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 Axle Bust Creek is a new mining town in Nevada. Towns such as this don't usually have law enforcement until the lawlessness gets out of hand.  Cleve Trewe is a former Union officer who feels it's his family duty to help his uncle (who was almost killed defending his gold mine from claim jumpers). Although Cleve's got the legitimate paperwork to prove his rightful ownership of the mine, he finds that the crooks have done a good jump of casting doubts on their documents and claim. Most people in town know that there is need for law, and Cleve puts his name forward and is selected to be the town sheriff. He takes the job seriously (not just as a position to take back the mine) and defends a prisoner from hanging by a lynch mob (having some PTSD from when he saw a war deserter hung). Complications arise in his pursuit of the rightful mine ownership when Cleve starts to fall for the sister of the leader behind the claim jumping. Cleve is confident that she's innocent in the...

 There is a moderately interesting back-story to this book and my decision as to whether or not read and review it. At some point the author made this book available for early reviews. When I first was ready to read this, I did a little reading on the author's website (there were big plans for this book/series) and, largely due to quite a few negative reviews, the author pulled the book so that there could be a rewrite.  I thought it only fair to not read and review it. The book resurfaced in my queue and when I looked into it again, it seems that while the author did indeed do a rewrite, he has made the original available for reading and reviewing again. What I found was a pretty run-of-the-mill self-published action/adventure novel. Cindy Ames is a gymnastics instructor. Her husband, Jonas, works for a clandestine government organization where he develops top secret weapons projects. One day Cindy gets a bit too curious and can't help herself explore an amazing-looking suit ...

I'm quite certain I read one or more Fletch books, probably in the mid-1980's when the Chevy Chase films were coming out and I was managing a book store, but I don't remember much about the books, so I was quite interested in looking at this, Confess, Fletch , being reissued to coincide with the new film. I. M. "Fletch" Fletcher is back in the United States (from Italy), Boston specifically, and staying in an upscale townhouse that he's renting. The rental comes complete with all the usual amenities plus a few frills - including the naked, dead body of a young woman in the living room. Inspector Flynn, investigating the murder, has Fletch as his prime suspect and he makes no bones about it, constantly encouraging Fletch to make it easy on all of them and just confess. Fletch is exactly uncooperative, but he's steady and steadfast in maintaining his innocence. Flynn is equally resolute in believing Fletch is guilty, but he feels there just enough lack of ev...

 Being a translator is difficult at the best of times - knowing multiple languages so thoroughly in order to be able to translate in real time - we can only imagine the challenges ahead when we make contact with intelligent life from new worlds and author Eddie Robson has imagined this for us in the entertaining mystery, Drunk on All Your Strange New Words . Lydia is a translator, somewhat new to the business, but one of the top translators in the business. The Logi are a peaceful race but they do not communicate with spoken words. Instead, they communicate telepathically using symbols and ideas rather than words. Lydia is assigned to a Logi who has been nicknamed Fitz, a cultural attaché for the alien race. Despite the challenges of translating for the Logi, Lydia enjoys working with Fitz. But when he is murdered, Lydia is the number one suspect and her defense is shaky given that she can't remember anything from that night. This is a very interesting book - I'm rating modera...

Well of course I picked up this book primarily because of Buzz Aldrin's name on the cover.  I mean, an astronaut writing a sci-fi/mystery/thriller?  Yes, please!  And of course, most of us recognize that the second name on the cover is probably really the author who took the astronaut's idea and turned it into a 300+ page yawner novel. In a very similar but alternate reality earth, NASA is putting in to action the plan to send commercial flights into space and to the International Space Station. The first commercial passenger is a sports celebrity - a well known basketball player known as MJ.  Yup .... Michael James. But something goes terribly wrong - most likely a micrometeroid has gone through the hull of the ship, through MJ, killing him instantly, with pieces of debris critically injuring another astronaut. Valuable oxygen is fast exiting the ship through the hole.  The rest of the crew must do something quickly, but the return trip through the atmosphere...

 While it is sometimes nice to pick up a book by a familiar author and in general know what kind of story you're about to get, I do appreciate an author who takes chances and tries something very different from what they've written previously. Stringers , by Chris Panatier, feels like a risk and one I'm not sure pays off. Ben Sullivan knows a lot of useless facts. Especially facts about sex (and very specifically not just human sexuality) and the biological functions of a cornucopia of living creatures. He doesn't know why he knows these things - he just does.  Just as he also knows about The Chime, which is ... well, I'm not going to give it away. Ben's best friend is Patton, a dude generally pretty stoned, which is maybe a blessing given what they encounter. For all his stone-ishness, Patton remains a loyal friend and the two of them experience a whole lot of strangeness when they're abducted by aliens. I was very mixed on this book. This could very easily...

Sisters Eve and Dinah are youthful members of a cult, led by a man known only as "Uncle," living in an old stone castle on a remote island off the coast of Scotland. Uncle promises his wards, his followers, all young girls, that the future holds something profound, something they've never seen before. One of the girls will inherit tremendous powers and Eve is willing to do anything to be the chosen one. But even on a remote island in Scotland, just after the war to end all wars, a cult with young girl followers catches the eyes of the law. Chief Inspector Christopher Black investigates a brutal murder, which derails a sacred ceremony on the island, and he desperately wants to get Eve away from Uncle's control. But no matter how bad things get, Eve is devoted to Uncle and his teachings. It is quite appropriate that this was a Shirley Jackson Award winner (2019) because this feels so much like a Shirley Jackson book - it is a dark, Gothic horror novel, heavy on characte...