‘Con Law’ by Mark Gimenez

Published by Sphere,
13 February 2014.
ISBN: 978-0-7515-4381-09

  

It’s a truth universally acknowledged, at least by booksellers, publishers and possibly readers, that people love series. So when an author begins to acquire a following, it’s a fair bet that a a few books down the line, a series will appear.

So it is with Mark Gimenez, who had deservedly begun to corner the market in Texas-based mysteries with a lawyer as protagonist. His latest book is the first of what promises to be a long-running series featuring John ‘Book’ Bookman, a tenured professor (lecturer to British readers) of constitutional law at the University of Texas’s prestigious law school.

‘Book’ has been likened to Indiana Jones, and has his own reasons for never missing an opportunity to kick important political ass. He also likes to take on lost causes, and consequently is showered with letters from desperate people.

In Con Law, the letter is from a former student, now a lawyer. Book and his reluctant intern Nadine hop aboard his Harley Davidson and head for oil country, where fracking is the new route to Billionaire’s Row. But in the wrong hands (or in any hands at all, depending on how environment-conscious you are) fracking is a recipe for disaster, and the lawyer, who represents the company which runs the entire industry in that part of Texas, has made a devastating discovery.

Devastating for the industry – and for him. When Book and Nadine arrive, they find the lawyer is dead.

Was it an accident, as local law enforcement claims and most people in the town, including the man’s family and friends, have chosen to believe? Or was it murder? No prizes for guessing which Book thinks it is.

With the help of a colourful cast of characters including an old-fashioned newspaperman, a glamorous environmentalist and the local sheriff, he proceeds to take on Billy Bob Barnett, the most powerful oilman in the west. Of Texas, that is. As the action winds up to breakneck pace, there are car-bike chases, a shotgun fired though a hotel window, fights in bars... (did I mention Book is a taekwondo grand master?).

It’s not giving away too much to say that Nadine ends up in hospital but discovers that she can’t hide away from real life for ever. And just when you thought it was all over for Book, there’s a neat twist which sends everything careening off in a different direction from the one you thought you were following.

John Grisham, eat your heart out. This could be the kind of legal thriller series that will actually make young people want to study law.  And those letters keep landing on Book’s desk...

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Reviewer Lynne Patrick

Mark Gimenez  grew up in Galveston County, Texas. He attended Southwest Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas, and earned a B.A. in Political Science with honors. He then attended Notre Dame Law School in Indiana and earned a J.D. degree magna cum laude. He practiced law with a large Dallas law firm and became a partner. After ten years, he left to practice solo and to write. Mark lives in texas.

http://www.markgimenez.com/

      Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

‘Refusal’ by Felix Francis

Published (USA) by Putnam, 3 September, 2013. ISBN 978-0-399-16081-3
(UK) Michael Joseph, 12 September, 2013. ISBN 978-0718159368

 It's been six years since investigator Sid Halley retired, tired of the beatings, pressure and danger.  Since then, he has lived a quiet life with his wife and young daughter, earning a living as an investor, trading money instruments and shares.  He promised himself and his wife that he would not return to his former profession, but events proved the opposite when the chairman of the racing authority begged him to look into a series of questionable races.

Following a familiar Francis formula, circumstances arise which force Sid to reverse his adamant refusal to undertake such an investigation. The day after his meeting, the chairman is found dead, a possible suicide, but Sid believes really murder.  Then a telephone call from a
man with a Belfast Irish accent menacingly demands that Sid write a report claiming the races were not suspicious.  Thus, the stage is set for the expected scrutiny, danger to Sid, his family and associates, and confrontation with the culprits.

The formula, which has been successful for about four dozen books by the Francises, pere et fils, works like a charm once again.  Felix had now written four novels as a co-author with Dick, and this is the third one on his own.  Looking forward with bated breath for the
fourth. Highly recommended.
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Reviewer: Ted Feit

Felix Francis  is Dick Francis’s youngest son. Born in 1953, Felix studied Physics and Electronics at London University and then embarked upon a 17 year career teaching Advanced Level physics at three schools, the last seven as head of the science department at Bloxham School in Oxfordshire. Over the past 40 years Felix assisted Dick with both the research and the writing of many of his novels. They shared a love of racing and often worked together on plot and character details at Dick’s home in the Cayman Islands. This partnership allowed Dick to draw upon Felix’s knowledge and experience as a physics teacher in Twice Shy and his past as an international marksman in Shattered (2000) and Under Orders (2006). With the publication of Dead Heat in 2007, Felix took on a more significant role in writing. Silks (2008) was the second novel in this father-and-son collaboration and Even Money (2009) was the third. Crossfire (2010) was the novel Dick and Felix Francis were working on when Dick died in February 2010, marking the end of one chapter and the beginning of another in the Dick Francis brand. Dick Francis was acclaimed as one of the greatest thriller writers in the world and he wanted his legacy to live on through his son, Felix, and the novels that they planned together. Gamble, which was published in September 2011, is a Dick Francis novel written by Felix Francis.

http://www.felixfrancis.com

Ted and Gloria Feit live in Long Beach, NY, a few miles outside New York City.  For 26 years, Gloria was the manager of a medium-sized litigation firm in lower Manhattan. Her husband, Ted, is an attorney and former stock analyst, publicist and writer/editor for, over the years, several daily, weekly and monthly publications.  Having always been avid mystery readers, and since they're now retired, they're able to indulge that passion.  Their reviews appear online as well as in three print publications in the UK and US.  On a more personal note: both having been widowed, Gloria and Ted have five children and nine grandchildren between them.

‘The Shroud Maker’ by Kate Ellis

Published by Piatkus,
5 June 2014.
ISBN: 978-0-7499-5803-9

In Tradmouth in Devon, it is the time of the annual Palkin Festival, celebrating the town's famous (some say infamous) Fourteenth Century Mayor, John Palkin. Holiday makers and locals, all clad in variations of medieval dress, flock to the town to celebrate the wealthy shipowner. For the police, the Palkin Festival is a time of incipient trouble and extra work. DI Wesley Peterson had been away from Tradmouth last year during the Palkin Festival, but his boss, DCI Gerry Hefferman was there and is still haunted by the memory of the mysterious disappearance of a beautiful, red-haired young woman called Jenny Bercival. Now Jenny's mother is back in Tradmouth, desperate to find her daughter and the searchers' darkest fears become reality when the body of a red-haired young woman is found floating in an open boat in the harbour.

Also in Tradmouth, Wesley's friend, Neil Watson is conducting an archaeological investigation on the site of Palkin's house and warehouse. When Neil and his team make a grisly discovery, it is unclear whether they have found evidence of a contemporary crime or a historical one. Past and present are united by a fantasy website called Shipworld. In this fantasy, Palkin is a supernatural hero who fights a faceless villain known as the Shroud Maker.

More deaths follow and the nearer Wesley and Gerry move to solving the crimes and discovering the identity of the Shroud Maker, the closer they come to personal danger.

In The Shroud Maker, the past and present are drawn together, as every chapter begins with a short historical section, mainly in the form of excerpts from a history of John Palkin written by Josiah Palkin-Wright, a Victorian who claimed to be a descendant of Palkin, or letters written by Charlotte, Palkin-Wright's desperately unhappy wife.

This is the 19^th in the Wesley Peterson series. It combines the historical and contemporary investigations with great skill. The contemporary investigation is riveting and the tension is well maintained. The police officers are well characterised and likeable people and the description of life in a Devonshire port town is totally believable.

This is an excellent and enjoyable police procedural, which I would definitely recommend.

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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Kate Ellis was born in Liverpool and studied drama in Manchester. She is interested in archaeology and lives in North Cheshire.  Kate has twice been nominated for the Crime Writers' Association Short Story Dagger and has alse been nominated for the Theakstons Old Peculier Crime Novel of the Year.

Visit her at www.kateellis.co.uk

 

Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher.  She is the moderator for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly Dames.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  The Terminal Velocity of Cats is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published July 2013

www.carolwestron.com

'The Fruit Gum Murders' Roger Silverwood

 Published by Robert Hale,
31 March 2014.
ISBN 978-0-7198-1231-6

We begin at a gala dance at Muick Castle where a very valuable necklace disappears during a black-out.    Inspector Angel is faced with several cases involving murder and fraud besides this apparent jewel robbery.  He works in Bromersley, South Yorkshire and has a reputation for successful solutions.  He is an experienced detective but an inspector is only as successful as his last case, I suppose, so he feels a constant need to succeed.

The murder scene that faces the Inspector and his team in an anonymous hotel room is suitably baffling.  The most significant clue to a mysterious death is a fruit gum found on the floor!    Even the pathologist experiences difficulty in deciding the cause of death,  Further deaths follow including that of an ex-hospital porter as deeply buried family secrets start to surface and raise the possibility of blackmail.  The pressures on the Inspector intensify as further deaths occur.  The leitmotiv of fruit gums occurs to increase the bafflement of the team.

Fortunately Inspector Angel is a dogged investigator despite the many distractions.  He manages to separate the various tangled skeins so that he can achieve solutions.  Another leitmotiv is an ugly and unidentifiable statuette that neighbours have given Angel and his wife.  Efforts to both identify the animal and to persuade someone else to take it constantly backfire!

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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer

Roger Silverwood was the son of a Yorkshire businessman. He was educated in Gloucestershire before National Service. He later worked in the toy trade, then as a copywriter in an advertising agency. He went into business with his wife in the antiques trade before retiring in 1997. His Inspector is now on 20th book.

http://www.rogersilverwood.uwclub.net/RogerSl.htm

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.

‘Cold Steal’ by Quentin Bates

Published by Constable and Robinson, 1 May 2014.

This is another fine mystery by Mr Bates.  He is adept at turning a cold eye on a seemingly placid community like Iceland, more particularly, on Reykjavik, deftly dissecting the seething subsoil of crime which lies beneath the Nordic landscape. 

In Cold Steal, he turns his ice-pick sharp attention to the nefarious operations of what he calls the Baltic Boys, from east Europe, who have invaded the Icelandic criminal society.  A man is found dead in a house in a half-completed suburb of the city, with his naked girl-friend crouched beside him.  Who?  Why?  At the same time, the police are trying to track down a highly-successful burglar whom nobody ever sees or hears.  Sergeant Gunnhildur "Gunna" Gísladóttir is on the case again, doggedly following information, talking to possible suspects, making the kind of intelligent moves which bring her ever closer to the solution.

We are also introduced to three women who have come from eastern Europe to Iceland to look for work, and find it by getting taken on by a company which has contracts to regularly clean houses, many of them on the self-same half-completed suburb in which the unknown burglar operates.

Bates has the gift of bringing alive his terrain, as well as a subtle sense of humour.  Gunna's family complications are hilarious.  Cold Steal is a complex, multi-stranded and absorbing crime story  in which Bates skilfully interweaves the various threads of his plot and shows him making a significant advance as a novelist.

Highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Susan Moody

Quentin Bates  is an English novelist of mystery/crime fiction novels. Quentin found himself working in Iceland for a year, which turned into a decade, and has used some of that experience as well as a university writing course to develop his Gunnhildur series. Although he is British, Quentin is more in line with Scandinavian crime fiction authors. Quentin is also a full-time journalist and feature writer for an obscure nautical trade magazine.

www.graskeggur.com

Susan Moody was born in Oxford is the principal nom de plume  of Susan Elizabeth Donaldson, née Horwood, a British novelist best known for her suspense novels. She is a former Chairman of the Crime Writer's Association, served as World President of the International Association of Crime Writers, and was elected to the prestigious Detection Club. Susan Moody has given numerous courses on writing crime fiction and continues to teach creative writing in England, France, Australia, the USA and Denmark.  In addition to her many stand alone books, Susan has written two series, on featuring PI Penny Wanawake (seven books) and a series of six books featuring bridge player Cassie Swan.

‘Trouble in the Cotswolds’ by Rebecca Tope.

Published by Allison and Busby,
20 March 2014.
ISBN: 978-0-7490-1443-8

House-sitter Thea Osborne is all set for a quiet Christmas house-sitting for the Shepherds in the village of Stanton.  All her duties are, apart from her mere presence being to ward off burglars, to walk Blondie the great Dane and feed, water and let out to play – the rats.  Sounds pretty simply, well apart from the rats!

Her employers have hardy left when a funeral cortège  appears.  Thea discovers that the funeral is of a local businessman, but oddly that one half of the funeral is taking place at the home of his wife and the other half at the home of his mistress – next door to Thea.

Settling in for Christmas Thea finds herself with a tickly throat, but we all know that feeling, soon it is a fully fledged sore  throat and ‘flu.  In the circumstances it would be simple for Thea to take to her bed and hunker down with a few lem-sips.  But circumstances dictate otherwise.

Soon Thea despite her ‘flu is in the thick of it. Local man Dennis Ireland seems to be a staunch ally but is he?  With yet another dead body on her doorstep, Thea knows not which way to turn.  Even the unexpected presence of Drew doesn’t help. Thea questions everything and nothing seems right. 

I so greatly enjoy this series and I felt for Thea trying to battle along with the ‘flu and hoping that someone could just take it away and make it all right, but life isn’t like that – as Thea discovers.  Terrific entry in this series. One that kept me guessing to the end. No change there. Highly recommended.

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Reviewer: Lizzie Hayes

Rebecca Tope is the author of three popular murder mystery series, featuring Den Cooper, Devon police detective, Drew Slocombe, Undertaker, and Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds. Rebecca grew up on farms, first in Cheshire then in Devon, and now lives in rural Herefordshire on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains.

Besides "ghost writer" of the novels based on the ITV series Rosemary and Thyme. Rebecca is also the proprietor of a small press - Praxis Books. This was established in 1992

www.rebeccatope.com

‘The Dead Queen’s Garden’ by Nicola Slade

Published by Robert Hale,
31 December 2013.
ISBN: 978-0-7198-1038-1

It is December 1858 and, for the first time, Charlotte Richmond's life is blissfully settled and secure. Charlotte is living in Hampshire with her late, (and unlamented) husband's family. Her brother-in-law, his wife and their young son occupy the big house and Charlotte and her wealthy, good-hearted grandmother-in-law live in the Dower House. Only two things mar Charlotte's contentment: the illness of her dearest friend, Elaine Knightley and the ever-present fear that somebody from her shady past in Australia will appear to destroy her good reputation.

Her brother-in-law, Barnard, and his wife, Lily, are celebrating the christening of their infant son and have secured illustrious godparents for the child in the shape of Lord and Lady Granville, the most important family in the neighbourhood. Recently, scandal and fear have stalked the neighbourhood because Lady Granville's elderly personal maid has been found murdered. When Charlotte meets Lady Granville, she swiftly realises there are two things she cares about passionately: her young son, Oz, and the medieval garden she has created in the style of Queen Eleanor of Provence.

At the christening party, strange events occur. There is an unfortunate incident outside the church, involving a push of people and an open grave. At the party a guest is taken ill, but nobody suspects anything as he is elderly and not in good health. Far more serious is the death, the next day, of a healthy young lady, poisoned, apparently by the wassail cup that Barnard had served to his guests.

Charlotte is invited to visit Lady Granville and inspect her garden. She admires the garden and soon grows fond of young Oz Granville, a lonely, cosseted child. As the incidents continue, Charlotte comes to suspect that Oz is the intended target and is determined to make sure that he is safe. When Charlotte discovers who is behind the murders she finds herself in imminent danger and is forced to defend herself with a most unusual, not to say bizarre, weapon.

The Dead Queen's Garden is the third book in the Charlotte Richmond series and the author shows great skill in providing background information without revealing too much. It is a funny book, which often moves into farce, but it has a fast-moving mystery and some warmly engaging characters. It also contains all the average reader will want to know about historical subjects ranging from medieval gardens to rat-hunting. I have read the first two books and particularly liked the way the characters have grown and, in most cases, become more likeable as Charlotte's relationship with them grows warmer. The Dead Queen's Garden is fast-moving, humorous, historical crime story. It is a very good read and I would recommend it.

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Reviewer: Carol Westron

Nicola Slade was brought up in Poole, Dorset. She wrote children’s stories when her three children were growing up, moving onto short stories for several national magazines. Winning a story competition in Family Circle galvanised her into writing seriously and since then her stories and articles have been commissioned regularly. Scuba Dancin, a romantic comedy was her first published novel. After that she wrote a series of Victorian mysteries: Murder Most Welcome  published by Robert Hale Ltd, 2008, featuring Charlotte Richmond, a young widow in the 1850s. Charlotte also features in the second of the series: Death is the Cure, also published by Robert Hale Ltd, at the end of 2009. The third of Charlotte's adventures,The Dead Queen's Garden, will be published in December 2013. Murder Fortissimo, also published by Robert Hale Ltd, came out at the end of January 2011. This is a contemporary 'cosy' crime novel, featuring former headmistress, Harriet Quigley, and her sidekick and cousin, Rev Sam Hathaway. A Crowded Coffin', is the second adventure for Harriet and Sam. Nicola, her husband and their cat live near Winchester in Hampshire.

Find out more about Nicola at  blog:www.nicolaslade.wordpress.com

Carol Westron is a successful short story writer and a Creative Writing teacher.  She is the moderator for the cosy/historical crime panel, The Deadly Dames.  Her crime novels are set both in contemporary and Victorian times.  The Terminal Velocity of Cats is the first in her Scene of Crimes novels, was published July 2013

www.carolwestron.com

‘Life for a Life’ by T F Muir

Published by Constable and Robinson Ltd,
September 2013.
ISBN: 978-1780337791

St Andrews: championship golf course, high-profile university, beautiful town in equally beautiful setting. It’s a place I’ve never visited, but that’s the image it presents. It has always struck me as a quiet, rural sort of place, especially since it was deemed a suitable location for the once-removed heir to the throne to complete his education.

After reading T F Muir’s Life for a Life, I began to think Prince William was lucky to escape with his skin intact. It starts with the discovery of the battered body of a young girl, and gets steadily bloodier. Enter DCI Andy Gilchrist, to head up the murder enquiry.

Muir is an author who doesn’t pull his punches. Graphic descriptions of murdered bodies abound. The reader is subjected, along with the protagonist, to a detailed, gory account of a video of a killing by decapitation. And the body count, for a quiet, rural sort of place, is phenomenal.

Apparently this peaceful corner of Scotland – which Muir brings to shivering life in the course of  an Arctic winter – is a hotbed of organized crime: rape, people trafficking, prostitution, gang warfare: you name it, St Andrews is rife with it.

As fictional detectives go, Gilchrist isn’t out of the ordinary: dysfunctional family, failed marriage, a bit too fond of a dram, ill at ease with his feelings. It’s the supporting characters who provide the spice of variety, especially the women in his life. There’s Nance, detective sergeant, and clearly part of his emotional history. Becky Cooper, glamorous pathologist, is the current temptation, but unfortunately married. And Jessie Janes, another detective sergeant and newly arrived from Glasgow, is mouthy and abrasive with family and secrets which make her almost as dysfunctional as Glichrist himself.

The narrative is peppered with equally interesting minor players. On the side of the angels are Mhairi, detective constable, who stays mainly in the background but reveals hidden depths, luckily for her boss; Jackie the disabled researcher; and Janes’s teenage son, profoundly deaf Robert with a talent for writing comedy, who has huge potential for development. The bad guys are equally well drawn, from Angus the hapless estate agent through provocative Caryl Dillanos to Kumar, the pyschopathic criminal mastermind who remains a shadow until... well, you’ll have to read it to find out.

It’s the fourth in a series, well written though a little inclined towards over-explanation in places, and there are references throughout to investigations and relationships in the earlier books. Given the picturesque surroundings and the colourful cast, Gilchrist is a cop who is ripe for the TV treatment; John Hannah springs to mind, though David Tennant would do nicely is he was free. Though perhaps viewers could do without quite as much gory detail.

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Reviewer: Lynne Patrick

T F Muir Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Frank was plagued from a young age with the urge to see more of the world than the rain sodden slopes of the Campsie Fells.  By the time he graduated from University with a degree he hated, he’d already had more jobs than the River Clyde has bends.  Short stints as a lumberjack in the Scottish Highlands and a moulder’s labourer in the local foundry convinced Frank that his degree was not such a bad idea after all.  Thirty-plus years of living and working overseas helped him appreciate the raw beauty of his home country.  Now a dual US/UK citizen, Frank makes his home in the outskirts of Glasgow, from where he visits St Andrews regularly to carry out some serious research in the old grey town’s many pubs and restaurants.  Frank is working hard on his next novel, another crime story suffused with dark alleyways and cobbled streets and some things gruesome.

http://www.frankmuir.co.uk

Lynne Patrick has been a writer ever since she could pick up a pen, and has enjoyed success with short stories, reviews and feature journalism, but never, alas, with a novel. She crossed to the dark side to become a publisher for a few years, and is proud to have launched several careers which are now burgeoning. She lives on the edge of rural Derbyshire in a house groaning with books, about half of them crime fiction.

'Mr Campion's Farewell' completed by Mike Ripley

Published by Severn House,
April 2014.
ISBN 978-0-7278-8383-4

If the name sounds familiar you are correct - this is the Golden Age detective writer Margery Allingham's aristocratic detective, Albert Campion resurfacing!   As the book cover puts it 'Margery Allingham's Albert Campion returns in Mr Campion's Farewell.   When Margery Allingham died in 1966, her widower, Philip Youngman Carter completed her book, Cargo of Eagles, and wrote 2 more Campion books - Mr Campion's Farthing and Mr Campion's Falcon - then he died in 1969 leaving a fragment of manuscript for a third book.   It is this book that Mike Ripley offered to complete for the Margery Allingham Society who own the manuscript.  Mike is, of course, an accomplished writer of detective fiction in his own right and a devoted fan of Margery Allingham.  

Mike modestly disclaims any attempt to recreate Margery's style but, it seems to me, that he and Philip Youngman Carter (whose style and approach Mike does follow) have caught many of the qualities of Margery's original character of Albert Campion and her light hearted style of presentation.

We begin in September 1969 in the traditional English village of Lindsay Carfax with its cutesy ambience.  Albert's niece, an artist, is living there and participating in the local tradition of serving the tourists, in her case by painting copies of landscapes that could possibly be Old Masters though not guaranteed as such to the buyer.   The village is run not by a parish council but by a group known as the Carders which has some connection to wool and an apparent fixation on the number nine.   On a visit to see his niece, Eliza Jane, Campion has several misadventures which build up his suspicions of malpractice while puzzling him further as to the nature of the problem.

There are here the Allingham features of mystifying and unconnected happenings, a convincing period atmosphere and witty repartee.   The story reaches a satisfying and thrilling climax leaving Albert, though rather battered by his experiences, returning to the embraces of his family.  Characters from the Allingham pantheon appear to aid and hassle Albert in his attempted elucidation.  

Mike Ripley has produced a worthy successor to the Allingham/Youngman Carter oeuvre - I enjoyed it immensely.  The development of events in his decision to complete the Youngman Carter book are explained in an author's note and the tradition of mapping used in the previous books is continued here.

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Reviewer: Jennifer S. Palmer

Mike Ripley is the author of the award-winning ‘Angel’ series of comedy thrillers.  He has won the Crime Writers Association 'Last Laugh Award' twice, first in 1989 with Angel Touch and then again in 1991 for Angels in Arms. Mike was also a scriptwriter for the BBC comedy-drama series Lovejoy (1986–94), which starred Ian McShane as a lovable rogue antique dealer.

For ten years Mike served as crime fiction critic for The Daily Telegraph and on the Birmingham Post for a further eight, reviewing in all over 950 crime novels..

In 2003 he suffered a stroke, and wrote an account of his recovery, Surviving a Stroke, which was published in 2006.

Currently he writes the "Getting Away With Murder" column for the online publication Shots. He is also the series editor at Ostara Publishing, which specialises in reprinting classic mysteries and thrillers.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.

‘The Mainwarings’ by Digger Cartwright

Published by Xlibris Corporation, 2012.
ISBN: 978-1-4771-5037-5

The cover describes the book as a Western but it has a wide canvas with politics and mystery as major parts. The era is that of the US Reconstruction after the Civil War and the assassination of Lincoln. The Maynwarings of the title are very important family in the developing Carson City with a very large ranch and other businesses. The head of the family is United States Senator Barron Maynwaring who, as the book opens, has just returned home from Washington DC where he has been dealing with all the complications of reconstructing the USA after a highly destructive war and with the seething animosities of that war not resolved. He is musing on his new hat called a Stetson purchased in Philadelphia from Mr. Stetson's shop as the story begins but such frivolities are quickly forced from his mind as events develop. His family and other dependants are described in a rather breathless first chapter revealing that all assist in the enterprises and are respected citizens. The women of the family are as intelligent and tough as the males.

However, strange things are happening in Carson City with a mysterious man called Giddeon van Thorn in town with unlimited supplies of money to buy properties. Trouble comes through an argument over a gambling game leading to a death and to a posse to capture the possible killer.

Gradually the Maywarings become aware that they are being targeted in various ways that could destroy the ranch and the family. There is a lot of action here in traditional Western fashion and the story moves fast and furiously. Will the Maynwarings overcome their mysterious enemies and with what peripheral damage? Will the mysteries be unlocked? It is a page turner. Moreover there is an open ended final chapter which suggests more may follow.
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Reviewer: Jennifer Palmer
Digger Cartwright has written other books - thrillers like The Versailles Conspiracy and The a House of Dark Shadows. His nom de plume hides an industrialist and investor in the USA.

Robert ‘Digger’ Cartwright is the author of several mystery stories, teleplays, and novels including The Maynwarings: A Game of Chance, a mystery set in the Old West, The Versailles Conspiracy, a modern day political thriller, Murder at the Ocean Forest, a traditional mystery novel set in the 1940s, The House of Dark Shadows, a psychological thriller, and Conversations on the Bench, an inspirational and motivational compilation of life lessons. In the business realm, he has contributed to a number of articles on a wide range of financial, strategic planning, and policy topics and is a contributor to several finance/economic books. He frequently contributes articles, commentaries, and editorials focusing on current economic and political topics for the private think tank. Mr. Cartwright’s philanthropic efforts include interests in a wide range of causes, predominantly at the local level. He enjoys golf, participating in charity golf tournaments, falconry, and attending WWE events. He divides his time between Washington, D.C., South Carolina, and Florida.

Jennifer Palmer Throughout my reading life crime fiction has been a constant interest; I really enjoyed my 15 years as an expatriate in the Far East, the Netherlands & the USA but occasionally the solace of closing my door to the outside world and sitting reading was highly therapeutic. I now lecture to adults on historical topics including Famous Historical Mysteries.