J. Kingston Pierce is a longtime journalist in Seattle, Washington, and editor of The Rap Sheet, which has won the Spinetingler Award and been nominated twice for Anthony Awards. In addition, he writes the book-design blog Killer Covers, serves as the senior editor of January Magazine and as a contributing editor to CrimeReads, and is a columnist for Down & Out: The Magazine.At CrimeReads Pierce tagged ten titles highlighting "Seattle’s potential as an ideal milieu for crime fiction," including:
A Spark of Death by Bernadette Pajer (2011)Read about another entry on the list.
Pajer has thus far delivered four assiduously researched historical mysteries starring Benjamin Bradshaw, a UW electrical engineering professor. The first, A Spark of Death, takes place in 1901, at a time when Seattle was fast outgrowing its frontier roots, thanks to successive gold rushes in the Canadian Klondike and Alaska. It imagines Bradshaw having to clear himself of suspicion in a homicide. Fellow educator Wesley Oglethorpe has been electrocuted in convoluted fashion, and Bradshaw not only disliked that gent, but knew how to make such a fatal frying appear unintentional. As part of his defense, the inordinately perspicacious prof must ascertain who else had a motive—his wife, perhaps, or his abused students?—and whether this crime is linked to President William McKinley’s upcoming swing through the Pacific Northwest.
The Page 69 Test: A Spark of Death.
My Book, The Movie: A Spark of Death.
--Marshal Zeringue
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