Is Nashville becoming a hotbed of mystery and suspense? You’d think so, judging from these two mysteries, both written by Nashville writers. Steven Womack’s Dirty Money doesn’t actually take place in Music City it takes place in and around Reno, Nevada but his private investigator, Harry James Denton, is from Nashville and the book is filled with references to the city.

Readers of Womack’s previous mysteries are familiar with Denton, a middle-aged investigative reporter-turned-private investigator who solves his cases with guile and persistence rather than violence or marksmanship.

Denton’s story begins as he is traveling west to be with a former girlfriend who is about to have his baby. Along the way, he is robbed by a pair of redneck road warriors who send him packing to a small town hospital where he meets a striking redhead who drives him into Reno and into the arms of his former girlfriend.

While visiting his ex and waiting for the baby to be born, Denton gets roped into going undercover at the Mustang Ranch, a world-famous house of prostitution, to gather evidence of a money laundering operation. A murder takes place at the brothel, and Denton is taken into custody by police as the prime suspect.

The remainder of the book consists of Denton’s efforts to clear himself, solve the money laundering case, wrap up his relationship with his ex, plant a seed of hope with the redhead, and then get the heck back to Nashville.

With Harry James Denton, Womack has created one of the most interesting detectives to surface in a long time. Denton is no slug ’em, cuff ’em up, and toss ’em into the slammer detective. He is a man with serious issues. Although he has a former girlfriend, flirts with the redhead, and is attracted to one of the prostitutes at the bordello, he seems to have problems with intimacy.

Womack is an excellent writer who knows how to merge character with plot, and fact with fantasy. Fans of Harry James Denton will hope to see him again and again. In Fall to Pieces, Cecelia Tishy’s detective is a former cop reporter named Kate Banning who gets trapped into working as an investigator for a country singer whose life has been threatened by a series of suspicious accidents. It’s Banning’s job to find out who wants the singer dead and why.

This mystery takes place in Nashville, and it is filled with references to the music industry. Tishy’s writing is crisp, and her character development is excellent. She doesn’t tell you who Kate Banning is she shows you in bits and pieces. Her research is off the mark on occasion (the Jordanaires provided background vocals for Elvis and were not his sidemen), but those are minor errors. Tishy is an English professor at Vanderbilt University, and her occasional missteps in the dirty world of country music can be overlooked.

Female detectives have become a staple of mystery novels, but Kate Banning is unique in many ways. She provides a female perspective on issues that previously have been the sole preserve of males.

I cannot recall ever suggesting that readers tackle two novels, one right after the other, but I am doing so in this case. Even better, I recommend that readers begin a letter writing campaign directed at Womack and Tishy. Somehow they need to figure out a way to get Kate Banning and Harry James Denton together in the same book, perhaps as investigative opponents. One thing is for certain: Kate Banning could help Harry James Denton with those intimacy issues.

Nashville writer James L. Dickerson is the author of a history about women in the music industry, Women on Top (Watson-Guptill), and a true-crime mystery, Dixie’s Dirty Secret (M.

E. Sharpe).

It has been nearly 15 years since Vicky Bliss, Elizabeth Peters’ sharp and hungry contemporary protagonist, has had a new adventure. And while fans of Peters’ best-selling Amelia Peabody series have thrilled to each new volume in that saga, readers have also been champing at the bit for more about the spunky, six-foot-tall art historian. Their patience will be well rewarded with Laughter of Dead Kings, sixth in the series.

When Tutankhamen’s mummy goes missing from its sarcophagus in Egypt’s Valley of the Kings, Vicky finds herself once again caught up in an irresistible adventure. John Tregarth, erstwhile art thief and Vicky’s paramour, is suspected at once, and the pair sets off to clear his name, careening through Europe to Egypt (stopping in Berlin to protest—with ulterior motives and while distributing sausages—Germany’s reluctance to return the famous bust of Nefertiti to its native country).

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman’s latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the author.

At the novel’s start, authorities are baffled by a series of horrific murders. While police try to uncover a link among the slain, the death toll mounts quickly amid a flood of dead-end leads, investigative miscues, and bureaucratic footdragging. Milo’s dogged probing and ability to turn up the tiny, pivotal clue is sorely tested by the elusiveness of the killer. Although there is no obvious common thread connecting the victims except the method of their deaths, Alex puts together a unifying personality profile, identifying them as well-liked loners capable of social interaction but uneasy about real intimacy.

A break in the case emerges when Ardis Monster Peake, a bona fide madman who killed his mother and an entire family of do-gooders, suddenly begins stream-of-consciousness rants that contain genuine clues. Kellerman keeps the suspense taut as Peake’s bizarre ramblings lead them deeper into the inner lives of the victims. Kellerman’s knack for creating short, terrifying scenes is accomplished here with all the skill of a seasoned veteran novelist.

Even though all evidence points to Peake, Alex and Milo conclude that the answer to this puzzle goes beyond the usual follow-the-dots murder case. What stumps the team is how the killer could know so much about their next move, as if he were reading their minds.

With Monster, the reader follows clues, both big and small, until the book cranks up for its big finish. Peake is one of Kellerman’s most fully realized crazies, a character of unbounded lunacy and diminished humanity. Though its occasional nod to old genre formula sometimes gets in the way, Monster, a furiously paced mindbender, contains enough mystery to hold readers spellbound. Robert Fleming is a writer in New York City.

Fans of psychologist Alex Delaware and Detective Milo Sturgis will satisfy their need for thrills with Jonathan Kellerman’s latest, Monster. Never before have the combined talents of this pair, such opposites in many ways, yet complementary where it counts, been so carefully drawn by the author.

At the novel’s start, authorities are baffled by a series of horrific murders. While police try to uncover a link among the slain, the death toll mounts quickly amid a flood of dead-end leads, investigative miscues, and bureaucratic footdragging. Milo’s dogged probing and ability to turn up the tiny, pivotal clue is sorely tested by the elusiveness of the killer. Although there is no obvious common thread connecting the victims except the method of their deaths, Alex puts together a unifying personality profile, identifying them as well-liked loners capable of social interaction but uneasy about real intimacy.

A break in the case emerges when Ardis Monster Peake, a bona fide madman who killed his mother and an entire family of do-gooders, suddenly begins stream-of-consciousness rants that contain genuine clues. Kellerman keeps the suspense taut as Peake’s bizarre ramblings lead them deeper into the inner lives of the victims. Kellerman’s knack for creating short, terrifying scenes is accomplished here with all the skill of a seasoned veteran novelist.

Even though all evidence points to Peake, Alex and Milo conclude that the answer to this puzzle goes beyond the usual follow-the-dots murder case. What stumps the team is how the killer could know so much about their next move, as if he were reading their minds.

With Monster, the reader follows clues, both big and small, until the book cranks up for its big finish. Peake is one of Kellerman’s most fully realized crazies, a character of unbounded lunacy and diminished humanity. Though its occasional nod to old genre formula sometimes gets in the way, Monster, a furiously paced mindbender, contains enough mystery to hold readers spellbound. Robert Fleming is a writer in New York City.

Carol O’Connell’s sixth New York-based Kathleen Mallory mystery Shell Game is not the simple illusion its title suggests. Its convolution and deciphering transform penny-ante poker into high-stakes investigation, loyalties into levers to gain clues, dementia into a shield fordecades-old guilt.

Just prior to Thanksgiving, on national television, an old-school magician’s attempt at an ambitious, dangerous trick results in his death. His failings are blamed: He was out of his league; his timing was off. Unlike everyone else, detective Kathleen Mallory believes that the death was planned. When her initial attempts to gather information on a magicians’ float at the Macy’s Parade are twisted to her professional embarrassment, Mallory digs in deeper.

O’Connell’s protagonist is the veteran of a childhood on urban streets a focused, tough detective, a source of bafflement to her colleagues. But self-knowledge, stubbornness, and cyber-skills give her an edge in confronting clever, violent opponents. Be warned: Shell Game may result in lost sleep, not for its subject matter but for its relentless puzzle. You do not get what you see. Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera and the forthcoming Gumbo Limbo.

Joseph Klempner begins his tale of murder and its aftermath by describing its setting a small, ordinary community in upstate New York called Flat Rock. Flat Rock is small enough to fill every public office with volunteers, and small enough to route weekend calls to police headquarters to the Officer on Call. It is through this quite ordinary relay system that Bass McClure, Flat Rock’s volunteer Fish and Game Warden, receives a phone call that proves to be less than ordinary.

Jonathan Hamilton a 30-year-old man most of the town charitably calls slow has called to say his grandparents have been hurt. McClure, long familiar with the Hamilton family, arrives at the main house of the estate to find Jonathan rocking, making trapped animals noises, and covered in blood. Saying to Jonathan, Show me, McClure is lead to an upstairs bedroom, two bodies, and a mess of blood. An investigation begins.

The investigation, conducted by McClure and Deke Stanton, turns up what appears to be solid evidence that Jonathan has brutally killed the two people he loves most in the world. Evidence seems to suggest the motive for the murders supposedly committed by a man most would label retarded was greed.

Because a double murder carries a possible death penalty and New York has recently placed special emphasis on cases in which the death penalty applies, the state calls Matthew Fielder to defend Jonathan. A graduate of Death School, and a firm believer that death is different, Fielder collects a team to assist him in developing a defense for what seems indefensible. With the expertise of a private investigator named Gunn and a social worker named Hillary, plus input from Jonathan’s family, Fielder makes a decision on how to best defend his client only to find his decision was based on inadequacies and clouded by his own prejudices.

Klempner, who has a background in criminal defense, does the expected, delivering an intriguing look at the nuances of the law; he also delivers the unexpected. He winds his courtroom drama around the landscape, characters, and subplot narratives in the same way a favorite uncle strings together seemingly unrelated anecdotes until, without understanding exactly how it happened, you realize a powerful story has been told and you have learned something in the telling.

Jamie Whitfield is a published author and teacher. She lives in Hendersonville, Tennessee.

What distinguishes the recent work of Michael Connelly from other current mysteries is his emphasis on the psychological terrain of his central character, Detective Harry Bosch. A man ravaged by inner demons, Bosch struggles to control them without losing grasp of his latest case. In Angels Flight, Bosch is confronted with his most difficult challenge to date: a prominent African-American attorney’s murder.

Set in a racially polarized Los Angeles, Howard Elias’s shooting threatens to trigger a series of bloody race riots unless Bosch can find the murderer. Elias, a civil rights attorney, has a reputation as an enemy of the LAPD, arguing countless lawsuits against the embattled police force. When Elias and a woman are found dead on a train car, Bosch is recruited by police brass to solve the case as quickly as possible.

Matters are complicated by the fact that Elias was killed just two days before arguing his biggest case against the department. Although the murder resembles a robbery-homicide, certain circumstances point to a possible inside job by rogue cops seeking to silence the black lawyer.

In typical Connelly fashion, there are clever turns and twists in the plot as the city simmers toward a massive racial meltdown. Bosch races against time to find the killers, before everything erupts. His superiors do not want him to turn up any evidence that would implicate the department, but everything suggests that the people involved could be members of the LAPD.

Fans of classic police procedurals will enjoy the well-researched investigation, with its numerous clues, lab findings, legwork, suspects, and astonishing dead-ends. Bosch, walking a tightrope between protesting blacks and fearful whites, seeks the truth despite stonewalling tactics by his department and threats from the black community. With a whiz-bang ending, Bosch uncovers the bitter truth that defies all he has ever believed about his profession or his community. This is sleuthing with smarts and suspense. Connelly’s eighth detective thriller, Angels Flight sets the bar for the standard of this type of fiction even higher and clears it with room to spare.

Most mystery novelists would give their writing hand to have just one successful series. At last count, Edgar Award-winning author Lawrence Block has three a number of cloak-and-dagger espionage novels starring libidinous secret agent Evan Tanner; a darker group of suspense stories featuring alcoholic ex-cop Matthew Scudder; and the whimsical tales of Mrs. Rhodenbarr’s favorite son Bernie, a bookstore owner who moonlights as a cat burglar. Ever the opportunist, Bernie is constantly on the lookout for the unguarded bauble, the unbolted door.

A chance encounter with lovely (and lively) Alice Cottrell affords him the opportunity for some nourishing larceny. It seems Alice is the one-time lover of legendary writer-recluse Gulliver Fairborn, whose Nobody’s Angel was the coming-of-age novel of its generation. At the tender age of 14, Alice moved in with Fairborn, a free spirit some 20 years her senior. Three years later, inexplicably, Fairborn disappeared, his only contact with the outside world an occasional letter and manuscript sent to his literary agent, one Anthea Landau. If these letters could be obtained, they would be worth a small fortune. Or so Alice says . . .

Shortly afterward, in another part of Manhattan, one Jeffrey Peters, aka Peter Jeffries, aka Bernie Rhodenbarr, picks the locks of Anthea Landau’s apartment. To Bernie’s chagrin, the agent lies dead in her bed freshly dispatched, judging by the aroma of gunpowder in the closed room. A pounding at the door convinces our intrepid intruder that he must make good his getaway.

Sadly, Bernie is not as quick of foot as of wit. He is apprehended in mid-escape, and cuffed and dragged downtown to be arraigned for murder. Things take a turn for the weird when the lovely Alice turns out to be one Karen Kassenmeier, a professional thief . . . and get weirder still when the body of Karen Kassenmeier turns up on the floor of Bernie’s apartment. Red herrings abound, everyone has a secret (or two, or three), and nothing is what it seems. With the constabulary breathing down his neck, Bernie must extract the proverbial hare from his Homburg, and pronto.

The Burglar in the Rye, the ninth in the Bernie Rhodenbarr series, has a healthy dose of irreverent humor, a classic gather-all-the-suspects-in-one-room climax, and of course more twists than Lombard Street.

Bruce Tierney is a writer, songwriter, and art dealer.

Archy McNally, Lawrence Sanders’s sleuth in McNally’s Dilemma, takes the call one minute before he turns off his machine at midnight. It is his old friend Melva, with some bad news. Geoff Williams, erstwhile tennis pro, four-flusher cad, and husband to Melva, has met an untimely end a bullet through his chest. Melva has called Archy to report the murder and to confess that she did it. Of course, Archy and we have been around murder mysteries long enough to know that the murderer is never, never, the one who claims she did it at the beginning of the book. But unraveling the plot takes us through Sanders’s special domain, the Palm Beach cafe society set, and the parasites who live off of it.

Archy’s first job is to find Melva’s daughter and fetch her back to the murder scene. She turns out, of course, to be the requisite gorgeous twentysomething. And, of course, she finds Archy irresistible, even though he is older. In the end Archy finds the real murderer, returns to his long-term girlfriend, and enjoys his gibson at the Pelican Club, ready for the next adventure.

It may be a formula, but this book is packed with charm. There is, for one thing, Archy himself: sardonic, sartorially challenged, the son of the best society lawyer in Palm Beach, booted out of Yale Law, and now a private eye. Think Travis McGee in an ascot. He is fond enough of unusual hats that he has berets custom made in Connecticut in puce, among other colors. He also has enough quirky wise cracks to rival a Groucho Marx movie: The music was pure disco, the beat of which has always reminded me of how the ogre’s heart must have sounded when he chased Jack around the beanstalk. Even the minor characters especially the minor characters are loaded with the eccentricity and texture that make you think Sanders just can’t be making this up.

Americans, I’m told, love to read about rich people. If that is true, then Sanders has hit his market, but with a delightful band of villains and friends in this picaresque, charming whodunit. ¦ John Foster is an attorney in Columbia, South Carolina.