Category: crime

Image Credit In "Ride-Along" by Bendan DuBois, a veteran police officer has agreed to allow a freelance writer to ride long with him on his nightly patrol. When called, to a the scene of a jewelry store robbery, it turns out that everything is not as simple as it seems. This was not my favorite story in The Best American Mystery Stories 2011, but it was enjoyable enough. I like the cop character, smart, hard-working and conniving. The "reporter" was an interesting woman, too, but the story-telling style, was too disjointed for me. It jumped too many times from the present to the crime and back, for a short story. On the other hand, it was interesting how the author kept giving us bits until we had the whole story. I read it in The Best American Mystery Stories 2011 which can be ordered from Amazon or  an Indie bookstore. Even though it's not really a mystery, more of a crime story. 3 out...

Lawrence Block is a writer I've been familiar with for a while. I've read a couple of his Bernie Rhodenbarr series and a few short stories, so I had to read "Clean Slate" when I saw it was included in The Best American Mystery Stories 2011. I don't know what I expected, but "Clean Slate" was not it. Don't get me wrong, it's a good story, darkly fascinating. The story starts off innocently enough, with our main character, Kit Tolliver, meeting up with her old high school boyfriends who she hasn't seen for 8 years, but it quickly turns into something else entirely. Kit is a sociopath, her issues stemming from her childhood, but it's hard to say much more without telling the whole story. Sex and violence are tied together in her mind, and she's leaving a lot of bodies behind her. This story was originally included in Warriors edited by George R. R. Martin and Gardner Doizos. According to Block's...

Leo Pilsen is in the Outfit, Chicago's mob, but he has been friends with Danny Manley, a lieutenant with the Chicago PD since childhood. When Pilsen's 18 year old daughter is arrested, Manley sees an opportunity. As Pilsen's friend, he promises to do all he can to help the fmaily. As a cop, he sees this as a perfect opportunity to take down some mobsters, including Grank Carpenter, one of the six commissioners who governs the Outfit. "Turning Leo" by Clark Howard tells how Manley takes one girl's mistake and uses it to turn Leo's life upside down, forcing him to become an informant. Manley and all his cohorts get accolades and promotions; Leo and his family have to start over with new identities in a new city. I liked the intricacies involved in presenting the case in a way that makes Leo think he has not option, but I couldn't have done without the few glimpses into Manley's social life....

I loved this quirky little story. It's told in the first person by a thief who in on parole, again, after having been released from  jail, again. By his own admission, he's not a very good thief. (and I do count myself as competent at breaking in, it's the getting out and away with it that tends to be a little more problematic) After being released, he is set up in an apartment in a run-down building. On the top floor lives a man who spends most of his time looking out his window through an expensive, fancy telescope. This man, who people refer to as Buzz, as in Lightyear, has a proposition for our narrator. The characters make this an enjoyable story. The narrator has an off-beat way of looking at life, and he's so honest about his faults, about the system, about his outlook. Buzz is just nutsy enough to be uniqe, and I enjoyed the interactions between the two of...