Robin Agnew

Carlene O’Connor: Bury the Wren

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County Kerry #5

I’m a big fan of this series, and I love the folklore that illuminated this particular instalment.  The books are set in tiny Dingle, Ireland, where veterinarian Dimpna Wilde has returned home from the big city of Dublin to run her father’s veterinary practice. While the veterinary parts of this novel were not as front and center as they are in some of the other books, the St. Stephen’s Day celebration that sets the story makes the book a memorable read.

In Ireland, on St. Stephen’s Day (December 26), the townsfolk celebrate with parades and pub crawls, centered on the “Wren Boys” who are dressed in straw and paint their faces green.  In folklore, the wren betrayed St. Stephen’s hiding place by chattering.  Wrens are carried in effigy by the wren boys (in modern times, stuffed versions, though wrens used to be actually hunted).  That sets the scene when Dimpna finds a taxidermized wren on the steps of her practice, and it gives her a chill as she starts off to town to meet her boyfriend, Cormac, to watch the parade. read more

Louise Penny: Miss Wolcott’s Ghost

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Chief Inspector Gamache #21

It’s been a while.  I wasn’t a huge fan of the last two Gamache books, or of the more recent thriller co-written with Melissa Fung, but with Miss Wolcott’s Ghost Louise Penny has returned to the form that has made me a giant supporter of her work.  I’ll never forget the spell put on me by her first novel, Still Life, and that reading rapture was gifted to me again with this book.  When I hit the three-quarter mark, I was glued to the pages and didn’t leave my chair. read more

Katherine Reay: The Undercover Bookshop

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This thoroughly enjoyable read is set in postwar Britain, and follows young Gemma Brown as she attempts to make a life for herself in the small Cotswolds village of Great Rollright.  In London, Gemma had been lonely in her boarding-house, and wanting to find a sense of community she couldn’t find in the big city, so she answers an advertisement for a shop clerk in Great Rollright simply because the job offers the perk of a bedsit. She settles into her new life pretty quickly, getting to know the villagers when they shop in the store, and developing friendships at the pub each night. read more

Tamara Berry: The Claus Conspiracy

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Seven Ponds #2

Berry’s formula for this novel is not a totally new one, but it is an enjoyable one, to which she adds her own twist.  20 something Amber Winslow has left her private eye boyfriend and moved to Arizona, where she’s near her grandmother and her grandmother’s bossy and intrusive retirement community friends.  Between them, they’ve started a very of the moment true crime podcast, Death Comes Calling.  In this second instalment in the series, a mystery lands at their literal doorstep. read more

Mariah Fredericks: Murder on 34th Street

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What Fredricks has put under the tree for her readers this year is an instant Christmas classic, the kind of book you might reach for every December – but only if your taste runs to a few murder victims in Santa’s bag.  Set in 1932, main character Grace Verlander is in charge of much of the big Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade, an event as big in 1932 as it is today.  Her biggest headache is that someone has threatened Santa Claus, and she must do everything she can to keep the big fellow safe despite the chaos of the parade. read more

Ann Cleeves: The Dying Light

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Matthew Venn #4

Over a forty year writing career, Ann Cleeves has emerged as one of the very best traditional mystery writers around.  With three very well regarded series to her credit, Shetland, Vera, and Matthew Venn, she’s achieved something few writers are capable of: creating several discrete casts of characters who differ from each other, yet remain individual and memorable.   Her latest features Matthew Venn, a gay Detective Inspector in Devon, who, despite being shunned by his religious parents when he lost his faith, now lives very happily with his husband, the chill and patient Jonathan, the two of them comprising one of the nicest couples in mystery fiction. read more

Michelle L. Cullen: A Field Guide to Death and Deceit

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Harry & Emma #2

It’s always tricky when a second book in a new series is released the same year as the first one, for a couple reasons, but a big reason is that the first one is still fresh in your mind, so you won’t be able to help comparing the two.  Cullen’s first book, A Field Guide to Murder, was released last January. It’s one of my favorite debuts of this year.  I’m happy to report that book two might be even stronger than book one.  (Where this lands Cullen during award season is another story).  This nascent series has a great set up: retired anthropologist Harry meets young caregiver Emma in book one.  He’s grieving his wife, but as he and Emma investigate a murder in the neighborhood together, they both find friendship and a new purpose. read more

Laurie R. King: Those Who Are Gone

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Raquel Laing #2

Those Who Are Gone is the follow-up to Laurie King’s excellent 2022 novel, Back to the Garden, one of my favorite books of that year. Her new effort is definitely a different animal, as she goes back to her roots with a complex police tale reminiscent of A Grave Talent, for which she won the 1993 Edgar for best first novel.

Equal to the modern master of the genre, Michael Connelly, this is a procedural with bells on. Main character Raquel Laing is a homicide cop still cleaning up a timeline which stretches back to King’s previous book, while at the same time trying to get a grip her own troubled and murky past.  She’s what we might recognize as neurodivergent, as many social cues elude her, but she’s compensated by developing the skill of reading micro expressions, allowing her to translate her interpretations into an out of the box solution to various mysteries, solutions which are quite often correct. Her glitches relating to other humans make her a challenge as a partner, and in this novel, she has a new one named Pam, who seems more interested in her Manolo Blahniks and boyfriend than her job. read more

Hank Phillippi Ryan: Mother Daughter Sister Stranger

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Nearly twenty books in, accomplished pro Hank Phillippi Ryan can keep you entertained, squeeze your heart, make you cry, give you a bit of a scare and make the whole darn thing look easy.  But this one achieves just a little bit more, with the characters so beautifully delineated, and the family tensions and problems that gives the plot its legs so poignant, that the book had me aching to actually reach into the pages and help the compelling characters in some way.

Ryan always has a great set up – here Eliza is caring for niece Piper for a week while her sister Bea takes some time away from it all after a divorce. The problems start when the day comes for Bea to collect Piper and she doesn’t show up. At first the family rationalizes that Bea must have gotten the wrong day. The following day is the annual family “remembrance day,” when Eliza, Bea and Piper go to the cemetery to visit the grave of Eliza and Bea’s parents, who died in a plane crash many years back. Since they know Bea packed an appropriate remembrance day dress, they conclude Bea must mean to meet them there, so they head over the next morning, but, again she’s a no show. read more

Kate Westbury: The Oxford Guide to Scandal and Lies

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Debut

Set in Oxford in 1951, this delightful first novel features an opposites attract type couple, Ginevra Bishop and Simon Braithwaite.  Bishop, Gin to her friends, is a well connected redhead familiar with the upper crust boys who have joined her at Oxford.  Simon Braithwaite, on the other hand, is a clever working-class veteran damaged by the war who has come to the campus in order to escape his ghosts (what we would now recognize as PTSD).

At that time, the after effects of the war remained inescapable, with both the student body and the faculty staffed with war veterans, all of them struggling with their own nightmare memories. As the book opens, Gin, searching for a study spot in the crowded Bodleian library, asks her favorite librarian, Tolliver, for a tip, and ends up next to a hostile and inhospitable Simon. Meeting cute, the two glare at one another over the top of their research tomes, and so far, so cozy.  It’s only when Simon and Gin discover the body of sweet old Tolliver at the moment he’s drawing his final breath that things take a slightly darker turn.  It’s murder, and the pair are soon recruited by British intelligence. read more