Across the Pond Winners: Casey, Donoghue, Robinson, Williams Saturday, Aug 22 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:46 am

Auntie M would like to mention that her second Nora Tierney Mystery, THE GREEN REMAINS, has won First Place in the Mystery and Mayhem Awards given by Chanticleer Media for BEST CLASSIC BRITISH COZY. Auntie M doesn’t use the term cozy herself: she describes hers as a mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural. But there’s no question her murders are set in small communities and that the puzzle is the highlight, not gore and violence. She’s not writing about psychopaths or serial killers (although she does enjoy reads that do), but rather she’s interested in what motive would allow an otherwise reasonable person to feel it’s reasonable to take another life.

In a related note, she’s also debuting her second series this month. The first Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery, DEATH UNSCRIPTED, will be in print shortly in hard copy and ebook. Here’s a peek at the cover:
Death Unscripted cover

Frequent readers of this blog know that the Nora Tierney’s are set in England, Auntie M features a host of authors from across the pond. Part of this is because she enjoys reading these books and they keep her mind in the UK when she’s writing. But even more is her desire to turn American readers on to great crime fiction they may be missing by not knowing of these authors.

Here are a few of her recent favorite reads:
The Kill

The Kill is Jane Casey’s fifth Maeve Kerrigan mystery and these procedurals keep getting stronger and stronger.

A wedding reception for a colleague is interrupted when Maeve and her Detective Inspector Josh Derwent are called back to London for a most unusual case: the murder of a fellow policeman in a park, in what could only be called a compromising position.

One of the highlights of the series is the abrasive Derwent and how Maeve handles and defends him. The two are surprised at the reaction of the victim’s wife and even his daughter when told the news. They have the feeling they are keeping things back from the investigators, and as their case heats up, they soon realize they are not the only ones with secrets to hide.

And Maeve find herself torn with the secret she knows about her boss, Superintendent Godley, whom she once admired. Things will come to a head in that direction in this taut and complex mystery that won’t disappoint.

no place to die

Darker and grittier is the second offering from Claire Donoghue in No Place to Die.

This second mystery featuring DS Jane Bennett opens where Never Look Back left off, and things are still in upheaval after the lousy end of that case for Jane and her boss, Mike Lockyer. Feeling the rift between them, his inability to concentrate on the work in hand heavily impact them both when their friend, retired police, goes missing.

Some of the creepiest scenes are set in the underground tombs that are found after a young woman’s body is found one, apparently buried alive and watched by a camera feed.

Once the woman is identified, other tombs are discovered and the threads appear to lead to a local college and its psychology department. And then another young woman is taken and may still be alive, but can Jane and Lockyer find her in time to save her? And who is behind this?

Surprising and shocking at the end, Donoguhe is one who readers should add to their reading lists.

Dark Places
Peter Robinson’s Inspector Banks are repeat favorites and this 22nd outing is no exception with In the Dark Places, also Abattoir Blues in the UK version. It boggles the mind to think of an author who can consistently write creative and entertaining mysteries time after time, yet Robinson never disappoints.

An ex-soldier walking his dog, recovering from injuries that leave him limping, is annoyed when his dog goes under a fence and disappears inside an abandoned hanger. When the dog refuses to return and barks consistently, Terry Gilchrist has not choice but to find his way inside and see what’s troubling Peaches.

He finds the dog circling and sniffing and barking around a stain that can only be blood.

In a seemingly unrelated incident, a missing van leads Banks and his team into the countryside. Then a delivery truck falls over a cliff during bad weather and uncover the driver, killed on impact… and his grisly cargo: in addition to the dead animals he was tasked with collecting they find another body, dead before the crash.

Banks will have one of his toughest cases to crack in this repeat winner. Annie Cabot is back, and a nice side story features DS Winsome Jackson.

Black Valley

Black Valley is Charlotte Williams’ followup to The House on the Cliff, which introduced Welsh psychologist Jessica Mayhew.

In this outing Jessica is separated from her husband as they try to decide if their marriage is over. She feels strangely numb to emotions and feelings as she listens all day long to her patients personal drama. So she’s when surprised shortly after said husband confesses to having a relationship with a younger newsreader, that she’s attracted to a stranger she meets at an art exhibit.

That she’s there at all is down to the exhibit’s connection to her newest patient, artist Elinor Powell. Elinor presents with a bad bout of claustrophobia that hits her after her mother is murdered in Elinor’s art studio. A twin, she also is developing paranoid ideation about her sister and brother-in-law, an art dealer whose business may not quite be as above board as she’d like the public to believe.

The issue revolves around a reclusive artist who seems to be the next big thing in the art world. Refusing to give interviews, the unschooled young man nevertheless has captured his share of attention with his huge, brooding canvasses that echo the miners and their broken lives.

The hills of Wales outside Cardiff come alive under Williams skillful retelling, the countryside, lovely and nature-filled during the day, turns bleak and uncompromising at night, filled with caves and towers that haunt the landscape–and figure in the rushing climax as Jessica tries to find the truth about the ghosts who haunt Elinor Powell.

The writing is skillful and the psychological aspect well-handled. Therefore, it comes as a painful surprise to learn that shortly after finishing the first draft of this novel, Williams was diagnosed with breast cancer and died at the age of 59. Sadly, there will be no more Jessica Mayhew thrillers, but the two that are in print are worth readers’ time and investigation.

Late Scholar

And just to remind readers of last year’s terrific Lord Peter Wimsey/Harriet Vane mystery by Jill Paton Walsh, The Late Scholar is now available in paperback. This installment finds the duo adjusting after World War II and to the growth of their two boys when they are called to Peter’s alma mater, St. Severin’s at Oxford, to unravel a perplexing situation: the faculty and its warden have been unable to agree on selling a rare manuscript to keep St. Severin’s open, and now the warden has vanished. Paton Walsh captures the tone and language of the time and of these two sparkling characters and does Sayers proud.

 

Linda Castillo: After the Storm Tuesday, Aug 18 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:19 am

After the Storm

Linda Castillo’s Kate Burkholder series is a consistent favorite with readers for compelling thrillers featuring the ex-Amish midwestern Chief of Police. After the Storm, continues in the same vein, where the beauty of the area almost heightens the ugly crimes Kate faces.

The tension quickly builds with a tornado heading through Painters Mill, and in the ugly aftermath as Boy Scout help with clean up efforts, human remains are discovered.

Kate must determine the identity and cause of death, which is gruesome indeed, and will have far-reaching consequences for Kate as well as the tight-knit community.

Kate’s personal life is a continues to evolve across the books. Her relationship with State Agent John Tomasetti has reached a new level – and new hurdles are put in their path as they adjust to living together. Kate’s supporting cast is solid and dedicated to their Chief, while Kate’s personal conflicts between the community she was raised in and the world she now lives in provide a great secondary story line.

Meanwhile, a killer waits in the shadows to protect family secrets.

Castillo’s use of details bring the Amish settings, culture and language to life. The series is driven as much by the characters as by the cases Kate must solve. Another strong entry in a consistently strong series.

 

Steph Cha: Dead Soon Enough Friday, Aug 14 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:53 am

Dead Soon Enough

Steph Cha’s Juniper Song Mysteries feature the unusual Korean-American protagonist who is now a licensed private detective in Dead Soon Enough.

The series with a modern LA noir feel finds Song having her own cases at the newest PI for Lindley and Flores. When she’s hired by Dr. Rubina Gasparian, it’s for a most unique reason: Rubina wants Song to follow her cousin, Lusig, who is acting a surrogate for Rubina and her husband Van, a surgeon. Carrying their baby and remaining stress free and healthy should be Lusig’s primary job right now, as far a Rubina is concerned. For Lusig, that goal has been usurped by looking for her best friend, Nora, missing for a month now.

Lusig, Rubina and Nora are all linked by their Armenian roots. Rubina soon realizes that keeping Lusig safe means moving Song into her home for now and letting her look for Nora in the evenings when she is home to keep an eye on her cousin. Song’s investigative threads for the missing Nora revolve around Nora’s battle to allow a memorial honoring the Armenian genocide by the Turks to be installed.

A Turkish group has been fighting the installation, claiming that the genocide a hundred years ago that coined the term in the first place was a war. Heavily funded, Song suspects more and more that this group had something to do with Nora’s disappearance. Along the way she will visit a strip club, just one situation she finds herself in as she tries to find Nora.

This is a fast-paced mystery that allows Song to deliberate her own feelings about motherhood and where she sees her future heading. There is plenty of action but even more interesting to Auntie M is the way Song is constantly examining herself and her feelings–and just how far she’s prepared to compromise herself to catch a killer.

By the end, long-held secrets will be revealed and just when the reader thinks they know what’s happened, the story turns into itself and Song finds herself in jeopardy.

Cha has a nice way of getting into Song’s head and the series has a visual feel that would translate well to the big screen. Auntie M particularly liked the young lawyer Song comes across and hopes readers will see more of him in the next installment.

 

Summer Humor at its BEST~ Wednesday, Aug 5 2015 

great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed Auntie M Writes Crime 12:14 am

Auntie M decided to do a huge review of the best books she’s read this year for summer reading that all contain humor. Whether wry or ironic dialogue, funny situations or downright laugh-out-loud absurd situations, these all contain elements guaranteed to put a smile on your face!

Ghostly Undertaking
Tonya Kappes has a wild series in her ‘Ghostly Southern Mysteries,” starting with A Ghostly Undertaking. She introduces Emma Lee Raines in the paranormal series, an undertaker who can suddenly see and talk to dead people after being bopped in the head by a falling plastic Santa–“funeral trauma.”

In the first outing, Emma Lee’s own grandmother’s nemesis, Ruthie Sue Payne, keeps insisting that the fall down stairs that killed her wasn’t an accident–she was pushed. And she can’t find her eternal rest until she knows who wanted her dead.

Enter Sheriff Jack Henry Ross–(everyone her Kappes’ books has three names!), Emma Lee’s high-school crush who vows to figure out how foul the play has been. It doesn’t help his case with Emma Lee that her grandmother, the widow of Ruthie Sue’s ex-husband, is the prime suspect.

There are enough laughs to wake up the dead, and Kappes keeps them coming in the sequel, A Ghostly Grave. Ghostly Grave
With Granny Raines running for Mayor of the town and big festival on the horizon, Emma Lee knows digging up a four year-old grave is more than just bad for business. Yet she can’t quiet Chicken Teater, who insists she figure out who killed him.

Sheriff Jack Henry works on forensic details, while Emma Lee takes a good hard look at the prime suspects, notably Chicken’s wife, a former Miss Kentucky who just may have had her fill of sharing his affections with his favorite hen, Lady Cluckington. Yup, that’s her name.

The covers alone on this series are enough to make you smile.

red shoelace
Susan Sundwall’s The Red Shoelace Killer brings readers to armchair sleuth Minnie Markwood. Working with the lovely Rashawna Jones for Chapel Marketing, the ladies newest gig is working at an Albany Mall doing market surveys.

But Minnie’s attention is drawn to the unsolved two year-old case of the Red Shoelace Killer. The victim’s mother has just died, not knowing the identity of her daughter’s killer. With the crime unsolved, police warned women with long, dark hair to be especially aware of their surroundings. Jennifer Landis’ body had been found with a red shoelace tied around her ankle–the same shoelace that had been used to strangle the young woman before her body was found in the woods near a local high school.

It’s a kind of boring day at the mall until a young man appears in Minnie’s cubicle and starts to confess that he thinks he knows who the shoelace killer is–but before Minnie can get his name or any details, he’s bounded away. It turns out that he’s Rashawna’s newest boyfriend, Joel, who works at the Dollar Tree, a potential source of those red shoelaces. As soon as work is over, that’s exactly where Minnie heads. But not before Rashawna is pushed into the trunk of Minnie’s car, and Minnie has a gun held to her head.

Caught up in reading Christie’s The Mirror Crack’d, Minnie swings into action to hunt for the killer with often disastrous results as Detective Dan Horowitz gets involved and her sidekicks are often more of a hindrance than a help.

Shark Skin Suite
Tim Dorsey’s Shark Skin Suite is an over-the-top farce of the best kind. Bringing back his highly unusual protagonist, Serge Storms dispenses Florida information like a twisted tour guide as he tries to practice law with bothering with the usual education or degrees, after a binge of legal movies set in Florida convince him he can do it.

With his former girlfriend an attorney, the courtroom action provide some of the more hilarious scenes.
Brook Campanella’s big case revolves around a class action suit against a mortgage company. No one is exempt from skewering, from lawyers to jury consultants, and the subjects don’t stop there. Internet security companies, those huge multiplex movie complexes, even Florida’s mosquitoes come under the gun.

With its climactic scene taking place at the courthouse in Key West during the height of its Fantasy Fest street carnival, the dialogue snaps and sizzles and readers will be grinning from ear to ear.

Deadly Desires
Hannah Dennison introduced Kat Standford and her mother, Iris, in last year’s Murder at Honeychurch Hall. She’s back with a sequel in Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall, bringing much of the “Upstairs, Downstairs” humor again within this cozy mystery in its lovely Devon setting.

There may a plan afoot to run a high-speed train line through the grounds at Honeychurch Hall. it stalls when the body of the transport minister is found on the grounds, just as Kat is looking for an environmental effort to counteract this scheme, while still collecting antiques for her shop.

Trudy Wynne is Kat’s deepest enemy and a tabloid journalist who embodies everything bad readers think of when they hear her job. Being the ex-wife of Kat’s former lover adds to her plot for revenge as Wynne sets out to humiliate Kat and expose her mother as the bestselling romance author Krystalle Storm. And she’s not above using friends to infiltrate Kat’s circle.

With his father-in-law finally dying, David makes a bid for Kat’s affections again. But will she bite?
With all of this going on, it doesn’t help that the husband of a prize-winner of Krystalle Storm’s story contest had begun selling off his dead wife’s things, along with auctioning off her prize trip. There will be Uncle Alfred and a little dog named Mr. Chips. And a body in the mire. Delightful fun.

Bone to be Wild

Carolyn Haines southern series features Sarah Booth Delaney and her spirit friend Jitty, and last year’s Booty Bones is now in paperback if you missed it. The newest entry is Bone to be Wild, with a distraught Sarah Booth trying to get over the defection to Hollywood of her fiancé Graf Milieu. What’s a heartbroken girl to do?

Sarah heads to lick her wounds, where old friends are hosting a Black and Orange Halloween Ball. The band is even going to be that of an old flame, Scott Hampton’s blues band. Sarah’s friends are named Tinkle and Nandy, and there are others who are far from friends who think the devil lives at that club.

When Scott gets a message that clearly threatens his life and those of his band members, Sarah is ready to swing into action to investigate. Then the bartender from Scott’s club is gunned down in a drive-by shooting and Sarah finds herself racing alongside Sheriff Coleman Peters to find a killing cult as the club nearly goes up in flames, leaving Sarah with an interesting new look.

Despite the humorous dialogue, the book ends with a sense of jeopardy for Sarah Booth that will likely propel the action in the next installment.

Body Birches

Katherine Hall Page’s newest Faith Fairchild mystery is The Body in the Birches., and yes, you’ll find her great recipes at the back. Auntie M is making her Summer Corn Chowder with Bacon for her Grands when they visit in a few weeks.

One of the nice things about this series is the inclusion of Faith’s children as they’ve grown and the issues they face. Ben’s job as a dishwasher has its own problems, and daughter Amy is tied up with her friend, Daisy, whose mother may have a shot at inheriting The Birches, a lovely cottage whose disposal is to be revealed at the 4th of July festivities on the small island of Little Sanpere, Maine.

The charming location is another of Page’s niceties, and she gets her descriptions of the Maine area just right. This Fourth is hotter than Faith can remember on Sanpere Island, and with Faith and Tom having a large family room addition added to their house, they will stay at The Pines temporarily. Tom’s out fishing when Faith takes a call from her father-in-law that Tom’s mother had had a heart attack. While stable and expected to survive, she’s in ICU and his frazzled father needs his chaplain son at his side.

So Tom heads to Massachusetts and Faith stays with the teens for the moment. The fireworks are over and Faith takes a call from Tom, then heads for a brief walk in the woods, and finds Sophie Maxwell has just discovered a body in the woods. It’s Bev, the housekeeper for The Birches, wearing her regular shoes but clothes in her nightgown and robe. But why would someone need the housekeeper to die?

That’s the first incongruity that sets Faith’s detecting antenna stirring. With the family gathered at The Birches awaiting the disposition of the property, each of the potential members to inherit come under scrutiny. And then suspicious things start happening to some family members, which would certainly make the pool of possible inheritors dwindle–until another death occurs and this time it’s clearly murder.

You won’t be disappointed in this staple from Page in her long-running series. A classic.

Murder of Magpies

We head across the pond for two more for your reading pleasure:

Celebrated non-fiction author Judith Flanders brings her past experience as an editor for publishing houses to the forefront in her hilarious and smart mystery A Murder of Magpies, exposing and describing the industry as only an insider can manage, while maintaing a darn good mystery.

Londoner Samantha Clair is doing the routine jobs her editing job at Timmons and Ross requires while trying to figure out how best to explain to her star client that her new novel is basically unpublishable. She has lunch to look forward to with a favorite author, Kit Lowell, whose gossipy new book skewers the fashion industry and its recent scandal of the murder of a prominent Spanish designer. Sam insists their legal team go over the book for libel but believes Kit has done his homework and thoroughly researched the case he’s written about.

Sam’s surprised when her morning is interrupted by a visit from DI Jacob Field, whose first question is to ask Sam if she’s failed to receive any expected parcels. He explains he’s investigating a car accident, a rather unusual hit-and-run. Unusual because the victim was a courier, and his parcels and list of stops has vanished with the car that hit him.

And we’re off and running, as Sam unwittingly finds herself involved in Field’s investigation. Someone really doesn’t want Kit Lowell’s manuscript to be published, and is willing to kill to prevent it.

Along the way there will be colleagues Sam must tolerate, like Oxford-lad Ben, who suffers from “major-league Big Dick Syndrome.” And we meet Sam’s neighbors who live above her ground-floor Camden flat– and who describe the workmen they had to let into her flat. Only Sam hadn’t scheduled any workmen. When she speaks with Kit, he tells her he knows someone has been in his flat, too.

Absorbed in questions of liberal hovering around Kit’s book, and unable to reach him when he doesn’t turn up for their lunch, Sam turns to DI Field and finds her company’s computer system has been hacked. And then her flat is broken into and strange men knock her down the stairs …

A delightful tale, with Sam’s voice a grand character to star in this wickedly funny yet absorbing mystery.

Slated Death

Elizabeth Duncan’s Penny Brannigan series brings readers to North Wales in Slated for Death.

A concert is planned for St. David’s Day down in the Llyn Du–“Black Lake”– mine and everyone is involved in some way. There will be a special guest singer with ties to the area and an after party, too. Most of the residents have either had relatives who worked the mine or know people who did.

Glenda Roberts with her imperious air is heading the committee to set things up and shows up at Penny’s spa with music for spa owner Victoria, who will be accompanying the singers at the concert o her harp, along with other musicians. When a group of regular tourists to the mine discover Glenda’s body a few hours later, Penny and DCI Gareth Davies join forces to figure out who would have wanted the woman dead.

Penny is certain the murder has ties to the past, instead of the supposed suspect the police favor. It’s not the only thing Penny and Gareth disagree about, as his attraction to her has not gone unnoticed but she doesn’t feel she can reciprocate his interest.

With the idea that she can unearth the real murderer, it will be up to Penny Brannigan to get to the bottom of the secrets that would cause Glenda’s murder.

Duncan’s research into the mines and her descriptions add texture to the feeling of being deep under the earth, and bring to life the horrid conditions that the men who used to work there faced on a daily basis. An intriguing setting to an mystery that has humor while not overlooking the emotional side.

Auntie M hopes you’ll check out some of these when you’re in the mood for a mystery with a hint–or sometimes more than a hint– of humor!

 

Ellis Vidler: Prime Target and one writer’s process Sunday, Aug 2 2015 

great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:44 am

One thing Auntie M has learned is that there’s no one way to write. Each writer has to learn what works for him or her, and it’s as individual as snowflakes.

Please welcome fellow Sister in Crime, Ellis Vidler, who shares her writing process with readers.

The Way We Write

The writers I know work in all sorts of ways. Some outline in great detail, others just turn on the computer, start typing, and the story comes to them. Only one person of my acquaintance gets out his yellow legal pad and sharpens his pencil, but it works for him.

Me? I have to think about the characters for a good while, get to know them in my head first. Scenes come to me, and bits of the plot, such as a night fire (arson, of course), and then I wonder if anyone dies in it. If I let the story percolate in its own time, it will eventually take shape.

I do a LOT of reworking, which might be avoided with more planning, but so far that hasn’t worked. The eternal questions why and why not keep coming up. Why would she do that? Why wouldn’t she do that?

Maybe that’s plotting in a way, but the scenes are random, only connected through the characters. My characters are why I write. I love them. I have to or nothing else comes to me. I can imagine them in all kinds of situations, bad and good, as long as I care about them. My most recent characters, Madeleine Schier and Charlie Dance, are two of my favorites. I spent many nights dreaming about them.

Pinterest board2

I spend hours online searching for pictures of their faces, their homes, settings for scenes, anything that catches my eye. Most of my “finds” are never used, but I keep them for a long time, just in case.

Now that Pinterest has come to my attention, I have a great place to store the pictures, and they’re easier to see on a board than in my photo files. I keep these boards secret until the book is finished. Then I delete the things I don’t want, add excerpts from the book to some, and make the board public.

For my current book, another McGuire Women Psychics, I started out to write Shallow Grave. I have the character, Niamh, bits of the story, and even the cover. But much of it is based on Niamh’s past. Finally I decided I had to write her mother’s story first, or this one would be all backstory. So this story belongs to Aurelia, most powerful of the McGuire psychics.

It’s set in the North Carolina mountains in 1981 when she’s nineteen. I’ve been thinking about her for a couple of months. As usual, this won’t fit neatly into any genre. It’s about vengeance and murder, justice and injustice, and love. I think it will be suspenseful. I don’t know how long it will be—as long as it takes to tell the story, whatever that is.
DSC02002-001
What I do know is that I’m wrapped up in it, and it’s hard to come out for everyday life. The main male character is Finn Youngblood, a member of a rough, clannish family. Finn plays a mean guitar, and I’m working on a scene in a blues bar, so I’ve been listening to the old blues greats—Muddy Waters, Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker—while I imagine the scene. The music helps me find the mood and the atmosphere. This was when cigarettes were in, so I see swirls of smoke wafting through the blue light highlighting the band, breathe in the thick air, smell the sweat and perfume and beer. The crowd is caught up in the music. Aurelia, at table in a dark corner, feels it too, until she senses intense rage. She turns, searching for the source, . . .

I’m still in the euphoric stage, the first third or so where I’m filled with ideas and images and in love with all of it. It’s the middle third that’s a killer. I get depressed, doubt the story’s worth, and don’t know where to go next or what works. But for now, I’ll enjoy the high and keep writing. This is how my writing goes.

PT Full cover2

Ellis lives and writes in the South Carolina Piedmont with her husband and two wonderful dogs. All her stories have some degree of romance and a lot of suspense. Her first two books were traditionally published but now she self-publishes. Haunting Refrain and Time of Death are the two McGuire Women Psychic novels, and Cold Comfort and Prime Target are linked through Maleantes & More, a security firm. She co-wrote The Peeper, a police procedural/suspense novel, with Jim Christopher. Her collection of three short Southern stories, Tea in the Afternoon, is available on Kindle. There’s more about Ellis and her books at http://www.ellisvidler.com

 

Scandanavian Summer: Indridason, Sigurdardottir, Brekke Wednesday, Jul 29 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:33 am

Here are some of the best Scandanavian thrillers for your summer reading pleasure:
Reykjavik Nights
After the surprising ending of last year’s Strange Shores, Arnaldur Indirdason is back with Reykjavik Nights, a prequel to the series that explains to readers how Insepctor Erlendur became interested in detecting.

Opening with the young policeman walking a beat on Reykjavik streets, he and his colleagues face the kind of crime you’d expect: drugs, domestic violence, traffic accidents, and a death Erlandur can’t seem to leave alone.

It should be a simple matter: a tramp he knew from his rounds has been found drowned in a ditch, yet the young cop find himself drawn to the case. Talks he’s had with the man in the past haunt him, and he soon finds himself connecting this death to that of a missing woman.

With dogged persistence, Erlandur will trace things to solving the case, and ignite his own future. An interesting way to see how this character became interested in detecting.
SomeoneWatch

Yrsa Sigurdardottir has been called the Queen of Crime with good reason. In Someone to Watch Over Me, she brings lawyer Thora Gudmundsdottire her most interesting case yet.

Jakob has Down’s Syndrome and has been convicted of burning down his assisted living centre, killing five people in the process. He resides now in a secure psychiatric unit, where one of his fellow inmates has hired Thora to clear the boy of the charges and prove his innocence. Her reluctance to take the case is fueled by her distaste for Josteinn Karlsson, child abuser and sociopath, who has inherited funds from his mother to pay her.

Yet she’s strangely drawn to Jakob and as she starts a routine investigation, things don’t add up. It soon becomes clear to Thora that to prove Jakob’s innocence, she must track down the real murderer.

The case of a young hit-and-run victim will become tied to the case, as does the financial collapse of Iceland and it’s affect on Thora’s family life. Readers will become as caught up as Thora as she unravels what really happened on that fateful night.

Monsters Dwell
Jorgen Brekke’s first book introducing Norwegian police detective Odd Singsaker is now in paperback. Where Monsters Dwell connects a US case with one in Norway when there are similar murders in Trondheim and Richmond, Virgina.

US homicide investigator Felicia Stone is soon seconded to Singsaker once the connection is known. Recovering from a divorce and a brain tumor finds Singsaker trying hard to keep up with his team and the American detective. Along the way he becomes friends with an interesting character, a young library researcher, Siri, who will be a continuing character.

Soon the two detectives find they must delve deeply into history, to a sixteenth-century book called The Book of John which has been bound in human skin. The book is thought to be the work a Middle Ages serial killer who stalked Europe.

As they race to find the new killer replicating these centuries-old murders, Felicia and Odd find themselves drawn to each other, which helps to alleviate their grisly investigation. A stunning debut with interesting and creative characters. Read this one first to follow the relationships of the two detectives.

Brekke followed his debut up with this year’s Dreamless:Dreamless
Chief Inspector Odd Singsaker is on the case once again, married now to Felicia Stone. His newest case starts with the killing of a young singer found murdered with an antique music box resting on her body, playing a lullaby that has a familiar ring.

With ties to a letter and events of of late 18th century, the music and the lullaby with have far-reaching consequences for Singsaker and turn out to be the clues Singsaker needs as another young girl is found murdered under similar circumstances. With a third young woman kidnapped, time is running out.

And then his team will be affected just as Felicia disappears. This installment solves the mystery but will leave the reader yearning for more of Singsaker’s story.

 

Elly Griffiths: The Ghost Fields, Ruth Galloway #7 Wednesday, Jul 22 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:55 am

Ghost Fields

Elly Griffiths’ Ruth Galloway is one of Auntie M’s favorite characters. Griffiths has created an original, smart woman who is very recognizable to readers as very, very human. In this seventh outing, THE GHOST FIELDS, Ruth is enjoying a summer dig with her archeology students when DCI Nelson asks her to view a crime scene. Seconded to North Norfolk’s Serious Crimes Unit as a forensic archeologist has had a profound effect on Ruth’s personal life in more ways than one.

Nelson explains that a builder, Edward Spens, had equipment digging for a new development in the fields and has found a plane, probably WWII, buried in a field–with a pilot is still inside. The plane is American, probably from the nearby Lockwell Heath airbase, but Ruth feels the dirt around the plane has been more recently disturbed and that the dead man has been posed in the cockpit.

Then Ruth announces that this was not an incident of a downed plane during the war: the pilot sports a bullet hole through the middle of his forehead.

The pilot and the land tie in to the Blackstock family, a disparate group with several generations living in the nearby manor house, others emigrated to the US, and a grandson running a pig farm, which comes into play in a particularly grisly manner.

Complicating Ruth and Nelson’s investigation is the appearance of American documentarian Frank Barker, the academic who Ruth met when filming the program Women Who Kill. Despite an attraction at the time, it’s been over a year since Ruth has heard from Frank, yet here he comes across the pond to head up an American film company and star in a documentary about Norfolk’s deserted airfields, those Ghost Fields as they’re known, and to muddle up Ruth’s investigation and her life.

It will take all of Ruth and Nelson’s smarts and his team’s efforts to unravel the complicated situation that is at the bottom of this mess once it becomes apparent there’s a murderer still on the loose in the Ghost Fields.

Griffiths adds to our interest with a nice interweaving of the lives of repeat characters besides those of Ruth and Nelson. They enhance rather than detract from the business at hand, a meeting of old friends as it were, and add a texture to the very human dramas that play out against the investigation. These atmospheric novels are strong, wonderful reads for any mystery lover. Highly recommended.

 

Cathy Ace: The Case of the Dotty Dowager Sunday, Jul 19 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:41 am

Please welcome Cathy Ace, VP of the Crime Writers of Canada:

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Thanks for inviting me to visit, Auntie M – I’m so happy to have the chance to drop by to introduce you to my new characters.

With five Cait Morgan Mysteries in print (#6, THE CORPSE WITH THE DIAMOND HAND, comes out in October 2015) and having just won the Bony Blithe Award for the best Canadian Light Mystery for #4, THE CORPSE WITH THE PLATINUM HAIR, I have to admit I have been worrying about how the women of the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries would be accepted, but I’m pleased to say quite a lot of folks are already enjoying spending time with them.

I’ve always relished Downton Abbey, but when I decided to set a group of four female private eyes to work on a case at a stately home I made two big decisions: I realized I wanted a modern-day setting, and to be able to use technology as it’s available now to help solve their puzzling (and quintessentially British) cases; I also made the decision to go back to my home country of Wales for the setting…though I am told the series is perfect for Anglophiles (maybe there’s a word to coin here – Welshophiles?).

THE CASE OF THE DOTTY DOWAGER is the first novel-length outing for the four women of the WISE Enquiries Agency: one is Welsh, one Irish, one Scottish and one English (hence the acronym) but, whilst they work well together and effectively use their complementary skill-set, what I’m enjoying is that they are all so different: Carol Hill is a Welsh computer whiz in her mid-thirties, happily married and delightedly pregnant; The Hon. Christine Wilson-Smythe is the brilliant and beautiful daughter of an Irish viscount, who’s fearless in the way only someone who is single and in their twenties can be; Mavis MacDonald is a retired army nurse, a widow in her mid-sixties, she has two grown sons, grandchildren, and an ailing mother in a nursing home close to her family in Scotland; then there’s Annie Parker, born to St. Lucian parents within the sound of Bow Bell–she’s a cockney through and through – her abrasive nature a shield against a world that’s not been too kind to her, and weathering her very sweaty mid- fifties.

Throw in Althea Twyst, the dowager duchess of Chellingworth who, at almost eighty, is just as active as her Jack Russell, McFli, but who might be losing her marbles (according to her son, Henry, the eighteenth duke) and you’ve got four women enquiring into the life of a fifth – who might not take kindly to their interest.

So why not grab yourself a cuppa, and indulge in a delightful romp through the Welsh countryside with these women? Book two in the series, THE CASE OF THE MISSING MORRIS DANCER, will be published in the UK in October 2015, and in the US and Canada in February 2016, so, if you enjoy meeting these women, you won’t have to wait long before you can tackle another case with them.

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Cathy Ace is the BC Bestselling author of the Bony Blithe Award-winning Cait Morgan Mysteries and the WISE Enquiries Agency Mysteries. You can find out more about Cathy and her work at her website: http://cathyace.com/ on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Cathy-Ace- Author/318388861616661?ref=hl or on Twitter: @AceCathy

 

Nicola Upson: London Rain Wednesday, Jul 15 2015 

Award winning novelist and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:11 am

London Rain
Nicola Upson’s series featuring Josephine Tey has long been a favorite of Auntie M’s, earning her carefully chosen “highly recommended” rating in each previous novel. In London Rain, Upson brings Tey to London during the glorious Coronation ceremonies of George VI after the agony of the abdication of Edward VIII, yet all of the glitter and pageantry becomes secondary to the murder of one of the BBC’s best-known broadcasters.

Josephine is in London for a BBC radio program of her play Queen of Scots, but she’s not immune to the atmosphere at Broadcasting House, the modern bastion that houses the BBC’s offices and studios. The cool, austere building reflects the icy demeanor inside, ripe with petty jealousies, adultery and enough emotion to make itself known to the sensitive Tey.

Some of the gossip makes Josephine acutely aware of her own personal situation and she resolves to define her relationship better with her partner, Marta, a sensitive topic at the best of times. She’s aware that the atmosphere is controlled by Julian Terry, fellow detective novelist and now the BBC’s director of her play. His brother, John, has a lead role in Tey’s play, yet it’s Lydia Beaumont, who Josephine originally wrote the play for, who has been demoted in the radio play to a minor role, a situation that will add to the strain of the women’s relationship with Marta.

Josepine meets Vivienne Bereford, too, acting editor of the popular publication Radio Times; her husband Anthony Beresford is one of the BBC’s top radio broadcasters. Viv’s sister, Olivia Hanlon, was the owner of a sketchy Soho club, and her drowning death ten years ago is still talked about in some circles with suspicion. But that is the old news; the newer is that Anthony Beresford is having an affair with the actress Millicent Grey, who is playing the Queen in Josephine’s play.

Bereford’s murder is no surprise to readers. When Tey’s friend DCI Archie Penrose is called in to head the case, he finds the politics of the place get in his way. With the Coronation as the backdrop, there will be heightened security, the heady trappings of the event, and the major influx of people into London–all of which frustrate Archie’s investigation.

Josephine and even Marta will become involved in helping him sort out the secrets that have led to this murder, leaving Josephine to wonder about her recklessness in the situation and the guilt it leave her with when there’s an unexpected ending twist–and even more of a twist for Archie.

This is Upson’s sixth Tey novel, and it won’t disappoint, both in its characterizations and in the plotting of a terrific mystery. The period details are perfectly done and provide a lovely backdrop to a literate and well-written story. Highly recommended.

 

Kate Flora: And Grant You Peace Friday, Jul 10 2015 

Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:45 am

And Grant You Peace
Auntie M owes author Kate Flora an apology: She read, and thoroughly enjoyed, Flora’s Joe Burgess mystery, And Grant You Peace last fall. Then her copy of the book fell behind a stack of many stacked books waiting to be reviewed and was just unearthed. Mea culpa.

Don’t let Auntie M’s tardiness keep you away from this great installment in Flora’s series, that starts out with a fast-paced heart-rending scene and doesn’t let up.

Sitting in his car, waiting for his shift to end, Burgess is ready to go home when a local kid he knows come running up to his door. Jason tells Burgess the nearby mosque is on fire and he can hear screaming from inside. Burgess leaps out of his car, calling the fire department, on the run inside the burning building.

A stranger steps up to help him and the two men tear down a locked door to find a woman and her baby inside the burning closet. His instincts tell Burgess the fire was not accidental, and when he learns the infant has died, Burgess knows the investigation will ratchet up now with the arson unit, fire department investigators and the state fire marshal all digging in along with violent crimes detectives.

But his thoughts turn to the scared young mother, a teenager, who has just lost her child, and gone mute. Who would have locked her and her baby in a closet inside a mosque scrawled with anti-Muslim graffiti and set fire to it? Burgess will work hard to earn her trust and learn her story.

It’s a case that will have Burgess working long hours, despite the chaos of his home situation, where his partner Chris is working and trying to hold down the fort on their newly-created family. Series regulars on Joe’s team Stan Perry, Terry Kyle will aid Burgess along with Remy Aucoin and CID head Vince Melia, as their investigation takes them to the Iman who owned the Somali mosque.

When they try to question one of the Iman’s sons, a car passes, shooting into their faces. And that’s just the start of the trouble Burgess and his team will face as they unravel the story of this young mother and her dead child.

Compellingly told, atmospheric, this proves a great addition to the series.

 

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