Gregg Hurwitz: Hell Bent, An Orphan X novel Thursday, Feb 8 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:32 am

Gregg Hurwitz’s popular Orphan X series continues with Hell Bent, featuring Evan Smoak, the man with many identities.

The vigilante this time responds to a call for help from Jack Johns, the only father Evan has known. While the government is trying to erase all traces of the Orphan program they used on Evan, they have found Jack, who needs Evan to protect Jack’s last recruit for the program, a young woman named Joey.

Of course Evan’s not alone in his search. Van Sciver is the new head of the Orphan program in its current incantation and has the power to take out Evan and the target he’s supposedly protecting.

It’s a wild ride to the finish in this latest installment. If you enjoy a fast-paced stylish thriller, this one’s for you.

 

New in Paperback: Jonasson, Sigurdardottir, Berry Wednesday, Jan 31 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and historical saga and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:15 am

Three great books are now out in paperback if you missed their original release dates.


Jagnar Jonasson’s Snowblind is the first Ari Thor Arason thriller. Ari abandoned his theology studies to become a police officer at the height of Iceland’s severe financial crisis in 2008. Sent to a remote fishing center in the north, a local prominent writer dies, sending Ari his first big case. Another death soon follows, and what Ari thought would be a quiet start to his career soon becomes anything but. Nice twists keep readers glued to the page.

A chilling standalone thriller from the talented Yrsa Sigurdardottir, The Undesired has a supernatural bent that will keep you awake long after you’ve put the book down. In the 1970s, a young woman takes a job she hates, working at a juvenile detention center in a rural area of Iceland. Two boys go missing under unusual circumstances. Many years later, Odinn is the person tasked with looking into alleged abuse at the same center. He comes to believe those events of years ago might be connected to the accident that killed his ex-wife and left him a single parent. Complex and chilling.


Steve Berry’s The Lost Order continues his Cotton Malone series with its hallmark research that weaves a fantastical story into real events in history. In this outing, Malone’s own great-great-grandfather, a Confederate spy, is part of a secret society that Malone discovers still operates in the present day. Their secrets and hidden wealth are tied to a plot that could change our government forever. Power and greed are at the forefront in this winning addition to the series that has Malone and his allies racing around the country to save it.

 

Stephen Leather: The Shout Thursday, Jan 25 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:52 am


Thriller writer Stephen Leather surprises readers by leaving his multiple series behind and writing a stand-alone that enters the world of London’s Fire Brigade in The Shout.

Filled with realistic details and insider knowledge that makes that dangerous profession spring to life, Leather introduces Vicky Lewis, a strong member of the brigade and already a crew manager, despite not having reached her thirtieth birthday.

Then tragedy strikes during a fire as Vicky is saving a man’s life. She receives catastrophic injuries that change her appearance and her life, and threaten her livelihood.

After months of painful recovery and therapy, Vicky returns to work at the Fire Investigation Unit, under the veteran firefighter known as The Grouch, Des Farmer.

Forced to work together, the two form an uneasy alliance until Vicky learns of Farmer’s investigation into a series of fire-related deaths of young women and decides to help him find their murderer.

Chapters from the killer’s point of view show his meticulous care in setting up the scenes, adding to the ghoulish tension. Soon Vicky and Farmer find themselves racing against a killer who knows how to set a scene so he can’t be found–and then it gets personal.

Tense and with Leather’s tradmemark storytelling.

 

Nicki French: Sunday Silence Wednesday, Jan 17 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:30 am


This compelling psychological thriller series returns with Sunday Silence, featuring therapist Frieda Klein.

At once strong and resilient, the Frieda who walks London to examine her thoughts is shaken to the core when the body of dead policeman is found under the floorboards of her own living room. At once a person of interest in the case, Frieda is more concerned that appears killer Dan Reeve is making his existence known, to the chagrin of the police commissioner who has refused to take Frieda seriously when she tried to explain that contrary to his own supposed death he’d orchestrated, Reeve was alive and well, and circling Frieda.

She’s already lost a former lover to this maniac who is obsessed with Frieda and vows it won’t happen again to any one close to her.

Then Frieda’s niece is abducted and other horrible events occur to those in her circle. Is this the work of Reeve, confirming he’s alive? Or is there a copycat out there, trying to impress either Reeve? Or even far, far worse: could it be down to both killers at work?

It’s a difficult time for anyone close to Frieda, and soon her friends are staying together as Frieda and the few police who believe her try to flush out the killers. She will use her instinct and keen awareness of body language to figure out who the copycat is, and when and where he will strike again.

The married duo forming Nikki French bring another fascinating installment to readers as Frieda will cross a line even she never thought she would professionally in a bid to save those she loves. Louise Penny calls this series “fabulous, unsettling, and riveting,” with good cause. Highly recommended.

 

Best Reads of 2017: Horowitz, Upson, Khan, Griffiths, McDermid, Crombie, MacBride, Oswald, Bolton, Penny, Billingham, Ward, Flanders and more… Sunday, Jan 7 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:15 am

The Best Reads of 2017

Last year was a banner year for wonderful books. Of the 174 books Auntie M reviewed, 25 of them received her coveted “Highly Recommended” rating. All of these have longer reviews archived on the site, but just to refresh your memory, here they are listed simply in the order I read them:

Everything You Want Me To Be/Mindy Meja: The story of a small-town high school senior’s murder, told from three voices including the dead girl. Well-crafted and surprising.

Garden of Lamentations/Deborah Crombie: the 17th Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James police procedural finds James’s newest case revolving around the murder of a young nanny in Notting Hill while Kincaid is involved in high espionage.

Among the Ruins/Ausma Zehanat Khan: the third Esa Khattak/Rachel Getty mystery takes the duo from their Canadian home to Iran, where intrigue swirls around them both as they investigate the murder of a Canadian-Iranian documentary filmmaker.

Swiss Vendetta/Tracee de Hahn: this debut introduces Swiss-American detective Agnes Luthi, trapped during an ice storm at the castle-like chateau of a wealthy family to investigate a murder, just as she’s recovering from her husband’s suicide.

A Death in the Dales/Frances Brody: Kate Shackleton, supposedly on vacation, finds herself investigating an old murder and becomes convinced the wrong man was hung as the killer in this entertaining historical series.

A Cast of Vultures/Judith Flanders: Editor Sam Clair finds herself wrapped up in a murder when a body is found after a neighborhood fire, to the chagrin of her detective partner. Entertaining and well-plotted with a self-deprecating protagonist.

The Satanic Mechanic/Sally Andrews: Visit South Africa’s Karoo where Tannie Maria, baker extraordinaire, must investigate when a man is poisoned in her presence. Creative and unique and complete with recipes.

Quieter Than Killing/Sarah Hilary: the fourth detective Marnie Rome series brings the detective facing her own ghosts when she and partner Noah Jake tackle a series of what might be vigilante crimes. Deeply emotional and highly original.

Conviction/Julia Dahl: the third Rebekah Roberts novel takes the investigative journalist’s newest story too close for comfort when she tries to free an innocent man convicted of a murder he didn’t commit.

Written in Bones/James Oswald gives Insp. Tony McLean a strange case when a body is dropped from the sky and lands in a tree.

The Chalk Pit/Elly Griffiths: the series featuring forensic anthropologist Ruth Galloway takes on a personal threat when she’s called to investigate old bones found during a chalk pit excavation for a new restaurant. Highly absorbing.

Magpie Murders/Anthony Horowitz: the mystery-within-a-mystery by the author of Foyle’s War and many Midsomer Murders scripts creates a prickly homage to the Golden Age authors, as an editor searches for the final chapter of the last book of her publishing house’s most lucrative series.

Die of Shame and Love Like Blood intertwines two of Mark Billingham’s grand novels, bringing DI Nicola Tanner and Tom Thorne together in a most creative way. Complex and compelling reads.

Perish the Day/ John Farrow: highlights the Canadian author’s series featuring retired detective Emile Cinq-Mars with weather always an issue, as he and his wife travel to her NH roots and become involved with the killing of her niece’s friend.

The Marsh King’s Daughter/ Karen Dionne: a sophisticated tale of revenge and heartache, told compellingly from the POV of a young woman whose mother was held in captivity since before she was born. A distinct sense of place adds to the atmosphere.

The Child/Fiona Barton: Book 2 Auntie M read out of order in the series featuring reporter Kate Waters –see Jan 8th for the review of The Widow, Book 1, also HR. Here an infant’s bones are found from a decades-old burial, sparking a new investigation.

Glass Houses /Louise Penny: an Inspt. Gamache tour de force, when murder hits Three Pines and Gamache is forced to make one of the hardest decisions of his career. Unsettling, creative and very Gamache.

Let the Dead Speak /Jane Casey: Detective Maeve Kerrigan is saddled with a rookie and a strange case where the victim is missing from the murder scene. Inventive, with twists and turns that keep the series fresh.

Dead Woman Walking/Sharon Bolton: a stand-alone with two sisters who take a fated balloon ride and only one survives. A fascinating story that will surprise readers from a master plotter.

A Patient Fury/Sarah Ward: Third DC Childs mystery, where the young detective is faced with a possible murder-suicide of a entire family, but suspects it’s what she’s meant to believe. Compelling, with a super-surprise ending.

Insidious Intent/Val McDermid: the Queen of Scottish Noir at the top of her game, as Tony Hill and Carol Jordan investigate when a series of burned out cars containing bodies lead them to an elusive killer. Has an ending readers can’t possibly predict that has left everyone shocked and more than one in tears.

Nine Lessons/Nicola Upson: continues her series set between the World Wars with Josephine Tey as the main character, this time in Cambridge when a rapist is on the loose just as her friend, Detective Archie Penrose, has a strange case to investigate, and their private lives become entangled. Literary prose, compelling plotting and great characters.

Sweet Little Lies /Caz Frear: introduces DC Cat Kinsella, whose must ask her father if he has an alibi for the night a woman is murdered near his pub. An accomplished debut.

Sleep No More/P D James: a slim collection of short stories by the master of crime fiction, with stories that will have readers thinking long and hard with their atypical murders and often surprising twists. Engrossing and readable.

 

Anthony Horowitz: The Word is Murder Friday, Jan 5 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:54 am

Continuing a January run of HIGHLY RECOMMENDED reads for readers:

Anthony Horowitz is a man Auntie M would like to interview. The author of the Alex Rider teen spy series, he’s responsbile for some of the UK’s best television series, including Midsomer Murders and Foyle’s War, and wrote what was one of Auntie M’s favorite reads last year, Magpie Murders. He’s also written two Sherlock Holmes and one James Bond novels, is on the board othe Old Vic Theatre, and oh yes, don’t forget his OBE from the Queen for servies to Literature.

Now he’s turned to the start of a new series that promises to be just as successful and entertaining. The Word is Murder brings his creative bent to the forefront in the debut, which features Detective Daniel Hawthorne and . . . author Anthony Horowitz.

That’s right. Horowitz appears as a character in his own series, when Hawthorne approaches him to write a book about the detective’s newest case, and it’s a humdinger Howorwitz can’t ignore: victim Diana Cowper arranged her own funeral service and is murdered later that same day. Did she anticipate her murder, or was she just doing as many older people do and putting her affairs in order?

Hawthorne is known for solving tough cases and Horowitz soon finds that he is also very good at holding clues and secrets to himself until they need to be shared. This leads Horowitz as assistant detective into some hot water at times, even as he struggles to like the detective he’s shadowing. It’s an interesting mix of personalities and Horowitz-Author parses out information on Hawthorne to Horowitz-Character.

With the writer reluctantly gaining respect for Hawthorne’s talents, it’s still a dark and dangerous path they follow with surprising twists and turns in a pleasing mystery with a surprise ending.

A masterful and complex mystery that has Auntie M waiting in anticipation for the next in the series. Highly recommended.

 

Jan McCanless: Gold, Frankincense and Murrrrder Tuesday, Dec 26 2017 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read Auntie M Writes Crime 12:02 am

A funny one for Boxing Day delights!

Humorist Jan McCanless returns with a new murder to hit Beryl’s Cove: Gold, Frankincense and Murrrder.

Chief Nathan Sowinski has to sink his teeth into an investigation when a yacht sinks off the coast, setting off a round of action that has him bothered and bewildered, if not bewitched.

The usual cast of eccentric characters people what McCanless calls her “happy murders,” added to this time by a federal agent, vandals at the campground, and don’t forget the Christmas pageant coming together–or falling apart.

Gold,Frankincense and Murrrder is the eleventh in the Beryl’s Cove Mystery series.

 

P.D. James: Sleep No More–Auntie M’s Christmas Present to Readers Sunday, Dec 24 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 11:30 am


It’s no secret P. D. James was a mentor and friend to Auntie M for 15 years until her death. In fact, her own Death Unscripted was written as a promise to the Baroness and is dedicated to James.

So it ‘s no surprise that the Christmas treat she has for you is Faber and Faber’s new collection of short stories to enjoy, Sleep No More.

The subtitle is: “Six Murderous Tales,” and its easy to see why the publisher’s chose that phrase to title the stories they’ve arranged that bring back the words of one of the greatest crime writers of the 20th century.

The collection ranges over decades in various English settings, some with strong remininces of the narrator, such as in “The Yo-Yo” where an old man facing death looks back onto a school age Christmas when he was a witness to a murder and chose to say nothing about it.

It’s a toss-up as to who’s the real victim in “The Victim” when a revenge killing has a twisted ending readers won’t see coming. Another chilling tale recounts the experience of a young woman, set free to return to the home she left as a child, as her memory clears and she remembers the real reason why she’s become “The Girl Who Loved Graveyards.”

The thread these stories have in common is the genuis of James, whose keen insight into human nature as illustrated in her crime novels is on display in these stories. It’s a varied methodology she uses for her killings, whether it’s a blue poison bottle, a knife for cutting linoleum, or a revolver.

Sleep No More, those same words that horrified Macbeth, is an apt title for stories that explore the unsettling remnants of murder that affect these characters, whether through remembrance or participation.

It’s a wonderful book, read with the eye of sadness as one remembers there will be no more great stories from this Queen of Crime. Savor every lush description, every telling detail, every moment of chilling horror.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

 

Donna Malane: My Brother’s Keeper Tuesday, Dec 19 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 10:32 am

An award-winning writer and producer for television, Donna Malane turned her hand to novels, winning the New Zealand Society of Authors-Pindar Publishing Prize with Surrender, which introduced lead character Diane Rowe.

She returns with the sequel, My Brother’s Keeper, another strong entry in the series captained by the wry voice of Diane and peopled with characters who are fully fashioned and realistic.

It’s an interesting premise: Diane, a missing-persons expert, is asked by an ex-con now out of prison to track down her daughter, Sunny. Karen Mackie fears the girl may be in danger.

Diane doesn’t have difficulty finding the girl, living with her father, stepmother and stepbrother in Auckland, an hour’s plane ride away. But Karen asks Diane to meet the girl first and pave the way for a possible reconcilation.

It’s a tough sell, and the family situation is more complicated than Diane would like. In fact, everything’s a bit complicated in Diane’s life right now, with her friendly ex-husband, Sean, needing their house sold; her current boyfriend, Robbie, becoming friendly with both her dog, Wolf, and her ex; and then there’s the good-looking stepson of Karen’s dead mother she meets in Auckland.

It’s enough to drive a gal to distraction. But fortunately, and despite at one point coming under the Auckland PD radar, Diane manages to put it all together, but with considerable danger to herself and before she can stop a murder.

This is a complex plot and the book, which starts out with a simple premise, rapidly becomes so much more, aided by snippets of memory in flashbacks from a young Sunny, explaining why Karen was in prison.

A chilling twist at the end provides an engrossing climax with a character who will have you hooked with her engaging voice and waiting to read more of Diane Rowe.

 

Nicola Upson: Nine Lessons Saturday, Nov 25 2017 

amateur sleuth and Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and historical saga and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:05 am


The seventh entry in Upson’s remarkable series featuring Josephing Tey as a character is Nine Lessons, and if you haven’t found this series yet, now’s the time to pick up this one and then find your way to the previous six. All are intricately plotted, have researched settings of the period between the World Wars that brings that era to life, and perhaps most importantly, honest depictions of the characters who live within the pages, with all the foibles of humanity we recognize.

The focus this time revovles around Tey’s goood friend, DCI Archie Penrose and a case that seems almost unsolvable. He’s called to a churchyard where the corpse of the organist is found in an opened cryp. The man has died a horrific death; a photo of a manor house and a brief note as found with his body.

At the same time, Josephine is in Cambridge, helping to sort out a new house, when a series of attacks against women set the ancient city on edge.

When Archie’s next body is found near King’s College Chapel, it brings him to Josephine to help with old research on this case, as he’s discovered a connection between the two murders that has its genesis in the storied town when both victims were students. What could have happened twenty-five years ago that is making a murderer take his revenge now?

As if solving a complicated murder and finding a serial rapist were not enough, Upson continues the thread of Archie’s personal life and its own secrets in such a way that the final horrific twist in that story will have ramifications for years to come.

This is a complex and compelling story, encompassing what historical crime fiction should, blending true history with the fictional lives of these stunning characters into a whole book that moves the reader as it solves the crimes. Highly recommended.

 

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