The Poe Consequence

This is the first novel by Keith Steinbaum, a supernatural thriller. He has written The Poe Consequence and if you’re a fan of the supernatural (and I am not), or if you’re willing to suspend judgment for the length of this book about what is real and what is not (which I am), then you’re in for a good ride. The book makes frequent references to the works of Edgar Allen Poe, and the subtitle of the novel is “Beware the heart as cold as ice.” You might get to know more about Poe’s stories than you knew before.

This story is about twin brothers, Kevin and Warren Palmer. Warren was waiting to hear about his application for a literature teaching job at USC in Los Angeles, a job he desperately wanted. Unlike his twin, Warren was also interested in the occult, and while visiting New Orleans, sought out a psychic, a Tarot reader, and he was hoping for reassurance about his job application. But he got something far different. Madame Sibilia obviously was able to perceive information in unconventional ways. She knew the name of his brother, as well as the names of his in-laws. Warren had already married a wonderful woman, had a child with her, and then a year before the trip to New Orleans, she had died from cancer. Rather than telling Warren about only the good things that she foresaw, Madame Sibilia unloaded information about Warren’s impending death. He was so offended by the progressive reading of his Tarot that he got up and left before the last card was revealed. Meanwhile, Kevin Palmer was a writer for the L.A. Times, and he was working on a story about the exploding gang war in L.A.

Back in L.A., Warren was killed by an errant shot in an unexpected gun battle between rival gangs. Thus, Warren’s 14-year-old son, Seth, was left to be raised by his Uncle Kevin, who just happened to be a raging alcoholic. With his last breath, Warren commented that he had promised his wife that he would always look out for Seth, and now he was committed to continue that promise from the afterlife. Seth had a huge adjustment to make, and he found himself uncomfortable with and angry at all Hispanic people. His school work fell apart. He was depressed and did not care about anything. He was also disgusted with his uncle’s drinking.

Meanwhile, the gang wars continued to rage, but after Warren’s death, there was a mystery regarding the way they were dying. For every murder by the Lobos and Diablos, the murderer died the following day at 4:00 a.m., but not of gunshot wounds. Rather, they were dying of a heart attack and it was determined at autopsy that their hearts were actually frozen inside their bodies. Meanwhile, Kevin found a tutor for Seth, but she is a Mexican-American woman and is stunningly beautiful and Kevin fell in lust for her. Seth agreed to work with her, not knowing that the tutor’s brother had been involved in the death of his father.

There were interactions with the police force, and Steinbaum created some wonderful characters. The interplay between the two enemy gangs was entirely believable. So, despite this being outside of my usual genre, I thoroughly enjoyed the story and am willing to give this a very solid recommendation.

Flash Point: The Final Conspiracy

Flash Point: The Final Conspiracy is a unique book. It is published in 2020 this year by co-authors Thomas A. Whitmire and Jacob D. Miller. Eric Anderson is the protagonist, and his partner in the efforts to figure out a conspiracy is Paul Kappas. Prior to uncovering new information, Eric and Paul were running a website called “The Smartest Guy in DC.” They were tracking a series of Washington protests that all seemed to be going nowhere. Eric was the expert at getting surveillance films. While Paul had his own computer consulting business, Eric thought he should try to land an “inside job,” so he was hired as a video expert by Senator Shelby Lamb. Lamb was clearly one of Washington’s powerful men. Eric  got sent by Lamb to a mall where another senator was scheduled to have a clandestine meeting with a woman who was too young and to whom he was not married. Lamb wanted Eric to film their encounter which he could use as future dirt to force this other senator to vote his way. But then a mall shooting broke out, and many were killed. Eric was there with his camera and got footage of the horrifying carnage that went viral.

Eric was suspicious that Lamb had set this up the slaughter as a means of passing new legislation that would bring him more power and lots of money. The authors surrounded Eric and Paul with a great cast of characters including The Wanderer, a guy who was a Vietnam Era veteran and one who was somehow tie to Lamb. There were multiple well-chosen subplots.

I’m not usually interested in conspiracy stories, but this one was more captivating, perhaps because it seems so plausible. This novel gets my strong recommendation.

Reflecting Pool

While spending a career in government, Reflecting Pool is apparently the first novel for Otho Eskin, who is an accomplished playwright. It’s my opinion that Eskin would do well to continue writing in the murder mystery genre, and perhaps he plans to make a series with his protagonist, Marko Zorn. This was a very fun read. Zorn is a detective with the Washington DC Metropolitan Police. While it is uncommon to read about an uncompromising character who is in pursuit of the truth, Eskin has taken Zorn to a new level. In the course of this story, Zorn pisses off nearly everyone he encounters, including the president’s underlings, the president himself, the president’s wife, the Secret Service, and the investigating members of the FBI and National Park Service. In his singleness of purpose, he put his rookie partner in great danger, so his own entire staff was most unhappy with him. Zorn mostly spared involvement with the CIA.

Zorn just happened to be the first person to discover a body of a young woman who had drowned in the Reflecting Pool that lies between the Lincoln Memorial and the Capital Building. Underwater and facing upwards, he was struck by the deep blue color of her eyes, and she reminded him of his older sister who had been raped and murdered nearly 20 years before. Of course, there were immediate turf wars over jurisdiction for the crime, especially with the FBI, the Secret Service because the deceased woman, Sandra Wilcox, had been part of the presidential protection brigade, and the National Park Service. Zorn was told by the president that this death was a matter of national security, that he was being ordered to drop the case, but Zorn thought it would be an injustice to do so.

By the end of the book, Zorn had figured out the surprising details that led to the death of Wilcox, but the author also added Zorn’s successful efforts to deal with a raging street war between two gangs who were competing for a huge shipment of weapons, as well as an assassin who had been hired to kill the president. This was a good story, and I hope that the author writes another book about Marko Zorn.

Night Vision

I raved about Paul Levine’s first book in the Jake Lassiter series, To Speak for the Dead. I thought he had done a good job developing the protagonist, Lassiter, an attorney in Miami. Lassiter is an unconventional and irreverent guy who tells stupid stories when he is in the midst of great stress. I did not feel so strongly positive about the second book, Night Vision. As a psychiatrist, perhaps I’m too sensitive when the bad guy is in my profession. I’ve seen so many books and movies where psychiatrists were badly portrayed, and I can’t imagine a more deranged character than this British one, Dr. Pamela Maxson, a beautiful, intelligent psychopath. As the book approaches the end, the death of Dr. Maxson is tortuous and laughable. It was over the top and she climbed up a drawbridge only to lose her grip and fall 300 feet into the machinery that operated the bridge. Oh well. I may give Levine another chance, but I have a long reading queue and it might take me a while to get there.

The Sorcerer's Stone

I’m not going to review Harry Potter, the stories are so well known and loved, but I’ve been reading the novels for the first time. When the first book came out in 1997, my kids no longer needed me to read to them. One of my daughters immediately fell in love with the stories, but I was too busy and not interested enough to dive into the books at that time. I’ve never even seen a Harry Potter movie. But now I have a second chance. My 7 yo grandson, Cruise, is into these stories. I’m visiting him in Mexico and now have the chance to read to him at night. I quickly consumed the first book, The Sorcerer’s Stone, just to catch up to where his parents and Cruise had gotten, so now were part way through The Chamber of Secrets. I’m loving this. There are great characters with great adventures – very clear good guys and evil ones. Enough said. If you’ve already had the pleasure of these stories, you know what I mean. If you haven’t read these J.K. Rowling stories, then you have no idea what you’re missing.

Running Against the Devil

Warning: Out of Genre

If you’re a diehard Trumpster, read no farther – you won’t like this book.

Rick Wilson is a lifelong conservative Republican who is also a Never Trumper. He makes appearances on MSNBC, and before Trump, he traveled in elite Republican company, as an election adviser who successfully defeated many Democrats. His latest book, Running Against the Devil, does two things. First, it describes what having Trump in the White House would look like – a very scary prospect in which Trump is unchecked as he continues the destruction of our democratic institutions. Second, it describes how one would win the upcoming election, which will still be close. Trump has a bottomless war chest and some smart (unlike himself) people who will work tirelessly on his behalf. Wilson’s focus is on the Electoral College and what must be done to win there, not in the popular vote.

It’s worth reading, or at least skimming. Near the end, Wilson writes, “Well? How about it? You’re in a bar fight with bikers, not a fucking Princeton debating society. You gonna pick up the axe handle and start swinging, or you gonna try to win based on a 600-page healthcare plan.?” That quote captures the tone of this book.

The Crow's Nest

This is my first novel by Richard Meredith, and I’m not sure that he has taken on such a genre before this one, but he has written one can’t-put-it-down adventure. One of his reviewers wrote that this story, The Crow’s Nest, was a mixture of Don Winslow and Clive Cussler, and I fully agree with that high praise.

Captain Jonny was driving one of a a fleet of crude submarines from Columbia to northern Baja where he was delivering pure cocaine which was intended for sale in the U.S. The street value of this shipment was about $125 million. It was the second such delivery Jonny was making over the course of a month. But, Jonny had a plan of how to capture the cargo for himself rather than deliver it to La Hermandad – the Brotherhood, who controlled the border territory East of Tijuana. Drug wars had led to various cartels controlling various patches of territory, and there was always a threat of one of the cartels making a move on another. Jonny scuttled the sub and released the contraband in 50 bales of material which were designed to float about 75 feet below the surface while sending to those who were there to collect the material for a specific retailer.

La Hermandad was ruthlessly run by El Cuervo, the Raven, and his enforcer was El Baracuda, or just Cuda. A huge and deadly man who frightened everyone who met him. Meanwhile, there was a tuna fleet which Cuervo had purchased in order to launder his money, but when the sub went missing, Cuervo sent his nearest tuna boat to protect the submerged stash so it wouldn’t end up in the wrong hands before he could collect it. Cuda was on the way to handle all the dirty work that would happen. The assistant to the chief engineer Chase Brenner who lived in San Diego where his wife Maria and t of here children were desperately missing Chase who had been gone for 90 days on a tuna fishing trip. But, the boat was almost full of tuna and the crew was ready to head home when they got the word they would be delayed when the skipper was ordered to protect the sunken cargo. Chase and Maria were the love story part of the novel.

Mr. Meredith has spun a great story with good guys and evil guys. He covered the lives of the tuna crew, the infighting at La Hermandad, and the possibility of being taken over by a rival cartel. The plot development was excellent and he brought this story about with rich characters. This book gets a five-star rating and I can only  hope for more stories from Richard Meredith.