Book Review: CAESAR NOW BE STILL

TITLE: Caesar Now Be Still

AUTHOR: Frank Schildiner

253 pages, Belanger Books, ISBN 9798326602428 (hardcover, paperback, e-book)

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

Frank Schildiner’s Caesar Now Be Still is the first book of what I hope will be many novels and stories featuring New York City Detective Wilson Hargreave. If the character’s name sounds familiar, you are probably an avid Sherlock Holmes reader. Hargreave is mentioned in the Holmes canon just once, referenced by the Great Detective in “The Adventure of the Dancing Men” as a friend of Holmes among the police in New York City. No details of Hargreave’s career or life, no hint of how he became friends with the world’s most famous consulting detective, just a mention that Hargreave had often made use of Holmes’ knowledge of London crime and had now returned the favor. From this small mention, Schildiner crafts a character with a background that spans the US, the UK, and France, with time spent on both sides of the law, who has a moral code that invites mockery mixed with grudging respect from his peers and enemies alike. And while he doesn’t seem to have many friends, he does have obnoxious coworkers and dangerous enemies to spare. Hargreave’s history is revealed slowly throughout the course of the book – it’s not always pleasant but it explains a lot about the man he is when this book takes place. I found him an intriguing and personable main character (the first-person narration may have helped with that), flawed and scarred and tragic in some ways, but also noble and hopeful.

Fans of Sexton Blake, Sherlock Holmes, and Solar Pons, as well as fans of historical crime novels are sure to enjoy this book as much as I did. Grittier than the standard Holmes or Pons fare but with the same sense of justice the Great Detective’s adventures usually possess. The author seamlessly melds several mystery/crime sub-genres in this book: there’s the Holmesian mystery aspect (while Hargreave may work for the NYC police department, he is clearly treated as more of a consultant by peers and higher-ups who disdain the methods Hargreave learned from Holmes), the brutal crime aspect (so much blood and viscera at the crime scenes), the noir aspect (complete with instigating rich female client and various femme fatales), and the historical aspect (1890s New York City on full display, including all of the gang fighting and corruption). Other hands attempting such a mash-up of tones might have been less successful, but Schildiner knows his genres and knows this period of NYC history very well. It all comes together smoothly and to a highly satisfactory conclusion that leaves the way open for future adventures.

Long-time Schildiner readers will not be surprised there are also tons of easter eggs involving a plethora of literary and historical figures of the time. Schildiner weaves these references throughout the book effortlessly, never marring the pace or tone of the book. With as many as I recognized, I’m sure I still missed some that more astute readers will have picked on.

I am an enthusiastic fan of Frank Schildiner’s work across genres, and I do think this might be the best book he’s written yet. Belanger Books should be commended for bringing it out, and are encouraged to continue the series. Highly recommended.

Book Review: DEATH COMES TOO LATE

TITLE: Death Comes Too Late

AUTHOR: Charles Ardai

397 pages, Hard Case Crime, ISBN 9781803366265 (paperback, e-book)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: In celebration of the 20th anniversary of the Hard Case Crime imprint, the publishers have released Death Comes Too Late, a collection of 20 mostly noir short stories from across the career of imprint founder Charles Ardai. The author admits the choice of title is a bit cheeky for a collection of stories in which death seems to arrive in a timely manner, if not early and unexpectedly. Regardless, it is a phenomenal collection by an author who I think is truly underrated. I say this as someone who is mostly familiar with Ardai as founder/editor/publisher and who had previously read only one of the stories contained herein.

That story, “Mother of Pearl,” blew me away when I first read it in From Sea to Stormy Sea (edited by the great Lawrence Block), and it blew me away again here. It is one of the few non-noir stories in the collection, if noir must include a crime or double-cross of some kind. There is a mystery at its core – who is this nameless, seemingly genderless, narrator telling us this tale of a young woman’s search for the truth of her father’s death and the mother who put her up for adoption? As I said back in 2020, the story is “a rumination on success, failure, identity, and the search for where we come from,” and upon multiple rereads I continue to find some moment or bit of phrasing or twist in the story that didn’t stand out to me on previous reads. As with most of the stories in Death Comes Too Late, “Mother of Pearl” has layers upon layers, twists to the twists, that keep you wondering where Ardai is leading you right up to the last paragraph.

I think it is safe to say that the whole collection is a rumination on success, failure, identity, and the search for where we come from (sometimes to embrace it, sometimes to understand it, sometimes to leave it behind). And equally safe to say that most of the time, those ruminations take some long, complicated routes to get to that moment of embracing, understanding, or leave-taking.

The book starts strong with “The Home Front,” in which a private investigator hired by the United States government to suss out black marketeers during World War Two is responsible for the accidental death of a young man he’s just arrested – which is just the start of a journey that turns brutal and bloody by the end while our protagonist tries to decide who he is after the tragedy. This is followed by “Game Over,” which starts with a boy’s simple wish to treat his less-well-off best friend to a free afternoon of video games at the local pizza place but whose plan to do so results in wounded pride, misunderstanding, harsh accusations, and yes tragedy. Two quite different time frames with characters of very different ages, both dealing with expectations of who they are based on something someone else has done (or not done). “The Fall of Man” is another heartbreaking story with a teen at the center, a startlingly honest look at suicide and its aftermath.

Charles Ardai is an expert at making sure his stories don’t end where they start – those long, complicated routes mentioned earlier – even when obeying genre dictates. “The Case” starts out as a standard “missing luggage” story but neatly twists through two characters’ points-of-view into something that would be at home on Alfred Hitchcock Presents. “Goin’ West” starts with a classic “Hollywood casting couch” scene (only in New York) that doesn’t quite go where you’d expect but with a conclusion that feels inevitable. “The Shadow Line” opens with our narrator waking up in a room in Mexico with a sex worker, intent on hunting down a man he’s been sent to locate – but not for the reasons that seem apparent. “Jonas and the Frail” is a “bodyguard loses his teenage charge, chaos ensues” tale with a killer reveal and ending; “Sleep! Sleep! Beauty Bright” is a revenge tale writ large; “My Husband’s Wife” is a riff on “disaffected corporate wife has affair” type stories. But they all take surprising turns, and each protagonist faces challenges that reveal something about where they came from or who they really are.

Ardai is also not above twisting his genres. “The Deadly Embrace,” one of my favorites in the collection, is a neat bit of super-hero noir that takes the real-world fierce competition between comics publishers in the 1950s (think the famous DC vs. Fawcett lawsuit over the original Captain Marvel) and combines it with a twist on the Hollywood Studio System in a world where super-heroes are real but under contract to the comics companies, which some of them find stifling. “Don’t Be Cruel” plays with conspiracy theories (particularly around Elvis’s supposed survival) in a noir light. “The Day After Tomorrow” is another tale that is not really noir at all, but more horror.

The collection ends with another decidedly non-noir tale, the mystery “The Investigation of Things.” If any story in the book can be called “Sherlockian,” it is this one. Two brothers in 11th century China, both detectives with decidedly different investigatory styles, are called to solve the murder of a Buddhist monk and stumble upon the invention of something we are all too familiar with as a weapon of murder in our modern era. There are twists upon twists, with one brother looking at minute and seemingly unimportant minute details while the other systematically interviews reluctant peers of the deceased (said brother even utters a variation on Detective Columbo’s famous “oh, just one more question” line, which brought a smile to this reader’s face).

If you love short stories in the mystery/crime genre that are more than just a recitation of the facts of the case or the reveal of the mystery, stories that explore the breadth of human interactions and passions, then Charles Ardai is your man, and Death Comes Too Late is your next must-read short story collection.

I received an advance reading copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review.

Those interested can find my review of From Sea to Stormy Sea, where Charles Ardai’s story “Mother of Pearl” first appeared, HERE.

Book Review: THE HITHERTO SECRET EXPERIMENTS OF MARIE CURIE

TITLE: The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie

EDITORS: Bryan Thomas Schmidt and Henry Herz

350 pages, Blackstone Publishing, ISBN 9781665047036 (hardcover, also e-book and audio)

MY RATING:  5 stars out of 5

SHORT REVIEW: An excellent collection of stories that consider what might have happened had Marya Skłodowska (who grew up to be Marie Curie) used her scientific knowledge to combat threats to her family and friends. While most of the stories feature a supernatural threat, a few are more standard mysteries. The tales are grounded in the truths of Marya’s childhood: the early deaths of her mother and elder sister, the Russian occupation of Warsaw, and the lack of public education for girls. Many of the stories are followed by author’s notes explaining the science Marya uses to solve problems and help her friends, which I hope will add to the editors’ intent of inspiring children, especially girls, to go into STEM fields.

LONGER REVIEW: The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie posits a world in which the teenage Marie Curie, née Skłodowska, uses her scientific knowledge to protect family and friends from threats ranging from murderers to the supernatural. While a few of the stories stray from the concept (either by not including a science-based solution to the problem, or by having the title character do something downright villainous), most fit the bill.

Marya Skłodowska grew up in Warsaw, which was then under Russian dominion. Girls were only allowed to attend school to a certain age, and Poles were treated by the Russians as second-class citizens in their own city. When laboratory instruction in the sciences was removed from the curricula for Polish students, Marya and some of her peers attended a “flying university” that changed locations to avoid Russian detection. Most of the stories take place during the time Marya and her friends were students at a regular “gymnasia” (school) for Polish girls, but a few take place during the “flying university” years, and at least one during the year Marya spent living with relatives in the Polish countryside. Only one (“The Beast” by Stacia Deutsch) features an adult Marie Curie and is a neat twist on the typical time-travel story.

The volume opens with “Uncrowned Kings” by Seanan McGuire, who herself knows more than just a little bit about using hard science in science fiction and horror. After the death of her eldest sister by typhus, Marya stops believing in God and starts trusting in science. When something that seems like typhus rears its ugly head six years later but only affecting children and teens including another of her sisters, Marya follows the evidence to find the true source of this latest scourge: a mythical rat-king in the sewers. McGuire’s tale sets the tone of the book perfectly: showcasing Marya’s determination to not let others fall victim to preventable disease, her curiosity about the scientific underpinnings of the universe, her devotion to family and friends, all ensconced in a story that includes some fantastical element. “The Cold White Ones” by Susanne L. Lambdin also uses the return of typhus to Warsaw as a launching point but with a different supernatural problem at the core.

Marya’s grief and anger over the untimely deaths of her mother and eldest sister, Zofia, are palpable in many of the stories, not just McGuire’s. Sometimes the emotions spur the action, sometimes the action helps Marya process her grief – I’m thinking particularly here of Alethea Kontis’ beautiful “Marya’s Monster,” in which Marya returns from a St. Andrew’s Day birthday party to encounter a wolf-like monster under her bed. I don’t want to say too much more about how the story progresses, except that it is a stunning look at how we process grief and loss.

Other favorites in the anthology that feature a supernatural menace of some sort as Mylo Cabria’s “Three Ravens,” Scott Sigler’s “A Glow in the Dark,” and Jonathan Maberry’s “The Night Flyers,” which closes on the book on as solid a note as McGuire’s story opened it, focusing as it does on the other bane of Marya’s existence: the Russian overlords controlling Warsaw. The story is especially affecting as in 2023 we watch Russia’s continued war on Ukraine.

Not every story features a supernatural element. In “The Magic of Science,” co-editor Bryan Thomas Schmidt teams with author G.P. Charles to give us a wonderful “cozy mystery:” a girl in Marya’s dorm wakes up to discover her skin has turned blue. Later that day, a cook at the school dies. Supernatural explanations are put forward by her fellow students, but Marya is sure there is a rational scientific explanation. There is, and the path to it is well-developed, a very “fair play” kind of mystery. Steve Pantazis’ “The Prize” also seems to lack, or at least downplays, a supernatural element, pitting Marya and a rival classmate against the impending death of the classmate’s father by metal poisoning.

Many of the stories are followed with an explanation of the science that underpins the story, which I think enhances the book’s ability to interest young readers in the sciences and encourage them, especially young girls, to pursue STEM studies.

I received an electronic advance review copy of this book for free from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. This does not affect my opinion of the book or the content of my review. The Hitherto Secret Experiments of Marie Curie was published on April 11, 2023.

Book Review: THE RED LAMP

TITLE: The Red Lamp

AUTHOR: Mary Roberts Rinehart

312 pages, American Mystery Classics, ISBN 9781613161029 (softcover, hardcover)

MY RATING:  3 stars out of 5

SHORT REVIEW: The atmospheric “seaside gothic” setting, a plethora of interesting potential suspects, and the possibility of supernatural activity in The Red Lamp make up for the repeated instances of the main character being in the wrong place at the wrong time in this mystery from “the American Agatha Christie” Mary Roberts Rinehart. If you can get past the main character’s frequent mis-steps and overuse of the “if only we had known how important [item] would be” trope, the rest of the cast, as well as the setting itself, will pull you in and make for a mostly enjoyable read.

LONGER REVIEW: The Red Lamp is narrated by literature professor William Porter mostly through the use of a journal he kept during a particularly troublesome summer holiday on the property he inherits after his Uncle Horace dies. Locals insist the house is haunted. Porter is skeptical, but can’t deny weird stuff is going on, especially when local sheep are ritualistically slaughtered and a volunteer deputy goes missing. Porter can’t help being in the wrong place at the wrong time multiple times throughout the book, becoming the chief suspect as disappearances and bodies pile up.

And that’s what I struggled with the most with this book: just how many times can a man who knows he’s under suspicion and being watched realistically put himself in situations that only increase the police’s suspicions. If it were being played for humor, as a pastiche of period mystery novels, I might feel differently, but there’s no indication Rinehart was sending up the genre or herself. Porter complains of his rising anxiety over being suspected often enough that at one point I actually shouted, “Then stop going places alone!”

I also was not a fan of the overuse of the trope where the narrator interrupts his own journal with phrases like “if only we’d realized at the time how important [thing] would be later…” as if the author didn’t trust her audience to pick up on clues, or as if the narrator is asking the reader for forgiveness for his overweening cluelessness.

What did I like about the book? The atmosphere of the seaside setting. The large manor house and smaller lodge and boathouse are all as much characters as the humans, and the rural surroundings of wood and farmland and dirt roads add a nice sense of menace at key moments. I liked the slow development of the possible supernatural aspect and how the author kept me wondering right up to the end as to whether the big reveal would be supernatural, mundane, or a combination of both. The broad cast of characters, from Porter’s “psychically sensitive” wife, lovesick niece and the niece’s heroic love interest, to the suspicious local doctor, neighboring “recently rich” couple and fairly incompetent police, kept me guessing and provided plenty of suspects outside of the protagonist to choose from.

What I liked and what I didn’t like ultimately balanced each other out. I think had the book been about a quarter shorter in length, with fewer contrivances to make the narrator the chief suspect, I would have enjoyed it more.

This book has been on my shelves in one form or another for quite a few years, having picked up older paperback editions at various used bookstores. American Mystery Classics brought it back into print a few years back, and it’s that edition that I added to my TBR Challenge as an alternate title last year. It’s the title from last year I didn’t read, so I made sure it was first on this year’s challenge. I’m glad I read it, despite the flaws. Mary Roberts Rinehart has been called “the American Agatha Christie” and according to some accounts even outsold Dame Agatha. American Mystery Classics has been steadily bringing her catalog back into print, and I intend to read a few more of her titles, probably with one of her series characters.

Review of FRESH KILL

TITLE: Fresh Kill (The Jimmy McSwain Files, Book 6)

AUTHOR: Adam Carpenter

269 pages, MLR Press, ISBN 9781641222426 (paperback)

DESCRIPTION: (from Goodreads) Jimmy McSwain returns, but the question remains, now that he has finally solved the fifteen-year-old murder of his father, NYPD cop Joseph, who is he now? Busy concentrating on family issues, Jimmy hasn’t taken a new case in nearly three months, and when a call comes in from Philip Connelly, who wants proof of his wife, Myra’s, cheating, Jimmy is torn. Take the case, or so no. He rejects it, only to learn a week later that Philip has been found dead in a park on Staten Island. The police believe it was suicide, but Myra—a self-admitted adulteress—is convinced he was murdered. Guilt eating at him, Jimmy agrees to take the case. But it seems his decision to rejoin the world has also affected the other areas of his life: his sister Mallory is healing from the bullet meant for Jimmy, an old friend from his father’s past has resurfaced, and his lover, Captain Francis X. Frisano, is working a difficult case in Chelsea where gay men are being attacked. If that wasn’t enough, Jimmy is on the hunt for his new nemesis, the criminal mastermind Mr. Wu-Tin, who months ago tried to murder him. A fire at one Mr. Wu-Tin’s warehouses stirs fear in Jimmy that the man is trying to destroy evidence of his crimes. As he works the case of the cuckolded husband, a surprise twist happens in his pursuit of Mr. Wu-Tin. Suddenly Jimmy feels that just as he is hoping to find answers, new questions emerge about what it means to get a fresh start on life.

MY RATING: 5 stars out of 5

MY THOUGHTS: Fresh Kill launches a new sequence of Jimmy McSwain Files from author Adam Carpenter. Any time a series that seems to already be complete takes a pause and then returns, there’s always the concern that the author may be dipping too many times into the same tapped-out well. Will the new books just be repetitive of what went before? Will we see the same types of cases, the same types of suspects, the same-old-same-old romance/sex?

I’m happy to report that Adam Carpenter has managed to keep things fresh with his re-launch of the Jimmy McSwain Files. Yes, there are some similarities in terms of narrative arc and character development, but overall this doesn’t feel like a re-tread. If this were a television series (and hopefully someday it will be), this book would be that season that gets added when the network says “your show makes us a lot of money, find a way to continue it.” Unfortunately, on television such decisions rarely result in a new season of equal or better quality (I’m looking at you, Castle!). Thankfully, in the print world the creator/author has a bit more control over what’s done to extend the story.

The action picks up just a few months after the end of Forever Haunt, the final book in the first sequence. For those who might not remember, that book ended with good news/bad news. Jimmy finally solved the murder of his beloved father, but a new enemy tried to kill Jimmy and almost succeeded in killing his sister Mallory instead. Jimmy’s been taking time off from the private investigating to help with Mallory’s physical therapy (and, honestly, to blame himself for her predicament and vow vengeance on the man who ordered the botched hit). So this sequence gives Jimmy a new family-related crime to obsess over: finding the evidence he needs to help the police arrest and convict international businessmen/crime lord Mr. Wu-Tin. This is similar to the arc of the first five books, in which Jimmy was obsessed with solving the death of his own father in front of his eyes fourteen years earlier. The difference this time is that Jimmy knows exactly who ordered the hit on him – he just can’t prove it because the evidence he has on Mr. Wu-Tin is inadmissible in court. And so the NYC Police, with whom Jimmy has always had a tenuous relationship as an organization, can’t do anything. Jimmy is frustrated with their inaction and with being told to stay away from the suspect while the wheels of justice slowly turn.

But now that Mallory is being transferred to a care facility “up-state” (Putnam County, which really is only considered “upstate NY” if you’re from NYC or Long Island, but I digress), Jimmy needs to start working again. Investigating, and aggravating, Mr. Wu-Tin is not going to pay the bills. Jimmy gets a call from, and turns down, a potential client who wants him to investigate infidelity claims. A week later, the caller turns up dead on Staten Island. The police say it was suicide, but the victim’s wife wants Jimmy to prove it was murder. Complicating matters is the wife’s actual infidelity with not one but two men (one she calls her lover, the other her boyfriend), and employees of the dead man with secrets of their own. It’s a fairly straightforward murder mystery as these things go, although if I have any complaint about the book it’s that there weren’t enough actual suspects to consider. Most of the peripheral characters are cleared pretty quickly and written off (so to speak). I think I’d have liked a little more mystery to the mystery; instead, the reader picks up pretty quick on what’s really going on – quicker than Jimmy does, at least – and more time is spent linking the main case to Jimmy’s obsession. I won’t spoil all the twists that get us there, as there are some fun reveals along the way.

There are also three subplots running, that will continue through the remaining books in this sequence, I’m sure.

First, there’s Mallory’s recovery, set against the fact that the rest of the women in the family have the summer off (the theater at which Jimmy’s mother and younger sister work closes for the summer) which leaves Jimmy as superfluous at best. There are several solid scenes between Jimmy and his family members, including his Uncle Paddy, and I always love seeing these interactions. This is a family that loves each other but never pretends any one of them is perfect, and the relationships feel real.

The second sub-plot has Jimmy developing a new mentor relationship – Ralphie, his father’s best friend and former police partner died in Forever Haunt and Jimmy’s feeling at loose ends for a mentor. Enter Jonathan Tolliver, another former co-worker of Jimmy’s dad, now retired thanks to ALS. Jonathan fills the hole quite well, providing advice and insider info from his time on the force. Unfortunately, it’s pretty obvious that Jonathan, like Jimmy’s previous mentor, likely won’t survive the end of this sequence.

And the third sub-plot is, of course, Jimmy’s relationship with Captain Francis X. Frisano of the New York City Police. It took a long time, and lots of near-misses, for Jimmy and Frank to become comfortable with their relationship and how public it is or isn’t. Since the Jimmy McSwain Files are romance as much as mystery, Carpenter almost has to play into the tradition of throwing roadblocks in the lovers’ way. The roadblocks here start early, with discussions of career paths and public displays of affection, and build throughout the book mostly thanks to Frank’s precinct needing to investigate a robbery-turned-murder of a gay couple (clarification: only one of the couple dies). This is a rough book for “Friswain” fans, for sure. (I’m not sure if I just created a ‘ship name…)  Oh, and it probably behooves me to mention, there’s lots of well-described sex between the two. Just in case anyone new to the series doesn’t know about the explicit sex already.

In addition to the strong presence of Jimmy’s family and new mentor, I was happy to see the Frisano/gaybashing storyline allowed Carpenter to bring back another fun supporting character in Terry Cloth, owner and drag-queen host of The Dress-Up Club. It’s not easy for Carpenter to work the Dress-Up Club into the narrative if there isn’t a case involving the club, but it works pretty organically here. In fact, I’d love a non-mystery novel from Carpenter set in the Dress-Up Club.

The main mystery comes to a head and co-mingles with both Jimmy’s obsession and his romantic life in the book’s closing pages – without spoilers I can say there’s a pretty serious series of gut-punches for our hero that make me think the next book or two in the series are going to be very different from the six we’ve seen so far. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as it gives the author a chance to break away from any sort of formula and hopefully gives the main character a chance to grow even more.

My thoughts on the first five books in the series can be found HERE.