Book Review Books General Fiction HISTORICAL FICTION MYSTERY / CRIME FICTION

“The Firehand File” by Bob Van Laerhoven

The Firehand File, by Bob Van Laerhoven, takes us to early 1920s Berlin. There’s Detective Chaim Orlosow, who’s on the trail of a serial killer known as the Skinner. His friend is a Flemish DADA poet whose girlfriend has left him for a more financially secure man. Two Jewish children struggle on the streets. An enigmatic woman with ties to the National Socialist Party may be hiding a secret or two. A woman is undergoing the process of her reassignment surgery. At the center of it all are mysterious diary entries that set the characters on a collision course with a powerful leader: Adolf Hitler.

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Book Review Books General Fiction HISTORICAL FICTION MYSTERY / CRIME FICTION

“The Harlot of St. Cecelia’s” by Darcy Graves

The year is 1923, and American Eden Brior finds herself working as a librarian in London. Everything started normally for Eden at St. Cecelia’s Library until the night of an accidental book vault lock-in with a charming, careless stranger named Simon Cross. After a night spent there, she finds herself in the middle of the murder case of French stage actress Isabelle Jalbert. Who murdered her? How can she prove that she and Simon were not involved, even with the fact that Detective Garrett has evidence otherwise?

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Book Review Books General Fiction HISTORICAL FICTION Military MYSTERY / CRIME FICTION

“Traitor or Hero” by Matthew Eberz

In July 1942, Otis was a young man from Pennsylvania who left his small town to serve his country in its time of need. He enlisted in the Navy and was both nervous and excited when his ship engaged the enemy off the Gulf of Mexico. While there was an adrenaline rush when he experienced his first firefight, this was tempered by the sight of enemy casualties floating in the Gulf waters. Otis survived the war but came home a changed man, the war having left a lasting impression on his heart and mind. Sixty years later, Otis is aging, widowed, and preparing to leave this world. As he is combing through his belongings, he finds a message written in German. He remembers taking this as a keepsake from one of the dead sailors in 1942.

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