Pamela Beason: Race to Truth: Book 2, Run for Your Life Suspense Series Sunday, Jun 12 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:48 am

Please welcome Pamela Beason, whose multi-faceted activities and unusual work history form her many writing projects.

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Most books come both from an author’s imagination and from the author’s experience. That’s certainly true of my stories: my biggest challenge is preventing myself from emptying my brain into every book. I have worked as a mechanical and architectural drafter, geologic research technician, translator, technical writer, managing editor in a multimedia department, and many other jobs too weird to mention. You can imagine what a muddle I could create if I threw it all in.

These days, I am a licensed private investigator, which you might think would be a perfect job for a mystery writer. Alas, the work is not nearly as exciting as it is on television. The biggest reason is that real-life PIs have to obey the law because we may have to defend everything we do in court. Also, discretion is everything when it comes to investigation work, so I can’t write about any case.

But that’s not to say that my investigation experiences don’t go into my books. Lately I’ve focused on my young adult Run for Your Life suspense series. Why did I want to write young adult stories? One, I love to interview teenagers: they are at such an interesting point in life, where all things, terrific and horrific, seem possible. Two, I have met too many teens in the foster care and juvenile justice systems. They often end up there because their parents are criminals, addicts, or just plain negligent, and they are often in danger from relatives, associates, or their own bad decisions.

So I decided to write about a teenager who is forced out on her own because her parents were murdered. The killers are looking for her, too, so Amelia Robinson invents a new identity for herself. She becomes Tanzania Grey, an emancipated minor who learns from undocumented workers how to live under the radar of the authorities. She works hard at picking crops and then at a zoo, gets her GED at age 16, and educates herself though online apps. I was inspired by tough young women athletes to make Tanzania a champion endurance racer. Exotic, challenging, multi-day, cross-country endurance races actually exist and die-hard athletes of both genders seek them out. In my books, my fictional races allow my character to experience adventure and danger around the world.

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In Race with Danger (Book 1), Tanzania is determined to win the Verde Island Race’s million-dollar prize to save the life of her friend Bailey. Treacherous terrain and wild creatures that fly, slither, and crawl around this tropical island turn out to be the least of her problems after she draws the name of Sebastian Callendro as her race partner. Sebastian’s personal life has recently put him in the spotlight, and his nosy followers are exactly the kind that Tana can’t afford.

In Race to Truth (Book 2), the exciting second book in the series, Tana receives an invitation to compete in an extreme version of the Ski to Sea cross-country relay race in her home town: Bellingham, Washington. She has always wanted to be part of Ski to Sea, and returning to Bellingham might allow her to uncover clues about her parents’ murders. But sleuthing around near the scene of the crime could also reveal her true identity and cost Tana her life.

I’m working on Book 3, Race for Justice. But I don’t want to neglect my other series, so I’m also working on Book 4 of my Summer “Sam” Westin wilderness mystery series (Endangered, Bear Bait, Undercurrents). Did I mention I’m a hiker/kayaker/snowshoer/cross-country skier/scuba diver? A lot of my outdoor adventures go into my Sam Westin series. I write about the wilderness not only because I want to share my passion for nature and wildlife, but because even when you can call 9-1-1 in the backcountry, help is unlikely to arrive soon. That means self-reliance is crucial for survival as well as for solving crimes, and that makes a perfect setup for a suspense novel.

And I’ve also begun Book 3 of my Neema Mysteries (The Only Witness, The Only Clue), which feature Neema, a gorilla who has been taught sign language in a psychology project. This series sprang not only from my fascination with animal intelligence, but also from my investigation experience, where I have worked on cases that involve the testimony of small children. A gorilla is believed to have the intelligence of a five-year-old human, so if a five-year-old child can testify, why couldn’t a gorilla who knows sign language? The problem, of course, is whether Neema will be believed, because like a small child, she is easily distracted, has a limited vocabulary and no sense of time, and often invents stories to get what she wants.

And finally, I am about seventy percent of the way to finishing a sequel to my romantic suspense Shaken, in which a handsome (of course) investigator is assigned to look into whether a business owner (Elisa Langston) is committing insurance fraud. I wrote Shaken because I know how difficult it can be to prove innocence when accused of a crime. Elisa is a gutsy half-Guatemalan young woman whose Mayan mother deserted her at age 9, leaving her to be raised by her Anglo father. After his sudden death, Elisa inherits the family plant nursery, and under her watch, the business quickly sinks into trouble. There’s an earthquake, vandalism, and arson, a lot of suspicious quirky characters running around, and of course, romance! The sequel focuses on Elisa’s adoptive mother, Gail Langston, who is afraid to fall in love again after her third husband (Elisa’s father) dies.

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About the Author:

Pamela Beason often jokes that she suffers from multiple personality disorder. She’s pretty much interested in everything and can never decide what to focus on next, so she constantly juggles multiple book projects. When she tires of creating fictional escapades, she slips off into the wilderness for a real-life adventure. All her books are published by WildWing Press. You can find links to all her books and join her mailing list on http://pamelabeason.com.

 

James Hayman: The Girl in the Glass Saturday, Jun 4 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:19 am

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Auntie M is late to James Hayman’s McCabe and Savage series, but she’ll be back for more after reading The Girl in the Glass, its fourth installment.

The action fluctuates between Whitby Island, Maine, in a case from 1904 and the tragic death of the lovely Aimee Whitby, a French artist, whose murder remains filled with speculation but unsolved. This is contrasted against the June 2012 murder of her descendant, Veronica Aimee Whitby, and closely resembles the hallmarks of the first, with the action split between Portland and Whitby Island.

Veronica is the valedictorian of her school, a manipulative young woman killed on the night of her graduation party. Enter McCabe and Savage, determined to find the killer as quickly as possible. Despite the revelations that perhaps Veronica wasn’t the nicest young woman, she was still only eighteen and at the cusp of her life when she is murdered.

But their investigation is thwarted by the different personalities at hand. There’s the dead girl’s father, wealthy to the point of absurdity, her stepmother, and her half sister. There are petty and real jealousies, sibling rivalry, and the kind of complex family situation that you know you wouldn’t want to be at their Thanksgiving dinners.

Hayman gives McCabe and Savage their own relationship issue to struggle with as the case pushes forward, under the eye of a a strident media, dogging their heels. One of the highlights of this is seeing the duo at work, balancing their case and their emotions, trying to make sense out of the various strands. The past come into play in surprising ways as the case races to its finale. Fast paced and reminded Auntie M of the quick read in one gulp action of a John Sanford novel.

 

Darn Good Reads: Con Lehane, Nancy Allen, Karin Salvalaggio Sunday, May 29 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:09 am

Auntie M is celebrating her son’s 40th birthday this Memorial Day Weekend (could she really have a child that age? Unlikely.) And she also is flying her flag and remembering those who served our country and their families. Happy Memorial Day to all~

For your reading pleasure, she’s recommending five terrific reads if you find yourself with time to sit on a porch or swing in a hammock. Great company, to be sure. Enjoy your weekend, whatever it brings–and enjoy a good book!

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Con Lehane takes the protagonist from three previous novels, bartender Brian McNulty, and moves him to the sidelines in his newest, Murder at the 42nd Street Library. The protagonist this time is Raymond Ambler, named in an homage to two of the author’s favorite crime writing masters, Raymond Chandler and Eric Ambler, and provides a clue to the author’s love and knowledge base of crime fiction.

Ray Ambler is the curator of the wonderful NYC library’s crime fiction collection. The wonderful library is a secondary star when the bodies start to pile up in the world renowned institution. Fans who have visited or live in the area, or who have walked past the two stately lions guarding the outside (Patience and Fortitude), will delight in this behind-the-scenes setting.

When a murder occurs on premises, Ambler knows the personalities involved and find himself drawn into the investigation of Mike Cosgrove, the NYPD homicide detective who’s a friend. The two will be plunged, along with a colleague Ray finds himself drawn to and a few other friends, into the twisted world of a celebrated mystery writers whose donation of all of his papers to the library seems to be the catalyst for the murders.
Ray will find himself trying to be protective of several who have entered his life, while being proactive in the investigation and trying to stay on the right side of the law.

There’s a lovely feel of noir in this as Ray untwists the secrets kept for decades that impact on the present.

Let’s hope this is just the first of more appearances by the shrewd and multi-layered Ray Ambler.

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Nancy Allen brings back ADA Elsie Arnold in the next taut entry in her Ozark Mystery series, The Wages of Sin.

Elsie finds herself reluctantly chosen by her boss, DA Madeleine Thompson, to assist her in the trial that has captivated the community: a young pregnant woman is found beaten to death in a trailer park. The suspect is the father of the unborn child and Thompson decides this is a death penalty case.

The victim’s six-year-old daughter, Ivy, is the only reluctant and traumatized witness. To make matters worse, Thompson decided to draft in another lawyer from the State Attorney General’s office to help their team. Then Elsie and her team find out the public defender assigned to represent the boyfriend is a well-known merciless trial attorney, Claire O’Hara.

Elsie is determined to find justice for the unborn child and its mother, even as damning evidence about the victim is revealed. It will be up to Elsie and her boyfriend, Barton City detective Ashlock, to keep Ivy safe before and even after testifying.

A gritty and realistic legal thriller.

Walleye
The Montana setting is a key element in Karin Salvalaggio’s series featuring Detective Macy Greeley in Walleye Junction.

The small community of Walleye Junction is rocked when outspoken radio journalist, Philip Long, is kidnapped and later murdered in a way that knocks Special Investigator Macy back on her heels and makes it personal, even as takes her away from her young son, Luke, to investigate the case.

It would seem Long’s own investigation of a local militia group is at the heart of the case, especially when two kidnappers are found dead and are known to have ties to the militia community. But there are also discrepancies that trouble Macy. Their son has absconded; the bodies were moved after death, indicating a third person was involved. Then police receive anonymous emails that point them in the direction of prescription drug abuse.

Long’s most recent investigation notes seem to have disappeared, and no one knows what he was working on. His daughter, Emma, has returned to the town for his funeral, which adds to the complications and brings up an old case that sets Macy on alert: Emma’s childhood friend Lucy died from a drug overdose. Emma feels her father may have uncovered something that’s not right about her death.

There will be family squabbles, the rumor mill of a small town in high gear, children in jeopardy, and an old love from Emma’s past that haunts her and annoys Macy. And then there’s Macy’s relationship with Aiden Marsh, and if the couple have any real future in the long-term alliance.

The relationships and characters feel real and readers will be surprised at the twists in the plot of this suspenseful and perceptive look at small towns and the people who live there.

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Author Beth Gutcheon has written nine previous novels and several film scripts before turning her hand to mystery in this debut of a new series, Death at Breakfast.

Written with a strong sense of wry humor about the two main characters, readers are introduced to newly retired school headmistress Maggie Detweiler and her friend, socialist Hope Babbin.

The two have arrived for a weeklong cooking class at a picturesque mountain inn. Thinking about how to spend their retirements, this duo are hoping they find themselves compatible enough for traveling companions in the future. The Victorian-era inn seems the perfect spot to try out their time together, and has the added bonus of being the home town of Hope’s deputy sheriff son. Maggie has had Buster as a student; Hope is trying to repair the gulf between them.

They find the Oquossoc Mountain Inn everything they’d hoped for, until the arrival of a Hollywood contingent who threaten to disturb their peace and tranquility. The rude trio are Alexander and Lisa Antippas, and Lisa’s sister, Glory, and don’t forget the little yapping dog who accompanies them, because soon everyone in the inn will be aware of that dog.

When a deadly fire in one wing of the inn happens at night, Alexander’s charred body is found in his bed. Known for sneaking cigars into the No Smoking facility, it’s thought to be a tragic accident–until a second circumstance proves that it most likely was not. With Buster investigating, the two ladies swing into action to help him solve this big case as state’s attorneys and senior law enforcement descend, hoping for a quick arrest.

Maggie knows human nature after a lifetime of evaluating students, and quickly ascertains that the higher-ups will settle for the most obvious suspect, and indeed, a young woman just fired from the inn is soon arrested for arson and murder. Maggie and Hope prove to be a daunting duo as they use their common sense and cheerfulness to disarm witnesses and gather evidence that will help Buster find the real culprit.

A delightful debut that will have readers waiting for the next installment.

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Susan Moody debuts a new British mystery series with Quick and the Dead, an original and highly literate mystery. The “Quick” in the title is former detective Alex Quick, who is coping with the loss of her marriage and unborn child by changing careers. With a knack for compiling art anthology books, Alex has formed a business partnership with Dr. Helena Drummond, a university professor and art historian, and a woman who keeps her own life close to the vest.

The book’s action packs a wallop when Alex finds a dead body in Helena’s flat in a disturbing scene that lets the reader know this is not a cozy. Although relieved it’s not Helena, the professor’s disappearance makes her the lead suspect in the murder. This scene simmers in the readers’ mind as it does in Alex’s and lets them know she’s been deeply affected by the murder.

Alex is also guilty because she’d ignored Helena’s complaints of a stalker. She involves herself in finding the murderer, both to clear Helena, p and keep her partner from the jeopardy she must find herself in from the real culprit. Alex is complex and multi-dimensional, a character who can curse like a trooper but has a fine mind for investigating as well as an eye for art. She’s a strong lead for a series, and the reader becomes fully engaged when Alex realizes just how little she knew Helena.

“She comes across as so open and let-it-all-hang-outish, but in fact she gives almost nothing away. So I don’t know anything about her background or her family situation. Nothing. Apart from the fact that she’s been married twice,” Quick says at one point, and is immediately stunned to learn that one of those husbands is a painter whose work Alex has long admired. She’d urged Helena to include his work in one of the compilations of pictures and text that they have published to much acclaim and some profit, and she’d omitted this tidbit of her background.

There are enough twists to keep readers interested, and it will be interesting to see just how Alex’s next adventure proceeds.

 

Sophie Hannah: A Game for All the Family Sunday, May 22 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

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Auntie M had previously mentioned Sophie Hannah’s standalone, A Game for All the Family, in a thriller post last fall. But it’s available now in the US and worthy of a second look for those of you who are hooked on this writer’s wicked imagination.

A Game For All The Family, shows Hannah’s deft hand at psychological thrillers, as well as her ability to create an intriguing story from the most seemingly innocuous bits of people’s lives that somehow escalate before the reader’s eyes into full-blown terror. This is the genius of her writing.

Justine Merrison is moving with her family to escape London and her high pressure job to the lovely Devon countryside, home to Dame Agatha, by the way. She has huge plans to do nothing at all, at least for a while, but the family is no sooner moved in than teen daughter Ellen withdraws and exhibits a change in her personality.

It seems Ellen has written a story that describes a grisly murder set in the family’s gorgeous new home and just happened to name a character after herself. What starts out as a school assignment morphs into the story of someone else’s family.

Then her good friend is expelled from school for a trifle and when Justine goes to the school to ask the head to reconsider, she’s told the student doesn’t exist–and that he never attended the school. Who is going crazy–Ellen or the school?

And then anonymous calls start, and Justine finds herself accused of sharing a murderous past with a caller whose voice she doesn’t recognize. Being caught up in this strange story will ultimately affect Justine, Ellen and their entire family, especially when Justine realizes it will be up to her to stop their torment.

How this falls out is part of the fun of reading the unique novel where Justine must find out just whom she’s supposed to be in order to stop the threat to her family. Twisted and entertaining.

 

More Than A Touch of Humor: Carter, Kelly, Haines, Hess, Dorsey, Dennison, Sansom, Shelton Sunday, May 15 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:17 am

Auntie M is visiting her four Grands in the Midwest the next two weeks, celebrating a Sweet 16 for #2, a HS graduation with #1 on his way to Harvard, a special choir concert for #3, and four teams worth of lacrosse games. There will be lots of hilarity and she’s hoping #4 is still the only one shorter than she is! So in honor of all the smiles she’ll be receiving, she’s handing you the following for your reading–and laughing–pleasure!

DeathDummy

CF Carter and his wife publish a monthly mystery magazine, so he knows how to plot one. His debut, Death of a Dummy, is the first in a planned Wax Museum series. Set in Old Quebec, it introduces the black sheep of his wealthy Vancouver winery family, surf bum Paul Wainscott. Accompanied by his Golden Retriever, Benchley, he heads to Old Quebec City after his father dangles one last business proposition, designed to give Paul a future and a way to learn how to run a business out of sight of the beguiling waves.

His father has bought him a building to fill with tenants and a credit card with enough money to cover his expenses for three months. After that, he’s on his own. It’s an interesting premise, made more interesting by the decrepit wax museum in the basement. And with Quebec having one of the lowest crime rates in North American, what could possibly happen?

He meets two women who will become integral to him: Sophie, the pretty chef of the nearby crepe restaurant, and Dottie, a octogenarian who watches over him and becomes his business partner while making fascinators on the side. He’ll meet Guy Trembley, owner of the antique shop across from his lovely building, and learn he knew Guy as a child. There’s his one renter, mime Remy St. Claire, and former policeman Bernard Curtius. This mix of characters sustain the plot when one of the above-mentioned turns up murdered.

Carter’s use of history to mine the Wax Museum adds another level of interest as Paul finds himself at the heart of a murder investigation.

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The fourth Paw Enforcement mystery by Diane Kelly, Against the Paw, is the next installment in the Fort Worth series whose recipe features rookie Megan Luz and her K-9 partner, German Shepherd Dob mix Sergeant Brigit. Add Megan’s bomb squad boyfriend, Seth, to the mix, for that touch of romance, and then alternate chapters in points of view that include Brigit, and you’re in for a hilarious ride–especially those snarky asides from Sgt. Brigit. An dont forget Megan’s colleagues, who include Dereck Mackay, always out to thrust Megan in as poor a light as possible. What’s a female officer to do?

There’s a convicted burglar who’s broken parole and Megan’s goal is to find him and put that feather in her cap with Captain Leone and Chief Garlic. But there’s also a Peeping Tom terrorizing the upscale neighborhood, and the Neighborhood Watch group grows in ferocity as their perceived threat increases.

Kelly ramps up the humor with chapters from “Tom’s” point of view. There will be surprise mystery guest, too, in Megan’s private life.

RockAByeBones

Carolyn Haines newest Sarah Booth Delaney Mystery is Rock-A-Bye Bones. It finds the unlikely PI still smarting after the break with her fiancé and subsequent attack she suffered in Bone to be Wild now out in paperback. Sarah Booth will get the surprise of her life when she finds what she thinks is a kitten mewing on a cold night at her home in Zinnia, Mississippi. The appearance of the spirit, Jitty, in different guises, adds to the excitement in Sarah’s home.

For that kitten turns out to be an abandoned newborn in a basket. Bloody footsteps leading to her door are her first clue; a dark-colored car leaving the area is her second. It will be up to Sarah and her PI partner, Tinkie Richmond, to find the baby’s mother. But as they start to investigate, it soon becomes apparent that this was not a mother abandoning a child as much as a woman running for her own life and trying to protect her infant.

With Sheriff Coleman Peters still stirring unresolved feelings in Sarah Booth, and Tinkie taking care of and becoming attached to the baby girl, Sarah has a lot on her mind in addition to tracking down the real mother of this little girl. It will soon become apparent that the mother wouldn’t have left her baby unless she had something to fear–and Sarah is following her uneasy and terrified footsteps.

TerrorTaffeta
Marla Cooper’s accomplished debut, Terror in Taffeta, serves up a feisty amateur sleuth readers will want to read again.

Kelsey McKenna is a wedding planner who has learned to juggle everything from wardrobe issues to groomsmen who start to party too early. So she’s received to be wrapping up what she thinks is almost hit a home run with a destination wedding in the charming Mexican town of San Miguel de Allende–until during the ceremony, a collapsing bridesmaid turns a faint into a murder investigation by dying.

Pressed by the paying mother of the bride to not ruin the wedding, Kelsey must keep the murder to herself and play homicide detective–in another country–where she has no power and knows no one–or does she? And then there is a second murder and suddenly the maid of honor is a suspect.

Smart and funny at the same time, Kelsey must track down a murderer, all the while wondering how this is going to affect her business.

PridevPrejudice
Joan Hess brings back her almost-retired bookseller, Claire Malloy, in Pride v. Prejudice. A widow with a teen, Caron, who speak in ALL CAPS, Claire’s marriage to Deputy Police Chief Peter Rosen has changed the landscape. She has employees to run the Book Depot and is able to serve on jury duty.

But her colorful past comes back to haunt her, as Claire comes up against a prosecutor who has a grudge against her and Peter. He humiliates her even as she’s dismissed from jury duty. But Claire doesn’t take the slight lying down: She decides to prove the defendants’ innocence.

Of course, this proves to be more difficult than she’d first expected, as the evidence Claire uncovers points squarely to Sarah Swift’s guilt. Before it’s over, the FBI will be involved, and so will Claire’s now mother-in-law. A delectable bite of fun.

Cocnut Cowboy

We travel next to Florida and Tim Dorsey’s remarkable serial killer, Serge Storms, in Coconut Cowboy.

Serge has always been obsessed with all aspects of Easy Rider. The lovable serial killer decides he must finish the journey of Captain American and Billy, his heroes. Calling himself Captain Serge, he sets off for Florida’s panhandle with Coleman riding shotgun to find what he calls the real America, filled with apple pie and Main Streets.

But rural American is not what Serge expected at all. The duo find more than their fair share of corrupt politicians. A few mind-altering meds will be included before their wild ride is over, and of course, their usual homicides that just seem to follow these two.

There will be gunfights, Senators and more for the font of trivia that is Serge. This is the 19th in the series and fans can’t get enough of Serge and Coleman’s adventures, which Dorsey admits are often inspired by stops along his extensive drives around Florida doing signings, wearing his usual wild Hawaiian shirts.
Killer Ball\
The third installment in Hannah Dennison’s series brings her usual hilarity through its eccentric characters. This time it’s A Killer Ball at Honeychurch Hall that does the honors, the Hall being Kat Stanford’s estate, a 600 yr-old mansion that appears to have a hidden room. Being set in the lovely Devon area doesn’t hurt, either.

Kat finds the room exploring an unused wing at the Hall. But ti seems someone else has gotten there before her, for she finds the body of a young woman, dressed in an Egyptian costume, with a costume necklace around her very broken neck.

Anyone at the Hall at this time falls under suspicions, and it is up to Kat to clear her friends and find the real killer. Iris, Kat’s mother, also known as Krystalle Storm, a bestselling steamy romance novelist, is on hand to muddy the waters with the related characters representing a modern-day Downton Abbey, of a farcical style.

A classic country-house mystery for modern times with modern sensibilities.

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Auntie M is a fan of Ian Sansom’s Mobile Library Mystery Series, and so was intrigued to receive a review copy of his “Country Guide” installment fearing the “People’s Professor,” in Death in Devon. The first is set in Norfolk Guide; this one takes readers to Agatha Christie’s home county.

Readers should be prepared for a very different outing than the breezy humor of the Mobile series. This is a sendup of the 1930s, replete with the class system, school bullies, poor Sefton with PTSD–it’s all there and all ready to be parodied. Told from the viewpoint of Stephen Sefton, assistant to Swanton Morely, the story begins with the two men setting out to Devon, accompanied by Sefton’s comely and adventurous daughter Miriam as driver of the family Lagonda.

Merely is to speak in Rousdon at All Souls School at their Founders Day, an event destined to bring in large donors of the attendant boys. But tragedy strikes early in the form of a youth found dead at the bottom of the famous Devon cliffs. Is this an accident or a case of murder?
It remains to be seen, as police investigate quietly so that the Founders Day founders do not scatter or withdrew their financial support. The story unwinds in an obtuse and meandering way, elaborating on the eccentricities of many of the faculty.

Of course, no character is as eccentric or as bold as Swanton Morely himself, who has seemingly written more books, papers, treatises and articles on almost as many subjects as one can imagine one would tackle and still sleep, if he ever does. He is a fountain of information, some of it suspect, and Sefton is the chief gatherer of his rambling monologues and then some. The plot is so loose it flies in the wind. This is not for the reader who expects a plot-driven mystery, but is for one who enjoys characters larger than life and a hang-onto-your-hate wild ride, whilst learning real history of the area. There’s more here than meets the eye at first read.

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Paige Shelton premieres a new series, this time set in Scotland, with The Cracked Spine.

Kansas native Delaney Nichols has a new job after she answers an ad and finds herself on her way to Edinburgh. With her degrees in English and History, working for a bookshop that specializes in rare books and manuscripts sounds ideal, even if owner Edwin MacAlister sounds vague about her duties. The shop is as crowded and wonderful as Delaney could imagine, even if she longs to bring a sense of organization to the premises.

She finds the staff as eccentric as Edwin, too. There’s Rosie, an elderly woman accompanied by her little dog, Hector; and Hamlet, a would-be actor with a checkered past–but not as checkered as that of Jenny, Edwin’s sister, battling an old drug habit that’s nearly destroyed her relationship with her brother.

Delaney is barely settled into her cottage, owned by a friendly taxi driver she’s met, when Edwin’s sister is brutally murdered after entrusting Jenny with an extremely rare and valuable manuscript–which is now missing. With Edwin grieving both the loss of his sister and the manuscript, Delaney starts asking questions. It’s not long before she’s investigating to find the murderer and retrieve the manuscript, especially when Hamlet becomes a suspect.

There will even be a bit of romance with a man in a kilt, too, before Delaney’s first Scottish adventure is ended. A delightful start to a new series.

 

Vinnie Hansen: Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries Sunday, May 8 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:33 am

A special treat for readers on Mother’s Day, described by author Vinnie Hansen, who shares her story of her own mother. The happiest day to all mothers out there ~

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A Mother’s Day Gift

Since it’s Mother’s Day, you’ve probably already taken care of any necessary shopping. But how about a gift for yourself? Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries for only $2.99.

My mother would love this boxed set, but sadly this is my first Mother’s Day without her. Back in 1954, I was her Mother’s Day gift, the ninth of ten children, after a string of four boys. The brother before me weighed over nine pounds and my mom resolved to keep my birth weight down by snacking on ice. Vinnie on the rocks. It worked. I popped out, “an easy birth” at seven pounds, six ounces.

The two of us bonded over a love of words. When I was a child, Mama started attending college during the summers to earn a teaching credential. She did her homework on the edge of our battered round oak table, the unfolded laundry shoved into a heap in the center. A fat Funk & Wagnell’s dictionary lived on a nearby shelf. She was fond of thumping that baby onto the table and saying, “Look it up.” My problem was, and remains, if I look up “mediant,” here’s “mediastinum” and whoa, a “mediatrix.”

Crosswords, she taught me, should be done in ink. “Otherwise they’re too hard to read.” However, we never agreed on approach. I progress systematically top to bottom. My mom skimmed all the clues for anything, anywhere, she felt sure of, sticking in scattershot s’s for plurals.

Mama played Scrabble right up to the day of her death, one day shy of her 96th birthday. She liked a cooperative game where we could look at each other’s letters and help each other to think of delightful words. To her a good game covered the board, reaching the red triple word scores in the corners. To me a great game was slipping in a word like mediant.

In my grandpa’s journal, he wrote, “Gave my last dollar to Vi (my mom) for books.” When Mama passed, I was honored with her library card. This little piece of my mom rides on my bag. I transport her as books once did. In June she’ll go to Alaska. In August she’ll attend the Writers’ Police Academy with me, and in March, we’ll be off “on a lark” to Left Coast Crime in Honolulu. I also put dibs on her magnificent red hat, the crowning jewel of her collection.

Vinnie’s Mom in her wonderful red hat: Mom

My mom penned the “Hit & Miss” column for our local paper, the Pioneer Review. I received press on all of my mysteries. The day she died, she had the start of an article tucked into her bag. A bit of a hoarder, my mom saved letters, returned to the senders. On one of my letters she’s corrected my “gave Danny and I” to “Danny and me,” guiding me even from the other side.

She would have been very proud of my inclusion in the Sleuthing Women boxed set, perfect for her reading taste. On this first Mother’s Day without her, I understand that I wasn’t a gift to my mom on Mother’s Day; she was a gift to me, one that keeps giving.

Sleuthing Women: 10 First-in-Series Mysteries is a collection of full-length mysteries featuring murder and assorted mayhem by ten critically acclaimed, award-winning, and bestselling authors. Each novel in the set is the first book in an established multi-book series—a total of over 3,000 pages of reading pleasure for lovers of amateur sleuth, caper, and cozy mysteries, with a combined total of over 1700 reviews on Amazon, averaging 4 stars. Titles include:

Assault With a Deadly Glue Gun, an Anastasia Pollack Crafting Mystery by Lois Winston—Working mom Anastasia is clueless about her husband’s gambling addiction until he permanently cashes in his chips and her comfortable middle-class life craps out. He leaves her with staggering debt, his communist mother, and a loan shark demanding $50,000. Then she’s accused of murder…

Murder Among Neighbors, a Kate Austen Suburban Mystery by Jonnie Jacobs — When Kate Austen’s socialite neighbor, Pepper Livingston, is murdered, Kate becomes involved in a sea of steamy secrets that bring her face to face with shocking truths—and handsome detective Michael Stone.

Skeleton in a Dead Space, a Kelly O’Connell Mystery by Judy Alter—Real estate isn’t a dangerous profession until Kelly O’Connell stumbles over a skeleton and runs into serial killers and cold-blooded murderers in a home being renovated in Fort Worth. Kelly barges through life trying to keep from angering her policeman boyfriend Mike and protect her two young daughters.

In for a Penny, a Cleopatra Jones Mystery by Maggie Toussaint—Accountant Cleo faces an unwanted hazard when her golf ball lands on a dead banker. The cops think her BFF shot him, so Cleo sets out to prove them wrong. She ventures into the dating world, wrangles her teens, adopts the victim’s dog, and tries to rein in her mom…until the killer puts a target on Cleo’s back.

The Hydrogen Murder, a Periodic Table Mystery by Camille Minichino—A retired physicist returns to her hometown of Revere, Massachusetts and moves into an apartment above her friends’ funeral home. When she signs on to help the Police Department with a science-related homicide, she doesn’t realize she may have hundreds of cases ahead of her.

Retirement Can Be Murder, A Baby Boomer Mystery by Susan Santangelo—Carol Andrews dreads her husband Jim’s upcoming retirement more than a root canal without Novocain. She can’t imagine anything worse than having an at-home husband with time on his hands and nothing to fill it—until Jim is suspected of murdering his retirement coach.

Dead Air, A Talk Radio Mystery by Mary Kennedy—Psychologist Maggie Walsh moves from NY to Florida to become the host of WYME’s On the Couch with Maggie Walsh. When her guest, New Age prophet Guru Sanjay Gingii, turns up dead, her new roommate Lark becomes the prime suspect. Maggie must prove Lark innocent while dealing with a killer who needs more than just therapy.

A Dead Red Cadillac, A Dead Red Mystery by RP Dahlke—When her vintage Cadillac is found tail-fins up in a nearby lake, the police ask aero-ag pilot Lalla Bains why an elderly widowed piano teacher is found strapped in the driver’s seat. Lalla confronts suspects, informants, cross-dressers, drug-running crop dusters, and a crazy Chihuahua on her quest to find the killer.

Murder is a Family Business, an Alvarez Family Murder Mystery by Heather Haven—Just because a man cheats on his wife and makes Danny DeVito look tall, dark and handsome, is that any reason to kill him? The reluctant and quirky PI, Lee Alvarez, has her work cut out for her when the man is murdered on her watch. Of all the nerve.

Murder, Honey, a Carol Sabala Mystery by Vinnie Hansen—When the head chef collapses into baker Carol Sabala’s cookie dough, she is thrust into her first murder investigation. Suspects abound at Archibald’s, the swanky Santa Cruz restaurant where Carol works. The head chef cut a swath of people who wanted him dead from ex-lovers to bitter rivals to greedy relatives.

Buy Links
Kindle– https://www.amazon.com/Sleuthing-Women-First-Mysteries-ebook/dp/B01E7EEJLA/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&ref_=as_li_ss_tl&ref_=nav_ya_signin&ref_=pe_2427780_160035660&linkCode=ll1&tag=loiswins-20&linkId=7012336080a0b797be8d95851657c50c
Nook– http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/sleuthing-women-lois-winston/1123663544?ean=2940153179940
Kobo– https://store.kobobooks.com/en-us/ebook/sleuthing-women-10-first-in-series-mysteries
iTunes– https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/sleuthing-women-10-first-in/id1103428642?mt=11

Vinnie in her Mom’s grand red hat: Vinnie in Mom hat

Vinnie Hansen fled the South Dakota prairie for the California coast the day after high school graduation.

A reading addict since childhood, Vinnie is now the author of the Carol Sabala mysteries. The seventh installment in the series, Black Beans & Venom, was a finalist for the Claymore Award. She’s also written many published short stories including “Novel Solution” in the anthology, Fish or Cut Bait, and Bad Connection, the 2015 winner of the Golden Donut Award.

Still sane after 27 years of teaching high school English, Vinnie has retired and lives in Santa Cruz, California, with her husband and the requisite cat.

 

Elly Griffiths: The Woman in Blue, Ruth Galloway Mystery #8 Tuesday, May 3 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

WomaninBlue
Elly Griffiths’ wonderful Ruth Galloway Mysteries are one of Auntie M’s secret delights. Each new book is like a treat, waiting to be devoured.

In book #8 in the series, THE WOMAN IN BLUE, Griffiths takes Ruth to Little Walsingham, a medieval town with a huge religious history. Her friend, the druid Cathbad, is housesitting near the cemetery of one of the town’s churches, St. Simeon’s, when he sees a woman standing near one of the tombstones. Dressed in white with a flowing blue cloak, is the woman real, or an apparition of the Virgin Mary that many pilgrims come to the town to worship?

When the same woman is found dead in a ditch the next day, it’s clear she was very human. There will soon be religious overtones to the investigation, and DCI Nelson and his team on the case. Ruth finds herself involved through the back door this time. An old friend coming to the area soon on a course asks Ruth to help her as she’s been receiving threatening letters. The fact that this old friend is now an Anglican priest is not the only thing Ruth must get used to. There is a change in Nelson and they’re both afraid of it.

Then a second woman is murdered, and Ruth and Nelson race to find a murderer before he or she can strike again. With Easter season in full bloom, pageants and services abound, and the local churches of all denominations come under scrutiny. Old faces we’ve seen before appear, and threads from past stories come full circle–or do they?

One of Griffith’s gifts is making Ruth, Nelson and their circle face the same things we each face in our daily lives in a most realistic way. There aren’t always neat solutions to life’s questions. Police and forensic archaeologists, no matter how devoted or how good at their jobs, have the same insecurities and the same longings as anyone else. Griffiths’ consistently captures our attention with a delicious mystery while echoing the realities many readers face.

Couple all of this with a murderer on the loose and a Good Friday Passion Play in progress and you have all the ingredients for a mystery rich with drama and intrigue as very modern dilemmas play out on several levels. Highly recommended~

A note to readers: Three of Auntie M’s other highly recommended mysteries from last year are out in paperback. If you missed any of these in hardcover, now’s your chance for great adventures reading from three authors skilled at weaving setting and character with compelling mysteries:

LONDON RAIN, Nicola Upson’s sixth Josephine Tey mystery takes readers to 1937 London, still reeling from the abdication of Edward VIII and bustling in readiness for the coronation of his brother. This behind-the-scenes look at a murder at the BBC involves scandals old and new, all set against the backdrop of a national moment in history.

AFTER THE FIRE brings Jane Casey’s London detective Maeve Kerrigan into the cement high-rise estates where a fire has left three dead–and one of them is a wealthy and outspoken politician. What was he doing on this motley estate, and how does his death tie in to the other two victims?

A SONG FOR DROWNED SOULS by Bernard Minier bring his Commandant Martin Servaz of the Toulouse crime squad face to face with his own past, when the son of a former lover is the chief suspect in the murder of a teacher at the same university his own daughter is attending.

 

Different Worlds: Japan, Luxembourg, Iceland, Australia x 2 Wednesday, Apr 27 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:06 am

Auntie M reads more books to review than there are days to review them, it seems at times. So gathering a few together by theme, setting or type often works to get more information out to readers.

This time it’s different worlds, and we’re going around the world to exotic locales, where the unusual setting adds to the crime story.

Midsummer's Equation

We start in Japan, with Keigo Higashino’s thoughtful A Midsummer’s Equation, which brings back the physics professor the author introduced in the highly popular The Devotion of Suspect X.

Manabu Yukawa is known as “Detective Galileo,” and in this book, he’s at the summer resort town of Hari Cove, now fallen down on its luck, to take part in a conference on the proposal for an underwater mining operation. The plan has critics on both sides of the issue, with those opposing concerned about the impact on the town’s pristine waters, and those in favor of it believing it is the town’s only hope for survival.

When a guest at one of the resorts is found dead at the bottom of a cliff, what is deemed at first a simple accident becomes looked at more closely when it’s determined the victim is a former policeman and his death was anything but natural. Galileo finds himself drawn to the inhabitants of the resort, and feels the clue to the murder lies in the complicated relationships he’s observed.

A look at policing in Japan, tied to cultural differences, and how a man who knows human nature most of all can find the answers to questions others miss.

Candidate

Daniel Pembrey writes nonfiction, but his thrillers and psychological suspense stories have been led Susan Hill to note that he “Tells a cracking tale with verve and style.” In The Candidate, he takes us to Luxembourg, a place he knows well, for a novella you will zip through and be left yearning for more.

Brit Nick Thorneycroft is new to his headhunting job in Luxembourg. When he’s tasked with recruiting a new executive with specific talents to work with a Russian company, the best candidate may turn out to be the worst for Nick. Beautiful and definitely smart, Yekaterina Novakovich may be the best–or the worst–person to enter Nick’s life.

With his ex-girlfriend muddying the waters, Nick has to decide whom to trust, if anyone can be. Smart and complicated, a twisted ride from start to finish.

the-mystery-of-the-venus-island-fetish

From the land Down Under comes a tale set in 1932 Sydney, a wickedly funny mystery set in a museum. The Mystery of the Venus Island Fetish is Tim Flannery’s outlandish title that matches an equally outlandish tale that captivates readers with its humor, science and portrayal of anthropologists.

A former museum director, Flannery is currently a Sydney professor who pulls on his science and literary background to delight us with a tale of Depression-era Sydney, when the town was right on the edge of wild land. Any director would have been challenged to keep a museum open and running in the face of a starving population. Enter Archie Meek, newly returned from years on a field trip to Venus Island, where he’s appropriated some of the island’s customs for his own, with interesting outcomes.

It’s Meeks who notices that the island’s famous gift, a ceremonial mask surrounded by 32 human skulls, has been tampered with, and leads to his firm supposition that the differences are caused by substituting skulls of missing museum staff. There will be romance and mayhem before it’s all over. Filled with eccentric characters and charm, this outlandish caper is a delight from start to finish, and you’ll learn about museums, science and how things worked in that era–or didn’t.

WebDeceit

Katherine Howell’s Ella Marconi series are filled with telling details, whether of character, emotion or the contemporary Sydney setting. In Web of Deceit, the Davitt Award-winning author brings the series to the USA.

Paramedics Jane Koutoufides and Alex Churchill had given care to a man earlier in the day, when he crashed his car deliberately into a pole and told them he was escaping from someone. Left at the hospital awaiting a psych consult, Marko Meixner absconds before he’s seen. The next time they’re confronted with Marko, he’s dead under the wheels of a train. Did he jump or was he pushed?

Detective Ella Marconi and her partner, Murray Shakespeare, share the paramedics feel that Marko was not paranoid, but truly afraid of someone. But she has trouble convincing her boss of that. When Marko’s boss tries to commit suicide shortly after he’s been questioned, she’s convinced she’s right. Then a woman tangential to the story is attacked in front of Jane’s house, and in another twist, Alex’s daughter goes missing.

Howell does a nice job of blending in the personal stories of the four main characters, and the Sydney setting comes alive under her detailed descriptions. A complex mystery with a determined detective at its heart.

SilenceSea

Next we head north to Iceland and Yrsa Sigurdardottir’s newest, The Silence of the Sea, named Best Scandinavian Crime Novel of 2015.

The latest Thora Gudmundsdottir novel brings the lawyer her most intriguing case yet: a luxury yacht arrives in Reykjavik harbor with no one on board. There’s no crew, none of the expected family traveling as passengers, and no captain. The entire passenger list, on board from embarkment in Lisbon, have disappeared.

When the grandparents of the missing family enlist Thora’s help to keep custody of their one remaining granddaughter, left in their care, she becomes embroiled in what is clearly much more than a custody case. The case is reminiscent of locked room murders and the tension ratchets up when rumors that this yacht was cursed reach Thora’s ears. Then a body washes up on the shore, connected to this boat, adding to the complexity of the case, with identity issues adding to the horror.

Under the author’s skilled hands, what could be billed a ghost story becomes a frightening case of murder and intrigue. You will be as spooked as Thora, who thinks she’s seen one of the children when she boards the boat, looking for clues. So atmospheric, even when the explanation is given, you’ll feel unsettled and chilled.

 

Mike Sherer: Blind Rage Sunday, Apr 24 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:23 am

Please welcome guest Mike Sherer, whose new YA/New Adult thriller, BLIND RAGE debuted April 19th~

covertitleimage

Welcome to the Brave New World

Or, How BLIND RAGE Got Published

For any author, getting a book published is a big deal, an exciting time. So I’m thrilled that BLIND RAGE, the first book in my Tess Barrett young adult/new adult thriller series is coming out on April 19th.

While there are more roads to publication these days than ever, they are rarely smooth. My own journey has taken twists and turns, traveling down broad highways only to abruptly end up on a scenic dead end. Somehow, I keep finding a way forward.

Here are the roads taken and how they led to the publication of BLIND RAGE. My first mystery was published in 1988 by an old, traditional NYC publisher, Dodd, Mead & Co. (The story of how that book came to be published is too long to relate here.) Through no fault of mine, I’m glad to say, the publisher went under shortly after my book came out.

Two years later, however, I sold the paperback rights to that book, plus the next two books in the series, to HarperPaperbacks. Harper was just starting its paperback mystery line, anchored by Tony Hillerman’s books, and I was excited about my prospects with them. Alas, one month after the first of my three books came out, Harper declined its option on the fourth book based on four weeks of sales. That meant, of course, that they put no marketing effort behind books #2 and #3.

Ten years went by (raising kids, working a regular job, etc., etc.) before Ed Gorman called to tell me of an opportunity to get back into print with a small library edition publisher. I ended up publishing three more books in the Emerson Ward mystery series with Five Star, as well as a standalone suspense novel.

I knew, though, that to get back to the big leagues, to get sent up to The Show from the minors, I had to come up with a new series. I decided to try my hand at a thriller this time, and after a casual conversation with my local bookstore owner, I came up with a character I loved and a crazy, but just plausible plot. After a year-and-a-half of research and writing, I finished my first Blake Sanders thriller, NIGHT BLIND.

I also knew that the publishing industry had changed dramatically since I sold my first books. Back then, (an era I refer to as “B.K.”), editors at traditional NYC publishing houses still responded to query letters from unagented authors. If I wanted to this new book to land at a big house, I’d have to get an agent. After a two-year search, I was lucky enough to get picked up by Lukas Ortiz at the Philip Spitzer Literary Agency, the shop that represents Michael Connelly, Alafair Burke and her dad James Lee Burke.

But even the weight of that esteemed agency couldn’t get me a contract in NY. And the earth shifted once again. During the process of writing NIGHT BLIND, e-books were a novelty that started to gain steam. But suddenly, an online bookstore called Amazon introduced its own e-reader, the Kindle.

Not long after, Amazon also announced that it was creating its own publishing imprints in different genres. I talked with Lukas about it, and we agreed that Thomas & Mercer might be receptive to my new series. They were, and brought NIGHT BLIND out in 2012. The book was nominated for an ITW Thriller Award in 2013. But five days prior to the announcement, T&M told Lukas and me that they didn’t plan to publish the rest of the Blake Sander series.

Self-publishing “Before Kindle” was a nice way of describing vanity publishing, wherein authors pay a press to print copies of their books and then use the subsequent unopened boxes of books to weight their car trunks for traction in snow in the winter. But Kindle, with Amazon’s algorithms and marketing muscle, leveled the publishing playing field somewhat. So, I ended up self-publishing the next couple of Blake Sanders thrillers.

In the meantime, I woke from a bizarre dream one morning in which phrases incorporating the word “blind” had tumbled through my brain—blind rage, blind justice, blind instinct… I shook myself and wondered what the heck it meant, and realized that they were book titles for a thriller series featuring a blind girl.

With dismay, after waking further and drinking a cup of coffee, I realized that a blind girl couldn’t solve crimes or mysteries, let alone be the protagonist of a thriller series. Until a few moments later I was struck by the brilliant thought that she was assisted not by the traditional see-eye dog, but by a seeing-eye guy. I liked the idea so much that before starting on my fourth Blake Sanders novel, I dove into BLIND RAGE, finished it, then wrote a second Tess Barrett book called BLIND INSTINCT, and developed an eight-book story arc.

Lukas, though, isn’t well-connected to the YA/NA genre, and felt uncomfortable representing the series. But after my experience in self-publishing, I felt strongly about having some sort of publisher put out BLIND RAGE.

See, the thing about self-publishing is that e-readers and platforms like Kindle, Nook, and iBooks have made it incredibly easy to “publish” a book. But you still have to find an audience. And now that self-publishing is so easy, you’re trying to make your voice heard over literally a million other authors.

I approached an editor at Skyscape, Amazon’s YA imprint, whom I’d met before, and asked if she’d like to take a look at BLIND RAGE. She said she would, so I sent it to her. And waited. And waited some more. When two years went by with no response to my follow-up queries, I took the hint and decided to try a new Amazon feature, Kindle Scout, where readers nominate books they’d like to read based on excerpts. Those books with a high level of reader interest are selected by Kindle for publication on the Kindle platform. Amazon pays a small advance ($1,500), and modestly promotes the books.

Our younger daughter is a design major at UW, and I asked her if she’d be interested in designing a cover for the book. She agreed, and came up with one of the most striking book covers I’ve ever had. By January, 2015, all was ready for me to pull the trigger. I took a deep breath and uploaded both the file and cover image to Kindle Scout and began my 30-day campaign to find readers. Five days after the campaign ended, Kindle Scout e-mailed with the good news that BLIND RAGE had been selected.

If there’s any moral to the story, it’s that persistence can pay off. If you believe strongly enough in your work and don’t give up, there’s always a way.

MWS Author Photo BW

Michael W. Sherer is the author of the Seattle-based Blake Sanders thriller series, including the just-released Night Strike. Night Blind, the first in the series, was nominated for an ITW Thriller Award in 2013. In addition to the Tess Barrett thriller series, his other books include the award-winning Emerson Ward mystery series, and the stand-alone suspense novel, Island Life.

Please visit him at http://www.michaelwsherer.com or you can follow him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/thrillerauthor and on Twitter @MysteryNovelist.

 

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

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

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

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

Searcher

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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