Excellent British Traditional Mystery from Rebecca Tope, THE HAWKSHEAD HOSTAGE

It's a small world, true enough. But in the world of mystery fiction, it's also a very wide world with more good books and skilled authors than most people can catch up with. Still, I'm always somehow surprised when I find an established author I've never heard of ... and delighted, because a list of previous books comes along with the discovery!

This season I finally read a book by British author Rebecca Tope, thanks to publisher Allison & Busby sending an after-publication copy. Tope's current two series are one set in the Cotswolds (a place I'd love to walk sometime) and one set in the Lake District (dear to my heart as a lifelong fan of the Swallows and Amazons children's books).  THE HAWKSHEAD HOSTAGE is in the Lake District group and features florist Persimmon "Simmy" Brown, who also appears in five other mysteries.

The action starts at Simmy's flower shop, where life is a bit dull in the summer tourist season, which pulls people outside for hiking and exploration but doesn't impel them to buy bouquets. Simmy is also trying to recover from the loss of one of her employees, who has gone to work at an upscale hotel instead for more action -- which turns out to involve Simmy after all, when Melanie dashes into the shop to announce that she's snagged Simmy a bit floral assignment, arranging massive flower vases for the hotel some distance away, sure to use two half-days per week ... and be worth being paid accordingly. Simmy's not sure this is a good thing, but she starts to adapt to the notion, and en route to the hotel to get acquainted, she provides a ride to a young hiker, Ben, whom she already knows. And Ben in turn is close friends with Simmy's remaining employee, an unusual youngster named Bonnie. Ben takes off to kill some time while Simmy meets the hotel staff, so she doesn't realize there's a problem until she returns to her car and her phone, which she'd left there:

Out of habit, Simmy switched on the phone, and within a few seconds it gave the little song that told her she had a message. Bonnie, she supposed, with a question about the shop. It was a voicemail, not a text, which suggested it might be urgent. With a sigh, Simmy put the phone to her ear, reluctant to discover what mistake the girl might have made without having recourse to advice.

"Simmy!" came a high-pitched voice, full of panic. "There's a body here. Under the trees, at the very top end of the lake. I don't know what to do. Well, I'll have to call 999. Who knows when you'll get this ... Hey!" The phone went silent in her hand, even though she continued to listen for further speech.

It was Ben. The last syllable had been closer to a scream than a shout. ... Not until that final word did she understand that this was real, and that the boy was not merely panicked but terrified.

When the body's found but Ben isn't, it's clear whoever killed the man on the hotel grounds must have taken Ben as a captive to protect themselves. Simmy of course feels responsible -- she gave the young man a ride, and he's gone missing.

But all her efforts run into dead ends, and it's Bonnie who puts the pieces and clues together to guess at what has happened to Ben and where to look for him. It takes so long to reach a solution -- what shape will he be in? Alive, dead, injured? And is there still a way that Simmy can make sure the young people survive to confront the criminals?

A lively read, jumping from one point of view to another, and not entirely easy for someone who hasn't read any of the other books in the series -- but well worth it, to realize what a good run of books by Tope is waiting to be read. In fact, since she's worked with three English-countryside series (the third is her West Country Mysteries), there's a big stack ready. That's great news!

(Tope's website is out of date, but it's not hard to find lists of her titles elsewhere.)

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

Brief Mention: Las Vegas Noir from David Kranes, ABRACADABRA

There's a new-ish trend among university presses that's fascinating to observe: an urge to publish fiction, including thrillers and mysteries, set in the press's home state. When the University of Minnesota Press began to publish the Scandinavian/Minnesotan fiction of Vidar Sundstøl, I became an instant fan. And now the University of Nevada Press presents David Kranes with his outrageous and delightful detective tale, ABRACADABRA.

Kranes is an established author of seven other novels and many short stories, and lives in Salt Lake City, Utah, where he is a professor emeritus at University of Utah. He clearly knows Las Vegas well -- but more importantly, he's willing to risk his dignity by creating a detective with a head injury that takes him well beyond "the facts of the case" -- and crime-solving assistants like the Bloody Marys (a network of cocktail waitresses) and his own team of celebrity impersonators (Shaquille O'Neal, anyone?). As a detective, Elko Wells is far outside the usual (and he used to be a pro football player, another wild aspect).

Then again, the case Elko tackles in ABRACADABRA is also outside the box -- literally. Lena Goodson wants him to find her husband Mark, who, trapped in a very uncomfortable marriage, has just escaped her, by leaving backstage during a magician's act that should have resulted in his simple reappearance in the traditional black stage box.

Plenty of fun and entertainment here, along with magic tricks and classic cons, as well as a sense of the mysteries of love and life and of course impersonation, whether intentional or not, and its, shall we say, spiritual aspects.

Grab this one for a very unusual blend of offbeat detection, caper, crime, and discovery.

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

Scary and Compelling Thriller from Carter Wilson, MISTER TENDER'S GIRL

Coupled with the title, the cover on Carter Wilson's fifth book, MISTER TENDER'S GIRL, scared me -- in fact, I found the combo so creepy that I almost skipped reading the book. And that would have been a mistake, because this is one of the smartest, well-twisted, enjoyable thrillers I've read this year.

Wilson's area of the mystery/thriller genre has been labeled "dark domestic thrillers." In MISTER TENDER'S GIRL, the action opens in Manchester, New Hampshire, a gritty, once-industrial city that now hosts a fine crop of tech firms and coffee shops, along with a charmingly diverse population. It's the coffee shop aspect that matters here -- Alice Gray, whose name was originally Alice Hill, owns a coffee shop, and in addition, a  colonial-style, century-old building nearby where she lives: In one building, her low-keysecond-floor apartment where she lives (quirkily, she has no knives in her home), and a third-floor space rented to a quiet tenant she barely knows. Things are going along reasonably well for her. She rarely misses England, where at age 14 she was brutally attacked by a pair of teens like herself ... and her carefully constructed new life lets her mostly hide from her past.

Until, one day, an online dating site she's signed up for, to satisfy a friend who thinks her life looks lonely, gives her a match from a name deep in her past: "Mister Tender," the name of the most outrageous character in a graphic novel series created by her now-dead father. The horrors are about to open up once again.

The creepiest part of the disaster Alice is walking into is the sense, even in Manchester, NH, that she's being watched by some evil linked to her past. Someone online knows about the crime against her, the killing of her father, and even where she was this week -- in fact, it looks like she has multiple stalkers, and no safe place to go or person to be with. Add her very odd mother to that list, and an ex-boyfriend, and people back in England, where the bizarre and cruel changes of her life began.

Wilson's skill places the creepiness smack in the middle of our ordinary modern lives, where our computers are close at hand and our past is increasingly incapable of being erased from the Internet.  For Alice, that means there's no safety possible:

Today is the fourteenth anniversary of my attempted murder. I had almost forgotten, but my phone screen reminds me. October eighteenth. I remember it mostly as it was referred to in court, the solicitors repeatedly saying, "On the night of October 18 ..." I will hold no memorial on this day, carry no special reflections. I'll just try to get through it as I do every other.

So she lets her employees know she'll get to work late, and almost without thought, she follows the one clue she's been given to the stalkers in her life: She enters a site called "www.mistertender.com" where there's a message board of people obsessed with her life. She wants to type "LEAVE ME ALONE" and she enters the site, without identifying herself yet --

But before I type a single thing, a direct message appears in the inbox of this forum. It's from the master of ceremonies himself, Mr. Interested.

I click to open it. The message only has two words:

Hello, Alice.

This level of threat soon puts Alice on the run, back to the site of the original crime and colliding with her would-be killers. Yet someone, or maybe multiple someones, continues to track her and communicate.

This is a true page-turner, an assembly of threats that feel so close to home that the twists of plot become both chilling and agonizing -- who could be knocking at our own social media doors?

Wilson's finale provides even more twists, and a threat level that's over the top, but mercifully quick to resolve. Whether Alice will survive is always in doubt. Along with whether she'll ever feel safe again.

A must-read for anyone who can handle the suspense of wondering whether their own Internet-connected life might be, shall we say, just a bit risky after all? Best of all, Wilson's created a tie to graphic novel work that's stunning. I'd recommend this one for all thriller readers, with the reassurance that in spite of the terrifying aspects of the cover and what "might" happen, the book's resolution is highly satisfying -- go for it.

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

Spymaster Mick Herron's Stand-Alone, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED

I'm a major fan of Mick Herron's "Slow Horses" espionage novels. They're British and embedded in the classic MI5 framework -- but with a major twist that provides protagonists who are "failed spies," people who've messed up some major operation but can't be simply fired because they already know too much. Stashed among the misfits at Slough (pronounced Slow) House, they wither in their own estimation and in the noxious atmosphere provided by their "head of station."

So when I opened Herron's January 2018 offering, THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED, I kept expecting some connection back to the Slow Horses team, and when 26-year-old Maggie Barnes began to suspect she was being recruited for either industrial or international espionage, I started turning the pages even more rapidly than before. (Herron's storytelling is compelling ... his books are really, really hard to put down.)

My mistake. Unless I missed a very small mention (and I don't think I did), none of the Slow Horses spies turn up in this stand-alone suspense novel. Maggie, turned loose as a temporary infiltration agent, could be any one of us -- how would you do if thrust into a life-and-death, possible prison condition in a matter of hours after work one day? Who could save you??

Herron shapes a novella of psychological suspense in THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. I won't shelve it on my Slow Horses section, but rather next to some work by Barbara Vine (aka Ruth Rendell in her most twisted voice) and maybe even Stephen King, for the all-too-human pain involved. It's quite a read ... hope you pick up a copy to experience this other side of Herron's craft.

Slow Horses fans, keep in mind June 5, 2018, when the next in this series releases in the US: London Rules. Many thanks to Soho Crime for helping Herron keep these on a roll.

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

South African Noir, MY NAME IS NATHAN LUCIUS, by Mark Winkler

Nothing is simple in Mark Winkler's crime fiction -- least of all the motivation of the protagonist. In MY NAME IS NATHAN LUCIUS (his "fourth" title but actually his second novel, originally titled Wasted), Winkler provides a setup that should be transparent: Nathan Lucius is telling his own story, in detail, including his emotions and his, umm, peculiar forms of unclean mind. We should know whether he committed any crimes, and why -- right?

Well, no. Not the way Winkler spins this very usual and gritty work of noir. Nathan Lucius, age 31, an ad salesman for a newspaper, has unusual filters for what's important to comment on, and what's not. Running, drinking, jerking off ("wanking" in British slang) -- those are his primary concerns. Almost accidentally, in his preferred life of days-all-the-same, he's made a friend, the owner of a secondhand shop. This owner, Madge, is dying of cancer, and soon we realize Madge and Nathan are considering how he might help her to end her life.

But just how twisted is Nathan's version of his possibly crime-leavened life going to get? It's tempting to say, "not twisted," because Nathan appears to narrate everything just as it happens. But check out this interlude, when he first is questioned about Madge's death, by Inspector Morris:

I'm expecting a tough Cockney from a BBC cop show. I suppose it's the name. Morris has a heavy Afrikans accent. It would be a mistake to associate the accent with stupidity. People have done that before. I'm not going to. The room is so small that he has to squeeze himself against the wall to get around the table. He sits opposite me. He thanks me for coming. I put my sad face one. I tell him the facts as I'd told them to Mrs du Toit.

"So you've known the deceased for ...?"

"Four or five years," I tell him. [...]

"Forgive me, I have to ask. Was there anything, ah, inappropriate about your relationship?"

"Goodness, no." I sound just like Madge.

Blurbs for the book in advance talked about its exploration of violence, trauma, social responsibility, memory, morality ... I would rather say it's a daring adventure with an unreliable and unlikable narrator who nevertheless turns us into his witnesses, for court and elsewhere, with a related crazy mix of horror, appalled laughter, and insistence on knowing what comes next. Don't read this unless you're ready for very, very dark (think Dave Zeltserman even more than Thomas Harris). But if you do pick it up, clear the schedule, because you'll need to finish it before you'll be able to do anything else.

And then, you'll want to wash your hands. Twice.

From Soho Crime (Soho Press) comes this unforgettable transplant from a distant continent, straight into our most unsettling postmodern unease.

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

Third Thriller from Douglas Schofield, KILLING PACE

Sometimes books arrive here for review after they've already been released -- and KILLING PACE is one of those. I wasn't wild about the title, and the (misleading) cover suggested a sort of Celtic time lapse ... but I finally opened the book and then quickly lost track of time, absorbed in this powerfully told and complicated page-turning thriller set in Florida and in Sicily. It's Douglas Schofield's third, but not part of a series; he tends to write female protagonists (and explains something about that here -- in ways that interest me a great deal). And his extensive background in criminal prosecution, as well as globe-trotting, makes him an ideal source for his own plots.

In KILLING PACE, a woman's been held near-prisoner by her presumed fiancé, but it only takes a small breath of freedom for her memories of another life to flood back. Soon we're chasing major criminals in Italy with a woman of another name who works for the U.S. Customs investigation team -- same person? Some answers flash quickly; others, like who's behind the crimes around her (parts smuggling; baby kidnapping) are slower to mesh. But the twists keep coming, and so does the action.

Let's say, for the sake of not throwing any spoilers, that at least one strong woman in KILLING PACE has an Italian grandmother, which gives her definite advantages when sleuthing in Italy, of course. Here's a sample from later in the book:

She could live with being the roughly assembled product of Silvana Pace's obsessions.

Law and justice ...

Today, Laura Pace was a fugitive from the law, hunted for crimes she didn't commit.

Law and justice ...

Today, a police officer had broken the law to prevent her from being arrested.

Law and justice ...

Tonight, she was lying in a bed in a safe house run by a secret United Nations intelligence until whose activities probably violated a score of U.S. federal statutes.

Nonna would completely understand.

Intrigued? It's quite a ride, really well written, and convinced me that I want to read more from this author! The publisher is Minotaur, and I'm sure there are more titles on the way.

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

New from Randall Silvis, WALKING THE BONES, Murder and Love

Last year's mystery from Randall Silvis was Two Days Gone, a superb work of compelling suspense that tested the impact of once-in-a-lifetime friendships, while also inquiring into how writers do that mysterious "slice open a vein" action and live to tell about it ... or not. Police Sergeant Ryan DeMarco's investigation led him into immense pain over the loss of his writer friend, and also across the line into killing a killer.

In this year's new Silvis offering, WALKING THE BONES, DeMarco is determined to recover from his losses -- and to get around to the foundational work that his romantic relationship with a fellow officer, Trooper Jayme Matson. It's already a fraught affair, taking place around his obvious case of depression and PTSD and haunted by his child's death and the way his wife has abandoned him (but not yet divorced him). Is there any chance he can regain enough health of heart -- emotional and physical -- to meet Jayme's expectations?

Things look rough -- but when a cabal of quirky justice seekers in Jayme's hometown of Aberdeen, Kentucky, enlist DeMarco to investigate the deaths of seven young women (only their bones remain), his sense of purpose moved back into position (and Jayme's egging it on).

The crimesolving here is well plotted and first rate. But the best strength of any Randall Silvis book is the growth of character, often through pain, and with much awareness of how fragile life can be. Here's a taste of WALKING THE BONES:

At sixteen [DeMarco] was still fleet of foot, and by then had gotten a name for himself as a street fighter thanks to his quick hands and footwork. His knuckles were still scarred fro some of those fights.

In the army he could do five miles with a full pack and still be the first man to the showers. But he had been forty pounds lighter then. And unburdened by the elephantine weight of a conscience that rendered all unnecessary movement futile.

These days all the important movement took place in his head. And to keep that movement fro devolving now into a dark downward spiral, he thought about the girls. Seven unfortunate girls of color, all from miles and hours away. all ending up here in quiet little Aberdeen with the butterflies and hummingbirds,

He wondered if Hoyle had been aware of the metaphor he had created by describing the girls as cocooned in plastic sheeting. Hoyle, as strange as he was. did not strike DeMarco as  man who chose his words lightly.

And it made DeMarco sad to think of those girls as unformed butterflies. They had never been given their wings, had never tested the sky. And now every time DeMarco saw a butterfly, he would think of those girls.

For DeMarco to solve the case, he'll have to push well beyond his current physical limits, and risk both his life and his heart, under grim conditions that reminded me at times of a Stephen King horror plot. But don't underestimate him -- or Jayme, who's determined to somehow pull him back to life.

A fine read; I only wish DeMarco's series came to publication more often than once a year. This one, like its predecessor, comes from Sourcebooks. Readers of Julia Keller's West Virginia mysteries will feel at home in this Silvis series; those to value the mysteries of Charles Todd and Louise Penny will also recognize the soul battle underway.

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

Edgy San Francisco Mystery, Dystopian, from Jonathan Moore: THE NIGHT MARKET

Wow!

I really liked Jonathan Moore's mystery from last year, The Dark Room. And I figured I'd enjoy the 2018 book, which was already scheduled at that time. But I had no idea what was in store -- THE NIGHT MARKET knocked me breathless.

Fiercely plotted with twists and blade-sharp revelations, wrapped around homicide detective Ross Carver in a San Francisco of the hauntingly near future, THE NIGHT MARKET takes "techno-thriller" to a new height of expert writing and psychological disturbance. I couldn't put it down, and I'm shaken by the suggestions on how Big Money and Big Advertising may already be twisting our culture -- and threatening our lives.

Here's how it starts: Ross Carver and his partner, as the homicide team on duty, answer a call to a home where there's a presumed murder that's just taken place. That is, there's a corpse, and blood -- and the neighbor reported sounds of a frightening disturbance. But when Carver gets into the room with the body, what he sees makes no sense ... a covering of some kind of fungus already engulfing the body. Even less does the next moment make sense, as the FBI bursts onto the scene and drags Carver and his partner out to some kind of biological decontamination rig.

We know that -- but Carver, waking up in his own apartment with a neighbor he's never met taking care of him, has to start from scratch, because his memory has been wiped, and so has his partner's. The messed-up records of where he may have been are enough to suspend him from duty. But the tiny scrap of information left for him -- a fragment from a case he and his partner were supposed to investigate -- turns out to tie him back to the dangerous experiment he seems to have stumbled into.

The trouble is, it looks like organized crime and Very Very Big Money are running a scam in San Francisco -- maybe across the country -- that Carver can't afford to discover if he wants to survive.

Here's a scrap of conversation between Carver and his mysterious neighbor, Mia, who might be on his side. Or not. At any rate, she's ahead of him on figuring out the technology behind the crime scene that he witnessed:

"I didn't know what else to do," Mia said. "I've been sitting here for weeks, waiting. Either to be killed, or for someone to pull me out. And there wasn't any other choice. I  can't do this alone. I don't even know how they got to her, so I have no idea what's safe and what isn't." ...

"Did Johnny Wong kill her?" Carver asked.

"I don't know."

"But you didn't hear that name for the first time from me. You already knew about him, didn't you?" ...

"We finally had a lead," she said. "Years in the dark, and then we thought we had a way in."

"Tell me."

"It's like what they said about J.F.K. You want to know who killed the president? List the world's best marksmen, and then find out which ones were in Dallas. Making these devices would be incredibly hard. We guessed only a few scientists in a few labs could do it."

"So you did your research, and then you made a list."

The closer Carver gets to figuring out the trap he's in, the closer he gets to a very nasty death. Or worse.

I couldn't put this one down, and I know I'll re-read it, tugging at the dangerous truths woven into the page-turning fast-paced plot. I know it took Moore a while to bring this one to publication -- he had to insert at least one other book before it -- and it was worth the wait. He sees it as the finale of a three-book painting of San Francisco: The Poison Artist, The Dark Room, The Night Market. Which of course suggests there won't be a sequel -- I wonder what he'll next bring to dark, vivid life on the pages.

From HMH, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. And do check out Moore's author webpage, here. Last but not least, should I point a finger at the character name, for mystery/suspense fans who know their classics??

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

Brief Mention: DOMINIC, sequel to Hollow Man, by Mark Pryor

Mark Pryor is British by birth and bucked the author trend by moving to Austin, Texas, to become an assistant district attorney. His Hugo Marston series, apparently now on long pause, is set in Europe and delves into human love and loyalties, with a whiff of the paranormal that evil can call forth.

I found his stand-alone crime novel Hollow Man to be interesting -- it's in the Dexter line, and also similar to Garry Disher's Wyatt series, as the protagonist is a psychopath. Unlike Disher's Wyatt, however, Pryor's charming criminal Dominic -- himself an Englishman and prosecutor -- shows no inner sense of longing for an emotional life. Love leaves him cold ... well, not physically, but he won't be making any genuine self-sacrifice for the lady who attracts him. And again unlike the Marston series, this one is set in Texas. Dark, dark Texas.

Pryor then created a sequel after all, which was released last week: DOMINIC. This time, to add to the puzzle of Dominic's criminality and manipulations, there's a lady of interest involved who is nearly as chilly-hearted as the psychopath protagonist ... a lady in a lime green dress that shows off all her physical allure. Is it her beauty, or her own manipulative psyche, that attracts Dominic?

Making the book yet more challenging is Pryor's device of alternating voices between these two dangerous personas. And each time he does so, it's up the reader to catch up, because on the page each one speaks as "I." So it pays to note the character name at the opening of each numbered chapter.

Although the manipulations and interrupted interior monologues are compelling and even haunting, they are also deeply disturbing. I do hope there aren't many people like Dominic in the real world. I came away from the book reluctant to face another in this series, and hope that it's not the career of dealing with American courtrooms that is pulling this kind of writing from the author!

If you're a Wyatt or Dexter fan, or a reader of Dave Zeltserman, you need Hollow Man and DOMINIC on your shelf, for comparison and to better grasp the choices of these noir crime-fiction creations. Do expect to get up and check that the double locks are in place on the doors, and that all your other means of self-protection are ready and close at hand. Published by Seventh Street Books, where crime fiction thrives.

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

Mystery of 1920s Bombay, THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL, Sujata Massey

Newly released this week is a hot new historical mystery from Soho Crime -- one that's been widely anticipated for its colorful depiction of a blend of cultures becoming vitally important in global interactions today. Written by English-born and American-raised Sujata Massey, THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL provides a traditional mystery format within the compelling setting of a young woman trying to find her way to a law career at a time when that was nearly unheard of in India.

Happily, THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL opens with Perveen Mistry already a confident woman solicitor in her father's law firm in Bombay -- and presented with a legal puzzle that will require unraveling first a set of cultural barriers. Perveen suspects something's amiss when three women, all widows of a polygamous and prosperous Muslim client of her father's, suddenly appear to have signed over their interest in the estate of their joint husband. She wants to investigate. But the women are in purdah, that is, seclusion, and it won't be easy to reach them or to find out the truth.

From this 1921 opening, Massey takes the story back five years, to when this "modern" Parsi teen lost her half-under-the-table place at a law school in Bombay, fell in love, and abruptly married a young man from an "orthodox" Parsi family. Her excruciating struggles in this situation become the forceful background for how she develops into a problem-solving and competent adult who'll tackle an unjust situation when she discovers it.

Here's a taste of Mistry family life as Perveen argues for a chance to marry, sooner than her older brother:

Grandfather Mistry cleared his throat and said, "If a younger sister marries before her older brother, people will believe she had to marry for reasons of pregnancy. Every bead of her reputation will be sold."

"We aren't like that." Perveen struggled to keep her voice level. "And what else can I do with myself now that I am not a student, except get married?"

"The one who digs a whole falls into it," Grandfather Mistry replied dourly, and Rustom snorted.

[Perveen's mother] pressed her hands together as if she was nervous. "You were always such a dear, agreeable daughter. You appreciated what you were given, not like some others in town. How can you do this to us?"

"I didn't do anything to you! His parents have asked for a meeting. Won't you at least give them the respect they deserve by going?" she pleaded.

Count on needing the insight Perveen is gaining here, for when she attempts to unravel the mystery of the widows of Malabar Hill!

Perhaps today's best known crime fiction series set in India (in some titles; others simply deal with India as background) is Barbara Cleverly's Commander Joe Sandilands series (post World War I). But that set of titles works from the point of view of an English military man who's sympathetic but not of the culture. Massey's series, framed in a young woman's perspective and playing various cultures within India's melting pot against each other, is eye-opening and intriguing.

Well written, highly detailed, and engaging, THE WIDOWS OF MALABAR HILL shows Massey's extensive writing experience, as well as an acute eye for human frailty and conflict. I'm glad to note from her material that there's a sequel on the way. The series is published by Soho Crime, which also publishes the Cleverly series -- I recommend both.

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

New England Mystery Delight in Barbara Ross's New STOWED AWAY

Love a good traditional mystery with a smart amateur sleuth, hot clues, red herrings, an intriguing setting, and characters you can bond with? Good! Barbara Ross is once again writing exactly for you, in her newest Maine Clambake Mystery, STOWED AWAY.

Series fans have been waiting eagerly for this new title, and know the backstory to what Julia Snowden is facing: the fire-cored disaster of her family's historic house on the Maine coast island where she and her relatives are scrambling to re-open their profitable clam-bake operation for the new summer season; a loving but at times highly uncertain relationship with her boyfriend Chris, steady but without specific commitments; her mother, widowed and still not quite back in the groove of the family business; and an awkward relationship (to say the least!) with the local police investigators, who have worked with her far too often since she returned to Maine from her high-pressure urban finance career, in order to help her family.

Barbara Ross skillfully sketches in the frame as she establishes Julia's "new normal" of ocean-based entrepreneurship and local networking (so if you're new to the series, you'll be fine jumping in here). As Julia greets a preservation architect climbing off a boat to view the burned-out mansion to appraise whether it can be saved, seasoned mystery readers will suspect a that the plot's about to leap forward via the "stranger coming to town" move. But to Julia's horror, the "stranger" turns out to be someone she knew in high school -- one of a group of mean girls who'd tormented and humiliated her. How can she possibly trust this architect to determine her family's future investment on the island?

On the other hand, the new arrival, known as Susan in the old days but now by her middle name, Wyatt, comes with a boyfriend of her own -- a reclusive billionaire whose mega yacht is about to be rehabbed in Julia's town of Busman's Harbor. The stresses and strains of the cast of characters ramp up sharply when the billionaire, the real stranger of the moment, is murdered.

I savored this scene Ross provided in a local club, where Julia sank into a seat for a bite to eat and could listen to speculation around her:

The theories abounded, everything from suicide to the Russian mafia. "He was a billionaire who made money on the banking collapse," someone said.

"It was the girlfriend," the husband of the chef declared.

"Why do you say that?" I kept my tone conversational, not challenging.

"It's always the girlfriend," he answered.

"I don't see how it benefits her," I countered.

"Maybe he was terrible in bed," someone offered.

"If that were a reason for murder, half the men at this table would be dead," the bartender's wife joked.

"What do mean, half?" a girlfriend of one of the band members deadpanned. Everybody laughed.

Soon, though, popular opinion circles around to blaming the yacht's chef, an old friend of Julia's. And she finds herself sticking up for both this friend, and the architect, in spite of the bad feeling from high school.

Meanwhile, multiple twists are unfolding around her. In a familiar angle of this series, Julia suddenly has reason to wonder about one of her boyfriend's past relationships -- and with time, will realize she's never asked enough questions to really understand his family background as well. In fact, there's a lot Julia hasn't questioned among her friends, and some of the revelations will bear on the murder -- and some will be false leads.

Ross's expertise in complicating the plot in highly believable ways shines in STOWED AWAY. When the solution to what's on board finally arrives, there are surprises right and left -- but every one of them makes perfect sense, if the right clues have been considered. STOWED AWAY is a prime traditional mystery, highly satisfying, and a lively and enjoyable addition to this quintessential New England series. (And yes, there are more great recipes at the back!)

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

Art Heist Thriller from Neil Olson, THE BLACK PAINTING

People still obsess about America's most well-known art heist: The one that took place at Boston's Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in 1990 has not been solved and is often described as "must be connected to the Mob." Or some other massive underworld structure.

Other noted thefts involved the "Mona Lisa" (lost for two years) and two thefts of Edvard Munch's "The Scream." Two Renoirs and a Rembrandt left a Swedish museum and were recovered. And then of course there's the noted and extensive art plundering done by Nazi forces in Europe.

So when Neil Olson's new thriller THE BLACK PAINTING (Jan. 9 release) begins with a death in a coastal New England family, and coalesces around a missing painting by Francisco Goya, the tension increased with each twist of plot -- and we readers know something of what's at stake. Not only is there a dead grandfather (manipulative even after his lifetime) and an art heist ... there's obsession, with all its dark shadows and complicities.

Goya's art at its most intense depicted the "Disasters of War" -- dark, disturbing paintings that remind viewers of the horrors of the battlefields, which for him focused on the 1802 Peninsular War. But consensus is that the painter struggled with intense mental illness as well, and his final noted 14-image series, the "Black Paintings" (for both their appearance and topics), gives us a phenomenal view of terror within the soul.

Olson, whose first blockbuster novel The Icon also involved art theft (his early education was as an art historian), seizes the despair and fear involved in the Black Paintings to become the center of this new novel -- and invents a fifteenth painting that has found its way, perhaps illegally, to the home of the Morse family. Now the painting is gone, and the family patriarch's death creates further chaos among especially his grown grandchildren, each fragile in a separate way, and each still under the older man's thumb.

The thriller -- which is an intense page-turner -- comes to us through the eyes of the apparently most broken and frail of the cousins, Teresa, whose Spanish father, long gone, once connected deeply with the painting and its fierce owner. As the art historian in the family, she's also the one who understands the painting itself. She explains to her cousins:

"There's a painting in a private collection in New York which a few historians think is that lost one."

"But we know it's not," James insisted, "because Grandpa had it."

"Maybe they're both real," Teresa replied, not liking his agitation. "Maybe neither. I never saw the portrait. The point is ..." ...

"You haven't answered his question," Audrey pressed. "How did this demon get from Goya into the painting."

Fear not, this is far from a paranormal thread. As Teresa quickly answers, "You're being too literal. The demon is a metaphor for the trouble in his life."

And for their grandfather himself, no doubt. As the cousins struggle to escape the old man's domination, their own demons become increasingly evident. Can Teresa push past her physical ailments, her uncertain memories, and her confused understandings of her cousins, to find the answers she needs? Will she risk her life in doing so?

Acutely probing the damage of generations of manipulation and domination, Olson's mystery/thriller resonates more deeply than many in a similar genre, including such line-crossers as The Da Vinci Code -- at heart, this is a book about the demons within a family ... and whether they can be faced, or ever exorcised.

Quick comment about the cover art: Ignore it. It's got nothing to do with the story, and it's silly. The publisher, by the way, is Hanover Square Press -- yet another focused imprint of Harlequin and HarperCollins.

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

Backstory #3: When Your Husband Keeps a Secret, in PROTECTED BY THE SHADOWS, Swedish Crime Fiction by Helene Tursten

Helene Tursten's investigating protagonist in Göteborg, Sweden, Investigator Irene Huss, is one of the most likeable officers in today's crime fiction. Married with now-grown twin daughters, Huss depends on her husband's cooking skills -- her own are negligible -- and lives with an endless guilt about the time demands of her career that will feel familiar to many. Moreover, she works in a Violent Crimes unit where gender bias is a daily factor, as much so as personnel shortages.

So as Irene's unit teams up with the Organized Crimes Unit to intervene in a series of motorcycle gang killings (and readers of the series already know that means extra flashbacks for Huss), the last thing she needs is to have to worry about her husband's safety. Or that of her daughters. And she can't step in to do much for them -- they will have to be, as the title suggests, PROTECTED BY THE SHADOWS.

In addition to the skillful interweaving of personal and professional tension, Swedish author Helene Tursten provides memorable descriptions of the gritty reality of crime investigation, like this:

The gangster reeked of sweat and stale booze. He was wearing a T-shirt with Gothia MC's emblem on the chest; the same emblem was tattooed on his right forearm, and more or less every inch that Irene could see of his massive body was covered in tattoos. A colorful snake wound its way around his neck, ending up by his left ear. It showed up clearly on his shaven head. The snake was a skillful piece of work, but the rest of the tattoos were of varying quality.

The tread for inking is one of the best things that's happened as far as police are concerned, Irene thought. ... Per Lindström would need to wear a burka if he didn't want anyone to see his artwork.

PROTECTED BY THE SHADOWS is the ninth in this series that Soho Crime has brought to the United States. I like Marlaine Delargy's translation work -- smooth reading with just a hint of the awkwardness that sliding from one language and culture to another can insert, and in this case it adds to the sense of being transported to Scandinavia. Swedish and Finnish cultural insight add up in Tursten's books, and it's worth reading her entire series. But jumping into this ninth title "cold" is very workable -- Tursten carries the story forward skillfully. It's soon clear why Huss's husband refuses to share his dangerous secret with his police officer wife (although as a reader of all of the series, I think Huss's own backstory could have come into this one more vividly and raised the tension).

Watch for some insight into Sweden's experience of Muslim immigration, too. Ah, the benefits of reading well-written crime fiction! (Thanks again, Soho Crime, for keeping so many "foreign" investigations coming steadily across the Atlantic. Global crimesolving, for sure.) I look forward to more in the series from Tursten, whose entry into the field came after a career in medicine. Good move.

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

Backstory #2: Criminal Masterminds Cut Loose in SIGNAL LOSS, by Australian Author Garry Disher

Garry Disher lives on Australia's Mornington Peninsula, southeast of Melbourne, and his Challis and Destry police procedural series often takes place right there. The seventh book in the series, SIGNAL LOSS, came out in late 2016 in Australia, reaching American readers via Soho Crime in late November. Now that the holiday season is wrapping up, it's a great time to treat yourself to a copy of this well-written and lively traditional crime investigation -- with the wry, dark twists of humor that are particularly Disher's own.

The book opens with an intro that could have come from that classic wisecracking mystery master, Donald E. Westlake himself:

Lovelock and Pym. They sounded like some kind of show-business duo -- magicians, maybe; folk singers.

In fact they worked for Hector Kaye, who used to run the Finks out of Kings Cross. That was before he set up as a legitimate businessman and started importing crystal meth from China. They didn't come cheap, Lovelock and Pym. Kaye paid them well and he'd bought them each a house and a car in the past year.

When the pair tackle a murder-for-hire and get overly ambitious, though, their fumbles turn deadly for more than just the intended victim. Add to this chaos the more dangerous threat of an Australian bush fire, and "mistakes are made." The kinds of mistakes that, for investigating Inspector Hal Challis, crack open the past conflicts of a crime ring and turn a small case into major impact.

Meanwhile, Challis's lover Sergeant Ellen Destry -- recently made the head of her department's sex crime unit -- realizes her own investigations are revealing a serial rapist with more skills than most. She and her team tug at each loose thread, working the details until they develop into solid leads. But Destry's distracted at times by another ambitious woman in the force, Sergeant Coolidge (Destry names her Sergeant Cleavage at one point!), who's trying to lure Hal out of Ellen's circuit.

They looked at each other, faintly challenging, bringing back old academy memories to Ellen but probably nothing at all to Coolidge.

"Haven't seen you for ages. You're sex crimes now," Coolidge said, as if that were a side path to nowhere in policing terms.

"And you're drugs," Ellen said.

Coolidge gave her a slow-burning smile and Ellen wondered at the intent: to tease me, unsettle me. She returned the smile, a quick hard nastiness in it, and opened the door of the car. "Good luck," she said and got in and drove out of there. Not much of a victory -- not much of anything -- but why get bogged down fighting the woman? 

As it turns out, Hal is the one who'll get bogged down by Coolidge's interference, but that's jumping a ahead some. Pick up this fast-paced investigation and you'll get the details quickly, because even though it would be great to have a Disher crime novel last a long time, the tension pushed the page turning. In fact, clear the schedule if you can -- here's your winter vacation between the covers in a 345-page "Down Under" romp through twinned cases that are hard to control, and incredibly satisfying to solve.

This is Disher's more accessible, easy-to-enjoy series (read chapter 1 here if you like); his other is the Wyatt series, darkly reminiscent of the Dexter mysteries yet somehow likeable (but, please note, very very dark). He also offers occasional stand-alones and "young adult" (YA) books, which Soho Crime doesn't yet bring across. Check the Soho website for the American releases of Disher's books. So far, I've appreciated all of them (Disher reviews here).

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

Backstory #1: How Caitlin Strong Grew Into Texas Ranger Overkill, in STRONG TO THE BONE, Jon Land

It's not a spoiler to look at the Author's Note in the back of the newest Caitlin Strong Texas Ranger thriller from Jon Land. Setting STRONG TO THE BONE into context, Land wrote, "Strong to the Bone started with me wanting to challenge Caitlin as I'd never challenged her before. Provide a deep look into a part of her psyche I'd never previously explored."

With that decision, Land provided fresh depth to his series character, a Texas Ranger who's a lone female in her field much of the time in modern-day Texas -- and whose "nature and nurture" both come from her father, grandfather, and more, riding for justice and crime control in the Lone Star state.

Land's unusual format for his Caitlin Strong books involves flashing alternate glances into the past stories of the other Texas Rangers in the family. This time it's Earl Strong, who missed out on the armed forces in World War II only to find himself confronting the very dangerous J. Edgar Hoover, head of the FBI, over a murder case at a prisoner-of-war camp ... a murder involving Germans who have complex backgrounds and motives.

Darkness fell without any of the first responders emerging from the complex.

"What did the Rangers do for excitement back in the day before we had terrorists?" Caitlin asked D. W. Tepper.

"You mean besides hunting dinosaurs? Well, we did have the likes of Bonnie and Clyde and John Wesley Hardin to deal with. And your grandpa, he even went up against the Nazis."

"Earl Strong spent time in Europe?" Caitlin asked, trying to reconcoile the apparent discrepancy with what she know of her grandfather's history.

"Nope, he went up against them right here in Texas ..."

At the same time, Caitlin's life partner Cort Wesley Masters is tangling with a case that looks independent of Caitlin's -- one that jeopardizes the safety of his risk-taking younger son. The couple's powerful and spirit-swept ally Guillermo Paz sweeps into action to protect both generations. And suddenly bullets are flying (no surprise to series readers!).

What makes STRONG TO THE BONE different from earlier titles in this series is that Caitlin's past, as probed here, is more personal than the preceding backstories of her Texas Ranger forebears have revealed: She's been overly violent for a long time, causing her superior officer, D. W. Tepper, to tear out his hair repeatedly, as Caitlin spirals from one round of violence into another. What's her trigger? Land must have written the book long before the hashtag #MeToo took over American news -- but it could have been Caitlin Strong's own battle cry.

STRONG TO THE BONE is a lively page-turner, crammed with action, suspense, and interlocked tales of courage and skilled investigation. Take the associated paranormal strands with some humor and enjoy the way they give bite to the conflict. I'm a fan of Guillermo Paz and his crazed spirit journeys here -- but every Caitlin Strong book also lures the reader to make a declaration on behalf of the historic and modern Texas Rangers, even to say (in another recent meme): I'm with Her.

[NB: Land's author website is usually out of date, but still fun to explore: http://www.jonlandbooks.com]

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

Brief Mention: Nordic Noir from Kjell Ola Dahl, FAITHLESS

The Oslo, Norway, sleuthing mysteries by Kjell Ola Dahl are well known in Scandinavia -- there are 11 so far -- but had to wait for translation, and for Orenda Books to start bringing them across the Atlantic. FAITHLESS arrived in the U.S. in September, and provides a rewarding new direction in dark Scandinavian mysteries: a police procedural with depth of character and a wickedly dry sense of humor.

Inspector Frank Frølich, attending an engagement party for an old friend, discovers the new fiancée is a woman Frank had just arrested, then released, under a Norwegian legal function that allows someone to pay a fine for possession of illicit drugs at a personal use level. But that complication, which after all can be managed within careful polite manners, pales beside the next twist: the women, Veronika, soon becomes a murder victim. Is it a result of the arrest or the party or something else entirely?

Frølich's own past turns out to have some of the clues, a decidedly uncomfortable situation for the Oslo detective and his partner, Inspector Gunnarstranda. But the twists of plot get even more intense when their fellow detective Lena manipulates one of their colleagues, as well as stepping over the line toward baiting a dangerous criminal.

The translation by Don Bartlett (British) is smooth and well carried out; the scenes are short and sharp; and although the crimes involved are dark ones, and the settings more than a little spooky ("atmospheric" is another descriptor), the characters carry a force of will that makes it a pleasure to follow their investigations. I'm glad Orenda's brought this award-winning Norwegian author to our attention; I'll be watching for more of Dahl's work.

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

Entertaining British Crime Fiction from Peter Lovesey, BEAU DEATH

American Thanksgiving is becoming a very long sort of holiday -- schools close early in the week or don't open at all, and turkey consumption only occupies one day of the break. On the other days, a good mystery is a worthwhile diversion. In the case of BEAU DEATH, now is the time to order for the December 5 release via Soho Crime; local stores and online ones can handle your order and make sure you get a first-day-of-release copy of this charming British mystery.

Fans of Peter Lovesey's "Peter Diamond Investigations" know they'll get more than plot, and more than the performance of Diamond and his police team in Bath -- they find a rich and satisfying feast of eccentric and sometimes sweet, sometimes dangerous, quintessential British figures. In BEAU DEATH, the discovery of a skeleton in a building being demolished leads Diamond into the small city's elegant past, when the flashy Beau Nash ruled the stylish crowd.

In fact, if Diamond's difficult supervisor Georgina Dallymore gets her highly political way, Diamond may need to don the traditional garb that members of the Beau Nash Society wear, in order to investigate possible victims as well as murderers. (And he won't exactly be armed.) As in so many others in this series, Diamond also faces all-in-the-arts pressure from his lover Paloma, and urgency from his rising investigator Ingeborg, each pushing him in another direction.

The first 75 pages is admittedly a bit slow and tame, as Diamond is "schooled" by the three women. But when Ingeborg lands the best blow, it brings both Diamond and the book back to traditional fast-paced and risky crimesolving. Diamond tunes in as Ingeborg points him back toward the scene of the murder they've uncovered:

"Under the rubble. Who knows what may be buried there? Is is still cordoned off?"

A chill of guilt went through him. He couldn't answer. He hadn't been back. He stood still, lost for words.

Ingeborg wasn't sparing him. "We don't have any idea who the killer of the man in the loft was except he used the place to hide the body. Chances are he lived there as a tenant. You can't live in a place without leaving traces of yourself. Who knows what might turn up if we do a dig? ... Aren't you listening, guv? I'm talking about the stuff he might have discarded. An empty cigarette packet, a lottery ticket, a teaspoon, a glove, a hairclip, a foreign coin. It helps build a picture of who was living there. I don't need to tell you this."

She was right. His mindset was all wrong. He'd given so much mental energy to learning about Beau bloody Nash that basic procedures had been neglected.

Murders multiply, but for potent reasons of his own, Diamond doesn't dare allow his boss to call in other officers. He'll have to push his team to new roles and new results.

Once the crimesolving got active, I had lots of fun with BEAU DEATH, chuckling at Peter Lovesey's dry humor and guessing ahead on what might be revealed in the next few pages. No nightmares from this one, no gruesome scenes, just a cheerful level of suspense and discovery. Some of it. of course, about Diamond himself.

Insulate your holiday season with books like this one, and things can stay in proportion. Some joy, some humor, and some long evenings visiting a classic British location in the hands of a master storyteller with more than 30 mysteries under his belt. Too many awards to Lovesey to even list them, but one of the more recent was a Lifetime Achievement award at Malice Domestic. BEAU DEATH arrives across the Atlantic thanks to Soho Crime, the international and exhilarating imprint of Soho Press.

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

Vibrant New Poke Rafferty Bangkok Thriller from Timothy Hallinan, FOOLS' RIVER

There are a lot of great reasons to grab the new Bangkok-set thriller by Tim Hallinan. Readers of his Poke Rafferty series actually "need" this book ASAP, because the little family that Poke Rafferty loves and protects in corrupt and dangerous Bangkok has bonded to readers' hearts. How is Poke's pregnant wife doing? And the couple's brilliant bu wounded adopted-street-child daughter Miaow? What about Miaow's friends, whom we've also become attached to, seeing them through the half-incredulous amazement that Poke feels as he comes to appreciate, love, and yes, try to rescue them?

But if you're a stranger to this series, here are some other reasons: A chance to "see" Bangkok in its heartbreaking complexity (instead o of laughing at the pain the way John Burdett's books do). A willingness to meet and care about complex characters in the midst of very human and very dangerous stresses. Eagerness to see how a skilled author who can blend suspense and attachment on a single palette will craft the necessary (and terrifying) twists of a page-turner.

Poke's attention is mostly on his pregnant wife right now -- the couple hadn't expected to add a child to the already complicated and tender household they've formed. So it takes sserious persuasion from Miaow to have him look into the disappearance of the dad of Miaow's almost-boyfriend Edward. Once Poke tunes in to the crisis, he's quick to see a pattern -- one that means Edward's dad has a very short life ahead of him, if indeed he's still alive somewhere in the crowded city.

Don't worry about the title, FOOLS' RIVER. It's almost irrelevant, part of a different layer of suspense. Attention belongs most of all with Poke in his urgent search for the totally immoral scam artists and killers who have Edward's dad. And with the power of a 48-hour deadline, Hallinan packs the action and danger, page after page.

Don't try to do anything else. This is what a truly fine thriller is for: to let you, force you, to ignore the rest of your life and accept that all the love that needs saving, all the life that matters, is in the next chapter. Yes, the book really just covers 48 hours -- so hang in there for the next in the series. [Too bad the author and publisher, Soho, can only produce one per year ... but this year at least, there's an extra helping of Hallinan's Bangkok adventures in a compact and haunting tale included in Soho's holiday special, The Usual Santas, about two Bangkok street kids with a significant set of discoveries at the holiday season. I can't get it out of my thoughts ... or do I men, heart?]

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

Top-Notch British Thriller from L V Hay, THE OTHER TWIN

THE OTHER TWIN is a true breakthrough book: a thriller so intricate and compelling that it leaps away from previous books by the same author, into new and dangerous terrain. Presented as a "debut thriller" by Orenda Books, it hit the shelves a week ago. The author was previously known as Lucy V Hay -- but it makes good sense to see her writing drastically shifted in this new book. And the androgynous "L V" name also fits, in an entirely different way.

The book opens with an ominous scene of emotional abuse, quickly flashing instead to Poppy, a young woman way over her head in drinking and casual sex, trying to pull herself together after an all-night binge and the "mother of all hangovers," so to speak. Hers in the voice that gives us most of the story in THE OTHER TWIN. She has a past crammed with love and loss at the seacoast city of Brighton that she walked away from a year earlier, and her party life (not really balanced by her other-city job) is this cover for confused regrets and pain. Chapter by chapter, she faces the complicated mess of her past, propelled by what takes her "home again" at the start of the action: the supposed suicide-by-jumping of her younger sister India.

But there's a second voice that whispers to us periodically -- perhaps a killer's words and contorted emotions, as he enacts the twisted reality of "She Who Must Be Obeyed." Hay's mastery of suspense is echoed in the eerie sense of evil and manipulation that oozes from these scenes. Can Poppy, searching for the truths behind her sister's death, escape the seeping and vicious mind that's calling the plays around her?

The book walks an interesting knife edge of noir and violence: Much of the cruelty exerted by the shadowy perpetrators is so indirect, so disguised, that it never quite crosses into being graphic -- but the horror is even more haunting in this form.

Expect twists all the way through, and a final one that's as painful as being knocked over on a cement surface -- everybody bleeds from the heart, and as the powerful resolution arrives, it's clear there will be no escape from hurt. But maybe, maybe, there can be some escape from being hopelessly lost in a net of deceit.

Well worth reading. Yes, the title points to some meaning in the story -- but not what you might expect. And it's a stand-alone, at least so far, so there's no need to dig into Hay's earlier work -- which you can scan if you like at her (somewhat difficult to navigate) website. This title comes via Orenda Books, where the list of really fine mysteries is becoming impressive.

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

Charming Holiday Mystery in Maine from Lea Wait, THREAD THE HALLS

Maine author Lea Wait's newest "Mainely Needlepoint Mystery" is a true charmer, packed with seasonal and Maine-winter details, as well as the sweetly developing romance between Angie Curtis -- once a private investigator of the gritty sort out West, and now "back home" in a New England seaside village -- and Patrick West.

Patrick, whose hands were badly burned in an earlier title in the series, is about to celebrate his first New England traditional Christmas with Angie, when his famous film actress mother Skye West announces she'll be on set with them, so to speak -- along with her co-star, screenwriter, and more, from a film she's been working on in Europe that's rumored to have major problems. Toss that dream of an intimate lovers' holiday out the (frosty) window!

Soon Angie is also tugged into the famous family's last-minute decorating and feasting plans. Top this off with a rush needlepoint assignment that engages all the members of the collaborative she's been developing. Good thing there's some mistletoe available to prompt a kiss. But on the other hand, discovering a dead body in the snowy field behind the movie star's mansion seems unlikely to endear Angie to anyone -- not even the local police, who have their own reasons for mixed feelings about the half-pro, half-amateur sleuth that Angie is becoming.

Wait's Mainely Needlepoint series, much like her earlier "Shadows" one, includes chapter-opening tags describing antique needlepoint samplers and their creators, which adds a special pleasure to her books. In addition, she's in her glory when piling holiday details into a story -- this time, including the arrival of Santa Claus (and a moose!) on a boat in the small town's harbor. (There's a recipe at the end, too -- mmm.)

The book is neatly layered with tensions and suspense. And if Angie doesn't seem like she's doing much active sleuthing this time (the discovery of the murderer isn't really from her efforts), well, she's got her hands full trying to defend herself in a lot of directions! Wait's own track record promises a happy ending, but there seem no guarantees until the final few pages. As a result, this is a snow-sprinkled, holly-merry, twinkling page-turner of a mystery. I enjoyed every twist, and the book's comforting feel of community support will move it onto several of my gift lists for this holiday season.

No need to read the previous five titles in this series before THREAD THE HALLS. But they do add depth to Angie in particular, so it will be fun to gather them and have a good holiday reading binge. Candy-cane-stirred cocoa and sugar cookies optional (or dangerous, depending on which chapter you're reading!).

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

Boston Noir With a Dangerous "Backbeat" in Clea Simon's WORLD ENOUGH

She's quietly brought us four different semi-mystical cat and amateur sleuth mystery series over the past decade -- and some edgy nonfiction before that. Now Boston author Clea Simon lets her inner rock 'n roller out of the back room and rips into a dark and compelling murder mystery of Boston's music nightlife in WORLD ENOUGH, due to release on November 1.

The book roots in Simon's own passion for rock 'n roll and the feisty bands that brought original rock to "the scene." She's been a denizen of that world herself -- check out her moody and detailed article from this past summer, reviving memories of the Kenmore Square nightclub called the Rathskeller, better known as "the Rat":

When R.E.M. wanted to play a club, the night after headlining a show at Harvard, they dropped in on the Rat. When David Bowie and Iggy Pop were in town for a gig at the Harvard Square Theater in 1977 and wanted to hear some music, they hung out there. Although the club’s reputation had declined before its 1997 closing, by then the grungy music room had hosted the likes of The Police, The Ramones, Talking Heads, Sonic Youth, Joan Jett, Husker Du, Metallica, and a thousand local bands — including some, like The Cars, that would go on to worldwide fame. [Read the whole article here.]

Tara Winton's on a nostalgia trip of sorts, when she hangs out in a local club to hear a music group from the old days, the Whirled Shakers. Their music "still gets her going," even though she knows she's part of an aging group of fans who miss the old locales that have long since become condos, parking garages, the new city where youth and love flourish. The groupies may still own leather jackets, but their hair's gone gray and they look, hmm, kind of out of shape if they get up to dance. There's a long route back to the good old days, but the passage is one way only and Tara is grieving.

Soon there's more than just the "scene" to mourn -- one of the musicians, Frank, is dead, supposedly some strange form of suicide, and Tara needs to attend the funeral. Reflecting on the crowd that still shares these moments of her life, Tara has to admit: "We're sickly. We have fewer successful marriages and happy families. Too many of us have died."

But it's just a matter of bad luck, isn't it? Like Frank's death?

Maybe not. And when Tara accepts a journalistic assignment to retrace the old bands and track down the players -- both the musicians and the most vital of their groupies -- she begins to realize she's missed a lot of signals over the years. Things were never as safe or loving as she wanted to believe. Even her own ex-husband is pulling away from her friendship now, leaving her newly vulnerable as she pries apart the old frictions and competitions, to find out what's now going on around her.

Simon's murderous imagination, honed over years of having her mysteries creep further and further to the dark side, gives us Tara's believable naiveté and frustrated persistence. She also paints in vivid color the sense of the really hot music as a group grows into its own legend, as well as the abrupt emergence of a star:

Chris Crack -- the name stuck, despite its affectation -- didn't enter so much as pounce. A glad rock throwback in a woman's eyelet blouse two sizes too small, he leapt onstage, grabbed the mic stand and swung it -- narrowly missing Jerry -- before opening his mouth for a caterwaul that had Nieve at the bar looking up, open-mouthed. Dropping from the falsetto scream into a rough baritone, he delivered the lyrics of the Aught Nine oldie -- "Beer for Fools" -- as if it were the gospel. And when he tore into a new song -- Tara, at least, had never heard it -- he pushed back into that falsetto, letting it fade away into something as soft as a lover's sigh,

By the end of the set, he had lost the shirt, and under its sheen of sweat, his pale torso glistened. He looked like what he was fated to become: a rock star. And all five people who heard him that night knew it.

Tara's search for the truth of both the rock 'n roll past and her present conflicts takes her down dark paths in rough company. And the answers turn out to have everything to do with how human we all are ... and how the backbeat can seize us and turn us into wild ones, even now.

The publisher is Severn House; the book's available for pre-order now, and since Severn House doesn't have huge first printings, a pre-order might be wise for collectors. Simon's mid-air twist into this sharp-clawed noir is well worth reading, and I hope is the first of more to come.

Oh, and if you don't know the source of the title ... try looking up "world enough and time" in your search bar (smile).

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

Story Collections to Savor, John Sandford, Soho Crime, D. P. Lyle

There's something about the on-rushing holiday season that makes a good collection of short stories especially welcome -- a way to grab some entertainment in a small pocket of time, a chance to savor the compact and intense writing of an already favorite author or sample an unfamiliar one, and at its best, a way to place the heavy demands of the American end-of-year culture back into perspective.

So I'm delighted to have three interesting collections to describe. I hope you'll take advantage of the season and dip in.

First -- because the editor is among the top crime fiction authors of our time, and because his introduction is so significant -- consider THE BEST AMERICAN MYSTERY STORIES 2017, edited by the inimitable John Sandford. Author of some 40 novels, best known for his "Prey" series (it started with Rules of Prey about 1989), Sandford also has a gift few authors can boast: He can write compellingly ABOUT writing. Here, from his introduction, are some guidelines for the ideal short story:

The story must be tight and well written; a novel can take a few fumbles without much damage, but a short story really suffers from them.

The opening must be catchy and quick and set a mood -- the story should be rolling with the first line. No space here for the dark and stormy night. ... [He quotes from a story by C. J. Box.]

Scene-setting should be integral to the story, part of the fabric rather than long blocks of exposition. The scene-setting ideally should contribute to the mood and texture of the story. [This, he illustrates with a PI -- that is, private investigator -- story from Charles John Harper.]

Now, we get to character. The physical description of the characters is critical, and what the reader sees in this physical description should tell us much about the character's personality. There's a reason for that: it creates an immediate image in the reader's mind, so that laborious explication isn't necessary [Fedora, double-breasted suit, smoking Lucky Stroke Green? Or an excerpt from Dan Bevacqua's story of a thin man with an orange beard and a tattoo over each eyebrow.]

And finally: there has to be some resolution. You can't just end a short story; you have to wind it up. 

Sandford's picks for the collection -- drawn from a larger pool provided by Otto Penzler -- also include stories by Jeffrey Deaver, Brendan DuBois, Loren Estleman, Craig Johnson, William Kent Krueger, and Joyce Carol Oates, among others. They are all over the map (and timeline), and they demonstrate the many delicious flavors of suspense, risk, complexity, and satisfaction that a mystery story can best serve up. Yumm.

Should you happen to be frustrated by today's phrases that carefully edge around the religious roots of year-end festivals, here's balm for your wounds: THE USUAL SANTAS, a bluntly Christmas-focused collection from the always inspiring Soho Crime unit of Soho Press, with an introduction by British crime fiction leader Peter Lovesey. Lovesey's intro chants gleefully the wide range of mystery types included here: from cyber criminals to Sherlock Holmes, and from dark noir to tender kindness to deep mysteries of life and death (including a ghost story).

If you're already savoring some of the Soho Crime authors, this collection is like a dessert buffet. Recognize any of these names? Helene Tursten, Mick Herron, Martin Limón, Timothy Hallinan, Teresa Dovalpage, Mette Ivie Harrison, Colin Cotterill, Ed Lin, Stuart Neville, Ted Goldberg, Henry Chang, James R. Benn, Lene Kaaberbøl & Agnete Friis, Sujita Massey, Gary Corby, Cara Black, Stephanie Barron, and of course Lovesey himself ... I was drooling just from the Contents page, mentally rehearsing the locations from Thailand to Chinatown, England and Ireland, Utah, Scandinavia ... and timelines that include Ancient Greece as well as World War II.

I haven't yet reviewed Sujita Massey -- her first Soho Crime book comes out soon though, so I will -- and I was briefly stumped by Teresa Dovalpage, a Cuban writer whose first Soho book wasn't crime fiction. But in 2018 the press brings out her first mystery, featuring the characters introduced here, a great chance to taste the work ahead of time.

Don't expect me to say my favorites; there is still time to re-read the collection in the holiday mode, and I will probably change my mind at least twice more. Every one of these stories is worth multiple readings. I might have to give several copies as gifts!

Last in this group is a collection that's not intended to be mystery/crime fiction, but happens to be edited by -- with a story by -- an expert teacher in the field, D. P. Lyle. The books is called IT'S ALL IN THE STORY -- CALIFORNIA and is an "anthology of short fiction" from the Southern California Writers Association. The level of work is uneven, but it's interesting to see the wide range of approaches among this gathering of Golden State scribblers. It's not a pick for crime fiction readers (unless you are a "completist" in terms of Lyle). But if you have a Golden State itch, this will provide a good scratch, with appearances by William Randolph Hearst and by San Francisco's Russian immigrants, as well as mention of San Jan Capistrano. And of course the gold rush!

Wishing you many moments to read in the upcoming months. It will surely add some spice -- and suspense! -- to the season's special treats.

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

A Delightful 1930s Mystery from Cheryl Honigford, HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYS

What fun to have a second mystery in the "Viv and Charlie" series from Chicago author Cheryl Honigford! I loved her first, The Darkness Knows (an irresistible radio drama mystery with hints of the old radio series "The Shadow"), and HOMICIDE FOR THE HOLIDAYS is every bit as delicious -- a quick-paced amateur sleuth tale of the cash-strapped 1930s.

Vivian Witchell, a rising star in radio drama in the Windy City, has her eye on keeping the job she loves, no matter the pressure from home to step back into a more traditional woman's role, or the competition in the broadcasting studio, where flirtation is both a skill and a weapon. But at home, things have become complicated, and a discovery of both a hidden key and a wad of cash, with a threatening note, also threatens to undo the rosy glow Viv holds around her deceased father's life.

Fortunately, she's got a pro on her side: private detective Charlie Haverman. But that connection is also tangled with romance and passion, which Viv actually is supposed to be focusing entirely at her work relationship, where the radio drama says she's madly in love. Yep, it's complicated.

When her best friend Imogene casts doubt on Vivian's agonizing, it's tempting to call off the hunt and go out for a holiday hot chocolate instead.

Vivian frowned. She knew Imogene was right. Nothing she found in that drawer could possibly have any bearing on the present day. Still, something pricked at her conscience. Something about that envelope of money was wrong. The fact that her father had hidden the key to his own desk drawer was wrong.

Even worse, though, are the doubts that Charlie shares about Vivian's dad -- and soon she's in much hotter water, dreading a possible connection to the past crimes of Al Capone himself ... and whoever is running his operations now.

Every page of this madcap mystery has a fresh twist, and the frank urgency of Vivian's passion for Charlie adds a lively spice to the action. I had a ball reading the book -- even though I dread thinking of those Big Holidays cruising toward us already!

Well, if we can make the best of New Year's Eve the way Vivian finally does ... let's jazz it up! (Oh, you won't need to read the two titles in order. Set aside a shelf for the series, though, because I bet it will keep on rolling with great success.)

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