Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

Wales is the destination in Harry Bingham’s absorbing and highly original novel Talking to the Dead, featuring a fresh new character, DC Fiona Griffiths.

Fiona talks directly to the reader, and this first person point of view goes down extremely well as it’s clear that Fiona is, well, perhaps the kindest way of putting it–a little odd.  “I’m not that good at feelings. Not yet. Not the really ordinary human ones that arise from instinct like water bubbling up from a hillside spring . . .”

She’s attractive but emotionally blunted, very intense in her job, and isn’t the best at social interactions. It’s not that she wouldn’t like to appear more normal; it’s just that for Fiona, there’s a gap between what she sees in others and how she reacts herself. And let’s not mention that two-year gap in her teens that anyone who hears of readily assumes was a breakdown.

She also one of the most unique and endearing characters created in fiction that Auntie M has come across in a long while.

In Cardiff, her newest case’s crime scene contains two bodies: a young, single mother whose prostitution and sometimes drug habit probably went a long way to contributing to her death; and the victim’s six year-old daughter, horribly murdered when the killer dropped a farmhouse sink on her head, killing her and pinning the child underneath it, wiping out the top half of her face.

Also found at the house is a perplexing piece of evidence: the credit card of long-presumed dead, wealthy tycoon Brendan Rattigan. What was Janet Mancini, sometime prostitute and heroin-addict, doing with Rattigan’s platinum card? And how does it tie in to her death and the murder of her daughter, April?

Fiona takes her orders seriously but works overtime on her own theories. Then a second prostitute is found dead, and the risks she faces escalate quicker than she can handle.

This is the complex mystery with a compelling new heroine, whose secrets threaten to overwhelm her at every turn. It is to Bingham’s credit that he includes Fiona’s nearby family, and for once, this is a loving support system for the main character, who faces her own demons.

It is little April who captures Fiona’s attention, sure that the half-faced child is trying to communicate an important piece of information. When Fiona figures out what this is, the reader will be as surprised and blown away as Fiona. Not all of the questions will be answered when you’ve finished reading, which is why Auntie M can’t wait for the next Fiona Griffiths novel. The author’s note at the end (don’t cheat and read it first; it will spoil the ending for you) assures that this character will be one you’re going to follow.

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Auntie M will be off the two weeks and she wishes you and yours every happiness over whatever holiday you celebrate, and in the New Year.

But don’t worry.

She’s busy reading up a storm to bring you the best in new crime fiction for your reading pleasure in 2013!

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Auntie M is back with more holiday gift suggestions for those readers on your list, or for suggestions to print out and leave lying around for others to buy for YOU!

James Lee Burke’s Edgar-winning Black Cherry Blues has been reissued by HarperCollins. This is the third entry in the long-running and popular series.

In what could be called Cajun Noir, Louisiana ex-cop Dave Robicheaux is running from too many painful memories, among them the murder of his wife and his battles with the bottle. He’s struggling to raise his adopted daughter, Alafair, while running a fish-and-tackle shop.

Into the mix comes his old college roommate, and before he knows it, Dave is implicated as a murder suspect and is off to Montana to clear his name.

There will be sociopaths, the mob, and even Native American activism all piled on Dave’s plate before he’s through.

Despite the violence, Burke’s first person style let readers view events from Dave’s point of view and his interior monologue is part of the attraction to this series. The sense of place is detailed with graceful descriptive passages that contrast to the high action scenes and sharp dialogue.

Dale Brown and Jim DeFelice feature the thriller revolving around Dreamland’s Whiplash unit in Collateral Damage.

Years after the fall of Gaddafi, all is not well and Libya requires the attention of NATo forces, intervening in a  war that could have devastating consequences for the volatile region.

Dreamland’s latest invention are flown entirely by computer, removing human error. But something has gone terribly wrong with this supposedly foolproof super-weapon, and a tragic accident results in the deaths of innocents.

The entire Whiplash program is under fire. Was the accident the result of the scientist’s human errors? Or is a more sinister force at work and this is the result of sabotage.

But there’s an enemy waiting for him, determined to unleash more chaos, increased terror and even more deaths—which sends pilot Turk Mako to the skies. Flying the older technology of A-10E Warthogs, flying without computers, Mako tries to prove that, in the heat of battle, a skilled ace can do what no computer can.

For those readers looking for a female protagonist, or a book that’s loaded with humor, there’s JB Lynn’s Further Confessions Of A Slightly Neurotic Hitwoman.

Start off with characters that include a snarky lizard lovable and a grammatically-challenged Doberman. Toss in a bit of Doctor Doolittle in the form
In this story, Maggie has to raise money for a lawyer to defend the custody of her niece Katie. Her “boss” gives her the target who happens to be a former uncle (and drug dealer) and the person who Maggie believes is responsible for killing her sister, brother-in-law and putting her niece in the hospital. She also has to perform her duties as maid of honor at her best friend’s wedding, reunite with a friend from the past that she had such a crush on, shake off advances of a police officer she went out with a couple of times in the past, stop the emotions and feelings she has for her hitwoman mentor, experience threats that have to do with her incarcerated father, and deal with her crazy aunts. A lot goes on in this story!

Overall what I liked about this one was that there was a little more romance for Maggie. I think Maggie needs someone to love her and be there for her every day. She deals with so much on her own and while Godzilla and DeeDee are great for her, they are still pets and not people. I really liked Zeke in this story and went back and forth about whether or not I wanted he and Maggie to start a relationship. I still like Patrick the best and hope he and Maggie can find a way to be together when all is said and done. Maggie’s aunts remind us all that we everyone has wacky family members and even if they do some crazy things, at the end of the day, they all love each other.

JB Lynn has written another fantastic story full of humor, emotion, family, friendship, and love. I really hope there will be more books in this series. I highly recomme

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Forensic scientist Lisa Black brings all of her expertise to play in Defensive Wounds, the newest forensic thriller featuring investigator Theresa MacLean.

This is the fourth in the series, and there’s no question Black knows her stuff, so the story spins out with enough CSI-like details to keep crime junkies happy. But Black balances these with a deft hand at sly humor, which keeps the story rolling without becoming too scientific.

The pace hums along when Theresa is called to the Presidential Suite of Cleveland’s Ritz-Carlton to attend the murder scene of defense attorney Marie Corrigan, which happens in the middle of a huge lawyer’s convention. Known her history of corrupting evidence and witnesses, as well as making most forensic and police testifiers look bad, Corrigan’s hate list is too numerous to count. Add in her rampant sex appeal and use of it, and even Marie’s lovers could have had a motive for her murder.

What immediately ratchets up the tension is that Theresa’s only child, daughter Rachael, is working the front desk, dating a young man from the hotel’s kitchen crew. Then a second lawyer is found murdered in the hotel, and just as she gets involved in this second murder, Theresa is given information that leads to serious misgivings about Rachael’s beau. Add in the forensic nightmare of trace evidence left at at the hotel by hundreds of former guests, and Theresa’s nightmare is only beginning.

Black does a fine job of making Theresa complicated and real, as the crime unfolds and the investigation includes a detective with terrific chemistry with her. The struggle between mother and daughter is nicely done, too, and adds to the layered feel of the novel.

Next up is Angel of the Dark, the combined work of the late master storyteller Sidney Sheldon, and using his archives, novelist Tilly Bagshawe to round out the story and the complicated action.

This is novel with a theme of obsessions, dark and brooding, with action and lies at its heart.

Continuing in Sheldon’s style of heavy violence and lusty scenes, Bagshawe introduced LAPD Detective Danny MacGuire and his the big murder case that threatened to do him in. Millionaire art dealer Andrew Jakes has been brutally murdered and his lovely wife raped and beaten, then left died to her husband’s dead body. Drawn to the beautiful widow, but when he tried to question Angela Jakes about an inconsistency in her statement, she’s vanished without a trace.

Ten years later, McGuire is happily living in France, working for Interpol and enjoying life with the love of his life, Celine. Until the day Andrew’s son Matt appears, bringing evidence of three other unsolved identical slayings. Soon the two men are flying around  the globe in pursuit of the most brilliant murderer McGuire has ever seen.

Bagshawe does an admirable job of coming close to the intensity of Sheldon’s original novels. This is one readers will be able to picture on the big screen, larger than life, and filled with those endings that are not real resolutions at all.

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Please welcome UK author Danny Kemp, whose spy thriller THE DESOLATE GARDEN has been sold to a London production company.

To try is such a worthy thing. To wait; a worthless thing. Those who try stand to fall. While those who wait gain nothing at all. Danny Kemp.

Living ‘The Desolate Garden’ and the newly found frustrating life of a writer.

An image grows from a dream and becomes ‘real’ to the story teller. My story, The Desolate Garden, came directly from a dream. I saw, in my minds eye, an attractive woman sitting in the martini bar of a famous London Hotel, saying to a ‘supposed’ stranger, “tell me a joke.” I then enlarged on that dream, turning it into the tale that it became.

The writer in me lived that dream all day, going through the life of the central characters as if it was me walking those streets in their shoes.

My father, when alive, said I was deceitful, meaning I told lies . . . That’s really a story in the making, as you become aware that you have to remember the initial ‘lie.’ With a story you write that ‘lie,’ and easily refer back to it. Father was right, incidentally.

Some, I believe, over complicate storytelling with needless grammar that only the esoteric can recognize. I want to understand the tale, not have to refer to a dictionary.

All my life I’ve been around people of different breeding, speaking to them and hearing them speak and, perhaps more importantly, listening to them. Dialogue makes a story solid to me. As a writer you paint the broad strokes, then let the characters come alive and fill in the detail, as you or I would if you come across a stranger who asks about your life. The beginning, the hook, is important. The end is important. The middle is what joins the two together and makes or breaks that story.

If you live an interesting life, and are lucky, it never goes from point A, birth, straight to point B, death. It has many diversions . . . that’s the story.

I saw it once described as packing a suitcase. The stuff you pack in the middle are the essential bits; in my case, that’s the story. Some, I find, fill it with dull, bland prose that rolls on and on, full of dross. In the case of a film they use the bedroom to hide the mundane. To me, the story never stops being told. Never an item of clothing of waste in the suitcase, or a passage in the novel, that isn’t necessary.

I have always a beginning. I have two stories at various stages underway now, and another beginning of one in my head. The middle leads off from that . . . leading to an end that I never know when I start.

It excites me that way, as nothing is forced. If there is a defined ‘end’ when you start, it seems to me that you are governed by that ‘end.’ I’m open all the way until it’s obvious, to me, but not the reader. (There’s that deception that my father recognized.) Then I might go back and change something in that middle if needs be, or simply redefine the dialogue, perhaps a hint of that end. Here’s a brief synopsis of the story of The Desolate Garden, which I hope you will read and enjoy:

Only months before the murders of Lord Elliot Paterson and his youngest son Edward, an address in Leningrad is discovered hidden in the ledgers of the Families Private Bank in Westminster, dating back to the 1930’s.—-There is a spy in the Family, but on whose side?

Elliot’s eldest son, Harry, is recruited into the British Intelligence Service to uncover the traitor. Lord Harry Paterson, Earl of Harrogate, is introduced to an attractive woman from the Foreign Office and together, desperately, they try to unravel the intricate web before the killer strikes again.

The Desolate Garden is a twisting tale of deceit and intrigue, spanning decades when the truth was best not told!

The Desolate Garden is on forty worldwide internet sites and in major bookshops in the United Kingdom. It comes in Hardcover, Paperback, Kindle and Nook.

The Amazon link where four chapters can be read from either the Book or The Kindle is: http://www.amazon.com/The-Desolate-Garden-ebook/dp/B008BJWJ2Y/ref=tmm_kin_title_0

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