"The Shepherd" by Benjamin Laskin

Jesse Tanner is on vacation with his parents and his Uncle Owen, staying in a remote cabin in New York. Jesse is 9, and the rain which hasn’t let up since they arrived is about to drive him crazy. Instead of adventures on the nearby lake and in the woods, the Tanners are housebound. And Jesse, bouncing off the walls, is increasingly driving his parents to distraction. 

Uncle Owen, his father’s oldest brother who’s considerably older than his siblings, seems content to sit in the rocker on the porch and sleep in the hammock. After the deaths of their parents, Owen raised Chase and his younger brother. He doesn’t talk much; Jesse thinks he’s rather weird.

 

The rain continues. Jesse’s electronic devices were left at home; Chase and his wife Holly also forgot their phone chargers. And Uncle Owen doesn’t mess much with any kind of electronic device. When the sheriff and a park ranger stop by, warning the Tanners about two escaped convicts from the next county over, the family doesn’t think much of it. 

 

And then trouble arrives. Young Jesse will learn things about his uncle that he never dreamed of. More importantly, he will learn things from his uncle – about survival, fighting back, and about himself.

 

Benjamin Laskin

The Shepherd by Benjamin Laskin is the story of the Tanner family and what happens to them one week while on vacation. It’s a story about family, about protectiveness, and how sometimes violence has to be met head on (and The Shepherd has considerable violence). At the same time, the story of Jesse and his uncle is completely enthralling. 

 

Laskin has previously published numerous stand-alone and series novels, including the Murphy’s Luck series, the Emuna Chronicle series, the Coinworld series, and The Will series. Originally from Phoenix, Arizona, he lives in the town of Safed in the Upper Galilee region of Israel. 

 

The Shepherd is a riveting, edge-of-your-seat story. Laskin knows exactly how to hook you into a tale and keep you reading. 

 

Some Monday Readings

 

Saint…Who? – Paul Kingsnorth at The Abbey of Misrule.

 

The Full Life of Empty Rural Spain – Lenny Wells at Front Porch Republic.

 

Saving the Farm: How One Southern Family Has Long Championed the Radical Power of Rural Life – Jason Kyle Howard at Garden & Gun.

 

“I’ll Never Find Another You” by The Seekers – Anthony Esolen at Word & Song.

 

The Rooms of Fiction – Dustin Illingsworth at Obstructive Fictions.

"The Fragile Cage" by Scott Hunter

British mystery writer Scott Hunter is known for his Irish Detective series, featuring Brendan Moran of the Thames Valley Police. Hunter has published nine novels and a collection of short stories about the detective, recovering from a near-fatal automobile accident, and his police colleagues. One thing you can be assured of in a Brendan Moran story is lots of action, lots of bodies (sometimes including the police officers themselves), and a dark view of the human character and mind.  

With his latest novel, The Fragile Cage, it's 1968, and Hunter introduces a new detective, Detective Constable Cameron Kyle. Except we almost don’t get to be introduced – Kyle has suffered a bullet injury to the head (grazed but part of the bullet entered the skull) and his partner killed outright. The two were investigating a house after a tip-off, and they walked into something of n ambush. The story begins in the hospital, where Kyle is spending several weeks recovering physically and psychologically. The detective his colleagues knew – the policeman almost too nice and unassuming to be a cop – has taken on something of an alpha-male, aggressive, and borderline psychotic personality.

 

While he’s officially on leave and almost at the point of leaving the force permanently, he finds himself drawn into a case involving an imprisoned crime lord, who’s made his escape from prison with what looks like the help of a social worker – Kyle’s ex-girlfriend. Then Kyle’s supervising officer is killed – in Kyle’s apartment. And a shadowing Italian from London seems to be inserting himself into the escaped crime lord’s fiefdom.

 

Scott Hunter

If you like a mystery story with considerable action, a good dollop of violence, police often operating on both sides of legality, and a few cliffhanging scenes that will make you claustrophobic even if that’s never been a problem, then A Fragile Cage is just right for you. 

 

Simply put, Hunter spins a good story. This one was difficult to put down.

 

The Irish Detective series includes Black December, Creatures of Dust, Death Walks Behind You, A Crime for All Seasons, Silent as the Dead, Gone Too Soon, The Enemy Inside, When Stars Grow Dark, The Cold Light of Death and Closer to the Dead. Hunter has also published the novels The Trespass, The Ley Lines of Lushbury, Long Goodbyes, and The Serpent & the Slave, and the memoir Rattle and Drum.  In addition to writing fiction, Hunter is an IT consultant and musician. He lives with his family in England.

 

Related:

 

My review of Black December by Scott Hunter.

 

My review of Creatures of Dust by Scott Hunter.

 

My review of Death Walks Behind You by Scott Hunter.

 

My review of Silent as the Dead by Scott Hunter.

 

My review of Gone Too Soon and A Crime for All Seasons by Scott Hunter.

 

The Enemy Inside by Scott Hunter.

 

When Starts Grow Dark by Scott Hunter.

 

The Cold Light of Death by Scott Hunter.

 

Closer to the Dead by Scott Hunter.

"Behind Closed Doors" by JJ Marsh

Beatrice Stubbs, a detective with Scotland Yard, has been recovering for the past year from a suicide attempt. She takes medication for bipolar disorder, and her condition now seems under control. Her boss thinks the time has come for her to take charge of an investigation. 

Nd it may not be a case at all. In Switzerland, a businessman associated with an unsavory business has committed suicide, leaving not note. The circumstances are so similar to another suicide in Liechtenstein that an investigation is warranted. And Stubbs will be working with a Swiss detective and a rather international team from Europol.

 

The reader knows what Stubbs and her team don’t know. These are not suicides but well-planned murders. There are more like six or seven of them than two. And the one thing they all have in common is Antonella D’Arcy, head of an investment firm in Zurich. The victims did business with her, knew her, played polo with her, or had some other connection. 

 

JJ Marsh

The team makes progress, but it’s slow. Interpol, which is funding the investigation, wants results like yesterday. But as the team makes headway, they don’t realize that one of their own may also be the killer’s target.

 

Behind Closed Doors is the first of 13 Beatrice Stubbs police thriller novels by JJ Marsh. It includes a heavy emphasis on the setting (you learn a lot about Zurich) and the plodding but ultimately successful aspects of police investigatory procedure. And Marsh throws in enough team tension to keep the internal workings interesting. 

 

In addition to the Beaturice Stubbs series, Marsh has also published three novels in the Run and Hide series and three standalone novels. She has degrees in English Literature and Theatre Studies, and has worked as an actor, teacher, writer, director, editor, journalist, and Cultural trainer. She lives in Switzerland and also blogs at her web site.

 

Behind Closed Doors is a tension-building, thriller of a suspense novel, grounded in police procedure and with characters reflecting their national homelands (even in a Euro-type environment). 

"Or Else" by Joe Hart

Alan Drake is a writer of thrillers. He’s returned from New York City to his hometown in upstate New York to care for his father, who’s been diagnosed as being in the early stages of Alzheimer’s Disease. Drake moves into a house across the street from his father. His mother died some years before; his divorced younger sister Kelly lives in a nearby community with her two young daughters. 

The town is filled with memories good and bad. His youngest sister Emma committed suicide here. His primary memory of the local Catholic church his family attended is being locked in the cavernous basement by his older brother, for which his mother blamed him. The neighbrohood has something else – his childhood friend Rachel Barren and her verbally abusive husband David, with their two young boys. He and Rachel fall into an easy friendship, and then fall into an affair. That is, until; Alan finds an anonymous note, telling him to stay away from Rachel. 

Joe Hart

One night, Alan hears a bang at two in the morning. Across the street, his father hears it, too. The bang turns out to be a gunshot; David is found dead, and Rachel and the two boys are missing. The police investigation goes nowhere. Alan is determined to find Rachel and her children, or at least find out what’s happened. He knows that if the police find out about the affair, he’d be Suspect No. 1.

 

And that takes the writer on his own journey of chases in the dark, financial skullduggery, the death of a beloved family friend, and an almost-successful attempt to kill him and his father. 

Or Else by Joe Hart is the story of Alan and his investigation. It’s an excellent fast-paced, layered story of love, family drama, the past haunting the present, and murder.

 

Hart is the author of 14 other novels, several novellas, and two short story collections. He lives in Minnesota. 

"Broken Glass" by Alexander Hartung

Reading Broken Glass by German author Alexander Hartung is like reading a Jason Bourne thriller while simultaneously watching the movie version with Matt Damon. 

The first of the Nik Pohl detective series, Broken Glass tells the story of Pohl, a detective inspector with the Munich police department, an officer who seems more on suspension than not, with a knack for attracting criminals, violence, and the ire of his more political supervisors. Pohl is contacted by “Jon,” a mysterious individual who wants to employ Pohl to find a missing woman. Pohl resists the offer, until he finds out how much Jon knows about his life, his police work, and a woman the detective cares deeply for. Essentially, Jon blackmails Pohl into undertaking the case.

 

As he quietly, and not-so-quietly, pokes into the case, he discovers an investigation that was slipshod at bet and quickly shelved. That tells Pol that someone in the police department quashed it. And slowly his investigation leads him into a shadowing night club, sex trafficking, a health spa purporting to help recovering alcoholics, and several opportunities to get himself tortured and killed.

 

Alexander Hartung

The second novel in the Pohl series is Blood Ties. Hartung is also the author of two books in the Jan Tommen series, Until the Debt is Paid and Grave Intent, set in Berlin. Hartung says he discovered his love of thrillers and historical fiction while studying economics. He and his family live in Mannheim, Germany.

 

Broken Glass, translated by Fiona Beaton, is a fast-paced, nail-biting, and reading-on-the-edge-of-your-seat kind of book. Its hero is often just as violent as the criminals he encounters, and he encounters at all socio-economic levels. He’s resourceful at getting himself out of situations where his death seems imminent. And underneath that hard shell is a man who will sacrifice much for the people he cares about. 

"Death the Halls" by Adam Blumer

This is one Christmas that doesn’t go exactly as planned. 

Lauren Henry is arriving at her family’s cabin, preparing to celebrate Christmas. 

With her are her mother and grandmother; Lauren and her grandmother are barely on speaking terms after a spat. Soon to arrive are Lauren’s father and her boyfriend, veterinarian James Coleman, who’s meeting the family for the first time.

 

At the cabin, the three women discover intruders. Within minutes, Lauren’s mother and grandmother are lying on the kitchen floor, shot and presumably dead, while Lauren is speeding down the mountain on a snowmobile, a killer’s arms holding on to her waist. And the man claims to be her brother.

 

Adam Blumer

Death the Halls by Adam Blumer is a Christmas novella that you don’t want to start reading as you prepare to go to bed. You’ll want to find out what happens next, and so you keep reading. 

And you just may get yourself wired enough to have a sleepless night.

 

Adam is the author of Fatal Illusions, The Tenth Plague, and Kill Order. A print journalism major in college, he works as a novelist and freelance writer and editor after serving in editorial roles for publishers more than 20 years. He was the editor for my first two novels, Dancing Priest and A Light Shining. Adam lives in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula with his family.

 

Death the Halls has a bit of romance in it, but it is more a combined thrilled and mystery. It may not get you into the Christmas spirit, but it’s definitely an entertaining read.

 

 

Related: 

 

Talking about The Tenth Plague.

 

Adam Blumer’s Fatal Illusions. 

 

Talking to Adam Blumer about Kill Order.

"Phantom Echo" by Eldon Farrell

Nathan Miller and Tommy Roquefort are police officers in Union City, Virginia, called to a crime scene. A young woman from Syria, in the United States on a student visa, has been found dead in a really seedy part of town. She doesn’t belong there, which is one part of the mystery. She appears to have been strangled. Her dorm room has been ransacked. All signs point to her brother, who just happened to be in the U.S. at the time and whom the young woman seemed to fear. But a neighbor’s video shows someone else leaving the scene of the crime. 

Miller and Roquefort are known for unorthodox methods, bending the rules. and bad jokes. They drive their boss crazy. They drive each other crazy. But because Miller is absolutely convinced the brother is responsible, the two take some time off – and fly to the Syrian family’s hometown of Aleppo. After some rather wild doings there, and barely escaping from both terrorists and the police, the two make their way to London.

 

Because something big is coming down, and London is the place where it’s supposed to happen.

 

Eldon Farrell

Phantom Echo by Eldon Farrell tells the story of Miller, Roquefort, and the potential destruction of Britain’s largest city. It’s an action-packed thriller, so action-packed that it often feels like reading a movie script, including a nail biter of a cliffhanging climax. The story is billed as a “sci-fi thriller,” but there’s very little “sci-fi” and a whole lot of “thriller.”

 

Farrell has written numerous thriller novels, including Dawn, Singularity, Resistance, Horde Protocol, Realm of Shadows, United, Stillness, and Taken. An accountant by training and trade, he describes himself as an unapologetic fan of DC Comics and a “child of the 80s.”

 

With Phantom Echo, be prepared for rough language. And be prepared for a non-stop thrilling ride that almost leaves you breathless.

"The Smell of Cedar" by River Dixon

No one deserves a customer like Sarah. No one deserves a neighbor like Sarah. No one deserves a co-worker like Sarah. No need to mention friends, because Sarah doesn’t have any.

When Sarah was a child in school, she was called out of class during a math exam. A policeman was waiting. It seems Sarah’s mother had killed the mailman. Sarah gets no additional explanation, but she is sent to live with her grandmother.

No one deserves a grandmother like Sarah’s. We understand why Sarah’s mother did what she did. And we understand why Sarah became the person she did. The grandmother taught Sarah to suppress all of her feelings, trust no one, never cry or show any sign of weakness. And to teach her, she has the cedar box.

River Dixon

The Smell of Cedar, a novella by River Dixon, lures the reader into the story with what seems like a tale about the secrets a cedar box can tell. And it does have secrets, including how it turns children like Sarah into homicidal psychopaths.

Like I said, no one deserves a grandmother like Sarah’s.

Dixon is a poet and short story writer who’s published five books, including Left Waiting and Other Poems, Colder: A Collection of Poetry and Prose, The Stories in Between, and Beyond the Field: An Illustrated Short Story. He’s also contributed stories to two volumes of the anthology Static Dreams: A Dark Anthology from Twisted Minds. He lives with his family in Arizona.

Dixon writes dark stories, and The Smell of Cedar is certainly that. (I’ve read his poetry, and he does not write dark poems about homicidal maniacs.) It’s a mesmerizing tale, with a few graphic scenes, requiring frequent setting aside to catch your breath. 

Related:

Poets and Poems: River Dixon and “Left Waiting.”

"Night Work" by Brett Battles

Jonathan Quinn has an unusual job. He works for a firm that, among other things, is in the disposal business – as in the disposal of bodies. The clients tend to be official government agencies like the CIA, who need inconvenient corpses disposed of quickly and quietly. Or they may need a body strategically left to send a message.

Quinn and his colleagues are in the Bronx in New York City, depositing a body at a building site. Their mission is accomplished, when he receives a phone call – an emergency order for disposal of a body in Manhattan. And the order has come out of process, bypassing his boss. The body is a government courier, shot execution-style in a small Manhattan park. Quinn discovers what the killers were looking for and missed – a small computer disk, secreted in the victim’s sleeve.

What he doesn’t discover until later is that the killers are watching. And following.

Brett Battles

Night Work, a novella by Brett Battles, is a good introduction to the Jonathan Quinn series of thriller / suspense novels. There are currently 12 in the series, beginning with The ExComsand the most recent being The Fractured. 

In addition to the Jonathan Quinn series, Battles is the author of the Project Eden series (a spin-off of the Quinn novels) and the Rewinder series, and the co-author of the Alexandra Poe series – more than 30 books in all. A member of the Mystery Writers of America and the International Thriller Writers, he lives in Los Angeles.

Night Workis packed with action and tension, as the killers close in on Quinn and colleagues at a mortuary. If you like stories with nail-biting suspense, police chases, Russian crime bosses, and a hero with an interesting occupation, the Jonathan Quinn series may be an exact fit.

“Last Words” by Michael Koryta

Mark Novak is a private investigator for an organization that specializes in death row inmates and unjust convictions and imprisonments. But Novak has been something of a mess – his wife, a fellow investigator, was killed while on assignment, and Novak’s been inconsolable and almost uncontrollable since then. The organization’s board is meeting to discuss his situation, and his boss sends him out of state, ostensibly to check on the author of a strange letter.

The letter has come from Garrison, Indiana, two hours south of Indianapolis. Ridley Barnes is a recluse known for his knowledge of local caves, He had written to Novak, asking him to find out if he had indeed killed a teenager, Sarah Martin, almost 10 years earlier. The girl had gone into a famous local cave and apparently gotten lost. Barnes was utilized to help find her, and he did, three days later. He came out of the cave carrying her dead body, and no memory of how he had found her.

Novak does indeed investigate, and discovers that no one is what they appear to be. Everyone is more involved in the death and the mystery surrounding it than they admit. That includes the sheriff, local hoods, the owner of the cave and his daughter, a local hypnotist, the cave caretaker, and Barnes himself. Novak will find himself kidnapped and left in an obscure area of the cave – in total darkness.

Michael Koryta

Last Words by thriller and suspense writer Michael Koryta is one chilling story. And it is even more than chilling if you have even the remotest problem with being in dark, confined spaces, like what you find in a cave system.

Koryta is the author of numerous suspense novels, including Rise the Dark, Those Who Wish Me Dead, The Prophet, The Ridge, The Cypress House, and So Cold the River. I’ve only read Last Words, but if it’s any indication, then Koryta’s works are marked by a gripping story, riveting action, and suspense that keeps you on the edge of your seat. Stephen King is a fan.

Novak will find himself tricked, lied to, drugged, kidnapped, left in the dark (literally), almost dying, and in that cave more than once. The closer he gets to what happened to Sarah Martin, the more he finds himself threatened. And often alone.

Last Words is one wild read.

Top photograph by Davide Cantelli via Unsplash.