Mystery

By Jo Ann Vicarel -- Library Journal, 10/01/2006

Murder, Western Style

Mystery buffs tired of the usual big-city crime scene will enjoy traveling west of the Rockies with Robert Greer (The Fourth Perspective) and Jim Michael Hansen (Shadow Laws), who set their novels in their home state of Colorado. Readers can also visit Silver City, NM, circa the 1940s in Ken Hodgson's Season of the Burning Souls or hop over to the Las Vegas of Rick Gadziola's latest Jake Morgan mystery (Drawing Dead). Those seeking a little peace and quiet can escape to a small town in Oregon with Nancy Bush's Electric Blue. For a refreshing change of place, check out these October titles.

Reporter Irene Kelly's Las Piernas Express article on missing children sets off a sequence of deadly events when body parts are discovered in a remote area and the newspaper sends Irene to get preliminary information. Are the bones those of missing three-year-old Jenny Fletcher, whose graphic artist father was found bludgeoned to death at the time of her disappearance and whose stepbrother was convicted of the crime? Although Irene no longer works on homicide stories because of her marriage to homicide detective Frank Harriman, the couple are part of a group of friends that includes other reporters and police, forensic scientists, and members of a search-and-rescue K9 squad. Everyone gets involved in the investigation, which culminates in an unexpected way. Burke's 12th book proves that an author can write a refreshingly original mystery devoid of the genre's usual trappings. Not to be missed. Burke, the founder of the Crime Lab Project and a member of the board of the California Forensic Science Institute, lives in Southern California. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 6/1/06.]

In her second adventure after Candy Apple Red, Jane Kelly, ex-bartender and now private investigator in training, is hired to baby-sit the matriarch of the wealthy Purcell family while attempting to judge her senility. Kelly soon discovers that the entire Purcell family is somewhat off but nonetheless determined to wrest control of the family fortune from Orchid Purcell, who is quickly dispatched. Bush has a winner with this wacky, sexy second book featuring an insanely dysfunctional family and a zany wannabe P.I. with a gorgeous and intelligent partner. Look no further than Laura Levine and Tori Carrington for read-alikes. Bush lives in Lake Oswego, OR.

Eumie and Ted Green win free dog-training lessons at a raffle, and Holly Winter, dog trainer and writer extraordinaire, finds that Dolfo, a weird-looking mixed breed, is not housebroken and his owners don't believe in using a leash. Then Eumie dies of an overdose, and the police suspect she was murdered. Surrounded by dogs and an inordinate number of psychiatrists (the victim and most of the characters are therapists), Holly must make sense out of the Greens' strange lifestyle and find a motive for murder. Dysfunction is the norm here, and the delightfully witty and engaging Conant (Bride and Groom) is at the top of her form in the 17th entry in her “Dog Lover's” series. For patrons who enjoy canine cozies. Conant, three-time winner of the Maxwell Award for Fiction Writing given by the Dog Writers Association of America, lives in Newton, MA.

Ex–New York City cop Vince Conte, who works as the head investigator in corporate fraud for a private security firm, is sent to a small principality (think Monaco) in Europe to find the photographer who sold to the tabloids pictures of the royal son-in-law kissing a beautiful woman on the day his wife was giving birth. Daly (The Enemy of God) never writes the same book twice. Here, he explores the realm of the European powerful and wealthy, mixing it with a large dollop of gripping suspense. Conte is an engaging character, and this reader hopes that Daly breaks his no-series-characters rule and brings him back. Daly divides his time between Connecticut and Nice, France. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 7/06.]

Grabien's Ringan Laine series is both unusual and entertaining in that she combines British folk music, British history, and the world of the modern recording star with paranormal elements. In this fourth entry (after Matty Groves), musician/house restorer Ringan Laine is hired to make sure the Tudor-style house that lover Penny Wintercraft-Hawkes's brother wants to build on the Isle of Dogs is authentic. But Ringan begins to hear voices and have terrifying visions, leading him to call upon a group of outstanding historical researchers to help him investigate a 1540 murder. Grabien seamlessly weaves between time periods, making the reader believe in the possibility of the paranormal. As gentle as Barbara Michaels's paranormal suspense novels, Grabien's are also as downright frightening as Daniel Hecht's Cree Black thrillers. Grabien lives in San Francisco.

On the train to Ballarat, 1920s Australian feminist flapper and private investigator Phryne Fisher (Flying Too High) wakes up to the smell of chloroform. She saves all her fellow passengers, except an old, cantankerous woman whose body is found at the side of the train tracks. While investigating the murder for the woman's daughter, Phryne also takes in an amnesiac waif on the train who has no knowledge of why she is traveling in the opposite direction of her ticket. Compared with other mysteries, Greenwood's stories are brief, but she holds her own, writing well-thought-out plots starring the intelligent, sexy, liberated, and wealthy Phryne. Greenwood lives in Melbourne, Australia. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 6/1/06.]

It is June 1811. At a party thrown by the Prince Regent at Brighton Pavilion, the notoriously decadent royal is discovered in a secluded room with the corpse of the beautiful young wife of a marquis, a knife planted in her back. Most assume the Regent, a victim of excessive appetites, is guilty but of what they cannot say. Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is asked to find out who killed the marchioness and how her body was smuggled into the Royal Pavilion. He only agrees after he recognizes the necklace worn by the dead woman. It had been worn by his mother the day she was lost at sea, her body never recovered. Harris knows her English history and has a firm grasp of how a mystery novel is supposed to play out. In this second Sebastian St. Cyr novel (What Angels Fear), she cleverly pulls the threads of her plot together, ending in a crescendo of suspense and surprise. Fans of historicals, especially those set in Regency-era England, will snap up this triumph. Harris lives in New Orleans.

Nine women, all graduates of a prestigious Pelham College, are invited to an island off the coast of New England by best-selling author Barbara Bailey Bishop, and food guru Faith Fairchild (The Body in the Snowdrift) has been hired to cater the reunion. It is soon apparent that these women are no longer friends and everything revolves around Hélène “Prin” Prince, the girl who died just before they all graduated. Page, the Agatha Award–winning author of 16 Faith Fairchild novels, has patterned this one after Agatha Christie's classic And Then There Were None. Each of the eight former friends and Bishop had a solid reason to kill Prin, and now the guilty one is killing again to keep her secret safe. Page keeps the reader guessing to the very end. Cozy mystery buffs will enjoy trying to find the Christie references. Page lives in Massachusetts. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 7/06.]

Louise Eldridge, cohost of the PBS program Gardening with Nature, is in Kauai, HI, to shoot a new segment of her show. Gathered there for a botanical conference are three divas of the plant world: Bruce Bouting, the head of the world's largest plant nursery; Matthew Flynn, a successful ethnobotanist who finds new plants throughout the world; and Charles Reuter, a vehemently focused environmentalist who wants to preserve the plant world. The three hate each other with a passion. Then one of them is murdered, and Louise, the consummate snoop of the cozy set, is reluctant to investigate. Ripley's gardening series (Summer Garden Murder), though gentle in its approach to murder, packs a wallop when it comes to the world of television programming and preserving the environment. For readers of Susan Wittig Albert and Charlotte MacLeod. Ripley lives in Lyons, CO.

In the 16th entry (after The Leper's Bell) of this popular historical mystery series set in seventh-century Ireland, Fidelma of Cashel is sent to Ard Fhearta Abbey to investigate the murder of Abbess Faife and the abduction of her pilgrimage companions, six young religieuse living in the abbey. Fidelma is the sister of Colgu, King of Muman, and a dalaigh, an advocate of the Irish law courts. Tremayne, the pseudonym of Celtic scholar Peter Beresford Ellis, writes so authentically about this remote time period that readers will feel they are there in every way. His densely plotted stories are a delight for those who love puzzle mysteries, but the use of Old Irish words and names may hinder some readers. For those historical fans who still miss Ellis Peters. Tremayne lives in London. [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 7/06.]

Trouble finds Jake Morgan, ex-cop, gambler, and now dealer at the Oasis Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas, when the wealthy Japanese woman he is bedding is shot to death, and he is accused. Then he overhears a group of dirty cops planning to kill another cop. Sexual innuendo and danger play a big part in Gadziola's latest Jake Morgan mystery (Freezeout; Murder at Odds). Unfortunately, our hero is a few steps behind astute readers who can see where this predictable mystery is going.

Now running an antiques store, longtime Denver bail bondsman C.J. Floyd buys two rare books on the American West from a seller who is promptly shot dead. Then someone tries to blow up his shop, and it becomes apparent that nemesis Celeste Deepstream (Resurrecting Langston Blue) has returned. Although a tad wordy, the plot ambles along with lots of investigating by a bevy of interesting characters, and the African American community in Denver is a refreshingly different setting. This is a series to watch. Greer, a practicing surgical pathologist, research scientist, and professor of pathology and medicine, lives in Denver.

While police detective Bryson Coventry investigates what looks to become a serial-killer nightmare, brilliant and beautiful young attorney Taylor Sutton is hired by big-time lawyer Nick Trotter to follow up on a mysterious client who pays Nick a fee but has never asked him to do any legal work. As engaging as the debut Night Laws, this exciting blend of police procedural and legal thriller recalls the early works of Scott Turow and Lisa Scottoline. Hansen is a Colorado attorney.

In 1943 Silver City, NM, people are dying in a most unusual manner: by spontaneous human combustion. And it is up to Sheriff Sam Sinrod and county coroner Dr. Bryce Whitlock to solve these immolations. Set in an exotic landscape where strange and dangerous things are happening at the same time in Los Alamos and Roswell, Hodgson's offbeat historical features wonderfully drawn, oddball characters, zany humor, and unforgettable dialog. Don't miss this book. Hodson lives in San Angelo, TX.

In his fourth outing (after The Sweat Box), U.S. Marshall Dalton Keys is on a stakeout for an illegal arms delivery—or so he thinks. But nothing is what it seems as the case moves on to illegal abortions in the 1970s and a group of homeless people in California who may be harboring terrorists. Full of complex, twisty suspense. Koretsky lives in Stockton, CA.

Suffering from anorexia and depression, Emily Vincient, a patient of Sigmund Freud, is convinced she murdered her abusive guardian. Since the man was a member of the British diplomatic corps in Vienna, Mycroft Holmes engages his brother Sherlock to investigate. Oatley's Victorian-style prose reflects that era as well as the beginnings of Freudian psychology and the work of Arthur Conan Doyle. The sexual abuse and a lesbian affair may upset some, but the book in general is well written and intriguing. First published in Great Britain where it won the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best First Novel in 1994, it will appeal to fans of Nicholas Meyer's The Seven-Per-Cent Solution. Oatley lives in Toronto.

The fifth entry in Brown's fox-hunting series (after The Hunt Ball) focuses more on her anthropomorphic hounds than previous books. The hounds know where the dead body is buried, yet it's up to the humans, especially Sister Jane Arnold, to catch the killer. The reader knows quite soon who the bad guys are, and the book's finale is no big surprise. Sister, the 72-year-old master of the hunt, is a little too much to be believed (physically very fit, sexy, excellent equestrienne, and detective to boot). However, any reader curious about fox-hunting culture will enjoy this book as Brown, herself a master of the hunt, goes into great detail on what makes a good hound and a good huntsman. Recommended for medium to large public libraries and where Brown's other mysteries are popular. Brown lives in Alston, VA.—Patsy E. Gray, Huntsville P.L., AL

Detective Jonathan Stride has left his northern Minnesota roots to follow his lover, Detective Serena Dial, to her home turf of Las Vegas, where he joins her on the Metro Homicide Division. In Stride's first case, a wealthy playboy is murdered in what appears to be an assassination. Stride soon discovers that someone is killing people connected to the 40-year-old murder of a showgirl. Meanwhile, Dial is investigating the seemingly senseless hit-and-run death of a ten-year-old boy. As the two cases converge, additional murders ensue. Although we know the killer's identity by the middle of the book, the suspense mounts as Stride and Dial each face personal demons while delving into Sin City's past. Guilt-stained relationships can't be kept hidden, even though Vegas keeps reinventing itself and sometimes justice must be delivered outside a courtroom. Edgar Award finalist Freeman's latest book is every bit as good as Immoral is, and a third in the series is coming soon. Highly recommended for all mystery and thriller collections.—Roland Person, formerly with Southern Illinois Univ. Lib., Carbondale