With its New England setting and its genetically engineered whiff of the supernatural, this one suggests John Connolly on a green jag.

Former big-shot Atlanta private eye Oakley Tyler has taken early retirement (à la Travis McGee), moving to a small cabin deep in the Vermont woods, deliberately off the grid, burned out after too many deaths (parents, fiancée, business partner), and too many years in the shamus game. He just wants to reconnect with something. Anything. But, as he hastens to tell an uninvited visitor, “this ain’t no Walden Pond.”

No kidding.

That visitor is Jeremiah Smith, a persnickety old coot, determined to hire Oakley. Seems Jeremiah’s worried that “the kind of men who think they got the right to play God” may be out to kill Jerry, a local newspaper reporter and his only “livin’ relative.” But Oakley’s hesitant to take on any clients, never mind some “aging hippie” who seems more than a little paranoid—if not outright crazy.

Then Jeremiah’s truck, parked down the hill aways blows up, and someone takes a couple of potshots at the two men. Suddenly, Jeremiah doesn’t seem quite as crazy.

It’s a good start to what promises to be a solid, fast-paced bit of woodsy noir, as Oakley squares off against Caleb Benson, a notoriously ruthless local timber tycoon. There’s plenty of familiar private- eye action here: a complicated romantic relationship (with a local waitress) for the hero, several dirty secrets, more than a little greed, some murders (of course), and some damn great characters, just dripping with local color.

But the author is apparently after bigger—or at least different—game. As Tyler heads off into the woods to track down the shooter, he stumbles across a young woman with long black hair, clad in buckskins, sitting on a rock. A woman who can walk in the snow and leave no tracks. She’s enigmatic as hell, and pops in and out of the story, apparent only to Oakley, full of jargon about Spirit and suggestions that her People have—and will—always be here. And to be kind to Mother Earth— a sentiment which complements Oakley’s investigation, which leads to a sobering look at the threat genetic engineering may pose to the environment.

I don’t know. I liked the book, and I admire the message, but I’m not convinced having it delivered by Pocahontas Barbie in a series of unnatural-feeling intrusions was the best move.

Born in 1679, Zoe Faust has survived centuries of ordeals to find herself settling into a newly purchased Portland, Oregon, fixer-upper. Courtesy of The Elixir of Life, the alchemist’s appearance is that of someone in her thirties.

While Zoe is unpacking her boxes from France, she uncovers Dorian Robert-Houdin, a stowaway. Dorian is a three-foot-tall, living, breathing gargoyle who is a trained gourmet cook. An even more disconcerting discovery is the murdered man Zoe finds on her doorstep—her remodeling contractor Charles Macraith.

Dorian is reverting to his old statuary state, but an antique book that he has brought with him from France has information that could halt the process and keep him mobile. He’s relying on Zoe to decipher the text, but the tome is stolen in tandem with the murder of Macraith. The crime throws the community into upheaval and introduces Zoe to the attractive Portland detective Max Liu. As a secret practitioner of magic, though, Zoe is circumspect, which puts a strain on a potential romance with Max.

The Accidental Alchemist is a whimsical and charming supernatural mystery. The rapport between Gallic gourmet Dorian and Zoe is delectable, and Zoe’s chemistry with Detective Liu is sizzling.

Andrew Taylor has visited many different eras of history in his novels. He’s one of those authors who can not only make you see what life was like in another time, but also almost smell it (sometimes that’s unfortunate). In The Scent of Death he brings a Brit, David Saville, across to America in 1778 and plunges him into wartime Manhattan, as an observer for the “American Department.” When there’s a crime involving a Brit or a Loyalist refugee who needs assistance, Saville is called in.

The book starts off with the mysterious death of one Colonel Pickett. A young slave boy is caught and hanged for the crime; the casual brutality of it shocks Saville, but he reminds himself he is only there to observe. He is needled by doubt, though, as he’s not sure the young man was guilty.

Pickett’s murder is just the first in a series of assaults and murders that run through this vast and complicated novel. As Saville negotiates his way as an outsider through the minefield of violence, politics, and relationships in early America, Taylor’s running exploration of loyalty is examined from all angles: slave to master; wife to husband; child to parent; friend to friend; employee and employer. The changing nature of loyalty and the perception of it are his concern throughout.

While I thought The Scent of Death was slightly overlong, the writing, the setting, and the characters are all exquisitely rendered. You will have a complete picture of 1778 New York City when you are finished. The criminal mastermind behind the murders that run through the novel is a fantastic reveal, patiently laid out by Taylor for the perfect “aha” moment—a surprise, but a well set up one. And as you know how the Revolutionary War will end, you will also feel bad for the probable fate of the characters you have been reading about. I loved the flavor of the times in this novel. Much of it is brutal, especially the treatment of slaves, but it also felt real. While I love reading about the Revolutionary War, I’m glad I didn’t live through it.

Lizzie Snow thinks she knows what she’s signing up for when she accepts a position with the Aroostook County Sheriff’s department, but the reality is something else entirely. It turns out that Sheriff Cody Chevrier has a hidden agenda in hiring her—he wants Lizzie to apply the hard-won skills she’s honed as a Boston homicide detective to look into the strange deaths of several retired police officers in and around the Maine town of Bearkill. Also motivated by her own agenda (she’s recently been provided with a lead in the case of her niece’s disappearance, which brought her to the area), Lizzie agrees to do so, little realizing that her investigation will lead her into direct contact with some of northern Maine’s most dangerous denizens.

Winter at the Door is the first of a planned series featuring Snow, who made her initial appearance in Sarah Graves’ last Jake Tiptree mystery, A Bat in the Belfry. The book’s publicity materials compare Graves to Jenny Milchman, and that comparison is apt, especially in relation to Milchman’s excellent debut Cover of Snow; both authors explore similar, dark terrain, focusing on strong, but isolated women, solving mysteries in tiny, insular, and, above all, creepy old towns. Like Milchman, Graves is very comfortable in this milieu, finding both depravity and humor in her backwoods setting, and telling an entertaining story that proceeds to an explosive conclusion.

Keeping Some Streets Dark in the City of Light

Georges Simenon kept his story lines simple, often using no more than a 2,000-word vocabulary and economical descriptions, keeping his stories brief to appeal to a broader audience. But deeper themes and insights into human psychology lie at the core of his characters. No penny dreadful, each Maigret novel is a quick read but makes a major impact. You can pick one up, read it, and walk away with a deeper understanding of the human psyche. His characters—from the crew at the Prefecture, investigators, and flics on their daily beat to the victims’ neighbors, hotel concierges, and even Paris itself—really speak to readers.

With countless television adaptations of Simenon’s work in the UK, France, and other parts of Europe, everyone knows of the pipe-smoking Maigret. These novels capture a time, a part of Paris that exists now only in the imagination. It was a time when cell phones and numeric-entry keypads were unheard of—one could only ring the concierge’s bell to gain entry after midnight. Everyone knew everyone else’s business in a city with enclosed courtyards, high walls, and watchful eyes. Parisians smoked and drank morning, noon, and night. Men’s wool overcoats and hats steamed as they came in from a wet winter evening to a warm, charcoal-stove-burning café. People knew their neighbors. Snitches snitched. Girlfriends chatted with each other and mother-in-laws complained—human connections abound, often forming a web of lies and deceit. But Maigret keeps at it—plodding, questioning, then throwing out those questions, lighting his pipe when it goes out, and the suspect in the chair opposite him knows it’s only a matter of time. As does Maigret. He drinks at lunch, sometimes he gets angry, even orders sandwiches and beer in the afternoon. He takes the annual August vacances with Madame Maigret unless a case comes up—but when doesn’t it?—and detains him in hot, deserted Paris. But a few of his investigations find him out in the countryside, in those small, hermetically sealed villages where observant eyes don’t miss a thing.

I confess that when I first began writing my Aimée Leduc novels, I would think, Okay. There’s a murder, a staircase dripping with blood…. What would Inspector Maigret do? That wasn’t always much help, since Aimée is a PI, not a policewoman. But then I’d consider what she might do if Maigret appeared on the scene and questioned her after she had found the body. That worked a little better. Of course, the police system in place now is different: Jules Maigret, as the head Commissaire, would certainly not respond in person. Today, it would be the Brigade Criminelle and le procureur (the equivalent of our DA) who would hotfoot it to the scene and dictate the next steps in the investigation. I had to change my way of thinking about police process in a murder investigation, my flic friends told me. The way Maigret operated didn’t make for a plausible scenario now. So I relearned in order to keep the details in my books accurate, and came to the conclusion that Maigret had it easier than a head Commissaire would today.

Is Simenon’s work dated? Historical? Timeless? I’d argue the second two. I personally like my Paris streets dark and narrow, with glistening cobblestones, the air thick with mist and suspicion. The Montmartre cemetery wall the same as it was then, hulking with old, lichen-covered stone; I’ve imagined a corpse there more than once. Returning late at night from the last Métro, walking uphill from Place de Clichy, the cinéma marquees dark, the café lights fading as I cross over the cemetery, I hear the thrum of the old Citroën or Renault engine, the shift of gears, and smell the cherry tobacco. (I like to think he smoked cherry tobacco, though I don’t know that it’s ever specified; perhaps there’s a Simenon scholar out there who can tell me.) Flashlights illuminate the corpse sprawled on the damp pavement. Maigret nods to his lieutenant and says, “Take this down," and we’re off on an investigation. An investigation that leads to the hidden life behind the walls, intrigue in the quartier, and worlds we’d never visit otherwise.

Cara Black is the New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of 14 books in the Private Investigator Aimée Leduc series, which is set in Paris. Cara has received multiple nominations for the Anthony and Macavity Awards, a Washington Post Book World Book of the Year citation, the Médaille de la Ville de Paris—the Paris City Medal, which is awarded in recognition of contribution to international culture—and invitations to be the Guest of Honor at conferences such as the Paris Polar Crime Festival and Left Coast Crime. With more than 400,000 books in print, the Aimée Leduc series has been translated into German, Norwegian, Japanese, French, Spanish, Italian, and Hebrew.

This “Writers on Reading” essay was originally published in “At the Scene” eNews March 2015 as a first-look exclusive to our enewsletter subscribers. For more special content available first to our enewsletter subscribers, sign up here.