Suspense from Boston-Area Thriller Author Hank Phillippi Ryan, HER PERFECT LIFE

 

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Ryan once again shows her flair for spinning, from a life similar to her own, a set of intense and spiraling threats, with more than one devilish intent behind the scenes, and only the narrowest chance for a safe resolution.”

A stand-alone from Hank Phillippi Ryan is a frank invitation into suspense, a thriller from the start. Her Perfect Life pushes this premise from the first page, with the unexplained and now long-ago disappearance of Cassie, beloved older sister to Lily Atwood, a TV news star.

Framing Lily as an investigative reporter is a clever wave from the author’s own career, where she has earned some 37 EMMY awards. But the novel twists the ambiance from the start, as Lily’s most intimate teammate is her producer Greer, and Greer’s first-person admissions of jealousy and manipulation set the tension ramping.

Greer’s not a serious threat to Lily as the book opens—her own career depends too intimately on feeding the star machine that makes Lily widely recognized and adored. (There’s a strong whiff of Martha Stewart here.) But Lily has isolated the disappearance of her sister, as a family secret not easily noticed. And when Greer gets a chance to take power and control through discovering Lily’s vulnerability, the fight’s on. Only Lily doesn’t realize it yet, and her seven-year-old daughter Rowen is likely to be the first one wounded in the battle.

The book twists rapidly among the characters, showcasing several points of view. Lily’s first clue of something wrong is when Greer appears to vanish, and a detective storms the production office, demanding answers: “Did she tell you where she was going? What her plans were for last night? Who she was with?”

Although Lily catches the flaws in the questions—“This guy was off, totally off. He didn’t act like a cop, even an incompetent cop”—she sets her own reservations aside and begins a cascade of poor decisions that put herself and her child at increasing risk.

And that’s the flaw of the story: If Lily’s smart, she’s performing entirely out of character. If she’s as naive and foolish as her choices suggest, then how can she transform within the space of a day or two, to make the save?

If you enjoy banging your head against the wall while protagonists create dreadful situations through folly, and trade good sense for high suspense, then Her Perfect Life will fit the bill. Ryan twists an intricate set of motives and actions, gives the reader a fair chance at guessing the true culprit(s), and keeps the pace dramatic and well weighted with consequences. Life in the public eye? Costs of social media? Exposure on Instagram? Ryan once again shows her flair for spinning, from a life similar to her own, a set of intense and spiraling threats, with more than one devilish intent behind the scenes, and only the narrowest chance for a safe resolution.

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

Chilling and Twisty: New Thriller from Erin Kelly, HE SAID/SHE SAID

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“The twists in what “love” means and how people create their own strange moral universes are classic Kelly, and reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her spookiest.”

 

Minotaur’s reprint of Erin Kelly’s 2018 thriller makes this British page-turner available on the American side of “the pond” and demonstrates once again that Kelly is a true master of psychological suspense and chilling twists. As the author has said of herself, “My job is to imagine a strange situation and ask the question that will make it stranger still.”

 

In 2015, the charming young couple Kit and Laura live in London, expecting twins. He’s still going to travel, in order to witness a solar eclipse, the theme of his life so far—but he’s planned it carefully and made sure Laura will have support and protection while he’s gone. It’s not just the somewhat risky twin pregnancy that worried him: More than 15 years ago, when the two met at a summertime eclipse festival, Laura had witnessed a crime, and the trauma still haunts them both. The victim, clearly terribly disturbed, has stalked and hunted them to such an extent that they now live as close to “off the grid” as urban people can manage: no social media, assumed names, and more.

 

But will the very frightening “Beth” be able to identify them, now that Laura’s photo has shown up briefly on a media site, and Kit is predictably headed to the eclipse event? She knows about his lifelong passion—will she track him down?

 

Kelly frames this thriller around the phases of a solar eclipse, mimicking in plot what the sun’s disappearance does: an edge of overlap, a sparkling ring allowed for a bit, then total darkness, and the slow journey back to normal. For Laura in particular, this involves recapitulating the trial in which she’d taken part, the crime itself, the levels of threat.

 

With his voice alternating to tell another side, Kit reveals how threatened he feels by upcoming fatherhood and being potentially eclipsed himself by the babies on the way. Kelly’s use of first-person narratives means the of 15 years earlier are presented repeatedly. Kit fingers a knife, contemplating how far he’d go to protect his wife: “Would I tell Laura? Could I tell Laura? Could she live with me? Even knowing I only acted for her, would she still love me?”

 

But there’s an alternate set of facts hidden in the shadows, and only the small question of self-doubt from Kelly’s characters will begin to reveal what’s been transformed by time and lies.

 

The twists in what “love” means and how people create their own strange moral universes are classic Kelly, and reminiscent of Barbara Vine at her spookiest. Strands of deceit creep out of the narratives like ectoplasm in a séance, curling into the air and bringing lies back to life. There are few innocents in He Said/She Said—other than those twins on the way. Good luck spotting the others, before the house of cards comes tumbling down in blood and manipulation.

 

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

Remarkable New Alaskan Crime Fiction from John Straley, SO FAR AND GOOD

It's been far from ordinary all along -- that is, John Straley's Alaskan crime fiction series featuring Cecil Younger, a not-quite-lawyer who at this point has served four years so far in the Lemon Creek Correctional Center. That means he has roughly three more to go. And for a man who's worked in a form of law enforcement in the past, prison is a threatening environment. Even though he's there for murder.

Things could be worse. Cecil killed to protect his daughter, Blossom. Some prisoners sympathize. But a lot more are after him for various reasons, including money. He admits in his pencil-on-yellow-pad narrative, "Friend write me letters wanting to know how I survive in jail. I don't know why they don't come right out and ask me if I have come someone's bitch, which is what they both do and don't want to know."

With his next statement, "The fact is, I have become someone's bitch," Cecil's story breaks ways from conventional crime novel trails of the past, even of Straley's past (and he's never shied away from the depressing brutality of some Alaskan lives before this). Cecil's trying terribly hard to walk a line between "loving" a brutal gangster enough to get protected, and at the same time not getting raped.

Straley's a plain, direct storyteller who lays out both action and emotion without any fuss. So we get this from Cecil Younger, in his struggle to explain:

Until I came to prison, I enjoyed the privilege of being white and old. I'm almost sixty now, and I've been told by more-experienced convicts that I have "worried eyes" that make me an easy mark. I had been an investigator for the Public Defender Agency, which made me unpopular to a large portion of the population and a popular object of ridicule for some of the weakest minds inside the walls.

Remarkably, Fourth Street -- a drug dealer and pimp from the Lower 48 who's settled into the region, and now into the prison -- wants something that only Cecil seems likely to provide:

"I have a parole hearing coming up in twenty-four months. There are four white women sitting on the parole board. I want you to teach me how to speak respectfully to these bitches."

That leads into marvelous scenes of Cecil trying to teach both poetry and polite language to a very rough and powerful man. And trying to stay away from both Fourth Street's amorous hands, and Street's massive and emotional jealous lover. For a while, Cecil holds the tricky balance.

But it all collapses when his daughter's best friend, a girl nicknamed George, manages to get her own parents tagged as notorious kidnappers, Cecil's daughter Blossom plunges into both action and risk, and suddenly Cecil wants and needs more from Fourth Street. And it's going to cost him. Big.

The riotous mixture of misunderstandings, negotiations, escapes, and frankly amorous pressures and actions makes SO FAR AND GOOD a page-turner from the start. Moving this book onto the shelves of "classics" and "read this one again!" are the neatly nailed emotions and bargains struck throughout. Prepare to gasp in surprise, alternating with gasps of dismay and revelations of what love and kindness can make people do, versus those who've got neither. Oh yes, money matters, too.

No need to read Straley's other Cecil Younger Investigations before this one, as it's hands-down the best yet. But when the winter's getting under your skin and you want to remind yourself that it could be worse in, say, Alaska ... scoop up the other seven and have your own literary festival. No handguns allowed.

Just released by 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.

When "True Crime" Goes Fictional: TRUE CRIME STORY from Joseph Knox

 

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Knox knows how to spin a great thriller, and in True Crime Story he reveals a new way to entangle the threads while ramping up risk and even a touch of horror.”

This startling stand-alone from British thriller writer Joseph Knox cuts new ground in both crime fiction and literary craft. The current passion for “true crime” investigations, whether on television (abundant shows and re-runs) or in books, has honed new reader skills: an insistence that every clue and voice be examined from multiple viewpoints, and a tolerance for ambiguity, as long as some villain, somewhere, gets fingered along the way.

In a fascinating twist to a college disappearance story, Knox offers close to 400 pages of interviews, personal insights, investigation details, even witness assessments, on the case of Zoe Nolan, age 19, a student at the University of Manchester and resident in a tower of student housing with some very peculiar construction. It looks like everything was working right in her life—success as a music major, popular with other students, even finding a serious boyfriend during her first term on campus.

The only thing that didn’t go the way she wanted, it seems, is that her twin sister Kimberley, got housed with her and two other girls. The sisters had meant to go into college separately. That didn’t happen.

And slowly, one message at a time, one crazy clue at a time, the rest of the problems emerge in True Crime Story, with Knox playing a role inside the book, and another investigator, Evelyn Mitchell, luring Knox into the wicked and increasingly twisted revelations.

Viewpoints include that of “brown boy in Manchester” Jai Mahmood, who compares Zoe’s life to an “epic HBO crime drama” and insists that what people say about Zoe is more about themselves: “Everyone who looked at her saw something different. Some of them saw what they wanted to, some of them saw their worst nightmare.” He fingers her twin, Kim, as an angry rival. Knox’s construction puts Kim’s response on the same page: “I am defined by losing Zoe, absolutely. I just think it’s more accurate to say I was always defined by her, even before she went missing.”

The sense of experimental fiction can make reading this thriller a bit perilous, like a modern-day Canterbury Tales or Ulysses being laid onto the pages. But Knox is clever, and each time there’s a moment when you might want to put the book down, he has another cliff-hanger emerge, another denial of someone’s earlier stance or evidence, another peril.

In a creepy way, it begins to look as though Zoe actually deserved something wrong happening. Or else maybe her twin did, and they got confused? Hold that thought, because it will come back to bite you, as many details in this unexpected mystery will do. Jai Mahmood, bitter from his own losses, nails it again: “Maybe Kim would have always found a reason to back away from taking that big chance in life. … Maybe we all could have been somebody, but I doubt it.”

A kidnapping, more twin confusion, more threats—Knox knows how to spin a great thriller, and in True Crime Story he reveals a new way to entangle the threads while ramping up risk and even a touch of horror. For most readers, this won’t be fun or entertaining reading. But it will be compelling, even revelatory. And utterly memorable, as a brave new form of drama for the pages.

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

New Cuban Mystery from Teresa Dovalpage, DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS

There's something very worrying about a free lunch: It could be provided with a dangerous ulterior motive. 

That's what Cuban-born Mercedes Spivey and her American professor husband ignore for far too long, when the couple receives a free pair of cruise tickets to the Spanish-speaking island that each one needs to revisit, for a different reason. Sweepstake winning? Accidental lottery reward? Who knows -- but the timing is so perfect that they don't question it, and jump onto a cruise boat, ready to enjoy the ride.

Within the first minutes on the cruise on the Narwhal, Mercedes spots someone from her own past ... and then perhaps a glimpse of a second person. It's a creepy coincidence, right? A chance to make things better with people she'd cut in the past? 

Teresa Dovalpage's previous Cuban mysteries are much sweeter than DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS, because this time we know right from the start — since Mercedes is sharing her viewpoint all along — that this "pretty woman" with her older husband has a lot to feel guilty about, and a lot left unresolved, as she's climbed her way, one affair at a time, to some sort of Floridian middle class. Soon it looks like she's surrounded by others with mixed motives. (Maybe the only truly nice person is her aging grandmother who still does the laundry by hand in the back yard of her Havana home.)

Mercedes begs us, as readers and witnesses, to believe there is one saint in her life: Lorenzo, whom she loved and left, and who then died in a fire. (Fire and blades and other threats abound!) Meanwhile, if she's the chief sinner here, are all the threats deserved? Does she still have the ability to dodge and weave, and come out ahead? Even as she disembarks in Havana, she's questioning her safety:

Two men approached the counter. One was a skinny, gray-bearded guy in a tie-dyed shirt who looked like a hippie—or at least my idea of what a hippie was. He went first. The other, who walked with a slight limp, carried a burgundy European Union passport. Our eyes met for a second, and I couldn't shake the feeling that I had seen him before. Maybe the other guy too. They both seemed sort of familiar. My throat closed and my heart pounded faster.

Dovalpage takes quite a risk herself, in presenting such an unpleasant protagonist, whose greed and self-centeredness are not really balanced by her endless chest-thumping guilt. Yet the net of threats and complications and the Cuban setting pull the story faster and faster, until it can't be set aside: The Perseids, the meteor shower that's taking place as revelations cascade, is that too somehow a message to Mercedes that her own crimes are known and she's about to lose at last?

DEATH UNDER THE PERSEIDS is much darker than Dovalpage's three earlier mysteries. Whether you collect it for the Cuban setting or for the ongoing suspense of how this maturing author will continue to develop, it's a must for the shelf. Kudos to Soho Crime (an imprint of Soho Press) for encouraging Dovalpage to move forward so fiercely.

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

Disappeared or Dead? THE DEATHWATCH BEETLE (Ann Lindell 9) from Kjell Erickson

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“As more violence enters her tense investigation, and the inner madness of others takes on outer forms, how will Ann choose her own life themes? Does she need to remain lost, to stand aside from love?”

The Deathwatch Beetle is the ninth in Kjell Erickson’s Ann Lindell crime novels, and Lindell has actually left her job as a police inspector. But because she receives a tip that presumed-dead victim Cecilia Karlsson’s been seen alive, four years after the woman’s disappearance from the Swedish island of Gräsö, Ann steps back into investigating the cold case. Her motives are more mixed than that—she’s at a stage when she needs to sort out some things about herself—and maybe that’s a good way to walk among the personalities of this baffling set of crimes, open to emerging secrets and sorrow. And, incidentally, love.

Local consensus on the island is that Cecilia’s friend Casper died in the water, and Cecilia followed suit. When Ann decides to probe Cecilia’s death, she begins with a visit to the young woman’s parents—who are sure Cissi will come back some day—and then visits the men who’d once formed a circle of attention around Cecilia. When she starts with the area’s gossip, Robert, he tells her, “She’s dead. She took Casper’s death hard, unexpectedly hard, and followed him into the water. That’s the way you die here, if you choose to go voluntarily.”

But if she’s dead, why do the questions she left behind keep coming back to life? Ann identifies with disappearing—she did it herself, once—and the strand of her own life that keeps an unexpected life is the former investigator in her. She needs to solve Cecilia’s situation, in hopes of figuring out her own. “She could become a parish constable, move in with Edvard and live the rest of her life on the island. Daydreams, she understood that. The reality looked different.”

This is an elegantly written crime novel, with a sultry pace, translated as if it were high poetry, by Paul Norlen. Insects appear, mate, are eaten or vanish; the ticking of a deathwatch beetle invades the night in a half-hidden cabin; spiders and butterflies take center meaning in scenes. Slow layer by layer, with many shifts of viewpoint, the real story of Cecilia is laid bare—and it’s sordid and chilled.

Ann identified with this missing woman at the start of The Deathwatch Beetle. As more violence enters her tense investigation, and the inner madness of others takes on outer forms, how will Ann choose her own life themes? Does she need to remain lost, to stand aside from love?

Although The Deathwatch Beetle is far less gory than its characters’ souls seem to be, it frames a northern desperation that will feel familiar to readers of both Henning Mankell and Karin Fossum. The book can’t be rushed through; it demands attentive, focused reading.

Eriksson’s moody island of revelation is memorable, and as he did in his earlier award-winning novel, The Princess of Burundi, he paints murder here in layers that correspond to the shells and diversions of the soul. Perhaps we all long to be lost sometimes; will we agree, however, to be found?

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

Brief Mention: FAREWELL BLUES from Maggie Robinson, Series Finale

There are plenty of mentions that FAREWELL BLUES is the end of Maggie Robinson's light-hearted and romantic Lady Adelaide series (including on the author's website), so this is not really a spoiler! This is the fourth book of these 1920s mysteries, with paranormal humor provided by Lady Adelaide's late husband Rupert, assigned to help her solve crimes and resolve her personal life, as a way to recover from his own sins and finally make it to heaven.

Perhaps the most intriguing aspect of the Lady Adelaide books has been the protagonist's gradual realization that she may become involved with a man from entirely outside her social "set." Not only is Inspector Devand Hunter a police officer—he's also of Indian heritage and London's not ready for such a romance.

The casual racism repeatedly demonstrated in the series is lightened here by Dev narrating some of the chapters, and by the entertainment value of Rupert's ability to pop in and out of scenes, as well as to pry into Lady Adelaide's thoughts. Series fans will want to discover how Robinson wraps up the series, including her three (!) epilogues. 

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

Martin Limón Brings Back Sueño and Bascom in WAR WOMEN, 1970s US South Korean Occupation

As for so many of the crime fiction series from Soho Crime (Soho Press's dedicated imprint), there's a lot of eager anticipation for each year's new novel from Martin Limón. WAR WOMEN, a November 2021 release, features US Army CID (Criminal Investigation) agents George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, chasing down criminal activity -- not necessarily to shut down crime during the US occupation of South Korea in the 1970s, but to make military life easier and more profitable for their bosses.

Two major twists take this adventure into new terrain for the pair of investigators. The first is that one of their particularly eccentric fellow soldiers, Sergeant First Class Cecil B. Harvey—known to George and Ernie as "Strange," for his unending hunger for tales of romantic and especially sexual strangeness—has gone missing, along with a top-secret document. Both of these aspects are so unexpected for "Strange" that the investigators would be chasing him down no matter what, just to satisfy their own curiosity. But in fact the sergeant, who's in charge of the 8th Army's classified documents, is such an essential ally that they've got to find him and try to get him back. Digging into the disappearance will pit them against both their own army and the North Korean espionage system.

Every new moment puts them at risk, though: As George notes, "I'd just reached out to hang my coat on the rack. I held it a moment, frozen in fear. Had they already discovered the theft of the document? Had Strange told them of our involvement? As calmly as I could, I turned and asked, 'What's this about?'"

As usual, Sueño and Bascom need to manage their personal pursuits while also obeying orders. In this case, their assigned task is to manage a tabloid journalist threatening to expose their superior officers. That would be tough on its own, but the journalist is Overseas Observer reporter Katie Byrd Washington, whose brilliant ability to sneak around and use colleagues against each other has already burned the two in the past. And somehow, they're supposed to lock her up:

Katie Byrd Washington was a civilian. Her legal fate fell well outside of 8th Army's jurisdiction. The US military could pull her press pass and deny her access to our bases—if we had justification—but arresting her would be strictly illegal. Illegal not only under American law, but also under Korean law.

It turns out that their bosses expect George and Ernie to manipulate their Korean police colleague, nicknamed (with reason) Mr. Kill, into doing the job for them. Anyone who's read any of this series knows that's failure just waiting to happen. Mr. Kill isn't just non-manipulable ... he's downright dangerous when annoyed.

WAR WOMEN offers a great romp across terrain and situations, including some little-known roles of Army women and their Korean allies. There are no particularly high-tension moments, and not a lot of change in Ernie and George—but as winter entertainment, the book is a delight.

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

Third Detective Betty Rhyzyk Investigation, THE PLEDGE by Kathleen Kent

Fathers and daughters. In a swift opening chapter that has more action and revelation than many a crime novel might witness in fifty pages, Texas/New York author Kathleen Kent turns her red-haired police detective Betty Rhyzyk toward family redemption. Oh, probably not hers—unless you believe the voice of her deceased Uncle Benny nudging her along is more than just in her head—but how can she not follow up on the disappearance of the mom of a seven-month-old, much-loved baby? 

Especially when the street-rescued mom and the bright baby have been living with Betty and her life partner, Jackie, in their Dallas home.

But for the moment, that's going on hold, because Betty's needed for a downtown hostage situation with other kids at risk. Why her? Sinaloan enforcer El Cuchillo has a message for only Betty. In THE DIME and THE BURN, Betty's met El Cuchillo under nasty circumstances, including his effort to burn her alive. After all, his interests involve the Dallas drugs underworld. And as a police detective, Betty's been more than a nuisance to El Cuchillo.

But this time, the Sinaloan intends to use her as a weapon against his own competition, on the old theory of "the enemy of my enemy." Who's he aiming her at? Shudder ... Evangeline Roy, leader of a truly evil cult that in turn is cutting into the drug territory. 

And now the point of the book's opening with the baby being fostered in Betty's home comes through with all the force of a shotgun:

"Again," I say, "why don't you get one of your men to take care of it?" ...

"Evangeline is in Texas for two reasons. One, to set up operations. And two, to settle a score with you for the death of her sons. And she will want to make it as painful for you as possible."

He pauses a moment to let that sink in. "If I were betting, my money would be on you, Sergeant. I believe that you can win this battle. ... You are now the guardian of a new infant. A baby girl."

Just like that, Betty and her family of choice enter as pawns in a brutal war of pyschopaths for drug territory in Texas. Even assuming she can do what El Cuchillo wants from her, is there any way to protect her people -- and also do the job she's committed to performing?

Fair warning, there's a lot of violence and threat in THE PLEDGE. But there's also an unexpected amount of affection and respect, and a throughline of strong women who do what has to be done, with or without backing from the fathers in their lives and hearts. 

Kent's earlier novels in this trilogy gained nominations for the Edgar Award. THE PLEDGE belongs on that list, too; carve out time to read it this season, and you'll be ahead of the line when those nominations get listed in early 2022. 

Published by Mulholland Books, and released last week in both hardcover and ebook.

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

Relax with a Holiday Season Cozy from Catherine Bruns, THE ENEMY YOU GNOCHHI

In her third Italian Chef Mystery, Catherine Bruns offers restaurant owner Tessa Esposito a chance at a great holiday season, and a possible new love in her life. Tessa's husband Dylan, victim of a complicated crime in the first book in the series (Penne Dreadful, followed by It Cannoli Be Murder), is still very much in her heart—and her new possible boyfriend, Justin, has a potent connection with the moment Tessa chose that first romance.

But as THE ENEMY YOU GNOCCHI opens, it doesn't look like there will be time for romance anyway. Not only is it the holiday season, with intense demands on restaurant prep, staff, and service, but the bustling town of Harvest Park is bubbling with antagonism: Coffee-shop owner Mario Russo's been demanding Tessa's attention in unpleasant ways, and maliciously menacing the older café owned by Tessa's friend Archie. Just as Tessa begins to put this conflict ahead of her pasta sauce in her priorities, Mario gets murdered—and it looks like someone's very effectively framing Archie as the killer.

Bruns tackles the classic "cozy" issue of "why does an amateur become a sleuth" with an explanation from Justin, who already means a lot to Tessa:

Justin rubbed his eyes wearily. ... "Focus your energy on who might have committed the crime. You're smart and intuitive and Archie needs your help right now."

I forced back a laugh. "I'm a chef, Justin. Not a detective. That's Gino's department."

He gave me a tired smile. "Don't sell yourself short. You have great instincts about people. You were the one to figure out who killed Dylan. Then there was Daphne, the publicist who died in Gabby's bookstore. You found her killer too." ....

I stared into the fire thoughtfully. "Well, rumor has it that Tyler's wife was having an affair with Mario, so there's two possible suspects right there."

This is a well-knitted traditional cozy with a lovely thread of growing affection/romance, good friendships, and even some recipes at the back, including Tessa's gnocchi (Bruns seems to have an odd pronunciation of the Italian term) and a "Christmas Thyme" cookie recipe that looks like a must. It should provide holiday-season relaxation and relief, and it continues this series with heart and clever twists. 

From Poisoned Pen Press, an imprint of Sourcebooks.

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

Peter Diamond Gets a Private Eye, in Peter Lovesey's 20th in Series, DIAMOND AND THE EYE

 [Originally published in New York Journal of Books]

“Every private eye from Sherlock Holmes to Matt Scudder needs a line into the factory. Sam Spade had his tame sergeant, Tom Polhaus. Philip Marlowe had Officer Randall from Central Homicide. It comes with the territory.”

Peter Lovesey’s Peter Diamond investigation series is in its 20th full-length title, and with age comes the privilege of taking things very lightly – so Diamond and the Eye is an almost nonstop giggle, as well as a classic police detection episode with this British Detective Superintendent. It’s the perfect prescription for those who’ve been taking their lives (or their crime fiction reading) too seriously.

From the very start, Diamond is fed up with a private investigator—the private “Eye” of the title—crashing into his Friday evening, and then a missing person case as well. Diamond’s perception of PI Johnny Getz (a nom-de-dick for the job) tells it all: “The stranger’s voice was throaty, the accent faux American from a grainy black-and-white film a lifetime ago. This Bogart impersonator was plainly as English as a cricket bat. His face wasn’t Bogart’s and he wasn’t talking through tobacco smoke, but he held a cocktail stick between two fingers as if it was a cigarette … he was dressed in a pale grey suit and floral shirt open at the neck to display a miniature magnifying glass on a leather cord.”

From calling Diamond “bud,” to speaking of him as “Pete” to colleagues, Johnny Getz is a man without boundaries—but with a determination to get his first and only PI job done for his relatively trashy client, Ruby, daughter of an antiquities dealer named Seppy Hubbard. Seppy’s vanished, Getz is supposed to find him or find out what happened to him, and Diamond, fighting back as hard as he can be bothered to do, soon discovers there’s been at least one murder involved, with every reason to bring in his team.

But there’s nothing straightforward about tracking down a missing (perhaps dead) dealer, when Johnny Getz keeps butting in. Peter Diamond’s Detective Sergeant Ingeborg Smith attempts to keep the peace, assuring Diamond that Getz won’t stay involved: “He’s out of his depth now. Private eyes don’t investigate homicides except in books. A missing person case, maybe, but not a killing.” But once Ingeborg does meet “Johnny,” she’s got to admit he’s going to stick around as they work this case.

Johnny Getz litters his conversation and his performance with references to PIs of the past, all in books. Readers of classic detective fiction can giggle and guffaw as they ride shotgun with this new wacky character, recognizing his American PI heroes well before the British police team grapples with what Johnny’s attempting to copy. Finally, Ingeborg feels the need to take a stand: “Don’t knock my guv’nor,” she warns Getz. His response is to tell her how much he values Diamond. Why, after mentally calling the DS a fat slob? It’s simple: “Every private eye from Sherlock Holmes to Matt Scudder needs a line into the factory. Sam Spade had his tame sergeant, Tom Polhaus. Philip Marlowe had Officer Randall from Central Homicide. It comes with the territory.”

Though Ingeborg protests that PIs belong in a different country and a different century, far from 21st-century Bath in Britain, she doesn’t have a chance of talking Johnny Getz out of getting his man, so to speak. And getting paid.

Through the nonstop campy humor runs a solid and clever little mystery, with some great red herrings and a fine twist before solution. The one part unresolved by the end of Diamond and the Eye is whether Johnny Getz will now leave “Pete” alone.

It’s the nature of a series to leave the reader suspecting there is more to come of this frustrating and funny pairing, in Peter Lovesey’s books ahead. 

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

Tis the Season for Classic Detection Stories, in A SURPRISE FOR CHRISTMAS AND OTHER CHRISTMAS MYSTERIES

Martin  Edwards has a marvelous mystery series of his own, featuring Rachel Savernake, set in the Golden Age. A perfect transformation has turned him into the editor of several collections of detective stories brought out by British Library Crime Classics (Poisoned Pen Press, a Sourcebooks imprint). 

A SURPRISE FOR CHRISTMAS, released last week, is the fourth anthology in this series of "classic crime stories with a wintry theme" -- or, as Edwards also calls them, "detective stories in the classic vein." Scanning the author names for the dozen tales gave me shivers: among them Ngaio Marsh, G.K. Chesterton, Carter Dickson, Ernest Dudley, and Margery Allingham. Some of their stories may be almost unknown, even to those who have read the full-length crime novels from this pantheon of writers. As a Chesterton fanatic, I know I'd read "The Hole in the Wall," but so long ago that I'd forgotten the critical twist until I was several pages in. Cyril Hare's "A Surprise for Christmas" is morbidly funny; "Give Me a Ring" from Anthony Gilbert, one of the longer stories in the collection, has a sweet air of old-fashioned threat, from the days before risk and danger had to be garbed in gore or psychosis.

Adding to the delight of this collection are short forwards to the stories, recapping each author's presence in the Golden Age and noted sleuths. But often the stories presented come from outside the commonly known work of these authors. For example, the one from Ngaio Marsh does not feature Roderick Alleyn — but for "Death on the Air," which was published just three years later than Alleyn's first exposure in print, Marsh presents a classic "closed-circle detective story of the period," says the story's introduction. 

The tales also vary enormously in length, adding to the feel of opening a range of holiday gifts. With, of course, the advantage of no torn paper or ribbons to clear away afterward.

There is perhaps one drawback to A SURPRISE FOR CHRISTMAS: Any passionate reader of the authors collected here will need to purchase two copies ... one to savor as the days grow shorter, and one to give to the very best of friends.

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

Elderly and Wicked! Darkly Funny Murder from Helene Tursten in AN ELDERLY LADY MUST NOT BE CROSSED

 

[Originally published in New York Journal of Books]

“If you’re looking for distinctive international bouquet in your “Scandi noir,” this isn’t going to fit your shelf. Instead, it will be a dandy holiday gift, pocket size, darkly light-hearted, and a quick and easy introduction to the tongue-in-cheek side of one of today’s leading Swedish crime novelists.”

HeleneTursten summons her two established Swedish sleuths from two different series, Irene Huss and Embla Nyström, to tackle the wicked machinations of 88-year-old Maud in An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed, a holiday treat that will make a great stocking stuffer. Maud’s debut appearance in 2018’s An Elderly Lady Is Up to No Good demonstrated that a stack of cleverly twisted short stories can comprise a delightful book. Tursten’s choice to pit her two detectives against this frankly wicked old lady adds to the dark humor of her newest tales.

For Maud, the pressure applied by the two police investigators as a team is the last straw: She’s successfully gotten away with murder in her own home, but it’s taken quite a lot of scheming and arranging, and she’d like a break. Why not treat herself to a luxury trip to South Africa, be wined and dined, see amazing wildlife, all while disguising her cleverness under the deceptive appearance of aging into confusion? People do so much work for you if you appear to be frail and needy, don’t they?

After the first tale, “An Elderly Lady Begins to Remember Her Past,” these dryly funny and dark stories form a mostly chronological sequence—starting with Maud as a child, caretaker of an 11-years-older sister with increasingly odd habits. Not that Maud herself is particularly normal! As she reflects during her flight to Africa, “Memories rise to the surface. That’s what happens when you get older.” We find the grim smiles of “little Maud” executing a trap for bullies; we also find her smiling as she rehearses her father’s fishing methods while making sure a competitive colleague will have a terrible accident.

“No point in brooding over the past,” Maud reassures herself. “Sometimes a person had to do certain things in order to survive the hard life of a single woman with a heavy responsibility to bear.”

In delightfully creepy steps, Maud develops her murderous personality through this set of six revelatory narratives. And if the ending is perhaps a little more sweet than an aging Maud has led us to anticipate, don’t neglect the pair of cookie recipes at the end of An Elderly Lady Must Not Be Crossed. Innocent and sweet as they appear, one of them has been a murder weapon in Maud’s hands. But only, of course, because she was forced to use it!

Marlaine Delargy’s translation never gets in the way of the action in Tursten’s stories. On the other hand, it has little Swedish flavor to it, so if you’re looking for distinctive international bouquet in your “Scandi noir,” this isn’t going to fit your shelf. Instead, it will be a dandy holiday gift, pocket size, darkly light-hearted, and a quick and easy introduction to the tongue-in-cheek side of one of today’s leading Swedish crime novelists.

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

Intense and Chilling Thriller Set in Vermont, I AM NOT WHO YOU THINK I AM by Eric Rickstad

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“When Wayland becomes convinced that he’s witnessed some sleight of hand—that the death he witnessed was not his father’s but someone else’s—his passionate defense of the theory is based on the mysterious message he’d found.”

EricRickstad’s latest Vermont thriller presents a psychological mystery with stunning twists—perfectly paced and carefully constructed so that each startling new direction fits perfectly with what’s gone before, yet feels utterly unpredictable. That’s the ideal balance for this can’t-put-it-down novel crammed with sinister foreboding and family trauma.

I Am Not Who You Think I Am is titled with the words that eight-year-old Wayland Maynard discovers, in his father’s handwriting after he sees his father kill himself. Or is that what he’s actually seen? With age and maturity come questioning, and soon Wayland has a set of alternatives he’s desperate to prove and explain.

A child’s view provides an ultimately unreliable narrator, and at first, Wayland’s first-person narrative reveals the affection between his parents, and a possible weakness in his father. “I have pieced together enough to know that what happened on the day of the Incident was not done because he was a bad man. A bad father. It was done because … well, we’ll get to that. This isn’t some magic trick where the secret machinations are kept hidden. No. This is all about the reveal. The truth.”

But which parts of the child’s memories are relevant truths? Is it the tall threatening man who visited his father’s barber shop? “My father’s shears nicked my ear. I yelped. Blood trickled from my notched flesh. My father didn’t notice. His eyes were locked on the figure in the doorway. Dead leaves danced around the stranger’s feet. I felt a chill from the air that carried the tang of autumnal decay.”

Though Rickstad declares this novel to be a new direction for him, the vivid portrayal of place and threat will be familiar to those who’ve read his other books, like The Silent Girls. The tale quickly complicates as Wayland begins to share his investigation with Juliette, who sets his adolescent hormones and perceptions spinning and who is at least as strange and prone to vanishing as his family. When Wayland becomes convinced that he’s witnessed some sleight of hand—that the death he witnessed was not his father’s but someone else’s—his passionate defense of the theory is based on the mysterious message he’d found. And he poses the most critical issue: “Q: If it wasn’t your father, where is your father now? A: I don’t know. But I’m going to find out. Find out what they did to him.”

Some of the answers seem to be in the hands of the town’s most wealthy and reclusive citizens, and Wayland places himself in extreme danger, trying to discover the secrets he knows they are keeping from him. When the final twist arrive, it’s not just Wayland who will be shocked—and the mood of love mingled with deception never lets up for a moment.

Rickstad makes it clear that it took both The Story Factory and the unusual tilt of Blackstone Books to allow him to swerve into this powerful diversion of narrative and suspended disbelief. Three more books are promised. Which should be, in fact, as good a return on investment as young Wayland will get for his desperate investigation.

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

Rock Music, Suspense, Dark Thriller: HOLD ME DOWN by Clea Simon

Clea Simon's deep dives into the crime, pain, and heroics of Boston's club music world gave a fierce and dark passion to her crime novel World Enough (2017). With HOLD ME  DOWN, Simon goes multiple layers deeper and darker—thanks to the persona of Gal, a scarred and angry woman who has held crowds in the palm of her hand as she belted out the lyrics of her own top songs, mic stand and the strings of the bass as much a part of her as her own vocal cords and rough screams of rage and sexuality.

For Gal, a Boston return, 20 years later, is fraught with potential failure. Taking a cameo role in a club performance, she falters at first, realizing the guitarist is "all metal and speed, still" -- can Gal keep up? But she finds out right away: "The move centers her ... belting out the chorus as well as she knows the tattoo on her wrist—an F clef, faded blue—as the song pours out of her, the words coming easily now. Winding up to the hook. The line with the hiccup. One extra beat that makes the rhyme different." And she's back in charge of the image she's been ready to project, of a woman and a band grown tougher with age, "blooded, in ways they can only imagine." It's about power, sexuality, control.

And then, with one tricky glimpse for a moment of a face in the crowd, she's rubbed raw again, and in danger.

Scenes of touring, of the drug-supported physical challenge of performing for one crowd after another, clawing up the charts, the band becoming a life form of its own: Simon peels these like layers of a sharp onion, tears and rage starting to flow with Gal's slow recognition of the deep punishment she's sustained in her life. Her best songs—including the iconic "Hold Me Down"—root in that festering pain and anger that only her closest friends have even a hint of. 

"That song, 'Hold Me Down,' had been their breakout. Their hit, even in the rough four-track version they'd recorded down at Randy's, burning up the college stations with a waiting list for the single. Fans asking at the record store whenever she dropped back in to pick up a shift. It was why the suits had come calling, taking the shuttle up from New York to hear them at the Rat, the Channel, Taji's."

With the "suits" had come the controllers, the people who shoved the band at a pace beyond human capacity, drugging them as needed, pressing them into alcohol and drug abuse and a demand for performance that's deadly in its effects.

As the 20-years-later brutal murder of one of the team confronts her, so long after the band's success, Gal slowly admits to herself why the killing happened and who has deliberately done damage to her and the others. Then the police get involved, demanding that she reveal information she's barely coming to terms with. "You could come in and speak with us, if you'd like. Or should I send someone to get you?" That's the investigator. And Gal replies that she'll come in, without being dragged—admitting, in that moment, that her choices are "all about control."

But you can't control what brutal crime does to you. You can only cling to your friends and what's left of who you thought you were, and keep going. Or not. 

Simon's pacing in this crime thriller offers more than plot and character: She reincarnates the demanding sexuality of the rock underground with the costs of fame and addiction. Page by page, scene by traumatic scene, there's no guarantee that Gal can even perceive a safe harbor. 

Anyone who's dreamed of the power of being a rock performer will get double the emotional kick from this raw and compelling suspense novel. Simon's particular genius in HOLD ME DOWN is shining her light into the world of tough, struggling, and brilliant women—a side of the rock world rarely acknowledged or envisioned. HOLD ME DOWN is a heartache packed into 248 pages, with the possibility of breaking always just within reach.

After multiple genres of mysteries and crime novels, this Boston-area author has come into her own, so that Gal yells the words so many have had in the back of their throats, an accusation: "You wanna, you wanna hold me down." It's all about how we fight back. Can Gal do it—and survive?

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

Enjoyable Historical Mystery from Andrea Penrose, MURDER AT THE ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS

 [Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“For relaxed enjoyment and the diversion of adept time travel, an Andrea Penrose historical mystery is hard to beat!”

The fifth in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford & Sloane historical mystery series, Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens, brings the Earl of Wrexford and Lady Charlotte Sloan into the home stretch, approaching their Regency-era wedding in London. These two nicely layered characters have solved many a murder together already, in collaboration with the smart people who work for them and a pair of clever young street lads that Lady Charlotte has adopted as wards.

But holding themselves in the light of “Society” through the last weeks of unmarried life is critically important to the positions they’re soon to hold. Readers of Penrose’s series already know (and new readers can quickly absorb) that Charlotte’s risk-taking personality and abundant loyalty have made trouble for her in the past. Should “Society” get wind of the scandals behind her, she won’t make a suitable bride for the earl; on the other hand, once they are wed, her past can’t seriously damage her.

So the pair, and their households, have carefully planned a set of social appearances, to reassure any critical eyes around them. It’s not their fault, of course, that murder falls into their paths at the first of those events, a posh celebration prepared for the many “nobles” who dabble in citizen science or invest in scientists and their potential. At the Royal Botanic Gardens in Kew, rare blooms flourish as a striking backdrop.

Yet a murmur from the Royal Society’s secretary is enough to put both lovers on the alert: “’Forgive the interruption, sir.’ The look of alarm in his eyes belied his smile as he drew Wrexford aside. ‘But might I ask you to come with me to the conservatory. There’s been an … unfortunate mishap.’”

With the high visibility of their approaching nuptials, Charlotte and Wrexford could understandably turn down this plea for assistance in solving a murder and stilling the ripples of crime spreading around it. But one of the charming aspects of this series, beyond its romantic strands and delightful across-class conversations and loyalties, is the presence of Charlotte’s two rapscallions—that is, the young boys who are her wards. And since one has been a possible witness to the murder, neither adult is going to back away from resolving it.

Murder at the Royal Botanic Gardens offers a well-spun historical mystery with a nice assortment of factual details, period cuss words, and insight into the science and medicine of the time. In contrast to the current tradition of “cozy” mysteries, neither Charlotte nor Wrexford stumbles into poor decisions. That makes it a pleasure to watch them peel back the layers of graft and deceit related to botanical discovery of the period. Moreover, their interactions with the boys, nicknamed Raven and Hawk, are charming and affectionate and add an unusual spice to both the passions and the discoveries of Penrose’s mystery.

For relaxed enjoyment and the diversion of adept time travel, an Andrea Penrose historical mystery is hard to beat! [Released this week from Kensington Books.]

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

Excellent Swedish Crime Fiction: WE KNOW YOU REMEMBER from Tove Alsterdal

 

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Among today’s abundant crime novels, it’s rare to find one that demands a second reading for its language and insight. We Know You Remember is one of that small group.”

Even before investigators suspect that he’s a victim, not a perpetrator, Olof Hagström’s presence in his long-ago home town in rural Sweden is drenched in sorrow, terror, and accusations. Living on the fringes of society, supporting himself through an off-the-books job and isolated by both his slow speech and his burdensome past, he yields to an impulse to visit his childhood home—where he finds his father dead in the bathtub.

Police detective Eira Sjödin hasn’t been around town much either, but the case calls her into a community that hasn’t forgiven or forgotten Olof. At age 14, he’d been the local scapegoat: convicted of rape and murder of another teen. His own mother wanted nothing more to do with him.

But Eira is going through her own changes of identity, as the investigator who’d mentored her enters retirement. A woman on a police force, including in Sweden, needs to watch her back as often among her colleagues as on the street. Suggestions from her mentor send her back to the case 20 years earlier where Olof was charged. “GG hasn’t exactly been explicit about what he wanted her to do, but his hints were more than enough. An unwillingness to listen. A suspicion that she was digging into Olof Hagström’s past because she felt guilty.”

Eira’d been only 9 years old when Olof was charged. Why should she feel guilty now? It has something to do with how she’d first seen the man in the interrogation room, sweating and frightened and incompetent. “It wasn’t just unease, it was stronger than that. It was disgust and contempt and a kind of curiosity that made her stray beyond the strictly professional.”

But opening up Olof’s past means reopening her own, and Eira’s family life growing up was far from simple. Those teen rebellion years included risks and secrets. If her investigation moves suspicion onto people she cares about, will the cost be too high? And what about her own mother, sliding into dementia—when she asks her mother to open up about the past, it’s only Eira’s anger at the old silence that keeps her pushing. “Whether you do or don’t remember, she thought, there’s something you’re trying to protect me from.”

The pipeline for translation of Scandinavian noir demands time. Tove Alsterdal’s 2009 debut in Sweden won her immediate acclaim, and she’s brought out more stand-alone novels.   We Know You Remember came out last year in Sweden, under a title that translates as “Uprooted.” This translation by Alice Menzies reads well, letting Alsterdal’s steady accumulation of haunting and guilt-drenched detail build a memorable internal world. The power of this crime novel is as much in the struggles of Eira’s too-personal investigation as it is in the criminal threats involved. Eira is a victim of her own inescapable compassion, as well as of the demands for clarity that comes with her investigation.

Among today’s abundant crime novels, it’s rare to find one that demands a second reading for its language and insight. We Know You Remember is one of that small group, and more American appearances of Tove Alsterdal’s other titles are well worth looking forward to.

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