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Investigative reporter Merrick McKnight is back in this sequel to Thunder Beach, set in his hometown of Wewathitchka, called “Wewa” by the locals, in Northern Florida.

Somehow recovered from losing his wife and son, he runs into Reggie Summers, a beautiful young woman that McKnight had a crush on in high school, but now seems to be lacking in self-esteem. She’s a single mom and thinks herself somehow inadequate and beneath the notice of the reporter whom she admires.

The police department in this small town is corrupt, and McKnight is there investigating when a cop is killed, apparently with his own gun.

This is a gristly tale of cop killers and small town corruption, but also a romance between McKnight and Summers, and to complicate things even further, author Michael Lister makes an appearance as himself; a mystery writer much admired in this small town. This book is advertised as a twentieth anniversary celebration of Lister as a novelist, so there are several nods to twenty years of history here. The setting is atypical for Florida novels and is interesting in of itself, and lots of dialogue helps move the story along.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

11/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

A CERTAIN RETRIBUTION by Michael Lister. Pulpwood Press (November 28, 2014). ISBN 978-1888146462. 232p.

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Translated by Siân Reynolds

Police lieutenant Richard Guérin works suicides in Paris, a thankless job that has led his predecessors down a rocky road, but he thrives on it. Guérin is a cop with scruples, working in a very dirty division. He has to determine whether it was suicide or murder when an oncoming truck kills a smiling young man running naked down a major thoroughfare.

Another strange suicide case lands on his desk when Alan Musgrave, a junkie, supposedly killed himself on stage in a private S&M club. Musgrave’s friend, American John Nichols, is living off the grid in southern France, but is forced to return to Paris to identify the body. Nichols finds the suicide call suspicious, and ends up working with Guérin on the investigation.

As more bizarre suicide cases land on his desk, Guérin puts his extraordinary puzzle solving skills to the test, finding the common thread that confirms his philosophy that “everything is connected.”

There are lots of interesting characters here, including Guérin’s dim-witted assistant, a Parisian park keeper who also happens to be an ex-con, and a beautiful German artist who covers her naked body in paint and flings herself at canvas.  Guérin’s foul-mouthed parrot, inherited from his deceased mother, a former prostitute, adds an occasional lighter moment to this dark police procedural, winner of the Prix Quai du Polar crime fiction award in France.

For readers who enjoy Fred Vargas, the same translator does fine work here.

Copyright ©2014 Booklist, a division of the American Library Association.

11/14 Stacy Alesi, AKA the BookBitch

BED OF NAILS by Antonin Varenne. MacLehose Press (November 4, 2014). ISBN 978-1623651251. 256p.