Mysteries Recent Picks

February/March 2009

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Bloodstorm, Sam Millar. (2008)
"At the start of this powerful first of a new crime series from Irish author Millar (Dark Souls), wild dogs finish off a battered gang-rape victim, left for dead in a unused quarry outside Belfast one summer day in 1978. Decades later, someone is picking off the men responsible for this outrage. At the behest of a shadowy employer, PI Karl Kane investigates the death of one of the rapists, whose body turns up in the city's Botanic Gardens. Flashbacks to the 1960s, when a young boy witnessed his mother's murder and narrowly escaped death at her killer's hands, help build suspense as their relevance to the present-day murders slowly and chillingly comes into focus. Millar adds police corruption to the mix to make Kane's search for the truth even more troublesome. While some minor plot elements may strike readers as contrived (e.g., the escape of some wild pigs leads to significant evidence), the consistently tough prose should help gain Millar fans in the U.S. with a taste for the hard-boiled." (Publishers Weekly)

Bone by bone, by Carol O'Connell. (2008)
"At the start of O'Connell's atmospheric if overplotted stand-alone, former army CID warrant officer Oren Hobbs travels back to the small town of Coventry, Calif., where bones have begun to appear on the family property. Oren's father, a retired judge, is convinced they belong to Josh, Oren's 15-year-old brother, who vanished in the woods when Oren was 17. The town abounds in rumors as well as suspects, from a disfigured and reclusive ex-LAPD officer to a once beautiful hotel owner who may have had an affair with teenage Oren. When a grave is discovered in the woods, Oren is surprised that the broken bones belong not only to Josh but to an unknown woman. Determined to solve his brother's murder, Oren must face his own past and the real possibility that the killer might strike again. O'Connell's characters are complex as always, but she often suffocates them under unnecessary red herrings. Nevertheless, fans of her Kathleen Mallory series (Find Me, etc.) as well as new readers will be satisfied." (Publishers Weekly)

The good thief's guide to Paris, by Chris Ewan. (2008)
"Charlie Howard, a crime writer who's also an international burglar, once again makes a funny, fast-talking narrator in Ewan's delightful second mystery (after 2007's The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam). Tipsy after a Parisian book signing, Charlie agrees to show a new acquaintance the basics of the trade by breaking into the man's own apartment. Trouble ensues when the apartment actually belongs to someone else. Charlie's fence commissions him the next day to break into the same apartment to steal an apparently worthless painting, and the apartment's real owner turns up dead in Charlie's apartment. Hiding in a Montmartre hotel, Charlie tries to save his skin while also placating his attractive agent, Victoria, who's arrived unannounced only to discover that the client she's grown so close to by phone looks nothing like the author photo he provided. That Charlie pens a memoir titled The Good Thief's Guide to Amsterdam adds a nice postmodern touch to a classic caper." (Publishers Weekly)

Chasing smoke, by Bill Cameron. (2008)
"Irascible homicide detective Thomas Skin Kadash battles cancer while drawn into investigating a string of suicides with a common link in Cameron's thinly plotted second novel. Officially on medical leave from the Portland, Ore., police department, Skin is called to a crime scene by his partner, Det. Susan Mulvaney, when she discovers that the deceased was being treated by Skin's oncologist and wasn't the first of the doctor's patients to kill themselves. A list of five men—including several who have already committed suicide—surfaces, but when the police look into the deaths, there's little to suggest they weren't the last acts of men with terminal illnesses. Unconvinced, Skin launches his own unofficial investigation, while trying to withstand the pain of bladder cancer." (Publishers Weekly)

The mystic arts of erasing all signs of death : a novel, by Charlie Huston. (2008)
"Amazon Best of the Month, January 2009: If you love crime fiction--preferably wickedly profane, unabashedly grisly, and laugh-out-loud funny "pulp" fiction--your number one New Year's resolution needs to be to read Charlie Huston. It only takes one to get you so hooked you'll read everything you can get your hands on, so take a couple of days off and give yourself room to binge on the brutal and hilarious Hank Thompson and Joe Pitt series, the blistering Shotgun Rule, and this latest and greatest stand-alone, The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death. The best thing about reading a Huston novel is that you never see it coming--laughter, tears, the passing urge to vomit--everything is a surprise, creating a wholly unsettling and exciting reading experience. The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death has all the makings of a perfect Charlie Huston novel--the down-but-not-out antihero, the outrageous supporting characters (each of whom deserves their own spin-off), the very bad situation involving money and violence, and the hilariously inappropriate dialogue that is Huston's signature--but with one surprising addition, hope. It does little good to break down the plot of a book this bizarre and brilliant. You're just going to have to trust us (and our Guest Reviewer, Stephen King), and read it." (Amazon)

Blood runs cold, by Alex Barclay. (2008)
"Kidnap and murder collide in Alex Barclay's heart-stopping new thriller featuring FBI Agent Ren Bryce. When an FBI agent is found dead on the white slopes of Quandary Peak in Colorado, a brilliant but volatile agent is drafted in from Denver to lead the investigation. Fighting personal demons, pressure from Washington and dwindling leads, the case stalls and a career falters But as summer comes, Quandary Peak has disturbing new secrets to give up. And as one agent fights failure and hopelessness, another has left behind a trail that leads to a man with a dark past and even darker intentions." (Amazon.co.uk)

Quick study, by Maggie Barbieri. (2008)
"In Barbieri's witty third cozy to feature English professor Alison Bergeron (after 2007's Extracurricular Activities), Alison befriends Hernan Escalante and his extended family from Ecuador at the soup kitchen where she's doing community service north of New York City. When the beaten body of Jose Tomasso, one of Hernan's relatives and an illegal immigrant, surfaces in the Hudson near Riviera Pointe, a luxury condo development in the Bronx where Jose was a construction worker, Alison offers to help Hernan find out what happened. After a second murder at Riviera Pointe, Hernan disappears. Alison's investigation leads her and her sidekicks, including her faithful canine companion, Trixie, into all sorts of nail-biting danger. An offer of assistance from former sweetie Jack McManus, marketing director for the New York Rangers, tests Alison's relationship with her main squeeze, NYPD detective Bobby Crawford. Barbieri scores again with this high-octane blend of romance, laughs and chills." (Publishers Weekly)

Eight ball boogie, by Declan Burke. (2008)
"Downscale private dick Harry Rigby starts tossing out wisecracks like lit packets of firecrackers on page one of this Irish crime story, and he doesn't let up until the last sordid plot strand is singed into submission. In both the dialogue and first-person narration, Rigby resembles the gin-soaked love child of Rosalind Russell and William Powell--except he smokes pot instead of swilling martinis. Rigby's incessant linguistic pyrotechnics might seem like obnoxious overkill to some. But readers who roll with the patter--"I wanted to ask how come blondes never got around to dyeing their eyebrows but her eyes were closed and the gash in her throat ran six inches east to west"--will find it driving the story forward at a thrilling pace. That's a good thing, as the plot's a convoluted mess of bitter backstabbing among stock ne'er-do-wells sniffing after an illicit drug concession. But Rigby is a winning protagonist, and the underlying struggle with his memorably sociopathic brother, Gonzo, helps make this a wild ride worth taking." (Booklist)

Blood sins, by Kay Hooper. (2009)
"In this disturbing paranormal thriller, the second in a trilogy (after Blood Dreams) from bestseller Hooper, Noah Bishop, of the FBI's Special Crimes Unit, and Haven, a civilian investigative organization, take on the fanatical Rev. Adam Deacon Samuel. At age 10, Samuel murdered his abusive prostitute mother by using psychic powers, which a few years later increased after lightning struck him during a tent revival. Noah and his colleagues suspect Samuel, the leader of the Church of the Everlasting Sin, of killing at least eight people via supernatural means and of abusing young girls to enhance his powers. Tessa Gray, a Haven operative posing as a recent widow, reluctantly infiltrates Samuel's compound in the small town of Grace, N.C., near where the body of a fellow Haven operative surfaced in a river. Hooper pulls out all the stops in depicting the unholy preacher's apocalyptic breakdown as Noah's elite team tackles one of their nastiest assignments yet." (Publishers Weekly)

Hark! the herald angel screamed : an Augusta Goodnight mystery (with heavenly recipes), by Mignon F. Ballard. (2008)
"At the start of Ballard's sweet seventh mystery to feature Lucy Nan Pilgrim and her guardian angel, Augusta Goodnight (after 2006's The Angel and the Jabberwocky Murders), the folks of Stone's Throw, S.C., are preparing for Christmas when Dexter Clark, a not very nice man with a criminal record, falls to his death from a balcony at Willowbrook, Lucy Nan's grandmother's plantation home. Then someone drugs Idonia Mae Culpepper, who'd begun dating town newcomer Melrose DuBois, and steals a locket DuBois had given her. Later, Opal Henshaw, DuBois's landlady, breaks her neck in a fall from a church balcony. Might Opal have known too much about the locket's provenance? Could Melrose be a thief and a killer? Augusta as always makes a delightful earthbound angel in a Southern cozy fragrant with holiday spices and, yes, a selection of enticing recipes." (Publishers Weekly)

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