Peter Lovesey Comes Full Circle in THE FINISHER, with 50 Years of Mystery

It's been 50 years since his first novel was published, and Soho Press is collaborating with Peter Lovesey to bring this British mystery writer full circle: THE FINISHER, like the book that started his career (Wobble to Death), is framed around a foot race. And it's set in Bath, featuring Detective Superintendent Peter Diamond and his compulsively nasty superior, Georgina Dallymore.

Georgina's manipulations, always political and self-focused, land Diamond and his force with security for a half-marathon in Bath, among historic buildings, old roads, and underground features like a railroad tunnel. But there are more underground routes than most people realize, in and around the ancient British "watering hole" with its mines and industry. Some of them are ideal for murder.

Lovesey frames the story from the point of view of the race runners at first, especially a local woman and a wealthy Russian not-quite-lady. Training, trainers, spouses, stalkers (how many are running to St. Ives?). It's a wildly diverse crew in which criminals and accidental cross-purposes abound. When Peter spots a seriously abusive criminal among the runners, he's stunned to realize that prison time's been completed by someone he once arrested, who should never have managed to gain unsupervised release.

There are highly memorable passages in here from all points of view. I like this one from the thoughts of "The Finisher," the career criminal we know is behind at least one Bath murder, maybe more:

The body was unlikely ever to be found. No one had any reason to go down there. The Finisher had no conscience about what he'd done. He didn't allow morbid thoughts to burden him. The act of murder had become necessary. End of story.

Now is now and then was then.

The final stage to getting away with murder is that you do nothing different. You carry on living at the same address, rise at the same hour, eat the same food, use the same shops, meet the same people and give the impression you're no different from any of them ... The others he indulged were always women and Bath was the ideal place to meet them. He loved their company and they responded to him, his good looks, his sense of humor and his infectious laugh, his delight in everything they said and his interest in their stories.

Peter Diamond suspects that someone just like that has lured or chased a young woman racer. And if he's wrong, it won't be for long. The perpetrator he's spotted can't stay away from abuse for long.

Lovesey's Diamond is irascible and aging, but that doesn't mean he can't run a crime scene or hunt down a murderer. And with age, he's getting even better at distracting Georgina—this time through encouraging her to use drones and other public relations delights.

As with the earlier Diamond mysteries, THE FINISHER provides a smoothly told, dryly humorous and cleverly twisted set of scenes. When the plot finally hits the home stretch of the race, Diamond and his team manage to catch even Georgina in their resolution.

Special treat for Lovesey readers, new and seasoned: That title from 50 years ago (40 books ago), Wobble to Death, will be re-released by Lovesey's publisher, Soho Crime, in October. This makes it easy to backtrack the Grand Master (on two continents) to the crime novel that started his sterling career. The strand that shows most clearly in both? "A policeman's life is not a happy one" -- except when he solves the crime.

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

New Crime Fiction from Hank Phillippi Ryan, THE FIRST TO LIE

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“This thriller should raise more than goosebumps—it’s a raceway of red flags signaling the possible connections of corrupt officials and money-hungry drug developers.”

The warning is right up front in this wild-ride thriller from TV investigative journalist Hank Phillippi Ryan: “If you could start your adult life over as someone else, would you do it? … To get what you always wanted? Sure, you would. All you have to do is lie.”

And it’s obvious that Nora Quinn at the start of The First to Lie is faking a lot of things. Out on a carefully choreographed date—her own choreography—with a doctor whose clinic promises fertility miracles, she’s tracking possible misuse of a dangerous pharmaceutical. Then there’s a quick switch of narrator, to Ellie Berensen, whose new neighbor in her apartment building seems way too pushy and invasive. If Ellie’s hiding something too, new neighbor Meg Weest seems determined to find it. Maybe Meg is even getting into Ellie’s place when she’s not home. Who’s lying the most, and what are the stakes?

Ryan’s tight-twist plot careens forward, ramping up suspense every couple of pages and putting everyone in danger. When it looks like Meg intends to steal Ellie’s news job as well, the tension grows almost unbearable.

And at that pont, Ryan introduces yet another woman with something at stake: Lacey Vanderwald, marrying into Big Pharma. And her new about-to-be sister-in-law Brooke, victim of the magic drugs her family is marketing. Just how intentionally evil can one profit-motivated family become?

For a while, this thriller switches characters in flashes like a Shakespearean drama, storms and treachery rattling off stage. Then, as the dangers move to center action, the characters spin: All of these women are performing, with deep compelling motives, and none of them is who she pretends to be. “The first to lie”? It’s hard to tell who hasn’t been lying. The motives are life, death, and major money.  Never mind love. By a third of the way into Ryan’s pulse-pounding crime novel, even terror steps forward:

“Ellie stared at the coffee table, at the coffee cup, at the yellow pad and the pencils. What a reporter would use. What she would use. Did use, in fact. The cup, one from the kitchen supplies that came with her apartment, she drank from every morning. … She felt her fingers tingle, and a clench in her chest as if a vise were closing around her lungs. ‘Offi—Officer? I didn’t put that stuff there. I didn’t.’

A siren screamed by outside, the sound fading as it passed.

‘You didn’t?’ Adomako narrowed his eyes at her. ‘Then who did?’”

To anyone watching the scandals of Big Pharma over the past few years, every twist feels like it could have been reported in last week’s news. And in a world now dependent on pharmaceutical companies to develop, spread, and administer a vaccine against the pandemic disease COVID-19, this thriller should raise more than goosebumps—it’s a raceway of red flags signaling the possible connections of corrupt officials and money-hungry drug developers.

Ryan provides an extra tang of satisfaction as all the most potent characters in The First to Lie are tough, savvy, scientifically sharp women with skills that could slide effectively into the original James Bond series. Watch for the money. And then keep a close eye on who’s lying to whom. Because it’s all performance, and it’s all deadly serious.

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

Outstanding British Crime Fiction from Michael Robotham: WHEN SHE WAS GOOD

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“When She Was Good makes a desperate plea for the forces of love and justice to prevail. And with each tense additional revelation, it’s clear there’s only disaster ahead. The question is, whose lives will be sacrificed?”

MichaelRobotham’s second crime novel to feature forensic psychiatrist Cyrus Haven (his 15th overall) pits two good people and one abused teenager against a possible network of pedophiles in Britain with unlimited power. When She Was Good is a page-turner from the start, and only in part due to the rapid and terrifying action taking place. The really compelling aspect is, these three people deserve so much better.

Take Evie Cormac, being hidden in a secure children’s home—except the place has few homelike characteristics, is run by grim people without humor or affection whose main role seems a cross between a school principal and a jailer, and the only friend she’s got is a younger girl unable to remember the insults and rebellions that pattern Evie’s life with others. It’s not just that Evie’s blunt to the point of rudeness most of the time. It’s that she knows if someone’s lying to her, and won’t put up with it. So who’d want to be her friend or share power with her?

Actually, Cyrus Haven is desperate to find the keys to freedom for Evie. Dodging the police departments and national security team with which he’s supposed to collaborate, he’s set himself a mission of finding out what really happened to Evie before she was rescued. And then corralling the perpetrators, so she can have a life.

But when he locates and tries to recruit Sacha Hopewell, the woman who rescued Evie, Sacha’s not optimistic. After Cyrus does his best to convince her that Evie needs the help that only openness and revelation can provide, Sacha admits to Cyrus that she’d tried to reassure the child herself:

Sacha looks up from her empty bowl. ‘Do you know what she did?’

I shook my head.

‘She gave me this look that laid me to waste inside. It was so full of despair, so bereft of hope. It was like dropping a stone ito a dark well, waiting for it to hit bottom, but it never does, it just keeps falling. That’s what frightened me. That and her voice, which came out all raspy and hoarse. She said, “Nobody can protect me.”’

Alternating voices, between Cyrus and Evie, Robotham lays out terrifying experiences and threats, one on top of another, like a fearsomely tall stack of misaligned playing cards. Any touch or breath could send the whole stack toppling. And although Cyrus won’t realize it for a while, his own connections and careful inquiry into Evie’s past are the triggers that lead the deadly forces who can’t afford to have the teen survive and speak.

While Cyrus tumbles over and over into the self-deception that he’ll be able to protect this battered child to whom he’s given his heart—for her courage, her honesty, her disarmingly dangerous refusal to collude with liars—Evie’s correct when she denies his ability to save her. Even the police force can be corrupted by the politically potent and wealthy circles that Cyrus has pried open.

When She Was Good makes a desperate plea for the forces of love and justice to prevail. And with each tense additional revelation, it’s clear there’s only disaster ahead. The question is, whose lives will be sacrificed—beyond that of Evie’s only friend Ruby, whom she discovers dead in her own bed:

“Poor Ruby. Dumb Ruby. Deep as a puddle. Thick as a plank. As friendly as a puppy. She’s dead because of me. … Ruby’s eyes were open and one arm lay across her waist, another on the pillow. My pillow. … They expected to find me. They thought they killed me.”

Word of Evie’s survival is all it takes to launch further attacks. Don’t try to get anything else done; just keep reading. The only way this book will let you go is if you walk, or run, with Evie, Cyrus, and Sacha to the last page.

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

IT CANNOLI BE MURDER, Second Italian Chef Mystery from Catherine Bruns

Author of several series of lively "amateur sleuth" mysteries, Catherine Bruns spins a quick story with ample clues, a few red herrings, plenty of disasters—and above all, friendship and affection.

For IT CANNOLI BE MURDER, Bruns takes the subgenres of cozy recipe mystery and bookstore mystery and cleverly melds them. Long-time devoted Italian chef Tessa Esposito is about to open her own Italian restaurant, close to the bookstore owned by her devoted cousin Gabby. Although Tess has her own challenges—she's newly widowed (see the preceding book Penne Dreadful) and isn't fully confident in her agreement with her landlord, let alone all the finances and staff management drowning her—her loyalty to Gabby is unquestioned. So much so that when Gabby drops in with a "thank you gift," Tess can't think why.

Mystified, I grabbed it from her outstretched hands. "Thank you for what?"

She shot me a look of disbelief. "Are you kidding me? You've been crazy busy but are still going out of your way to make goodies for my book signing tomorrow night. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it."

...It was a beige straw mat for the restaurant's front porch with a border of tomatoes around the words, "Welcome to Anything's Pastable." That was the name I'd chose for my restaurant ... Everyone had thought it was cute and especially fitting, given the blows life had dealt me lately.

Tess is determined to help out her cousin. For Gabby, business survival depends on the book signing going well, including pandering to the prickly hotshot author arriving and to his even more difficult wife—and, it turns out, would-be girlfriend. When the signing event ends in murder and Tess's cannoli recipe is held suspect, both women are in so much trouble that taking risks and nosing into the killer's identity and motive seem to make perfect sense. As Tess puts it, "Gabby's situation was far worse than mine ... Unless the killer was found immediately, her business was sure to suffer."

Although it's too soon after her husband's death for Tess to consider romance seriously, Bruns gives enough of a taste to keep this book solidly in the romantic subgenre, too. She plays fair with the clues, and an astute reader has a chance to figure out the motive, means, opportunity, and murderer just before Tess does, despite the clever twists along the way.

With Italian recipes at the end, ranging from cannoli and biscotti to a Bolognese sauce, IT CANNOLI BE MURDER is both a light and enjoyable addition to the summer's reading stack, and an ideal gift for a kitchen-obsessed friend. New this week, from the Poisoned Pen Press imprint of Sourcebooks.

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

Brief Mention: Light Art-History Mysteries from Helen A. Harrison

Sag Harbor's noted art historian and museum director, Helen A. Harrison, has written a trio of artist mysteries that she called The Corpse Trilogy. Two of them, AN EXQUISITE CORPSE and AN ACCIDENTAL CORPSE, reach easy access this summer thanks to the Poisoned Pen Press imprint of Sourcebooks, which released the first book on July 7 and offers the second on August 4.

These are light, short-chapter mysteries, all plot with some wild characters (but no particular character growth). Imagine a Surrealist corpse, for instance, clearly intended to implicate the artists in the circle featuring André Breton and acclaimed Cuban painter Wilfredo Lam in Greenwich Village in the 1940s. If that's boggling your imagination and you'd love to follow dialogue among the surrealist artists, pick up a copy of the nicely packaged pocket-size AN EXQUISITE CORPSE.

Despite the startling habits of the artists (and yes, Peggy Guggenheim has a role!), it's the police detectives, Juanita Diaz and Brian Fitzgerald, who take over the story and become lead characters in the next book -- AN ACCIDENTAL CORPSE begins with Jackson Pollock driving erratically on Long Island (where the author is the director of the Pollock-Krasner House and Study Center in East Hampton) and races along with the detectives, now married with a son.

The design of these paperbacks is perfect for summer reading in a hammock or deck chair. Have fun—you may feel inspired to look up and refresh your memory of the artists, their art, and their very provocative stories. I did!

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

Who's Luring Forensic Archaeologist Ruth Galloway? THE LANTERN MEN, by Elly Griffiths

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“Bringing the traditional British mystery up to date with this strong and driven sleuth—not a true amateur sleuth, but an active partner with the official investigation—is the best part of reading this ongoing series from Elly Griffiths.”

A forensic archaeologist with a rising career, Ruth Galloway’s made a major life change as The Lantern Men opens: Forsaking her beloved seamarsh home and the Norfolk university where she’s been mostly blocked from advancement, she’s taken a teaching slot in Cambridge. And with her daughter, she’s moved in at last with Frank, an American who loves her deeply and, she knows, wants to marry her if she’ll just consent.

But despite the rise in academic prestige, Ruth’s aware that she’s putting great strain on her heart: not just leaving the coast, but also walking away from Detective Chief Inspector Harry Nelson, father of her nine-year-old daughter, but securely married and also a new father to a son with his wife. Though Ruth’s aware that she can’t win her daughter’s dad as her own partner under the circumstances, that doesn’t erase the powerful bond that Nelson and Ruth share.

But when Ivor March, a serial murderer that Nelson and Ruth have always felt was holding back on some of his kills, pulls them together, there are frightening red flags, as Nelson reveals the latest twist:

“‘He said that he was willing to tell me where the other two bodies are buried.’

‘My God. That’s amazing.’

‘Yes. I couldn’t believe it. But he had a proviso. He always does. He can’t resist playing games. … He wants you to excavate them. … He won’t tell us where to look unless you do the digging. You don’t have to agree though.’

Ruth stands frozen with her hand on the car door. Ivor March wants her to be involved in the case. A serial killer not only knows her name but is requesting her assistance. Should she refuse? This issn’t her case, after all. She thinks of Frank’s words last night. ‘You’ve got a new team now.’ But, of course, deep down, she wants to do it. She wants to be the one to find the bodies.”

Frighteningly, the killer demands to meet Ruth first, and she won’t refuse: First, she’s eager to get back to the kind of in-ground exploration that engages all her knowledge. And second, it will mean working with Nelson, much better than not seeing him at all.

Yet the proclaimed murderer, Ivor March, is a master psychological manipulator. It’s clear he, like the groupies who adore him, savors being able to tug Ruth’s strings. He even somehow knows about Nelson and their shared daughter—which immediately means Ruth needs to worry about her child’s safety.

The book’s title comes from a myth of mysterious figures of the past, or perhaps even of the spirit realm, who light lanterns at night along the paths through the fens, nearby quicksand and pools notwithstanding, and lure unwary travelers to gruesome death in the muck and mire. March’s own past, as Ruth and Nelson probe from opposite directions, links up with a manipulative group of mingled sociopaths and do-gooders—who can be sure which ones are which?—who’ve trolled the region for women in trouble.

Griffiths is a master storyteller, with two vivid mystery series underway. This is the more rapidly paced of the two (the other is set a half century earlier), and the unavoidable strands of Ruth’s passion—her work, her child, her lovers—act as potent forces while March’s apparently ongoing crime spree nets them all.

Series followers will want to know whether Cathbad, Ruth’s druidic ally, is involved again. Yes, but not deeply this time. Still, the investigative “team” may reunite as needed, as Ivor March’s own “helpers” multiply and risk rises. Suddenly, everything’s breakable, and lives, careers, and love are at stake.

Bringing the traditional British mystery up to date with this strong and driven sleuth—not a true amateur sleuth, but an active partner with the official investigation—is the best part of reading this ongoing series from Elly Griffiths. And it looks like there’s plenty of room for more.

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

Best Beach Read Nominee: RELATIVE SILENCE from Carrie Stuart Parks

Pursuit of the American Dream can create enormous wealth and privilege, and Piper Boone's family seems to have it all — including Curlew Island, off the South Carolina coast. The family's foundation holds its board meetings there; Piper's politician brother when in residence manipulates his media coverage; and Piper's mother wields power over Piper as well, although she's far from a child. Fifteen years earlier, her daughter died when the family's boat was stolen, and although her ex-husband still comes to family business meetings, there's no joy here for Piper, locked in nonstop mourning and guilt.

Until one day, a terrorist attack at the café where Piper's gone to meet a woman friend tears bloody gashes in the fabric of her family, her self-esteem and her life. Ironically, the only person she feels almost able to trust is the man who's just saved her from gunfire: a former alcoholic who's half-drowned in his own losses and guilt, but working his way upward as both a forensic artist and member of a brotherhood of men helping each other find a way back to the love of holiness and a caring God expressed in the support of the people around them.

For Carrie Stuart Parks, RELATIVE SILENCE is the latest of seven published books -- some of which have been linked as a short series. This one appears to be a stand-alone, and the pace and strands of pain and doubt are expertly spun. So are the strengths that lead both Piper Boone and forensic artist Tucker Landry forward, through attacks that multiply, and a finale that lets loose all the force of the sea—and promises astonishing rewards for the road forward.

Here's the turning point for Piper:

I wasn't reasonable and rational at the moment. Someone had tried to gun me down. Tucker uncovered evidence that my father might have been murdered. The video I found indicated [my sister] Sparrow's death might have been more than an accident. My daughter had somehow survived and another child had died.

All I had to do was prove it all was true.

Adding spice to this great summer read is knowing that the author herself is a forensic artist and a speaker much in demand. Her ability to mesh a striking work of crime fiction with the harsh lessons of love and faith, without a single "soppy" moment, makes the book un-put-downable. Stash in the beachbag or move it onto the home deck. Test yourself: Can you figure the responsible criminals before Piper gets it sorted out? She'll keep you running, and turning the pages.

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

THE GETAWAY LIVE AUTHOR SERIES: Approaching Great Mystery Authors, with Soho Crime

Today's Getaway Live Author "episode" featured Soho Crime editor Juliet Grames (who is herself an author) and Soho Crime authors Francine Mathews and Peter Lovesey.

Check Francine's website here; some reviews of her books under the Mathews name are here, and under her alter ego name of Stephanie Barron, here.

Check Peter's website here; some reviews of his books are here.

In today's wide-ranging and enthusiastic conversation (by the way, both of these authors are detailed plotters, who at some point also experience their protagonists refusing to go with the original plan!), Juliet Grames asked how they shape the puzzle component of their mysteries:

Peter Lovesey said: "What’s the obvious thing here, that is, what is likely to happen, and then how can I subvert that and turn it into a hook at the end of a chapter."

 

Francine Mathews said: "It was Jeremiah Healy, who is now the late Jeremiah Healy, who gave me, without knowing it, the key to mystery writing. He said, Always begin with the end, and work backward. … What would cause someone to kill someone? … That is revealed at the end, but once you know that, you can work backwards to decide, where to I want to begin the story? … I always start with who did what to whom and why, and work backward."

Good news: Soho Crime recorded the interview, and will soon make it available for online viewing!

Sara Paretsky Shares Years of Stories in LOVE & OTHER CRIMES

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]

“Issued as a paperback original, Love & Other Crimes is a perfect match for summer’s relaxing moments, whether they are long ones on vacation or short breathers between home-based never-ending gig economy labors.”

Just in time for slipping a paperback of short stories into a beach bag (or toting it to the back yard reading chair) comes the collection Love & Other Crimes from Sara Paretsky. This is more than a gathering of short fiction from an acknowledged Grand Master of Mystery—Paretsky delights fans of her V.I. Warshawski detective series by dipping back in time into Vic’s own past on the South Side of Chicago for three of the 14 stories.

In addition, the collection includes Paretsky’s personal homages to such Golden Age of Detective Fiction authors as Agatha Christie and Anna Katharine Green. And of course there’s a Sherlock Holmes pastiche to round out the fun.

As Paretsky writes in her introduction, “We kill out of passion, we kill out of love—love of money, but also love of family, a desire to protect our reputations, to protect property; we kill out of a narcissistic wound when we’ve been betrayed or abandoned. We kill for revenge.”

The title story, “Love & Other Crimes,” opens with a challenge to detective V.I. Warshawski:

"’They’re trying to frame Gregory,’ she announced baldly.

‘Who are ‘they,’ who is Gregory, and what are ‘they’ saying he did?’ I asked.

‘F***ing Warshawki snob,’ she said. ‘I might have known. Like your mother, too good to walk around the planet with the ordinary mortals.’”

Even V.I., confronted with this complicated and patently untrue assertion, has to take a moment to figure out who’s in her office and why. Turns out it’s Sonia Litvak, a neighbor from when Vic was a kid, one who’s still wearing the chip on her shoulder she had back then. And the crime(s) involved can’t be separated from Vic’s own past. Paretsky packs a novel’s worth of family friction and underworld finagling into 35 pages.

That’s long for a “short” story, and it’s part of what makes this collection such a good read: Paretsky takes the time to frame setting and character, even dividing many of the stories into mini chapters of their own. There’s a paragraph after each tale where Paretsky opens up its backstory, and these add tasty seasoning to the book. For example, “Is It Justice?” is a gift back to readers of her book Critical Mass (2013), as “a lot of readers” of that novel objected to character Cordell Breen’s escape. “Flash Point” was drafted to fit the Fifty Shades of Grey craze. “Trial by Fire” takes historical crime into noir terrain. And “Wildcat” turns out to lay “the groundwork” for Paretsky’s 2009 crime novel Hardball, which has a backstory in the riots of 1966.

Obviously, readers already somewhat familiar with Paretsky’s works will get extra pleasure from this gathering that stitches together so much of her previous writing, as well as revealing personal and professional motives to her storytelling. Those meeting V.I. Warshawski for the first time here, though, can enjoy knowing this author has a backlist of more than 20 other crime novels to dive into afterward.

Issued as a paperback original, Love & Other Crimes is a perfect match for summer’s relaxing moments, whether they are long ones on vacation or short breathers between home-based never-ending gig economy labors. Each story brings a change of pace, a clever crime, and a burning sense of what human justice demands. Which, of course, is exactly what one would expect from a Grand Master of Mystery.

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

Murder in the Hamptons: Carrie Doyle's Series Goes Mass Market This Summer

Good news: Carrie Doyle's mystery series set in the Hamptons (at the far end of New York's Long Island) has hit the reprint jackpot and is being reissued this summer by Poisoned Pen Press, now a mystery imprint of Sourcebooks. Bad news: Someone put a really silly cover onto the reprint of DEATH ON WINDMILL WAY (the first of the series). Good news: We all know how to ignore a cover -- and in this case, there's a good mystery inside the book. Bad news: The title sounds like this is set in either a Dutch holiday resort, or a suburb that's named the roads in its developments using too large a committee. Good news: This is actually an innkeeper mystery with a lot of pizzazz.

DEATH ON WINDMILL WAY opens with a sneaky prologue that ensures reader awareness of a malicious murderer causing a death at the inn. Then it leaps to the point of view, maintained for the rest of the books, of innkeeper Antonia Bingham. New to inn ownership and to the conundrum of Hamptons life -- the feel of a village among the year-rounders, but also acute dependence on the multimillionaires owning property in the beach-based Nirvana, and on heedless tourists -- Antonia has a lot to master: meal and snack prep that lives up to the high-end expectations of the resort area (she's a "foodie" so that's natural to her), flawless management of staff and premises (she has high expectations of herself), and of course a personal life that's sure to flip back and forth from romantic hope to business despair.

So the last thing she needs is to learn a rumor that owners of her newly purchased premises, the Windmill Inn, are fated to die under suspicious circumstances. Sharpening the discomfort is the news that her predecessor may indeed (as readers of course already know) have been murdered. "Before she had heard the suspicious deaths rumor, she had been fine. In fact, she had been sleeping in this inn for six months and never felt frightened. She wasn't a scaredy-cat ... She was the boss! ... She would not succumb to hysteria."

Doyle's writing is generally plot related, with plenty of Antonia's inner view of events and stresses. But this description she provides of the village around the inn sets the outdoor scene nicely:

East Hampton, renowned for its award-winning beaches, picturesque villages, and the ethereal light that had inspired some of the greatest American painters, is nestled on the top of Long Island's south shore, bordered by the Atlantic on one side and various bays on the other. Everything about the town is profoundly quaint: from the acres of farmland bursting with abundant crops to the shaded streets lined with windmills, shingled houses, and churches.

Then there are the characters from whom Antonia tries to pull details, including Naomi, who sold the inn to her:

"The official cause of death [for Gordon, the previous owner] was ... a heart attack," she said at last, glaring at Barbie, who still wouldn't meet her eye.

Antonia felt her heart race. "What was the unofficial cause of death?"

Naomi finally glanced in Antonia's direction. She gave a small smile, her lips curling enough so that her thin top lip disappeared into the bottom. The look reminded Antonia of a defiant child forced to lie to a teacher.

"Heart attack," Naomi repeated before adding, "but I'd bet my bottom dollar that this tramp here figured out a way to cause it."...

Antonia kept her eyes on Naomi. "Why didn't you tell the police if you suspected it?" asked Antonia.

Naomi rolled her eyes. "I wanted to make sure I could sell the inn. No one would have bought this place if they thought Gordon was murdered."

Antonia's friend Genevieve, who'd invited her East to buy the place, thinks the amateur detective role suits this new innkeeper to the max: "You're kind of nosy," she points out. "I mean, didn't your parents nickname you Snoopy because you were always snooping around?"

But the motive for the killings — yes, they multiply — begins to also threaten Antonia as she gets closer to understanding what's taken place. There's an inheritance at stake, for instance, as well as bad blood among previous employees of her inn.

Gutsy in a determined fashion, and creative in staging a situation to unravel the crimes, Antonia is a nice addition to modern amateur sleuths. And in spite of her relief at the end of the book ("glad to be officially out of the crime-solving business"), Poisoned Pen Press has two more in the series ready for this summer (amazing! three books in one summer! a treat for this who get frustrated with the slow pace of a series), and Carrie Doyle's fourth in her Hamptons murder mysteries will publish in 2021.

Just remember: Ignore the cover. Ignore the title. Go for the fun of an easy-read mystery in a charming setting. That's what summer (in the Hamptons or anyplace else) is meant for.

Note for mystery collectors: You could set up a nifty shelf of Hamptons mysteries, now that Doyle is adding so many. For instance, there James Patterson's The Beach House, Twanged from Carol Higgins Clark, even an R. L. Stine trio called The Sitter.
  
PS:  Looking for more mystery reviews, from cozy to very dark? Browse the Kingdom Books mysteries review blog here.   

Space Force Military Thriller from Dale Brown, EAGLE STATION

[Originally published in the New York Journal of Books]

“The suspense of Eagle Station lies in how each detailed flight maneuver in air or space will turn out, and who’ll walk away with few enough injuries to survive—and return to Earth with enough air and fuel to complete the trip.”

Dale Brown’s Patrick McLanahan series of military thrillers developed a second generation a few years ago, and Eagle Station is the sixth book featuring Patrick’s son Brad McLanahan. It’s good to know that these protagonists will survive for more books in the series, if possible, as military expeditions and necessary sacrifices multiply.

In Eagle Station, the United States is engaged in an undeclared but very real war with Russia and China, for dominance of the air globally and of the nearer regions of space. The author is a former U.S. Air Force captain, and the first few chapters are nonstop equipment narratives. (There’s even a a glossary of weapons and acronyms at the back of the book, for readers who love the Air Force and Space Force related details.)

Although the U.S. military, including Brad McLanahan and his about-to-be wife Nadia Rozek, has a lot to celebrate as the book opens, having captured and turned around to its own use an armed Russian satelite (“weapons platform”), renaming it Eagle Station, there’s still an ongoing struggle for world dominance among the great forces, and the American team’s showing off new tech marvels in a face-off for control with the Chinese in the South China Sea. No sooner do Brad and Nadia finish this perilous exercise than their planning skills are in demand back at home for an international rescue mission that will depend on their extraordinary flight skills under fire.

Chapters from the points of view of Russian and Chinese military leaders let readers know, well before Brad does, that the superpowers on the other side of the globe have a new target to dominate: the Moon. Chinese president Li Jun and Russia’s de facto leader Marshal Leonov pool their resources to place a military base on the “dark side” of Earth’s moon. Their successful feint toward a different project manages to leave the Americans behind.

But the U.S. military with the McLanahans involved is more than an armed service: It’s linked intimately with military-led private enterprise, big investments, and teamwork with an American President who trusts this team.

And Brad McLanahan points out that the enemy collaborators are far from stupid: “He shook his head. ‘Okay, look, I get the drift. A surprise return to the lunar surface would be a huge propaganda win for Russia and China. But the risks involved in using a wholly untested spacecraft for a stunt like that are huge. One serious hardware malfunction or one software glitch at just the wrong time and five gets you ten, you end up with a bunch of dead guys drifting in orbit or smashed to pieces in some crater.’ Nadia frowned at him. ‘You should not assume that Marshal Leonov and President Li Jun share our views on the value of human life.’”

Brown’s writing offers no hidden motives or turncoats—everything is right out front, including enemy maneuvers. And enemy aliens have no redeeming features. The suspense of Eagle Station lies in how each detailed flight maneuver in air or space will turn out, and who’ll walk away with few enough injuries to survive—and return to Earth with enough air and fuel to complete the trip.

Although character development is not part of this book’s structure, the use of technology foreshadowed by today’s collaborations of government, the Space Force, and private enterprise is outlined in striking detail. In fact, some of the gear described has already been asssembled by corporate groups like SpaceX, Blue Origin, and United Launch Alliance, as Brown notes at the start of the book. Brown’s fast-paced and risky portrayal of what the globe could see in terms of conflict is set in the very near future: labeled with the year 2022, with recent SpaceX news already meeting this tech fiction halfway.

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

Crime Fiction and Love: The Caitlin Strong Series from Jon Land (and More) [July release]

Crime fiction + Love: It shouldn't be an unexpected pairing. In some cases the masculine or police environment might call for using the term "loyalty" instead, but thumbing through favorite modern mysteries, often a powerful affection between characters acts to tighten the grip of a desperate choice for the investigator.

Look at some of the very popular series in print today: Louise Penny's Armand Gamache series, where Gamache puts himself at risk time and again for the sake of the people on his team, and they respond by maturing and developing deeper courage. Gamache's love for his wife is also front and center in the series, as well as the complicated relationship he has with his eventual son-in-law.

Julia Spencer-Fleming's police procedurals, set in upstate New York, circle around how alcohol and drug abuse and posttraumatic stress disorder affect Claire and Russ as they struggle to prevent and solve murders; Lee Child's Jack Reacher engages in local conflicts for the sake of individuals he's drawn to (and the heartbreak of the series lies in how often he loses contact with those people by the end of an investigation); Tim Hallinan's remarkable Bangkok books, the Poke Rafferty mysteries, focus on what Poke will do to protect and preserve his family and friends; and Julia Keller's West Virginia crime fiction confronting the scourge of opioid addiction does it "up close and personal" through family dynamics.

Jon Land writes several series, and my favorite, hands down, is his Caitlin Strong series. There's a whiff of paranormal to it, because the outrageously loyal and physically strong Guillermo Paz, a unique sidekick to investigators Caitlin Strong and Cort Wesley Masters, often feels driven by a sixth sense that lets him know when "his Texas Ranger," Caitlin, needs his protection. And Cort Wesley sorts through his quandaries with a rootbeer-drinking ghost. Beyond that, however, the books engage the classic motivations for Big Crime (everything in Texas is big, right?) and in a unique historical strand, they retell escapades from the previous generations of Caitlin's family who've also been Texas Rangers.

STRONG FROM THE HEART sends Caitlin hunting the roots of a Big Pharma cabal that's accidentally poisoned an entire Texas town. She needs to get to the criminals as fast as possible, because it's becoming clear that they are the same ones responsible for Cort Wesley's son -- a boy she has mothered for a decade -- making a nearly fatal experiment with snorting an opioid. Cort Wesley, not being an official law enforcement officer, is likely to face serious charges himself if he takes vigilante action against the cabal or its Texas-based leader. And just incidentally, the criminals here are psychopathic enough to re-target Caitlin's family in order to hurt her more.

Deepening the intensity of Caitlin Strong's pursuit is her even more personal stake this time: She's been taking Vicodin to deal with massive cranial trauma she received (see Strong as Steel), and both the targeted youth and her federal-level colleague "Jones" have hinted that she may herself have become an addict.

This book's title fits with another ongoing conflict of love and values in the book: Caitlin's struggle to define her position in terms of a recently discovered half-sister, Nola, who's far more violent (without regrets) than Caitlin herself:

"Let me handle this, Cort Wesley," Caitlin said, when she saw Nola Delgado drinking a Corona in one of the parking lot's few shady spots.

"I was thinking we double-team her."

"Better I do this alone."

"Why?"

"Because we share the same blood."

"But not the same heart, Ranger. Yours is as big and strong as your name. Hers most likely resembles a spoiled peach pit."

Later in the same scene, as Nola tries to goad Caitlin:
Caitlin didn't bristle at being addressed that way today. Maybe she was getting used to the truth. Maybe that was part of what Cort Wesley was getting at, being strong from the heart.
Reading Land's Caitlin Strong series requires relaxing with his very short chapters, thriller style, and having a few loose ends left behind (if Caitlin gets rid of her Vicodin, how's she going to handle the cranial pain, especially after she re-injures her head in another explosion?). But it's prime escape fiction, follows enough of the genre conventions to be satisfying, and -- yes, it's packed with how people act when motivated by love and loyalty.

No need to read the others in the series first -- they are not very dependent on sequence, so they make ideal titles to keep on the shelf for entertaining re-reading.

At the moment, the publication date for STRONG FROM THE HEART is July 28, from Forge Books. We don't often post this far in advance about a book, but this is an especially good year to pre-order, whether from a local bookstore or online.

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

CODA: MORE ABOUT LOVE

You know how love makes your heart grow stronger, but also more vulnerable? Right, you've got it. Well, here's a personal story: A few years ago, Jon Land placed "Kingdom Books" into one of his other series, the one he co-writes with Jessica Fletcher under the "Murder, She Wrote" brand. He did it as a surprise gift to my husband Dave and me. And when the review copy came in the mail, we had just sold the books that made up the retail part of our "collector's resource" business here. Yes, all of them. Our hearts were broken. And I couldn't figure out how to tell Jon what had happened.

Dave and I were very fortunate to "find each other" when we were fifty, and to enjoy savoring books together. One reason we let go of the Kingdom Books retail end was, Dave had a cancer diagnosis and we knew the rest of our time was limited, as his could not be treated. A year after that, I had one also (mine was treatable, though). And in April 2019, when Strong as Steel was released, Dave died.

Some of you already know the fierce loss and storms of change that follow the long illness and then death of a spouse. (If you haven't experienced it, I'm glad for you -- but you also may not be able to guess how it takes your world off balance.) I'm back in the saddle, reviewing crime fiction/mystery books, usually at or before their release dates. I'm sorry that I wasn't "there for Jon" during that interlude. But ... as someone who positions love and loyalty so centrally in his books, I bet he understands.

Finale of the Poke Rafferty (Bangkok) Series from Timothy Hallinan, STREET MUSIC

[Originally published at New York Journal of Books]


“Despite the classic investigations that Poke leaps into, with violence and threat and red herrings and regret, Poke Rafferty is a person who cares enough to listen, to experience, and to change, even in this final volume of the series.”

One of the best loved international crime fiction series ends this season, as Tim Hallinan’s Street Music is the ninth and final book on his Poke Rafferty Thrillers (Soho Press). Catching attention in the fourth book with an Edgar nomination for The Queen of Patpong, Hallinan's Poke Rafferty Thailand novels have won wide acclaim. 

For readers already following the series, Street Music represents a bittersweet farewell to the “little family” than Hallinan has nurtured. First there’s been Poke Rafferty himself, an American writer who settled in Bangkok, won over by its people and sense of community. Poke’s marriage to Rose, a “bar girl” and former “Queen” of the Patpong bars, created the frame for their eventual adoption of a much-battered but creative, caring, and eventually loving daughter, Miaow, a child of the streets.
Street Music opens with the presence of a new member of the family, a baby that’s already been highly controversial earlier in the series. It’s a boy! But Poke’s not finding “natural” fathering impulses; Rose’s ever-present set of women friends crowding him out of the bedroom and onto a lumpy couch has a lot to do with this. But so does the kind of parenting he’s already been doing, growing into protecting and nurturing Miaow. Her street roots have engaged her in peril multiple times, and Poke routinely mobilizes friends, especially one in the Bangkok police force, to help.

What peril approaches Poke and especially Miaow when a mysterious street women begins to follow him and asks him for a huge amount of cash as “protection money” to keep her from destroying the little family? How can Poke handle the resulting chaos without upsetting Rose and bringing risk to the baby as well? It’s rough when you find yourself lying to the people you love best, in order to take care of them.

An Afterword by Hallinan recaps his approach to the series, and the startling effect that setting up a first scene that involved Poke + wife + daughter + groceries = family. “The word family did the trick,” he explains. “I barely knew who these people were but the moment I realized they were a family, I thought that it might be interesting to drop a normal—if intercultural and self-assembled—family, who are trying to preserve relationships along traditional lines, into the world capital of instant gratification”—that is, into Bangkok.

Not only is Poke Rafferty being followed and blackmailed in Street Music—he’s also coming to terms with his understanding of poverty, which doesn’t always lead to crime (although he’d about to find evidence of possible murder). Another former bar girl, Toots, lays it out for him: “Some lady no good. I poor girl too, Poke. Then I lucky too much, marry Leon, but before, when I have no money, I not take. Not good for karma. You know, you are poor and you good, you win. You poor and you bad, poor win.”

This is exactly the kind of moment that makes Hallinan’s crime fiction, especially the Poke Rafferty series, so interesting and unusual: Despite the classic investigations that Poke leaps into, with violence and threat and red herrings and regret, Poke Rafferty is a person who cares enough to listen, to experience, and to change, even in this final volume of the series.

What does Poke learn about Miaow’s original parent(s), after all this time raising her? How will he come to grips with being the father of a baby boy, and the husband of a woman who’s just experienced her own major transition? Which friends will lead him into more danger to his family, and which will help him walk through it and survive?

Street Music is very readable without the earlier books in the series. But it’s a richer read when placed in their context. Read the others before it or after; chances are, once you’ve entered Poke Rafferty’s community, you too will experience some of his reasons to change.

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

Take Back Your Life: Women Get Stronger in THE LAST FLIGHT, Suspense from Julie Clark

All the publication dates lately are sliding around, as book publishers and bookstores adapt to a virus-threatened world. Ever get the feeling we are already living in a suspense novel of our own?

Still, THE LAST FLIGHT from Julie Clark has a pretty firm new release date of June 23 from Sourcebooks. And if you love a powerful and creepy work of suspense, so smoothly written that all you need to do is check that the doors are locked and keep turning the pages, this would be a great time to pre-order this crime novel. It's Julie Clark's second (the first was The Ones We Choose, in 2018). Chilling, twisty, and highly memorable, it's a good escape for the summer reading stack. Reader Beware: If you've been in the midst of an abusive situation, whether as the person working for a way out, or as the friend of someone facing those scary choices, THE LAST FLIGHT will nudge all your trauma buttons. And then, if you can keep going all the way through the book, it may convince you that if we "see" each other and lend a hand, there will be more fresh starts.

Claire Taylor Cook's trapped in a marriage so cruel, with a political husband so powerful, that her own death might be the only way out of it. With the help of a friend from her own past who has connections with organized crime, Claire begins plotting her own escape. It's not going to be easy—her abusive husband has her monitored all the time—but just the hope is enough to help her keep going: "Over the next year, Petra and I assembled a plan, choreographing my disappearance ore carefully than a ballet. A sequence of events so perfectly timed, there could be no room for error."

But of course, life's unpredictable. When an air crash threatens Claire's plan yet offers her a chance to hide in a new way, she takes action:

My eyes land on Eva's purse, and I reach into it and pull out a ring of keys and her wallet. I pocket the keys and open the wallet, memorizing the address on her license. 543 Le Roy. I don't hesitate. I walk out of the airport, into the bright California sunshine, and hail a cab.

It seems almost too easy—and it turns out to be dangerous. Soon Claire's risks have doubled, with the husband she's tried to escape hunting for her, and her "new life" being far from safe as well.

Clark's intense pacing turns even more compelling as she adds further twists. And when the book's done, even quarantine won't look so stressful anymore. Highly recommended for those who appreciate a thriller that's taut, edgy, and terrifying.

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

Fine Traditional Crime Fiction with Spice, from Caroline B. Cooney: BEFORE SHE WAS HELEN

What a delight to plunge into a well-spun story in the hands of a skilled and powerful storyteller: BEFORE SHE WAS HELEN is (at a rough count) book 64 from Caroline B. Cooney, and it has a polished flow that makes its creeping uneasiness all the more striking. And yet it's also an entertaining book, in the sense that any awareness of how our lives muddle along in our "golden years" had to make us either laugh or weep.

For Clemmie—that is, Clementine Lakefield, a resident in a senior development populated by nosy neighbors, golf carts, and planned activities—accidentally exploring a neighbor's home plunges her into the risks and dangers of both her own past and her neighbors'. She's been living a carefully fabricated and protected existence, where even her closest relatives don't know her exact address and haven't been to visit her. But her neatly constructed barriers are not enough to block a swift search for her by a drug-crime kingpin, once she casually shared a photo of an object she's spotted at her neighbor's residence.

The tastiest part of BEFORE SHE WAS HELEN is Cooney's clever entry into Clemmie's life as an elderly lady, hiding out:

Clemmie stared at herself in the bathroom mirror. When her beautiful black hair first began to go gray, she'd dyed it, but when it got so sparse that her scalp showed, she'd started wearing a wig. Latin students were always the best kids, and classes were always small, so behavior was rarely a problem, but the fact was, you needed every weapon at your disposal when you were in charge of teenagers. Clemmie tried not to show weakness, even if the weakness was just thinning hair. ...

It was crucial to be calm. She knew from way too many encounters that panic was the deciding factor in failure. Looking her best would help her keep her poise. ... She crept out of Blue Lilac, the shivers starting in her gut but not yet visible on her body.

There's a familiar classic flavor to Cooney's writing, even as the suspense continues to ramp up. How powerful are the forces arrayed against Clemmie? Even if she survives this conflict with a crime network, will she still have any familiar, safe life to return to? Or will all the shame and horror she's carefully hidden be exposed?

A good fat traditional mystery of about 300 pages, with spicy insight, and a perfect distraction from the stresses beyond the doors. Take the passenger seat with this remarkable lady under fire. Published under the Poisoned Pen Press, by Sourcebooks.

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

Brief Mention: CAGE by Lilja Sigurðardóttir, Intense Icelandic Crime Fiction

Even before opening CAGE, the new crime novel from Iceland's Lilja Sigurðardóttir, there are three big "yes I want to read this" aspects to appreciate: (1) This is book three in Sigurðardóttir's outstanding Reykjavik noir series, which began with Snare, followed by Trap. (2) The translator is Quentin Bates, an award-winning crime novelist himself. (3) The publisher is Orenda Books, which is steadily and rapidly bringing outrageous and outstanding European fiction across the ocean. And here's a bonus point: The cover blurb is from the amazing Val McDermid.

Here is the only reason not to crack it open: The sex scenes in it are often quirky and sometimes sadistic. Although also sometimes heartbreakingly tender. Make your own choice on that basis.

The book opens with Agla, a gifted financial criminal, approaching the end of her prison sentence. Heartbroken at a lover's refusal before her time in jail, she's stayed depressed, isolated, and angry during her sentence—where she's also one of the few lesbians. When a cute and quirky woman seduces her in prison, she loses her heart all over again, and hopes for a life of love after release.

It's not that simple, though, because both of them and the people they connect with have dangerous ties to complex international criminal networks. And where there's high finance in such crime, there's also sexual trafficking of various sorts. It heats up quickly, starting with this prison visit:

'Yes, I know him,' Agla had said two weeks ago, and she had signed the visit request, even though she had never heard of this man before. Her curiosity had been sparked by the email in which he requested a visit. He had stated that there was an important business matter they should meet to discuss. She had forgotten about it until now. ...

He stood up and held his business card up to the glass. She could see a little picture of him in one corner, under the company's logo. Agla raised an eyebrow. International companies didn't make a habit of searching out convicts in Icelandic prisons to offer them work.

Pair these strands with a journalist who gets in over her head, and a pair of teens setting up an explosive hate crime, and CAGE is nonstop action all the way. Don't pick it up, of course, if the kinky sex will bother you -- but you can rely on a sort of justice eventually being established. It's a good ride.

Books by this author are arriving in the US a couple of years behind their European publication -- understandable with the time for translation. And worth waiting for.

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

Brief Mention: Fine Caper Crime Novel, LITTLE SIBERIA by Antti Tuomainen

A would-be race-car driver attempts suicide by fast car on a winter road in Finland, when instead of crashing the way he'd planned, his car is ripped apart by a random meteorite.

Now that's an opening that no crime novel has ever come close to! And from here, award-winning Finnish suspense author Antti Tuomainen rolls his snowball through one caper twist after another. For instance, there the value of the meteor—and the people who want it. Not to mention the small town where it gets placed temporarily and notoriously.

Here's a sample of Tuomainen's mid-novel explication, from the local pastor's point of view—a man with serious doubts about his own life:

The meteorite will be in the War Museum for a further two nights.

The list of people keen to get their hands on it seems to grow as time runs out. As for Leonid, I am in no doubt. He wants the meteorite. Karolina wants the meteorite and is apparently willing to collaborate with me — the guard on the night shift — to get it. Leonid is in love with Karolina, a matter that raises a number of questions.

Is Karolina employing Leonid's help in order to achieve her goal? If she is, why does she want to involve me in her plans? And if she isn't, why has she stared a relationship with a man for whom she feels no attraction? ... I feel as though I know them too well to think of them as my pursuers, and too little to know what really moves and motivates them. Of course, that applies to everyone I know, including my own wife. I don't even know the people I know.

Two more nights.

If you've had enough of the depressive side of "Scandinavian noir," here's your opportunity to snicker, guffaw, smirk, and otherwise enjoy a lively, fast-moving crime novel of marvelously black humor. Hurrah for Orenda Books bringing Tuomainen across the ocean, and for the deft translation by David Hackston.

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