Auntie M has a pile of read but not reviewed books to catch readers up on. There are great beach reads in here and others that will catch your fancy and keep you up at night that she’ll be reviewing over the next few weeks. Let’s start off with two thrillers:

Steve Berry takes readers back to the days before Cotton Malone had his adventures and working as a Navy lawyer in The Bishop’s Pawn, his 13th Malone story.

It’s the 1990s and secret files about Martin Luther King’s 1968 assasination are the center of attention when Malone is helped out of a bad situation by someone in the Justice Department who calls in her own return favor.

A complicated plot involving a rare coin turns into much more when Malone discovers what he’s really holding are files relating to James Earl Ray, King’s assassin, which lead Malone to realize he was intentionally misled in what his mission was to be.

Factions within the Justice Department, the FBI, and others are at war over the possession of the files. Soon it seems they will stop at nothing to keep long-buried secrets hidden.

This prequel to the others in the series explain more of Malone’s history than readers have experienced before. The action never lets up, with Berry doing his usual grand job of blending history with mystery. Berry’s research is impeccable, and he ends up offering hreaders fact-based fiction that is startling and new.

Kope’s Whispers of the Dead brings Steps Craig and his 3-men elite team to find a killer after they identify the victim, when a pair of severed feet is found stored in a cooler in the house of a Texas Federal judge, soon after solving a gruesome murder in Washington State.

Steps’ synesthesia, something he calls “shine,” allows him to see a unique color in whatever a person has touched. Known only to a few people, he guards his secret but uses it to help solve difficult cases. And this certainly is one.

When more victims are found, the killer earns the sobriquet “The Icebox Killer.” With partner Jimmy Donovan in tow to find the hard evidence needed for a successful prosecution–Steps’ special skill is inadmissiable in court–it soon becomes apparent they are on the trail of a serial killer.

That trail leads them all over the West Coast, and the two have their work cut out for them. One of the things that elevates this series from a standard police investigation is the well-drawn characters and their relationships and interactions, with Steps’ wry humor and a bit of snarkiness adding to the read.

Readers will never be bored reading how this case is solved. Hold onto your hats.