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Welcome to Mysteries to Die For and this Toe Tag.

I am TG Wolff and am here with Jack, my piano player and producer. This is normally a podcast where we combine storytelling with original music to put you at the heart of mystery. Today is a bonus episode we call a Toe Tag. It is the first chapter from a fresh release in the mystery, crime, and thriller genre.

Today\\u2019s featured release is Black & White by Justin M. Kiska

TG Wolff Review

Black & White is a mystery. This story is told in two times. Then was 1945. Stride agency investigator Francis \\u201cFitz\\u201d Mason is hired by a retired US Ambassador to find the daughter who disappeared while dressing for her wedding. Now is 1985. Park City Police Detective Sergeant Ben Winters and Detective Tommy Mason are called to the scene of a woman\\u2019s body discovered in a field. She\\u2019s young, beautiful, and frozen solid. Winters and Mason take up the case where Uncle Fitz left off forty years ago.

Bottom line: Black & White is for you if you like mysteries driven by classic detectives, both cop and private investigator.

Strengths of the story. Black & White moves back and forth between the 1945 kidnapping case and the 1985 suspicious death case. The movement between the two periods are distinct, staying in each period for multiple chapters, with distinct indication of the change.

The 1945 story features PI Fitz Mason with a cast mixing the local rich and famous with local cops covering their own butts. The story is a solid kidnapping mystery with the who, why, and how largely making sense. Former ambassador Conrad Martin\\u2019s daughter, Lillian, went missing the morning of her wedding. Someone carried her out of her father\\u2019s mansion dressed in her wedding gown. The character of Fitz Mason is of the classic, heroic cut and is easy to cheer for. The supporting characters of Ambassador Martin, younger sister Lucy, the valet Joe Grainger, and police chief Buchanan are also well developed, three-dimensional characters who you can like, hate, laugh at, and sympathize for.

The 1985 story features police detectives Ben Winter and his partner and friend Tommy Mason. Childhood friends, they grew up listening to Uncle Fitz\\u2019s case stories. The suspicious death is intriguing. The who, why, and how are built off the 1945 case, so, while it has equal weight in the book, it feels secondary. Even in writing this review, I\\u2019m being careful to not reveal anything that would detract from your enjoyment. This is the fourth book for Ben and Tommy, so they have the history and depth of established characters. The supporting characters are more typical of police procedurals, being effective, informative, and often entertaining.

The scene setting in both 1945 and 1985 are distinctively drawn using language, clothing, and period appropriate relationships between father and daughters, men and women. I felt transported to 1945. The 1985 language was not very different from now. The biggest \\u201cfeel\\u201d for the mid-80s came from Tommy looking and dressing like the original Magnum P.I.

Fitz does an excellent job of driving his story. He investigated, picked up the clues, and drove it to the next point, then the next point, etc. Ben and Tommy are more traditional cops, acting on information given to them by the evidence clerk, forensics, etc and ushering the story point to point.

Where the story fell short of ideal: To enable the two stories to be told simultaneously, the modern story had to be slowed down, so it didn\\u2019t give away the historic story. But in doing that the modern story felt to me like it was idling, sometimes waiting until Fitz made a move before Ben and Tommy took a step forward.

The logic on the kidnapping, as I said, largely made sense. However, Lillian was knocked out and carried out of a mansion busy with wedding preparation without being seen. While Fitz was...'