Happy Birthday Edgar Allan Poe! Thursday, Jan 21 2016 

great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 8:14 pm

EdAllanCozyCover

Auntie M wanted to help celebrate Edgar Allan Poe’s Jan 19th birthday by sharing what spurred the publication of The Wicked Cozy Authors new anthology. Thanks to Sherry Harris who posted this on his actual birthday, all the gals of this great New England Cozy Author group who contributed, and to Edith Maxwell for sharing the cover jpg and the okay to mirror it today. Auntie M has a special fondness for this group of talented New England cozy authors and has absolutely no doubt you will enjoy their new book, EDGAR ALLAN COZY:

Auntie M has visited Poe’s Baltimore home with her Screw Iowa! writing group, where today you can be treated to his stor, with an actor portraying bits of his stories. We also visited his grave, a total-immersion-in-Poe day. So a belated happy birthday to this famous author with the sad life, a small man who wrote giant tales and poetry we still read, quote, and admire–and whose influence has touched many a writers’ life.

Here now in their own words, how this interesting anthology came to be:

Edgar Allan Cozy — Wicked Short Stories
Posted on January 19, 2016 by Sherry Harris

We are celebrating Edgar Allan Poe’s birthday with a new short story anthology! Last year Jane Haertel, aka Sadie Hartwell (aka Susannah Hardy), asked the Wickeds if we’d be interested in doing a short story anthology based on Edgar Allan Poe’s short stories — only these stories would have a twist — a cozy take on his original stories. The result is the ebook Edgar Allan Cozy. Here’s how we chose our stories:

Edith: At a young age I was haunted – haunted, I tell you! – by the “The Tell-Tale Heart.”
And by young I mean nine or ten. When the light went out in my room at night, I knew I could hear that heart beating under the floor. I didn’t know anything about sanity or insanity. I didn’t know what a rheumy eye was. But I could feel that story. I’m not sure my mother was entirely sane letting her third daughter read Poe and the tales of Sherlock Holmes in the fourth grade. Read them I did, though, over and over, and that reading started me on the path to where I have ended up: writing mystery, heart-stopping suspense, and even a bit of horror now and then. I tried to craft “An Intolerable Intrusion” after the manner of “The Tell-Tale Heart” — only with a modern twist.

Sadie/Susannah/Jane: My story, “Within These Walls,” about a Shriner clown’s wife who inherits a brooding mansion set high on a bluff in Raven Harbor, Maine, is based on Poe’s “Cask of Amontillado.” While I love all the Poe stories and poems, this is the one that sticks with me. Our narrator gets his friend Fortunato drunk on Amontillado, a rare wine, then proceeds to wall him up–alive!–in his ancient house. I’m not in the least claustrophobic, but whenever I think of poor Fortunato dying, alone and desperate, in his dank, dark, sealed-up prison, I feel a little short of breath. A little palpitate-y. And it’s always driven me a bit mad that we never find out exactly what Fortunato did to his frenemy Montresor that motivated Montresor to get his revenge in this dreadful way. We’ll never know. But not to worry… I gave the characters in my tribute story some specific motivations, so you won’t have to spend a lot of years wondering.

Sherry: A strange thing happened on the way to picking a Poe story for the anthology — I stopped to read the poem “Annabel Lee” because I hadn’t read it in years. And as soon as I finished reading it the story of Anna, Belle, and Lee popped into my head. It was one of those glorious moments in writing when something really flows. But because the poem is short, I needed to write a story, too. I kept sorting through them and good heavens a lot of those stories are grim!

Then I came across the partially finished story of “The Lighthouse” which is a diary with only three entries. It in itself is a mystery. Why isn’t it finished? Or is it finished? No one really knows and I liked that. In my story I write about a relative who tries to find out what happened to her missing great-great-great grandfather using his diary entries. But she has some problems of her own.

Barb: We’ve all been transported by the rhythms, internal rhymes, and relentless story-telling of “The Raven.” But I’ve always wondered–what if the poem was moved to modern times? And what if the narrator was driven mad, not by a bird, but by the haranguing of a telemarketer? To answer these questions, I offer my updated version.

Sheila: While I had read most of Poe’s short stories years ago, I wanted to find something I wasn’t familiar with, and discovered the 1883 story “MS. Found in a Bottle.” The narrator is a sailor who encounters some rather extreme circumstances during a voyage on a cargo ship at sea. Or does he? Some early readers have asked if Poe meant this as a satire, or a parody of some contemporary sea stories—although they never quite agreed on which author Poe was poking fun at. Still, the editor who published the story called it “distinguished by a wild, vigorous and poetical imagination.” I thought it might be interesting to see what would happen if I recast the story with the sailor telling his story to a modern audience, and whether he would be believed under different conditions.

Thanks for this overview, Wickeds! Readers can find this fascinating update on Poe’s stories at:

 

Colette McBeth: The Life I Left Behind Sunday, Jan 17 2016 

great read and mystery to die for , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:16 am

LifeBehind
If you enjoy the novels of S J Watson and Rosamund Lupton you’ll be crazy for Colette McBeth’s accomplished second suspense novel, The Life I Left Behind.

Strong female perspectives tell the story: Melody Pieterson, whose close escape with death six years ago still haunts her and has changed her daily life, despite her former close friend, David Alden, being caught and serving time for her attack. Engaged to be married to Sam, he’s built a house for her that’s safe and secure and even installed a fence around its perimeter when her David is released from jail. Yet she can’t escape the feeling she’s being followed at times, while questioning the life she’s leading, closed off from everyone.

Eve Elliot, a determined investigative reporter and friend of David’s sister, is the most poignant of the voices, and speaks to the reader after her death, recounting her agreement to take on the job of trying to clear David. Despite him already having served his sentence, David maintains his innocence and wants his reputation cleared. Once Eve agrees to take on his case, her usual thorough job of dissecting the evidence against him finds discrepancies the original police investigation missed. Just as she’s ready to bring her findings to the police, Eve is murdered in exactly the same way Melody was attacked and left for dead, and David is arrested for her murder.

DI Victoria Rutter is assigned the case of Eve’s death. Her mentor cleared Melody’s attack in record time. Facing retirement in a matter of weeks, he urges her to bring charges against David, and she feels she’s betraying her mentor for not accepting his blithe acceptance that David Alden would attack a woman in exactly the same manner he was jailed for last time, just a few weeks after being let out of prison. Her conscience makes her investigate Eve’s death more fully.

And then a friend of Eve’s turns in the files she’d been working on after giving a copy to Melody, and things change dramatically. Secrets will be revealed and the tension mounts as Melody and Di Rutter both go through the files and come to the same conclusion: David is probably innocent of both incidents. But that means a murderer is still out there, and Melody is jeopardy once again.

Readers will find themselves unable to put this one down. Auntie M was close to finishing it and stopped reading on on purpose to make dinner. She wanted to stop the dramatic flow of action so that she could fully absorb the ending she knew was mounting. This is writing that gets deeply into the heart of human emotions and examines the faces we wear for others, the ones they expect, and the ones we think they expect. Highly recommended and a writer to watch for down the road.

 

David McCallum: Once A Crooked Man Tuesday, Jan 12 2016 

debut and mystery to die for , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:20 am

OnceCrooked

Actor David McCallum, yes thatMcCallum, of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. and now Ducky on NCIS, debuts a crime and espionage caper with just enough wry humor to let you know he had a ball writing it.

New York actor Harry Murphy could never imagine the consequences peeing in an alley against a building could bring. When he overhears the Bruschetti brothers plan their retirement, which includes the murder of their British connection, his conscience won’t allow him to forget what he’s overheard.

In true comedy of errors fashion, Harry decides to fly to England to warn the unlucky victim, but he’s mistaken for one of the mobsters’ associates and finds himself with a load of cash, fleeing from the bad guys. British authorities save him, but in order to clear himself, he’s soon on his way back to the US with the cleverly hidden cash and a comely British undercover agent accompanying him to flush out the brothers and put an end to their activities.

But that’s the crux: the brothers have decided to retire and go straight. Well, at least as straight as they possibly can. There will be shootouts, high speed chases, a probable drowning . . . and Harry really hoping he gets the voiceover for a mayonnaise commercial.

There’s plenty of action, along with the sly humor and impossible get-out-of-trouble adventures that remind readers of a bumbling James Bond.

With a surprising depth to the characters motivations, this is a clever and fun debut. Auntie M hopes McCallum will continue Harry’s adventures now that he’s had a taste for the wild life and plumbed his own plucky resolve.

 

Favorite Reads of 2015 Tuesday, Jan 5 2016 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and debut and great read and mystery to die for and new series and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 4:57 pm

London Rain
My Favorite Reads of 2015

Last year Auntie M reviewed around 145 books in 85 posts plus hosting guests. Those don’t include the books she reads for herself, like the one her grand-daughter loved and insisted she read (Doerr’s All the Light We Cannot See—she loved it, too!); or for sheer delight, like the Judi Dench photo-autobiography Behind the Scenes (huge Dench fan).

Out of all of those books, there are always those that remain firmly in her mind as ones where she’s looking forward to more from these authors. They impress her for their creativity, their characters, their storytelling. In no particular order, she went through her posts and pulled out these highlights, most of which received her “highly recommended” citation. There could have been even more . . .

Series continuations:
London Rain by Nicola Upson: Her Josephine Tey series continues with a strong entry, set in 1927 London at the time the BBC ruled the radio and broadcasting. Well-researched and written, with absorbing characters and a few twists you won’t see coming, set against the backdrop of the Coronation of George VI. An accomplished series.

The Strange Death of Fiona Griffiths and This Thing of Darkness by Harry Bingham: One of the most unusual and compelling characters to head a series, Griffiths remains a feisty detective in search of her past and herself whilst she figures out how to be human. The second was not formally reviewed so let Auntie M add here that Fiona’s story continues with a punch that proves Bingham deserves to be more widely known in the US.

The Kill and After the Fire by Jane Casey: The Maeve Kerrigan series just keeps getting stronger with each installment. With irascible DI Josh Derwent as her partner, the duo are working together like a well-oiled machine, despite the occasional dig. Could grudging respect be far behind?

Behind Closed Doors by Elizabeth Haynes: DCI Lou Smith heads a team investigating when a young woman missing for a decade suddenly reappears. Haynes uses primary policing source materials reproduced for the reader: police reports, interviews, analyst research, even phone messages, which add a depth and texture to the books.

The Ghost Fields and The Zig-Zag Girl by Elly Griffiths: The next Ruth Galloway installment is a grand mix of the kind of ancient mystery only working mum Ruth could solve, coupled with tremors in her personal life. A satisfying series with original characters. Griffiths also debuted a second period series, and Brighton of the 1950’s comes to life with two unlikely friends, a detective and his magician friend, who need to stop a killer.

The Nature of the Beast by Louise Penny: Inspt. Gamache and his lovely wife try to settle down to retirement in Three Pines, until a young boy prone to telling tall tales turns out to be telling the truth. All the eccentric regulars appear to help solve the mystery, a bit different from Penny’s usual but just as engaging, a mix of bittersweet and heartwarming.

Banquet of Consequences by Elizabeth George: After taking time to introduce the family who feature largely in the case to follow, Lynley manages to have Havers and Nkata assigned to investigate a poisoning case. A piece of bacon figures here. Just read it. The plot is as complex as the players involved, and will leave readers thinking about what constitutes justice.

The Slaughter Man by Tony Parsons: A slaughtered family and a missing child prove a tough case for DI Max Wolfe, juggling his young daughter and personable dog, Stan. The weapon used fits the MO of an earlier murder years ago, and that man is now out of jail. Could this be history repeating itself?

The Secret Place by Tana French: With a few characters you’ll recognize if you’ve read her others, and you should, detectives investigate the murder of a young man at a private school. You hardly realize until it’s over that the action takes place all in one day—she’s that good.

Deadly Measures by Jo Bannister: Policewoman Hazel Best and her friend, Gabriel Ash, face their most dangerous and upsetting period together when arms pirates who have kidnapped Ash’s family agree to return them—if he’ll kill himself online for all to see. And yes, Patience, the dog who talks to Ash, is along for the ride.

A Song for Drowned Souls by Bernard Minier: Minier’s second French crime novel finds Commandant Servaz trying to prove his former lover’s son is not a murderer while he protects his own daughter. A rich tale of history and emotion mixed up in murder and secrets from the past.

The Storm Murders by John Farrow: Newly-retired detective Emile Cinq-Mars is known as the Poirot of Canada and can’t get used to not working. Then murders inside a snowed-in house in his neighborhood catch his eye—there are no footsteps in the snow. And he’s asked to intervene and finds himself in New Orleans and his own wife kidnapped.

Winter Foundlings by Kate Rhodes: The psychologist with interesting friends and family returns, working short-term at a hospital for the criminally insane. A taut plot, a compelling story and a protagonist you can’t help but admire in Alice Quentin who should have it all and keeps getting very close.

Run You Down by Julia Dahl: Journalist Rebekah Roberts finds herself investigating the possible murder of a young ultra-Orthodox woman whose contacts might just put Rebekah in touch with the mother she’s not sure she wants to find. Dahl’s first, Invisible City, won multiple awards this year, with good reason. An equally impressive follow-up.

Debuts:
The Unquiet Dead by Ausma Zehanat Khan: An undeniably strong debut, backed with meticulous and absorbing research, this Toronto mystery introduces a Muslim detective working with his Canadian female partner to unravel if a dead man fell, committed suicide, or was pushed off a cliff. A series to watch for, with a sequel out soon that’s every bit as good as the first, and will be reviewed shortly.

Recipes for Love and Murder by Sally Andrew: The South African Klein Karoo landscape, nature, food, language and habits of the area come alive through the eyes of Tannie (Auntie) Maria, a widow who happens to be a brillant cook. Mevrou van Harten knows that her food works magic in people’s hearts, not just their stomachs, and uses her knowledge to help solve the murder of an abused woman. Recipes included.

Crucifixion Creek by Barry Maitland: Anyone who reads Maitland’s English Brock and Kolla series know he’s far from a debut novelist, but this marks the debut of a new series set in Australia, Maitland’s home. He introduces detective Harry Belltree, suddenly overwhelmed with three homicides to investigate: a woman shot during a meth-addict biker siege; an elderly couple who commit apparent suicide at their favorite outdoor cafe’; and a white male stabbed to death in the street, who turns out to be his brother-in-law. A strong start to a new and absorbing series.

Five by Ursula Archer: The Austrian children’s lit author tries her hand at mystery and writes an absorbing police procedural with geo-caching at its heart and a realistic, harried, divorced mother of two as the detective.

A Murder of Magpies by Judith Flanders: A wry inside look at London publishing with the protagonist an editor who fears one of her favorite authors has been murdered and becomes drawn into the investigation. With humor and a hint of romance, book two arrives soon.

In Bitter Chill by Sarah Ward: Accomplished debut procedural finds detectives looking into a cold-case murder of a young girl when her mother suddenly commits suicide over thirty years later. Absorbing and well-developed characters. First in a series.

Disclaimer by Renee Knight: A most unusual premise explores a family torn apart when a woman’s hidden secret appears suddenly as the plot of a book in her own home. Original and creative.

Stand-Alones:
Everything She Forgot by Lisa Ballantyne: Ballantyne masterfully connects two threads: a young girl’s kidnapping, and a grown woman traumatized in a car accident, to show how secrets buried in the past have come full circle. Creative and compelling.

Sheer Delight:
The No. 2 Feline Detective Agency by Mandy Morton: Of all the humorous novels Auntie M read, this one stands out for its sheer ingenuity and creative premise: a world of cats, peopled and run by cats, who sometimes resemble humans we might recognize. PI Hettie Bagshot and her sidekick Tilly, their team of friends and their world are filled with Morton’s wry humor. Sales help find homes for less fortunate cats. CCat Amongst the Pumpkins coming soon.

 

Barry Maitland: Crucifixion Creek Sunday, Dec 27 2015 

debut and great read and mystery to die for and new series , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:43 am

CruxCreek
Auntie M is a huge fan of Aussie Barry Maitland’s England series featuring DCI Brick and DI Kolla. Now he’s on his home turf, premiering a new series with a most unusual protagonist, Sydney’s homicide detective Harry Belltree in Crucifixion Creek.

With echoes of his Afghanistan military experience haunting his dreams, Belltree is suddenly overwhelmed with three homicides to investigate: a woman shot during a meth-addict biker siege; an elderly couple who commit apparent suicide at their favorite outdoor cafe’; and a white male stabbed to death in the street.

Then he’s shocked when the stabbing victim turns out to be his brother-in-law Greg, his wife’s sister’s husband, who owned a contracting business.

Journalist Kelly Poole will become far too involved for Belltree’ liking, but does she have a point when she insists these three incidents are all connected? She’s uncovered ties between Greg and the elderly couple to a corrupt money man who has influential friends.

While Belltree can’t officially be a part of Greg’s investigation, the links to the others allow him some latitude and he wants to be the one to brig the person responsible to justice for his wife’s sister and her family. And in doing so, he will bring danger to himself and his family.

With his blind wife becoming his unofficial sidekick, this is an intriguing and suspenseful mystery by a master at work. Highly recommended.

 

Triss Stein: The Erica Donato Mysteries and Brooklyn Secrets Sunday, Dec 20 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:42 am

Please welcome Triss Stein, who’s talking today about the importance of setting, something Auntie M always starts with and the newest in her series, Brooklyn Secrets:

Brooklyn Secrets Cover

Choosing a Setting

A mystery series where the place is part of the story is great fun to read and to write. My fascination with Brooklyn, where the diverse neighborhoods often seem like a collection of small (well, small-ish), towns has lasted a long time. Since change is the only constant in any big city, I don’t think that fascination will go away before I run out of stories to tell.

Choosing the exact setting for each book takes some thought, or perhaps a flash of inspiration. The neighborhood, now, is where and when the story takes place, but my heroine, Erica Donato, is a graduate student in urban history and so there is always a mystery from the past, too. The neighborhood setting needs to have scope for both.

Brooklyn Bones, the first in the series, was easy. I just looked outside my front door. Park Slope, where I live, is a lively and beautiful corner of Brooklyn which has gone through a couple of decades of steady gentrification, (for good or ill). However, it was not always the center of chic it has become (Seriously! They think this in Paris!) and I was here just as it was changing. It was not hard to find a story from that darker time.

Brooklyn Graves was directly inspired by a place, beautiful and historic Green-Wood Cemetery, and a series of news stories about priceless stained glass windows being stolen from now neglected, but once affluent, churches and mausoleums. I think any mystery writer, especially one of with a taste for history, would clip those articles. And ponder.

The setting of the new book, Brooklyn Secrets, has raised more questions. It is Brownsville, a remote corner of Brooklyn that is now, and always was, unlovely, uninspiring, and poor. It was built as an extension of the overcrowded, immigrant Manhattan neighborhood the Lower East Side. The shoddy housing of years ago has been long replaced by projects, perhaps equally shoddy; the color of the skin and the accents of the immigrants is now different and guns have changed the nature of everyday crime, but in many ways it is not different at all. Crime, boxing and education remain the roads out and often, the best choice is not even clear.

I started with Erica writing a chapter of her dissertation about crime in Brownsville’s history. In mid-20th century America, it became famous as the home of Murder, Inc, enforcers for organized crime in its heyday. She sort of overlooked the point that in writing about how neighborhoods change, she would also have to deal with Brownsville now. I overlooked it, too, for a while. The challenge became finding a reason for Erica to continue to be involved in the present day mystery I was trying to create.

Did I solve it? Did I weave together the parallel stories of how young people, now and back then, try to find their way when there is no way? Did I write about a place as an outsider and get it right?

Readers, your thoughts will be most welcome.

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Triss Stein is a small–town girl from New York farm country who has spent most of her adult life in New York the city. This gives her the useful double vision of a stranger and a resident for writing mysteries about Brooklyn neighborhoods in her ever-fascinating, ever-changing, ever-challenging adopted home. In the new book, Brooklyn Secrets,s Erica find herself immersed in the old and new stories of tough Brownsville, and the choices its young people make.

 

Kate Charles on The Detection Club Wednesday, Dec 16 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

The wonderful Kate Charles, mover and shaker with Eileen Roberts at St. Hilda’s Mystery and Crime Conference each year, brings readers a view inside the glorified Detection Club. Here is her report on their latest meeting:

I was immensely privileged, in mid-November, to be present for an historic moment in the annals of crime fiction, when the eighth President of the prestigious Detection Club took over the capacious red robe of office – a robe which has been worn by G.K. Chesterton, Dorothy L. Sayers and Agatha Christie in their time, and most recently by Simon Brett.

The new President is Martin Edwards, a writer who is passionately interested in the history of the Detection Club, serving as its archivist for the past few years and recently publishing a non-fiction book on the subject, The Golden Age of Murder.DC 7Martin Edwards with Simon Brett: the torch and the red robe is passed.

As Martin would tell us, the Detection Club was founded in 1930 (or perhaps 1932!) as a dining club for the prominent crime writers of the Golden Age. Its rituals, including an arcane initiation rite, date from those early days, and were once cloaked in secrecy.

Now, though, in this age of openness (and Wikipedia!), anyone with a bit of curiosity can delve into its mysteries. I don’t think I’ll be struck off as a member for revealing that, in a solemn candle-lit ceremony, new initiates promise that their detectives will not resort to ‘Divine Revelation, Excessive Sanguinity, Lucky Guesses, Mumbo Jumbo, Jiggery Pokery, Coincidence or Act of God’, and that they swear their loyalty to the club on Eric the Skull, with ‘terrible penalties’ threatened for breaking their oath.Kate Charles with Eric the skullKate at her initiation with Eric the Skull.

Members of the Detection Club gather three times a year for congenial dinners in London, as the club continues to fulfil its original function of providing a social outlet for solitary crime writers. These days, though, the writers are far more diverse than those of the Golden Age, as the genre has expanded beyond its cosy beginnings.

This diversity presented a challenge recently, when the club embarked on a project of creating a serial novel in the grand tradition of the original Detection Club’s The Floating Admiral. As in the original project, fourteen writers contributed, and a good time was had by all. Having read (and loved) The Floating Admiral in my youth, I felt it a huge privilege to be involved in this. The Sinking Admiral (inevitably!) will be published in 2016 – another milestone in the ongoing history of a fascinating institution.floatingadmiral

Kate-Charles
Kate Charles is best known for her ecclesiastical mysteries. These include the Book of Psalms series and the Callie Anson series. Her latest book is False Tongues. False-Tongues-cover
She is a former Chairman of the Crime Writers’ Association and the Barbara Pym Society.

 

Leslie Budewitz: Guilty as Cinnamon Monday, Dec 14 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:25 am

Auntie M had the pleasure of meeting Leslie Budewitz at NE Crimebake recently. Leslie is the current President of Sisters in Crime, too, and has a wonderful sense of humor. Welcome her as she talks about what led to her new mystery, Guilty as Cinnamon, Book Two in her Spice Shop Mysteries.

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In 1968, “Here Come the Brides” made TV stars of Bobby Sherman and David Soul—and the city of Seattle. Sherman, Soul, and Robert Brown (I admit, I had to look him up) play three brothers who run a logging company and import potential brides to keep their lumberjacks happy. It’s loosely based on the movie Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and inspired by the real-life story of pioneer Asa Mercer and his “Mercer Girls.” I loved it. I even believed the theme song: “The bluest skies you’ve ever seen are in Seattle, and the hills the greenest green are in Seattle.”
Ten years later when I left Montana for Seattle University, my first few days on the campus were bright and sunny. And then, those famous rains began. About six months later, when the rain stopped and I was still there, I counted myself a true Seattleite. I’d learned. You pull on your rain coat, leave the umbrella your mother gave you in the closet, and go on doing whatever it is you want to do.
And when the sun comes out—well, those are the days the songwriter was talking about.
I remember watching Richard Dreyfus and Marsha Mason in The Goodbye Girl, in a huge theater in downtown Seattle. Dreyfus is packing for a trip to Seattle, where he’s been promised a part in a play. He’ll be back, he promises, and she struggles to believe him. “Do you know they have wolves out there?” he asks, and the whole theater erupted in howls of laughter.
I’d already moved back to Montana when Sleepless in Seattle came out in 1993. Tom Hanks’ houseboat, right? That’s what you remember about Seattle: the gigantic glass windows, the dark, shimmering lake waters, the sparkling lights. And the wonderful connection between Hanks and Meg Ryan, and the cute kid, and all the romantic comedy repartee that makes us feel warm and fuzzy.
These images and more—the Space Needle, Pike Place Market, Mount Rainier, the Seahawks’ offensive line—scrolled through my mind as I created Seattle on the page in my Spice Shop Mysteries. These are the pictures readers who’ve never lived in the Northwest hold of the Emerald City. They’re iconic. They provide a framework for how we view the place, much as the Empire State Building, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade, and Central Park pop into mind when we picture New York City.

Cities are so much more, of course, but I loved calling on those images and the fond memories they evoke when picturing Pepper, my main character, and her friends and staff going about their days under blue skies and gray. Her friend Laurel’s houseboat isn’t Tom Hanks’ houseboat, but I hope a reader who remembers the movie will smile in recognition when the Flick Chicks gather on the roof for dinner, then settle in to the cozy sunken living room to watch a movie. I hope they’ll think of Richard Dreyfus worrying about wolves, and remember that while Seattle is urban, it’s also nestled between wild waters and wild mountains. And I hope they’ll think of those blue skies and white peaks, those green trees and steep hills, when they follow Pepper through the Market to Pioneer Square and back again.

Because a city comes alive on the page when the author creates a place we can see and feel, and our memories of a place—whether we’ve been there or not—are part of the equation.

Do you have a fond memory of Seattle—on the page, the screen, or on a visit?

—
GUILTY AS CINNAMON (Spice Shop Mystery #2, December 1, Berkley Prime Crime)
Pepper Reece knows that fiery flavors are the spice of life. But when a customer dies of a chili overdose, she finds herself in hot pursuit of a murderer…

From the cover …

Murder heats up Seattle’s Pike Place Market in the next Spice Shop mystery from the national bestselling author of Assault and Pepper.

Springtime in Seattle’s Pike Place Market means tasty foods and wide-eyed tourists, and Pepper’s Seattle Spice Shop is ready for the crowds. With flavorful combinations and a fresh approach, she’s sure to win over the public. Even better, she’s working with several local restaurants as their chief herb and spice supplier. Business is cooking, until one of Pepper’s potential clients, a young chef named Tamara Langston, is found dead, her life extinguished by the dangerously hot ghost chili—a spice Pepper carries in her shop.

Now stuck in the middle of a heated police investigation, Pepper must use all her senses to find out who wanted to keep Tamara’s new café from opening—before someone else gets burned…

Leslie-WEB-Color

Leslie Budewitz is the author of the Food Lovers’ Village Mysteries and the Spice Shop Mysteries—and the first author to win Agatha Awards for both fiction and nonfiction. She fell in love with the Pike Place Market as a college student in Seattle, and still makes regular pilgrimages. The president of Sisters in Crime, she lives in northwest Montana with her husband, a musician and doctor of natural medicine, and their cat Ruff, a cover model and avid bird-watcher. Connect with her through her website and blog, http://www.LeslieBudewitz.com, or on Facebook, http://www.Facebook.com/LeslieBudewitzAuthor

Series: Spice Shop Mysteries (Book 2)
Mass Market Paperback: 304 pages
Publisher: Berkley (December 1, 2015)
ISBN-10: 042527179X
ISBN-13: 978-0425271797

 

Fall Humor: Ashley Weaver and Tonya Kappes Sunday, Dec 13 2015 

Continued series winner and mystery to die for , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:44 am

DeathWearsMask
Ashley Weaver’s first Amory Ames mystery, Murder at the Brightwell, was nominated for an Edgar and introduced the wealthy amateur sleuth and her charming and dashing Milo. That first entry is now out in paperback for anyone who missed it.

She returns with Death Wears a Mask, with Amory relaxing in reconciliation at their London flat with Milo, until she turns to full-sleuth mode when high-society marvel Serena Barrington needs her to find who has stolen jewels from her London flat.

There’s an upcoming masked ball and while the host is terribly sexy Viscount Dunmore, Serena’s idea is to have Amory bait a trap for the thief with a copy of Barrington’s jewels to be heisted.

But things to awry when Serena’s nephew becomes a victim and with the help of DI Jones, Amory works her way through the suspect list. Despite Milo’s photo and that of a French film star distracting her and making the advances of the Viscount seem terribly attractive, Amory puts her personal grievances aside to gain Milo’s help in finding a killer–and saving her marriage.

Weaver’s humor reminds readers of Nick and Nora Charles, if they’d been set in 1930’s British society.

GhostlyDemise AGhostlyMurder

Tonya Kappes’ Ghostly Southern Mystery series features Emma Lee Raines, the Eternal Slumber funeral home director who sees dead people. The next two installments in the series have the same hilarious humor that Auntie M’s mum calls “brain candy.”

In A Ghostly Demise, Emma Lee is surprised to find Gephus Hardy at the local deli. The father of her friend, Mary Hanna Hardy, hasn’t been seen in Sleepy Hollow, Kentucky for the past five years and that’s because he was murdered. The town drunk was thought to have disappeared, but Gephus has heard in the spirit world of Emma Lee’s propinquity for helping lost souls move on and her enlists her help.

The request comes at the worst possible time for Emma Lee, as her granny’s mayoral campaign is running in high gear. With a carnival keeping Emma Lee’s boyfriend, the Sheriff, busy in a most humorous way, she’s forced to figure out the connection between the carnival and and a killer.

A Ghostly Murder brings Emma Lee into more of a professional situation when a ghost appears to her in the form of the town’s worst hypochondriac, Mamie Sue Preston. Also one of the richest women in town, Mamie Sue was buried by Emma Lee’s rival, Burns Funeral Home, making her investigation into who killed Mamie even more difficult.

With “I Told You I was Sick” inscribed on her tombstone, Mamie Sue insists she was done in for her fortune. And too many people have benefited from her will to give up their inheritance easily.

Now Emma Lee’s granny is in the frame for murder, and it will take all of her wiles to convince boyfriend sheriff Jack Henry to help her figure out who really did away with Mamie Sue.

 

More Holiday Joy: The US edition Wednesday, Dec 9 2015 

Continued series winner and debut and great read and historical saga and mystery to die for and new series and Uncategorized Auntie M Writes Crime 12:23 am

Auntie M divided her recommendations into Holiday Joy for other sites across the pond on Dec, 8th, and this version where the settings are all in the US. While you’re shopping for the readers on your list, don’t forget you deserve one, too!

Up first is a thriller writer Auntie M met at Thrillerfest a few years when she was meeting favorite UK author Peter James. “Come and meet my tennis friend,” James said, and I was introduced to the tall and charming Simon Toyne, whose Santus trilogy Auntie M has previously reviewed.

Searcher

Readers familiar with that Trilogy will be more than pleased with his new thriller, The Searcher, set in Arizona this time, the first in his new Solomon Creed series. The white-haired albino is just the kind of Jason Bourne-like character who can sustain several books with ease.

A funeral in the town of Redemption is interrupted by a plane crash, and the man running away from the site not only has no shoes, he has no memory of how he got there–or who he is. His clothes provide minimal clues and his name: Solomon Creed.

Creed understands he’s in Redemption for a reason, and his questions will lead him to the town’s secrets, filled with people who have something to hide. There are lines drawn between good and evil and a touch of the supernatural. Two main points of view of Creed and the town’s founder in the form of diary entries allow the story to keep the reader knowing more than Creed. A strong start to a new series with a complex character, great images, and a vivid story.
UntimelyDeath

Canadian author Elizabeth Duncan’s Penny Brannigan series, set in the North Welsh countryside, have been previously reviewed by Auntie M. Now Duncan’s turned to a new setting to debut the first in her second series, the Shakespeare in the Catskills Mysteries, kicking it off with Untimely Death.

Duncan takes readers to a Catskill resort, the Jacobs Grand Hotel, whose production of Romeo and Juliet starts off with a bad turn when the leading lady is poisoned. Lauren Richmond is later stabbed and it seems there are far too many suspects who would have wanted the thespian out of their way.

At the center is Charlotte Fairfax, the costume designer who was formerly mistress for the Royal Shakespeare Company and whose shears have been used to commit the murder. The Catskills may not be London, but Charlotte remains Queen of her domain and inserts herself into the lives of her cast and crew as the investigation commences.

There is a nephew of the owner of the hotel who has fingers pointed at him. The aging actor who was the victim’s lover has his own near-death experience, and it turns out he was Charlotte’s former fiancee. Lots of reasons for her to find herself pushed into the middle of the muddle, not the least of which is that she is dating the Chief of Police. An interesting setup for future installments.

RedLine
At NE Crimebake this year, Auntie M took a police class from Brian Thiem, a former Oakland Homicide Detective Commander with years of Army experience, too. So it was a pleasure after listening to his expertise, designed for writers to ‘get it right’ about police actions, guns, and forensics, to come home and read his debut crime novel featuring Detective Matt Sinclair, Red Line.

RED LINE is an excellent police procedural with an engaging main character who comes across as real, someone readers can identify with and will want to follow, and that extends to his new partner, Cathy Braddock. Catching his first case after desk duty for a series of incidents that have stained his reputation, Sinclair needs a good case to get back into action.

A teenage boy has been found dead at a bus stop outside a hospital, the son of surgeon at that hospital who lives in an affluent neighborhood. Then a second body is dumped at the same bus stop, and Sinclair and Braddock try to find the connection between the victims.

It doesn’t help that the cases bring back an old case of Sinclair’s from two years ago, when two girls were left at that same bus stop. One in a dazed state wandered into the line of traffic and died as a result of being hit by cars. Sinclair realizes he was too deep into his alcoholism at the time to devote as much time to the case as he should have and works even harder to do them justice.

The daily routine of police work is recreated in perfect detail: the interviews, the reports, the way small bits of information come together to build a case. And as Sinclair works this case he must deal with superiors who want to force him out of homicide.

With a girl friend who is a television reporter whose job often puts them in conflict, readers will come to understand the grueling long hours and high stress of a murder investigation, all as Sincalir struggles with his desire to take to the bottle again. Chapters from the murderer’s point of view add to the well-plotted mystery. A strong debut which will leave readers looking for a sequel, from someone who knows the drill inside out.

TimeDeparture
Douglas Schofield has crafted a most unusual police procedural in Time of Departure. Drawing on his own legal experience, he introduces Claire Talbot, a Florida State prosecutor trying to prove herself to her colleagues in her new post a head of their Felony Division.

The action kicks off when a highway construction crew find two skeletons sharing a grave, and Claire is forced to reopen a cold case investigation into a series of abductions. Perusing the case file, she comes across retired fellow cop Marc Hastings, who becomes too close for comfort with some aspects of Claire’s life and this case.

Is his interest more than affection? And what does Hastings know about Claire’s life that she doesn’t?

A compelling debut that shows a clever mind behind it all, mixing genre expectations.

Lies
Linda Lovely takes readers to her hometown of Keokuk, Iowa, in the year 1938 for Lies. Using real landmarks and historical happenings mixed with her fictional story and elements, this is a strong showing from a great storyteller. The period leading up to WWII comes alive under Lovely’s talented hand.

Catherine Reedy Black knows she needs to leave her abusive husband, a swindler and con man, in order to have a reasonable future for her two-year old son, Jay. With her family’s support, she just might be able to do it, too, until Dirk Black’s corpse is pulled out of the river, and Cat becomes the prime suspect.

New to the police department, Ed Nelson knows Cat from school, and remembers the bright girl he was attracted to. But he’s hiding his own secrets, and even as he tries his best to help clear Cat, he’s fighting the corrupt police chief who wants nothing more than to see Cat convicted of murder.

With the annual Street Fair in town, the glitzy lights and rides will prove a scary setting as Cat tries to clear her name and almost dies in the effort. It seems there are many in town who are hiding secrets, and among them is the killer with a motive Cat needs to unearth.

A perfect mix of compelling mystery and love story in a well-drawn setting. And a great gift for any reader who enjoys this period.

WhatYouSee
Multi-award winner Hank Phillipi Ryan returns with her fourth Jane Ryland thriller, What You See.

The journalist and her detective boyfriend, Jake Brogan, are in the midst of still trying to figure out how to handle their conflicts of interest in their jobs. She’s interviewing with a new channel, and rushes to the site of a big story: the stabbing death of a man at historic Faneuil Hall–and it’s Jake’s case.

You would think with multiple tourists capturing the murder on their cell phones that this would be one case that’s an easy solve, but Jake and his partner Paul find this investigation isn’t at all what they’d predicted. There’s an injured man in addition to the victim to consider, too.

In the midst of this, Jane’s sister is about to be married, what should be a joyous occasion–until her fiancé’s daughter, the young flower girl, is abducted by her stepfather. Nine-year-old Gracie’s disappearance is just the tip of the iceberg as this story overlaps with the case Jake is following, with fingers leading to dark places.

It gets more and more complicated. Neither the murder victim or the injured man in the alley have any ID on them, making motive and solving the case difficult. Jane is juggling with trying to establish a new place at Channel 2 when her family situation takes precedence. Jake is finding that a murder in broad daylight in front multiple witnesses is full of challenges and directions of interest that have far reaching connections and consequences.

It all places Jake and Jane in a position to test their loyalties to each other and to their jobs.

Ryan does a bang-up job of showing how even in this digital age, looks can still deceive. Filled with family secrets, merciless ambition, and deceitful maneuverings. JT Ellison says, “This is Ryan at the top of her game.” A perfect mix of mystery and romance.
Silent City
Carrie Smith’s first Manhattan police procedural, Silent City, features protagonist Claire Codella, a detective just back on the case after grueling chemotherapy for an aggressive lymphoma. Still dealing with its after-effects, which Smith details accurately, Codella’ first murder case turns out to a well-liked school principal. And Codella must prove to her colleagues, and to herself, that she’s up to the task.

Hector Sanchez’s murder investigation hands Codella a new partner to break in, newly promoted Eduardo Munoz. They, along with Codella’s former partner, Brian Haggerty, follow numerous leads in their search for Sanchez’s killer. The staging of his body makes it appear that his murder is connected to his job as principal at PS 777 and the three investigators quickly learn there are far too many suspects with a motive to kill him.

Codella is an intelligent detective who follows where the evidence leads her, and whose new boss is not exactly her biggest fan. Yet despite his attempts to undermine her authority, Codella relentlessly pursues all the of the leads in the case, despite battling her cancer treatment’s side effects.

Munoz and Haggerty, also excellent investigators, know they must be loyal to Codella. Munoz must also prove himself worthy of his promotion; Haggerty and Codella are trying to put to bed an old rift that came between them.

This mystery has an engaging storyline and appealing characters. With plenty of suspects, no clear cut motive for the crime and stunning plot twists, Carrie Smith skillfully conceals the killer’s identity until the novel’s climax. A strong series debut.

ManWashingMachine
Susan Cox won Minotaur Books/Mystery Writers of America First Crime Novel award. The Man on the Washing Machine is a delightful mix of humor and murder, taking place in San Francisco, and introducing a most unusual sleuth, former party girl and society photographer Theophania Bogart, who hides her own family secrets.

Theo unfortunately sees her neighbor, Tim Callahan, fall from his apartment window, plunging her right into the middle of his murder investigation. Her already complicated new life comes under intense scrutiny. Surrounded by neighbors and friends, Theo is the owner of a small bath and body shop as well as the building housing it, but she is constantly afraid her sordid past will be unearthed.

What will a police investigation do to her carefully crafted identity?

When the police detective suspects murder, not suicide, she lists the entire neighborhood as suspects and that includes Theo. Then another body with direct ties to Theo turns up, making her the number one suspect.

Filled with eccentric characters, this fast-paced mystery is filled with humor and action. A perfect gift for those readers who enjoy a dose of humor with their mystery.

That’s it for the gift listing, folks. Remember that books make wonderful presents for anyone on your holiday list. And enjoy yours, with a few for your stocking as well~

 

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