Deborah Crombie: A Killing of Innocents Sunday, Mar 5 2023 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and great read and mystery to die for and police procedural and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 5:13 pm

Killing Innocents

Crombie’s 19th Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James was worth waiting for, with The Killing of Innocents the 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: The Locked-Island Mysteries Sunday, Jan 22 2023 

complex mystery and Continued series winner and police procedural and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 1:38 pm

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.

 

Ausma Zehanat Khan: BLACKWATER FALLS Tuesday, Nov 1 2022 

Award winning novelist and complex mystery and debut and great read and new series and police thriller and Series not to be missed , , Auntie M Writes Crime 3:45 pm

Khan’s first in a dynamic new series, BLACKWATER FALLS, is set in Colorado and introduces readers to a fresh new protagonist, Detective Inaya Rahman, and her lieutenant, Waqas Seif.

Young girls from immigrant communities in the area have disappeared over the past months, but the sheriff seems disinterested in pursuing any real exploration of the situation. Then the body of a good student and Syrian refugee is found outside a mosque, hanging in a horrific crucifixion-like manner.

A right-wing evangelical biker group called The Disciples displays open hostility to any newcomer with their threatening attitudes, yet when Inaya and her team try to investigate, their efforts seem thwarted by the sheriff.

When their investigation uncovers links to the other missing girls, Inaya feels that Seif is obstructing their own case. It becomes difficult for her to understand his motives when she’s drawn to him, but she keeps her distance, instead gathering strength and help from her female colleagues. It’s a delicate balance when she doesn’t understand his true motives, which are revealed to the reader as the detectives race against time before another young girl is killed.

There will be connections to art, a layering of different interpretations of justice, with moments of terror balanced by poignancy. It’s a tour-de-force of timely fiction that teaches and educates, as it reflects how easily fears can escalate.

Khan gives us a clear picture of Inaya’s home life, and brings readers a deep perspective to cultural conflicts. She explores different expressions of faith contrasted with prejudices, all wrapped up in a strong and complex mystery.

With a PhD in international human rights law, Khan is the author of the Khattak/Getty series and also the Khorasan Archives fantasies. She has a clear talent for bringing a nuanced sensitivity to complex issues, including racial tension and police corruption.

Readers will be glued to the action and surprising twists, with deep characterizations that add to the tension. This reader is already waiting for the next in this evocative and insightful series. Highly recommended.

 

The Evening’s Amethyst: Nora Tierney #5 Monday, Oct 4 2021 

Uncategorized , , , , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 3:32 pm

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.”

Available now on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Evenings-Amethyst-Tierney-English-Mystery/dp/0990828735/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=the+evening%27s+amethyst+by+m+graff&qid=1633376773&sr=8-1 OR

for signed copies contact the author at: bluevirgin.graff@gmail.com.

 

Susan Van Kirk: The Endurance Mysteries Thursday, Nov 17 2016 

Uncategorized , , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:59 am

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Please welcome Susan Van Kirk, to introduce her Endurance Mysteries, and don’t miss her giveaway mentioned at the end for her newest in the series, Marry in Haste:

The Endurance Mystery Series

If you are looking for a new mystery series, please check out my Endurance Mysteries. Five Star Publishing/Cengage has published the first two books in the series, and I published a novella as an e-book only on Amazon.

Let me clue you in on some “insider information.” Each of the novels has a title that come from Ben Franklin’s Poor Richard’s Almanac. The last word in each of the novels is “Endurance.” Finally, my three children gave me a word to use in each of these books, hoping to stump me. Hasn’t happened yet. Even “helicopter” fits in.

Endurance is a small town with a history going back to the 1830s, when settlers came to downstate Illinois to found towns and colleges on the edge of the prairie. In our time, the town has a population of 15,000 and places with such names as Patsy’s Pub, the Coffee Bean, the Penny Saved Shoe Store, Shady Meadows Cemetery, and the Homestretch Funeral Home (my personal favorite.) It’s a nice town, you know what I mean … as long as you don’t mind a murder or two.

The main character is Grace Kimball, widow and mother of three adult children. She is 57 and has just retired from teaching at Endurance High School. This means she sees former students all the time, and the reader gets to hear the crazy antics she remembers about their high school years.

Grace has a circle of female friends, but her best friend is Detective TJ Sweeney. Some might say theirs is an improbable friendship, since Grace grew up in a white bread Indianapolis home, and TJ is an intelligent biracial woman who is the product of a broken home. Grace taught TJ and mentored her through high school and college. They are loyal to the end and have each other’s backs, which is a good thing. Grace gets herself into all kinds of trouble because of her curiosity.
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Into this relationship comes a mystery man, the 62-year-old Jeff Maitlin, who was a big deal in the NYC journalism community. He has decided to end his career by working part-time with a small-town newspaper, the Endurance Register. Maitlin is a mystery man because no one knows why he came to such a small place or what his past has been.

In the first book, Three May Keep a Secret, we meet Grace and discover she is haunted by a tragedy in her past that she has never been able to put behind her. When shoddy journalist, Brenda Norris, is murdered in a suspicious fire, Grace is hired by the newspaper editor, Jeff Maitlin, to fill in for Brenda, researching the town’s history for a big centennial. Unfortunately, that past hides dark secrets.

When yet a second murder occurs, Grace’s friend, TJ Sweeney, homicide detective, races against time to find a killer. Even Grace’s life will be threatened by her worse nightmare. Against the backdrop of the town’s 175th founder’s celebration, Grace and Jeff find an undeniable attraction for each other. But can she trust this mystery man?
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I was told by my publisher that it would be a loooong two-year break between the first and second books. So, I self-published a novella about my complicated police detective, TJ Sweeney, called The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. It is an e-book and takes us back to the 1940s. A body is discovered when workers are digging the foundation for a new building. TJ Sweeney must identify the victim and figure out what happened to her.

Obviously, we had no DNA in the 1940s, so this will be difficult. We also learn about Sweeney’s past and her complicated feelings about her Caucasian father, who left when she was little. Her mother, a proud African American woman, tells TJ about what it was like to be in a mixed marriage in the 1940s. The victim was last seen at a big band venue called The Roof Garden, and TJ has an amazing conversation with an elderly woman who explains what it was like back then when she danced at The Roof Garden in the 30s. Dead ends, difficulties, and amazing finds … and then, for TJ Sweeney, this case becomes personal.

The second novel, Marry in Haste, is the story of two women, a century apart, living in the small town of Endurance, and both ignoring Ben Franklin’s “Marry in Haste, Repent at Leisure.” A huge Victorian house is the setting for much of this novel, and in the house Grace finds a hidden diary from 1893.

It reveals the bittersweet story of Olivia Havelock, who came to Endurance and married a powerful, but abusive, judge. In the present day, Grace’s former student, Emily Folger, is accused of murdering her philandering, abusive husband. Grace sets out to prove Emily’s innocence, working with TJ Sweeney. Can the lessons from the diary help her save Emily Folger? This second full-length novel just came out November 16.

The third book will be out next year, and it is called Death Takes No Bribes. Grace goes back to her old high school, where she taught for almost three decades, when the principal is murdered in a horrific way. It’s a sentimental journey for Grace, who retired a year ago, and now she walks among her old colleagues wondering if one of them could be capable of murder.

Each mystery has a universal theme, and at the heart of the series is the resilience of women and how they support each other. They celebrate family, loyalty, and, often, social issues. History and romance twine their way through each book. So, I hope you’ll consider trying my Endurance Mysteries. Right now, I have a giveaway going on GoodReads for Marry in Haste that lasts until midnight on November 21.

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Susan Van Kirk grew up in Galesburg, Illinois, and received degrees from Knox College and the University of Illinois. She taught high school English for thirty-four years, then spent an additional ten years teaching at Monmouth College.

Her first Endurance mystery novel, Three May Keep a Secret, was published in 2014 by Five Star Publishing/Cengage. In April, 2016, she published an Endurance e-book novella titled The Locket: From the Casebook of TJ Sweeney. Her third Endurance novel, Death Takes No Bribes, will follow Marry in Haste.

Social Media:

Website and blog: http://www.susanvankirk.com

Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/SusanVanKirkAuthor/

Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/susan_vankirk

GoodReads: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/586.Susan_VanKirk

 

Barry Maitland: Ash Island Wednesday, Nov 9 2016 

Uncategorized , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:16 am

ashisland

Barry Maitland’s Brock and Kolla series, set in England, has been one of Auntie M’s mainstays for years. Then last year he brought out a second series, featuring DS Harry Belltree and set in his current home of Australia. The second in the new series, Ash Island, finds Harry just back to work after his near death in Crucifixion Creek and is a strong sequel.

Harry’s posting away from Sydney and the horror of the past case suit him fine. He and his wife, Jenny, are expecting their first child together, and living in a cottage in Newcastle with Jenny’s new guide dog.

Harry’s case revolves around a body found in the marsh vegetation of Ash Island, showing obvious signs of torture. He’s convinced this is a dumping ground for bodies, and he’s proven right, but not without consequences.

Newcastle was the area of the accident that robbed him of his parents and Jenny of her sight. Harry knows it wasn’t an accident: his father was a well respected Aboriginal judge, and he’s always understood that his father’s position led to his death.

How these deaths are connected to the bodies buried in the marsh provide some of the strongest action scenes in the book, as Harry not only tries to find out what’s at the bottom of the accident, and those buried bodies, but whom he can trust.

The area comes alive under Maitland’s assured descriptions.
There will be a double surprise at the end, and the resolution Harry seeks will come at a steep price. An accomplished and fast-moving plot will keep readers flipping pages as the past reaches it fingers into the present.

 

Tana French: The Trespasser Saturday, Oct 22 2016 

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

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French’s The Secret Place introduced Stephen Moran as its narrator, the young detective itching to get into Dublin’s Murder Squad, and paired temporarily with the tough Det. Antoinette Conway. He gets his wish months later, only as the youngest and unmarried members of the team, they both get more than their fair share of night shifts. And it’s Conway who’s the narrator as the now-partners are handed a new case to work together in The Trespasser, another strong novel that shows how well French understands human nature.

Their Superintendent is convinced he’s handing the newbies a simple domestic case, easily solved. Pretty, polished and dressed for a date: that’s the impression victim Aislin Murray gives the detectives when her body is found in a pool of blood in her flat, right next to a dining table set for two, complete with candles, uneaten meal in the warming oven.

It appears to be simple, a lover’s quarrel gone bad at first glance, except that Conway is convinced she’s seen the victim before and just can’t place her. Conflicting stories from people who knew Aislinn set off the detectives radar, and further investigation shows that the young woman underwent a remarkable makeover in her appearance and manner.

Rory Fallon has been dating Aislinn, and when he’s put under the glare of being a suspect, he doesn’t redeem himself well, yet Conway isn’t convinced he’s the killer. Not so DI Breslin, the experienced detective assigned to oversee the case with the duo. He presses them hard for an arrest of Fallon, stressing out Conway and getting to Moran. His insistence leads the two to all sorts of wild conspiracy theories that keep them from seeing the truth of the case that lies right in their midst.

Adding to Conway’s stress is the harassment she’s received from her coworkers, including pranks and messing about with her reports and evidence, which doesn’t seem to apply to her male partner. Is she paranoid or is this the height of sexism? And more to the point, can she wait it out or will she crumple and make her colleagues point for them?

This is a power struggle on all fronts, sometimes between Conway and the suspect; at others between Conway and the detective sitting next to her, whether it’s Moran or Breslin. And most of all, it’s a struggle for Conway between the person she is and her urban working-class origins, and the person she wants to be.

An accomplished look inside the psychology of the narrator, and of the far-reaching implications of actions not always understood. Highly recommended.

 

Sarah Ward: A Deadly Thaw Sunday, Sep 25 2016 

Uncategorized , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:32 am

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Sarah Ward’s debut In Bitter Chill brought her to reader’s attention quickly last year. After years of reviewing crime fiction, including acting as a judge for the Scandinavian translated crime novels’ Petrona Award, she has turned her hand to writing her own series, causing Booklist to call her “. . . a writer to watch.”

She returns with a second entry in the Derbyshire series, A Deadly Thaw, and fans of her first will be happy to know it’s every bit as well-written and suspenseful as her first. She brings back the compelling Bampton team of DI Francis Sadler and DC Connie Childs, plus other members who will have an impact on the story to investigate this unusual case.

The setup is creative and pulls the reader in immediately. Lena Grey has just been released from prison after serving fourteen years for smothering her husband, Andrew Fisher, in their bed. But then Andrew’s recently killed body is found in an old morgue.

Once the identification is complete, the questions become overwhelming: Who was the man in Lena’s bed all those years ago, and why would she lie about his identity and spend all of the time in prison? Sadler’s team must uncover why this deception could have been pulled off, while Childs is convinced it took more than a bad marriage and a lover for Lena Grey to take prison time. But Lena vanishes, leaving questions unanswered and the investigation to flounder.

The team will be led to Lena’s sister Kat, a therapist living in their childhood home, who can’t explain her sister’s actions then or now. Then Kat starts receiving packages from a young man, and based on their contents, he must know where Lena is hiding. She starts searching through their lives, looking for answers in her family’s secrets, conducting her own investigation.

Those secrets hold the key to the mystery and it will be up to Sadler’s team to put the pieces together. Distractions from personal issues within the team threaten to disturb their cohesiveness and ability to figure out the truth, but add layers of complexity to the story.

Ward’s plot is complex and well-executed, with twists and turns that make red herrings fall like so much litter as one reality becomes another. This is gripping, with an edge that makes for compulsive reading. Highly recommended.

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

Robin Burcell: The Last Good Place Sunday, Nov 8 2015 

great read and mystery to die for and new series and Series not to be missed , , , Auntie M Writes Crime 12:18 am

Robin Burcell has written a rebook of the Carolyn Weston books that formed the storyline for The Streets of San Francisco, one of Auntie M’s favorite shows in the 1970s.
The Last Good Place

Way back in the 1970s, an author named Carolyn Weston penned the novel POOR, POOR OPHELIA. That book was the basis for the hit television show, The Streets of San Francisco. I loved that show, and so when Brash Books asked if I’d be interested in continuing the late Weston’s series, I jumped at the chance.

Besides, how hard could it be? I thought. Well… A lot has changed since the 1970s, especially police work. But I was up to the challenge, so I read the three Weston novels and made the startling realization that they were very different from the TV show that I remembered. Or rather Weston’s cops, Al Krug and Casey Kellog, were different from my memory of the TV cops portrayed by Karl Malden and Michael Douglas.

What’s a writer to do? I had a choice about leaving these cops in the 70s, but I wasn’t so sure I wanted to write historical fiction. I started as a cop in 1983 and I’m very happy with the progress departments have made over the years. I had no wish to revisit that time period—and so we made the command decision to update the series to modern day.

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My personal belief was that Al Krug, the grizzled, older cop Weston wrote as a foil to the younger, college-educated rookie, Kellog, was right for the time period in which he was created. Krug was a kick-ass-take-names-later sort of guy. Unfortunately that wouldn’t fly today, and so I knew I was going to have to temper Krug’s character—to keep him from getting fired—making him more of a mentor to Kellog, but one who was still very much old school.

And then there is the younger Kellog, fresh out of college and still living at home according to Weston’s version. The biggest problem there was that today, Kellog would have to put in at least a decade on the streets before he ever got to homicide, and so I fast-forwarded his time clock, giving him the needed years on the street (and moved him out of his parents’ house!) so that he had the experience to work homicide.

The fun part of the series was melding Weston’s characters with my memories of the television show. I wanted to bring in the best of both worlds. In the end my goal was to write a great police procedural that would pick up where the old books left off, but wouldn’t be out of place in today’s world.

Anyone else out there remember The Streets of San Francisco?

Burcell 2013 Book Photo

Robin Burcell spent nearly three decades as a police officer, hostage negotiator, criminal investigator, and FBI Academy-trained forensic artist. Her most recent book, THE KILL ORDER, was named one of Library Journal’s Best Thrillers of 2014.
Her upcoming book, THE LAST GOOD PLACE, is a continuation of the Carolyn Weston police procedurals which were the basis for the TV show THE STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO.
More information can be found on her website at: http://www.robinburcell.com/

 

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