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him with physical and emotional scars.
After Kane leaves the CIA and becomes an
assassin for hire, the agency decides to
send one of their own, Bull Racklin, to
eliminate him. Racklin tracks his quarry
to Ansonville,
Ga., where
Kane has gone
undercover to
exact vengeance
on members of
the mob who
murdered a
man, Barton
Fisk, who stole
more than
$100,000 from
them and later roughed up Barton’s sister.
In a subsequent case, Kane goes on the
warpath to find the true killer of a five-
year-old boy before the person wrongly
imprisoned for the crime is executed.
Dennis (1931–1988) doesn’t mince words.
Every line is razor sharp and without an
ounce of fat. Jason Bourne fans will find a
lot to like. (Sept.)A Night’s Tail:
A Magical Cats Mystery
Sofie Kelly. Berkley Prime Crime, $25 (288p)
ISBN 978-0-440-00113-3
Kelly’s pleasant 11th Magical Cats
mystery (after 2018’s The Cats Came Back)
finds Kathleen Paulson, the director of
the Mayville Heights, Minn., Free Public
Library, hosting her younger brother,
Ethan, for two weeks while he and his band,
the Flaming Gerbils, are in town. When
Derek Hanson, one of Ethan’s bandmates,
punches drunken businessman Lewis
Wallace for kicking a disabled veteran’s
service dog, Derek’s admirable deed makes
him a murder suspect after Lewis turns up
dead. Kathleen is determined to leave the
investigation to her detective boyfriend,
Marcus Gordon, until Ethan begs her to
help clear Derek. With a nudge in the
right direction by her two delightful and
perfectly ordinary cats (save for the fact
that one can walk through walls and the
other can disappear at will), Kathleen
finds several people around town who had
the means, motive, and opportunity to do
away with the unpleasant Lewis. Kelly
stocks a charming small-town setting with
plenty of colorful characters, mystical cats,
and muffins. Cozy readers will be wellwonders whether Davina is being overpro-
tective. Though Slade is a bit of a deadbeat,
there’s no indication that Laurette was
forced to go with him. But as Jeri looks
deeper into Slade’s background, she dis-
covers some troubling information about
him that causes her grave concern about
Laurette’s safety. This love letter to New
Orleans has a great sense of place, which
compensates in part for a mystery with few
surprises. Series fans will best appreciate
this one. (Sept.)Deep Waters: Murder on the Waves
Edited by Martin Edwards. Poisoned Pen,
$14.99 trade paper (352p) ISBN 978-1-4642-
1177-5
This enjoyable reprint anthology show-
cases 16 crime stories “connected, in one
way or another, with water,” as Edwards
(Crimson Snow) notes in his introduction.
Among the highlights are William Hope
Hodgson’s “Bullion!,” in which boxes of
gold bullion appear and disappear aboard
a ship, and Gwyn Evans’s “The Pool of
Secrets,” a clever variation on The Hound
of the Baskervilles, in which a murder is
purportedly the work of the ghost of a
woman who drowned herself in her silver
wedding gown. Fans of the Columbo TV
series will appreciate R. Austin Freeman’s
“The Echo of a Mutiny,” in which the
author’s Holmesian detective, Dr. John
Thorndyke, is able to apprehend a killer by
examining the clues he left at the murder
scene, a lighthouse. Drawing on an ency-
clopedic knowledge of the genre, Edwards
includes writers who will be new to most
readers, notably James Pattinson, whose
tricky “The Man Who Was Drowned”
centers on a suspicious account of a man
falling overboard from an ocean liner. This
volume is a welcome addition to the British
Library Crime Classics series. (Sept.)A Talent for Killing
Ralph Dennis. Brash, $18.99 trade paper
(328p) ISBN 978-1-732-42263-6
According to the publisher, Lee
Goldberg (True Fiction) has combined
Dennis’s Deadman’s Game (1976), his first
Kane novel, with its unpublished sequel,
substantially editing both in the process, to
produce this breathless, lean noir thriller.
Kane, a top-notch agent for the CIA, loses
his memory after suffering a concussion
during a botched mission that also leavesThe plot follows predictable pathways,
including a scene featuring a captive and
near-naked Chase at the mercy of a sex-
crazed sadist. Hopefully, Kies will do better
next time. Agent: Kimberley Cameron,
Kimberley Cameron & Assoc. (Sept.)
Jealousy Filled Donuts:
A Deputy Donut Mystery
Ginger Bolton. Kensington, $15.95 trade paper
(288p) ISBN 978-1-4967-1191-5
Set in Fallingbrook, Wis., Bolton’s
charming third Deputy Donut mystery
(after 2018’s Goodbye Cruller World) opens
on the morning of the Fourth of July when
Deputy Donut shopkeeper Emily Westhill
is supposed to drive the festivities’ king
and queen in the town parade. Emily ends
up with the duke and duchess, however,
after the queen, Taylor Wishbard, turns
up her nose at Emily’s restored Ford. That
evening during a picnic, someone aims a
firework, hidden in a batch of Emily’s
donuts, at the snooty Taylor, killing her.
When photographer Philip Landsdowner
accuses Emily of lighting the firework,
and Wisconsin Division of Criminal
Investigation detective Rex Clobar con-
siders her a suspect, Emily turns sleuth.
Could it have been Taylor’s best friend or
her old boyfriend? Maybe the hairdresser
Taylor maligned or Landsdowner or
someone from the ice cream shop where
Taylor worked? Bolton keeps the reader
guessing throughout. Yummy donut
recipes round out a whodunit (or is it a
whodonut?) sure to please cozy fans. Agent:
John Talbot, Talbot Fortune Agency. (Sept.)
The Devil Close Behind:
A Jeri Howard Mystery
Janet Dawson. Perseverance, $15.95 trade
paper (224p) ISBN 978-1-56474-606-1
Howard’s workmanlike 13th mystery
featuring PI Jeri Howard (2018’s Water
Signs) takes Jeri to New Orleans, where
she gets a call from Davina Roka, a friend
back in her hometown of Oakland, Calif.
Davina, a New Orleans native, asks Jeri to
look for her missing sister, Laurette Mason,
who recently gave up her job and her
apartment and left the Big Easy with her
musician boyfriend, Eric Slade. When
Davina assures Jeri that this isn’t like
Laurette, at least not like Laurette was
before her husband died and her-four-year-
old daughter was killed in a car wreck, Jeri