French introduced fingerprint analyst Shaw Connolly in her thrilling first in this Maine series, Shaw Connolly Lives to Tell. Along the way, readers learn the intricate work these analysts perform and how involved they become in their cases.
Still reeling from the events of that novel, where she faced down her sister’s killer after years of hunting for him, she finds herself in the midst of a new case of missing woman discovered in a submerged car.
Her only clue is a single fingerprint belonging to a dead ex-con, which leads Shaw to investigate, with startling results.
In the midst of this, still grieving and trying to find peace in her life for her remaining sister, her two sons, her elderly father, and her estranged husband who wants to reconcile, a new wrinkle occurs: she’s asked by he state police contact if she will be willing to talk to her sister’s killer, in prison awaiting trial. The diabolical Anders Jansen claims he has information on two other cold cases, both of young women, but refused to talk to anyone about them unless Shaw agrees to participate in the search for their bodies.
Pulled in many directions, and with her own misgivings at the forefront, Shaw knows the years she and her family suffered by this man’s maliciousness, and reluctantly agrees.
This is a multi-layered plot that starts out hard and has a relentless pace. Add in characters so real they jump off the page and grab you by the throat and readers will find a book that’s hard to put down.
How’s this for a new way to get over a broken heart? The Himlafall Clinic promises to use new therapy techniques to help you heal. Set deeply in the Swedish woods, the Clinic appears to have many ways to help you move on.
But for some of the women, they don’t move on. In fact, they’re never heard from again.
Into this setting arrives Isobel Anderssen, eager to make her name as a freelance journalist by exposing the Clinic and it’s founder, Dr. Martina Hastings. Isobel has her own fake story ready to go, and is set to record interviews, but her contact and oldest friend goes missing.
Worse, Dr. Hastings seems to understand Isobel’s intent, and soon it’s Isobel who is worried about disappearing. She watches how the doctor pressures her clients, at times belittling them to undermine their self-confidence. There are medications handed out and abused, and a doctor who fails to see that she cannot help everyone.
Throw in a storm with a trashed generator and downed phone lines, and the tension rapidly rises. And so does the body count.
An absorbing and terrifying look inside the mind of a killer who will stop at nothing to achieve what she wants.
A trio of strong Black women head up West’s Chicago-set thriller.
Gio Mason, the head concierge at The Ivory Hotel, is dealing with her mother’s illness and entitled guests who drive her batty, when a new guest checks in that sets her on alert. Her former best friend, Natalie Moore, is an influencer which means she has a large following. Their reunion ends poorly with the two women publicly arguing.
Redding Stark is the detective who has been carting around a growing list of missing Black women from the city. When Natalie goes missing, and her trashed hotel room is found, Gio’s bruises and a memory lapse make her the main suspect in Natalie’s disappearance.
But Redding has a growing suspicion that this case is linked to the other missing women. Together, REdding and Gio race to find Natalie as the threats against them grow.
Their investigation will bring them into many unexpected circles, and just when it seems the perpetrators are caught, another twist sends this to a startling conclusion.
Strong characterizations and backgrounds of the women add to the depth of this story.
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.
Gillian McAllister might have been a lawyer, but since she became a full time writer, she has a string of thrillers to claim: Wrong Place Wrong Time; Famous Last Words; Just Another Missing Person, and The Good Sister are just a partial list of her hits.
When her newest, Caller Unknown, was offered to me for review, Auntie M jumped at the chance to read it.
Simone has left her husband, Damien, in England to run their restaurant so she can meet their daughter, Lucy for a week together, after Lucy has spent the summer at a Texas camp learning to sing before her RADA course starts. It’s mother-daughter time Simone is looking forward to, as the thought of watching her daughter start the next stage of her life courses through her. She knows this is the natural order of things, but she’s having a hard time letting go.
Then the unthinkable happens: after one night together in a cabin, Lucy is kidnapped, a ransom demanded, and Simone’s entire life changes. Damien flies over, but she lies to him that she’s called the police in, as the kidnappers assured her that doing so would cause her daughter’s death. She’s sent a sad proof of life video, showing Lucy with her hands bound behind her back.
This is when McAllister swiftly turns the plot on hits head, with Simone as Mother Warrior, desperately trying anything to save her daughter. There will be shootings, murder, and a drug deal before the heady climax. The twists come fast as the action ramps up until an unbelieveable climax leaves the reader feeling almost bereft, but in awe of Simone’s strength—until a brilliant last sharp turns brings everything into focus.
A meditation on a mother’s inexhaustible love, and the length’s she will go to for her daughter. Stunning.
Higashino is one of Japan’s best-known novelists, and I’ve read and enjoyed many of his books. The translations retain the intricacies of social customs, while his plotting is diverse and engaging.
While the others I’ve read have featured either Detective Galileo (The Devotion of Suspect X) or the intricate mind of Kyoichiro Saga (Malice), Guilt brings homicide detective Godai of Tokyo’s Metropolitan Police to the case of a murdered lawyer.
Kensuke Shiraishi’s body has been found on a riverbank, and after much detecting, Godai finds an older man named Tatsuro Kuraki is involved. Then a strange turn of events cause Kuraki, who at first claimed only minimal knowledge of the dead, to confess to not only his killing, but that of a cold case murder twenty years before.
Despite being congratulated that he has solved two cases at once, Godai fears Kuraki’s confession doesn’t ring true, and continues to investigate, all the while facing stubborn resilences from the man in jail, whose son takes up his own parellel investigation.
Both men will delve into the history of the deceased men, as well as the man who claims to have killed them, with surprising results.
There is a tension that rises as the reader sees what Godai sees–an unraveling of lies and half-trrths, until a final, surprising truth is attained.
Guilt and redemption are the two main themes explored in this highly readable novel.
I recently met Sonny Hudson at the Williamsburg Book Festival, an event I thoroughly enjoyed. If you live anywhere near that lovely area in Virginia, I urge you to attend next year’s event, which featured four speakers plus rooms filled with authors and their books. Since my talk was on what makes a good book cover, I was attracted to those on Sonny’s books.
I’ve asked him to tell us how he came to write his series. Please welcome Sonny Hudson to Auntie M Writes:
Readers ask me all the time where I find the inspiration for my stories, and it’s easy to respond with something generic like ‘inspiration is all around us’. While that’s certainly true, I usually cite two events, one that inspired me to want to write, and the other that was the inspiration for the first book in my Jessica Jansen Thriller series, The Murder Game.
I didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a writer, but early in my technology career I took on a new role supporting our global sales force. A small but key part of the job for my team was creating and publishing a newsletter distributed to almost 7,500 people. This quickly became my favorite part of the job, and my teammates took to calling me ‘the guy who never met a blank page that he didn’t want to fill.’ Guilty!
I’ve always been a big fan of murder mysteries, and when a particularly bizarre incident happened to me while traveling for business, it became my inspiration for The Murder Game. I actually used this incident, or at least a fictionalized version of it, in the opening chapters.
While traveling back to Virginia from a trip to California, I was changing planes in Dallas and moving between terminals on the SkyTrain when another passenger dropped their wallet. I was unable to catch them, so I decided to turn it in to the DFW police or TSA when I reached my stop.
I decided to look in the wallet to see if I might find information to have the person paged, and when I looked inside, I was stunned: the wallet was empty except for three different IDs from three different states, with three different names, and three different pictures of the same guy.
My mind immediately went to something criminal—naturally—and I started drafting the book before I even boarded my next flight. That one strange incident inspired a book, which inspired an entire series. I’m glad I was there to experience it!
Sonny Hudson is the acclaimed author of the Jessica Jansen Thriller series, which includes The Murder Game, Glitz. Glamour. Murder., Blood & Vengeance, and Divine Deception. Taut, fast-paced action and incredibly strong, smart, and capable female lead characters grab readers from the very first page. Readers have compared Hudson’s books to top authors like Patricia Cornwell (Scarpetta series), J.D. Robb (In Death series), James Patterson (Women’s Murder Club series), and David Baldacci (Mercy series).
Fans of political action and spy thrillers by top writers like Robert Ludlum, Vince Flynn, and Brad Thor will love Hudson’s debut novel, Let the Truth Be Told. This perennial favorite has captivated audiences at events year after year.
Currently residing in Williamsburg, VA, Hudson has transitioned from a long and successful career in the technology sector to providing business and technology consulting to Global 1000 companies and their extensive network of channel partners. When not working or writing, Hudson enjoys cruising on the Chesapeake Bay or exploring the world-class wineries and restaurants of California wine country.
Berry’s sixth Kate Hamilton mystery keeps the series fresh, utilizing Kate’s antiques expertise and that of her business partner, Ivor Tweedy, in a unique way. Being married to DI Tom Mallory means Kate has an above-average knowledge of murder investigations, too, and has helped Tom in the past.
When an extremely well-preserved body is found at an archeological dig, it’s determined to be from the 14th century, and Kate and Ivor are asked to examine and evaluate the grave goods found buried with the woman’s body, which include a huge, valuable pearl. They meet the team who found the body, composed of varied personalities and talents.
Additionally, Kate is tasked as part of her private investigators work by the wealthy landowner, whose property contains the dig, with unearthing the idenity of the buried woman, who was pregnant at the time of her death. His own wife went missing nine years ago, and a museum of the plague-ridden village was her project, one he has continued in her absence as he struggles with his grief.
Then the lead archeologist, Dr. Simon Sinclair, is found murdered on the site with pearls stuffed in his mouth, and Tom becomes involved while also trying to track a killer in an unrelated death. Sinclair’s murder has numerous suspects, and with Kate on site, Kate works in concert with Tom to obtain inside information that might not surface in a formal police interview.
Berry does a grand job of showing how Kate uses resources and ancient documents to track down the identity of the murdered woman in the midst of Tom’s investigation into the modern murder. Then another set of bones are found to ratchet up the tension. Throw in Kate’s pregnant friend, the local vet and vicar’s wife, and you have a nicely rounded plot with local threads.
The interspersion of the cold cases with the new murder unraveling give rising tension to a well-done climax that makes sense. Don’t miss Berry’s author’s note at the end about the real-life discovery of a medieval body that gave her the storyline idea.
Coffin’s second Det. Brock Justice novel more than continues the promise of the debut in the series, Crimson Thaw, with an atmospheric and charged story.
With baggage from testifying against a fellow officer following him, the state police officer and his partner’s new case takes them to the autumn back roads of small town Maine, where a woman’s body has been found at the roadside. Originally thought a victim of a motor vehicle accident, a stab wound is found on Summer Randall’s body that clouds the cause of death.
Mentoring Detective Chloe Wright, their investigation soon shakes up the small towns near Moosehead Lake, and out fall plenty of suspects. Justice and Wright follow different threads into Summer’s life, but soon Justice is running a parellel case of his own: trying to prove the officer he’d testified against is dirty to the point of unbelievable actions.
There will be affairs in the victim’s past that muddy the waters, while poachers, including a veteran who lives off the grid, all come under scrutiny and add to the tension.
This is a well-plotted police procedural that keeps the action going, and Coffin succeeds in bringing the back woods of Maine to life, populating the novel with realistic characters, while imbuing the case with a sense of urgency matched by his care to find Summer’s killer.
As an added treat, there’s a brilliant ending twist that elevates this very readable book you won’t want to put down.
Auntiemwrites Crime-Mystery Author M K Graff 