If It Bleeds by Stephen King

 

Containing the novellas Mr. Harrigan's Phone, The Life of Chuck, If It Bleeds, and Rat.

 

Of the four novellas in this collection, my favorites are If It Bleeds and Mr. Harrigan's Phone. In Mr. Harrigan's Phone, we're told "A reader is a carrier, not a creator," which is true-- and I've been carrying around an appreciation of Holly Gibney ever since reading Mr. Mercedes, so it was a pleasure to see her in action once again. 

Mr. Harrigan's Phone is a spooky little number that made me smile, and if you like finding out how an author gets his ideas for the stories he writes, don't miss the Afterward. 

All in all, If It Bleeds is an enjoyable ramble through the mind of Stephen King.

If It Bleeds by Stephen King

eISBN: 9781982137991

Scribner © 2020

eBook, 448 pages

 

Short Story/Novella

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Man Found Dead in Park by Margaret Coel

 

First Line: Catherine tapped the brakes and turned into a street filled with SUVs, black-and-white police cars, yellow and red lights flashing, and an ambulance idling on the side.

 

Journalist Catherine McLeod finds herself investigating the death of a man found in a park in a Native American neighborhood of Denver, Colorado. No one in the neighborhood is talking to the police, but-- due to McLeod's Arapaho heritage-- she does find someone willing to say just enough to get her started.

 

What she doesn't realize is that she's going to find herself in Wyoming's Wind River Reservation and in conflict with Mexican drug cartels.

 

~

 

I've been slowly savoring Margaret Coel's Wind River mysteries featuring Catholic priest John O'Malley and Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden and felt it was high time I met journalist Catherine McLeod in the novella, Man Found Dead in Park. I'm glad I did. Coel is a magician when it comes to blending story, character, landscape, and culture into a reading experience that I simply can't resist.

The two main characters in this novella are McLeod, an investigative journalist in Denver. An Arapaho, Catherine was raised by a white couple from the age of five, and she wants to learn more about her heritage. Arapaho lawyer Vicky Holden uses the white man's laws to help her people. Both are strong, sympathetic characters who make a good team working to solve a mystery involving how Mexican drug cartels have moved onto reservations.

If you're already a fan of Margaret Coel's writing, you'll enjoy this fast-paced story. If you're new to this writer, you'll find Man Found Dead in Park to be an excellent stepping stone to both the mysteries featuring Catherine McLeod and the Wind River series with Holden and O'Malley. You have some excellent reading ahead of you, especially if you enjoy writers like Tony Hillerman.

Man Found Dead in Park by Margaret Coel

ASIN: B07FR2JPLJ

A.S.A.P. Publishing © 2018

eBook, 165 pages

 

Novella

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

First Line: A convenience store is a world of sound.

 

Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura has never "fit in", has never felt normal even in her own family, but when, at the age of eighteen, she starts working at Smile Mart as a convenience store worker, she finds peace and true purpose in her life. She understands the rules of social interaction because most of it is spelled out in the employee manual. She learns how to copy her fellow workers in how they dress and speak so well that she appears normal, and her younger sister helps her in crafting "normal" responses to questions her friends and co-workers may ask.

 

This has been Keiko's life for eighteen years. It's hard to tell where the convenience store ends and she begins. She's happy. She knows her place in the world. She contributes. But her family and those close to her aren't happy. Her family want her to be "cured" and to become a normal functioning part of society. They pressure her to find a husband. To get married. To have children. To be like everyone else. And this pressure leads Keiko to take desperate measures.

 

~

 

I was very fortunate with my immediate family. I knew from the age of eight that I didn't want to have babies. When I played house with the children across the street, I went to work and my "husband" stayed home with the kids. This feeling never changed, and no one in my immediate family ever tried to get me to "see sense". They were willing to let me be me even if it meant no husband and no babies. For several years in my working life, I supervised dozens of teenagers. Perhaps it was my way with them that made everyone think I was married and had at least six children. Even if it wasn't, at least no one bothered me about my lack of marital status and children; they already "knew" I was married. I was very lucky indeed because I saw many others being harassed by their families to conform.

Poor Keiko Furukura was not as fortunate as I. She's spent her entire life being the square peg everyone tries to pound into the round hole. Keiko tends to take everything literally, and when Murata described some incidents in her childhood, they made me laugh-- which has to be another indication that I'm a fellow square peg. Keiko is perfectly happy, but her family insists on her being "cured", on her meeting their expectations for her life. 

Convenience Store Worker is a little gem of a novella that sucked me right in. I knew that Keiko would bow to her family's pressure, and I hated that. I hoped that she would be strong enough to survive her attempt to please others and that she'd be able to return to being her kind of happy. I can see why Sayaka Murata is such a popular writer in Japan, and I will be looking for more of her work. Now if only more people would abide by her message in Convenience Store Worker: Don't stick your nose in someone else's business. Square pegs do have a place and a purpose in this world.

 

Convenience Store Woman by Sayaka Murata

Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

eISBN: 9780802165800

Grove Atlantic © 2018

eBook, 135 pages

 

Novella, Standalone

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Chase of the Gold Plate by Jacques Futrelle

First Line: Cardinal Richelieu and the Mikado stepped out on a narrow balcony overlooking the entrance to Seven Oaks, lighted their cigarettes and stood idly watching the throng as it poured up the wide marble steps.

 

It's the talk of the town: twelve solid gold plates were stolen during a high society masquerade ball, and it looks as though the thief was one of the guests who was daringly dressed as a burglar. He made his escape with the loot along with a masked girl in a stolen car, and now it's up to the police to find the thief and return the plates to the owner.

 

~

 

At first glance, this story written in 1906 looked to be right up my alley. I was in the mood for a good heist story, and this looked to be just the thing. The deciding factor was learning that the author went down on the Titanic. Be still, my soft heart!

 

Jacques Futrelle did have a knack for writing some memorable phrases. Two that caught my eye were a character wanting to "climb down someone's throat and open an umbrella", which brings a vivid mental picture to mind. A minor character declared the other in no uncertain terms: "Well, there ain't no serious trouble in this world till you marry a man that beats you." A lot of truth in that one, if you stop to think about it.

 

All in all, I discovered that The Chase of the Gold Plate was not the heist story for me. The writing was too dated, and although I liked Hutchinson Hatch the reporter, the other two main characters didn't cut the mustard. Detective Mallory, the "Supreme Police Intelligence of the Metropolitan District" who has a "No. 11 shoe and a No. 6 hat" pitted his skills against Professor Augustus S.F.X. Van Dusen, "the Thinking Machine." Bah. There was much too much exposition, and between that and the one-dimensional characters, the theft fell flat. Onward! 

The Chase of the Gold Plate by Jacques Futrelle

eISBN: 9781504021142

Open Road Integrated Media © 2015

Originally published in 1906.

eBook, 105 pages

Novella

Rating: C-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Boy With the Narwhal Tooth by Christoffer Petersen

First Line: It's a cliché, I know, but it really did start with a telephone, an empty desk and a generous new police commissioner, giving my career a gentle shove in the right direction.

When a young Greenlandic boy is reported missing almost twelve months to the day that he disappeared, newly trained Constable Petra Jensen travels to the north of Greenland to find him.

Petra Jensen is twenty-three and fresh out of the Academy. She speaks Danish, English, and German, but not Greenlandic. Showering after sparring at the gym, she applies "just enough scent to arouse interest from my single colleagues-- I graduated from a police academy, not a nunnery." Her training officer, a man she refers to as "Sergeant Jowls" is enjoying making her life miserable, and it's a tremendous relief when a sympathetic new commissioner arrives who allows her to show what she can do in finding this missing boy.

The mystery is pretty thin on the ground in The Boy With the Narwhal Tooth, but it introduces two interesting characters in Petra and the new commissioner, and it gives readers a real feel for Greenland, its people and culture. The descriptive phrases were excellent in giving a mental picture of the landscape as well.

I always enjoy reading mysteries set in little-known areas, so I'll be looking for more novellas in Petersen's Greenland Missing Persons series.

The Boy With the Narwhal Tooth by Christoffer Petersen

ASIN: B088C3PSG2

Aarluuk Press © 2020

eBook, 81 pages

Police Procedural/Novella, #1 Greenland Missing Persons mystery

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

First Line: I was the one who found the house.

British folk group Windhollow Faire needs to put together their second album, so manager Tom Haring takes matters into his own hands. He rents Wylding Hall, a centuries-old manor house out in the Hampshire countryside, for the summer and effectively maroons the entire group there for the duration.

The group works on new songs, occasionally trying them out in a pub, but although the locals enjoy the music, some of the older folk warn them not to go messing about in the ancient house and grounds. Bad things could happen...

Decades later, a documentary filmmaker talks with the surviving members of Windhollow Faire-- along with their manager, friends, and lovers-- so they can tell their own versions of what happened that summer. But whose story is true? And what really happened to Julian Blake?

I think I've always had an interest in architecture. When I was in my early teens, I loved reading gothic novels, not for the stories of innocent young heroines falling in love with dark, handsome men, but for the wonderful old houses in which the books were set. I have a mental list of my favorite fictional houses and after reading Wylding Hall, I've just added another to it.

Elizabeth Hand's story is told in alternating points of view. Each surviving member of the group, the group's manager, and participating friends and lovers all share their memories of the summer they spent in the old manor house. The story unfolds, layer by layer, until the end-- which leaves you to decide what really happened.

There are times that open-ended stories are the best way to go, and this is one of them. There is a paranormal element to Wylding Hall that won't be everyone's cup of tea, but this open-ended conclusion means that each reader can interpret what happened in a way that suits them best.

I have to be honest and say that the main reason why I enjoyed this novella is because of that house. I loved it. Everyone got the feeling that the house didn't want them there. Each time one of the musicians tried to explore the oldest wings of the house (parts dating back to the fourteenth century or even earlier), they became frightened and almost completely lost. Some doors would open. Others wouldn't. Sometimes a lack of windows would make them lose any sense of direction. Were they going in circles? Could they get back to the part of the house they were familiar with? And the leader of Windhollow Faire, Julian Blake, is one of the few who found the library, filled with row upon row of books, some of them with what look to be spells and the lyrics of ancient ballads.

If you like old houses with personality and stories that let you decide what happened, pick up a copy of the fast-paced, award-winning Wylding Hall. It's a fun way to spend an hour or two. 

Wylding Hall by Elizabeth Hand

eISBN: 9781504007184

Open Road Media © 2015

eBook, 94 pages

Short Story/Novella

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

 

The Woman in the Blue Cloak by Deon Meyer

First Line: He was hungry and thirsty, frightened, and weary to the marrow.

The local investigation into the discovery of the bleached body of a woman found by a busy highway stalls, so the two stars of the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations-- Captain Benny Griessel and his partner Vaughn Cupido-- are called in from Cape Town, South Africa. The two learn that the woman was an expert in old Dutch Masters paintings and the item she was looking for. What will surprise them is how and why the woman died and by whose hands.

This novella is a little gem that's slow to take off but once the woman's identity is established, it's hard to stop turning the pages. It was just as good to see Benny on the wagon and not craving alcohol as it was to see him working together with Cupido. There's a nice little twist for the whodunit, although it may not be totally unexpected for the more seasoned readers of crime.

The Woman in the Blue Cloak by Deon Meyer

Translated from the Afrikaans by K.L. Seegers.

eISBN: 9780802147240

Atlantic Monthly Press © 2019

eBook, 160 pages

Novella, Part of the Benny Griessel police procedural series

Rating: B+

Source: NetGalley

Camanchaca by Diego Zúñiga

First Line: My father's first car was a 1971 Ford Fairlane, which my grandfather gave him when he turned fifteen.

A low fog called camanchaca pushes in from the sea as a fifteen-year-old boy crosses Chile's Atacama Desert with his father in a Ford Ranger. As the miles go by, the boy thinks about his broken family: the intimacy with his mother, his absentee father, his uncle's unexplained death. In trying to fit all the pieces of his family puzzle together, he begins to realize that sometimes the silences are what bind us together.

I'm always on the lookout for books set in South America, which is the main reason why I picked up this 128-page novella. Once I started reading, I couldn't stop, but I'll warn you right now that Camanchaca isn't going to be to everyone's taste.

Many of the chapters are only one page or even just one paragraph long, and that fit the story. It reminded me of night travels by car as a child when I would rest my head against the window and wait for the illumination of a street light, then be plunged into darkness only to wait for the next street light. The boy has similar flashes of insight as he and his father travel through the night.

Some of those flashes of insight are quite powerful, and when I reached the end of this swiftly told tale, I almost wished it could go on. Camanchaca is different, and it's good.

Camanchaca by Diego Zúñiga

Translated from the Spanish by Megan McDowell.

eISBN: 9781566894616

Coffee House Press © 2017

eBook, 128 pages

Novella, Standalone

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Death Factory by Greg Iles

First Line: When you're told that your dying father has something important to say to you before he passes, two feelings flash through you: first, the sense that you're in an Alexandre Dumas novel, that some momentous family secret is about to be revealed-- the lost inheritance, your true paternity, something like that.

A heart attack sends Tom Cage to the emergency room and he insists that his son, Penn, be brought to his side to hear a dying declaration. But when Penn gets there, Tom denies ever having made the request. The whole thing sends Penn on a painful trip down Memory Lane when he was working in a Houston district attorney's office while caring for his dying wife. That DA's office was known as "the death factory" for sending more killers to death row than any other in America.

As Penn's wife lay dying, a tormented forensic technician comes to him for help. He brings evidence of a crime lab in chaos and begs Penn to prevent a gross miscarriage of justice. Now Penn has to fight the death factory with everything he's got-- both at home and on the job.

I don't think anyone could be a real crime fiction lover and not be aware of Greg Iles. Until now, that's all I was-- aware-- and since Iles tends to write quite weighty tomes, I decided to read this novella to see if I wanted to read more.

What I found was a well-told tale with lyrical descriptive passages and a main character I quickly grew to like. The storytelling flowed well, and the plot certainly kept my attention, especially with its emotional elements concerning Penn's father and wife. All my reactions were positive but for some strange reason, Penn didn't set my world on fire. As much as I liked him, I have no real burning desire to read more (although I may very well do so). This is a reaction I very seldom have so I'll have to ponder it a bit more. I may yet become a Penn Cage fan. Only time will tell.
 

The Death Factory by Greg Iles

eISBN: 9780062336682

HarperCollins © 2014

eBook, 92 pages

A Penn Cage novella

Rating: B+

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar

First Line: There are three ways up to Castle View from the town of Castle Rock: Route 117, Pleasant Road, and the Suicide Stairs.

Twelve-year-old Gwendy is on a mission to lose weight. That's why she takes the Suicide Stairs up to Castle View every single summer day of 1974. One day while she's at the top catching her breath, a stranger calls out to her. This is how she meets Richard Farris, a man in black jeans, a black suit coat, a black hat, and a white shirt unbuttoned at the collar. Farris has been watching Gwendy, and he has an offer for her that she can't refuse.

Readers quickly see that although Gwendy is young, she's not stupid, and for the next ten years of her life, we are able to observe how this young woman deals with being in possession of something that bestows great gifts, great temptations, and great responsibilities.

The collaboration between Stephen King and Richard Chizmar is seamless. Not only do we get another chapter in the saga of Castle Rock, Maine, we're given another unforgettable character in Gwendy. This cautionary tale never loses its momentum and was a pleasure to read from first page to last. If only it were longer!

Gwendy's Button Box by Stephen King & Richard Chizmar

ASIN: B06XC9VTBV

Cemetery Dance Publications © 2017

eBook, 180 pages

Novella, Standalone

Rating: A-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.

The Wind Off the Small Isles by Mary Stewart

First Line: She knelt on the window-sill, looking out over the sea.

Lanzarote, the strangest and wildest of the Canary Islands. In 1879, a wealthy young woman eloped with a poor fisherman from this windswept volcanic island. In 1968, Perdita West, personal assistant to famous author Cora Gresham, arrives there with her employer on an extended research trip. Both women fall under the island's spell, and Perdita is quite impressed when meeting Cora's son, Mike.

When Cora goes off to do research, Perdita takes the opportunity to go snorkling, but a landslide traps her in an underwater cave. No one knows where she is, so she has to rely upon herself for rescue. Her efforts to escape will solve a century-old mystery.

This little novella is a gem. Stewart brings Lanzarote to life effortlessly. The 1879 story is extremely brief but memorable while the adventures of Perdita and Cora are picture perfect and often humorous. As a person who will not step foot underground, I can attest to the fact that the scenes in which Perdita is trapped in an underwater cave can raise your blood pressure. (I also think I had a death grip on the book.)

So much goodness in so few pages. No wonder Mary Stewart was a bestselling author back in the day. Other than the lack of today's electronic accoutrements, The Wind Off the Small Isles holds up every bit as well as it did when first published.
 

The Wind Off the Small Isles by Mary Stewart

ISBN: 9781473641242

Hodder & Stoughton © 2016

Originally published in 1968.

Hardcover, 75 pages

Novella, Romantic Suspense

Rating: A

Source: Purchased from The Book Depository.

The Highwayman by Craig Johnson

First Line: There is a canyon in the heart of Wyoming carved by a river called Wind and a narrow, opposing, two-lane highway that follows its every curve like a lover.

Wyoming highway patrolman Rosey Wayman is worried that she might be crazy. A recent transfer to the Wind River Canyon area, she's begun receiving "officer needs assistance calls."

What's the problem? The fact that the calls are from the legendary Arapaho patrolman Bobby Womack-- who's been dead for thirty years-- has both Rosey and her supervisor doubting her sanity.

Rosey's supervisor asks for help from Absaroka County Sheriff Walt Longmire and his friend Henry Standing Bear. They both know and like Rosey, and they want answers. Time is running out on their investigation, but one way or the other The Highwayman is going to have his say.

I'm such a Craig Johnson fan that I don't care if what he writes is short like this novella or a full-length book, as long as the man keeps writing. As popular as he's become, I have to wonder how on earth he finds the time to write because he always seems to be on tour.  

Few people can write dialogue like Craig Johnson, and he proves it again here in The Highwayman. Walt and Henry talk to everyone they possibly can to figure out what's going on with Rosey. They uncover a mystery about a missing stash of 1888-O "Hot Lips" Morgan silver dollars. (No, I'm not going to tell you what that "Hot Lips" is all about!) And the deeper they dig, the more they learn about Bobby Womack, a dedicated patrolman who died in a fiery crash in the Wind River Canyon. Some of the things they learn just don't add up the way they should....

Have any of you read Johnson's last novella Spirit of Steamboat? I have, and I still remember those barn-burning action scenes that gave me paper cuts, I was turning the pages so fast. Well, you get more of that kind of action here in The Highwayman. The setting, the characters, the dialogue, the action, the story... you get everything that all we die-hard Craig Johnson fans have come to expect-- even a logical explanation for almost everything.

Trust me. If the only thing you know about Craig Johnson comes from watching the Longmire television series-- as excellent as that series is-- you really, really need to read the books. What better place to start than with The Highwayman? Once you've read this one, you're going to be going back for all the others. Craig Johnson is one of the very best writers in the business.
 

The Highwayman by Craig Johnson

ISBN: 9780735220898

Viking © 2016

Hardcover, 208 pages

Police Procedural/Novella, #14 Sheriff Walt Longmire mystery

Rating: A+

Source: The publisher 


 

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan

First Line: There is such a thing as hunger for more than food, and that was the hunger I fed on.

Down-on-his-luck young artist Eben Adams just can't seem to find a subject to paint that makes people want to part with their hard-earned money... until he meets a young schoolgirl named Jennie Appleton in Central Park. There's a quality about little Jennie that Eben just can't define. Is it her old-fashioned clothing? Is it the way she talks about things that happened a long time ago?  

I decided to read this novella because I remembered watching (and enjoying) the 1948 film starring Joseph Cotten and Jennifer Jones which was based on the story.

So which is better, the novella or the film? The novella, of course! I liked Nathan's writing so much that I'm going to make a point of looking up his other works. In a short period of time, Robert Nathan delineated some memorable characters. Besides Eben himself, I particularly enjoyed the gallery owner Henry Matthews and his assistant Miss Spinney. 

Portrait of Jennie comes to life when Eben talks about art, and the scenes describing a hurricane are so vivid that I felt as though I were there. There is a paranormal aspect to the story because Jennie is actually a spirit, but those scenes are so fleeting that I scarcely noticed them. For me, it was all about Eben, and Eben makes it a very good story indeed.
  

Portrait of Jennie by Robert Nathan

ASIN: B0096DIS42

Jeffrey Byron © 2012

Originally published in 1940.

eBook, 160 pages

Paranormal Novella

Rating: A-

Source: Purchased from Amazon.  


 

Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb

First Line: "Well, it just doesn't seem right, that's all. Arresting somebody on Christmas Eve."

It's shaping up to be an interesting Christmas for Sheriff Spencer Arrowood, Deputy Joe LeDonne, and Nora Bonesteel. Arrowood and LeDonne find themselves on a very reluctant mission to arrest elderly J.D. Shull on a minor offense. Nora Bonesteel finds herself helping Floridian Shirley Haverty at the old Honeycutt house. It seems the Christmas tree  keeps keeling over, and Shirley's heard stories about the house... and about Nora's gift of The Sight.

Sharyn McCrumb revisits her most beloved characters from her Ballad novels in Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past, and she does so in fine style. McCrumb's writing effortlessly imparts her knowledge of the heritage, customs, and language of the people who live in the mountains of North Carolina and Tennessee. In fact she made me smile early on simply by using a phrase that I grew up with and haven't heard since I moved away: "as independent as a hog on ice." Many things can bring back memories of home. Language is one of them.

Sheriff Spencer Arrowood and Deputy Joe LeDonne's storyline is a bit of very enjoyable comic relief. Never underestimate the wiliness of an old man. On the other hand, Nora's task is a bit more serious, and it involves her knowledge that there is more to this world than the eye can see. Everything was going well at the old Honeycutt place. Shirley Haverty and her husband immediately started fixing up the neglected house that they intended to use as a summer home. It was only when they decided to stay for the winter and celebrate Christmas that life began to get truly interesting, and Nora's knowledge of the Christmas of 1943 will prove to be the key in bringing harmony back to the Haverty's house.

If you're already a fan of McCrumb's Ballad series, I know I'm singing to the choir. If you have yet to read one of those Ballad novels (the first is If Ever I Return, Pretty Peggy-O), I urge you to read this novella. It's the perfect introduction to a marvelous series of books, and a wonderful little story in its own right.
     

Nora Bonesteel's Christmas Past by Sharyn McCrumb

ISBN: 9781426754210

Abingdon Press © 2014

 Hardcover, 160 pages

Novella

Rating: A

Source: Purchased at The Poisoned Pen.  


   

No Honor Among Thieves by J.A. Jance

First Line: When Sheriff Joanna Brady's distinctive rooster ring tone jarred her awake at oh-dark-thirty in the morning, she grabbed the phone off the bedside table and shot a guilty glance at her sleeping husband before she answered.

Cochise County Sheriff Joanna Brady gets one of those dreaded middle-of-the-night phone calls. A semi has gone over the embankment at the San Pedro River. It's not just a simple case of the driver going to sleep and crossing the center line. No, he was shot multiple times by someone with some serious high-powered weaponry. So Joanna has a wrecked semi, a dead driver, and what looks like hundreds of boxes of Legos scattered all over the road.

They're not ordinary Legos; they're collector's sets worth a lot of money to those willing to pay, and they're being tracked by B. Simpson's security firm. B.'s wife, Ali Reynolds, is just the person to get to the bottom of this, so she heads down to give Joanna a hand.

This is the first pairing of two of J.A. Jance's characters, Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds-- two very strong women who know how to get the job done. No Honor Among Thieves has the wonderful setting that I've come to expect from any of Jance's work set in Arizona, and it has a lightning fast pace that never lets up.

This is a successful pairing that I wouldn't mind seeing more of. I've been a diehard Brady fan since the first book in the series, Desert Heat. I've never quite warmed up to Ali, but she is an interesting character, and I wanted to see how the two of them worked together.

While we're racing through the narrative, we're learning about the fight against black market goods, and Joanna knows that she's got some news for her family and co-workers when this case is wrapped up. Ali proves indispensable from a tech standpoint because she and her husband's business can supply all sorts of things that would blow Brady's budget to smithereens.

I was in awe of Joanna Brady's quick decision-making and her ability to take command of a dangerous multi-front situation. She's come a long way from that first book when she had absolutely no firsthand experience of law enforcement. I was proud of her. On the other hand, I felt Ali Reynolds was a little silly there toward the end. She let her nose get out of joint because Brady was too distracted trying to get everything wrapped up to give Ali the profuse thanks that she felt she deserved. What happens when you let your nose get out of joint? You usually do something stupid.

As I said before, this is a pairing I'd like to see more of. It's fun to watch two strong, intelligent women work shoulder to shoulder to solve a crime. If you're a fan like me, you'll find that this novella advances Joanna's story a bit, but not Ali's. If you've not had the pleasure of reading either of Jance's series, I think No Honor Among Thieves would be an excellent place to start. Chances are, when you're finished, you're going to want more books featuring Joanna and Ali.   

No Honor Among Thieves by J.A. Jance

eISBN: 9781501135590

Pocket Star Books © 2015

eBook, 50 pages

Police Procedural/Novella

Featuring Sheriff Joanna Brady and Ali Reynolds

Rating: A

Source: Net Galley