Mysteries Recent Picks

February 2011

The underlined titles will take you directly to our catalogue.
Some featured items are linked via a book cover to enable you to read more reviews.

Queen of the night / J.A. Jance.
"From a "New York Times"-bestselling author comes an interrelated thriller involving members of the Walker family, last seen in "Day of the Dead." Two murders committed generations apart resonate through three separate families, threatening to destroy them." (Syndetics summary)

Golden mile / Martin Cruz Smith.
"As a train pulls into Yaroslav Station, Moscow, a teenage girl – Maya – wakes to an unimaginable horror. Her baby has been taken... Increasingly disillusioned with the workings of Moscow’s Prosecution Service, Arkady Renko is teetering on the brink of resignation when he becomes drawn into a strange new case. A prostitute has been found dead in a trailer in Three Stations – a dark, notorious part of the city – without a mark on her. Soon Renko will find that the girl is linked to the extravagant Club Nijinsky and, as he is drawn into the extraordinary world of Moscow’s super-rich, that nothing is quite as it seems.
Meanwhile, Maya also wanders Three Stations, searching for her baby. Her only ally is a young man, Zhenya – Renko’s own troubled ward – who is drawn to her cause and will guide her through Moscow’s dark underbelly. But neither Zhenya nor Renko realize that Maya herself is being hunted. And those seeking her will stop at nothing to silence her..." (Amazon UK)

Naked heat / Richard Castle.
"When New York's most vicious gossip columnist, Cassidy Towne, is found dead, NYPD Homicide Detective Heat uncovers a gallery of high profile suspects, all with compelling motives for killing the most feared muckraker in Manhattan. Heat's murder investigation is complicated by her surprise reunion with superstar magazine journalist Jameson Rook." (Library Catalogue)

Bad blood / John Sandford.
"When a murder suspect commits suicide after his arrest for killing a soybean farmer, Virgil Flowers uncovers a multi-generation, multi-family conspiracy involving a series of monstrous crimes." (Library Catalogue)

Outwitting trolls / William G. Tapply.
"After the body of an old friend is found, Boston attorney Brady Coyne is drawn into an investigation in which he tries to find the connection between long-ago friends and the savage murders dogging their family." (Syndetics summary)

Bedeviled eggs / Laura Childs.
"The ladies at the Cackleberry Club cafA(c) are busy preparing for Halloween. But someone's jumped the gun on the tricks. As mayoral candidate Chuck Peebler leaves the cafA(c), he gets struck with a crossbow arrow and is killed instantly. And when another murder occurs on the historical society's Quilt Trail, the Cackleberry Club needs to sniff out the bad egg-before he strikes again." (Syndetics summary)

Naked cruelty : a Carmine Delmonico novel / Colleen McCullough.
"Small-town police detective Carmine Delmonico returns in a third series entry. Set in 1968, the story revolves around a particularly unsettling case in which a serial rapist keeps his victims captive for several hours, repeatedly assaulting them. Reluctantly teaming up with a raw young recruit, Delmonico must try to find the most difficult of criminals, the kind clever enough not to leave any clues behind. Aside from their richly drawn characters and vivid small-town settings, the Delmonico novels have a major attraction for fans of crime fiction in that they take place in the 1960s, before high-tech forensics and offender profiling. McCullough’s hero must use his wits, not an array of scientific equipment, to solve crimes. The book is a very welcome return to basics in this high-tech, CSI era. One slight caveat, though: this gripping novel opens with an intense and graphic scene that could upset some readers." (Booklist review via Amazon.com)

Gingerbread cookie murder / Joanne Fluke, Laura Levine, Leslie Meier.
"No mystery fan can resist a treat this delicious, as "New York Times"-bestselling author Fluke teams up with cozy favorites Laura Levine and Leslie Meier for a merry collection of holiday stories featuring gingerbread cookies--and murder." (Syndetics summary)

Listen to the dead : a Cape Islands mystery / Randall Peffer.
"Latina detective investigates cold case and hot romance." (Syndetics summary)
"In this solid entry in the Cape Islands mystery series (which is united by a common setting, rather than a common set of recurring characters), police detective Yemanjá Colón is given what appears to be a simple assignment: find out whose bones were recently discovered on an island off Cape Cod. But it soon turns out that the bones may be connected to a two-decade-old, serial-murder case, and the man who discovered them, harbormaster Corby Church, might have a bit more personal knowledge of the case than he’s letting on. Based on a real-life serial-murder case in New Bedford, Massachusetts, the novel is a surefire winner, with a gripping story, well-drawn characters, and an unusual setting. Peffer is a very talented writer, and readers advisors should recommend him aggressively to mystery readers of all stripes, particularly those who enjoyed the late William Tapply’s Brady Coyne series." (Booklist via Amazon.com)

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