published St Martins, Minotaur Mysteries, 2003, paperback.

I was at Emoticon, the NZ National SF Convention in Auckland when this came out and Barbara Clenden of Barbara’s Books strongly recommended it. I bought it because Barbara had been selling books to me for years, and was very accurate in knowing what I might like. On this one she was dead on the money. I read it in one gulp that night, came downstairs in the morning, ordered the previous three, and have been buying them ever since. The first book won (I think) four different mystery awards, and the judges too were dead on the money. The series is great, the characters are hilariously believable, the background is authentic, and the plots are – er – to die for.

In Crouching Buzzard, Leaping Loon, Meg Langslow, a blacksmith by trade,  is running the reception desk at her brother’s new company, Mutant Wizards, set up to sell his computer game:Lawyers From Hell. Rob (her brother) has the feeling that something isn’t right at the company and wants Meg (known to her family as their resident detective despite her protests) to see if she can find out what’s giving him that chill at the back of the neck. It’s almost impossible to explain the plot except to say that there is indeed something strange going on at the company. For a start it’s mostly staffed by young male geeks, all mad on RPGs, and playing practical jokes.

And that’s not counting company policy of taking your dog to work, sharing the company space with six mental health specialists who resent sharing the space and resent sharing it with a gaming company named Mutant Wizards even more. They add peculiar patients, their own affairs and ‘affirmative bears’ to the mix. Then there’s George the one-winged Buzzard in Meg’s reception area, (when she isn’t feeding him microwaved mice, she’s worrying about him vomiting on her), there”s Spike, her de-facto mother-in-law’s small evil dog in company residence, and a pregnant cat under her desk.  There’s the huge biker dude prowling the parking lot after dark, a rabid fan of the game constantly trying to get into the company area to find out about the next installment of Lawyers From hell, and, oh, yes, there’s the staff member who left and is now supposedly nursing his gun collection and a grudge. Not to mention a host of would-be bringers of law suits all of whom insist that Mutant Wizards stole their idea.

Then there is the automated mail cart that cruises constantly through the company area – and Ted, who is usually to be found lying on it in various poses, some of which suggest that he’s been murdered in transit. And then the mail cart cruises by Meg’s desk bearing Ted, who really has been murdered this time, and she’d better find out whodunnit because the local police chief thinks it’s her brother Rob and has just arrested him. So Meg begins to dig into what’s going on, to find that the staff are up to such a wide range of activities, some legal, some not, that searching out those alone  keeps Meg pretty busy. Meanwhile elsewhere, Michael ( currently on location for a TV series) Meg’s gorgeous actor boyfriend (when he isn’t being a professor at the local university) is getting worried about Meg’s activities. As is the murderer. And in a denouncement which reminds me very strongly of a British farce, the killer is unmasked, and Meg and Michael may finally have found a place to live where they’ll  finally have room for her work.

Frankly whenever I read this book I laugh, and that’s despite having now read it 4-5 times, the most recent being this week when I startled Thunder (asleep across my knees) with a howl of amusement as I got to the bit about the biker trying to ‘liberate’ George who didn’t in the least want to be liberated (for excellent reasons) and who was resisting violently.  Meg’s family are the perfect characters with whom to surround her. I read the books and think wistfully that it would have been nice had they been my family. The background is fairly real since the author lives there, and the plots, while I hope they aren’t real, are clever, funny, and very well worked out. This is one of the series where I am hoping vigorously that the author a) doesn’t die any time soon, that b) she doesn’t stop writing ditto, and that c) her publisher is smart enough to keep publishing the series – and d) that I can always afford them. Recommended to those mystery lovers with a sense of humour, and a liking for animals, family, a good murder, and witty repartee.

softcover, published by Science Fiction Trails, April 2012.

Reviewed by Steve Johnson.

This was an excellent compilation, there was only one story that I thought wasn’t  a reasonable  read, and all were definitely weird. Don D’Ammassa’s Drawn Out was, I thought, the best in the anthology. It produced an aspect of ‘weirdness’ that I haven’t seen before. (Yes, there may be other writers doing the ‘drawing shows the inner person’ aspect, but I haven’t read them and I liked (a lot) what he did with the story and characters.) With Lyn’s story I’d have preferred the torture to be a bit less graphic but it was a good tale and covered possible aspects of time travel outcomes very neatly. Feeding Pluto was a fine example of the ‘killer cannibals run residential accommodation’ sub-genre, as was Hell Home on the Range. Each came at their story from a different angle, and both stories were fun to read. And finally I enjoyed Art Lessons; short, clever, and interesting, and A Walk in the Woods: dog saves the day.

On the other stories I would note that I found A Quarter Past Death and Trail of the Brujo both well-written but just a little generic. The Judiciales was a good story and I was enjoying it right up to the final words, which left me sitting there saying “What?” I may have missed something, but they explained nothing to me, left me hanging, and that isn’t a good ending. I mentioned this to Lyn and she said that she’d had that complaint a few times with her submissions, thatwhen that happened it usually came from the writer knowing what was going on, and now and again forgetting to make it plain for the reader. Her take on the story was that the main character was being tried in limbo on his way to Hell. I thought that was possible although not certain, but I still didn’t like the vague ending. Considering the anthology itself, this had an excellent cover with good suitable artwork and graphics. It was a nicely presented book and well put-together. A handful of typos/errors, bought instead of ‘bout for example, but even the big publishers don’t entirely eliminate those. And as always I liked seeing short bios for those involved. A good anthology.

published ACE, November 2007, paperback. Reviewed by Lyn McConchie.

I picked up the second and fourth books in this series on a recommendation. I liked them so much that I left a comment on the author’s site and with great generosity, he sent me the first and third in the series. I’m told that the series, if not definitely dropped, is certainly on hiatus and I’m sorry about that. It’s excellent work, I’ve really enoyed the books to date and I’d planned to keep buying them. It makes me sad to think that after only four books, the series may have ended.

The characters are interesting. There’s Mason, magic-user, musician, previously an enforcer making those who misuse their talents change their minds about doing that, and currently mostly broke. Like all good magic practitioners Mason has a sidekick, in this case something that looks like a Black and Tan Manchester (Terrior) but isn’t. Louie is an Ifrit and has abilities – some of which are not always apparent. There’s Victor, originally Mason’s employer and determined to police those who prefer the dark side, and Eli, older,  Mason’s mentor, and rather a nice guy. Musicians, other magic-users, and many people that are neither wander in and out – and most survive.

One thing becomes clear quite early on in the book. Mason’s ability to improvise musically, matches his ability to do that magically. I found the tie between music and magic attractive and believable as well. (No, I have NO musical talent,  but I love many forms of music and regret my lack of ability.) I also liked that the author didn’t feel the need to go into massive info. dumps of how all  that worked, he trusted me to pick it up from hints and clues as I read, and to take some on faith. (If I’m reading a book with a Christian background, I don’t need another book’s worth of information on the Christian religion crammed in, in terminally boring ten-page-at-a-time expositions and I can’t see why some readers seem to want that.)

Attacks on him begin as Mason finds that someone seems intent on either seeing how good his magical abilities are or just plain getting him out of the way.  A man needs friends at his back, so Mason takes his troubles to Eli, and Victor, (well, not exactly a friend in Victor’s case,) and things escalate as Mason discovers that he isn’t the only one who is being attacked. So far there’s been one death, but there’s nothing to say events will stop with one. Mason, Eli and Victor need to unravel the growing danger that looks likely to affect the entire magical community if it’s left to continue,  since another magic-user is stealing power from those who have it, and they seem to have decided that Mason may be a bump in their road to that. If he can’t work out who’s responsible fairly quickly, friends may die.

I found Dog Days a read that grabbed me, hauled me in, and kept me glued to the pages until I’d finished. In fact the first book that I read from this series had me up until very late one night since I wasn’t prepared to quit until I’d finished reading. The characters are good, you recognize them as people, in fact minus the magic I could name a couple of people I know who are very like Eli and Victor…and Mason, come to think of it. The background is fully realized and with just sufficient odd corners to it that the potential of both the mundane world and the magic overlap are fun, often unexpected, and now and then scary. I understand that the author is working on a YA book that may have Mason and Louie as secondary characters and that’ll be better than nothing so I’m watching out for it. Sigh. I just wish that there’s been more than the four books in this series before it broke off. And that maybe, one day soon, it’ll resume too and I can get more of Mason and Louie to read at the times when I’m not writing. because they’re a very good read.