aunt_agatha

Elly Griffiths: The Lantern Men

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This novel will be released on July 14.

It’s rare for a writer to sustain interest and excitement through a long series.  Elly Griffith’s Ruth Galloway series, now twelve books strong, has had a few entries not quite as great as some of the very best ones, but this one is one of the best ones.  There might be a couple reasons – one, Griffiths has now refreshed herself with a very different series (the Magic Men books). For another, she’s taken this book and skooched Ruth two years ahead in time from the last book and much has happened.  It’s only unsettling for a moment – you’ll catch on – especially as all the changes are pretty briskly introduced in the first chapter. read more

Camilla Trinchieri: Murder in Chianti

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This novel will be published July 7, 2020.

This languorous, gently beautiful novel set in gorgeous Tuscany could not be more delectable.  Retired NYPD detective Nico Doyle has relocated to Tuscany after the death of his wife, Rita, a native Italian.  He has family ties in the form of his wife’s sister, Tilde, and her family.  Out for his morning run as the book opens, he discovers two things: a dog, and a dead body.  He more or less adopts the dog – whom he christens One Wag – and hastily attempts to hand the murder off to the local police. read more

Sarah Stewart Taylor: The Mountains Wild

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This novel will be released on June 23, 2020.

I was a huge fan of Sarah Stewart Taylor’s Sweeney St. George series, published in the early 2000’s.  Sweeney was an expert on gravestone iconography, and the books were beautifully written, thoughtful mysteries.  Stewart Taylor has been away from mystery fiction since 2006, and this return feels more polished, more pointed in its narrative drive – it’s a step up.  I’ll say up front it’s one of the best books I’ve read this year.

It’s not a total departure from the Sweeney books – the passion is there, the love of history is there, but it’s more focused.  It follows the story of Maggie D’Arcy, who, as an adult, is a homicide detective on Long Island, but who, as a 20 something, lost the cousin who was like a sister to her.  The cousin, Erin, had left the states for Ireland, and hasn’t been heard from since 1993.  There are other young women who were killed (and discovered) in the same area, and Maggie and the rest of her family are pretty sure Erin is dead, but they’d like to know. read more

Susan Allott: The Silence

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This is a very melancholy novel about people who live near each other, yet in isolation, thanks to a profound lack of communication.   It’s set in Australia in the late 60’s, with a portion in the late 90’s.  Two couples live side by side in a new neighborhood, right on the ocean.  Louise and Joe, immigrants from England, live in one house with their daughter, Isla.  Next door are Steve and Mandy, who are childless.  Mandy often looks after Isla.

As the book opens, the adult Isla gets a call from her father, who says the police have been by to discuss Mandy, who had disappeared from the neighborhood many years ago.  The central nugget of suspense in the novel concerns the relationships between the neighbors and between the couples themselves.  What happened in the past that caused Mandy to disappear?  Why would Isla’s father, who seems devoted to his family, have had anything to do with her disappearance? read more

Erica Ruth Neubauer: Murder at the Mena House

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Erica Ruth Neubauer’s debut novel is lots of fun, much in the vein of Kerry Greenwood’s delightful Phryne Fisher books. It’s 1926 and Jane Wunderly is on vacation with her slightly prickly Aunt Millie, from her dead husband’s side of the family.  Aunt Millie has selected the exclusive Mena House in Cairo for their trip, a place nearly at the foot of the Great Pyramids. (It’s also the spot where Agatha Christie wrote Death on the Nile).

While this novel is steeped in all things Egyptian – camel races, pyramids, the sphinx, stolen and found artifacts, along with a visit to the museum – it is not about an archeologist or archaeology.   I thought this was an interesting choice given the time and place, but a sensible one.  It allowed Neubauer to tell a full on traditional golden age style detective story. read more

Mariah Fredericks: Death of an American Beauty

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I remember when Rhys Bowen started writing her Molly Murphy series.  I inhaled them the second they were published.  I loved (and still do) the mix of the feisty Molly, her journey of discovery as a new immigrant, the clever mysteries, and the turn of the century settings.  Rhys Bowen has the gift of narrative.  I am so happy to tell you – because I want to make you a fellow fan – that Mariah Fredericks has that very same gift.

I have so far inhaled all three of her books featuring ladies’ maid Jane Prescott, who works for the wealthy Mrs. Louise Tyler around the 1910’s.  She has a way with a story, and a way of getting you to care about and be invested in her characters.  In this novel Jane is on “vacation”, so she goes home.  Home for Jane is a refuge for fallen women, run by her uncle, a Presbyterian pastor.  He takes women who come from the streets and gives them a place to live, something to eat, and a little hope for the future and a different way of earning a living. read more

A Little Comfort Reading

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As we’re all stuck at home, a little (or a lot) of comfort reading is in order.  Not a re-reader?  I’ve included some newer books, and hopefully there are some authors here that are new to you as a reader.  A great resource, should you want to read whole series in order (and why not?), is Fantastic Fiction.  There you can find authors with their series listed in chronological order.  If you want to delve deeper, check out Stop, You’re Killing Me, and drill down to finding a series by occupation, location, time period or character name.  See what awards your favorite writers have won.  These two sites are essential to any reader. read more

Harlan Coben: the Boy from the Woods

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Harlan Coben’s The Boy from the Woods is one of his fresher – and angrier – books in awhile.  He’s using lawyer Hester Crimstein as his main character (mostly), and as readers, we get some of the fierce Hester’s backstory, as she listens to her grandson when he tells her he’s worried about the disappearance of a bullied girl in his class.

There’s also the titular character, the “boy from the woods,” aka Wilde, a man who was discovered as a 6 or 8 year old in the woods, apparently having survived living on his own for quite a while.  He learned English from breaking into abandoned homes and watching television but as a grown man, he’s still most comfortable alone in the woods. read more

Julia Spencer-Fleming: Hid from Our Eyes

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If you’re a fan of Julia Spencer-Fleming’s, you’ll be delighted to know that Hid From Our Eyes picks up right where One Was a Soldier left off.  Since it’s been awhile I’ll recap: Episcopal priest Clare Fergusson and her husband Russ Van Alstyne have welcomed their first child (read the book to find out the child’s name and sex).  Clare is in addiction recovery, and believably – for anyone familiar with addiction – she teeters from sober to wishing she wasn’t.  That’s the rich background. read more

Cara Black: Three Hours in Paris

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This book will be available on April 7, 2020.

This ticking clock thriller feels like the book Cara Black has long wanted to write, it’s so explosive, so taut, and so impossible to stop reading.  The propulsive narrative follows Kate Rees, a young American sent to assassinate Hitler when he visits Paris for three hours in 1940.  The set up introduces Kate as she’s waiting with her sniper rifle for Hitler’s appearance; then it goes back in time, very briefly, to establish Kate as a person.  She’d been living in Scotland with her Welsh husband and their baby daughter when she loses them both to a German bomb, making her determined to fight the Germans with every bit of herself. read more