David Rosenfelt: Bark Humbug Tuesday, Oct 13 2026 

Continued series winner and great read and humorous crime and legal thriller and mystery to die for and reviews and Series not to be missed , Auntie M Writes Crime 9:03 am

It must be difficult after 33 books with sort-of retired lawyer Andy Carpenter to come up with a new premise, yet Rosenfelt has done just that with Bark Humbug, #34, a fresh kind of case that will keeps readers flipping pages.

After agreeing to help the sister of a murder suspect, accused of gunning down a candidate for governor along with another member of his team walking beside him, Andy reluctantly is pulled into defending Jon Lowery after finding a temporary home for his dog.

The ex-Marine sharpshooter has plenty of circumstantial evidence against him, and Andy and his team hit overdrive to find the real culprit. It doesn’t help that the shots that killed the two men could only have been accomplished by a very skilled marksmen, and his client is just that.

Andy can find plenty of ways to explain away most of this evidence as planted to make Lowery the scapegoat after his comments against the candidate are captured during a live town hall.

In the course of their investigation, and despite threats against him and his family, Andy uncovers a widespread network of corruption that might explain several ensuing murders, but he can’t nail down a motive for the would-be governor to be shot.

Two hallmarks of the series are Andy’s witty thoughts, and the dialogue he has with his team, which includes his ex-police wife, another lawyer, and several specialists and ex-law enforcement helpers who, well, enforce.

Combine that with a complex plot that has a very surprising and suspenseful ending, and you have all the ingredients needed for a great read.

 

Donna Andrews: Jay to the World Tuesday, Oct 13 2026 

amateur sleuth and Award winning novelist and Christmas story and complex mystery and Continued series winner and family story and great read and humorous crime and mystery to die for and reviews and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 9:00 am

You’d think by the 40th Meg Langslow Mystery that Donna Andrews would have run put of pithy bird-related titles, but have no fear. While in the past there have been ducks, crows, magpies, falcons, larks, toucans, finches, gulls, eagles, even hens and hawks, to name just a few, this time we have Jay to the World.

Specifically, bluejays, who come to earn a pivotal role in the mystery set at Christmas time. It’s a busy time for Meg as she juggles incoming relatives with holiday preparations, along with her mother’s special projects, which this year includes her role in decorating the great room of a mansion for the Garden Club Holiday show house, plus a playhouse she’s having built for her two- year-old granddaughter, Brynn, whose favorite bird is “boojays.”

When the playhouse is vandalized and her mother hurt in the process, Meg’s mother admits she’s been receiving threatening emails. Meg juggles her other holiday responsibilities to investigate those she’s determined are her mother’s potential enemies, all the while arranging nursing care for a wounded boojay.

All of the usual cast of eccentric and lovable characters are on hand to assist Meg, including her twin sons, many other extended family members, and other Caerphilly residents and law enforcement she’s helped in the past. Now it’s their turn to help Meg.

One of my personal favorite characters is Miss Ethelinda Pruitt, an assisted living resident who earns a tidy side sum selling her untraditional yet intricate needlework samplers and pillows with off-color sayings delicately worked into the canvases. I hope Andrews will keep her in future mysteries. The only person missing is Meg’s drama teacher husband, Michael, who is in New York City with the classes yearly theatre crawl, which this year comes too close to the run-up to Christmas.

Andrews gives readers a nicely twisted plot and believable scoundrels, who do more than their share of creating messes that need to be cleaned up. There’s also plenty of the author’s brand of wry humor to round out a more than satisfying mystery that has a surprising ending twist readers won’t see coming.

This is another winner in a long running series that will delight fans and newcomers to Meg and her crew alike.

 

Mariah Fredericks: Murder on 34th Street Tuesday, Oct 6 2026 

Award winning novelist and Christmas story and complex mystery and historical saga and mystery to die for and reviews , , Auntie M Writes Crime 9:00 am

It’s no secret I’m a fan of Frederick’s historical novels (The Lindbergh Nanny; The Wharton Plot) but her newest, Murder on 34th Street, might just be my favorite.

Readers will immediately be drawn in by the voice she has created for protagonist Grace Verlander, with its mix of wryness and keen observation. As the assistant HR person at Macy’s huge Herald Square site, Grace has a knack for keeping things running smoothly when a less accomplished person would flounder. She’s smart and while she has her own baggage, she doesn’t let anything interfere with the position she’s worked hard to achieve.

It’s the run-up to the huge Thanksgiving Day parade in 1932, and New Yorkers need something to look forward to in the Depression, which has affected everyone, especially job seekers. When the store Santa receives a death threat, Grace takes this seriously, and speaks to the store detective, a former policeman, about increasing security around the man chosen to represent Kris Kringle that season.

Yet despite all of their efforts, there is a murder, and Grace is determined to not only find the killer, but to save Macy’s reputation. She will have the help of a window decorator she encounters, but is mostly on her own, using her knowledge of the employees and of the store’s inner workings to investigate as more deaths occur.

And just when she thinks she has it figured out, an ending twist turns things upside down to a surprising climax.

There is plenty here that makes this a great read, from the snappy dialogue, to Grace’s inner thoughts, to the significant research Frederick’s has done about how the Macy’s parade functioned in this era behind the scenes.

New York City springs to life under her talented pen, and gives readers an engrossing read they will devour. Highly recommended.

 

Ann Cleaves: The Dying Light Tuesday, Sep 29 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and police procedural and reviews , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 7:30 am

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.

 

Lucy Foley and Agatha Christie: Murder at the Grand Alpine Hotel Tuesday, Sep 22 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and reviews and Series not to be missed , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 8:22 pm

Fans of Miss Marple, take notice! As the Christie estate authorized author Sophie Hannah to write new Poirot mysteries, they have now authorized a new novel featuring the elderly spinster sleuth. Lucy Foley’s own bestselling books (The Guest List, The Paris Apartment, et al) make her the perfect author to bring readers her rich storyteling in Murder at the Alpine Hotel. As a huge Christie aficionado, she makes certain to adhere to the spirit of the Miss Marple we know and love, creating a unique bridge from the original novels to engage us with new stories.

Chrisite fans will appreciate Foley including Mrs. Dolly Bantry (1942’s The Body in the Library) as Miss Marple’s traveling companion when the two women, along with Dolly’s paid companion, travel in the winter of 1950 to the Swiss Alps to the glamorous resort that will give them a winter holiday amongst an interesting mix of guests.

But the holiday feel is soon jeopardized when a huge snowstorm isolates them in the Grand Alpine Hotel, just as a guest’s dead body is found inside the hotel’s mountain gondola. A sealed environment with a cast of suspects makes the perfect setting for the investigation Miss Marple carefully undertakes after volunteering to assist a French detective staying at the resort.

Soon several guests who were associated with the dead man come under the careful scrutiny of Miss Marple as more bodies pile up, with a most surprising climax that has several twists at the end. The post-war setting has its tendrils in the plot, and Foley gets the feel of the time in this European setting just right.

There are scenes from several suspects’ points of view, adding psychological depth to the story that is Foley’s specialty of strong women. There are nuns, a Hollywood actress, an MP and his wife, as well as an Irish Wolfhound, all bound up in a morally complex plot.

At first Miss Marple appears frail and hesitates to become involved, but once she’s in full swing, knitting away while bringing her comparisons of village life to the forefront, the beloved character rises again with her acute observations, and we are satisfied and happy to read the first Miss Marple mystery since Christie’s Sleeping Murder in 1976, the same year Christie died. The British Library is mounting an exhibit on the 50th anniversary of her death. Christie’s books are still outsold only by the Bible and Shakespeare.

Nothing misses the eagle eye of Miss Marple. Readers will agree when Foley has Dolly Bantry tell Marple, “Jane . . . I hope you won’t mind my saying this, but it is almost uncanny, your ability to think yourself into the mind of a murderer.”

Delicious and entertaining, grab this milestone book now.

 

Mother Daughter Sister Stranger: Hank Philippi Ryan Tuesday, Sep 1 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and family story and great read and psychological mystery and reviews and suspense thriller , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 8:00 am

Ryan knocks this one out of the park with a thriller that will have readers flipping pages long into the night.

Filled with a huge packet of lies and secrets, Eliza Ramsey tries to unravel the reality of events that have started with the plane crash that left her and her older sister orphans.

Eleven years later, Eliza is on the hunt for Bea after her sister disappears, leaving her to to care for her niece, Piper. The precocious pre-teen doesn’t understand why her mother hasn’t shown up after being away for a week—and neither does Eliza.

What starts out as a possible miscommunication from Eliza’s point of view soon morphs into something much more diabolical, when a visit to Bea’s home finds all of her clothes are missing. Has she disappeared on purpose? Been kidnapped?

Not knowing whom to trust, Eliza only knows one thing for certain: Bea would never abandon her daughter.

Ryan’s Eliza is instantly recognizable, yet a complex character after losing her parents. We watch her growth through the book as a series on unexpected twists and turns force her to face uncomfortable and even dangerous truths as the tension steadily rises.

The twists keep coming in what may be Ryan’s best thriller yet. Not to be missed.

 

Will Thomas: For Services Rendered Thursday, Aug 20 2026 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and Continued series winner and espionage thriller and great read and historical saga and reviews and Series not to be missed and Uncategorized , , , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 6:07 pm

Will Thomas’s Barker and Llewelyn series in one one of Auntie M’s favorite historicals with good reason, as his research is meticulous and often based on real events. He returns with the newest in this long-running series with For Services Renderered.

It’s October of 1986, and Barker and Llewelyn, private enquiry agents, have a long established daily routine that is shaken to its very core when their cook, Etienne Dummolard, chef owner at Le Toison d’Or, fails to appear to cook their breakfast. When he is taking his family to Dijon to avoid clashing with his sworn enemy who ate dinner the previous night at his restaurant.

The news is particularly startling because Barker killed Seabastian Nightwine in a duel, yet Eitienne insists he’s alive.

Unfortunately, this turns out to be true. The evil man makes enemies easily and never forgets a grudge. He trained his only daughter to be an assassin, and is dangerous beyond compare as he runs through money and will do anything to earn more, even to kidnapping British citizens who have angered the Qing government years ago in China and still have a reward on their heads. Yet his charm amuses many, including the Prince of Wales, who has not seen his dark side.

So when Barker’s paramour, Lady Phillipa Ashleigh, visits to say she’s received a message from Nightwine, Barker is on instant alert. Coveting Barker’s relationship with Lady Phillipa makes Nightwine doubly treacherous. Soon she and Llewelyn’s wife and young daughter are on their way to Paris, out of harm’s way.

But not before a visitor to their office gives them another, possibly related, case. Dr. James Cantlie begs the two detectives to find his missing friend, a young doctor he mentored who has disappeared, named Sun Yat-Sen.

What follows is a double espionage situation with Nightwine at their heels as the men try to find the young kidnapped doctor, born in China but raised in Hawaii. Learning that the Qing government has declared a price on the man’s head for a letter he sent to the government complaining of their methods, Barker suspects Nightwine is at the heart of the man’s disappearance.

Their investigation will take the two men into the heart of the Cbinese embassy who are holding the young doctor, with Nightwine planning to smuggle him out of England to face execution in China. Only the wits and wiles of Barker and Llewelyn can stop this plan from coming to fruition.

Using Llewelyn as narrator adds an element of the Welshman’s pithy observations in this wholly entertaining novel.

 

Craig Higginson: Shadow Country Sunday, Aug 16 2026 

amateur sleuth and complex mystery and historical saga and reviews and thriller , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 6:01 pm

Blending multiple genres, Higginson’s Shadow Country brings Zululand, South Africa to readers.

Writer Daniet Hawthorne has traveled to the Webster family’s pricey Rock Ridge Safari Lodge. His announced motive for the trip is to do research on a disgraced relative, Lt. Charles Hawthorne, who fought in the 1879 Anglo-Zulu War in the area. The planned biography is of the man who was his great-great-grandfather who survived the bloody battle.

But soon Daniel’s thrust becomes to investigate the disappearance of Webster’s lovely daughter, Sam, presumed drowned after a sighting of her body surfaced on the flooded Buffalo River, only to disappear again. With the family absorbed in its grief, Daniel’s amateur detecting soon uncovers different narratives–and motives for who might have wanted Sam to disappear.

The lion-shaped mountain iSadlwana is where the Webster’s land sits, the battlefield dominating the landscape and the characters, filled as it is with unburied bones of British and Zulu soldiers. It’s a haunting reminder and a physical presence that casts its shadow over everyone. When a massive storm floods the river, all of its secrets are exposed.

Daniel’s contemporary investigation into the woman’s disappearance is in direct contrast with his ancestor’s past as he delves into the family’s secrets. That Charles was a lepidopterist is a huge symbol of the delicacy of nature against the dark violence of colonial war. The novel is highly atmospheric, whatever time period the reader is in, with its dual timelines in start contrast, too.

Thought-provoking, above your usual thriller, this showcases the human condition and its unchanging foibles.

 

Donna Andrews: Probable Caws Friday, Aug 14 2026 

amateur sleuth and Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and humorous crime and mystery to die for and reviews , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 1:27 pm

How does a multi-award-winning author keep a series interesting through 39 books?

By developing varied, quirky, and interesting characters, then placing them in a charming rural setting, and filling her stories with tidbits about nature, all wrapped up in a mystery that is not so much needing to be solved as proving what lead protagonist Meg Langslow suspects all along.

The blackmsith is hoping for some forge time when her family’s good friend Ragnar Ragnarsen calls with an urgent plea: can she and her family help with the many volunteers needed to care for fifty horses suddenly displaced from their equine rescue?

All of Meg’s family become involved, including her twin teen boys, her zookeeper father, her doctor dad, and her theatre director husband. Ragnar’s estate closely resembles a moated castle, complete with many of Meg’s gothic iron decorative and useful items on display. The huge fields surrounding the estate are soon broken into staging areas for the horses, many who have just been rescued from auctions and need to be triaged, while others need room to roam.

The rescue farm’s owner recently died without leaving a will, forcing Hoof and Hearth to temporarily rehome the horses as his two sons argue the legalities. While older son Abel is in favor of the rescue on the land, the younger, George, wants to sell the land for development, and isn’t above using threats and shady characters to reinforce his position.

Meg’s family camp out to keep watch over the horses after George’s thugs appear—until one of them is found murdered, and suspicion falls squarely on Abel.

Now Meg must juggle watching her family and the horses, while she helps to unmask a killer, and learns how to care and cajole horses of all personalities, including one due to deliver any minute.

The research Andrew’s brings into every aspect of a horse’s life make this story, along with its humorous bent, an entertaining read with this satisfying entry.

 

Jack Friday: Killer Vibes Thursday, Jul 16 2026 

debut and great read and humorous crime and mystery to die for and new series and reviews , , Auntie M Writes Crime 7:36 pm

Termed a “hilarious queer noir mystery,” Jack Friday’s KILLER VIBES introduces readers to Peter Key, usually stoned, who calls himself the “laziest PI in Texas” with good reason.

Peter is an unconventional yet engaging protagonist; the fact that he soon realizes he has a natural talent for investigation surprises even Peter, while Austin serves as the perfect setting. With its own weird culture, this choice is enhanced by the eccentricities of many other characters.

It’s a high-stakes inheritence mystery that revolves around Peter’s Uncle Jimmy, who has died and left Peter his historic Austin bungalow. Despite it’s crumbling condition, the neighborhood brings its worth to over a million dollars.

With pressure to sell from several quarters, Peter soon suspect Uncle Jimmy’s death was not an accident, especially when he finds a bag filled with cash. What had Uncle Jimmy gotten himself into? For that matter, what has Peter now gotten himself into?

With help from is unusual sidekicks, Peter is determined to keep his new home while he solves Uncle Jimmy’s murder.

A terrific, comedic read in a genre that might be called “stoner-noir.”

 

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