Ragnar Jonasson: Blackout Tuesday, Oct 2 2018 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:17 am

Jonasson’s Dark Iceland series has been a hit. Featuring policeman Ari Thor Arason, the series reflects the claustrophobic and dark landscape and weather of the region, no more so than in Blackout.

It’s the 24 hour cycle of a Nordic summer, but the darkness is there when a man is found beaten outside a home he’s renovating. Who is he and why did he have to die?

Adding darkness to the summer is the ash fallout from a recent volanic eruption. When reporter Isrun leaves her Reykajvik office, she drums up an excuse to investigate on her own, but her motives are rooted in her past.

It falls to Ari Thor, working in the tiny town of Siglufjordur, to take on the murder case, even as his one already-reclusive colleague is plagued with a change in his behavior, and his mentor and boss is depressed, contemplating his future, while Ari Thor rues the destruction of his own long-term relationship.

The landscape and weather add to the creepy factor of the personal issues each character faces as the investigation moves forward, and suddenly becomes far more tense as Ari Thor senses a race to prevent more deaths.

Past and present hurts and longings become magnfied in this mystery where despair is the overwhelming emotion.

Complex and skillfully plotted, Jonasson manages to captivate readers with a compelling puzzle that will see them through to the denouement. Picture Christie struggling in the northern hamlets of Iceland and you’ll be hooked.

 

Paul Doiron: Stay Hidden Thursday, Sep 27 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:36 am

Paul Doiron’s Mike Bowditch series reflects the beauty and hardiness of Maine. He returns in a new mode for Bowditch in Stay Hidden, when the newly promoted Warden Investigator receives his first case.

Maquoit Island is isolated, and at first Bowditch isn’t surprised that a flash of white clothing has caused a deer hunter to mistake that for a deer, fatally shooting a woman.

But the hunter in question denies the shooting, and when the ballistics don’t match his rifle, he’s cleared.

Suddenly the accidental death appears far much more, especially when Bowditch learns Ariel Evans was an investigative journalist. She was supposed to interview and research the islan’ds hermit with a view to writing about his past life.

Bowditch confronts his most secretive community yet, and his efforts are thwarted.

And then the dead woman alights from a ferry, unharmed. It’s a case of mistaken identity, but it soon becomes clear the murderer thought he was killing Ariel.

The two will team up to find who wanted her dead, and why.

With taut action against the backdrop of the rugged terrain and sometimes walls of fog, this is a strong entry in the Bowditch series.

 

Allison Brennan: Abandoned Monday, Sep 24 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:52 am

Allison Brennan’s newest thriller, Abandoned, revolves around her investigative reporter Max Revere, about to tackle her most important case yet: finding out who murdered her mother.

Martha Revere will never win awards for Mother of the Year, and indeed she leaves Max with her grandparents after dragging the young girl around the world without formal schooling.

Postcards sent from Martha’s travels erratically are the only clue the young woman has when she decides to put her cable show on hold to find out why those cards stopped coming seven years ago.

With her only clue her mother’s disappearance from a small Chesapeake Bay town sixteen years ago, Max heads there, renting a cottage and determined to find the truth.

She will find that Martha was with a true con man before her disappearance, and they lived off Martha’s trust fund income and what they swindled from others they’d duped.

And when the FBI indicates they have an active investigation into the con man, Max knows she’s on the right track.

Where her probing leads her is straight into the heart of long-held secrets, from her family and others, with surprsing twists in store. Along the way, Max learns about creating a family.

A strong entry in Brennan’s cannon, with interesting characters, an idyllic setting, and a twist of romance to sweeten the plot.

 

End of Summer Roundup: Sunday, Sep 23 2018 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:54 am

Welcome to Auntie M’s summer roundup. Before the leaves start to turn in earnest, here are a stack of books for your reading pleasure to end the summer season:

Stephen Leather’s Spider Shepherd series have made the author one of the UK’s most successful thriller writers. In Tall Order, he’s putting his photographic memory to good use in the Met’s SuperRecognizer Unit but chomping for action.

Being able to spot faces better than a computer should be enough to keep him busy. But a suicide bombing occurs at a football stadium, and Spider soon finds himself caught up in what can only be termed a silent revenge mission.

Soon Spider is teamed up with the only person who can identify the man behind this attack, a ruthless terrorist who’s already been blamed for an American airliner crash. Teaming up with Navy SEAL Dean Martin, who can recognize the terrorist, Saladin, the two set off to track the terrorist and his cell on the Afghanistan/Pakistan line.

With his consistent action scenes, Leather creates a fast-forward tale. A gripping entry in this dependable series.

An avid dog lover, Auntie M has long been a fan of David Rosenfelt’s Andy Carpenter Mysteries. He returns with Rescued, where the defense lawyer finds himself doing less and less lawyering in order to work more on his rescue, The Tara Foundation.

But it’s no surprise to readers when he finds himself involved in a murder case, but with a surprsing twist: the defendant, accused of the murder of the driver carrying dogs from the South to a rescue in the Northeast, hits too close to home.

The accused murderer is Andy’s wife’s old fiance`, Dave Kramer. And worse, he’s admitted he killed the victim, but claims it was in self-defense. One thing ex-cop Laurie is certain of is that Dave Kramer needs a good defense lawyer. Over to Andy . . .

With his trademark humor keeping things on track, Rosenfelt has created a nice duo with Andy and Nick and their extended family and friend–and don’t forget the dogs.

Carola Dunn’s 23rd Daisy Dalrymple Mystery, The Corpse at the Crystal Palace, finds the amateur sleuth trying to entertain her young cousins. It’s 1928, after all, and there’s plenty to take them to, including the Crystal Palace, once Daisy finds out her own nanny has never been there.

Things happen quickly when Nanny Gilpin visits the first ladies ‘convenience’ room and doesn’t return. When Daisy goes to see where she is, she instead finds the another woman dressed as a nanny–only this one is dead.

To make things worse, her own nanny is found unconscious, and has amnesia as to how she became that way, and why she would abandon Daisy’s 3 yr-old twins.

With DCI Alec Fletcher on board, and Daisy helping, the husband-and-wife duo are certain to get to the bottom of this mess.

The sixth Flavia Albia mystery, Pandora’s Boy, contains all of Lindsey Davis’ attention to historic detail, wrapped up in a mystery.

Ancient Rome comes alive, filled with betrayals. It’s a difficult situation when Flavia’s new case is brought to her attention by heer husband’s ex-wife, who is unhappy to be there in the first place.

After a young girl is poisoned, Flavia sets her investigative eyes on the most likely person to have poison, local witch Pandora. Supposedly plying her trade in beatuy products, the same herbals can often be used in more dangerous ways.

It’s a tale of brutality and betrayals that will have devastating effects close to home for Flavia.

For fans of the first century, that era comes alive.

David Bell’s Somebody’s Daughter offers a race against time when a young girl goes missing. That timed pressure ratchets up the suspense in this well-written tale.

When Michael Frazier’s ex-wife shows up unexpectedly, the last thing he expects is for her to tell him her young missing daughter is also his.

It’s a bittersweet moment because Michael and his wife, Angela, have been experiencing fertility issues. As the Frazier’s each become involved in searching for missing Felicity, the pressure rises.

It doesn’t help that Michael lost a sister when she was young, and he’s blamed himself for her death since.

As the hours pass, secrets held for years will be forced into the open, while a young girl’s life dangles in the balance.

With short chapters and alternating narrators to add to the tension, readers will find it difficult to know whom to trust as the story unravels.

 

Michael Robotham: The Other Wife Friday, Sep 14 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:27 am

Micahel Robotham’s Professor Joe O’Loughlin is one of Auntie M’s favorite characters, ever. The psychologist struggling with Parkinson’s and grief, trying to parent his two growing daughters, has his shaking hands full again in The Other Wife.

When the call comes that his well-known and respected surgeon father, retired but still admired, has suffered an horrific attack and had to have brain surgery, Joe rushes to the ICU to find a strange woman, covered in his father’s blood, at his bedside.

This is the woman who found William O’Loughlin lying in a pool of blood at the bottom of the stairs of the home she claims they share when William is in London, away from the home he shares in Wales with his wife of sixty years and Joe’s mother.

Olivia Blackstone is William’s other wife, married in a Buddhist ceremony, and bringing her own baggage along.

If it’s a shock to readers, we can only imagine the shock Joe must feel as he absorbs this radical new view of his father–the distant, cool man who raised him contrasts sharply with photos Olivia shares to prove their relationship.

This other man is smiling, brighter, happier than Joe has ever seen him. But regardless of the painful reality of his father having led two lives for over twenty years, comes the stark realization that someone wanted him dead, and the suspects start to mount up. It doesn’t help that the lead detective on the case doesn’t like Joe, which adds to the complications.

Counting on his good friend, retired police detective Vincent Ruiz, Joe will try to keep his daughters safe even as the younger, Emma, has her own struggles with the loss the previous year of her mother. With older sister Charlie now studying psychology at Oxford, Joe will lean on her to help Emma as he turns to tracing his father’s movements and the behavior that led to this attack.

There are even more surprises as the plot twists and take unexpected turns, but one thing readers can count on is Robotham’s ability to make them care about Joe and his family. There is even a small sense of triumph with the resolution of his father’s situation, one readers will smile at as it reveals Joe’s own human side.

This writing is exceptional. There is a huge sense of the author understanding human emotions and frailties, and being able to translate that to the page in such a subtle way that readers will wish, somehow, that Joe O’Loughlin was their friend. It’s why Vince sticks around, and Charlie and Emma love him. You will, too.

Auntie M is always moved by Robotham’s last chapters. Always.

Highly recommended.

 

Sarah Pinborough: Cross Her Heart Monday, Sep 10 2018 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:56 am

Sarah Pinborough’s psychological thriller Cross Her Heart takes domestic suspense to a new level in this tale of strong women and the secrets they hold.

Lisa loves her teenaged daughter, Ava, with a bit of although her helicoptering style chafes Ava as she’s sixteen now. Ava is closest to her friends from the swim team, while Lisa’s colleague and best friend, Marilyn, tries to convince Lisa to allow Ava a bit more freedom.

But with freedom comes issues Lisa is worried about, with good concern. Always skittery and shy, Lisa is finally starting to relax, just as the promise of a new relationship is dangled in front of her, when things start happening that button her up all over again.

Then Ava becomes something of a local hero when she rescues a young boy from a potential drowning, only Lisa’s past life surfaces and changes everything she’s fought so hard to contain these past years.

As her true identity emerges, anxiety and tension rises with each passing chapter. As if a dream, Lisa must confront the issues of her past–but this isn’t a dream, it’s her life and it’s happening to her, and to Ava, right now.

There are surprises, and just as readers think they know what’s happening, they will realize they really don’t. Promises made and promises broken is the thread here, with startling results. A powerful read that is at once highly visual, Cross Her Heart has already been opotioned for a television series, with good reason.

 

Ann Cleeves: Wild Fire Friday, Sep 7 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:30 am


Ann Cleeves final book in her Shetland Island series is Wild Fire. Just having to write “final” makes Auntie M sad to see this fabulous series end, it goes out on a high note with Jimmy Perez’s team investigating their most interesting and complex case yet.

There are multiple personal storylines at play that add texture to what is a startling case, set against the dramatic backdrop of the Shetland Islands that Cleeves has brought to life for readers.

Helena and Daniel Fleming moved to remote Deltaness to escape the clog of London life and make a fresh start for their two young children, Ellie and her older brother Christopher, a high-functioning autistic lad. Renovating Hesti, the home they’d bought and enlarged, has kept architect Daniel busy, while Helena’s design business in knitted sweaters has taken off.

Shortly after moving in, the former owner of Hesti hanged himself in one of their outbuildings and was found by Daniel, whose depression has clouded the family’s new life.

Then Helena receives drawings of a hanged man, underlining the gossip and resentment some of the locals feel towards the incomers, and she informs Jimmy Perez. Helena knew his dead fiance, Fran, and this brings a connection between the two.

When a second body is found hanged at Hesti, Jimmy and his team must sort out just how many dysfunctional families there are in Deltaness.

While all families are dysfunctional, there are varied levels of degree. It will take Jimmy, his boss and sometime lover, Willow, as well as newer detective Sandy, to uncover the startling truth.

Intricately plotted, with Cleeves well-developed sense of character, this is a stunning end to the series, one Louise Penny calls: “Nothing short of riveting.” Highly recommended.

 

Stuart MacBride: The Blood Road Tuesday, Sep 4 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:20 am

Stuart MacBride’s Logan McRae series features some of the most creative and original characters written, mixed with twisted plots that keep readers flipping pages. He’s back with the 13th, The Blood Road, a wild ride that takes the Professional Standards detective back to investigation.

DI Bell is found stabbed and dead in the driver’s seat of car that’s crashed. Sad it might be, but shocking is more like it, as they buried the man two years ago after a suicidal fire. Or thought they did.

Reopening the investigation into the original incident brings with it so many secrets of the past, including just whose remains were buried in Bell’s casket, leading to an exhumation.

Given a few of his irregulars to help, Tufty and Steel, (it wouldn’t be the same without them), there’s also a raft of missing young children occupying the rest of the department. Rumors of a “livestock mart” where children are auctioned off are rampant.

And DI Fraser, running that investigation, has put in a complaint to Logan about DS Chalmers, supposedly working on the case but frequently off doing her own thing. Now what would this thing be?

It’s a twisted plot, as usual, because nothing is ever easy in Logan McRae’s life, even trying to advance his new relationship.

Reading a Logan McRae procedural is like coming home to old friends–some of whom you hope don’t drop in too often–but still, you’re fond of them . . . until things get out of control.

Readers won’t be able to stop flipping pages once they start htis newest addition. It’s like Christmas and Easter rolled into one, just missing the chocolate. Highly recommended.

 

Matthew Hall: A Life to Kill Sunday, Sep 2 2018 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:08 am

Matthew Hall’s Coroner Jenny Cooper series returns with A Life to Kill, where Cooper finds herself in strange territory on and off the case.

The last British combat soldiers are leaving Helman province to return to their waiting families in Highcliffe after a 6-moth deployment.

But disaster strikes only a few hours before they leave, when a young private is abducted. The officers sent to locate him come are taken by surprise after trusting locals, an ambush that leaves one dead and two severely injured.

it’s a somber return, complicated by trying to figure out how this could have happened. Jenny Cooper’s inquest will stir up the army as much as the secrets the families hold.

Add in a grandstanding group of lawyers and she has her hands full with trying to get to the bottom of her toughest case yet.

With the military breathing down her neck and affecting her private life, Cooper must decide whether to follow her instincts or cave to an outcome where the truth will never be out.

A strong entry in a continued complex series.

 

Ann Cleeves: The Seagull Friday, Aug 31 2018 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and police procedural and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:57 am


It’s no secret Auntie M is a huge fan of anything Ann Cleeves writes, and reading THE SEAGULL was made even more special after meeting Brenda Blethyn, who plays Vera Stanhope, at Malice Domestic this year.

In interviews with Cleeves, it became clear that a deep affection exists between the award-winning actor and the award-winning author. Cleeves indicated that she trust Blethyn to interpret her Vera well, and indeed to readers who are fortunate to see the series, Vera does jump off the page.

The newest Vera novel takes the formidable detective to visit her old nemsis, Detective Superintendent John Brace, languishing in prisone after his conviction for high-level corruption and his involvement in the death of a gamekeeper.

Brace has information about the disappearance of one Robbie Marshall, information he will part with if Vera promises to keep his own daughter and grandchildren under her wing.

However, the promised site of the burial of Marshall’s body turns up not one corpse but two. Who is also buried in that sandy grave? And what ties does it have to Vera’s own father?

All were regular visitors to a tony nightclub of the time called The Seagull. Vera will travel back in time to her memories and dig deeply to solve the coldest case she’s come across yet.

Highly recommended.

 

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