The Jury Box
by Steve Steinbock
When assembling the titles for this installment of The Jury Box, I was struck by the way the authors weaved family dynamics into several of the stories. The first four books portray conflicts and cooperation between parents and children, brothers and sisters. Also included is a striking novel-within-a-novel which I believe would have pleased our namesake, Ellery Queen. We’ll wrap up this column with reviews of four excellent new short-story collections.
Matt Goldman, Liar’s Creek, Minotaur, $19.00. Twenty years ago, Clay Hawkins left Riverwood, Minnesota to pursue a career in professional soccer in Ireland. He and his twelve-year-old son have returned to Riverwood, with its four stoplights, two beauty salons, nine bars, and a police department from which Clay’s father was recently forced into retirement. As Clay works to repair his strained relationship with his father, his beloved uncle goes missing. Working with the new sheriff, Clay sifts through lies, secrets, a string of catalytic converter thefts, and a trio of young troublemakers to learn what happened to his uncle. Liar’s Creek is a solid mystery novel, but where it truly shines is in Goldman’s thoughtful portrayal of small-town Minnesota and his poignant and moving treatment of father-son relationships.
Alan Orloff, The Family Biz, Level Best Books, $17.95. Coming from a family of crooks, conmen, and grifters, it wasn’t easy for Chance Winston to set his life on a straight path. But after a three-year stint in prison, Chance has an honest career as a driver for Ryde, the fourth-most-popular ride share service in the country. His crime-free track record is put to a test when his latest customer reveals that she is Chance’s biological daughter, and that her mother Kristal—the true love who ran out on him twenty years earlier—is in trouble with some very bad people who are threatening both their lives unless they come up with $350,000. Chance and his newfound daughter team up with some of Chance’s old colleagues, including his mom and brother, resulting in a funny, entertaining, and often touching adventure.
S.J. Rozan, First Do No Harm, Pegasus Crime, $27.95. Family relationships also play a big role in book sixteen of Rozan’s wonderful P.I. series featuring New York sleuths Bill Smith and Lydia Chin. When morgue attendant Jordy Kazarian is accused of murdering nurse Sophia Scott, the police and the hospital administration are convinced of his guilt. But Lydia Chin’s brother, chief of Emergency Medicine for River Valley, is certain Jordy is being framed. Lydia and Bill step in, and in the process dig up a number of questionable or illegal practices going on deep in the heart of River Valley Hospital, including a conspiracy to sway a nurses union settlement. First Do No Harm is a smart, well-plotted whodunit filled with twists and witty, laugh-out-loud dialogue.
Max Alan Collins, Return of the Maltese Falcon, Hard Case Crime, $27.99. This sequel to Hammett’s 1930 novel picks up where the original novel left off, with Casper Gutman dead, Brigid O’Shaughnessy in jail, and the jeweled statuette still missing. A young woman who introduces herself as Gutman’s daughter hires Sam Spade to help her track down the legendary falcon. As Spade gumshoes his way through the wharves and bars of San Francisco, he meets all of the (still living) characters from Hammett’s novel, including the Russian forger, General Kemidov, who was mentioned in the original novel but never appeared, and Brigid O’Shaughnessy who is serving time for killing Spade’s former partner. The Return of the Maltese Falcon is a loving tribute and a satisfying follow-up to Hammett’s classic novel.
C.B. Everett, The Final Chapter, Atria Books, $17.99. Ten years ago, famed (fictional) novelist Jonathan Durward disappeared without a trace. Now that a previously lost final (fictional) novel, Russian Doll, has been discovered, Durward’s former best friend, (fictional) C.B. Everett, has been asked to edit the book and provide annotation. The full text of Russian Doll (the perfect title for a nested novel) is contained within The Final Chapter. It tells the story of a government assassin’s attempt to take on a new identity and leave spy-craft behind. But it’s in Everett’s annotations that the real story is told. Three times while reading this book, I thought I’d figured out the plot. But each time I had the satisfaction of being wrong. C.B. Everett is the penname of British author Martyn Waites.
Lawrence Light, Payback, Severn House, $29.99. Journalist Frank Verity, having just lost a libel lawsuit, finds himself out of a job. But as a former CIA operative, Frank has other talents that Detective Bridget Washington of the NYPD finds handy when a hedge fund manager is thrown from his Fifth Avenue apartment window and the police are unable to figure out how the assassins got in or out of the building and why they are targeting the four “Medici Boys” of modern Wall Street. Meanwhile, a separate case develops when hundreds of people die after taking tainted pain relievers. Payback is the first in a new series by Lawrence Light, a regular contributor to EQMM and AHMM as well as a longtime officer of Mystery Writers of America and a financial writer whose work has appeared in Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and Bloomberg Businessweek. In Frank Verity, Light has created a brainy and attractive new action hero who will return next year in the second volume of the series.
Josh Pachter, editor, Hot Shots: Celebrating Thirty Years of the Short Mystery Fiction Society, Level Best Books, $19.95. The Short Mystery Fiction Society has been celebrating, supporting, and encouraging authors of short crime fiction since it began in April 1996. Since 1998 they have presented the Derringer Awards for various subcategories of short story. To celebrate their first thirty years, Josh Pachter has assembled twenty-eight stories, one for each year that the Derringers were presented. Among the stories included are “Famous Last Words” by Doug Allyn (from EQMM, November, 2009), “On the Road With Mary Jo” by John M. Floyd (from EQMM, January/February 2019), “My Two-Legs” by Melissa Yi (from AHMM, September/October 2022), and Pachter’s own Derringer-winning “The Wind Phone” (from EQMM, September/October 2024). The book also includes a foreword by SMFS President Joseph S. Walker and three appendices listing all Derringer winners and the fifteen “Hall of Fame” inductees.
Joseph S. Walker, Crime Scenes, Level Best Books, $17.95. Joseph Walker’s first published short story appeared in 2011. In the short time since then, Walker has had more than a hundred crime and mystery stories published and now serves as president of the Short Mystery Fiction Society. Celebrating fifteen years since his first published crime story, Crime Scenes assembles twenty of Walker short stories, including the Edgar nominated “Etta at the End of the World” (from AHMM, May/June 2020), a tale about two women at risk who take the law into their own hands. Also included in the collection are “Chasing Diamonds” (from EQMM, September/October 2020) and “The Last Man in Lafarge” (from EQMM, July/August 2021). A natural storyteller, Walker doesn’t waste a single word. His style is crisp and his characters shine. His stories are small, but they pack a huge heartfelt wallop.
Michael Bracken and Stacy Woodson, editors, Wish Upon a Crime: Crime Fiction Inspired by Fairy Tales, Level Best Books, $19.95. Fourteen of the best crime writers in America have each penned a tale of crime based on classic fairytales. The stories include Michael Bracken’s “Three Billy Goats Gruff,” a pun-filled tale of a drug war between rival marijuana growers. Adam Meyer’s reinterpretation of “Rapunzel” is a love story between an online music critic and a strange young woman with long golden hair. Debra H. Goldstein’s “The Bremen Musicians” tells of four teens who use their musical talents to survive in a Nazi concentration camp. Other authors include Donna Andrews, Joseph S. Walker, John M. Floyd, Josh Pachter, Barb Goffman, Stacy Woodson, and David Dean.
Martin Edwards, editor, What the World Needs Now: Mystery Stories Inspired by the Music of Burt Bacharach, Level Best Books, $19.95. In the foreword to this song-inspired anthology, playwright, composer, and mystery writer Rupert Holmes compares Bacharach’s musical twists to the suspense of Hitchcock and the plot twists of Christie and Queen. Bacharach’s catchy tunes serve as jumping-off points for twenty-four twisty tales by Charles Todd, Joseph Goodrich, Melodie Johnson Howe, Peter Lovesey, Art Taylor, Ragnar Jonasson, and Barb Goffman, among others. Martin Edwards, who conceived and edited his volume, provided introductions to each of the stories as well as authoring one of the stories. Each short story, like the songs of Burt Bacharach, have the accessibility of popular music but each in its own way delivers a profound sting. Several of the stories, including Josh Pachter’s “Me Japanese Boy,” touch on the subject of autism. All proceeds from the sale of this anthology will be donated to autism charities in the U.S. and U.K.