Sleuth
Smilin Bob $$$, mum. 3 out of 5
Short horse racing themed collection of average stories. Bluelight Special : True Story – J. Carson Black Bluelight Special : The Bluelight Special – J. Carson Black American Futurity missing. 3 out of 5 Avatar stud. 3 out of 5 2 out of 5
Continue reading about The Bluelight Special – J. Carson Black
Avatar stud. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about The Bluelight Special – J. Carson Black
Two crime books and a horror book, three crime books, two horror books and a crime book, or whichever way you want to look at it. I’ll go with the first one. In this omnibus all three books are good with The Skull Ring the pick of the three. You also get an essay, an [...]
A couple loses offspring in a fire. A wife’s investigation brings to light what is really going on with twin brothers – one her husband – their wealthy family, violent past, lovers and the twisted relationship between them. 3.5 out of 5
A brain smashing digesting falling out on a boat. 3.5 out of 5
A young Chicago detective gets involved when the operations of a crazy bookie crime boss spiral out of control as his underlings frame a hard man – who does not take it lying down. Many criminals to become terminally challenged in this one as two drinks team up. Tequila Abernathy and Jack Daniels. 3.5 out [...]
Continue reading about A Shot of Tequila – J. A. Konrath and Blake Crouch
Burn round. 3 out of 5
This time a crime story anthology with a couple of guests. At 3.31 again the same quality as the last two. Curtains : Dog Person – Scott Nicholson Curtains : Dead Air – Scott Nicholson Curtains : How to Build Your Own Coffin – Scott Nicholson Curtains : The Name Game – Scott Nicholson Curtains [...]
Wife knife. 3.5 out of 5
Say hi to Pete. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Nothing Personal But You Gotta Die – Scott Nicholson
Blanket kid. 3 out of 5
Parent housing problem. 3 out of 5
Definitely nuts. 2.5 out of 5
Hippie fix. 3 out of 5
After me under any. 3.5 out of 5
A reporter ends up in a small town. It is not as dull as he thinks as murders begin to happen. Circulation boosting murders and soon this story is of much greater interest. 3.5 out of 5
An encounter between a lover and a honey trap colleague goes terminally wrong. Our man in Vegas decides on the sort of justice you can pay for for the man responsible. 3 out of 5
An different crime story as a murder is investigated by a forensic geologist and others. You won’t read too many that feature biathlon, certainly. An old conflict between volcanologists causes problems. The meandering nature of this prevents too much suspense as the story wanders through the personalities and relationships in this small in danger of [...]
Lost girl and lost purse keys murder setup. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/7555
A lot is packed into this novel, the third of a series of which I have not read the other two. A special unit of cops gets some dangerous situations in a unit that bears the series name. Their lead also had Internal Affairs and FBI problems. As well as wanting some vigilante revenge about [...]
A young policewoman is involved with a detective in the same force. A distinct no-no by the regulations. He is trying to solve multiple poisoning murders and deal with what happens after they get caught. They both have other women expressing interest in them as a result of the case, which doesn’t make things easier. [...]
A gangster is happily doing what they do when another wants to hire him to work for him and run some stuff. He doesn’t like this idea, but taking over would be ok. Things escalate, everybody dies, mostly. 3 out of 5 http://www.munseys.com/diskfour/fastonedex.htm
Commercial bed project. 3 out of 5
Pinky drink. 3 out of 5
A decent short collection of crime stories with the first the better of the two. Mystery Stories Vol 1 : Strictly Business – N. C. Hyzy Mystery Stories Vol 1 : Panic – N. C. Hyzy Killing Uncle Fred didn’t go so well, Susan. 3.5 out of 5 Got Carrie. 3 out of 5 3.5 [...]
Continue reading about Mystery Short Stories Vol 1 – N. C. Hyzy
Got Carrie. 3 out of 5
Killing Uncle Fred didn’t go so well, Susan. 3.5 out of 5
We had the corpse? 3 out of 5
Patent Leather run. 3 out of 5
Continue reading about The Kid Clips A Coupon – Erle Stanley Gardner
A good short collection of crime stories. Three Ways To Die : Jack Webb’s Star – Lee Goldberg Three Ways To Die : Bumsickle – Lee Goldberg Three Ways To Die : Remaindered – Lee Goldberg Stealing and shagging and killing for it. 3.5 out of 5 Naked fast food trip murder. 3 out of [...]
Naked fast food trip murder. 3 out of 5
Stealing and shagging and killing for it. 3.5 out of 5
Unfortunately, she was dead. 3.5 out of 5
At 3.73 a collection of excellent hardboiled horror and laugh out loud humour. The title story is brilliantly original. Plus monkeys! Hard Bite : Hard Bite – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Tequila Spike – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Claw Marks – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite : Backseat Driver – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9 Hard Bite [...]
Continue reading about Hard Bite and Other Short Stories – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9
One night stand with extra dead guy. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Backseat Driver – Anonymous-9 Anonymous-9
Just an average bunch at 3.13. Crime Stories : The Big Guys – J. A. Konrath Crime Stories : A Fistful of Cozy – J. A. Konrath Crime Stories : Cleansing – J. A. Konrath Crime Stories : Lying Eyes – J. A. Konrath Crime Stories : Perfect Plan – J. A. Konrath Crime Stories [...]
Going for a different image. 3 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2012/01/09/free-fiction-monday-models/
Jack and Duffy. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Planter’s Punch – J. A. Konrath and Tom Schreck
Son crime call. 3.5 out of 5
Criminal overhears wife kill plot. 3.5 out of 5
One pregnancy and a few mobsters. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Babe On Board – J. A. Konrath and Ann Voss Peterson
Carnal writer collector murder. 3.5 out of 5
A standalone novel. A guitarist prodigy in a rising fast rock band has plenty of money thanks to their success. Plenty of problems too with being an alcoholic – avoiding the funeral of the foster father that did look after her, having a fractured childhood and now a stalker that invades her life to terrify [...]
Hey, enough with the family drama and blood. Just give me fish. Or chips. Or both! 3.5 out of 5 http://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/editors-choice/2012/01/01/a-crime-tail-top-writer-allan-guthrie-s-hard-hitting-but-heartwarming-seasonal-short-story-86908-23672491/
A somewhat nihilistic bouncer has a friend killed, ending up with her big puppy. Plus a burning desire to flip the life state of the mobsters responsible to mortally challenged – discovering a twin sister and the odd dodgy cop are tied up in this sordid tale. 3.5 out of 5
Continue reading about Beautiful Naked and Dead – Josh Stallings
Toil, cares, annoyances all fade away; I care not who may run for President. I drowse and swing my rum the live-long day, And watch the shallops skimming o’er the bay. 3 out of 5 http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Toper
4.5 out of 5
The men, also the maids; The dames had cut and combed their hair, The men wore theirs in braids. They came unto a comrade’s room, They laid on him their hands Said they, “Oh fiend, oh cringing wretch! “Behold the traitor stands!” They punched him thrice upon the nose, They blacked his gleaming eye; They [...]
4.5 out of 5
Rule I. ALWAYS BE POLITE If a girl stops you to talk while you are chasing your trains, And it looks like they’re going to lose ye, Just up with your musket and knock out her brains, Saying, “Miss, you’ll have to excuse me.” Rule II. NEVER BE RUDE IF a tiresome guy should hapopen [...]
Continue reading about Rules of Etiquette – Robert E. Howard
I am a saintly reformer, basking in goodly reknown Sure of applaud of the righteous, cinctured in purity’s gown. Young men and old men revere me, women and girls out of school Come to me telling their secrets, seeking my counseling cool. Little they know of my story when I was the water-front’s toast. Back [...]
Continue reading about The Robes of the Righetous – Robert E. Howard
The moon above the Kerry hills had risen scare a span When we went forth from Knocknaroe to card a Saxon man. We stretched him naked on the ditch― God save this soul of mine! The howls of him as hard we dragged the cats along his spine. A great, full-bodied man he was, that [...]
Oh, G.B.S., oh, G.B.S., You lousy son of a bitch, You lift your yawp across the world Like a bullfrog in a ditch. I would that by foliage which Your scholarly phizz thatches Tied to a smoking stake you were By a tribe of wild Apaches You could deride them in that style Of which [...]
Continue reading about Lines To G. B. Shaw – Robert E. Howard
The couplers lock and the air-brakes grate― And I’m headed West on a Red Ball freight, The rain can fall and the wind can moan, For I chucked the grind, and I’m on my own. No more figures to check and add, Till my eyes go blind and my brain goes mad. No more bosses [...]
The autumn sun was gettin’ low, the day was mighty windy, When Hiram shot the hired man that kissed his girl Dorindy. Them two was in the orchard there, for apples birds was peckin’ When old man Hiram hove in view and busted up their neckin’. The hired man he took it out across the [...]
John Rain finds people watching him at Judo training in Tokyo. He decides to make it a smaller number watching him. 4 out of 5
Warrior dog saving. 4 out of 5
Removing relationships. 3 out of 5
The protagonist of the piece is recovering from the death of her lover. She takes herself off to do the hermit thing in Silver John country. No monsters of the supernatural variety though, but a friend who wants her help in finding his own ex-lover. The problem is, there’s a bad guy too, a serial [...]
Just an assassin for money. Better than law school. 3.5 out of 5 https://comics.comixology.com/#/issue/12293/The-Killer-1-of-10-
Icy pole style. 3 out of 5 http://www.complex.com/video-games/2011/05/lansdale-la-noire-story?page=1
A journalist who has lost his job as part of the failure of newspapers in Florida also has a family tragedy. His wife and biological son were killed when she lost control of a car. This left her two biological children and given that the had never legally formalised any relationship their biological father took [...]
Shared coke kill. 3.5 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2011/04/18/free-fiction-monday-details/
Finding a murder, and a career. 3.5 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2011/03/07/free-fiction-monday-discovery/
Finally she chuckled deep in her throat. “Damn,” she said. “Morgan the Raider. The only son of a bitch who ever managed to take that old fox I married for a hunk of his ill-acquired fortune.” “It’s what I do,” I said with a shrug. “Or anyway, what I used to do.” Gaita was looking [...]
Continue reading about The Consummata – Max Allan Collins and Micke Spillane
“”Lucky,” he said. “Man, I’d say I got Lucky, didn’t I? But I think I’m tapped out for this evening.” “You think so?” “You drained me to the dregs, babe. About all I can do right now is sleep.” “I bet you’re wrong.” “Oh?” “What we did so far,” she said, “was just a warm-up.” [...]
“As I poured coffee for the old guy, Vic looked down at the kid’s offered hand and then slowly reached out to take it. They exchanged an awkward handshake and then Vic let go and reached up to push back long hair fifteen years gone in a nervous gesture that was painfully familiar. The kid [...]
“Ransom was excited. He paced his narrow cell like Rilke’s panther.” (Does this mean naked, with a really hairy arse?) 2.5 out of 5 http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/2011/01/19/black-lens/#more-661
Fake crime con. 3 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2011/01/17/free-fiction-monday-stomping-mad/
Continue reading about Stomping Mad – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Love research death surprise. 3 out of 5 http://www.tehelka.com/story_main48.asp?filename=Ne080111YET_ANOTHER.asp
Bad cake revenge. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.flashfictiononline.com/f20091001-eating-it-too-kristine-kathryn-rusch.html
Continue reading about Eating It Too – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Double homicide cat detail reporter. 3.5 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2011/01/03/free-fiction-monday-scrawny-pete/
Continue reading about Scrawny Pete – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
The hand, I know the lot. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.smoothnnatural.com/?page_id=38
Syndicate big man bedded. 2.5 out of 5 http://www.theironsaint.com/preview.html
Nice place, cop. http://www.imagecomics.com/content/onlinecomics/fell_001/fell_001_002_600x900.jpg 4 out of 5 http://www.imagecomics.com/iconline.php4?title=fell_001&page=2
Hollywood and ore for Carstairs and Doan. 3.5 out of 5 http://manybooks.net/titles/davisnother07sallys_in_the_alley.html
“Renee cradled the phone against her ear. She’d chipped her fingernail polish opening a can of Tab. Sitting in an apartment she wasn’t paying for, talking of money, made her lightheaded. Despite the wealth Jacob had accumulated early in their marriage, this money seemed unreal, almost sickening. “It’s two million dollars, Kim.” “Holy crud,” came [...]
Wanna be my reality tv partner, now that I kidnapped you? 3.5 out of 5 http://comics.comixology.com/issue/294/Adrenaline-1
And it didn’t end well. 4.5 out of 5
“And then I was sitting in the coffee shop in 1955, the half-gone dunked doughnut still in my fingers. There had been the nastiest war in history; the Atom Bomb was hanging over our heads, and the World of Tomorrow was a Ring King® turning out doughnuts for regular schmoes trying to make a living [...]
Continue reading about The Search for Tom Purdue – Howard Waldrop
Crotch bomber story. 3.5 out of 5 http://www.mulhollandbooks.com/2010/12/13/the-impossibility-of-a-diaphanous-history-machine/
Continue reading about The Impossibility of a Diaphanous History Machine – Charlie Huston
She’s filing her nails While they’re dragging the lake 5 out of 5
Continue reading about Watching the Detectives – Elvis Costello
He made it out With a bullet in his back 5 out of 5
Santa, ex-armed robbery. 3.5 out of 5 http://kriswrites.com/2010/11/29/free-fiction-monday-rehabilitation/
Continue reading about Rehabilitation – Kristine Kathryn Rusch
Dead DNA. 3 out of 5 http://www.newsarama.com/php/multimedia/album_view.php?gid=1915&page=0
We made it out partners. 4 out of 5 http://undergroundthecomic.com/cbz/Underground05.cbz
Continue reading about Underground 5 – Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber
Wet in cave sucks. 4 out of 5 http://undergroundthecomic.com/cbz/Underground04.cbz
Continue reading about Underground 4 – Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber
Bats and blowing up. 3.5 out of 5 http://undergroundthecomic.com/cbz/Underground03.cbz
Continue reading about Underground 3 – Jeff Parker and Steve Lieber
Dead wife issues. 3 out of 5 http://www.huntforadventure.com/misc/homefront.shtml
Continue reading about Noir Idolatry Blinds the Eye – Charles Ardai
“I’m a thief, and I do clean work. I don’t hurt people for money, I don’t set fires, I don’t do any of those sicko sex things. Stuff like that, it gets spread all over: the papers, radio, TV. Gets everybody paying attention. Specially when there’s big reward money out there. A man who does [...]
“I held my finger on the pause button, thinking. Finetti must have said something to Eckles, the senior sergeant temporarily in charge of the St Kilda Criminal Investigation Unit. The counsellors had warned me about this: that some of them would want to babysit me and ease me back into the casework. They’d even advised [...]
Hilda heat hit. 3 out of 5 http://brainplucker.com/fff/points_south.htm
A detective that is on the scene for what looks like a junkie overdose has second thoughts, and decides things don’t add up. This leads him into conflict with his boss, a partner, the other cop on the scene and into something a lot more sordid than the standard drugs and prostitution and general run [...]
“I thought Mr. Materialism was about to get lucky: Ms. Cartesian Dualism was leaning forward in the kind of unnatural pose that had been practiced in front of the mirror because someone once told her it made her throat look delicious, and holding her hand palm up while she talked, tilted towards him in a [...]
“Thrill parties every night over on Hussel Street. That tiny house, why, it’s 600 square feet of percolating, Wurlitzering sin. Those girls with their young skin, tight and glamorous, their rimy lungs and scratchy voices, one cheek flush and c’mon boys and the other, so accommodating, even with lil’ wrists and ankles stripped to pearly [...]
Ordinary girl gets dodgy. Because her brother gets involved with a dodgy Hollywood hanger-on, and as a result and even worse, she gets involved with a Hollywood PR and coverup merchant type. Hard to get dodgier than that. Her fascination and amateur investigations into what is going on in the background lead her to booze [...]
But those activities were over for the day. The protesters were getting into their cars and heading home, and the clinic was unusually quiet. Two young mothers with babies on their hips stood at the counter, where Roselyn, the young Hispanic receptionist, silently stared at the computer screen, searching for information. Another young woman waited [...]
“”Doctors don’t kill their wives in car accidents,” Koko said. She hoisted a powder blue gown up over her head and began to insinuate herself into it. “How do doctors kill their wives?” Digger asked. “Bubbles of air. Exotic poisons. Do unnecessary surgery, leave in a handful of sponges, then feed them Perrier and let [...]
