Jean-Luc Bannalec: The Secrets of the Abbey Friday, May 22 2026 

Continued series winner and great read and police procedural and Series not to be missed , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 6:45 pm

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 Keeper by Tana French Wednesday, May 6 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and reviews , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:47 pm

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.

Highly recommended.

 

Spencer Quinn: Cat on a Hot Tin Woof Saturday, May 2 2026 

Continued series winner and humorous crime and Private detective , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 5:12 pm

I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Quinn’s Chet and Bernie Mysteries until I opened the first page and was immediately sucked in.

It takes a master author to write an entire book—or should I say series, as this is the 17th in this creative series—in the voice and point of a view of a dog.

Now I hasten to add right up front that Chet is not just any ordinary dog, not at all, a point he makes repeatedly. He is one half of the Little Detective Agency, the other half being his owner, Bernie Little, veteran war hero and private investigator.

Together, in a finely tuned partnership, Chet reads Bernie’s signals, using his prodigious nose to scent things out in their cases, including where people have been, and who they’ve been in contact with—which makes this particular new case right up their alley.

The internet sensation Miss Kitty and her owner, young Bitty, are bereft when Miss Kitty disappears. Chet and Bernie are soon on the hunt to find her as her huge following and new sponsors demand more content featuring the suave cat who sits on a purple pillow. A house cat, has Miss Kitty escaped and found freedom intoxicating? Or is there a more sinister reason for her disappearance, namely, a catnapping . . .

With one witness a pig named Señor Piggy, and the human witnesses all as likely to tell a lie as the truth, Chet and Bernie have their work cut out for them. Along the way there will be a murder or two, a few Miss Kitty scents and sightings, and an undersheriff who at first suspects Bernie of at least one of the murders.

The plot is a classic kidnapping mystery, with characters all finely drawn, including a pair of cowgirls. One of my favorite scenes in the book is how Chet describes their relationship: “Sisters or not sisters? What that all about? . . . Maud and Tish did not smell like sisters. They both smell somewhat oldish, but with more than a little juiciness to them, which you usually don’t get with oldish types. They were both also nice to look at, although their faces were not alike. In fact the closer you looked the more unalike they got…Human love has a special scent. Did you know that? It was the air right now.”

Somehow, Quinn manages to sustain this humorous but often philosophical mental narration of Chet throughout the entire book. His examines human emotions, relationships, moods, and his observations are on point.

No wonder then that I’m smitten with Chet, and you will be, too. Stephen King calls this: “Without a doubt the most original mystery series currently available.”

 

Murder by Mistake by Anne Cleeland Sunday, Apr 19 2026 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and police procedural and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 3:01 pm

Cleeland’s Doyle & Acton series bring its 23d offering with Murder by Mistake.

Featuring the fey Kathleen Doyle, the detective is married to the renowned Scotland Yard Chief Inspector, and they two have been involved in and solved many cases together.

But this time Doyle is on maternity leave at her husband’s ancestral estate with her third child, a girl to join two boisterous brothers. Several weeks earlier she’d spoken at a school career day. One little boy named Beck caught her attention, as he asked each speaker if they’d ever killed anyone.

Her new daughter broke her attention to him, but now in her dreams, she’s been told she must speak to the boy, as that will lead to a murder by mistake, possibly more than one mistake.

Reluctantly. and with the sense of prior cases being involved, the family return to their London home and Doyle is plunged into a new case when it turns out the boy’s father is missing, and there is a connection between the man and her own family.

Juggling motherhood, baby feeds, nannies and the like, Doyle nevertheless champoions the cause, helping Beck to find out the truth about his missing father, while danger mounts and the threads she pulls will unravel more than she could have imagined.

This series is a delight, full of charm, and this entryhits the mark, with returning characters at times interwoven into the plot. One of my favorites is their London butler and cook, Reynolds, who teaches Doyle the many lines that staff must not cross.

Nicely plotted, this is a bright and delectable read.

 

Connie Berry: A Grave Deception Friday, Jan 23 2026 

amateur sleuth and Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 2:27 pm

Berry’s sixth Kate Hamilton mystery keeps the series fresh, utilizing Kate’s antiques expertise and that of her business partner, Ivor Tweedy, in a unique way. Being married to DI Tom Mallory means Kate has an above-average knowledge of murder investigations, too, and has helped Tom in the past.

When an extremely well-preserved body is found at an archeological dig, it’s determined to be from the 14th century, and Kate and Ivor are asked to examine and evaluate the grave goods found buried with the woman’s body, which include a huge, valuable pearl. They meet the team who found the body, composed of varied personalities and talents.

Additionally, Kate is tasked as part of her private investigators work by the wealthy landowner, whose property contains the dig, with unearthing the idenity of the buried woman, who was pregnant at the time of her death. His own wife went missing nine years ago, and a museum of the plague-ridden village was her project, one he has continued in her absence as he struggles with his grief.

Then the lead archeologist, Dr. Simon Sinclair, is found murdered on the site with pearls stuffed in his mouth, and Tom becomes involved while also trying to track a killer in an unrelated death. Sinclair’s murder has numerous suspects, and with Kate on site, Kate works in concert with Tom to obtain inside information that might not surface in a formal police interview.

Berry does a grand job of showing how Kate uses resources and ancient documents to track down the identity of the murdered woman in the midst of Tom’s investigation into the modern murder. Then another set of bones are found to ratchet up the tension. Throw in Kate’s pregnant friend, the local vet and vicar’s wife, and you have a nicely rounded plot with local threads.

The interspersion of the cold cases with the new murder unraveling give rising tension to a well-done climax that makes sense. Don’t miss Berry’s author’s note at the end about the real-life discovery of a medieval body that gave her the storyline idea.

An excellent addition to a fine series~

 

Bruce Robert Coffin: Bitter Fall Thursday, Jan 22 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 5:25 pm

Coffin’s second Det. Brock Justice novel more than continues the promise of the debut in the series, Crimson Thaw, with an atmospheric and charged story.

With baggage from testifying against a fellow officer following him, the state police officer and his partner’s new case takes them to the autumn back roads of small town Maine, where a woman’s body has been found at the roadside. Originally thought a victim of a motor vehicle accident, a stab wound is found on Summer Randall’s body that clouds the cause of death.

Mentoring Detective Chloe Wright, their investigation soon shakes up the small towns near Moosehead Lake, and out fall plenty of suspects. Justice and Wright follow different threads into Summer’s life, but soon Justice is running a parellel case of his own: trying to prove the officer he’d testified against is dirty to the point of unbelievable actions.

There will be affairs in the victim’s past that muddy the waters, while poachers, including a veteran who lives off the grid, all come under scrutiny and add to the tension.

This is a well-plotted police procedural that keeps the action going, and Coffin succeeds in bringing the back woods of Maine to life, populating the novel with realistic characters, while imbuing the case with a sense of urgency matched by his care to find Summer’s killer.

As an added treat, there’s a brilliant ending twist that elevates this very readable book you won’t want to put down.

Highly recommended.

 

SJ Bennett: The Queen Who Came in From the Cold Wednesday, Dec 17 2025 

Continued series winner and great read , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 2:55 pm

Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series is a favorite of Auntie M’s, and by going back in time to the Queen’s earlier years, Bennett has given herself plenty of years to travel through cases with the lively woman who would go on to serve her nation for decades.

In this one we are brought to the height of James Bond fever. It’s 1961, with Prince Charles now 12 and Princess Anne at 10 already in love with horses. The Queen is on the royal train with her entourage that includes her sister, Princess Margaret, and her photographer husband, Anthony Armstrong Jones.

It is after dinner that one of the group claims to have seen a murder from the train’s window, not seen by any of the others who were all in the dining car. An unreliable witness, her claim still must be investigated as it has recently come to light that a photographer friend of Tony Armstrong Jones is missing.

The Queen relies on her assistant private secretary, Joan McGraw, to help her work the investigation amidst the threat of the Cold War, and an important upcoming visit to Italy with time on the royal yacht Britannia, where the Queen Mother makes an appearance.

What follows is a well-crafted mystery as the Queen uses Joan to help her get to the bottom of the death of the body seen from the train. Elizabeth’s wit and intuition is called on, and her ability to use her staff to her ends is delightful.

A marvelous addition to a fine series.

 

The Quiet Mother: Arnaldur Indridason Saturday, Dec 6 2025 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and police thriller , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 6:52 pm

A master of Icelandic noir, with several popular series and many awards to his credit, Indridason bring a new Detective Konrad mystery to readers. And if you have read some of his others, there are a few brief references that canny readers will catch.

Now retired, the detective continues to pursue his father’s killer. This cold case of the murdered man, not a pleasant person, has occupied Konrad over several years but readers will be quick to understand his background if this is their first read in the series.

It’s not just this case that takes up his time. When a Reykjavik woman is found murdered in her home, Konrad’s phone number is on her desk and he’s notified by the current detective on the case. Valborg had approached him recently, asking for his help in finding the child she gave up for adoption many years ago, over fifty in fact, and faced with that kind of time lag, Konrad hadn’t acquiesced.

But now that she’s dead he feels compelled to figure out what happened to her child, despite having very little knowledge, not even the sex of the child.

This is where Indridason shines, in following Konrad’s private investigation as he ferrets out leads and information from almost thin air as he digs into the woman’s past. It’s a complicated route but one that leads to an unexpected resolution, with surprising stops and starts along the way.

As the tension rises, crimes from the past are unearthed. This is an absorbing story of the echoes of old crimes that last through the years.

 

Anne Cleeland: Murder in All Patience Sunday, Nov 9 2025 

Continued series winner and great read and humorous crime and mystery to die for and police procedural and Series not to be missed , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 11:41 am

The 22nd Doyle & Action mystery is just as fresh and compelling as the first in this long-running series, which continues to delight readers. With Sir Michael Acton and Lady Acton married police officers, Acton’s way of handling justice often has the Irish Kathleen exasperated as she tries to rein him in.

Her fey nature is helpful to him, though, and Acton enlists the very pregnant Kath to ascertain when witnesses are lying. Aided at times by ghosts only she sees in dreams, she juggles two young boys at home with minimal help. This third child is a girl, and Kath’s imminent delivery has sidelined her to easier tasks.

So when Acton tells his beloved wife he is arranging a charity gala at his ancestral home, Trestles, where a play will entertain the guests, she is immediately suspicious that more is at work, as Acton is known for his devious ways of handling things. A cold murder case mixed with an art-rig gang are at the forefront, as is a fortune to be inherited. Kathleen knows this play is a ruse for more serious business.

The chosen play is a fictional court case revolving around the characters of Sherlock Holmes’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, and soon Kathleen can see parallels to their cases. There are romantic entanglements to sort, murderers to catch, blackmailers to halt–it’s all in a day’s work for this duo who remain devious and charming together. There’s even an evil man confined to a wheelchair whose silver-headed cane may or may not contain a gun.

Cleeland’s plot evolves as Kathleen tries to find out what her exasperating husband is really up to, and this time even she is surprised. A delightful addition to an entertaining series.

 

Peter James: The Hawk is Dead Sunday, Nov 2 2025 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and police procedural and police thriller and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 2:07 pm

Peter James’s long-running DCI Grace series, now on BritBox in a grand adaptation as Grace, has just published his 22nd in this series, The Hawk is Dead.

The backstory to this novel is fascinating: Her Majesty Queen Camilla, a huge Grace fan, asked him when she was Duchess of Cornwall in 2019 if he couldn’t see a way to bring Sussex-based Grace to London. After kicking the idea around for four years as he worked on other projects already under construction, James figured out a plot what would allow him to bring Grace and a few members of his team to the Palace.

And that kernel of an idea started when James read that the 775 rooms in Buckingham Palace were to undergo a major renovation, which would take place over the course of several years, not just for updating and modernization but for safety reasons. The Royal Collection consists of over a million very valuable art and objects held by The Crown, many in Buckingham Palace.

From that grew the idea for the entire novel, and the beginning of exhaustive research, which included James being given inside tours of the palace, and even learning how to drive a train! Always giving his realistic police procedurals a grand plot, James knocks it out of the park with this one, literally, by taking Grace from his Brighton territory to Buckingham Palace.

His team becomes involved when the Queen is traveling by train to visit hospices along the south coast. Her train must be evacuated after being derailed inside a tunnel. A harrowing scene from the train driver’s point of view brings the accident to life, and as the Queen and a trusted advisor exit the tunnel, shots ring out. While the Queen narrowly misses being assassinated, Sir Peregrine Greaves, Private Secretary to Their Majesties and one of the most senior members of their household, is killed.

Grace has a nagging feeling the Queen might not have been the intended target, and readers are treated to insights into the workings of the Royal Household, and its pecking order, as well as an extensive treatment of the glories contained within the huge building as the investigation ensues.

With attention turned to the household, when a diary Sir Peregrine kept in code, more matters come to light and soon Grace and his team, especially his long-term bagman DI Branson, must sift through Not-My-King protestors; territorial tiffs with the Met, who want to take over his investigation; and missing artifacts. Then a second body is found…

This was one of the most enjoyable Grace novels to date, and as usual, gives us a window into his home life, too. But James’s intricate plotting with its exploration of life within the royal household make this a gripping story.

 

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