Chouinard’s bright and witty mystery shines with a cast of quirky characters and a portrait of San Francisco in all her guises that makes the city a character of its own.
Capri Sanzio has a business taking tourists on local tours, including the sites of several serial killers. With her grandfather William known as “Overkill Bill,” Capri has always believed him to be innocent.
But then a copycat murder strikes, with a second one just after her ex-mother-law cuts off Capri’s daughter’s tuition. Of course her daughter, herself, and her ex are all suspects. This is the perfect time, she decides, to not only clear her family but to investigate who might have really committed the crimes attributed to her grandfather.
Through a podcast, an eventual book, and far too many escapes of her own as she investigates, Capri slowly unravels what really happened to the victims, past and present.
The first of a planned series, Capri will easily handle more books. Chouinard mixes high society in this one with the dense fog only San Franciso can bring.
Charming, with a compelling plot and nicely done ending twist.
Fiona Barton introduced DI Elise King in LOCAL GONE MISSING, when the detective is recuperating after a mastectomy and called into a case sooner than expected.
At the time I was struck by how this idea of a woman detective recovering from something so many of us will face (I am a breast cancer survivor myself) hadn’t been tackled before; and of how well Barton gave us a picture of a woman reeling after being left by her long-time partner to face this alone, with all of the concurrent things that medically and emotionally are attached to it.
In TALKING TO STRANGERS, Elise is back at work with her chemo hair growing out but still affected by ‘chemo brain’ she hopes her team don’t notice. Her second-in-command and friend, DS Caro Brennan, is aware of the missing memory synapses and helps cover for her as she heals. It’s not a good feeling to think she’s not operating on all of her cylinders, especially when a new case arrives the day after Valentine’s Day.
A body found in Knapton Woods by walkers is soon identified by Elise herself, recognizing local hairdresser Karen Simmons from the small seaside town of Ebbing where she now lives. As the investigation heats up, links to a dating site emerge and the suspects are too numerous to be easily eliminated.
The death resonates strongly with another character, Annie Curtis, former nurse now a part-time medical receptionist, as her young son was found dead in that same woods fifteen years before. But this new killing brings the horror of that time and all of its agony to the forefront of Annie’s mind, and she finds herself drawn back to the woods and to the mother of the young man accused of her son’s murder.
How Barton brings these two threads together will take your breath away. She has a gift for strong characterizations that allow the reader to feel their emotions, whether it’s Elise’s lack of confidence or Annie’s deep searing pain that bind them to the reader.
And in her usual fashion, Barton also manages to create a whopper of an ending–which she then turns of its head. Brilliant and not to be missed.
Crombie’s 19th Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James was worth waiting for, with The Killing of Innocentsthe new case that starts in a Bloomsbury pub.
Sitting with his DS, Doug Cullen, Duncan notices a young woman wearing scrubs, obviously waiting for someone who never arrives. She leaves, and he is shocked to be called shortly after to a murder scene. The victim is the young trainee doctor he’s just seen, stabbed to death in Russell Square.
With Gemma working on a task force on rising knife crimes, she and her DS, Melody Talbot, aid their investigation, Soon all the familiar characters are in force, and the case takes an unlikely turn with relationships to people Duncan and Gemma know.
At first glance, Sasha Johnson looks like an unlikely victim: career-driven, single, without any history that would connect her to crime. Digging deeper reveals her secrets, but did they lead to her murder?
Then a colleague of Sasha’s is found dead, and the teams scramble to find a connection other than their work site. Could they have a serial killer on their hands? It’s all hands on deck as the pieces are gathered to form a picture of a murderer working in plain sight.
One of the many delights of Crombie’s novels is the way she investigates her setting and brings it to life for readers. Another is her inclusion of the family travails of two working detectives. It all adds to the realistic atmosphere of everyday stresses that must be handled even while investigating a murder.
At its heart, this is a very fine mystery, peppered with human-like characters you’ll want to return to, set within a complex plot that will have readers scratching their heads along with the detectives until the stunning climax.
Kate Rhodes has been a favorite author of Auntie M’s, starting with her compelling Alice Quentin series. Now that’s she’s branched out to her Locked-Island Mysteries, set in the Scilly Isles, Auntie M caught up with the series that features local detective DI Ben Kitto, with the 5th and 6th in this compelling series.
Devil’s Table centers on the island of St. Martin’s, where young Jade and her twin brother, Ethan, are attacked after leaving their shared bedroom at night. Ethan escapes but Jade is nowhere to be seen, and an island-wide search starts with residents and police battling the incessant fog that permeates the island.
Then a body is found in a dramatic, posed fashion, and Ben and his small team scramble to redouble their efforts to find the missing girl, while at the same time searching for a killer amidst the seemingly innocent narcissi harvest. The juxtaposition between the fields of fragrant bulbs, to be picked and flown to the mainland for Christmas and New Years clashes with the tiny community burdened by suspicion.
Having grown up on nearby Bryher, Ben knows most of the people on St. Martin’s, who suddenly become suspects in this baffling murder of a man who is seen differently by people. Grudges held from long ago surface, and he must question everyone, regardless of his history with them.
A tense and gripping plot combine with an atmospheric mystery that make this an instant classic.
The Brutal Tide has Ben looking for clues to a set of old bones found during the excavation for a new outdoor activities center on Bryher, spearheaded by two locals who married and have returned home to complete this project.
Not everyone is a fan of the new center, and as Ben tries to find the identity of these bones, they suddenly disappear, and one of the loudest critics of the project is found dead.
At the same time, a young woman whose father has been a crime kingpin sets up a plot to take out the officers whose information sent her father to prison. Now dying, Craig Travis has constructed this plan for his daughter Ruby with a devious way to take his revenge on those he hates, all from his prison hospital bed.
Ben Kitto, whose undercover past has returned to haunt him with a vengeance, must search for a killer on his home island while he avoids being Ruby’s last victim—all while his partner reaches the end of her difficult pregnancy.
A taut, clever mystery, with a very real protagonist at the heart of this series, makes this a tense and beautifully written mystery.
Rhodes abilities as a poet surface in her lyrical prose and beautifully constructed descriptions and prose; her talents at creating tension have Elly Griffiths calling her “An absolute master of pace.”
Do yourself a favor if you haven’t already discovered the wildly talented Kate Rhodes, and immerse yourself in her wonderful sense of place and character, wrapped in stunningly good crime stories.
Mariah Fredericks’ THE LINDBERGH NANNY takes readers inside the homes of Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh, exploring their marriage, their travels, and the horrific kidnapping in 1932 of their first-born child, Charlie, all from the point of view of the young nanny they hire, Betty Gow.
A Scottish immigrant learning East Coast etiquette after a disastrous affair, Betty is often put off by the eccentricities of Colonel Lindbergh. She admires Anne Lindbergh for her attempts to live up to her husband’s expectations, despite her shy and nervous manner. Coming from a monied family, the young couple live with the Morrow’s as they renovate a house in New Jersey.
Charlie is a darling child, sweet-natured and adventurous, and well as he gets on with Betty, Anne Morrow often worries he’s growing more attached to his nanny when she’s away on world-wide jaunts with her famous husband. At times not understanding how the parents can be away from Charlie for such extended periods, she nevertheless spends her own money on his clothing when he outgrows what she’s been left with. Yet she carves out a life for herself and even has a new beau.
Then when Anne is heavily pregnant with the couple’s next child, tragedy strikes, becoming one of the most celebrated international cases when young Charlie is kidnapped and his body eventually found.
Betty soon finds herself at the center of journalists and public scrutiny, when a suspect is arrested. She understands that to clear her name for the future, she must figure out what really happened that night when a loose shutter allowed the child she’d come to love to be abducted.
You may think they know this story, but Fredericks’ manages to bring readers into the closed off world of the Lindbergh’s and into Betty’s thoughts, as she adds a sense of tension and mystery to the story. The characters, real and fictional, are finely drawn. With its on-the-spot view, this is a book that speaks to the role of women in the 1930s and delves into what might have happened on that fateful night, and who was responsible. A gripping and suspenseful read.
Hear the name Marcia Clark, and some of us think back to her work for the LA DA’s office prosecuting such trials as that of Robert Bardo and OJ Simpson.
But there’s so much more to this talented author, with two series in print that feature strong female lawyers, one a prosecutor (the Rachel Knight series) and one on the defense side (the Samantha Brinkman series).
So when a chance came to read her new stand alone, FALL GIRL, I was excited to crack this one open but not prepared for the wild ride she would take me on.
Charlie Blair leaves Chicago and assumes a new identity for very good reasons, moving to the Santa Cruz DA’s office to start over and protect her family. Assigned to work a murder case with high profile prosecutor Erika Lorman, Charlie tries to keep away from the limelight, even as she feels she’s being sidelined and soon start poking her investigative nose into their most recent case with surprising results. She starts to question who she can trust.
At the same time, the man who she lives in fear of, after devastating her family, is making his presence known…
This is a fast-paced legal thriller, but even more so, a nuanced look at the question: What is justice and how do ethics figure in? How does morality reside alongside one’s conscience?
With deep characterizations and troubled pasts for both lawyers, the cat-and-mouse game these strong, intelligent women play with each other is as fascinating as their drive. At one point you can’t see any way there can be a a satisfying outcome, and yet, Clark managed to do just that.
A strong, quickly-paced read, with excellent legal scenes balanced by the action that takes place out of the courtroom.
Auntie M is very pleased to announce that the fifth Nora Tierney English Mystery, THE EVENING’S AMETHYST, has made it through the Covid delays and the paperback is now available. Kindle and Audible version will follows in the next few weeks, but she’s excited to have the book on offer.
This time the majority of the story takes place in Oxford, where Nora is settling into her new home with her fiancé, DI Declan Barnes, her young son, Sean, and their puppy, Typo.
Who is Verity? That soon becomes the central question for Nora and Declan, after his new case at Exeter College coincides with a frantic call from Nora’s stepsister, Claire Scott: a fellow graduate student has died in a fall, and Claire begs Nora to help her prove Bea Jones would never commit suicide.
The sisters start their own snooping, while Declan and his team juggle this death investigation with a cold case that will prove to have a startling resolution. Over twenty years ago, toddler Donnie Walsh was kidnapped from his dirty playpen outside a Cumbrian pub. His body was never found. Now in the midst of Declan’s new case, a young man walks into St. Aldate’s Police Station claiming to be Donnie Walsh.
A mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural, The Evening’s Amethyst has garnered wonderful early reviews, including this one from Nicola Upson, author of the Josephine Tey series: “A fine addition to a wonderful series, Graff delivers her trademark blend of compelling mystery, vivid setting, and engaging characters—and in Nora Tierney she has created a sleuth whose humanity and insight are the stars of the show. I loved it.”
Forensics expert Nick Fennimore and DI Kate Simms return in their third outing Truth Will Out/, a strong entry in the series that finds the two struggling against the professional boundaries that restrain them from working together.
While Fennimore is always on the hunt for his kidnapped daughter, Suzie, a possible sighting in Paris from Believe No One has the action switching back and forth between Scotland, England and France.
Simms is still feeling the sting from her family after being away for several months spent in the US. This undercurrent will play throughout the book when a mother and child are kidnapped driving away from what should have been a day out at the cinema. Police politics keep Simms at arms length in the investigation as she’s supposed to be home on leave.
Julia Meyers and her young daughter Lauren are leaving a movie, the little girl on a high as only a six year-old entranced with a princess movie can be. Yellow food coloring the child is sensitive to, eaten in sweets, set Lauren off on a temper tantrum that is only subdued when she has a near miss with a car leaving the car park.
A chastened Lauren is soon strapped into her car seat, and the harried mother joins the cars leaving the car park. Then the unthinkable happens: What appears to be a monster breaks through the trunk where he’s been hiding into the back seat, taking mother and child captive, and starting a nationwide search for them both.
The case has a eerie resemblance to an eight year-old kidnapping/murder Fennimore has just been using to illustrate his summer course. DNA evidence had arrested the wrong man, whom Fennimore had been able to have released–but the real killer was still at large.
Along with Fennimore’s search for Suzie, these cases form the compelling and distinctive plot of this book, which has several surprises near the end, with twist piled upon twist. Just when you think it’s over, there’s another plot point curve to keep you immersed.
Auntie M loves this series for what she learns about forensics, thanks to one of the co-authors, forensic scientist and Senior Policing Lecturer Helen Pepper. Award-winning psychological thriller author Margaret Murphy is the flip side of the duo, and the series illustrates her complex plotting and rapid-fire pacing.
The chemistry between the widowed Fennimore and the married Simms adds to the tension, and the dialogue is realistic. Highly recommended.
Auntie M had the distinct pleasure of taking a Masters Class in Beginnings with Elizabeth George last week at New England Crimebake. One of her favorite authors, George’s class was succinct and helpful. The diminutive wordsmith, who claims she is introverted, nevertheless charmed the entire audience over the three days she was there teaching, on panels, doing interviews and just being herself. She is an animal lover, another hit with Auntie M, and the two compared notes on her adorable Wire-haired Dachshund, Lucy, and Auntie M’s Italian Spinone, Radar, two opposite ends of the dog spectrum in size but not in jolly goodness.
George was generous with describing her writing process, which starts with the germ of an idea and victim as she explores her setting. Then she peoples that person’s world with other characters, creating long histories that in Auntie M’s screenwriting days were called “bibles.” Her plot unfolds from this and she’s off and writing a book for the satisfaction of readers, ones that have won her a deservedly huge following. Her newest is destined to keep her readers flipping pages.
Elizabeth George’s 19th Lynley mystery, despite its size, lives up to the best of her work, with Lynley and Havers back on the case in Banquet of Consequences, a most apt title upon reflection.
George takes her time introducing the players: The Goldacre family consists of William and his girlfriend Lily; his brother Charlie and wife India, his mother Caroline, and her second husband, Alastair MacKerron. Their interaction is key to the events that take place some months leading up to William’s suicide, an event that precipitates extraordinary fallout, some of which overlaps into a case of poisoning in Cambridge that handed to Lynleys’ DS Barbara Havers manages to get herself assigned to investigate.
Still smarting from her hasty actions in the last book, Just One Evil Act, which took Havers and Lynley to Italy to the chagrin of Det. Superintendant Isabelle Ardery, Havers has a sword of Damocles hanging over her head: a signed transfer request Ardery has no intention of tearing up if it means Havers toes the line.
Chafing at the bit and hating the restrictions placed on her detecting, Havers begs Lynley to go to bat for her and have the poisoning case assigned to her. That he has to go around Ardery to do it doesn’t improve either of their positions with the Super. Havers is allowed to investigate with a reluctant DS Winston Nkata at her side, yet the duo end up working their investigative magic as the case comes together in a most unexpected way.
The plot is complex, as are the personalities of the characters involved. The dead boy’s mother in particular is a pushy drama queen who never fails to keep the attention on her. There are side affairs, past secrets held and revealed, marriages fractured. There will be time for Lynley to ponder and pursue his relationship with the veterinarian, Daidre, and even a little dog, Arlo, who captures everyone’s heart except that of the Superintendent. One interesting subplot has Ardery’s secretary, the well-put-togehter Dee Harriman, deciding to take Havers under her wing and give her something of a life outside her work.
The final twist falls to the reader, one that will leave them pondering what is true justice and if it has been well served. An intriguing mystery with more than its share of tension and revelations. Highly recommended.
Readers of this blog know that Auntie M is a huge fan of Louise Penny’s series. She thinks if he were real she could marry Inspector Gamache, even in his retirement!
But is retirement really for Gamache or his wife, Reine-Marie? That’s the question the two are asking themselves as they enjoy their home in Three Pines. They spend their days involved in the rhythm of the village, enjoying Myrna’s bookstore, helping Clara with her grief, eating at the Bistro. There is a play being cast amongst the villagers, and the stories that 9 yr-old Laurent Lepage tells whomever who will listen, big whoppers of walking trees and alien invasions.
So it’s not a huge surprise that when the small boy with the big imagination he runs into the bistro with his story of a giant monster and an even bigger weapon hidden in the woods, that his story is passed off as one more day of the antics of the boy who cried wolf. Until Laurent disappears…
His body is found in the woods, a victim of an apparent biking accident. But something about the death appears off, and Inspt. Gamache finds himself asked to consult on the case after he insists the boy was murdered.
With his son-in-law Jean Guy Beauvoir on the case and a surprising new head of the Surete’, Gamache will assist them as they stumble deeply into the woods on the hunt of a murderer–and come upon a secret so surprising that it will turn the village on its head.
This secret will draw outsiders to the village as an old crime becomes the reason for the new one–and then there is a second murder, and Inspt. Gamache knows that the secrets of the past have come back to haunt those still living in Three Pines.
Penny consistently writes an absorbing book, and this entry is no exception. Her characters are always many-layered, complex individuals, and her writing style allows readers to see the story from many points of view.
Tackling an unusual subject, readers will be transported back to the village and its inhabitants as they do battle with secrets held and kept for far too many years. Highly recommended.
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 