Erin Hart: The Book of Killowen

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This lovely book is a kind of spiritual meshing of Agatha Christie – for plot –and P.D. James, in that the setting and characters are as richly captured as any in a James novel.  The fourth in Hart’s fine Nora Gavin series, The Book of Killowen finds Nora and Cormac back in Ireland and back in another bog, this time on the trail of an ancient bog man as well as a much more recent one.

Like the bogs of Ireland that Hart chooses to write about, her stories are richly layered creations, right down to two, not one, bodies found on top of one another in the trunk of a car dug up by a peat scavenger at the beginning of the book.  As the threads of Hart’s story begin to coalesce, we meet the victim, Benedict Kavanaugh, a TV host who delighted in humiliating his guests, and his wife, one Mairead Broome, who connects the story back to an Artist’s colony in Killowen. read more

Brad Parks: The Good Cop

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In 2010 Brad Parks won the Shamus award for first P.I. Novel for Faces of the Gone. It’s a really good book, deserving of all sorts of accolades, but the interesting thing is that Parks’s protagonist isn’t a private investigator, he’s an investigative journalist. I’ll take this as evidence that the traditional P.I. novel ain’t what it used to be – as James Crumley said, no fault divorce really took the wind out of the sails of the profession, which was never really the way it was portrayed in books anyway. A few masterful old masters keep writing in the traditional vein, but these days most private eyes, like Steve Hamilton’s Alex McKnight, are more often of the reluctant variety. read more

Author Interview: William Kent Krueger

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I’ve known Kent since he invited himself to the store when his first novel, Iron Lake, was published in 1998. As long as I’ve known him, I’ve been a fan of his work. His new novel, Ordinary Grace, is an extraordinary leap – a deepening of previous work. It was a pure delight to read.

Q: One of the things I found most interesting about this book was the voice. While it’s set in 1961, it doesn’t in any way seem like a period piece or an historical novel. How personal to you are the memories of 1961 in small town Minnesota? read more

Peter Robinson: Watching the Dark

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Ostensibly refreshed after last year’s standalone novel, Before the Poison, Peter Robinson returns to his much loved Inspector Banks series, slipping back into his familiar character like a comfortable old shoe. Banks has mellowed, gotten used to his divorce, resolved his love life issues for the time being, and is enjoying his red wine and his music. The case he’s called in to handle involves the death of a colleague at a police rehab center, where the unfortunate Bill Quinn had gone to recuperate. read more

Michael Robotham: Bleed for Me

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Bleed for Me is an interesting mix of very early Jonathan Kellerman (the good stuff) and Tana French.  Robotham has French’s writing chops and a way with prose – but he has Kellerman’s knack for suspense, some of it down and dirty. His central character is Joseph O’Loughlin, a psychologist and sometime police confidant and consultant. While Kellerman’s Alex Deleware is always specifically called in on a case, O’Loughlin’s ties seem more tenuous, though he certainly has friends on the force. read more

William Kent Krueger: Ordinary Grace

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Krueger has long been one of my favorite writers – and he’s a favorite of many of our customers as well, who are often annoyed when another Cork O’Connor book doesn’t appear quickly enough. From the very beginning I’ve been captivated by this writer’s prose and the depth of character he’s is able to convey.  And of course, he’s a wonderful mystery writer, good with suspense, action, and plot twists. That’s a rare enough combination that Krueger is one of the best in the contemporary mystery field. read more

Sam Thomas: The Midwife’s Tale

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This fascinating little volume, set during England’s Civil War in 1644, is surprisingly zippy. I love historical novels but I have to say “zippy” is not always the applicable word. It’s unusual also in that it’s written by a man but features a female protagonist, and not just any female, but a midwife, the most female of all professions.

Any concerns you might have about not being very knowledgeable about Oliver Cromwell’s revolution to understand the story can be set aside – while this setting is the book’s backdrop, Thomas’ main concern is character and plot, just like any other able novelist. His central character, Bridget Hodgeson, is a wealthy and well known midwife in the city of York, a city being besieged by rebels but still in the hands of the King’s forces. read more

Julie Hyzy: Fonduing Fathers

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Julie Hyzy has quickly become one of the big kahunas in the cozy universe, with her delightful and sparkling Olivia Parras White House chef mysteries being more and more eagerly snapped up with each installment. She’s established herself as not only a very capable cozy writer, but she’s also quite good with suspense and plot, sometimes surprisingly good. The ending of her last Olivia novel, Affairs of Steak, had an extremely skillful action sequence – one that sits comfortably alongside anything Robert Crais or Michael Connelly might dish out. read more

Jo Bannister: Deadly Virtues

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Jo Bannister has had a spotty publishing career stateside – she was a steady seller for us when she was published in paperback by Worldwide. She’s since been picked up by Minotaur and published exclusively in hardcover, but the cash outlay is well worth it. She’s one of the quiet secrets of mystery writing – not that well known, but incredibly talented and multi-faceted. Her closest “kin” as a writer may be Cynthia Harrod-Eagles, as she shares Harrod-Eagles’ mix of dry wit and gritty realism as well as her splendid plotting skills. read more

Jenny Milchman: Cover of Snow

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Jenny Milchman’s atmospheric debut novel would probably make you feel a chill even in August. Set in a tiny Adirondack town, main character Nora Hamilton wakes up one morning to find her whole world blown apart. She’d been happily married to a police officer – one terrible morning she finds he’s hanged himself in the attic.

From there, it’s almost as you are with Nora on her confusing journey of grief and revelation as she tries to figure out why her apparently happy and loving husband would have done something like this. Of no help are her cold, stand-offish mother-in-law; any cop in town, most of whom tell her to stay home and get better; or her own parents, who are whisked off canvas almost immediately. read more