Mystery & Suspense Archives | Page 41 of 119 | BookPage

by Bruce Tierney

Lesson in Red

Maria Hummel’s Lesson in Red finds Los Angeles writer/editor Maggie Richter in Vermont, nursing her emotional wounds after the severely traumatic events chronicled in Hummel’s hit 2018 thriller, Still Lives. But Maggie is soon summoned back to LA to investigate some unsettling circumstances around the suicide of a talented young film student. Maggie has strong reservations about returning to the City of Angels, which has been anything but angelic for her. But on the other hand, it promises to be a well-paid gig, and it appeals to her innate inclination toward investigative journalism (with its inevitable attendant perils). Just as in Still Lives, Hummel tempers the intriguing investigation and glitzy depiction of the West Coast art world with a sobering examination of the roles of women in creative endeavors and the biases they must endure therein.

A Study in Crimson

When Universal Studios acquired the film rights to Sherlock Holmes in 1942, they changed the setting of the stories from the Victorian era to the then-present day. The 12 films starring Basil Rathbone as Holmes and Nigel Bruce as John Watson in World War II-era Britain serve as inspiration for Robert J. Harris’ A Study in Crimson. In 1942 London, the newspaper headlines are all about the war. That’s good news for Scotland Yard Detective Lestrade, who would like to keep his investigation of a Jack the Ripper copycat under the radar. No point in further scaring Londoners who are already frightened out of their wits by the nightly bombings. “Crimson Jack” has been taunting the police, leaving cryptic notes at the scenes of his murders and timing the killings to the precise dates of the original Ripper’s murders. Lestrade’s strong suit is knowing when he is outmatched, and he summons Holmes to “lend a hand” (i.e., solve the case). Harris’ take on the iconic characters is outstanding. Fans of the films will have no problem evoking mental images of Rathbone and Bruce moving through their wartime London milieu.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Why Robert J. Harris turned to the Universal series for his new Sherlock Holmes adventure.

Hairpin Bridge

Twins are often said to share a special bond. That certainly seemed to be the case with Cambry and Lena Nguyen, until Cambry’s unexpected suicide. At the outset of Taylor Adams’ gripping thriller Hairpin Bridge, Lena is beginning to come to terms with her loss but still feels like there is something off about the official police account of Cambry’s death. So she decides to travel to Montana to get a firsthand look at the bridge from which her twin allegedly jumped to her death. She meets with Corporal Raymond Raycevic, the officer who discovered the body; he is affable and forthcoming, but something feels strange about him as well. The pragmatic Lena is aware that she may be grasping at straws, as if wishing that the cause of her sister’s death were something other than suicide might make it so. But early on, Lena discovers that Corporal Raycevic had stopped Cambry for speeding just a short time before she died. His glib explanation and wave-of-the-hand dismissal of this coincidence rings false to Lenaor, at the very least, seems incomplete. And so a game of cat and mouse begins, and readers won’t find out until the final pages whether Lena is a grief-stricken fantasist or an exceptionally canny adversary (albeit one who is perhaps destined for the same fate as her sister). Hairpin Bridge reads like a Stephen King novel and is especially reminiscent of Misery in how the characters shape-shift as the narrative progresses, leaving the reader wondering who is more dangerous—and more importantly, which one will prevail.

★ The Granite Coast Murders

Jean-Luc Bannalec’s The Granite Coast Murders is the latest mystery to join the throng of whodunits set in gorgeous French locales. Police Commissaire Georges Dupin has been well established as a coffee-swilling workaholic in Bannalec’s five previous books, but this time Dupin is on a forced holiday in the Pink Granite Coast of Brittany. He has been told in no uncertain terms that work is not allowed to intrude on his fortnight by the sea, and he is chafing at the uncustomary idleness. But when the body of a beautiful victim is found in a granite quarry, all bets are off. Still, Dupin must employ a certain degree of subterfuge to conceal his investigation from his significant other, his superiors and, most especially, the rather territorial local police inspector, who has heard lurid tales of Dupin’s habit of inserting himself into investigations well outside his purview. Fans of Martin Walker’s Bruno, Chief of Police series will find lots to like here (although I doubt that Bruno and Dupin would be friends in real life). Also, the descriptions of Brittany are mesmerizing. It has been elevated into my top 10 places I need to visit, all thanks to Bannalec.

It’s Sherlock Holmes versus Jack the Ripper—in World War II? Find out how in this month’s Whodunit column.

Mystery, YA, YA Fiction

YA Fiction YA Mystery

The Hold List: Get a clue

Feature by the editors of BookPage

by the editors of BookPage

BookPage readers look forward to Private Eye July all year long, and this year we’re getting swept away in the spirit of the (somewhat grisly) celebration, too. Here are the mysteries, thrillers and good old-fashioned whodunits on our reading lists this July.

When No One Is Watching

I’ve finally finished putting myself back together after reading Zakiya Dalila Harris’ next-level debut novel, The Other Black Girl, and it feels vital that I finally check out Alyssa Cole’s first thriller, which emerged—kicked in the door, more like—as the literary answer to the seminal Black horror film Get Out, by way of Rear Window. Cole uses the premise upon which countless domestic thrillers are built: A woman who questions her own sanity starts to wonder if something is very, very wrong in her neighborhood. Mortgage and rental rates are skyrocketing, and then strange stuff—bad stuff—starts happening to longtime Black residents who don’t want to sell their homes to predatory realtors. Because Cole has a background in writing historical romance, she also illuminates how the gentrification of predominantly Black neighborhoods is preceded by a long racist history of displacement, redlining and social control. Horror and reality are definitely shacking up in this tale, and I’m ready for the whole ride.

—Cat, Deputy Editor

I’m Thinking of Ending Things

One of my favorite films of 2020 was Charlie Kaufman’s I’m Thinking of Ending Things, a weird, wild movie that gets stranger and bolder with each passing minute and that provided one of the absolute best “What on earth did I just watch?” viewing experiences I’ve had in a long while. I had always planned to read the book, but I bumped up Iain Reid’s wintry 2016 thriller to the top spot on my reading list once I learned its ending reportedly goes in a different direction than the film’s. I usually prefer my Private Eye July picks to be on the fluffier end of the spectrum, as I do my best summer reading poolside, but I think I’ll have to make an exception to see where Reid takes me. There’s a perverse pleasure to be found in reading books set in frigid environments while enjoying the summer heat, but hopefully I’ll get goosebumps all the same.

—Savanna, Associate Editor

15 Minutes of Flame

I wanted to read this book before I even knew what it was about. I took one look at the cover, said aloud, “I would like to live inside this picture of a New England candle store steeped in autumnal frivolity,” and added it to my TBR. Other books have since buried it on my bedside table, but I’m digging it out for Private Eye July. 15 Minutes of Flame is the third in Christin Brecher’s Nantucket Candle Maker Mystery series, about Stella Wright’s idyllic life as a candle store owner and, of course, the murders she solves along the way. In true cozy mystery fashion, Brecher’s series keeps the pages turning without raising the stakes high enough that your pulse quickens, which is the exact right speed for my anxiety. And since it takes place in October, I’m hoping the fictional nip in the air will help get me through the rest of summer.

—Christy, Associate Editor

Truly Devious

I wasn't reading many mysteries in 2018 when bestselling YA author Maureen Johnson published Truly Devious, her first book about teen detective Stevie Bell. So when I picked up The Box in the Woods, Johnson’s fourth book featuring Stevie, to consider it for this issue of BookPage (check the YA review section for more), it wasn't as a committed fan but as a novice. Needless to say, I'm a fan now. Johnson's sparkling prose and Stevie’s droll humor had me cackling and eager to read aloud especially delightful passages to my very patient partner. This July, I can’t wait to bury myself in the story of Stevie’s first great triumph against a decades-old cold case at the exclusive Ellingham Academy. Best of all, I know the story of the investigation unfolds across three whole books, and for a reader who's always a little sad that great books have to end, there's nothing better.

—Stephanie, Associate Editor

Big Little Lies

Typically, if you’re a hardcore bibliophile, you’re supposed to read the book before you watch the adaptation. In this case, I came to the TV series first—and with career-defining performances from Reese Witherspoon, Laura Dern and Nicole Kidman, how could I resist? From what I’ve heard, the show and the book are actually very different. Several characters in the book, including Madeline and Renata, had roles that were too small for such powerful actors, so the adaptation expanded their involvement—and their flaws—to make them more dynamic on the screen. Even if this is true, the book had to run in order for the show to fly. I’m interested in seeing whether the book provides a clearer motive for the main murder and if the story’s concern with domestic abuse is more pronounced. I may even try reading the book and watching the show at the same time to spot the differences. Only then will I decide which I think is better.

—Eric, Editorial Intern

When…

Mystery

Mystery

Cozies: July 2021

Feature by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

A cab driver, a Regency widow and the owner of a milkshake emporium find their lives disrupted by murder most foul in this month’s cozy column.

Death of an Irish Mummy

Expat Megan Malone is back behind the wheel at Leprechaun Limos, this time driving a fellow Texan, Cherise, who thinks she’s heir to an ancient Irish earldom. Cherise is later found dead, just as her three squabbling daughters arrive in Dublin from the States to support their mother’s quest. Megan must find out what happened, partly because she was involved from the start, but also, in a truly hilarious touch, because her boss is beginning to think she’s cursed, given that dead bodies keep popping up around her, Megan must find out what happened. Catie Murphy’s Death of an Irish Mummy is a bright new installment in a consistently delightful series. Megan’s a staunch ally to her limo service co-workers, and when times are tough, it’s nice to see how people have her back in return. She’s slyly conscious of the fact that drivers are viewed as “the help,” members of the invisible servant class with whom people will sometimes speak too freely, and she uses this to her advantage, accumulating useful information. Murphy balances grief and family secrets with a hunt for buried treasure, keeping things realistic even as the story flirts with the fantastical.

Pint of No Return

Trinidad Jones is determined to make a fresh start after getting divorced, and to avoid her ex-husband Gabe’s two other ex-wives and his protective sister. Fortunately, she received a storefront in rural Oregon in the breakup, and she moves in with plans to turn it into a homemade ice cream and milkshake emporium. When she finds a neighboring business owner dead and one of Gabe’s exes is charged with the crime, Trinidad must change her priorities and see justice done. Dana Mentink’s series starter, Pint of No Return, takes place in a neighborhood common to cozies: a nice town full of good people, if you don’t count all the lying, theft and murder. Noodles, Trinidad’s service-dog dropout who knows he should help but does so in adorably wrong ways, is likely to become a fan favorite.

Silence in the Library

Katharine Schellman’s Silence in the Library is a welcome return to the Regency world of recently widowed Lily Adler. She finds herself saddled with her ailing father as an unexpected houseguest, and he’s in such a foul temper that Lily must escape by visiting Lady Wyatt, who has married Sir Charles, an old family friend. It’s a shock when Sir Charles is found dead, and Bow Street constable Simon Page thinks the fall that caused his death was staged to appear like an accident. Soon enough, Simon and Lily are working in tandem to find the truth. The mystery is complicated by Arthur, one of Sir Charles’ sons, who is autistic. His wealth and privilege have allowed him to escape being institutionalized, but his family has kept him hidden from public view and are quick to blame him in the search for the killer. A touching subplot about Lily tentatively coming out of mourning to embark on a newly independent life—and her father’s subsequent fury at this change—illustrates the tightrope that women had to walk to gain even the smallest bit of freedom. Schellman’s meticulous research puts the reader right in the heart of Regency London, and the hunt for a killer is tense and frightening.

A cab driver, a Regency widow and the owner of a milkshake emporium find their lives disrupted by murder most foul in this month’s cozy column.

Mystery

Mystery

Whodunit: July 2021

Feature by Bruce Tierney

by Bruce Tierney

Would you rather wake up next to a corpse or find out that your best friend might be a serial killer?

Lie Beside Me

The two faces of Louise are as follows: Sober Louise is a classical harpist, insecure, mousy and willing to go along to get along. Drunk Louise is a whole other story. She’s flirtatious, physical (both amorously and pugilistically) and something of a tabula rasa the following morning. And so it is when she wakes up next to the corpse in her bed, the sheets tacky with drying blood. Any idea who the dead man is or how he got there? Nope and nope. Although Gytha Lodge’s Lie Beside Me is nominally a police procedural, much of the narrative is delivered in the first person by Louise, who is arguably not the person best positioned to offer an unbiased account. As Louise rehashes memories and attempts to fill in her blank spaces, the story also follows the investigators and forensics team who are putting their case together and beginning to single out Louise as the prime suspect. But the case will become a fair bit more complicated before its resolution, and another decent suspect or two will present themselves. Lie Beside Me is clever, entertaining and peppered with the sorts of twists and turns that routinely propel suspense novels to the top of bestseller lists the world over.

One Half Truth

In Eva Dolan’s sixth entry in her cracking good Zigic and Ferreira series, One Half Truth, Detective Inspector Zigic and Detective Sergeant Ferreira are called upon to investigate the apparent execution of Jordan Radley, a young journalist who was shot at close range and left by the roadside. It bears the hallmarks of a gang-related slaying, but further investigation suggests that Jordan had been working on some sort of exposé, subject matter unknown due to the fact that someone, presumably the murderer, broke into Jordan’s home and made off with his laptop, phone and anything else that might provide a clue. What Zigic and Ferreira do know is that Jordan was researching the now-defunct Greenaway Engineering company; his article was presumably going to take a critical look at the devastating effects of its closure on the community. And now, seemingly everywhere the police look, the ghost of Greenaway looms large. This series’ central investigative team has morphed over the course of six books, with personalities and relationships changing and growing as one might expect in real life. That said, each book is a true standalone volume, with backstory provided where needed. Dolan’s style is evocative of Mark Billingham or Peter Robinson. One Half Truth is a no-nonsense police procedural with purposeful plotting, compelling characters and the requisite twist or two to keep the reader guessing.

We Were Never Here

In the mood for an eerie psychological thriller? Look no further than Andrea Bartz’s We Were Never Here. Meet Emily and Kristen, longtime friends who live halfway around the world from one another. Emily’s in Milwaukee, Kristen’s in Australia, but they meet annually for a girls trip to far-flung ports o’call: Vietnam, Uganda, Cambodia and, this year, a trip through the mountains and valleys of central Chile. The first two trips were idyllic, but things went sideways in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, when Emily was assaulted by a sadistic South African backpacker. Kristen came to her rescue, brandishing a handy floor lamp like a Louisville Slugger and connecting squarely with the attacker’s head to land an instant death blow. The police were never called because the two women were terrified by perennial horror stories of being locked up abroad. After a year of nightmares, Emily has more or less recovered her equilibrium. But now, the unthinkable: History repeats itself in Chile, and another backpacker lies dead on another hotel room floor at the hands of Kristen. Creepy, right? It’s about to get creepier. When Kristen suddenly moves back to Milwaukee, their relationship begins to show more cracks. The further Emily withdraws, the more obsessive Kristen becomes. And then things go very dark indeed. Of all the books I have read recently, this is the one that has “film adaptation” writ large upon it, with alluring locales, Hitchcockian tension and possibly the best pair of female leads since Thelma and Louise.

★ Moon Lake

Joe R. Lansdale has long been on my “must read ASAP (as soon as published)” list. His latest, Moon Lake, is a standalone thriller, although there is wiggle room for a series should readers demand it. Back in the 1960s, the East Texas town of Long Lincoln was intentionally submerged into Moon Lake, its residents moved to higher ground. Daniel Russell was a teenager at the time, with a ne’er-do-well father and a mother who’d recently gone missing. One night, Daniel’s father inexplicably bundled him into the family Buick and deliberately jumped a bridge guardrail, plunging the car into Moon Lake. Daniel barely survived, and his father and the car disappeared. Ten years later, Daniel receives news that the Buick has been located, along with his father’s remains and some unidentified bones in the trunk of the car. Those bones may well be his mother, who has still never been found, so Daniel returns to Long Lincoln to claim his father’s remains and to research his family’s disturbing history. When his questions intrude on the nefarious doings of the town’s elite, Daniel quickly becomes persona non grata, and it appears likely that he is destined for a second plunge into Moon Lake. Lansdale nails the storyline, nails the suspense, seriously nails the dialogue and has created yet another character worthy of a series.

Would you rather wake up next to a corpse or find out that your best friend might be a serial killer?

Mystery

Mystery

Unflappable amateur sleuths

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Two mysteries explore the glamour and ugliness of the 1920s.

Ah, the eternal allure of the citizen sleuth, with their uncanny ability to suss out lies and turn mystery into clarity—all without a badge or uniform. In these two 1920s-set mysteries, brave, intelligent women solve murder cases despite societal strictures, the people (mostly men) rooting for them to fail and the slippery piles of red herrings that do not look good with a cloche hat or beaded gown.

Australian author Kerry Greenwood’s witty and creative Death in Daylesford stars the particularly fabulous Phryne Fisher, with her exquisite and exquisitely expensive clothes, malachite bathtub and Hispano-Suiza luxury car. She has a hearty sexual appetite and a penchant for wearing trousers, and she delights in ignoring the scandalized gasps she leaves in her wake.

Miss Fisher’s 21st adventure has been eagerly awaited by fans, who most likely passed the time since 2014’s Murder and Mendelssohn by rewatching episodes of the TV adaptation of the series, “Miss Fisher’s Murder Mysteries,” and its companion film, Miss Fisher and the Crypt of Tears.

This time around, the crimes find Phryne. She has left her opulent Melbourne home for a trip to the countryside with her faithful assistant, Dot. In Daylesford, Phryne meets Captain Spencer and tours his spa, which serves as a retreat for shellshocked World War I veterans. He’s hoping for her financial support, and she’s hoping to enjoy a relaxing week away from the city.

Alas, it’s not long before a murder happens right before her and Dot’s very eyes. And then they learn that three women have recently gone missing. Lovely, rural Daylesford is rife with secrets and liars, and Phryne and Dot resolve to figure out why evil is swirling around the local Temperance Hotel and two of its employees.

Back in Melbourne, Dot’s police-sergeant fiancé, Hugh, is keeping an eye on Phryne’s three teenage wards, who become embroiled in a murder mystery of their own when a pregnant classmate is found floating in the Yarra River. Hugh enlists the teens’ help, and the trio strive to make Phryne proud as they search for clues and question schoolmates with savvy aplomb.

Death in Daylesford’s parallel storylines offer up a bounty of increasingly inventive crimes bolstered by delectable descriptions of captivating scenery and decadent meals. Additional delights come in the forms of nicely developed queer relationships and a wicked range of snarky insults. (Hugh’s boss “could lose a three-round bout with a revolving door,” while another character is “as plastered as a Giotto fresco.”) This is a vivid and never-boring visit to 1920s Australia, led by the beloved and unconventional Miss Fisher.

Debut author Nekesa Afia’s Dead Dead Girls introduces Louise Lovie Lloyd, who, like Phryne Fisher, is an intelligent and beautiful woman in her 20s with an eye for fashion and a facility for solving crimes. But as a Black woman living in 1926 Harlem, Louise is brand-new to the investigatory game, and not by choice. While leaving the Zodiac speakeasy, where she and her girlfriend, Rosa Maria, go to drink, dance and revel in their “easy, effortless connection that she never needed to think about,” Louise gets into an altercation with a racist white police officer that ends with her punching him in the face.

After Louise is arrested, Detective Theodore Gilbert tells her that if she helps him figure out who’s killing Black teenage girls in Harlem, he’ll clear her record. She’s loath to do so, not only because it means ceding part of her life to this imperious stranger, but also because it would thrust her into the public eye—something she’s been avoiding since becoming “Harlem’s Hero” 10 years ago, when she escaped a kidnapper and freed three other girls trapped with her.

Self-preservation and a desire to protect Harlem’s vulnerable girls, including her teenage twin sisters, compel Louise to accept Gilbert’s ruthless bargain. She employs her smarts and empathy in equal measure, adeptly navigating Harlem’s criminal underworld even as the killer strikes anew and the very air is permeated with dread and terror.

Afia’s Jazz Age setting, with its surges of artistic creativity, infuses the story with a crackling feeling of possibility that stands in sharp contrast to the frustrating and often devastating realities of Louise’s life. While she has love and friendship, she also must contend with virulent racism and sexism; she feels constrained by those who seek to control her and hindered by her nagging self-doubt.

While Louise is just 5 feet, 2 inches tall, she is anything but diminutive in personality, bravery or determination. Afia has created a character that readers will root for—to solve the crimes, to prevail over injustice, to love herself as fiercely as she works to protect those around her.

Two mysteries explore the glamour and ugliness of the 1920s.

Mystery

Mystery

Mutts, matchmaking and a touch of murder

Feature by Alice Cary

by Alice Cary

Looking for an absorbing but lighthearted mystery? Two very unusual detective agencies—one in the American Southwest and the other across the pond—take readers on fast-paced and funny adventures.

When people see Bernie Little’s large black dog, they often ask, “Is he yours?” “We’re more like partners,” Bernie always responds. Indeed, there’s hardly a more devoted team than Chet and Bernie of the Little Detective Agency. Bernie is a hardscrabble private eye in Arizona who lives and works with his canine pal, Chet, the narrator of their adventures. Hats off to author Spencer Quinn for making this potentially cloying premise work—not just well, but superbly. The duo’s 11th case, Tender Is the Bite, follows on the heels of titles such as Of Mutts and Men and Heart of Barkness. Quinn loves wordplay, and it’s one of the many things that makes this series so endearing.

Chet and Bernie’s new adventure begins when a pretty young woman with a large diamond ring begins to follow them but then goes missing. Around the same time, a Ukrainian man who may have ties to a powerful senator threatens Bernie. Bernie also begins a romance with a police sergeant named Weatherly who has a dog that, incredibly, seems to be Chet’s sister. The suspenseful plot’s many threads are made all the more enjoyable by Chet’s narration.

“I made no attempt to understand,” Chet notes as he listens to Bernie ponder their latest puzzle. “That didn’t mean I wasn’t listening. I always listen to Bernie. His voice is like a lovely brook bubbling by.” What Chet lacks in linguistic understanding, he compensates for with his finely attuned senses of smell and hearing. “This might amaze you,” he notes, “but I could smell what the senator was drinking—namely bourbon. I was even pretty sure that it was the kind Bernie liked, the bourbon with red flowers on the label.” With each chapter, Quinn ramps up the action while still keeping things light, snappy and funny. With its thoroughly lovable detective duo, Tender Is the Bite is highly entertaining from start to finish.

In 1946 London, Iris Sparks and Gwendolyn Bainbridge are making a go at professional matchmaking with their Right Sort Marriage Bureau, but murder keeps getting in the way. They find themselves involved in detective work once again in Allison Montclair’s A Rogue’s Company, the third in the Sparks and Bainbridge series. It’s a delightful blend of historical intrigue, sharp-tongued humor and savvy sleuthing.

Iris and Gwen have a new client, a Rhodesian man named Simon Daile. As Simon’s enigmatic past gradually unfolds, Iris and Gwen begin to worry that he is not being completely forthcoming about his intentions, and having a Black client leads to some lively discussions between the white matchmakers about race and their own privilege. Gwen and Iris’ animated dialogue throughout, on a wide variety of subjects from race to women’s roles, is always enjoyably thoughtful-provoking. The plot thickens with a murder, and later a very close-to-home double kidnapping.

This detective duo could hardly be more different. War widow Gwen lives in luxury, although she’s fighting to regain custody of her son from her bullying father-in-law, who wants to send 6-year-old Ronnie off to a strict boarding school. (Gwen lost custody when she suffered a mental collapse after her husband’s death and spent four months in a sanitarium.) Meanwhile, Iris lives a decidedly less elegant life, which includes a boyfriend whose criminal connections often turn out to be helpful. “I thrive on chaos,” Iris admits. “That’s my life.”

Montclair does an excellent job of exploring the post-War World II London setting and showing how the series’ characters and relationships have evolved. Both Gwen and Iris fight to hold their own in their patriarchal, class-driven society, and their constant pushback against prejudice and sexism is a centerpiece of the series. With well-defined characters, high-stakes action and a quickly evolving plot, readers will find much to enjoy. Like its predecessors, A Rogue’s Company is brisk, entertaining fun.

Looking for an absorbing but lighthearted mystery? Two very unusual detective agencies take readers on fast-paced and funny adventures.

Mystery

Mystery

Ladies of the law

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Murder, deceit and corruption are all in a day’s work for Detective Maggie D’arcy and Sheriff Heidi Kick, who hunt down killers while wrangling with office politics, family matters and the patriarchy in two exciting series entries.

Sarah Stewart Taylor’s A Distant Grave is a complex, slow-burning follow-up to 2020’s The Mountains Wild, wherein readers learned of the family tragedy that inspired Maggie D’arcy to become a homicide detective. The aftereffects still linger for Maggie; trauma “sits sleeping, for years, and then comes back, in ways you never would have expected.” She has reengaged in the rhythms of Long Island daily life, but her daughter, Lilly, is still reeling from the death by suicide of her father, Maggie’s ex-husband.

When the body of Irish citizen Gabriel Treacy is found in affluent Bay Shore Manor Park, Maggie’s detective brain snaps into focus. She welcomes the chance to concentrate on a case she can solve rather than emotional pain she cannot. The district attorney believes the victim is a casualty of gang warfare, but there must be more to the story. Why was he murdered in an area to which he has no ties? Are the horrific scars on his back related to his death?

Maggie thinks the answers are in Ireland, where her boyfriend, Conor, lives. She travels there with Lilly and teams up with Roly Byrne of the Irish Garda (the national police). In the county Clare countryside, they learn Treacy was an international aid worker who was kidnapped and tortured in Afghanistan years ago, and had recently been searching for the brother placed for adoption by his mother years before Treacy was born.

Just as the disparate puzzle pieces begin to fit together, the DA orders Maggie back to Long Island. Determined to get justice for Treacy, she navigates naysayers and shrugs off looming danger as she closes in on the complicated, sad truth of his demise. With painstaking investigative work and conflicted internal monologues from a protagonist who is something of an enigma, even to herself, Taylor has crafted another believable and intriguing installment of Maggie’s story.

A thousand miles away in John Galligan’s fictional Bad Axe County, Wisconsin, another person is found dead: a homeless young man with two gunshot wounds and no identification who, Sheriff Heidi Kick is appalled to learn, was buried alive.

That’s just one of the myriad things Heidi’s got on her precariously overloaded plate as Bad Moon Rising opens. To paraphrase one of her what-on-earth-is-going-on mental tallies: Her period is 17 days late; her young son’s unexplained anger is ramping up; in 87 days she’s up for reelection against the deplorable Barry Rickreiner (and his vicious mother, Babette); and an anonymous emailer is offering supposedly damning information about her opponent.

When more victims are found and other crimes unearthed, Larry “Grape” Fanta, Vietnam veteran and editor of the Bad Axe Broadcaster for 43 years, proffers assistance to “his favorite sheriff.” Sure, “his pig [heart] valve felt sticky as it flapped,” but his brain and will are strong, and he has a hunch that the increasingly disturbing letters and calls he’s fielded over the years might be related to the murders.

Galligan moves between multiple points of view—widely varied, all compelling—as Heidi’s investigation takes her through oft-hostile and dangerously rugged country, with a relentless heatwave and toxic political machinations ramping up the tension. The author’s trademark dark humor is in fine form here, whether through Heidi’s irrepressible dispatcher, Denise, or well-wrought descriptions like “torrid mist of atomized manure.”

As the pages turn, the author prompts readers to consider a range of timely issues (climate change, homelessness, corrosive wealth) via masterfully executed and action-packed storylines that coalesce in a shockingly memorable final act sure to leave readers eager for the next Bad Axe County thriller.

Criminals’ days of freedom are numbered when these two women are on the case.

Mystery

Mystery

Not a simple whodunit

Feature by Naomi Hirahara

by Naomi Hirahara

Naomi Hirahara’s haunting new historical mystery, Clark and Division, follows Aki Ito, who refuses to believe the police’s conclusion that her sister Rose killed herself and begins to investigate the death on her own. Set in the titular Chicago neighborhood during World War II, Clark and Division lays bare the trauma and injustice of Japanese American incarceration and displacement. Hirahara, who has studied and written about this peirod of American history for decades, shares why this compelling, infuriating story demands to be told.

Imagine that you are 20, uprooted from your lifelong home in Los Angeles with your family to a dusty detention center next to a region called Death Valley in California. Your crime is not even your nationality, because you were born in America. It is your ethnicity, because your country is at war with Japan. Your parents are Japanese immigrants who cannot become U.S. citizens even if they want to, because the Japanese cannot be naturalized. After being confined with 10,000 other Japanese Americans, you are released to the then-second largest American city, Chicago.

This is the circumstance of my fictional family, the Itos, in my historical mystery, Clark and Division, as well as that of real Japanese Americans who crowded into Chicago from the 10 incarceration centers in the deserts and swamplands of the U.S. The city’s population of Japanese Americans surged from 400 before World War II to 20,000 by the mid-1940s. The U.S. government and sympathetic faith-based organizations wanted to move the Japanese Americans, who once had vast farming and fishing operations on the West Coast, from camps to the nation’s interior, since the West Coast was a “military area” that the “excluded” Japanese Americans were not allowed to return to. Chicago, with its industrial operations and central location, served as a perfect temporary home for these exiled people. Accused of being “the enemy,” they would still work in defense factories and were even drafted into the U.S. Army from the camps, revealing the senselessness of the accusation that they were a threat to national security.

I’ve been interviewing and writing stories about the WWII Nisei (second) generation for the past 35 years in newspaper articles, nonfiction books, noir short stories and even a contemporary mystery series featuring an aging Los Angeles gardener and atomic-bomb survivor. Many Japanese American “resettlers” were young adults in their 20s whose immigrant parents, who faced more of a challenge to receive clearance, remained in detention centers. As a result, these Nisei newcomers were young, single and without parental supervision, perhaps for the first time in their lives. They had transitioned from confinement with people of their same ethnic group to freedom in a multiracial city notorious for gangsters, gambling and graft.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our starred review of Clark and Division.

It’s no wonder that chaos would befall this community: babies born out of wedlock, abortions (which were illegal at the time), a peeping Tom, a stick-up man and finally a “sex maniac” who attacked several Nisei women. All of these activities were documented in a 1946 community report but not spoken of in detail in oral histories.

Without any firsthand accounts, I turned to my imagination and my past friendships with these formerly incarcerated people to fill in the gaps. A crime novel, all based on true abbreviated accounts, can cut through to the truth of a people’s pain and resiliency. The biggest mystery within Clark and Division is not a simple whodunit, but the mystery of why a nation and its political leaders abandoned the citizens and legal residents who needed them the most.

Author photo by Mayumi Hirahara.

Naomi Hirahara explains why the biggest unknown in her new historical mystery, Clark and Division, isn’t a simple whodunit.

Mystery

Mystery

Whodunit: August 2021

Feature by Bruce Tierney

by Bruce Tierney

What do England, Sweden and France all have in common? In this month’s Whodunit column, it’s murder!

Island of Thieves

When freelance security consultant and former ace thief Van Shaw gets tapped to perform an art heist, ostensibly to test the security of a storage facility, he harbors some initial reservations. But the contract is ironclad, his duties are defined clearly and there is no danger of running afoul of the law. As Van philosophically notes, “Taking isn’t always stealing . . . Not if you’ve got permission.” The rousing success of that venture prompts his billionaire client, Sebastian Rohner, to secure Van’s services again, this time to guard an art installation during a gathering of entrepreneurs at Rohner’s private island. The title of Glen Erik Hamilton’s sixth Van Shaw thriller, Island of Thieves, is not the actual name of the island, but it might as well be, given the rather large proportion of the cast engaged in that heady pursuit. The security gig is merely a cover designed to draw attention away from the raison d’être of the meeting: corporate larceny that is breathtaking both in its scope and its audacity. And if all goes according to malicious plan, Van will be made the fall guy, while the bad guys gleefully divvy up their ill-gotten gains—but then someone goes and gets killed, and suddenly the plans are out the window. With every man for himself, the island of thieves is poised for a reenactment of Lord of the Flies. As ever, Van proves to be a wry, reliable guide through the relentless action of Hamilton’s always thrilling series.

Then She Vanishes

Claire Douglas’ Then She Vanishes is an English cold-case thriller that tells the story of three women: Flora, who disappeared years ago as a teenager; Heather, her younger sister, who now lies in a coma after allegedly killing an elderly mother and son in cold blood before turning the gun on herself; and Jess, a close family friend from back in the day who is now a reporter for a small local newspaper. At the outset, there appears to be no connection whatsoever between Heather’s crimes and Flora’s disappearance. But as often happens in small towns, old transgressions can come bubbling to the surface at inconvenient times, and Jess has the “nose for news” to uncover them. The question is, who is the culprit? Does Heather have anything in her history to suggest she could be guilty of such a violent act? Um, yes. Has Heather’s Uncle Leo, a middle-aged Lothario with a penchant for teenage girls, been keeping a guilty secret for all these years? Um, yes. And what do we make of the fact that Heather’s husband was seen bellowing at one of the decedents shortly before the double homicide but told the police he had never met either of them? Dodgy, that. And I am just scratching the surface here. If you are a fan of suspense, twists and more twists, Then She Vanishes should be right up your alley.

The Night Singer

Swedish author Johanna Mo’s English-language debut, The Night Singer, begins the saga of police detective Hanna Duncker, newly returned to her native island of Öland after years in Stockholm. It is a troubling milieu for her, in part because she is the daughter of Öland’s most infamous murderer, and her return is definitely rattling old skeletons that some people would prefer to leave in the closet. The story centers on the apparent murder of a 15-year-old boy, the son of Hanna’s best friend from high school. He was by all accounts a troubled youth, although there was nothing to suggest he’d be a candidate for murder. In the course of Hanna’s investigation, Mo explores themes of bullying, infidelity, familial violence, discrimination based on sexuality and gender—in short, many of the bugbears that plague 21st-century Western culture. The Night Singer is just excellent and the perfect setup for a sequel, which I hope is in the offing imminently.

★ The Coldest Case

While I am an avid fan of one-sitting, page-turner books (like the other three reviewed in this column), I am also quite taken with books that force me to pause every few pages or so to savor and reflect a bit before continuing—to enjoy a deft turn of phrase or imagine the smells and sounds of the locale. Martin Walker’s books fall squarely into the latter category, and his latest, The Coldest Case, is a prime example. The star of the series is Bruno Courrèges, chief of police of St. Denis, a small town in France’s Périgord region. This time out, he finds himself embroiled in a cold case of a young man bludgeoned to death 30 years ago, a time predating modern forensic procedures such as DNA testing and facial reconstruction identification. Deeper investigation sends Bruno free-falling down a rabbit hole that leads not only to the long-undetermined identity of the deceased but also to possible Cold War espionage connections that may have somehow survived into the present day. As is always the case in Walker’s Bruno books, food and wine regularly figure into the narrative, as well as French culture and history, love, equestrianship and basset hounds, but it’s all delivered with much more bonhomie and much less preciousness than you might expect.

What do England, Sweden and France all have in common? In this month’s Whodunit column, it’s murder!

Mystery

Mystery

Whodunit: September 2021

Feature by Bruce Tierney

by Bruce Tierney

Louise Penny has somehow outdone herself again with her latest Inspector Gamache mystery.

My Sweet Girl

Sri Lankan writer Amanda Jayatissa’s debut, My Sweet Girl, is a dark thriller of international deceit and murder, narrated in alternating chapters by 12-year-old Paloma, who is adopted from a Sri Lankan orphanage by a wealthy American couple, and her adult self 18 years later. The Paloma of the present day is estranged from her parents and haunted by hallucinations (or are they?) of a strange woman who eats the faces of beautiful young girls. One evening, Paloma returns to her apartment and finds her roommate brutally murdered, after which she flees the scene and gets blackout drunk. By the time the police arrive, the scene has been sanitized, leaving no trace of any such killing, but how can that be? Paloma doesn’t know, and neither do we. As the story unfolds, the reader begins to recognize incongruities between the younger and older Palomas, incongruities that are not easily reconcilable and are increasingly unsettling. I thought I had twigged to the ending before the Big Reveal, and I was quite proud of myself. But I was way wrong. I love it when that happens.

Road of Bones

September, 1944. As James R. Benn’s 16th Billy Boyle novel, Road of Bones, opens, the U.S. Army investigator is hitching a ride to Ukraine aboard a B-17 bomber. And then all hell breaks loose: German fighter planes drive the bombers into ground fire range, and one by one the American airplanes fall, including the one carrying Billy’s friend, Big Mike Miecznikowski. Some of those aboard the disabled bomber parachute to an unknown fate below, but it is not clear whether Big Mike is among them. Billy’s airplane makes it safely through to Poltava air base in Ukraine, where he has been tapped to investigate the murder of a pair of soldiers, one Russian, one American. If the Russians have their way, it will be an American taking the fall. Optics are everything, right? Billy must balance his investigation with his personal need to learn the fate of his friend and also somehow placate the Russians at every turn—no mean feat. A fascinating subplot has Billy encountering the Night Witches, an all-female band of Russian fighter pilots who took stealth bombing to a new level by turning off their engines as they approached their targets, silently gliding in to deliver their deadly payloads. As always, Benn covers all his bases with a taut narrative, relatable characters and crisp dialogue. Road of Bones is another superlative installment in the best World War II mystery series on offer.

The Darkness Knows

Thirty years ago, a Reykjavik businessman named Sigurvin disappeared. A suspect, Hjaltalín, was arrested at the time but later released for lack of evidence. Now, thanks to climate change, the melting of an Icelandic glacier has exposed Sigurvin’s frozen body (surely the textbook definition of a “cold case”). Arnaldur Indridason’s latest novel, The Darkness Knows, finds retired police detective Konrád, the original investigator on the case, at loose ends. He has never entirely recovered from the death of his wife, and truth be told, he is somewhat bored with life nowadays. Konrád’s initial mandate is simply to re-interview Hjaltalín, who is now incarcerated for a different crime, but he continues to maintain his innocence. Konrád has no official standing, but the case nagged at him when he first worked on it, and he finds it beginning to nag at him once again. So he launches what is essentially a private citizen’s investigation, stripped of most of the tools of his trade. It is slow going, as might be expected of a decades-old case, and Konrád is not as spry as he once was. So if you are looking for explosive action and edge-of-the-seat suspense, it would be best to look elsewhere. The Darkness Knows is slowly and deliberately plotted. No stone is left unturned; indeed, no stone is left undescribed. But Indridason is a consummate storyteller, one of the cream of the Nordic noir crop, and if methodical police procedurals are your thing, you have come to the right place.

★ The Madness of Crowds

The Madness of Crowds is Louise Penny’s 17th novel featuring Sûreté du Québec Chief Inspector Armand Gamache. The chief inspector is well known among his compatriots and readers alike for staring down ethical dilemmas, and this time he is facing a real conundrum. In Gamache’s Canada, there is a growing (or festering, depending on your viewpoint) movement dedicated to the idea of withholding care or outright euthanizing older and disabled people in order to preserve valuable resources for those likely to have better outcomes. The de facto leader of the movement is professor Abigail Robinson, a statistician whose numbers are more on target than her morality. The argument has polarized Canadians to the point of violence, and it falls to Gamache to provide security for Professor Robinson as she speaks to an unruly crowd of both supporters and naysayers. Gunshots ring out, and Gamache secures his charge, preventing tragedy. But then the professor’s assistant is brutally bludgeoned to death shortly afterward, in what was perhaps a case of mistaken identity. Gamache has personal feelings about this ethical dilemma, as one of his grandchildren has Down syndrome and would be affected if the laws that Robinson advocates for were implemented. Gamache’s decision to afford protection to a constituent who, even theoretically, threatens a family member isn’t one he takes lightly. The Madness of Crowds is not an easy read by any means, but it’s easily one of the best mystery novels (or novels of any genre) in recent memory.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Robert Bathurst narrates the audiobook edition of The Madness of Crowds.

Louise Penny has somehow outdone herself again with her latest Inspector Gamache mystery.

Mystery

Mystery

Detective debuts

Feature by G. Robert Frazier

by G. Robert Frazier

Everybody loves a good origin story, right? If you’re fans of S.D. Sykes’ Somershill Manor or William Kent Krueger’s Cork O’Connor mysteries, then you’re in for a treat. Both authors—after years of adventures with their respective sleuths—have turned back the pages of time to present their characters’ earliest adventures.

In Sykes’ The Good Death, set primarily in 1349, a teenage Brother Oswald de Lacy, who will one day become Lord Somershill, embarks on his first foray into detection after he discovers a petrified and abused young woman, Agnes Wheeler, in a forest. Agnes flees from him, and is subsequently swept away by a nearby river’s rapids and drowns. Upon returning her body to her own village, Oswald learns that she is but one of several young women who have gone inexplicably missing.

Oswald is in the process of becoming a monk at Kintham Abbey when Agnes’ death seemingly shatters his faith. Determined to learn who assaulted Agnes and what may have happened to the other women, Oswald embarks on his own investigation, much to the chagrin of both his own family and those in the brotherhood. After learning that Agnes may be his own brother's daughter, Oswald’s already tenuous devotion to the cloth is tested even further. With clues pointing to another monk at the monastery, Oswald grows increasingly unsure about who he can trust.

With the Black Death roiling through the countryside and forcing communities into isolation for fear of spreading the deadly disease, Oswald’s investigation becomes increasingly more difficult. Thankfully, especially for readers who want to avoid being reminded of the COVID-19 pandemic, the plague is only depicted on the fringes of events and is not a main element of the action. Instead, Sykes firmly plants readers in Oswald’s perspective throughout the story, easily evoking sympathy for his confusion, as well as his determination to discover the truth. Occasional chapters set 21 years later find Oswald revealing the sordid story to his mother on her deathbed, showcasing a deep connection between mother and son and their devotion to family, secrets and all.

In Lightning Strike, Krueger entices his legions of fans with a trip back to 1963, showing how Cork O’Connor developed his nose for the truth. At just 12 years old, Cork’s idyllic, carefree lifestyle in Aurora, Minnesota, is shattered when he discovers his mentor, Big John Manydeeds, hanging by a rope from a tree at the titular location, a cabin on the shores of nearby Iron Lake that was destroyed by lightning. The Indigenous Ojibwe people believe the destruction of the cabin was a sign from the spirits that the surrounding forest is sacred and shouldn’t be touched.

Cork’s father, Liam O’Connor, is sheriff of Tamarack County and seems convinced by the evidence at hand that Big John took his own life. A cache of empty beer bottles is found at Big John’s residence and his blood alcohol content is well over the legal limit, pointing to the inevitable conclusion that the man, who was recovering from alcoholism, must have fallen off the wagon again.

Cork, whose mother was Ojibwe and Irish American, isn’t so sure. For one thing, a shadowy sense of Big John’s spirit has begun to haunt him and several other Ojibwe people. For another, Big John had been sober for several years. Liam does little to discourage Cork’s questions about the death, perhaps because he has his own doubts about the circumstances surrounding it and perhaps because he sees something in Cork of the man he will become. He allows Cork to follow the breadcrumbs and let the facts lead him, pieces of advice that fans of the series will be thrilled to recognize as ones that follow Cork into manhood when he becomes sheriff.

But neither Cork nor his father, it seems, is quite prepared for the rising tensions between those on the Ojibwe Iron Lake Reservation, who knew Big John best, and the white community around them. Krueger deepens the mystery at every turn, ratcheting up both the plot reveals and pace of the story relentlessly before the stunning conclusion.

While longtime Krueger fans may long for another mystery featuring a grown-up Cork, they will quickly be won over by and embrace this excursion into Cork’s formative years. Krueger expertly blends his trademark mystery skills with a coming-of-age story that examines family, place and race.

Authors S.D. Sykes and William Kent Krueger—after years of adventures with their respective sleuths—turn back the pages of time to show their characters’ very first cases.

Cozy Mystery, Mystery & Suspense

Mystery & Suspense Cozy Mystery

Cozies: October 2021

Feature by Heather Seggel

by Heather Seggel

Not one, not two, but all three of the books in this month’s cozy column received starred reviews!

★ Mango, Mambo, and Murder

Miriam Quiñones-Smith has just relocated from New York City to tony Coral Shores in Miami. A former food anthropologist, she lands a gig teaching Caribbean cooking on a morning show and works to grow a social circle, but at her very first meeting of a women’s club, one of the attendees keels over. Mango, Mambo, and Murder has everything you look for in a cozy mystery but also feels like a breath of fresh air. Author Raquel V. Reyes fills this story with details that make it feel real, despite there being a character named Sunny Weatherman. Cuban American Miriam and her family, friends and co-workers are well-rounded personalities whom readers will be eager to learn more about. Miriam’s attempts to find a killer take her to strip malls filled with questionable folk healers and incredible restaurants serving Cuban American standards like ropa vieja and pollo a la plancha. Reyes incorporates Spanish into characters’ dialogue throughout, adding authenticity, while subtly providing context so that readers who aren’t Spanish speakers won’t miss a beat. Dig into this inviting, suspenseful feast for the senses.

★ The Man Who Died Twice

It’s impossible to single out any one feature that makes The Man Who Died Twice such an absolute treat. The plot is a crackling mystery: Septuagenarian retiree and amateur sleuth Elizabeth gets a coded message from someone in her past asking for help, as he’s stolen a lot of diamonds from some very angry people. When two people are killed, the hunt is on for the killers and the diamonds. English TV presenter and comedian Richard Osman creates real magic with his characters. They are frequently laugh-out-loud hilarious but also entirely real and three-dimensional. There’s also dogged police work, tradecraft most devious, a lot of cocaine and those diamonds. If possible, this sequel is even better than the Osman’s charmer of a debut, The Thursday Murder Club. This series is both a load of fun and an ode to how the power of friendship is important throughout one’s life but especially during the final stretch. Don’t miss it.

★ Seven-Year Witch

Seven-Year Witch finds Josie Way settling into life as a librarian in rural Wilfred, Oregon, and deepening her powers as a witch, thanks to letters left to her by her grandmother. The old mill in town is set to be turned into a lavish retreat center, but rumors that the site is cursed raise local hackles, especially when the disappearance of one of Wilfred’s inhabitants is followed by the discovery of a bloody weapon. Josie’s love interest, FBI agent Sam Wilfred, returns to town, but things between them are complicated by the news that he’s married with a baby. Author Angela M. Sanders uses the eerie atmosphere to great effect and also plays with the assumed charms of a small town. For example, the locals lose some of their warmth when there’s a killer in their midst. Josie’s witchcraft plays into solving the mystery, but the story feels realistic overall. Full of false leads and truly surprising reveals, this terrifically plotted mystery is hard to put down.

Not one, not two, but all three of the books in this month’s cozy column received starred reviews!

Mystery, Mystery & Suspense, Thriller

Mystery & Suspense Thriller Mystery

Speculative and spectacular

Feature by Linda M. Castellitto

by Linda M. Castellitto

Career criminals crisscross Europe as they tread a perilous path to revenge, and FBI agents race to solve bizarre murders plaguing an historic Southern city. But otherworldly forces lurk around the edges, turning these two thrillers into something else altogether.

The Nameless Ones

John Connolly’s The Nameless Ones is a bleak, unflinching look at the ways in which the effects of war ripple ever outward, endlessly destructive, never truly resolved. In places where this kind of conflict is never-ending, there are some—such as Serbian brothers Spiridon and Radovan Vuksan—who might decide that crime does pay. After committing countless atrocities in the 1990s Yugoslav wars (Spiridon prefers hands-on torture, Radovan is a hands-off strategist), the men now lead a crime syndicate and have amassed money, power and influence.

But these things don’t render them invincible, especially where Louis and Angel are concerned. These fan-favorite characters, a loving gay couple who happen to be an assassin and a thief, are front and center in this 19th installment of the Charlie Parker series, though Parker makes cameos here and there. Louis and Angel are on a mission to avenge the death of De Jaager, a Dutch fixer whom the Vuksan brothers and their colleagues murdered, along with three others, in Amsterdam.

De Jaager’s death is the latest in a round robin of revenge that’s decreasing the likelihood of the Vuksans ever returning to Serbia as free men. Connolly delves into the logistics of organized crime while illustrating how escalating pressures are fraying the Vuksan brothers’ contentious relationship. Complicating matters is Parker’s late daughter, Jennifer, who appears to Louis and Angel in their dreams, plus a woman named Zorya whose presence is discomfiting and mystifying. Will she help or hinder the Vuksans as Louis and Angel, enraged and determined, draw ever closer?

Multiple characters and points of view factor into the complex plot, offering history and context for the sociopaths, narcissists and opportunists that populate The Nameless Ones. There are moments of wit and wisdom, too—and sinister questions that will leave fans eager for the next installment.

★ Bloodless

This November, it will have been 50 years since people first began asking, “Who the hell was D.B. Cooper?” Fans of Aloysius X.L. Pendergast will be delighted that Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child have chosen to mark the anniversary of Cooper’s famously unsolved skyjacking in Bloodless, the 20th title in their bestselling series featuring the unusual and inimitable FBI special agent who’s solved more than 100 cases and counting.

The book opens with a closer look at what might’ve happened during Cooper’s fateful crime in the sky, and then it fast-forwards to the present day wherein Pendergast, his companion Constance Greene and his partner Armstrong Coldmoon are embarking on a weird new case. They’ve been called to Savannah, Georgia, where a body has been found completely drained of blood, and the residents have no insight or information to offer. (Or do they?)

In short order, there are more victims who look “like alien creatures or wax manikins” and a continued and confounding lack of clues, much to the dismay of an obnoxious senatorial candidate who pushes the FBI and local police for a quick resolution. Other complicating factors include a brash documentary crew, with dubious ethics, in town to chronicle the city’s alleged paranormal activity; rumors that the elderly Chandler House hotel proprietor Felicity Frost is actually a vampire; and kooky residents and tourists who keep things messy.

And then things get really messy, as whoever is killing people ratchets up the gruesomeness, splattering the charming historical city with blood and gore while infusing the humid air with abject terror. History, mystery, action and the unexplainable collide as the FBI team draws closer to their prey while trying to avoid being hunted themselves.

Bloodless is rife with inventive scenarios, amusing exchanges (especially between oft-impatient Coldmoon and eternally placid Pendergast) and tantalizingly spooky mysteries, topped off with a gloriously wild finale that is as action-packed as it is memorable.

Horrors both supernatural and all-too-human haunt two new installments of popular, long-running series.