Michael Stanley

Honorable Mention 2022

by

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

Michael Stanley: A Deadly Covenant

by

The eighth book in Michael Stanley’s enjoyable Detective Kubu series, set in Botswana, tells his origin story as a detective.  As readers, we have already come to love Kubu and his wife, Joy, so it’s a pure delight to read this book, which chronicles their early courtship and Kubu’s beginnings as a detective.  Kubu’s shyness and uncertainty with Joy only add to the human dimensions of his personality, a personality already well fleshed out in previous novels.

He’s not quite as uncertain on the job, though he’s junior enough to be uncertain that his superiors will listen to his ideas on a case.  His boss, Mabaku, sends his into the wilds of Botswana to observe pathologist Ian MacGregor (a Scot new to the country) as news that a cache of bones have been unearthed on a construction site. MacGregor will be processing the bones and Kubu is told to watch and learn. read more