Chouinard’s subtitle to her tour guide Capril Sanzio series is “A Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco Mystery” and she’s back this time centering on San Fran’s Summer of Love.
Using the true crime stories that hit the Haight-Ashbury area during what was supposed to be a time of love and peace as the basis of this particular tour, Capri highlights the hippy vibe and music of the era. She contrasts that lightness against the darkness of killers like Charles Manson and the Suitcase Killer.
But she’s taken aback when one of her tour guests asks to meet privately and begs for her help. Haley thinks her mother, who came out to San Franciso trying to solve the murder of her sister years ago, has also been murdered.
Capri sees her own young daughter, Morgan, in Haley, and agrees to help her. That sets up an investigation that will have farther reaching secrets than either woman have in mind, which soon turn deadly when old secrets are unveiled. Along the way she adds the search to her podcast series, to bring focus to the case and her exploration of what has really happened to these sisters.
One of the highlights of this series is the way Chouinard gives readers a real sense of of the history she uses in her tours. When she shows Capri in her investigative mode, she does extensive research not unlike that of an investigative journalist. We have subplots of Capri’s family and close friends, and her developing relationship with a San Fran detective that is a warm addition to the series.
With quirky recurring characters and a setting that comes alive, the nicely twisted plot leads to a logical conclusion, at times chilling, at others hearwarming, that add up to a highly readable series any mystery afficonado will gobble up.
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.
Gold’s journalist Ben Harper series returns with Ten Seconds, when a birthday dinner culminates with Ben’s boss, Madeline Wilson, being kidnapped as he watches.
The ensuing ransom demand soon has Ben scrabbling into an old case that launched Madeline’s career, with the help of her father. But that’s not all that’s happening in the town of Haddley, wehre stalkers and break-ins are rising.
There are a lot of subplots that seem unconnected, and plenty of relationships going through tense changes as the tension rises and keeps on rising, with some of these resolutions surprising.
Soon Ben will learn that the infamous murder case wasn’t all he supposed, as the twists keep coming to a resounding and unexpected climax.
I recently met Sonny Hudson at the Williamsburg Book Festival, an event I thoroughly enjoyed. If you live anywhere near that lovely area in Virginia, I urge you to attend next year’s event, which featured four speakers plus rooms filled with authors and their books. Since my talk was on what makes a good book cover, I was attracted to those on Sonny’s books.
I’ve asked him to tell us how he came to write his series. Please welcome Sonny Hudson to Auntie M Writes:
Readers ask me all the time where I find the inspiration for my stories, and it’s easy to respond with something generic like ‘inspiration is all around us’. While that’s certainly true, I usually cite two events, one that inspired me to want to write, and the other that was the inspiration for the first book in my Jessica Jansen Thriller series, The Murder Game.
I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a writer, but early in my technology career I took on a new role supporting our global sales force. A small but key part of the job for my team was creating and publishing a newsletter distributed to almost 7,500 people. This quickly became my favorite part of the job, and my teammates took to calling me ‘the guy who never met a blank page that he didn’t want to fill.’ Guilty!
I’ve always been a big fan of murder mysteries, and when a particularly bizarre incident happened to me while traveling for business, it became my inspiration for The Murder Game. I actually used this incident, or at least a fictionalized version of it, in the opening chapters.
While traveling back to Virginia from a trip to California, I was changing planes in Dallas and moving between terminals on the SkyTrain when another passenger dropped their wallet. I was unable to catch them, so I decided to turn it in to the DFW police or TSA when I reached my stop.
I decided to look in the wallet to see if I might find information to have the person paged, and when I looked inside, I was stunned: the wallet was empty except for three different IDs from three different states, with three different names, and three different pictures of the same guy.
My mind immediately went to something criminal—naturally—and I started drafting the book before I even boarded my next flight. That one strange incident inspired a book, which inspired an entire series. I’m glad I was there to experience it!
Sonny Hudson is the acclaimed author of the Jessica Jansen Thriller series, which includes The Murder Game, Glitz. Glamour. Murder., Blood & Vengeance, and Divine Deception. Taut, fast-paced action and incredibly strong, smart, and capable female lead characters grab readers from the very first page. Readers have compared Hudson’s books to top authors like Patricia Cornwell (Scarpetta series), J.D. Robb (In Death series), James Patterson (Women’s Murder Club series), and David Baldacci (Mercy series).
Fans of political action and spy thrillers by top writers like Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn, and Brad Thor will love Hudson’s debut novel, Let the Truth Be Told. This perennial favorite has captivated audiences at events year after year.
Currently residing in Williamsburg, VA, Hudson has transitioned from a long and successful career in the technology sector to providing business and technology consulting to Global 1000 companies and their extensive network of channel partners. When not working or writing, Hudson enjoys cruising on the Chesapeake Bay or exploring the world-class wineries and restaurants of California wine country.
Chicago’s Doll Devine, wisecracking country singer, lives with heartache, dreams, and a baggage-filled past, when murder occurs on her doorstep and brings her past front and center.
Rader-Day fills this book with Chicago reallity and childhood dreams. Doll is compelling, and the other cast are recognizable, with hidden depths. There are twists and surprises, not all good, but not all bad. And there are dogs, two cuties.
Wholly original, filled with sass, this may be Rader-Day’s best book yet.
Auntie M has been back to reading up a storm this summer and over the next posts, I’ll give you a my top picks for readers who won’t be disappointed in any of these choices. Each of these authors are a joy to read and these top four are all highly recommended.
Any novel by Elly Griffiths is a cause for celebration, whether it’s from her series with Det. Harbinder Kaur, her Brighton Mysteries, or her Dr Ruth Galloway Mysteries (which I live in hope she will resurrect at some point in the future).
But as a writer I understand the desire to explore new characters and situations, and The Frozen People is as unexpected as it is suspenseful. She introduced cold case officer Ali Dawson, whose new assignment is to literally head back to the Victorian era to clear the name of an ancestor of a Tory MP.
Ali soon becomes involved seeking a group called The Collectors, whose membership required killing a woman. Under Griffiths skillful pen, 1850 London comes alive, and as a new body is found, Ali finds her cover almost blown and her life in danger. And just how is she meant to return to the present?
It’s a neat concept carried out to perfection, filled with Griffiths trademark eccentric characters and sly humor, as creative as it is imaginative.
Billingham’s much-awarded series featuring Tom Thorne is always chock full of surprises and no more so than in his newest offering, What the Night Brings.
Always a master at plotting, Thorne and DI Nicola Tanner are thrust into a nightmare of epic proportions, when a box of donuts given to four officers at a crime scene by a “thankful” member of the public poisons them all. Three die soon after, with the fourth hanging on to life.
Who is the intended victim? Or is it a swipe at all police? Thorne and his team must delve into each of the officer’s lives, treading a fine line with the grieving families of the officers involved.
But this soon turns out to be only the first the attacks on police, leaving everyone scrambling to make connections that don’t seem to be there. Could the reason lie deeper in a betrayal?
Thorne’s partner, Helen, makes an appearance, as does his pathologist friend saddled with the post mortem, Phil Hendricks, bringing a feel of normalcy to this completely shocking tale.
Billingham is a master of twists but even seasoned reader Auntie M was shocked at the turn of events. You won’t be able to put this one down.
Every Michael Robotham novel Auntie M has read has surprised and moved me in unexpected ways, and I’ve read and recommend them all: The wonderful Joe O’Loughlin series, The Cyrus Haven series, ad several standalone. So it’s no surprise that his newest series featuring London PC Phil McCarthy is an instant favorite. Debuted in When You Are Mine, the daughter of a crime boss is constantly fighting preconceptions of her team against that of her family.
When Phil discovers a child wandering alone at night in her PJs, she will uncover that tough realization that the child has been a witness to a deadly home invasion. At the same time a jeweler found in his store, strapped to a an explosive vest, is found to be tied to the child.
And soon ties are also discovered to Phil’s family, setting up a tense situation that will test her loyalties and her career. It’s a tight plot with plenty of action as things turn and unravel, with Phil at the center of it all.
One of the hallmarks of Robotham’s book is his ability to create characters readers will care about, and this is no exception. Grab yourself a copy.
Who isn’t a fan of the creative Anthony Horowitz? His Susan Ryland series has been adapted into a wonderful television series he also writes, and Marble Hall Murders is the third in that series, rumored regrettably to be the last.
Susan has decided England is where she must be planted and is working as a freelance editor for a publisher when she’s handed her worst editing nightmare: someone has written a continued of the Atticus Pund series that got her into her prior troubles.
It doesn’t help that the author, Eliot Crace, quickly annoys Susan, but she concedes his book has merit–until she realizes he’s hiding clues in it about the death of his grandmother, who he is convinced was poisoned.
As Eliot’s behavior becomes more and more unstable, a murder makes Susan the prime suspect.
Please welcome Melissa Westemeier, whose new Nun the Wiser series debuts TODAY with Old Habits Die Hard. She’ll describe how she came to create her protagonist, Sister Bernadette, and why she loves nuns!
Sister B: An Un Conventional Heroine
My fascination with nuns started with The Sound of Music. While other girls played “house,” I played “convent.” Living in a sisterhood, always in a gorgeous pastoral setting, with a communal approach to sharing chores and responsibilities, appealed to me.
Plus, nuns were bad asses. They fought against Nazis but accepted everyone else. If you didn’t want to marry and have kids or were just too unconventional, you could knock on the heavy wooden door, and a nice nun would escort you over to plead your case to the Mother Superior. As long as you were willing to work hard and prove your mettle, the nuns had to take you in. What girl doesn’t dream of acceptance like that? In my imagination, being a nun also meant wearing a super cool outfit and having sleepovers with your besties every night. I can’t remember how old I was when I learned becoming a nun wasn’t in the cards for me because I was a Protestant and that nuns weren’t exactly as portrayed in The Sound of Music.
My romanticized view of nuns remained intact for a very long time. Lucky for me, before I tackled writing Old Habits Die Hard, I’d sent my sons to Catholic school and exponentially increased my understanding of Catholicism. When Mariana, part of my writing group, suggested the protagonist in Old Habits Die Hard should be a retired nun who wears a cross necklace, black pants, and sensible shoes—“still in uniform,” I was charmed. Even better that she was a retired middle school English teacher with a bossy attitude. Sister Bernadette entered the story fully formed in my imagination.
There aren’t many retired nuns solving crimes. Sister Boniface comes to mind, but she’s of a different era and British. Sister Bernadette Ohlson, AKA “Sister B” to her students and “Bernie” to her neighbors and friends, hasn’t worn her full habit in ages, but she’s not above grabbing her veil and rosary if it gets her special treatment. Her faith gives her serene confidence in the face of danger, and she’ll argue her case for disobedience because in her mind not all sins are created (or punished) equally. Yet as a woman of an order, she likes to keep things in order.
We first meet Bernie leading the residents of The Abbey: Senior Living off their bus after a night at the theater. She waits in the lobby to make sure everyone gets safely to their first-floor apartments before leading the rest upstairs. Bernie’s the first to notice the body in the hallway, and when former student Detective AJ Lewis arrives, Bernie acts as spokesperson for the group.
Bernie leads, but she also meddles to make sure things work out the way she wants. She’s insatiably curious, poking into everyone’s business because how can you be in charge if you don’t know what’s going on? Her neighbors come to her for advice, too, which puts her in the center of their drama, and her impulse to solve a murder that happened under their collective roof comes from her concern for their safety.
Older, wiser, and experienced, Sister B lends insight to her former student as he investigates the murder at The Abbey. She’s not above snooping or eavesdropping, nor is she opposed to using some healthy Catholic guilt to manipulate people. What’s fun in the Nun the Wiser Mysteries is the dynamic between her and AJ, her former student who is 50 years her junior. As a millennial, AJ has a different sensibility where authority is concerned, and he stands up to her. They frustrate each other and don’t always see eye to eye, but deep down they respect one another. Where other cozies involve romance between sleuths, Bernie and AJ cultivate an affectionate friendship and each book ends with a sweet scene featuring them together.
It’s funny to think I’m all grown up and my obsession with nuns never fully faded. I haven’t run away to join a convent, but I’ve invented a nun of my own to solve murders with her former student, so in a way I’m still pretending to be a nun. I guess maybe old habits DO die hard!
Melissa Westemeier is a Sister in Crime and teacher from Wisconsin. She uses humor to explore serious subjects, and her published books include murder mysteries, rom-coms, and a trilogy loosely based on her years tending bar on the Wolf River. She likes her coffee and protagonists strong and prefers to work barefoot with natural lighting.
Chouinard’s bright and witty mystery shines with a cast of quirky characters and a portrait of San Francisco in all her guises that makes the city a character of its own.
Capri Sanzio has a business taking tourists on local tours, including the sites of several serial killers. With her grandfather William known as “Overkill Bill,” Capri has always believed him to be innocent.
But then a copycat murder strikes, with a second one just after her ex-mother-law cuts off Capri’s daughter’s tuition. Of course her daughter, herself, and her ex are all suspects. This is the perfect time, she decides, to not only clear her family but to investigate who might have really committed the crimes attributed to her grandfather.
Through a podcast, an eventual book, and far too many escapes of her own as she investigates, Capri slowly unravels what really happened to the victims, past and present.
The first of a planned series, Capri will easily handle more books. Chouinard mixes high society in this one with the dense fog only San Franciso can bring.
Charming, with a compelling plot and nicely done ending twist.
Auntie M reads about three books a week, 90% crime fiction. So you can believe me when I tell you that there are dozens of great reads out there for you to discover. I’m putting the spotlight on four standouts I’ve recently read that have stayed with me, and all are highly recommended.
AJ Finn’s The Woman in the Window was a huge success with good reason, made into a movie starring Amy Adams. This story is another that took time and creativity to construct and it shows. A young detective fiction expert is invited to the home of a dying crime novelist to write his own story. Leaving her NY home behind, she travels to San Francisco, which comes alive under Finn’s talented pen and luscious prose. And there she meets what is left of Sebastian Trapp’s family: his spinster daughter Madeline and second wife Diana. For Trapp’s first wife and son disappeared twenty years ago and that mystery is only one Nicky Hunter hopes to solve.
Filled with clues and quotes from detective novels, this homage to Golden Agers feels fresh as it mines the tropes of detective fiction and manages to contain twists you won’t expect and more you won’t see coming. It’s simply terrific.
Alex Gray’s long-running DSI William Lorimer series still manages to feel fresh in this 21st outing. Gray takes the detective and his wife Maggie from Glasgow to Zimbabwe for a special holiday. Their good friend, Zimbabwean inspector Daniel Kohi, has become a PC in Scotland and must rise through the ranks, despite his elevated position before.
With Lorimer checking out Kohi’s home turf, the PC becomes involved in a Glasgow murder investigation that puts him on high alert. For back in his home country, malignant forces believe Kohi perished in the fire that killed his wife and child, and if they have found him alive in Scotland, anyone in Kohi’s circle is in danger, and that includes his elderly housemate. When news that Lorimer and Maggie are friends of Kohi, they find themselves as targets in the wilds of a safari. With a fascinating sense of place that makes this highly atmospheric, the twin stories weave together into an exciting read.
The new Inspector McLean finds the detective out of sorts on his self-imposed retirement. He’s reluctant to become involved when a well-known crime boss insists the police are not looking deeply enough into the death of an ex-con who perished when a wall collapsed in a decrepit Edinburgh church. When this body was found in the rubble, the death was deemed a heart attack from the terror.
But then a second body is found in another closed church, and McLean finally becomes involved when this man’s corpse is found to have a cross branded in his forehead. It’s a balancing act between his police and the crime lord’s worlds that leads McLean to one of his most unusual cases. Oswald has soldiered McLean through serious crimes, personal tragedy, and offbeat friends over the course of fourteen books, and they only get stronger. He also writes the newer DC Constance Fairchild series, with an intriguing lead you should check out.
Belfast born and bred Steve Cavanagh’s Eddie Flynn series is set in Manhattan and its environs. As a native New Yorker, I’d swear he lived there for at least part of his life, that’s how good his grasp of the city and its vibe is. And Eddie Flynn, the conman who is now a defense lawyer, radiates all aspects of that vibe and is such an intriguing character that I find myself anxiously awaiting each book.
This time Eddie takes on an innocent brain surgeon, accused of the murder of a neighbor. With no connection to the woman, it’s difficult to find a motive, yet the murder weapon and the surgeon’s DNA are found on it. But the other part of the equation is Ruby Johnson, a nanny who used to live on the tony Upper West side, and who is determined to provide care for her ailing mother. When she witnesses the murder and can identify the killer, she chooses to place an anonymous call to the police naming the surgeon and uses her knowledge for her own ends.
There will be more killings, hitmen, and so many twists you can’t see how Eddie can handle them all. In the words of Anthony Horowitz: “Steve Cavanagh’s twists hit you between the eyes.” You’ll love it.
Canadian Nita Prose’s first Molly Gray book, THE MAID, won all sorts of well-deserved awards, including an Anthony and Barry for best first mystery, as well as the Ned Kelly Award for International Crime Fiction.
Now she returns with Molly, elevated to Head Maid at the prestigious Regency Grand Hotel where she tries for perfection and trains and mentors new maids. The hotel’s tearoom has just undergone a spectacular renovation, and its inaugural event features the famous mystery author, JD Grimthorpe, who manages to spread mayhem of his own when he drops dead during his speech.
This is particularly upsetting to Molly, who has gloried in the tearoom upgrade. She has a credo of cleanliness is stickler for proper manners, and lives by the handbook of her department.
The mystery follows Molly trying to sleuth the murderer, after her success in The Maid, despite the case being handled by Detective Stark, who would like to find a reason to arrest if not Molly, then her new charge, Lily.
And Molly is hiding a past association with Grimthorpe, told in scenes that give readers a glimpse into her upbringing. Even her best friend, doorman Mr. Preston who watches over Molly, seems to have a secret.
This is first class crime writing, with a protagonist who you will come to adore. Molly is likely on the autism spectrum but that is never openly addressed, nor need it be. She is an original creation, one who can lead a series, and who has found a way to open her heart to love and will soon find her way into yours.
