Summer Mysteries

"Get me Bette Davis on the blower, and make it snappy," says the old producer. "This property by Abbott is made-to-order for her: a frail young gal looks like a million bucks (back in the 1930s, when that meant something), but she's stuck out in the boonies, so she marries an older doctor for security. Turns out he's on morphine and heads off into Mexico to clean up (Wonder if John Barrymore would be interested? Or is he dead?). Left to her own devices, she gets involved with a couple of fast girlfriends whose hen parties sometimes end in invites to the foxes. One such fox, as well as an Elk and a Lion, is a well-connected local businessman who will stop at nothing to get what he wants. VERDICT It has to end with Kleenexes all 'round and something for everyone: true crime (it's based on a notorious 1930s trunk murderess' case), plus it's a women's story with noir embellishments. It has tough times, drugs, and pandemics. It screams 'today!'—only retro. Done in that rat-a-tat delivery that Bette has a lock on, it can't miss." Recommended heartily for fans of Edgar Award-winning Abbott's retro-noir crime fiction (e.g., Queenpin). [See Prepub Mystery, LJ 3/1/09.]—Bob Lunn, Kansas City, MO

Cohabitating with his golden retriever, Tara, and yearning for his love, Laurie, a Wisconsin sheriff, Patterson, NJ, lawyer Andy Carpenter gets mixed up in a seventh canine crime (after Play Dead). And what a case it turns out to be. Ordered by a judge to represent Waggy, a Bernese Mountain dog, in a custody battle, Andy becomes entangled in murder, DNA, adultery, spies, explosions, and much more. Andy must figure out who is behind the killings, who is innocent, and why everyone wants Waggy. VERDICT Rosenfelt's newest entry in his Andy Carpenter series is a winner. In the same vein as Harlan Coben's Myron Bolitar or Robert Crais's Elvis Cole, Rosenfelt's Andy has some great one-liners that complete his rich-lawyer, dog-loving persona. This hard-to-put-down read will please not just mystery fans (especially those who enjoy canine mysteries like Spencer Quinn's Dog On It) but others seeking the perfect summer escape. Put on the list of good reads.—Marianne Fitzgerald, Annapolis, MD

In the first of eight novels featuring Jean-Baptiste Adamsberg (last seen in the United States in This Night's Foul Work), the quirky commissaire has just been posted to police headquarters in the fifth arrondissement, where he is already renowned for his uncanny ability to solve murders by making leaps that defy logic. But after instantly solving one murder, he faces a much more complicated case: for four months, someone has been leaving blue chalk circles around found objects on the streets of Paris. While the city's intellectuals argue whether the circles are the work of a cynical con artist or a genuine madman, Adamsberg senses something far more sinister. Then the first of several corpses turn up inside a chalk circle. VERDICT As with other novels in this series, readers should settle in to be unsettled. Delight is found not so much in the details of plot as in the oddities of character. The crime, the suspects, and the commissaire are all pleasantly off-kilter and equally baffling. A definite pick for Francophile mystery buffs who also enjoy Georges Simenon's Maigret series and Pierre Magnan (Death in the Truffle Wood).—Ron Terpening, Univ. of Arizona, Tucson