Deborah Crombie: A Killing of Innocents Sunday, Mar 5 2023

Crombie’s 19th Duncan Kincaid/Gemma James was worth waiting for, with The Killing of Innocents the new case that starts in a Bloomsbury pub.

Sitting with his DS, Doug Cullen, Duncan notices a young woman wearing scrubs, obviously waiting for someone who never arrives. She leaves, and he is shocked to be called shortly after to a murder scene. The victim is the young trainee doctor he’s just seen, stabbed to death in Russell Square.

With Gemma working on a task force on rising knife crimes, she and her DS, Melody Talbot, aid their investigation, Soon all the familiar characters are in force, and the case takes an unlikely turn with relationships to people Duncan and Gemma know.

At first glance, Sasha Johnson looks like an unlikely victim: career-driven, single, without any history that would connect her to crime. Digging deeper reveals her secrets, but did they lead to her murder?

Then a colleague of Sasha’s is found dead, and the teams scramble to find a connection other than their work site. Could they have a serial killer on their hands? It’s all hands on deck as the pieces are gathered to form a picture of a murderer working in plain sight.

One of the many delights of Crombie’s novels is the way she investigates her setting and brings it to life for readers. Another is her inclusion of the family travails of two working detectives. It all adds to the realistic atmosphere of everyday stresses that must be handled even while investigating a murder.

At its heart, this is a very fine mystery, peppered with human-like characters you’ll want to return to, set within a complex plot that will have readers scratching their heads along with the detectives until the stunning climax.

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Mariah Fredericks’: The Lindbergh Nanny Tuesday, Nov 15 2022

Mariah Fredericks’ THE LINDBERGH NANNY takes readers inside the homes of Anne Morrow and Charles Lindbergh, exploring their marriage, their travels, and the horrific kidnapping in 1932 of their first-born child, Charlie, all from the point of view of the young nanny they hire, Betty Gow.

A Scottish immigrant learning East Coast etiquette after a disastrous affair, Betty is often put off by the eccentricities of Colonel Lindbergh. She admires Anne Lindbergh for her attempts to live up to her husband’s expectations, despite her shy and nervous manner. Coming from a monied family, the young couple live with the Morrow’s as they renovate a house in New Jersey.

Charlie is a darling child, sweet-natured and adventurous, and well as he gets on with Betty, Anne Morrow often worries he’s growing more attached to his nanny when she’s away on world-wide jaunts with her famous husband. At times not understanding how the parents can be away from Charlie for such extended periods, she nevertheless spends her own money on his clothing when he outgrows what she’s been left with. Yet she carves out a life for herself and even has a new beau.

Then when Anne is heavily pregnant with the couple’s next child, tragedy strikes, becoming one of the most celebrated international cases when young Charlie is kidnapped and his body eventually found. 

Betty soon finds herself at the center of journalists and public scrutiny, when a suspect is arrested. She understands that to clear her name for the future, she must figure out what really happened that night when a loose shutter allowed the child she’d come to love to be abducted.

You may think they know this story, but Fredericks’ manages to bring readers into the closed off world of the Lindbergh’s and into Betty’s thoughts, as she adds a sense of tension and mystery to the story. The characters, real and fictional, are finely drawn. With its on-the-spot view, this is a book that speaks to the role of women in the 1930s and delves into what might have happened on that fateful night, and who was responsible. A gripping and suspenseful read.

 

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Ausma Zehanat Khan: BLACKWATER FALLS Tuesday, Nov 1 2022

Khan’s first in a dynamic new series, BLACKWATER FALLS, is set in Colorado and introduces readers to a fresh new protagonist, Detective Inaya Rahman, and her lieutenant, Waqas Seif.

Young girls from immigrant communities in the area have disappeared over the past months, but the sheriff seems disinterested in pursuing any real exploration of the situation. Then the body of a good student and Syrian refugee is found outside a mosque, hanging in a horrific crucifixion-like manner.

A right-wing evangelical biker group called The Disciples displays open hostility to any newcomer with their threatening attitudes, yet when Inaya and her team try to investigate, their efforts seem thwarted by the sheriff.

When their investigation uncovers links to the other missing girls, Inaya feels that Seif is obstructing their own case. It becomes difficult for her to understand his motives when she’s drawn to him, but she keeps her distance, instead gathering strength and help from her female colleagues. It’s a delicate balance when she doesn’t understand his true motives, which are revealed to the reader as the detectives race against time before another young girl is killed.

There will be connections to art, a layering of different interpretations of justice, with moments of terror balanced by poignancy. It’s a tour-de-force of timely fiction that teaches and educates, as it reflects how easily fears can escalate.

Khan gives us a clear picture of Inaya’s home life, and brings readers a deep perspective to cultural conflicts. She explores different expressions of faith contrasted with prejudices, all wrapped up in a strong and complex mystery.

With a PhD in international human rights law, Khan is the author of the Khattak/Getty series and also the Khorasan Archives fantasies. She has a clear talent for bringing a nuanced sensitivity to complex issues, including racial tension and police corruption.

Readers will be glued to the action and surprising twists, with deep characterizations that add to the tension. This reader is already waiting for the next in this evocative and insightful series. Highly recommended.

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Silver Falchion Finalist Wednesday, Aug 31 2022

NOTE: After long health-related absence, Auntie M (Marni Graff) will be back from time to time. Here’s what she’s been up to:

Auntie M was thrilled to learn her fifth Nora Tierney English Mystery, THE EVENING’S AMETHYST was named a finalist by Killer Nashville for their Silver Falchion Award for Best Cozy!

https://killernashville.com/2022-killer-nashville-silver-falchion-award-finalists/

Along with this honor, Amethyst was also eligible to collect for their coveted Readers Choice Award.

Amethyst didn’t win either award, despite having strong support from readers and other writers. And you know what? That’s all right with me. As the Oscar non-winners say every year, just being nominated is an award in itself. And to be a finalist, even better. Sure, I’d have like this book to have won. But by having it on lists and blogs as a finalist, I hope that’s brought it’s attention to new readers everywhere. Such is the life of a writer. And I’m good with that as we head into the fall and I work on next year’s book, the third Trudy Genova Manhattan Mystery, Death at the Orchard. In case you missed The Evening’s Amethyst:

https://killernashville.com/awards/killer-nashville-readers-choice-award/

Garnering multiple 5 star reviews, Amethyst starts off with a frantic phone call to Nora at her Oxford home from her stepsister, Claire, a Master’s student at Exeter.

Nora’s fiancée, DI Declan Barnes, has just been asked to investigate the death of an Exeter student found at the bottom of a staircase.

Claire was friends with the dead young woman, and begs Nora to help her convince Declan that Bea would never have committed suicide.

Soon the sisters are unraveling what part a child named Verity played in Bea’s death, in this mix of amateur sleuth and police procedural. But what part does a cold case kidnapping two decades old play in the case?

Nicola Upson calls The Evening’s Amethyst “a fine addition to a wonderful series.”

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MW Craven: The Washington Poe series Wednesday, Oct 28 2020

MW Craven’s Washington Poe series features two highly unusual and creative characters: Poe himself, whose origins he wants to unearth, and Tilly Bradshaw, the sheltered genius who works as a civilian analyst and can run rings around any computer or hacker.

Starting the series off, which won multiple awards including the CWA Gold Dagger Award in 2019, is The Puppet Show, which introduces the suspended detective Poe.

In Cumbria, a serial killer had taken to burning people alive amongst the many stone circles in the area. There is no forensic clue left, and no doubt in anyone’s mind that these victims suffered terribly before their deaths. The press have dubbed the killer the Immolation Man.

On suspension from the National Crime Agency for a previous decision, and enjoying his time at the croft he’s bought in rural Cumbria, Poe and his springer spaniel, Edgar, have settled into a routine that doesn’t include policing one whit. Then his former sergeant, Stephanie Flynn, now in his old position as DI, shows up at the croft and proffers an Osman Warning.

When police receive information that a person is in significant danger, they issue an Osman Warning, which informs that person of the threat against him or her.

Flynn explains that her best civilian analyst at the Serious Crime Analysis Section has found multiple slashes on the third victim’s chest, which a multi-slice computed tomography has revealed, despite the heavily charred tissue, as spelling out “Washington Poe.”

Back working the case as a sergeant under Flynn is not only a new experience, it brings Poe into contact with Tilly, a young woman whose brain has allowed her to advance through universities and degrees at a young age but who has missed any chance of having a youth, and the social clues that go with it.

Tilly is direct, follows orders to the point of rudeness, and the smartest person Poe has ever met, with a mind that sees patterns. This is whom Poe will grudgingly come to respect in their hunt for the madman setting people on fire after torturing them.

The plot is carefully constructed, a real tour de force, as Poe and Tilly, aided by Flynn, try to find the thread that connects the victims. The resolution is as startling and sad and it is inventive. No wonder it won the CWA Gold Dagger!

Carven followed this series debut up with Black Summer, another compelling plot that seemingly has no solution.

One of Poe’s old cases put a celebrity chef, Jared Keaton, behind bars for life for the murder is his daughter, Elizabeth, despite no body being found. Poe had recognized the man as a psychopath and convinced the CPS and a jury that the man had killed his own daughter.

Then a young woman turns up at a police outpost and claims to be Elizabeth Keaton, abducted and kept prisoner for years. Blood DNA proves she is telling the truth. How is this possible, if is?

And if Elizabeth is alive, Poe is in deep trouble when the young woman once again disappears. Now he’s suspected of killing Elizabeth. Once again, he will depend on his own smarts and those of Tilly to figure out the workings of a psychopath.

The third installment finds Poe and Tilly investigating a strange case of body parts left in different parts of Cumbria with only the message “#BSC6” accompanying each one.

It appears some victims received anesthetic before being separated from their body part, while others were not. The only clue Tilly can unearth is that each victim took the same two weeks off work several years earlier. Then an FBI agent horns in on their investigation, saying that in the US they’ve had similar deaths.

It’s a slim lead, but it’s all they have to work on. Using the victim’s lives as the catalyst, Poe and Tilly will find their way through the labyrinth plot.

As the relationship between Poe and Tilly relaxes, he helps her grow her social graces while she grows to be someone he and Flynn can depend on. All three books in the series show original plots, based on the characters and their histories, and with such creativity that Auntie M is anxiously awaiting the next outing of Washington Poe and Tilly Bradshaw.

This entire series is Highly Recommended.

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L. C. Shaw: The Silent Conspiracy Wednesday, Oct 21 2020

L.C. Shaw brings back the duo of investigative reporter Jack Logan and free-lance television producer Taylor Parks in a dark thriller, The Silent Conspiracy.

With their young son in tow, they hope their lives will settle down two years after their debut in The Network. But then a pattern of murder-suicides raises its ugly head and Jack starts to investigate.

Meanwhile, Taylor’s newest story is a Supreme Court case, a class-action suit against a national insurance company, and has an all-too realistic feel about it.

Things take a complicated turn when it seems there may be an overlap in their stories. And all the while a nemesis returns, and family secrets that have been kept far too long impact the couple. There are political and religious ramifications, with conspiracies that are pure evil.

As the puzzle pieces come together, the stakes are raised and the couple find their family in more jeopardy than they could imagine.

This is a high-action thriller, with international settings and a whopper of an ending. The cliffhanger promises that the third in the series will be just as thrilling.

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Cara Hunter Day: DI Adam Fawley Sunday, Oct 18 2020

Oxford. Crime. Auntie M is so there. Here’s another roundup of a great series you might want to look for:

Cara Hunter’s DI Adam Fawley introduces a detective with an unusual background. In the debut mystery, Close to Home, Fawley and his team are called in to investigate the disappearance of eight-year-old Daisy Mason, when the girl vanishes during a party held in her family’s backyard.

It’s a barbecue of sorts, and a costume party. Daisy’s family strikes Fawley are weird, from her mother who is height of perfection to her distanced, cold father. And her younger brother won’t speak, or make eye contact.

It’s obvious there is an undercurrent here, and as his team sorts out the lies from the truth, his own home situation comes into play. And then there’s that twisted ending that will have you reaching for the next one in the series straightaway.

In the Dark takes Fawley and his team into a disturbing nightmare of a case. A woman and her young child are found locked in a basement room, with nothing to identify them. Barely surviving, the woman refuses to speak. Is she mute or terrified?

The elderly man who owns the house is confused and it seems he doesn’t know these two people, nor why they were in his basement. Has he lost the plot totally? Or is someone toying with him?

The is masterful plotting, with secrets being kept in a quiet Oxford street, right under the gaze of neighbors. Another winner with a startling resolution.

In No Way Out, it’s a sad Christmas for one family when their home burns down and children are lost. It appears at first glance that they were in the house alone. Where are their parents?

Trying to give the distraught grandparents answers, Fawley and his team race to find answers to these questions, especially after it’s deemed that this fire was set on purpose.

Another gripped mystery with a twisted ending, readable and compelling.

All the Rage makes residents of the streets of Oxford sit up and take notice when a young teen is attacked, a plastic bag thrown over her head, and she’s dragged away. Taken to a remote area, she somehow escapes.

Fawley’s team is cohesive now and his DC Eric Somer, can’t help but feel this young woman knows exactly who attacked her, but some obscure reason isn’t willing to say.

The case echoes a similar early string of cases and causes more than a few sleepless nights for Fawley. And at home things are ramping up, too, with threads to an earlier case.

The series is a winning combination of great cases with stealthy police investigation, coupled with the instincts of the team. There’s the sense that nothing is formulaic about this series.

While the mysteries are solved in each individual book, the hallmark of a great series is that the reader can follow the personal life of the detective, and Fawley certainly has his share of his personal past he and his wife are dealing with, parsed out over the course of the series in a highly effective way that do not detract from the individual book.

It’s an absorbing series, with the next book due out in February 2021. And Auntie M will be reading.

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Anne Cleeland: Murder in Revelation Friday, Oct 16 2020

Anne Cleeland’s twelfth Doyle and Acton Mystery, Murder in Revelation, brings the married detective duo back into action.

Kathleen Doyle is the sergeant who receives a tip that leads her to a doctor being assaulted at a London free clinic. The witness she finds, who’s obviously been assaulted, spins Doyle a tale of evil doers eating the souls of children.

While Doyle realizes there is a cultural component to the woman’s interpretation, she tries to convince DCI Acton, her titled husband, to put surveillance on the clinic. It doesn’t help that another doctor who volunteered at the clinic was recently murdered. Something’s rotten at the clinic, and children are involved.

Doyle’s Irish fey countenance will come into play as she can tell if someone’s statements are true or false. Only a few people know of her gift, and she uses it wisely.

With a toddler son and a new baby on the way, Acton is hyper vigilant over his wife, doing his best to keep Doyle rested and fed with good food like fruit, instead of haring off on a case. The ghost who haunts Doyle’s dreams seems to agree with him.

But Doyle knows her husband and his peculiar ways of justice, just as she knows she must become the buffer for him and those who want to destroy him.

There are multiple murders and several old foes who return. This is not a cozy mystery but one where careful plotting excels as Doyle helps Acton in the only way she knows how–by being in the thick of things.

One of the highlights of this series is the charm of the main characters. Readers feel the chemistry between them, and accept their unusual relationship. While Doyle does her best to reign in her husband, Acton remains far ahead of her and everyone else, orchestrating things.

But Doyle has the last word in this one. There are several surprises along the way that add to the engrossing read, and the final chapter gives a glimpse to the future.

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M.E. Browning: Shadow Ridge Thursday, Oct 8 2020

M.E. Browning’s new series starring Detective Jo Wyatt is off to a strong start with Shadow Ridge, featuring a nicely twisted plot and brisk pace.

The author of the Agatha-nominated Mer Cavallo Mysteries brings her former police captain experience to the book, set in the town of Echo Valley, a nature-filled area of Colorado.

When Jo is called out to what appears to be a suicide case, she still takes all the precautions she should if it turns out that video game designer Tye Horton didn’t kill himself. Something feels off to her.

The young woman who found Horton, Quinn Kirkwood, seems to be keeping secrets, even as she asks Jo for help with an internet stalker. Quinn was a beta tester for one of Horton’s lucrative games, as were several others in the area. An eccentric and unreliable character, Quinn has her own baggage.

Then a tragic car accident takes a second life, and as Jo investigates, she realizes there are ties to Horton, and that Quinn’s life is in danger. Suddenly, Horton’s suicide seems unlikely. As she tries to pair Quinn’s stalker with a deadly killer, her small community will face a bigger tragedy than it has even seen.

Browning does a great job of exploring Jo’s personal life and its disappointments, along with the rigors of being a woman in a police force where men are promoted. The setting is engaging, and the characters well-drawn.

Jo is a smart woman with the skill set needed to be a great detective, and can more than handle the lead in what promises to be an entertaining and suspenseful series.

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Jo Spain: After the Fire Wednesday, Oct 7 2020

Jo Spain’s sixth Inspector Tom Reynolds Mystery, After the Fire, combines the best of police procedurals with a team of characters who grow more familiar with each book.

Tom’s job as chief superintendent of the National Bureau of Crime Investigation in Dublin takes him away from being in an on-the-ground investigation, tied up in administrative bureaucracy.

Forced to take two weeks off of holiday time, he and his wife Louise are helping their physician daughter, Maria, with caring for her six-year old daughter, Cait. He’s having lunch at the hospital with Maria during his time off when he overhears two porters discussing a new patient, and is all ears.

A young woman was found walking down the street, naked, exhibiting signs of smoke inhalation and burns on some surfaces of her body, mumbling about a not being about to save the baby.

That’s all it takes for Tom to check out the patient, and soon his friend and colleague, DCI Laura Lennon of the murder squad. Tom soon finds himself lending a Laura’s case a hand, when the house the young naked woman escaped from is found to contain more victims and was a case of arson.

Only slightly escaping Louise’s wrath at becoming involved, Tom manages to help Laura and her team investigate what might be a trafficking ring. Meanwhile, Laura’s husband, Ray, assigned to the new gun-related crimes unit, has his own sources that may contribute to the situation.

The people living in the burned out house were not the casual renters thought at first glance. Several others are missing. And where is this baby?

Spain’s newest elevated the police procedural in a fast-paced race to find those at risk, rescue an infant, and keep the burn patient from becoming the next victim.

All the while, she manages to give the effect of the Irish accent without resorting to overdone brogue dialect. Her dialogue sparkles with the relief of black humor most long-term police adopt, adding a realistic feel and depth to her characters.

A fast and engrossing read. Already looking for the next one.

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