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EAT THESE BOOKS: The House Swap and Every Breath You Take by Miranda Rijks

Eat these thrillers!

I don’t usually read psychological thrillers so it was great to discover author, Miranda Rijks.  And through the mundane route of an Amazon book recommendation, no less. I’ve now devoured two of her thrillers, The House Swap and Every Breath You Take, after purchasing both at a ridiculously low price that really discredits the quality of Rijks’s prose and her plotting.

What first intrigued me was the premise  of The House Swap. A late friend of mine who was married to a professor often swapped houses with other professors when they vacationed in the UK.  The British professor and their family lived in my friend’s Toronto house and she and her family lived in the British family’s house. Free accommodation – not bad!

All went well for my friend, but Rijk asks, what if the arrangement goes horribly wrong?  From the house being a dump to hostile neighbours to murder? Great suspense and satisfying plot twists kept me reading well into the night.

Sorry, readers, no spoilers!

I hesitated only a minute to dive into another Rijks’s  thriller, Every Breath You Take.  Here the husband of the protagonist suddenly disappears. Soon she learns that he’s been kidnapped. To save his life, she must perform humiliating tasks set by the kidnapper and post them on social media. No one believes her, especially the police. Once again amazing suspense and a great twist I did not see coming.

Both books are published by Inkubator Books, a digital publisher specializing in crime fiction.

So who is Miranda Rijks? Good question. In 2016, she was diagnosed with a rare bone cancer in the middle of her successful  business career. She survived 11 rounds of chemo and having her femur replaced. After recovering, she retired to pursue her lifelong dream to write – and write she has! In less than 10 years, she’s written no less than 26 novels; in other words two to three books a year!

Read more about Miranda Rijks here. And eat her books!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Happy New Year Everyone!

black cat on white table

Looking forward to the New Year with the publication of the Mesdames and Messieurs of Mayhem’s 7th anthology, The Power of 13. And possibly a novella from me!

Here’s to many more author events and adventures with fellow writers! Hope to meet many of you readers in the Real World in 2026.

 

HAPPY HOLIDAYS EVERYONE!

 Wishing all my friends, fans and family a wonderful Holiday and the best of health and happiness in the New Year!

Here’s a pic of a well-behaved cat in a Christmas tree.  And here’s a fav video where they’re NOT!

Bing Videos

Big hugs, M. H. Callway

EAT THIS BOOK: The King of Ashes by S. A. Cosby

I love noir crime fiction, me

I love both reading and writing noir crime fiction. When it comes to modern day noir authorts, it’s no secret that I’m a big fan of Sean Cosby’s work. 

Cosby is a superb stylist, which makes his work a joy to read. More importantly, he give readers true insight into what it means to be African American in today’s USA. He also shares some unusual knowledge because his wife is a funeral director.

His protagonist, Nathan Waymaker, in My Darkest Prayer, worked for a funeral home. But that was a mere hint of what’s portrayed in his latest and what may be his toughest book yet: King of Ashes.  You may learn more about crematoriums and the firing process than you every wanted to know!

The Carruthers’ family business is running the crematorium in the decayed town of Jefferson Run, Virginia. Many years before Mama Carruthers disappeared without a trace and ugly rumours about her demise and her husband’s hand in it persist. The eldest of the three children, Roman Carruthers, escaped to Florida where he’s now a highly successful financial manager of among other clients,  “gangsta” rap artists. His sister, Neveah, is the one who’s left behind to run the family biz while younger brother, Dante, wastes away in dissipation. 

When their father is badly injured in a car accident, Roman returns to help the family. He soon learns that Dante is mixed up with two ruthless local drug dealers – real and vicious gangsters, not rap wannabees. To save his brother, Roman tries to placate the gangsters by offering up his financial acumen and the darker benefits of the crematorium business…

Roman’s fall from grace is true noir and the deeply tragic twist at the end of the novel is unforgettable. This thriller may be too tough for readers who enjoy the lighter side of crime fiction but if you love noir, King of Ashes is a must-read.

5 STARS ∗∗∗∗∗

PEARLS OF WISDOM: Deep Philosophy in Bad Jokes?

Our grandson adores “Dad jokes”.  Here’s one of his favs: How do you weigh a dragon? Depends on its scales.

Recently I was having a one-on-one dinner with my daughter. Fixing me with a gaze steeped in the superiority of youth, she asked: “What do you think of the chicken joke?”

Me: (thinking of grandson) You mean the old chestnut, Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side.

Daughter: “Do you get it? I mean, really get it?”

Me: What’s to get?  It’s Captain Obvious. Chickens are stupid. They follow their beaks across the road to the other side. If you don’t see the joke, you’re as dumb as the chicken.

Daughter: (deep sigh) No, think about it: the other side.  What’s the other meaning of “The Other Side”?

Me: The hereafter?

Daughter: (convinced her mother is beyond help) Right!

Oh, so the real joke is about a suicidal chicken or a bird so brainless it’s about to become roadkill.

I’d honestly never thought about the irony inherent in “the other side”. Neither had my husband when I retold our conversation.  Was there some deep philosophical meaning behind our misunderstanding the true joke? A denial of life’s mortality? Or a deep-seated faith in the superiority of humans to the idiot chickens we regularly eat?

Probably not. The sound you now hear is the whistle of the penny dropping through the decades stretching from the Jurassic Period of my childhood till now.

On the other hand, our daughter didn’t get the joke that made our grandson laugh his butt off:

Why couldn’t the bike stand up by itself? Because it was two tired. 

a red rooster walking across a street
Idiot chicken

 

pink bicycle on brown concrete floor
The tired bike

 

 

PEARLS OF WISDOM: Straying into Cross-genre

 

My Pearl of Wisdom

I DON’T WRITE HORROR…OR DO I?

 The first inkling that I’d strayed from dark mystery into horror happened when the multi-genre conference, When Words Collide, put me on a horror fiction panel.

Horror – moi? I never watch horror movies, they’re far too intense. I hardly ever read horror fiction. Well, I have read Clive Barker’s masterpieces, but that’s about it! Somehow, somewhere my writing crossed over to the dark side.

What I learned from my fellow panelists at WWC is that the core of horror literature is fear.

So that was it! It had to be my novella, Snake Oil, the one about snakes and real estate agents,  nominated for a CWC Award in 2018. Many people have a deep-seated fear of snakes.

I remember reading from Snake Oil at a Noir at the Bar event south of the border. My reading went pretty well, I thought, but the following day, a macho noir writer stopped me.  You know the type: shaved head, muscular, loads of tattoos. He fixed me with a wary eye and said: “You –  you’re the lady who wrote about snakes.”

Even the scariest dude can be undone by slithering reptiles apparently.

Looking through my stories and novellas, many do pivot on fear. In my most recently published story, “The Lost Diner” (Pulp Literature, Issue 47), an older woman driver strays off the main highway and pulls in to a deserted diner. Soon she ends up fighting for her life. The owners of the diner like to disappear customers who won’t be missed.

 

Isn’t this a primordial fear we all share? The fear of an unknown place where we are on our own and defenseless.

Even my comical stories, like “Must Love Dogs – or You’re Gone”, edge into darkness. (Published in GONE, Red Dog Press.) My heroine is forced into working off her murdered ex-husband’s debt at a doggy daycare. It’s either groom dogs or die! There she discovers that her ex used their dog, Flea, to smuggle diamonds into the USA, since Flea will eat anything. The resolution is a pretty dark fight at the edge of Niagara Falls…

Perhaps the difference is this: in noir fiction, the often violent characters remain in control though a bad outcome is often assured. In horror, the characters are not in control: they are frequently isolated and must battle through to an ending that promises to be bleak.

So what to do? Why not embark on a new adventure? And so, like Bilbo, I’m quite ready for a scary dive into the realm of horror writers!

 

 

 

NEWS! NEWS! NEWS! The Mmes of Mayhem’s 7th Anthology

When friend, Donna Carrick and I co-founded the Mesdames of Mayhem in 2013, little did we realize that our 13 member group would double in size and become a national organization. Nor did we foresee that we’d have a CBC documentary made about us and publish six anthologies, all with the brand of “13”. After all, thirteen has been our lucky number!

Every year stories in our antho’s have been nominated for the CWC Award of Excellence or the Derringer. Two of our stories have won :”The Outlier”, by Catherine Astolfo in 13 Claws (never trust a man what keeps pigs) and “Hatcheck Bingo” by Therese Greenwood in The 13th Letter (never underestimate hardworking women).

And so, we’re super-delighted to announce our seventh anthology, The Power of 13, with the theme of luck, fate, karma, chance, games of chance, deadly gambles…

Publication date September, 2026. Stand by for our spectacular cover reveal!!

News! News! News! October Super Busy

Better to be busy than being a hermit and doom-scrolling!

October has been a crazy busy month with the book launches of three friends: Jon Redfern and his dark thriller, The Ogre Club; Lisa De Nikolits and her noir novel, Mad Dog and the Sea Dragon; and Lorna Poplak and her latest true crime book, On the Lam, which I also blurbed.

And lots of personal readings!

I started off with a reading at a Zoom meet-up held by the Short Mystery Fiction Society on October 8th. Then a wonderful evening as at Queer Noir at the Bar organized by friend, Hope Thompson, at the Black Eagle Pub, Toronto. I read the raunchy “karaoke strip night” passage from my thriller, Windigo Fire, one of my personal favs.

Tonight I’ll be reading from my horror short story, “Snake Oil” at Drunk Fiction, organized by Emily  A. Weedon, a Halloween special held at the Caledonian pub, Tuesday, October 28th at 6 pm.

SURREAL TRAPDOOR: Asbestos Snow

BETTER LIVING THROUGH CHEMISTRY…NOT!!

My friend, TOpoet and I share a fascination for life’s oddities. He pointed me to this horrific product that was released to unsuspecting consumers in the late 1920s and finally discontinued around 1941. You could sprinkle this sh*t throughout your house  and on your tree for Christmas and bonus – it wouldn’t catch on fire.

For generations, asbestos, a naturally occurring fibrous mineral, was thought to be a miracle product. It stood up to weather (asbestos tiles), it had great insulating properties (pipe lagging) and it was fire-proof (coating on steel beams). Too bad this innocuous fluffy grey material kills you! 

Asbestos does you in in one of three ways: asbestosis, lung cancer and worst of all, mesothelioma, a cancer of the pleura. Mesothelioma, a 100% fatal disease, is only caused by asbestos. Electron micrograph images show the hardy little microfibers spearing your cells and your DNA. It was the cause of death of Hollywood star, Steve McQueen, who was exposed to it when he worked in the shipyards during WW2. 

According to Snopes, asbestos snow was used in the 1939 classic film, “The Wizard of Oz”. Remember the scene where Dorothy and her friends are awakened from the Wicked Witch of the West’s spell in the poppy field by a snow fall? Yep, that’s asbestos snow! 

Warning: vintage decorations with “snow” dating from the 1920 to 1940s may contain asbestos. Better living through chemisty – NOT!

Be sure to check out TOpoet’s blog at TOpoet – views, reviews, music, poetry and pics

 

 

 

 

 

URBAN EXPLORER: What’s Inside the Chrysler Building?

low-angle photography of white concrete building tower
Best skyscraper in NYC!
red and blue abstract painting
Urbex!

The Chrysler building is my favorite New York sky scraper. What’s not to love about its stainless steel roof and Art Deco perfection?

And the fact that its observation deck  on the 71st floor has been closed to the public adds to its mystery. What’s inside that steel dome? A secret nightclub? The most exclusive penthouse condo in NYC?

Visitors to the Chrysler Building are actively discouraged. Ten years ago, we were able to walk into its beautiful Art Deco lobby for a look-see, but on our first visit after COVID, we were summarily chased out by the security guard! That, of course, piqued my curiosity even more. 

Beautiful lobby of the Chrysler Building

To my surprise the answers to the Chrysler Building’s mysteries popped up on the internet and we can visit inside its stainless steel roof -virtually – thanks to urban explorer, Moses Gates, author of Hidden Cities. (Eat that Book!)

Walter P. Chrysler, famed auto magnate, wanted a personal monument to himself. The building was completed on May 28, 1930, according to a design by architect, William Van Alen. Somewhat foolishly, Van Alen never signed a contract with Chrysler, who refused to pay him, accusing him of shady dealings with the building contractors. Van Alen sued and did get his money eventually but the fight ruined his reputation and he never worked as an architect again. (Sound familiar?)

Then as now there was a lot of dick-waving: to own the tallest building in the world and to make them taller with spires. The Chrysler Building’s 61 meter spire, made of special stainless steel,  was hidden inside the building and installed as a crowning touch. For about 11 months, it was the tallest in the world until the Empire State Building surpassed it.

Walter Chrysler kept his own office and apartment in the building though apparently he didn’t use either much. He like to boast that he had the highest toilet in the world.

Walter Chrysler’s potty

Interestingly, the other private apartment in the Chrysler Building belonged to a woman, photo-journalist Margaret Bourke. Despite her wealth and fame, she had to have the lease to her 61st floor apartment co-signed by Time, Inc. because she was female. Here she is astride one of the building’s gargoyles. She had a remarkable career as a war correspondent  and adventurer. (Read more about her here.)

Margaret Bourke and gargoyle

At the behest of Texaco, Chrysler installed the Cloud Club, with three exclusive dining rooms – and a speakeasy – on floors 66 to 68. The Cloud Club  lasted 40+ years until the late 1970s when it was demolished for office space.  That was much longer than the celestial-themed observation deck on the 71st floor, which was shut down in 1945.

Celestial-themed observation deck

But there was a way, you could see NYC from the top of the Chrysler Building: you could go to the dentist! From 1962 to 2012, Dr. Charles M. Weiss ran his dental practice, mostly located on the 69th floor. He was known as The Dentist in the Sky and was an innovator in dental implantology. 

The Dentist in the Sky

But what about inside that glorious stainless steel roof? Are there hidden speak-easies? Secret apartments for mistresses? Who better to ask than urban explorer, Moses Gates? Here’s the YouTube video of his visit INSIDE the stainless steel roof.

It’s a dizzying climb with a spectacular forbidden view of NYC, but the inside is underwhelmingly functional, with concrete beams, ladders and steel walkways.