There’s trouble among the upper crust of 1930s London society, and in Ashley Weaver’s absorbing second mystery, Death Wears a Mask, the lovely and aristocratic Amory Ames is once again at the ready. She unmasked a murderer in Weaver’s 2014 debut, Murder at the Brightwell, and now a wealthy acquaintance has sought her help in ferreting out a thief.

Amory attends a dinner party at the Barrington residence, where Serena Barrington sets the stage by confiding to Amory that someone in their circle is making off with her favorite pieces of jewelry, including a ruby earring, an emerald ring and a bunch of sapphires and diamonds, all of which disappeared during social gatherings at her home.

As with detective stories of this genre, the suspects are all present at the dinner, where Serena privately asks Amory to keep her eyes and ears open for clues. The two even hatch a scheme to expose the perpetrator at the next party, a costume ball where once again all the suspects will be on hand. We know, of course, that something will go wrong at the masquerade ball: A shot rings out, and the body of Serena’s nephew, complete with tiger mask, is discovered, shot with his own weapon.

Weaver is a master of clever drawing-room repartee, and readers will have a pleasant time unraveling the mystery, which involves not only robbery and murder but several characters with distinctly unsavory pasts and modes of operation.

As with the first book in this series, Death Wears a Mask revolves around various fraught relationships, front and center being Amory’s ongoing duel with her super-attractive husband, Milo, whom she suspects of various indiscretions with the opposite sex, sometimes captured by gossip columnists and avid photographers at apparently inopportune moments. This theme of romantic doubt, a staple of many mysteries and romances, is clever at first, but our heroine’s wounded innocence begins to chafe once we see that Amory—who receives the attentions of notorious rake Lord Dunmore—is doing pretty much the same thing.

Hopefully this tiresome back-and-forth will be resolved by book number three, as the couple are clearly meant to be a clever crime-fighting duo, 1930s-style, and are much more intriguing and fun when they pursue criminals together.


The dead man’s ID says his name is James Putnam. The unfortunate victim of a motor vehicle accident, Putnam was killed instantly on the highway when an oncoming car jumped the divider and plowed head-on into his Porsche.

The problem is that James Putnam has been dead for 15 years.

The aptly titled The Guise of Another, the second thriller from Allen Eskens, shifts into high gear as police detective Alexander Rupert of the Minneapolis Frauds Unit begins a search for the real story: not only for the real James Putnam, but for the reason someone has been impersonating him. The detective uses a cache of letters to discover the imposter’s name, and then tracks both “Putnams” to New Jersey and their former incarnations as college roommates. Alexander works with his brother, Max, a fellow police detective, as the case spirals out from identity theft to a convoluted maze of corruption and crime at the highest levels.

Alexander connects the case to a 15-year-old event involving blackmail and murder aboard a corporate yacht. But uncovering this violent event sends Alexander down a dangerous path. Drago Basta, a powerful assassin working with giant defense contractor Patrio International, is intricately involved with the yacht explosion, and he emerges from the shadows to follow the detective’s every move.

Alexander is no simple character himself, as he tries to counter charges of police corruption leveled against him as well as his police colleagues, triggering his move from narcotics to fraud. And there seems to be no lack of trouble involving the women in his life: Desiree, his faithless wife; Billie, a savvy New York cop whose initiative puts her in jeopardy; and Ianna, who possesses the means to overturn the criminals’ advantage.

Poor editing and lapses in style hinder a smooth read, but The Guise of Another moves at top speed, and although it’s a skin-deep thriller, there are enough plot twists to keep readers absorbed, right through the surprising epilogue.

“I'm just a guy passing through. . . . [I’m] a coincidence.” That's how Jack Reacher explains his presence in the tiny Oklahoma town of Mother’s Rest. A laconic ex-military detective with no fixed address, Reacher got off the train with no deeper motivation than a desire to know the source of the town’s strange name. Once there, he finds a reason to stay—Michelle Chang, a private detective on the hunt for her missing partner. The sleuth disappeared shortly after calling her to Mother’s Rest for help on a case. But what mystery could he have been solving in the middle of nowhere? Was it really dangerous enough to cause his disappearance? And just why are the townspeople in such a hurry for Reacher to leave?

The pair team up to find answers. To do it, they’ll have to track down the mysterious client who hired Chang’s partner just before he went missing. Their search will take them to from Oklahoma City to Chicago to LA, and bring them into contact with strange characters, like a genius computer programmer who’s obsessed with searching the dark web. The closer they get to the truth, the more people want to keep them away from it—from Ukranian crime bosses to angry hog farmers. None of them particularly scare the effortlessly competent Reacher; his opponents may be armed and dangerous, but, as he points out, “only temporarily.”

Though this is the 20th Jack Reacher novel, newcomers will be won over by the pleasures of identifying with a noirish-badass hero who can outthink, out-punch, out-shoot and out-quip a bad guy at lightning speed. Lee Child is brilliant at generating suspense, but amid all the heart-stopping action scenes, Make Me also offers flashes of deadpan wit and captures the spare, dusty rhythms of Oklahoma farm life. The book’s opening coincidence is just the first of many ingenious plot devices, and a series of masterfully timed revelations will lay bare the chilling truth about Mother’s Rest.

Italian-born author Elsa Hart lived in China for a time, absorbing knowledge of its history, customs and manners, and in her exceptional debut mystery, Jade Dragon Mountain, she evokes its essence for readers in often dreamlike, mesmerizing prose.

Scholar Li Du is in exile, wandering the geographic borders of 18th-century China, far from the imperial capital and his former role of librarian in the Forbidden City. Traveling alone, he arrives in the city of Dayan just a few days before a visit by the Emperor of China, an event carefully planned to demonstrate the ruler’s ability to predict a solar eclipse—a wondrous and frightening occurrence to be viewed by thousands, acknowledging the Emperor’s infinite power to command the heavens. Just before Li Du prepares to leave the city, an elderly Jesuit scholar is murdered in the home of a local magistrate, who insists Li Du delay his departure and apprehend the killer before the Emperor arrives.

The former librarian uses his observational acuity, scientific learning and familiarity with Jesuit culture to seek out the criminal. In this ancient culture where manners often conceal impulse, he begins to discover the secrets of those with a possible motive: a foreign merchant who brings wondrous instruments of science to entice the ruler; an anxious young priest; the magistrate’s consort, who finds her political power has become tenuous; a quiet and efficient secretary; and a traveling storyteller whose tales promise magic and mystery.

China’s ancient custom of taking tea is central to the Jesuit’s murder, and the author describes the journey of the leaves over many miles to reach the cities, as they absorb “the scents of the caravan: horse sweat, the musk of meadow herbs, and the frosty loam of the northern forest,” allowing those tasting the tea to “follow in their mind the entire journey of the leaves, a mapped trajectory of taste and fragrance.” A similar journey of the senses awaits readers of this book. The intricate, detailed mystery never disappoints, but Hart’s descriptions set the book apart, illuminating a world for readers to savor.

Jade Dragon Mountain is a compelling look into an ancient culture driven by intellectual curiosity, powerful symbolism and customs, overlaid by the gauze of appearances.

The fictional town of Idyll, Connecticut, is anything but idyllic for a gay police chief in 1997.

Former New York City detective Thomas Lynch recently became the Idyll police chief in an attempt to flee his guilt regarding his NYC partner’s on-duty death. In the 1997 macho police world, gay jokes are abundant, and though Lynch is out to his family, he keeps his personal life hidden from his colleagues. Everything threatens to collide when a chance sexual encounter places Lynch in the path of a young woman who’s murdered on a golf course only a few hours later. Lynch decides to solve the murder without revealing he had encountered the victim. Leading his team of officers is his first true test as chief, and he must balance being a confident leader with being one of the boys. Adding further drama is the town’s mayor, who wants the murder solved quickly to avoid negatively influencing the town’s huge festival, Idyll Days. Lynch’s diligent police work, mixed with intuition and a bit of subterfuge, ultimately triumphs, both in solving the murder and earning his men’s respect.

The story’s backdrop features small-town staples such as a Founders Day festival, a postal worker who knows everything and relatives who work in the various town departments. Author Stephanie Gayle’s attention to realistic details creates a fun portrait of small-town America.

Readers will hope that Gayle won’t be idle, and that this book will be the first of many with Thomas Lynch as the multidimensional and likable police chief.

It takes only a few pages of the suspenseful mystery After the Storm to hurl readers into the heart of a violent tornado touching down near the little town of Painters Mill in rural Ohio, bringing widespread destruction and even the death of an infant. In the twister’s aftermath, a different kind of damage works its way to the surface, as Chief of Police Kate Burkholder is called to the site of an old barn where human bones have been unearthed in the wake of the storm.

Linda Castillo is the author of six previous Burkholder mysteries, set deep in Amish country where the author was raised. She skillfully weaves the attitudes and habits of the Amish Ordnung—the disciplines of this religious community—with clear, dramatic portraits of the people who still follow the sect’s old ways in today’s modern world. Amish phrases add a distinct flavor to the narrative and are never confusing or out of place, providing readers with a bedrock sense of place and atmosphere.

Burkholder, originally from a conservative Amish family,  pursues her life and career outside the confines of that faith, but readers sense the detective’s affection for her family, despite their disapproval that she’s left the fold, as well as her respect for the plain—and often misleading—face the Amish community presents to outsiders. In After the Storm, that plain face turns violent, as Kate and her team search for the identity of the 30-year-old bones, leading her to terrible secrets that will upend a seemingly peaceful, bucolic world. The bones tell the story of an unimaginable atrocity whose legacy continues to scar lives right into the present day.

The author introduces the additional counterpoint of a secret that Kate carries in her own life, one that’s bound to affect her new relationship with state investigative agent John Tomasetti. The interplay of the couple’s feelings for each other can be tender and dramatic, at times terse and cutting, but always authentic.

After the Storm deftly follows a story of modern-day crime detection as it grinds against the implacable ways of a community bound by ties so strong that violence and betrayal seem to be their only destiny.

When a murder mystery is set in Washington, D.C., readers expect a good dose of politics, hallowed halls and monuments. That is not the case with Murder, D.C. by Neely Tucker, the second book in a series featuring crime reporter Sully Carter. Carter is a modern hero, emotionally and physically scarred from his Bosnian reporting days. He's a flawed individual who nonetheless retains his integrity when pursuing the truth of a story.

Now a stateside reporter, Carter needs a riveting story to help his lackluster career so he can return to overseas reporting. When young scholar Billy Ellison, the last member of the most powerful black family in Washington, is found dead in a drug-infested, no-man’s-land sliver of D.C. called Frenchman’s Bend, Carter writes an article about “the murder capital’s murder capital,” which creates a storm of controversy. Carter’s job is to investigate what an upper-middle-class young man was doing in the Bend in the middle of the night, but events in the story create multiple avenues to pursue. However, there are forces from the highest and lowest levels of society that actively thwart Carter’s probing scrutiny. Showing the same grit, determination and fearlessness that made him an outstanding war correspondent, Carter refuses to accept the existing state of affairs and pursues the twisted threads of Frenchman’s Bend to their untangling.

Murder, D.C. tackles issues of race, poverty and the unsavory slave history of the nation’s capital. The fictional Frenchman’s Bend was a slave holding pen for about 100 years, and the gruesome portrayal of the Bend’s history is recounted realistically due to Tucker’s historical research.

We usually celebrate our college alma maters with a sense of pride, while doing our best to forget high school altogether. But in Lori Rader-Day’s stunning second novel, a murder at a creepy roadside motel forces an unlikely heroine to revisit her painful high school years.

Somewhere in the cornfields between Chicago and Indianapolis, Juliet Townsend is trapped in a meaningless job as a maid at the seedy Mid-Night Inn in the small town of Midway, Indiana, “named for the fact that it wasn’t one place or another.” In high school, Juliet lived in the shadow of her best friend and track team rival, the beautiful and mysterious Madeleine Bell. Ten years later, Juliet’s still in town, living with her mother and scrubbing toilets after Madeleine left her behind for a glamorous life in Chicago.

Or so Juliet thinks, until the night Madeleine checks into the Mid-Night Inn. She’s still stunning, and sporting a giant diamond ring that Juliet—a kleptomaniac with a penchant for small, shiny objects—would love to get her hands on. But Madeleine isn’t there to gloat: She’s running from something and desperate to talk to Juliet. Overcome with jealousy, Juliet blows her off, and the next morning finds Madeleine’s corpse hanging from the motel balcony. When local police name her the most likely suspect, Juliet embarks on a mission to find the real killer by excavating her and Madeleine’s past as track stars at Midway High, when Madeleine mysteriously pulled out of a pivotal race and cost Juliet a scholarship.

Once again, Chicago author Rader-Day (The Black Hour) delivers a breathless psychological thriller with a killer first line, an irresistible mystery and lean chapters soaked with suspense. Comparisons to Tana French (A Secret Place) and Paula Hawkins (The Girl on the Train) have become all too common in the mystery genre, but with two consistently great novels now under her belt, Rader-Day has proved their equal in crafting taut, literary mysteries with fascinating heroines.