Alafair Burke’s first stand alone, Long Gone, infuses suspense with greed, revenge, and family.

Alice Humphrey rejects her filmmaker father’s help to make it on her own, but she doesn’t suspect he had been subsidizing her job as a publicist at the Met.  When her father’s donations stop, she loses her position.  Then after almost a year of unemployment, A change of circumstances appears in the form of the smooth and cultured Drew Campbell, who offers her an exciting position opening a new art gallery.

Though the arrangement seemed unusual–an elderly, closeted, very rich gentleman wants to open the gallery to showcase his artist lover’s work–she sees potential in the position and accepts the job.  The artist refuses to meet her in person and even refuses to attend his opening show, saying his unavailability will add to the mystic of his art.

Her fortunes turn bad when she discovers the work borders on bad porn, and religious zealots picket the gallery.  An onslaught of media follows.  The next day she arrives to find the gallery bare and Campbell’s body on the floor in a pool of blood.  When she tries to explain, she learns the owner doesn’t exist, the artist is gone, and  she has nothing to prove her innocence.  The police turn their attention to Alice.

Long Gone’s fast action and intricate plot create an exciting story, one that is hard to set aside until the last page

In Thorns on Roses, Randy Rawls takes the private investigator novel deep into thriller territory.  The protagonist, Tom Jeffries, ex-Dallas cop and ex-Special Forces, brings extra bite to the traditional PI persona with his need for justice and his deadly talents.

When the daughter of his best friend dies during a gang rape, Jeffries vows to avenge the teenager.  Using the girl’s rose tattoo as his starting point, Jeffries tracks down the gang members.  Then using the skills he honed in the Special Forces, he extracts vengeance.  But Jeffries miscalculates and exposes himself to danger—not once but twice.

The first danger concerns a woman.  Jeffries works for a local attorney who fears Jeffries’ involvement in the case will give the firm a bad name.  The attorney assigns Abby, a beautiful associate, to help Jeffries.  Of course, Jeffries rejects Abby’s offer to help, but he can’t reject Abby.  He plunges into a relationship that his cop and Special Forces experience hasn’t prepared him for.

While both the gang members and the police focus their sights on him, Jeffries forges ahead.  He’ll need his sharp skills and a little help if he is to survive and keep his freedom.

Rawls takes the reader on a wild ride to a satisfying and surprising conclusion.  I strongly recommend this can’t-put-it-down novel.

ISBN 978-1-60318-375-8

You can get it on Amazon, too.

Pendulum Press, Inc originally published Illegally Dead as an eBook in 2004.  The website closed shortly thereafter.  (It wasn’t my fault.  I swear.)  I believe that Marilyn Henderson was ahead of her time.  I quickly learned that an eBook didn’t count and not to talk about it among my many published author friends.  Perhaps it was even reason to be ashamed.

All of that is beginning to change.  Authors with significant track records are choosing to distribute their out-of-print books as eBooks for Kindle or other similar formats.  They’ve even gone so far as to republish the books as paperbacks through online vendors.  Dare I say that some have bypassed the struggle and self-published never-before-published novels.

I like it.  Times are changing.

The traditional channels aren’t friendly to newcomers.  Yes, it’s true that some can land contracts with big New York publishers.  Many, however, don’t succeed and have tired of banging manuscripts and heads against the wall.

I republished Illegally Dead as a Kindle Book a couple of years ago.  Today, Illegally Dead appeared on Amazon.com as a paperback.  It is also available through CreateSpace.com to those not wanting to deal with Amazon.  You can link directly to either option through my website.  Please admire the beautiful, newly designed cover created by author and artist Victoria Landis.

It’s interesting.  I took the proof to work and shamelessly showed it off.  My co-workers seemed impressed and not the least bit put off by the publisher—Me.

I have two more novels in the pipeline, which I’ll publish in the same formats, Imperfect Contract and Imperfect Murder.

Please support your local struggling mystery writer.

GEB

In Eyes of the Innocent, Brad Parks turns investigative reporting into the conduit for suspense, albeit with a touch of humor.

Carter Ross is a savvy, perhaps selectively-ethical, investigative reporter for a major Newark paper.  Carter is ultra-white and dresses conservatively.  However, he has made friends and developed sources throughout Newark’s multi-cultural communities, through which he moves with ease. He sticks out so much in the projects that people don’t know what to make of him and usually give him a wide berth.

Carter’s assignment to work with a young intern nicknamed Sweet Thang complicates his life.  Sweet Thang has a lot to learn and has yet to realize that what she studied in school is non-applicable in the real world.  But, her open approach attracts people and gets them talking.

A house fire kills two unattended little boys.  Carter and Sweet Thang go to the site to investigate and run into the boys’ distraught mother, Akilah.  After hearing her heart-wrenching story, Sweet Thang befriends Akilah and even offers her a place to stay.  Akilah’s lies pull Carter and Sweet Thang into a web of deceit, politics, greed, violence, and murder.

Parks leads the entranced reader from page to page, cranking up the suspense while adding moments of humor.  Parks delivers a compelling story.

Minotaur Books
ISBN: 978-0-312-57478-9

A foreign commentator on CNN summed it up by quoting Winston Churchill.  “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing–after they’ve tried everything else.”

S&J

Like Florida, the locals seem a bit tourist-weary.  A resident in Zermatt told us there weren’t as many Americans, and those who came spent less money.

In Vienna, a bookstore proprietress with no patience for a non-German speaker browsing her shelves asked one tour member to leave the store.

S&J

We talked with a young man from Croatia.  He told us how much he appreciated the Americans.   “You came and stopped the war.” His sincerity was without question.

S&J

The huge airports in Paris, Vienna, and Zurich were all less confusing, easier to navigate, and more friendly than Atlanta, and that’s without speaking the language.

The woman directing traffic to the customs exit in Atlanta was rude and pushy in any language.  I’m not sure she spoke mine.

OK, the customs guy who stamped our passports in Paris was bored and unsmiling.

S&J

The places we visited were clean and well-kept, without exception.  I understand we saw the ‘tourist’ spots, but we saw some local places as well.

S&J

The food shopping practices intrigue me.  Home refrigerators are the small under-counter variety.  People shop nearly every day, except Sunday, for their perishables.  The open air markets have meats, dairy, some fish, and lots of fruits and vegetables.  Shoppers carry their own small shopping bags or baskets.  The market experience seems to be social as well as task-oriented. The products were beautiful.

S&J

In Vienna, classical music is in the forefront.  We were told that the waltz in popular, all teenagers attend waltz school willingly–I am too American to completely believe that–and dances are held in the parks where people of all ages enjoy.

I expected the Mozart and Strauss concert we attended to be a tourist event, like the ballet we saw in St. Petersburg a few years ago, but that wasn’t the case.  The audience was primarily Viennese with a smattering of tourists mixed in.  Wonderful.

S&J

Expresso is the primary coffee served in the places we visited.  If we requested American coffee, the server usually offered a brew called filtered coffee, which was double the expresso’s volume and about halfway between the strength of our Starbucks regular and expresso.  They served the coffee with a four-ounce water chaser.

Water, however, is not served with meals unless ordered (still or carbonated?) and paid for as a beverage.  Our tour director managed to have pitchers of tap water appear on our tables.  The tap water was clear, clean, and free of chemical-additive taste.

Starbucks shops are common.  The American coffee served at the one in Berne was   weak, about the strength of what I grew drinking in North Dakota.  Or maybe my taste buds adjusted to the rich brews of the previous days.

S&J

The Alps were everything I imagined and more.

S&J

Check out the pictures on the right sidebar.

GEB

I’ve read about the coffee culture and even recall seeing a bit somewhere about the phenomenon crossing the country to NYC, skipping all of the intervening territory.    Given the price of the coffee and equipment  and the brand consciousness, I understand how that happened.

During my two-day visit, we lined up several times for single-cup, Pour Over (drip) coffee.  The coffee-makers—people making coffee—stand at a high counter and pour water from narrow-spouted pots into white ceramic, paper-lined cones filled with custom-roasted, freshly-ground coffee.  The cones typically sit on a metal rack suspended over the targeted cups, allowing the worker to prepare several cups at one time.

When finally at the front of the line, the customer specifies brewing method—the expensive drip coffee is about $3 to $4 a serving—the actual coffee selection, and the size of the serving.  So many choices.  The beans are ground while you wait.  So much aroma.

In two cases, the Blue Bottle Coffee Company kiosk (hole-in-the-wall) seemed to serve only coffee and maybe a few cookies, and provided no seating.  One of the counters was in the Ferry Building, which houses a glorious number of upscale food and related product shops.  I believe Blue Bottle has another serving area with a longer line and some seating, along with a selection of pastries.

The second Blue Bottle Coffee Company kiosk (hole-in-the-wall) we visited is on Linden Street.  I believe the neighborhood is Lower Haight.  It’s adjacent to the Mission section of San Francisco.  Here we stood on the cold, windy sidewalk awaiting our turn at the head of the line.  My son bought a ½ pound of Three Africans coffee beans for me to take home in addition to our two cups of Pour Over coffee

.

We stopped at another coffee shop, this one an actual storefront, featuring coffee prepared by various methods, coffee supplies, and seating.  Set on making Pour Over brew at home, he purchased the equipment, selecting a special Japanese made ceramic funnel, Hario paper filters, and suitable coffee.  He had acquired a hand-cranked ceramic coffee grinder earlier in the day.

The pictures on the insert packed with the ceramic funnel were somewhat explanatory.    However, the Japanese characters providing the specifics were problematic for me.  The videos below present two different preparation methods for the drip coffee.  The third video . . .

I prepared my Three African Coffee Beans at home using my electric ceramic blade grinder and my plain, old coffee press.  Delicious.

How to videos:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0f09-JXPaVA

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EB5Dpio3mmg

Funny version  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEjx3y9mUwM

Three Africans

SKU: 3A

This coffee is a blend of Ugandan and two different Ethiopian coffees and produces a big, chocolately aroma, and excels in either the French press or the Mokka pot. Unlike some of our Ferry Plaza Farmers’ Market specials, which tend to be nichey and polarizing, this blend has a very easy-to-like personality, good body, unthreatening complexity, and reasonably clean aftertaste. We love Ugandan coffee here at the BBCC, as long as there are mitigating influences. The Ethiopian – Yirgacheffe and dry processed Sidamo – clean up the slightly raisiny aftertaste in the Ugandan, leaving a subtle imprint of dried blueberries and cardamom. A fairly dark roast, this African blend will take milk or cream quite well. Some say damn well.

Dominant Attributes: Complex, Radiant, Creamy
Growing Regions: Uganda, Mt. Elgon region; Ethiopia, Sidama region; Ethiopia, Yirgacheffe region
Processing: Ugandan and Yirgacheffe, washed; Sidama, dry processed
Certifications: Certified Organic by CCOF
Preparation Methods: French Press, Moka Pot, Pour Over

http://www.bluebottlecoffee.net/

Set the Night on Fire is Chicago author Libby Fischer Hellmann’s first stand-alone novel.

In Set the Night on Fire, Lila Hilliard returns home to Chicago for the Christmas holiday.  While she’s running an errand to replace a faulty string of tree lights, her family home bursts into flames killing her father and twin brother.  Investigators find the frayed wire and rule the fire accidental.  Lila isn’t comfortable with the ruling but feels powerless to object.

Lila’s mother died when Lila was an infant.  Her mother was a name without connections and a picture without history.  Her father was a man with secrets he wouldn’t share.  Lila digs into her father’s files hoping to find a link to family on her mother’s side.

Then someone tries to kill her, and a right-time, right-place stranger intervenes.  The police take a report but do not take Lila or the incident seriously.  When she is injured during a second attempt on her life, Lila sets aside her search for her roots and focuses on saving her life.

Lila’s link to the past and only ally is Dar Gantner, who spent forty years in prison for crimes committed in Chicago during the conflicted late sixties.  He is on parole and planning to settle unfinished business.  Once a leader among young idealists, Gantner discovers his fellow revolutionaries now embrace the very affluence, ideals, and lifestyles they once sought to change.

Hellmann takes the reader into the time of SDS, the Weathermen, the Black Panthers, and the riots at the Democratic Convention, not with a history lesson, but through the lives of her characters.  She pulls the turbulent sixties into the present where a father’s youthful idealism threatens to destroy his daughter’s less than idealistic present.

Set the Night on Fire is a thriller with fast-paced action, in-depth characterization, a personal view of history, and several twists in the plot.  It is an excellent and engrossing read.

In Hardcover and Trade Paperback
Allium Press of Chicago
December 2010

I’ll confess.  I was born a Republican, but George Bush cured me of that affliction.  Now, I’m registered Independent.  My dad, who actually worked for the North Dakota Republican Party for one election year, voted according to his opinions and conscience.  He was registered Republican but was strongly Independent long before it was fashionable.

It seems to me that whether we’re Republicans or Democrats or Independents or Nothings, our elected officials are not serving us well.  Voting the bastards out and replacing them with fresh blood resulted in uncompromising, opinionated politicians with little or no experience.

The objectives of every elective official appear to be:

1.    Impose my agenda and my way of thinking and get reelected

2.    Support the most extreme position on my party’s platform and get reelected

3.    Do my best to discredit the other guy and get reelected

4.    Impose my moral choices on everyone else and get reelected

I propose, somewhat in jest, that we need a third political party—The Sensible-Moderate Party.  The symbol could be a wise elder.  The party’s platform compromise and moderation.  And, if they don’t do it right, we can rename them the S&M Party and vote them out, too.

GEB

Nonna Raffaela Cutone’s Pizzelles

Ingredients:
12 eggs
2 cups sugar
2 cups Mazola oil
2 ounces Sambuca or Anisette (or more  if you like)
2 teaspoons baking powder
the grated rinds of 2 large lemons
4 cups four (or more to achieve proper batter consistency)

Directions:

Mix 12 eggs with electric mixer.  Keep the mixer running while adding sugar, rind, Anisette, and oil.

Mix baking powder with flour, then add to batter a little at a time.

The batter should be the consistency of thick yogurt.  It needs to set up on a teaspoon and drop in thick dollops.

Pizzelles are baked on a Pizzelle Baker, which is a waffle-baker type appliance.  Using a teaspoon, place a small dollop of batter in the center of the baker.  It’s better for a cookie to be a bit small than to have the batter ooze outside the imprint.

The ones Raffaela brought to my house baked two cookies at a time.  One baker made cookies about 4 inches in diameter.  The other one made 3-inch cookies.

Delicious.

GEB

Raffaela came to my house with bags and bags of ingredients for the “Little Italian Lady” cookies, plus her two Pizzelle bakers.

Raffaela understands some English and speaks a little, but her languages are Italian and French.  Mine is English.  It’s a good thing she brought the ingredients because some of the items I could not translate and find in my cabinet, much less anticipate and purchase.

The assembly of the recipe included bi-lingual chatter, lots of smiles and laughing, much pointing, and me scribbling notes as I transcribed the complete recipe.  At one point, I tapped the can of baking powder on my counter and learned Piccoli de Maggie is baking powder.  I also confirmed that there are no “cats” in the cookies (see the second Little Italian Lady cookies post).

Typical of baking-grandmothers of all cultures, the recipe amounts are approximations.  “Add a little bit more.”  “Let’s put another egg.”  “Oh, we need more flour.  We added an extra egg.”  “Do you have brandy.  Let’s put in more.”

Hey, I’m good now.  Half of that conversation was in Italian, and I followed right along.

Little Italian Lady Cookies
Date and Nut Cookies
Nonna Raffaela Cutone’s recipe

4 eggs
1 cup sugar
1 cup Mazola oil
8 oz (weight) chopped walnuts
8 oz (weight) toasted almonds, crushed
4 oz (weight) chopped dates
3 oz (liquid) brandy or whiskey
4 cups flour (more as needed to make batter stiff and sticky)
1 tsp baking soda
4 tsp baking powder

Preheat oven to 350 degrees F.

Using a stand mixer set on low running constantly: (Don’t rush the next addition.)
Mix eggs for a couple of minutes
Add sugar and mix
Add oil and brandy
Add walnuts, dates, and crushed almonds
Add flour a little at a time
Mix baking soda and baking powder with a bit of flour, then add to batter

Batter needs to be quite stiff, but should still be sticky.  Add extra flour if necessary.  (Perhaps you didn’t measure the brandy. )

If you’re not using a heavy-duty mixer, it will be necessary to transfer the batter to a larger bowl and mix in the last of the flour.

Prepare baking sheets with non-stick spray

Drop batter by spoonfuls onto cookie sheet.  Leaving about 1 ½ inches between cookies.  (A 1½-inch melon-baller with a release lever works perfectly).  You’ll need a spoon to help drop the cookie.

Hint:  Transfer batter to a plastic food storage box and the batter won’t stick to the side and will be easier to handle.

Next week I’ll post the Pizzelle recipe.

Buon appetito.

Chow.

GEB