At Midnight Comes the Cry

 Julia Spencer-Fleming is not an author that I had known prior to a blurb in the NY Times Book Review, so I gave her a look. When I finished her latest novel in the Fergusson/Van Alstyne mystery series, At Midnight Comes the Cry published in 2025, I found out this was at least her 11^th book in the series. She published the first one, In the Bleak Midwinter, in 2002. The newest novel tells about the ongoing relationship between Clare Fergusson, an Episcopal priest and former US Army Blackhawk helicopter pilot, and former police chief Russ Van Alstyne in the fictional town of Millers Kill in upstate New York. I find it exciting to read a very good story and then learn that the author has a substantial body of work already published. Now I have a series of novels to look forward to, and I’ll get to enjoy the evolution of Ms. Spencer-Fleming’s protagonists. I’ve already downloaded In The Bleak Midwinter and plan to read it soon and then work my way through her novels in the order of publication. 

This story began with Kevin Flynn, a young officer who chose to leave the Millers Kill PD to work in a bigger department at Syracuse. He was assigned to an undercover operation in which his task was to infiltrate a group of white supremists, but then he disappeared. His girlfriend and parents had not heard from him for months, he was fired from the Syracuse PD because the funds for his undercover job had been reallocated to other things, and he was a no-show for a new assignment.

 

Basically, this was a story about the white supremists, their plan to kill Jews, the misogyny of that movement, and the multicultural characters who were aligned to stop them. This was a very well-designed plot with fascinating characters. This mystery novel gets a 5/5 rating from me, and it left me excited to read more of this authors work.

 

Everland

 Everland by Rebecca Hunt, published in 2015, is a novel regarding two visits to a fictional island in Antarctica, the explorations taking place 100 years apart. Three explorers in 1913 were contrasted with three researchers in 2012, who set out to explore unchartered territory in the harshest of circumstances. On the one hand, the descriptions of the troubles of Antarctic exploration by the author sounded quite similar to what was reported in the nonfiction works of explorers Shakleton and Amundsen. Weather had to be considered literally at every step along the way, be that in the early 20^th or 21^st centuries. Both the real explorations and the fictional ones in this novel were impressive, breathtaking. On the other hand, I found myself getting lost with regard to the characters in both of these fictional expeditions. I got to the 60% mark of this historical fiction work and just was not interested in following through to know how the author brought this novel to a conclusion.

Raskin's World by Charlie Stella

Charlie (seeing as how we've met, I think I'm allowed to use his first name) ventures away from his typical crime/mafia genre venturing in the legal world. No, it's not John Grisham redux. Lawyers are just the subjects of Charlie's pen (make that keyboard). "They" say write about what you know and Charlie has spent a long time in legal firms (but he's not a lawyer) so one could wonder how much of this book was inspired by actual shenanigans in some law firm from his past. But it's not a legal procedural. Regardless, as with most of Stella's books where character development reigns supreme, a cast of characters is warranted (essential?):

MAIN CAST

Carol Delvicchio: a stunningly beautiful young woman . . . has worked in the lower levels of a few law firms . . . always on the prowl for her next conquest she can squeeze for money and a living arrangement . . . has a history of drug/alcohol abuse to go with a few failed attempts at rehab.

Tom Raskin: . . . The title character . . . Married to Maryanne, couple kids . . . a decent man who strayed once (with Carol when she worked in his firm) and feels genuinely guilty . . . cut Carol off immediately after his failure, freeing her up to track down her next target.

Bobby Medina: Good husband and father . . . neighbor of Tom's . . . Raskin's best friend at the firm . . . 3 kids . . . both have similar sporting interests.

Maryanne Raskin: obviously married to Tom Raskin. Good friend to . . . 

Alicia Medina: She's unhappy in her marriage to Bobby . . . been stepping out, the latest is also a lawyer, of course . . . 3 young kids . . . When the wives and kids spend a few days in Atlantic City, she quietly has a rendezvous with her latest paramour . . . 

Nicholas Delvicchio: Carol's brother, also in the legal field (I think) . . . has bailed Carol out of various jams gone bad . . . paid for her rehab . . . loyal to a fault to his sister.

Marsha: engaged to Nicholas . . . hates Carol with a passion . . . thinks Carol is just using her brother as an always-there safety net . . . a bit of a shrew . . . comes from money and daughter of a retired, but still connected, judge.

SUPPORTING CAST

Jerry Sloane: a partner in a firm where Carol has cast her post-Tom snare . . . well heeled, married in the process of a potentially messy divorce . . . trying to figure out how to minimize the financial loss coming from the divorce

Dominic DiNucci: NY mobster . . . meets Carol on the Atlantic City boardwalk . . . talks her into quit chasing lawyers and join his cadre of dancers at his posh Manhattan club.  

Parents: Carlos and Maria (of Alicia); Jorge and Rose (of Bobby)

Paul: Alicia Medina's current fling

Hope I got that all correct - apologies to the Knuckmeister if I've screwed up. Should've taken notes while reading. Oh, well. 

 

Here we go. Carol and Raskin engage in some 'harmless' flirting at his firm. One night, he gets too drunk with Carol and, despite knowing better, still allowed a front seat hummer that has him immediately angry with himself. Tells Carol no way to anything in the future and struggles with telling Maryanne. Carol moves on to her next conquest (Jerry) and scores pretty big despite him being a pig. 

Meanwhile, Medina is getting concerned that his wife is having an affair (with Paul). When the truth comes out, Medina goes off the deep end where his actions have devastating consequences far beyond himself that will likely affect multiple generations within his circle. 

From a basic summary of the plot, that's it. There's some tangential mob involvement. Otherwise this is a tale of broken families and the depths people struggle with when infidelity rears its ugly head. No one is left unaffected or unbroken. It's Charlie's skill with the spoken word that draws us in. The dialogue, always the centerpiece of a Stella novel, is convincingly realistic drawing the reader into the fears, regrets, guilt, and sympathy for those victimized by Carol's selfish and childish behavior. 

We also are torn between the back and forth of friends and spouses, adult children and their parents, as we attempt to find a winner and a loser in this complex foray into human shortcomings. Don't look for a bang up solution (typical of a Stella mob story) because I'm betting he wants us to question all sides of this mess. In the end, there are solutions of course, but there are also some unresolved actions that'll stay with you well after you close the book. 

Bottom line boys and girls: This is one helluva a story . 

Charlie's departure from crime may leave some fans scratching their collective heads, but when it comes to delivering a tale that is rife with complex character development and lean righteous dialogue, I defy to you find a better active writer than Charlie Stella.

 

due to be published in early in 2026. Keep checking with Stark House Press or Amazon

 

  

The South Pole

 Published in 1913, The South Pole, Account of the Norwegian Antarctic Expedition in the ‘Fram,’ 1910-1912 was written by the most successful of the Arctic and Antarctic explorers, Roald Amundsen. It was Amundsen who first reached both the north and south poles and he apparently was never unsuccessful with any goal that he created. He planned meticulously. However, there were deaths that occurred in the course of his journey which seemed to be a more common experience of those who chose to take on the horrors of Antarctic exploration. His writing was somewhat more simple, direct, mater-of-fact than those words of his rival Shakleton, leaving out much of the human hardship and trauma that one could see in Shakleton’s writing. The prose was more like the words of the old tv show Dragnet when Joe Friday would say to a woman he was interviewing, “The facts, just the facts maam.” Still, the difference between the styles of Amundsen and Shakleton gives an important picture of the race to the South Pole and the difficulty of exploring such a remote and difficult terrain as Antarctica.

 

Dead in the Frame

 Dead in the Frame is the fifth of five books (so far) in the Pentecost and Parker Murder Mystery series. If you’ve been following my reviews of the first four books, you’ll know that I chose to read those four books before I got to this one. I found the NYTimes claim that Dead in the Frame was the best crime novel written in 2025 was a most audacious claim given the competition of great crime writers. I don’t need to review the primary protagonists because this is not meant to be a stand-alone review. Given the blog’s reviews of so many crime novels, I just found it rather startling for a reviewer to claim one was the best book. Also, if there was a great writer that I had not heard of, as is the case for Stephen Spotswood, but I was also excited about the possibility of having a new author to add to my favorite authors. 

Once again, the characters and main plot and subplots were excellent. The continuing evolution of the characters of Pentecost and Parker was most interesting. In this story, Pentecost winds up in jail with a murder charge, and Parker is left to do much more of the detective work, although she is clearly stressed by not having Pentecost in firm control of the investigation that would ultimate free her. Parker was also worried about her detective partner’s failing health due to the progress of her muscular dystrophy. Parker seemed to have too much investigative work to do before the expedited trial that M. Pentecost insisted on.

 

In short, this was a very good book. I thoroughly enjoyed all five books and I hope Spotswood will pursue this series. The end of the story does set him up nicely to do so. Was it the single best crime book that I read this year? I can’t go that far. Writers such as Daniel Silva, Louise Penny, Michael Connelly, C.J. Box, S.A. Cosby, John Grisham, James Lee Burke, Don Winslow, Jonathan Kellerman, Ken Bruin, and others have produced volumes of great work far beyond what Spotswood has done so far. Certainly, his writing deserves mention with the other writers I love, and just maybe, I’m seeing the beginning of what I hoped for, a great writer whose going to keep on writing. I will be following him as I wait for novel #6. This entire series is bound to leave you wanting more from Spotswood.

Endurance: Shakleton's Incredible Voyage

 This is the third time I’ve read Endurance, Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage, by Alfred Lansing although this time was via audio format. Simon Prebble was the perfect voice for this remarkable story. I chose to read it again in anticipation of actually going to the Antarctica in another month. We will fly to Buenos Aires, and then take a second flight to Ushuaia, the southernmost city in the world, located on Tierra del Fuego. From there, we’ll take a 10-day cruise to the peninsula which juts north from the Antarctica mainland. We’ll be crossing the dangerous Drake Passage which Lansing writes about in vivid language. That passage around the cape is famous as being the most dangerous sailing area in the world due to the monstrous waves. 

It was about 16 years ago that my wife and I sailed through this same area. Two days before Cape Horne, while we were sailing through the more protected Straits of Magellan, there were 60-foot waves in the Drake Passage which would have kept us from going out to the cape, but when it was our turn, the seas were nearly dead flat. It was a beautiful day and we sailed around the small island of Cape Horne where there’s a light house before heading off for the Falklands. At the time, it was not our intent to go to Antarctica. While standing on deck and getting a good luck at the remarkable beauty of Cape Horne, a fellow passenger told me it was the fifth time she had taken this tour, but because of brutal weather, it was the first time she had actually seen the Cape Horne island. Because I had the prior experience of being at sea and sailing through a typhoon with it’s own monstrous waves, which I found to be exciting as hell, I’m hoping this trip does not have another flat day. I’m hoping for some motion, just maybe not 60-foot waves.

 

The Endurance, the name of Shakleton’s ship as well as the title of the book, is nearly indescribable with regard to adventure and danger. After reading many adventure books, I find myself eager to be a part of such treks, but not this one. I thought Lansing was shouting at his top voice, “Don’t do this.” At the same time, Lansing’s admiration of Shakleton was unmistakable. As one might expect of anyone who would undertake such a journey in what was a failed attempt to be the first to reach the South Pole, Shakleton was obsessed, a maniac, but also a man who drew the affection and loyalty of his total crew of 28 men. This was Shakleton’s third trip to Antarctica. The story starts with all the difficulty of putting together such an expedition in 1914, but when it arrived, the Endurance got stuck in an ice floe. Despite heroic attempts to dislodge the boat, the crew had to abandon it, and that’s when their greatest perils began. His descriptions of going through the Drake Passage on a 22-boat was amazing. Time and again, Shakleton faced life and death decisions, and more than two years after setting out on his journey, they made their way to safety. He did not lose a single man, compared to his rival Amundsen who lost three men on his contemporary expedition.

 

This is a great true adventure book, certainly one of the best ever written. Did you know that the ship Endurance was recently discovered where it sunk in the Antarctic waters? I’ve seen underwater pictures of the ship, and I hope to learn more about that.

 

The Protector

My daughter was attending a charity event and she happened to be sitting at the same table with the author of this book and her husband. She described a pleasant evening and good conversation. She learned that the author, Mary Beth Wilkas Janke, had served in the Secret Service and had completed an autobiography. I was intrigued, so I bought the book. Clearly this woman has led an interesting life, and it was unfortunate that the Secret Service, after only a short stint, chose to terminate her employment because of an alleged lie she told on her original application. She presents her state of mind about that matter and the act of termination does seem a bit suspect. I'm sure the agency is a misogynistic one, but she does not harp about that fact. Rather, she continues her career doing private security work, while continuing her education. This was not a good book, rather flat, basic, and sometimes boring. I did read the whole thing cover to cover, but I cannot recommend it.