Editor's note: Review published in CNHI's Ga, Ala, Miss papers. Offered to national editors.

Booked for the month: Noir, fantasy and historical retellings fill the air with new fiction from Gordon Greisman and Christy Healy, and audio retakes of Jules Verne and Donald Miller

By Tom Mayer
CNHI News Service

From 20,000 feet above to 20,000 leagues below — and a couple more with feet firmly on planet Earth — a quartet of new books and audio renderings recently published will both enliven drive-times and offer one more reason to put another log on the fire. All four this month are from Blackstone, a publishing house that continues to offer an interesting and intriguing mix of media.

The audio files

In the category of what’s old is what’s new: “Masters of the Air” and “20,000 Leagues Under the Sea” aren’t exactly new books, but they both get a new treatment as audio books with fresh narrators.

Donald Miller’s “Masters of the Air” isn’t just for the World War II buff. It offers the history of the American Eighth Air Force, but with the addition of Joe Barrett’s narration — Barrett is a veteran raconteur with more than 200 audio titles and a host of Audie Award finals in his arsenal — the story of the young (and they were all young) men who flew the bombers responsible for crippling Nazi Germany takes you into the cockpit beside them.

And the 20,000 feet reference is no exaggeration: the air at that height is thin and freezing and before the Eighth, no body of bombers had successfully straddled that particular stratosphere.

Miller, a WWII expert and professor at Lafayette College, weaves interviews, oral histories and international archives into a compelling narrative about an elite group of warriors who essentially fought a war within a war, and spices it with stories of life in wartime England and German prison camps.

World War II is known as the world’s first and only bomber war, and “Masters of the Air” also gets a fitting visual complement. A series based on the book, under the same name, launched on Apple TV+ Jan. 26.
Not that Jules Verne’s “Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea” has suffered from any lack of multi-media attention, but Blackstone’s audio version captures the 19th century period piece in ways that infuse real magic into the exotic undersea tale of Captain Nemo and the Nautilus.

You might know the story, and you might know the voice — narrator Aria Mia Loberti starred in Netflix’s limited series adaptation of “All the Light We Cannot See” — but the combination is unique and fitting, especially enmeshed with the Mia Loberti's advanced degree in ancient rhetoric from Royal Holloway, University of London. You’ve not heard this story told in such a perfect lilt, and if the publisher is wise, they will elicit Mia Loberti for Verne’s other two works featuring Nemo: “The Mysterious Island” and a lesser-known collaborative play, “Journey Through the Impossible,” written a dozen years after the 1870 launch of “20,000 Leagues.”

The bibliophiles

In the category of what’s new is what’s new, 2024 has already been a good year for literature, and in continuing the fantastical theme is “Unbound” by Christy Healy.

A tale of betrayal and unrequited romance, Healy brings Celtic myths into this gender-bent reimagining of “Beauty and the Beast.”

Rozlyn O Conchuir is destined for love, waiting in the imprisonment of her tower for the defeat of the beast of Connacht through the arrival of the man who will not only win her heart, but vanquish the curse that plagues both her and her kingly father’s people.

After the suitor arrives, though, her hopes and dreams are savagely unmasked and trust is irreparably broken. Or is it? There may be more here than Rozlyn imagined — if she can learn that some misfortunes are better left shackled than unbound.

And an aside: Blackstone completes the magical story with a fine print production. The textured cover artwork and book design are by Larissa Ezell, and that design includes interior illustrations, maps and something I don’t mention often in reviews: a unique typeface that draws the reader wonderfully into the world of make-believe.
Even as we’re drawn into a world with more grit and grime. Gordon Greisman’s “The Devil’s Daughter” is not only taut and fine noir, it’s a story that showcases something you don’t much witness — a novelist having pure fun with the craft.

Greisman’s PI story is solid and gets a screenwriter’s touch —the author earned an Emmy Award nomination for his NBC mini-series “The Drug Wars; In the Belly of the Beast” — but tempering period characters with private investigator Jack Coffey’s search for the daughter of an uptown financier is a delicious recipe for a story.
Infusing well-known mobsters, jazzmen and actors (Thelonious Monk is a bud, as is Bud, aka a young Marlon Brando), athletes and authors (How many detective stories have you read that feature Albert Camus?) attach some verbal paradox that ironically makes the story more real.

Add Greisman’s prose (“My favorite time in the city is just before dawn. The town isn’t really asleep, it’s just resting its eyes.”) and unexpected throwaways (“Richie Costello can’t stop staring at V, which is not only embarrassing but pretty inappropriate, considering he’s a priest.”) and you get a writer not only enjoying the work, but mastering it.
Some books you read in a day and this is that kind of book. It’ll no doubt be the best book you’ve read so far this year, and although we have some big hitters showing up in the next few months, it’s already a contender — with 11 months to go — for the best book you’ll read all year.

A caveat: Greisman’s story is raw and real, and some readers might get tripped by triggers. The material is handled well, but if stories about abuse and violence are on your “avoid” list, take a pass. The case of the missing Lucy Garrett — “who just might be the devil incarnate” — is as hardboiled as it gets, but Greisman takes no issue with breaking open a few rotten eggs to let their sulfuric fumes permeate the pages.

By the end, you’ll get why the story is shaped like this, and maybe it’s Coffey himself who describes it best: “I’m not all right. In my line of work sometimes I see the absolute worst in people. It’s supposed to make me hard and cynical, but that’s just a Hollywood fantasy. I’d have to be dead inside not to let something like this get to me.”

No question: “The Devil’s Daughter” will get to you.

A well plotted and gripping noir that made me think of the 40s and kept me turning pages.
Well plotted, intriguing atmospheres, well developed characters
Recommended.
Many thanks to the publisher for this ARC, all opinions are mine

A fun noir novel set in New York City, this is a really great detective story for anyone who loves True Detective or LA Confidential. I really liked the specificity of the writing in this one, and it did a really effortless job of evoking settings and smells and visuals.

Devil’s Daughter just didn’t grab me the way other crime noir has. I found my attention wandering.
I want to be drawn in from the beginning not flounder around waiting for the moment to strike.

A Blackstone ARC via NetGalley.
Many thanks to the author and publisher.

I enjoyed this book! It was out of the norm of what I usually read but I'm glad I did! Although the plot was super crime-heavy, it was easy to read and kept my attention. I will definitely be following the author for future books!

I've posted my review on Goodreads and the link to the review on instagram is below!

Thank you for the opportunity to read and review The Devil's Daughter !

"From Emmy-nominated screenwriter Gordon Greisman, The Devil's Daughter is a noir thriller full of the best - and worst - of New York City in the 1950s.

Most nights PI Jack Coffey can be found hanging out in smoky Greenwich Village jazz clubs with well-known mobsters, jazzmen, and hoods. So, when an uptown financier calls him in for a job, it seems like he's headed for tonier climes. But it turns out the view from Louis Garrett's lavish penthouse overlooks the same vice-ridden Manhattan streets, which explains why he's so desperate to find his missing teenage daughter, Lucy.

When Jack's search for Lucy leads him to swanky nightclubs packed with well-dressed pimps and wealthy drug dealers, he begins to wonder if Garrett is really concerned about his daughter's welfare or if he simply fears she may reveal his own shocking secrets. After an attack outside Jack's own apartment and Lucy's boyfriend is found floating face down in the East River, the story kicks into high gear.

But death threats, crooked cops, lies, or ugly truths can't stop Jack from finishing the job - whether an angel or a devil, Lucy is still a kid in danger, and Jack will do whatever it takes to find her."

A little noir isn't a bad thing.

Very heavy crime-noir, readers can expect to be thrusted into the dark world of underground city crime and its intensity. While I didn't necessarily think this book was outstanding, I still thought it packed enough punch to gain more publicity that it has. Not sure why there aren't more reviews listed for this title.

Thank you Netgalley and Blackstone Publishing for the digital ARC.

This good was ok . Too unrealistic and not good enough to overcome the fact that this book has been done many times before.