Marilyn's Mystery Reads

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.

The summer is almost over, and that means it’s time for another term at BOLLI (Brandeis Osher Lifelong Learning Institute).  This will be my fifteenth semester leading a course featuring mystery novels.  Each course goes under the title WHODUNIT?, and then the specific title of the term’s course follows.  For Fall 2024 it’s WHODUNIT?:  MURDER IN ETHNIC COMMUNITIES.

We will read eight mysteries during the ten-week course, with time during the first and the last meetings to think about mysteries in general, what draws readers to them, and what types of protagonists we prefer.  I’ve included amateur sleuths, private investigators, and police detectives in this semester’s mix, and although all the novels take place in the United States, the communities are all different.

This is the list of the mysteries we’ll be reading:  The Ritual Bath by Faye Kellerman (an Orthodox Jewish community in Los Angeles); Invisible City by Julia Dahl (an Orthodox Jewish community in New York City); The Bishop’s Wife by Mette Ivie Harrison (a Mormon community in Utah); No Witness but the Moon by Suzanne Chazin (a Hispanic community bordering New York City); Among the Wicked by Linda Castillo (an Amish community in upstate New York); Dance Hall of the Dead by Tony Hillerman (two Native American reservations in New Mexico); August Snow by Stephen Mack Jones (a Black/Hispanic neighborhood in Detroit); and Family Business by S. J. Rozan (a Chinese-American community in New York City).

Although no two of the novels’ sites are the same, ranging from the metropolitan areas of Los Angeles and New York City to the small towns of Utah and New York, there are many commonalities between these groups.  In our class discussions we’ll find and discuss both the differences between these places and their similarities.

I hope you’ll join us as we criss-cross the country and learn more about the people and locations that make up these ethnic communities.

Marilyn

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.

It’s New Year’s Eve in Paris, but there’s nothing much to celebrate.  The year is 1940, and France has been occupied by the Germans for six months.

Henri Lefort, a detective on the Paris police force, is naturally very aware of the changes.  Not only the changes that are apparent to the city’s civilians–lack of food, Nazi police patrolling the city, citizens who are at home or work one day and not the next–but more subtle ones.

The French police are not the independent body they once were; now they are subordinate to the Germans.  The French no longer control the investigations, and the Germans are telling them what investigations to pursue or ignore.

Guy Remillon is one of the French who is cooperating with the invaders.  His job is to look into claims received from anonymous letter writers, called corbeaux in slang.  These letters may be written to report someone who appears to have more food than their rations would seem to allow them, people accused of hiding or aiding Jews, people who by their non-French nationalities are suspicious, or simple personal disagreements.  The slightest suspicion can lead to death at the hands of the Nazi police.

In this case, however, it is the investigator who is killed.  Remillon is filled with a sense of self-importance, that feeling strengthened both by his gun and the official credentials he carries.  He is approaching the building he’s looking for when the front door opens and a man steps out and confronts him.  Each asks the other what he is doing there, and before he can conclude his questioning, Remillon is shot dead.

The apartment building where the murder took place is where Lefort lives.  When he starts canvassing his building, Lefort uncovers several surprises.  First he meets Natalia, the young woman who tells him she’s the new custodian, replacing her uncle who returned to Greece immediately after the German invasion of France.  Then he goes to the apartment of Claire Raphael, who is “entertaining” a high-ranking German official.  Claire says she saw a man running from the building but can’t give Lefort any kind of worthwhile description.

Last he visits the apartment of the building’s most annoying occupant, Gerald Darroze.  Darroze claims he didn’t see anything but is quick to complain about other people in the building for allegedly making too much noise too late and buying food on the black market.  His lack of feeling for his fellow citizens and his statement that at least the SS “uphold law and order around here” definitely arouse Lefort’s suspicions.  In addition, when the new custodian tells him that Darroze threw out some garbage that made a loud noise when he deposited it in the trash, Lefort decides that he needs to scrutinize this neighbor more closely.

Mark Pryor has written another thrilling novel about wartime Paris.  Henri Lefort is a fascinating protagonist, a man with strong moral values that he fears may be eroding under the present conditions.  He is also hiding a secret that would mean the end of his career, if not his 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.

Would you hire a defense attorney who had a medical diagnosis of pathological liar?  One who pled guilty to battery on a police officer?  One who had been disbarred for a period of five years?  If those things don’t dissuade you, Leo Banaloff is your man.

As The Best Lies opens, Leo is being interrogated at his local police station for the murder of Cyrus Balik.  To say that things look bleak for Leo is an understatement.

Although the police concede that Cyrus was “the worst of the worst,” a human trafficker, a drug dealer, a murderer, and that no one is mourning his death, someone still has to be held accountable.  Leo’s blood was found on the victim’s shirt, identified because his DNA was on file due to an arrest while he was in college, and his fingerprints were found on the knife protruding from Cyrus’ neck. 

It would seem to be an open-shut-case, but the investigation is ongoing.  That may be because, as the authorities have learned, nothing is as it seems with Leo.

Bonnie Tressler is his first client after he’s reinstated to the bar.  She ran away from home when she was 14 and was picked up by Cyrus Balik.  He got her addicted to drugs, raped her repeatedly, and when the son whom he fathered by Bonnie was four, he took the child away and Bonnie never saw the boy again.

It’s 20 years later, and Bonnie is in a much better place now and wants to help get Cyrus off the streets.  She tells Leo that she’s ready to go ahead with this “…because he could be doing it to other women right now.  He probably is.”

Bonnie and Leo go to the Deemer Park police and tell the story to Sergeant Mary Cagnola and her brother, Special FBI Agent Christopher Roberti.  They believe Bonnie and Leo but aren’t sure of how to confront Cyrus; three weeks later, while they’re still working on a plan, the local police find Bonnie’s body in an abandoned house.

The brother and sister are mystified about how Cyrus learned that Bonnie had come to them and told her story, knowing how tightly they had guarded her identity.  When Mary states that the gangster seems to be aware of everything going on around him and that he’s really good at covering his tracks, Chris responds, “Then we gotta be better.”

The Best Lies moves in a non-linear format, opening in January 2024 and going back and forth over a 30 year time period.  That, and the complexity of the plot, requires close attention from the reader, but it is well worth it.  The characters are brilliant, and the plot moves in so many different directions that to describe it as serpentine is an understatement.  David Ellis has written an outstanding mystery.

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.

Serpent-handling churches?  Yes, they do exist, but finding out where they are located is difficult because in some states the practice is prohibited.  However, churches in West Virginia are not breaking any laws by allowing clergy and parishioners to handle cottonmouths, rattlers, and other poisonous reptiles during their services due to the state’s constitution that forbids any interference with religious practices.

The New Hope Pentecostal Church in Vintera, West Virginia, is home to Pastor Micah Granieri and his congregation.  They believe completely in the passage in the New Testament that says that true believers will not be harmed when handling serpents or by drinking diluted strychnine, the latter also a part of the services.  

Essa Montgomery grew up in the church, a church that takes the verse from the New Testament literally: “They shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them….” Mark 16:18.  But serpents killed her mother and then her father, pastor of the church, and she hasn’t entered New Hope since.

Essa works at the Vintra Wildlife Investigation Laboratory and has for the past four years, since she was sixteen.  The facility is run by Dr. Wick Kester, who was lured out of retirement by the opportunity to run his own lab.  At the end of her workday, as she approaches her car in the dark parking lot, she’s met by two of the town’s police officers.

They tell her that earlier that morning a major fire swept through the church, heavily damaging it and killing two teenagers inside.  And because of a previous argument that Essa’s brother Clyde had with the pastor, the police believe he is the arsonist.

Now she must speak to Pastor Micah, to convince him that her brother is innocent and that the preacher needs to tell that to the police.  With great reluctance, because she has ignored the man ever since he took over the church’s pulpit, she allows him into her house and explains what she wants.  He says he’ll do it, but “I only need one favor in return.  Can you guess what it is?”

Essa isn’t the only woman whose life now revolves around the church fire.  Clyde’s pregnant girlfriend Juliet is of course distraught at the thought that her fiancé might be charged with arson and homicide, and Merritt Callahan is hoping that this story is the big break that will take her from the small local television channel she’s working for and into a major market.

Erica Wright has written a fascinating mystery that combines an amazing sense of place, unique characters, and a murderer’s twisted logic.  She is an essayist and poet and currently teaches at Bellevue University in Nebraska.  You can read more about her at this website.

The major employer in  Springdale, Arkansas is the Denmer Foods chicken plant.  In it, hundreds of employees labor for ten hours a day, five days a week, under abysmal conditions.  Employees need the permission of the line boss to use the bathroom, which he may or may not give; they do the same repetitive motions on the line all day long, resulting in swollen and aching fingers and joints; they work in the 40 degree temperature necessary to prevent the growth of bacteria.

Gabriela Menchaca and Edwin Saucero are two of the line workers, immigrants from Mexico who arrived in the States as children, without documentation.  Now adults, they have been working at the plant for seven years, living in an old trailer that had belonged to Gabriela’s parents before they returned to Mexico, having given up on the American dream.

The pair met in high school where Gabriela was an outstanding student and Edwin was just about getting by, but they have been working hard and saving their salaries for the future.  Or so Gabriella thinks, until the day their landlord comes to collect the three months rent they owe, and she realizes that her trust in Edwin has been misplaced.

Across town are Luke and Mimi Jackson, living a life as different from Gabby and Edwin’s as it’s possible to imagine.  Their custom built, five thousand square foot house sits on acres of land as befits Luke’s position as the presumptive plant manager.  On the surface the two families’ circumstances have nothing in common, but in both cases there are money problems, deceit, and a desire for more than they have.

What brings the Menchaca/Saucero/Jackson families into the same orbit is six-month-old Tuck Jackson.  He is Mimi and Luke’s long-awaited son, but his arrival has brought problems to the surface for his parents.  Mimi is a stay-at-home mother, and she’s a bundle of anxiety and fears.  Her husband is barely around, hardly cognizant of his son, and actually isn’t sure of the child’s birthday.

Then there is a series of events that include Tuck’s parents accidentally grabbing the other’s bag during their hurried morning routines, Mimi rushing into the plant to exchange her husband’s briefcase for her backpack, and Edwin having been fired by Luke moments before.

As he leaves the plant, Edwin sees a sobbing baby left in the Jacksons’ car for the minute it takes Mimi to get in and out of her husband’s office.  In a move that he cannot explain even to himself, Edwin gets into the car and drives away with Tuck.

Thus are four lives changed forever.

Eli Cranor has written a thriller that is truly spellbinding.  His characters are real, and he makes even the most unpleasant and unlikeable human and understandable.  In addition, his searing portrayal of the divide between the lives of the factory workers and those of their bosses will make readers flinch at the inequities of life in our country.

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.

If you would like to read a mystery series that goes beyond entertainment, one that takes you into one hundred plus years of English history, brings you to the battlefields of The Great War and the Second World World, and into the lives of both the British aristocracy and their servants, the Maisie Dobbs series is the one you’re looking for.

When readers first met Maisie, she was a thirteen-year-old housemaid in the home of Lord Julian Compton and his family.  She was discovered by Lady Rowan surreptitiously reading in the family’s library, her intelligence was noted, and her life changed.  The series continues from there, chronicling her life over a period of more than fifty years as well as those of the society in which she lives and works.

Now, in the eighteenth and last entry in the series, it’s 1945.  World War II is over, but the devastation it wreaked may be seen everywhere.  The Nazis’ heavy bombing of England left thousands dead or injured, and entire neighborhoods have buildings that are either entirely demolished or in such disrepair as to be almost uninhabitable.  Because of the desperate housing situation, abandoned homes are being taken over by squatters; they are living without heat or electricity.

When Maisie stops by the Belgravia mansion belonging to the Comptons to check on its condition, a young girl talks to her through the mail slot.  The girl, who gives her name as Mary, tells Maisie that there were four of them but now a fifth person is living there, a man who is very, very ill.  “Every day I wonder if he’ll be dead when we go in there,” the girl continues, and it’s obvious that she’s frightened, not because she fears for herself or her friends but because she doesn’t know what they’ll do if the stranger dies.

Maisie thinks she knows who the man is.  When she arrives at the Comptons’ home the next day with bags of food, Mary reluctantly allows her in and then takes her upstairs to see the mysterious man.  When Maisie sees him, she knows her suspicion was correct–he’s Will Beale, the son of her partner Billy, and he’s just returned from the war.  He had been in the mansion many times as a child and now has returned to it as a kind of sanctuary, reluctant to face his parents and let them see the state he’s in.

Using her skills as an investigator and a psychologist, Maisie is determined to deal with both Will’s situation and that of the four adolescents.  She realizes she cannot to it alone, so she calls on her best friend Lady Priscilla Partridge, who is feeling at loose ends now that her three sons are adults.  She is more than willing to help Maisie, as is Maisie’s husband Mark, an American with contacts that neither woman has.  Together, along with several others, they are able to help the children and Will and to solve a decades-old mystery in the Compton family.

An award-winning novelist, the author has used her own background as the granddaughter of a World War I veteran who returned to England severely wounded and shell-shocked to show the far-reaching effects on whose who served and those who loved them.  You can read more about Jacqueline Winspear at this site.

Emlyn’s father abandoned her and her mother when Emlyn was a child, and the trauma has colored her entire life.  Shy and fearful of the world, her life changes when she goes to college and meets Janessa.  But are all the changes for the best?

Janessa is everything Emlyn isn’t–beautiful, popular, at ease in all situations, and wealthy.  And for a reason Emlyn can’t figure out, Janessa is eager to be her friend.  Janessa describes their closeness like that of Anne Shirley and Diana Barry in the Anne of Green Gables novels, that they are “bosom friends” and always will be.

And so they remain until Emlyn meets Tyler, Janessa’s neighbor and friend from childhood.  There’s an immediate attraction between Emlyn and Tyler, but he starts slowly, taking her for ice cream and lunches and picnics.

After several dates Emlyn tells her friend that she and Tyler are seeing each other, and Janessa is appalled.  “Tyler is the ultimate Regrettable,” she warns Emlyn, but she won’t say more than that.  So when Tyler comes calling again and Emlyn chooses him over Janessa, she and her “bosom friend” have a major falling-out.

The Nature of Disappearing goes back and forth in time–when we first meet the child Emlyn, when she sets off for college and meets Janessa, when she and Tyler begin their relationship, and the current time when Emlyn has become a hunting and fishing guide in Idaho.  She and Janessa have stilted, infrequent phone conversations a few times a year, but she hasn’t seen or heard from Tyler in the several years since his behavior left her close to death at the side of a road.

Then Tyler re-enters her life.  She’s at work when he enters her workplace.  He starts the conversation apologetically, saying he knows his visit is unexpected, but it’s about Janessa.  “…I think she’s in trouble, and I need your help.”

Janessa and her partner/lover Bush have become social media stars, traveling around the country, working for Tyler’s company.  Now it’s been a couple of weeks since they’ve been in touch with Tyler–no posts, no phone calls, no texts.  “Something’s wrong.  I can feel it.  And I have to find her.”

Despite her unresolved feelings about Tyler and her fear that being with him again may endanger her hard-fought satisfaction with her new life, Emlyn agrees to go with him to locate the missing pair.  After all, in spite of everything that happened between them, no one has come close to replacing Janessa in Emlyn’s life.

In The Nature of Disappearing, Kimi Cunningham Grant has written an extraordinary thriller.  Emlyn, Janessa, and Tyler are portrayed so realistically, warts and all, that the reader is able to empathize with them about their behavior and at the same time become angry at what they are doing to themselves and each other.  This is a crime novel that asks questions about life, love, and relationships that are not easy to answer.

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 the first line of a mystery is “I was horny,” the reader may be certain that the book isn’t a cozy.  This is how Black private investigator Evander Myrick introduces herself in Delia Pitts’ debut novel; she’s one strong lady.

Born and bred in Queenstown, New Jersey, Evander has had a tough life.  Her hometown has always been a hotbed of Ku Klux Klan activities, and although there’s now a Black police chief, it’s white mayor Jo Hannah whose hand is at the controls.  In case the sentiment of the town isn’t clear, two of Queentown’s businesses make it obvious:  Kate’s Kountry Kitchen and Kozy Klean Kafé, with the latter bragging that it has fish on its menu every day but Friday.

When Evander returns to Queenstown after some time away, she’s surprised to learn that Leo Hannah, nephew of the mayor, wants to set up an appointment with her.  They meet, and he tells her that he wants to hire her to protect his wife who is being stalked.  Evander says she’ll need to interview Ivy, and he responds,”No, I won’t permit that.”

Evander realizers there’s more going on than Leo is telling her, and her persistence forces him into admitting the truth.  “It’s me in danger.  Not Ivy.”  He thinks she’s having an affair; if she is, he wants a divorce and total custody of their young son.

After several days following Ivy, Evander can’t find any sign of an illicit relationship.  Ivy does the usual suburban wife/mother thing:  taking their son to preschool, buying groceries, shopping at Target.  Evander finishes her report to Leo, who is supposed to stop by her office to pick it up, but then her phone rings.  He says he’s not feeling well and asks her to drop off the report at his home instead.

As she drives up to the Hannah home, Evander sees a patrol car in the driveway and two uniformed policemen coming toward her, guns drawn.  Evander is permitted inside, and there she sees a horrific scene.  A dead man is lying on the floor, blood pooling over his face.  Next to him is Ivy,  barely breathing, with Leo crouching next to her, sobbing.  An ambulance takes Ivy to the hospital, and shortly after that Mayor Josephine Hannah enters the house, telling the police officers to extend every courtesy to Evander, that she’s working for Leo.  Then she informs the group, “Ivy died on the operating table ten minutes ago.  This is a murder investigation now.”

Delia Pitts’ first mystery is an excellent one.  There is a palpable uneasiness in Queenstown, perhaps a remnant of its racist past or perhaps an acknowledgement of its racist present.  There’s a major disconnect between its Black and white citizens, something Evander definitely knows.  But she’s tenacious and determined to do her best for Leo and discover Ivy’s killer.

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.

I’ve been a fan of Abir Mukherjee since he wrote the first in his outstanding series of five mysteries that take place in India during the British Raj.  The books originally featured British Police Detective Sam Wyndham who is later joined by his Indian colleague Surendranath “Surrender-not” Bannerjee.

Now the author has written a very different novel, a present-day thriller that travels from England to Oregon to Los Angeles to Florida and is told in several voices.  The protagonists are Bangladeshi, British, and American, Muslim, Christian, and Hindu.  It makes for a fascinating story seen through the eyes and minds of people of different backgrounds, ethnic groups, and religions.

As the novel begins, Yasmin and Jack are in Los Angeles, inconspicuously entering a mall in Los Angeles, pulling their luggage behind them.  They find seats at a Starbucks, Jack brings coffee to their table, and their undertaking begins.  Jack leaves the coffeeshop first, followed as planned by Yasmin exactly three minutes later.  They are to rendezvous outside the shopping center’s radio station and leave their suitcases there.  But when Yasmin arrives, Jack is nowhere in sight.

Yasmin starts running through the mall, searching for him and pulling her bag behind her.  When her phone rings, she pulls it from her pocket and hears another phone ringing from inside her luggage.  She knows then that something is wrong, even if she’s not certain what it is.  She begins to say the Muslim declaration of faith, “There is no God…,” but before she can finish, the bomb in the luggage explodes, killing Yasmin and several others.

The book’s characters are varied and outstanding.  Beside Yasmin and Jack, readers will meet several others with their own stories to tell.  Shreya Mistry is the FBI agent originally assigned to the bombing, dealing with her strong “hunches” that often are diametrically opposed to the orders she receives from her superiors; Greg Flynn is a former soldier with PSTD, trying to find his way back into civilian life; Sajid Khan is a father who has already seen more tragedy in his life than any man should; Carrie Flynn is Greg’s mother, who has traveled 3,000 miles because of a connection she fears she sees between her son and the bombing; and Miriam, the mysterious and charismatic leader of the small group of people who want to change the world.

This is a novel that pulls in two directions.  First, one will want to read it as quickly as possible because the tension is so great.  Second, that same reader will want to read it as slowly as possible because they don’t want the book to end.  Talk about a difficult decision.

The ending of Hunted is as perfect as the rest of the story.  Readers will find themselves torn between wanting to punish certain characters who did horrendous things and yet wanting to forgive them.  It takes a master writer to bring an ending to such a satisfactory conclusion.

Abir Mukherjee’s writing career began at the age of 39, when he was inspired to learn that Lee Child didn’t become an author until age 40.  He is the recipient of the Crime Writers Association’s Historical Dagger for his first novel, A Rising Man.  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 Game Warden Services Inspector Mike Bowditch receives a call from a rookie member of the Maine Warden Service, telling him there may be a man missing in the northern woods, he starts out on what will become the most dangerous search of his career.

Hammond Pratt has checked in at a lodge compound called Seboomook Farm and asked its owner about a father and daughter who were living somewhere nearby, offering a reward to anyone who could point him toward them.  A member of the lodge’s staff told him about a pair living in a very remote locality; they are there because the father, Mark Redmond, is building a cabin for Josie Jonson, Mike’s wife’s godmother, a helicopter pilot.  Now Pratt has been missing for two nights, and the situation seems unusual and possibly dangerous enough to investigate.

Mike and Charley Stevens, his father-in-law and mentor, drive north to Josie’s home in Jackson to ask her if she’ll fly them to Prentiss Pond to meet the reclusive carpenter, his daughter, and hopefully to find Hammond Pratt there as well.  Josie is brusque to the point of rudeness to Mike, but she agrees to take them there and put his half-formed fears to rest.

Josie acknowledges it’s odd that Redmond leaves his young teenage daughter in the cabin when he goes into town and doesn’t want any photos of the cabin posted on the web, but she says she’s met the girl and is convinced she’s fine and well taken care of by her father.  Before meeting the man, Mike’s initial feeling is that there’s something “off” about him, but in view of Josie’s opinion he begins to second-guess himself.  He’s wondering if he’s got the situation backwards, if Pratt is the problem and Redmond the caring father Josie has described.

Instead of his fears being allayed, however, when he meets Redmond and his daughter Cady they’re intensified by the man’s demeanor and almost obsessive need for privacy, going so far as to confiscate the phones Mike, Charley, and Josie are carrying to make certain they can’t take photos of himself, his daughter, or the cabin.  He asks his daughter to make coffee for their guests, and the next thing Mike knows he’s sitting on the forest floor with his arms tied to a tree, as are Charlie and Josie.  And in the few minutes Mike is trying to loosen his bonds, Josie convulses and dies and Redmond and Cady have disappeared.

Mike and Charley manage to free themselves, and Mike sets off to find the father and daughter.  Although he’s ill-equipped, as Redmond has taken his cell phone and gun, Mike scrounges enough tools to believe he will capture them, given his expertise and knowledge of the woods.  Charlie, however, warns him against overconfidence.  “This man is better than you are in the woods, and if you forget that for a minute, he’s going to kill you.”

“I couldn’t remember Charley Stevens ever looking so afraid,” Mike thinks.

Pitch Dark is a thriller with twists and turns the reader won’t anticipate.  It’s always a pleasure to read about Mike Bowditch, and this book gives readers a deeper insight into what has made him the man he has become.  This novel is an outstanding addition to the series.

Paul Doiron is a Registered Maine Guide and the recipient of the Barry Award for best first novel.  You can read more about him at this site.

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.

I have come, most regretfully, to the realization that I cannot read every mystery novel ever published.

This insight came to me a few days ago as I looked at the shelves in my study.  I counted seventeen books that were sent by publicists in hopes that I would review them.  I looked at another shelf that held three library books that I chose after I had read reviews of them by other bloggers.

Then I looked up my library account and saw that I had eighteen books “frozen,” waiting for me to be picked up on my next trip to the Needham Library.  The Minuteman Library System allows you to choose books you want to read, reserve, and then freeze them until you are ready to unfreeze and read them.  It’s a wonderful system except that I can’t stop myself from adding just one more mystery to my list of requests.

So I took a deep breath and did the unthinkable, at least for me.  I chose the six novels that had been on my frozen list the longest, pressed cancel, and voilà–the books were gone.  I felt terrible for a few minutes, longer if I’m being honest.  What if the best book of the year was one I had deleted?  How would I ever know what I’d missed?

As many of my readers know, I’ve been teaching courses on mysteries and crime novels for a number of years at Brandeis University’s adult education program.  Each semester several program members tell me they’d like to take my course but can’t imagine reading the number of books, that number being eight, I assign during the ten week course.

My flippant answer is that of course they can, they only need to eliminate the unnecessary things in their lives to free up more reading time–cooking, cleaning, shopping, etc.  We laugh, but there is a grain of truth in what I tell them.  Although in our busy schedules it can be challenging to put aside a certain amount of time each day for reading, it can also be very rewarding.  Sometimes we get so busy with the mundane things in our lives that we forget to leave time for the things we most enjoy.

Starting in September I’ll be teaching WHODUNIT?:  MURDER IN ETHNIC COMMUNITIES, and the books I’ve chosen take place in Orthodox Jewish, Native American, Black, Hispanic, Mormon, Chinese-American, and Amish communities.  As the time for my class draws closer, I’ll let you know what the specific books are.  Perhaps you’ll put aside time every day to read along with us.

Marilyn

It’s 1875, 25 years after the founding of the Women’s Medical College of Pennsylvania, but there is still a great deal of opposition to the idea of women physicians.  Too radical, not a fit job for a woman, a woman should be home taking care of her husband and children–these are the remarks that could be heard whenever the College is discussed.

Dr. Lydia Weston, professor and anatomist, has learned to ignore such comments and go about healing the women who arrive at the hospital.  As much as she wants to carry on with her work in a professional manner to everyone she encounters, she cannot help relating to some of the young women more than others who attend her free lectures at the Spruce Street Clinic.

One of her favorites is a young housemaid, Anna Ward, who listens eagerly to Lydia’s talks on the importance of nutrition and hygiene and is also quite interested in literature, even borrowing some of Lydia’s books.  Now it’s been two weeks since Anna has come to a lecture, and Lydia is beginning to get worried.  Then the corpse of a young woman is found on a path next to the river, and Anna’s sister identifies it as her sibling.  

It looks like a case of suicide, but Lydia is troubled by the thought that Anna would have taken her own life, thinking it would have been so unlike the young woman she knew and liked and who was the sole support of her sister and her young disabled nephew.  She joins with Sergeant Charles Davies and Inspector Thomas Volcker of the Philadelphia police force, trying to make sense of Anna’s death.

The policemen and Lydia have gone to the Curtis home where Anna was employed, and although Mr. Curtis and Mrs. Burt, the mansion’s housekeeper, voice the appropriate sympathy, they appear rather unmoved by Anna’s death.  Then, talking to the servant who was closest to the deceased, Lydia learns that Anna had been seeing someone who had been giving her expensive gifts, gifts that she could never have afforded on her own.  “I can tell you,” Sally tells Lydia, “he was not like us…(he was) a gentleman.”

Murder By Degrees is a fascinating look into a society 150 years in the past but with secrets that are similar to our own.  The strength of Lydia Watson regarding the prejudices she faces, her determination to have women physicians recognized for their achievements, and her wish to better the lives of young working women is inspiring and not that different from situations that many working women face today.  Ritu Mukerji has written what I hope is the first in a series of mysteries featuring a strong, intrepid, and intelligent woman.

You can read more about the author at various sites on the web.

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.

Influencers are everywhere, promoting everything.  Gemma Jorgenson is the face and body behind @GymmaGemma, with almost half a million followers hanging on her every word about how she shed one hundred pounds and became a fitness model, personal trainer, and bodybuilder.  Now she’s at the Olympia, the world’s most prestigious bodybuilding competition.  She placed second in the Bikini contest two years in a row, got blown out of the water last year, and decided against competing this year.  However, she hasn’t yet told Rick, her coach, or Chuck, the owner of REIGN, the exercise clothing brand Gemma represents, about her decision.

Then her close friend and fellow competitor, Bianca, is murdered, and Gemma discovers that her husband has a major part of his life that he’s not sharing with her.  Dealing with depression over her friend’s death and anger over her husband’s secrets, she changes her mind and decides to compete in the Olympia, Bikini category, after all.  In addition she’ll try to cope with what she calls Fat Gemma, the part of her that is left over from when she was heavy and had no control over her eating.

Ashley is where Gemma was a year earlier.  She’s always been overweight, a fact she’s frequently reminded of by her mother, a slim woman who watches everything she eats and everything Ashley eats as well.  Ashley’s tried various diets over the years, only to fall off the wagon and regain the weight she lost or even more.  And then she has an “accidental” meeting with Lydia, who is promoting her own agenda, one which is totally opposed to the perfect (i.e., skinny) body.  Before she knows it, Ashley is volunteering for Lydia’s group that is against the Diet Culture.

Ashley’s day job is a software engineer, and she’s very good at it.  Lydia hires her, stressing the need for them to fight against society’s idealization of the ultra-thin body, and Ashley installs ransomware on a clothing network, shuts down a pro-anorexia site, and puts malware on a fat-shaming account.  Now she’s being asked to hack into the patient records of the medical center A New You and steal its patient files.  She’s having second thoughts about this, but Lydia is very persuasive and Ashley is desperate for her approval.

As with all good mysteries, there is more to Bodies to Die For than simply the plot.  The novel raises interesting points about how we view people and make assumptions based on their appearance–their race, their attire, and most definitely their bodies.  We all know that being overweight is a major health problem, leading to many physical illnesses and possibly an early death, but when does society’s attempts to deal with obesity with extreme diets and weight loss pills become an obsession that may become just as detrimental to one’s health as being overweight?

With recognizable characters and a fast-moving story, Bodies to Die For is a book that readers will keep thinking about long after they’ve finished it.  Lori Brand has written a compelling mystery that resonates all too well in today’s world.

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.