The Poe Consequence

This is the first novel by Keith Steinbaum, a supernatural thriller. He has written The Poe Consequence and if you’re a fan of the supernatural (and I am not), or if you’re willing to suspend judgment for the length of this book about what is real and what is not (which I am), then you’re in for a good ride. The book makes frequent references to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and the subtitle of the novel is “Beware the heart as cold as ice.” You might get to know more about Poe’s stories than you knew before.

This story is about twin brothers, Kevin and Warren Palmer. Warren was waiting to hear about his application for a literature teaching job at USC in Los Angeles, a job he desperately wanted. Unlike his twin, Warren was also interested in the occult, and while visiting New Orleans, sought out a psychic, a Tarot reader, and he was hoping for reassurance about his job application. But he got something far different. Madame Sibilia obviously was able to perceive information in unconventional ways. She knew the name of his brother, as well as the names of his in-laws. Warren had already married a wonderful woman, had a child with her, and then a year before the trip to New Orleans, she had died from cancer. Rather than telling Warren about only the good things that she foresaw, Madame Sibilia unloaded information about Warren’s impending death. He was so offended by the progressive reading of his Tarot that he got up and left before the last card was revealed. Meanwhile, Kevin Palmer was a writer for the L.A. Times, and he was working on a story about the exploding gang war in L.A.

Back in L.A., Warren was killed by an errant shot in an unexpected gun battle between rival gangs. Thus, Warren’s 14-year-old son, Seth, was left to be raised by his Uncle Kevin, who just happened to be a raging alcoholic. With his last breath, Warren commented that he had promised his wife that he would always look out for Seth, and now he was committed to continue that promise from the afterlife. Seth had a huge adjustment to make, and he found himself uncomfortable with and angry at all Hispanic people. His school work fell apart. He was depressed and did not care about anything. He was also disgusted with his uncle’s drinking.

Meanwhile, the gang wars continued to rage, but after Warren’s death, there was a mystery regarding the way they were dying. For every murder by the Lobos and Diablos, the murderer died the following day at 4:00 a.m., but not of gunshot wounds. Rather, they were dying of a heart attack and it was determined at autopsy that their hearts were actually frozen inside their bodies. Meanwhile, Kevin found a tutor for Seth, but she is a Mexican-American woman and is stunningly beautiful and Kevin fell in lust for her. Seth agreed to work with her, not knowing that the tutor’s brother had been involved in the death of his father.

There were interactions with the police force, and Steinbaum created some wonderful characters. The interplay between the two enemy gangs was entirely believable. So, despite this being outside of my usual genre, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and am willing to give this a very solid recommendation.

Flash Point: The Final Conspiracy

Flash Point: The Final Conspiracy is a unique book. It is published in 2020 this year by co-authors Thomas A. Whitmire and Jacob D. Miller. Eric Anderson is the protagonist, and his partner in the efforts to figure out a conspiracy is Paul Kappas. Prior to uncovering new information, Eric and Paul were running a website called “The Smartest Guy in DC.” They were tracking a series of Washington protests that all seemed to be going nowhere. Eric was the expert at getting surveillance films. While Paul had his own computer consulting business, Eric thought he should try to land an “inside job,” so he was hired as a video expert by Senator Shelby Lamb. Lamb was clearly one of Washington’s powerful men. Eric  got sent by Lamb to a mall where another senator was scheduled to have a clandestine meeting with a woman who was too young and to whom he was not married. Lamb wanted Eric to film their encounter which he could use as future dirt to force this other senator to vote his way. But then a mall shooting broke out, and many were killed. Eric was there with his camera and got footage of the horrifying carnage that went viral.

Eric was suspicious that Lamb had set this up the slaughter as a means of passing new legislation that would bring him more power and lots of money. The authors surrounded Eric and Paul with a great cast of characters including The Wanderer, a guy who was a Vietnam Era veteran and one who was somehow tie to Lamb. There were multiple well-chosen subplots.

I’m not usually interested in conspiracy stories, but this one was more captivating, perhaps because it seems so plausible. This novel gets my strong recommendation.

Reflecting Pool

While spending a career in government, Reflecting Pool is apparently the first novel for Otho Eskin, who is an accomplished playwright. It’s my opinion that Eskin would do well to continue writing in the murder mystery genre, and perhaps he plans to make a series with his protagonist, Marko Zorn. This was a very fun read. Zorn is a detective with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police. While it is uncommon to read about an uncompromising character who is in pursuit of the truth, Eskin has taken Zorn to a new level. In the course of this story, Zorn pisses off nearly everyone he encounters, including the president’s underlings, the president himself, the president’s wife, the Secret Service, and the investigating members of the FBI and National Park Service. In his singleness of purpose, he put his rookie partner in great danger, so his own entire staff was most unhappy with him. Zorn mostly spared involvement with the CIA.

Zorn just happened to be the first person to discover a body of a young woman who had drowned in the Reflecting Pool that lies between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capital Building. Underwater and facing upwards, he was struck by the deep blue color of her eyes, and she reminded him of his older sister who had been raped and murdered nearly 20 years before. Of course, there were immediate turf wars over jurisdiction for the crime, especially with the FBI, the Secret Service because the deceased woman, Sandra Wilcox, had been part of the presidential protection brigade, and the National Park Service. Zorn was told by the president that this death was a matter of national security, that he was being ordered to drop the case, but Zorn thought it would be an injustice to do so.

By the end of the book, Zorn had figured out the surprising details that led to the death of Wilcox, but the author also added Zorn’s successful efforts to deal with a raging street war between two gangs who were competing for a huge shipment of weapons, as well as an assassin who had been hired to kill the president. This was a good story, and I hope that the author writes another book about Marko Zorn.