John Keyse-Walker

Honorable Mention 2022

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With over 500,000 books published each year (not all are mysteries, obviously), there’s no way I can even read a solid sample of what’s out there.  I do gravitate toward historicals, cozies and traditional detective fiction, and out of the 80 plus books I read this past year (all but two were mysteries) these are the (additional) ones I found remarkable and worthy of a look.  Happy reading!

The Rising Tide, Ann Cleeves (Vera Stanhope #10 ). Cleeves always provides a spectacularly thoughtful read, and this one is no different.  Set on “Holy Island”, an island cut off by the tides every night, a group of high school friends have been meeting up for 50 years.  When one of them commits suicide, Vera is sure it’s murder, and of course she’s right.  As expected from Cleeves, there are complex characterizations and a spectacular setting that assumes its own part in the story. read more

John Keyse-Walker: Palms, Paradise, Poison

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This is the third book in John Keyse-Walker’s enjoyable Teddy Creque series, set on the fictional island of Anegada in the British Virgin Islands. Similar in tone and feel to the TV series Death in Paradise, Keyse-Walker’s main character is not an imported British superintendent, but an island born constable, risen to the top of the heap in tiny Anegada.  He’s also a fisherman, and his community plays a huge part in the story.

While the first book in the series was a traditional police procedural story with the added zing of the Caribbean setting, this one is a stripped down wonder that embraces the setting completely.  The book opens with a hurricane hitting the island (a sadly common occurrence in the Virgin Islands), and Teddy, while trying to evacuate the islanders to safety further inland, goes out to rescue a fellow fisherman who is out in one of the worst storms in island memory. read more