THE GOLDEN HOUR: A Nora Tierney English Mystery #4 Monday, Jul 31 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 3:01 pm


THE GOLDEN HOUR is Auntie M’s 4th Nora Tierney English Mystery. It’s always exciting bringing out a new book, akin to birthing a baby. After the initial first draft, that lump of clay goes through multiple revisions: workshopping with colleagues to find the story; more revisions after beta readers chime in and point out areas that don’t make sense or need fixing; more rewrites after the “Britspeak” is corrected by wonderful UK friends. P D James told Auntie M years ago that “the real writing gets done in revision,” something she repeats to herself as a mantra when the going gets tough.

While the book tour isn’t until October into November, you can order trade paperbacks now on Amazon or through Bridle Path Press, and she recommends that latter if you’d like a signed copy! http://www.bridlepathpress.com.

Thanks to the talented Giordana Segneri who did the layout and that lovely domestic cover design; to Becky Brown, copyeditor; to Eagle Eye Pam Desloges; and to Beth Cole who did the Kindle files.

The book will be on Kindle later this week and this fall, in conjunctin with the tour, on Audible, with the wonderful British narrator, Nano Nagle, who’s done a wonderful job on the others in the series.

This one’s a bit different from her usual and Auntie M hopes you will enjoy it as much as Ausma Khan, Elly Griffiths and Sarah Ward, who all gave her cover blurbs. Great crime writers all, and she’s chuffed to have their names on her cover~

 

Claire Douglas: Local Girl Missing Sunday, Jul 30 2017 

complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:35 am

Claire Douglas, author of The Sisters, returns with an equally dark and creepy psychological thriller in Local Girl Missing.

Readers will rapidly become immersed in the story of two childhood friends, Frankie Howe and Sophie Collier. Sophie’s story is told in chapters that are diary excerpts from a time before she went missing.

Sophie disappeared and has been presumed dead for twenty years. Then Frankie, now managing her parents hotels in London, gets a call from Sophie’s brother, Daniel. Remains have been found near the old pier in their homemtown where Sophie disappeared. Daniel is awaiting DNA results and asks Frankie to travel back home to help him discover what really happened to Sophie.

How can she not go? Despite her father ailing with a severe stsroke, Frankie risks her mother’s disapproval to travel home to the seaside town where the three of them were raised. Daniel finds her a flat to stay in for the days she’s there, and the two start by talking to those who knew Sophie when she died, and still live or have returned to the area.

This includes Leon, that young man Sophie loved, and while Frankie soon becomes afraid of him, she can’t disappoint Daniel by leaving him to face things alone. It’s a complicated time, made worse by threatening letters Frankie starts receiving and glimpes of Sophie. Is it her ghost, coming back to warn Frankie?

Drinking heavily, upset by the memories, and afraid of the future, Frankie breaks off her relationship in London and thinks she just might be falling in love with Daniel.

This is a twisted tour de force of plotting and complexities, where no one is who or how they seem at first glance. A page-turner.

 

Fiona Barton: The Child Thursday, Jul 27 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:40 am

Fiona Barton’s debut, The Widow, thrust her into the minds of readers everywhere and introduced reporter Kate Waters. She returns with The Child, and it’s every bit as suspensful and well written, sure to please readers with its compelling story.

Journalist Kate is a seasoned print reporter trying to stay afloat in a 24 hr/online news world. She’s saddled with a trainee, Joe Jackson, just as a small article catches her eye when construction workers in Woolrich discover the remains of baby, long-buried and reduced to bones.

Besides Kate, the discovery affects two women: Angela, whose baby Alice was stolen from her hospital cot the night after being born; and Emma, a young woman whose secret has affected her entire life. Emma’s mother, Jude, raised Emma as a single mother and has a complicated relationship with her daughter.

Angela is convinced the bones are of her baby, Alice. Emma is convinced of something entirely different. Kate just wants to find the truth of the matter and the answer to her question: “Who would bury a baby?”Each woman, with Kate’s help, will find the answers they need to know.

Kate can’t let this story go, to the detriment at times of her own family life. She sets out to investigate the old neighbors who lived in that neighborhood, and uncovers tales of drugs, parties, illicit sex and more. She encourages Angela and is with the woman when her DNA is tested. And through a circuitous route, she eventually meet Emma and Jude.

Complicating matters is the way Kate must tread carefully between her job as a reporter to get the lead on the news, and the police investigation. Her detective contact is one she holds dear, and she must keep his confidence and that of the lead detective looking into the identity of the remains, while holding her editor at bay.

Each woman’s story is precisely told in this character-driven mystery, a taut thriller that explores the complex relationships we all hold with our families, our jobs, and our perceived identities. The suspense as the story unfolds will keep readers flipping pages to the satisfying denouement. Highly recommended.

 

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.

 

Bill Schutt & JR Finch: The Himalayan Codex Wednesday, Jul 5 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and thriller Auntie M Writes Crime 12:25 am

Action, adventure and science wrapped up together prove an explosive read in the second outing from this duo of Bill Schutt and JR Finch in The Himalayan Codex, the second book featuring zoologist RJ MacCready.

This time the adventure captain finds himself on searching the plateaus of Tibet for the legendary Yeti. For the post WWII era, 1946 is a time of rebuilding. MacCready heads to Tibet to examine mammoth bones that were recently discovered in the Himalayas.

Yeti may not exist, but a codex purportedly written by Pliny the Elder certainly does, giving rise to the theory of a new race of ancestral humans, whose presence gave rise to the stories of the Yetis, yet with one startling aspect–their ability to speed up evolution.

It’s a process that would bring with it benefits but also potential for devastation with no limits. Is this the truth? And if not, why would Communist Chinese among others be hunting him and his team?

There’s enough plausible science here with technical research to allow readers to suspend disbelief to enjoy the action-packed ride. A thorough author’s note gives a complete explanation on what is fictional, what is not, and just what might be possible.

 

Peter Blauner: Proving Ground Sunday, Jul 2 2017 

complex mystery and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

Author Peter Blauner took time off from novels to write for television, including co-executive producing Blue Bloods, but he’s returned to crime novels with Proving Ground, an urban crime drama where Brooklyn springs to life as do the characters he’d drawn.

Nathaniel Dresden’s law career can’t wipe out the memories and effects of his time in the Iraq War. He feels like he’s returned to a world he no longer recognizes.

Then Nathaniel’s father is shot and killed in Prospect Park. When he returns to Brooklyn, Natty sifts through his father’s papers, and finds in his records troubling evidence of a plot against his father.

David Dresden defended too many criminals to make NYPD happy, with his controversial activist stance adding to their ire. There are almost too many suspects who might have wanted him dead.

The detective investigating David’s murder is Lourdes Robles, working in her own shadow of disgrace. Trying to save her career, Lourdes is determined to figure out who murdered David, and who wants to keep that knowledge secret, knowing that even her colleagues are against her investigation.

The juxtaposition, and jostling against each other, between the wounded Iraqi war veteran and the brash Latina detective–two “mongrels”– make for some interesting reading and keep this successful novel character driven, even as the plot intensifies and ratchets up. The ending will surprise readers as some things will come full circe, while other do not.

Accomplished and highly readable.

 

Brian McGilloway: Bad Blood: A Lucy Black Thriller Friday, Jun 23 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:31 am

Brian McGilloway’s Lucy Black series, set in Northern Ireland, returns with the compelling Bad Blood.

Not one to shy from controversial topics, McGilloway tackles Lucy’s latest case head on, when a community becomes overwhelmed with tragedy.

A young man is found in a park, dead from head wounds, and with a stamp from a gay club on his hand. Concurrently, a hate-speech pastor was heard spouting the advocacy of stoning gay people. Could the death be connected to his talks?

At the same time as Lucy and her boss, DI Tom Fleming, try to cool things off, a Gay Rights group become involved, showing up and demonstrating at the pastor’s talks, while a far-right group target new immigrants who’ve moved into the area.

There will be vandalism that escalates to assault, arson, and more deaths before Lucy and her team, who are undergoing their own stresses, can figure out who is behind the various issues. There are turf wars within the community, and an escalating drug problem that adds to the tension.

Set against the days leading up to the Brexit vote, this highly current and compelling thriller will have readers flipping pages as Lucy and her team try to figure out who is responsible for what, when she finds herself on the receiving end of some of the ugliness.

The complex plot all makes sense in this end in this enjoyable read that will have readers searching for others in the Lucy Black series.

 

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