Reviews

Anna Lee Huber: The Cold Light of Day

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Verity Kent #7

For those looking for a historical cozy, The Cold Light of Day will fit the bill. The seventh book in the Verity Kent series by Anna Lee Huber takes readers to Dublin, Ireland. Although Verity is an ex-spy, she finds herself dabbling back in the game when one of her fellow agents, Alec Xavier, suddenly goes missing. Now anyone who knows anything about 1920’s Ireland knows that it was not a time of political stability. Revolution is in the air, and the Irish Republican Army (IRA) is regularly clashing with the British occupying authority. While the British government tries to play down the unrest and instability, Ireland is a powder keg ready to explode — not the ideal time or place to suddenly go missing. Because of their history together performing war work, Verity is unable to sit back and just wait for Alec to resurface. read more

Michael Falco: Murder in an Italian Cafe

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Bria Bertolucci #2

Michael Falco takes readers away to the village of Positano, Italy, in his second Bria Bartolucci Mystery, Murder in an Italian Café. The Amalfi coast is one of the most gorgeous spots on earth. The ocean views, the warm people, the villages built into mountainsides that seem to defy gravity, and, of course, the food, draw people from all over the world. Bria Bartolucci has made a home her for herself and her son Marco by running a bed and breakfast called Bella Bella. She and her late husband Carlos shared the dream of opening Bella Bella, and she is doing her best to live her life and honor his memory. Things were off to a rough start when she first opened and found herself pulled into a murder investigation, but now has settled in and become a part of the village. Her bed and breakfast is now seen as a staple of the village, and Bria and her son as firm members of the community. read more

Dorothy Howell: Shear Terror

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Sewing Studio #3

Shear Terror is the third book in Dorothy Howell’s Sewing Studio Mystery series. Abbey Chandler is our protagonist, and she lives with her Aunt Sarah in Hideaway Grove, California. She organizes and heads a charity effort to make pillow dresses for girls in Africa, and plenty of people in town enjoy attending the events. In addition, she has taken up teaching herself how to sew and is currently trying to grow a business creating embroidered handbags. Unfortunately, making ends meet is a little difficult, and she has taken up a job at the local Visitor Center. Currently they are getting ready for the annual Lost and Found Day, which requires employees to sort through all the lost and found items turned into the Visitor Center for the past year to resale at extremely discounted prices. read more

Andrea Penrose: Murder at King’s Crossing

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Wrexford & Sloane #8

Murder at King’s Crossing is the eighth installment in Andrea Penrose’s Wrexford and Sloane series set in Regency England.  The two protagonists are the Earl of Wrexford, a chemist and amateur sleuth, and his wife Charlotte Sloane, who, under the name of A.J. Quill, is England’s leading satirical cartoonist.  Wrexford has a logical mind and relies on deductive reasoning and the scientific method to solve crimes, while Charlotte uses her intuition and her artist’s eye for detail.  Usually they arrive at the same conclusion using very different methods. read more

Jenny Milchman: The Usual Silence

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Series Debut

It’s been awhile since Jenny Milchman had a new book out (The Second Mother, 2020) but her brand of feminist, almost gentle, thrillers are always appealing and difficult to put down once you’ve started reading one.  Her new book is the launch of a series featuring Dr. Arles Shepherd, a therapist who, as the book opens, is in disgrace. She’s been fired from her job as she appears to have huge gaps in her memory, one of which happened during a session with a client.

Arles also has an ailing stepfather suffering from dementia, and when she visits, it’s clear there’s some kind of bad emotional backstory, and that he’s hung on to a family property that belongs to her.  She plans to take over the property and turn it into a therapeutic immersive camp for families.  It’s also clear she’s had a long obsession with a certain photograph, and she’s just found the identity of the person in the photo.  Part of the reason for her therapy camp is the woman in the photo, who happens to have an autistic son.  She’s a perfect fit for the camp. read more

Michelle Chouinard: The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco

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I enjoy picking up a book where I don’t know what to expect, and it’s even better when the book I’ve selected doesn’t match my expectations — but in a good way. From the title, I supposed this book would be all shiny concept, heavy on clever plot, no emotional engagement, but probably funny.  It does have a shiny concept, but the concept (as it should be), is just the kick off.  Heroine Capri (like the car, the pants or the island) Sanzio, granddaughter of a serial killer, makes her living giving – you guessed it – serial killer tours of San Francisco.  She’s been quite successful, and the patrons only infrequently ask questions about her grandfather, who was known as “Overkill Bill.” read more

Laura Jensen Walker: Death of a Flying Nightingale

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Recently, while reading the Jungle Red Writers blog, I was entranced by Laura Jensen Walker’s description of how she got the idea for this book: a TV show about nursing orderlies in the WWII British Women’s Auxiliary Air Force (WAAF). Dubbed the “Flying Nightingales,” these women, some as young as 17, were give a mere six weeks medical training before being put in charge of the care of 24 wounded soldiers per flight. Since the planes carried supplies that included munitions, they could not be marked with a red cross, making them fair game to German fire. As Walker explained in her blog post “On the flights back to England, the nursing orderlies weren’t allowed to wear parachutes. They were expected to remain on board with the wounded if the plane crashed […]. The Nightingales changed bandages, emptied colostomy bags, cleared tracheotomy tubes, wedged sick bags beneath the chins of the wounded, and provided tea and comfort to soldiers with horrific injuries.” read more

Alan Bradley: What Time the Sexton’s Spade Doth Rust

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Flavia DeLuce #11

If you haven’t read this series, and I must admit that I have not, you are missing a treat. Flavia is the world’s most precocious 11-year-old chemist and poison expert. A British orphan with very adult British attitudes in 1950s England, Flavia nonchalantly deals with post-war rationing, dead bodies, poisons, spies, kidnapping, and murder – along with a couple of surprises I won’t spoil.

The plot revolves around the death of a neighbor, Major Greyleigh, who apparently died from eating poison mushrooms cooked by Flavia’s housekeeper, Mrs. Mullet. Surely she wouldn’t murder someone, even accidentally! Major Greyleigh was once a hangman. Could he have been murdered by a family member of someone he killed in the line of duty? Investigating the murder leads Flavia to a nearby American airbase with unexpected and surprising complications. read more

Tasha Alexander: Death by Misadventure

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Lady Emily #18

I’ll freely admit that I love this series.  Of course some of them are even yummier than others, and this latest one might be one of the most delicious.  The books follow Lady Emily and her dishy husband, Colin, as they investigate crimes all over the globe, and although Colin has a mysterious secret arrangement with her majesty’s government, it’s often Lady Emily’s intuition and intelligence that solves the case.  Another standard element in the books is a dual timeline, with events from the past connecting or relating to events in the present in some form or fashion, with part of the mystery consisting of figuring out how. read more

Matthew Becker: Run

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Debut

This book is by a former customer of ours, who, as a kid, used to shop with his family at our store.  He and his brother gobbled up thrillers like they were candy, and I’m happy to say, Becker has now written an excellent one of his own.  I have rules when I’m reading a thriller, and if they don’t meet them, I always feel a lack.  They are: upping the ante; the seemingly unsolvable problem; the twist; specifity; and pace.

Becker ups the ante right off the bat.  Ben and Veronica, a happy, seemingly ideal couple, are suddenly split apart when Veronica disappears after a mass shooting in a Washington DC park. Immediately, the reader is on Ben’s side as he tries to find his wife, the only clue being a mysterious text she’d sent him out of the blue before her disappearance. There’s the unsolvable problem: where is Veronica, and why has she disappeared? read more