draw for me is that most of the stories have an industrial setting. Growing up in the Rust Belt, I was exposed to the real-life horror of the steel mills, and I found much ghostly inspiration in the rusted machinery, secluded warehouses and the imaginative possibilities of the graveyard shift. Parton’s stories fit that mold, which shouldn’t be surprising, as he came of age in England’s post-war factories.

These stories tap into that primal need for campfire tales—the kind that give goosebumps, sure, but leave you smiling in the end.

The Cutting Room

Ellen Datlow, editor

“With no dreams left to search for, I have only nightmares to anticipate.”

This is one of the most haunting lines from the tremendous opening story, “The Cutter,” by Edward Bryant. It sets the tone for all the delicious horror in Ellen Datlow’s latest anthology. Disturbing images and the blurring of reality is a common theme in this collection. Stephen Graham Jones’ chilling “Tenderizer,” for example, David Morrell’s “Dead Image” and the wonderfully titled “Filming the Making of the Film of the Making of Fitzcarraldo” by Garry Kilworth.

Anticipate many nightmares within these pages.

Review: Legion: Skin Deep

Brandon Sanderson

Legion: Skin Deep

Not long ago, I sang the praises of Sanderson’s novella Legion (https://ensuingchapters.com/2013/01/03/review-legion/), a mystery tale centered around the brilliant, unquiet mind of Stephen Leeds.

Leeds is afflicted with a mental disturbance wherein he has imaginary friends with benefits (no, not that kind, pervo, though two of his manifestations are going through a difficult breakup in this installment). His mental manifestations, which he calls “aspects,” have names, back-stories and seemingly a life of their own, though they are bound by the limits of Leeds’ finite knowledge and experience.

Consider it a cross between schizophrenia, dissociative identity disorder and unconscious cognition.

Put simply, like all of us, Leeds can access a limited portion of the information he receives from external stimuli, but he’s also able to access the subconscious bits via imaginary personalities. The result is a skill set unmatched by any other detective in literature. (Leeds isn’t a detective per se, but like fellow troubled genius, Sherlock Holmes, often finds himself consulting on cases).

In Skin Deep, the second novella in the series, Leeds is coerced into locating the corpse of a tech worker who was in possession of dangerous information—while at the same time outwitting a devious businessman and avoiding the strike of a first-rate assassin.

As before, the plotting and character development is astounding. I listened to the audio version, and devoured it in two sittings (it would have only been one were it not for work). Once again, Oliver Wyman’s narration is poetry. He inhabits all of Leeds’ imaginary allies as well as his very real adversaries, shifting seamlessly and convincingly through various genders, races and personalities.

But this is more than a groovy mystery; Sanderson uses Leeds as a launch-pad for theological debate. I believe he handled the religious discussion better in the first Legion story, while in Skin Deep, the tone is didactic. Leeds describes himself as “15 percent atheist,” aggregating the beliefs of his various aspects. This is a clever way of exploring the inner conflict between doubt and faith, illustrating our tenuous grasp of knowledge and belief.

What makes the Legion books so amazing is not so much the outer conflicts, but the inner ones. I never subscribed to the academic taboo on having characters with mental illness (because it’s reductive, or some other scholarly jargon). Leeds cannot be reduced to any one of his aspects, just as his consciousness is more than the sum of his personalities. He is capable of change. We see it both within and between the books.

Perhaps Leeds’ greatest fear is that he will someday be free of his aspects, because I think he’d be lost without them. In his more existential moments, Leeds wonders whether he is simply someone else’s aspect, eliciting that dissociative tingle we’ve all felt at various times.

Who are we? How do we define who we are? Would we all be better served to, ahem, use our illusions? These are the deeper strings Sanderson plucks in the Legion series.

May there be many, many more.

Noir Noel

From hard luck to hard science, this trilogy of thrillers will dim the holiday lights of the noir fanatic in your life. Much like the three wise men, we offer gifts of the gritty, the procedural and the other-worldly.

The Forgotten Addiction

Michael Lion

Forgotten Addiction If you’ve got someone on your shopping list who likes it fast and dirty, gift them this hard-boiled holiday treat. In the follow-up to Lion’s acclaimed debut, The Butcher’s Granddaughter, Bird is back and looking for redemption. Fans of the genre will love Lion’s furious pacing and tightly wound prose.

The setting is interesting as well: 1993 Los Angeles (a wild time in the City of Angels). No cell phones. No Google. Just Bird the snitch playing both sides of the street and trying to find the missing daughter of a man murdered right before his eyes.

The search is both exciting and existential.

The strength of The Forgotten Addiction is Lion’s ability to create tight, gritty prose, but for all the textual skill, his characters are too familiar. Bird gives everyone a bad attitude, whether or not he’s provoked. Readers will recognize the upwardly mobile prostitute who is using her income to fund her education; the tough but noble bouncer who moonlights for Bird; the befuddled psychiatrist who is outwitted by the snitch.

Some of the plot turns are too convenient, but the action (and salty interaction between characters) is worth the ride. I couldn’t stop reading from one chapter to the next, and the narrative never grows stale.

It’s also fun to go back to that time and place when the west was on fire. This is one of the season’s best releases.

Case Closed

Jan Burke

For two decades, Burke has thrilled a wide audience (including Bill Clinton) with her series of novels set around journalist Irene Kelly. Over the years, fans have enjoyed her blossoming romance with detective Frank Harriman, but in Case Closed—the last of six ebook collections pairing Burke’s new short fiction with stories from her anthology, Eighteen—we meet Harriman as a bumbling rookie. In this tale, he responds to a missing persons call, all the time wondering why the other cops are treating it with such cynicism. And it only gets stranger from there. Burke’s skill for dialogue and wit shine through. The interaction between Harriman and the old lady is delightful. There is a glaring plot hole in the big reveal (I won’t spill it, but it’s safe to say even the laziest, most cynical cop would have thought to check there), but it doesn’t spoil the enjoyment of the story, nor the others in the collection. It’s a wonderful introduction to Burke’s underworld.

Dangerous Games

edited by Jonathan Oliver

Incorporating mystery, horror and sci-fi, this eclectic anthology has something for everyone. Leading off with heavyweight Chuck Wendig and his dark tale “Big Man,” Dangerous Games plays on the theme of, well, games of course, but also chance, circumstance and, by extension, chaos theory (sort of). Wendig sets the tone with a dark yarn about road rage—a game we’ve played at some time, and it has no winners. Other standouts include offerings from Silvia Moreno-Garcia, Libby McGugan and Gary McMahon. Stories take us to the twisted future and the tortured past, but regardless of setting, each tale gnaws at the insatiable itch we have to roll the dice—and suffer the consequences.

All Due Respect Issue 4

Check out the new issue of the crime fiction magazine, All Due Respect, which features a nonfiction piece by yours truly. My article is a review of Joe R. Lansdale’s Cold in July, which was released earlier this year in conjunction with the film release. If you haven’t read the book or seen the movie, I highly recommend both.

The issue also includes a powerhouse lineup of crime fiction, including award-winning author Hilary Davidson. Last year, I reviewed her excellent novel, Evil in All Its Disguises, and fans of that novel (and new readers) will enjoy her short story, “A Hopeless Case.”

A Darker Shade of Summer (Fiction)

A round-up of ghost stories, thrillers and dystopian anthologies to darken you summer. (Come back tomorrow for our nonfiction edition.)

Ten Short Tales About Ghosts

K.C. Parton

(Released June 28)

In “The Last Train,” a modest theater-goer arrives late to the station, but by good fortune, his train is waiting for him. Once aboard, he realizes his destination is somewhere other than home. Likewise, a young factory apprentice stumbles upon a shop-floor oddity in “The Cleaner”—and realizes that what he first thought to be a hoax or a hazing is in fact a haunting.

Perhaps the stand-out tale of this collection is “The Heinkel,” a WWII yarn about a young boy fascinated with a downed German plane.

A big draw for me is that most of the stories have an industrial setting. Growing up in the Rust Belt, I was exposed to the real-life horror of the steel mills (such as my dad’s coworker losing an arm in the blast furnace) and the spooky kind (my grandfather’s otherworldly encounters at the Westinghouse plant).

When it was my turn to work the factories, I found much ghostly inspiration in the rusted machinery, secluded warehouses and the imaginative possibilities of the graveyard shift. Parton’s stories fit that mold, which shouldn’t be surprising, as he came of age in England’s post-war factories. (His first book, Tales from the Toolbox, recounts his industrial experiences.)

My one critique is that there’s not a lot of mystery to these stories. Characters who believe they are having ghostly encounters truly are, and the nature and cause of the hauntings are typically self-evident. But that’s OK. These stories work not through terror or misdirection, but by tapping into that primal need for campfire tales—the kind that give goosebumps, sure, but leave you smiling in the end.

Ominous Realities

Eds. Anthony Rivera and Sharon Lawson

Once again, Grey Matter Press has delivered the anthology goods. Ominous Realities is the finest indie collection I’ve read in a while. These dystopian tales chill and unsettle, balancing skill, imagination and smarts.

Take “On the Threshold,” an eerie, Lovecraftian tale of science and madness from William Meikle. Last year, I read Meikle’s novel The Hole, and thought it was enjoyable but flawed. Here, Meikle is in control from the creepy opener in the lab to the grim finale. HPL would love this tale of science gone wrong.

Keeping up the intensity is “Doyoshota,” by Ken Altabef, a haunting intersection of conspiracy and cacophony that makes tinnitus sound like a Beethoven sonata.

An excellent collection from a hot new publisher. Also be sure to check out their Dark Visions II anthology.

Coming Soon

Mean Streak

Sandra Brown

(Release date: Aug. 19)

Mean Streak has all the makings of a classic Sandra Brown thriller: abduction, deception, moral complexity and a revelatory rabbit-hole twist. In her new novel, Dr. Emory Charbonneau disappears, and her husband is the primary suspect. Part crime novel, Mean Streak is also a survival narrative, as Emory awakes in the hands of a violent captor who may be hiding his true identity. I haven’t read this yet, but it sounds reminiscent of Standoff, which was one of her best works.

The Black Road

Tania Carver

(Release date: Aug. 15)

While the plot may be a little, well, plausibility challenged, advance press offers Mo Hayder levels of gore and depravity (aka horrific awesomeness). Following a mysterious explosion, criminologist Marina Esposito’s husband is in a coma and her young daughter is missing. The abductor forces Marina to complete a series of depraved tasks in the course of three days or her daughter dies. So, yeah, it may be plot-challenged, but if you’re looking to spice up your summer with some gore, The Black Road just may be a detour worth taking.

Ensuing Chapters

Book reviews by Vince Darcangelo, courtesy of Transgress Magazine