Marilyn's Mystery Reads

It is a case that Cork O’Connor has never forgotten, even though it had taken place more than twenty-five years ago.  Thus, when his son calls to tell him, “Dad, I think you sent an innocent man to prison,” every detail of the brutal murder case comes back.

Stephen O’Connor is a law school student, working for a non-profit organization seeking to free unjustly imprisoned people, and he comes across the case of Alex Boshey, a member of the Ojibwe tribe of Minnesota.  Boshey was accused of murdering his wife, stabbing her seven times with a fireplace poker.  An alcoholic, Alex at first doesn’t remember exactly what happened the night of his wife’s death; his response to Cork’s question of whether he killed his wife is, “No.  I don’t know.”

Alex admits he and his wife fought a lot and that he wanted a divorce but Chastity didn’t.  Their fights were known throughout the county, and the consensus is that he’s guilty.  After a day or two in the county jail, Alex admits to killing his wife, although he says the details of the attack are still not clear in his mind.   The case goes to a jury, which finds Boshey guilty and sentences him to life imprisonment.  Still, Cork has questions about the man’s guilt, but there’s nothing more he can do.  And there it rests for a quarter of a century.

Now Cork and his wife Rainy are invited to dinner with Stephen and his wife Belle.  When they arrive, there are two other guests present–Sunny, the “adopted” daughter of the imprisoned Alex Boshey, and Marianne Polaski, daughter of a woman Alex was having an affair with while he was married to Chastity.  Marianne agrees with Stephen that her father is innocent of Chastity’s murder, and she wants Cork to investigate.

Sunny also tells Cork that her sister, Moonbeam, has done some ancestry research and that the latter’s DNA proves that she and Moonbeam are half sisters through their mother, Chastity, but although Alex is Sunny’s father, he is not Moonbeam’s.  It’s a complicated family history.

All of Cork’s guilt comes rushing back, his belief at the time of Alex’s arrest and conviction that the man was not guilty of Chastity’s death and his inability to prove it.  This is his second chance, but it won’t be easy after more than two decades have passed.  And there’s also the fact that Alex has made a life for himself while incarcerated, quitting alcohol and helping others with their struggles with sobriety, and he doesn’t want to leave the prison.  He feels healed and wants to help others, something he believes he can best do where he is.

William Kent Kruger has written another winning chapter in the story of Cork O’Connor and Tamarack County, Minnesota.  Cork and his family and friends are true to life, and the story of stolen or broken lives due to anti-Native American prejudice and alcoholism are unfortunately all too believable.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

What a delight to welcome back two of my favorite characters, Sam Wyndham and Surendranath Banerjee, after a five year absence.

Suren has just returned to his home city of Calcutta after a three-year exile in Europe.  He went there after being falsely accused of the crimes of attempted murder and sedition; Sam, a detective in the Imperial Police Force in Calcutta, helped clear him, and now they are tentatively working on restoring their previous friendship and working relationship.

One of the city’s most famous and admired men, Jogendra Prasad Mullick, JP to his friends, is found murdered, a three inch incision across his throat.  JP was renowned as a businessman, a philanthropist, and a patron of the arts.  Who would want to kill this man and leave his body by the burning ghats of the funeral pyres of the Hooghly River?

Sam is the first detective on the scene, but he fears he will soon be replaced as he is out of favor with the authorities due in part to his help in allowing Suren to escape the authorities three years earlier.  Much to his surprise, however, he’s allowed to head the investigation with the proviso “don’t ball this up.”

Sam receives a second surprise when Suren comes to the apartment they had shared before the latter’s escape to Europe.  A cousin of Suren’s, Sushmita Chatterjee, better known as Dolly, has disappeared, and her parents are frantic.  The police are dismissive when her father goes to the station, saying she had probably run away with a man, but Suren tells Sam that Dolly never would have done that.  He asks for Sam’s help, and despite the latter’s reluctance to get involved, he and Suren go to the photography space that is Dolly’s place of business.

When they arrive it’s obvious that it’s been ransacked: furniture upended, cabinets smashed, and photographic supplies and negatives strewn all over the room.  Then a bottle is thrown through the window, and two petrol bombs set the studio ablaze.  The two men manage to escape, but so does a suspicious character Sam sees running away.

Suren begins his investigation into his cousin’s disappearance.  When he questions Mou, her friend and assistant in the photography studio, he learns that a day earlier she had been attacked there by a man looking for Dolly.  Mou tells Suren she feared for her life, and Suren feels certain that the man who threatened Mou is the same man who threw the petrol bombs through the window when he and Sam were there.

The two cases, seemingly unrelated, prove to be connected.  And Suren’s and Sam’s romantic relationships, Suren’s with a French woman he left behind in Paris and Sam’s off-again/on-again relationship with Annie Grant, plus his new infatuation with a movie star visiting Calcutta, combine to make everything more complicated and finding the solution to JP’s murder and Dolly’s disappearance more difficult.

As always, Abir Mukherjee has written a fascinating story of two very different men–Sam, an Englishman who has been trying to leave his tragic history behind him, and Suren, a Bengali caught in between two cultures, the British and the Indian.  Besides these two characters, the city of Calcutta in the 1920s looms large in the novel.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

We’re all familiar with AI and learning more each day about its benefits and its dangers.  In Michael Connelly’s latest novel featuring Mickey Haller, the Lincoln Lawyer, we learn about its cost to the lives of two young people.  One has died, the other is in prison for her murder, and Haller is now involved in a lawsuit against Tidalwaiv, the company that produces Clair, an AI companion.

Brenda Randolph hires Mickey to sue Tidalwaiv, not for any financial reason but to force them to admit that their AI creation encouraged Aaron Colton to murder her daughter Rebecca.  Now the Coltons have joined the lawsuit, although it’s obvious that in their case the money settlement is very important, at least to Aaron’s father.

Aaron Colton is a teenager, a loner with a crush on his very popular classmate.  He pours out his heart to Clair, whom he renames Wren, and the AI is sympathetic and understanding.  She continues their conversations by saying he needs to protect himself from bad people, i. e. Rebecca.  “If she hurts you, then she’s a bad person….You must protect yourself.”  After he commits the murder, he tells Wren, “There was so much blood,” and she consoles him by saying he and Rebecca will be together for eternity like Romeo and Juliet.

Tidalwaiv keeps raising their multi-million-dollar offer to Brenda Randolph and Bruce and Trisha Colton to settle the case, but both parties have to agree.  Bruce definitely wants to settle to receive their share of what he calls a life-changing amount of money; Trisha isn’t certain what to do; and Brenda absolutely will not settle.  So Mickey’s case against the corporation continues.

Then Rikki Patel, a former Tidalwaiv employee who had agreed to testify for the prosecution, is murdered.  The only other former employee with knowledge of the way the AI companion worked for Aaron, Naomi Kitchens, now a university professor, is extremely reluctant to testify.

During a break in the trial Mickey sees Cassie Snow in the courtroom.  She is a young woman whose father Mickey defended years earlier.  His defense was unsuccessful, and David Snow has been in prison for twenty years for a crime Mickey feels sure he didn’t commit.  Snow has terminal cancer, and Cassie wants Mickey to get her father released in time to spend his last few months with her.  But Snow won’t admit to the child abuse charge which he says never happened, and his daughter backs him up.  Now time is running out for Mickey to appeal his case.

The Lincoln Lawyer series is an outstanding one, and The Proving Ground is a worthy addition.  Michael Connelly takes an off-beat character and infuses him with intelligence, compassion, and determination.  Mickey Haller has become more mature with each novel, and the supporting characters (his first ex-wife Maggie, his second ex-wife Lorna, and her husband Cisco) are realistic and have their own strengths and weaknesses.  This novel is a must-read for Michael Connelly and Mickey Haller fans.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Is it as simple as it appears in A Shock to the System to become a killer, even a serial killer?  Can someone live thirty or more years as a law-abiding citizen only to have a seemingly insignificant action be the beginning of a series of murders?  In this English novel published in 1984, the answer is yes.

Graham Marshall was, in his own mind and that of his proud parents’, “a success.”  With a great deal of sacrifice on the latter’s part, he was sent to a public school (what in the United States is a private school) and then to a university, all to put him on the road to a meaningful career.

He is now the assistant director of personnel in a multi-national firm with a near certainly to be made director upon the upcoming retirement of the present director.  But then it all falls apart as the job is given to a much younger man, new to the firm.

Stopping into a pub for a few drinks after receiving the bad news, Graham is on his way home when he’s accosted by a vagrant asking for a quid.  When the man demands money for the third time, Graham reacts angrily and hits the man with his umbrella, then throws the unconscious body into the river.  After a few days of remorse and fear, Graham puts the death out of his mind…that is until he thinks about how much better his life would be without his wife.  As they say in mystery novels, the second murder is always easier than the first.

At the beginning of the novel, the reader may feel some sympathy for Graham.  He’s been at the international oil company for nearly two decades, certainly long enough, in his mind, for him to prove his worth.  His self-value is determined by his position there, to say nothing of the five thousand pounds he was expecting to receive on his promotion, and now he has to pretend in front of the other corporation members that he’s fine with being passed over for a younger, less experienced man.

At home, there are more problems.  He and his wife overspent on their house, anticipating Graham’s rise in the company, and now they are very close to having major financial problems.  Their two children are in public schools, his wife doesn’t want to go out to work, and her mother, a difficult person at the best of times, has moved into their house almost full time.  There’s only one way out of this situation, Graham thinks.

The author has written a novel in which we know from the start who the villain is and why he is committing these murders, but readers nevertheless will be inexorably driven to read to the end.  Graham’s slow descent into becoming a serial killer, and his self-deluding rationale, make A Shock to the System a terrific read.

Simon Brett is the author of five detective series and many stand-alone novels.  In 2014, Brett was chosen as the recipient of the Cartier Diamond Dagger from the Crime Writers’ Association for “an outstanding body of work in crime fiction.”  You can read more about him at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Dahlia “Doll” Devine is a singer of country songs at McPhee’s Tavern, and her own life could be a perfect country song by itself.  An unknown father, abandoned by her mother when she was a young child, now deserted by her boyfriend Joey who took their rent money with him–it’s an absolute tsunami of bad things that have happened to Doll.

Still, dressed in spangles and cowgirl boots, she’s the leader of a very popular all-female quartet that performs weekly at the Tavern, and all the members are hoping for that big break.

One night, just before the group is set to go on stage, Doll enters her bedroom and finds a woman sitting on her bed.  Even though it’s been 20 years since Doll has seen her, there’s no doubt in her mind that it’s her mother, Marisa.

Doll spent most of her childhood going from one foster home to another, some pleasant and some definitely not.  Then Alex McPhee, owner of the Tavern, took her in, and now she has a room there, a place to perform, and a job behind the bar when things are extra busy.  I don’t need you, she tells Marissa, I’ve got everything I want.

That night a booking agent is in the bar.  He tells Doll he’s impressed by her singing but that the quartet needs original songs, not covers, if they want to make it big.  He mentions signing them, which would be a significant step in their careers, and gives Doll the names of people he represents, an impressive list.  Although having an agent representing them would be a significant step up, she is wary and a bit afraid of starting to write her own songs, so she doesn’t share the news about the agent’s visit with the other women in the group until after their performance.

The following morning a young woman appears outside McPhee’s.  She’s shivering from the cold, so Doll feels forced to invite her inside to warm up.  When the woman tells her that she’s looking for her mother, that she knows she was there the previous night, Doll figures it out–Marisa is this woman’s mother also, thus making them sisters or perhaps half-sisters.  Neither one is happy to find out about their relationship.

And then Doll finds Joey’s body outside the Tavern.

Wreck Your Heart is a beautifully told story about betrayal, forgiveness, and friendship in an unusual setting.  We can see how her mother’s desertion colored her daughter’s life and how her reentry changed Doll’s outlook on life and love.  Doll is a fabulous character, and readers will sympathize with her when things go wrong and cheer when it all gets straightened out.

Lori Rader-Day is the author of numerous mystery, crime, and suspense novels. She has won three Anthony Awards, a Simon & Schuster Mary Higgins Clark Award, and an Agatha Award for Best Historical Novel.  You can read more about Lori Rader-Day at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Two key members of the Locard Forensic Institute, Dr. Ellie Carr and Dr. Rachael Davies, combine their skills in order to bring home the daughter of a celebrated rock star.  In their latest case, Rachael goes to the mansion belonging to Billy Diamond, formerly the lead member of the famed band Chimera, where he tells her his teenage daughter Devon is missing.

Devon dropped out of Yale with her boyfriend, and together they decided to go to a “life retreat” at a remote location in Nevada.  At first she was in contact with her father regularly, but now she’s totally out of touch.  And yesterday Billy discovered that her boyfriend is dead, drowned in a river near the retreat.

Ellie Carr, a former FBI agent, goes to the retreat to find Devon and convince her to reach out to her father.

The retreat is called Today’s Enlightenment and run (controlled might be a more accurate term) by a man who calls himself Galen.  Ellie, calling herself Ellen, is greeted by Angela, to whom she tells her false background story–her dead mother, her absent father, her recent dismissal from work–all these being the reasons she needs to make a new start.

Taking a guided tour around the utilitarian retreat, Ellie meets Galen.  The first thing he does is change her name, which unknown to him is already not her real name, to Nell because he thinks it suits her better.

One of the first sessions is for participants to list things they fear, and Ellie makes certain to write things that she doesn’t actually fear–being enclosed in small spaces, public speaking.  She’s not certain why she doesn’t want to tell the group her real fears, but she feels certain she should keep that information to herself.

Rachael, meanwhile, is finding out more about Billy.  Her late sister Isis was an event planner whom Billy had hired for special occasions, praising her ability to get “stuff” for him.  That knowledge makes Rachael more curious about her sister’s life, and she begins to go through the boxes of forms, receipts, and several USB drives she brings from Isis’ condo.

Most are simply routine, but one item is odd.  It’s a bill for $650,000 for a major event at Billy’s home.  It lists liquor, entertainment, musicians, and tents among other costs, but something about it doesn’t make sense to Rachael.  The date on the invoice lists the party as having been held on Thanksgiving Day two years earlier, but Rachael knows that Chimera was performing at the Hollywood Bowl that day, three thousand miles from Billy’s home.  It definitely makes her curious.  Why would Billy have arranged for a huge party when he wasn’t home?

Not What We Expected moves from Ellie’s stay at Today’s Enlightenment to Rachael’s involvement in Billy’s life and back again.  The author’s characters are perfectly drawn, not only the two protagonists but the people surrounding them.  In Ellie’s case it’s the needy and self-doubting participants in the spa, and in Rachael’s case it’s Billy’s dependence on drugs and alcohol and the people surrounding him.  The plot is tense, the settings are realistic, and the twist at the end is one I did not see coming.

You can read more about Lisa Black at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

It’s time for my list of the best mysteries published this year.  As always, there were so many excellent crime novels that came out in 2025 that it’s hard to choose among them, but I’ve picked a baker’s dozen, including one with an asterisk.

As has been true for the last several years, my choices range geographically around the world–the United States, Ukraine, England, Ireland–and various time periods–today, pre-World War II, the medieval period.  Both women and men are protagonists and villains, and both women and men are the authors featured.

A number of these books discuss topics that are so timely in today’s world–racism, ageism, anti-Semitism, for example–that one can hardly consider crime fiction as escapism.  Also interesting is that on my list are authors who have written many mysteries as well as authors who published their first book this year.  Following are my choices:

HAVOC by Christopher Bolen; CHAIN REACTION by James Byrne; EDGE by Tracy Clark; HER MANY FACES by Nicci Cloke; TOO OLD FOR THIS by Samantha Downing; MISTRESS OF THE ART OF DEATH by Ariana Franklin*; THE QUEEN OF FIVES by Alex Hay; NEMESIS by Gregg Hurwitz; THE DEEPEST FAKE by Daniel Kalla; MIDNIGHT BURNING by Paul Levine;  HANG ON ST. CHRISTOPHER by Adrian McKinty; HOTEL UKRAINE by Martin Cruz Smith; THE MAILMAN by Andrew Welsh-Huggins.

The reason Ariana Franklin’s novel has an asterisk following it is because it was published in 2007.  I had never heard of the author until I serendipitously found it on a shelf in my local library, and I was struck both by the title and the cover art.  It’s great when that happens, just another reminder of how many wonderful mysteries there are yet to be discovered.  And if you’d like to send me a list of your favorites published in 2025, I’d be delighted to read it.

All my best wishes for a happy holiday season and a wonderful 2026.  And please do keep reading.

Regards,

Marilyn

Four graduates of Georgetown University are living in an elegant, if somewhat down-at-the-heels, row house in the Georgetown section of Washington, D. C.  Strangers before the housing lottery put them together, the young women, from different states and backgrounds, nevertheless fit together perfectly.  Now, a year after their graduation, they are still living together and sharing everything about their lives.  At least, that’s how it seems.

Lucy Ambrose, one of the novel’s narrators, is the woman who has not told the others the truth about her pre-college life.  Addie James is a track star from the nation’s capital, Estella Warbler is a party girl from California, Penelope Zamora is a medical student from D. C., and Lucy–well, we won’t find out about her until quite a way into the book.

The women always told each other their thoughts and plans until Addie begins acting mysteriously.  She starts to stay away from their Georgetown home for days at a time, isn’t reachable by phone, and ignores pointed questions from her housemates.

Finally, another friend sees her with Noah Egan, the handsome and charismatic television news anchor, and Addie can’t hide their relationship any longer.  Their romance is hot and heavy until there’s a breakup four months after it began; she will only say that Noah scared her in a way she never wants to be scared again, and that is the end of it as far she’s concerned.

Addie returns from a run with a bruise on her cheek and blood on her warmup jacket.  Finally, after much prompting from Lucy and a promise from her not to tell anyone, Addie says. “We collided on the towpath, and I thought, oh my God, it’s Noah.” And then, a few days later, a police detective arrives at the house, asking for Addie.  He says no one has seen Noah in days or knows where he is.  Then a mammoth snowfall hits Washington, and the city grinds to a halt.

Watch Us Fall is told in two voices, Lucy’s and Noah’s.  Lucy’s narrative is in the present tense; Noah’s is mostly in the past.  Both are keeping secrets that will impact all those around them.

Christina Kovac has written a tense thriller about the dangers of keeping secrets and loving too much.  Her characters are intelligent and strong but not perfect; each one reveals a flaw that is their undoing.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

It’s Christmas time in Northshire, a picture-perfect village in Vermont that’s home to Mercy Carr; her husband Troy Warner, a game warden for the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department; and their infant daughter Felicity.  The entire town is celebrating the Solstice Soirée with food stalls, carols, and, of course, Santa Claus.  But this year’s event is different because not one but two Santas are killed in the midst of the gala.

Mercy and Felicity are almost at the front of the line, waiting for Mercy’s “Uncle Laz,” a last minute substitute Santa, to greet them.  Laz is Northshire’s acting mayor, a position he is much better suited for than portraying the man who lives in the North Pole.

However, there’s no one else available at short notice, so a reluctant Laz is pressed into duty.  Then his cell phone rings, and he jumps off his red velvet chair and heads for the woods.  Everyone is stunned, and Mercy hands Felicity to a nearby friend behind her in line and with her trusty Malinois shepherd she runs after Laz.  Minutes later she finds him, dead under a burning Yule log.

At the same time, Troy is also out in the woods, following the tracks of a poacher who is killing animals on posted privately owned land.  After a nearly twenty-four hour stakeout, he captures the man with the help of his friend Gil Guerrette of the Green Mountain Forest Service.  Then the fight suddenly goes out of the poacher, and he falls to the ground.  As Troy moves closer to the man, he sees what so alarmed him–almost buried in debris from the forest surrounding it is a human skull covered with antlers, with a bullet hole right between where his eyes would have been.

The following day the Solstice Soirée continues with a replacement Santa, a local whom everyone calls The Singing Plumber but whose real name is Tim Carter.  As the end of the concert nears, Tim readies for his final song but then simply stands voiceless in front of the choir.  He makes a painful face and falls down dead.

The Snow Lies Deep is the seventh mystery featuring Mercy Carr and the people in her life.  In addition to her husband, there are her mother and father; her friend Amy and her young daughter Helena who are living in the guesthouse on Mercy and Troy’s property; Mercy’s teenage cousin Tandie; and various members of the community.

Paula Munier has written another intriguing mystery featuring Mercy Carr.  The characters are realistic, the dialogue is true-to-life, and the setting is perfect for this time of year.  You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Two young people are lying on the ground of a skate park.  It’s cold and it’s raining, so Chicago Police Detective Harriet Foster realizes there’s something really wrong.  Going closer, she sees the blood drying on the young man’s face and knows that he’s dead.  The young woman, however, is alive but unresponsive.

Next to the pair are a couple of beer bottles and a small blue bag,  just the right size “for a hit of cocaine or a pair of party pills,” thinks Harri.

Looking through the young woman’s wallet, Harri finds the expected items plus a couple of surprises.  Besides the usual credit cards and photos, there’s an ID from the University of Chicago, $400 in bills, and a business card belonging to Detective Matt Kelley, a member of her own team of detectives.  When she calls him and describes the woman, he tells her that the student must be his niece, Ella Byrne.  Harri goes in the ambulance with Ella and arranges for Matt to meet them at the closest hospital.

Ella’s parents and Matt swear up and down that Ella is innocent, that they can’t think of anything that would have brought her to the park or why she was surrounded by alcohol and what Harri thinks are bags for drugs.  Although Ella answers most of the questions that Harri asks her, the detective feels certain that there’s more she’s holding back.

The tragedy of a family in crisis is all too familiar to Harri.  She relives the death of her teenaged son, dying in her front yard from a bullet shot randomly by a gang member, and the pointless death of her partner.

Four more bodies are found over the next few days.  The first is a young mother, her baby still cooing in his crib, a small blue bag next to her on her bed.  Then a man coming to play poker with three friends sees them through the house’s picture window slumped over a card table, chips and cards scattered everywhere.  And when Harri enters the scene, she spots the by-now familiar blue bags.

While Harri and her team are trying to understand how these seemingly unrelated deaths are connected, the reader is introduced to the infamous Gannons.  The patriarch of the family is dead, as are his sons, and now the head of the family is Cora Gannon, a woman as brutal and cruel as her father and brothers were.  Their lucrative illegal enterprises include drugs, vice, and all manner of criminal activity.  And they don’t plan to let the Chicago team of homicide detectives stop them.

The title EDGE refers to the drug that is causing these deaths, a new opioid that is making the rounds of the city.  But it also refers to Harri’s precarious state of mind, still reeling from the deaths of her son and partner.

Tracy Clark continues the excellent Harri Foster series with volume four.  Her characters and their actions are realistic, and the appearance of a new and dangerous drug on the Chicago scene will be all too frightening and familiar to readers.  In addition, those who have read the three earlier books will be pleased to see that Harri is taking small but important steps in coming to terms with her personal losses.

You can read more about the author at this website.

There once was a rock band called Sunshine Apocalypse.   Four teenage boys made up the group–Mo on drums; Johnny on vocals and guitar; Ricky on lead guitar; Ed on bass.  They never made it to the top, but they had a few hits and always held out hope for the big record, the one that would take them to number one on the chart.  It didn’t happen, and after a few years they broke up and went their separate ways.

Now, after twelve years, Johnny is back, telling the band they need to get together for a final gig.  Being Johnny, he has everything all worked out for their reunion at Fun City, the local amusement park that is going to be razed at the end of the summer.  All he needs is for the other three band members to agree so they can start rehearsing.

Ed and Ricky agree to the plan immediately, but Mo wants no part of it.  However, Ed and Ricky know something that Mo doesn’t.  They tell Mo that Johnny has ALS and needs a big score to pay his medical bills, so Mo reluctantly agrees to join the others.  Then Mo learns that the band’s performance is only part of the story.  Johnny has worked out a scheme to rob the safe at Fun City, certain that the combination is the same as it was when they played there years earlier.  That will be their real payday, he informs the others.

The first glitch is the fact that Ricky, in a moment of unbridled enthusiasm while thinking of the band’s reunion, starts his pickup truck too fast and goes straight into a telephone pole.  He can’t play guitar with a broken hand so it looks as if the concert is off, much to Mo’s relief.

That is until Janice, Mo’s seventeen-year-old daughter, arrives from out-of-state, picks up Ricky’s guitar and starts playing the Sunshine Apocalypse’s songs, note perfect.  Now Mo doesn’t have an excuse not to rejoin the band, so with three original members and Janice he agrees to perform at Fun City.

But there’s one more problem, or at least one that isn’t lending itself to an easy solution.  Someone from their childhood has heard about their plan to rob the safe, and he’s cut himself in for a huge chunk of the money they plan to steal.  Derek was always someone to watch out for, even as a teenager, and it’s obvious  that he’s only gotten more dangerous with the years.

Michael Kardos’ novel is a delight, a mixture of tension and comedy that will keep you reading straight through to the end.  His characters, particularly Mo  and his daughter Janice, will have you rooting for them against the odds of Johnny’s weird plan and Derek’s frightening intrusion into it.

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

As False Witness opens, attorney Karen Wyatt is being released from the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility, Oregon’s prison for women.  She had been imprisoned for a year on false charges after exposing corruption in the Portland Police Department and the District Attorney’s office; she also was disbarred after that conviction.  Now she has been cleared of all charges and reinstated to the bar, as well as receiving a multi-million-dollar settlement.

When the story picks up three years later, we meet Congressman Thomas Horan.  He has completed a successful interrogation of a witness claiming that UFOs are flying over the United States.  She can offer no photographic proof of her assertions; it’s obvious that Horan doesn’t believe a word she’s saying.  He flies home to Oregon from Washington later that day, looking forward to relaxing and spending time with his wife, but immediately after dinner he receives a phone call and bolts out of their house without a word of explanation.

Three days later Horan is found on a trail in Silver Falls State Park.  When he’s brought to a Portland hospital, he’s questioned by the police and narrates a remarkable story.  He reluctantly tells the two detectives that “it was aliens” who kidnapped him, but he can’t remember who had called him or how he got to the state park and doesn’t want anyone investigating.  The police are stymied and decide not to take any action.  As one detective put it, “He disappeared.  Then he reappeared.  I’d say our job is done.”

The second section of the novel starts with a man named Jack Blackburn driving a 2019 Jaguar XJR 575, a car with a sticker price of just over $300,000.  When he’s stopped by the police he says that his friend Billy, the chauffeur for the ultra-wealthy Terrance Cogan, told him he could drive the car for a while and then return it to Cogan.  Blackburn says he doesn’t know where the owner lives although, as the officer who stopped him notes, the address is on the car’s registration papers in the glove compartment.

The officers put Jack in the back of their patrol car, but he’s not worried.  He’s sure that as soon as they contact Billy or Cogan. they’ll vouch for him.  But when the police go to the Cogan estate,  they find its owner lying in a pool of blood in the home’s massive living room.  When they return to their car, the next thing Jack hears is, “Mr. Blackburn, I am placing you under arrest for the murder of Terrance Cogan.”  And Karen becomes his lawyer through a program run by the Oregon Public Defense Commission, which provides legal services for those charged with criminal offenses but who are unable to pay for an attorney.

Phillip Margolin has written an outstanding novel that combines excellently written characters, a compelling plot, and a deep look into services provided for the poor in Oregon.  And I never saw the twist at the end coming!

You can read more about the author at this website.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Private detective Charles Lenox is waiting for the Marie Grace to dock at the Portsmouth harbor, eager to meet his beloved cousin’s daughter.  Jasper Lenox had left England as a young man, returning only for his father’s funeral; although he and Charles had exchanged letters over the years, they never saw each other again.

A few weeks earlier, however, Charles had received a letter, not from Jasper but from Jasper’s attorney in India, informing Charles of his cousin’s death from cholera and the upcoming arrival in England of his only child, Angela.  When the Marie Grace arrives, Charles discovers that the teenager is traveling with her close friend and companion Sari.  Charles and his wife Lady Jane are delighted with their guests, and so are their two young daughters.

As the girls are welcomed by the Lenoxes, Charles receives a letter from Elizabeth Huggins, the housekeeper of Charles’ childhood home.  Although she isn’t clear in the letter about her problem, it is certain that she’s upset about something and would like his advice.

When Charles and his friend Graham go to Mrs. Huggins’ flat the next morning, the first thing Charles notices are black smudges on the entry hall of the property.  After Ernest, Mrs. Huggins’ nephew and owner of the building where she resides, arrives she tells the three men the story of the murder that took place there several years earlier, with no one having been arrested for the crime.  Now nearby neighbors tell the detective they have seen a strange man entering the building on a few evenings, although he is never seen in the morning.

The only unusual thing about the structure is the glass enclosure on its roof.  It’s hard for Charles to understand why it was put there, since it seems to have no relation to the rest of the property.  Then, descending the stairs, the detective notices scratches around the keyhole of the front door.  Although she’s putting a brave face on it, it’s clear that the situation is upsetting to Mrs. Huggins, and Charles resolves to investigate and put the housekeeper’s mind at ease.

There’s one more thing for Charles to think about in addition to the two young women joining his household and the stranger who has been entering Mrs. Huggins’ building.  A little more than a decade earlier, in 1866, women in England began their campaign for the vote, and now Lady Jane has joined the movement.  In fact, she has been seen holding a sign advocating votes for women, and for Charles, although he is in favor of extending the vote, the idea of his wife holding up such a sign in public is definitely troubling.  He is aware, even if his wife may not be, that this will prove costly to her social standing and may cost her the affection of several friends.

Every visit with Charles Lenox is a delight, both for the clever plot of each novel and for the glimpse it offers into life in the late Victorian era.  Charles and his family are people you would like to know, and in The Hidden City the author again brings his characters and the city of London to life.

You can read more about Charles Finch at various sites on the internet.

Check out the complete Marilyn’s Mystery Reads at her website.  In addition to book review posts, there are sections featuring Golden Oldies, Past Masters and Mistresses, and an About Marilyn column that features her opinions about everything to do with mystery novels.

Two couples, the Brauns and the Liégeans, live near each other outside Geneva, Switzerland.  When Wild Animal opens, the four are casual friends, with  children of the same age; by the end of the novel, their lives are intertwined in ways not one of them could have imagined.

Sophie and Arpad Braun are living a luxurious life, fueled by their salaries as a successful attorney and an international banker plus generous gifts from Sophie’s father.  They live in what they call the Glass House with their two children, secluded in the woods, where they feel totally secure and free to indulge in any behaviors they desire without nearby neighbors peering in.  But unknown to them, someone is watching.

Greg and Katrine Liégeans live in a decidedly more modest home.  Greg is a police officer, a member of the city’s SWAT team, and Katrine is a clerk in a clothing store.  They also have two children, which is how the two mothers met.  The Liégeans’ lives are going smoothly until the night of Arpad’s 40th birthday party, when Greg sees Sophie up close for the first time and becomes obsessed with her.

It starts with Greg taking their dog for a walk through the woods to the Brauns’ house every morning, then finding a spot where he can look into their bedroom window, and it escalates to the point where he puts a stolen surveillance camera into the room to see Sophie in greater detail.  He simply can’t stop himself.

And who is the man driving the gray Peugeot who is following Sophie?  And why?

Wild Animal is written in a non-linear style, with a robbery at the center of the novel.  The reader doesn’t know what will be robbed or by whom, and the writing is so clever that, at least for me, the thieves’ identities came as a complete surprise.

In addition, the novel is told in various voices, so we learn about the events from different perspectives.  Readers can never be certain what they’re reading is accurate or simply what that character wants them to believe, which adds to the suspense of this outstanding novel.

Joël Dicker is a Swiss author whose novels have been translated into over forty languages.  You can read more about him on various sites on the internet.

Former police officer Evander “Andy” Mills is hired by the Mattachine Society in 1950s San Francisco, a group of gays working to “pursue equality for the homophile movement” according to Myrtle Bolton, a member of the Society.  She wants Andy to find three of the group’s members who’ve gone missing.

Myrtle explains that there was a conference between the San Francisco and the Los Angeles members, the two having very different ideas about what the Mattachines should focus on.  Since that meeting ended, three participants in the San Francisco group haven’t been seen.  She explains that because of official persecution and the fear of prosecution, she has no way of contacting the three; she doesn’t even know if Edward, Hank, and Daphne are their real names.

Since she has no addresses or phone numbers for them, Andy insists on attending the Mattachine’s next meeting in hopes that one of the group knows more about the three missing members than Myrtle does.  The members use code words, secret names, and masks to hide their identities.  Andy understands their fears, but their secrecy will definitely make his job more difficult.

After meeting with the San Francisco group and getting nowhere, Andy reluctantly decides he has to go to Los Angeles to continue his investigation.  He’s hesitant to visit the City of Angels for two reasons.

First, he’s happy in his San Francisco home, where he lives and has his office over the Ruby, a gay club where his boyfriend works; Andy has found a definite sense of community and friendship there.  He has no desire to leave it, even for a day or two.

Second, Los Angeles is where he grew up and where his mother lives.  She and Andy are not quite estranged, but they haven’t seen each other in a couple of years.  It’s a six hour car ride from his home, certainly doable, but Andy has been happy to keep their interactions restricted to a few phone calls a year.  His mother doesn’t know about his sexual orientation, and he’d like to keep it that way.  But he heads for Los Angeles in spite of his misgivings.

Mrs. Mills is delighted to see her son.  She is a nurse at a psychiatric facility and wants Andy to see the clinic, proud of the work they’re doing.  But when Andy visits it he’s disturbed and shocked by what he finds, and he determines to deal with it while he continues his search for Hank, Edward, and Daphne.

Mirage City is the fourth book in the Andy Mills series.  It’s a fascinating and disturbing look into 1950s culture, in which homophobia is rampant even in supposedly “enlightened” communities.  Sadly, these feeling are still present today, which makes this series an important read.  Andy is a realistic and engaging protagonist, forced out of his former career as a San Francisco detective when he’s discovered in a gay bar, and thus readers will understand his desire to stay within the Ruby community where he feels safe and respected.

You can read more about Lev AC Rosen at this website.