"Until She Comes Home" by Lori Roy / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

A murder and disappearance destroy the essence of a once-respectable neighborhood in "Until She Comes Home" by Lori Roy.

Until She Comes Home by Lori Roy

Winning an Edgar for your first novel is a hard setup for your second one.  It better be good.  Lori Roy, author of her Edgar Award-winning debut novel, Bent Road, does not disappoint.  This is a spellbinding suspense novel in which a pair of seemingly unrelated murders crumbles the façade of a once respectable Detroit neighborhood.

This is a community that lives for family, church, and work.  But – like all of America in 1958 – their world is changing.  A black woman is murdered.  A white woman disappears.  Their neighborhood is falling apart.

The characters in this story are incredibly layered with special attention focused on the characters of a longsuffering pregnant wife, a social butterfly, and a woman who wishes to hide her pain behind humor.  As the characters are revealed following the murder and disappearance, jolting elements of their lives will be exposed as their individual façades also come crashing down.

The writing is well-conceived and poetic.  As the characters race to find the truth regarding the woman who has disappeared, readers will be second-guessing just like the neighbors all the way to the very end.  However, there is no end.  Even after you stop reading, the story and the theme of lives forever altered by events will stay with you.  You’ll be reflecting on it for days.

Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!

Clay Stafford

– Clay Stafford is a husband, father, author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com), business owner (www.AmericanBlackguard.com), and founder of Killer Nashville (www.KillerNashville.com) with over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print in over 14 languages.  Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.OneOfTheMiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.JefferyDeaverXOMusic.com). Publishers Weekly has named Stafford one of the top 10 Nashville literary leaders playing “an essential role in defining which books become bestsellers” not only in middle-Tennessee, but also extending “beyond the city limits and into the nation’s book culture.”  (PW 6/10/13)

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Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

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Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

"You Cannoli Die Once" by Shelley Costa / Thursday, May 30, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Edgar Award-nominated author Shelley Costa has put the fine touches on the start of a new cozy series centered around a restaurant owned by four generations of Italians and a killer with an ax to grind.  “You Cannoli Die Once” looks to be the first in what may be a long line of wonderful books in this series.

Packed with flavorful humor as well as mystery, the story is set in Quaker Hills on the outskirts of Philadelphia.  The death of the 76-year-old matriarch’s boyfriend has the family questioning the innocence of the feisty grandmother.  When the police are convinced that the grandmother is guilty, they lock her up thinking the case is closed.  The family, then, takes it as a personal mission to find the truth.  This setup is one of the rare cases in which, in this day and time, that cozies actually become plausible: when there is no one else to turn to and the police have given up the search, you end up having to find justice on your own.

There were so many characters – so many relatives – that it was a delight to get to know them all and I look forward to how they are going to be incorporated into the future volumes in the series.  With the array given, the possibilities for plotlines are limitless.  From the Italian families I’ve known, the portrayal hits straight on.  You can’t help but love the – albeit stereotypical – portrayal and animation of the immediate family, relatives, and well-meaning outsiders.  For those chocolate lovers, there’s even a recipe for Rebel Cannoli in the back of the book.

Next from Costa in January 2014?  “The Ziti That Never Sleeps.”  Looking forward to it and wishing Shelley Costa well in kicking this series off.

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker and founder of Killer Nashville. Stafford’s latest projects are the documentary “One of the Miracles” and the music CD “XO”.

Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

"Don't Go" by Lisa Scottoline / Thursday, May 9, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Most of the books I read from Lisa Scottoline are series related.  Here’s a standalone you won’t want to miss.  Scottoline is one of the best writers I’ve ever read.  This one goes straight to the heart.

This is the first book I’ve read from Scottoline that is told from the point-of-view of a man.  Normally she writes of ball-bashing women.  That makes this an intricate treat, especially when you see how she handles the subject.

Dr. Mike Scanlon decides to serve his country in Afghanistan.  He leaves his wife and newborn baby.  While gone to serve his country, his wife dies in what appears to be a freak home accident.  As always with Scottoline, things are not as they appear.

This book will have you riveted and emotionally involved from the start.  Heroes come from the most unlikely of places.  Dr. Mike Scanlon is about to learn how to become one.

– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker and founder of Killer Nashville. Stafford’s latest projects are the documentary “One of the Miracles” and the music CD “XO”.

Here is a link for a clip of the audiobook from Macmillan Audio: http://soundcloud.com/macaudio-2/dont-go-audiobook-chapter-one

Buy the book from the Killer Nashville Bookstore and help support a new generation of writers and readers.

Visit our bookstore for other similar books.

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join our Facebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

“Luther: The Calling” by Neil Cross / Monday, November 12, 2012 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford

Today’s featured book is Luther: The Calling by Neil Cross.

Womb raiders. A missing child. A serial killer.

Why Clay Stafford chose this book:

I’m a speed reader. I read one book a night. This one I had to take slowly like bites of a great home-grilled steak. It was too good to rush through. Even at a slower pace, though, once I started reading, I couldn’t stop. Frankly, the book is nightmarish. The bad guy will give you the willies. He’s a madman. He’s a genius.

Here’s the freaky part: as author Cross writes, “People put so much of their lives out there. On Facebook and wherever. There’s so much information on who we are, how we’re feeling, what we’re doing,” who is in our family, who we have as friends, even where we are going to be tonight. For those paranoid people such as crime writers like myself, I started looking at what I’ve been posting here and there in social media and thinking I need to cancel my Facebook, Twitter, and WordPress accounts. Unarguably, someone could learn all about you from the public information you give them and then do you in. Or worse: your family. Think about this the next time you post, for example, a picture of your child on Facebook.

For those who don’t know: “Luther: The Calling” is the prequel for the BBC highly popular “Luther” TV series. This is not for the squeamish. It is about a person who is stealing children for the most godawful reasons. It is also about a cop pushing the edge of acceptability. I wouldn’t call it vigilante fiction, but it comes very close. About page 179 of the edition of the book I was reading, you’ll be feeling the same emotions as the police detective. There are times, as you read, you wouldn’t mind grabbing a baseball bat and going along with him because it just feels justified. There are slimes in this novel with no redeeming characteristics: lots of thugs and one woman who, incidentally, is more morally disgusting though understandable than the thugs themselves. Disagree if you like, but my opinion holds. And there’s humor; for example, there’s a woman has been burglarized so she tells the police, “I’d like a dog. I’m scared to get one in case I take a fall and can’t feed it.” This stuff has to be there. You need it to break the tension.

Neil Cross is an Edgar winner and sole writer / creator of the BBC TV series, “Luther.” It’s not surprising he is an Edgar winner. “Luther: The Calling” is written in present tense so there is a sense of immediacy about it. The use of present tense when writing (for academic reasons not discussed here) doesn’t work in most fiction. It works wonderfully here. It gives the gritty piece an extra edge. (It’s also the form for screenplays, which may be a carry-over from Cross’s day job.)

In “Luther,” I love the personal story. The personal story is deep and is not just busy activity showing the personal life of the character. Lots of times, for me, the personal stories in thrillers and mysteries don’t help deepen my understanding of the character; to me, they’re a drag on the story, things best to be skipped. That’s because they are done poorly, thrown in because some editor tells some unequipped author you need some personal B stories to flesh out the characters, or some author throws it in on his/her own thinking it will help the reader identify with his/her protagonist. I’ve seen the advice in writing books and it is blatantly wrong. If the personal stories are not coming out of the spine of the story itself, then they shouldn’t be there. They become nothing more than filler. Here is an example of how it is done right. In “Luther,” the personal stories are moments to be savored for even the personal stories of the main characters relate directly to the progression of the story, the heinousness of the plot. I feel for Luther. And the way Cross has written it, you can see how Luther has become who he is. I became engrossed, watching John Luther’s life fall apart. It was like watching a train wreck. As his wife observed, looking at pictures of Luther as a younger man when they had met, the wife (Zoe) thinks “Somewhere along the line, that boy had joined the dead, and Zoe had spent years waving to him from a far shore, trying to call him back.” The story is just so real that you can’t help but empathetically self-reflect. “Our choices reveal us, don’t they?” It’s funny that, no matter how much we dream, life may not turn out that way. As Cross writes, “Closure may never come. And if it does come, it may not be what you were hoping for.”

This is one of the best crime novels I’ve read this year. The suspense keeps you riveted until the very last page. There are doubts, even as you near the end, about whether Luther will succeed or fail. I will not be a spoiler, but I will say author Cross does not care if he takes your favorite character out. If Luther wins, great. If he fails, we have to accept that, as well. Life isn’t always tied up in perfect ribbons. Regardless, this is one of those novels I’m going to have to read again just to appreciate all the workings under the hood. I can tell you: there are many.

From Amazon:

“In this stellar debut by journalist turned Washington insider and political writer Charles Robbins, an eager politico finds himself on the rise only to discover the perilous costs of success.

When Henry Hatten wangles a job as communications director for Nebraska SenatorTom Peele’s presidential campaign, he breathes a huge sigh of relief. Smarting over a recent gubernatorial campaign in which his pulling a political punch may have cost his boss the race, he’s thrilled to be back in action.

This time around, Henry is determined to shuck his ethical qualms. But he soon finds he’s facing more than he imagined. The new gig turns out to be rife with scandal and corruption – just the kind of politics Henry so fervently sought to banish. Events go from bad to worse as the depths of greed emerge, tracking the acceleration and excitement in the campaign itself. Led by a ruthless chairman and filled with warring aides, hired thugs, fractious union bosses, and snooping reporters, the Peele campaign is shaping up to be quite the circus. And that’s before Henry’s ex arrives on the scene . . .

But when someone close to the campaign is murdered, Henry can no longer turn a blind eye. As he conducts his own covert investigation, still more secrets emerge. So deeply entrenched in the politics and manipulation, Henry must face a staggering reality in which his values are no longer his own. But can he extricate himself and salvage the career he loves? And can he do so with his soul intact? A brilliantly plotted and characterized political novel, The Accomplice takes readers into the guts of a brutal presidential campaign. “

If you want to make your own comments on this selection, we would love to hear from you. Join ourFacebook Killer Nashville group page or our blog and join in the discussion.

Remember that these books are listed at a discount through Amazon. You also don’t have to purchase the version that is featured here. Many of these books are available in multiple formats: e–book, hardcover, softcover, and audio. Enjoy!

– Clay Stafford, Founder of Killer Nashville