Newest Caribbean Mystery from Teresa Dovalpage, DEATH OF A TELENOVELA STAR

Cuban-born Teresa Dovalpage's third mystery with Soho Crime/Soho Press was published over the summer; a copy reached me a few weeks ago and turned out to be the perfect light dessert for the season!

DEATH OF A TELENOVELA STAR opens with Marlene Martínez—a former Havana detective with a role in one of Dovalpage's earlier mysteries—finally taking some time off. Her brush with crime in Cuba helped motivate her to move to Miami, Florida, where she owns her own bakery. She loves it! But still, it's time to give her niece Sarita a significant quinceañera gift, and what she's opted for is an aunt-and-niece cruise to Mexico and the Caribbean. When a Cuban telenovela (soap opera) star turns out to be a fellow passenger, hunky and appealing, family bonding takes second place to social media posting for Sarita.

This is a compact, quick-paced novella with some fortune telling, a murder, and small revelations about Marlene along the way. "Men cause more trouble than they are worth," the retired detective tells herself, an easy enough position to take about the overly adored TV star -- but not as realistic when the cruise chef starts to pay some serious attention to Marlene's baking background and tastes in food.

All in all, a light-hearted, cleverly put together mystery, enjoyable and gently revelatory—treat yourself to a copy, and share it with a "bestie" so you can smile about it together.

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

THE DEADLY HOURS: Four Authors, Four Historical Eras, One Cursed Watch ...

And multiple deaths and lovers.

Although THE DEADLY HOURS (Sept. 1 release) is labeled "An Anthology," it's actually much more exciting -- it's a chained set of four novellas that reach from 1733 to 1944, bringing a set of English mystery tales into exhilarating conjunction. Each is written by a different author; all four are well known for their historical and romantic suspense. A true page-turner, crammed with risk, suspense, and satisfying investigations, it showcases Susanna Kearsley, C. S. Harris, Anna Lee Huber, and Christine Trent.

Hear this: It begins with lovemaking, piracy, espionage on behalf of the Scottish succession, and a curse placed on an elegant watch, for which the gold was stolen from a religious group in the New World.

That should be enough for a reader to decide, really. If you want a bit more, know that Hugh McPherson in 1733 considers that his wife Mary, whose love he has earned, is his angel: "She'd brought him back to the light." Now a team, the couple collides in Portofino with a dangerous Spanish captain, an assassin, royalty, and, indeed, the dangerous object that carries its own name, for the mermaid etched upon it: La Sirène. By the time Kearsley completes her tale, "Weapon of Choice," there's no choice -- one must continue to find out more.

Yet each succeeding novella in this set of four is enchantingly different. Anna Lee Huber presents "A Lady Darby Novella" in her contribution, "In a Fevered Hour." The timeline has jumped to 1831, and again we have a wife and husband who adore each other and collaborate in their intelligence and daring. Kiera and Sebastian Gage find themselves collaborating with a well-known vicious criminal whose need for their help involves the fate of all Edinburgh. For "A Pocketful of Death," Christine Trent enables Violet Harper, a highly unusual undertaker, to cross paths with the watch that has drawn a trail of death and betrayal through the other novellas, and now in 1870 seems to evoke coincidental deaths in Violet's neighborhood. "Siren's Call," from C. S. Harris, opens in 1944 and soon reaches this ominous point: 

Jude glanced over at him. "Hitler does have a well-known interest in occult objects."

"True. But it seems far-fetched to me."

"The idea of an unstable buffoon like Hitler managing to seize power in the first place is far-fetched," said Jude, setting the shadow box aside. "Yet it happened."

To find a conclusion to the devastation caused by the accursed timepiece, Rachel Townsend-Smythe will have to sort out both espionage and family loyalties, to save the people she cares about.

Praised on the cover by no less than Anne Perry, THE DEADLY HOURS is a marvelous four-course meal of lively and intriguing writing, a great way to sample the work of these four authors, and a true gift to readers from the Poisoned Pen Press imprint of Sourcebooks. Tuck it into your travel bag or sweep the bedside table clear and let this one launch your fresh season of exploration.

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

 

Delicious Murder Mysteries to Devour or Give, in EGGNOG MURDER, Leslie Meier, Lee Hollis, Barbara Ross

A fine rain is drizzling here in a silver mist, and it's pure November. One defense is to decorate a bit -- knowing the Big Holidays are racing toward us. I always figure those twinkling lights and glowing candles are intentional efforts to push away short-day-linked depression. And omigosh, the holiday to-do lists and the agony over presents to choose!

Thank goodness, those issues are neatly dealt with, now that EGGNOG MURDER has hit the shelves. This festive mystery volume brings together three noted New England storytellers who dip into the holiday brew and emerge with entirely different crime scenes for their noted sleuths. The only thing in common: eggnog, a traditional beverage that, in its purest form, includes cream, raw eggs, and plenty of booze, generally bourbon, rum, and cognac. (One recipe I regarded called it the "drink that thinks it's a custard pie"; here's a link to Martha Stewart's own version.)

EGGNOG MURDER contains three novellas (call them short books, or extra-satisfying story lengths). Each is about 100 pages long -- well actually, Leslie Meier's contribution "Eggnog Murder," which starts the volume, takes 130 pages. I was glad to break into the tale, knowing I'd reconnect with small-town reporter Lucy Stone in Tinker's Cove, Maine. Sure enough, at the tiny office of the weekly newspaper where Lucy works, a gift-wrapped bottle of eggnog turns up, just in time for the local business open house. Meier comes up with a fascinating way to poison a drink, and a lively set of red herrings -- or do I mean red Santa suits? Every Lucy Stone mystery wraps up some family issues and affection, too, perfect reading to escape those to-do lists for a couple of hours.

You know how your imagination can run away with you when you're reading a good mystery ... well, that's half the point, isn't it? You're trying to figure out the crime and the criminal just a few pages before the sleuth pulls it all together (yes, I really am competitive like that). As I slid merrily into the second novella, Lee Hollis's "Death by Eggnog," I suddenly pictured the three authors daring each other to tackle this theme, confident that they would diverge, and at the same time just as worried as the rest of us over whether their holiday offerings would come out right. And different enough!

Well, they are -- in "Death by Eggnog" Hollis's series sleuth Hayley Powell, a food and cocktails columnist, gets double pressure as she prepares to cover the Maine town's "Restaurant Association Christmas Dinner" event. It's a big deal, one of her co-workers wants to tag along, her brother is entering a recipe that's "killer" spicy, and friction among the year-rounders in the tourist-dependent town of Bar Harbor is running rampant -- although not quite nasty enough to produce the theoretical crime wave that the newspaper may need to juice up its sales figures. So why is Hayley the target when someone actually does die? (Confession: I peeked ahead to the end of the Hollis novella, to check out the recipes. Yes, there are recipes and a holiday note to readers from each author.)

"Nogged Off" from Barbara Ross provides a nifty interlude and set of family revelations for financial-wizard-come-back-to-Maine Julia Snowden. Fans of Ross's "traditional" and highly enjoyable sleuth series know that Julia's been torn over whether to cut all the ties to her former high-income, high-prestige urban job. At the start of "Nogged Off" she's finally closing down her city apartment -- and in the process, taking home to Maine with her a forlorn waif who'd been subletting the place. Is young Imogen jinxed, with all the bad things happening to her? And if she's a target instead, is Julia bringing something wicked with her, back home for the holidays? Imogen's version of eggnog already accidentally poisoned a bunch of people in the city -- what could happen in Busman's Harbor, Maine, though, with one extra guest for the preparations for Christmas? I couldn't stop reading this page-turner that pits family stresses and unexpected crime against the strengths that Julia, her boyfriend, and her mom, sister, and neighbors have already demonstrated.

You could just pick up one copy of EGGNOG MURDER and enjoy reading it yourself very carefully, so you can then wrap it as a gift for a bestie. But that would mean missing out on the pleasure of savoring this great distraction during the weeks to come, because you'd be rushing to finish the book. Besides, the recipes are worth keeping -- I plan to use the "Pecan Puffs" one, in happy memory of the year our neighborhood cookie swap accidentally included seven versions of nut balls. Might as well enjoy them, if they're only cooked up once a year!

So, all things considered, I recommend picking up two copies of EGGNOG MURDER. Unless, of course, you see the need for three. Pass me that gift list again, would you?

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

Mystery Novella and Short Stories, from James Grippando and Jim Fusilli

There are seasons when shorter crime fiction is a perfect fit for the days and evenings. I was glad to discover James Grippando's new work, THE PENNY JUMPER. About 140 pages of the book is a novella, "The Penny Jumper," a provocative and highly suspenseful tale of how a brilliant software developer finds her life highjacked -- and her freedom threatened.

Ainsley Grace tuned her coding skills in astronomy, following her father's passion for exploring the night sky through giant telescopes and their programming. But when her programming tackled the fine units of time difference that show up in the light from distant galaxies, it also had applications to a form of stock-market trading called penny jumping. What happens once Ainsley solves the market application is downright terrifying, and totally convincing. This one's a real nail-biter.

Two stories and a reflection by the author on his long-time pet follow the novella -- all enjoyable, and giving good evidence for how a notion or puzzle becomes transformed into a good piece of writing. The book just released in hardcover from Nightstand Press, and Grippando is a former trial lawyer turned best-selling author (The Pardon was his debut novel in 1994).

CRIME PLUS MUSIC, edited and contributed to by crime fiction author Jim Fusilli, ties together 20 stories where music takes a starring role in vicious attacks or criminals. Jazz, rock, blues ... the stories not only twist suspense and puzzle solving, but they also showcase their authors' musical passions, some of which are already familiar to their readers -- like that of Craig Johnson of Longmire note. I especially liked Peter Blauner's clever contribution as the first story of the group, "The Last Temptation of Frankie Lymon." It was also enticing to search for the pieces by Reed Farrel Coleman, Val McDermid, Peter Robinson, David Corbett, David Liss, even Zoë Sharp, as well as authors whose writing isn't as familiar to me.

This collection comes from Three Rooms Press, and could make a dandy Halloween hostess gift (to yourself or your host). As Fusilli writes in his introduction, "You are warned: Songs familiar and not so will be brought to mind, yes, but there will be blood."

Both of these are good candidates for the shelf of short crime fiction, as well as for completing a collection of works of any of the outstanding authors involved.

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

Nursing Home Noir, in S. W. Lauden, CROSSWISE

Ready for a quick read (novella length) that's an updated version of the old pulp noir? CROSSWISE is released today from Down & Out Books.

We might have known it was coming, as the big generation of writers and readers faced versions of the future: What crimes are taking place in nursing homes? And who's going to solve them -- the oldtimers in the adjacent rooms? The nursing aides and volunteers in pastel smocks? The tough-as-nails director?

S. W. Lauden, a Los Angeles writer and drummer with a lot of short fiction published plus his Greg Salem series (starts with Bad Citizen Corporation), isn't nursing home age yet. For that matter, neither is Tommy Ruzzo, the hard-drinking and bitter ex-cop from NYPD, now working a security gig in Florida at Precious Acres Retirement Community. But with a major mistake in his past -- having to do with an evidence locker -- he's blackballed from his official profession and muddling along among the crises of gray-haired gamblers and crossword puzzle fanatics. And oh yes, getting involved with at least one woman he knows he should have stayed away from.

The thing is, a lot of the oldtimers at Precious Acres are former New Yorkers themselves. And when they start being killed, with taunting clues for Ruzzo arriving on crossword puzzles in the local newspaper, he suspects a Mob connection from the Big Apple has followed the gents south. Has nursing home work made Tommy Ruzzo too soft to dig into the case, though?

The empty bottle rolled from Ruzzo's hand and banged against the hardwood floor. He sprang up in a daze, groping wildly in the bed for his gun.

He went over to the pantry and twisted the lid on his last bottle. The warm bourbon felt like it was tearing him apart as he crept over to the window. He pushed the mini blinds aside with the barrel of his revolver and looked out across the pre-dawn stillness. A golf cart came into view, the driver tossing newspapers onto porches as he crawled along. Ruzzo waited for the silence to return before he slipped downstairs to steal a Sentinel from one of his neighbors.

Lauden makes it clear that Ruzzo is about as corrupt and prone to violent shortcuts as the murderer(s) he's chasing. But even Tommy Ruzzo can get surprised by what surfaces in the Florida retirement grift!

CROSSWISE is a fun read and a quick one (130 pages) -- a great tip of the hat to the noir genre. Shelve it with Westlake, Robert Parker, and your vintage paperbacks with their slinky women brandishing firearms. Or with Carl Hiassen and Kinky Friedman, for the good-humoredly ridiculous capers. Good stuff!