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There’s an old line which I’ve seen attributed to Pericles: “just because you don’t take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.” I am very skeptical as to whether Pericles said this, but the sentiment is fundamentally sound. Politics exists in all nations at all times, and can be defined simply as the endless competition for the power of governing. In democracies, people compete for votes. In oligarchies, for the support of the strongest factions. In monarchies, for the favor of the crown.

Thus, there will always be politics. In the latest Brad and Karen thriller, the pair are both caught up in developments stemming directly from government policy changes. Brad in that much of his research funding has been terminated and Karen in that she is having to work with a much more aggressive Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Both are affected when one of Brad’s colleagues is taken into ICE custody and then mysteriously murdered. As usual, the duo works to solve the murder, though this time getting information through Karen’s usual channels is more difficult, as the federal authorities are very secretive about their operations.

If you’re a fan of Brad and Karen thrillers, I probably don’t have to tell you to read this. Unless, perhaps, you are also so horrified by current events that you don’t want anything that reminds you of them. There were a few, I think, who declined to read Mark Paxson’s wonderful novella The Jump for that very reason. And that’s a pity, because it really was a phenomenal book that explains current events far better than most mainstream news outlets.

So, my advice to prospective readers of this book is to be undeterred by the political themes. Even if you don’t agree with them! As you might guess, the distribution of ratings for this book is bimodal, with some long-time readers of the series being alienated due to the beliefs held by the main characters.

This may be a controversial opinion in itself, but this review just makes me sad. When did people lose the ability to read a story even if they disagree with some of its ideas? Are some people unable to read Kidnapped just because they are not Jacobites? Political disputes, up to and including wars, get forgotten with time. (“Good or bad, handsome or ugly, rich or poor…”) What doesn’t get forgotten are good stories.

Well, anyway, back to the book itself: in the end it practically turns into a spy-thriller tale, complete with secret agents leading double lives and a dramatic cycle of betrayal and revenge. And I love a good spy story.

Pick up The ICE Murders. Yes, it might force you to think about things outside of your normal perspective. But isn’t that what books are for?

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Do you like cozy mysteries? You’ll be hard-pressed to find a cozier mystery than this one. Indeed, I believe it is an example of what the young people call cozy-maxxing.

Of course, this is no surprise for fans of Litka’s work. All his stories take place in a warm, gentle world where even the crimes have a certain pleasant kind of charm. It’s like the world of Wodehouse, albeit with sci-fi technology. But this story is even closer to a Wodehousian never-never land than Litka usually gets. It has a quaint country fair, complete with games and sports. Shades of “The Purity of the Turf.” As if that weren’t enough, there’s a scene where a lady is painting in a field when she is surprised by a sudden rainstorm. Reading this, I instantly was reminded of this intro to a Beatrix Potter video I watched as a child, which is possibly the coziest thing ever.

You’ll notice I haven’t said much about the plot yet. Well, once more, the lawyer-turned-detective Redinal Hu, AKA “Red Wine”, is hired to investigate an intrigue among the Great Houses. A mysterious character called “Agent Nine” has been leaving ominous notes in the dead of night at a wealthy businessman’s estate. No one knows how this Agent Nine gets in or out. Some believe that he or she is no living creature at all, but a ghost haunting the old manse.

A good plot, but if we’re being honest, the plot is not really why we’re here. It’s just an excuse; much as Red’s frequent walks with his dog Ellington are an excuse to see the attractive lady painter holidaying in the nearby village. So if you want an escape into a far more pleasant world than our own, I encourage you to pick up this short story. My only complaint is that it goes by so fast—but then, Litka has given us no shortage of other delightful tales of near equal-coziness to enjoy as well.

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The great philosopher-humorist Zachary Shatzer recently told me I might read “too many books about gritty, unshaven antiheroes who say things like ‘Sometimes a man has to do what must be done.'” And he may well be right. I’m descended from Irish policemen, many of whom probably played by their own rules and refused to do things by the book. So I’m a sucker for stories about tough cops who can’t stand being hamstrung by red tape. My epithet might well be the line Gallus says to Sejanus in an episode of I, Claudius:

A song sung by every small-town corrupt policeman, which is what you are and what you should have stayed!

Well, come to that, I think Sejanus got a bad rap.  He was just trying to get stuff done in the notoriously corrupt Roman Empire. But I digress.

This book is about just one such gritty cop: David Forbes Carter, a brilliant, daring and extremely anti-bureaucracy Interplanetary Police Force agent. Since the mysterious death of his sister, Carter has become an increasingly loose cannon, and so the IPF assigns profiler Veronique de Tournay to try and get a sense of his unstable psychology and determine if he is still fit to serve.

It’s the classic set-up: two cops forced to work together, neither of whom likes the other. It’s been done a thousand times. But, as George Lucas once said, “they’re clichés because they work!” He ought to know. Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark are nothing but clichés, and they became some of the most beloved films in history.

So it is with Phoenix. It’s nothing I haven’t seen before, and that’s exactly what made it so much fun; like seeing an old friend again after a few years. It doesn’t hurt that Janeski and I seem to have more or less the same vision for what a future solar system-spanning civilization would look like. Space stations, corrupt mega-corporations, cultists, conspiracies, etc. I had a very easy time picturing this world.

And of course, those cultists and conspiracies and mega-corporations soon get in the way of Agent de Tournay’s efforts at profiling Agent Carter, and the pair is caught up in trying to solve a massive plot to destroy the entire interplanetary government. As often as not, they resort to Carter’s decidedly non-standard methods of operating, though with time, Agent de Tournay helps him understand that waving a gun in people’s faces isn’t always the best answer to a problem.

Like I said, if you’re expecting something groundbreaking, you won’t find it here. But if you’re expecting a fun adventure story in a great sci-fi setting, this is just the ticket. And it would make a great movie!

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The great comic actor Danny Kaye once said of his Gilbert & Sullivan parodies: “You know, I like Gilbert and Sullivan; I love singing it. I always wanted to make some records of some of them. Then I start in all good faith to sing it properly and then something goes haywire inside me; I go haywire–and the words go haywire.”

Something similar happened to me once: I wanted to write a classic 1940s noir-style detective story. Like Kaye, I started in good faith to do it, but it went haywire. That is to say, it turned into one of my typical action stories, with too many shootouts and too much technology. So I gave up on it.

What’s this got to do with C. Litka’s latest short story? Well, unlike me, when he tries to write a noir story, it doesn’t go haywire. On the contrary, he captures the vibe perfectly, despite the fact that as usual, the setting is not Earth, but his own cleverly constructed sci-fi world.

Nevertheless, he nails the essence of the noir tale. I could practically imagine the main characters as Bogie and Bacall, bantering back and forth as they tail their quarry through snowy streets on a dark evening.

Now, although I say the story is noir, it’s not jet noir. Part of the charm of Litka’s stories is the fact that, unlike so much modern fiction, they aren’t gratuitously violent or debauched. Well, hey, many of the classic noir films had to follow the Hays Code, too, and yet they turned out all right.

Enough of this! You want details, right? Well, sadly, I can’t give too many, because this is a short story, and to say much at all would give away the fun. It’s another Redinal Hu story, set a few months after the first one. Hu is once again drawn into an intrigue among the rival Great Houses. And as in the first story, what I enjoyed most about this is how he uses his wits, rather than violence, to effect a solution.

Admittedly, the same can’t quite be said of his dog, who gets involved in the action quite unexpectedly. Dogs are not known for handling matters with subtlety and discretion, which makes for an entertaining twist in what feels like an espionage caper.

All told, another highly enjoyable entry in Litka’s series-within-a-series that is the life of Redinal Hu.

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Book cover of 'Betrayal of Trust' by Geoffrey M. Cooper, featuring a woman in a lab coat with long hair, holding a bloodied syringe, set in a medical environment.

What’s better than a Brad and Karen thriller from Geoffrey Cooper? A Brad and Karen and Martin Dawson thriller! If you read earlier books in the series, you know him as the soldier-turned-medical-researcher who is a good friend of Brad, and who has helped the duo out in the past. I always enjoy his scenes, and so I was delighted when he teamed up with them again, assuming he would once again heroically help them all work as a team to catch the killer, as he’s done before.

Well, the way it all works out in this book is a little different. But I can’t say how. Sorry, you’ll just have to read it. What I can say is that the book is about a mysterious killer who keeps striking important medical researchers. Brad and Karen’s theories regarding her motives are forced to evolve with each crime, until eventually the pattern emerges in an unsettling way.

But what I think I liked best of all about this book is what the title refers to. The betrayal in question could be multiple things, including one possibility that isn’t even connected directly to the killer. I like ambiguity and mystery, leaving things up to interpretation. For one thing, it’s what helps keep critics like me in business. 🙂

Jokes aside, this is another good book from Geoffrey Cooper. I have only one slight, nit-picky complaint. As always in Brad and Karen books, part of the fun is the good food the protagonists enjoy as they try to crack the case. But I felt like in this one, it was always a lobster dinner.

Now, lobster is no doubt a northeast staple, so I can’t claim its not authentic. But I want variety! One lobster dinner is okay, but can’t we have some other delicacies, too?

I kid, I kid. This isn’t really a complaint, or if it is, it’s only the kind of complaint a long-time fan of a series can make. Like the Star Wars fans who wish there was a movie all about Porkins or somebody; it’s the kind of complaint that comes from a place of love, and I always love reading a Brad and Karen adventure.

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A woman with gray hair and glasses holds a cake in front of a lighthouse, promoting the book 'Candy Apple Curse,' an Autumn Cozy Paranormal Mystery, by Eva Belle.

This book is the sequel to Harvest and Haunt: An Autumn Cozy Paranormal Mystery, which I reviewed last year. This one is much shorter, and isn’t so much a mystery as it is just a straight-up fantasy novella. Nova Powers is once again drawn into a case of supernatural doings when her aunt Grace is poisoned. Investigating the crime leads Nova to the door of a mysterious woman named Mary Lightning, who runs an occult bookshop. (Side note: once I make my fortune, perhaps I should open an occult bookshop.)

But, as in Harvest and Haunt, what matters here is not so much the plot. Nor is it the characters. No, here it’s all about the setting. Or, as the youth of today are apt to say, “the vibes, man.” (Usually, they say these “vibes” are “off” right before I tell them to get off my lawn. But I digress.)

These books are for enjoying of a cool Autumn evening, with a gentle rain and the Halloween lights glowing in the mist. The Pacific Northwest is ideal for this sort of thing, as David Lynch well knew, and Eva Bell does as well. The atmosphere does practically all the work of establishing a pleasingly eerie Autumn mood.

It’s true that I would have liked more emphasis on the mystery aspect, and I don’t think there were any scenes as memorable as in the first book, when Nova finds her yard filled with cornstalks on a dark and windy day. And I missed some of the supporting characters from the first book as well.

On the other hand, the end of the book includes what looks like a delicious cookie recipe, so there’s that. You’ve got to like any book that gives you instructions on how to enjoy the same meals as the characters you’ve just read about. Kinglsey Amis was entirely right about food making us feel more drawn into the world of the story, and that’s all you can ask from a cozy mystery.

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Some people say I’m too prone to romanticizing the past. And they’re right; I am. I wasn’t always this way; I used to look at the past much more critically back in the good old days.

I was thinking about this because this is where I normally say something like, C. Litka writes books that are a throwback to a better era of literature. But maybe that’s not true. After all, he wrote them in this era, so they are, ipso facto, of this era. And if they are of this era, why not say so? Nothing could possibly be more satisfactory!

Still, if anyone else is writing stuff like this right now, I don’t know who it is. The Darval-Mers Dossier is actually a story-within-a-story; it is one of the Red Wine Agency detective stories, alluded to in Litka’s recent Chateau Clare and Glencrow Summer, in a world which is slowly losing the advanced technology on which it depends.

In this setting, we meet Redinal Hu, who is not really a detective yet, but only a messenger. A mysterious client gives him a message to deliver to a wealthy young-man-about-town, that states simply, “If you care for her, stop seeing her.” Redinal has no idea what this means or who the “her” in the case may be, but he delivers it all the same. And then, as always happens in stories, one thing leads to another.

Compared to some of Litka’s other books, the story is actually a bit darker and more hard-boiled. But these are relative terms; as is customarily the case in Litka’s books, people are (mostly) pleasant and any violence is threatened rather than overt. Nowhere is this more plainly shown than in Litka’s rendering of the traditional Big Scene of the mystery novel, where the detective has all the players gathered in the drawing room. The way he does it is quite clever, and I bet Agatha Christie fans in particular will get a kick out of it.

So, by Litka standards, this is a gritty, fast-paced thriller. By modern standards, it is a cozy mystery. But which is it really, in absolute terms?

Haha, trick question! There are no absolute terms when it comes to this sort of thing. If there were, that would imply rules of writing, and we all know where that discussion goes. No, the fact is Litka’s books are sui generis, and that’s what makes them so wonderful.  If they sometimes recall elements of writers like Wodehouse and the pulp mystery writers of yesteryear, well, they also have some themes which seem much more modern. I love Wodehouse, but I can’t recall any story of his that makes you think about the changing role of technology in our lives.

If you’ve already read some Litka books, I doubt you need me to convince you to try this one. But maybe you haven’t read any yet. If so, you might pick this one up, because it fits more easily into a familiar genre than some of his others do. If you’re in the mood for a pleasant mystery to read on a summer vacation, then this may be just the ticket.

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This is a noir mystery with some supernatural elements. The genre the author gives for it is “decopunk”. Well, what’s not to like about that?

It features a colorful cast of characters, and a plot involving a MacGuffin in the form of a typewriter case and an identical case filled with cursed dominos. It’s a good story. But as with Raymond Chandler’s tales, it’s not so much the story that’s the big draw here; it’s the writing.

Here’s how it begins:

This is that thing most hated and feared, the thing they tell you to skip, like the opening minutes of a meeting. It is the thing everyone says to cut—Cut it off like Cinderella’s poor stepsister cut off her heel to fit in the shoe (once you are a queen you won’t have to walk anymore). This, my dear readers, is The Prologue. 

The whole book is narrated like that, with a voice that occasionally calls out the fictional nature of the story itself, down to describing which beat of the plot we are about to encounter.

Now, this style of narration is currently out of fashion. Which is naturally why I liked it so much. The author wasn’t afraid to use a voice that felt right, current fashions be damned.  The richness of the prose made the story feel fresh, much more so than if exactly the same plot had developed with a different narrative style. I like a story that’s not afraid to give a knowing wink to the audience.

There’s nary a sentence that feels like it was lazily tossed in to move the action along. Every word is deliberately chosen to evoke exactly what the author wanted. It is a work of exquisite craftsmanship.

With that said, the book as whole seems like it is merely a prologue to a much larger story. Which, since this the first installment in a series, is only fitting. It’s an excellent introduction to an offbeat setting with equally unusual characters.  Most importantly, it feels like it was written as a labor of love, and a desire to tell a unique tale. In a world of spin-offs, reboots, and sequels, this is a quality that is most welcome. Highly recommended.

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I think I figured out Geoffrey Cooper’s secret. This is the 8th book in his Brad & Karen series, and when a series reaches that many, you start to wonder what magic is behind it.

Well, I’ve got it, I think: they are like cozy mysteries.

Of course, they don’t fit the standard definition of cozy mysteries. Generally, cozies have at most one or two deaths, fairly lightly described, not very grisly, and usually of unlikable characters. Not so in these thrillers–sometimes bad things happen to good people.

And cozy mysteries tend to be fairly lacking in high-tension fights. Again, not the case here. The Plagiarism Plot has one of the most high-powered combat sequences of the whole series; a full-blown military-style gun battle that would not be out of place in a Peter Martuneac book.

So, again, not cozy. Therefore, on what do I base my assertion that it’s like a cozy mystery?

Mostly, it goes back to the two leads. No matter how dark the crime, it’s always a pleasure to rejoin Brad & Karen in solving it, because they are both likable and fun.

And then of course, there’s the food, which both of them enjoy regularly. Kingsley Amis said that writing about food is the surest way to get your reader sympathizing with your characters, and I think he was right on.

There’s a real comfort in reading about these familiar characters, and that’s what makes it feel cozy, or cozy-adjacent, even as Brad and Karen are once again plunged into the cutthroat world of academia, where ruthlessly ambitious people are willing to go to any lengths to achieve their goals.

I highly recommend this book and this series; even if thrillers aren’t normally your thing. You might just find that you enjoy the less intense, quieter moments of the story.

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You know how I sometimes talk about I struggle with having enough description in my books? Mark Paxson, who is himself a fan of minimal description, has even said that sometimes I should add a little more description. He’s right, but unless it’s something really nifty, I generally get bored describing things. I’d rather move the story along.

Well, this book does NOT have this issue. It has some of the most description I’ve ever seen. Fans of description will be in, as they say, hog heaven.

Which, to be clear, is as it should be. It says right on the cover that it’s a cozy mystery, and cozy mysteries are, above all, about vibes. The town of Cape Mystic, Washington is shown in vivid detail as a windy, rainy, Halloween-obsessed community, with more than a few mysterious legends and secrets hidden away under its gray skies.

In short, it’s exactly the sort of place I could fall in love with; and so I didn’t mind reading about it described down to every last richly Autumnal detail. If you love Autumn and/or Halloween, you should enjoy this book.

Now, some of you might remember that a while back, I reviewed a book called Junkyard, which was also a sort of cozy mystery–albeit a sci-fi one. I enjoyed the book, but Chuck Litka read it after seeing my review, and his review was much harsher. (And frankly, extremely entertaining.)

And I can’t honestly say I disagree with what Chuck said in his review. The plot had holes you could fit 660 drums of maple syrup into. All Chuck’s critiques are quite valid; I don’t dispute them in the slightest. And yet, I enjoyed Junkyard. Why? I dunno; I guess just because I liked the setting and felt like all the rest was not meant to be taken seriously.

I think the same could be said of Harvest and Haunt.  It’s true that the mysteries which make up the plot are not the stuff of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot. And I’m pretty sure the Cape Mystic law enforcement officials do not follow proper police procedures most of the time. I bet if Chuck reviewed it—not to put him on the spot—he could find plenty more issues.

But, I’m not here for a taut legal thriller or complex detective story. No, a book like this you read because you want to feel like you’re immersed in the setting. Like you’re the one in the dark, rainy October evening; hurrying home along dark streets because the howling wind has knocked out the power, and a storm is rolling in, and loose Halloween decorations are swirling in the eerily charged air…

See? Certain things can bring out the desire to describe, even in me. If you want a strong Autumn atmosphere, this is a fine choice.