Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich

May 11, 2020

Hard Cash Valley by Brian Panowich

Dane Kirby has been drifting through life since the death of his wife and daughter ten years earlier.  A former fire chief, now part-time investigator for the Georgia Bureau of Investigation, Dane has a girlfriend who loves him and friends who care deeply but he can't seem to connect with them and spends more time talking to his dead wife than he does with the living.  He is unexpectedly called in by the FBI when a small-time hoodlum from Georgia is found horribly murdered in a Florida motel.  The murdered man recently won $1.2 million on cockfighting but both the money and the man's younger brother are missing.  Kirby teams up with an agent who is less than thrilled to be working with him, and they follow the money and the kid back to Kirby's home grounds in Georgia near Bull Mountain.

Brian Panowich returns to the Georgia mountains from his first two thrillers.  A few characters recur but this is largely a new cast and the focus is not on the Burroughs clan.  This is a fast-paced quick thriller that keeps the reader turning pages.  Panowich's characters are what make the story notable, despite their dumb mistakes and decisions (as I've told fellow librarians, if characters didn't make dumb choices, there wouldn't be a novel).  The ending is a little sappy but if you like a feel-good or hopeful ending, you'll be okay with it.

Many thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for providing a review copy in exchange for a review.

Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich

February 12, 2020

Bull Mountain by Brian Panowich

Clayton Burroughs has spent his whole life trying to be different from the rest of his family.  His father and brothers ran the biggest moonshine operation on Bull Mountain, and when prohibition was overturned, they moved on to marijuana, crystal meth, and guns.  To prove that he is not like his family, Clayton runs for and is elected county sheriff, which doesn’t sit well with his closest relatives.  His brother Halford has run his illegal businesses like a mafia don and depends on personal loyalty from those who live on the mountain, but various agencies of the federal government are closing in.  For good measure, throw in an ATF agent with a serious drug addiction and his own agenda.

The Godfather meets Winter’s Bone.  This is a quick suspenseful read with well-developed characters that kept me turning the pages, with good concise writing that doesn’t wander into a lot of unnecessary detail.  The story moves back and forth from the 1940’s to the present day with various stops in between, so if you don’t care for a nonlinear story, this may not be for you.  Be warned:  there is also a pretty high violence level.  Panowich has written two sequels set in the same area (Like Lions and Hard Cash Valley).

Highfire by Eoin Colfer

February 10, 2020

Highfire by Eoin Colfer

Vern (officially Wyvern, Lord Highfire of Highfire Eyrie) is the last of his kind.  He is the only dragon left after thousands of years of dragon supremacy.  Now he spends his days just wanting to be left alone, hiding out in a backwater in the Louisiana bayou, drinking vodka, chatting about the old days to his only friend Waxman, and watching QVC on cable TV.  That is, until a local Cajun boy named Squib who runs errands for Waxman stumbles into his territory and sees Vern in fiery action.  Vern knows humans are bad news:  you befriend one of them, and the next thing you know, there’s a mob outside with torches and pitchforks.  The last thing Vern wants is to get close to a human, but when Waxman is suddenly incapacitated, Vern finds he has no choice but to trust Squib.

Many fantasy novels tend to have either a quest story or are a retelling of a fairy or folk tale.  Highfire has a different plot structure since it is set in the 21^st century in our world (not an alternate universe) with a contemporary plot line.  A similar style of fantasy novel is Anonymous Rex by Andy Garcia, about a dinosaur who lives in Los Angeles and works as a noir-type private investigator.

Eoin Colfer wrote the Artemis Fowl series, a YA fantasy series about a teen named Artemis Fowl who decides he is going to trap a fairy and force her to do his bidding (boy, is he ever wrong).

Not a photo of Vern

Many thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing an e-ARC in exchange for a review.

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell

November 7, 2019

What Have You Done by Matthew Farrell

Liam Dwyer goes out for an evening of drinking with his brother, has a blackout and can’t remember what he did, how he got home or why he was in the bathtub.  Or where his clothes are.  The morning after Liam’s binge, his ex-lover Kerri is found murdered in a seedy hotel room, and his blood and his fingerprints are all over the room.  As a forensic detective with the Philadelphia Police Department, Liam is called to the scene to collect evidence.  Liam’s brother Sean Dwyer is a homicide detective with the Philadelphia Police Department.  He and his partner are on another case, pursuing a local black gangster named Cutter Washington, who they believe is responsible for the beating death of a local store owner.

Since both Liam and Sean knew the murdered girl, Sean convinces Liam that they shouldn't say they knew her right away, otherwise the detectives assigned to the case would zero in on them and not look for the real killer.  Liam agrees since he can't remember where he was the night before.  Sean and Liam decide to conduct their own investigation, trying to beat the clock before anyone finds out about their connection to the victim.  Liam claims nobody else knows about his connection to Kerri, but is that really true?

This was an entertaining mystery.  While it doesn't have an unreliable narrator since it's written in the third person and from several points of view, almost all of the characters are lying.  I had a good idea who murdered Kerri about 1/3 of the way through the book, but I kept reading to find out how it was done.  There are some flaws but mystery readers will enjoy it.  The cops don't come off very well, since most of them are doing some pretty shady things.