Harini Negendra: Into the Leopard’s Den

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Bangalore Detectives Club #4

I love this richly evocative series set in 1920s India. While that country did not achieve independence until 1947, unrest was already bubbling under, with an understandable resentment building toward the British who intruded on their country and culture, trying to remake it in their own image. While Negendra is far from a political writer, she introduces these sentiments into her stories organically, personified in this book by an unpleasant British planter.

As the story opens, our heroine Kaveri is feeling both confined by her pregnancy and her protective mother-in-law, while missing her husband, Ramu, who is in the state of Coorg attempting to help the people there with their medical needs.  Coorg was a big coffee growing region, controlled by the British until independence, and Ramu is staying with a friend who owns a plantation there. read more

Isis Crawford: A Catered Bake-Off

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Mystery with Recipes #19

Isis Crawford’s latest addition to her “mystery with recipes” series is A Catered Bake Off. The owners of A Little Taste of Haven Catering, sisters Libby and Bernie Simmons, have a knack for solving mysteries. So much so that they are now sought out by those in need of a little amateur sleuthing expertise. Libby and Bernie each have very distinctive personalities and methods that allow them to play off each other, approaching the same clues and problems from different angles. It also helps that their father is a former detective and can advise them on how to proceed with whatever they find. Often the sisters and their father ruminate over cases and cake, a combination that often results in progress in culinary master pieces, or a break in the case. Their catering business has taken off in popularity recently, and it’s becoming difficult to keep up with the orders, which is a very good problem to have. read more

Molly MacRae: There’ll be Shell to Pay

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Haunted Shell Shop #2

Molly MacRae’s Haunted Shell Shop series returns with There’ll be Shell to Pay. Our shell shop sleuth and malacologist, Maureen Nash, is settling into her new home on the island of Ocracoke. The shell shop is named Moon Shell after a beautifully and intricately carved shell on display – a shell that is also the tether for accidental pirate ghost Emrys Lloyd. While Maureen’s introduction to Ocracoke in the first book in the series was possibly the most disastrous one any new resident could dream of, she has now made plenty of friends around the island, including the Weaver siblings that live across the way, Bert and Gladys, and is settling in nicely to make the Moon Shell her own. read more

Lynn Cahoon: An Amateur Sleuth’s Guide to Murder

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Series debut

An Amateur Sleuth’s Guide to Murder sounds like an instructional booklet, but is actually the most recent of Lynn Cahoon’s novels. Meg Gates is our protagonist, and readers join her at the lowest point of her life. Her fiancé has just left her, right before their wedding, to take their honeymoon trip with one of her bridesmaids. Understandably, Meg is determined to get out of what was their shared Seattle apartment, and onto rebuilding her life before the happy couple returns. Luckily, she has plenty of friends and family living nearby on the island of Bainbridge ready to help her do just that. Her aunt even has an apartment to rent her at the friends and family rate to help her get back on her feet. Meg is grateful to not having to face restarting her life alone, even if she does also feel like she ‘failed’ spectacularly at life up to this point. But when you reach the bottom, there is nowhere to go but up. Or so she hopes. read more

David Lewis: A Beacon in the Night

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Secret Churchill Files #2

London, 1941. As the Blitz winds down the Nazis begin a series of terror-bombings focused on British churches, stately homes, hospitals, and other emotional landmarks in an attempt to destroy cultural heritage and demoralize the British. Can Caitrin Colline, agent of the all-female 512 counterespionage unit track down the source of the beacons that lead the planes to the bomb sites?

Despite Caitrin’s success in saving the Crown Jewels almost single-handedly in the first book in the series, Churchill is threatening to improve his budget by absorbing the 512 into the Special Operations Executive (SOE). Head of the 512, Bethany Goodman, is determined to prove her unit’s usefulness by sending Caitrin to track down the source of the homing beacons. read more

Dianne Freeman: A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder

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Countess of Harleigh #8

A Daughter’s Guide to Mothers and Murder is the eighth book in Dianne Freeman’s series about the American-born Frances, Countess of Harleigh, and her second husband, George Hazelton, a secret investigator for the British government.  The series is set in the late 1890s/early 1900s, usually in London, but this book and the previous one take place in Paris during the 1900 Exposition (World’s Fair).  Frances and George have recently returned to Paris from their honeymoon, which was delayed at least twice because of murder, and are awaiting the arrival of Frances’ mother.  Frances and her mother have not had the best of relationships, to put it mildly.  She finds her mother overbearing, and her mother is always criticizing her and her sister.  Frances’ mother has spent much of her daughters’ adulthood trying to marry them off, much like Mrs. Bennet in Pride and Prejudice. read more

Kathleen Marple Kalb: A Fatal Waltz

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Ella Shane #5

A Fatal Waltz is the fifth book in Kathleen Marple Kalb’s wonderful series about opera singer Ella Shane, set in Gilded Age New York.  Ella, a mezzo-soprano who specializes in singing male roles, and is an expert swordswoman, grew up in a tenement.  She is the daughter of a Jewish mother and an Irish Catholic father, who both died when she was a child, and she practices both faiths, lighting Shabbat candles on Friday nights and going to Mass on Sundays.  After a famous opera singer took her under her wing, Ella went on to have a very successful career, and by now she has overcome the poverty of her childhood, but she has never forgotten it, or the people who were kind to her. read more

Nilima Rao: A Shipwreck in Fiji

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Sgt. Akal Singh #2

This series takes the reader on a journey to the complex society of Fiji in 1915.  At that time the island was naturally populated by Fijians, but there also by many Indians who had been imported as indentured labor, some of whom chose to stay on the island after working through their service.  Since the islands were a colony at the time, there’s the added ingredient of the British overlords, the mixture sometimes finding a hard time cohering.

Main character, Sergeant Akal Singh, is stationed in the capitol, Suva, but he’s come to Fiji from Hong Kong (originally from the Punjab) somewhat under a cloud.  He’s still on a short leash as far as his commanding officer is concerned and given what he views as a simple babysitting job.  He’s to escort two Australian ladies aiming to clean out the home of their brother and uncle, the newspaper editor in Suva on the island of Ovalau. He’s also to check out one Constable Kumar, an incredibly young, inexperienced, and slightly hysterical young man who claims to have seen Germans on the island, which, as world war was raging at the time, is something to be investigated. Accompanying Akal is his second in command, a native of Ovalau named Taviti. read more

Katherine Reay: The English Masterpiece

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Katherine Reay’s novel, The English Masterpiece, isn’t a murder mystery. Rather, it follows a high profile art forgery and the young assistant caught up in it. Lily Summers lands a job at the Tate Gallery in London, working under the first female Modern Collections keeper, Diana Gilden. The year is 1973, and Picasso has just died, rocking the art world. Diana and Lily rush to put together a show highlighting his career, and are able to do it in less than a month. One of the stars of the show is Woman Laughing, lent by prominent donor Edward Davies. read more

Krista Davis: The Diva Poaches a Bad Egg

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Domestic Diva #18

When she’s not busy solving mysteries, Domestic Diva Sophie Winston writes a column on decorating and entertaining. If you like cozies, this is the series for you! Sophie lives in a historical house in Old Town Alexandria with her dog Daisy, ocicat Mochie, and possibly the ghost of her ex-husband’s Aunt Faye. Sophie’s split with Mars was amicable and they share custody of Daisy. He lives nearby with his old friend Bernie Frei, a Brit who owns the Laughing Hound restaurant, and both share Sophie’s adventures. Her best friend Nina rounds the close group of friends who spend lots of time enjoying food, drink, and solving mysteries. Each book is prefaced with a list of the characters and ends with Sophie’s recipes. The only thing missing is a map! (I love those old mysteries with maps.) read more