Lauren Willig: The Other Daughter

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The-Other-DaughterThis isn’t really a mystery but it has a secret at its core, and any reader who enjoys writers like Tasha Alexander and Anna Lee Huber, who include romance in their novels, will enjoy this one. Willig writes what I would call romantic adventure stories – stories, no matter what the category, that are impossible to put down or forget.

Unlike, I think, any of Willig’s other books, this book is set entirely in the past, without an accompanying present day story line. She’s chosen the 1920’s, and she’s created a character who absolutely lives and breathes; you’ll be rooting for her, you’ll be heartbroken for her; you’re with her every step of the way. I think I’ve just described Willig’s two most salient attributes as a writer: she tells a great story, and she creates unforgettable characters. read more

Jenny Milchman: As Night Falls

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AsNightFallsJenny Milchman’s third novel is the scariest yet – so creepy, I had to keep setting it aside periodically, though that didn’t make me stop reading. And I was well rewarded in my perseverance. As the book opened, I feared it was a standard prisoners escape, hold family hostage type story, but it evolved into something far more. Milchman carefully describes the beautiful home of the Tremont family – Sandy, Ben and daughter Ivy. Thanks to an inheritance, they’ve built a gorgeous, isolated house in the Adirondack woods, a house it appears Ivy and even Sandy were reluctant to move to, though Sandy now embraces the peaceful solitude. read more

Michael Harvey: The Governor’s Wife

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governorswifeThis is a welcome return of Michael Harvey’s now virtually classic Michael Kelly series. Kelly is a Chicago P.I. who reads classical literature to relax (he loves Ovid) and the series is a lean, mean private eye juggernaut that takes no prisoners. There are very few actual private eyes left on the landscape—the remaining P.I.’s are often reluctant like Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight, though there are a few holdouts: Loren D. Estelman, Sue Grafton, and Sara Paretsky. All of those series are aging honorably, but the Kelly series is still in full bloom. read more

Olen Steinhauer: The Tourist and All the Old Knives

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TheTouristThe world of the spy novel can be a fascinating one. In the mystery universe murder is always lurking below the surface of our quotidian world, but it’s an anomaly, a rent in the social fabric that must be repaired. To a spy, murder is protocol, simply business as usual. Spies are soldiers fighting a patriotic war, but the battlefield is everyday life and no one wears a uniform. Only a tiny fraction of the people an agent encounters are actually hostile, but it’s the most unlikely ones that are the most deadly, especially if you’re under the impression that they are your friends. read more

Susanna Calkins: The Masque of a Murderer

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MasqueofaMurdererThese books have slowly been picking up steam and are a wonderful reading counterpart to Sam Thomas’ midwife series. Set in mid 1600’s London – where author Calkins can dig into such juicy topics as the plague and the Great Fire (see In the Charred Remains), this novel finds former chambermaid Lucy Campion working as a bookseller and printer’s apprentice, something she’s been able to do because of the massive loss of lives during the previously mentioned events. While not common for a woman at the time, it wasn’t unknown, and Calkins runs with it. read more

Jane Casey: The Kill

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TheKillAnother take on the British police novel comes from Jane Casey, whose love-life-clueless-work-life-competent Maeve Kerrigan is a fresh, memorable character. She’s young, she’s fighting tooth and nail to be taken seriously and treated equally, and she’s one of the few who gets along with her higher up, the prickly Josh Derwent.

Casey’s feminist take on the police novel is welcome and realistic – Maeve is mostly taken seriously by her boss but she’s treated in a very sexist way by Derwent, who nevertheless values her opinion and likes working with her. Higher up the chain female officers are threatened by her and Maeve handles her work life with aplomb. She’s made a pact with herself never to cry at work, no matter what happens: Josh tells her towards the end of the novel, “Don’t be that girl who cries at work.” It’s a perfect encapsulation of Maeve’s daily struggle to keep it together on the job, and reminded me of Holly Hunter’s solitary morning crying jag in the film “Broadcast News.” read more

Hannah Dennison: Deadly Desires at Honeychurch Hall

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DeadlyDesiresThe second in a series featuring former TV personality Kat Stanford, this is a welcome addition to the always popular British village subgenre. The tone is “madcap,” in a good way. Kat is living with her mother in the carriage house of Honeychurch Hall; her mother has just informed her that her Uncle Alfred, recently released from prison, is about to join them.

Both women are also caught up in a village controversy: a high speed rail line is proposing cutting through the town, destroying buildings and historic sites (there’s a British Civil War battlefield smack in the middle of their countryside), and when they stumble across one of the train authorities in a walk through a field to find sloes for sloe gin fizzes, Kat is literally caught in the middle. She sees that the railway would destroy the town; on the other hand, its representative, Valentine Prince-Avery, is handsome and charming and he just wants to discuss “options.” read more

Anne Cleeland: Murder in Thrall

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murderinthrallHow has this terrifically inventive series slipped under the radar? This was one of our breakout books at Christmas when we could hardly order copies fast enough, and when I was recently at Malice Domestic, we sold lots of copies and one woman even told me she’d come to the conference specifically to meet Ms. Cleeland. After feverishly reading this one in a day, I can absolutely see why (and I plan on reading the next two as quickly as possible).

This has one of the odder set ups I’ve ever encountered in a mystery novel. While on one level it’s a straight up, almost typical, police procedural – a Scotland Yard DCI (that’s Detective Inspector to you) takes a young DC (that’s Detective Constable, the lowest rank) under his wing. It’s reminiscent of Elizabeth George’s pairing of Lynley and Havers – Cleeland’s DCI, Acton, is titled, as is Lynley; the DC, Doyle, is a working class (like Havers) Irish girl trying to find her way. She’s trying to absorb as much knowledge as she can, and as the story opens, it’s clear that Acton and Doyle work well together. read more

A.J. Rich: The Hand That Feeds You

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thehandthatfeedsyouIt’s no secret that I have a bias against slumming “serious” authors who try to write mystery books. They seem to believe that any idiot can produce crime fiction, so maybe it’s time they dashed one off themselves and finally achieve the money and success they deserve. Most of them, however, have not been prepared by their MFA programs to deal with such necessary matters as plot, pacing and suspense,and their well honed abilities to evoke suburban anomie, critique consumer culture and describe changing foliage are of scant use. Clearly, I’m disposed not to like such efforts and I usually don’t, even the ones that many people rave over, like John Banville’s Benjamin Black series. read more

Sharon Bolton: Little Black Lies

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littleblackliesS.J. Bolton may have changed her name to the more agreeable and feminine “Sharon,” but make no mistake, her creepy intensity is undiluted. This novel is a stand-alone in the mode of her earlier novels – Sacrifice, Awakening and Blood Harvest – and boy does it get under your skin. If you aren’t big on an eerie, gothic storyline, give this one a pass. On the other hand if you enjoy a well written and unforgettable read, dive right in.

Set on the Falkland Islands (there’s a map in the front subtitled “Land of Sky and Sea,” a cheerfully ironic subtitle if ever there was one) about a decade after the well-remembered Falkland Island conflict of 1982. The conflict is still fresh for the islanders (who live with the threat of land mines in their sheep fields) and one of the main characters is a Falkland vet with PTSD. He’s not the main character, but he makes the timing relevant, though he’s not as obvious a plot device as that implies. read more