Barbara Clark

In a windblown field near the sea in Norfolk, England, a land developer’s excavating machine uncovers first a silver wing, then the cockpit of an American World War II fighter plane, then the ghostly remains of a long-dead pilot staring up from inside.

Enter forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway, the central character in the engrossing mystery series by author Elly Griffiths. Like the previous books in the series, The Ghost Fields combines an atmosphere of eerie beauty, a reach that manages to encompass millennia and a style of low-key, dry humor that’s just plain satisfying.

The discovery of the grisly human remains ignites a series of mysteries. (The body, by the way, is not that of the plane’s pilot.) Soon Ruth and company are investigating throughout the Norfolk countryside, from the developer’s digging site to a derelict WWII American airfield—one of many known as “ghost fields”—to an old family estate whose lands date back to the Iron Age and may contain a few more skeletons in the closet—and elsewhere.

The success of Griffiths’ series is due in no small part to central character Ruth and a creative, comfortable cast of characters, including a couple of druids, one or two mismatched couples who nevertheless make a match, a crazy British family living out in the wilds and, of course, the irreplaceable DCI Nelson, a cop for all seasons if there ever was one. Nelson’s unconventional social skills make him one of the more intriguing antiheroes to come down the pike in ages. He’s irresistible precisely because he seems to be clueless about the depth of his relationship with Ruth. Though Griffiths describes him as “not a fanciful man,” we’re drawn to his blind spots as well as his sturdy confidence as he works alongside his three detective sergeants, who play no small role in the proceedings. The author’s addictive sense of humor raises the series a cut above the ordinary—not loudmouth, wise-guy humor, but rather more subtle and lasting.

Add to this the book’s salty, desolate atmosphere of endless marsh and lonely, ancient sands, and the book achieves a shivery aura of mystery you won’t soon shake, one that laces past with present in the inescapable march of time.

Crime fiction groupies can usually form a pretty quick mental picture of the cop, PI or little old lady detective in any new mystery novel, and that take remains, embedded in the reader’s imagination, for the duration of the story.

In David Handler’s new series, however, it’s not easy to get a handle on Benji, whose feet meet the street for Golden Legal Services, a mom-and-son detective agency in NYC. He’s barely five-foot-six, with a baby face that looks younger than his 25 years, and he tends toward madras shorts and Converse high-tops. Still, the mental image is elusive and doesn’t intrude in the mind like Sam Spade or Hercule Poirot. Maybe it’s to Benji’s advantage, as he searches out the bad guys in Phantom Angel.

Back by popular demand after 2013’s Runaway Man, Benji is hired by aging producer and showman Morrie Frankel to find his missing “angel,” a financial backer who emerges to support—or save—a Broadway show, and who supposedly functions as an incentive for other would-be backers to pony up some cash. Morrie claims his angel is a hedge fund billionaire named R.J. Farnell, but “phantom” becomes the operative word when Farnell goes missing. Besides cultivating hedge fund managers, Morrie is in deep to the Joe Minetta crime family, who also back shows—for a hefty price. If Farnell isn’t found, Morrie claims his Broadway version of Wuthering Heights will never make it to the stage—not to mention he’ll have to watch out for Minetta’s goons.

Benji’s investigation leads to the doorstep of Farnell’s supposed girlfriend, a 19-year-old cutie nicknamed Boso. But Boso’s career as a webcam bimbo connects her to organized crime and—surprise, surprise—Minetta’s organization, and when Morrie is murdered in broad daylight on a New York street, Benji must penetrate the surface glitz to separate the good guys from the bad.

Handler’s strength lies in his stable of marvelous characters, who could be straight out of a Damon Runyon story: Benji’s mother, Hattie, retired pole dancer; Rita, his gorgeous co-worker and former erotic performer; and Cricket, an online huckster for whom no item of gossip is too sleazy.

The author has notched another urban treat full of opportunistic Broadway producers, grabby wannabe stars and the hardscrabble world of mob connections. In this book, as in New York City, it ain’t movin’ unless it’s movin’ fast.

The members of the Last Death Club are kicking the bucket one by one, some of them practically under the nose of irascible Victorian detective Sidney Grice, in The Curse of the House of Foskett. It’s the second book in M.R.C. Kasasian’s intriguing new series that debuted in 2014 with The Mangle Street Murders, featuring Grice and his young ward, March Middleton, who narrates the books in a most unusual fashion.

Death Club member Horatio Green approaches Grice, asking him to investigate the suspicious passing of one of the club’s original seven members, whose wills collectively stipulate that the last living member will reap all the financial benefits that have accrued in the combined coffers. During the interview, Green suddenly drops dead in Grice’s study, leaving just five members still alive. As March and her guardian begin their investigation, members continue to die in bizarre, unpleasant ways.

Kasasian has a macabre sense of humor, or perhaps it’s just a heightened sense of the macabre. Graphic descriptions can be black enough to corrode the soul—or they may leave you relishing each page, depending on your capacity for unsavory, sometimes tongue-in-cheek details. During a tidy Victorian dinner scene, we learn that the napkin ring is fashioned from a human femur. Floors, handkerchiefs and faces are never clean; the London streets are dark and rainy; one death club member sits in the filth of a decaying mansion, hidden behind a sheen of black gauze. At the same time, each page is shot through with dry humor and clever ripostes, including some humdinger non sequiturs from housemaid Molly.

The book’s period details are impeccable. Each murder is clever and twisty, and the methods employed by the unconventional—one might even say mad—detective duo may leave you shaking, though only occasionally with laughter.

Side stories are engrossing in their own right: the ongoing mystery behind the story of March and her now-dead lover, Edward; hints of a strange past involving Grice and one club member, who happens to be one of the “cursed” members of the titular Foskett family; and the quiet tie growing between March and a police detective she has nearly killed (unintentionally).

Readers alternate between exasperation at these eccentric characters and the desire to read more and more about them in this absorbing and provocative series.

The eccentric and purposeful Lady Lavinia Truelove enters her stables early in the morning, unseen by her peers, where she plans to subdue and ride the erratic, untamable Lucifer. She’ll show her husband that she’s a horsewoman to be reckoned with, as well as two sights higher than the woman she thinks may be capturing her husband’s eye.

Moments later, she is dead, neck broken, lying under the horse’s massive hooves. Horrified stable boys rush to sound the alarm.

So begins Enter Pale Death, a 12th installment in Brit author Barbara Cleverly’s Joe Sandilands crime series set in the era between the momentous World Wars. The Scotland Yard assistant commissioner is flummoxed by a death that is surely one of “misadventure” (the stable boys are scarified witnesses), yet seems to have been death by intent, as it becomes apparent that several people stand to benefit from the lady’s sudden demise—husband James included.

Sandilands travels from London to the scene of the crime deep in rural Suffolk on the North Sea coast and makes the acquaintance of Adam Hunnyton, local police chief and character extraordinaire, who wants to use Sandilands’ eyes for a second look at the crime—and various Truelove family members. Sandilands soon discovers that Dorcas, the woman he hopes to marry, was a guest at the Truelove estate on the eve of Lavinia’s death, and to complicate matters, Dorcas is the very woman that James Truelove may have his eye on.  

Cleverly delivers a witty, atmospheric and well-conceived slice of British crime, an old-fashioned country brew that includes a wood haunted by the Wild Green Man of Britain’s pagan past and a treasure trove of equine lore that traces back to an ancient brotherhood of horsemen. One entrancing and colorful encounter takes place in a field as the urbanized Sandilands encounters a herd of prancing, curious horses, and his store of equine knowledge stands him in excellent stead.

At times Cleverly can be a bit too nonchalant and chatty, detracting from the story’s atmosphere, but her marvelous descriptions of country lore and an evocative Suffolk countryside setting provide a taste of all things British and may send curious readers scurrying to the library to learn more about the ancient traditions in this most ancient of lands.