Dead Beat

Leigh Bardugo

More of the same

Dead Beat is the third and final novel in Leigh Bardugo‘s Ninth House trilogy. I loved the first novel, Ninth House. Here is how I described the premise of the series in my review of that book.

The title, Ninth House, is a reference to the Yale secret societies. There are a bunch of these -- Wikipedia lists 18. In the Yale of Ninth House, there are eight large and powerful such societies. All of these are real, in the sense that in each case, a secret society of that name actually exists at Yale. Alex belongs to a ninth house, Lethe, that doesn’t exist in the real Yale (or at least it doesn’t have a Wikipedia page). Each of the eight major houses in Ninth House specializes in some form of sorcery, which they use to advance their interests. For instance, Skull and Bones specializes in predicting the future by reading the entrails of victims -- they use this to predict the future movements of markets and to direct investments. The eight houses are wealthy and powerful. (The final sentence is true also of the corresponding real Yale secret societies.)

I loved Ninth House because, although it is fantasy, it felt very real. Bardugo is herself a Yale graduate and was a member of Wolf’s Head, one of the ancient eight. Most of the action of the three novels takes place in New Haven (the city in which Yale University is located) and at Yale.

The hero of the series is Galaxy (Alex) Stern, who grew up in Los Angeles (as did Bardugo herself). Alex is a tough woman who barely survived a difficult childhood in poverty.. She has the ability to see ghosts. For this reason she was recruited to Yale and Lethe House as a scholarship student. It’s all very Dickensian -- the poor kid who rises to the elite, but without ever losing her fight.

I was a little disappointed in the second novel, Hell Bent and in this final one, Dead Beat. It feels to me as if Alex’s rough edges, the things that made her compelling, have been sanded flat in novels two and three. Furthermore, there is a tad too much Yale-ology in Dead Beat. I love it that Bardugo‘s real familiarity with Yale makes the university and city feel real. But too much of Dead Beat felt like a thinly disguised guidebook to the artistic eccentricities of the university.

Bardugo is a compelling fantasy writer, and even sub-par Bardugo is pretty good. I enjoyed Dead Beat. If you’ve read Ninth House and Hell Bent, you will want to read this.

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Iron Kissed

Patricia Briggs

** spoiler alert **

Mercy tangles with the Fay

The first three novels in Patricia Briggs‘s Mercy Thompson series introduce the thee main races of preternatural creatures that inhabit the MercyVerse: Werewolves, Vampires, and Fay. This doesn’t exhaust the list. Mercy herself is something different: a Walker, a shapeshifter who can take the form of a coyote. However, Wolves, Vamps, and Fay are the large majority of weird peoples. There are enough of them that they each have internal politics.

Someone has been murdering the inhabitants of the Fay reservation. Marcy’s mentor Zee, himself Fay, brings Mercy to visit the reservation and sniff around in her coyote form. The Fay are not very scent-oriented, and he hopes that Mercy’s coyote nose will be able to pick up clues the Fay themselves have missed. This works, but it works too well. Mercy learns things that the Fay don’t want anyone to know. She does, however, identify the murderer.

The Fay killer was human and belonged to an organization called Citizens for a Bright Future, which turns out to be a sort of anti-Fay Ku Klux Klan. I say the killer was human, because he is killed soon after Mercy identifies him. The police finger Zee as their first suspect. They arrest and imprison him.

Mercy of course continues to investigate in order to save Zee, and her investigation leads her to Bright Future.

I’m not a big fan of Content Warnings, but subsequent events warrant one. Almost the final scene of the novel is a brutal rape of Mercy by one of the Bright Future members, This was a very hard scene to read, and hard to listen to. Briggs is not gentle in describing the rape. It ends with Mercy beating her rapist’s brains out with a crowbar. (Mercy endorses this as therapeutic.)

I felt, in a way, that the pain of this scene was what made it permissible. If you’re going to write a story in which rape is an essential part of the plot, it should hurt to read it. Skipping lightly over the rape would cheapen it. Also, I didn’t know this the first time I read Iron Kissed, but I now know that the trauma of the rape is going to stick with Mercy for the rest of her life. “Rape survivor” is a permanent part of Mercy’s character.

Since I’m doing spoilers, I will mention that the novel ends with Mercy’s more innocent romantic questions being resolved. She consents to the happy relationship (and eventually marriage) that will carry her through the rest of the series. Mercy gets her Happy Ever After. That’s the reader’s reward for enduring the rape scene.

We end Iron Kissed positioned for the rest of the series. Mercy now has a home. She has friends and enemies among the Wolves, Vampires, and Fay. She is still in danger from them, to the point where, when I first read Iron Kissed, I wondered how Briggs was going to have her survive. Of course, you know she is going to: she is the hero of a 14-novel series. But her position is precarious enough that I felt genuinely frightened for her the first time I read Iron Kissed.

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A Divided Duty

Seanan McGuire

Saving Rayseline

Until now, Rayseline Torquill has been a fairly minor character in the McGuire's October Daye urban fantasy series. In novel 20 (as McGuire points out, the series is no longer a teenager!), A Divided Duty, Raysel moves to the center of the story. She is the center in the sense that her well-being is the main subject of the novel. She is, unfortunately, mostly a passive center. The action is mostly our hero Toby, Toby's husband Tybalt, and Raysel's mother Luna.

Following the events of Silver and Lead, which saw the birth and attempted kidnapping of Toby and Tybalt's daughter Miranda, Toby is living a fairly peaceful and secluded life in San Francisco with Tybalt and and the many young folks who have become part of the family over the years. Aside from Miranda, Raysel is the most recent such acquisition. In past years Raysel had the misfortune to come under the influence of Evening Winterrose, who is more-or-less the principal villain of the series. As a consequence Raysel was put in an enchanted sleep. In a dream she asked Toby to take her in as a ward when she was awakened. This happened a few months before the events of Sleep No More. That's how Raysel became a member of Taby's household. Toby is trying to protect her while she recuperates and rehabilitates from her past life of crime.

When A Divided Duty begins, they both feel it is going well. However, that opinion is not universal. Raysel's mother Luna, who has always resented Toby, wants her daughter back. She solves this problem in the most direct way: she kidnaps Raysel. (That is in the publisher's blurb, and if the publisher has already spoiled, I'm free to mention it in a review without labeling it a spoiler.) Toby and Tybalt charge off to rescue Raysel.

It's a good story, but not, alas, very well told. Everyone talks about everything, endlessly. Raysel has psychological trauma in her past, and so does Luna, and so, indeed, does Toby herself. In fact, many of the other characters are fairly traumatized, and they talk about it. A certain amount of that is useful and even helpful to illuminate the action. But there is balance in all things! Or there should be.

If you're an October Daye fan (and I am), you're going to want to read this, anyway. Sadly, it felt more like a project than a good time.

Release date 29-Sep-2026.

But by Degrees

As usual, this novel is accompanied by a novella. This one is called But by Degrees, and it is about Toby's squire Quentin, whom readers of the series have long known. Quentin was traumatized by the events of Sleep No More. He is still trying to come to terms with having been turned into a bigot and a jerk by Titania's illusion. Quentin needs therapy, and he gets it. This novella is ALL TALK.

Dullsville, man!

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Rats

Craig Schaefer

On a mission

Rats is the third book in Craig Schaefer‘s Castaways series. It is currently (15-Sep-2026) the last one, although Schaefer plans two more.

Rats differs from the first two books in that it is not really a magic school book. Very little of the action of Rats takes place at Saunders Academy, the magic school in and around which the first two novels take place. Book 2, Firebreak, ended with two of the Castaways getting abducted.. The Castaways are the group of misfit students (yeah, yeah, I know -- what a cliché!) on whom the series is focused. Dalton and Olivia were snatched by a giant criminal rat-man named Shaddock. Shaddock flew away with the captives on his spaceship, which is manned by his sister, a rat-woman named Riva, and her best friend Marcie.

Well, of course you know what has to happen next -- rescue mission. This is not the first time the series has ventured away from the Saunders Academy, but the main previous excursion was to our Earth, which is where one of the Castaways comes from. This time we head out into Schaefer‘s First Story multiverse. I have not read any other First Story books, but I didn’t have any trouble following. This multiverse is broadly like most other fantasy multiverses you may have run into. Near the end we start to hear about some wider themes, like who the main good guys and bad guys of the universe are.

You’ve got the picture, I think. It’s a fantasy space adventure with a bunch of plucky magical kids. Not really breaking new ground. But the kids are fun, and the stakes feel genuinely high. I enjoyed it. If you enjoyed the first two books (and I did), you’ll enjoy this one, too. And I will continue with the series when the next books are published.

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Flash Harry’s Confession and Other Stories

Brok3n Engines

This is my book -- I wrote it

Flash Harry's Confession and Other Stories, is my, Brok3n Engines', first published book of fiction. I have read numerous Goodreads reviews written by their own authors. Thus I assume that it is acceptable to review my own book. Also, I've been kinda bummed by having zero reviews, so I'm gonna fix that. And yes, of course I give my own book five stars! Why would I have published it if I didn't think it was great!

I began publishing fiction on substack in April, 2025 -- find me at brok3nengines.com. (All my stories can be read for free there. Click on "Brok3n Engines Creations" in the link bar at the top of the page, then "See All >" near the bottom of that page.) I usually publish two stories each month, on the first and sixteenth of the month. Very occasionally I publish a poem instead of a story, but I am a lousy poet, so I don't do that often.

This volume contains 22 stories and 2 poems. The first twelve chapters are the two poems and ten standalone stories, beginning with "Flash Harry's Confession," which is still my favorite of the stories I have written. These first 12 chapters are followed by a nine-chapter serialized time-travel novella, Futures. Futures is succeeded by the first three chapters of what will be be a 12-13 chapter serialized novella, Up There to be published in full in my next book. (That one is still in progress. I have written nine chapters and planned the next three.)

What are the stories like? Well, if they remind you of Roger Zelazny, then I will have accomplished my aim. Most of the stories are Fantasy or Science Fiction.

I think I am pretty good at characters. To me, mine seem vivid, and interesting (not always likeable) and have interiority. I am not always great at plot. I sometimes have a hard time producing anything like a compelling conflict.

Please read, and PLEASE REVIEW!

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Blood Bound

Patricia Briggs

Full-cast audiobook

Mercy and the vamps

When I began reading Patricia Briggs‘s Mercy Thompson series I expected stories about magical creatures. They are that, but I eventually realized that the series is about power and politics. Not politics that aligns in any simple way with the real-world politics around us. Rather, it is more like the politics of Renaissance Italy, riven by lethal palace intrigues.

Although there are many types of magical creatures in the Mercyverse, three communities dominate numerically. These are Werewolves, Vampires, and the Fae. (There are also communities of Witches, and any number of one-offs like Mercy herself -- a Walker who can change into a coyote.) Each of these Big Three types lives in communities whose structure reflects their distinct biology and magic.

The first three novels in the series introduce Werewolves (Moon Called), Vampires (Blood Bound), and the Fae (Iron Kissed), in that order. Briggs does an extraordinarily good job of ramping up tension across these first novels. Mercy gets into trouble with werewolves in the first, then vampires in the second, then the Fae in the third. It feels like she’s wading deeper and deeper into trouble with more and more powerful folk with each novel. Mercy herself is small and physically weak compared to these other magical creatures. I remember feeling genuinely frightened on Mercy’s behalf by the end of Iron Kissed.

The way this all works out without Mercy getting crushed is that she herself becomes powerful enough to deal with these threats. She does it in an interesting way. Rather than beceoming magically powerful, Mercy gains power the way that real people do: by making friends and alliances.

In Blood Bound Mercy does some favors for the local Vampire seethe. Things get complicated, of course.

This 2024 audiobook (Blood Bound was first released in 2007—I first read it around 2011) is a full-cast edition. I have mixed feelings about full-cast audiobooks. When well done, they can be really good. This one, in my opinion, is not. (Some of the actors are not very good, and I really could have done without the sound effects.) Going forward I intend to stick to the single narrator editions narrated by Lorelei King.

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Caesar’s Avenger

Alex Gough

** spoiler alert **

Collapse of a Republic and rise of an Empire

When I was a kid, my family used to read the account of the birth of Christ from the Gospel according to Luke, which begins as follows, "And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be taxed." In High School we read Shakespeare's Julius Caesar (or perhaps just extracts thereof). We also heard quotes from his Antony and Cleopatra. My point is only that, if there is any bit of ancient history that even people who profess to know nothing about history are likely to have some familiarity with, it is the dramatic period from Julius Caesar's assassination through the reign of Augustus.

This makes sense, of course. It was this period that saw the replacement of the Roman Republic with the Roman Empire. The events are not just an incredible story in themselves -- they are fundamental to the rise of European civilization (which even Gandhi admitted would be a good idea).

Alex Gough's Mark Antony series tells this story from behind the eyes of Mark Antony. Gough points out that Antony's point of view is surprisingly neglected for so prominent an actor in such a storied time.

Book 2 of the series, Caesar's General, ended with Caesar's assassination. Book 3, Caesar's Avenger recounts the complicated mess that followed. Caesar's death left a power vacuum, which everyone who was anyone in Rome tried to fill. It all got very complicated, but after most of the dust settled, the battle was between Caesar's assassins, who called themselves the Liberators, and those who had supported Caesar in life and rued his murder, who called themselves the Caesarians.

There were two principal Caesarians. The first, of course, was Antony. The second, who more or less came out of nowhere, was Caesar's great-nephew Octavian, whom Caesar adopted posthumously in his will and left his wealth to. Octavian was a sickly young man with no military or political experience. But he was clever and able. Indeed, he eventually took the name Augustus -- we still honor him in the eighth month of every year -- and became the first Emperor of Rome.

There is little doubt that Caesar chose well when he picked Octavian as his heir. If you look up rankings of Roman Emperors (these are as easy to find as rankings of US presidents), Augustus consistently ranks near the top, most often at number 1. This is not to say that Antony would have been a bad emperor, but he never got there.

Octavian and Antony managed to remain on the same side of the struggle for power as long as they had a common enemy -- the Liberators. Caesar's Avenger ends when the Liberators have been decisively defeated. The final book, Caesar's Nemesis will take us through the struggle between Antony and Octavian, and not incidentally Antony's alliance with Cleopatra. Since it's history, we know that Octavian will win and Antony and Cleopatra will die.

This was good. Recommended.

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Woe the Day

Seanan McGuire

“Woe the Day” is Seanan McGuire’s September 2026 Patreon reward story. She introduces it as follows:

(Image: A very fluffy high white caliby Maine Coon looks at the camera with big green eyes. The wall behind her is yellow, with blue jellyfish tendrils hanging down.)

Tybalt is continuing his progress toward the man we know and love today, with a stop in Paris as he runs ahead of near-certain doom. He is not having a great time.

Hopefully all of us are.

More to come!

This story follows the August reward story “Your Piteous Heart” almost immediately. Tybalt is pretty beaten up, since he was just defeated in a claw-to-claw battle by his heir at the Court of Silvered Cats in London. Tybalt intended this to happen. He was previously King of Silvered Cats, a responsibility he wanted to pass on to his heir. The ceremony for royal passage among cats is a battle to the death, although the winner may offer clemency to the loser. That’s what happened in this case.

After beating the stuffing out of Tybalt, his heir, the new king, Corentin, allowed Tybalt to leave alive. He is still being pursued by Asier, who will kill him if he catches him. Thus McGuire’s remark that “He is not having a great time.”

Tybalt flees to the Court of Illuminated Cats in Paris. As an Englishman, Tybalt is not especially welcome, and as a deposed king he has no status. He therefore asks the Queen, Faustine, for permission to remain in Paris a week while he equips himself with clothing and supplies. She allows it, not with great grace, but that was what he expected.

There in Paris he meets some changelings who ask for his help. In his straightened circumstances there is not a lot he can offer, but he does what he can, hinting to Faustine that it may be to her benefit to treat them kindly.

The story ends with Tybalt setting out for Cambria, which is, I gather, just another name for Wales. Presumably that’s where we’ll see him next.

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Moon Called

Patricia Briggs, narrated by Lorelei King

I'd forgotten how good this is

I first read Patricia Briggs's Moon Called around 2011, I think. Since then I have read every available Mercy Thompson novel, as well as all the novels in the spin-off Alpha and Omega series. It was the first urban fantasy I ever read1, and it is still my favorite.

Thus, when I was looking for audiobooks to listen to while I walk and drive, I naturally thought of Mercy. This re-read of Moon Called surprised me in two ways. First, because Briggs has slowed down in recent years (and also, to be completely honest, because the later Mercy novels are not quite as gripping as the earlier ones), I had forgotten how GOOD Moon Called is, and how skillfully written.

The other thing that came as a surprise, although it shouldn't have, was seeing Mercy at the beginning of her journey. Mercy is an auto mechanic and also a shape-shifter -- she can take the form of a coyote. In a world that contains werewolves, vampires, and fay, a 30-pound coyote is not very impressive. In Moon Called Mercy appears small and weak.

As the series proceeds, however, she becomes more powerful. In the latest currently published installments of the series, she is one of the most powerful magical people in America. She becomes powerful in an interesting way, not so much by gaining magical powers (although there is some of that) as by making powerful friends. That is, she becomes powerful in the way that real people in the real world become powerful. Mercy has friends because when Mercy is your friend, she has your back. You can depend on her.

Although I knew this, it had been a long time since I had seen early Mercy, and she was a revelation to me all over again. The audiobook is narrated by Lorelei King, who does a good job with it.

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Táin Bó Cuailnge

translated by Thomas Kinsella

** spoiler alert **

Cúchulainn’s great fight

The Táin Bó Cuailnge is a classic of Irish folklore. It tells the story of an invasion by the Irish province Connacht, led by its Queen Medb and King Ailill into the province of Ulster, ruled by Conchobor, with the aim of stealing Ulster’s prize bull Donn Cuailnge, which Medb coverts because she wants to have a better bull than her husband Ailill. The warriors of Ulster are superior to those of the rest of Ireland, and indeed, the rest of the world. (In case you haven’t twigged yet, this is an Ulster story told by Ulstermen, without even the slightest pretense of objectivity.) The raid is feasible only because the men of Ulster suffer a curse called the pangs of Ulster that temporarily disables almost all of them.

One hero is left able to fight for Ulster: the 17-year-old boy Cúchulainn. He single-handedly holds off all the other armies of Ireland until the Ulstermen recover from the pangs. Most of The Táin recounts Cúchulainn’s fights against the Connacht fighters. He is always victorious and single-handedly destroys most of the thousands of Connacht fighters. Eventually the Ulstermen recover from their pangs and come out to fight off Connacht.

From a modern point of view the whole story is deeply, deeply stupid. That is partly because the Ulster bards who told the tale wanted Connacht to look stupid. But from the perspective of the twenty-first century the Ulstermen hardly come off better. Indeed, even the (probably) eighth century scribe who copied out what is now the Book of Leinster, wrote in a Latin endnote

I who have copied down this story, or more accurately fantasy, do not credit the details of the story, or fantasy. Some things in it are devilish lies, and some poetical figments; some seem possible and others not; some are for the enjoyment of idiots.

It becomes obvious if you think about it that the battle and slaughter are the point. These men want nothing more than a chance to die in battle. They may have a slightly preference for being victorious in battle, but if so, it is very slight. They want to fight famous battles and be remembered ever after. The Táin was written down in the 8th century but the story itself clearly dates to an even older oral tradition, before the fifth century. And here I am reading it in 2026. So, yeah, boys (and the occasional girl), you got your wish.

Translator Thomas Kinsella worked hard to assemble this story in coherent form from the several ancient manuscripts that tell pieces of it. I do not myself know anything about ancient Irish, so I can’t judge the translation per se. But it has all the hallmarks of careful work.

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Stalky & Co

Rudyard Kipling

Not entirely inaccurate stories of an English boarding school

There is a long tradition of stories and novels about English Public Schools. (Terminology: what the English traditionally called "public schools" are what we in the USA would call "private schools".) Stalky & Co. bears roughly the same relationship to this literature as Jane Austen's Northanger Abbey does to the English gothic fiction of her time. That is, it nods at that old tradition with some degree of affection even while making fun of it. Indeed, at least two such books, Eric, or Little by Little and St. Winifred's or The World of School are mentioned by name, with a sort of backhanded respect.

Stalky & Co. is based on Rudyard Kipling's experiences at the United Services College -- a private boarding school intended to feed students to the Royal Military Academy at Sandhurst, which is frequently mentioned by name in Stalky & Co.. That is, the United Services College was meant to prepare Britain's future military leaders. Stalky & Co. is thus unusual in English school novels in that school is intended to do something for the students -- to prepare them for a specific future.

The three main characters of Stalky & Co. are Stalky, M'Turk, and Beetle. (Their real names are probably mentioned somewhere, but they are known almost entirely by these nicknames in the book.) Stalky, as the title suggests, is the leader of this little group. Beetle is Rudyard Kipling himself -- not really even disguised -- he even refers to himself in the first person in the final chapter. Stalky, M'Turk, and Beetle are bad boys in the long literary tradition of children who misbehave but are not actually evil.

Stalky is a schemer who elaborately plans what we would now call cons, intended to get himself and the boys the things they want (only occasionally material goods) and punish those they see as their oppressors. The book is superficially anti-bullying. In one chapter, "The Moral Reformers", Stalky & Co capture and punish a group of bigger boys who are bullying a smaller boy. The moral lesson is fairly completed vacated, however, by Stalky & Co showing themselves to be bullies in their treatment of the bigger boys once the latter are in their power.

I have very mixed feelings about Stalky & Co.. On the one hand, I cannot deny Stalky & Co's moral turpitude, even according to my extraordinarily lax, indeed almost nonexistent standards. On the other hand Stalky & Co. is an immensely fun read. You might not find it so. Those aforementioned lax standards give me an advantage in this regard. If you are a Good Person, you should not expect to enjoy reading Stalky & Co.. But I did!

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Coyote vs Acme

Directed by David Green

A big basket of Easter eggs

I begin by stating the obvious. The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts released by Warner Bros between 1930 and 1964 represent the acme (pun intended) of artistic achievement, the highest and best art that humanity has achieved to date. Surely we can all agree on that? We may differ as to which specific shorts are the best. In particular, I was never quite so taken by the Coyote vs Roadrunner shorts—they always seemed to me more like études, intended to help a creator flesh out some ideas, than full-fledged works. Still utterly brilliant.

The film Coyote vs Acme, which I saw on the Big Screen yesterday, began life as a short piece by Ian Frazier in The New Yorker, and subsequently published in his collection of stories Coyote V. Acme. It purports to be the “Opening statement of Mr Harold Schoff, attorney for Mr Coyote,” suing Acme for defective products. If you’d like to read it for free, search the web for “coyote vs acme texas bar journal,” and you will find a free PDF courtesy of Dallas Judge Jerry Buchmeyer, who obtained permission to reprint it.

Frazier’s piece is merely the idea that forms the basis of the movie. To make a movie of it the writers had to invent the story of the lawsuit. It is a basket of Easter eggs that old-time fans of the shorts can catch. The first that caught my eye is the name of the law firm hired by Coyote to sue Acme: Avery, Jones & Maltese. This is a reference to WB animators Tex Avery, Chuck Jones, and Michael Maltese, Coyote’s Attorney Kevin Avery is played by Will Forte. The film combines animations with live-action. Coyote is a cartoon, his lawyer Kevin Avery, played by actor Will Forte, is human. Most of the movie combines live action and animation. There are plenty of slapstick action pieces reminiscent of the original Looney Tunes shorts. I was not disappointed.

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The Undead Fox of Deadwood Forest

Aubrey Hartmann

The story of a spirit

Clare is a fox. He has died and resides in Deadwood Forest. Notice how carefully I wrote that sentence to avoid implying that Clare is either dead or alive. He is, as the title of the novel implies, undead. He is an Usher. He meets dead souls that arrive at Deadwood Forest and knock on his door and helps them to their correct destination, one of the four realms of Pleasure, Progress, Peace, or Pain. (In a book for older readers Clare might have been called a psychopomp.)

Clare died very, very young, and the event that killed him left him missing parts of his body. He thinks of himself as a monster and wears a cloak and a monocle to hide his disfigurement. He loves mushrooms and maintains a large mushroom garden near his home. He has an issue with badgers, stemming from the events surrounding his death.

He is thus dismayed when a badger knocks on his door. He is even more dismayed when he can't discern which realm she belongs in.

This is very much a "I'm going to teach my readers some lessons" kind of book. That always puts me off, especially when the author is heavy-handed about it. Behind the moral lessons, however, it is rather a good story. It deserves the Newbery honor.

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The Cairndale Orphan

J.M. Miro

A dark London mystery

J.M. Miro‘s The Cairndale Orphan is the last of the seven stories that comprise the Amazon Original series Magic and Mystery. It is brilliant, easily the best of the seven. It is also listed by Goodreads as #2.5 in The Talents Trilogy, which is, I believe, more a trilogy in progress than a trilogy in actual fact, there being only two novels extant today, 27-Aug-2026. One presumes another is on the way. I have not read any of these novels but intend to now.

The story is told from the point of view of a man called Bromley. He is a detective in a dark, Dickensian London, a city that eats its children. (Not literally, s far as I know, but it wouldn’t surprise me.) A child, David Pye, comes to Bromley’s home and tells him of a monster loose in London.

The real strength of this story is the setting. Its dark London is brilliantly realized.

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Battle of the Round House

Tananarive Due

A Wild West battle

Tananarive Due‘s Battle of the Round House is the sixth story in the Amazon Original Magic and Mystery series. It felt distinctly different from the first five, though. (Foreshadowing: book 7 is even more different.)

I realized as I read Battle of the Round House that each of the first five books felt like an extended joke (The Lion’s Tusk less so than the others). Although they are all mysteries, the solution of the mystery felt more like the punch-line of a joke than the solution of a mystery. Of course all mysteries have that feel to some extent -- there’s a puzzle you’re supposed to guess. But in none of the first five does this mystery feel like something that could really happen, even in its own fantasy world. They feel like jokes that could be told in their worlds.

Battle of the Round House takes itself seriously. It is based on a true story from Due‘s family history. She says in her Acknowledgements

My family history led directly to my creation of Zipporah Ranch. I only added the Wild West, cattle . . . and a little magic.

It’s about black families surviving -- nay, prospering and defending themselves -- in the Wild West.

It’s a good story. I like a laugh, but by book six, I was ready for one of these authors to tell a story that I could on some level believe in.

This is, in my opinion, the second-best story in the series. It misses being best only because the last story, The Cairndale Orphan is extraordinary. (As always, YMMV.)

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The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious

Scott Lynch

Am I asking too much?

Scott Lynch's The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious is the fifth story in the Amazon Original Magic and Mystery series. It is the story of a conclave of eight wizards who meet on an island every thirteen years. It's a succession of things that happen to and among the wizards during one conclave. It is evident that many of the things that happen are intended to be funny.

The Wizard Who Kept Himself Suspicious would be better if rather than one thing happening, then another thing happening, then another, there were some sort of coherent plot. There isn't really.

Is it too much to ask that, in addition to jokes, a story (1) have a plot, (2) have well-drawn and coherent characters, and (3) that the plot and the characters work together in the sense that the action is driven by the characters behaving in ways consistent with their natures?

i guess it is obvious that I did not love this. I didn't quite hate it -- it had its moments, and it's bearable because it's short.

Nuff said.

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The Wednesday Witches Book Club

Sarah Beth Durst

A little mystery/joke that does everything it’s supposed to

Sarah Beth Durst‘s The Wednesday Witches Book Club is my least favorite of the mysteries in the Amazon Original Magic and Mystery series. Durst is a serious and successful fantasy author with more than 30 books under her belt. Thus I was surprised at the amateurish feel of this story. It’s not that she does anything wrong. In fact, that is exactly the problem. It is as if she went through a Creative Writing program, listed every piece of advice given, and checked each one off. For instance, Creative Writing courses (yes, I have taken a few) like to get their students to write detailed, richly sensory descriptions. Here is how Durst describes one of her characters

Genevieve Durand was one of those put-together people who looked as if she’d never, ever dripped marinara sauce on her shirt. She wore a cream-colored silk blouse and had rich, brown, extremely well-moisturized skin and black hair that was braided with mathematical precision.

Here’s another

...a tanned man with flecks of gray in his trimmed beard and a full head of fluffy, hair-sprayed hair. He wore the kind of flannel shirt that looked as soft as a rabbit, an expensive shirt cosplaying as casual. “Marco,” he introduced himself.

I guess some people believe descriptions like that are Good Writing -- can’t imagine why Creative Writing courses would promote them, otherwise. If you are such a person, then you might like Durst‘s style.

I am not. To me, a description like this feels like compulsion or bullying, or at the very best a homework assignment. It feels as if I’m expected to pull out an identikit and use Durst‘s description to construct a sketch of the character, then keep it around for reference as I read. (I am, to boot, aphantasic.) I would much rather a writer simply describe Marco as “a dignified older man” and leave it to me to imagine him.

Well, no author can please every reader, and it would be churlish to ding a writer for doing things in what the experts say is the right way. The problem is that, when you check all the boxes, less room is left for imagination or creativity. (A great artist must break some rules, I believe.) I found the story of The Wednesday Witches Book Club dull -- it is essentially just a 50-page cat joke. I was also bothered by what felt to me like a subordination of character to plot. Durst‘s characters behave in ways that feel to me inconsistent with their natures, as if she, Durst, doesn’t really know them well.

So, no, I can’t recommend this one.

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Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk

Travis Baldree

An inefficient investigation

Brother Gorm is dead. He fell from the Bell Tower, and is now not just dead, but also very flat. All indications are that there was foul play. For instance, he was heard to shout, "You bastard!" on the way down. Abbot Listrum wants the matter sorted before the bishop's visit in two days. He therefore agrees to the suggestion of their commercial agent, Radish, to let an investigator, Miss Gentle, look into the matter.

Miss Gentle is the real mystery of this story. In full armor she traipses up the mountain on which the monastery is located, with every indication of weariness. She demands payment of a most peculiar sort. Her investigation, which lasts all day, consists of tediously asking every living person where they were and what they were doing at the time Brother Gorm fell. Incidentally, she questions them all about their attitudes towards the cat, Miss Treacle.

Through the course of the long day she makes no visible progress. Then, at the end of the day, she announces how Brother Gorm died, backing up her proclamation with convincing evidence. She leaves with Radish, and in a final colloquy with that man we learn who and what she is.

Like most of the stories in the Magic & Mystery series (of which Miss Gentle and the Case of the Very Flat Monk is the first) this one aims for a light-hearted tone. Indeed, it is peppered with out-and-out jokes. I appreciate the light tone, but would appreciate it more if any of the jokes had actually made me laugh.

Still, it is short, and I will forgive a lot of a story that doesn't waste my time. There is a coherent mystery here -- two, in fact: Brother Gorm's death and Miss Gentle's nature. The final solution makes sense. I am glad I read it.

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Bermuda: A History

Diego Marín

Betwixt and between

I am writing a story set in Bermuda. What I knew about Bermuda before reading this history was very little1. I knew it was an isolated island in the middle of the North Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe, but much closer to America. It is far enough south to have a tropical climate, but well north of the Bahamas and other famous Caribbean destinations. It is majority black. This was, as far as it went, mostly right. The one correction necessary is that Bermuda is not a single island, but an archipelago of almost 200 chunks of rock that stick out about the water. (As a practical matter, the main islands are now all joined by bridges and causeways, so from the twentieth century on one doesn't go far wrong by thinking of it as a single very crinkly island.)

I knew and know very little about Diego Marín. There is no "About the Author" page. I surmise that he is an elderly man who has lived in Bermuda most of his life, educated, quite possibly a lawyer or in some law-adjacent profession, intimately familiar with Bermuda and its history, fond of Bermuda and an engaging writer.

For most of its history, Bermuda has been a British territory. This started when an expedition intended to save the failing colony at Jamestown, Virginia, shipwrecked on Bermuda on its way. And for most of its history it has struggled to play off its powerful nearest neighbor, the USA, against its British identity. There's a wonderful story about this from the beginning of the American Revolution (thus, before the USA existed as such).

In 1775 the Continental Congress passed a law forbidding all trade with England or any of its colonies. This would have been devastating to Bermudian traders. A delegation of them sailed to Philadelphia to make a deal. They asked to be exempted from the embargo. The deal was that Bermuda could be exempted, if they would supply American revolutionaries with gunpowder, which the Americans were very short of. The Bermudian traders sailed back to Bermuda, snuck into the building in which powder for the British army and navy was stored, and took every bit of it. They loaded it into two American vessels anchored in a secluded bay. Thus, at the beginning of the Revolutionary War, bullets fired at English soldiers by Washington's armies were impelled by English gunpowder stolen from Bermuda.

When America (now actually the USA) and England went to war once again in 1812, Bermudian privateers made good money by capturing American merchant vessels. This is one of those cases where the scandal is not that what anyone was doing was illegal, but that what they was doing was completely legal. In time of war a nation can give sailors legal permission to commit acts that, under any other circumstances, we would call piracy. Some decades later during the American Civil War the Union blockaded the South. Bermudian sailors made good money as blockade runners—they brought goods past Union blockaders to the Confederacy. When in the early 20th century the USA made it illegal to buy or sell liquor, Bermuda was there once again to smuggle rum.

Of course, Bermuda had its own internal turmoils. In 1834 slavery was abolished throughout the British Empire, including Bermuda. As has happened in so many places the slaves were nominally freed, but kept underfoot economically and socially. That fight continues still.

Bermuda is now a wealthy place. It's small—the population is around 65,000, about that of a small city. Its GDP is $9.2B for a per capita GDP of $143,878. Its main industry, aside from tourism, is reinsurance. It is a tax haven. Insurance companies head-quartered in Bermuda pay little to no tax. Marin points out with some indignation that Bermuda's reputation as a nest of money-laundering is totally unfair -- its lawmakers have worked hard to make Bermuda a model of financial transparency. Tax avoidance (like privateering in centuries past) is totally legal. For me personally, Marín's protestations of innocence had somewhat the opposite of the intended effect. One again, the scandal is not that people are breaking the law—it is that what they are doing is entirely legal.

This was a fun read. Marín's enthusiasm for Bermuda comes through loud and clear. It also strikes me as a great place to set a story.

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A Labyrinth of Honeybees

Heather Fawcett

Cozy vs Ninja

Heather Fawcett's A Labyrinth of Honeybees is the fourth story in the Amazon Original Magic & Mystery series. This is a series of standalone little mysteries in different worlds by different authors. There is no common plot thread through the series that I can detect. They can thus be read in any order.

The action of this one takes place in the holy grounds of a deity known as the Goddess of the Garden. The story is told in the first person by the Goddess's priestess. She and her Goddess are what I referred to as Cozy in my title. She is visited by the Royal Inquisitor and some Royal Guards (the Ninja component), who are investigating the disappearance of the king's heir.

Unsurprisingly, it turns out there are complicated palace intrigues going on among the king, the inquisitor, the heir, and the royal guard. Also the Goddess.

This was not bad, but I felt it was trying a little too hard. It got complicated at the end and difficult to make sense of. I felt that Fawcett had not fully appreciated the limitations of the short story form and tried to stuff a bit more into it than it would comfortably hold.

Still, it was fun, and short. I will forgive a lot when the read doesn't ask for much of my time. This was the second of the stories in the series I had read. I intend to read the rest of the stories in the series. I intend to read them all.

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