Using the technique of revisiting the same day in the lives of two entwined teens, Finlay slowly spools out their stories over the years after the events of one fateful night.
Quinn Riley’s intent is to break up a fight, but instead the youth from a poor family ends up in juvenile detention when it all goes horribly wrong. His release coincides with the murder of his mother, something he’s determined to figure out.
Jules Delaney, from a far wealthier home, lives with survivor’s guilt, haunted by weathering an attack of the May Day Killer, who is still striking on that same anniversary.
With both young lives impacted by the events of that day, Finlay creates an escalting thriller as he follows them over the next decade, weaving their stories as they each uncover long-held secrets.
Remember Lynne Truss’s book Eats, Shoots & Leaves? In it, she argues for the importance of proper punctuation, especially commas.
In Kemp’s new book, I, Spy, the cleverly placed comma takes away the notion of the childhood game and alludes to the identity of the protagonist.
Kendal Carter left her spy life behind when her lover was killed and she became a mother. She has embraced raising her daughter, Rosie, away from what she calls “The Game.”
Then her quiet life is upended when her safe location is exposed, and running with Rosie for their lives, she turns to her old contact Rico for help and security.
Ensconced in London in a tony safe house with Rosie, with the perfect school nearby, Rico extracts his quid pro quo for Rosie’s safety: mentoring a rookie in his Bon Temps espionage agency who he’s placed at a tech firm. Using her ‘mother’ cover, what starts out as an easy cover job soon turns fraught with PTA dates wrapped up in its own form of betrayals and secrets.
It soon becomes a top-notch high stakes thriller connected to Rosie’s school, putting them both in danger yet again.
This first in a planned new series promises feminine skills and thrills galore with a dose of humor and lots of action.
Bannalec’s Commissaire Geroges Dupin series brings readers to delightful Brittany, this time October, where the days are still sunny. I’ve known readers of this series who have traveled to some of Bannalec’s settings due to his descriptions.
This case hits close to home for Dupin and his team. After several supersititous omens of death, his second in command, Inspector Kadeg, has lost his aunt. The old abbey where the woman lived is the perfect yet tense setting when Kadeg visits and is seriously attacked.
Dupin brings his team to get to the bottom of the mystery at the beautiful abbey, filled with luscious gardens, a paradise of sorts, with it famous for its special apples. Only as the team scrape beneath the surface, they uncover secrets that belie the lovely setting, with family intrigue into the wealthy dead woman’s estate and secrets around those who will inherit.
Did Aunt Joelle die of natural causes, or was she helped along by someone desperate for their part in her estate? And what do rare birds have to do with it all?
It’s a classic Dupin mystery, with the glories of the region highlighted, and rich with character development.
The series is known for its love letter to the region, in this case, the Cote des Legendes region that springs to life under Bannalec’s talented pen with his team tracking down the truth. A most satisfying case with a lovely and tender ending awaits readers.
The third Cal Hooper novel finds the intrepid Chicago detective, now retired, thick in the midst of an unwanted investigation in his rural West Irish town of Ardnakelty.
A lovely young woman, Rachel Holohan, is on the cusp of an engagement to Tommy Moynihan’s Eugene. The local business man has his fingers in so many projects he has half the town beholden to him and the other half scared of him.
So when Rachel’s body is found in the river, her death sets off a chain of events that will have the town, Cal and his fiancee, Lena, and his ward Trey Reddy, more involved than any of them want.
And when Cal’s investigation gets too close to revealing Tommy’s underhanded machinations that threaten the entire town, the gloves are off as the two men match wits, with Tommy having the weight to spread rumors about Cal and Lena, while his grief-stricken son watches from the sidelines.
French’s ability to weave these disparate characters is on full display here, with the townspeople aiding or detracting, depending on whose side they’re on. Cal’s loyalty to his new neighbors will be severely tested, and impact his relationship with Lena. The emotions run high as Cal continues to find out the truth, and find justice for Rachel, sometimes forgotten as a pawn in the fight that ensues.
No one creates atmosphere and uses her setting to her advantage as much as French. Her use of language pulls the reader in to the unfamiliar landscape, and she evokes a mood with words. Her plot is cleverly constructed, too, and as the pain of loss doubles, a sense of impending doom falls over the town. It will take Cal and his mismatched band of supporters to find the real justice at the end of the day.
A brilliant end to the trilogy of Cal Hooper stories. While The Keeper certainly can be read as a standalone, if you haven’t read them all, (The Searcher, The Hunter) Auntie M urges you to do so if you are a fan of well-written, absorbing stories about people who jump off the page.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoy Quinn’s Chet and Bernie Mysteries until I opened the first page and was immediately sucked in.
It takes a master author to write an entire book—or should I say series, as this is the 17th in this creative series—in the voice and point of a view of a dog.
Now I hasten to add right up front that Chet is not just any ordinary dog, not at all, a point he makes repeatedly. He is one half of the Little Detective Agency, the other half being his owner, Bernie Little, veteran war hero and private investigator.
Together, in a finely tuned partnership, Chet reads Bernie’s signals, using his prodigious nose to scent things out in their cases, including where people have been, and who they’ve been in contact with—which makes this particular new case right up their alley.
The internet sensation Miss Kitty and her owner, young Bitty, are bereft when Miss Kitty disappears. Chet and Bernie are soon on the hunt to find her as her huge following and new sponsors demand more content featuring the suave cat who sits on a purple pillow. A house cat, has Miss Kitty escaped and found freedom intoxicating? Or is there a more sinister reason for her disappearance, namely, a catnapping . . .
With one witness a pig named Señor Piggy, and the human witnesses all as likely to tell a lie as the truth, Chet and Bernie have their work cut out for them. Along the way there will be a murder or two, a few Miss Kitty scents and sightings, and an undersheriff who at first suspects Bernie of at least one of the murders.
The plot is a classic kidnapping mystery, with characters all finely drawn, including a pair of cowgirls. One of my favorite scenes in the book is how Chet describes their relationship: “Sisters or not sisters? What that all about? . . . Maud and Tish did not smell like sisters. They both smell somewhat oldish, but with more than a little juiciness to them, which you usually don’t get with oldish types. They were both also nice to look at, although their faces were not alike. In fact the closer you looked the more unalike they got…Human love has a special scent. Did you know that? It was the air right now.”
Somehow, Quinn manages to sustain this humorous but often philosophical mental narration of Chet throughout the entire book. His examines human emotions, relationships, moods, and his observations are on point.
No wonder then that I’m smitten with Chet, and you will be, too. Stephen King calls this: “Without a doubt the most original mystery series currently available.”
Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series is a favorite of Auntie M’s, and by going back in time to the Queen’s earlier years, Bennett has given herself plenty of years to travel through cases with the lively woman who would go on to serve her nation for decades.
In this one we are brought to the height of James Bond fever. It’s 1961, with Prince Charles now 12 and Princess Anne at 10 already in love with horses. The Queen is on the royal train with her entourage that includes her sister, Princess Margaret, and her photographer husband, Anthony Armstrong Jones.
It is after dinner that one of the group claims to have seen a murder from the train’s window, not seen by any of the others who were all in the dining car. An unreliable witness, her claim still must be investigated as it has recently come to light that a photographer friend of Tony Armstrong Jones is missing.
The Queen relies on her assistant private secretary, Joan McGraw, to help her work the investigation amidst the threat of the Cold War, and an important upcoming visit to Italy with time on the royal yacht Britannia, where the Queen Mother makes an appearance.
What follows is a well-crafted mystery as the Queen uses Joan to help her get to the bottom of the death of the body seen from the train. Elizabeth’s wit and intuition is called on, and her ability to use her staff to her ends is delightful.
A master of Icelandic noir, with several popular series and many awards to his credit, Indridason bring a new Detective Konrad mystery to readers. And if you have read some of his others, there are a few brief references that canny readers will catch.
Now retired, the detective continues to pursue his father’s killer. This cold case of the murdered man, not a pleasant person, has occupied Konrad over several years but readers will be quick to understand his background if this is their first read in the series.
It’s not just this case that takes up his time. When a Reykjavik woman is found murdered in her home, Konrad’s phone number is on her desk and he’s notified by the current detective on the case. Valborg had approached him recently, asking for his help in finding the child she gave up for adoption many years ago, over fifty in fact, and faced with that kind of time lag, Konrad hadn’t acquiesced.
But now that she’s dead he feels compelled to figure out what happened to her child, despite having very little knowledge, not even the sex of the child.
This is where Indridason shines, in following Konrad’s private investigation as he ferrets out leads and information from almost thin air as he digs into the woman’s past. It’s a complicated route but one that leads to an unexpected resolution, with surprising stops and starts along the way.
As the tension rises, crimes from the past are unearthed. This is an absorbing story of the echoes of old crimes that last through the years.
Peter James’s long-running DCI Grace series, now on BritBox in a grand adaptation as Grace, has just published his 22nd in this series, The Hawk is Dead.
The backstory to this novel is fascinating: Her Majesty Queen Camilla, a huge Grace fan, asked him when she was Duchess of Cornwall in 2019 if he couldn’t see a way to bring Sussex-based Grace to London. After kicking the idea around for four years as he worked on other projects already under construction, James figured out a plot what would allow him to bring Grace and a few members of his team to the Palace.
And that kernel of an idea started when James read that the 775 rooms in Buckingham Palace were to undergo a major renovation, which would take place over the course of several years, not just for updating and modernization but for safety reasons. The Royal Collection consists of over a million very valuable art and objects held by The Crown, many in Buckingham Palace.
From that grew the idea for the entire novel, and the beginning of exhaustive research, which included James being given inside tours of the palace, and even learning how to drive a train! Always giving his realistic police procedurals a grand plot, James knocks it out of the park with this one, literally, by taking Grace from his Brighton territory to Buckingham Palace.
His team becomes involved when the Queen is traveling by train to visit hospices along the south coast. Her train must be evacuated after being derailed inside a tunnel. A harrowing scene from the train driver’s point of view brings the accident to life, and as the Queen and a trusted advisor exit the tunnel, shots ring out. While the Queen narrowly misses being assassinated, Sir Peregrine Greaves, Private Secretary to Their Majesties and one of the most senior members of their household, is killed.
Grace has a nagging feeling the Queen might not have been the intended target, and readers are treated to insights into the workings of the Royal Household, and its pecking order, as well as an extensive treatment of the glories contained within the huge building as the investigation ensues.
With attention turned to the household, when a diary Sir Peregrine kept in code, more matters come to light and soon Grace and his team, especially his long-term bagman DI Branson, must sift through Not-My-King protestors; territorial tiffs with the Met, who want to take over his investigation; and missing artifacts. Then a second body is found…
This was one of the most enjoyable Grace novels to date, and as usual, gives us a window into his home life, too. But James’s intricate plotting with its exploration of life within the royal household make this a gripping story.
Sometimes a book knocks your socks off and resonates with you long after you’ve turned the last page.
Susan Breen’s Merry is just that kind of book. It’s inventive, and filled with original characters you’ll come to love, none more than Merry Bingham, a book scout who loves Dickens and Christmas and just wants to find the Christmas joy for herself and her family at a fraught time in her life. And did I mention her dog Leroy talks to her?
When Merry brings her family to London for Christmas it’s at a great cost to her, and things don’t go as this super-organized woman has planned. Hanging over her is a medical test that will change her life, no matter the outcome, and she’s desperate for one more happy holiday before she tells her family about it.
But things, like Life, soon spin out of Merry’s control on so many levels she can’t catch her breath. And then the ghost of Charles Dickens appears, and he’s angry with her!
There is humor here, and great insights into human nature. You’ll learn about the business of book scouting, literature, Dickens, and how London celebrates Christmas. The magical elements are low key and unobtrusive. Best of all, you’ll be moved by Merry and her family, and the true meaning of Christmas.
This is a gem of a book. I’ve just bought copies for several reader friends, because it’s a gift you’ll want to keep giving–it’s that good.
I almost did after reading the opening pages of this terrific novel. That’s how strong the opener is, and explains why I kept flipping pages long after the light should have gone out…
I’ve been a huge fan of the Poe and Bradshaw series from Day 1 and follow them avidly. Each of the previous books have genius plotting, really well-done characterizations, and an ironic humor that contrasts nicely to some of the darker bits. Because there are darker bits.
But the stakes are raised in this one. A sniper had been shooting individuals with no apparent pattern. Then a bride is killed on her wedding day, and her influential father aids Poe’s investigation in a rare way, desperate to find his daughter’s killer.
The pressure on Poe and Tilly is sharp and relentless, and it doesn’t help that Poe is due to be married shortly. There will be sleight of hand, psychological reasonings, and above all, Tilly’s uncanny ability with maths to bring them closer to an invisible killer.
A thrilling read, this is an extraordinary book, perhaps Craven’s finest, from someone who’s loved them all.
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 