Pamela Wechsler: The Graves Wednesday, May 24 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:15 am

The Boston setting comes alive in former prosecutor Pamela Wechler’s second Abby Endicott novel, The Graves, where the young assistant district attorney known for crime convictions is still recovering from the attempts on her life in the debut, Mission Hill.

The strong protagonist has a passion for putting murderers away, but that same dedication has cut her off from her wealthy family’s backing. Her parents hope that putting her in financial straits will prompt Abby to turn to a career more in line with their thinking, along with ditching her musician boyfriend, even while ignoring the faults in their marriage.

But when a string of young women start turning up murdered around Boston, the case only makes Abby more determined to find the killer. Then another young woman goes missing, and Abby, working with Detective Kevin Farnsworth, investigates to find the man who’s been at the heart of the matter, with surprising and troubling complications.

The prosecutor will have to bring all of her smarts and wiles to bear to bring a killer to justice, and the outcome is not a foregone conclusion once a senator and his son become implicated in the crimes.

There’s enough here to keep any reader happy. Abby’s interior narrative is a strong voice, as the young, pampered woman who took personal shoppers and trendy shops for granted suddenly has to learn to economize. Wechsler also paints a realistic picture of a woman whose drive for her job makes others unhappy, while at the same time, it confuses Abby about what–or who–she really wants.

Auntie M likes Abby. She’s not a cardboard figure, but a realistic heroine with strong opinions who can sometimes see her own weaknesses and frailties, and so can we.

And in other news: Nele Neuhaus, one of Germany’s foremost crime authors, has her latest now out in paperback. I Am Your Judge brings the team of Pia Kirchhoff and Oliver Van Bodenstein facing a complex killer whose victims appear to have no enemies. The fourth installment in the bestseller series.

 

Richard Montanari: The Killing Room Sunday, May 21 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:00 am

This was the first of the long-running Byrne and Balzao novel’s that Auntie M has had the pleasure to read, but it certainly won’t the last. She loves when she finds a new series to dig into, and she will now go back and read what leads up to the action in Richard Montanari’s newest, The Killing Room.

Set in Philadelphia neighborhoods, from its highest to its lowest, an abandoned church becomes the setting for the team’s latest murder. Despite its brutality, neither detective is prepared when a second body and then a third is found, also in deconsecrated churches, all in different methods of horrific brutality causing the death of the victim.

For the seasoned detectives, the crimes are more than disturbing and hit them on a personal level in different ways. It only adds to Byrne’s stress that he’s taken on trying to be a kind of mentor to troubled young teen.

With an obvious killer seemingly ahead of them at each step, the two homicide detectives will need all of their smarts to outwit the chilling killer. The ties to the Church and theology are fascinating and an important clue will come to them from an unlikely source.

The interplay between senior partner Kevin Byrne, living alone with his daughter at college, and the younger Jessica Balzano, married to a detective and with a young family at home, is a highlight of the series where two professionals who have each other’s back can exist in well-practiced teamwork that allows them to mine each other’s strengths.

Readers who haven’t discovered this series, like Auntie M, will find themselves hunting for the previous novels on the strength of this absorbing story.

 

Julia Dahl: Conviction Wednesday, May 17 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:43 am

Megan Abbott calls Julia Dahl’s third Rebekah Roberts novel “. . . a thrilling, utterly absorbing crime novel” with good reason.

The young intrepid journalist becomes intrigued when a prisoner in jail for over two decades sends a letter: “I didn’t do it.”

With her job at the tabloid newspaper frustrating her, especially after she’s been passed over for a well-deserved promotion, Rebekah starts to investigate DeShawn Perkins’ claim that he did not kill the foster parents who had taken him in, nor his little foster sister.

What she finds will stand his conviction on its ear as an eyewitness changes her testimony–but will the woman have the courage to admit this in court? Her digging also brings her into conflict with her newly discovered mother and the cop who has been on her side in previous investigations in the Hasidic community.

While part of the history leading up to the Crown Heights riots and this particular murder are told from the viewpoint back in the early 90’s, the chapters in current time as Rebekah investigates will bring her face to face with a difficult decision of her own: who does she owe allegiance to–the people she loves, or the truth?

With a fine eye for reality, Dahl brings another story with layers and layers of humanity in it to light. Highly recommended.

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Spring Cozies: Chapman, Cooper, Shea and Harris Sunday, Apr 30 2017 

amateur sleuth and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

Julia Chapman debuts a new cozy series with tons of charm, sure to please readers, set amongst the Yorkshire Dales. Date with Death introduces Delilah Metcalfe and her seeming nemesis, Samson O’Brien.

It’s been a rough two years for Delilah, dealing with two deaths: one of her brothers was killed in the service, and there’s the disappointment of her marriage ending in divorce. Determined to keep her IT and Dating Agency businesses afloat, she’s teetering on the edge of financial ruin.

So she has little choice but to allow a new renter to use the ground floor of her Dales Dating Agency building–until she finds out her tenant is none other than Samson, returned to his hometown in disgrace after leaving suddenly fourteen years before. He didn’t make it home for her brother’s funeral, despite being Best Man at his wedding and godfather to his now-teenaged son. Locals aren’t happy Samson has returned, either, especially one of Delilah’s brothers, Will.

There’s a whole cast of characters to fill the dales, and while the names may take some getting used to, soon they all make sense and readers will be able to follow when the mother of a young man who committed suicide hires Samson, on leave from the police and working as a private detective, to find out the real reason behind his death. She’s convinced her son wouldn’t have committed suicide.

Delilah wants nothing to do with Samson, but finds herself working in concert with him when it becomes apparent someone is killing men who sign up for her Speed Dating nights. She will use her computer skills to find the pattern, and then enlists Samson to help her investigate to find the perpetrator.

There are family squabbles, fell running, Samson’s alcoholic father, now sober and living in a retirement home, and twists and turns to keep both Samson and Delilah in danger. And don’t forget Delilah’s pup, Tolpuddle, her companion who just may have his own role to play.

Samson carries his own secrets from his past undercover work, and to Chapman’s credit, these are not all revealed in this volume, giving her an ample storyline for the next installment. A winning debut.


The second in Marla Cooper’s series gives readers an eye into the job of a wedding planner. This time Kelsey McKenna has a destination wedding in wine country on tap in Dying on the Vine.

The Napa Valley setting on the Higgins Estate is lovely, but this event has already been planned by Babs Norton, who would have people believe is the Queen of Wine Country Weddings–until the bride’s father fired her.

Enter Kelsey, newly hired, who feels the need to clear the air between her and Babs. Sounds like the right thing to do, but unfortunately Kelsey finds Babs dead in her office and the finger of suspicion pointing right at her.

It doesn’t help when Babs’ assistant cancels the contracts for the vendors, sending Kelsey and bride Haley Bennet into a tailspin. She’ll rely on her photographer friend Brody and assistant Laural to salvage the day, while she tracks down a murderer to clear her name–and keep the wedding on track.

There’s humor, murder and even a bit of romance in this charming sequel.


Susan Shea leaves her Dani O’Rourke mystery series to inaugurate a second series set in the French countryside in Love and Death in Burgundy.

American ex-pat Katherine Goff wanted to be accepted by her Burgundy neighbors, but after three years it’s still dicey going in the small village of Reigny-sur-Canne.

Then an elderly inhabitant is found dead at the bottom of a staircase. Was this a tragic accident or a case of murder? Tongues start wagging in the town, and Katherine soon finds herself caught up in their secrets.

Filled with French food and wine, Katherine lives amongst a cast of eccentrics, trying to solve a murder. Think of a young Miss Marple sent to the French countryside, and you’ll delight in this new series.


Sherry Harris has a winning series with her Sarah Winston Garage Sale Mysteries. Her first, Tagged for Death, was nominated for an Agatha for Best First Novel.

Sarah, with her fluffernutter sandwiches, is an engaging protagonist.
She returns in the fourth in the series, A Good Day to Buy, with Sarah’s estranged brother showing up unexpectedly after years apart.

Sworn to silence on his appearance, Luke especially means that to include Sarah’s ex, the chief of police. To his chagrin, CJ and Sarah are having something of a reconciliation, which means the chief is often at her apartment in a lovely old house.

It puts Sarah in an awkward position, to say the least, coming on the heels of her most recent garage sale, where the bodies of her clients, the Spencers, were discovered during the sale, hidden behind sheets Sarah hung to keep their private area off limits. The Vietnam vet is dead, and his wife critically injured.

But what’s the connection to Luke? Before Sarah can pin him down, he’s disappeared again. Is he really doing investigative journalism work?

The tenor of small town New England, coupled with the life of veterans and the work Sarah does in their thrift shop bring an added dimension to the compelling plot. Just when readers will think they have it figured out, think again.

Paige Shelton’s Scottish Bookshop Mysteries debuted with The Cracked Spine last year and introduced Kansas native Delaney Nichols, who’s moved to Edinburgh to find adventure, working in a bookshop filled with characters who keep secrets as rare as the manuscripts they sell.

The sequel is Of Books and Bagpipes, and it continues Delaney’s efforts to get to know her coworkers and her job. With her landlord, taxi drive Elias and his wife Aggie adopting her and keeping an eye out for her safety, it’s Elias who drives Delaney to Castle Doune on an errand for her boss. Edwin has sent her to retrieve and annual of the Scottish comic, “Oor Wullie.”

Only the castle appears deserted, and when Elias and Delaney have a look around the ramparts up top, they find the body of the young man they were sent to meet, a William Wallace re-enactor.

Calling the police, Delaney discovers the book she was sent to find fluttering around a side wall, and she impulsively hides it under her jacket. Edwin’s secrets revolve around a long-dead friend, and the complications that ensure from a long-ago buried secret.

But there will be more deaths, and it will take all of Delaney’s investigative skills, and a bit of help from the voices of books that reach out to her, to find the killer.

A sequel rich in Scottish dialect and customs, with a hint of romance and a decades-old mystery to unravel.

 

Stephen Booth: Secrets of Death Sunday, Apr 23 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:26 am

It might be tough for some authors to keep coming up with an original story when they approach writing their 16th installment in a series. But Stephen Booth manages to keep reader’s attention with his creative plot in his newest Cooper and Fry mystery, Secrets of Death.

With Diane Fry in Nottingham, re-evaluating her relationship with her sister and working on a triple homicide, Ben Cooper as DI in Derbyshire’s E Division keeps trying to get back out on the streets he loves. In his new cottage, hoping to start afresh, he’s looking for a pattern in a spate of recent suicides in the Peak District, just in time for tourist season.

With no way to predict where the next body will be found, it’s an unlucky task before Ben and his team, who will find a surprising new member before the case is solved.

Then he finds a clue, a black business card from “Secrets of Death,” and realizes someone is encouraging depressed people to commit suicide right in his backyard. It gets personal when a body is found on his home farm, upping the urgency.

The landscape of the area is lovingly defined as the bodies continue to mount, and when it seems Fry’s case might be connected to Ben’s after all, and the two are forced to work together once again.

A highly satisfying entry in this series.

 

Donna Fletcher Crow: The Monastery Murders Wednesday, Apr 19 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and historical saga and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:16 am

Please welcome Donna Fletcher Crow, to explain the path her historical Monastery Murders series has taken. One lucky reader who leaves a comment will win a copy of one of Donna’s books, print or e-book, your preference! So all you lurkers out there who read but don’t comment, today’s your day!

The Monastery Murders: A Year of Life-changing Adventures

Felicity Howard is a young American woman studying in a theological college in a monastery in rural Yorkshire. And no one finds that more surprising than Felicity herself.

But teaching school was so boring (even in London) and what else can she do with a classics major? Besides, she makes all her decisions on impulse.

When she finds her favorite monk brutally murdered and Father Antony, her church history lecturer, covered in his blood, however, she begins to question the wisdom of this decision. An enigmatic book of poetry Father Dominic gave Felicity just before his death catapults Felicity and Antony into an adventure chasing and being chased by murderers across northern England.

Thus A Very Private Grave begins the Monastery Murders, a series that follows Felicity and Antony through the most tumultuous and transformative year of their lives.

In book 2, A Darkly Hidden Truth, Felicity is off to become a nun, in spite of the fact that Antony begs her to help him find a stolen valuable icon. Then her difficult mother arrives unexpectedly and a good friend turns up murdered. The ensuing chase takes them from London to the water-soaked Norfolk Broads.

In An Unholy Communion, Antony is leading a youth pilgrimage across Wales, and Felicity joins him for some much-needed relaxation—until their idyllic ramble turns into a life-and-death struggle between good and evil.

Book 4, A Newly Crimsoned Reliquary, finds Felicity off to translate a manuscript in a convent in Oxford. “What could be safer?” she asks Antony when he warns her to be careful. When severed body parts start showing up in ancient reliquaries, Felicity learns that murder can stalk even Oxford’s hallowed shrines.

An All-Consuming Fire brings the year full circle as Felicity plans their Christmastide wedding while Antony narrates a mini-series for the BBC. It will all be perfect. If only Felicity can keep her mother from turning the event into a royal production and escape the murderer stalking the Yorkshire Moors.


Donna Fletcher Crow is a lifelong Anglophile, former English teacher, and a Companion of the Community of the Resurrection, the monastery that serves as a model for this series. She conceived the series when her daughter Elizabeth found teaching classics in London to be boring, went off to study in a monastery in Yorkshire and married…

You can see information about all her books and pictures from her research trips at http://www.donnafletchercrow.com/ and follow her on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/Donna-Fletcher-Crow-Novelist-of-British-History-355123098656/

 

Sarah Hilary: Quieter Than Killing Sunday, Apr 16 2017 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:46 am

Sarah Hilary’s fourth in her Marnie Rome series, Quieter than Killing, is one fellow author Jane Casey calls ” . . . a fine addition to a superb series.”

Severe winter cold is affecting everyone in London, making seemingly random attacks on victims unrelated, until a pattern starts to appear. Could they have a vigilante seeking justice on their hands?

With DS Noah Jake as her right-hand man, Marnie becomes intrinsically involved when the family home she’s rented is broken into and ransacked, her tenants beaten up, and the only thing taken was a childhood memory that Marnie had lost sight of.

Someone has decided to make this deeply personal, and for Marnie, that involves going to the prison the face the man who murdered her parents.

Who is pulling the strings here? What does Noah’s brother’s old gang have to do with it all? And when a child goes missing, why has no one reported his disappearance?

In a series of remarkable scenes, the compelling plot unfolds as Marne and Jake embark on their toughest investigation yet. Hilary’s characters are terribly human, and the story is filled with deep emotions on all sides of the equation.

An original story, with hard, gripping scenes, this one’s a real knockout. Highly recommended

 

Steve Berry: The Lost Order Friday, Apr 14 2017 

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

Steve Berry’s Cotton Malone series have a huge following for good reason: his complex and well-researched plots, mingled with real historic facts and woven into a fictional action adventure story that just doens’t quit.

This time in The Lost Order, Malone is hunting for a treasure trove of hidden gold, hidden by a secret organization that once counted Malone’s own great-great-grandfather among its members.

Despite Anngus Adams being a Confederate spy ring the Civil War, Malone soon discovers that his group, The Knights of the Golden Circle, are still operating today.

With several disparate people succumbing to the lure of the gold, its secret is something people will kill to protect. Filled with a race across the country, changing landscapes and bits of clues. Another stunner from a master of the action hero adventure that combines reality with fiction.

Readers should be interested to know that the author and his wife co-founded History Matters, a non-profit organization that to date has raised over $900,000 or the preservation and conservation of historic sites.

 

Wilbur Smith: War Cry Sunday, Apr 9 2017 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and historical saga Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

Wilbur Smith’s Courtney family historical thrillers are so popular due to their complex plots and adventure focus. The newest is War Cry , set in the 1920s near the end of World War I onward.

The setting starts in Africa, Smith’s own homeland, but Leon Courtney’s daughter Saffron has left Kenya to study in Oxford, England. Another young man affected by history is Gerhard von Meerbach, the younger brother of the heir to an industrial fortune.

When the brothers find themselves on opposite sides of the Nazi question, it threatens everything Gerhard thought he knew about his family.

And into this is thrust Saffron and Leon and the spies and traitors who will cross their paths.

Filled with dramatic intrigue yet based on real events, this is a complex plot that feels made to be on the big screen, with its sweeping storylines and vistas.

 

New in Paperback: Wednesday, Apr 5 2017 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for Auntie M Writes Crime 12:50 am

The wisteria is in bloom in NC and Auntie M is happy Spring is finally here. Along with Sping comes many new releases in paperback. Here are few of the top ones for your reading pleasure:


Maggie McConnon brings us the second in her Belfast McGrath Mysteries with Bel of the Brawl.

The gourmet chef is now working at her parent’s Irish wedding venue, handling the catering after a tough leap from her NY job. The weddings are a family affair, with her brothers in the band, performing everything from the BeeGees to Irish reels.

But the loss of Bel’s best friend in high school still haunts her. Amy Mitchell went missing after a party on a small isle in the center of the town’s rive,r and was never seen again. At the end of the debut in the series, Wedding Bel Blues, Amy’s backpack surfaced in the river. At the opening of book two, the investigation in her case has been reopened, and no one is more interested in finding out what really happened than Bel.

Haunted by her friend’s disappearance, feeling she’s dead, Bel decides to ask the groom of the current wedding to help out, as he’s a private detective. Only things don’t go according to plan, and right in the middle of the reception, the groom is found dead in the ladies room. There will be issues of undocumented workers and missing money from her parents safe, too.

Filled with humor and intrigue, a delicious sequel.

Bernard Minier’s Insp. Servaz series is one of Auntie M’s favorites, and his newest is now out in paperback and ebook. Don’t Turn Out the Lights brings him into the case of Christine Steinmeier, a radio presenter whose life is turned inside out with mysterious happenings, kicked off by a letter from someone blaming her for her suicide.

With someone determined to undermine her job, her love life, and even her pet, Christine comes to the attention of Servaz, who is recovering from his own trauma, who has received a key to the hotel room of young woman driven to suicide. Complicated and riveting.

Also new in paperback is Daniel Silva’s masterful Gabriel Allon spy novel, Black Widow. His timely story revolves around ISIS, who detonate a bomb in Paris’ traditionally Jewish Marais district, right as Allon is poised to take over as chief of Israel’s intelligence.

Filled with intrigue in a powerful story, Allon’s final operation will be to find and take down the man responsible before he can strike again. A captivating thriller.


A stunner when it debuted, Spencer Kope’s Collecting the Dead introduces Steps Craig, a member of the FBI’s Special Tracking Unit who has a most unusual talent: he can sense places people have been and routes they’ve taken, even if they’ve touched an item.

Pulling on his own experience as a crime analyst, Kope’s story centers on tracking the Sad Face Killer, as he hopes to find him before he strikes again. And just maybe, he’ll find victims the killer has taken who might still be alive. Tightly plotted, with enough twists and turns to keep readers up at night, they will be drawn to Steps Craig.


Carolyn Haines’ Sarah Booth Delaney Mysteries have a devoted cozy following. Now in paperback is Rock-A-Bye Bones, where the discovery of a baby left on her doorstep leads the private eye to search for the newborn’s mother.

Enlisting her partner, Tinkie Richmond, after having the little girl checked out at the hospital, the two soon figure out the mother was fleeing for her life. Sarah must follow the woman’s last movements to find out who has put her life in jeopardy so badly she’s given up her child. With appearances by the ghostly Jitty, and a wide dose of humor, Sarah is over-the-top fun.

 

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