Sisters in Crime: Four Mysteries Sunday, Nov 9 2014 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and mystery to die for , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:43 am

As a member of Sisters in Crime, Auntie M has found a community that sustains her when facing that blank white page that proscribes the daily writing life. A huge part of that organization is the support the members give each other on so many facets of writing, from craft to legal issues, from deadly poisons to process to marketing and blog tours.

So today she’s highlighting four Sisters (and a Mister!) who have books for your reading pleasure.

truthbetold Hank Phillippi Ryan’s Jane Ryland series echoes the author’s own history as an investigative reporter. In Truth Be Told, the award-winning author brings her insider’s knowledge to a different kind of case: middle-class families caught in the housing foreclosure debacle who are evicted from their homes.

At the same time, her relationship with Boston police detective Jake Brogan has hit a snag. The long-awaited vacation they’d planned has to be cancelled when someone suddenly confesses to the twenty-year old murder called the Lilac Sunday Killing, the unsolved case that haunted Jake’s grandfather. With evidence mounting that the confession might be phony, Jake delves into his grandfather’s basement files on the original case.

With the strain of keeping their personal lives separate from their jobs, and that line crossing more than either of them expect, things heat up when murders start to occur in the supposedly empty homes of evicted families. Enter the daughter of a bank president, a young woman with her own special accounting system, and the cases take off, each from their own perspective.

Ryan does a nice job of bringing these two story lines together while Jane and Jake struggle to hold onto their relationship in the midst of misunderstandings and the differences of their jobs as they each try to figure out who’s behind the murders, and why someone would confess to a murder they didn’t commit.

demon-3
G. M. Malliet’s Max Tudor series takes readers to the charming English village of Nether Monkslip, where the former MI5 agent has carved out a new life for himself. In A Demon Summer, the heat isn’t the only thing that has Max sweating: he’s soon to be a parent with his beloved Awena, and has yet to tell his Bishop of that development.

This is kind of mystery that isn’t built on action but on thoughtful investigation, as Max is sent by the Bishop to Monkbury Abbey after it seems their fruitcake was the vehicle used to try to poison the 15th Earl of Lislelivet. Tasked with discreet inquiries just at the time he’d rather be home and planning his marriage, Max nevertheless takes the job seriously and sets off to the remote abbey, home to nuns who are part of the order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy.

Amidst rumors of buried treasure regaling that of the Holy Grail, Max finds the cloistered order living their lives plainly, bound by rules and bells calling them to prayer. Along with the Lord back for a second visit are a philanthropic American family, an art gallery owner and a photographer, all sharing the guesthouse when Max arrives to begin his investigation.

There will be tales of funds going missing or misappropriated, of poison berries, or family tragedies–and then the Lord’s body is found down the well and Max must kick his investigation into overdrive. A device Malliet uses is chapter epigrams from The Rule of the Order of the Handmaids of St. Lucy. Great fun and with a Poirot-like ending where the little grey cells of Father Max have figured out what’s really happening behind the abbey’s walls.

murderhoneychurch Across the pond, Hannah Dennison, author of the Vicky Hill mysteries, debuts a new series with Murder at Honeychurch Hall.

The Devon setting, home to Agatha Christie’s Greenway and where she grew up, seems like a character in this humorous opener featuring Katherine Stanford, known to as Kat, a television celebrity leaving that life behind, who thinks she’s getting ready to launch the antique business she’s always wanted to run. Her partner and newly-widowed mother, Iris, has a huge surprise that throws a wrench in Kat’s plans: instead of going into business in London with Kat, Iris has bought a seriously dilapidated carriage house on the grounds of Honeychurch Hall, hundreds of miles from London.

With her partner David away for the weekend, Kat drives to Devon to see what kind of fix Iris has gotten herself into after breaking her hand, and discovers a host of characters that pale beside the ones Iris has been writing in her racy romances.

This is a modern-day Upstairs, Downstairs in some respects, with a lot of humor thrown into the mix as Kat at arrives at the Honeychurch Hall Estate on the River Dart and becomes involved in a family struggle to keep the estate intact as opposed to selling to developers. Iris’ part in all of this conflict is a puzzle to Kat, and its revelation will let Kat realize she doesn’t really know Iris at all.

The changes extend to Kat, with the vision she had for life after her television show needing to be rewritten. She begins to reconsider her fiancé, still married to Kat’s nemesis, and dragging his feet on the divorce. Devon proves to be anything but the boring out-of-the-way backwater Kat was expecting. There will be ghosts, an older countess and a young girl, the early death of the Lord’s first wife, as well as a Detective Inspector named Shawn who gets thrown into the mix when the manny goes missing– a DI whose phone ring tone is a steam engine. Things heat up with a murder as Iris’ past comes into play, and Kat decides she needs to rethink her future plans. This is the set up for a continued series in a delightful setting.
unwillingaccomplice
The mother/son writing team of Charles Todd have written their sixth Bess Crawford mystery that marks the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I. An Unwilling Accomplice finds the nurse and sleuth home on leave and assigned to accompany a wounded solder to Buckingham Palace for the King’s award.

Bess is smarting from the apparent loss of a patient, facing an inquiry by the army and her nursing service. But the fact that the hero was wheelchair-bound and shouldn’t have been able to leave his hotel on his own hasn’t seemed to clear her. She was assigned to care for the ailing Sergeant Wilkins when his orderly heads back to the battle lines. What she doesn’t expect is for her patient to go missing when she leaves him at his hotel room for the night. With the mores of the era, it isn’t proper for a woman, even a nurse, to stay in the man’s room overnight. But how and when did Wilkins go missing?

With Bess’ professional credentials being called into question, she faces scrutiny from her boss as well as having to answer to the local police as to why she simply let a man go missing.

Then her lost hero is found: Wilkins has been sighted in Shropshire, with a witness claiming he’s committed murder. Bess swings into action to find Wilkins and tries to get to the bottom of his actions. Constricted by the mores of women traveling alone and hampering her investigation, she enlists family friend Simon Brandon to help solve the mysterious disappearance, restore her reputation, and clear her name. It’s the only way to save her own reputation–before a possible deserter kills again.

The Todd’s bestselling series featuring Ian Rutledge also carries their accurate historical illustration of the era. This latest entry continues that atmospheric and realistic portrayal of this time period with vivid details and a complete grasp of setting.

 

Great Holiday Gifts for Readers #1 Sunday, Dec 8 2013 

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

For the next few posts, Auntie M is going to give reader gift suggestions for that reader on your list–and don’t forget it’s perfectly permissible to gift yourself!Poirotp0_v3_s260x420

Outsold by only Shakespeare and the Bible, Agatha Christie is the most widely published author of all time. Auntie M had the good fortune to visit her Devon home this this summer when in England. Greenway, on the River Dart, is just a few short miles from where Christie grew up and the home has been preserved as it was when she and her family were in residence, down to some of her clothes in her bedroom closet and her favorite lily of the valley in evidence on china jewelry boxes left on her nightstand. When entering her bedroom, a docent obligingly plays a brief taped interview of Christie talking about her writing process, and as her voice fills the room, her presence is felt everywhere. One expects hear the sound of her typewriter at any moment. The house was used as the setting for Christie’s Piorot novel, Dead Man’s Folly, and two others. The David Suchet/ITV televised version of the novel was filmed there. The home is only a brief ride from the seaside town of Torquay, where Christie frequently had tea with friends at The Grand Hotel across from the Torbay seafront. Don’t miss the chance to tour the house and lovely restored grounds that lead down to the river if you find yourself anywhere near this section of southwest England. But Auntie M digresses.

Golden Age writer Dorothy Sayers felt Hercule Poirot was “one of the few detectives with real charm” and there’s no mistaking readers’ fondness for the dapper Belgian, portrayed on television by actor David Suchet, causing Christie’s grandson, Matthew Pritchard, to regret she hadn’t lived to see his fine portrayal.

Now William Morrow has brought out a volume of over fifty of Christie’s short stories and novellas featuring Poirot, gathering them into one volume that would be the perfect gift for any mystery afficionado. Hercule Poirot: The Complete Short Stories has an introduction by Charles Todd. You cannnot go wrong with this one for any reader who enjoys mysteries, full stop. If Auntie M didn’t already own a copy, it would be the first thing on her list.

Morrow is also publishing Christie’s novels for e-book readers for the first time, so look for those, too.

 

Dennis Lehane teamed up with Ecco, an imprint of HarperCollins, to bring out a line of books he’s chosen. The second was Ivy Pochoda’s Visitation Street. pochoda-visitation_street

Vastly different from the usual crime novel, this is an exploration of the sociology of an urban area and surrounds the disappearance of a young woman in the rough neighborhood of Brooklyn’s Red Hook waterfront.

The setting is visually described, a reflection of Pochoda living across the street from a bar in the area and writing about the inhabitants she saw outside her window.

There are blocks to walk on and blocks to avoid; there are areas of gentrification and others of great demise, in a seemingly endless evolution that causes conflict between races and classes that she vividly and realistically describes.

June and Val are the two friends at the center of the story. The two fifteen year-olds are looking for adventure as summer is ending. June wants to find a party, but Val convinces her instead to forget boys and drinking and take a small raft out into the river.

When only Val returns, found semi-conscious in weeds along the shore, the story turns to exploring what really happened to June that night, and affects the community that suddenly becomes the focus of an investigation and will reveal the its secrets on more than one level.

The community’s response to June’s disappearance will be as varied as the complex but utterly believable characters Pochoda has created. Her lyrical prose led Lehane to comment: “Visitation Street is urban Opera writ large. Gritty and magical, filled with mystery, poetry and pain, Ivy Pochoda’s voice recalls Richard Price, Junot Diaz, and even Alice Sebold, yet it’s indelibly her own.”

 

Sue Grafton’s iconic Kinsey Millhone has given readers over thirty years of quirky delight with her singular reporting voice. W is for Wasted is the newest entry in the grafton wasted_p0_v2_s260x420series and fans won’t be disappointed.

The opening lines hook the reader immediately: “Two dead men changed the entire course of my life that fall. One of them I knew and the other I’d never laid eyes on until I saw him in the morgue.”

Kinsey doesn’t recognize the man she’s been called to the morgue to identify, but her name and phone number were found in his pocket.  He was a homeless man, known to sleep rough at times, and his body has been found on the beach.

Kinsey sets out to find out the man’s identity, not knowing how his death will merge with that of a murder six weeks earlier. A local private investigator Kinsey knows had been shot to death near the Santa Teresa beach in what looks at first like a robbery attempt that got out of control.

Things change dramatically when Kinsey identifies the homeless man and finds he’s linked to her in more ways than she could possibly image.

Grafton has kept Kinsey in first person throughout the series but recently added the points of view of several other characters in the later books. In this case, we see the dead PI, Pete Wolinsky, in third person and come to understand his last case and how it intersects with Kinsey’s own investigation.

All the usual people who are part of Kinsey’s circle are on hand, too, with some surprising additions. This is vintage and yet modern Grafton at her best.

 

Continuing with beloved series, we jump across the pond to England and Ruth Rendell’s Inspector Wexford, which will soon mark its fiftieth anniversary.17Rendell571848

Learning to adjust to retirement has been difficult for Reg Wexford in No Man’s Nightingale. He’s decided as a project to work his way through The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

Therefore it comes as a great relief when his old deputy, Mike Burden, asks him to tag along on some of the interviews after a female vicar is found strangled in her Kingsmarkham vicarge. They are each having difficulty getting used to their new roles but their friendship remains solid and honest, a hallmark of the series. That Burden has recently become a grandparent, in contrast to the five Dora and Reg Wexford have by their two daughters, shows Rendell has not hesitated to age her cast as time has gone by.

Vicar Sarah Hussain had many detractors: those who don’t believe women should be ordained; those who don’t agree with her outspoken views on church reform; those who object to her mixed race heritage. Born of a white Irish mother and an Indian father, Sarah is a single mother to a teenaged girl.

Adding to the complications that involve Wexford is that the same woman who cleans for him and his wife, Dora, cleaned at the vicarage and found the body. Maxine annoys Wexford to no end when she cleans, yet now she’s become a part of this murder investigation.

When Wexford finds a letter at Sarah’s house she was using as a bookmark, he sticks it in his pocket to look at later, but it’s several days before he remembers it and then has to confess his transgression to Burden. But it provides a clue to the dead woman’s past; a past that may have impacted on her death.

Rendell does her usual fine job of complex plotting and revealing character, while maintaining the banter between Wexford and Burden.

 

Ten-Lords-a-Leaping-265Ten Lords A-Leaping is the third installment in C. C. Benison’s series featuring mystery-solving and thoughtful protagonist, Father Tom Christmas.

This is the perfect book for Golden Age fans who aren’t looking for action-packed thriller but rather the kind of classic Christie cozy wrote, but in a contemporary setting.

There are red herrings, a host of suspects drawn from amongst the rivalries of an aristocratic family, and even a touch of magic.

Fr. Tom has been talked into skydiving for a fundraiser for his Thornfield Regis church’s new roof  , a prospect that leaves him wondering what he’s gotten himself into. Back on the terra firma after a rocky landing that sprains his ankle, he’s shocked to see two of the remaining skydivers appear to tangle in a mid-air fight before finally landing safely. The two brothers-in-law are Oliver, the 7th Marquess of Morboner, and Hector, the 10th Earl of Fairhaven.

That sprained ankle finds the widower vicar, his daughter Miranda, as well as their housekeeper Madrun, all guests for far longer than expected at the home of Lord and Lady Fairhaven, Eggescombe Hall. The vast castle with enormous grounds boasts a pool, tennis courts, ornate gardens, and a gatehouse for the staff.

When Fr. Tom finds one of the two men dead in the labyrinth on the castle’s grounds, the murder sets off a thinking man’s puzzle for Fr. Tom to solve.

Bennison thoughtfully provides a cast of characters and a family tree so readers can understand the quite complicated relationships between the many people staying on at the Hall. Bigamy, sex after hours, art forgery, and lies will all find their way into the mix during the days it takes Fr. Tom to unravel the murderer, and not before a second death.  Readers who enjoy British whodunits will have a ball.

 

1766Helensmith9963Helen Smith is the author of Invitation to Die, originally published in episodes as a Kindle serial. The award-winning author of novels, plays, and children’s books, I had the pleasure of meeting Helen at Bouchercon this year and found her as funny and original as her heroine in this new series.

At 26, Londoner Emily Castles finds herself once again looking for employment.

So when famous romance author Morgana Blakely, aunt of Emily’s neighbors, asks her to help out at a weekend romance writers’ conference she’s organized, she can hardly say no. How difficult can it be to organize gift bags and help out with a dinner?

When Emily shows up at the hotel, she’s immediately pressed into service and meets an odd assortment of attendees, some nursing old grievance, some holding hidden secrets, all determined to out do each other for the fans who will be present. There’s even an American blogger whose been invited to be a guest, but for some reason, Winnie Kraster hasn’t shown up.

Emily dutifully takes a call for Morgana and it’s from the missing Winnie, saying she’s been delayed. But hours later, a woman’s body is found on the estate bordering the hotel and it’s poor missing Winnie.

Detective Rory James is assigned to investigate the case, and it happens Emily met him when he was a constable. When Emily confides that she suspects someone involved with the conference is the murderer, Rory disagrees, hardly a happy event at a romance festival. Emily takes notes of things that occur to her or that she overhears, but it’s not until she has the help of philosophy professor Dr. Muriel that the pieces come together for her.

This is brain candy, as sweet as the violet cremes a chocolatier with a secret delivers to be put in each guest’s gift bag. Smith gives vivid scene-setting and over-the-top characters as suspects.  The humor is tongue-in-cheek about blogging, book reviewers, and writers. Emily Castles was introduced in a previous short story but will appear soon in her next adventure.

 

David Rosenfelt writes thrillers, too, but any of his Andy Carpenter novels  would make a great addition to anyone’s shelves. With his humorous bent alternating  with suspense, the series4000000leader00000000733689_s4

continues with Leader of the Pack  now in paperback. Andy is a lawyer and dog lover, and his own dog, Tara, accompanies him and is often a better judge of character than Andy. On the side, Andy runs a dog rescue, which mirrors Rosenfelt’s real life. More on that later.

One of Andy’s less successful cases led years ago to a murder conviction for his client, Joey DeSimone, but Andy has always believed the man innocent of the murders of Karen and Richard Solarno.

As a favor to Joey, Andy agrees to check on the man’s elderly and forgetful uncle, taking Tara along for the visits. Nicky Fats falls for Tara but once he starts muttering about taking out someone else, Andy’s interest clicks. Could Nicky know, in the confines of his confusion, who really murdered the Salerno’s? And how can Andy find out and get Joey a new trial?

With the help of his friends, Andy launches an investigation into the business dealings of Solarno’s company and soon finds himself almost dying. Coupled with other information he unearths, he’s able to convince a judge to give Joey a new trial.

This is where the fun starts, as the trial scenes will reach a verdict that gives Andy’s heart a twist. And then he really figures out what’s been happening.

This is a complex plot, despite the humor and the presence of Laurie, Andy’s love interest, and several friends from the series making reappearances. There will be the drug trafficking, the involvement of the FBI, and don’t forget the family business of the DeSimone’s, the Mafia.

While Rosenfelt manages to keep things light, he balances it nicely with intrigue, action, and a satisfying ending that ties up all the ends. And then some. An additional touch is the listing he adds at the end of every book of Acknowledgments to friends who happen to be famous, or maybe not even people, as in this volume where Andy and Cherry Garcia show up alongside Woody and Gracie Allen and Neil and Hope Diamond.

By the way, there is a real Tara Foundation that helps find homes for sick or injured dogs. To date the foundation has rescued over 4000 dogs from shelves, and Rosenfelt often houses dozens at a time in his Maine house. Another reason to buy this book for any dog lover on your list.

 

 

 

Frances Fyfield: Blood From Stone Sunday, Dec 1 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

images_049Auntie M had the pleasure of meeting Frances Fyfield at St Hilda’s this August, where her riveting talk proved what I’d already suspected: here was an intelligent criminal lawyer who had a terrific knowledge of human character and was able to translate that into the highly complex and readable novels I’d always enjoyed. Fyfield worked as a lawyer for the Crown Prosecution Services, where she learned first-hand about murder. Though writing is now her main vocation, the law and its ramifications continue to inspire many of her novels.

Auntie M thought she’d read every Fyfield novel available: the Helen West series, the Sara Fortune series, and several stand-alones, all carefully crafted and thoroughly enjoyable to read for crime enthusiasts.

Therefore, it was a delight to find a new release of one she’d missed through Witness Impulse as an ebook: Blood From Stone, which won the Duncan Lawrie Dagger Award from the Crime Writers Association when it first appeared in 2008.

Marianne Shearer is at the height of her career, a dauntingly successful lawyer, respected by her peers and revered by her clients, even though those who know her well understand the ruthless nature that drives her.  Her latest case had again resulted in an acquittal, although the outcome was principally due to the death of the prime witness after Marianne’s forceful cross-examination.

Then why would she commit suicide in a dramatic and very public way?

Is it possible that this wholly professional and unemotional lawyer been struck by guilt or uncertainty, or is there some secret to be discovered in her rigid yet comfortable private life? Thomas Noble has been handled the job of executor of her estate. Her younger colleague Peter Friel is determined to find out of that last trial held the reason for her taking her own life. Together Noble and Friel will attempt to find out the reason Shearer felt she should end her successful and comfortable life.

The transcript of Shearer’s last trial holds intriguing clues, and excerpts from it give the reader a clear picture of Shearer’s scathing style in court and her ability to demean and demoralize the prosecutor’s witness. Then the sister of the last victim becomes involved and may be the one who holds the key to the truth. A most interesting woman in her own right, Henrietta Joyce’s sister had taken her own life after being subjected to Shearer’s style. Hen finds herself helping Friel and Noble unravel the secrets of Marianne Shearer’s life.

Fyfield has the ability to create fully-realized and very human characters who immediately capture the readers interest and Blood From Stone is a perfect example of Fyfield’s highly satisfying novels.

This January, Witness Impulse will be publishing two more classic Frances Fyfield titles, available to e-readers in the United States. Auntie M thoroughly enjoyed both of these and can highly recommend each book. The first is another stand-alone and the second is part of the Helen West series. Both illustrate Fyfield’s strengths in characterization, complex plots, and highly readable books that will have readers searching for others.

UNDERCURRENTS will be on sale January 7, 2014

For twenty years Henry Evans has been haunted by the memory of Francesca, the one who got away. When he travels to England to re-connect with his long lost love, what he finds is a horrific shock: Francesca is imprisoned for murdering her five-year-old son. But Henry refuses to believe Francesca is guilty, even if she did confess – in chilling detail – to drowning her own child.  In his search for the truth, Henry will find that the darkest of evils are hidden deep beneath the surface…

“Psychologically astute yet eminently readable, UNDERCURRENTS offers the tug of true suspense while probing the eerie confluence of love and loss.” – The Washington Post

DEEP SLEEP  goes on sale January 21, 2014 and was a CWA Silver Dagger Winner.

Pip Carlton is a devoted husband and a highly respected pharmacist, cherished by his loyal customers. When his wife dies in her sleep, with no apparent cause, he is distraught. Comforted by his caring assistant, Pip ignores the rumors about Margaret’s death, relieved that the police seem to have moved on. But Prosecutor Helen West refuses to believe that Margaret simply slipped into her final slumber. As she probes deeper into the affairs of the neighborhood, she uncovers a viper’s nest of twisted passion, jealous rage, and lethal addictions.  As a sudden act of violence erupts, shaking the community, one lone man, armed with strange love potions, prepares to murder again…

 Several of the Helen West series have been serialized for television and her novels have been translated into fourteen languages. If you haven’t discovered the treasure of of the work of Frances Fyfield yet, you’re in for a treat. Don’t forget her when you’re looking for holiday gifts for your reading fans, too.

 

Lake District Murders with Style: Martin Edwards and Rebecca Tope Sunday, Nov 24 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:53 am

The glorious natural beauty of England’s Lake District, which contains its largest lake, rising fells, and every kind of tree found in the UK, hardly seems to present typical murder landscape. Yet Auntie M has chosen it twice for her own Nora Tierney Mysteries–The Green Remains and 2014’s The Scarlet Wench–and she’s certainly not alone. Two masters have series set in the land of Wordsworth and Beatrix Potter.

the-frozen-shroud-by-martin-edwards1With a strong feeling for the history of crime novels, Martin Edwards is the archivist for both the Crime Writers Association and for the Detection Club. His talk this year at St. Hilda’s reminded us that the Golden Age authors had more psychological depth than is generally acknowledged. Edwards’ knowledge of crime novels and history is extensive and he is a fascinating speaker.

Author of stand-alones, short stories and multiple essays on crime, he is best known for two series: the Liverpool Harry Devlin series and  the newer one that explores the Lake District and features DCI Hannah Scarlett and historian Daniel Kind.

The Frozen Shroud explores the hidden depths of the small yet remote and diverse locale. Highlighting the landscape and its ability to capture loveliness with menace are the hallmark of this series, confirmed in this sixth offering in the series.

With his vivid descriptions and an overlapping of murders to be solved, The Frozen Shroud capitalizes on a creepy local legend with links to the past and two murders on Hallowe’en that bear the same characteristics. Daniel Kind’s love of research of murder adds to the atmosphere, and Hannah Scarlett’s work situation, fraught with stress and coupled with the the rising tension between these two fascinating characters, adds to the texture of the novel.

There are plenty of red herrings that bring this series along classical lines, making it a totally satisfying and complex crime novel. The dialogue and prose are literate and realistic. Old hurts, revenge, misconceptions and plain old jealousy rear their head as motives. The characters living near the haunted ground of Ravensbank all have secrets with ties to the past, and it would be cruel to tell readers more without spoiling the plot. If you haven’t read this atmospheric series, now’s the time to grab one and then gobble them all up.

 

toprRebecca Tope, journalist and author, has four murder series in print: Den Cooper, Devon police detective; Thea Osborne, house sitter in the Cotswolds; rebecca topeundertaker Drew Slocombe; and now her newest series set in the Lake District and featuring florist Persimmon Brown.

I met Tope at St Hilda’s and again in September at Bouchercon, where her British perspective on the differences of mysteries by English and American writers added to her panel discussions. Warm and lively, Tope seems to find the time to write prolifically while living in rural Herefordshire, on a smallholding situated close to the beautiful Black Mountains. She raises Cotswold sheep along with two elderly dogs. Her evenings are spent spinning, knitting and weaving, and she takes commissions for big  pure wool throws and blankets.  Recently added alpacas will make soft baby blankets available. Now where does she find time to write?

Tope’s mind must be working all the time her hands are busy on new plots and characters. Introduced in The Windermere Witness, Simmy Brown’s Windermere florist shop seems an unlikely setting for involving her in murders. With her unconventional parents living nearby, running a B&B, Simmy is getting used to her new home post-divorce in Troutbeck. Her shop assistant, Melanie, and a smart teen, Ben, with a bent for investigation, form Simmy’s “team,” to the chagrin of the local detective, DI Moxon.    

The Ambleside Alibi, book two in the series, finds Simmy unwittingly providing an alibi for a murder suspect, immediately after delivering a bouquet to a grandmotherly sort, sent from a granddaughter the old woman apparently didn’t know she had.  

Then another elderly woman is found murdered and a host of family secrets will be unearthed that may or may not tie the two women together. Against her better judgement, Simmy finds the peaceful new life she envisioned for herself once more fraught with danger and murder. When an attempt is made on her life, she knows she’s become more involved than she’d ever imagined.

Moxon provides a nice foil to Simmy, a reluctant witness and even more reluctant investigator, as he becomes exasperated in his attempts to protect Simmy while finding a murderer. The relationship between these two seems unlikely yet possibly inevitable down the road, a side aspect to drive readers look for the third installment in the series premiering in 2014, The Conistan Case.

 

 

 

Elly Griffiths: A Dying Fall review and brief interview Sunday, Nov 3 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and mystery to die for , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

EllyGriffithAuntie M had the pleasure of meeting and talking with Elly Griffiths at Bouchercon, Albany.

The author of the Ruth Galloway series and winner of the Mary Higgins Clark award has a lively sense of humor and a warm personality.

She talked about the origins of her series, featuring the down-to-earth forensic archeologist whose independence and intelligence make her a delightful character readers are eager to follow.

Auntie M: Tell readers how you came up with the idea for the series.

Elly Griffiths: My husband was a lawyer who came to me one day and said he wanted to go back to school to be an archaeologist. I became interested in his studies and his work, and the idea was born.

AM: And Ruth?

EG: With my husband in school, we took a family vacation back to the Norfolk coast where I’d spent summers in my youth. I was thinking about a series as we walked along the beach by the marsh on a foggy day. Out of the mist, Ruth literally came walking to me, fully realized. I saw what she looked like, what she wore, down to knowing  what kind of cracker she would eat!

AM: Ruth is such a realistic, well-rounded person–smart, stubborn, still anxious about her role as a mother. You’ve handled Ruth’s relationship with Harry Nelson, the father of her child, with a great aching tenderness.

EG: They find themselves in an unusual situation. Harry is Catholic, so there’s that to consider, and he loves his wife. Can you love two people at the same time? I’m still working that one out . . .

AM: And readers will be waiting to see what you and Ruth have decided!                                            15814458

A Dying Fall is book five in the Ruth Galloway series.

Ruth is surprising herself by juggling motherhood of an 18-month old with the demands of her teaching and the annual university dig.

A call from a former classmate with news that one of their circle from university days has died in a fire brings Ruth memories of their time together: shared secrets, drinking bouts, sharing a flat.

Her memories take on a golden light and she rues she hasn’t stayed in touch Dan Golding. “Now she will never hear from him again.”

But the very next day after years of silence, Ruth receives a letter from Dan that changes everything. When Ruth asks Harry to look into Dan’s death, he asks an old colleague’s help–only to find the professor’s death was anything but an accident: the man’s door had been locked from the inside.

Then Ruth receives a call from Pendle University in Lancashire to consult on an important finding of Dan’s just before his death. She packs up toddler Kate and heads north with her friend, the Druid Cathbad, to Lytham, far too near where DCI Harry Nelson and his family are taking vacation with Harry’s family in Blackheath. Cathbad’s presence will lend its own surprising connection.

Dan was on the verge of a major announcement based on his discovery, which intrigues Ruth in her professional capacity as much as she longs to unearth the truth about the link between Dan’s theories and his murder.

What follows is a brew of old bones, neo-Nazis and New Age hippies mixed with trips to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and the archaeology of early Britain. The plot has enough twists and turns to keep the mystery alive, while Harry’s extended family are on the scene and their interactions add to the texture, at Harry’s obvious discomfort.

Griffiths weaves the archaeology into a compelling plot while she manages to update the characters’ private lives and move those forward. It makes for an intriguing crime story that will have readers looking forward to the next mystery featuring Ruth Galloway.

 

 

Continued Series Winners: James, Mays, Cleeves, Toyne, Rhodes, Billingham & Haddam Sunday, Oct 27 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:34 am

Auntie M is reading a ton of great series and wants to suggest you check out these continued winners.

dead man's time by peter james Peter James’ Roy Grace novels have captivated readers in the millions and he continues his powerful series with Dead Man’s Time. Set in Brighton, these police thrillers follow the Detective Superintendent and his relationship. The newest has the unusual premise of a prologue from 1922, when five-year-old Gavin Daly and his sister board a ship for Dublin after the death of their parents.

At the dock in New York, a messenger carries two things that will haunt Gavin for the rest of his life: his father’s pocket watch, and a paper with four names and eleven numbers written on it. Gavin pledges to find out the meaning of these things and spends a lifetime searching.

Fast forward to current time, and Grace is getting used to being a new father and the lack of sleep that brings. A string of burglaries have captured the attention of Brighton’s residents.

When an old woman is murdered and a huge cache of antiques she kept stolen, he is surprised when her family are only interested in one item: a vintage pocket watch. The victim’s brother is none other than an aged Gavin Daly, still on the hunt having amassed incredible wealth as the years have passed.

What Grace will find as he probes is a mixed bag of old revenge and new hatreds. He will become mired in the machinations of several trails, leading to the antiques world of Brighton, to Marbella and its crime world, and back in time to the crime families of New York.

And all the time he seeks to unravel this twisted scheme, a madman plots against his beloved Cleo and their infant son. A wonderful addition to the series, meticulously researched and intricately plotted.

Auntie M had the pleasure of meeting with Peter James this summer and found him warm and likeable, with a wicked sense of humor not unlike his protagonist.

 

Peter Mays’ Lewis trilogy captures the remoteness of the Outer Hebrides area and its stark beauty in his award-winning series that serves up the complexity of human relationships.

After the success of The Blackhouse, Mays second offering, lewisman300The Lewis Man, finds his protagonist, former DI Fin Macleod, bound by his past to help the family of islanders he is linked to by history and familial ties.

The father of his lover, Marsaili, has always maintained he was an only child, and enters a care home suffering from dementia when Marsaili’s mother has her fill of taking care of him.

Then a corpse is found in a peat bog, and far from being the historic body it is first thought, it is quickly ascertained that this body is far more recent–and is a DNA match to Tormod Macdonald, Marsaili’s father.

This winning novel shows the plot through Fin’s eyes and through the remembrances and clouded memory of Tormod, an interesting device that allows the story of Tormod’s upbringing to unfold, while explaining why he felt it necessary to claim he had no family at all. The climax will keep you reading well past lights out time to seek the improbable resolution to this complicated novel.

43627_TheLewisMan_TPB-Red.indd The Chessmen completes the trilogy. With his divorce final, Fin Macleod has moved back to Lewis and is working as a private investigator.

He is putting his life in Edinburgh and his police skills behind him. Or so he thinks.

He takes an assignment as head of security to track down poachers working a huge island estate, and finds himself reunited with old friends including Whistler Macaskill. Their history and that of their friends form the basis for the action that follows when a body is found in a crashed plane at the bottom of a loch.

May’s uses the device again of showing the past in episodes, this time through Fin’s remembrances. The 1919 tragedy of the Iolaire is recounted and haunts the action.

That loch discovery will change the very foundation upon which Macleod’s memories are built, for a secret being kept for decades by people Macleod thought he knew. At stake will be lives, his and others, and a girl who needs to be saved.

This gritty series has given readers surprising plot twists and brilliant characterizations throughout.

Readers can only hope May will take a page from Ann Cleeves, whose Shetland trilogy so thoroughly engaged readers that she decided to bring out a fourth volume.

 

Dead Water continues the story of Shetland Island detective inspector Jimmy Perez. Blue Lightning Spoiler alert: In a shocking twist in the third volume, Perez’s fiancee was murdered, Dead_Water_HB_fc_and the detective is still struggling with that loss as he shares custody of her daughter with the girl’s biological father.

Jerry Markham is a journalist from Shetland whose family run a pricey hotel and restaurant in the area. The young man had left the island for London and work on a bigger and more important paper.

He left in his wake a scandal involving a young woman he made pregnant, who has gone on to make a life for herself on the island and whose impending marriage to an older seaman nears.

Then Markham’s body is found in a boat right outside the home of the Procurator Fiscal, Rhona Laing, a contained woman with a tidy, bleak house, who outlet in a crew team marks an otherwise lonely existence, one she prefers on her road to political advancement.

With Perez on leave, a young DI from the Hebrides is called in to conduct the investigation. Willow Reeves represents an unusual character and she’s able to bring Perez into the case by using his local knowledge. She also gets him to start to look past his grief, as his detecting skills are brought into play.

The case seems to revolve around Sullum Voe, where Shetland’s oil and gas industry are centered, and the big story Markham was following that brought him home.

Then a second death occurs, muddying the waters, and Perez and Reeves will team up to unmask a killer. Readers will hope Cleeves, who also writes the wonderful Vera Stanhope series, will keep Perez afloat.

 

a-killing-of-angels-by-kate-rhodesKate Rhodes knocked our socks off with her first Alice Quentin novel, Crossbones Yard, a complex mystery whose shocking ending resounded with readers.

In this second installment, A Killing of Angels, the behavioral psychologist is back with a new case that finds her assisting the police again, despite her reservations after the nightmare of the first book.

Fiercely independent Alice is training for a marathon, despite London’s hottest summer on record. Her specialty in personality disorders makes her an expert at character analysis and an enormous help to the police.

The body in question was a suspected suicide, until a picture of an angel and a few white feathers are found stuffed into the victim’s pocket.

The killings continue and it’s obvious that the Square Mile and the banking world is the locus for the crimes. As Alice tries to help detective Don Burns with the case, she finds herself dragged deeper into the intrigue and the lives of the people involved.

Complicating matters are the journalists who keep the murders high profile, suggesting the killings are retribution for the banking world and its self-absorption.

Readers can’t help but be engaged with Alice and her complicated history, with Rhodes’ intricate plotting, and with her facility for choosing prose that matters, echoing her poetry background. This is a thumping good read.

 

Simon Toyne’s Ruin trilogy has captivated readers with the world he created in his series of a haunting conspiracy thrillers. Tower-2 p0_v2_s260x420Nonstop action and breakneck twists continue in The Tower.

Santus introduced readers to Liv Adamson and the prophecy that caused her brother’s death and changed her life.

The Key left Liv trapped in the Syrian Desert, with her erstwhile savior, ex-special forces Gabriel Mann, suffering from the deadly virus that originated in the Citadel, an ancient monastery at the center of the conspiracy.

Enter new FBI agent Joe Shepherd, at first glance an unlikely choice to work the case after a cyber-attack at the Goddard Space Center that disables the Hubbard telescope and the subsequent disappearance of the prize-winning scientist in charge, who has left behind a cryptic and chilling message.

But Shepherd’s background with degrees in astrophysics and computer science make him the perfect choice. Despite the secrets he is hiding, Shepherd’s investigation leads him to connect these new incidents with the explosion months ago at the Citadel and the viral outbreak that ensued.

Readers will be engrossed in Shepherd’s journey with the added pressure of the device ofa  countdown clock dogging his heels. Then unusual things start to happen around the globe, and it remains to be seen if humanity can be saved.

Things will come full circle, but what is that meaning of that phrase? It it the ending of everything known before, or an entire new beginning?

For the woman at the heart of it all, Liv and her destiny will change the way the world survives–if it can. This third novel successfully answers all the questions raised in the other two, while providing a meaning and reason for the episodes of the others.

Auntie M met with Simon Toyne this summer and his outrageous good looks and charm belie the complicated mind needed to create this new world and the roller-coaster ride his readers will find.

 

Hearts Sandp0_v2_s114x166 Jane Haddam’s Gregor Demarkain novels continue to entertain. In this 28th installment, Hearts of Sand takes the investigator to the old-monied town of Alwych, Connecticut.

Although Chapin Waring disappeared thirty years ago, the quarter of a million dollars she had with her from a series of bank robberies was never recovered. There have been no sightings of the woman and she’s rumored to be dead.

Then new rumors fill the town: that Chapin has been seen on the beach or in a store, and these prove true when her body is found in the family’s vacant home, a knife sticking out of her back.

As a retired profiler, Demarkian excels at reading people and this kind of situation is right up his alley. With the local police stumped, he’s asked to help them narrow their field of suspects, and there are far too many of them.

Research into Chapin’s life shows her to have been a manipulative girl within an inner circle, whose attraction to danger led to the bank robberies and a car crash that killed her accomplice. The remaining people of her inner circle are just as delectable suspects as are the victim’s own sisters. Haddam gets small town snobbery just right.

 

We’re back across the pond with Mark Billingham’s wonderful DI Tom Thorne series. Number eleven doesn’t disappoint: it’s vintage Thorne  The Dying Hoursat his crankiest and most recalcitrant in The Dying Hours.

Busted back to uniform after the horrific events in Good as Dead  and losing the title ‘detective’ while remaining an inspector hasn’t changed the way Thorne’s analytical mind works. Despite his demotion, and putting his budding relationship in jeopardy, Thorne’s instincts run true when he’s called to the scene of a suicide that doesn’t feel right to him.

Unable at first to pinpoint his unease, it soon becomes apparent, at least to Thorne, that a series of suicides of elderly people don’t ring true. One thing they all have in common is a lack of depression or sadness other suicides exhibit.

Try convincing the Murder Squad of that, though. The new head of the very team he once ran refuses to accept these might be the killings of a sick mind.

But any Thorne reader knows he will not take dismissal well, and he plunges into his own parallel investigation, calling on his former colleagues and few remaining friends to help out, despite that they must put their own careers on the line, and jeopardizing any sliver of career he might have left of his own.

This is vintage Thorne, from his predilection for country music to his doggedness once he becomes convinced he’s right.

Adding to the texture is Billingham’s ability to get inside the mind of the creepy villain, bent on revenge and justifying his horrific actions. By adding in the point of the view of the perpetrator, Billingham creates a wily adversary and gives readers a chilling glimpse inside the mind of a murderer.

 

 

Elizabeth George: Just One Evil Act Sunday, Oct 20 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and Series not to be missed , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:47 am

Don’t let the length of over seven hundred pages deter you from plunging into Elizabeth George’s new novel, Just One Evil Act. The eighteenth Inspector Lynley novel will leave readers knowing much more than a few Italian phrases once they’ve finished this tome.    images_012

The action centers on the reaction of Lynley’s sergeant, Barbara Havers, to the news her handsome neighbor’s daughter has disappeared.

Havers’ friendship with the girl, Hadiyyah Upman, and her father, microbiolgist Taymullah Azhar, has grown over the two years the duo were the detective’s neighbors.  In the last installment, Believing the Lie, Hadiyyah’s mother had waltzed back into her daughter’s life, surprising the girl, her father, and Havers, all seduced by the woman’s easy manner and ability to fabricate a believable friendship. Angelina Upman is a complicated woman keeping multiple secrets, a beauty whose family has disowned her for having a child with the married Pakistani scientist.

Months pass with no word on the child’s whereabouts, despite Havers’ digging and helping Azhar hire a private detective.

Then Hadiyyah is kidnapped from a market in Lucca, Italy, where she’s been with her mother and Angelina’s fiance. Desperate to help Azhar, worried for the child, Havers makes the fatal mistake of enlisting a tabloid journalist to force the British police to become involved in the British citizen’s abduction. To her dismay, it is Lynley who is sent to Italy to liaise with the British family.

This splendidly plotted novel takes readers to Italy, introducing their very different policing system, and the wily detective Salvatore Lo Bianco. While Italian phrases liberally dot these scenes, George cleverly manages to convey their meaning without direct translations. The intriguing setting is well-described and adds another layer to this complex novel.

In London, Havers finds herself embroiled deeper and deeper into career-killing choices. On the personal front, Lynley is trying to convince himself he is starting to put his wife’s death behind him, and finds himself drawn to an unsuitable zoo veterinarian. His past fling with Superintendent Isabelle Ardery confuses everything, and will impact heavily on Havers’ future.

At one point readers will think the novel has reached its climax right in its middle, only to find that what would have been an ending for another writer is merely a step into the convoluted story that continues to branch off and have fingers reaching right into the lives of all these characters on different levels. At one point a resolution will appear completely out of sight, yet there is an ending that will satisfy readers, even as it does not satisfy every character.

This is a multi-layered story of love and betrayal, and what lengths we will choose when the heart is involved.

 

Elizabeth Haynes: Interview/ Human Remains: Review Sunday, Oct 13 2013 

Award winning novelist and great read and mystery to die for , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:02 am

One of the goals Auntie M has in writing this blog is introducing US writers to great UK authors they may be missing. Elizabeth Haynes (Into the Darkest Corner; Dark Tide) writes quality crime novels you’ll want to seek out. Auntie M had the privilege at Bouchercon of interviewing Haynes about her newest thriller Human Remains. The first photo is of Elizabeth charming the audience as she moderates a panel. She is warm and personable with a wicked sense of humor, and we shared a delightful time together. Here are her thoughts on her work; the review follows.

IMG_2517HaynesAuntie M: Your first two books drew on your experience as a police intelligence analyst, yet Human Remains is the first to give your protagonist that actual job, a real glimpse into a civilian working for the police. Tell us how your job sparked this book’s storyline.

Elizabeth Haynes: Every morning we received a bland document, the Chief Constable’s report of all reported incidents for the last 24 hours. “Human remains found” is often noted with no name or details or identifier.  It’s an incident but not necessarily a crime if these people appear to have died from natural causes, yet it happens more often than you’d think and I wondered about these forgotten people.

Then I saw a documentary called Dreams of a Life, about 38 yr-old Joyce Vincent, whose decayed body was found in her flat three years after her death.  She was sitting on her sofa surrounded by Christmas presents she was wrapping and the telly was still on! No one had missed her, no had checked on her–she had no “key layer” of people who would have raised the alarm. I started to think: what if someone out there was responsible for these seeming natural deaths, how would I search for this to find a pattern? I gave that job to my character, Annabel.

AM: You have created some really creepy bad guys. How do you get close to them?

EH: The first two books were concerned with relationships and it felt easier to write them. This one differs significantly. Both Annabel and Colin are unsocial people, but for vastly different reasons. I see my books as a snapshot of my characters, a window to them. I love them all, even the baddies. At first Colin didn’t want to talk to me, and I suspect he’s more intelligent than I am. He does hideous things but he sees the beauty in what he does and believes in it.

AM: Whether it’s OCD, pole dancing, or neuro-linguistic programming, you do extensive research. It’s one of the bits I enjoy most in my mystery series–do you?

EH: I do enjoy research but I’ve learned there’s a fine line for me between what’s productive and getting track-tracked on something else that catches my fancy. For this book, I was comfortable with the analyst side of it but less so with the NLP and hypnosis. The forensics of decomposition were the hardest. I was sitting in a coffee shop with this huge book on decomposing bodies and after the first picture, I slapped Post-It notes over them all. I could read the text and absorb the words but that photo was disturbing and still haunts me.

AM: With a husband and young son, how do you fit writing into your personal life?

EH: I have a very good husband who gives me space to write when I’m in the thrall of it, although I’m very good at procrastination. I’m not predictable in my writing habits; it seems to come to me in waves or with the pressure of a deadline. I write in my hut with my dog, Bea, a Portuguese rescued podenco, sleeping on a bed next to me.

AM: When you read for pleasure, whose books are on your nightstand? And what writer influence you?

Elizabeth Haynes, cr Ryan Cox                                                                                                                                      Photo courtesy of Ryan Cox

EH: I receive free books all the time and have found some gems, but the authors I look for and read consistently are Ruth Rendell/Barbara Vine, John Harvey and Mark Billingham, amongst others. I’m going to start Michael Robotham’s in order soon. I’d say Alison Lurie’s Love and Friendship was a big influence on my wanting to write.

AM: What’s up for fans of your writing after Human Remains?

EH: Next spring’s Under a Silent Moon will be a police procedural with a twist: the appendix contains actual flow charts that are used by the police analyst for the DCI, Louisa Smith. There are multiple narrators, and in the next few in this series, several characters from previous novels will appear.

AM: Thanks to Elizabeth for sharing her thoughts with readers. Now on to the review of her latest thriller, Human Remains.  

          HUMAN REMAINS00_Annabel is a police analyst who keeps herself busy with work, her cat and her aging mother, while trying  to persuade herself she’s not lonely. When her cat investigates the next door neighbor’s house with shocking results, its Annabel who discovers the woman’s decomposing body. The woman’s absence was not noted, least of all by Annabel, who is disturbed to the point of paying attention to the other cases of “human remains found” in her area. Her talents at investigation soon lead her to find a surge in such cases, but she’s unable to convince her police colleagues to pay attention.

Colin is also a loner, but more by choice. His one friend invites him to meet the woman he’s interested in, with disastrous results. Colin is fastidious and highly intelligent, stuck in a mind-numbing job that pays the bills, and he takes multiple courses at night in subjects all related to the human mind. He has his own study of the human psyche in progress with appalling results, yet he’s convinced he has embarked on a wondrous experiment.

How the paths of these characters intersect, and the devastating results, form the basis for Haynes’ most chilling thriller yet. Readers will find themselves compelled  to trace the trajectory of this story that weaves several threads expertly. One of the hallmarks of all of Haynes books is the level of research she does that adds multiple layers of plausibility to her stories.

The story is told in first person by both narrators, bringing the reader right into their minds and emotions. Sprinkled in between are newspaper articles of the discovery of these bodies, and in a specially insightful twist, chapters from the victims point of view. How these ordinary people living ordinary lives fall prey to Colin through circumstances that could happen to any of us adds to the book’s harrowing tone.

This is an all-too-believable story of what can happen to people who live alone. Highly recommended.

 

Michael Robotham: Say You’re Sorry Sunday, Mar 24 2013 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:06 am

The incomparable Michael Robotham is back with my favorite psychologist, Joe O’Loughlin, in his newest addition to this stunning series. 13528436

The book opens with the musings of one of the two Bingham girls, two teens who went missing one night three years ago. It is Piper who talks to readers throughout the novel as she writes in her journal. Through her they learn of the horrors the girls have lived through for years. until one of them risks a daring escape.

Joe struggles with broken marriage and his relationship with his two daughters, most notably the older, Charlotte, a teen who prefers “Charlie,” and whom Joe describes as having “a smart mouth and a dozen different moods.”

Despite the heavy snow, Charlie is on her way up to London to spend four days with her father in Oxford. He’s to counsel her on a doubtful boyfriend and her behavior with the boy;  they will spend time together after his talk at a mental health symposium.

From the train window just outside Oxford, the train slows with the weather. Joe and Charlies glimpse a line of policemen moving across a snowy field. As their train moves slowly forward, they sees white-clothed crime scene officers struggling in the wind, trying to erect a canvas tent over the edge of a lake. They see what they are trying to shield: a body, trapped beneath the ice.

Their first full day together is interrupted by the sudden appearance of detectives, looking for Joe to consult on the ghastly murder of a couple in nearby farmhouse. Joe is not inclined to cooperate; this kind of thing has gotten him into trouble before. But Charlie, bored with the ancient town after one shopping spree, wants to see her dad at work, and soon Joe agrees to help with the case.

As he investigates, it soon becomes clear that these murders and the disappeared girls are related.

But will Joe figure out the murderer in time to save one of the missing girls?

The device Robotham uses of having Piper document her past and current habitats is chilling; her thoughts, so controlled and matter-of-fact to reality, show readers a young woman who was barely seen before, but will never be forgotten again.

For readers of the series who understand the struggle Joe has endured over several books, the ending will move you to tears.

Well-written, compelling, with complex characters, Say You’re Sorry‘s layered title will show readers its true meaning.

 

 

P M Terrell: Dylan’s Song Sunday, Mar 17 2013 

Award winning novelist and great read and Series not to be missed , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:19 am

dylans-song With past clients ranging from the CIA, Secret Service and Department of Defense, it’s no wonder that author P. M. Terrell uses her computer expertise and technical knowledge to highlight the drama in the fourth book in her Black Swamp Mystery series. Dylan’s Song is a romantic suspense novel with just a hint of the paranormal.

The book is a rousing good read. Suspense Magazine calls Terrell’s books “powerfully written and masterfully suspenseful; you have to hang on for the ride of your life.”

Terrell brings the reader to the Irish homeland of Dylan Macquire, whose character was first introduced in Vicki’s Key, a finalist in the 2012 International Book Awards and 2012 Best Book Awards in mystery/suspense.The charming Irishman is running from secrets in his homeland, secrets which will be laid bare in this latest episode.

Vicki Boyd is a psychic who uses her abilities in conjunction with the CIA. Able to travel to remote locations in her mind, Vicki provides startlingly realistic information for her boss Sam. Rounding out the main characters is Brenda Carnegie, a brilliant computer hacker related to Vicki and the best traveling companion Vicki could have when Sam sends the trio to Ireland on a dangerous retrieval mission.

Vicki and Dylan are a couple, which tangles Dylan’s proposed mission on several levels. She’s withholding important information from him, and the stubborn Dylan doesn’t want to go anywhere near his home town. Then a call from Father Rowan, who had been like a brother to Dylan, draws him back reluctantly to the village. The grandmother who raised him is dying and wants to see him one more time.

Suddenly, retrieving operative Stephen Anders seems more urgent. But a tricky complication exists: Vicki’s images show Anders has been kept in the cells of a former castle, one that now exists under one of Ireland’s famous peat bogs.

Dylan is a charmer and his love for Vicki is a big as it can be exasperating. Brenda proves herself to be a necessary compatriot, and Father Rowan in Ireland comes to the trios aid in several important ways. The spy angle is tinged with the sadness of Dylan’s last visit with his Mam, while the local traditions and customs are winningly described.

There will be local intrigue, too, as Dylan returns to the village he escaped from years ago, after hoping his past and its secrets would never catch up with him. All this raises the tension and the hurdles Dylan and the women will have to conquer: to rescue Anders, and to save their own lives.

Terrell does a fine job of getting inside each character while she transports readers from the small southern town of Lumberton, NC, where Vicki and Dylan have been living, to the rolling, fertile countryside of Ireland and the small village where they stay. The tension mounts as the retrieval operation for Anders goes horribly wrong, and just when it seems there’s time for readers to catch their collective breath, terror and danger strike again.

NC author Terrell has written fifteen books, including the historical suspense novel River Passage, which won the 2012 Best Book Award. Her original manuscript is so accurate it is now housed in the Nashville Metropolitan Government Archives for future use by researchers and historians in Tennessee. She is also the co-founder of The Book’Em Foundation, committed to raising public awareness of the correlation between high crime and illiteracy rates. You can read more about the yearly NC wing of Book’Em North Carolina, held in the town of Lumberton that features in her series, by visiting www.bookemnc.org.

 

 

 

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