Private eye

Cleo Coyle: The Ghost and the Dead Librarian

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Haunted Bookshop Detective #1

This series appears new but is actually is a continuation of Coyle’s nine-book Haunted Bookshop Mystery series, published by Berkeley under the pseudonym Alice Kimberly. I’m so glad Kensington has picked up this series!

Young widow Penelope Thornton-McClure and her Aunt Sadie own Buy the Books, a mystery bookshop in Quindicott, RI. (Isn’t that the best bookstore name ever?!) Unbeknownst to everyone except Pen and her cat Bookmark, the shop is haunted by the ghost of 1940s PI Jack Shepard. Jack died in the shop so he’s stuck there for eternity but he gladly helps Pen solve suspicious deaths in their town. Pen’s only rule: don’t haunt the customers. read more

J.D. Brinkworth: The Pie and Mash Detective Agency

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Debut

This charming, funny book, set in present day London, follows the adventures of Jane Pye and Simon Mash, a dating couple who decide to take a detective class at their local learning center.  (To a US reader, this will translate as a community college course.) Jane is between jobs, aka unemployed, and while Simon is working, he’s still willing to go along with Jane on her lark, which started with a book on detection that proved only too inspiring.

As a final assignment, the teacher (and working private eye) Gavin, assigns each team in the class a case to be solved.  He gives the only unsolved case to Jane and Simon, and, as it later becomes clear, it’s one he himself has been frustrated by for decades. Jane and Simon plunge right in, going to interview the witness, Dev, whose girlfriend has vanished.  The only problem is that the police don’t believe she ever existed as Dev doesn’t have a photo of her, she doesn’t seem to be a voter, be on National Health, or have a passport or driver’s license. read more

William Kent Krueger: Spirit Crossing

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Cork O’Connor #20

I have read every Cork O’Connor book to date, and it’s a series that’s managed to stay fresh and entertaining through it’s now long (and classic) run.  The books follow Cork as sheriff in Aurora, Minnesota, as he raises his family, loses his wife, remarries, and leaves law enforcement and becomes a private investigator. However, I don’t think of these books as P.I. novels.  I think of them primarily as family novels.  I think the combination of Cork’s family story and the action and mystery Krueger brings to the table make these appealing to both male and female readers, something not always true in mystery novels, which tend to skew toward one gender or another in terms of readership. read more

E.J. Copperman: Same Difference

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Fran and Ken Stein #2

There are several things a reader can expect when they pick up an E.J. Copperman book, among them humor, a tight plot and great characters. Also to be expected in each of his series, written as either Jeff Cohen or Copperman, is a high concept premise, and this instalment is no exception.  The sibling protagonists, brother and sister Fran and Ken Stein (you get the word play), were not born, exactly, but created by their scientist parents who added a little extra something to the formula.  The two of them are remarkably tall and strong, the downside being that they have to plug the USB port under their arms into a charger every couple of days to keep going.  This part of the story was, to me, almost extraneous – the rest is so excellent that it needs no embellishment.  Fran and Ken could just simply have been tall and extra strong and the book wouldn’t have suffered any.  Being Copperman, however, there’s an extra emotional layer here as Fran and Ken haven’t seen their parents since they were children and are still hoping to find them.  All signs point to that search being the plot of the next book. Their sense of loss is only lightly touched on here but it’s present and beautifully handled. read more

Carolyn Haines: Lights, Camera, Bones

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Sara Booth Delaney #27

Lights, Camera, Bones is impressively Carolyn Haines’ 27th book in her Sarah Booth Delaney series. Hollywood comes to take a bite out of Greenville, Mississippi, to film a dramatic movie about a great flood in 1927. It was a very controversial flood for the town as, while there were heroes, there were also some very unfortunate victims left to the mercy of the elements. The Director and lead actor, Marlon Brandon’s, goal is to share the heroic story of how his family saved many during the tragedy. However, not everyone believes that showing off his hero roots is the whole story. There are at least two who are convinced that the movie is there to paint Greenville in a negative light, and dig up old wounds caused by the state’s darker history involving slave labor. What starts as just a few arguments and clashes escalates when Marlon and another member of his crew, Jules, goes missing. read more

Stephen Mack Jones: Deus X

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August Snow #4

Stephen Mack Jones, creator of August Snow – Detroit’s Mexican-African American knight in shining armor – wants to ponder, in his fourth novel, the cost of doing what’s morally right, no matter what.  As the book opens, August is visiting his girlfriend’s family in Sweden but while there, he seems to have tracked down and caught a serial killer.  That’s just the first chapter.  He gets an urgent call from his sometime housemate, Lucy Three Rivers, that her adoptive mothers are in crisis.  One of them is in the hospital with a heart problem. read more

September Book Club: A is for Alibi

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We’ve been reading classics for book club lately, recently checking out Robert B. Parker’s The Godwulf Manuscript and Tony Hillerman’s Dance Hall of the Dead.  On Sunday, September 17 at 2 p.m. we’ll meet in person, and on Wednesday, September 20 at 7 p.m. we’ll meet on zoom.  Message us on facebook or twitter for a zoom link, or email us at store (at) auntagathas.com.  We’ll be reading Sue Grafton’s groundbreaking and beloved classic, A is for Alibi, published in 1982.  Contemporary review from Kirkus: read more

Stephen Mack Jones: Dead of Winter

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I’m not sure what it is about Michigan that creates great private eye novelists, but whatever the reason, Stephen Mack Jones has joined the likes of Loren Estleman and Steve Hamilton in creating his Detroit based private eye, August Snow.  August is a reluctant millionaire – an ex cop who sued the police department – and he now (mostly) spends his time renovating his neighborhood, Detroit’s Mexicantown, one house at a time.  When his godmother, Elena, calls, however, he agrees to meet with a dying man about his Mexicantown business. read more