aunt_agatha

Sarah Stewart Taylor: A Distant Grave

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The second in Stewart Taylor’s Maggie D’Arcy series follows her elegiac first outing, The Mountains Wild, my favorite read of 2020.  Maggie is a Long Island homicide cop, but as the first novel explored, she has deep roots in Ireland.  In the first novel she searches for her long lost cousin’s killer; in the second novel, the crime occurs up the street from her home, but the roots of the story again take her back to Ireland.

She’s left behind a new-old flame in Ireland and has been planning a long vacation there with her daughter to visit him, but she catches a homicide case two days before they plan to leave.  When it turns out the victim was Irish, she figures she can combine business and pleasure, and her boss gives her leave to take off. read more

Murder on the Beach: A Destination Murders Short Story Anthology

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This is a perfect summer read – short stories are the perfect thing for waits in the car, on a line, at an airport or yes – on the beach before you drift into a sun infused nap.  They are even perfect for lunch breaks at the office.  Have lunch, read a whole story.  Stories are kind of like poetry in that they can’t waste words, are, as the description tells the reader, short, and really must pack a punch and a memory into a short space of time.

These were all fun reads, all set on different beaches from the east coast to Cabo San Lucas (a yummy destination to read about in Eleanor Cawood Jones’ Cabo San Loco).  In keeping with the summer theme these were all on the lighter side, some of the stories not even involving a murder.  One of the most successful stories, A Tale of Two Sisters by Barb Goffman, has no murder, just some petty theft. read more

Phyllis M. Betz: Reading the Cozy Mystery: Critical Essays on an Underappreciated Subgenre

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This review comes to us courtesy of Jonathan Wilkins, a poet and cozy aficionado.  I’m delighted that the cozy mystery is being taken seriously – as it should be!  For more on cozies, you can read my essay here. 

For most of us our introduction to the crime fiction genre was through the cozy mystery, and at last we have a critical approach to that almost ignored genre. Ignored because it has not been taken seriously in the past.  The advent of Nordic Noir and now Domestic Noir seems to have pushed it further back. Time for the cozy crime to fight back and show its value to the literary world. read more

Allison Montclair: A Rogue’s Company

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This has very quickly become one of my favorite and most anticipated series.  Set in London just post war, the main characters are Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge, two opposites who work like clockwork together.  Iris is single and Gwen is a widowed mother living with her in-laws, and the two run a marriage bureau called the “Right Sort”.  Each book opens with the approach of a client, and that sets off whatever delightful chain of events Montclair has in store for her reader.

Iris and Gwen have expanded their business a bit, and now boast a two-room office suite as well as a secretary.  The approach of their first African customer throws them off a tiny bit, but the ladies rally and agree to help find proper, polite Mr. Daile a match.  The book opens with a scene in Africa. It’s brief though memorable, as a boat sinks and many are lost.  Certainly, you will be thinking to yourself, Mr. Daile is connected to this tragedy.  The cagey Montclair reveals no secrets before her time, though. Three books in, I was more than content to leave it in her capable hands and feel certain the link would be made clear.  (Reader, it was). read more

June & July Book clubs

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In June, we’ll meet on Sunday, June 13 at 2 p.m. to discuss Peter Swanson’s Eight Perfect Murders.  This book is available for purchase on our website.  From the  publisher: Years ago, bookseller and mystery aficionado Malcolm Kershaw compiled a list of the genre’s most unsolvable murders, those that are almost impossible to crack—which he titled “Eight Perfect Murders”—chosen from among the best of the best including Agatha Christie’s A. B. C. Murders, Patricia Highsmith’s Strangers on a Train, Ira Levin’s Death Trap, A. A. Milne’s Red House Mystery, Anthony Berkeley Cox’s Malice Aforethought, James M. Cain’s Double Indemnity, John D. Macdonald’s The Drowner, and Donna Tartt’s A Secret History. read more

Kylie Logan: A Trail of Lies

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This is the third novel in Kylie Logan’s Jazz Ramsey series, and a contribution to the growing number of mystery novels featuring cadaver dogs or rescue dogs.  Books by Paula Munier, Margaret Mizushima, Diane Kelly, Spencer Quinn, Robert Crais and David Rosenfelt all celebrate dogs in differing degrees.  Logan’s is perhaps the least “doggy” series, though Jazz’s cadaver dog in training, Wally, not only deepens Jazz’s character, he advances the plot.

Jazz is an administrative assistant at a Catholic girl’s school in her hometown of Cleveland, and as a hobby, she’s training Wally to be a cadaver dog.  While he’s still learning, he’s come in handy in the first two books, and this one is no different.  Jazz is dating undercover officer Nick, who has asked her to keep an eye on his alcoholic mom, Kim.  When Jazz gets a call from Kim in the middle of the night insisting Nick is dead in her back yard – and that she killed him – Jazz rushes over. read more

Stephen Mack Jones: Dead of Winter

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I’m not sure what it is about Michigan that creates great private eye novelists, but whatever the reason, Stephen Mack Jones has joined the likes of Loren Estleman and Steve Hamilton in creating his Detroit based private eye, August Snow.  August is a reluctant millionaire – an ex cop who sued the police department – and he now (mostly) spends his time renovating his neighborhood, Detroit’s Mexicantown, one house at a time.  When his godmother, Elena, calls, however, he agrees to meet with a dying man about his Mexicantown business. read more

Interview: Brian Klingborg

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Brian Klingborg’s new series features Inspector Lu Fei, and is set in northern China.  Lu is a great new character and Klingborg’s book is a fast paced, intelligent police procedural with an interesting setting.  It’s a terrific start to a new series.  You can read my review of Thief of Souls here.

Brian Klingborg

Q: First of all, I kept flipping to your author info as I couldn’t believe you weren’t Chinese.  How do you come by your extensive knowledge of China?

A: I majored in East Asian Studies as an undergraduate, spent a year abroad in Taiwan, then attended grad school where I studied cultural anthropology with a China focus. After school I returned to Taiwan where I lived and worked for several more years.  Since then, I have continued my sporadic exploration of Chinese culture, history and language.  And in the process of writing Thief of Souls, I did lots and lots of additional research. read more

Brian Klingborg: Thief of Souls

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This is a really solid start to a new series, one that reminded me of Stuart Kaminsky’s classic Inspector Rostnikov series.  This new series is set in China, rather than Russia, but many of the societal and economic restrictions are similar.  Klingborg’s Inspector Lu Fei is as bemused and practical a thinker as Rostnikov.  Lu Fei lives near Harbin, in northern China, but not in Harbin itself – he basically lives out in the sticks.  He prefers the steadiness of country policing and doesn’t have a huge desire to move up the ranks. read more

Kathleen Marple Kalb: A Fatal First Night

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This is the second in Kathleen Kalb’s delightful series about opera star Ella Shane, who is working in  New York City in 1899.  She and her cousin Tom run an opera company and live agreeably together in a large brownstone with Ella’s parrot, Montezuma.  These books have a really vivacious quality, matching Miss Ella’s own.  Not only is Ella a working woman in 1899, she sings men’s parts – she’s what was known as a “trouser diva”.

Her first nights tend to be problematic, however.  In the first book, as she sang Romeo to her Juliet, Juliet was really dead.  In this book, though the stage portion of her new show goes perfectly, when she comes off stage she discovers one of her co-stars in his dressing room, covered in blood, a dead man at his feet.  The gentle singer is hauled off to the Tombs and Ella tries to wrap her head around his guilt. read more