John Farrow: Perish the Day Sunday, Jul 23 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:38 am

Author and playwright Trevor Ferguson writes the Emile Cinq-Mars series under the pen name John Farrow. He brings us Perish the Day, with Emile and his wife, Sandra, staying at her mother’s New Hampshire horse farm as the woman lies in a coma after a life well lived.

It’s raining hard in the small town of Holyoake, just down the road from Ivy League Dartmouth. Sandra’s niece is graduating from the big college’s stepchild, the Dowboggin School of International Relations, and along with Sandra’s sister, they plan to also attend Caroline’s graduation. The rain obscures roads, overflows rivers, and creates havoc that only intensifies when the body of one of Caro’s friends is found at the bottom of a locked clock tower.

Emile soon finds himself immersed in trying to find out what happened to Caro’s friend, Addie. Hers will be the first of three murders in short order, and as the case heats up, territorial disputes threaten to overwhelm the investigation, even as the weather interferes with everything.

He finds a way to insinuate himself, even as Sandra’s mother dies and they plan her funeral. Enlisting Caro and two of her friends, the retired Canadian detective will use his wits and his experience to find out who would kill a young student, an older professor, and a custodian at the college.

Only Emile could bring the disparate forces of troopers, local sheriff, and FBI together to solve a complicated case that is unlike any he’s seen before. It’s a tour de force of his thinking abilities.

One of the hallmarks of the series is Emile’s ruminations on the case, spirituality, life, and his marriage. It makes for involved and heady reading, a literary feel to what is essentially a crime novel. His feel for his setting, and how he uses it, deepen our understanding of where he finds himself at this moment in time. Despite his appearance, Emile Cinq-Mars is highly attractive and thoroughly engaging.

Another winner in a series that keep getting better. Highly recommended.

 

Mark Billingham: Die of Shame & Love Like Blood Wednesday, Jul 19 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:06 am

Readers of Auntie M Writes know that Mark Billingham is one of her favorites. So it was frustrating that she’d missed reading Die of Shame, which starts out as a stand-alone featuring Detective Inspector Nicola Tanner and has a tie-in to Tom Thorn at its end.

It starts with six people, all addicts of some kind, in a group therapy session held by their therapist in his home. With his wife and teen daughter on the periphery, the six speak of their secrets and tell their stories of the life they’ve tried to leave. The object is to reveal their deepest shame.

It’s an intriguing setup, as each of these characters has something to hide. When one of them is murdered, it will fall to DI Tanner to ferret out the murderer. Readers will learn of the addict’s ability to obfuscate and explain away any situation. As Tanner’s investigation advances, it soon becomes clear that one of the six is responsible for the victim’s death.
That’s where Tom Thorne comes in at the end, working undercover as the newest member of the group.

While this one can definitely be read as a stand-alone, and it’s new in paperback for those like Auntie M who missed it last year, Billingham’s newest, Love Like Blood, follows the thread. Not with the group, which is tied up easily, but with DI Nicola Tanner as Thorne’s off-the-books newest partner.

It opens with a grissly home invasion that becomes a ghastly murder. At first, readers assume it Tanner who’s the victim, but although she was probably the proposed victim, Tanner’s partner Susan has borrowed her car that day and is brutally murdered in her stead.

Due to her closeness to the victim, policy dictates Tanner must be off the case. She enlists Thorne to take the case on, with her aiding him unofficially. When a young couple from different cultures go missing, they soon realize their targets are a pair of contracted killers, performing so-called ‘honor’ killings for families.

It’s a set-up that has nothing good about it. Thorne worming his way into a community where he’s despised just for being a cop; Tanner continuing to investigate when she shouldn’t. There’s Tom’s home with Helen and her son, Alfie, to consider, too, with Helen dealing with her own bad case.

A sobering Author’s note describes the statistics of increasing honor killings in the UK, and details one particular heartbreaking case. Leave it to Mark Billingham to sensitively explore this issue. Highly recommended, both of them. Do yourself a favor and read them both.

 

David Bell: Bring Her Home Sunday, Jul 16 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:42 am


At the opening of David Bell’s newest suspenseful novel, Bring Her Home, readers may think they know where this is headed.

Eighteen months after the accidental death of his wife, Julie, Bill Price’s teenaged daughter and her best friend disappear. Summer Price and her friend Haley have been almost inseparable for years. It’s a father’s worst nightmare and intensifies when the two girls are found, badly beaten, in a Kentucky city park. Haley is dead and Summer is so badly beaten, her face is unrecognizable. She might have brain or vision damage. She might not remember who did this to her.

As Bill’s sister drives in from her Ohio home, she brings a voice of reason and support to Bill, whose legendary temper often gets the best of him. As the pair keep vigil over Summer in Intensive Care, the investigation heats up and unwelcome stories about the girls and their behavior and company surface. Bill starts asking questions of his own to uncover the truth.

But the surprises keep coming, in twists and plot turns that elevate this to a gripping crime novel. Bill Price will have to adjust his thinking about his dead wife, his friends and neighbors, and his own daughter.

A layered mystery, filled with emotions that strike as realistic and keep pace with the surprises, this is one of those thrillers that will have readers flipping pages long after the light should have been turned out.

 

Anthony Horowitz: Magpie Murders Wednesday, Jul 12 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:58 am

If the name Anthony Horowitz sounds familiar to you, it’s probably because you’ve seen it in the credits for Midsomer Murders or Foyle’s War, amongst other television works. Or because you’ve read his Holmes novels, Moriarty and The House of Silk; or Trigger Mortis, which contained original material from Ian Fleming; or perhaps his YA Alex Rider series.

Yes, quite the prolific and successful author in multiple genres. Yet Horowitz manages to pull off a coup quite unlike any other with his newest mystery, Magpie Murders.

This is a clever and compelling romp, paying homage to the writers of the Golden Age with a mystery novel-within-a-novel. Readers are introduced to editor Susan Ryeland, whose client Alan Conway’s Atticus Pund series has kept her publishing house afloat. There should be an umlaut over that “u” in Pund, but Auntie M’s keyboard doesn’t have that diacritical mark. It’s another way that Conway plays with his readers. And play he does, with increasing contempt, for Conway could be snarky, and as Susan soon discovers, not just to her.

Susan is delivered Conway’s newest and last manuscript, where he’s decided to kill his detective off. Over the weekend as she reads it, so do we, becoming submerged into 1950s England outside Bath, and we and she are presented with a period-perfect murder mystery, complete with many references to classic works. But as Susan reaches the end of the manuscript, she finds to her dismay–and ours–that the denouement chapter is missing. When Susan returns to work Monday, searching for that last chapter, she finds that Conway has committed suicide.

The novel turns into a contemporary mystery, as Susan takes on the detecting of issues surrounding Conway’s death, trying to find the missing chapter, and soon becomes convinced his death could be murder. As she travels to his home and his funeral, meeting those in Conway’s circle, she connects many of the devices Conway used in the book with his real life. It’s not a pretty picture that emerges, and there are far too many candidates for the role of murderer. And where is that missing chapter?

This is a hugely satisfying read, containing puzzles, anagrams, literary motifs and more, including a gentle send-up of today’s publishing world. It’s garnered wonderful enthusiastic reviews and this is one more. Highly recommended.

 

Leonard Goldberg: The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes Tuesday, Jun 13 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and historical saga and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:51 am


Leonard Goldberg is a physician whose name readers might recognize from his many medical thrillers. In this newest outing, Goldberg ventures into the past of 1910 and Edwardian London, and brings a twist to the Sherlock Holmes canon with The Daughter of Sherlock Holmes.

It’s a winning combination of an elderly Dr. Watson, his physician son, also John, and a young woman who assists them in unraveling the supposed suicide of a young man after she and her young son witness the death.

The brilliant mind of Joanna Blalock soon leads Watson to confide in his son that she is none other than the daughter of the late Sherlock Holmes and the only woman who ever outwitted the great mind, Irene Adler. Watson is entrusted with that knowledge, and now John, Jr. is the second person who knows the truth of the young widow’s lineage.

It’s a fine setup as the book moves along, and fans of anything Sherlock will be captivated. This time it’s a female who has the brains to observe and deduce, which Joanna does in fine fashion in a compelling and readable storyline.

That she also happens to be beautiful and captivates John’s heart is an aside that adds to the texture and gladdens Watson’s heart.

The mystery surrounding the death ties into hidden treasure stolen during the Second Afghan War. As the body count rises, it will be up to this trio to figure out how the culprit is managing to kill the members of a special quartet, and how they can protect the remaining member.

It’s a fast-paced story, containing a cipher, a secret room, and enough Sherlockian ties to make readers flip pages fast. A quick, entertaining read, Auntie M hopes Mr. Goldberg plans to bring readers more of this new detecting team.

 

Sandra Brown: Sting Sunday, Jun 11 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and thriller Auntie M Writes Crime 12:06 am

Sandra Brown’s latest thriller, Sting, has all the hallmarks that made Brown a NY Times bestselling author: fast pacing; a story that twists and turns; and a hint of chemistry between the two protagonists.

But in this case, that chemistry between Jordie Bennet and Shaw Kinnard has a huge mountain to cross: he’s been sent to the backwater bayou in Louisiana to kill her.

All is not what it seems when Kinnard kidnaps Jordie. She has the unfortunate luck to have a psychopath for a brother, and since he has stolen 30 million dollars, there are a lot of people who’d like to get their hands on the money–including the person it was stolen from.

With realistic characters and a plausible setup, readers will still be surprised at some of the turns the plot takes, especially when they can’t see how the ending can possibly turn out well.

Another terrific summer read from a master thriller writer~

 

Hallie Ephron: You’ll Never Know, Dear Tuesday, Jun 6 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:19 am


Hallie Ephron’s fifth suspense novel show how a talented writer can find an unusual premise and make it work. You’ll Never Know, Dear brings three generations of strong women in the Woodham family together to solve a decades-old mystery.

When Lissie and her sister Janey were outside their South Carolina low-country home when Lissie’s attention is diverted by a puppy. When she returns, Janey has disappeared, and remains so for forty years. Despite the length of time, their mother, Miss Sorrel, places an ad every year in the paper that shows the doll she made for Janey, and offers a cash reward for its return, hoping this will be the clue that finds Janey.

Miss Sorrel is Lisse and Janey’s mother. Aided now by her neighbor, nurse Evelyn Dumont, the duo repair dolls, after a career of making hand-painted one-of-a-kind dolls that bear the face of the child who becomes their owners. She’s hoping even after all these years that the doll will be returned and be the key to Janey. And then suddenly, a young woman shows up with what Miss Sorrel is convinced is Janey’s doll.

Then a horrid accident put Miss Sorrel and Lissie in the hospital, and Lissie’s daughter, Vanessa, leaves her research project on dreams to help out. The three women will bind together, despite their differences, to try to solve the cold case and find out if Janey could possibly be alive. The women will need all of their smarts when they face evil.

The setting is definitely a character here, with small-town secrets and lazy warm days leaping off the page and adding to the southern gothic feel. Along with a realistic portrait of differing personalties within one family, readers will be delighted to learn the ins and outs of doll making and restoration, too, an added bonus to the suspense.

 

Elly Griffiths: The Chalk Pit Tuesday, May 30 2017 

amateur sleuth and Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:02 am

Elly Griffiths returns with her ninth Ruth Galloway mystery, The Chalk Pit, a strong addition to the popular series.

The series, set in Norwich, is such a favorite of Auntie M’s that her next Nora Tierney English Mystery, The Golden Hour, features a character is reading the latest mystery–and Elly appears briefly as a friend of Nora’s.

There are good reasons why the award-winning author is hugely popular. The anthropology details are accurate but never dry, and always couched in a really good mystery to be solved. Then there are the returning characters–Ruth, Detective Nelson, and several of their friends and colleagues–who reappear and catch readers in the tumble of their lives.

This keeps the reader involved in Ruth’s world, where she’s the single parent of young Kate, a precocious child who is offered a small role in an experimental version of Alice in Wonderland.

The play comes at the same time that Ruth is called to investigate bones found in an old chalk pit during excavation for an underground restaurant. When the bones turn out to be human, it involves Nelson, too, and the mystery takes off as the relationship between Ruth and Nelson becomes even more complicated.

Ruth notices the bones appear so translucent, they might have been boiled. A second body is found, and fear mounts. Is this the work of a cannibal killer? Could there be a secret society at work? Why are the homeless being targeted? When a homeless woman goes missing, Ruth and Nelson fear she’s the next victim.

As the tension mounts, someone close them will also go missing. The story twists in their efforts to find the killer in a tense climax that will have readers flipping pages to the conclusion.

Another rewarding read in this satisfying series from the author who also writes the The Magic Men Mysteries. Highly recommended.

 

James Oswald: Written in Bones Sunday, May 28 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:48 am

James Oswald’s Inspector McLean series is one of Auntie M’s personal favorites. Written in Bones continues the compelling Edinburgh-based mystery series with its strong protagonist. And yes, the award-winning and nominated author really does raise pedigree Highland cattle and New Zealand Romney sheep on his North East Fife farm. You can see amazing photos of his livestock on his website and Facebook pages.

This case seems to be one without an answer. A young boy walking his dog early in the morning talks of a dragon flying overhead; then a body drops into a tree in the Meadows, Edinburgh’s scenic park. It’s not a crime scene of the faint of heart.

The victim is an ex-cop who had a criminal past, and after serving his time, had reinvented himself as a philanthropist for addicts and other causes. Was his death an accident? Or a message to those left behind?

It will take McLean back to digging out past cases and history, while he comes into contact with someone he thought he’d left behind, just as he’s trying to sort out his personal life.

One of the highlights of the series is the way Oswald brings Edinburgh, and his band of characters, to life. This is gritty stuff with an edge or realism that sharpness the focus. And as always, McLean needs to avoid exacerbating his already-ugly relationship with most of his superiors, as he doesn’t always play by the book–perhaps never.

Another outstanding entry in the series. Highly recommended.

 

Richard Montanari: The Killing Room Sunday, May 21 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:00 am

This was the first of the long-running Byrne and Balzao novel’s that Auntie M has had the pleasure to read, but it certainly won’t the last. She loves when she finds a new series to dig into, and she will now go back and read what leads up to the action in Richard Montanari’s newest, The Killing Room.

Set in Philadelphia neighborhoods, from its highest to its lowest, an abandoned church becomes the setting for the team’s latest murder. Despite its brutality, neither detective is prepared when a second body and then a third is found, also in deconsecrated churches, all in different methods of horrific brutality causing the death of the victim.

For the seasoned detectives, the crimes are more than disturbing and hit them on a personal level in different ways. It only adds to Byrne’s stress that he’s taken on trying to be a kind of mentor to troubled young teen.

With an obvious killer seemingly ahead of them at each step, the two homicide detectives will need all of their smarts to outwit the chilling killer. The ties to the Church and theology are fascinating and an important clue will come to them from an unlikely source.

The interplay between senior partner Kevin Byrne, living alone with his daughter at college, and the younger Jessica Balzano, married to a detective and with a young family at home, is a highlight of the series where two professionals who have each other’s back can exist in well-practiced teamwork that allows them to mine each other’s strengths.

Readers who haven’t discovered this series, like Auntie M, will find themselves hunting for the previous novels on the strength of this absorbing story.

 

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