Book Review: Who Wrote the Book of Death, another Liskow mystery

Steve Liskow continues with his string of mysteries. Who Wrote the Book of Death? is the latest for this Connecticut writer.

Continuing with reviews of new books, The Writing Loft offers a review of Who Wrote the Book of Death? written by Steve Liskow.

Who Wrote the Book of Death?
Written by Steve Liskow

Reviewed here by
Jim Bair

Who Wrote the Book of Death? follows its own advice. Two of its three main characters are writers. At various times they discuss or ponder the things that make for good stories. Author Liskow has created a thriller that is a lot fun to read.

The third chief character, private detective Greg Nines, is called in as security for the beautiful romance writer Taliesyn Holroyd. Ms. Holroyd has had two near misses with death as the book begins. Much of the tension in the story comes from the continued threats and attempts on her life.

What complicates the story and the mystery is that Taliesyn Holroyd is the pen name of two writers who collaborate in an unusual way. Neither writer has any enemies as far as they know, and no one is even sure which of the two writers the stalker is after—or if the person thinks one of them is the “real” Ms. Holroyd.

There are some suspects: one writer’s ex-husband, a U. S. senator whose life is being fictionalized in the latest Holroyd novel, and the family of a boy who some think is the senator’s illegitimate son. Everyone seems to have an alibi, and nothing makes sense except that someone wants someone else dead.

Nines works on the security in the house where one writer lives and the other is staying. It is clear the suspect has closely observed the house and its inhabitants’ comings and goings. Attempts on their lives become more frequent—and Nines has to protect his charges but has no idea who or why. Can Nines success in thwarting the stalker before either writer is killed? Further complicating things is that while Nines has taken all kinds of precautions to set alarms and thwart unwanted entry into the house, it becomes clear that the stalker (or someone hired by the stalker) knows electrical systems and alarms very well.

The mystery stalker is reminiscent of similar thrillers like Mary Higgins Clark’s Daddy’s Little Girl or Frederick Knott’s Wail Until Dark (which is alluded to in the story). It borrows some of the mystery from the Sherlock Holmes story “The Red-Headed League.” But something else besides the tense plot keeps the story going—the characters. Both writers and the detective are puzzled by who would want to kill one or both of them, but at the same time they all have their secrets. As the story reveals the truth about who they really are, we begin to care more about them. I suspect that many readers will want to read more about Greg Nines and “Taliesyn Holroyd.”

The author has some fun since he is writing about authors. What motivates people to write? Is it to entertain? Is it therapy? Or is it to create a world that somehow magnifies the one we live in? From time to time we get to read some of the writers’ work. It is not as good as Liskow’s own voice, but in all fairness, they are mostly rough drafts. The author has a little fun with an occasional metaphor or simile that echoes Philip Marlowe like “she wears jeans that hug her curves like a lover.” If the writer is having fun, so should the reader.

One caution: Ms. Holroyd writes popular “bodice-ripper” romances. There are some steamy sex scenes, mostly from her romances, but towards the end some of the “real” characters have their own.

The story is set in central Connecticut; the author knows the location and gets it right. (I used to be a regular customer at one of the stores where Ms. Holroyd has a book signing when I had family who lived nearby.) Hopefully, Mr. Liskow himself won’t encounter Ms. Holroyd’s problems because a certain U. S. senator from Connecticut appears to be the model for the senator in the story…

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This book is available through www.mainlymurderpress.com, www.Amazon.com and www.BarnesandNoble.com.
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Author Steve Liskow has published stories in three anthologies of New England crime writing and has twice won Honorable Mention for the Al Blanchard Story Award. “Stranglehold” won the Wolfe Pack’s 2009 Black Orchid Novella Award and appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine during the summer of 2010. A member of MWA and Sisters in Crime, he is working on a private eye series and a novel based on his previous life as an English teacher. He lives in Connecticut.

Jim Bair is an English teacher and occasional freelance writer and editor. Over the years he has written numerous articles and book reviews. He authored the English grammar software Grammar Slammer sold at www.englishplus.com. Before going into teaching, he had been a law enforcement officer with the Coast Guard and a bookstore manager.

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There’s always something ‘cooking’ with a mystery!

It amused me recently when I looked around and saw how much popular fiction writing was linked to food, specifically the preparation, cooking and consumption of very specific types of foods by our favorite characters. Along with the food, there was also drinking, lots and lots of drinking.

Following this thread of logic, it should be no surprise American over-eating has become the chosen cause of First Lady of the United States (FLOTUS) Michelle Obama. The Writing Loft decided to don its investigative apron, check out the spice rack and delve into this literary stew.

Spenser, the formidable Boston detective created by the late mystery writer Robert Parker, was a gourmet at heart. Despite his constant search for the perfect beer (He seemed to finally settle on Belgian Blue Moon Ale), the investigator with a heart was always on the lookout for a decent restaurant, which could be the perfect hot dog stand in Glouster or five-star restaurant often selected by his main squeeze Susan Silverman in downtown Boston.

But Spenser always seemed to be able to come home after a hard day of sleuthing and whip up a restaurant quality meal with little more than Ritz crackers and mayonnaise. A little of this and a dash of that, saute for five minutes and pour over pasta or fresh greens (who just HAPPENS to always have fresh greens available?) and serve. He made it seem so easy while he let the perfectly matched wine breathe.

I read once that someone in Japan published a book of Spenser’s recipes. Alas, I’ve never been able to find it. If anyone out there has seen it, send along the name of the book, the publisher and any other details.

Phillip R. Craig, author of the mystery series featuring fisherman sleuth J.W. Jackson, offered up three recipes using lobsters, croissants, and Champagne in Dead in Vineyard Sand.

Craig, also recently deceased, offered actual recipes in the back of his books, in essence a two-fer deal, mystery/cookbook, for his readers.

The Jackson series, always based on Martha’s Vineyard, was the ultimate beach read, too!

New York City socialite investigator Stone Barrington (gotta love that name), created by author Stuart Woods, holds court on a regular basis in the famous upper East Side restaurant Elaine’s. From his corner table, Barrington assesses his cases and mingles effortlessly with New York’s high society engaged in low-class activities. Elaine’s is one of those “be seen” in eateries. The food is top end, but “making the scene” is more important.

Barrington does enjoy the finer things of life. With that in mind, Woods shared his recipe for the perfect Vodka Gimlet on his website.

He suggests you pour six ounces from a 750 ml bottle of vodka, believing the poured off booze will be used in an appropriately by a reader, and fill the empty spot in the bottle with Rose’s Sweetened Lime Juice and a tiny bit of water. Then, shake the bottle and place it in the freezer over night. Woods further suggests an excellent martini can be made by using 5 ounces of vermouth in a 750 ml bottle of gin.

Good stuff to know.

There was always a lot of drinking and eating in Ernest Hemingway’s work. In For Whom the Bell Tolls, Hemingway’s character Robert Jordan drinks absinthe while fighting with the loyalists in Spain. Hem turns to absinthe again in Death in the Afternoon where it is mixed with Champagne. In his book A Moveable Feast, Hemingway describes the joy of eating oysters in Paris.

Go deeper into the early years of Hemingway’s career and you’ll uncover a piece he wrote for the Toronto Star. In “Camping Out: When you Camp Out, Do it Right,” the future Pulitzer Prize winner describes frying a freshly caught trout.

Some years ago I spent a rainy afternoon in a lodge in the Tobeatic Wilderness area of Nova Scotia with a Cajun from New Orleans learning the proper etiquette of drinking Havana Club Rum from Cuba, a favorite of Hemingway’s.

All this gorging of food and drinking of booze runs through everyday literature. And readers are recruited to the topic early in life. A lot of the interest might have started with Green Eggs and Ham by Dr. Seuss!

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Book review: ‘When Death Intervenes’ life gets messy

L.C. Hayden's newest Harry Bronson novel When Death Intervenes is reviewed by The Writing Loft. The review is the latest in a series of book reviews planned for novels from small publishers that offer new authors a growing outlet for their works.

The Writing Loft continues in this post with another book review. In this post we present L.C. Hayden’s newest Harry Bronson novel, When Death Intervenves.

When Death Intervenes
Written by L.C. Hayden

Reviewed here by
Janet M. Bair

When Death Intervenes is fast paced murder mystery by L. C. Hayden and a real page-turner.

Harry Bronson, the main character in Hayden’s series, is on a retirement vacation with his wife Carol in South Dakota. He is supposed to be relaxing and enjoying the scenery but he is bored.

His 28 years as a detective with the Dallas Police Department make him acutely aware of people who are in trouble. When his camper neighbor, Linda Randig, relates to Harry the recent “accidental” deaths of both her parents and then her husband, Mitch, he is drawn back to into action.

Quickly involved in the case, Harry soon finds himself in a race against time and death with a serial killer who was believed to have died in a fire. The killer taunts Harry with notes as he sadistically knocks off one victim after another.

Complications abound as the small town South Dakota police are found to be crooked and suspect Harry of being the serial killer.

The search for a special formula for preventing aging that Mitch was working on when he died leads Harry into danger as he deals with the pharmaceutical company people, who stand to lose billions if the formula isn’t found.

Harry’s old partner, Hoover, comes up to South Dakota from Dallas to help. Suspense mounts as the serial killer is shot, but re-emerges again to become a formidable foe for Harry. Harry’s detective skills compel him to keep searching for answers even when his client betrays him.

Hayden offers the reader a good read, filled with lots of twists and turns.

When Death Intervenes was published by Five Star Publishing.

L.C. Hayden, Author
L. C. Hayden is an award-winning author. A previous Harry Bronson book, Why Casey Had to Die, was a finalist for the Agatha Award for Best Novel. Her book What Others Know was a finalist for Left Coast Crime’s Best Mystery. She has repeatedly captured First, Second, and Third place status for her works at the annual El Paso Writers’ League, and even won the group’s coveted Best of the Best Award. She has also won a gold medal at the Senior Olympics Writing Competition and garnished a Second place for Tallahassee’s Writers Association’s Seven Hills Writer’s Contest.

Janet M. Bair, Reviewer
Janet M. Bair is a free-lance writer and has had articles, poetry and devotionals published in over 50 different magazines. She reviewed books for School Library Journal for 10 years. Her children’s book, Devotions for Young Readers went into three printings.

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The itty-bitty word UP !!!

Here at The Writing Loft, we like to hear from people. People have interesting views of the world around us and bring those perspectives forth at the most opportune moments.

In this post we explore the definitions of the itty-bitty word “UP.” Brought to us by Neil Sherman, the word “UP” is a simple word, short in composition and long in interpretations. Neil is a writing teacher in several of Connecticut’s institutions of higher learning.

We were unable to ascertain who originally wrote this analysis. As far as attribution goes for this posting, the best we can determine is that it came “from the Internet.” So being born in cyberspace, it’s back to cyberspace it shall be sent.

The Writing Loft gives it UP for the word UP!

What UP, Dog?

And now, the offering from Neil …

UP

This two-letter word in English has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that word is ‘UP.’ It is listed in the dictionary as an [adv], [prep], [adj], [n] or [v].

It’s easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP?

At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?

Why do we speak UP, and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?

We call UP our friends, brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver, warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen. We lock UP the house and fix UP the old car.

At other times this little word has real special meaning. People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite, and think UP excuses.

To be dressed is one thing but to be dressed UP is special.

And this UP is confusing: A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.

We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night. We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!

To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look UP the word UP in the dictionary. In a desk-sized
dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4 of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.

If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used. It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don’t give UP, you may wind UP with
a hundred or more.

When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP. When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP. When it rains, it soaks UP the earth. When it does not rain for a while, things dry UP. One could go on and on, but I’ll wrap it UP, for now . . . my time is UP!

Oh . . . one more thing: What is the first thing you do in the morning and the last thing you do at night?

U

P!

Did that one crack you UP ?

Don’t screw UP. Send this on to everyone you look UP in your address book . . . or not . . . it’s UP to you.

Now I’ll shut UP.

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Book Review: Murder by Yew is a deadly cup of tea

Murder by Yew is a debut novel written by Suzanne Young. It is published by Mainly Murder Press, located in Wethersfield, Connecticut. The publishing house was created to form a bridge between New England authors and mystery readers who especially enjoy novels set in this part of the United States.

The Writing Loft embarks on a new path with this posting … book reviews! Every year thousands and thousands of books get published. Bowker, the global leader in bibliographic information management solutions, announced earlier this year that more than 275,000 new titles were published in 2008. Many of these books are brought to market by small publishing houses and are promoted by the individual efforts of the authors.

In this post, Jeannine C. Stauder serves as guest blogger/reviewer for The Writing Loft.

Murder by Yew
Written by Suzanne Young

Reviewed here by
Jeannine C. Stauder

Murder by Yew is a debut novel by Suzanne Young and has all the elements that make a good story: subtle clues throughout, good foreshadowing, and always a sense of mystery. Her protagonist, Edna Davis, is a modern-day Miss Marple who engages in the fine art of investigation with class and determination.

When Edna and her doctor husband, Albert decide to retire, they searched for the perfect property to enjoy their golden years. They find a cottage with three acres of land in their home state of Rhode Island. Edna, an artist and amateur herbalist falls in love with the property and its vast array of trees and exotic plants not usually grown in such a cold climate.

Edna starts reading the journals that the previous owner, Mrs. Hazel Rabichek, has left behind. She learns the woman used lethal garden plants in accepted dosages to produce healing recipes. Edna experiments with those recipes and brews herbal tea for herself and her friends.

When her handyman, Tom, dies from poisoning, Edna comes under police scrutiny. She immediately launches her own investigation into Tom’s death to clear the suspicion that has fallen on her.

To add to Edna’s distress, Albert goes to a medical conference in Denver and leaves Edna alone for the first time in their married lives. A recent rash of home invasions compounds Edna’s anxiety.

The characters are well-developed. Mary, native to the area, is Edna’s closest neighbor and friend. She can tell a tale or two about the town folks. Dee, a newcomer with a mysterious past, wants to be accepted by the members of the local garden club. She pushes friendship on an unwilling Edna. Tom, a good-natured handyman, and hero to his disabled five-year-old grandson Danny, is also a native with a vast knowledge of past residents. Beverly and Shoes, a sister and brother team, recently located to the town, would like to take over the cleaning and repair work for the residents.

Edna has plenty of suspects in Tom’s poisoning. She uses her knowledge of herbs and her artistic abilities to solve the murder.

The reader would do well to be alert to the clues Ms. Young sprinkles throughout the story. The ending is a good wrap-up, leaving the reader wishing for more of Edna and her inquiring mind.
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This book is available through www.mainlymurderpress.com, www.Amazon.com and www.BarnesandNoble.com.
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Author Suzanne Young was born and raised in Rhode Island. She has worked as a writer, an editor and a computer programming since earning her degree in English from the University of Rhode Island in Kingston. Among her publishing credits is the first chapter in Police Accountability, chronicling the evolution of police performance measures in the U.S. A resident of Colorado for more than 30 years, Suzanne works full-time in software development and writes fiction in her spare time. A member of Denver Woman’s Press Club, Rocky Mountain Fiction Writers and Sisters in Crime, she is also a graduate of the Arvada, Colorado, Citizens Police Academy. Please visit http://www.SuzanneYoungBooks.com and/or contact her at Suzanne@suzanneyoungbooks.com.
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Guest blogger/reviewer Jeannine C. Stauder divides her time between sea-level Connecticut and the mountains of Colorado, where she is a member of the Steamboat Springs Writers. She wrote the stories of people’s lives for many years in her professional capacity as an adoption coordinator and family therapist. Insight into the emotional workings of adults and youths provided the groundwork for her writing career. She has written short stories for middle- school-age and teenagers as well as adult short stories. She received first place in Pen Works contest for creative non-fiction and third place for short fiction and poetry. Her poems are published in Voices of The Valley. She has contributed articles to the Connecticut Post newspaper. She is a retired member of the Association of Marriage and Family Therapists. As the mother of six children and grandmother of eighteen, she recognized the need for stories that focus on the lives of young people. Her first Young Adult novel is Saturday’s Child.

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Imagine Hemingway living in Bridgeport and not Key West

Walk north on Fifth Avenue and start looking up when you hit midtown. Exposed along the side wall of a building is the inscription * Charles Scribner's Sons * Publishers and Booksellers * Founded 1846 * Among the many great authors the famed publisher handled was Ernest Hemingway, known for his free-wheeling lifestyle from Paris to Cuba to Key West. Hemingway brought to the forefront a straightforward writing style that was crisp and clean. He was - at the time - a breath of fresh air in the literary world. And people loved it.

We all face choices in our lives, go left, go right. It’s just how life is. This month we celebrate the 111th birthday of Ernest Hemingway, one of the premier writers of the 20th Century. The Writing Loft wondered how his life might have turned out if he chose one path over another. The choice is one we know was offered to him!

In the early part of the 20th Century, Gus Pfeiffer, of Easton, Connecticut, uncle to Hemingway’s second wife, Pauline, offered to buy the couple a home in nearby Bridgeport. The proposal was detailed in Papa – Hemingway in Key West written by James McLendon.

Buying a family member a home “was a practice Uncle Gus had established for sometime with his relatives and one he greatly enjoyed,” McLendon wrote. Uncle Gus “preferred Bridgeport, where he already had a sort of compound of Pfeiffers flourishing.”

But Ernest declined the offer from his wife’s uncle and opted for the sunny and out-of-the-way shores of Key West. There, at the southernmost tip of the United States, Hemingway drank, fished and wrote. It was a life people today still desire in their dreams.

But what if Ernest took the other road and he had settled in Bridgeport? Well, there would be very little marlin fishing for him in Long Island Sound. The waters around this gritty New England burg, once a bustling center of manufacturing, are too closed in for that kind of fishing. But there would have been plenty of places to hoist a drink and lots of characters to write about.

Boy, would there have been characters!

How would Hemingway have described the little Romanian guy who used to show up in the newsroom of The Bridgeport Post several times a week complaining the CIA was sending messages to him through his AM radio in an attempt to force him into unimaginable acts of mayhem.

Would there have been a short story written by Ernest about the Democratic state representative candidate who taunted his politically weak GOP opponent by giving elephant rides to kids in the district’s public housing projects?

And what kind of reaction would Ernest have had when he learned the city had built a firehouse on land it didn’t own?

Just about the time Hemingway was eyeing homes in Key West, politicians in Bridgeport had perfected their ability to rig elections using paper ballot boxes to an art form. And when machine balloting came into vogue, those same politicians learned how to rig the machines with rubber bands. Hemingway surely would have had a view on those city hobbies!

Bridgeport may never have the appeal of Key West; it’s still trying to cultivate the waterfront image of Port Jefferson, Long Island. But the city will always match any place in the world for characters and other oddities. You really have to stop and wonder how things might have been if Hemingway had chosen Bridgeport over Key West.

After all, in addition to Hemingway, this is also the birth month of P.T. Barnum.

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Summertime kicks off ‘Road’ writing . . .

In Alaska, a cyclist pedals along a two-lane road. Every summer people take to the road in search of freedom, an idea that has been defined in many different ways by writers from all generations.

The question of the week from The Writing Loft is: “Are road trips a summertime guy thing?” I was just wondering.

At my writing group meeting recently one writer read a piece about a hitchhiking journey from his youth. During the discussion, another guy recalled his youthful road adventure. I, too, recalled travels of my youth.

My road story involved a blown VW head gasket, an offer from an outlaw motorcycle gang to help me steal a replacement engine, and a nervous traveling companion.

On a dark night, while speeding across a bridge over the Cuyahoga River outside Cleveland, Ohio, the overworked engine of my VW Beetle let loose with a telltale pop, gasped one last time, and died. When the cylinders stopped pumping, the car still had just enough momentum to continue rolling across the bridge and carry us to the safety of a breakdown lane. The state police showed up and called for a tow truck. We were hauled into a gas station after midnight where some pimply faced kid just wanted us to leave.

I called another buddy that I knew was at a college somewhere nearby for help. My friend at the college said he would come, after he found someone who would lend him a car. I sensed that it was going to be a long night.

During my lengthy telephone call, a motorcycle gang roared in and bought up all the sodas and chips available. My travel companion became worried when he spotted a gun in the boot of the gang’s ringleader.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“Let’s try not pissing him off,” I suggested.

The night deteriorated from there. The gang leader offered to visit a nearby Ohio town where he and his pals knew of a guy who had a VW just like mine. All we had to do was steal the engine using some tools that were handy at the gasoline station. One biker was convinced he could have the engine out of the car in minutes without waking up the owner.

As generous as that offer was, I told the bikers, I didn’t want to inconvenience anyone.

Now I had to show appreciation and get the bikers off the topic of stealing an engine for me. As the conversation rambled, they told me about the outstanding arrest warrants that existed for some of their group. “But don’t worry,” the leader said, “the warrants are all from out of state.”

Oh, yeah, that made me feel a whole lot better!

My friend from the nearby college eventually showed up with a borrowed car. We filled the crippled VW’s crankcase with inordinate amounts of motor oil, took extra quarts for the trip to his dormitory, and then left the gang behind without committing any felonies. The next day I took the VW to a dealer and arranged for legitimate repairs.

The stories told and read at our writing group made me think about the great road trip books that have been written. Depending on your age and background, I’m sure you’ve read at least one . . . maybe a few!

“On the Road” by Jack Kerouac is the classic biographical novel from the Beat Generation. The book details the fictional cross-country travels of Sal Paradise (Jack Kerouac) and Dean Moriarty (Neal Cassady).

“Blue Highways” by William Least Heat-Moon is the story of a man who separates from his wife, loses his teaching job and hits the secondary roads of the country in a three-month, 13,000-mile journey where he writes about the people he meets along the way.

“Travels with Charley: In Search of America” by John Steinbeck is the story of a dying man who wants to see his country one last time before he dies.

“Notes on a Latin American Journey-The Motorcycle Diaries” by Che Guevara is about the politicization of Che. A medical student born to privilege, Che becomes transformed during his journey when he sees the real lives of mine workers, lepers, and the beaten down descendants of the Incan civilization. The book wraps up with Che disclosing a willingness to fight for the poor and a united Latin America.

And, last but not least, “Blue Fairways” by Charles Slack is a collection of stories about Charlie’s golf rounds from Maine to Key West. Why is this book important? Good question. Charlie is the leader of the writing group where we discussed our road stories!

So, if you’re thinking of a road trip, remember the words of John Wayne playing a trailboss in “The Cowboys”, “Slap some bacon on a biscuit and let’s get movin’. We’re burnin’ daylight!”

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