I Shall Not Want

 

I Shall Not Want by Julia Spencer-Fleming is this author’s sixth book in her Fergusson/Alstyne murder mysteries. If you’ve been following my reviews of these books, you’ll know that I’ve had quite favorable opinions of those novels. Please search for those comments in this blog. In this story, the relationship between the two protagonists is finally consummated, this being made possible by the murder of Alstyne’s wife of 25 years. However, as seen in the earlier books, Spencer-Fleming does not make that happen easily. Both parties are torn between living according to high ethical standards and the obvious sexual craving that they have for one another. In addition, the mutual self-tortures of Clare and Russ are accompanied by serious criminal activity of others that must be solved. As we’ve seen in prior stories, this involves Clare overstepping the usual boundaries expected of an Episcopal priest and Russ rushing into a dangerous circumstance and getting injured. This time he was shot in the chest, and while close to death, he survives to fight and love another day.

 At this point in the series, I was screaming for the consummation to finally happen. I thought the author really took much too long to get there. From the above paragraph, you get my sense that these stories have gotten a bit formulaic. I just did not enjoy this book much as the earlier ones, but I also know that even the best authors do not always write winners. I do find it remarkable that this reviewer is a nontheist and it is a surprise, even to me, that I’ve gotten this far with a character who is a deep-faith Christian who makes frequent referrals to scripture. Given that I started reading about Clare and Russ in the 11^th book, At Midnight Comes The Cry, and I gave that one a 5-star review.

Theo of Golden

Theo of Golden is not a murder mystery, and it’s not a thriller. It is a wonderful read. Theo, an 86-year-old man suddenly appeared in Golden a small southern Georgia town. He was a wealthy man, but he was quite secretive of his own history. He talked only guardedly about his past and the source of his wealth. He did make friends of the locals, and he was especially enamored with the work of a local artist who was trying to market himself by drawing portraits of local people who frequented a certain coffee shop. The portraits were for sale, but no one was buying them, and the owner of the shop began posting them on the walls of his establishment. Theo hit on the idea of buying the inexpensive works and giving them to the subjects as long as they would reveal to him their stories. He also began to anonymously pay for other needs, like the medical care of those who could not afford it and rehabilitation costs to those in need.

Theo had talked about staying in Golden for at least a year. In that time, he became friends with many people, but when a year went by, he heard the sounds of an assault going on just outside the apartment he was renting. He went to intervene, but fell in the process and died. It was in response to Theo’s death that the author revealed some of Theo's secrets.

I’ll just say that this was a beautiful story about the benefits of charity and generosity. It is certainly not a story that I would seek out, but my daughters and my wife who are prolific readers all convinced me that I would enjoy the story. They were right. It left me thinking how I might be more generous and how listening to others tell their stories could be so enlightening and helpful. I’m not sure I’ve done the plot justice in this review, and I should add that the cast of characters with whom Theo interacted were most interesting. I’ll give this book a 4+ rating and I think you’ll be happy after diving into the story.

 

No Prisoners by Ellis Blake

The proverbial happy family living a comfortable life in the wooded mountains outside of Santa Fe. Hannah and Adam Lyon are PhD physicists. She is the breadwinner working in a private research organization. Adam may also have the degree but is lacking is something else. Drive? Ambition? He'd tried for some time to solve an unsolvable equation in physics (the Yang-Mills equation. It's real. Look it up. Way way way above my paygrade. Even Sheldon Cooper would be stumped) before giving up on physics and his career. In looking for other work he ended in construction. They have a 10yo son, Adam, who is a Type 1 diabetic. We don't learn much about Adam's background. Hannah's background? Yuck. Abusive father and submissive mom. Father continually beat up his wife and had no qualms about telling Adam he was a total loser who didn't deserve Hannah. 

Life in the Lyon household was going along OK until it wasn't. Adam just up and disappeared. No clues. No warnings. Just here today. Gone tomorrow. Without a trace. Police assume basic domestic issues. Guy got fed up and just left to find something, anything, better. 

Hannah isn't convinced. Lou Hunt is the detective who caught the case. He's a late-career Santa Fe police detective with a heart problem. Married with an adult daughter. He thinks Adam either bolted or got caught up in some criminal activity, drugs or human trafficking, and got his just rewards. And Hunt has issues of his own that he isn't proud of and must eventually make amends with his family.  

Not Hannah. Adam's been missing for 5-6 weeks when book begins. She constantly badgers the police who've effectively written her off. Except for Hunt. He'll al least talk with her about possible theories and continually pesters Hannah to tell him every possible scenario for a connection. Even back to her father who, mysteriously, also just up and disappeared a few years earlier. Hunt now ends up with two missing persons cases. 

Hannah's inability to let it go, that he's just gone, ends up making her paranoid when she repeatedly sees a red Jeep Cherokee following her around. As they say, you're not being paranoid if someone really is following. Returning from an outing, she finds her home has been broken into. Whoever did quite the job on her house. She looks high and low for anything that could be missing. Nothing. 

After searching every square inch of the hillside house, she ventures underneath the deck to check on the crawlspace that was unopened and undisturbed. But she also notices that a few of the overhead joists have been sealed. She pries open one seal and finds neatly stacked bundles roughly the size of a paperback. Odd. She pulls one out, tears off the paper and finds bundles of $100 bills. Pulling out all the bundles, she has discovered a whopping $3.9 million. Only reason to find that kind of money has to be drugs. 

Up until now, the story has been plodding along. Now the story skips into high gear. Hannah won't tell the cops because they think she's loony. She's got the money that means she's got some leverage. So she takes the investigation on herself. Think about that. An amateur with a bundle of cash (which someone is really gonna want to get back), a mostly disinterested police force, a missing husband, and a diabetic  child. 

Prepare for multiple twists (might help to keep a notepad nearby to keep track) over the last quarter of the book. 

The 'about the author' blurb says that Ellis Blake is a pseudonym for a NZ-based writer with nine mysteries to his credit but not much else. What I can say is that once Hannah uncovers the cash, the book really does abruptly accelerate to a breathtaking pace with most (but not all) issues being resolved without a tidy storybook happy ending. Have to say, I found Blake's writing style to be right up my alley. Lean, aggressive and sparse without a lot of unnecessary narrative clogging up the story. Pretty sure I'll be checking the library for any of his earlier eight books. 

Thanks to NetGalley for the advance reader copy. Publication date is 21 July 2026. 

 

ECD 

   

A Gift Before Dying

 

A Gift Before Dying by Malcolm Kempt is a detective novel that takes place in Alaska, specifically above the Arctic Circle in desolate territory that is barely inhabited by the Inuit. Not only is the territory sparsely inhabited, but there is only minimal infrastructure. Cell phones don’t work. This is one of the darkest stories I’ve read about a failed detective who has essentially been assigned to this territory as a punishment for botching a prior famous murder investigation. Corporal Elderick Cole’s life is further troubled when he finds the hanging body of a teenage girl, Pitseolala, who he had vowed to protect. Initially, the case is thought to be a suicide, but Cole figures out it was murder. Meanwhile, the Inuits with whom he interacts are often drunk, and the skies are always without sunlight. Plus, the temperatures, snow, and wind are nearly always brutal. 

As Cole pursues the case, he constantly reflects on his own failed marriage and the failure of his relationship with his only child, a teenage daughter. If he can solve the case of Pitseolala’s murder, at least he would have saved one aspect of his failed life. It’s a well-written story, but all the characters are depressed, drunk, stoned, and otherwise troubled. As a reader, I found it hard to find someone with whom I could identify.

After posting this review, I received the following suggestion for correction: "I believe the story took place in Northern Newfoundland, an Eastern Canadian arctic location, not Alaska. Author is Canadian."

Denied Access by Don Bentley (a Mitch Rapp novel)

Before you get too confused, Denied Access adds to Mitch Rapp's backstory. Bentley takes us back to when Rapp was a kinda newly minted spy/assassin shortly after his experiences at the CIA's notorious 'Farm'. The book completes the American Assassin trilogy: American Assassin, Kill Shot, and now Denied Access. And he's got a new girlfriend while still clinging to the memory of his fiance who was killed in the terrorist attack that brought done an airliner that crashed in Lockerbie, Scotland.  The timeline takes place shortly after the breakup of the Soviet Union. 

Denied Access is a gripping thriller that blends action with complex  questions about loyalty, duty, and the cost of secrecy. Bentley uses his experience as a former Army Apache helicopter pilot and FBI special agent to bring realism to his continuation of books featuring Mitch Rapp and Jack Ryan as well as his standalone novels. You really feel a part of the story. 

The story jumps around from Barcelona to Langley to Zurich, Latvia, Moscow, and various ports of call in the Mediterranean that all figure into a convoluted plot to start an insurrection in Latvia that will require Moscow to intervene and ultimately restart a reunification of former Soviet republics back into the fold. The main players are Rapp, Greta (the girlfriend), her grandfather, Thomas Stansfield (currently acting director of the CIA), Irene Kennedy (Stansfield's associate/confidant/moral compass/sometime handler of Rapp), Stan Hurley (Farm instructor who still tries to keep Rapp on a leash) then a couple old former cold war spooks from East Germany (he's a good guy) and the former KGB (not a good guy). In fact, as the cast of characters develop, Rapp isn't the main character. In fact, there really isn't a 'main character' as most all in my list figure about equally in the story

Bentley's personal history gives this story a high degree of authenticity.  Bentley’s firsthand knowledge of military and covert operations adds precision and credibility that elevates the story beyond typical action fare. The tight pacing and vivid descriptions will keep you hooked from the first chapter to the last. The dialogue feels natural and sharp for the most part (but I know of no 20-something guy who refers to his girlfriend as 'darling') revealing character depth propels the plot forward.

The book does present military jargon throughout that some might find complex, but readers of thrillers shouldn't find the lingo beyond their grasp. Regardless, fans of Tom Clancy or Jack Carr or Vince Flynn, or Brad Thor should agree that Denied Access touches all the right buttons giving us a mix of intricate espionage, moral conflict, and relentless suspense.Denied Access is a sophisticated and expertly crafted thriller that favorable continues the Mitch Rapp storyline. 

Trust me on this: you wont' be disappointed.  

ECD 

 

The Hail Mary Project

 I read The Hail Mary Project the first time in August 2021, and the following review was written then. Rather than write a new review, despite thinking the original review did not capture the enormity and beauty of the story, decided I probably could not do any better. This year in April 2026, it has become a movie with Ryan Gosling playing Ryland Grace and Sandra Huller playing Eva Stratt. As I reread the novel, I got through half of it before attending the movie with my daughter at her suggestion, and the second half of the novel after seeing the movie. I wondered how this very scientific story could be told at all, but as you might expect given the immediate popularity of the movie in it's first week since release, it still makes the most sense to read the book first, and then just sit back and enjoy the marvelous story telling that has been presented.

Review:

While we at Men Reading Books do favor mysteries and thrillers, I tend to wander off-genre from time to time. But, Andy Weir has written a new sci-fi book. He wrote The Martian which was a marvelous story, and I only rarely read sci-fi. Like The Martian, his new book The Hail Mary Project was avidly recommended by my daughter who also does not read much sci-fi. Weir captured me from the beginning.

Ryland Grace was a disgruntled scientist whose predictions about finding life forms that were not based on water were laughed at and discarded by the scientific world. His feelings were hurt so he retreated to being a middle school science teacher where he could be adored and loved by his students. He was one cool teacher. But suddenly, a woman, Eva Stratt, introduced herself to him as the person in charge of the Petrova Taskforce, a group he had never heard of. She had read his thesis paper and insisted that she appreciated his creativity, his ability to think outside the box. Actually, she gave him no choice in the matter and she had the military might behind her to bring him along, willingly or not. It turned out that our sun was losing its power rapidly, and if it got just 10% cooler, life on earth would end. A solution had to be found and Stratt’s powers were being supported by all the most powerful nations.

So, it’s a story about saving the planet, but it’s much more. Grace is sent on an interstellar mission to learn about the creatures that were robbing the sun of its power and adopt that knowledge to saving the sun and the earth. Along the way, he becomes the first human to interact with an alien species, and he teams up with “Rocky” to solve the problems that plagued both of their worlds which were light years apart from one another.

The Reckoning

The Reckoning is the first book reviewed in this blog which was written by Kelli Stanley. She’s written a number of thrillers and mysteries before this novel, and her best seller before now was entitled City of Dragons. She has apparently decided to do a series about her protagonist, Renata Drake. In fact, Ms. Stanley has described one fascinating character in Renata who has fled her home town on the east coast after killing the man who murdered her sister. She is sure the FBI is pursuing her. This story takes place in 1985. Renata ended up in the Humbolt County, California, the town of Garberville which in the midst of the marijuana growing area of the state. She is traveling as incognito as possible, living in off-beat places and working to pay her way. She adopts a new identity, finds a job in the local library, as well as the local town newspaper. 

Upon her arrival in Garberville, she discovers that there has been a serial killer of teenage girls who has been operating in that area for the last several years. Although there has been an unsuccessful hunt for the killer, Renata takes on finding the man in an attempt to redeem herself for the killing of the man who murdered her sister. She befriends local teenage girls as she discovers clues about the possible murderers in the county. The FBI and local police are vigilant because of the predominant illegal drug trade. Ms. Stanley manages to skillfully include themes of the emotional struggle of having been the victim of a major trauma, privacy, and justice.

Now that Ms. Stanley has created such a great character, I’m eager to read more. This was a compelling story that had me hooked from the beginning.