Blog Archives
The World As It Is
Donald Levin’s The World As It Is is a historical crime novel set in Detroit in 1963, where the police killing of Cynthia Scott, the murder of a con man, and whispers of a mob contract pull several lives into the same dangerous current. At the center are Amp Hamilton, a young Black musician who witnesses police violence; Hannah Posner, a civil rights lawyer fighting her own body as multiple sclerosis worsens; David Buchalter, a wounded and stalled warehouse manager; and Denny Rankin, an investigator chasing old guilt through a new case. The book works as both a mystery and a portrait of a city under pressure, with civil rights, organized crime, Motown, Black nationalism, and the Kennedy assassination all pressing in on the story.
Levin doesn’t soften the ugliness of the period, and he doesn’t make the characters into symbols only. Amp’s anger feels earned, Hannah’s sharpness feels like armor, and David’s drift has the sad weight of a man who has mistaken endurance for living. What I appreciated most was the way the novel lets people contradict themselves. They can be brave and petty, loving and afraid, principled and exhausted. That feels relatable. The book has a wide cast, and at times I had to slow down to keep everyone straight, but the sprawl also gives the novel its texture. Detroit feels crowded, tense, alive.
The World As It Is is less interested in a neat puzzle than in the systems around the crime. That choice worked for me. The murders matter, but so do the cover-ups, the silence, the fear, and the casual way power protects itself. Levin also makes smart use of real history without letting the book become a lecture. Motown sessions, civil rights protests, police corruption, Jewish Detroit, and rising Black political consciousness all move through the novel like weather. Sometimes the historical references come quickly, almost densely, but I liked the ambition behind that. It gives the story a lived-in feeling, as if the characters are not just solving a case, but trying to breathe inside history while it’s still happening.
I would recommend The World As It Is to readers who like thoughtful historical fiction with a strong crime thread, especially those drawn to mid-century Detroit, civil rights history, morally complicated characters, and mysteries that care as much about why a city breaks as who pulled the trigger. It’s not a light read, but it’s absorbing, angry, compassionate, and grounded in a way that stayed with me after the final page.
Reasons
Reasons by Anthony Owens is a crime thriller with the heart of a family drama. It follows Kyle Blankenship, a grieving father struggling with alcoholism after the brutal death of his wife, Cathy, while trying to care for their son, Ryan. When a mysterious call raises questions about Cathy’s past, Ryan’s parentage, police corruption, and the truth behind her murder, the book shifts from grief-soaked domestic fiction into a darker mystery about betrayal, justice, and what it really means to protect the people you love.
Owens spends a lot of time inside Kyle’s pain, and at times it feels less like watching a plot unfold and more like sitting beside someone who cannot stop replaying the worst day of his life. That can be really emotional. But it also gives the book its pulse. The father-son scenes between Kyle and Ryan are the strongest parts for me because they feel honest in a messy, human way. Ryan isn’t just a symbol of innocence; he’s a child forced to grow around grief, and that gives the story its softer ache beneath all the danger.
I also found the author’s choices interesting because the book doesn’t stay in one emotional lane. It starts with the repetition of grief, drinking, work, parenting, and guilt, then widens into secrets, corruption, trafficking, violence, and sacrifice. That’s a big swing. Sometimes the writing is direct, spelling out feelings rather than letting every moment sit quietly, but I can see why Owens does it. This is a story about people who are overwhelmed, and the prose often mirrors that flood. The book wants us to feel the panic, the shame, the anger, and the desperate need for answers. It’s candid, sometimes raw, and often more concerned with emotional truth than restraint.
I would recommend Reasons to readers who like crime thrillers that are driven as much by family pain as by suspense. It’ll especially appeal to people who appreciate stories about grief, fatherhood, redemption, and ordinary people being pulled into dangerous truths. Readers looking for a thriller with heart, faith, trauma, and moral urgency will likely connect with it.
Pages: 282 | ASIN : B0D1YS9KPN
Deadly Serious
Deadly Serious by A. J. Thibault is a darkly comic spy thriller about Dan Goodis, an anxious would-be stand-up comic whose ordinary life gets pulled into a dangerous web of Cold War secrets, murder, romance, family history, and strange science. The book moves between 1980s Los Angeles and later consequences, mixing comedy clubs, intelligence operations, anti-gravity intrigue, and personal unraveling into a genre-bending thriller that is part espionage novel, part mystery, and part dark comedy.
This book feels restless in a good way. One minute, I was in a violent, snowy opening that feels almost cinematic, and the next, I was with Dan and his sheepdog in Los Angeles, watching his life veer between awkward humor and real danger. Thibault makes a bold choice by letting comedy and brutality stand close together. Sometimes that contrast is sharp enough to make you wince. Sometimes it works like a pressure valve. The jokes are not just decoration. They are part of how Dan survives, or tries to.
I also found myself thinking about how much of the book is really about fear beneath performance. Dan wants to be funny, but he is also exposed, insecure, and often overwhelmed by forces he barely understands. That gives the spy-thriller machinery a more personal edge. The author’s choices can feel big, strange, and occasionally messy, but the ambition is clear. This isn’t a neat little thriller that follows one clean track. It swerves. It piles on conspiracies, odd characters, romance, violence, and satire until the whole thing starts to feel like a feverish backstage tour of power and paranoia.
I would recommend Deadly Serious most to readers who like thrillers with personality, especially people who enjoy espionage stories that are willing to get weird, funny, and emotionally jagged. Readers who appreciate dark comedy inside a mystery-thriller will likely enjoy its nerve and unpredictability. It’s a book for someone who wants a plot with bite, a little chaos, and a main character who keeps trying to laugh while the world keeps raising the stakes.
Pages: 342 | ASIN : B01I92QGRQ
Bitter-Sweet Tastes of Revenge
In Bitter-Sweet Tastes of Revenge, Donald Michael Platt builds a sprawling revenge thriller around two wounded men: Max Calderon, a San Francisco homicide detective trying to step away from the wreckage of police work, and Barry Wilk, an older cousin whose grief has calcified into something colder and more lethal. The novel moves between 1990s San Francisco, Florida, Berkeley memories from 1949–1950, and the long aftershocks of betrayals first committed in youth. What begins as a brutal family massacre becomes a layered investigation into old fraternity alliances, ruined romances, class resentment, and the terrible arithmetic by which one man decides that ancient injuries still demand blood.
Platt doesn’t treat the past as background; he makes it an active predator. Old dances, sorority houses, cashmere sweaters, cigarette habits, family nicknames, and college rituals all return with prosecutorial force. The result is sometimes luxuriant, sometimes claustrophobic, but rarely thin. I admired how the novel lets nostalgia curdle. A place like Capitola or Berkeley is not merely scenic; it is evidence, a preserved room where the emotional fingerprints never quite fade.
This isn’t a soft-focus mystery in which cleverness tidies up pain. The violence is ugly, the grievances are obsessive, and the characters often speak with hard-edged certainty about love, ethnicity, class, sex, family, and justice. That bluntness can feel abrasive, but it also gives the novel a unique feel. I found myself less interested in “who did it” than in the more disquieting question the book keeps pressing: how long can a person keep feeding a wound before the wound begins feeding on everyone else?
The target audience is readers who enjoy revenge thrillers, crime fiction, psychological suspense, serial-killer mysteries, and family-saga crime dramas with a strong historical undertow. Readers of Thomas Harris may recognize the fascination with meticulous violence and corrupted intelligence, while fans of James Ellroy may appreciate the dense social texture and rancid glamour beneath the California surface. Bitter-Sweet Tastes of Revenge is a harsh, memory-soaked novel about love curdled into vengeance.
Pages: 330 | ASIN : B0GT61ZXG1
BIRTH RIGHT Secrets of Silent Shadows
BIRTH RIGHT: Secrets of Silent Shadows by Christophe Medler is a historical mystery thriller set in Tudor England, beginning with the murder of Robert Pakington, MP, outside St Thomas of Acon in 1536. From there, the story follows Juan Zaragoza, a Spanish orphan and acolyte, as he tries to uncover why his mentor was killed and what “veiled secret” Pakington died protecting. The investigation pulls Juan into the dangerous religious politics of the Reformation, the hidden world of the Knights Templar, the Vatican, and the mystery of his own birth.
What I liked most was the book’s sense of place. The author clearly enjoys the texture of Tudor London: the fog, the cold streets, the taverns, the chapel rituals, the stink and bustle of daily life. At times, I felt as if the city itself was another character, watching Juan step out of the safety of church life and into a world that is far more violent, compromised, and complicated. The historical detail gives the story weight, and the genre works best when the murder mystery and the political danger feed each other. There is a real “secret history” energy here, the kind that makes you want to keep turning pages because every symbol, coin, letter, or whispered warning might matter.
I also found Juan’s journey more interesting than a simple chase for a killer. He begins as someone sheltered and devout, but the book keeps testing that faith. That choice gives the novel its emotional spine. Sometimes feel the story wants to explain a lot, and some dialogue carries more exposition than natural conversation. But I also get why the author makes that choice: this is a book built on hidden orders, religious conflict, family secrets, and historical context. It wants the reader to understand the machinery behind the danger, not just watch people run from it. When it slows down, it is usually because the author is laying another stone in the path.
I would recommend BIRTH RIGHT: Secrets of Silent Shadows to readers who enjoy historical fiction with a conspiracy mystery at its heart, especially those drawn to Tudor England, religious intrigue, the Reformation, and stories about lost identity. It will suit someone who likes a detailed, old-world adventure more than a stripped-back thriller. If you enjoy novels where history feels smoky, crowded, and full of locked doors, this one has plenty to offer.
Pages: 329 | ASIN : B0GS2RQCTL
Go Big
Birds of Prey Don’t Sing follows a gifted and deeply broken assassin who takes on the hardest case of his career, murdering a priest and making it look like divine judgment. What was the inspiration for the setup of your story?
I set out to write the most unique assassin thriller that I could, and to do so I focused on M.O. and backstory. Michael Harrier’s clients choose two targets—one to kill, and one to frame for the murder. Once that elusive M.O. was set, I created several dual-target jobs, some inspired by real events, others distilled from my imagination. Because this was the first book in the series, I felt I should go big, with the hit that seems impossible, but ends up being plausible. And that job was informed by a serendipitous bit of then-unrelated research I happened upon in the early stages—that’s when the spark became flame.
Michael is both sympathetic and terrifying. How did you balance those sides, and how important was trauma in shaping his worldview and actions?
I balanced that by trying to make him human first. And yes, trauma was key to his backstory. Pretty much every assassin in the genre is ex-government (CIA, Mossad, MI6, etc) or ex-military, and for good reason, but I wanted to break from that tradition. So to me, a key part of a self-made assassin, without resorting to a stereotypical sociopath (who would be difficult to sympathize with), is their upbringing, which needed to involve trauma and pain. A wounded human forged in trauma as opposed to a natural born killer; more nurture than nature. And I’ve long been fascinated by how trauma can both inform and misinform our intuition, judgment, and decisions, and I liked how this paradox played out for Michael as his story unspooled.
What were some themes that were important for you to explore in this book?
Justice, morality, trauma, intuition, redemption, and human connection.
Do you see Michael’s story continuing in future books?
Yes. I have more ideas than time, but book two is underway.
Author Links: GoodReads | X | Website | Instagram
Michael Harrier has built his reputation on a system no one else uses. Every contract comes with two targets. One dies. Someone else takes the blame.
It’s worked flawlessly for years.
Until now.
What should be a clean hit starts to unravel. A woman with a violent past pulls him off course. A single mistake threatens to expose everything. And for the first time, Harrier is forced to improvise.
Meanwhile, LAPD homicide sergeant Jordan Becker is hunting a killer he can’t pin down.
But he’s built his career on getting results where others stall out.
The case doesn’t follow any rules. The evidence doesn’t hold. The story keeps shifting. And the deeper Becker digs, the clearer it becomes he’s chasing someone smarter, faster, and always just out of reach.
As Harrier’s world tightens and Becker starts to break through, both men are pulled into a game where every move has consequences—and no one is as untouchable as they think.
Because this time, getting away with murder isn’t the hardest part.
It’s controlling what comes next.
Costly Words
The Walking Wounded traces the lives of two boys whose childhood bond follows them into adulthood, where—now police officers—they find themselves working a murder investigation tied to the haunting disappearance of two missing children. What first drew you to this story—was it the investigation, the characters, or the themes of trauma?
This book started life as a stage musical way back in 1992/93. I stopped writing for a very long time. The basic story of trauma and its effects has always been there. The romance of our leading men was added in recent years, after consultation with a movie producer.
Phil and Li’s relationship unfolds slowly and carries a lot of history. Why did you choose that long-burn dynamic?
I was trying to drive home the concept of toxic masculinity and the fear that goes along with self-acceptance for LGBTIQ+ people. ‘I’m gay’ can still be very costly words.
The novel questions whether justice is ever “enough.” How do you define justice in this story, and how do institutional failures shape the narrative?
It was always about system failure. People need to take responsibility for their abusive actions. Current conditions prove that justice remains beyond reach.
Despite its darkness, the book leaves room for connection and care. Why was that important?
Many of the characters live with abuse. It affects them all in different ways. Phil hides it under a cover of denial, and Davina uses it to remain strong while she helps Levi and Noah through it. Ian/Iceman has been destroyed by his past and believes the world owes him a favour. His dark anger boils below the surface.
Four stories, four outcomes.
The fact that there can be healing is an important concept for any abuse survivor who may pick up my book. The fact that Noah makes it through the darkness to adulthood and fatherhood, despite the losses along the way, is important.
Author Links: GoodReads | Amazon
The Walking Wounded is a gripping narrative that intricately weaves together the journeys of four characters, resulting in a deeply engaging reading experience. Immerse yourself in the gripping and dark tale of two seasoned detectives as they navigate the twisted maze of a child prostitution ring, entangled with the powerful and influential members of Newcastle society. The atmosphere is charged with tension as they step off into the mystery surrounding two separate homicides, apparently connected to two missing boys. Each step adds to the growing urgency, as the faint scent of desperation lingers in the air. Their determined hearts beat in sync as they manoeuvre through the complex maze of deceit, the pulsating rhythm propelling them forward. In their determined pursuit to locate the two missing boys, their hands quiver with a blend of eagerness and anxiety, their touch inadvertently tracing the sharp contours of their own haunting memories. With each body discovered, the truth shines brighter, piercing through the shadows like a beacon of hope.
Come Dance With Me
Come Dance With Me opens as a late-career detective, Butch Jacs, is called out to what should be a routine suicide involving a businessman tied to the mayor; instead, one small object at the scene, an old business card reading “Come Dance With Me,” pulls him into a strange chain of deaths, vanished records, political rot, and a dread-soaked mystery that seems to be stalking him across decades. The novel begins like a police procedural and gradually lets a spectral chill seep through the seams, using Jacs’s forced retirement, frayed solitude, and distrust of the modern world as part of the plot’s pressure system.
I liked this book most when it lingered in Jacs’s head. He is not a glamorous detective; he is tired, mildly crabby, perceptive in an unshowy way, and haunted less by melodrama than by attrition. That gives the novel a worn texture I found persuasive. The author has a real affection for municipal spaces, bad fluorescent light, empty offices, old neighborhoods, and the spiritual bleakness of public institutions after midnight. Even when the prose grows a little shaggy, it often lands on an image that sticks, something rusted, wind-buffeted, or quietly funereal. I also appreciated the book’s refusal to rush its unease. It doesn’t sprint toward horror; it sidles there, which is harder to do and, here, more effective.
What I really liked was the book’s mood rather than its neatness. The mystery matters, but the stronger current is existential: Jacs is investigating not just a pattern of deaths, but his own obsolescence. The novel understands how retirement, bureaucracy, loneliness, and memory can make a person porous to dread. I did feel the pacing sometimes wanders and the repetition can accumulate, yet even that repetitiousness started to feel oddly thematic, as if Jacs were walking the same mental corridor over and over while the lights flicker. In that sense, the book’s rough edges are part of its atmosphere; it feels less polished than weathered, and weathered suits it.
I’d recommend Come Dance With Me to readers who like supernatural mystery, detective fiction, occult suspense, and small-city noir with a melancholic bend. Readers who enjoy Stephen King when he turns toward aging, memory, and ordinary American dread, or fans of John Connolly’s more haunted detective work, will likely find familiar pleasures here, though Bates is scruffier and more Midwestern in temperament. Come Dance With Me is an intriguing detective novel that knows the scariest thing in the room may be time itself.
Pages: 352 | ASIN : B097NMBL25
