The Big Lie is smart, surprising and beautifully rendered.

Posted on March 14, 2024 by James McCrone

The Big Lie, the latest Shane Cleary novel from Gabriel Valjan is smart, surprising and beautifully rendered. This is the fifth book in the series, and Valjan’s keen eye for detail, strong characters and narrative control, shine through this tale. Cleary, an ex-Boston cop, now a PI, is that rare person, an honest man in a world of shadows, lies and crime. Fans of Valjan’s Shane Cleary series (and I count myself as one!) know that things are complicated for Cleary. But as compelling as the unfolding plot is, there’s immense satisfaction in the way he does the job and finds his way through to something honorable.

The story begins when Southie’s most dangerous criminal hires Cleary to find his lost dog. Cleary is willing to refuse the job, except Jimmy says that he has information about Cleary’s father’s death years earlier. But only if he finds the dog.

Everything screams he shouldn’t take the job, but Shane can’t resist Jimmy’s added ‘incentive.’ Add in some other favors he’s asked to do, some rival gangsters, dirty cops and an overzealous DA, and you have the kind of tasty recipe only Valjan can bring to the table. The notion of “the big lie” looms throughout, touching on various aspects of the evolving case. And Shane can’t help but think his client just might kill him anyway after he finds the dog. To say much more would be to spoil the fun.

Highly recommended!

(I read an advance copy of The Big Lie via NetGalley, in exchange for an honest review)

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James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

He’s a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the current president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

You can also keep up with James and his work on social media:
Mastodon: @JMcCrone
Bluesky: @jmccrone.bsky.social
Facebook: James McCrone author (@FaithlessElector)
and Instagram/Threads “@james.mccrone”

Review – The Girl in the Loch, by Andrew James Greig

Posted on January 22, 2024 by James McCrone

The Girl in the Loch by Andrew James Greig is a delicious, compelling, and harrowing tale of secrets, lies, and the presence of the past. Like the loch around which this story revolves, The Girl in the Loch is deep, inscrutable, a seemingly calm surface roiled with eddies and dangerous undercurrents.

The Girl in the Loch, by Andrew James Greig
ISBN 978-1805084785 – 346 pages – Pub. date 26-January-2024

Three years after the disappearance of a three-year-old girl from her isolated Highland home, her grief-stricken parents hire Private Investigator Teàrlach Paterson – an expert in finding missing children – to bring their precious Lily home. Paterson’s investigation will bring together–and clash with–secrets, superstition and folklore. The loch and its environs seethe with a chilly evil, born of the mists, of folklore and superstition, but reflecting very real, present day sins, lies and corruption. Add to this mixture Travellers, Lotharios, and that the grieving father is a vindictive gangster, and the reader is desperate to know what’s going to happen next.

I have also read Grieg’s very fine novel, Whirligig, a lyrical, macabre mystery set in the Highlands, so I came to Girl in the Loch with great expectation. It doesn’t disappoint! The surprising twists and revelations turn on small community kinship, crimes, and superstition. The stakes are high for everyone involved in this tale. Like the loch itself, what lies beneath will be revealed only at great cost, or by some measure of violence.

Greig’s characters are clearly drawn, believable, and sympathetic (even the awful ones). The prose is confident and rewarding, evocative and lyrical. His use of local folklore and superstition lends an intriguing ghost-story stillness, as well as a deeper invocation of the wages of sin, of forces greater than ourselves.

Highly recommended!

I received an advance copy of the title from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

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James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. To get the details right for the new thriller, he drew on his boyhood in Scotland and scouted locations for scenes in the book while attending the Bloody Scotland crime writers conference in Stirling.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

He’s a member of Mystery Writers of America, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the new president of the Delaware Valley chapter of Sisters in Crime. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

The Best of 2023

Posted on January 2, 2024 by James McCrone

Well, it’s only the second day of 2024, and Bastard Verdict has made it onto two “best-of-2023” lists. I’m grateful and humbled to be included with such rarefied work, particularly for a dark tale that “weaves high stakes and low politics.”

Roughly seven months after Bastard Verdict came out (May 14), the intensity of activity–reviews, shares, notes from readers–has tended to subside. Stories are meant to endure, to last well past the initial surge at the bookstores, so its gratifying to know that for many, the book stood out. Check them out!

The Crime Book Girl’s Books of the Year, 2023

TG Wolf’s podcast Toe Tag’s Five-Star Books of 2023.

Other reviewers had kind things to say, both here in the US, and in Scotland, where Bastard Verdict is set:

(Scotland) Grab This book: “An utterly absorbing read” – https://grabthisbook.net/?p=7348

(Scotland) Craig Kelly at Tangled Web/Inspiring Fiction: “Will have you shouting, ‘just one more chapter’!” – https://www.inspiringfiction.com/post/bastard-verdict-by-james-mccrone

(US) Midwest Book Review (Diane Donovan): “McCrone keeps the tension high and psychological depth on track.” – https://www.midwestbookreview.com/mbw/jun_23.htm#dianedonovan

For more reviews, check out the Review Page on jamesmccrone.com

<<In Bastard Verdict, a second referendum on independence looms…
A Scottish official enlists elections specialist Imogen Trager, a by-the-numbers, if rarely by-the-book investigator, to look into irregularities in the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum. She has neither standing nor any investigatory powers in the UK, but moth-to-a-flame, she takes on the case, where she uncovers a trail of criminal self-dealing, cover-ups, and murder leading to the highest levels of power. None but a very few know the truth. And those few need it to stay hidden at any cost.

YOU DON’T NEED TO WIN, JUST DON’T LOSE
In politics, people cheat to win, or because they’re afraid to lose. The difference can be deadly.

Imogen will risk what’s left of her standing, her career–and maybe her life–to get at the truth.>>

Bastard Verdict is available now at Bookshop.org, Amazon-US, Amazon-UK, Waterstones, Barnes & Noble and local, independent bookstores. It’s also available on Kindle, Nook, for Kobo and Apple Books.

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James McCrone is the author of the Imogen Trager political suspense-thrillers Faithless Elector, Dark Network , and Emergency Powers–noir tales about a stolen presidency, a conspiracy, and a nation on edge. Bastard Verdict, his fourth novel, is about a conspiracy surrounding a second Scottish Independence referendum. To get the details right for the new thriller, he drew on his boyhood in Scotland and scouted locations for scenes in the book while attending Bloody Scotland.

All books are available on BookShop.org, IndyBound.org, Barnes & Noble, your local bookshop, and Amazon. eBooks are available in multiple formats including Apple, Kobo, Nook and Kindle.

He’s a member of MWA, Int’l Assoc. of Crime Writers, and he’s the new president of the Delaware Valley Sisters in Crime chapter. He lives in Philadelphia. James has an MFA from the University of Washington in Seattle. His current, work-in-progress is a mystery-thriller set in Oregon’s wine country…A (pinot) Noir, called Witness Tree.

For a full list of appearances and readings, make sure to check out his Events/About page. And follow this blog!

His most recent short fiction is below. The first is available for online reading.

“Eight O’Clock Sharp” in Retreats from Oblivion: the Journal of NoirCon. (free online)
Set in Philadelphia’s 9th Street Market, Thomas is a man outside of time, forgotten, but trying to do the right thing while contending with avaricious forces.

“Ultimatum Games” in Rock and Hard Place magazine issue #7
A rare book heist, bad decisions. The narrator and his partner-in-crime clash over evolving bourgeois norms.

“Nostalgia” in Low Down Dirty Vote, vol. 3
An armed group tries to resurrect a past that never was as they struggle with change.

Getting the story

Posted on January 2, 2024 by James McCrone

BROADCAST BLUES – R.G. Belsky

R. G. Belsky’s newest Clare Carlson mystery, Broadcast Blues, is a compelling and superbly human story of justice and corruption.

Approaching her 50th birthday, Clare Carlson finds that “getting the story” becomes increasingly dangerous in Belsky’s latest, tense mystery-thriller, Broadcast Blues. The trail she follows in her reporting on the horrific death of Wendy Kyle, a high-profile private investigator specializing in divorce cases, has a multitude of suspects who wouldn’t mind seeing her dead.

But it’s the little clues, the things not said (or suppressed) that call out to Clare Carlson. Not only does she have to navigate among a group of suspects–any of whom might be the killer–but she remains at odds with her managing editor, and the TV station where she works is up for sale to a hedge-funded media/entertainment colossus that couldn’t care less about news and the big stories that matter.

The deeper Clare digs, the more she identifies with the dead PI, a conflicted, driven investigator. Highly recommended.

NOTE: I received an advance review copy through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.