The 21st Inspector Gamache novel bring readers back to the familiar and loved cast of Three Pines, with the well-loved detective being woken by a panicked call, telling him of a body to be found in a remote area of wooded Quebec known as the Lost Nation.
When the site is finally found, it’s a bizarre sight: a dead man wearing clothing from the last century, lying on top of a grave with seedlings growing out of his clothes.
Even more startling, the genesis of the call appears to have originated from Gamache’s close friend and neighbor, artist Clara Morrow.
These early leads take the team on a wild search for not only those who are buried in the Lost Nation, but a maritime disaster that has bearing on the case, ancestors of Clara’s dead husband Peter Morrow, and at the heart of the matter, a Victorian botanist who curated a plant, now extinct.
The ghost of Miss Wolcott is indeed of great importance on several levels, as Gamache and his team investigate the man’s death, which will take them to France and England in addition to their Quebec universities. Miss Wolcott infuses their search at every step.
This is vintage Penny, a Gamache classic, and a real winner in both its complex plot and the humanistic themes it touches on. Wait until you’ve read the novel to read the Acknowledgments that give real insight how these plot lines came together for Penny.
One of Japan’s most read novelists, Jiro Akagawa’s A Game of Cat and Killer is the first in his long-running series first published in Japan in 1978, and now translated into English for the first time.
The cat in question is named Holmes, and while he’s not a talking cat, the feline does have an unusual way of bringing clues to his owners’ attention. After reluctantly adopting Holmes, Detective Yoshitaro Katayama takes a while to realize how Holmes can help him, but once he figures it out, he accepts the cat will be a welcome helper.
Katayama is a shy man with many fears, and it’s only his good instincts and dogged attention to detail that allows him to solve crimes. In this first in the series, he’s called to a woman’s college to investigate when a young female student is found murdered.
Soon he’s mired in more than one investigation, and while his aunt distracts him with matchaking, he’s drawn to a comely student instead.
The writig is sharp, with sprightly dialogue, while the plot is nicely twisted. It’s a heartwarming read from a multiple literary award winner, with sales of his books making him the highest of any Japanese author.
Cleeves’s 4th Detective Matthew Venn novel opens during a heat wave in North Devon, an area Cleeves know well, having grown puu there, and she puts this sense of local knowledge to great use in her setting.
Venn’s new case starts off with the body of young woman found floating in the pool of MP Paul Armstrong’s vacation home. The dead girl, Lottie Caldwell, is friends with Hannah Armstrong, who appears to be missing. With the girls arriving before the family at the end of their exams, they’ve had a few days alone to celebrate, and also it will be revealed to create a particular brand of disquiet in the small town of Millscombe.
The Armstrong parents and two young brothers arrived to find Lottie’s body and Hannah missing. Could this be a kidnap gone wrong? Until tragedy strikes again, and suddenly Venn and his closeknit team have a double murder to solve. With a local folk festival in the area over the past weekend, a nearby farmer’s family who Hannah’s grown close to, and the local pub owners involved with the girls first days home, the suspect pool quickly widens.
There is a sense of claustrophobia in the setup of the local area, with everyone knowing everyone else’s business, and their gossip pervades every aspect of Venn’s investigation. It doesn’t help matters that he’s struggling with his husband Jonathan’s decision to find his birth mother.
The book has a terrific atmospheric sense of setting that buttresses the vivid characters, all finely drawn, distinctive and individual. Introspective and at times unsure of himself, Venn is Vera Stanhope’s direct opposite, yet just as worthy a detective with his own way of pursuing an investigation, and his belief that his leads will come from learning about the victim’s lives and of those around them. How we are perceived can vary greatly, as can what will be said about people when they are alive versus when they are dead. The secrets these characters keep must also be prised open to get to the heart of the matter.
Intriguingly plotted, at times the reader feels as Matthew Venn must, that the elusive truth is just hidden around the next corner, a wisp of reality waiting to be seen. And when the shocking ending occurs, it must be said that it was there all the time in our view and yet remained unseen.
The author of the popular Vera and and Shetland series does not disappoint. This is terrific writing and stands up with the best Cleeves has written. Highly recommended.
Brittney’s 7th installment in her Mayfair 100 series, set in London during World War 1, brings the same attention to historical detail as the rest of this fascinating collection of stories that encompass a murder investigation while examining the societal constraints and mores of the era.
With a special task force set up to include women, DCI Peter Beech, invalided out with an injured leg, leads the team that includes two other policemen, Sgt. Arthur Tillman who has come out to retirement to help, and invalided constable, Billy Rigby. The competent women who assist them are Women’s Hospital physician Caroline; Pharmacist Mabel; and solicitor Victoria, who is qualified but unable to practice law as a woman. They are aided by Billy’s mother and aunt, while the team is headquartered in Victoria’s mother’s house. Lady Maud Winterbourne has allowed her Mayfair home to be the center for the team, whileher society connections often prove invaluable.
It’s February of 1916 and The Military Service Act has been passed, which in the US would be called the draft, making military service compulsory for single men between 18-41. The first victim, which Victoria had encountered shortly before her murder, is a young woman who shamed a man for not signing up by handing him a white feather.
The White Feather League used these women to indicate they regarded the men as cowards. While often that was not true, as a man might have served and been invalided out, the league’s actions raise the ire of Victoria, already widowed, who fears her new love will be conscripted.
The dead girl is found with her throat cut in a distinctive way, and soon a young art student designing recruitment posters is murdered with the same unusual implement. When a third woman is attacked but wards her murderer off, there is hope she can identify her would-be killer, but at first she is kept in a medical coma, unable to be questioned. The Mayfair team is tasked with warning women involved in promoting this kind of propaganda, but the numbers are heady and the task difficult, while at the same time they search for details in each killing for leads.
Woven into the investigation, Caroline and Mabel are asked to inspect a factory contructing aircraft where women are falling ill, and there is a suspicion that the chemicals used in their process are causing permanent health damage to the workers. This fascinating subplot will capture readers attention as it leads to new restrictions.
Then the search for the killer ratchets up when one of the team disappears without a trace. Could the killer have taken their member off the street? The compelling story rises to a riveting and surprising climax.
The hallmark of the series is Brittney’s consistent and realistic historical detailing, reflecting the enormous research she must undertake in many areas to bring this kind of multi-layered story to readers.
Bannalec’s Commissaire Geroges Dupin series brings readers to delightful Brittany, this time October, where the days are still sunny. I’ve known readers of this series who have traveled to some of Bannalec’s settings due to his descriptions.
This case hits close to home for Dupin and his team. After several supersititous omens of death, his second in command, Inspector Kadeg, has lost his aunt. The old abbey where the woman lived is the perfect yet tense setting when Kadeg visits and is seriously attacked.
Dupin brings his team to get to the bottom of the mystery at the beautiful abbey, filled with luscious gardens, a paradise of sorts, with it famous for its special apples. Only as the team scrape beneath the surface, they uncover secrets that belie the lovely setting, with family intrigue into the wealthy dead woman’s estate and secrets around those who will inherit.
Did Aunt Joelle die of natural causes, or was she helped along by someone desperate for their part in her estate? And what do rare birds have to do with it all?
It’s a classic Dupin mystery, with the glories of the region highlighted, and rich with character development.
The series is known for its love letter to the region, in this case, the Cote des Legendes region that springs to life under Bannalec’s talented pen with his team tracking down the truth. A most satisfying case with a lovely and tender ending awaits readers.
Cleeland’s Doyle & Acton series bring its 23d offering with Murder by Mistake.
Featuring the fey Kathleen Doyle, the detective is married to the renowned Scotland Yard Chief Inspector, and they two have been involved in and solved many cases together.
But this time Doyle is on maternity leave at her husband’s ancestral estate with her third child, a girl to join two boisterous brothers. Several weeks earlier she’d spoken at a school career day. One little boy named Beck caught her attention, as he asked each speaker if they’d ever killed anyone.
Her new daughter broke her attention to him, but now in her dreams, she’s been told she must speak to the boy, as that will lead to a murder by mistake, possibly more than one mistake.
Reluctantly. and with the sense of prior cases being involved, the family return to their London home and Doyle is plunged into a new case when it turns out the boy’s father is missing, and there is a connection between the man and her own family.
Juggling motherhood, baby feeds, nannies and the like, Doyle nevertheless champoions the cause, helping Beck to find out the truth about his missing father, while danger mounts and the threads she pulls will unravel more than she could have imagined.
This series is a delight, full of charm, and this entryhits the mark, with returning characters at times interwoven into the plot. One of my favorites is their London butler and cook, Reynolds, who teaches Doyle the many lines that staff must not cross.
Nicely plotted, this is a bright and delectable read.
As a crime writer, Auntie M is always interested when another writer uses a creative way to tell a story.
This is a book-within-a-book, told in alternating chapters between a young London detective, back at work after a medical leave and trauma, and the author of a tell-all primer supposedly, written by a serial killer who is now teaching others how he literally has gotten away with murder for years.
DI Samantha Hansen wants in on the case of a 14 yr-old girl murdered in Holland Park. Found lying against a tree in the park, a copy of the book is left beside her. While Sam recognizes the importance of this huge clue, she is also suspicious of it.
What follows is a cat-and-mouse game with the book’s author, Denver Brady, as Sam races to find him before he kills again. She will face criticism from her colleagues as her shaky anxiety sometimes impedes her. She will realize that people she’s trusted in the past have not deserved that from her, a wake up call that’s as difficult to swallow as the realization that perhaps Denver Brady isn’t who he claims to be.
Philipson explores the celebrity of serial killers in our society, as well as violence against women, while treating readers to a wild ride with great plot twists. A terrific read~
The 22nd Doyle & Action mystery is just as fresh and compelling as the first in this long-running series, which continues to delight readers. With Sir Michael Acton and Lady Acton married police officers, Acton’s way of handling justice often has the Irish Kathleen exasperated as she tries to rein him in.
Her fey nature is helpful to him, though, and Acton enlists the very pregnant Kath to ascertain when witnesses are lying. Aided at times by ghosts only she sees in dreams, she juggles two young boys at home with minimal help. This third child is a girl, and Kath’s imminent delivery has sidelined her to easier tasks.
So when Acton tells his beloved wife he is arranging a charity gala at his ancestral home, Trestles, where a play will entertain the guests, she is immediately suspicious that more is at work, as Acton is known for his devious ways of handling things. A cold murder case mixed with an art-rig gang are at the forefront, as is a fortune to be inherited. Kathleen knows this play is a ruse for more serious business.
The chosen play is a fictional court case revolving around the characters of Sherlock Holmes’s The Hound of the Baskervilles, and soon Kathleen can see parallels to their cases. There are romantic entanglements to sort, murderers to catch, blackmailers to halt–it’s all in a day’s work for this duo who remain devious and charming together. There’s even an evil man confined to a wheelchair whose silver-headed cane may or may not contain a gun.
Cleeland’s plot evolves as Kathleen tries to find out what her exasperating husband is really up to, and this time even she is surprised. A delightful addition to an entertaining series.
Peter James’s long-running DCI Grace series, now on BritBox in a grand adaptation as Grace, has just published his 22nd in this series, The Hawk is Dead.
The backstory to this novel is fascinating: Her Majesty Queen Camilla, a huge Grace fan, asked him when she was Duchess of Cornwall in 2019 if he couldn’t see a way to bring Sussex-based Grace to London. After kicking the idea around for four years as he worked on other projects already under construction, James figured out a plot what would allow him to bring Grace and a few members of his team to the Palace.
And that kernel of an idea started when James read that the 775 rooms in Buckingham Palace were to undergo a major renovation, which would take place over the course of several years, not just for updating and modernization but for safety reasons. The Royal Collection consists of over a million very valuable art and objects held by The Crown, many in Buckingham Palace.
From that grew the idea for the entire novel, and the beginning of exhaustive research, which included James being given inside tours of the palace, and even learning how to drive a train! Always giving his realistic police procedurals a grand plot, James knocks it out of the park with this one, literally, by taking Grace from his Brighton territory to Buckingham Palace.
His team becomes involved when the Queen is traveling by train to visit hospices along the south coast. Her train must be evacuated after being derailed inside a tunnel. A harrowing scene from the train driver’s point of view brings the accident to life, and as the Queen and a trusted advisor exit the tunnel, shots ring out. While the Queen narrowly misses being assassinated, Sir Peregrine Greaves, Private Secretary to Their Majesties and one of the most senior members of their household, is killed.
Grace has a nagging feeling the Queen might not have been the intended target, and readers are treated to insights into the workings of the Royal Household, and its pecking order, as well as an extensive treatment of the glories contained within the huge building as the investigation ensues.
With attention turned to the household, when a diary Sir Peregrine kept in code, more matters come to light and soon Grace and his team, especially his long-term bagman DI Branson, must sift through Not-My-King protestors; territorial tiffs with the Met, who want to take over his investigation; and missing artifacts. Then a second body is found…
This was one of the most enjoyable Grace novels to date, and as usual, gives us a window into his home life, too. But James’s intricate plotting with its exploration of life within the royal household make this a gripping story.
From time to time, Auntie M likes to let you in what she’s been reading, not for review, but for her own personal choice. These are some of my favorites, the ones I reach for again and again for a satisfying read:
Steve Cavanagh knocks it out of the park with his new Eddie Flynn legal thriller, Two Kinds of Stranger, which may be his most perfectly twisted plot yet, and he’s a master at it. Eddie is a conman turned lawyer who won’t hesitate to step outside the law to bring justice.
This case comes too close to home when a stalker client threatens his daughter, ex-wife and her new lawyer husband. At the same time, he and his team have taken on the case of a young woman whose life had been about espousing random acts of kindness. In an ironic twist, that same instinct has led to her being poisoned, while her cheating husband and his lover are also poisoned. While the duo die, Ellie Parker manages to survive but is soon charged with their murders, as no one can find the stranger she says she helped who poisoned her, a sociopath working behind the scenes to manipulate her life.
No one except Eddie Flynn. And then his ex-wife’s stalker is killed, and his daughter’s mother and her husband are on trial for that murder. His team is managing two serious trials at the same time, and lines will be crossed with life-changing outcomes. At times you can’t see how he can pull this one off, and Eddie isn’t certain he can, either.
There’s a final extra ending twist that makes it all come full circle—you won’t be able to put this one down. Cavanagh gets NYC and its environs perfectly, which is all the more surprising when you learn he and his family live in Belfast, Ireland. Don’t miss this brilliantly layered novel.
The Marlow Murder Club is currently showing on my Masterpiece Mystery, and Auntie M snapped up the newest installment, a locked room (boat) mystery that weaves a killing around the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society in Murder on the Marlow Belle.
Verity Beresford enlists Judith Potts and her friends to track down her missing husband after the drama society had hired The Marlow Belle for an evening on the river. But no one remembers seeing Oliver Beresford leave the boat.
Then Oliver’s body, complete with bullet holes, washes up downriver, and the three women amateur sleuths are on the hunt. Soon they are knee-deep in the personal lives of the main players, whose secrets they must unearth, as it seems Oliver had a host of enemies.
Cosy mystery crime at its finest with a returning ensemble we’ve grown to love.
Queen Camilla let it be known that Peter James is her favorite author, and so his October book, The Hawk is Dead, has scenes at Buckingham Palace. But One of Us is Dead is out now, so readers who follow Brighton Superintendent Roy Grace can gratefully indulge.
Grace and his familiar team are investigating a series of murders that appear unrelated, but Grace has a that twitch of instinct that tells him they are, despite mushroom poisoning and accidents that may not be what they seem.
At a local funeral, a man enters the church late to see a fellow a few rows ahead of him he knows to be dead–because he gave that man’s eulogy. What these disparate incidents have in common becomes the latest chase to find a canny killer.
Grace’s respect and detail of police procedures is at full mast here, as is his frustration at being behind the desk too much. Another great installment in a long-running series that never disappoints.
I had fears that SJ Bennett’s series featuring Queen Elizabeth would come to an end with the passing of the monarch, but Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series continues with A Death in Diamonds by heading back in time to 1957 with a young Queen finding her voice. And now she’s opened up a host of years to pull from as the series continues.
When two people are murdered and the Queen finds herself used as the alibi for one of the murders, all the while trying to learn her job and her nation’s place in a modern world, it seems that the very advisors she must trust may not always have her best interests at heart.
Her ally becomes Joan McGraw, an ex-Bletchley Park code breaker, discreet and loyal to the Queen, and soon this dynamic duo are running their own investigation. A clever and intriguing way to continue this series, Bennett gets the personalities of the royals involved down pat with nice asides we can well imagine might really have been said. A jewel~
Skelton’s well-plotted series featuring investigative reporter Rebecca Connolly continues with The Hollow Mountain.
Filled with the kind of ironic humor Auntie M enjoys, Rebecca is challenged by Alice Larkin, a dying millionaire and former reporter, to unearth what really happened when her lover died while working as a tunnel tiger on the Hollow Mountain project years ago.
With Alice parsing out her story, Rebecca must use her talents and those of her colleagues to unearth the truth of the hazardous construction as the workers blasted through mountains, under rivers, to create a pass, but she soon finds herself in jeopardy when the secrets she is finding threaten the reputations of those left behind.
Skelton’s series at highly atmospheric in their Scottish settings and the entire series comprise great reads.
Nita Prose’s maid Molly Gray is a wonderful character with a unique take on life whom Prose first debuted in The Maid. Now planing her wedding to chef Juan Manual, she’s been promoted to Head Maid and Special Events Manager at the Regency Grand Hotel, a delightful setting for much of the action of the series.
In The Maid’s Secret, the antiquities show Hidden Treasures is filming an episode at the Regency Grand when a decorated egg Molly brings in to be valued is found to be an antique treasure. At the same time as the television world and Molly’s life is turned upside down, excerpts from her grandmother’s diary explain how the egg came to be in her possession. And then the egg goes missing . . .
It’s a nice device that alternates with the madcap part of the auction process and gives a glimpse–and surprising information–to Molly. As usual, there is a sense of a heartfelt lesson being told.
