Brief Mention: A "Trouble in Paradise" Mystery from Carrie Doyle, IT TAKE TWO TO MANGO

After reading Carrie Doyle's traditionally cozy country inn mysteries set in the Hamptons, IT TAKES TWO TO MANGO comes as a huge surprise -- because Plum Lockhart, thrust unexpectedly into a real estate job on a tropical island, is such an incredibly unlikeable character!

Reasons for her attitudes and behavior are quickly provided (her isolated childhood, rejection by her parents, etc.), but honestly, even Plum sometimes realizes she's never going to enjoy life or friendships, even in Paraiso. And what she's known as a scrappy New York magazine journalist isn't working for her.

Plum  quickly learned that having a fit or creating scene was not a successful approach to getting things done in Paraiso. An event like a crushed golf cart drew an enormous amount of resort personnel to stand and evaluate the scene and discuss endlessly what should be done before no one did anything. Things happened when they happened. And when Plum tried to hasten their reactions, she was met with the requisite "tranquilo."

A murder of one of her villa clients threatens Plum's employment, the security staffer she'd like to attract seems to see her emotional issues way too clearly, and her stylish New York City clothes are not suited to the humid warmth of the locale. Doyle's handling of the sea change that Plum needs in her life and her soul feels in a strange way like a grown-up recap of how an angry kid gets isolated in a school move. Some island type-casting also stings.

Yet Plum is so very injured in her temperamental behaviors that the book chapters are almost irresistible—so the suspense is not so much who killed the visitor, as ... how on earth will Plum adapt, and can she possibly do it before she has to turn tail and return to the city?

For light distraction and a chance to argue with the author in your thoughts, pick up this Poisoned Pen Press offering (first in a series) and tuck it into the beach bag. (Release date June 29.)

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Might Never Fly Again, after Clare Mackintosh's Thriller HOSTAGE

Mystery fans who read the classics (or view them in film form) have long treasured Agatha Christie's Murder on the Orient Express, where Hercule Poirot peels back the lives and motives of those riding the train with him after a passenger is killed.

Now British author Clare Mackintosh re-fits the suspense of this "closed room" situation by framing a deadly hijacking of a high-profile commercial flight. Using alternating passages that reveal the motives and means of multiple passengers, including criminals, on the flight, HOSTAGE circles around the terror felt by Mina Holbrook, adoptive mom of a preschooler named Sophia. A highly believable threat to Sophia's life forces Mina toward the kind of unforgivable action that no airline service provider should ever have to consider.

Meanwhile, Mina's husband Adam faces a very different threat: one seated in a terrible error he's made as a police detective. He's sure he's about to lose his job, and then ... "What will I do? Being a copper isn't like most other jobs—you don't do it then move on, as if you worked in a bar or tried your hand at retail. It's like teaching or being a doctor. It's part of you. And I'm going to lose it all." With that, Adam figures he'll also lose his marriage, as well as the fathering he's struggled to provide.

Short chapters and an unremitting ramping up of tension and danger make HOSTAGE a thriller that can't be put down. (What could happen to all of them—especially Sophia—if you turned away for even a moment?) The details of a bent investigator are so familiar from similar situations that the levels of threat against Adam don't seem pressing at first, but when they engage the emotionally fragile preschooler as well, every shadow seems twice as terrible. And Mina's agonized decision making, trapped among what she gradually realizes are multiple terrorists in the airline's nonstop 20-hour flight, ring an insistent alarm bell of shock, coupled with being trapped, and an inability to fight back effectively. 

Mackintosh, whose three previous thrillers have been award winners, writes fluidly with abundant drama, positioning her characters such that there's no such thing as a little courage—they've either got to give everything, or fail. HOSTAGE is a hot compelling read, earning its way into any suspense-laden summer reading stack. (Release date is JUNE 22 from Sourcebooks.) Only the final chapter pulls the book a bit beyond the believable—all the rest of it rings so true, and so frightening, that the book may well persuade some readers that it's not worth the risk to take an international flight ever again!

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Exhilarating New 1920s India Mystery from Sujata Massey, THE BOMBAY PRINCE

Half the fun of of reading really good historical fiction is the pain-free way a book can take you into another time, "experiencing" the differences almost as if you were there. International fiction offers the same advantage in terms of location instead of time travel.

So in the third "Mystery of 1920s India" from Sujata Massey, THE BOMBAY PRINCE, you get double the delight in one smoothly written adventure.

Plus, Massey's protagonist, female lawyer Perveen Mistry, is breaking barriers for the women of her time, the first in her career in Bombay. She's compassionate, smart, and rarely makes mistakes in judgment. That means a Massey mystery can focus on crime and detection, instead of on rescuing the amateur sleuth.

It's November 1921 as THE BOMBAY PRINCE opens, and an independence movement is roiling India's political landscape. Long ruled from afar by Great Britain, India's people have paid the usual prices of the colonized: marginalizing minorities (like the Parsi culture that Perveen Mistry has grown up with), skimming revenue, and refusing to let the national leaders actually lead. A visit from the Prince of Wales fans the flames of Gandhi's otherwise peace-centered movement, street protests break out, even shop looting, and Perveen struggles to get appropriate treatment for the body of a murdered Parsi college student, Freny, who'd recently sought Perveen's legal advice. The timing puts Perveen herself into danger—it's easy for men around her to assume that a woman walking alone out in the city is asking for the worst kind of trouble, and impossible for them to see her as a professional, or worth respecting at all. When she tries to stop the looting of a shop where she knows the staff, she becomes a target, attacked with both scorn and sexual threat.

Fortunately for Perveen, some Parsi men spot the trouble and tackle her assailants, telling her to run, and she actually gets a ride from a solicitor known to her family, who delivers her to the family's driver.

"You are returned, Alhamdulillah!" As Mustafa invoked thanks to Allah, his voice cracked with emotion. "Violence has swept the city ... You sari is torn. What happened?"

Perveen pulled the sari closer around her. "There were so many people. I was rushing in the street, and it must have happened then." ... All she wanted was to wash herself at home, to erase the memory of the brutal men. And hide under her own covers. ...

Mustafa's voice was firm. "Your father said on no account will you go anywhere but that hotel. And I'm coming in the car with you for protection."

What none of them could predict is that the European man who's caught Perveen's affection in an earlier book in the series might be at the same hotel. Even in her professional duties in the days ahead, what Perveen struggles to offer her family firm's legal clients puts her at further risk—especially when she probes the student's death further and begins to guess who's responsible.

Massey writes in swift, colorful scenes that sweep the action and danger along, drenched with period manners and struggles. If the dialogue is at times a bit stilted because of such formality, the pace never wavers, and Perveen's battle for self-determination is driven as powerfully as India's. 

No need to have read the earlier two books of this series (The Widows of Malabar Hill, The Satapur Moonstone)—just plunge into this new release from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press (publication June 1). Massey's skills are strengthening with each book, and this is definitely her best yet. But if THE BOMBAY PRINCE wakes you to wanting to know more about India's modern history, you'll want the other two titles for your shelf as well. 

This promises to be a continued series well worth savoring!

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Delicious Ice Cream-Oriented Mystery Series Debut: PINT OF NO RETURN, Dana Mentink

This series debut from seasoned (award-winning) romance author Dana Mentink is a must for the summer TBR stack, perfect for beach reading or one of those rainy afternoons when you're stuck inside the house or cabin. The premise of PINT OF NO RETURN is delightful: Trinidad Jones had no intention of relocating to a small town in Oregon, but her beloved husband (now ex) turned out to be an embezzler with multiple wives ... and the only thing solid he provided her with, on his way to prison, was a storefront. Dipping into her dreams, she's opening the Shimmy and Shake Shop and scooping up ginormous festive shakes with "the works" for her hoped-for clientele.

Ramping the suspense right away is the presence of the other two wives in town! And Trinidad's not exactly an easy fit into Oregon culture ... with her grandfather Papa Luis suggesting, from the other end of the country, that she's way out of her culture and her comfort zone.

Good giggles and guffaws are packed into this cleverly crafted cozy, starting when Trinidad finds the local popcorn store owner murdered and realizes the investigating police chief is the older sister of her ex. No filter here, as she squeaks out, "The sister who stole cars?"

And here's the heart of this heart-warming mystery:

"People change, ma'am," the chief said after a beat. "I don't steal cars anymore. The Army set me on the straight and narrow. They're pretty good at helping a person reconfigure their priorities." She cocked her chin. "I've met Juliette and Bonnie. I didn't plan on getting to know the remaining ex-wife at a murder scene."

Ice cream, romance, an adorable service dog named Noodles ... this charmer has lots to enjoy, and with a seasoned author spilling the dialogue and slipping the scenes into place, it's a pleasure to read. The interactions between Trinidad and the chief also highlight the reality of amateur sleuthing:

[Trinidad] felt a flicker of anger. "I don't think you're exactly on Juliette's side. You sent her to jail."

The chief's eyes were cold. "The evidence sent her to jail, and you shutting me out might have just cost us information that could have cleared her. Did you think of that while you were playing detective?"

Highly recommended. And I'll be watching for more from Dana Mentink, who clearly knows both human nature and how ordinary people pull up their courage and help each other at the toughest of times.

From Poisoned Pen Press, on sale May 25.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Cool Detroit Crime Fiction from Stephen Mack Jones, DEAD OF WINTER

Maybe Detroit has something in the water that affects authors. What, you think that's a joke? You haven't heard about Flint, Michigan? They're not so far apart ...

Think Loren Estleman's Motor City mysteries. Jane Haseldine's Julia Gooden series. A couple of titles from Elmore Leonard. Steve Hamilton and Jon A. Jackson place crime fiction in Michigan, too. And then there's Stephen Mack Jones, with his third Detroit crime novel.

DEAD OF WINTER samples Detroit's worn and reworked neighborhoods through August Snow, a former cop who's accepted a huge settlement for the way the city, his employer, treated him in the past. With that money Snow's been rehabbing his neighborhood. Honoring both his African-American father and his Mexican-American mother, he's enjoying a mixed heritage of good food and great friends -- especially his godfather Tomás, who's ready to put his explosive defensive skills to work for Snow whenever needed.

There's blackmail and some kind of real estate scam going on nearby, though, and the family of Authentico Foods owner Ronaldo Ochoa seems pretty strange about whether Snow should step into the dangerous mess, or leave them to make money from it. Good thing August has allies in the police force who thought he'd done the right thing way back when. Then again, there are a few who'd like to keep punishing him, by leaving him to the dangers of a net of billionaire developers creating luxury "safe houses" for international crime.

Meanwhile, Snow's equally international lover, Tatina, is pushing him to straighten out his life and stop feeling (rather alcoholically) sorry for himself.

Watching her dump the remaining half of a fifth of WhistlePig rye down the drain was painful, but I finally, in my confession, was addressing the things that were and had been tying my guts into a million strangling knots.

"People get hurt around me," I said. "That's the way it was in Afghanistan. The way it was at the DPD. And now . . ."

"People are saved because of you, August," Tatina said. She'd stopped pouring my booze down the drain. What a party that would be for the sewer rats of Detroit. "And don't think for a minute I don't know who you are, what you have done and can do. You're not that good of a liar, and I'm not that naive. Neither of us has any rightful claim to innocence."

Snow's crisis of conscience and the way his buddies boot him through it provide an extra strand of interest for a plot that features outsized shooting sprees, abundant threats, and sometimes absurd resolutions (when you finish reading it, tell me what you thought about the deer thing). All of which can't take away from the lively pleasure of reading Jones's enthusiastic and suspenseful storytelling from the point of view of a rich guy who loves the neighborhood. You won't need to read the other two August Snow novels before this one. But you'll probably want to buy them afterward, if they're not already on your shelf (August Snow and Lives Laid Away). They're too much fun to miss.

This one comes out May 4, from Soho Crime, an imprint of Soho Press.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.

Fierce Debut Crime Novel from Chris Power, A LONELY MAN

When you look up British author Chris Power online, you find his literary criticism for The Guardian, and his short story collection Mothers. Maybe the noted story collection marked many perceptions of his new crime novel, A LONELY MAN—because his publisher uses terms like "existential" and "elegant literary thriller" to describe the work.

Actually, it's a gritty and intense thriller set in Berlin, with an all-too-believable premise: Robert, a writer with a devastating case of writer's block, casually meets another author, the rather drunk and miserable Patrick. When Patrick gets himself into a public fist fight and Robert and his wife intervene, the two men set a follow-up get-together. The conversation isn't exactly what you'd expect from a pair of writers getting together:

'You were telling me how you made your fortune writing this oligarch's memoirs,' Robert said.

'My fortune, yeah. Well, it fell apart.'

'Why?'

'Vanyashin died. Last year.'

'How?'

'The inquest said suicide,' Patrick said. 'Just announced it, in fact. The coroner gave his verdict last week.'

But Patrick claims it wasn't suicide. He's so drunk, and such an obvious mess, that Robert has no problem laughing this off, and calling Patrick suicide. Russian oligarch, dead of suicide -- anything else is clearly product of an overactive, alcohol-fueled imagination. But he might as well use this amusing paranoia in his new author buddy as fuel for jump-starting his own fiction. Right?

Well, maybe not so right. While evidence piles up around him, Robert keeps labeling his sightings of people following him, or Patrick, as imagination, but with more edge, more underlying terror. And when his family comes under threat, his worst imaginings aren't equal to the risks.

A tightly knitted, sharply paced espionage/crime novel, A LONELY MAN is well worth devouring. Berlin never looked so much like, well, any large city you too might walk into, looking for a story worth telling. Readers beware: The presence of friendship and affection does not guarantee everything will work out -- especially when danger's already been pushed aside for so long.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Dark and Terrorizing: THE DEAD HUSBAND from Carter Wilson

Rose Yates hasn't lived in New Hampshire since she was a teen—so returning to her father's house at age 37 as a new widow, with her 11-year-old son Max, looks like trauma from the start. Carter Wilson quickly makes it clear that Rose doesn't blame herself for her husband's death, which has been ruled accident verging on suicide (pills and alcohol). But something terrible happened when she was growing up in Bury, New Hampshire, and readers won't know the details until very late in the book. Still, the guilt that permeates Rose is so powerful that on Max's first day of school, when she gets a call to come pick him up at mid day because he has threatened a girl in his class, she's already got a mantra that won't cease: It's all my fault.

Wilson turns THE DEAD HUSBAND into relentless suspense by setting next to Rose's voice an alternative point of view, that of an obviously nice and smart Wisconsin detective who's caught a whiff of the too-quick processing of Rose's husband's death. Colin Pearson doesn't necessarily want to pin Rose for murder (though she can't help feeling he does), but he knows something's off. 

Colin went with his gut, knowing there was something. There was something about Bury. if not outright malevolent, then at least mysterious. Suspicious. There are no perfect communities. Every town has a stain. 

When Colin's research takes him back to the town's one serious crime of the past, a missing boy, he cuts across the desperate route that Rose Yates is already racing along. Manipulated by her father, tormented by her sister, and unable to protect Max effectively, Rose needs Colin as an ally. But is that even possible, considering what happened in Bury, so long ago?

This dark thriller will keep readers on edge all the way through, with a tight plot and macabre and memorable family drama. The book's final twist shows exactly how the past and present intersect, with terrible consequences. Don't read this one for a happy ending. That said—you won't easily forget what Rose both reveals and discovers, at a very high price. [From Poisoned Pen Press, publishing on May 4.]

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here. 

Brief Mention: LADY JOKER, Volume 1 of Kaoru Takamura's Japanese Crime Epic

LADY JOKER came out in mid April with many thoughtful reviews. At 576 pages, it's far from beach reading. Even the reviews have been on the long side -- really, they have to be. One of the most enjoyable articles on the book's release from Soho Press is this interview with editor and publisher (and author) Juliet Grames, full of its own twists. From the true-crime basis of the three-volume epic (the Glico-Morinaga case of the 1980s) to the challenges of translation, the interview itself is compelling.

Though LADY JOKER is a suspense novel and came out under the Soho Crime imprint, it also fits two other notable descriptions: It's obviously the Japanese version of the Godfather series, rich with the frictions of Japan's own caste system and the criminal temptations of corporate greed and advantage, framed around a high-stakes kidnapping. And it's a scorching indictment of capitalist manipulations of both government and society—one that could as easily apply to America or today's Russia as it does to Japan. If the love of money is the root of evil, Kaoru Takamura's portrait of the postwar profiteering and manipulations of the Hinode Beer Co. shows five decades of festering injustice, evil, and eventually manipulative and ruthless violence.

This book requires slow, persistent reading, as it's not constructed with "thriller" props or passionate emotions. But for those who savor the view of our global perils through the lens of all-too-human history, it's a dark treasure well worth the time for reading.

PS: Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.