Brian Freeman’s sixth installment in his enjoyable Jonathan Stride series set in Duluth finds Stride still struggling with emotional entanglements, past and present. Some of the threads Freeman has pulled through the books to date find a resolution of sorts at the end of this novel, which was, to me, one of the best of the series. Stride, a widower and Detective on the Duluth force, has just wound up an unfortunate romance with his partner, Maggie, and is on the outs with his sometime girlfriend, Serena, a former Vegas cop who now works with the Duluth sheriff’s department. read more

Jenny Milchman’s new novel concentrates on a mother’s primal fear: the vanishing of her children. Her main characters in this stand alone novel are the Daniels family, Paul, Liz, Ally and Reid, on their way to visit Paul’s parents. Rarely do the Daniels leave their homestead and their contact with Paul’s family has been minimal.

Milchman begins to skillfully sketch in the family details: the processed snacks snuck by Liz to her children when they are on the road, despite Paul’s objections; the clever and disturbing ability of Reid to pick pockets; the sweetness of Ally; and the apparent controlling nature of Paul. We’re seeing it all through Liz’s lens. When Paul decides they can spend the night in a hotel before reaching his parents’ house, Liz is delighted by the rare treat and chance to get cleaned up and prepared to face her in-laws. Wakening from a deep, comfortable sleep the next morning, she quickly discovers the children are missing, and she and Paul go into full panic mode. read more

I am a sucker for this series. Castillo’s premise is a brilliant one: police chief Kate Burkholter, who was raised Amish in tiny Painter’s Mill, Ohio, left the Amish for the “English” world and returned home to join the police force. Her appointment as Chief is relatively new. Her status as an insider/outsider could not be more perfect as far as a mystery heroine is concerned, and her character’s knowledge of Amish culture, Amish families and at times, the Pennsylvania Dutch language the Amish speak, are all helpful to her as she solves crimes. read more

We get a lot of uncorrected proofs and advanced reader copies – those large format paperbacks that are sent to bookstores in order to drum up interest in a forthcoming hardback.  Much of the accompanying promotional literature is guilty of hyperbole to say the least, but in rare cases it’s spot on. As printed on the cover, with any justice the summer of 2014 will belong to Chevy Stevens’s fantastic, suspenseful novel That Night.

Earlier this year I lined up four or five proofs and read the first pages of all of them and That Night was the only one that grabbed me from the get go. After I quickly finished it, I gave it to Robin who also tore through it and then we subjected it to the most rigorous test of all, our son, who demands Harlan Coben quality readability and suspense in any book he picks up. When he loved it as well, I knew we were on to something. read more