The top 10 books for September include the latest from Angie Kim & Zadie Smith, plus a compelling mystery from William Kent Kruger and a helpful guide for talking about food with kids.
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Family & Relationships
In a thoughtful attempt to reckon with the past, Meg Kissinger delivers a spellbinding account of how mental illness and addiction ripped her family apart.
Zadie Smith writes eloquent, powerful and often quite humorous novels with social issues at the fore, and The Fraud is no exception. Its firm grounding
Angie Kim’s suspenseful follow-up to Miracle Creek follows a family that lives in a quiet and even bucolic neighborhood near Washington, D.C. They try to
Lucy Parker’s breezy and winning new rom-com, Codename Charming, follows a reserved royal bodyguard and the perky personal assistant of the prince he protects.
It’s a genuine treat to follow along as the talented, hardworking tweens in Take It From the Top strive to understand others’ perspectives and translate their onstage performances into how they address real life.
Power Metal sounds the alarm on the environmental and social consequences of electronic and digital energy—and how the ways we are combating climate change come at a cost.
The top 10 books for September include the latest from Angie Kim & Zadie Smith, plus a compelling mystery from William Kent Kruger and a helpful guide for talking about food with kids.
Many a mystery writer has taken a shot at reimagining the work of Raymond Chandler, usually with mixed results. But in The Second Murderer, Denise Mina seamlessly resurrects Chandler’s supersleuth Philip Marlowe, right from the opening line: “I was in my office, feet up, making use of a bottle of mood-straightener I kept in the desk.” As was often the case with Marlowe as penned by Chandler, our hero can be found in a high-society mansion in one scene and sleeping off a hangover in a Skid Row flophouse in the next, but he’s a breed apart in both milieus. The Second Murderer is a pre-World War II, Los Angeles-set PI mystery, but with a modern sensibility—and it plays much better than one might expect of such an amalgam. As Marlowe attempts to track down a missing socialite, he’s joined on the case by Anne Riordan, owner of her very own all-female detective agency. Mina has done what few before her have managed, ably resuscitating Marlowe for legions of Chandler fans yearning for one more installment.
A Killer in the Family
With last year’s inventive and suspenseful Little Sister, Gytha Lodge propelled herself onto mystery fans’ must-read lists (including that of this reader). I am happy to announce that her latest Jonah Sheen mystery, A Killer in the Family, is just as impressive. Aisling Cooley sends a DNA sample to an ancestry website in hopes of locating her long-missing father, but is horrified when she’s subsequently contacted by the police. Aisling’s DNA closely aligns with that found at a murder scene, one of the grisly tableaus created by the so-called “bonfire killer,” who leaves their victims on pyres in fields. Aisling’s sons—one lively and popular, the other brooding and taciturn—naturally pique the interest of the police, but Aisling’s father is of even greater interest. Before he disappeared 30 years ago, he left a cryptic note saying that he loved his family, but could not “keep living this duplicitous life.” Thus, Aisling finds herself caught on the horns of a dilemma: whether to assist the police or protect her family. Lodge has a surefire winner on her hands with A Killer in the Family, easily one of the most original mysteries since the aforementioned Little Sister.
A Chateau Under Siege
The medieval town of Sarlat is a bit outside the bailiwick of Bruno Courreges, everyone’s favorite French policeman since the days of Inspector Jacques Clouseau, but there is to be a reenactment of the liberation of the town from England during the Hundred Years’ War and Bruno is on hand for the festivities. When a horse slips and falls, its swordsman rider is forced to improvise his role in the choreographed performance. He winds up getting stabbed in front of the horrified onlookers and appears to be bleeding out. A doctor appears out of nowhere to take charge of the emergency and the patient is airlifted to a hospital, after which he vanishes from the face of the earth. Strange, right? It will get stranger, as Martin Walker’s A Chateau Under Siege, one of Bruno’s more unusual adventures, proceeds. Bruno is tasked with guarding the daughters of the victim, who may or may not have been a clandestine government agent of some sort. And, as happens with some regularity in the Bruno novels, our hero finds himself tangled up in a situation with international ramifications that would tax any small-town cop (other than Bruno, of course). Balzac the basset hound, always a welcome diversion, plays a minor but pivotal role, and as with all the preceding books in the series, A Chateau Under Siege is by turns suspenseful, amusing and, in its Gallic way, nothing short of charming.
★ Proud Sorrows
The latest Billy Boyle mystery from author James R. Benn, Proud Sorrows finds the wartime military investigator on leave in rural Norfolk, England, although it will prove to be the proverbial busman’s holiday, with little of the rest and recuperation the hero sorely needs after his adventures in the two previous novels, Road of Bones and From the Shadows. A downed German bomber that crashed two years prior resurfaces in a peculiar turn of the tides at a nearby bay. When one of the bodies found in the cockpit turns out to be that of an English officer, the case falls to Billy to investigate. It appears the English officer has been murdered, as his injuries are not consistent with the crash. It will not be the last murder tied to the bomber, however, as one of Billy’s informants, a shell-shocked veteran, gets stabbed to death in a melee following an air raid scare. Sir Richard Seaton, the father of Billy’s lover, Diana, is considered by police to be a good candidate for the perpetrator. To exonerate Sir Richard, Billy turns to his trusty allies: Kaz, with his powerful intellect; Big Mike, the tenderhearted muscle of the group; and quick-witted and lovable Diana. The mystery is first-rate, the dialogue is period correct and the series as a whole is the best set of wartime novels since those of the legendary Nevil Shute. Proud Sorrows is absolutely not to be missed!
The latest Bruno, Chief of Police and Billy Boyle mysteries impress (When don’t they?) and Denise Mina resurrects Philip Marlowe in this month’s Whodunit column.
Louise Hare’s second Canary Club Mystery, Harlem After Midnight, begins with tragedy: A policeman gazes down at a grievously injured young woman lying on the ground in front of a three-story apartment building. Did she fall from the topmost window, or was she pushed?
Hare rewinds her story to the days leading up to this disturbing discovery, picking up where her series’ first installment, Miss Aldridge Regrets, left off. Lena Aldridge, a 26-year-old singer from London, is still reeling from her voyage on the RMS Queen Mary. It started with excited anticipation for a role on Broadway and ended in despair after a series of murders, the evaporation of her job opportunity and the revelation that a fellow passenger was in fact her New York City-based birth mother, the wealthy Eliza Abernathy.
Lena is relieved and grateful when Will Goodman, a handsome musician she met on the ship, suggests she stay with his friends in Harlem. Married couple Claudette and Louis Linfield are eager to get to know the first woman Will’s brought around in years. Will’s half sister, Bel Bennett, is curious, too, but her mix of effusive charm and snide duplicity leaves Lena feeling unmoored.
While wondering whether she and Will will have a future together and the music careers they desire, Lena also resolves to learn more about her beloved late father, Alfie, a pianist who lived in New York some 30 years ago. Harlem After Midnight’s timeline moves between 1936 and 1908 as Hare juggles the compellingly conceived perspectives of Lena, Alfie and his sister, Jessie, whom Lena has never met. Will she find out why Alfie left New York for London, track down her aunt and perhaps even connect with her mother before she’s due to board the Queen Mary once again? And who is the unfortunate young woman from the beginning of the book, and what does her fate have to do with Lena’s quest?
Through Lena’s eyes, Hare conveys the glory of the Harlem Renaissance, shines a light on New York’s painful history of segregation and emphasizes the value of learning about—and from—those who came before us. The resonance of family history and the dangerous potency of long-held secrets collide as Lena reckons with her past and strives to create a new path forward.
Louise Hare gives readers a glorious tour of 1930s New York City in her second Canary Club mystery, Harlem After Midnight.
You’ve got to hand it to Amy Chua. The Yale law school professor made a name for herself with her much-discussed 2011 parenting book, Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, and now she’s written The Golden Gate, a jampacked historical mystery set in San Francisco in 1944. Detective Al Sullivan happens to be at the Claremont Hotel on the night that someone tries to kill wealthy presidential candidate Walter Wilkinson not once, but twice. The second time, the attempt is successful, and the high-profile murder leads Sullivan down a rabbit hole of an investigation that gives Chua ample opportunities to explore midcentury San Francisco, especially the many social and economic injustices of the era.
Suspicion for Wilkinson’s murder largely falls on the three granddaughters of wealthy socialite Genevieve Bainbridge, shifting from one to the other and back again. One of them, Isabella, was part of another Claremont Hotel tragedy in 1930. When she was 6, her older sister, Iris, was found dead in the laundry chute after a game of hide-and-seek, and as Sullivan delves into the case, he suspects there may be links between that tragedy and Wilkinson’s murder. This aspect of the case as well as the Bainbridge characters are intriguing, although Chua’s repeated returns to Genevieve’s deposition regarding Wilkinson’s murder slow down the novel’s momentum.
Narrator Sullivan is a likable guide as well as a savvy investigator whose background gives him a unique perspective on the intersections of race, class and power that the case brings to light. His given name is Alejo Gutiérrez—he’s half Mexican, half Jewish American—and years ago, his father was forcefully “repatriated” to Mexico. He’s also caring for his 11-year-old niece Miriam, whose mother seems to have disappeared, and their relationship provides a snappy side plot.
Along the way, readers are briefly introduced to a variety of historical figures, including Madame Chiang Kai-Shek, architect Julia Morgan, Margaret “Mom” Chung (the first female Chinese American doctor in the United States) and Berkeley police chief August Vollmer, called “the father of modern policing.” The Golden Gate is an overly sprawling novel, but readers will be both entertained and enriched by its historical details
Readers will be entertained and enriched by Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua’s debut historical mystery, The Golden Gate.
When Peregrine Fisher receives a mysterious letter from The Adventuresses’ Club of the Antipodes, she’s the definition of down on her luck: Grieving the death of her mother, she has just been fired from her latest job and is living in a van. The letter’s mention of an inheritance piques Peregrine’s interest, and even though she doesn’t know what The Adventuresses’ Club is or who would have left her money, she eagerly makes her way to Melbourne, Australia, to find out.
Peregrine discovers that the Adventuresses are a group of exceptional women, all highly skilled in their respective fields, and that she’s the niece of Phryne Fisher, a brave private investigator who’s gone missing in the jungles of Papua New Guinea. Her long-lost aunt’s will indicates that Peregrine should inherit Phryne’s fortune: her home, car and, most importantly, her seat in the Adventuresses’ Club. When another member is accused of murder, Peregrine sets out to prove her innocence, live up to her aunt’s reputation as an investigator and earn her spot in The Adventuresses’ Club.
Just Murdered is the novelization of the first episode of “Ms Fisher’s Modern Murder Mysteries,” a spinoff of the TV show based on Kerry Greenwood’s popular Phryne Fisher mysteries. While Phryne’s stories take place in the 1920s, Peregrine takes up the investigator’s mantle in the ’60s, and author Katherine Kovacic does an excellent job placing readers in the swinging decade with references to music, fashion, cars and more.
A fun, fast-paced read, Just Murdered also has a great heroine. Peregrine is intelligent and independent, and her jack-of-all-trades background allows her to cleverly unspool the threads of the mystery. The other Adventuresses make for intriguing characters, too, like former spy Birdie Birnside and Dr. Violetta Fellini, a renowned scientist. While Peregrine begins the novel simply hoping her mysterious inheritance will offer some financial security, she finds a much-needed family in her fellow Adventuresses and a calling in detective work. Just Murdered will leave readers anxious to get their hands on Peregrine’s next case so they can follow more of the Adventuresses’ exploits.
Just Murdered is a fun, fast-paced introduction to Peregrine Fisher, the niece of beloved sleuth Phryne Fisher, as she solves mysteries in the 1960s.
In what must be one of the more unusual writing pairings of the past hundred years or so, bestselling Icelandic novelist Ragnar Jonasson has teamed up with the current prime minister of Iceland, Katrin Jakobsdottir, to craft Reykjavik, a mystery about the 1956 disappearance of a teenage girl named Lára from Videy, a small island near the titular city. Thirty years after the baffling disappearance, dogged reporter Valur Robertsson and his sister, Sunna, believe they have the answer almost in hand. But apparently, someone else thinks the pair are getting too close to the solution, and soon their lives are in danger. If you’re a fan of Nordic noir, you’re gonna love Reykjavik. Both writers are in top form, and their tale is deftly plotted and skilfully rendered. And as one might expect given Jakobsdottir’s political bona fides, the mystery makes good use of its 1986 setting and leverages a crucial moment in Icelandic history as a poignant and powerful backdrop: the Reykjavik Summit, a pivotal meeting between Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev and U.S. President Ronald Reagan.
Murder by Invitation Only
Imagine a real-life version of the board game Clue, orchestrated in the manner of Agatha Christie and set in the English countryside. And while there may not be a conservatory or a ballroom in the home of “murder party” hosts Mr. and Mrs. Wokesley, nor for that matter a Colonel Mustard or a Professor Plum among the guests, this version one-ups the board game by offering up a real live (dead) body—that of the aforementioned Mr. Wokesley. It falls to Agatha’s loyal housekeeper, Phyllida Bright, to lead the investigation, given her credentials as confidant to the noted author and the fact that she is something of an amateur sleuth in her own right. Murder by Invitation Only is the third book in Colleen Cambridge’s series and the redoubtable Phyllida grows more confident and skilled with each installment. Murder by Invitation Only straddles the line between historical fiction and intricate, Christie-esque suspense quite well, without the cloying cutesiness that can sometimes plague mysteries on the cozier side of things. And Phyllida Bright is simply a gem.
The Traitor
Emma Makepeace, the titular heroine of Ava Glass’ well-received Alias Emma, returns for her next mission in The Traitor. Emma works for the British government intelligence service MI6, in an exceptionally clandestine division known only as “The Agency.” This time out, Emma takes over the caseload of a murdered colleague who met his untimely end while investigating a pair of Russian oligarchs suspected of dealing in chemical weaponry. Emma secures an invite to the uber-yacht of one of the oligarchs, unaware that there is a potential double agent in the Agency fold, and that her cover has likely been well and thoroughly compromised. If by some chance she survives the long odds against her, she will rightly earn her place in the pantheon of superspies alongside James Bond, John Drake and the first avenging Emma, Mrs. Peel. I nominate Charlize Theron for the role of Emma Makepeace if there is ever a film adaptation of this series, which it richly deserves.
★ A Cold Highland Wind
It is hard to imagine a better opening line for a Scotland-set mystery novel than that of Tasha Alexander’s latest Lady Emily book, A Cold Highland Wind: “At first glance, blood doesn’t stand out on tartan.” The spilled blood belongs to the gamekeeper of Cairnfarn Castle, Angus Sinclair, with whom Lady Emily had shared a spirited dance the night before at the village ceilidh. But in the cold light of morning, it is painfully clear that Sinclair will never again spill a drop of blood, nor will he dance another Highland Reel. Although the main thread of the mystery is set in the year 1905, a fair bit is told in flashbacks to 1676 that are narrated by Tasnim, a formerly enslaved Moorish girl nicknamed Tansy, as her given name is too much of a tongue twister for the pursed English lips of the 17th century. Tasnim has been reluctantly apprenticed to a widow suspected of being a practitioner of the dark arts, which is particularly unfortunate, as witchcraft was punishable by death in 1676 Scotland. As is always the case with the Lady Emily series, there is suspense galore, a colorful cast of characters, spot on period research and whimsical humor throughout—such as a pet crocodile named Cedric. For a time, there is little to connect the two storylines, which initially seem to only share the setting of Cairnfarn Castle, albeit some 229 years apart. You might well ask just how two such disparate Scottish plots could possibly resolve, and in response to this I will simply paraphrase the Bard: “Read on, MacDuff.”
College Cambridge’s historical mystery charms our columnist, plus Ragnar Jonasson teams up with the prime minister of Iceland in this month’s Whodunit column.
When Evelyne Redfern is selected for a position in Winston Churchill’s underground cabinet war rooms, typical new job nervousness is quickly replaced by horror when a colleague is murdered. Soon, the clever and charismatic Evelyne finds herself teaming up with handsome and cagey minister’s aide David Poole in an effort to solve the murder and root out treason amid the ranks—even as bombs fall overhead.
Congratulations on kicking off a new series! Will you introduce us to Evelyne Redfern? The daughter of a famous English adventurer and a glamorous French socialite, Evelyne Redfern rose to international fame in the 1920s when her parents’ contentious divorce and custody battle placed her firmly in the pages of newspapers and earned her the nickname “The Parisian Orphan.” However, when Evelyne’s mother suddenly died, her father uprooted her from her life in Paris and dumped her in an English boarding school.
Now in her early 20s and working in a royal ordnance factory as part of the war effort, she’s recruited by an old friend of her parents to work as a typist in Churchill’s cabinet war rooms. However, when Evelyne discovers the body of a fellow typist, she finds herself at the center of the desperate chase for a killer.
You’ve written contemporary romance, historical romance and historical fiction, nearly all set in England. And you’re an American expat living in London. Tell us more about your connection to the U.K. Although I grew up in Los Angeles, I have the good fortune to be both American and British by birth thanks to my British mother and American father. Because of this, my family has always had a strong connection to the U.K. I chose to study British history at university, and it seemed only natural to write about British history when I began seriously pursuing a publishing career while working as a journalist in New York City.
Eventually, I decided to move to London to be closer to my immediate family, who had all relocated to the U.K. As I explored my new city, I kept coming across World War II monuments. I became curious, and as I began to read as much as I could about the period, the book ideas began flowing.
“A lot of my compulsion to write about the past is wrapped up in trying to understand the present.”
In your acknowledgements, you share that you’ve always wanted to write a mystery and followed a “long and winding path” to get here. What sorts of twists and turns did you encounter? I’ve been toying with writing a mystery set in the Churchill War Rooms, which are now a museum, ever since I went to visit with a friend. However, at the time I was already writing historical novels highlighting what British women did during the war and I was also working a day job, so I didn’t think I could add a mystery novel to the mix and still find the time to sleep! That all changed in June 2021 when I quit my day job to write full time. After taking a month off to recharge, I wrote up the pitch for A Traitor in Whitehall and the Parisian Orphan series and sent it to my agent that same week. The rest, as they say, is history.
You do an excellent job of immersing the reader in Evelyne’s daily life, from the line for the shower at her boarding house to the shiver-inducing feeling of working deep underground. What was your research process like? I really lucked out with living in London and having access to the Churchill War Rooms. (Note to other authors: It is incredibly helpful when there is an entire museum dedicated to the subject of your book!) The Imperial War Museum has a fantastic catalog available online as well as great books. I leaned heavily on an exhibition catalog for the CWR that showed everything from the orange passes that workers would carry to the type of typewriter that was used in the typing pool.
When it came to researching the rest of the book, I had the good fortune of having written four historical novels set during WWII, so I had a lot of prior knowledge that I could draw on for the details of everyday life during the Blitz.
Evelyne and David conduct numerous interviews as they winnow down their list of suspects, and you’ve created a very in-the-moment feel for those encounters. How did you go about achieving that realism? I worked as a TV news producer for six years in New York City, and part of my job was to write the copy that my anchors would read. Writing words that are meant to be read out loud is a very different discipline than writing prose because you have to think about breath and tone and simplicity. (Case and point, that last sentence would be challenging to read off of a teleprompter!) That early training in TV writing still helps me to this day when tackling dialogue in my novels.
Evelyne’s own mother’s death wasn’t properly investigated, influencing her choices and actions. Is the theme of history repeating itself something you are drawn to while writing historical fiction? A lot of my compulsion to write about the past is wrapped up in trying to understand the present. Most of my research at university was about the evolving role of British women in society, as well as changing class structures. Those two themes thread through a lot of my books because they’re still topics that feel very relevant today.
Evelyne understands the power of gossip in the workplace. Can you share a bit about why you made gossip an important element of the investigation? When I started writing about an amateur female detective in 1940, I knew that one of the things she would inevitably have to contend with was men constantly underestimating her. Although the male detectives working on the case dismiss her, her eventual sidekick David Poole quickly understands that Evelyne has access to knowledge and information—like office gossip—that he never would. Being a woman is one of Evelyne’s great superpowers.
Female friendships are central to your story, from Evelyne’s long-term bond with aspiring actress Moira to her tentative new rapport with her coworkers and housemates. Why does that sort of affection and loyalty interest you as a writer? My friendships with other women are such an important part of my life; it would be strange for me not to give my characters those kinds of relationships too. Female characters deserve rich, complex interior lives and relationships that reflect that. I hope that, just as we’re starting to see more layered female characters in television and movies, there will be even more of a push towards literary heroines with rich lives as well.
“Being a woman is one of Evelyne’s great superpowers.”
Evelyne is never without a book, and her favorite authors include Dorothy L. Sayers, Agatha Christie and Margery Allingham. Are you also a reader and devoted fan of these writers? Did they or their work inspire you as you created A Traitor in Whitehall? I have been reading mysteries for as long as I can remember, influenced in great part by my mother. She’s such an avid reader of crime fiction that we call the part of my parents’ house where all of those books sit “Murder Hall.” When I told her my idea for A Traitor in Whitehall, she recommended I read The Golden Age of Murder by Martin Edwards, which is a wonderful overview of the authors of the age and their works. I quickly realized that I had only scratched the surface of the genre, and I’ve been devouring golden age mysteries ever since to try to catch up.
Police detectives greet Evelyne’s penchant for mystery novels with patronizing dismissiveness. Do you think whodunits are underappreciated? Have you ever found yourself defending your fondness for them? I think it’s sometimes easy for people to dismiss genre fiction because they think it’s all formulaic. However, I’ve always loved Nora Roberts’ quotation comparing writing category romance to performing “ ‘Swan Lake’ in a phone booth.” I will always defend genre fiction as deceptively sophisticated because, as a writer, you know that your reader will have certain expectations for your book. If you write a mystery novel, the detective needs to have figured out the central puzzle by the end of the book. However, there’s real challenge in writing a fresh, exciting story that manages to surprise the reader along the way.
Who’s your favorite side character (and why is it the slyly fabulous Aunt Amelia)? Aunt Amelia is absolutely my favorite side character because I think she has the bold straightforwardness I would want if I was a little braver. She also is a woman with a past that’s only hinted at in A Traitor in Whitehall. While I have an idea of what that past is, I’d love to delve deeper into her background because I feel like she has some great stories to tell.
While writing A Traitor in Whitehall, did any part of the story or characters surprise you? When I sat down to write A Traitor in Whitehall, I don’t think I had any idea what I was in for. From the very first chapter, Evelyne sprung to life almost fully formed on the page. It felt a bit like she was a runaway train and I was just along for the ride. I think a lot of that comes from the fact that this is my first book written in first-person POV, and I really wanted to make Evelyne’s voice shine through. She’s a determined, curious, intelligent woman who is also a loyal friend. I hope readers will fall in love with her the way that I have!
What’s up next for you—any tidbits you want to share with readers? I am currently working on the second book in the Parisian Orphan series, which has been such fun to write. The second season of the The History Quill Podcast, which I co-host with the historical novelist Theo Brun, is also underway. The podcast, which is all about writing historical novels, features interviews with well-known and debut authors. It’s been such a pleasure to speak with people who are so generous sharing their experiences with the craft and business of publishing.
Photo of Julia Kelly by Scott Bottles.
Julia Kelly’s first historical mystery, A Traitor in Whitehall, takes readers into Winston Churchill’s secret underground headquarters during World War II.
With unexpected twists, a paranoid atmosphere and a fascinating narrator, The Half Life of Valery K is a superb work of historical fiction and an excellent mystery.
A teenage girl covered in blood interrupts Detective Chief Inspector Jonah Sheens’ afternoon pint—and Gytha Lodge’s mystery only gets more unpredictable from there.
Simon Stephenson’s darkly hilarious Sometimes People Die harks back to classic English satire a la Kingsley Amis or Evelyn Waugh—just with more murder.
The problem with being a double agent is that if you put a foot wrong, there is always someone ready—even eager—to kill you. In the case of Alexsi Ivanovich Smirnoff, the situationally heroic hero of William Christie’s The Double Agent, there are not two but three agencies poised to be either his savior or his executioner, depending on their mood and the day of the week: the Brits, the Germans and the Russians. It’s 1943, and the slippery spy has been captured in Iran by the British, who promptly recruit him to infiltrate the German forces in Italy. His exploits amid the Vatican and members of the Italian aristocracy are particularly dicey and well rendered, and as Alexsi makes his way across the European theater of the war, he becomes entangled in and surreptitiously shapes real-life events, such as the assassination attempt on Winston Churchill. Alexsi is an engaging character despite being self-serving to the max; in his defense, if he wasn’t so consistently out for number one, he would have been summarily executed ages ago. Although it is not strictly necessary to read Christie’s first novel starring Alexsi (2017’s A Single Spy), after reading The Double Agent, you will surely want to. I would suggest tackling them in chronological order for optimal reading enjoyment.
How to Survive Everything
The first line of Ewan Morrison’s How to Survive Everything grabs readers by the throat: “I’m still alive, and if you’re reading this then that means you’re still alive, too. That’s something.” The Scottish writer’s thriller is set in the not-too-distant future, where rumors abound of a new disease that far outstrips COVID-19. Narrator Haley Cooper Crowe is an outspoken and plucky 16-year-old girl. (“Hold on . . . If you’re reading this, it’s also possible I’m dead. . . . If you found me lying there dead, I hope I wasn’t too gross.”) Haley’s family is a microcosm of modern-day political discord vis-a-vis pandemics. Her father, Ed, is a survivalist, a gun-toting libertarian determined to protect his family; her mother is a pandemic denier who accuses Ed of being an alarmist who’s ready to jump on any bandwagon that promises impending apocalypse. Long story short, Ed, convinced another pandemic is about to begin, kidnaps Haley and her younger brother, Ben—and then the troubles really begin. Morrison seamlessly channels the voice and attitude of a teenage girl: Haley is by turns insightful, hilarious, cynical and, like many teens, wise beyond the perceptions of those who surround her. How to Survive Everything is a spot-on fable for the pandemic era. Or, perhaps, it would be more accurate to regard it as a textbook.
★ A World of Curiosities
Reviewing Louise Penny gets more difficult with each new installment of her Chief Inspector Gamache mysteries, because each of her books improves upon the body of work that precedes it. One can advance that opinion a limited number of ways before it becomes severely repetitive. Nonetheless, the latest case of Armand Gamache, A World of Curiosities, is another superb achievement. The title refers to “The Paston Treasure,” a real-life painting by an anonymous Flemish artist that shows off the eclectic collecting habits of the Paston family in 17th-century England. The painting is housed in Norfolk, England, so it is something of a surprise when a full-scale replica of it turns up in a walled-in room in Gamache’s quiet Three Pines village in Quebec. And it’s even more of a surprise when the replica appears slightly different from the original, featuring collectibles that had not even been conceived of at the time the artwork was created. And then the murders begin, with the key question being what connection they could possibly have to the recently discovered painting. The reappearance in town of a young man and woman whose mother was brutally murdered a decade before complicates matters further. Penny weaves together all these narratives—the series of modern-day killings, the decade-old bludgeoning murder and the haunting artwork that has remained shrouded in mystery across the centuries—with a master’s deft hand.
★ Secrets Typed in Blood
Some of the giddiest delights experienced by mid-20th-century suspense aficionados were summoned forth by author Rex Stout in his mysteries starring grumpy armchair detective Nero Wolfe and his smart-alecky assistant/biographer, Archie Goodwin. Stout died in 1975, and with the exception of tributes in print and on screen, Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin passed away with their creator—until 2020, when Stephen Spotswood’s Fortune Favors the Dead introduced readers to brilliant sleuth Lillian Pentecost and her stalwart assistant, Willowjean “Will” Parker. While not an intentional homage to the Nero Wolfe mysteries, the Pentecost & Parker series will thrill fans of Stout’s iconic characters. They share a 1940s New York City setting, and the dynamic between the central characters is very similar; the biggest change is simply that Spotswood’s duo is composed of two women, with one of them, Will, being gay. In the latest installment, Secrets Typed in Blood, the canny pair takes the case of Holly Quick, a pulp magazine writer who thinks that someone is committing real-life murders that mimic her stories, down to the smallest detail. The tension ratchets up dramatically when the latest killing mirrors a story that Holly has not even published yet, thus shrinking the suspect pool considerably. I was a huge fan of the Nero Wolfe series and am on my way to becoming as big an admirer of the Pentecost & Parker mysteries.
Inspector Gamache is back, and author Louise Penny has crafted a truly haunting case for him to solve. Read our review in this month’s Whodunit column!
In 1952 San Francisco, homosexuality is illegal and largely frowned upon by society. But the gates of the titular Lavender House keep an extended LGBTQ+ family safely tucked away from the persecution and discrimination of the outside world, able to live their lives without judgment or reprisal. This shelter and sense of belonging comes thanks to their benefactor and matriarch, soap entrepreneur Irene Lamontaine.
If only they were able to keep their own petty jealousies and rampant ambitions in check. But this is not the case in Lev AC Rosen’s twisty new mystery. Irene soon turns up dead, and one of Lavender House’s denizens may be responsible for her demise.
Enter Evander “Andy” Mills, an ex-police detective who was fired after being caught in a raid at a gay bar. Irene’s widow (in all but name), Pearl, hires him to find the killer in their midst. The mystery is told through Andy’s point of view, and readers will share his fascination with the unique life afforded the inhabitants of Lavender House and deeply empathize with his position as an outsider struggling to find his own place in the world.
Rosen quickly turns the Agatha Christie-esque elements of the mystery on their head with a dynamic cast of characters and an inimitable take on hard-boiled noir that revels in the foggy atmosphere of San Francisco while also highlighting the characters’ angst and inner turmoil. Readers familiar with Rosen’s young adult novel Camp, which follows LGBTQ+ teens at a utopia-like conclave, will enjoy this deeper, darker examination of what it means to be a queer person in a homophobic world.
In Lavender House, Rosen not only thoroughly entertains mystery lovers but also ups the ante by presenting a thought-provoking exploration of what it means to be free to love who you love.
Mystery lovers will be thoroughly entertained by Lavender House, a thoughtful noir that examines midcentury LGBTQ+ life with a cast of dynamic characters.
If I had to sum up Lisa Unger’s Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six in 10 words, I would say “Cast of ‘Friends,’ dark and stormy night, soundtrack by Disturbed.” This friend group is much more disturbed than Ross, Chandler, Monica, et al., but there are parallels: a sister/brother pair; a female friend from the past; some canoodling that is, shall we say, detrimental to the group dynamic. Siblings Hannah and Mako are celebrating Christmas at their parents’ house when their father finds an unusual gift under the tree: DNA genealogy kits for the whole family, from an anonymous Santa. A few months later, when Hannah, Mako, their respective spouses and another couple head up to a remote cabin to unplug, the other shoe drops. Some of them did the kit and were unexpectedly proven to be the progeny of the same man, and they are not happy to know who (and what) their biological father was. Secrets abound in this psychological thriller; even the cabin itself harbors a hidden history, giving off unnerving vibes to renters and readers alike. At 400 pages, it’s a long book for a one-sitting read, but you’ll be sorely tempted.
1989
1989 is Val McDermid’s second installment of a trilogy (which this reviewer hopes will become a quadrilogy or even a quintology) featuring Scottish investigative reporter Allie Burns. The series began with 1979, and in the sequel, readers are mired with Allie in the late ’80s, when mobile phones were the size of lunchboxes, when AIDS was ravaging the U.K., when a jetliner was bombed out of the sky over Lockerbie, Scotland, and when the Soviet Union was on the verge of collapse. All in all, not a time to be nostalgic for, and true to form, McDermid spins the tale without a whiff of sentimentality. Allie works for media mogul Ace Lockhart, who bears more than a passing resemblance to newspaper publisher Robert Maxwell (father of Ghislaine, of Jeffrey Epstein-associate infamy): flamboyant, bullying and destined for disgrace. Lockhart, who has a number of business ventures based in the Eastern bloc, senses the upcoming upheaval and sends his daughter to secure his interests in the changing political landscape. When she is kidnapped in East Berlin, Lockhart sends Allie Burns on a rescue mission, and in short order, things careen out of control. You don’t need to read 1979 to hit the ground running with 1989, but you will want to have Wikipedia open to look up all the fascinating historical and cultural moments McDermid references along the way.
Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man
Emily J. Edwards’ Viviana Valentine Gets Her Man is, hands down, this month’s most entertaining mystery. Set in 1950 New York City, it chronicles the adventures of a plucky Pennsylvania country girl, the titular Viviana Valentine. Upon arriving penniless in the Big Apple, Viviana sweet-talks her way into a girl Friday job for Tommy Fortuna, a Philip Marlowe-esque private investigator who calls her dollface. But after Tommy goes MIA and a dead body is found on his office floor, Viviana is forced to take the helm of the agency, clear Tommy’s name and crack the case he was working on. Whatever she lacks in experience, Viviana more than makes up for with her in-your-face attitude, wicked sense of humor and snappy one-liners. Her friends and acquaintances include high society debutantes, models, mobsters, cops both arrow-straight and morally flexible and a host of other ’50s types that would slot neatly into a black-and-white detective film. Edwards nails the tone, with dialogue and milieu evocative of classic noir, and presents the era warts and all: conversations that are a bit politically incorrect; men behaving toward women in ways that are borderline or flat-out predatory; and a towering amount of smoking and drinking.
★ The Devil’s Blaze
In the same fashion that Sean Connery is the quintessential James Bond for many cinema aficionados, Basil Rathbone is widely regarded as the definitive silver screen Sherlock Holmes, even though the most famous films in which he took on the role are not set in the original Victorian and Edwardian eras but smack in the middle of World War II. Author Robert J. Harris expands upon those midcentury films with his Sherlock Holmes in WWII series, the second volume of which (after 2021’s A Study in Crimson) is The Devil’s Blaze. The Germans have developed a truly insidious weapon to use against their English adversaries, a death machine of some sort that causes people to spontaneously erupt into flames. As usual, there are only two people in England clever enough (or devious enough, depending on your point of view) to approach a mystery of this magnitude: Sherlock Holmes (natch) and his longtime archnemesis, Professor James Moriarty. There is certainly no love lost between the pair, but they are forced to forge an uneasy alliance to try and save England from this terrifying new weapon. Harris never lets readers forget that this is a Sherlock Holmes novel, with the narrative turning on a dime—or a twopence, if you prefer—such that only an experienced fishmonger would be able to sort through all the red herrings. Holmes is as cerebral and arrogant as die-hard fans would expect, and Watson hews closely to actor Nigel Bruce’s portrayal in the Rathbone films: thoughtful, taciturn and usually a step behind his mentor. And Moriarty, well, he should be giving TED Talks on the subject of villainy.
Lisa Unger will make you think twice about dabbling with DNA ancestry kits, plus Val McDermid returns with a new Allie Burns novel in this month’s Whodunit.
It’s 1952 in San Francisco, and homosexuality is illegal and largely frowned upon by society—except at Lavender House. The home of soap manufacturing magnate Irene Lamontaine has become a refuge for her extended queer family. But when Irene falls over a staircase railing to her death, her widow (in all but name) hires recently fired gay police detective Evander “Andy” Mills to discern if there is a killer in their midst.
The tone of this book is similar to the pulpy, hard-boiled style of your sci-fi mystery, Depth. Was there anything different about your approach this time around? Was there a particular author or series you drew upon to re-create that style of writing? It’s funny. With Depth I was trying to bring the flavor of old-school noir to a futuristic world. With Lavender House, the old-school noir is easier because of the setting. But because we’re talking queer history, which is so often erased, there was a lot more research involved and, weirdly, an emphasis on making sure everything felt believable. With sci-fi, people are either going to buy it or they’re not, depending on what they like and read. When talking about a history that keeps being erased, it’s about proving it—proving we existed.
As for the tone itself, the hard-boiled vibe, I always go back to Chandler. I have his complete works, and I’ve read them several times. There’s just something about the way he cuts a sentence. And, of course, the movies: I was raised on noir of the 1930s, ’40s and ’50s, so I saw most of the movies before I read the books. The vibe of those movies is what lives in my head when I’m writing, even more so than the books, because the movies sometimes had a bit of hope to them (Laura, The Big Sleep). They’re not happy endings exactly, but there’s a chance for a bright future at the end of them, and I knew I wanted that for this book. I wanted to show that not only did us queer folk exist before Stonewall, but that even though our lives were noir—in the sense that we were sort of trapped and stalked all the time—we still thrived in community. We found each other. We found love. And in that, we found a bit of hope.
“. . . queer history is always hidden and rewritten . . .”
How much research did you have to do to re-create the feel and culture of 1950s San Francisco? Are Lavender House and its inhabitants based on any real locations or people? I owe a huge debt of thanks to Nan Alamilla Boyd and her book, Wide-Open Town, for this one. It’s a book entirely about the queer history of San Francisco. Originally, when I was coming up with this story, my instinct was to put it in NYC (or just outside) because that’s where I’m from. But as I did research on the queer histories of various cities, what I found was that in the ’50s, New York’s queer culture was much more stratified. There wasn’t nearly as much mingling of gay communities of different classes or races as there was in San Francisco. And knowing it was going to be a series, I wanted a community that was more fluid. Luckily, for this first book, so much of it takes place outside the city that I could make stuff up—Lavender House itself is pure fiction, as are the characters in it—but I owe a lot not just to Boyd but to several San Francisco historians, photographers and Facebook groups where older people share stories and pictures of their neighborhoods. I’m sure I still got things wrong, but I hope they’re not too distracting.
What was the biggest challenge this book presented? What was the biggest opportunity? The research. So much research. And because queer history is always hidden and rewritten, the research often took me down many paths and led to several answers. There’s one sentence in Lavender House about a woman in a suit that’s changed so many times based on what I’ve learned about cross-dressing laws and ordinances at the time at the national, state and city levels—and I’m still not sure it’s accurate! Information is contradictory. California is so interesting in the early ’50s because of this state Supreme Court ruling in ’51 where a judge said it wasn’t illegal for gay people to congregate at a bar. It was a huge victory for the community, but it was also so small, because while being gay was suddenly legal (only in California), acting gay was not—and that could mean a lot of things. Same-sex dancing was still illegal, and so was touching the wrong way, if a cop decided it was the wrong way. So many cases and laws and the constant harassment of queer bars and people were about what the cop on duty was feeling and if he’d been bribed. So the small legal details were killer to figure out.
The biggest opportunity I’m less sure of! There’s so much I got to do; making a big queer family was such a blessing once I let myself do it. Even those laws being so hard to look up, since they were pretty subjective depending on the police, meant I could have them be as strict or lenient as I wanted (within certain bounds, of course). Sometimes the research being blurry just gives you more room to play. But I think overall the biggest opportunity was to get to the heart of what it means to learn to love yourself in ’52 as a queer man. Because if Andy can do it, I think people today can, too.
“You can be out and proud but still not quite know how to love your queerness and the queerness of others.”
Who is your first reader? What is most valuable or useful about that initial feedback for you? It varies, depending on people’s time and schedules. I have a writing group, I have writer friends who will read for me, I have a librarian husband. And I think what feedback is most valuable varies book to book as well. What am I worried about? Should I be, or did I pull it off? With Lavender House, my worry was always that it wouldn’t coast that line between noir and camp noir: the noir that’s a bit bigger and, frankly, a bit more fun. Lauren Bacall asking if you know how to whistle in To Have and Have Not? That’s a little camp at this point, but it’s my favorite thing. Some people see that scene and roll their eyes, but I light up. So did I pull off that tone in a way that feels authentic to a modern reader? Did they get it?
You’ve explored the idea of a sanctuary for members of the LGBTQ+ community before, in your young adult rom-com, Camp (written under the name L.C. Rosen). Why do you think you keep returning to this theme? How did Lavender House allow you to explore this idea further? It’s funny, I hadn’t thought of it that way; the word I’ve always used is community. But sanctuary, yeah, I guess I do write about that a lot. And I write about the push and pull between queer community or sanctuary and the outside world, where we may not always be allowed to be ourselves safely. Part of that is just that I like writing about a bunch of queer people: I think just one or two feels unrealistic, because we tend to find one another. I think it’s interesting the way we can sort of form our own community and deal with our own problems when we don’t have to worry about the outside world. Camp was about figuring out what sort of internal prejudices we bring into that sanctuary, because we all come from a world that tells us to hate ourselves or to only be one kind of gay. But Lavender House is about dealing with the fear of the outside knowing about us at all. That’s partially because of the historical element, of course, but I think it’s something we still see today: How much do we let other people in? How dangerous is it?
Do you see any parts of yourself in Andy? Sure. I see parts of myself in every character I write. I think you have to. Even when you’re writing someone bad, you need to understand where they’re coming from—and I don’t mean they need to be sympathetic or understandable. I think we as a society have actually gone too far, as a whole, in that sense. Sometimes bad people are just bad, and they don’t need a tragic backstory to make you feel sorry for them. We shouldn’t lose sight of that. But as writers, you have to understand their outlook, even if you don’t need to justify it to yourself. So why would someone do this? What are their values? How do they see the world?
With Andy specifically, I think certainly there’s a coming-out element to his story. He’s out, but he doesn’t love his queerness much, and over the course of the novel, he learns to do that. He learns to reconcile with what it means to be queer in 1952, and while that might be very, very hard, there’s a lot of benefit to it, too. I think that’s something every queer person should figure out. You can be out and proud but still not quite know how to love your queerness and the queerness of others. I don’t mean you need to want to clack a fan and wear heels, but you have to love that other guys do in order to really love what queerness is. Once you’ve done that, the world just becomes so much brighter.
What do you hope readers take away from this novel? The main thing I always hope a reader takes away is the feeling of having had a good time. I believe first and foremost my job is to entertain. If I can make people think or see things in a new light, that’s even better. And for Lavender House, I hope they take away a stronger understanding of queer history—not just the idea that we’ve always been here but also the idea that we’re still dealing with a lot of the same problems. Across the country, people are trying to ban books about queer teens—and often succeeding. They’re trying to prevent kids from coming out, and they’re firing queer teachers or making it illegal for them to talk about their queerness, even casually. They’re trying to make it now like it was in the ’50s, and I hope people see those parallels and understand that there’s still so much work to do if we want to say we’ve moved on.
What’s next for you? Will Andy Mills return at some point? It was a two-book deal, so he’s coming back at least one more time, though I’m hoping he’ll be around for a while. The sequel is titled The Bell in the Fog, and it should be out sometime in the fall of 2023. Before that, though, I also have Tennessee Russo coming out in the spring, which is the start to a YA series about a queer teen archeologist digging up ancient queer history to make sure it’s not erased while avoiding traps and pitfalls. More queer history! Just older.
Photo of Lev AC Rosen by Rachael Shane.
In the 1950s-set Lavender House, the titular home is a haven for the queer Lamontaine family—until one of them is murdered.
At the turn of the 20th century, English gentlewomen were meant to be seen and not heard, arm candy for their titled husbands. They were certainly not meant to be amateur sleuths. But Lady Emily Hargreaves becomes embroiled in a murder investigation (again) within hours of arriving in Luxor, Egypt, in Tasha Alexander’s 16th mystery starring the aristocrat, Secrets of the Nile. Lord Bertram Deeley, an antiquities collector of note and the Hargreaves’ host, is found dead on the dining room floor, the aroma of bitter almonds indicating that he was poisoned with cyanide. The Egyptian police identify a suspect in short order, but the suspect bolts, and truth be told, he didn’t fit the profile especially well anyway. As Lady Emily’s private investigation proceeds, it becomes apparent that many of the guests had reason to loathe their host; surprisingly, even her mother-in-law has a motive. In alternating chapters, Alexander tells the story of Meryt, a young female sculptor in ancient Egypt, whose work will play a prominent role in Lady Emily’s case some three millennia hence. Secrets of the Nile has it all: a glamorous locale, plucky heroine and supporting cast worthy of a Kenneth Branagh film.
The Furies
John Connolly’s latest mystery featuring private investigator Charlie Parker offers an intriguing change of pace for his legions of readers. The Furies is two masterfully crafted novels in one book, with each novel covering a separate but interconnected case. The first novel, The Sisters Strange, tells the story of sisters Dolors and Ambar Strange and their unusual relationship with Svengali-esque ex-convict Raum Buker. Raum is always on the lookout for an easy mark, and it seems as if he may have found it in Edwin Ellercamp, a collector of rare ancient coins. Edwin is soon found murdered, choked to death by a portion of his vast coin collection. Raum has no history as a killer, however, making the mystery of who murdered the collector one that will test Parker’s mettle like very few cases have. The second novel, The Furies, finds Parker in the employ of two women. The first is Sarah Abelli, a mob widow suspected of knowing where her husband hid a fortune in dirty money before he was killed in prison. Extortionists have stolen mementos of her deceased daughter and will not return them until she coughs up the cash, which she maintains to anyone who will listen that she does not have. The other is Marjorie Thombs, whose daughter is trapped in an abusive relationship—a situation exponentially exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent lockdown. Of course, as is the case with all of the Charlie Parker mysteries, there is an element or two of the supernatural to factor in—nothing to the degree of books by Stephen King or Anne Rice, but certainly enough to occasion some vague uneasiness if you are reading late at night.
Fall Guy
Archer Mayor’s Fall Guy, the latest in his long-running series featuring Joe Gunther, field force commander of the Vermont Bureau of Investigation, opens with a dead body in the trunk of a stolen car. The details of the car’s theft are suspect, however, as its GPS data mark it as being outside a strip club at the time that it was purportedly stolen from the owner’s driveway. Along with the dead body, the car contains a cell phone with evidence of the sexual abuse of a child. An interjurisdictional task force is formed to investigate, which allows Gunther and his subordinates to cross state lines—in this case, into nearby New Hampshire—to follow the clues. Gunther’s team, based in Brattleboro, Vermont, is more like a family than a collection of co-workers. Thirty-plus books into the series, the evolving relationships among the characters never detract from the police procedural structure. In fact, the web of connections enhances the story, showing how the various members of Gunther’s team deploy their strengths and shore up one another’s weaknesses to function as a well-oiled crime-solving machine. If you’re new to Joe Gunther, don’t be surprised if upon finishing Fall Guy you immediately seek out the previous books in the series.
★ Sometimes People Die
Simon Stephenson’s darkly hilarious mystery, Sometimes People Die, harks back to classic English satire a la Kingsley Amis or Evelyn Waugh, perfectly updating their sarcastic yet somehow still endearing tone for modern-day readers. Stephenson’s unnamed narrator is a third-rate Scottish doctor in a third-rate London hospital, on probation for stealing opioids and still dealing with his addiction on the q.t. He has little use for anyone else and typically thinks he is the smartest person in the room—but he usually isn”t. Nonetheless, he is pretty funny and occasionally displays a redeeming quality or two despite himself. Then patients in his ward start inexplicably dying, and he finds himself at the epicenter of the police inquiry into these suspicious deaths. When a suspect is finally arrested, our protagonist has his doubts and launches his own clandestine investigation. His sleuthing skills turn out to be little better than his medical skills, however, and things rapidly go wildly off course. With ten months of 2022 behind us, I am confident this will be a (or perhaps the) best book of the year for me.
When his patients start mysteriously dying, a third-rate doctor has a chance to become a first-rate sleuth in Simon Stephenson's darkly hilarious Sometimes People Die, this month's top pick in mystery.
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Maria Ressa’s book is a political history of the Philippines and an intimate memoir, but it’s also a warning to democracies everywhere: Authoritarianism is a threat to us all.
Sean Adams has dialed down the dystopian quotient from his first satirical novel, The Heap, but that element is still very much present in The Thing in the Snow.
