{"id":9291,"date":"2021-10-11T07:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-10-11T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9291"},"modified":"2021-10-10T14:21:39","modified_gmt":"2021-10-10T18:21:39","slug":"diverse-diversions-3-entertaining-crime-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/?p=9291","title":{"rendered":"Diverse Diversions: 3 Entertaining Crime Stories"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Gunslinger: Killer\u2019s Requiem<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By AW Hart, pen name of Michael Black. I miss good stories about the Old West, which were such a feature of American life a half-century ago and before. Take a trip back there with this new novel, featuring Hart\u2019s gunslinger character, River Hicks. Hicks is returning to the Oregon home town where he\u2019s wanted for murders he didn\u2019t commit. In tow are teenage twins Connor and Abby, whom he rescued from an abusive situation in Texas. The trio faces a deadly opponent in Hicks\u2019s brother, the town\u2019s wealthiest man, exploiter of lumber-mill workers, and, secretly, father of the twins. A whole corral of colorful and memorable characters head toward a showdown between Hicks and his allies and anti-union hired guns. Amazon link <\/a>here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That Darkness<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Lisa Black \u2013 I enjoyed her informative presentations<\/a> at Killer Nashville, but had never read one of her books. Her experiences as a crime scene investigator really comes through in 2016\u2019s That Darkness<\/em>, as her protagonist, Maggie Gardiner, ekes every bit of information out of the scant clues (look out for those cat hairs!) in a series of unexplained murders of men with impressive violent crime rap sheets. You\u2019ll know from the beginning that the killer she’s pitted herself against is Cleveland detective Jack Renner, fed up with the justice system\u2019s failure to get these violent characters off the streets and taking matters into his own hands. Maggie soon begins to suspect a police vigilante, but who is it? She sets up quite an interesting cat-and-mouse game between herself and Renner, and both are challenged to reconcile the differences between law and justice. Amazon link here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Queen\u2019s Gambit<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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By Bradley Harper \u2013 No, not the tv movie, but a 2019 thriller set in England in 1897, in which a pair of sleuths try to foil an assassination attempt against Queen Victoria. Margaret Harkness is called upon by an old friend\u2014Professor Joseph Bell, who in real life was an inspiration for Conan Doyle\u2019s Sherlock Holmes\u2014to help identify a German anarchist bent upon killing the queen, an act the anarchist deems \u201cpropaganda by deed.\u201d The story, set at the colorful time of Victoria\u2019s Diamond Jubilee celebration, offers a prime opportunity for royal pomp and for the anarchist’s dark doings. Can Harkness and Bell outwit the determined killer? Masterfully entertaining and with a helpful map. Amazon link here. <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Gunslinger: Killer\u2019s Requiem By AW Hart, pen name of Michael Black. I miss good stories about the Old West, which were such a feature of American life a half-century ago and before. Take a trip back there with this new … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Diverse Diversions 3 Entertaining Crime Stories -- a Western. a police procedural set in Cleveland, and a tale from Victorian England. Suspicious doings everywhere!","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[440,1335,52,54,40,266,126],"tags":[1914,1916,1915],"class_list":["post-9291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-amateur-detective","category-crime","category-detective","category-fiction","category-history","category-reading-2","tag-a-w-hart","tag-bradley-harper","tag-lisa-black"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2NkiT-2pR","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9291"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9291\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9295,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9291\/revisions\/9295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vweisfeld.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}