Minotaur Books

Louise Penny: The Grey Wolf

by

Chief Inspector Gamache #19

In the impressive 19th installment of the Chief Inspector Armand Gamache series by Louise Penny, The Grey Wolf, something more than murder is lurking in the darkness. Gamache is at first baffled by a string of seemingly random murders – people with quiet lives and no enemies, killed execution style with no reason for it. The investigation is slow going, likely stalled, and Gamache isn’t sure where to turn next.

However, a meeting with a stranger changes everything. When this man is killed directly in front of him, trying to tell Gamache a final secret, things get set in motion that none of them ever would have expected. Cryptic clues and old faces just lead the inspector further and further down the rabbit hole and put his family, and Three Pines, in jeopardy, alongside maybe even more lives and something bigger than each of them. read more

The Canine reads of Margaret Mizushima and Paula Munier

by

The Night Woods, Paula Munier (Mercy Carr #6) and Gathering Mist, Margaret Mizushima (Timber Creek K-9 #9)

In sports there are often rivals who challenge each other to greater excellence.  This happens in writing too, and the head-to-head match up of Paula Munier and Margaret Mizushima, who both write working dog mysteries, is a fantastic example.  Both series continue to maintain their excellence, and while I can’t say for sure if these two women know each other, are friendly rivals or even read each other’s work, I do know the similarity in topic calls for a comparison.  Munier’s first book, A Borrowing of the Bones, was published in 2018, while Mizushima’s first novel, Killing Trail, came out in 2015.  Each writer has worked steadily, producing a book every year. read more

Julia Kelly: Betrayal at Blackthorn Park

by

Evelyne Redfern #2

In Julia Kelly’s first book in this series, heroine Evelyne Redfern got a job as a clerk in Churchill’s war rooms only to discover a body on her very first day.  As she’d been asked by a high up family friend to “keep her eyes open,” she ends up investigating. and solves the crime. In book two, she’s already been sent north for training as a member of the ultra secret Special Operations Executive (SOE), where she’ll be working as an investigator.  Her maiden outing is to Blackthorn Park, which has been requisitioned by the government as a center for creating bombs for use in the field. The home office suspects some kind of theft is going on and requests that Evelyne travel there and assess how easily the property can be breached. read more

Michelle Chouinard: The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco

by

I enjoy picking up a book where I don’t know what to expect, and it’s even better when the book I’ve selected doesn’t match my expectations — but in a good way. From the title, I supposed this book would be all shiny concept, heavy on clever plot, no emotional engagement, but probably funny.  It does have a shiny concept, but the concept (as it should be), is just the kick off.  Heroine Capri (like the car, the pants or the island) Sanzio, granddaughter of a serial killer, makes her living giving – you guessed it – serial killer tours of San Francisco.  She’s been quite successful, and the patrons only infrequently ask questions about her grandfather, who was known as “Overkill Bill.” read more

Tasha Alexander: Death by Misadventure

by

Lady Emily #18

I’ll freely admit that I love this series.  Of course some of them are even yummier than others, and this latest one might be one of the most delicious.  The books follow Lady Emily and her dishy husband, Colin, as they investigate crimes all over the globe, and although Colin has a mysterious secret arrangement with her majesty’s government, it’s often Lady Emily’s intuition and intelligence that solves the case.  Another standard element in the books is a dual timeline, with events from the past connecting or relating to events in the present in some form or fashion, with part of the mystery consisting of figuring out how. read more

Ragnar Jonasson: Death at the Sanitorium

by

Author Jonasson, an Icelandic fan of Agatha Christie from a child, had read all the available books translated by the time he was 17.  At that point, craving more, he simply went to the publisher and asked if he himself could translate more of her previously untranslated titles.  They agreed, and Jonasson was treated to a master class in plot, structure, character and setting as he did his work.  As evidenced by his own books, the lessons certainly took.  Like Christie’s, his books are perfectly structured, have memorably distinctive characters and always feature an evocative setting.  Oh, and they are also short, another valuable lesson he gleaned from Agatha. read more

Ann Cleeves: The Dark Wives

by

Vera Stanhope #11

This is the eleventh book in Cleeves’ now classic Vera Stanhope series, and as always, the books are a slow burn with a smasher of an ending.  This book begins with an extremely compelling set up:  Vera is called to a local care home where one of the workers has been found murdered and one of the residents, a 14 year old girl, has vanished. Vera and her team aren’t sure whether she’s a suspect or a victim, but she’s 14 and missing, so the hunt is on to locate her.  Vera is under a bit of a cloud – at the end of the last book (The Rising Tide) she’d lost one of her team, Holly.  She’s hired a replacement for the strait-laced, disciplined Holly that’s as different as she can be.  Rosie Bell is brash and likes a drink with the girls after work, but she proves to have some unexpected qualities as the investigation proceeds. read more

Donna Andrews: Between a Flock and a Hard Place

by

Meg Lanslow#35

Donna Andrews’ 35th book in her Meg Lanslow mystery series, Between a Flock and a Hard Place, focuses on a local home that is getting renovated by a brand new home renovation show, as well as a large group of wild feral turkeys. Someone took a whole flock of the large birds and released them into a neighborhood. For those that don’t know a lot about turkeys beyond their making a wonderful meal, turkeys are also territorial, aggressive, and huge in size. They also can, and will, chase you for as long as they want before they are satisfied that you have learned your lesson. Meg’s father is more than ready to lend a hand, and is excited at the prospect of getting his hands on so many turkeys to work with at the zoo, although he seems to be the only one enthusiastic about them. No one wants to prepare for combat just to check the mail, and they certainly aren’t thrilled with what the turkeys are doing to their yards – or anything they find irritating, such as stealing a windshield wiper blade from a car. read more

Sarah Stewart Taylor: Agony Hill

by

Series debut

Sarah Stewart Taylor starts a new series with Agony Hill, following Detective Franklin Warren as he tries to start his life over again. Set in the tiny Vermont town of Bethany in the 1960s, the novel immediately plunges the reader into small town, rustic life, and realities of the struggling farmers there. The characters are rich, and each of the three point of view characters especially get filled out into living, breathing people.

When Warren arrives in town, he gets little time to settle in, or even unpack. Immediately, there is a barn fire up on Agony Hill. At first, it seems like a clear-cut suicide. The victim, Hugh Weber, was always one for making statements, and he was deeply against the highway set to go through town. The barn was latched from the inside, too. With no alternate exits, it seems clear that Weber got drunk and took his ideals a little too far. read more

Allison Montclair: Murder at the White Palace

by

Sparks & Bainbridge #6

Simply put, the Sparks & Bainbridge historical mysteries are among the best of their kind being written at the moment. In the uncertainty of post-war London, series protagonists odd couple Iris Sparks and Gwen Bainbridge run The Right Sort, a marriage bureau. Iris is a working-class woman who operated as an espionage agent during the war, and Gwen is a titled member of the upper class, a war widow raising a son with the intermittent help of her former in-laws. The yin and yang of Iris and Gwen works perfectly, and they have drawn ever closer through the now six books in this wonderful series. read more