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Zero Avenue
Dietrich Kalteis. ECW (PGW/Legato, U.S. dist.
Jaguar Book Group, Canadian dist.), $14.95
trade paper (232p) ISBN 978-1-77041-365-8
Set in 1979, Kalteis’s grisly, violent
fifth crime novel (after 2016’s House of
Blazes) celebrates the seedy side of
Vancouver and the punk scene there.
Singer Frankie Del Rey’s got musical
talent and drive, but to make a buck she’s
running dope for Marty Sayles, the powerful drug dealer who has the whole
Eastside in a fearsome grip. Johnny Falco’s
pretty sweet on Frankie—and his Falco’s
Nest is one of the few clubs willing to
give her band, Waves of Nausea, and other
punk players a chance. But Johnny’s in
debt up to his neck and takes a huge risk
to get back in the black. The stakes rise
when enforcer Zeke Chamas and
henchmen Sticky and Tucker, who tend
Marty’s pot farm off Zero Avenue, go after
Frankie’s bass player, Arnie Binz, when he
steals some of Marty’s illegal harvest.
References to actual singers and bands,
such as Joey “Shithead” Keithley of
D. O.A., will resonate with those who
came of age in the late ’70s, and if a literary prize existed for depicting the most
offensive club lavatories, this novel would
win it hands down. (Oct.)
A Private Haunting
Tom McCulloch. Sandstone (Dufour, dist.), $16
trade paper (280p) ISBN 978-1-910985-15-1
In this taut, terrifying tale of loss from
McCulloch ( The Stillman), readers are
never sure whether one or both of his lead
characters is a cold-blooded murderer, a
victim of unfathomable tragedy, or per-
haps both. Youth counselor Jonas
Mortensen, a brawny Norwegian, lives in
an old house called End Point in an
unnamed English village. Adam Fletcher,
an Afghan war vet who has PTSD, claims
the home belongs to him. Neither wants
to go to the police, insisting the other
leave. Each has long-buried secrets to
hide. When a local teenage girl goes
missing who was last seen at a party
thrown by Jonas, both men are affected,
and Jonas quickly becomes a person of
interest, then a suspect. Jonas bears the
brunt of the small town’s ire, fueled in
part by Fletcher’s subtle innuendos and
maneuvering, as he attempts to save him-
self. Surprising bursts of humor lighten a
narrative that is otherwise suffused with
death, sorrow, guilt, and madness. (Oct.)
An Empty Coast
Tony Park. Pan (IPG, dist.), $12.95 trade paper
(480p) ISBN 978-1-5098-1541-8
Assassin Sonja Kurtz, last seen in
2014’s The Delta, takes center stage in
Park’s overwrought 12th African thriller.
After eliminating a rhino horn dealer in
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam, Sonja
receives a brief text message from her
daughter, Emma, a student archeologist
on a field trip near Namibia’s Etosha
National Park, asking for her help.
Emma has uncovered the body of a man in
a military uniform with dog tags reading
“Brand, H.” A lot of people are interested
in the discovery of the remains, which may
be the clue to finding answers to a 30-year-
old mystery involving a missing plane and
its valuable cargo. Though Sonja is persona
non grata in Namibia, her birthplace, due
to past conflicts with authority, she’s able
to enter the country from South Africa to
look for Emma, who’s disappeared since
texting her. Sonja proves a single-minded
and deadly warrior as she faces a series of
tests, some quite bloody, in this tangled
quest for treasure and survival. (Oct.)
Kompromat
Stanley Johnson. Point Blank, $27 (304p)
ISBN 978-1-78607-246-7
This thriller has the makings of a
gleeful romp through geopolitical skull-
duggery, but Johnson (The Commissioner)
has laid out something that looks more
like an alternative history for our grim
and disrupted times. The hyperkinetic
action starts off with Russian president
Igor Popov shooting a putative
Republican presidential candidate in the
buttocks with a tranquilizer dart in a clev-
erly contrived Siberian setup, but it keeps
returning to efforts to jump-start, then
fan the flames of, a Brexit-style campaign
for the United Kingdom. Johnson, a long-
time figure on the British political scene,
aims for satire as he sketches out
Operation Tectonic Plate, Popov’s nefar-
ious scheme to destabilize his country’s
opponents and place a friendly face in the
White House, but the ripped-from-the-
headlines plot is too close to actual (or
easily imagined) fact to provoke real
laughter. The reader will find no sympa-
thetic characters, and the corridors of
power from Berlin to Beijing to
Washington all convey the same sense of
grasping self-interest and greedy fear that
confirms the worst suspicions of how poli-
tics really work. (Oct.)
★ Next of Kin:
Detective Buddy Lock Mysteries
James Tucker. Thomas & Mercer, $15.95 trade
paper (370p) ISBN 978-1-5420-4566-7
Early in Tucker’s impressive first novel
and series launch, NYPD Det. Buddy
Lock receives a call from attorney Ray
Sawyer, who’s representing 10-year-old
Ben Brook, a member of a wealthy
Manhattan family. Three days earlier, on
New Year’s Eve, someone murdered Ben’s
parents and his sister with a hatchet at
their house in the family camp complex in
the Adirondacks. Ben managed to elude
the killer and phone 911. Sawyer, who’s
now Ben’s guardian, begs Buddy to help
find the killer. Buddy, whose own family
broke up because of his excessive devotion
to work, hesitates to take the case for fear
of jeopardizing his relationship with his
new girlfriend, Mei Adams. Nevertheless,
after a failed attempt on Ben’s life, which
results in another death, Buddy agrees to
take charge of the investigation. Buddy’s
battle of wits with the vicious killer keeps
the excitement level high throughout.
The surprise ending will leave readers
impatiently awaiting Buddy’s next
outing. Agent: Will Roberts, Gernert
Company. (Oct.)
The Habit of Murder:
The Twenty-Third Chronicle of
Matthew Bartholomew
Susanna Gregory. Sphere (IPG, dist.), $26.99
(432p) ISBN 978-0-7515-6263-7
British author Gregory does her usual
solid job of weaving details of daily life in
14th-century England into a sophisticated multiple-murder mystery plot in
her 23rd whodunit featuring physician
Matthew Bartholomew (after 2016’s A
Grave Concern). In 1360, Matthew and
some of his colleagues from Cambridge’s
Michaelhouse College travel to Clare after
receiving word that Elizabeth de Burgh,
the Lady of Clare, has died. The college’s
master, Ralph de Langelee, is hoping that
her bequest to Michaelhouse will fill its
empty coffers. But on arrival in Clare, the
