Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff

From time to time, Auntie M likes to let you in what she’s been reading, not for review, but for her own personal choice. These are some of my favorites, the ones I reach for again and again for a satisfying read:

Steve Cavanagh knocks it out of the park with his new Eddie Flynn legal thriller, Two Kinds of Stranger, which may be his most perfectly twisted plot yet, and he’s a master at it. Eddie is a conman turned lawyer who won’t hesitate to step outside the law to bring justice.

This case comes too close to home when a stalker client threatens his daughter, ex-wife and her new lawyer husband. At the same time, he and his team have taken on the case of a young woman whose life had been about espousing random acts of kindness. In an ironic twist, that same instinct has led to her being poisoned, while her cheating husband and his lover are also poisoned. While the duo die, Ellie Parker manages to survive but is soon charged with their murders, as no one can find the stranger she says she helped who poisoned her, a sociopath working behind the scenes to manipulate her life.

No one except Eddie Flynn. And then his ex-wife’s stalker is killed, and his daughter’s mother and her husband are on trial for that murder. His team is managing two serious trials at the same time, and lines will be crossed with life-changing outcomes. At times you can’t see how he can pull this one off, and Eddie isn’t certain he can, either.

There’s a final extra ending twist that makes it all come full circle—you won’t be able to put this one down. Cavanagh gets NYC and its environs perfectly, which is all the more surprising when you learn he and his family live in Belfast, Ireland. Don’t miss this brilliantly layered novel.

The Marlow Murder Club is currently showing on my Masterpiece Mystery, and Auntie M snapped up the newest installment, a locked room (boat) mystery that weaves a killing around the Marlow Amateur Dramatic Society in Murder on the Marlow Belle.

Verity Beresford enlists Judith Potts and her friends to track down her missing husband after the drama society had hired The Marlow Belle for an evening on the river. But no one remembers seeing Oliver Beresford leave the boat.

Then Oliver’s body, complete with bullet holes, washes up downriver, and the three women amateur sleuths are on the hunt. Soon they are knee-deep in the personal lives of the main players, whose secrets they must unearth, as it seems Oliver had a host of enemies.

Cosy mystery crime at its finest with a returning ensemble we’ve grown to love.

Queen Camilla let it be known that Peter James is her favorite author, and so his October book, The Hawk is Dead, has scenes at Buckingham Palace. But One of Us is Dead is out now, so readers who follow Brighton Superintendent Roy Grace can gratefully indulge.

Grace and his familiar team are investigating a series of murders that appear unrelated, but Grace has a that twitch of instinct that tells him they are, despite mushroom poisoning and accidents that may not be what they seem.

At a local funeral, a man enters the church late to see a fellow a few rows ahead of him he knows to be dead–because he gave that man’s eulogy. What these disparate incidents have in common becomes the latest chase to find a canny killer.

Grace’s respect and detail of police procedures is at full mast here, as is his frustration at being behind the desk too much. Another great installment in a long-running series that never disappoints.

I had fears that SJ Bennett’s series featuring Queen Elizabeth would come to an end with the passing of the monarch, but Bennett’s Her Majesty the Queen Investigates series continues with A Death in Diamonds by heading back in time to 1957 with a young Queen finding her voice. And now she’s opened up a host of years to pull from as the series continues.

When two people are murdered and the Queen finds herself used as the alibi for one of the murders, all the while trying to learn her job and her nation’s place in a modern world, it seems that the very advisors she must trust may not always have her best interests at heart.

Her ally becomes Joan McGraw, an ex-Bletchley Park code breaker, discreet and loyal to the Queen, and soon this dynamic duo are running their own investigation. A clever and intriguing way to continue this series, Bennett gets the personalities of the royals involved down pat with nice asides we can well imagine might really have been said. A jewel~

Skelton’s well-plotted series featuring investigative reporter Rebecca Connolly continues with The Hollow Mountain.

Filled with the kind of ironic humor Auntie M enjoys, Rebecca is challenged by Alice Larkin, a dying millionaire and former reporter, to unearth what really happened when her lover died while working as a tunnel tiger on the Hollow Mountain project years ago.

With Alice parsing out her story, Rebecca must use her talents and those of her colleagues to unearth the truth of the hazardous construction as the workers blasted through mountains, under rivers, to create a pass, but she soon finds herself in jeopardy when the secrets she is finding threaten the reputations of those left behind.

Skelton’s series at highly atmospheric in their Scottish settings and the entire series comprise great reads.

Nita Prose’s maid Molly Gray is a wonderful character with a unique take on life whom Prose first debuted in The Maid. Now planing her wedding to chef Juan Manual, she’s been promoted to Head Maid and Special Events Manager at the Regency Grand Hotel, a delightful setting for much of the action of the series.

In The Maid’s Secret, the antiquities show Hidden Treasures is filming an episode at the Regency Grand when a decorated egg Molly brings in to be valued is found to be an antique treasure. At the same time as the television world and Molly’s life is turned upside down, excerpts from her grandmother’s diary explain how the egg came to be in her possession. And then the egg goes missing . . .

It’s a nice device that alternates with the madcap part of the auction process and gives a glimpse–and surprising information–to Molly. As usual, there is a sense of a heartfelt lesson being told.

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