It's a Tough World, but PI Willa Pennington Steps Up, in DARK STREETS, COLD SUBURBS from Aimee Hix

About the only thing I didn't like about the second Willa Pennington investigation, DARK STREETS, COLD SUBURBS, was the title -- for all the rest, from the conflicted protagonist to the neatly twisted and well-paced plotting, I couldn't put the book down.

Willa Pennington is a former law enforcement officer, and in her own thinking, she's wimped out of the job. Now studying -- both on paper and in practice drills -- to pass the exams for a private investigator (PI) license, to work in her dad's business. It's home based, which means that if the bad guys catch on to where the Penningtons live, violence and threat can easily come home with them.

Not that Willa's mom would let "bad guys" get very far. Defensive of her family and wickedly insightful, she's Willa's other mentor in a deep sense. And Willa needs all the back-up she can find: At the mixed martial arts dojo where she's working past her (very reasonable) fear load, there's a teenager who's in extreme danger. A classic "poor little rich girl," the teen, Aja, is struggling to navigate death and destruction while her parents leave her alone in a house where the locks and alarms aren't enough to keep out the crazies. The thing is, they're not acting like the presumed teenaged druggies or house thieves Willa had in mind:

Instead of deflating like expected, like any scared, stupid kid would he kicked back hard and caught me on the jaw. He nailed me in just the right spot and I saw the proverbial stars.

I heard him scrambling up and running off while I shook my head like a cartoon and tried to remember how to count all my teeth, especially the back ones. When I was finally back in the land of the fully cognizant with a wet ass, ripped jeans, and scuffed Chucks, I listened for the sound of a vehicle. The only thing I heard was a very optimistic mourning dove cooing and the chirp of a text alert.

I NEED YOU AT A SCENE.

Either Jan's cold case had just gotten super-hot or she had a second case for me. That made three I was juggling, in case anyone was counting.

The rain began coming down in earnest as I limped back to my truck, my knee competing with my pride to see which smarted more.

Most of us don't work out as intensely as Willa, or plan our attacks and defenses in her ways -- but otherwise, this all-too-believable crime novel of suburban danger could be taking place practically next door, and the risks Willa decides to take make sense ... but only good teamwork will get her through.

This one's a keeper, and that means the entire series -- the preceding title (What Doesn't Kill You) and the ones we can expect in the future from Aimee Hix, a northern Virginia author -- need space on the shelves, ASAP. A good pick from Midnight Ink.

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

Suspense and Southern Warmth, SCRAPBOOK OF THE DEAD, by Mollie Cox Bryan

There's a special pleasure in traveling to a new place (or time) through a work of fiction -- think of all the British novels (and Sherlock Holmes stories) that have given readers a feel for London fogs and the dark menace of the Tower of London and the civilized veneer of tea parties. And of course, all the Europeans and Asians who've been convinced, on the basis of certain American films and books, that this is a land of gunfire and feasting, in roughly equal proportions.

Sometimes the traveling and the taste of a different culture are a bit more subtle, though. The Cumberland Creek mysteries from Mollie Cox Bryan propose small-town life rich with women's friendships. Women who have enough time to get together regularly on Saturday (!) evenings for scrapbook work parties -- that is, to hold "a crop." And on top of that, women who completely accept each other's diversity (from Christian to Jewish to Wiccan) because they value each other's support so fully.

It's a lovely world that this author has created, and her fifth mystery set in "Cumberland Creek," Virginia, SCRAPBOOK OF THE DEAD, provides a long tender visit with about-to-be-ex investigative journalist Annie, bakery owner DeeAnn, elderly Beatrice (and her new French husband), and others who keep each other going. It's October, and the group's saluting autumn in scrapbook images and colors, when the warm comfort of their group is interrupted by murder ... by two murders, in fact, of sisters who were immigrants working in their town. To their shock, they haven't even realized the area's famous pie restaurant takes advantage of new immigrants, paying well below the going wage through an international "agency." Equally shocking to Annie, DeeAnn, and Beatrice is realizing they didn't even notice the new row of low-end housing where these workers live.

Annie's journalism job keeps her motivated to dig into the murders, while her friends move into action out of compassion and a sort of embarrassment at how they've ignored the most unfortunate women in their community, including the first murdered woman, Marina. That murder has another connection to this group, which Annie reveals:

Annie just smiled and fingered through her stack of cardstock. "You know, I almost forgot about the scrapbook page."

"What?" DeeAnn said.

"Marina was holding a scrapbook page when they found her," Annie said.

The room silenced.

"Disturbing," DeeAnn finally said.

It's even more disturbing when the women realize that Marina's sister, also murdered, was also holding a scrapbook page at the time she was killed.

Cox weaves multiple investigations through the gentle probing by each of her main characters. Motive? Means? Opportunity? The fragments they uncover, like bits of a scrapbook page, won't make sense until the final faces are added, as the book reaches a crescendo during the week of Halloween.

This is a classic "cozy" mystery with plenty of family, friendship, and desserts involved, and gentle pressure toward solving the case. Read it for entertainment and the pleasure of page-turning without effort -- a mystery meant for fun and to honor the warmth of friendships in the author's own life. No need to have read the four books before this one, but some details will mean more (like Cookie's amnesia and Annie's family issues) if you have.

No recipes in this one, but an intriguing glossary of "terms for the modern scrapbooker" and some tips for the craft. From Kensington Books, where the art of the cozy series is being perfected.