Showing results by author "W.M. Akers" in All Categories

A young detective who specializes in “tiny mysteries” finds herself at the center of a massive conspiracy in this beguiling historical fantasy set on Manhattan’s Westside - a peculiar and dangerous neighborhood home to strange magic and stranger residents.

Return to a twisted version of Jazz Age New York in this follow-up to the critically acclaimed fantasy Westside, as relentless sleuth Gilda Carr’s pursuit of tiny mysteries drags her into a case that will rewrite everything she knows about her past.

You wanted the jolly fat man to bring Yuletide joy, but the season has gifted you with a heart breaker and a life taker—Badass Santa. Grab your eggnog and camouflage candy canes, strap on your bulletproof holiday stockings, and prepare for thrills and kills.

Nobody in Manhattan eats better than Bernice Black. It’s 1972, and she is the city’s busiest restaurant critic, juggling her fiance and his two young sons with demands of fine dining. Bernice talks fast, walks faster, has a razor-sharp wit and no patience for anything--or anyone--that gets in her way. When she stops by the famed restaurant of her favorite chef and mentor, Laurent Tirel, early one morning, she stumbles across a horrific scene in the kitchen: Laurent's severed head, perfectly preserved in a flawless mold of jellied aspic.

The Westside of Manhattan is desolate, overgrown, and dangerous—and Gilda Carr wouldn’t have it any other way. An eccentric detective whose pursuit of tiny mysteries has dragged her to the brink of madness, Gilda spends 1923 searching for something that’s eluded her for years: peace. On the revitalized waterfront of the Lower West, Gilda and the gregarious ex-gangster Cherub Stevens start a new life on a stolen yacht. But their old life isn’t done with them yet.

A movie podcast with a sense of optimism! Mystery novelist W.M. Akers and ace film critic Henry Giardina take a rambling tour through film history, using dice to pick random movies from the silent era to today. They try to love everything they watch. It doesn't always work out.