Barbara Clark

Colin Cotterill lives in Southern Thailand, where he's set the inventive Jimm Juree mystery series in a rural outpost village called Maprao—a funky, lackadaisical, behind-the-times setting painted in cartoon colors with a comic wash. The Axe Factor is the third in this series of imaginatively plotted, very funny crime novels starring Jimm, a 30-something freelance reporter and “English language doctor” who still misses the bright lights and big-city atmosphere of her former home in Chiang Mai. She and her off-the-wall family are the proprietors of the Gulf Bay Lovely Resort and Restaurant, a motley collection of past-their-prime bungalows on Thailand’s south coast, where not much seems to happen during the best of times.

The town’s local Chumphon News has asked Jimm to interview Conrad Coralbank, a well-known writer of crime novels who’s living in the area, and the story takes off as Jimm immediately succumbs to the writer’s considerable charms. However, Jimm’s Grandad Jah and the village’s intrepid Lieutenant Chompu are not convinced Conrad is all he’s cracked up to be, and they begin their own cockamamie version of surveillance on his activities.

But wait: Conrad’s wife has gone missing, and so has a local female medical worker, and Jimm gets embroiled in a search for clues to their whereabouts. The book cleverly ratchets up the tension, interspersing regular chapters with anonymous diary entries written by a determined and graphic-minded serial killer. Readers are left to ferret out the diarist’s identity and discover when things might get dangerous for Jimm.

To top off another layer of mystery, there’s a change in the weather: An ocean storm is brewing just as Jimm’s wacky mother (who’s prone to seasickness) takes a trip out in the bay with Captain Kow, who we learn is Jimm’s real father.

The cast of characters—many returning from previous books—can be both frightening and funny. Jimm’s “language doctor” job involves translating the malapropisms in Thai commercial signs and writing them in “correct” English, and the book’s chapters are headed by hilarious examples of what she’s up against. There’s also a tongue-in-cheek reference to Cotterill’s well-known Dr. Siri mystery series, set in Laos. Each little addition adds atmosphere to the lively text, sure to please Cotterill’s fans and attract many more.

Readers who haven’t yet discovered Elly Griffiths’ wonderful mystery series set on the remote and scenic ocean sands of Norwich, England, have a delayed treat in store. Griffiths’ newest, The Outcast Dead, continues to pique our interest in her continuing characters: forensic archaeologist Ruth Galloway and the stable of marvelous, scruffy characters that inhabit her life, including DCI Harry Nelson, the father of Ruth’s 3-year-old daughter. (This is mostly a secret, though not to Nelson’s wife, Michelle.)

Not the least of the major characters in these novels is the picturesque though vaguely scary setting. Ruth chooses to live in relative isolation near the edge of a salt marsh, amid sand dunes, sea grass and ocean light. Notably, in the series debut, The Crossing Places, the remains of an ancient henge are discovered amid the sands, setting the tone for the entire series.

In The Outcast Dead, while on a dig near Norwich Castle, Ruth uncovers what appear to be the remains of a Victorian child murderer known as Mother Hook, infamous in Norfolk history, nursery rhymes and horror tales for the iron hook she wore in place of a missing hand. Though she was executed for the crimes, there’s some historical evidence that suggests she may have been innocent, and Ruth is asked to participate in a popular British TV series exploring the notorious events.

Eerily and coincidentally, Nelson and his police force have arrested a local woman suspected of killing her own child, and there are limited but striking connections to an old child murder case in which both Nelson and Ruth were involved. Tensions mount when two local children go missing, and one is the son of a member of Nelson’s police team.

Among this series’ best features are its many moments of wry humor, as we’re witness to characters’ inmost thoughts and sometimes-outward rants. Storylines wander and then converge, as we’re drawn into the lives of the colorful individuals that Griffiths paints so well. There are just a few too many characters floating around—most notably, children—and it’s sometimes a challenge to keep them straight and to remember whom they belong to and who has begotten whom. But we never lose sight of the action, which is purposefully written and always enhanced by a setting that manages to be both enticing and dangerous.

Who knew that in 2014, with the book world awash in knit-and-craft cozies, Scandinavian noir and genre detectives competing with hot new sleuths of every description, there’d be room for a couple of fresh, intriguing characters, or a series with both dark local realism and laugh-out-loud moments? It’s all here, in M.R.C. Kasasian’s immensely pleasurable debut mystery, The Mangle Street Murders. Set in London of 1882, the first in a new series introduces 21-year-old March Middleton and her guardian, the celebrated private detective Sidney Grice. They find themselves sharing Grice’s London townhouse after March’s father dies and she has need of a new home.

Move over, Holmes and Watson. Kasasian's debut mystery introduces our favorite new detective duo.

They seem ready to turn the science of detecting on its ear. March is outspoken and smart, and in a brief introduction she writes for the book, she appears to be a kind of chronicler of Grice’s life and escapades. But when we meet her in chapter one, we sense that she’ll be much more than that, as she takes an active role in her new life from the get-go, listening in on cases, accompanying Grice and making her opinions known—at a time when women were properly seen but not heard. There’s a mysterious past love that haunts her days and provides a hint for future intrigues.

As for Grice, he’s one for the ages, with his short stature and unpredictable glass eye. Irascible, vain to a fault, lacking social skills to the nth degree (and terrified of umbrellas to boot), he’s made a name for himself in the great city and is called upon to solve some of the day’s knottiest crimes. After March arrives on the scene, they are soon investigating the brutal murder of a young woman whose husband is the major suspect. Grice thinks he’s guilty, while March wants to prove his innocence. Guardian and ward set out to seek a killer on London’s streets and in its murky canals, visiting places where ladies never travel, in back alleys, mortuaries and the unsavory East End, all the while tossing back banter and clues in this marvelous get-under-your-skin story.  

Kasasian describes Victorian London in all its vibrancy—never sparing us the dirt and details of its dingy, teeming streets—but couples this grit with an underlying sense of fun and outlandish humor. This book should hit the “favorites” list of readers who seek new criminal ground and tantalizing characters to savor.