Cool Detroit Crime Fiction from Stephen Mack Jones, DEAD OF WINTER

Maybe Detroit has something in the water that affects authors. What, you think that's a joke? You haven't heard about Flint, Michigan? They're not so far apart ...

Think Loren Estleman's Motor City mysteries. Jane Haseldine's Julia Gooden series. A couple of titles from Elmore Leonard. Steve Hamilton and Jon A. Jackson place crime fiction in Michigan, too. And then there's Stephen Mack Jones, with his third Detroit crime novel.

DEAD OF WINTER samples Detroit's worn and reworked neighborhoods through August Snow, a former cop who's accepted a huge settlement for the way the city, his employer, treated him in the past. With that money Snow's been rehabbing his neighborhood. Honoring both his African-American father and his Mexican-American mother, he's enjoying a mixed heritage of good food and great friends -- especially his godfather Tomás, who's ready to put his explosive defensive skills to work for Snow whenever needed.

There's blackmail and some kind of real estate scam going on nearby, though, and the family of Authentico Foods owner Ronaldo Ochoa seems pretty strange about whether Snow should step into the dangerous mess, or leave them to make money from it. Good thing August has allies in the police force who thought he'd done the right thing way back when. Then again, there are a few who'd like to keep punishing him, by leaving him to the dangers of a net of billionaire developers creating luxury "safe houses" for international crime.

Meanwhile, Snow's equally international lover, Tatina, is pushing him to straighten out his life and stop feeling (rather alcoholically) sorry for himself.

Watching her dump the remaining half of a fifth of WhistlePig rye down the drain was painful, but I finally, in my confession, was addressing the things that were and had been tying my guts into a million strangling knots.

"People get hurt around me," I said. "That's the way it was in Afghanistan. The way it was at the DPD. And now . . ."

"People are saved because of you, August," Tatina said. She'd stopped pouring my booze down the drain. What a party that would be for the sewer rats of Detroit. "And don't think for a minute I don't know who you are, what you have done and can do. You're not that good of a liar, and I'm not that naive. Neither of us has any rightful claim to innocence."

Snow's crisis of conscience and the way his buddies boot him through it provide an extra strand of interest for a plot that features outsized shooting sprees, abundant threats, and sometimes absurd resolutions (when you finish reading it, tell me what you thought about the deer thing). All of which can't take away from the lively pleasure of reading Jones's enthusiastic and suspenseful storytelling from the point of view of a rich guy who loves the neighborhood. You won't need to read the other two August Snow novels before this one. But you'll probably want to buy them afterward, if they're not already on your shelf (August Snow and Lives Laid Away). They're too much fun to miss.

This one comes out May 4, from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Crime Reporter in Detroit? Great Setup, Now in Its Fourth Title, from Jane Haseldine

[originally published by the New York Journal of Books]

“Fans of Karen Slaughter will find Haseldine’s crime fiction rewarding, and it’s also a good balance to another excellent Detroit series from Stephen Mack Jones; of course there’s also a hint of Loren D. Estleman’s Motor City mysteries here, too.”

The fourth in Jane Haseldine’s Julia Gooden mystery series, You Fit the Pattern, resumes after her major scoop of discovering the truths in her own family: her much-loved brother’s childhood abduction, his killer (found by Julia 30 years after the crime), and the devastating role their father played in the crimes. 

Meanwhile, active crimes in Detroit have spun out of control while Julia was swamped in her own detection. There’s a killer seizing woman joggers, creating a pattern of highly planned and horrific deaths for them. When Julia realizes the serial killer is picking out women who resemble her, enacting over and over a both a passion for her and a deadly obsession, she can’t help feeling responsible—and so, driven to take risks to bring the murderer out of hiding.

Also at stake, of course, is the safety of Julia’s young sons, already traumatized enough by the threats that her career has brought into their lives. Thank goodness for her motherly housekeeper Helen and for Julia’s increasing closeness to Detective Raymond Navarro, both doing their best to keep her safe.

But when the killer’s routine turns out to include a voodoo symbol, as well as items that make it clear he’s stalking Julia and her family, things rapidly get very creepy. Soon the killer even has a nickname: the Magic Man Killer.

The one plus to this escalating mode of threat is, it pulls Julia and Navarro closer:

“Navarro sighed and ran his fingers in frustration through his thick shock of dark hair.

“’You need to do something for me. I’m not going to let you and your boys hang solo with all this going down. I checked with my apartment manager. He has a vacant unit next to mine … And I’ll be right there. I’m not going to discount that the killer knows where you live. … please think about it.’

“’Okay. We’ll do it.’

“’Just like that? I don’t have to fight you on this?’

“’Not this time. The Magic Man Killer has got a direct line to me. I don’t know how close it is, but I need to make sure he doesn’t get anywhere near my family.’”

But of course, safety’s not that simple, especially when Julia’s own drive to investigate and get the story become tangled with the creeps tracking her and trying to lure her in. Yes, that’s creeps, plural. When the nasty part of the world opens up, there’s way too much evil in there.

Haseldine’s narrative is strong and direct, a good fit for her protagonist. With this fourth in the series, Haseldine has clearly grown more adept at holding all the cards in her hands, from threats to red herrings to cop-shop interference and the loyalties that make live worth living. Fans of Karen Slaughter will find Haseldine’s crime fiction rewarding, and it’s also a good balance to another excellent Detroit series from Stephen Mack Jones; of course there’s also a hint of Loren D. Estleman’s Motor City mysteries here, too.

There’s no need to read the preceding titles first (The Last Time She Saw Him; Duplicity; Worth Killing For). But the satisfaction of seeing this sometimes gritty and always fast-paced series maturing makes it worth gathering all four titles on the shelf, and watching for the next one. 

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

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Detroit Crime Fiction from Stephen Mack Jones, LIVES LAID AWAY

Uh-oh. I just had to add Stephen Mack Jones to my list of "must read everything by this crime fiction author." The list is getting out of hand. That said, at least Jones has only one earlier mystery, August Snow (an award nominee), to round up for my new shelf space, in which LIVES LAID AWAY is getting great exposure.

It's hard to believe this is only the second mystery from this author -- with a well tangled plot, excellent pacing, and the deft mixture of toughness and generosity in his protagonist, August Snow, this is a terrific new book and a great series.

August Snow is an ex-police officer living in a rundown section of Detroit, determinedly saving his old neighborhood, one structure and worthwhile neighbor at a time. That means that when crime crosses his path, he's obligated to do something about it, unless he wants to lose what he's built. And he's still got some connections to work the case.

Snow is as shocked as anyone else when the body of a young Hispanic immigrant turns up in the Detroit River, dressed in costume and clearly sexually abused. Snow's close friend Elena, who works with both legal and illegal immigrants to help them find their way to healthy American citizenship, can ID the young woman. And in that moment of recognition, she and August face a commitment to all the immigrants in the neighborhood whose persecution has become some criminal's new game. Of course, criminals aren't the only threat -- so is the law at times.

"ICE agents were inquiring about Catalina," I said. "And Manny,"

"Jesus," Carlos said. Attempting to hold onto a thread of hope, he said, "Señora Elena's been looking into citizenship paths for--"

"Right now, my friend," I said, "there are no paths. Only landmines."

"Is she -- are they safe? My boy? With Father Grabowski?" Carlos said I might as well have punched him in the gut. At least that would have left him with a bit of air in his lungs.

I knew Detroit a bit, before its collapse. I wouldn't have wished this on any city. That said, the economic and social disaster of the city is forcing top crime fiction just as surely as sunshine forces a plant out of the earth. Count Stephen Mack Jones way onto the plus side of the ledger.

A Soho Crime book, new in January.

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Detroit Crime Fiction Thrives with Jane Haseldine's Third, WORTH KILLING FOR

The full-page ads in major newspaper review sections promote established mystery authors where publishers take little risk. And that's why the crime fiction coming from Kensington isn't showing up in those splashy ads. But this New York publisher now has an overwhelming back list, and an impressive roster of new releases -- with some excellent authors lined up.

Jane Haseldine, who lives in California, worked the crime beat as a journalist (and held political positions) before she transitioned to crime fiction. She comes with life experience, as well as plenty of cold cases in mind. And in Detroit's variegated cityscape of wealth, poverty, empty districts, and uncertain infrastructure, she has the perfect terrain to explore both violence and corruption, those mainstays of dark suspense. Add to this the feisty and often emotional Julia Gooden, crime reporter and victim of the city's inner darkness, and the series leapt into intense action.

In this third book in the series, WORTH KILLING FOR, Julia Gooden would like to think her life is stable -- especially for the sake of her two young sons. Dating a police detective isn't making that stability easy, since she's always juggling the urge for an exclusive advance look at a crime (and her editor's pressure), with a necessary discretion about things she's not supposed to find out ahead of the other reporters.

But there are far worse complications possible, as Julia's past rises up to tear holes in her life, as her detective boyfriend admits he's checked out her long-absent father's record:

"I'm not sure if you knew this already, but your dad served some time."

"I know. I was five. Ben [her brother] told me Duke [their dad] was on a business trip so I wouldn't be upset. But one of the kids on our school bus, his dad was a prison guard and knew that my dad was locked up. The kid told everybody on the bus ride home one day about my dad being a convict, and Ben punched him in the nose. We had to walk the rest of the way because the bus driver kicked Ben off, and I wasn't going to stay on there without him."

"There's a note in your dad's file that he was affiliated with a man named Peter Jonti, a hood who served time at the same prison with Duke. Jonti was younger than your dad, but it looks like he was connected. I did a check, and Jonti got popped again recently, but he's out now and working at a sushi joint downtown ..."

Julia jotted the name of her father's former associate down in pen on the palm of her hand.

"I'll check him out," Julia said. There's one thing that keeps coming back to me about what went down in Sparrow. Before Jameson died, he said Duke took something that didn't belong to him, and when that happened, things got taken from him. He could've meant Ben. I'm certain of it."

That's an urgent problem to solve, because Julia's brother Ben is a cold case -- he's been missing since their childhood. And soon she's sure that Duke, their dad, is back in Detroit, using her as a lightning rod to attract danger while searching for some kind of treasure from the past.

Was Ben kidnapped to punish Duke? Or was his disappearance connected with other cold cases? Or both? Julia's haunted by the notion that Ben might still need to be found. But what she opts to do, and the stones she turns over, create a hazardous situation for her own children -- and add to the risks of her love life.

Great complications, rapid pacing, powerful twists, and the equally haunting terrain of Detroit itself make WORTH KILLING FOR well worth reading. Haseldine's on a roll -- her previous book, Duplicity, also whipped Julia Gooden's reporting life into sharp suspense. This is definitely a series to collect (and you don't need any ginormous newspaper ads to signal it, right?).

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Detroit-Area Crime Reporter Julia Gooden in DUPLICITY by Jane Haseldine

DUPLICITY is the second of the Julia Gooden crime novels -- but the first to come my way. Issued as a hardcover by Kensington, it moves author Jane Haseldine onto the "must collect" list. Not only is this gritty and high-tension mystery set in grim and corruptible Detroit, once the nation's "Motor City"; it takes the classic situation of investigative journalist versus crooked justice, and salts it with mob violence and vicious politics.

For Julia Gooden, the job comes first. That makes her a challenging character, when you consider she's also a mom to two small boys -- in fact, almost a single mom, since she's only starting to consider letting her estranged husband back into the family's life.

Her career also pits her directly against her husband David at this moment, as he is the prosecutor taking a mob figure to trial, determined to keep witnesses and testimony secret for as long as possible, to secure the safety of those on the stand. When a rival newspaper picks up details that Julia might have exposed if only she didn't have to be so careful of her husband's position, her own job prospects take a hard blow. But that's nothing compared to the violence and risk ahead, as her efforts to keep her family safe take her behind the crime scenes, into serious conflicts of interest.

Adding yet another layer of suspense and darkness to Julia's life is her past: not just the years when her marriage "worked" but also the childhood crushed by the kidnapping of her brother, who still hasn't been found -- one reason, in fact, that she's kept her "maiden" name despite marrying.

All this comes to a head in a hospital room, as Julia wonders whether David can even hear her trying to encourage him to recover from an act of terror -- and steps into deep trouble through a routine gesture:

She notices a cardboard box containing David's belongings on a stand next to the bed, including his clothing he had carefully selected for big day one of the trial. Julia inspects the items in the box: David's cell phone, wallet, blue suit coat and dress pants, white button-down shirt with the gold stripes she picked for him just hours earlier. ... Julia tucks the box under her arm as Dr. Whitcomb pokes his head inside the door.

"Ms. Gooden, I'm afraid it's time to leave."

Julia leans in close to David and whispers in his ear, "I love you. Fight with all you've got."

What Julia will later find on that significant cell phone shifts the balance in this intense thriller, and will also affect her interactions with a local police detective. Layer after layer, she's got to figure out who around her is trustworthy -- and whose duplicity is going to wound her yet again.

And, oh yes, somehow save her job, if possible.

This is a fast-moving and suspenseful tale, with enjoyable complications and twists throughout. Julia Gooden won't be my favorite character of the month -- I didn't like some of her choices, to the point where I wouldn't actually want her as a friend. But that's OK: I still want to follow her investigations, here and in future books of the series.

I also get the strong impression that Haseldine -- a former crime reporter herself -- is positioned to get steadily stronger in this genre. Worth going along for the ride!

PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Brief Mention: Loren D. Estleman Stories, in DESPERATE DETROIT (Mysteries)

Flint, Kalamazoo, Detroit ... those Michigan cities keep coming up in the news. To get a slant on the dark syndicate past of Mo-Town itself, there's nothing as enjoyable as a hard-boiled mystery from Loren D. Estleman.

Just in time for the distracted season of spring, when it's a challenge to find time to read a dozen pages at a sitting, Tyrus Books is bringing out (on April 1) DESPERATE DETROIT (subtitle: And Stories of Other Dire Places), a collection of Estleman's widely varied tales. From his earliest pulp-style fiction, to sneakily nasty "PI" adventures, this is a wicked and urbane collection. My advance copy doesn't have the original pub dates and venues for the stories, which I would have enjoyed; but Estleman's personal comments introducing the pieces give a good feel for his own sense of his past and his writerly pleasures. Good twists, classic noir, and a must for any collection of either this author or the pulps and their descendants.

World War II Policing in Detroit: DETROIT IS OUR BEAT, Loren D. Estleman

This is a hot time for World War I and  World War II mysteries set in Europe, especially England and France -- and Italy, come to think of it. And there are also some series set between the wars. It's a great time to probe the complications of two terrible conflicts, through crime fiction.

But what about on the home front? Yes, the U S of A, where in the 1940s there was rationing of gasoline and tires, changes of car manufacturing lines to build tanks instead, and a certain patriotism in women pretending they wore stockings, while actually giving them up, for the war effort.

By zeroing in on this era in Detroit, the Motor City (yes, that's where Motown came from, too), prolific author Loren D. Estleman takes a walk on the dark side -- because this was a period of stunningly brutal policing, where the criminal enterprises and the cops stayed connected, and brass knuckles were as much a tool of law enforcement as they were of crime and bar fights.

Estleman's Amos Walker series (1980-2014 and continuing) is set here; so is his "Detroit series" (published from 1990 to 1999), which sets out to tell a significant part of the American story through the history  of crime, gently fictionalized, in a quintessential American city. In addition to his novels, though, Estleman has steadily provided short stories set in Detroit, especially for Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, edited by Linda Landrigan.

For his new release from Tyrus Books, DETROIT IS OUR BEAT, Estleman rounds up nine of these tales of his "Racket Squad" -- a plainclothes detective squad of four, showing what it means to be tough on crime under wartime conditions (not enough men, not enough gasoline, and so on). Lieutenant Zagreb, Sergeant Canal, and Officers McReary and Burke are loyal to each other and to getting the job done. But don't count on rules being followed in the process.

For instance, take their arrival at Frankie Orr's suite, on a mission to protect Frank Sinatra, The Voice, from a threat. The Four Horsemen aren't much impressed with Orr's on-the-spot protection team:

The bodyguard tried to roll with the blow and reached under the sagging side of his coat. McReary, stationed on that side, slid the blackjack out of his sleeve and flicked it at the back of the man's hand as it emerged. The big semiautomatic pistol thumped to the carpet. Burke kicked it away.

"Just like Busby Berkeley," Zagren said. "Show some manners. Knock on the door."

The bodyguard, bleeding from the temple, ungripped his injured hand and complied.

Right, so this isn't sweet stuff (and it's from those classic years, too) ... but there's plenty of squad loyalty, lots of dark humor, and a heaping helping of city police life from the wild days of wartime.

So if you'd like to round out your "wartime" crime fiction reading, grab a copy of DETROIT IS OUR BEAT. Hard to tell what the release dates are for the various versions of the book (hardcover and paperback are both listed for May 2 at one online site, but Tyrus released at least one version last October). But if you like American noir with a lot of style from the glory days of the gangsters, tuck this one into your beach bag or briefcase and, as Estleman suggests, "It's the 1940s, gate. Don't be a moldy fig. Get hep, jump to the jive, ring your favorite Jane up on the Ameche, and don't spare the horses."