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Posts Tagged ‘detective series’

Cold cases

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on January 14, 2019| Leave a Comment »

When the skeleton of a private detective missing for a decade turns up in an abandoned car, it isn’t long before semi-retired Edinburgh police detective John Rebus is drawn into the investigation with ties to his past. The twisty cold case allows Ian Rankin to assemble the old gang of coppers and crooks — Siobhan Clarke, Malcolm Fox, Big Ger Cafferty — and makes In a House of Lies (Little Brown, digital galley) a must for readers of the long-running series. An old pair of police-issue handcuffs on the corpse hints at possible corruption and cover-up on the part of Rebus’ former team, or maybe the cuffs are just a leftover prop from the low-budget zombie flick in which the missing man was an extra. Then again, they could be a red herring in a case that involves land deals, drug deals and a plea deal that landed a possibly innocent man in prison. For sure there’s something fishy about the “Chuggabugs,” a pair of shady cops now working in the ACU –Anti-Corruption Unit — and gunning for the good guys. In Val McDermid’s Broken Ground (Grove Atlantic, digital galley), the search for buried treasure in a peat bog leads to a perfectly preserved body and thus a case for Karen Pirie of Police Scotland’s HCU — Historic Crimes Unit. McDermid deftly splices scenes from World War II into the layered narrative as Pirie digs into the past, bucking her present control-freak boss, irritating the treasure hunters and getting to know a kilted Highlander named Hamish.

 

The past is always present in James Lee Burke’s Dave Robicheaux novels, and no one is better than Burke at evoking the haunted landscape of southern Louisiana. The New Iberia Blues (Simon and Schuster, digital galley), the 22nd in the series, finds Dave, adopted daughter Alafair and old buddy Clete Purcell all in the orbit of Desmond Cormier, a local boy made good as a Hollywood film director. Dave suspects Cormier and his smarmy friend Antoine Butterworth know more than they’re saying about the murder of pastor’s daughter Lucinda Arceneaux, whose crucified corpse is found in the river near Cormier’s estate. But then other bodies show up posed like Tarot card symbols, and the number of suspects escalates as well. Escaped Texas convict Hugo Tillinger is certifiably crazy, as is Chester “Smiley” Wimple, returning from last year’s Robicheaux, and it looks as if the mob is providing the money for Cormier’s latest project. Both the director and widower Dave are attracted to new young deputy Bailey Ribbons, who seems to have wandered in from another book. Still, as digressive as the narrative seems, Burke unknots the tangled strands with practiced ease.

Christopher Fowler’s entertaining tales of London’s legendary Peculiar Crimes Unit don’t appear in chronological order, and so Bryant & May: Hall of Mirrors (Ballantine, digital galley) features our heroes — prehistoric in the 21st century — still in their prime in 1969. John May, of course, looks debonair in Carnaby Street fashions as he and the sartorially challenged Arthur Bryant go undercover to protect prosecution witness Monty Hatton-Jones. An obnoxious snob, Monty resents the coppers escorting him to a country-house weekend at Tavistock Hall, and ignores their efforts to keep him from getting killed. The atmosphere is more Agatha Christie/P.G. Wodehouse than hippy-dippy, but the assorted cast is suitably eccentric to qualify for Peculiar Crimes’ attention, and the ancient butler goes above and beyond in service to his employer. All in all, it’s quite a lark.

Intrepid 1950s English girl sleuth and chemist Flavia de Lucia returns in Alan Bradley’s The Golden Tresses of the Dead (Ballantine, digital galley), suitably devastated that older sister Ophelia is getting married and suitably delighted when a severed finger shows up in the wedding cake. She immediately whisks it away for testing, and she and sleuthing partner Dogger, her late father’s valet, conclude it’s the embalmed digit of a recently deceased woman reknowned for her skill on the guitar. How this ties in with the homeopathic remedies of Dr. Augustus Brocken (confined by his infirmities to Gollingford Abbey), his daughter’s search for stolen letters, and two missionary ladies recently arrived from Africa makes for one of Flavia’s most interesting and macabre investigations. A train trip to visit a Victorian cemetery and the surprising help of Flavia’s snarky cousin Undine are among the highlights, although Flavia might choose the dissection of a poisoned rat.

 

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Crime wave

Posted in Fiction, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on May 31, 2018| 2 Comments »

A serial killer is stalking the streets, his gruesome crimes apparently inspired by the works of Dante. Well-known writers team as amateur detectives to solve the case but fear they are hunting one of their own. It sounds like the plot of Matthew Pearl’s best-selling The Dante Club, and it is. But it’s also that of Pearl’s new literary thriller The Dante Chamber (Penguin Press, ARC), with the action shifting from 1865 Boston to 1870 London. A politician’s neck has been crushed by a stone etched with an inscription from the Divine Comedy, and poet Christina Rossetti enlists the help of Robert Browning and Alfred Tennyson to search for her missing brother, famous artist and writer Dante Gabriel Rossetti. It’s not necessary to have read The Dante Club to enjoy Pearl’s atmospheric follow-up, thanks to Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who is still haunted by the Boston murders and who conveniently arrives in England to lend his expertise. Pearl’s own expertise is seamlessly blending fact with fiction in a fulsome narrative peopled by credible characters real and imagined. Christina Rossetti may present herself to the public as a retiring spinster, but her actions here reveal her spirited nature. Her brother Gabriel fascinates with his extravagant behavior and obsessions; his house is a library/menagerie, where armadillos and raccoons roam among the stacks of books. Browning is dashing, Tennyson is shy. Add a well-read Scotland Yard detective, a mysterious reverend, the “ghost” of a beautiful woman, a few Fenians plotting the overthrow of the government, and an ex-Pinkerton detective looking to capitalize on the lurid events. It’s a Victorian feast. Dig in.

Reading Ruth Ware’s deliciously twisty The Death of Mrs. Westaway (Scout Press, digital galley) is like driving down a country road. You think you know the way, pass some familiar landmarks, remember to turn left at the crossroads. But then you either miss a turn, or the road curves unexpectedly, and you don’t recognize a thing. You’re lost. Ware (In a Dark, Dark Wood, The Lying Game) comes up with Christie-like plots enhanced by Gothic elements. Past secrets, mistaken identities, old diaries and pictures. Harriet “Hal” Westaway is sure the letter from a lawyer announcing her grandmother’s death isn’t meant for her. For starters, her late grandmother wasn’t named Hester. Still, Hal can’t resist going to the funeral in Cornwall and the reading of the will. Ever since her single mother’s death several years ago, Hal has been on her own, forgoing university and eking out a living as a fortune teller on the Brighton pier. She doesn’t really believe in Tarot cards, but she’s good at reading people, and maybe she can pass herself off as a long-lost granddaughter long enough to benefit from the Westaway estate. With a loan shark breathing down her neck, Hal is desperate to escape Brighton. So off she goes to Trepassen House to meet her three new “uncles.” It’s a great premise, and Ware makes the most of it, even adding a creepy housekeeper, an attic bedroom, crumbling stairs and a frozen lake. Brrrr!

Would you willingly invite a serial killer to accompany you on a road trip? Me neither. What about if the serial killer is a senior citizen with dementia? Still no. What if you think your teenage sister was one of his victims? No way — are you kidding?! The unnamed 24-year-old narrator of Julia Heaberlin’s new thriller Paper Ghosts (Ballantine, digital galley) firmly believes that 61-year-old documentary photographer Carl Louis Feldman is behind the disappearance of her sister Rachel a dozen years ago. Armed with a map of Texas and some old photos, she pretends she’s Feldman’s daughter so she can check him out of the halfway house where he’s been living. Feldman, who claims no memory of killing Rachel or any other girls, doesn’t believe the narrator is his daughter but goes along for the ride, so to speak. You should, too, as improbable as it all sounds. Come on, don’t you want to know if Feldman really doesn’t  remember his career as photographer and killer? And what of the obsessive, unreliable narrator? Yes, you’ll keep reading. I did, with only a couple of pit stops to relieve the tension.

Time to catch up with some favorite series. Ann Cleeves has two going; the next entry in the Shetland series is due in the fall, while the fifth in the Vera Stanhope series, The Glass Room (St. Martin’s Press, library hardcover), was recently published in the U.S. for the first time. A formidable police detective and an odd duck, Vera finds herself investigating the murder of a famous writer in which her free-spirited neighbor is the prime suspect. But there are many others attending the writing workshop at the isolated country house with connections to the victim and motives aplenty. As usual, they underestimate Vera’s sharp mind, distracted by her large size and shabby clothes. Ah yes, appearances are deceiving.

I didn’t know how much I was longing for some good old South Florida noir until I read Alex Segura’s fourth Pete Fernandez novel Blackout (Polis Books, digital galley). Fernandez, a former reporter turned P.I. and a  recovering alcoholic, initially turns away a Florida politician looking for his missing son because it means returning to his hometown of Miami. Then Pete realizes that the missing man is linked to the cold case of Patty Morales, a high school classmate of Pete’s who disappeared in 1998. He and his former partner, Kathy Bentley, have tried to find Patty’s killer before, but their luck ran out when a crucial witness disappeared. Now with a chance to make amends with his past and old friends, Pete, who has been living in New York, heads for Miami, finding its familiarity both reassuring and overwhelming  Segura makes good use of Miami history — remember the Liberty City cult of Yahweh ben Yahweh? — and the surreality of Florida itself in crafting his hard-boiled tale.

Elly Griffiths takes a convoluted route in The Dark Angel (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, digital galley) to get her series characters from England to Italy to solve mysteries old and new. Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and young daughter Kate arrive first when Ruth is asked by an Italian archaeologist to consult on a Roman skeleton at the center of a television documentary. But then the town’s priest is found murdered in a case with secrets going back to World War II. Meanwhile, DCI Harry Nelson, Ruth’s sometimes lover and Kate’s father, hears of earthquakes in the region, and flies to Italy, leaving behind his pregnant wife Michelle. She doesn’t know if Nelson is the father of her baby or if it’s the police officer with whom she had an affair. Fans of the series will find these domestic entanglements as interesting as details  of the Italian crimes. La famiglia!

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The heat is on

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on August 9, 2017| 2 Comments »

I’m still recovering from Karin Slaughter’s gripping Pretty Girls in 2015, and now here’s The Good Daughter (William Morrow, digital galley) to give me nightmares. In the prologue, teenage sisters Samantha and Charlotte are kidnapped and terrorized at gunpoint in the north Georgia woods. They still carry the scars — physically and emotionally — 28 years later when they are uneasily reunited by a school shooting in their hometown. Their infamous defense attorney father Rusty is set to defend the vulnerable schoolgirl left holding the gun until he is stabbed in his driveway.  Charlie’s also a lawyer, but she actually witnessed the crime’s immediate aftermath, so it it falls to New York patent lawyer Sam to call on her courtroom skills. As tensions seethe, old secrets are revealed, new conflicts arise and the sisters clash. Tense and intense.

It’s hail and farewell to intrepid Eygyptologist and sleuth Amelia Peabody in The Painted Queen (William Morrow), which beloved series creator Barbara Mertz, writing as Elizabeth Peters, left unfinished at her death four years ago. Her good friend and fellow mystery writer Joan Hess was able able to step in and complete this last adventure that’s true to the spirit of Peabody and her brilliant archaeologist husband Radcliffe Emerson. In 1912 Cairo, the duo are readying for a return expedition to Amarna when a monocled would-be assassin surprises Peabody in her hotel bath. Someone really doesn’t want her investigating the disappearance of a German archaeologist, apparently tied to the forgery of a stolen bust of Queen Nefertiti. Fans will appreciate the ensuing romp replete with colorful characters and overall good humor. Newcomers should immediately seek out Crocodile on the Sandbank, first in the series. What a treat.

Margaret Maron, who wrapped up her award-winning Deborah Knott series with last year’s Long Upon the Land, returns with what she has said will be the last entry in her Sigrid Harald series, Take Out (Grand Central, digital galley). In mid-1990s New York City, police detective Harald is dealing with her grief over the recent death of her lover, famous artist Oscar Nauman, by helping organize a posthumous exhibit and settle his estate. On the work front, the murder of two homeless men, who shared poisoned takeout on a park bench, first leads Harald to the widow of a retired mobster and then to her neighbor, a former opera star. Even as she tries to figure out the tangled connections between the dead men, and who wanted who dead, she is surprised by the appearance of a man claiming to be Nauman’s son. It’s a thoroughly satisfying mystery on several levels, a fitting farewell to a storied career.

One of my favorite detectives, British copper Maeve Kerrigan, returns in Let the Dead Speak (St. Martin’s Press, digital galley), the seventh in Jane Casey’s estimable series. This time, unreliable witnesses and a missing body complicate what appears to be the murder of a single mom. Returning early from a weekend visit with her father, teenager Chloe Emery finds blood everywhere in her Putney home but not her mom Kate. Kerrigan and DI Josh Derwent, known for not playing well with others, are stymied by Chloe, a pretty girl with mental deficits staying temporarily with neighbors. The Norrises aren’t very nice neighbors, though. Parents Oliver and Eleanor are ardent evangelicals who disapprove of Kate’s male visitors. Their son Morgan is a lout, and young daughter Bethany appears to know more than she’s telling. Suspicion also falls on a neighborhood kid with a rap sheet. And what really happened to poor Kate? The answers make surprising if awful sense.

Once a rising star, young police detective Rene Ballard was exiled to the Hollywood station’s night shift after losing a sexual harassment complaint against her boss. Not a good career move for Ballard, but a perfect one for crime novelist Michael Connelly, who launches a new series with The Late Show (Little Brown, digital galley). Ballard and her partner typically hand off night-time crimes to the day shift for further investigation, but a nightclub shooting upsets the routine. Ballard is with a badly beaten transgender prostitute at the hospital when she is detailed to the arrival of a waitress fatally wounded at the shooting. While other detectives are all over the four other victims, Ballard tries to find out more about the comatose prostitute and confronts a sadistic killer. Then the death of another cop draws her into the nightclub investigation. The relentless pace is relieved by glimpses into Ballard’s lonely life. A surfer since childhood, she lives mostly out of her van, spending days at the beach with her rescue dog, sleeping in a tent. You thought Harry Bosch had issues.

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Riddle me this

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , , , , on June 24, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Did she fall or was she pushed? Did he fall or was he pushed? The first mystery concerns the death of the housekeeper of the manor house Pye Hall. The second refers to the author of the novel in which the housekeeper dies. Coincidence? Maybe, maybe not.  Readers get to don their sleuthing caps in Anthony Horowitz’s Magpie Murders (HarperCollins, digital galley), a clever tale within a tale that pays homage to the cozy Golden Age detective story and the cutthroat world of contemporary publishing.

When London editor Susan Ryeland sits downs with best-selling author Alan Conway’s latest manuscript, she’s expecting another 1950s English village mystery a la Agatha Christie starring series detective Atticus Pund. But as she reads of the death of the Pye Hall housekeeper followed soon after by the decapitation of her employer Sir Magnus Pye, then Pund’s arrival to question the widow, the gardener, the vicar, the estranged sister and all the usual suspects, Susan begins to read between the lines. Then, suddenly and maddeningly, there are no more lines — the manuscript is incomplete. Even worse, the troublesome author is not around to answer questions, having fallen from the rooftop terrace of his country house, a presumed suicide. How very strange. Soon Susan’s search for the last chapters turns into a hunt for a killer. How entertaining!

Horowitz is an accomplished  literary ventriloquist, whose many credits include teleplays for Foyle’s War and Midsomer Murders, the Alex Ryder thrillers for young readers, the Holmes homages The House of Silk and Moriarty, and the James Bond pastiche Trigger Mortis. With Magpie Murders, he out-Christies Christie, constructing a classic puzzle of red herrings and dead-ends inside a witty modern mystery of misdirection. Keep up, people! The game’s afoot and tea is served. One lump or two?

Given its kind of cozy title, Matthew Sullivan’s first novel Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore (Scribner, digital galley) is darker than you might think. Denver bookstore clerk Lydia Smith is shocked when one of her favorite customers, troubled young ex-con Joey Molina, kills himself on the bookstore’s third floor. And she’s puzzled why Joey would leave her his few belongings, including a box of books from the store’s shelves, their pages defaced with tiny holes, and an old photograph. The latter is especially mystifying as it’s a picture of Lydia’s 10th birthday party, which occurred not long before the notorious Hammerman murders. The 20-year-old cold case cost a little girl and her parents their lives, but Lydia, spending the night at their house, survived by hiding under the kitchen sink.

Seeking connections between Joey’s past and her own, Lydia realizes Joey has left her coded messages among his books. She consults another homeless man, Lyle; her childhood friend Raj, who just happens to turn up again; and also the retired detective who worked the Hammerman case and always suspected Lydia’s eccentric dad of the crime.  So many questions. So many coincidences. But Sullivan, a former bookseller, knows the world he writes about, and his obvious love of books and his affection for his quirky characters shine off pages that practically turn themselves.

Forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway is digging up old bones again in Elly Griffith’s The Chalk Pit (Houghton Mifflin, digital galley), the ninth in this fascinating series. This time, the bones are found in one of the old chalk mining tunnels that wind underneath the city of Norwich, and the architect excavating the site hopes the remains won’t stop his next trendy restaurant. Ruth gets to deliver the bad news — the bones aren’t that old and, moreover, exhibit signs of cannibalism. Ick.

Meanwhile, DCI Nelson, the father of Ruth’s young daughter Kate, has been looking for a missing homeless woman at the behest of one of her homeless friends, later found stabbed on the steps of a church. The separate investigations are complicated when a local housewife also goes missing amid rumors of an underground community of homeless in the claustrophobic tunnels. Complicated, too, is the relationship between Ruth and Nelson, whose wife knows about Kate but has not told their teen-age daughters. Griffiths is a pro at weaving the various strands into a tightly plotted tale that foreshadows a change in Ruth’s life. Next book, please.

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November surprises

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Uncategorized, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 4, 2016| Leave a Comment »

smokeMystery writers are magicians of sorts, constructing clever puzzles, misdirecting our attention, dazzling us with their verbal sleight of hand. They also juggle characters and clues, and, sometimes, different series. Elly Griffiths, best known for her Ruth Galloway series, introduced the “Magic Men” mysteries with last year’s clever The Zig Zag Girl. The follow-up, Smoke and Mirrors (Houghton Mifflin, digital galley), captivates as police detective Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto hunt for a killer in early 1950s Brighton. It’s December, and the crime scene is straight out of Hansel and Gretel, with a trail of broken candy leading to the snow-covered corpses of young Annie and her best pal Mark. The fairy tale connections continue as Edgar learns that talented Annie liked to write plays based on Grimm for her classmates to perform, and other clues link to the pantomime Aladdin, in which Max is starring. The frantic holiday vibe, the theatrical backdrop, the colorful characters and the bleak weather add up to a moody mystery. Abracadabra, indeed!

wrongsideMichael Connelly takes a walk on the noir side in his new Harry Bosch novel, beginning with the title The Wrong Side of Goodbye (Little, Brown, digital galley). Then Harry, now retired from the LAPD and working part-time as a PI, goes calling on money — wealthy aviation tycoon Whitney Vance, 85 and in failing health. He wants Harry to find out what happened to the Mexican teen he got pregnant when he was a USC student 65 years ago and who then vanished. Is Vibiana still living and did she have the baby? Does he have a heir? Sworn to secrecy, Harry begins a dogged search for possible Vance descendants, a hunt that takes him to a one-time home for unwed mothers and his own past as a Vietnam vet. Meanwhile, Harry, who is also a reserve police officer for the city of San Fernando, is on the case of the “Screen Ripper,” a serial rapist with an unusual m.o. The parallel stories don’t intersect, except that Harry’s time and loyalties are divided between the two cases, both of which offer surprises and coincidences. Nice work.

mistletoeHere’s an unexpected treat: The Mistletoe Murder and Other Stories (Knopf, digital galley) brings together four previously uncollected short stories by the great P.D. James, who died in 2014. In the stellar title tale, an elderly writer remembers a memorable wartime Christmas, when a fellow houseguest — an antiques dealer — was bludgeoned to death. The conclusion of this  cold case is a chilling twist. Two of the stories feature detective Adam Dalgliesh and pay homage to Christie and Holmes. In the wry “The Boxdale Inheritance,” Dalgliesh’s godfather asks him to investigate the source of family money — did Great Aunt Allie really poison her elderly husband and get away with it? “The Twelve Clues of Christmas” involves a young Dalgliesh showing local coppers how he’d solve a case. “A Very Commonplace Murder” is less Golden Age mystery and more of a creepy Hitchcockian tale as a voyeur spies on his neighbor’s illicit trysts, which end in murder. Oh, I miss P.D. James.

lostboySwedish crime writer Camilla Lackberg’s The Lost Boy (Pegasus, digital galley) combines a solid police procedural with a haunting backstory in a shivery tale of murder, drugs, grief and ghosts. Detective Patrik Hedstrom and his true-crime writer wife, Erica, should be enjoying their infant twin sons. But Erica’s sister’s loss of a baby has plunged her into months-long depression, and misfortune seems to fog the very air of Fjallbacka. Then the financial officer of soon-to-open hotel-spa is murdered, and his death leads to secrets from his past in Stockholm, shocking his elderly parents and his childhood sweetheart fleeing her abusive husband. Also in play are a couple of con artists, a violent biker gang, drug dealers high and low, and an island of ghosts. Really.

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Mysteries and more, part II

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on September 16, 2015| Leave a Comment »

zigzagSo many mysteries the last month or so. A popular author kicks off a new series, while another chooses to end a longtime favorite. Star turns by trusted detectives, past crimes leading to present-day puzzles, procedurals, capers, a serial killer — or two.

Elly Griffiths, whose Ruth Galloway series is known for its engaging characters, introduces another memorable cast in The Zig Zag Girl (Houghton Mifflin, digital galley), set in 1950 Brighton. Police detective Edgar Stephens and magician Max Mephisto both served in a special ops/disinformation group known as the Magic Men during World War II and reteam as sleuths when someone starts killing people by restaging famous magic tricks. Atmospheric, clever and appropriately tricky. Encore, please.

longlandWith the evocative Long Upon the Land (Grand Central, library hardcover), Margaret Maron brings her long-running Deborah Knott series to a close by circling back to Deborah’s complicated family history as bootlegger Kezzie Knott’s daughter. She marries a contemporary mystery about a dead man found on Kezzie’s North Carolina farm to one with roots in World War II, when Deborah’s mother Susan befriended both a young soldier and widower Kezzie. In both cases, Deborah needs answers from her many older brothers, her aunt and her father, as well as others with long memories. Sweet and bittersweet.

raggedLand is also at the heart of Last Ragged Breath (St. Martin’s Minotaur, advance reading copy), Julia Keller’s fourth entry in her excellent series featuring prosecutor Bell Elkins. A native of the hardscrabble West Virginia mountain town of Acker’s Gap, Elkins is familiar with the area’s history, even if the disastrous 1972 Buffalo Creek flood was before her time. Royce Dillard was only two when he survived the rushing waters that claimed the lives of his parents and more than a hundred other souls, but now the solitary dog-lover’s life is imperiled once again. He is on trial for the murder of an outside developer on his land. The circumstantial evidence points to Dillard, but Elkins has her doubts, well aware of the passions aroused by the dead man and his plans that could forever change Acker’s Gap. Like her protagonist, Keller knows the landscape and its residents. Unlike Elkins, though, she also knows dogs. I fell hard for Goldie.

natureofA boy cries wolf once too often in Louise Penny’s The Nature of the Beast (St. Martin’s Press, library hardcover), a stunning addition to her Inspector Gamache series. I was disappointed by the last one (choppy writing, digressive plot), but this one took my breath away as the isolated Quebec village of Three Pines is invaded by suspicion and betrayal with far-reaching moral consequences. All the familiar characters are on hand, including Henri the dog and Rosa the duck, as Gamache resists peaceful retirement in his search for answers. What little Laurent finds in the woods is real and fearsome.

xgraftonThe only problem with Sue Grafton’s X (Penguin Putnam, digital galley) is that it means we’re nearing the end of her alphabetically titled series starring PI Kinsey Millhone. As always, it’s a treat to watch Kinsey using the old-fashioned tools of the trade circa 1989 to catch criminals. Here, knocking on doors, using library reference books and looking at public records in person has Kinsey figuring out frauds large and small, even as the private files of a late colleague lead to a trail of missing women and a serial killer. Yikes! The colorful characters include a wily divorcee, a slick sociopath and annoying new neighbors for Kinsey and her elderly landlord Henry.

susansThe plot of Julia Heaberlin’s thrilling Black-Eyed Susans (Random House/Ballantine, digital galley) reminds me of an episode of Criminal Minds but minus most of the gory details. In 1995, 16-year-old Tessa was found buried alive under a blanket of black-eyed Susans in a Texas wheat field that served as a grave for three other girls. Tessa, who only has flashes of memory of her traumatic experience, nevertheless testified at the trial of the presumed killer, who was sent to Death Row. Now, with his execution only days away, Tessa reluctantly agrees to help a defense attorney and a forensics expert trying to free the condemned man by finally identifying the other victims. Heaberlin alternates between past and present, piling on the red herrings, and Tessa struggles to recover her memory. The ending’s a bit muddled and unevenly paced, but Heaberlin’s third book will keep you up all night.

marrykissWith its snappy dialogue and cinematic scenes, Marry Kiss Kill (Prospect Park Books, digital galley) reads like a rom-com caper TV movie — no surprise since author Anne Flett-Giordano’s writing and producing credits include Frasier and Hot in Cleveland. With the glitzy Santa Barbara film festival as backdrop, police detective Nola MacIntire and her partner, Tony Angellotti, try to solve the case of a murdered street artist while also looking into the suspicious death of a wealthy businessman. Nothing especially original here, but appealing characters and a spritz of name-dropping make for fast-paced fun.

pargeterKeeping up with so many series means I hardly ever run out of new mysteries to read. A shout-out to the Witness Impulse imprint that introduced me to several excellent writers from across the pond, including Brian McGilloway, whose Lucy Black series is set in Northern Ireland; Mari Hannah, whose Kate Daniels series takes place in Northumbria; and Alison Bruce, whose Gary Goodhew procedurals are set in Cambridge. I also count on British publisher Severn House for witty new tales from Simon Brett, who writes the Charles Paris series and the Mrs. Pargeter books. Severn also publishes new mysteries from American writers (and Facebook friends) Clea Simon and Sarah Shaber.  Recommended all.

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Mysteries and more

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on September 15, 2015| Leave a Comment »

So many mysteries the last month or so. A popular author kicks off a new series, while another chooses to end a longtime favorite. Star turns by trusted detectives, past crimes leading to present-day puzzles, procedurals, capers, a serial killer — or two.

Attention: The above was prematurely published when a cat took over the laptop. I apologize on his behalf. The complete version appears in the next post.

 

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Series of crimes

Posted in Fiction, Reviews, Thoughts on Books, Writing and Reading, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on June 8, 2015| Leave a Comment »

sometimesMy favorite TV series are in reruns — oh, Elementary, I think I miss you most of all — and it’s a couple weeks before a new True Detective airs. No worries, though. Many of my favorite crime writers have stepped up with new series entries, so I’m binge reading. First up, Walter Mosley’s And Sometimes I Wonder About You (Knopf Doubleday, digital galley), the fifth in the Leonid McGill series. I like the New York ex-pugilist PI almost as much as his West Coast counterpart, Easy Rawlins, and for sure you want him on your side in a fight. McGill’s cases tangle with his personal life: a femme fatale he’s sleeping with claims her ex-fiance wants the engagement ring back; his son is caught up with a Fagin-like figure running drugs from the city’s underground tunnels; his long-lost activist father turns up to befriend McGill’s wife in a mental ward; and then the client he turned away is murdered. The street-smart detective uses both brain and brawn so all’s well that ends well, at least until the next time he meets a pretty woman on a train.

ghostfieldsElly Griffith’s absorbing The Ghost Fields (Houghton Mifflin, digital galley) takes its title from the abandoned World War II air bases on England’s Norfolk coast. When a downed U.S. military plane is unearthed at a construction site, forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway discovers the skeletal pilot in the cockpit doesn’t belong. DNA identifies him as the black son of the prominent Blackstock family, MIA since the war. Ruth and DCI Harry Nelson’s investigation takes them to secluded Blackstock Hall, to a pig farm on an old ghost field, and to a family pet cemetery, but their findings are complicated by a documentary film company, more human remains, and a storm so fierce that the sea threatens to engulf the land. Then there’s their rocky personal relationship, which dates back some six years to a one-night stand that resulted in 5-year-old Kate. Griffith neatly mixes fascinating history with puzzling mystery, the seventh in the series. Another winner.

birchesAfter 21 previous books in Katherine Hall Page’s Faith Fairchild series, the 22nd, The Body in the Birches (Morrow/Harpercollins, digital galley) has the familiarity of a reunion. But while caterer Faith, her minister husband Tom and their two kids are all on hand for a summer vacation at a Maine island resort, much of the focus is on the neighboring Proctor/McAllister family. The extended clan — including the Fairchild’s former babysitter Sophie Proctor — has gathered after the death of Great-Aunt Priscilla to learn who will inherit the island cottage/estate known as the Birches. This recipe for disaster soon results in a sudden death and then a murder, drawing Faith into the fray. But the suspenseful unmasking of the villain may well surprise you.

rockwingsAnne Hillerman picked up the pen of her late father Tony Hillerman in 2013’s Spider Woman’s Daughter, carrying on the adventures of married Navajo tribal police officers Bernie Manuelito and Jim Chee, and Chee’s mentor Lt. Joe Leaphorn. In Rock with Wings (HarperCollins, digital galley), Leaphorn is still sidelined after being grievously injured in a previous case, but he’s the one who points the others in the right direction in solving two crimes. While Chee is detailed to provide protection for a movie production company filming on the reservation, Bernie’s routine stop of a speeding car leads to a company that wants to install solar panels on the scenic landscape. A mysterious gravesite and several boxes of dirt also figure in the twisty but exposition-heavy plot.

sandfordI was predisposed to really like John Sandford’s Gathering Prey (Putnam/Penguin, review copy) because I’m a longtime Lucas Davenport fan and because this 25th in the series promised to send the Minnesota detective in a new direction. But I’m just lukewarm about this choppy chase narrative that touches down in California, South Dakota,Wisconsin and Michigan as it tracks a murderous gang headed by the enigmatic Pilate. This infamous crook inspires a cult-like devotion in his followers, who deal in drugs and prostitution, and just for the fun of it, prey on the nomadic homeless known as the Travelers. Davenport’s adopted daughter Letty meets two Travelers busking in San Francisco and later learns that one of them has disappeared. Readers know by then that the missing gentle soul has met a terrifying end, described in gruesome detail. There’s more violence but little suspense as Davenport then tries to stop the state-hopping serial killer and company, even if it means going maverick.

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