iBookKindlePrintReviews

Bluff by Michael Kardos

By
Reading Bluff brings to mind Christopher Nolan’s movie of feuding magicians, The Prestige. In it there’s a scene explaining the three stages of a magic trick. First comes The Pledge. This is the starting point of the trick, and gives the audience some idea of what…
Read more
iBookKindlePrintReviews

Bad Boy Boogie

By
Written by Thomas Pluck — New Jersey native Thomas Pluck has been a part of the American crime fiction indie scene for a while now. He has edited two Protectors benefit anthologies – the first of of which we reviewed – as well has having stories placed in several…
Read more
PrintReviews

Tommy Red by Charlie Stella

By
It is nearly four years since Rough Riders, a fictionalisation of Boston gangster Whitey Bulger‘s story, topped my end of year list. A lot has happened in the crime fiction field since then, most notably the genre-devouring Gone Girl and the whole phenomenon that is domestic noir….
Read more
iBookKindlePrintReviews

Jack of Spades by Joyce Carol Oates

By
This rather short (200-page) psychological thriller is told as a first-person narrative by successful mystery author Andrew J Rush. Rush thinks of himself with quote marks around his name, perhaps because he’s beginning to realise identity is more ephemeral than he’s heretofore believed. We soon learn he’s…
Read more
KindlePrintReviews

The Suicide

By
Written by Mark SaFranko — Transgender people don’t usually get an easy ride in crime fiction. Sometimes they are the psychopaths, as in Silence of the Lambs, and in other cases they are quirky bit-part players who end up dead. That’s not to say there aren’t crime fiction…
Read more
KindlePrintReviews

Gun Church

By
Written by Reed Farrel Coleman — Kenneth ‘Kip’ Weiler is an English professor at Brixton County Community College, in a mining community in rural New Jersey. His professional life consists of teaching creative writing to a bunch of students with little natural talent who are…
Read more