5 Minute Reviews: BURIED CAESARS & DARK MATTER

BURIED CAESARS(The Toby Peters Mysteries Book 14) by Stuart M. Kaminsky

​    What happens when you're a hard-boiled dick with a bad back in WWII L.A. and General Doug MacArthur needs you to solve a case discreetly and quickly, and an aging Dashiell Hammett just happens to have a couple days to kill helping you out?
    Buried Caesars by Stuart M. Kaminsky (1934–2009) answers that question in an enjoyable throwback to 40's noir detective fiction.
     Well written, with dialogue, situations and attitudes appropriate to the era, and a colorful cast of characters. Unfortunately marred by many typos, but recommended nonetheless. 

​-Mary Whealen
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DARK MATTER (BK 1 of HADRON Series) by Stephen Arseneault

   Come the apocalypse it pays to have friends who are champion shooters with an arsenal, or who own a helicopter, or who served in special forces, or who are an engineer....   Well you get the idea. 
   Now that I've made a bit of fun of this "Fantasy Prepper" dream team cast of characters, I did enjoy Dark Matter by Stephen Arseneault. The writing is crisp, the good guys are good and the bad guys are bad, and if your escapist reading repertoire includes end-of-civilizations tales, this is a fine one.
    For science fiction readers, the SF elements are only referenced at the very end, but will apparently feature highly in the next book in the series.

-​Mary Whealen