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Beyond the Headlines by RG Belsky

She was born in Vietnam near the end of the war . . . family whisked to America with the help of the US military . . . father killed in an LA hit and run . . . mom weds a TV/movie mogul . . . Step dad gets his daughter into commercials that leads to modeling that leads to acting . . . that leads to marrying Charles Hollister who helped get the microchip biz going to meet the thirst for computers . . . Laurie Bateman was living proof that the American Dream is real.

Remember Clare Carlson? Channel 10 News Director in NYC. Has a Pulitizer Prize in her pocket for her investigative reporting. Even behind the desk, she manages to somehow get inserted into the next story further upping her street cred in a city that values street cred. A lawyer friend says that Laurie Bateman wants Clare to interview her. She and Charles are starting the divorce process and Laurie wants her truth delivered to the public. Clare agrees and heads uptown only to find police barriers surrounding the Hollister townhouse. Laurie is being perp walked to a waiting squad car. Charles has been found dead, broken vase beside his head and three bullets to complete the scene. The maid found one deal multimillionare just as Laurie was ready to rush out the door.

About as open and shut as a case can be. Means: Laurie owns a gun. The lamp was handy. Motive: Charles had rewritten his will years ago after a showdown with his son. Wrote Jr. out and put Laurie in. Opportunity: Home alone arguing with Charles. With the divorce, Charles had rewritten the will to agree with a prenup, but he had yet to file it. Too perfect. Clare thinks Laurie is being set up while the rest of NY is ready to toss her in prison.

So, Clare does what Clare does best. She digs. Digs. Digs some more. Snagging interviews with Charles adult children, Charles’ former wife, Laurie’s mom, Hollister’s lifelong #2, business rivals of Hollister, the PI Clare hired to follow Charles.

To say that Clare shakes things up is an understatement. Much of what keeps this bizarre media blitz alive dates back to when Hollister was stationed in Vietnam near the end of the war. And the connections from there to now are enough to leave the reader with multiple audible gasps.

RG Belsky has spent a lifetime in various aspects of media and journalism. And while I’ve no way to know otherwise, Belsky certainly delivers the goods. Clare is a no holds barred journalist when it comes to chasing a story to its end no matter how many 3 steps forward 2 steps back situations block her path to the truth.

Betting few of us knew much about investigative reporting in the pre-Watergate years. But from what books about news reporting that I’ve read, Belsky sits at the top of the heap. A lifetime of writing has sharpened his skills to a razor’s edge. Pace, plotting, characters, twists. This has them all. With this effort, I’m happy to elevate him into my personal power rotation. Can’t wait until the next Belsky book comes out.

Available May 4, 2021. Get in line, kids.

ECD

p.s. you might recall in my previous post (Bad Scene) that you should pay attention to books from Oceanview Publishing. Well, Tomlinson may be good. But if Belsky isn't Oceanview's top sellling mystery writer, I have to wonder just what the public wants.

Bad Scene by Max Tomlinson

Reported on Colleen Hayes in my review of Tie Die not too long ago, which is #2 in the Colleen Hayes Mystery series. Bad Scene is #3. 

Backstory in brief. Colleen is from Colorado. Got pregnant at 16. Had Pam. Her husband was worthless. When Pam hit puberty, the abuse got real. When Colleen learned of the abuse, she struck back, stabbed the pig in the neck and watched him die on her kitchen floor. Called the cops. Confessed. Spend just shy of 10y as a guest of the Colorado Dept of Corrections. In that 10y, Pam's anger with what her mom did boils over and off she goes into various communes in the mountains and west coast. When Colleen is released, Pam wants nothing to do with her mom. That doesn't fly with Colleen and she goes on the hunt, eventually settling in San Francisco. While doing a nothing job, she ends up doing some off the books investigative work that leads her to taking steps to become a licensed PI, which is kinda tough for an ex-felon. Backstory done. Current day in this series is the late 1970s. Disco, platform heels, and bell bottoms are the norm.

For a PI, divorce cases pay the bills. While tracking down nefarious lotharios in her short time as an off-the-books PI, Colleen has developed a bit of a network of sources. One, nicknamed Lucky, tells her that he overheard some bikers talking about an upcoming plot to murder the mayor and the person behind the threat is a current SF Board of Supervisors member. Being a good citizen, Colleen tells her contact in the SFPD. They check out the Board member and find nothing so the threat gets lost in the SFPD bureaucracy. 

But one other thing Lucky overheard was that the bikers were expecting a delivery of LSD from The Moon Ranch, a commune of hippies in the CA mountains outside of the bay area. And The Moon Ranch was the last sightings of Pam. So Colleen starts digging learning that Pam may actually be part of the delivery.

Or maybe not, but Colleen has to find out. To her horror she finds out that Pam has taken up with a cult run by a charismatic South African committed to perfection in everything . . . including death. And this guy has taken a couple hundred devotees to the slopes of an Ecuadorian volcano that is coming back to life. Colleen scrambles to get to Ecuador in search of Pam before . . . before what?

Tomlinson is cool. His stories take place in the not too distant past in an era and place where society was tilting in mulitple directions. It's easy to root for Colleen. She's in a place of her own doing and determined to dig her way out . . . if she'll just put down that damn shovel. 

Good stuff. Really good stuff. 

Now to find the first one.

Available August 2021

East Coast Don

P.S. one more thing. I suggest that readers pay attention to the publisher, specifically singing the praises of Emily Bestler Books. Add Oceanview to the list of publishers that consistently deliver the goods. Can't remember reading an Oceanview product that I didn't like.

Open Carry by Marc Cameron

Posted a review to my first Arliss Cutter, Deputy US Marshall currently stationed in Alaska (Bone Rattle) a couple weeks ago. Thought it was pretty good. Cameron has 3 Cutter novels out. Lucky me that the local library had a copy of his first featuring Cutter.

 

Backstory: Arliss Cutter is a roughly middle age Supervisory Deputy US Marshall. Lots of experience and a bit of a hot temper (an understatement). Maybe that’s why he's been posted to multiple offices around the country. A Florida native now living in Anchorage. A veteran of four marriages. As a teenager, his crush was Mim, but his older brother swooped in a grabbed her up before Arliss could even get his romantic feet wet. Arliss’ grandfather (Grumpy – himself an LEO in Florida) had a set of rules to live by and one was brothers shall not steal brother’s girlfriend. So brother and Mim started a life leaving Arliss to fail four times at being a husband. Mim’s family, now with a surly teenage daughter and twin tween boys, moved to Alaska, but Arliss’ brother died in a job accident so Arliss accepted a transfer to Alaska to help Mim with life because that's another of Grumpy's Rules - family takes care of family. It’s been a bit over a year since the accident and we see Mim and Arliss cautiously circling each other like kids at a middle school dance. Backstory done.

 

Carmen Delgado, a young producer wannabe proposes a reality show to her cable network bosses. The trite title might’ve been Real Housewives of Alaska, but the network bosses proposed Fishwives! instead. A reality show about the women whose husbands did the big haul fishing in the cold waters off the Alaska coast. A fairly large production crew settled in on the Prince of Wales Island to a cool reception by the locals. The usual pettiness ensues as a local or two get involved, professionally and personally, with some of the crew. One young local girl even disappears.

 

While scouting locations for filler shots, Carmen and her cameraman are boating off a small bay. In the distance is a pretty large yacht. Unusual, but still, it might make for interesting background footage. So, her cameraman shoots some distance clips. Carmen gets a closer look with her binoculars and sees someone on the yacht looking right back at her . . . and a skiff has been lowered into water and headed their way.

 

Said yacht is one of the perks of being a cartel boss who likes to occasionally come up to Alaska to fish, anonymously. Not liking that he has been caught on camera, he dispatches a couple thugs to get the footage. And if necessary, get rid of the offenders. The thugs are better at chasing than a couple of LA TV folks are at evading. The two are captured. Two more missing persons.

 

Local cops on the island have enough to do to keep the peace between the locals and the film crew. The US Marshalls are called in because the film crew inadvertently hired a felon from the lower 48 with a history that might make him a person of interest about the missing local girl. Once Arliss and partner arrive, they also get sucked into the missing producer and cameraman in the event the two issues are connected.

 

And once the Marshall’s service gets involved, it’s now time to hunt, because that’s what they do, and do very well.

 

I like this series. Sort of like getting in on the ground floor with Joe Pickett (by CJ Box). Arliss has his issues with temper and sticking his nose in where it might not belong, but it usually works out. I’ve read #1 and #3 of the 3 so far. Just have to find #2 and I’ll be happy. Then I'll have to look in on his other book series of which he has many (to date, he has 17 books to his credit). Looks like Cameron will be a good go-to when I need something to read.

 

And I hope Cameron takes a step back in time for a book about Grumpy. 

East Coast Don

 

 

Curve of the Dragon: Episode 2, Trial and Error

Bone Rattle by Marc Cameron

Alaska forbids new roads in its designated wilderness area, but upgrading existing roads is OK. Just make sure an archeologist is on site just in case ancient relics turn up. And if they do, count on construction delays.

One particular mine owner ain’t happy when a rare shaman bone rattle is unearthed.  Grimsson fancies himself a modern-day Viking, replete with massive full beard and an even bigger temper. And mining isn’t his only interest. Been running drugs in to the Juneau area until the arrest of a couple runners sours his distribution network.

The trial of the two culprits has put the Alaskan law enforcement community on edge. The jury is to be sequestered. The judge and prosecutors have protection courtesy of the US Marshall service. A number of deputies based in Anchorage are sent to Juneau to help babysit the judge and jury.

Deputies Arliss Cutter (a Florida native) and Lori Teariki (a Cook Island native) are assigned to the judge. Arliss has been around. From Florida, Army Ranger, master human tracker, stationed in multiple US Marshall offices now in Anchorage. Not much of a conversationalist. Veteran of four marriages. Quick tempered when he sees an underprivileged is wronged. His rep is ‘does the right thing, right now.’ Sounds a bit like Jack Reacher. Lori is a new deputy who like to butt right in . . . anything. Particularly interested in learning how to track bad guys on the run in the bush.

Protection is the bread and butter of deputies and all is going reasonably well. Until the federal prosecutor goes off to get a tip from a informer and gets cut down by a skilled sniper. Word is the druggies are ready to cut a deal and Grimsson issued the kill order. Not a good idea to kill a federal prosecutor with a town full of deputies on hand. And the influx of FBI in response.

The hunt is on. Find the informer. Find the shooter. Find any accomplices. Find who gave the order. Find any friends who might be protecting the top of this particular food chain. And do so in the mine-dotted mountains that lay to the east of Juneau.

For some, the name Marc Cameron might be familiar. He is one of the authors who was selected to pick up the Tom Clancy Jack Ryan/Campus series. He also is the author of a 10-book series of political thrillers featuring one Jericho Quinn. Bone Rattle is the 3^rd Arliss Cutter book. Kind of surprised I hadn’t read any of the Quinn books as the titles seem right in my wheelhouse.

And while the Quinn books sound more like cousins to Brad Thor or Alex Berensen, this Arliss Cutter book is more akin to CJ Box (Joe Pickett) or Craig Johnson (Walt Longmire). The introverted western law enforcement officer whose main credo is doing the right thing. With Pickett and Longmire as favorites, I’m betting that Cutter will join that short list.

Available 27 April 2021

ECD