Mystery & Thriller aficionado Scott M. stops by to deliver his review of John J. Jacobson’s forthcoming All the Cowboys Ain’t Gone ahead of our virtual event with the author next week! He’ll be in (virtually) on February 18th at 7PM CST with local author James Wade to discuss his latest release, and registration is completely free. John J. Jacobson’s All The Cowboys Ain’t Gone is a throwback to another time in two ways. It takes place at the end of the nineteenth century in Texas, and Africa in the beginning of the twentieth, with it’s lead dealing with changing times. It also taps in ..read more

MysteryPeople’s Scott M. is back on the blog with a round-up of his five favorite crime reads of 2020 by authors based in Texas. Read on for more. 2020 was a great time for authors in our Lone Star home. They ranged in sub-genre, tone, and region, using Texas as a metaphor for America and life. Here are the five (maybe six) Texas crime novels that struck me most.        More Better Deals and Of Mice & Minestrone by Joe R. Lansdale   One of Texas’ finest landed a one two punch this year, a collection of stories involving the formative years of his series characters ..read more

MysteryPeople’s Scott Montgomery joins us on the blog just before year’s end to share the ten best—in his opinion—crime novels of 2020. Crime fiction writers came through in a year where we needed them the most. They helped us escape and examine our times with some of their best writing. It was also a year of discovering either debut authors or ones that finally got the limelight they deserved. Here are my eleven favorites I was able to squeeze into a top ten. I could easily give ten more. Next To Last Stand by Craig Johnson In another year, I may have put one of the darker novels below in ..read more

Bookseller, former Events Host, and avid mystery reader Meike dishes on her ten favorite reads of the year. How does your stack compare? 2020 saw the (hopefully temporary) elimination of my role as an Event Host at BookPeople, but the folks over there were kind enough to ask me to weigh in on some of my favorite titles of the year. If there was any silver lining to this otherwise miserable year, it was the remarkable quality and diversity of the crime fiction titles that were released—and the extra free time allowed me to take full advantage by reading  more widely than I might have other ..read more

MysteryPeople’s Scott M. is back with one final mystery pick for 2020 you can’t miss. Les Edgetron’s Hard Times lives up to the title. Its Depression-era Texas setting and victimized heroine is not for one looking for a light read. However it is how the author finds the humanity in the harshness that makes this novel a stand out. Amelia Laxault’s life holds little happiness. We follow her marriage where she is practically traded to the abusive Arnold Crichtin, a loser who rapes her on her first date. The marriage tears her from her real love, Billy Kilber, having to keep quiet t ..read more

The Best Of Manhunt, a collection of over twenty-five stories from the great crime fiction magazine of the fifties and sixties, was one of our most popular anthologies. We were happy the demand caused a follow up with The Best of Manhunt 2, knowing there were still wonderful crime stories from Manhunt that hadn’t been republished. Editor Jeff Vorzimmer talked with us about making the second dive in. Scott Montgomery: Besides there being so much great Manhunt material still left to dive into, what made you take on the task again? Jeff Vorzimmer: We had so many stories left over we co ..read more

We are happy to have Billy Kring’s latest Hunter Kincaid novel, A Cinnabar Sky, on our shelves. Even better, he wrote a short story featuring a border patrol agent in the time of COVID for our Crime Fiction Friday. Settle in and enjoy. The Little Angel Hunter and Raymond squatted on their heels Indian style behind a clump of greasewood to observe the crowd below them on the bank of the Rio Grande. Both Border Patrol agents wore their face masks to protect each other during the pandemic, both of the masks were a desert camo fabric.  At the edge of the crowd, a man stood on a ledge of ..read more

In Loser’s Gumbo, the latest Bullet Book, Manning Wolfe picked music journalist John T. Davis—and one of the three writers who make up the Miles Arceneaux pseudonym—for a tale of a road weary musician who discovers a body in a drum case. As he has to clear his own name, he gets involved in a fast moving plot tied to a historic lost recording. Manning and John were kind enough to talk to us about collaborating, music, and murder. Scott Montgomery: How did the both of you come up with the idea of Loser’s Gumbo? John T. Davis: Given that the over-arching idea was for a murder mystery, we want ..read more

Crime Fiction Coordinator Scott M.  reviews The Galway Epiphany by Ken Bruen, MysteryPeople’s Pick of the Month for November. Read more below.   There were reports last year that Galway Girl would be the last last novel in Ken Bruen’s Jack Taylor series. Luckily, that was a rumor. The misanthropic Galway detective is back in one of his best yet with The Galway Epiphany. And while Taylor may have found a better outlook on his life, but it’s still a bleak life.   We find Jack possibly at his most peaceful, living on the country estate of his friend, ex-Rolling Stones roa ..read more

Mark Pryor’s latest Hugo Marston novel, The French Widow, has the head of our Paris embassy’s security involved in a public incident where he takes down a gunman firing into the public, the matter becomes more controversial when evidence points to the man being an American citizen. He also has to deal with a murder on an estate of a family that takes dysfunction to new heights. Mark was kind enough to talk about the book and his hero.   Scott Montgomery: You have Hugo involved in a shooting that pushes him into the public spotlight. As someone you have described as “a watcher’ how do ..read more