Murder in the Dark

January 1, 2017
Ishmael Jones, a space alien who never ages and whose secret weapon for solving problems is punching, investigates brutal, potentially supernatural attacks in an isolated Scottish manor house.Jones works for the Organization, which is so shadowy that not even he knows its history or purpose. He's accompanied by his girlfriend and partner, Penny Belcourt, who apparently exists only to flatter Jones and have things explained to her. The Organization has sent them to a haunted mansion on the banks of Loch Ness, where the Baphomet Group, an international cabal of 12 of the world's wealthiest people, is having its annual meeting of unspecified racketeering and collusion (not to be confused with the Illuminati, which is obviously the crackbrained product of a laughable conspiracy theory). The Organization doesn't care about financial manipulations but for some reason does care that one of the manipulators might have been killed and replaced with a doppelganger. And they definitely care that the first agent they sent to investigate was killed. Jones arrives at the manor, punches a dozen bodyguards, insults the staff and the entire Baphomet Group, and only then turns to examining the body and the scene of the crime. The carnage suggests an attack by some creature, but the only possible motives are human. Jones breaks up a gun battle among the security guards with more punching, explores a secret tunnel while most of the Baphomet Group plus five prostitutes are slaughtered, and then, in the climactic battle, punches the killer to death. Green (Dead Man Walking, 2016, etc.) presents a lightweight mystery featuring incoherent worldbuilding, pathetically childish attempts at machismo, and a glaringly obvious solution. Juvenile schlock.

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December 1, 2018

Ishmael Jones is an alien who crashed to Earth, landing in 1963 England. Now in human form, he works for the mysterious Organization as a field agent investigating unusual cases in return for protection. He and partner Penny Belcourt are sent to Brassknockers Hill near Bath after an archaeologist on a dig falls into a black hole in the side of the hill and disappears. The government sends in a team of scientists, for whom Ishmael and Penny are to act as security. But no one listens to Ishmael's warnings, and his extraordinary senses seem diminished in close proximity to the hole. Meanwhile, the hill lives up to its legends, as one by one scientists perish trying to enter while Ishmael watches in frustration. With no way to contact anyone outside their small circle, Ishmael will be lucky if he and Penny survive. VERDICT Green follows up Into the Thinnest of Air with this latest blend of sf, mystery, and horror that features the author's trademark black humor and ratchets up the suspense with a compelling story line reminiscent of Agatha Christie's And Then There Were None.--Lesa Holstine, Evansville Vanderburgh P.L., IN

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 8, 2018
Green’s subpar sixth paranormal mystery featuring Ishmael Jones (after Into the Thinnest of Air) takes Ishmael and his lover, Penny Belcourt, who often assists him, to Somerset. Jones, an alien who was made human by “transformation machines” after his spaceship crashed to Earth in 1963, works for the Organization, which investigates “cases of the weird and unusual.” He and Penny are to provide security for an archeological dig on Brassknocker Hill, where one archeologist on the team vanished after falling into an “unnatural” hole. The site is also the locus for legends about the Beast of Brassknocker, which “tears apart the local wildlife.” Later, a second archeologist jumps into the hole, only to be retrieved as a corpse. The body displays no marks of violence, but the face is “contorted into an expression of utter horror.” The survivors wonder whether they face an external or an internal threat, which may not be human. Those expecting the high level of tension of the previous book, in which people inside an eerie house disappeared one at a time, will be disappointed. Green has done better and, hopefully, will do so again.

October 1, 2018
An alien living a quasi-human existence investigates a black hole in the English countryside.Urgently summoned to step up in the face of enigmatic danger by The Colonel, his boss in the covert agency The Organization, Ishmael Jones isn't sure what he and Penny Belcourt, his girlfriend and partner, are in for when they drive to Brassknocker Hill, just outside Bath. The townspeople tell tales of a shadowy Beast with nefarious if unspecified intentions. A small team of specialty scientists, led by professor Sharon Bellman, has already been called to learn more about the hole, but one of them has been lost to the hole's almost magnetic forces. Was his disappearance nothing more than a misadventure, or was he pushed? This isn't the first time Ishmael's been up against something apparently supernatural (Into the Thinnest of Air, 2018, etc.). Most crimes and misdemeanors--more specifically, in Ishmael's investigative experience, most murders--aren't otherworldly but relate to base human desires. So while Ishmael's main role is to protect the team of scientists investigating the hole, he's not above trying to figure out what's happened. He could keep the scientists he's charged with protecting safe if only they followed his and Penny's sound advice to stick together. While the scattered team is picked off one by one, Ishmael begins to learn that he may have his own personal connection to the hole--a connection that may have something to tell him about his own alien origins, if he's ready to listen.It's hard to believe that maimed scientists and a black hole are among the tamer elements in a story that's surprisingly dark given its plot-driven focus.

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