Marilyn's Mystery Reads

Book Reviews

Mirror Me is a mystery unlike any other I’ve read.  It’s a story of familial dysfunction, interracial adoptions, and mental illness, ending with a twist that I never saw coming.

Eddie Asher is the adopted son of the Asher family, a well-to-do Jewish family in Manhattan.  There are four Ashers–Eddie, his mother, his father, and his older brother Robert, the Ashers’ biological child, who alternately protects and torments Eddie.

When we meet Eddie, he’s a patient at the Hudson Valley Psychiatric Hospital.  His therapist is the renowned Dr. Richard Montgomery, a specialist in the condition variously known as split personality disorder, splintered personality disorder, or multiple/dissociative identity disorder.  In Eddie’s case, his “other” identity is Pär, who, along with Eddie, takes turns narrating the novel.

Whatever the condition is called, the patient has two or more distinct identities in control at various times.  The patient may have memory lapses caused by the switching of one personality to another, with one trying to gain control.  There are several causes of DID, and the reader won’t discover which one is the main cause of Eddie’s condition until nearly the end of Mirror Me.  Then perhaps you’ll wonder, as I did, why you didn’t think of it sooner.

Growing up, Eddie was the easily recognizable son, the one with brown skin.  His biological mother was a teenaged Swedish exchange student visiting New York City, his father a Black exchange student from an unknown African country.  When Britta discovers that she’s pregnant and contacts the father, she finds out he wants nothing to do with her or the expected baby.  She delivers Eddie, immediately signs the papers for him to be adopted, and leaves the hospital at once, not looking back.

The two brothers go their separate ways to college, and then Robert moves to Seattle and reconnects with Lucy, a young dancer he knows from New York City.  When Eddie visits, there’s an immediate connection with Lucy, due in part to the fact that they’re both biracial and were adopted by white Jewish families.  But, at least on Eddie’s part initially, the connection is stronger than that–is it lust or love that he feels?  And does Lucy feel the same, or is she simply a master manipulator who enjoys her power over him?

As Eddie becomes, in the words of Lucy, enmeshed with her and her family, her hold on him becomes stronger.  Eddie discovers that his is not the only dysfunctional family–Lucy’s family is as well.  And who is this Andy, whom Eddie hasn’t met but is constantly being mistaken for?

Eddie has memory lapses and occasional violent outbursts.   Pär doesn’t, but he isn’t omniscient, so can the reader trust his version of Eddie’s story?  The scenes in the hospital, with Eddie strapped down to protect himself and those around him from his violent actions, are hard to read, and we have to wonder how helpful Dr. Montgomery’s therapy is.

The novel is a disturbing look into mental illness, its causes, and its impact not only on the patient but on nearly everyone around him.  Lisa Williamson Rosenberg has written a strong mystery with conflicted and confused characters you are rooting for to conquer their demons and go on with their lives.

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.

Drug user, extreme party-goer, stalker–there’s so much not to like about Dylan Welch.  When his multi-millionaire father asks private investigator Sunny Randall to find his missing son, she refuses, but when Dylan’s mother turns up at Sunny’s office, it becomes a different story.

Lydia Welch insists that Sunny must take the case, saying that “You’re the best out there.”  Sunny tries to remind her that her previous encounter with Dylan did not end well for him, but Lydia is insistent.  And when she writes a check for an amount greater than Sunny has ever received previously and tells the detective that she and her son share a special relationship, she convinces Sunny to investigate the disappearance.

Dylan is the head of the company that produces Gonzo, a best-selling energy drink.  At least he’s nominally the head of it, but in fact the brains behind the organization belong to his college friend, Sky Farley.  Sky, whom the Welches consider to be a “daughter,” tells Sunny that when Dylan has disappeared in the past, she’s always known where he was, but not this time.

Sunny searches Dylan’s office and discovers his cell phone in a desk drawer.  After a few futile tries, Sunny guesses his password.  The phone reveals more than two dozen messages from a blocked number, and every text says MURDERER.  Then Sky and Maurice Depree, head of the organization’s security, show Sunny a video that was taken earlier that day.  It’s of a woman who was in the company’s offices, and even though there’s no sound, it’s obvious that the woman is screaming and out of control.

Although Dylan’s behavior didn’t make him a lot of friends, the only person Sky and Maurice can think of who might have been responsible for the texts is Rhonda Lewis, the woman in the video.  Rhonda’s seventeen-year-old daughter died after drinking three cans of Gonzo mixed with alcohol.  Rhonda sued Dylan’s company and lost the suit, but she’s appealing that decision.  Obviously not content with waiting for legal recourse, she came to Dylan’s office to confront him.  Now Sunny is going to confront her.

Sunny is also dealing with a major issue in her private life.  Her former husband has moved to New Jersey and wants Sunny to move there also, at least for part of the year.  Her love for her ex has resurfaced, and she’s torn.  Does she really want to uproot herself from Boston, the only city she’s ever lived in?  In addition, Richie tells her he’s worried about her and would like it if she took on less demanding, less dangerous cases.  Can she do that?  Does she even want to?

After Robert B. Parker’s death, Ms. Gaylin was asked by his estate to continue the Sunny Randall series.  The author does an excellent job of bringing Parker’s protagonist to life.  Sunny is smart, determined, and a force to be reckoned with when she’s facing an opponent.  Readers will welcome her back.

Alison Gaylin is the author of numerous thrillers and the winner of an Edgar and a Shamus award.   You can read more about her 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.

Roman Grady’s family has been touched by tragedy and trouble more times than seems possible.  His maternal grandparents were killed in a car accident, his father committed suicide, his mother is a recovering alcoholic, and he and his girlfriend, parents of four-year-old Mason, are drifting further apart each day.

Roman had been a graduate student in journalism at New York University with a bright future ahead of him.  An essay he wrote won a major prize, and he was on his way to California to accept a prestigious fellowship at the Los Angeles Times.

But then things changed in a major way.  His girlfriend Ashley got pregnant, and Roman decided to defer the fellowship for one year, and then one year became four, and they’re still living in Upstate New York with Tara, Roman’s mother.

Tara had not been a good, caring mother for Roman during his early years, and now she’s determined to make up for it with her grandson.  She has become his primary caregiver, although that has made for some friction in the relationship with her son’s girlfriend.  Tara believes that Roman and Ashley are both suffering from depression and aren’t the best parents.  Both are working part-time jobs, and their combined incomes are barely holding things together.

Ashley and Roman had agreed when they started dating that theirs would be an open relationship, and that included Ashley’s lesbian relationship with Bella, a high school friend.  Then the two women had a falling out and hadn’t spoken in years, so Roman is stunned to discover that Ashley had been to a party at Bella’s home the previous evening and that it wasn’t the first time they’d been together.

Roman, however, is in no position to point a finger at his girlfriend as he spent the night with an old flame in Manhattan, never calling home to tell his mother or his girlfriend where he was.  Thus when he’s on the way home the following morning and gets a call from Ashley’s boss at the local coffee shop to say Ashley hasn’t turned up for work and isn’t answering her phone, Roman isn’t unduly upset.

However, she’s not at the home they share with Tara and John, Tara’s fiancé, and she’s not at the gym where she teaches yoga.  When Roman calls his mother, he discovers that Tara hadn’t seen Ashley since the night before.  Roman drives to Bella’s house on the chance Ashley is there.

After he and Bella’s cousin look through the house to no avail, they go outside to the sloping lawn that ends at the Hudson River.  Down at the bottom is Ashley, dead.

I Dreamed of Falling has many what ifs and if onlys, the thoughts we all have about how our lives would have been different if we hadn’t done some of the things we did.  As Roman mourns, he discovers that Ashley had kept not only her renewed relationship with Bella a secret but her plan for a major life change as well.

Julia Dahl has written a truly suspenseful book, one in which the characters continue to make decisions that are not well thought out and that continue to affect every part of their lives.  Roman, Ashley, and Tara are definitely flawed, almost constantly doing the wrong things, but they are human and trying their best.

You can read more about Julia Dahl 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.

Police Detective “Harri” Foster is working the dark streets of Chicago, still trying to prove that her late partner, Glynnis Thompson, did not die by suicide as everyone believes.  When Glynnis’ husband comes to Harri with a photo purporting to show his late wife accepting a payoff from an unknown man, Harri becomes more convinced than ever that Glynnis’ death was in fact murder.  She’s continuing to try to prove it despite the efforts of the Chicago Police Department, which would like the whole embarrassing incident swept under the rug.

Now there’s a new murder that must take priority for the detective.  Brice Collier, the only son and heir to the Collier fortune, is found outside Hardwicke House, the Gilded Age mansion on the Belverton College campus where he and a number of his college friends live. 

Several of the buildings on the campus bear the family name–the Collier School of Science and Technology, the Collier Library, and the Collier Business School.  Thus there’s immediately a great deal of pressure from Brice’s father Sebastian, the Chicago Police Department, and the media to solve this case ASAP.

When Harri and the other police officers arrive at the scene of Brice’s death, they see the young man’s body lying in a field of snow and ice.  It’s February and the temperature is below freezing, but Brice is shirtless, showing a tattoo on his upper right arm of a mythical creature holding a double-edged axe.  The corpse reeks of alcohol and vomit.  Could he have staggered out of Hartwicke House on his own, too drunk to know what he was doing?  Or was he taken to the field and left there to die?

Brice is found by two women who were at the party at the House.  Shelby Ritter makes the call to 911, and her friend Hailie Kenton is with her.  Both are students at Belverton and say they knew Brice slightly and thus had invitations to the party, but they say they left before it was over.

Before she begins questioning them, Harri suggests going inside the House, where it will be warmer and more comfortable than sitting in the police car answering questions.  The girls refuse, and the detective wonders why.  And why were they out walking the snow-covered field before six in the morning in the freezing cold weather?  Their stories don’t make sense, but Harri lets them go home with a warning that she may need to speak to them again.

To make matters even more tense, Harri is getting anonymous phone calls.  The caller says he was wronged and that Harri has a “debt to pay.”  She tells him she doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and she doesn’t, but he continues talking.  “It’s about you.  You’re the get.  Where the road ends.”

Tracy Clark takes the reader on a thrilling ride with a believable plot and wonderfully drawn characters.  Harri Foster is a dedicated police officer, always willing to go the extra mile to solve a case, but she has a number of demons that she lives with every day.  Ms. Clark has written another outstanding novel in this series.

You can read more about the author at this website.

A new term for me is “baby gangs,” referring to groups of young teenagers who are running wild on the streets of Venice.  They arrange violent clashes with each other, getting the word out via social media, trying to prove which group is the toughest and strongest while at the same time vandalizing and destroying property.

When two groups decide to meet at the Piazzetta del Leoncini, they have the bad luck to congregate just when the police squads are changing shifts.  That means that for a few minutes there is double the number of police at the site than would ordinarily be there, so it was relatively easy for the officers to round up the baby gang members and bring them to the police station.

After several hours almost all the boys are picked up by their parents, none of whom is happy to be pulled from their homes in the middle of the night.  Orlando, one of the younger boys, tells Commissario Claudia Griffoni that he lives only with his father and that his father’s cell phone is turned off every night at eleven.  Reluctant to leave him overnight at the station, Griffoni decides to accompany him to his home, a decision that will have far-reaching consequences.

At the same time, Commissario Guido Brunetti learns about a pattern of violence and intimidation against his colleague and friend Bocchese, chief technician of the police station’s lab.  Brunetti is shocked when he enters Bocchese’s office; the latter is pale and drawn and obviously on edge about something.  He finally admits to Guido that he’s being harassed by the teenaged son of the family who lives in his building.  He says that this boy trips him on the stairs, hits his parents, and has made threatening remarks about Bocchese’s pride and joy, his collection of antique statues.

Bocchese has collected numerous statues over the years, some quite valuable, and he believes that the teenager has been going into his apartment and moving his statues around, apparently not worrying about Bocchese’s reaction.

The technician tells Brunetti that he’s decided to sell most of his collection, possibly because of his fear of his young neighbor, and would like the commissario’s opinion about which ones to keep.  When Brunetti goes to his apartment that night to look at the statues, he sees his friend with a bloody nose and blood on his jacket.  “The bastard tripped me,” Bocchese says, but he says there’s really nothing to be done about it.

A somber thread runs through A Refiner’s Fire with the author’s comments about the state of life in Venice.  Corruption is rife, there is venality everywhere, and the criminal court system is a joke.  It is no wonder that gang members are getting younger, as apparently under Italian law and actual practice there is nothing that can be done to anyone under 18. It’s a dispiriting scenario, one that has gotten more troubling with each of Ms. Leon’s novels.

Not surprisingly, per the author’s request, the novels in this series are not translated into Italian, although they are available in many other languages.

A Refiner’s Fire is a worthy addition to the Guido Brunetti series, bringing readers once again into the warmth and closeness of the protagonist’s family and contrasting that with the violence surrounding them.

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.

Newly trained in spycraft and now part of Great Britain’s Special Investigations Unit, Evelyne Redfern is sent on her first assignment.  She’s disappointed in the seemingly prosaic nature of it, to perform a security test at Blackthorne Park and discover how several of the specialized materials used there have gone missing, but of course she’s determined to succeed at this task.

She’s not the only agent in the Unit who is disappointed.  David Poole would rather be working in the field, but he’s told he will have to remain in London and act as Evelyne’s handler, or supervisor, for her first job.

Putting additional pressure on the pair is the fact that Prime Minister Winston Churchill is scheduled to arrive at Blackthorne Park later in the week to see a series of demonstrations of the weapons produced there.  Time, therefore, is of the essence in discovering who is responsible for the missing materials.

At ten o’clock on the evening of her arrival in the town of Benstead, Evelyne surreptitiously enters the grounds of the Park.  She has just picked the lock on the front door and entered the house when she hears a gunshot.  She rushes to the room where she believes the sound came from, the room according to the blueprint she was given before she left London is Sir Nigel’s office.  There she discovers the body of the scientist, in a pool of blood.

Given that Sir Nigel’s corpse was found at his desk with his gun in his right hand, suicide seems obvious.  Evelyne, however, feels that something is not right about the scene, and when the coroner arrives he confirms her suspicion.

Although the cause of the death was the gunshot wound, the doctor points out a faint red pinprick on Sir Nigel’s neck to Evelyne and David.  Dr. Morrison believes that someone stood behind him, used a hypodermic needle with a sedative on him, and then put the gun in the scientist’s hand and pulled the trigger.

Evelyne and David learn Sir Nigel was not an easy man to work for, and there is a great deal of tension among the several members of the Park.  His behavior had become increasingly difficult over the past few months, whether due to the missing materials or something else the investigators must discover.  The stress levels are high at the mansion, and the upcoming visit of the prime minister is doing nothing to help.

One of the many delightful things about this novel is its excellent sense of time and place.  The time is November 1940, the very beginning of World War II, and the place is one of the many stately homes/mansions in various English counties that were requisitioned by the government to aid the war effort.  The reader is immediately drawn into the world of food and clothing rationing, disrupted careers, and the various emotions of a group of people living and working together not by choice.

Julia Kelly has written an outstanding mystery again.  The characters are beautifully drawn, and the plot is suspenseful and believable.  Betrayal at Blackthorne Park ends with the promise of a third adventure for Evelyne and David, a promise this reader hopes the author will keep.

You can read more about Julia Kelly 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.

The streets of Los Angeles are grittier and meaner than ever before, and even the fabulously wealthy aren’t immune.

Police Detective Margaret Nolan and her partner Al Crawford are called to investigate the case of a man’s body found in a BMW Series 8 in an unsavory part of town.  The driver’s window is down, leading the police to believe that he knew his killer and had lowered the window to talk to them.

No identification is found on the corpse, but he’s identified by the car’s license plate.  He was Bruce Messane, co-founder  of  Peppy Pets, an organic pet food company that boasts that their products are good enough for humans to eat.                        

Messane and the Peppy Pets chief financial officer, Cynthia Jackson, had scheduled a meeting with the president of Wilder Foods for today.  Their company is on the verge of being acquired by the Wilder group, an international conglomerate, but its president informs Jackson that Messane needs to be there in person to sign the papers.  No Messane, no deal.

So after Bruce’s non-appearance at the meeting and because he doesn’t answer his phone, Jackson rushes out of her office to track him down.  She doesn’t know about his murder yet, but she soon will.

The morning following Messane’s death, the wife of the company’s co-founder, veterinarian Rome Bechtold, is abducted.  Now there are two crimes connected to the company, although it’s hard for Detective Nolan to see how they’re related.

Peppy Pets, after a brief period of financial problems, is doing very well, according to Jackson, and that turnaround was due to Messane.  In addition, with the impending takeover by Wilder, Messane, Jackson, and another employee at Peppy Pets were expecting a substantial financial windfall.  So, Nolan wonders, what is the motive for the company president’s death?

Then, despite the kidnappers’ warning not to involve the police, Bechtold reluctantly notifies them, and soon his house is swarming with LAPD officers.  Desperate for a few minutes to himself, Bechtold gets permission from one of the policewomen to take his dog for a walk around the block, but before he realizes what’s happening, the veterinarian is hustled into a passing car and injected with a drug that will put him out of commission while they take him away from his home and the authorities.

Unknown to the president of Wilder Foods, its outside counsel is also having problems.  Monserrat De Leon is becoming disenchanted with her advisory role to the company and is particularly unhappy with its president.  Her job at a prestigious law firm is no longer to her liking, and Wilder’s offer to become general counsel for his firm is less than appealing.  She definitely doesn’t need the money, as her father is a multimillionaire, but she does enjoy the work and the prestige of being the legal counsel for important corporations.   Then she receives two strange messages, one from her  erratic sister and one from her imperious father, and Monserrat needs to decide where her loyalties lay.

P. J. Tracy has written another exciting entry in the Margaret Nolan series, one that looks not only into the crimes committed but into the minds and actions of the people involved.  Margaret Nolan is a very appealing and realistic character, and Ms. Tracy helps bring Los Angeles and its many disparate parts to life.

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 great title.  What a great mystery.  I imagine that many of us, myself included, have gone on mystery or ghost tours.  A quick Google search brought up mystery tours in England, Ireland, France, and of course in various locations in the United States, including two near me–in Boston and Salem, Massachusetts.

Now Michelle Chouinard has set a mystery in a small company that hosts such tours in San Francisco.  Since the city has been host to a number of killers over the years, the company’s owner, Capri Sanzio, has plenty of material to choose from.  Now, however, murder strikes closer to home.

Capri’s grandfather, William Sanzio, was convicted of murdering three women.  Because of the manner of their deaths–first being hit over the head with a blunt object, then knifed to death, finally having their throats slit open–William Sanzio was given the nickname Overkill Bill.  Capri’s father has always refused to discuss his father, and nothing Capri has ever said has changed his mind.

Now two horrific events have brought the decades-old case into the news again.  First, a wealthy San Francisco matron, Katherine Harper, is found dead outside the Legion of Honor, the site of two murders in the twentieth century, and the method of this murder is identical to those committed by Overkill Bill.  And the following day Capri receives a phone call from her former father-in-law Philip; his wife Sylvia, mother of Capri’s ex-husband, is missing.

Capri and Philip search The Chateau, as Sylvia and Philip’s mansion is called, but they cannot find anything to explain Sylvia’s disappearance.  She had returned home from a trip the evening before, irritated about something that she refused to share with her husband, and her car, house keys, and cell phone are in the house.

The police are called, and homicide Inspector Dan Petito shows Philip and Capri a photo of a woman whose body was found earlier in the day outside the Presidio, formerly a military base and now a national park.  It’s Sylvia, killed in the same manner as Katherine Harper and the three victims of Overkill Bill.

It’s obvious that there is a copycat killer on the loose since the crimes attributed to Capri’s grandfather were committed decades earlier and he died in prison.  After all this time, who would have chosen to murder in this way. and why these two women?

Capri is determined to help the police with their investigation, although they definitely do not want her assistance.  In fact, Capri and her daughter Morgan are suspects in the latest murders, as both had argued with Sylvia the night before her death over her decision to stop paying Morgan’s graduate school tuition.  That gives Capri a strong reason to look into the recent deaths, hopefully solve the murders, and at the same time find evidence that would exonerate her late grandfather as a murderer.

The Serial Killer Guide to San Francisco is a clever, original mystery with an appealing heroine who is determined to get to the bottom of the two current cases.  Michelle Chouinard has written a novel well worth reading.

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.

The British comedian Eric Idle says it best:  “A lot has been said about politics; some of it complimentary, but most of it accurate.”

That statement could have been describing the politicians and their staffs in Matthew Fitzsimmons’ standalone mystery, The Slate.  In it, corrupt deals are formulated, promises are made and broken, and people and their reputations are tossed aside with uncaring regularity.

Agatha Cardiff was once Representative Paul Paxton’s go-to person.  There was no job too big or too small for her to deal with, and sadly there was no job too dirty for her to take on.

When Agatha’s phone rings at midnight and it’s her boss on the line, she knows there’s a job to be done and it won’t be pleasant.  Paxton wants her to go to the Grey Horse Inn in a neighboring town where there’s been an “incident” involving another congressman, Harrison Clark.

Clark and a member of Paxton’s staff, Charlotte Haines, had been together in a room at the Inn, and now Charlotte lay dead in the bathroom with four vials of white power on the toilet seat.  It isn’t necessary for Paxton to explain to Agatha what happened in Clark’s room:  “Clean up his mess” is enough.

Twenty years have passed since that night, and they have not been kind to Agatha.  She’s no longer Paxton’s right-hand person, trusted with doing whatever he wants.  Two of the three people involved in what happened that evening have prospered, but she hasn’t.

Harrison Clark is now President of the United States, Paul Paxton has become even closer to him, but Agatha’s trajectory has been in the opposite direction.  She’s still in Washington, cobbling together jobs, barely making ends meet, and trying to avoid people who knew her in the day when she too was a power to be reckoned with.

Now two events, seemingly unconnected, will bring her back to the halls of power.  Her tenant, Shelby Franklin, is late with her rent check again, and Cardiff has lost patience.  Shelby promises that this is the last time, that it won’t happen again, that she will pay Agatha in two days, but Agatha doesn’t believe her.  Sure enough, when Monday comes, the check isn’t there and, more worryingly, neither is Shelby.

Felix Gallardo is a rising star on the president’s staff.  He’s usually the first, okay, maybe the second person to know what’s going on with President Clark, but now he’s totally stupefied.  One of the Supreme Count judges is retiring due to ill health, and the president has short-listed three men to take his place.

Felix is called to Paxton’s office by his chief of staff Tina Liu and told that the congressman wants to be considered for the justice’s seat.  Felix is stunned, saying that Paxton’s not qualified for the position, but Liu ignores that.  She hands Felix an envelope, saying it’s for the president’s eyes only, and Felix leaves her office, totally off-kilter.

Matthew Fitzsimmons has skillfully woven together the stories of Agatha, Shelby, and Felix into a compelling and taut mystery.  These three characters, as well as all the others in the novel, are completely believable, and the plot is all too familiar with anyone reading the newspapers or watching television.  The Slate is a masterful novel.

You can read more about Matthew Fitzsimmons at this site.

Imagine a mystery whose protagonist gets her greatest enjoyment from diagramming sentences.  You can’t, can you?  I would have agreed with you until I read Wordhunter by Stella Sands.  It’s a brilliant, original, captivating plot, with a brilliant, original, captivating protagonist; my apologies for repeating myself, something Maggie Moore would never have done.

Maggie is a grad student studying forensics at a small university in the town of Rosedale, Florida.  She’s enrolled in The Language of Film seminar with Professor Ditmire, among her other courses.  He tells her he’s received a phone call from a police detective in a nearby town where a woman has been receiving threatening notes from a cyberstalker, and the detective is hoping someone getting a degree in forensics will see a clue in the notes that will help catch the writer.

This is how Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber, was captured after terrorizing the nation for 20 years, killing three people and wounding 23 others.  FBI experts, analyzing the notes, theorized that the killer had Chicago roots based on the language of his writing, and that eventually led to his arrest.

Maggie meets Detective Silas Jackson, who gives her the emails the cyberstalker sent to the woman who was murdered shortly after Maggie was hired.  He also gives her four other emails sent by different suspects.  After examining them for linguistic tells, Maggie picks one because of the writer’s style and word usage, saying his writing shows he was from Louisiana.

She advises Jackson to check him out.  Although the detective is obviously having a hard time believing this is a valid way to find the criminal, he does what she suggests and, in fact, the writer of that email proves to be the woman’s killer.

Then a call comes from Jackson’s boss, Chief Murray.  The daughter of the mayor of a nearby town has been kidnapped, but this time Maggie says “I’m sorry.  But I can’t help you,” and flees the police station.

Subsequently Maggie changes her mind, deciding to help Murray after very reluctantly sharing her backstory with Jackson.  She confides that she’s been traumatized since her best friend Lucy disappeared nearly a decade earlier.  Maggie has tried everything possible to find her but without success.  Now the search for fourteen-year-old Heidi Hemphill is on, bringing with it a decade of memories.

In addition, Maggie’s relationship with Ditmire is getting shaky.  She wants to get her master’s degree and go to work, but he’s insisting that she go for her doctorate.  He begins badmouthing her favorite professor and doesn’t take it well when Maggie proves to know more about a particular topic than he does.  His temper appears to be  getting worse, but Maggie keeps this to herself.  All she wants to do is graduate and get out of Rosedale.

Maggie Moore is an atypical heroine–tattooed, pierced, cigarette and pot smoking, alone in the world.  But her stubbornness or determination, call it what you will, is strong enough to keep her focused on the search for the missing teenager, all the while still searching for her childhood friend and now trying to keep her distance from Ditmire.

Stella Sands has written a compelling mystery about a feisty and gifted young woman, one who has come a long way on her own and wants nothing more than to continue on that road.  Ms. Sands is the author of six true-crime books; Wordhunter is her first 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.

When Frances, Emily, and Rose decide to visit Madame Peony Lane’s fortune teller’s tent, it seems like a lark.  The woman is so cheesy, so stereotypical with her tasteless silk turban and phony raspy voice, that no one could take her predictions seriously.  No one, that is, except Frances Adams.

Frances is overwhelmed by the fortune she’s told, namely, that “all signs point to your murder.”  It’s certainly not a pleasant forecast, and the impact it has on the teenager is hard to overstate.  She spends her entire life looking for and finding scary meanings in the most ordinary things, and when she dies, years later, the prediction appears to have come true.

Half a century after that fateful day, her great-niece Annie Adams receives a letter from Walter Gordon, a solicitor in the small town where Frances spent her entire life.  He informs her that she will be the sole beneficiary of Frances’ estate and assets after the latter’s death and that she needs to meet with her elderly great-aunt as soon as possible.  Annie is stunned by the news of her eventual inheritance, especially since she has never met Frances, and she travels to the Dorset village to discuss the will and its implications.

Once there, she’s introduced to Gordon and the other interested parties–Elva, Frances’ niece by marriage; Saxon, Elva’s son; and Oliver, the solicitor’s son.  Although the original missive from Gordon said he and Annie would be meeting Frances at his office, he now says Frances has changed her mind and wants the group, minus Saxon, who will join them later, to meet at Gravesend Hall, the Adamses’ ancestral home.  When the four of them arrive, they find Great-Aunt Frances’ corpse on the library floor.

Using the familiar trope of an unexpected inheritance, a small town, and a group of people related to or close to the deceased, Kristen Ferrin has created a wonderfully original mystery.  As Frances’ entire life has revolved around the fortune teller’s cryptic words, there is a great deal for the police to discover and for Annie to try to understand.  What was meant by the psychic’s pronouncements that “Your future contains dry bones…Beware the bird…for it will betray you…there’s no coming back…daughters are the key to justice”?

As Annie extends her stay in the village and becomes more familiar with its inhabitants, she becomes aware that people are hiding a great many secrets, some of which go back in time to the day at the fair when Frances heard the prediction that will rule her life.

Kristen Ferrin has written an engaging, unique mystery with a cast of characters reminiscent of those featured in novels of the Golden Age but with a modern twist and a resourceful heroine.  It’s a book that is a delight from start to finish.

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

One might be forgiven for thinking that being an antiques dealer is not a dangerous profession.  After all, the objects that the dealer handles are generally 100 years old or even older, and thus the original purchasers are long gone, along with their feelings of possession and ownership.  But all too often an aura surrounds the item that can last to the present day, bringing forth feelings of envy, desire, and covetousness among those who want it.

American Kate Hamilton and her British husband Tom Mallory are on their honeymoon in Devon.  Tom is a detective inspector in the Suffolk Constabulary, and their choice of a honeymoon location is serving a double purpose.  In addition to exploring the beautiful landscape of mountains, moors, and rivers with his bride, he is also mulling over a change in careers, leaving the police force and joining a firm of private investigators.  Kate is an antiques dealer, and now the interests of both coincide, as Tom has been hired to document the provenance of a nineteenth-century dress that may have a connection to a case that’s never been solved.

The dress will be on display shortly at the Museum of Devon Life as part of a fund-raising drive.  When Kate and Tom arrive at the museum, they are met by its director, Hugo Hawksworthy, who is more than happy to show them around.  Hawksworthy introduces the couple to Julia Kelly, the museum’s conservator, who is working on the dress that was worn by Nancy Thorne, a local woman whose sister was a well-regarded seamstress.  It’s obvious that the dress is beautifully made, but its front is marred by a huge bloodstain, which is part of the Thorne mystery.  Nancy and her sister lived together until the night Nancy went out and returned wearing this dress, claiming total amnesia of what had happened to her while she was away from their home.

Kate and Tom are invited to the museum’s gala, along with a crowd of Devon’s citizens, and they meet two of its most important ones.  First is Gideon Littlejohn, the man who donated the dress to the museum, an eccentric who dresses and lives as if he were in Victorian times.  The second is Teddy Pearce, a local member of Parliament and a former juvenile delinquent.  As all are listening to Hawksworthy impressing the audience with the importance of the museum’s place in the community, a shot is heard.  No one is injured, but Pearce says he was the target.  Was he?

The morning after the event, Kate and Tom go as planned to the Old Merchant’s House, home to Littlejohn, to learn more about the dress and other antiques he’s purchased.  As they knock, they hear a bloodcurdling scream, and entering the house they find Littlejohn’s housekeeper, Beryl Grey, with her hands covered in blood.  “It’s Mr. Littlejohn,” she tells them.  “He’s dead.”

A Collection of Lies is the fifth mystery in the Kate Hamilton series, and it’s an excellent one.  Kate and Tom are a delightful couple–smart, interesting, and enjoying the beginning of their new life together.  Plus the descriptions of Devon, its beautiful scenery and ancient historical sites, will have readers making plans to visit it on their next vacation.

You can read more about Connie Berry at this site.

In 1947 New York City, Lillian Pentecost owns a private investigation agency along with her assistant Willowjean Parker.  The two have solved a series of baffling crimes and have a good reputation.  However, when Forest Whitsun enters their office, his story is definitely something the two women haven’t heard before.

Whitsun is a high-powered criminal defense attorney who used to work for a “white shoe” law firm that specialized in successful, professional clients.  After Whitsun saved a falsely accused low-level criminal from a life sentence in prison, the two partners of the Boekbinder and Gimbal law firm strongly suggested that his talents would be put to better use outside their firm.

Now Forest is defending people his former firm wouldn’t have as clients, and his success has made him a household name.  However, he himself is now the client, and what brings him to Pentecost and Parker is a most unusual story.

Perseverance Bodine, better known as Vera, was a long-time secretary at Whitsun’s former firm before she retired.  She was known for her phenomenal memory; it was said that she never, ever forgot anything, be it a person in a photograph she had seen twenty years earlier or an obscure legal reference that the firm’s attorneys couldn’t recall.

Once she retired, Whitsun kept in touch with her sporadically.  Eventually Vera no longer wanted to leave her apartment, so he started bringing her groceries and other necessities.

On his last visit he was horrified to see her apartment–newspapers stacked higher than her head, dirty clothes and congealing food on dishes everywhere.  Vera didn’t want his help cleaning up, obviously was distressed, and after some prodding she confided the reason for her agoraphobia and hoarding.

During the war she had been approached by the FBI in their hunt for Nazis in the New York area.  With her incredible memory she was able to help them, using documents and photographs, to identify a number of spies and bring them to justice.  All this, however, brought with it a great deal of psychological pressure that manifested itself in her mental issues.  She eventually stopped allowing Whitsun to enter her apartment, making him leave the items he brought for her outside her door.

The last two times he stopped by, Vera didn’t answer the door or her phone.  He’s certain, given her phobias, that she didn’t leave her home, and she had no relatives he could contact.  Given his long friendship with Vera, he wants Lillian and Willowjean to investigate.

Forest’s case is not the only item on the agency’s agenda.  Responding to what appeared to be a sexual attack under the Coney Island boardwalk, Willowjean is attacked by the couple, and her purse containing her professional license and her Colt is missing.  She’s embarrassed that she fell for the twosome’s phony ploy, resolving to find the man and woman and retrieve what belongs to her without Lillian’s assistance.

Lillian is dealing with a secret of her own, something from her past that is being held over her by Jessup Quincannon, a bizarre multimillionaire with a penchant for collecting items relating to murders.

Pentecost and Parker make a perfect investigating pair, reminiscent of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin.  Stephen Spotswood’s series, of which this mystery is the fourth volume, has a clever plot and intriguing protagonists, and I recommend putting Pentecost and Parker on your autumn reading list.

You can read more about the author at this website.

If you are ever asked whether you can learn anything from mystery novels, just say absolutely and direct them to Katie Tietjen’s excellent debut novel Death in the Details.

The novel is based in part on the true story of Frances Glessner Lee’s life and how she created “Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death,” miniature recreations of crime scenes to help homicide detectives in their pursuits of criminals.  Those “nutshells” are still in use today.  Glessner Lee went on to help create the science of forensic medicine in the United States, helped establish the Department of Legal Medicine at Harvard, and became the first female police captain in the country.

Death in the Details is as fascinating as Glessner Lee’s own life was.  The novel takes place in 1946 in the small town of Elderberry, Vermont, where Mabel “Maple” Bishop had moved shortly after her marriage to Bill Bishop and where he started his medical practice after the retirement of the town’s previous physician, his close friend and mentor Dr. Murphy.

Bill volunteered for army service, even though he was over draft age.  He was killed in the war, and now Maple is completely alone.  She’s also close to destitute, because although her late husband had a busy practice, the townspeople tended to pay their bills “in kind” rather than cash—chickens, home baked bread, and casseroles regularly appeared on their doorstep in place of the money they didn’t have.

Although Maple is a law school graduate, no one is willing to hire a “woman lawyer.”  She doesn’t think she has any other marketable skills until she realizes that in fact she does—she makes miniature dollhouses filled with tiny people, minute furniture, and decorated walls.

Ben Crenshaw, owner of Elderberry’s hardware store, comes up with an idea that he hopes will benefit them both.  He suggests that she build and sell her dollhouses in the shop’s front window, thus bringing additional customers into the store to purchase them and hopefully to buy his wares as well.

Her first customer is Angela Wallace, who tells Maple that she’d like to purchase a dollhouse decorated like the house in which she and her sister lived as children.  Her unpleasant husband reluctantly agrees to the sale, giving Maple a down payment and saying it must be completed by the next day for her to get the balance.

When Maple arrives at the farmhouse the following morning, no one answers the front door.  Thinking that the couple might be in their barn, she pushes the wheelbarrow containing the dollhouse there and sees Elijah Wallace hanging from the barn’s hay hoist.  She rushes into the house and calls the police.  When they arrive, her observations and thoughts about Wallace’s death are brusquely dismissed.  “What’s to investigate?” Sheriff Scott asks.  In his mind, Maple’s concerns are baseless and that it’s a case of suicide.

Maple’s fight to convince the sheriff that her “nutshell” can be valuable in the investigation, her sometime alliance with the young deputy sheriff, and her determination to keep working on the case although she’s repeatedly warned off by Detective Scott make this mystery a fascinating one.

With a heroine combining a strong resolve not to give up until the truth comes out and a group of townspeople who may or may not be helping her, Death in the Details is an outstanding debut novel.  You can read more about Katie Tietjen 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.

Detective Inspector Vera Stanhope of the Northumberland and City Police has returned to her home town.   She’s there to investigate a serious situation at Rosebank, what the Scots call a care home, a placement for adolescents with nowhere else to go.  The body of one of Rosebank’s new hires, Josh Woodburn, has been found in the woods near the home, and one of the young women who is living there, Chloe Spence, is missing.

Chloe’s father abandoned the family several years ago and now is living the expat life in Dubai, her mother is a patient in a psychiatric ward, and her paternal grandparents tried to have her live with them for a while but it didn’t work out.  At Salvation Academy, the school she’s attending, Chloe is recognized as a bright student but someone who isn’t interested in following the rules, alienating both teachers and her more obedient fellow students.  The school’s founder and sponsor, Helen Miles, is a strict believer in conformity and definitely doesn’t appreciate students who deviate from that path.

Two of the members of Vera’s team, veteran Joe Ashworth and newcomer Rosie Bell, go to Josh’s home to tell his parents of his death.  At first his father Chris is unbelieving, saying that Josh didn’t work at Rosebank, that he was a student living with friends near the university, but when he and his wife Anna are taken to identify the body, there’s no doubt that this is their son.  They can’t understand why he didn’t tell them what he was doing.

Vera visits Chloe’s grandparents, Gordon and Pam Spence, and finds Chloe’s father John there, home for a visit from abroad.  John is unapologetic about his absence from his daughter’s life, but Gordon is more emotional, obviously feeling that he and his wife let their granddaughter down.

When Vera says she was told that there is a special place that Chloe loved, Gordon knows immediately what she is referring to.  It’s a cottage that’s been in the family for several generations, and he offers to take Vera there in hopes that is where his granddaughter is hiding.

The hunt for Chloe culminates in the Witch Hunt, an event in town that has been going on for generations.  A village woman is dressed as a witch and goes up the mountain, and the children of the town must find her.  If the witch touches a child, they’re out of the game; if they see her before she sees them, they shout “witch, witch, I see you” and the game ends.  To Joe it sounds macabre and almost evil, especially when the police are looking for a missing teenager, but the powers-that-be insist that the tradition must be kept.  But it’s almost the cause of another murder.

The Dark Wives is an outstanding mystery.  Vera is, as always, a brilliant detective, not very concerned about ruffling feathers as she investigates.  Still, we can see in her interactions with Rosie that she has softened her behavior since the recent death of her young colleague Holly, feeling guilty that she didn’t do enough to protect her.  And perhaps because this case involves a missing teenager, and brings back memories of Vera’s own unhappy childhood, readers will see a gentler side of the detective inspector than was evident before.

You can read more about Ann Cleeves at this website.