Happy New Year 2017 to all my readers~It’s a pleasure bringing you recommendations for great crime books to seek out and Auntie M will continue to read and review on your behalf, while working on her own mysteries. The next Nora Tierney, THE GOLDEN HOUR, will see Nora frustrated at not being able to investigate an international crime that has a very personal effect. Stay tuned.

For the New Year, she’s bringing you several of the books she bought herself. When you receive books to review, and not all are reviewed, your buying need drops tremendously. Yet there are writers whose work Auntie M values and these she’ll mention to give you even more great crime novels to look for.

But first: a special mention to those of you who haven’t discovered the Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty series written by Ausma Zehanat Khan. On the heels of her debut, The Unquiet Dead, her second in the series, The Language of Secrets, will be out in paperback next week.
language-of-secrets-731The third, Among the Ruins, will publish in February, so if you haven’t read this complex and fascination series yet, please sort that out before the third comes out. You won’t be disappointed as Khan is a master plotter who brings multi-cultural realities to crime.

On to thumbnails of Auntie M’s other recommendations:

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Val McDermid’s Out of Bounds brings detective Karen Pirie her most challenging cases yet, when the DNA from a teen joyrider after a crash, may hold the key to a long-unsolved murder. Drawn to another case she’s surreptitiously investigating on her own, Pirie is plagued with insomnia as she wades through her grief after the death of her partner, fellow detective Phil Parhatka. Accomplished and nuanced.

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Laura Lippman brings Tess Monaghan her strangest case. Juggling parenthood to the precocious Carla Scout has been a challenge, as will the new case. With partner Sandy in tow, Tess reluctantly agrees to provide security for Melisandre Harris, back in the country to film an most unusual documentary of a mother reuniting with the children she left ten years ago, an ending to her crime.Years ago after giving birth to her third child, Melisandre locked the infant in her car and sat on the banks of a river while it died. Found not guilty by reason of criminal insanity, she left her husband and two other daughters to move to France for therapy and a fresh start. Her return brings its own issues when Tess’s client is suddenly a mruder suspect, just when Tess starts receiving messages from a stalker about her parenting. Vintage Lippman.

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But don’t stop there if you’re a Lippman fan. Knowing Auntie M is, a good friend gifted her a signed copy of Lippman’s stand alone Wilde Lake. The new state’s attorney for Howard County, MD, is Lu Brant, filling her father’s shoes. Her current case revolves around trying a homeless man accused of murdering a woman in her home. But it also dredges up memories of the night her brother murdered a man in self defense to save the life of his best friend. How the two are connected in Lu’s mind will have her wondering whether the legal system is all she’s signed up for; and what really happened that night so many years ago.

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M J Arlidge’s DI Helen Grace series continue with her fifth installment in Little Boy Blue, when a case hits too close to home and threatens to reveal Helen’s personal secrets. The killer is targeting members of the BDSM community, and leads melt away as the killer keeps up his spree. Alarming depravity resides alongside a fast pace, as the twists and turns keep coming in this dark thriller that will have readers panting for the next installment.

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This Grace is DI Grace Fisher, in the second of Isabelle Grey’s series that promises to attract a wide readership. Shot Through the Heart examines police corruption and how Grace’s investigation is hampered at every turn when five people are gunner down before the shooter kills himself on Christmas Day–and one of those killed is a police officer. Crime journalist Ivo Sweatman is on hand to either help or hinder Grace, but she has no option but to accept his offers of help when her youngest witness disappears.

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Alan Bradley’s Flavia de Luce mysteries are a delight, and capture readers’ attention as the 12 year-old brilliant chemist returns home from her awful term at a Canadian boarding school. But it’s not the happy homecoming Flavia pictured, for her dear father is in hospital with a severe case of pneumonia. What’s a girl to do, but climb on her bicycle, Gladys, and run an errand for the beleaguered vicar’s wife–which results in her stumbling on the dead body of the recipient. With their awful cousin residing at Buckshaw, and Flavia’s two older sisters even more insufferable, if that’s at all possible, it will be up to Flavia to unravel the mystery, even as she will be shaken to her very core.

If you’ve thought Auntie M only reads novels with female protagonists, you’d be wrong. ratherbethedevil875 Ian Rankin brings back John Rebus, supposedly retired, and Matthew Fox, thrown into Siobhan Clarke’s case when a young drug lord is viciously attacked. Rebus actually has the semblance of a private life, with a girlfriend and dog, and Auntie M loves watching him adjust to these normalcies. But he just can’t let a cold case go, four decades old, and as he pokes his nose in where it shouldn’t be, what is he doing talking to his old nemesis, Big Ger Cafferty? This one brings all the pieces together in inimitable Rankin fashion.