Ben East Books

Tag: Mystery

  • Message in a Bulb

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    Ben East
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    I concocted a great mystery around the assumption that café lights are fragile things. In this myth, a neighborhood squirrel named Future Pelt deviled me with his mischief, leaving a riddle on my flagstone patio: the socket and intact bulb from the lights dangling overhead. The mystery goes back several weeks, when Future Pelt first…

  • Miles of Fun, Miles of Files

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    Ben East
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    Paul Panepinto is bored at work. How could he not be? He’s a painter trapped by lapsed policies, cold chocolate in a Federal Funding mug, and long stints of muzak while on hold with Mortgage Depot. Also there are his smarmy daydreams of ‘better times’ with Suzanne Biedertyme to get him through the monotony. Panepinto…

  • Murder and the Father of American Diplomacy

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    Ben East
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    We all know Ben Franklin as one of the nation’s earliest Renaissance Men: scientist, printer, writer, businessman, scholar, politician, diplomat. Fireman. In David R. Andresen’s short mystery Murder in a Blue Moon Ben takes a break from his more gentlemanly pursuits, such as chess, to solve a serial murder in Philadelphia. It’s fall of 1752, the American Experiment…

  • True Crime Review: Ivory Tower Cop

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    Ben East
    in

    George Kirkham and Leonard Territo pair up to deliver an informative, fast-paced police procedural in Ivory Tower Cop, exploring a serial rape case based on actual events. The thriller digs into half a dozen savage crimes, the latest developments in forensic science, arcane Biblical studies, historical detail from The Third Reich, and Nazism’s reach into…

  • ONE DEAD COP

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    by

    Ben East
    in

    Taillights cut a pool of red in the dark where three African heavies in police uniform manned the makeshift roadblock.  A fourth figure loomed over the driver-side door two cars up.  The cops held their rifles clumsily.  Probably they were cops, Raines thought. Criminals in the West African Republic handled weapons better than the police…

  • ONE DEAD COP

    —

    by

    Ben East
    in

    Taillights cut a pool of red in the dark where three African heavies in police uniform manned the makeshift roadblock.  A fourth figure loomed over the driver-side door two cars up.  The cops held their rifles clumsily.  Probably they were cops, Raines thought. Criminals in the West African Republic handled weapons better than the police…