1989
by Val McDermid
Little, Brown Paperback (UK), February 2023

Every year legendary Scottish storyteller Val McDermid harnesses her own popularity to showcase some of the most interesting new voices in the genre at her sold-out “New Blood” panel at the Theakston Old Peculier Crime Writing Festival in Harrogate, England. (This year’s panel included South Carolina debut novelist Stacy Willingham, British-Australian author Emma Styles, and indigenous filmmaker turned crime novelist Michael Bennett.) But while McDermid is always keen to uplift and shine light on others, her latest novel 1989 shows the modern-day Queen of Crime’s own crown still glistens brightly.

Ten years on in time and place from last year’s introduction to the life and crimes (solving) of Allie Burns, the Scottish journalist is now living in Manchester with her girlfriend Rona, tapping out stories and managing freelancers as head of northern news for a tabloid with a notorious owner.

AIDS is rampant, the world is mourning Lockerbie victims killed in a terrorist bombing of a Pan Am flight, and both the Iron Curtain and the Iron Lady (conservative British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher) are still standing strong—for now. It’s a time soaked in grief, and meanwhile Allie’s big boss, Ace Lockhart, is in a media war with Rupert Murdoch while also—unbeknownst to almost everyone—being the target of someone linked to his wartime past.

Allie’s investigations into why AIDS patients are migrating south from Scotland are getting warped and rewritten into sensationalist trash to fuel hysteria. As Allie digs into truths powerful people want hidden, she journeys to East Berlin, putting herself behind an Iron Curtain that’s beginning to corrode.

1989 is a wonderfully absorbing novel that gets increasingly layered as chapters fly by. McDermid masterfully juggles several big real-life issues along with intertwined crime plotlines: abduction, pseudo-spy craft, murder, revenge. From Allie and Rona to several new faces, the characters are fascinating. Two books in, this is a terrific series, and I can’t wait to see what unfolds as the millennium looms.

A review of this novel first appeared in Mystery Scene Issue #174, Winter. 

Deborah Crombie’s 19th Gemma James & Duncan Comrie novel, A Killing of Innocents, finds Duncan catching a knife crime case and Gemma running a knife crimes unit in London. The series, rich in setting, character, and plot, continues to develop and the books are compelling, intelligent reads. I found this installment especially crisp, well written, and hard to put down.

Robin Agnew for Mystery Scene: I have so enjoyed the development of Gemma and Duncan’s characters and their relationship throughout the series. Can you talk about creating them and the arc you have in mind for each of them?

Deborah Crombie: I wish I could say I had a master plan, but then that would be a bit boring, wouldn’t it? I’m also a little reluctant to say that I started with Duncan, but that’s how it happened. I adored British police detective novels, and I was desperately homesick for the UK, having moved back to the United State after having lived in Edinburgh and in Chester. I’d had an idea for a novel set in a timeshare that I’d seen on a visit to Yorkshire, but I needed a detective, a Met officer senior enough to consult on cases outside of London.

So Duncan was born. He was divorced and hailed from a market town in Cheshire near where I’d lived, and where his parents own a bookshop. But he needed a partner. I wanted her to be a woman, but very different in both upbringing and personality. Enter Gemma, a single mother of a toddler, from a working-class area in north London, juggling a demanding job with her parenting responsibilities.

By the end of the second book there were hints that their relationship was going to be more than professional, but I certainly hadn’t planned it. This was complicated for so many reasons, and I was never sure from book to book how—or indeed if—they would work things out. Duncan’s son from his previous marriage, Kit, came into their lives, and then Charlotte, their little foster daughter.

A Killing of Innocents finds them living in Notting Hill, a blended family with three children. Oh, and two dogs and three cats! They seem to accumulate children and pets. I’m usually thinking a book or two ahead about the developments in their personal lives, but I don’t have any end goals in mind. It’s much more fun to see where life takes them.

I enjoy just as much the work teams they’ve both assembled. Do you have some favorites out of this group, or characters you especially enjoy writing about?

When Gemma and Duncan became an official couple, they had to separate professionally and work with new partners. This brought Melody Talbot and Doug Cullen into the series, Melody as Gemma’s sergeant and Doug as Duncan’s. I love writing about these two and their sometimes difficult friendship. Another favorite is Rashid Kaleem, the very dishy Home Office pathologist who comes into the series in Necessary as Blood, and Detective Inspector Jasmine Sidana, Duncan’s second in command on his Holborn team. The cast of the series has grown like topsy and the most frustrating thing is not being able to work all the characters I like into every book.

When you start a new book, are there themes in mind that you want to tackle? Or is it always all about the story first and the themes comes from that? In this latest novel you definitely touch on revenge and reckoning.

I don’t usually start with a theme—I think theme should grow out of story. I do often start with topics or ideas I want to explore. I’m often writing about family and relationships and how characters navigate them. I might say that A Killing of Innocents is about the collateral damage caused by a certain type of damaged personality, but it’s about a lot of other things, too.

Can you talk about the knife crimes unit? I was fascinated to do a tiny bit of research and discover this is actually a problem in Britain. What kind of research did you do?

Knife crime is a huge problem in the UK, especially among young people. The Metropolitan Police reorganizes so often that it’s hard to keep up with the latest structures and terminology, but as of 2020 the Violence Suppression Unit included knife crime in its remit. Gemma and Melody are assigned to a data and intelligence gathering group.

As for research, I read regularly about policing in the UK and especially in London. It’s amazing what’s available on the internet these days. The Guardian newspaper is especially useful for deep level investigative reporting. It was the Guardian that uncovered the scandalous doings of some of the Met’s undercover officers and provided much useful background for earlier series novels To Dwell in Darkness and Garden of Lamentations.

And what about research in general? How do you take on a whole different culture and make it believable down to the slang the characters use?

I’ve lived in both England and Scotland and now spend as much time in London every year as I can manage. I read and listen to British books, watch British films and telly, read British newspapers. But, mostly, my brain just switches over into that voice when I’m writing. I love the details of ordinary daily life there.

Do you feel like you learn something with every book? And if so, what did you learn from this one? What lessons do you think you’ve brought with you from the first book in the series?

Writing this series has been like a continuing masterclass! I’ve learned so much about so many fascinating things and places. The history of the tea trade, London docklands, Cambridge poets, the Bloomsbury Group, London auction houses, racial tensions in Notting Hill from the '50s to the present, rowing, Scotch, British waterways and narrowboats, professional kitchens—that’s just picking a few favorites off the top of my head!

In A Killing of Innocents I wanted to explore London’s Bloomsbury and Soho, they are such fascinating and historical areas. I’m a really nerdy researcher and can never get in all the detail I’d like. Also, I had great fun learning about pottery for this book, and even trying my hand at it. Which wasn’t nearly as scaring as rowing!

I always knew I wanted to write a series, but I had no idea at the beginning what a delight it would be to watch the characters develop. I suppose I’ve learned that to some extent they do have a life of their own.

I read once that Picasso used to be allowed into the Louvre after hours and the artist that drove him crazy was Delacroix. He would put one of his own paintings next to one by Delacroix, and it fired him up. Who have your influences been, detective fiction wise? Are there any classics (if you are a re-reader) that you reread and think, Damn, I wish I could do that.

I loved P.D. James, but I don’t find myself inclined to reread the Dalgliesh books. I do reread Dorothy Sayers with such delight. Her language sparkles, her characters jump off the page—what a talent she was. Interestingly, the books I read and wish I’d written are not usually crime fiction. I love fantasy, historical fiction, and big sprawling novels. I’m a huge fan of Ben Aaronovitch’s Rivers of London series—I’d love to have written something that imaginative.

What makes you happy when you sit down to write every day?

I love putting myself into the setting, and into my characters’ lives. It really is an amazing thing to have this alternate life going on in your head. I suppose it is the purest form of escapism.

What’s the hardest part about sitting down to write every day?

Actually sitting down and getting started! It’s so easy to be distracted by the world and all the things you feel you should do. But then once I really get into a scene and it’s flowing, I never want to quit. We have lots of late dinners around here…

Finally, please tell me there’s another Gemma & Duncan book on the way. What are you working on?

Yes, yes, absolutely! I’m working on Kincaid/James #20 (I don’t have a title yet) and I spent most of October in London. After a three year absence due to the pandemic, it was absolute bliss. There is never enough time to do all the research I want to do, but I made a good start.

Deborah Crombie's novels are published in North America, Japan, Germany, France, Czechoslovakia, Spain, Romania, Greece, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and numerous other countries. Although she travels to England several times a year, Crombie lives in McKinney, Texas, a historic town north of Dallas, sharing a circa 1905 Texas Craftsman bungalow with her husband, Rick Wilson, two German shepherds (Dax and Jasmine), and two cats.  She is an aficionado of tea and cocktails, enjoys cooking and admiring her garden, reading, bird-watching, and playing with her dogs.

Robin Agnew is a longtime Mystery Scene contributor and was the owner of Aunt Agatha's bookstore in Ann Arbor, Michigan, for 26 years. No longer a brick and mortar store, Aunt Agatha has an extensive used book collection is available at abebooks.com and the site auntagathas.com is home to more of Robin's writing.

British Columbia cozy author Sarah Fox, best known for her clever and fun Literary Pub mysteries featuring a book-loving bar owner who stumbles on her fair share of small-town murders, returns this winter with a new foodie series, True Confections. Her first book in the series, Six Sweets Under, introduces readers to former actor Becca Ransom, who swaps California lights for cocoa bites when she take a job in her grandma Lolly and grandpa Pops' Larch Haven, Vermont, chocolate shop. When a local curmudgeon named Archie turns up dead and Pops is the suspect, Becca is on the case like ganache on truffles.

Fox was kind enough to share a bit about Becca in her debut outing, as well as an extremely delectable recipe for peanut butter pretzel truffles for Mystery Scene's "Recipes and Reading" series.

Mystery Scene: Six Sweets Under kicks off your fourth cozy series after your Literary Pub Mysteries, Pancake House Mysteries, and Music Lover’s Mysteries. More than a decade into writing cozies, what are you excited to try anew or challenge yourself with this latest? Does it take you in any new or unique directions from your previous work?

I’m always excited to develop new characters and explore their various relationships. In my previous series, the main characters’ families have been involved mostly in just a peripheral way. In my True Confections Mysteries, Becca Ransom’s family is very much part of the backdrop of the series. She works in her family’s chocolate shop, along with her cousin Angie and other relatives, so their daily lives are intertwined. While Becca’s parents don’t currently live in Larch Haven, her grandparents, Lolly and Pops, are very much a part of her life.

What was the genesis for the True Confections series and Six Sweets Under? How did the character of Becca Ransom, the actor-turned-chocolatier, develop? What are your favorite things about her?

The idea for this series started with the setting. Ever since seeing Giethoorn, a town in the Netherlands, featured on a TV show, I wanted to write a cozy mystery series set in a town with canals instead of roads and boats instead of cars. My agent was the one to suggest the chocolate shop and that’s how Becca became a chocolatier. It took a while for me to decide on her former career, but the fact that she was a successful actress opens the door to some story ideas different from what I’ve had to play with in my previous books. I really enjoy Becca’s relationships with the other characters, especially her friends Dizzy and Sawyer. Her scenes with those characters are particularly fun to write.

Your books always seem to have a pet (based on one of your own) and a love interest. Who are Becca’s in the new series?

Becca has two cats named Binx and Truffles. Binx’s personality is inspired by that of my own black cat, Orion. Truffles, who is a bit less of a troublemaker, is a gray tabby like my late cat Zebbie. There is a love interest for Becca in this series, but I’d better leave it at that to avoid potential spoilers!

Like your Literary Pub Series, True Confections is set in Vermont, in the (fictional?) tourist town of Larch Haven—but rumor has it you’ve never been to Vermont! How do you create your worlds without more firsthand knowledge? Do readers ever tell you what you get right or wrong?

Larch Haven, the Venice of North America, is a product of my imagination. Canadian cozy mystery writers are generally encouraged to set our stories in the United States. Since I haven’t spent a whole lot of time in any particular part of the United States, I create fictional towns to make my life easier. Before writing my Literary Pub Mysteries, I read several books set in Vermont to get a feel for the location, and I did a fair amount of research. I’ve been told I’ve done a good job of capturing the picturesque nature of small towns in Vermont and in depicting New England winters, so that makes me happy!

Speaking of the Literary Pub Mysteries featuring biblio pub owner Sadie Coleman, your 5-book deal for it was completed with last year’s Through the Liquor Glass (November 2022). Readers want to know if/when we might hear more from Sadie (and her brewer boyfriend Grayson Blake).

This is a difficult question to answer. I’d like to write one or two more books in the series, but as for when I would have a chance to write them and when I’d be able to publish them, that’s all up in the air. So, I can’t make any promises, but I do have a concept and notes for a potential book six and I would love to share more of Sadie’s and Grayson’s lives with my readers.

You’ve also mentioned bringing back Marley McKinney-Collins, proprietor of The Flip Side pancake house from your popular Pancake House Mysteries, in self-published novella form. Is that something you are still considering? The “end” of that series felt fairly resolved. If you did bring Marley back for more adventures, have you considered where would she be in her life and where you would you go with it?

I did toy with the idea of writing one or two Pancake House Mystery novellas because I love the characters so much, but the more time that passes the more I think I’ll leave the series as it ended in book eight. I felt like I left the characters in a good place, without much in the way of loose ends. I do know that Marley and Brett go on to have children, and I might share details about that with my readers at some point, possibly via my newsletter or social media. Marley will probably never stop getting mixed up in mysteries, but hopefully they won’t all be murder mysteries so the dead body count in Wildwood Cove doesn’t go through the roof!

Just one of the many marvelous things about your series are the books’ clever and punny titles. Where are you when these come to you? Are you thinking about puns nonstop? And are there any great ones that you’ve loved, but that just didn’t make it to market?

I have pun/title brainstorming sessions whenever I start a new series, so I end up with a list of possible titles for several books. Sometimes they come to me at random times too, so then I just add to my existing list. I’ve had a couple of favorites that didn’t make it to market, including Tequila Mockingbird (the original title of Wine and Punishment).

Are you still working your other job as a legal writer in addition to writing multiple books a year? How do you manage? Have you ever considered writing a legal mystery series? Are you working on anything else that we haven’t heard of yet?

My legal writing has always been part-time, so I do that work in the morning and write in the afternoons. I don’t think I’d ever write a legal mystery series. I don’t really read them either. Too much like work!

Our readers are always interested in hearing about other books and authors. Who are some of the authors or books you love and who you think we should be reading right now?

Jody Holford and Sofie Kelly are two of my favorite cozy mystery authors. Lately, I’ve become hooked on Dorothy St. James’ Beloved Book Room Mysteries and Sherry Harris’ Chloe Jackson Sea Glass Saloon Mysteries. Both are fantastic!

Finally, pancakes vs. cocktails vs. chocolate. Who wins?

In terms of eating, chocolate! In terms of my series, I can’t pick a favorite. I love them all!

Sarah Fox, writer of cozy mysteries, was born and raised in Vancouver, British Columbia, where she developed a love for mysteries at a young age. When not writing novels or working as a legal writer she is often reading her way through a stack of books or spending time outdoors with her English Springer Spaniel.

For her birthday, Hannah’s brother, Mako, has rented a beautiful, isolated vacation home where he and his wife, Liza, plan to host Hannah and her husband, Bruce, along with friends Cricket and Josh. When a vicious storm blows in, the three couples find themselves stuck as tensions begin to rise and past relationships, including a former fling between Cricket and Mako, begin to make things uncomfortable. Add to this an ever-watchful rental host on the property and a murderer lying in wait, and you have the setup for Lisa Unger’s Secluded Cabin Sleeps Six.

The guests have secrets that they are keeping from each other, making the weekend stay—and the story—even more intense as resentments build. Through alternating chapters featuring different characters’ points of view, the reader learns more about what each person is hiding, and how they truly feel about one another.

While on the surface this novel is an exciting thriller, it delves far more deeply into the complicated relationships between people related by blood and familial bonds, and the choices that we make to protect those whom we love. One’s loyalty to family—both the family one comes from and the family one chooses—is a major theme throughout the story, as is the concept of nature vs. nurture. And as is the case with most family dynamics, the answers don’t come easy. Whether or not the family at the center of this story will remain intact—or even alive—will keep the reader on edge until this nerve-wracking reunion ends.

Clare Mackintosh’s The Last Party is a mysterious and surprising psychological thriller wrapped in the trappings of a police procedural. Rhys Lloyd grew up in the village of Cwm Coed on the Welsh shore of picturesque Mirror Lake. Lloyd left and found success as a popular musician and now he is back to build a posh vacation resort on the lake’s English shoreline. The resort, which he is calling The Shore, isn’t popular with the locals who are sure it will ruin their idyllic village lifestyle. As a public relations ploy, Lloyd and his business partner invite the residents of Cwm Coed to celebrate New Year’s Eve at The Shore. The next morning, Lloyd’s corpse washes up on Mirror Lake’s Welsh shoreline.

DC Ffion Morgan, from the North Wales Police and a Cwm Coed townie, and DC Leo Brady, from the Cheshire Major Crime Unit, team up to investigate what, at first, appears to be an accident or maybe a suicide, but is quickly ruled as a homicide—pretty much anyone who had ever known Rhys Lloyd had a reason to kill him. The detectives’ professional relationship begins awkwardly when they recognize one another from a previous one-night stand. (They slept together on New Year’s Eve, both giving the other a false name.) They have other secrets, too, as does nearly everyone in Cwm Coed.

The Last Party is an entertaining mystery featuring likable, but flawed leads. Mackintosh expertly reveals the clues and events leading up to Lloyd’s murder and divulges the hushed secrets of Cwm Coed, Lloyd, Ffion, Leo, and all the major suspects with a dark relish. It may offer a grim portrayal of small-town rumor and despair, but The Last Party is blissfully fun. Its twisty plot is loaded with surprises and its strong characterization is icing on the cake.

Righteous Prey, John Sandford’s latest entry in his ever popular Prey series, teams up both of his main series characters, Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, for an explosive hunt for a powerful vigilante group proclaiming their plan to “murder people who need to be murdered.”

The group known as The Five target incredibly unsympathetic public figures they deem a blight on society through social media and press releases. The first two murders go off without a hitch and after each one, the group offsets the murders by donating Bitcoin money to charities whose work is in direct opposition to the work of the murder victims.

Then a third body drops, this time in Minnesota. Still working as a U.S. Marshal Lucas Davenport is brought into the FBI's investigation and brings along Virgil Flowers.

Like the first two murders, the victim was a complete scumbag and the killing was carefully choreographed, so there's little to go on. But as Davenport and Flowers dig deeper, they begin to build a case to bring down a group of deluded sociopaths bent on serving as judge, jury, and executioner.

John Sandford does a superb job creating a villainous, modern-day group. Tech savvy, rich, and suffering from situational ethics, The Five are more than just some fly-by-night group looking for a quick thrill-kill.

Sandford imbues the group with a wide-ranging set of traits that lead them down this murderous path and will keep you interested in learning how they got to this point. As for Lucas Davenport and Virgil Flowers, their buddy cop movie dialogue is razor sharp and at times hilariously profane. Pushed into the case by higher-ups and resented by any number of FBI agents, they hurtle full speed toward an explosive confrontation with The Five.

The 32nd book in a long-running series, Righteous Prey is a sharply drawn story with a crackling plot, sparkling dialogue, and the kind of narrative fireworks that draw enthusiastic readers back to John Sandford's searing thrillers each and every time out.

There’s a lot of SoCal mileage traversed in Jordan Harper’s noirish Everybody Knows, as its damaged protagonists investigate a death that leads to grim discoveries in the land of palm trees and dreamers.

With stop-offs in Brentwood, West Hollywood, Koreatown, Silverlake, East L.A., Calabasas, and more, the author—an Edgar-winner for his 2017 debut novel She Rides Shotgun—delves into the darkness overshadowing the glittery cityscapes and the souls of its power-hungry characters. It’s a bumpy, bruising, bloody journey told in short, choppy James Patterson-esque sentences. Harper, a writer-producer for TV, keeps adjectives to a minimum and cuts to the chase.

The book opens at the Sunset Strip’s famed Chateau Marmont, where Mae Pruett, a publicist specializing in damage control, tracks down troubled actress Hannah Heard. Pruett is in crisis management; Heard is a perpetual crisis. Not terribly likable (no one in this book is, really) Heard came to fame as a teen in the TV series called What If? Her many problems are tied to her tenure on the show where the creator/showrunner is known for proclivities with his beautiful underage talent, male and female. Everybody whispers about it. Nobody dares talk.

Soon Mae’s attention is divided when her superior, a PR “black-bag wizard,” is killed in a carjacking. He was just about to bring Mae on an off-the-books job, one he said would make her rich. Wondering if the confidential assignment was related to his death, Mae begins her own investigation. This leads to a reunion with a former lover, a disgraced cop-turned-muscle for a major private security firm. The hulking Chris Tamburro (who sports a stubble and a 3XL tracksuit) has his own suspicions about the case and readily teams with Mae to uncover the truth.

Mae and Chris have long buried their own ugly truths as pain-dealers. Chris's sins include physical violence (delivered at the command of his employer); Mae’s work demands ugly psychological strong-arming. Like most of the rich and famous people she deals with, Mae is about artifice: originally from the Ozarks, she’s shed her past and her twang for steely resolve. She lets up a bit at home, where a rescue dog reminds us that she’s got a soft side. But like everyone else on her horizon, she’s driven by the lure of money—which in this novel equates to power and freedom. As the book’s epigraph, by Cuban poet José Martí reads, “I have lived in the monster and I know its entrails.”

As Mae and Chris carry out their private surveillance the skies around them sometimes burn bright. Someone is torching L.A.’s homeless encampments. Meantime, politics and power-brokers and ripped-from-the-headlines subplots converge, and what was once viewed as a seemingly random death reveals a far-reaching web.

There are ultimately too many threads to that web and a too-thick mélange of characters. But for those who want a kinetic read, and a L.A. tour that doesn’t require use of a navigation app, Everybody Knows is a full-throttle ride. Just don’t expect to smile.

Among the 200 or so letters by the late author of such acclaimed novels as The Spy Who Came in From the Cold and Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, curated by his son (alas, now also late as of last May 30), there is a note discussing his fondness for F. Scott Fitzgerald. But, as John le Carré, using his real name David Cornwell, wrote, "Three-quarters of Fitzgerald's letters are self-conscious crap, injurious to him and his art alike. If anybody ever went raking in my desk for that stuff, I hope to God I've managed to burn it in time."

Judging by A Private Spy, he was a little shy in feeding the flame. As wonderful a novelist as he was, many of the letters seem purposely impersonal, while others, to writers or actors he admired like Philip Roth or Ralph Fiennes, are overly effusive. The tomes that show the literary quality that illuminated his best novels involve his con man father Ronnie, his second wife Jane, his MI5 mentor Vivian Green (the model for his famous spymaster George Smiley), and correspondence regarding his love-hate feelings toward Graham Greene whose affection for the traitorous ex-spy Kim Philby former British spy Cornwell could not tolerate.

Several of the tomes suggest cracks in the author's self-imposed wall of aloof privacy. He seems almost giddy writing about dinners with Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton, as well as dining with Margaret Thatcher, whom he calls "admirable," though he clearly opposed her conservatism and later on refused her offered CBE (Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire).

Regardless of content, actors David Harewood (Homeland and the mini-series of le Carre's The Night Manager) and Florence Pugh (Don't Worry Darling and the TV version of le Carre's The Little Drummer Girl) deliver the material with a smooth, seemingly effortless dignity that the author would have appreciated. (Note: le Carre's drawings, caricatures, and doodles that illustrate the book are, of course, not included.)