Reviews

Barbara Fradkin: Do or Die

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do-or-dieBarbara Fradkin is well known in Canada, and deservedly so. Her Inspector Green series, of which this novel is the first entry, are solid police procedurals with the charming Inspector Green using that favorite device of mystery readers everywhere: deductive reasoning. And as most mystery readers prefer to read a series in order, I’m reviewing the first in Fradkin’s series though she has now written ten novels in the series, the most recent being None So Blind.

I loved the set up of this first novel and I really loved the way the book and the characters who inhabit it hit the ground running. They obviously had a life going before we hit the scene, and it’s a sure sign of a writer able to create fully dimensional, realized characters. As I was reading I was sometimes curious about events in Inspector Green’s past but Fradkin presents him as he exists in his present reality. As it is with getting to know an actual human being, meeting Green is like getting to know someone you may become friends with later. read more

Eva Gates: By Book or By Crook

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ByBookorByCrookBerkley reliably cranks out an entire line of cozies, hitting many specialized areas of interest for readers. This one hits several of the cozy tropes – there’s a lighthouse, a library in the lighthouse, a cat, a young heroine, two suitors, and for an extra fillip, Jane Austen. All familiar tropes and yet, Gates brings something a little more kick ass to the cozy table. A little extra verve, and a brisk, hard to put down way of telling a story that will have you flipping pages.

Gates is the pen name of Canadian Vicki Delany, who has a long series featuring Constable Molly Smith, several books set in the Klondike, as well as several stand alones. She’s a real pro and it shows in her narrative chops. She knows how to pace and she knows how to end each chapter making you want to read on to the next one (I finished this is a day and a half, a real inhale of a read). read more

Alan Finn: Things Half in Shadow

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things-half-in-shadowReally, this book is a lot of bank for your buck. Clocking in at over 400 pages, this book is chock full of rich narrative, coincidence, vivid setting, intriguing characters, and ghosts. I devoured it. Set in post-Civil War Philadelphia, the central character, Edward Clark, is a newspaper reporter and Civil War veteran who is assigned the task of de-bunking the city’s many mediums.

During any post-war period, mediums always pop up, as bereaved family members hope to reconnect with the dead. The first séance Edward attends is presided over by one Lucy Collins, and unfortunately for Lucy, Edward grew up in a family of magicians. He’s on to her tricks and spots almost all of them. read more

Kate Rhodes: The Winter Foundlings

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winter-foundlingsPsychologist Alice Quentin had a rough time in Rhodes’ last novel, A Killing of Angels. A consultant for the police, she got caught up in a serial killer case that almost ended her own life. So, in this book, for a relaxing change of pace, Alice decides to spend some time at a hospital for the criminally insane, doing research. Ahhh, how refreshing!

Rhodes is devoted to a Victorian love of coincidence and it actually serves her quite well, especially in this novel, where the central crime is connected to the very Victorian Foundling Home. Really, the entire set up could not be more Victorian – the hospital where Alice is doing her research is an old, somewhat renovated throw back out in the country, and Alice has rented a picturesque, if freezing, cottage in the middle of the woods, the kind you might think belongs in a fairy tale. It’s probably the one belonging to the witch in Hansel and Gretel. read more

Judith Flanders: A Murder of Magpies

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murder-of-magpiesJudith Flanders is a well known expert on Victorian manners and history, whose most recent book The Invention of Murder sits on our history mystery table. This is her first foray into fiction, and it’s delightful, causing me to both laugh aloud and copiously dog ear pages as Ms. Flanders is exquisitely quotable.

I loved her premise and setting. Her main character, Sam Clair, is a senior book editor at a major British publisher, and she’s in her forties. Flanders makes full use of Sam’s age, experience and gender, sliding in blindingly astute vignettes illustrating how women of a certain age tend to be ignored. As this book proves, ignoring a middle aged woman comes with its own perils. read more

Mike Lawson: The Inside Ring

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The Inside RingIt’s always been a puzzle to me why the talented Mike Lawson isn’t a superstar, and his first book, The Inside Ring, is so good it really begs the question. I’m always in the mood for a thriller this time of year, and went to the Lawson part of the alphabet and grabbed this one on Christmas Eve. I’ve read others in the series but never the first, and it joins my ongoing mental list of terrific first novels that hit every mark out of the gate.

Lawson’s series character, Joe DeMarco, is a “fixer” for the Speaker of the House and works very much under the radar. His office is even in the basement of the House of Representatives alongside the janitorial staff. Whenever the speaker – long-time pol Mahoney – needs a task done that can’t see the light of day, it’s DeMarco he puts into motion. This gives DeMarco a lot of power and not quite enough as his official title and credentials are slightly nebulous. Because of DeMarco’s family background – his father was in the mob – he doesn’t carry a gun and tries to avoid violence. It often finds him anyway, though. read more

Tim O’Mara: Dead Red

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Dead RedThe Private Eye novel is a purely American invention, and was long the backbone of U.S. mystery writing. The form waxes and wanes – at the moment pure private eyes are almost being co-opted by the reluctant private eye or the private eye who is also something else, like Tim O’Mara’s guy, who is a teacher.

Ray Donne is a teacher who used to be a cop, with an uncle very high up in the police force who makes it more likely that Ray will not only sometimes get inside information but also a bit of a pass. He dates a reporter, which is an occasional conflict with what Ray knows but can’t tell, but all in all Ray is a genuinely good guy who often finds himself at the heart of a problem. read more

M.R.C. Kasasian: The Mangle Street Murders

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The Mangle Street MurdersThis is an old fashioned novel in the nicest sense of the word. It’s a Sherlock Holmes style tale set in 1882 London, featuring the nasty, rude, very smart and insensitive Sidney Grice. As the book opens, young March Middleton has moved into his home. She’s his goddaughter and she’s been orphaned. She arrives just as Grice welcomes into his parlor one Grace Dillinger, whose daughter has been brutally murdered and whose son in law is in prison, accused of the crime. Mrs. Dillinger is sure he is innocent. read more

David Bell: The Forgotten Girl & J. Sheridan Le Fanu: Wylder’s Hand

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WyldersHandI generally read one book at home and a different one at work. Recently the home book was an old one, Wylder’s Hand, the 1864 “sensation novel” by J. Sheridan Le Fanu, and the store book was brand new, David Bell’s The Forgotten Girl. Strangely enough, I didn’t get very far in either of them before I realized that despite a span of 150 years, they had the same basic plot. I call it “the mysterious disappearance,” and even though it’s an ancient story, going back at least as far as Persephone, perhaps the original Gone Girl, it’s very much in the air these days, especially since we’re all about to ask where the heck the warm weather went to. read more

E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen: The Question of the Missing Head

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missingheadThis absolutely charming, totally enjoyable book is one of the reads of the year from E.J. Copperman/Jeff Cohen, a writer with a long and solid history in the cozy mystery genre. His earliest books featured a parent with an Asperger’s child; in this one he’s streamlined his concept and given the main character Asperger’s, something that enhances his skills as a detective. Cohen, the real life parent of an Asperger’s child, illuminates the condition for the reader in the best possible way: by showing, not telling. read more