Agatha

Ed Lin: One Red Bastard

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“…You have to suck at it for years until one day your experience pays off and you reach a point where you know what you’re doing.” “It’s like everything else, then, isn’t it?”

I was a big fan of the first book Minotaur published by Ed Lin, Snakes Can’t Run, and I enjoyed this one maybe even a little bit more.  Lin’s central character, Robert Chow, is a Chinese American Cop in New York City’s Chinatown circa 1976 (Carter and Ford are battling it out for the presidency).    Robert has a good backstory—he’s a Vietnam Vet, he was a drunk but is now sober, and he is now feeling his way through his job, hoping for a detective’s gold shield as well as trying to figure out  his relationship with his girlfriend, Lonnie. read more

Loren D. Estleman: Burning Midnight

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In olden times Loren Estleman would have been regarded as a master craftsman.  He’s sixty plus books into a more than impressive career, setting the bar high in both the Western and the Private Eye genres, while also writing the occasional standalone as well as a couple other mystery series (Peter Macklin, Valentino).  This outing is the 22nd in his Amos Walker franchise, the present gold standard for private eye mysteries.  Sure, there are other private eye masters at work right now – Robert Crais, Steve Hamilton, and S. J. Rozan come to mind – but for the pure, traditional private eye experience no one can beat Estleman. read more

Author Interview: Elizabeth Hand

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Q: First of all, what led you to add mysteries to your list of literary accomplishments? William Gibson has also moved from speculative fiction into the contemporary thriller. Do you see some kind of a trend?

A: I don’t know that it’s a trend; maybe more a kind of artistic serendipity. Several people have told me that Available Dark reminds them of Gibson’s recent work, which surprised me — I admire Gibson immensely but didn’t really see any similarities until they were pointed out. I guess perhaps we share an apocalyptic view of The Way We Live Now, and a perception of 21st century cities as bell jars for global culture. read more

Elizabeth Hand: Available Dark

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In her first appearance, Generation Loss, Elizabeth Hand’s protagonist Cassandra Neary provides this memorable self-portrait:

I caught a glimpse of myself in a dark window: a gaunt Valkyrie holding a spear taller than I was, teeth bared in a drunken grimace and eyes bloodshot from some redneck teenager’s ADD medication.

“Hey ho, let’s go,” I said, and went.

Neary has many of the qualities more expected in a male noir protagonist. She’s violent, bad tempered, substance abusing, cynical, haunted, corrupt, but yet able to tell the difference between right and wrong at the crucial moment and equally able to act decisively on that knowledge. read more

Rhys Bowen: Hush Now, Don’t You Cry

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For pure entertainment value, Rhys Bowen simply cannot be beat.  Whether it’s her light and funny Lady Georgie mysteries set in the 30’s, or her “flagship” series featuring Molly Murphy, her skill as a storyteller is almost unmatched.  I’d compare her to such different authors as Harlan Coben or Michael Connelly, in that once you pick up a Rhys Bowen book, if you’re very lucky, you won’t have to look up until you’re finished with it.

Molly, for the uninitiated, is an Irish immigrant who came through Ellis Island in the first book, which was set in 1900.  Now ten books into the series, Molly has had her own private detective agency (though the fate of her agency is up in the air), and she has at last married her long time suitor, New York City police detective Daniel Sullivan (see the last book, Bless the Bride).  Daniel has asked Molly, now that they are married, to settle down and give up her private detective agency.  So far his plan isn’t working out too well. read more

A.J. Kazinski: The Last Good Man

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Thanks to Stieg Larsson and Henning Mankell, the axis of the mystery universe has shifted.  Where American readers used to feel as familiar with the streets of London and the interiors of British country houses as with the streets of New York or LA, they can now feel familiar with the streets of Copenhagen, Stockholm, and many other Scandinavian locations. It’s been a slow seepage, but our international fiction section had to claim its own fixture a few years ago, with steady sellers like Cara Black, Colin Cotterill, Henning Mankell, Jo Nesbø and Arnaldur Indridason taking pride of place, and with the advent of the Stieg Larsson trilogy (those books actually have their very own special store location) the lust for foreign fiction has just exploded. read more

Michael Stanley: Death of the Mantis

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The third book in Michael Stanley’s Detective Kubu series set in Botswana is the best one so far, which is saying a lot.  Stanley’s novels are a complex and nuanced look at Botswana and Southern Africa, combined with a good mystery puzzle and one of the best detectives in contemporary crime fiction.

Let me describe Kubu, and see if he sounds at all familiar to any crime fiction fan:  he’s overweight, doesn’t care, loves food and wine,  is a connoisseur of both, and is a brilliant detective.  While “Michael Stanley”  (actually two charming fellows, Stan Trollip and Michael Sears) discount any resemblance to Nero Wolfe, for any mystery fan, it’s plain to see the kinship between the two detectives. read more

Wesley Stace: Charles Jessold, Considered as a Murderer

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Every so often someone will come into the store, look around stupefied, and say something along the lines of You mean all these books are mysteries? I usually point out that we could fill several bookstores our size with completely different mysteries, and the truth is that Aunt Agatha’s, crowded as it may appear, represents a mere drop in the vast ocean of mystery.

Since the defining era of Holmes and Poirot, the big fishes of these waters have been the series sharks, gobbling much of the available attention and profits with the continuing adventures of a single character or school of characters swimming their way through a number of books. But there are other currents in the genre, rising from the dark depths of the ghost story and the gothic, solitary self-enclosed novels where the seemingly placid surface of everyday life grows slowly menacing and powerful riptides and unpredictable squalls appear. In a way stand-alones are even more unpredictable than series books because in the former no character is guaranteed survival in order to play a part in a future installment – anyone can be killed – or be a killer. read more

Kylie Logan: Button Holed

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Buttons?  What kind of interesting or even passable novel could be written about buttons?  Quite an entertaining one, as it turns out, by old pro Kylie Logan, who readers may also know as Casey Daniels or Miranda Bliss.  The premise of this cozy is that the central character is the owner of a brand spanking new shop specializing in all kinds of antique and collectible buttons.

Set in Chicago, the brisk pace of the story seems to fit the Windy City quite well, as Logan opens her story with a gigantic bang: when Josie Giancola goes in to open her new button shop, she’s assaulted by two large, ski mask wearing men, who throw her to the ground and sprint away after having ravaged her shop.  As she’s left t regard the wreckage, picking up buttons she’d meticulously catalogued , she’s sure the men are tied to her ex with a gambling problem. read more

Denise Swanson: Little Shop of Homicide

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Denise Swanson is a “name” in the cozy universe, having written fourteen books in her popular Scumble River series, and the time has come for her to branch out.  Sensibly, she’s created an entirely different character from her down to earth Skye Denison, school psychologist in Scumble River, Illinois, but she’s stuck to the small town template where she obviously feels comfortable and at home.

Her new series character, Devereaux Sinclair (yes, she shares Denise’s initials) owns a small shop in Shadow Bend, Missouri, her home town.  She had a fancy city job which drove her nuts and has come back to take over the town soda fountain, to which she’s added a gift basket side business.  I think Ms. Swanson must have the heart of a born retailer, because her shop sounds like the perfect retail combination for almost any town. read more