Kristine Kathryn Rusch

While Thin Walls was an enjoyable read, it did not hold up to the amazing, complex storytelling of the prior two books in the Smokey Dalton series.

Smokey and his sort-of-son, Jimmy are settling into Chicago after the events of the Democratic National Convention. Smokey lost his job at the Hilton, so he's finding work doing odd jobs. A woman comes to him looking for help resolving her husband's murder. Not only have the police not made any progress, Smokey discovers they aren't even working show more the case at all. There are troubles on the home front as well, with Jimmy approached by the local gang members and Laura facing stiff, connected opposition in her attempt to wrest control of her father's company from its board.

Characterization continues to shine. Off the top of my head, almost no one in Smokey's sphere feels cardboard cutout; they all have a variety of positive and negative traits, but generally good motivations. It translates into keeping me interested in the story without thinking the outcome was entirely predictable. Mostly people are just people, responding to events from their perspective. However, I appreciate Nelscott's affirmation that people can change if they try--and if they are given the benefit of the doubt. In the era of the anti-hero, this is highly welcome.

The ethics of the story are solidly in place. I'd highly recommend this to most anyone, just so they can get a feel for being black in the late sixties, and how even 'progressive' cities were cesspools of hate. It isn't even a thread through the book so much as a rope tying everything together. Crossing race lines is the worst crime of all, and Smokey is a man who does it professionally and personally. While some of the discussions regarding cross-culturalism are quite overt, it's a lesson many of us need to learn, and to remember. There's something to be said for 'mainstream' books making this part of a thematic inclusion. I tend to find it instructive--there are people around that lived through this period, and while wounds may be healed, it's likely they are still scarred. The events in this story foreshadow the 'Black Lives Matter' movement.

The weakness here is in the narrative, which stumbles from one distracting event to another--much like real life. Search for the crime scene photographer takes us to a Black Panther rally, to the home of a couple of neighbor boys who were in the park seeking a lost watch, and to the home of a pleasant Jewish woman and her photographer son. There's a major event with them which takes more than a couple of scenes and becomes a minor lesson for Smokey's own life. When Smokey also takes on finding the watch, it gets to be a bit much. While it all almost connects, it just feels more stuttering beats than smooth jazz. Smokey himself becomes frazzled with all his loose ends, so I suppose Nelscott achieves a congruence in plotting and characterization. Still, it leaves the reader also feeling sort of frazzled and incomplete.

Don't get me wrong; this is still an enjoyable book and well worth the time. It just didn't speak to me as loudly as the first two did. Recommended for mystery fans and anyone currently living in America.

Three and a half stars show less

I wasn't sure if I was going to like this book when I dove into it (forgive the pun). It turned out that it grew on me. The first part of the book definitely feels like a completely different story from the second, and it even had inklings of space horror -- something which I appreciate and find too little of. That it was an explainable phenomenon disappointed me a little, but I still enjoyed the twists and turns the book took.

An interesting kind of touristy shipwreck exploration, history show more and amateurish archaeology, led by someone who is cautious to a fault, occasionally fearful, nonviolent, frustrating and who tries to be a good, safety conscious manager, but who occasionally gets caught up in her own desires. Someone who is, in other words, human. I appreciated how down-to-earth the whole thing was.

Cool. Worth the read. show less

Generally speaking, I don't read romances (they're just not my thing). I am, however, generally unable to resist re-told fairy tales. So, a plot that promised to bring together Cinderella's Prince Charming (now a divorced bookstore owner going by "Dave") and Snow White's "Wicked" Stepmother, Mellie (founder of PETA - People for the Ethical Treatment of Archetypes) was more than I could resist. (Especially after the Google Preview feature in the Frisco Public Library catalog let me read the show more first 30 pages online.)

The writing was good enough (more telling than showing in places) and the plot pure romance novel formula, but the back-stories Grayson created for the characters and the re-imagining of the fairy tale world was a lot of fun. As a light read, it was quite enjoyable.

I will say, though, that the cover is not very representative of the book. It promises a younger, steamier Charming than the book offers. Not that that's a complaint about the book - just the cover. show less

The Recovery Man’s Bargain is not so much a sequel as a reboot of Recovery Man with a different focus. Recovery Man followed the two victims of a kidnapping/child custody case. The Recovery Man’s Bargain follows the kidnapper, Hadad Yu. Yu has to make a deal with the alien Gyonnese, who want a human child in return for children lost through industrial carelessness. Here are some of the issues raised. Should clones be considered fully human? Should the sins of the elders be visited on show more their offspring? Is bounty hunting human trafficking? Yu was a simple villain in the first novel, but here he has surprising depth. show less