On a Clear Day I Can Read Forever

The Olympics. The Super Bowl. Wordle. Reader, it’s all about the games this winter, so time to play As You Like It, as in “if you like that, then you may like this.” Game on!

If you like crime novels like S. J. Watson’s Before I Go to Sleep,  in which amnesia plays a key role, then try Alafair Burke’s tricky Find Me (HarperCollins, digital galley). Hope Miller is not her real name. Fifteen years ago, an unidentified young woman was rescued from an overturned car with no memory of her past and befriended by Lyndsay Kelly, now a Manhattan defense attorney. When Hope goes missing shortly after starting a new life in East Hampton, Lyndsay goes looking for her and reaches out to NYPD detective Ellie Hatcher after a drop of blood connected to Hope’s disappearance also connects to an infamous Kansas crime. Ellie, whose police detective father died before he could arrest the serial killer eventually convicted for those murders, is intrigued by the link to her past and joins the search for Hope. If this sounds complicated, it is, but Burke is a pro at juggling multiple storylines and shifting perspectives. She spins quite a web of secrets and lies before cleverly unraveling several dark mysteries, the Kansas one inspired by real-life serial killer BTK, who terrorized Wichita in the 1980s. (I know, I was there. So was Burke).

If you like cozy mysteries like The Thursday Murder Club and quirky characters like Eleanor Oliphant, then check out Nita Prose’s The Maid (Ballantine, digital galley). Even though her co-workers think she’s an oddball, narrator Molly Gray loves the routine of her job at the Regency Grand Hotel and everything about it — the crisp white sheets, perfectly plumped pillows, her organized cleaning cart. But when she discovers the body of a wealthy guest in a room she’s assigned to clean, her subsequent actions, which make perfect sense to her, cast her as a murder suspect. Molly makes for a delightful narrator, and writer Prose crafts a fresh and tidy take on the traditional hotel murder scenario.

If you like hefty detective novels like Robert Galbraith’s Lethal White or any of Elizabeth George’s recent doorstops featuring Thomas Lynley, then you’ll want to dig into George’s latest Lynley, Something to Hide (Viking Penguin, purchased e-book). When an undercover police detective investigating incidents of FGM (female genital mutilation) in North London’s Nigerian community is murdered, her death reveals personal links to the illegal practice. Central to the story is the immigrant Bankole famly, which is planning an arranged marriage for a rebellious teenage son and a horrific surgery on an 8-year-old daughter. Lynley, DS Barbara Havers and DS Winston Nkata encounter culture clash, racism, sexism, domestic violence and blackmail in their investigation, which is much more interesting than the obligatory digressions about their personal lives. The book reminds me of an earlier entry in the series, Deception on His Mind, an equally involving story about Asian immigrants in an English seaside community. 

If you like The Secret History and are drawn to classical mythology, then you might approve of Mark Prins’ The Latinist: A Novel  (Norton, digital galley). Set in the hallowed halls of Oxford University, this modern reimagining of the myth of Daphne and Apollo does not wear its knowledge lightly, so brush up on your Ovid and the Roman gods and goddesses. Tessa Templeton, a star classics student getting ready to defend her thesis, learns that her beloved mentor, famous classics scholar Christopher Eccles, has been sabotaging her career, damning her with faint praise in letters of reference. Disbelieving and then furious, Tessa confronts Chris, who initially denies his part in any plot even as he continues to track her texts and emails. Totally obsessed with Tessa, he plans to keep her in Oxford as his assistant, but then she runs off to an archaeology dig and makes a important discovery about a minor Latin poet known for “limping iambs.” The novel is not so much about overheated passion and desire as cold-blooded power, ambition and revenge. 

If you like Agatha Christie — both her fiction and as a fictional character in other writers’ novels, than you’re in luck. Like last year’s The Mysterious Mrs. Christie and the movie Agatha, Nina de Gramont’s The Christie Affair (St. Martin’s, digital galley) is an inventive take on Christie’s mysterious 11-day disappearance in 1926. De Gramont blends fact and fiction, using some real names and some made up. Narrator Nan O’Dey is the stand-in for Archie’s real-life lover, Nancy Neele, and has a complicated background in Ireland that serves as catalyst for her later involvement in the Christies’ life. The resulting plot is clever but implausible, an entertaining mystery as long as you forget the the few facts of the case. Agatha Christie has more minor roles in two other tales, Colleen Cambridge’s Murder at Mallowan Hall (Kensington, digital galley) and Lori Rader-Day’s Death at Greenway (HarperCollins, digital galley). Set in 1930, Mallowan is the first in a series featuring Phyllida Bright as housekeeper at the manor house of the famous author and her second husband Max Mallowan. When a body’s found in the library, Phyllida decides to play Hercule Poirot and solve the case. The atmospheric Greenway is set during World War II, and focuses on trainee nurse Bridget Kelly tending to 10 babies and toddlers evacuated to the Devon country home of Christie and her husband, who are away doing war work. A fellow nurse called Gigi has more of a talent for fun than caring for children, but when a strangled body is found in the river and Gigi mysteriously disappears, Bridget is determined to discover what’s going on. For some real Agatha Christie stories, pick up the collection A Deadly Affair (HarperCollins, digital galley), subtitled “Unexpected Love Stories from the Queen of Mystery.” Indeed, romance often has fatal consequences in these 14 short stories featuring favorite Christie characters such as Hercule Poirot, Miss Marple and Tommy and Tuppence. Now, how about a cuppa?