Grind Joint by Dana King

An empty Penns River, PA strip mall, once anchored by Penny’s and Monkey Ward, is being converted into a casino.; a grind joint of slots and drinks for this down and out town. Supposed to bring lots of new jobs to a dying manufacturing city just outside the Pittsburgh sprawl – and maybe pull some customers from the downtown’s bigger, full-service casino. A week before the opening, the body of a low rent drug dealer is dumped on the casino’s front steps. Looks like someone is sending a message about this new venture.

Ben Dougherty (pronounced DOCK-er-dee, aka Doc; King thankfully offers a pronunciation guide to the western PA ethnic names), a Penns River native, ex-army, and now detective draws the case right as his uncle/chief goes down with a heart attack. The interim is damn sure that Mike Mannarino, local car dealer/regional crime boss is responsible and pushes Doc to arrest Mannarino.

Now Mannarino may well be responsible for the kid’s death. Seems the kid ran some of Marrarino’s drug business, but decided to go out a bit on his own and got some product from a growing Russian presence in the area, prompting Mannarino to send a message.  So not only are the police after Mannarino, so are the Russians for having stepped in their growing business.

And a friend of the vic gets a hard ass to look into a way to get back at Mannarino for having his friend killed. Now Mannarino may be mob connected, but at least his business is predictable and he keeps the nonsense in Penns River to a minimum, so there is an uneasy alliance between some of the cops and Mannario’s crew. The Russians, however, are crazy and violent, so Doc is more focused on the Russian’s and makes some overtures to Mannarino to help run them out of business.

Grind Joint is not available until November 2013. Stark Publishing sent the book to me and the introduction is by MRB friend Charlie Stella, so I’m guessing Stella was behind this freebie (Thnx to the Knuckmeister). King offers up a winning threesome: likable good guys/nasty bad guys, a very cleverly developed plot, and staccato, in-your-face dialogue. I liked Doc and was happy to see he is in a couple other books by King. Doc is awkward with the ladies, but equal parts vicious/manipulative with the bad guys.  Those who make the effort to locate Grind Joint will be rewarded with a story that's equal parts George Higgins, Elmore Leonard, Charlie Stella and I see a little Ken Bruen as a topping. Sweet company. King has 3 other books, all published since 2011.

Can't speak for you all, but I know I’m in.

East Coast Don 

Ancient Anger by Thomas K. Matthews

This novel brings together several genres: crime novel, mysticism, historical fiction, and travelogue. Albert Poliska and Richard Halden, are anthropologists who have been independently studying as-yet undeciphered hieroglyphics from the ancient Mayans. They both hit roadblocks in their research and needed to collaborate with each other to advance their academic understanding. For them, it’s a collegial and happy union of forces. They learn that there are still a few Mayans alive who believe in and practice their old beliefs, who might be able to help them read the old symbols. However, Padre Mio, the 105-year-old keeper of the Maya secrets had a vision of the Mayan ancient forces needing to destroy the world in order to give it a rebirth. The anthropologists find Mio as he is in the process of bringing his vision to fruition. Mio needed a warrior to carry out the human sacrifices that his ancient directives demanded. The warrior he chose was none other than Carols Javeda, a Los Angeles drug dealer, a psychopath who underwent a remarkable conversion in the face of the mystical power of Mio.

I thought the first few pages were a bit choppy as the author set up the characters and plot, but I was hooked by page 30. I usually steer clear of this much mysticism, but I’m sure it is right up the alley for East Coast Don and his love for author Robert McCammon. With the mystic side of the story, it’s possible to buy into the conversion of Carlos. The author’s well-written travelogue took the reader from Los Angeles, to the Yucatan, New York, Louisiana, and Sedona. There was a Cussler-like quality to the grand adventure of the anthropologists, although all of Matthew's characters were more three-dimensional and real than Cussler’s stereotypic and predicable ones. I thought Matthews did a wonderful job of intertwining the several story lines and bringing them to a surprising conclusion. There were twists that I did not see coming until they happened in the last few pages.

Never Go Back by Lee Child

Never Go Back is Lee Child’s latest and most anticipated Jack Reacher novel.  He is even charging admission to his book signing events.  Even with such high expectations Child does not disappoint.

After thousands of miles of hitchhiking, Jack Reacher returns to his former unit, the 110^th MP Special Unit in hopes of finally meeting the sexy voice on the phone of Major Susan Turner.  Turner now the commander of the unit was introduced four books earlier as Reacher’s love interest and he has traveled far and wide to ask her out to dinner.  Reacher is surprised to find that not only has Turner been arrested and relieved of her command but Reacher too is immediately returned to active duty while an investigation against him is pursued.  Seems two law suits are pending against him from his long ago military days.  One involves the beating to death of a suspect and the other a paternity suit, both from Los Angeles but neither of which he remembers.

Reacher who trained himself to turn fear into aggression, suspects these law suits have been recently created to make him run and forget about Major Turner.  Instead he is compelled to covertly investigate his and Major Turner’s charges which quickly lands him in the same prison as Turner.  In a matter of hours, he orchestrates their escape and he and Turner are off to California with $30 cash borrowed unwittingly from his attorney.

Their journey leads them to encounters with West Virginia meth dealers, military MPs, the FBI, and Army Special Forces.  Reacher and Turner form a special bond while smashing heads, breaking arms and fingers, and shooting those in their way, all for the purpose of clearing their sullied names by revealing and punishing their foes.

Never Go Back is Child at his best… a master of suspense and mystery.  He develops a character we know only in fiction but fantasize is real.  He makes every chapter an adventure in and of itself yet weaves in clever connections to the plots of this and previous novels… very efficient… nothing irrelevant.  We are relieved by the outcome not so much that justice prevails but that Jack Reacher lives on so Child can craft future tales.  This is the essence of the genre that is Men Reading Books.

Zoo Station by David Downing

David Downing is a contemporary British author who has written a series of six mystery-espionage books known as The Station Series because they are all named after train stations. Zoo Station is the First in the series. The era is before, during, and after WWII and this book takes place mostly in Berlin. I stopped reading at the 15% mark on my Kindle, not because the writing was poor. In fact, the character development seemed to be moving along nicely. It’s just that I’ve had enough of reading about the Nazi era – which is not my favorite. Given the author’s obvious attempts to be true to historical events and people, Vegas Bill (one of our occasional reviewers) might love this stuff. I’m not sure where I came across this author, but this book has been sitting in my archive of books for a while. I can’t recommend it or suggest that you don’t read it. It’s just not my cup of tea at the moment.

The Sound and the Furry by Spencer Quinn

Bernie Little and his K9 dropout partner Chet are an Arizona-based PI shop - The Little Detective Agency. A Bayou native that Bernie helped outfit in a county orange jumpsuit is doing the roadside cleanup gig and when Bernie happens by, offers him a job to find his missing brother. Bernie's not crazy about the job, but resists a bigger payday and takes the gig cuz that's who asked first.

Bernie and Chet take off in Bernie's old Porshe convertible for Louisiana to find the missing brother.

His first interview with the 2 other brothers reads more like test dialogue for Abbott and Costello's Who's on First exchange. Anyway, Bernie asks his questions, gets lied to, beaten up, assaulted as he closes in on the real mystery that surrounds a new oil platform due to go live any day now.

Simple, straight forward PI tale. Except for one minor detail. The story is told mostly by Chet; yes, Quinn speaks fluent dog. And while this is a very clever and creative way to tell a story (and has been done before, most recently in Robert Crais' Suspect), it just never really resonated with me. Can't say Quinn is a neophyte as this is his 6th Bernie and Chet book, some of which were bestsellers, so he has a loyal following. I found myself skipping text where Chet was daydreaming or otherwise disconnected to Bernie's investigation; hey, there are lots of good smells down in the Bayou.

Like I said, clever and creative and very well crafted, just not really my cup of tea, and I can't really put my finger on why it didn't grab me.

East Coast Don

Valley of Eden by John Smyth

Warning: Out-of-genre, this is not a crime novel

After running through a series of detective-crime novels about a current, previously active, or relapsing alcoholic (James Lee Burke, Ken Bruen, C. J. Box, and others), I’ve run into this excellent and well-written tale of alcoholic relapse and recovery by John Smyth.

What would drive a man who has been sober for 13 years to pick up a drink again and fall back into the abyss he had crawled from? Smyth successfully takes the reader through the struggles of Henry Patrick Mueller to come to terms with his alcoholism and the demon with which he constantly contends. More than just being the tale of the drunk fighting for sobriety, Smyth took us intimately through the experience of Mueller’s family, his wife and teenage children. The author added to Mueller’s tale by poignantly bringing in another family who was just coming to terms with the polysubstance and spousal abuse of Paul Lamont, the husband and father.

This book is full of insightful AA and Al-Anon experiences. The stories that Smyth tells are not remarkable or new, and they are fairly typical of what is talked about in recovery programs every day. He enriches the story by having Mueller talk about and explain his internal battle to some non-alcoholics. I think this would be a helpful novel to anyone who is somewhere in the recovery process, from early in sobriety to one who is long sober, to any friend of family member who is contending with a beloved’s addictions, or anyone else who is curious about the lives of people who fight with addiction demons.

Back of Beyond by C. J. Box

C. J. Box is one of the favorite authors at Men Reading Books, and I reviewed his latest book only last month, The Highway, which is one of his non Joe Pickett books. Turns out, he had already written this one (August 2011), Back of Beyond, and that’s where he introduced his new character Cody Hoyt. For me, this was like getting the necessary backstory on Hoyt, a damaged detective in the image of Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor or James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux. Like those two detectives, Hoyt is an alcoholic, but he is brand new to sobriety and throughout the book, he struggles with his thoughts and feelings about giving up the booze. What is different about this book and the AA theme is that the first murder victim was Hoyt’s AA sponsor. AA themes were present throughout the book including the confidential nature of the people who attend meetings and the content of what they reveal. Even the importance of AA tokens (awards for periods of sobriety) is an evidentiary issue in the death of Hoyt’s sponsor. Box obviously has some insight and understanding into the rehabilitation scene. His venue is Western Montana and Yellowstone park, and having spent some time in the back country there, I appreciated his rich descriptions of the countryside. In addition, he wrote one remarkable thriller, and I did not figure out all of the conspirators until the last few pages of the novel. Box is among the best in the crime novel genre, and he has now proven himself to be a multidimensional writer who has more up his sleeves than the Joe Pickett series, which I love. This book gets my recommendation.