Although it's set in the early '70s, the hard, tight Mississippi Vivian by Bill Crider and the late Clyde Wilson actually brings to mind an earlier era—it reads like some long-lost Fawcett Gold Medal paperback from the late '50s. And that’s high praise indeed. In fact, the taut, chip-on-the-shoulder vibe created by mystery author Crider and Wilson (a real life private eye), recalls nothing so much as the efforts of Wade Miller, the pen name for the celebrated writing team of Bob Wade and Bill Miller, who put out more than their fair share of hardboiled classics back in the day.
Texas-based insurance investigator Ted Stephens (first introduced in 2007's Houston Homicide) journeys to hot, sticky Losgrove, Mississippi to look into a string of suspicious work injury claims, and soon finds himself immersed in a deep steaming pile of small town corruption, deceit, and dirty secrets that will take more than a motel room shower or two to clean off. This is retro pulp at its best—clear, clean prose; vibrant characters (the cranky, contrary waitress who gives the book its title is a hoot); a finely rendered setting (Ted likens Losgrove air to breathing warm cotton); a stripped down narrative that rockets along; and a terse, business-like and laconic narrator whose navel-gazing fortunately never extends much past his ongoing complaint that nobody ever seems to laugh at his jokes. Readers eager for some high quality, no-frills, private eye action will certainly go for this one. Alas, with Wilson's passing in 2008, we may have seen the last of Stephens. Say it ain't so, Bill.
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I am surrounded by books. Every room, every space in my large, sprawling 1750s house is full of books...
Our history and experiences can define us, inspire our actions, and as writers impact our words and stories. Mine most definitely has: my father was a small-time gangster. Really.
"My ah-ha moment came when I read The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald.... That was it for me – I was off to the races."
Nietzsche once wrote, “There is always some madness in love. But there is also always some reason in madness.”
"Mystery books were daring and exciting, firing up my imagination and making me yearn to become a girl detective or even a secret agent. They also empowered me to make up impromptu ghost stories around the campfire for my Girl Scout troop and sneak into the cemetery at night on a dare."
Fire and Ashes, the latest Angela Richman Death Investigator mystery, is an exploration of a fatal fire. To research this novel, Viets delved into the devastating consequences of junk science and arson investigations.
