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These winged beach rats have opinions. Image by Leila from Pixabay

Good afterevenmorn!

Once again, there appears to be a lot of talk on the various socials about what is and isn’t good ‘art’ (writing, music and actual art) and who is “cringe” for liking what. Of course, for every declarative “cringe” thing, there is a considerable amount of pushback from the folks who like that thing. Heavens, it’s all so very tiresome.

I know I’ve ranted about this, but the proliferation of this nonsense in the past couple of weeks has inspired to repeat myself. Yet again.

I have variously seen angry rants about Sleep Token (a genre-defying band that enjoyed a meteoric rise in the past couple of years), romance novels, fantasy novels, science fiction novels, horror novels, literary fiction, anything in the Warhammer universe, My Little Pony nonsense (yes, even after all this time), and even someone who decided that it’s cliché, boring and stupid for young women to love horses.

Good lord.

Just let people like things.

I can’t believe I have to say this again in the year two thousand and twenty-five.

This Canadian cobra chicken is going to make themselves heard, damn it. Image by Lo Age from Pixabay.

While this is covering a broad list of things that I saw this week, it is especially pertinent for speculative fiction. So many people in speculative fiction try to make themselves feel better about their preferred genre by being absolutely horrendous to other folks for no other reason than their own enjoyment of a different genre. It’s the dumbest thing I have ever personally witnessed.

Listen, everyone is perhaps a little wound-up at present. Perhaps that’s why some folks are overblowing small, personal tastes and attempting to shame or belittle anyone who happens to think differently. I get it. I’m pretty irritable at present, too. Things are less than fun for most people at the moment. If you find yourself getting irrationally irate at a particular take, I’m going to offer you a plan of action.

Ready? Let’s begin.

So, someone likes something you don’t

Before posting your rebuttal, go through this short checklist:

1. Does their liking something you do not materially affect your life at all?

If their obsession with Warhammer 40K intrudes only on your timeline and not in any other part of your life, your best course of action is to simply scroll past and leave them alone.

Now if it is doing some material, genuine harm to you and your life, then yes, feel free to discuss that. It’s rare, but I absolutely do agree that it does happen, and it should be brought to light. But if the only thing wrong with the thing is that you don’t personally like it, just scroll on.

2. Are you perhaps a little hungry?

Suffering from caffeine or nicotine withdrawal? Hold off publicly berating someone for their tastes in science fiction novels or for enjoying romance. Oh, they’re 20 years late to The Lord of the Rings, and you’re so over it? Go eat something. Have a nap. It’s alright. Everything will be a little better when you wake up.

Baby.

3. Did anyone actually ask you?

Was your opinion requested, or were they just sharing something that was giving them joy? If you were asked, by all means tell them your thoughts. Otherwise, hush. No one asked you. Believe it or not, most people couldn’t care less that you believe Sleep Token “isn’t real metal” and “is so overrated,” for example. I doubt anyone who loves fantasy as a genre cares whether or not you find it “irrelevant” and “without intellectual merit.” No need to reply to that tweet of theirs. Just scroll on. And just like that, you’ve not crushed anyone, or ruined a joyous moment, or put something unnecessarily negative out in the world for no reason but to soothe your own misplaced ire.

I know, I know. You think that it’s just so dorky. And? I don’t agree, but let’s pretend it’s objectively so very nerdy in the worst possible way. So what? Let them be a dork. Even publicly. You needn’t bother yourself with correcting them. After all, if it’s true, they’ll just be ignored, and all sad and alone. You’ll be vindicated without so much as lifting a finger. How lovely. And if they’re not ignored, but find a community 0f like-minded folks, even better. Now you’ll be spared from having to deal with all those dorks. They’ll take care of themselves in their own little corner. Go you.

This swallow needs the world to know her thoughts. Image by Kev from Pixabay.

Are you struggling to contain your rebuttal? That’s alright. We’ve all been there. Here’s a possible solution: Write it out. Write in your journal. Or on a blog post (waves). Hell, even make it a Twitter thread. Just don’t @ the person who inspired your tirade, or do it as a linked reply or quote. That way you can vent your weaselly black guts out without ruining anyone else’s day. You’ll feel better, and they’ll be blissfully unaware.

We all need to vent sometimes. That’s alright. Do that.

But I do not, never have, and never will understand the impulse to be horrid to someone sharing a thing that brings them joy just because they shared the thing that brought them joy and it doesn’t bring you joy. Let people like things. Even things you don’t like. The world won’t end. I promise.

When S.M. Carrière isn’t brutally killing your favorite characters, she spends her time teaching martial arts, live streaming video games, and cuddling her cat. In other words, she spends her time teaching others to kill, streaming her digital kills, and a cuddling furry murderer. Her most recent titles include Daughters of Britain, Skylark and Human. Her serial The New Haven Incident is free and goes up every Friday on her blog.

 

Mark Lawrence has never been one to pull punches, and The Book That Held Her Heart might just deliver his most merciless finale yet. Everything that made The Library Trilogy special (an ambitious blend of mystery, adventure, and philosophical musing) collides violently, and with lots of powerful twists.
This time, the stakes are cataclysmic. The fate of the infinite library hangs by a thread, and Livira and Evar, once inseparable, are scattered across time. Livira is chasing answers through the labyrinthine past, while Evar is trapped in an impossible situation, kept alive through means best left unspoiled. Meanwhile, the war over the library rages on, with no simple resolutions is sight.
The Book That Held Her Heart feels darker and weightier that its predecessors. Not just in terms of stakes - though those are plenty brutal - but in its themes. The story brings in a new perspective through Anne Hoffman, a Jewish girl in Nazi Germany, tying the library’s war to the real-world horrors of book burning and historical erasure. It’s a bold move, and Lawrence makes it land. I feel the incorporation of real-world history into already mind-bending worldbuilding was a gamble, but it payed off. Ultimately, the story that has always been about books, memory, and the battle between knowledge and ignorance. 
Despite the weighty themes (censorship, history’s cyclical nature, and the cost of knowledge) the novel never drags. Lawrence balances it all with his trademark wit and clever chapter epigraphs. The ending is powerful and I needed a moment to process it.
The Book That Held Her Heart is a stunning, gut-punch of a conclusion. It demands patience, rewards rereads, and cements Lawrence as one of the genre’s most daring storytellers.

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

The Notorious Virtues by Alwyn Hamilton

Mogsy’s Rating: 4.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Fantasy

Series: Book 1 of The Notorious Virtues

Publisher: Viking Books for Young Readers (April 1, 2025)

Length: 320 pages

Author Information: Website | Twitter

After years of hanging out on my Goodreads not-yet-released shelf, The Notorious Virtues, I have to say, was well worth the wait. Even though it’s been quite a while since I read Rebel of the Sands, Alwyn Hamilton clearly still has what it takes to deliver the first book of a riveting, character-driven saga that thrills with rich world-building and a high stakes plot.  The story had me hooked from page one, and I want more!

Told through the eyes of four main characters, the author transports us to the glittering city of Walstad where magic talks and where you come from means everything. No one understands this more than Honora “Nora” Holtzfall, who is born into one of the richest families, comfortably in line to inherit all her grandmother’s power and riches—that is, until her mother’s brutal murder throws the line of succession into jeopardy. Now Nora finds herself thrust back into a series of vicious Veritaz trials in which she must compete with her cousins for the right to become the Holtzfall heir. But to everyone’s surprise, an extra challenger has been added to the roster in the form of Ottoline “Lotte” Holtzfall, allegedly a long-lost member of the family who has been raised secretly at a convent. Confident in her skills and intelligence, Nora isn’t threatened at all by this newcomer, but unbeknownst to her, Lotte actually possesses one of the rarest, most powerful magical abilities found in the Holtzfall family bloodline.

Meanwhile, Nora has not forgotten what had set everything in motion in the first place and is determined to find her mother’s killer. The press has already all but named the Grimms as culprits, since the resistance group is known to target the aristocracy in their fight to achieve more equality between Walstad’s disparate classes. However, Nora is not convinced, and neither is August, a skeptical journalist who believes the murder was more than just a mugging gone wrong. Forming a tenuous alliance, the two of them set out to find the truth. And finally, we have Theo, our fourth POV character and a member of the Rydder Knights—an ancient order magically bound to serve the Holtzfall family ever since the first knight swore a sacred oath centuries ago. But over time, that relationship has begun to erode, and what was meant to ensure protection has been twisted into something more troubling, like forced obedience. Through Theo’s eyes, we see the cracks of that legacy in his struggle to decide whether to do his duty or to stand by his brother, the bodyguard of Nora’s mother, who has been missing since the night of her murder.

Where do I even start? There’s so much going for The Notorious Virtues, but I think I’ll have to begin with the characters because without them, this book wouldn’t have been anywhere near as impressive. Nora is one of our four main POVs, but as much as I enjoyed the others, I feel it’s only right to spotlight her in my review. Not only is she a favorite, she alone ties the whole story together. While she may cultivate her spoiled and empty-headed rich brat persona, she is in fact very intelligent and introspective, leading her enemies—and readers—to underestimate her. And even though she may come across as arrogant and proud of her own smarts and talents, it’s hard to hold that against her when that pride is well deserved. At the end of the day, it’s refreshing to read about a confident young woman who is comfortable in her own skin, and later, she earns even more points by using that charisma to try to make Walstad a better place for all.

Then, there’s the plot. Finally, a YA novel that isn’t on rails and utterly predictable right out of the gate. That isn’t to say The Notorious Virtues uses completely new ideas, but wherever it borrows ideas from well-tread territory, it at least tries to do something different and unique with them. It helped that there were multiple POVs, and that each character represented a very different way of life in Walstad. As a result, each of them also had very different motivations, keeping the story interesting. Then there was the political backdrop and the social divisions, with the Hottzfall family at the center looming over all the other districts. Thematically, this led to a thoughtful exploration of wealth, privilege, and status—how these forces shape societal power structures, especially in a world where magic tends to be inherited and often weaponized to maintain control. Even as the Veritaz trials took center stage, I found myself equally captivated by the larger conflicts brewing beneath the surface, such as the rise of the Grimms and their radical resistance against the Holtzfall dynasty.

At the end of the day, I had a great time reading The Notorious Virtues. My only gripe might be that a couple of the main POVs, especially Theo’s, might need a little more attention to bring them up to a similar level of characterization as Nora or Lotte. But overall, I loved the story, I loved the setting, and I particularly enjoyed the writing. All of it was surprisingly in-depth and well-crafted for a YA novel, but it was also clear Alwyn Hamilton put a lot of care into making it a reality. I’m glad that all her time and work paid off. Looking forward to more in the series.

 

Official Author Website
Order The Sanguine Sands over HERE 
Read Fantasy Book Critic's review of The Crimson Queen
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review of The Umbral Storm
Read Fantasy Book Critic’s review  of The Book Of Zog
Read Fantasy Book Critic's interview with Alec Hutson
Read TUS Cover Reveal Q&A with Alec Hutson
Watch ATFB Interview with Alec Hutson
Watch TBOZ & TUS Video interview with Alec Hutson

AUTHOR INFORMATION: Alec Hutson was born in the north-eastern part of the United States and from an early age was inculcated with a love of reading fantasy. He was the Spirit Award winner for Carleton College at the 2002 Ultimate Frisbee College National Championships. He has watched the sun set over the dead city of Bagan and rise over the living ruins of Angkor Wat. He grew up in a geodesic dome and a bookstore, and currently lives in Shanghai, China.
 
OFFICIAL BOOK BLURB: The Heart of the Heart has been found.
In the ruined palace of the Radiant Emperor the Light shard had been hidden for a thousand years, but now a sliver of its power has entered the flesh of Heth Su Canaav. Once Hollow, he has been reborn as one of the Sharded Few. Its discovery will shake the world . . . if anyone lives to tell of its existence.

For hunters stalk the refugees from the Duskhold. Powerful Sharded, unnatural sorcerers, and creatures that they cannot yet comprehend. Deryn and Heth must flee to the ancient city of Karath, where they hope answers await about who was behind the attempt to murder Rhenna Shen, and why one of the mysterious Elowyn directed them to find the House of Last Light.

The north lurches towards war, Shadow and Storm closing around the flickering Flame, while the Blood scheme in the black ziggurats of the Sanguine City, and far away something stirs in the frozen wastes where the disciples of Ice cling to an ancient faith . . .

CLASSIFICATION: The Sharded Few saga  is a unique mix of The Way of Kings and Blood Song as it provides the epic world & magic system of Brandon Sanderson’s magnum opus while also providing the character rich story found in Anthony Ryan’s debut.
 

FORMAT/INFO: The Sanguine Sands is 528 pages long divided over forty-five POV titled chapters with a prologue and an epilogue. Narration is in the third person via Deryn, Heth Su Canaav, Alia, Kaliss & a singular POV chapter (titled the Cleric). This is the second volume of the Sharded Few series.
 
April 7th, 2025 marked the e-book publication of The Sanguine Sands  and it was self-published by the author. Cover art is by YAM (Mansik Yang) and design-typography by Shawn T. King.
 

OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: I’ve been besotted with this world and story since Alec Hutson first granted me an ARC of The Umbral Storm. The first book was an incredible start and it was my favourite book of 2022 alongside being FBC’s SPFBO Finalist selection. The author had gone through very trying personal situations and that’s the major reason for the 3 year wait between TUS and its sequel. But here we are and when The Sanguine Sands landed in my inbox, I was overjoyed as I couldn’t wait to see how the author upped the magnificent story that was The Umbral Storm.

The Sanguine Sands opens up with a prologue wherein we get to see a further corner of the world and within it a very creepy monastery with a wild interior design. I believe the timing of the prologue corresponds to the latter half of TUS. The story opens with our POV characters Alia, Deryn, Heth and lady Rhenna as they are the only survivors of the assassination attempt. However Alia and Heth are not longer just “hollow”. They have now newer aspects to themselves and have been given a path towards the free city of Karath. Wherein they must find the House of Last Light and learn more about the mysteries of the world. However they also have to lay low while making the journey as Rhenna wishes to know who truly was behind the assassination attempt. All of this and more machinations abide in this thrilling sequel which ups the ante in every department.

Let me state the obvious, I was a huge fan of the first book and hence one might wonder how objective my review can be. Let me assure you, I was very apprehensive about this sequel as anticipation can often kneecap one’s favourites more than anything else. Alec had also written a different fantasy title in between (The Pale Blade) this series and that meant he was returning almost 3 years to this sequel. I was so wrong about having to worry as I can safely shout that this book is triply magnificent.

Once again the worldbuilding shines as we get more knowledge about the various Sharded holds but also about various geographical aspects of the world and get a nautical journey as well. The author also illuminates other races that are present in the world and here I must highlight the author’s love for turtles within his books (you’ll know when you see it). 

This book outdoes its predecessor in one more aspect, TUS’s start was said to be a bit on the slower side by some but here there’s no slowing down at all, from the moment the foursome start their journey towards Karath to the exciting climax, the plot pace is ever engaging. Another plus point in the characterization and herein the trio of Alia, Deryn & Heth get more to do. Alia particularly also gets more chapters than in the first volume. Plus one of my favourite secondary characters from the first book Kaliss gets a POV turn and her chapters are even more action-packed than the rest of the book. 

The character work has to be lauded as we get to see all three of our POV characters break out of their mould and learn to adapt to new (& frankly scary situations). I enjoyed how the author is allowing these young characters to age into the adults they will becoming. Alec Hutson is a person who knows how to keep the readers enticed with his characterization and this series is another fine example of it. 

This book similar to the first one is absolutely filled to the brim with worldbuilding and within this sequel we get to know more of the world’s history, theological past and magic system workings. I can’t reveal more because they are all huge spoilers but safe to say, most if not all of my curiosities (as spoken with Alec in our interview) were answered. I LOVED this aspect as it made the worlbuilding junkie go gaga. Lastly the ending was just perfect, it ends the story so precisely and with such a tantalizing premise that I felt the climax was better than its predecessor.

For me, there were only two minor complaints about this book. First that it ends on such a tantalizing note and now we have to wait until the third book releases to find out what happens next. Secondly I think the author kept the story with a very tight focus on the main POV characters. I thought that there was a possibility that if we could have seen more of the events in the north and it would added to the epicness of the story. However that would also detract from the plot’s tightness and maybe I would be complaining otherwise.

CONCLUSION: The Sanguine Sands is a sequel that made even a bigger fan of Alec Hutson, epic worldbuilding and fantastic characterization have been Alec’s forte but this series of his is turning out be his best one yet. If you love epic fantasy then you can’t miss out on The Sharded Few saga. 

Madison, Wisconsin, 1972—When Detective Hank Kaplan calls Valentina Wilson to a crime scene, she wonders why. She soon finds more questions than answers in a secret room belonging to a wealthy female philanthropist, whose brutal murder the police hastily cover up. Val’s search for the truth will take her from the rape hotline she runs to the shocking realization that the woman’s murder anchors a long line of horrific events stretching back decades.

Chosen as one of the best mystery short stories of the year by the readers of Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, “Sob Sisters” continues the powerful story of Valentina Wilson, a character who first appeared in Nelscott’s award-winning Smokey Dalton series.

“Sob Sisters“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

 

Sob Sisters By Kris Nelscott

TECHNICALLY, I WASN’T supposed to be at the crime scene. I wasn’t supposed to be at any crime scene. I’m not a cop; I’m not even a private detective. I’m just a woman who runs a rape hotline in a town that doesn’t think it needs one, even though it is 1972.

Still, what woman says no when she gets a phone call from the Madison Police Department, asking for her presence at the site of a murder?

A sensible one, that’s what my volunteers would have said. But I have never been sensible.

Besides, the call came from Detective Hank Kaplan who, a few months ago, had learned the hard way to take me seriously. Unlike a lot of cops who would’ve gotten angry when a woman out-thought him, Kaplan responded with respect. He’s one of the new breed of men who doesn’t mind strong women, even if he still has a derogatory tone when he uses the phrase “women’s libbers.”

The house was an old Victorian on a large parcel of land overlooking Lake Mendota. Someone had neatly shoveled the walk down to the bare concrete, and had closed the shutters on the sides of the wrap-around porch, leaving only the area up front to take the brunt of the winter storms.

And of the police.

Squads and a panel van with the official MPD logo on the side parked along the curb. I counted at least four officers milling about the open door while I could see a couple more moving near the large picture window.

I parked my ten-year-old Ford Falcon on the opposite side of the street and steeled myself. I was an anomaly no matter how you looked at it: I was tiny, female and black in lily-white Madison, Wisconsin. Most locals would’ve thought I was trying to rob the place rather than show up at the invitation of the lead detective.

I grabbed the hotline’s new Polaroid camera. Then I got out of the car, locked it, and walked as calmly as I could across the street. I wasn’t wearing a hat or gloves, so I stuck my hands in the pocket of my new winter coat. At least the coat looked respectable. My torn jeans, sneakers, and short-cropped Afro were too hippy for authorities in this town.

As I approached, a young officer on the porch turned toward me, then leaned toward an older officer, said something, and rolled his eyes. At that moment, Kaplan rounded the side of the house and caught my gaze.

He hurried down the sidewalk toward me. He was wearing a blue police coat over his black trousers and galoshes over his dress shoes. Unlike the street cops on the porch, he didn’t wear a cap, leaving his black hair to the vicissitudes of the wind. He was an uncommonly handsome man, with more than a passing resemblance to the Marlboro Man from the cigarette ads. I found his good looks annoying.

“Miss Wilson,” he said loud enough for the others to hear, “come with me.”

He sounded official. The cops outside started in surprise, then gave me a once-over.

A shiver ran down my back. I hated the scrutiny, even though I knew he had done it on purpose, so no one would second-guess my presence here.

“This way,” he said, and put a hand on my back to help me up the curb.

I couldn’t help it; I stiffened. He let his hand drop.

“Sorry,” he said. He knew I had been brutalized by a cop in Chicago. While that experience had made me stronger, I still had a rape survivor’s aversion to touch.

“What’s going on here?” I asked.

“I’ll show you,” Kaplan said. “But we’re going in the back. Did you bring your camera?”

I held up the case. I had wrapped the strap around my right hand.

“Good,” he said. “Come on.”

He walked quickly on the narrow shoveled sidewalk leading around the building. I had to hurry to keep up with him.

“So,” I said, as soon as we were clear of the other cops, “you guys don’t have your own cameras?”

“We do,” he said. “You’ll just want a record of this.”

Now I was really intrigued. A record of something that he was willing to share; a record of something that they didn’t want to record themselves? Maybe he had finally decided that I should photograph a rape victim immediately after the crime had occurred.

Although Kaplan didn’t handle the rape cases. He was homicide.

The narrow sidewalk led to another small porch. Kaplan pulled on the screen door, and held it for me. Then he shoved the heavy interior door open.

A musty smell rose from there, tinged with the scent of fall apples. I had expected a crime-scene smell—blood and feces and other unpleasantness, not the somewhat homey smell.

To my right, half a dozen coats hung on the wall, with a variety of galoshes, boots, and old shoes on a plastic mat. This was clearly the entrance that the homeowner used the most.

“When should I start photographing?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you when,” Kaplan said, and led me up the stairs.

We stepped into a kitchen that smelled faintly of baked bread. I frowned as Kaplan led me through swinging doors into the dining area. A picture window overlooked the lake. The view, so beautiful that it caught my attention, distracted me from the coroner’s staff, who clustered in the archway between the dining room and living room.

Kaplan touched my arm, looking wary as he did so. I glanced down, saw an elderly woman sprawled on the shag carpet, arms above her head, face turned away as if her own death embarrassed her. This area did smell of blood and death. The stench got stronger the closer I got.

I couldn’t see her face. One hand was clenched in a fist, the other open. Her legs were open too, and looked like they had been pried that way. A pair of glasses had been knocked next to the console television, and a pot filled with artificial fall flowers had tumbled near the door.

The coroner had pulled up the woman’s shirt slightly to get liver temperature. The frown on his face seemed at once appropriate and extreme for the work he was doing.

I moved a step closer. He looked up, eyes fierce. His mouth opened slightly, and I thought he was going to yell at me. Instead, he turned that look on Kaplan.

“Who the hell is that? Control your crime scene, man. Get the civilians out of here.”

“Sorry,” Kaplan said, sounding contrite. “I turned in the wrong direction.”

He touched my arm to move me away from the crowd. I realized that he had play-acted to convince the coroner and the other police officers that my appearance in that room had been an accident.

But it hadn’t been. Kaplan had wanted me to see the body.

“This way,” he said in that formal voice, as if he thought someone was still listening.

He led me back into the kitchen, then opened a door into a large pantry. Canned goods lined the walls. A single 40-watt bulb illuminated the entire space.

My stomach clenched. I had no idea what he was doing, and I wasn’t the most flexible person around cops.

He pulled the pantry door closed, then moved past me and pushed on the far wall. It opened into a book-lined room with no windows at all. Mahogany shelves lined the walls. The room was wide, with several chairs for reading and a heavy library table in the middle, stacked with volumes. Those volumes were half open, or marked with pieces of paper.

Beyond that was another open door. Kaplan led me through it.

We stepped into one of the prettiest—and most hidden—offices I had ever seen. The walls were covered with expensive wood paneling. A gigantic partners desk sat in the middle of the room. The flooring matched the paneling—no shag carpet here. Instead, the desk stood on an expensive Turkish carpet, of a type I had only seen in magazines. The room smelled of old paper, books, and Emerude. I couldn’t hear the officers in the other part of the house. In fact, the only sound in this room was my breathing, and Kaplan’s clothes rustling as he moved.

An IBM Selectric sat on the credenza beside the desk. Behind it stood a graveyard of old typewriters, from an ancient Royal to one of the very first electrics. Above them, files in neat rows, with dividers. The desk itself had several open files on top, and a full coffee cup to one side. I wanted to touch it, to see if it was still warm.

“This is what you wanted to show me?” I asked.

“I think you’ll find some interesting things here,” he said, nodding toward the floor. Against the built-in bookshelves in a back corner, someone had placed dozens, maybe hundreds of picture frames.

I crouched. Someone had framed newspaper and magazine articles, all of them from different eras and with different bylines.

“What is this?” I asked.

“Her life’s work,” he said.

“Her,” I repeated. “I’m not even sure whose house this is.”

He looked at me in surprise. “I thought you knew everything about this town.”

“Not even close,” I said.

He sighed softly. “This house belongs to Dolly Langham.”

“The philanthropist?” I asked.

He gave me a tight smile. “See? You do know her.”

“I don’t,” I said. “Some of my volunteers kept trying to contact her for help with fundraising for the hotline, but she never returned our calls or our letters.”

A frown creased his forehead. “That’s odd. She was always doing for women.”

I frowned too. “I take it she’s the woman in the living room?”

“That’s the back parlor,” he said, as if he knew this house intimately. Maybe he did.

“All right,” I said slowly, not sure of his non-response. “The back parlor then. That’s her?”

He closed his eyes slightly and nodded.

“You’ve caught this case?” I asked. “It’s yours entirely?”

“Yeah,” he said, and he didn’t sound happy about it. “This is a big deal. Miss Langham is one of the richest people in the city, if not the richest. Her family goes back to the city’s founding, and she’s related to mayors, governors, and heads of the university. She’s important, Miss Wilson.”

“I’m getting that,” I said. “Why am I here?”

“Because,” he said, “cases like this, they’re always about something.”

“Yes, I know, but—”

“No,” he said. “You don’t know. There’s the official story. And then there’s the real story.”

I froze. Cops rarely spoke to civilians like this. I had learned that from my ex-husband, who had been a Chicago cop and who had died, in part, because of what had happened to me.

“You think the real story is going to get covered up,” I said.

“No,” Kaplan said. “I don’t think it. I know it.”

I glanced around the room. “The real story is here?”

He shrugged. “That I don’t know. I haven’t investigated yet.”

He was being deliberately elliptical, and I was no good with elliptical. I preferred blunt. Elliptical always got me in trouble.

“Why am I here?” I asked.

“I need a fresh pair of eyes,” he said.

“But the investigation is just starting,” I said.

He nodded. “So is the pressure.”

I let out a small breath of air. So, he had a script already, and he didn’t like it. “You want me to photograph things in here?”

“As much as you can,” he said. “Keep those pictures safe for me.”

“I will,” I said.

“And Miss Wilson, you know since you were once a cop’s wife, how things occasionally go missing from a crime scene?”

“Oh, I do,” I said. “You want to prevent that here.”

He shook his head, and gave me a look he hadn’t shown me since the first time I met him. The look accused me of being naïve.

“You know, Miss Wilson, I find it strange that you don’t carry a purse. Most women carry bags so big they can fit entire reams of paper inside them.”

My breath caught as I finally understood.

“I prefer pockets,” I said, and stuck my hands inside the deep pockets of my coat.

“You are quite the character, Miss Wilson,” he said approvingly. “I think you might have a couple of uninterrupted hours in here, if I keep the doors closed. Is that all right with you?”

Inside a room with no windows, only one door, a phalanx of cops outside, and a dead body a few yards away. Sure, that was Just Fine.

“You’ll be back for me?” I asked.

“Most assuredly,” he said, and put his hand on the door.

“One last thing, Detective,” I said. “Who found this room?”

A shadow passed over his face, so quickly that I almost missed it. “I did. No one else.”

So no one else knew I was here.

“All right,” I said. “See you in two hours.”

He nodded once, then let himself out, pulling the door closed behind him.

I felt claustrophobic. This room felt still, tense, almost as if it were waiting for something. Maybe that was the effect of the murdered woman in the back parlor. Maybe I was more tense than I thought.

That would be odd, though. I had training to keep me calm. I went to medical school until I couldn’t find a place to intern (honey, we don’t want you to take a position away from a real doctor), and then I went to the University of Chicago Law School. I got used to cadavers in medical school, and extreme pressure in law school, and somewhere along the way, I had accepted death as a part of life.

I let out a small sigh, squared my shoulders, and pulled off my coat. I opened it, so that the inner pockets were easily accessible, and draped it on one of the straight-backed chairs near the door. Then I grabbed the Polaroid and put it around my neck.

I didn’t know where to start because I didn’t know what I was looking for. But Kaplan had asked me here for a reason. He wanted me to find things, and to remove some of them, which meant that I shouldn’t start with the books or even the framed articles.

I started with the files.

I walked behind the desk. The perfume smell was strong here. Dolly Langham had clearly spent a lot of time at this desk. The papers on top were notes in shorthand, which I had never bothered to learn. I was certain one of my volunteers at the hotline knew it, however. I stacked those papers together and put them in a “Possible” pile. I figured I’d see what I found, and then stash what I could just before Kaplan came back for me.

I opened the drawers next. The top held the usual assortment of pens and paperclips, and stray keys. The drawer to my right had a large leather-bound ledger in it.

The ledger’s entries started in 1970, and covered most of the past two years. The most recent entry was from last week. There were names on the side, followed by a number (usually large) and a running total along the edge. That much I could follow. It was the last set of numbers, one column done in red ink and the other in blue, that I couldn’t understand.

Kaplan had to know this was here. He had to have looked through the desk; any good investigator would have.

I took the ledger and placed it on my coat.

Then I went back and searched for more ledgers. I figured if she had one for the 1970s, she had to have some from before that. I didn’t find any in the drawer—although I found a leather-bound journal, also written in shorthand, with the year 1972 emblazoned on the front.

I set that on the desktop along with the notes, and continued my search.

The desk, organized as it was, didn’t yield much, so I turned to the files behind me. They were in date order. The tab that stuck out had that date and a last name. I opened the oldest file, and inside found more handwritten notes, and a yellowed newspaper clipping. The byline—Agnes Olden—matched the name on the outside of the file.

Someone had scrawled 1925 on the clipping, which came from a newspaper I’d never heard of called The Chicago Telegram. The headline was Accuser Speaks!

Dressed in an expensive skirt and a shirtwaist blouse with mullion sleeves, Dorthea Lute looks like a woman of impeccable reputation instead of the fallen woman all assume her to be. For our interview, she sat primly on the edge of her chair, feet crossed demurely at the ankles, hands clasped in her lap, head down. She spoke softly, and when she described the circumstances of her accusation, she did not scream or shout or cry, but told the tale with a calm tone that belied its horror.

I scanned as quickly as I could, trying to get the gist of the piece. Apparently this Dorthea Lute accused one of Chicago’s most prominent citizens of “taking her forcibly and against her will” in the “quiet of his own home.” Friends and family said that she was bruised, and “indeed, witnesses saw her wearing her arm in a sling. She had two black eyes, and a purplish bruise that ran from her temple to her chin.”

I closed my eyes for a brief moment. This was an account of a rape, and the interview was conducted with the “accuser,” who—of course—had been accused herself of using her body and her “wiles” to “improve her standing in the world.” When that didn’t work, she accused this prominent businessman of “the most vile of crimes.”

I thumbed through the file and found no more clippings, just more notes. Then I grabbed the next file. It had the same byline, and featured an interview with the family of a young girl who died brutally at the hands of her boyfriend. File after file, interview after interview, all written in that now-dated manner.

I replaced those files and grabbed another from the next row. This came from the Des Moines Voice, another paper I had never heard of, and came from 1933. The content of the file was similar to the others, with the shorthand notes, the scrawls, but the byline was different. This one belonged to Ada Cornell. Cornell had the same kind of interest in crimes against women.

Only these files also contained carbons of the original news piece.

I was intrigued.

The next shelf down had stories from the 1940s, and many of them came from different communities. The bylines all differed but the files remained the same.

So I took the last file off the last shelf. It came from nearly twenty years before—1955 to be exact. I had expected it to be a 1972 file, considering there were notes on the desk. So either the files from 1955 onward were missing, or she hadn’t done anything for years and got back into the work.

I couldn’t believe that she had given up until recently, not with the typewriter graveyard behind me. I looked around the room for another place that held files. Then I walked to the center of the room, put my hands behind my back, and frowned at everything.

This was a room within a room within a room, so secret that it was in the very center of the house, hidden behind what most people would consider the pantry. Dolly Langham wrote under false names, so she hadn’t wanted anyone to know she was doing this work.

I frowned, then glanced at the panels. In the old mystery novels, paneling—especially from fifty years ago—hid secret passageways. This room itself was a secret, so I doubted I’d find a passageway. But I might find a hidden compartment.

I surveyed the area, looking for scuff marks, fingerprints, something that jutted out, but I saw nothing obvious. Then I looked at the paneling itself. It had a pattern along the right and left side, but the wall with the files and the typewriter graveyard was configured differently, as if that entire area was built especially for Langham. Wall panels weren’t mass produced forty years ago; they were crafted by someone, who—if the inside room had been built in the Depression—wouldn’t have questioned the design.

A decorative frame had been built around the shelves in the center. Then the waist-high shelf that housed the typewriter graveyard jutted out an extra foot, and so did the area below it.

I went behind the desk, crouched and felt along the edges. I found a small ridge that my fingertips just fit inside. They brushed against a tiny knob. I pressed it, and half of the lower cabinet swung open, silently. A tiny light clicked on, revealing more files.

The shelves ran across the length of the cabinet, and the files continued to the floor.

I left that open, then touched the frames on the right side of the entire unit, looking for a similar ridge. I found it, and that long door swung open, revealing a closet. Inside, wigs, make-up, clothing, and the faint scent of mothballs. I peered into the darkness beyond and realized I had been wrong: there was a hidden passageway behind the clothes.

I pushed the clothes aside, and coughed as dust rose. Cobwebs hung from the opening beyond. I stepped inside anyway and peered. It didn’t appear to be a passageway after all, but more of an extension of this room, like a gigantic walk-in closet.

But I couldn’t be certain unless I explored.

It was clear that Langham hadn’t used this closet in a long time. If I could assume that whatever happened to her in that living room happened because of something she had hidden, then I might be safe in assuming the “something” was a recent occurrence, not one housed in mothballs and cobwebs.

I knew I was making a hasty judgment, but that was all Kaplan had left me time for. Besides, I didn’t have a flashlight. I would have to haul whatever I found into the main room—or trust that there was an electrical switch somewhere back there that I could find easily.

I closed that panel door, and opened the one on the other side just in case it was something different. As I thought, it was the other end of this “closet,” with more wigs, and clothing, including a few very old furs. The musty smell made my eyes water.

I pulled out my Polaroid and took pictures of that back area. I also took pictures of the files. Then I took a few pictures of an open file on the desk.

And by then I was out of film. The Polaroids dried on the desktop as I closed the doors. Then I sat on the Turkish carpet, and looked through the files in the hidden case. The writing style that Langham cultivated had lost popularity, and so had the long yellow journalism stories. They vanished after the war. But she seemed to adapt. There were articles here from The Milwaukee Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the Des Moines Register, and more. Many of the longer articles appeared in Saturday Review, Ladies Home Journal, and surprisingly, that new magazine for women, Ms.

The bottom shelf was empty except for two large manuscripts, in their entirety. As I was about to pull one out, I heard a sound from the outer room.

I cursed, then carefully closed the cupboard door. My heart was pounding. I had a hunch the person out there was Kaplan, but if it wasn’t, I didn’t want the other investigators to know about this—and neither did he.

Then I grabbed my pile from the desktop, hurried it over to that chair, and covered the entire pile with my coat. If I left with everything I’d hidden, I’d look like I gained fifty pounds, but that couldn’t be helped.

The door opened just as my coat settled on top of everything.

Fortunately, the person at the door was Kaplan, and he was alone.

He closed the door, then leaned on it. “You find anything?”

“You know I did,” I said. “How come she kept all this secret?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I just looked at it today.”

“But it’s clearly relevant to your case. You’re going to need it.”

He gave me a bitter half-smile. “In a perfect world.”

I felt chilled. “Meaning?”

“Apparently, she interrupted burglars,” he said with such sarcasm that I didn’t have to ask him if he believed it. He clearly did not.

“Who made this decision?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said tiredly. “It’s coming from the chief. We’re to wrap up the investigation in a hurry.”

“What about this?” I waved my hands at the files in the back. “Who gets this?”

“That’s the question, isn’t it?” he said. “Dolly was the last of the Langhams. We haven’t even looked for a will or contacted her attorney. I have no idea who inherits. I suspect it’s a bunch of charities.”

“This is her life’s work,” I said.

That bitter smile creased his face again. “Apparently, she had a lot of different life’s work. Folks around here would say her life’s work was her philanthropy, spending Papa’s money.”

I thought of the ledgers. “I wasn’t able to go through anything. I just located things. I’d like to come back—”

“I doubt that’ll be possible.”

“But you have no idea how much is here, what she has. I certainly don’t. I can’t even decipher most of it. I don’t read shorthand.”

“Ah,” he said, “the benefits of a law school education.”

I understood what he meant. If I had been a typically educated woman, I would have known shorthand. But I never was typical.

“I have some volunteers who can read it. Give us a few days in here—”

“I can’t, Miss Wilson,” he said. “You shouldn’t be here now. In fact, I came to get you out. The mayor is on his way, and I’m sure the television cameras will follow. I don’t want anyone to know you were even on the premises.”

“Great,” I said. “There’s more than I can carry.”

He unzipped that heavy police department jacket of his. “Give me some of it,” he said. “Quickly.”

I picked up my coat, and handed him the ledgers. I kept the two journals and all of the recent shorthand notes, shoving them inside my coat. We zipped up together, like co-conspirators.

Which, I guess, we were.

“Let’s go,” he said. He waited for me near the door, and as we stepped out, he turned off the lights. The room disappeared into a blackness so profound it made my skin crawl.

The library was empty. Still, I hurried through it, not wanting to stop this time. I waited at that door for Kaplan.

I clutched my hands around my middle like a pregnant woman. The edges of the journals dug into my stomach, and I wanted to adjust them, but I couldn’t.

We went through the same routine—I stepped into the pantry, he shut off the lights, then closed the door. Once it was shut, he moved a few boxes in front of it.

I could hear voices not too far away. Kaplan paused at the pantry door, peering through it. Then he beckoned me, and we scurried across the kitchen. The voices were coming from the dining room beyond.

Kaplan led the way down the stairs and out the side door. He looked along the sidewalk, nodded when he wanted me to follow, and walked faster than I liked on the ice-covered concrete.

My papers and journals were slipping. I shifted my hands slightly, praying that nothing fell as I hurried after Kaplan.

He reached my car before I did, tried the door, and cursed loud enough for me to hear. He didn’t like that I had locked it. I wasn’t sure how I was going to unlock it without dropping anything. I pulled the keys out of my pocket, adjusted my papers again, and leaned a little on the cold metal to unlock my door.

I pulled it open. Kaplan reached around and unlocked the back door. He looked both ways, bent over, and opened his jacket. The ledgers fell out along the seat. Then he slammed the door closed and shoved his hands in his pockets.

I just got in the driver’s side, figuring it was easier than getting rid of my stuff.

“I’ll be in touch,” he said before I could ask any more questions. Then he slammed the driver’s door closed.

He had returned to the other side of the street before I could get the keys in the ignition. My breath fogged up the window, but I just used my fist to make a hole.

I didn’t have to be told to get the hell out of there. I pulled out just as a group of large black cars came around the corner behind me.

I followed the narrow street out of the neighborhood, then pulled over until the windshield cleared. While the defrost was doing its job, I reached around to the back seat. I locked the door, and grabbed a blanket I kept on the floor for emergencies. I used it to cover the ledgers that Kaplan had spilled.

If we had dropped anything outside the car, I hoped Kaplan had found it.

Because I wasn’t going anywhere near that place again.

***

I got back to the hotline in record time. The hotline was a few miles away, deeper in the city itself. We weren’t far off State Street, which connected the University of Wisconsin with the Capitol. This neighborhood used to be a nice enclave for the medium rich, leaving the very rich to Langham’s neighborhood. Now, the old Victorians here had been torn down or divided into apartments, usually crammed with students.

The church where we housed the hotline had been abandoned two decades before. I lived in the rectory and used the church proper for the hotline, and sometimes to house women in need.

On this day, I pulled into the rectory side of the parking lot. I didn’t want the volunteers to see what I had.

It took me two trips to bring in all of the material. I piled the stuff on my coffee table, then closed and locked my door. I pulled the curtains too, something I rarely did in the middle of a Midwestern winter.

I took off my coat, put some innocuous papers over the things on my coffee table, and picked up one sheet of the paper covered in shorthand. Then I headed into the hotline proper.

The passageway between the rectory and the church had no heat, and was cold this time of year. I opened the unlocked door into the church, and inhaled the scent of sawed wood.

My volunteers, as inept as they were, loved doing the repair work.

I went down the stairs into the basement and found five women in t-shirts and ragged jeans, discussing the finer points of electricity.

“Val would never say she’d hire an electrician,” Louise said. She was a tall, middle-aged blond and one of my best volunteers.

“And yet I will,” I said as I went by. Several women looked up in surprise. Apparently they hadn’t heard me come in. “We’re not going to remodel this place just to burn it down. If we’re at the electricity stage, let me know and I’ll hire someone.”

“Consider yourself on notice,” Louise said.

I nodded. Something else to take care of.

I went all the way back to the main office, where we had our phones. We’d initially had only one line for the hotline and one private line. But our hotline had expanded after some recent publicity, and now, we had three separate desks with phones on them. The calls rolled over to a different line if one was in use. It was an expensive system, but well worth it.

The afternoon’s volunteers were an undergrad named Midge who had just started a few weeks ago, and one of my old hands—Susan Dunlap, who worked for the phone company.

“Don’t tell me you’re here on your day off,” I said.

“Okay,” she said. “I won’t.”

She was writing in the logbook. We kept a record of each call that came in, the time, date, and what was said. The volunteer signed in at the beginning of her shift, and then, if there were no calls, she read what had been written between her shifts. We sometimes got repeat callers, women who tested us before they confided in us, and the volunteers had to be prepared for that.

Susan was a middle-aged redhead who had never really lost her baby weight, even though her kids were in high school now. Like Louise, Susan was one of my most reliable volunteers, a main supporter, almost from the beginning.

Midge was studying at the other desk. She had the secondary phone, not that it mattered. Right now, the phones were silent.

I hovered until Susan finished writing. Then I asked, “Do you know shorthand?”

“Doesn’t every woman?” she asked so blandly that at first, I thought she was serious. Then I realized she was making a political statement.

I smiled. “If so, then I’m decidedly not female.”

“Me either,” Midge said.

Susan grinned. “I’m older. Back when I was a girl, they forced us to learn shorthand while they suffocated us in girdles.”

Midge looked alarmed. But I grinned back.

“Come with me,” I said to Susan. “Midge, can you watch the phones?”

“Sure,” she said, frowning at us.

Susan and I went into the kitchen. It was a marvel, built to serve dozens at church suppers. And unlike the rest of the church, this kitchen had been in good condition when I bought the place. Apparently it was one of the few places that the previous tenants had kept up.

Susan sat at the large table we had in the center of the room. I handed her the sheet of paper.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“I don’t honestly know,” I said. “Tell me if you can read it.”

I poured us some coffee from the pot we kept on the stove.

“It’s an idiosyncratic form of shorthand, and it uses some symbols that are pretty old,” Susan said. “But I think I can read it. Something about a—this can’t be right.”

“What?” I asked.

She shook her head. “Can you get me a legal pad?”

“Sure,” I said.

I went out to the front office, and grabbed a legal pad from the stack I kept in one of the desks. I brought it and a pad back to Susan. She translated the shorthand into English, pausing over a couple of words, shaking her head the entire time.

“This can’t be right,” she said again.

She didn’t say that as if something in the text bothered her, but as if something in her translation did.

“Show me,” I said as I sat beside her.

“Okay.” She tapped her pen against the legal sheet. “It starts in the middle of a sentence. Usually when someone takes shorthand, she skips the articles—‘a’ ‘the’—and that’s happening here.”

She slid the paper to me. Her handwriting was clear.

…tortured family relationships. Rumors he had fathered his stepdaughter’s bastard child. Z denies. Paternity test would prove nothing since Z & stepdaughter share blood type. Other accusations…

“What is this?” she asked me.

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I have reams of this stuff. Can you translate it for me?”

“I’m not sure I want to,” she said. “I’m not the only one who knows shorthand here.”

I nodded. “But I trust you.”

“You trust the others,” she said, still looking at that paper.

At that moment, Louise came into the kitchen. She was covered in grayish dust. When she wiped a hand over her forehead, she only managed to smear everything.

“You realize, Val, that there are no female electricians, right? Who the hell are we going to hire?”

“There’s got to be a female electrician somewhere,” I said.

She snorted. “Maybe on Mars.”

I sighed.

“You’re going to have to break the no-men rule,” she said.

“And here we have that trust thing again,” Susan said.

“Did I miss something?” Louise asked.

“Not really,” Susan said.

Louise went to the fridge and removed two Cokes and a Hires root beer. She set the bottles on the counter, then fumbled for the bottle opener.

“I’m interrupting something, aren’t I?” Louise asked.

“Just Val trying to rope me into a job I don’t want,” Susan said. “It’ll probably give me nightmares.”

I looked at her.

“You mean answering the phone doesn’t?” Louise asked.

Susan sighed. “Worse nightmares.”

“Ah hell,” Louise said. “Nothing can get worse than mine. I’ll do it.”

I glanced at her. She’d been around almost as long as Susan. Louise was my unofficial foreman on the remodeling.

“Do you read shorthand?” I asked.

“Is there a woman alive today who doesn’t?” she asked, and she was serious.

“You mean besides Val?” Susan asked.

“Oh, gee, sorry,” Louise said. “Yes, I read shorthand.”

“You’d have to keep all of this confidential,” I said.

“Not a problem,” Louise said, and I believed her. She had kept everything confidential so far.

“Good,” Susan said. “She can do it.”

I shook my head. “I have a lot of material. I need both of you to work on it.”

“Mysterious Val,” Louise said. “Let me take the drinks to my crew and I’ll be back.”

She slipped out of the kitchen, clutching the bottles between the fingers of her right hand.

“You’ll have to work in my place,” I said to Susan.

“Oh, God, Val, that’ll drive you nuts,” Susan said. “I’d offer to take this home, but I don’t want my kids near it.”

“I don’t blame you.” I couldn’t bring myself to tell her that there was a chance that what was on these papers had gotten Langham killed. “That’s why I want you here.”

Susan frowned, thinking. “Then what about the vestry? It has a desk and good lighting. And no windows, so no one would know we were there. Besides, none of the girls go upstairs.”

“If you’re comfortable working up there,” I said.

She smiled. “I love that room. It’s as close to a secret hideaway as we have in this place.”

She was right. And I thought it appropriate for them to examine materials from Langham’s secret room in our most secret room.

“If Louise agrees,” I said.

Susan smiled. “She will,” she said.

***

They worked throughout the afternoon. I didn’t interrupt them. Instead, I sent the workers home, and stepped in for Susan at the phones. The evening shift arrived with pizza. I was about to go upstairs with some pieces for Susan and Louise when Susan surprised me in the kitchen.

“We found something,” she said quietly.

I knew that Kaplan would be in touch, so I told the two volunteers that if someone came or called for me, I was in the vestry. They seemed surprised. I wasn’t even sure these two new girls knew where the vestry was.

Then I followed Susan upstairs.

The smell of sawed wood was strong here as well. I was in the process of remodeling the former offices and choir room into a women-only gym. At the moment, I still taught my self-defense classes at Union South and my friend Nick’s gym, but I wanted a room of my own, as Virginia Wolff said.

The vestry was to the left of the construction zone, past the still closed-off sanctuary. Paneling hid the door on this side, apparently to prevent parishioners from walking in on the minister as he prepared.

Right now, though, the door was half open revealing a well-lit little room. It wasn’t as big or as fancy as Langham’s hidden office, but it was beautiful, with lovely paneling that I planned to save, and a ceiling that went almost two stories up, ending in a point that mimicked the church’s closed-off spire.

Louise had lit some homemade scented candles, so the little room smelled like vanilla. The desk was covered with hand-written legal papers. The garbage cans were overflowing with wadded up sheets. The nearby table had all of the journals opened to various pages. A blank legal pad sat on one of the reading chairs I had placed toward the back.

“Where did you get this stuff?” Louise asked.

“I can’t tell you,” I said.

“You need to tell us,” Louise said.

My heart sank. After that step-, only-, half-daughter thing, I braced for the worst. “How bad is it?”

Susan went over to the table. She touched an open journal.

“This,” she said, then touched another, “this,” and another, “this,” and yet another, “and this, all tell the same story. Different days, different years.”

“And the handwriting is a little looser in all of them,” Louise said, as if that would mean something to me.

“What story?” I said, knowing they wanted me to ask.

“You’d recognize it if you could read it,” Louise said. “It’s the sob sister.”

***

We’d been calling her the sob sister from the beginning of the hotline. She had called every Saturday night like clockwork, rarely missing, usually around eleven.

She always told the same story—a brutal, violent rape that nearly killed her, left her ruined and heartbroken, and made it impossible for her to have children. She would sob her story out. The first few times I took the call, her words were almost incomprehensible.

I tried to get her to come in, to talk to someone, to report the incident. I told her I would go with her, and she would always quietly, gently, hang up.

Other volunteers had a similar experience, and finally we stopped telling her to report the incident. We just listened. Every Saturday night. Sometimes there were more details. Sometimes there were fewer. She always sobbed. If we tried to console her, she would hang up.

I’m not sure exactly when we figured out she was drunk—maybe about the point someone gave her the nickname, about the point when we realized we were helpless in the face of her never-ending grief.

The sob sister taught me that not all victims could be healed, and that for some, grief and loss and terror became an everlasting abyss, one they would never come back from.

I had assumed the sob sister was some broken-down drunk who lived in a trailer, or as a modern-day Miss Haversham in a ramshackle house at the edge of town.

I never thought the sob sister was someone as powerful and competent as Dolly Langham.

“You’re sure?” I asked, sounding a bit breathless.

“Positive,” Susan said. She picked up one of the journals. “This is from 1954.”

Then she read the account out loud. It wasn’t word-for-word what I had heard on the phone—after all, Langham had written this in shorthand, with missing articles and poor transitions—but it was close enough to make the hair rise on the back of my neck.

“And this one,” Susan said, “is the day after Pearl Harbor. She speculates on who might enlist, and then—suddenly, as if she can’t control it—that damn story again.”

I held up a hand. I had to think this through. It violated a lot of my assumptions about everything, about the sob sister, about the nature of victimhood, about Dolly Langham.

Who, come to think of it, was a single unmarried woman who lived alone in the family manse after her father died, who had no family, and who seemingly had only her charities to keep her warm.

But she had had a secret life.

As a sob sister. Not the sobbing woman who called my hotline, but as a front-page girl, one of those women writers of the press, the kind who specialized in an emotional sort of journalism nearly forgotten and completely discredited. Nellie Bly, who got herself tossed into an insane asylum so she could write passionately about the awful conditions; Ida Tarbell, whose work on Standard Oil nearly got discredited because of her gender; or even the great Ida B. Wells, whose anti-lynching campaign almost got her killed, all got dismissed as sob sisters.

Women who wrote tears.

Dolly Langham wrote tears. Accuser Speaks! It was a piece of sympathy, not a piece of hack journalism. So were other stories, all under the guise of a straight news story, told in a way that would appeal to the woman of the house, the emotional one, the one who actually might change the mind of her man.

“Do you guys remember who gave the sob sister her nickname?” I asked.

“It was before my time. You guys had already labeled her before I got here,” Louise said. “So, you know who she is now. You want to share?”

“I can’t yet.” I said, even though I wanted to.

Susan was tapping her thumbnail against her teeth.

“June seems like so long ago,” she said after a moment. She was frowning. “Maybe Helene nicknamed her. Or Mabel.”

Our oldest volunteers. I adored Mabel. She had campaigned for women’s rights in the teens, and had done her best to change the world then. That she was helping us now seemed a miracle to me.

Helene, on the other hand, drove me nuts. She was conservative, religious, yet determined to make this hotline work. I still struggled to get along with her, but as time progressed, I had learned to appreciate her.

“I think it was Helene,” Susan said. “I have this vivid memory of her passing the call to me one Saturday night just as the phone rang. She said she couldn’t help the sob sister any. Some others were there and the name stuck.”

She couldn’t help the sob sister. Because they knew each other?

“Are there names in any of these accounts?” I asked. “Does she give us a clue as to who this guy is who hurt her so badly?”

“It wasn’t one guy,” Louise said softly.

I glanced at her. Her eyes were red.

“It was a gang,” she said. “A few of the early accounts were really graphic.”

Susan nodded. “And there are no names, at least not that we’ve found.”

“What about in the other papers I gave you?” I asked. “Are there any names in those?”

“Initials,” Louise said. “And I have to tell you, this stuff is gruesome.”

“Yeah,” Susan said. “What was this woman into?”

I shook my head again. “I’ll tell you when I can. The most recent papers, what are they about?”

Susan bowed her head. “You don’t want to know.”

But Louise squared her shoulders. “It’s another group.”

“A group of what?” I asked, feeling cold.

“A group of perverts,” Louise said.

Susan had put a hand over her mouth. Her head was still bowed.

“What kind of perverts?” I asked.

“The kind who like little boys,” Louise said. “They take them from the home, to work. And the boys work, all right.”

Her words were clipped, bitter, angry.

“The home?” I asked, my mind a bit frozen. I’d become so used to dealing with women that the phrase “little boys” threw me off. “Their homes?”

“The boys’ home near Janesville,” Susan said, sounding ill. “My church gives that place money.”

“Please tell me she uses names,” I said.

Louise shook her head. “Initials, though. That and the home might be enough information to figure it out.”

If we were cops. If someone was going to investigate this. I didn’t know if Kaplan could do it. Groups, gangs, rings of organized anything were often the hardest thing to defeat.

“Did they know she was investigating them?” I asked.

“Someone—a E.N.—thought she was asking a lot of questions. She was scared,” Susan said. Then she added, “I got that from the journal, not from her notes.”

“Can you give me what you translated?” I asked. “Not the journals, but the notes themselves?”

“I wish we had one of those expensive copiers,” Louise said. “I really don’t want to write this stuff out again.”

I empathized.

“Just set the papers in a pile right here.” I moved a metal outbox onto the table. “I’ll pick them up if I need them. Don’t copy right now. Keep translating, if you can. If you can’t, I understand. But I sure would like names.”

Susan picked up her pen. Then her gaze met mine. “How do people stay sane in the face of all this crap?”

I thought of the cops I’d known, good and bad, as well as the people I knew who were trying to make things right in the world.

“I’m not sure they stay sane,” I said. “Hell, I’m not even sure they were ever sane.”

I wasn’t sure I was either. But I didn’t say that. I figured both women knew that already.

***

I was halfway down the stairs when I met one of the volunteers coming up. Her eyes were bloodshot, and her nose was red.

“Call for you,” she said in a thick voice.

“You okay?” I asked.

She nodded. “Just taking a break.”

She was trying for jaunty, but she failed miserably. A lot of the volunteers took breaks after a particularly tough phone call. Often those breaks took place in the ladies room, and involved lots of Kleenex.

I hurried down the stairs to my desk. Kaplan was on the line.

“I’m coming over there,” he said. “But I figured, given the nature of your business, that you’d want me to let you know first.”

I did appreciate it, but knew better than to thank him. In the past when I noticed him being sensitive, he got offended.

“Do you know where the old rectory used to be?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said.

“Go to that door.”

I hung up and hurried back through the walkway into my tiny living room. I had just switched on the lights when I heard a car pull up. I didn’t look through the curtains. I waited, tense, listening to the car engine shut off, the door slam, and footsteps on the gravel. I anticipated the knock on the door, but it still made me jump.

“It’s me.” Kaplan’s voice. I appreciated that he didn’t identify himself. He probably had no idea that I was alone.

I checked the peephole, then unlocked all of the dead bolts. I pulled the door open.

Kaplan was still wearing his heavy police jacket, and his galoshes. His black pants were stained with snow and salt along the hems.

“C’mon in,” I said, standing back.

He nodded, stamped his feet, and entered. He stopped as I closed the door, a look of surprise on his face. “This is your place?”

“Yes,” I said.

“I expected—”

“The hotline, I know,” I said. “We don’t let strangers in there.”

“I remember,” he said grimly. He took off his jacket, put his gloves in the pocket, then ran a hand through his hair. He slipped out of the galoshes as well.

He was wearing a rumpled suit coat under the jacket. “You see the 10 o’clock news?”

“No.”

“Open and shut. Burglars surprised her, knowing what was in the house. Now we’re having an all-out manhunt which will, of course, fail.”

I opened my hand and gestured toward the sofa. His gaze passed over the materials that I had left on the table. “Coffee?” I asked. “Water? Soda?”

“Coffee,” he said. “Black. Thank you.”

I went into the kitchen and started the percolator. Then I hovered in the archway between the kitchen and the living room.

“How do you know it wasn’t burglars?” I asked.

“You mean besides the fact nothing was stolen? Oh, that’s right. I forgot. She surprised those burglars, so they viciously attacked her. The odd thing was there was more than one of them, and still they didn’t have time to take her purse or the diamond earrings she wore or the gold bracelet around her wrist.” He leaned his head back. “There’s so much not right here, and I can’t tell anyone.”

Except me. The tension had left me, and I actually felt flattered, although I knew better than to say so.

“You knew her, didn’t you?” I asked quietly.

He raised his head, and looked at me. “She called me her disappointment.”

I raised my eyebrows. At that moment, I heard the percolator and silently cursed it. “Coffee’s done.”

I filled two large mugs, grabbed the plate of five raisin cookies that I had stolen from the volunteers two days ago, and put it all on a tray that had come with the kitchen. I brought the tray into the living room and put it on the end table near him.

I sat across from him on the matching chair that faced the window. “You were a disappointment?”

“Yeah.” He grabbed two cookies, but he didn’t eat them. “Among the other things she did, Dolly Langham gave out two full-ride scholarships every year to the University of Wisconsin. She gave them to the best students from Madison area high schools, no matter the gender.”

“Wow,” I said. “You got one?”

He nodded. “Four years at our greatest state institution.”

“And then you became a cop,” I said.

He shrugged one shoulder. “Like father, like son.”

“And she got angry at you.”

“Said I was wasting my talents.”

“Are you?”

His gaze met mine. “Are you wasting yours?”

I smiled. “Touché.”

We both picked up our coffee mugs. He didn’t add anything, so I said, “You never lost touch with her.”

“I checked up on her,” he said. “She wasn’t young and she lived alone.”

“I’ll bet she appreciated that.” I blew on my coffee, wishing I hadn’t tinged that sentence with sarcasm.

“You got it. She hated it. Not that it made any difference. She still died horribly. Worse that I would have expected.” He sighed. His sadness and regret were palpable.

Yet the thought of him just discovering that hidden room today didn’t ring true. He had known all along that it was there.

“So she took you into her private office before,” I said.

He shook his head. “I’d seen her go in it once, but I’d never gone in myself. I just thought she had some paperwork stored in the back of the pantry, until today.”

“What made you get me?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” he said, not meeting my gaze. “I guess I always figured you and her as kindred spirits.”

I started. Had he known what she was doing? “Why?”

“The stubborn independent streak, maybe,” he said. “The willingness to go against female norms. The way that you both believe men are unnecessary.”

“I never said that.” I sounded defensive. I liked men. Or, at least, I used to.

“She never said it either. It was just the attitude—don’t help me, don’t do for me, there’s nothing you can do that I can’t do.” He shook his head. “She was a cussed old broad.”

His voice broke on the last word.

He loved her. He really should not have been in charge of this investigation, and yet he was. I doubted he would have been able to relinquish it to anyone.

And yet, because he loved her, he couldn’t go along with the fake investigation. He had to know why, and it might cost him his career.

I almost said something to him, warned him, but it wasn’t my place. It angered me when he told me what to do; I was certain my warning him would make him just as angry as it would have made me.

So I decided to approach the entire idea sideways. “Do you know what she was working on?”

He took a deep breath, ran a hand over his face, and sighed, clearly gathering himself. “You mean besides the charities.”

I nodded.

“No,” he said. “But you do.”

I got up and took the Polaroids out of my pile. Then I held them before showing them to him. Showing them to anyone almost felt like a betrayal of her trust—this woman I hadn’t known, and hadn’t met, who was, as Kaplan had so astutely seen, a kindred spirit.

I even knew why she had avoided the hotline. She didn’t want—she couldn’t, really—draw attention to her secret life. Besides, she had called us before we approached her. She was afraid we would figure out who she was.

“Here’s the problem,” I said before I put the Polaroids in front of him. “She’d been doing a mountain of investigative work, and she’d done it for decades—longer than you and I have been alive. Any one thing from her past could have killed her.”

I carefully laid each Polaroid in front of him, explaining them all, the secret closet, the hidden shelves, the pen names, the meticulous notes that we hadn’t even really begun to explore.

“Jesus,” he said when I was finished, and the word was a half-prayer, half-reaction. “Jesus.”

I hadn’t even told him what she had been working on. I only touched the old cases, because I wasn’t familiar with most of them, not yet.

“Why would she do this?” He picked up one of the pictures, the one that showed the wig, the different clothing. “Her father was still alive through much of this. He never knew?”

“I doubt it,” I said.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Kaplan said more to himself than to me. He looked up, his gaze open and vulnerable. “It doesn’t—”

Then his mouth dropped open. He closed it, and shook his head slowly.

“I should listen to myself,” he said. “I said she was like you. She was, wasn’t she? She had the same background and there was no way in hell she was ever going to be someone’s victim.”

“Not the same background,” I said softly. “It’s never the same.”

“You know what I mean,” he said with more heat than I expected. He thought I was belittling his realization. “You know what happened. Is it important? Did it get her killed?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure when it happened. In the teens, I think. I can’t tell you much more. She used to call here, so it falls in my confidentiality rules.”

“Which won’t hold up in court,” he said fiercely.

“I know,” I said. “I’d give you names and dates if I had them. She’s gone, after all, and I’d love to find out who killed her. But she never gave names, and she didn’t give a lot of details that would ever help us find who hurt her.”

Damaged her, damn near destroyed her. “Hurt” was such a minor word in the context of what happened to Dolly Langham and the power of her reaction to it.

“Names?”

I nodded.

His eyes narrowed. “So give me what you do have. The recent stuff. Logically, that would be what got her killed. If nothing else, it’ll give me a place to start.”

I was shaking my head before he even finished speaking. “You’re not going to like it.”

“I don’t like any of this,” he said. “Just tell me.”

So I did.

Somewhere in the middle of the discussion, partly because I couldn’t stand his expression, and partly because I didn’t want to answer questions I knew nothing about, I went up to the vestry for the translated papers.

Louise was still there, looking ragged.

“A man called you earlier,” she said, as if I had done something wrong.

I nodded.

“Your cop friend?”

I picked up the papers from the out basket. “Thank you,” I said.

Then I went down the stairs again. My cop friend. Were we friends? I wasn’t sure.

I let myself back into the rectory. It smelled of toast, bacon, and coffee. Kaplan wasn’t sitting on my couch any longer. He was in my kitchen, scrambling eggs in my best cast iron pan.

“I hope you don’t mind,” he said. “I haven’t eaten anything except cookies all day.”

“I don’t mind when someone else cooks.” I looked at the clock on the stove—it was the middle of the night. I should have sent Louise home.

Kaplan divided the eggs between two plates, then added bacon and toast. He handed me a plate which I gladly took. I was hungry, and that surprised me.

I set the papers on the table as I sat down.

He sat across from me, but didn’t read. Not yet.

“She did this for almost fifty years,” he said, “and never got caught before.”

“We don’t know that,” I said.

“If she did, she got out of it.”

I nodded slightly, a small concession.

“How could she get caught this time?”

“Maybe the disguise didn’t work for an elderly woman,” I said. “Or maybe someone recognized her voice. We probably won’t know.”

He had already cleaned his plate. I had barely touched mine.

He picked up the papers, then went into the living room to read them. I finished eating and cleaned up the kitchen.

It felt both strange and natural to have a man in my house again. To have a cop in my house. A benevolent cop. I need to stop thinking of every cop like the man who hurt me and remember how much my husband Truman had cared about the people around him. Truman was like most of the cops I had known. I needed to keep that in mind.

When I finished the dishes, I went into the living room. Kaplan had rolled up the legal sheets and was holding them in his left hand. His right elbow was braced on the arm of the couch, and he was lost in thought.

“What am I going to do?” he asked as I sat down across from him. “I’m a detective in a small city. I have orders from the chief of police to close this quickly. I don’t think he’s involved, but I’ll wager whoever is has money and clout and the ability to close the cases that he believes need closing.”

“I know,” I said softly.

“Sometimes,” he said, not looking at me, “you learn to close your eyes. But this….”

He let the words trail off. Then he raised his head. His eyes were red-rimmed.

“They killed her. They killed her to keep her quiet, and she worked her whole life to make sure the full story got told on cases like this. They silenced her, and she didn’t believe in silence. Hell, Miss Wilson, she’s going to haunt me if I let them get away with it. Even if she’s not a real ghost, she’ll haunt me. Just her memory will haunt me.”

“Val,” I said.

He blinked, and focused on me for the first time.

“Call me Val,” I said. I didn’t need to explain why.

“Val,” he said softly. Then he sighed. “I won’t have a career if I go after this. I might not live through the week.”

He wasn’t exaggerating. I’d seen worse over the years.

“But I can’t let it drop,” he said.

“I’ve been thinking about that,” I said. “You might not have to.”

His breath caught—just a moment of hope, a small one, and then I watched that hope dissipate. “It won’t work. Anything I do—”

“I’ve had a few hours longer to think about this than you have,” I said. “And there’s something pretty glaring in the evidence that Miss Langham gathered.”

“Glaring. Something that’ll convince the chief?” he asked. Then before I could get a word in edgewise, he added, “Even if the evidence is rock-solid, I can’t do anything. Hell, for all I know, there are judges involved and city officials and—”

“Hank,” I said quietly. “This gang, this ring, they operate across state lines.”

His mouth opened slightly. Then he rubbed a hand over his chin.

“Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ, you’re right. Hell, I won’t have to even tie this to Dolly’s murder. I just have to quietly hand it to the right person.” Then he smiled. “And I just happen to know some good men who work for the FBI.”

***

I wish I could say it was easy. I wish I could say it all got resolved in the next few days. But I can’t, because it didn’t. It took nearly a year on the orphanage case, and most of the time, Kaplan was out of the loop.

Which meant I was too.

And that made me uncomfortable. I didn’t trust the FBI on the best of days. But I had to continually remind myself that this wasn’t my case or really, my business. Although if they didn’t stop it, I promised myself I would find a way.

Eventually, the Feds arrested a lot of people and more quietly resigned, and the regional papers had a lot of articles that were vague and unsatisfying, because someone deemed the details too graphic for publication.

Langham’s case got closed quickly. Kaplan and I decided that it was better to assume her death was caused by the most recent case, and to get the ringleaders for that. However, I know that Kaplan is still quietly investigating. He’ll never be satisfied until he knows what really happened.

But for now, the official story stands: Langham’s death inside her own home was caused by burglars she interrupted. What got taken? No one knows exactly, but it turned out that the house had two secret rooms that probably dated from Prohibition—or so the papers speculated, without proof, of course. The rooms had books and desks, but there were empty cupboards, except for clothing that apparently belonged to Langham’s father’s various mistresses.

Whatever had been in the drawers of the desk and the cabinet behind one of the desks, well, the burglars had clearly made off with all of that.

In the middle of the night. With police escort.

If you could call Kaplan a police escort.

That part wasn’t in the papers, of course. And the neighbors never seemed to notice the two police officers—one tiny and dark, and the other who looked like he was from central casting. They arrived at one a.m. on two consecutive nights, parked in the driveway, and carried boxes of documents out to a squad car.

No one questioned it, no one remembered it, and no one even knew about those rooms for nearly two months after the investigation closed, when the heirs—the administrators of seven local charities—got their first tours of the place they now held in trust.

Then the story broke open again.

By then, no one even mentioned the cops dealing with that late-night crime scene. No one mentioned the boxes.

Boxes that moved from one secret room to another—although my room wasn’t exactly secret: just forgotten. It was the closet off what had been the choir room. There were even a few musty robes balled up in the corner. I didn’t move them. I just locked the closet door, then locked the choir room door, and wondered what I would do with my treasure, what I would do with another woman’s life work.

Kaplan asked me not to worry about it, not yet.

I didn’t worry about it, but I decided it was time to join the female half of the human race. I signed up for a shorthand course at Madison Area Technical College, starting in January.

And that would have been the end of it, except for one rather strange conversation, late on a Saturday night, two weeks after Langham’s death.

I found myself alone with Helene, our second-oldest volunteer, the one who irritated me, the one who had given Dolly Langham her nickname.

That night, Helene wore a blue dress over a girdle that had to hurt like hell, her perfect stockings attached at the thigh with clips that she would have been appalled to know I had seen as she sat down. She had played the organ at Langham’s funeral, and stood graveside like a supplicant.

I had pretended I hadn’t seen her.

But that night, in the silence of the phone room, about eleven p.m. when Langham’s drunken calls usually came in, I said, “You knew who it was from that first call, didn’t you?”

I watched Helene weigh her response. An old secret versus a new one, the sadness at the loss of a friend, the weight we both felt in the silence.

After a long moment, she nodded.

“You knew what she had been doing all these years too, didn’t you?” I asked.

“The charities? Of course,” Helene said.

“The writing,” I said.

Helene peered at me. Then sighed. “I thought she had quit decades ago. I would have told her to quit if I had known.”

So Helene suspected the truth: that Langham’s death was caused by her work, not by burglars.

“Who hurt her so badly?” I asked.

Helene shook her head. “Does it matter? They’re all dead now.”

The words were so flat, so cold. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” she said. “A couple of them committed suicide. After their disgrace.”

I frowned. She shrugged, then slid the log book of all the calls toward her, to do her night’s reading.

“Their disgrace?” I asked.

“Different for all of them, of course,” she said as if she were discussing the weather. “You know how it is. They come to Madison for graduate school or to work in government, and then they go home to Chicago or Des Moines. And then the press finds some story—true or not—and hounds them. Just hounds them.”

She smiled just a little, her hand toying with the edge of the log.

“Those tearful interviews with the female accusers. Readers used to love those.”

Then she stood up, nodded at me, and asked me if I wanted coffee. As if we were in the basement of a still functioning church. As if we weren’t discussing the unsolved murder of a woman who had been Helene’s friend for decades.

A shiver ran through me, and I looked at my half-finished room, that still smelled of sawed wood.

Sob sisters.

The things we did to live with our pasts. The things we did to cope with the violence.

The things some of us did for revenge.

 

___________________________________________

“Sob Sisters“ is available for one week on this site. The ebook is also available on all retail stores, as well as here.

Sob Sisters

Copyright © 2021 by Kristine Kathryn Rusch
First published in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine, November, 2013
Published by WMG Publishing
Cover and Layout copyright © 2021 by WMG Publishing
Cover design by WMG Publishing
Cover art copyright © Curaphotography/Dreamstime

This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form

 

Today’s Women in SF&F Month guest is Roanne Lau! Her epic fantasy debut novel, The Serpent Called Mercy, was just released in the US and the UK toward the end of March. Described as a book “where a debt-ridden slumdog joins an illegal monster-fighting arena for some fast coin, but quickly learns the most dangerous beasts are outside the ring,” her novel is also one that centers friendship. I’m thrilled she’s here today to share more about this aspect of her […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Roanne Lau first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Last weekend, we went into Albany, with my brother and sister-in-law, to have dinner with friends of theirs, and to attend an exhibit at the lovely Albany Institute of History and Art. The exhibit is called “Americans Who Tell The Truth,” and it features portraits by Robert Shetterly, along with quotes from his truth-telling subjects.

Shetterly’s art is unusual. His portraits are simple, even primitive in some respects. The bodies of his subjects, and the backgrounds of his paintings, are flat, lacking in detail, unremarkable. But the faces are nuanced, instantly recognizable, filled with life and spirit and personality. And the names of the subjects, as well as their quotations, are scratched into the paintings themselves (while the paint is still wet, as my brother, the painter, pointed out). Shetterly has painted more than two-hundred truth-tellers, including forty-two that have been selected for the Institute’s exhibit. Some of those included are obvious selections. Others are less well-known, and still others have somewhat checkered histories, which makes for an interesting blend of portraits.

On the one hand, featured subjects include Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin, Pete Seeger and Ella Baker, Cecile Richards, the late president of Planned Parenthood, and Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty crusader portrayed in the movie Dead Man Walking. But among the other truth-tellers whose portraits are on display, are John Brown, the anti-slavery activist whose violent raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 resulted in several deaths and helped to spark the Civil War; Mother Jones, the late-Nineteenth/early-Twentieth century labor organizer and activist; Frank Serpico, the New York city cop who resisted and later exposed corruption within the police department, at risk of his own life, and whose harrowing story was brought to life in Serpico, a 1973 movie starring Al Pacino and directed by Sidney Lumet.

Yet, the figures who fascinated me most during our afternoon at the museum were those of whom I’d known nothing — not even their names — before seeing the exhibit. One of them was Leah Penniman, a food justice advocate and activist whose portrait exudes warmth and joy. Her quote is wonderful and worth repeating in full:

Our ancestral grandmothers braided seeds and promise into their hair before being forced into the bowels of transatlantic ships. As they plaited their okra, cowpea, millet and black rice into tight cornrows, they affirmed their hope in a future on soil. They whispered to us, their descendants:
“The road may be rough, but we will never give up on you.”

Another was Grace Lee Boggs, an author and community organizer, who gazes out from her portrait appearing tough, frank, unwilling to put up with any BS. Her quote:

People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative… We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity requires a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.

Few moments in our nation’s history have demanded more of American truth-tellers than the one we find ourselves in right now. We are governed by liars, bombarded by falsehoods every time we go online or turn on certain news channels, confronted by people — some of them friends, some of them family, most of them well-meaning — who have armed themselves with misinformation in order to parrot talking points they have heard on TV or from someone else who might be equally well-meaning and equally misinformed. Just the other day, I encountered online a post from someone I like and respect, who was repeating the jumble of untruths and recklessly manipulated data used by this Administration to justify their disastrous tariffs. I didn’t bother to comment. I didn’t wish to alienate a friend, nor did I have the energy or inclination to engage in a flame war. Instead, I allowed the disinformation to go unchallenged. I’m not proud of this.

Fallacy, disingenuousness, quackery, distortion. They pummel us. They insinuate themselves into every discourse. They are disheartening, infuriating, exhausting.

Which makes Robert Shetterly’s bold honoring of those who have stood up for truth again and again, all the more admirable, all the more important. We as a people have been challenged before by those who traffic in lies, and ultimately honesty has prevailed. Truth broke Joseph McCarthy’s fear-driven hold on the U.S. Congress, just as it ended the corrupt presidency of Richard Nixon. I choose to believe that it will wash away the bullshit that currently coats our most sacred institutions. But I have to be willing to stand up for honestly when next I am presented the opportunity. All of us do. We need to be inspired by those who inspired this exhibition.

One of my favorite portraits was of a media hero of mine, PBS’s Bill Moyers. I will leave it to him to have the last word:

The framers of our nation never imagined what could happen if big government, big publishing, and big broadcasters ever saw eye to eye in putting the public’s need for news second to their own interests – and to the ideology of market economics.

The greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.

Last weekend, we went into Albany, with my brother and sister-in-law, to have dinner with friends of theirs, and to attend an exhibit at the lovely Albany Institute of History and Art. The exhibit is called “Americans Who Tell The Truth,” and it features portraits by Robert Shetterly, along with quotes from his truth-telling subjects.

Shetterly’s art is unusual. His portraits are simple, even primitive in some respects. The bodies of his subjects, and the backgrounds of his paintings, are flat, lacking in detail, unremarkable. But the faces are nuanced, instantly recognizable, filled with life and spirit and personality. And the names of the subjects, as well as their quotations, are scratched into the paintings themselves (while the paint is still wet, as my brother, the painter, pointed out). Shetterly has painted more than two-hundred truth-tellers, including forty-two that have been selected for the Institute’s exhibit. Some of those included are obvious selections. Others are less well-known, and still others have somewhat checkered histories, which makes for an interesting blend of portraits.

On the one hand, featured subjects include Rosa Parks and Bayard Rustin, Pete Seeger and Ella Baker, Cecile Richards, the late president of Planned Parenthood, and Sister Helen Prejean, the anti-death-penalty crusader portrayed in the movie Dead Man Walking. But among the other truth-tellers whose portraits are on display, are John Brown, the anti-slavery activist whose violent raid on Harper’s Ferry in 1859 resulted in several deaths and helped to spark the Civil War; Mother Jones, the late-Nineteenth/early-Twentieth century labor organizer and activist; Frank Serpico, the New York city cop who resisted and later exposed corruption within the police department, at risk of his own life, and whose harrowing story was brought to life in Serpico, a 1973 movie starring Al Pacino and directed by Sidney Lumet.

Yet, the figures who fascinated me most during our afternoon at the museum were those of whom I’d known nothing — not even their names — before seeing the exhibit. One of them was Leah Penniman, a food justice advocate and activist whose portrait exudes warmth and joy. Her quote is wonderful and worth repeating in full:

Our ancestral grandmothers braided seeds and promise into their hair before being forced into the bowels of transatlantic ships. As they plaited their okra, cowpea, millet and black rice into tight cornrows, they affirmed their hope in a future on soil. They whispered to us, their descendants:
“The road may be rough, but we will never give up on you.”

Another was Grace Lee Boggs, an author and community organizer, who gazes out from her portrait appearing tough, frank, unwilling to put up with any BS. Her quote:

People are aware that they cannot continue in the same old way but are immobilized because they cannot imagine an alternative… We need a vision that recognizes that we are at one of the great turning points in human history when the survival of our planet and the restoration of our humanity requires a great sea change in our ecological, economic, political, and spiritual values.

Few moments in our nation’s history have demanded more of American truth-tellers than the one we find ourselves in right now. We are governed by liars, bombarded by falsehoods every time we go online or turn on certain news channels, confronted by people — some of them friends, some of them family, most of them well-meaning — who have armed themselves with misinformation in order to parrot talking points they have heard on TV or from someone else who might be equally well-meaning and equally misinformed. Just the other day, I encountered online a post from someone I like and respect, who was repeating the jumble of untruths and recklessly manipulated data used by this Administration to justify their disastrous tariffs. I didn’t bother to comment. I didn’t wish to alienate a friend, nor did I have the energy or inclination to engage in a flame war. Instead, I allowed the disinformation to go unchallenged. I’m not proud of this.

Fallacy, disingenuousness, quackery, distortion. They pummel us. They insinuate themselves into every discourse. They are disheartening, infuriating, exhausting.

Which makes Robert Shetterly’s bold honoring of those who have stood up for truth again and again, all the more admirable, all the more important. We as a people have been challenged before by those who traffic in lies, and ultimately honesty has prevailed. Truth broke Joseph McCarthy’s fear-driven hold on the U.S. Congress, just as it ended the corrupt presidency of Richard Nixon. I choose to believe that it will wash away the bullshit that currently coats our most sacred institutions. But I have to be willing to stand up for honestly when next I am presented the opportunity. All of us do. We need to be inspired by those who inspired this exhibition.

One of my favorite portraits was of a media hero of mine, PBS’s Bill Moyers. I will leave it to him to have the last word:

The framers of our nation never imagined what could happen if big government, big publishing, and big broadcasters ever saw eye to eye in putting the public’s need for news second to their own interests – and to the ideology of market economics.

The greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it.

Misophonia an insightful, heartfelt, and hilarious debut exploring cultural diaspora through one teenager’s summer across…

The post Spotlight on “Misophonia” by Dana Vowinckel appeared first on LitStack.

Hello, I am today’s guest cat…I guess.

Guest cats? Again? You know how much I hate that!

Yeah, but, you hate everything.

Dude, don’t ever say that where she can hear you.

I am also guest catting!

We are in soooooo much trouble.

“You” are in so much trouble. “I” am helping change sheets.

Readers of my weekly column (both of you) know that I quite enjoying giving my opinion on a wide range of topics. I’ll cut the normal ten down to six this time, but it’s been two months since I’ve expounded thus. And that’s at least one month too long, right? So…

It’s the first shelfie of 2025. There’s a list of the eleven prior installments below.

I have three bookcases of fantasy – of which only a couple are science fiction. I just never got into that genre. I am, however, a HUGE Douglas Adams fan.

And I know that three isn’t a lot – I’ve got well over a thousand mystery books I’m the in-house mystery guy, remember? I’ve got a nice selection of fantasy series’, though.

I’ve got Adams’ five Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy novels, as well as the lone Hitchhiker’s short story; and Eion Coifer’s good-enough continuation novel, And Another Thing…

I’ve re-read the Hitchhiker’s series several times. It’s always fun. Coifer’s book was okay, but seemed too long and kinda dragged along. I found listening to the audiobook easier than reading it.

I thought the collection of original radio scripts was a VERY cool read. Definitely a worthwhile book for fans of the novels.

Starship Titanic is briefly mentioned in Life, the Universe, and Everything. It was the subject of a video game (which I played, of course), and there was a lightweight book based on the game, written by Monty Python’s Terry Jones. It’s fine. I think Jones himself reads the audiobook, which I’ve listened to.

The Adams biography by Jem Roberts was a pretty informative read. Neil Gaiman’s Don’t Panic is likewise full of neat stuff to know about Adams. I recommend both for fans who want to learn more about Adams.

I love the humor in The Hitchhiker’s books, and I’ve even crated a couple entries for it, here at Black Gate (links below).

But hands down, my favorite Adams book is Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency. I like the sequel, The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul. But I LOVE the first one. It’s a brilliant private eye novel. I’ve read or listened to the audiobook, several times. It may well be in my Top Ten novels list. Adams’ brilliance is on full display.

The Long Dark Tea-Time of the Soul is one of my favorite book titles. The story, which involves Thor and the Norse gods, is good, but a definite step down from the superb first novel. Nonetheless, it’s full of more Dirk Gently, and that’s more than good enough.

The BBC did radio plays of each novel. The first is my favorite radio play of them all, and I’ve easily listened to it a hundred times. They took some story liberties with the sequel, but it’s still a fun listen. I have both as one Audible title, and I listen to both at least two or three times a month – often as I fall asleep. Great cast, special effects: all of it.

There’s an unfinished third Gently novel included in The Salmon of Doubt. Simply put, it’s not very good, and I don’t know that finishing it would have made it much better.

I think Adams and Terry Pratchett were brilliant societal commentators and satirists. And terrific storytellers.

If you’ve never read Dirk Gently, or the Hitchhiker’s series, you’re really missing out on some fun!

 

And check out my other Adams posts:

Don’t Panic (All Adams posts at Black Gate in one place)
The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Don’t Panic!
The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: Stephen Mangan’s Dirk Gently
The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes: The crappy new BBC Dirk Gently Show
What I’ve Been Watching: A (Britbox) December, 2021
What I’ve Been Listening To: September, 2022
What I’ve Been Reading: September, 2022

And my prior Shelfies posts:

Bob’s Books – Shelfie #1 (Sherlock Holmes #1)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #2 (Sherlock Holmes #2)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #3 (Constitutional Convention of 1787)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #4 (Thieves World, Heroes in Hell)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #5 (REH, Moorcock, Kurtz)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #6 (Cook, LeGuin, Gygax, Hardy, Hendee, Flint, Smith, McKillip)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #7 (Sherlock Holmes #3)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #8 (McKiernan, Watt-Evans, Leiber, Bischoff, Rosenberg)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #9 (Hillerman, Monk)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #10 (U.S. Civil War)
Bob’s Books – Shelfie #11 (Dashiell Hammett)

Bob Byrne’s ‘A (Black) Gat in the Hand’ made its Black Gate debut in 2018 and has returned every summer since.

His ‘The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes’ column ran every Monday morning at Black Gate from March, 2014 through March, 2017. And he irregularly posts on Rex Stout’s gargantuan detective in ‘Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone.’ He is a member of the Praed Street Irregulars, founded www.SolarPons.com (the only website dedicated to the ‘Sherlock Holmes of Praed Street’).

He organized Black Gate’s award-nominated ‘Discovering Robert E. Howard’ series, as well as the award-winning ‘Hither Came Conan’ series. Which is now part of THE Definitive guide to Conan. He also organized 2023’s ‘Talking Tolkien.’

He has contributed stories to The MX Book of New Sherlock Holmes Stories — Parts III, IV, V, VI, XXI, and XXXIII.

He has written introductions for Steeger Books, and appeared in several magazines, including Black Mask, Sherlock Holmes Mystery Magazine, The Strand Magazine, and Sherlock Magazine.

You can definitely ‘experience the Bobness’ at Jason Waltz’s ’24? in 42′ podcast.

Days of the Dead Chicago

Fittingly, last week Black Gate photog Chris Z and I attended the Days of the Dead convention in Chicago for our thirteenth year. This is one of our favorite shows as the hotel venue is more intimate and less daunting than some of the mega-conventions, and the celebrities aren’t sequestered behind curtains unless guests pay. Though it is smaller and less frantic, it still attracts an interesting, albeit local crowd, and we never fail to meet memorable people.

Arriving a tad early from our respective day jobs, we kicked off this outing in our standard fashion. It stands to reason that upping our blood alcohol levels before wading in offers some measure of protection from the potential of infection that naturally comes with crowded hotel conference rooms – and it’s so much more fun than antibacterial.

Kicking off Days of the Dead in standard fashion

​Days of the Dead is a fan-driven horror convention that was established in Indianapolis in 2011 with the aim of creating a welcoming social gathering for horror enthusiasts; moving away from the impersonal “pay-and-go” autograph shows that had become prevalent. The event quickly gained popularity, leading to its expansion into multiple cities across the United States, including Chicago in 2012, Los Angeles, Louisville, Atlanta, and Las Vegas.

The convention’s primary goal is to offer fans an immersive experience, featuring special events tailored specifically for attendees, an active after-hours scene with horror-themed parties, and a diverse guest list that includes celebrities, artists, and independent filmmakers. This approach has set a new standard for what a horror convention weekend can offer. ​

We had some memorable celebrity chats when DotD came through Chicago in November, but the March show was a tad light on people of interest. To be fair, the Revenge of the Nerds reunion attracted a crowd, but this was mainly due to the other movies the actors had appeared in. So off Chris Z and I went to uncover some new creators to share with you and boy did we hit pay dirt.

Comic creator Kevin Fitzgerald New Comic Series – Frankenslaves

We couldn’t help but be impressed with a graphic story that picks up precisely where Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein left off, bringing it all the way into the future. Written by brothers Kevin and Matt Fitzgerald, with illustrations and color by Anna Engelbold, this wonderful, satirical comic blends horror, science fiction, and social commentary into a visually striking narrative. We also love it when creators do trailers for comics so check it.

Set in a dystopian future, the story explores a world where corporations and governments have pushed human exploitation to its grotesque limit; literally stitching together ideal workers from various parts of society to create the ultimate labor force: the Frankenslaves. These reanimated, hybrid beings are engineered for obedience and efficiency, stripped of individuality and free will.

At the heart of the comic is a resistance movement that seeks to uncover the truth behind the Frankenslave program and restore humanity to those who’ve been turned into corporate property. With an interesting, gritty art style and sharp dialogue, Frankenslaves critiques consumerism, systemic oppression, and the commodification of people, while raising important questions about identity, autonomy, and rebellion. Dark, weird, and unapologetically provocative, Frankenslaves invites readers to look beneath the surface — and ask who’s really pulling the strings.

I absolutely love the Frankenstein tie-in and the masterful reimagining of the story for a new audience. Thankfully I scored the first three issues at the show (Thank You Kevin!) but am now nail-biting for issue 4. Frankslaves is available for purchase online and where comics are sold.

Ms. Guzman and her wonderful dollies Freaky Merlina Dolls

Let’s be frank – dolls are kind of creepy anyway, but Nohora Guzman’s dolls are definitely freaky. Each little dolly is handmade, meaning no two are alike. Standing 14” tall, the details such as miniature skull embellishments and incredible outfits makes each piece a work of art, and so much more relatable than Barbie. You can adopt your own at Guzman’s Etsy store for around $50.

Writer/Director Richard Burgin Fang: The Movie

Back at DotD in 2021, we first told you about the indie film Fang. Richard Burgin is the writer and director of this tasty horror flick set in Chicago which at that time was in post-production.

We are thrilled to report that since then, Fang has garnered significant acclaim in the independent film circuit, securing multiple awards and nominations. ​

Midwest Monster Film Fest (2023)

Best Actor: Dylan LaRay
Best Actress: Lynn Lowry
Best Director: Richard Burgin​

The Shawna Shea Film Festival (2023)

Best Performance: Dylan LaRay and Lynn Lowry​
Best Genre Feature: Richard Burgin and Robert Felker​

FANtastic Film Festival in San Diego

Received eight nominations and secured one award.​

Milwaukee Twisted Dreams Festival

Earned five nominations and won four awards.​

In total, Fang achieved 13 film festival awards and received an additional 15 nominations, reflecting Burgin’s strong impact and recognition within the indie horror community.

Check out the trailer and then watch Fang on Amazon Prime Video.

Horror Author John S. McFarland’s The Black Garden and The Mother of Centuries

Horror novel? Check. Historical setting? Check. Deep south mythos? Check and check.

Honestly, there was no way I wasn’t going to fall in love with John S. McFarland’s storytelling given that his tales hit on all my favorite things. McFarland’s short stories have appeared in numerous journals and have been featured in anthologies such as A Treasury of American Horror Stories. His writing has garnered praise from esteemed authors like T.E.D. Klein and Philip Fracassi, with some referring to him as “a great, undiscovered voice in horror fiction.” ​

Author John S. McFarland

In 2010, McFarland published his debut horror novel The Black Garden, which received universal acclaim. The novel is set in the fictional town of Ste. Odile, Missouri, a setting inspired by his family’s deep-rooted connection to the old French Mississippi River town of Ste. Genevieve.

The year is 1882, and Perdita Badon-Reed, a sheltered Boston aesthete, has just made the most momentous decision of her life. Having spurned a respectable suitor, she finds herself on the Mississippi River, steaming toward the strange French Colonial village of Ste. Odile to accept a teaching position at a girl’s academy and pursue her dream of becoming a stone sculptor. Of the many hardships that await her, the one she least expects looms in the form of Orien Bastide, an incubus, who has conducted his seductive and parasitic existence for two millennia. Perdita soon realizes the full horror of Bastide’s intentions, and that she alone has the will to stop him. In order to defeat the treacherous Bastide and save future generations from his predations, Perdita must abandon her personal ambitions, and perhaps her life.

The sequel, The Mother of Centuries, picks up the haunted thread decades later, pulling readers even deeper into the legacy of Ste. Odile’s cursed past.

I’ve only just started reading The Black Garden and I love McFarland’s slow-burn dread-building. You can find it along with The Mother of Centuries as well as McFarland’s other works on Amazon.

Days of the Dead has a full schedule of events in the coming year, all with their own celebrity lineups and vendors, so there’s a chance one is happening near you. Check out:

• Indianapolis: June 13-15
• Phoenix: July 11-13
• Chicago: November 21-23
• Indianapolis: December 5-7
• Las Vegas: January 16-18, 2026
• Atlanta: February 20-22, 2026

The fourteenth annual Women in SF&F Month continues with four new guest posts this week, starting tomorrow. Thank you so much to last week’s guests for an excellent first week! The new guest posts will be going up on Monday–Thursday of this week, but before announcing the schedule, here are last week’s essays in case you missed any of them. All guest posts from April 2025 can be found here, and last week’s guest posts were: “Let Your Stories Age […]

The post Women in SF&F Month: Week 2 Schedule & Week in Review first appeared on Fantasy Cafe.

Prey for the Devil (Lionsgate, October 28, 2022) Prey for the Devil (2022) – Crave (Max)

Remember how The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy‘s entire description of Earth is ‘mostly harmless’? Well, that’s how I’d describe this one. The director, Daniel Stamm, pumped new life into the genre with The Last Exorcism in 2010, but because this film is aiming for that tasty 13+ rating, most of its teeth have been removed.

That said, I liked the idea of the male-dominated world of the church being upended by a nun who has a gift for connecting with possessed patients, and the whole conceit of modern possession running so rampant that the Vatican has set up exorcism training centers is rather fun. Sister Ann is the ‘chosen nun’, stoically played by Jaqueline Byers, and the rest of the cast is great, with Colin Salmon and Ben Cross adding some gravitas to the whole shebang. Sister Ann has quite a few demons of her own to deal with, and it isn’t long before we realize that everything going on in the film is directly for her. There are no surprises here.

There are some genuinely creepy visuals here and there, but Stamm relies too much on jump scares (hampered by the intended rating).
Still, not horrible, but nothing outstanding. Mostly harmless. 6/10

Exorcism (Profilmes, March 10, 1975)
and The Exorcist: Believer (Universal Pictures, October 6, 2023)

Exorcism (AKA Exorcismo) (1975) – Tubi

The more observant among you will notice that this Spanish production came out two years after The Exorcist, and why not? Priests and pea soup were all the rage back then. Cunningly, Exorcismo was released in Spain *before* The Exorcist, thus making Friedkin and Blatty look like a couple of rip-off artists.

This one stars fan-favourite Paul Naschy as pipe-smoking priest, Father Dunning, a laid-back man of the cloth who has had brushes with Old Nick in the past. Naschy is a dead ringer for John Belushi in this film, and I do enjoy watching him when he is playing a good guy.

Story-wise, some hairy hippies get satanic in a cave, and this leads to a young woman, Leila (played well by Grace Mills), eventually getting possessed by the demonic spirit of her dead dad. It’s a bit of a slow burn to get to the actual exorcism (which takes place in the last 10 mins), as the film takes a giallo turn with a plethora of grisly murders (real head-turners), a pervy chauffeur, African voodoo, and fingers pointed everywhere except at Leila.

Eventually, it’s up to Dunning to confront the possessed woman and do his thing.

There are plenty of obvious Exorcist influences in the film, with a few similar scenes, but this one is fun to watch due to hilarious dubbing (couldn’t find a streaming Spanish version) and copious bosoms.

Trigger warning for dog lovers — there is a good boy called Borg in this film, and his assimilation does not go smoothly. 6/10

The Exorcist: Believer (2023) – Prime

We’ve reach the much maligned attempt to reboot the ‘Exorverse’ using the team that had some hit and miss success with the new Halloween trilogy.

Having watched it, I can understand the scorn poured upon it.

It’s the age-old possession tale, but this time there’s two! Therein lies the problem. Despite the use of Tubular Bells, and the shoehorning of some old favourites, this has as much to do with the original film as any old bit of guff you might find on Tubi (Exorcist: Vengeance, Exorcist: The Awakening, Exorcist: Butter Sculpture, etc). In lieu of actually focusing on an exorcist, you might think the film would focus on the ‘believer’ of the title, but it’s hard to pin down who that is supposed to be. The film is coded for the principal protagonist to be Tony, played well by Leslie Odom Jr., but he is actually an unbeliever, until it becomes necessary for him to start thinking all the mumbo jumbo is true. This could have been an awesome film if it just focused on him and his lack of belief, and his need to find faith to save his daughter, but the film is stuffed full with other bland characters, diluting the story.

As for the demonic girls themselves, I didn’t like the makeup, but some of the effects were quite interesting.

I was bored until the last 30 mins, and even then the number of useless folks standing around during the actual ‘exorcism’ weakened it to the point where I wasn’t invested in any of the characters.

I felt for young Regan. I couldn’t care less about this bunch. 4/10

Jessabelle (Lionsgate, November 7, 2014)
and Ghostwatch (BBC, October 31, 1992)

Jessabelle (2014) – Prime

Here’s a glimpse into the alchemy that goes into me writing these nonsense reviews. I found a couple of Blumhouse productions; both 90 mins long, one starring Sidney Sweeney (Nocturne) and one starring Sarah Snook (this one — spoiler alert). I watched both trailers to get a sense of which one I wanted to watch, and as intrigued as I was by the Nocturne storyline, it really felt like it was aimed at the Euphoria audience, not a crusty musty old fart like me.

So here we are.

Jessabelle is the story of a young woman who loses her boyfriend, her baby, and the temporary use of her legs in a car crash, and ends up having to live with her estranged father on a vast and soggy tract of land in Louisiana. Jessie (Snook, brilliant) never met her mother, who died from cancer shortly after she was born, but while rummaging around her deceased mom’s bedroom (her new room), she finds a stack of video tapes, addressed to her from her dead mom. Naturally, she plays one, and mom gets downright spooky with a taped tarot reading — from that point on it’s Haitian shenanigans ahoy as a potentially malevolent spirit starts getting all up in her wheelchair. It’s a solidly made film with excellent performances, and my only gripe is with the denouement, which is spewed out like Sherlock Holmes after a line of Afghan fairy dust.

Still, it’s a decent effort, and lands on the ‘good’ side of the Blumhouse production legacy. 7/10

Ghostwatch (1992) – Prime

Here’s the weird thing. I have no recollection of the hysteria caused by this mockumentary, and in fact I’ve never seen it before (although I was aware of it). I wonder if it coincided with a Halloween party I threw with my then landlord in Wimbledon. Anyhoo, folks seem to like it a lot, so I had to take a look.

I suspect non-Brits get more of a kick out of this film than us limeys who grew up watching these real-life presenters. Parky was an inspired choice to host it, as he was already a well-respected interviewer, and his Yorkshireness would not put up with any bull.

Sarah Greene was the first crush of many youngsters during her time on Blue Peter, and she is definitely the MVP in this. Mike Smith was a bit of a potato, and Craig Charles was hilarious — he elicited the biggest laugh out of me when he manhandled the trick-or-treater at the end.
The rest of the cast was fair to middling, but they can be forgiven for any stilted deliveries due to the fact that this was, of course, basically a television play.

I did like the story, and was surprised how dark it really got toward the end. Also, the occasional flashes of ‘Pipes’ reflected in doors and mirrors was excellent, and really added to the atmosphere. A fun watch. 8/10

Verónica (Sony Pictures International, August 25, 2017)
and Suitable Flesh (RLJE Films/Shudder, October 27, 2023)

Verónica (2017) – Netflix

My penultimate film is Verónica, a Spanish film directed by Paco Plaza (REC and REC 2, Sister Death) loosely based on a true event in which a girl died after after performing a séance at a school in Madrid with her friends. Plaza keeps the film grounded enough for the truth to be ambiguous — did the spooky stuff happen, or was it all in her head?

Either way, he has constructed an effectively chilling story, beautifully shot and wonderfully acted. The lead, Sandra Escacena, is excellent as Verónica, and her young siblings are portrayed by some of the best child actors I’ve ever seen. Truly believable, and cute as a button, which makes the ongoing threat to them even more distressing. After the séance, Verónica begins to suspect that an evil entity has possessed the house (or possibly herself), and we are witness to her unravelling over a nightmare-riddled three days. The mom is mostly absent due to wok, so 14-yr-old Verónica must assume all of her duties, plus survive middle school. It’s an awful situation, and your heart bleeds for their family.

The supernatural elements were creepy and unsettling, and only relied on jump scares once or twice — the rest of the horror comes from the pervasive sense of doom. Great stuff. 8/10

Suitable Flesh (2023) – Prime/AMC+

I showed great restraint in waiting to watch this one, as I really like Joe Lynch as a director (Wrong Turn: Dead End, Mayhem), Dennis Paoli (Re-Animator, Dagon, From Beyond) returned to write it, and it stars Barbara Crampton, who seems to be eternal.

Bottom line — I loved it. I thought Lynch really nailed the 80s Lovecraft adaptation aesthetic, down to the score, the dutch-angles, the cheesy one-liners and the excessive gore. Heather Graham was perfect as Dr. Beth Derby, a psychiatrist who becomes entangled in the life of a disturbed young man, Asa Waite, played well by Judah Lewis. It isn’t long before she is thoroughly on the road to madness (is it madness though? Aha!), and much murder and body-swapping ensues.

Lynch peppers the film with stunning set-pieces (my favourite being the rear camera shots on the car), and enough erotica to make the puritanical Lovecraft quite queasy (H.P. sauce, if you will). The Old Ones among you will notice some familiar names and locations (Miskatonic among them), and it will soon be apparent this is an adaptation of a favourite HPL story, ‘The Thing on the Doorstep.’

Some relocation and gender-swapping has taken place in the retelling, and this is perfectly in line with the film’s theme. In fact, Lynch and Paoli have also managed to sneak some other pertinent themes in, not least of which is the importance of female body autonomy.

A glorious way to finish this watch-a-thon. 9/10

Previous Murkey Movie surveys from Neil Baker include:

What Possessed You? — Part I
What Possessed You? — Part II
Fan of the Cave Bear
There, Wolves
What a Croc
Prehistrionics
Jumping the Shark
Alien Overlords
Biggus Footus
I Like Big Bugs and I Cannot Lie
The Weird, Weird West
Warrior Women Watch-a-thon

Neil Baker’s last article for us was Part II of What Possessed You? Neil spends his days watching dodgy movies, most of them terrible, in the hope that you might be inspired to watch them too. He is often asked why he doesn’t watch ‘proper’ films, and he honestly doesn’t have a good answer. He is an author, illustrator, teacher, and sculptor of turtle exhibits. (AprilMoonBooks.com).

In the world of literature, banned books by women hold a unique and powerful place.…

The post 6 Banned Books by Women You Must Own and Read appeared first on LitStack.

This review is part of an ongoing series as Marvel re-release art books for each of the Marvel Universe movies. This is the 11th book so far. This time around it is the movie Ant-Man. Released in 2015, it was the 12th movie in the series, and was the last movie in the so-called Phase…

It’s no secret that Grace Draven is one of the best writers of modern fantasy romance. I could talk about her books all day.  Her plots unfold against the backdrop of enchanting worldbuilding wrapped in lyrical prose. Her worlds have texture and that elusive fairy tale quality that many writers chase and never manage to acquire.  But for me, it’s all about the characters.

A lot of speculative fiction can be sorted into two broad categories: ordinary character in an extraordinary world and extraordinary character in an ordinary world. The Hobbit, Labyrinth, and Alien are examples of the first, and Sherlock Holmes, House, and the entire superhero genre are examples of the second. 

The Wraith Kings series falls firmly into the first category.  There is Brishen, a prince of the Kai, who is a prince in the name only. There is the heir, and the spare, and Brishen, you go stand over there.  Then there is Ildiko, who is a niece of the Gauri king.  One day these two find out that they are to be married. They are not consulted about this.  They have no power to alter this decision.

To make things worse, they are not of the same kind. Brishen’s people have more in common with the drow, and the Gauri are firmly human in the traditional sense of the world.  The customs, the diet, everything is dramatically different. 

There is something so refreshingly ordinary about watching these two trying to navigate this arranged marriage. They are so relatable, and they take so much care with each other’s feelings. 

There are several books in the series now, and recently Grace added a new novella to it, titled Black Hellebore.

Brishen and Ildiko return in this latest addition to the world of the Wraith Kings.

To protect his people and save his kingdom from destruction, Brishen Khaskem made an unthinkable sacrifice, stripping all but the youngest Kai of their magic in order to transform himself and four others into powerful Wraith Kings who would battle the ancient malice known as the galla.

But victory comes at a high price. The loss of their sorcerous heritage is a bitter consequence for the Kai. When an unexpected enemy threatens the lives of his beloved wife Ildiko and his adopted daughter, the queen regnant, Brishen may pay the highest price of all. What will be the ultimate cost of reviving a dead legacy and regaining a lost hope?

A tale of trust and deception.

Amazon BN Apple

Did you know Black Hellebore was out?  Yes, I didn’t either.

To celebrate this book birthday, I’ve imposed on Grace and made her sit down for this interview with me.

Interview with Grace Draven

Could you tell us how the world of Wraith Kings came to be?  What made you want to write that first book?

Aww, thanks for the kind words, m’dear. I’d easily givel into the temptation of fangirling the storytelling juggernaut that is Ilona Andrews, but I know that isn’t why we’re here. Let me just say, before we go on, that I will never shop in a Costco or a Sam’s Wholesale the same way again after reading Innkeeper.

As to your questions, well you had a hand in that. Remember all those years ago when you declared “You need a website. I’ll make you one?” (Thanks for that, by the way) Well, I figured I’d try to bring traffic to my sparkly new Ilona-created website by posting a first-draft short story of no more than 12k words total to the blog section of the website for folks to read for free. One chapter a week (or maybe every two weeks, depending on my schedule). I remember telling my longtime editor, Evil Editor Mel, “It’ll just be a short story. I’m calling it RADIANCE. No more than 10k words tops.” To which Mel replied in the most doubtful tones, “Riiiiiggghhht.”

A few weeks into this plan, and I told Mel, “I think this is going to be a novella.” To which Mel replied, “Is that so?”

Spring forward a couple of more months, and I announced to Mel, “This is for sure shaping up to be a novel.” To which Mel replied, “You don’t say?”

After Mel (and my then second editor and principal brainstormer, Lora Gasway) edited RADIANCE and I officially published it to the various retailer platforms, I told Mel, “I have some ideas for a book #2.” To which Mel replied “Just send it on when you’re done.”

Once EIDOLON went live, I went back to Mel and said “Sooo, I’m certain this will be a 6-book series.” To which Mel oh-so-patiently replied, “I’m in for the long haul.”

And a long haul it’s been. Ten years, three completed Wraith Kings novels, three more to go, and several Wraith Kings novellas and short stories later, and I’m still on an adventure of discovery with these characters and this world. What a helluva ride.

What is it about Bishen and Ildiko that keeps you coming back to this series?

I’d have to say it’s the hope in a solid, long-term relationship. These two people are, first and foremost, each other’s best friend. When you combine the passion of romantic love with the grace and devotion of platonic love, you end up with magic that has staying power. I’d like to think that’s what these two have. Exploring aspects of their lives through the lens of that connection within a challenging, often violent world stretches my creative muscle and honestly, just makes me smile every time I write these two.

Could you tell us about Black Hellebore?

BLACK HELLEBORE is a revisitation of Brishen and Ildiko after the events in THE IPPOS KING (Wraith Kings, book #3). Brishen is now the regent of the Kai kingdom still reeling from the demonic invasion of the galla, the destruction of their capital city, and the wholesale loss of their magic (except for the youngest in their population). The world isn’t as safe from the galla as the Wraith Kings had hoped, and a desperate Kai with a plan to regain their lost heritage will do anything to succeed, even if that involves destroying all that Brishen holds most dear.

Could we look forward to more Wraith Kings in the future? 

Yes. Definitely. I currently have two works-in-progress going, including THE NOMAS KING, which is book #4 in the Wraith Kings series.

Where do you see this series going?

As I mentioned earlier, this is a planned 6-book series with novellas sprinkled in between. 

Will you branch out to other couples or stay with Bishen and Ildiko?

I love writing Brishen and Ildiko, but the arc of their particular story was started in RADIANCE and completed in EIDOLON. I revisited them again in BLACK HELLEBORE because, honestly, I missed them. However, the remaining books in the Wraith Kings series will focus on other characters already introduced in RADIANCE and EIDOLON, specifically those Wraith Kings who fought with Brishen in EIDOLON. Each one of those kings gets their story, and the third book in the series, THE IPPOS KING, is already out. I really loved telling the story of the jovial yet deadly Serovek, his passion for the formidable Kai warrior woman Anhuset, and their mission of mercy to protect an imprisoned Wraith King.

We are very curious about your writing process.  What is a typical writing day like for you?

Fractured, full of distractions, loud, and the absolute definition of catch-as-catch-can. I write whenever I can carve out the time (which is limited and precious). So that can be at 7:30 on a Saturday morning or 2:00 a.m. in the wee hours of a Wednesday. I mostly write at my desk which is tucked into a corner of the game room which is the pass-through to one bathroom and two bedrooms. It’s also the brawling space for four rambunctious dogs as well as the hang-out for two college kids and any of the friends or boyfriends that drop by to visit. When it gets too wild and loud, I’ll grab a spiral notebook and handwrite in the bathroom, my car, the backyard deck and one time in the laundry room while I was waiting for a particular load of laundry to dry. Tuning out is my super power. The glamor…it never ends.

Taking the story from a concept to a published book is a long and involved process. How does that usually work for you?

I’m a pantser, or a discovery writer (whichever term you prefer). I start with a nebulous plot idea, a stronger character idea and it’s off to the races. Character is always “louder” in my head than plot. I’ll have the spine of a story, but plot for me solidifies gradually, fleshed out and informed by a mountain of research that I do for every single book. When it comes to research for a book, I definitely adhere to Hemingway’s iceberg theory in which the reader only sees the tip above the surface, while underneath is the bulk of the iceberg or the unseen foundation that gives the story its heft and solidity. When I research, I build a house. When I don’t research, I build a house of cards.

I will often draft any and every expert in a particular topic into helping me understand how something is done, something is made, something works. The long-suffering Mr. Draven is on the receiving end of most of this. He’s had to explain to me how to fix the engine of a dirigible, how to use various types of weaponry from medieval to contemporary, and how to sew a pair of leather boots. Those are just a few examples. He blocks scenes with me as well, battling vacuum cleaners with broom sticks and rolling on the floor of the foyer in a simulation of dodging a horse while on the ground (during which my delighted dogs instantly dog-piled him on each occasion). God bless supportive spouses.

Once the story is done, I down a celebratory shot of bourbon or single malt, dance around the living room like a mad woman, call Mel to scream joyously in her ear, and announce to the family that as far as me cooking dinner is concerned…NOT TONIGHT, SATAN!

Then I email the entire mess to Evil Editor Mel for the king of all editorial passes we both fondly refer to as The Full Evil .

Do you have a concept editor and what role do they play?

Evil Editor Mel wears a lot of editorial hats for me, and this is one of them. Typically, she doesn’t see the manuscript until I’m ready for her to do a Full Evil on it, but I will often message with her or call her to discuss some things. And as you’ve experienced firsthand, I’ve leaned into you for help in seeing my way out of a predicament when I’ve wrapped myself too tight around my own axel to see the fix.

And of course, the most important question: what’s next?

I love the Wraith Kings world and writing in it, but sometimes other worlds call to me, so I’ll take a detour on occasion. While I am working on THE NOMAS KING, I’m putting most of my focus during 2025 on writing and completing a fantasy romance titled THE BLADE MAIDEN. This is the first book in my planned Blade and Dagger trilogy and is centered around one of a set of identical twins who act as enslaved bodyguards to a possessed princess. Resigned to a life of bondage alongside her twin, Solunada soon discovers she must save a priest-king and his Otherworld kingdom from annihilation while also trying not to die at the hands of the assassin who loves her.

Oh, and she has a Girl Scout meeting on Tuesdays.

Just kidding.

Grace recently updated her website and because we are friends, I found out that she is reviving her newsletter. Apparently there will be a bonus scene sent out to newsletter subscribers at the end of next week, and it will be an intimate scene, so if you haven’t signed up, now is your chance. Grace’s site is at gracedraven.com and here is the link to her newsletter.

The post Grace Draven and Black Hellebore first appeared on ILONA ANDREWS.

The Other Sky cover by Thomas Kidd
The House in November cover by Mike Embden

Between October and December of 1969, Keith Laumer’s novella The Seeds of Gonyl were published as a serial in the magazine Worlds of If. The story was published the following year in a hardcover by G.P. Putnam & Sons under the title The House in November, and in 1971 as a paperback by Berkley Medallion.

In 1981, Tor reprinted the novel as part of its “Jim Baen Presents” series, but, apparently deeming the novel too short, it paired it with Laumer’s story “The Further Sky,” which had originally be published in the December 1964 issue of Amazing Stories. That story had also undergone a name change and appeared as “The Other Sky” in various reprints, including its appearance with The House in November.

When Tor Books reprinted the volume in 1985, they included a shield on the cover identifying the book as a “Tor Double.” This book may possibly have been created as a dry run or proof of concept for the eventual Tor Double line.  The cover for The Other Sky was provided by Thomas Kidd and the cover for The House in November was provided by Mike Embden, although their credits are reversed on the copyright pages.

“The Other Sky” opens with Vallant having a run-in with the Niss, an alien race that is working in collaboration with humans, although immediately after, he finds an old man in his apartment. The stranger not only claims to have been one of Vallant’s comrades several years earlier (although Vallant has no memory of the man or the situation he describes), but also warns Vallant against the Niss before disappearing through a secret panel in Vallant’s apartment.

When Vallant tries to follow the old man, who discovers he has been killed by the Niss, but he also finds himself taking responsibility for Jimper, an intelligent creature. Jimper confirms what the old man had told Vallant about the Niss, but takes it a step further, claiming to be an ambassador from the King of Galliale to the Humans to form an alliance against the Niss.

Vallant and Jimper flee and find themselves among Jimper’s people on Pluto, although Jimper is not greeted in the manner in which he expects. Although neither Vallant or Jimper understand what is happening, either with the humans, the Niss, or the Gaillialans, Laumer has left enough clues that the reader has a pretty good idea what must happen for all of the pieces to come together. The addition of a portal to another world only helps seal the deal.

However, the quick sequential scenes don’t allow Laumer to fully build the characters or their situations, giving “The Other Sky” the feeling of an outline for a longer work, which means the story is ultimately disappointing and unsuccessful.

For a modern reader, Jimper’s manner of speaking in the third person has the same cadences as J.K. Rowling’s house-elf, Dobby, which bring images to mind as the novel progresses which may not be fair or accurate to Laumer’s portrayal.

Amazing Stories cover by Robert Adragna
Worlds of If cover by Jack Gaughan

The House in November follows Jeff Mallory through a post-war Nebraskan landscape, although the nature of the war is ill defined. At the beginning of the novel, Mallory is awaking from a fugue state. Although he has memories of working in the Miller Building, his wife, Gillian, insists they both work in the Star Tower. In addition, Gillian has no recollection of their oldest child, Lori, or a house in the country where they have spent their time. Leaving he house, he discovers that everyone in town seems to live in the same alternative world Gillian exists in and he flees into the countryside.

As he travels, Jeff discovers that there has been some kind of invasion which has depopulated most of the United States. He comes across small bands of refugees, most of whom are not hospitable t a stranger, although along his travels he connects with Sally, one of his daughter Lori’s friends, and they travel together, eventually finding an ersatz army but together by Colonel Strang. Lori appears to be supporting Strang’s army, and Jeff finds himself impressed into service.

Strang is convinced that the Chinese have invaded the United States and set up their base in Beatrice, the town where Jeff has been living. Nothing Jeff can say will make Strang believe that there are Americans still living in Beatrice and there are no Chinese. Eventually going AWOL, Jeff finds others who are convinced the invasion is from Satanic minions. Jeff is positive the invasion is by aliens, based on what he saw in Beatrice before he left. Although Laumer could have played up Jeff’s paranoia, making the reader question Jeff’s conclusions, The House in November is written in a way that makes the reader side with Jeff against any other theories, all of them as bereft of evidence as any of the others.

Eventually, Jeff does learn what is going on and the reader discovers that for all his normalcy, Jeff is not a normal person. He is, in many ways, the Chosen One, which may ultimately allow him to break through the haze that has settled on so many people and show them the truth of the situation, and possibly even find a solution.

Much of The House in November is episodic in nature and Laumer doesn’t spend too much time exploring any of the episodes. He gets out of Beatrice as quickly as possible at the beginning of the book. The scene in which he finds Sally living with a few survivors is over almost as soon as it starts. His encounter with Colonel Strang’s army, including Lori, exists to give him an idea of how different people’s ideas are, but he quickly leaves them behind and manages to avoid capture by Strang’s forces looking for him. Other scenes are similarly brief, which gives the story a rushed and unfinished feel, as if any of these sequences, or characters, could and should have been fleshed out more than they were.

The novella only finds its pacing when Jeff arrives at the titular house and comes into contact with Gonyl, who may be able to provide him with the answers he seeks. Having set up the world, Laumer is now able to explain to Jeff and to the reader what is happening and why Jeff was able to come out of the stupor in which he found himself.

Both stories in this volume suffer from pacing issue, both of them almost feeling as if they are outlines for more detailed novels. Laumer has elected to include several short scenes which hint at the larger concern, failing to fully flesh them out and never quite connecting with the readers, who never really had a chance to immerse themselves in the action. Both stories are tales of invasion by alien forces which are not fully understood by the people who have fallen under the alien’s control.

Steven H Silver is a twenty-time Hugo Award nominee and was the publisher of the Hugo-nominated fanzine Argentus as well as the editor and publisher of ISFiC Press for eight years. He has also edited books for DAW, NESFA Press, and ZNB. His most recent anthology is Alternate Peace and his novel After Hastings was published in 2020. Steven has chaired the first Midwest Construction, Windycon three times, and the SFWA Nebula Conference numerous times. He was programming chair for Chicon 2000 and Vice Chair of Chicon 7.

 

Exile's Hunter (Alien Mates: Planet Exile #1)by Kate Rudolph
What is it about:Kenzie will do anything to save her sister... even if it means teaming up with a dangerous alien who makes her heart pound.
Kenzie has crossed the galaxy in search of her abducted sister and she's finally landed on Guerran. It's a planet full of criminals and she can trust no one, especially not the terrifyingly hot alien named Mad.
He's as much a criminal as anyone on Guerran. And he's her only hope. But she isn't sure whether she should kiss him or stab him when his presence makes her heat up with desire.
Mad can't leave the exile planet. Once Kenzie finds Carise, the sisters will be long gone. There's no future between her and the hunky alien, no matter how quickly he steals her heart.
How can Kenzie walk away when fate has put her in the path of her mate?
What did Voodoo Bride think of it:I will confess I fell for the cover of this book.But after reading some SciFi Romance stories recently, I was in the mood for more and this one didn't just have a shiny purple cover with an interesting hero on it, it sounded good as well.
And I had a great time with it.
I really liked Mad. Being exiled and having to survive on a prison planet has made him hard, but still good at heart. I rooted for him to get everything he longed for.
Kenzie was mostly a great character as well. She was the typical big sister though - and it worked better than in most books, because after all her younger sister was abducted - and I really don't like the 'older sibling knows what's best for the younger one' trope/characteristic.
I very much enjoyed the story and the romance between Mad and Kenzie. The steamy scenes were delicious and their growing relationship had me hoping the two of them could work things out and save the day.
 There was one character who I suspect has her own book in another series by Rudolph, and there is also another book in this series that will be about two characters introduced in this one. I'll most definitely will get hold of the latter, and I will investigate other books by Rudolph.
Why should you read it:It has a strong hunky alien!

I received a review copy from the publisher. This does not affect the contents of my review and all opinions are my own.

 

The Fourth Consort by Edward Ashton

Mogsy’s Rating (Overall): 3.5 of 5 stars

Genre: Science Fiction

Series: Stand Alone/Book 1

Publisher: Macmillan Audio (February 25, 2025)

Length: 8 hrs and 25 mins

Narrator: Barrie Kreinik

I became a fan of Edward Ashton after his action sci-fi adventure Mickey7 impressed me with its sense of humor, even when dealing with a subject like existential dread. Naturally, when I heard about The Fourth Consort, I was curious to see what it’s all about.

The story follows Dalton Greaves, who has been living adrift ever since the death of his father. All this changes one night in a bar, when, after his girlfriend dumps him, he is approached by Neera, a representative of the Unity who offers him a job. It’s an opportunity for Dalton to forget his aimless life on Earth and become a part of something bigger, joining an organization with a mission for peacekeeping and cooperation to unite all sentient beings in the galaxy. Since there’s nothing left tying him to his old life and plenty to gain from the new gig, Dalton agrees.

However, the truth is much less glamorous. The Unity turns out to be not so noble after all, once Dalton gets a glimpse behind the curtains and sees how things really are. The galaxy’s true benefactors are in fact the Assembly, bitter rivals of the Unity who view Dalton and Neera with suspicion. After a disastrous encounter in orbit leaves the two humans stranded on a newly discovered world, Dalton suddenly finds himself separated from Neera’s protection and thrust into the clutches of the planet’s native inhabitants, whose ruling queen claims him as her consort—her fourth one, as it turns out. Meanwhile, stuck at court with him is also an alien named Breaker, a stickman who fights on behalf of the Assembly. Caught reluctantly in the politics of his role where enemies can strike from any direction, Dalton must figure out how to navigate this strange new world and survive Neera’s scheming even as she tries to rescue him.

At its core, The Fourth Consort is a quirky sci-fi novel that doesn’t take itself too seriously—definitely similar in tone to the Mickey7 series, which is good news if that’s what you were looking for. Ashton’s writing style is as sharp and efficient as ever, keeping the story moving along at a fast clip. The humor is also on point with plenty of witty banter and absurd moments, especially when alien cultures collide, often leading to Dalton trading barbs with his spicy translator AI.

But for its quick pacing and super lean prose which doesn’t bog itself down with unnecessary exposition, the story does sometimes feel a little too breezy for its own good. The world-building, for instance, is intriguing but on the lighter side, leaving many questions and difficulties envisioning the creatures and worlds being described. I never got a strong sense of the alien cultures and what makes them genuinely unique, and similarly, the political intrigue felt tacked on rather than fully integrated. Likewise, character development is another area that felt a little sparse, and although Dalton himself is a solid protagonist, he lacked agency and seemed carried along by events, robbing his personality of opportunities to shine.

This made the overall story arc feel kind of shallow and undercooked. While the plot featured conflicts aplenty, there was hardly any tension at all as I was never made to believe our protagonist was ever really in trouble. If anything, Breaker, the Assembly shock trooper, felt more developed even though we mainly got to know him through conversations filtered across broken translations. Sure, the occasional flashback to Dalton’s past helped, but many of them felt like flavor text and completely unnecessary, and I’m not sure that these little snippets featuring his pre-Unity days were quite worth the distraction.

That said, hopefully I didn’t come off as too negative, as The Fourth Consort actually turned out to be a very enjoyable and fun read, especially the audio book version whose narrator Barrie Kreinik gave a lively performance. The pacing was tight, the humor sharp, and I loved the clever dialogue. However, while the book is entertaining in the moment, I don’t think it will leave a lasting impression. If the author decides to continue Dalton’s tale, I’d be interested to see where he ends up taking things, but as it stands, this one gets a solid 3.5 stars.