One of Japan’s most read novelists, Jiro Akagawa’s A Game of Cat and Killer is the first in his long-running series first published in Japan in 1978, and now translated into English for the first time.
The cat in question is named Holmes, and while he’s not a talking cat, the feline does have an unusual way of bringing clues to his owners’ attention. After reluctantly adopting Holmes, Detective Yoshitaro Katayama takes a while to realize how Holmes can help him, but once he figures it out, he accepts the cat will be a welcome helper.
Katayama is a shy man with many fears, and it’s only his good instincts and dogged attention to detail that allows him to solve crimes. In this first in the series, he’s called to a woman’s college to investigate when a young female student is found murdered.
Soon he’s mired in more than one investigation, and while his aunt distracts him with matchaking, he’s drawn to a comely student instead.
The writig is sharp, with sprightly dialogue, while the plot is nicely twisted. It’s a heartwarming read from a multiple literary award winner, with sales of his books making him the highest of any Japanese author.
Cleeves’s 4th Detective Matthew Venn novel opens during a heat wave in North Devon, an area Cleeves know well, having grown puu there, and she puts this sense of local knowledge to great use in her setting.
Venn’s new case starts off with the body of young woman found floating in the pool of MP Paul Armstrong’s vacation home. The dead girl, Lottie Caldwell, is friends with Hannah Armstrong, who appears to be missing. With the girls arriving before the family at the end of their exams, they’ve had a few days alone to celebrate, and also it will be revealed to create a particular brand of disquiet in the small town of Millscombe.
The Armstrong parents and two young brothers arrived to find Lottie’s body and Hannah missing. Could this be a kidnap gone wrong? Until tragedy strikes again, and suddenly Venn and his closeknit team have a double murder to solve. With a local folk festival in the area over the past weekend, a nearby farmer’s family who Hannah’s grown close to, and the local pub owners involved with the girls first days home, the suspect pool quickly widens.
There is a sense of claustrophobia in the setup of the local area, with everyone knowing everyone else’s business, and their gossip pervades every aspect of Venn’s investigation. It doesn’t help matters that he’s struggling with his husband Jonathan’s decision to find his birth mother.
The book has a terrific atmospheric sense of setting that buttresses the vivid characters, all finely drawn, distinctive and individual. Introspective and at times unsure of himself, Venn is Vera Stanhope’s direct opposite, yet just as worthy a detective with his own way of pursuing an investigation, and his belief that his leads will come from learning about the victim’s lives and of those around them. How we are perceived can vary greatly, as can what will be said about people when they are alive versus when they are dead. The secrets these characters keep must also be prised open to get to the heart of the matter.
Intriguingly plotted, at times the reader feels as Matthew Venn must, that the elusive truth is just hidden around the next corner, a wisp of reality waiting to be seen. And when the shocking ending occurs, it must be said that it was there all the time in our view and yet remained unseen.
The author of the popular Vera and and Shetland series does not disappoint. This is terrific writing and stands up with the best Cleeves has written. Highly recommended.
Fans of Miss Marple, take notice! As the Christie estate authorized author Sophie Hannah to write new Poirot mysteries, they have now authorized a new novel featuring the elderly spinster sleuth. Lucy Foley’s own bestselling books (The Guest List, The Paris Apartment, et al) make her the perfect author to bring readers her rich storyteling in Murder at the Alpine Hotel. As a huge Christie aficionado, she makes certain to adhere to the spirit of the Miss Marple we know and love, creating a unique bridge from the original novels to engage us with new stories.
Chrisite fans will appreciate Foley including Mrs. Dolly Bantry (1942’s The Body in the Library) as Miss Marple’s traveling companion when the two women, along with Dolly’s paid companion, travel in the winter of 1950 to the Swiss Alps to the glamorous resort that will give them a winter holiday amongst an interesting mix of guests.
But the holiday feel is soon jeopardized when a huge snowstorm isolates them in the Grand Alpine Hotel, just as a guest’s dead body is found inside the hotel’s mountain gondola. A sealed environment with a cast of suspects makes the perfect setting for the investigation Miss Marple carefully undertakes after volunteering to assist a French detective staying at the resort.
Soon several guests who were associated with the dead man come under the careful scrutiny of Miss Marple as more bodies pile up, with a most surprising climax that has several twists at the end. The post-war setting has its tendrils in the plot, and Foley gets the feel of the time in this European setting just right.
There are scenes from several suspects’ points of view, adding psychological depth to the story that is Foley’s specialty of strong women. There are nuns, a Hollywood actress, an MP and his wife, as well as an Irish Wolfhound, all bound up in a morally complex plot.
At first Miss Marple appears frail and hesitates to become involved, but once she’s in full swing, knitting away while bringing her comparisons of village life to the forefront, the beloved character rises again with her acute observations, and we are satisfied and happy to read the first Miss Marple mystery since Christie’s Sleeping Murder in 1976, the same year Christie died. The British Library is mounting an exhibit on the 50th anniversary of her death. Christie’s books are still outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.
Nothing misses the eagle eye of Miss Marple. Readers will agree when Foley has Dolly Bantry tell Marple, “Jane . . . I hope you won’t mind my saying this, but it is almost uncanny, your ability to think yourself into the mind of a murderer.”
Delicious and entertaining, grab this milestone book now.
Brittney’s 7th installment in her Mayfair 100 series, set in London during World War 1, brings the same attention to historical detail as the rest of this fascinating collection of stories that encompass a murder investigation while examining the societal constraints and mores of the era.
With a special task force set up to include women, DCI Peter Beech, invalided out with an injured leg, leads the team that includes two other policemen, Sgt. Arthur Tillman who has come out to retirement to help, and invalided constable, Billy Rigby. The competent women who assist them are Women’s Hospital physician Caroline; Pharmacist Mabel; and solicitor Victoria, who is qualified but unable to practice law as a woman. They are aided by Billy’s mother and aunt, while the team is headquartered in Victoria’s mother’s house. Lady Maud Winterbourne has allowed her Mayfair home to be the center for the team, whileher society connections often prove invaluable.
It’s February of 1916 and The Military Service Act has been passed, which in the US would be called the draft, making military service compulsory for single men between 18-41. The first victim, which Victoria had encountered shortly before her murder, is a young woman who shamed a man for not signing up by handing him a white feather.
The White Feather League used these women to indicate they regarded the men as cowards. While often that was not true, as a man might have served and been invalided out, the league’s actions raise the ire of Victoria, already widowed, who fears her new love will be conscripted.
The dead girl is found with her throat cut in a distinctive way, and soon a young art student designing recruitment posters is murdered with the same unusual implement. When a third woman is attacked but wards her murderer off, there is hope she can identify her would-be killer, but at first she is kept in a medical coma, unable to be questioned. The Mayfair team is tasked with warning women involved in promoting this kind of propaganda, but the numbers are heady and the task difficult, while at the same time they search for details in each killing for leads.
Woven into the investigation, Caroline and Mabel are asked to inspect a factory contructing aircraft where women are falling ill, and there is a suspicion that the chemicals used in their process are causing permanent health damage to the workers. This fascinating subplot will capture readers attention as it leads to new restrictions.
Then the search for the killer ratchets up when one of the team disappears without a trace. Could the killer have taken their member off the street? The compelling story rises to a riveting and surprising climax.
The hallmark of the series is Brittney’s consistent and realistic historical detailing, reflecting the enormous research she must undertake in many areas to bring this kind of multi-layered story to readers.
Will Thomas’s Barker and Llewelyn series in one one of Auntie M’s favorite historicals with good reason, as his research is meticulous and often based on real events. He returns with the newest in this long-running series with For Services Renderered.
It’s October of 1986, and Barker and Llewelyn, private enquiry agents, have a long established daily routine that is shaken to its very core when their cook, Etienne Dummolard, chef owner at Le Toison d’Or, fails to appear to cook their breakfast. When he is taking his family to Dijon to avoid clashing with his sworn enemy who ate dinner the previous night at his restaurant.
The news is particularly startling because Barker killed Seabastian Nightwine in a duel, yet Eitienne insists he’s alive.
Unfortunately, this turns out to be true. The evil man makes enemies easily and never forgets a grudge. He trained his only daughter to be an assassin, and is dangerous beyond compare as he runs through money and will do anything to earn more, even to kidnapping British citizens who have angered the Qing government years ago in China and still have a reward on their heads. Yet his charm amuses many, including the Prince of Wales, who has not seen his dark side.
So when Barker’s paramour, Lady Phillipa Ashleigh, visits to say she’s received a message from Nightwine, Barker is on instant alert. Coveting Barker’s relationship with Lady Phillipa makes Nightwine doubly treacherous. Soon she and Llewelyn’s wife and young daughter are on their way to Paris, out of harm’s way.
But not before a visitor to their office gives them another, possibly related, case. Dr. James Cantlie begs the two detectives to find his missing friend, a young doctor he mentored who has disappeared, named Sun Yat-Sen.
What follows is a double espionage situation with Nightwine at their heels as the men try to find the young kidnapped doctor, born in China but raised in Hawaii. Learning that the Qing government has declared a price on the man’s head for a letter he sent to the government complaining of their methods, Barker suspects Nightwine is at the heart of the man’s disappearance.
Their investigation will take the two men into the heart of the Cbinese embassy who are holding the young doctor, with Nightwine planning to smuggle him out of England to face execution in China. Only the wits and wiles of Barker and Llewelyn can stop this plan from coming to fruition.
Using Llewelyn as narrator adds an element of the Welshman’s pithy observations in this wholly entertaining novel.
How does a multi-award-winning author keep a series interesting through 39 books?
By developing varied, quirky, and interesting characters, then placing them in a charming rural setting, and filling her stories with tidbits about nature, all wrapped up in a mystery that is not so much needing to be solved as proving what lead protagonist Meg Langslow suspects all along.
The blackmsith is hoping for some forge time when her family’s good friend Ragnar Ragnarsen calls with an urgent plea: can she and her family help with the many volunteers needed to care for fifty horses suddenly displaced from their equine rescue?
All of Meg’s family become involved, including her twin teen boys, her zookeeper father, her doctor dad, and her theatre director husband. Ragnar’s estate closely resembles a moated castle, complete with many of Meg’s gothic iron decorative and useful items on display. The huge fields surrounding the estate are soon broken into staging areas for the horses, many who have just been rescued from auctions and need to be triaged, while others need room to roam.
The rescue farm’s owner recently died without leaving a will, forcing Hoof and Hearth to temporarily rehome the horses as his two sons argue the legalities. While older son Abel is in favor of the rescue on the land, the younger, George, wants to sell the land for development, and isn’t above using threats and shady characters to reinforce his position.
Meg’s family camp out to keep watch over the horses after George’s thugs appear—until one of them is found murdered, and suspicion falls squarely on Abel.
Now Meg must juggle watching her family and the horses, while she helps to unmask a killer, and learns how to care and cajole horses of all personalities, including one due to deliver any minute.
The research Andrew’s brings into every aspect of a horse’s life make this story, along with its humorous bent, an entertaining read with this satisfying entry.
French introduced fingerprint analyst Shaw Connolly in her thrilling first in this Maine series, Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell. Along the way, readers learn the intricate work these analysts perform and how involved they become in their cases.
Still reeling from the events of that novel, where she faced down her sister’s killer after years of hunting for him, she finds herself in the midst of a new case of missing woman discovered in a submerged car.
Her only clue is a single fingerprint belonging to a dead ex-con, which leads Shaw to investigate, with startling results.
In the midst of this, still grieving and trying to find peace in her life for her remaining sister, her two sons, her elderly father, and her estranged husband who wants to reconcile, a new wrinkle occurs: she’s asked by he state police contact if she will be willing to talk to her sister’s killer, in prison awaiting trial. The diabolical Anders Jansen claims he has information on two other cold cases, both of young women, but refused to talk to anyone about them unless Shaw agrees to participate in the search for their bodies.
Pulled in many directions, and with her own misgivings at the forefront, Shaw knows the years she and her family suffered by this man’s maliciousness, and reluctantly agrees.
This is a multi-layered plot that starts out hard and has a relentless pace. Add in characters so real they jump off the page and grab you by the throat and readers will find a book that’s hard to put down.
Penney’s second Ravensea Castle mystery takes place as herbalist Nora Asquith’s brother, Will, has set up a Viking festival on the castle’s grounds the following week. Now running the castle as a bed and breakfast, her actress sister Tamsyn arrives to lend hand at the festival. Also arriving a few days before are a crew of ghost hunters, filming for the BBC for Britain’s Got Ghosts.
With her detective boyfriend, Finlay, coming to dinner to see the first filming, Nora is in a great mood when her father introduces the sisters to an unexpected guest: Professor Norman Tweedy from the University of York. Tweedy has found research that indicates Rusla, the Red Maidan Viking, may have left a treasure hoard at Ravensea. He proposes to assist Nora’s father in searching, for a split of the profits once sold to a museum, of course.
But things get off to a rocky start when the four members of the film crew arrive and realize they have their own history with Tweedy, and it’s not positive. Then the accidnets start. Two of them along with Nora find themselves locked into a dungeon under the castle; one of the filmmakers suffers from an odd poisoning, and soon after, despite wonderful ghost sightings and great footage for the series, a murder occurs during the Viking festival.
Penney uses the history of the area, along with Finlay’s expertise, to aid Nora’s sleuthing as she fears continuing accidents at the castle foretell yet more death to follow.
Penney’s recurring characters are well drawn and provide a nice background to the newer participants as the mystery deepens. Will a murderer be found? And what of the hoard, which would provide nicely for the repairs needed to other castle?
Bannalec’s Commissaire Geroges Dupin series brings readers to delightful Brittany, this time October, where the days are still sunny. I’ve known readers of this series who have traveled to some of Bannalec’s settings due to his descriptions.
This case hits close to home for Dupin and his team. After several supersititous omens of death, his second in command, Inspector Kadeg, has lost his aunt. The old abbey where the woman lived is the perfect yet tense setting when Kadeg visits and is seriously attacked.
Dupin brings his team to get to the bottom of the mystery at the beautiful abbey, filled with luscious gardens, a paradise of sorts, with it famous for its special apples. Only as the team scrape beneath the surface, they uncover secrets that belie the lovely setting, with family intrigue into the wealthy dead woman’s estate and secrets around those who will inherit.
Did Aunt Joelle die of natural causes, or was she helped along by someone desperate for their part in her estate? And what do rare birds have to do with it all?
It’s a classic Dupin mystery, with the glories of the region highlighted, and rich with character development.
The series is known for its love letter to the region, in this case, the Cote des Legendes region that springs to life under Bannalec’s talented pen with his team tracking down the truth. A most satisfying case with a lovely and tender ending awaits readers.
The third Cal Hooper novel finds the intrepid Chicago detective, now retired, thick in the midst of an unwanted investigation in his rural West Irish town of Ardnakelty.
A lovely young woman, Rachel Holohan, is on the cusp of an engagement to Tommy Moynihan’s Eugene. The local business man has his fingers in so many projects he has half the town beholden to him and the other half scared of him.
So when Rachel’s body is found in the river, her death sets off a chain of events that will have the town, Cal and his fiancee, Lena, and his ward Trey Reddy, more involved than any of them want.
And when Cal’s investigation gets too close to revealing Tommy’s underhanded machinations that threaten the entire town, the gloves are off as the two men match wits, with Tommy having the weight to spread rumors about Cal and Lena, while his grief-stricken son watches from the sidelines.
French’s ability to weave these disparate characters is on full display here, with the townspeople aiding or detracting, depending on whose side they’re on. Cal’s loyalty to his new neighbors will be severely tested, and impact his relationship with Lena. The emotions run high as Cal continues to find out the truth, and find justice for Rachel, sometimes forgotten as a pawn in the fight that ensues.
No one creates atmosphere and uses her setting to her advantage as much as French. Her use of language pulls the reader in to the unfamiliar landscape, and she evokes a mood with words. Her plot is cleverly constructed, too, and as the pain of loss doubles, a sense of impending doom falls over the town. It will take Cal and his mismatched band of supporters to find the real justice at the end of the day.
A brilliant end to the trilogy of Cal Hooper stories. While The Keeper certainly can be read as a standalone, if you haven’t read them all, (The Searcher, The Hunter) Auntie M urges you to do so if you are a fan of well-written, absorbing stories about people who jump off the page.
