KN Magazine: Reviews
"Styx & Stone" by James W. Ziskin / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
Styx & Stone by James W. Ziskin
Today’s Killer Nashville Featured Books take me around the world, but they all have two things in common: non-stop suspense and brains.
And now our tour comes back to New York in the 1960s to a mystery debut and the start of a new series. Sexism is common in the 1960s and author James W. Ziskin uses this as his backdrop in Book One, “Styx & Stone.” His main character Ellie Stone wants to be a reporter in a time when this was an all-boy’s club. However, when her father’s life is threatened, she begins to exert herself to find out why. It becomes obvious when another of her father’s contemporaries is murdered and she starts learning all she can from her father’s university colleagues only to discover not everything one hears or reads in college can be considered the truth especially when dealing with some manuscripts that seem to be worth their weight in blood. Look for the surprise ending that really brings this 1960s murder mystery alive.
This should give you something to read for the next few days. Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!
Clay Stafford
– Clay Stafford is an 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)
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!
"The Girl In Berlin" by Elizabeth Wilson / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
Today’s Killer Nashville Featured Books take me around the world, but they all have two things common: non-stip suspense and brains.
Class differences are once again at play in “The Girl from Berlin,” the third novel set in the 1950s from spy writer Elizabeth Wilson. There is Communist paranoia everywhere, along with defections, and then murder. As one would expect in a tale of espionage, characters are not what they seem. Paranoia will haunt you as you try to make sense of who you can and cannot trust, not only on an international level, but also personal. Be careful of Wilson’s misdirection; she’ll lead you away. This is the third novel from Wilson set in the same 1950s timeframe involving duplicitous characters playing various major and minor roles as the series unfolds.
Until next time, read like someone is burning the books!
Clay Stafford
– Clay Stafford is an 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)
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!
"Roots: The Saga of an American Family" by Alex Haley / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
Like most of Americans in the 1970s, I was riveted to the mini-series “Roots.” Also probably like most Americans, I had never read the book even though “Roots” by Alex Haley had won the Pulitzer Prize. That changed last night.
I finished “Roots,” all 688 pages in my hardcover version, though some editions go over 899. I was blown away. Comparing my memories of the mini-series (of which, frankly, there have never been any better unless it was arguably “The Thornbirds” or “Winds of War”), the filmed version (which had 37 Emmy Award nominations – winning nine – among others) does little justice to the novel itself. Translated: the book is better. That should tell you how good the book is.
Getting the controversy aside: There were charges and settlements of plagiarism along with accusations of sloppy and untraceable research against Haley following publication. I’m including this not as a muckraker, but – if I don’t – someone will post this background in the comments section for me as if the rest of us didn’t know and the questionable accusations unto themselves could be accepted as fact. Long story short, it may have been a research assistant’s error without proper attribution (who knows). Such things have happened with no knowledge of the writer. This matter was settled out of court, which means someone made a deal and we’re not really sure what that deal was. I take plagiarism and false claims seriously – as do most – which is why most people now consider this book to be a book of fiction versus a biography or nonfiction. I think it an unfortunate black eye.
After reading “Roots,” there were sections I would like to have had more of. I would like to have known what happened to certain characters (black and white) after the narrative moved beyond them. As I read (and this was before I knew of the legal controversies), I wondered that if this information was taken from census polls and public records, why didn’t Haley include what happened to certain individuals after the narrative left them? For the whites, those records would continue to show where they had lived. For the blacks, it would continue to show who owned them or where they were after their freedom. I would have even been happy with the “oh, by the ways” at the end of the book in a wrap-up section if Haley felt that including what happened to these characters in the narrative was disruptive. Didn’t Haley want to know what eventually happened to Kunta Kinte? Last I read of him, he was running after a wagon. What happened to these individuals up to their deaths would be just as easy to discover as what was included about them in their lives. After noting the controversy, it made me wonder – as did others – about the validity of the research. That being the case, we have to look at this (unfortunately like many biographies of today) as a work of fiction.
Let’s make this Elephant-in-the-Living-Room other point over genealogy, as well, and the reason that most of us who aren’t members of the Whatever Whatevers of Some Revolution find those people who view ancestry research as a given fact rather amusing: Not every child is who their mothers say their fathers are. I personally take birth certificates with a grain of salt. Give me blood tests and now DNA, of which you saw little in the 1800 and 1700’s. Nothing to do with genealogy could be anything more than speculative to begin with. ‘Nough said.
So, looking at “Roots” by Alex Haley as a work of fiction…
This book was incredible. It completely opened my eyes on these savage blacks that Europeans rescued from the forests of Africa to bring out of the jungles and try to civilize (isn’t that the misconception). Frankly, I knew of slaves, but never really thought about slaves. Or examined slavery in my own heart or compared it to something in my own experience. I imagine most don’t, including those who say they really do. There is nothing in my life to compare it to. What this book showed me and made me empathize with was a proud and religious people who were taken (as was custom in that part of the world, not just by Europeans, but by other black African tribes and nations, as well) from their homes and families and transported cold-heartedly (in the case of European history) to an unknown world where their pasts, traditions, and sense of who they were was completely denied and suppressed. It showed me a representative story of representative characters who sought nothing more than to just have the choice to walk across a street if they wanted to without having to have a written pass from the massa in order to do it. It showed me the dignity of a previously proud and moral character forced to live in squalor and filth because those who owned him (not putting it in italics because at the time they did own him, just as they might have owned a horse or chicken) viewed him as something less than human. I read “Roots.” I was engrossed in “Roots.” I went to sleep thinking about “Roots.” It is easy to say one is against slavery – which I and most are – but it is another to feel the vileness of it, the indignity of it, the shame of it. I lost sleep over it. Frankly, the treatment of these people made me sick.
To my knowledge, none of my ancestors owned slaves. As far as I know, we were the po’ white crackers the slaves made fun of in the book. But it made me wonder. What is back there in my past? Though I know the skeptic in me will always view my family tree as a work of fiction, it might be worth the contemplation. As abhorrent as I have always viewed slavery, this book actually made me feel it. What else is back there that may shake me to the core?
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)
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!
"Theodore Boone: The Accused" by John Grisham / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
A young wannabe lawyer finds himself on the wrong side of the law in “Theodore Boone: The Accused” by John Grisham. Read my review.
I grew up reading John Grisham books. Now my son has the same opportunity. We read this one together.
Theodore Boone is the son of two attorneys. He wants to be an attorney when he grows up. And, though he is still a kid, he is already practicing law amongst his friends and even representing llamas in court. In this third installment of this Young Adult series, John Grisham trumps Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys. My son and I have read the first three books and we can’t wait to read the fourth. My son can’t get enough of it and neither can the other kids at his school. The library can’t keep the several copies there in stock.
In “Theodore Boone: The Accused,” young Boone finds himself on the wrong side of the law. He gets to feel what it is like to be suspected by the police and, since they are convinced that he has committed the crime, it is up to him and his disbarred Bob Dylan-humming uncle to clear Theodore’s name before it is too late.
What I love first about the series is that you can’t put it down. Secondarily, it teaches legal process to kids in a truthful and fair way. By fair, in this installment, the police who are normally the good guys are characterized as two jerks, my son’s opinion. It’s a good lesson that just because the newspapers say someone is arrested does not mean that they are guilty and sometimes detectives want credit for wrapping up a case greater than they want delayed justice. Just because someone is in uniform doesn’t make them the good guy. (My son and I kept waiting for the detectives to officially apologize for falsely maligning Theodore, but it never came. That’s when my son decided they were jerks.)
John Grisham has made a career out of the legal mystery. In fact, some say he created the genre. I believe, when we are long gone, that what Grisham will be remembered for is Theodore Boone and creating a whole new generation of avid readers. I’ve seen it in my son. I’ve seen it in the other kids at my son’s school. I’ve seen it in myself. These books are hot and, like a Disney film, they transcend numerous generations. My opinion? Theodore Boone is Grisham’s best.
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)
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!
"Writing a Killer Thriller" by Jodie Renner / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
It’s quick, pithy checklist of great advice for writers of any genre (including thrillers). A great how-to and reference book for writers.
Clay Stafford
– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as 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) Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).
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!
"The Woman He Loved Before" by Dorothy Koomson / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
I love it when I don’t know who is telling the truth. A dead former wife and a much-loved new one. Maybe. It starts out as a perfect love story and goes from there. Should you be terrified of the “perfect man”? Read on.
Clay Stafford
– Clay Stafford is an author / filmmaker (www.ClayStafford.com) and founder of Killer Nashville (www.killernashville.com). He reviews books daily for Killer Nashville’s Book of the Day. Publishers Weekly has named Stafford and Killer Nashville as 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) Having over 1.5 million copies of his own books in print, Stafford’s latest projects are the feature documentary “One of the Miracles” (www.oneofthemiracles.com) and the music CD “XO” (www.jefferdeaverxomusic.com).
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!
"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!
"Rapscallion" by James McGee / Tuesday, May 28, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
It’s the early 1800s and espionage is alive and well in jolly old England.
“Rapscallion” by James McGee is the third adventure for Bow Street Runner Matthew Hawkwood and in this installment, without giving too much away, he is to go undercover as a prisoner of war to discover how prisoners are escaping from a floating penitentiary. Posing as an American mercenary fighting for the French, Hawkwood soon learns his assignment is a fate worse than death as he finds himself on a former man-o-war converted into a prison ship. Set first in the hull of the nasty ship where prisoners seem to make their own laws and later in the English backcountry where order and laws do not seem to matter, Hawkwood tries to get to the bottom of a human smuggling operation while continuing the ruse and his life.
I love the dark English portrayal of the Napoleonic time period. The novel reads true. I don’t know that I’ve personally ever read anything quite like it, though the war profiteering scheme does ring familiar in our own time. As Rhett Butler observed, there is more money to be made in the fall of a civilization than in the building of it.
This is definitely a page-turner, especially as we reach the climax; my only problem was I couldn’t turn the pages fast enough. If you’re in the mood for a dark historical, this is definitely one to get. It will make you thankful for the simple things, such as a shower or bath.
– 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!
"Green Light For Murder" by Heywood Gould / Saturday, May 18, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
I’ve heard it said that the only good producer is a dead producer. In “Green Light for Murder”, Heywood Gould takes that literally. This is a true insider’s look at the nuts of Hollywood and the City of Angels. Here’s a police procedural that will make you laugh out loud.
The story revolves around a crazed and underappreciated (in his mind) filmmaker who plays out a schizophrenic drama in his head with an imaginary film crew while committing murders he wrote in scripts whose bits were stolen from him by less-than-talented filmmakers who are now on the filmmaker’s hit list. Running parallel with that is the story of a pot-smoking and poetry-writing Los Angeles detective who is also trying to keep his own head and life in check. “Green Light for Murder” is a bird’s eye view of the chess game between them. There are numerous support characters and everyone in the novel seems to have an issue with everyone else, which makes for great conflict. As always, Gould – writer for such memorable books (and films) as Fort Apache, the Bronx, Glitter Burn, Double Bang, Cocktail, and more – creates incredibly memorable and distinctive characters. And, it goes without saying if you’re familiar with Gould’s work, there is all the sex and innuendo we expect in a Heywood Gould novel.
It’s being touted by the publisher as “A Detective Tommy Veasy Mystery.” You need to know upfront that it is not really a mystery (in my definition) because we already know the who-done-it right from the start, but it does have a detective and a serial killer. That’s not a bad thing, it’s just when I pick up a “mystery,” I think I’m going to be given clues to solve the crime. Like Michael Connelly’s great “mystery” book “The Poet,” which uses the same device but in a completely different crime-writing style, you already know who the killer is from the start. This is more of a police procedural on how the dude is caught.
Heywood has a great style. There’s not much set-up in any of his scenes. He jumps right in after the action has started and, because it is not the normal writer writing about a character examining his navel and telling you why before the action begins, you actually have to think a little bit about where you just came from to follow it. What you get, though, with that interplay is a truly visual novel with numerous layers. There’s not a word in the book that hasn’t been sweated over to make sure it is exactly the right thing to say. To my knowledge, I’ve read every book Gould has ever written. All read like you’re watching a movie, which is probably why his works are so easily transferred to the big screen. “Green Light for Murder” is no exception. Even written in first person, you get the feeling that you are watching it take place rather than reading about something that took place in the past.
Gould and I worked for the same film company at the same time in Hollywood and I recognize immediately, and laugh with memory, at his take on certain film community situations. If you really want to know the nut side of the creative and non-creative people in Hollywood (including a few of the guys in the LAPD), this is a great parody, though it is more real than fictitious. Filled with humor, great one-liners, and more than one running gag, it is a funny read, so be in the mood for it. Some might call the portrayal of some of the characters absurd; I call it – from personal experience – another day in Hollywood.
Heywood is one of the smartest guys I know and an incredible observer. He brings those skills to this book, but you have to be smart with him to get it. It’s a good start for a great series. I’m looking forward to the next thing that comes out of this man’s mind.
– 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!
"Dead Insider" by Victoria Houston / Friday, May 17, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
There is so much to like about Victoria Houston’s new novel, “Dead Insider,” I almost don’t know where to begin.
Plot-wise, it is what I might call a suspenseful cozy, or maybe a rural mystery, or a light mystery: It takes place in a remote area where the ones who solve the case are the locals with some non-law enforcement personnel recruited to handle certain duties (all overseen by a chief of police, however). No serious violence is written about directly, all found second-hand, though the crimes are a bit grisly even if second-hand. The main characters are not in that much danger, though we are constantly wondering what will happen next. And there are, of course, suspects you hope are not, but have every reason to believe are red-handed guilty.
Here’s where the novel jumps its competition: It’s one of the most well-plotted and character-nuanced rural mysteries I have ever read. In fact, its one of the best mysteries I’ve ever read, period. I was blown away. Everything about it is plausible and the plot develops so subtlety you don’t realize Houston is only reeling you in. Those who usually don’t like cozies or non-law enforcement populated mysteries should stop immediately and read the first 10 pages of “Dead Insider.” That’s all it will take. Ten pages. Like a fish on the line, they will be hooked.
The plot involves the death of a prominent local woman running in her father’s footsteps for the U.S. Senate. She is brutally murdered. Jurisdiction falls under the local police department, which – because it is a remote fishing area – is understaffed. A local dentist routinely fills in when the coroner is unavailable, which he isn’t at the time of the crime. Friends and family associated with the Loon Lake Chief of Police are brought in to fill certain duties. In effect, the police do the police work, but they rely on a small group of seasonal help (for lack of a better word) when crimes do occur in an area where crimes rarely, if ever, occur. These few hold down the fort until other authorities – if need be – have a chance to get there. Having spent much time in rural areas such as this, all of this is as plausible as it can get.
It is the interconnection of all the characters in this small fishing community in Wisconsin that makes it work. Author Houston has assembled the perfect cast for solving just about any crime that could be committed in this village. The Loon Lake Fishing Mystery Series rivals anything I’ve seen come out of Cabot Cove. I love the portrayal of the autumn relationship of Osborne and Ferris and the sensitively handled comparison between their relationship and Osborne’s past marriage. Being a Southerner, I could also not help but be attracted at the dichotomy between the political elite and the folks they are supposed to represent.
“Dead Insider” is the only book I’ve read in the Loon Lake Fishing Mystery Series and I’m a fan. For 206 pages, I missed Wisconsin. I’m hoping sometime if Victoria Houston is as good a fly-fisherman as she is an author should the Killer Nashville gang ever make it to the proverbial Loon Lake that she’ll loan us a pair of waders and take us up one of those beautiful rivers she writes about. Just reading “Dead Insider,” I heard the loons calling and found myself perusing Travelocity.
– 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!
"Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective" by Christine Amsden / Wednesday, May 15, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
Nothing delights me more than a new discovery and what delights me even more is that I found it from an independent publisher here in my own backyard, Twilight Times Books in Kingsport, Tennessee?
“Cassie Scot: ParaNormal Detective” by Christine Amsden is a promising debut of a new, everyday girl detective in a not-so-everyday world.
We can’t all be superstars. That’s the case with dully normal Cassie Scot, the most untalented and unmagical of her magical family. Life gives us lemons and some, like Cassie, make lemonade. She decides to set up a detective agency in her hometown of Eagle Rock, Missouri, a real place it seems in unincorporated Barry County, population 1,200. After reading about all the bizarre things that go on there in this book, it is definitely a place I think I would like to visit.
Six months after opening her agency, Cassie still doesn’t have a client. Here’s where things get energized: she is hired in her first job to deliver a subpoena to a local witch. Easy enough. Her family has put her in those circles. But along the way, she finds a dead body. Then she becomes the target of vampires. Add a sorcerer and you have a grand collection of delightfully normal (and abnormal) characters. Like Carl Kolchak of my own youth, Cassie – because she has none of her family’s magical powers – is forced to fight the legerdemain of the underworld with the same set of skills we plain mortals have: courage, practical common sense, and sometimes unexpected good fortune. That’s what makes her so identifiable. She brings to the book nothing more than what we might, as well.
Like “Harry Potter,” this story and the younger characters who populate it appeal to a wide demographic and give us that world within a world full of delightful story possibilities. This book is not just for adults. I’ll be recommending this to my son. It’s a fun story with a fun character. I look forward to the next book in the series.
– 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!
"Another Sun" by Timothy Williams / Tuesday, May 14, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
I love taking trips to places I’ve never been and I think this is the first novel I’ve read set in Guadeloupe. It is an underdog tale with a twist.
“Another Son” by Timothy Williams is a gripping story of a judge who takes it upon herself to prove a man innocent whom everyone else thinks is guilty. The twist is that the accused has no interest in helping his counsel because she is a woman and he is a man. This is a story of an area flavored by old politics, gender bias, and racial prejudices against a backdrop of French colonialism. The story is set in Guadeloupe in 1980 and Timothy Williams says that he has been working on this novel for 30 years meaning, I guess, that he started it back around the time that the story is set.
In the novel, the elderly Hegesippe Bray has been charged with the murder of a white landowner who was running him off his property. The landowner had few friends and most were glad to see him die. Still, justice must be done. The French view the case as open-and-shut, but not French judge Anne Marie Laveaud. The big question is whether or not the accused is guilty. The larger theme, though, is the political and historical structure of this little island within which Laveaud must navigate. Bray is a grouchy curmudgeon whom one has to eventually like. Laveaud grows on the reader as she pursues justice in her own objective way; you admire her tenacity. The feel of the novel is gritty like sand, which – I guess – is how crime novels should probably feel, especially when set on an island.
The UK Observer calls Timothy Williams one of the “Ten Best European Crime Writers.” The title is well-deserved. If you would like to spend a little time on an island this spring seeing if you can out-sleuth Williams, this book is up to the challenge. Few, I think, will predict the outcome before they get there.
– 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!
"The House of Special Purpose" by John Boyne / Monday, May 13, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
If you are looking for a page-turning mixture of suspense and betrayal within a well-executed part love story, part historical epic, and part-tragedy, then “The House of Special Purpose” is a book you must not miss.
New York Times bestselling Irish author John Boyne’s new book “The House of Special Purpose” is one of those alternative history books where I already know the ending, I know where the author is going to go with it, but the storytelling is so good that I want to stay with him through each word to see how he gets there. I could not stop reading and I was not disappointed.
“The House of Special Purpose” concerns itself with Georgy and Zoya and is told through the point-of-view of Georgy, an 82 year-old-man looking back on his life to the central point of the final days of czarist Russia and the reign of the Romanovs. Georgy starts his life as a farmer, becomes a servant and bodyguard in the house of Tsarevich Alexei, son of Tsar Nicholas II, and – after the rise of Marx, Stalin, and Lenin – flees to Paris and then to post-war London. Why he flees is the subject of the book.
“The House of Special Purpose” is immediately riveting, mysterious, and tense with suspense. It is filled with heartlessness and insensitivity, but – at the same time – great love; it has pain, but incredible joy. The humanity of it will leave you crying at the end of the very first chapter.
The main characters of Georgy and Zoya stay under constant threat of discovery for something that they did. Throughout the story, the reader will keep asking, “Why?” This is the spine. Within the pages are secrets that refuse to die highlighted in the struggle for power and self-preservation, which takes form in multiple ways. Particularly real and touching is the portrayal of Zoya and her desire to come to the end of her life. Narrator Georgy is full of flaws and selfishness. The reader will understand his humanity, but at times, his choices are hard to swallow. We like him as we like family. He has a good heart, but sometimes his decisions and actions are less than admirable. People write about authors creating flawed characters; well, here you go: John Boyne has the nerve to actually do it, flawed Georgy certainly is.
I loved the storytelling device of starting at both extremes of Georgy’s life (1981 and 1899, if my calculations are correct) and alternatively working forwards and backwards through the epic chapters until the two timelines meet. Following this structure, we see the parallel stories of Georgy’s life as a young man compared against the wisdom and frailties of old age.
On a side note, I’ve found a new publisher in Other Press. I was blown away by, not only “The House of Special Purpose,” but the titles and the quality of their other works. I encourage you to check out their house at www.otherpress.com.
– 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!
"The Mothers" by Jennifer Gilmore / Friday, May 10, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
It is amazing how, when one can’t have children, that one sees children and pregnant women everywhere, hears women getting pregnant who didn’t want to be, hears innocent remarks made by family members that makes the person not able to have a child feel nothing less than a failure for the most basic biological act.
“The Mothers” by author Jennifer Gilmore is an emotional, unfair, and aching look at pain of the most basic kind: a woman wants to have a baby and can’t.
After years of trying on their own, Jesse and Ramon decide to try adoption. Haven’t we all heard of babies who are waiting for a good home? What they find is not a happy, fast resolution. Instead, it is a warped view of insensitivity and people involved for all the wrong reasons: scams, bureaucratic idiocy, cruel thoughtlessness even from those whom one would expect to be supportive. And all because they simply wanted to have a child.
The characters in this book live through hell. In adoption, you think of children wondering if someone will want them. In this setting – same situation, but different perspective – you find parents-to-be wondering if birth parents will want them. It makes you want to throw up your hands and yell, “What is everyone thinking? Isn’t this supposed to be about the child?” This book is at odds with those who say there are too many babies and not enough adoptive homes. From people I know who have tried to go through the adoption process, I’d have to agree with the perspective and agony of Jennifer Gilmore (who has based this novel loosely on her own personal experience of fighting to become a parent).
At times, this book is painful to read, but even more painful – I am sure – to live. For many, this is not fiction, but the new 21st Century way to start a family. Needless to say, this story pulls out the emotion in the reader.
To give a child a home should not be this difficult. But it is. The only way to know it is to live through it, or read a book like this. These people are your neighbors and – though you may not know it – even someone in your family. For those who want emotion in their novels, you can’t get more basic than this.
Happy Mother’s Day to all who have successfully navigated the journey. Have a great weekend!
– 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!
"No Way Back" by Andrew Gross / Wednesday, May 8, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
In Andrew Gross’s “No Way Back,” a woman has an affair and, while in the illicit situation, her lover is murdered. In self-defense, she kills the killer, whom she IDs as a Homeland Security Agent. Her agonizing choice is to turn herself in and plead self-defense for a crime that looks like a double murder and admit to her family what she has done, or she can run. When the dead agent’s partner shows up to silence her, she easily makes the choice to hide. That’s when this roller-coaster ride kicks into an even higher gear. Author Andrew Gross has coauthored five books with James Patterson and is a New York Times and international bestselling author on his own. This is a wonderful book from a man who obviously knows how to tell a story without brakes.
– 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!
"Blood Trade" by Faith Hunter / Tuesday, May 7, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
“Blood Trade” is the sixth in the Skinwalker series from USA bestselling author Faith Hunter (also known as writer Gwen Hunter).
Jane Yellowrock is a vampire killer who finds herself working for the undead in a vampire story with elements of a police procedural.
The Skinwalker series is a popular series and if you’ve read the previous installments, you’ll know why: great story (always and, in this case, a missing child always tugs at the heart), excellent plotting covering a lot of territory in a short time, and characters that become more interwoven and developed with every book, all mixed with the through-layering and exploration of Yellowrock’s Cherokee spirituality. This particular installment has less sex and love life than previous books in the series (which works for me). But it is always Faith’s urban fantasy writing style that makes for the great series.
I love the plague vampires of Natchez, Mississippi. Faith pulls her characters from the location rather than building her characters around a location, which creates a wonderful, logical, and unified world. Readers will identify with the conflict of Jane coming to grips with her past. For those following the series, this one offers a little more hope than the last installment.
If you ever want to know what it would be like to share your body with the spirit of a mountain lion, this is definitely the book to read. You’ll be transported into this world as though you live there yourself.
– 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!
"Shadows On a Cape Cod Wedding" by Lea Wait / Monday, May 6, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
A dead body on the beach, a second murder, and the looming hurricane amidst wedding preparations and a number of romantic and social issues set against an old antique shop are the stuff of this cozy Maggie Summer murder mystery (sixth in the series). One can smell the salt of Cape Cod in this believable cozy set in a quaint small town. “Murder She Wrote” fans take note.
– 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!
"Final Settlement" by Vicki Doudera / Tuesday, April 30, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
If cozies are your thing, you’ll be sold with “Final Settlement” by Vicki Doudera. This is the fourth installment in her Darby Farr real estate mystery series.
I love the characters and the way Vicki Doudera develops them against the winter setting of the small town, Hurricane Harbor, Maine. Each chapter builds upon the next and the characters’ interrelationships become more entwined as the story progresses.
In this episode, before Darby returns to her hometown to attend the wedding of Tina Ames, a co-realtor in her real estate firm and a friend, the police chief’s assistant dies mysteriously from a fall into the ocean near a lighthouse. The chief suspects foul play, but doesn’t want to make a commotion in the small town and enlists Darby’s help. It is up to Darby to find the answers, but there are over 300 pages of twists-and-turns before she gets there.
Sometimes it’s nice to take your crime slow and this small town has enough busy-bodies and suspects to keep you tied up all the way to the very end.
– 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!
"Submergence" by J.M. Ledgard / Monday, April 29, 2013 / Reviewed by Clay Stafford
J. M. Ledgard’s “Submergence” has figuratively grabbed me by the…neck. Every few months I read a book like this and it just blows me away. This novel hit me in the gut.
The story is from the points-of-view of two characters: James More, a spy, and Danielle Flinders, a biomathematician. These are two lovers – still in a long-distance relationship – who look back on their liaison while in the throws of their present lives with no knowledge of the turns the life of the other has taken. She is diving into the depths of the ocean never seen by man. He is in the depths of captivity as a hostage of al-Qaeda in Somalia. Both are of different worlds: she entitled, him divided, both obsessed.
This is a beautiful and heart-rending story, full of images, feelings, facts, and history highlighting circumstances and religious politics at odds with the human spirit (and even common sense). It is how nations with their masters of politics and religions easily flip away the lives and freedoms of their citizens for their own gain, these same citizens who give their love and service freely only to find their life to their country is worth nothing, not even sometimes acknowledgement.
At first you think this is written in a stream-of-consciousness reflection of the characters’ nonlinear thoughts, but what you find by the end is a beautifully assembled plot that has taken you down your own stream without your knowledge of how you ravishingly got there. J. M. Ledgard’s choices are perfect for conflict – both subtle and grand.
Some are calling this a love story. It is not. It is a tragic, dramatic, on-the-edge of your seat story of two people who look back on their relationship in order to sustain their mentality in the incongruity of their present. There are no stereotypes or formulas here, no pure evil, no pure good. It is educational. The intrinsic history of Somalia is interwoven dramatically into the story. You leave the book learning much about Somalia, other worlds, terrorists, and what the future holds, how sometimes maybe we should look down instead of always looking up.
Muslim Islamic terrorists play a large role here as the captors, and why not? This is a book about the underworld and things that feed on death. I’ve read other reviewers and they dance around the al-Qaeda obvious. Ledgard plays them fairly, striving to help us understand their mentality, but as for this American reader, I found myself not feeling sympathy for these violent individuals dreaming of taking over the world while sitting in their own dung under the Mangrove trees hiding from the U.S. It made me want to get up from reading and go pee on Osama bin Laden’s watery and justified grave. It is a British book that will make you proud to be an American, remember why you are an American, and make you wish for the same American vehemence worldwide as in Somalia in 2006. You will bristle at the vile and ill-conceived mentality of the jihad Muslims (it is not stupidity, but desperation). You’ll learn about Somalia – what was a beautiful country – now nasty with nasty desperate men, subjected women, and a warped nasty view of religion, an outdated and unchanged Middle East pre-Christ replica where the value of women, children, and – in this case – non-Muslims means nothing. You are also left – shame on us – with insight into why jihad fighters are so successful when they should not by logic be.
But there is an upside. For every negative J. M. Ledgard observes, for every diatribe he inspires, he also enchantingly balances it with a positive so you are left, not depressed, not seeing only the bad, but seeing the unsatisfactory as a stepping stone to the good. It is a book not about what is wrong with this world, but what is right. It is our thinking that is wrong. This is a wonderful book for remembering how something as simple as water can unite people, how precious the peaceful moments of our lives are and how we don’t value them usually until they are gone, and how – sometimes – when things are at their worst, maybe it is because we are looking at the wrong things.
This is a wonderful thriller with a message. It is not preachy. It is acted out by the characters flawlessly. You don’t know what you’re getting yourself into, but you will be changed after reading this book. You will not be able to forget it after you read it, even if you want to. It’s that haunting.
– 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!
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