Browsed by
Category: Mystery

What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: August, 2025

Comments 0 Comment

What I’ve Been Listening To is back for another installment. Audiobooks are omnipresent in my life now. Work, home, car, walking, bedtime: I’m constantly listening to them. Often something I’ve listened to before, which lets my mind half-focus to no ill effect. But I’m still listening.

Some recent plays – all Audible, as I need to get Hoopla set up on my ‘new’ used phone. I have listened to five different Bruce Campbell projects recently, so that’s probably another post.

MIDDLEBRIDGE MYSTERIES

I wrote about Mistletoe Murders, which is an Audible original series. It’s like a Hallmark mystery movie. Emily Lane runs a Christmas-themed store, but she has a secret past. Of course, there’s a local cop boyfriend, with a daughter named Violet.

I like the series, and they turned it into a Hallmark TV series as well, though I’ve not seen that yet. It uses different actors, which I’m not too enthused about.

Well, Violet was trying to get into college at the end of season three, and she did. So, Anna Cathcart is back and starring in Violet’s freshman year in criminal justice studies. Her professor is played by Eric McCormack (Will and Grace). I was a big fan of his show Perception and he’s good as a supporting character here.

…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Watching: August 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: August 2025

Comments 0 Comment

“Hey!” (you say to yourself). “I wonder what Bob has been watching? It’s been since May. Well, dear reader, I can’t leave you unfocused on our Monday work day, so let’s take a look, shall we? And – Gasp! – it’s all current stuff. How about that? And this is all spoiler free.

BALLARD

Michael Connelly writes the Bosch books, which spawned a terrific, gritty, seven season streaming series. HIGHLY recommended watch. Bosch an LAPD homicide detective, underwent a career change, which is the subject of the succeeding series, Bosch: Legacy. That lasted three seasons. All of this stuff has been taken from the novels. In the final episode of Legacy, an LAPD detective named Renee Ballard (also from a Connelly book series) plays a central part. And that’s because she’s the star of her own new series on Prime.

…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: June, 2025

Comments 2 comments

I continue to listen to audiobooks daily. I frequently drift off to sleep with a fifteen minute timer on. The BBC radio plays of the two Dirk Gently novels are regular late night listens. So is the terrific Marx Brothers homage, Flywheel, Shyster, and Flywheel. It was originally done by the Marxes themselves. BBC radio made a new version in 1990 and I frigging LOVE it.

Since I often have an audiobook on while I’m doing other things, I re-listen to things; or listen to books I’ve already read. It works great for me. I get some through my library app, but I mostly use Audible.

Here are some recent listens.

LEE GOLDBERG’S EVE RONIN

In the most recent What I’ve Been Listening To, I talked about Goldberg’s ‘buddy cop’ series featuring Sharpe & Walker. They are arson investigators in LA, and book one was pretty good. I just got the audiobook for number two, and I’m thrilled it crosses over with Lee’s Eve Ronin series. Even more thrilled that Nicol Zanzarella is doing Eve again – she’s terrific!!

The books are part of Kindle Unlimited, and number six is coming out later this year. I re-listened to all five in less than a week. Eve and her partner Duncan are a terrific buddy cop pair. Eve rose to fame when she was off duty and subdued a drunken action movie star who was smacking around his girlfriend in a parking lot. The video went viral on the Net and she parlayed it into a big promotion.

…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

What I’ve Been Watching: May 2025

Comments 9 comments

Wow. It’s been over half a year since I did a What I’ve Been Watching. I’ve already forgotten some of the stuff I watched since then! But let’s tackle a few more recent favorites. And what I’m re-watching, as usual.

COUNTY LINE

From 2017 through 2022, there were three TV movies (is that still ‘a thing’) in this series. I did not recognize the main actor away. He reminded me of Dan Dierdorf, but I had to look him up on IMDB. It was good ol’ Tom (Luke Duke) Wopat!

He’s Alden Rockwell, a sheriff/former sheriff in some Georgia country town. The city is split down the middle between two counties. So, you’ve got Alden, and the sheriff of the other county, involved in the same case. In the first one, Alden’s best friend (and sheriff) is shot, so he tries to solve the crime – and there’s a bigger thing going.

…

Read More Read More

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Murray – Who was N.V. Romero?

A (Black) Gat in the Hand: William Patrick Murray – Who was N.V. Romero?

Comments 0 Comment

“You’re the second guy I’ve met within hours who seems to think a gat in the hand means a world by the tail.” – Phillip Marlowe in Raymond Chandler’s The Big Sleep

(Gat — Prohibition Era term for a gun. Shortened version of Gatling Gun)

Will Murray has graced this column multiple times, and he has delved into a mystery or two. He’s got another one today, looking into a Pulp byline from the nineteen thirties that has gnawed away at him. And by golly, Will finally had enough! Read on…

____________________________________________

For literally decades, I’ve been intrigued and baffled by the cryptic byline N. V. Romero, which was emblazoned on the front cover of the March, 1937 Star Detective Magazine.

I don’t remember where or when I picked up that old Red Circle pulp magazine. Probably at a collector’s convention somewhere in the 1970s or 80s. It grabbed my attention because the cover-featured lead novel bore the intriguing title,
“The X-Man.”

That’s a coinage I did not think existed prior to Marvel Comics releasing X-Men #1 in 1963. So I grabbed it. I probably paid about five bucks. It was in reasonably good condition. And it was published by Martin Goodman, who later launched Marvel Comics.

…

Read More Read More

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

Nero Wolfe’s Brownstone – 3 Good Reasons: ‘Black Orchids’

Comments 2 comments

What flummery is this? I have not written about Nero Wolfe since last Summer? There has not been a 3 Good Reasons in four years? What kind of mystery blogger is this Bryne fellow? Most unsatisfactory. So…

Welcome to another installment of 3 Good Reasons. With a goal of eventually tackling every tale of the Corpus, I’ll give three reasons why the particular story at hand is the best Nero Wolfe of them all. Since I’m writing over seventy ‘Best Story’ essays, the point isn’t actually to pick one – just to point out some of what is good in every adventure featuring Wolfe and Archie. And I’ll toss in one reason it’s not the best story. Now – These essays will contain SPOILERS. You have been warned!

The Story

Today’s story is “Black Orchids,” it’s the first of two in a collection of the same name. Lewis Hewitt has three unique black orchids on display at the annual NYC Flower Show. Wolfe’s envy rivals his desire for Millard Bynoe’s flamingo-colored Vanda in “Easter Parade.”

Wolfe orders Archie to scout the enclosed-in-a-case black orchids, over multiple days. It’s not surprising that Archie is smitten by Anne Tracy; a young woman working in a display at the show. Naturally, he finds a murdered body, which is right out in plain sight. Wolfe spends part of this story ‘in the wild,’ as his covetousness leads him to the show.

…

Read More Read More

’24? in 42′ with…Bob Byrne????

’24? in 42′ with…Bob Byrne????

Comments 5 comments

Jason Waltz kicked off season two of his 24? in 42 podcast interviews with your very own Monday morning columnist. The prior installment was with Malazan’s Ian C. Esslemont, so I’m in pretty good company here.

It should not surprise you that I was all over the place, covering Robert E. Howard, Michael Moorcock, Columbo, books on writing and screenwriting, Encyclopedia Brown, the Civil War, Tolkien, The Constitutional Convention of 1787, Lawrence Block, Steven Hockensmith, Norbert Davis, and much more.

…

Read More Read More

Eleven Years of Monday Mornings with Bob

Eleven Years of Monday Mornings with Bob

Comments 8 comments

Wow. Eleven years ago today, on March 10, 2014, I became an official Black Gate blogger. The Public Life of Sherlock Holmes kicked off a three year run, bringing a mystery presence every Monday morning. I roamed off topic a bit – but NOTHING like I do now. I mean, did you read last week’s baseball post?

Encouraged by my buddy William Patrick Maynard (an established Black Gater), I went from some uknown guy commenting on other people’s posts, to a moderately interesting weekly columnist. And every World Fantasy Award-winning website, with an amazing roster of bloggers, needs a mystery column, right???

I talked about joining Black Gate in my chronicle of what passes for my writing career: Ya Gotta Ask.

…

Read More Read More

What I’ve Been Listening To: February, 2025

What I’ve Been Listening To: February, 2025

Comments 8 comments

I haven’t shared what I’ve been listening to, since November. How have you lasted this long??? Let’s rectify that right now, shall we?

ISAAC STEELE & THE FOREVER MAN – Daniel Rigby

This is the first of two originals produced by Audible as The Isaac Steele Chronicles – it’s not a print or digital book turned into an audiobook.

Rigby wrote it, and he narrates as well. He sounds a lot like Cary Elwes, which totally works for me (you want a great audiobook – Elwes’ memoir about the making of The Princess Bride, with several cast members reading their own parts, is superb).

It’s NSFW – I don’t play this one out loud in the office. I’d say ‘raunchy.’ So, take that for what it is.

Steele works for Greatest Britain’s Department of Clarification. He’s basically a police detective for the intergalactic British government. Greatest Britain is about as beloved as Britain was during the Colonial Era. Steele is never the most popular guy in the room. He also drinks, does drugs, has unresolved parental issues, and he’s not exactly a stickler for the rules. A scifi version of the hardboiled private eye trope.

He can be his own worst enemy, but there are plenty of other people, robots, and monsters, willing to make his life worse for him. He has a robotic partner, Timothy, who sulks in his tent like Achilles, after getting benched on the case. Steele is less than gracious in welcoming his new, temporary partner.

This is campy fun, without being silly. I can imagine that there are some seriously devoted fans, on board for more.

…

Read More Read More

Ten Things I Think I Think: January 2025

Ten Things I Think I Think: January 2025

Comments 15 comments

It’s been a whole month since I randomly shared my opinions on things I think. How in the world have you made it through the start of this new year, without that????

So, I think that:

1) THE LORD OF A SHATTERED LAND IS TERRIFIC

If you follow me on Facebook – or even read my column here every Monday – you know I’ve been talking about my Black Gate buddy Howard Andrew Jones, who passed away earlier this month. Click on over to see what I had to say last week about a really great guy.

I had not yet read Howard’s most recent trilogy, the Chronicles of Hanuvar. Howard’s Arabian fantasy mystery short stories featuring Dabir and Asim have been my favorites of his work (even more so than the two novels featuring the duo).

But man – this first book in the trilogy is his best work. Incorporating several short stories previously published, it’s very episodic in nature, which I liked. They’re linked together, making up Hanuvar’s ongoing quest, and the format keeps things moving. There’s no padding here.

While I have sword of sorcery from folks like Robert E. Howard and Fritz Lieber on my shelves, I’m more an epic fantasy fan, ala J.R.R. Tolkien, Terry Brooks, David Eddings, and Robert Jordan. I feel like Howard’s trilogy is epic sword and sorcery – a hybrid of the two which would also include Glen Cook’s The Black Company. It contains the individual adventuring aspect of sword and sorcery (stakes are more focused on the hero, not nations or empires), with the epic story scope of high fantasy. Howard’s trilogy is Epic Sword and Sorcery.

I finished Lord of a Shattered Land, put it on the shelf, and immediately sat down and began The City of Marble and Blood. And boy, does something big happen by page twenty-five!! The latter two books are in traditional novel form. So be it – I’m in.

…

Read More Read More