With a Mind to Kill

 I’ve read another novel by Anthony Horowitz, an audiobook format narrated by the great Rory Kinnear. This story is a very clever James Bond novel, and I think it was probably Ian Fleming that first got me hooked on books about murder and espionage. When I was 11 or 12 years old, I devoured all of Fleming’s novels. I’ve seen all the movies more than once, starting with the second one, From Russia with Love, which debuted in 1963. I’ve not read a Fleming book since then, and what fun it has been to read Horowitz’s take on this master spy and assassin.

The novel is entitled With a Mind to Kill. Horowitz reviews the prior James Bond adventures and neatly fits his novel into that sequence. After being badly injured during his last assignment in Japan, Bond had mostly recovered. His director, “M” thought Bond was ready for a new assignment, and M thought that it was only Bond who could take on the next specific challenge. After faking M’s death at Bond’s hands, the hero was allowed to be captured by the Russians. There was a subset of powerful Russians who believed that Nitkita Khurshchev, the head of the country from the mid 1950’s to 1964, was too weak to lead the country in the direction that they wanted. They wanted the country to return to the terror of Stalin. It was the brainwashing of an expert in that technique that believed he could turn Bond into the assassin who could do that. The international balance of power was at stake.

Of course, there was a stunning woman, a psychiatrist who had been trained in that discipline from a distorted Russian perspective, who was sent to determine if the brainwashing of Bond had been complete. Predictably and delightfully, she fell in love with him.

There are many more details, but if you’re a Bond junkie like me, this review should draw you to the writing of Horowitz and narration of Kinnear. Just as the Fleming books were rather short, this is not a long book. It is, however, most satisfying.

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Poontown

 

Warning, this book is not a murder mystery. It’s just a very good story.

Poontown is the second novel I’ve read by L. M. Weeks. Four years ago, I raved about his first novel Bottled Lightning. I wrote, “In short, this story is a fast ride of international intrigue, one that will keep you spellbound.” 

Poontown is not what I expected based on the title, but then I’m not a fly fisherman. Poon is the nickname for tarpon, a game fish that is typically found in warm coastal waters, so they are often found in Florida. Fishing for tarpon is about the fight to land them. They can weigh over 200 pounds and are known to repeatedly leap and fight against capture. Tarpon are not good to eat, so typically this is a catch-and-release effort. It’s a sport that becomes addicting to the fisherman who hunt them.

While there are famous real tarpon fishing contests, this story is about the fictional Sabalo Cup. It’s an invitational tournament that takes place in Southern Florida, and only for the best five teams of tarpon fishermen or fisherwomen, although women are not usually invited to compete. The contest consists of teams of two people, an angler and a guide, and the tournament lasts five days. There are strict rules that must be adhered to, and the bigger and better the fish, the more points that are scored. There is a $3,000 entry fee.

The fisher-people in this story all know each other since they’ve been competing against one another in a variety of tournaments, but the Sabalo (the Spanish work for tarpon) Cup is the most important one, the World Series of tarpon fishing. A woman has a key role in this tournament, Olivia, and her guide is Nathan. I won’t list the names of the other competitors here, but if you read this book, you’ll learn about them, along with other people that are associated with tarpon fishing. Weeks has written about a fascinating cast of characters. Weeks also weaves into the story a man who is trying to sell three rare and valuable orange pygmy alligators, and the reaction of the contestants when they learn about that.

I think it’s because I’m not a fisherman that I got a bit tired of the details of the contests and all the catches and losses. However, if you’re a fisherman, I think you’ll get caught up in the battles to land and release these magnificent creatures. The personalities of the contestants and their histories of competing are really fantastic.

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The Dark Vineyard

 I recently reviewed the first book in the Martin Walker 21-book series, Bruno, Chief of Police. I was so excited about the quality of that murder mystery novel, that I quickly acquired through the app Libby the second book The Dark Vineyard, published in 2009, a year after the first one. I see that author Walker has written a book a year since then, so assuming the quality of his stories continues there’s lots to look forward to.

Chief of Police Bruno Courreges is the only police officer in the small rural village of Saint-Denis located in the Perigord region in southwestern France. He has learned to love the quiet and intimate life in the village. Bruno only spoke a limited amount of English, which was all he needed in the countryside. The intense romantic relationship that Bruno had begun with police investigator Isabelle Perrault was interrupted as the result of her transfer back to her home base in Paris. That interruption seemed to be a great disappointment to both of them. But Bruno did not like the idea of living in Paris, and Isabelle was ambitious and thought working in Paris would provide her with the best chance at promotion.

As author Walker described delightful day-to-day life in Saint-Denis, there were frequent references to the local cuisine and many references to wine that might be consumed at any time of day. This second book started over a special vineyard where GMO crops were being tested, but many of the locals were not happy about it. While this venture was supposed to be kept secret, there really were not many secrets in this small village. When the crops were torched by an arsonist, it became a worldwide story. It turned out a large international producer of wines was considering making a major land purchase in Saint-Denis which surely would have changed the quality of life there. Some of the locals including the mayor saw the opportunity make a lot of money, but others were against the changes that this huge industry would bring

We learned about a cast of characters that included locals who worked in various businesses and people from the large wine company. It was when this quiet town experienced two deaths of longstanding beloved villagers that the tale got most interesting. Meanwhile, Bruno struggled with missing the wonderful relationship he had been building with Isabelle, as well as his attraction to one of the women who had made Saint-Denis her home of choice.

This book masterfully revealed a great plot and the developed a fascinating cast. Once again, the narrator of this audiobook was Robert Ian MacKenzie, and he was fantastic. I might just have to keep following Mr. MacKenzie for whatever books he narrates. Now, I will get my hands on Bruno book #3, Black Diamond.

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A Deadly Episode

 Anthony Horowitz wrote The Word is Murder in 2017. As explained in my review of that book, it was the first in a six book series. This prolific author of novels and screenplays, wrote the six book, A Deadly Episode just this year (2026), and I saw a very favorable comment about that one in the New York Times Book Review, so I started with the first and worked my way through them in order. Because of its popularity, I had to wait almost two months before the audiobook became available on Libby. I’ve enjoyed this series so much, I jumped right into it as soon as I could.

Please see my reviews of the first five books. The protagonists were Daniel Hawthorne, the world’s greatest detective, and a fictionalized version of Mr. Horowitz himself. He had in mind that he wanted to write himself into a series like Sherlock Holmes and Watson. He has done that but these two characters were actually antagonistic to one another. They never achieved a comfortable friendship, and right to the end, Hawthorne allowed Horowitz to write about his his crime-solving work, but he resisted letting Horowitz really know anything about his private life. The research into Hawthorne became the fictional author’s detective work.

Horowitz brought this series to an end that was quite satisfying, but it was not the rapprochement I expected. Rather, it seemed that after six books about Hawthorne’s brilliant detective efforts, both characters decided they had quite enough of dealing with one another. It was clear there never could be a true friendship, a mutual appreciation of the skills that they each brought to this situation. In the sixth book, a murder took place on the movie set where one of the earlier books in the series was being filmed. At first, it was thought that it was Hawthorne who had been killed, but then the author revealed that the death had been that of the actor who was playing Hawthorne in the movie. Hawthorne had come to the movie set as a technical advisor and Horowitz was there to comment on the screenplay which he had not been asked to write. This last novel actually helped tie the whole series together, and I would encourage readers to go through them in order. Once again, the narrator Rory Kinnear was fantastic throughout the entire series.

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Bruno, Chief of Police: A Novel of the French Countryside

 Bruno, Chief of Police is a current day story that quickly ties into a WWII event. Bruno is the protagonist who is the Chief of Police in a small rural village in France. In fact, he’s the only police officer in the village. This is the first in a 21-book series authored by Martin Walker. I chose to get the audiobook format, and the narrator is Robert Ian MacKenzie. Considering all the audiobooks that I’ve consumed, it’s not a small compliment to write that he’s a good as any narrator that I’ve heard, and that includes Tom Hanks in the book The Dutch House by Ann Patchett. It’s an 8-hour, 52-minute listen. This first novel was first published in 2008.

Bruno Courreges is fully enjoying the quiet life he’s living in St. Denis. Previously, he was seriously injured by a sniper during the Balkan War. He had a past love who was killed in the same battle in which he was injured. He arrived in St. Denis as a single young man. He came to know of two men who had been resistance fighters during WWII, but rather than having become great friends, they never acknowledged one another. Then one of them, an Algerian who had fought on behalf of the French resistance in WWII was brutally murdered, and a swastika was carved into the victim’s chest.

As a result of the murder and the investigation that followed, it became apparent that the village was harboring some longstanding secrets and racial prejudices. The murdered man was an Arab, and in France at the current time, there is a growing ultraright movement against all immigrants. Meanwhile, Bruno found himself becoming very attracted to a woman investigator who had been sent from Paris to St. Denis to help with the investigation.

The author provided a cast of the most interesting characters, and Bruno’s ability to interact with a wide variety people turned out to be one of the reasons that I came to like him so much. I’m quite excited to find yet another author with an extensive body of work that I can look forward to. enjoying It’s my plan to find the second book in the series, The Dark Vineyard, and if the second book is as good as the first, then I have a lot of joy coming my way.

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Whisper Down the Lane

 Whisper Down the Lane by Clay McLeod Chapman is the ultimate horror novel, a genre that I generally avoid. However, this story was inspired by the real and most ugly McMartin Preschool drama of the 1980’s. Two issues led to me fighting my way through a story that is so difficult to read as the result of very real human trauma involved. One of those issues is that I knew a family that sent their youngest of three sons to the true McMartin Preschool (which had first opened in 1956 and closed in 1984 after allegations of horrific child abuse) in Manhattan Beach, California, so that young boy was never part of the trauma that was to follow. The second issue was the belief at the time that recovered childhood memories of sexual trauma were always true. I am a part of the mental health personnel that struggled with the reality of such claims of abuse and the fallout that occurred in families as the result of the wide publicity that came as the result of such claims.

At the end of the story which occurred after extensive investigation and legal action, all charges were dropped against most of the accused employees of the preschool, and no one was convicted of any wrongdoing. The mental health practitioners that pried stories from the preschool children were known to have used manipulative methods to pull out false information they thought were true.

I thought the author captured the essence of some of the trauma. He touched on Satanic rituals, the issue of multiple personalities, and without labeling it as such, he described dissociative identity disorders. I continue to feel embarrassed by those professionals who fell victim to the mass hysteria that underlied the McMartin Prescrhool trials.

I really can’t recommend this book to anyone because of it’s content. It’s just too terrible.

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Magpie Murders

 

I raved about the Hawthorne & Horowitz Series by Anthony Horowitz. He is a prolific writer in multiple genres. Magpie Murders is apparently his best-selling thriller, and I got it in the audiobook format. Once again, he writes about a successful fictional author of crime novels, Alan Conway. His editor, Susan Ryeland has been working with Conway for many years and has already edited many of his novels. However, she becomes suspicious that Conway’s new book actually contains a true-life hidden story of greed and murder. Conway wrote about a detective he named Atticus Pund who is reputed to be the best in the world at what he does. Given the story-within-a-story format, there are many characters to learn about, so the reader has multiple options to choose who the real suspect is. Horowitz is clever and fun. I plan to scan his long list of novels and choose another one in the near future. You won’t be disappointed.

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Blunt Instrument

 Blunt Instrument by Amy Bloom made the list by Oprah for Daily Best Book for the Summer. I didn’t think it was that good. I stumbled across this novel in the NY Times Book Review. Ms. Bloom has not previously been reviewed in this blog.

Elderly Professor Bullfinch was bludgeoned to death with a bust of Daniel Hawthorne. It was possible that his death was linked to the struggles in his department at Cromwell University. Bullfinch was not a very popular guy. The university president hired a private detective in an attempt to solve the murder before the police did, therefore being able to keep the matter quiet. 

Although Ms. Bloom is a prolific author, this is her first crime novel. I think I’ll wait for her to develop better crime chops before I read this author again.

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Storm Warning

 Storm Warning is the first novel new series which introduces Sonny Marshall as the protagonist. I had already read the second novel, Storm Damage. The story line is pretty good when his beautiful girlfriend ended their relationship because she could not tolerate Sonny’s fixation with helping people who desperately need help. Please read my rave review of the second novel. Sonny is not a cop, not a PI, not a detective. Rather, he’s a successful musician who places the saxophone in a blues and jazz band known as the Storm Lake Blues Band. It was when he was unable to protect his sister from a brutal assault that he began study marshal arts, skills that he would often make use of in his “white knight complex” efforts.

There was one aspect to the story line in the second novel which I did not like. The plot had to do with the kidnapping of exceptionally bright and beautiful children. When one five year old girl was taken and Sonny began learning as much as he could about it, he ran into a police detective in Sacramento, Detective Katrina Hastings, who had been pursuing the kidnapping of a girl for the last seven years. They teamed up and then fell in love. That was a good part of the book. They discovered a ranch in New Mexico where the kidnapped children were taken and being trained. The powers behind the abduction scene wanted to create a master race. It was there intent to make these highly intelligent children run the world because they believed without them, the world would come to a catastrophic end. It’s an old story line of which I’m quite tired.

However, Terry R. Bacon has created a great cast of characters who are quite different than most of the murder mysteries that I read. I really want more of this – hint – so when am I going to see book three?

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