Readers and writers: Your choice from a thriller, short stories and a memoir

Mary Ann Grossmann, Pioneer Press
·5 min read

Three genres today for your reading pleasure — a new thriller series from an author who’s a champ at writing about sniffer dogs, short stories, and a memoir.

“The Dead Years”: by Jeffrey B. Burton (Severn House, $28)

The moniker ‘Dead Night Killer’ was lame, not only because it was inaccurate — he never skulked down midnight lanes checking doors and windows in order to get inside and club slumbering homeowners to death — but also because it sounded like one of those straight-to-video horror flicks he’d seen as a kid. The nickname lacked the over-the-top testosterone of a Jack the Ripper, Night Stalker, or Boston Strangler. It also lacked the provocativeness of the Zodiac Killer, Gray Man, or Son of Sam. — from “The Dead Years”

The killer had been dormant for seven years in this tightly written beginning of a new thriller series featuring brother and sister Crystal and Cory Pratt. Now the killer is again torturing and murdering. His victims seem connected to a Netflix docuseries he feels depicts him in a way that is inaccurate and insulting. He believes he’s much smarter and macho than the script suggests and sets out to eliminate everyone connected with the production. So, bodies begin piling up and the case goes to Crystal, rookie detective in the Chicago police. She sometimes crosses paths on the job with her brother Cory, owner of a dog training school, with whom she lives. The siblings are recovering from the deaths of their parents, which Cory blames on himself. When Cory’s brave and well-trained dogs, bloodhound Alice and springer spaniel Rex, find two bodies, Crystal and Cory team up to catch the person dubbed by the press The Dead of Night Killer, shortened to Dead Night Killer. But the first coordinated attempt at capturing the killer, led by Crystal, goes very wrong and earns her the scorn of local Chicago law enforcement and the FBI.

Readers who enjoyed Burton’s three books in his Mace Reid K-9 mystery series will be equally involved with Cory and his loyal canine companions as he and his older sister try to outsmart the killer, who tells his own story in alternate chapters. We know his father has an important job in government and that he is well-to-do. In his double life as serial killer and model citizen, the perp lies to his family about where he is when he’s on a murder mission and often retreats to their vacation home. When Cory and his dogs get too close, Night Killer targets them as his next victims and the way he kills isn’t pretty. But someone else knows what the killer is up to and tries to stop the murders with chilling results.

Burton grew up in St. Paul and lives in Apple Valley. He earned a degree in journalism from the University of Minnesota and his Agent Drew Cady series includes the well-received “The Eulogist.”

“There Will Never Be Another Night Like This”: by John Salter (Slant Books, $19 paperback)

He felt a great satisfaction. He had won the night, every step of the way, like pitching a perfect game and never doubting for a moment that you would. But as soon as he thought this, a hard realization followed. There would probably never be another night on earth like this night. The stars could not line up the same way for him. He didn’t need his mother’s astrology charts to understand that. And the dumb thing, he thought, would be thinking it was possible and waiting the rest of his life for a night like this to happen again. That would be kind of pathetic. — from “There Wil Never Be Another Night Like This”

Salter, a former Minnesotan who lives in Fargo, N.D., looks into the hearts of boys and men in the six stories in his new collection of lush prose. A married man has a one-night stand with a tall woman that sends him back to the hotel bar wondering if this is all there is to life. A woman tries to help her husband, who may be on the edge of being manic, to accept their coming divorce. And a man who has taken care of his sick father for months has sex with a flight attendant on an otherwise-empty plane and confronts memories of his dad when he returns home, wondering if he’s on the right path in life. A couple prepares for a big outdoor party to show how classy they are, but the fun does not end well.

Two of the best stories involve a teen named Nils. In the first, he and a friend are hanging out by a river with an older boy of whom Nils is sort of scared. Then the story turns deadly. In the title story we meet Nils again as an older boy who wins a big fight on a night everything goes his way.

Salter co-edited the literary journal North Country when he was a student at the University of North Dakota. His short fiction has appeared in national literary journals and he is a two-time winner of the Minneapolis-based Loft Award in creative prose/McKnight Artist Fellowship.

“The Arrogance of Infinity: Tales of Transition”: by Mike Pickett (Gatekeeper Press, $15 paperback).

“We humans live with the arrogance of infinity in our hearts, behaving as if our places and things, processes, ideas, and conditions, were created by — and forever belong to us.” — from “The Arrogance of Infinity”

There are plenty of books about growing up in the 20th century, but St. Paul-based Pickett puts an interesting spin on his 37-tale memoir, giving readers background about what was going on in the country as he grew up attending 11 schools when his family moved around the Twin Cities and suburbs.

Referring to his six siblings and himself, Pickett recalls roaming natural pasture and concrete cities in an age owned by oil and coal, iron and steel. “Somewhere in the middle of the 20th century, the powers began to shift toward New Age,” he says in the introduction to the book’s audio version. “Tubes, transistors, and microchips kicked off a virtual migration to the most progressive era in the history of humanity … so far. These (tales) are the recollections of a Midwestern kid who rubbed up against a wide variety of challenges and blessings during the cyber-makeover. The tales share the experiences of a large, close-knit family, and how we endured challenges such as a house fire, the premature death of a parent, and financial ruin … I want the reader to feel nostalgia and empathy, and to close this book with a sense that it’s never too late to seek — and find — new joys.”

Pickett’s voice is welcoming and easygoing. He writes of meeting astronaut Neil Armstrong in the family’s front yarn and drinking vodka-lemonades with champion golfer Arnold Palmer. (There’s quite a bit about sports in this book.) He even reveals his wife stole the water bowl of Socks, President Bill Clinton’s cat. The Secret Service did not track her down.

Related Articles