MONACO HEIST

 

MONACO HEIST

By Van Allen Plexico & Alan J. Porter

White Rocket Books

306 pgs

 

We’ve always loved “caper” crime novels. It is always fun watching professional thieves overcome near impossible challenges to abscond with whatever prize they are focused on stealing. Award winning pulp writer, Van Allen Plexico is also a fan of this crime sub genre and has created an on-going series featuring two really likeable thieves, Harper and Salsa. He put them through their paces in their first two outings, “Vegas Heist” and “Maimi Heist.” Both are highly recommended, if you haven’t read them yet. 

In this third outing, Plexico is joined by another veteran scribe, Alan J. Porter, who is a racing car affectionato. You see, dear readers, this entry takes place in the colorful principality of Monaco where our guys are out to steal six priceless diamonds mounted on the hood of a racing car as it winds its way through the city’s narrow street in this annual International Grand Prix. 

The diamonds are owned by a wealthy shipping tycoon with plans to take over the small little country. But he’s also heavily in debt to a mysterious criminal organization. Hoping the publicity generated by the audacious racing gimmick will allow him to sell the diamonds for enough money to satisfy his creditors; at the same time have enough left over to continue his own nefarious schemes. Into the twisted scenario, our protagonists, along with their respective girlfriends, Lois and Connie, arrive totally unaware how complicated their plans are about to become. And if all this wasn’t enough to keep one guessing, Plexico and Porter throw in two deadly secret agents in a weird spy versus spy subplot. 

“Monaco Heist,” is one of those fast-paced books that keeps the reader mesmerized from the first checkered flag to the last. There are almost as many twist and turns in the plot as there are in racecourse itself. By the conclusion, we felt as if we were romping through a madcap Pink Panther movie without an Inspector Clouseau. Although Salsa comes very close to filling that role. Honestly, this is a fun read. and we are thrilled to learn there are more Harper and Salsa capers on the way. You should be too.

QUARRY'S REUNION

 

QUARRY’S REUNION

By Max Allan Collins

Available 10 Nov. 2026

Hard Case Crime

217 pgs

 

Grand Master mystery writer Max Allan Collins has created a number of series during his long career. He’s given us professional thieves, historical private eyes, retired secret agents and a wonderful small town female sheriff among many others. All were brilliantly written, but we do have our favorites. Topping our list is the Quarry books that tell the story of a Vietnam veteran and his evolution into a contract killer. Why it remains our favorite is primarily because, like Collin’s deadly protagonist, we too are veterans of that Southeast Asian conflict and are now well past calling ourselves middle-age. 

Collins allows his fictional character to age like the rest of us. With the past few entries in the series, it has been fun to watch a 70-year-old tough guy deal with new, and always dangerous situations. Never quite sure his body will respond to whatever threats he will encounter; Quarry has to rely on his experience and hard earned survival skills. 

In this new story, he is summoned back to his home town of Fair View, Ohio, by his long ago high-school sweetheart, Mary Ann Kemper. After he had left home to join the US Marines, Mary Ann married Bobby Means, the son of the town’s wealthiest family. They had a beautiful daughter named Jenny. After the marriage ended in divorce, Bobby married another local girl, Suzanne Shaw, and together they had a son, Alex. Soon after, Suzanne followed Mary Ann’s history and left him. Despite the scandalous divorces, Bobby’s mother, Virginia Means, refused to abandon her grandchildren and set up a trust fund for them. When turning 50, both Jenny and Alex would receive half a million dollars. 

Now, as each is nearing that particular birthday, Jenny is nearly killed in three separate incidents. The police believe them to be nothing by random events, but Mary Ann disagrees. Convinced someone is trying to kill her daughter, she reaches out to Quarry. How and why she does this would involve writing our own lengthy dissertation. Suffice it to say, our protagonist agrees to help her. All this occurs during the weekend of his 50^th High School Reunion.  Among his surviving classmates are several possible suspects with motives for wanting Jenny terminated. 

“Quarry’s Reunion” is a fun read watching Collins juxtapose his mystery over the all too familiar nostalgic torture that these gatherings become. It offers us a rare glimpse into Quarry’s origins, his life and aspiration before the world turned upside down and he found himself lost in a jungle half a world away. Again, it was all too easy for this reviewer to nod time and again, as we share quite a few of the old soldiers’ memories. This Quarry is a different character, attesting to the reality that change is the only true constant. Thanks Max, for not being afraid to grow old with us.

THE 10:12

 

THE 10:12

By Anna Maloney

Harper Perennial

Available in Oct.

299 pgs

 

When reading a modern-day action thriller, the last thing any reader expects to encounter is a middle-age female art teacher cast in the role of an action hero. Claire Fitzroy is on her way home to London from Manchester having bought a ticket on the 10:12 train. She has plenty of things on her mind, to include the possibility that her husband, Jim, is planning to leave her. It occupies her thoughts until, after a few minutes out of the station, a group of ill-prepared, rag-tag men hijack the train. 

Yelling and waving guns around frighteningly, this group of thugs suddenly turns what had begun as a boring train ride into a rolling nightmare for Claire and the other 387 passengers on board. Then, an incredible accident, the average housewife managed to kill one of the terrorists and help tie up a second. Before she can fully come to grips with what she has done, Claire begins to organize those people in her car willing to risk an attempt to retake control of the train. 

What follows is chapter and after chapter of razor edge suspense. We are introduced to Deavy, and ex-soldier who immediately becomes Claire’s partner and several others. As they methodically move up the train, they manage to retake the other cars, either subduing the terrorist on them, or killing them. The battle isn’t without cost and ultimately several of the brave civilians are also slain. Still, by the end of the book’s first half, Claire and her team win out and all the terrorists defeated and captured. 

But our story doesn’t end there. What follows are lots of interviews by the police and eventually a trial. Here Claire and her allies testify, from their personal memories of that awful day, their violent encounters with the hijackers. Every detail is scrutinized by the prosecutor and defense attorneys. Each of the surviving criminals is tried, convicted and sentenced to various British prisons. Through it all, poor Claire finds herself obsessed with understanding exactly why these men, from different backgrounds and occupations, somehow magically came together and planned such a horrendous event. Never mind  that during the hijacking and subsequently on the witness stand, none of them had the same clear-cut goals. It made no logical sense. Claire begins to suspect there are hidden facts known only by certain government agencies that are being withheld from the public. She is determined to uncover what they are and who was actually responsible for the deaths of several innocent souls.

 

Anna Maloney has written a genuine page turner that takes hold of the reader immediately and never once let’s go. The pacing is brutal, the characters, especially the courageous passengers, memorable. In all a decidedly new path taken for what was all too often a familiar and tired mold. Thanks for breaking it, Anna Maloney.