The Dame Was Trouble / edited by Sarah L. Johnson

4 out of 5 stars

A collection of Canadian Crime Fiction from the best and brightest female crime writers that the Great White North has to offer. From noir to hardboiled, and thriller to cozy mystery, these Dames know how to tell tales to thrill, chill and KILL.


There is nothing like a dame.

Especially when she’s running her own life, marching to her own tune, doing her own thing.

Great detective stories, almost all of which I really enjoyed. There were two that I felt a bit “meh” about, but by and large they were very entertaining. I especially enjoyed reading stories set in my own country. And populated by women who aren’t the slightest bit hesitant about supporting themselves and running their own lives.

Sisters are doin’ it for themselves! Plus, most excellent cover art.

Made to Kill / Adam Christopher

3.5 stars out of 5

Raymond Electromatic is good at his job, as good as he ever was at being a true Private Investigator, the lone employee of the Electromatic Detective Agency--except for Ada, office gal and super-computer, the constant voice in Ray's inner ear. Ray might have taken up a new line of work, but money is money, after all, and he was programmed to make a profit. Besides, with his twenty-four-hour memory-tape limits, he sure can keep a secret.

When a familiar-looking woman arrives at the agency wanting to hire Ray to find a missing movie star, he's inclined to tell her to take a hike. But she had the cold hard cash, a demand for total anonymity, and tendency to vanish on her own.

Plunged into a glittering world of fame, fortune, and secrecy, Ray uncovers a sinister plot that goes much deeper than the silver screen--and this robot is at the wrong place, at the wrong time.

I read this to fill the Modern Noir square of my 2018 Halloween Bingo card.

I became kinda fond of Raymond Electromatic by the end of this novel. He’s a robot with a heart for gold and limited short term memory. The author made it clear that he was a great admirer of Raymond Chandler and the noir detective genre, but that he was trying to write “Raymond Chandler’s lost science fiction novel.” Unfortunately for Mr. Christopher, it is extremely difficult to write as beautifully as Raymond Chandler. However, I can tell that he had a good time trying.

Things get a bit complex and confusing about 2/3 of the way through, but everything sorts itself out in the end. There are more books in the series if you’re a fan, but I think I know Mr. Electromatic well enough at this juncture. A fun Halloween read.

The High Window / Raymond Chandler

4 out of 5 stars

A wealthy Pasadena widow with a mean streak, a missing daughter-in-law with a past, and a gold coin worth a small fortune—the elements don't quite add up until Marlowe discovers evidence of murder, rape, blackmail, and the worst kind of human exploitation.


I read this book for the “Noir” square of my 2017 Halloween Bingo card.

I didn’t enjoy The High Window quite as much as I loved The Big Sleep or Farewell, My Lovely, but I still really liked it. Marlowe is a great main character—he’s idealistic, realistic and cynical, all rolled into one. I think someone close to the end of this book calls him a “shop-soiled Galahad,” and that really struck me as accurate. I also loved a couple of the literary allusions that he made, just assuming that the reader would be able to follow him. I love it when an author expects sophistication on the part of his readers!

The plot in this one seemed a bit simpler to me, although there was still a bit of a surprise at the end. Of the three of Chandler’s books that I’ve read, this one seemed the least noir to me, although it certainly still fits in the genre. Chandler is an exceptional writer and I am so glad to have found his novels!

Hallow Point / Ari Marmell

3.5 stars out of 5

The Spear of Lugh, one of the four Kingly Hallows of Ireland is in Chicago. And everyone, everyone wants it, for it is said that he who carries the spear into battle cannot be defeated. Among those who seek it are an agent of the infamous Wild Hunt; a mobster who knows far more about these things than he should; and of course both the Seelie and Unseelie Courts – the last people PI Mick Oberon would want getting hold of the spear...

Hard-boiled Fae detective Mick Oberon has quite the situation on his hands! The Spear of Lugh is somewhere in 1930s Chicago and every Fae faction (and a few in-the-know wise guys) want to get their meat hooks on it!

Mick uses his brain-box a little more in this mystery (when he isn’t getting pounded by some palooka that is), although he still has problems with his thought processes when he’s around a certain dame. Good action, good complications, excellent title! I am particularly fond of Fast Frankie, the leprechaun.

I still find this series a bit heavy on the Chicago gangland lingo—too many flivvers, floggers, bulls, molls, gats and what have you. But if you can overlook that, it is a fun little series.

Darkness, Take My Hand / Dennis Lehane

4 out of 5 stars

The master of the new "noir," Dennis Lehane magnificently evokes the dignity and savagery of working-class Boston in this terrifying tale of darkness and redemption.

Patrick Kenzie and Angela Gennaro's latest client is a prominent Boston psychiatrist running scared from a vengeful Irish mob. The private investigators know something about cold-blooded retribution. Born and bred on the mean streets of blue-collar Dorchester, they've seen the darkness that lives in the hearts of the unfortunate. But an evil for which even they are unprepared is about to strike as secrets long-dormant erupt, setting off a chain of violent murders that will stain everything--including the truth.

I read this book to fill the Set in New England square on my 2016 Halloween Book Bingo card. Wow, this was gritty and dark. A part of Boston that had never, ever crossed my mind—the Irish working class and the mafia that sprang from them. And the two investigators, Patrick and Angela, not only share this background but have stuck around & continued to work in it. I missed the first book and truthfully I don’t know that I will read another in the series. One dose of bleakness may be sufficient for my needs. If you have difficulty with explicit murder and/or torture scenes, you may want to give this book a miss. I finished it shortly before bedtime and must confess that it spawned a series of unsettling dreams overnight. As the book starts, it seems like our two investigators are getting their lives in order. Then they are offered what seems like a simple job, surveillance of a college boy. And with that, they are pulled into a whirlpool of intrigue. Lehane does a remarkable job of fleshing out their relationships with the community and each other without doing a recognizable info-dump. Very well written. If you are a fan of noir, I would recommend Darkness, Take My Hand.

Shovel Ready / Adam Sternbergh

4 out of 5 stars

***Wanda’s Summer Festival of Reading Fluff***


“I may have once had some thin faith in something like cosmic justice, but now I believe in box-cutters.”

So says Spademan, ex-garbageman, current hit-man, and very noir protagonist in the gritty, post-dirty-bomb world of New York City. Sternbergh speaks in the crime noir voice quite effectively. Spademan can drink with the best of them when he chooses to. He knows his way around the underworld of NYC and he stays on the right end of the box-cutters, even if he does get roughed up occasionally in virtual reality. Even Spademan’s name elicits comparisons to Sam Spade. Plus, Spademan has the same somewhat twisted set of values of a Philip Marlowe—there are some things he won’t do for any amount of money.

“I kill men. I kill women because I don’t discriminate. I don’t kill children because that’s a different kind of psycho.”

Sternbergh is no Raymond Chandler, but he writes a good science-fiction noir. The reader must have no prejudices against sentence fragments, dialog sans punctuation, or stream of consciousness.

Very entertaining, a quick read. I will never hear that tired politicians’ phrase “shovel ready” in quite the same way again.