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False Witness

Pat H. Broeske

A brutal and bloody crime carried out by distraught teenagers in the summer of 1998 threatens to derail their lives 20 years later in False Witness, the latest standalone from thriller queen Karin Slaughter.

A successful Atlanta defense attorney with a teenage daughter and an amiable estranged husband, Leigh Collier thought she’d escaped her past. Then came an assignment to defend Andrew Tenant, a wealthy businessman accused of multiple vicious rapes. Though he’s now using a different name, she recognizes Tenant as the precocious son of a low-level mobster named Buddy, for whom she once babysat.

Subsequently, her younger sister Callie inherited Leigh’s gig—as well as unsolicited sexual advances from Buddy. It was 13-yearold Callie’s efforts to defend herself, during a violent assault, that led the sisters to carry out the grisly act which has been their secret for the past two decades.

A slippery customer, Andrew claims to back the #MeToo movement (“I try to be an ally”) while maintaining his innocence. Meantime, additional sex crimes are being committed—with Andrew’s fiancée providing him with ready alibis. Leigh has serious doubts, but it’s her job to defend him, even as he drops oblique references to what happened those many years ago.

Nagging fears send Leigh in search of Callie, now a lifelong drug addict with a string of arrests. When the stakes are raised, threatening Leigh’s immediate family, both sisters fight back.

A pro at layered storytelling and jaw-dropping plot points, Slaughter provides expertise about the court system—as well as the drug addiction that Callie has learned to maintain (by mixing and matching whatever she can ingest or inject to keep her frail system functioning). The author skillfully throws in red herrings, and even a plug for the Tiffany 1837 Makers letter opener (which can be yours for $375), which figures in a killing that could lead police to suspect an innocent person Leigh wants to protect.

All this is carried out against a pandemic backdrop: masks, hand sanitizers, social distancing, COVID-19 statistics. Some of this heightens tension—masks, after all, make criminals hard to spot—but much of it proves to be added weight to an already thick story involving characters who aren’t particularly sympathetic. That said, readers who have come to respect Slaughter for her willingness to examine difficult societal ills by way of an action-filled package won’t be disappointed.

White Throat

Craig Sisterson

When readers first met Clementine “Clem” Jones in Sarah Thornton’s thrilling debut Lapse, the disgraced Sydney lawyer had secreted herself away in the dusty inland town of Katinga and was trying to coach the local team to an historic championship while investigating the off-field troubles of an Aboriginal player. Now in White Throat, Clem’s back in action, though not in Katinga.

House-sitting in Coastal Queensland, Clem’s quietly helping a local environmental group try to save the rare, white-throated snapping turtle—much to the chagrin of local developers and politicians. When Clem’s pal Helen, the group’s leader, is found dead and the cops say suicide, Clem steps forward and strikes out on her own dangerous investigation. Meanwhile she’s being pulled in all directions by the entreaties of her Katinga players and townsfolk who want her back as well as offers from big-city law firms.

Thornton delivers another engaging tale where plenty happens to keep the pages turning. There’s a particularly strong sense of place, as Thornton immerses readers in Coastal Queensland and its small-town atmosphere full of quirky locals and others passing through. Readers’ overall enjoyment may ebb and flow depending on their feelings towards Clem, who can veer from heroic to pitiable, crafty to rather foolish at times. She’s a sharp lawyer, but also naïve.

Thornton does a good job making readers care about what happens—both in terms of Clem’s investigation into her friend’s death and how various outcomes will play out for her and other characters. More of a crime thriller than a mystery, White Throat has a murder mystery spine, but the threat of bad things that may still come looms even larger. An action-packed slice of Aussie crime fiction.

Fatal Family Ties

Joseph Scarpato, Jr.

When Texas genealogist Lucy Lancaster is approached by a former coworker to help clear the name of an ancestor of hers who fought for the South in the Civil War and is now being castigated as a coward and deserter in a recent magazine article, she reluctantly agrees. Her reluctance is due, in no small part, to her boyfriend Ben’s availability that week to spend time with her away from his secret agent government job.

Her new client, Camilla Brathwaite, explains that the ancestor under scrutiny had three children, lived into his 90s, and left a large, seemingly amateurish triptych painting of a Civil War battle to his children, with each third left to each of his three offspring. The efforts to investigate Camilla’s genealogical history and salvage the Braithwaite family name take a dangerous turn, though, when one of the family members is found murdered and one of the three triptych pieces goes missing.

The trail leads Lucy and Ben back to the Howland University Library in Houston, the site of Lucy’ former workplace—and several former coworkers who made her employment there less than enjoyable. Could one of them be involved? Why did the author of the article go out of her way to depict the Civil War veteran in such a viciously worded way? And could Lucy be the next potential victim of this puzzling case?

Although the third entry in the Lucy Lancaster genealogical murder mystery series is a lengthy one at more than 450 pages, S.C. Perkins is able to maintain reader interest thanks to the unusual on-again, off-again professional relationship between Lucy and Camilla, the always on-again romantic relationship between Lucy and Ben, and the excitement of growing danger as the solution of the mystery begins to take shape. As a bonus, I also managed to pick up some interesting insights into genealogy along the way.

The Cellist

Jay Roberts

In Daniel Silva’s new Gabriel Allon thriller, the head of the Israeli intelligence office is counting down the months until his term ends. He has no intention of continuing in the job, but before he rides off into retirement, there’s plenty to accomplish.

That to-do list gets a bit longer when an old “friend,” exiled Russian oligarch Victor Orlov, is murdered. Orlov had long been a target of the criminals in charge of Russia and they finally crossed his name of their list. But the use of poison to kill Orlov draws Gabriel’s interest because Sarah Bancroft, another old friend of Gabriel’s, was exposed to the poison as well. Documents given to Orlov by a journalist are determined to be how the poison was delivered and the intelligence services from Israel, England, and America are now looking for the reporter.

A far bigger “game” is revealed when they locate the reporter. The documents were a series of material drops she received that implicated a childhood friend of the Russian president with running a group responsible for trying to undermine the Western world through the use of KGB tactics.

Determined to bring an end to the blood feud he’s had with the Russians for years, Allon seizes upon the opportunity to team up with Isabel Brenner, the original source of the documents (and a former cellist, thus the title). She works for RhineBank, the world’s dirtiest bank responsible for laundering billions of Russian money. Through a series of deftly plotted moves, they plan to destroy the entire Russian apparatus and its attacks against the West. But dealing with the Russians is never easy, and it will take all of Allon’s experience to complete the mission and get everyone out alive.

Spy novels have to find the right balance between the out-of-the-spotlight acts of espionage and enough of a story punch to keep things interesting. For that, Daniel Silva continues to be one of the great masters of the genre. The book’s narrative features a slew of international stops that factor into the setting for each step of the operation. The new characters quickly make their mark on the reader, while established characters reach new heights, as well.

Since this series is tied to real-world events as much as possible, the ongoing pandemic plays a role in each step of travel during the mission. Between that and the inclusion of the most recent presidential election, the book could’ve become more of an academic treatise than spy thriller. Happily, that was not the case. Just when readers think it’s over, there are more thrills to be had. Despite a wealth of technical information about banking, elections, and computer hacking, the fraught-with-tension step-by-step manner in how the operation unfurls will keep readers on the edge of their seats.

When Ghosts Come Home

Craig Sisterson

As an unabashed fan of Wiley Cash’s earlier Southern noir tales of broken and bedraggled people clawing for something better for themselves or those they care about in the contradictory gumbo of small-town North Carolina, it’s been a long seven-year wait since his CWA Gold Dagger-winning This Dark Road to Mercy (punctuated by Cash’s historical tale, The Last Ballad, entwined with 1920s union conflict).

In When Ghosts Come Home, Sheriff Winston Barnes and his cancer-battling wife are woken by a plane coming in low over their home in coastal North Carolina. It’s the 1980s, the town has a small airstrip, but no one should be landing at night. When Sheriff Barnes, who’s in the final days of an election fight he’s destined to lose, discovers a large plane crashed yet completely empty, and the body of a local black man shot dead nearby, he embarks on an investigation that will forever alter him and his community. As rumors fly and tensions crackle, Barnes also has to deal with a visiting FBI specialist and his own daughter, who’s made a surprise visit home from Texas as she continues to grieve a heartbreaking loss.

Trauma weighs down many characters in Cash’s latest novel, which sings along on lyrical prose, rich characters, and an exquisite sense of place. Can Sheriff Barnes find the killer before he’s kicked out of office by local developer Bradley Frye, who seems more interested in power than justice? Will the racial tensions in town explode as Confederate flag-waving trucks terrorize Black neighborhoods?

Cash weaves a rather wonderful tale—and for much of the story When Ghosts Come Home threatens to match or somehow better the layered and lyrical brilliance of A Land More Kind Than Home and This Dark Road to Mercy. But Cash set the bar very high with his first two crime novels, and perhaps here he wobbles it rather than clearing it clean. Some events may divide or dismay readers (and there’s perhaps a shade too much “author hand” to deliver a desired effect here and there). But overall, Cash has once again delivered an exceptionally fine novel. When Ghosts Come Home is something to savor.

Looking forward to the next.

Billy Summers

Kevin Burton Smith

Well, he did it.

After years of threats and promises, Stephen King has finally delivered a straightup crime novel. Straight up, no chaser.

No woo-woo involved. Really! This is pulp fiction of the highest order. Think Richard Stark, Max Allan Collins, Donald Hamilton, Dan J. Marlowe, Charles Williams, and Lawrence Block. Think guys like that.

Billy is a blandly affable, smart, and even sensitive guy who likes to read (he’s currently reading Émile Zola). He just happens to to earn his daily bread by killing people. But he only kills bad people, so I guess that makes it okay.

Then again, he kills them on behalf of other bad people (mostly mobsters), a shaky justification at best—something not lost on Billy. Which is why the former Army sniper decides enough is enough. It’s time to quit. But then he’s offered a two-million dollar payout that seems to be too good to be true.

The job would set up Billy for the rest of his life, but he’s smart enough to know how often “one last job” turns out in books and movies. Still… two million smackeroos? He puts on his “dumb face,” tucks his Archie comic in his pocket, and takes the job.

It entails going deep undercover, posing as a writer renting an office in a certain city in the South, overlooking a certain courthouse, and waiting, possibly for months (with his high-powered rifle), for a certain individual to show up. In the meantime, he’s to pose as an ordinary citizen, renting a home, meeting the neighbors, fitting in... and waiting.

And there’s the rub. The easy-rolling Billy, in a page right out of Block’s Keller series (also about a hit man), begins to fit in all too well, even as alarms start going off. Is his client setting him up? Why’s the building owner always dropping by? And will the grass on the lawn of his rented house ever grow?

But this is King, after all. What starts as a pulpy, kick-ass hit man procedural soon morphs into something more. While posing as a writer, Billy discovers previously undiagnosed literary ambitions, and begins to write the story of his life. Slightly fictionalized, of course, but that story-within-a-story soon becomes just as compelling—especially when everything goes pear-shaped and Billy and a girl (Hey, there’s always a girl!) have to go on the lam. From really bad guys.

As a thriller, this one hits like a hammer, a taut and gripping white-knuckler that will keep readers up way past their bedtime (I conked out at four). But it’s Billy’s intertwined memoirs that turn this into something else: an unabashed love letter to writing, and the redemptive and transformative power writing (and reading) can bring.

Which is a whole other kind of woo-woo.

The Comfort of Monsters

Margaret Agnew

In Willa C. Richards debut novel The Comfort of Monsters there isn’t really any comfort to be found. Set in Milwaukee the summer of Jeffrey Dahmer’s arrest, it’s a dark, brooding tale about one woman’s search for her long-lost sister that is unrelieved by lighter moments or humor, and wherein even happy memories are colored by grief.

At the start of the novel, Peg McBride’s mother is dying. Desperate to find answers before Ma goes to her grave, the McBride family turns to a psychic for help concerning the disappearance of Peg’s sister, Dee, 30 years ago. Dee’s body was never found, her case hardly investigated by the police, and no culprit ever named. All Ma wants is Dee buried beside her when she goes. If she can’t be with daughter in life, she wants to spend eternity beside her in death.

Back in the day, Peg and Dee were both in college and new relationships. Dee was dating an older man whom Peg hated. She found him brutish and rude, and not nearly good enough for her sister. Her own boyfriend, at first, seemed better. Leif was a fellow student, a poet like Peg, and devilishly handsome. He was also a match ready to light, increasingly turning violent at any inconvenience.

Peg, Leif, Dee, and later, Leif’s drugaddicted brother Erik, are hardly likable people, constantly drinking, smoking, using drugs, and fighting with one another. After one perfect storm of a night, Dee leaves Peg and Leif’s apartment and is never seen again.

One of the last people to see Dee alive and with only angry words as her last to her sister, Peg blames herself for Dee’s disappearance—and has for three decades. The tragedy has left Peg moody, lonely, and single-minded. The character study into Peg is deep, and it is grim. Her search feels like her last shot to find answers about her sister and, perhaps, finally move on with her life. After all this time what she and her family need is closure.

Though there is a mystery to be uncovered, this is a novel more about the effects of crime on those touched by tragedy than the solving or resolution of it. Though Peg is absolutely convinced that Dee’s boyfriend, Frank, murdered her, there’s never been confirmation that Dee was murdered at all. Only in the very last pages does the reader see a little light peeking through. Unfortunately, The Comfort of Monsters is a story bound by realism, where closure isn’t really that simple. Not every story gets a happy ending, after all.

Bullet Train

Craig Sisterson

While the translated crime wave may have begun with the Scandinavians, in recent years there’s been a pleasing rise in mysteries from other languages becoming more readily available for English-speaking readers. It’s particularly thrilling to see a surge in translations from Japan, which has an extraordinarily rich history in the genre going back a century. In fact, while the first Edgar Award for Best Novel was presented by the Mystery Writers of America in 1954, their Japanese counterparts began several years earlier.

This latest translation from Kotaro Isaka, a modern master of Japanese thrillers, is a prime example. His two dozen novels have sold millions of copies, and many have been adapted for the screen in Japan, but Bullet Train is only the second of his thrillers to be translated into English. Perhaps that will change soon however, with a Hollywood adaptation starring Brad Pitt and Sandra Bullock already in production.

It’s easy to see why Hollywood is keen: Bullet Train is a twisting thriller that takes a high-concept scenario and layers in quirky characters and unique touches that will likely delight viewers as much as readers. Five assassins board the shinkansen in Tokyo, seemingly for different reasons, yet all become enmeshed with a suitcase full of money. Two hit men nicknamed Tangerine and Lemon—one a booklover who quotes Dostoevsky, the other a Thomas the Tank Engine obsessive; the world’s unluckiest assassin; an alcoholic father and ex-hit man out for revenge; and a psychopathic teenager. Murkiness and betrayals; who will survive?

Bullet Train revels in dark humor and near-farce, as Isaka takes readers on a delightfully manic, cinematic journey that hurtles along the rails. There’s a lot to enjoy and love here. It’s a refreshing spin on crime thrillers, delivered with panache, and something quite different than the honkaku traditions (classic Golden Age style murder mysteries), which formed the bedrock of early Japanese mystery writing and continue to prove popular. Isaka is definitely a crime writer to watch, and read.

Cutthroat Dogs

Kevin Burton Smith

Like the ancient Cutlass he drives, Loren D. Estleman’s Detroit private eye Amos Walker is something of a classic. The author’s been pounding fenders in the Gumshoe Garage for decades.

So, while plenty of newer, shinier models have come and gone, wasting away in literary scrapyards or stripped for spare parts, Estleman (and Walker) just keep on keeping on, Motown’s enduring gift to the genre.

Motor City Blue, the series debut, rolled off the showroom floor more than 40 years ago, and Cutthroat Dogs marks Walker’s 30th novel-length appearance.

Walker’s still as unapologetically retro as ever (I was shocked to discover he even has a cellphone), but it would be churlish (and wrong) to pin Walker down as yesterday’s man. Sure, he’s getting on in years (and well aware of it), he’s still cranky as hell, he still drives a gas guzzler “camouflaged with dents and rust,” and he still craves a smoke every now and then, but he lives and breathes the sweat and dirt of now, viewing the world with a jaundiced eye and a life of experience under his belt.

A chance encounter at a bank (okay, he shot a guy) leads Walker to his newest client, cashier Chrys Corbeil, who wants him to look into the death of University of Detroit student April Goss, who was found dead in her bathtub 20 years ago. Chrys’ older brother Dan was charged with her murder and sent to prison, and that was that. Except that Chrys believes Dan is innocent, and worries that, after 19 years in prison, her brother is losing it.

Walker is skeptical, and April’s father, Chester, a powerful TV producer who managed to parlay his daughter’s death into Cutthroat Dogs, a long-running, heavy-breathing, true-crime reality show, remains firmly (and professionally) convinced justice was done.

Undeterred, Walker decides to poke around, just a little...and all hell breaks loose. Old pals John Alderdyce (dapper “special consultant” to the Detroit police) and Barry Stackpole (muckraking reporter) are both on hand to lend a hand, both raging in their own ways against the dying of the light, and an uneasy alliance with a disgraced cop is struck, but this is Walker’s show all the way. And nobody does old-school, hard-boiled dick like Estleman. He’s Hammett-hard, and Chandler-smart-ass, with the world weariness locked right in. Walker works the case, “sorting out the lies from the half-truths,” never stopping to text or tweet. You young ’uns could learn a lesson…

Jove Brand Is Near Death

Katrina Niidas Holm

Witty banter and whiz-bang plotting distinguish J.A. Crawford’s rollicking debut, Jove Brand Is Near Death. Eighteen years ago, mixed martial artist Ken Allen played British superspy Jove Brand in the film franchise’s only fiasco to date—a Hong Kong-set movie titled Near Death that was so bad, it never even got a US theatrical release.

Ken wasn’t anyone’s first choice for the role—that actor overdosed in a Ukrainian hotel room—he was, however, the only guy in the city matching Brand’s description, which was sufficient for the purposes of Near Death’s desperate producer. Celebrated actor Sir Collin Preston subsequently assumed the role and restored the Brand name to its former glory, but after 15 years, it’s time for a change. To earn some extra cash, Ken—now a personal trainer—agrees to appear in a variety show sketch introducing Niles Endsworth as Sir Collin’s replacement.

Regrettably, during a break in shooting, someone kills Sir Collin by crushing his windpipe with a karate chop—the same way the villain died in Near Death. Ken discovers the corpse, which, coupled with the cause of death, renders him a suspect. The case against him strengthens when, days later, a Jove Brand superfan attending a convention at which Ken is signing autographs suffers a similar fate. Arrest seems imminent and hired thugs keep thwarting his investigative efforts, so Ken goes on the run, channeling his inner Jove Brand with the help of high-tech toys from friend and special effects master Ray Ford.

Crawford deftly juxtaposes abundant action and escalating stakes with snarky humor and a breezy tone. Expertly choreographed fight sequences and spectacular set pieces amplify the story’s inherently cinematic feel, and the gratifying close will leave readers clamoring for a sequel.

The Ninja Betrayed

Katrina Niida Holms

Got an itch for intercontinental travel? Pick up Tori Eldridge’s third Lily Wong novel, The Ninja Betrayed. This electrifying follow-up to 2020’s The Ninja’s Blade finds 25-year-old Lily—a Chinese-Norwegian, modern-day ninja who extracts abused women from perilous situations—accompanying her mother, Violet, on a fraught trip to Hong Kong.

Though Violet runs the Los Angeles division of Hong Kong International Finance, she’s never fully earned the respect of her father, Shaozu, who heads the company. Consequently, when Shaozu announces a spur-of the-moment board meeting and refuses to tell Violet the topic, she fears for her future at HKIF. And with good reason, as it happens. The day after she and Lily arrive, Shaozu’s business partner, Raymond Ng, moves to replace Violet. He claims HKIF needs to stay relevant if they’re to expand their market in the United States, but Lily suspects other forces are at play and starts to dig, attracting the attention of some very dangerous men.

In the interim, Lily also makes time to explore the city with her new boyfriend, Daniel Kwok, who is in Hong Kong for work, and to watch over her driver’s teenage daughter, Jing, who belongs to a pro-democracy group protesting legislation that would permit the extradition of fugitives to China. Part thriller, part mystery, part travelogue, Eldridge’s latest is a richly textured tale that fully capitalizes on both setup and setting. Inventive, expertly executed fights and chases share the page with mouthwatering meals and scenic vistas, while feints and twists propel the plot and set the stage for Lily’s next adventure.

Murder and Gold

Katrina Niida Holms

For a fresh twist on New York City noir, check out Ann Aptaker’s Murder and Gold. Set in 1954, this fifth-in-series mystery (after 2018’s Flesh and Gold) opens with “dapper butch art thief and smuggler” Cantor Gold exiting her Theater District apartment building to find last night’s fling, Lorraine Quinn, dead on the sidewalk.

Lieutenant Norm Huber is already on the scene, which spells trouble for Cantor; not only does Huber resent Cantor for getting in his way during a prior investigation, but he also hates criminals and people of her “romantic persuasion.” After dodging questions about her connection to the victim, Cantor visits the Gramercy Park home of wealthy collector Eve Garraway, who hired Cantor to steal a 4,500-year-old Sumerian figurine from a palace in Baghdad. Cantor delivers the goods, pockets her fee, and is out front talking with Eve’s next appointment, museum curator Vivienne Parkhurst Trent, when Eve’s panicked butler, Desmond, bursts through the door. Cantor and Vivienne follow Desmond to Eve’s office, where the woman lies face-down in a pool of blood.

A call to the police results in Cantor’s second run-in with Huber in as many hours. Given the gleeful look in the lieutenant’s eye, Cantor knows that if she’s to avoid the electric chair, she must do whatever it takes to solve both women’s murders, and quickly. Tony trappings and a wry first-person narrative complement the colorful cast of Aptaker’s swiftly paced, tightly plotted puzzle. Unlikely partnerships and ground-shifting reveals abound, keeping Cantor on her toes. Those previously unacquainted with Cantor needn’t circle back to book one before diving in; Aptaker provides enough backstory to make this an easy series on-ramp.

Canyonlands Carnage

Katrina Niida Holms

Outdoor enthusiasts, environmentalists, and history buffs will all find something that satisfies in Canyonlands Carnage. Scott Graham’s seventh National Park Mystery (after 2020’s Mesa Verde Victim) sends archeologist Chuck Bender on a whitewater rafting expedition designed to foster communication between the scientists, government officials, and corporate representatives who shape the American Southwest’s water policy. In exchange for captaining the group’s equipment barge and giving talks regarding the Colorado River Basin’s geology, plants, animals, and archeological and anthropological past, Chuck gets a free trip through remote Canyonlands National Park in Utah. Along for the ride is Chuck’s brother-in-law, Clarence Ortega, who will be helping the guides with their grunt work.

When the trip’s co-leader, retired professor Ralph Hycum, dies of an apparent heart attack, Chuck is mournful, though unconcerned; Ralph was in his 70s, and their journey thus far has been physically demanding. But when one of the barge’s newly replaced oarlocks breaks, spilling Chuck and Clarence into a treacherous stretch of river, Chuck begins to fear that one of their number is a killer.

Graham beautifully captures what it’s like to navigate the rapids—the danger, the thrill, the skill required— while also painting a vivid picture of the region’s myriad natural wonders. The denouement is perhaps a touch convoluted, but Graham amply compensates with adventure and interpersonal drama. What’s more, the author manages to present an impassioned argument for water conservation without it feeling like a lecture.

The Trees

Katrina Niida Holms

At once mordantly funny and intensely affective, Percival Everett’s The Trees spotlights America’s long history of institutional racism and violence against people of color. Set in Money, Mississippi, the book opens with Daisy Milam finding her husband, Ku Klux Klan member Junior Junior, dead in the bathroom. Near Junior Junior’s mutilated form lies the corpse of an unknown Black man, which disappears from the morgue before the coroner can perform an autopsy.

When news of the incident spreads to the state’s capitol, the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation dispatches Black detectives Ed Morgan and Jim Davis to assist Money’s white sheriff, Red Jetty. Red initially objects, but relents when Junior Junior’s cousin, fellow Klan member Wheat Bryant, meets the same end, and the wayward Black corpse materializes onsite only to vanish from the coroner’s van.

Ed and Jim soon learn that the dead white men’s fathers, J.M. Milam and Roy Bryant, lynched 14-year-old Emmett Till in 1955, and that the dead Black man looks just like young Emmett. The MBI detectives assume the killings are isolated acts of vengeance—until similar crimes start happening all over the country.

Evocative prose, surreal imagery, and vibrant characters elevate Everett’s mystery, which intrigues while calling out the systematic erasure of the 7,000-plus Black and Asian people who have been lynched in the United States (a total that includes those killed by police). The pace motors, the snappy dialogue offers moments of laugh-out-loud humor, and though the cryptic conclusion is short on answers, it certainly inspires readers to ask the right questions.

The Rocky Road to Ruin

Robin Agnew

In Meri Allen’s inaugural series outing, The Rocky Road to Ruin, heroine Riley Rhodes is returning to her small New England hometown after her stint as an undercover CIA operative (as a librarian) went horribly wrong. She wouldn’t miss the funeral of her best friend’s mother, and as is the way of the mystery novel, her friend’s brother is murdered the night of the event.

The leading suspect is Riley’s best friend, Caroline, whose feelings about the death of her brother are decidedly mixed. Caroline’s late mother owned a farm as well as a gourmet (homemade, get ready to crave some) ice cream shop and Riley steps in to help. The endless hard work required takes the women’s minds off the crime, mostly, so when Riley starts nosing around, it’s very much a side bar to the police investigation.

I liked this aspect of the book very much. While as a reader you often have to suspend your disbelief (and I willingly do so) regarding the amateur’s “help” to a police investigation, it wasn’t necessary here, as Riley investigates in a credible way. I also liked the complexity of the characters and their interactions. Caroline’s relationship with her dead brother is complicated, not black-and-white, and the motivations of the other characters in the book are just as richly nuanced. As far as the “finding yourself” aspect goes, Riley decides to stay on and run the ice cream shop, so it’s another check mark on that front.

This was a fun, breezy, kickoff to a new series, and I enjoyed the details of ice cream making a little too much, all of it really, really, really making me want a peach ice cream cone. Two scoops, please.

Deadly Summer Nights

Robin Agnew

Another aspect of the cozy mystery that’s vastly underappreciated is, quite simply, pacing. One of the writers whose skill is practically unmatched in this department is Vicki Delany, who launches yet another new series with Deadly Summer Nights.

In this one, set in 1953, she turns her deft hand to the historical mystery. A real stand out, the book is set in a Catskills resort, and Delany captures the feel of the culture—wealthy New York families would spend several weeks of the summer at these resorts, enjoying the many planned activities, entertainments, and fine dining. Grossinger’s was by far the most famous, but the Catskills were full of them, and Delany sets hers at the fictional Haggerman’s. (Sadly, all of them are now defunct). Delany also captures the feel of running and working at a resort. Being a resort brat myself, the work required to run a hotel 24/7 during the season was familiar, and her heroine, Elizabeth Grady, handles the nuts and bolts of things while her mother, a faded but still glam Broadway star, works the “front of the house.”

Elizabeth has barely a minute to herself and when she finds the body of one of her guests, it’s almost more than she can handle. Like any good cozy heroine, however, Elizabeth is intrepid, and, besides, the fate of her resort is at stake. Not only is there a man down on her property, but he was an apparent Communist, and right at the height of the Red Scare. Neither of these things are good for business.

Delany also thoughtfully provides Elizabeth with two possible love interests, as well as a crime that’s suitably tricky and heartbreaking all at the same time. Delany’s gift with character is front and center in this novel, and it’s reflected in the denouement. This is a great start to a new series—vivid, well-written, and snappy.

Murder Always Barks Twice

Robin Agnew

I was a newcomer to Jennifer Hawkins’ chatty corgi series, though as this is only the second one, it was easy to catch up. Following the cozy tropes, heroine Emma has left a finance job in London to open a Cornish tea shop as her true passion is...cakes. Along with her is her corgi, Oliver, who “talks” to Emma (she is the only one who understands what he says).

In the series opener Emma established herself in the tea shop, and here in the second, Murder Always Barks Twice, she is challenged by a huge catering job—providing food for a literary festival celebrating the pride of Cornwall, Daphne du Maurier. And there’s scandal afoot. The organization has been having money woes, and when Emma goes up to an estate for the festival board’s tasting, she discovers the main organizer, Marcie, dead. Emma is drawn into the investigation because she feels obligated—she found the body, and she’d liked Marcie, the two women sharing a love for Du Maurier’s classic Rebecca.

The suspect pool is quite small, basically Marcie’s family, but Hawkins manages to pull it off, keeping the reader guessing Golden Age style until the very end. I was initially skeptical about the talking corgi but he turned out to have a very endearing doggy-eye view of the world and his assistance is (mostly) believable. I liked Emma and rooted for her, and I loved the Cornwall setting as well as the connection to Daphne du Maurier. This was a stellar read.

The Comanche Kid

Hank Wagner

James Robert Daniels’ The Comanche Kid is a winning Western that recalls classics like Alan LeMay’s The Searchers, Charles Portis’ True Grit, Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove, as well as Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, it tells the story of 16-year-old Jane, who has to grow up instantly when most of her family is slaughtered by a Comanche raiding party. Adopting the guise of her deceased twin Jamie, she sets out to find her kidnapped sister Sally, and to take her revenge on those who ruined her life. Doing so, she learns she is the equal of any man. Daniels’ debut is tough, gritty, and knowing, a well-written, well-wrought tale of danger and high adventure set in the American West.

Once Upon a Time in Hollywood

Hank Wagner

I really enjoyed Quentin Tarantino’s 2019 film, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, savoring it for its “inside Hollywood” knowingness and its wishful recreation of the horrific events occurring on Cielo Drive in Beverly Hills on the fateful night of August 9, 1969, involving members of the so-called Manson Family and actress Sharon Tate. Also fascinating was the retro merchandise issued coincident with the film, and the promise of a novelization from the director.

A little over two years after the film’s premiere, I’m pleased to report that the novelization Once Upon a Time in Hollywood was well worth the wait, teeming with titillating historical dish on the Hollywood scene and scintillating background on each of the main characters, especially stoic stuntman Cliff Booth. Both a love letter to and critique of Tinseltown, the book, whose prose often seems to be channeling MWA Grand Master James Ellroy, also has the feel of a cheap 1970s paperback, complete with back page ads for Oliver’s Story and Serpico; the only thing missing is a cardboard insert hawking Red Apple cigarettes.

Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror

Hank Wagner

Michael Shea’s Mr. Cannyharme: A Novel of Lovecraftian Terror, edited by H.P. Lovecraft scholar S. T. Joshi, brings to light a manuscript Shea created in 1981, telling the stories of the denizens of a seedy San Francisco Mission District hotel who find themselves facing a supernatural threat almost beyond their comprehension, which seems to emanate from a longtime resident of the establishment, the aged, vaguely creepy Mr. Cunningham. Cunningham, who appears to feed on despair, has dastardly plans for each of them; whether they succumb to his evil machinations depends largely on their free will, and strength of character. Fans of acclaimed author Shea will instantly fall in love with this newly uncovered treasure; those unfamiliar with his work will likely perceive it as a gateway to his very worthy backlist, which includes the novels The Color Out of Time and Nifft the Lean.

The Next Wife

Hank Wagner

Kaira Rouda’s The Next Wife is a tale of corporate intrigue, featuring two ambitious and compelling women, middle-aged Kate Nelson, ex-wife but still business partner of John Nelson (CEO and public face of recent IPO candidate EventCo), and twenty-something Tish Nelson, former Executive Assistant to John, and currently the “next wife” of the title. Already in competition over John, who appears to regret his decision to leave Kate, the two also have diverging ideas about the direction in which EventCo should head, and who should lead it into the future. Their clash has lethal consequences, which raises the stakes between them to heretofore unimagined levels.

Rouda is a master of psychological suspense, constantly shifting perspectives and dangling tantalizing clues and background information before her increasingly anxious audience, making for true edge-of-the- seat reading, at once invigorating and enervating (in a good way).

The Turnout

Dick Lochte

When we first meet sisters Dara and Marie Durant in Megan Abbott’s new work of deliciously disturbing fiction, they’ve been operating the family’s school of dance with Charlie, their adopted brother and Dara’s husband, for the 12 years since their parent’s fatal car crash.

As they prepare the school’s annual favorite ballet presentation, The Nutcracker, there are sounds of sibling discordance in the air. Though the plot unfolds objectively, we see events from the point of view of older sis Dara, its protagonist. Initially, the discord seems to stem from Marie’s childish attitude, an odd combination of dreaminess and truculence. Though clearly there’s something deeper. When a fire breaks out in the studio where Marie’s been living, possibly caused by her carelessness, the need for damage repair opens their lives to Derek, a sinister contractor, conman, and woman seducer-abuser whom Marie, naturally, finds irresistible.

The stage is set not just for The Nutcracker, which serves as both McGuffin and metaphor, but for a sort of family Armageddon that includes violent death. Reader Cassandra Campbell is keenly aware of the importance of maintaining Abbott’s atmosphere of unease as well as the author’s unique manner of building tension by aligning us with Dara’s darkly suspicious persona.

Campbell catches the character’s many moods, from stern teacher, to spiky, almost abrasive sister, to painfully helpless, trapped woman, while Marie is given a soft, Sugar Plumb Fairy voice that can harden in a nanosecond. Charlie, his body wrecked by a relentless youthful dedication to ballet, sounds boyish and ineffective, and Derek’s initial professional unctuousness quickly slides into a smarmy, bullying snarl. In addition to the ballet dancing, deaths, the Durant family secrets, all described in almost mesmerizing prose, there is a jaw-dropping twist that we might have seen coming were the existing clues not smartly overshadowed by distractions worthy of a master magician.

Suburban Dicks

Dick Lochte

Set in everybody’s favorite homicide locale, suburban New Jersey, this debut crime caper by a co-creator of the comic book anti-superhero Deadpool pairs former FBI profiler and currently “47 months pregnant” soccer mom Andie Stern with her grade school crush Kenny Lee, a disgraced journo desperate to reestablish his creds. Their involvement in what will become a multilayered series of murders, dismemberments, and other hate crimes begins with Andie arriving seconds after the blatant assassination of a gas station attendant and subsequently witnessing the local cops’ literal and figurative clueless handling of the crime scene.

Reader Natalie Naudus presents Andie with her sharp tongue and innate intelligence cutting though a weariness brought on by incipient motherhood, a quartet of four wild kids, and an insultingly inattentive husband. For Kenny (“a Pulitzer at 22, disgraced by 27, irrelevant by 29”) she shifts to a voice filled with aggressive energy and false bravado. There are moments when Naudus is especially effective—Kenny’s sinking spirits in the presence of his tiger mom; Andie switching to her “original Queens” accent while chatting up her BFF. The plot is beautifully- constructed, with a payoff as hilarious as it is satisfying, but it’s the unique, well-crafted, and smartly performed characters that make this one of the year’s more entertaining audios.

The Hollywood Spy

Dick Lochte

Maggie Hope’s 10th WWII adventure (after The King’s Justice in 2020), sends the shrewd British secret agent to Los Angeles in 1943 on a personal rather than wartime mission. Her former fiancé, John Sterling, needs help in proving that his lover’s drowning in the Garden of Allah Hotel swimming pool wasn’t, as the coroner would have it, an accidental death.

Maggie has barely felt her first kiss of Southern California sunshine before chemist Linus Pauling has assisted her in labeling the drowning a murder, and a grim one at that. In fact, the city, past the sun, sand, and celebs, is a nightmarish place where not only do Black lives not matter, Aryan supremacy is on the march according to local slogan, “The cops and the Klan go hand in hand.” (Susan Elia MacNeal, say hello to James Ellroy!)

In this series, fictional characters often mix it up with real folk, so, in addition to Pauling, Maggie gets to meet John’s boss Walt Disney, Garden of Allah guest Robert Benchley, Howard Hughes, Lena Horne, and a cast of, well, hundreds. While British-accented narrator Susan Duerden doesn’t attempt celebrity impersonations, her collection of American voices is impressive, and in the case of gruff L.A. lawmen, surprisingly guttural. As interpreted by Duerden, MacNeal’s Maggie is a likeable, spunky heroine who does not suffer fools or corrupt cops. Her investigation proceeds at an intriguing if moderate clip, with witnesses, suspects, and anti-Axis Angelinos dying right and left. But the action turns feverish when frequent appearances of The Great Gatsby first editions trigger Maggie’s long suit, codebreaking. Case closed, and she’s off to Madrid and book 11.

Ellery Queen The American Gun Mystery

DIck Lochte

With a dismaying amount of new mysteries hitting the shelves each week, their publishers and authors vying for attention, it’s something of a relief to step back, take a deep breath, and dip into the genre’s less frenetic, less relevant, and, yes, less pretentious crime novels of the past, now happily provided by a variety of audio publishers like Blackstone.

Back when I attempted to read all of the early Ellery Queens—the ones written by the series creators, cousins Frederic Dannay and Manfred B. Lee, I somehow overlooked book six, The American Gun Mystery, published in 1933—a failing now rectified. The book is not quite in the same league as the series’ debut novel, The Roman Hat Mystery, or book nine, The Spanish Cape Mystery. It’s overly talky, with Ellery a bit late in beginning his sleuthing, but it’s still a nifty puzzler with murder taking place at a world famous rodeo where not one of the 20,000 fans at a New York sports arena noticed who fired the shot killing the star of the show.

As is his wont, Queen points out significant clues—deep creases in the leather belt of the murdered man, the unique ivory gun butt of a revolver, the precise way a green box’s lock had been pried open— daring the reader to pre-guess him, As if. Though 1930s manners and mores are in place, politics, and the roiling of the social fabric are kept on the down low. This is definitely a comfort audio, with reader Dan Butler’s crisp radio announcer’s narration adding to the yarn’s accessibility. Ellery, in this early incantation, before his Hollywood screenwriting adventures mellow him, is a rather haughty, Harvard-educated, pince nez wearing crime novelist and amateur criminologist who lives with his widowed father, a hard-boiled New York police inspector.

Dan Butler gets Ellery’s stuffiness right but goes a little heavy on dad Queen’s Irish brogue. The mystery is a clever concoction, smoothly presented and satisfyingly concluded, the equivalent of an enjoyable, professionally made B-movie from the golden days of yore

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