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--> Fiction The pious are God’s sacred marks. A CHILD WENT FORTH By Boston Teran 332 pp. High-Top Publishing LLC Reviewed by Eric Petersen Award-winning novelist Boston Teran is back with his twelfth book. The author’s name is a pseudonym, and the curious promotional material claims that his “identity is unknown, yet it is known that he grew up in an immigrant Italian world in the Bronx and describes most of his relatives as ‘gamblers, con men, numbers runners, and thieves.’” The blurb on the book jacket says of the author, “because of his unique style, [he] has been compared to painters like Picasso and Breugel, the composer Tchaikovsky, and filmmakers like John Ford, Sergio Leone, and David Lean.” How much of this is tongue-in-cheek is debatable. One thing that can’t be debated is the author’s talent; he’s won many awards, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he wins another for this masterpiece of historical fiction that examines the darkest part of American history – slavery in t...

--> Nonfiction Cold fury THE DEEP DARK DESCENDING By Allen Eskens 272 pp. Seventh Street Books Reviewed by Eric Petersen Mystery writer Allen Eskens is back with the latest entry in his series of mysteries featuring Minneapolis homicide detective Max Rupert. It picks up right where the previous book, The Heavens May Fall (also reviewed on this site) left off. The end of that novel featured a shocking revelation about the fate of Max Rupert’s wife Jenni, who was killed in a hit-and-run accident – the only homicide that Max was never able to solve. It was a hit-and-run all right, but it was no accident. The Deep Dark Descending opens on a subzero winter day, on a frozen lake located between Minnesota and the Canadian border – and Max Rupert about to murder an unconscious, unnamed man whom he’s kidnapped and dragged out onto the lake. This is the man whom Max believes murdered his wife, and payback is a bitch. But as he prepares to take revenge, the honorable cop hears a voice in...

Nonfiction Down and dirty noir THE SYNDICATE By Clarence Cooper, Jr. 144 pp. Molotov Editions Reviewed by Eric Petersen A book reviewer’s job is to review the latest offerings, both fiction and nonfiction, by today’s authors for today’s readers. But once in a great while, he gets the opportunity to review something like this – a long-lost work finally published many years after it fell into obscurity. Clarence Cooper, Jr., an African-American writer of considerable talent, deserves a place alongside his contemporaries James Baldwin, Richard Wright, and Ralph Ellison. Born in Detroit in 1934, he moved to Chicago in 1950, where he began his literary career working as an editor for a black newspaper. At the same time, he began his nearly lifelong struggle with heroin addiction. Most of his writings were penned in prison, as he spent most of his life in and out of jail. His first novel, The Scene (1960) was published to critical acclaim. The rest of his novels ended up buried in the ...

--> Fiction Murder and sins of the flesh BABYLON BERLIN By Volkner Kutscher Translated from the German by Niall Sellar 423 pp. Picador Reviewed by Alan Goodman I like this book as much for the style of writing (even in translation, not an easy accomplishment) as for the development of the story and characters. This is a story that keeps you turning pages until you run out of pages, at which time you wonder how you’ll find another book that will keep you similarly engaged. Volkner Kutscher, the author, is a man who has apparently not bothered with the apocryphal shortest book in the world, “A History of German Humor.” Amidst the grimness of creating entertainment from the cruelest human activity one might imagine, Mr. Volkner manages to reveal a sense of humor – if not always for the characters themselves, then in a quite subtle manner for the march of human activity in general. Here is one such moment describing a pornography bust by the Berlin Vice Squad: The man was faintly r...