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FictionMysteryCozy Mystery

Sweet treats with a side of murder

Feature by Sheila M. Trask

Fresh settings, quirky characters and original twists abound in our favorite new cozies. Whether you prefer to sample exotic recipes, explore antique-filled English mansions, take a little break at a charming B&B or create a custom floral bouquet, a delightful adventure awaits in these books—oh, and murders, too. But don’t worry: The strong, determined and often hilarious women at the center of the action are sure to figure things out before it’s too late—if only just.

J.J. Cook, the beloved author of the Sweet Pepper Fire Brigade mysteries, moves from the hills of Tennessee to the streets of Mobile, Alabama, for the first in her new Biscuit Bowl Food Truck mysteries. Death on Eat Street is a quirky and entertaining mystery that centers on the backstabbing backside of the food industry.

Thirty-year-old Zoe Chase defies her parents by quitting her bank job to open, to their great dismay, a diner and a food truck. It’s not only her parents’ disapproval that Zoe has to deal with, though. Her new digs aren’t in the nicest part of town, and food truck vending turns out to be a cutthroat business. When a competitor is found dead behind the wheel of Zoe’s Biscuit Bowl truck, she finds out just how serious things can get.

Zoe and the delightful cast of supporting characters, including a lazy but lovable Persian cat named Crème Brulée, lend a light mood to this ever-escalating murder mystery. Zoe’s life is threatened at every turn, but she’s undaunted. She’s much more interested in sharing her famous deep-fried biscuit bowl treats with everyone from office workers to the men at the homeless shelter. Her kind heart and intrepid determination carry the day, along with her nourishing recipes, several of which are included.

BAD NEWS AT THE B&B
If you’re still hungry after your breakfast bowl with Zoe Chase, you might consider lunch at a new bed and breakfast, the Dixie Dew, where polite Southern chats over tea and cakes can carry a sinister undertone.

Award-winning author Ruth Moose makes her cozy debut with Doing It at the Dixie Dew, another tale of a woman reinventing herself. Instead of a food truck, Beth McKenzie is rehabilitating her family home and turning it into a warm and friendly B&B. Once the first guest is booked, she thinks she’s on her way, but things quickly take a grim turn when that guest turns up dead the next morning. Trusting the small-town gossip grapevine more than the local police to solve this crime, Beth follows a trail of precious jewels and deadly poison that leads her directly into the clutches of the astonishing culprits.

Along the way, she bakes muffins, falls a little bit in love with her handyman and stencils the heck out of her new tearoom. Beth’s bright optimism remains throughout, even when more murders are discovered and many of the clues appear to lead straight back to the Dixie Dew. Instead of dwelling on the implications, Beth and her friends make dark jokes—maybe the motto for the B&B should be “Rest in Peace,” they suggest—and move on. With Doing It at the Dixie Dew, Moose sets the stage for further adventures for the new innkeeper and her comrades; you never know who will come through the door next.

MOTHER-DAUGHTER MYSTERY
For afternoon tea, might we suggest a stop in the English countryside? In Murder at Honeychurch Hall, Hannah Dennison’s first novel outside of the popular Vicky Hill series, a thoroughly modern woman—television personality Kat Stanford—is tossed deep into the history of Honeychurch Hall. This 600-year-old estate holds many secrets, the latest of which is a missing—and possibly murdered—nanny.

The setting, the murder . . . none of it would even be on Kat’s radar if it weren’t for her mischievous mother, Iris, who has confounded her daughter’s respectable plans for her retirement by setting up housekeeping in a rundown carriage house on the premises. As exasperated Kat attempts to talk her reckless mother down from her latest adventure, the two share their aggravation and affection for each other in equal measure. Their entertaining banter anchors the fast-paced action, as readers come to suspect nearly everyone on the estate. Everyone has something to hide, from the stately Lady Edith to her fanciful grandson Harry. Even Iris has a few skeletons in the closet, leaving Kat to wonder about her own mother’s culpability.

Dennison keeps the twists and turns coming fast and furious, alleviating the tension periodically with humorous scenes involving the underwhelming local constabulary and unusual antiques like Kat’s beloved vintage Jerry mouse. In the end, it’s all connected, but readers will have a hard time putting it all together until the very last pages.

TILL DEATH DO US PART
It’s flowers and cupcakes for dessert at the romantic Rose in Bloom, a truly charmed flower shop in the small town of Ramble, Virginia. Owners and cousins Audrey Bloom and Liv Rose have an untarnished reputation for providing the perfect bridal bouquets, with the arrangements based on the Victorian meanings of flowers. These ladies are so good that not one of the couples wedded with their bouquets has ever gotten divorced. Just as the local paper is set to celebrate their success, tragedy strikes their latest customers: The groom turns up murdered, with flower petals from Audrey’s shop strewn over his body. Audrey has little faith in the local police, and when suspicion for the murder starts to turn her way, she relies on a strong network of friends and family to help her sleuth out the truth.

Bloom and Doom is the first Bridal Bouquet Shop mystery from Beverly Allen, who also writes as Barbara Early. Allen’s casual dialogue captures the camaraderie among Audrey and her co-workers, as they band together to design funeral flowers instead of wedding sprays. The central mystery definitely intrigues, although it may be a secondary mystery that holds the most surprising outcome. Both are revealed slowly, as Audrey and company realistically, and often comically, go through their everyday life accompanied by a charming parade of small-town characters, like the attractive cupcake chef from the bakery two doors down and Audrey’s crazy, escape-artist cat, Chester. Ramble is a town full of such characters, and there will surely be more for Audrey to discover in upcoming volumes.

 

This article was originally published in the May 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Fresh settings, quirky characters and original twists abound in our favorite new cozies. Whether you prefer to sample exotic recipes, explore antique-filled English mansions, take a little break at a charming B&B or create a custom floral bouquet, a delightful adventure awaits in these books—oh, and murders, too. But don’t worry: The strong, determined and often hilarious women at the center of the action are sure to figure things out before it’s too late—if only just.

FictionMystery

Suspense that hits close to home

Feature by Heather Seggel

Three new mysteries toy with family ties, love and loyalty. How far would you go to protect a family secret? What do you stand to lose if it’s revealed? Those themes lead to deliciously twisted complications.

IN A SHALLOW GRAVE
The Butcher opens with a bombshell revelation, and more and more hits soon follow. Seattle police chief Edward Shank made his reputation when he shot and killed the notorious serial killer known as the “Beacon Hill Butcher.” Shank, now retired, gives his big house to grandson Matt, who finds a box on the property that leads him to suspect his grandfather was involved in the crimes. The accidental deaths in Shank's retirement home also point his way. Matt’s girlfriend Samantha, a true crime author, has a personal connection to the crimes and believes the Butcher may still be at large. Author Jennifer Hillier (Creep, Freak) balances a grisly story with a tasty subplot involving Matt’s meteoric rise from restaurateur to celebrity chef, a burst of star power he can’t afford to tarnish with the revelation that . . . well, you'll have to read for yourself. The Butcher is as dark and chilling as its Seattle setting.

ONLINE SEARCH AND RESCUE
Holly Brown’s Don’t Try To Find Me is a thriller based in bucolic, rural Northern California. When 14-year-old Marley runs away from home, her parents, Paul and Rachel, use social media to campaign for her return. Paul goes all in, but Rachel’s efforts appear halfhearted, and online speculation about her involvement goes viral. We can see what Rachel can’t, since roughly half the chapters are told from Marley’s point of view—she has run away to what she thinks is true love with a boy she met online, but in reality is not so simple. Considering what she’s up against, it’s fair to wish her mother would get on the ball a bit faster. The rescue effort keeps the story urgent and forces constant reassessment of who’s actually good or bad; many of the family’s troubles stem from someone whose good intentions turn out to be anything but. Try to put down Don’t Try To Find Me—you’ll find it's not easy.

BETRAYAL AND REVENGE
I Love You More layers lies upon deceit, then peels them away like veils. Oliver Lane’s murder looks like a simple case of a woman scorned—in this case, his wife, Diana. But investigators don’t have to dig deep to find a second wife, and then a third, both of whom have families headed by Oliver. One detective falls hard for Diana and finds himself sympathizing with her 12-year-old daughter, Picasso, but still hopes to crack the case. Was it a conspiracy among the wives, or did karma simply claim its due from a dangerous sociopath? Author Jennifer Murphy tells this eerie tale from multiple points of view, and the detective’s hard-boiled cynicism contrasts with the Wives, who speak as one, as well as Picasso’s innocence and precocity. I Love You More is a genuine whodunit that will keep you guessing, and the North Carolina setting may find you craving a glass of sweet tea and porch swing on which to lose yourself while reading.

 

Heather Seggel reads too much and writes all about it in Northern California.

Three new mysteries toy with family ties, love and loyalty. How far would you go to protect a family secret? What do you stand to lose if it’s revealed? Those themes lead to deliciously twisted complications.

FictionMystery

Watching her every move

Feature by Sheila M. Trask

Whether they feel watching eyes or hear the sound of quickening footsteps behind them, the potential victims in these unnerving stories sense a predator’s approach, and so can we. As these characters hurry to the relative safety of their homes and rush to lock the doors behind them, readers of these smart and suspenseful books will be turning pages faster and faster in hopes of catching the criminal before it’s too late.

EYES IN THE WOODS
The smartest, and perhaps most sarcastic, private investigator in Atlanta has lost none of her spunk in the third installment of Amanda Kyle Williams’ Keye Street series. In Don’t Talk to Strangers, the worldly Street is a little out of her element. Instead of working from her high-tech office in the city, she’s drawn deep into the woods of rural Whisper, Georgia, to help solve two murders with the same M.O. but a decade between them. The killer keeps young girls captive for months, maybe years, before disposing of their bodies in the same remote location. Street is determined to stop it from happening again, but she finds herself in a precarious position: The locals don’t want her help and make their feelings menacingly clear. With potential enemies all around, our tenacious detective is clearly at risk. The reader feels the pressure, too, and shares the intense need to solve this mystery right alongside the intrepid investigator.

ESCALATING DANGER
A world away from the wilds of Georgia, Detective Inspector Mike Lockyer faces a different kind of killer on the streets of south London. In Clare Donoghue’s debut novel, Never Look Back, the murderer is brazen, practically daring the authorities to discover the women’s bodies he leaves poking out of alleys. Three victims into his warped scheme, the killer’s timetable is accelerating, and Lockyer doesn’t have much time to stop him from striking again. As with the most compelling cases, Lockyer’s quest isn’t merely police work; it’s personal. The victims are young and bear a startling resemblance to his daughter, Megan. Plus, Lockyer’s more than a little attracted to stalking victim Sarah Grainger, who may be next on the killer’s list. By involving the detective so intimately in the details of the case, Donoghue shows how a stalker’s threats infiltrate the lives of his victims on every level. Readers will be just as desperate as Lockyer, Megan and Sarah to see the end of this killer’s spree.

ON-AIR VICTIM
Eyes on You, the new standalone novel from Kate White, author of the Bailey Wiggins mystery series, is set in the brutally competitive world of modern media. Television news personality and rising star Robin Trainer is the co-anchor of a successful, gossipy news show, so she’s used to the political backstabbing that’s part of every day on set. However, she never expects it to turn deadly. When threatening notes start to appear in her purse and gruesome dolls turn up in her office chair, she begins to realize that the threat is real. But in the house of mirrors that is the media, who can she trust? Trainer’s first-person narration lets us in on every thought and interaction— from her reluctant attraction to her charming co-host to her confrontations with a vicious competitor—leaving us feeling as vulnerable as our haunted heroine.

UNDER HER NOSE
Clever and likable Detective Constable Maeve Kerrigan has appeared in three previous books by Jane Casey. In her newest adventure, The Stranger You Know, Kerrigan returns to the London police office where she works with her abrasive, yet intriguing, partner, Josh Derwent. On her latest case, Kerrigan faces a serial killer who performs bizarre rituals on his victims—after he kills them. He leaves a scrupulously clean crime scene and no clues. Kerrigan has little to go on, and even less help from Derwent than usual, as he’s been abruptly banned from the case. As Kerrigan creeps closer to secrets from Derwent’s past that parallel the current crime, she can’t stay away from him. But will her presence help exonerate him, or does it put her own life in jeopardy? Casey expertly dangles the solution just out of Kerrigan’s reach, putting readers in the roles of the pursuer and the pursued until the final pages.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2014 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Whether they feel watching eyes or hear the sound of quickening footsteps behind them, the potential victims in these unnerving stories sense a predator’s approach, and so can we. As these characters hurry to the relative safety of their homes and rush to lock the doors behind them, readers of these smart and suspenseful books will be turning pages faster and faster in hopes of catching the criminal before it’s too late.
Mystery

Spotlight: Supernatural sleuths

Feature by Emily Bartlett Hines

Readers can expect major entertainment in two paranormal thrillers that bridge the gap between mystery and horror, starring a couple of detectives who are in way over their heads.

How do you fight evil when the evil is part of you? That’s the dilemma faced by detective Zach Adams in Andrew Klavan’s Werewolf Cop. Zach works for the Extraordinary Crimes Unit, a top-secret federal task force dedicated to stopping a shadowy crime syndicate that has caused chaos throughout Europe. To do so, Zach and his partner will have to take down reclusive kingpin Dominic Abend.

But Abend is no ordinary crime boss: He’s hunting down his old connections in search of an ancient dagger said to have otherworldly powers. When Zach travels to Germany to learn more, he gets a terrifying taste of what those powers involve. Deep in the Black Forest, he’s attacked by an impossibly huge and powerful wolf. He returns home convinced it was all a fever dream—but then the full moon rises.

Coping with a new alter ego is bad enough, but things get even more complicated: A months-ago act of infidelity threatens to destroy Zach’s marriage, and he’s starting to suspect that his trusted partner, Goulart, is taking bribes from bad guys. As Zach closes in on Abend, he struggles to control the appetite of the werewolf inside him—while knowing it may be the only thing that can stop the gangster’s rise to power.

Despite portentous themes of sin and redemption, Werewolf Cop is ultimately a fast-paced page-turner that delivers all the gory thrills its title promises.

Lupine sleuthing may be hard work, but it’s downright glamorous in comparison to the daily grind of Thomas Fool, the beleaguered everyman in Simon Kurt Unsworth’s debut, The Devil’s Detective.

This hardboiled thriller is set in a “frayed and dirty” hell—think less sulfur and lakes of fire, more Soviet-style bureaucracy. Food is scarce, violence is ubiquitous, and the legions of damned don’t even know what they’re being punished for. Humans exist as a permanent underclass, brutalized by the demons who were hell’s first inhabitants.

Fool is leading an especially uninspiring afterlife: He’s is an Information Man, tasked with solving the underworld’s many demon-on-human murders. But with no resources or training, his three-person crew doesn’t stand a chance.

The status quo starts to shift when a series of bodies turns up stripped of their souls. As Fool’s investigation gathers momentum, his self-doubt is replaced by hope that he could actually serve justice. He becomes a rather unlikely folk hero, which naturally places him in serious danger.

Unsworth has created a vivid subterranean world, a place where men merge with plants, skinless demons lay claim to dumped bodies, and a delegation of visiting angels is none too pleased with the accommodations. While its relentlessly dark tone may chill some readers, this is a vivid and wildly inventive look at the banality of evil.

 

This article was originally published in the March 2015 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Readers can expect major entertainment in two paranormal thrillers that bridge the gap between mystery and horror, starring a couple of detectives who are in way over their heads.
FictionMysteryCozy Mystery

Bookish heroines solve mysteries one page at a time

Feature by Sheila M. Trask

Who better than authors and booksellers to follow every story to its conclusion, no matter how unexpected? Mystery writers and bookshop owners star in these stories featuring amateur—but determined—sleuths. These intrepid ladies aren’t afraid to poke their noses into remote farmhouses, secluded island communities and the long-held secrets of their own small towns, and they won’t stop until they reach The End.

FAR FROM THE TREE
The mother-daughter writing and sleuthing team in Antiques Swap may share genes, but their methods are poles apart. Fans of the Trash'n'Treasures Mystery series will recognize the entertaining way level-headed narrator Brandy Borne’s sensible tone clashes with her mother's cheerful disregard for the rules. When an old flame’s vindictive wife is found dead, Brandy rushes to clear her own name, while mother Vivian gathers material for their next book. And she’s really hoping for a reality TV series. The little town of Serenity, Iowa, turns out to have plenty to work with, as Brandy and Vivian uncover the most surprising games played by the town’s elite, with the highest of stakes.

BETWEEN THE LINES
Semi-retired bookstore owner Claire Malloy is back with her signature snark in this witty 20th installment of Joan Hess’ series. Though the distractible Claire can’t be bothered to address the alarming rate at which her bookstore inventory walks out the door on its own, she is more than willing to throw herself into a murder investigation when the prosecutor makes a grievous error: He humiliates Claire in public. That’s all it takes to put her firmly on suspect Sarah Swift’s side, though the evidence paints Sarah guilty of killing her husband. Throw in a surly teenage daughter, a husband who happens to be the Deputy Police Chief and the impending visit of her mother-in-law, and you’re caught up in the chaos that is Claire Malloy’s life. None of this stops her, of course, from sneaking down back roads, climbing into dusty attics or taking seriously a 4-year-old boy’s zombie sighting. Her willingness to consider all sides of the story ultimately solves the complex case.

BEST LEFT UNWRITTEN
Best-selling author Alex Griffith has mined his childhood home, Broward’s Rock, for all it’s worth, fictionalizing the island’s secret affairs, dirty deals and suspicious deaths in his novel Don’t Go Home. The golden boy is out of ideas, though, which is how he lands in the hands of bookstore owner Annie Darling. The Death on Demand proprietress is happy to help, until she learns what he has in mind: a nonfiction book that will reveal the real names of his characters. His plan leaves Alex with plenty of enemies, and when he is murdered on the eve of his planned press conference, the list of suspects is long. Annie, however, has a native’s knowledge of the island, and she’s read Alex’s book; she can find out who had the most to lose from his tell-all. Author Carolyn Hart sets Annie on a winding path into the past, carefully curating the intricate plot twists that ultimately lead to the truth.

Who better than authors and booksellers to follow every story to its conclusion, no matter how unexpected? Mystery writers and bookshop owners star in these stories featuring amateur—but determined—sleuths. These intrepid ladies aren’t afraid to poke their noses into remote farmhouses, secluded island communities and the long-held secrets of their own small towns, and they won’t stop until they reach The End.

Mystery

Mysteries wrapped in enigmas

Feature by Tom Corcoran

The best mysteries, these days, go beyond mind puzzles and character studies to remote, unique locales and to a spectrum of lifestyles. This month we visit Hawaii, Alaska, England, and Southern California. Nowhere do we find plain settings or run-of-the-mill personalities.

Dana Stabenow's ninth Kate Shugak book, Hunter's Moon, pits boardroom treachery against the elements and occupants of Alaska's wilderness. Alaska regulates those who lead tourists to big game. Shugak is a resourceful 34-year-old native Aleut with a Class A Assistant guide's license and a dislike of cellular phones. For the first time in years, she finds herself close to romantic commitment, with former fellow Anchorage D.A. investigator and, now, fellow guide Jack Morgan. Kate and Jack help staff a hunting lodge leased by the nine-man, one-woman management team of a German software company. The firm's executive retreat, perhaps in response to international rumors of financial misdeeds, turns into an intramural range war with two accidental deaths and an abundance of motives and suspects. To survive the battle – especially after Jack is injured – Kate must summon deep survival instincts and backcountry knowledge, and use the wilderness as her best ally.

Perfect for fans of historical mysteries, Search the Dark, by Charles Todd, is a fine surprise for those accustomed to current-day plots. World War I changed everyone in England, throwing into turmoil the lives of surviving soldiers and those who awaited their return. Political and financial power changed the least. Even outside sophisticated London, power struggles and battles of jealousy and revenge lead to murder. The battered body of a young woman is found in a field. A distraught veteran is arrested. Scotland Yard detective Ian Rutledge, who also suffers post-war trauma, senses that the hurried case closure indicates a flawed investigation. Trespassing on local jurisdiction, charmed by a female suspect, Rutledge must travel village to country village to coax information from reluctant and conniving citizens. Then another body is found. Assisted by the voice in his head, words of a comrade who failed to return from war, Rutledge must unravel unspoken rules of social hierarchy and decipher clues from gossip. There are plenty of suspects; perhaps the wrong man sits in jail. Shell shock is real in the hunter and the hunted. Suspense holds to the final page.

Marcia Muller's 20th Sharon McCone mystery, A Walk Through the Fire is as fresh as any Muller effort. McCone is summoned to Hawaii where friend Glenna Stanleigh's film-in-progress is suffering mishaps aimed at shutting down production. This film, like previous Stanleigh documentaries intended to fight prejudice, is based on an unpublished manuscript on Hawaiian culture written by a wealthy man who vanished in 1992. McCone and longtime lover Hy Ripinsky arrive in Hawaii to a familial civil war and threat of terrorist action by a group inspired more by drugs than native rights. An attempted murder, a witnessed murder, and a bizarre suicide change the nature of McCone's investigation. Her attraction to a local helicopter pilot (and friend of the missing author) strains her relationship with Ripinsky. A web of financial treachery, greed, and grandiose plans must be untangled to dodge danger and survive.

In Heartbreaker, Robert Ferrigno's fifth mystery, there is no honor among thieves. Only distrust and layers of triple-cross. Ferrigno's characters inhabit the edges; night stars are the spilled milk of the Milky Way. In this high-octane interplay of scammers and the wealthy in sad tuxedos, separate agendas weave a tangle of lies, greed, violence, and misused intelligence. Contract hits, public taunts, and jokes in the face of death prove that Ferrigno's disaffected characters could be Elmore Leonard's. They spout the bizarre dialogue of Robert Crais's blase low-lifes; the most evil possess the twisted minds of James Ellroy's noir felons. This one works.

 

Tom Corcoran is the Florida-based author of The Mango Opera (St. Martin's) and the forthcoming Gumbo Limbo.

The best mysteries, these days, go beyond mind puzzles and character studies to remote, unique locales and to a spectrum of lifestyles. This month we visit Hawaii, Alaska, England, and Southern California. Nowhere do we find plain settings or run-of-the-mill personalities.

Dana Stabenow's ninth…

MysteryCozy Mystery

Quirks and crimes

Feature by Barbara Clark

Literary references and messages from the stars add wit and wisdom to three cozy mystery debuts, wherein leading ladies go toe-to-toe with the odd, the cultish and the rapacious.

TO THE COAST
Katherine Bolger Hyde puts a new spin on classic crime with Arsenic with Austen, the first in a new series that mixes old-fashioned romance and danger with a dose of very contemporary greed. Emily Cavanaugh’s aunt has left her a fortune, which includes much of the land in Stony Beach, Oregon. When Emily returns to the quiet coastal town where she spent many childhood summers, she finds the villagers divided by their ideas for the town’s future. The boorish mayor, a greedy real estate developer and Emily’s sort-of cousin try to convince her to develop the town with a luxury resort and fancy boutiques. Soon a murder hits close to Emily’s doorstep, and along with Luke, her former childhood love, she sets out to discover the killer’s identity, even calling into question whether Aunt Beatrice may have been “helped” into her grave. Puzzler fans and literary junkies alike will enjoy the fun as passages from Jane Austen’s novels bolster and embellish Emily’s investigations.

WHAT THE STARS SAY
In Connie di Marco’s The Madness of Mercury, astrologer Julia Bonatti knows that Mercury retrograde is a planetary aspect with plenty of dangers. As author of the local newspaper’s horoscope column, Julia has been targeted as a witch by cult leader Reverend Roy and his Prophet’s Tabernacle, who are not averse to threats or vandalism. To make it worse, someone has passed the word to law enforcement to lay off the so-called prophet’s case. Julia seeks safety by moving in with her friend Dorothy and helping to care for Dorothy’s elderly aunts, but trouble mounts when Aunt Eunice runs off to join up with the volatile Reverend. Danger figures in the stars for Julia, along with mixed astrological energies, some wolves in sheep’s clothing and an amiable stranger with a down-under accent.

LIBRARY CRIMES
In Elizabeth Kane Buzzelli’s series debut, A Most Curious Murder, characters and scenes from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland take on a zany, modern-day aspect. In the small, peaceful town of Bear Falls, Michigan, the Little Library—its only library—is vandalized and destroyed. The demise of the small structure, lovingly set in place by Jenny Weston’s mother, causes dismay among the townsfolk, and Jenny turns sleuth to discover the perpetrator. She’s aided, like it or not, by her next-door neighbor Zoe, a little person with a big penchant for quoting children’s literature. Zoe becomes a person of interest when a murder takes place in her garden—of the very person suspected of vandalizing the library. Lewis Carroll is practically another character in this offbeat, talky tale. There’s even a touch of romance—for Jenny, he’s the “kind of friend a woman needed at times like these.”

 

This article was originally published in the July 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

Literary references and messages from the stars add wit and wisdom to three cozy mystery debuts, wherein leading ladies go toe-to-toe with the odd, the cultish and the rapacious.
Mystery

Women against the odds

Feature by Barbara Clark

In three mysteries set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—an era full of misconceptions about “the fairer sex”—women of action match wits with philandering villains, escaped cons and dodgy doctors.

CRIMES OF THE WELL-HEELED
There’s a good deal of “I know it in my bones” sleuthing in Kate Saunders’ The Secrets of Wishtide, first in a new historical mystery series set in the Dickensian England of the 1850s. Middle-aged widow Laetitia “Letty” Rodd fancies herself a private investigator of sorts, and she works with her brother, Frederick, a criminal barrister, to sort out the follies and indiscretions that originate with folks of the well-respected “gentler” classes. Wishtide is full of secrets, as the “nicer” ladies and gentlemen mix it up in all manner of seductions and clandestine affairs—clearly with no respect to class. Shadowy marriages and alliances run amok as the feisty sleuth sets out to investigate and perhaps prevent an undesirable love match, and ends up unmasking an evasive murderer known as Prince, who may have lived more than his share of lives.

GIRL RETURNS WITH GUN
Amy Stewart (Girl Waits with Gun) continues the fictional adventures of Miss Constance Kopp in Lady Cop Makes Trouble. Constance is based on a real woman who, just prior to World War I, became a deputy sheriff in New Jersey, one of the first of her kind in the country. And yes, she does make trouble. Escaped convicts don’t stand a chance against this adventurous woman, as Stewart crafts a heady brew of mystery and action in a fast-moving, craftily written novel that’s fueled by actual news headlines of the day. While serving as a matron for women prisoners in the Bergen County jail, Constance has a bad day when the electricity fails during a thunderstorm and an inmate escapes. Constance tracks down the bad guy, all the while fielding complaints from the male citizenry that revolver-totin’ women in law enforcement will just “turn into little men.”

THE DOCTOR IS IN
Cuyler Overholt’s debut mystery, A Deadly Affection, is set in 1907 New York City and features an uncommon protagonist, Dr. Genevieve Summerford, an early practitioner—and a woman to boot—in the burgeoning field of psychiatry, a discipline not yet fully accepted as a legitimate medical field. One of her patients is arrested for murder, and though she claims she’s innocent, Genevieve fears that her own advice may have prompted the young woman to dangerous actions. She bends all her efforts toward discovering the real murderer, and in the process uncovers a complicated web of family stories involving questions of parentage, illegal adoption and genetically transmitted disease. Her investigations bring her face-to-face with Simon Shaw, an influential Tammany politician—and the man who stole her heart years ago. Overholt’s story is a winning combination of intrigue and romance.

 

This article was originally published in the September 2016 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

In three mysteries set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries—an era full of misconceptions about “the fairer sex”—women of action match wits with philandering villains, escaped cons and dodgy doctors.
FictionMystery

Cases for literature lovers

Feature by Amy Scribner

A pair of hair-raising whodunits aimed at bibliophiles are worthy of a top place on your summertime reading list.

Magpie Murders by screenwriter and bestselling author Anthony Horowitz (Moriarty) is a wickedly clever Agatha Christie-style novel within a novel. As editor Susan Ryeland reads through the manuscript for the ninth novel from her publishing house’s bestselling author, Alan Conway, she finds that his Magpie Murders is a crisp murder mystery set in the bucolic English village of Saxby-on-Avon, a town filled with Georgian stone homes and terraces, where you “didn’t need to read Jane Austen. If you stepped outside, you would find yourself actually in her world.”

In Conway’s story, local cleaning lady Mary Elizabeth Blakiston and the wealthy man she works for, Sir Magnus Pye, have both been killed inside Pye Hall. There is no shortage of suspects: Could it have been Pye’s sister who was cut out of the family fortune? The vicar who stands to lose his lovely view when Pye sells off his land for the construction of a cookie-cutter housing development? The son of the cleaning lady who was heard shouting at his mother just before her death? Conway’s brilliant London detective, Atticus Pünd, comes to the secretive town of Saxby-on-Avon for what might be his last investigation.

But the final chapters of the Magpie Murders manuscript are missing, and Conway is now out of the picture in a very unexpected way. Susan comes to suspect that the fictional manuscript holds a darker, real-life story. As life imitates art, Susan becomes a detective of sorts as she begins to interview Conway’s associates in order to piece together what really happened to him and discover where those lost chapters are hidden. Magpie Murders is brilliantly constructed, a thoroughly satisfying read that left me dazzled.

In Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore, first-time author Matthew Sullivan creates a vivid world inside Denver’s Bright Ideas Bookstore, where 30-year-old Lydia Smith works and nurtures the store’s “BookFrogs,” damaged men who spend their days wandering the cozy aisles.

When one of the youngest BookFrogs, Joey Molina, hangs himself inside the store, it is Lydia who finds him. Joey leaves Lydia a set of books that contain coded messages within their pages. The discovery cracks open a long-held secret from her youth—the fact that she famously survived a brutal triple-murder while at a sleepover—and Lydia begins to unravel a horrifying connection between Joey and her traumatic past.

Sullivan, a former bookseller himself, weaves an intense, unsettling story. Joey is an enigmatic character, “haunted but harmless—a dust bunny blowing through the corners of the store.” And the flashbacks to that fateful night from Lydia’s childhood, narrated by her father, literally had me reminding myself to breathe.

Twisty and dark, Midnight at the Bright Ideas Bookstore is a remarkable debut novel that will leave readers unsettled and probably yearning to pay a visit to their local bookstore.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

A pair of hair-raising whodunits aimed at bibliophiles are worthy of a top place on your summertime reading list.

FictionMystery

Chasing clues through time

Feature by Barbara Clark

Looking to take a journey through time with some compelling, out-of-the-ordinary sleuths this summer? Then look no further than these four new titles that are sure to keep you immersed in times gone by and flipping pages long into the night.

SEARCHING FOR SANCTUARY
In Defectors, Joseph Kanon’s smart new thriller, two American brothers meet for the first time in 12 years. It’s no ordinary reunion, though both have a backstory as bright young CIA operatives in the late 1940s. Frank, the elder, was exposed as a Communist spy and fled to Moscow in 1949 to avoid prosecution.

A decade later, Frank has written a memoir, and younger brother Simon, now a publisher, travels to Moscow in 1961 to read and edit the manuscript. But Frank appears to have another agenda. He signals to Simon that he wants to escape back to the states.

Defectors offers a story of divided loyalties and fast-moving Soviet action. Kanon's evocative language and masterful ability to ratchet up the suspense will immerse readers in the conflicted, claustrophobic world that awaits those whose political passions may waver or change. In Kanon’s chilling narrative, every line is a zinger. In this gray world of watchers and watched, where does ultimate loyalty lie?

A BELOVED CITY'S ANCIENT SECRETS
Outrageous face masks are the required costume during annual carnival celebrations just before Lent in 1358 Venice. The masks' grotesque features throw into stark relief the revelry, brutality and hidden secrets of this fabled city, where Brit Oswald Lacy and his mother have traveled as a stop in their pilgrimage to the Holy Land.

While billeted there with the family of John Bearpark, an English merchant, young Oswald embroils himself in gambling debts with John's Italian friends. When a secretly gay member of the Bearpark household is killed, the victim leaves a murky trail that pushes the Oswald into imminent danger. Oswald's mother volunteers him to solve the case, an arrangement he quickly accepts as a way to pay off some of his mounting debt. In an eerie twist, a fearful apparition from Oswald’s life in London follows him from the shadows, grasping at him until he is forced to look upon its face.

S.D. Sykes, author of two previous Lord Somershill mysteries, spares readers none of the 14th century’s malodorous streets and dark alleyways as Oswald tries to unmask the killer and save his own life.

RUSSIAN REVOLUTION
The State Counsellor, by popular Russian author Boris Akunin, is the latest Erast Fandorin detective novel to be made available to his U.S. fans.

In 1891, an assassin in clever Fandorin disguise boards a train, killing a Russian official who’s being secretly transferred to Siberia. The famous detective (home at the time practicing gymnastics with his Japanese valet) quickly proves his innocence and sets off in pursuit of the revolutionary Combat Group responsible for the murderous deed.

Fandorin’s exploits involve the usual intriguing women, including a seductive, fiery-tempered revolutionary and an informer who notably receives visitors while heavily veiled, sitting in a darkened room.

The State Counseller is full of irony and subtle humor as well as glitz and excitement, from an attack in a bathhouse to a daring escape from a railway carriage to Fandorin’s impossible rooftop jump using a trick called “The Flight of the Hawk.”

SHADOWY SECRETS IN PRAGUE
Murder and betrayal are everyday functions of life at court in Wolf on a String, an amazing novel that showcases author Benjamin Black’s extraordinary ability to thrust readers into the world of late 16th-century Prague.

Bright young scholar and alchemist Christian Stern is thrust into the intrigue at court when he arrives in Prague and is immediately commissioned to find the murderer of the Emperor Rudolph’s new mistress, discovered with her throat cut. Sorting out who may be his enemies, who friends, assumes overriding importance as the young man is twisted into relationships at court with deceitful, dangerous men of high office out to gain favor and riches.

By the end of this sometimes overwrought but intensely atmospheric novel, readers may have little sympathy for young Stern, but a heightened appreciation for anyone who could survive even a day or two in the midst of the pervasive, dark circuitry of court rivalries in an era still struggling with the intricacies of civilization.

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! All month long, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a daily dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

Looking to take a journey through time with some compelling, out-of-the-ordinary sleuths this summer? Then look no further than these four new titles that are sure to keep you immersed in times gone by and flipping pages long into the night.
YA FictionYAMystery

Supernatural reads just in time for Halloween

Feature by Hilli Levin

Supernaturally tinged stories have long been one of the most popular trends in the realm of teen literature (Twilight, anyone?), and it doesn’t look like it’s dying down any time soon. Thankfully, that means there are plenty of new novels to choose from for your Halloween reading stack. From a team of teenage monster hunters to a modern tale of witchy biker gangs, we’ve got the perfect book to get you in the spooky spirit. 

HERE THERE BE MONSTERS
Looking for a heavy dose of girl power? Cat Winters, masterful author of dark historical novels like The Steep and Thorny Way, has crafted a spooky novel of two Van Helsing-like sisters who fight nightmarish monsters in Odd & True. Odette and Trudchen, or as they prefer, Od and Tru, live on their aunt’s Oregon farm in the 1900s. Od loves telling the younger Tru fantastical stories about magic and their monster-hunting mother—until one day, Od disappears. Two years later, Od returns with weapons and proof that her bedtime stories were far more fact than fiction. The sisters must go on the run from a haunting predator and prepare to fight the demonic beast known as the Leeds Devil. But the demons they must face aren’t all literal, and Winters’ split narratives reveal family scars from very dark places indeed. 

DRACULA RETURNS
In Kerri Maniscalo’s sequel to Stalking Jack the Ripper, young investigators Audrey Rose Wadsworth and Thomas Cresswell are still dealing with the trauma from their harrowing investigation of the notorious London killer. The two are on a train en route to Romania, hoping for some time to decompress at a prestigious academy, when their peaceful journey is interrupted by cries from an adjoining car. Audrey Rose rushes to the scene and discovers a passenger has been murdered—with a stake to the heart. Could the whispers of the return of Vlad the Impaler hold any truth? When they arrive to find their new school is housed in what used to be Dracula’s castle, the creeping dread sets in, and the vampiric murders start to pile up. Is Dracula actually real, or is this simply a copycat killer bent on terrorizing the town? Maniscalo’s Hunting for Prince Dracula is a winning historical filled with finely tuned details that’s sure to please fans of atmospheric Gothics.

BOOK OF POSSESSION
Melanie Vong is a troubled teen: She’s got some serious anger management issues, often gets into fights with her classmates and doesn’t have much luck with social interaction aside from the time she spends with her Wiccan best friend, Lara. In order to organize her overwhelming thoughts and feelings, Mel decides to follow in Lara’s footsteps and start journaling. When she goes out to buy a new diary, none of the options at the local chain store seem appealing, so she wanders into a used bookshop that just happens to specialize in occult texts. Finally Mel finds the perfect one—a mystical-looking blank book with an intricately embossed cover. She steals it, but each time she tries to put pen to paper, she can’t quite bring herself to scrawl her high school drama into such a special book. Lara suggests using it as a spellbook, or Book of Shadows, and that’s when things start to get seriously weird. New spells start appearing on pages all on their own, and it’s clear that something dark has been unleashed. A great pick for any serious horror buff, The Book of Shadows delivers some serious spooks.

START YOUR BROOMSTICKS
Looking for a bewitching fantasy with a modern twist?T ry Jennifer Rush’s refreshingly original urban fantasy, Devils & Thieves. There’s plenty to love in this action-packed story of a group known as the kindled—those imbued with magical powers—who live separate from the ordinary humans, known as drecks. Eighteen-year-old Jemmie Carmichael has powers of her own, but her unique ability to also sense magic through scent and color—which often results in splitting headaches—keeps her from doing any spell casting of her own. Further complicating her life are her lingering feelings for her best friend’s brother, Crowe Medici, who just so happens to be the leader of the powerful kindled motorcycle gang called the Black Devils. Rush revvs up the drama when Jemmie initiates a new flirtation with a member of the Deathstalkers during the annual Kindled Festival, which brings all of the rival bike gangs to her small New York town. This well-crafted love triangle, coupled with a dangerous mystery involving Jemmie’s father, makes Devils & Thieves a guaranteed page turner that’s perfect for any young reader who can’t get enough of the witchcraft trend.

Supernaturally tinged stories have long been one of the most popular trends in the realm of teen literature (Twilight, anyone?), and it doesn’t look like it’s dying down any time soon. Thankfully, that means there are plenty of new novels to choose from for your Halloween reading stack. From a team of teenage monster hunters to a modern tale of witchy biker gangs, we’ve got the perfect book to get you in the spooky spirit. 

MysteryCozy Mystery

Whip-smart amateur sleuths

Feature by Barbara Clark

It’s Private Eye July at BookPage! This month, we’re celebrating the sinister side of fiction with the year’s best mysteries and thrillers. Look for the Private Eye July magnifying glass for a dose of murder, espionage and all those creepy neighbors with even creepier secrets.

Secrets make for good reading in three new cozy mysteries set against colorful backdrops, from 1913 prewar New York City and Boston’s lively North End in 1937 to an abandoned mansion in present-day Maryland.

In Murder in Greenwich Village, 20-year-old Louise Faulk has a painful secret, one that follows her to New York City in 1913 as she seeks work and a new life. She has a new roommate and friend, the lovely Broadway wannabe Callie, and the two run smack into a gruesome murder committed in their Greenwich Village apartment. As she gets involved in searching for clues, Louise discovers her own talent for problem-solving and detection, and she finds she has a taste for police work that’s both intimidating and inviting. First-time novelist Liz Freeland lures readers in with her tense, escalating plot, droll humor and the possibility of an unexpected romance. Readers are never bludgeoned with the obvious or overly dramatic. This new series is sure to be a hit on all fronts.

BOSTON GLAM
Cream-filled cannoli from the North End, the golden dome of the State House, bells ringing from the Old North Church—there’s atmosphere galore in Murder at the Flamingo, the opener of Rachel McMillan’s new Van Buren and DeLuca Mystery series, set in 1937 Boston. The murder happens nearly 200 pages in, but in the meantime, the story revolves around two characters, runaways of a kind, who eventually pair up to sleuth and maybe even fall in love. Well-to-do Regina “Reggie” Van Buren and young lawyer Hamish DeLuca are each about to turn a corner in their lives when they are swept up in the orbit of Hamish’s cousin Luca Valari, a young man of charm, ambition—and many secrets. Adventure and a quick coming of age are at hand when Luca’s new nightclub, the Flamingo, opens its doors to champagne, glamour and shady doings, as the youthful pair encounters the darker side of Boston’s glitzy nightclub scene.

HOMETOWN HOMICIDE
A formerly thriving industrial town falls victim to changing times, but a spirited young woman rides to the rescue—at least that’s where things seem to be headed in Murder at the Mansion, the first book in the Victorian Village Mystery series by Sheila Connolly, the beloved author of more than 30 mysteries. The story centers on a lovely old Victorian mansion that may hold the key to the struggling Maryland town’s rejuvenation. Kate Hamilton, who works in hospitality management at a tony Baltimore hotel, returns to her hometown of Asheford at the behest of an old friend to discuss ways to get the town back on its feet. Of course there’s a caretaker at the mansion, and of course he’s attractive. When the two tour the place, they stumble over a dead body—but since when did murder impede a budding romance? Readers who like inheritance drama will enjoy this diverting story.

 

This article was originally published in the July 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Secrets make for good reading in three new cozy mysteries set against colorful backdrops, from 1913 prewar New York City and Boston’s lively North End in 1937 to an abandoned mansion in present-day Maryland.

Mystery

Whodunit: More than a neighborhood private eye

Feature by Bruce Tierney

You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up amid a team of disgraced Abu Ghraib prison guards who have kidnapped you and are becoming significantly fed up with your unwillingness to answer their questions. The victim is Isaiah Quintabe, known in his California neighborhood by his initials, IQ. Wrecked is Joe Ide’s third novel featuring IQ, and it’s the first time IQ has a chance of expanding his business into a full-fledged private investigation agency. At any given time, IQ fields a number of cases, but the one that becomes central to Wrecked has to do with the machinations of a Blackwater- esque mercenary, a man with little in the way of scruples and lots in the way of sadistic behavior. Wrecked takes Ide’s unlikely hero into new territory, with foes that test his mettle in ways his previous adversaries could not even fathom, and with a possible love interest that exposes an entirely new facet of IQ’s character.

ALL FOR JUSTICE
V.I. Warshawski, like all of us, is not getting any younger. She is well past the age of dangling upside down in search of clues or doing fishtail burnouts in her V-8 Mustang to avoid getting shot, and certainly past the years when she should be treading across thin ice floes to keep a priceless artifact out of the hands of a ruthless billionaire. But in Sara Paretsky’s latest thriller, Shell Game, age seems a nonissue, as V.I.’s latest crusade leads her to engage in all these dangerous activities and more. Two cases weave in and out of the narrative: the first, a murder charge hanging over the beloved nephew of V.I.’s godmother, surgeon Lotty Herschel, involving a Syrian archaeological dig and a dissident immigrant poet on the lam from ICE; the second, the mysterious disappearance of V.I.’s niece following a Caribbean junket that turned sinister in ways that no travel brochure would suggest. As is usually the case with Paretsky’s novels, there is considerable social and political commentary, so if you are a capital-C Conservative, you might want to give some thought to how much you are willing to have your convictions challenged. Everyone else can revel in the superb pacing, the well-developed characters and the crisp dialogue from one of the most consistently excellent writers in the genre.

KIDNAPPING IN TAIWAN
Readers don’t have to wait long—not even to the end of page one—to get to the setup for Ed Lin’s latest Taipei Night Market mystery, 99 Ways to Die. There has been an abduction of a prominent businessman, who happens to be the father of protagonist Chen Jing-nan’s erstwhile classmate Peggy Lee (not the husky-voiced jazz singer Peggy Lee of “Fever” fame, but rather the youngest daughter in a family of Taiwanese aristocrats). The kidnappers’ ransom demands are not for money; instead, they want access to a computer chip, which Peggy Lee claims to know nothing about. But chances are good that Peggy Lee is playing for time and saving face in a society where face is everything. Jing-nan, for his part, is not someone you’d think of as a PI—he runs a popular food shop in a Taipei night market—but Peggy Lee is headstrong, and if she wants Jing-nan on the case, he has little choice but to assent. 99 Ways to Die is the third in the series and is the most fleshed out of the three. Ultimately, Lin’s books are most appealing for the insider’s look at Taiwanese culture, the motley crew of supporting cast and the multiple laughs per page.

TOP PICK IN MYSTERY
Imagine, for a moment, a Nancy Drew mystery told partially in flashback by Nancy herself, a girl grown up into the Best Detective in the World—her own rather immodest appellation—and now facing Her Most Perplexing Case. Then you will begin to have an idea of Sara Gran’s strange yet wildly entertaining novel The Infinite Blacktop. Somewhere along the way, our Nancy (whose name is actually Claire DeWitt) has evolved into a modern-day Sam(antha) Spade, with an overlay of street smarts and Zen calm counterbalancing one another in strangely effective ways. As the book opens, Claire comes very close to getting taken off the board permanently when her rented Kia is deliberately broadsided by a 1982 Lincoln, an event on par with a wooden rowboat getting rammed by the USS Nimitz. As she looks into who is trying to punch her ticket, she is drawn into a rethinking of the one case the Best Detective in the World has never been able to solve: the disappearance of her partner-in-crime-solving back when they were teenagers. As the narrative proceeds, another cold case gets woven in, and Gran deftly jumps back and forth between them, bringing the reader along for a wild ride across the decades.

 

This article was originally published in the October 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

You know it’s going to be a bad day when you wake up amid a team of disgraced Abu Ghraib prison guards who have kidnapped you and are becoming significantly fed up with your unwillingness to answer their questions.

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