A Dead Red Gamble - R.P. Dahlke

    2018; 163 pages.  Book 6 (out of 7) in the “Dead Red Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Women Sleuths; Crime Mystery; Arizona.  Overall Rating : 6½*/10.

 

    Order in the court now, somebody shot young Judge Gavin Borrega!  In the courthouse!  In broad daylight!

 

    Where’s the security video?  Where were the court guards?  Heck, rumor has it the judge had even hired some private guards for added security.  Where were they?

 

    Maybe it was politically motivated.  It’s been said that Judge Borrega was being groomed for a run for the governor’s office.  Maybe it was some jilted lover.  Gavin was indeed a handsome fellow.  Maybe it was our hero, Private Investigator Lalla Bains.  She had a meeting scheduled with the judge at the same time as the murder took place.

 

    Hmmm.  Or maybe it had to do with those dozens of fluttering, squawking chickens which somebody dumped into the courthouse just before the shooting took place!  That couldn’t have been just a coincidence!

 

What’s To Like...

    A Dead Red Gamble is the sixth, and penultimate book in R.P. Dahlke’s Dead Red Mystery series.  It is set in Cochise County in southern Arizona, in the fictional town of Wishbone.

 

    The story's structure is the usual for this series.  Lalla and her PI partner (and cousin) Pearlie get drawn into investigating Borrega’s murder, albeit in an unofficial capacity.  Lalla’s husband, Caleb, is the police chief, and would rather his wife sit this case out.  That’s reasonable.  Her father, Noah Bains, is critically ill, which leads to the problem of who’s going watch Noah’s two foster children, Rocky and Jimmy.

 

    Naturally, the initial murder case rapidly gets more complex, with other killings, both past and present, coming into play.  There are other personal and professional issues as well.  Pearlie and her beau, Harley, are no longer on speaking terms, and neither will say why.  Lalla and Pearlie’s move into a new office, only to find it’s …erm… broomed.  And the cash-strapped Bains-&-Bains Detective Agency can receive a healthy bonus check if they can provide proof that an insurance client is faking an injury.  Hmm.  How do you go about proving that?

 

    That’s a lot of plot threads to deal with in ja novella-length book, but R.P. Dahlke manages to get them all tied up.  The story is told in the first-person POV (Lalla’s), and the chapters are relatively short (8½ pages average), with 19 of them covering the 163 pages.  A Dead Red Gamble is both a standalone tale and part of a series.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.5*/5, based on 326 ratings and 60 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.38*/5, based on 208 ratings and 30 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    I felt sorry for Allison.  I heard her smarts had landed her a co-anchor job on Channel Five.  Unfortunately, the station was following the growing Fox News practice of requiring female anchors to wear tight dresses and enough makeup to look like they were nightclubbing instead of reciting yesterday’s city council fights and today’s traffic jams.  Today, someone had decided that she could do without her glasses and things weren’t going too well for the poor girl.  (loc. 727)

 

    Since I promised to do Pearlie’s process serves while she went to Phoenix to get information on Judge Borrega’s stepfather, the senator, I got out her list and checked off the ones for which I’d need special props.

    What sounds really simple, hand a person a summons to court, write up a report and turn it into the court or the law firm, doesn’t always go well.  At least not for me.  Pearlie, with her big blue eyes, dimples and full-figured curves is a natural.  Women appreciate her gutsy attitude for the job, and men, well they usually drool, so process serving is easy for Pearlie.  (loc. 1423)

 

Kindle Details…

    At the moment, A Dead Red Gamble sells for $4.99 at Amazon.  The other six books in the series are all in the $3.99-$4.99 price range.  The author has three other e-books available, each priced at $4.99.

 

“You can’t hire a guy with Prosopagnosia.”  (loc. 1543)

    There’s only a small amount of profanity.  I noted just 6 instances in the first 25% of the book, five “hells” and one “damn”.  I don’t recall any “adult situations” in the story.

 

    The editing is good, and is mostly confined to punctuation issues: a missing comma here, a misplaced apostrophe there, etc.  There were a couple instances of hyphens inserted into compound words (example: news-people/newspeople), but I have a feeling those crept in during the conversion-to-digital stage.

 

    My biggest issue was with the ending,.  It felt rushed to me.  For most of the book Lalla noses around, coming up with a variety of possible suspects and motives.  That was good.  But instead of things building to an exciting climax, or Lalla using Sherlockian reasoning to peg the suspect, one of the characters simply reveals to her (and the reader) who killed who and why.  I found it disappointing.  I don’t recall the earlier books in the series having endings like this.

 

    Bottom line: if you primarily read cozy mysteries for the “cozy” human activities and not the “mystery” elements, you’ll enjoy A Dead Red Gamble, despite its brevity  However, the Mystery angle always takes precedence for me.

 

    6½ Stars.  Acronym Alert!!  The term “BOLO” popped up in the story, and without a translation.  My geezer brain tried various combinations, most of them involving “Buy One, L-Something, One”, none of which worked.  It turns out to be police-speak for “Be On the Lookout”.  Now you know.

A Dead Red Miracle - R.P. Dahlke

   2015; 250 pages.  Book 5 (out of 7) in the “Dead Red Mystery” series.  New Author? : No.  Genres : Women Sleuths; Crime Mystery; Arizona.  Overall Rating : 8*/10.

 

    Bosses can be scumbags sometimes.  Just ask the cousins Lalla and Pearlie Bains, who are working for PI Ron Barbour as interns so they can get their Private Investigator licenses.

 

    Barbour’s business has slacked off recently, which means Lalla and Pearlie’s slice of the income has shrunk to a meager sum.  Now they’ve just discovered their boss has been hiding cases, and dollars, from them.  What a scumbag!  They're so angry they could just kill him.

 

    Except that someone has beat them to the punch… er… slaying.  They drive out the Barbour's house to confront him, and catch a glimpse the body of their boss dead on the floor of his house just before the whole place goes up in smoke.  The police soon arrive on the scene, and try to find out who did what to Barbour.

 

    Say, how come they’re looking at Lalla and Pearlie so suspiciously?  It’s almost as if they think Lalla and Pearlie might have done it.

 

What’s To Like...

    A Dead Red Miracle is the fifth book the R.P. Dahlke’s entertaining Dead Red Mystery series.  Pearlie, Lalla, her husband Caleb, and Lalla’s dad Noah have recently relocated from the fertile fields of Fresno, California to the desert dryness of Sierra Vista in southern Arizona.

 

    As mentioned, Lalla and Pearlie are in the process of applying for their Private Investigator licenses, which requires some on-the-job training.  Their mentor/boss’s demise puts those plans in jeopardy.  But it also gives them an opportunity to do some serious sleuthing.

 

    The case rapidly become more complicated.  There are several more deaths to look into, various suspects and material witnesses to track down, and two youthful delinquents (the Garza brothers) to find suitable foster parents to take care of.  Things become so hectic that Lalla and Pearlie have to hire additional help.

 

The story is told from the first-person point-of-view, Lalla’s.  Snarky wit, mixed with friendly banter, abounds between our two protagonists as they try to determine the perpetrators.  There is a nice bit of Native American culture blended into the tale, although the genre listed in the Amazon blurb, Native American Literature, seems a bit of a stretch.

 

    Things build to a suitably exciting ending, with all of the various plot threads (I noted ten of them) getting tied up.  The killings are solved mostly by Lalla’s logical thinking along wiht some fortuitous circumstances.  The story closes with a short but catchy Epilogue involving two pairs of siblings.  The sisters Velma and Zelma give our heroes a neat little plot twist, and the resolution of the Garza brothers’ future will warm your heart.

 

Ratings…
    Amazon: 4.4*/5, based on 1,429 ratings and 303 reviews.

    Goodreads: 4.14*/5, based on 709 ratings and 72 reviews.

 

Excerpts...

    “I thought you enjoyed the company of your landlady.”

    “She wants me to become a vegetarian.”

    “Sounds like a good idea.  You are a heart patient, you know.”

    “I’m a secondhand vegetarian.  Cows eat grass, I eat the cows, and I’m going to continue to enjoy eating that way till I die, thank you very much.”  (loc. 1014)

 

    “If you can’t pay your rent, we have a spare couch.”

    “Ew-w-w.  I’m not that poor.”

    “Since we’re talking about men, how was your date with the trainer from the gym?”

    Pearlie’s mouth twitched.  “Just because a man has Genius printed on his T-shirt, doesn’t mean he is one.”

    I grinned.  “Not hunky enough to ignore his IQ, huh?”

    “Not if he was wrapped in bacon and came with his own trust fund.”  (loc. 1814)

 

Kindle Details…

    A Dead Red Miracle sells for $4.99 right now at Amazon.  The other six books in the series cost either $3.99 (first and last books) or $4.99 (the rest of them).  R.P. Dahlke has three other e-books available, ranging in price from $3.54 to $3.99.  Two are part of a romantic sailing mystery trilogy, the third, and most recent, is a paranormal mystery.

 

“Damian broke into your office again and you reward him with a job?”  “We’re short-handed.”  (loc. 1967)

    The cussing is pleasingly sparse, just five instances in the first 20%, plus one racial epithet later on.  I love it when an author doesn’t have to resort to excessive foul language to set a scene.

 

    My main gripe is my usual one for this series.  The editing is atrocious, and seemed to get worse as the book progressed.  The typos included: Ifinally/I finally; waived/waved, sixty’s/sixties, gapped/gasped, and the embarrassing Barber/Barbour; and Damion’s/Damian’s, just to name a few.  There were also occasional missing words and/or misplaced plurals, plus one continuity issue – referencing a person who wasn’t present.

 

    But if you don't let the errata bother you, you’ll find A Dead Red Miracle to be an engaging tale where character development is just as important as the whodunit aspect.  The book kept my interest throughout, which was also true of the first four books in this series.

 

    8 Stars.  At 250 pages, A Dead Red Miracle was still a novel of acceptable length, but Book 6, A Dead Red Gamble, drops off to 179 pages, and Book 7, A Dead Red Horse Thief, is a mere novella-length 119 pages.  That last book was published in 2019, so I’m assuming that means R.P. Dahlke is finished chronicling Lalla’s adventures.  If so, then I for one, am bummed.

High Desert Barbecue - J.D. Tuccille

   2011; 264 pages.  Full Title: High Desert Barbecue: A Tale of Suspense, Pyromania and Sexual Tension.  New Author? : Yes.  Genre : Action & Adventure; Humorous Fiction; Arizona.  Overall Rating : 6*/10.

 

    Meet Rollo.  He’s what you’d call a loner.  That’s not quite a hermit, but pretty close to it.

 

    Rollo lives by himself in a shack way out in the mountains of northern Arizona.  It’s about a day’s hike from the small city of Williams, Arizona.  He’s not bothering anybody.

 

    Well, that’s not quite accurate.  His one mistake is that he’s living on public land.  In a National Forest, to be specific.  The Forest Service doesn’t like that.

 

    Which is why they’ve just burnt down Rollo’s shack and commandeered his truck.  Rollo just barely escaped into the woods before they grabbed him.  Now what’s he gonna do?

 

    Hey, is that a Forest Service Chevy Blazer parked just over there?  It’s a much classier truck than Rollo’s old heap.  I wonder how fast it would get him into Flagstaff, where Rollo’s friend Scott lives?

 

What’s To Like...

    High Desert Barbecue is essentially a book-long chase with the bad guys—the Forest Service rangers and some of their friends with common interests—running over the rivers and through the canyons while chasing Rollo, Scott, and Scott’s girlfriend Lani.

 

    The entire story takes place in the greater Flagstaff area, most of it in a place called Sycamore Canyon.  My college roommate was from that area and places cited in High Desert Barbecue such as Mingus Mountain, Clarkdale, and the Mogollon Rim bring back fond memories.  I’m even familiar with the tiny speck of a village called Cornville, which is part of the address of the book’s publishing house.

 

    The Forest Service team bears a close resemblance to the Keystone Kops.  Our three heroes may be outgunned, outmanned, out-communicated, and out-vehicled, but when you’ve got a living-in-the-wild geezer like Rollo on your side, you’ve got a fighting chance.

 

    Both sides are “co-ed”, which explains the subtitle’s reference to sexual tension.  J.D. Tuccille obviously has great tastes in music, since Toby Keith, The Pogues, and the J. Geils Band all get mentioned.  The Flagstaff riots made me chuckle, especially since hippies are one of the groups involved.  And the whole concept of “eco-erotica” was a hoot.

 

    The ending is a bit forced, but adequate.  The prolonged chase finally comes to an end, and the perpetrators of the pyromania are revealed to all.  Our happy but beleaguered protagonists are alive and off the hook.  High Desert Barbecue is a standalone novel and not part of any series.  There’s room for a sequel (one or more of the baddies get away), but I seriously doubt J.D. Tuccille is contemplating one.

 Things That Sound Dirty But Aren’t…

    “I have powerful lungs from all the bike-riding I do.  I can suck as long and hard as you want.”  (loc. 891)

Ratings…

    Amazon:  4.0/5 based on 29 ratings and 26 reviews.

    Goodreads: 3.38/5 based on 45 ratings and 4 reviews.

Excerpts...

    “He don’t do so well in all his classes like he does in yours.”  She shrugged.  “He don’t do so well in summer school either.”

    Lani grimaced sympathetically.

    “I’m sorry about that Mrs. Begay.  I wish I could help, but there’s not much I can do about summer school.”

    Ozzie tugged at Lani’s shirt.

    “They don’t let me cut class like you do.”

    “Ummm … Let’s call it independent study, Ozzie.  Not cutting class.”  (loc. 216)

 

    Lani stood with a steaming metal cup in her hand, which she handed to Scott.  He took the cup and elaborately kissed her hand.

    “So we’re being chased through Sycamore Canyon by a pyro death cult?  How likely is that?”

    Rollo grumbled in obvious agreement.

    Scott sipped his coffee and sighed.

    “Well … it’s a lot more likely than the idea that we stumbled on a band of naked homicidal rangers holding a torch-lit forest-burning ceremony.”  (loc. 2102)

 

Kindle Details…

    High Desert Barbecue sells for $2.99 at Amazon.  It’s the only e-book offered by J.D. Tuccille, although there’s another dozen books or so under what's apparently his alternate nom de plume, Jerome Tuccille..

 

“Rollo!  I’m— Oh my God.  Did you set fire to your underwear?”  (loc. 2940)

    There are some quibbles.  From most nitpicky to least:

 

    The cussing frequency is moderate (14 instances in the first 10%), there’s a couple rolls in the hay, and a small amount of ancient marijuana, long past its expiration date, but which eventually becomes a factor in the storyline.

 

    There’s the usual number of typos and grammar errors that crop up in almost any indie author book, including things like paper weight/paperweight, on-coming/oncoming, here/her, and a place called Parsons/Parson Spring.  But they weren't frequent enough to become a distraction.

 

    The biggest problem for me was the overly convenient aspects of the storyline.  When our heroes need bigger and badass-er firepower; a cache conveniently appears.  When they’re about to be busted for shooting somebody; a distracting felony conveniently arises.  The appearance of such “deus ex machina” occurrences means that literary tension never builds as the ending approaches.

 

    And last but not least, the dog dies.

 

    6 Stars.  The main thing to keep in mind when reading High Desert Barbecue is that it’s primarily a piece of Humorous Fiction.  Are things too convenient?  Are the bad guys too unbelievably inept?  Yes and yes.  But that just contributes to the wit and comedy in the story, and in that respect I thought the book did okay.