Crystal Palace may sound like something out of a fairy tale or Disney theme park, but it’s actually a neighborhood in south London that takes its name from the Grand Exhibition landmark destroyed by fire in 1936. It’s also the setting for murder in Deborah Crombie’s intriguing The Sound of Broken Glass (Morrow, digital galley), which neatly toggles between today and 15 years ago when guitarist Andy Monahan was a lonely teen.
Andy’s a witness/suspect in the strangling death of a barrister in a seedy Crystal Palace hotel. DI Gemma James investigates while her Scotland Yard hubby, Duncan Kincaid, has homefront duty, but it turns out Duncan and Andy have friends in common. Further complications are provided by a second murder and DS Melody Talbot’s attraction to Andy, about to get the break of his career. Newcomers to the series may be confused by the cluttered backstory, but Crombie knows what she’s doing. The teasing finale left me longing for the next book.
My favorite new sleuth is nosy Maggie, the heroine of Robert Crais’ stand-alone, Suspect (Putnam, library hardcover). She’s a veteran of the war in Afghanistan, scarred by a sniper’s bullet when her partner was killed, and now has PTSD. So does her new partner, Scott James, a LA cop wounded in a shootout that killed his last partner. Both have trouble adjusting to each other and K-9 training, but the German Shepherd is exactly what James needs to sort out his life and his last case. The chapters told from Maggie’s perspective will fascinate dog-lovers.
A smart dog also has a pivotal role in Jamie Mason’s debut Three Graves Full (Gallery Books, digital galley), which is part tricky mystery, part screwball comedy. Mild-mannered, lost-in-a-crowd widower Jason Getty knows there’s a body buried in his suburban backyard because he put it there. But he’s at a loss — and in a panic –when landscapers discover two additional corpses underneath his bedroom window and his tidy life is suddenly invaded by cops, the aforementioned dog, and a woman looking for her runaway fiance. Great writing, great fun.
In The Burning Air (Pamela Dorman/Viking, digital galley), Erin Kelly puts a devious spin on family secrets, obsession and revenge. After Lydia MacBride’s death, her husband Rowan, their three grown children, plus partners and kids, all gather at an isolated country house. Rowan, former headmaster at a prestigious school, gets drunk and starts a bonfire, while daughter Sophie copes with post-partum depression and a failing marriage. Her divorced sister Tara worries about her teenage son, and both women are unsure about their disfigured brother Felix’s enigmatic new companion. Kelly offers multiple narrators and a tension-filled story that skips back in time before returning to a present-day kidnapping and the search for Lydia’s diaries.
Charles Todd’s long-running Inspector Ian Rutledge series maintains its high standards with Proof of Guilt (Morrow, digital galley), set in the summer of 1920. Rutledge, scarred by his wartime experiences and literally haunted by the soldier Hamish, is assigned by his new boss to a suspicious hit-and-run death. The only clue to the dead man’s identity is an heirloom pocketwatch that Rutledge traces to a family firm of London wine merchants with vineyards in Portugal. The trail then leads to Essex, where family members have motives aplenty to wish one of their kin dead. It’s a right old puzzle, and Rutledge’s instincts run counter to his chief’s as to who did what when. It will be the noose for a lovely lady if he can’t find the real killer.
On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever 
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