David Thayer

Few things are more prestigious for an author than an invitation to Eddy’s Book Nook in downtown Wellington Leg. I can’t speak for Eddy or Marge who handles author events when she isn’t inventing the graphic novel or serving time. Eddy has a mind of his own. He marches to his own drummer at a time when many in the Leg come into his store because they remember the ill-fated gummi bear promotion during last summer’s heat wave.

Theresa Schwegel’s second novel Probable Cause is due for release in January 2007. Her debut Officer Down won the Edgar this year. I read Probable Cause and enjoyed every minute of it. I’m going to call Eddy and recommend it to him.

The Sweet and the Dead by Milton T. Burton is a good read, a period piece set in the deep south back in the day. Burton gets into the Dixie Mafia setting his story in Biloxi, Mississippi. The book is from SMP-Minotaur and is available now.

Also worth mentioning is Bloody Harvests by Richard Kunzmann, a South African writer who explores a gruesome aspect of ritual killing in Johannesburg.

I also wanted to mention Laura Joh Rowland’s Red Chrysanthemum set for release this month. This is the latest in her series set in feudal Japan featuring Chamberlain Sano Ichiro.

Back to Theresa Schwegel for a moment. In Probable Cause she manages to nail several male pov characters with total assurance and make them all believable. In fact the book is told entirely from a male character’s view as a newbie on the Chicago PD. Schwegel integrates her female characters into the story without flinching or diminishing her character’s responses with authorial riffs or sly attempts at judgment. I think that takes talent and guts and she has both.

This entry was posted on Monday, November 6th, 2006 at 8:03 am and is filed under Crime Fiction. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.