Legal Mystery / Political Thriller / Suspense / Humor
Published by: Tule Publishing
Publication Date: February 23, 2026
Number of Pages: 279
SYNOPSIS:
The Rizk Brothers Legal Mysteries
In the corridors of Indiana’s justice system, power is both a weapon and a curse.
Jakob Rizk never expected to become Indiana’s acting attorney general—especially not after his mentor’s sudden death. Two weeks in, he’s losing sleep, battling a ruthless rival, and facing off with a powerful senator focused on his downfall. The last thing he needs is for his twin, Seth—a Miami cop hiding secrets of his own—to arrive unexpectedly.
Jakob is under pressure to prosecute a young engineer for the murder of a hard-nosed inspector famous for rooting out corruption. But with scant evidence and clear signs of political interference, the case is a minefield. Jakob has always lived by the law, but now one misstep could cost him a career.
Together, the brothers must unravel a web of greed and deception, each dead set on appearing strong in the other’s eyes. As they race the clock, which matters more: the truth, their careers, or fragile bonds that could be shattered forever?
I don't spend time on plot summary, so please read the book synopsis above.
HALL WAYS REVIEW: What an absolute delight it is to read Murder on Site, the series starter of the Rizk Brothers Legal Mysteries. Perfect pacing, memorable characters, and liberal doses of danger and deception -- and humor -- will keep readers thoroughly entertained and engaged. TG Wolff is an author to watch (and YIPPEE! I see that the second book in this series, Guilty by Association, is publishing later this month. I'm ready for more of the twin brothers Jakob and Seth's shenanigans.
Time flies while reading Murder on Site, and before I knew it, I had devoured the story and had barely taken any notes. In my reading world, that's about the best compliment I can offer an author. (The very few scattered typos I found barely slowed me down, and it's unlikely most readers will even notice them.) The ability to completely immerse a reader in another world is truly a gift and TG Wolff has it. Her knowledge of civil engineering allows for a unique premise and provides insight into the world behind the projects (like building bridges), which is more convoluted and competitive than we laypeople can imagine.
In Murder on Site, Wolff does an interesting thing: the subplot of a death of a beloved public personality and forthcoming funeral for him provide a framework for the primary murder mystery to unravel. As the funeral draws nearer, the tension runs higher as the Rizk brothers draw nearer to finding a killer. But they don't do it alone. There's a full team of players including one of the most robust and favorite characters, police detective Angel Martinez. I sure hope to see her return in the next installment. Creating realistic, fully fleshed-out characters is one of TG Wolff's superpowers.
Beyond the terrific plot and characters, Wolff throws in some pop culture references that those of a certain age will appreciate (Risky Business & Bewitched gave me a smile), which make the people and places of Murder on Site feel more authentic...like if we showed up in Indianapolis, we'd know right where to have a cold beer, get a sammie, avoid construction sites, and feel right at home.
Highly recommend.
I voluntarily reviewed this book and received an e-ARC from the author through Partners in Crime Virtual Book Tours.
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AUTHOR BIO:
TG Wolff has never been able resist a good puzzle. With an engineer’s mind for logic and a lifelong love of mysteries, she crafts whodunit stories that challenge readers to outsmart her detective. Her books are filled with quirky characters, red herrings, and—because she firmly believes solving (fictional) murders should be fun—a healthy dose of humor.
TG earned both her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in civil engineering, learning early to see every problem as a mystery and each solution as the answer the result of asking the right questions. That same curiosity drives her fiction, where nothing is ever accidental and every detail counts.
When she’s not plotting fictional crimes, TG is a mystery reader and reviewer and the co-creator / co-host of the whodunit mystery podcast Mysteries to Die For. A Cleveland, Ohio native, she now lives in northeast Indiana with her husband and two sons, where dogs and mysteries are always welcome. Catch up with TG Wolff:
In 1817 London, before the police, there was Captain Winter.
London, 1817. A city teeming with life, yet lacking a professional police force. When a wealthy young woman is brutally murdered in an alley frequented by prostitutes, a shadowy government bureau in Whitehall dispatches its "special emissary"―Captain Winter. A veteran of the Napoleonic Wars and a gentleman forged by chance and conflict, Winter is uniquely equipped to navigate the treacherous currents of London society, from aristocratic drawing rooms to the city's grimmest taverns.
Without an army of officers or the aid of forensic science, Winter must rely on his wits and a network of unconventional allies. His childhood friend, a nobleman, opens doors in high society, while a wise Jewish physician uncovers secrets the dead cannot hide.
But Winter's most intriguing, and potentially dangerous, asset is Barbara Lightwood. Shrewd, beautiful, and operating as a discreet intermediary among the elite, Barbara shares a past with Winter from the war years. Their rekindled affair is fraught with wariness; she offers intimate information crucial to his investigation but guards her own secrets fiercely. Like Winter, she is both cunning and capable of danger.
From grand houses to dimly lit streets, death stalks Captain Winter. He must tread carefully to unmask a killer, navigate a web of secrets and lies, and perhaps, in the process, save his own soul.
R.J. Koreto is the author of the Historic Home mystery series, set in modern New York City; the Lady Frances Ffolkes mystery series, set in Edwardian England; and the Alice Roosevelt mystery series, set in turn-of-the-century New York. His short stories have been published in Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, as well as various anthologies.
Most recently, he is the author of Winter's Season which takes place on the dark streets and glittering ballrooms of Regency-era London.
In his day job, he works as a business and financial journalist. Over the years, he’s been a magazine writer and editor, website manager, PR consultant, book author, and seaman in the U.S. Merchant Marine. Like his heroine, Lady Frances Ffolkes, he’s a graduate of Vassar College.
He and his wife have two grown daughters and divide their time between Paris and Martha’s Vineyard.
Includes situations and discussions of adult subject matter.
"A stunner" — Caroline Leavitt, best-selling author "A must-read" — Barbara Claypole White, best-selling author
"Nuanced and insightful" — Christina Baker Kline, #1 New York Times best-selling author
Book Description:
A chance meeting with a charismatic photographer will forever change Elizabeth’s life. Until she met Richard, Elizabeth's relationship with Georgia O’Keeffe and her little-known Hawaii paintings was purely academic. Now it’s personal. Richard tells Elizabeth that the only way she can truly understand O’Keeffe isn’t with her mind―it’s by getting into O’Keeffe’s skin and reenacting her famous nude photos. In the intimacy of Richard’s studio, Elizabeth experiences a new, intoxicating abandon and fullness. It never occurs to her that the photographs might be made public, especially without her consent. Desperate to avoid exposure―she’s a rising star in the academic world and the mother of young children―Elizabeth demands that Richard dismantle the exhibit. But he refuses. The pictures are his art. His property, not hers. As word of the photos spreads, Elizabeth unwittingly becomes a feminist heroine to her students, who misunderstand her motives in posing. To the university, however, her actions are a public scandal. To her husband, they’re a public humiliation. Yet Richard has reawakened an awareness that’s haunted Elizabeth since she was a child―the truth that cerebral knowledge will never be enough. Now she must face the question: How much is she willing to risk to be truly seen and known?
When I published Queen of the Owls and started talking with readers, people inevitably asked, “Where did you get the idea for the story?” It’s a natural question. So why was I having such trouble answering it?
I finally understood that it was because there were so many answers. Here are three of them.
#1. Panic. I’d signed up for an expensive year-long writing program that was meant to guide and support us through the process of completing a novel, start to finish. The problem was that I came home from the first all-day session and realized that I had no story. The story I’d intended to use for the program was, in a word, crap. It was my latest attempt to resurrect a manuscript that hadn’t worked the first four times I tried, but I hated to throw it away. I was hoping for a magic do-over that would turn this pig’s ear into a silk purse.
But it was obvious, finally, even to me. I sent the instructor a frantic email with eight exclamation marks in the subject line after the words: Help! I have no story.
She—and other well-meaning friends—offered prompts and ideas. Open the newspaper at random. Pick an object and imagine the person it belonged t. Et cetera. Nada. That wasn’t my way of finding the story I needed—or, rather, the story that needed me.
All I can tell you is that out of this pit of desperation, Queen of the Owls found me.
#2. Bill Kingery, my seventh grade heartthrob. When I was a too-tall, frizzy-haired, twelve-year old A student, I asked my best friend to ask Bill Kingery what he thought of me. His words crushed my adolescent heart. “Barbara? Oh, she’s a brain.”
Thus was born my decades-long question about whether I was doomed, as a woman, to be either sexy or smart, fox or owl. It took me a long time to understand that I could be both. And that’s what Elizabeth, protagonist of Queen of the Owls, must come to understand too.
#3. The flat-screen TV my ex-husband took. When my ex and I split up—ten years before I started writing Queen of the Owls—he took the great big flat-screen TV that he’d mounted over the fireplace. I was almost as glad to see that thing go as I was to see him go. I’d always hated the way it—like him—dominated the living room.
I wanted to put something in its place that symbolized the woman I wanted to be now, so I went to an art store and flipped through the oversized posters in the rack. As soon as I saw those glorious orange poppies, I knew this was the image I wanted on the wall to fill the space and proclaim: Here I am. Bold and beautiful and womanly.
I hadn’t particularly thought about the artist who was, of course, Georgia O’Keeffe. I simply lived with the poster. It wasn’t until a decade late—in a different home, doing a Zoom interview for Queen of the Owls with that very poster on the wall behind me—that I suddenly made the connection.
There are other reasons that I don’t have space for. The #MeToo Movement, which influenced the plot. A discarded bit from that old manuscript that stayed with me and bloomed into an evocative story element. A weird coincidence or two.
You’ll notice that none of the answers has to do with owls.
The second most frequent question I get asked is, “When did you start getting interested in owls?”
The answer is: I’m not. There are no owls in the book, nor are there any queens. But if you read Queen of the Owls, I think you’ll understand the meaning of the title.
It’s about me, and you, and how we can be the whole and authentic women we’re meant to be.
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Meet the Author:
BARBARA LINN PROBST is a writer of both fiction and non-fiction, living on an historic dirt road in New York’s Hudson Valley. Her debut novel QUEEN OF THE OWLS (April 2020) is the powerful story of a woman’s search for wholeness, framed around the art and life of iconic American painter Georgia O’Keeffe. Endorsed by best-selling authors including Christina Baker Kline and Caroline Leavitt, QUEEN OF THE OWLS was selected as one of the twenty most anticipated books of 2020 by Working Mother, a debut novel “too good to ignore” by Bustle, and "one of the best new novels to read during the quarantine" by Parade Magazine and Entertainment Weekly. It won the bronze medal for popular fiction from the Independent Publishers Association, placed first runner-up in general fiction for the Eric Hoffer Award, and was short-listed for the $2500 Grand Prize. Barbara has a PhD in clinical social work and blogs for several award-winning sites for writers.
What if you knew men, women and children were being slaughtered but had to cover it up?' Fake news. Alternative facts. Truth, lies, damn lies and statistics. Just who are we to believe? In this near-future dystopian thriller, that will be United Nations Police "moderators". Thirty year old UNPOL officer Richard Warren has been embedded with the BBC and not seeing eye-to-eye with journalist Sarah Dyer is just the start of his problems. News of an Ebola pandemic is being withheld, and when it’s discovered Sarah’s artistic savant brother is involved, Richard’s determination to get to the truth takes an unexpected turn. But what if the truth must never be known? And Richard thought Sarah was a challenge. The very concept of right and wrong is about to be tested and in a way that’s going to make fake news look like quality journalism.
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HALL
WAYS REVIEW: Alt
Truths is the fourth book I have read by the talented Alec
Birri, but it’s the first of his books that I have read
in print. I enjoyed The
Condition Trilogy with my ears and was barely recovered from fan-girling
over the amazing narration by Jonathan Keeble when the audio book of Alt Truths published. JOY! Listening to Alt Truths is just as satisfying as reading it.
Told in short, highly
interesting chapters, Alt Truths
keeps the reader engaged and the story moving along at a fast clip. The character building happens quickly, too,
so readers not only meet the main cast of characters, they also see them
fleshed-out early on. This is not to say that Birri gives away the goods. Many
of the characters are not exactly the what-you-see-is-what-you-get kind of
people, so there are plenty of times that readers will be taken aback.
“Stop
apologizing. Americans are so annoying like that.”
It is those “WHOA” moments
that really force the page-turning pace to increase and induce some philosophical
deep thinking for readers. Birri’s novel explores the what-ifs of savants,
science, germ warfare, political agendas, and even mind control all in a very
near future scenario (just barely futuristic given it’s only the 46th
United States president in office, at times making it difficult to discern that
the book is dystopian). Honestly, I had some trouble reconciling that some of
the elements were feasible. Perhaps
feasible is the wrong word – possible? Yes. Probable that soon? Doubtful to me. Sadly, fake news and bad cell signals are still a thing in the future, but
there wasn’t a mention of selfies, so small victories there.
Birri’s writing is very
good, and he does an excellent job with his descriptions of setting, allowing
readers to visualize everything from the defunct amusement park and its West
World-ish (original) occupants to the re-purposed military compounds and their
hidden agendas. For those who are squeamish, look-out. Birri also masterfully
and vividly describes the devastating and deadly effects of a virus that is
ravaging the world. ICK! (But, ooooooh, so cool/gross/fascinating!)
Alt
Truths is divided into two parts, and it’s almost like they are
two separate books. Where part one gives us realistic characters and a
realistic world, part two dives deeply into the sci-fi realm and went a bit too
out-there for me with the droids and the robots and the transcendental trips. Strangely
enough, within the advanced technology, global crises, and conspiracies
happening, Alt Truths manages to
infuse the strength of family bonds, romance, humor, and even witchcraft into
this crumbling world. And it works! Admittedly, these elements work better in
part one than part two, but the second half of the book does circle back around
and grounds itself by the end for a satisfying and thought-provoking
story.
ABOUT THE NARRATION: Jonathan
Keeble could read a recipe card and I’d be hooked. In Alt Truths, his performance of all the characters – male and female,
young and old – is stellar. There is never confusion over who is speaking
because Keeble manages to differentiate them so that each has a unique sound
and cadence. However, for me, there’s
nothing more delightful than an international accent, and sadly, there’s a lot
less of that in Alt Truths since so
many important characters are American. I am less enamored of Keeble’s American accent,
particularly Richard’s, which is supposed to be southern. (As a Texan, every
time I heard “ma’am” mispronounced, it took me right out of the story.) I eventually
acclimated to the peculiarities of the American accents, and Keeble knocks it
out of the park with the others, so my fan-girl status is still firmly in place.
Thank you to the author and
Audiobookworm for providing me an eBook and audio download in exchange for my
honest opinion – the only kind I give.
I received this audio book as part of my participation in a blog tour with Audiobookworm Promotions. The tour is being sponsored by Alec Birri. The gifting of this audio book did not affect my opinion of it.
Alec Birri served thirty years with the UK Armed Forces. He commanded an operational unit that experimented in new military capabilities classified at the highest level (Top Secret Strap 3) and it is this that forms the basis of his novels. Although semi-autobiographical, for national security and personal liberty reasons, the events and individuals portrayed have to be fiction but are still nonetheless in keeping with his experiences.
If you regularly enjoy listening to audio books then this Shakespearean actor will need no introduction. Winner of a 2016 SOVAS award, Jonathan’s voice is rightly recognized as being one of the best, and his narration of Alt Truths is no exception.
Jake Boxer, investigative journalist and host of the conspiratorial news show Bullseye, is in serious trouble. Not only is his soundman murdered by Russian intelligence agents while reporting on a secretive New World Order, but his network cancels his show, leaving Jake humiliated and spiraling into a deep dark depression.
Years later, a condemned murderer, who claims he was abandoned by the CIA, and who starred in an early episode of Bullseye, is finally executed for killing two supposed Soviet spies back in the 1970s.
Jake Boxer, still trying to piece his life back together, is on his honeymoon in a posh ski resort in the Alaskan mountains when he gets word of the inmate’s execution . . . and the old killer’s final words: “The good spy dies twice.”
Those five words, seemingly meant for Jake, draw the ex-reporter from his forced retirement and into a complex and deadly global conspiracy involving his newlywed wife, the secretive New World Order, and the hotel’s hundred or so “guests.”
Everyone is a suspect.
Described as James Bond in a Stephen King novel, THE GOOD SPY DIES TWICE is the explosive first book in the Bullseye Series. Part spy thriller, part whodunit, this fast-paced novel introduces an exciting new hero, the intrepid, conspiratorial journalist, Jake Boxer.
Limited time only: Get the ebook at a special price and add the audiobook for just $1.99 on Amazon
Mark Hosack is the author of THE GOOD SPY DIES TWICE (Book 1: The Bullseye Series, nominated for the 2016 RT Source Award), and IDENTITY (Simon & Schuster). He also wrote on the web series SEQUESTERED for Sony Crackle, the screenplay for GIVE 'EM HELL, MALONE (Thomas Jane, Ving Rhames), and he both wrote and directed the award winning independent film PALE BLUE MOON. Mark lives in Los Angeles with his wife and a brood of gremlins who insist on calling him Dad.
HALL WAYS REVIEW: Audio book review.
Overall rating clarification 3.5. The Good Spy
Dies Twice is a
contemporary conspiracy thriller from author Mark Hosack that apart from the
flashbacks, places readers in the US, post-2016 election time frame. It is tense and at times intense. Our main
character, Jake Boxer, is not at all the typical lead man readers would expect in
this kind of story; rather, he is deeply flawed, which for me is a refreshing
break from the stud hero spy guy.
Due to some
occupational hazards in his former line of work as an investigative reporter,
Jake suffers from paranoia – but then, with all that transpires, doesn’t he
ultimately have a reason to be paranoid? Jake is an unreliable narrator because
the reader can’t be sure if what he’s saying/feeling/doing is because he’s
paranoid, under the influence of his pain meds, haunted by his nightmares, or
being visited by ghosts (real or imagined). He is mostly operating in a fog, but he also
has his moments of clarity, and even brilliance as we come to the big reveal, which
surprisingly happens with a fair amount left in the story.
The premise is
excellent, the characters are interesting and even intriguing, Hosack’s
descriptions are detailed and realistic, and the plot is intricate and full of
twists and turns and surprises – all elements that kept me listening. Where I
struggled was in the details. There are decisions characters make that don’t
ring true (especially for survival situations). There are procedures that seem illogical and
unrealistic (and even incorrect – land lines that aren’t digital do not need electricity
to work), and there are a lot of deus ex machina solutions and resolutions. YET. . . that story kept my interest piqued.
The narration by
author Mark Hosack at times slips into a Rod Serling-ish vibe, but it is performed
with passion and real emotional investment. Jake’s fears, paranoia, and anxiety are depicted
very well. There is some inconsistency in the voices of other characters
(primarily Al, the concierge), but overall, author and narrator Hosack does an
admirable job carrying the story and the tension. I did find the pace a little
slow at regular speed, but bumping to 1.25x was perfect for me (and probably
even adds to the tension ramping up.) An
unexpected aspect to the audio book was the inclusion of some sound effects and
musical transitions that sometimes work well (especially towards the end of the
story) and other times feel awkward.
I listened to The
Good Spy Dies Twice while on a road trip, and I have no regrets that I spent my time that
way. As is always the case with audio books while driving, the downside is that
I can’t retain specific quotes - and there are some good ones - and I don’t
have the luxury of being able to flip back pages to do some re-reading to
clear-up any confusion. I’ll be looking
forward to book two of the Bullseye Series, The Chaos
Agent,
hopefully coming later this year.
Thank you to Audiobookworm Promotions for providing
me an audio download in exchange for my honest opinion – the only kind I
give.
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Limited time only: Get the ebook at a special price and add the audiobook for just $1.99 on Amazon
