Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

The Power of the Sidekick: Lise McClendon Sunday, Aug 11 2013

Uncategorized friends, right hand man, sidekicks in books Auntie M Writes Crime 12:08 am

Please welcome guest Lise McClendon and her thoughts on the power of the sidekick in books.

Do you have friends? Of course you do. Friendships make everyday life, which often ranges from routine to downright dull, more fun, more manageable, and more understandable. Even more than family, friends are there for you, to laugh and cry and buy you cake.

You know how some friends teach you to be a better friend? They somehow know that being a friend is a skill and they want you to be happy and friend-full. These people, extroverts probably, are experts in friend-making from preschool on. Others, the introverts, the socially awkward, and, yes, many writers, must learn how to give, how to listen, how to share, how to celebrate the successes of others, and all the things that make a person a good friend. It doesn’t matter if you’re a natural or you have to work at it. Just fulfilling that need for friends is where it’s at. One of the joys of my life is figuring this friend thing out, and the incredible friends I’ve made over the years.

Characters in novels need friends, too. They may not think they do because they are Shane-like, the solitary hero who wanders into town and makes everything right. But scratch the surface of any good protagonist and you’ll find deep relationships. Maybe they aren’t strictly in the friend category; maybe they’re co-workers, husbands or ex-wives, dead brothers or high school teammates. But no one is truly alone. And when building a character and her past it’s important to remember that while she may go on her quest alone, she brings with her all her friends, at least in her head. Because a person, and a character, is the sum of all their experiences, and their relationships, good and bad, are a key element in that. Along the way she may make new friends, mentors and guides in Quest-speak, and even enemies can become helpers and friends.

The ultimate friend in fiction is the sidekick. The second man, the understudy. Their number is legendary, from Sherlock’s Dr. Watson and Crusoe’s Friday, to Don Quixote’s Sancho Panza and Tom Sawyer’s Huck Finn. Where would Harry Potter be without Ron and Hermione, or Spenser without Hawk? How could Dorothy have gotten home from Oz without her three sidekicks?

The sidekick is a powerful figure in stories because he has so many vital roles. He contrasts with the protagonist, playing up the good qualities of the hero. The two of them can banter, discuss, and give information to the reader. The sidekick can be wilder, more carefree, rule-breaking or even criminal, moving the plot in ways that the hero in his goodness and single-mindedness can’t. But most importantly the sidekick makes the hero or heroine seem more human. The protagonist can appear bigger than life, a person without flaws, possessing superhuman strength or intelligence or both. The friend is the person who calls them on their crap, who brings them back to Earth, who reminds the reader that if the hero can have one loyal friend, they are maybe, just a little, like you and me.

Even if you don’t give your hero a true sidekick, try to interject a friend somewhere. It makes your character more alive, more human, more connected to their world. In my new thriller, PLAN X, my heroine, Cody Byrne, is a cop with a little PTSD problem she’s hiding from everyone. Everyone, that is, except her best friend. Her friend makes one small appearance in the novel but Cody thinks about her often. It was important that somebody would know her so well that she can’t keep secrets from them.

Cody’s family is spread around the globe, her brother was killed in Afghanistan, and she’s both attracted to and afraid of relationships with men. So her friend’s loyalty and insight is one bright spot in her psyche. Cody ends up in London, tracking down the identity of the Shakespeare professor who’s blown up in Chapter One. There she meets her real sidekick, friend, and helper, the legal attaché at the US Embassy. But that’s halfway through the novel. Back home she needs a connection with somebody: a friend. Because we all need friends.

Friends keep it real, both in life and in fiction. Who are your favorite sidekicks in fiction?

Lise McClendon is the author [as Rory Tate] of the new thriller, PLAN X. She has written two mysteries series and several stand-alone novels. Her website is www.lisemcclendon.com. You can find her on Facebook and follow her on Twitter as @LiseMcClendon. She gives a shout-out to her sidekicks including (but not limited to) Sherri, Emilie, Angie, Chris, Bess, Debby, Katy, Diane, Rena, Cindy, Susan, Helen, Melody, and Patricia. Love you, friends.

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Terry Shames: A Killing At Cotton Hill Sunday, Aug 4 2013

Uncategorized character influences, murder mystery, small town mystery, Texas crime Auntie M Writes Crime 12:39 am

Auntie M is embarking on an adventure! She’s won a grant to attend St. Hilda’s Crime Conference in her beloved Oxford, site of the first Nora Tierney Mystery, The Blue Virgin (which is a finalist in the Murder and Mayhem Fiction Awards from Chanticleer Media).

After the conference she’ll be traveling around the south of England, researching settings for upcoming books in the series. In her absence, she’s arranged for a stable of great guests to blog in her stead. These kick off with the wonderful new release by author Terry Shames, A Killing At Cotton Hill.

It’s an honor to be a guest on Auntiemwrites. Auntie M writes fantastic reviews that I look forward to. I won’t be reviewing my own book, A KILLING AT COTTON HILL, today. Instead I’ll be sharing with you some thoughts on how and why it was such an easy book for me to write.

Because it took two years for my agent to place my book with a publisher, A KILLING AT COTTON HILL got a little fuzzy in my memory. So when I first saw the cover, although I loved the look of it, I wondered what it had to do with the book. Once I started rereading, I realized that the cover artist caught the undercurrent that runs through the book: Samuel Craddock early on says he feels like a rusted out old car. He has lost his wife and his focus in life.

Once I understood what the artist had in mind, I wondered what kind of car it was. After hours on the Internet looking at different grills, I finally ran into a man in a department store who looked at my cover and said with serene self-assurance, “It’s a 1962 or ’63 Dodge Dart. I know my cars.” I ran to look it up. No, it wasn’t. I turned to my audience, and held a contest to find out. Instant success: It’s a 1966 Plymouth Belvedere.

The exercise in reading the book for car references lead me to rediscover how much I love my characters. People have asked me where the character of Samuel Craddock came from and how I chose the setting. Unfortunately the real answer is lost. All I know is that I sat down and started writing and two months later, the first draft was done. It seemed effortless—even though most of it was written while I was aboard our catamaran, with lots of guests and activities to keep me busy. I got up every day at 6 AM and wrote for two to three hours, nonstop. I had heard of authors feeling like they channeled their characters, but this is the first time I had experienced it.

What I do know about the inception of the book is that I had decided that it was time to write a book that would sell. I had written six other novels, all of which had secured good agents, but none of them sold. This time I was determined to write, “the book only I could write.” I had written several short stories about Jarrett Creek, so I had a ready-made cast of characters. But who would be the focus of investigating crimes in the town? I had a vague idea that he would be someone like my grandfather, who was a force in the small town where he lived for almost his whole life. He was never in law enforcement, but he was smart and had his finger on the pulse of the town. The one-time mayor of town, he was called on for years afterwards to solve odd problems. I didn’t think an ex-mayor would be a particularly good investigator—but suppose I made him an ex-chief of police?

The rest, as they say, is history. Although the main inspiration for Samuel Craddock was my grandfather, there was another person stirred into the mix. Probably my closest friend for thirty years was a man from Kentucky who had a dry wit, a jaded view of people and a southern accent. He died a year before I started the book, and I missed him. So Samuel Craddock is really a blend of my upright grandfather and my droll friend Charlie.

Other characters in the book stepped from real life onto the pages. I know the killer in person—although as far as I know he has never really killed anyone. I know the model for Rodell, Jarrett Creek’s chief of police. He was a hard-drinking man. I know the murder victim and Samuel’s friend Loretta—and all the other people who show up. None of them is a direct match for a real person; they are blends of people. And these people aren’t all from my personal past–some are from stories I heard growing up.

I also know the geography of Jarrett Creek intimately. I can go there in my head and walk around. I know who lives in what house, the man who has a dog that barks non-stop, the woman whose elderly mother lives with her. I know who is stingy, who is generous, who is foolish, and who is kind. I know the people who have had hard luck, and those who laugh at their worries. And here’s the part that I can hardly fathom: I love all of them. I love their foolishness and their intelligence; their kindness and their selfishness. I even care about the bad people.

My hope is to convey through my writing that villains usually behave out of desperation. It doesn’t let them off the hook; but I hope readers understand and maybe have a bit of empathy for them the way Samuel Craddock does—even as he hands them over to the law.

A KILLING AT COTTON HILL: A Samuel Craddock Mystery

The chief of police of Jarrett Creek, Texas, doubles as the town drunk. So when Dora Lee Parjeter is murdered, her old friend and former police chief Samuel Craddock steps in to investigate. He discovers that a lot of people may have wanted Dora Lee dead—the conniving rascals on a neighboring farm, her estranged daughter and her surly live-in grandson. And then there’s the stranger Dora Lee claimed was spying on her. During the course of the investigation the human foibles of the small-town residents—their pettiness and generosity, their secret vices and true virtues—are revealed.

Terry Shames grew up in Texas. She has abiding affection for the small town where here grandparents lived, the model for the fictional town of Jarrett Creek. A resident of Berkeley, California, Terry lives with her husband, two rowdy terriers and a semi-tolerant cat. She is a member of Sisters in Crime and Mystery Writers of America. Her second Samuel Craddock novel, THE LAST DEATH OF JACK HARBIN will be out in January 2014. Find out more about Terry and her books at www.Terryshames.com.

“…if you’re as fond of good writing as I am, it will be the characters in Cotton Hill that will keep the pages turning until late in the evening…”

Mysteryfile

“Shames’ novel is an amazing read. The poetic, literary quality of the writing draws you in…”

RT Book Reviews

“Readers will want to see more of the likable main character, who compassionately but relentlessly sifts the evidence. Convincing small town atmosphere and a vivid supporting cast are a plus.”

Publisher Weekly

Terry Shames offers readers a wonderfully-told tale that kept me turning pages… what kept my interest more than anything was the writing. It was absolutely superb.

Lee Lofland, The Graveyard Shift

A KILLING AT COTTON HILL enchants with memorable characters and a Texas backdrop as authentic as bluebonnets and scrub cedars. A splendid debut by a gifted writer who knows the human heart.

Carolyn Hart, Agatha award-winning author of ESCAPE FROM PARIS

Terry Shames does small-town Texas crime right, and A KILLING AT COTTON HILL is the real thing I has humor, insight, and fine characters. Former chief of police Samuel Craddock is a man readers are going to love, and they’ll want to visit him and Jarrett Creek often.”

Bill Crider, Anthony award-wining author of COMPOUND MURDER, a Dan Rhodes mystery

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Hot summer reads: A multitude of goodness. Sunday, Jul 28 2013

Uncategorized art restorer, Cambridge, investigations, Ireland, London, Michigan, mystery, Russia, spies, suspense, Tennessee, The Vatican, thrillers Auntie M Writes Crime 12:40 am

Auntie M has read so many good books lately, she wants you to look for a few of these to take on vacation. Or read at the beach. Or just to veg out with at home.

Lisa Ballantyne’s debut, The Guilty One, is a sophisticated and disturbing novel that revolves around London solicitor Daniel Hunter, who’s been hired to defend an eleven-year-old boy, Sebastian, accused of murdering an eight-year-old friend.

Sebastian’s home life is troubled, a factor that comes into play as Daniel struggles to get at the truth of the case and explores just what forgiveness means.

For Daniel, whose own childhood was fraught with turbulence and upheaval, the case brings back his history in foster homes until he settled with the one woman who saved him and allowed him to flourish as an adult. But memories of Minnie Flynn bring their own ghosts and Daniel finds himself disturbed at trial and in his home time.

Told in alternating chapters between the present case with Sebastian, and Daniel’s life with Minnie on a remote Cumbrian farm, Ballantyne ties the subplots together in a resounding ending that manages to be suspenseful and unsettling, yet gives a whiff of hope.

This is an author whose next book Auntie M is anticipating.

Emily Winslow takes readers to the world of Cambridge in the complex plot of The Start of Everything.

When the decomposed body of a teenager washes up on the flooded fens, the case falls to DI Chloe Frohmann and her partner, Morris Keene. Establishing the victim’s identity is their first order of business and they investigate even tiny clues that might lead them from the hallowed squares of Cambridge to the name of the dead girl.

This search leads them to Deeping House, where several families reside and were snowed in together over Christmas. Three families include two nannies, and a young writer who were all housebound together.

Chloe becomes swept up in the long-buried secrets of old crimes and their more recent counterparts as she seeks the truth. There will be misaddressed letters and hints of affairs buried alongside murder.

Along this road, her loyalty to her partner is severely tested as the tales of the separate lives are examined through their eyes.

As Chloe looks deeply inside the minds of her involved suspects and the story hurtles toward its tangled conclusion, readers will be caught up in this deft and unusual mystery.

Louise Penny: How The Light Gets In Sunday, Jul 21 2013

Uncategorized conspiracy, Inspt. Gamache, murder investigation, Quebec, Three Pines Auntie M Writes Crime 12:34 am

Can a novel be both heartbreaking and breathtaking?

Louise Penny’s ninth Chief Inspector Gamache mystery answers that question with a resounding YES~ How The Light Gets In continues her compelling series with a book that readers won’t be able to put down. And when they do, they’ll pick it up and read the last few chapters again. Yes, it’s that good.

It’s just before Christmas and cold in Quebec, and that coldness extends to the decimated team Gamache finds himself surrounded by, as his own team has been dispersed to other sections, and the new members’ allegiance to Chief Superintendent Francoeur is barely hidden. Gamache’s nemesis has gutted his team in the process of breaking Gamache down.

Only Inspector Isabelle Lacoste remains, his new second in command in the absence of Jean-Guy Beauvoir, watching the erosion of Gamache’s command. After the startling events in last year’s The Beautiful Mystery, Beauvoir, once Gamache’s friend, and lover of the man’s daughter, Annie, hasn’t spoken to his old chief in months.

Then a message arrives from Myrna Landers, owner of the bookstore in Three Pines, worried about an old friend who has failed to arrive for a planned Christmas visit. When Constance Pineault’s body is found, Gamache is given the case and seems relieved to be able to escape to Three Pines.

But is escape possible when there are dark forces at work with years of planning a conspiracy? And what of the mysterious past of Myrna’s murdered friend? Only poet Ruth Zardo seems to have recognized that Constance was once one of the most famous people in North America, echoing a real-life incident.

Three Pines will become both a haven for Gamache and some of his closest friends, and the site of some of the most suspenseful and tense scenes Penny has written, with the outcomes of several lives hanging in the balance and the futures of many more to be decided. The decisions that have to made at the climax bring the reader to the height of suspense in the frigid snowy forests of Three Pines.

All of Three Pines wonderful eccentric characters are here, as Gamache unravels the mystery of Constance and decides who needs to be saved and how to do that.

Despite writing about murder and what she calls “rancid emotion and actions,” Penny stresses that ultimately her books are about goodness, enduring love, and the choices we humans make. “If you take only one thing away from any of my books I’d like it to be this: Goodness exists.”

How that goodness is achieved will startle readers. With Penny’s talented achievement, they follow Gamache into the deepest heart of betrayal he has ever faced. Highly recommended.

You can listen to the wonderful Ralph Cosham reading an excerpt from How The Light Gets In from going to the audio section of Macmillan here:

http://us.macmillan.com/howthelightgetsin/LouisePenny.

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A Quartet of Wickedness Sunday, Jul 14 2013

Uncategorized English mystery, family secrets, historical mystery, London mystery, Outer Hebrides mystery, police procedural, political thriller, psychological mystery, spies, Tudor mystery Auntie M Writes Crime 1:01 am

Auntie M is traveling this week to meet British author Peter James in New York City at a FanFest event that’s part of their Thrillerfest that weekend. Details from that meeting will post at a future date, as she also hopes to connect with him on her stop in Brighton in August when she’s doing setting research, as the city is home to James and to his detective Roy Grace.

This week she’s bringing you four fantastic reads with wickedness in common.

Scottish author Peter May’s The Blackhouse is from his Lewis series. May’s The Lewis Man is on the shortlist for Crime Novel of the Year to be awarded next week at Theakston’s Old Peculiar Crime Writing Festival. For those of you who aren’t familiar, Old Peculiar is a beer. This is the first of the Lewis series and readers may want to start with the first to follow the trajectory of the protagonist’s personal life.

The Blackhouse gives a fascinating look into the life and culture of the Outer Hebrides as it takes Edinburgh detective Fin McLeod back to his native isle of Lewis where a murder bears too many similarities to a serial killer on the Scottish mainland. Has the murderer moved to the remote island and taken his grisly methods with him?

MacLeod must face his own troubled past on the island while coping with his present life choices and the demise of his marriage. Reconnecting with childhood friends and the places he once called home is often painful, yet MacLeod is determined to find the answer to the killings, even as he battles the ancient customs and traditions and his own bitter past, one he thought he’d long left behind.

How past events collide with what is happening now form a brilliant literary thriller from this prolific author of the award-winning China Thrillers and the Enzo Files series.

May’s history as scriptwriter and editor on British television is evident in his vivid descriptions and haunting prose. The contrast of MacLeod’s past remembrances are skillfully balanced with the events driving the present investigation. Book Three in the series is Chessman and Auntie M has it on her TBR pile.

Florida author Steve Berry is back in fine form with his newest thriller, The King’s Deception, featuring the eighth adventure of Cotton Malone, a recently retired Justice Department operative who is hoping to leave his past behind.

On his way back to the Amsterdam bookstore he owns, his son, Gary, in tow for a planned Thanksgiving holiday, Malone is asked to escort teenage fugitive Ian Dunne to England. Gary and Malone are both reeling from personal information Malone’s ex-wife recently admitted that casts a pall on the trip, and in a startling plot twist, effect actions and outcomes.

The planned quick handover at Heathrow of Ian to the authorities soon turns into much more when the trio are greeted at gunpoint and Ian disappears with Gary.

What follows is a complex plot and a highly compelling read that is a tour de force of mixing true historical events with a twist of fiction that will leave readers breathless.

Balancing Tudor secrets with a startling theory, Malone finds himself running against agents from several countries in an international scheme that goes as far up the chain as possible in MI6, and revolves around a political disaster fueled in part by the release of the Libyan terrorist convicted of the Lockerbie bombing.

Operation King’s Deception has the power to change history as it intersects with the Tudor secret. Gary, Ian and Malone must get to the bottom of it all, aided by a few sympathetic women who cross their paths. There are far too many involved, and too many lives at stake, for Malone to fail.

Hats off to Berry for his meticulous research and the weaving of true facts into his plot. This will leave you yearning for a trip to England to see his settings, while turning pages to find out the resolution of his twisted plot. Highly recommended to those who enjoy a bit of history mixed in with a contemporary thriller.

Jane Casey introduced DC Maeve Kerrigan in The Missing to rave reviews. The second in her series The Reckoning, shows another well-plotted, suspense-filled novel.

Still recovering from wounds she received in the prior novel, Maeve is torn not just physically but emotionally, as she’s ended an intimate relationship, yet must face London’s darkest places in her new case.

On the hunt for a killer targeting sex offenders, Maeve and her team find ties to a mobster who may be trying to track down a missing girl. The wicked murders prey on Maeve’s mind as the killings start to mount up.

Complicating the already-intense case is the addition of two new members to her team.

She finds herself saddled with DI Josh Derwent, who has the confidence of her superintendent but a reputation for aggressiveness, and as she soon finds out, a decided lack of tact. He also finds great pleasure in deriding Maeve’s detecting skills.

Their abrasiveness in trying to work together is one aspect of the hard reality of police work, as the team follows up leads on the men being tortured in horrific ways before their deaths.

It doesn’t help that she’s just moved house and her flat is a mess, or that DC Rob Langton and her own extended Irish family add to the complications of her days.

Then a flash drive arrives for Maeve and the pictures make it clear she’s being followed. How does this tie in to the murders, or has she attracted her own kind of nutter? And will she be forced to move home yet again, just as she’s finished unpacking?

Casey does a fine job of detailing human behavior as well as the politics and squabbles of Maeve’s workplace as she heats up the plot. Maeve is tough to resist as a character, so it’s a treat for readers to know Casey continues her storyline.

The Last Girl is Maeve’s next case at The Met, as the police thriller series continues. Still sorting out her confused feelings for Rob Langton and dealing with that stalker from the last book, Maeve and the irascible DI Derwent are called to a crime scene at the house of wealthy defense attorney Philip Kennford.

Kennford’s reputation for getting convicted criminals released makes it difficult for Maeve to summon sympathy–until she views the ghastly scene of the murder of his wife and one of his twin daughters. Her investigation reveals this was a deeply unhappy family, and that the surviving sister was the least favored daughter.

Immediately falling under suspicion, Kennford has secrets he refused to divulge, despite the high stakes of the investigation. The remaining twin, Lydia, is in shock after finding the bodies of her sister and mother. Yet sending her to her mother’s sister only seems to make things worse.

Maeve knows there is far more beneath the surface and that all of her witnesses are holding back information. She worries over protecting Lydia, until Kennford’s daughter from his first marriage arrives and seems eager to help.

Then in the midst of this complicated case, Maeve’s beloved boss, Superintendent Godley, starts acting in what seems an underhanded way, and her entire world seems to collapse. Who is her enemy and who can be trusted?

With a decided theme of wickedness running through the novel’s subplots, Maeve will race against time to save a young girl–and herself.

This series will engage readers who enjoy Tana French’s novels, for the same level of thoroughness in describing the workings of a police investigation, and for Casey’s creation of a host of engaging characters.

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Chilling Thrillers Sunday, Jun 30 2013

Uncategorized legal thriller, New Orleans murders, occult thriller, romantic thriller, Scotland murders, serial killer, summer reads, Washington DC murders Auntie M Writes Crime 12:42 am

Stephen Leather is the accomplished author of several thriller series, including the bestselling Spider Shepherd series.

He returns with the newest in the Jack Nightingale occult thrillers in Nightshade, which he based on areal incident that occurred in Scotland when a middle-aged farmer entered a primary school and killed sixteen children and an adult before committing suicide. This case formed the basis that led to a ban on handgun ownership in the UK.

What Leather does spectacularly well is to use the theories for that massacre as the plot line in this chilling novel that is disturbing as it brings a dark twist to the events that feel too real and possible at times.

When Jimmy McBride walks into a school with a double-barrelled shotgun and begins his massacre, he sets into motion a chain of events that lead his brother, Danny, to employ Nightingale. The former cop-turned-private eye reluctantly agrees to look into the case and finds to his horror too many connections to discount.

Police have found evidence of Satanic practices at McBride’s farm, which Danny insists were not present just days before when he visited Jimmy at his farm.

Woven into the story is a young girl who is miraculously revived after being declared dead after a horrible home invasion. Bella claims she’s spoken to people from beyond the grave but a disturbing pattern soon emerges. People who she’s whispered her secrets to start to die and often take others with them in bizarre killings.

Nightingale soon realizes there is much more at work here than appears on the surface, and as he digs deeper he brings his own life into jeopardy.

This is a compellingly told tale that will leave readers sitting on the edge of their seats as the events leading to the haunting prologue start to make a terrible kind of sense that only Nightingale can resolve.

Philip Margolin brings back fan favorite private investigator Dana Cutler, previously seen in his Washington Trilogy series, in the fast-paced legal thriller Sleight of Hand.

Dana will face a fierce opponent: the slick criminal defense lawyer Charles Benedict, a man whose talents include magic tricks–and murder.

Sent to the west coast on the trail of a stolen relic, Dana doesn’t see a connection with the missing medieval scepter until she’s deeply embroiled in the case of the missing wife of millionaire Horace Blair.

The action hinges on the prenuptial agreement signed by Blair and his wife, Carrie, guaranteeing her twenty million dollars if she remains faithful for the first ten years of their marriage. When Carrie disappears the week before their tenth anniversary, Horace is charged with her murder. Surely twenty million is a great motive for murder?

Blair hires Benedict to defend him, not realizing the very man who is responsible for him going free may also be responsible for the murder of his wife.

Benedict uses sleight of hand to frame Benedict for Carrie’s murder, which is the inspiration for the book’s title. His own motives prove chilling and Dana is determined to bring the lawyer down.

How Dana manages to outwit the psychopath Benedict creates the high suspense that is a hallmark of Margolin’s novels and involves readers in Dana’s hunt to bring down a cunning and cold-blooded murderer.

Lisa Jackson adds a hint of romance to her thriller, Cold Blooded, set in New Orleans and featuring Olivia Bechet, a young woman who has inherited her Grannie Gin’s ability to see through the eyes of a murderer.

When a woman’s slashed and burned corpse is found in a seedy New Orleans apartment, jaded detective Rick Bentz discounts Olivia’s reports of visualizing the bizarre ritual murder in a nightmare.

Bentz has his own demons he’s dealing with, and they certainly don’t include a tendency to believe the supposed sightings of Olivia.

Then the bodies start to pile up, and it’s obvious young college women are being targeted, with Bentz’s own daughter, Kristi, is in the mix.

Suddenly the visions he discounted start to make terrible sense, and Bentz starts to believe Olivia’s visions.

Jackson shows the killer’s point of view, too, which ups the suspense, as The Chosen One focuses in those around Bentz.

When his own brother is thrown into the mix, Bentz doesn’t know where to turn. Is his brother an innocent victim, set up to take the fall for The Chosen One? Or is his brother really the maniac who is terrorizing the area?

For those who like their action mixed with a hint of sizzle, this is a perfect, briskly-paced summer read.

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Three Hot Summer Reads Sunday, Jun 23 2013

Uncategorized Brighton mystery, British procedural, child murderer, London killer, psychological thriller, rock star in jeopardy, Roy Grace series, serial killer, Sikh culture, The Royal Pavilion Auntie M Writes Crime 12:33 am

In Not Dead Yet, the incomparable Peter James is back with Brighton Detective Superintendent Roy Grace, who intends to spend the weekend with his pregnant partner, Chief Mortician Cleo Morey. Coping with preparation for a major trail looms for Grace, but the couple hope to steal some together before their infant is born.

That notion comes to an abrupt halt with the finding of a torso embedded in chicken excrement under the gridded steel floor at an East Sussex chicken farm. Other than some bits of clothing and a multitude of flies, the head and all four limbs are missing.

Grace’s team are stressed, too, between illness and divorce, and all take their toll on Grace’s worry, even as he waits for the papers to come through that will declare his wife, Sandy, legally dead, after her disappearance ten years ago.

All Grace needs now is the call he receives from the Chief Constable, and despite the cases he’s dealing with, he’s handed an unwelcome assignment: setting up a security strategy for rock singer and actress Gaia Lafayette.

Gaia is a Brighton native, arriving back home to star in an historical film about King George the Fourth and his mistress. Significant scenes will be filmed on location at Brighton’s jewel, The Royal Pavilion.

But threats against Gaia’s life follow her from California where an assistant has been murdered, and Grace is tasked with coordinating several teams to assure the star’s safety. The star arrives with her young son in tow and a multitude of Hollywood types whose mere presence adds to Grace’s stress and workload.

Add to these worries a Brighton villain Grace put away who has been released, and the maniac fans who follow Gaia around, and Grace’s pressure is rising. Then Cleo’s car is vandalized and all bets are off as he races between caring for her and saving Gaia’s life, while his own literally hangs in the balance.

How the cases intersect is a prime example of the intricate plotting that is the hallmark of this entertaining and rewarding series. An extra twist at the end will stop your heart for a moment. This series just keeps getting better and better with its overarching plot points keeping readers eager for the next installment.

Award-winner S. J. Bolton had several stand-alone successes before bringing back DC Lacey Flint, a most unusual character who is on leave from the ordeal she suffered in Dead Scared, after being introduced in Now You See Me.

In this outing, Lost, the title refers to any number of characters in this thrilling ride as a serial killer terrorizes young boys, draining their blood and leaving their bodies to be found.

Bolton cleverly tosses in narrated sections a psychiatrist’s sessions with an unnamed client at the same time as she realistically gets inside the head of Lacey’s young neighbor, 11-year old Barney. He and his friends are affected by the gruesome murders with fearsome results.

Despite his father’s efforts to create some kind of home life for the two of them, Barney is desperate to find the mother who abandoned him and enlists Lacey in his search.

Readers also enter the points of view of Lacey’s former boss, DI Dana Tulloch, saddled with the task of tracking down this heinous killer, and Lacey’s colleague DI MArk Joesbury, whom Lacey may have let get too close to her.

As Lacey struggles with the aftermath of her last case and tries to decide if her future lies in the police force, Barney realizes he may have a personal connection to the murderer. With trust gone, he has no one he can trust except Lacey.

This is part police procedural, part thriller as the suspense escalates and the violence continues until it gets out of control in this beautifully written tale of one young courageous lad and his friendship with the very wounded and fragile Lacey Flint.

Crossing the pond to New England and the world of Martha’s Vineyard, A. X. Ahmad brings readers into the world of Sikh culture with his mesmerizing debut The Caretaker.

Ranjit Singh is coping with a military career gone horribly wrong and has fled with his family from India to Boston, living first with his wife’s family until he starts his own landscaping business in the posh neighborhoods of the Vineyard.

But summer’s jobs have faded with the onset of winter and Singh is desperate for work, which lands in his lap when the beautiful wife of a popular Senator hires him to be a caretaker for their closed summer home. This soon leads to other similar positions and a sense that he may make a new life for himself and his family.

He watches as his wife and young daughter try to assimilate into American culture and just as he thinks they may all thrive, he finds himself caught up in an unwanted scheme that brings him perilously close to losing everything and everyone he loves.

Ahmad’s thriller is filled with action, as Singh becomes the man of action he used to be in the Indian Army before his fall from grace. As he tries to safeguard his family, he becomes inexplicably entwined with the comely Senator’s wife, a longtime Vineyard resident, and falls prey to the machinations of the powerful Senator whose rise from poverty is the stuff of legends.

Themes of class and race, culture and above all, a man forced to face his own morality all come to bear in this tale that is lovingly crafted. There are scenes filled with grace and others with surprise and intrigue, all graced with the haunting prose and deep personal reflection. A sensational newcomer not to be missed.

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Three to Die For: Hutton, Cha and Haines Sunday, Jun 16 2013

Uncategorized detectives, LA Noir, police procedural, Southern mystery, suspense, thrillers, Welsh mystery Auntie M Writes Crime 12:49 am

Ewart Hutton’s debut Good People features a most unusual detective: DS Glyn Capaldi, half-Welsh but also half-Italian, and it’s those dark good looks that set him as an outsider.

A case with an less-than-happy ending has sent Capaldi on exile from Cardiff to the rolling Welsh countryside where he’s learning the back roads and mores of the locals.

A call for a minibus hijacking looks like a routine call, especially when the missing van is found the next morning, an apparent prank.

But all is not well: six young men and one young woman appear to be missing, and when not all of them are found, Capaldi smells a case with his detective’s instinct.

Despite the villager’s assurances of the men’s goodness, Capaldi investigates and runs into opposition from the townspeople, who staunchly defend the mens pranking. These rural landowners command a high influence in the area; their word is taken as gospel.

It will be left to Capaldi to unravel what really happened that night, with consequence reaching into the past he could never foresee. Betrayals leading to depravity only scratch the surface when the truth is known, and not before a suicide occurs–or is it murder?

Hutton brings the reader into Capaldi’s world of dark woodlands and small towns that survive by their own code of justice. This is a crime thriller with an edge, and readers will hope the cynical voice of Capaldi returns, and soon.

Steph Cha is a fresh new voice in the noir thriller Follow Her Home, one that will smack you over the head with its heroine, Juniper Song, a devotee of Philip Chandler and LA Noir.

Juniper has a cadre of friends and a troubled past that her favorite noir fiction keeps at bay. Known as “Song” by her friends, she responds to her good friend Luke’s request to find out if the new paralegal at his father’s firm is also his newest mistress.

Song as no real idea how to proceed, but armed with her pack of Lucky Strikes, in best Chandler fashion she tails various suspects and the young woman herself–and finds herself up against more than she’d bargained for when she agreed to help Luke.

At one point she is knocked unconscious and wakes up as the body in the trunk of her own car. This is carrying things to far for Song, and she steels her determination to conquer her past and plunges into LA’s underground, determined to find out whose buttons her minor investigation have pushed.

Cha gives readers a fascinating and yet disturbing lesson as she examines young Asian woman as fetish objects, which will come as a surprise to many readers. This adds a depth to this already compelling story while keeping the twists and turns flwoing as the story plays out.

What starts out in an almost playful mood turns serious, yet Cha keeps Song’s voice smart and crisp in an almost heartbreaking worldy manner, in this striking debut with a modern twist on old town noir.

Taking a leap across the nation and a huge change in tone, Carolyn Haines returns with the twelfth Sarah Booth Delany Mystery in Smarty Bones.

Enjoying time with her hunky fiance Graf before his next Hollywood shoot, Sarah Booth’s usual friends surround her: her partner in their PI firm, Tinkie; her long-time friend CeCe; and even Jitty, the Civil War ghost who inhabits Dahlia House and drives Sarah Booth to distraction when she appears in various guises.

This time around Jitty is hooked on cartoon characters, but her words of wisdom are destined to revive Sarah Booth’s spirits when she reluctantly agrees to look into the claims of a professor who has arrived in her hometown of Zinnia, Mississippi.

Prof. Olive Twist is indeed the product of Dickens scholar parents, but she resemble Olive Oyl more accurately, with her thin frame and huge feet. But those big feet hide an even bigger brain, and Twist has arrived to prove that the mysterious Lady in Red, found in an anonymous grave and lovingly preserved, was involved in the plot to kill Lincoln–and she plans to implicate the families of Sarah Booth’s best friends.

Then Twist’s young assistant is murdered at a nearby Bed & Breakfast where they were staying and things take a dramatic turn despite the large amount of humor that fills the pages.

Complicating matters are the family secrets and devious plots of some of these very families, and Sarah Booth soon finds herself and Graf involved on a level that turns deadly and will have far-reaching consequences for several of those Sarah Booth has come to love.

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Father’s Day Recommendations Sunday, Jun 9 2013

Uncategorized action-packed, Botswana mystery, international espionage, muti, private eye, radiation syndrome, suspense, thrillers, UN conspiracy Auntie M Writes Crime 12:31 am

With Father’s Day looming, Auntie M is here to rescue you from buying your favorite male yet another tie. Here are some great reads for anyone, but with an eye to the men in your life:

Ian Rankin soothed his many readers by bringing John Rebus out of retirement in Standing in Another Man’s Grave.

Back as a retired civilian investigating cold cases, Rebus finds himself caught up in old cases of women missing from the same area. As he follows the trail, he enlists the aid of Siobhan Clarke, his former colleague and reluctant ally.

Yet as he follows his instincts of their connection, he manages to find he’s unsettled people on both sides of the law.

These includes Matthew Fox, Rankin’s newer protagonist from The Complaints, members of the team he’s working on, and even his old pal, Ger Cafferty. Rankin weaves a tale that will have his fans panting for more as he dangles the idea of Rebus going back to work on the force.

Ukrainian-American author Orest Stelmach debuts with The Boy From Reactor 4, fast-paced a thriller set against the backdrop of the Chernobyl disaster.This character-driven story is based on the author’s personal experiences in the region. There’s more than enough action here as the story follows Nadia Tesla to Russia and the dreaded Zone, where she follows a trail of intrigue that will affect the order of the world. Filled with tough characters living in a different kind of reality from what Nadia has known back in New York, help will come to her from a most unlikely source: a teen hockey prodigy named Adam. That this story is not really so far-fetched makes it all the more interesting, as the scars of radiation syndrome in the area make themselves known in ways that threaten more than just Nadia’s existence.

The fourth in Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu series, Deadly Harvest takes readers to Botswana, where girls have been disappearing in increasingly alarming numbers, giving rise to the theory they are being used as part of witch doctor’s potion called “muti” which is thought to be strengthened by adding human body parts. The team of Micahel Sears and Stanley Trollip do a fine job of creating the atmosphere of the sub-Saharan area, and a glossary at the end deciphers Botswanan words sprinkled throughout. Adding to Detective David Bengu’s force is the only woman detective and the team’s newest member, Detective Samantha Khama. Her personal connection to the case ratchets up the tension, and when a local politician takes the law into his own hands, the two detectives have more on their plates with another high profile murder case. They must race to find a serial killer who is killing to satisfy a very special kind of customer.

Adam Lebor’s Yael Azoulay thriller, The Geneva Option, opens with a riveting prologue that sets the stage for the action that will follow which centers around the UN. Yael is most unusual protagonist: an Israeli who works as a negotiator for the UN Secretary-General, where she finesses unlikely deals and barters for diplomatic solutions to untenable situations. When an expose threatens her livelihood and her reputation, Yael is shocked when she is not supported by the very man she worked for whose instructions she’d been carrying out. Gripping and raw in its reality, Yael is a character who can easily carry off this planned trilogy.

As she sets off to clear her name, you’ll come to appreciate this unusual and feisty heroine in the first thriller from the author whose investigative work on the international stage is already well-known.

Fans of Andrew Kaplan’s Scorpion series will be delighted to find their favorite spy caught up once again in the newest entry in the series, Scorpion Deception.

This highly charged thriller takes Scorpion on a fast-paced race through Europe and the Middle East. Classified CIA asset files have been stolen from the US Embassy in Switzerland. The challenge of squashing the hit team will be severe and Scorpion is at first not happy to take it on–until he finds his identity is at the head of the stolen list.

With the knowledge the hit team is after him, Scorpion travels to Iran to try to find the mastermind power broker behind the theft in an attempt to thwart all out war.

Fact-paced and action-packed, just the thing to keep readers flipping pages.

North Carolina author Bill Cissna takes readers to an area he knows well: the streets of Pittsburgh, where Jack Larson has left the police after eight years to start his own private investigation firm. Freedom and independence called to Larson and he bought into that siren call, only to find that being employed for himself is not all it’s cut out to be.

When he finds a body at a trailer part during what should have been a simple child-support dead beat case, Larson thinks his case is over before its begun. But he would be wrong, dead wrong, as it turns out, when the victim’s daughter turns up the following week and asks him to find her father’s killer.

What starts out as a simple investigation soon turns into a trail of broken families, girlfriends and hidden guns.

Cissa plans on bringing Jack Larson back in two more in this shades-of-noir series that entertains with its grasp of setting and history, and with Larson’s dry wit.

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Dark Tide: Elizabeth Haynes Sunday, Jun 2 2013

Uncategorized houseboats, murder, pole-dancing, suspense, thriller Auntie M Writes Crime 12:04 am

Auntie M highly recommended Elizabeth Haynes’ debut novel Into the Darkest Corner.

With her newest, Dark Tide, Haynes’ proves her complex skill at plotting suspense novels was not an accident, in this page-turning thriller about what happens when the protagonist’s past catches up with her.

Told in alternating time narratives in a similar fashion to her first novel, this device proves successful in ratcheting up the chill factor without seeming stale.

Genevieve wants to leave her high-pressure job and thinks she’s found a way to fund her dream of living on houseboat in Kent: working weekends as a pole dancer at a gentleman’s club will finance her refuge.

She tries her best to keep this job a secret as she starts her boat fund and becomes a master at ignoring the dicey business the club conducts on the side.

She’s very good at dancing and learns to chat up the men, but also good at keeping her distance from the men and from the shady owner, Fitz, and his staff.

Becoming a favorite of Fitz, her lithe body and dancing coupled with her cool grace earn her a place doing special parties and her bank account starts to bulge. Soon the barge that will be her home is within her sights.

Genevieve is having a housewarming party on her new boat, including her neighbors from her boatyard, tossed in with a handful of London friends.

Then a body surfaces right next to her boat. When Genevieve recognizes a dancer from the club who was her friend, everything changes and she’s in for a fight for her survival as her past catches up with her.

Complicating matters are the policeman she’s drawn to and the security man who has had her back all along, the dark figure Dylan.

Genevieve’s a likable character, a gal readers will understand, who finds herself all too quickly out of her depth and unable to control the chain reaction of events that will threaten her and those she’s come to love.

Haynes builds tension as the pages flip and the story pans out. A police intelligence analyst, she uses her knowledge of the patterns of offenders’ behavior to build completely realistic and ruthless criminals.

She’s also done a good job of allowing Genevieve to feel she has her life in control, her decisions reasonable and well thought out–until suddenly she doesn’t have the control she’s used to and everything rapidly falls apart.

Highly entertaining and filled with tension and suspense, this is a sexy, taut thriller that will have you keeping your eye out for the next Elizabeth Haynes thriller.

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Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

The Power of the Sidekick: Lise McClendon Sunday, Aug 11 2013

Terry Shames: A Killing At Cotton Hill Sunday, Aug 4 2013

Hot summer reads: A multitude of goodness. Sunday, Jul 28 2013

Louise Penny: How The Light Gets In Sunday, Jul 21 2013

A Quartet of Wickedness Sunday, Jul 14 2013

Chilling Thrillers Sunday, Jun 30 2013

Three Hot Summer Reads Sunday, Jun 23 2013

Three to Die For: Hutton, Cha and Haines Sunday, Jun 16 2013

Father’s Day Recommendations Sunday, Jun 9 2013

Dark Tide: Elizabeth Haynes Sunday, Jun 2 2013

Death Unscripted: A Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery

THE GOLDEN HOUR shortlisted!

THE GOLDEN HOUR: The 4th Nora Tierney English Mystery

The Blue Virgin

Winner Best British Cozy

Death at the Dakota: A Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery 2

The Scarlet Wench

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