Reviews

Dianne Freeman: A Lady’s Guide to Gossip and Murder

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What does an American-born aristocrat do when she becomes a young widow? Why, introduce her heiress niece to London society, start playing match-maker for other young American heiresses, and solve murders, of course.

In this lighthearted second installment in the Countess of Harleigh series, Frances has a serious problem. When her cousin Charles decides it’s time to look for a wife, Frances introduces him to her acquaintance Mary Archer. The romance doesn’t work out and soon after Charles and Mary part company, Mary is found dead, and Frances is determined to keep Charles from being accused of murder. read more

Casey Cep: Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee

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As evidenced by its extended title Furious Hours: Murder, Fraud and the Last Trial of Harper Lee is really three interrelated stories. The first, and impetus for the rest, is the murky tale of a murky man, the Reverend Willie Maxwell, an itinerant preacher and laborer whose immediate family members had the unfortunate habit of dying under mysterious circumstances. Whether the Reverend was unlucky or not depends on your perspective, because it always turned out that said family members were insured to the hilt, with the beneficiary being, unsurprisingly, the Reverend himself. He was found innocent the only time he was tried for his losses, and eventually (no spoiler here, it’s on the jacket copy) shot in church during the funeral of one of his alleged victims. read more

S.J. Rozan: Paper Son

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Eight long years and a change of publisher later, Lydia Chin and her partner Bill Smith have returned. They have been missed! Rozan’s series is one of the best private eye series around, with the fresh take of shifting narrators between books. One book will be Lydia’s, one Bill’s. This one is Lydia’s. She’s summoned to Mississippi to get a never met cousin out of jail for murdering his father.

First of all, what? Mississippi? What’s hard core New Yorker Lydia doing in the Mississippi Delta, and who knew she had cousins there, much less that Chinese grocery stores are/were a fact of life in small Mississippi towns. Lydia’s scary (and entertaining mother) is sure her cousin Jefferson cannot be guilty, because he’s family. read more

Sarah R. Shaber: Louise’s Crossing

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This is the seventh Louise Pearlie mystery – the first one for me, and I have to say I am now a fan.  I was able to pick up the character threads easily and was quickly absorbed in the story of Louise Pearlie, OSS agent, crossing a wartime ocean in winter to take up an assignment in London.  Shaber is a brisk storyteller and I was immediately drawn in to Louise’s goodbye to her U.S, wartime office, to her boarding house friends, and even her packing for a winter voyage. By the end of chapter two she has her orders and is already on board ship. read more

Terry Shames: A Risky Undertaking for Loretta Singletary

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This is the first Samuel Craddock mystery I’ve read, largely on the advice of other readers I met at Left Coast Crime this year.  As when I had a bookstore, the best recommendations often come from fellow readers, and I decided to give this one a try.  I was intrigued when I sat next to Terry at a panel and she told me this was a police series, by far one of my favorite sub genres.  This is a softer police story than say, one by Michael Connelly, but it’s still a police novel and a very good one. read more

Fay Sampson: The Wounded Snake

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A mystery doesn’t have to reinvent the wheel to be enjoyable – that’s certainly proven by the scores of cozy mysteries published each month. Another formula beloved by readers (and viewers of Acorn TV and similar networks) is the British village mystery, a slightly rarer commodity. Much of contemporary British crime writing is of the extremely dark variety. And while I’m certainly a fan of writers like Ian Rankin, Val McDermid and Stuart MacBride, sometimes I yearn for something a little more in the Marple and Poirot mode. read more

Lauren Willig: The Summer Country

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This book is an absolute dream.  Willig has crafted an epic set in 1800’s Barbados, in the world of sugar plantations and slaves.  Told in two narrative threads, one in the 1850’s and one in the 1810’s, it’s clear that the two story lines are intertwined – the mystery of the novel is how exactly they are connected other than by the same sugar estates.

In the 1850’s, we meet Emily and her cousin Adam, who has brought Emily and his new wife Laura to start a life on Barbados.  Emily has unexpectedly inherited an estate on the island and she’s eager to see it and try to puzzle out why her beloved grandfather has left it to her and not to her brother.  As fate intervenes, the Davenant family takes Emily and her cousins in, inviting them to stay indefinitely. read more

Kylie Logan: The Scent of Murder

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Kylie Logan, author of numerous cozies in paperback original form, has hit the big time via a Minotaur hardcover with her latest book, The Scent of Murder.  Jazz is a school administrator who also works with cadaver dogs.  As the book opens, she’s taking her dog through his paces in an abandoned building, hoping he’ll find the tooth she hid on another floor.

As she steps back to let the dog work, the dog alerts in the “wrong” place – or is it?  When Jazz investigates, she find, so her horror, the body of a young woman, and worse, she’s a former student at the high school where Jazz works.  While Jazz had known her as a studious and creative young woman, the corpse is full goth – white makeup, black eyeshadow, black clothes, tats, piercings.  She’s puzzled about how this has happened in the few short years since the girl graduated from high school. read more

Clara McKenna: Murder at Morrington Hall

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This book will be available May 28, 2019.

The first book in the Stella and Lyndy series, Murder at Morrington Hall, is not your typical rich-American-heiress-marries-broke-English-aristocrat story. Kentuckian Stella Kendrick loves horses more than anything in the world. It’s 1905, and she’s excited to journey with her father to deliver thoroughbreds to an English Earl. Upon arrival at Morrington Hall, the Earl and his Countess are appalled at Stella’s straightforward America manners and her lack of understanding of their aristocratic titles and way of life. Their son, Viscount “Lyndy” Lundhurst is utterly charmed. read more

Cozy Queens: Denise Swanson & Heather Blake

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The second in a new series from the talented Denise Swanson, and a wrap up to a favorite series by Heather Blake, by our reviewer Cathy Akers-Jordan.

Leave no Scone Unturned, Denise Swanson.

Former corporate executive Danielle (Dani) Sloan helps solves murders, when she’s not busy running her catering business, that is. Set in the college town of Normalton, IL, Dani is busy selling lunches to students and catering private dinners as a personal chef. She can’t help it that she keeps getting involved in murder cases or the fact the she’s attracted to the campus head of security, Spencer Drake. read more